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Mar 15, 2006 at 11:57 AM |
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The spring launch of
the Sony Play Station3 has finally been delayed, all the way through to
November. Is this surprising?
For many months a niggling range of development hitches have been popping up in news stories, especially in the gaming circles. The latest problem is being associated with the copy protection issues surrounding the new CD format Sony is pushing as a standard feature of the new game console.
There also seem to be a few issues that will plague Sony up to the launch. One important issue is the continued up-front development and component costs the company will incur while stock-piling millions of games before launch date. This will affect the bottom line for sure.
However, it would not be surprising to see the financial analysts jump on this in support of Microsoft with Xbox360 as it now seems that the Playstation console will come to market a full year after the Xbox. Will the millions of Sony fans wait that long playing second generation games while a third gen is already on the market?
There is a window of opportunity for Microsoft but I am not sure they can actually take advantage of it! Here in the UK no high-street retailer has any stocks of the latest Xbox and the numbers available on allocation are still very small. Demand remains strong, but consumers get frustrated and look elsewhere eventually.
IBM and Chartered Semiconductor are the microprocessor partners for the Xbox and although other component shortages have been cited in the past, the core aspect of the game, coupled to the graphics chip (ATI via TSMC) need to be flowing freely. Though no shortage of supply has been cited, capacity additions take time and I doubt any of the three foundry partners can increase supply any faster than they are already trying to do.
Microsoft will have shot themselves in the foot if they do not get the product into the shops by the time Sony launches in November.
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