white_chocolate_55
WhiteBoy
Sony delays PS3
Correspondents in Los Angeles and Tokyo
SEPTEMBER 07, 2006
SONY will delay the launch of its PlayStation 3 Australia and Europe giving rivals Microsoft and Nintendo a free run at the Christmas shopping season.
Sony has put the launch back from November to March, blaming inadequate supply of a key component.
This is the second time Sony, which competes with Microsoft and Nintendo in the nearly $US30 billion video game market, has delayed the sale of its latest blockbuster PlayStation console.
It is the second time Sony has delayed the introduction of the PS3
The announcement, made after the Tokyo stock market closed, follows recalls of almost 6 million notebook PC batteries Sony provided to Dell and Apple, raising concerns over its core manufacturing strength.
"I feel sorry. I think there are so many people out there who hold such high expectations for PS3," Ken Kutaragi, the head of Sony's game unit, told reporters.
Sony said in a statement out of London the delay will affect regions that, like Europe, which use the PAL video format, so PS3 launches in Russia, the Middle East, Africa and Australasia will also be pushed back to March.
The United States and Japan, the largest markets for video game consoles, both use the competing National Television System Committee (NTSC) format. Sony, the world's second-largest consumer electronics maker in the early stages of an earnings recovery, hopes the PS3, as well as its hot-selling Bravia brand liquid crystal display TVs, will put it firmly on the growth path.
But the delay means the PS3 falls far behind rival machines Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii in reaching some markets.
Microsoft launched its Xbox 360 late last year and Nintendo plans to offer the Wii in the final quarter of 2006.
Mr Kutaragi, known as the "father of the PlayStation," said commercial production of blue laser, a key component for PS3's Blu-ray optical disc drive, has fallen behind the original schedule, forcing the delay.
Sony has kept unchanged its Japan launch on November 11 and its North American launch on November 17. It has also stuck to its target to ship 6 million units of PS3 worldwide by the end of the current business year to March despite the delay in Europe, while cutting by half its shipment target for calendar 2006 to 2 million.
Sony said in April it expected its game division to make an operating loss of 100 billion yen ($US860 million) this business year due to heavy start-up costs for the PS3. Sony is expected to make a loss on each console it sells at the initial stage, making the assessment of a financial impact from the delay difficult.
But the success or failure of the PS3 will certainly have a huge impact on Sony's mid-term earnings. At stake is more than just pole position in the video game industry, but also dominance in next-generation DVDs and the commercial viability of the "Cell" microchip co-developed by Toshiba and IBM.
The PS3 comes with a Blu-ray high-definition optical disc player and is powered by the Cell, dubbed a "supercomputer on a chip".
Mr Kutaragi said production of Cell chips has been progressing smoothly, and the company now has more than 3 million of them in stock, dispelling speculation that Sony may be experiencing difficulty in volume production of the advanced microchips. "Cell production is going extremely well.
In fact, it is going much better than we had anticipated," Mr Kutaragi said. Sony hopes the PS3 will help Blu-ray technology conquer a rival format backed by a Toshiba-led group of companies, HD DVD, to become the next-generation DVD standard.
The game console is the widely awaited successor to the PlayStation 2, of which more than 100 million have been sold since its launch in 2000.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
Correspondents in Los Angeles and Tokyo
SEPTEMBER 07, 2006
SONY will delay the launch of its PlayStation 3 Australia and Europe giving rivals Microsoft and Nintendo a free run at the Christmas shopping season.
Sony has put the launch back from November to March, blaming inadequate supply of a key component.
This is the second time Sony, which competes with Microsoft and Nintendo in the nearly $US30 billion video game market, has delayed the sale of its latest blockbuster PlayStation console.
It is the second time Sony has delayed the introduction of the PS3
The announcement, made after the Tokyo stock market closed, follows recalls of almost 6 million notebook PC batteries Sony provided to Dell and Apple, raising concerns over its core manufacturing strength.
"I feel sorry. I think there are so many people out there who hold such high expectations for PS3," Ken Kutaragi, the head of Sony's game unit, told reporters.
Sony said in a statement out of London the delay will affect regions that, like Europe, which use the PAL video format, so PS3 launches in Russia, the Middle East, Africa and Australasia will also be pushed back to March.
The United States and Japan, the largest markets for video game consoles, both use the competing National Television System Committee (NTSC) format. Sony, the world's second-largest consumer electronics maker in the early stages of an earnings recovery, hopes the PS3, as well as its hot-selling Bravia brand liquid crystal display TVs, will put it firmly on the growth path.
But the delay means the PS3 falls far behind rival machines Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii in reaching some markets.
Microsoft launched its Xbox 360 late last year and Nintendo plans to offer the Wii in the final quarter of 2006.
Mr Kutaragi, known as the "father of the PlayStation," said commercial production of blue laser, a key component for PS3's Blu-ray optical disc drive, has fallen behind the original schedule, forcing the delay.
Sony has kept unchanged its Japan launch on November 11 and its North American launch on November 17. It has also stuck to its target to ship 6 million units of PS3 worldwide by the end of the current business year to March despite the delay in Europe, while cutting by half its shipment target for calendar 2006 to 2 million.
Sony said in April it expected its game division to make an operating loss of 100 billion yen ($US860 million) this business year due to heavy start-up costs for the PS3. Sony is expected to make a loss on each console it sells at the initial stage, making the assessment of a financial impact from the delay difficult.
But the success or failure of the PS3 will certainly have a huge impact on Sony's mid-term earnings. At stake is more than just pole position in the video game industry, but also dominance in next-generation DVDs and the commercial viability of the "Cell" microchip co-developed by Toshiba and IBM.
The PS3 comes with a Blu-ray high-definition optical disc player and is powered by the Cell, dubbed a "supercomputer on a chip".
Mr Kutaragi said production of Cell chips has been progressing smoothly, and the company now has more than 3 million of them in stock, dispelling speculation that Sony may be experiencing difficulty in volume production of the advanced microchips. "Cell production is going extremely well.
In fact, it is going much better than we had anticipated," Mr Kutaragi said. Sony hopes the PS3 will help Blu-ray technology conquer a rival format backed by a Toshiba-led group of companies, HD DVD, to become the next-generation DVD standard.
The game console is the widely awaited successor to the PlayStation 2, of which more than 100 million have been sold since its launch in 2000.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
GTA i think will be on the xbox 360, Bill is buying out all Sony's treasures =P~ 
