Sony comments on CELL & PS3

Reanimated said:
Especially when you consider their current financial situation. They're cutting business units left and right to try and stop all the massive losses they've been taking.
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Is it your goal to be a complete and utter troll?

Please tell us of the "business units that are being cut right and left to try and stop all of the massive losses they've been taking". Be specific and provide the documentation of the "massive losses" those business units have had.

You know that it is possible to be a fan of another system and still respect the jobs that their competitors are doing, right? Carrying on a vendetta against a company just shows that you're not open to having any real discussion and that all you care about is making these sad little jabs whenever you imagine you have an opening.
 
As far as physics is concerned, let's say in a racing game, it is possible to approximate most things to a degree that it is almost indistinguishable from reality, without using much CPU power. Thus, making a realistic physics engine for racing simulators starts to depend on having more real data to work with then raw CPU power.
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You are forgetting that car companies use supercomputers to simulate things like car behavior on the road, or crash impacts. Have you seen that car crash demo on MS presentation? It's the beginning... only one car, simple background, etc. but even as it is, it's a commendable achievement.

It's very foolish, IMO to say "this much is enough", "there's no point going over this as noone can make use of it" Very foolish, backwards thinking, that reminds me of infamous "640KB is going to be enough". It's NEVER enough when it comes to computer generated grahics and simulations. Not even the fastest supercomputers on the planet are fast enough, much less something that has 100 or 200GFLOPS.

Sure, when you think with today's games in mind, those numbers seem more than enough, but thinking with today's games in mind is like thinking with DOS in mind and talking about 640K of memory.
 
Reanimated said:
Especially when you consider their current financial situation. They're cutting business units left and right to try and stop all the massive losses they've been taking.
Click to expand...


Insider info? Cause what you're saying is utter crap as far as the real world is concerned.
 
Carrying on a vendetta against a company just shows that you're not open to having any real discussion and that all you care about is making these sad little jabs whenever you imagine you have an opening.
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PANAOWNED!!
 
"She says that the ISSCC Cell may not equal the performance of PS3 Cell."

Now you gotta be carefull with statements like that. It could mean 3 different things. That was never stated. Sony never said PS3 cell. Just PS3.

A) This cell won't be as powerfull as the PS3 cell.
B) The PS3 cell won't be as powerfull as this cell.
C) This cell won't be as powerfull as the PS3(CPU + GPU).

Most likely C. In other words the PS3 cell might be less powerfull, but the overall PS3 will have more computational power than the cell they unveiled.
 
jimbo said:
"She says that the ISSCC Cell may not equal the performance of PS3 Cell."

Now you gotta be carefull with statements like that. It could mean 3 different things. That was never stated. Sony never said PS3 cell. Just PS3.

A) This cell won't be as powerfull as the PS3 cell.
B) The PS3 cell won't be as powerfull as this cell.
C) This cell won't be as powerfull as the PS3(CPU + GPU).

Most likely C. In other words the PS3 cell might be less powerfull, but the overall PS3 will have more computational power than the cell they unveiled.
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Where does "the full specs of the chip" sentence fit in?
 
jimbo said:
"She says that the ISSCC Cell may not equal the performance of PS3 Cell."

Now you gotta be carefull with statements like that. It could mean 3 different things. That was never stated. Sony never said PS3 cell. Just PS3.

A) This cell won't be as powerfull as the PS3 cell.
B) The PS3 cell won't be as powerfull as this cell.
C) This cell won't be as powerfull as the PS3(CPU + GPU).

Most likely C. In other words the PS3 cell might be less powerfull, but the overall PS3 will have more computational power than the cell they unveiled.
Click to expand...

well, there is quite a bit of logic to your post. i cannot really disagree.
 
Sony leaving Clie behind in face of losses:

http://olympics.reuters.com/audi/newsArticle.jhtml?type=technologyNews&storyID=7707797

Sony leaving plasma TV market due to inability to turn a profit:

http://www.newstarget.com/004272.html

Sony posting losses circa 2001:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/1457977.stm

Sony owned film studios posting quarterly losses:

http://www.worldscreen.com/newscurrent.php?filename=mgm225.htm

Rapidly devaluing dollar killing Sony profits:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2132947.stm

Sony sales tumbling, operating profit down 13% Company forced to restructure due to tough competition and weak demand (story on CNN just 3 weeks ago):

http://money.cnn.com/2005/01/27/news/international/sony.reut/



Do you require more, Sonycowboy, or have I made my point? A company that's in the middle of a cost cutting restructuring program probably isn't going to be terribly keen on a whole lot of loss leading products.
 
"Do you require more, Sonycowboy, or have I made my point? A company that's in the middle of a cost cutting restructuring program probably isn't going to be terribly keen on a whole lot of loss leading products."
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this is what is most worrying about sony - they are in the middle of restructuring to order to address the problems they recognised they had 2 years ago, but things just look to be getting no better.
 
Reanimated said:
Sony leaving Clie behind in face of losses:

http://olympics.reuters.com/audi/newsArticle.jhtml?type=technologyNews&storyID=7707797

Sony leaving plasma TV market due to inability to turn a profit:

http://www.newstarget.com/004272.html

Sony posting losses circa 2001:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/1457977.stm

Sony owned film studios posting quarterly losses:

http://www.worldscreen.com/newscurrent.php?filename=mgm225.htm

Rapidly devaluing dollar killing Sony profits:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2132947.stm

Sony sales tumbling, operating profit down 13% Company forced to restructure due to tough competition and weak demand (story on CNN just 3 weeks ago):

http://money.cnn.com/2005/01/27/news/international/sony.reut/



Do you require more, Sonycowboy, or have I made my point? A company that's in the middle of a cost cutting restructuring program probably isn't going to be terribly keen on a whole lot of loss leading products.
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It seems you completely missed the point. You were to show me the numerous business divisions that Sony was closing down because of the "massive" losses.

1) Do you see that they were losing money on the Clies? No. They were incredibly successful relative to all of the other handheld makers and their withdrawl shocked almost everybody. But, Sony realized that the PDA market is dead, so why be there.

2) Getting out of plasma means their getting out of the TV business? Out of the high-def side? Nope, you're incorrect there again. I suppose Microsoft dropping Microsoft Bob meant they were getting out of the sofware market.

3) Are you seriously so desperate that you'll go back to four years ago to drag up a loss statement? :lol (I'll give you a hint, you didn't have to go that far. I didn't say that all divisions were profitable)

4) Sony's closing down MGM? Even though Sony doesn't own MGM? So, Sony has no losses relative to MGM. Sony owns a piece of MGM along with a score of other financial partners, including Comcast and financial firms. They bought it for MGM's back catalog of movies, whose value is phenomenal, especially to push Blu-Ray.

5) Currency concerns are closing what of Sony's? Again, a sad attempt.

6) Company restructuring. Jeez, Microsoft restructured their company a few years ago. Did they close down?

You showed me a single instance where Sony was having trouble with profitability and thus left a single subsector that was less than 5% of that business unit. You failed. Try again. you might find another one or maybe two.

But you said they were closing business units right and left because of massive losses. I guess you were just talking out your arse again.

My point still stands and I truly wish you'd get it. What you are doing is without a doubt trolling. Probably not to the extent to get you banned, because we all make little jabs here and there. Only that's all you do and you don't seem to ever engage in any real discussions that lead anywhere. Why not drop the crap and join us in actual dialog?
 
DCharlie said:
this is what is most worrying about sony - they are in the middle of restructuring to order to address the problems they recognised they had 2 years ago, but things just look to be getting no better.
Click to expand...


That was my only point - they are known to have been having financial trouble. This is why I'm not so sure they're going to be packing tons of stuff into PS3 when they're going to be taking a loss on each unit. They posted huge losses for a year after PS2 launched (as shown), and I'm not so sure they can afford to take even bigger losses this time around. It kind of puts them in a 'bet the farm' scenario. Sony's market cap for the ENTIRE company is just 35B, and they're in trouble for many reasons, not the least of which is the weak and diminishing value of the US dollar.

I didn't know the Sony patrol was gonna jump on me for stating well known facts. :lol




EDIT:

Apparently Sonycowboy can't read:

The move was widely expected after the electronics and entertainment conglomerate said last year it would stop selling new handheld digital assistants outside Japan, striking a blow to PalmSource Inc. (PSRC.O: Quote, Profile, Research) , whose software powers the devices.


And yet you say that this move was "shocking to everyone"? :lol

I won't even bother debunking the rest of the crap you wrote, since it all conflicts with the news articles posted.
 
"This is why I'm not so sure they're going to be packing tons of stuff into PS3 when they're going to be taking a loss on each unit."
Click to expand...

you know what though, Sony have some balls, and i don't think they'll skimp on anything.
 
Reanimated said:
Apparently Sonycowboy can't read:

The move was widely expected after the electronics and entertainment conglomerate said last year it would stop selling new handheld digital assistants outside Japan, striking a blow to PalmSource Inc. (PSRC.O: Quote, Profile, Research) , whose software powers the devices.


And yet you say that this move was "shocking to everyone"? :lol

I won't even bother debunking the rest of the crap you wrote, since it all conflicts with the news articles posted.
Click to expand...

Are you really so stupid that you consider the news snippet you posted to be different from the withdrawl from the PDA market. It was a compete telegraph. If fact what you posted said, that the withdrawl was a striking blow to Palmsource, despite the fact that the Clie's sales in Japan by far less than their sales in the US.

And can you post anything but endless pissing contests? Are you really so juevenille that all you can do is look for a mistyped word or some little loophole to try and prove how smart you are? It's quite sad.
 
sonycowboy said:
Are you really so stupid that you consider the news snippet you posted to be different from the withdrawl from the PDA market. It was a compete telegraph. If fact what you posted said, that the withdrawl was a striking blow to Palmsource, despite the fact that the Clie's sales in Japan by far less than their sales in the US.

And can you post anything but endless pissing contests? Are you really so juevenille that all you can do is look for a mistyped word or some little loophole to try and prove how smart you are? It's quite sad.
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Are you kidding me with that trite BS? You're the one that started making little lists. :lol

All I did was post some well known facts about Sony's financial troubles to illustrate my point about loss leading products probably not being very popular with shareholders right now:

TOKYO (Reuters) - Sliding prices for DVD recorders, TVs and other consumer electronics hit Sony Corp.'s third quarter profit, but the company sought to reassure investors that it would press on with a restructuring plan to revive its fortunes.

Sony (Research), which vies with Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. (Research) to be the world's biggest consumer electronics maker, Thursday posted a 13 percent fall in consolidated operating profit for the three months to Dec. 31.

Weak demand for semiconductors for digital cameras and optical heads used in DVD recorders also hurt performance, as did tough competition in the portable audio market with Apple Computer Inc. (Research) and its popular iPod music player.

Sony cut its total capital spending forecast for the business year to March 31 by nearly 10 percent to ¥370 billion ($3.59 billion), mostly from its semiconductor business. It also trimmed its chip sales forecast by 2 percent.

Sony has embarked on a restructuring plan dubbed "Transformation 60" (TR 60) designed to slash fixed costs and secure supplies of chips, displays and other key parts needed to differentiate its products and boost profit margins.

Some market players have called for Sony to introduce more drastic measures, but the company offered no new steps.

"We are steadily implementing TR 60 and there is no change in our resolve," Sony Executive Deputy President Katsumi Ihara told a news conference. "(But) we are not thinking of implementing any additional restructuring measures."

For the October-December quarter Sony reported a consolidated operating profit of ¥138.17 billion ($1.34 billion), down from ¥158.8 billion in the same period the previous year. Sales tumbled 7.5 percent to ¥2.15 trillion.


Keep in mind that that report covers the holiday season - the most profitable season for Playstation and Sony. Pretty bleak when you look at it with that in mind.
 
sonycowboy said:
Except there are more than 3 competitors in the PDA market and the PDA market has been collapsing for years.
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I thought you said that they were " incredibly successful relative to all of the other handheld makers and their withdrawl shocked almost everybody" I guess that means something different to someone called sonycowboy.
 
android said:
I thought you said that they were " incredibly successful relative to all of the other handheld makers and their withdrawl shocked almost everybody" I guess that means something different to someone called sonycowboy.
Click to expand...



Doesn't everything? A lot seems to get twisted, doesn't it?
 
The performance of Cell announced at this time may not equal the performance of SCE’s next-generation computer entertainment system.
Click to expand...

Of course it won't - the Cell is only the CPU, while PS3 will feature the Cell + NVidia GPU combo.
 
ThirdEye said:
Like MGM?
Click to expand...
C'mon actually read the thread before you post in it. We were discussing whether Sony could afford to go all out with the PS3 and Cell. It's not trolling its a discussion. Trolling is saying "Sony Sucks"" Xbox rulz"
 
soundwave05 said:
Yeah.

It's also a big difference IMO that the head honcho at Sony's game division is also the hardware architect, not just some regular business suit.

So it becomes more of a matter of pride also.

The corporate culture at Sony's game division is very different from what you see at Microsoft (dominated by suits) or Nintendo (dominated by the software designers).
Click to expand...

so thats why IBM are designing all the next gen chips....
 
android said:
He backed up what he was saying with articles from various websites.
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Huh? So you didn't understand Reanimated's futile attempt by MGM crap at all and then replied to my post? What a tool :lol
 
ThirdEye said:
Huh? So you didn't understand Reanimated's futile attempt by MGM crap at all and then replied to my post? What a tool :lol
Click to expand...
Yeah well, Fuck you too. You called it off topic trolling and i was saying it isn't off topic. Regardless of whether he is right or wrong he wasn't trolling. Just because him and sonycowboy were disagreeing doesn't make either trolls. It's called a discussion. They just come down on different sides. He may be wrong about the MGM thing, but he was right about Sony being spread too thin, with movie music, and other ventures, causing them to possible be wary of going all out on the number of cells in the PS3. It is a valid point
 
android said:
Yeah well, Fuck you too. You called it off topic trolling and i was saying it isn't off topic. Regardless of whether he is right or wrong he wasn't trolling. Just because him and sonycowboy were disagreeing doesn't make either trolls. It's called a discussion. They just come down on different sides. He may be wrong about the MGM thing, but he was right about Sony being spread too thin, with movie music, and other ventures, causing them to possible be wary of going all out on the number of cells in the PS3. It is a valid point
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p1_vinatieri.jpg

1620041370_goal_comks15113.jpg
 
Marconelly said:
You are forgetting that car companies use supercomputers to simulate things like car behavior on the road, or crash impacts. Have you seen that car crash demo on MS presentation? It's the beginning... only one car, simple background, etc. but even as it is, it's a commendable achievement.

It's very foolish, IMO to say "this much is enough", "there's no point going over this as noone can make use of it" Very foolish, backwards thinking, that reminds me of infamous "640KB is going to be enough". It's NEVER enough when it comes to computer generated grahics and simulations. Not even the fastest supercomputers on the planet are fast enough, much less something that has 100 or 200GFLOPS.

Sure, when you think with today's games in mind, those numbers seem more than enough, but thinking with today's games in mind is like thinking with DOS in mind and talking about 640K of memory.
Click to expand...

Of course more power is always good, but don't forget that still most of the games do not even have cars flipping over or even damage at all (GT4) and that is obviously due to issues rather than power. Burnout 3 does crashes quite convincingly, no? Even on 5 year old hardware like PS2. Car companies do their simulations for safety reasons, so 100% accuracy is more important there. Something like 100 GFlops is more than enough to do crashes for several cars very convincingly. I'm just saying having 200GFLOPS instead of 100Glflops isn't immediately visible to the user, if we are talking about non-graphics stuff here. Game programmer will need a lot of time to adapt to the whole paradigm of having lots and lots of CPU power. I might be wrong though, and we'll see how much of a difference it actually makes though if the PS3 is actually 256GFlops (which I doubt, from looking at sony's comment). Halo 2 will most likely still have better AI than most of the next-gen FPSs, unless other companies heavily invest in developing new AI routines. Smart Programming > GFlops.

I hope we get the 3 cores in Xbox and at least 4 spes@4ghz for ps3. I want to see what some developers can do with that kind of hardware.
 
DCharlie said:
you know what though, Sony have some balls, and i don't think they'll skimp on anything.
Click to expand...

They are manufacturing-capability conscious though: they will not skimp on good multi-media features and they will afford that by going with a bit smarter and less brute force approach. They are showing it with the CELL chip from what birds sing and IMHO it is a philosophy they have taken with the whole system.

Sure they spent money in R&D, but potentially the whole Sony can benefit from it: while some do not believe a word he says, I do believe when Kutaragi says that he wants Sony to grow as a semiconductor company and to be able to manufacture much more IC's in house while co-developing or licensing IP's from external companies when it is most convenient for Sony.
 
Panajev2001a said:
They are manufacturing-capability conscious though: they will not skimp on good multi-media features and they will afford that by going with a bit smarter and less brute force approach. They are showing it with the CELL chip from what birds sing and IMHO it is a philosophy they have taken with the whole system.

Sure they spent money in R&D, but potentially the whole Sony can benefit from it: while some do not believe a word he says, I do believe when Kutaragi says that he wants Sony to grow as a semiconductor company and to be able to manufacture much more IC's in house while co-developing or licensing IP's from external companies when it is most convenient for Sony.
Click to expand...

So, what's your prediction, then? Less than 8 SPEs per PS3 rev of Cell?
 
android said:
It's not trolling its a discussion. Trolling is saying "Sony Sucks"" Xbox rulz"
Click to expand...
You mean like this:


http://opa-ages.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=25910

which is directly related to this thread.


Or this other one:

http://opa-ages.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=25579&hl=Reanimated


Don't get caught in the cross fire of a fanboy battle, it's not worth it.

In the end, next gen systems will succeed or not based on their own merits, and all these "discussions" mean jackshit.
 
sonycowboy said:
Is it your goal to be a complete and utter troll?
Click to expand...

He is the same Reanimated as on OA so the answer to that is yes.

He will keep denying it but when you have the same username, post in exactly the same style and make similar remarks in similar threads across both forums its pretty evident they are one and the same :)
 
Panajev2001a said:
Well, less... but maybe the same, but still less... kinda complicate to explain ;).
Click to expand...

Fewer clocked higher? Fewer but multiple PEs (e.g. 2 4-SPU PEs)? Nothing is too complicated for GAF :P ;)
 
Kutaragi loves 8, it will stay like that.

"The chip size was 185mm2@90nm by the original plan. But if Cell has 8*SPE, the chip size turned out to be too big. So the engineers considered whether they reduced SPE to 6. But Ken Kutaragi definitely rejected this proposal. He said "In the computer world, the involution of 2 is most beautiful. This is my aesthetics."
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Yeah, I know, 4 would be possible as well from this statement, but from an other statement the yields seem to be very good:

Kutaragi:"It's a miracle. Miracle! we achieved more wonderfully than we expected."

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=20795

Fredi
 
Some possibilities?

At 4.5 Ghz:

2 SPEs - 108 Gflops
4 SPEs - 180 Gflops
8 SPEs - 324 Gflops

At 4.0 Ghz:

2 SPEs - 96 Gflops
4 SPEs - 160 Gflops
8 SPEs - 288 Gflops

At 3.5 Ghz:

2 SPEs - 84 Gflops
4 SPEs - 140 Gflops
8 SPEs - 252 Gflops

At 3.0Ghz:

2 SPEs - 72 Gflops
4 SPEs - 120 Gflops
8 SPEs - 216Gflops

At 2.5Ghz

2 SPEs - 60 Gflops
4 SPEs - 100 Gflops
8 SPEs - 180 Gflops

I think it's fairly obvious Sony have a wide range of options open to them thanks to Cell's flexibility. Even a 4SPE chip at 2.5Ghz would likely give them a more powerful CPU for PS3 than Xenon's (going by that 3.5Ghz tri-core rumour - ~84Gflops). In the end, that's probably what matters most to Sony - being the most powerful system at launch. The question is - to what degree? By how much? It's a readily achievable target though, even on what most people would consider to be "the low end".

Almost all of the above configurations would be "nice". It's just a question of how nice. Perhaps we've been spoiling ourselves with talk of 4Ghz 8-SPE PEs, but in the end I don't think we should be disappointed with PS3's configuration given even what the "low end" could provide.
 
None of that power will matter if companies cannot tap it. Microsoft's XNA software tools could be the great equalizer between it and Sony's more powerful console. I'm not saying it will. I'm just saying it's something to consider.

Besides, the only hardware spec I'm paying any attention to at all is RAM. This is the one thing that I hope neither MS nor Sony skimp on. 512 mb is what I personally believe is needed for this upcoming generation. If MS and/or Sony announce 128-256 mb I'll be pissed because I personally think it could serve as the one bottleneck for these two systems.
 
I'm looking forward to more physics oriented rendering and that can only be achieved with more processing power. XNA is just a tool to help ease the developing process and there will be similar tools sooner or later for the PS3 as well.

Fredi
 
"Well, less... but maybe the same, but still less... kinda complicate to explain ;)."
Click to expand...

bwahahahaha - hold your tongue mister! ypo will be in to douse you down any second! ;)
 
McFly said:
I'm looking forward to more physics oriented rendering and that can only be achieved with more processing power. XNA is just a tool to help ease the developing process and there will be similar tools sooner or later for the PS3 as well.

Fredi
Click to expand...

I agree. XNA is not going to write the physics, AI, & other CPU related tasks for you. That's where Middleware will play a HUGE freaking role this generation. Deformation engines, animation engines, etc.

And it's crazy to say that more CPU isn't needed. We are nowhere near being able to realistically calculate 10% of these types of interactions realistically. Racing games, fighting games, stealth games, everything can benefit from more realistic and more powerful calculations. The more characters or objects are on screen, the more you need to calculate. If you've got a 100 enemies on screen and they each run their own seperate AI logic, interact with their environment realistically, it will go beyond the capability of even these systems. They use supercomputers every day to try and model these interactions and it's still not done in real time.

The question is: How much time will developers spend to have hair flow more realistically, for clothes to react correctly to wind, movement, contact, etc. For enemies on screen to have weight, momentum, and interaction?

It's a hell of a lot of work and will cost a good amount of money (thus the middleware), and these types of things are rarely the focus of a dev teams energies, because graphics are everything. It's what impacts people and it's what initially draws them into a game.
 
DCharlie said:
bwahahahaha - hold your tongue mister! ypo will be in to douse you down any second! ;)
Click to expand...


Don't worry, I like avoiding the DCharlie patented moment: "DCharlie drinks" "DCharlie posts on GA" "DCharlie's reality starts matching again with our reality" "DCharlie starts freaking out" "DCharlie fixes his post removing the tons of leaks he made while drunk".

;).
 
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