Sony and Microsoft both showed up to the Game Developers Conference this week to outshine one another.  Here’s what each company brought to the event concerning their systems.

Sony has finally elaborated a bit more on their next console system, the Playstation 3.  This week they announced that the system would launch worldwide in early November as opposed to just “November 2006.”  Of course this means that you, the consumer, will not actually see them in stores until May 2007 without either camping out or getting incredibly lucky.  It has also been widely reported that the PS3 will come with a 60GB detachable hard drive standard.  The same European Sony PR manager that said this also said that there will be several other sizes sold separately for extra storage, though he didn’t say anything specific about sizes or price.  And of course, no price has been announced for the PS3 yet.  Not that price is a warm fuzzy subject for most buyers, but I certainly want to know how much money I’m going to have to beg Grandma for this Christmas, don’t you?

Microsoft, already having their system out, had to focus on something else.  What better to focus on than that the company might actually get their product out to stores in the near future?  Microsoft announced that they will be increasing production of their system to “2 to 3 times” the original rate starting this week.  These new yields can be attributed to component manufacturers getting more parts to Microsoft and the inclusion of a third manufacturer.  Wait, you might be asking yourself, didn’t Chase write something about these happenings in January?  Yes, I did and might I add that you have a fantastic memory! 

Microsoft also announced that they will have 80 titles available for the Xbox 360 by June.  This figure includes Xbox Live Arcade titles, however (to contrast that, the PSP saw the release of 9 new titles this week).  On the subject of Xbox Live, Microsoft announced that their marketplace has logged 10 million downloads and that they did it faster than iTunes when it launched.  This means little because iTunes and Microsoft’s marketplace operate differently with different payment structures (mostly that Microsoft customers pay for use of their system and iTunes charges by the download).

For putting a crappy spin on stories that were hardly news months ago, Microsoft gets an F.  For being overly vague and less than forthcoming, Sony gets an F too.  Neither company brought their A-game to this event.  Hopefully they’re saving up for E3 or something.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6146417.html (PS3 in early November)

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6146269.html (PS3 HDD)

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6146309.html (Microsoft)