Playstation 3 Soon Into Production

Roy van Rijn writes "According to Forbes, the Commercial Times reported that Taiwanese ASUSTeK Computer Inc. will be delivering PlayStation 3 consoles to Sony starting this month. The news comes amid concerns that Sony may not have enough Cell and RSX chips to meet production goals of 2 million units for launch. The report also states that, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd, also a Taiwanese company, will soon begin making the PlayStation 3 consoles for Sony too. Total monthly shipments from manufacturers are expected to be 200,000 units per month."

Comments

Don't do the math

[davevt5]

If you do the math you're probably thinking that means there will only be 1.6 million units ready to go by launch (assuming both Asustek and Hon Hai each hit 200k/mo.) The article goes on to state that the production will increase to two million units by October -- at least for Asustek.

The question is, will there be enough cell processors to stuff into these boxes with yields being so aweful?

Re:Don't do the math

[MaWeiTao]

Four or five years ago I had the chance to visit one of the first few semiconductor foundries producing 12-inch wafers.

It was explained to me how yields are always pretty bad during the ramping up phase but once things get going the number of defects decrease dramatically. I don't recall the specific details or how long this phase lasts, but I'm not surprised that there would be problems leading up to actual production. That's kind of the point of this process, to identify as many problems as possible beforehand.

They may have problems early into the production run, but given the complexity of the PS3 I expect Sony will have numerous other issues to contend with beyond defective chips. I expect problems as bad, if not worse than the Xbox360's overheating power supply.

Re:Don't do the math

[Borland]

Y'know, I can't refute your logic, but it is still flawed. What people say, and what people do, are two separate things. Plus, you're assuming that initial production problems will continue for the life of the product.

In addition, you cite the PS2 for two major problems the PS3 is facing: Initial production problems and low quality launch titles. The problem with using that logic is that you are making a comparison to one of the most successful consoles on the market. A console that is still outselling the 360.

If the PS3 is facing doom, why isn't there a sharp spike in 360 sales? Everyone who thinks the PS3 is crap but wants power should be flocking to Microsoft's banner. I have no current sales figures at hand, but the last time I looked I didn't see the 360 even beating the last generation console.

But as I said earlier, I cannot refute your post. Everything you say may come to pass and the PS3 will dive like Enron stock. But I think you base your conclusion on insufficient evidence.

Re:Don't do the math

[ichigo 2.0]

Did you actually get modded insightful for that nugget of joy? I guess some of the moderators actually thought that they would only sell 2 PS3s. I guess I'll take a karma hit from that aforementioned moderator, but that has to be the dumbest insightful mod I've seen to date. :P

Re:Don't do the math

[caffeinatedOnline]

I feel the need to call fanboi on your entire response...

Sure there are die-hard, rabid, Playstation fanatics who would still buy one if the price was your first born. But if you look at the fact that Sony has always had lame launch titles, the PSP's consumer excitement around it's launch could be described as "apathetic" with the die hard fans camping out for a product that didn't even sell out....

Its true that the DS is handily beating the PSP in sales, especially since the DS Lite launched; but apathetic is alittle strong. The PSP is selling about half as well as the DS. That's still something like 200k units per month.

Considering that the DS or sales numbers were not even brought into the discussion, where the hell did this come from? The OP was describing the consumer exitement about the PSP and the less then spectacular launch titles for the system, which after the die hard $ony fans had gotten theirs, dropped to apathetic. I don't know anyone that was excited about the PSP mainly due to the lackluster titles at launch.

Root kit lost a lot of fans...

Rootkit fiasco lost a lot of nerd fans. Jo Q Public still has no clue. They don't even know what a rootkit is.

That's funny... I get asked all the time by people who know that I am into computers about it. It was featured on the network news, CNN, MSNBC, etc. etc.

... as did Sony's double talk arrogance and bad mouthing of their competition, and lets not forget the clear rip-offs of Nintendo's Wii-mote and Microsoft's Guide button,

Arrogance: check.

Wii rip-off: undecided. Its a natural progression, the tilt sensor they added, if you ask me. More likely this feature was bumped up in priority when Sony saw the impression the Wii remote made. I can see that one either way to be honest. This is sort of like saying that every single digital music player is ripping off the iPod.

MS 'guide' button: what are you talking about? I don't even know what this is. Hardly a feature that's touted as interesting, at any rate.

Natural progression? I think you hit the nail on the head, though. When $ony saw the impression that the Wii controller made, they made the feature a priority... it has nothing to do with saying digital music players are ripping off the i-pod. It's like another music player coming out with a click wheel.

and perhaps most importantly THE PRICE.

Price is bad, I agree. Way bad in comparison to the other consoles, specifically. Of course, we don't actually know the final price yet.

Ummm... where have you been? The price has been known for quite awhile now. $499 for the basic, $599 for upgraded system.

Heck the reason for the high price was because of the Blu-Ray drive, and reviews thus far have shown that HD-DVD is stomping all over Blu-Ray. Really! I'd like to see that. Cite a source?

Here
Here
and here

HD-DVD has 2 layer discs (15gig per layer/30gig total) and uses the awesome VC-1 codec.

So? Blu-ray has a max storage of 200 gigs, over six layers. The codec is irrelevant; you can write a Blu-ray disc with MPEG-2, or the awesome VC-1 codec, OR the 'even awesomer' AVC codec. HD-DVD can only use MS-approved codecs and by the way, that has DRM built-in to the wrapper. (H.264/AVC does not necessarily have this stipulation (weak praise I know), but ALL MS codecs will have to deal with this.)

A six layer blu-ray disk has not been produced outside of the lab, and may be years (if ever) before it is able to be mass produced. Where do you come up with that hd-dvd can only use MS approved codecs? You are just spouting FUD now, as blue-ra

Damnable lack of information!

[Rob T Firefly]

The article doesn't say a thing about what sort of truck they'll be using to deliver these PS3s, what roads it'll be taking, or which truckstops along the way serve the driver's favorite foods. How useless.

Ramping Up

[CopaceticOpus]

In other news, I'd like to announce that I'm putting $20 per week away in anticipation of meeting my goal of affording a PS3 at launch. There has been speculation about low yield (ok, so I already spent $10 of this week's money at Taco Bell.) But I'm hoping to be able to ramp up production in time to meet my goal of $1000 (PS3, a couple games, 4 controllers.) I'm sure my boss will understand and give me that raise!

Re:Logic redundancy?

[BenjyD]

I would guess that they are referring to the 'spare' co-processor on each Cell: each Cell has 7 SPEs (co-processors) working, but there are actually 8 in the silicon. That way, if one of the SPEs doesn't work during testing, you can just disable it and still keep the chip.