BEIJING, March 19 (Xinhuanet) -- Remember when game
consoles just played games, were simple and inexpensive? Well, no more!
In another series of long-awaited rollouts, Sony will launch on Fri day its PlayStation 3 in
Australia, Europe and New Zealand, and its price has escalated. Japanese
gamers forked over 412 U.S. dollars in PS3's initial launch, Americans anteed up
599 dollars, but European gamers will have to pay 779 dollars to 840 dollars,
while Australians must pay up to 839 dollars for a game console that also
connects to the Internet, plays high-definition DVDs and stores photographs from
a digital camera and music from an iPod.
The PS3 is big gamble by Sony, under its British
chief executive Sir Howard Stringer, to regain dominance in home entertainment.
The often-delayed product is expected to hit the Japanese giant with losses of 2
billion dollars this fiscal year. It takes a significant loss on every PS3
it manufactures and will hope to recoup the money from sales of 36 games that
will be available at the launch.
Experts in Britain believe the PS3 will make a solid
but unspectacular start this week.
"A lot of eyes are on Howard Stringer and whether the
PS3 can reclaim the home entertainment crown for Sony," said Paul Jackson,
principal analyst at Forrester Research.. "One product will not bring the
corporation to its knees but they are pinning a lot of hopes on it ... And I
doubt whether Sony expected such a negative backlash from the online community.'
Bloggers have given the PS3 a
lukewarm reception.
One, named "Guspaz," wrote: "Assuming Sony sells
every console in Europe that they ship, they'd still have sold only two-thirds
as many as the Wii (and a quarter as many as the [XBox] 360). I don't think that
it's too late for Sony to turn the PS3 around, but since it would involve
swallowing their pride, popping their ego balloon, and taking heavy financial
losses, I don't think it's likely to happen."
But David Carnoy, an editor at www.cnet.com, said:
"Though not without a few minor drawbacks, the PS3 is a versatile and impressive
piece of home entertainment equipment."
Sales of the PS3 in America have not been
outstanding. In February it sold 127,000 units, trailing behind Nintendo's less
costly Wii console, which sold 335,000, and Microsoft's XBox 360, which sold
228,000. Even Sony's PlayStation 2 -- the most popular game console -- sold
295,000, continuing to outperform its more expensive successor.
Retailers in Britain are trying to downplay
concerns thousands of people will be left disappointed by a shortage. Sony
has had time to ship 1 million PS3s for Friday's European launch, with 220,000
available in the UK -- by far the biggest console debut yet. Virgin Megastores
said it had received several thousand pre-orders.
"The number of customers asking our sales staff about
it over the last few weeks has been phenomenal," said Stephen Lynn, a senior
manager.
(Agencies)
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