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Breaking Down the Dropping Parts Cost for Sony's PS3
will_die writes "The people at iSuppli have taken apart an October 2008 version of the PlayStation 3 to create a bill of materials, along with providing a comparison to original PS3. The article provides information about the changes Sony has made. One of the big ones was that the hardware has gone from costing $690.23 to the current price of $448.73. This was done using a combination of removing parts (currently 2,820 vs. the original 4,048), cutting the cost of the CPU ($46.46 vs. $64.40), and cutting the cost of the graphics processor to $58.01 from $83.17."
It still precludes them from selling at $299, which is where marketing data is suggesting they need to go to compete against Xbox.
PS3 is being outsold by a good margin month to month, which means market share is dwindling (although objectively there are more PS3s in the world, which makes the equation for game developers shift) - and they seem to be losing developer mind share, as evidenced by the fact that there are few games that are PS3 exclusive. Most importantly and shockingly, Microsoft is getting Japanese game developers to come over to Xbox, where that model simply didn't exist in the PS2 days.
Sony needs about 4-5 more Metal Gear Solid like titles, and they really need to work out the bugs with online play. I don't use my PS3 online, but from what I am to understand, it's not even close to Xbox live.
Keep all the price comparisons either from-to or all to-from. Don't mix the two because you'll confuse people (eg me). When I saw "...the hardware has gone from costing $690.23 to the current price of $448.73." it triggered me to read the last sentence as "cutting the cost of the graphic processor from $46.46 to $64.40.". I thought I was seeing some sort of Orwellian finances in effect.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
A stronger Yen means they're making LESS Yen by selling at the same price USD.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Of course the 360 is doing better than PS3 largely because they got to market first and they've been able to price it cheaper. If Microsoft hadn't cut corners, they might not have made it to market first, and it would be more expensive than it is now.
So maybe the lesson is that if they want to beat Sony in the next generation, they'll have to cut corners then too.
They're still releasing new PS2 games. If you go to Game Rankings right now, the top game on the main page is Persona 4 for... Playstation 2.
This used to be a source of pride for Sony - look at how well we support our platform, we're still releasing top-quality games for it 8 years after it came out, and 2 years after it's "replacement" was released. According to good old Wikipedia, it's the top-selling console ever, at 140 million. Now they're actively removing that platform of games from their current product? Taking steps away from compatibility with it? Sure, eventually it will become less relevant, but I think it's gonna take a while. If we jump over to a DRM-related story, you'll find long threads complaining about "what happens if I buy this game, and 5 years from now their servers get shut down, or the company goes away? I still play my old computer games once in a while, I don't want them taking that away from me..." Forget Persona 4 just being released, aren't there people who will want to play Final Fantasy X or XII again? Kingdom Hearts? Gran Turismo 3 (wow, 14 million copies sold, really?).
Yes, as you say, we can just buy a PS 2, or keep an existing one. But there's plenty of reasons that's a pain (inputs, controllers, and space mostly) and it's just a big visible step backwards for the product. And cost alone doesn't justify that, the $240 cut isn't all from the Emotion Engine, and if you check the eBay listings for 60 Gig PS3s, you'll see how much of a premium their customers are willing to pay for that feature. I'm one of those people - and there's plenty of others in this thread - stuck between buying a new one and keeping my old PS2, buying an old one off eBay for a premium price, or waiting and hoping Sony steps up instead of down with a future revision. In the meantime, I'm one more customer not buying a PS3, even with their modest price cuts.
The trick isn't to use each SPU. The trick is to fully use the SPU and not have it waiting for memory look-ups or core-to-core communication.
Which is definitely not a "no problem" kind of situation. Look at the list of canceled PS3 games, heck, even EA had issues getting red alert 3 onto it! It is not a simple nor easy setup. Anyone that has any experience threading systems could tell you that, especially across asymmetric cores!
Actually, forget that.
The Gamecube WAS THE bleeding edge in its day. And it still managed to turn a profit. But I think it was 300$ at launch; I can't remember what the PS2 and Xbox were like.
Rather, what I meant, is that you can't go out and nab something crazy like bluray and put it in your designs. You have to put careful consideration and make sure everything works perfectly and won't cost too much, that way you can keep profits up.
Honestly, it was never an issue of price.
I would buy a PS3 in a heartbeat if I knew what I know now.
For one thing, I can use it as a media center, with the help of TVersity. I can play DVDs, blu-rays, upload my pictures, etc.
The games are pretty awesome from what I've bought. I've bought several games from the PSN as well, and they've all been fun. And in the winter time, it helps to keep my room warm!
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?