4 days ago I wrote that the PS3 is in trouble Given how grim it looked to me I thought that I might have gone too far in my assessments. Suddenly those predictions look less outlandish. From 2 Million at launch down to 500,000. US: 400K, Japan: 100K and Europe: none, launch in March 2007 over there. Imagine you are a game developer for the japanese or European market. Imagine you bothered to develop for the PS3 at all.
The official Sony PR speak ‘blames’ a shortage in the blu ray diodes. Those do cost like 1 US$? 10? Sony is a propoenent of Blu-Ray technology since 4 years. They knew they would need those blue Lasers at one point. Still they rather make laptop batteries for Dell and Apple, instead of producing this rather essential part? C’mon, it’s called ‘Blu-Ray’. I have problems buying that it’s this little laser that kicks Sony’s next console strategy like it supposed to do.
Beginning this year Sony delayed the Ps3 launch from Spring to November saying that the DRM for the BlueRay discs would not be finalised. Which was obvious BS. They did have enough laser diodes back then? And those dissapeared?
Interesting also that there were standalone players in early summer with working DRM.
I think that the ‘blu-ray-shortage’ is a straw fire to direct the attention away from the real problem. The Cell does not want to run inside of that puny little case that Sony dreamt up. It does, but it gets way hot. The yields are beyond horrible. But if you say that now, then people that run their shiny new console under a blanket will blame Sony for their ‘over heating failures’.
With the ‘blu-ray’ spin Sony says that they very expensive PS3 contains this precious thing that is so amazing that you can not even make it. It’s a rare gem. So they want everybody to believe. “Whoa, you managed to get a Blu-Ray laser”?
Awesome. Kids like Lasers. It might even work. For a week or two. Till people will start looking at the PS3 online component. Anybody heard anything there? Wouldn’t it be time to give out teasers? Getting attention away from the Xbox by announcing details? Well, there is nothing. Which is not a good sign.