Long Q&A with Jack Tretton (SCEA) Mercury News

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=31577

Gameindustry quote some part of his interview.

If this guy serious future won't be better, MS will be @199$ in two year pretty easily in fact!

It seems that Sony is not in position to react to MS if they decide to price cut an other 50 bucks this spring/summer to keep descent sales. Sony must have bleed money @399$
 
Yeah, gamesindustry misquoted it, if you ask me. He's basically just saying that determining the price of the hardware is a job for Sony and determining the price of the software is a job for the developer, and that he understands that it would be nice for publishers to have the prices of the hardware as low as possible because that money can then go to the publishers, but that if the prices go too low, the platform will die and that's not in the best interest of either of them. ;)

Obviously he won't want to speculate openly on pricing point in two years time, not in terms of giving away too much strategy information towards competitors, and not in terms of giving away too much towards consumers (they may decide to wait until that price drop, etc.).
 
I understand Arwin, 2009 is not tomorow people won't wait 2 years.

But unrealistic is still a strong word for 2009
 
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=31577

Gameindustry quote some part of his interview.

If this guy serious future won't be better, MS will be @199$ in two year pretty easily in fact!

It seems that Sony is not in position to react to MS if they decide to price cut an other 50 bucks this spring/summer to keep descent sales. Sony must have bleed money @399$

I don´t think that the fact that he don´t want a software publisher to decide the price of his console means much more than just that.

It is all decided by the BOM. They already have the Cell working at 45 nm, not yet in mass production. The RSX seem to be well on the way to 45 nm and it just went into mass production on 65 nm and it may appear in consoles late winter early spring. The BDD is probably soon heading toward the DVDD price territory.

I think some people exaggerate Sonys problems to cost reduce the PS3, Sony has a pretty good track record of cost reducing their consoles.
 
I think some people exaggerate Sonys problems to cost reduce the PS3, Sony has a pretty good track record of cost reducing their consoles.

I hate to repeat my own pearls of wisdom, but in the NPD thread I already wrote: the cheapest PS3 will always be at a severe disadvantage compared to the cheapest Xbox 360, due to the mandatory HDD, the RSX license fee for NVIDIA, the bigger CPU and the more expensive memory. This should translate to at least $40-50 in raw cost even at the end of the generation. IMHO forcing the developers to make games for a HDD-less version of the system will turn out to be the smartest thing MS did this generation, even besting the full year earlier launch.
 
I understand Arwin, 2009 is not tomorow people won't wait 2 years.

But unrealistic is still a strong word for 2009

The original ... :

and maybe by next year go down to $199 if they really want to compete with the Wii.

A: Well, I think from an unrealistic standpoint, I’m never surprised by that, because a software manufacturer may not be concerned whether a hardware manufacturer is successful or whether they’re profitable.
 
I hate to repeat my own pearls of wisdom, but in the NPD thread I already wrote: the cheapest PS3 will always be at a severe disadvantage compared to the cheapest Xbox 360, due to the mandatory HDD, the RSX license fee for NVIDIA, the bigger CPU and the more expensive memory. This should translate to at least $40-50 in raw cost even at the end of the generation. IMHO forcing the developers to make games for a HDD-less version of the system will turn out to be the smartest thing MS did this generation, even besting the full year earlier launch.

I think you are completely wrong if you by the end of this generation mean 2010-2011.

The difference i chip size will be close to negligable pricewise on 35 nm or whatever is the standard by then. Microsoft has license fees as well for both Xenos and Xenon. The harddrive is a good point, but it can be replaced by 20 GB flash for about $5 by then if they want to go cheap. The PS3 has the XDR RAM but the 360 has the EDRAM in its GPU.
Maybe Sony will keep the rumbleless Sixaxis in its budget model (cheaper battery etc) and save a couple of dollars there.

Anyway my point is, if there is a difference in the BOM it will be more like $5-10 than $40-50 unless Sony want to keep the HDD in their budget model for some other business reasons, then it may be more like $25-35.
 
didn't MS own the IP of both xenon and xenos? it looks like ms shifted from nvidia Intel to IBM ATI, because the former didn't want to let Ms owns the IP;
 
didn't MS own the IP of both xenon and xenos? it looks like ms shifted from nvidia Intel to IBM ATI, because the former didn't want to let Ms owns the IP;

They own the IP in the sense they can bring it to any foundry of their choice and are not forced to buy the chips from Intel or Nvidia which was the case for Xbox1.
 
The difference i chip size will be close to negligable pricewise on 35 nm or whatever is the standard by then.

Die shrinks are becoming increasingly expensive, and it may not make sense to go below 65 nm. Or 45 nm. There will be some point below which only Intel CPUs, flash memory and DRAM go.

Microsoft has license fees as well for both Xenos and Xenon.

You sure about that? Everywhere I've read they say the switched away from the "order chips from GPU/CPU vendor" model towards the "pay for development, produce themselves" model exactly because of the license fees they had to pay Intel and NVIDIA for the first Xbox.

The harddrive is a good point, but it can be replaced by 20 GB flash for about $5 by then if they want to go cheap.

Solid-state discs which have HDD-like transfer rates retail around $50/GB today, so they'll have to drop down in price 200x times to reach your prices of $5, all in 3-4 years, which I find highly unrealistic. Consumer flash cards retail around $10/GB, which means 40x in 3-4 years - but these cards have nothing like the transfer rates needed to replace the current PS3 HDD. Even we generously assume that the $10/GB is marked up 4x between raw flash chips cost and retail price (which I find improbable, since flash cards are a very competititve, price-sensitive, mass-market product), you still need 10x improvement. Nothing in the past few years of flash development, nothing in the prospects for process shrinks tells us we can expect such a rapid slide of flash memory prices. An out-of-the-blue storage technology won't be able to recoup its R&D and become even cheaper in time for this generation.
 
Die shrinks are becoming increasingly expensive, and it may not make sense to go below 65 nm. Or 45 nm. There will be some point below which only Intel CPUs, flash memory and DRAM go.
You are right, die shrinks are becoming really expensive, but we know that Sony already has Cell working on 45 nm and the RSX on 45 nm is well under way. Maybe the collaboration with IBM and Toshiba is starting to payoff, since they probably can share some of the costs, the standard CMOS process of the RSX is probably of help as well. I don´t think it´s to far fetched to expect at least one more shrink within four years from, on the contrary I think it is very likely to happen.

It would be interesting to know Microsofts plan for coming die shrinks.

You sure about that? Everywhere I've read they say the switched away from the "order chips from GPU/CPU vendor" model towards the "pay for development, produce themselves" model exactly because of the license fees they had to pay Intel and NVIDIA for the first Xbox.
I am sure there is a licensing fee/unit involved, it´s the standard way to deal with IC-IP, I think it´s been mentioned here on b3d, the big gain is that Microsoft have control of manufacturing and can benefit from die shrinks and competetive foundries.

Solid-state discs which have HDD-like transfer rates retail around $50/GB today,
Not really, more like $15/GB see Dell
so they'll have to drop down in price 200x times to reach your prices of $5, all in 3-4 years, which I find highly unrealistic. Consumer flash cards retail around $10/GB, which means 40x in 3-4 years - but these cards have nothing like the transfer rates needed to replace the current PS3 HDD. Even we generously assume that the $10/GB is marked up 4x between raw flash chips cost and retail price (which I find improbable, since flash cards are a very competititve, price-sensitive, mass-market product), you still need 10x improvement. Nothing in the past few years of flash development, nothing in the prospects for process shrinks tells us we can expect such a rapid slide of flash memory prices.
Of course Sony wouldn´t be so stupid that they would buy a COTS solid state hard drive, they would just put hte flash right on the motherboard so the only thing you need to care about is the flash price, which is about: $3/GB right now (link)
The price don´t even have to be cut by half each year for 20 GB to reach the $5 range within 4 years. Analysts are actually expecting the price to drop faster than that.
"Meanwhile, the world is swimming in NAND flash, leading to drastic price declines. NAND prices are set to drop 57 percent this year and 52 percent next year, said Joseph Unsworth, an analyst at Gartner." link

An out-of-the-blue storage technology won't be able to recoup its R&D and become even cheaper in time for this generation.

Flash is not really an "out-of-the-blue storage technology", so I don´t really see what you are getting at.
 
You sure about that? Everywhere I've read they say the switched away from the "order chips from GPU/CPU vendor" model towards the "pay for development, produce themselves" model exactly because of the license fees they had to pay Intel and NVIDIA for the first Xbox.

Microsoft owns Xenos and pays ATI $5 per. I don't know anything about the CPU. I'd assume that IBM owns it.
 
...stuff stuff stuff...

Wow, I can only bow my head before such a well-researched post! Thanks for the info, Crossbar!

Flash is not really an "out-of-the-blue storage technology", so I don´t really see what you are getting at.

I meant something other than flash, because I believed there's no way flash would reach $0.25/GB - which you showed was entirely plausible.
 
What does he mean by selling 33 million units in the holiday season? Clearly that's not 11 million PS3's over the last months of the year! Is that platform sales over the year from Fiscal start to New Year?
 
What does he mean by selling 33 million units in the holiday season? Clearly that's not 11 million PS3's over the last months of the year! Is that platform sales over the year from Fiscal start to New Year?

The explantion is below that:

Q: And are those worldwide numbers, and that’s shipping numbers, is that right?

A: Worldwide numbers, and they’re sales, not shipment numbers.

Q: OK, but sales meaning that’s how many you get into consumers’ hands? Or does that mean you consider it a sale when it goes to a retailer?

A: We consider it a sale when it goes to a consumer.

Q: And that is for March 31?

A: That is correct.

Q: So Jack, that’s not Christmas numbers, that’s year-end numbers.

A: That’s correct. By the end of our fiscal, March 31, ‘08.


Having skimmed the interview, Tretton is not a guy I can tolerate thus reading his bullshit and spin annoys me when trying to properly read it. Stringer is quite the opposite.
 
So they expect to sell more ps3s between now and the end of march than they have sold in the year before that? I'd like to hit him up for some lottery numbers.
 
So they expect to sell more ps3s between now and the end of march than they have sold in the year before that? I'd like to hit him up for some lottery numbers.
They'd be wrong ;) Seriously, 11 million PS3's between now and March?? Outselling PSP that currently outsells PS3 by a large margin? Are they going to drop the price to $200 or something?! Not according to that interview! 11 million worldwide sales total by that point would be a stretch, but he clearly wasn't talking about that given the lower PS2 and PSP figures. None of that adds up.

I agree with Robert that Tretton is something of a blow-hard. Too cocky for my tastes, but I guess that's how he sees his PR role. Might be a lovely, down-to-earth guy when he's at home.
 
i think they will sell 9-10m PS3's by the end of March, but it would take a miracle to reach 11m considering there isn't much to be released, software wise, between now and March.
 
They'd be wrong ;) Seriously, 11 million PS3's between now and March?? Outselling PSP that currently outsells PS3 by a large margin? Are they going to drop the price to $200 or something?! Not according to that interview! 11 million worldwide sales total by that point would be a stretch, but he clearly wasn't talking about that given the lower PS2 and PSP figures. None of that adds up.

I think Tretton is just confused half the time as to what the actual corporate line is; either that or he does a terrible job of communicating it.

But yeah it's 11 million PS3's sold total by the end of this fiscal year that's the company target.

...Unit sales for PS3 totaled 1.31 million for the quarter, with Sony maintaining their fiscal year-end target of 11 million consoles on the assumption that increased software offerings and cheaper hardware will increase the rate of sales going forward...

http://www.beyond3d.com/content/news/515

We should get an update January as to how things are going in terms of meeting that goal, and whether they will revise it or not. I always thought 11 million was overly ambitious, but that said, at the same time I don't think they'll miss it by too much - but what qualifies 'much' varies person to person of course.
 
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