Hypothesis of countries that can create consoles

[edepot]

This is just a thought. Maybe it is true, maybe it is not. But have you noticed that most of the advances in console technology has been done in Japan? Ever since the founder of Atari went to Japan and let them create game cartridges for it, the Japanese continent has been producing all the major consoles these days with the exception of Xbox.

It is true that the first consoles were created in the US, but has now shifted to Japan. It seems Japan and Germany can create great technology (like luxury cars), but it is weird that Germany cannot create advanced technology on a more miniature scale (like consoles).

Many Japanese companies now outsource to Taiwan or China to design or manufacture small components, but design their consoles themselves mostly (with help sometimes).

Is it true that consoles can only be created in Asia? Today, no european console is been made. (this includes companies in Germany, France, Italy, UK, etc).

I think the concentration of advanced technology is shifting to Asia. Even if Germany tried, I don't think they can outdo Japan. Have they or any country like UK or France or Italy or whatever, ever tried? I know a portable one from the UK failed miserably, so perhaps in the future you can only get miniture advanced console technology from Asia

 

[Squilliam]

The ram is likely designed by the Taiwanese, the CPUs/GPUs are designed by IBM/Nvidia/AMD which are American companies and the hard drives are likely made by Seagate, an American company. I personally don't see much Japanese involvement.

 

[makattack]

Not to take any credit from the hardware engineers, but it's the software that people buy consoles for. There are large software houses in the US, EU and Asia (subcontinent/southwest and east asia). I would argue that it's more telling and important that console software development is World-wide.

I think the fact the major consoles are made by companies from two countries with a long history of consumer electronics manufacturing shouldn't be too surprising. The EU also has a history of consumer electronics manufacturing with companies like Phillips, Bosch, and computers, but I just think EU manufacturing and design tends towards the more "serious" side of the consumer electronics business.

 

[PalmiNio]

The ram is likely designed by the Taiwanese, the CPUs/GPUs are designed by IBM/Nvidia/AMD which are American companies and the hard drives are likely made by Seagate, an American company. I personally don't see much Japanese involvement.

That is just the design, the production is mostly asian. And then you have to add the DVD or BR player which is purly asian. 2 at of 3 compeditors in the console market are purly japanese and there is more to consoles then just GPU and CPU.

Europe don't have a absolut advantage in this field. But to say that micro electronic does not exist there is wrong, look at Nokia and SonyEricsson.

Every region has their advantages. The car industry in the US are dying but still living in Europe and Japan, that is their advantage.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

It's not true consoles can only be produced in Asia. IT is true that you'd be nuts to try and launch a new console no matter which country you're from! See Gizmondo (okay, that was just a scam, but still...) The real question here is why should a European company want to produce a console? It's a damned hard and risky business. MS spent $5 billion to get their console business off the ground. It would be a stupid venture, as why trying to launch an new iPod rival, or a new disc format to replace BluRay, or a new sport to overthrow Football. The standards are set, people don't need a change, a new product hasn't a chance, so no-one is considering it. There are no technical limits whatsoever holding the rest of the world back, only financial, business choices.

 

[SPM]

The reason that Japan is so prominent in games consoles is the fact that so many big consumer electronics companies are based there (it takes a big CE company to successfully launch a games console), and just as important because to many games developers are based there.

As for making games console hardware, the component hardware is a global product (no single country produces all the components required), and the consoles can be assembled anywhere. Asia is just cheaper as an assembly base, so it tends to get made there as do PCs, laptops etc.

 

[PalmiNio]

The reason that Japan is so prominent in games consoles is the fact that so many big consumer electronics companies are based there (it takes a big CE company to successfully launch a games console), and just as important because to many games developers are based there.

As for making games console hardware, the component hardware is a global product (no single country produces all the components required), and the consoles can be assembled anywhere. Asia is just cheaper as an assembly base, so it tends to get made there as do PCs, laptops etc.

Well Microsoft did it and is not a CE company. I know that they are in a special position with all the money but I think that american companies like Apple and Google could make a great console.

Not a console as we know it but something in the future. Both MS and Sony has worked hard to move console more to entertainment and online. Google and Apple could do the same with their products towards console.

 

[ERP]

Well Microsoft did it and is not a CE company. I know that they are in a special position with all the money but I think that american companies like Apple and Google could make a great console.

Not a console as we know it but something in the future. Both MS and Sony has worked hard to move console more to entertainment and online. Google and Apple could do the same with their products towards console.

The problem isn't creating the hardware, any marginal company with some EE's can do that.

The hard/expensive part is convincing software developers that you can sell enough of them that supporting it makes sense.
Nintendo, Sony and now MS are in the position where they have historical president, any new player would have to buy their way into the market, which severly limits the number of possible players.

 

[Mart]

Microsoft is really in a unique position here. It has lots and lots of experience in the software department, giving it a huge advantage when it comes to tools, software, drivers, APIs, etc. It also has more than enough experience with hardware, it has worldwide networks for advertising, distribution and development. It has connections with many game developers allready working for windows. It's in a unique position to make it easy for developers to port between windows and xbox, and last but definitely not least, it has loads and loads of cash.
Google and Apple really miss a lot of those things, and would never be able to pull something like a console of.

 

[The Seventh Taylor]

The reason that Japan is so prominent in games consoles is the fact that so many big consumer electronics companies are based there (it takes a big CE company to successfully launch a games console), and just as important because to many games developers are based there.

Correct, and there is barely one major Consumer Electronics company left in Europe and that one doesn't have the guts or long-term vision and stamina to make a long-term, high-risk/high-reward investment required for a succesful console launch and lifetime.

 

[Skrying]

Correct, and there is barely one major Consumer Electronics company left in Europe and that one doesn't have the guts or long-term vision and stamina to make a long-term, high-risk/high-reward investment required for a succesful console launch and lifetime.

You mean they're not idiots?

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

I suppose Phillips might manage (they did try before) but what's the point? MS, Sony (and Nintendo) all have clear objectives of why they want a console next to their existing line of products. But for example what would be the use for lets say Phillips? To sell their tv's? to sell shavers? to sell lightbulbs? or try to make a profit on royalties? I think that for just about every company there just isnt any use investing a couple of billions hoping that they end up succeeding and than it still remains the question how much money they'll make on it in the long run. I think if you got 5 billion or so to invest in something to make you a profit there are much better deals than Consoles.

 

[Rangers]

Ironically the true technology in game consoles is now American based whereas it used to be Japanese based. Each of the consoles CPU's and GPU's are some combination of IBM, AMD, and Nvidia. Mainly because other companies can no longer compete with those for state of the art. Certainly you could build a console with Japanese technology, but it would not have any chance to be as powerful as one with high end Nvidia/AMD/Intel/IBM components, and would therefore be at a marked disadvantage (especially if it was aiming at the hardcore (PS3, 360) market where power and graphics is very important). As far as I know this is basically what happened with PS3. Rumors are Sony investigated both a Toshiba GPU equipped, as well as Cell-as-GPU equipped PS3, before realizing both would be trounced graphically and moving quickly to an Nvidia solution.

Then you come down to the more dumb circuits, the motherboard and such, fabricating, and putting it all together. Those are produced where the costs are low and the traditional tech factories are, aka Taiwan and China.

Producing a console in say, Germany, the labor costs would be very high. It would make no sense, when you can just pay Chinese workers cents an hour to do it. Such is todays global economy. AFAIK even the "Japanese" PS3 is produced mainly in China now.

 

[paawl]

I'm not certain that the "guts" of consoles were ever particularly Japanese. Atari used a MOS CPU, and so did the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). The Sega Masters System used a Zilog Z-80, the Super NES used another MOS, and the Genesis a Motorola 68000. The original PlayStation used a system-on-a-chip (SoC) designed by LSI, the Nintendo 64 used a MIPS CPU. The GameCube used an IBM CPU and an ATI GPU, and the Wii uses the same combo. The original Xbox used an Intel CPU and nVidia GPU, the Xbox 360 uses an IBM CPU and ATI GPU, and the PS3 uses an IBM CPU and nVidia GPU.

MOS, Zilog, Motorola, LSI, MIPS, IBM, ATI, Intel, nVidia, and Rambus are all North American companies (ATI is Canadian), and they designed the most central and sophisticated component of every memorable console except the Sega 32X, Saturn, and Dreamcast, which all used Hitachi CPUs, and the PS2, which used a Toshiba CPU.

This is not to say that the Japanese can't design sophisticated processors; I've always admired Hitachi's SuperH-series, and Toshiba and NEC are no slouches either. Today, Fujitsu's SPARC64 is the fastest (single-threaded) SPARC processor.

My point is that it's incorrect to think that American or European companies are technically incapable of producing video game consoles; they make many vastly more complex products (think medical imagers, desktop operating systems, and jumbo jets) every day. I think, as others have pointed out, that it takes an unusual set of circumstances for a company to have incentives to make a console, and, thus far, the only motivated companies since the demise of the Atari 2600 have been mostly Japanese.

 

[Carl B]

Rumors are Sony investigated both a Toshiba GPU equipped, as well as Cell-as-GPU equipped PS3, before realizing both would be trounced graphically and moving quickly to an Nvidia solution.

It's not about an NVidia solution having been more powerful than the Toshiba GPU, than the NVidia GPU's approachability. In fact reports are that the Toshiba chip was quite the beast - but remember, these things were going on when folk were still hopeful that 65nm would be at hand for PS3's launch. And fact is that they were already going Cell on the CPU side as a 'primary' pillar of the system... they realized that to go with a completely exotic GPU would just throw developers into limbo altogether.

As for the RSX, well... one might have hoped that with the extra year to launch they would have updated the design in the midst of the delays.

Now to the premise of this thread - Edepot what are you even talking about? Do you think it something inherent to the Japanese brain or something? If anything, consider the Japanese culture the reason that so many domestic giants got into the industry so early. As the Japanese population ages and concurrently becomes less arcade/console centric and more mobile centric, the cultural advantage in the field diminishes though. I love the 'Japan-ism' of modern console gaming, but realistically whatever their previous hegemony, it's shifted much more towards the rest of the Western world... which makes sense, given the distribution of sales and development. Japan will always remain prominent, but it's a more multipolar world now in gaming.

Obviously Germany could create a console if they wanted to. The question is... why would they want to? It's not an easy industry to break into and ever expect to turn a profit. Microsoft I think can officially claim 'success' with the 360, but at what price to reach this point? And there aren't many companies for whom computer gaming is related enough to their core business that it would make sense to even bother navigating those rough seas on a hope and a dream alone. Apple is obviously one that might attempt it one day, because they have clear expertise in the field (computing), but I'm not holding my breath there.

 

[obonicus]

As an aside, is it fair to say that the CELL is American?

 

[Carl B]

I'd call it as Japanese as it is American honestly; we'll see what directions of 'ownership' its successor takes.

 

[PalmiNio]

Ironically the true technology in game consoles is now American based whereas it used to be Japanese based. Each of the consoles CPU's and GPU's are some combination of IBM, AMD, and Nvidia. Mainly because other companies can no longer compete with those for state of the art. Certainly you could build a console with Japanese technology, but it would not have any chance to be as powerful as one with high end Nvidia/AMD/Intel/IBM components, and would therefore be at a marked disadvantage (especially if it was aiming at the hardcore (PS3, 360) market where power and graphics is very important). As far as I know this is basically what happened with PS3. Rumors are Sony investigated both a Toshiba GPU equipped, as well as Cell-as-GPU equipped PS3, before realizing both would be trounced graphically and moving quickly to an Nvidia solution.

Well it is more then just the design and the GPU/CPU in a console. Sure the design of the major parts in PS3 is from US companies, XDR from Rambus - RSX from nVidia - and CELL from IBM (parts of it).

No question that the US has a big lead in the most advanced semiconducters design.

The question is not where it is produced but who owns the production. Yes most of the production is outside Japan and US but still controlled by companies.

So let's look at PS3:
1. Both RAM types are produced by Samsung, South Korea.
2. Flash memory is from Spansion. Joint Venture of AMD and Fujitsu. HQ in US but owned buy Japan and US.
3. HDMI chip is from Silicon Image. A US company
4. The production of the CELL in PS3 is done by Toshiba these days (Sony sold the production). Sure IBM can produce to but in the case of PS3 it is Toshiba, Japan.
5. RSX. Yes the design is done by a US company but the production was owned by Sony but now sold to Toshiba, Japan.
6. The BluRay drive is a design which is partly owned by Sony. I suspect they have controll over the production as well, maybe through joint venture with another Japan company.
7. Hard rive today is toshiba and fuijtsu, Japan. Used to be Seagate, US.

So it is fair to say that PS3 is a Japan controlled console when you look at who is owning the production. Sure, the design of some chips are from US but they don't produce them.

 

[PalmiNio]

It is fair to say that Japan has the upper hand in controll of the production. But US has the upper hand in design och the chip.

Overall, Asia is where everything is more or less done and where owners of the production is located. That goes for all consoles. Most of the companies woning the production is in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan

 

[Carl B]

4. The production of the CELL in PS3 is done by Toshiba these days (Sony sold the production). Sure IBM can produce to but in the case of PS3 it is Toshiba, Japan.

5. RSX. Yes the design is done by a US company but the production was owned by Sony but now sold to Toshiba, Japan.

The production of Cell for the PS3 still has IBM production linked into it via East Fishkill, and Toshiba was always involved with RSX production via OTSS. The Nagasaki lines were sold to Toshiba, and the OTSS lines are now fully controlled.

6. The BluRay drive is a design which is partly owned by Sony. I suspect they have controll over the production as well, maybe through joint venture with another Japan company.

Sony is the primary drive manufacturer for the PS3 drives.