None of Sony's expanded uses for Cell ever panned out, and developers strongly disliked programming for it. Especially since the PS3 launched at $200 more expensive 1 year later only to have roughly the same level of performance in most games, would you really call that a resounding success? Certainly that $400 million R&D had to be made up somewhere (less it be lost in the billions of dollars which Sony Electronics has lost in the last decade).
Having a payoff in year 7 doesn't really make up for 6 years of pain. I don't think anyone who had the power to rewind time would willingly make the Cell again. Instead you could have even the simplest thing like take a similar 360 design, double the amount of RAM, and require every system to have a hard drive for caching, and boom, better system, far less developer headache.
Deep down inside and this is my humble opinion, Sony's then engineering team were hoping for Cell's expanded uses would come into play...we know about most of those plans but we also know at some point during 2007 or 2008 that it was really more of a game console CPU... unlike the Hitachi SH series that Sega was using... or the MIPS based EE CPU...
I really don't think or believe it would have made a difference but Sony back then were wasting their time with trying to sell the idea of using Linux... I wager if a planned wait for 2007 and a satisfactory pre-planned die shrink to 65nm would have been the case, then more than likely Sony's people would have focused more on the CPU being just a PS3 console thing instead of all that stuff they were trying to do...
Reguardless of the "game developer" headache, many hardcore programed games were made and the CPUs ability has proven it self... there should be no doubt that experienced CellBE PS3 programmers are not still having "headaches" much like how the EE may have cause initial headaches.
Also all your stated loses are missing the controller vibration lawsuit by that company owned by Microsoft, or the loses impacted by the hackers who were hitting PSN hard a while back for almost a month and compromised data that SONY ended up having to pay, be it lawyers or whatever... it was not Sony or Microsoft's fault for getting hacked if they did by a bunch of idiots who wanted to pirate games right?
And those PSN hacking cost millions...Sony had extra to pay there, if say there would have been less haterade and more information on the PS3 console's features and if consumers, the early adopters would have been more responsive instead of falling under the F.U.D. spells cast back then, then there would have been less problems with loss...
Remember that Sony came off the PS2 which even they did not know was going to sell that great in numbers and were basically trying to capitalize on the "brand" and "fanbase" and imho they were way to reliant on those year 2000 numbers repeating themselves.
Here is the problem. Sony launching fall of 2007 would have given MS 2 years head start. MS would have had the RROD problem solved at that point and would have had a sizable lead over sony. Developers would be targeting xbox 360 for 2 years at that point and most likely it would have continued being the lead platform the rest of its life span. Sony with its difficult to program for cell chip would have been killed .
Waiting for 2008 would have been even worse. The xbox 360 would have been in its third year and would have been the only platform with next gen graphics for that long. The ps3 would have been still born even if it launched with a chip on par with the 8800 ultra. Then MS could simply launch in 2010/11 just 2-3 years later with yet another console based on dx11 chips and finished off sony
No the year head start is all that sony could afford , all said and done a single year still cost them half their market share.
Thats why I said "diminishing returns" a 65nm Cell at 3.8Ghz with a 65nm G70 RSX (if it has higher clocks to 650Mhz plus) is diminishing returns, even if RSX was based on G92 on 55nm for a 2007 launch, its diminishing returns because Microsoft would have two years of sales (edit) advantage over Sony.
Also reguardless of a 2007 65nm CellBE 3.8Ghz and 65nm G70 RSX or a miracle 2007 (or 2008) 65nm CellBE 3.8Ghz and 55nm G92 (or hell even GT200!!) its diminishing returns because only first party games would really benefit in the image quality department... the average end user customer would not know the visual difference, nor would they care about 60fps, 720p, 1080p or moar powar11!!! as far as the decision makers at Sony would be concerned, so they would obviously over-rule any engineering desires to stay competitive.
As a consequence it that were to happen Sony would be in a tough spot, because only the hard core arm chair tech spec fan would be interested while casuals would not really care, the PC gaming market which is really centered on a Microsoft OS and API would not really benefit and multiplatform console games would target the lowest common denominator and that would just be Xbox 360 Dx9 limitations so there would be nothing to gain elsewhere other than higher, extra efficiency and far superior first party games that would really need a lot of help to sell...
Basically a Killzone 2 on such a console would probably target 720p or maybe 1080p but still be 30fps with slightly better effects, textures, image quality... Gran Turismo 5 would definetly benefit but it would be years for that to release (not a bad thing)
It really would have been better in Microsoft would have initiated that plan because a 2007 Xbox 360 with 3.8Ghz 3 core CPU and custom Radeon 3870 plus 20MB eDram and possible HD-DVD drive would still mean well over 2.5 times the potential for games like Halo...and Gears and 1:1 ports of Crysis...and perhaps a true Crysis 2 not limited by what happened.
I suspect they would have just matched it. Consider how the PS3 and 360 are still $299 after 7 and 8 years respectively. That's how they make up for early losses, which is why I they aren't so bold this time around. We also live in a world where people regularly buy $500 iPads and $200 iPhones, so I don't see them dropping the price of these new consoles very quickly either. Maybe 2 years at the earliest. And instead, they'll do the Apple way if upgrading components, so instead of a 500GB HDD, you'll get 1TB or 1.5TB in the interim.
hard drive prices...I meant to edit this a while back... we don't know what the hard drive contracts are like, that is a huge difference between these current and eventually next gen consoles as opposed to the PS2 and previous gen consoles.
You never saw Xbox 1 going beyond 2005 (unless as we are fantasizing here Microsoft would have preplanned for 2007 tech instead) as far as the Xbox 1 is concerned, Microsoft pulled the plug on it and just wanted to capitalize on Halo 2's blockbuster sales, plus a bunch of excuses when they were the wealthiest competition hands down, we never saw an Xbox 1 slim or any real intention to, not that it would be needed but since PS2 and GameCube did not come with standard HDDs built in, all you had was the mainboard and disc drives... oh and besides that current gen consoles also have wireless controllers...although that should not play a factor into the prices.
If say these consoles were preplanned for 2007 (Microsoft) and 2008 (Nintendo, Sony) its just the tech that would be evolved and on a different level of at least 2.5x or more of the overall power, the prices would no doubt stay the same or similar and going on years and years (specially for the HDD standard consoles) the prices would still be in the same range they are now.
Die process shrinks have brought down the cost as well as cost cutting on the console main boards, that did cost money of course but these companies are raking it in with game sales (looking at CoD royalties
)
Also keep in mind "what if topics" are similar to discussing alternate history like what if Darth Vader would have shot down Luke in Ep IV preventing the Death Star from getting blown up, or what if Columbus and the three ships and any other ship from Europe would have sank, preventing or delaying the "age of discovery of the new world"
