Ive gotta agree, adding bluray done 3 things
1. delayed ps3 launch by at least 6 months
2. Limited stock at launch
3. Added a lot to the price (at the start, obviously after a couple of years it added bugger all)
Factors affecting PS3 launch date and price *spawn
- Thread starter zed
- Start date
1. delayed ps3 launch by at least 6 months
2. Limited stock at launch
3. Added a lot to the price (at the start, obviously after a couple of years it added bugger all)
Im in agreement
but IMO it wasnt the price (remember the 20gb ps3 was $499, same price as xbone at launch) but the fact including bluray
1. delayed ps3 launch 6 months in NA/japan (nearly a year in europe and elsewhere)
2. Limited stock at launch
both of these were due to difficulties in manufacturing blu diodes
after the first quarter ps3 launnch shipped numbers were
xbox360 10.4
ps3 1.48
thats a 9 million headstart they gave up
If they didnt include bluray you'ld prolly be looking at about 10 million each end of 2006
btw looking at the ps3 60gb model launch in NZ $nz1200, ps4 = $650 (obviously nz dollar vs us dollar gotten stronger over the last few years)
Did anyone actually confirm that the delay was 100% caused by Blu Ray. Afaik the first release of the ps3 was as bare bone as it could be in terms of games, firmware and development tools. I can't imagine what it would have been like if released earlier.
And let's stay true here, it was a 499 machine that was the cheapest sku. And the 599 price wasn't just the Blu Ray. Wireless controllers with rechargeable batteries, PS2 bc, card readers ,wireless network, HDMI interface, replaceable hard-drive, 4 USB ports, optical out, built in psu, state if the art cooling, and free online mp gaming.. The Blu-ray didn't help, but the package was impressive at that price point. Problem was, the extra 200 dollars did little to make the games better. Just like k2
And many of the first buyers just got a Blu Ray player and did little to help it as a games console. With PS4 Sony really showed they learned the lesson and with the xb1 Microsoft imho plain obviously didn't win last round, Sony lost it. Or Microsoft would have paid attention to what made the difference last round.
original launch date ~march-april 2006
(this concerns the europe launch)
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/news_060906_ps3delay
There's a subtlety here. It was bad luck that the blue laser had unexpected production issues, and the Cell also had severe yield issues. It's not like it was a planned delay. The same goes for any of the hundreds of components required on a console. These projects are planned years in advance and unexpected production issues aren't the result of bad planning or bad decisions. It's plain bad luck, and it's based on risk factors.
I think you can see one of these things on the backside of the XB1 motherboard, there's a ridiculous array of bypass caps, my guess is that it was an unexpected transient problem, which they solved by brute force with over a hundred of additional caps. It's possible they risked having to respin the SoC, they could have been in the same situation as Sony with their blue laser or cell.
I think you can see one of these things on the backside of the XB1 motherboard, there's a ridiculous array of bypass caps, my guess is that it was an unexpected transient problem, which they solved by brute force with over a hundred of additional caps. It's possible they risked having to respin the SoC, they could have been in the same situation as Sony with their blue laser or cell.
D
Deleted member 11852
Guest
Blu-ray had been in R&D a long time before the decision of what type of disc format to include was made. If Sony had put a DVD drive in, Blu-ray may ended up like HD-DVD and Sony would have lost even more money.
Companies make decisions entirely on short-term and long-term profitability. It's the same reason why Microsoft won't just lop off $50 or $100 of the RRP of Xbox One to sell more boxes to catch Sony. Their goal isn't to beat Sony at any cost, their goal is to improve profitability as quickly as possible.
DuckThor Evil
Legend
The original "spring 2006" announcement was probably made just to make it seem it's coming out pretty close to the X360. I doubt they ever seriously planned to release it during spring 2006, but that's just speculation of course.
I am pretty sure if it was released earlier in terms of software features it wouldnt have been much different from what we got at launch. If it was released earlier, the software aspect would have improved much faster.
I remember that when I looked at the sheet showing expected cost of the PS3's components and of the 360, BR was very expensive, the Cell was noticeably more expensive than Xenon, and surprisingly also the GPU was noticeably more expensive. The deal with NVIDIA was most likely a crappy one.
To me it appears that everyone willing to buy a PS3 wanted to get the full featured 60GB model and the 20GB model was in low quantities. I think it was a psychological thing. People viewed the 20GB model as a lesser product and the 60GB as the standard instead of the 60GB as a premium. Still even the lower priced model was expensive.
I agree with you about the PS3 and the XB1
Its true that Sony added too many hardware features that would have been rarely used by anyone. Nobody even cared to look at mem card readers and such as features. They saw price. Ken always envisioned the Playstation becoming an all in one entertainment device and thought that the PS3 was the right time. But so wrong he was that people were willing to spend so many cash for it. He ignored the market profile and the things that made the original Playstation such a success. He probably thought that the market transformed so much that the same people were willing to spend a lot of money for something so different. Sony almost designed the PS4 as if it was the Bang&Olufsen of consoles. But in order to sell such a product at such a price someone should also expect a huge margin from it because they shrunk the market willing to pay for it. They were selling it at huge loss.
MS repeated a similar mistake with the XB1 by envisioning it as the all in one device that targets the non gamer
I have a friend who was working for an american chip designer / vendor. He said that Sony was negotiating with them on their USB chipset later than that.
I found it hard to believe, but they may have just been that late in their scramble to release.
(And yes, there was an NDA involved, but Sony wound up choosing someone else, so my friend was more po'ed at Sony than anything else)
