I think there is a reasonable chance of a worldwide launch... or staggered but all out by x-mas

Trust me when i say that' s impossible.

3 Million PS3' s ready to go before Christmas?! No way!

That would require 3 million Blu-Ray drives to be ready too. There' s no way US or Europe will get PS3 before 2007.

As for Japanese consoles...., it' s not the consoles that you should be looking at, but the games themselves. Sony' s consoles have never been great, but Japanese developers keep making amazing games for them. Sony would be nothing without 3rd party support. They would have gone the same way Sega did!

Japanese developers keep making amazing games for them

I wish they would have been doing that for 360 months ago, that way I would actually have games I want for the thing coming out this year.

Hopefully much more will be announced at E3.

SONY can' t screw up the japanese market...they rather give to many ps3 to japanese people then then risk a shortage at homebase,that is just the truth,,,

Absolutely, ...especially given Nintendo success with DS and the impending success of Revolution looming over them. Right now Nintendo are probably THE biggest player in Japan, taking over from Sony because of DS sales.

Sony know the Japanese public will be blown away by Revolution and will want to regain the top spot as quickly as possible.

Before anyone points out that console and handheld are completely different, ....i' m talking about sales and mindshare. Because of games like Nintendogs, Rub Rabbits and Brain Train, ...Nintendo not only are dominating the Japanese sales market, but also the minds of Japanese gamers/non-gamers. This will have a direct effect on Revolution, as will the Q4 release of Twilight Princess.

Nintendo could just steal it on their home turf (and i REALLY hope they do!), and Sony won' t find the European and US market as accepting as before as Microsoft' s fanbase continues to grow.

With my beloved Sega gone (and going downhill i might add), I put my hope into sony to keep japan at number 1.

Misplaced loyalty. It was Sony' s underhand tactics that killed off your beloved Sega.

How many days ' till the Game Developer' s Conference?

We all knew it wasn' t gonna happen, Microsoft had a hunch it wasn' t gonna happen, and so did Nintendo, but no, sony' s hardheadedness prevails again.

I mean, look at the lawsuit with Immersion for example. They knew they had taken that force-feedback technology, intentionally or not. I commend Microsoft for settling, but no. Sony just had to be right. There' d have to be some loophole for them to ride on until the truth came out. It' s the same thing with this.
" We' ll have a spring launch" Says Sony
" These rumours of delays are unconfirmed and should be taken with a grain of salt" Says Sony
" We' ll have a spring launch" Confirms Sony, again
" We are on schedule for our launch" Says Sony"
when all the facts are pointed one way, leave it to big buisness (not just restricted to games) to lie right to the consumers faces. Come on Sony, you used to be cool!

It makes goos business sense for Sony to give out the impression that the launch is just around the corner. The prospect of a new Sony console being out in a couple of months will stop a lot of their fans from potentially jumping ship onto the 360 bandwagon.

Misplaced loyalty. It was Sony' s underhand tactics that killed off your beloved Sega.

But it wasn' t Sony that made Sega hurt their own image with the 32x, Sega CD, and releasing the Saturn with a high price tag.

As much as I always hate saying it, Sony simply capitalized on the Mistakes of TWO established veterans --- Nintendo & Sega.

Yeah, true. Sega basically screwed up everthing between the Megadrive and the Dreamcast and their marketing efforts always seemed to miss the point.

Glad to see Nintendo are looking so strong these days ' cos at one stage they looked to be going the same way. Hopefully the Rev will be a big success for them.

Sega basically screwed up everthing between the Megadrive and the Dreamcast and their marketing efforts always seemed to miss the point

Only in terms of poor marketing and selling to the mainstream, which was the downfall for any third-party support. First-party games were outstanding and a few Japanese companies like Capcom provided some of the best titles ever to be released on any format.

Ultimately the ignorance of the masses were mostly to blame for the commercial failiure of the Saturn (except for the stupidly high launch price) and Dreamcast, it certainly wasn' t becasuse of a lack of quality games.

For Nintendo, Revolution is going to be a hard sell for the mass market in the UK, where the GameCube is often wrongly accused of being then weakest powered and worst console of the three. Hopefully with a stylish new marketing campaign like the Rev trailer at TGS, can pull them back in the next-gen console race.

Not misplaced loyalty really... And if i have to choose between M$ and $ony as king, then i want sony, but at least if they get knocked down a notch or two they may do better next time... no resting on their lorrels.

Sega had already doomed themselves, like nintendo too... resting on their lorrels thinking they were unbeatable...
Releasing a cd add of for mega drive, with few good games.
Then going ahead to the 32bit era (designed as a 2d machine as i understand it, with 3D capabilities added later due to the way things went, eg psx going 3d etc)
- however not only releasing a 32bit system, but a " 32 bit" add-on for the mega drive.

With 2 failed add-ons that people wasted money on people began to lose faith in sega, The Saturn (awesome machine that i love) Retailed very expensive, had some of the worst PAL conversions i' ve ever seen. (hell Daytona USA had boarders so thick that even with my 60hz switched PAL machine, i still couldn' t get rid of the boarders).
Sega had some amazing games on the system and Capcom really supported the system well with arcade perfect games. The lack of a sonic game hurt them though...

Dreamcast, launching early, competing against PS1 and PS2, had too many ports of PS1 games, and never managed support of some of the high selling japanese devs (square anyone?) I also believe they really peaked the hardware early with Shenmue, which i still believe to this day looks fantastic and no similar game lives up to it for immersion. (to be able to walk around but still look around at shops the sky etc... just like real life... amazing!!)

Sega screwed up too much early on to win back lost ground from the PS1.


I wonder how the Xbox360 will do over all? Another ill-fated dreamcast with some really good games. Or will it knock sony of it' s throne like sony did with nintendo and sega?

had some of the worst PAL conversions i' ve ever seen

It had much better PAL conversions than the PS1 did. VF2, Daytona CCE, Sega Rally Fighting Vipers, Fighters Megamix, Virtua Cop, The Panzer dragoon games etc. All were full screen 50hz conversions which were all sped up to match the speed of their US and Japanese counter parts. The original Daytona and MK Trilogy are pretty much the only extremely poor conversions.

Tekken, Ridge Racer, Final Fantasy, and practically every big release on PSone had standard black boarders, but also ran 17.5% slower than the NTSC versions. Most thrid-party Saturn games just featured standard black boarders not the huge ones which those two games mentioned had. Sega set the standard for decent PAL conversions, and took it a step further with a 60hz mode on in the Dreamcast.

The 60hz switch for Saturn was only really developed because anal hardcore 2D gamers like my self wanted the full screen, full speed experience on Capcom and SNK fighters. Something PSone PAL owners never got.

Tell me about it, couldn' t live with my saturn being switched... I wanted 2d games at full speed.
Pal optimised games were rare, i knew these games as i had to turn my switch off for them. Guardian Heroes (cool treasure game) was one of them ^_^

I loved my saturn, wouldn never have swapped it for anything... I think in all it was my favourite era of games (when i enjoy games most.)

Now the 360 needs rpg and then ps3 could be in trouble.

If neither of those 360 RPGs are a true blue Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest then the PS3 won' t be in any kind of trouble in Japan :p

I think there is a reasonable chance of a worldwide launch... or staggered but all out by x-mas

Trust me when i say that' s impossible.

Well I guess i shouldn' t trust you then as Sony has confirmed Worldwide launch

IGN

It' s official. Details and more inside. Now updated with more info!
by Jeremy Dunham

March 14, 2006 - Ken Kutaragi, PlayStation Master and keeper of big news has announced at the PS meeting today that the PlayStation 3 will be launching in early November worldwide for the North American, Asian, and European territories.

If you believe that then you' re obviously dumber than i thought!

There' s no way on Earth Sony will have enough units ready to launch in all three territories before Christmas. That' s like Sony saying Spring was still a go, ...it' s bullshit!

Are you like 14 or something?!

Firstly, Kutaragi is talking about the fiscal year when he say they aim to produce1 million units a month. The fiscal year doesn' t end until April. He says...

" A completely simultaneous launch is physically impossible, but we believe we' ll be able ship to users throughout the world around this time."

See the words WE BELIEVE?! and/or AROUND THIS TIME?! Only a complete dumbass would A) take that to mean the US and Europe will have PS3 before 2007 and B) believe ANYTHING that man says. The guy is notorious for saying stupid things! Y' know, things like the PS3 concept is " 4D" ...???

Secondly, a HDD REQUIRED?! That is taking the piss! It not like it HAS to have it at all. It may need id because they fucked the momory allocation up, but even so, including a 60Gb HDD in every console ramps up the price of the SKU. Ha, does anyone even still thing PS3 will be affordable?!

Couple the already expensive components with forced Blu-Ray games and a forced HDD and the systems price could easily be what analysts predicted. Forcing developers to use Blu-Ray (and i said they would) is just pathetic. It will increase development costs and therefore game prices. Expect to pay £60 for PS3 games!



The Linux thing however is a blessing!

There' s no way on Earth Sony will have enough units ready to launch in all three territories before Christmas. That' s like Sony saying Spring was still a go, ...it' s bullshit!

Are you like 14 or something?!

I agree with majik...this worldwide anouncement is just another lie as " we will keep spring 2006 launch" said by Kutaragi so many times. They talk about worldwide launch so that American and European ps3 fans won´t get too mad but mainly they are worried about those people that aren´t fanboys , people who buy either system as long it´s available at the time they want to buy.

Anyway...they will still sell well but they will lose some gamers to 360 and mostly Rev in japan.

Be nice Majik :)

Im guessing its another Sony lie!

I am being nice Vx, i just don' t understand why people believe this kind of stuff.

Firstly, Kutaragi is talking about the fiscal year when he say they aim to produce 1 million units a month. The fiscal year doesn' t end until April. He says...

" A completely simultaneous launch is physically impossible, but we believe we' ll be able ship to users throughout the world around this time."

See the words WE BELIEVE?! and/or AROUND THIS TIME?! Only a complete dumbass would A) take that to mean the US and Europe will have PS3 before 2007 and B) believe ANYTHING that man says. The guy is notorious for saying stupid things! Y' know, things like the PS3 concept is " 4D" ...???

Secondly, a HDD REQUIRED?! That is taking the piss! It not like it HAS to have it at all. It may need id because they fucked the momory allocation up, but even so, including a 60Gb HDD in every console ramps up the price of the SKU. Ha, does anyone even still thing PS3 will be affordable?!

Couple the already expensive components with forced Blu-Ray games and a forced HDD and the systems price could easily be what analysts predicted. Forcing developers to use Blu-Ray (and i said they would) is just pathetic. It will increase development costs and therefore game prices. Expect to pay £60 for PS3 games!

The Linux thing however is a blessing!

At least some people here like Hidemoto have some common sense!