Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Rambus (RMBS) - Eagle or Penguin -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Don Green who wrote (58721)	10/24/2000 3:11:56 PM
From: Don Green	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93625

European stores have few PlayStation 2 consoles left LONDON Monday, October 23, 2000 (Reuters) - As American video game fans gear up for this week's U.S. launch of Sony's PlayStation 2, London stores are closing their books on the console with only a handful of the new game computers still available for the European debut next month. The lucky Europeans who have secured a piece of the next generation gaming action should not invite friends over on the eve of the Nov. 24 launch to break in the new console, however. The computer will very likely not be there. ``Sony only guarantees the system will be there before Christmas,'' a spokeswoman for Britain's electronics retail chain, Dixons, said. Japanese electronics company Sony Corp., which makes the PlayStation, has agreed with retailers across Europe to avoid a midnight launch that could easily lead to scuffles between shoppers because demand so clearly outstrips supply. Instead, buyers will receive a letter telling them when to pick up their new game computer between Nov. 24 and Dec. 24. In Britain some 200,000 consoles are being offered for the pre-Christmas launch. When Reuters rang retailers across the country, however, only a few of them still had order forms available. Some stores have window signs screaming: ``Only 6 more PlayStation 2's available.'' This shortage is hardly a surprise since its predecessor, PlayStation 1, has an installed base of 30 million in wider Europe, of which some 6 million are in Britain, Europe's key games nation. Research group Datamonitor says that in 1999 Sony controlled 77 percent of the European console installed base. ``There's a huge PlayStation audience in Europe,'' said Kristan Reed, editor of Computer Trade Weekly, a gaming magazine. For the United States Sony halved its planned initial shipments last month to 500,000 units. Many of those were believed to have been sold before the Oct. 26 launch date, with some fans bidding the consoles up to $700 from an original price of $299 on Internet auction site eBay. PLAYSTATION 2 HAS DVD PLAYER, FAST MICROPROCESSOR The new console, which sports a digital versatile disk (DVD) player, a fast microprocessor and more memory than PlayStation 1, could do for gaming what the iMac has done for Internet-computing by making it both hip and simple. ``It will open up the games mass market because it looks better, it has a DVD player and is easier to handle,'' Reed said. Some 50 games will be available in the European launch month, which is unprecedented for a new console, but only a few will exploit the capabilities of the new game player to the fullest. Most games will be rehashed versions of PlayStation 1 games. Nonetheless, the Sony console is set to dominate the games market further, building on its strong brand and its ability to appeal to a broader audience than just young adult males. PlayStation 2 will also change the way people buy games software, said John Burns, president of Britain's EON Digital Entertainment, a unit of soon-to-be-listed Italian games group Digital Bros. ``We're expanding from a relatively small group of committed gamers who are prepared to pay a high price, to a larger group who will be paying a smaller sum,'' Burns said. Fierce resistance by the industry to cutting prices is slowly being broken in Europe, where prices for some shrink-wrapped games have finally fallen. But the real break-through will come with online gaming, which is possible with the next generation of PlayStation 2, due next year. It will have a broadband Internet connection. Fast Internet connections will allow people to pay for and play one game at a time. Current narrow bandwidth lines require each of the players to run a CD-ROM in their console and only the coordinates of objects moving are transmitted from one console to the other. But interactivity opens up the gaming world for competition. DIGITAL SET-TOP BOX MAKERS WANT TO OFFER GAMES Television set-top box makers, meanwhile, are integrating gaming software in their boxes. Several of the largest European cable companies are talking to games publishers, such as Digital Bros., about offering games in the first digital set-top boxes. The growing importance of the digital set-top box as a viable gaming platform was highlighted this week, with ambitious visual media company Static 2358 pledging to commit up to 5 million pounds ($7.25 million) toward the commissioning of content for its digital TV games channel, PlayJam. The channel is set to be launched this fall on digital networks across Europe to an audience of millions of Sky Digital and OnDigital subscribers, many of whom are just casual game players.