I have been thinking about this for a while, and I think it would me extremely smart for Sony to launch the PS3 first in North America. Here are some reasons why:
1) Sony has no next gen competition in Japan
-Let's face it. The Xbox360 has launched in Japan, and nobody cares. The next gen fight in the land of the rising sun will be fought between Sony and Nintendo, and at the moment, Sony does not have any motivation to rush out a costly PS3 console in its home territory.
2) North America is THE territory that BluRay needs to be successful
-Sony is gambling everything on BluRay, and by a huge factor, North America is the largest DVD market in the world. The movie properties that will push the format are U.S. properties. Toshiba has announced they will have an HD-DVD player at the $500 mark before summer, and the only hope for Sony to be competitive in that price point with BluRay is with a subsidized PS3 console. Sony can't afford to not have the price advantage in a market where the mass market cares about the value of items, and HD-DVD should be easy to market for Toshiba and their partners to the average Joe.
3) Sony doesn't need a killer app at launch to be successful
-If the 360 launch has proven anything, its that you don't need a Halo-level killer app at launch to sell a console. Just get third parties to port some current console games with pretty textures (King Kong, THAW, GUN, NHL2K6, Madden 06, NBA2K6, Tiger Woods, NFS: MW, etc.) and port over some hot PC properties that push the visual envelope (COD2, Quake 4), and a handful of exclusive and somewhat impressive titles (PDZ, Kameo, PGR3, etc.). Surely Sony could match this launch offering in relatively short order.
4) Sony could take the next gen lead by the end of the year
-With all the industry pundits telling Sony that it could be 2008 before they regain the lead in installed base from the 360, Sony could surprise everyone and launch the console by Summer. By fall, they could have manufacturing in full swing to fully meet holiday demand, something the 360 failed to do. Sony could theoretically have the lead by the end of the year.
1) Sony has no next gen competition in Japan
-Let's face it. The Xbox360 has launched in Japan, and nobody cares. The next gen fight in the land of the rising sun will be fought between Sony and Nintendo, and at the moment, Sony does not have any motivation to rush out a costly PS3 console in its home territory.
2) North America is THE territory that BluRay needs to be successful
-Sony is gambling everything on BluRay, and by a huge factor, North America is the largest DVD market in the world. The movie properties that will push the format are U.S. properties. Toshiba has announced they will have an HD-DVD player at the $500 mark before summer, and the only hope for Sony to be competitive in that price point with BluRay is with a subsidized PS3 console. Sony can't afford to not have the price advantage in a market where the mass market cares about the value of items, and HD-DVD should be easy to market for Toshiba and their partners to the average Joe.
3) Sony doesn't need a killer app at launch to be successful
-If the 360 launch has proven anything, its that you don't need a Halo-level killer app at launch to sell a console. Just get third parties to port some current console games with pretty textures (King Kong, THAW, GUN, NHL2K6, Madden 06, NBA2K6, Tiger Woods, NFS: MW, etc.) and port over some hot PC properties that push the visual envelope (COD2, Quake 4), and a handful of exclusive and somewhat impressive titles (PDZ, Kameo, PGR3, etc.). Surely Sony could match this launch offering in relatively short order.
4) Sony could take the next gen lead by the end of the year
-With all the industry pundits telling Sony that it could be 2008 before they regain the lead in installed base from the 360, Sony could surprise everyone and launch the console by Summer. By fall, they could have manufacturing in full swing to fully meet holiday demand, something the 360 failed to do. Sony could theoretically have the lead by the end of the year.