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PS3 Problems Cause Sony Stocks to Slide
eldavojohn writes "Gamespot has an article describing PS3s operating erratically at conference demonstrations.' In its defense, Sony said the PS3 failures were caused by unusually high temperatures created by having many of the next-gen consoles operating in close proximity to each other. 'It's not a problem with the PlayStation 3 unit itself,' Sony spokeswoman Nanako Kato told the AP. 'For a normal player at home, there shouldn't be any problem.' As a result, Sony's stock slid 2.75%. I guess they should have thought first before releasing five times the number of kiosks as they did with the PS2 — they're causing each other to overheat. There goes my PS3 beowulf cluster idea!" Update: 10/04 20:40 GMT by Z : anti-human 1 wrote in to mention a GamesIndustry.biz article, with a flat denial of overheating issues from Sony. "As could be seen on the TGS floor by the tens of thousands of media and public attendees, both the hardware and software worked flawlessly."
Geez, if these things are that heat senseitive they probbaly are not going to work in a closed-door stereo cabinet.
I currenrly have my DVR, my Xbox, and my reciever all in a stereo cabinet with a closed door. All work fine with no overheating. Is Sony trying to say that if I want to get a PS3 I need to buy a new stereo cabinet too?
Overheating demo game console units is no reason for stock of one of the largest electronics manufactures to slip. I'd bet it has more to do with exploding batteries.
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
Something I've always wondered: How come people on Slashdot are normally of the mindset: I would never use a Micro$oft product ever unless I had to, my entire home setup is based around Linux even where that reduces convenience, if you help Micro$oft, you are a terrorist, Bill Gates is a cyborg , but then, no one bats an eyelid when someone castually mentions their Xbox -- a completely unnecessary Microsoft purchase?
Think about it.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
If there weren't such a huge recall of Sony batteries over the last few months, then a news item like this probably wouldn't have affected Sony's stock all that much. But I imagine analysts are worried now about the general quality of Sony products.
-- jchenx
As long as you buy it, Sony doesn't give a shit whether it will overheat at your house or not.
Plus, if you leave it OFF, it won't overheat!
Also, if you are using it indoors, then you probably aren't providing proper ventillation.
Either way, it can't be Sony's fault because by definition the PS3 is perfect!
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
I don't think the PS3 will be as disastrous as some people are saying. One thing is sure: it won't enjoy anywhere close to the massive runaway success that the PS2 enjoyed, but it will still be the market leader for the next generation at least.
Besides, Sony have made way more messups recently than just the PS3. Surely those are to blame for the stock slide as well?
The crashes weren't cuased by overheating... they were caused by a rootkit!
Part of my decision whether to purchase a PS3 will be based on the amount of heat produced by the console and the amount of power it drains per hour. If the PS3 does not cause a significant increase in my average monthly power bill and a noticeable increase of my living room's temperature, I will not buy one.
I need to know the PS3 has power. I need to be afraid that it might drain my bank account. Or set my room on fire. Or hurt me in other more subtle ways. Only then will I respect it.
http://nerdcartoons.com/
I seem to recall the initial versions of the PS2 having all sorts of issues (primarily with the optical drives), not unlike last years XBox 360 fiasco. Considering Sony's attitude toward the consumer lately, we'll probably be forced to tolerate it as the tradeoff for the privilege of using the PS3 raw power.
Could it be that both Microsoft AND Sony have falling victim to the "Tortoise and the Hare" factor? It seems Nintendo's choice to choose the slow and steady path might just win the race this time around.
8==8 Bones 8==8
The Wii has never had this sort of problem and it costs less than half as much as the PlayStation 3 does.
Hey, I'm all for the Wii too, but isn't it a little silly to say that an unreleased product that has not been tested by the public has never had any one specific problem? (The hardware at E3, from what I recall was not necessarily the final hardware, nor was it actually packed in the Wii cases... which is a big deal when it comes to overheating issues.) I think we can guess that the Wii won't have those issues since it's not intended to be a super-ultra high-res mega-spec console. But it is in a tiny box, so we won't know until real people actually use it.
There goes my PS3 beowulf cluster idea!
Goodbye beowulf cluster, hello fusion reactor core!
Fortunately, most consumers are quite diligent when it comes to ensuring that their game consoles are properly positioned in a well-ventilated area with adequate clearance on all sides. I don't predict much trouble with people laying the damn thing on the carpet; butting the air vents up against the wall; setting it next to the radiator; cramming it into their entertainment center's shelf between the TiVo, XBox, and a bunch of DVDs; putting stuff on top of it; or anything else that your typical consumer would simply never dream of doing to a game console.
Big. Honkin'. Red. Flag.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
The PS3 launch is looking more and more like the 360 launch. Horrible shortages, overheating problems, higher price than most gamers wanted to pay (remember a year ago when $400 for a console seemed like too much?). I was really pulling for Sony when all we had to look at was what Microsoft had done, but they've managed to take every oportunity to make their console less interesting. There's no way I'd buy one at launch now, I'm betting the hardware problems will be worse than the PS2 launch and 360 launch combined. I just hope Sony can bounce back and come up with a quality console, because the industry needs competition. God forbid Microsoft of all people runs the console market.
That being said, I'm probably going to get a Wii at laucnh (Wii + Zelda + Red Steel is still cheaper than a 360). I just hope they make the wiimote very configurable. The hardcore gamer in me still wants the Next Gen HD hotness though, so I'm hoping for a price drop from at least one of them within a year.
Thank you for helping us help you help us all.
Nonsense. This is just a feature - buy a PS3 - it will play your Blu Ray movies, surf the web, play your music, study protein folding, and now warm your house too! Forget paying your heating bill - its the perfect Christmas present! Rumour has it that it can even play games.
A great present to send to any of your loved ones in the army serving abroad - hours of entertainment and when in a spot of bother the troops can combine 5 or more PS3s and a few Sony batterys to create a high power IED!
Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.
You are all noobs, everyone knows this is happening because Sony is keeping the George Foreman grill addon for later. Just spend another $300 for the Blu George Foreman grill ray in January and all your overheating problems will be over... As long as you are using it with Sony brand eggs and bacon. Just remember though that the Sony brand food will only work with Sony brand hardware!
Yup. It's alot like this year when it is still too much. Offering a $300 version thast costs another $100 to make it usefull doesn't help. I'll get a 360 or Ps3 as it nears the $300 mark, not before.
I've determined the cause of global warming!
Apparently, a potential hazard. When will this downhill slide end for Sony?
If demos gone awry caused stock slide we'd have witnessed the top companies have negative stock values by now (wouldn't that be cool, huh?).
You're actually trying to claim that the Sony stock slips 2.75% because a PS3 demo unit overheated? You don't think it might be because oh.... EVERY BATTERY EVER MADE BY SONY IS BEING RECALLED? Do you have your Wii pre-order from EB framed in a shrine?
I laughed, I cried, I bought the DVD, the UMD, the HD-DVD and the Blu-ray.
Mod parent up Funny please.
Thunderclone: ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE! ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE!
[sarcasim] I'm sure stacked away in an entertainment center is a going to be a HUGE difference from lining up a fw PS3s on a showroom floor.
Come on, seriously.... the PS3 is going to be overheating in every living room its in. Is anybody (who isn't just an anti-ms zealot) seriously considering getting one of these?
There goes my PS3 beowulf cluster idea!
You joke, but considering a PS2 cluster was made, a PS3 cluster isn't really out of the question, especially when considering how much power the Cell supposedly has. This news actually does put a damper on the PS3 cluster idea.
This guy's the limit!
I'm sure these over heating problems will be fixed as soon as they finish the radiator attatchment. It sounds more and more like Sony is releasing a fancy car. I mean, think about it, you take a loan out for a car, you take a loan out for a PS3, it needs constant maintenance for inevitable, very serious problems and here's even a quote from the link supplied in the article: "Once the consumers get their hands on a PS3 and understand what's under the hood, I think price will not be a factor in the decision-making process,'' it sounds to me like they're refering to a car.
I'm actually considering removing the back panel behind my reciever because it puts off so much heat. The thought of adding another high heat component makes me cringe.
They made it "fanless", right? Fanless electronic devices with significant heat loads are inherently vulnerable; if the external environment is worse than the design spec, they die. Hot weather or tight shelf space, and you're dead.
Worse, if some systems are failing early in life due to cooling problems, more are very likely to fail later. ICs that run hot has a reduced lifespan; there's a well-understood relationship for this. So if demo units are failing when new, this is serious.
Somewhere at Sony, I suspect that engineers are frantically trying to tweak the heatsink, airflow, and case hole design before shipping. It's very late for that.
There will probably be aftermarket fan kits. Liquid cooling would be overdoing it.
Glitching because of overheating would be interesting, if true.
The PlayStation 2 cluster that we built at NCSA had 65 machines in a rack, tightly packed, with the fans of the machines at the front and the back of the shelves pointing at each other. They ran like that for on the order of 15 months, and I'm not aware of any heat related issues.
Craig Steffen
http://www.craigsteffen.net
And if it uses enough power and generates enough heat you could use it too warm your home.
Isn't this exactly the plan Sony had from the very beginning, look at this article from 1 and a half years ago:
BBC article(Remember to exchange all instances of computing power to power drain and home heating)
http://wii.ign.com/articles/733/733464p1.html
Or maybe not, since they're probably already working on a PS3 version of their clip-on 360 Intercooler. Although having said that, I found the intercooler actually caused problems - I had red ring errors occasionally on my 360 and have had none in the two weeks since I took it off.
After all of Sony's behaviours over the past while especially, let me be the first to throw them an anchor if they are really drowning. They're not drowning, but if my refusal to buy a ps3 helps in some way to bleed the company's stock price a little, my single malt will taste that much sweeter.
PS3 Problems Cause Black Spot on Uranus?
Disclaimer: although I work for Sony, this isn't official.
They weren't overheating. Some pre-release software was crashing. Imagine that! The shock, the horror...
Game dev and music blog
Huge crisis the first few months, then replacement units rolled out... the manufacturing process was adjusted and now all the units work just fine? Early adopters beware.
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
WTS [Sony Stock]x100, [PS3 Preorder] PST
You will be required to have a minimum of 18 inches all around the PS3 for adequit ventalation. You will have have to purchase a seperate base for the PS3 made of a synthetic material that will stand the PS3 18 inches in the air and have holes in it for ventalation on the bottom of the PS3. You will have to keep your air conditioner at a chilly 72 degrees farenheit and don't even think about using your heater in the winter. If you meet all these requirements you may avoid overheating.
Click Click Bloody Click PANCAKES!
'It's not a problem with the PlayStation 3 unit itself,' Sony spokeswoman Nanako Kato told the AP The unit heats up too much, what else is causing the heat problem? seeesh!
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
PS3s working together is not a new concept though. Folding@Home for PS3: http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showthread.php?p=815 609#post815609
This has been a subject of discussion for several months now.
With regards to the supposed overheating of PS3 units, I don't think it's because of that alone that Sony's stock dipped. Rather, I highly doubt it. Besides, there were several units being demoed @ TGS (where the temperature was quite high) and almost all of them fared just fine; I'm not worried about the PS3 overheating.
This isn't the cause of any Sony stock plunges. They have been tying the noose for a year now with overpriced high tech gadgets they ASSUMED the public want. $250 for a handheld? $600 for a console? $400 for a portable internet device? Reliance on overpriced, proprietary storage media?
I love my PS2 - but I'm going Wii this time around. Poly and texture count doesn't impress me anymore. Games could be fun at 160x120x2 resolution. The Cube had plenty of horsepower for graphics (Resident Evil 4 was enough to sell me a Cube); the problem wasn't with the hardware. The Wii can provide - and hopefully produce the sort of games I want to play.
I have my 360 on the back corner of my desk and can use the controller pretty much anywhere in my (admittedly not that large) apartment, often as a remote control to drive the music player. The controllers are RF, not infrared or any other line-of-sight mechanism. What the heck is your desk made of? Lead? :)
You work for Sony, so your bias is obviously going to come into play, so I'll just add another voice to the mix to see if you'll start to understand: The last major show before the launch. A controlled environment. It doesn't matter if it is a hardware failure or a software failure. If you are near launch and your demo fails in a controlled environment you are in major, major trouble. I'm surprised the stock only dropped as little as it did, to be frank.
someone just got kicked from LUE links.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
As consoles get more and more powerful, and run hotter and hotter in general (except for the Wii), things like proper placement are becoming concerns for even your non-technical gamer. With all the attention that the 360 got last year, with people putting their consoles in stupid locations, Sony will benefit from the fact that there are more console owners aware that they need to be putting their expensive systems in the right places, lest they want to own a smoking brick in a month or two.
-- jchenx
Sony's rolling these out in 2008. They're apparently going to use a compressor coupled with a lquid like ammonia and an expansion contraction combination to keep the space at a regulated temperature.
They've leaked pictures to a couple key insiders, and I managed to get a link to them. You can find it below.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/cf/Mon
Very sweet, eh! But does it come in black is my question.
-rt
that people are no longer buying Sony's bullshit excuses. Consumers have been lied to time and time again, and I think they have finally caught on to what Sony was doing. I mean, first Dell recalls your batteries, then Apple and before you know it, you are the only one proclaiming nothing is wrong. As I recall, this a similar pattern of behavior from Sony was used during the drm rootkit fiasco too.
"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb."
I had an article the other day of a Wii demo unit crashing because of an overheat, pics included. I can't find the link right now, but know that it exists!
Sony is being given the Green Award from Al Gore for merging Entertainment and Heating into one household system. This will help ease the crunch on heating oil needed this winter and should help U.S. households save money on there monthly Natural Gas Heating bills as well. Way to go Sony, the PS3 really does do it all.
that we're all going to have to buy separate cooling systems for our PS3's. I personally was thinking of saving some money and just drilling a small hole in the side of my freezer for the cables to run through to my TV.
This sig will self destruct in 5 seconds.
They would hate to remember that their *beloved* Microsoft's Xbox360 went through similar stuff.
Why would I even mention such a horrid thing such as the first few batches of Xbox360s had/still-have hardware defects like scratched disks and the Red LED of Death... I must be mistaken because we all know that hardware issues like that can *only* happen to a $on¥ console, like the PS2 & upcoming PS3, and Microsoft can *never* do anything wrong!
But it looks like I am too late to warn you, you got hit by a "redundent" mod for being the first to point out the same thing "might have" happend with the Xbox360!
No, more likely it's due to the 287,000 Sony laptop batteries Fujitsu just recalled today. Fujitsu Adds To Sony Recall Woes
I'm a 2000 man.
I sold my 500 shares of Sony shortly after E3 when I realized Sony was clueless in pricing and packaging and Nintendo got the new game paradigm (bought 400 shares of Nintendo).
Since then Sony stock has dropped and Nintendo stock has gone up.
It will continue to get worse, at least for the next two years.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
If this thing gets that hot, maybe an improved cooling system is needed. Air conditioned stereo cabinet anyone?
Pwned.
If its any consolation, everytime you buy a new xbox (not used), Microsoft losses money because the production cost is greater than the retail price of an xbox. They make there money from the games sold since manufactoring the game is relatively cheap (after production costs that it).
Sounds a lot like some of the issues the earlier 360's had. Hopefully we won't get a repeat performance of the PS2 and 360 launch problems. The 360 needs good ventilation, and it looks like the PS3 will be no different. For those with both systems, this could make arranging your entertainment center a bit tricky.
"Mongoloid"
Don't use it at work or your ass will be out of the door in a snap.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I for example, have not bought an MS product for 10 years (I am foced to use some, at work, which is perfectly fine by me).
I refuse to support a company guilty of abusing their monopoly.
Just because you read 2 or 3 replies here and there from people that do not care it does not mean they are a majority or the same people ranting about MS elsewhere.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
As anyone with half a brain realized, the conclusion of this post is entirely false. The recent drop in stock price was due to the battery recall, and had nothing to do with the PS3.
In addition, Sony has flatly denied any problems with the hardware. To support their claims, individuals who have received final retail units for review all claim it ran cool and quiet.
Looks like this is flame-bait at it's worse, fiction at best.
"Politicians find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the people."