Malik  (7/12/04)

Sony's Playstation and PSP Forecasts 

According to a news item found at MSNBC.com, Sony is expecting to showcase a working model of their next console at 2005's E3 show. Despite the rumors of massive delays at Sony, they are holding their current and past promises to be true about both the next PS console being at E3 next year and of a March 2005 release for the PSP. 

Despite this probable showing at E3 2005, it is still being guessed that the final product could take an additional year to show up on store shelves (in Japan that is...). 

It is being assumed that this is Sony's way of trying to once again obtain a dominance of the gaming market. It is being assumed now that Microsoft may try to hurry along things with the successor of the XBox to try to get a working model at E3 in order to show their desire to out-compete Sony. 

I just feel like adding here that this should be good for us geeks. A key factor in us getting the best in terms of entertainment, since there's nothing like a good competition for our affection to keep all involved parties working at their peak to win us geeks over...I love a good healthy competition for my love (and money). Most of all, however, this should give us all something good to look forward to about next year's E3. Considering how the most exciting games and gadgets at the last E3 were all re-runs of stuff we had seen at previous gaming shows or even previous E3 shows, this should definitely give us something both new and exciting...well, the future Playstation and some cool new photos (of skeleton's with rocket launchers on their shoulders and upside down faces with robotic crab legs) of the best vaporware has to offer; Doom 3. 

On top of that, Sony is remaining optimistic about their PSP handheld. Recently, some game analysts started to share their thoughts on the PSP release. These thoughts tended to focus on the PSP being delayed due to internal issues along with the lack of support from music and movie studios for the UMD system that will, in theory, support movie and music on the PSP. However, Sony is stating that they expect their release of the PSP to still fall within March of 2005 for their US and European customers (a release of later this year is scheduled for Japan). However, one thing to keep in mind about this data (the delay rumors) is that it's from market analysts, who rarely have all the inside knowledge that Sony would naturally want to keep (at least partially) secret. I personally would rather believe a respectable company's word on their release calendar before I take the ramblings of supposed "analysts" as something more than ramblings.

Malik