nVidia chief: PS3 delay a 'master stroke'- nVidia boss Jen-Hsun Huang unsurprisingly backs PS3 and Blu-ray to win the next gen disk format war
July 25, 2006
nVidia chief Jen-Hsun Huang has gone on record with the San Jose Mercury News to sing the praises of the PS3 and its associated Blu-ray technology, even going so far as to call the console's delay to incorporate Sony's next-gen disk format a 'master stroke'.
The nVidia CEO was supremely confident that the company had backed the right horse this time around after his nVidia originally supplied the GPU for Xbox One, while this time it's providing GPUs for Sony's PlayStation 3.
Huang said, "I don't think that working with Sony is wrong. There is no way that is going to be wrong. There are many wonderful things that Sony did. I'm excited that they made Blu-ray high-definition storage as a standard part of the PlayStation 3 platform."
Huang continued, "To postpone it by a few months so they could include Blu-Ray was a master stroke. When that comes out, it's going to look so much more advanced than last-generation game consoles. I think that was a wonderful call on their part."
The nVidia chief also had a warning for Microsoft saying, "I'm not sure how Microsoft is going to do in this transition. They are clever and they will figure out a way. I'll make a prediction that Xbox 360 can't possibly be a DVD-only device by Christmas of next year."
Huang also believes that Blu-ray is the format that is set to dominate proceedings for the next decade, opining, "The important thing is you cannot announce a game console for the next ten years and not have Blu-Ray ...If I'm going to buy a next-generation game console, I'm going to buy a console with next-generation media. It's going to last ten years."
The nVidia boss isn't apparently bothered by the PS3's uber price tag either, making a direct comparison to the PS2's price point when it was launched, "PlayStation 2 was launched seven years ago in Japan at about $399. If you use inflation, it's the same price, approximately."
Source: http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=143333
Hit or miss? PlayStation 3 buzz subdued
July 23, 2006
Sony Corp. has high expectations for this fall’s rollout of its PlayStation 3 video-game console, a driver of the company’s earnings.
But the machine’s expected price tag, some downbeat buzz within the industry and improving prospects for a competitor’s console could lead to disappointment for Sony, according to some analysts and video-game specialists.
That is a potential problem for a stock that remains almost 24 percent higher than late last year.
In November, Sony is expected to introduce PlayStation 3 for $499 for a basic system and $599 for a console with a larger hard drive. It will include a high-definition DVD player, called Blu-ray, and a powerful new computer chip.
Rival Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox is about $200 cheaper, though it doesn’t have the same new-age DVD player. And this fall Nintendo Co. will start selling its own new game system, the Wii (pronounced “we”). The Wii already is winning accolades from video-game critics, in part, because of a wandlike remote. That machine is expected to cost $250 or less.
“People in gaming and game publishing are drastically less excited about PlayStation 3 than they were a year ago, and also a few months back, and competition is looking much stronger,” says David Cole, a market analyst at DFC Intelligence, a San Diego market-research firm focused on the video-game industry. “There is a lot of anticipation about PS3, but not a lot of software coming out over the next few months that would excite consumers. And the price point is staggering.”
A Sony spokesman said “pricing for PlayStation 3 is entirely appropriate, given all that it has to offer, including the Cell chip and Blu-ray.” The company argues that game developers are embracing the PS3.
The first run of PS3 consoles likely will sell out, as hard-core gamers scoop up the machines, analysts say. But the price could reduce broader interest, especially if U.S. economic growth slows in the fall, as many economists expect.
The PS3 is part of Sony’s effort to boost the prospects of the Blu-ray as a standard for DVDs. The Blu-ray, with backing from Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., News Corp., Walt Disney Co. and others, is competing with a rival standard called HD-DVD, backed by Toshiba Corp., Microsoft and General Electric Co.’s NBC Universal.
Source: http://www.dailyherald.com/business/story.asp?id=210240
Sony Will Plummet With PlayStation 3
Sony Will Plummet With PlayStation 3 It wasn't too long ago that some analyst went on and on about how the PS3 was going to win the next-gen console wars. His bold move baffled some, since the high PS3 price is an obvious barrier for many consumers.
Now there's another official analysis, this time by DFC Intelligence, which says pretty much the complete opposite. The DFC report predicts that Sony, with their "PS3 is a computer, not a video game machine" attitude will be a punch in the gut to them, sending them back into reality.
What DFC really focuses on, unlike the previous analyst, is the PS3 effect around the world. It's going to be much more common for a U.S. household to just add the PS3 as part of someone's sophisticated home theater set-up, but in places like Europe, that's not quite as practical.
The report also looks at the Xbox 360 versus the Wii, saying that the 360 is going to have a tough time in Japan (which we all knew anyway), and they predict that the Wii will in fact overthrow the PS3 by 2011.
Source: http://www.i4u.com/article6112.html
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