PS3 Delayed Until November

[Strollymonster]

From MSNBC (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11828546/from/RL.4/):

LOS ANGELES - Sony Corp. will push back the release of its new PlayStation 3 video game console until early November because development of the copy protection technology for the Blu-ray Disc has fallen behind schedule, the Nikkei Keizai business daily said Tuesday.

Sony, maker of the market-leading PlayStation 2 console, announced the PS3 last May and said it would be launched this spring.

The Nikkei said consumer electronics makers and movie companies have been unable to reach an agreement on the development of the copy protection technology.


Sony's much-anticipated next-generation video game console will be powered by a Cell high-performance chip and feature a Blu-ray Disc drive. The console is expected to enable users to play games and movies as well as downloading and viewing high-quality videos from the Internet.

More than 100 million PlayStation 2 consoles have been shipped worldwide to date.
Rival Microsoft Corp. released its next-generation Xbox 360 console in late 2005 and Nintendo Co. Ltd. plans to start selling its Revolution console this year.

Well, we can't say that we didn't see this coming...this puts a lot more pressure on Nintendo with it sharing the same window as the PS3.

Of course, this is assuming that Sony doesn't have further delays...

[Artimus Gigan]

I think it's to be set up with the impending Chistmas Season

Hopefully by that time the 360 will be up to speed, seriously I still havn't gotten my reserve filled as of yet(and I had it made before last Christmas). But they say 2 more weeks at the store I reserved it at.

That and the 360 needs more original games to come out in a timely fashion, I want an allout console war by Christmas.

Other than that, I don't think that Sony will delay past november, even though the PS2 still has life left in it, the PS3 is going to be one of the large items on a Holiday Shopping list, and if the 360 launch is anything to go by, they better have lots of the machine and alot of games to be on it.

[Jimmy 345]

This report is completly unofficial. It may be true but it is just as likely false.

[email2003]

Well if it is true than Japan gets PS3 in holiday 2006 while we'll get the PS3 in maybe March 07'.

[Strollymonster]

This report is completly unofficial. It may be true but it is just as likely false.

It came from the Nikkei through Reuters and ended up on MSNBC...short of an actual Sony e-mail, this is as legit as it gets.

An interesting point...isn't this just the Japanese release date? Wouldn't that mean that the US date could be later than November?

[silverwings]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure this refers to the Japanese release date.

It's sad that it's taken this long for Sony to acknowledge the delay. We all knew it wasn't launching this spring as of Decemeber. :p

It's funny how they mention copyright issues as the reason for the delay. No mention of the dev kits not working? ;) (was this issue ever resolved? I don't recall hearing anything about it after the initial waves of news saying that the cooling systems didn't work well enough and the kits kept melting).

[Jimmy 345]

It came from the Nikkei through Reuters and ended up on MSNBC...short of an actual Sony e-mail, this is as legit as it gets.

An interesting point...isn't this just the Japanese release date? Wouldn't that mean that the US date could be later than November?

We will find out soon. Late tonight Sony will have a Playstation confrence. If Sony doesn't deny this rumor then we can assume its true.

Considering that stand alone Blu-Ray players are on track for an American release in May I believe that even if this rumor is true Sony still has the capability to launch in America this year. Sony is not going to give the Xbox 360 two Christmas's to itself. Come hell or high water even if the supplys are very limited (which they almost certainly will be) Sony won't give HD-DVD and the 360 the time.

[TheMecca]

Well if it is true than Japan gets PS3 in holiday 2006 while we'll get the PS3 in maybe March 07'.
That sounds about right, considering Sony's launched most of its stuff here in March (save for PS1, which lauched around the holidays IIRC).

[William C. Maune]

We will find out soon. Late tonight Sony will have a Playstation confrence. If Sony doesn't deny this rumor then we can assume its true.

Considering that stand alone Blu-Ray players are on track for an American release in May I believe that even if this rumor is true Sony still has the capability to launch in America this year. Sony is not going to give the Xbox 360 two Christmas's to itself. Come hell or high water even if the supplys are very limited (which they almost certainly will be) Sony won't give HD-DVD and the 360 the time.

This isn't a rumor. This is from a newspaper article from the traditional press. Like you said though, we may find out more info through the Sony conference.

[Rasputin]

Latest news from the official press conference: a simultaneous launch! And with all the problems stemming from the 360's simultaneous launch still hurting and all. Sony must really want the PS3 to be out everywhere by Christmas. I suspected that Sony would be determined to the point of corporate suicide to getting the PS3 out by the end of the year, but I didn't suspect they were that determined.

The 'simultaneous launch' is fast becoming the new norm for console releases. Will Nintendo follow suit? (I...kinda doubt it, actually. Nintendo plays it safe with everything except controllers) This could give Nintendo valuable breathing room if they can get the Revolution out before November. And to say nothing about Microsoft. They must be over the moon!

Huzzah! The early '90s are here again!

[Jimmy 345]

Now that its official I that it is delayed in Japan it thankfully is not delayed in America and is actually ahead of schedule in Europe. Nobody honestly expected it in America in the Spring anyway and I am certain that they won't miss the Christmas shopping season. That would be market suicide. However I am sure supplys are going to be very limited just like the 360.

Still no official word on pricing.

Hard drive will be required for gaming.

All games on Blu-Ray discs. Apparently this is to prevent piracy but in my view it is stupid. Less then 20% of Playstation 3 games will need more space then a dual layer DVD can offer. This will probably do nothing but raise the price for no reason.

[Duke]

o.O I never even knew it was supposed to come out before November. For almost a year I keep hearing that it was supposed to come out about a month after the Revolution in Fall '06. Never heard it was being released in Spring...

[Strollymonster]

I have more than a few doubts about the chances of the PS3 being able to successfully launch worldwide in November.

There's an interesting blog (http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/games/archives/2006/03/15/can_sony_manage_a_global_ps3_rollout_lets_do_the_m ath.html) that I found courtesy of Guardian Gamesblog that deals with the math that goes into getting them launched...


Ken Kutaragi has confounded expectations by promising a simultaneous launch across the major territories. But this raises some pretty fundamental questions. For starters, given the difficulties Microsoft had in supplying a world market with its Xbox 360 console, how will Sony cope with such enormous demand when its hardware is much more complex? There are two elements of the architecture that have never been mass-produced: the Blu-ray drive and the Cell processor. Blu-ray hasn't even been finalised as a standard yet - the relevant parties are still to agree on the security encryption arrangements, although of course, this won't hold up actual production as security encryption is part of the firmware and could be uploaded later.

So, has production begun? Well, we know that key developers are still waiting for final spec PS3 dev kits, which suggests the machine's innards are yet to be finalised. However, lets assume the manufacturing process cranked into motion at the start of the year. That leaves Sony ten months to manufacture enough PS3 consoles to meet worldwide demand - or at least to see them through til Christmas. On previous evidence, that'll be around 10 million units (three each for Japan, the US and Europe, plus one extra for sundry other territories). So, Sony's factories will need to be producing a million consoles a month. That's 50,000 a day. That's a lot of machines.

Sony must be extremely confident, though. It has stalled on making official comment for several weeks, clearly unwilling to jump in early with reassurances that would later prove unrealistic. And of course, we know that Microsoft's attempt at a global Xbox 360 launch with too few units was frustrating to both retailers and gamers. Most shops were unable to stock the machine with anything approaching regularity until several weeks afterwards. Lessons must have been learned from this.

One thing's for sure, Sony aren't giving anything more away. Sony Computer Entertainment Europe issued a short press release this morning, quoting President and CEO, David Reeves:
"We are absolutely delighted that we will be able to bring PS3 to gamers in Europe and Australia before Christmas. This is an exciting first for Europe, and is a huge endorsement and vote of confidence in the strength of the European market and its importance globally"
I approached SCEE to see if I could have a word with president of Worldwide Studios, Phil Harrison, but was told that he won't be making any further comment on the announcements. The next time he'll be speaking about PS3 will be in his keynote at GDC next week. Sadly, I won't be there with my spurious manufacturing figures and calculator...

UPDATE: AS you may have noticed over on Technology Blog (http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/technology/archives/2006/03/15/sony_finally_admits_its_ps3_will_miss_spring_relea se_date.html), Reuters has posted a story (http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=internetNews&storyID=2006-03-15T095659Z_01_N3E302193_RTRIDST_0_OUKIN-UK-SONY-PS3.XML) in which Kutaragi states that Sony plans to initially produce 1 million PS3 units a month for a total of 6 million units in the business year ending March 2007. "This may not seem like much, but it's more than the initial capacity for PlayStation 2," he said.

It's got a few interesting points, to be sure...

[Chad Bonin]

The 'simultaneous launch' is fast becoming the new norm for console releases. Will Nintendo follow suit? (I...kinda doubt it, actually. Nintendo plays it safe with everything except controllers) This could give Nintendo valuable breathing room if they can get the Revolution out before November. And to say nothing about Microsoft. They must be over the moon!
I dunno, I believe Nintendo's actually planning for a rough simultaneous launch, like, within a week of each other. Likewise, I wouldn't be surprised if the Revolution actually came out in America first, just to get more Christmas sales (I believe the DS came out first in America too).

[silverwings]

Gamespot (http://www.gamespot.com/news/6145972.html)has some more info..

Kutaragi also made it clear that the hard drive will be necessary to play games--Sony is telling developers to make games assuming every PS3 has a hard drive installed. "We view the Hard Drive to be mandatory for the PS3," he said. "Rather than have developers create games for the PS3 with or without the HDD, we will be asking them to develop games as though all PS3s have the HDD installed."

However, Kutaragi revealed that Sony had not decided whether or not the PlayStation 3 would come with the hard-drive pre-installed. "We might end up installing it in all PS3s, though that depends on the market," he said. This raises the possibility that the PS3 could be sold without a piece of hardware needed to play PS3 games--in effect forcing consumers to buy a peripheral for basic functionality.

Doesn't this bother anyone else? Buying a separate add-on just to be able to play games? I hope they change their minds and include it, even though it would probably jack up the price..

[Noukon]

All games on Blu-Ray discs. Apparently this is to prevent piracy but in my view it is stupid. Less then 20% of Playstation 3 games will need more space then a dual layer DVD can offer. This will probably do nothing but raise the price for no reason.

Yep. It will also turn off developers and publishers.

This is going to be Sony's N64.

[Jimmy 345]

There worldwide launch is definutly possible but why I do believe they will be in lower supply then Sony is saying. I believe supplys will be about the same as what the 360 had.

[Rafeal v1.0]

Here is an article that talks about a worldwide release in november

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/696/696062p1.html

[Jimmy 345]

It was just confirmed that all Playstation 3s will ship with hard drive in the box. I don't know how this will effect the price yet. It would be quite amazing to actually get a hardrive Playstation 3 for only $500.

http://www.ps3portal.com/ps3/article/330.html

[William C. Maune]

It was just confirmed that all Playstation 3s will ship with hard drive in the box. I don't know how this will effect the price yet. It would be quite amazing to actually get a hardrive Playstation 3 for only $500.

Do you have a link? I would be interested to see what else was said.

[Tak Mazé]

Hard Drives are worth less and less now. Unless it's some radical new technology that combines the capacity of a "spinny" disk with the durability and speed of flash memory, I really don't think it'll affect the price too much.