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Kutaragi Admits Sony Hardware In Decline
Posted by
Zonk
on Sat Sep 09, 2006 02:14 PM
from the notfud dept.
from the notfud dept.
An anonymous reader writes "In a surprising admission, Sony Computer Entertainment President Ken Kutaragi acknowledged that Sony's strength in game hardware might be in decline. BetaNews has the article, which reports on Sony's PS3 struggle for the holiday season." From the article: "In an extraordinary public statement of regret and despair over having to postpone his company's PlayStation 3 debut in Europe and Australia until March, and to limit availability elsewhere to only 500,000 units come November, Sony Computer Entertainment President Ken Kutaragi is quoted by Reuters as having told reporters, 'If you asked me if Sony's strength in hardware was in decline, right now I guess I would have to say that might be true.'"
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More PS3 Words From the Horse's Mouth 78 comments
Game|Life had the chance to sit down with Ken Kutaragi, Phil Harrison, and Kaz Hirai; Chris Kohler has some details on things left unsaid at the PS3 conference. From the article: "Q: You're the head of Sony's worldwide development studios. What the hell is up with that Africa game? A: Video games have a function in life, and that is: wish fulfillment. You can become a mercenary, a fighter pilot. On PS3, we can expand the realm of that experience. Africa allows you to experience a very interesting part of the world, a safari in the plains of Africa. The gameplay is entirely non-violent. You don't kill the animals. It emphasizes the positives rather than the negatives. It's about collecting experiences and keeping them for posterity."
[+]
Why Sony Needs a 'Major Nelson' 84 comments
Microsoft's 'Major Nelson' and executive Peter Moore have been visible representatives of the 360 console for well over a year now. 'Grandfather of Gaming' Shigeru Miyamoto and asskicking Reggie Fils-Aime have have preached the Wii concept through good writeups and bad name jokes. Sony ... well, Sony has Ken Kutaragi, Phil Harrison, and Kaz Hirai. They say helpful things like 'we don't care', and 'disks won't matter', and (my personal favorite) 'the PS3 is a computer'. RPG Site has a compelling argument stating that Sony needs a Major Nelson to cut through this crazy executive talk, and reconnect the company with real gamers. From the article: "While it's not something that appeals to every group of people that play games - the casual market and kids, for example, the existence of these people allows the part of the market that is most opinionated - the core gamers, those who have a very clear opinion on what they want and what is good and bad - to interact with somebody who can actually bring about change. Hell, on a lesser note, it even gives the fanboys someone to worship."
[+]
Sony's Ken Kutaragi To Step Down 81 comments
Joystiq reports that Chairman and group CEO for Sony Computer Entertainment Ken Kutaragi is retiring as of June 19th. The Sony reshuffling of executives late last year left Mr. Kutaragi out of the PS3 nitty-gritty, and one could imagine led to his decision to leave the organization. From SCEI's official statement: "[Mr. Kutaragi] stated that, in the six months since the appointment of Kazuo Hirai as President in December, the new generation of management, led by Mr. Hirai, has continued to develop. With the March introduction of PS3 in Europe completing the successful launch of PS3 worldwide, Mr. Kutaragi has identified SCE's Annual Shareholders' meeting in June as the ideal timing to pass on the torch to the new generation of management. Mr. Kutaragi will now apply his extensive technological knowledge and leadership skills to take on new challenges beyond the world of PlayStation."
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Wow!! (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Sony's problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Given their obsession with proprietary Sony software (ATRAC comes to mind) and hardware (miniDisc, memory stick - when we already have too many flash standards already, UMD, etc), the general public is less likely to choose Sony in the first place.
Then add PR fiascos like the rootkit, the PS3 delays, the PS3 price tag and the latest "Blu-Ray doesn't look much better than DVDs" comments I've read, Sony better do something before it's too late.
However, seeing their new "Four PSP movies locked in a single 1/2GB memory stick that you have to unlock and then still only play them on the PSP" idea, I have no hope left for them.
Re:Sony's problem (Score:4, Funny)
right on
i bought
a DVD-ROM drive from them not too long ago
its still working fine
i will always buy Sony
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
what about?
i bought
a DVD-ROM drive from them not too long ago
its works intermittently
i will sometimes buy Sony
Go ahead (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm still in shock really. I was anticipating the PS3 for years, and then in just a few months, SONY destroyed any desire I have to do business with them ever again.
I don't know about you, but in my house Wii have already decided what Wii think of the PS3. They could have a mere dozenPS3 ready by november, and it wouldn't change a thing for me.
I discriminate against companies infected with DRM [sony.com]
Just the Opposite really (Score:4, Interesting)
But the hardware underneath it all is brilliant. Cell is a pretty sweet piece of chip for video games. RSX is good enough. Blu-Ray has 25 GB of storage, which should be enough for the next 5 years of games. A hard drive removes the artificial limitation of streaming bandwidth from building seamless worlds. Wireless controllers, Wifi internet, 1080p... tilt is tilt, even if a gimmick-- all these options are there for devs.
If only the rest of Sony could get their shit together, the box would sell itself.
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Re:Just the Opposite really (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not trying to troll or spread FUD or anything. I'm genuinly interested where there have been problems.
Obligitory: I'm leaning towards Wii myself. I'll have to see the whole package Nintendo delivers.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Dunno, most of the feedback about the devkits indicate that it's extremely complex and the tools are akin to PS2's devkits tools: they suck, and you have to create your own.
From what I've read, for this generation, the Microsoft devkits are the absolute best (in simplicity, functionality and features, I guess MS' experience with Visual Studio helped a lot there), then comes Nintendo (the devkits are OK, and the fact that the Wii is fairly similar to the GC allows companies to reuse GC knowledge), and dead
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Re:Just the Opposite really (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Just the Opposite really (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, I'd personally argue that the Cell is pretty crappy for videogames; its a very powerful processor that can do a massive number of floating point operations but doesn't really address the fundamental performance problems that exist in Videogames.
In videogames (like most applications) 5% of the code takes up about 90% of the processing power; take scene graph management as an example, most of the effort to manage your scene graph (to determine which objects to be rendered) is doing matrix-matrix multiplications, vector-matrix multiplications, and vector cross/dot products to determine whether the bounding sphere is within an arbitrary box, segmenting the box, and then testing whether the bounding sphere is within the 8 new arbitrary boxes. On the Cell processor each matrix multiplication will result in 64 floating point multiplications and 48 floating point additions (with an aditional 128 integer multiplications and 64 integer additions if the programmer is dumb), each vector matrix multiplication results in 16 floating point multiplications and 12 floating point additions (with an additional 32 integer multiplications and 16 integer additions if the programmer is dumb) and so on; if you were truly designing a "games processor" you would include far more vector instructions (with the possiblility of a hardware based matrix multiplication) to greatly reduce the ammount cycles needed to handle these types of operations.
The reason Sony didn't do this is that this would reduce the clock speed that they could run the processor at (in theory, a matrix multiplication could do 64 floating point multiplications at the same time, which would use a lot of energy, which would produce a lot of heat, which would mean that you couldn't run it at nearly the same speed) and thus reduce the speed at which you could run generic code; the fact is that Sony and Toshiba have already said that the Cell was designed to be included in their entire electronics line, the only reason it is the CPU in the PS3 is that they had to spend the money to develop a CPU for the PS3 anyways and they could use that money to develop a generic multimedia processor instead.
Trust me, Sony could have developed a much more powerful CPU (for gaming) at a fraction of the cost if they wanted to; PS3 early adopters are paying extra money so that Sony can use the Cell in future TVs to upscale a 480p image to 1080p.
Parent
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Re:Just the Opposite really (Score:5, Interesting)
Trust me, there are plenty of ways to kill a console that don't involve unfounded PR moves and minor devkit problems. How about having *no* developers even making games for it? That was the case with the Sega Saturn, which I owned and loved. There was a time when it was the hottest thing on the block, too. But the Saturn soon turned into a kind of cautionary tale about how you really need to get some grassroots developer support before you even think about releasing a new machine. Sony has done that.
Will it be enough to topple Microsoft and Nintendo? Who can say?--I'm no fortune teller either. But what we shouldn't do is assume that because Sony has completely dropped the ball in other markets, that they will likewise fail in the console arena. Still skeptical? Look at Microsoft: Their operating systems range from mediocre to absolute garbage, their office suites are pretty nice, and their console systems are now wildly popular. If we had just considered Microsoft's past history with operating systems, could we have accurately predicted the success of the Xbox? It's doubtful. There was a time years back when
Parent
If I were Microsoft right now... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, Nintendo wants to create the mass appeal console, but I'm not certain that they'll crack the mainstream market yet. I'd say the Christmas season is Microsoft's to lose.
Re: (Score:2)
No way dood, forget Nintendo's previous few generations for a second... consumer memory is VERY short when deciding on new hardware anyway, especially when you look at the trends of video game console sales from generation to generation. Bottom line is: Wii is CHEAP and COMPLETELY UNIQUE in terms of design. Lackluster GameCube sales aren't going to mean crap this generations, and that's basically all MS has going for them. I have no doubt in my mind, that the holiday release of the Wii is going to be owned
Only things to do! (Score:4, Funny)
2.Add more proprietary hardware
3.Add more DRM, not playing Blu-Ray isn't enough. Destroying the disc (on the faint possibility that it is pirated) while installing a rootkit is preferred.
4.Add exploding batteries
Where's the positive news? (Score:3, Insightful)
It seems that for the price they want to charge ($499/$599) everyone wants an amazing system. If the Wii ends up only having five good games, it's a pretty cheap system so people won't complain. If the PS3 has only five good games, Sony needs to fireproof their headquarters. The Xbox 360 at $299/$399 is still considered too expensive for most people, most people who like the idea of buying the 360 want a $100 price drop (I'm not saying we'll get it, but we would like it).
Sony has created a console which gives very little room to manuever. It would only be successful under the following circumstances:
- the Wii is a failure
- the Xbox 360 is a failure
- people are happy to pay $700 for a console + game + HD cables
- manufacturing is successful at producing large numbers of PS3s
I think Microsoft will drop the price of the Xbox 360 pretty soon to increase their install base. I think quite a lot of people will buy the Wii whether it's $170 or $225. There are a lot of complaints from people who own PS2s about the high PS3 price. Their manufacturing has been less than successful in producing the number of PS3s in the time frame needed.
Personally I will purchase the Xbox 360 when I can get 65 nm version with a hard drive for $300. I wasn't really impressed by the footage of the Wii (IGN has a 20 minute demonstration on their website), but they may release games that appeal to me. The PS3 may be a good deal when it hits $300 for the premium version, but that will be about 3 years from now and there will be new consoles being released.
If anyone has positive news about the PS3, could they please post it.
Maybe it will get cheaper (Score:2)
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http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?ty
yes, something smells bad...
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Why not stop the Sony bashing, please?
"Bashing" implies excessive or unwarranted criticism. What criticism of Sony would you say is unwarranted these days? They're an empty shell of their former self.
Re:They seem to be good at software (Score:5, Funny)
Parent