LOGISTICS BEHIND SONY'S PLAYSTATION 2
Copyright 2000 www.tombraiderchronicles.com

[ October 25th 2000 ]

Sony's much anticipated Playstation 2 goes on sale Thursday amid unprecedented hype, receiving accolades from many of the major software houses including Eidos Interactive, Electronic Arts and LucasArts. A report by Red Herring, however, suggests that Sony will be in for a logistical struggle due to a shortage of components because of a months delay in production, possibly causing a widespread drought for their games/entertainment machines throughout the Christmas season.

"The company already announced that it has cut the expected initial PS 2 shipments from 1 million units to 500,000, with 100,000 additional units showing up each week until Christmas. About 25 games will be available at launch, some of which are already on sale. A total of 50 games are expected to be available by year's end. For those who can't find a PS 2, the consolation prize is the PS One, a compact and somewhat portable version of the original PlayStation that went on sale last month."

Analysts have suggested that Sony's delay might also be attributed to difficulties in creating graphics chips using its new 0.18 micron manufacturing technology. The Playstation II console wires direct to a television and doubles as a DVD drive with the ability to play movies as well as packing 32MB of memory for games with expansion slots for a hard drive. At some point in the future, the console will be able to hook up to the internet and possibly connect to devices such and video cameras and stereos.