PlayStation 3 Not So Much Delayed?

Chris Morris, on the CNN Game Over column, points out that even if Merrill Lynch's suggestion that the delayed initial launch of the PS3 is true, that's unlikely to affect the U.S. launch of the console. From the article: "Logic sometimes isn't enough, though. To get additional perspective on the situation, I spoke with several of Sony's partners (who are in regular contact with the company) and competitors (who keep a close eye on the PS3's launch window) about the report. No one was willing to talk on the record for fear of reprisal, but the consensus was nearly universal. The promised spring launch (which was expected in Japan, but not North America) will likely be pushed back, they said. The North American launch, which was always expected to occur later this year (November is the consensus), is not expected to change. Europe may well not see the PS3 until next year." The price tag reported, though, is still probably accurate. C|Net has a breakdown of the PlayStation 3's components.

Comments

Those Component Costs are off

[JordanL]

C|Net claims $150-200 for the proc and $200-300 for the drive. That's way off the money.

IBM has reported fab costs of the Cell below $50 and much of the cost on the BR drive is due to the unique processing and decoding hardware attatched to the drive, not the drive itself. This hardware is already present in the PS3 in the form on the Cell.

Re:Those Component Costs are off

[mymaxx]

Does that mean that is what IBM is going to sell the proc to Sony for? IBM wants to make a profit too.

Re:Those Component Costs are off

[JordanL]

Nope, Sony is going to fab their own, (as they also own the IP and the patents). It will cost them about what it costs IBM, and no more.

Re:Those Component Costs are off

[affinity]

I think Sony and Toshiba are runing the Fab together..
But I would not say they are not buying some from IBM.
I would actually think that they would buy the initial bunch of cell procs from
IBM until they get their line up and running.

Re:Those Component Costs are off

[Anonymous Coward]

IBM is making Cell in quantity at its East Fishkill fab for Sony. Sony's Nagasaki fab is not the sole source.

Re:Those Component Costs are off

[SoVeryWrong]

From what I've read the Cell is composed of a number of chips, the main processor is similar to a PowerPC and it routes requests to the Cell chips that surround it (8 if I remember correctly). Sony is producing the Cell chips, IBM is producing the PowerPC-like component.

Also, $200-300 for just the drive sounds about right, considering that a set-top box with the processing and decoding hardware is going to cost $1000+ retail.

Re:Those Component Costs are off

[dotdevin]

But, you have to spend a few hunderd million dollars to build that fab and thoes costs have to go into each chip.

Re:Those Component Costs are off

[JordanL]

That does not figure into cost per chip or component cost however. As long as you turn a profit on component cost, you will overcome the R&D through scale.

Re:Those Component Costs are off

[EnglishTim]

The PowerPC core and eight* SPUs are all on the same core. It's just one chip.

I'd say the $200-$300 for the drive is *way* off.

When it comes down to it, the Blu-Ray drive is pretty much like a DVD drive except for a more expensive laser and presumably more accurate actuators for lens positioning. It'll be more expensive than a DVD player, but not *that much* more expensive.

The expensive parts of a Blue-Ray player are likely to be the video decoding sections, not the drive unit itself.

*seven usable - one is spare in improve yields.

Re:Those Component Costs are off

[gabebear]

The Cell CPU has a number of cores, all of which are on one chip. Sony owns the rights to make the chip

The cost of making a Blu-Ray player should fall dramatically once cheaper high-speed multimedia chips(a.k.a. Cell) are available.

Re:Those Component Costs are off

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever considered that maybe, just maybe, profession journalists and analysts may know more about how much these things will cost than random people on Slashdot?

If an analyst, who has been studying these things, and who doubtlessly is well aware of what IP rights Sony owns and what the costs are for the parts, says the PS3 is likely to cost $900+ to manufactor, then there's a good chance that - gasp! - it really will cost $900+ to manufactor.

These people are paid to analyse the situation. They know what they're doing. They're professionals. I'm sure that they've already thought of any reason why the cost might be lower than some random guy on Slashdot has and are well aware of the true costs.

I'd be very surprised if the price estimate of the PS3 didn't turn out to be accurate. The console is going to be very, very expensive compared to the XBox 360 and the Revolution.

Re:Those Component Costs are off

[Anonymous Coward]

manufactor -> manufacture

Re:Those Component Costs are off

[JordanL]

If an analyst, who has been studying these things, and who doubtlessly is well aware of what IP rights Sony owns and what the costs are for the parts, says the PS3 is likely to cost $900+ to manufactor, then there's a good chance that - gasp! - it really will cost $900+ to manufactor.

These people are paid to analyse the situation. They know what they're doing. They're professionals. I'm sure that they've already thought of any reason why the cost might be lower than some random guy on Slashdot has and are well aware of the true costs.

So what you're saying is that I should trust the opinion of someone for whom there are no consequences for being wrong, but plenty on consequences for saying nothing?

No "analyst" working for Merryl-Lynch knows enougha bout the hardware to grasp costs.

Re:Those Component Costs are off

[gutnor]

No "analyst" working for Merryl-Lynch knows enougha bout the hardware to grasp costs."

That pretty much include almost everybody here on slashdot aswell. And the rest, the people who knows are probably under NDA anyway.

I should trust the opinion of someone for whom there are no consequences for being wrong, but plenty on consequences for saying nothing?

Well, not much different than posting on slashdot :-)

I agree it's foolish to trust the Merryl-Lynch employee, but the fact is, he probably has at least as much information as we do. And it's even possible that the guy is in fact competent.

So is 900$ too much when the CPU cost is 50$ and the drive costs about the same as a DVDReader? Well, if I take the (CPU+DVD)/Total ratio of my home pc, it's about correct. On the other hand if I take my father PC, it is way off and it should be more like 300$ !

Re:Those Component Costs are off

[Keeper]

more expensive laser and presumably more accurate actuators for lens positioning

You do realize that those are the only parts in your DVD player that actually cost more than a trivial amount, right?

Re:Those Component Costs are off

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple proof that those numbers off:

A 256-megabit DDR2 chip sells for about $2.46 on the wholesale market, he said, leading to a price of about $79 for 512MB of GDDR (here's the math: 2.46 x 2 x 2 x 8. There are eight bits in a byte).

When does 32 * 256megabit = 512megabyte? True RAM prices should be around $39, not $79!

While I'm at it, retail prices for 40Gig hard drives are $45. Who is the wholesaler selling 20Gig drives for $40 in lots of 10,000 or more?

Re:Those Component Costs are off

[Anonymous Coward]

Might want to check your math, it's:

2 (2 x 256 = 512)
times 2 (twice the quoted price)
times 8 (8 bits in a byte)
times 2.46 (the cost per module)

= 78.72 for 512 MB of XDR RAM, or about $79.

Re:Those Component Costs are off

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely true. If that "analyst" knows so much, he'd be working in the industry.

We actually do make a chip roughly the size of the Xbox 360 chip, and we only use 200mm wafers, and we use a very expensive package. (I've seen the Xbox chips, they use a much cheaper package). I've been in the industry for 10 years, I've seen small chips and very large chips. Some logic dominant, some mostly memory. Even worked on a rather famous x86 CPU.

I can tell you the analyst estimate of the chip cost is WAAAY off. Those guys know shit.
And that comment about memory being cheaper is crap. On-die memory is a bitch in terms of yield, the more you have the more problems, and you better have some sort of laser or fuse repair handy or be prepared to throw away a lot of die.

Re:Those Component Costs are off

[Doppler00]

Of course the claims are off. They were done by Merrill Lynch. I'm curious how a financial firm is qualified to estimate the cost of a piece of consumer electronic hardware? There is absolutely no way they can know how much it will cost Sony to purchase and build the components.

Re:Those Component Costs are off

[gordo3000]

you should do two things: realize that these people at Merrill Lynch have some of the best connections into every market they care about and therefore, have a lot more inside information than you could dream of. These are also people who spend 14 hours a day learning how to estimate these numbers because millions of dollars are made and lost by being wrong here. Outside of those actually producing the materials, they are probably some of the most qualified people.

also, While Merill's estimates are on the high side, the lower end of estimates by people from several groups including the Microprocessor Forum still see the overall price of the box to be around 700 dollars. Not the 800 Merill claimed(they quickly retracted their 900 dollar estimate). So either way, it is an expensive box.

With the amount of cutting edge technology they are using, I woulnd't be surprised to hear a final number well over 700 dollars. Very little in the PS3 is standard and therefore, they will be paying massively for the components.

Re:Those Component Costs are off

[gordo3000]

I guess no one told you that an analyst makes most of his money based on his bonus and being wrong here, which can cause Merill to lose millions if they bet the wrong way on the stock or debt. He knows if he is wrong by more than a small amount, his career will take a huge hit.

This guy has probably been analyzing hardware releases for the last 7 or 8 years and has a good idea as to how costs really go. You don't need to understand the underlying logic to figure out what hte costs are going to look like for a product. Undergrads in college can usually get within 30% with very limited information and very little experience. It's not hard and requires absolutely no engineering knowledge. These guys have to really learn their sector though, and I'd bet he is going to be within the 15% range. There might be a reason why the are moving the high side(maybe a short position in the bank) but such an occurance could bring the SEC down on them really hard because that is illegal (if it is ever found out about).

Re:Those Component Costs are off

[Tough Love]

you should do two things: realize that these people at Merrill Lynch have some of the best connections into every market they care about and therefore, have a lot more inside information than you could dream of.

Oh, so you think Merrill Lynch used information not available to the general public to create a report that might affect the price of stocks that Merrill Lynch most probably is invested in? You realize that Merrill Lynch execs can get jail time for that?

I guess we have narrowed the situation down to two possibilities:

1) Merrill Lynch used inside information

2) Merrill Lynch pulled the whole report out of their collective asses

Either way I would like to see some execs do jail time. Oh wait, sorry, I forgot, the rule of law ended long ago.

Re:Those Component Costs are off

[KDR_11k]

I'd say that since Sony only requires 7 of the 8 SPEs to be operational they're going to buy up the Cells that have slight errors in them and those might be cheaper than fully operational 8 SPE Cells.

Re:Those Component Costs are off

[KDR_11k]

To put it into perspective: Sony expects to sell 100 million units. Even a billion in costs would only tack on a tenner on each of those and that's only if they intend to make the money back on the console itself instead of the games or accessories.

Re:Those Component Costs are off

[KDR_11k]

Except M-L said the CPU and drive make up ~ 600$ of that 900$ estimate.

Re:Those Component Costs are off

[gordo3000]

well, you have no understanding of the industry but so be it. I Just happen to be in the industry which is why I can say that is all. you can use non-public information to generate these reports in the sense that, I will never get a phone interview with the CFO or the head engineer of Sony but a senior analyst at Merill can.

further, there are several rules governing what you are talking about. research can come out with any report they want to. The rules state there can be no contact between your research group and your sales/trading floor except through official channels. This is to the point that at the GS building in New York the two areas on separate floors are no longer accessible by a staircase, everything goes through electronic entry to track people. also, a great deal of public information costs a lot of money and so, outside of the banks, few people ever have access to it.

I'm late, but this is stuff you should probably read up on a bit. I'm not saying illegal things don't go on, but you seem to have a misunderstanding of what the laws allow.

Re:Those Component Costs are off

[EnglishTim]

You do realize that those are the only parts in your DVD player that actually cost more than a trivial amount, right?

Sure. That's why I mentioned them. I can't see them costing $200, though. In a standalone Blu-Ray player however, the cost of the decoder will be substantially larger than the one you'd get in a similar DVD player. That cost does not need to be added to the PS3 becuase the Cell chip will take care of it.

Re:Those Component Costs are off

[Keeper]

I can easily see them costing $200, given the technology/precision required to manufacture them. Do some research on that laser -- you'll be very surprised at how bleeding edge that thing is. The ideas used in blu-ray are over 10 years old, but the technology required to produce the parts outside of a lab didn't exist until very recently.

Re:Those Component Costs are off

[Tough Love]

I'm not saying illegal things don't go on, but you seem to have a misunderstanding of what the laws allow

Do the laws allow Merril Lynch to publish blatantly flawed research prejudicial to a competitor of a company that it and its clients are heavily invested in?

As far as your chinese wall goes, don't make me laugh. Does the wall also cut across the middle of restaurants and bars that employees from both sides frequent?

Re:Those Component Costs are off

[JordanL]

Since when is being incompetent illegal?

And The Reason For Fall

[mpapet]

Is retailers have their biggest quarter in the fall. This works to Sony's advantage by maintaining the dominant negotiation position.

I'd guess the retailers are getting the entire PS3 show in June/July. If there is an enterprising individual willing to incur the wrath of Sony and probably jeapordize a career, your opportunity at a "scoop" would be around that time.

Re:And The Reason For Fall

[SchrodingersRoot]

Yep. They call if the "golden quarter."

If they don't get it out by November, they'll miss the holiday season rush. I doubt Japan has anything so big in spring, so they won't lose much by pushing back that release. My bet is that they'll finagle the Japan/whatever release however they need to, to ensure that they get in on the holiday season here.

All press...

[Serapth]

Can you tell Sony subscribes to the belief "Any press is good press". Im already sick of these reports. Frankly, I hope its not delayed so these stories can finally die.
Sadly then, we will have to read story after story about shortages, then manufacturing problems, etc... etc... Even though im a gadget whore and will probrably buy all 3 ( already bought the 360 ), all of this stuff has just burned me out on console gaming.

Re:All press...

[Penguinoflight]

Speak with your wallet and dont buy a PS3. Stick to a console that isn't heavily influenced by TCA principles; If you bought the 360, why oh why would you complain about Sony's problems. Everyone knew the PS3 would late in coming just because of the elaborate amount of new tech they put in it. As the article said, there will likely be no delay in the NA market even though there will be a delay in Japan. This means Sony delays bringing the PS3 to international market completely intentionally, and it is not a result of market pressure.

Remember, when you buy a console you are only adding to the supply problems, and therefor boosting media attention. I'm not going to do that until I find a company worthy of that kind of attention. Hopefully Revolution will avoid all the TCA problems, and I can justify buying it with more than just avoiding Sony and Micro$oft.

Re:All press...

[Raenex]

Stick to a console that isn't heavily influenced by TCA principles

What do you mean by this? I assume TCA is Transaction Cost Analysis?

Re:All press...

[Fozzyuw]

Speak with your wallet and dont buy a PS3. ...If you bought the 360, why oh why would you complain about Sony's problems.

You must have missed the part where he said...

Even though im a gadget whore and will probrably buy all 3

The point is that, console gaming is becoming so much hype on who has the most amazing system that games are getting over looked. Maybe it's just age, but I can tell you, I do not enjoy games as I once did. My Personnal opinion is that games have just gotten boring, sans a few diamonds in the rough (Resident Evil 4 GBC, Ridge Racer PSP). Companies are focasing on the marketing of their 'uber' system and hoping to drive sales instead of getting the best library of game titles. We all know that Sony tosses as many titles at it's system as humanly possible, while only the rare few stick. Nintendo refuses to move "outside the box" and keeps pumping out Nintendo franchise title after franchise title with no real innovation. Xbox is just basically select PS2 titles and Halo. So, the point is, console game has gotten sickning because no matter what's under that box, the games are not getting any better, with rare expections. The general case I would make is most games have gotten worse as gameplay and control takes a back seat to 3D 'realism' and graphics. I'm sure I could still pick-up Techmo Super Bowl, Baseball all stars or the Original Zelda and enjoy playing those games again. Cheers, Foz

Re:All press...

[shawn(at)fsu]

Yeah, I'm with you on this, that is why I waiting to buy the Phantom Gaming Console.

Sorry I just couldn't resist the urge. Help me, I'm sick!

Re:All press...

[ArwynH]

*blink*

Did you just accuse Nintendo of not innovative?

The same Nintendo that brought us d-pads, analog sticks and shoulder buttons? The same Nintendo that brought us the Gameboy, the DS and promises to bring us the Revolution, with it's unique controller? You did mean the same Nintendo that brought us Nintendogs and Animal crossing right?

Because if you did then you either have not been paying much attention to the gaming scene of late (or for that matter since a certain company beggining with 'N' virtualy single handedly reinvented the video game industry 20 years or so ago) or you need a dictionary to look up the meaning of the word 'innovate'.

PlayStation 3 Not So Much Delayed

[Anonymous Coward]

a.k.a. Delayed.

Re:PlayStation 3 Not So Much Delayed

[OneSeventeen]

A Playstation 3 is never late, nor is it early. It arrives precisely when it means to.

Re:What price tag?

[Kaldaien]

The real question is, do you even read the article?

Oh good

[timeOday]

The PS3 isn't delayed, just intentionally very late!

If it ships to North America and Europe over a full year after the XBox360, is it really in the same "generation"?

Re:Oh good

[AnyoneEB]

Well, is the DreamCast considered part of the GCN/PS2/XBox generation? Or is it considered between the PSX/N64 generation and that generation? I think of it as the former.

Re:Oh good

[Scratched]

I may be mistaken, but I think the PS2 came out almost a year before the gamecube and the Xbox. The PS2 was still considered part of that generation.

What sort of amazes me is that even though their last console came out before everyone else's, their newest console is a year behind the latest generation. I realize that the PS3 uses a totally new processor technology, but they still have taken a long time...

Re:Oh good

[Anonymous Coward]

Fanboys and purchasers aside, it's considered the latter. By the time the big three were duking it out, Sega had already killed the DC off. Of course, Sega had a huge history of doing this. The SegaCD, the 32x, the Saturn.. All odd little systems that really don't fit into any of the traditional console 'generations'.

Re:Oh good

[cornface]

What sort of amazes me is that even though their last console came out before everyone else's, their newest console is a year behind the latest generation.

MS released the Xbox a year into the last generation, realized their horrible mistake, and then rushed in a year early to the current generation. That's a more accurate way to describe the current situation.

The original Xbox had a miniscule shelf life compared to the historical average for a console.

Re:Oh good

[Jearil]

So then what's your excuse for the Gamecube which came out 3 days after the xbox? Same generation and still a year after the PS2...

Re:Oh good

[neersign]

If it ships to North America and Europe over a full year after the XBox360, is it really in the same "generation"?

Xbox - November 15, 2001 USA release
PS2 - October 26, 2000 USA release

same generation, no?

Re:Oh good

[cornface]

Yes, and also launching a year after the 360. The Xbox only had a four year lifespan. Four years!

Re:Oh good

[Manmademan]

The segaCD and the 32x don't fit into console "generations" for good reason- they weren't consoles. Both were add ons to a prior console (the genesis) and were incapable of running without it. Add ons have always done terribly in the console world going back as far as the Intellision Keyboard and the NES Disk Drive, so it's no surprise they tanked.

The Dreamcast was a direct competitor to the Ps2, being sold at the same time with similar hardware specs. There's no reason to lump it into the same generation as the N64 which came out 3 years prior and was all but dead by the time of the ps2 launch.

Re:Oh good

[ClamIAm]

What sort of amazes me is that even though [Sony's] last console came out before everyone else's, their newest console is a year behind the latest generation.

Um, that's only if you consider the 360 "next-gen". In my opinion, it isn't. At least not yet.

Accurate, my ass...

[ivan256]

The price tag reported, though, is still probably accurate.

Oh, please. The article itself says why it's not accurate. It lists the memory price as the same for the 360, and the PS3, and then goes on to describe how the PS3 is the first to use the new, expensive XDR memory, while the 360 uses GDDR3 which was designed speciffically to be cheaper than DDR2.

Not only that, but they have component prices listed as if they were being sold with a profit margin. You can bet Sony isn't going to markup chips it sells to itself, and for third party chips, you can bet they're paying a lot less. Even the launch quantities of these boxes far surpass what normally qualifies as economies of scale.

I'd say they have the costs far too high for both machines in that article. Both machines will have sub-$100 manufacturing costs on the CPU very early on in the production life, for example. Also, the BD-ROM drive is probably going to end up being more like $70. The DVD drive in the 360 is even cheaper than the $20 quoted, etc...

The PS3 will be expensive... More expensive to build than the 360, but neither machine is as expensive as this over-rated Merryl-Lynch report that's been being passed around.

Re:Accurate, my ass...

[CastrTroy]

If the PS3 is more expensive to produce than the 360, and Microsoft usually sells it's consoles at a loss, while Sony as a rule does not, then how much do you thing the PS3 will sell for. I could easily see them pricing it at $600 to $700, which is way too much for a console.

Re:Accurate, my ass...

[Kjella]

If the PS3 is more expensive to produce than the 360, and Microsoft usually sells it's consoles at a loss, while Sony as a rule does not, then how much do you thing the PS3 will sell for.

I think the small army of Sony marketeers have a pretty good clue on how many units it'd sell at different price points. Even if they have miscalculated on what the final price would be, I doubt they'll follow up a bad decision with a horrible one. Taking a financial loss to get them out the door is painful but acceptable, losing the market to Microsoft is not. Besides, the prices that have been going around are completely bizarre and out of touch with reality. AMD would be bankrupt if the Cell production costs were right, and Sony could include a BD-burner for $350. I say no more than $500. Perhaps $400.

Re:Accurate, my ass...

[Anonymous Coward]

"You can bet Sony isn't going to markup chips it sells to itself"

You might might want to talk to Toshiba America about selling parts internally for a profit. It was SOP when I was there. Circa 2000.

Re:Accurate, my ass...

[Slappytron]

Not only that, but they have component prices listed as if they were being sold with a profit margin. You can bet Sony isn't going to markup chips it sells to itself, and for third party chips, you can bet they're paying a lot less. Even the launch quantities of these boxes far surpass what normally qualifies as economies of scale.

Unless BD-ROM starts getting picked up by a lot of PC and Consumer Electronics OEMs, and soon, the price is going to be high for a while. The format isn't even locked down, and the "winner" of the HD-DVD/BD war *still* isn't clear cut!

I think Sony could be in a lot of trouble here. I believe they've overshot on system specs and overestimated the speed of cost drops. MS and Nintendo are looking good to grab a lot of market share back from Sony this generation.

Re:Accurate, my ass...

[ivan256]

while Sony as a rule does not

Where is that rule from?

Re:Accurate, my ass...

[ivan256]

Unless BD-ROM starts getting picked up by a lot of PC and Consumer Electronics OEMs, and soon, the price is going to be high for a while.

I think that's BS. A lot of what makes BluRay player expensive is already included in the infrastructure of an HD console.

The format isn't even locked down,

Neither is the DVD format (!). It's locked down enough.

the "winner" of the HD-DVD/BD war *still* isn't clear cut!

That doesn't matter. Besides, the hardware components for the two will be cross compatable. The difference will be firmware-only.

MS and Nintendo are looking good to grab a lot of market share back from Sony this generation.

They'll grab some, sure. It's the developers who decide who gets the market share though. Customers buy the systems with the games they want. As long as the games are on PlayStation, the gamers are on PlayStation. It's why Sony won the last two generations. None of this hardware cost crap actually matters in terms of who "wins".

Re:Accurate, my ass...

[eltonito]

Perhaps I am in the minority, but Ivan's comments on developers and gamers deciding "who wins" makes me think the PS3 has a better than good chance at success.

Further overlooked is the impression from the initial launch and Microsoft screwed the pooch on that, IMHO. I have total faith that, regardless of the cost, Sony will have millions of units available upon launch and a handful of compelling launch titles. Sony is going to clean up on the jaded, "I really wanted to buy a 360, but..." crowd. The savings I ear-marked for a 360 is still in the bank now waiting for the PS3.

Re:Accurate, my ass...

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"If the PS3 is more expensive to produce than the 360, and Microsoft usually sells it's consoles at a loss, while Sony as a rule does not, then how much do you thing the PS3 will sell for."

Sony follows no such rule. The PS2 and the PSP both sold at a loss. (Note: The PS2 eventually became profitable. That is a big difference between the PS2 and the XBOX.) I'd be willing to bet that the original Playstation sold at a loss as well. Never forget that Sony's always trying to be the 'bleeding edge' company.

Re:Accurate, my ass...

[JordanL]

The PS2 and the PSP both sold at a loss. (Note: The PS2 eventually became profitable. That is a big difference between the PS2 and the XBOX.)

Sounds like youa re repeating something you heard somewhere. The big difference between the XB and the PS2 is that the per-unit net profit on the PS2 was always positive. The only way it didn't start out turning a profit is if you include R&D costs as part of production costs... in which case the first PS2 cost $4.2 billion, and every one after turned a profit. This guy explains it in an easy to understand way.

Re:Accurate, my ass...

[rseuhs]

Taking a financial loss to get them out the door is painful but acceptable, losing the market to Microsoft is not.

LOL.

The 6 year old PS2 sold over 20 million times last year, Microsoft will be happy when they sell 6 or 7 million in the first year with their brand-new XBox360.

Sony could wait until 2009 with the release of the PS3 - or even not release PS3 at all and still outsell XBox360.

Re:Accurate, my ass...

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"This guy explains it in an easy to understand way. "

Ah yes, the infamous Gord. Here we have a post written by a highly opinionated person who draws a broad conclusion from vague data (that he doesn't even post on his site for us all to peek at) interpreted from a marketting-style stock report intended to make Sony's stockholders feel all warm and fuzzy about the future of their money. Meanwhile, the rest of the gaming media has reported numerous times that in the first year of the PS2's launch, it cost more to build the machines than they sold them for. Interestingly enough, Sony has never disputed these claims. Even more interesting is that Gord is the only one speaking up on this questionably interpreted stock report. The question is also raised: If Sony has always made so much money on the PS2, then why is Nintendo killing them proft-wise despite having a fraction of the market?

I'll concede that I cannot really say definitively that Gord is wrong, but I would caution you about jumping on Gord's bandwagon while commenting that somebody is parroting something they heard once.

Re:Accurate, my ass...

[gordo3000]

don't know if you have some insider knowledge but almost everyone disagrees with you that the two formats are compatible. I have never read anything to hint that they are. From all the tech articles I've read on them, they are about as different as night and day.

Some links

http://hometheater.about.com/od/dvdbasics/a/bluhdd vdinfo.htm

http://hardware.gamespot.com/Story-ST-x-2077-x-x-x

Re:Accurate, my ass...

[Anonymous Coward]

Gord = "Al Bundy-esque".

Re:Accurate, my ass...

[ivan256]

First of all, the About.com article has some glaring inaccuracies, specifically on the BluRay side of things. I'm not sure how long ago it was written. It could be that it's just horribly out of date... BD-ROM has been altered from the original specs to be more friendly to duplication facilites that already support DVD. The caddy has been eliminated, and the format has been tweaked so there can be a DVD compatable layer and a BD-ROM layer on the same disc, much like what you can do with HD-DVD.

Most of the differences between the formats at this point come during the manufacture of the discs, and during the processing of the bits. The lens, servos, laser, and all of the mechanicals - if built to BluRay specs - should be able to read HD-DVD as well. The part that allows the higher bit density on BD-ROM isn't the drive so much as what the surface of the disc is made out of. The expensive portion of the drive (and I say drive here because I don't mean a whole player with the bits to decode the compressed video and generate the digital or analog video signals) is the laser, and that component is the same for both formats.

The period of time during which drives can only read one of the two formats will be very short.

Re:Accurate, my ass...

[gordo3000]

well, I can't find too much to back up what you are saying, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. I am sure compatible players will be built, but I was under the impression that they would be incredibly expensive( because the two formats are not compatible).

as I can't find info either way though, I wouldn't mind a link with more info just to get up to date on it.

Re:Accurate, my ass...

[ivan256]

You can just check the Wikipedia entries. They have fairly up-to-date specs, since the fanboys from both sides rabidly maintain the pages.

The big deal was the laser and the caddy, but you'll see that they both use the blue laser now, and BluRay ditched the caddy so facilities that were set up to automatically process DVD sized discs wouldn't have to re-tool.

Want next gen? Try current gen.

[pubjames]

I hadn't used my PS2 for a few years until just recently. If you're in a similar position, my advice is if you want great "next generation" games, try some of the ones that have come out recently for your "old" console. The graphics and gameplay on Resident Evil 4, for instance, blew me away, and "Shadow of the Colossus" looks even more impressive. And we've got "Starcraft:Ghost" to look forward to later in the year.

So I'm not bothered if the PS3 doesn't come out for a while, PS2 games are at their peak and are probably be better than first gen PS3/XBox360 games.

Re:Want next gen? Try current gen.

[OverlordQ]

Yes, not to mention it plays PS games too, I'm wanting to get ahold of all (four?) Silent Hill games, and then the entire Resident Evil series.

Re:Want next gen? Try current gen.

[Serapth]

As the proud owner of a PS2, Xbox and XBox 360 I can say, atleast IMHO you games are better on the 360 already. I say that subjectively as I prefer certain types of games that you may not, especially racing games. As a result two games im playing to death right now are Project Gotham Racing 3 and Need for Speed Most Wanted.

In every measurably regard, NFS:MW on the 360 is better then the XBox or PS2 versions.
With PGR3, graphically and controlwise, it is a much superior game to PGR2. They made some design decisions some people dont like ( car acquisition ) but excluding that, it is a much better game.

Lastly, CoD2 imho, is a better FPS then anything released for either platform, including Halo. Only beef here is online, which is rumoured to be fixed.

So, early on, I can already give you 3 examples of games that are much improved over the current generation, atleast, in my opinion.
Dont get me wrong, some arent going to compare as well ( Gun and 2k sport games come to mind ), but you will see that with every platform launch.

Re:Want next gen? Try current gen.

[British]

I was in a similar situation as you. my PS2 sat for several months after not wanting to play GTA much anymore. I started buying up Midway, intellivision & sega game compilations for a quick 5-10 minute play session or 3. Also bought True Crime: NYC and loved it. For 30 for true crime, and not more than 13 for the arcade compilations, I found great value & fun in them. Finding the games involved having to wade through what seemed like an infinite amount of snoozer PS2 titles, reminding me of all the bad Atari 2600 games that came out just before the crash, but at higher price points.

If the PS3 comes out, i hope the average price for "greatest hits" titles goes BELOW 20 bucks. That way, not-so-great games have a bit more appeal. Heck, I'd buy 187 ride or die for 6 bucks(below rental prices at my video store), but would never touch it for $50.

Yes, being a video game scavenger has its budgeting benefits.

Re:Want next gen? Try current gen.

[sc0ttyb]

Silent Hill 2 is one of the best reasons -- IMHO -- to own a PS2, let alone wanting to backtrack and get all the Silent Hill games.

Re:Want next gen? Try current gen.

[h4ck7h3p14n37]

I agree that the latest releases for the PS2 are absolutely fantastic. If you get a chance, I _highly_ suggest you check out Guitar Hero. If you're into classic and modern rock, I think you'll find the game incredibly addictive; I can easily spend two hours a night playing it. The level of difficulty gently increases as you gain more skill with the guitar controller, however it really should let you practice the solo sections as they become absolutely brutal on expert mode.

Re:Want next gen? Try current gen.

[Anonymous Coward]

In every measurably regard, NFS:MW on the 360 is better then the XBox or PS2 versions.

Except frame rate.

With PGR3, graphically and controlwise, it is a much superior game to PGR2. They made some design decisions some people dont like ( car acquisition ) but excluding that, it is a much better game.

So? PGR2 wasn't exactly great (sales or reviews).

Lastly, CoD2 imho, is a better FPS then anything released for either platform, including Halo.

And that's your opinion, which is certainly not the opinion of the overwhelming majority. Not to mention that COD2 has been out on the PC for a long time now and is a lot cheaper than the xbox 360 version too.

So, early on, I can already give you 3 examples of games that are much improved over the current generation, atleast, in my opinion.

There is absolutely NOTHING "much improved," unless you count a slightly higher resolution as "much improved." Everything in these games could have been done (and was done) on the PS2 and Xbox but at lower res/textures.

Re:Want next gen? Try current gen.

[Jongpil Yun]

I'd stick with Gran Turismo and Forza, but I see your point. People with your taste in games might benefit from an upgrade to an Xbox 360, but mine is pretty much gathering dust at this point.

And people still don't know why the Xbox and Xbox 360 did poorly in Japan....

Re:Want next gen? Try current gen.

[KDR_11k]

Never mind that the XBox could output in HD as well...

"Tune in tomorrow..."

[RyoShin]

"...when we post another story about people wildly speculating about the release date of a next-gen console or game, and pick the winning dates from a hat!"

Of course its delayed

[dogbowl]

Why in the world would Sony launch a new console while thier PS2 is the current best selling console? They would only be competing with themselves, and that my friend is bad business.

The 360 has barely put a dent in PS2 sales therfore Sony can sit back and wait. The longer they can drag out the launch of the PS3, the more they can allow the PS2 to act as a cash cow. And even better, the longer they wait, the more steam they can take out of the only other competitor on the horizon (the Revolution)

Re:Of course its delayed

[Senzei]

The longer they can drag out the launch of the PS3, the more they can allow the PS2 to act as a cash cow.

I can see where it would be a decent idea to finish up the ps3 and spend extra time hand holding your third party developers through the creation of your launch lineup. To me the 360 had a horrible launch, sony would be doing themselves a big favor with an awesome launch lineup + full backwards compatability.

Re:Of course its delayed

[Anonymous Coward]

Why in the world would Nintendo launch a new console while thier NES is the current best selling console? They would only be competing with themselves, and that my friend is bad business.

The TurboGrafx-16 has barely put a dent in NES sales therfore Nintendo can sit back and wait. The longer they can drag out the launch of the next system, the more they can allow the NES to act as a cash cow. And even better, the longer they wait, the more steam they can take out of the only other competitor on the horizon (the Genesis)

Re:Of course its delayed

[Anonymous Coward]

And the longer they wait, the longer it gives the consumer to save up money to purchase a PS3 after just buying a 360.

And the marketing push?

[bubulubugoth]

There is no real hype for ps3, there are not "well brand games" to be on ps3..

They are 4 months till lauch, and still most people doesnt know what to expect of ps3, only a high introduction price...

I think marketing of ps3 is really losing its grip...

Many things are still missing...

Maybe this change to 7cores cell wasn`t a good idea...

Re:And the marketing push?

[Anonymous Coward]

Gran Turismo Vision

Re:And the marketing push?

[68K]

Grand Theft Auto will appear on the PS3, that's for sure. Big enough of a brand for you? I mean, it's probably only the biggest brand there is right now.

Re:And the marketing push?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about Metal Gear Solid 4?

I know many like to bash MGS but it is a big seller for a reason.

Re:And the marketing push?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Grand Theft Auto will appear on the PS3, that's for sure.

Take Two may very well not exist by then. Aside from legions of hand-wringing neo-fascist lawmakers wanting a piece of them, they're also under investigation by the SEC.

Maybe someone else will buy Rockstar. Quite probably it will go down with the ship.

Europeans will have to wait again

[Anonymous Coward]

As most of the time, we Europeans are getting the sore end of the launch planning.

You have to give it to Microsoft that they decided for a global launch, despite the shortage situation in the US. It makes you feel part of the show when you don't have to sit and watch the forums cheer for their new toys when your release date is months away.

In the last months, some games were even released for the DS (BoF III) and PSP (Virtua Tennis) in Europe before the US got them. I thought we were catching up, but Sony shows us we are not.

Re:Europeans will have to wait again

[Mr_Tone]

It's worse for Australia/New Zealand, we don't even get the 360 until the 23rd of March.

Global launch? Pffft.

I can't imagine the PS3 situation will be any better.

Re:Europeans will have to wait again

[iapetus]

Speak for yourself. As most of the time, I'm importing a Canadian unit.

Re:Europeans will have to wait again

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut up. I'm still waiting for the new Dr. Who to be shown in America. It's a balancing act. There are plenty of things that the US misses out on that Europe and Asia have for years before they make it here (if ever). Example: inexpensive diesel vehicles, anime, 3G phones, democracy, etc.

Re:Europeans will have to wait again

[cornface]

As most of the time, we Europeans are getting the sore end of the launch planning.

Gee, I wonder why? A large extremely diverse population that buys far fewer game consoles per capita (and in total) than the US or Asia. If you have to pick one of the three major regions to shaft, Europe is the obvious choice from a financial perspective.

Re:Europeans will have to wait again

[Irish_Samurai]

True Nissan Skyline GT-Rs

Nintendo

[jlebrech]

I isa geteen a neentendo.

Yippeeee

Re:Nintendo

[mymaxx]

I think you meant (in my best Mario voice): Neeeeeeentendoooooooo! Wahooooo!

Hmmm

[DrXym]

That CNet article supposes a blu ray drive will cost Sony $200-300. That sounds unimaginably unlikely.

Re:Hmmm

[Rob T Firefly]

It's possible. I made myself a sandwich for lunch, and charged myself $300 for it. Luckily, I let myself finance it without interest.

Re:Hmmm

[GrayCalx]

Too bad, you probably could've deducted the interest.

Great Googley Moogley...

[DaedalusLogic]

Delayed a little, who cares... but twice as much as the competition? That stings... for the "next next" generation of consoles we should all open up IRA accounts right now.

I know some of the packages for XBox 360's this holiday cost way up in that range or more on eBay... But seriously... who are these people willing to fork over a pretty good house payment for being the early adopter? For that kind of money... it better make me breakfast.

Re:Great Googley Moogley...

[Anonymous Coward]

...Moogley...

Kupo!

As a Nintendo stock holder(yeah, ultimate fanboy!)

[antifoidulus]

I say "bring on the confusion"

Seriously, this is not good for Sony. They obviously cannot control the rumor mill and there are multiple sources each with their own "inside contacts" who are making predictions that are all over the map. This can only cause confusion with potential buyers who may well just spend their money on something else rather than even consider saving up for a playstation....

Sony PR hijinks

[TheBogie]

Sony is playing us like fiddles. They are purposely hinting that the PS3 will be delayed/overpriced/etc, to keep us all in anticipation and to keep the PS3 in the "news". I wouldn't be surprised if it actually comes out a little early.

Despite launch dates, cost, etc...

[sinner0423]

A word of advice from your friendly internet gamer : Pre-order a few PS3's.

Sell them for an inflated price when there's a mad rush to purchase them, and it will cover the cost for whatever time you've put in to it. If demand seems like it's going to be really good, i'd buy more than two if I had enough cash. It wont matter what the production costs are if there's some kind of a shortage, which there usually always is.

I've sold consoles like that on ebay & by word of mouth to several people in the greater Chicagoland area. $500 Xbox 360 may make the baby jesus cry, but for some rich fscker in Naperville, it was just the right price. Kind of OT, but, a true story.

Re:Despite launch dates, cost, etc...

[Anonymous Coward]

A word of advice from your friendly internet gamer : punch a scalper today.

Re:Despite launch dates, cost, etc...

[Anonymous Coward]

A word of advice from your friendly internet gamer : Pre-order a few PS3's.

A word of advice from your friendly sane person: Sony is an abusive company that fucks consumers over every chance it gets. If you continue to buy their stuff, they will continue to do it.

You fucking fanboys are the ones paying for development of things like rootkits.

Re:Despite launch dates, cost, etc...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ignoring the fact that you've missed the point of the original post, that you don't understand Sony's internal structure, that you're clueless when it comes to how Sony makes their money on consoles...

Actually, ignoring that lot there's not any content left to your post to do anything with. Ah well...

Let's ask Apple about the iPod mini, then

[ianscot]

Why in the world would Sony launch a new console while thier PS2 is the current best selling console? They would only be competing with themselves, and that my friend is bad business.

Even in the keynote where Stevie Jobs introduced the nano line, he specifically went over the continuing success of the Minis, which the nanos then promptly replaced.

Apple competed with itself in the sense you're talking about, and it hasn't been bad business at all.

Re:Let's ask Apple about the iPod mini, then

[c_forq]

Not quite. Apple replaced the Mini, as in no more Mini in the Apple store (except for the refurbished section). Sony will have both systems on the shelves.

Re:Let's ask Apple about the iPod mini, then

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually I think sales of the PSX (PS one) are still reasonably strong. Sony will probably keep all three machines on the market until it is no longer profitable to sell them. (Yes Sony profits on sales of PS one and PS2 consoles at the current price)

Re:Let's ask Apple about the iPod mini, then

[Anonymous Coward]

Profit on the nano is probably higher than on the mini though. That's unlikely to be the case with the PS3 (not impossible though, especially if they launch at $400).

It'll be done when it's done.

[Anonymous Coward]

If I'm not a developer I don't care about release dates or knowing each and every feature months before release.
I'll buy it when I buy it.

Only video game fanboys who have nothing to do but lap up every scrap of info AS IT HAPPENS!!! care about this shit.

Re:It'll be done when it's done.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't care, why are you reading this thread?

SIT powers?

[Spy Handler]

Processor: The PS3 will be a showcase for the Cell processor from the SIT powers (Sony, IBM, Toshiba).

Let's get HP involved.... then it will become the SITH powers (Sony, IBM, Toshiba, Hewlett-packard)

Re:SIT powers?

[Anonymous Coward]

SITH? That is what I call a "good chance missed".

Re:SIT powers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen!

Re:SIT powers?

[stevesliva]

Or SHIT.

Why do I care what it costs to make?

[AK Marc]

Though Sony hasn't disclosed the price of the PS3, analysts figure it will have to be in the ballpark of $299 to $399--the price for the two versions of the Xbox 360.

Great, so it is the same as the Xbox 360. That it costs Sony more to make only means it is better for me, getting more for less. I can't understand how these articles make it sound like news that the new type of processor will cost more, or the drive will cost more. There seems to be a consensus that the price will have to be competitive, or the console will not be, and the experts peg the price at Xbox 360 levels. Worst case is that people will pay $100 more for $200 more of components.

it's the software!

[vidalsasoon]

I don't know why they keep talking about the hardware for PS3. It's obviosly the software/tools that isn't up to par.

- DirectX has been maturing constantly over the years with many games developed for it. OpenGL 2.0 is still pretty recent. Cg is OK but combined with new OpenGL developers ... who know's? A learning/integration curve that only PS3 developers know.

- Linux OS: Sony had to put a lot of work into it to make it a gaming platform... IMHO I don't think they know enough to compete with MS in this area.

- PS3 online... again, Sony had a lot to learn in a very short time.

my 2 cents, hobbyist game programmer.
http://www.pepperboy.net/

Re:it's the software!

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow.. I think this is the most uninformed post I've ever read. Sony contributing to Linux gaming? OpenGL and DirectX compared to CG?

BUT THE GAMES!!!!!

[just_forget_it]

By delaying the PS3 launch, Sony is giving Microsoft time to develop more and more software for the Xbox 360. It is the games that make the console. This is why Xbox only just recently caught up to the popularity of the PS2, because there are finally enough software titles out there to make it more than a very expensive dust-collecting paperweight. Sony seems to be turning into the next Nintendo. Nintendo was number one, got cocky and lazy, and plummeted in status when another company came along and offered more that just 3D re-hashes of the same old games. I predict that many who are waiting for the PS3 will get fed up with these vaporware tactics and just get the Xbox 360. Sony is going down.

Ummm

[just_forget_it]

I question the validity of any chart where one of the rows is labeled "Other doodads."

Cell is ONE chip

[CarpetShark]

No, cell is one chip with multiple processing cores on board, much like a Pentium with Hyperthreading is still one chip, or like a Pentium 1 had many more transistors than a 386. Where you may be getting confused is that some of the individual cores do resemble previous complete processors, AND that there will be more than one Cell chip used in a PS3, for even more power.

Re:Cell is ONE chip

[dch24]

Just one cell processor in the PS3.

Re:Cell is ONE chip

[CarpetShark]

Oh, thanks. That does seem to be the case from wikipedia etc., and it makes more sense too. I haven't really been following since the earliest hype; sorry :)

looking at the articles...

[recharged95]

Basically,

Pay $150-200 for a Blu-Ray drive integrated into the console now. Or pay $75-100 for a HD-DVD dettached drive later. We know HDDVD content will come out this year sometime...

If a good number of Blu-Ray content comes out before the PS3 hits the streets, that will render XBox and it's HDDVD useless--why? you know the PS3 hype will be evident next Nov. and the logically conclusion for early adopters is to buy the best stuff (HDDVD into the 360s will likely be a hack) cause you get what you pay for. Not to flame 360 fanboys, just taking a non-techincal approach to the situation.

In reality, for Game Consoles, only 1 thing

[WillAffleckUW]

matters: The console will be in the stores, with games, before Thanksgiving of the year of release.

Half of all revenues will be made between Thanksgiving and December 27th. So if you miss that window, you miss most of the money for the year.

So, a spring release can easily be pushed to summer, and even to fall, but never much later than Halloween.

sony uncapable

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems sony is uncapable of a worldwide launch at the same time, which is where microsoft really was able to succeed other then a shortage of the unit, they stil where released everywhere at the same time and not delayed. Why isnt sony capable of this kind of launch aswell?

Re:sony uncapable

[cornface]

Seems sony is uncapable of a worldwide launch at the same time, which is where microsoft really was able to succeed other then a shortage of the unit,

If not being able to supply the areas they launched in for an entire quarter is succeeding at a world wide launch, what would they have to do for you to consider it a failure?

Oh, and expect to buy a PS3 bundle for $249

[WillAffleckUW]

at Costco (blue state firm that pays medical benefits and profit shares with employees) in December of release year, most likely bundled with at least one game.

If you wait until summer the next year, the same box will sell for $199 at most.

Re:Oh, and expect to buy a PS3 bundle for $249

[Anonymous Coward]

You are delusional

Because they're not

[Mr. Underbridge]

Why in the world would Sony launch a new console while thier PS2 is the current best selling console? They would only be competing with themselves, and that my friend is bad business.

Same reason car manufacturers sell more than one car - different markets. The PS2 currently sells for about $125 I think, and plays a ton of older games, though probably not all the current titles by the time the PS3 comes out. The PS3 will have a limited supply of games, but *will* have some exclusives (I guarantee it), and will cost somewhere around $600 when it first comes out (just a guess), at least after eBay gets involved.

Clearly, these two machines are *not* targeted at the same cosnumer. And recall that the PSone sold for a loooong time after the PS2 came out.

Its all about time to market and entry price

[RabidPuppetHunter]

The market timing does not seem to be a show stopper if Sony can be ready to ship volume to the US in time for Christmas 2006. Seems that is still possible despite all the timing speculations. I think we will need to wait for E3 to hear more timing specifics directly from Sony.

Would it be possible to have an entry level PS3 with only a DVD drive? If so, combined with a likely lower processor price, the PS3 could have a relatively acceptable entry model (using the lower estimate and substituting a DVD drive would bring the "cost" to around $545. Assuming even the lower processor price is a bit high this price could be lower. I would not mind paying $200-$250 more to add an optional Blue-ray drive, especially since it turns the PS3 into a full function HD player, a distinctive advantage over the 360 and all the more reason for the PS3 to end up in my den with my where Sony want it to be...

So a key question seems to be: is the Blue ray drive a requirement or could it be an option?

It probably is just age

[Manmademan]

Maybe it's just age, but I can tell you, I do not enjoy games as I once did. My Personnal opinion is that games have just gotten boring, sans a few diamonds in the rough (Resident Evil 4 GBC, Ridge Racer PSP).

If you find that "games have just gotten boring" you may simply be outgrowing the hobby. There's as much good stuff as there's ever been. (And did you just cite Resident Evil 4 on Game Boy Color?!) If you were gaming around the time of the console crash of 1984, 99% of the titles were pure crap. Chase the Chuckwagon? Kool Aid Man, the game?, Custer's revenge? ET? the 2600 Version of Pac Man?

Game quality went up substantially in the NES Era thanks to the "seal of approval" but the ratio of good games to crap has remained essentially the same. For every Super mario 2 or Legend of Zelda there were at least 10 or 15 "yo, Noids", "Mighty Bomb Jacks", or "street fighter 2010's" littering up the shelves. No one remembers the crap titles though..because they were crap. Don't let nostalgia lie to you! The ratio of good games to total shit has remained essentially unchanged since the mid 80s.

We all know that Sony tosses as many titles at it's system as humanly possible, while only the rare few stick. Nintendo refuses to move "outside the box" and keeps pumping out Nintendo franchise title after franchise title with no real innovation. Xbox is just basically select PS2 titles and Halo.

Sony doesn't make 90% of the games produced for it's system- they're not "tossing as many titles as possible at the system" because they don't make them...It's mostly third parties. You can't really blame Capcom, Konami, EA, Ubisoft, etc for wanting to produce a title for the system which has had far and away the largest market share for two generations. Nintendo is the LAST company you'd want to accuse of not being innovative. They've taken some pretty crazy risks with both software and hardware over the years and when successful everyone else is quick to copy them. The Xbox has done a decent job of not turning into a port system- there's a good amount of exclusive titles and quality content like ninja gaiden, Bioware's offerings, Panzer Dragoon orta...etc.

Re:It probably is just age

[apoc06]

come again? /The Xbox has done a decent job of not turning into a port system- there's a good amount of exclusive titles and quality content like ninja gaiden, Bioware's offerings, Panzer Dragoon orta.../

the xbox has more ports than the other two. the xbox ports from the pc, and get most cross platform games. there are a few exceptions, but far, far less than for ps2 and gc.

Sony and Blu Ray on a Sinking Ship

[hogan2051]

Sony, should dump the Blu Ray technology. They should just throw a cheap old progressive scan DVD drive into the PS3 and launch the stupid thing by spring in Japan and Summer in the US. I fail to see how Blu Ray is going to give any sort of competitive advantage to Sony. The technology is expensive and tough to produce, and on top of that most next-gen games use less than 4 - 6 GB of disc space. Even if games manage to double the amount of disc compacity that they use, just fit the games onto 2 - 3 DVD discs and call it a day. The point is that Blu Ray is a terrible storage choice for Sony, and instead of pandering to a few nerdy gamers who want a gaming counsel that does everything from play games to cooking Pop Tarts, they should just dump the technology and give the average consumer what they want, namely a gaming counsel and not a half assed modded PC / Entertainment center. I give Microsoft credit for not buying into that Blu Ray / Hi definition DVD crap and launching the XBOX 360 with a good old fashion DVD drive. Sure Microsoft has had some production problems with the XBOX 360, but by time Sony finally manages to produce a single PS3, Microsoft will control 99% of the next-gen gaming market. Go Microsoft and down with Sony! XBOX 360 / Windows Vista Rules! PS3, Linux and Blu Ray blows!

Re:Sony and Blu Ray on a Sinking Ship

[Anonymous Coward]

I like how you've a crystal ball and can see that most games over the next 5 years will use only 6-7GB (just in line with Xbox 360's disc capacity! wow, what a coincidence!).

FWIW, devs like Epic have been saying they expect their next-gen games to be 20GB+. Other devs have even just highlighted Blu-ray as being excited for the added streaming capacity it enables, for much larger GTA-style open worlds (more capacity = more replication of data = lower seek time = better streaming).

I expect many games starting out will fit OK on one DVD, but as the generation progresses, I think that'll change.

Audio should be markedly better with a next-gen disc format, also. You might scoff at that, but personally I'm tired of horribly compressed voice-work in games.

Besides all that, you're also getting a Blu-ray movie player with your PS3. Most people buying PS3s, at least starting out, will have high def TVs (as is apparently the case with early 360 adopters). They'll certainly appreciate the ability to play HD movies, as will a lot more of the market over the next 5 years as the proportion of TV sales that are HD goes through the roof. Including Blu-ray in PS3 has also already paid dividends for Sony, as it is the reason why nearly all of Hollywood has aligned itself behind Blu-ray. Warner and Paramount might have liked to stick solely with HD-DVD, but the expected penetration of Blu-ray thanks to PS3 was too tempting to pass up.

Re:Sony and Blu Ray on a Sinking Ship

[Anonymous Coward]

You need to have you head examined. First of Microsoft did buy into the HD-DVD crap. Thats why there is going to be a HD-DVD add on coming out. Microsoft didn't include from the start for their own reasons (beat Sony to the release, save a few bucks and screw the customer out later on, couldn't get the HD-DVD work to work in the system, or they had a massive brain fart and just screwed up). Secondly Sony got where they are by choosing the newest media available. Look at the ps1 or ps2 for examples. PS2s were such a success partially due to the DVD support. Thirdly like it or not movie companies with phase out DVDs and you will have to have a "new" player sooner or later. Would you rather buy it at an extra price or have it included in the system you were going to buy anyway. Lastly content always grows. The capasity of Blue Ray Disks will be used. I don't know about you but I hate disk swapping more than long load times and everyone hates long load times. Games used to be a few kilobytes, then a few megabytes, then a few hundred megabytes, then a few gigabytes. It won't be long before DVD are just inadiquate.

Re:Sony and Blu Ray on a Sinking Ship

[hogan2051]

A load of bull. "more capacity = more replication of data = lower seek time = better streaming" No way, tell me which as a faster seek time a 10GB Hard Drive or a 300GB Hard Drive? The more data you have to squeeze on something such as a disk or a hard drive the longer the seek time is going to be. DVD's provide more than enough room for a good developer to store data on. Yes, if you want lots of pre-rendered movies and several CD's worth of audio in a game I agree Blu Ray is a good format (perfect for games which rely on those gimmicks). But for games developed by professional designers and software engineers, who don't rely on that junk, than a DVD is all the storage they'll ever need. See Fight Night 3 or DOA 4 for the XBox 360 if you don't believe me.

Re:Sony and Blu Ray on a Sinking Ship

[LionMage]

They should just throw a cheap old progressive scan DVD drive into the PS3 [...]

Just a nit-picky point, but the optical drive itself has nothing to do with whether the player (drive + additional logic + every other bit of support electronics) can output progressive scan video. The optical drive is just a way to get the data off the media. The video output hardware and the MPEG decode software both live outside the optical drive. The BD-ROM drive in the PS3 will probably include some crypto/authentication logic which is part of the Blu-Ray standard (mandated copy controls, etc.), but the way the video gets rendered for output is not something the optical drive has control over.

Re:Sony and Blu Ray on a Sinking Ship

[hogan2051]

Thanks for disertation on optical drives, but my point is that a dvd player is cheaper and easier to produce (and is actually producable) vs the Blu Ray drive which is expensive and difficult to produce hence causing a big delay in the PS3. I just mentioned progressive scan technology as an after thought to the point that I was trying to drive home about Blu Ray.

Re:Sony and Blu Ray on a Sinking Ship

[Frenchy_2001]

my point is that a dvd player is cheaper and easier to produce (and is actually producable) vs the Blu Ray drive which is expensive and difficult to produce hence causing a big delay in the PS3.

You are missing the point that the BD-ROM drive will be a compelling selling point. Everyone already has a DVD player by now (as you can grab one from $35 or less at walmart). However, there will be a big media war for the next gen discs, between HD-DVD and BD-ROM. Sony has a definite interest in BluRay and they want it to win. Including a BDRom in the PS3, which is forecast to sell several millions units, even in a case of failure, will give it a HUGE lead over the HDDVD group.

Moreover, it helps people to swallow the high price if they think they are getting a good deal. They are replaying their win with the PS2 where it doubled as a DVD player. Paying $300 for game console + DVD player made it easier to sell it. The same will happen with the PS3.

The delay in the PS3 is only minimally affecting Sony, as they still sell more PS2 than MS sells 360s. If they can have a strong introduction with a few choice games on the PS3, it would catch up in no time (then, again, they may fell too).

The PS3 is supposed to kill 3 birds with 1 stone for Sony.
  - they saturate the market with bluray drives, killing HDDVD
  - they get a hitech, next gen appliance in the tv room. Foot hold to content delivery. It also plays game and may need the BD size for contents ;)
  - they develop a new chip to decode HD content (the cell proc) that they can manufacture for cheap and include in all HD appliances.

Starcraft Ghost?

[steveo777]

Couldn't come up with a better name for vaporware than that, could you? Perhaps "Duke Nukem: Forever?"

Game's been in dev for years. It's had two or three release dates that were pushed back to "when it's finished." Now cancelled on the GC (which pisses me off). I know there is about an infinite chance better of this game making it into my hands that the Duke's, but delays are delays.

Re:Starcraft Ghost?

[ClamIAm]

I was going to say the same thing, but I believe Ghost will make it out sometime (can't say the same for DNF). The push back to "when it's finished" was largely due to it moving from a third-party dev house back to Blizzard, and who knows how much of the original work they decided to scrap. So I guess it becomes vaporware when you add the date it moved back to Blizzard plus the average dev time of a Blizzard game.

Things will be a lot clearer very soon..

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm so tired of all this, so here's a bone: the reason why Sony is keeping quiet is because it wants to wait until the AACS (Blu-ray's copyright protection) is absolutely and finally finished before putting their marketing plans into effect. They don't want even the slightest risk of getting the ball rolling only to later have to change plans because of something even so small as that. Remember the planned February PS3 event that never came off? It was put on hold after the last AACS meeting. It was expected that the AACS spec would be finalized at that meeting, but it didn't happen, which has left Sony stalling.

The AACS is meeting today again, to try and finalize. If they're successful, we'll be seeing that Feb event re-emerging within 3 weeks (with Japanese launch details).

Re:Things will be a lot clearer very soon..

[oneils]

Why is this guy modded to a 0? He actually sounds like he knows what he is talking about!

Absurd Price Analysys

[Physics Nobody]

On the subject of the processor:

Yes, cell is bigger than the Xbox 360's chip, but one factor they are completely ignoring is the fact that one SPE will be disabled. It does not matter which SPE is disabled, and this redundancy (which the 360 doesn't have) will improve yields. You can't simply say chip A is bigger so it will cost more.

In any event, the prices listed for both chips look closer to what the chips would cost if they were sold at retail, not the manufacturing cost.

On the subject of the drive:

Yes, blu-ray will cost more. Primarily it needs a more expensive laser than DVD. But as others have mentioned you can't compare the cost of a stand-alone blu-ray player to the cost of including blu-ray in a powerful machine like the PS3. The PS3 can use its own processor to decode blu-ray stuff. $300 for blu-ray is kind of ridiculous.

Re:Absurd Price Analysys

[Anonymous Coward]

You did forget one thing. Most of the 360's processor size is likely cache.
And the cache very likely has redundant ways in it that can be disabled, so it's not like if 1 transitor is out, the cell can just switch SPE, but the 360 is hosed.

Re:Absurd Price Analysys

[bbrack]

I think there are 2 things you should realize.

If the on chip SRAMs work, you should get something like 90% fallthrough from that point (i.e. if SRAMs yield 50%, you should have something like 45% overall product yield)

On a related note, every major chip manufacturer has redundant resources embedded in the SRAMs so that they can repair chips that are not nominally good (trust me, the probability of making a nominally good part is VERY low on any fairly modern process)

Sony Helped Fund IBM Fab

[Nazmun]

Sony actually payed for a part of IBM's fab in fishkill, NY... So it's not a relationship like IBM had with apple where apple basically just ordered processors.

Re:Sony Helped Fund IBM Fab

[Total_Wimp]

Sony actually payed for a part of IBM's fab in fishkill, NY... So it's not a relationship like IBM had with apple where apple basically just ordered processors.

So if Sony is basically the "manufacturer" of the Cell processor and the manufacturer of the BluRay drive, the cost to them is way off. They don't have to pay someone else's marketing, sales and profit on these products, only the core cost of actually building the parts.

This is like a short term gasoline shortage we had about a decade ago. Almost all the the companies that sold gas got squeezed because they had to pay high prices to their suppliers yet keep prices as low as possible to the consumer. However, one of the big gasoline sellers happend to also be a big oil company that drilled and refined it's own product. They cleaned up. They were able to undercut the competition by several cents, yet make boatloads of money because their "supplier" "charged" them basically the exact same rate through the whole shortage. It's like they say in the comercial, "we cut out the middleman and pass the savings on to you!" The gas pumb was the middleman and the supplier cut it out by selling gas itself.

Will Sony be able to pull it off? Will Sony be able to be both component supplier and console manufacture and therefore be able to offer superior equipment for a price that undercuts the competition? I guess we'll find out soon enough.

TW

Re:Sony Helped Fund IBM Fab

[wanorris]

So if Sony is basically the "manufacturer" of the Cell processor and the manufacturer of the BluRay drive, the cost to them is way off. They don't have to pay someone else's marketing, sales and profit on these products, only the core cost of actually building the parts.

So if you plow enormous sums of money into R&D and manufacturing plants, you don't have any extra costs to add to the unit price? Uh, since when?

Don't you think it cost Sony a good chunk of change to develop the Blu-Ray standard and retool manufacturing to handle it? Don't you figure that if IBM is asking for money to help build a plant, it probably wasn't cheap?

All those upfront costs have to be recovered somehow. How is this any different from paying licensing royalties?

Re:Sony Helped Fund IBM Fab

[Total_Wimp]

So if you plow enormous sums of money into R&D and manufacturing plants, you don't have any extra costs to add to the unit price? Uh, since when?

There are costs, but not all the costs. Marketing and sales costs disappear, for example

Don't you think it cost Sony a good chunk of change to develop the Blu-Ray standard and retool manufacturing to handle it? Don't you figure that if IBM is asking for money to help build a plant, it probably wasn't cheap?

All this stuff is very expensive, but the costs of these are not spread over the PS3 only. Entire industries are being built on these products from these plants. The reason Merill Lynch spread the BluRay costs only over the PS3 was because there are no other BR products slated for this year. ML said they'd slash the estimated "cost" of the BR disk in half if Sony waited until 2007 when other BR products were expected. In other words, all these estimates are assuming Sony is putting the entire cost of BR R&D into the PS3. If that were true, of course the damn thing would be $350 bucks. But it's not true, at least not as far as Sony sees it. If Sony felt they were paying $350 per BR drive, they would never release this drive with this product.

All those upfront costs have to be recovered somehow. How is this any different from paying licensing royalties?

If I pay one million dollars for R&D for software and then I license it, I might expect to make back many times my R&D costs from my licensees. My price will reflect that. If that licensee was Sony then they might end up paying me many millions of dollars rather than my one million dollar cost.

If Sony spends a million dollars for R&D for software then just uses it to make something and sell it, then they've paid just a million dollars.

The first one is open-ended on how much it would cost Sony. The second one is open ended on how much Sony can make. While it's true that Sony could also lose that million dollars if no one buys their stuff, it's also true that because of their stature in this particular industry, that is not a very big risk.

TW

Sony is a Hardware R&D Company

[Nazmun]

While, microsoft buys almost all parts of their console from different vendors (whom are all trying to make a profit from each piece). Sony by and large is fabbing their own chips and making their own ic. The only piece of hardware that sony has no plan to manufacture themselves is probably the nvidia chip but i wouldnt' be surprised if they ended up fabbing that themselves.

IBM says they've been able to get the cost of fabbing the new cell chip down to about $50 bucks. Sony not only helped fund the fab ibm is using in their fishkill plant but they already have plans for making their own fabs for the cell chip with toshiba.

Sony is also making the Blu-ray drives themselves and since it's their standard they aren't paying any royalties for the hardware. If i can buy a full featured dvd player for $30 bucks @ retail then surely it costs no more then $22 for the entire player for the manufacturer. The pure drive components are even less, closer to $12 or less. Blu-ray is newer and more expensive but it's sony's baby they will be making the hardware in their own factories. The most expensive cost for sony is gonig to be the cost of setting up the factories for making the drive components.

Sony isn't a loss leader, just like with the ps2 they've got a plan. They know when they've reached a sale of x million consoles any loss they've had on hardware up to that point will be gone. For the ps2 i believe it was 1 million. Which was easily reached and sony hasn't sold the hardware for a loss since then.

bluray and cell will pull ps3 ahead of xbox360

[ActionAL]

after programmers master the cell we will see the ps3 pull ahead of the xbox 360. also the bluray drive is definately necessary for a win, because developers for the xbox360 already complain about running out of space on its traditional dvd drive.

the bluray disc will allow much more content for the developers plus the sony media machine will definately use bluray to its advantage in capturing the high end home theater movie market.

when microsoft realizes this, they will release their hd-dvd, but who wants to have to buy an additional drive to plug into the already expensive xbox360? no an addon disc drive to a console has ever popularly succeeded, it most likely will signal the end of that console's life.

Re:bluray and cell will pull ps3 ahead of xbox360

[hogan2051]

I agree that Blu Ray is necessary if game developers want to include 10+ hours worth of pre-rendered HD quality cut scenes in a game. But, for practical gaming purposes DVD technology is more than adequate to store textures, sounds, models and programming. Besides pre-rendered stuff is tedious and boring, see the Final Fantasy series as a prime example. Also, how can Sony win if Microsoft already has total domination in the North American market. You figure by the time Sony gets their act together and releases their hardware at a competitive price it'll already be the middle of 2008.

Let's disect your $250 price problem here...

[dyoung9090]

Sony saw that with the holidays and a moderate buzz for the hardware (because nobody was talking about its games) that XBox sold quite through its (yes under-shipped) quantities and even managed to drive a huge secondary market, thus Sony knows that they can price their PS3 at

(a) the same price the 360 started for (because by then the people spending money on these gamers would have saved enough money to go back out and get the newest plattform)
OR
(b) more than that becuase they're going to (at least say they are) offering features/bonuses the Xbox doesn't.

Not less than. They're can't afford to go for in-home saturation with this thing becuase that's a huge loss that would take them oodles to recoup, not with those features and that price. They're going to sell the unit for the highest price their analysts predict the market will pay for it WITH the understanding that they want to sell through the units they'll be able to produce. Shortages and overages are both things that Sony won't benefit from. The bad press and sour taste of a shortage (360's are all marketting, the Best Buy bundles are a rip-off, they're selling for how much on Ebay? etc) equal out the good press of a shortage (uhm... ok, so good press is a little harder to come up with, but I know a lot of people used them as holiday promotions) and technology has never been known for its appreciation over time so an overage hurts just as much.

It will do them no good to have a $900 machine on the shelf with a million machines in the warehouse because the price is just high enough to make the majority (and not the few hundred who paid that much or more for an Xbox) buy it, just as it would do them no good to take a $250-$500 (depending on what speculations you prefer) hit on the machines to generate a 360-like secondary market that they (contrary to conspiracy theorists) don't profit from on Ebay.

It would also do them no good to start with such an artificially low price point because for decades now gamers know the machines start high (and you only buy it because you're really into it, or you get it as a gift, etc) and then start to lower until it gets to the point that practically every household has an installed user base. To start off with that artificially low price point, they'd bork themselves because they couldn't raise the prices to almost-profitable levels without getting HUGE backlash and they would be hard pressed to make up that loss based on software sales.

After all, how much money per disk can Sony possibly make? Then see how many times that number goes into the 250-500 price hit they're supposedly taking and THAT is the average number of games the individual console owner will have to buy, first run (because Sony makes nothing on the used game market.) Lets suppose they make 50%, and I'm pretty sure that's a little inflated considering they're really only getting a cut of the licensing I believe and I'd hope the developers and various levels of retail would soak up most of that $50, of the sale price of $50 (screw the 360's 60 prices) then they would make $25 per disk sold and EACH AVERAGE USER would have to buy 10 first run games, for a total outlay of $500 per user, before they break even on the cost of the console. Thus, the more consoles out there at this ridiculously low price, the more users they would need to buy 10 first run games before the profit kicks in. I'm not representative of the masses I know, but I've never had a console with more than 10 games (except for the NES, but lots of those games were close-outs and second-hand jobs)

Keep in mind, I don't htink that Sony makes anywhere near $25 per game (once you divide the cost of the dev kits per units made and licensing fees how much can they really make? And then what about the thousands, maybe millions, of first run disks that are going to get sold as $20 Greatest Hits) and so that runs the number of games that need to be sold even higher to make up for the hardware loss, the limited time they have to sell the units befor

SIT powers?

[El_Smack]

From the article:
"The PS3 will be a showcase for the Cell processor from the SIT powers (Sony, IBM, Toshiba)..."

I would love to see Hitachi get involved here.

PS3 / Pricing concerns

[Anonymous Coward]

I see all of this speak about PS3 pricing and how the components will be so expensive but I think that the majority of the observers are missing the point.

Sony, IBM and Toshiba are literally betting the farm on this Cell technology and from the looks of it it is going to be worth it.

Might the observers be lacking to notice that the Cell chip will not only be included in PS3s but also in military, medical, and blade server technologies, every stand alone blu-ray player, high definition televisions and a barrage of other consumer devices.

This will dramatically reduce their costs per unit and I beleive that the delay on delivery of the PS3 is to ensure that the Cell's cost per unit falls.

Blu-Ray drives will probably go on sale at the same time along with a host of different HD movies from the studios post-format wars.

What Sony is doing is the "big bang" theory of disruptive technologies - since all Cells can work together to parallel process over the wireless network at a chip level, when you go out and buy a PS3 and a new HD TV to play on it both of your devices will operate faster and the outcome will be absolutely amazing.

I saw the video that shows an X-Windows like interface running off a Cell processor so you can bet your momma that this thing is going to come with a raft of clients like web, email, and other doodads ported from the Linux world probably including a basic word processor. HD TV isnt quite as good as my computer display at 1280x1024 but it's good enough for some decent web browsing.

To tell you the truth I wouldn't doubt if the new cell-based TVs come with a browser and the X-Windows like interface too.

I think this thing is going to turn the end-user IT market on it's noggin.

You are all so gullible...

[sacdelta]

Both consoles actually only cost about $10 to make. They use slave labor to produce them by hand.

They put out all of these stories about how they are losing money on each console so that you feel like you're getting a bargain at $400.

Don't fall for the lie!

Sony charging itself a premium?

[Sargeant Slaughter]

That article uses the cost to PC manufacturers who want to buy blu ray drives from Sony ($200-300).

Does the author really think that Sony is selling blu ray drives at cost?

What a retard... I doubt blu ray drives will cost Sony more than $70 a piece. And that'll probably drop to $20 in 3 years.

Now I bet I'm gonna have to debate this for the next 2 weeks with my retard friends who believe this kinda crap.

I really don't even think this article deserves mention on /.

Internet rumor mills piss me off...

what a load of shit.

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, anyone get the feeling Microsoft is stirring up their FUD wagon about the PS3?

They launched their system too early with shitty games and now they are just trying to scare people away from the PS3.

I sold my X-Box I was so pissed they'd desserted me. that console had a good 2 years left in it. are they going to do it again in 3 years?

The PS2 is long in the tooth and desperately in need of an upgrade (hell..it felt that way at launch). the X-Box was NOT.

Now everyone will jsut be waiting to see if a) the xbox 360 ever gets a decent game or b) just buy a PS3 when it comes out.

Don't buy it anyway

[WolfZombie]

Who cares how long it is delayed, or how early it comes out. No one should be buying Sony crap anyways after the DRM scandals. Besides, the new generation of gaming consoles are just going to be reasons for software companies to milk every penny they can by making remakes of old games in higher resolution, maybe adding crappy online play. Bottom line, DON'T BUY SONY!!!

Re:Don't buy it anyway

[Xarius]

So wait, Sony had a scandal and now we shouldn't buy the PS3?

Well that's okay then, I have options! I can buy a 360 or Revolution because Microsoft and Nintendo have never been the center of almight decade-long scandals! ...Turnip

Re:Don't buy it anyway

[WolfZombie]

Not once did I say to specifically buy Micro$oft or Nintendo products either, but sometimes we just need to realize when to pick the lesser of the evils. Consumers should take actions against any corporation that takes advantage of us. The same actions should apply at times when MS or Nintendo break the trust between a consumer and corporation.

Buying from Sony (or any corporation after trust is broken) at this time tells corporations "Go ahead, step on my toes, do what you want, I will kneal down and gladly take it."

Re: Dissection, Prices, Problems and Sony

[WillAffleckUW]

Good points. I've been thinking of selling some of my Konami stock and either buying back some Sony or maybe even going with Honda (energy play there) instead.

I don't think you'll be seeing a $250 retail price bundle. I said at Costco. I picked up a GameCube price bundle there, year of release, for about $100 less than at, say, EBX.

Retail won't drop until at least the next year.

Just cross-referencing some of the other posts

[goldcd]

on slashdot over the last few days. A major major delay to the launch is surely down to the un-finalised BR spec.
I assume internally the film division of Sony is wanting the thing coming out with all DRM guns-blazing, and the PS3 division is slightly pissy with what they're being made to do.
The 'big thing' with the PS3 is Sonys chance to get a shit-load of BR players into peoples homes at a reasonable cost - so the movie division can cash in selling films, the hardware division can get showered with licensing royalties from the other hardware makers jumping on the wagon and fiance will have all the other stuidos stumping up for BR licenses to press disks.
There's only one problem with this... Only a tiny tiny number of people will actually be able to watch the disks at full res (i.e. Fully DRM'd up PS3->screen+audio path). Whilst a few techy/home-cinema buffs understand this the vast vast majority of the public don't. Can you just IMAGINE the outcry there's going to be when the PS3 launches? All those consumer rights programs "My little Tommy bought a PS3 with his pocket money, bought his films again on BR - and they look exactly the same". "Sony sold me a component HDTV and a PS3 and a BR disk - yet it looks just like DVD" etc
Sony is going to get such a kicking it'd make me wince - if I wasn't looking forward to it so much.
If the PS3 is launched as the BR posterchild, the first BR player people come across, it's forever going to be branded as the start of DRM hell - people love kicking new consoles (PSP/360 shortages, marketing blah blah) - but this is going to be fantastic (and must really really be pissing off the PS3 division, who just wanted to make a lovely console).

All the componants cost a trivial amount...

[7Prime]

It's the labor of manufacturing the final product that costs the most. This is just another optical drive, like a DVD player or CD player. It will probably require only slightly more manufacturing time than your old CD player. So DVD players cost a lot more than CD players when they first came out... most of that was due to markup, since it was considered a "new technology" people were willing to pay more. In this case, since Sony is simply trying to get the Blu-Ray standard out into the world quickly, its to their advantage to set the price pretty low, especially if their first player is going to be part of their multipurpose game system. Also, since they hold the patents for all the blu-ray standards, they don't have to pay any royalties. Even if it is a little more expensive, they'll make it back in Blu-Ray DVD sales later, like they do with game sales for their consoles. They can afford to chop a significant amount just for that. All these figures seem way off, considering pretty much ALL the parts are being designed and manufactured by Sony, themselves.

Re:All the componants cost a trivial amount...

[Keeper]

You're joking right? Just another DVD/CD player?!?

We're talking about a fancy pants multiple focus combined blue/red laser with a numerical aperature of 0.85; the technology required to even manufacture this thing didn't even exist 2 years ago!

To put those numbers into a bit of perspective, DVD lasers have an NA of 0.6, while HD-DVD's lasers have an NA of 0.65.

In technological terms, the tolerances required to manufacture this thing are in the same league as manufacturing a piece of bleeding edge medical equipment.

Also, since they hold the patents for all the blu-ray standards, they don't have to pay any royalties

This is completely incorrect; Sony acts as the entity gathering liscensing all of that patents, but they do not own all of them. For example, Philips owns several of the patents used by blu-ray.

since Sony is simply trying to get the Blu-Ray standard out into the world quickly, its to their advantage to set the price pretty low

Just because they can afford to take a loss doesn't mean that it is cheap to manufacture.

Re: Dissection, Prices, Problems and Sony

[dyoung9090]

This costco http://www.costco.com/ ? Because looking around (and granted it wasn't an all encompassing survey of the landscape or anything) but they don't have all that great a price. PS2 with roughly $100 in addons: 219. On Amazon, PS2 individually 129, plus roughly $100 for the add-ons.

Mostly it looked like the standard $5 off on video games you can get at any of the warehouse stores. The only thing that I saw that WERE good deals.

Also, the video game industry has the power to set its own price for (a) games and (b) consoles. That's why when the PS2 went down to $200, it went down everywhere. Same with it's drop to 150, and now it's apparent drop to 129. Same thing happened when every store in every town dropped the Dreamcast to $100, and then down to $50. Happens with most games too.

Video games aren't a price competition model. If it was, then the stores would rely more on selling the units (selling units means selling at least a few more games) instead of selling bundles (with the high mark-up accessories like joysticks and memory cards) then when the X-Box 360 came out, Walmart or some other store would have marked the price down $25 and reaped thousands upon thousands more pre-orders (which would have been filled proportionatly because of the shortage yes, but at the same proportion they would have at any other store)

You must have just been very lucky to get that bundle, but I wouldn't expect anyone else to duplicate that with a PS3 for a while. I'd use the 360 price for comparison, but they're not offering it on their website so I can't check it against other stores.