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Sony Gets Its Game Back
- Thread starter pcostabel
- Start date
sonycowboy
Member
I guess these guys haven't read any reports from everybody else. They seem to be a lone voice among a sea of doubters.
Smiles and Cries
Member
Return of teh Money Hats 
Alcibiades
Member
they obviously missed the Tokyo Game Show reports...
TekunoRobby
Tag of Excellence
Wow that's amazingly optimistic! A bit too optimistic if you catch my drift. Hell they might be privy to information that no one else does but I doubt that Business Week would trump the other news sources.
Oh and the DS price is incorrect unless that's the pricepoint Nintendo is selling it to retailers.
Oh and the DS price is incorrect unless that's the pricepoint Nintendo is selling it to retailers.
TheGreenGiant
Banned
I think PSP will not cannibalise sales of the new PS2 because it just doesn't have the PS2's appeal and the UMD (movie/music) intergration is dubious.
* nothing about battery life as I don't think consumers will care.
At $200. (which I doubt) Sold
TheGreenGiant
Banned
and isn't this PSP bullshit?
sonycowboy
Member
It does make you wonder...
Where did they come up with this number? I mean it's a pretty reputable source and AFAIK, not subject to passing off speculation as fact.
Either somebody really needs to smack these guys for doing ABSOLUTELY NO research, or they've stated something they heard under an NDA and didn't realize that the price was part of the NDA. Which for someone not in the industry and aware of how big an issue the price is, is somewhat possible.
Where did they come up with this number? I mean it's a pretty reputable source and AFAIK, not subject to passing off speculation as fact.
Either somebody really needs to smack these guys for doing ABSOLUTELY NO research, or they've stated something they heard under an NDA and didn't realize that the price was part of the NDA. Which for someone not in the industry and aware of how big an issue the price is, is somewhat possible.
Like I said in the other thread...
-SCEI's 3 million projection was worldwide, not domestic. And like Nintendo's 4 million DS figure, it reflects supply, not demand (which the S&P evaluation seems to ignore).
-At under $200, SCEI will have reveresed on it's 'for profit' model Deering suggested before, to an extreme degree. Current estimates I've seen place PSP around $300-350 to manufacture.
-Yay, S&P. My boyfriend works there.
-SCEI's 3 million projection was worldwide, not domestic. And like Nintendo's 4 million DS figure, it reflects supply, not demand (which the S&P evaluation seems to ignore).
-At under $200, SCEI will have reveresed on it's 'for profit' model Deering suggested before, to an extreme degree. Current estimates I've seen place PSP around $300-350 to manufacture.
-Yay, S&P. My boyfriend works there.
JackFrost2012
Banned
It looks like S&P is suggesting that Sony will make 6-8% margins selling the PSP at $200. Later on they say that PSP has "relatively high margin." There's NO WAY Sony can sell the PSP at $200 and be profitable. There's no way they could sell it at $300 and be profitable. I dunno how Business Week thinks Sony's gonna make money on PSP hardware, but it's sure not gonna be at anything less than $350-400. That thing is a major money loser in its current form.
That said, I seriously doubt Sony's gonna revise their shipments up from the 3 million. Sony's lowballing that number not because they lack faith in the console, but for reasons of manufacturing diffculty/cost. PSP's launch is going to be PS2 all over again - eventual dominance, yes, but initial months of shortages, hardware difficulties, and Sony hemorrhaging money for every unit sold.
That said, I seriously doubt Sony's gonna revise their shipments up from the 3 million. Sony's lowballing that number not because they lack faith in the console, but for reasons of manufacturing diffculty/cost. PSP's launch is going to be PS2 all over again - eventual dominance, yes, but initial months of shortages, hardware difficulties, and Sony hemorrhaging money for every unit sold.
sonycowboy
Member
JackFrost2012 said:
Has there been any breakdown of unit costs? AFAIK, it's all blowhards telling us the unit is so damn expensive, but there's absolutely no substance to it.
The big costs to me look like the screen and the drive. I doubt that the processors are all that expensive and UMD was designed to be a low cost drive.
Could someone point me to a legitamate cost estimate w/breakdown?
The point is there's been NOTHING of use about the battery or cost. The two areas everyone likes to argue over has no official info, so it's best to just wait and see. If the battery life sucks like 90 minutes, then it will fail. If it's too expensive, it will fail. Hopefully S&P is right, and it will be under $200. If so, I'm sold. I don't want one that bad, but I'd get one at that price or if it drops near $150. It's got a kickass screen, and it's got GT4. I can't go wrong with that. $200 would be a dagger though. I'd like to see the chaos that kind of price would cause. The PS2's launch was a madhouse. This thing would be off the charts. PEACE.
krypt0nian
Banned
Funny.....this doesn't look like the Official PSP sticky thread....
Hmmm
Hmmm
JackFrost2012
Banned
Spike said:No, they mean $199.99.
Plus tax!!!!1
The Faceless Master
Member
at $200, i'll buy 5 in the hopes of sending them into bankruptcy
plus sony videogame hardware tends to break alot
plus sony videogame hardware tends to break alot
Lord Error
Insane For Sony
Just look at the prices of current PDAs. Stuff that is a lot less powerful than PSP retails for a lot more than 200-300 (and by Lot, I mean Double or so). I'd assume the margins on PDAs are much higher than they would be for a game machine, but how high really can they be?
On the other hand I have yet to see even the proof that Sony was bleeding money even per PS2 unit sold. On the other hand I remember there being some financial report from them saying that they actually started making money (recouping investments) on the PS2, from the day one.
sonycowboy
Member
Marconelly said:
You've also got to look at volume. The PSP will blow out millions of units whereas PDA's get nowhere near that level of volume. I mean nobody's saying Nintendo is going to go broke selling the DS at $149.99.
The DS has 2 screens, with one being touch, wireless networking, battery, processor, etc.
So the PSP has 1 big screen, which would cost how much relative to two screens with one being touch? Add in the UMD drive, which was designed to be low cost. It's got a better processor setup, but relatively speaking they aren't that expensive. Let's say the PSP cost twice was the DS cost to make, which I really doubt is true. That's much, much cheaper than those saying the damn thing costs $300-$400.
Alcibiades
Member
yeah, and word from Japan is Sony still hasn't broken even on that. Though it looks like they will after year 7 of PS2, with the subsequent 3 years (completing the 10-year lifecycle they keep talking about) being the profit-making years...jarrod said:
Well, it terms of chipsets, DS uses off the shelf old ARM series chips (one being an overclocked GBA chip) while PSP is cutting edge custom tech (meaning much higher upfront costs) not to mention the RAM disparity (4.5MB Vs 32MB). PSP's screen is extremely high res also, it's undoubtedly much more expensive than both DS screens... any optical drive (low cost design or not) will cost immeasurably more than a cart interface... I actually wouldn't doubt PSP costing twice as much (or more) than DS honestly.sonycowboy said:
Lord Error
Insane For Sony
Jarrod, I'm not talking about recouping all investments on day one, just starting to recoup them from day one. People seem to assume that Sony was selling PS2s at loss initially, which suggests that the unit cost was more than $300 to manufacture. I don't know if that was true or not, but as I've said, I remember some financial report saying otherwise.
It's not extremely high res, but it is extremely new TFT technology (basically, the best there is right now). I wouldn't doubt it's expensive.
Understood... though I remember hearing the JP PS2 was a big loss taker upfront, I'm not sure about the western launches. I'm inclined to think America probably was a loss taker initially (especially with those added shipping costs that were heavily publicised) and Europe was a profit taker most likely.Marconelly said:
Define better for me please?Deg said:
sonycowboy
Member
jarrod said:
Don't buy into DCharlie's hype
SCEI is tracked seperately and has only had one losing quarter since 1999. The PS2 certainly was sold at a loss initially, however, it's long since recovered it's investment. Their probably are still some outstanding depreciation costs as they were probably spread out over 10 years, such that the "cost" of a PS2 still includes the factory building, R&D,etc as it should.
But weren't some development/manufacturing costs moved to Sony Electronics? I thought that was part of the justification for using the EE+GS in other consumer products (which has only yielded PSX so far)? SCEI paid for all the fabs themselves?sonycowboy said:Don't buy into DCharlie's hype
SCEI is tracked seperately and has only had one losing quarter since 1999. The PS2 certainly was sold at a loss initially, however, it's long since recovered it's investment. Their probably are still some outstanding depreciation costs as they were probably spread out over 10 years, such that the "cost" of a PS2 still includes the factory building, R&D,etc as it should.
Alcibiades
Member
uh, actually, I think I read that here the forum from one of the J'ers...kpop100 said:
Lord Error
Insane For Sony
I'll just re-post my reply from the stickied thread:
You can have 15" 1024x768 16.77M TFT screens that looks like total *shit*. The resolution and the screen size are only the beginning of what describes the good LCD. The contrast (which is 200cd/m on the PSP screen, which is unheard of in handheld devices) and the retention time are some of the more important things. Fafalada is one of the people who actually saw the device in person, so take his word, if you don't trust me.
Faf's comment was:
sonycowboy
Member
efralope said:
Again, and this is getting ridiculous. There is absolutely no evidence to support the statements that Sony is losing money on the PS2. They've made tons of money since it's release and all the innuendo in the world doesn't change that. They can say Sony transferred cost, although they don't know how much, for what, or when. So what does that show?
Facts:
------------------------
1) The PS2 is the most successful console of all time (at comparable timeframes)
2) The PS2 has held higher price points longer than any console ever
3) The PS2 has the highest tie ratio of any console ever.
Now, given those three facts, are we supposed to believe that Sony came into the PS2 business and planned to lose money for seven years, despite the fact they had no competition (Dreamcast dying, Nintendo staying the younger demographic, Microsoft not even being a player), and the fact that they've succeeded beyond any reasonable expectations at all from the 3 points above.
If you're going to regurgitate weak arguments that have absolutely no proof, please try a little harder to bring something new and factual to the table.
Alcibiades
Member
ok, what you said was true, the PS2 has been an astounding success. That doesn't mean it's been profitable up to this point though. Look at XBox, almost 20 million consoles for a newcomer and a loss of several billion dollars so far. Everytime someone buys an XBox, it's more losses for Microsoft.
I'm not saying that it's 100% true Sony hasn't made a profit yet, but didn't their Playstation division just post a loss recently. I'd say that's more than your indicated "no evidence".
I'm not saying that it's 100% true Sony hasn't made a profit yet, but didn't their Playstation division just post a loss recently. I'd say that's more than your indicated "no evidence".