Stringer's Sony Delays PlayStation3 Launch To November
Parmy Olson Forbes Staff
AI, robotics and the digital transformation of European business.
Fashionably late? Any practiced attendee of the Academy Awards will tell you that the best time to glide across the red carpet is at the end of arrivals time, when the setting sun casts a favorable light on those pesky wrinkles and unsightly bulges. We may be grasping for straws here, but as the Sony PlayStation 3 now looks set for a late launch, perhaps the gaming console's entrance in the market this November, instead of this spring, will see a similarly sympathetic reception. Or Sir Howard Stringer can at least hope so.
On the face of it, the delay announced this morning looks to be a major setback for the chief executive of Sony , whose goal has been to revive the company's consumer electronics division. While he now sits and waits for his legions of engineers to continue tinkering with the PS3's magical next-generation disk technology, arch gaming adversary Microsoft with its Xbox 360 will keep chewing away at all that potential market share.
Japanese traders, however, reacted mildly to news of the delay and sent Sony's stock down a mild 1.8% this morning. They'd probably been expecting all this. From Wall Street to online gaming forums, the rumor mill had long gone past "whether" the PS3 would be delayed, to "how long" we would have to wait. (See: "Will PS3 Be Delayed?")
Analysts have also taken a tempered view. More important than the timing of the launch, Goldman Sachs forecaster Yuji Fujimori told The Associated Press, is the success of the new machine when it goes on sale, including pricing and game software lineup. A delay alone wasn't enough to determine how the PlayStation 3 business would fare, others opined.
The PS3--also known as "The Cell" for featuring a high speed microprocessor that is said to run rings around Intel's Pentium 4 chip--also has the upcoming Ninetendo Revolution to contend with. Sony's gaming compatriot has been mum on its own launch date, but who knows, perhaps the two consoles will be walking down that red carpet together. More...
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Parmy Olson
I cover developments in AI, robotics, chatbots, digital assistants and emerging tech in Europe. I've spent close to a decade profiling the hackers and dreamers who are b...