Thursday, September 07, 2006

The PS3: What is Sony Thinking?

A statement was issued this morning stating that the much anticipated PS3 will be delayed, AGAIN. The new release date for the PS3 in Europe will now be somewhere around March of 2007 for Europe, Russia, and the Middle East. It has also been confirmed that the production of the console has been scaled back by a considerable amount. There will be only 100,000 consoles released in Japan when it goes on sale for them on November 11th. On top of that, North America will only be receiving roughly 400,000 units for launch on November 17th. Sony had originally announced that the first launch would be around 2 million, and now they are falling quite short of that.

What is going on here? Does Sony not realize they could be taking themselves out of the console race with these delays? They are already starting to see slipping profits, and so are some of their game creators. By the time they start releasing their precious console, most of the world is going to own a 360. The prices are already dropping for the 360, and parents will not be willing to shell out money for both consoles. Most gamers are eager to spend their money, and if you make them wait too long, they will purchase the best product that they can get their hands on. With all of these delays and unit cutbacks, Sony seems to want to keep pushing people towards the 360.