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$600 PS3 Ships Without HDMI Cable
Eurogamer reports that the $600 PS3, which comes available with an HDMI port, will not ship with the necessary cable to actually hook the machine up. From the article: "According to the specs page on the official US PS3 website, which notes: 'HDMI cable not included. Additional equipment may be required to use the HDMI connector.' Sony has long promoted the 60GB PS3's HDMI output as a key feature of the machine. The 20GB model, however, doesn't feature HDMI - and nor does the Xbox 360, as it goes, despite occasional rumours of a hardware revision in the offing." The machine will, of course, come with a composite cable.
I heard they're not even including cables for the controllers on some of the new consoles!
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
It seems a cheap trick, but I understand why they'd choose not to ship with cable. Depending on whose numbers you believe, the sale of peripherals like this may significantly cut the money lost selling the console itself. I'm assuming that the peripherals are not sold at a loss.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
If you've got $600 to drop on a PS3, you've got another $20 for cables. Move along, nothing to see here.
You get a console.* *Some assembly required; batteries cables and other accessories including a TV, controllers, and in limited situations console not included; By purchasing this console you agree to indenture your first born to work in sony's sweatshops...
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Sony has also announced the 60Gig version comes with the -abytes sold seperately.
IIRC, HDMI cables are necessary if you need to view HDCP encrypted content - or you get a "low-quality" version of the image. Considering that most studios are not using the image constraint token till 2010, it seems that HDMI cable or no, no one's likely to need it for a while. Should it be included in a $600 package and is Sony cheaping out? Perhaps. But do you absolutely need it right now? No.
The PS3 is $600 for one reason, Sony pushing their Blu-Ray format.
Now they have decided to release this ungodly expensive machine without an HDMI cable, which is required for playing Blu-Ray movies.
So for $600 dollars you are buying something most people don't want or need (Blu-Ray) but still will not even have the ability to use it.
Wasn't the PS3 supposed to be a fantastic movie player which was a $1000 value for a $600 price? Without games. HDMI is being forced on the public because of the Image Constraint Token and Sony wants you to pay extra for the privilege. Maybe someone can post some positive PS3 articles in order to balance out the negative news. In fact, someone can just respond with a number of recent positive developments for the PS3. Oh and re-listing the PS3 stats over and over again doesn't count.
This is what they always do. If they ship with the HDMI cable, then they have to also include the composite, since that's the lowest common denominator. More people would have to buy a downgrade cable if it came with HDMI, than have to buy an upgrade if it ships with comp, so the decision is easy. It may sound like they're being cheap by not shipping with both, but no other console that I'm aware of has ever shipped with > 1 type of interface cable, and since the units already ship at a loss...
Several people have mentioned that you might be able to use a standard HDMI cable to connect the PS3? Is that really true? No console I'm aware of has ever had standard connections on the back.... they've always used a single proprietary connector, and forced you to buy a more expensive cable specific to the conections you wanted. eg. it's not going to be cheap.
How many USB devices do you know of that come with a cable? The problem, as I see it, is that first of all less than 10% of consumers are going to use HDMI anyway. Why make the other 90% pay for a $60 cable they're not going to use.
And for the ones that do use it they probably have some notion that whatever come with the system isn't good enough and will buy a Monster cable anyway. Or the one it came with won't be long enough, or what-have-you.
I have no problem with connecting cables not being included. It's a very customized component. No blame or ridicule here.
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
Ya, but Circuit City's $125 cable is the same thing as the discount $6 cable in this case. If sony just releases a reasonably priced cable($30) and sells it next to the PS3 then they will make a couple extra million on HDMI cables.
Buy it now!!
FWIW, the Premium version of the 360 comes with the highest-end cable: it has component out, composite out, and optical out. A really great cable! :)
I'm more shocked that there are actually working models available. A few months back, a friend of mine who worked at EB Games informed me that every model of the PS3 that was tested exploded (or at least burned out in a spectacular fashion.) Perhaps this is just a PS2 with a fancier logo.
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Except every major console in history has shipped with a lowest-common-denominator cable.
Does the 360 ship with a component cable? Did the dreamcast ship with a VGA cable?
Will the Wii ship with a component cable, despite the fact that its required to enable progressive-scan mode? The GC didn't...
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
1) HD is one of the big things that the PS3 is being billed for. Sony has been pimping that heavily. If it's such a fundamental part of the console, maybe you include the hookups out of box?
2) For most people, the cable won't be that cheap. They probably won't know about online cable warehouses, and how much cheaper they are. So they'll pick up an HDMI cable at Best Buy or wherever they got the PS3. There, it's more like $60, not $20. Cables are the big money maker for places like that.
I'm just saying at $600, seems a little, well, cheapskate. When I but a $40 DVD player, ok I'm happy if it even has a power cable. However when I buy a $200 DVD player I generally expect to see all the extras like cables (mine came with composite, S-Video and component) and batteries for the remote included. It's expensive so they can afford to include the extras.
Yes, I understand that the PS3 is sold at a loss, whereas my DVD player was sold at a significant profit. However I'm talking about average consumer perception here. If you buy a premium, expensive product, you tend to expect to not get gypped on the extras. Feels real cheapskate to buy a $600 unit and for the sales guy to then say "You want HD support? 'Cause that needs an HDMI cable. We've got this $60 Sony one here but we really recommend the $250 Monster Cable one for best quality." Don't think the Best Buy people won't, either.
Yeah, well, the Wii is just as bad! Check it out:
$210 for the console (average of the high and low prediction), $0 for the cable, $80 for the controller (lets be cautions and over-estimate), $600 for 12 (non-VC) games, and $40 tax? That's a whole freaking $930 for the Wii!! Even more than the PS3!
I am a parent (well, no, but I have cats) of a household with income considerably less than yours, and there's no way in heck I'm buying 12 games for the Wii at launch! But that's just mostly cause my wife won't let me...
You can mod your friends, you can mod your nose, but you can't mod your friend's nose.
And this is especially true because although the component spec is capable of 1080p, the playstation won't do it.
In Soviet Russia, backwards is everything.
"The #1 reason cables aren't included in most peripheral devices is because the user most likely already has a cable just like the one needed."
Thats a good guess but your wrong. Having worked in retail computer sales, I can say with absolute certainty that with printers, scanners, etc... the store makes shit money markup wise (10-$30 most printers). Most cables COST less than $3. The stores mark them up 1000% or more. So you get a A-B usb cable costing $15, instead of the 50cents it costs the store to purchase it. If you dont believe me, go to any dollar store. You can find all sorts of computer cables selling for a dollar. Those stores are still making money selling it for a dollar.
This is also why you get crazy $100+ DVI cables that are "gold plated" which cost wholesale like $10. This is where computer stores make the most percentage profits. Think about it. When you make a cable, your basically taking rolls of cable that cost pennies a foot, crimping it and sticking ends on.
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
HDMI being included in the PS3 is nothing more than Sony trying to save face from their initial boasting of the inclusion of 2 HDMI ports and now cutting it back to one. (Remember the dual HDMI output touted and now dropped?)
The only thing HDMI really helps for is 1080p vs. 1080i which unless you own an extremely high end system you won't be able to notice the difference. Furthermore how many people actually own a 1080p compatible TV?
Sony isn't including the cord because it isn't necessary for the overwhelming portion of their target market. I wouldn't even be surprised if they dropped HDMI from future hardware revisions (kinda PSthree kind of deal).
Finally, no complaints about Microsoft using proprietary cords, all companys do this. Sony has for years, Nintendo did. Only the NES and 1st revision of the Sega Genesis had standard RCA A/V cables coming out of the console.
The mains connection for your dryer may vary with local code requirements. Putting four moderately-expensive cables in with the appliance to cover all of the bases doesn't make any sense.
-aOK here is the difference between HDMI and Component video. Both are able to trasmit HDTV signals up to the 1080 resolutions. The only difference between 1080i and 1080p is that one is interlaced and one is progressive.
What interlacing means in the context of video is that each frame transmitted is actually only half an image. The frame contains every other line of the entire picture. The next frame after this contains the lines that the previous one did not. Back in the 60s when color analog TVs where being designed, they built them to refresh only the lines that data was received for when drawing the current frame, leaving the previous frame still on the screen, filling in the lines that were not received with the current frame. The advantage of this is that you effectively double your screen resolution without using any additional bandwidth. Progessive on the other hand simply means redrawing the screen completely every frame, which is how computer monitors work.
Generally we consider interalacing to be a bad thing these days, since recent HDTV's natively use a progressive method for refreshing the screen (i.e. They don't use electron guns that can draw half of the screen at a time.) Becausse of this, in order to display an interlaced signal on a progressive, the signal must first be deinterlaced. Deinterlacing is *VERY* complicated, because you can't just take two frames and combine them into one, since despite containing only half an image, each frame still represents a different point in time hence any movement on the screen between the two time shoots will look very wierd using this method. Most of the time deinterlacing mechanisms these days are not very well made because of the difficulty.
Component takes advantage of interlacing to get from 720p to 1080i (again the same amount of bandwidth can be used to transmit a double resolution image.) Whereas HDMI is pretty much DVI with the following additions: Audio is sent with video and a method for encryption exists to prevent you from recording images off the cable (DRM basically.) Most modern HDTVs will be able to handle both.
As others have said, big whoop concerning a cable that a single digit % of users will need isn't included. I'm waiting for the day when the power adaptor isn't included and you have to pay $49.99 extra for the priviledge to be able to plug your game unit in the wall! I believe that day is coming.
Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
Not 100% accurate, as HDMI (which uses DVI signaling for the video portion) does not have any error correction built into the signaling. (See also the bottom of this page for similar info.)
This means that bit errors can creep in and degrade image quality when using low-quality cables, especially in an electrically noisy environment. I don't know about you, but I have a rat's nest of cables behind my AV rack; even with cable management, some cross-talk is unavoidable because of the sheer number of cables in close proximity.
Poor shielding is only one problem with cheap cables, though; you also have issues with improper termination (i.e., poor impedance matching) at the ends of the cable, something that makes a huge difference at the frequencies that DVI/HDMI operates at.
1) HD is one of the big things that the PS3 is being billed for. Sony has been pimping that heavily. If it's such a fundamental part of the console, maybe you include the hookups out of box?
I'm in the alleged '5%'. I don't want the cable included. Why? Because it will be the wrong length. It doesnt matter what length it is, it will be just a bit too short or way to friggin long. Just as a cat is always on the wrong side of the door, the legth of OEM cables are always wrong. I'd end up buying a new cable to fit my needs and wind up paying for a cable I couldn't use (the OEM cable).
And the OEM cable would suck. Same principle. OEM cables are always cheap -- even on "premium" set-ups. I buy rather high end stereo and video equipment. Then I buy cabling for it because any OEM cables have always a) sucked and B) been the wrong size.
So, speaking as a "member of the 5%" I say: "Good move Sony".
If you buy a premium, expensive product, you tend to expect to not get gypped on the extras.
That's just it though. "Extras" are by definition not "standard includes" So if you admit that the cable is an extra it must not be included. Then it would not be an extra would it?
My HD projection TV didn't come with cables and it cost more than the PS3 and it is the display portion. Arguably, if any piece is to include the cables, the display should. Most likely the alleged 5% won't give a damn about the cable not included since they'll already know they need one and will either have it or be ready to buy it to fit their desires/physical requirements; and they'll know where to get it.
Or, the 95% of people who don't have the display for it won't need one.
Expensive and/or premium does not necessarily mean "everything". In this case, the PS3 is "premium" because of the alleged performance, "advanced" features such as Blu-Ray and full HD output, it's backward compatibility, and that it is a "Playstation". Like it or not, that last bit matters. Just as many people used to refer to home video consoles as Nintendos even if they eg. Sega.
My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.