New Sony details from Prudential equity..

[superguy]

Destination PlayStation (Miami, Florida, www.destinationplaystation.com, February 27 – March 3) - The 6th annual Destination PlayStation is Sony’s industry-only retailer conference not open to the public. The event provides retail partners and industry participants the ability to preview important Sony products ahead of E3. Sony has in the past released key product launch info at Destination PlayStation, for instance at the conference in 2004 they officially delayed the PSP.

DevStation - PS3 Developer Conference (London, http:/www.devstation.scee.com, March 1-2). DevStation is a Sony-sponsored developer conference open only to the development community that is this year exclusively dedicated to the PlayStation 3 platform. We expect details on the final specs of the PS3 to be revealed at this event.

PEG PS3 Assumptions:
• Launch Date: Japan (June/July ‘06), North America (November ‘06), Europe (early ‘07).

• Pricing: 40,000-50,000 yen ($349 - $449).

• Launch quantities: PEG model 1.5M in the U.S. (note: could be conservative. Recently Pioneer executive Andy Parson said in an interview to website Digital Bits, "The PS3 is launching right at the forefront of Blu-ray disc. If Sony ships the kind of numbers we expect them to this year, that will provide a very rapid growth of players out there hungry for titles. We've been hearing between 4 (million) and 7 million (PS3s) could ship." We assume that’s a global number.

• Games: Similar to the Xbox 360 launch, we expect only a few strong titles at launch. In fact we think Sony would ship the PS3 even if the launch lineup is weak to ensure Blu-Ray penetrates the market this holiday season; after all Sony launched the PS2 back in 2000 with only 1 Sony-developed game, a forgettable fireworks simulation game called Fantavision (sold a meek 50,000 units per NPD). The majority of initial PS3 games will most likely be sequels of existing franchises you can already play on the PS2 or Xbox/Xbox 360. Based on our evaluation of early cross-platform games (games that will be available for either the Xbox 360 or the PS3), there seems to be virtually no visual difference between them, despite Sony’s claims of the PS3’s technical superiority. In a recent Forbes interview, Andrew Goldman, chief executive of Pandemic Studios, says it will take years to fully exploit Cell's capabilities (the new IBM CPU in the PS3). Sony has confirmed 4,000 PS3 development kits have been shipped. GameStop is listing most PS3 games with a 3/1/06 ship date, but we expect that date to slip, and Metal Gear Solid 4 with a 12/1/06 ship date.

• Expect: Hardware production delays similar to the Xbox 360 and the PS2.

First off I DO not expect it in June-July, but that would be nice.

Second, the game comparison doesn't bode well for Sony, but then again I dont really believe it..

 

[Carl B]

Well, it seems to me likely to be *more* accurate than some of the other estimates analysts have floated, but the point remains that these guys are essentially working with no more information than we ourselves have - so what's the sense in discussing their predictions rather than discussing our own?

In fact... that they are highlighting Devstation and Destination Playstation - without any sort of real direction given in their doing so - says to me that they are riding the same info rollercoaster as the rest of us. Certainly no one was highlighting these things a month ago, before the Internet got fired up about them.

 

[BTOA]

Gamestop looks to be taking a guess on PS3 launch, since they have pre-orders of PS3 games up with a set date of Oct. 1, 06.

http://www.gamestop.com/search.asp?...=ps3&platform=0&find.x=0&find.y=0&find=Search

 

[Shifty Geezer]

$349 sounds like wishful thinking to me. When ever have Sony missed the chance to mark-up a premium product? Knowing the PS3 would sell out even at $500, starting it at $349 would be missing lots of takings. Unless they feel they can hit high production rates and saturate the early-adopter market early, at which point they'd need a price drop, and early on that'd rile the early adopters a bit.

 

[superguy]

It says 349-449. Split the difference and that's 399, pretty much what I've expected all along for the most part.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Yes. I'm just saying the low end is likely too low. $400 to $500 is more likely to net the launch price IMO (though I'll be happy if Sony surprise me!)

 

[Dave Baumann]

Gamestop looks to be taking a guess on PS3 launch, since they have pre-orders of PS3 games up with a set date of Oct. 1, 06.

http://www.gamestop.com/search.asp?...=ps3&platform=0&find.x=0&find.y=0&find=Search

They look to be following EA's lead:

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?siteid=mktw&guid={9DEBFB1A-751C-4373-9A13-17C0BF8666E0}&

For the forthcoming PlayStation 3 from Sony Corp. and Revolution from Nintendo Ltd., EA predicted between a half-a-million and a million-and-a-half units of each. See story on expected PS3 release.

"Our expectation is that you're going to see PlayStation 3 and the Revolution platform sometime in the fourth quarter of the calendar year, and I suspect that it's probably sometime in the middle of the [calendar] fourth quarter," said Jensen.

 

[Bobbler]

Date sounds about for NA (october). Europe launch is the only one that I don't have a solid guess on (I could just as easily see it 6 months after NA launch as 1-2 months after it).

 

[slider]

When ever have Sony missed the chance to mark-up a premium product?

OT, but I think their MP3 players are reasonably good value. I got my 20Gb one for £200 & bought my gf a newer swisher AW3000(?) for the same price. Ok, the software's junk but the hardware def delivers. Maybe it's the case when they're playing catch-up (to the mighty ipod).

 

[weaksauce]

Does PS3 really have that many this-gen titles?
I think that even if it just launches with motorstorm, warhawk, lair and fatal intertia, it will still pwn.

But damn.. If we europeans have to wait until next year... Well, at least we'll have time to save.

btw, are we going to get to know anything from devstation? Or is the info only just for developers too?

 

[Titanio]

Devstation is just for developers, yes.

Sony could maybe time public announcements to coincide with some of these conferences, though. They announced PSP's delay I think around the same time as a retailer conference in the US. But I wouldn't expect any announcement..