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PS3 Problems Cause Sony Stocks to Slide
eldavojohn writes "Gamespot has an article describing PS3s operating erratically at conference demonstrations.' In its defense, Sony said the PS3 failures were caused by unusually high temperatures created by having many of the next-gen consoles operating in close proximity to each other. 'It's not a problem with the PlayStation 3 unit itself,' Sony spokeswoman Nanako Kato told the AP. 'For a normal player at home, there shouldn't be any problem.' As a result, Sony's stock slid 2.75%. I guess they should have thought first before releasing five times the number of kiosks as they did with the PS2 — they're causing each other to overheat. There goes my PS3 beowulf cluster idea!" Update: 10/04 20:40 GMT by Z : anti-human 1 wrote in to mention a GamesIndustry.biz article, with a flat denial of overheating issues from Sony. "As could be seen on the TGS floor by the tens of thousands of media and public attendees, both the hardware and software worked flawlessly."
Something I've always wondered: How come people on Slashdot are normally of the mindset: I would never use a Micro$oft product ever unless I had to, my entire home setup is based around Linux even where that reduces convenience, if you help Micro$oft, you are a terrorist, Bill Gates is a cyborg , but then, no one bats an eyelid when someone castually mentions their Xbox -- a completely unnecessary Microsoft purchase?
Think about it.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
I seem to recall the initial versions of the PS2 having all sorts of issues (primarily with the optical drives), not unlike last years XBox 360 fiasco. Considering Sony's attitude toward the consumer lately, we'll probably be forced to tolerate it as the tradeoff for the privilege of using the PS3 raw power.
Could it be that both Microsoft AND Sony have falling victim to the "Tortoise and the Hare" factor? It seems Nintendo's choice to choose the slow and steady path might just win the race this time around.
8==8 Bones 8==8
Glitching because of overheating would be interesting, if true.
The PlayStation 2 cluster that we built at NCSA had 65 machines in a rack, tightly packed, with the fans of the machines at the front and the back of the shelves pointing at each other. They ran like that for on the order of 15 months, and I'm not aware of any heat related issues.
Craig Steffen
http://www.craigsteffen.net
The point of a demo is to let the product's performance speak for itself, rather than the PR people's claims. If the problem is as they describe, why didn't they solve it before doing a demo? "Yeah, the system won't even turn on so you can see it, but that's because we don't have a long enough extension cord. It really is cool and worth the price, honest!"
You work for Sony, so your bias is obviously going to come into play, so I'll just add another voice to the mix to see if you'll start to understand: The last major show before the launch. A controlled environment. It doesn't matter if it is a hardware failure or a software failure. If you are near launch and your demo fails in a controlled environment you are in major, major trouble. I'm surprised the stock only dropped as little as it did, to be frank.