Sony launches PlayStation 4 - New console wars begins

[mmadhankumar]

The battle for gaming supremacy — and maybe for control of the digital home — has begun.

Sony launched its PlayStation 4 on Friday in the United States and Canada, hoping to get a jump-start on rival Microsoft’s latest Xbox One, which hits store shelves next Friday.

Sony has another big advantage over Microsoft besides an early release date: At $399, it costs $100 less than the Xbox One.

But it won’t be easy to get your hands on one of the coveted machines — at least initially, and especially in Asia — as a shortage of supply combines with a backlog of pent-up demand fuelled by the long wait for the next-gen consoles.

Hundreds of thousands of customers snapped up their new toys at midnight launches across North America and in their rush to hook them up, they put Sony’s PlayStation Network under immense stress.

“PSN seeing very high volume, some gamers may experience difficulty connecting, thanks for your patience,” Sony tweeted from the official PlayStation account overnight. “If you’re getting a network error on the PS4, please sit tight,” read an early morning tweet. “As you can imagine, we’re seeing heavy traffic tonight!” Only about 6 million PS4s and Xbox One systems are expected to ship worldwide this year, with 3 million to 4 million of those dedicated to the US.

Sony’s machine is only available to US customers for now. It launches in Europe and Australia in late November. Gamers in the UAE and Saudi Arabia will follow, on December 13, with Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia getting the console on December 17, 18, and 19, respectively.

PS4 fans in South Korea, South—East Asia, South Africa and India are also supposed to get the console in December, though Sony hasn’t specified release dates for those markets. Meanwhile, customers in Sony’s Japanese home market will have to wait another three months to get their hands on a PS4.


http://m.thehindubusinessline.com/industry-and-economy/info-tech/new-console-wars-begin-as-sony-launches-playstation-4/article5357713.ece/