[Moelman]

I'm sure a lot of you have heard about this, but for those who didn't...

It is now official news that Sony has confirmed that the Playstation 3 will be delayed until November 2006. They also report that the console will have an online service similar to XBox's, and require a 60gb Linux Harddrive, which may be sold seperately.

Read the whole article here.

Thoughts?

[Hawkeye]

It's plainly a plan of Sony for Domination of the Christmas Market, Supply and Demand Every Year someone does this....

[Lynk Former]

I still think Sony is making all the same mistakes Nintendo have been made in the past.

[Moelman]

I still think Sony is making all the same mistakes Nintendo have been made in the past.

What do you mean, that they shouldn't be delaying? I can think only good can come out of delaying it because they have more time to improve it and get the bugs out. And like Hawkeye said, it's right around Christmas time.

[Lynk Former]

No I didn't mean it that way. I mean Sony is being just as arrogant as Nintendo was back in the N64 days. Not a smart thing to do when you have Microsoft and a Nintendo that has learnt from its mistakes out there as competition.

[Jay]

I just hope Nintendo does learn from its mistakes and gets out there at the same time, if not sooner than PS3, since, as far as i know, they still haven't declared anything.

(I thought I'd take this chance to go off on a tangent )

Personally, i'm a little worried about the future for Nintendo. Though I have no doubt they'll maintain those of the already commited fan base, I just can't see their 'revolutionary' steps doing anything to draw in new interest. Moving away from the classic controller seems to me like a huge gamble, due to the obvious, on the one hand if its as user friendly (and perhaps superior) as they seem to be boasting, it may be able to draw in new interest, but on the other, I mainly see people being intimidated and weary of taking an expensive chance on something as pivotal as the control of their game.

On that note, I think the success of Revolution and PS3 will be largely determined by whether or not Nintendo launches at a similar time to be competitive.

I know there was other factors involved, but I have to say, I hope we don't see Revolution go the way of Dreamcast (which I consider the ultimate in timing blunders).

[Rebel]

the 360 seems to be a flop, while it may garner awesome sales because it has not 4th Gen competitor, from what I've heard, it's pricey, not much of an upgrade and has lots of bugs...which is nothing is not typical of any Microsoft product.

I note two things in the article, one they mention "copyright protections" which I recall something goin around about games remembering that they had been played on a certian console and therefore being unable to be played anywhere else, therefore negating rentals and loaning and trading games. Anyone got any info on that?

econdly I note their games will all be made assuming the PS3 has a hard drive, which may not even be included with the console, which IMO is a BAD move. Though I have no doubt that in the intial sales larger stores may inclue the two in a "buy them both, get discount" deal, if that were to happen. Sony may be stupid, but stores sure arent.

EDIT: btw, if Nintendo does not launch before christmas, and with the Xbox already being spread around, it is likly that Sony will have the Christmas Market cornered, which will be bad for Nintendo if they end up releasing the next year since all the people who can only get one console and didnt want the Xbox would have gone for the PS3. Aisde from those waiting for the Revolution of course.

[Lynk Former]

@ Jay: You seem to be basing your view on extremely out of date information.

- Nintendo has already taken drastic steps to improve its image.
- Nintendo isn't and never was in real danger.
- Nowhere has it been proven that launching at a specific time before or after your competitors grants you success. There is more to it than that.
- You seem to be forgetting the emmense success of the DS and its innovative features have attracted new breeds of gamers.
- It is a risk to go for a new controller design, but its a risk well worth it. Just like its a risk to ignore innovation and travel in a straight line.
- The Revolution will sell for CHEAP, the price everyone is looking at for the NRV at launch is 199USD, some people suggest maybe even 149USD.
- People are more intimidated by videogame controllers than remote controls.
- The success of the Revolution has been determined largely by the success of the DS, it's done extremely well for itself when everyone said it wouldn't.
- The DS has proven that when marketted correctly, innovation can overcome raw power.
- The Dreamcast didn't die because it was launched at a bad time, the Dreamcast died because Sega was having a lot of problems years earlier, the Dreamcast was Sega's last hurrah.

If you wanna talk more about this, you should start a Nintendo Revolution thread That'd be a lot of fun for me if people really got into it.


But anywayz, in terms of the PS3 "delay"...

One thing people seem to be forgetting is that the forcefeedback system that appeared in the DualShock and DualShock 2 can't be used in the PS3 controller because of Sony's patent violations... that is unless Sony is prepared to pay Immersion Corp. to use their technology. But at the moment Sony owes them $91 million already. I think the amount we're talking is around $30 million per year if Sony were to license Immersions tech.

In addition to this Bluray still hasn't been 100% finalised and you can't launch the flagship system of Bluray with technology that hasn't been finalised.

Not to mention the fact that I'm sure Sony is putting a hell of a lot of effort into making the PS3 cost effective. I have no doubt that Sony is prepared to take a big hit in terms of profit initially but they'll really wanna tred carefully in this area or suffer losses worse than what the Xbox suffered.

And finally Sony is aiming for a worldwide release (Japan, US, Europe) in November, however I don't think all will go according to plan since Microsoft was trying to aim for the same thing and failed miserably.

IMO, Sony really does have more to worry about than Nintendo does at the moment since it is trying to do SO MANY things with the PS3. The system will be packed with great features, but the question is, will the majority of people end up using those features?

[darktruth]

Frankly...I couldn't care less about these new consoles coming out, sure they have the new features but like Lynk said it's just not worth it to buy these if you're going to only end up using a fraction of all the features it has.

I remember when the PS2 came out I was pretty much naive like all those other gamers out there because it plays DVD's and could be used for the net and wanted one so badly. In the end I never even bothered getting it even though now it costs only around $200 because I ended up losing interest and realised "is that all it does?".

In the end I don't really care about the Xbox 360, Nintendo Revolution and the PS3 anymore because I've lost a huge interest in gaming and honestly I don't see those consoles worth to buy for the features other than gaming.

[Rebel]

in the long run I really dont intend to get a new console until mine breaks. Currently it serves as both my DVD played and video game console. And I'm sure the dual usage will make it break anytime now. Though I dont think I've touched it on 2 weeks. Besides, it's best to wait till they wrok out the first produciton bugs.

[Jay]

@ Jay: You seem to be basing your view on extremely out of date information.

I must say that I have been out of the console information flow for a while, though I didn't think it had been so long. I suppose I'm starting to fall into the disenchanted group who have fallen out of truly dedicated interest with the continuous multi-roped tug of war that is the console gaming world.

- Nowhere has it been proven that launching at a specific time before or after your competitors grants you success. There is more to it than that.

Aside from that however, I still stand by the importance, though I must contest not all encompasing, of strategically placed release dates (paired of course with a generally complimentary, and successful marketing campaign). I never intended to claim that launch date granted success, but you need to recognize it as an important factor.

Regarding the dreamcast, i'm aware of the problems Sega was having then and in earlier years, however you can't assume that they threw the console into the mix expecting its failure. And again, I feel that with the environment of Sony and Nintendo domination at Sega's launch time, aside from other problems, Sega didn't launch at a time that was appealing to your average joe console gamer, who, if they were going to purchase something, they already would have, or were waiting until the launch of the next generation of consoles.

However, I am basing this on a soley Canadian market view, which very well may not have been the case for the many other areas of the time.

Back to the delay topic, it does seem that Sony is in a position where they don't have a choice in their launch being pushed back to November, since they don't have too far to go if their blueray plain isn't ready. I don't think it shows a lapse in judgment on their part (though they do seem to be having them else where), but rather an unfortunate occurance that hopefully won't prove a hinderance.