Corvillus

Sony Computer Entertainment America co-chief operating officer Jack Tretton says that $30 million will be spent to deploy 15,000 PlayStation 3 demo kiosks at retail stores in the U.S. and Canada. Compared to the PS2’s 2000 launch, that’s 5 times as many demo consoles. Now, with Sony only planning to ship 300,000 units at launch, one has to wonder why they would deploy so many kiosks. Are they planning to generate buzz for sales of the console? Is the PS3 really going to be so much better than the other consoles that playing a 5 minute demo will make people choose waiting weeks or more for a very expensive PS3 over buying a much cheaper Xbox 360 or Wii right away instead? Somehow, I doubt it.

Sony to Demonstrate PS3 in Five Times the U.S. Stores as PS2 [Bloomberg via Kotaku]