There are so many forms of competition that multiple humans can engage in. Why the obscession with combat in MMORPGs? Are we all savages? I can only think of one massive game out there that breaks the mold, and is marketed as a mainstream title. With all these competing developers trying to differentiate themselves, why aren't we seeing more games where the focus is something other than combat? While they're at it, they can try to come up with something where the number of hours you've logged in the game (experience points) and how quick your reflexes are, or how big a group you can coordinate as the sole characteristics that determine victory.
I think it's time we look back into the history of multi-player online gaming and start to pull some concepts from BBS doors. Sure, some had combat... Real-time even; but many had other forms of competition as well. Trading, creative construction, logic, politics, etc...
sold out the first day (or two) & there weren't any more units for another month (like the PS2)
Except that's not what happened with the PS2. The PS2 had a largish initial supply that sold out in pre-orders, then a steady trickle of consoles about the size (if not larger) than what Microsoft is planning. The K-B Toys in my local mall, for example, had over 60 they sold as pre-orders, and then had about 10 a day from then on. Those additional 10 all sold out within an hour of when UPS arrived every day. There was no period where there were no units for a month.
Right, that's a great point. In order to allow access to visually impared people without making them use the screen reader software they already own, we should instead impair access to all of the non-disabled people who can't afford either Office 12, or the computer upgrade required to run it. Along with all people of future generations (visually impaired people included). That makes a lot of sense.
The comment that people are directly, financially influenced by Microsoft is clearly rediculous (they may, however, have their opinion clouded through belief of Microsoft marketing information), but the real issue here is whether anybody will be able to access this information in 50 years when Microsoft doesn't sell Office 12 anymore, and isn't maintaining the MSXML format documentation. That requires an open format specification, and has nothing to do with patents at all.
Think about it. If you don't use an open format you've got to migrate all your documents with each new version for continued access. The second you miss a version, from the persoective of the majority of people you've lost your data. With an open format you have no ongoing expenses because people are free to interpret the information based on the readily available instructions.
It depends on how many people who bought Oblivion bundles ask for their pre-order money back instead of taking another game. It's not like there are any other RPGs they can get instead.
I wonder if this is because they're still busy making the game run well on the Xbox 360 with no hard drive?
If they are, then it sucks for all of us who'd rather play it on the PC and now have to wait so they can get whatever bounty Microsoft paid to them to get a simultanious release. It *really* sucks for all the people who pre-ordered a 360 in an Oblivion bundle and are now going to have it swapped out with some other non-RPG title that they probably weren't interested in.
Either way, I hope they hurry. I spent $500 upgrading my PC mostly in anticipation this game.
Removing and bypassing are two completely different things. If removing DRM software from your computer was illegal under the DMCA, simple tasks like formatting your hard drive, or throwing out an old DVD player would be illegal. Additionally, if you delete it the system is still in place on the CD (presumably to be automatically re-installed next time you insert the disc), and thus not defeated.
University honor codes: teaching teenagers how not to get ahead in the real world. Being "honorable" is only a good idea when you can guarantee that everybody else plays by the same rules. This is a perfect example of why that doesn't work. The phone company doesn't have an honor code they have to live by...
Good thing for schools like this, only the students have to abide by an honor code.
I'm curious to hear what your guess is. I have a decent idea from your user name and web link, but it doesn't match your commentary in any way, so please... Be more specific.
You do know which party people turn to when they want a powerful central authority to take care of them, right? You do know who promises social welfare, corporate regulation, protectionist economic policy, and universal health care, right? You do know that there was only one candidate in the last election that would make any sense as your guess, right? You do know that he lost, right?
You can almost always get out of a contract if it's for cause. If SBC is demonstrably failing to provide you with service that is fit for the purpose it's advertised for (sending and receiving data over the internet), they are the ones that broke contract, and you don't have to pay the fee. It doesn't even matter if they "protect themselves" in your contract. They're not going to show up at a small claims court hearing, and if they do, they'll lose, because in practically every state there are some rights that you just can't sign away in a contract.
Yes, this works. I have used it to get out of early termination fees on DSL lines that didn't work as well as they should have twice in the past. The only "downside" is that you'll never be able to get DSL from that particular company again.
News Flash! Merrill Lynch analyst went to a more expensive school and makes more money than you.
The analyst learned how to make safe bets and talk out of his ass. There's a reason the word 'analyst' starts with 'anal.' I learned how to actually build things, and reduce the costs of what goes into them. I have about as much respect for 90% of market analysts as I have for astrologers. They both use exactly the same 'skills' for their jobs.
I was actually talking about Bill Gates' money not Microsoft's.
Yeah, he's going to blow his cash to give you a better video game machine. Thanks for the laugh.
You try to pass opionion as fact. Sorry not buying it.
I did? You must have the reading comprehension of a...
They figured out how to make cheap Blu-ray Drives 10 years ago?
They figured out how to make plastic lenses, tiny stepper motors, disc trays, plastic bezels, 20 gague steel boxes, ribbon cables, nylon worm gears, rubber belts, laser diodes and CMOS electronics 10 (or more) years ago, yes.
So now you make CD-ROM drives too?
Not personally, but I didn't spend $80,000 on an engineering degree for nothing, and you don't have to make 'em to know what goes inside of one.
And Sony fits in that category because their stock has been doing so well the last couple years.
No, they fit into that category because they consistantly make a profit. Something that their stock price is only tied to indirectly. (Profits don't increase stock price... Growth increases stock price. You don't need to grow, or increase the value of your stock to stay quite healthily in business though.)
All I read is assumptions and speculation from you. So yes you are just like all the people you hate.
First of all, you've only seen me speculate up until now. No assumptions.
Second, there's nothing wrong with speculation. The people I'm talking about make their arguments with a bias that's based on something independant of the objective discussion. Which...
The thing with Microsoft is the world's richest person runs it and has a little loose change that he could lose. Sony's time is running out.
... it would appear you have demonstrated describes you perfectly. Microsoft is a publically traded company, just like Sony. They can't just burn cash because they have it sitting around. This is recently demonstrated by Microsoft's shareholders demanding dividends. You know that big pile of cash they're sitting on? It turns out that they have to spend it responsibly after all.. Which is why I think they'll actually go for making a profit this time around rather than spending a ton of money and having no profits, only market share to show for it. It's not internet forum fanboy king-of-the hill. It's business. It's not the guy with the most polygons, video memory, or unit sales that wins, it's the guy with the biggest number at the end of their balance sheet, and Microsoft is well poised to have a good shot at moving up into second place.
Now if you don't mind, since you've just proven you're incapable of rational discussion on this topic, I see no reason to continue this thread. Bye.
I don't think their point was that the economies were the same. I think the point was that the server technology required to run stock trades was the same as the server technology that makes up the backend of an online game.... And if they can make it work if there are real dollars on the line; when it isn't a game, imagine what they can do with your actual game.
Sorry, but I don't believe you. You're telling me that you're still using a 16x CD-ROM drive from 1999 in your computer (and that it still works), you don't own any of the current generation gaming consoles, and you don't have a DVD player.
I'm sure that you have either purchased a new computer in the last five years, own a PS2 or an Xbox, or have a TV with a DVD player in your house... probably all of the above. Those are all devices that can play CDs and CD-Rs and they're all devices that paid a royalty to the CD IP collective.
With my numbers they still lose money or break even on systems sales but your forgetting marketing and R+D costs again.
No I'm not. That works itself out through the magic of amortization. You see, the cost of each part produced by a company is calculated to be the price of the phyiscal goods and labor, plus the R&D and production costs of the entire product line divided by the number of units you expect to produce over the life of the product. Smart business people under-estimate the number of sales they're going to have when they make that calculation. Your analyst knows this too, though he probably ignored it and used that as justification for his "losing $100 per unit" analysis.
The other thing Sony knows is that it's often cheaper to convert low-margin production facilities over to a more profitable product line than it is to build new factories. Hence this announcement.
The PS3 won't fail because of fanboy's like you.
What? So being objective is being a fanboy now. You don't know me, so you have no business making assumptions. The only reason I'm having this argument is that I'm sick of fanboys using this false argument to declare one gaming company or another dead.
If this were a thread about the Xbox 360, I'd have been making the same arguments. Microsoft won't be allowing themselves to take the big losses on the 360 that they did on the first Xbox. I'd bet money that they're only losing about $20 on the $299 version, and turning a healthy profit on the $399 version of the 360. The design of the 360 clearly shows that Microsoft has learned these lessons and knows how to make a profitable machine this time around.
I'm arguing with you about conventional console wisdom, not about how cool Sony is.
More realistically they will lose money on systems because they are using Blu-ray drives. How many of those drives have you seen for sale?
Gee, who makes Blu-Ray drives? I wonder who sony is going to have to buy them from. Clearly they're going to pay a new-technology markup to whomever that is...
90%+ of the technology in next genereation optical drives is the same as what is in 52x CD-ROM drives that sell for $15 at retail. The techniques for building nine out of the last ten percent of the parts are also the same as stuff that's already in use. The first Blu-Ray and HD-DVD drives will be expensive because the profit margins on them will be insanely high, not because the parts are expensive to make. The only reason other companies can't get away with putting this stuff in their systems is that they have to buy their drives instead of making their drives. Why do you think that Sony has pushed so hard for Blu-Ray instead of coming to a compromise with the HD-DVD consortium? It's all about money, and Sony would rather have had the ability to make tens of millions of players and game consoles on the cheap than to pay royalties or buy components from somebody else.
That's a pretty big assumption that they will figure out how to make parts cheap in 6 months.
See, that's the trick. They figured out how to make the parts cheap ten years ago. The only expensive parts are going to be the new processors.
When is the last time you bought a Sony TV? VCR? DVD/CD Player? Monitor? Walkmen?
What does that have to do with their media business? They make most of their money on content, playstation, and intellectual property licensing.
When's the last time you bought something that plays CDs? When you did, no matter what brand it was, you gave Sony money.
Here's the math. System costs $500 to make. They sell it for $400. The person only buys 5 games. They make $25 to $50 on the games. That is a loss of $50 to $75. Plus Marketing costs and R+D costs.
You're contradicting yourself. You say they sell enough games, but then you pull a situation that where they don't. Remember, I said to assume you were right. You're assuming that you're wrong.
If the PS3 flops, the won't sell systems, so they won't lose much money. More realistically though, they'll sell systems for a profit, because that analyst is basing costs based on today's market, but Sony is making the parts themselves and will have figured out how to make the parts for much less by then. Remember that six months is a long time in the electronics business.
Speculation from an analyst is speculation from an analyst. It's all the same bullshit.
I'll go the other way. Gamecube is the only confirmed system to sell at a profit.
If you're only talking about at launch, then that's true. But why would a company tell people who think they're getting more than their money's worth that, in reality they aren't?
Sony develops their own chips so they can hide costs in R+D. Fabs cost billions of dollars.
Time to come back to the real world here. What's the motivation? These companies are in this to turn a profit, not to win some fanboy flamewar.
Please look up blade and razor business theory.
I think it's you that needs to look it up. The loss-leader business model works because the costs can be recouped. In the specific case of razor handles and blades that's because blades are disposable. They stop working after a few uses. Games are not. They can be re-sold, and they continue to work fine use after use. The average user only buys five or six new (I.E. not pre-owned) games over the life of a console, and less than that in the first year where the company needs to show profits on their balance sheet to keep the stock price up. That means when it comes to game consoles the loss leader model only works for prices that are only $20-30 under cost.
First party games? Unless you're Nintendo, the percentage of games for the platform isn't high enough to skew the numbers very much.
Now you get my first post. Good Luck Sony!
Don't forget that Sony also has a media business to keep them afloat. Plus, if you're right that would mean they succeeded with the PS2 without the help of their other divisions, so there's really no reason to assume they're in any trouble.
Please, describe for me a situation where you assume your analyst and commentary is right and Sony is in trouble financially from it.
It's not even a rumor (some guy saying he heard it from an official source), it's speculation. The only confirmed consoles to ever have sold at a loss in recent times are the Saturn, the Dreamcast, and the Xbox. There was speculation that Sony lost money on the PS2 for the first few months, but it isn't confirmed.
Hardly 'standard fare'.
Anyway, as far as that story goes, Console makers only take in $5-10 per third party game sold. There isn't a chance in hell that they'd bet the farm on selling 10 games for every PS3 sold. Especially since they need to see a return on investment within a year or so. Unless you're Microsoft and can get away with announcing to your stock holders that you're going to take a $1 billion loss on a product line, no console made by a publicly traded company will ever ship at a loss greater than can be recovered by the sale of three games. And if some company did do that, they would have that info public in a report to their stock holders.
The first one primes you, the second one fills in the details better. It's a common approach in writing.
There's more to it than that... This is known as spin:
3. (Politics) an interpretation of an event which is
favorable to the interpreter or to the person s/he
supports. A person whose task is to provide such
interpretations for public relations purposes is called a
{spin doctor}.
[PJC]
[1913 Webster]
In other words, the writer was trying to get you to form an opinion that you probably would not have, had you been presented with just the raw facts. Not only has it been common practice for decades (that definition was written in 1913), but it's been considered reprehensible for nearly as long.
This isn't speculating that the PS3 is going to be the same price as the Xbox360.
Yes it is (in Japan). The 360 will cost about 38,000 yen. Otherwise known as slightly under 40,000 yen. Otherwise known as exactly what this article is talking about...
The real question is how a blogger on 1up.com drawing conclusions on information from another blogger who is apparently purely speculating (albiet with data that is a safe bet) considered interesting enough to be "news"?
Wow, speculation that the price of a next-gen technology will be about the same as the price of next-gen technology that was already announced by a competitor, and speculation that there will be minor incompatibilities with older software on new hardware.
In other news, when the cloudiness clears up the sky will probably be blue.
More efficient processors are only just closing in on 3ghz...
Who cares? They're more efficient. They don't need to run at 3ghz to be faster that the old stuff. Just because the clock speed isn't there yet doesn't mean the performance hasn't gone up. Look how many times AMD has pulled ahead of Intel in performance, and they've never even shipped a 3ghz CPU. The only thing that has fallen off is the power of intel's old marketing. The only reason there's a 3ghz number to "catch up to" is that so much performance was given up to hit those timings.
IPC isn't really that good a measure of efficiency either. What kind of instruction? How much work does that single instruction do? How long did it take to get the data for that instruction? IPC numbers are always calculated with "fast" instructions that have no, or few, wait states.
If all you're comparing is clock speed, or "IPC", you're not getting a very good performance comparison.
Intel and AMD have clearly indicated that the good old days are over by introducing dual-core chips...
Sounds more to me like the good ol' days are finally here. Multi-core has been a goal for years, but was available only to those with the deepest pockets. Intel and AMD bringing multi-core to the masses doesn't mean they've run out of ideas for increasing single core performance so much as it means they've figured out how to throw a few more cores on a die in a cost effective manner. As for multi-threading (a far too simplistic way to describe what you need to do to properly process in parallel), the fastest computers have always been highly parallel. We know how to do that stuff now. It's not rocket science. End users don't typically program their machines anyway, and we could do with weeding a bunch of the crappy engineers out of the job pool.
I'd think it's likely that most everybody with 5 digit UIDs were all here before registration, and held out for a few weeks/months before registering because we didn't trust you with our contact info.:)
Slashdot Mirror
There are so many forms of competition that multiple humans can engage in. Why the obscession with combat in MMORPGs? Are we all savages? I can only think of one massive game out there that breaks the mold, and is marketed as a mainstream title. With all these competing developers trying to differentiate themselves, why aren't we seeing more games where the focus is something other than combat? While they're at it, they can try to come up with something where the number of hours you've logged in the game (experience points) and how quick your reflexes are, or how big a group you can coordinate as the sole characteristics that determine victory.
I think it's time we look back into the history of multi-player online gaming and start to pull some concepts from BBS doors. Sure, some had combat... Real-time even; but many had other forms of competition as well. Trading, creative construction, logic, politics, etc...
Really, is anybody chomping at the bit to get one of these *now*?
Of all my friends and co-workers (100+ people, probably 80% gamers, more than half have Xbox) I know *one* person with a pre-order.
That's my bit of anecdotal evidence. To be fair, I don't know many people in the 16-19 year old age range anymore...
sold out the first day (or two) & there weren't any more units for another month (like the PS2)
Except that's not what happened with the PS2. The PS2 had a largish initial supply that sold out in pre-orders, then a steady trickle of consoles about the size (if not larger) than what Microsoft is planning. The K-B Toys in my local mall, for example, had over 60 they sold as pre-orders, and then had about 10 a day from then on. Those additional 10 all sold out within an hour of when UPS arrived every day. There was no period where there were no units for a month.
Right, that's a great point. In order to allow access to visually impared people without making them use the screen reader software they already own, we should instead impair access to all of the non-disabled people who can't afford either Office 12, or the computer upgrade required to run it. Along with all people of future generations (visually impaired people included). That makes a lot of sense.
The comment that people are directly, financially influenced by Microsoft is clearly rediculous (they may, however, have their opinion clouded through belief of Microsoft marketing information), but the real issue here is whether anybody will be able to access this information in 50 years when Microsoft doesn't sell Office 12 anymore, and isn't maintaining the MSXML format documentation. That requires an open format specification, and has nothing to do with patents at all.
Think about it. If you don't use an open format you've got to migrate all your documents with each new version for continued access. The second you miss a version, from the persoective of the majority of people you've lost your data. With an open format you have no ongoing expenses because people are free to interpret the information based on the readily available instructions.
It depends on how many people who bought Oblivion bundles ask for their pre-order money back instead of taking another game. It's not like there are any other RPGs they can get instead.
I wonder if this is because they're still busy making the game run well on the Xbox 360 with no hard drive?
If they are, then it sucks for all of us who'd rather play it on the PC and now have to wait so they can get whatever bounty Microsoft paid to them to get a simultanious release. It *really* sucks for all the people who pre-ordered a 360 in an Oblivion bundle and are now going to have it swapped out with some other non-RPG title that they probably weren't interested in.
Either way, I hope they hurry. I spent $500 upgrading my PC mostly in anticipation this game.
Removing and bypassing are two completely different things. If removing DRM software from your computer was illegal under the DMCA, simple tasks like formatting your hard drive, or throwing out an old DVD player would be illegal. Additionally, if you delete it the system is still in place on the CD (presumably to be automatically re-installed next time you insert the disc), and thus not defeated.
University honor codes: teaching teenagers how not to get ahead in the real world. Being "honorable" is only a good idea when you can guarantee that everybody else plays by the same rules. This is a perfect example of why that doesn't work. The phone company doesn't have an honor code they have to live by...
Good thing for schools like this, only the students have to abide by an honor code.
I'm curious to hear what your guess is. I have a decent idea from your user name and web link, but it doesn't match your commentary in any way, so please... Be more specific.
You do know which party people turn to when they want a powerful central authority to take care of them, right? You do know who promises social welfare, corporate regulation, protectionist economic policy, and universal health care, right? You do know that there was only one candidate in the last election that would make any sense as your guess, right? You do know that he lost, right?
You can almost always get out of a contract if it's for cause. If SBC is demonstrably failing to provide you with service that is fit for the purpose it's advertised for (sending and receiving data over the internet), they are the ones that broke contract, and you don't have to pay the fee. It doesn't even matter if they "protect themselves" in your contract. They're not going to show up at a small claims court hearing, and if they do, they'll lose, because in practically every state there are some rights that you just can't sign away in a contract.
Yes, this works. I have used it to get out of early termination fees on DSL lines that didn't work as well as they should have twice in the past. The only "downside" is that you'll never be able to get DSL from that particular company again.
News Flash! Merrill Lynch analyst went to a more expensive school and makes more money than you.
...
The analyst learned how to make safe bets and talk out of his ass. There's a reason the word 'analyst' starts with 'anal.' I learned how to actually build things, and reduce the costs of what goes into them. I have about as much respect for 90% of market analysts as I have for astrologers. They both use exactly the same 'skills' for their jobs.
I was actually talking about Bill Gates' money not Microsoft's.
Yeah, he's going to blow his cash to give you a better video game machine. Thanks for the laugh.
You try to pass opionion as fact. Sorry not buying it.
I did? You must have the reading comprehension of a
It must suck to be schooled by a 12 year old.
Oh. Right. Sorry.
They figured out how to make cheap Blu-ray Drives 10 years ago?
... it would appear you have demonstrated describes you perfectly. Microsoft is a publically traded company, just like Sony. They can't just burn cash because they have it sitting around. This is recently demonstrated by Microsoft's shareholders demanding dividends. You know that big pile of cash they're sitting on? It turns out that they have to spend it responsibly after all.. Which is why I think they'll actually go for making a profit this time around rather than spending a ton of money and having no profits, only market share to show for it. It's not internet forum fanboy king-of-the hill. It's business. It's not the guy with the most polygons, video memory, or unit sales that wins, it's the guy with the biggest number at the end of their balance sheet, and Microsoft is well poised to have a good shot at moving up into second place.
They figured out how to make plastic lenses, tiny stepper motors, disc trays, plastic bezels, 20 gague steel boxes, ribbon cables, nylon worm gears, rubber belts, laser diodes and CMOS electronics 10 (or more) years ago, yes.
So now you make CD-ROM drives too?
Not personally, but I didn't spend $80,000 on an engineering degree for nothing, and you don't have to make 'em to know what goes inside of one.
And Sony fits in that category because their stock has been doing so well the last couple years.
No, they fit into that category because they consistantly make a profit. Something that their stock price is only tied to indirectly. (Profits don't increase stock price... Growth increases stock price. You don't need to grow, or increase the value of your stock to stay quite healthily in business though.)
All I read is assumptions and speculation from you. So yes you are just like all the people you hate.
First of all, you've only seen me speculate up until now. No assumptions.
Second, there's nothing wrong with speculation. The people I'm talking about make their arguments with a bias that's based on something independant of the objective discussion. Which...
The thing with Microsoft is the world's richest person runs it and has a little loose change that he could lose. Sony's time is running out.
Now if you don't mind, since you've just proven you're incapable of rational discussion on this topic, I see no reason to continue this thread. Bye.
I don't think their point was that the economies were the same. I think the point was that the server technology required to run stock trades was the same as the server technology that makes up the backend of an online game.... And if they can make it work if there are real dollars on the line; when it isn't a game, imagine what they can do with your actual game.
Probably 5 years ago.
Sorry, but I don't believe you. You're telling me that you're still using a 16x CD-ROM drive from 1999 in your computer (and that it still works), you don't own any of the current generation gaming consoles, and you don't have a DVD player.
I'm sure that you have either purchased a new computer in the last five years, own a PS2 or an Xbox, or have a TV with a DVD player in your house... probably all of the above. Those are all devices that can play CDs and CD-Rs and they're all devices that paid a royalty to the CD IP collective.
With my numbers they still lose money or break even on systems sales but your forgetting marketing and R+D costs again.
No I'm not. That works itself out through the magic of amortization. You see, the cost of each part produced by a company is calculated to be the price of the phyiscal goods and labor, plus the R&D and production costs of the entire product line divided by the number of units you expect to produce over the life of the product. Smart business people under-estimate the number of sales they're going to have when they make that calculation. Your analyst knows this too, though he probably ignored it and used that as justification for his "losing $100 per unit" analysis.
The other thing Sony knows is that it's often cheaper to convert low-margin production facilities over to a more profitable product line than it is to build new factories. Hence this announcement.
The PS3 won't fail because of fanboy's like you.
What? So being objective is being a fanboy now. You don't know me, so you have no business making assumptions. The only reason I'm having this argument is that I'm sick of fanboys using this false argument to declare one gaming company or another dead.
If this were a thread about the Xbox 360, I'd have been making the same arguments. Microsoft won't be allowing themselves to take the big losses on the 360 that they did on the first Xbox. I'd bet money that they're only losing about $20 on the $299 version, and turning a healthy profit on the $399 version of the 360. The design of the 360 clearly shows that Microsoft has learned these lessons and knows how to make a profitable machine this time around.
I'm arguing with you about conventional console wisdom, not about how cool Sony is.
More realistically they will lose money on systems because they are using Blu-ray drives. How many of those drives have you seen for sale?
Gee, who makes Blu-Ray drives? I wonder who sony is going to have to buy them from. Clearly they're going to pay a new-technology markup to whomever that is...
90%+ of the technology in next genereation optical drives is the same as what is in 52x CD-ROM drives that sell for $15 at retail. The techniques for building nine out of the last ten percent of the parts are also the same as stuff that's already in use. The first Blu-Ray and HD-DVD drives will be expensive because the profit margins on them will be insanely high, not because the parts are expensive to make. The only reason other companies can't get away with putting this stuff in their systems is that they have to buy their drives instead of making their drives. Why do you think that Sony has pushed so hard for Blu-Ray instead of coming to a compromise with the HD-DVD consortium? It's all about money, and Sony would rather have had the ability to make tens of millions of players and game consoles on the cheap than to pay royalties or buy components from somebody else.
That's a pretty big assumption that they will figure out how to make parts cheap in 6 months.
See, that's the trick. They figured out how to make the parts cheap ten years ago. The only expensive parts are going to be the new processors.
When is the last time you bought a Sony TV? VCR? DVD/CD Player? Monitor? Walkmen?
What does that have to do with their media business? They make most of their money on content, playstation, and intellectual property licensing.
When's the last time you bought something that plays CDs? When you did, no matter what brand it was, you gave Sony money.
Here's the math. System costs $500 to make. They sell it for $400. The person only buys 5 games. They make $25 to $50 on the games. That is a loss of $50 to $75. Plus Marketing costs and R+D costs.
You're contradicting yourself. You say they sell enough games, but then you pull a situation that where they don't. Remember, I said to assume you were right. You're assuming that you're wrong.
If the PS3 flops, the won't sell systems, so they won't lose much money. More realistically though, they'll sell systems for a profit, because that analyst is basing costs based on today's market, but Sony is making the parts themselves and will have figured out how to make the parts for much less by then. Remember that six months is a long time in the electronics business.
Speculation from Merril Lynch of Japan...
Speculation from an analyst is speculation from an analyst. It's all the same bullshit.
I'll go the other way. Gamecube is the only confirmed system to sell at a profit.
If you're only talking about at launch, then that's true. But why would a company tell people who think they're getting more than their money's worth that, in reality they aren't?
Sony develops their own chips so they can hide costs in R+D. Fabs cost billions of dollars.
Time to come back to the real world here. What's the motivation? These companies are in this to turn a profit, not to win some fanboy flamewar.
Please look up blade and razor business theory.
I think it's you that needs to look it up. The loss-leader business model works because the costs can be recouped. In the specific case of razor handles and blades that's because blades are disposable. They stop working after a few uses. Games are not. They can be re-sold, and they continue to work fine use after use. The average user only buys five or six new (I.E. not pre-owned) games over the life of a console, and less than that in the first year where the company needs to show profits on their balance sheet to keep the stock price up. That means when it comes to game consoles the loss leader model only works for prices that are only $20-30 under cost.
First party games? Unless you're Nintendo, the percentage of games for the platform isn't high enough to skew the numbers very much.
Now you get my first post. Good Luck Sony!
Don't forget that Sony also has a media business to keep them afloat. Plus, if you're right that would mean they succeeded with the PS2 without the help of their other divisions, so there's really no reason to assume they're in any trouble.
Please, describe for me a situation where you assume your analyst and commentary is right and Sony is in trouble financially from it.
It's not even a rumor (some guy saying he heard it from an official source), it's speculation. The only confirmed consoles to ever have sold at a loss in recent times are the Saturn, the Dreamcast, and the Xbox. There was speculation that Sony lost money on the PS2 for the first few months, but it isn't confirmed.
Hardly 'standard fare'.
Anyway, as far as that story goes, Console makers only take in $5-10 per third party game sold. There isn't a chance in hell that they'd bet the farm on selling 10 games for every PS3 sold. Especially since they need to see a return on investment within a year or so. Unless you're Microsoft and can get away with announcing to your stock holders that you're going to take a $1 billion loss on a product line, no console made by a publicly traded company will ever ship at a loss greater than can be recovered by the sale of three games. And if some company did do that, they would have that info public in a report to their stock holders.
A good projection TV is indistinguishable from a plasma TV
No they aren't. In may ways, they're easily distinguishable.
Why aren't people buying projection instead of plasma?
They are.
Says who?
The first one primes you, the second one fills in the details better. It's a common approach in writing.
There's more to it than that... This is known as spin:
3. (Politics) an interpretation of an event which is
favorable to the interpreter or to the person s/he
supports. A person whose task is to provide such
interpretations for public relations purposes is called a
{spin doctor}.
[PJC]
[1913 Webster]
In other words, the writer was trying to get you to form an opinion that you probably would not have, had you been presented with just the raw facts. Not only has it been common practice for decades (that definition was written in 1913), but it's been considered reprehensible for nearly as long.
This isn't speculating that the PS3 is going to be the same price as the Xbox360.
Yes it is (in Japan). The 360 will cost about 38,000 yen. Otherwise known as slightly under 40,000 yen. Otherwise known as exactly what this article is talking about...
The real question is how a blogger on 1up.com drawing conclusions on information from another blogger who is apparently purely speculating (albiet with data that is a safe bet) considered interesting enough to be "news"?
Wow, speculation that the price of a next-gen technology will be about the same as the price of next-gen technology that was already announced by a competitor, and speculation that there will be minor incompatibilities with older software on new hardware.
In other news, when the cloudiness clears up the sky will probably be blue.
More efficient processors are only just closing in on 3ghz...
Who cares? They're more efficient. They don't need to run at 3ghz to be faster that the old stuff. Just because the clock speed isn't there yet doesn't mean the performance hasn't gone up. Look how many times AMD has pulled ahead of Intel in performance, and they've never even shipped a 3ghz CPU. The only thing that has fallen off is the power of intel's old marketing. The only reason there's a 3ghz number to "catch up to" is that so much performance was given up to hit those timings.
IPC isn't really that good a measure of efficiency either. What kind of instruction? How much work does that single instruction do? How long did it take to get the data for that instruction? IPC numbers are always calculated with "fast" instructions that have no, or few, wait states.
If all you're comparing is clock speed, or "IPC", you're not getting a very good performance comparison.
Intel and AMD have clearly indicated that the good old days are over by introducing dual-core chips...
Sounds more to me like the good ol' days are finally here. Multi-core has been a goal for years, but was available only to those with the deepest pockets. Intel and AMD bringing multi-core to the masses doesn't mean they've run out of ideas for increasing single core performance so much as it means they've figured out how to throw a few more cores on a die in a cost effective manner. As for multi-threading (a far too simplistic way to describe what you need to do to properly process in parallel), the fastest computers have always been highly parallel. We know how to do that stuff now. It's not rocket science. End users don't typically program their machines anyway, and we could do with weeding a bunch of the crappy engineers out of the job pool.
I'd think it's likely that most everybody with 5 digit UIDs were all here before registration, and held out for a few weeks/months before registering because we didn't trust you with our contact info. :)
Nope. DirecTV. It's the DSR7000 made by Phillips, not the DVR7000. Sorry about that.