Post by Yoon on Jul 21, 2006 18:51:08 GMT -5
High PS3 Price is Pushing Away Developers
"Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers"
Sony's PlayStation 3 has been in the news a lot in the past year. First there were issues with its Blu-ray support and then there were the reports on the console’s delay and finally the fallout from the $499/$599 pricing structure. Well, it appears that that high price of entry is not only turning away potential buyers, but also developers.
Sony has received overwhelming support in the past two generations for its PlayStation consoles from 3rd-party developers, but that support may now be in question. From GameDaily BIZ:
In the PS3's native Japan, the reaction has been less than pleasant, with more than 90 percent of developers in a recent survey stating that the price of the console is just too high. And indeed it seems that this high price is affecting whether or not certain developers decide to develop for the PS3. Sony's PlayStation business has always been backed by incredibly strong third-party support, but now for the first time that could be in jeopardy.
Sony's loss comes to the benefit of its two chief rivals. BusinessWeek reports that developers are taking their business to the Wii and even Xbox 360 (which hasn't been an overwhelming success in Japan in its current or previous form). Gaming giant Electronic Arts has also been showing favoritism to the less expensive Wii when showcasing upcoming games. BusinessWeek goes on to say:
EA announced six Nintendo Wii launch titles and showed long working demos for two of those. But it offered only a short clip of a car-racing game for PS3. EA says it's still testing the potential of the PS3. "Many developers think the console's initial high price will lead to slow sales and are holding off on creating games for Sony," Hamamura says.
Sony has a lot of work to do this generation to keep its #1 crown. It may have been easy to bowl over the competition with the PlayStation and PlayStation 2, but it looks like the tides are changing. When you have a $200 higher price of entry than your next closest competitor that turns away customers, high licensing costs to offset the cost of development and Blu-ray drive technology that drives up the cost of the console without a 100% guarantee of wide-spread adoption, you know that you’re in for a bumpy ride.
DailyTech previously reported that according to IBM, yields on the Cell processors were extremely poor, and that most Cell processors would ship without all eight cores working. According to IBM, some PlayStation 3 units will have 7-core Cell processors and some with 8-core Cell processors.
Source: DailyTech - High PS3 Price is Pushing Away Developers
Well, well, this is not too surprising, considering the high price of a PS3. What is somewhat shocking is that EA seems to be shifting it's focus towards the Wii, rather than the PS3. This is shocking because EA in the past generation was rather apathetic towards making games for Nintendo GameCube, especially it's sports division, EA Sports.
Another big thing that is hurting Sony is that due to the amount of high-tech, expensive parts in the PS3 (read Blu-Ray Drive & IBM Cell), they will lose money on every PS3 unit sold, for possibly the first year and longer. However, it's this news bit that makes the PS3 situation sound even worse:
DailyTech previously reported that according to IBM, yields on the Cell processors were extremely poor, and that most Cell processors would ship without all eight cores working. According to IBM, some PlayStation 3 units will have 7-core Cell processors and some with 8-core Cell processors.
For those unfamiliar with how modern processors (CPU) are created, they are created as part of large batches on trays, known as wafers. In every wafer, there are always bad, faulty processors. For CPU companies such as Intel, AMD, IBM, etc., the goal is to get as many working, viable processors on each tray, since CPU manufacturing is not cheap.
If IBM is having extremely poor yields of the PS3 Cell CPU, this would mean two things:
1.) There will be a large shortage of PS3 units when the PS3 is finally launched.
2.) Sony will be forced to lower the PS3 specs, so they can use more of the faulty Cell CPUs in order for yields to be more viable.
Could this finally be the generation where Sony loses the number 1 spot?