Slashdot Mirror
Playstation 3 Delay Official
Aleman writes "In this interview with Variety magazine, Sony CEO Howard Stringer confirms that the Playstation 3 will be released during the holiday 2006 season." Not very surprising given the available information.
But wasn't Q4 '06 the original expectation for the US release?
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Sony is fine with waiting given the poor execution of the 360. Ironically, if MS had given itself a few more months it may have put more pressure on Sony. However, given the numbers I am seeing on the components even another nine months may not be enough for the PS3 to come in at a reasonable amount for Sony . Sony will not price it above $400 USD retail. But losing $500 on each console sold cannot be an attractive proposition for Sony higher-ups.
As far as I am concerned, this will have serious consequences on the adoption of Blu-ray, given that Toshiba's HD DVD drive is coming out in three weeks at less than $500. Sony wants to turn video (movie) technology into a war not unlike the video game console wars. Unfortunately, they are going to lose this one, because the 360 is already out, HD DVD is coming very soon, and Sony is already taking a huge risk/loss on the PS3.
I can't say I feel sorry for them, being proprietary is inherently consumer unfriendly, so they have an uphill marketing battle ahead of them. (I realize that HD DVD is pretty proprietary, too, but it is first and less expensive and that will make a huge marketing difference)
Laboratree - Scientific collaboration based on OpenSocial.
I wish Slashdot would stop running all these unsubstaniated rumours about the PS3 dela... Oh wait!
P.s. Variety went down quick!
Did you get that thing I sent ya?
First off, this article is really more focused on Sony's various troubles and not on the PS3 in particular, so after wading through the stuff on Sony's failing entertainment businesses (with no mention of "root kit" or "copy protection"...), I was hoping to see something on the projected price.
Nope.
Instead, we get: "If PS3 'delivers what everyone thinks it will, the game is up,' Stringer boasts."
"If?!" So, in other words, the PS3 won't be delivering what everyone thinks it will. Which, ironically enough, I think everyone already knew. Essentially it sounds like the entire game-plan for the PS3 is to sneak Blu-ray into a consumer market that otherwise doesn't want it, to hell with games. Really encouraging.
From the article: "Sony's new PlayStation 3 was widely expected to be introduced this spring, but will be delayed as the company fine-tunes the chips that are crucial to the success of the console's Blu-ray function."
"Fine-tunes", huh? So, in other words, the rumors of an almost $1000 price tag for the system weren't too far off, and Sony has to delay until they can get the cost down to something that people might actually pay for. But he can't actually say that, of course.
Ultimately it sounds like the PS3 is Sony trying to abuse a monopoly it doesn't have to force Blu-ray into the market place. Yeah, that might work.
I assume you're not looking anymore for the 360?
I seen them all the time. This last weekend, the Walmart, Target, and Circuit City stores near me I went into all had them. Warmart looked like it only had core systems, but thanks to my first 360 dying and MS replacing the console with a whole new console+harddrive, I have a spare drive. I almost picked one up so my girlfriend and I wouldn't have to fight for 360 time.
In either case, are they really still hard to find in other parts of the country? I'm not out looking actively for them, but I keep seeing them in stock.
From a sales perspective, wouldn't the holiday season be a good time to release a product like this?
English is easier said than done.
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I hope (for Sony's sake), they are adoption the system for online distribution of "indie" games; I hear it's going pretty well for MS.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Sony: Playstation!
Nintendo: N64!
Sony: Playstation 2!
Nintendo: Game Cube!
That's a joke, right?
I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it.
huh?
What matters seems to be the available games, though in the PS2 case a lot of people bought it as their first DVD player, justifying the purchase that way. That's what Sony were banking on with the PS3 too, but the BluRay capability has undoubtedly delayed their launch.
Add in the facts that their CPU is quite weird and hard to program, and that they'll be last to market in this generation, and they've some small difficulties to overcome.
I'd still bet that they will be a very strong contender this time round (not least due to backwards compatibility and the desire to keep game libraries while trashing the old machine), but unless MS continue to shoot themselves in both feet it'll probably be a lot closer this time round...
because when the PS3 finally comes out, whatever time of year, it will likely be in limited supply, not well supported by 3rd party software, and expensive as hell. This makes it an early adopters "must have" and not much else until price goes down and support goes up.
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
I'm with you. I've been a Nintendo fanboy for years, but just last night I thought I try out Shadow of the Colussus. I've read so much good press about the title, and I love out-of-the-ordinary games.
But I'll be damned if I didnt think that game was awful. The controls reminded me of Prince of Persia ala '93 and the camera angle was awful. I don't care if the designers decided to make the game entirely out of the color grey, or go only with level bosses that still doesn't make it an "innovative" or even "artistic" game.
The game *mechanics* are just like every other game I've played on the PS2; worse so since the controls were terrible.
I think I've been spoiled on Nintendo's first party games
These pretzels are making me thirsty.
Try post-ordering. Wait six months after release and you'll be fine.
The launch games you want will still be available, and perhaps even marked down.
For all the effort you went through to get your PlayStation 2, wouldn't you want to keep playing it for a few more months?
The thing that I think really hurt the XBOX 360 is the lack of a big launch game. The original XBOX had Halo. XBOX 360 had no one "big" game at launch, and still doesn't have that "big" game. This doesn't mean that Perfect Dark Zero or Call of Duty 2, or any of the launch titles are bad, they're just not the caliber of Halo that the original XBOX launched with. I think that once Microsoft releases that one game, Halo 3 perhaps, that the XBOX 360 will start doing better. It may start doing better this month when more of the 360 games come out such as Ghost Recon 3.
To sum it up, I think the 360 has what's needed to be a good, true next gen system. Microsoft and the game developers just need to get the new games out, that are truly next gen rather than modified-for-360 games.
What's the matter, James? No glib remark? No pithy comeback?
I haven't had any problems with my 360 console itself. It sits happily in my entertainment shelf, with the power brick sitting behind the TV on the carpet. No disc reading problems, which plagued me on the Xbox and PS2. (With the PS2, I did the whole "tilt it vertical" to get it to work with some games)
... they just read about it on the Internet. And obviously, those folks are going to be a lot more prevalant on sites like Slashdot, which aren't friendly to MS by any means. *shrugs* I imagine we'll see the same complaints when the PS3 ships, since there are plenty of Sony haters as well (rootkit anyone?).
I did have an issue with a controller charger. I had to get a new one and now it works fine.
I know a few other folks with 360s, and no one has had any problems either. Either we're just lucky, or they know the proper way to keep it ventilated and such. I'm also on a listserv with probably over 100 360 owners too, and only a few people have reported problems. I don't know exactly how many 360 owners there are, since it'd be pretty annoying to have a "raise your hand if you own a 360!" thread going.
I see a lot of complaints about the 360 hardware, but it seems like it's so anecdotal. Usually it's folks complaining that don't even have the console
For those who care, here's my philosophy with defects: Are there occasional problems with the hardware? Absolutely! Every hardware product is going to have some defect rate. That's what return departments are for. Unfortunately, it's pretty common to happen in the console space. Anyone remember the PSP "dead pixel" problem? Or the rants about the original GBA's bad design (lack of backlighting)? Or the many "dirty disc" errors with the PS2 and Xbox? What WOULD be nice is to see actual statistics on how often 360s have to be returned, and then compare it to how other consoles fared (especially when they first started). However, I can't imagine that being made public information by MS, Sony, or Nintendo.
So, why not make a product that is 100% guaranteed to work every single time, in whatever situation you put it in? Well, you COULD do that, but either the cost of the unit will go up, or it'll take a lot longer to go out. Meanwhile, you have a lot of enthusiasts which will take whatever you have and run with it. I'd say the ideal is to get something that works the vast majority of the time, for the vast majority of cases. Let's say 95%. For the 5% that get screwed, again, that's what return departments are for. It's cheaper to funnel those folks through returns, instead of making the product absolutely idiot proof and NASA-safe.
But that's just me. Then again, I'm not one of those unlucky 5%, so to each his own. (And it seems to me that the defect rate for the 360 is lower than 5%, but that's just my own guesstimate)
-- jchenx
The average console gamer does NOT love high def fps games. The average PC gamer DOES. Halo sold generally well on the Xbox (about 5 million per title) but it (and most fps'es) have been grossly outsold by the Marios, Maddens, Grand Theft Autos, etc.
How do you define "lost" in regards to the N64 or GameCube? They didn't sell as many units as the other systems but started making money for Nintendo from the start. I think Nintendo would be very happy to continue losing like that (as opposed to the billions of dollars literally lost by MicroSoft (and it's investors).) The win/lose thing in regards to consoles is silly. People buy the system(s) that has the games they want to play and if the console is profittable (or strategic in regards to MS and Sony) they produce the next version.