Sony's "full-on assault" on Xbox Live continued
by Dan Choi 
{ Feb 3rd 2006 at 2:16PM }
The supposed "full-on assault" by Sony
on the Xbox 360 and its vaunted Live service continues in the pages of PSM this month, with the rumored DVR
and media-center-like capabilities of the PS3 taking center stage.After someone literally took a page from the unofficial PS mag for the previous post on the topic, another PlayStation.com forum poster (with J Allard 'shopped into "Jak" as an avatar?) decided to spill the beans on the rest of Sony's secret plans for the next generation. They include DVR functionality, "high-def movie and TV episode downloads" in an iTunes/Connect-like way, LocationFree support for the PSP, and a fall release for the system and possibly its online service as well. For a look at the PSM page with all this secret talk, try the publicly available link over here.
Of course, a scan from a magazine doesn't prove anything, as Engadget so rightly states in a recent post. After all, if the PS3 hard drive proves to be optional, and a video input isn't featured on the back, it's highly doubtful that every system (if the PS3 releases in Blu-ray/HDD-separate SKUs) will support all of these capabilities.
[Thanks for letting us know about the scan, Aaron Laine, and thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 2)
play free games @ Feb 4th 2006 1:08AM
Well, all these functions sound awesome, but will this dvr be able to record my hd tv shows while I'm playing a blu-ray disc or a ps3 game? All this great tech will probably set us back some serious $$$. I also agree with the above poster that I doubt Sony is gonna let me play my divx and xvid files on this machine. The final ps3 will be many comprimises of the described features. All of them together is too good to be true.
Rare Hare @ Feb 4th 2006 1:56AM
Cyberclaws (#32):
...
[edited out]?? i'm sorry, but that's the stupidest thing i've heard in quite a while.
what's the point in trying to create some retarded fantasy out of corporate rivalries? Nintendo and Microsoft.. buddies? that's idiotic. just because you happen to be a Microsoft fanboy, and Nintendo has seemingly chosen to not compete on the same level as Microsoft and Sony, doesn't make Microsoft and Nintendo allies against Sony.
[edited out]
.. GOD that was a stupid comment..
m3mnoch @ Feb 4th 2006 2:12AM
"In other words, those who say PS3 will be expensive by stating that the BluRay drive will be expensive because standalone BluRay players are expensive are adding in extra costs that won't be there."
uh. i kind of agree with you. mpeg2 decoding hardware capable of decoding an hd stream has been around for about 10 years now. that's certainly not where the blu-ray gets expensive.
it's the manufacturing process for that fancy triple-action, .85 aperture blue laser head that's expensive. the margin for error is so incredibly small (40% more than hd-dvd by the way) that it just plain takes longer/fails qa/more throw aways/costs more.
now, combine that with the crazy high-margin for error blu-ray disc manufacturing process -- 1 in 5 discs of that first run of charlie's angels were coasters -- and stick it to a board that actually has 9 processors on it -- just in case up to 2 of the dies are hosed -- because the yields are so error prone and you have yourself one damn sexy, super expensive, low failure tolerance machine.
boy-howdy, don't that make you feel fuzzy about the ps3's chances at launch. especially with all the hub-bub over the 'complicated' process of putting together xbox 360s. hell. they're tinker toys compared to the assembly magic the ps3 will require.
that's why they are going to be so very expensive. not because of some silly mpeg decoder chipset who's technology has been around for a decade.
m3mnoch.
bd @ Feb 4th 2006 2:14AM
"bd, the PS3 can handle procedural generation -- for that matter, the Revolution could as well, but the question is whether or not it's to code that way. The slight advantage that Microsoft has however is that the XNA environment makes it much quicker to do so. How much of a difference that makes is up in the air, but the one thing that Microsoft has done right is, on the software end at least, making the 360 developer-friendly."
Yeah, but that was not the point. Someone above mentioned it wasn't possible to do on PS3 which is wrong, and in fact Revolution will apparently be able to do it too. Anyway, XNA might make it easier to compress everything, but then again a good programmer will know how to compress everything. What is likely to occupy less space on 360 discs compared to PS3 discs are FMV, since the 360 will probably use WMV-like codecs for that, while the PS3 is likely to use MPEG-2, which occupies more space.
m3mnoch @ Feb 4th 2006 2:16AM
uh. meant margin of error is big. big. not small. small margin of error good. big error bad.
uhg. uhg. me likes games.
m3mnoch.
m3mnoch @ Feb 4th 2006 2:19AM
oh, and bd. xna making it easier is good and all, but the real coup is that the 360 has built in hardware support for procsyn.
i think that's where everyone gets this damn notion that not only is procsyn 'new' (it's not) but that the xbox 360 is the only that can do it. (it's not)
it is, however, the only platform where it's supported in hardware, and, therefore, "free."
m3mnoch.
stop with the stupid Toy Story graphics quote! @ Feb 4th 2006 4:02AM
I know you read it on the internet, but there is ZERO WAY it costs MS $600-$700 to make a 360. By my estimation, they break even on the $400 premium edition. I talked to friends at MS and they said the same thing.
Which is the part that makes the 360 so expensive?
Apple sells the Mac Mini for $500 and it has a more expensive optical drive (it writes and it is laptop-sized), plus a lot more connectors on the back, more interfaces (has Firewire). It also comes with a much larger 2.5" HDD and HDMI out (HDTV compatible, BTW). It is missing some stuff, like the wireless controller and interface, has a low-rent CPU and video chip, but it does have a modem for example. And here's the trick part: Apple MAKES money on it. So how do you end up thinking MS can't break even at $400 on the 360? iSuppli really did a poor job estimating the Xbox 360 costs.
Back to BluRay:
1 in 5 of the first pressing of discs were coasters? Big deal. You can press a DVD for less than $1.00. Let's say a BluRay disc inherently costs twice as much (before yield issues) to make. That's $2.00. Now, due to the yield, we have to throw away 20% of the discs, so we have to charge 25% more for the ones that did work to cover for that. We're up to a whopping $2.50 for a BluRay disc. Big whup. the packaging costs as much as the disc, shipping and marking is much bigger than either of those costs.
As to the BluRay drive itself, there's no way it costs $400. I'm sure it costs a LOT more than a current drive. But you can buy a very good quality DVD/CD reader for $20 to the end user (see newegg). That means it's under $12 in OEM quanties. What needs to change to make it a BluRay drive? Well, it probably needs a better controller/data separator chip. They're paying probably $2.00 for the current chip, let's say the new one costs $8. They certainly need a new optical pickup/laser assembly, they probably pay a good $4 for this baby, and it's going to go up a lot. Let's say it costs 20x as much. So now the pickup went up to $80. Head tracking is done with servo feedback, so you don't need to change the tracking motors or actuators.
We've added $82 to the cost of the drive. It's now up to $94. So seriously, where do you get the other $306 in the price of the BluRay drive from? Markup? Okay, sure, even though Sony will be the biggest buyers of this drive and will buy 100 million of them (and followons) over time, but I'm sure they'll pay a little bit of markup. Let's mark that $94 up to $120. You're still $280 short.
Let me just say this, if you don't really have an idea how electronics are made and priced, you might do better to just stay on the sidelines.
As to the ridiculous idea that the PS3 will likely use MPEG-2 for video, why would you think that? PSP uses H.264 (which is a bit better than MPEG-4 for compression), why do you think Sony's top of the line device would use MPEG-2? Sony uses the NVidia graphics chipset, NVidia just announced they will have H.264 decompression acceleration using their GPUs within a month. Why would Sony or Sony developers let MPEG-2 constrain them when H.264 decompression is available (and has no licensing fees to decode, unlike MPEG-2)? Developers will certainly use H.264 and other techniques if necessary to get their games onto cheaper DVD discs instead of BluRay.
m3mnoch: procsyn is not a standard term. Heck, it only gets 20 results on Google! I assume you mean procedural textures. As to 360 having them "for free", there is nothing free about procedural textures. They take GPU (or CPU) time to generate. Depending on the size of the texture that would be needed if weren't used, it might be a win to use procedural textures. But it might not, too. Also note that not only that, but NVidia (PS3) can do procedural textures to some extent also, in fact they pioneered it on PCs when they introduced procedural shading on their 6800 cards a while back.
I do keep hearing that Xboxes ATI graphics chip has something up its sleeve compared to the one in the PS3. But then again, the PS3's 7 SPU cores have something up their sleeves too, so I don't see a lot of reason why PS3 is behind in this race. I also believe that the PS3 main chip has 1 CPU and 8 SPUs, and the chip is designed to only "advertise" 7 SPUs in case one fails to work. You said it was designed to handle two failing to work, I don't think that's the case.
And I don't see why being designed to work with one bad SPU is a bad thing. It seems like a good thing to me. It can perhaps help keep Sony out of the kind of problems MS has had with only being able to make 1/3rd as many 360s as they wanted.
As to Sony allowing DivX/Xvid or anything on the PS3, well, I was more thinking streaming MPEG-4 or H.264. And perhaps Sony won't offer it, I merely said that there is room for improvement over 360. If Sony were to offer it, they would have one up on MS. And I have to say I find the possibility to not be remote. PSP plays H.264 and MPEG-4 movies even though it competes with Sony's UMD movie offerings. Sony even sells software to encode movies to play on PSP in these formats.
To the person who said Sony invented ATRAC because they hated mp3 so much, Sony invented ATRAC in 1991. mp3 was also invented in 1991 also and it was VERY far from popular at the time. Sony wasn't cutting against any kind of grain when they invented ATRAC. Now, admittedly, when Sony made memory-based music players they should have adopted mp3, but that doesn't mean they created ATRAC to spite mp3.
The rootkit stuff is awful, no excuse for it. Is MS any kind of avatar for not screwing their customers with DRM though?
bd @ Feb 4th 2006 10:15AM
m3mnoch:
Thanks for clarifying; now I get why everyone says it is customized for gaming (the GPU having "free" anti-aliasing, etcetera).
We'll see how the graphics on both systems end up, "Raw Power Vs. Elegant Design".
bd @ Feb 4th 2006 10:41AM
Hey "stop with the stupid Toy Story graphics quote!", I agree with you in most things, but aren't you speculating a little too much?
"If DVD costs $1.00 to press, *let's say* a blu-ray disc costs 2.50..."
"They're paying *probably* $2.00 for the current chip,"
"*let's say* the new one costs $8."
"They certainly need a new optical pickup/laser assembly, they *probably* pay a good $4 for this baby, and it's going to go up a lot."
"*Let's say* it costs 20x as much."
I'm not saying you are wrong (or right), for every time you say "Let's say" and "Probably", you take strength off your argument. You possibly know about how electronics are made, but I'd like to know if you have sources for what you are saying, even if they only show that you were giving a generous model to prove your point.
stop with the stupid Toy Story graphics quote! @ Feb 4th 2006 1:26PM
Why do I qualify all my statements? Because I'm not the ultimate authority here. Does it cost under $1.00 to produce a DVD disc (in quantity)? Yes. How much does it cost to make a BluRay disc (not counting yield)? I just can't be sure, I've never had one made commercially (few have). But I'll say this, actually stamping a BluRay disc is virtually the same as stamping a DVD disc (or a CD for that matter). You do need to do it more precisely, and the cost of making the master (the die that shapes the plastic when you do the stamping) will be higher initially, but the first BluRay disc (which won't be a game) should easily sell enough copies that the amortized cost per-disc of the master is under $1 (a CD or single-layer DVD master can be made for under $1K).
As to the costs of the current CPU in a CD/DVD reader, I arrived at my number this way. Current CD/DVD readers use 8-bit processors. You can buy in quantity an 8-bit processor for well under $2 (think Hitachi H8). The version with all the gizmos to control a DVD drive (such as the MediaTek chips) can be purchased for around $2.
To the $8 for the chip in a BluRay drive, I assumed the CPU would have to be significantly faster. It'll likely have to be at least 16-bit, I personally would use 32-bit, but those who design the chips for DVD drives know how to control costs better than I do. You can get an 80MHz, 32-bit microprocessor for about $3 in large quantities. You'll need the ECC and servo controls included on-chip to control the drive. So you'd basically have to go to a company that makes these controllers and ask them to make a chip like their current controller but with a faster CPU in it. They're gonna want some markup to cover their costs, but if you tell them you'll be buying 5M of them in the first year they'll know they can spread their costs out over a lot of chips and can lower their prices considerably. I am certain you could get the core processor in the BluRay drive for under $8 initially, and falling rapidly after a year or something.
As to optical pickup costs I have to admit it's a bit of a guess. I've never purchased an optical pickup in OEM quantities. To get the price, worked backwards from the projected wholesale price of the CD/DVD drive ($12 tops and note in this direction I use low estimates for the components instead of high so that my final cost estimate ends up high, not low).
$12 total
- $1.00 for PC board
- $1.50 for CPU
- $1.00 for 4mbit RAM
- $1.50 for plastic/metal enclosure, head slide rails system and open/close/clamp mechanism
- $1.25 for drive spindle servo motor (3,000 rpm!)
- $0.75 for pickup block jack screw servo (stepper?) motor
- $0.50 for connectors (eject button on front panel but not headphone jack since it would cost more)
- $1.00 for discretes/power supply (the non-chip components on the PC board)
- $0.00 profit (we'll assume profit is zero)
- $0.00 shipping
====
$3.50 remaining
This means they can't be paying more than $3.50 for all the uncounted parts (which includes the optical pickup block) and likely are paying a lot less given the costs of profit and shipping.
The 20x higher costs for the BluRay optical pickup is just a guess. It is certainly very high. The complexity of the optical block is not that much higher. And even if Sony is in a huge slump lately, they wouldn't create a new consumer standard that is supposed to result in sub-$300 retail consumer devices if a single critical component cost $75-$100 to them.
I tried to find actual prices of BluRay optical pickup blocks but failed. Here's a link to Philips' offering.
http://www.opticalstorage.philips.com/about/news/section-13542/article-14779.html
(Sorry, this site frags URLs lately, it'll likely add the first word of this line into the URL)
it says "In this way the three different wavelengths (CD infrared 780 nm, DVD red 650 nm and BD blue 405 nm) can all use the same optical light path.". That means only a small amount of new optics, not triple-path. It does require of course a blue laser (hello, Nichia). And when Philips says
"The OPU81 is designed for mass production and will meet mass consumer price levels. The cost-effective OPU81 flexible architecture with three separate lasers allows the read and writing speeds to be optimized to specific applications. Moreover, future speed improvements using higher-powered lasers can be implemented quickly with this OPU concept."
When Philips says it will "meet mass consumer price levels", I think it's safe to assume they mean less than a 20X price increase (under $100 for this pickup). And this optical block is a complex one since it is made for writing discs, not just reading them.
Anyway, in summary, I may couch my words a bit, that's because I'm not trying to act like I know everything. I do feel I have a reasonable knowledge in this area, likely more than the anyone else in this discussion. But can I make an error? Sure.
In the end, it's up to the reader to decide whether to believe me or not, I know that and so I don't feel like I need to hammer others into submission by presenting my arguments as if there could be no other way.
Furthermore, I figure that the fanboys just won't listen anyway. They aren't interested in doing the most minor research (a quick search) before repeating things about who promised Toy Story graphics with their console, so they're not going to take the time to consider or investigate more nuanced positions like this one.
For the record, I like my Xbox 360. It needs some better games, that's for sure, but it's a good system. I expect PS3 will be good too. And I don't figure either will have much of a performance advantage over the other. I figure the majority of games for both consoles won't use much of the power of either of them anyway.
m3mnoch @ Feb 4th 2006 5:36PM
while i think your points (and cost breakdowns) are almost interesting, they are very, very wrong. funny how someone who very obviously just buys and assembles computer and electronics parts -- well established retail parts, i might add -- thinks he's an expert (oh. wait, you admitted you weren't) in cutting edge manufacturing.
"if you don't really have an idea how electronics are made and priced, you might do better to just stay on the sidelines."
heh. you might want to take your own advice.
first of all, let's define what we're talking about: blu-ray discs, blu-ray players and the expensive complicated process to assemble the ps3.
first, blu-ray discs. the fact that you use the word 'stamping' gives away that you know nothing about the process. let me explain it for you. traditional dvds ARE 'stamped.' that vernacular connotates the 2 injection molded polycarbonate discs that are 'stamped' together as a protective shell around the recording layer.
now, blu-ray discs are manufactured completely different. do you want to know why? here's your homework: birefringence. they are injection molded on a single, almost-twice-the-thickness polycarbonate layer. that recorded material is then coated with that fancy protective coating (so they wouldn't have to have stupid cartridges) to prevent damage to the disc causing read errors. so, instead of a plastic layer protecting the data, you've effectively got a 'lacquer coating.'
(you ever actually been to a dvd manufacturing facility? no? really? that's odd. i wouldn't have guessed. i have. in fact, a business partner of mine opened up the first plant in idaho.)
as the theory goes, eventually, production costs will come down to parity with standard dvds.
the problem? this is an entirely new manufacturing process. requires entirely new equipment. (unlike hd-dvd discs which are still 'stamped') until production runs get huge and faulty manufacturing from first generation manufacturing techniques gets worked out, they're gonna be expensive as hell.
(as a side note, i remember almost losing my lunch when shopping for a first generation dvd authoring system -- $500,000? what the hell? now, they ship with apple computers. heh.)
now, blu-ray players. the head of that fancy triple-wavelength laser is what is causing problems. did you know that only 1.5 years ago consumer ready blu-ray drives couldn't even play standard dvds? it wasn't until that breakthrough by sony that it was even possible -- well. without it being the size of a volkswagon anyway.
now, let's see. fast forward one and a half years and we get the consumer blu-ray devices shown at ces. yes. the whopping $1800 drive by pioneer. i think the $1000 drive by samsung is more indicative of their final pricing tho. we'll say $1200 for grins.
why on earth is that so expensive?
onboard hardware decoders are old school. (and, yes, i know the difference between mpeg4 onboard decoders, mpeg2 onboard and h.264 onboard decoding. tho, apparently YOU don't know what blu-ray is even supporting -- http://www.dvd-intelligence.com/main_sections/news_archive/2003_free/12_bd_mpeg2.htm ) they don't add much to the cost. (witness the hd-dvd which also decodes hi-def video on the fly and is only $499) what is it then? is it the license for the crappy java environment that runs it? probably not. the $30 royalties paid to sony as the keeper of the blu-ray ip? probably not.
what do you think it is?
oh yeah! it's, again, a completely new manufacturing process! requiring completely new 1st generation equipment. requiring completely new first generation techniques! awesome! rather then use slightly upgraded machines to make blu-ray, you're going to have to throw out the whole batch and start over! righteous!
not only do they have to outfit that new head with both the red and blue laser diodes, but, blu-ray has a tighter wavelength (almost by half!), the .85 aperture is 40% greater than standard dvd, thus compounding the requirement for more precision in the 'light bending area.' not only that, but the damn discs aren't even the same PHYSICAL size! you have to build all new spindles, motors and rails! you're not just swapping out components on the manufacturing floor here.
do you even wonder why the first dvd players weren't $1200? that was a big jump up from 650 megs to 9 gigs, you know. much bigger than 9 gigs to 50. don't you wonder why hd-dvd players aren't $1200? why do hd-dvd players cost about the same as the first generation of dvd players?
oh! oh! pick me! pick me! i can tell you!
manufacturing costs. hd-dvd and blu-ray are using similar manufacturing processes and techniques. same old blue laser with the same old wavelength. what's different? here, it's all about the aperture. the .85 blu-ray uses requires an entirely new dual assembly piece. the hd-dvd one? since it's only .65 (instead of the .60 of standard dvd) it uses the same technique as standard dvd -- just with a blue laser instead.
the jump from standard dvd to hd-dvd is all about wavelength, not aperture precision. that's where the cost comes in. it requires all new, 1st generation manufacturing equipment.
now, the 'whole process' of making a ps3.
why do i keep mentioning first generation equipment? well. because even tho dvd was a small step in manufacturing up from cd's, it still took 3 generations of hardware before consumer device adoption and failure rates hit stride. now, sony's trying to throw first generation hardware into a mass produced, insane demand (vs. the very small demand of consumer hi-def dvd only players) consumer electronics device.
yeah. exactly. ooops.
here's a thought. let's take a bunch of commercially untested technology (cell processor, rsx and blu-ray) and throw them all into the most anticipated consumer electronics device to come along in years.
usually when folks talk about the pareto principle, they are referring to the 80% being reliable and the 20% being untested and not the other way around. looks to me like sony's betting the farm to become a platform company to compete with a company who's primary business IS a platform company.
so, let's see. to sum up. i've always been first string my entire life. you? yeah, there's a nice little bench for you to warm right over there on the sidelines, alice. why don't you get out of the way and let the grown ups talk? hmmmm?
m3mnoch.
p.s. oh, and 'procsyn' was purely for bd. it's my new lazy shorthand for 'procedural synthesis.'
p.p.s. why am i so fired up about all this? because it's a dumbass move on sony's part. i grew up thinking nothing but 'flowers and butterflies' about sony. these days? i'm more into samsung. they're soooooo the new 'sony.'
m3mnoch @ Feb 4th 2006 5:41PM
alright, alright. after reading back over that, the whole 'alice' thing is a bit over the top.
sorry about that.
that damn 'sit on the sidelines' crap just irritated the hell out of me.
m3mnoch.
bd @ Feb 4th 2006 8:15PM
m3mnoch, even if it was informative, you sounded a little bit too arrogant in your previous to last post. "I am the best", you don't need to say it when you seem to know what you are talking about.
Anyway, it's been good to read you both. Maybe it was the only choice Sony had left: "Everything or nothing" to be back on top; you know, more risk, more revenue. They also had to differenciate themselves with something to Xbox 360, I guess. Oh, and Blu-ray will apparently reach a 216 GB limit (8 layers, 27 GB each), so the jump from 700 MB to 9 GB is similar to the jump from 9 GB to 216 GB (yes, I know it's being researched, but the 100GB 4 layered prototype seems to be almost ready, or so said TDK).
As I said exhaustively (and you must be tired of hearing about it), time will tell how much punch both Blu-ray and PS3 generate (they seem to be very hyped anyway), if PS3 will outbest 360 in the graphical arena ("it's the games, stupid!" anyway), and how much of a "Channel-conflict" it generates (I think PC Blu-ray burners with such an amount of space will be very hot once they come out). In other words: if they screwed up.
bd @ Feb 4th 2006 8:18PM
oops... I meant differentiate, I was thinking in another language. lol
al d @ Feb 4th 2006 9:14PM
You guys are hilarious with the way you bicker about these companies.
m3mnoch @ Feb 4th 2006 10:55PM
bd. yeah, yeah. i know. i should probably have moderated that a bit, eh?
i think i took the 'sidelines' comment a bit too much to heart. my blood just gets up and i get mean.
heh. i should probably have a scotch next time between reading a post that rubs me the wrong way and replying.
m3mnoch.
bd @ Feb 4th 2006 11:40PM
Indeed m3mnoch, I understand. It has happened the same to me if you remember. It happens to all of us.
stop with the stupid Toy Story graphics quote! @ Feb 5th 2006 12:26AM
No, I don't just assemble parts, I am talking OEM and quantity pricing here. An H8 costs $7.00 in onesy-twosy hobbiest quantities (from Digikey), $2 is the large volume price. I don't know where you got the idea I've only know about assemblying hobbiest stuff. Do hobbiests (sp?) price out PC board costs or CD spindle servo drive motors?
As to DVDs being (actually) stamped, they are not stamped. CDs are not either. BluRay will not be stamped. HD-DVD will not be stamped. All are injection molded. "stamped" is a colloquilism left over from the old vinyl days when discs were initially stamped (and later injection molded). The "stamping" part you refer to on DVD or on BD is when you glue multi-layer discs together. The first BluRay discs will certainly not be multi-layer, just like the first DVDs were not. Multi-layer costs just won't be a factor in 2006 for BluRay (likely not for HD-DVD either).
All your comments about wavelengths, apertures etc, is irrelevant. Yes, BlueRay is more complex, but there is no reason to believe pickups will cost even 20X what they do now. I ask, do you think when Philips said their pickup would meet consumer price points, did that mean $500 versus the $4 for a DVD pickup?
I cannot see how BluRay disc production costs will be prohibitive, as I said before, even at many times the current production costs, the cost of the media just doesn't add up to anything. Production capacity will be limited for a while I suppose, but it will be plenty for the limited movie releases that will be necessary in the near future.
I do know what BluRay is supporting. It will support MPEG-2, the first discs Sony made were MPEG-2 movies (Charlie's Angels, Full Throttle). BluRay also supports H.264 and VC-1. Why this comes up I dunno. Note that decoders to add significant cost to players. H.264 supports multiple concurrent reference frames (2 I believe), and thus a 1080p-capable BluRay player will need to be able to store two 1080p frames in memory to reference, plus the currently being decoded one. That's 1920x1080x4 (single frame) x3, or 24 megabytes of memory just for frame data, let alone buffers and other stuff. Currently DVD players do not have 24 megs of memory in them at all. 24M of memory (well, 32M) costs about $3 in quantity. That's going to add to unit costs.
As to Sony's $30 royalty, Sony doesn't have to pay royalties, they own the standard. So that won't add to the cost of the PS3. I don't know what the Java license fee is, supposedly there is none, Sun pretends it is free, it is theoretically possibly to write an implementation that Sun doesn't own and pay them nothing. I don't know if that is the case here.
Your comments that "did you know that only 1.5 years ago consumer ready blu-ray drives couldn't even play standard dvds?" There were no consumer ready BluRay drives 1.5 years ago. What are you talking about? Backwards compatibility isn't something you do first when developing technology demonstrators. No one is going to ask you to play a CD in your BluRay drive at a technology demo 1.5 years before it comes out. Compatibility will be exactly the way you think, with multiple lasers, just like on HD-DVD and just like the PS2 pioneered with DVD/CD (before the PS2, DVD/CD compatibility was done with multiple entire optical paths or just omitted like on early Panasonic DVD players). Read the Philips press release I posted last time, there will be no need for multiple entire optical paths to read or even write BluRay discs even at first release.
As to: "do you even wonder why the first dvd players weren't $1200?" Actually, they were about $1200. I paid $830 for my first DVD player and I got it at an employee discount. HD-DVD players seem poised to debut at $350, which is much less than the first DVD players.
Your comments about the first price of BluRay players are unsupportable. Since yours are, I'll give mine too. I think BluRay players will debut in the US at about $500, and the PS3 will be either $500 or $400 at launch. Sony does not sell hardware at a loss and these prices do not include any significant subsidy from Sony (although like all game machines, they include no profit). My opinions here are unsupportable, frankly.
I don't get why you complain about the price of BluRay disc stamping in relation to PS3. As I said before, early PS3 games will all be on DVDs, just like early PS2 games were on CDs. When BD discs are affordable, developers will start to make BD disc games. It doesn't hurt PS3 as a game player if BD discs take time to come down in price.
Yes, Sony is likely taking a risk on making their customers into early adopters. But their main competition announced they'd ship 4,000,000 360's in 90 days and is on track to ship about 1,300,000. So Sony's competition has been stunted too and so they can perhaps take a chance. As another poster commented, perhaps they feel they must take a chance.
I do agree Samsung is kicking Sony's ass right now. Not in these market-defining leadership positions, but in all levels of execution and profit-making in the consumer market space, Samsung is putting Sony to shame. If Samsung keeps going the way they are, they will encroach on Sony's pro-equipment business and standards-setting business in the near future. Then Sony will have even more serious problems to contend with.
Dan Choi @ Feb 5th 2006 2:41AM
Just a few points to share...
Love the informed comments being posted. A little on the long side, but that's the only way to be thorough, I suppose. ;)
Sony's support of so much bleeding-edge technology in the PS3 is gonna result in some pricey hardware at launch (however much Sony eats the cost initially), which Kutaragi acknowledged with his "working" comments to households and such. In conjunction with this, I'd like to comment on a small section of the post above -- here's a quote:
"...Sony does not sell hardware at a loss and these prices do not include any significant subsidy from Sony (although like all game machines, they include no profit). My opinions here are unsupportable, frankly."
Sony has launched its PlayStations at a loss with each console generation, making up for the loss with the classic hardware razor-blade model on software licensing every major manufacturer follows today. What's different about the PS2 and the original Xbox, however, is that Sony could begin to save money on the tech as it got cheaper to make (eventually saving even more with the "PStwo" redesign); Microsoft, on the other hand, was stuck with an internal hard drive that didn't seem to get cheaper or smaller in physical size as time went by (resulting in a console that I believe is still losing money today). So, yeah, Sony does sell hardware at a loss (at least at first), and it will likely suck up a rather large one with each PS3 sold for some time to come.
I'm not a disc "presser," regular driver builder, or heavy tech expert, but I do know what the Chinese disc-manufacturing plants were saying about Blu-ray and HD-DVD: initial costs to upgrade to HD-DVD in their facilities were minimal, while producing new lines for Blu-ray would be more expensive than what they would have liked -- which is why many of them sided with the HD-DVD format (despite the later Hollywood studio alliances with Blu-ray). One of the most important advantages of HD-DVD over Blu-ray was supposed to be lower costs for manufacturers (which would then result in lower costs for consumers), and I don't believe that situation has changed too much over the past year.
Just what I remember... =)
stop with the stupid Toy Story graphics quote! @ Feb 5th 2006 1:18PM
(Boy I'm tired of my "name" now. Poor choice I guess, I just keep it so people know who I am in this thread.)
It is a popular conception that Sony loses money on their game machines. However, I am assured by my friend at Sony that it is not true. Did you ever hear Sony say they lost money on these consoles? No, the internet says it. My friend says Sony does not sell consoles (including PSP) at a loss, and I have to say I believe him, well mostly.
I know Xbox was sold at a loss, a huge loss, and you nailed why. The HD is a killer. I don't believe the 360 premium pack is sold at a loss (I said this before on here), it's possible the core system is, given the very low actual part costs of the stuff you pay $100 for).
I opened the SNES, N64 and Gamecube and various GameBoys, all are extremely well designed (Nintendo is awesome at this) and I don't think N loses money on their consoles.
Saturn was a disaster inside, if it ever were sold at a reasonable price (was it? I paid $400 for mine at launch and it tubed so fast I forget if it was ever sold at a reasonable price) it would have been sold at a loss. Dreamcast was well designed, I think before it went to $99 it probably was not sold at a loss, $99 would have been right on the edge.
PS1 came out in Japan at $400 (for 11 months before it came to US), it came out in the US at $300. It was well designed, I think Sony designed it well enough that they didn't lose money on units. The only really expensive parts were the RAM, the CPU and the CD player. And the CD portion was integrated (it didn't have a whole IDE drive in it like Xbox), so Sony probably got as many expensive parts out of the CD portion as possible (no use paying margin to your suppliers when you can move it into your own chip and pay only true costs).
PS2 came out in Japan at $500 ($600?), and came to the US at $300. I have one of the first-gen US models, and I have to say it's probably on the edge. It has an enormous heatsink in there that folds over another, they probably weigh close to a pound. It had two large, expensive chips and a DVD drive (again, cost reduced as much as possible) and again a fair amount of RAM. If you ask me, if the yield on those chips was poor (and the availability of PS2s suggested it was), they might have lost some money on it for a while. They redesigned it 4 times in less than a year and didn't cut the sale price, so they probably got back in the black pretty quickly.
But I'll say this, I believe Sony never designed/marketed a console intending to lose money on it (unlike MS and probably Sega with Saturn). This is why I say "any signficant subsidy from Sony" instead of "no subsidy from Sony". The console race right now is so tight that I expect Sony will price the PS3 as close to the edge as possible, and that means that if things go a bit wrong they start losing a little bit of money per unit for a while (of course, after selling you a memory card and 2nd controller they're fine again). Of course if things go well, they don't even need to do that. And either way, they would be losing money on it due to circumstance, not intention.
I agree with you that XBox is probably losing money today. If Sony cuts PS2 to $99 it will really annoy MS. MS would probably rather cancel Xbox (we've heard rumors of it) and get you to buy a 360 instead even if they had to lose a little bit of money on it at least they've already got you in the new generation where the future profits are. The problem with this is MS can't make enough 360s as-is and that the 360 backward compatibility is a joke. Few games work and even fewer work well. It's just not a viable option.
I read the same articles as you about stamping HD-DVDs versus BluRay. The comments I believe were that the replicating companies felt they could replicate HD-DVDs on their existing equpiment and lines with no modifications other than a new glass master.
But note that these comments were publicized by the HD-DVD camp. They don't specifiy if this was really the smart thing to do, or if yield and production rates would be so low that it actually made more sense to upgrade equipment anyway. And they don't specify how much equipment would have to be replaced to run BDs and the cost of that equipment.
It's just not really an issue except in manufacturing capacity. Many lines will not upgrade and thus won't be able to make BDs. But there will be enough upgraded lines to handle the few BD releases there will be in 2006 in the limited quantities they will sell. And each line will make the decision on their own. Is the contract price for pressed media time the expected run rate going to pay for the equipment? Yes/no.
But as to the consumer? It doesn't make much difference. Equipment is used to make I would estimate at least 250,000 discs over its lifespan (I expect its actually well north of a million). So if the upgrades cost $250,000 it only adds $1 to the price of the disc. If they cost $500,000 it's two. But the good news is you can go back to single layer, so that reduces the cost a bit. So now the disc in the movie package costs $2 instead of $1. Or perhaps $3 instead of $1. BluRay discs will likely cost $35 or more for a while (HD-DVD will too, "whatever the market will bear"), which is where DVDs came on the market, so that's plenty of margin to absorb $2 in material costs. The early adopters won't care much, they'll buy a few discs at that price and wait for the prices to drop before going whole-hog purchasing.
Furthermore, this again doesn't make a difference to PS3 as a game machine. PS3 Games will come on DVDs throughout 2006.
m3mnoch @ Feb 5th 2006 11:05PM
i'm going to try to make this short and to the point. it does tend to get long and eat up tons of time.
stamping:
cool. i'm a digital guy, so, i didn't know vinyl was stamped. i always thought vinyl was completely molded.
yes, single layer dvds are still 2 dics of plastic glued together with the recording inside. just because it has 2 plastic outer coverings doesn't make it dual layered. that's not what that means. standard dvds and hd-dvds are protected by a plastic shell. the blu-ray discs by a special coating. the reason being birefringence. the precision required to pickup the divots breaks down when the laser gets refracted through that out layer of plastic. this is just one of the reasons (all tied to the crazy precision required) that blu-ray requires all new manufacturing equipment.
wavelength and aperture:
wavelength is mostly irrelevant when comparing hd-dvd and blu-ray. not when comparing standard dvd vs. blu-ray.
the aperture is the biggie tho. i really don't know how to convey the craziness that is the blu-ray optical head. you're increasing the width of the laser by 40%, running it though a completely newly invented, crazy dual-lens assembly thing to get the smallest-ever-concieved divot on the disc. it's truly almost a magical thing. the utter precision it requires is unlike any other pickup ever created. i mean, it's like a freakin' optical hard drive.
a real world example could be drawn with cars. you've heard the term 'precision machine' talking about a car, right? similar thing. how is it that my porsche only has 4 cylinders but can romp on a 6 cylinder dodge? it's called precision machining. it's the reason ferrari's are so expensive. ford focuses are not. same thing here. standard dvd is a ford focus. a corvette is an hd-dvd. the blu-ray is an f50. it's that last 20% of performance that costs the most.
so, no. aperture is not irrelevant when it comes to cost at all.
that phillips article is completely unimpressive. sony put out a similar press release talking about it's unified head. and, yes. they mean $500 vs. $4. $500 for the pickup in a first generation consumer high precision piece of equipment is exactly what they mean. that, vs. the $3000 similar high-precision hardware you would stick in medical equipment or something. that's the level of quality required.
as informative as it is that you keep bringing up dvd heads, THAT is completely irrelevant. it's like saying there's no reason a 3.73ghz pentium 4 should be $1200 when you can get a first generation original pentium for $15. ten years separates the technology. manufacturing techniques for dvd heads are to the point where they are a commodity -- hence a $4 pricepoint.
blu-ray optical pickups a commodity? hardly. that's my point.
blu-ray disc production:
yes. they are crazily cost prohibitive in the beginning. sure, once you get all the manufacturing machinery into the third generation or so (about a year and a half) they will start coming down in parity with standard dvd production. the problem is, that, while everyone on the planet has standard dvd manufacturing equipment laying around that they can just retool a bit to get it to work with hd-dvd, all of these big plants have to buy all new equipment to manufacture blu-ray discs.
so, yes, dan. you are correct on that. i remember reading it in a few places. popular mechanics. an ieee pub. a cea pub. it's taking arm barring and sony guaranteeing the ps3 will be a hit to convince shops to spend the money to get setup to manufacture these things.
hardware decoding:
see my comments about 10 year old technology. hardware supported decoding is easy and cheap. decoding mpeg 2 or h.264 or vc-1 streams are a snap for a dedicated processor. 32 megs is $3 huh? well. hell add 64! that's only $6 out of the $1200 for a player!
saying this adds any siginficant cost is just dumb. i picked up one of those $70 portable dvd players. you know, they decode mpeg 2 in hardware too. and they have their own lcd screen that is the most expensive thing in there.
royalties:
that's why i was saying 'probably not.' sarcasm.
no consumer blu-ray drives:
uh. no. bdz-s77, for example.
"I paid $830 for my first DVD player and I got it at an employee discount"
i'm really sorry about that. you totally got ripped off. january 11, 1977. the first players in the u.s. toshiba and rca both had one for $600. samsung for $750. now, get this: sony for $1000. does that tell you where sony's pricing strategies lie?
my unsupportable blu-ray pricing comments:
um. did you not read anything that came out of ces? pioneer's was $1800 and samsung's $1000. both are due out in april of this year. http://www.blu-ray.com/ces2006/ and, you can actually pre-order a toshiba hd-dvd player for $499 that will hit shelves in march: http://www.crutchfield.com/S-LPGPszP29wF/cgi-bin/ProdView.asp?g=11700&I=052HDA1&search=toshiba+hd%2Ddvd
so hd-dvd players at $350? no. blu-ray players at $500? no. faith in your pricing powers? no.
why is duplication cost important?
because. without media to play, no one will buy the hardware. if it costs substantially less to INITIALLY manufacture (and thus INITIALLY price for retail) hd-dvd, then, the blu-ray player will just be an anchor for the ps3. beta vs. vhs taught us that. price, not quality drive demand. blame it on this damn era of disposable consumer economics. sony is trying to circumvent that by putting a blu-ray drive in a high-demand consumer device like the ps3.
so, rather than actually learning from market force mistakes in the past, they are trying to artificially influence them.
again. oops.
1,300,000 xbox 360s in 90 days.
so, i guess you missed the microsoft earnings release that they sold 1.5 million before the end of the year? uh. okay. their 90 day estimate is 2.7 million 360s. they are going to hit 2.5 million. no idea what you're reading.
bd manufacturing run rates.
sony is pushing these hard. they are going to have a few million players deployed by the end of the year remember? the fewer blu-ray discs sold, the smaller their royalty check, the larger their money pit. that's another reason why, typically, consumer hardware comes out expensive and has little media. not everyone (manufacturers) wants to risk their whole enterprise on sony's dream.
sony, again, is trying to artificially influence the market by creating cheap hardware and lots of media. can a brother please get a 'hell yeah' from any economists out there?
losing money on the equipment.
gaming hardware (barring nintendo) has (mostly) always come out at a loss. the original xbox is the crown jewel of it because, no matter how much they crunched, their machine was just a box of parts from different vendors. this time around, they own the ip just like traditional console makers. the original xbox could never, ever make a profit on the hardware. here's a fun article describing the new process. http://www.my-esm.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=175001687
however, here's how it goes for sony and now the 360. they lose money on the machine for the first 1-2 years -- elongated a bit because of price drops. that third year and beyond are all in the black. that's why cycles are 5+ years long.
they lose ~$100 per console initially. the 360 is sitting between $125 and $150 loss per unit. tho, they've already made changes at the plants, so it might be less than that even now. however, with a 4 title attach rate and 3 accessory item attach rate, they are already comfortably down in the mid-double digits after only 2 months.
consoles lose money on hardware. they also make money on hardware. don't believe me? go back and look at previous launch years of annual reports for sony. you can see the hardware unit slowly crawl out of their hole over the course of a couple years.
*sigh* so much for short. ah well. i think i'm done on the topic. bd and i have gone back and forth a lot on it in the past. makes my mouth kinda dry hashing over it so much.
i'll keep an eye on the thread tho, just in case something interesting comes up.
m3mnoch.
m3mnoch @ Feb 5th 2006 11:27PM
1997. heh. not '77 for the first dvd players. fat fingerin' stuff over here.
m3mnoch.
(Toy Story quote) @ Feb 6th 2006 12:38AM
Click the link above to see how to get the Toshiba A1 HD-DVD player for $318 (not sure it's still available). And you rip on link saying "about $350"? I don't understand you. You have to diss others and explain how you're right, even when you're dead wrong.
(Sorry about the weird link, if I put it in here, it doesn't work right, this site muffs URLs right now.)
As to DVD players at $1200, why don't you search for "Sony DVP-S7700 $1199"? The 7700 was $1200 (well, $1199). It was Sony's second DVD player. Note that it came out when other companies' third generation players came out, because the S7000, Sony's first model was way better than the competitors. The reason was simple: when playing an anamorphic DVD on a non-anamorphic display, Sony's player would remove every 4th line and average it into the line above and below it. Competing players would just remove the line completely. Watching something from an anamorphic DVD that scrolled vertically on the competing players was hellish. It was so bad that DVD content companies (movie companies) moved away from anamorphic DVDs for a while, because people were complaining how bad they looked playing on their crap DVD players. Additionally, $1200 today is not much different from $1000 in 1997 due to inflation.
Sony got this, and lots of other things right. This made their player worth the money. I don't quite see how you say I got ripped off spending $830 on a $999 DVD player that exceeded all others on quality.
Why you think Sony will have to twist arms to get a few BluRay plants up is beyond me. Plants will convert when it makes financial sense. They won't convert either. Sony will find a few plants they own or are heavily aligned with and send business their way. Those plants will convert, and the number of discs they sell will cover their costs. I don't see why you give a crap about this. It doesn't do anything except add a few $$ to the raw cost of the disc. But the raw cost of the disc is not a factor in selecting the retail price (if it is, why are some DVDs $5 and others $20?) especially when a product is brand new.
Your $1800 BluRay player?
"The player is scheduled for US release in May 2006 and will retail for about $1,800. Please note that this price isn't representative of a standard Blu-ray player, it's an Elite-brand player which usually costs at least two times what a standard version does. "
Don't let that twice thing get in your way. Go ahead and keep claiming that BluRay players in general will cost $1,800.
And your comments that the pickup head on the drives will cost $400? First of all, you'd just plain have no idea. I can't say you're wrong for sure until drives come out under $400, but the fact that your OWN SOURCE mentions Philips will sell a BD drive for $500 this summer which includes a head sure does make it unlikely that the head itself costs $500. I mean, only $0 left to cover all the other parts costs, yield fallout, OEM markup, shipping, marketing and retail markup? Retail markup alone is usually over 25% ($100). Wow, seems pretty unlikely to me.
"because. without media to play, no one will buy the hardware."
Again, the only movie media will be BluRay in 2006. Games will come on DVD throughout 2006 and much of 2007. There will be plenty of media (games) to play on the hardware regardless of replication prices and so people will buy the hardware to play that media. I ask again, why does BluRay media production cost matter to you?
You're right, it was 1.5M 360s by the end of the year. My mistake. I confused the term of the early projections over 90 days with the later report of holiday period only. Regardless, 360 sales were VERY short of projections. I do have to ask here, are you trying to prove a point, or just pick on every little thing I say. My point was MS sales were stunted and that Sony might take a chance because of it. Picking apart my numbers here doesn't change my thesis or its validity (which is of course questionable since it is purely speculative).
As to losing money on the equipment, your article doesn't really address it. It doesn't address anyone but MS, there isn't much question about Xbox losing money. Your assertions that Sony has lost money on their consoles is just an assertion, nothing more. It also appears foolish in the face of the PS1 debuting at $400+ and the PS2 at $500+. I think I'll stick with what my friend at Sony (formerly SCEA) told me instead of your bald assertions.
I'll also stick with my assessments of the 360 production costs and my MS friends' indications that the 360 Premium pack does not lose money for them at retail price. There is nothing they could do at their plants to change how much they lose on the 360 right now other than correct yield problems in final assembly. The thing is that yield problems during assembly are typically the CM's (contract manufacturer) problem. Here's how it goes. MS tells CM to make something. CM quotes a price per finished working good. The customer (MS) only buys working goods at that fixed price. If the yield is low because of assembly problems, the CM takes a bath, as they spent money assembling a lot of units that are not saleable. It doesn't affect MS except they have fewer units to sell on. These prices are fixed and are not renegotiated more than once a quarter, often even less. When MS opens a new plant (they have opened two additional plants) they might negotiate better with the new CM. However, the reductions are unlkely to be large (as much as $100, or 25% of retail). People do final assembly in China and other places in the far East because the costs are so very low, so that leaves less to save. I never said heads were a commodity, I merely said they wouldn't cost $400 (actually, I said they wouldn't cost more than $400, since you seem to think that they will cost enough that the PS3 will have to be around $1K).
Reduction in 360 costs will have to come from reductions in costs of subassemblies. That will mean in MS' case probably CPUs/GPUs and CD and HD drives. Either way, this doesn't fit the "making changes at the plants" stuff you speak of.
MS owning the IP in their box is misunderstood by many people, including yourself. The key is that for each item in your box, it should be possible to purchase it from more than one source. For some items, that means that they should own the rights to reproduce the IP with other companies. For example, MS couldn't get NVidia down on price much on the CPU in Xbox because MS had no license to produce the chip with anyone else. NVidia could stop production of the Xbox by refusing to sell to MS and so of course they didn't drop their price much. With the new box, MS will have negotiated rights to produce the important chips through other fabs on their own in order to prevent being held up like this. But make no mistake, MS does not own the rights to the graphics chip, they only own a license to reproduce it. Other components are designed to be interchangable. MS likely doesn't own the rights to any of Seagate's IP (the vendor of the HDD), but by owning the rights to the interface protocols (modified ATA/SATA), they can go to another company at any time buy a subassembly that fulfills the same function.
When quoting MS attach rate, you have to consider that there are many people (I have such a friend) who already own (sometimes multiple) Xbox 360 games and still own no Xbox 360. That makes the attach rate artifically high. Between him and me, we own 5 games, and only one 360, a ratio of 5:1. But once he gets his, it'll be 2.5:1. MS attach rate is good, their Xbox attach rate was good too, but it is at this time misleading. MS has done a great job with accessories, BTW. I'm sure Sony will be taking notes.
Actually, 64M of RAM isn't $6, it's $4, if you buy it on a single chip instead of two 32M chips.
The reason the hardware unit at Sony (and N) works their way out of a hole because of the costs of R&D. We've talked about material costs a lot here, but there are also a lot of up-front costs. The PS3 took money to develop (still takes money, it's not done yet) and produce. And it costs a TON to launch it. And on top of it all (as we both pointed out), sales are low in the early years of a console. In each of the early years of a console (including before it comes out) you are spending a lot money to make more money in the future. It isn't necessarily subsidizing the cost of the console, it can be simply building new chip fabs (Sony built a new fab with Toshiba for the PS3, they'll have to revamp it for 65nm ASAP and already announced they will go to 45nm with Toshiba too), in the later years of the console, you are winding down. You aren't spending money to make money, you are reaping what you sowed.
So just because you see cash outflows in the early years of a console doesn't mean the console price is directly subsidized. It's just a form of investment.
Now I do have to ask you a question. Why did you post in your last post that "1.5 years ago BluRay players couldn't even play CDs/DVDs" when searcing for the model number you gave me above leads to a review that indicates it did play CDs/DVDs at that time? That's very sloppy and undercuts your arguments that Sony will have to increase costs even further by adding backwards compatibility to their designs.
I know this won't be settled until Sony announces a price, but I'm sticking with it: BluRay players (regular ones) in the US will come out at about $500. PS3 (in the US) will come out (in late fall) at $400 or $500. That's my prediction.
Toy Story Quote @ Feb 6th 2006 11:46AM
I guess I should have said "click on the link below" instead of click on the link above. To preorder the Toshiba Hd-DVD for about $350, click on the name above (Toy Story quote). Or just search fatwallet on your own.
m3mnoch @ Feb 6th 2006 12:01PM
cool. most of that is 'my take,' 'your take' stuff. which is well and fine. interesting, too, to hear someone elses informed opinion (meaning not fanboyish) other than bd's.
couple things:
i'd really like to see that link for the $318 toshiba a-1 hd-dvd. (i'd actually like to pick one up at that price. $500? no. $318? hell yeah i'll be a beta tester!) that'd be sweet if you could repost that.
i'm not really sure how you think i misunderstand the ins and outs of microsoft owning the ip. you covered the bases pretty well in your explanation and i can't really think of anything you missed. maybe the ability to shrink/combine elements (the board, chips, etc.) they own? frankensteining their parts without stepping on the toes (patents) of other companies? tho, you pretty much intimated that.
but, yeah, i understand ip... um... a lot. enough that i hate the term "intellectual property" and think the uspto process is broken and stupid.
and, about the 1.5 years ago blu-ray drive thing. that one had 2 heads in it. you're probably right that in my head i was thinking 'with a single head' but reading back over what came out on the post about playing older media was pretty much 'by any means at all.'
anyway, that dinosaur-looking thing actually had 2 pickup heads in it and that's why (well. it was early too.) it costs, like, $4000 or something insane like that. adding backwards compatibility in a consumer-friendly device (i.e. with one pickup head) like the phillips release was talking about does complicate things. meaning single-head is consumer-friendly, dual head is not.
finally, any consumer electronics buff in the world will tell 'normal' folk to wait for the third generation before they buy. the ps3 is basically short-circuiting that mode of thinking.
it's going to be nothing but trouble at first. it'll be expensive (i think $599) and fraught with both supply and technical issues.
year two, tho? i'm totally getting one.
m3mnoch.
m3mnoch @ Feb 6th 2006 12:16PM
damn. forgot one thing.
your whole "$1200 player was worth it" stuff.
so, a cheap blu-ray player is crap? so, the ps3, being cheap will be crap? if the ps2's original dvd player is any assertion, yep, it will be.
the bummer tho, is that the 'high precision' price differential you are talking about in your high-price dvd example inherently applies to all blu-ray players because of that crazy .85 aperture blue laser.
thus: high precision == high price
you kinda made that point for me. thanks.
how does that play out with first generation players? mostly they are crap too. will anyone actually notice the difference? does it matter?
notice, i'm not talking about games here. if all the sony cared about was games, the ps3 wouldn't have a blu-ray drive in it.
m3mnoch.
m3mnoch @ Feb 6th 2006 12:21PM
ah. gotcha on the link. tho, i looked and can't find it. followed a bunch of links -- all were $499. looks like it was a price flub. even the crutchfield link was supposedly $450 at some time.
*sigh* ah well. the wife would have been pissed about another console on our entertainment shelf. heh.
m3mnoch.