SharkJumping

Sony recently surprised no one by announcing that their next generation PS3 game console would be delayed 3-6 months, but would ship in early November, and that 6M units would ship by end of Q1 2007.  I am by no means a technology expert, but from my point of view, how likely does that date and those sales really seem?

1.  Dev Kits - Developers do not have final hardware, and probably won't have it until June,and it appears that the compiler, a key part of the kit, isn't ready yet.  That means developers will have about 3 months to finish off games before going gold in September to hit their November release dates.  One developer indicated that the current kits were about 2-3 versions away from final.  Prognosis:  Not Good, but Will Still Jam Some Games Out
2.  Blu-Ray - There is not currently a final production Blu-Ray drive anywhere on Earth, most probably due to final copy protection issues, but could be due to many other reasons.  Is kind of hard to fully integrate the games with a drive that doesn't exist.  Prognosis:  Not Good
3.  Cell - The new IBM/Sony Cell chip is possibly one of the most complicated microprocessors ever made, with an architecture quite different from most other chips.  Any reasonable manufacturing expert (or my six year old son) would say that it's unlikely that the output and yield of these chips would hit 1M a month any time soon.  Prognosis:  Not Good
4.  Graphics Processor - the new Nvidia processor is just arriving right now, but although extremely powerful, it's apparently not too different an architecture from other Nvidia chips, so it shouldn't be a gating factor.  Prognosis - Not a Problem
5.  Online - Sony has announced the Sony HUB, a type of Xbox Live competitor with a long list of features.  However, no developer has ever seen any code for this service (dev kits next week), and Sony has a consistently terrible record in developing online media services - e.g. does Sony Connect even still exist?  It's supposedly being developed in either Israel or in Eastern Europe, but the betting line says that initial online functionality will be more similar to the current grab-bag PS2 approach.  Prognosis - Not Good for Launch, but Shouldn't Stop it from Happening
6.  Games - As is typical for new console launches, the dev kits are late, key functionality is missing,  and it's an entirely new set of tools and architecture to learn for a developer.  This problem is compounded by the complexity of the Cell processor.  On the other hand, given the pressure involved, we know that at least some games will be shipping, even if they use only a small fraction of the console's power (see any XBox 360 launch game).  Prognosis - Very few games for launch, but Shouldn't Stop it from Happening.

Finally, in a key recent analogy, assuming Microsoft is not incompetent, they were able to manufacture only 1.5M units in the Nov/Dec time frame, and that was with a less complex console than the PS3.  Prognosis:  Not Good

Best Bet - PS3 makes it on shelf by Thanksgiving, with less than 1M units worldwide by end of 2006, and less than 3M by end of March, 2007. 

Does it matter in the long run?  Probably not since Sony has a great track record and the developers are blown away by the power of the machine, but the announced ship date and sales just aren't realistic.