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Presumably having worked out the kinks in manufacturing that had delayed a European launch, Sony finally released their next-gen PS3 game console in Europe and Australia and there was the predictable PR puffery:
At the London launch everyone who bought a PS3 also received a free 46-inch HD television and a taxi home.
In total, the giveaway amounted to £250,000 worth of televisons to more than 100 gamers.
and not forgetting the Continent:
Midnight sales under the Eiffel Tower and at Berlin’s Potsdamer Platz were aimed at pushing Sony’s PlayStation 3 onto the European stage Friday, but the console faces tough rivals who have head starts.
A handful of gamers showed up at a midnight store opening at Schiphol Amsterdam, including Sony fan Nomey, 24, who said the Blu-ray drive for new, high-density disks that can also play high-definition movies is reason enough to buy a PS3.
“I’m not a fanatic gamer. But if I would have to buy a standalone Blu-ray player it would cost me 1,000 euros,” he said. A new high-definition flat-screen television would complement his home entertainment by next week, he added.
It would certainly be paradoxical if the Blu-ray drive that caused so many problems turned out to be the saving grace of the PS3. Maybe Sony should sell a feature reduced version without the gaming support? For some more Friday snarking, see Xbox Crashes French PS3 Launch.
Some Microsoft news items from last week that did not get a post of their own.
Microsoft competitor VMware is profiled in the NY Times. Uh-oh! Someone just said “Microsoft” and ”bundling.”
Wii outsold PS2 which outsold Xbox 360 which outsold PS3 in January big box retail sales in the US. Think there might be a message from consumers there?
Windows Vista Express Upgrades could finally begin shipping next week:
If you purchased a PC before January 30 and took advantage of the Vista Express Upgrade program, you know by now that this program is everything else but “Express”.
Blu-ray disc sales finally passed HD DVD, but the question is why the attach rate is so low given that Blu-ray players outnumber HD DVD about 5 to 1. Could it be that most Blu-ray players are the Sony PS3?
Details of Exchange 2007 SP1 revealed. Beta coming in April with final release alongside Longhorn server.
Configuration Manager 2007 Beta 2 is now available for public download. It’s the rebranded old favorite, Systems Management Server (SMS). Also, RC1 of System Center Essentials is now publicly available.
Microsoft to launch new consortium aimed at Oracle users on Feb. 26. It’s all about interoperability, I’m sure.
The South African government plans to switch from Microsoft to Open Source. So does Cuba. Meanwhile in the USA, Dell users demand Linux and OpenOffice on PCs via the new Dell company blog.
Microsoft sued over “Office Live” trademark.
And last, but not least: Microsoft offers to take Iowa antitrust jurors to dinner. I wonder if they can pay with vouchers?
Tony Smith at The Register reports that Sony PS3 sales pass 2m mark… two weeks late:
Sony has shipped 1m PlayStation 3 consoles in Japan, the consumer electronics giant said yesterday, the day it hit that mark. However, the announcement was a tacit admission it has failed to hit the 2m-machine target it last year said to would reach by the end of 2006.
Last week, Sony said it had shipped 1m PS3s in the US by the end of December. However, it only passed the 2m global shipments mark yesterday. It forecast 2m PS3 shipments by the end of 2006 in September, when it also delayed the console’s European introduction.
…
Still, Sony can boast that the PS3 has reached the 2m in less time than it took the PS2, reaching that point in a day under two months.
The 2 million forecast was mentioned previously here and was also coupled with a stated intention to ship 6 million PS3s by the end of Sony’s current fiscal year in March. Nomura Securities doesn’t think they’ll make that target either and says a more realistic number is 4.5 million with cuts in their prior estimates for following years as well. Also the latest rumor is that the PS3 won’t get to Europe until late March.
An easy explanation for the shortfall is the lack of product due to the well known production problems with the Blu-ray high definition DVD drive, but there are some other disturbing portents as well:
More than half of a group of surveyed stores had Sony Corp.’s PlayStation 3 in stock, while Nintendo Co. Ltd.’s new Wii was sold out, an analyst said on Tuesday in a report signaling demand for the market leader’s new console may be soft.
“Our channel checks yesterday of 52 retail stores, from boutiques to big-box retailers, showed that 28 of the 52 stores had PS3 consoles in stock, while none had Wii consoles in stock,” American Technology Research analyst Paul-Jon McNealy said in the research note.
He added that those stores with PS3s in stock typically had units numbering in the low single digits, with only one major retailer having 60-plus machines in stock.
McNealy said availability in stores of PS3s, which are more expensive than Wiis, does not necessarily indicate slack demand and that he would continue to monitor PS3 inventories closely.
New video game consoles tend to be in very short supply for months after their release as demand for the latest new machines outweigh manufacturers’ ability to turn them out.
Yes, it’s somewhat anecdotal, but it’s not the kind of news that Sony would like to hear. Well, at least they’re still selling PS2s.
You may recall that in the high definition DVD wars Microsoft and Toshiba are the leaders of the HD DVD camp while Sony leads the Blu-ray forces. Now there’s word that the battle is all over – HD DVD versus Blu-ray – The porn industry says HD DVD:
Knowing their audience quite well, the adult entertainment industry holds their annual get together in Las Vegas to coincide with the CES. There is also a very pertinent crossover between the adult and tech industries – porn has a tendency to drive, and be driven, by technology. Which means HD DVD when it comes to high-def.
Quite famously in the war between Betamax and VHS the latter won especially because the adult industry preferred it. If you’ve been around long enough, you probably remember that the very early home video rental stores were primarily responsible for driving Betamax out of the market. And those stores carried almost exclusively pornographic content.
Although the market environments from then do not really compare to today’s home video market, parallels are drawn between the Betamax-VHS battle to the ongoing and escalating fight between Blu-ray and HD DVD. One of the key questions at this year’s CES actually is “Which high-def format will win the current format war – Blu-ray or HD DVD?” Surprisingly, it seems that there is no such question in the minds of the adult industry luminaries.
The rest of the article explains some technical reasons why HD DVD is a better choice for small publishers. There’s also an unverified report today that Sony has forbidden “adult” Blu-ray content which would make the choice even clearer.
The “adult entertainment” industry is not shy about preposterous self promotion, but the “porn makes new technologies succeed” meme has been around for years. I can recall arguments from over a decade ago that “adult entertainment” was going to be the driver for adoption of multimedia hardware features on PCs. That never came to pass (at least in the non-Web form anticipated), but the evidence is better in other technology areas. I doubt the battle is really over, but chalk this one up as one more player (albeit nonstandard) weighing in for HD DVD.
Update: For a less arousing status on the format wars, see this overview.
Update 1/19: More on the Sony/Blu-ray position here.
Update 1/27: Sony says there’s really no Blu-ray adult content prohibition.
