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Sony May Delay PS3 Until 2007
GodFather writes "ArsTechnica posted an article that claims the PS3 may be pushed back as far as 2007 if the Xbox 360 launch flops. The reasoning behind it? If Microsoft comes out with a weak set of titles at launch Sony could delay and build a larger launch library to lay the smack down on Microsoft."
If Sony insists on delaying ths long, they're having serious trouble.
The source for this is "an analyst".
In other words, some random guy who doesn't work for Sony is predicting that Sony may delay the PS3, based basically on having read the same news reports you and I do.
This should be taken with exactly as much credence as if you'd heard "well this guy on the internet thinks that Sony is going to..."
Which is to say.
None.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
It might not sound the smartest idea, but Sony has done it before ...see Dreamcast.
IF the 360 flops? Of course the 360 launch is going to flop. Let's not forget that Microsoft announced that 360s will ship with standard DVD drives and the HD-DVDs will be coming later (next year most likely). I was going to go out and get a 360 at launch, but now I'm going to wait for HD-DVD, as I suspect many other people are. A bad move on Microsoft's part is going to end up giving Sony the opportunity to delay their console without losing much market share. I do think, however, that the aging PS2 hardware is nearing the end of it's lifecycle. Consumers are ready for something new, and as far as I'm concerned, the PSP is a niche market.
Disclaimer: I do not own the Playstation 2.
I used to own a Playstation years ago, and one of my favorite things about it was that the library of games for the system was incredibly vast. However, scratching the surface revealed that many of the games were cheap ripoffs of each other and that truly original games were few and far between.
Nintendo has always seemed to have a talent for coming up with a decent library of original games that keeps the devoted coming back. Sony, on the other hand, seems to push quantity over quality when it comes to their library. If they are going to take 2 years to fill out their launch library, I wonder how much of that will be really good games and how much of it will be cutscene movies (Final Fantasy), sequels (anything by Rockstar), and played out genres (the FPS comes to mind).
I really like Sony. I owned many of their walkmans years ago, and I enjoyed the gaming I did on the original Playstation. But both they and the audience must learn that just because you have many times the number of games as your competitor, it is not a very good metric because the number of good, original games in that library may be only a fraction of that amount.
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
The guy I mean.
How can Sony delay for a year and have more games on launch than a console
which will have had an 18 month head start?
Neko
The net-gain in visuals on the next gen platforms is negligible to the point that I think it will be hard for either to distinguish amongst themselves.
If the 360 "flops" at launch then a lot of that may be because people have high(er) expectations of the PS3 and are prepared to wait and see before spending their hard earned cash.
Possibly the worst thing they could do in that situation is to launch a PS3 that doesn't meet those expectations. If you do that then the main reason people haven't been buying the 360 suddenly disappears. As long as people do appear willing to wait it would make sense to use that time to ensure your product is better placed than the competitors when buyers finally get to make their choice.
It's a balance of whether you will lose more customers who get tired of hanging on or will lose more through releasing a product that isn't clearly more attractive than the alternative.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
You're not thinkingly like a marketing department. You're thinking "this is a bad reason to delay release", when you should be thinking "this is an excuse for a release that's going to be delayed because the product is not ready".
Can't be a good idea. All the 3rd party publishers are waiting on the PS3 launch to start getting their investment back. An extra year before you can sell your game ? They'd scream bloody murder.
Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951
Tell that to the XBox 360....
While the Analyst may have some things wrong.... what IS correct is that Sony cannot afford another lackluster launch with crappy titles. And it cannot afford another disastrous Christmas where demand for their console can't be met... It was appallingly bad to see such a problem with a mature item like the PS2.
If the 360 has a title drought like the PS2, people will be more likely to avoid the PS3 if it comes out in Spring with the same drought (or a similar one...) It's the games... and Sony knows that. Their position would be strengthened by waiting 8 months and going for a 2007 launch with oodles of titles and a decent supply of consoles to boot.
It's a win-win. But Sony's not been known to be "all that bright" in recent years....
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
You missed the point of the article. That is not Sony's intention at all by delaying. It has nothing to do with component pricing and trying to squeeze more profit out of the consumer. It has to do with sustainability. If the XBox 360 has a dearth of decent titles at launch, it might signal a backlash (we've seen the dearth of titles at launch with the PS2... Unless everyone has ADD, I don't think it'll repeat itself.)
Microsoft better have a decent stable of non-shovelware with their new 360, or they might be looking at a long trench battle for 3rd place.
Do you want the hardware now with no games? That seems to be what you're implying...
I'm in no hurry to replace my PS2/XBox/Gamecube. Why is everyone else rushing to do so?
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
We're 1 month past mid 2005. I know I'm gonna be getting a haircut in 2007 and I know that's good planning, but I know for a fact that my hair is gonna grow longer then (if I'm not bald then). Who knows what's gonna happen to the console world 1.5 years down the road? Maybe this will be out then? ---> http://www.phantom.net/
Ken Lai
The comparison doesn't hold... Sega wasn't in the best financial situation and the Dreamcast had to be a financial success for them. To MS the XBOX is just one front in their effort own the living room, and as we all know the have deep pockets.
People have already pointed this out, but titles make so much of a difference. The problem with Xbox 360 right now is that the only strong title it has for itself is Halo 3. Sure some of the other titles look pretty, but who the hell knows if the actual game play is any good. Then they also have a good amount of titles that will probably be on the PC to, which wont turn people into dumping $300 when they can play it on their pc. Now add on top of that the Xbox 360 might add a HD-DVD down the line, and developers will either have to develop for it or not use the capibilites at all. This in turn will probably result in 3 main groups:
1. People who will be waiting and seeing how the whole HD-DVD pans out.
2. People who don't just want to buy the Xbox 360 for 1 or 2 titles.
3. People who want the latest hardware will undoubtly buy it similiar to dreamcast.
The only hope that Xbox 360 has is by convert a lot of the good main console developers to them. Like Square, Namco, Capcom, and Konami to develop Xbox 360 only titles. Or they develop a lot of good titles themselves.
Maybe its just me but looking at the Xbox 360 future releases that are coming out it doesn't look to great for them right now. Most of them looks as though they will come out on the PC, and theres just not enough intresting titles there for now. But who knows maybe there might be some suprising new developers that might help push Xbox 360 to the top.
There's an old marketing adage...
Be first, or
be second and be happy with that, or
go play elsewhere.
You cannot underestimate the value of being first into the market with a new gadget. The '360 and PS3 are 'new generation', and therefore I'll define them as new gadgets.
Few will care if MS titles aren't *that* strong at the get go - the graphics will apparently be awesome. And, for a while anyway, that will be important.
Sony: you have *got* to release the PS3.
Sony risks shipping hardware that is outdated at the day of launch. If it takes years for launch software to be written for a new platform then how can the hardware be bleeding edge?? The hardware spec gets finalized the day your developers start working. From that point onward you are obsolete.
What I think Sony or others should do, if they are moving in a parallel direction, is try to anticipate this gap between initial hardware finalization and the launch of the console, and have developers write to a more stripped down version of the hardware while you anticipate the final version having more cores or an additional CPU by the time you launch. That way the initial games might not take full advantage of the hardware but the second you start making consoles you'll know you are at as close to the bleeding edge as possible. When the 2nd wave of software gets finished it will be able to take advantage of the "last minute" extra hardware.
You either do that or you write the software to automatically elegantly upscale to theoretical extra parallelism.
Come on, whats the point of even debating this. Microsoft is not going to be weak at release anyway. Even the games are complete turds people are going to lap it up because they have the jump on the next gen.
Like they did with the Dreamcast... or the CDi, or the Turbo-Graphix 16...
why does everyone seem to think "first to market" is a silver bullet that trumps all other issues?
Nintendo has a lot of first party games, remember. They could be easily getting those ready to go. If memory serves, the Gamecube launched on mainly first-party titles, and it did pretty well.
And the one thing that we don't know anything about for the Revolution is the controller. Which, again if memory serves, Nintendo said they wanted to keep very, very secret. Xbox360 controller? Slightly-less-massive than Xbox controller. PS3 controller? Looks like it'd make a good sex toy and/or boomerang. Revolution controller? Don't know yet...
The other thing is, Nintendo is not overhyping the Revolution, which could be a great benefit. If it launches with features no one heard any rumours about, people could easily be quite stunned and surprised, and that surprise could turn into purchases. Compared to an overhyped product, which doesn't have rumoured features - PS3/Xbox360 could easily loose sales because of overhyping...
"Your effort to remain what you are is what limits you."
"HDTV (a feature Nintendo ended up dropping because of cost)"
Nintendo dropped the HDTV because of costs to the developers. Supporting HDTV, well..in the other two cases mandating it, forces companies, who want to make more gameplay focused games on throwing resources (i.e.$$$) that so that they make the graphics quality not look like ass on HDTV.
Delay so they can go head to head with Microsoft, who will have also increased their title library since launch, and already have an install base? We'll see how it plays out, sounds like a stupid strategy to me...
sig fault
They are playing US.
They are telling the public (a la press release) that the M$ console is not really that big of a threat and is willing to wait while the paint dries on their product.
Apply this to the mentality of little johnny Uber-1337, 'whoa I better make mommy and daddy wait until the sony comes out before I throw my tantrum because they already know they are better then M$!!!"
This is all chess, its all about the moves... When some company tells the public something they are just that, telling you something. It has no warrenty, guarentee or even the assumption that they are telling you this in an unbiased whole hearted manner.
They like M$ and pretty much evrey other high roller company is just trying to fuck with as many heads as they can and hope for the best.
Take this with a pound of salt....
A loop, by its nature, continues. If that didn't make sense, start reading this sentence again.
Microsoft's continual failure to dominate with the xbox and their growing unpopularity with the general market place leaves them little hope of gaining significant access to the living room.
They have managed to do considerable damage to their brand name and when it comes to accessing the living room that is terminal, except for the cheap junk market (microsoft's destiny?).
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Yes, because the launch library matters.
Wait, no it doesnt.
The PS2 had a bunch of crap right out of the gate. The leader of the pack was a mediocre snowboarding game that was propelled to stardom by the fact that it was one of the very few games worth owning at the time.
Yeah, the xbox had Halo at launch, but that didnt matter either. They could have released it at any time and still garnered the same results (a lot of sold hardware).
The Gamecube had one outstanding game (Rogue Leader) at launch, and then THREE MONTHS OF NOTHING until Super Smash Bros Melee, and the console continues to be #2 worldwide.
Two crappy launches (in regards to titles) and those are beating out a wildly successful launch in the long run.
Now, if the consoles launch at the same time it matters... Or at least one would think so. The cube's poor launch was within days of the xbox's great one (again, in regards to games only), and they are in a dead heat now.
So I guess my point is: "Analyst" speculation is less than worthless, and history reveals that supposedly obvious things make no sense at all.
Quit posting what amounts to random guessing about the ps3 and 360. We dont see a story every time a new fake Revolution controller pic hits the net, so why do we still get this crap?
Console release is like F1 pit tactics. YOu have to release a console, but when?
/. article) but kept his gamecube, and shrugged, I am sure someone will buy me a PS3 for Christmas. He thinks the XBOX/360 sucks, and doesn't even know who Microsoft are.
PS1 relied on some great timing and release games. Will the XBOX and the PS3 both delay and build up their game offerings until one makes the first move?
I think the PS3 will not delay to be honest - Christmas is looming, and if they can release in time for this, then they will lead in many respects.
My newphew (who as you may have heard knows everything about every gaming platform, game and addon) sold his PS2 (for much more than the $70 described in the recent
Aaaanyway. The innocence of youth.
This next gen of consoles may break some more competitors out of the ring. As multiplayer gets hotter, and platform exclusive games get more prevelant, then for the consumers one platform is the best choice, as kids want to play the same games together.
Therefore this may be a case of survival of the fittest, and my money is on PS3, as sony have 2 very successful releases under their belts, and XBOX was just a couple of trillion gajillion dollars of advertising, and Halo, which was a SHIT game, and I don't care what you say. An FPS with vehicles that feels like tribes, but can the playability of a 1997 game.
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Let's just be clear on why the dreamcast failed, sega had a history of burning their customers, witness:
-Sega CD - no 3rd part support, then abandonment altogether
-32X - Same deal
-Saturn - once again 3rd party support support was non-existent
Dreamcast was dead after Sega's constant stream of releasing bad/expensive hardware then abandoning it. When you burn your own customers they wont return, Nintendo so far is doing the exact same thing sega has been doing since the N64 in terms of 3rd party support. Developers are totally abandoning the platform over time because the Playstation 1 basically sucked up all the former SNES players with all those formerly on snes franchies like Castvania, Megaman, Final fantasy and all the other Japanese RPG's that were being made for SNES all went to the Playstation 1 since the CD-ROM storage capacity versus cartridge was so enormous, over 100x the storage of a rom cartridge, you could never do gigantic game like FF7 on the N64 without the storage. FF7 was 3 CD's by the way, there is simply no way a cartridge could ever come close to the amount of graphics and animations PS1 era RPG's were using, not to mention countless other games that could never have been done simply do the storage limitations.