september-december 2006 just in time for x-mas

100% not this year, the hardware won't be finalised for ages, I expect a mid 2007 release.

I have to agree.
This time last year, we had a very definite idea of the Xbox 360 specs, and some pretty good indications (pictures) of the finished product. I do not think people can really say they know what the PS3 is going to be about.

A damning task will be to program for the proprietary "Cell" processors. It will be a different computing architecture from what computer scientists are used to, and how do you create an in-house SDK for distribution across 7 in-line processors? I also think it will take much much longer for the gaming industries to get the full capacity of "Cell", putting the release of games even farther out. At least MS and other developers could get the job done with some G5 Mac experience, well ahead of time.

The delays in Blu-Ray, rumors of Japan-only online WA!PS3 serivices, hurdles in software programming, manufacturing capacity, and the questions about IF the PS3 will really ship with a HDD are just some of the difficulties I have in believing a "December 2006" launch-date.

If we are "lucky", PS3 will have a holiday 2006 release in Japan. If things continue along the course of delays, feature-cuts, and balooning production costs, I say the US will not get a PS3 this year, whatsoever.

Just imagine what type of bugs a PS3 will have, as unnecessarily complicated and "new-age" the technology is fueling that system. I doubt even Sony knows how to debug effectively with their "Cell" processor.

Quarter 1 2007, at earliest.

My 2¢, which is mostly from info that drifts my way and guessing, says late 2006 for Japan at the earliest. Why?

For starters, Sony typically is a bit noisier in their promotion of the finished product when it's only months away. Sure, Sony is likely being quieter than usual right now, but there have been reports of Sony's third parties facing financial risks and losses because even they don't know when the PS3 will ship, or in what numbers. It's kind of hard to base sales figures of your 8 figure game when you don't know that much.

Retailers also need several months between when they find out exactly what they can order for their stock, and how many to order, and the time it actually hits their retail outlets. Factor in the typical delay between when Sony releases in Japan and when they release in the US, and a US Fall 2006 launch seems remote, at best. That is, unless they repeat MS's tactic of a global launch at year-end to get the '06 holiday sales, and face the lack of stock that goes with it.

But wait, there's more! Didn't we recently see the first demoes of the first high definition DVD players a little over a month back? The cheapest self-contained Blu-Ray player was $1,000, by a Sony third party. If Sony were to release a direct competitor to that player, which could also play the latest console video games, at half the price, don't you think that Sony third party would be more than a little pissed off?

Sony is currently the main player in this industry, commanding a rather large lead in sales and support over MS. In the coming months, we'll likely see the normal Sony tactics of overblown specs, with images of games in development, and a first glance at actual hardware instead of "artists conceptions", of such hardware as the console casing. Sony is likely banking on that lead to carry them through.

The actual launch hardware, and this is again 100% guesswork, might not have as many things bundled in with the console itself as what's currently believed. The cell processor, and the graphics card, and the Blu-Ray drive won't be cheap, and even subsidizing those costs with losses of hundreds of dollars per console may not cover it. In fact, I can picture the PS3 launch as being similar to the 360 Core system launch. The HDD will be a seperate component, and wireless controllers will be available as an extra, with wired controllers being the standard. Blu-Ray games will be playable, but the BIOS may be set up to not allow Blu-Ray movie playback without the purchase of an additional dongle, much like DVD playback with the first XBox.

And if you want those extras? Well, you'd have to purchase them from Sony and from Sony's licensed partners. And the approach may be a quasi-repeat of the movie playback which was build into the PSP, which Sony also sold initially at a loss of hundreds of dollars. In the same way that you had to pay $30 to watch a stripped down version of a $20 DVD movie on your PSP, I'm guessing that they'll sell the "missing" PS3 peripherals at a much higher cost than they cost to manufacture.

And if Halo 3 isn't ready by then, or even if it is, expect MS to counter with a price drop for the 360. It wouldn't surprise me if, as far as sales ratios go, we see a repeat of the Genesis/SNES days with the two leads trading the <2% sales lead a few times per year. And if Nintendo's gamble on their new styled controller and their retro library doesn't pan out, they'll be the next TurboGrafx.

I think some where in early 07. They still havn't got anything close to a final price and manufacturing cost are some where around 800-900 bucks. I sure that problem will have to be address before anything else. That means going back over hardware and bean counting and that's going to take some time.

Hmm.

MS is taking approx. $300 loss on each premium console sold.

If the PS3 really costs around $850 to produce, and they sell it at $400, they'll be losing $450 per console. Sony may have deep pockets, but they do not have as deep of pockets as M$. That means they are either going to drop hardware, or sell it for more, OR like we see with the 360, do what The Bat said, and sell all the accessories for an absurd amount. M$ makes like $35 per wireless controller, so if Sony sells wireless controllers, and a blu-ray adapter, and a harddrive, and software for online play, and Highdef cables for both of your outputs etc. etc. etc.

So, if they sell it at a higher cost, lets say...$450, plus if you want Blu-Ray playback you've gotta drop another $40, and you need another controller at least another $50, and you need a harddrive at $100, and what good would the console be without a $60 game, plus some highdef cables to even get HD (will they include them?) $30, we're lookin at like around $700+ just to get the damn thing up to par with 1 game.

Lets not forget sales tax on a $700 item. So, I've got the $400 Xbox 360 (maybe a price drop by then) with a plethora of games, media capabilities, online everything....why in the hell would I want a PS3, I dont care if they do come out with some nice games, I wont be buying it till its been dubbed the PSThree and has fixed any initial problems with blu-ray (because we would essentially be beta testing 1st generation blu-ray), officially dropped harddrive support for the second time, and changed the controllers from looking so gay.

Good job sony.

I have a family member that is on the PS3 development team and he said that we should expect a launch around the end of this year or begining of 07. The best thing about this is that I don't have to wait in the cold to get my hands on one.

Don't get ur hopes up... M$'s dev team had ta wait longer than the public to get one for themselves.

One more reason why Sony is likely experiencing a lot of head-aches these days is the upcoming Blu-Ray / HD-DVD battle. The New York Times has a fairly lengthy article on the battle at http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/26/business..._r=1&oref=login, and the various bumps that MS and Sony (among others, of course) face in the coming months. You'll have to use ** used to abuse XS time and again ** to get the login credentials.

Btw, this doesn't mean by itself that one side will win or that the other will be decimated. But what it does mean is that Sony may be willing to go further than they otherwise would in order to help sustain the format. And if that means losses of over $400 per console sold, and releasing a smaller library of games barely past Beta form (and nothing else) at launch, they will. That would provide an instant large® base for the Blu-Ray format, even if most of those PS3s are only used for playing Blu-Ray movies. But in the process, they'd lose a lot of momentum and hype in the console wars.

Like I said, it's one more reason why there's bound to be plenty of head-aches at Sony's corporate HQ. The PS3 likely will not have the sustained pre-launch buildup of the PS2, at this rate.

imho: sony should sell the ps3 with a bluray drive. and have blueray games and blueray movies locked. then sony would sell an encrypted(so it cant be coppied) code to unlock each option for like $50 each. the code would be locked to each memory card or in an onboard memory bank. then the ps3 would launch with games that only use dual layer dvd's and ps2 architecture(b/c the ps3 is backward compatable). that would give sony(and friends) time to work on bluray and time to teach the cell processor architecture to the game creators.

Considering how few XBox and PS2 games come close to filling up a standard DVD, and the higher costs of pressing blu-ray disks, I wonder how long it'll be before we see any PS3 games using the newer format. Aside from the major release of a Japanese RPG with plenty of pre-rendered FMV, will there be more than a half dozen over the course of the PS3's release? (I've heard that Resident Evil 4 on the Game Cube was only a little over 4GB, for example.) The ingame graphics engine is being used for the cinematic sequences more now than only a few years back, which is handled solely by the GPU and not the drive. All Sony would be doing is encouraging any games developer who doesn't want only a segment of PS3 owners to buy their game, to not use the blu-ray format.

Too many ifs for now. How well the new forms of DVD are accepted, in what ratio over the next six months, as well as MS's promotion and pricing for their 360 HD-DVD drive, may do more to affect when the PS3 is released than anything else discussed so far. Since I'm not being paid to worry about it, I won't.

thats a good point. as far as sony is concerned, if they launch with blu-ray, and the movie market goes HD_DVD, then they are in a very bad posistion both socially and finically.

there are just so many ifs and buts, i wouldnt be supraised if sony have 5 or 6 different possible configurations of hardware that they can use

I agree with most of the things said, especially by The Bat. I don't like to speculate much on specfic hardware costs or pretend to know exactly what kinds of dealings with developers that Sony might have, but there are certain things that are very obvious. Firstly, last year at E3, Sony had a demo "PS3" with hardware capabilities they were all to happy to gloat about; only we now know most of the best features will be cut for cost. So, to me, them not releasing specs seems more of an issue of them not having finalized anything; especially because the 360 is already out, so there is no reason to not release hardware details unless you know you have a hardly superior/inferior product. With that said, I question the amount of development in progress for any PS3 software, with exception for in-house Sony software engineers; and thus it would seem, in my opinion only maybe, a release date anytime in 2006 for anywhere is going to be stretching limits and/or games will simple suck.

Secondly, for those who might doubt Sony's capability, I'd like to point out that they are one of the top electronics companies in the world. So if it's possible, their designers and engineers will find a way to keep as many of the best features we know about, as well as cutting costs. I just wanted to note that point so it is obvious the amount of respect I have for their work. However, as mentioned by someone earlier, MS has designed their products to be friendly with developers; and Sony has a very developer-unfriendly Cell processor. In bringing this up I mean to bring to light the fact that Sony will want to have, at least when entering the US market, a very strong showing of games in their intial release of the console. The lack of a developer-friendly environment is an impediment to this; and the Sony software engineers may be good, but MS is #1 in software in the world because they have the best in the world (not to mention they have had brilliant business strategies) - nobody will make it easier to make games for a console than MS has.

I'd like to end saying that if Sony does not release any details before, this year's E3 will be the real indicator of their progress; and as someone who doubts Sony because of their lack of real substance in what I witnessed at E3 last year, I expect most to be disappointed.

Also, what DID happen with the lawsuit over Sony's controller? The one where they are not allowed to use MS's patent in "rumble" technology... The one where Nintendo was willing to pay, and Sony was not. I'm looking forward to an absolutely awful controller by Sony with another patent infrigement issue. It's a shame, too -- I really did enjoy the Sony-branded Dual Shock, but I really believe they will not go there again.

Q1 2007+.

Actually, I don't think there's any "if" to the inclusion of a blu-ray drive. The PS3 will be Sony's absolute best shot at getting their DVD format into a large number of homes, which will determine whether Sony gets a large chunk of the home video pie, or just loses billions in marketting and development of the HD-DVD alternative. Although any games console manufacturer would usually prefer to be able to delay their launch, so they can have some strong and impressive titles at launch and through its first year, what we see with the PS3 launch may make the initial PS2 lineup seem strong by comparison.

In short, if Blu-Ray does much better in the summer and fall of this year than HD-DVD despite MS's efforts, don't expect to see the PS3 anywhere any time before 2007. And if HD-DVD does at least as well or better, a launch ranging from September 2006 (Japan) through March 2007 (Europe) might be what we get instead.

Nintendo will never be out of it. Nintendo's stratagy is perfect in this upcoming battle. Release something inexpensive, but as you can see with the GC the graffix will not be horrible. Nintendo knows that to sell consols the games have to be fun. Good contolls are another huge selling point. If you think about it, if Nintendo comes out with a consol for $200 they'd slaughter. They wont be number 1 but having a $400 360 and $???? PS3 will be the perfect competition to go against. I know a lot of parrents that buy GCs for their kids because they know it's children friendly. But if Nintendo wants to increase their marketshare they have to let the games grow with their market base and still hold the majority of children's gaming.

Personal I think Playstation fanboys are the worste. Sure the PS2 has more games, but they suck. All of the cross platform games are either better on the xbox or the best on GC. Now Im expecting a couple people to point out the good games on the PS2, and DMC and a few others are very good games, but on the whole the PS2 pumps out a TON of shitty games. Every system has it's positive side and personaly the only positive side I see for the PS2 is it's massive collection of crappy games.

As I've said before there's no way Sony can hand the world a PS3 for christmas. They haven't been bragging enough for me to believe that they can get it done. And thats all they have going for them at this point. Revolution has it's controller and the 360 is out. Everyone paying attention knows the time frame for Sony to start producing actual hardware for the public is getting extreamly tight if they want to get it out for the holidays. Personally, I dont see them getting it done. They got just over 2 months to get their stuff together for E3 and if they don't have something hard to show for themselves they've got nothing. Unless they've got the bananna/boomarange controller in the hands of fanboys at E3, chalk 2006 up to MS.

i dont think well see us ps3 till dec if were lucky. i do remember seeing a rumor abotu 2 sku for the ps3 both no hdd 1 no blu ray for 400 and one w blu ray for 600 it was in teh newest agame informer i think. i personally wont buy a ps3 till it atleast has quality titles for it . atleast the 360 has live and that makes up for the lackluster bunch of launch titles for me cod2 doa4 and pgr3 do rock tho

You're not expecting the bundles and the prices to stay the same when a competitor launches, do you? I doubt MS would drop the 360 pricing to match that of the Revolution, but things like special games bundles ($10 more gets one title from the list, with the store getting $5 more) accompanying drops of $50-$100 would likely kick in around then for the 360.



Can't really blame Sony for that. Shovelware titles are ported to whichever console has the most people to sucker, and the PS2 is the best selling console worldwide.

M$ isn't the one with the patent. A company named Immersion owns the right to the technology. M$ was also caught in that lawsuit and was willing to pay it's dues and front the royalties for the current controllers. Sony on the other hand (last I heard) is not going to pay the royalties and go with something of their own... maybe a work-around to the lawsuit... "This isn't a rumbling controller... this is a hunting tool with massaging capabilities"

I believe M$ bought the company.

now why doesnt that supraise me.

but if they did, that means M$ owns the copyright, which means sony would have to pay MS for each controller they make. what irony

The thing with Sony and the PS3 is that they've decided to opt for consortium components, most notably is the Cell processor and Blu-ray. MS's approach was to build their system from the ground up with custom made components (CPU and GPU most notably) which meant they weren't reliant on other companies (consortium) to develop a new "standard" for any of their component technologies, instead they used technology which is tried and tested (WiFi and DVD etc)

Sony has to work alongside other companies such as Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Pioneer, Koninklijke Philips Electronics, Samsung Electronics, Sharp and Apple just to get the Blu-ray standard into action. Not to mention the Cell consortium (IBM, Sony and Toshiba to name a few) who collectively have to work on the processor and decide on the specification, research and design etc.

Cut short, Sony have to play with other companies to get two of their main components into manufacture and on the shelves in a manner that suits all the other companies involved in it's development.

M$ kept everything proprietary and more-or-less in-house, with IBM creating the 360 CPU with the sole purpose of it being for M$ and specifically dedicated to the tasks the console will be carrying out. Meaning that M$ had a shorter time to market.

Sony, clearly doesn't have that luxury and it's their own fault, they need to compete and quickly.

I thought this had already been mentioned in this thread, but I seem to have imagined it. The print mag may have been mentioning some online store's offer of placing a pre-order for the PS3. This online retailer provided their own list of launch titles, which consisted entirely of obvious franchises (like GT5) and already announced projects. The only exceptions I can recall to those was a mistake (Killzone 2), already released for the PS2. And since the company behind Killzone was purchased by Sony, it also makes the game an obvious franchise.

In other words, it was an official pre-order offer based on seemingly unofficial specs. The store seemed to be asking the public to send them money to hold on to, so they could collect the interest while discourage the pre-orderers from buying a PS3 from anyone else. At least, that's my guess.

November 22 2011. They are going to rename the unit when it is finally ready to ship Playstation 4 and claim that it is four times better than Xbox 720 which will be due to be released around the same time

Mmmm... I don't think they did. The last I heard was they settled for X amount of money and then bought about 10% of it's shares, but I don't think they actually bought the company.

why dont we worry about that in another generations time?

Yeah but i highly doubt they wont release till xmas 2007, they will prob release it sometime between sept and dec 2006, they wouldnt be stupid enough to hold it back that long, and worldwide PS3 will outsell 360, its just something people know thats going to happen... now we get the fanboy arguements

IF it releases in sep to dec 2006, then yes, it will more then likely outsell he 360 al up. but besides japan, it will be close between the two plaforms in all countries

if, on he otherhand, they do not release at that date, and all the pointers asre saying that they wont be able to release before xmas 06, they will have a far harder time selling it to the world outside japan

although you are just kidding, you make a good point. I personally believe that sony will either:

1.) just give up for 3/4 of the next generation (3.5-4 years) and will release their Next-next-gen console ahead of the 3rd gen xbox (and concentrate on marketing the PSP in the meantime)
2.) release a PS3 sometime in mid-late 07 with no blu-ray, crap-specs, with Visuals somewhat better than the original xbox

HD-DVD will win the format war, just because of its ability to be played in current-gen players (SD only)
but, the general public is not ready for HD-DVD yet. as someone said earlier, we have just recently gotten 82% of the public with DVD players. it needs to be at least 90-93% before it can even think about being released.

Also (not quite on topic) the xbox 360 was released just a little bit too early. it should have been released this spring at the earliest to: reduce shortages, increase marketing, have a larger launch portfolio, etc. (and yes, i do have a 360 and think it's awesome) Also, because the original xbox still had some life in it.

the 360 was released early so m$ had as large an install base as possible for when the ps3 launches. thats fairly obvious.

and some people need hd-dvd, most dont. if m$ release the hd-dvd player soon, they will have even more an advanatge over the ps3 when it launches

yea it'll make ir for Xmas!

I just gotta say there's no way the 360 will ever get a $100 price cut.
maybe a $50 cut but not $100.

When I said earlier that Nintendo may become the next TurboGrafX, I wasn't implying that they'd drop out of the game. The PC-Engine (which was the TG-16 in Japan) sold as the #3 choice for consoles for some time in the US, but never gained the #2 spot. Meanwhile, in Japan, they were doing much more respectably in the #2 spot. They were behind the leader of the previous generation in popularity, while being much further ahead of the ones who gave them their #3 status in the rest of the world. NEC's library of games in Japan was much bigger than it was anywhere else, and there were even two followup consoles released (the SuperGrafX and... one other one which slipped my mind, and it isn't the TG-Express).

Nintendo has a lot more money to support their games console, largely through the sales of their portables, and will likely continue to be the ones with the second most popular console in Japan. But MS is much more recognized as a player in the console industry now than back in 2001, especially in the US and Europe. And I can see that difference growing, rather than shrinking, in the US between Nintendo and MS.

Perhaps if Nintendo re-releases their older classics with 'Super Mario All Stars' dressing, as in with updated graphics and sounds but the same game play, and at a cheaper price than what the others charge for a new game, they'd be able to grab a lot of marketshare. But if it's for the exact same games that are currently playable on PCs through emulation, but with a $10-$20 price tag and through the Revolution, the offer of retroness likely won't sell very many consoles. And how many new, exciting, and revolutionary games can be made around the Revolutions gimmick controller? I might eventually be proven wrong in this, but for now I'll remain skeptical.

And as others have pointed out...

- if blu-ray becomes the next BetaMax format, and/or

- the PS3 is that much more difficult to program for compared to the 360, leading to differences on the level of third party first generation Saturn and Playstation games respectably, and/or

- there's too much of a price difference, and/or not enough of a performance difference...

on top of a continued delay, it will hurt Sony. But I guess believing this makes me a fanboy, since well reasoned and intelligent arguments means that Sony will dominate regardless.

How do you cancel posts? I made a minor edit, and it came up as a new post. Yeah, that's why I'm posting this message -- because it became the duplicate instead of editting the originally posted message.

You mean I don't have ta buy a new $600-1000 dollar player?!!?

Ok look... yeah, maybe the 360 was rushed... but can everyone PLEASE quit the bitching about the shortages! It's not a unique situation and it would have happened no matter what. Even Tickle-Me-fuckin'-Elmo sold out that one year. Everything that comes out around xmas time that has a large demand will sell out. "But they should have waited til spring" No, they shouldn't have. As a business, that woulkd have been absolutely retarded. Everyone knows that the holidays is the best time to release something to get max sales. And even if they had started production, let's say, a month or two ahead, and produced an extra 100,000[in the US] (horrible figures, i know) it STILL would have sold out.

ther is talk that for hd-dvd movies, there will be a normal dvd layer with a 'normal' low res version of the movie. so you basiaclly get a high def and a low def version of the movie

don't know when they will be relaesed but hope they take their time and don't jump the gun and release a bunch of faulty console's like the 360's did lol

I hope it will be faster than 2007 For europe that is.
I don't know if they fined a solution for the Bleu ray problems...
If thay had it working there would be at least a player ready.
They would really loose face if they would go on to the HD dvd.
With is clearly beter and it works.

what are all these rumers ive hard about the ps3?

I dunno.... you tell us.

Personally I think it would be in Sony's best interest to release the console before Dec. 06, but with all the development and cooperation that needs to be done that is cutting it close. I could care less if the first console release has bluray or hd-dvd capabilities. Some of the market is still using VHS for gawd sake. The transition from media to media takes quite longer than numbers show. I'm not sure when dvds arrived on scene, but say like 8-10 years ago. how long have VHS tapes been around? and people are still using them!! I think that once all the television networks and shows are made in HD things won't make a huge difference. I think the mandatory date for everyone to switch to HD is sometime in 2008, correct me here? Not only would people have to buy the new hd-dvd format discs, but they also need to capability to play them on an hd tv, which isn't too big a deal considering they are much cheaper than days of yesteryear.


sorry i tend to speak in fragments, and am not very good at typing what i'm thinking. lol

well i know that ina ustralia teh date to go to digital tv is 2008 (i think they are pushing it back to 2010 though).

OMG. I just read through all 7 pages of this discussion, and haven't seen this very important point once. Ol' Billy G. himself said that Sony would be "walking into" Halo 3 when PS3 finally released. Okay. So, we know that MS plans on launching Halo 3 when the Ps3 is released, and that MS has all the fuxing money in the world.

This would lead us to believe that they can probably get a LOT more reliable information than any of us. SO, when I see EBgames, Gamestop, and their co-horts advertising a Halo 3 release date of October 2006, I think "Gee, the PS3 will most likely be released in October of 2006." It would just seem logical to me. Like everybody else has said here a million times, Sony would be fuxing retarded to keep delaying their release while MS slowly seeps into the cracks of the Console marketplace.

As far as the PS2 having better games than Xbox, WTF have you been smoking? The graphics for any of the GTA's on xbox were blisteringly better than the PS2's. Same thing for most of the racing games I've seen. I have to disagree with the statement of "It's not the specs that make the console, but the games." When two different consoles have the same games, the specs make all the difference in the world. The Xbox has more graphic processing power, hands down.

And on my final note, I have no doubts that the 360 will severly damage sony's position in the marketplace. Between MS's unlimited money, the 360's early foothold in the race, and a massive modding fanbase, MS has virtually guaranteed themselves a front-row seat in the console wars. Factor in the blatant display of determination to surpass Sony and the fact that they already control a vast majority of the World's computers, and you've got quite the formula for success. I see people saying "Well, Japan didn't like the 360, they'll buy Sony..." Blah, blah, blah. Japan is just one country. What about China, Korea, and the rest of the countries "Over There" where the 360 isn't doing poorly?

XBOX FOREVER!!

well i thinky ou have made a lot of very good points there digitalhigh. i havent read anything about a possible release date for halo 3, but what you are saying could be very true.

i like how you say that its the hardware that makes a console. to that i do agree, but not entirley. for teh agmes that are released across two platfors (in thsi case, the ps2 and the xbox), then the superior hardware of the xbox made these games look more apealling. i have also play gta on both ps2 and xbox, and belive the xbox version is far better.
but for the sheer quantity of games released on teh ps2 makes it an attractive choice for some.

but as you put it perfectly,

XBOX FOREVER!!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasnt bill forced to retract that statement after speaking to bungie? I believe they said "we'll release it when we're ready"?

did bungie even give an offical release date (obviusly not specific at this stage)?

Has bungie even officially announced it?

what, that there will be a halo 3? yeah they have. or atlest everone that i have talked to seems to think so

digitalhigh: exactly.

And remember the thime when Xbox was more powerful than PS2? ATM Sony fanboys said that specs don't matter, it's the games. Now they brag with the specs of PS3. PlayStation fanboys suck really much, they're complete idiots. I've been thinking about getting a PS3 after about half a year after it's released, but now that I think of it, I'll propably get a DS. Or something.

EDIT: I forgot to add something.

XBOX FOREVER!!