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Sony's Meeting Reveals Brand Futures
1up.com has coverage of the meeting held yesterday in which Sony let more details slip on the future of the PSP, plans for the PS3, and the state of the Playstation 2. From the PS3 update: "One big piece of news is that Sony will be including both Havoc Complete and AEGIA, two physics modeling solutions, with the PlayStation 3 SDK. Even more importantly, Sony themselves will be providing 'frontline support' for Japanese developers. This should be a big boon to next generation development, as a lack of Japanese language documentation and support has been one of the major hurdles for Japanese developers to adopt middleware solutions."
Once again, Sony has produced a system that is difficult to develop for. Once again, they have over-hyped their system.
There's a problem with Sony's strategy, though: no one believes them anymore. The PS3 is like Windows Longhorn - far off, almost "mythical" in nature.
The XBOX 360 is real. It's hitting in time for the Christmas shopping season. It has strong online features. It integrates with Windows XP Media Center Edition.
Microsoft established "street cred" with the XBOX. Everyone now believes that Microsoft can deliver a game system that will offer a serious lineup of games and a real online component.
Sony has added tons of features to their console that push the price higher. Blu-Ray. Multiple HDMI connections. Multiple Gigabit Ethernet connections. Bluetooth. Wi-Fi. XDR DRAM. All of these features push the price higher. Right now, Sony is looking at a $400+ console. And all of them create the possibility of shortage.
On December 25, millions of people will be opening up an XBOX 360. Sony will have slides and promises.