December 21, 2006
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PC World’s Dan Tynan has released a new article titled “The 21 biggest technology mistakes of 2006,” and coming in at the number 8 spot…you got it…Sony’s PS3.
Tynan starts off as describing PS3 as “late, expensive, and incompatible.” Ouch. “When it was announced in spring 2005, the Sony PlayStation 3 was going to be the greatest thing to hit home gaming since a hedgehog named Sonic. Then came the delays. By the time the PS3 arrived, it was six months late, and Nintendo’s cheaper and more innovative Wii had stolen much of its thunder. At $599 for the 60GB model, the PS3 is twice the price of the original PlayStation 2, yet research firm iSupply — which describes the PS3 as having supercomputer qualities–estimates that Sony still loses more than $200 per unit.”
Tynan cited the manufacturing delays that have drawn ire from gamers across the globe, as well as Son’y shipment of “less than half the number it had originally planned.” Tynan then knocked PS3 for being “incompatible with more than 200 PlayStation and PS2 games.”
Tynan did, however, see a silver lining surrounding the delays and skeletal number of launch units: “Game-crazed youth are buying up PS3s and reselling them on eBay for double the asking price. And unlike, say, Sony batteries, they don’t catch fire…at least, not yet.”
Tynan writes that one big mistake was “trying to turn a supercomputer into a gaming device,” and an even bigger blunder was “failing to drive a stake through the heart of Nintendo when the opportunity offered.”
And the hits keep on coming…
Time Magazine labels PS3 a huge bust for Sony.
In an article titled “5 Things That Went From Buzz to Bust,” Sony received quite the vicious lashing for its PS3. Unproven Cell and Blu-ray technology, a hefty $600 price tag, and the “lamest launch titles ever seen” all contributed to Time Magazine’s brutal assessment of Sony’s PS3. “You know you’re in trouble when you get beat by something called a Wii,” said Time.
