The Yamato 3: to Oblivion, and Beyond
I wasn't going to comment on Sony's decision not to include HDMI or component cables with the the Yamato 3, because Sony is hell-bent on destroying itself, so only including S-video cables with a $600 console whose primary selling point is high-definition fits right into their strategy.
I also never expected two million consoles to be available at launch. Again, that number was something that Sony pulled out of thin air, a best-best-best case scenario that was never going to happen, given what we were hearing about yields for the Cell and the technical issues that Blu-Ray has been having.
I did, however, expect a million consoles at launch.
As it turns out, even I was too optimistic. From the (Herald Tribune), via Joystiq:
In the U.S., about 400,000 PlayStation 3 machines will be available when they go on sale Nov. 17. About 100,000 will be available on the Nov. 11 Japan launch date.
People absolutely went ballistic over the number of units available at the 360 launch, and there were 1.5 million units. And there will be barely over a quarter of that number available for the PS3 launch.
Think that's bad for the U.S. and Japan, though? Europe gets, um, zero.
Sony's upgrade video-game console PlayStation 3 will be delayed until March in Europe...
The sales delay is caused by a problem in mass producing a key component in the Blu-ray disc laser part of the machine...
The production problem is causing about a one-month delay that will reduce the company's supply capacity by about a million machines from the original plan...
Kutaragi said other preparation work on the machine was going smoothly, including the "cell" next-generation computer chip.
Mass production of the machine is set to start end of September, he said.
Okay, let's do a little math here. Kutaragi says that a one-month delay is going to reduce their launch units by a million from their original plan, resulting in 500,000 units for sale.
That's interesting, because their original plan has always been two million launch units. How do you subtract one million from two million--and get 500,000?
Here's one more little nugget:
The company is still sticking to its initial global target of shipping 6 million PlayStation 3 machines by March 2007.
Sure. That should be no problem, to build 500,000 machines the first month of production--and 5.5 million in the next four.
Piece of cake. In other words, Sony will be doing really, really well to have 4 million units shipped by the end of March.
Here's what I think we can conclude from reading between the lines, which is the only way you ever know anything about Sony. One, they're much more concerned about the 360 than I thought. Japan's going to get twenty percent of the launch units? That's incredible. But the 360 has zero traction in Japan.
That's not the case here. The 360 will have an 8-9 million unit installed base by Christmas (I might be low on that number), and Sony's countering with 400,000 units that cost $200 more?
Here's something else between the lines: developers are pissed. Don't be surprised at all if the number of launch titles steadily drops between now and November. Nothing like spending huge amounts of jack to cash in on the prestige of being a launch title and then find out your ceiling is probably 300,000 units. And it's far, far worse in Japan.
Also don't be surprised when more PS3 project cancellations get announced in the next two months--or, at a minimum, pushed back another six months to a year. And PS3 exclusives? Only if Sony develops them or they scratch a giant check to someone. It would be a studio closer to put out a PS3 exclusive right now.
Sony's done a brilliant job here. They've taken a consumer product that they DESPERATELY need to become the market standard for both high-definition DVD and gaming and turned it into a boutique item. Remember that the number of consoles sold in November and December roughly equals what's sold in the other ten months--that's how important the holiday season is to console hardware.
One thing this does do is guarantee sellouts at launch. And it allows Sony to talk about "overwhelming demand," when actually the demand is going to be tepid. Seriously, this launch is in TWO MONTHS, and 90% of the PS3 publicity right now involves Sony executives defending their strategy. There's zero buzz.
It should be very funny to watch the industry analysts who blew the trumpet about their brilliant call (Sony will dominate!) on the next-gen hardware war start hiding in closets. They'll push out their date when Sony will overtake Microsoft by another six months or a year, which will be the third time they've pushed that date out. At this point, the PS3 is set to overtake the 360 about a year after Microsoft launches their next console.
Look, I'm not anti-Sony--I'm anti-idiot. And Sony's strategy for the PS3 has been idiotic. Like I said before, the Yamato 3 is the perfect name for this console, and unless Sony radically revises its strategy, the PS3 will go down as one of the bigggest product failures in gaming history, the machine that took Sony from an unassailable leadership position--to a distant third.
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