SteveH

I agree with many of the points my friends at Engadget have made. Let me leave you with this thought:

What would you get if you merged Palm's 2005 LifeDrive, with it's 480x320 touch screen, 4GB storage, and WiFi, together into a 2005 Treo 650, with its smartphone capabilities, and then ran it all on a Linux-based OS? Something an awful lot like an iPhone, I'd say.

Palm had all the pieces to make a iPhone rival 2 years ago. And they still can do so today, if they can see their way through to take the leap, rather than just making the cautious baby steps they have been taking with the Treo over the last three years. Apple upped the ante for everyone in the "smartphone" game with the iPhone. Palm has the cards to play, if only they can put them all together correctly.

Okay, -lacking cleverness- is right, if it's the original Sonic the Hedgehog we're talking about, then it was through the Sega Smash Pack that the seminal form of Sonic made his way to Sega's final console, and not through Sonic Adventure.

Hey, you forgot to mention Sonic available on that little-console-that-could, the Sega Dreamcast, in the form of Sonic Adventure, Sonic Adventure 2 and Sonic Shuffle. Okay, you can be forgiven for overlooking that last one... but Sonic Adventure? Come on... that was the basis for all the Sonic games since on PS2, Xbox, Gamecube and now 360, PS3, and Wii. ;)

Grindstone (Post #1) has a point. Kutaragi said they would ship 1 million each month at launch... worldwide. That's a total of 2 million if they launch at the beginning of November. Split that up between three territories - Japan, US, Europe - and I can't imagine the US alone will get more than 1 million by the end of 2006.

There's no way that all of those 1 million will go to GameStop. What about Best Buy, Circuit City, Target, Wal-Mart, Toys-R-Us, etc.? And if GameStop is actually estimating that's what they're gonna get... then get ready for wait-times on GameSpot PS3 pre-orders after launch that will make the 360 wait look trivial.

The Blu-Ray player function is the main reason I would consider the PS3. Just got lucky enough to grab an elusive Xbox 360 at a store, so another next-gen game machine is not high on my list for awhile. But with the first Blu-Ray players seemingly destined to list for north of $999, then the PS3 just as a Blu-Ray disc player is attractive at $500 or below.

I think Sony's announcement from the get-go that they would include Blu-Ray in the PS3 is clearly intended to drive adoption of Blu-Ray as THE HD disc format. The PS2 had a similar effect on DVD adoption in Japan almost 6 years ago.

I don't expect Sony to offer two SKUs like MS did with the 360 though, unless... the Blu-Ray movie playing feature really would drive up the cost of the PS3 to more than $500. Then they are going to want to have a SKU at under $400 to attract gamers who could care less about Blu-Ray movies and to offer something on the same price level as the 360. This would split their ultimate installed base somewhat, but as the difference only applies to movie playing, then it won't have the same impact that the two versions of the 360 could.

At this point, with all the rumors flying around fast and furious, and with Sony remaining so very tight-lipped on everything - still no pricing and no set launch date - I think anything could happen.