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Forums - Sony Discussion - Rumour: Slim PS3 to hit stores as early as 2009 for £200/$300

SnakeEyez on 17 December 2008

so this guy happened to bump into a sony PR guy.... it's all hearsay and therefore not a trusted source. I do think that Sony SHOULD be looking into a slim model because of the obvious cost reduction that having a slim PS3 will have and the "new" excitement (plus a price cut if they decide to share the cost reduction with the consumers) will raise the PS3's weekly sales to atleast a third more than the PS3 has been selling in 2008.



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swearitsoul on 17 December 2008

so what 3 years after PS3 is released they release a Slim PS3 sounds about right.



ssj12 on 17 December 2008

this will be another hardware revision, thats all. 45nm CELL, 55nm RSX?



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Million on 17 December 2008
Dryden said:
nightsurge said:
I don't see the slimness lowering the cost much... If they shrink the cpu, gpu, and motherboard, that would save costs. But just shrinking the motherboard and taking the power supply out would save you on plastic casing... which I am guessing is not a very big expense to them.

No, they're not going to shrink the PS3 until everything inside is 45nm high-k. The plastic casing and location of the PSU are the least of Sony's problems in manufacture.

Step #1 - Reduce the size of all the processors. Less wattage = less heat = smaller power supply required. These steps, all by themselves, will shave A LOT of money off the cost of the PS3 and additionally result in it weighing half as much as it does now. Also, IBM shifting from 65nm SOI to 45nm high-k means better yeilds, which equates to cheaper Cells. IBM HAS BEEN MAKING 45nm high-k Cells since Feb of this year. Where do you guys think they all went?

Step #2 - Reduce the size/wattage/heat equation by shrinking all the processors 35-40% and you reduce the active cooling required to run the system. This means less copper (copper = EXPENSIVE) and fewer fans (fewer fans = fewer moving parts). All of this also results in better reliability. Better reliability = fewer warrantied returns. How important is that? Nothing eats into profit like giving away consoles for FREE, and paying the shipping both ways to boot.

Step #3 - Smaller components all around = fewer nuts & bolts & screws to hold it all together = quicker and cheaper to assemble. Yes, when you have plans to build 100M consoles or more over the course of ten years, EVERY SINGLE screw costs money. A penny on a screw here, a nickel for a hinged plastic door there, all of a sudden you've got ten billion dollars in savings by shaving $100 off the next 100M consoles you plan on making.

Step #4 - Half the weight + half the size means Sony can freight and store twice as many for the same price. Cheaper packaging and cheaper palletting. Stores can now also stock twice as many consoles since they require half the shelf space.

Sony went to work on the Slim PS3 the day they finished engineering the existing PS3, which is to say, they had already started before the current PS3 ever hit retail shelves. I wouldn't doubt that Sony has a functional, finished version of the slim PS3 in their R&D labs, and they've probably had it for quite some time. All that though, DOES NOT substantiate this rumor, which ammounts to some guy in a parking lot in Russia claiming he works for Sony and heard from another person that heard from another person at Sony that this was a done deal.

I'm 110% certain Sony HAS a slim PS3 *somewhere.* Doesn't mean any of us are going to get one in March '09 (or whenever).

Excellent post.

 




mtofu on 17 December 2008
SMcc1887 said:
mtofu said:
we're all expecting the slimline ps3 but an Easter release seems a bit unreasonable. i think they need to shrink the chip set further before they consider releasing it or their cooling system won't be sufficient.

my memory is foggy on this one. was the ps2 cpu and gpu combined before or after they released their slim model? was it combined at all or am i making up memories?

 

 Lol, I didn't expect Xbox 360's to be sold just 70 days after production began.......but it did.

sony QC >>>>> microsoft QC

 

 



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skeezer on 17 December 2008

The "big ass" console is always better



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shams on 17 December 2008

More than possible - but it wouldn't bode well for the "10 year lifetime" model of the PS3. At this rate, PS3 will last 6 years - and the Wii 10 years...



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Million on 17 December 2008
shams said:
More than possible - but it wouldn't bode well for the "10 year lifetime" model of the PS3. At this rate, PS3 will last 6 years - and the Wii 10 years...

 

The PS2 had a hardware revision 4 years into it's life cycle why would the PS3 be any different ? a hardware revision would reignite interest in the PS3 , a good price point would attract any buyers on the fence or people who have been waiting for a better value PS3.


Sony can continue to support the PS3 with software , and Blu-Ray penatration will help keep the PS3 relevant ( assuming blu-ray continues to grow as it is doing) .


And it's yet to be seen wether the new Nintendo demographic will maintain their interest in the Wii for 10 years , the "brand new" ," cool" factor doesn't usualy last that long . The traditional gamer continues to buy software for their console long after the console looses this "cool" or "brand new" factor.




Impulsivity on 17 December 2008

I don't think some of you understand why slim is such a big deal. I worked for a while in operations and a HUGE cost of almost any item is shipping. In the case of something like a PS3 its paid multiple times (once for the truck to the port in china or wherever, once on the ship, once to a Sony US warehouse in a truck, once in yet another truck to a retailer distribution center then once again to the actual individual retail store). If you halve the size of the product+packaging you are literally halving shipping costs. I would bet you anything that shipping the PS3 all those times currently costs 50 dollars (its not light) meaning slimming is at least a 25 dollar cost savings.

Additionally tech has changed so much in the last few years that a slim would possibly cost less by a significant amount. For one thing it would use less materials, for another it would also require less expensive components (smaller tech components can often cost significantly less then continuing to use larger obsolete components). All it all it would go a long way to making the 300 dollar price point viable.

I bet if you added up all the cost reductions going slim would allow Sony would save at least 100 dollars per console. 25 shipping, about 25 on raw materials (plastics and the like) and about 50 on switching the motherboard, processors and other components to smaller more efficient options.

As a bonus, if they went to a significantly smaller processor and GPU (which would be likely) the PS3 would consume FAR less power. It is quite possible for Sony to halve the PS3's power consumption with a redesign.

I think this is both likely and a good idea. I would buy a 2nd PS3 if this was the case.




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Phrancheyez on 17 December 2008

"is it possible to have a slim ps3?"

Stupidest question ever..no, really, it is.

Of course its possible..the HDD is NOT big, the disc player is NOT big (they have laptops with blu-ray drives..it can't be that big), and the processors are always being shrunk..is it really amazing that they'd do it with the PS3?


A slim PS3 will probably be the same size as the original PS2 would be my guess..or somewhere in that area. And it'd be a helluva lot cheaper to make, ergo price cut.

However, I don't know if they'd release one that soon, but the rumors all along have said March 09, and if this debuts at $300, it makes a lot of sense. Lets see how much steam this rumor gains, because when multiple rumors coincide, things are always a LITTLE more believable. None-the-less, they're still rumors..and I'll have to see it to believe it.