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Sony's revamped PlayStation console, the PSX, has been stripped of some features so it can be rushed onto shop shelves in Japan in time for Christmas.

The entertainment system, on sale in Japan from 13 December, is a PS2, hard disk drive, DVD recorder and TV tuner. But its recording speed has been cut and some audio and picture formats will not be supported, like MP3.

Sony wants the multimedia box to appeal to serious gamers, but also fans of all-in-one home entertainment products.

Read more: BBC News.

Thats a real shame how they did that, I recon they should have held it out and went all out, with what people would have wanted. If your going to get it people are going to want the good one.

I agree, this is almost like pirating Windows Longhorn. Why would they want to start selling this when it isn't complete? I mean I'm sure they are sacrifising a lot to get it out, and I understand they want to make money, but if they could have added all those features it would have been a better plan.

The serious/informed gamer would hardly ever buy this product, even if it was still in it's pre-Christmas time, downgraded, modifications. It's a great gift though and it's convenient, since it's an all-in-1 type product. But someone who is informed about electronics/gaming hardware knows there are better products out there that offer better features and fair prices for those quality features.

But if you're dying to get a PS2, and the average informed gamer knows it's better to wait about 1-2 years or less for the next generation of gaming consoles, this is definitly the PS2 to get.

I'm sure after the rush they'll reup to the original specs or at least maybe have another version they can sell at a different price. there was already speculation that when it got shipped over here finally it would be stripped slightly, hopefully not too much. i think Sony is getting too into this market, i doubt they'd get too many sales of such a high priced item.

i wonder how many people will spend that much money for the psx. it is really expensive.

The PSX was a great idea...if they had not crippled the functionality. Who uses the ATRAC3 media format for their music collection? .00001% of the population. you would think Sony would want to support the primary music format in the world, but I guess they wanted more profit and didn't want to pay royalties for supporting MP3. But the rest of the functions they cut? No excuse other than to make more money off the box. Bad move, Sony.

They could be only supporting the ATRAC3, because they want it to take off, and if it is available to play on the PSX, it might get more use. I know they have been talking for a while of the next step in music beyond the mp3. Trying to make a new format. This could be it?

I think this could be a good move for them, they get product moved, they can always release a "better" version later. they did something similar with PSOne, They abandoned Nintendo, released the Playstation that was really not yet finished(many thought that was going to kill them before they ever started), early versions of it had some problems with stalling during some games(anyone ever play MK trilogy on the early PSOne) They fixed this in the later version of the PSOne.

Well when we got our TiVo it was $500 so I recon this is a bargin. If we already didnt have a PS2 and Tivo im sure my dad would buy this - However, any person who knows about this product in the first place is probably a pretty serious eletronics person and is going to hold out for the real deal.. I know I would.

and yea, I did play MK triligy on the orgional psx [psx is what most people called the Playstation at the time].

If I was Sony I would agree that this makes market sense, what we didn't get from that article though is whether they plan on future releases. If they really wanted to maximize on the holiday season here is what I propose:
Release the "watered down version" asap then they need to continue making the product they originally proposed. While this is happening make the PSX2 avaiable via gift certificates at say 10% reduced price. This way people can still buy the PSX (the original proposed one) for friends and family and have it at a reduced price, which is kind of like a bonus for waiting.

I think it would have been better to make it an addon rather than a completely new system. And you cant play your classic PSX games on it... I love those juggling street fighter like imports.

Where does it say that you can't play original PlayStation games ? The PS2 can play original PlayStation games out of the box if I'm not mistaken.

SONY are clearly trying to shape back in a profitable company. They have reported some pretty big losses & are cutting back workforce.

As for certain other features such as MP3 reading & the burning speed, another article said Sony was removing those features to help fight agaisn't piracy.

I always found it odd myself that a company such as Sony which is one of the biggest labels, would sell burners & blank CDs. I guess they want to make money on every side of the coin.

I was refering to the long time it took to do certain things in the game, such as Shang Tsung's morphs. On the early releases, before they put a faster cpu and made a few other changes, it was insanely slow.
and yes, I'm aware that PSX is what people used to call PSOne, but sony seems to have forgotten that since they gave this thing that name.

i agree with you. We know that Xbox 2 is in the works, I am sure that nintendo's gameoblong will be next followed by PScubed. I am generally iffy about all in one products anyway as they typically combine low end pieces to keep the whole affordable.

I don't get what all the fuss is about with this thing. It's just a wanabe Xbox with the PS2 graphics chip built in. There probably won't be any special games released for it since it would alienate the already huge "regular" ps2 market.

False, its not a 'wannabe xbox'. Its a all-in-one multimedia system. TiVo to record TV, a DVD burner to burn your shows to DVDs, DVD player, PS2, hard drive, and will play music such as MP3s (excluding this one ofcourse).

Here's a review of it @ Lik-Sang

Sony's new PSX high-end electronics device opened up and exposed

Maybe with the Holidays behind, prices might go down on this version or better yet, maybe they might redesign it & actually put out the original specs.

PS. the fact that it can't do 4 player gaming clearly shows it was rushed out.

I still think this was a horrible idea for Sony to do, but I guess that's why I'm not making millions in charge of their marketing strategies. I think there will be enough people upset with the current model that they will be getting quite a few returns, and realize they messed up and need to finish the 'real' project and get it out as soon as it is completed.

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