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PS3 Assembly Starts End of September, Most High-End
GameDailyBiz is reporting that Sony has announced further details on the PS3 assembly process. Final assembly will apparently begin at the end of this month, with some 400K units planned for the November 17th launch. They're promising another 800,000 units by the end of the year. From that article: "Although Sony will have shipped only 2.4 million units worldwide in 2006 (as opposed to their initial forecast of 4 million), the company still believes it will hit its goal of 6 million shipped through next March. Sony said that monthly PS3 production will be ramped up to 1.2 million units in January when the Blu-ray laser supplies are expected to improve." Gamespot has further analysis, stating that the split will be about 80/20, favoring the higher-end model over the lower-end model. That is, most of the units at launch should be the $600 model with the HDMI port.
Just be glad you don't live in Japan, typically the console pricing is SET by the manufacturer which is why it costs the same wherever you go (with the exception of bundles) but apparently the premium version will have "open market" pricing in Japan. Meaning retailers can charge whatever they please... I'll leave it up to your imagination which way how they'll push the prices.
Collector's Edition
There's nothing like a tight supply to get the ebay vultures circling. I suspect the actual cost for the first few thousand units will be in the $1200-1500 range. Sadly, there are enough people out there who will feed the ebay scum.
Can you imagine what a Tickle Me Elmo would go for today (ex if it had happend in 2006 vs 1996), give then hype that surrounded it back then combined with the insane market that is ebay?
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
The article's wording is a bit off. the 400K units are for the North American launch. There's an additional 100K going to Japan. another 800K units will be shipped to North America between launch and december, and another million or so going to Japan in that same period.
The 100K discrepancy isn't that hard to figure out. They're planning on shipping 400K in the US and 100K in Japan. The real question is how 400K + 800K by end of year in the US + 100K + ???K by end of year in Japan = 2.4Million. I have a hard time believing that they're somehow going to manufacture and ship 1.1Million consoles for Japan if they can't launch with any more than 100K.
The best advice for Sony right now is to make sure they get their whole head in front of the shotgun.
The Xbox 360 had a slow trickle of consoles going out nearly every single day. The biggest problems were at the retailers' ends -- refusing shipments because Microsoft sent the consoles by UPS but the store only accepts shipments from their distribution center, holding the consoles for a "re-release" a month after the actual release (Best Buy, I'm looking at you. You bastards), employees hoarding the consoles for ebay sales, etc. Microsoft definitely had supply issues, but they made as much as they could as quickly as they could and shipped them out ASAP. And they eventually did own up to their problems. Do you really expect Sony to do as much? Kutaragi's personal distortion field will be used to spin this in a positive light for Sony and damn the facts.
What I meant is that HDMI's only advantage is the audio on the same wire. As far is video goes, HDMI has nothing over DVI. Anyway, the protocol has nothing to do with the wire it flows in. While every device that does HDMI also does HDCP, not every DVI based solutions does HDCP. But if you do own one, there's no reason for spending money on a newer TV with HDMI. You might as well use DVI/HDCP for now and use optical out for sound.
As far as being cracked for years, that's not the cable's fault, only the algorithm used in the device. DVI and HDMI are just wires.
Also, I fail to see where DVI devices unscramble/decrypt the signal before sending it to the display device.