اخبار عن Xbox2 وSP3وجيم كيوب2
Ignore the Internet rumors Microsoft and others are encouraging; Sony will not be launching PS3 in 2003. The truth inside.
The rumors have been rampant, almost from the day Sony launched PS2 in the US. "PS2 won't last long," the rumors say. "Sony's already working on PS3, and it'll replace the PS2 by 2002 or 2003, so don't waste your money."
There's a grain of truth in all that and the path it took to become such an inaccurate rumor is a not surprising, once you know the facts. But if you've heard the rumor above, or a variation of it, and are thinking of not buying a PS2 because of it... if you're thinking maybe GameCube or Xbox is perhaps a better investment... then you've been grossly misinformed.
Enter SonyWeb. As the leading PS2 site on the Internet, we've been covering all of this since well before Launch Day and have separated the truth from the rumor. So take our hand as we take an inside look at The Cell and PS3.
The Grain of Truth
As a company now committed to videogame entertainmnet, Sony is planning long-term and has indeed begun thinking about PS3. In fact, this past March, it came to light that Sony had entered into an agreement with Toshiba and IBM to design an all-new, extremely powerful broadband-saavy processor currently code-named The Cell. The Cell will be used in many consumer electronic appliances, and that does include PS3.
The investment by the three companies will be considerable. In fact, according to SonyWeb's own news report, the initial research and development cost on The Cell will reach $400 million USD.
However, this is where the truth and the rumor part ways. The rumor goes on to suggest this means PS3 will be available in a year or two and that, therefore, buying a PS2 is a bad short-term investment. Nothing could be further from the truth, because the news sites and reporters and rumor-mongers who suggest this never went on to read the rest of the press release... or worse, didn't care and hoped to intentionally deceive consumers.
How the Rumor Spread
It's almost impossible to trace rumors like this. However, there are several natural suspects who have no doubt contributed to the spread of this rumor, each for their own unique reasons.
The Mainstream Media—Many mainstream news sources, sites that are not the videogame press, initially picked up the news release talking about The Cell and its connection to PS3, and jumped to false conclusions. Whether it's the AP, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal, Time, or even prominent newspapers, very few reporters in the mainstream media have the insider's understanding of the industry those in the gaming press possess. Therefore, mainstream news sources often "get it wrong," although usually this happens without malice... they simply are not specialists in videogame industry news.
Sony's Competitors—Although not the source of such misinformation, there's little doubt that spreading consumer doubt about the long-term value of PS2 is in the best interest of both Nintendo and Microsoft. Encouraging the spread of Internet rumors to subversively undermine competitors is actually a strategy Microsoft has used in the past to erode confidence in Apple, Sun, and Netscape; not that you can prove it in court, but everyone knows it happens.
Bitter Sega Fanboys—More than any other company, Sega fans like to blame Sony for the downfall of Saturn, Dreamcast, and ultimately for Sega's exit from hardware. Of course, this is oversimplifying the situation and ignores the poor decisions and shaky financials Sega had to weather no matter what its competitors did. Because blaming Sony is easier to cope with than admitting Sega's own internal problems, there is a large contingent of Sega fanboys and fangirls who seized onto these rumors and did their best to spread them throughout the Internet. Consider it a form of revenge, consider them Yaj's acolytes in videogame terrorism, whatever. The bottom line is, there's plenty of folks who want to see Sony's PS2 fail and are more than willing to help damaging rumors along to acheive that goal.
Chat Board Rumor Mongers—While the Internet thrives on community groups like IRC chat, AIM Chat Rooms, and Message Boards (including GamerWeb's own), the downside of such communities is they give rise to uninformed "experts." These folks post dozens of messages a day to establish a reptuation for "knowing the real deal." The problem is, they're almost always quoting news already posted on a legitimate news site or they're uninformed and merely spreading rumors and falsehoods. They lack the industry connections news sites like GamerWeb and IGN possess, but will not hesitate to pass themselves off as knowing more than legitimate news sites. As a result, if they say something is so, many folks gullible enough to believe them take it as Gospel... and it's not.
Sony Themselves—Like most big companies in the videogame industry, Sony's standard policy on rumors is a hands-off policy. "We don't respond to rumors," the typical company line goes. "If you want to know what's up with Sony, listen to our official press releases and nothing else." The problem with this policy is that it allows false rumors to spread unchecked. Therefore, the rumor mongers can gain credibility by claiming, "Well, if it weren't true, Sony would have said so by now." Granted, Sony's PR reps already have full schedules and responding to every single rumor would soon take up at least one full-time position. But some rumors should be responded to, and because of Sony's uniform "hands-off" policy, they must bear at least some responsibility for the continued spread of such rumors. Unfortunately, many Internet fans are so jaded... or such marks for rumor-mongers... that even if Sony issued a denial of a rumor, few of them would believe the denial. And so it goes.
The Whole Truth
SonyWeb has been covering The Cell since news of it first surfaced. We've been covering Sony since we launched. We have connections at Sony and experience covering the industry. Therefore, we are uniquely qualified to clear away the rumors from the known facts. Here goes.
The PlayStation 3 will be powered by a new chipset developed by Sony, Toshiba, and IBM called The Cell. Developing The Cell will cost the three companies at least $400 million in research and development, and is expected to net the companies at least $4 billion USD in revenues, when it's all said and done.
The Cell is not being developed exclusively for use in PS3. In fact, the companies hope to use it in many diverse applications, such as other consumer electronic devices, high-end computer graphics workstations, and servers. But due at least in part to its design, which makes it uniquely qualified to power broadband-enabled applications, it is expected to be the processing heart of PlayStation 3.
Research and development on The Cell is scheduled to be complete and ready for mass production no sooner than 2005. Sony's original press release on The Cell estimated it would take about five years to go from initial design to mass production. Since the press release surfaced in March 2001, that means the earliest we're likely to see the Japanese launch of PS3 is March 2006.
The only way this could change is if Sony, Toshiba, and IBM discover a way to accelerate R&D to compete with a rushed-to-market Xbox2 or GameCube2. But considering Xbox and GameCube are both launching a year later than PS2, it's unlikely those companies would launch the next edition of their consoles in 2004; 2005 is probably the earliest you can expect the first of the next next-gen systems to launch.
Unless Microsoft or Nintendo force the issue, Sony would prefer to wait until 2006 to launch PS3.
Why? Because if Sony waits until 2006, they can use The Cell in high-end/high-profit-margin electronic appliances and computer graphics workstations and servers, and begin to regain the research investment they're putting into The Cell before launching PS3. $400 million is a considerable investment, and if some of that can be recouped before the PS3 launch, it will help Sony control the inital launch price of PS3, which they are likely to want to keep at the traditional $299 price point for new console platforms.
This would allow Sony to launch PS3 with a vast supply of PS3 Cell chips in stock, as well. According to the original press release The Cell is expected to be produced in "tens of millions per year" quantities. If Sony can hold off the launch of PS3 until production of The Cell is ramped up to full speed, they can avoid launching PS3 with a paltry 500,000 units on launch day, a PS2 US Launch Day blunder they don't wish to duplicate. Under ideal circumstances, Sony would like to hold off launching PS3 until they can guarantee no less than two million units per territory on Launch Day, and a steady flow of units thereafter. That would be hard to accomplish in 2005 and impossible any sooner than that. 2006 would be ideal timing, however, to accomplish that goal.
Holding off the PS3 launch until 2006 would also allow first-party and third-party developers much more time to prepare top-notch titles for the PS3 launch. Although Sony's PS2 launch titles, in terms of quantity, tops any previous console launch, Sony is acutely aware of the criticisms about launch title quality, especially in their 989 Sports line, and holding off PS3 launch until 2006 would mean a less-rushed schedule for everyone involved. Less rush means higher quality.
Xbox2 and GameCube2 (or whatever Microsoft and Nintendo call their next systems) are unlikely to launch before 2006, so there's little reason for Sony to pull a Sega and leapfrog the competition, setting themselves up to be outdone by the competition.
Of course, there's an amount of speculation to all this. But the smart money says PS3 launches, at earliest, in 2005 if there's a rush-to-market, but more likely in 2006. Waiting until 2006 will allow Sony to get the most out of PS2 and pull off the best-possible launch of PS3.
However, factors beyond Sony's control, such as moves made by Microsoft and Nintendo, as well as other possible competitors entering the market who are unknown today, may force Sony to alter their preferred timetables. That happened with PS2, when Sega's early launch of Dreamcast forced Sony to move up their timetable for launching PS2 by almost a year.
But there will be nothing so radical as launching PS3 in 2003 or 2004, since The Cell would not even be close to design completion, let alone ready for mass production. It would also rob Sony of maximizing the potential lifecycle of PS2. An early PS3 launch in 2003 or 2004? It just won't happen.
So relax and enjoy PS2; it's gonna be here for a full cycle of console lifespan, which by standard is 5 to 6 years. We're less than a year in, at this point, so your PS2 fun really is just beginning.
"Y2Craig" Craig Hansen
اذا لاتجيد الاجليزي اذهب الى عجيب انسخ النص وضعه في ترجم نص
المصدرhttp://www.sonyweb.com/features/insidethecell.html
