9, 25. 2006
Will the PlayStation3 (PS3) be really OK? Only a few people are optimistic about the game machine yet to come out on the market. Game fans are too busy playing with the NintendoDS to show interest in the PS3. Some software makers have suddenly decided to postpone the development of software for the PS3 because they are worried about the future of the game machine.
The PS3 will be put on the market on November 11 for a price of 62,790 yen (including tax) each. It is mounted with the next generation DVD BD (Blu-ray disc). Its main sales point is that it has the operation capability comparable to a super-computer.
Titles of the Games in Development Disappear Suddenly from Magazines
Is the PS3 OK?
As the sale of the PS3 will start two months from now, J-CAST asked public relations section of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. how far the PS3 is advanced compared to the PS2 in terms of the processing capability.
Its reply was, “It cannot be explained well.”
The sales point of the PS3 is that it is equipped with the next-generation DVD playback device “BD” which the company plans to have recognized as global standard. It is definitely not a mere game machine. Different from the DVD function used for the PS2, no one knows if the BD will be widely popularized in the future.
In Japan, the titles and the dates of sale of software in development for the PS3 were reported in game magazines. Such reports, however, disappeared suddenly from the magazines. A suspicion is expressed in talks on the internet that there may be many software producers which started but quit the developing of software for the PS3. People in the game industry say about this:
“The makers are gaining profit from making software for the NintendoDS. So, they tend basically to go on producing the software for the DS, which is certain to show sales increase in the future, rather than facing the challenge of producing software for the PS3. The makers are taking a wait-and-see stance for the development of the PS3 software.”
More than 10 million unit of the mobile game machine NintendoDS were sold in Japan in 20 months after it was first put on the market. Many of its software have become million sellers. The NittendoDS has thus presented a bright hope for the game industry which has been shrinking since 1997. There is a view among the people in the industry that, “The game users have already chosen the DS, and they wouldn’t give attention to the PS3.” It is predicted that there will not be an increase in the game software for the PS3 after the sale of the PS3 starts.
SCE Pres. Kutaragi Was Ranked Fourth Among “10 Unimportant People”
J-CAST asked the public relations section of SCE the question: “The PS3 is a game machine, is it not?”
The answer was: “No, it’s a next-generation computer entertainment system that can also be used for playing games. We said the same thing about the PS2.”
In fact, before the sale of the PS2 started in March 2000, Kutaragi, President of SCE, changed the description of the PS2 from a “state-of-the-art game machine” to “multi-entertainment machine.” The game makers who supported the PS2 gave a big booing for this change. The SCE public relations section then hurriedly corrected it to say, “The PS2 is a game machine.” Thus, it can be said, the introduction of the PS3 proves that the company is growing out of the “game machine” for the first time as Kutaragi has so longed for.
There is another serious problem in the marketing of the PS3. The development of the PS2 cost the company quite a deal, while the software has not sold well. It is said that few of the software producers made profit if they did any. Bankruptcies happened one after another among them, and mergers also continued to take place among them, such as Bandai and Namco, and Enix and Square. The game software makers facing weakening management power could not do anything but keep producing the sequels to already popular game software. This resulted in lacking of the freshness in the contents of the new games. As a result, this condition may have a negative impact on the sale of the PS3.
The American economic magazine Business 2.0, in its July 2006 issue, placed Kutaragi fourth in the list of the top10 unimportant persons in the business circles of the world. This meant that he was ranked fourth among the 10 people who were considered to have passed their peaks and lost their influence or those whose importance had been exaggerated. The reasons for selecting him were: (1) the sale of the PS3 which had been scheduled for last spring has been delayed by months, and its price became hundreds of dollars higher than the consoles of Microsoft and Nintendo, and (2) because of the delay in sales and higher-than-expected production cost, his company may be putting out the product which is unlikely to succeed. Do you remember the failure of Betamax?, the article sarcastically said.
