Realistic Expectations

[Gubbi]

FYI. Commodore Computers went bankrupt.

I'm aware of that. But it was another time, another world. Things have changed so much since that time, it would be foolish to assume an entertainment oriented PC would fail just because Amiga failed over 10 years ago.

Yeah, if it were just that. But the PC industry is twice (actually even more so) as competitive today as it was back then. And Amiga pretty much had the home video game segment cornered. It still tanked.

Cheers
Gubbi

 

[cybamerc]

london-boy:

> The main problem with Linux is NOT the lack of games. The problem
> with Linux is that most other programs run exclusively on Windows.

Linux has other issues but that's besides the point. Windows' dominance is largely based on its success as a consumer OS. And its success as a consumer OS is largely based on its rich selection of games.

> There are 1Billion PCs in the world, only a ridiculously tiny percentage
> of those are used to play games like we do here.

That's not a valid argument. First of all, a lot of those PCs are too old to run modern games. Secondly, most are used for business purposes. Thirdly, just because you don't buy a computer to play games doesn't mean that games haven't had an indirect influence on your purchasing decision.

 

[Kalin]

Dude have you seen Apple's marketshare? And they have everything already in place for like over a decade!

Apples are great.

No they are not. Underpowered, overpriced and proprietary.

With the right pricing Apple could have gone a long way, they just haven't really tried doing it. The Mac Mini is already getting a lot of attention, even being less powerful than a PC of the same price.

Now imagine that $500 Mac Mini, with a PS3 inside... You can't deny it would have quite a potential.

 

[cybamerc]

OS2 had a HUGE advertising campaign, and still it went nowhere.

That's not true. OS/2 did do well initially. Particularly in the corporate sector. But when Win95 came out and took over the consumer market businesses eventually followed suit.

 

[London Geezer]

Cybamerc, u say u disagree with me, but then your explanation shows we're basically saying the same thing, just with different words.
Guess it's all part of your "i disagree. period" way to post around here.

 

[cybamerc]

Cybamerc, u say u disagree with me, but then your explanation shows we're basically saying the same thing

You underestimate the importance that gaming has had on M$' business. Why do you think M$ is scared of Sony?

Games are important. People buy Windows PCs because they can play games on them even if they have no intention of doing so (I should know!). Certainly there are other factors but one constant factor, one advantage that Windows has always had over the competition, is games. Games are the differentiating factor. OS/2, Mac OS, Linux has all the productivity software the average Joe will ever need. But only Windows has all the newest games.

 

[Gubbi]

With the right pricing Apple could have gone a long way, they just haven't really tried doing it. The Mac Mini is already getting a lot of attention, even being less powerful than a PC of the same price.

You must be young, because they did try it. Back in 1996/97(/98?) there were an Apple clone industry: PowerComputing, Umax and Motorola's StarMax division all made Apple compatibles. However these companies were killing Apple's own hardware business so Apple withdrew their licenses, killing the clone companies and pissing off consumers (AND Motorola).

You think that you can make a supercheap product just by wishing it ? That kind of pricing comes as a result of hard competition between multiple vendors over many years.

The standard Mac Mini is a great example, a sub P3 1GHz performing processor, integrated low performance graphics, inandequate amounts of slow RAM, all for the price of $500. I can get a 2.8GHz P4 PC with 512MB ram for $400.

Now imagine that $500 Mac Mini, with a PS3 inside... You can't deny it would have quite a potential.

Now imagine changing that tiny G4 CPU in the mini with the power burning *big* CELL. Now imagine replacing that slow obsolete RAM with the very-botique XDR RAM, now imagine replacing the low performance integrated graphics with something powerful.

Now imagine this costing nowhere near $500 to produce. It would be a sure way for Sony to commit financial suicide.

Cheers
Gubbi

 

[Alejux]

Eww....the OS/2 was crap. At least for the general computer idiot. I was once contracted to develop a software for the OS/2 Bonus Pack, and they had to send this IBM engineer to install the damn thing on my machine. It was also a little too heavy for the machines of that time. Way heavier then Windows 95.

 

[passerby]

Now imagine that $500 Mac Mini, with a PS3 inside... You can't deny it would have quite a potential.

No OOOE, performance for desktop/server will be poor. I think. Someone compile perl and mysql, run mysql_bence and share the results with us?

BTW, I *think* the $500 neither includes keyboard nor mouse(Someone correct me?). Brainless bums of the world are increasing, and apparently several of them decided that the bandwidth of USB 2.0 ought to be wasted on mouse and keyboard. So after wasting 2 awesome USB ports on a mouse and keyboard you have no port left.

Therefore, it should be $500 + (usb adapter) + (mouse & keyboard)
OR
$500 + (Mac keyboard & rubbish Mac 1-button mouse) + (proper mouse)

 

[Alejux]

The standard Mac Mini is a great example, a sub P3 1GHz performing processor, integrated low performance graphics, inandequate amounts of slow RAM, all for the price of $500. I can get a 2.8GHz P4 PC with 512MB ram for $400.

Can you play top of the line games with them, at top of the line performance?

Wouldn't you like to have a U$ 400,00 entertainment computer, that could play all PS3 games and still be able to do your normal internet browsing, wordprocessing, porn watching activities?

 

[London Geezer]

Cybamerc, u say u disagree with me, but then your explanation shows we're basically saying the same thing

You underestimate the importance that gaming has had on M$' business. Why do you think M$ is scared of Sony?

Games are important. People buy Windows PCs because they can play games on them even if they have no intention of doing so (I should know!). Certainly there are other factors but one constant factor, one advantage that Windows has always had over the competition, is games. Games are the differentiating factor. OS/2, Mac OS, Linux has all the productivity software the average Joe will ever need. But only Windows has all the newest games.

Of course Games are important. The importance of games ahs gone right up in the last few years, and that's why MS entered the console market. I am very excited to see how things will pan out in the future, cause i expect games to become a much more important part of everyone's life, with some of the biggest companies in the world of electronics and entertainment investing so much money in the videogames market.
Still, gaming on PC is still a tiny part.
As i said in my previous post, and as you have repeated afterwards, a huge chunk of the total number of PCs in the world sit in offices and only need to run Excel and Access-based database programs.

 

[Gubbi]

The standard Mac Mini is a great example, a sub P3 1GHz performing processor, integrated low performance graphics, inandequate amounts of slow RAM, all for the price of $500. I can get a 2.8GHz P4 PC with 512MB ram for $400.

Can you play top of the line games with them, at top of the line performance?

Of course not, but I could go and buy a real graphics card for the money I saved.

Wouldn't you like to have a U$ 400,00 entertainment computer, that could play all PS3 games and still be able to do your normal internet browsing, wordprocessing, porn watching activities?

I'd love to. But it's not going to happen.

The device you're talking about will be around $1000 if anything.

Cheers
Gubbi

 

[Alejux]

Now imagine that $500 Mac Mini, with a PS3 inside... You can't deny it would have quite a potential.

No OOOE, performance for desktop/server will be poor. I think. Someone compile perl and mysql, run mysql_bence and share the results with us?

BTW, I *think* the $500 neither includes keyboard nor mouse(Someone correct me?). Brainless bums of the world are increasing, and apparently several of them decided that the bandwidth of USB 2.0 ought to be wasted on mouse and keyboard. So after wasting 2 awesome USB ports on a mouse and keyboard you have no port left.

Therefore, it should be $500 + (usb adapter) + (mouse & keyboard)
OR
$500 + (Mac keyboard & rubbish Mac 1-button mouse) + (proper mouse)

Perhaps, it could be US$ 350,00 + all the crap you mentioned. The PS3 is likely to be sold for ~US$ 300,00 , right?

Second, what's that about server performance? I thought we were talking about cheap entertainment PC's, not servers.

And last, it's still way too early for people to start condemming CELL in regard to database performance. Specially since most of the bottleneck lies in the I/O speed after all.

 

[Alejux]

Wouldn't you like to have a U$ 400,00 entertainment computer, that could play all PS3 games and still be able to do your normal internet browsing, wordprocessing, porn watching activities?

I'd love to. But it's not going to happen.

The device you're talking about will be around $1000 if anything.

Cheers
Gubbi

How much would it cost, to put a harddrive , and the other desktop requirements on a PS3? U$100,00? U$200,00? How did you come with that price?

 

[Kalin]

You must be young, because they did try it. Back in 1996/97(/98?) there were an Apple clone industry: PowerComputing, Umax and Motorola's StarMax division all made Apple compatibles. However these companies were killing Apple's own hardware business so Apple withdrew their licenses, killing the clone companies and pissing off consumers (AND Motorola).

There's a misunderstanding here, I'm not arguing Apple didn't try getting OS X on non-Apple hardware. I was thinking about their pricing and how it hurts market penetration. The "underpowered" argument is also tied to the price.

You think that you can make a supercheap product just by wishing it ? That kind of pricing comes as a result of hard competition between multiple vendors over many years.

[...]

Now imagine this costing nowhere near $500 to produce. It would be a sure way for Sony to commit financial suicide.

Hm, do you believe PS3 would be >$500? Genuine question. I'd make an uneducated guess it WOULD be a financial suicide if Sony tries selling it that high.

Edit: Oh, Alejux beat me to it.

cheers,
kfet

 

[Gubbi]

I'm not talking about a PS3 with a HD kit, I'm talking about a CELL based PC.

Cheers
Gubbi

 

[Phil]

Seriously, gaining some market share off the monopolized PC industry is going to happen one way or the other...

What's driving PC sales at the moment? Why should people keep upgrading their PCs with the newest graphic-cards, newer CPUs and newest Microsoft Windows OS? It's already a trend that people ARE LESS INCLINED to upgrade. Wasn't it always mentioned that gaming is one of the key factors that especially drives graphic-card sales? With consoles becoming more and more popular, focus is slowly shifting... what will happen if Sony introduces an attractive deal bundling both state-of-the-art video gaming AND more than sufficient performance on general purpouse apps? Sure, it won't make those using Photoshop and all those developers in IT go out and buy a PS3-PC, but how much do those people make out of the industry anyway?

If Apple jumps on board with a CELL based CPU together with Sony, they could be right at the front of a media driven generation. Where a company [Sony] pushes backend content (Sony Pictures, 1st - 3rd party game software) into the forend with CELL based CE equipment (anything from [Apple] Computers to TV sets)...

No one is saying it will kill the PC over night, but with certain trends of people not upgrading and piracy increasing at a daily basis - it isn't strenghtening its grip on its userbase either.

 

[cybamerc]

london-boy:

> Still, gaming on PC is still a tiny part.

It's influence isn't meassured solely by the number of sold games.

> a huge chunk of the total number of PCs in the world sit in offices and
> only need to run Excel and Access-based database programs.

But why are those PCs running Word and Excel and not WordPerfect and Quattro Pro or Word Pro and Lotus 1-2-3? That's the question you need to ask yourself.

 

[passerby]

I thought we were talking about cheap entertainment PC's, not servers

For 'cheap entertainment PC', my 4-year old Athlon 700MHz, worth i-dont-know-howmuch-today, already more than qualifies.

But that's not the point.

The point is that the CPU does not have OOOE. I wonder how a 'mere' 2GHz CPU with OOOE will compare to an OOOE-less 4GHz CPU for desktop apps.

 

[Kalin]

I'm not talking about a PS3 with a HD kit, I'm talking about a CELL based PC.

And I'm still talking about the potential of my hypothetical $500 Mac Mini with a PS3 inside, and still can't see what you found wrong with it (as in - wishful thinking; financial suicide), after accepting a PS3 would be priced at $300.