Emperor Pan I
Respected Member
Looking to pick up a PS3 any time soon? Don’t count on it. Sony has recently announced several interesting Changes to their game plan. First off the worldwide launch is no longer a worldwide launch. Europe will be receiving the PS3 sometime in 2007. As for the rest of the world? Japan will receive only 100,000 consoles and North America only 400,000. This reduces the expected launch numbers from 2 million to 500,000. Year end numbers have also been reduced from 4 million to 2 million.
This drastic reduction can only mean one thing, Shortages. The 360 had them, and it is no doubt that the PS3 will not get away unharmed. With the Xbox offering free Xbox live for the week in Europe, releasing a second xbox sku in Japan, Microsoft hopes to catch up with this stumble. In addition there are rumors that the 360 could see a price drop of up to 100$. Nintendo Wii will launch sometime in the coming months, putting pressure on Sony, with all the Buzz Nintneod has created regarding it’s console and controller.. There is no doubt that the PS3 is marginally the most powerful console to be released. Now it is going to be a luxury few can afford, and even fewer will receive. Even if they sell out, there is no way around shortages, similar to the 360.
Also you can’t get away with only buying a 600$ PS3 and hope for HD output. Sony’s own site declared :
HDMI cables can go for up to 300$ if you want the best possbile visuals. Lower end will cost an additional 30$.
Another interesting tidbit is the speed between the two. No not processor speed, but drive speed. Sure a 25 GB blue-ray disk is great, but the drives themselves are slow.
This drastic reduction can only mean one thing, Shortages. The 360 had them, and it is no doubt that the PS3 will not get away unharmed. With the Xbox offering free Xbox live for the week in Europe, releasing a second xbox sku in Japan, Microsoft hopes to catch up with this stumble. In addition there are rumors that the 360 could see a price drop of up to 100$. Nintendo Wii will launch sometime in the coming months, putting pressure on Sony, with all the Buzz Nintneod has created regarding it’s console and controller.. There is no doubt that the PS3 is marginally the most powerful console to be released. Now it is going to be a luxury few can afford, and even fewer will receive. Even if they sell out, there is no way around shortages, similar to the 360.
Also you can’t get away with only buying a 600$ PS3 and hope for HD output. Sony’s own site declared :
- Gamespot"Video output in HD requires cables and an HD-compatible display, both sold separately. Copy-protected Blu-ray video discs can only output at 1080p using an HDMI cable connected to a device that is compatible with the HDCP standard. HDMI cable not included. Additional equipment may be required to use the HDMI connector."
HDMI cables can go for up to 300$ if you want the best possbile visuals. Lower end will cost an additional 30$.
Another interesting tidbit is the speed between the two. No not processor speed, but drive speed. Sure a 25 GB blue-ray disk is great, but the drives themselves are slow.
"Admittedly, Blu-Ray looks dicey from several non-capacity angles. Blu-Ray movies require a 1.5x Blu-Ray drive, or 54Mbits/second. Sony announced that PS3 uses a 2x BD drive, which is 72Mbits/second or 9MB/second. The Xbox 360 uses a 12x DVD, which should give it about 16MB/second. That is significantly faster for games and will result in shorter load times. And that 12x DVD drive should be a whole lot cheaper. (Note that the PS3 drive will do 8x DVD, and even that is faster than 2x BD.)"