Breaking Down the Dropping Parts Cost for Sony's PS3 302
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."
Sony needs to... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Sony needs to... (Score:5, Insightful)
They still need to make money.
If you sell at a loss you don't make it up in volume, you just create a larger loss. I am not sure why people in slashdot never think of this concept that a for profit company kinda needs to make profit. Selling at a loss doesn't create profit. Sony is better off trying to prove that the Play Station is worth the cost, vs. selling at a loss. Even if they don't make #1 seller for the PS 3 they will make money from their units sold. And perhaps the PS 4 can get back.
Re:Sony needs to... (Score:4, Insightful)
They can still make money by selling the console at a loss. They just need to sell enough PS3s to create a large enough market for games.
Re:Sony needs to... (Score:4, Insightful)
It is a myth that you can sell consoles for a large loss and make up for that in games. No console has ever had an attach rate high enough to take a $150 loss on each unit and still make money. This is not even factoring in shipping, support, development and operating expenses.
Re:Sony needs to... (Score:5, Insightful)
That is slightly modified for Sony and the PS3 as it pretty much won them the format war for HD video.
I don't know how you'd begin to calculate what that is/will be "worth" to them. Plus there are additional revenue streams these days (ie online purchases) that don't effect attach rate but could bring a lot of profit.
That said I think the Nintendo model makes a lot more sense.
Re:Sony needs to... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, it's a great business model.
Step 1) Sell product at more than it costs to make
Step 2) ????
Step 3) Profit!
Nintendo is run by amazing businessmen. :)
Correction on "bleeding edge" (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, forget that.
The Gamecube WAS THE bleeding edge in its day. And it still managed to turn a profit. But I think it was 300$ 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.
Re:Sony needs to... (Score:4, Insightful)
Consoles are a tricky thing. If they sold every PS3 at a decent profit margin then very few would sell and that in turn would lead to less games being developed. My guess is that they have a curve of cost vs. sales price. Originally they sell them at a loss to get them out there with the understanding that over time their input costs will drop and they'll eventually be on the positive side of the curve. Look at the PS2. They sell for $100 now I think. I'd be curious to see how much one of those actually costs to make now. At this point their profit margin on a single PS2 is probably pretty high.
Re:Sony needs to... (Score:2)
Well lets assume that that Sony will get $10 per game. That means you will need 12 games per unit on the average. At $50+ per game most people will not get that many games on average. That is why the tech bubble popped in the 90s, All you tech guys never realize how much everything costs to make a profit. There are a slew of tiny costs that add up. Selling at a loss in hopes of raising demand is risky and more often then not fails.
Re:Sony needs to... (Score:2)
> All you tech guys never realize...
Tell that to Bill Gates. He's selling the XBox you know. You non-tech-guys might have a thing or two to teach that tech guy.
Re:Sony needs to... (Score:3, Interesting)
Sony has virtually ALWAYS sold their consoles at a loss though. They're selling PS3 at a loss now, and they sold PS2 at a loss for most of the first part of it's lifespan. Selling the system at a loss and making that back up through game sales is nothing new, and has been pretty standard fare for Sony and MS for a while now.
Re:Sony needs to... (Score:2)
When attach rate figures are quoted, are those generally limited to newly purchased games?
As a side note, my (slight) interest in someday purchasing a PS3 evaporated when they cut backward compatibility.
Re:Sony needs to... (Score:2)
Which is why they are now trying to make the PS3 into the "everything machine".
Re:Sony needs to... (Score:2)
Which would be a great idea, if they would loosen up a little. They NEED to support common video formats, like mkv, and allow things like a MythTV Frontend to be written for it and use the full power of the GPU and cell processors. This would allow Myth, XBMC, Windows Media Center extenders, etc..
Until they do that, they are just trying to lock everyone into all Sony all the time. Not interesting for many people that already have an investment in other technologies. However, if they opened up a little, they could become the #1 convergence box. The thing has enough power to decode 1080p video and still do other stuff. So you could get the perfect set-top box that could play any video, Blu-Ray, and killer games all in one machine.
Sadly, it will likely never happen as Sony has the media side of the business to appease. Worries over people downloading content from the internet and copying games will prevent it. Of course, they could then sell said content over the net for a decent price and get more customers, but whatever.
Re:Sony needs to... (Score:2, Insightful)
You mean a "PC"?
Re:Sony needs to... (Score:2)
Objectively? Are the numbers from VG Chartz [vgchartz.com] skewed?
Re:Sony needs to... (Score:5, Interesting)
What I'd like to know is the real install base of the three consoles. You know, not every Xbox360 sold is actually going to a new customer due to a so-called RROD phenomenon. Is there any good data to clear that up?
Re:Sony needs to... (Score:2)
Likewise I know quite a few Wii's that grandparents got "for when the grandchildren come over" and rarely (if ever) get used.
Re:Sony needs to... (Score:2)
Likewise I know quite a few Wii's that grandparents got "for when the grandchildren come over" and rarely (if ever) get used.
Fortunately, Nintendo profits when you buy it not when you use it, so they don't really give a shit.
Re:Sony needs to... (Score:2)
The sales numbers are on new SALES, not on units manufactured.
MS replaces RRoD machines for free, so those don't get counted in the sales numbers.
You can use the overall sales numbers as an accurate indicator of relative install base.
You have maybe a 1% or less variation for the rare off chance someone purchases a new one after a breakage instead of just shipping it back for a free fix/replacement.
Re:Sony needs to... (Score:2)
The real install base doesn't matter, what matters is the amount of revenue (and profit) brought in by additional software and service purchases. This is what is known as attach rate, and the Xbox360 has a rather exceptionally high attach rate. And this is from a console which has long been hacked to run pirated/copied discs (the PS3 has not been hacked, which you would've thought might attract more game developers). I've always been shocked at how good the Xbox360 attach rate has been.
If half those Xbox consoles are landfilled due to RROD or other failures, then it just makes the real attach rate that much better and even more surprising. Despite the crap hardware and piracy, the Xbox360 is certainly moving software like mad.
P.S. PS3's suffering is not just high retail price, but apparently also the relatively sub-standard dev system which Sony provides. Essentially, the thing is a giant pain in the ass the work with, so dev houses won't spend the extra man-hours necessary programming for it.
Re:Sony needs to... (Score:2, Interesting)
I think the online part is more doable and more important for PS3 to compete. The 360 was better online to begin with, but since the update the PS3 is even further behind now.
It will be interesting to see if the games for PS3 start to really use that extra processing power. I feel that back in the sega nintendo days the first game was usually horrible compared to what developers were able to do after the system had been around a while. Do the new console wars prevent games from getting even close to that peak anymore? and will the PS3 be that next step? or will that take too long and the new Xbox III have better timing?
Re:Sony needs to... (Score:3)
I'd kill just to see better indy development for the PS3. All the best ones are going to the 360.
Lackluster online play for the PS3 is made up for by the fact that it appeals less to the teenage crowd who love the scream obscenities over the microphone because mom isn't listening at the moment. Not that the PS3 is completely devoid of teen angst, just has less of it.
Re:Sony needs to... (Score:2, Interesting)
Actually I just bought a brand new PS3 from Sony for $250. Sign up for a Sony Rewards card, and you get a new 80 gig PS3 for $250.
Mind you, Microsoft is losing tons of money with RRODs, and I'm not sure they can really afford to sell a 360 for $200, but they're doing it for market share.
My Wii is gathering dust, but Nintendo sells cheap hardware for a profit, and people can't get enough. Maybe they're the ones doing it right.
Re:Sony needs to... (Score:5, Informative)
>Actually I just bought a brand new PS3 from Sony for $250.
I did the same exact thing last year for $299, got the 40GB model. I bought the PS3 mainly for the BluRay player.
I did not WANT a credit card out of the deal (even if it is a Chase card), but I read the fine print:
$100 off a PS3,
NO INTEREST 12 months..
AND no yearly card fee?
I paid off the PS3 early at 10 months, the card is blank, and soon to be canceled. I told others, but no one believed the terms and I know 3 people who paid full price anyways. Wacky..
Re:Sony needs to... (Score:5, Insightful)
Nope. It doesn't hurt your credit score.
There are things that do hurt your score, like riding your credit limit over 50% on all your cards, or flipping a card like this when it is your "only" card. With 2 other accounts 5-10 years old, this doesn't even blip. My credit is in the high 700s every year when I check.
Yeah, I saw this got marked troll. There's someone abusing the moderation system. /. digg/bury moderation system is very "cathedral".. some people get picked to moderate all the time, and I haven't been asked in maybe 5 years. Someone who gets picked often does not like me, and the irony is I've probably been a faithful Slashdot poster for longer than half of that moderator's life.
The
Re:Sony needs to... (Score:4, Interesting)
The WSJ has the same take on the PS3. It is doomed. I am not so sure. Sony always plays to the big picture, is always, as the say in politics, on script. Sony has a lot of different interest, but what is interesting is that all these interests seem to play together, none of them go off script just because it might mean more profit in the unit. For instance, the MP3 players did not sweep the market due to the fact that Sony wanted to protect it's content interests and push the memory card standard. Some might call that a mistake, others might have said it would have been a mistake to stab other divisions in the back by doing otherwise.
So what has happened here. MS built a game console with very good games that they could sell relatively cheaply. Now, dollar for dollar it does not do so well as the WII, which it competes at the entry price level, is still selling more that the XBox. Wii sales doubled, Xbox relatively flat. To be clear, Wii sold twice as many units as XBox, and given street prices, many paid more for the Wii. OTOH, XBox games seems to be selling more. To make it cheap it did not include a big HD or a dvd drive. In effect, MS gave up the living room to save game console. But is likely not to even have the lions share of the game console market.
Sony used an integrated strategy. The built a more expensive console, but made it a complete unit, with blu ray. I think that many would agree that the blu ray decision was a factor in blu ray winning the format wars, and that this has long term strategic significance to Sony, most specifically in keeping the living room away from MS, who bet on HD DVD.
So Xbox likely has fewer consoles out there than Wii. Both are primed for streaming media, and not all XBox 360 are capable of playing stored movies, or at least not a lot of them. The PS3 is half in number, but each one is ready to play a new, expensive, and sometimes Sony generated blu ray disc. I think MS continues on it's way to win the battle but lose the war.
Re:Sony needs to... (Score:5, Interesting)
>I think that many would agree that the blu ray decision was a factor in blu ray winning the format wars, and that this has long term strategic significance to Sony, most specifically in keeping the living room away from MS, who bet on HD DVD.
As far as Microsoft's bet... Microsoft didn't bet anything_ on HD-DVD:
1) They just offered an add-on player and let their fanboys bet THEIR money on HD-DVD.
2) They threw a hundred mil or so at Toshiba. Toshiba lost a LOT of standing with consumers.
Toshiba's reputation sucks now... ask folks who bought last year's Walmart Toshiba HD-DVD players and all the movies they could. Funny how this debacle does not touch Microsoft any.
I don't think Microsoft wanted either format to gain critical mass - wide and early adoption is a threat to Microsoft's goal of 'services', including pay per view and digital downloads. Microsoft set HD video back by a year, that's all they got and that's all they wanted.
Re:Sony needs to... (Score:5, Informative)
I don't think Microsoft wanted either format to gain critical mass - wide and early adoption is a threat to Microsoft's goal of 'services', including pay per view and digital downloads. Microsoft set HD video back by a year, that's all they got and that's all they wanted.
I worked on the HD DVD team back then, and we manifestly wanted HD DVD to win, and we invested quite a lot in it. However, we didn't bet the Xbox 360 on it the way Sony bet the PS3 on BD (which appears to have been a good choice from the console business perspective). In the end, Sony was willing pay to whatever cost it took for BD to win.
Our interest was much more in delivering great video experiences than in which particular substrate thickness of polycarbonate imaged with a blue-violet laser won in the end.
This is a sample of what I've been working on these days:
http://smoothhd.com/ [smoothhd.com]
Still pre-beta, but I don't think that optical media will be the hard or the interesting part of HD video delivery much longer.
Re:Sony needs to... (Score:3, Funny)
Yes, but M$ have been convicted in the European Court of HUMAN RIGHTS for having an unnatural monopoly over the intarwebs. Or something.
Re:Sony needs to... (Score:3, Informative)
Microsoft developed the codecs used by *both* HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. Microsoft had no significant interest regarding which format took hold --- in either scenario, the players would be running Microsoft software. Microsoft's only interest was for the format war end quickly.
Oh, the codec side of things was relatively minor. We developed VC-1 and related tools, but have a patent position and a lot of involvement in H.264 as well, and that side of things always supported VC-1 on BD as well.
The bigger effort and team was focused on building the interactive players for the Toshiba and Xbox 360 players. The whole HDi layer was jointly developed by Microsoft and Disney.
As a XML markup + scripting code-behind, it was a lot like a subset of Silverlight, actually.
Re:Sony needs to... (Score:2)
Yup, that's what I like about Sony and Nintendo, their products have been extremely strategic, where Microsoft has seemed rather clumsy and as an after thought. In fact, I've questioned many times whether the 360 would have ever made it to market if Microsoft huge coffers weren't behind it.
Re:Sony needs to... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Sony needs to... (Score:5, Insightful)
People keep saying this while the Wiis market share keeps growing. I know 3 families that got Wiis for Christmas. All of these families were in the anti-video game crowd. Everyone one of them seems to enjoy their Wii. One friend of mine was excited about it because his wife goes..."it's great we can download the old nintendo games, because new games are too complicated to play."
I have played games since I was a kid and it's easy to miss just how appealing the Wii and its lack of 'real games' is to an apparently large majority of people.
Re:Sony needs to... (Score:2)
As a counter argument (somewhat), I have a friend who owns a Wii. He likes a quite a bit. He has maybe 4 games for it (Wii Fit, the Gillian Michaels/Biggest Loser Wii Fit game, Wii Sports, and I think RE4), but he and his wife have fun with it.
HOWEVER, he's constantly complaining that all the "cool games" that he sees on TV commercials are never for Wii. Most of the FPS games, war games, etc, are all for Xbox 360 or PS3. While, as stated, he loves his Wii, he's already stated that he intends to buy an XB360 very soon. And my guess is that despite playing both, he'll probably buy a lot more GAMES for the 360. Depending on sales numbers Microsoft might be quite happy selling fewer consoles but a larger variety of games if Wii's attachment rate bottoms out after a while.
And Xbox Live! Arcade also offers older/classic games for download. Not the old NES games, but a lot of others are available.
Re:Sony needs to... (Score:4, Insightful)
Luckily for Nintendo they've already made a decent product selling the Wii itself. They're making money faster than they can count it, and Wii's are selling just as quickly as they were two years ago (maybe even faster since availability is somewhat better) I don't think they care in the least if you buy an Xbox360 to sit next to your Wii.
Re:Sony needs to... (Score:5, Informative)
I bought a Wii the week they came out and I've got 14 game sitting on my shelf. I play what I find fun, not what gets all the buzz. After all, I'm the only one that can truly determine my happiness because if I let others determine it for me, well, they're living my life, I'm not living my own. So yeah, I see the commercials for "HypedGame 7 only on PS360!" and yawn. Big deal. Remember how cool Assassin's Creed was going to be? Or the hype of Heavenly Sword and how that was going to launch the PS3 into the lead for this generation? When was the last time either of those games were even mentioned? I haven't played either and, you know what, I didn't miss them. They were hyped, summarily beaten in hours, and forgotten by the hardcores.
It kinda reminds me of my EverCrack days, where the hardcore guilds would do everything they could to conquer the content as fast as possible, meaning devs were always working on new content to keep the hardcores happy, bugs went unfixed and the less hardcore raiders (not to mention the purely casual gamers) were completely ignored. It got to the point where most of the people playing the game never got to see even half the content in the game all to keep the hardcore junkies hooked and needing a fix.
Taking that back to the broader video game subject, the hardcore gamers are just moving from one big budget game to the next with very few really good games out there... and I think that's exactly the opposite of where we need to be. Yes, contemporary graphics are a good thing, but should as much effort go into rendering a rippled water reflection in a fountain that you're going to spend a half second running by as developers put into making the game actually fun, memorable and replayable? If I want perfect reality, I'll look out my window. I play games to have fun. And that... is what Nintendo is trying to tap into, making gmaes that are fun for a lot of people rather than a 30 second "gee whiz, look at that!" for a few people. And you know what? That's fine by me... which is why I'll stick with my Wii instead of getting caught up in the hype of the next XBox3 game.
Re:Sony needs to... (Score:2)
...even the Wii will probably fall short unless it gets real games. Ours, like everyone we know who has had one over three months, gathers dust.
Amen to that. I've got a Wii, and the only game I've got is super mario galaxy (which is very good btw). I know four other people who have a Wii, and _none_ of them have brought any games.
Everyone is applauding Nintendo's marketing genius for aiming at the "non-gamers" market. It might be a big market, but unfortunately its not a very lucrative market.
Re:Sony needs to... (Score:2)
Re:Sony needs to... (Score:2)
Re:Sony needs to... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Sony needs to... (Score:2)
Re:No Sony for me (Score:2)
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.
Re:Sony needs to... (Score:4, Informative)
GPU down from $83.17 to $58.01 (Score:5, Informative)
Because the summary probably won't be fixed.
Re:GPU down from $83.17 to $58.01 (Score:2)
I think you probably wrote that, while you were logged in. If not, please take a moment and read it, let its incorrectness sink in.
Summary gets GPU prices wrong (Score:3, Informative)
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?
Re:Summary gets GPU prices wrong (Score:2)
Even with the magic of web 2.0, that would still require him to read it. Massive fail, n00bster.
Exchange Rates? (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:Exchange Rates? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Exchange Rates? (Score:3, Insightful)
A stronger Yen means they're making LESS Yen by selling at the same price USD.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:If only Microsoft hadn't cut corners (Score:2)
Do you have evidence that the flaws that caused large numbers (I've heard estimates that its 1/3rd of all consoles that have had to be RMA'd) of xbox to go bad are due to corners cut? MS has been mum about what specifically causes the 360's to fail. Couldn't it just be that MS ordered a part from a factory/supplier and a flaw in the production process, or a flaw in design of the item, caused failures that weren't apparent in short term testing?
Re:If only Microsoft hadn't cut corners (Score:2, Interesting)
i have seen several 360's die each had the same issue which with hunting turned out to be a failure in the soder joints on the GPU due to excessive heat or some failure at that manufacturing point or maybe nV's fault (didn't they have a big back lash about GPU failures in laptops?) or it could have been alittle of all of the above.
over all the 360 is a great consol.. but also the only consumer electronic device that i would recomend buying and extended warrenty for (well recommend before MS extended the warrenty)
who knows.. i still refuse to pay that much for a consol.. the 360 or ps3.. the wii is nice.. but until the US version will let me play DVD movies like they said they where going to do (the Jap version does) then i can justify it.
Re:If only Microsoft hadn't cut corners (Score:5, Informative)
Hope that helps.
Re:If only Microsoft hadn't cut corners (Score:3, Interesting)
After looking into this a bit, it seems MS was in a rush to get the console out a year before the PS3, they also made several last-minute decisions (mainly the HD) that got in the way of the cooling (which is what is causing the RROD), also when an engineer found the DVD Scratching issue they decided not to do anything (vs two fixes that would cost them $$)
Both issues have come back to haunt them, the cooling issue still causes RROD on even newer models, and the DVD Scratching issue as well is still around on the newer models.
In short, MS was in to big of a rush to fix the problems so they passed them onto the consumer (why is anyone surprised?).
I for one like my PS3 and have no intention of getting a 360, there may be more games for it and more people playing but with such attitudes from the company I just don't want any part of it, I want to play games, not be waiting for it to come back from repair again.
Re:If only Microsoft hadn't cut corners (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Consistency Please! (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, not all these changes are good! (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Unfortunately, not all these changes are good! (Score:3, Informative)
Sony has also removed SACD support from the newer models.
Not a big deal since the overlap of SACD listeners and game players is probably me. But I'm very happy to own a 60 GB model, I just hope that when (not if) it breaks Sony can repair it and I can keep my 99% compatibility and the multi-channel PCM output of my SACDs over HDMI (my old SACD player would only output SACD over the 5.1 analog jacks).
Re:Unfortunately, not all these changes are good! (Score:2)
the overlap of SACD listeners and game players is probably me.
I feel the same way about how they are treating the media player features - I could do with a little more choice in the music player eye candy, and support for Web Radio streaming, and definitely a more support for selection of photos for the slideshows (like, why can't we get everything in a selected sub-folder?!?)
PS3 is cool for what it is, but I'm thinking that something like an eeeBox is eventually going to take over the primary HDMI input on our TV. I'm not ready to spend the money on hardware yet, but if Sony's media software support doesn't continue to improve, they're definitely on the way out from my living room.
Re:Unfortunately, not all these changes are good! (Score:2)
Re:Unfortunately, not all these changes are good! (Score:2)
Three of those are new products (NES 2, SNES 2, and DSi) and the fourth is a discontinued accessory. Is this new cheaper PS3 a whole new product launch or a revision (albeit big) of an existing product?
Re:Unfortunately, not all these changes are good! (Score:2)
Personally, I would classify the new PS3 revisions in the same class as the NES 2/SNES 2, as the revised products perform the same basic function (play NES/SNES/PS3 games) without adding technical capabilities. (That's where I'm willing to let the DSi slide—it's does actually add new things in its revision, unlike the changes to the other three consoles.)
As for the component out, they discontinued the accessory because they pulled the port, not the other way around. Ordering cables from their store was like pulling teeth, because they kept selling out as soon as they were in stock.
Cooler CPU is a BIG deal (Score:2, Informative)
I have the original 60GB, and I wish I had the new 65nm cell chip - the fan in my PS3 is louder than anything else in the house, we have to crank up the volume to hear movie dialogue over it.
Now, assuming that I did plump out another $400 just to get a quieter box, how much of a pain in the a$$ would it be to transfer all of my downloaded games onto the new unit?
Re:Cooler CPU is a BIG deal (Score:2)
Make sure the front right corner of the box is clear of obstructions. Elevate it and get it outside of an enclosed cabinet if you can. When I moved my PS3 to the left side of a shelf instead of having it up against the right side of the shelf, my fan noise suddenly got bearable.
Re:Cooler CPU is a BIG deal (Score:2)
Yep, mine is on its left side (discs go in vertically), and the right side is perhaps a little too close to the shelf above, maybe 1.5cm of clearance - it definitely gets warm up there. The shelf is too shallow to comfortably sit the unit on it's bottom, so, unless I move the (screwed and painted to the wall) shelving a bit, I'm stuck.
I already went to the trouble of putting in a wired ethernet connection because the wireless was a little too puny to stream video, at some point you have to ask "is it worth it?"
Re:Cooler CPU is a BIG deal (Score:2)
Re:Cooler CPU is a BIG deal (Score:2)
And since you have a 60gb PS3, you can use an SD, CF, or Memory Stick flash card to copy your save games. Or you can use a USB flash drive if you prefer.
I had to get my 60GB unit replaced and was surprised how easily the "replacement" process was after I got my new unit.
Re:Cooler CPU is a BIG deal (Score:2)
If you're really asking, all you have to do is sign in to the new PS3 with your PSN id and then go to the store and download the games.
Cool, that's how it should be. I was concerned that they'd have the licenses keyed to some sort of serial number in the device itself.
Re:Unfortunately, not all these changes are good! (Score:2)
I can see your point, but getting the price down to something more competitive is much more important.
Besides...
Re:Unfortunately, not all these changes are good! (Score:4, Insightful)
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 [gamerankings.com] 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.
Re:Unfortunately, not all these changes are good! (Score:2)
Not all markets have backwards compatibility. Eg, in Australia, the 80GB model doesn't. In fact there is NO PS3 model in Australia that has it at all. The old discontinued 60GB models are prized.
Australia's a small enough market that Sony just doesn't give a shit about its customers.
ws
Re:Unfortunately, not all these changes are good! (Score:2)
Sony is the company of DRM, and the "no it's not better, but we control both the content and the player" Blu-Ray. The WORLD is not a big enough market for Sony to "give a shit about its customers".
Re:Unfortunately, not all these changes are good! (Score:2)
You forgot to mention that the new 80GB model, the only 80GB model currently sold, doesn't have any backward compatibility because Sony cut the software "to save costs."
Joystiq has a handy-dandy chart [joystiq.com] comparing the various PS3 models.
Re:Unfortunately, not all these changes are good! (Score:2)
I totally agree. I own the original 60GB model myself, and I'm really happy it has full hardware PS2 compatibility. I actually bought more PS2 titles to play on it than native PS3 titles, for the first few months I owned the system. (The PS2 games were available dirt cheap in the bargain bins at local game stores.)
The only problem I've recently had with my PS3 though (and it's one I've seen referenced on several other web sites) is my HDMI port dying. I had to start connecting it to my plasma TV with a component cable, because it suddenly decided to output no video or audio over HDMI. (Yes, I tried the reset trick with holding down the power button for 10 seconds and so forth. No joy.)
I'm afraid to send it back for repair though, for fear they'd simply swap me for a refurbished newer model, and I'd lose my PS2 support.
(Seems like Sony would be highly motivated to do such things because they know that'd drive more sales of PS2 systems - as people just decide to buy one so they can keep using the games they already bought.)
Many cutomers likely waiting! (Score:2)
Excellent post -- I wonder how many potential PS3 customers are sitting on the sidelines angered by the continued inferior-ization of the device? I wanted to get a 60 GB but just missed the window before they introduced the software-based PS2 emulation models, at which point 60 GB models went *UP* in price on ebay. I delayed purchasing one, thinking subsequent revisions would have *increased* PS2 compatibility, but they have just gotten cheaper and cheaper (in quality), removing support for things like SACD, continued erosion of PS2 compatibility, and kept the price the same. For a while, a new 60 GB model would sell for near $1000 on eBay!
Ugh, come on Sony. Way to alienate your fanbase, especially the tech nerds who know and care about such details.
Is it really newsworthy? (Score:2)
While the part about needing to be $299 to compete was interesting (but it was in a comment), is this really newsworthy? Now, if the price of the parts went down and the price of the system DIDN'T go down, that might be more worth it. But how interesting is a news flash telling us that the price of electronic components has reduced in price over the last few years? Hmmm.
On the other hand, I did find the pricing interesting, as those prices are a lot cheaper than I get for my computer. I wonder if that's because computer parts are marked up more, or because the PS3 components aren't t as powerful (what a very relative, subjective, and non-descript word... sorry) as my computer components.
Re:Is it really newsworthy? (Score:2)
If you bought parts for your computer in the scale of millions, you'd get them a hell of a lot cheaper...
Re:Is it really newsworthy? (Score:2)
I wonder if that's because computer parts are marked up more, or because the PS3 components aren't t as powerful (what a very relative, subjective, and non-descript word... sorry) as my computer components.
A combination most likely. If the GPUs and/or their boards are being custom made, then they might be able to leave things out that are required for computers. Also, they deal directly with the manufacturer whereas we deal with two layers in between. Finally, they purchase so many units that they surely get a bulk rate, especially since they can play the companies off of each other.
Sony is making money... (Score:2)
in Europe. If a PS3 costs them $448.73 (317,48â) to make, that means they make almost 80,00â for every console sold in the EU (they sell for 399,00â). A price drop *could* be possible here in the old continent.
Re:Sony is making money... (Score:2)
That is including VAT. If you assume 20% VAT the actual "cost" would be 320Ã.
Re:Sony is making money... (Score:2)
You are right. So they break almost even.
Re:Sony is making money... (Score:2)
That would be true if there wasn't a shwack of other costs associated with each unit in addition to the cost of the parts. It costs money to build factories, ship units, print packaging, do quality control testing, etc etc. Unless Sony has also managed to make all of those things cheaper, I would bet they still aren't actually making a profit on each PS3 sold.
That said, Sony may still decide to drop the price to encourage sales now that the holiday shopping season is behind them.
Any way you slice it.... (Score:2)
No matter how you look at the numbers, PS3 lost, even before it came out. I know people who gotten the PS3 just as a Blu-Ray player, simply because they were cheaper than stand-alone Blu-Ray players at the time, and they have not gotten any games for it. Of course now that stand-alone Blu-Ray players are actually cheaper than PS3s, that market share is no longer there either.
They need to drop the price point to be just slightly above the average Blu-Ray player to be competitive, I think. Which will never happen, seeing as how Sony has been taking the financial blow from the PS3 since well before it was released. To have a $200 loss on each PS3 sold would be just far too much.
Re:Any way you slice it.... (Score:2)
As an aside, I actually prefer my PS3 to my Xbox. I think the menu on the XBox sucks, it's slower at loading up the media on my home server, and I've never liked the controllers much. XBox Live is ok but I've never seen it as being super-amazing like everyone says it is. Maybe I'm spoiled by PC gaming in that respect.
Re:Any way you slice it.... (Score:2)
Sony makes money off the BluRay format. So even if they sold you the PS3 for a loss as a standalone BluRay player, Sony still wins.
Re:Any way you slice it.... (Score:2)
Parts? (Score:2)
"...parts (currently 2,820 vs. the original 4,048..."
Sheesh. Sony does make some intricate stuff, but even a Walkman had fewer parts, the cassette models even.
Maybe they need to re-think the parts count? 1,000 would seem a target for me.
Re:Parts? (Score:2)
Why would they need to rethink the parts count? The reason it went down was because they've been removing features from the console. When you remove a port, for example, then you can also remove all of the necessary electronic parts that are associated with said port. Removing backwards compatibility? You can also remove all said electronics for that as well. 2820 really isn't a whole lot when you look at the bigger picture.
Re:Parts? (Score:2)
2,820 parts in a PS3 sounds like twice as many as are necessary, even counting the Blu-Ray.
I wonder how many parts there were in Selectric typewiters? Just sounds like too many, that's all.
And I fixed Selectrics back in the day. Never counted the parts, but there are probably 300 parts in the keyboard. Another 100 in the cycle clutch and drive.
More games... (Score:2, Insightful)
I just got an 80GB PS3 for Xmas. It's a bit shocking to compare this version to previous ones and notice what's been cut. To be honest, however, this is the version Sony should have released from the start because what was cut I consider largely superfluous for the PS3's primary purpose which is playing games.
I can only imagine that some higher ups at Sony had this unrealistic vision that both the PSP and PS3 were going to be complete entertainment and information centers to replace everything else. Things didn't work out with the PSP, so even though Sony executives might have been aware of those issues before the release of the PS3 it was too late to address them. And some probably continued to insist it would be a success.
But ultimately, the real problem with the PS3, I don't think, is the price of the system. Well, it may be now with the economy, but I think the real problem still is the lack of good games. There seems to be a never-ending stream of games promised to be great and which turn out to be mediocre. There's an overall lack of variety, and in some genres there aren't more than an handful of games available.
I encountered this upon trying to decide what I wanted to get for my PS3. There's not a huge selection outside of shooters, sports and a number of racing games. And an even bigger problem is the fact that most games are cross-platform which largely renders the PS3 irrelevant given the Xbox360s install base. I bought four games and that's pretty much all I'm interested in getting at this point.
Sony needs to get more exclusives, which is going to be difficult, but there already exist a number of exclusives in Japan that are unavailable in the US. I'm not sure who are the decision makers that don't bring to the US potentially interesting games. If nothing else it would create more options for players here. And perhaps it might help move the market away from the more adult crowd the PS3 currently seems to attract.
On a side note, my PS3 is quite quiet. I hear the harddrive going more than I hear the fan itself. And the system seems to run cool. Of course we're entering winter, so it may be a different story in the summer.
Re:asdf (Score:4, Funny)
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!
Re:asdf (Score:2)
The cell can be used for a variety of graphics purposes.
One common use is transforming a skeleton and associated vertex attributes.
It's good at doing anything where there's a streaming data, i.e. like the aforementioned vertex attributes as skeleton influences weights.
Re:asdf (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:asdf (Score:2)
Re:asdf (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:lame (Score:5, Funny)
Sorry Bobtree.
Re:lame (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Cheaper system = CHEAPER SYSTEM (Score:3, Insightful)
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!