PS3 in 2005?

[InstaPete]

IGN (http://ps3.ign.com/articles/612/612985p1.html) has put up a snippet from an interview with Sony's CFO Takao Yuhara, saying"For the year end sales season, simultaneously building up both the PlayStation Portable system in America and Europe as well as the next generation PlayStation is one option that we have."

If this is true, this could be pretty bad news for Microsoft. I guess we'll know next week.

[bapenguin]

There's been rumors this was going to happen in Japan fora while now with a summer US launch.

[dr_qwandry]

I figured that the PS2 would want to come out ASAP. It helped them when the PS2 launched. And killed Sega.

[sTubbs]

Intresting. I am pretty sure that he is talking about the fiscal year, which lasts until the end of April. I do not see how the PS3 could be out this year, as the CELL processors are not entering mass production until early 2006. It would not be surprising to see a Spring release in Japan, followed by a Fall or Winter release elsewhere, as this is what Sony did with the PS2. If this is the case, it could severely damage the plans that Microsoft had to gain major ground in Japan. If the PS3 is being released there within half a year of the 360, many people will be much more likely to wait. I guess all will be answered at the E3 press conferences.

[MosBen]

I don't know how much of an impact it's really going to have. I thought this was what everyone expected anyway. I thought the most important thing for MS was going to be to beat Sony to the market by some significant margin in the US so that they could get a significant user base before the PS3 came out and a year is a pretty significant amount of time. By then you'll start to see a couple second gen games (Halo 3 maybe?) coming out and since the Sony hardware has to be fixed in time for the Japan launch in late-ish Spring/early Summer, there's probably not going to be THAT much difference in power, if any.

I don't know, I'm just not sure how important Japan is. Sure, MS needs to make up ground from this generation, but they'd have to try to do any worse than they did this time. If, and it's a big if, MS were able to beat Sony in the US/Europe, or even draw even, in user base I think that'd be a lot more important than getting a big user base in Japan. If they've got 30 million+ users the Japanese devs HAVE to take notice, even if they don't have as many users in Japan.

[Kelegacy]

even if they released the system with just 1 shitty game, MS would be in serious trouble. It'd be only in Japan, but it wouldnt hurt to make the green goblins stumble in the island nation, just as they are trying to get a foothold.

If the PS3 was released in America at the same time or soon after the Xbox2 (which it wont, i'm just using a hypothetical statement) then MS would be in a horrid crisis. The PSP has done well here and is catching up to the DS already, but in that case Sony is playing against the Big N. The Xbox is nothing compared to the PS2 (install base)...and most would buy the latter's successor soley for name recognition and previous incarnations' awesomeness.

[Kelegacy]

I don't know, I'm just not sure how important Japan is. Sure, MS needs to make up ground from this generation, but they'd have to try to do any worse than they did this time. If, and it's a big if, MS were able to beat Sony in the US/Europe, or even draw even, in user base I think that'd be a lot more important than getting a big user base in Japan. If they've got 30 million+ users the Japanese devs HAVE to take notice, even if they don't have as many users in Japan.

Japan is HUGE. Very important. People could care less about Europe (why does Europe get shafted so?...maybe if systems didnt use PAL/NTSC standards importing would be more popular and more practical) but Japan and North America are the big players.

Japan is a must for my console needs.

[TrackZero]

then MS would be in a horrid crisis.

Xbox came out of nowhere in just this generation to capture a significant portion of the market. I really don't have the same concerns you do regarding the next generation, if anything, I'd be worried for Sony. MS will be attacking them on one side, Nintendo on the other (assuming the Revolution fares any better than the Gamecube, which it sounds like it will with more developers signing on). The only company I see loosing market share is Sony, plain and simple.

Now, they may make gains on the PSP, but that's on the handheld market. If you're going to count that, then you need to recognize what a monster Nintendo is with the GBA and DS added to the equation. But I'd rather look at these as seperate markets for the sake of simplicity.

As for the PS3 coming out earlier than expected, it's not too big of a surprise. I was shocked to hear they were going to wait until next year in the first place.

[Rakael]

I don't care who wins the war this go round. If I were asked to sway one way or another, it would be in Nintendo's direction due to fond memories of yesteryear. In truth though it does not matter to me at all. I want the best system with the best games, plain and simple. As it stands right now the X-Box 360 looks to be a hard machine to beat. That fucker is an uber-server built for nothing but to play games, and I am psyked. Now Sony and Nintendo could suprise the shit ouf of me by releasing systems that match or blow away MS, who knows. All I care about is great games and a solid gaming system. May the best console win.

[Phades]

If both systems come out so close together it'll be interesting to see how much a difference in power there really is between the two. Saying that MS would be screwed I think is a bit silly. The Xbox came out a year after the PS2 and it did pretty decently. The Xbox has a pretty good amount of name recognition itself now. And it's a pretty awesome system so its own "awesomeness" isn't lacking.

[if76]

If any company needs a system upgrade it's sony. The PS2 is just so stale now. Just try playing San Andreas without wishing for more powerful hardware.

[taxial]

Um, not possible. Nobody has dev kits for the PS3 yet, not even EA would put their employee's through the torture it would take to get a PS3 game out before Christmas, Im sure it will take more that a couple months before anybody knows how to get their engines to work properly with the science project Cell processor.

[ezzkmo]

yah since he's talking financials, i'm gonna go ahead and say he means fiscal. i can see the PS3 getting a launch in Japan by next spring, with a fall 2006 release here in the states. this just makes the most sense to me, and seems like the smartest and most probable move.

[Kelegacy]

Xbox came out of nowhere in just this generation to capture a significant portion of the market. I really don't have the same concerns you do regarding the next generation, if anything, I'd be worried for Sony. MS will be attacking them on one side, Nintendo on the other (assuming the Revolution fares any better than the Gamecube, which it sounds like it will with more developers signing on). The only company I see loosing market share is Sony, plain and simple.

Now, they may make gains on the PSP, but that's on the handheld market. If you're going to count that, then you need to recognize what a monster Nintendo is with the GBA and DS added to the equation. But I'd rather look at these as seperate markets for the sake of simplicity.

As for the PS3 coming out earlier than expected, it's not too big of a surprise. I was shocked to hear they were going to wait until next year in the first place.

I agree, it's Sony's ball to drop. They are on top and the only place they can go is down. I wont expect them to wither yet, though. And though the Xbox did decently, no one was in a league with Sony this round. Worldwide numbers were staggering. I hope Sony doesnt get cocky. That would really fuck them up. I dont want to hate them in the next round like I hate Electronic Arts right now.

[MosBen]

Kelegacy, I'd ask what exactly about Japan is so important? I think the real answer is that there are quite a few really talented dev houses in Japan that produce some bad ass games. At this point the gaming populations of North America and Europe are millions larger than Japan has. If you're worried about a console getting support from Japanese developers, I think that if a console sells enough units in both North America and Europe the business side of the Japanese developers won't be able to avoid supporting it.

[Morrolan]

Mos: You can't equate gamer populations to dollars. The average Japanese gamer tends to spend quite a bit more dinero on games/gaming stuff each year, than anywhere else in the world (besides maybe Korea.) Sure North America has an asston of gamers, but a lot of them are very casual, and only buy the Halo 2's and the GTA's.

[Dracula-X]

Um, not possible. Nobody has dev kits for the PS3 yet, not even EA would put their employee's through the torture it would take to get a PS3 game out before Christmas, Im sure it will take more that a couple months before anybody knows how to get their engines to work properly with the science project Cell processor. Not quite: http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=58341. Sony has stated things will be much easier on developers, so how difficult it will be to work with the Cell is mere speculation for now.

[mister_slim]

Mos: You can't equate gamer populations to dollars. The average Japanese gamer tends to spend quite a bit more dinero on games/gaming stuff each year, than anywhere else in the world (besides maybe Korea.) Sure North America has an asston of gamers, but a lot of them are very casual, and only buy the Halo 2's and the GTA's.
MS is claiming the Xbox has the highest attach rate, which I have no reason to doubt. I guess you could be right after accessories, but I doubt it's a large enough difference to matter.
Japan is HUGE. Very important. People could care less about Europe (why does Europe get shafted so?...maybe if systems didnt use PAL/NTSC standards importing would be more popular and more practical) but Japan and North America are the big players.
For game production. As long as MS gets the developers, the market doesn't really matter. A lot of the smaller niches, like TRPGs, train simulators, shooters, all the weird stuff, don't really demand next-gen hardware and also don't consistently have the budget for HD assets.
Xbox came out of nowhere in just this generation to capture a significant portion of the market. I really don't have the same concerns you do regarding the next generation, if anything, I'd be worried for Sony. MS will be attacking them on one side, Nintendo on the other (assuming the Revolution fares any better than the Gamecube, which it sounds like it will with more developers signing on). The only company I see loosing market share is Sony, plain and simple.
There's really nowhere to go but down for Sony. They've only got, what, seventy percent of the console market? I'm more interested in what MS's strategy is this time around. Are they going to treat consoles as a business or something to be bought as a stepping stone to other markets? Looks thus far as though they may be a little more rational this time around.

[mister_slim]

Not quite: http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=58341. Sony has stated things will be much easier on developers, so how difficult it will be to work with the Cell is mere speculation for now.
Sony isn't a particularly trustworthy source on that though. If Cell is using OpenGL and devkits allow fairly straightforward use of the coprocessors, developers may get up to speed quicker. It's still unlikely even a 360 to PS3 port is going to be easy at first.

[Furious Wang]

Sounds like information warfare to me. I'm still betting on an American Spring 2007 release for PS3. I have no faith in Sony's ability to get Cell out the door on a mass scale with no complications. I mean come on guys.

[Furious Wang]

Several developers have stated the difficulties that will arise for developers making quality games for PS3. It runs code strictly in order as opposed to PS2's out of order operation. Bottom line, sub-par developers are going to get weeded out very quickly.

[riposte101]

Japan is not the market that MS needs. Korea is the burgeoning power house. Nearly their entire population is connected to high speed internet. To capture Korea means you need Blizzard.

[riposte101]

Looks thus far as though they may be a little more rational this time around.

You're going to have to describe your vague comment about MS being more rational this time to me.

[Chandler]

sony needs to implement xbox live type service, then that'll give xbox360 #2

[mister_slim]

You're going to have to describe your vague comment about MS being more rational this time to me.
? If there's not enough context already, too bad for you. Make up your own mind.

[bobbler]

Several developers have stated the difficulties that will arise for developers making quality games for PS3. It runs code strictly in order as opposed to PS2's out of order operation. Bottom line, sub-par developers are going to get weeded out very quickly.

The funny thing is.. Xbox2 and Revolution are exactly the same way.

[Pumped'Up]

If any company needs a system upgrade it's sony. The PS2 is just so stale now. Just try playing San Andreas without wishing for more powerful hardware.
it's not the lacking hardware of the PS2...Rockstar needs better programmers to take better advantage of the PS2 hardware. Don't forget, GTA:SA uses the same engine as GTAIII, a 5 year old game.

Some of the current games are simply amazing like God of War and GT4. GT4 alone easily looks better than Forza on the xbox.

Stale??? Nah, the PS2 has never been better and is clearly the strongest console to date, ever. Xbox may have better processing power, but it's power is only good enough to place the system at a meager tie with the Gamecube (with a game library good as a collection of toe nails) in 3rd place.

[bobbler]

GTA3+ I think used the renderware engine.. hundreds of console games used it. I'd bet a majority of console games use either Renderware or Gamebryo.

I'm sure they could get a bit more performance out of PS2 had they written their own engine from scratch -- the GTA series has done pretty well, I never had an issue with the graphics.

[mister_slim]

The funny thing is.. Xbox2 and Revolution are exactly the same way.
Advantage? Gamecube developers!

[Pumped'Up]

when the xbox 360 is out, co-existing with the other consoles, it won't make a single dent in the PS2 market share. gauranteed

[Vandenh]

PS3 coming out soon after the X360 would be super bad for Sony. AFter all the X360 hype and excitement that MS build up, Sony needs time to focus the attention again on the PS3. If it came out in 2005, Sony would get wasted in the US IMHO. But anyway... this is probably mid 2005 in Japan.
ANd yes... looks like MS has all the 3th party in their pockets now... PS3 better be impressive.

[Dracula-X]

Sony isn't a particularly trustworthy source on that though. If Cell is using OpenGL and devkits allow fairly straightforward use of the coprocessors, developers may get up to speed quicker. It's still unlikely even a 360 to PS3 port is going to be easy at first.Sure, but an OpenGL/ES API is official, and it only makes sense with Nvidia onboard now - known for offering better support for OpenGL then ATI does. As for porting, the difficulties between 360<->PS3 are a given, but with 3rd party cross platform APIs like Renderware and the like, this shouldn't be a major problem, but like you said, it won't be easy at first, unless of course these crossplatform APIs are robust by the time these consoles are out. The Playstation portable is a good indicator of the direction Sony has been taking for the developers - the API is extremely OpenGL like.

[*Legion*]

I gotta say, I love how OpenGL has gone from teetering on the edge of irrelevance to come storming back.

[Kelegacy]

Stale??? Nah, the PS2 has never been better and is clearly the strongest console to date, ever. Xbox may have better processing power, but it's power is only good enough to place the system at a meager tie with the Gamecube (with a game library good as a collection of toe nails) in 3rd place.

To call the PS2 stale is like saying that graphics make or break a game. The Xbox's "supreme power" hasn't hurt the PS2. The incredible flood of great games for PS2 has made Sony #1 again. The Xbox has been better in the past year and half maybe, getting more and more games worth buying the system for. But still, i think the Gamecube has just as many reasons for buying as the Xbox, if not more. It doesnt have Live, but if you have real friends instead of virtual ones, you are still set to have a killer time. The amount of great exclusives makes the Gamecube a must own system, and the Xbox has a few less "must owns" but makes up for it with being the best console (usually) for multi-platform games.


when the xbox 360 is out, co-existing with the other consoles, it won't make a single dent in the PS2 market share. gauranteed

If anything, the PS2 will even outsell the Xbox360. Sony could take a year or two off and still probably bask in their own glow. But the industry demands upgrades, so they must comply.