Slashdot Mirror
Sony, Walkmans And The iPod
yootje writes "A long story about Sony, and how Sony developed: from the first walkman, until the latest competition against the iPod. "
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
Sony is ... opening retail stores to showcase Sony products
Wow, I hope that tactic works better than it did for Gateway.
Sigs cause cancer.
You could replace Ipod with any other mp3 player in the title of the story. The iPod is not the only mp3 player out there, there were some before and there are plenty more now. Quite a few with many more space and features. I had to say it but you can now mod me down for my post that doesn't praise the Apple gods.
From the article...
"Customers who look to the iPod as the only advanced styling and fashion statement out there are going to take more than a second look at the Walkman.''
Possibly so, but most of the folks I know who have iPod's (including the Mini) don't just like the way it looks, but also like the fact that "it just works" in iTunes for both Windows and PC. Not to mention, of course, the hardware interface itself. It's simple enough that even my non-techie friends have figured how to use 90% of the functionality within 5 minutes. That's impressive design.
Perhaps Sony could make one that looks better...but can they make works better???
It's "no one," not "noone." Who the hell is noone anyway?
Adaptive TRansform Acoustic Coding originated with the minidisc. A nice little description.
I can't think whether the price for a Sony portable music player to compete with the iPod would be higher or lower, seeing that both Sony and Apple sell products the public sees as "premium". Considering that most of Sony's music products are priced high just for the name, they'll have to make competitive pricing for such a product focused point in order to beat Apple at this game.
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
I think this is will be a challenge for this device to pick up speed.
The additional effort and time needed to convert MP3 to Atrac3 format might not be a popular.
"The problem is they are a company at war with itself. So because they want to own everything, they end up owning nothing."
Sunset over the lake, cool mist over the bridge; A leave upon the ripples, the snow reflects its glow.
Though I said that when they introduced the Playstation, and look how that turned out...
Regardless, there are dozens of players on the mark with more features than Apple's. It's subjective, but I think many of them look better and are easier to use. The far majority of them are much cheaper. Despite all this, the iPod dominates the market.
It's a style thing, and fasion has great turnover. The iPod will be forgotten at some point, just as I threw out my last poncho the other day. The way Sony will prove me wrong again will probably be in its marketing. I'm sure they can throw together a better campaign than Apple with their greater resources.
I really don't think that Sony will be able to compete with the iPod. iPods already have a reputation of being the best of their kind. Unless Sony's model is significantly cheaper or better, people won't buy it.
This new Sony iPod killer may be small, but on close inspection, it's kind of ugly.
Looks like the interface will be similar to the iPods as well, still feel Apple's way is kind of clunky for searching through large music lists.
Remember that when you buy Sony, you support the people whose management said these things.
Where Apple scored was in getting ALL the major companies to go for ITMS.
I SINCERELY doubt that Sony will engage in industry-wide marketing with the other majors.
Now, if only the ITMS would serve as a outlet for the Indies as well...
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
The Walkman quite possibly defined audio in the 1980s, but Sony seem to have forgotten that this wonderful device that made them tonnes of cash was built around a format invented by someone else; Philip's audio cassette tape.
You would really have expected Sony to have capitalised on both a) the popularity of MP3s and b) the popularity of their brand. But no - we're stuck with ATRAC - and unfortunately, it looks like they accidentally took a leaf from the Betamax manual. When are they going to learn?
A German did, and Sony finaly admited it.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
I'm sure Son'y brilliant engineers can come up with an iPod-a-like which will work well and sell well, but I din't think thye'll beat the iPod.
Early to the market is a big gain, as is having developed a highly usable product, both of these are on Apple's side. Furthermore, the kind of buyers who buy iPods probably understand the benefits of open standards - Mp3 and AAC against Sony's proprietary ATRAC system, even if they don't already have Mp3 collections. Sony stands for lock-in. Customers rarely take well to that
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
I like everything I see about the Sony products including their attitude on the long-haul. Everything but one ... they still use their nasty-sounding ATRAC format (the same one used for minidiscs).
Sorry, but if you can't play MP3 OR Ogg Vorbis OR AAC, you're dead in the water. Yes, they bundle software to convert those formats (not sure about Ogg Vorbis, which is what I use) for loading onto the player as ATRAC files, but this is seriously not something that interests me.
Give me the same basic form factor, a higher price (but still under iPod), and the ability to natively play MP3, Ogg Vorbis and AAC (yes, all 3 ... I actually would be happy with OV but I'm not the mass-market ... I'll even admit that you could probably get away without including OV for the next couple of years with no significant market loss) and you've got me hook, line and tweeter.
Until then I'm sticking with my rather huge but very flexible Neuros. A shame, because until I found the blurbs about the ATRAC (that verbally sounds too much like 8-track :) file format I was seriously drooling.
And while you're at it, allow me to load files via USB Mass-storage so that I don't need a bunch of flaky software to load the player. Right now this and size are the only detractors keeping the Neuros from being the best thing out there. An Ogg player with USB Mass-storage loading (Neuros supports USB mass-storage, but won't play songs loaded that way because they are not in the database) that is small with a significant battery life and good corporate support ... is it so much to ask? Yeah *laugh* I guess so.
It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
There is a reason Sony sells so well. They make some of the best electronics in the world. I own a Sony TV that has been working for 8 years and never had a problem. Everything I purchased from them has lasted and worked. I pay more for it, but I think it is worth it. Much better than paying 25% less for something that breaks in a year. With Sony I have never purchased an extended warrenty because I feel secure knowing the product was manufactured to last.
As for them opening stores, if they are doing this for marketing (and not profit) I think it is a very smart move. Apple opened a store in a shopping center near me, and it is cool to go and play around with their toys. Plus, the people they hired are trained to be friendly and more playful compared to the "computer store" with the small Mac section in the back and the over stressed salesman. By having their own store, they can have a different buisness model than a store (marketing and advertising their product versus sales).
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
"it just works" in iTunes for both Windows and PC."
Hey you're underestimating it - it works on Macintoshes too!
I bought my very first Sony Walkman when I was about 13, after I had saved money for over a year. I was so proud of it, although it was big, bulky and made an awful whirring noise while playing. Still it survived water, dust, various people sitting on it and even being dropped the 4 fourth floor of a building. Actually, it works to this very day.
I prefer more fragile stuff.
Hack your mind out of its sandbox.
And, it has a built in FM tuner, comes with LCD remote, optical and analog ins and outs, records direct to MP3 or WAV, has Ogg Vorbis support. You can record via analog in, optical in, or built in microphone.
There are a few quirks with some firmware, and navigation isn't as easy as with the iPod. Also, iRiver is super busy writing firmware for a few of their upcoming units, so a firmware update hasn't been released for these units for a little while. You should check out the hilarious disgruntled 14 year olds on the iRiver community forum.
Anyway, I made my choice, and I'm happy with it.
Stand clear of the doors. The doors are now closing.
If someone could please pull that Consumer Reports list of the best Home Electronic companies and tell me where Sony ranks, that would be swell.
The last time I checked, Sony sucks. It has been nearly 10 years since Sony rooled in terms of quality. Now, I consider them to be the Wal-Mart of Home Electronics. Their TVs and PlayStatios may rule but that same craftmanship is lost on all the other stuff they choose to slap their brand on.
ChozSun
ChozSun.com
Still, an article on Sony gave you an opportunity to post that quote you've been saving up, didn't it.
a biased source? yes. but a fair analysis? yes, IMO, including full bias disclosure at the end of the article.
This device has more in common with a minidisc player than an iPod, it seems. Right now I use a two-year-old md player, and it's okay. It's no iPod, but it only cost about $100 back when I bought it.
Pros: Excellent battery life (up to 40 hours); separation of device and media (the discs); uses one standard AA battery; cheap.
Cons: Everything else... the sound quality of ATRAC doesn't really matter to me, but the process of converting CDs and MP3s is bullshit. Sony's loader programs suck. And it doesn't help that they won't support Mac OS X.
Now, consider this new Sony Walkman thing; it appears to have lost 3/4 of the pros of the md player (as above). So there's no way in hell that I would buy it. I think I'll wait until Sony's new "Hi-MD" players come down in price. These are md players that can record 45 hours of music or 1 GB of data on one disc.
We bought a few Sony MD recorders for academic use before we realize how difficult it was to get the recorded content off the minidiscs.
While the product description for new Walkman claims the software included with the Walkman can convert MP3 and WMA to the proprietary ATRAC format... there is no mention of how or if the files can be converted to use on a non-Sony product. In the 80's, I could move a tape from my Sony Walkman to my Magnovox boombox. Sony worked with a standard format for recording and media and they were successful. You'd think they would have learned from the MiniDisc's failure that open and compatible sells better than close and proprietary.
To get the best of Sony style but a less restricting DRM, check out RetroPod.
For one, Sony has years more experience making consumer electronics than Apple. They already know all the inds and outs of usable design.
For two, Sony is huge enough that they can drive the whole market themselves. (Sony is a much larger company than Apple), especially in this area. I mean, think about it:
- Sony already has its own music store
- Sony already has its own removable media, that is cross-compatable with every Sony device
- Sony already has inroads into the home theatre market and portable gaming market
Look at it this way - Sony could release a device, right now, that would be as sleek as the iPod, cost less, have automatic hooks into its music store, and not only has an onboard HD but accepts SOny Memory Sticks, so you can download songs directly from Sony Connect into your Walkman, then copy them over to your Clie or PSP with 0 effort.
And they could do all this significantly cheaper than an iPod because Sony could in theory sell the Walkman as a *loss leader* to market it's music. Apple can't do this, since they are not a music publisher like Sony so they sell the music as a loss leader to sell hardware.
Besides - what if Sony just decided all its music on all its labels was no longer allowed to be sold at iTMS? Bye bye iPod.
Sony is banking on their assumption that iPod's are the "hip" device for the youth while the walkman will capture an ignored market share that was waiting for a familiar name before making an investment.
Their assumption is flawed because a lot of the first group gives technical advice to the second. I know that if anyone in my little world makes noises about buying one of these things, my browser will be pointing them to www.ipod.com before they can say "but I'm comfortable with Sony."
Open Source Sushi
Sony to License "ATRAC 3 TM"
American and Japanese Semiconductor Chip Companies join Sony in promoting "ATRAC 3TM" Sound Compression Technology
February 26, 2000 - Sony Corporation today announced plans to license the LSI codec of the "ATRAC 3" sound compression technology developed by Sony to the following seven companies: Fujitsu Limited, Hitachi Ltd., Motorola, Inc. (Chicago, Illinois), NEC Corporation, ROHM CO., LTD., SANYO Electric Co., Ltd., Texas Instruments, Inc. (Texas, USA).
Licensing will allow these companies to develop and commercialize "ATRAC 3" compliant LSI, which will smoothen the development and commercialization of "ATRAC 3" compliant audio devices by hardware manufacturers.
"ATRAC 3" is a sound compression technology based on "ATRACTM" used for MiniDisc. Compared with "ATRAC", "ATRAC3" features a higher compression rate, while maintaining the same level of sound quality. It has been highly anticipated as a compression technology that enables music distribution with high sound quality. "ATRAC 3" has been commercialized through Memory Stick WalkmanTM and the "bitmusicTM" music distribution service by Sony Music Entertainment Japan, Inc. since December 1999.
"Today's announcement further demonstrates the capability of 'ATRAC 3' to link to a variety of electronics devices and recording media in addition to packaged media such as 'MiniDisc' and 'Memory Stick'. We believe that collaboration with a host of LSI manufacturers will play a key role for the wide acceptance of 'ATRAC 3' business especially because it is essential for us to have a variety of LSI codec specifications" said Shizuo Takashino, Corporate Senior Executive Vice President of Sony Corporation.
"Making a family of our Hi-perion DSP products compliant with 'ATRAC 3' as an audio codec will allow us to exponentially expand our DSP business in the silicon audio market in the future" said Joji Murakami, Doctor of Engineering General Manager, System Micro Division, Fujitsu Limited.
"We have already commercialized a system LSI compliant with 'Memory Stick', and we believe that today's announcement will help to further develop a wide rage of products" said Seiichi Ueda, General Manager of System LSI Marketing Division, Semiconductor & Integrated Circuits, Hitachi Ltd.
"We place a high value on digital AV business in consumer devices, and we anticipate to further expand our business through emergence of Sony's 'ATRAC 3' and our IP core/process technology" said Toshio Nakajima, General Manager of 1st System LSI Division, System LSI Operations Unit, NEC Corporation.
"We anticipate to quickly comply with a variety of data compression applications for users by incorporating Sony's 'ATRAC 3' sound compression technology in the future" said by Toshio Asai, Director of LSI Product Development Headquarters, ROHM CO., LTD.
"We have developed an ATRAC decoder featuring low-power consumption. We believe that utilizing the feature will enable to develop 'ATRAC 3' compliant devices and help to gain wide application" said Yasuhiko Okuyama, Deputy General Manager of MOS-LSI Division, Semiconductor Company, SANYO Electric Co., Ltd.
Ease-of-use is subjective, but as another poster pointed out, someone who has never seen an iPod before can figure out all its functions within five minutes. Ease-of-use goes beyond the device itself, and to the methods of interacting with the device, and that's where the iPod shines brighter than any other portable music solution. The integration with iTunes and the use of a fast firewire connection makes the iPod really plug and play: one can organize the tunes on a Dell desktop or Powerbook, plug in the iPod and have it work.
At the same time, the chief feature, to me anyway, is portablility, and the iPod (and now the mini) have the best combination of small size and large capacity.
When you say the iPod is only a fasion statement, I think you're wrong. It's a beautiful device, sure, and that's a plus, but it's also simply the best.
The iPod will be forgotten at some point, just as I threw out my last poncho the other day.
Agreed. The day is coming when small, hard-drive based players become commoditized. But then again, I thought it would already be here, and yet years after its introduction the iPod continues to dominate. At least until after Christmas, I see no serious competitors, which brings me to the last point.
The way Sony will prove me wrong again will probably be in its marketing. I'm sure they can throw together a better campaign than Apple with their greater resources.
Maybe. But Sony's device comes late to the market and offers no real technical advantages over the iPod. In fact, it offers technical disadvantages because it only accepts Sony's Atrac (I'm not sure about the capitalization) format. That means anyone who wants to use it must wait for their music to be converted to an inferior format that will further reduce sound quality. Anyone who asks me whether they should buy a Sony portable music device will get a resounding "NO!" I suspect Sony's player will get drowned out by other competitors like Dell and Creative. Sony's efforts don't always pan out: consider the Mini-Disk. I think this will merely be another one.
Still, I agree with your header, because I don't think Sony stands a chance either.
Disclaimer: I don't own an iPod and will not until/unless Apple offers Ogg Vorbis support. That being said, I recognize that I'm in the minority, and I understand why other people buy them, which is why I posted the above.
There's a Sony themed entertainment complex / retail outlet: Metreon that's been in San Francisco for at least 5 years and seems to be doing pretty well ...
Sony (whose name comes from a combination of the words - 'Sound Nippon') seems to be going after the wrong market. They should be pursuing the young and NOT rich, and leave the rich to Apple.
Approximately 75% of the world's people are under the age of 25 and don't have a whole lot of money. This is the market that Sony should be targeting. Instead they are using DRM, proprietary formats, and tie-ins to product from other Sony divisions to capture a chunk of the world's recorded music marketplace. Stupid, because the vast majority of people who would be buying Sony products won't because they can't afford them.
Myself, for example. I get CD audio recordings from the public library. Then I rip them using open source software onto a $20 5 gig hard drive on a $150 PC. The recordings that I would want to hear again at some point in the future I write to a $0.09 CD-R blank (that holds 100 songs in 192kbps MP3 format) using a $25 CDRW. Then I play them outside through a $20 CDR/RW capable MP3 CD player. Every device in the process costs less than an order-of-magnitude of the price that Sony (and Apple) charges for the same utility. If someone can make the equipment profitable for this price then Sony certainly can. And I live in the wealthy western first-world. Outside the US, the EU, Japan, and Canada, people have to work ten times as many hours for the money to buy the same level of equipment.
Sony needs to relearn that innovation is as much a process of getting new equipment affordable as it is a process of designing new toys.
By the way, am I stealing music? No, almost all of the stuff that I listen to I bought many years ago in different formats (45 RPM vinyl, or 33RPM LP). I bought it, I can listen to it.
Or, I listened to the songs so many times on the radio and listened to the commercials so many times that I own the right to have a copy of the song by having listened to the hundreds of radio commercials. That concept of ownership may seem unusual but it is no more strange than the various types of music ownership devised by the media companies. I absolutely, totally, and completely refuse to accept the legitimacy of the laws regarding music copyright because those laws were written by RIAA lobbyists specifically for the sole benefit of the media companies. When the media companies recognize the principle of fair use and limited copyright periods, I will negotiate the concept of music ownership with them. But they never will recognize these principles, so I feel no obligation to honor the legitimacy of the laws that they wrote to enrich themselves.
Only a moment's thought should reveal that this must be true. Skimming the linked article doesn't reveal any such connection. Sigh.
All the music players Sony releases use their weird compression method which requires converting MP3s to their own format. Think about why this is, and consider how much money Sony makes selling music and movies.
Okay, so it's been tough, but you've finally managed to stop yourself from taking Dell up on its kind offer to crush your iPod into a thin paste in exchange for $100 off one of its own stellar music players. Good for you. Only now you're finding yourself tempted by those new players that Sony introduced yesterday-- in particular the NW-HD1 Network Walkman. As faithful viewer Mike Scherer pointed out, MacMinute reports that the NW-HD1 (catchy name) has a 20 GB hard drive, but weighs only 4 ounces-- almost thirty percent less than a 20 GB iPod, and only about half an ounce more than a miniPod with a mere 4 GB storage capacity. Trust us, size does matter, as through-the-roof miniPod sales will attest; Dell's player is a clunky slab by comparison, and when we had the misfortune to encounter a 40 GB Nomad Zen last weekend, we mistook the thing for a brick wrapped in tin foil.
Oh, but the temptation doesn't stop at size; whereas the iPod claims 8 hours of use per battery charge, the NW-HD1 boasts 30. What's more, since a 20 GB iPod goes for $399 and Sony's minuscule new player will sell for "less than $400", pricing will likely be a dead heat. So let's recap, here; for the same price as an iPod, Sony offers a smaller and lighter player with gallons more juice per charge, the same size hard disk, and-- did we mention this?-- the ability to store 8,000 more songs. Really! See? Apple claims its 20 GB iPod will put 5,000 songs in your pocket, while Sony's press release insists that the NW-HD1 will hold "up to 13,000 four-minute songs." No wonder you're feeling tempted.
Well, it's cold shower time, kiddies. First of all, any sort of song capacity comparison is a joke, since a 20 GB hard drive is a 20 GB hard drive. Sony's drives aren't enchanted by a dusting of magical pixie dust before leaving the factory or anything. (At least, if they are, you'd expect Sony to play that up as a differentiating factor.) The difference in numbers here is that Apple bases its song count on 128 Kbps AAC files, while Sony's tally assumes "songs recorded at 48 kilobits per second." Yes, 48 Kbps. Considering how many people whine that even 128 Kbps AAC files don't sound good enough, we're going to go out on a limb and assume that 48 Kbps songs in any format are probably going to sound like a portable handheld AM radio playing from the bottom of a well while a few dozen people pop bubble wrap nearby.
And here's the real deal-breaker: about that format? Turns out that Sony's decided to go with its proprietary ATRAC3 format... and nothing else. While Apple pushes AAC pretty heavily (it's the only thing it sells at the iTunes Music Store), at least the iPod can also play AIFF files, WAVs, the new Apple Lossless format, and probably most importantly of all, good ol' MP3s. If you get an NW-HD1, though, you'll have to transcode your entire music library into ATRAC3 before you can carry it around with you, and believe us when we tell you that you're not going to want to do that.
See, aside from the time you'd have to invest, there's the little matter of the fact that, quality-wise, the ATRAC3 format apparently sucks eggs whole through a Crazy Straw. For evidence, we point you towards the results of Roberto Amorim's l
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
If you have a SOny device, it supports memory stick. You don't have to go around guessing.
Right.
Would that be MemoryStick, Memorystick Duo, MemoryStick Pro, MemoryStick Pro Duo, or Memorystick with memory select?
Just don't forget the Magic Gate!
cite.
Memorystick is one of the bigger clusterfarks there is.
--
"I have also mastered pomposity, even if I do say so myself." -Kryten
I think it's a little early to proclaim that Sony will only support 48K data rates in this device.
RTFA. Sony only uses the 48k rate to come up with the magic 13,000 songs in your pocket figure. The normal rate of 132k (songs purchased on Sony Connect) will actually let you store less songs than you would be able to if you used a 20GB iPod.
Furthermore, one wonders if the magic "30 hours of battery life" claim is also derived using 48k files. Believe me, this makes a big difference, because battery life on HD based devices goes down in proportion to the size of your files. Larger filesizes means more time accessing the hard drive, therefore decreased battery life. That's probably why I only get 6-7 hours out of my 30GB iPod... most of my files are MP3s encoded with Lame's alt-preset-standard, which uses VBR from 128k up to 320k.
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
These things are ATRAC only. No thanks Sony. Take your shitty music player back to the drawing board.
Seriously ATRAC got the worst rating for 128kbps in the Hydrogen Audio Forums competition. The worst! Does anyone want to spend $200 - $500 on a player that will only play the lowest of the low? I certainly don't. Rio karma plays ogg and mp3 and wma and flac if you want lossless. Sony is the king! They should be destroying Rio and Apple by making a player people want! They should support every possible format. Especially those that are free to support (vorbis and flac come to mind).
I owned a Sony NetMD walkman for a few years (I now own a 40gb iPod :). Their software to get songs on the device was absolute garbage, but there was some weird method in which it would convert your mp3s to ATRAC and put the DRM stuff on it, but you could just convert that mp3 again and then it would lose the "transfer count" on it. Seemed kinda dumb. I hated using it anyway.
In order to get MP3s on the device, I'd use a combination of things. I'd burn a cd with Nero's Image Writer, and then mount it using Nero's image mounter. Then, I'd use the NetMD SimpleBurner, which was a well designed program imho. Rip to the MD, umount and delete the image, and there you go. Still, takes a number of steps to get done.
I'll take my iPod over that any day.
I think Sony are getting gradually closer, and Apple must be at least a bit worried. Let's imagine a world where Sony (finally) drop ATRAC3+ only, and their Hi-MD devices and new HDD devices support MP3 natively and ATRAC3+ at whatever bitrate you desire. Given that the low end Hi-MD ships at 140UKP Sony could wipe out the Compact Flash competition in months with their cheap 1GB removable media. Much higher capacities are in the offing for MO as well. They are the only other vendor to offer integration with a online music store, which is a serious advantage over vendors like iRiver (despite their excellent hardware). The Connect store may suck now in comparison with ITMS, but heh, it's software, it can change quickly.
catch (ModDownException mde) {post.modUp("Interesting")}
I was once one of Sony's biggest cheerleaders out there. I loved their products. They were reasonably priced, functioned well and came with great customer service. I would go out of my way to buy the Sony product over a competitor's in many situations.
No more. In the last decade, I've bought Sony products that have failed well before they should have and I've had several decidedly unpleasant dealings with their customer service people who seemed far less interested in actually helping me than somehow convincing me that it was pretty much my own fault and I should just accept it. Amazingly bad service and their products seem to have gone downhill. Not only have I started buying products by their competitors, but I now intentionally avoid the Sony product if possible.
No idea what's gone so wrong with what was once a great company, but I wouldn't buy a Sony mp3 player over an iPod at a quarter of the price.
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
This is the engineering centric management style of Sony that gave rise of Sony in the 20th century and will be the cause of its downfall in the 21st century. As you said, Sony has been creating a lot of failures and out of the failures, two big successes: Walkman and PS. Sony allows its diverse groups of engineering to compete among themselves to come up with the best products and it creates the engineering powerness of Sony which leaded to its brand in the past.
In the 80s/90s, consumer electronics were more about whether it COULD BE DONE and we paid primium for companies who could DO IT. However, we are in the 21st century, a century is likely to be remembered as Wal-Mart century. We shopped for VALUE: products that give us the best VALUE: good functionalities at reasonable price.
Sony has become too big to pay such a risk game. PS was created in related low budget but look at the stake Sony is throwing at PS3. We are looking at Billions of dollars investments. It's really too big an investment to be put in the hand of engineers who just want to create neat things!