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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.
cutting the cost of the CPU ($46.46 vs. $64.40), and cutting the cost of the graphic processor to $46.46 from $64.40.
Whoa, so the Cell processor IS the graphics processor? Yo dawg, I heard you like to compute so I put a processor in your processor!
Because the summary probably won't be fixed.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
A new version of Nvidia Corp.'s Reality Synthesizer serves as the graphic processing unit for the game console. The revised version of the part is priced at $58.01, down 30.3 percent from $83.17 previously.
The summary has used the CPU prices as both. Seriously, even if you the submitter made an honest mistake writing it down, surely the editor should've noticed that both figures being the same was suspicious and double-checked? Is it really too much to ask for the slightest bit of editing?
Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and stupid comments are intentional.
The article does not mention anything about exchange rates - since the PlayStation is not manufactured in the US and the article mention all amounts in dollars [the Yen strengthened considerably against the Dollar the last year or so] - I would take the amounts with a pinch of salt.
The other possibility of course is that they converted everything from Yen into Dollars - but did not mentioned it.
They wouldn't have had to spend over $1B on repairs and extend the warranty an extra 3 years for the XBox 360. Chances are, the 360 would be cutting a small profit by now. The moral of the story if the successor to the XBox 360 is to trounce Sony, is that they need to not cut corners if they want to exploit Sony's weakness. They'd better learn that because the PS3 is a very, very powerful system and when it hits $300 will be in the range that a lot of gamers will be willing to pay.
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!
I'm all for a cheaper PS3, which apparently can only happen with a bit of "wow" taken out of the box, but for a bit of history:
*The original 20 and 60 GB models of the PS3 supported full hardware backwards compatibility for the PS2 (with the notable exception of the Guitar Hero controllers). The 60GB had a lot of extras, like card slots.
*The 80GB unit without FULL backward compatibility still supports 80% of PS2 titles, and retains the memory card slots.
The way I see it, you shouldn't degrade a tech product over its life cycle, you should add features to it. Or failing that, it should get VERY cheap, and super small.
PS3 isn't doing either. I'm glad I own the 80GB model.
Video Game News, FAQs, etc
It's good at doing anything where there's a streaming data
When we discussed the Cell processor in my super computing class, the verdict was it required streaming data to be fully utilized since each of the SPUs each had too little cache.
Perhaps it would have been wiser to instead only have 3 SPUs (+1 PPU) with a little more power and caching each instead of the 7 SPUs. As it stands, it is a problem that is stumping many PhDs.
Let's all take a moment to apologize to Bobtree for his wasted time clicking on this news story.
Sorry Bobtree.
Similes are like metaphors
Sony angered me with their whole DRM-trojan-on-music-cd's fiasco. I have not forgotten. If I am ever going to buy a sony product again, there must be a seriously compelling reason.
I don't think the Playstation department had anything to do with that.
The PS3 includes an expensive blue-ray player. It is worthless to me. I expect it is equally worthless to most people who are considering buying a PS3. If they want to lower their hardware costs, they should just get rid of that.
I'd say the Bluray support is important to most people buying the PS3. I doubt many of them are hooked up to non-HDTVs.
Instead, they lowered hardware costs by removing the hardware emulation for the ps2. As I understand, that means that the latest ps3's won't play the old games. That is no good, as I like some of the old games and want to play them.
Ah! Finally, a good point. You won't be able to get rid of your old PS2 if you want a PS3. And there are many different PS3 models, all with different capabilities. Muddying up the product line was a stupid idea.
The xbox 360, aside from being cheaper, and from supporting all the games I want to play (especially including the big releases), is fully backwards compatible. It provides better value all around.
The 360 is a great buy if you don't mind losing all your data and having to wait a week for turnaround after it fails (which happens about once a year). It would help if you enjoy paying $20 to replace discs the defective tray mechanism scratches up, as well. Also, the backwards compatibility is more like 60%, and it skews towards older games. Better check the list of your favorite games. And you'd better hope that the next generation of Xbox holds up better, and offers better backwards compatibility, because otherwise those $60 discs and all your DLC will be useless.
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
I for one was outraged by the original costs. Look, accidents happen where people are at work, but almost $250 per unit for dropping parts alone... I'm glad they're more careful now.
The trick isn't to use each SPU. The trick is to fully use the SPU and not have it waiting for memory look-ups or core-to-core communication.
The trick isn't to use each SPU. The trick is to fully use the SPU and not have it waiting for memory look-ups or core-to-core communication.
Which is definitely not a "no problem" kind of situation. Look at the list of canceled PS3 games, heck, even EA had issues getting red alert 3 onto it! It is not a simple nor easy setup. Anyone that has any experience threading systems could tell you that, especially across asymmetric cores!
Actually, forget that.
The Gamecube WAS THE bleeding edge in its day. And it still managed to turn a profit. But I think it was 300$ 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?