Anilrgowda

Like most gamers in Australia, I have been watching the highs and lows of the new Sony electronic flagship with interest.

Not to be launched here or in Europe until March (hopefully), we can but wait and watch as Sony ride the lows of poorer than expected sales and lack of blue diode parts causing supply delays, and then crest the highs of the technical potential of the little black powerhouse.

In an interview with Daily Game biz, recently appointed Sony CEO Howard Stringer is upbeat about the long term prospects of the PlayStation 3. Stringer believes the current crop of games are barely raising a sweat on the PS3, using only 25% of the system's "bandwidth" at the maximum.

He also thinks Sony can break even on PS3 costs at the end of this year. A lot of the PS3 success will also be gambled on the mutual success of Blu-ray; "I'd say 90 percent of the people who (own) PS3s are playing that Blu-ray disc on it or playing other Blu-ray discs on it. Contrary to some of the reports, it is an effective Blu-ray player. The people who like Blu-ray are the people who play PlayStation 3, just as people who play PS2s were the early proponents of the DVD format. It drove the DVD format,"

PS3 will be a stayer for sure, but comments like those of Bethesda’s (The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion) Todd Howard, that the PS3 Blu-ray drive speed may have been the reason for the delay in bringing Oblivion to the format will not help.

Howard was quoted "Drive speed matters more to me [than capacity], and Blu-ray is slower,". As such Bethesda has had to come up with a clever way to get data for the massive RPG onto the screen. Hence the delay.