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PS3 - Lateness With Linux?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the world-turns-upside-down dept.

ZombieRoboNinja writes "The New York Times is reporting that Sony's press conference has confirmed the delay of the PS3, which is now slated to come out in November. More interestingly, the article claims that PS3 will ship with a 60-gig hard drive, built-in network card, and Linux!" Serious stuff here, with Sony's shares falling on the delay confirmation. There was a lot more news handed out at the conference than just the delay. Next Generation has details from Ken Kutaragi's 10 Point Breakdown. From the NYT article: "'We were discussing selling it in September, and some even said put it out in July,' Mr. Kutaragi said. Some analysts were immediately skeptical of this explanation, saying Sony needed to get the console out as soon as possible to combat Microsoft's head start, and the expected release this year of Nintendo's next game console, Revolution. They said Sony may be trying to buy time to bring down the production cost of key components, particularly untested technologies like Blu-ray and Cell. While Mr. Kutaragi did not reveal a price on Wednesday, analysts say Sony will likely try to sell PlayStation 3 for about $500." Please see related links and commentary below for more coverage. My two quick cents -

  1. If they're not releasing in Japan until November, I find it highly unlikely they'll be releasing in the states until 2007. Previous PlayStation launches have always been staggered Japan first, U.S. second. I don't care if they say they're launching worldwide; At this point I think they're spinning to keep people happy.
  2. If they're not out in the U.S. until 2007, they'll probably be the last next-gen console to do so. So far Nintendo says it's on track to launch this year. Sony isn't getting finalized dev kits out until June. Even just with that metric on the table, Nintendo looks to be in a better position than Sony at the moment.
  3. At $500, there are going to be a lot of indifferent customers come March of '07. This will be especially true if, over a year after launch, Microsoft cuts the price of the 360 to coincide with the PS3 launch. If you have to choose between a solid platform that costs $300 (and already has a stable of games available) and a brand-new system that is two hundred bucks more with far fewer games, which one do you think most people will buy?
Regardless of what happens a year from now this is a major blow for Sony, a coup for Microsoft, and breathing room for Nintendo. What do you think the console market will look like this time next year?

33 of 364 comments (clear)

  1. Article Access by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Interesting

    A functioning link to the NYTimes article.

    Also interesting is the component pricing total that reveals why Sony will most likely have to take a loss of hundreds of dollars per console to remain competitive.

    --
    My work here is dung.
    1. Re:Article Access by zerocool^ · · Score: 3, Insightful


      I wish this crap would die.

      Those prices are so out of whack. For starters, blue ray will NOT cost $300/drive. That's insane. Sony owns the license agreements for it, and will be fabbing it themselves. No royalties and no middle man = the blue ray drive will cost next to nothing. Same with the cell processor: It may cost $230 to buy one of them, or even a thousand. What about when you buy 500,000? Or 2,000,000? Or, you agree to fabricate them yourselves, and then you're only paying for the blueprints. The same goes for ram - how much ram is this thing supposed to have? Cause $40 buys you 512MB of ram off the interwebs now. Sony will make their own ram.

      Everyone needs to chill out. Please remember that Microsoft and Sony are very different - Microsoft is a software company, and always has been. Sony has ALWAYS been a hardware provider; they own their own fabrication plants, they hire their own engineers - and most of the costs of outsourcing and subcontracting are moot points.

      Not to mention, the very article the parent post links to conceeds that the $905 manufacturing cost will probably be down around $300 after 3 years. If that article was Feb of this year, and the console isn't launching until 2007, that's already 1/3 of their time-to-price-reduction elapsed.

      Buying one does not equal buying millions.
      Price now does not equal price in a year, or even next month.
      End user does not equal patent owner, developer, and fabricator.

      Sony is not in any trouble.

      ~Will

      --
      sig?
    2. Re:Article Access by mozumder · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Just because a company manufactures something itself, doesn't mean it's free. The prices aren't actually out of line, and a blu-ray drive can indeed cost $300 and the GPU can cost $150 and CPU another $150 and so on. These include the actual raw costs of the materials themselves. A blue laser diode isn't cheap to make, nor is a GPU. They all have costs, such as wafers, materials, capital cost depreciation (one silicon stepper can cost $15 million) and so on.

      Again, these ARE the actual costs for the parts themselves. To give you an example, a wafer might cost $10000 - it is a single piece of silicon crystal developed from molten silicon. Lets say you print about 400 chips on it. That means it costs you $25 just for the wafer alone. Meanwhile, only half the parts work, because a defects (dust, crystalline defects, and so on). Suddenly, that number goes to $50/part, just for the wafer cost alone. Add up everything else (chemicals, power, labor, etc) and it does mean your chips are going to cost $150.

  2. Will there be an emotion chip too? by hal2814 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Sounds to me like Sony shot themselves in the foot by muffing a Christmas release of the PS3 so they're gearing up the speculation by promising the kitchen sink like they did with the PS2 to try and keep anybody from buying something else in the meantime.

    1. Re:Will there be an emotion chip too? by gEvil+(beta) · · Score: 5, Funny

      I hear that it'll be able to render graphics like those used in Toy Story in realtime!

      --
      This guy's the limit!
    2. Re:Will there be an emotion chip too? by Overly+Critical+Guy · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I'm pissed at them for a weird reason, too. I don't want Microsoft and its crappy console to gain any foothold. The only reason the XBox exists is to push the Windows platform into the living room--originally Microsoft offered their platform libraries to Sony and Nintendo and only made the X-Box when both companies refused to ship Windows on their consoles. Microsoft cares nothing at all about games or quality of games, which is why we get commercials espousing the wonders of sweat on a basketball player mesh. They only care about extending Windows and tying people to it in some way.

      So with the Playstation 3 delayed--arguably the only sure bet to crushing and stomping out the XBox for good--this gives more time for the XBox 360 to actually gain a foothold, even despite their pathetically slow start (Nintendo sold more Gamecubes last Christmas than Microsoft sold XBox 360s).

      I expected the Playstation 3 to dominate once more, with Nintendo coming on the side as the cheaper "add-on" gaming console that everyone buys to play Zelda and Mario Kart on the side.

      --
      "Sufferin' succotash."
    3. Re:Will there be an emotion chip too? by ThinkFr33ly · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I don't want Microsoft and its crappy console to gain any foothold. Have you used the "crappy console"? It's actually a helluva lot of fun. The launch titles were only so-so. No bad ones, but no truly great ones. That aside, Xbox Live makes up for it all. It's an incredible experience and it alone makes buying an X360 worth it. The only reason the XBox exists is to push the Windows platform into the living room--originally Microsoft offered their platform libraries to Sony and Nintendo and only made the X-Box when both companies refused to ship Windows on their consoles. This is completely false. Microsoft created the trimmed down version of Win2k for the Xbox exclusively. They never made any such offer to Nintendo or Sony. They intended to enter the market and compete with these companies from the get-go. In addition, saying that the Xbox runs Windows is misleading. The Xbox runs a very, very customized version of the Windows 2000 kernel, but that's about where things end. There is certainly a strategy to make the Xbox/X360 work well with PCs running Windows (media center in particular), but that's just one part of the overall strategy to win the gaming market. Microsoft cares nothing at all about games or quality of games, which is why we get commercials espousing the wonders of sweat on a basketball player mesh. Microsoft case about the quality of its games the same way Nintendo and Sony do - only insofar as that quality makes them money. You honestly think that Sony is some pure of heart company that loves its gamers? Get a grip. his gives more time for the XBox 360 to actually gain a foothold, even despite their pathetically slow start (Nintendo sold more Gamecubes last Christmas than Microsoft sold XBox 360s). Are we in the No-Spin-Zone all of a sudden? Microsoft's "slow start" was completely due to the LACK OF AVAILABE CONSOLES TO BUY. EVERYBODY wanted one, but they were all sold out. Everywhere. Why do you think they were going for 5x face value on eBay? Meanwhile, Gamecubes are a dime a dozen. Microsoft will undoubtedly solidfy a strong lead over the next few months thanks to finally being able to go into almost any store and buy an Xbox 360.

    4. Re:Will there be an emotion chip too? by RexRhino · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I don't know why you would take either side in the Xbox 360 vs. Playstation 3 debate. Even if you don't like Microsoft's buisness practices, Sony has dome some extremly unethical things to customers (Music CDs that install rootkits on your computer, anyone?). And from a Geek perspective, Sony is super annoying (Microsoft actually publishes system specs on it's hardware... where as Sony gives vauge statements about "emotion engines").

      The fact is, having more than one game machine and one company dominating the whole industry is a good thing. Having Playstation the MAIN console with everyone else distant competitors (like it has been so long) is a bad thing, having several powerful competitors is a good thing. Don't worry, Sony isn't out of the video game industry yet despite their screw ups, there are too many die hard Sony fanboys for the Playstation 3 to flop. But the good news is that the market will probably be split evenly between the large companies, instead of the Sony quasi-monopoly on consoles.

      So, from a consumer perspective, what is there to worry about? If you have extra money to burn, or are impatient, or you could care less which one will be the "winner", buy a Xbox 360 now... or simply wait a few months until the Sony machine comes out, and decide then what is the best console. Why have loyalty to any company (they certainly aren't loyal to us)?

    5. Re:Will there be an emotion chip too? by jackbird · · Score: 5, Informative
      That was talking about how the movie would have taken months to render if they hadn't redesigned their rendering pipeline. Also, it's horseshit, since the complicated shots (e.g. Hell) were done by established VFX houses. And even more horseshit since they could have bought more render nodes or used an outside service as well. In other places, Trey and Matt have compared rendering South Park with Maya to using a bulldozer to build a sandcastle. They turn out the shots for an episode in days, which is why they're able to have extremely topical stuff in new episodes (e.g. Saddam in his spider hole airing just 3 days after he was captured).

      Not that animation in general isn't hard or time-consuming, or that the animators who work on South Park aren't talented, but South Park is fast and cheap to produce.

    6. Re:Will there be an emotion chip too? by RyoShin · · Score: 4, Informative

      Nintendo sold more Gamecubes last Christmas than Microsoft sold XBox 360s

      When teaching things like economics as it applies to electronics, this should be a subject of focus.

      Yes, the Gamecube sold more than the XBox360. But why?

      We all know that the XBox 360 was a popular item. No one could keep it in stock. Microsoft somewhat shot themselves in the foot with lower production and guarenteed that this would happen.

      But what if they had been able to meet demand? The only measure of demand we can measure is sales, and, as said, the "sold out" tag is misleading, as quantities are low, and certainly didn't meet expected social demand. If the 360 had the production numbers, would it have outsold the Gamecube?

      Or would the Gamecube's price and library of games have outsold the 360, anyway? There are a couple different bundles you can pick up from any number of places; official bundles include the system, hook ups, controller, and one of the better games (Metroid Prime, Super Smash Bros, etc.) all for between $130 and $150. To even get just a 360 system, you have to shell out $300. If you want all the good stuff and a game, you have to lay down $450.

      Or did production approx. meet demand, and the rest was just overhype?

    7. Re:Will there be an emotion chip too? by gkhan1 · · Score: 4, Funny
      Dude, it's called a

      tag. Use it wisely. Also, Preview button is a good thing to consider sometimes.

  3. What a coincidence... by Spy+der+Mann · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Sony seems to use Linux for the PS3 - and at the same time, Linus says he won't use GPL3 for Linux due to the DRM clauses.

    Interesting coincidence, don't you think?

  4. Global Launch by Sans+Virtue · · Score: 5, Informative

    His two cents are odd considering that everything I've seen indicates a worldwide launch in November: http://ps3.ign.com/articles/696/696054p1.html

  5. yay! another ps3 article! by sstation · · Score: 5, Funny

    and here i thought we were actually gonna make it to lunch time (eastern time) without seeing something about the ps3

  6. Well well well... by patrickclay · · Score: 5, Funny

    Sony, your desperate attempt to win back the Slashdot crowd is admirable, but I'm afraid it's too late...

    Sincerely,

    Slashdot

    1. Re:Well well well... by Lave · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They've done exactly the same as they did for the launch of the PS2 against the dreamcast. Lied about it's abilities: Check. Produced "real time footage" (Final fantasy cut scenes for the PS2 and we all know the PS3 debacle): Check. Lied about the release date: Check. I truly believe they knew all along it wasn't going to be released in "spring."

      I remember confidently telling my girlfriend she was a fool for getting a dreamcast as the PS2 "will be so much better" and "they're releasing it real soon." The blood of the Dreamcast is on my stupid hands.

      Fool me once Sony shame on you, fool me twice ....

      They've been doing anything to put you off thinking about a dreamcast/xbox360. And with the root kit fiasco they are pretty muuch dead to me. They need to stop treating me like a moron and a pirate if they want my money.

      --
      http://skeptobot.blogspot.com/ - A site for the Renaissance man and woman
  7. Need a Linux for PSP by DrXym · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Seriously. Sell the thing on UMD with a downloadable cross-platform set of compilers and let the homebrew people have at it. Then everyone's happy - the user for having a bunch of cool new things to run, the homebrew scene for having official endorsements, and the games makers since running homebrew over Linux and through different APIs effectively kills any notions of piracy.

  8. Simultaneous Worldwide Launch by jon.wolf · · Score: 4, Informative

    According to the coverage on joystiq, It will be a worldwide release in November of this year. "The PS3 will launch 'in early November 2006 in Japan, North America and Europe simultaneously.'"

    Until further details emerge, claims of a US '07 release appear to be unsubstantiated.

    1. Re:Simultaneous Worldwide Launch by SetupWeasel · · Score: 4, Informative

      I think it was a comment on the fact that similar promises in the past (read: PSP) have not been realized (read: Japan 12/04, USA 3/05, Europe 9/05).

      As with anything Sony, I will believe it when it sits on the shelf.

  9. FUBAR summary....again by Mille+Mots · · Score: 5, Informative
    From the summary:

    ...More interestingly, the article claims that PS3 will ship with a 60-gig hard drive, built-in network card, and Linux!" Serious stuff here, with Sony's shares falling on the delay confirmation...

    From TFTA (link to Ken Kutaragi's 10 Point Breakdown):

    7. Kutaragi said that that the PS3 will require a hard drive, which will have a 60 GB capacity and support Linux OS. No word on if it will be included.

    Oops.

    --
    Sig arrêt

  10. Like I've always said by tomstdenis · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'd be willing to pay more for a gaming console if I had control to produce my own content [e.g. programs, games, whatever].

    I'd pay 800$ for a PS3 if it meant I could ssh to the thing and play with the cell processor or beam media to it or something.

    If all I can do is play games then I wouldn't pay more than 200$ for it. Cuz at that point I'd just play my xbox1 out of spite.

    Tom

    --
    Someday, I'll have a real sig.
    1. Re:Like I've always said by Shihar · · Score: 4, Funny

      I think the consol you are looking for is known as a "computer". Yes, I believe "computer" is the correct answer.

  11. will they do the smart thing? by LWATCDR · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Will it also be a PVR?
    Will it have a memory stick slot so you can take your show straight from the PS3/PVR and put the on the PSP?
    Any chance that the PS3 will play UMD movies so you don't have to buy two versions?
    Just some ideas that could really help Sony do better. Of course what they really need to do is drop this DRM crap like a hot potato.

    --
    See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
  12. The secret reason for the delay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I have it on good authority that Sony is having trouble porting their x86-based rootkit to the cell architecture. No software will be released until they get a multi-threaded roootkit with decent performance.

  13. Interesting non-PS3 point in the article... by Futaba-chan · · Score: 3, Informative

    They're adding a PSOne emulator to the PSP! That should help fix the lack of compelling titles problem, as Metal Gear Solid and the entire Final Fantasy series up to FF IX (except III) will now be portable, plus Xenogears, Chrono Trigger, and lots more. Hooray for portable Aeris and Snake!

  14. Microsoft's Xbox 'Toy Story' Claim by GameEngineer · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://news.com.com/2100-1040-250632.html

    "One of the basic premises of the Xbox is to put the power in the hands of the artist," Blackley said, which is why Xbox developers "are achieving a level of visual detail you really get in 'Toy Story.'"

    I can't believe there are still people trying to attribute Microsoft's stupid Toy Story graphics claim about the Xbox to Sony in 2006...

  15. Blaze of Glory by blueZhift · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I actually love how Kutaragi-san is putting it all on the line. Global launch, standard hard drive, free online service... Oooh Weee! Sony is either going to astound the analysts with one of the most successful product launches ever, or go out in a blaze of glory that may cripple the company. Either way, you gotta love the balls to the wall attitude. This is going to be really interesting to watch.

    --
    To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
  16. the ADAM computer by mrpeebles · · Score: 4, Interesting

    More and more, the PS3 is reminding me of the ADAM computer. For those who don't remember, it was the successor to the colecovision video game system, and it was going to be both a video game system, AND an affordable home computer system. Unfortunately, it tried to do too many things, didn't do enough of them well enough for the money, and flopped. (Also, the controllers attached to the SIDE of the main box, so that when you pulled them out, little kid that you were, you broke the machine.) Anyway, these similarities may only be superficial, but a much better comparison may be the LISA computer by apple. We will see...

  17. It's never been about Slashdot, grasshopper by Moraelin · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Sony doesn't actually give a flying fsck about Slashdot or Linux as such.

    Sony needs Linux on their console for the same reason they've needed it on the PS2: to dodge import taxes. I don't know what the situation is in the USA, but in the EU if it's a general purpose computer, it doesn't get taxed the way toys do. And EU is a games and consoles market of the same order of magnitude as the USA (if marginally smaller), and twice as big as Japan. So being able to say "see, you can boot this CD on it and have a general purpose OS that makes it a general purpose computer" is gonna make Sony a _lot_ of money in dodged import taxes.

    Even better, what this means is that it can be more competitive with Microsoft and Nintendo who chose not to dodge those taxes. Sony needs to take much less of a loss to give those a nasty price competition.

    And as the final exhibit: notice how Sony never actually bothered marketting or even selling (more than theoretically) that Linux they've flaunted all along for the PS2. They _didn't_ really want you to play Tux Racer on their subsidized machine.

    Think about it this way: they sell the consoles at a loss and make the money from games. Each console bought just to run Linux and troll Slashdot in Mozilla is for Sony just a loss. Each console that you run gnometris (Gnome's tetris clone) or kshisen on in Linux, instead of buying a game from Sony, is just a loss. It's not something they want you to do, but a nasty risk they're willing to take, in the hope that they'll lose less with that than they gain by dodging customs.

    So basically, don't let that ego blind you. We nerds like to pretend that the world revolves around us, and Sony would bend over backwards to please Slashdot. In practice, Sony couldn't care less about Slashdot. It's just a business decision, in which Slashdot played _no_ role whatsoever.

    --
    A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
  18. We'll know more after GDC by Animats · · Score: 3, Informative
    The Game Developer's Conference is next week. On Wednesday, March 22, at 10:30 AM, Phil Harrison of SCEA will tell developers what's going to happen.

    This is the point where Sony has to make it clear to developers exactly what's coming out and when, or there will be very few games ready at launch.

    So wait a week.

  19. Re:Where's the GPL source code to the Linux kernel by fistfullast33l · · Score: 3, Funny

    If the drivers are all modules, I don't believe the source code has to be released. Obviously, Nvidia and ATI have never released the code to their modules. Another example off the top of my head is Broadcom and the b44 ethernet card module (that's the open source one, but they have a module that is closed source whose name I can't remember). Another tactic they might follow is Intel's, who releases the wireless drivers for their IPW series as open source, but keeps the firmware for the cards closed. This allows them to look good and at the same time protect their IP. I doubt you'll see much source code from Sony in light of the PSP debacle. Personally, I don't care what they do as long as I can run linux. The PS2 dev kits all ran linux on them. My friend set up Afterstep on his in an effort to pretend he was John Carmack running a NeXT box. I'll settle for E17, since by the time the PS3 is released, E17 will probably be stable and able to run Duke Nukem Forever with OpenGL acceleration.

    And don't flame me for E17, I'm running it on my laptop.

  20. Re:It *IS* released Nov 2006 worldwhile by default+luser · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Agreed. People who don't believe this need a touch of history.

    Back in the 1980s, most TVs were much smaller than what they sell today, and much lower quality. You had a lucky few with big screens (greater than 30"), a significantly larger slice with screens in the 20-30" range, and the majority of the population with screens ranging from 12-20".

    It's absolutely amazing how times change. My computer monitors even going back to the mid-1990s dwarf my family's old 14" TV, and have much better sharpness, bandwidth and color fidelity. You can buy 27" TVs at Walmart for less than 150 bucks that have visual quality most of us could only wish for in the 80s.

    So, it's no surprise that VHS was considered good in the 1980s, when you consider that the average TV of the era was tiny and crappy. The 1990s started the wave of cheaper, larger, higher-fidelity televisions that showed the limitations of VHS, and by the end of the decade the market was hungry for DVD.

    Unfortunately, the market hasn't changed much since DVDs were introduced. Screen sizes are up a bit, but HDTV technology is still too expensive for your average Walmart buyer. Even if HDTV suddenly dropped to the price range of your average Walmart buyer, you'd still have to wait 5 years or so for a potential market to build up.

    HD-DVD and Bluray are in a very similar position to Laserdisc...not a huge improvement over the cheaper alternative, and selling to a very limited market. When only 5-10% of the market even owns equipment good enough to tell the difference, and they have to shell out $500+ to experience it, you've got limited room for growth.

    --

    Man is the animal that laughs.
    And occasionally whores for Karma.

  21. Art of war by tacokill · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake" -- Sun Tzu (Anonymous), The Art of War