The man behind the concept and creation of Sony's PlayStation game console will resign in June, following disappointing sales of PS3 after some initial ramp up delays and other technical problems. Ken Kutaragi will step down as head of Sony Computer Entertainment and continue to serve as a senior technology adviser to Sony CEO Howard Stringer. It is not clear if the pending resignation was voluntary.
To date, sales of PS3 have lagged behind Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii consoles, and although PS3 continues to sell relatively well, its anticipated popularity this time around (coming on the heels of the enormously popular PS2) has not yet met most industry expectations.
Unlike its two competing products, every PS3 player contains a Blu-ray Disc drive--a synergy that had been widely predicted within the industry to create a potentially explosive boost to Blu-ray and, subsequently, a possible early death knell for HD DVD, which has not happened. The inclusion of Blu-ray also was a gamble, since it necessitated that PS3 would be costlier than Xbox and far pricier than the Wii. For now, general consumer interest in both incompatible formats' stand-alone units continues to be cautious, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Meanwhile, to add even more heat to the competition, Xbox 360 Elite, the upgraded module from Microsoft, was shipped this week with a game-industry high 120 GB behind it.
