Cheap blue-violet laser diodes to arrive by June

[NeoPlayStation]

Stolen from NeoGAF:

http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/News/Press/200704/07-037E/index.html

Blue-violet laser diode for BD recorder
"SLD3234VF" (output 170mW, φ5.6mm) Apr, 2007 4,500 Yen
"SLD3234VFI" (output 170mW, φ3.8mm) 5,000 Yen

Blue-violet laser diode for BD player
"SLD3131VF" (output 20mW, φ5.6mm) Jun, 2007 900 Yen
"SLD3131VFI" (output 20mW, φ3.8mm) 1,000 Yen

Blue-violet laser diode for BD recorder
"SLD3235VF" (output 240mW, φ5.6mm) Nov, 2007 4,500 Yen
"SLD3235VFI" (output 240mW, φ3.8mm) 5,000 Yen

900 Yen is about $7.59.
How much sony spends now to produce each one?

[VG Aficionado]

Earlier than expected price cut FTW? It would be nice that they could make it happen along with 65nm Cell and RSX chips as well as other cost reductions.

[totobeni]

^ even with the open price you can buy PS3 60GB in japapn from so many dealrship for 530-550 $ ..prove ? ...

look here
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2006/1128/kai48.htm

^ they bought PS3 60gb for 59,800yen (520 $) the 20GB in japan is for 49,980 (420 $ )

sony can do 100$ price cut anytime...

[angelcage]

http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/News/Press/200704/07-037E/index.html

How much sony spends now to produce each one?

http://img258.imageshack.us/img258/8393/1116061vw9xd7.gif


this estimation is from september 06,so probably sony already cutted the prices in some areas(ee+gs)...i think a price cut in time for the holydays is highly possible.

[NeoPlayStation]

So It's reasonable to expect at least $100 price cut by this fall.

[Domination]

So It's reasonable to expect at least $100 price cut by this fall.

I woudn't fully place my bets on a $100 price cut this early, although, like I said before, Sony is very aggressive when it comes to things like this. But I do and have always believed that with Sony expanding the a lot of the technology in the PS3 into their electronics market that they would be able to cut cost faster than their competitors using similar technology in their products.

This is very good news for Blu Ray. It makes you wonder about that $300 Blu Ray player Sony was talking about awhile back. :happy:

[Rockmond]

So It's reasonable to expect at least $100 price cut by this fall.

The holiday season (Nov/Dec) would be a sweet spot for a price cut.

[Shogun042]

well now this whole "break even" plan is starting to bear some fruit. hell Sony could announce a price-drop at an E3 Keynote, that would be golden. complete turn around from last year's keynote. throw in all the holiday exclusives and the internet will be singing praises, well maybe at least part of it.

now say you had a $449 60GB PS3, then a 200GB $549 PS3 (bundled with HDMI and a headset or Eye3 or something). hell the higher end PS3 could include some sort of TiVo software, Karraker implied in a recent interview that this wasn't out of hte question. 65 nm Cell, removal of EE+GS, now this? isn't out of the question. aggressive push for market share.

Sony can get money elsewhere - a shit load of movies they released recently and that are coming out soon, not to mention Spiderman 3 which is a huge cash cow, and a successful TV division.

now if you have a simple BR player with these sorts of diodes this holiday season you can theoretically sell it for $299, so you have competition for a cheap ass Wal-mart drive if that even is an HD DVD drive. /off topic

to sum it up, if (that's a huge IF) this leads to large price cuts then i know plenty of people who would buy the system.

[casualkiss]

Considering how relatively cheap RAM cost, I am surprised they didn't include more. An extra $20 or so could have made life much easier on the developers.

[EvilTaru]

Considering how relatively cheap RAM cost, I am surprised they didn't include more. An extra $20 or so could have made life much easier on the developers.

Specs are set, it doesn't make sense to increase the RAM now when there are a few million PS3s out there already. What makes it tricky is the two pools of RAM. It's a stupid thing to keep pushing multiple skus expecting developers to take advantage of the new changes when what's out there doesn't support it, we're not dealing with a ****ing PC here, not to mention the point is to DECREASE THE COSTS and NOT to stuff more things in.

[cpiasminc]

this estimation is from september 06,so probably sony already cutted the prices in some areas(ee+gs)...i think a price cut in time for the holydays is highly possible.
Those estimates were never even close to the reality of it even when they were originally published. Those figures are just by a random company that never had anything to do with the PS3 supply chain. They're not really clear on what "other components and manufacturing" is, but there was little room left for anything that could add up to $150. The I/O controller doesn't even cost half as much to make as that $60 figure... The Bluray drive cost... I'm not sure, but I believe it was stated that it was the single most expensive component in the machine.

The only way you're going to know how much the manufacturing costs really are is to look up Sony's own invoice sheets, and those won't ever be public.

Considering how relatively cheap RAM cost, I am surprised they didn't include more. An extra $20 or so could have made life much easier on the developers.
I'm assuming you mean more RAM to begin with, but... More of which type? The GDDR-3 pool is on the same package with the RSX, which is a big cost-adder for the RSX but also a complexity-saver, and it's not very amenable to expansion without doing some damage to the board layout. XDR, otoh, is pretty much the lowest-volume memory platform on the planet right now, so that makes it the most expensive as well.

[curryking1]

Considering how relatively cheap RAM cost, I am surprised they didn't include more. An extra $20 or so could have made life much easier on the developers.

I was going to comment on this.... but I got beat by a mile lol.

[casualkiss]

Specs are set, it doesn't make sense to increase the RAM now when there are a few million PS3s out there already. What makes it tricky is the two pools of RAM. It's a stupid thing to keep pushing multiple skus expecting developers to take advantage of the new changes when what's out there doesn't support it, we're not dealing with a ****ing PC here, not to mention the point is to DECREASE THE COSTS and NOT to stuff more things in.

I wrote in past-tense. I was surprised that more RAM wasn't included in the original spec. But CPI explained why.

Of course you cannot change specs going forward!

[Viper]

Also note that the drive cost and the diode cost are obviously not the same thing. Dropping from ~$100.00 to under $8.00 in less than a year is rather dramatic on a scale rarely.

Also note, Sony may not want to cut the price by $100.00 even if they could as they need to make up some of the money they lost last fiscal year. If they can sell another million or two with $100.00 profits on each prior to a price cut, it would go a long way to helping their operating income for the games division. However, that would put it just about the middle of fall for the price cut which is when the software sales will begin to spike.

[cliffbo]

excellent news!

[casualkiss]

With the huge reduction in blue-violet diodes, I am suprised that Sony can't put together a blu-ray player using rejected Cell chips (only a few SPE's needed) for $300 or so.

But I think Viper is right. Unless Sony really has to, they will not continue the huge revenue loss position. At the end of the day, Sony has to answer to its stockholders, not PS3 fans.

[LiquidEagle]

They should hire this company to get more RAM into newer models of the PS3.

:-p

Anyways, cutting costs is cool, and I hope they announce something at E3.

[curryking1]

But t3h catz ate my megahurtzs while they changed ma RamSS!

The cell only runs at like 1.2 GHz now.... :(:(:(