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Sony Finally Turning a Profit On PS3s

Posted by Soulskill on from the catching-up-with-moore dept.

When the PS3 launched in 2006, estimates pegged the price of producing the consoles to be as much as $250 more than the price at which they were sold. Production costs have dropped since then, but there have been several price cuts as well. Now, almost four years later, Sony Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida says they're finally turning a profit on the hardware. "This year is the first time that we are able to cover the cost of the PlayStation 3,' Yoshida said. 'We aren't making huge money from hardware, but we aren't bleeding like we used to.' In May, Sony began shipping new PlayStation 3 consoles with smaller and more cost-effective graphics chips. Now, Yoshida said, Sony is looking at replenishing retail stock that has been running on empty since January rather than cutting the price. 'When we bring the cost of hardware down, we are looking at opportunities to adjust prices if we believe that will increase demand,' he explained. 'At the moment, we are trying to catch up our production.'"

5 of 117 comments (clear)

  1. Nintendo says... by GrumblyStuff · · Score: 4, Funny

    "What's that?! Speak up! I can't hear you from this giant pool of money I'm swimming like Scrooge McDuck!"

    1. Re:Nintendo says... by Troed · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Handy tip for those who don't know: Add #t=XXmYYs to any Youtube link to jump directly to that timestamp.

      The above AC link would become http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vouJTvrpHGQ#t=3m30s - and you can thus easier see how non-funny it was.

      --
      it's in my head
  2. Re:Why cut prices? by GrumblyStuff · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Features such as PS2 backward compatibility. I'd mention Linux but, frankly, the backward compatibility is the big one.

    Funny that they don't mention dropping hardware for PS2 games. Wikipedia says they don't even emulate anymore. Guess that saves them some time and money too.

  3. And just in time! by Psaakyrn · · Score: 4, Funny

    Now, they can start not making a profit again when they ship Move!

  4. Re:Why cut prices? by Narishma · · Score: 4, Informative

    You can see the evidence if you open a PS3 with PS2 backwards compatibility, and one without and compare their motherboards (or go to a website that does that sort of thing). Then you'll see that the newer ones don't have the PS2 chips. PS2 emulation on PS3 always relied on PS2 hardware inside the PS3. At first it had both the CPU and GPU, then they removed the CPU and emulated it on the Cell processor but left the GPU in there. Finally they removed the GPU so it wasn't possible to run PS2 games anymore. I don't think the PS3 is powerful enough to emulate PS2 games at full speed in software.

    --
    Mada mada dane.