Sony Looking to Cut Cost of Console Development for PS4

[Logan Westbrook]

Sony Looking to Cut Cost of Console Development for PS4

Doing everything for itself proved to be rather costly for Sony.

The gaming side of Sony's business turned a profit this year, but for the last few years, it's been a different story. Sony is blaming the amount of money the company spent in developing the PS3 for a significant portion of the losses it has suffered, and says that it will not make the same mistake with its next console.

Sony designed and manufactured many of the PS3's inner workings - including the Cell Processor - itself, spending billions of yen on semiconductor fabrication facilities. This investment had a significant impact on the profitably of the PS3 and the gaming division as a whole, which just as recently as last year made an operating loss of ¥83 billion, or just over $1 billion.

Speaking during an investors briefing, Sony CFO Masaru Kato indicated that when Sony was developing the PS3, seeking outside partners for chip manufacture wasn't really feasible. However, the situation for the PS4 was different and the idea of investing so much money upfront into the company's next console was unthinkable.

High manufacturing costs always been something of a bugbear [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/98110-PS3-Loss-Down-to-Just-Eighteen-Bucks ] for the PS3. It looks like Sony has finally started to overcome it though, as reduced hardware costs, along with increased software sales, are credited with the ¥35.6 billion, or $438 million, profit posted by the division.

Source: Andriasang [http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/2011/05/27/sony_earnings/]





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[Spacewolf]

i wonder what they intend to put into these new consoles as its going to be difficult to make any worthwhile developments to graphics i dont see why they dont just try and optamise what they can do with the PS3

 

[Piflik]

The Cell Chip was actually developed in a cooperation with IBM and Toshiba and there are other systems using it than the PS3...

 

[the_green_dragon]

Good. Cheaper consoles for us hopefully

 

[the_green_dragon]

i wonder what they intend to put into these new consoles as its going to be difficult to make any worthwhile developments to graphics i dont see why they dont just try and optamise what they can do with the PS3

The graphics on the current gen consoles are not that great and are years and years behind PC. Bring out the new consoles! And hurry up!

 

[Sampler]

Good. Cheaper consoles for us hopefully

Nope - just better profit margains for them.

New consoles have been a few hundred, games £40-£50 for a long time - it's not really what it costs but what the market's prepared to pay and seemingly we're prepared to pay these figures..

 

[JDKJ]

Why is this article headlined "Sony Looking to Cut Cost of Console Development for PS4" when it appears that what's really afoot isn't "development" costs but, rather, "manufacturing" costs? The two are not the same.

 

[Aeshi]

No! Don't do it!

You'll just end up creating some shitty PS360!

 

[BloodSquirrel]

i wonder what they intend to put into these new consoles as its going to be difficult to make any worthwhile developments to graphics i dont see why they dont just try and optamise what they can do with the PS3

The PS3 and 360's current tech is *WAY* behind current PC tech. A new console could run what current consoles are running at 1080p at 60 fps, and could fit eight times as much data (ie, eight times as much area without having to load) with specs that are fairly moderate compared to a current gaming rig.

 

[Rect Pola]

Wow, natural logic still works.

Sony spent a ton on PS3, so much that even it's original pricing was a massive lost. But those loses were amplified by the price leading to weak sales which built a smaller than desired install base they needed rely on to recoup developing the dang thing.

At the same time Wii came out with a much more reasonable price that actually *gasp* returned a profit. And that's before factoring in Nintendo won the phenomenon lottery.

While expecting such a phenomenom to strike again is nuts, where did you think Sony was going to direct the successor's development?

 

[Spacewolf]

The graphics on the current gen consoles are not that great and are years and years behind PC. Bring out the new consoles! And hurry up!

The PS3 and 360's current tech is *WAY* behind current PC tech. A new console could run what current consoles are running at 1080p at 60 fps, and could fit eight times as much data (ie, eight times as much area without having to load) with specs that are fairly moderate compared to a current gaming rig.

The technology may be behind PC tech but all games for consoles are usually optamised for that particular system as PS3s and 360s are a standard system rather than the multitude of options for PCs which mean developers have to try and get it just working on as many setups as possible. Also i dont understant the need for 60FPS it wouldnt make the game look like its running any smoother as humans carnt distiguish images moving that fast so it would just end up looking like 40ish FPS

As for graphics just look at the assassins creed games or other games people have been gushing over. There is no need for greater graphical capabilitys as the cost of getting them would be greater than the return, and people dont need better graphics as the current level gives the nessicary level of detail for pretty much any conciveable situation.

 

[BloodSquirrel]

The technology may be behind PC tech but all games for consoles are usually optamised for that particular system as PS3s and 360s are a standard system rather than the multitude of options for PCs which mean developers have to try and get it just working on as many setups as possible. Also i dont understant the need for 60FPS it wouldnt make the game look like its running any smoother as humans carnt distiguish images moving that fast so it would just end up looking like 40ish FPS.

Optimization isn't magic. There's only so much you can do with 256MB of system memory, and with the current generation of consoles it shows. With a new generation of consoles they could do their optimizations on hardware that is an order of magnitude more powerful. Also, 40FPS isn't the limit of the human eye. Especially when that 40FPS is dipping to 10-20FPS every so often.

As for graphics just look at the assassins creed games or other games people have been gushing over. There is no need for greater graphical capabilitys as the cost of getting them would be greater than the return people dont need better graphics as the current level gives the nessicary level of detail for pretty much any conciveable situation.

It isn't just graphics. Developers are having to "optimize" current gen games by make tradeoffs in what they can do. Things like level geometry and AI are limited by what the console can handle as well.

 

[harvz]

maybe if sony wasnt sniffing the space between their toes they would have settled on a cheaper, if slightly slower processor that would have raised their margins and, no one would have noticed.

 

[Akisa]

The graphics on the current gen consoles are not that great and are years and years behind PC. Bring out the new consoles! And hurry up!

The PS3 and 360's current tech is *WAY* behind current PC tech. A new console could run what current consoles are running at 1080p at 60 fps, and could fit eight times as much data (ie, eight times as much area without having to load) with specs that are fairly moderate compared to a current gaming rig.

The technology may be behind PC tech but all games for consoles are usually optamised for that particular system as PS3s and 360s are a standard system rather than the multitude of options for PCs which mean developers have to try and get it just working on as many setups as possible. Also i dont understant the need for 60FPS it wouldnt make the game look like its running any smoother as humans carnt distiguish images moving that fast so it would just end up looking like 40ish FPS

As for graphics just look at the assassins creed games or other games people have been gushing over. There is no need for greater graphical capabilitys as the cost of getting them would be greater than the return, and people dont need better graphics as the current level gives the nessicary level of detail for pretty much any conciveable situation.

Where are you getting your info from? The human eye can see past 60 fps even as far as 120. Even IF we can't see above 30 fps, having a high margin could prevent the fps from dropping too low in the action.

Reference
http://amo.net/NT/02-21-01FPS.html

http://www.tweakguides.com/Graphics_5.html

 

[Griffolion]

Deliver a quality console at a reduced price and i'm sure i'll be interested.

As a general rule, hardware has become powerful enough so that the innovation can now be driven through software and not necessarily hardware only. You only have to look at Kinect for that.

So even if Sony don't release a massively revolutionary console in the PS4, so long as it's great quality, financially accessible and has a host of developers on board, that's your winning formula.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

For the love of the arcadian gods, please don't buff up the graphics too much more. Games are already hard to afford, and a new console that costs half as much as my tuition isn't even feasible right now. Making more games at the higher quality without a reason to do so just continues to drive up the cost of production, which drives up the cost of purchase. Graphic quality is already high. Go with aesthetics, and with polished aesthetics, but don't needlessly buff things that are already on the pricey end of things.

 

[Akisa]

For the love of the arcadian gods, please don't buff up the graphics too much more. Games are already hard to afford, and a new console that costs half as much as my tuition isn't even feasible right now. Making more games at the higher quality without a reason to do so just continues to drive up the cost of production, which drives up the cost of purchase. Graphic quality is already high. Go with aesthetics, and with polished aesthetics, but don't needlessly buff things that are already on the pricey end of things.

It's not just the graphics/aesthetics that is limited by hardware. There is geometry, AI, loading time and a host of other hardware limitations. Take a look at dragon age origins and the difference between the pc and consoles outside of controls. There were so many enemies the console could bring out compare to the pc.