Kutaragi Watch: PS3 is not just a toy

I saw on Next Gen that Kutaragi was quoted in Famitsu as saying

If you consider the PlayStation 3 a toy, then yes, it is an expensive toy. However, it is more than a toy. It is a PlayStation 3. And it is the only PlayStation 3. I hope that those who understand this will gladly purchase it.

Uh… was Kutaragi even TRYING to make sense?

Kutaragi Watch: PS3 is Nothing

In an interview with the Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Kutaragi said: “Price setting is always a headache for us. No game machines are comparable to the PS3, which is neither a genuine game console, home electronics [product] nor a personal computer. It is a new kind of product.”

You’re right. No game machines ARE comparable to the PS3, because people can actually AFFORD other game machines.

Update: I just read this on EvilAvatar.com

SCEI president Ken Kutaragi has defended the PlayStation 3’s high price tag once again, declaring that not only will consumers be prepared to pay the cost but that the console is “probably too cheap.”

Kutaragi is such a laugh riot!

Kutaragi Watch: Putting Wii in Perspective

Yeah, Sony pretty much camped the controller drops until they bagged themselves the phat lewts.

Yep, Kutaragi himself announced the grand theft controller. The PS3 controller will feature gyroscopic control, just like the Revolution will.

There seems to be a lot of anger out there over this. I can understand that, but if the Revolution controller is really that… well… “revolutionary” then it should be expected that other companies will want to copy it. If anything, this validates that Nintendo has been making the right moves all along.

That said, blatantly ripping off Nintendo isn’t going to win Sony any friends amongst the bloggers. Yeah, I think the uproar over the “Wii” naming will quietly fade away in the shadow of Sony’s E3 Surprise.

Overall, I rate Sony’s E3 conference somewhere on the bottom end of the average scale.

Kutaragi Watch: STANDARD PS3 HDD CONFIRMED

Okay. Let’s clear the air a little bit.

I’ve been known to bag on Sony from time to time. Okay, I do it all the time. But when Microsoft refuses to offer as standard what is (in my opinion) THE necessary console accessory, and then I see word that Sony will be offering HDD’s as standard. Will they be pre-loaded with Linux, as Kutaragi stated in the past? If so…

WHERE
DO
I
SIGN
UP!?!?

Kutaragi Watch: Ken’s dad can beat up your dad

And his console can run games at 120 fps (frames per second)! That’s better than Microsoft’s crappy 30 fps!

ONLY BLACKBELTS DISPLAY 120 FPS!!!

(And if you can read Japanese, here are his actual quotes. Right now, we’re just going by whatever Joystiq and Gamespot say he said.)

Kutaragi Watch: PS3 Expensive… because it’s for Flat Panels

Kutaragi has been making the rounds letting everyone know that the PS3 is going to be hella expensive. Well, we pretty much knew that already. What most people are missing however is what Kutaragi has said about HD and Flat Panels.

We’re looking at a life cycle of 10 years with the PlayStation 3. We’re currently shifting from standard TVs to HD TVs.

Wait, you’re telling me Sony is going to support the PS3 for 10 years?

Indeed. We’ll see if that actually materializes or not. I doubt it.

Basically, Kutaragi is trying to explain why the PS3 is more expensive and why it will be supported for the next 10 years when he says:

But in the next couple of years, most flat-panel TVs will be full HD.

Heh heh. I can’t argue with that. But the fact that market penetration for flat panel TV’s is currently pretty pathetic isn’t going to help Sony win the fight against Microsoft. (Granted flat panel sales are projected to increase and become more mainstream, but not for several years, yet. So what does that mean for Kutaragi and Sony, who seem to be wagering their PS3 against flat panels becoming more HD?

It means that no one (except those dreamy early adopters) is going to buy a PS3 until it is a closer price point to the Xbox 360. The Xbox 360 is going to win the console war right out of the gate. And Sony is on crack if they think they can overcome the Xbox steamroller with a $500 multimedia behemoth. Now, in 5 years, when the PS3 is a much closer price point to the Xbox 360, things may start to get a little more interesting.

Kutaragi Watch: Cell “defects” are just redundancy

Gamespot interviewed Ken Kutaragi about Cell chips and other details about the PS3.

Kutaragi stated earlier that although the Cell microprocessor comes with eight synergistic processor elements (SPEs) for multicore processing, the chip only uses seven of them. Kutaragi explained that ignoring one SPE as a redundancy will improve the chip’s production yield and allow costs to drop dramatically. In other words, Sony can ship a Cell chip with one defective SPE (out of its eight) as a working product, since the chip only uses seven SPEs to begin with.

So, basically, we’re now purposely building defects into the design of the PS3 processor. No wonder Jobs dumped IBM.

And, let’s be clear about something right now. This is NOT redundancy. When speaking of RAID, which means Redundant Array of Independent (or Inexpensive) Disks, we are talking about data integrity, fault tolerance, and performance. The whole POINT of redundancy in RAID is to have an increase in these three things. If not all, then at least one of them.

Kutaragi’s “creative redefinition” of redundancy means building a RAID array of 8 disks with 7 working disks and 1 disk you already know is bad. That’s not redundancy. That’s a manufacturing defect that you’ve found a workaround for.

Frankly, if the only way that Sony is going to keep up with PS3 manufacturing is to integrate manufacturing defects into the chip design, then I think I’ll steer clear of this console for a while until the defects get corrected (like I’ve done with every other Sony console. The later versions of the PS2 are great. Too bad the first 5 or 6 sucked.)

This is the ultimate aesthetic. The number of SPEs we equip to the Cell and how many we will actually use are two different things. I wanted to adopt the idea of ‘redundancy’ to the development of semiconductors.

Only Kutaragi would equate manufacturing and design defects with aesthetics.

Remember, if you would like to submit any blathering Kutaragi quotes, then drop a line to kutaragiwatch@topofcool.com.

Kutaragi Watch: Xbox 360 fails at life

I’ve decided to start a new feature. I call it:

KUTARAGI WATCH

Kutaragi is like the Steve Ballmer of Sony. Therefore, this should be a lot of fun for me. You may or may not have fun watching, but I don’t really care.

I saw this on GameDaily.biz, and Kutaragi explains why the Xbox 360 will fail.

The current Xbox will become antiquated once the new machine comes out this November. When that happens, the Xbox will be killing itself. The only way to avoid that is to support 100 percent compatibility from its [Xbox 360’s] launch date, but Microsoft won’t be able to commit to that. It’s technically difficult.

Well, of course it’s difficult, halfwit. And I’ll expect to see 100% backwards compatibility when the PS3 comes out. Because the PS2 had it, so why not the PS3? Oh wait… That’s right! The PS2 didn’t have 100% backwards compatibility.

Kutaragi also gives away the secret to the PS3’s 100% backwards compatibility.

It will be done through a combination of hardware and software. We can do it with software alone, but it’s important to make it as close to perfect as possible.

Uh… well… gee… that clears things right up. No WONDER the PS3 is so perfect, it uses a combination of hardware AND software. Ingenious.

That’s today’s Kutaragi watch, if you would like to submit something you saw to Kutaragi Watch just send email to kutaragiwatch@topofcool.com.