Friday, January 06, 2006

PS3 launch delayed?

SPOnG reports on Sony´s press conference at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where there was no more talk of a spring release date.
Speaking at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas yesterday, Sony heavyweight Howard Stringer failed to assert the previously published spring release date for PlayStation 3, furthering expectations that the highly-anticipated console won't be on sale in the early part of this year.

Stringer simply said that Sony's new machine will debut 'later this year', leading many to believe that SCE has abandoned its original launch plans. Indeed, there is the belief emerging that Sony never intended to launch in spring, merely offering the period to consumers in an attempt to distract them from Microsoft's frenzied Xbox 360 launch.

Stringer was joined on stage by Sony Computer Entertainment America CEO Kaz Hirai who also avoided making any mention of a ship date for the PlayStation 3. Hirai's appearance consisted of outlining the support program in place for developers of PlayStation 3 software, announcing that around 4,000 development kits for the Cell-powered monster have been shipped.
This is what I have been saying all along. In fact, I am sure that if Sony was still on track for a spring release they would have said so.

Source: SPOnG

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

A PS3 delay is somewhat expected at this point...this is just further proof. I think Nintendo has a decent chance of beating Sony to market and I believe its important for Nintendo to do so.

Anonymous said...

Hi Falafelkid. Do you have an email address? I have not been able to find one on your blog and I would like to ask you a few questions if you don't mind.

Falafelkid said...

Hi Runnin_Blue. I updated my profile info (got a new AIM nick). If you prefer, you can email me at Jungredakteur@aol.com.

Anonymous said...

4,000 dev kits?

Does that mean there are 4,000 or so developers...:shocking:

surely that figure has been over-estimated?

Falafelkid said...

You are right, 4.000 sounds like a lot. However, it say that ´4.000 have been shipped´, rather than delivered to studios. Also, take into account that for a big project like ´Lair´ a developer like ´Factor5´ would need multiple dev kits.

Falafelkid said...

I just did some quick research on the number of dev kits shipped. According to Gamespot, only 450 PS3 dev kits had been shipped by July 2005 and they did not satisfy demand. Joystiq quoted J. Allard in March, saying that they had already shipped 3.000 Xbox360 dev kits. It doesn´t seem too unrealistic figure, then, after all.

Anonymous said...

Eh, this delay is only speculation at this point. Either way this would only affect the Japanese release and not the US /Europe launch dates.

Why is it when Sony may have a delay everyone begins to ridicule them but if Nintendo delays a product (Nintendo Ultra 64 due out in 95, GameCube due in 2000, Zelda: Twilight Princess due in 2005, Mario 128???) the same people will say that it is because Nintendo cares about the quality of the hardware/software.

This post is not aimed at this blog but at the gaming media in general.

On a personal note I do hope Nintendo comes out on top this time around. The 3D controller seems very interesting and unique.

Michael said...

"Why is it when Sony may have a delay everyone begins to ridicule them but if Nintendo delays a product ...the same people will say that it is because Nintendo cares about the quality of the hardware/software."

The reason for this is because when MS or Sony delay stuff, its because its catching fire, and when Nintendo delays stuff its because they are trying to make it better. Also, Nintendo is very upfront with delay info, whereas sony and MS will lie about delays until the last possible second, basically not telling you about a delay until the day it was supposed to come out.