Lower-Price PS3 Mostly Upgradeable

jchenx writes "One of the biggest questions remaining after the Sony press conference and E3 last week was whether or not the core PS3 package could be upgraded to the premium one. It looks like that question has been answered. GI.biz reports that the core version can upgraded with WiFi and memory card adapters, as well as a higher capacity hard drive. However, HDMI output will be non-upgradeable."

Comments

Here's to hoping...

[gEvil (beta)]

Here's to hoping that the lack of HDMI on the low-end model will keep content providers from ever implementing the ICT flag on movies. There's a slim chance that this move by Sony will keep that from happening.

Opportunity costs

[UbuntuDupe]

It becomes even clearer when you compare opportunity costs. For the price of a PS3 and one game (~$660), you could buy a Wii and 10 games! (Charitably favoring the PS3 by assuming the Wii starts at $250 and has $40 games.) And to even notice the HDTV difference, you have to buy such a TV, which will cost you $1000, which could have bought 25 Wii games. (!) Yes, this ignores sales tax, but since it's an opportunity cost comparison, the conclusions hold regardless.

Hard drive

[payndz]

20Gb hard drives? Are we back in 2001? I wouldn't be surprised if the base PS3's '20Gb' drive is actually exactly the same as the non-crippled PS3's 60Gb, just with two platters disabled...

Analog vs Digital

[Silent sound]

I guess I am missing something but why would HDMI not be upgradable. The standard XBOX 360 came with plain A/V cables that can be upgradable to component cables. I would assume that sony just like every other console has a special connection on the back where you have to buy a special approved cable that can have A/V, component or HDMI output.

Apples and oranges.

Component, RCA or VGA are all analog video connections.

DVI or HDMI are digital video connections.

You can convert from analog to analog pretty easy. You can convert from digital to digital pretty easy. You can get a cheap cable that converts from VGA to Component. You can get a cheap cable that converts from DVI to HDMI.

However, converting from analog to digital is an entirely different and very difficult matter. Go looking for a converter box that converts from component to DVI or from component to HDMI and you're going to be paying near a hundred dollars, and you may have to sacrifice picture quality.

The PS3, according to the SCEJ spec sheet published during E3, has a special "A/V Multi Out" connector on the back. You apparently plug a component video dongle into there. If Sony had wired the "A/V Multi Out" to provide digital data in addition to analog, you could plug in a dongle that converts to HDMI really cheap and be on your way. But they apparently didn't do this, and apparently they only provide analog. So you can get a cheap converter to component or RCA or VGA or whatever... but if you want a converter to HDMI or DVI, you are screwed forever, you have to go and spend another $600 on the HDMI output version of the PS3.

Similarly, it's going to be really cheap to upgrade that XBox 360 to component, because that's analog to analog. But the XBox 360 doesn't offer digital out, so you're not going to be able to upgrade it to DVI or HDMI without buying an entire new XBox 360 (assuming an XBox 360 with DVI or HDMI output even exists, which it doesn't.)

The really bizarre and crazy thing here is that Sony can't possibly be saving all that much money by doing this. It isn't that putting HDMI output on the cheap PS3, or putting digital information into the A/V multi out output that's already there, would be all that difficult. The only reason why all those analog-to-digital converters are so expensive is because they actually have to convert analog to digital, which is not a trivial act. When Sony is designing the PS3, though, they don't have to convert anything to anything. They've already got digital inside the box, and they actually have to convert it to analog before they can pump it out to the component video. Considering how easy it would have been to provide some mechanism that would allow a $500 PS3 to be upgraded to digital video output later (thus turning the $500 PS3 from the "broken version" into just the version that's missing a couple of bells and whistles) it's mind-boggling they are choosing to screw over their customers this way.

$750 out the door

[mrshowtime]

One thing that everyone is forgetting is the total REAL cost of getting the damn thing (ps3) out the door. Obviously you would want to have at least one game and one extra controller. Let's just round it off at $100 for the two, which is about right. So we are now up to $700, before tax. Most states, including local, are around 8% on average, if not more, but lets round that down, which adds another $50 or so bucks to the pricetag. This bumps the price up to $750 out the door; $650 if you buy the useless cheaper one. That's a lot of freakin' change, man!

If gas jumps up because of Iran, Hurricanes, mutant clowns, then $750 bucks on a game system that really is only a hair better than it's primary competitor is looking very unattractive come Christmas. That is if Sony actually makes it out the gate this Christmas, which personally, I am having less faith in every day.

The Wii/360 combo is actually sounding better as the days go by.

Nintendo is certain to release the Wii at $199 and if the core price for the 360 drops to $249 (which would be the smartest more ever by M$) there is absolutely no way that Sony could ever gain enough marketshare to be anything but number three. The only people buying the PS3 at that point would be the Japanese, the hard core Sony nuts, the Final Fantasy XIVVIXXI nuts, and rich people who own really expensive home theater systems.

I predict that the PS3 will sell for about $2,500, or more on ebay the day it's released and pretty much stay that way for a long time. In fact, it's going to be a huge joke; only rock stars and the insanely rich will be able to afford it. The PS3 will become a status symbol. One thing is certain, history does repeat itself and last time around with the PS2, it took Sony 18 months to finally catch up with demand. To Sony's chagrin, this time it has serious competition already dug in and by the time Sony ramps up production to meet demand the next gen war will already be onto the next-next gen war. That's assuming that there will be demand for a $750 system.

Sony is strangling the golden goose because it wants it to lay platinum, gold and uranium eggs. Sony's goals for the PS3 are too great. It wants to be the magic black box that all consumer electronic manufacturers have dreamed of. Unfortunately, it's arriving about four years too soon. The smartest thing that Sony could do is drop Blu-Ray, forget about it, parnter up with HD DVD and call it a day and then chalk it up to another blunder and release the PS3 with a dvd drive and sell it for $299.

Personally, I can emphasize when the President of Sony says that the PS3 is probably "too cheap". The PS3 is an amazing piece of hardware for $600. It defines state of the art. Plus, it most likely is costing Sony at LEAST $800 to make the PS3, but the consumer does not care about such things.
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