Sony Says Its PlayStation 2 Web Site Was Overwhelmed by Advance Orders
Associated Press
CHIBA, Japan -- The Web site for advance orders of Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 2 video-game machine generated so much interest Friday that the site became jammed, a company official said.
The PlayStation 2 goes on sale in Japan on March 4 and late this year in the U.S. Sony hopes to sell a million of the machines in Japan in its first shipment.
The Web site for the advance orders, which opened Friday, was receiving 500,000 hits a minute before it went down, Sony Computer Entertainment President Ken Kutaragi said. "The orders were beyond our imagination. We are doing our utmost to get the site back up," he said.
The PlayStation 2 is touted as a deal at $360 because it is also a digital video-disk player, which sells for about $630 in Japan. It can also play compact discs. The PlayStation 2 will compete with Sega Enterprises Ltd.'s Dreamcast, which went on sale in November 1998 in Japan and last year in the U.S.
Both machines have a 128-bit processor, up from the 32-bit processor in the original PlayStation. The more bits a machine has, the more sophisticated it is, allowing more memory and better graphics.
Sony now accounts for about 60% of the U.S. game machine market, while Nintendo Co. holds more than 30% and Sega stands at less than 5%.
More good news for Linux. I think Playstation 2 is Sony's way of breaking into the PC market. Your game box will become your set-top box and computer rather than your set-top box becoming your computer.
Poor Bill. He can't settle with the DOJ. He's no dummy. He knows that if he loses his ability to control the API's and leverage his monopoly of the desktop he's through. He can't compete on the low end with Windows CE. (By any other name it's still Windows CE.) He can't compete on the high end with the splintered collection of Windows. Linux will own IA-64.
Don't get me wrong ... he'll continue to make money. "There's a sucker born every minute." Actually more than one every second.
It's nice to see SmartMoney say what we've known on this thread for a long time.
Best of luck.
P.S. My brother uses Mandrake. He likes it. |
