How much can Sony bring PS Vita costs down?

[babybumb]

..in the next five years.

Shouldnt they be going 28nm very soon as every mobile chips are now? They really need to get to $150-199 with some flash mem.

 

[AlphaWolf]

I doubt their SOC is that much that 28nm will save them a whole lot. They need other cost reductions if they want to be profitable at $200.

 

[Gitaroo]

sony engineers are usually pretty good with cost reduction with their hardware revision no?

 

[zed]

Not gonna help if they want it to sell, What they need to do is what Ive said all along, release it with txt'ing ability
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1589806&postcount=14
and to answer my question from then, yes its possible

 

[Entropy]

I doubt their SOC is that much that 28nm will save them a whole lot. They need other cost reductions if they want to be profitable at $200.

Agreed.
The Vita launched at a surprisingly low price, and when questioned about it, Sony argued that they would recoup their costs from sales of peripherals, accessories and royalties. (And subsequently faced significant backlash from their memory card pricing.)

So now they're caught between a rock and a hard place. I find the fate of the Vita very interesting, personally.

God knows how much they'll be able to drop costs, but we can be certain that Vita production costs overwhelmingly have to come from sources that don't benefit from advances in lithography.While the move to 28nm won't net them many dollars, there may be some overall yield improvements as production lines uses QC feedback to refine production. Since the volumes aren't that great, such optimizations don't warrant huge investments either.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

They can:

- Adopt a standard Micro-SD slot instead of their stupid and über-expensive memory cards that no one uses for anything other than a Vita (at least the memorystick was used in their feature-phones and cameras).

- Lose the game cards slot as they did with the PSP Go and make it a download-only handheld. They could let the retailers sell game-keys in order to avoid some serious backlashes.

- Shrink the SoC and maybe put all the RAM in the same chip too, making the PCB a bit simpler (there's a Toshiba RAM chip in it).

- Build a smaller version with a smaller non-OLED screen (4.3/4.5" 960*540 IPS screens are so widespread they can be really cheap nowadays.

- Cut on all the (gorilla?) glass that surrounds the console except for the front screen. There goes the "premium feeling" but it's the same cost-saving + higher-volume as we saw in the PS2 and PS3 iterations.

- Looking at the ifixit teardown, we can see they're using no less than 5 different chips for baseband amplifying (mainly because the same 3G model supports both CDMA and GSM). Aren't there single-chip solutions for that?

- The same teardown shows different chips for 3-axis accelerometer and gyroscope. I'm sure a single MEMS that does both could be bought for cheap today.


What I think they should do is build a Xperia Playstation. An Android smartphone that doubles as a Vita. Maybe make detachable controls to put on the sides of the phone when it's in landscape or such.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Still with the 'no games' ... Seriously?

That said I do agree that games are also important. However, price matters too.

Price matters, but honestly I find the Vita to be quite reasonably priced anyway. It has the hardware of a top-end smartphone for about half its price.

We could find great promotions this Christmas, as I bought a Vita 3G + LBP + 4G memory card + pre-paid card with 1GB data for 190€.



It's a great piece of hardware, there's no doubt about that.. and I'm going to sell it.
I've been going to the popular game review sites looking up all the Vita titles for the past month. The handful of really good games just aren't enough for me to start investing in the platform.
And there's absolutely no way I'm going to use a console that big and bulky to play games like Lumines.
If I had a GTA, a God of War, a Final Fantasy (not a reamake of Final Fantasy X), at least in the pipeline, this thing would be a keeper.

Maybe I'll buy a Vita again in 1-2 years if the platform ever matures, but right now I don't think it's worth my time+money.

 

[Arwin]

No GTA yet (let's wait and see what happens once GTA V is out), but it has Gravity Rush and Retro City Rampage ... A God of War is pretty much a given, just waiting for it to be announced really. A new Final Fantasy is uncertain for sure, but it has Persona 4 Golden and a few other RPGs, and plays all the PSP RPGS much better and prettier looking than the PSP.

But of course, everyone has different tastes and preferences, so I totally accept that you have very specific requirements gamewise. But at least then qualify with 'no games for me'. No platform I know of had a GTA, GoW and Final Fantasy title in its first year ... ?

But I think I have about 20 good games for the platform, and that's an absolute record on my end.

 

[orangpelupa]

isn't its both?

need more diverssive game
need cheaper price

on 3DS early release this thing also happend. Even now its still happend. For 200 dollar, its feel too expensive to get 3DS graphic and audio quality (not good) and internet experience. The game library also limited, fortunately this year lots will come.

the good thing from 3DS is they release their game in different prices. Not all game is 35 dollar. The game cart also small enough to be put on a wallet but not too small to get lost (personal opinion ).

* the prices on my country can be very different from other countries.

EDIT:
i just rechecked, now most new game released in 40 Dollar? Ugh.... It was 35 dollar at max.

 

[Arwin]

Here, a good overview of games available on Vita after 47 weeks availability in the West. Obviously I don't agree with all scores (so far as I even played them), but it's a pretty healthy list?

http://www.metacritic.com/browse/games/release-date/available/vita/metascore?view=condensed

 

[Deleted member 13524]

But of course, everyone has different tastes and preferences, so I totally accept that you have very specific requirements gamewise. But at least then qualify with 'no games for me'.

Of course the game repertoire preferences are subjective, and it's perfectly reasonable that you find your tastes covered in the platform.. but you do know that there's a huge wave of criticism from gamers, game journalists and retailers regarding the Vita's lineup and the blatant lack of first-party support from Sony.
The absence of Vita announcements in E3 2012 - which was expected to be the year of the Vita since it had just been launched and the next E3 will be about PS4 - is certainly a thing that most people will remember from that expo.



But going on-topic, I think it's possible for the Vita's BoM to go as low as $120, given the right steps are taken.
Smartphone massification may be harming the platform overall but I'm pretty sure it's also helping the component prices go down.

Again, the price going down wouldn't be even remotely as positive as allowing cheap micro-sd storage, being able to play $1 Android games or an increased investment in 1st party AAA titles.. but it would be positive nonetheless.

 

[Arwin]

Of course the game repertoire preferences are subjective, and it's perfectly reasonable that you find your tastes covered in the platform.. but you do know that there's a huge wave of criticism from gamers, game journalists and retailers regarding the Vita's lineup and the blatant lack of first-party support from Sony.

I do know this used to be the case, but the general consensus however is that this is no longer true. They did much better at GamesCom, and a lot of big titles have come out since then.

But going on-topic, I think it's possible for the Vita's BoM to go as low as $120, given the right steps are taken.
Smartphone massification may be harming the platform overall but I'm pretty sure it's also helping the component prices go down.

Yes, I agree here, and I assume this is actually what Sony was counting on when choosing these components - that they would become more common and cheaper, and they certainly saved a lot on R&D and development costs, so that I think that the initial investment on Vita was actually very low on that part.

Again, the price going down wouldn't be even remotely as positive as allowing cheap micro-sd storage, being able to play $1 Android games or an increased investment in 1st party AAA titles.. but it would be positive nonetheless.

Well, they have Playstation Mobile for the cheap stuff, and although it's annoyingly not available yet where I live, it does seem to at least 'work'.

I agree about the memory, but piracy is rightfully a primary concern for them. As for the increased investment in first party AAA titles, they did pretty well already if you ask me (WipeOut, Uncharted, LBP, Resistance), but more is always welcome of course. I look forward to Killzone myself (one of the few fps's this gen that I've enjoyed)

 

[wco81]

Price of the games is as big an issue as price of the hardware.

A lot of the people who bought or pirated PSP games are no longer interested in paying $50 for a portable game.

Nothing they do will change this essential fact.

 

[Arwin]

Price of the games is as big an issue as price of the hardware.

A lot of the people who bought or pirated PSP games are no longer interested in paying $50 for a portable game.

Nothing they do will change this essential fact.

How about Playstation Plus, Playstation Mobile, and sales and downloadable title price differentiation in general? Not to mention that people who pirate games aren't exactly the target audience here on a platform that lives by content consumption for ... Obvious reasons.