by Playfuls Staff |
21st February 2006
The next-gen gaming consoles’ battle, which was supposed to be the most hard-fought entertainment war this year, turned into somewhat of a challenge to see “who’s got the most problems?”. Microsoft worked hard to respect it’s announced launch deadline, but after the magnificent launch, the wonderful Xbox 360 simply hasn’t been shipped anymore, due to some component-related problems.[more]
Microsoft has announced that it will try to solve the problem of its stocks, but nothing clear has been done in this direction so far. On the other hand, Sony, instead of taking advantage of the weakness of its opponent, has received a frontal hit from the analysts at Merill Lynch, who’s opinion was that the Japanese manufacturer won’t be able to launch even one console earlier than the end of 2006.
Why? First of all, because the specifications for Blu-Ray, the optical standard Sony intends to launch together with the PS3 have not been completed yet, but this is not the only problem. It looks like Sony has some difficulties securing the output of Cell processors from IBM and GPUs from NVidia. So the analysts from Merill Lynch have estimated that even if Sony does manage to launch the console this year, it won’t be able to deliver more than 2 – 3 million units.
So, regardless of the statements issued by Sony’s officials, who denied the rumors regarding the push back of their launch deadlines (this spring, that is) Sony’s shares are going down, which isn’t exactly good for the company.
Moreover, beyond the issues related to the delays and stock problems, there is a way more complicated problem. The analysts from Merill Lynch have also calculated that the price of a Play Station 3 console will be around 900 dollars (which represents only the components’ costs). It’s not an unusual practice for a company to lose money on a console, but seeing that the manufacturing price is of $900, the console can’t go below $800, retail price. And this happens as the Xbox 360 is sold for nearly half this sum, and Microsoft has announced that it might launch a Xbox fitted with a HD-DVD for 600 dollars.
If Sony won’t manage to do whatever it can in order to launch the PS3 this spring, then perhaps Microsoft should start ordering the champagne for the victory party.
