Sony employee fired for his comments on PS3 (enclosed)

[Elok]

Originally posted by ajbera
I hope this doesn't impact the next GTA title.

Oh, when the Cell processors do their stuff, it'll be amazing. You'll be able to see each and every individual red blood cell as you smash it out of a hooker's body with a crowbar.

[Demerzel]

Originally posted by Elok


Oh, when the Cell processors do their stuff, it'll be amazing. You'll be able to see each and every individual red blood cell as you smash it out of a hooker's body with a crowbar.

okay, now I'm scared

[OneFootInTheGrave]

You know the internet/forums and blogs are a strange place. If I went online right now and said the sky was blue, 100 people would probably tell me to STFU noob or argue with me and tell me I’m not a weather man.

[Guynemer]

ColecoVision forever!

[korn469]

Asher do you still work at IBM? I heard yesterday that they are making Blade servers with Cell processors. Is it really that powerful? I just have this gut feeling that the PS3 is going to be more expensive than an Xbox360 yet not as fast.

[Asher]

No, I'm back at school. And Cell is good for certain types of tasks -- low precision, highly parallel, non-branching floating point calculations. It's terrible at anything else.

[One_more_turn]

What will be the yield on the Cell? If the yield already sucks on the proven Power processor, what does that tell you about the Cell?

IBM = A Great Marketing Company

[Asher]

The yield isn't that great, it's a big chip. Smaller than the Power4/Power5s, though.

[korn469]

I just hate when they call it a supercomputer on a chip.

[korn469]

more news about the ps3

Sony Corp.’s launch of its next-generation PlayStation 3 video game console could be delayed if industry specifications for some of its technology are not finalized soon, although it is still aiming for a spring rollout, it said on Monday...

Sony’s shares fell as much as 4.4 percent on Monday after Merrill Lynch said in a research note last week that the PS3’s launch might be delayed by six to 12 months and the cost of production could initially approach $900 per unit.

source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11458047/

[Sandman]

My instinct at the moment is that both the X-box 360 and Playstation 3 will struggle to do business. Neither machine looks remotely interesting thus far.

[DanS]

The 360 isn't struggling to do business at all. It's in chronic shortage.

[asleepathewheel]

900 per unit. zounds! How much of that can sony eat? Surely not enough for me to purchase upon US release.

[Apocalypse]

It's seeming that Sony's only hope rests on the interest in Blu-Ray.

[Nostromo]

More detail:

For Sony, the next holiday shopping season may be approaching much too fast, if a report by Merrill Lynch (PDF) is to be believed. According to the brokerage and financial services firm's analysis, Sony is going to be hard pressed to ship the PlayStation 3 at any time this year. When it does, the entertainment company will either have to price the consoles much higher than it would like or take a huge loss on each PS3 sold.

On Friday, Ken noted the conspicuous absence of the PS3 at the Taipei Game Show. All that is on display is a prototype behind plexiglass, similar to what I saw at CES. There were no demo units to play with, no functional prototypes to show off to the press, and nothing other than prerendered videos similar to those Sony showed at CES. That's to be expected for a console which is still a year to 18 months away from launch, but much more alarming if the company is still planning on a worldwide launch in 6-8 months.

Even if you're convinced that Sony will be able to launch the PS3 in Japan and North America by year end, there is one other issue facing Sony: cost. According to Merrill Lynch, the cost and availability problems stem from Sony's choice of components, which

* Are difficult to manufacture (the Cell CPU)
* Are costly (Cell CPU and Blu-ray drive)
* Have a specification that is not yet finalized (Blu-ray)

The above chart is alarming: that US$800 total (which doesn't include actually assembling the PS3) is going to mean that Sony either has to price the PS3 uncomfortably high in comparison to the US$399 price tag for the Xbox 360, or price it competitively and take a huge loss on each console sold.Neither of those seem to be very attractive choices. Naturally, as time passes and components get cheaper, the PS3 will become less expensive to manufacture, with Merrill Lynch estimating the cost per console to be around US$320 three years after launch.

Which option will Sony choose? Probably taking a bath on console sales. However, the company is going to end up hurting a lot more with each PS3 sale than Microsoft does with the Xbox 360. A recent analysis of the 360's component costs showed that Microsoft was taking a US$126 hit on each high-end Xbox 360 sold. With the Xbox 360's components estimated to cost US$525 (the Xenon CPU accounts for US$106 and the ATI GPU another US$141), Microsoft is able to keep the tag on the "good" Xbox 360 attractive to most gamers. If the figures for the PS3 components are accurate (and keep in mind that firms like Merrill Lynch make big bucks nailing this stuff for institutional investors), Sony would lose US$400 on each PS3 sold if it decides to meet the Xbox 360's price point. Taking a US$200 loss per unit would result with a US$599 price tag.

Ouch.

Sony's problems apparently lie with two key components: the Blu-ray optical drive and the IBM Cell processor. Blu-ray optical drives are expensive, and even more troublesome for Sony, the finalization of the Advanced Access Content System (the DRM for both next-gen optical drives) spec has been delayed yet again. Sources pin the problem on Blu-ray rather than HD DVD, as the BD+ bonus DRM present in the format is causing enough problems to keep both types of players off the market for the time being. If Sony were to switch to DVD, it would reduce the cost of making PS3s, but with Sony being one of the major backers of the Blu-ray format, that's out of the question.

The other issue is the Cell processor. It's big (235mm2) and expensive to manufacture. As time goes by and IBM gets better at making the Cell, prices will drop and yields will improve. Once IBM moves to a 65nm manufacturing process for the Cell, that will help too. There are also rumors that the RSX graphics processor from NVIDIA has been the cause of additional problems, but that's less of a kink than the Blu-ray and Cell.

Sony plans on launching the PS3 in Japan first, hopefully this fall, with a North American launch in time for the holiday season. Merrill Lynch's report casts doubts on the company's ability to reach those targets, estimating that Sony will at best be able to ship between 2 million and 3 million units worldwide by the end of 2006. That adds up to a high likelihood of the kind of shortages that plagued the Xbox 360's launch. Couple that with a price tag that looks to be significantly higher than that of the Xbox 360, and Sony is looking at a high likelihood of a late, turbulent, and unimpressive launch.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060219-6216.html

I doubt that the CPU and Bluray are that expensive, though.