According to EFYTimes, BusinessWeek said that they expect the PS3 to sell 200 million copies in its first five years, with 12 million of those in the first year. That would leave an average of, oh, about 47 million in each of the four subsequent years.

This sounds just a bit, uh, crazy to me.

Maybe the estimate for the first year is okay - isn’t Microsoft shooting for 6 million in the first six months? (Correct me if I’m wrong.) So having the PS3 do the equivalent in the first year isn’t a big stretch. But an average of 47 million in each of the subsequent year sounds a little nuts. Say the console keeps selling better and better. That could mean a distribution like this:

Year 1 - 12 million
Year 2 - 20 million
Year 3 - 40 million
Year 4 - 57 million
Year 5 - 71 million

I’m just distributing the numbers somewhat haphazardly. But still, do they look like anything even close to what the reality may be? I doubt it.

EFYTimes - Sony To Sell 200 Million PS3’s

When I see article titles like “Sony has no strategy for an online service - Ballmer” I just have to respond. Everyone is always on Sony’s back for making claims that end up being no more than vapour. (Personally, I think that Sony has been rather restrained this time around compared to the PS2 launch.) But what about Microsoft’s posturings?

In this article, Ballmer says “Sony has no strategy for an online service.” That statement is so ludicrous, I can hardly keep a straight face typing this. Maybe Sony doesn’t have plans for a centralized online service, but they certainly do have online service plans, and Ballmer knows it.

But that’s not all!

Then Ballmer claims that the Xbox 360 launch was “phenomenal”. This is the launch where people couldn’t sell their souls to get an Xbox 360. It is perpetual short supply. It actually sold less in the opening week in Japan than the original Xbox did! And didn’t Microsoft recently have to downgrade expectations for sales in the first three months?

Okay, okay. I guess all this can be considered part of the gamesmanship that happens when two large companies battle it out. But why does everyone give Sony flak for this when Microsoft does the same?

Eurogamer - Sony has no strategy for an online service

PS Before you say it, I’ll do it for you. At least one person will reply to this post saying “I totally dug your site up until this post, which was stupid”. I always get comments like that when I post anti-Microsoft stuff. Guess what? I don’t care!

In case you haven’t heard, some Sony artist dude made some disparaging remarks about the PS3 and got canned. (See link below for details.) I think people are making a little too much of this, for several reasons.

First of all, this guy wasn’t working on an actual game. He was working on a cinematic demo. Completely not the same thing.

Also, there are statements like this:

I have been pretty excited about the whole cell processing thing. I am not a very technical person but my understanding of it was pretty clear.

A nontechnical person has a clear understanding of the Cell processor. Okay…

He then goes on to spout a bunch of rumours and inuendos, and well, I just discounted this all as nonsense. He complains about fluid dynamics and object dynamics, etc. What if the game he was working “near” just didn’t use those things? Or the develops didn’t. And did he really expect to see subsurface scattering done in real time?

But what do you think? Is there more to it?

Kotaku - Sony Insider Deleted for PS3 Comments

The fab 3 that have created, funded, and commercialized the Cell processor have decided that the Cell is worth keeping. As such, they’ve agreed to continue their partnership for another 5 years. Makes me wonder if a derivative of the current Cell processor will be in the PS4.

According to a Reuters report, Sony, Toshiba and IBM have jointly announced that the companies have renewed their co-production partnership which helped created the Cell chip, to be used in Sony’s PlayStation 3, for another 5 years.

So far, the three firms, which have revealed significant details on the Cell chip over the past few months, have invested around $400 million in the tech

Gamasutra - IBM, Toshiba, Sony Renew Cell Partnership

I’m almost tempted to think Sony won’t make the anticipated spring 2006 PlayStation 2 launch. Reports from left, right, and skyward all say that there’s no way Sony can make it. Like this report from the Inquirer (see link below). But wait a second, if you actually read the article, it says that they don’t expect the PS3 to come out until at least May. May is spring, isn’t it? As a matter of fact, most of June is in spring as well. Hmmm.

I was reading the IGN forums the other day and someone pointed out that the PS2 didn’t have playable demos until one month before launch! Companies like Microsoft like to give lots of details before launching a product. Other companies like Apple and Sony like to keep their little secrets. For example, it was rumoured that Apple would be releasing Intel iBooks at MacWorld Expo. Instead, they announced Intel iMacs and Intel MacBook Pros. Surprise! Sony is the same way. We don’t know what’s going on in there, and we probably won’t until the PS3 is upon us.

Though I’m growing more and more skeptical, I’m also still a little hopeful.

So I’ve changed the poll in the sidebar. Vote now!

the Inquirer - Sony showed off Playstation 3s at CES

In a not-so-surprising move (I’ve always maintained that the 360 should support Blu-ray), Microsoft has stated that they’re open to releasing an external Blu-ray drive for the 360 if it wins the disc format war.

Isn’t that great? You could have both an external HD DVD hooked up to your 360, and a Blu-ray drive! Add a couple more devices, and it’ll resemble an octopus!

1UP.com - 360 Could Get Blu-Ray Drive

In a battle, being able to define the field of conflict is a definite advantage for the side that can do it.

Gates is trying to determine that field in the minds of gamers. If gamers think that the platform that does X better is the better platform, then that console has won in the gamers’ minds. That’s exactly what Gates wants to do with the Xbox 360 and Xbox Live. If people think that a centralized online service is a must-have for a next-gen console, then the only real choice would be the 360.

Only 10% of original Xbox users ever signed up for Xbox Live. Say that doubles for 360 owners. That would be 20% of 360 owners using Xbox Live. Even tripling the number would still only give you 30% of 360 owners going online. I can well imagine that a large percentage of early 360 adopters are going online. But what happens when the 360 becomes generally available and more normal type folks buy the 360? I think the percentage of 360 owners who are online will actually go down over time. Does anybody know what it is now?

And this is the vaunted battlefield where Gates is trying to grab mindshare. In an area where only a small number of console owners go, Microsoft is clearly superior. Never mind that the lack of a centralized service doesn’t necessarily mean that the online experience will be any worse off. PC gamers have gone without a centralized service since, well, forever. PS2 owners don’t have a centralized online service. The rest of the world seems to be getting along just fine without a centralized service.

So maybe a centralized online service shouldn’t be the battlefield for the next-gen consoles. Oh! I know! What about the games! What a novel concept! Let’s see what platforms has the better games, and declare that the battlefield. Gosh, an even playing field, not based on an artificial definition of what a winner is. What a concept.

C&VG - GATES: NEXT-GEN BATTLE WILL BE FOUGHT ONLINE

My first online poll seems to have been a success. The question is “What’s the most you’d pay for a PS3?” Almost 400 of you have cast your ballots, and the race is a virtual tie between $400 - $499 and $300 - $399. Actually, while I’m writing this, it’s an exact tie at 113 votes each. That’s kind of weird. Is anyone out there stuffing the ballot box? Or do you all think that this is a valid representation of what everyone thinks?

FiringSquad has an article listing 11 Xbox 360 mistakes. Is there anything here that Sony can do better with the PS3? I’ll put my guess at the equivalent PS3 probability next to each issue. (0 - not gonna happen, 10 - sure will happen.)

1. Overheating CPU or GPU. Seeing the problems Microsoft has had with heating issues, Sony can’t help but wonder if they will be plagued by the same issues. Probability: 3.
2. No MSN Music. FiringSquad complains about the lack of MSN Music or iTunes functionality in the 360. Sony also has such a service, it’ll be interesting to see if it will be integrated into the PS3. Personally, I think it will, but I’m just guessing. Probability: 5.
3. No HDMI support. Well, the PS3 does have this, so it’s not a problem. Probability: 0.
4. 20GB is too small. Mr. Ken has said that the PS3 will need lots of disk space, so Sony will probably sell a separate HDD with capacity of larger than 20GB. Probability: 2.
5. Microtransaction Security. Bugs in the system. Frankly, these teething problems will also probably affect the PS3. Probability: 7.
6. No Web Browser. The PSP has web browsing capabilities, so I think Sony is learning this lesson. But maybe not… Probability: 4.
7. No WMV-HD DVD Playback. I think the PS3 will probably have the same problem. Probability: 9.
8. No MPEG-4 AVI playback (i.e. XviD, etc) AVI being a Microsoft format, I think it likely that Sony’s PS3 will have the same problem. Probability: 8.
9. No System-Wide Video Calibration. A nice-to-have feature the PS3 probably won’t have either. Probability: 9.
10. Poor DVD Playback Quality. Who knows? The PS2 wasn’t that great. Maybe the PS3 will suffer the same fate? Probability: 5.
11. No pressure sensitive face buttons. The PS2 controller already has this functionality, so I doubt Sony would remove it. Probability: 0.

Agree? Disagree? Any problems that FiringSquad missed?

Xbox 360: Back to the Drawing Board

City of Metronome is a game I haven’t heard of before for the PS3. It’s a third person shooter where sound is your modus weaponus. From the company’s website:

Venture into the city of Metronome, a sprawling mass of haphazardly built houses and huge steam engines where the outlandish inhabitants are carrying out their chores day and night. A city where the life of every citizen is dictated by the Corporation, a single bureaucratic entity that owns all the land, the entire infrastructure and all the industries.

It actually looks quite cool. Click to see full-size image. More at their website.

Tarsier - The City Of Metronome

The Cell Broadband Engine Architecture. The Cell processor. The Cell. This thing is the guts of the PlayStation 3. The processor. And it’s a beaut.

Spectrum Online has an article about this thing, and it looks like a mighty powerful beast:

So far, microprocessor watchers have been impressed with what they’ve seen of Cell. “To bring huge parallel processing onto a single chip in a clean and efficient way is a real accomplishment,” says Ruby B. Lee, a professor of electrical engineering at Princeton University and an IEEE Fellow.

A graphics-heavy item such as PlayStation 3 isn’t just a showcase for an unusual chip. For IBM it’s a philosophical statement. “Gaming is the next interface driving computing,” says James A. Kahle, Cell’s chief architect with the IBM Technology Group, in Austin, Texas … Just as moving from punch cards to electronic displays changed what people expected of computers, the highly collaborative, real-time realism of today’s games will set the standard for what people want from computers in the future.

IEEE Spectrum: Winner: Multimedia Monster

All those waiting for PS3 news, raise your hands.

Yup, I knew it. Everyone in the world.

So it was a major disappointment that PS3 news was sparse at CES. And by sparse, I mean these here are the only two things I found:

1. Sony has shipped 4,000 PS3 development kits globally.
2. The PS3’s Blu-ray player will put out 1080/60p on HDMI.

EETimes.com - Sony CEO drops Playstation 3 hints at CES

Don’t forget my PS3 Timeline post. You can access it any time from the PS3 Resources section in the grey area below. It tells you, for example, that the next event at which you’ll find out PS3 information is the PlayStation Conference in February. Since CES has been a wash, I thought I’d point that out!

Also there’s the FAQ, which points out that no release date or price has been announced yet. People keep asking me this. Just check the FAQ!

PS3Blog.net - FAQ
PS3Blog.net - PS3 Timeline