Sony Denies PS3 Delay

Eurogamer reports that Sony is flatly denying the delay of the PlayStation 3. From the article: "Sakaguchi was responding to allegations made by Merrill Lynch analyst Joe Osha in a report published late last week, in which Osha claimed that the PS3 could launch in autumn in Japan, with a US launch possibly being delayed to early 2007. 'There is no change in our original plan to release the console in spring 2006," Sakaguchi told the press in Tokyo, referring to the company's only stated goal for the launch so far - namely that the console will appear in at least one territory, most likely Japan, this spring.' They have lots of opportunities at GDC and E3 to change the public perception that their next console is still very much a work in progress.

Delay?

[Stachybotris]

If it means having a better system with fewer bugs and more launch titles, I can't see how a delay would be bad from an end-user perspective. I realize that any delay will harm them as a corporation, and possibly drive up the system price, but these are relatively minor concerns. Then again, most manufacturers already sell the system itself at a loss.

The only thing Sony really needs to worry about time-wise is beating the Revolution out of the gates. Given that details on the Nintendo system are still sketchy at best, this probably isn't a concern either.

Re:Spring? Absolutely not.

[dubiousx99]

Numbers 1, 3, 5, 6, and 7 will all be taken care of at E3 in May. The rest can easily be done in the month span after E3 and launch.

PS3

[the computer guy nex]

"Any of this happening yet?"

Of course not. Sony has said 2 things recently in press released:
1) They will launch in Japan first and
2) They will not sell the console "at a loss."

This will push back a US release date till at LEAST late 3rd quarter, and push the release price most likely at about double the price of a $300 Xbox360.

Sony *needs* to pony up and strip out the Blu-Ray drive. They are trying to push their own media technology and its costing the average gamer hundreds of dollars. A 10gig dual layer DVD is enough for any game in this generation since Sony is not doing 1080p.

Re:Too much cutting edge stuff

[kai.chan]

In the end the PS3 will be marginally better than the XBox360, and is that worth being a year later?

Here are the games I missed out because I didn't get the Xbox:
Halo, Ninja Gaiden, various PC ports

Here are the games that I would have missed out on if I got the Xbox instead:
Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Metal Gear Solid, Gran Turismo, Devil May Cry, God of War, Virtua Fighter, Soul Calibur 3, Shadow of the Colossus, etc, etc.

I get my FPS fix on the PC with keyboard and mouse, so really, the question comes down to: Is Ninja Gaiden really worth all the other games that I don't get on the Xbox? ~50% of the console market didn't think it was worth it, while ~25% -- likely people without a PC -- thought it was.

Re:Pretty much expected

[timeOday]

They could even make the end of April (Golden Week in Japan; the biggest holiday/vacation week in the country) if the AACS spec is finalized shortly, and I have no doubt that's their goal, as it always is for "spring" console launches there.

For what it's worth, the article doesn't agree with you (quote below). It will be very interesting to see whether Sony truly "launches" in the (real) Spring, or trickles out a few units a couple months late and declares "Mission Accomplished." If that happens, the real USA launch (as in, most of us slashdotters can actually buy one if we so choose) may barely be in time for Christmas.

It's also hard to say what exactly Sony defines as "spring", however. It's certainly not the traditional definition of the season, which covers the months of March, April and May. That would probably mean that the company has to meet its goal by E3 in May - a near-impossibility, given that no price point has been announced and no pre-sale activity has taken place at retail.

It's possible, however, that Sony will be ready for a launch by June or July, at least in some limited sense - not enough to make serious headway in terms of sales, perhaps, but enough for the firm to be able to argue that it met its own deadline and certainly enough to create a media furore that would give consumers another option to consider before purchasing an Xbox 360.

Re:Delay?

[Golias]

The longer the delay, the more time the XBox 360 will have on the shelves as the lone next-gen console...

Not to be a Microsoft basher, but the 360 has mostly been spending its time not on the shelves, hasn't it?

All these hardware delays are making it very obvious why Apple dropped IBM in favor of Intel. The previous (Intel-based) X-Box didn't have these sorts of massive shortages to deal with.

Re:Delay?

[Golias]

Last time I checked PS2's were still outselling XBox 360's

Pfft!

Of course it's outselling the 360 so far! There have been probably more PS2s shoplifted than the total number X-Box 360s manufactured! Last time I checked, they've shipped something like a total of eight of them, and two of those went to Japan (where they did not sell.)

Also, previous-generation consoles in general are selling well, because the consoles are under a hundred bucks, and the games cost "$10 or trade for rifle."

Heck, I own a current X-Box, and I'm tempted to pick up a PS2 myself, using the change lodged in the cushions of my couch.

Of course they're denying the delay...

[Malor]

Of course they're denying the delay. Sony, if you'll remember, lies. They'll do anything to blunt momentum of the 360. If they keep people thinking that the PS3 is just around the corner, they'll hold out just a little longer. And as long as they don't release specs, people can fantasize.

They are NOT shipping in Spring. No way. Not happening. Blu-Ray isn't even finished yet. There's no specs, no launch titles, nothing but empty shells and promises. They need time to work out their manufacturing process and build up stock for the retailers, and you can't exactly go into full-scale production when you don't even have finalized hardware.

They could take a page from the NVidia and ATI playbooks and paper-launch it, I suppose, but that would be the worst of all possible outcomes.... people will finally be able to make an intelligent choice whether the 360 or the PS3 is better, and by then, the 360 is likely to actually be available.

If Microsoft can execute and get some really good, next-gen games out, they could build up some momentum. The games that are out now are, to my perception, competent but not very exciting. They have good graphics, but there's not much new, gameplay-wise. Kameo has some good moments, but it's too short, and Perfect Dark feels very unpolished and unfinished. Project Gotham Racing is probably the best game so far, and it's just not that much different from the old games... the graphics are great, sure, but that's about all there is to it. (I've heard CoD2 is very good on the 360, but I already have it on the PC and it seemed dumb to buy it again.)

The Fight Night demo looks promising, I love how there's no on-screen gauges, just two fighters in a ring. And Oblivion may be truly next-gen content... we'll have to see.

So far, the best game I've played on the 360 is the $5 Geometry Wars. A $400 console to play a $5 game... and it's the best game on the system. Nintendo may be on to something.....

Oh, and to the AC who called me a 'good liddle fanboy' for saying that Sony wouldn't ship in Spring the last time we had this conversation.... here's a big middle finger just for you.

Re:Screw the delay

[Daetrin]

The $900 figure was an analysts estimate of the build cost.

However that was the same analyst's estimate that was predicting their ship date was going to slip. If Sony felt it was necessary to deny one aspect of that report why didn't they say anything about the other? Maybe they just feel that the ship date is the foremost issue in consumers' minds, but it makes you wonder.

Re:Not surprising

[7Prime]

Woah dude, you're making a WHOLE lot of generalizations there. The PS2 outsold the XBox, worldwide, something fierce. As someone said previously, the PS2 is STILL outselling the 360, and it's still priced pretty high ($125 for a 5 year old console). It's also one of the most well-liked from a user perspective, despite it's being a distant 3rd in terms of power, this generation.

Sure, the 360 was recieved fairly well... but compared to what, though? To be perfectly honest, I've never seen a more flacid system launch, especially a "first of the generation" launch. Hell, I heard more buzz surrounding the VirtualBoy's launch (though that was mostly negative press). The best I've ever heard anyone describe this launch was, "pretty good", but that's kind of an arbitrary statement. I mean, you can sell 3 units and say, "wow! Look, I sold 3 units, that's pretty good!" The measurement I'm going on, since it will reflect both the present and the future of the system, is amount of publicity, and compared to the PS1, PS2, N64, GameCube, DS, XBox, and SNES, this launch was extremely unenthusiastic. Microsoft had a lot going for them on this one: it's been about 4 years since the last major console release, console gaming's numbers have never been better, there have been fairly few big hits or killer apps for a while now so everyone's screaming for something new. It should have been one of the biggest launches EVER. "Pretty good" is fucking terrible if you're the first of the generation because anything better than "totally suck" that follows it is going to drive its sales into the ground.

I work for an NBC station, I run the master control board, I see virtually all of the content of one of the worlds biggest media outlets. I have yet to see a single XBox360 commercial (which continues to baffle me), and just about the only press it got was a short announcement on the launch day, and an endorsement from an old guy on the Today show.

My Prediction
PS3 doesn't blow anyone away. It won't have a $700 price tag, it will look slightly better than the 360, and have better launch titles, but it won't be a spectacular launch. People will be underwhelmed (but not angered) when the controller is just a DualShock 3 with a little more curves, and noone gives a shit about blu-ray. The Revolution, quick on its heals, on the other hand, will be one of Nintendo's most successful launches since the SNES, due to the amount of interest in the new design philosophy, it's lower price following the lackluster launches of the two pricier systems, a few killer first-party launch titles (smash bros has already been confirmed for the launch), and one third-party hardcore FPS designed to turn the heads of the XBox crowd. It will be vilainized by many, and hailed the "greatest system ever" by others, bringing to the surface some pretty large schisms within the gaming community, but at the end of the day, it will generate a fairly substantial amount of indendant press. Slashdot, at the time, will turn into a warzone. The launch will be the most successfull of the three systems, although it's future is up for grabs, depending upon it's longevity and following titles. It has a good chance of outselling both PS3 and 360 over the course of the generation, but it also has a chance of fizzling out. There will be no middle ground for anything, as far as the Revolution is concerned.

Re:Screw the delay

[ivan256]

If Sony releases the PS3 for less than $500 and it includes fully functioning Blu-Ray movie playback, wouldn't that really piss off their hardware partners?

If the PS3 is a "fully functioning BluRay player" in the same way that the PS2 was a fully functioning DVD player, there won't be an issue. Also, if Blu-Ray starts to catch on, the prices won't stay in the $1000+ range for more than a few weeks before a price war kicks in. $99 DVD players were available before the PS2 launch even with all the talk about how the PS2 was going to undercut DVD player prices. Analysts, the ones you don't have to pay to get opinions from anyway, are usually full of shit.