SONY LOSING $240 PER PLAYSTATION 3

After taking apart one of the devices, iSuppli Corporation estimates that Sony is losing approximately $240 on every sale of the new Playstation 3 video game console. This figure will lower as time passes and the bleeding-edge technologies the company used become more commonplace and reasonably priced, as happened with the Microsoft Xbox 360. When the Xbox 360 was released, Microsoft was thought to lose $150 per console, now iSuppli estimates the company makes $75 per unit on sales of the Platinum System.

WSJ.com

PS3 HAS PROBLEMS WITH SOME OLDER GAMES

On Saturday, the day of the Japanese launch of the PlayStation 3, Sony announced that some of the 8,000 games released in Japan for earlier versions of the PlayStation were not playing properly on the PS3. Some problems seem minor, like certain sounds not playing or being replaced by other sounds, but some games will not play at all. While Sony declined to give the number of games impacted, according to Reuters, a Japanese newspaper reported there were 200 titles that did not play correctly with the new system. In the United States, over 16,000 games have been released for play on ealier versions of the PlayStation, and an unknown percentage of those games are expected to have problems on the PS3, as well.

The Sony PlayStation 3 debuted in Japan Saturday and will debut in the United States November 17, while a European launch will have to wait until 2007 due to manufacturing delays. A manufacturing glitch caused Sony to release only approximately 100,000 units in Japan. A shortage of the units is widely expected in the United States before Christmas.

Reuters
WSJ.com