A major paper out of Japan got the scoop first on PS3’s delay until November. Initially the paper said Sony was to release the PS3 in November to Japan which incurred speculation that a North American release would be sometime after, probably in early 2007. Fortunately Ken Kuturagi, chief exec of Sony Computer Entertainment made a statement soon after. Foremost Mr. Kuturagi assures the public the November release of the PS3 will be worldwide. He says Sony plans on 6 million PS3s being shipped by the end of 2006. Comparably Microsoft has only shipped 3.5 million Xbox360s since its initial launch date and it’s still not readily available in stores.
Kuturagi took the time to whet our thirst for the upcoming Sony game system with more tidbits about its hardware. The complete system will have a 60GB HDD that will be required to play games, but apparently some PlayStation 3 units won't ship with hard drive at all, this will be the “base” model. Not sure what the purpose will be for it, only to play PS1 and 2 games maybe? You can guess the “base” model will only have one controller, no headset etc. Sony will continue the tradition of being backward compatible with earlier PlayStation games.
The system will also include some unspecified media hub capabilities. You can guess it’ll be Sony’s crack at the Xbox 360’s extender. If you’re in the mood for “Xbox360-lite” features from Sony, the new PlayStation will also get its own online gaming service similar to Live. The service hasn’t been named yet but according to rumors Sony has been buying up domain names that use the word “Hub”. So, isn’t that typical, eh? Microsoft creates the really good ideas and every other company comes along and imitates it (sarcasm).
What Sony Claims so far:
Since November is a hell of a delay from Sony’s initially sunny “spring” ’06 release plan you may be asking; what gives? The reason is apparently the AACS specification hadn’t been defined in time for Sony to get the PlayStation 3’s Blu-ray player in order. I’ve read a lot of blogs today that aren’t taking that as a good enough excuse for the delay. After all, they cite the AACS content protection specification has been defined since mid February. All I can suggest is that those other blog writers may have no problem launching their own products that use technology that is so cutting edge it was designed with technical specifications that hadn’t even been developed yet. Maybe instead of writers they should be project mangers.
Honestly, it should come as no surprise the PS3’s launch was going to be delayed, I said it when they first unveiled the hardware. The PS3 really pushes the limits of existing technology and last spring Sony promised to mass produce them in less than one year. The system will have muti-core processors with gates only 5 atomic layers thick, Blu-ray, 1080P at 60 fps and HDMI. One has to wonder if the current generation of gaming machine even needs all this technology. Will it even get used?
Before you jump in and say you can never limit the amount of technology you put into gaming systems. Anytime someone says a certain threshold of technology won’t be crossed it’s only a matter of time before something crosses it. And that’s true enough. But there is also a life expectancy issue. Based on the average game console’s timeline there is only a limited window. In the past putting “too much” technology into a console was never an issue. But now it might just be. How many Xbox1 games actually used the 720P it was capable of? Even its premiere game franchise Halo and Halo2 weren’t written in 720P.
The trick will be to meet a cost / benefit tightrope to put just enough technology to push the limits of game software for the next four years which is about the lifespan of a console now. In five years will you still think the PS3 needed HDMI / Blu-ray / 1080P? Or was it just Sony Corporation bravado? I would venture to say that every Xbox360 sold between spring ’06 and next November is money snatched from Sony’s pocket.
In Washington State today, the champagne is being passed around the hallowed halls of Microsoft corp.