This was my first thought. The movie could be $5.99 to buy before I finish the rental download.

The idea of rentals interests me, but $5.99 for a heavily compressed HD rental is triple what I would pay. Especially if it takes a day to download.

I'll stick with $1.00 DVD rentals from Red Box or Netflix if I must watch it in HD and don't want to buy it.

If I'm really desperate for a rental, I can get an HD movie on demand from Comcast for $4.99, and I don't have to wait for it to download...

Sony has lost over $3 billion on the PS3

By Ben Silverman
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Think you paid too much for your Playstation 3? Don't expect any sympathy from Sony.

In the company's fiscal 2008 annual report, Sony revealed that they've now lost roughly $3.3 billion (that's billion with a B) on the Playstation 3 since its launch. That breaks down to $2.16 billion in 2007, followed by a notably smaller but equally daunting $1.16 billion loss in 2008.

The reason? Pricing the console below its production cost. That's right - that hefty $599 you paid for the PS3 back when it first launched was significantly cheaper than the cost of producing it in the first place, and while the retail price has come down some, the losses keep piling up.

Investors have reason to sweat. In a statement, Sony claimed "the large-scale investment required during the development and introductory period of a new gaming platform may not be fully recovered." They went on to note that they've invested a great deal of money into R&D for the console, a sum they might not be able to recoup if the PS3 "fails to achieve such favorable market penetration."

Sony fanboys should take heart, however. Losing money on hardware is relatively common in the video game biz, as companies routinely lower prices to sell more units and thus stimulate software sales. Sony's game division saw a 26% sales spike last quarter, a trend they expect will continue on the strength of strong exclusives like the recently released Metal Gear Solid 4 and the upcoming sequel Resistance 2.

But will it be enough?

http://videogames.yahoo.com/feature/...he-ps3/1223467

even though they lost a lot of money in ps3 I don't think Sony will be hurt in the long run.

Yikes! I paid a hefty $400 so Sony must have lost quite a bit on that one. I don't foresee a PS4.

Resistance 2? Seriously, tell me they have something better coming out before 2009.

Home?

As for the financial loss, sure it's common, but in the billions? The recent news of the 360 drop will make things more interesting.

If you look at past "Console Wars" Nintendo pretty much won the 8 and 16 bit generation. Then Playstation came out and won both the 32/64 bit and 128 bit generation. Now Nintendo is back on top with the wii. So everything kinda balances out i guess.

Didn't the original Xbox lose around $5 billion with the current 360 at around losses of $2 billion? If Blu-Ray does really take off, it'll probably be a small price to pay.

Why not? Because Sony is losing a lot of money on the PS3? One failure does not mean they will necessarily give up.

Nintendo has had several failures. The N64, Virtual Boy, and Gamecube didn't do as well as Nintendo hoped. The Virtual Boy especially was a huge failure. It didn't even last a year and only had like a dozen games before it kicked the bucket.

Sega had a whole string of complete failures. The SegaCD, the 32X, Saturn, and Dreamcast all sold horribly. It took four very nasty failures before Sega exited the hardware business.

So why would Sony give up after one failure? They could learn from their mistakes and come out strong next time. The biggest mistake they made was using brand new high tech stuff like Blu-ray which was just too cost-prohibitive for it to be used this generation.

Yes Blu-ray will continue to make billions for Sony for the next 20 years atleast.

thats why Sony always win they always think ahead and are more inteligent then their competitiors.

Not Necessarily the News: Sony PS3 losses

There are stories in the blogosphere that you never see reported on GameSpot. There can be a number of reasons for this, but sometimes it's simply because the news being reported isn't actually news.

Kotaku has a story up today saying that Sony just revealed that it lost over $3 billion over fiscal 2007 and fiscal 2008 due to the PlayStation 3 being sold at less than cost.

That report is untrue in parts, and wholly lacking in newsworthiness. First of all, the source of the story appears to be a Sony Corporation SEC filing of its annual report for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2008. That's actually Sony's fiscal 2007 year, so the $3 billion in losses Kotaku reports is really for fiscal 2006 and fiscal 2007, not 2007 and 2008. That's the first issue.

Now for the second issue. $3 billion is a staggering number, to be sure, but Sony didn't really reveal it today. If you look at the coverage of Sony's full-year game division losses in fiscal 2006, you'll see they lost nearly $2 billion. Combine that with the story last month that talked about how the game division lost another $1 billion in fiscal 2007, make adjustments for recent currency fluctuations, and you have a total of more than $3 billion lost in the last two fiscal years. Remember kids, if you have the power of basic arithmetic, you can know tomorrow's news today! Or today's news last month!

This would bother me less if it weren't the type of thing to creep into the news cycle and be repeated often enough that people think it's fresh news again regardless.

http://www.gamespot.com/users/Polybr...-100-25450906#

Current Xbox $3b loss in first 2 years. PS3 $3b loss in first 2 years. Seems about right.

Betamax...
UMD...

Sony took a very risky gamble with Blu-ray. Luck played a much bigger role here than intelligence. Is going to Vegas and gambling away your life savings considered an intelligent move? That's basically what Sony did; they just managed to hit the lucky 7s.


You think Blu-ray will last 20 years? Possible, but not likely. 20 years is a pretty long time. To say that no newer better media technologies will be made in that amount of time is assuming too much. Plus, HD media still isn't out of niche status. HD media could still end up going the way of laserdisc....

The difference being that outside the VB, the N64 and GGN were a success. They may be perceived as failures, but they were very profitable.

You are assuming that Blu-ray is going to have some mass adoption rate, which I don't think it will. Pricing on players and movies have a long way to go before the public considers it.

I could be wrong, but I think the only reason the N64 and Cube were profitable is because Nintendo doesn't sell their consoles at a huge loss like MS and Sony do. Nintendo doesn't tend to go overboard with the expensive fancy gizmos like MS and Sony.

Compared to the NES/SNES, the N64 was a failure. Nintendo had a near monopoly with the NES and SNES. Nintendo and video games were basically synonymous back in those days. Sega's Genesis didn't really pose any threat at all. Sony's PS however does kick Nintendo's ass. Nintendo fell hard.

You could also look at it in terms of software. The NES and SNES had a ton of great software, both first and third party. The N64 had a bare handful of good software, and it was mostly first party.

Yeah, sure, profitability is good, but I wouldn't say that is the only determining factor in being a success or failure.

I've never owned my own business and barely have a rudimentary knowledge of economics, but I'd say it's pretty clear cut. You make money you are a success. Previous generation is a non factor. Same goes for failure. Sony could have a 100 million install base on the PS3 but if they are still losing billions, that is a failure. If I'm an investor, I'm putting my money on the company that makes money not the company has the perceived better image and loses money. That's reserved for internet fanboy squabbles.

snap!

And I concur.

Finally got my PS3 today (80gig, MGS4 bundle). I might have time to hook it up and set it up, but I doubt I'll have enough time to play much this weekend, if at all...

But I'm totally free 4th of July weekend, so I guess that's when I'll really dive in.

Besides MSG4, I got Resistance, Ratchet&Clank and Uncharted. Any other exclusives I should be aware of?

Oh, and what PSN games are worth downloading? I think I'm sold on SuperstardustHD, and I already have Echochrome on my PSP. Anything else?

If you're lucky you might be able to find Heavenly Sword on clearance at Target.

But I've heard that Heavenly Sword was ass.

Don't believe everything you read. Other than Ratchet, it's been my favorite. It's on the short side though, which was my only complaint. It comes in around the 6-7 hour range.

So how much is it if I find it at Target?

$30 at some Targets (including mine ... but it was sold out )

That was the last price I saw it at as well before they were gone. I was hoping for < $20 before they were gone.

Heavenly Sword IS ass, not was.

SD picture will de dead in 2009, dvd is dying alot faster then vhs.
and Blu-ray is the fastest growing media format in history.

in a HD era like now Blu-ray is the only step, SD dvd looks and sounds like what black and white did back in the day when color picture was introduced.

SD won't be dead in 2009, analog will. I believe there is a difference.