Sony admits to "overreaching" on PlayStation3's Blu-ray production, no relief for Europe
By Darren Murph 
posted Nov 7th 2006 9:45AM
posted Nov 7th 2006 9:45AM
After Ken Kutaragi straight up told his rivals that he "didn't care" about the so-called competition they were trying to provide, and those very rivals laughed in his face over Sony's countless delays in producing its miracle machine, it seems that we're finally getting a bit of good ole honesty from Sony's "worldwide studios boss," Phil Harrison. Referring to the company's inability to gather up those ever-elusive "blue diodes," he stated that the firm had "overreached in production of the Blu-Ray component," later adding that it was simply the "price you pay for adopting brand new, leading-edge technologies that will be future proof." While we have sincere doubts about any technology being entirely resistant to successors, we certainly appreciate the proclamation that all this delay speculation wasn't without merit. Harrison concluded by suggesting that while these perpetual delays seem like a huge public challenge right now, he's [Via EuroGamer, thanks Garry]
Aah, an enlightened American... Please take the next exit to fixed-voting-illiterate-fatpeople-bush-ville (or fly to Iraq), we won´t be needing you anytime soon.
People! It´s a console not a cure for cancer.... (or a vaccine against Americans :)
I'm really REALLY not trying to swing this into a political thread, but it is the lack of voting that leads to lack of choice. As lesser and lesser people care to vote, it's the stupid fringe on both sides that votes and gives almost life terms to representatives/senators that are neither competent nor honest. Nothing worse than a one issue voter (except MAYBE if the issue is honesty). I can't imagine why 80+ percent of people don't vote. Imagine how much better things would be if some of these politicians knew they faced political consequences?
End of politicking. This article is about Sony's hilarious efforts to apparently destroy their company.
why do so many people misspell lose? it's "lose" and "loser", not "loose" and "looser"
"We fucked up"
Finally some honesty from Sony.
"No relief for Europe" ~ Guys its just a game console, not an emergency medical airlift.
Yes but why should we have to wait 6 months and pay more for the goddamn thing just because we live in europe.
You pay more in part because you elect politicians that sales tax the crap out of you, and impose high import tariffs on certain electronic components and functionality, and also legislate certain minimum warranty periods, which all add up to a higher purchase price. There's no free lunch, so don't complain, or at least change your vote.
It's not an emergency medical airlift for Europe--It's emergency medical aid for SONY.
I think this news is kind of funny given the still optimistic interview just posted last night where it was affirmed they would hit the 2 million mark in 2006.
Emmm yeah, I'm from europe and don't give a damn about the delay. If it was out I'd buy it this Christmas. Its not so I'll just see what else is available for me to buy(360 or Wii). I don't see any harm done to anyone.
Got my name in print on Engadget. My life is now complete.
not all american's are trash, just some of us (unfortunately they tend to be the loudest)
the reason sony wanted to focus on US sales? you partially answered it, lots of fat illiterate people.
europeans have great roads but we smaller taxes :o)
Ah... Admitting your mistake - The first step on the path of enlightenment.
Or in Sony's case, on the path of avoiding bankruptcy.
I wish I had it in me to forgive, Phil, but you see I just can't wait until March for PS3, however brilliant it might be. Nope, it's Xbox 360 for me come Christmas and I'm sure I won't be the only one...
Sony may be hurting in the short run, but the reason they don't care is because this is going to allow them to push their Blu-Ray standard. Do you think they just decided to push it by mistake? The reason they are trying so hard to make Blu-Ray standard in the PS3 is to force companies to adopt it as the standard in HD media.
Hardly forcing anyone when there are far more companies signed up to Blu-ray than HD-DVD.
When the final history is written on the Playstation 3, the delays will look like just a comma
/don't forget to VOTE today
"Aah, an enlightened American... Please take the next exit to fixed-voting-illiterate-fatpeople-bush-ville (or fly to Iraq), we won´t be needing you anytime soon.
People! It´s a console not a cure for cancer.... (or a vaccine against Americans :)"
What this has to do with Sony and their Playstation, I have no idea. Are you posting in the right thread?
I just enjoy all comments about PS3 while playing NOW fifa2007 on my Xbox ....
and btw , sorry no winning eleven for you this 2007 ps3 fanboys !
Mess it up again, Phil and your days will be numbered. We can only forgive so many times.
As a European twenty-something who actually has some patience (unlike a lot of the impetuous youth of today), I am prepared to wait a bit longer in order to get my fix. I plan to buy around June 2007 or thereabouts. Should be plenty of games about by then.
Nothing would make me want to buy an Xbox though.
With the rate at which video cards for the PC are advancing the fact that they are just getting the PS3 produced and probably wont have that many of them until christmas 2007 the system hardly look FUTURE PROOF... there wont be many GOOD game for the PS3 until the end of next year... Halo 3 will hit for the XBOX at the end of 2007 and there should be a bunch of pretty good releases all year next year for the 360... by the end of middle of 2008 we should start hearing about the next XBOX and we will JUST be seeing some of the "good" games for the PS3... who cares about the Blu-Ray drive? That doesn't have anything to do with how future-proof the console is... it already has a "low" amount of ram and a video card that was designed a year and a half ago... PCs will far surpass the PS3 next year... let alone in a couple of years...
With the PS3 costing twice as much as the other "next-gen" consoles I can't imagine Sony will expect you to buy the PS4 in 3-4 years... by then MS will already be releasing a new next-next gen console that blows the PS3 away...
Really how many game developers are going to be jumping through hoops to write games for the PS3 when the install base in 2007 likely won't pass 2 million units? the 360 will have 10 million by the end of the year!! how are they going to get developers to want to make games for the PS3 when making them for the 360 could yield them 5 times the sales? Games are really what its all about and if the consoles are not out there no one is going to be jumping to develop games for the PS3...
Microsoft didn't support Blu-Ray out of the gate not because it was a Sony tech but because they weren't convinced that the technology was sound... they might have been right if Sony has know they need blue diodes and they could only come up with 400,000 of them in the past year... really... how many of them do they think they are going to have by the end of next year to put in consoles? 3 million?? 4?? 5?? at the most?? That still gives them HALF the install base of the 360!!!
Its about games not movies and the PS3 is crippled by a MOVIE techonology... that is going to effect the PS3's relation with developers and there will be fewer and fewer exclusives and if there aren't more than one or 2 good exclusives on the PS3 why pay twice as much for it?
Your theory is great and from a logical perspective seems to make sense. Problem is that when you consider the PS2, your theory gets turned on its ear. I mention the PS2, because "Brand" plays a big part in many peoples purchases on any type of item. Look at how rabid the Sony fanboys are you you get an inkling of what I mean. Brand is what is helping Sony sell more units of the PS2 each month than either the X-Box or the X-Box 360. You mention:
"With the PS3 costing twice as much as the other "next-gen" consoles I can't imagine Sony will expect you to buy the PS4 in 3-4 years... by then MS will already be releasing a new next-next gen console that blows the PS3 away..."
First, there are only two next-gen consoles (X-Box 360 and PS3), as the Wii is just a revamped Gamecube. When you add in the price of the HD-DVD add-on the price difference between the X-Box 360 and PS3 are insignificant... not twice as much. Secondly, yes the next X-Box should be a better system than the PS3, just as the X-Box 360 blows away the PS2. Yet, as I mentioned before, the PS2 sells more units each month than the 360. Not bad for an out-dated system.
And before you, or anyone else, accuses me of being a Sony fanboy, I stopped buying consoles when Nintendo fell from the top spot. I only own an PS2, because someone gave it to me.
Do I know who will win this round of the console war? No. Do I care who will win the console war? No. When it comes down to it I am going to look at both systems, decide which one has the games I want to play and if I get one that will be it.
as a hardware-maker like SOny is you'de figure by now they know that nothing (especially technology) is future-proof. *shakes head*
I'm glad somebody finally pointed that out. As an American who lives in Europe, it never ceases to amaze me how fashionable it is over here to blame the U.S. for all the worlds woes: global warming, plate tectonics, higher PS3 prices in Europe.... In the minds of the 'enlightened European, these are all the result of CIA plots and Bush.
Amazing.
saklander might do better to direct his hate mail to Brussels rather than Washington DC (or Langley, VA), as the protectionists import laws and tariffs in the EU -- keeping the 'continent' inefficient and lazy -- are the reason why saklander has to pay more for his Sony toys.
Too late for the parents who were going to get it for their kids for Christmas. By March they will have got some other consol and when they ask in March for it will go something like this;
Kid, 'I want a PS3'
Parent, 'I thought i got you one of those already?!?!'
Kid, 'No thats an Xbox 360'
Parent,'It does the same thing doesn't it? Play games and DVDs?'
Kid, 'Yeah but... i want it!'
Parent,'How much is it?'
Kid, '£425'
Parent *Stares blankly at the child until he disappears to his room*
what was Sony thinking?! They wasted all this time and $$ to incorporate this blueray trash into their now-too-expensive console and for what? The HD content advantage?? MS just announced that they have HD content for the 360 now as well... and guess what... it doesn’t even require the HD-DVD drive... that's right... stream HD TV and movies right to the XBOX itself. Hahaahaha Sony screwed this up.. all to push yet another botched proprietary media format.
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=4845
and im not a 360 fanboy... i'll be getting a Wii this holiday season... it's just flat out going to be the most fun for the money for the fam...
"Anti-American Vaccine"
Maybe you Europeans should have taken that vaccine during 1944. You could have taken shortly after being completely dominated in ww2.
"Anyone that doesn’t vote today is an FING LOOSER!!"
-_-
"If you can’t spare 1 hour out of every 2 year span, you get what you deserve!"
Where I come from, it's more like a 3-4 hour wait.
All this talk about Sony pushing their Blu-Ray technology has grown tiresome.
I only have one word for you:
Betamax.
How about this: MS Office Assistant, Intel's floating point error...if you're doing new stuff (rather than the M$ approach of repackaging tat) then you're going to have some things that fail. The PS*2* is outselling the 360, which in turn isn't selling as well as even the original XBox. People are waiting for the PS3 because Sony deliver good tech. Sure, there's a few months delay - but MS delivers its OS's late, they are usually a LONG way behind the Mac equivalent, and hugely buggy.
With ads as appalingly creepy as the PS3's, I think delay's are the least of their worries.
Ignoring the appaling grammar in your post, I think you need to go and read up on world history, rather than American history :oD
PS: We knew Pearl Harbour was going to happen :oD
When did Phil Harrison become such a tool? He was acutally a cool guy during the PS2 launch. Now he's completely obnoxious.
Betamax ??? how 'bout MINIDISC ????
Check Out what I found on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_17#Deaths
I, for one, am bending over for some good Blu-Ray Digital Rights Restrictions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc#Digital_rights_management
The ability for corporations to decide, after the fact, what they can and cannot let you do is so enticing.
AACS 'protection', crippled analogue outputs and the eventual phase-out of analogue in the AACS agreement every Blu-Ray/ HD-DVD company has signed up to is wonderful.
I trust Hollywood to control the future of digital media and push for high royalties on every device/disc/video card so that independents never get a chance to be heard without lining their pockets. Why wouldn't you?
didn't know they changed the name of Pearl Harbor
pearl harbour???
The xbox 360 may have been a next gen. game console for its time, but it’s not without shortcomings of its own. Yes, you can buy an external HD DVD drive, but it’s only for movies for quite some time. Not only that, it doesn’t have HDMI, and you must buy an adapter cable if you want it.
Why slag Sony for wanting to produce a better next gen. device? The ps3 and xbox are only adequate movie players, and the reviews have been positive overall, for both on viewing experience. Sony shortly will later ship a remote control for the ps3. And xbox? Sure, there are more nitty things here, but no show-stoppers.
Game producers are already announcing that they are reaching the 25Gb limit of a single-layer Blue-ray disc, mainly because of the size of speech and audio tracks. HD DVD was not designed with high capacity in mind, if you compare the two.
What’s a next gen. xbox going to have that is of any significance? A built-in HD DVD with HDMI, and real HD games that require multiple discs that may need storing to the hard drive so you don’t have to swap discs? By the time this happens, the ps3 will have kick-ass HD games.
Sure, you can stream, but how long is it going to take to receive 15+ Gb…? No other torrent downloads while I wait, sleep… Let’s be real!
On all things, this is going to take time for the technology to mature, but the new games have the potential to be awesome!