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

[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: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...

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.