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PS3 - Lateness With Linux?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the world-turns-upside-down dept.

ZombieRoboNinja writes "The New York Times is reporting that Sony's press conference has confirmed the delay of the PS3, which is now slated to come out in November. More interestingly, the article claims that PS3 will ship with a 60-gig hard drive, built-in network card, and Linux!" Serious stuff here, with Sony's shares falling on the delay confirmation. There was a lot more news handed out at the conference than just the delay. Next Generation has details from Ken Kutaragi's 10 Point Breakdown. From the NYT article: "'We were discussing selling it in September, and some even said put it out in July,' Mr. Kutaragi said. Some analysts were immediately skeptical of this explanation, saying Sony needed to get the console out as soon as possible to combat Microsoft's head start, and the expected release this year of Nintendo's next game console, Revolution. They said Sony may be trying to buy time to bring down the production cost of key components, particularly untested technologies like Blu-ray and Cell. While Mr. Kutaragi did not reveal a price on Wednesday, analysts say Sony will likely try to sell PlayStation 3 for about $500." Please see related links and commentary below for more coverage. My two quick cents -

  1. If they're not releasing in Japan until November, I find it highly unlikely they'll be releasing in the states until 2007. Previous PlayStation launches have always been staggered Japan first, U.S. second. I don't care if they say they're launching worldwide; At this point I think they're spinning to keep people happy.
  2. If they're not out in the U.S. until 2007, they'll probably be the last next-gen console to do so. So far Nintendo says it's on track to launch this year. Sony isn't getting finalized dev kits out until June. Even just with that metric on the table, Nintendo looks to be in a better position than Sony at the moment.
  3. At $500, there are going to be a lot of indifferent customers come March of '07. This will be especially true if, over a year after launch, Microsoft cuts the price of the 360 to coincide with the PS3 launch. If you have to choose between a solid platform that costs $300 (and already has a stable of games available) and a brand-new system that is two hundred bucks more with far fewer games, which one do you think most people will buy?
Regardless of what happens a year from now this is a major blow for Sony, a coup for Microsoft, and breathing room for Nintendo. What do you think the console market will look like this time next year?

11 of 364 comments (clear)

  1. Article Access by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Interesting

    A functioning link to the NYTimes article.

    Also interesting is the component pricing total that reveals why Sony will most likely have to take a loss of hundreds of dollars per console to remain competitive.

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    My work here is dung.
  2. Will there be an emotion chip too? by hal2814 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Sounds to me like Sony shot themselves in the foot by muffing a Christmas release of the PS3 so they're gearing up the speculation by promising the kitchen sink like they did with the PS2 to try and keep anybody from buying something else in the meantime.

    1. Re:Will there be an emotion chip too? by gEvil+(beta) · · Score: 5, Funny

      I hear that it'll be able to render graphics like those used in Toy Story in realtime!

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      This guy's the limit!
    2. Re:Will there be an emotion chip too? by RexRhino · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I don't know why you would take either side in the Xbox 360 vs. Playstation 3 debate. Even if you don't like Microsoft's buisness practices, Sony has dome some extremly unethical things to customers (Music CDs that install rootkits on your computer, anyone?). And from a Geek perspective, Sony is super annoying (Microsoft actually publishes system specs on it's hardware... where as Sony gives vauge statements about "emotion engines").

      The fact is, having more than one game machine and one company dominating the whole industry is a good thing. Having Playstation the MAIN console with everyone else distant competitors (like it has been so long) is a bad thing, having several powerful competitors is a good thing. Don't worry, Sony isn't out of the video game industry yet despite their screw ups, there are too many die hard Sony fanboys for the Playstation 3 to flop. But the good news is that the market will probably be split evenly between the large companies, instead of the Sony quasi-monopoly on consoles.

      So, from a consumer perspective, what is there to worry about? If you have extra money to burn, or are impatient, or you could care less which one will be the "winner", buy a Xbox 360 now... or simply wait a few months until the Sony machine comes out, and decide then what is the best console. Why have loyalty to any company (they certainly aren't loyal to us)?

    3. Re:Will there be an emotion chip too? by jackbird · · Score: 5, Informative
      That was talking about how the movie would have taken months to render if they hadn't redesigned their rendering pipeline. Also, it's horseshit, since the complicated shots (e.g. Hell) were done by established VFX houses. And even more horseshit since they could have bought more render nodes or used an outside service as well. In other places, Trey and Matt have compared rendering South Park with Maya to using a bulldozer to build a sandcastle. They turn out the shots for an episode in days, which is why they're able to have extremely topical stuff in new episodes (e.g. Saddam in his spider hole airing just 3 days after he was captured).

      Not that animation in general isn't hard or time-consuming, or that the animators who work on South Park aren't talented, but South Park is fast and cheap to produce.

  3. Global Launch by Sans+Virtue · · Score: 5, Informative

    His two cents are odd considering that everything I've seen indicates a worldwide launch in November: http://ps3.ign.com/articles/696/696054p1.html

  4. yay! another ps3 article! by sstation · · Score: 5, Funny

    and here i thought we were actually gonna make it to lunch time (eastern time) without seeing something about the ps3

  5. Well well well... by patrickclay · · Score: 5, Funny

    Sony, your desperate attempt to win back the Slashdot crowd is admirable, but I'm afraid it's too late...

    Sincerely,

    Slashdot

  6. FUBAR summary....again by Mille+Mots · · Score: 5, Informative
    From the summary:

    ...More interestingly, the article claims that PS3 will ship with a 60-gig hard drive, built-in network card, and Linux!" Serious stuff here, with Sony's shares falling on the delay confirmation...

    From TFTA (link to Ken Kutaragi's 10 Point Breakdown):

    7. Kutaragi said that that the PS3 will require a hard drive, which will have a 60 GB capacity and support Linux OS. No word on if it will be included.

    Oops.

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    Sig arrêt

  7. The secret reason for the delay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I have it on good authority that Sony is having trouble porting their x86-based rootkit to the cell architecture. No software will be released until they get a multi-threaded roootkit with decent performance.

  8. Microsoft's Xbox 'Toy Story' Claim by GameEngineer · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://news.com.com/2100-1040-250632.html

    "One of the basic premises of the Xbox is to put the power in the hands of the artist," Blackley said, which is why Xbox developers "are achieving a level of visual detail you really get in 'Toy Story.'"

    I can't believe there are still people trying to attribute Microsoft's stupid Toy Story graphics claim about the Xbox to Sony in 2006...