DanneSandin said:
Tachikoma said:
DanneSandin said:
goopy20 said:
Wow that is one wall of text but I stopped reading after the first line. "Sony's console won't be a huge leap because they can't afford it..." This whole theory is based on that assumption and it makes no sense. Sony might be in a bad spot but the ps3 is still one of it's few products that is going very well, outselling the Xbox and Wii-U combined, for months in a row now. So instead of thinking Sony will cut corners with the ps4, you can also asume they are going all out to make sure it's most important cashcow will stay on top.
The Wii-U never had a chance because it's not competing with the ps4/ Xbox720, it's competing with the current gen and has no visual edge over the 7 year old consoles that were already on the market. Next gen graphics will obviously take a leap over the ps3 and Xbox720 because if it doesn't, then why the hell would MS and Sony spend a fortune building those things? The only chance Nintendo has is by showing that the tabet controller really is the best gameplay invention since the mouse and keyboard, and personally i just don't see that happening.
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The PS3 certainly is not a cash cow. In fact, it's lost tons of money over the years, and it's not until fairly recently it has started to make money. But in the long run it will have lost most of the money PS2 managed to gain. And it's around this point I base my whole theory; in the end, PS3 has lost Sony money, and I don't think they want or can allow that again.
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That's not really entirely accurate, only the hardware has lost them money, they have made money on software for the consoles entire lifetime.
They lost much, much more money with TV's and other hardware per year than they have with the PlayStation 3, Incidentally the PlayStation 2 was sold at a loss intially too, Sony made the bulk of their playstation money with the software not the hardware.
With that said, it's inaccurate to broadly state that the PlayStation has induced nothing but loss "until recently". the money made from software sales, and PSN is actually much higher than the money lost from hardware and operation costs for it's online service.
As he states, if anything the initial loss of the PlayStation 3 and the glaring fact it's common knowledge the 360 performs better with multi platform games, and the worlds reaction to the PlayStation 3's price, is enough to know that the next PlayStation console will not use untested tech such as the Cell processor, and certainly will not be sold at a retarded pricetag.
With that said, simply moving to an AMD based processor alone greatly reduces the unit cost compared to running the Cell processor, despite the newer CPU being much more powerful, it's all about perspective and reasoning.
I predict at a reveal of both xbox 720 and playstation 4 at E3, with microsoft dropping the pricetag at E3 and sony holding off until TGS to reveal the price of their consol, but with both consoles hitting selves mid november.
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Yes, they might have made money on every sold SW, but as far as I understand it, the HW loss far outweighs the SW income. I'll just post a few links to show case this fact.
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/edit/img/images/blog/5615/profit_chart_consoles.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/S6asr.png
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v110/will_42/graph_consoles_cum.jpg
http://i55.tinypic.com/95wwi1.png
http://i.imgur.com/P7pGx.png
And 2 articles:
http://www.vg247.com/2009/10/30/sony-ps-division-has-lost-4-7-billion-since-launching-ps3/
http://www.1up.com/news/sony-lost-ps3-ps2
Granted, all of these are a couple of years old, but it goes to show how much money PS3 has cost Sony, and why they cannot make the same mistake with the PS4. And their TV business might be off even worse, but that division will effect the whole company, and this in turn only makes it more pivotal that PS4 makes Sony money from the get go (which in turn will mean that they can't sell it at loss and that they can't pump up the specs too much). I've already stated in the OP that Sony will not lose more than $50/console - and even that's a stretch. And it's this assumption that makes me think PS4 won't be a leap over Wii U as PS3 was over Wii.
I agree they will not launch it with a "retarded pricetag" (I liked that wording!), they will probably launch it around $400, and since they need as much money as they can get, they won't take a huge hit on it - at most $50, and even that's a stretch imo.
And I'm also sure they'll hit store shelves around November - perhaps as early as October even. Where and when the unveiling will take place I'm not as sure of...
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All of those images and articles either focus on sony as a whole or on hardware only - everyone knows they made a loss with hardware between launch and around 2010, and everyone knows Sony has been hemmoraging money left and right as TV and hifi equipment sales dwindle.
Consider this, if you will, 770 games, times by the average number of games sold (i'd estimate around 500k since some sell less and some sell millions), times by something along the lines of $5 which would a low estimat eof what sony makes per retail game sold (high estimate being $15), and with a low estimate you end up with :
1,925,000,000 to 5,775,000,000 billion dollars, if we take the launch to profitable operaing loss of 4,695,000,202 into consideration and offset that,
at the point at which sony made thei first dollar off of hardware, they were either : -$2770000202 or +$1079999798, take into consideration the gains made in hardware and software sales of PSN and you end up roughly and broadly speaking, seeing the PS3 more or less break even.
That does not mean the PS4 will follow suit, it just means Sony after enjoying two generations on top, got burned by their choices and will have to learn from their mistakes or perish, and i seriously doubt given the 'leaked' speaks that they will perish.
