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The Sony PlayStation 3 is about video games first, so says Kazuo Hirai, chief executive officer of Sony Computers.

There are were more jobs added in the US tech industry than last year, but the growth has slowed as compared to 2007, so says AeA.

Sony PS3 clip

Makes a point in 30 seconds

Game console failure rates

SquareTrade reports that Microsoft's Xbox 360 has experienced a failure rate of 16.4% and Sony's PlayStation 3 fails about 3% of the time.

That has to hurt.

Donkey Note:
Microsoft has replaced its gear twice for Any Donkey, Jr., both following the appearance of three red lights flashing on the power display. On both occasions, the arrival of a shipping box was within two business days and then a turnaround of about two weeks.

Joe's Links

Toshiba denies that it has decided to pull the plug on HD DVD. DailyTech:

"We have not made any official decision yet," a Toshiba spokeswoman said, though acknowledged that Warner’s move to Blu-ray Disc did have a ripple effect. "We are cautiously assessing market movements as it is true that Warner Brother's decision to sell titles exclusively on Blu-rays affected our sales in January."

According to one unnamed source, "a complete withdrawal" is one of the options Toshiba is considering. If it were so, it would leave the format without any major maker of hardware, effectively terminating HD DVD quicker than through studio support loss.

Sony PlayStation 3 will outsell Nintendo's Wii in 2007. From TechOn:

iSuppli feels, however, that the PS3 will grow faster than the Wii, supported by core game fans. The company predicted PS3 sales will soar by an average of 39% every year from 2007 to 2011 to 38.4 million units in 2011. The PS3, Wii and Xbox will account for 35.4, 34.8 and 29.8%, respectively, of global sales in 2011, iSuppli said.

Toshiba shares climb in anticipation of Toshiba abandoning HD DVD. News.com reports:

Investors cheered an impending end to a format war for next-generation DVDs on Monday, pushing up shares of both Toshiba, on the verge of abandoning its HD DVD discs, and Sony, the leader of the rival Blu-ray camp.

More reports of scientists loving Sony PlayStation 3 for their research. This one from Telegraph.co.uk

Joe's links

Sony aims for its PlayStation 3 to be a money maker in fiscal 2008 which begins in March 2008. Sony had hoped that 2007 would be year the red ink vanished, but it was not to be. The cost of the Cell and RSX semiconductors, along with the optical pick-up are the likely culprits.

Sony sold a reported 1.2 million PlayStation 3s during the holiday season in North America.

More at DailyTech.

Sony PlayStation 3 strong sales

Sony Corporation reports that it sold 1.2 million PlayStation 3 systems in North America during the holiday season.

This on the heels of the announcement that Warner Bros. Entertainment "will release its high-definition DVD titles exclusively in the Blu-ray disc format beginning later this year . . ."

Sony pimpin' its product

Direct from Sony is an email telling me:

Take your gaming to the next level with the PLAYSTATION®³ computer entertainment system, featuring Full HD 1080p resolution and Blu-ray Disc™ playback capability.

Buy now and receive five Blu-ray Disc movies for free and free ground shipping.

Somebody once said that every Rambus shareholder should buy at least one . . .

Christmas at Rambus Inc.

What will Harold give 'em this year?

Last year Harold Hughes passed out a Sony Playstation 3 to each Rambus Inc. employee. Apparently, because Rambus IP is inside. Sweet . . .

As a Rambus Inc. shareholder, I applaud. Heck of a lot cheaper than the old pizza, beer and shred parties and the resulting legal fees . . .

Read more at NYTimes.com

Joe's links

GDA says HiGig IP is available. GDA, has a special relationship with Rambus Inc. - currently as a reseller and integrator of Rambus digital core intellectual property (IP) products, which include "a complete line of controller cores for PCI Express, Ethernet, SPI4.2 and RapidIO implementations."

Back in April of 2005 RMBS announced the acquisition of GDA IP including, digital core IP compatible with PCI Express, Ethernet, SPI-4, USB and SATA protocols, products in development and noted it would be "extending offers to a number of GDA Technologies employees."

On the skeptic front:

Sony to offer a discounted malnourished version of the PS3 in Europe in time for the year end - "Christmas" for the nonPC - holidays. Sony says it is mere rumor and speculation . . .

Toshiba plans on showing off its SpursEngine in early October at Japan's CEATEC exhibition. Designed to work with Rambus Inc. XDR DRAM. Toshiba thinking that if you build 'em they will buy 'em?

Sweet memories . . .

"Some famous short squeezes of the past were Rambus in 2000, which went from $20 to $117 in a month . . ."

Joe's links

Brian Dipert, writing for EDN opines:

The Sony PlayStation 3, for example, is today's 'poster child' for the Cell processor, for Blu-ray optical storage, and for Rambus XDR memory.

Readers who slog through the rest of the article will learn that Dipert is suspicious of the Wii shortage - perhaps it is artificial or due to incompetence? The fan boy comments following are worth a scan.

Legal Pad, a CAL Law Blog reported on an American Bar Association panel discussion "What Do They Think About: Inside the Minds of Today's High-Tech General Counsel." Of interest to Ramboids was comments attributed to John Danforth, senior legal adviser for litigation at Rambus Inc.

Mr. Danforth is credited with the notion that making GCs answerable directly to CFOs may have helped enable stock option backdating. Interesting. Is this akin to the devil made me do it defense?

Any Donkey, noticing an error in the post, commented and the author graciously acknowledged his error.

Sony PS3 80GB $599US

Out with the old (Sony PS3 60GB) and in with the new PS3 80GB. In July Sony reduced the suggested retail price of the 60GB machine a hundred bucks from $599 to $499. Sony claims "unit sales at the company’s top five retailers have jumped 113% when compared to the average sales of four weeks prior to the price drop" and expected the 60GB to be sold out this fall. Thereafter, its the 80GB model and it comes with Motorstorm. (Cool clip if you have a wide pipe.)

Featuring an expanded hard disk drive, the new 80GB PS3 is designed to appeal to the online gaming and entertainment enthusiast, providing ample storage space to download more games and other entertainment content from PLAYSTATION®Network. There are currently more than 60 playable games and game-related downloads available through PLAYSTATION®Store, with expanded entertainment content coming soon. The new model features the million-selling game MotorStorm in the box, allowing up to 12 players to play online at one time, hitting the dirt in this visually-arresting, fast-paced racing title.

Read more at US Playstation.com.

Sony PlayStation 3 will be hot Q1 '08?

Gamespot News reports an E3 07 surprise 20 minute demo presentation by legendary game producer Hideo Kojima of a demo of Metal Gear Solid 4 scheduled to be released Q1 08 for Song PlayStation 3.

Read Gamespot News glowing report linked here.

Joe's Links

Sony's PlayStation 3 is in full production now that it has worked out the blue-violet laser diodes shortage. Read more at DailyTech. High production costs, pricey to purchase, few unique or blockbuster games and Wii are issues that Sony has not resolved. No shortage of PlayStation 3's on the store shelves. Commentary following the DailyTech article by Sony Fanboys and their nemeses is both entertaining and occasionally insightful.

Gartner forecasts worldwide PC shipments to climb 11.1% to a total of 257.1 million units in 2007. Read more at DigiTimes. Ramboids remain hopeful of scoring more than a few quarters a machine.

HT Pinehurst Joe.

Making it with your PS3

"It"? Your generation hints as to what "it" might be to you.

Sony is studying the notion of forming a supercomputing grid of idle Playstation 3s for commercial use. Reportedly, 20,000 PS3 users have already signed up for the Folding@home project a nonprofit online supercomputing grid for biomedical research. With millions more PS3s in the pipe and soon to be in homes, Sony sees an opportunity to lease idle processors.

To encourage PS3 owners to join the grid, Sony is considering offering discounts on products, such as the PS3 and accessories.

Read more at EETimes Online.

It's the news

Samsung Electronics has begun mass production of the industry’s first 1Gb DDR2 DRAM using 60nm–class process technology.

The 60nm process is expected to become the mainstream circuit technology for DRAM in 2008. In the first year of market availability alone, 60nm DRAM revenues are expected to reach US$2.3 billion worldwide and further increase to US$32 billion by 2009.

Read more at DigiTimes Bits + Chips.

Sony is shipping 1,000,000 Playstation 3's a month. Launch is expected in Europe and Australia during March. Read more at DigiTimes Systems.

Tech stocks took a beating on Tuesday and analyst Craig Berger predicts "Chip stocks are still going to outperform other tech sectors in 2007." Read more at Electronic News.

HT Pinehurst Joe.

Sony shipping Playstation 3's

Sony claims it is on track to have shipped to North America 2,000,000 Playstation 3 units by the end of March (2007). This will help alleviate the "shortage." Apparently, the "shortage" isn't in all parts of North America - see Penny Arcade's efforts to collect a PS3 bounty.

Shortage or not, Sony is doing a better job delivering the product in quantity as compared to PS2.

Read more at DailyTech.

Ramboids await quarterly reports so that they can attempt to determine Rambus's royalty take. And, Ramboids await restatements so that they can determine how deeply they were raped with backdated options . . .

HT Pinehurst Joe.

The News

DigiTimes Bits+Chips:

With Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3 (PS3) new-generation game consoles priced below their component costs, the game console vendors are aggressively preparing to migrate chief components to 65nm production in order to help shrink the gap between retail prices and costs.

DigiTimes Bits + Chips:

Hynix Semiconductor pulled off a double upset in the DRAM market with a remarkable increase in shipments causing it to rise to the second rank for both the fourth quarter and for all of 2006, up from third previously, according to iSuppli.

EETimesUK Online:

Chip market growth in 2007 will be 7 percent according to Bruce Diesen, an analyst with Terra Securities ASA, who made his prediction after seeing relatively weak numbers for December from the Semiconductor Industry Association. There is a general consensus among analysts that the first half 0f 2007 will be weaker than normal seasonality would suggest and that growth is set to occur predominantly the second half. The timing of the turnaround from a mild dose of inventory burn-off is likely to have major effect on the growth numbers for 2007.

Ars Technica:

Sony's games division may have taken its hard knocks lately in the press and in sales figures, but the company is determined to turn things around. To that end, the company is planning a two-pronged attack: price cuts on the Playstation 3 console and a marketing surge promoting the Playstation Portable's Internet features.

HT Pinehurst Joe

Playstation 3, boom or bust?

Is the glass 1/2 full or 1/2 empty?

Playstation 3 and Sony fan boys hit the highs:

Sony has shipped 2,000,000 PS3 consoles in shortest period of time after launch for any console.

Sony shipped 1,000,000 consoles to US market by end of 2006.

PS3 sales are running at 85% of inventory.

Sales are strong despite a shortage of new games and the fact that many consumers are without TVs that take advantage PS3s spectular images.

On the other hand:

Wii is selling, selling and selling.

Wii is the talk of the playground.

Did I mention that Wii is selling?

And then on the other hand . . .

Any Donkey expects that during the current console generation, millions of Wii buyers will move on to the "hard stuff" and PS3 will be waiting . . .

Read SiliconValley.com article.

Sony PS3, reducing its cost

Future cost savings include:

2 1Gib chips running at 1.4GHzwith a 64-bit memory bus replacing the 4 512Mib GDDR3 chips with 128-bit memory bus

2 1Gib chips with 32-bit bus replacing the 4 512Mib XDR DRAMS with 64-bit bus

A soft emulation solution (for backward compatibility) allowing the PS2's EE/GS and 2 128Mib RDRAM chips to be removed.

Source: Vintage Computer Manuals -Modern Times

View schematics of now and future PS3 here.

Rambus Inc. CEO pimps Sony PS3

Some of the crew at IEEE Spectrum Online met with Harold Hughes, Rambus Inc., CEO, while the later was in New York to "ring the bell" in a ceremonial service of opening the NASDAQ exchange. Mr. Hughes made points at IEEE as he was accompanied by a PS3 providing IEEE with "our first chance to play with the thing to our heart's content."

A Rambus techie popped the hood of a PS3 . . . boys will be boys.
IEEE notes:

Rambus designed the DRAM memory and the bus system that link the fiercely fast Cell microprocessor to the graphics chip, a link that is always the bottleneck in such data-hungry products.

Perhaps, HH should send a band of merry men & women across the land with Sony Playstation 3's and generate more non-negative press?

HT to Rambus Inc. public relations . . . please make hay while the sun shines.