PlayStation2 Is Not Just Fun and Games
A powerful new kind of video game player went on sale here today, one that technology experts say could displace the personal computer for many casual users.
Sony’s PlayStation2, at $370, has the capacity to be a conduit for family movies, video games, music, e-commerce, Web surfing, word processing and e-mail, all from one sleek black box hooked to a television set.
The game console’s debut, after enormous hype, was greeted with traffic jams and long, snaking lines of eager Tokyo teenagers, many of whom camped out to get their itchy trigger fingers on the machines.
“This is such an event,” gushed Satako Tsushima, a 19-year-old with bleached-brown hair and a long, dark duffel coat, standing in one of the many long lines Friday. “I love games and play about six hours a day. As soon as I get it, I’m going to dash home so some PlayStation thief doesn’t steal it from me.”
Sony hopes that the early enthusiasm in this land of game fanatics is a preview of the reception the console will see this fall in the United States, the world’s largest consumer market.
But the launch is turning the heads of more than just the average adolescent. Sony is betting that a technology once dismissed as child’s play can challenge the dominance of stalwarts such as Microsoft and Intel.
“Sony understands where the world is headed,” said Jeremy Schwartz, senior analyst with Cambridge, Mass.-based Forrester Research. “An awful lot of the hype is justified.”
In a rather brash comment, Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Ken Kutaragi recently called personal computers the equivalent of calculators--good for doing taxes but too cumbersome to handle what people most care about: entertainment.
PC makers claim not to be worried. They envision a future in which video game consoles are just one of many Web appliances that plug into a central computer in the home.
Indeed, the version introduced here today is not equipped for the Internet. Although Sony plans to sell a high-speed modem and a PC-style hard drive by next year, the PlayStation2 currently has neither.
Much of the excitement over PlayStation2 stems from its Internet capability, which would let game players compete live against rivals around the world and download new games directly to their consoles. That Internet capacity is also critical in elevating the device to a PC substitute.
Sony says it’s waiting until cable and other broadband Internet access is more widespread, because downloading games and music over conventional phone lines remains too slow and would only frustrate consumers.
Some analysts have criticized this strategy. It’s one of several risks Sony faces before it can proclaim the PlayStation2 a success.
The PS2’s expensive chips mean that it will probably lose money for up to two years, until it builds economies of scale. Sony has also invested $1.4 billion in semiconductor factories to guarantee enough capacity. A recent spike in its stock helped by anticipation of PlayStation2 could quickly reverse if Sony’s strategy falters. And its strategy of selling consoles over the Internet risks alienating retailers.
Meanwhile, competitor Sega’s Dreamcast, the first of the new generation of game consoles to come to market, at least has a modem. A Pokemon-style software mega-hit from Sega or Nintendo could blunt Sony’s momentum. And at $370, the PlayStation2--while cheap as a computer--is expensive as a game console. Sony also risks overplaying its hand, given all it’s trying to do.
“The risk is that you’ll mix your message and confuse the market,” said David Cole, president of San Diego-based DFC Intelligence, a research firm that tracks the video game market.
But the PlayStation2 boasts a giant leap in gaming technology, at a time when demographics and social change are increasingly bringing this form of entertainment into the mainstream.
At the heart of the PlayStation2 is a 128-bit “Emotion Engine” chip nearly three times as powerful as the latest Pentiums used on today’s PCs. In presentations, Sony likes to point out that the foot of a football player on the screen now has more polygons, the building blocks of 3-D graphics, than an entire linebacker did on the first PlayStation.
The graphics are indeed impressive. As a virtual car streaks through city streets in Ridge Racer V, for example, players can make out the leaves on passing trees, the changing quality of the asphalt, reflections in the windows of passing cars and subtle shifts in the light reflected off skyscrapers. All that’s missing is the smell of exhaust and burning rubber.
The PlayStation2 also incorporates other entertainment of interest to the parents in a household: CDs and DVD movies. It also has Dolby capability and includes top-end communication ports of the sort once reserved for professional video editors. This paves the way for music and movie downloads off the Web.
On Japan’s crowded streets, PlayStation fever is rampant. Ryohei Arai, an 18-year-old high school senior, camped out with three friends in front of a store in Tokyo’s Akihabara electronic district 45 hours before the PlayStation2’s introduction.
By Friday afternoon, thousands had joined Arai in long lines outside major electronics retailers across the country.
A Sony Web site crashed after receiving 500,000 hits in a matter of minutes when it started accepting advance orders in late February, leading up to the 1 million in sales expected this weekend.
“This is really impressive,” said Naganawa Yuji, 25, lining up to try a machine on display at Tokyo’s Tomihisa Electronic Store before the sale. “It’s really much better than I expected.”
California software companies are already salivating over the artistic and financial potential.
“This is the most excitement generated by a hardware platform in my decade-long experience in the industry,” said Mitch Lasky, a vice president at Activision, a Santa Monica firm that makes video games for the PlayStation and other devices.
For Sony, the stakes are huge.
The company has reorganized its corporate structure around the Internet and video games, which accounted for a whopping 40% of corporate profit last year. The stock market has applauded the change and bid its shares up 350% over the past year, treating Sony more like a dot-com company than a traditional hardware manufacturer.
If the so-called convergence-of-technologies strategy works, Sony’s first and best chance of discrediting its skeptics could be in Japan.
Personal computers aren’t nearly as widespread here as in the U.S., and many houses are too crowded for PCs, while Sony already has its PlayStation in 35% of Japanese homes. Analysts add that Sony has a key ally in its bid to expand its market.
“There’s nothing more effective as a marketing tool than whining 9-year-old kids,” said Thomas Rodes, analyst with Nikko Salomon Smith Barney. “And they don’t whine about not having PCs--they whine when they don’t have games.”
The company that introduced the Walkman and the hand-held Camcorder also has a reputation for reliability and ease of use that contrasts well against the frequent crashes seen on many PCs. “You won’t get that familiar Windows blue screen of death,” said Forrester’s Schwartz. “Sony’s usually pretty damned good.”
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Times staff writer Karen Kaplan in Los Angeles and Hisako Ueno of the Tokyo Bureau contributed to this report.
