In a further attempt to alienate customers, maintain an absurdly high price, and give Micro$oft a better lead in the next-gen console battle, Sony, through President and CEO Ken Kutaragi , has announced that the PlayStation 3 is a computer, not a console.
Kutaragi pointedly commented of the next-gen console, which is due to launch this November at dual price points of $499 and $599 in North America: “We don’t say it’s a game console (*laugh*) – PlayStation 3 is clearly a computer, unlike the PlayStations [released] so far.”
This, Sony says, leaves open the possibility of upgrades or additional configurations in the future.
. . . “I think it’s okay to release a [extended PS3] configuration every year”. It’s clear from the comments that Sony is indicating that it will be possible to upgrade hard drives and perhaps even other components easily.
The Sony CEO gave another example in the interview: “As PS3 is a computer… it also wants to evolve. We’ll want to upgrade the HDD size very soon – if new standards appear on the PC, we will want to support them. We may want the [Blu-ray] drive to [have a writable version upgrade].” He then tempered his comments: “Well, BD may not develop like that, though.” But extensibility is what Sony is stressing that you get for the price of a PS3, nonetheless.
I think Bill has the whole PS3 situation covered best of all the sites I follow. That last link in particular has some pretty good discussion on the fiasco.
[tags]PS3, Playstation 3, Sony suicide[/tags]