Good News for M$: Sony Delays PS3 until November

If M$ can get their Xbox 360 supply issues together they have plenty of time to reach their market share goals before November, even with Playstation 3 coming out as the new system for the 2006 holiday season, I still see Microsoft's Xbox 360 still being the hot item for the holidays again this year. They'll have a year to bring more "must" have games, and establish more of a foothold with gamers, basically putting Sony in the position M$ was in back when they released the original Xbox in a field dominated over a couple years earlier by the PS2.

The Xbox 360 is really a great looking product. From what little I've played on it in stores everything about the machine is very well thought out and well designed. Somewhere down the road I see that probably being my next game machine. Since I don't have HD televisions or any real high end sound system for my entertainment area. I won't reap the most benefit from the console, I'm not in a big rush to get one. The PS2 and Xbox do fine by me still.

Aside from timing, Sony's current track record with their electronic entertainment devices might work to the benefit of M$. Sony has really fumbled with the PSP. It's a beautiful device and I playing games on mine. But I have a long wish list for the device. Top of that being, I wish there were more must have games or exclusive games. Every month I'm shocked by the waves of great and often exclusive games for my Nintendo DS, which often cost 10-15 dollars less then new PSP games. I'm also completely dumbfounded by the prices for UMD movies.

For some brief background on me, I have a graduate degree in marketing and a good portion of my career has been spent in corporate marketing departments...so I have some grasp on the processes and reasoning behind pricing and judging perceived value of a product by prospective customers. What were they smoking in the Sony boardroom when they came up with the pricing scheme for UMD movies? I was in the Electronic Boutique with my Dad this weekend, we couldn't believe the prices on these UMDs, $19.99 thru $29.99 for a movie will display at a lower quality then a DVD and is playable on only one device. I mean I can't even watch these movies on a TV if I wanted to since the PSP doesn't have video-out. I've just decided to rip movies and tv shows from my own discs and watch them on my iPod if I wish to carry entertainment with me. Basically because its easier to get content on the iPod and the thing has more memory than a 1GB SD card, which is a real shame since the PSP screen is beautiful and I love watching the few used UMD movies I have on it.

I could go on for a long while ranting against Sony. But I won't. I'll just cut this here.