Why is the PS3 so cheap? Really!

Alright alright. Everyone has heard about nex gen, and surely the PS3.
Many of you should know this: The expected price will be 599
USdollars. Expensive, yes, no doubt, of course. Far fewer of you know
that Sony also is making a blu-ray player, just a home theater movie
player, for release in October (they've had it in Japan for years).
The BD movie player will cost 999 USD.
So can someone shoot some sense at me? The PS3 also is a DVD and BD
movie player, and a 7-cored video game system. Why the heck does it
cost less than a BD movie-only player?

SoloSalsa@gmail.com

<> wrote in message
news: oups.com...
> Alright alright. Everyone has heard about nex gen, and surely the PS3.
> Many of you should know this: The expected price will be 599
> USdollars. Expensive, yes, no doubt, of course. Far fewer of you know
> that Sony also is making a blu-ray player, just a home theater movie
> player, for release in October (they've had it in Japan for years).
> The BD movie player will cost 999 USD.
> So can someone shoot some sense at me? The PS3 also is a DVD and BD
> movie player, and a 7-cored video game system. Why the heck does it
> cost less than a BD movie-only player?

They plan to make the profit from the games.
They are also changing the games licencing so you only have a
non-transferable right to use it which means that any second hand games
complete with original disks, manuals, boxes, etc will be illegal.
This will force (LOL) people to buy new games rather than second hand.

>

Gilgamesh

"Gilgamesh" wrote:
>
> They plan to make the profit from the games.
> They are also changing the games licencing so you only have a
> non-transferable right to use it which means that any second hand games
> complete with original disks, manuals, boxes, etc will be illegal.
> This will force (LOL) people to buy new games rather than second hand.

Not that I'm a big gamer or anything and keep up on that technology, but do
you have a link to a legitimate story about this? This is the first I've
heard this and I'm curious how this will affect all those mom n' pop video
game stores that resell used games.

T.B.

TB

<> wrote in message
news: oups.com...
> Alright alright. Everyone has heard about nex gen, and surely the
> PS3.
> Many of you should know this: The expected price will be 599
> USdollars. Expensive, yes, no doubt, of course. Far fewer of you
> know
> that Sony also is making a blu-ray player, just a home theater movie
> player, for release in October (they've had it in Japan for years).

The Blu-ray recorders available in Japan are a different format with the
same name. They use recordable discs held in a cartridge-style caddy and
are not compatible with the new Blu-ray playback format. Sony simply
recycled the name.

> The BD movie player will cost 999 USD.
> So can someone shoot some sense at me? The PS3 also is a DVD and BD
> movie player, and a 7-cored video game system. Why the heck does it
> cost less than a BD movie-only player?

1) All video game consoles are sold at a loss. The company makes its
money back on software licensing.
2) All video game consoles are lousy movie playback devices. Ever tried
watching a DVD on a PS2? Expect horrible quality video from the PS3
(even worse than the standalone Blu-ray players).

Joshua Zyber

On 24 Jun 2006 14:04:58 -0700, wrote:

> Alright alright. Everyone has heard about nex gen, and surely the PS3.
> Many of you should know this: The expected price will be 599
> USdollars.

That's for the more expensive one. The basic PS3 system will cost $499.

> Expensive, yes, no doubt, of course. Far fewer of you know
> that Sony also is making a blu-ray player, just a home theater movie
> player, for release in October (they've had it in Japan for years).

Nope, there hasn't been a Blu-Ray player available in Japan. As Joshua
wrote, that was a different format with the same nime.

> The BD movie player will cost 999 USD.
> So can someone shoot some sense at me? The PS3 also is a DVD and BD
> movie player, and a 7-cored video game system. Why the heck does it
> cost less than a BD movie-only player?

Several reasons:

- The PS3 has to be competitively priced compared to the Xbox360, which is
priced at $299 and 399.

- The PS3 is getting a much larger release. Sony is planning on producing
around 2 million PS3s for the launch, and another 2 million by the end of
the year. With that large of a production, the cost of the individual
units is driven down considerably.

- Video game systems have often been subsidized, that is sold below cost,
with the understanding (hope) that software and accessory sales will make
up the difference.

- Sony *wants* everyone to buy a PS3 over any other Blu-Ray player. For
every PS3 sold, they get to claim a sale of their video game system *and* a
Blu-Ray player. This will inflate the numbers of Blu-Ray and PS3 units
Sony can claim to have sold, despite the fact that a number of purchases
will be by people only looking to use it for movies and not video games,
and vice versa.

-Jay

Jay G.

On Sat, 24 Jun 2006 19:06:42 -0400, Joshua Zyber wrote:
>
>> The BD movie player will cost 999 USD.
>> So can someone shoot some sense at me? The PS3 also is a DVD and BD
>> movie player, and a 7-cored video game system. Why the heck does it
>> cost less than a BD movie-only player?
>
> 1) All video game consoles are sold at a loss. The company makes its
> money back on software licensing.

Not true. Nintendo has claimed to never have sold a concole at a loss.

> 2) All video game consoles are lousy movie playback devices.

http://gear.ign.com/articles/316/316429p1.html
"As for image quality, the Xbox actually surprised me. The picture
might not be as good as many high-end DVD players, and, of course,
there's no progressive scan, but it is better than average."

http://www.gamesfirst.com/articles/j...dvd/ps2dvd.htm
"If you were looking at your typical department store brand DVD
players (say, in the $179.99-$249.99 range), the PS2 is just as
good if not better"

They were considered fairly decent DVD players in their day, although later
or more expensive standalone players have surpassed them.

> Expect horrible quality video from the PS3
> (even worse than the standalone Blu-ray players).

Why would you expect that? The PS3 should be able to handle the discs
themselves fine, considering it's the same format that the games are going
to come on. Which leaves the video and audio processing, which considering
that Toshiba is using an off-the-shelf Pentium 4 processor for their HD DVD
players, really shouldn't be a problem for the Cell processor.

-Jay

Jay G.

wrote:
> Alright alright. Everyone has heard about nex gen, and surely the PS3.
> Many of you should know this: The expected price will be 599
> USdollars. Expensive, yes, no doubt, of course. Far fewer of you know
> that Sony also is making a blu-ray player, just a home theater movie
> player, for release in October (they've had it in Japan for years).
> The BD movie player will cost 999 USD.
> So can someone shoot some sense at me? The PS3 also is a DVD and BD
> movie player, and a 7-cored video game system. Why the heck does it
> cost less than a BD movie-only player?

Because those game consoles are dumping groups for outdated processors
from
companies like Intel?

Rich

wrote:

> So can someone shoot some sense at me? The PS3 also is a DVD and BD
> movie player, and a 7-cored video game system. Why the heck does it
> cost less than a BD movie-only player?

The PS3 is being sold at a $300+ per unit loss while the stand alone
player is not. It's the way game machines have always been sold,
although I think this is the highest per unit loss in console history.

- Jordan

Jordan

Jay G. wrote:

> > Expect horrible quality video from the PS3
> > (even worse than the standalone Blu-ray players).
>
> Why would you expect that?

Sony is selling 2 models of the PS3, a $600 and a $500 unit. The low
end unit only uses component video. The more expensive unit features
HDMI for video out. How they'll get 1080p out of a component connection
is beyond me. Particularly when the Blu-Ray standard calls for
crippling the analog outputs down to 960x540.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060122-6027.html

- Jordan

Jordan

On 26 Jun 2006 02:17:09 -0700, Jordan wrote:

> Jay G. wrote:
>
>>> Expect horrible quality video from the PS3
>>> (even worse than the standalone Blu-ray players).
>>
>> Why would you expect that?
>
> Sony is selling 2 models of the PS3, a $600 and a $500 unit. The low
> end unit only uses component video. The more expensive unit features
> HDMI for video out. How they'll get 1080p out of a component connection
> is beyond me.

They won't. The component connection is only capable of 1080i, or what the
Toshiba HD DVD players are only capable of, even with HDMI.

> Particularly when the Blu-Ray standard calls for
> crippling the analog outputs down to 960x540.
>
> http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060122-6027.html

HD DVD has the same "crippling" capability. However, as the article notes,
the implimentation of that feature is left up to the studios, and so far n
studio has engaged the crippling on their discs.

-Jay

Jay G.