PS3 Japan Shipments cut(again)

October 30, 2006 - What's worse than 100,000 units at launch? How about 80,000? The Nikkei Keizai Shimbun morning edition reports today that due to component shortages, Sony will have only 80,000 units ready for the PS3's 11/11 Japanese launch. This cuts back by a fifth the initial launch target of 100,000.

The lack of digits in that number is even more staggering when you consider that the PS2 sold out of nearly a million units when it launched back in March of 2000.

Having lived through a few weeks of attempting to obtain a PS3 pre-order, we're not too surprised by the lowered shipping numbers. Allocations disappeared quickly at online retailers that were brave enough to start pre-order programs. The online arm of media retailer Tsutaya ran out of units in 6 minutes according to Nikkei (it felt more like 1 minute to us).

Major electronics chains like Yodobashi Camera won't be taking pre-orders, Nikkei reports, so there's only one option left: line up the day before launch. Although with fewer units to go around, we're considering getting in line starting from the week prior.

So are they concentrating mostly on north america? or will we see a smaller # as well?

Oh and...this is great news for BD!

Its not that I don't think HD DVD can and has presented high quality, its that I don't live in some dream world where I think they have been perfect. Just look at how 12 Monkeys got reviews, which was released last week:

12 Monkeys
- High Def Digest: 3/5 "it is probably the most inconsistent and just plain wonky presentation I've yet seen on the format"
- Home Theater Spot: 2.5/5 "When taking the whole video presentation as a whole, this is a below average effort on HD DVD."

People over at AVS have been even harsher than the reviewers. Spartacus took a beating, and so did Terminator 3 when it was released. Like I said, duds on both sides.

The T3 disc is far from a dud. I havn't watched the other two yet so I won't comment.

Microscopically small minority. Remember Bose are still considered the "best" speakers by a lot of people. I just recently saw a Best Buy guy trying to sell a Bose system to someone ($1,999!!). Most people probably don't even have surround sound at all and instead use their monitor/TV speakers.

No kidding. If T3 is considered a bad-looking title, I hope every HD-DVD release sucks as much.

Another vote for T3 kicking ass on HD-DVD. I've got 12 Monkeys ordered too, I'll be surprised if it isn't as impressive.

I dont necessarily go by what people say on AVS...there is no telling what setup they have. At least with dvdtalk and hddigest you have some assurance that the hardware setup is good. Those are the main reviews that I read.

I didnt say that every hd-dvd title has been good, but as far as reviews are concerned, BD has had more lackluster titles (as far as I remember from reading the reviews as they came out).

Granted, BD had terrible reviews at the beginning and they seem to have at least matched hd-dvd in some of their current releases (again, mainly because they started using VC-1).

T3 looks wonderful on my 1080p Sammy 7178 set.....I have 12 Monkeys but have not watched it yet.

FWIW, A poster on AVS put up pictures of Reds. The movie is spread out on two discs.

Hmm...

Is the film actually split in half? Or is one disc the feature and one disc the extras?

I sure hope it's an extra disc of features. If they have to spread a movie over 2 discs on a HD format, well, that really sucks ass.

Thread says the first 96 minutes are on disc 1 and the rest on disc 2. WTF? I thought the purpose of higher disc storage was to avoid crap like this.

So 96 minutes on the first disc, and 98 on the second? Are they using two 15GB discs?

I hope the Blu-ray version is a single disc release.

Well the BR version is not announced as a BD50 so who knows. Someone threw out the idea that maybe they split it up because they couldn't fit the whole thing on a BD25. Maybe they just decided to make both releases the same?

Disc 1 is 96 mins
Disc 2 is 99 mins

That's just what I was thinking: they used up to 25GB of space for each of two HD-DVDs so they could use the same encoding on two 25GB BD discs.

Thus far, Paramount hasn't used a VC1 transfer on BD, afaik.

It's not like they couldn't have fit the movie on 1 disc. Grand Prix is 3 hours long and has over an hour of video supplements yet all fit on one disc.

I suspect that Paramount ran out of space on the Blu-ray (where they're using MPEG2) and decided to split the movie on both formats more as a marketing decision than a technical one. It might be hard for them to explain to the average consumer why the HD DVD is only 1 disc while the Blu-ray is a "2 Disc Special Edition".

Reds was one of the last films to have an intermission. Maybe they split it over two discs to meet Warren Beatty's desire to keep and enforce the intermission. The DVD version is split over two discs as well.

If space had been an issue, they could still have fit the whole movie on one disc on HD DVD, while moving the extras to a second disc, to keep the HD DVD a two-disc set. So I don't think that's the issue.

That makes more sense.

Unbelievable!! Sony should just stop posting numbers period. They should just come out and say we will try and ship as many as possible and unfortunatly right now we dont know what that number will be. Done, end of story! Then we wouldnt have to read the weekly updated cuts Sony is making to thier shipments. It looks terribly bad for Sony to continue in this manner. It went from sad to comical to now being just plain pathetic. Again I just thank god my stock broker got me out of Sony when he did. In all honesty the only word that comes to mind regarding Sony this last year and the decisions they have made is pathetic. I am passing alltogether on the PS3 now and will be content with my Xbox360 and Wii. Until they get thier act together I am done with Sony.

PS..

Terminator 3 looked great. All of the negative reviews I read completely ignored every single aspect of the film process period. None of the bad reviews mentioned that it is a super-35 film and that grain on Super-35 isn't just normal, its basically impossible to not not have. I guarantee that all of the people that gave that film a bad review dont know squat about the Super-35 process and what the characteristics are from that process. They are ignorant reviewers who think that because its in HD it should have a crystal clear image with no grain and beautifully vivid colors.

As I have stated in the past the only person in the history of Hollywood that was able to use Super-35 and get an end product that rivaled regular anamorphic is James Cameron and it was because of his rigorous testing and the fact that he made the processing lab who made the intermediate prints do testing that was equally laborious.

Bottom line is Terminator 3 looked great and every single review that faulted T3's transfer completely ignored the process used to make T3 and it was evident in their review. Every single thing they faulted T3 for was in fact completely normal for a film made with the Super-35 process. In the end what they were in fact ripping on was their own ignorance for not having enough education in film to even know the different film processes and what those difference equate to in a HD transfer.

As for the other 2 titles you have brought up, I have yet to see them but even if they are bad that is 2 titles out of what, like 90? Ill take those odds any day of the week and twice on sunday.

Josh, everyone on this board knows that you absolutely despise HD-DVD and you do everything in your power to make it look bad. Funny thing is we dont have to go out of our way and put effort into making BD look bad. They have done that all by themselves. Bottom line is HD-DVD is a much better value and has beaten the so called superior Blu-Ray in quality since day 1. Yes, BD has gotten better and will most likely continue to do so but HD-DVD doesn't have to get better. They have been at the top since day 1. You will never admit that and I dont think anyone on this board expects you to. That would be like Sony admitting they have had their butt handed to them by HD-DVD and that just isn't going to happen.

PS..

I don't get that this is going to be that hard to explain. They could just say something to the affect that there is no need for 2 discs anymore because Blu-Ray/HD-DVD is superior technology. I think that will make lazy people say 'hey no need to get up and change discs'

Does anyone else find it hilarious that PS continually has to make out to be some great evil, as if he is on some great inquisition to rid the world of the evil I represent? Probably not, but I get a kick out of it.