TGO
Hype Train conductor. Works harder than it steams.
I remember people pushing that online but it wasn't close to being true.
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Shuhei: PS3 was losing a billion dollars and was only saved by the Sony TV sales covering the losses; the PSN outage was unbelievably hard internally
- Thread starter LectureMaster
- Start date
It is one of the commandments of the Xbox Sect
"Never let anyone say on the Internet that the Xbox was never profitable"
Probably because it would attract the attention of shareholders who would shut down your Craigs Monkey circus.
Phill spent 12 years trying to disguise the hot garbage that the Xbox is, with its infinite losses and its Craigs Monkeys; It ended up that with the 80 billion spent on Activion, the CFO decided to analyze the Xbox accounts, got scared and ended the party.
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DenchDeckard
Moderated wildly
Ive always believed that the concensus was that sony turned it around in the second half of the generation and brought the playstation business back to profit.
Was what Shu is saying common knowledge?
I dont have any recollection of Sony telling the world that ps3 nearly sank them and lost billion
Topher
Identifies as young
Turning a proft in the second half of the generation doesn't mean they recovered all they lost. Yes, this is all common knowledge.
Sony has lost more than $3 billion on the PS3, so far
And with Microsoft also losing money, the future looks good for Nintendo....
www.theguardian.com
Who told you that?
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GHG
Member
What on earth are you on about?
It was evident in their financial statements at the time.
Sony's quarterly loss widens
Sony's loss in the January-March quarter widened from a year ago on massive costs for the new PlayStation 3 game machine, but the company forecast that profit for the current year would more than double to a record on strong sales of flat TVs and other electronics.
www.nbcnews.com
Sony announces £685m loss and warns of worse to come
Plunging sales and strength of yen lead to firm's first net loss in 14 years
www.theguardian.com
Sony TV's were pretty popular in the late 2000s, this was when people were migrating from CRT screens to HD flat panel displays. Didn't last long until Samsung and LG took over the market. The early 2010s were difficult for Sony, with them shutting down their VAIO computer division, and de-merging from Sony-Ericsson into the Xperia line of smartphones.
The 8th SPE was supposed to be re-used for the PS2 softemu that was used for the alter PS2 classic tiles on PSN, but I don't think it ever materialised. It can be reactivated on some of the later models using a jailbreak, but it's only useful for Linux/OtherOS.
Yeah it was odd they used the GDDR3 for the RSX, considering it had access to the FlexIO bus and could read from its XDR RAM, at a reduced rate. I don't think the Toshiba GPU would have been any more of an improvement, considering how limited the PS2's eDRAM was for textures, and how they planned on using the same technique for the PS3.
Turning a proft in the second half of the generation doesn't mean they recovered all they lost. Yes, this is all common knowledge.
Sony has lost more than $3 billion on the PS3, so far
And with Microsoft also losing money, the future looks good for Nintendo....
Who told you that?
What on earth are you on about?
It was evident in their financial statements at the time.
Sony's quarterly loss widens
Sony's loss in the January-March quarter widened from a year ago on massive costs for the new PlayStation 3 game machine, but the company forecast that profit for the current year would more than double to a record on strong sales of flat TVs and other electronics.
Sony announces £685m loss and warns of worse to come
Plunging sales and strength of yen lead to firm's first net loss in 14 years
Exactly.
I am starting to give several users in this thread massive side eyes....especially if they've been hanging out in Sony financial threads over the years.
Shawn Layden also talked about it in several interviews. Also calling the PS3 Sony's Icarus moment:
PlayStation Exec Discusses What Sony Learned From PlayStation 3's Missteps - DICE 2019 - IGN
During his DICE 2019 keynote speech, SIE Worldwide Studios Chairman Shawn Layden discussed the lessons Sony has learned in game development, including how missteps with PlayStation 3 led to changes with PlayStation 4.
I had to find the old article, because interviews from last year keep popping up on Google.
Also.....in a strange twist of fate Cell wound up being beneficial to Sony outside of consoles: (not sure if the link below works).
"Moreover, the hard-earned experience from developing the Cell/B.E. at a massive investment cost led to Sonyʼs semiconductor business capturing the worldʼs number one position in imaging applications. Applying the advanced MOS LSI technology acquired in developing the Cell/B.E. to the development of CMOS image sensors helped them achieve their superior position. In terms of human resources, system LSI, network and other engineers rapidly cultivated technological skills while Sony brought together hundreds of highly specialized human resources from outside the company.
In 2015, for production bases of the semiconductor business, which had undergone restructuring in 2011, Sony announced a program to strengthen development and production of image sensors. Under the third mid-range plan, announced in 2018, Sony intends to maintain its number one position in imaging and become the global leader in sensing, both in the CMOS image sensor area.
In these ways, the development of the PlayStation® business has led to growth that leveraged Sonyʼs business diversity and generated substantial value for other businesses. Sony will continue to take on the challenge of creating products, services and platforms that achieve even greater appeal."
Puscifer
Member
And in doing so created the best looking games that generation. There were certain techniques that took till DX11 to match what Sonys graphics API was doing in combination with GL.
Spiral1407
Member
Sure but imagine what could have been possible with a CELL + G80 combo.
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Tbf hardware upscaler didn't do anything that GPUs couldn't do basically for free - it was just a convenience for titles to target a single resolution without extra hoops (and save some memory for upscale). Flipside is that PS3 had quality/performance modes in many titles some 15 years before it was cool or press even deemed to report on it.
In fairness - 360 had some too - just - not as often because of the upscaler.
But temporal reconstruction would have been a game changer for IQ of that generation - reminder that most common output was cheap post-process spatial AA with 600-720p resolutions on both consoles.
fart town usa
Member
Makes complete sense why that Warhawk demo is so effing funny.
Dude is sweating bullets trying to land the ship and only succeeded because the ship clipped through the platform.
PS3 is so damn baller. Launch was a disaster but it truly is a GOAT-tier entertainment device and the library of games is incredible. Outside of 4K/HDR, the PS3 is still a better media device than the PS4/PS5.
Dude is sweating bullets trying to land the ship and only succeeded because the ship clipped through the platform.
PS3 is so damn baller. Launch was a disaster but it truly is a GOAT-tier entertainment device and the library of games is incredible. Outside of 4K/HDR, the PS3 is still a better media device than the PS4/PS5.
Hero of Spielberg
Member
I remember working with in market research the PS3 launch and at $999 AID, it was struggling hard. Wasn’t until they bundled it with literally every Bravia TV that it seemingly started getting traction as people started offloading them for half price on eBay.
Spiral1407
Member
I'm not sure if reactivating the 8th SPE for that was feasible. Afaik, the current hypervisor completely ignores the 8th SPE and lv0 is unfortunately still loaded while in BC mode. There's also the fact that Sony wouldn't know which SPEs worked correctly, meaning support for that software emulator would be spotty at best (especially in non-bc phats).
The Toshiba GPU could totally work if they limited what the eDRAM could be used for like 360, while also offering enough of it to fit a full framebuffer without tiling.
That's the problem. Memory was VERY tight on PS3, especially with the OS taking up a huge chunk of it initially. Every little bit counts and having hardware that could do more than just horizontal scaling would be very beneficial. There's also the problem of some developer implementations not being up to snuff. Sonic Unleashed looks noticeably worse on my PS3 than my 360 despite them both outputting at 1080p. Apparently, the PS3 version even runs worse with 1080p seleced on the XMB.
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DeepEnigma
Gold Member
It was pretty well known that they were losing money on it. They even had it out in the open and in the red for a while in their financial reports. Which started the whole "Sony Doomed™."
This revisionism is wild. Wildly projective.
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OuterLimits
Member
I always assumed it was their insurance revenue that kept them afloat as PlayStation was taking huge losses during PS3 years. Didn't know their TV were doing so well.
Loomy
Thinks Microaggressions are Real
I always have to remind myself that there are kids among us. Or people who weren't old enough to remember the legit doom and gloom of the days they're claiming to be nostalgic about. Sony as a whole was in deep deep shit for most of the PS3 era. But a lot of people look at the last 2-3 years of the PS3 era and the stellar output and think the entire gen was like that.
You are describing criminal activities.
Also made the first OLED TV.
The only reason they lost market share is because of price. Sony still makes some of the best TVs on the market. They really need a budget segment in their TV lineup.
Topher
Identifies as young
Dench trying to concoct a narrative that current day Sony is cooking the books is hilarious.
Guardian Monkey
Member
Many of us were here on this site and can remember. Many know Sony was on the ropes coming into the ps4 era. That’s why you could walk into a store and buy one on launch unlike the ps2 and ps3 launches. The PlayStation brand was greatly impacted during the ps3 era. The Cell was the worse decision the company made. Of course now if it wasn’t for the PlayStation, Sony probably wouldnt be around either now. 
kazuyamishima
Member
The Brand was bleeding money, I reckon they only started to make some profit after the PS3 released and the games started to get traction and sales, but they ended losing $4Bn in the making due to some nefarious decisions.
Ironically, the PS4 saved Playstation and Playstation saved AMD.
Ironically, the PS4 saved Playstation and Playstation saved AMD.
DenchDeckard
Moderated wildly
Turning a proft in the second half of the generation doesn't mean they recovered all they lost. Yes, this is all common knowledge.
Sony has lost more than $3 billion on the PS3, so far
And with Microsoft also losing money, the future looks good for Nintendo....
Who told you that?
What on earth are you on about?
It was evident in their financial statements at the time.
Sony's quarterly loss widens
Sony's loss in the January-March quarter widened from a year ago on massive costs for the new PlayStation 3 game machine, but the company forecast that profit for the current year would more than double to a record on strong sales of flat TVs and other electronics.
Sony announces £685m loss and warns of worse to come
Plunging sales and strength of yen lead to firm's first net loss in 14 years
Cheers guys. Can't remember this stuff. I was in the thought that they'd turned it around completely in the end and it was only Xbox that lost tons of money due to RROD.
Topher
Identifies as young
If only there was a resource people could use before posting nonsense.
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BlackTron
Member
Interesting glimpse into how the different philosophies at Sony and Nintendo result in differing products. Nintendo hardware was married to software ideas. It's almost by natural progression that one became a first party box and the other a third party one.
Pros and cons. In Nintendo's case they might have had more hardware designs that didn't seem so wacky to third parties, because the controller wouldn't be too tailored to one game by their most decorated developer. In Sony's case, maybe someone would have told them not to try making a PS3 with two Cell processors a little earlier, leading to a more successful fight against 360 without such severe losses.
DenchDeckard
Moderated wildly
If only there was a resource people could use before posting nonsense.
I like to make takes while the news is hot based on the evidence in front of me. Then if I get corrected I then take the information on board better.
It's odd. I've probably read this info and forgotten it. Like I said I thought it was only ms that lost loads due to rrod
Topher
Identifies as young
BlackTron
Member
This was when MS actually did try to spend Sony out of business. First Xbox was never planned to make money, just to get their foot in. 360 had rrod but unlike Sony they could simply tank a mistake like that.
For Sony cash is existential, but MS's main goal at the time was just to take away Sony's lunch, even if they weren't going to eat it.
It wasn’t their internal studios. The key person behind abandoning Cell as a GPU was Cerny. He had the task of writing the software GPU pipeline and while getting somewhat OK numbers of simple and gouraud-shaded polygons the moment he tried to do anything resembling complex shaders involving normal maps etc. the performances was abysmal. Insomniac did early Resistance art based on Mark’s estimations at the time until it became clear to everyone involved that this would not work.
The original design was supposed to be 64MB eDram on the GPU and 128 on the Cell (no physical memory chips were planned at first). That's back when 360 was a 256MB machine also though - but yea they've basically designed a deferred shading accelerator with that thing. It would have been - interesting - to see results had those early machines came to pass...
That's overstating things - if game ran at 720p and upscaled to 1080p - you lost about 4MB of memory. In the end, every bit of memory matters in a console, yes - but it wasn't some large premium, we're talking 0.8% of ram available. And indeed that's why some games upscaled to 1080 vertical and let the upscaler do the rest (so getting further 2MB back).
I think the fact lots of games actually opted for native resolutions (giving perf/quality modes) was more interesting - and later in the gen that only became more common on the 360 as well. Obviously that had far larger memory ramifications - and plenty of software juggled it just fine on both consoles.
That also wasn't PS3 exclusive. 360 upscaler had a broken gamma, and it was also programmable, where results varied from game to game. And the games running differently at different resolution was the result of not simply upscaling as I mention above - lots of software did this by late in the gen, including titles that specifically did 30fps 1080p and 60fps 720p tagets.
But indeed - on PS3 there were some games doing this from day 1 - and sometimes HD modes were rather broken - there was that Marvel game I remember in particular...
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kevboard
Member
he did assist Insomniac tho didn't he? I guess that's why I remember it being Insomniac and other studios showing that they barely can get passed PS2 graphics on a Cell
The cell is a great piece of technology even at todays standard. Even medical field use cell processor and it was banned to be exported to China due to military implication that tech might be stolen. To and many developers especially from third party complained so much about it even if 1st and 2nd party are amazing with the cell processor. I hope for its comeback on ps6, maybe a hybrid with AMD Zen. This will really help especially the PSSR ML.
ReBurn
Gold Member
It's not that great compared to today's standards. The way modern multi-core, multi-threaded processors work is way more efficient than what Cell tried to do. It had a raw floating point calculation advantage over PC processors at the time, but it was way less versatile and not well suited for the direction CPU's were going overall. That's why it never made it out of specialized applications.
Sony is much better off in the future relying on PC hardware tech than using a custom RISC CPU like Cell. Cell is probably best left to museums and technology history books.
It wasn't reduced for the RSX(22 gb or so measured, which lines up to paper spec about as well as most mem subsystems), latency was worse though so using it for writes was less than ideal. But you could texture from it perfectly fine.
Being so late probably limited options in changing the vram side to anything else.
That depends on perspective, it would have been massively faster at deferred shading workloads, and with entire system running on eDram... but PC ports would get more cumbersome.
In a world we ended up in, where consoles are mini pcs, deviations like that would be seen as net negative, but it's not black and white.
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Well cell can still have its practical use in medical field, data server, data mining, networking, and military. But for me, im still more impress with cell technology.
EverydayBeast
ChatGPT 0.1
PS3 was authentic for better or worse, think about the risks it took (other os, ps home, cell processor, Blu-ray, six-axis, motion, free online etc.) for better or worse.
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Red Crayon Aristocrat
Member
PS3 wrecked the momentum video games had been on in the 90s and 00s and it's never fully recovered since.
Days like these...
Have a Blessed Day
It's unfortunate that Sony didn't pull the plug on Playstation
Alan Wake
Member
What? Wii grew the audience and Kinect rode on that wave while helping Xbox 360 to become the most popular Xbox ever. And PS3 ended up doing OK in the end with some truly remarkable games.
YeulEmeralda
Linux User
And the cycle continues with Highsense and TCL...
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
All I know is years from now when it’s time to buy a new tv, I’m seriously going to consider a TCL. I know LG OLEDs are the rave but when a good Lg is $2000+ cdn and a similar sized TCL is like $800, I might Scrooge it and save the $1000+.