PlayStation 3 Delay Official 322
An anonymous reader writes "It's official! PS3 has been delayed until November in Japan. Apparently, it's because of copy protection technology issues associated with Blu-ray." From the article: "Today, Sony officially conceded defeat to the recent flurry of rumors and speculation, with Japanese newspaper Nihon Keizai Shimbun reporting the machine has been pushed back until November. There aren't many details out right now, but Sony says issues over the finalization of copy protection technology related to their Blu-ray disc drive is the cause of the delay. As the news is coming out of Japan, that creates a worrisome scenario for America and Europe."
Revolution before PS3? (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe somebody with a better memory could put out some dates they've seen.
Err... Not gamewise but music/media wise (Score:3, Interesting)
DRM Ate My Homework (Score:3, Interesting)
1. Will they launch first in Japan or the U.S.?
2. Will they miss Christmas in the U.S.?
In the seemingly unlikely case that they go with a U.S. launch first, a couple of things could be noted. It could mean that Sony really _is_ worried about the Xbox 360 getting too far ahead in the U.S.. To add some more pain to this though is the prospect of a Nintendo launch in the U.S. in the same time frame. Even if Sony isn't worried about falling behind the 360, Nintendo is another matter.
As for missing Christmas in the U.S., that's a real danger. But again, hard to gauge. The 3rd parties would definitely be pissed along with retailers. But Sony still has a strong brand, and let's face it, the PS3 is likely to sell well whenever it is released. So maybe they should just calm down and formulate a sane launch plan that releases the new console when it and its games are ready to go. I think we've all seen enough crap get released too early to meet generally artificial deadlines. And heck, doesn't Mr. Gates deserve a little happiness occasionally too?
Yep, a whole year later than the 360.... (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been saying here since early January that we wouldn't see the PS3 officially launched in the States until March of 2007 at the earliest. (and to the AC who called me a 'good liddle fanboy', thpppt!)
It's now March of 2006. They do not yet have, to my knowledge, working hardware for the video game end of things. They don't have working Blu-Ray drives, and in fact the specs there are changing. (latest news: no degradation on analog HDTV sets, which is good.) They don't seem to have decided on a final feature set. I think a November launch might still be possible, but it's gonna take a lot of overtime by a LOT of people. And they'll have to decide on their final feature set _right now_ and push like hell to make it happen.
Sony seems to be in defensive mode, beset by rivals. It doesn't feel like they have a unified vision of what the PS3 should be. Rather, at least if you can believe the zeitgeist of the rumor sites, they seem to be in defensive mode, where they claim they'll do everything that all the other consoles do, better. That's not gonna happen. They don't have the time or the manpower to make it happen. If they keep trying, the PS3 is going to be the Duke Nukem Forever of consoles... because the 360 and Revolution will be moving targets. Now that Microsoft has hardware on the ground, new features are just a matter of writing code. If there's one company on the planet who's got expertise in doing that, it's Microsoft.
At this point, I'm not sure that the PS3 will make November. Whenever it does ship, it will be monumentally expensive, but the wealthy Japanese consumers will buy it in droves anyway; it will be successful in Japan. When they ship it in the US, they're not going to be willing to take the enormous financial hit it would take to sell it at $400; they're going to be priced higher than that, maybe a lot higher.
Now, this part gets _really_ speculative. They saw the EBay market for the 360 (many 360s sold at $800+), so I bet they're going to try a very expensive US introduction. And, paradoxically, I think it will be completely rejected as 'too expensive' by the American consumer, even though the _exact same people_ would turn around and spend $800 for one on EBay. It's okay, you see, for the Average Joe to be rapacious and greedy, but when corporations do it, it's "wrong". And I'm not sure Sony will get that.
Even if they're smart and take the financial hit of introducing at $400, I still think they're likely to end up in third place, this time around. The 360 is really solid; it's an excellent machine and they're doing lots of interesting stuff with it. And the Revolution is _really_ interesting; Nintendo is focused on doing stuff that's fun.
This time around, Microsoft shipped a Mustang. It's big, loud, and powerful. Sony is going to ship a Porsche; quieter, a little faster, more expensive. (if they choose to eat the extra cost, that would make it a great deal for the consumer.) Nintendo is going to ship a Miata. They don't win drag-races, but Miatas are cheap and fun to drive.
Overall, I suspect Nintendo has a good chance of being the big winner this time around. They'll do well in all markets. I suspect the 360 will place a solid (and profitable) second.. they'll do really well in the US and Europe, but will be lucky to sell 25 consoles in Japan. Sony will do well in Japan, simply from a combination of brand- and country-loyalty, but I now suspect they'll do a huge faceplant in the US and Europe.
This is not a dupe at all. (Score:5, Interesting)
Moreover, the "dupe" you give is wrong. The article slashdot posts there claims the announcement is "official", but the "official announcement" there is nothing but a misquote. The article took a quote from Variety Magazine saying the PS3 would be out "before the holidays", attributed Variety's commentary to Howard Stinger, and made it sound like PS3 would not be out until "the holidays".
This honestly makes me a little suspicious about this article (today's article, the new article you think for some reason is a dupe), to be honest. We've already had one case where Variety implied a November release for the PS3, a video game blog misquoted it as a Sony statement, and Slashdot reprinted the misquote as an "official" announcement. What if we have a case now where a Japanese newspaper implied a November release for the PS3, a video game blog misquoted it as a Sony statement, and Slashdot reprinted the misquote as an "official" announcement? Can we get a corroborating source besides just 1UP, or an actual quote from Sony about this somehow?
Re:Subversive thought (Score:4, Interesting)
What difference does it make? (Score:3, Interesting)
Heck, even if you're sick of the same old game box, you can always run Linux on the darn thing and use it for other purposes. The way I see it, these game system makers are just taking advantage of the fact that people always want to have the newest box.
Re:Revolution before PS3? (Score:4, Interesting)
And its all going to be their own fault. There are quite literally 0 customers that are concerned if the DRM (copy protection) for Blu-Ray will be ready in time.
Personally, I hope their committment to DRM blows their release date and they lose millions of dollars. Let DRM be a problem for them for something.
960x540 (Score:4, Interesting)
Not that 960x540 is half-bad:
A motion picture DVD on a progressive scan player is already 720x480 at 24fps or 720x576 at 25fps depending on TV system. Compared to DVD, 960x540 at movie frame rates is only 50% better than NTSC DVD and 25% better than PAL DVD. Is that so noticeable? Based on specs alone, it looks more like the difference between composite and S-video than the night and day that is progressive-scan DVD vs. HDTV.
Re:Downrezzing? (Score:2, Interesting)
Are they delaying for the price to go down? (Score:3, Interesting)
On the other hand, the price that Microsoft is paying for its console will go down as well. And Microsoft can always come out with a "XBox360-Media" edition of the console that includes HD-DVD, DVR, and a big old hard drive for $50 cheaper then the PS3. At least, that's what I would do...
Blu-ray stand-alone players is the real reason... (Score:2, Interesting)
There has been much speculation regarding how Sony would handle this problem. Either make Blu-ray movie playing an extra charge or delay the PS3 so that the stand-alone players have time to sell to early adopters. Looks like the latter has been chosen.
Evidence: Stand-alone players debut in May with the very same DRM that Sony says will delay the ps3 until November.
Motive: Sony needs support from partners to make Blu-ray a standard for home entertainment. Those partners would be undercut by a PS3 that plays Blu-ray movies at half the price of a stand-alone player.
-Karl
PS. Personally I would think there are several reasons for the delay in addition to the above.
Re:Yep, a whole year later than the 360.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Take a look at the software and hardware sales for the past 5 months (covering the launch of 360, Christmas season, and the typical begining-of-year lull) and tell me that the 360 is doing well.
PS2 is king. 360 hardware is coming in second now (after selling less than the Gamecube during december!). 360 software appears to be doing well, but I'd say its only because of 2 abnormalities
so riddle me this Batman: Why would Sony even give a shit about the 360 when their 6 year old console, which already has 100 million units sold, is still outselling it month to month? They can sit back, laugh, and wait as long as they want. (or until Nintendo comes around this fall and blows everyones minds)
Postmature Launch = Stronger Launch? (Score:2, Interesting)
Also, as much as I don't like this in-your-face copy protection, can someone please tell me which of the last generation of consoles (excluding Dreamcast) played burned games out of the box? It's something I've more or less grown accustomed to, and I find it very likely that despite their best efforts the thing will be cracked.
Maybe Nintendo can stride out of the shadows (Score:2, Interesting)
I suppose if a market "owner" like Nintendo could get reduced to a bit player by a format dispute with industry players (playstation was supposed to be an add on for SNES) the same could happen to sony.
Maybe nintendo could regain its market share crown at the end of this round? 360 has nothing even remotely approaching a killer app and if Halo3 is as underwhelming a development as halo2 was this isnt going to change soon.
Nintendo need to court the big 3rd parties (EA) with their licensed ticklist shovelware that everyone seems to buy and then i think they could steal back a lot of market share, and maybe even become market leaders again. But then again, they seem to carry on undaunted even when they are marginalised so it won't matter if they dont.