[PS3] Deel 6 - 8 hoofden zijn beter dan 1

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AN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - IBM has agreed to license the Cell processor -- set to drive Sony PlayStations and Toshiba TVs -- to medical and military equipment maker Mercury Computer Systems Inc., in the first deal for the chip beyond consumer electronics.

Mercury, said the company plans to use Cell as the core technology to power a range of "embedded" computers it designs for magnetic resonance image scanners in medicine to missile radar and sonar systems for military uses.

IBM and Chelmsford, Massachusetts-based Mercury said they had agreed to a multiyear deal in which contract engineering teams from IBM will design Cell chips for Mercury computers.

Terms were not disclosed.

International Business Machines Corp. of Armonk, New York is developing the much-anticipated cell chip with Japanese partners Sony Corp. and Toshiba Corp.

Sony plans to power use Cell to power its PlayStation 3 video console starting a year from now. Toshiba has said it plans to embed Cell chips in a line of its televisions in 2006.

IBM sees Cell driving devices in a range of industries, including medical, aerospace and automotive technologies.

"We are beginning to expand the adoption of Cell into other industries," said Raj Desai, vice president of IBM engineering and technology services -- the custom chip design unit.

CELL DIVISION

PlayStation 3 is expected to be a huge hit for Sony -- selling 80 million to 100 million new consoles by 2010, according to industry analyst Richard Doherty of Envisioneering Group in Seaford, New York.

Cell is expected to offer breakthrough graphics processing improvements across the growing array of electronics that require heavy image processing, and while some analysts have questioned whether Cell will find much use beyond games, Doherty said IBM could be on to a huge winner.

"If IBM is successful sector-by-sector, Cell has a good chance that non-gaming uses will outstrip the massive volumes expected for Cell in Sony PlayStations," Doherty said.

"I think this is just the first of a half-dozen announcements IBM will make over the next year to push Cell into markets like medicine or automotive," he predicted.

Doherty said IBM's Cell chip might be used in an innovative automotive suspension system from high-end audio maker Bose, which could use Cell's heavy digital signal processing capacity to help smooth automobile rides.

The Bose system was set to be offered in 2007 model year cars by an automaker outside the United States, he said, declining to say which one.

Embedded computer chips used to control everything from air conditioners to washing machines to cars vastly outnumber the number of chips used in computers or video consoles, although they are typically sold at far lower cost.

Mercury is looking for Cell chips to accelerate the graphics-handling and image-rendering powers of its devices designed for use by doctors, pilots and others who require picture-perfect electronic displays to do their jobs.

"It's a choice of either using advanced technology like Cell or wait until the generally available technology catches up," Mercury Chief Technology Officer Craig Lund said.

Mercury, a $250 million-a-year maker of embedded computer systems, believes Cell will deliver three- to four-times faster performance than rival chips set to be on the market in the next few years, Lund said.

Mercury currently uses a range of chips from IBM, Intel Corp. and other embedded chips in its graphics-hungry embedded computer systems. The company was looking at Cell as the basis for many of its future products, Lund said.

It envisioned building magnetic scanners that give doctors access to instantaneous digital images of internal tissues during surgery. Current scanners take hours to detail such images.

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PS3 to Sell for $399, to Cost $494 to Make


According to this Gamespot report (what's with all the Gamespot stuff today?), Merrill Lynch Japan is predicing that Sony will lose more than $1 billion on its PS3 hardware during its first year on the market. The analyst goes into details, saying that the PS3 will cost Sony $494 to make, with the company expected to price it at $399 in North America. However, that's not all - the analyst warns that if Microsoft lowers the price of the Xbox 360 by the time Sony launches the PS3, they will serve a fatal blow to the company, marking Sony's losses of additional $730 and $457 million in the following years.

Then again, Ken Kutaragi, the man behind the Playstation brand, is still optimistic, saying that Sony wants people to feel that they "want it, no matter what," by making the PS3 a product that people will "definitely want."

If the analyst is correct, and if Microsoft lowers the price of their console by the time PS3 launches, Sony might be in deep shit. However, that doesn't mean anything for all the Sony fan(boys) around the world who'll pay more than double to buy the console. Remember the time when the PS2 sold for $1500 on eBay? And anyway, casual gamers are much more familiar with the Playstation brand, meaning that Sony will be able to sell tons of PS3s, no matter what the price is.

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Op woensdag 29 juni 2005 13:48 schreef menesis het volgende:
niet $200 maar $100 of ben ik scheel?

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Op woensdag 29 juni 2005 16:44 schreef Xrenity het volgende:
400 euro (want dat wordt het gewoon) vind ik wel wat duur voor een console. Gaat de X360 natuurlijk in prijs droppen...

Gaat die Xbox 360 straks de PS3 nog verslaan ook

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Op woensdag 29 juni 2005 16:44 schreef Xrenity het volgende:
400 euro (want dat wordt het gewoon) vind ik wel wat duur voor een console. Gaat de X360 natuurlijk in prijs droppen...

Gaat die Xbox 360 straks de PS3 nog verslaan ook

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Op woensdag 29 juni 2005 16:48 schreef Tain het volgende:

[..]

Waarom is 400 euro te duur voor een nieuwe console? Vroegah met de gulden was de prijs nog wel wat hoger dan dat

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Op dinsdag 12 juli 2005 13:44 schreef P-Style het volgende:

[..]

Hmmm... daar begint het gelazer al. Oké... Drie gigabitpoorten was misschien ook wel een beetje overkill, maar wat gaat de PS3 nu wèl krijgen, want dat is niet helemaal duidelijk.

Ik hoop dat het bij deze kostenbesparing blijft!

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Survey suggests tough times ahead for Xbox 360 in Japan
Illustration
Rob Fahey 13:03 12/07/2005

Latest survey shows that Microsoft's efforts in Japan still aren't having much effect

A new survey by Japanese news agency C-News suggests that Japanese consumers are still not interested in the Xbox 360, with only two per cent of respondents choosing Microsoft's new console as their favoured next-gen system.

1,000 Japanese consumers aged between 10 and 59 were questioned for the survey, with 60 per cent choosing the PlayStation 3 as the next-gen system they're most interested in, followed by the Nintendo Revolution on 8 per cent and the X360 on just 2 per cent.

The poor showing for the Revolution is perhaps understandable, given that Nintendo has released only sketchy outline details regarding the console so far - but the figure for the Xbox 360 will come as a disappointment to Microsoft, which has focused heavily on the Japanese market in recent months.

Respondents cited the Sony brand, along with a perception that the PS3 will have the widest range of software and a technological edge over its rivals, as the key reasons for picking the PS3 over the other systems.

Microsoft has been aggressively pursuing Japanese developer support for the Xbox 360, and has signed up titles from independent studios Mist Walker, Game Republic and Q Entertainment, each of them headed up by a well known Japanese game design luminary.

A special event is also planned later this month in Japan, where Xbox Japan boss Yoshihiro Maruyama is expected to reveal a number of new third-party relationships and locally developed titles for the Xbox 360, in an effort to secure as much local content as possible for the launch of the system at the end of the year.

However, it seems that new franchises will only go so far for Xbox 360; Mist Walker's RPG Blue Dragon may sport character designs from Dragon Quest artist Akira Toriyama and a design by Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, but it's Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy themselves which Japanese gamers want - with the survey showing that 80 per cent of those polled want to see major franchises on the next-gen systems, as against only 60 per cent who want original titles.

Role-playing games, unsurprisingly, led the field in terms of the genres demanded by gamers - with 71.2 per cent ticking this box in a multiple-choice question - followed by 52.8 per cent who want simulations and strategy games, 47.9 per cent who want general action titles, 41.1 per cent adventure titles, and just 23.4 per cent shoot 'em ups.

It will be interesting to see if the unveiling of multiple new Japanese games later this month will have any effect on consumer interest in the Xbox 360. The lack of local software was often cited as the key reason that the original Xbox failed in the region - selling only 460,000 units over its lifespan to date - but some commentators have suggested that there is also a basic unwillingness among Japanese consumers to invest in a console produced overseas.

Source: C-News (Japan) via GameFront (Germany)

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Op dinsdag 12 juli 2005 18:10 schreef H.Flick het volgende:
Ik vind dat toch zo komisch, dat mensen echt fan zijn van een bepaald merk of een bepaalde console net alsof het bijvoorbeeld een voetbalclub is .

Zijn Audi rijders ook blij als er een BMW in een botsing terecht komt?! .

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1,000 Japanese consumers aged between 10 and 59 were questioned for the survey, with 60 per cent choosing the PlayStation 3 as the next-gen system they're most interested in, followed by the Nintendo Revolution on 8 per cent and the X360 on just 2 per cent.