PS3 will not run at full designed capacity

[Lance]

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from Ars Technica, in an article about Mercury's new dual-Cell server:
''These systems will ship in much smaller volumes than the PS3, which means that IBM won't have to disable one of the SPEs (as is the case on the seven-SPE PS3) in order to get the yields high enough to make the units cost-effective.''

the board has eight SPE chips, only seven of which will be used, so
i wonder if the published performance specifications for the PS3 take this disabling of one-eighth of the core processing power into account.
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[Space Cowboy]

This will still give the PS3 a very poweful core though, probably making it slightly more pwerful than the 360, but only just.
Sony may well decide that economically its not worth having the cell fully enabled?

[Lance]

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apparently they've already done so. or IBM has.
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[Seek100]

As I understood it there was always going to be one redundant chip on the board anyway, I'm not fully up on all the specs of the PS3 at the moment, but I'm sure Sony won't have published performance figures that don't take this into account because there could be some embarrasing backtracking their part if they did.

[Dogg Thang]

It wouldn't be the first time Sony has inflated their specs.

[Space Cowboy]

Given the competition from the incredibly powerful 360, I imagine Sony will go to any lengths to give the PS3 a shine. Sony will have a tough time gaining a lead over M$ in this race.

[Mobius]

Yep, the PS2 was more expensive at its launch than the hi-spec 360 will be 5 years later. An with infaltion and stuff, you wonder if sony have screwed up...again or M$ are selling at a loss.

[Drakkenmensch]

It's actually a current business practice for a game company to sell the console at a loss on the hardware - the real money is in games and accessories.

[Mobius]

Aparranly they were selling the psp at a loss in japan and USA, well the profit must've come from the euro psp which cost £50 more...

[G'Kyl]

Does it? You get only value packs in Europe, but have those been really that much cheaper in Japan and US?

By the way: Am I the only one who isn't that impressed by what could be seen from Xbox 360 software so far? It all looks nice, but Next Gen? Not to me.

Ben

[Drakkenmensch]

What really concerns me so far with what is shown to us of nextgen games is that you can't really tell apart the geniune screenshots from the "bullshots" (i.e. screencaps of developer art, concept art and cinematic screen captures passed off as actual gameplay screens)

I'll wait until the actual consoles are demoed in game stores. Then I'll know what to expect of the console performance.

[Sausehuhn]

yes, Ben, the PSP is muuuch cheaper in Japan. Ok, add shipping and taxes and it won't be that much cheaper, but maybe still not as expensive as it is here.
I bought my used, japanese PSP Value Pack for 150€, and that's definately cheaper than here!! :D

[Lance]

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Sony sold the original PlayStation below cost in order to destroy Sega's Saturn. yes, the money is really in the licensed games.


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i read a thorough technical analysis of the processing systems of the 360 and the PS3; the author was very doubtful that either system could really deliver a greatly advanced game experience far beyond what we've already seen. this was largely to do how little memory cache was available to the parallel processors and how it was utilised. they may not be as superduper as anticipated by us or as trumpeted by their makers. let's hope he's wrong?
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[Drakkenmensch]

Can we say "Sega CD 32X"?

[Cod]

It's only cheaper in Japan and America because your local currency is worth more than the respective foreign one (i.e. the dollar or the yen).

If you were living in the US or Japan, the PSP would appear just as "expensive" as it does to us in the UK or in Europe.