400 K ps3 in USA, 100 K ps3 in Japan at launch

[liolio]

Geo,

Very Good points. You've been here long enough to know all about yeilds and shortages. We only have to look back at the x800xt pe for a perfect example. These things don't improve simply because you wish for them to. With hardware specs tightly locked down (such as Blu Ray) there has to be breakthrough in the current process to get more lasers going. They simply cannot change the specs and rework the process. This is what happened with the x850xt and how they got the yeilds up. Unfortunately it was too late by then, as the 6800 series had already saturated the market and re established nvidia.

For me, it comes down what I'd been saying for a while now. There was no need for BR in the PS3. It was someone's bright idea that could still work but does not look so promising atm. A $399 similarly spec'd PS3 with a DVD9 drive would wipe the floor with the 360 simply due to the Playstation name and existing install base. It could have been released much ealier and in much greater numbers. Even if launched in Spring on 06 this PS3 verion of mine would be in a commanding lead from the 360 already. Ofcourse, I was ridiculed tons for such lame thinking but it's ok

BR not only delayed the PS3 but also made it much more expensive to the consumer and Sony. Now the consumer has to rethink the purchase as the price is higher. Add 2 games + controller and you're well in the $800 range. For Sony corporate, the added costs and the higher margin on loss per console means it'll take much longer before the PS3 becomes profitable. For this whole thing to work for them, BR simply has to be a smash hit. Not only does it have to beat HD DVD but also DVD and not just on paper spec and reviews but in number of sales. People need to keep in mind, it's DVD, not HD DVD that's the ultimate competition. Like I said, it could all work out in the end but they're certainly going to go through some self inflicted rough times in order to theoretically get there.

If the PS3 has come in time with a dvd >> the ms xbox section would have experienced a bank route. Straight and simple.
ANd it that case sony could have sold cheap BR (understand sold at lost) add on to a lot more than 100 millions users when hd will interest mass market.

 

[bleon]

If there really was a "problem" with the production, whatever the problem might be, just "fixing" it should be the breakthrough.

Useless trivia: Kutaragi said the crystallization process at the epitaxy reactor is behind schedule, thus causing the delay in manufacturing the blu ray laser diode.

 

[patsu]

If so, they should have started earlier.
http://www.ps3newspaper.com/articles/2006/09/06/the-invention-of-blu-ray

 

[one]

I still can't believe that they've suddenly "run" into this diode shortage. We've had warnings since last year! Sounds like a cover-up for their own misgivings in my opinion. The whole thing stinks. Shocking failure to execute. Inefficient management.

According to this Nikkei article
http://itpro.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/NEWS/20060906/247387/?ST=newtech&P=1
the manufacturing of blue-laser diodes was commited to Sony Shiroishi Semiconductor, one of child companies of Sony the parent company. Test production and test mass production were without troubles but apparently in July it was discovered that some reactors had good yield while others didn't. They could fix the optimal parameters for each reactor recently so it incurred approximately one-month delay.

According to Nikkei Tech-on,
http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/NEWS/20060906/120881/
blue-violet laser semiconductors installed in other Sony products were produced in a single reactor while for PS3 they had to use multiple reactors at the same time to process millions for the shipment target. As for buying laser semiconductors from other companies, it was not possible since others still can't handle mass production of these chips. The mass production of PS3 was delayed from early Septmeber to late September.

The US market is prioritized as Thanksgiving is in November. From late September, mass-produced PS3 will be shipped by boats to the US and the last batches will be by air. Since PS3 will be manufactured in Japan and China they can secure the assignment for Japan later than for the US.

As for Europe, PS3 shipped by boats in late January will reach there in early March. However, for the launch day, 1 million PS3 are secured for EU. They plan to ship 1.5 million PS3 to EU in March.

The initial target, 6 million PS3 till March 2007, is unchanged. Their internal target was 7.5 million and they plan to increase the output per month to 1.2 million.

Other parts are apparently in good yield. Cell has almost too good yield and they have 3 million of them. RSX, the 90nm southbridge chip, the RF controller chip for Blu-ray called "Savanna" are in good yield too.

 

[London Geezer]

Other parts are apparently in good yield. Cell has almost too good yield and they have 3 million of them. RSX, the 90nm southbridge chip, the RF controller chip for Blu-ray called "Savanna" are in good yield too.

Heh, by the time we actually get a PS3 here, Cell and RSX will be on one chip at 30nm!!

We'll get a slimline PSthree directly!

 

[patsu]

one, thanks for the swiftness and clarity. That's the medicine for Sony too.

 

[pipo]

As for Europe, PS3 shipped by boats in late January will reach there in early March. However, for the launch day, 1 million PS3 are secured for EU. They plan to ship 1.5 million PS3 to EU in March.

Pretty good. Thanks again one.

 

[London Geezer]

As for Europe, PS3 shipped by boats in late January will reach there in early March. However, for the launch day, 1 million PS3 are secured for EU. They plan to ship 1.5 million PS3 to EU in March.

The initial target, 6 million PS3 till March 2007, is unchanged. Their internal target was 7.5 million and they plan to increase the output per month to 1.2 million.

To be perfectly 100% honest with everyone here, i personally won't put much faith on Sony's forecasts for quite a while now... At least until they can show that they CAN manufacture PS3, and that they can manufacture a lot of them... At least... Heck they haven't even started yet, and you just know that so much could go wrong... A lot has gone wrong long before they even started manufacturing!!

 

[Platon]

According to this Nikkei article
http://itpro.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/NEWS/20060906/247387/?ST=newtech&P=1
the manufacturing of blue-laser diodes was commited to Sony Shiroishi Semiconductor, one of child companies of Sony the parent company. Test production and test mass production were without troubles but apparently in July it was discovered that some reactors had good yield while others didn't. They could fix the optimal parameters for each reactor recently so it incurred approximately one-month delay.

According to Nikkei Tech-on,
http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/NEWS/20060906/120881/
blue-violet laser semiconductors installed in other Sony products were produced in a single reactor while for PS3 they had to use multiple reactors at the same time to process millions for the shipment target. As for buying laser semiconductors from other companies, it was not possible since others still can't handle mass production of these chips. The mass production of PS3 was delayed from early Septmeber to late September.

The US market is prioritized as Thanksgiving is in November. From late September, mass-produced PS3 will be shipped by boats to the US and the last batches will be by air. Since PS3 will be manufactured in Japan and China they can secure the assignment for Japan later than for the US.

As for Europe, PS3 shipped by boats in late January will reach there in early March. However, for the launch day, 1 million PS3 are secured for EU. They plan to ship 1.5 million PS3 to EU in March.

The initial target, 6 million PS3 till March 2007, is unchanged. Their internal target was 7.5 million and they plan to increase the output per month to 1.2 million.

Other parts are apparently in good yield. Cell has almost too good yield and they have 3 million of them. RSX, the 90nm southbridge chip, the RF controller chip for Blu-ray called "Savanna" are in good yield too.

If everything goes as planned, which so far it hasn't...

 

[hey69]

you guys are overblowing this.. relax everyting will be aaaaaaaaalllrighttt

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Yikes, 2 million at the end of March would mean, what, 10-11 million by the end of 2007?

Not by any stretch. It all depends on what the hold-up is and how they overcome it. One's reporting (many thanks!) gives us an explanation and a solution, and how they're solving it. If right, they will recover to be on track for targets.

All these companies predict (like analysts, and the rest of us) by looking at the resources available. When determining how many PS3's they could make, they look at how fast their chip production is, on Cell and RSX and other components, and look at their Blue laser diode plants, sometimes months before these fabs are even running by considering paper specs, and work out how many PS3's they expect to be able to make. That's where the figures come from. Then an unexpected (but pretty much inevitable) problem arises, and the estimation goes south. It can't be any other way. You can't predict the future, only hazard a guess. There's plenty of scope for conspiracy theories, but for me they tend to come from people with an oversimplified view of how to make a complex device. It's not easy. The fact these things ever get designed and built at all is something of a small miracle if you consider every little process from harvesting resources like oil and minerals, to producing final chips and plastics and bringing it all together. What people consider to be easy is the work of centuries building up know-how and technology, which many a fumble along the way, giving us a lot of mature processes with all the problems worked out, and a number of new processes with quirks not yet encountered. I think people take the old processes for granted and forget (or never knew) how much work went in to get those things right, and so expect new processes to be just as effective.

The concern now is whether Sony's fix works, or whether their estimates are going to be knocked by another issue they hadn't factored in.

 

[patsu]

*Nod* *nod* They have certainly lost much credibility. The new PR guy will be very busy organizing factory tours, game demos to stakeholders, plus managing media blitz for the consumer launch. Sony is dealing with people's perception and worrying minds afterall.

 

[London Geezer]

The concern now is whether Sony's fix works, or whether their estimates are going to be knocked by another issue they hadn't factored in.

... Pardon?!!

*another issue they hadn't factored in*??

That's absolutely and utterly unacceptable if it does happen!! They've spent billions on this machine and they could have "issues they haven't factored in" 2 weeks from mass production?

We're not talking about some private company trying to sell their own clothes and realising they don't have enough cloth... We're talking about a project that now spans 5 years and sucked billions of dollars. I'm sorry but if by now there are some factors that could hinder mass production that Sony hasn't factored in, then some people there seriously don't deserve their job.

Heck, any project manager would have had a list of "factors that could slow things down" way before Sony even thought about making a Playstation 3!


Sorry... breathe... calm...

 

[inefficient]

According to this Nikkei article
http://itpro.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/NEWS/20060906/247387/?ST=newtech&P=1
the manufacturing of blue-laser diodes was commited to Sony Shiroishi Semiconductor, one of child companies of Sony the parent company. Test production and test mass production were without troubles but apparently in July it was discovered that some reactors had good yield while others didn't. They could fix the optimal parameters for each reactor recently so it incurred approximately one-month delay.

It is good to get confirmation that the diode company itself is a Sony comapany. And so the supply shortage is just an internal problem and not due to other vendors.

I was bit concerned initially that the diode shortage was due to Toshiba/Microsoft/etc buying up all the parts from the diode manufacturers causing a supply shortage. But this clears that up.

Overall I expect the impact of this delay to be small. It is unfortunate to only launch with 500k units. But then this is still roughly par for the course.

 

[one]

If everything goes as planned, which so far it hasn't...

Since PS3 has a finite variety of parts, fixing it one by one will eventually get it to a better place unless earthquakes and pirates hit it.

 

[London Geezer]

It is good to get confirmation that the diode company itself is a Sony comapany. And so the supply shortage is just an internal problem and not due to other vendors.

I was bit concerned initially that the diode shortage was due to Toshiba/Microsoft/etc buying up all the parts from the diode manufacturers causing a supply shortage. But this clears that up.

Overall I expect the impact of this delay to be small. It is unfortunate to only launch with 500k units. But then this is still roughly par for the course.

Still doesn't really explain the 4 months delay for Europe...

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Not really, but the mention that PS3's will be shipped in January pegs 2 months of that delay in distribution, rather than being a manufacturing limit. So it's only 2 months before they start allocating PS3's to Europe, and given the low starting amounts and desire to make a volume impact in the US where the competition is strongest and the movie execs live, that seems a fair decision to me.

Really, when you think of those who slammed MS for doing a worldwide distribution when they didn't have the numbers and should have focussed on NA until they had ramped up, we see another case of it being impossible to please all the people all the time. If Sony were to spread consoles more thinly to begin with, Europeans would be happy and Americans would be griping again!

Just like any new product, there's a finite number of units. If more people want that product than are available, some will have to wait. Whether they're localised to one geographical region, or spread out and queing all over the world, it's the same number of consoles to the same number of customers. There's nothing any hardware company can do to stop this, except produce a product few people want. Tactics like pricing it high doesn't so much keep demand low as incite anger about people who don't want to pay that much! I guess there is the option of not advertising, like PSP's Euro launch. It seems to me most of the griping is that which comes anyway, no matter what you do. There's always people going to complain (they've got BluRay, they haven't got BluRay, they charge too much, there's not enough available, games are too pricey, games aren't high enough quality, you have to pay for online, free online is no good, it hasn't got rumble, it hasn't got motion detection...) and they always get heard. Getting past the human reactions and looking at the technicalities of the launch, if the ramping goes to plan then Sony will have done okay, probably better than average if they can get to 1 million per month straight away. The only people who'll manage better are likely Nintendo who are producing a very simple piece of hardware, but they have their own criticisms (it's not next-gen, arms will get tired, Madden looks stupid, they're selling me their old games again...)

 

[liolio]

Ms is not responsible for gddr3 availability.

For the PR for Sony ie nothing change, everything goes fine...
Other companies produce diode they all in the same trouble, they still can't manage to have good yelds.

For Nikkei article, I don't bite in it too. It a very serious parution, but come on they're serious they won't make thing worse for sony witch is a national richness one important japenese brand, so they repeat PR words. Anyway will see, for me it's clear we have already seen and heard a lot of things.
I don't care for Sony been succefull or not, but i think expecting the worse is the only real attitude i can have this time, but it's useless to argue against wishful thinking anyway it doesn't relie on logic.

I want to add that for BigN it's the same it's all wishfull thinking at this time we know nothing.

 

[London Geezer]

What i find quite funny is that in the outside world - the non-geek world - this delay will probably make the PS3 look even more futuristic and high-tech and technically unbelievably awesome, simply because people will think that it's SOOO ahead of its time that Sony can't even make them yet, cause they're just soooo advanced. Which in a sense it is, but the super-duper hype surroinding the power of the PS3 will probably go up now, even if kids won't be too happy with the wait...

People can be very easy to convince.

 

[-tkf-]

... Pardon?!!

*another issue they hadn't factored in*??

That's absolutely and utterly unacceptable if it does happen!! They've spent billions on this machine and they could have "issues they haven't factored in" 2 weeks from mass production?

We're not talking about some private company trying to sell their own clothes and realising they don't have enough cloth... We're talking about a project that now spans 5 years and sucked billions of dollars. I'm sorry but if by now there are some factors that could hinder mass production that Sony hasn't factored in, then some people there seriously don't deserve their job.

Heck, any project manager would have had a list of "factors that could slow things down" way before Sony even thought about making a Playstation 3!


Sorry... breathe... calm...

Hehehe, your pointing to the very reason, it´s tough to make something like this work, a 5 year plan, hell, that has to blow up. Making sure the Cell and RSX yields are good and just that the chips "Tap out" on schedule. Everything has/should fall in place at exactly the time where it was planned and every part is cutting edge and for many parts being made at new plants. I´m sure there has been lots of "saves" on the way that we haven´t hear about. In anycase, when were the last time you heard of Bridge being build on time and budget?

Noone picked up on the 3 million Cell Chips, how could Sony have launced any earlier with only 3 million Cell chips on hand today?