[gameprogrammer] Re: Multithreaded humor and musings


I know a billion dollars seems like a lot of money... but to companies
like Sony and Microsoft losing a billion on hardware is no big deal and
is not even vaguely a case of "betting the company". It is normal for
console companies to lose money on the console for a year or more while
they make money selling the games.


This is true.  In that same article they write:

>By comparison, the PlayStation 2 cost 39,800 yen ($364) in Japan and $299 in America when it
>launched in 2000. During its first year of release, Sony Computer Entertainment suffered a loss of >51.1 billion yen ($458 million), but it recovered the next year with a profit of 82.9 billion yen >($759 million), followed by 112.6 billion yen ($1.03 billion) the year after.

That's definitely good numbers there. Sony has history on its side. So maybe the "betting the farm" comment was a bit of hyperbole. ;)

Nevertheless, there's a number of issues that make me think that things will pan out differently this time:

1) Sony is struggling overall right now: "The company's quarterly net loss grew to about $533 million (56.5 billion yen) from about $360 million a year earlier" --http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1040_22-5686459.html

2) Microsoft will be first this time, by around 6 months and a holiday season.

3) Microsoft has a proven, managed online service in Xbox Live, and I have yet to see something comparible from Sony.

4) Linking with "media edition." The ability to beam movies from your PC to your living room tv is a killer feature. http://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox360/entertainment.htm

5) The xbox also appears to win on cost right now, and ease of development.

I know I'm starting to sound like an Xbox zealot, but I honestly predict Microsoft to win this round, at least in the US (Japan may very well be a different story). But all we can do is wait and see. There are tons of Sony loyalists out there that very well may prove me wrong. :)

I'm still a big believer in PC games, but consoles have their moments every now and then.

I didn't mean for this to turn into Sony vs Microsoft. Well, perhaps a little, but I was more interested in the question of symmetric vs asymmetric multi processing as evidenced in Xenon (xbox 360 cpu) vs cell.

brian.

(oops, sent previous with wrong address)




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