Sony Still Losing Money on Each PS3 Sold

[safcmanfr]

[citation][nom]spectrewind[/nom]It doesn't suck. The venue is different. I have sunk thousands of dollars into custom systems over the years, beginning back in the 3DFX days, and currently run DX10 Nvidia on a C2D box. I am primarily a PC-gamer, have been, probably always will be.I recently began exploring console gaming again.While my PC is technically far superior to my launch 60GB PS3 with the emotion engine, sometimes it's worth it to be able to just sit in the living room with a wireless dualshock controller and headset. No fussing with updated device drivers, spontaneous software crashes, poring over Windows event logs, worrying about anti-malware solutions robbing the gaming performance.My PS3 passes the "grandma" test. I can sit my mother-in-law in front of it and she can set up a movie to play for my kids when my wife and I are away from home. She cannot do the same with my PC./rant[/citation]


What the hell are you doing with your PC?

I have a custom built system. I update the graphics drivers once in a while. but pouring over event logs, spontaneous crashes etc etc??

Sounds like a case of PC pornoitus - too much time spent picking up shit from crappy "free" porn sites.

I have my PC in my living room. Hooked up to my PC, and have a remote control, wireless keyboard and mouse. My gradparents can use it without any problems. I also have a router with in built firewall. 2 years without a anti-adware/virus checker, and I am still malware and virus free.

so 1) go learn how to use your PC properly (and stop downloading so much porn)

or 2) go buy a Mac if you havent learnt how to protect your PC from attacks yet.


oh, and custom PC is cheap to build if you dont get high end parts. not much more than a PS3 anyway.

 

[captaincharisma]

The Wii however...They have been profiting damned near the start.
Cheap crap hardware, and costs more than a 360... yet it sells faster than EU can throw new lawsuits.
FAILURE!
On the consumers behalf...

that cheap crap hardware your talking about is better designed than the joke the crashbox has become. invest all your money into a console that will just fail on you 1-2 times a year just so you then have to keep sending back a refurbished (used) console back to them. so its worth to spend the extra money on a wii or the PS3 just to avoid headaches of warranty work. heck the PS3 has the same games than the 360 and plus with the PS3 you don't have to pay for internet access every year. the customer buys the wii because

 

[belardo]

While the PS3 is still the #3 console in current tech, it still has over 23million units on the market.. because HAND-HELDs are a different market. That's like comparing your cell-phone to your desktop. The PS3 is not a failure.

Its still on track as being a year behind the PS3. MS gambled with a defective design to beat SONY and is doing well, and SONY gambled with BR which helped them win the video format war. IF MS fixed the 360's problems, it would have MISSED christmas and if it came out 6~1 months before the PS3, they would have been in trouble.

Download content? Blah. That why you see these REDBOXES popping all over the place in the USA. The quality of a "HD" 720 movie doesn't touch BluRay. The compression makes for a crappy picture. Also here are the things going AGAINST download HD movies.
1 - Picture quality A 8-12GB 720p compared to a 20+GB 1080?
2 - Features (comentaries, deleted scenes, etc)
3 - Speed. Wait for download... vs you can pick up 10 movies in 5 minutes at Wal mart.
4 - DRM. Wow, you DL a movie to your PC or 360, without transportability. (ie: taking to a friends place to watch the movie)
5 - Price. yeah, any of YOU guys priced downloaded movies? I don't think so.

Lets take Bladerunner. On Amazon: $16 for Blue-ray 2-disc version, it'll pay on any blu-ray PS3, PC or player. DL of same move = $15 + $1 storage (10GB file on a $100 1000GB drive). If drive failure, all your movies maybe lost.

DL or video on HDDs have their place... but not with movies.

 

[NuclearShadow]

I feel sorry for Sony they were the top selling console for the previous two console generations and now after all these years of the PS3 it seems doomed to be last of this generation but the worst part is the PS2 is currently outselling it.

I understand what Sony was trying to do with such a powerful console they obviously meant it to be more expensive and their aim was to make it worth every penny. This however never came to be and because of such now games that were once expected to be PS3 exclusives are looking at the 360.

 

[gio2vanni86]

The PS3 is just overpriced, but i think eventually those willing to shell out the cash will get one. I'm currently saving for one, whether the price drops or not i'm getting one. And as for PC, well its way ahead of console gaming you just got be the right person to know how to be ahead. I've ran into very few people who know wtf there doing with there PC's(And these guys were once PC gamers, now console gamers) same reason they just could not grasp how to play amazing 100% better games on there PC there just that dumb. I love all types of gaming but i must admit i love PC gaming more then console gaming. Nothing beats a mouse and a keyboard with the ability to play the game the way you want play it. So many buttons, wow.

 

[tenor77]

One question though on the loss, is the a loss based on the cost of a PS3 vs retail or is that the dealer net?
If this is PS3 vs retail, the loss would actually be higher. At least another $30-40.

I guess we know why Sony keeps banging the 10 year lifespan. This is the projected time it will take to recoup their losses on the average console.

 

[tenor77]

@captaincharisma
Your fanboy is showing. You're welcome to your opinion, but using the stupid names like crashbox makes you look like a blind fanboy unable to see past your own arse.

The PS3 is a powerful system and a great BR player, but I hate the controller, and comon, home is a joke. Who came up with an idea of waiting in a virtual line at a store? Hey let's digitize the crappiest parts of life! Maybe later I can go to a virtual bar and get shot down by women and get my ass kicked. Sign me up!

See, I can get my point across without calling it the gaystation 3.

 

[bill gates is your daddy]

Cry me a river $ony. I am supposed to believe that it costs them more than $440 to build one of those things? Last time I checked they were a large corporation that builds things in mass production. Hence individual prices of the components needs are pennies on the dollar for them to purchase or produce. $440 is the price it would take me to order the parts and build it myself.

I seem to remember the same stories when the PS2 came out but they gladly took the losses and made up for it with well developed, exclusive games. They kept the price at a moderate, reasonable level and sold millions upon millions of consoles and games and made out like bandits.

Nobuyuki Oneda needs to be hauled out into the streets along with all the morons that continue to drive $ony down this failing road and beat them with Wii controllers.

 

[AdamB5000]

When I buy a nice big LCD tv (some day) I'll probably spring for a PS3 as a Bluray player, a multi-media hub of sorts and a nice HD gaming system. You really do get a lot for the PS3. It just seems that people are more willing to pay $300 for a console and then spend $100 on extras when you can pay $400 up front and have the extras.

$400 for what you get isn't bad, but most see it as a gaming machine and won't pay $400 for gaming.

 

[hillarymakesmecry]

I hated the PS3, but I played through 95% of Killzone 2 last weekend and that game is amazing. If they come out with some more top quality games like that I might just have to get one when they fall to $300.

 

[hillarymakesmecry]

Well, that and make the controllers comfortable. I've had achy hands for 5 days now. The PS3 controller alone is enough for me to forgo the system.

 

[bustapr]

Sony's a big company can't they make their own parts for a dangerously low price. This looks ike they buy parts off manufacturers at butt-tearing prices. If they don't pay third party manufacturers, then why are the parts so expensive? And if they are losing a wopping $41 on each purchase, a good company would make the price right.

 

[Guest]

Sony made several mistakes that cost them the console war. First was the late addition of the re-engineered 7800gt to power the graphics because the cell was incapable of doing so. The second was the addition of the blu-ray player. The third was the insistance on the cell. The yields have always been horrible and it has not easily lent itself to die shrinks. This is the main reason for the costs stil associated with it. These 3 mistakes forced sony to launch their console a year after the 360. That is a huge headstart to deal with. Sony also has not been innovative with the console being a living room media center. Microsoft actually did this one right from day one, suprisingly.

As for the bluray format war, the reason they won was with the qucik backroom negotiations (ie lots of money to paramount) that occured at CES last year. On friday HDDVD was annoucecing a huge press conference the following monday. On sunday, sony got involved, come monday hddvd had been effectively killed. the ps3 had nothing to do with that.

 

[Mach5Motorsport]

Siff sniff, sob, sob oh the PS3 is still a money pit!.....thank God Sony still has the PS2 to keep their boat (SS Profit) afloat.

 

[pharge]

[citation][nom]Belardo[/nom]5 - Price. yeah, any of YOU guys priced downloaded movies? I don't think so.Lets take Bladerunner..[/citation]

Belardo:
Your points are well taken.
However, there are somethings you have missed.
1) A lot of people who are familiar with the computer tech. download their moives for "FREE". Price of the movie and DRM are never a problem to them.
2) A lot of people who download movies for free, don't really care about the quality of the movie that much. AT least they probably don't care about the Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio that much, since most of computer speaker systems will not be able tell the difference anyway.

 

[Zagen30]

[citation][nom]hillarymakesmecry[/nom]I hated the PS3, but I played through 95% of Killzone 2 last weekend and that game is amazing. If they come out with some more top quality games like that I might just have to get one when they fall to $300.[/citation]

LittleBigPlanet (not my cup of tea, but maybe you like platformers)
MGS4
inFAMOUS (not out yet, but early reviews have been very positive)
Ratchet & Clank
Uncharted (seriously undersold game- if it were on the 360, it'd have sold a lot more than 2 million copies)- throw in Uncharted 2 which is coming sometime this fallish and which is looking to improve on the already-awesome original on all counts
Valkyria Chronicles (no marketing + crowded pre-Christmas release date + somewhat niche audience = no sales; really good SRPG, though)
Both Resistance games

Those are just the console exclusives that I've played which were highly-rated; I didn't want to speak for games about which I know nothing.

 

[Mathos]

Not really a surprise. Part of that has to do with the cost of the crystals that go into the Blue ray players laser units. Which is one of the main reasons you still haven't seen a sub $100 BD player. Though normally they would be able to get away with undercutting themselves on the hardware due to strong software sales, but, they haven't had any "killer App" games come out yet to make people go out and want to buy one. If God of War 3 turns out to be a hit, that may change things though. One of Sony's big advantages with the PS1 and PS2 was exclusive rights with certain very popular franchises, namely Square Enix, and the Castlevania titles, as well as the Devil May Cry series for a long time. They haven't had such with the ps3, in fact they've had major problems getting people to make games for the PS3, due to certain programming oversights.

One of the major Issues with the Cell engine is you have to code the game twice, once for the Cell processor, and then do a second coding that the Nvidia RSX can display. Literally meaning the game designer has to write two different versions of the game code for one system.

The worst thing they did with the PS3, and where they shot themselves in the foot with it, was by removing PS2 backwards compatibility. Hardware compatibility I can see being an issue as it takes up board space. But, how hard would it be for them to software emulate the engine? Would very likely put a strain on the cell processor, but gotta be at least possible. And I say that due to the fact that the 128bit emotion engine processor was probably one of the most advanced console specific processor ever made. Yeah it only ran at 300mhz, but, it was a 128bit processor, which is why they still can't make a working emulator for them for the PC. We don't have systems that can handle it yet.

But, thats the main reason why the PS2 still sells, you have to have one to play older games, and the fact that many companies are still making new ps2 games. I can see they're probably using the PS2 to shore up the loss per unit on the PS3. Gotta figure even if they're selling the ps2 for $120, they're probably making a good $50 profit off each console.

 

[Guest]

Production fail. After 3 years I'm sure even the execs would have bet on having a profitable HW.

 

[grieve]

I bought my PS3 the day it was released… After purchasing a second joystick and a game or three I paid around $1000 Canadian ($53 American, JK) I love the PS3 and certainly enjoy it as much as my 360 and far more then my POS Wii.

I enjoy the Blue Ray player greatly, but the Disks are too expensive still. I would think over this next year or so the prices will start to drop, now that HD-DVD is out of the picture.

As far as I am concerned Sony has only three issues.
1) Require more quality titles.
2) More people need to own the damn thing. I find myself playing the 360 because all my friends bought that unit.
3) Price… moms and dads will never choose a $400 unit over the Wii.

 

[cabose369]

[citation][nom]WheelsOfConfusion[/nom]Can they please cut the costs enough to put hardware backwards-compatablity of the PS2 back in? PLEASE? Maybe then people would have more incentive to stop buying the 2 and move to the 3.[/citation]

Sony won't do that because the only thing keeping them afloat atm is the ps2 that's still ACTUALLY making them money.