Megadude said:
x-bots who think $200 arcade will outsell $300 PS3, I have a message for you:
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You are missing an extremly important factor: There is not really a single group who buys these consoles but a lot of different motives to buy this console and no other!
The big problem for the PS-3 is that it is under severe attacks from multiple competitors.
The PS-3 will probably have the potential to reach a 300 Euro price point in the long run (in the short run this means heavy losses and in fact proclaim a price war to Microsoft while Microsoft is in the better position. Microsoft earns money while Sony burns through its cash reserve!
Sony will have to develop a totally new console while Microsoft is in a pretty comfortable position to fix all the performance issues that the Xbox360 has, use a new, less power hungry processor (the PPE in the Cell and so the the Xenon cores were never designed for such purposes, while they were officially claimed as effective their frequency was in fact more important), offer a very good programming environment and even retain a certain level of comaptibility to the Xbox 360. This will be a very interesting target for programmers! Microsoft knows this and I am pretty sure that even Sony knows that they will have to work a miracle. I don't say this as a Xbox360 fan but as a programmer. In fact I don't even have a Xbox 360 but a PS-3 (a gift from my boss).
The cell isn't such a miracle as certain peoples claim. While the cell can be used effectively for number crunching it has severe limitations in process interaction and process switching. But this wasn't really a design problem, the Cell was simply never developed for the PS-3! It was developed for a console designed by Sony which should have been released at the end of 2005! This date should ring a bell, it was the release date of the Xbox360. They< had to rush to counter Sony but no one could have foreseen that Sony would fumble and wouldn't finish an essential ingedient: The Companion Chip!
You don't believe me? Simple, read the book "The Race for a New Game Machine" by David Shippy. While it is pretty short and dificult to read it contains certain facts. I think the uncensored version would have been a blast but he has the problem that he knows to much.
People simlply miss the point that the Cell was never intendet to interact with a real GPU, its SPUs were intended to replace certain functions of the GPU. You can see this quite clearly in "Killzone 2" which used the Cell quite effectively but they have trouble to use the GPU, because their complete rendering engine resides in the SPUs.
The HD consoles are currently in trouble because the business model of the programmers no longer works! The big titles cost so much money that they no longer carry the amount of flops that they had to refinance in the days of the PS-1 or PS-2. This is the main attack point by the Wii that simply attracts a lot of casuals. While you might think that casuals don't matter: They were the ones that also bought the big guns and really made the industry run. Miss the casuals and you miss the market. A severe problem for Sonys exclussive games. How long can they keep this strategy up?
Blu-ray players. Look at Samsung and Panasonic. Now we know why Samsung claimed a year ago that Bluz-ray is only a short term option. All Stand-alone players (including Sony) have a severe problem: Even the cheapest player nearly delivers the same qualities as the more expensive competitors. It is quite hard to get into a suitable position in such a market, so they simply move on. What they are now trying to sell is "We don't care what you use, we will simply offer you the best quality for your movies, whether you have them on DVD, Blu-ray or on the Internet. Currently they are not really capable to fullfill this promise, because their playere originally dignaded as simple Blu-ray 2.0 players, but you can be certain that the next generation will be better equiped for this role. And these players that surpass the DVD quality of the PS-3 will prabaly crosse the 100$ mark by christmas. For movie enthusiasts they will be a bargain!
While other people have a severe problem with Blu-ray. If you don't have a big TV or beamer and a suitable surround equipment Blu-ray itself has not so much to offer. These films are produced to earn more money than with the DVD. DVDs will end after a while in the 10$ bin. For the casual film market these offers are muche more impotant than the better quality for 5$ more, especially with a good upscaler as the new and cheap Blu-ray players offer. But your kids want a game console. Easy, what is the cheapest coinsole? The PS-2, but they already have one, the next the Xbox 360. It has nearly the same games as this PS-3. You and I don't have the trouble to spend 300$, but they have. They might be able to get together 200$ for the kids (with the help of grandparents and aunts) but 200$ for themselvesw? Well their was the badly needed car repair and the money was used for groceries and so on. There are so many ways for the money to simply vanish... For such people the PS-3 is simply no alternative. You might claim it as a cheap way to win, but in fact this was the way the PS-2 really reached its place. This is a major area of the games market, wether you like it or not.
At the moment we only know one winner: Nintendo, but it will be quite difficult for them to continue in this path They earn money and they will earn money but what will their place be in the next generation? Microsoft might be a very difficult competitior. I am not so sure if their camera achievements are really targeted for the Xbox360 but more like a first step in the direction of the next generation. I am quite certain that they are already developing their next generation. In the current situation there is much hesitation in the market but Microsoft has cash and for electronic companies this money is quite imporetant to pay the bills of their best developers. Otherwise they might change companies. It will never be as cheap to get the best people as at times like this!
Sony has a lot of ideas but they have a problem: Most of them cost money. If they lower the prices for the PS-3 they will bleed money, money that they could have used to develop now the next generation that has to battles the Xbox360 successor! Many points of the network strategy contradict themselves. If they would really want to earn money they would need direct and cheap access to their entertainment department. Their movies and music might be the most important point to give their network strategy a chance, but they will ask money for these rights, otherwise it might be more attractive for the entertainment department to offer their services via iTunes or netflix, and so harm the network idea of their own company. A free service via Sony computers makes the PS-3 less appealing. In fact they will probably have trouble to get their teams under control that they don't see each other as competitors. A problem for most major companies, because all departments are competitors for money and people. Sony is currently in a quite interesting time. They have to reinvent major parts of their company and most department have to reinvent themselves at the same time. There will be wqinners and loosers but I don't think that the Sony guys will currently really worry about Microsoft. They will have to deal with each other before they can really think about other competitors.
These are the real issues I see. In my opinion it simply doesn't matter if Sony or Microsoft sell 10.000 consoles per week more than their competitor. The Wii won in the market and even more importantly from the money perspective. Microsoft won the knowledge to control the hardware production. That they had to rush their production so much that they ran into maintainance problems is not such a big problem due to their customer support. They have proven thzat they can develop an attractive and cheap plattform No 3rd party developer will ignore them! Most of the HD games for the rest of these generation will be multiplattform games! They have already surpassed the old Xbox and are much better known in all markets.
Sony lost severly. They lost most of their microelectronics! They will no longer be able to develop their own console they< will have to rely on third party companies like Nintendo and Microsoft. The brand name Playstation has lost severly. Microsoft and Nintendo have attracted more customers, so they had to loose. The company as a whole is drastically weaker than in the year 2000/2001 when tey begtan with the PS-3. Most people don't realize how much they have lost. At that time they really produced and owned a considerable amount of their technology. Nowadays their TVs contain Displays from Samsung or Toshiba!
The PS-3 has burned money that it simply can't earn back in its lifetime. The weak position of the HD games development harms their own game production. They are in a severe situation if they have to rely on the PS-3 alone. Third party producers are in a much better position due to the rtather low development costs of multiplattform games! If they want to earn money they will have to follow this path, otherwise Sony must be ready to handle financial loses with a console that is sold under its production costs...
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