Sony delays launch of PS3 virtual community
Far from Home
Sony is to delay the launch of Home, its virtual community service for users of the PlayStation 3 console, until spring 2008. The service, which was originally scheduled for release this autumn, is a real-time interactive virtual world that serves as a meeting place for PlayStation 3 users.
Much like Second Life it allows individuals to create avatars to interact with others. It also enables them to play games against competitors, to shop, and to build their own personal space.
Kazuo Hirai, the new chief executive of Sony's video game business Sony Computer Entertainment, announced the delay in a keynote speech at the Tokyo Game Show.
"This is going to be a worldwide service that needs to offer a wide range of functions required in Japan, in the US, in Europe and in Asia," said Hirai. "We aim to launch this as something that can meet expectations of people all over the world."
The decision to postpone the launch of Home is yet another setback for Sony. The firm had to delay the European debut of the PlayStation 3 itself because of production issues, meaning that it came out one year after Microsoft launched its Xbox 360 console. The high cost of the PS3 and the runaway success enjoyed by Nintendo and its Wii console have has also impacted on the consumer electronics giant.
According to recent figures from Japanese analysts Nikkei Net Kansai, by the end of July, the Wii had sold nine million units across Japan, America and Germany, outdoing Microsoft Xbox 360 sales of 8.8 million during the same period despite launching a year later.
The Sony PlayStation 3 (PS3), which was launched in the US and Japan within a few days of the Wii, only sold 3.7 million units during the same timeframe. Sony is no doubt hoping the introduction of Home will enhance the appeal of the PS3 console amongst gamers.
When it does finally go live, Home will be available as a free download and will launch directly from the PS3 system's home menu.
© 2007 ENN
COMMENTS
@Cosser
"People really need to look at reality not just make things up."
I totally agree with that sentence, but
"PS3 games are cheap" is totally wrong on a variety of levels.
In reality, £10 for a game is cheap, not £40. Please avoid suggesting to SONY execs - and other game makers - that they can sell their games at £80 or more.
@ Alistair McRae
My mistake, I thought this was an article on the delay of 'Home', not a call to alms for 360 fanboys.
PS3 has more of this...
360 has more of that...
Myself? I'm a gamer. I couldn't care less about the hardware. After all, if I like the game, I own the hardware it plays on.
Ps: My condolences for Colin.
Games cost the earth?
"which is what happens when you buy one and realise you can't afford mortgage payments and the games cost the earth each"
They cost from £31 to £40 how is that any more expensive that any other next gen console? or even PS2 games?
People really need to look at reality not just make things up.
PS3 games are cheap, the only fair criticism is that there aren't more.
Not missing much
As a beta trialist, I have this.
You're not missing much. There's barely ever more than 8-12 people on. Obviously a lot more when they announce something new (twice during the Summer).
It's a nice enough product. But, it lacks anything that will keep making you want to fire it up and come back for more.
Argh! Stop saying the PS3 is "More powerfull" it's not!
It's is not! The published performance figures were based on a theoretical maximum non real world IBM lab result running on 1 Power PC core + 8 SPEs running ASYMETRICALLY
The PS3 only uses 6 SPEs as 1 was dropped due to wafer yields and another is reserved for the OS.
The GPU is a 256mb 7900 nvidia gfx card. 32mb of which is eaten by the O/S
It’s only got 256mb of ram 64 MB is eaten by the O/S.
Then you've got the extremely slow reading from the blu-ray drive.
In the end what was announced was a 250gflop processing monster when in reality they never get more that 70gflops
Then if you compare this to a 360 which has 3 Power PC SYMETRICAL cores that can handle a lot more diverse input of data all at once that the SPEs are incapable of processing.
Then you have the memory 512MB ram that can be allocated between the CPU and GPU however the specific game maker feels like.
The biggest advantage the Xbox 360 has is its GFX card that is so much more revolutionary because it uses unified pipelines that can do vertex data or pixel shading rather that the PS3 GPU that has specific ones to do the job and if they aren't used they sit idle.
Another thing that the xbox360 does better is its O/S only takes up 3% of the processor power 32
MB of memory that’s it.
And considering that they are always running in the background I’d say it makes a measurable difference
Over all the Xbox 360 is more powerful as games console. The ps3 has some advantages in some ways but they are not relevant for gaming as we use at the moment.
