NEXT GERENATION is reporting that Analyst P. J. McNealy of American Technology Research announced at the recent MI6 conference that the PlayStation 3's complexity could act as a significant hurdle in the early phases of the console's production.
McNealy said: "This is now the most complex box that's ever been built in this industry ... While Sony has certain manufacturing advantages at the end of the day, this is a very complex process, and they're going to be limited to the yields that they can come up with..." and "The number of pieces that are going into this box are even more astounding [than the over 1700 parts used in the Xbox 360]."
While this is hardly surprising news to anyone in the games industry, it's interesting research groups and individuals are already touting that Sony will have a below-target output of the much maligned PS3 console and attempting to play down the market's expectations, way before pre-production begins.
This analysis from McNealy has been coupled with a June released report from DFC Intelligence entitled 'Could Sony Go From First to Worst?' which is based upon Sony's possible fall from grace and the possibility of a third-place scenario for Sony in the next generation console war. Price is the immediate focus for DFC, unsurprisingly considering the console's extravagant pricing. This isn't good reading for any Sony shareholder, developer or fanboy.
Furthermore, IGN have translated a survey from the oldest Japanese games-rag available; Ge-Maga. 90.29% of the surveyed Japanese denizens feel the PS3 launch price was too much, 56.31% disagreed with Sony's choice of two SKUs and 62.13% feel that the system wouldn't reach the 6m sales mark Sony had set itself, by March of next year. If the Japanese public can't be sure of efforts from its home-grown Sony, its doubtful any American or European user-base is quickly going to take-up the option of the $600 system either.
