Sony confirms plans to launch PS3 in Spring 2006 (U.S.)

[Kolgar]

Shifty, you're always good for an intelligent post, but I really give you kudos for the one above. Nice work - right on the money, I think.

 

[Kolgar]

No i want an even split between the 3 companys but since that isn't going to happen i want ms to get as close to sony as possible and nintendo to gain back some market sales .

Interesting. May I ask why you want this, jvd?

 

[one]

Sorry but I just don't see this happening in spring for a few reasons:

1) blu ray drive isn't even avail at 2x speed yet and they promised 6x

2) rsx not done

3) will be too expensive to manufacture

1) Where did they promise 6x? 2x Blu-ray drives were demoed by multiple companies early last year and are going to ship this year btw.

2) Was the 3-core PPC @ 3.2Ghz done?

3) XBOX 360, which will launch this November, is a very expensive hardware, at least semiconductor-wise, too.

 

[creon100]

I'm using the launch history of sonys products and seeing that the only system they have launched so far in the usa in the time frame in question ahs failed to sell out .

As was already said, there were far more PSP's available than have ever been available at any console launch. Pile that on top of the fact that marketing and hype in the mainstream was pretty much nill comparative to console launches (plenty on gaming boards though), Sony was entering a brand new market with a competitor holding basically an established monopoly, and charging a price more expensive than that monopolistic competitor's current offering (and pretty much more expensive than people are used to paying in that market) and I'd have to say the sales aren't bad considering all of the circumstances.

1) blu ray drive isn't even avail at 2x speed yet and they promised 6x

Sony has never promised a 6x speed Blu-Ray drive in PS3. They have not specified a speed, during Sony's E3 press conference Kuturagi said Blu-Ray discs hold 6x more data than a DVD and that somehow made it into the gaming media as a 6x-speed drive.

2) rsx not done

depends on who you believe in this one. Some here would have you believe it's just an Nvidia PC part slapped into it, so what's left to do? Others point out interviews saying its not done. I refuse to guess anything about the damn RSX at this point.

3) will be too expensive to manufacture

There's a reason they're sticking to 90nm process at this stage instead of doing the ambitious jump even smaller that was considered earlier. I'm guessing (since I haven't read Cell stuff in a while) is that the PPC core is more complex to fab than the individual SPUs, so if they're going to have yield problems due to the PPC core than you can put MS in the same boat in this regard.

 

[jvd]

No i want an even split between the 3 companys but since that isn't going to happen i want ms to get as close to sony as possible and nintendo to gain back some market sales .

Interesting. May I ask why you want this, jvd?

So that prices fall and we don't have a monopoly .... Last time i check having one company with 70-80% of the market is a bad thing

 

[jvd]

As was already said, there were far more PSP's available than have ever been available at any console launch. Pile that on top of the fact that marketing and hype in the mainstream was pretty much nill comparative to console launches (plenty on gaming boards though), Sony was entering a brand new market with a competitor holding basically an established monopoly, and charging a price more expensive than that monopolistic competitor's current offering (and pretty much more expensive than people are used to paying in that market) and I'd have to say the sales aren't bad considering all of the circumstances.

thats already wrong , the xbox launched with more avalible consoles than the psp had , the game cube launched with slightly over a million as did the ps2 . All mamanaged to sell out .

 

[creon100]

We're talking LAUNCH DAY, the PSP had one million available on LAUNCH DAY - day one.. The PS2 had approximately 500,000 available on its launch day, the 1.1 million number for the Gamecube was total shipments for the first month (November of whatever year it was), not launch day, and the Xbox launched somewhere near 800,000 on launch day if I remember correctly, not sure on that one though.

People had some irrational belief that the PSP was going to sell through all of its shipped components on the first day. That was never going to happen with that many available on day 1, not to mention there was apparently some weird allocation issues concerning how many different stores in different regions were getting. Wasn't going to happen. Add to that everything else I said, it's a very expensive portable gaming device at a price people aren't used to paying outside the hardcore, and people would have been better to temper their expectations of the thing.

 

[Kolgar]

So that prices fall and we don't have a monopoly .... Last time i check having one company with 70-80% of the market is a bad thing

So is it safe to say you're looking for Sony to even things up with Nintendo in the portable market as well?

 

[jvd]

So that prices fall and we don't have a monopoly .... Last time i check having one company with 70-80% of the market is a bad thing

So is it safe to say you're looking for Sony to even things up with Nintendo in the portable market as well?

if they can it be nice , don't see it happening this generation though . Also its generaly nice to have the new comer put out a competive system in price and features that are important in that sector like battery life

 

[dukmahsik]

Sorry but I just don't see this happening in spring for a few reasons:

1) blu ray drive isn't even avail at 2x speed yet and they promised 6x

2) rsx not done

3) will be too expensive to manufacture

1) Where did they promise 6x? 2x Blu-ray drives were demoed by multiple companies early last year and are going to ship this year btw.

2) Was the 3-core PPC @ 3.2Ghz done?

3) XBOX 360, which will launch this November, is a very expensive hardware, at least semiconductor-wise, too.

1) they said it during the conference

2) what does the cpu have to do with finishing up the rsx?

3) yes it is expensive, but ps3 is more so, blu ray, blue tooth, all the memory slots, etc.

 

[jvd]

We're talking LAUNCH DAY, the PSP had one million available on LAUNCH DAY - day one.. The PS2 had approximately 500,000 available on its launch day, the 1.1 million number for the Gamecube was total shipments for the first month (November of whatever year it was), not launch day, and the Xbox launched somewhere near 800,000 on launch day if I remember correctly, not sure on that one though.

can you post links to your numbers ?

 

[nameless_one]

They didn't say PS3 is going to have 6x blu-ray.

 

[ManuVlad3.0]

Sorry but I just don't see this happening in spring for a few reasons:

1) blu ray drive isn't even avail at 2x speed yet and they promised 6x

1) Where did they promise 6x? 2x Blu-ray drives were demoed by multiple companies early last year and are going to ship this year btw.

1) they said it during the conference

Bluray = +50Gbytes
DVD 9 = 9GBytes
So, Bluray ~ 6x DVD storage. 8)

 

[one]

3) yes it is expensive, but ps3 is more so, blu ray, blue tooth, all the memory slots, etc.

Semiconductors get cheaper very quickly if you can wait for months (as Nintendo does). But those parts you picked don't, so they can't be a reason to delay the launch.

 

[dukmahsik]

3) yes it is expensive, but ps3 is more so, blu ray, blue tooth, all the memory slots, etc.

Semiconductors get cheaper very quickly if you can wait for months (as Nintendo does). But those parts you picked don't, so they can't be a reason to delay the launch.

blu ray isn't expensive then. ic.

 

[wco81]

No i want an even split between the 3 companys but since that isn't going to happen i want ms to get as close to sony as possible and nintendo to gain back some market sales .

Interesting. May I ask why you want this, jvd?

So that prices fall and we don't have a monopoly .... Last time i check having one company with 70-80% of the market is a bad thing

Average selling prices for games are falling much quicker than they did in the last generation.

Not talking just about Greatest Hits collections, but games being cut to $40 or even less within a month of release.

Then there are the loss-leader pricing like Fry's which sells some games at $35 in the first week of release.

 

[Inane_Dork]

And finally, Sony may have a 'trump card' if they've got really good backwards compatibility.

Technical issues aside, that is one of the most far-fetched alledged trump cards I've ever read. Maybe if the first 3 months of titles suck the feature would be important, but that would only serve to close the gap and not pull ahead.

Besides, MS has just as much capability (if not more) to do this as well.

 

[Kolgar]

So is it safe to say you're looking for Sony to even things up with Nintendo in the portable market as well?

if they can it be nice , don't see it happening this generation though . Also its generaly nice to have the new comer put out a competive system in price and features that are important in that sector like battery life

I see what you're saying. Personally, I think there's little worry of high prices and monopolistic practices when you have two smart, financially strong companies battling it out as you do with Sony and MS in the home console biz and Nintendo and Sony in the portable market.

For example, Sony can't charge us exorbitant prices prices because they'd lose buyers to Microsoft. Nintendo, too, will now have to buckle down a little bit and play a sharper game now that Sony has released its own portable system.

If one company does things right and earns 80% of the market, I'm OK with that, because it means they're probably doing something better than the other guys. The competition just keeps them honest.

 

[Kolgar]

And finally, Sony may have a 'trump card' if they've got really good backwards compatibility.

Technical issues aside, that is one of the most far-fetched alledged trump cards I've ever read. Maybe if the first 3 months of titles suck the feature would be important, but that would only serve to close the gap and not pull ahead.

Besides, MS has just as much capability (if not more) to do this as well.

It's already acknowledged that MS's backward compatibility will be LIMITED on Xbox360.

And I agree with Shifty that 'enhanced' BC may be a very big bullet point for PS3 if Sony can pull it off.

Think about it: You have 80 or 90 million PS2s out there. Even if many are broken or no longer used, there may easily be 50-60 million active PS2 users out there. Now you tell them they can play all their existing games on PS3, where they'll look better than ever before.

If I'm one of those people, this feature is a very good reason for me to consider PS3 over Xbox360.

 

[one]

3) yes it is expensive, but ps3 is more so, blu ray, blue tooth, all the memory slots, etc.

Semiconductors get cheaper very quickly if you can wait for months (as Nintendo does). But those parts you picked don't, so they can't be a reason to delay the launch.

blu ray isn't expensive then. ic.

Blu-ray can't be a reason to delay the launch, either. What other product can raise the demand of the scale for the PS3 production and make Blu-ray parts produced at Sony's own plant cheaper?