PlayStation 3 Console Discussion

[Ryan]

I bought mine for £50 when it came out. Mine was an import from Hong Kong. Even at Argos though they're £35?

[dwarf]

Well, the new rumble technology is so strong now that it puts the room under a richter scale 4 earthquake, immersing the player when playing shooting games etc.

[Deathjam]

I like the way that it was in my recommendations, 'offered' to me by that company, and comes with 'free shipping'! Its like they read my mind.

[dwarf]

I bought mine for £50 when it came out. Mine was an import from Hong Kong. Even at Argos though they're £35?

 

Yeah that's not the point, the old Dual Shock three doesn't have the 'Richter Rumble' feature, that's why this one costs more.

[Deathjam]

Yeah that's not the point, the old Dual Shock three doesn't have the 'Richter Rumble' feature, that's why this one costs more.

 

Brings a whole new meaning to force feeback huh?

[dwarf]

Definetly lol, I'm glad I bought one now. It really shakes up the way we play games.

In all seriousness though I think idea will be embraced by all companies next gen.

[Deathjam]

I actually still haven't bought one as I can't justify to myself why I am buying a controller for the same price as a game.

[dwarf]

It can be found for £20 in some online stores. And it is much better than playing with a milk carton. However, the new Dual Shock will send shivers down your spine it is so good.

[Deathjam]

It can be found for £20 in some online stores. And it is much better than playing with a milk carton. However, the new Dual Shock will send shivers down your spine it is so good.

 

Online stores like where? And lol I don't think that would do my spine anygood to have constant shivers being sent down it. £83 lol.

[Ryan]

Yeah that's not the point, the old Dual Shock three doesn't have the 'Richter Rumble' feature, that's why this one costs more.

 

Oh, I see! I had no idea they changed the rumble in the controllers.

[dwarf]

Yeah the Richter Rumble is actually quite ground-breaking I think you should get it, I did and it must be said, it is worth it!

[Deathjam]

Oh, I see! I had no idea they changed the rumble in the controllers.

 

Please, please don't buy the one advertised here. DONT DO IT!

[dwarf]

I hope he was going along with it otherwise a massive facepalm is in order.

[Choze]

Looks like White Knight Chronicles is quite solid. Its not groundbreaking new but it does the game mechanics very well. Large areas. Hardly any loading. Big batttles. City areas are more than eye candy, armor shows in character etc. Seems good and modern.

[Happenstance]

Looks like White Knight Chronicles is quite solid. Its not groundbreaking new but it does the game mechanics very well. Large areas. Hardly any loading. Big batttles. City areas are more than eye candy, armor shows in character etc. Seems good and modern.

 

Whens it supposed to be released?

[Choze]

no idea.

 

But it should come to Europe i hope.

[LegoMan1031]

I hope he was going along with it otherwise a massive facepalm is in order.

 

lol, so funny. I was having a good laugh when reading the posts yesterday.

[Hero-of-Time]

no idea.

 

But it should come to Europe i hope.

 

Lets be honest though it doesnt really mater if it does thanks to the PS3 being region free, all we need is a US release Region free FTW!

[Deathjam]

Lets be honest though it doesnt really mater if it does thanks to the PS3 being region free, all we need is a US release Region free FTW!

 

But will the servers be locked to your region. I don't much like being stuck with bratty european kids so getting stuck with the american, high-pitched variant would be a big NO NO (notice how I didnt just say americans but a picked out the lot that really annoys me, I doubt the loudmouth jocks would be playing this over something like gears).

[dwarf]

YESSSS!!!!!! Finally won a Motorstorm track that was pissing me off so much lol! Awesome stuff, came down to the last corner, there were 3 or 4 cars that were ploughing towards the finish line, I managed to drift and boost explode over the line to win by 0.005 seconds!

 

Intense stuff, got a trophy called Close Call too.

[Choze]

need to get back to it.

[Dante]

Sony on brink of upheaval

 

Sony, the embattled Japanese electronics group, is on the brink of a corporate upheaval that could see job cuts and sweeping changes to management and manufacturing processes.

 

Company sources have told The Times that operations across the group are braced for a series of “sacred cow-slaying” measures that they believe will abolish or fundamentally alter many of Sony's long-established business practices.

 

The expected restructuring - considered by many analysts to be occurring far too late - is likely to be announced early next month, with the lion's share of the changes imposed on Sony's domestic Japanese operations in the form of factory closures and the abolition of several major divisions.

 

The restructuring is expected to be unveiled after this month's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and comes as analysts are warning that Sony faces long years of multibillion-dollar losses unless its president, Sir Howard Stringer, is given free rein to take on the company's old guard and erase many of its legacies.

 

Analysts are issuing blunt warnings of an impending flood of red ink in Sony. Their calls for deep changes in the company - supported by large investors - predict an imminent “all or nothing” moment for Sir Howard and the company of which he took charge in 2005.

 

Koya Tabata, a Credit Suisse analyst, recently warned investors that the restructuring of Sony is perilously overdue and must be radical. Sony management needs to make a rapid shift in its business model to one driven by earnings in the content business, he said.

 

The focus of research and development must be on software, he said, adding: “The most important thing is that, to improve organisational strength in the areas of development, purchasing and marketing, it will be necessary to further concentrate power in the hands of [sir Howard] and unless this is achieved we believe [sony] will be unable to close the gap with competitors such as Apple and Nintendo.”

 

Sony has already flagged the possibility of changes to its business model. A thinly detailed statement last month focused chiefly on short-term cost cutting, job losses of about 16,000 permanent and temporary staff, and a vow to re-examine the role of non-core or non-profitable businesses. The announcement did not say what these were. Deutsche Bank analysts described the restructuring plans as“insufficient in scope and scale” and, along with other observers, noted that Sir Howard's longer-term plans would have to be fairly spectacular in order to restore investors' faith in the stock.

 

Despite the promise of reform inherent in the appointment of Sony's first non-Japanese head, sources close to Sir Howard describe three years of frustration as the company's British-born chief has tried to impose changes on an unwilling entrenched management. Those frustrations - and a clear internal cultural clash between Japanese Sony and its US and European operations - have finally begun to be noticed by Japanese analysts. Several have started to call for Sir Howard to be free to take a “gloves-off” approach to running Sony, even if that means that the axe falls most heavily on the group's Japanese operations.

 

business.timesonline.co.uk

 

[size="1"]            Sony	      Nintendo	  Microsoft	       Industry
Y/E 1998     $902,811,090   $1,023,333,867                      $1,926,144,957
Y/E 1999   $1,102,563,557   $1,301,350,000                      $2,403,913,557
Y/E 2000     $722,738,949   $1,368,207,547                      $2,090,946,497
Y/E 2001    -$449,776,290     $677,576,000                        $227,799,710
Y/E 2002     $629,101,056     $895,872,180   -$1,135,000,000      $389,973,237
Y/E 2003     $935,569,253     $834,333,333   -$1,191,000,000      $578,902,586
Y/E 2004     $627,195,212     $993,161,303   -$1,337,000,000      $283,356,515
Y/E 2005     $419,888,799   $1,056,056,202     -$539,000,000      $936,945,001
Y/E 2006      $69,129,058     $774,478,055   -$1,339,000,000     -$495,392,887
Y/E 2007  -$1,970,923,859   $1,914,666,388   -$1,969,000,000   -$2,025,257,471
Y/E 2008  -$1,079,994,103   $4,322,637,887      $426,000,000    $3,668,643,783

Y/E 09Q1      $51,113,208   $1,124,452,830      $178,000,000    $1,353,566,038
Y/E 09Q2    -$379,471,154   $1,278,759,615		

Total				
   $1,579,944,775  $17,564,885,209   -$6,906,000,000   $11,339,541,523

Full Year Average
     $173,482,066   $1,378,333,888   -$1,012,000,000      $907,815,953

Profitable Years				
      8		11		   1		     9

Non Profitable Years				
     3		 0		   6		     2

Average in Loss Year				
 -$1,166,898,084	N/A            -$1,251,666,667   -$1,260,325,179

Average in Profit Year				
 $676,124,622   $1,378,333,888          $426,000,000    $1,389,625,094[/size]

[dwarf]

Dante can you post that thing about the Sony chip developing here please? It's quite interesting even if not all of it is factual.

[Dante]

Dante can you post that thing about the Sony chip developing here please? It's quite interesting even if not all of it is factual.

 

Okay......

 

WSJ: Sony paid for 360's development!?

 

Like dynasties rising and falling, videogame systems enjoy periods of ascendancy and popular support, only to be thrust aside by a new and conquering power. First came Magnavox Odyssey (in the 1970s), then Atari consoles, then Nintendo, which dominated the market for the better part of the 1980s. In the early 1990s, Nintendo's Super NES and Sega MegaDrive battled each other for supremacy. Each found enough competitive room to lay the groundwork for the modern videogame console, which has become something like a dedicated personal computer.

 

It was in the mid-1990s that Sony dropped Playstation into the console market -- a graphics powerhouse that featured games for adults as well as for kids. Playstation was a huge success, selling more than 100 million units. Its 2000 sequel, the Playstation 2, was an even bigger one.

 

For the system's ambitious third iteration, though, Sony wanted an entirely new processing architecture. Most computer processing chips are built on the foundations of the chips that are already in use. Designing a new chip from the ground up is a costly and time-intensive process. So in 2001 Sony partnered with Toshiba and IBM to create the so-called Cell processor -- a chip so powerful that it would redefine PC-scale power.

 

David Shippy, as it happens, was in charge of designing the brains of the Cell, the processing core. In "The Race for a New Game Machine," he and his co-worker Mickie Phipps tell the story of the whole effort to build the Cell. They also describe how the project went off the rails, ending up with IBM engineers creating the processing chips for two rival videogame consoles and, along the way, delivering to Sony Corp. one of its greatest business failures.

 

When the companies entered into their partnership in 2001, Sony, Toshiba and IBM committed themselves to spending $400 million over five years to design the Cell, not counting the millions of dollars it would take to build two production facilities for making the chip itself. IBM provided the bulk of the manpower, with the design team headquartered at its Austin, Texas, offices. Sony and Toshiba sent teams of engineers to Austin to live and work with their partners in an effort to have the Cell ready for the Playstation 3's target launch, Christmas 2005.

 

But a funny thing happened along the way: A new "partner" entered the picture. In late 2002, Microsoft approached IBM about making the chip for Microsoft's rival game console, the (as yet unnamed) Xbox 360. In 2003, IBM's Adam Bennett showed Microsoft specs for the still-in-development Cell core. Microsoft was interested and contracted with IBM for their own chip, to be built around the core that IBM was still building with Sony.

 

All three of the original partners had agreed that IBM would eventually sell the Cell to other clients. But it does not seem to have occurred to Sony that IBM would sell key parts of the Cell before it was complete and to Sony's primary videogame-console competitor. The result was that Sony's R&D money was spent creating a component for Microsoft to use against it.

 

Mr. Shippy and Ms. Phipps detail the resulting absurdity: IBM employees hiding their work from Sony and Toshiba engineers in the cubicles next to them; the Xbox chip being tested a few floors above the Cell design teams. Mr. Shippy says that he felt "contaminated" as he sat down with the Microsoft engineers, helping them to sketch out their architectural requirements with lessons learned from his earlier work on Playstation.

 

The deal only got worse for Sony. Both designs were delivered on time to IBM's manufacturing division, but there was a problem with the first chip run. Microsoft had had the foresight to order backup manufacturing capacity from a third party. Sony did not and had to wait another six weeks to get their first chips. So Microsoft actually got the chip that Sony helped design before Sony did. In the end, Microsoft's Xbox 360 hit its target launch in November 2005, becoming its own success. Because of various delays, the Playstation 3 was pushed back a full year.

 

Mr. Shippy and Ms. Phipps view the delivery of the Cell processor and the derivative Xbox chip as victories for both companies. "Both Sony and Microsoft were extremely successful at achieving their goals," they write. But this is true only in the narrowest sense. The new chips certainly set the standard for technical virtuosity. Yet the current generation of videogame console has been dominated not by Sony or Microsoft but by the Wii, Nintendo's modest machine that relies on an older, cheaper and less powerful chip. With an input device that allows players physically to interact with games, the Wii has been yet another runaway success, selling almost as many consoles as the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 combined.

 

 

In fact, the Playstation 3 now runs a distant third in sales. (And the trend is downward: On Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported that "U.S. sales of the PS3 fell 19% last month from a year earlier, while sales doubled for the Wii console and rose 8% for the Xbox 360.") For Sony, the Cell processor was such a debacle that two weeks after the Playstation 3 finally appeared in stores, the company fired Ken Kutaragi, the head of its gaming unit, who had championed the Cell and built the Playstation line. The lesson, lost on Mr. Shippy and Ms. Phipps, is that technical supremacy divorced from sound strategic vision is no virtue. It can even end up in disaster.

 

Mr. Last is a contributing editor of the Weekly Standard.

[Pit-Jr]

The expected restructuring - considered by many analysts to be occurring far too late - is likely to be announced early next month, with the lion's share of the changes imposed on Sony's domestic Japanese operations in the form of factory closures and the abolition of several major divisions.[/b]

 

Yikes. The success of Blu-Ray and the PS3 hinge on each other. Get those prices down to DVD/360 level stat!