WITH dazzling graphics powered by a top-secret supercomputer chip, it was lined up to be the absolute must-have Christmas present of 2006.
But British videogamers will be devastated to learn that Santa’s sack will not contain the PlayStation 3 console.
Apologising repeatedly for the debacle, Ken Kutaragi, the Sony engineer known as the “Father of PlayStation”, admitted that Britain and Europe were the victims of a harsh corporate marketing decision.
British gamers must wait patiently for the machine so that Sony can keep its promise to the American and Japanese fans to deliver the consoles to them in mid-November, as advertised.
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An eleventh-hour production problem with the PlayStation 3’s revolutionary blue laser disc-reading system, and a decision to dispatch the heavy 7kg units by sea, have meant that the long-awaited console will not arrive on British shores until Easter.
The only positive side is that it may spare many parents an expensive Christmas: the price has yet to be fixed, but is likely to be about £425 when it finally hits the shops.
It is yet another heavy blow for Sony, which is desperate to retain its dominance of the £20 billion global games industry in the face of surging competition.
Since its release five years ago, Sony’s PlayStation 2 has held the clear lead over its rivals and sold more than 100 million worldwide.
But Sony’s latest troubles have handed the Xbox 360, the rival next-generation machine made by Microsoft, a head-start of more than 16 months in the British market. And the postponement of the PlayStation 3 release is expected to cause havoc for retailers and video games makers across Europe who relied on Sony’s assurances that 1.5 million units would be available.
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Eithne O’Leary, an analyst for Oriel Security, said that the high street retailers HMV and Game Group were likely to be worst affected.
“It can’t be seen as particularly good news for either of these stores, but it is more of a delay in sales rather than a fundamental disaster for the companies,” she said.
Sources close to Game Group, one of Europe’s largest video games stores, said that it would not affect sales significantly. The source said: “We were never anticipating a substantial amount of PS3 in 2006. We expect to see some mitigation of profit impact with a strong line-up of other products now in free supply.”
The British market had planned for an estimated 200,000 consoles for the launch, with about 50,000 going through Game Group.
A spokesman for Currys and PC World said: “It is disappointing but it is a dynamic market and we are confident that games and gaming are going to be hot sellers this Christmas.”
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The delay further raises the stakes in Sony’s promotion of the Blu-ray disc technology. Sony, in a consortium with 100 other major companies, is pushing the PlayStation 3 as the first mass-release example of a Blu-ray disc movie player.
But it faces a rival technology created by Toshiba, and media analysts believe that any delay getting Europe “hooked” on Blu-ray could cost its consortium dearly.
In a last-minute upset to its plans, Sony discovered that the PlayStation 3, which contains a series of previously unreleased new technologies, takes longer to produce than its makers had forecast. Test production runs over the summer revealed manufacturing difficulties that reduced the capacity from four to two million units.
In a decision that Sony Computer Entertainment said was incredibly tough, it was decided that the missing units would be the ones destined for Europe. The delay is the latest in a string of glitches for the Japanese technology giant, and prompted Mr Kutaragi to admit that “Sony has to start getting its technology right”.
He pointed out, though, that previous console releases had been dogged by delays but the products had gone on to be huge successes. ()
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PRODUCTS IN THE PIPELINE
Blu-ray disc player
The stand-alone Blu-ray disc movie player has full high definition technology.
As flat-screen televisions have become cheaper and picture quality sharper, electronics companies have found a need to raise the picture and sound quality of the content that can be shown on them.
The Blu-ray Disc consortium, led by Sony and others, is backing a technology that uses a blue laser beam to read CD-sized discs that hold vast quantities of information.
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Another large consortium, led by Toshiba, is backing an alternative, cheaper, technology.
e-Book
Sony’s e-Book is an attempt to crush, once and for all, the dominance of paper as a medium for reading.
Its revolutionary technology means that pages of text can be reproduced in “virtual ink” on a screen and an entire library of books can be stored on a single memory chip.
Unlike previous attempts at electronic books, the latest generation does not strain the eyes and a single battery can be used to turn 10,000 virtual pages.
Location-free TV box
This autumn Sony introduces a wireless transmitter that sits beneath the main television and allows anything being shown on it to appear on any other television in the home.
A DVD playing downstairs, for example, could be watched upstairs on a television in a bedroom.