Sony Lost Over $3 Billion To PS3 Cost

[Who]

Pricing the PlayStation 3 below its production cost caused Sony to lose $2.16 billion in 2007 and $1.16 billion in 2008 the company revealed today. Sony's fiscal 2008 annual report delineated potential...

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[hellknight]

The console makers are suffering heavy losses already, and now, with Crysis Shining Pc's are back to track,. PC gaming rocks yaar

[lywyre]

^ +1

[desiibond]

It's common to see early losses in gaming consoles industry but on the long run, they reap huge profits. Look at PS2 for example. Still a strong seller even 9years after it's release.

[New]

They are manufacturing it by keeping the long run in mind

[mavihs]

+1

[hellknight]

But look at the RROD in Xbox 360.. that was one of the most dreaded things that happened to my friend, it occured after just 2 days.. thankfully the dealer replaced the unit at the spot.. RROD is same like BSOD in Windows..

Secondly, PS3's Cell Processor isn't giving it much profits.. only two 7900 GT based cards in SLI are less powerful than the cards available in the PC gaming scenario.. and remember, Mass Effect even brought Xbox on its knees.. On the other hand look at PC, Crysis with over 10 million sold and still selling, DX 10 effects.. highly upgradable etc.. PC gaming is on a new height.. most of the games run on either 720p resolution on consoles.. their upscalers scale them to the desired HD resolution.. PC, on the other hand can yeild you full HD quality with full AA and AF, you only need to have dough

[nish_higher]

PS3 production costs are now cut to half as reported on fudzilla (might be wrong about the source check it urself)

[Plasma_Snake]

That is the point, upgrading. In PC you'll need to upgrade and past 6 months have been a nightmare for any GPU upgrader. 880GT then 9600Gt then 9800GT and now 280 and 260GTX. I mean games that these cards are going to run, consoles gonna run too and in case of PS3 even better. So its entirely upto a person's choice wether to take plunge in PC side or go for consoles.
As far as losses to Sony are concerned, they knew that after huge battery recall losses they desperately needed PS3 to be a hit and have estimated a 3 year time cushion for the console to break even by the shear number of sales.

[hellknight]

But its not like that you're saying.. for e.g. Crysis's req for Graphics Card is stated as 8800 GT in Vista where as i've completed it on med settings with abs. no troubles on my 8600 GT

[Hrithan2020]

Originally Posted by hellknight

Secondly, PS3's Cell Processor isn't giving it much profits. On the other hand look at PC, Crysis with over 10 million sold and still selling, DX 10 effects.. highly upgradable etc..

Since when did Crysis become such a hit.The last I heard,it crossed just 1 million and Crytek was thinking of a PS3 version of "Crysis"(with lesser environment details probably) to recover the losses.

Originally Posted by hellknight

most of the games run on either 720p resolution on consoles.. their upscalers scale them to the desired HD resolution.. PC, on the other hand can yeild you full HD quality with full AA and AF, you only need to have dough

U said it right,most of the good looking games can barely reach the 720p mark let alone 1080p;its only with a PC,one can play with full settings.

Originally Posted by hellknight

PC gaming is on a new height..

But the PC Gaming(excluding the online ones) are on a steady downward trend(unfortunately) what with the minimum common denominator(ie Intel IGP) being so low on graphics power that a good looking game wont run on it and the piracy/drm issues.But the online ones are steadily growing(WOW crossed 1 billn$ in revenues!!!).I believe with further efforts from intel and microsoft, some of the advantages of consoles would be negated considerably(considering the rather long life-time of consoles) and with consoles now trying to be more than just a gaming machine it's going to face problems that earlier plagued PC only(bad drivers/firmware,incompatibility issues)......

[hellknight]

My mistake... it was 1 Million not 10 million.. typo..
Microsoft Game Studios is also reported to be working on the project which will be like no installation .. put the disc in the drive of the pc .. start playing .. But i think it will take a long time to implement.. The only good thing about PS3 is that it is the best Blu-Ray player available and counting the cost of console+HD Tv set (1080p) > a mid-range gaming computer
I mean in India PS3 ~ 25k
1080p tv ~ 50k
Entry level 5.1 ~ 4k
Total = Approx 80k
but you can get a good PC with 8800GT, dual core, 2GB ram etc for 50k..

[Hrithan2020]

Originally Posted by Rudick

That is the point, upgrading.I mean games that these cards are going to run, consoles gonna run too and in case of PS3 even better.
As far as losses to Sony are concerned, they have estimated a 3 year time cushion for the console to break even by the shear number of sales.

U must remember that PS3 is considered by many developers to be rather difficult to program on.Architecturally,its GPU power is on par with the now measly 7800gtx.(Though the theoretical performance is abt 1.8 TFLOPS for SPE's+gpu,but u know that TFLOPS doesnt really matter,as u see in GTX 280 vs 4850/4870)

The console makers generally sell it at a loss or minimal profit and recover money from the developers.In short,they get money from the developers(for using the SDK's etc) and a percentage of the profit from every game copy from that console being sold.That's why they provide it at such a cheap price(to attract more customers as they possibly can).

When u consider a PC's cost,u must take into account its other abilities(watching media,encoding,browsing,educational......and the list goes on.If u buy a decent PC (HTPC) it'll probably cost u abt rs 35K (say), then by buying a decent Gpu (say 9600gt/gso/3850), u'll be able to enjoy games.So,in fact by paying an additional 6/10 k u can play games whereas for consoles u need a good tv(supporting 720p at least).(Talking abt casual gamers here)So the price advantage can be debatable,u see.

[hellknight]

^+1
Exactly that is what I'm trying to explain.. PC has various other uses besides gaming.. and you can only uses Xbox 360 either as a console or a entertainment hub legally.. On the other hand Sony allows you to install Linux on PS3 legally with community support available.. so that also makes it a computer... I wonder if Linux kernel utilizes all the cores while running CPU intensive tasks like ripping DVD's etc.. PS3 is a better deal than XBox 360 (if not counting Halo 3,GOW)

[Hrithan2020]

Originally Posted by hellknight

On the other hand Sony allows you to install Linux on PS3 legally with community support available.. so that also makes it a computer... I wonder if Linux kernel utilizes all the cores while running CPU intensive tasks like ripping DVD's etc.. PS3 is a better deal than XBox 360 (if not counting Halo 3,GOW)

Yeah u r right,PS3 has a huge potential.I think one of the core is always kept locked(reserved for OS & security) and another one for backup so it definitely uses less than 7 cores,
and if encoding were possible taking into account PS3's
theoretical performance it would blow even the GTX 280's encoding performance(only in Bada BOOM converter),so dont think it would run v.fast....

Considering that most of the gr8 XBox 360 eventually come to the PC with more features(GOW,Mass Effect,Halo 3 hopefully..),it'd be better if one buys PS3,i'd sure like to play MGS 4...

[hellknight]

Its RAM also runs at 3.2 GHZ (XDR).. but is only 256 MB.. PS3 is a good buy. It is also not possible to play pirated games on PS3 (as far i know) whereas XBox 360 users can install a modchip to play pirated games.. so that makes PS3 more profitable to developers than XBox 360 & PC

[krazzy]

You guys are going wayy off topic with the stupid PC vs Console debate. If you don't stop I'll ban you both. Yeah you heard it right. I have gained some special mod powers from Pathik and stole the rest from Goobi and Indyan. So you guys better watch out.

Oh and btw, console gaming rules! PS3 RULES!!

[Hrithan2020]

Originally Posted by krazzy

You guys are going wayy off topic with the stupid PC vs Console debate. If you don't stop I'll ban you both. Yeah you heard it right. I have gained some special mod powers from Pathik and stole the rest from Goobi and Indyan. So you guys better watch out.

Oh and btw, console gaming rules! PS3 RULES!!

Agreed..Now,pls dont start the same old stupid X360 vs PS3 debate....

[hellknight]

ok ok.. we got it

[mavihs]

Guys we can continue the fight here: http://www.thinkdigit.com/forum/show...435#post870435