Late Night Consoling

Sony officially launched its PlayStation 3 in Japan this weekend, and as expected the machine flew off the shelves. Estimates of initial shipments ranged from 80,000 to 100,000. Tracking firm Enterbrain, however, pegged total sales to consumers as 88,400. Approximately 62% of those machines were the higher-end 60GB hard drive variant. Publisher Namco Bandai was responsible for the two top selling PlayStation 3 games of the launch, with Ridge Racer 7 from the Namco side and Mobile Suit Gundam: Target in Sight from the Bandai side. Surely not coincidentally, Namco's Ridge Racer 6 was also the top selling game in the Xbox 360's Japanese launch lineup (and, perhaps illustrating differences in cultural taste, the worst selling game in the Xbox 360's North American launch lineup).

Some of the events by participants in various PlayStation 3 launch events were sobering. A journalist situated in Tokyo sent his own personal account of the Tokyo Bic Camera's 7:00am opening. Perhaps surprisingly, reporter Dirk Benedict describes that the majority of the earliest purchasers of PlayStation 3 consoles were not die-hard gamers, but rather Chinese students studying in Japan, or other adult Chinese nationals being paid to stand in line for consoles by wealthy Japanese businessmen who planned to sell the consoles via lucrative auctions. Sony Computer Entertainment Ken Kutaragi was present to congratulate the first PlayStation 3 purchaser, a young Chinese man who did not respond to reporters' questions and did not buy any games for the device. Such situations may have contributed to what is reported to be a .98 software to hardware tie ratio for PS3's launch, indicating that less software units were sold than hardware units. Benedict painted a picture of not only a mismanaged launch, but a nationwide mismanagement of retail conduct and security issues, of which this weekend's events were only one example.

Early this morning, CD- and DVD-related software developer Sonic Solutions issued a press release stating that it will partner with Nintendo to release a DVD-enabled version of the Wii console at some point in late 2007. Sonic Solution's Sonic CinePlayer CE DVD Navigator will be the software used in the system. "The proven technology offers exceptional picture quality and supports all standard video and audio formats offered in the DVD specification," reads the press release.

Upon contacting Sonic Solutions for more details, we were referred to Nintendo. Upon contacting Nintendo for more details, we were told that though the DVD option will essentially be a software solution, there will be two SKUs available. This is unlikely to happen in the very near future, however; based on the statements given by a Nintendo representative, it seems that the company plans to meet the immediate demand for the system before the DVD-enabled version is released.

Prior to this announcement, UK publication Edge contained reference to such a DVD-capable Wii, though the magazine's information stated that it would be sold only in Japan. When asked by Shacknews today as to where it would sell the machine, Nintendo declined to comment.

IGN has several firsthand and translated articles detailing problems with specific PlayStation and PlayStation 2 games played via the PlayStation 3's backwards compatibility feature. In an article dated yesterday, IGN translated numerous game titles from a page on Sony's Japanese site. Problematic games, whose issues ranged from a lack of sound to save errors to visual glitches, include Tekken 5, Xenosaga Episode II, Gran Turismo 4, Onimusha, Silent Hill 2, and others. In an article published today, IGN comments on a CNET Japan article containing a full list of 196 games with backwards compatibility issues. Apparently, Sony responded with a statement that backwards compatibility was never expected to be 100%, and that some people do not mind playing games without sound. Fortunately, the company also stated that these issues will be addressed in an eventual system update.

In an article published last Friday, IGN reported on tests using a Guitar Hero controller with a PS2 controller to USB adapter, allowing the guitar controller to plug into a PlayStation 3. Unfortunately, to activate the system's backwards compatibility with any controller, you are required to push the circular PlayStation button on the PS3's Sixaxis controller. Since the Guitar Hero controller naturally lacks this button, it cannot be used. IGN tried various workarounds, unsuccessfully. It is likely that a new hardware adapter or software update will be released at some point to remedy the situation.

It appears that some customers who purchased PlayStation 3 preorders from GameStop and EB Games locations will be unable to redeem their prized partially paid PS3 purchases when the machine goes on sale this Friday, November 17. The specialty retailers have encountered lower launch allocations than expected, resulting in company employees preparing to notify some preorder holders that their systems may not be available until later shipments. Preorders will be honored in the order they were initially purchased at a given store, so later preorderers are most likely to lose their metaphorical spots in line.

Ubisoft today announced that the Xbox 360 version of Ubisoft Montreal's Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas has gone gold. The game will ship to North American retail shelves on November 20, 2006 at a suggested retail price of $59.99.