ALL WORK AND NO PLAY? SONY SLASHES GAME PLATFORM'S DEBUT SHIPMENT IN HALF.Byline: Robert Monroe Staff Writer Entertainment giant Sony said Wednesday its release of PlayStation 2, billed as the biggest consumer electronics launch in history, will be only half as big as the company planned. Sony said its production schedule of PS 2 is lagging by about a month because of a components shortage. The company trimmed its estimate of the number of units available for the Oct. 26 launch to 500,000 from 1 million. The news had a ripple effect ripple effect Epidemiology See Signal event. on the stock market as shares of video game software makers affiliated with Sony as well as Sony's own shares dropped at the news. Among those dropping was Calabasas' THQ THQ Toy Headquarters THQ Territorial Headquarters THQ Tehsil Headquarters (Pakistan) THQ The Holy Quran THQ Theater Headquarters , which will release its game Summoner in conjunction with the platform's launch. Shares of THQ were down $3.38, or 13.8 percent, to close at $21.06. Sony was down $9.63, or 8.8 percent, to close at $99.38 a share. ``Stocks in general were down in anticipation of the negative call from Sony,'' said Melissa Williams, an analyst who covers retailing for brokerage Gerard Klauer Mattison. Toy industry observers anticipate that PlayStation 2 will be among the biggest holiday toy sellers, with the game platform being virtually sold out through preorders even before its release. Unlike the original PlayStation, the biggest-selling video game platform ever, the new version can play DVD DVD: see digital versatile disc. DVD in full digital video disc or digital versatile disc Type of optical disc. The DVD represents the second generation of compact-disc (CD) technology. movies and will soon offer broadband connections See broadband and wireless broadband. . Analysts had expected Sony to revise its estimate of available units to approximately 700,000, Williams said. Even though the revised estimate Revised estimate The third estimate of GDP released about three months after the measurement period. is lower, Williams expected stocks to rebound today now that word is out. Alison Locke, THQ's executive vice president of North American North American named after North America. North American blastomycosis see North American blastomycosis. North American cattle tick see boophilusannulatus. publishing, said the reduced shipments will have a negligible effect on her company. THQ expects sales of Summoner, its only PS 2 offering, to account for no more than 5 percent of the video game maker's total fourth-quarter sales. Sony said that despite the setback, it still plans to ship as many as 1.3 million units by Christmas, sending an additional 100,000 units every week through the end of the year. ``The production delay does not affect our initial projections for worldwide output,'' said Sony Computer Entertainment spokeswoman Molly Smith Molly Smith is the artistic director of Arena Stage in Washington D.C.. She has been a focused on new play development for the past 30 years while at Arena Stage as well as Perseverance Theatre in Juneau, Alaska, the theater she founded and led for 19 years[1]. . CAPTION(S): photo Photo: (color) no caption (Playstation 2) |
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