SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – As the countdown to its Nov. 17 U.S. launch neared, Sony Corp. (SNE) showed off its PlayStation 3 game console Thursday and named 22 titles that will be available at the same time.
The games at launch will run the genre gamut, from racing and war games to updated, more powerful versions of popular sports titles — "the most robust game lineup" of any new-generation game system, boasted Kaz Hirai, president and chief executive of Sony Computer Entertainment America.
Sony's own in-house developed titles, such as a first-person shooting game called "Resistance: Fall of Man" will be $59.99.
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Other games that will be available for download directly onto the PS3 will be priced at $14.99 or less, Sony officials said.
Prices of certain accessories also were disclosed: $50 for an extra wireless controller; $15 for a memory card adapter; and $25 for a remote control for the system's built-in Blu-ray disc drive player.
The console is already the most expensive among the new generation of game systems with a price tag of $500 or $600, depending on the model, but analysts say Sony's dominance in the video game market still will dictate its success.
Sony has sold 106 million PlayStation systems globally, including 40 million of them in the U.S., while Nintendo Co. has sold roughly 21 million GameCubes, and Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) has sold about 23 million Xbox systems, said P.J. McNealy, an analyst at American Technology Research.
"At the end of the day, Sony still has tremendous brand loyalty here, and they'll sell millions," he said.
Sony officials were equally optimistic.
"We've always had formidable competition," Jack Tretton, executive vice president of Sony Computer Entertainment America, said in an interview.
Introducing a product this time as a market leader seems less daunting than the challenge he faced when helping to launch the first PlayStation against the then-industry kings, Nintendo and Sega, Tretton said.
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