UK sources urge caution on imminent 'PS3 unveiling'
by Patrick Garratt
Rumour that Sony is to make a major announcement in Japan next week has arisen from Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, coupled with the inevitable leap of logic that PlayStation 3 is about to be shown.
A senior source close to Sony privately let slip today at the GDC that senior staffers from SCEE are to make the trip to Tokyo next week to "the PlayStation 3 unveiling".
Further chatter has emerged from developers at the event that "something" is occurring with PlayStation 3 in Japan next week, although they've fallen short of claiming the console is about to be shown for the first time.
But SCEE this morning has officially played down the talk.
"We've already said that the first showing of the next generation PlayStation will be at E3 this year," said a spokesperson.
The view that E3 will indeed house the first showing of the machine has been corroborated within the industry today.
"What I can say is that I'm not going to Japan next week," said a very senior PlayStation development source, speaking off the record to GamesIndustry.biz. "I would be cautious about running that story."
Talk has been doing the rounds in the UK for some time that Sony would announce PlayStation 3 - or "next generation PlayStation," as Sony currently goes to great lengths to call the machine - at an event in Japan before E3. PlayStation 2 was announced in this way in late 1999, just before Tokyo Game Show.
But a pre-E3 showing of the machine seems unlikely now, given the comments made by SCEE and senior sources today, and the fact Sony is about to roll out PSP in America and Canada - now confirmed as March 24 - and Europe at a later, unconfirmed date.
"Why would we want to confuse the message about PSP with a product that's not coming out until 2006?" a SCEE source added.
