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Blu Ray Drive Will Cost $100 Per PlayStation 3
fembots writes "The Inquirer is running an article detailing how Blu-Ray drives for the PlayStation 3 will cost Sony a small fortune. It turns out that at the release of the console in the first half of 2006, Sony will have to pay more than $100 per drive which will dramatically increase the unit cost of the PS3."
Replace the blue-ray drive with a 1.44meg floppy drive.
Do you want to pay an extra $130 ($100 cost of drive plus 30% profit margin) on your new PS3 for a DRM-laden drive that can 'punish' you? No thanks.
Stasis is death. Embrace change.
This shortly following the announcement of additional DRM in blu-ray. Maybe Sony has finally made a fatal mis-step. Obviously they haven't learned from history yet.
That I'm going to be paying even more than the $300 pricetag that was on the PS3 before this spec was released? That just makes me wonder why I'd even get one in the first place, especially with the performance statistics and upgradeability of current PCs. If you ask me, console gaming is pointless if you have a worthwhile PC. If the game isn't on the platform, run an architecture emulator. Like the controller? Buy an adapter. Consoles are a waste of money.
Where did that figure come from? Sony owns the patent so it's not from licencing, unless they need gold wires/contacts through out the reader I doubt that $100 figure is accurate. It will have both an economy of scale as well a verticle intergration for this hardware, I'm more inclined to beleive 40$ of raw materials and a fudged math estimated R&D of 60$ per unit.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
And here I was rooting for Blueray over HD-DVD. How much does this Blueray tech cost over using HD-DVD, which admittedly is inferior in terms of storage capacity.
IIRC, Microsoft sold each XBox at a loss, and game sales made up for the loss. Is it possible that Sony will think the same way?
Do you want to pay an extra $130 ($100 cost of drive plus 30% #buttes failures) on your new PS3 for a bin-laden drive that can 'punish' you? No thanks.
Where are they getting this from?
The Inquirer doesn't say where they got this number from... they don't have a source... it just seems to have come out of nowhere. Do they have a source they just forgot to cite? Or are they just running rumors without checking them?
This is the same number ($100) the Merill Lynch analyst report about the manufacturing costs of the PS3 (which slashdot itself has reported on at least once in the last few months) gave. I have the same doubts about it that I had then; it isn't from an "official" source (or in this case... any source at all), and I wonder if that $100 represents real per-unit costs or things that ought to be considered sunk costs, things that are just a natural byproduct of getting blu-ray production lines up and running. The reason this distinction matters is because Sony is going to have to be paying the second category of costs anyway, since for whatever reason they're going to be building blu-ray drives for sale anyway... so bundling those costs into the per-unit costs of the PS3 doesn't make all that much sense.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Can they seriously not fit all their games' data in a Dual-layered DVD?
This might be a deal-breaker for me. If I can interface my PS3 with, say, my PC or share it out to the network to use the Blu-Ray drive with non-gaming discs, then it's useful new technology and adopting it with the PS3 may end up cost-effective in the long run. Otherwise, this is Sony using new tech for... What purpose, exactly? Copy protection? Gee, thanks.
Synergy is your friend
This is actually a very smart move by Sony in my opinion. With Sony backing Blu-Ray (I'm assuming) for the next generation DVD format, this will enable Sony to move large numbers of Blu-Ray drives, driving down the price and increasing the installed base of consumers with Blu-Ray players. Not to mention Sony gets to safely sell at a loss with game licensing backing up their bottom line... Leaving Sony and the Playstation as the best vendor and device for Blu-Ray movie playback and price.
Do Sony really expect a lot of people to be able to afford these? Given the depressed state of the US economy, I can't see people snapping these up.
I suspect the Nintendo revolution will be reasonably priced, and I'll most likely buy one of those instead.
I own a ps2, but really can't justify spending that much on a console.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeoGeo
it's looking more and more likely that, for the first time in my life, i am going to choose nintendo.
"Sony will have to pay more than $100 per drive which will dramatically increase the unit cost of the PS3."
The new blu-ray will cost > $100.
A new dvdrw from newegg can be had for about $40.
(that's retail though)
So, 'dramatically increase' is roughly $60 to $80?
That's a pretty big gamble for what benefit?
Are Sony going to absorb the cost of the drive to keep the hardware price low or will they pass it on to us?
If they do keep the price low, how much will they be losing on each unit?
Over the life of the console, this will come down significantly. So the average cost of that player will end up being somewhat less. Also, if you consider what a new standalone Blu-Ray player will likely cost when Sony introduces the PS3, it makes the PS3 look like a much better deal, even to people who mostly just want to play Blu-Ray, not games.
As I recall, in markets outside the United States, the PS2 saw a large percentage of its initial sales attributable to being an inexpensive (for the time) DVD player, that happened to also play games. It looks like they're repeating what worked well for them, before.
Now it does add value (just like the DVD drive in the PS2) if you want a Blue Ray player. That said, I still think it's a good move for Sony in future-proofing. We are already seeing multi-disc DVD games, and with the kind of graphics that people will expect on the XBox 360 you will need lots of space for artwork and models. That means more and more multi-disc games. Having all that extra space will surely help as time goes by.
It's a gamble. I think it will pay off, but it is a surprisingly high cost for the drive. The Revolution and the XBox 360 are both sporting DVD drives from what we know right now.
The one thing that comes to mind most with this is: one more reason for Sony to hike the price up. I've been buying consoles at their release since the PS1. But even though I now have a job and it pays well enough, I'm not planning on buying a XBox 360 because it is WAY too expensive. I'll wait for the price drop, or to buy one used because someone didn't like theirs. I trust Sony and would like a PS3. I was planning to buy one. But if it costs more than $300, I'll wait on that too. The Revolution is the only one I don't know the price of, but I'd be willing to pay up to $300 (I expect them to launch at $250), and I intend to buy it.
Sony and MS are trying to price me out of the market (especially with games). And at this point, they have succeeded at delaying my purchase. If they're not careful, I'll learn I can live without it. If there is one thing I learned during this last generation, it was that I was right assessing the previous generation. N64 vs PS vs DC games? 30+ vs. 6. vs. 4. 'Cube v XBox vs PS2 games? 15+ vs 5 vs 8. DS vs PSP? 10 vs 4.
Nintendo systems always seem to have the most games that I want. Sony and MS aren't helping themselves with their prices.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
That gamers (1) don't care about DRM or other "side issues" -- they just great games and (2) have money to burn for the great games?
Are they thinking that if they get this out, create some envy/demand and drop the price as they hit production volumes, they could have a hit?
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
PS4 to include a 200$ toaster that also bakes a cake
The world's smartest bug zapper www.zapstats.com/kickstarter
It's the fee or "tax" needed to pay for all the DRM servers and it's bandwidth. I mean, it's going to take a lot of money to setup a DRM infrastructure to monitor and deactivate "hacked" PS3s.
Talk about getting fucked sideways. sheesh!
Life is not for the lazy.
Sony has with its previous consoles sold the console at a loss initially, then gradually moved into profitability on each unit as their production costs come down. The Microsoft XBox was selling at a tremendous loss initially and is probably still doing so now, right up to the point where the console is being discontinued-- Microsoft H&E is still continuously losing money.
Sony will probably sell the PS3 at a loss initially.
Costs for Sony don't mean costs for you as a consumer. Businesses don't necessarily set prices for goods based on what it cost them to make it, they set prices based on what they think the market will bear. If you raise the price of your product by $100 and only half as many people are willing to buy your product as a result, your revenues have just gone down, right? Of course if you lower your prices below your per-unit cost you aren't going to make any per-unit profit, but there's more than one way to make profit; for example, Sony makes licensing fees on every PS3 game sold, and the more people own PS3s the more people there are out there buying PS3 games.
We didn't know whether the PS3 was going to be $300 when that number was batted around. We don't know whether the PS3 is going to be $400 when that number was being batted around. We have no idea what the PS3 is going to cost except that it's almost certainly going to be too expensive. If you don't like that, Nintendo would be more than happy to sell you something cheaper.
If you ask me, console gaming is pointless if you have a worthwhile PC.
So $300 for a console that will last you four to five years is crazy unreasonable highway robbery, but $3000 for a computer that will play this year's top-of-the-line games (but might not play next year's top-of-the-line games unless you buy an expensive new video card) is only just, normal and rational?
Right...
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
What people are forgetting about here is the HDTV specs, which roughly triple or quadruple the memory requirements of video footage stored on a game cartridge/disk. Forgetting about the dual layer capabilities in the future, a 24G Blu-Ray disk, divided by 4, equals 6G. Approximately the size of a standard DVD. "But wait!" you say, "A DVD already can play HDTV!" Ah yes, but a typical game with multiple avenues of game play doesn't record the content of a single linear gameplay... it records many different avenues of gameplay. Which winds up tripling or quadrupling the storage requirements.
My two cents worth of opinion? With this decision, Sony is going to have a much better HDTV compatible offering.
theinquirer all the gossip worth gossipping about.
Can they seriously not fit all their games' data on an N64 cartridge?
This might be a deal-breaker for me. If I can interface my Playstation with, say, my PC or share it out to the network to use the CD drive with non-gaming discs, then it's useful new technology and adopting into the Playstation may end up cost-effective in the long run. Otherwise, this is Sony using new tech for... What purpose, exactly? Copy protection? Gee, thanks.
two thousand and six. dumbass
If you've been buying consoles at their release all along, you'd know adjusted for inflation, the XBox 360 is not nearly the most expensive console at release.
1) Remember Sony is a Japanese company and, in Japan, one unit doing many things matters. I always thought it was stupid that people would whine about consoles not being backward compatible or not playing DVDs or something. I thought "So fucking what? Your old one doesn't stop working, keep both and get a seperate DVD player!" Ok well I live in an 1800sq ft condo, I'd never seen pictures of Japanese apartements. Suddenly I understand why yes, it really DOES matter to have even one more small unit because there really is no space.
2) HD FMV. Again I'm lead to understand that FMV is much bigger in Japan than the US, and if you want to do HD FMV, you'll need something larger than DVD to do much of it. Also there's possible intrest to try an upstage the Xbox 360 since it may well have more powerful graphics hardware, so the PS3 will use prerendered HD video to try and upstage it for demos and screenshots at least (never underestimate marketing).
3) Sony wants to push Blu-ray. They desperatly want it to be the next standard for video. Well, if people like me can help it, it won't. I will do everything I can to ensure that everyone I know is informed about the pitfalls of Blu-ray DRM and will not buy a player. However if every PS3 has one already, well that's a large market taken care of. Makes it easier to force on people.
If MS does indeed ship a console with HDDVD or BluRay later, isn't Sony already kind of guaranteeing that BluRay will be the nextgen format of choice? So if MS later includes a BluRay drive in the 360 .. Will they indirectly be paying Sony to use the BluRay technology in the 360?
Ya, just like they did with SACD. All their DVD players and DVD dream systems were being made with SACD to give the format a foot in the door. The bottom line is that nobody wants SACD because nobody has a great stereo and nobody cares enough to notice a difference. It's the same with Blu-ray. 90% of people don't own a TV that is going to show a difference and they don't want to re-buy their recently bought DVD collection. Even those with nice HDTVs largely don't want any more. The market for Blu-ray or HD-DVD is probably 1% this year and maybe 5% next year. In other words, complete failure awaits.
. . . will just the drive be disabled? Or will the DRM gods take out your whole PS3 as just compensation for daring to defy their digital restrictions management/regional price scam schemes?
I too have felt the cold finger of injustice.
$100 for some as seemingly trivial as the optical drive is simply insane for a console. I was a bit skeptical when Sony said this would be expensive, I figured they were blowing smoke to get MS to up the price of 360 but if this article is true then our wallets (well not mine) are in for a world of hurt. Estimates Blu-Ray $100 GPU $100 Ageia Physics $70 CPU $200 Misc Materials $30 Labor $10 EST Total $510 and thats being generous.
Oh my. The PS3 is gonna be like $500(so I've heard). Now, to have 4-5 of these new DVD games with as PS, you'll have to pay... oh my goodness... a $1000! That's beyond gaming. I better buy a high-end PC or an iMac ;)
Waik, http://waik.sourceforge.net
The point of ANY high def drive is moot. Seriously. How long is it going to take for enough people to upgrade to a high definition set that could take advantage of (and justify) the drive's capabilities?
Sheesh, we may as well wait to justify the Playstation 4 and XBox 720.
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
I wouldn't trust The Inquirer regarding PS3 news.
G PU-Less-Powerful-than-GeForce-7800/
G PU-More-Powerful-than-GeForce-7800/
They were the ones who spread false PS3 news last week based on a message board post saying that the Nvidia 7800GTX was faster than the PS3's RSX. It turned out that the person on the message board misread PSM magazine and it really said the RSX is FASTER than the 7800GTX. I don't think that they do any fact checking. Likelyhood is that Sony manfacters the Blu-ray drives in house and it won't cost more than adding the DVD to the PS2 and they would likely be able to leverage economies of scale in the long run(which were very expensive at the time of the PS2 launch).
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=25838
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=25862
http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/9126/PlayStation-3-
http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/9132/PlayStation-3-
i wonder if Sony is spreading this rumor to let microsoft increase their price on the 360? there is no source behind this rumor as others mention. the price might be quite lower than people assume, but if sony could fake out microsoft by letting them shoot for a higher price. sony may come back with a $299 console
Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
Doesn't look like I will have enough $ to purchase it anytime soon with or without the drive. I will just cross my fingers and hope someone writes an emulator for the system. Does the zsnes team read slashdot? Or perhaps the WINE team could use a side project (hint hint).
I'd guess this is a move at copy protection, since the format is generally not available for consumers yet.
It's been what, 3 or 4 years since the PS2 came out? Only a very small fraction of games are tagged as "Playable" on the current PS2 emulators. The PS3 is supposed to be much more complex than the PS2, so it will take much longer to emulate.
It's a myth spread by undergraduate business majors that videogame consoles are sold at a loss. Some were (famously the Xbox, the Saturn, the Gamecube at a very slight loss for a little while after the price cut to $99), but generally console makers profit from the console, the games, and the developer licenses.
With great power comes great fan noise.
The timing of this and the Engadget story a little earlier makes me suspicious who the sources are for each story and where they got their information. Xbox 360 should be out soon, perhaps this is a little pre-emptive PS3 FUD from MS spread by proxy and rumor?
the current DVD format is not HDTV spec. While some of the newer players can up-convert the output to 480p, 720p, and 1080i, the original DVD source is not HDTV spec.
This would be like taking the RF (coax) signal from my Atari 2600 game system and up-convert it to S-Video. While I might get a more stable imagine for the TV to work with (depending on the hardware doing the up-converting), the resolution of the source still sucks ass.
Life is not for the lazy.
You mean...
N64 vs PS vs Sat games? 30+ vs. 6. vs. 0. 'Cube v XBox vs PS2 vs DC games? 15+ vs 5 vs 8 vs 4. DS vs PSP? 10 vs 4.
You're kidding right? The point of these is not "HDTV", though it will be nice for HDTV. The point is that you can throw 50-100GB on a single disc. This in turn means large, detailed textures, hi-poly models, audio, video, and anything else they want to throw on the disc.
DVDs just don't cut it. They never really did. Right now I'm playing FFXI and, on the PS2, it takes about 16GB. And the texture and model quality isn't even all that great. When we start getting into next-gen platforms which can handle lots more data, 50-100GB will be barely enough.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Every time the PS3 becomes more expensive, people become more eager to sell their old Nintendo stuff.
Right before the PSP came out, my friend picked up a used Gamecube, some controllers and a big stack of great games for under $100 CDN. I hope that kid is still enjoying Lumines because the Gamecube is certainly getting a lot of use.
The US Army: promoting democracy through unquestioned obedience
Sony: Say, Random HD-DVD Manufacturer, how much would we be paying for some HD-DVD drives for the PS3?
Random HD-DVD Manufacturer: For the PS3? Well, since you're going to be buying about 6 quintillion of them, I'd say about $25 a drive. Hell, make it $15 if you put our logo somewhere on the case.
Sony: Let me rephrase that. How much would we be "paying" for some HD-DVD drives if we wanted to justify an insane price-point for the first 12 months of the PS3 release?
Random HD-DVD Manufacturer: Oh, then it's $100 per drive. But if the first batch would turn out to be "bad" for some reason, we would of course be obligated to ship you 5.9 quintillion drives at a vastly reduced price - Say about $25 - to make up for our error, if it would help ensure future business with you.
C. Montgomery Burns: Excellent!
Yeah yeah, I know, new technology, blah blah blah. All I know is that this 4th gen console war is quickly making me want to dust off the Dreamcast.
Eddie: This is a sex shop isn't it?
Assistant: Yes.
Eddie: I'll have five quid's worth then!
Assistant: Very droll, sir. I've never heard that one before.
Eddie: Haven't you? Shall I tell it again?
Assistant: No thank you sir, I'd rather have a pineapple inserted violently into my rectum.
Eddie: You've been working here too long mate.
Textures take up less space than pre-rendered video. Textures compressed with something like Jpeg will take up very little space comparitively.
Or get an Xbox 360 and play Halo 360 or Grand Theft Auto 4. Or a Playstation 3 with Tekken 6 or Final Fantasy 12 (that one is funny). Everyone else does it, why can't Nintendo?
Some of my best memories are of Mario. Some more to come sounds fun.
Open Source Sushi
Can't we get a source that oh I dont know, has credibility and didnt just get caught lying about PS3 the day before?
Blu Ray disc is a major advance in storage, much more than a simple 5-fold increase in capacity. Even at $200 more, I'd buy it. Kudos to Sony, who has the balls to be a market opener here.
They are trying to tell consumers: "The DRM is bound to fail as most methods do. A crack will be available not too long after release. You are getting some new kickass games and movies though - so please don't break the DRM. It's expensive. We are begging you to be on your best behavior; so much so that we've decided to pay for the drive on your new Playstation 3."
Get your Unix fortune now!
flies like a sale and quacks like a sale - then it is a sale. Look at your state's Sale of Goods Act.
Oh well, what the hell...
They introduce DRM onto millions of devices that they know people are going to buy. How's that a misstep from their perspective.
Frankly it's a brilliant move by Sony. While HD-DVD is still trying to get off the ground there will be millions of Blu-ray players. Then Sony will be selling Blu-ray movies, and they'll leverage their market dominance to get other manufacturers to back their format. They'll make up that $100/PS3 in spades when they license the Blu-ray technology to everybody else.
The history of such things is that people won't buy a technology that makes things too complicated. But hell, nobody's buying PS3's for blu-ray, it's just coming with it. So they'll use it, because it's there. Game. Set. Match.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
"The Inquirer is running an article detailing how Blu-Ray drives for the Playstation 3 will cost Sony a small fortune. It turns out that at the release of the console in the first half of 2006, Sony will have to pay more than $100 per drive which will dramatically increase the unit cost of the PS3."
Though this story was recently posted by the inquirer, it's very old news, and only a third of the story.
I already rebuked the story a couple days ago on my own website at http://www.gamegeeknews.com/?p=140 which itself referenced a GamesIndustry story from the end of June.
In short, Merril Lynch Japan has determined that it would cost Sony +$101 per part to manufacture each of the PS3's key components (Cell CPU, nVIDIA GPU, Blu-Ray Drives). That said, it expected Sony to sell the PS3 for $399 and to stomach a +$100 loss on each system sold. So this isn't new news, it doesn't mean the PS3's price is going to sky rocket... It's all already been covered.
there's no real point to sony including blu ray discs on PS3 games. a standard single layer blu ray holds 23GB, you could get that much space from 3 dual layer DVDs (actually, you get a little more with the standard DVDs). then sony would save about $70.
i doubt that sony will use multiple layer blu rays for the PS3 games themselves, really it's just for movies. and who is going to be willing to connect to the internet to watch a movie anyway?
seriously, who is dissatisfied by the visual quality of DVDs? people consider DVDs to have the best picture quality around, i dont see how sony could possibly expect to win any kind of format war, if you can call it that since nobody's going to buy HD DVD either. people will see these new technologies and think "i probably need $2000 in equipment just to use this"
and they'd be right. it's the same reason why everyone doesn't have a DVR, cable HDTV channels, or any of the more hardcore TV watching stuff out there. TV isn't really worth watching anymore, so why pay monthly fees to use a DVR or buy a $3000 TV for marginal picture improvement. at this point, you'd have to be pretty blind not to be somewhat satisfied by standard picture quality. you can see what's going on, can't you? then why does it matter?
I still say the 'cast was the coolest. It wasn't too large, fairly portable, cool memory cards with LCDs (yes I was a tamagotch sadist) and mini games. It may not have lived a long life but I hold it in very high regard. Too bad the sony pocketstation never made it over here (see above comment about tamagotch sadist).
-Xen
Do you want to pay an extra $130 ($100 cost of drive plus 30% profit margin) on your new PS3 for a DRM-laden drive that can 'punish' you? No thanks.
The thing to realize is that it offers another step up for raw storage.
You might see it as only a DRM laden device hiding all from you. But what of uses outside this definition? It can be a slideshow for every picture I've ever taken. It can be a device to show me large amounts of things from others in convienient form.
If I have the ability to burn a blu-ray disc on the computer with content of my choosing, then who cares how stdios choose to lock out and annoy customers? I can take or leave that aspect as I wish.
Plus of course there's Katmai Damacy 3: The Re-Rolling.
So yeah, that's worth $60 extra to me (since you forgot to think about how much actual manufacturing costs are to Sony with R&D & profit factored out).
Regardless of what anyone says about the cost of this or that, in the end the simple truth is that whatever Sony produces will cost $299.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
They are ranting that the consoles Can do more and people should be allowed to do whatever they want with the consoles.
Another respondant hit it with the fact that MS/Sony/Nin..haha nintendo, anyhow.. they don't care if you hack your console to run linux to modify the temperature of your washing machines rinse cycle over the internet.. just don't make and sell chips that allow game piracy.
Man, I'm and early adopter if there ever was one, but neither of these jokers (X360, PS3) seems very appealing as of yet, is it just me? High end PC graphics are getting cheaper, while these consoles are getting as expensvie as a budget PC. Especially if you already love your keyboard, monitor and mouse like i do.
Suddenly my PC ain't looking so old. Especially with most games nowadays realizing the dream of being (somewhat)GPU dependent.
No black market chips to buy to play MAME of n64 games, either.
Combine uber-expenseive consoles with a steady supply of new WoWs and Battlefield 2s and you have a vastly different situation that the total console domination that the heads of Sony and Msoft are envisioning.
My prediction: Microsoft by a hair in the states, with the PC gaining some ground.
Lots of gamers upgrade their PCs in parts, so while the initial cost of entry is high, it's not as high from an ongoing standpoint.
Example: A 6600GT (decent video card) would run me $140 right now. That's a pretty cheap upgrade. I run a Barton based Athlon ($70) on an Asus A7N8X ($75) motherboard with a 6800GT ($270 [admittedly expensive]) and play BF2 @ 1280 x 1024. With a 6600GT ($140), I'd be limited to 800 x 600, possibly 1024 x 768. These resolutions rival what I can get from consoles, and what's stopping me from connecting my computer to my TV? I do it frequently.
The costs of upgrading can be spread out, and I still remain on par with console gaming quality. I also get free network play and the flexibility of running a large variety of emulators on the same PC, as well as media content and whatever else I please. There are no limitations from the manufacturer either. That's a much stronger sell than replacing the entire box, agreeing to some shrink wrap license, and taking it up the arse every two years.
Alright, I know these don't really exist on slashdot, but somebody has to care about ethics and standards. First of all, the editorial blurb: "detailing how Blu-Ray drives for the Playstation 3" will cost Sony $100. Great, except the article has a) no sources b) no details. Fuad Abazovic is one of the register's better reporters, but that means he loosely bases his stories on reality. MS gets a 50% bulk discount on their DVD drives?
...)
<p>Sorry buddy, that's really low discount. DVD-RW is $50 retail, so MS can probably buy them in bulk for a QUARTER of that price. Retail is typically a 100% plus markup already of what the individual store pays, so when MS buys in bulk for XBox, they typically pay a quarter of what stores pay. And why does Sony NOT get that discount, still having to pay full retail $100? Dunno, but that sure is odd considering Sony OWNS BLU RAY. <p>For emphasis: SONY OWNS BLU RAY. So for their own damn game system they pay cost, which is -- maybe, maybe 10%? At a high estimate? <p>Abazovic hears "$100" blu ray drive and runs with it. Fine, it's his job to sensationalize for a crappy e-zine. But you deserve the facts (ugh, that just sounded like MS' campaign
Oh yeah, the DRM stuff shouldn't bother many people either. XBox Live already prevents mod chipping. Don't get me wrong, I don't have an XBox partially because of that reason and that might the reason for me to choose Revolution or XBox 360 over PS3, but don't act like it is anything new.
One thing I was wondering was if those 24-bit color textures would start to get larger as next-gen titles were starting to use more HDR (high-dynamic range) kinds of imagry. Woudln't they want to use 16-bits for each color (RGB)? Or are there some optimizations they are doing to keep it small still?
The PS3 Unreal Engine demo was supposedly using HDR graphics, so at least some engines are thinking about it.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I thought that Blu Ray == Sony... I was under the impression that Sony was the makers and backers of Blu Ray. If that is the case then how in the hell can Sony charge Sony (and not call it a "wash" on thier bottom line)??
The thing is, that the improvement of SACD is much harder to notice over normal recordings - especially so since in the early days of SACD I don't think I cared for many of the discs they had anyway. If I don't like a song, that's not going to change with SACD.
With HD quality video though, you can notice a difference. I have only an 800x600 projector currently for video media (waiting a bit longer for prices and resolution to improve) and when I had an HD feed hooked up I could notice on that a definite improvement in video quality over a DVD. On a friends projector with a higher resolution, it's even easier to see.
So all the studios need to do is get a few titles that people really admire visually in the newer HD format, and people will start coming over - I think also the figure for people with TV's that can make something of HD feeds is higher than you think, though they have hurt themselves greatly by excluding people without HDCP support (my projector for instance does not support HDCP).
Think of what happens if they release all six Star Wars movies as a box set in Blu-Ray. Don't you think that would drive demand somewhat? Hell, people would buy in even without players just to own the boxes!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Don't know what you are looking at, but just about every indicator is showing upward trends. Housing prices still stable, people still buying big expensive things only in larger quantities than before.
Visit Best Buy on a weekend for an indicator of what the real state of the economy is. When people feel comforatable they spend more, and that's what they are doing now.
So the 360 and PS3 will have a pretty receptive market gong in, if the games are any good.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Actually I don't expect the high oil prices to last very long, since when prices get high there are other options.
Note that even the article is at the end very positive about the econmy, just warning what will happen if oil prices are allowed to get too high. Even then they only say "recession", not how bad... and it's a 25% probability at that.
The probably of moving into a state, I might point out, implies you are not in fact currently in that state (to help out the original poster who seems confused on that point).
The option I noted is more than costworthy now.
You are confused by a temporary reduction in capacity that will be shortly rectified.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
...I'm just curious about the specifics of storing HD on a VHS. Would you care to elaborate or provide some links? I was never good at homework ;)
for dominance of the HD media format, especially when you've got a M$-supported HD0-DVD consortium breathing down your throat...
Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. -Douglas Adams
1: Who the hell, besides mabye squaresoft, is going to use 40Gb of data for a game?
2: Why would I want to deal with the DRM? I haven't played games on consoles for years and the reason why, frankly, is because the games aren't moddable. So now we've got this device, it's got a harddrive and a keyboard on it and I can't mod it?
Bullshit.
Here's the thing. The PS3 is going to be hitting the streets at the $300-350 mark with Bluray inside. People will buy the PS3 because it's the PS3. There's will be several million units out in people's homes within weeks of release. They won't conciously decide to get a high def video player, it will just come with it.
On the other hand, to buy an HD-DVD player, as a stand alone device, you'd have to have a specific reason to buy just that. It'll only play discs, not record them, so you'd need a selection of movies available. But how many movies are there really going to be in 6 months or even a year down the line? Think about how long it took from the first DVD's hitting the shelves to really becoming mainstream. This is going to take far longer because most people don't have the TV's necessary to make use of the players.
On the other hand, PS3 owners will just have an HD player sitting right there, just waiting. They buy the device to play the games, and then down the road it turns out they can play movies too.
If you were a hollywood studio and you wanted to choose to back a format and one of the formats was going to be guaranteed to be in millions of homes within a year and the other was a roll of the dice, which would you choose?
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You know, no offense, I find the "buy Nintendo because it's priced reasonably" argument to be as bogus as "buy an XBox because it has a GF3" in it. We're not talking a lawnmower or a washing machine or whatever else that is fully self-contained and does something all by itself. We're talking a game console, which has one single use: to play games.
So here's a crazy idea: I'll buy a console for what games it has, not for the theoretical gigapixels per second (I don't play directly with the shader pipelines, I play with games that use those), nor because it's the cheapest (even something that costs only $100 is still just a wasted $100 if it doesn't also have games that interest me.)
_If_ the Revolution will have any games that interest me, sure, I'll buy one. But if not, not.
_If_ Sony's consoles again are the ones with 90% of the story driven RPGs, I'll go buy a Sony console again.
So far, I don't even like Nintendo's kinds of games, which were really the only ones that were exclusive to the N64 or GCN. Now I won't call them "bad" games or "kiddie" games, but they're just not in the genres I like. I know others like them. More power to them as far as I'm concerned. But I don't.
So unless Nintendo hires a new designer sometime soon, _I_ just can't see myself buying a Revolution, no matter at what price. On the other, hand, being a very happy and entertained owner of both the Playstation and PS2, I can easily see myself biting the bullet and forking over $500 for a PS3.
But again, I'll wait and see what games are available for them, and _then_ decide whether I buy either.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
You have not yet seen HDTV on good HDTV capable hardware?
Would i be right?
why pay monthly fees to use a DVR or buy a $3000 TV for marginal picture improvement. at this point, you'd have to be pretty blind not to be somewhat satisfied by standard picture quality. you can see what's going on, can't you? then why does it matter?
Well, here's how you can change your mind on how it matters.
(1) Go to a local Apple Store
(2) sit down in front of the 30" display
(3) Download a few of the HDTV H.264 trailers from apple.com
(4) ???
(5) Start saving up
HDTV picture clarity is no small improvement, it can be jaw-dropping, and although at the moment it costs a bomb, a lot of aggressive marketing and pricing between Sony, Matsushita and Philips are bringing the prices way down.
HDTV is no DVD-A/SACD, it's a real and distinct and fantastic improvement.
Unfortunatly, if you want Next-Generation hardware in your console, it's gonna cost. Personally, PS3 is still a very attractive proposition, compared to the disappointing spec of the XBox-360, which is looking very current generation now, and very Last Generation when the PS3 launches... To answer the question, "Does PS3 need 50Gb of removable storage?", yes, to full support HD displays, you need high defination storage.
SONY cannot charge infinitely much for the console; they need to make their money on games. Now if people don't want to pirate these games -or movies- (even though its doubtful whether that's anything a hardware manufacturer -rather than the authorities- have a right to 'punish' anyone or anyone's property for) at all, but just run something different (unwelcome/unauthorized != necessarily illegal) so much rather than the manufacturer's games (fluffy penguins come to mind), there is no justification for 'punishment' just because the vendor never gets to the "4. Profit!!!" part of the equation.Why would anyone have supported Microsoft by buying an Xbox?
Support for their wallets could come from buying Xbox games, but quite probably that's hardly what anyone on
Wasn't the saying something along the lines of "In capitalist Redmond, the vendor is 'punished' by you" ?
I heard from a reliable source PS3 will include a satellite chip that allows DRM to be applied even if there is no connection to Internet. But this can be easily avoided with some tin foil wrapped around the console.
1. Come out after the new xbox
2. Be expensive as all hell
3. Use the format that's going to lose this format war
4. ????
5. Profit!
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
with the war over BluRay and HDDVD, if sony put millions of BluRay units all over the world by selling PS3's at a loss is the loss directly attributable to the PS3's or is it an investment into the success of their BluRay technology that they have already spent hundreds of millions on?
Seriously, back in 1999 when the ps2 released in Japan, didn't a standalone dvd player cost around $500 to $700? I bought a ps2 myself partly because it also played dvd movies and was cheap. You just have to do a little googling to see that Sony usually sells their game consoles at a loss.
The madness will only end the day that some government somewhere decides to enforce non-discriminatory IP licencing {i.e. if you licence your IP to anybody at all, you have to licence it to everybody on exactly the same terms} -- using as punishment a court order forcing the offender's IP into the Public Domain.
..... every listener, without exception, agrees that every record they play, without exception, is shite. These are the same listeners that chose the records in the first place. QED.
Why do I believe it will take government intervention to accomplish this, rather than just letting the market decide? Human nature. Listen to a request show on the wireless
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Buy a XBOX, that MS sells with a loss, and *not* buy any games, hack linux to run on it, and have a good computer for 1/5 of the street price -- only if you buy the XBOX within 3-6 months of its launch.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/D-VHS
They're not getting outsould by the XBOX in any continent other than America.
Here in Spain, the XBOX is selling on par with the GC despite being the GC rarely modded and pirated. The XBOX is a joy to pirate, and their poor game sales show that.
we buy *old* computers without TC and make huge Beowulf clusters with them :-) Seriously, In a *lot* of jurisdictions the "can't modify your own hardware" won't fly, so, in the end it will be a moot point or the US will suffer, but not a lot of other countries.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
They won't be able to afford them. Whatever will they do to take up their spare time?
(hahahah)
~~~
I think I'll just read a book instead.
There are no issues with compatibility, DRM, or any other technical concerns. My intelligence will not be lowered through mere exposure, and I don't have to choose which evil corporate entity (I detest both Sony and MS) I support by purchasing anyone's product.
Sounds like a winner to me.
What are you talking about? Remember, that the PS3 is primarily a games machine.
'HD' is just the resolution - you don't need more storage space for higher resolution output in games. Current PC games run at much higher resolutions than any of the existing HD (*ahem*) "Standards", and currently fit on a regular DVD nicely.
Sure, in 5 years time, capacity requirements will creep up - but the consoles will still be restricted to the existing processor and memory performance/capacity limits. Putting an expensive new storage system with regular hardware unbalances the system, and is an economically unsound decision.
FWIW...
Windows 2K runs fine on my collection of 133 -> 200Mhz machines.
Windows Xp runs fine on my collection of 333->500Mhz machines.
Now I can not buy it some more.
Huzzah, Sony!
I'm not scared of anonymous cowards.
They could charge an arm and a leg for the new ps3 and I would still buy it as woudl millions of other Americans. Sony has always made great gaming machines and I will no doubt pick up the ps3 when it comes out next year regardless of price.
I prefer a DC, with less games, but better "good games ratio", than a PS2 (or PSX) with lots of games, but lots of trash too. And I don't say DC has no trash games (I just played 2 times Stunt GP...) but I've played LOTS of PSX games that didn't deserved being rent, even less bought.
And the same goes for the rest of consoles. Sony can say theirs is the best console ever (until their next, of course), just like MS and N can say it too, but the thing that matters are the games and how long you have to wait between good games. Do you want to wait half a year between two good games?
I was a fan of the Dreamcast myself, but its problems were deeper than that. In addition to what you've said, I'd add:
1. Yes, it eventually had some 250 games, but entire genres were missing for the first, what? Two years? E.g., being an RPG fan myself, I had to grudgingly admit to fellow RPG gamers "uh, yeah, well, if you want RPGs, you should probably get a PSX instead." (Evolution and Evolution 2 were cutesy hack-and-slashes, but no substitute for the real Japanese RPGs.)
And while we're at it, although I was one of the few people that actually enjoyed Sega GT, it was _not_ a substitute for Gran Turismo. Lacking any kind of TCS or ABS, the higher powered cars drove like on ice, ffs. I've actually tried to get people hooked on it, and invariably every single Gran Turismo fan was like "Gah, this is crap. As soon as I even touch the controller, the car goes like on ice."
2. The piracy argument is, sorry to say, bogus. Sega was actually selling more games per console sold than Sony did. We Dreamcast owners actually bought a lot of games each. That's why they turned to a pure game developper at the end. Their problem was not enough consoles sold, not piracy.
3. The GD-ROM did however bite Sega in the ass, but not because of piracy. The GD-ROM _sucked_ at launch, and the pressing of GDs themselves was very immature and poor quality. A lot of the games at launch came on unbalanced or too thick GDs, that the console had trouble reading. Having to turn the console upside down to have it read your GD was quite a common thread at launch.
And even later models, I can tell you first hand that the faintest fingerprint made the game no longer load. I've had games crash on me in the middle of it, not because the software was deffective, but because a tiny spec of dust made it no longer able to read a sector.
I don't know about you, but I can easily see how that kind of thing would turn a lot of buyers off.
4. Another major problem was that Sega basically didn't even try advertising. By the end they just cut the prices on a console already sold at a major loss, which helped sales, but depleted Sega's funds faster than they could afford to.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I first thought it was Sony preparing for a tax writeoff
... look how much we're losing .. tax rebate please ...") ...
... more returns again? Ahhh, Britney ... again?!?!?!") :)
("ooh, this $5 component actually costs us $100
but then I remembered all of the quality Britney Spears CDs that can be used for the same purposes
("
Do we really need Blue-Ray technology? is the public really dying to for the next generation of DVD technology? I know Im not, and Im very tech orientated. Most people dont have HD television and cant take advantage of the current dvd's they own 100%, what advantage would yet another format give them? Would they even notice? I doubt I would even notice the difference between a Blue-ray DVD and a standard DVD, except that I cant back it up and it will be easier to damage because the data will be packed more densely on the disk. The first DVD I ever purchased, Fight Club, skipped and crashed the first time I watched and they wouldnt allow me to return it to the store (Best Buy), imagine how much easier it will be to damage a disk with 5 times the amount of data on it!
hmm do you know if it will work with standard vhs tapes or if it needs a higher quality tape in the cassette to work?
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
The thing is, Sony can afford to lose more on the PS3 because they have more ways to make up for it.
First of all, with Cell, it's a multipurpose processor they intend to use in many other devices. So the overall sunk cost of development is going to be spread out accross many devices.
Second of all, in addition to the licensing revenue from games they will be getting licensing revenue on Bluray. If the PS3 allows them to dominate the HD format war, then they'll have some exclusivity there and be guaranteed a higher revenue stream over the long haul.
Third, by pushing the whole HD angle, Sony also positions themselves to sell more TV's, etc.
So in the end, I think Sony's got a fair amount of wiggle room here. Having said that, a lot of the PS3 is a big gamble for them. If they have any problems with delivering on their promises, they are going to take it in the teeth.
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