PUBLIC MARKS from mrongos with tags PS3's & "Playstation 3"

If you happen to stroll into your local Best Buy at or after October 20th, there is some evidence on the Neogaf forums that clue you in to what you should expect. What should you expect? PS3 stuff. Lots of PS3 stuff. How would you like to demo the Playstation 3 on a 46″ Sony Bravia flat-panel TV at 1080p? Sit on some Lay-Z-Boy couches while doing so and enjoying the Sony 7.1 Component Home Theater System? Yeah. That’d be pretty excellent. Now, this is just a rumor, but the slides seem fairly authentic (from personal Best Buy experiences) and the setup is fairly… er, large. So large, in fact, the 360 kiosks may be removed entirely. But PS3’s may be downsized on October 25th when the Wii moves out (maybe not). This is a great rumor to hope for as fact because being able to get our hands on the Playstation 3 nearly a month before its release is bliss — and may push those teetering on the edge of a purchase over to the “yes!” side. So, uh, who’s planning a Best Buy field trip? We are, since we couldn’t get to the Tokyo Game Show.

Sony can’t catch a break. This time the rumors and innuendo have cost them. Literally. Earlier this week, Macquarie Equities analyst, David Gibson, put the hurt on Sony by apparently stating that “he had heard” that several PS3s on the show floor at TGS “operated erratically and had to be repeatedly reset.” According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, “The problem seems to stem from consoles running too hot and then shutting down. Sony has claimed that it was simply a case of not having the proper ventilation at the kiosks where the consoles were played. It’s possible, but Sony stock was down almost 3 percent by Wednesday from the revelations.” To put that into perspective, a 3% drop in Sony’s stock price on the NYSE represents a drop in Sony’s value by more than $1 billion dollars! Yes, I said “billion.” Of course, stocks rise and fall everyday… sometimes by less than 3% and sometimes by much, much more. What’s interesting is that with this drop attributed to PS3 overheating “news,” it appears that shareholders (specifically, institutional investors), are watching the PS3 launch very, very closely. Everyday, my appreciation for the PS3’s potential to make or break Sony grows. On the bright side of things, and based on the picture to the right, the PS3 can double as a mirror! That should drive Sony’s market cap up a few hundred million.