PS3 sales

[StefanS]

I'd like to remind everyone that this is a discussion forum where people come together to exchange information and opinions in a civil manner. Moreover, we like to substantiate our opinions, not just throwing sentence fragments at each other. If you're unable to do so, this thread might not be the right place for you to post in.

 

[Dave Baumann]

Blu-ray isn't enough to explain the 200$ difference. A Blu-ray drive is an incremental cost over DVD of what, 30$ tops, going down every day.

I'm pretty certain the costs are well in excess of a $30 delta over DVD drives - just look at the costs of entry for basic PC HD drives, which have no intelligence in them other than the basic transport.

 

[nelg]

I have to agree with Dave. If the difference in cost of BR over DVD was so little, I would be fairly certain that standalone BR players would be available for less than the cost of the PS3.

 

[jonabbey]

I'd like to remind everyone that this is a discussion forum where people come together to exchange information and opinions in a civil manner. Moreover, we like to substantiate our opinions, not just throwing sentence fragments at each other. If you're unable to do so, this thread might not be the right place for you to post in.

Understood, and appreciated.

My snarky comment was out of frustration with forum after forum on the net (though typically not Beyond3d) attacking everything Sony does or does not do, whatever the situation. Obviously my skin got way too thin on this.

The positive point I wanted to make is that it is far too early to claim that Sony won't make it to the PS4, that Sony is doomed, etc. Sony is mysteriously radio silent right now, and that's a worrisome trend, given the amount of flack that is coming their way online. But it's important to distinguish between the online commentariat (in whose proud legions I count myself), and the market as a whole.

 

[dobwal]

I don't see anything that Wii runs that cannot also be run by Xbox360 and PS3 (controller patents aside). But I do see plenty of stuff that PS3 and xbo360 will have that Wii cannot run. There is no getting around t hat, only someone who is yearning for Nintendo domination (why on earth?) and has lost all logic could think otherwise.

Your logic is based on the fallacy that graphics are the "be all and end all" of consumer demand in relation to gaming. Its not. In reality, the PS2 dominated sales without dominating technical specs. In reality, Nvidia and ATI most powerful videocards often sell just a fraction of their low end and mid range counterparts even when you consider just retail sales of discrete GPUs. Pokemon is probably number 1 in terms of unit sold per installment in Japan and it isn't because of visual prowess. GTA shares that distinction in the US. In reality, price, value and portability play an important part in customer choice.

 

[Npl]

I'm pretty certain the costs are well in excess of a $30 delta over DVD drives - just look at the costs of entry for basic PC HD drives, which have no intelligence in them other than the basic transport.

That looking only at a part of the problem - at what you pay for those Drives.
DVD-Drives are produced and sold in huge quantities, BR/HDDVD-Drives arent - PS3 is the exception. Also manufacturers have to recoup some of the money that went into creating the drives. The delta between manufacturing cost is sure lower than the delta in retail price. ( Not to say that there aint a substantial difference )
Based on manufacturing cost alone Im sure Sony will break even very soon, if they arent already.

 

[Dave Baumann]

That looking only at a part of the problem - at what you pay for those Drives.

Even if you build in a 100% margin, you are looking at drive costs in the order of $200 (i.e. look at the recent release of the HP DVD Drive - Blu Ray are even more expensive, some Sony BRD's are in the order of $800). So, no $30 premium in terms of cost isn't reasonable yet.

 

[Fox5]

So ... tired ...
Blu-ray isn't enough to explain the 200$ difference. A Blu-ray drive is an incremental cost over DVD of what, 30$ tops, going down every day. There is something else.
Sony is quitting the loss-leader business model (see support for standard consumer flash formats, standard SATA HDD upgrades, use of bog-standard USB and HDMI cables for the controller and video output, Bluetooth headsets). Nobody wants to compete with Microsoft on the ability to lose money anymore, so nobody's going to risk their fortunes on accessory sales. Nintendo has adapted to this as well, but from a different angle. They have the lowest cost hardware of all by a mile, so they can undercut whatever price the competition sets and still be profitable.
Sony sells basically at cost now, foregoing (unreliable) "extra" revenue streams from proprietary storage, chargers and cabling junk, giving them that certain attractiveness of a more open platform. Say hello to "Other OS", too -- you can build a compute cluster of PS3s and never buy a single game, Sony will not stop you. That's of course still a gamble, but with no per-unit money on the table, so it's safer for them, whatever the outcome. They could lose domination, but they cannot lose money.

That's why the PS3 has its price tag.
Yes it is. It's interesting when you connect this with your sentiments about the console prices. IMO anyone who can afford to buy a nice HDTV, which is an investment of at least 600$, better make it 1000$ with the sky being the limit, really has no place bickering about the price differences between the two HD consoles.

I have a 30" (or 32") HD CRT that's much nicer in pic quality than LCD TVs that are much more expensive and only cost me about $550 post tax around 6 months ago (and could have been had even cheaper). Certainly very capable of taking advantage of HD over SD, and cheaper than the cost of the ps3, or equal to its lower end version.

That said, as a CRT (and not a Sony Super Fine Pitch), my HDTV effectively maxes out its res somewhere in between 480p and 720p, so even a 480p console loaded up with effects would be pretty good for it (it handles color accuracy and motion better than all LCDs of a similar size in the $1000 to $2000 range...haven't really seen any more expensive), though by outputting my PC to it I've found that there definitely is a benefit from increasing res beyond 480p, but it teeters off somewhere before 720p and 1080i loses so much detail (but my PC can't support 1080i @ 60hz component output anyhow, so that could be a limitation of the component out on my tv, I think the hdmi output handled it better).

 

[-tkf-]

Sony needs to pay for forcing blue ray down gamers throats to win a movie format war I could careless about.

I have to correct you here, they have to pay for holding a gun to the head of people FORCING them to buy a console with a Blu-Ray drive. It´s so incredible dense and very provoking to put together such a string of shit, you BUY out of free will. They are making me a FAVOR by including a BluRay drive and i´m not the only one. And anyone saying that BluRay sucks for games TODAY is really reaching towards the future. The truth is noone knows shit about how BluRay will influence games, it´s all guessing and swearing today. The facts are there can be more data on a BluRay disc, it can be read at the same speed as a DVD, will games benefit? WHO KNOWS, but someone tell me how games benefit from DVD´s ?. The only weak point is the price TODAY, guessing how much of the 499$ we can thank BluRay for is.. GUESSING. How fast will prices drop on the BluRay production? Guess! Noone knows..

The Sony hate is incredible it´s like they stole all the percieved girlfriends from nerds all over the world. HD-DVD backed by Toshiba is the "open format" while Blu-Ray backed by everyone else is the proprietary format, makes sense if you hate Sony of course.

 

[Dave Baumann]

Well, the benefit for DVD has been that many million of people have been able to play next gen, HD games for 12 months already and at a $200 lower cost of entry. I'm not sure that should be overlooked.

 

[Rolf N]

I have to agree with Dave. If the difference in cost of BR over DVD was so little, I would be fairly certain that standalone BR players would be available for less than the cost of the PS3.

Not so clear cut. A Blu-ray standalone player needs significant processing power under the hood. This isn't one of those dinky 50$ DVD players with just a different laser wavelength. You don't need a whole PS3 to do it, you could start with stripping out EE+GS and RSX, and half of the memory. But the PS3 has huge economies of scale going for it (it outsells every HD player by at least 10:1 currently), and offsetting that will eat up those savings quick. Plus Sony itself is one of the few sources of a key component which means they can get it at a cost and not for a price.

Just look at what Tosh's HD-DVD players retail for, and Toshiba as a company is proactive about pissing on Sony's cake even when it means subsidizing, and you're still not far below PS3 price. The hardware difference between the two formats is a plastic lens, so do use that as a reference point.

Sony will be very careful not to compete with the PS3 internally. Who is supposed to build this cheaper standalone Blu-ray player? Toshiba?

 

[Dave Baumann]

We're not talking about stand alone player, but PC add-in drives. There's no processing logic there (thats catered for by the CPU and graphics of the PC) and other than the interface costs (which are the same as DVD drives, which retail as low as $15) the primary differences are the diode and transports. Add-in drive costs are up in the $400-$800 ranges (with HD DVD occupying the lower end of that and Blu Ray moving more in the higher).

 

[-tkf-]

Well, the benefit for DVD has been that many million of people have been able to play next gen, HD games for 12 months already and at a $200 lower cost of entry. I'm not sure that should be overlooked.

You may know more than i do, but was the RSX and Cell ready 12 month before the BluRay was? And do you think that the 200$ difference (isn´t the premium 399$? making it 100$?) is all down to BluRay and not the Cell or how much money Sony vs Microsoft is losing?

 

[archie4oz]

We're not talking about stand alone player, but PC add-in drives. There's no processing logic there (thats catered for by the CPU and graphics of the PC) and other than the interface costs (which are the same as DVD drives, which retail as low as $15) the primary differences are the diode and transports. Add-in drive costs are up in the $400-$800 ranges (with HD DVD occupying the lower end of that and Blu Ray moving more in the higher).

Er, umm... Those HD-DVD drives are ROM drives while the Blu-Ray drives are all re-writable (most typically offering more performance across the across the board than any currently available HD-DVD drive)... There aren't any available PC BD-ROM only drives for comparison although Pioneer did show off a 5x ROM drive w/DVD re-writable capability at CES, but there's no price available.

 

[nelg]

Not so clear cut. A Blu-ray standalone player needs significant processing power under the hood. This isn't one of those dinky 50$ DVD players with just a different laser wavelength. You don't need a whole PS3 to do it, you could start with stripping out EE+GS and RSX, and half of the memory. But the PS3 has huge economies of scale going for it (it outsells every HD player by at least 10:1 currently), and offsetting that will eat up those savings quick. Plus Sony itself is one of the few sources of a key component which means they can get it at a cost and not for a price.

If that were solely the case then it would follow that MS is making one hell of a margin on the HDDVD add-on. Furthermore, if they were wanting to, they could sell the add-on for less than $100 while still maintaining a very good profit margin.

 

[Rolf N]

If that were solely the case then it would follow that MS is making one hell of a margin on the HDDVD add-on. Furthermore, if they were wanting to, they could sell the add-on for less than $100 while still maintaining a very good profit margin.

Microsoft does not manufacture drives, nor do they assemble the addon. They have to pay third parties for such tasks, and they all (Microsoft, Toshiba and Flextronics) certainly split up that hell of a margin between them, resulting in less of a hell of a margin for each individual company.
Sony OTOH is still Sony.

 

[nelg]

Microsoft does not manufacture drives, nor do they assemble the addon. They have to pay third parties for such tasks, and they all (Microsoft, Toshiba and Flextronics) certainly split up that hell of a margin between them, resulting in less of a hell of a margin for each individual company.
Sony OTOH is still Sony.

What about Asus and Foxconn and even Nicha for that matter?

 

[scooby_dooby]

They are making me a FAVOR by including a BluRay drive and i´m not the only one. And anyone saying that BluRay sucks for games TODAY is really reaching towards the future.

Is it really so hard to understand that for some people it's a favour, and for other it's a huge hassle, having to wait an extra year and shell out an extra $200???

The question is where does the majority lie, personally I would think the majority would rather pay substantially less money, have more games due to a larger install base, and have their PS3's in 2005... just my opinion though.

 

[scooby_dooby]

There aren't any available PC BD-ROM only drives for comparison although Pioneer did show off a 5x ROM drive w/DVD re-writable capability at CES, but there's no price available.

So you agree that pulling a $30 figure out of thin air is nonsense?

 

[scooby_dooby]

Just look at what Tosh's HD-DVD players retail for, and Toshiba as a company is proactive about pissing on Sony's cake even when it means subsidizing, and you're still not far below PS3 price. The hardware difference between the two formats is a plastic lens, so do use that as a reference point.

You contradict yourself. If Toshiba is subsidizing the drives then all your arguments about MS not producing the drives themselves, and Sony being Sony are not valid. You're saying it's possible MS could be purchasing the drives below cost, that would actually give them an advantage over Sony...