Sony to unleash PS3, Online Gaming Service in November

World’s largest maker of computer games, Sony Corp. is slated to launch its much hyped next generation gaming console, PS3 in November along with an online gaming service to battle it out with the already in market Microsoft XBox 360. The launch has been delayed due to a holdup in finalizing standards for Blu-ray DVD technology.

Sony PS3 will allow gamers to play against each other over the net, assemble friends list an chat using text, audio and video.

The company said its committed to a simultaneous worldwide launch in Japan, rest of Asia, North America, Europe and Australia.

Sony seemed positive in response to whether the delayed launch will effect the console’s performance against XBox 360.

It says no, and that the company measures its console successes or failures in 10-year life cycles--and therefore it has plenty of time to catch up.

"It doesn’t put us at a competitive disadvantage at all," Harrison told a group of journalists after his keynote address. "Throughout our history, we have never been the first console (of each generation) to launch."

The basic level of Sony’s online service, known internally as PlayStation Network Platform, will be free, Phil Harrison, president of worldwide studios for Sony Computer Entertainment, said at the Game Developers Conference in San Jose.

Users will pay for subscriptions to game services and premium content, he told Reuters in an interview.

When asked if Sony would tap its music and film libraries, he said: "Obviously, the strategy is for more than just games."

In addition to demonstrating the powerful high-definition graphics capabilities of the upcoming PS3, Harrison detailed the underlying strategy of the device as a networked machine.

The console will act as a media server for the home, Harrison said, allowing it to deliver content to other devices on a user’s home network, including the PlayStation Portable.

The online platform of PS3 will enable new features, ranging from video chat and voice communications over the Internet to the ability to purchase and download game or other entertainment content directly to the machine.

Sony’s first two PlayStation game consoles are bestsellers worldwide, with more than 100 million units sold each. The delay to the PlayStation 3 means that Sony will be a year behind Microsoft’s Xbox 360.

Sony will have the capacity to make 1 million PlayStation 3 units a month by the launch date, and expects to ship about 6 million by March 2007, Ken Kutaragi, president of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc., said at a conference last week.