Sony boss talks of "sleepless nights" when trying to balance PS4 capabilities and price

[Mr. Gibs]

At $12/gb.. we are talking $24 (2gb), $48(4gb) and $96(8gb). The difference of $72 (2gb --> 8gb) is significant if you consider current estimate of 10Million consoles for first year, it's $700M right there.

That's not how it usually works though.

The breakdowns is in my post right there. MS is paying $60 for 8gb of DDR3, Sony is paying $88 for 8gb of GDDR5. At the end of the day that's not "very expensive" at all.

[JonnyLH]

That's not how it usually works though.

The breakdowns is in my post right there. MS is paying $60 for 8gb of DDR3, Sony is paying $88 for 8gb of GDDR5. At the end of the day that's not "very expensive" at all.

In terms of costing the rest of the chips in there and factoring mass-production. It's expensive. The APUs won't cost them much more.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Uhhh has everyone forgotten about the PS3 losses? You really think the Sony shareholders wouldn't have reservations about a CEO, Andrew House saying we need to sell for $400, and then a hardware designer asking for more money to be spent to bump internal specs?

 

We're talking such a fine line here between profit and loss, and Razorfold these kinds of plans need to stand up for the lifetime of the console. Whatever option you choose is being taken to your grave, consoles aren't modular, they are fixed. So yes it will have been 'billion' dollar decisions based upon projections and investments needed to secure parts/business relationships to last 5-10 years.

 

This is a developer conference based in Brighton, not exactly E3 in LA. I really doubt when asked questions Andrew or Mark care about PR marketing. Who's getting wet over a figure of 1 billion and rushing out to buy a PS4? It's merely an insight into the coming to of the PS4.

 

Here's another interview with them

 

[spedanden]

In what world do you live in that 8gb ram is expensive? It's pretty much bog standard in even budget computers nowadays.

Especially since these consoles are "supposed" to last at least 5 years, it would have been an utterly retarded idea to go with 4gb. The price difference between 4 and 8gb is so minuscule that I highly doubt it was as expensive as they claim. Same thing goes with the hard-drive, 500gb hardrives aren't expensive at all. Then you're also forgetting that for the first time in history these consoles are profitable from day one. In the past both companies made massive losses for years, but now they aren't anymore.

Stop believing the marketing ###### that these companies put out.

 

HOW profitable is the point here, hence why the hard business decision. They could be 400 million richer right now had they put in 4GB, but they chose an experience over profit. Thats a huge risk for Sony who doesn't have NEAR the comfort level of money that MS has.

They even mentioned that because they made those decisions, they had to drop the camera from being bundled. Considering the specs, 400 is a pretty great deal, and Sony could have been a lot more business minded. They chose the high road of experience and value and its paying off as the install base is impressive, making more room for profit outside of initial hardware.

[Mr. Gibs]

Uhhh has everyone forgotten about the PS3 losses?

The PS3 made loses because Sony decided to put in a very very expensive (RnD wise) processor that had very little real world benefit. That added with the bluray drive pushed the costs to where it was.

It was pretty clear they weren't going to do that again.

 

They even mentioned that because they made those decisions, they had to drop the camera from being bundled.

Er no, they mentioned that the camera bundle was going to be $500...which they conveniently got rid of after they saw the backlash the xbox one got. It was a last minute change at E3 to undercut the Xbox one, not a "many sleepless nights of hard business decisions" change.

 

They could be 400 million richer right now had they put in 4GB, but they chose an experience over profit. Thats a huge risk for Sony who doesn't have NEAR the comfort level of money that MS has.

Lol an experience over profit? Or do you mean Sony wasn't stupid enough to put 4gb in a console that will last till the end of this decade especially since both of them have already been criticized for not having great specs. 2gb or even 4gb would have been incredibly laughable and stupid.

That's not a hard business decision at all, it's common sense for 2010+.

But you can keep arguing about all these "hard" "expensive" decisions they made to make a profit on day one, I really couldn't care anymore and I'm out.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Whole thing