Is PS3 Spring 2006 at all possible?

shreddedloops

Have sony announced that it will be later? or is evryone just expecting the delay? last time i saw sony was still pushing Spring 2006 but i havnt been up to date so correct me if im wrong.

Slippin Jimmy

I would say the earliest in Ireland that it will be released would be this Christmas. It will be more than likely earlier in the US and Japan. So to answer your question, no.

projectmayhem

september for US/Japan and November for europe are the latest projected dates

kc66

Now they dont expect it to be released in the US till 2007 according to an article I came across on Google news. Its gone now so dont have a link.

came across this: http://www.ps3news.ca/02162006/10/ps3_to_hit_europe_march_2007

4Xcut

Its getting harder and harder to resist that XBOX 360.:D If sony would just release some informaion to keep us from surrendering to a new Far Cry.mmmmmm.........Far Cry.

GrumPy

Far cry yeah, some really sweet 360 titles are finally hitting our shelves this march, ghosts3, elder scrolls: oblivion, fight night round3, battlefield, football manger 2006.

LookingFor

kc66 wrote:

Now they dont expect it to be released in the US till 2007

Yeah, that's not gonna happen. It'll hit the US by Nov at the very very latest, and word is September. That could line things up nicely for a November launch here, ala PS2.

Sony's silence is bringing out a lot of crackpot theories though. People need to just hang tight for another month or so. The head of Sony's worldwide studios will be making a keynote about PS3 at the Game Developers Conference next month..we should get a better idea then of what's coming down the pipe for the system, and obviously by E3 in May we should have a LOT more to go on.

edit - oh, I see the report you're talking about, the Merrill Lynch report? It's laughable. Their cost estimates for PS3 production are just way off the base, and even wholly contradict their own earlier reports. They didn't even add up their own figures correctly. They also got it wrong about PS2's launch - and that was supposedly with data from Sony. Basically these analysts pull stuff out of thin air, I would not pay any attention to it.

monument

LookingFor wrote:

Yeah, that's not gonna happen. It'll hit the US by Nov at the very very latest, and word is September. That could line things up nicely for a November launch here, ala PS2.

Sony's silence is bringing out a lot of crackpot theories though. People need to just hang tight for another month or so. The head of Sony's worldwide studios will be making a keynote about PS3 at the Game Developers Conference next month..we should get a better idea then of what's coming down the pipe for the system, and obviously by E3 in May we should have a LOT more to go on.

edit - oh, I see the report you're talking about, the Merrill Lynch report? It's laughable. Their cost estimates for PS3 production are just way off the base, and even wholly contradict their own earlier reports. They didn't even add up their own figures correctly. They also got it wrong about PS2's launch - and that was supposedly with data from Sony. Basically these analysts pull stuff out of thin air, I would not pay any attention to it.

...

Sony's plans for the launch of PlayStation 3 are likely to be one of the biggest factors defining publisher and developer planning for 2006 - but in the absence of hard facts, it's essential to be wary of uninformed speculation, says Rob Fahey.

http://gamesindustry.biz/feature.php?aid=14211

UberNewb

LookingFor wrote:

Yeah, that's not gonna happen. It'll hit the US by Nov at the very very latest, and word is September. That could line things up nicely for a November launch here, ala PS2.

Sony's silence is bringing out a lot of crackpot theories though. People need to just hang tight for another month or so. The head of Sony's worldwide studios will be making a keynote about PS3 at the Game Developers Conference next month..we should get a better idea then of what's coming down the pipe for the system, and obviously by E3 in May we should have a LOT more to go on.

edit - oh, I see the report you're talking about, the Merrill Lynch report? It's laughable. Their cost estimates for PS3 production are just way off the base, and even wholly contradict their own earlier reports. They didn't even add up their own figures correctly. They also got it wrong about PS2's launch - and that was supposedly with data from Sony. Basically these analysts pull stuff out of thin air, I would not pay any attention to it.

So you haven't a clue either then... :rolleyes:

LookingFor

UberNewb wrote:

So you haven't a clue either then... :rolleyes:

My clue's as good as Merrill Lynch's

Seriously, in the history of analyst expectations vs what actually has happened, the analysts almost always "lose", particularly for some reason when it comes to Sony game product. I still remember talk of $700 PS2s, $500 PSPs :eek: :rolleyes: I'm sure there's some well defined metric and approach to how they come up with these things, but they may as well be pulling things out of their asses for how accurate they are.

UberNewb

Well we'll just have to wait and see. I would rather it sooner than later but I'm not holding my breath...

steviec

That article quotes a blu ray drive as being $350?

Isn't it just a DVD drive with a different colour laser. It even spins slower! I'm no expert on lasers but I'd be shocked if thats what the drive is costing them. I reckon Merrill Lynch may have looked into the price of standalone drives and forgot to take into account that those drives include a whole lot of circuitry which in the case of PS3 is just offloaded to the Cell.

I mean if thats how much it costs, just for the drive, to the creator of the medium who will be mass producing it in huge quantities, then the format has no chance in hell of taking off outside of PS3 where manufacturers need to include a drive, hardware to decode high def signals, and try to make a profit on top.

Dont be at yourself

The cheapest standalone blu-ray player will retail for about $1,000 - and I presume that`s as competitive as they can get it at this stage, as they`re going to want them out as cheap as possible to steal a lead on HD-DVD. As you say, the Cell and RSX can replace a lot of the gubbins contributing to that $1,000, but even so, $350 sounds somewhat realistic.

But then again, everyone should remember what analysts, not to mention publishers, were saying before the PSP launch. Figures upwards of $500 were quoted as pretty much a certainty.

LookingFor

NekkidBibleMan wrote:

The cheapest standalone blu-ray player will retail for about $1,000 - and I presume that`s as competitive as they can get it at this stage

Not at all. Most new technology milks the market starting out, the high-end early adopters (though videogame machines are an exception to this..). These $1000+ machines are aimed at the high-end videophile market, and you can be sure there's a healthy margin built in to those.

Anyway, Sony has responded to the Merill Lynch report:

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=technologyNews&storyID=2006-02-20T053050Z_01_T157501_RTRIDST_0_TECH-SONY-PLAYSTATION-DC.XML

Sony Corp. said on Monday it still aims to launch its next-generation PlayStation 3 video game console this spring, but it could be delayed if industry specifications for some of its technology are not finalised soon.

The launch of Playstation 3 (PS3) has been the subject of heavy speculation in the industry as expectations are high for the powerful machine, which will feature cutting-edge technology in its DVD, processors and graphics.

PS3 will be competing with Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360, which went on sale last November, and Nintendo Co. Ltd.'s Revolution, which is expected later this year.

"We're aiming for spring, but we haven't announced specific regions," a spokeswoman for Sony Computer Entertainment said, adding that it was waiting for the final specifications on some of the technology it is using in the PS3, such as that related to the Blu-ray drive and to input and output video and sound.

The specifications are decided by industry consortiums.

"We're waiting for them until the last possible minute, but the launch could be pushed back if they're not decided soon," the spokeswoman said. If the PS3 is not ready in time, the company will choose the next best timing for the launch, she said.

The company's shares fell as much as 4.4 percent on Monday after Merrill Lynch said in a research note last week that the PS3's launch might be delayed by six to 12 months and the cost of materials could initially approach $900 per unit.

I think it's safe to say it won't be delayed till 07 as Merrill Lynch suggested. The specs they're talking about include the AACS spec, which there's actually an interim workaround available for now (which HD-DVD is using to launch on time), but it could be "properly" finalised as early as next week. The next-generation HDMI spec is due to be finalised in Apr/May IIRC, or possibly earlier.

My guess is it'll launch in Japan by July.

projectmayhem

phil harrison gives a keynote speech next week at GDC... we'll get some info there

LookingFor

That's next month (March 22), and I don't think they'll announce launch dates or the like there, it's not that kind of show.

Vegeta

It'll be out July in Japan and for Thanksgiving in America and we might have it by xmas! That's my guess anyway

projectmayhem

LookingFor wrote:

That's next month (March 22), and I don't think they'll announce launch dates or the like there, it's not that kind of show.

i thought it was feb 27 - march 3

zAbbo

the blu-ray spec isn't even settled on, you can safely say no ps3 for 2006

monument

projectmayhem wrote:

i thought it was feb 27 - march 3

No... Harrison is on March 22 - Wednesday

http://www.gdconf.com/

LookingFor

zabbo wrote:

the blu-ray spec isn't even settled on, you can safely say no ps3 for 2006

The AACS spec - Blu-ray and HD-DVD's content protection scheme - is not finalised. They were close to finalisation two weeks ago - the next meeting is this week, and it could well be finalised then. The only impact this has is a software one - they can't get encryption keys and stuff onto the players until the spec is finalised. Once it is finalised, apparently 2 or 3 weeks later players can be on the shelves.

Even that asides, there's an interim workaround available - that's what's letting HD-DVD launched as planned in March, instead of in April.

So no, this won't push PS3 out of 2006, not by a long stretch.

Winters

Sony are still confirming Spring '06 launch anyway.

Kristok

msnbc had a thing on ealier with so called experts saying the release date is looking like it could be a year off now cause there having problems with the protection on blue ray and other problems with the graphics chips. Dont know how true any of it is.

LookingFor

The copy protection stuff is not a big problem, it may in fact be finalised this week, and there's an interim solution available for systems to use if they want to launch in the meantime.

I've heard of no problems with the GPU, that's purely speculative. I've seen some comments in a few articles that developers don't have final hardware yet - though some have "near-final" hardware - but that's hardly significant. Devs didn't have final hardware for Xbox 360 until a couple of months before launch, at the earliest.

Oh, and just to show you how meaningless analyst estimates as to manufacturing cost are, another analyst has come out and said they've calculated the cost to be $533 (as opposed to Merrill Lynch's $900) :rolleyes:

I think the system will be delayed..but only by a couple of months. It'll be out in Japan before autumn, and in the US by winter at least, I think. One can only hope and pray regarding Europe..we'll see how that goes.

tosh_thedude

Interesting article on the delayed release of the Playstation 3, I've always be patient for the release but maybe this is getting at little out of control. Looks more like Xmas in Ireland before the release.

Here's the Artical:

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117939258?categoryid=18&cs=1&s=h&p=0

4Xcut

Just keep saying to yourself: Location free with psp, Location free with psp.
Seriously if it doesn't have this after i'm waiting for it i'll be royally p|ssed

Ciaran500

4Xcut wrote:

Just keep saying to yourself: Location free with psp, Location free with psp.
Seriously if it doesn't have this after i'm waiting for it i'll be royally p|ssed

Why? Its been nothing but rumours, don't get your hopes up.

Franky Boy

Last year when they were announcing the psp date for Irealand,they said it would be 29th April and then when it came to the end of March it was put forward to 1st Septmber.
They will probably give 6 months notice i would presume!

Captain Trips

This sucks, but at least now I know I should not put off getting a 360 as it's realistically going to be a year before the PS3 and games are actually going to be in any shops (or at least, not having to import one).

I'd be hoping for an official launch in EU for christmas 06.

projectmayhem

the last thing sony wants is to veer off into 2007. i've said it before, and i'll say it again, sony need to have a worldwide launch in 2006 for financial reasons

EasyBoy1974

projectmayhem wrote:

sony need to have a worldwide launch in 2006 for financial reasons

What financial reasons PM? A company's financial (fiscal) year typically does not run from January to December. In my company we just finished financial year '06 at the end of January '05. :rolleyes:

I could understand if they wanted the majority of launch sales revenue to show up in a fiscal year, but when does the fiscal year run from and to?

Just have this horrible sinking feeling that it's gonna be AGES b4 i gots my shiny PS3 :mad: