PS3 launch was "fairly catastrophic" - Stringer
But the console has 'bounced back'.
Speaking in California at the D6: All Things Digital conference, Sony boss Howard Stringer has described the launch of the PS3 and the financial problems it caused for Sony as "fairly catastrophic".
In a fairly honest assessment of the early months of the PlayStation 3's lifespan (well, hindsight is 20:20, we suppose), Stringer also admitted that the whole console was "on life support" for a while after its launch.
However, the British-born executive seems to be a lot happier with where the PS3 is these days, telling interviewer Walt Mossberg that the system has bounced back from this rocky start - helped along, of course, by HD-DVD's capitulation to Blu-Ray in the next-gen DVD format war.
Unfortunately, Sir Howard didn't have much more to share with us about the PS3 - it's fairly easy to distract attention from your company's near-term problems when you've just wheeled a prototype of an 11" display that's only 0.3mm thick on stage, we suppose.
As a result, most of the interview was spent fawning over Sony's brand new OLED display technology - which, it reckons, will be the must-have television tech of the coming years, when it becomes available in larger screen sizes.
Having had a chance to play with Sony's previous 11" OLED display (which was a bulky 3mm thick) a little while ago, it's definitely the brightest, clearest display we've ever seen - so they might be onto something with that.