Key Problems of the Playstation 3

Having trouble finding a Playstation 3? So is everybody else. Playstation 3 availability is a problem due to problems from Sony, which is also dealing with technical problems in the major system.

The heavily awaited system was originally going to be released with over one million consoles available by Christmas. With the original release amount Playstation 3 availability wouldn't have been a problem. This was, however, cut to a mere 400,000. Some stores have been rumored to have received less than the were told they were to receive. You may recognize this problem, it happened during the Xbox 360 launch. Microsoft sold 325,000 systems in North America in November 2005.

Not only did Sony not release enough systems to the public, but future systems were having problems as well. Sony was having production issues with Blue-ray lasers. This was causing manufacturing problems and the shipments of Playstation 3's were falling behind. The problems have been recently fixed and Sony says they will be able to meet shipment goals. The company also says if they increase production they may not have to delay the launch of the console in Europe. Microsoft also had problems manufacturing it's system during the launch.

As all systems before, including the Xbox 360, technical difficulties are to be expected. Some of the problems the Playstation 3 has had to deal with are overheating, backwards compatibility, and HDMI failure. The overheating has been reported in mainly by retailers and it's safe to say that the plastic casing of retail kiosk itself is not an ideal one for the PS3 system. Problems with the backward compatibility feature for many games is also to be expected since there are thousands of games, Sony is hoping to have all it's previous games able to be played soon. The HDMI failure is occurring on certain HDTV's, this is odd since only the games are being effected, not the menu screen. These problems are occurring where the HDMI handshaking fails to establish the proper connection and the display goes blank. This problem is expected to be fixed with future updates of the operating system.

All the problems with the Playstation 3 availability and technical difficulties are to be expected and should be fixed in the next couple of months. With all the problems and shortages it should be noted that the Sony launch was in some cases smoother than the Xbox 360 launch. Also, with problems and all the PS3's launch will have created more revenue for the company than the Xbox 360 launch, in the United States at least.