Playstation Vita

**Charismatic** · 2012-01-23 10:56

3G connections should be more than enough to game on... seriously.

**Correction** · 2012-01-23 11:04

Originally Posted by Kuroikage

3G connections should be more than enough to game on... seriously.

I doubt games like UMvC3 will be playable over 3G.

**Skidz** · 2012-01-23 14:55

Originally Posted by Reality

somebody told me that the 3g was for shit like chatting, gps, sharing game stuff, and Near, but not for actual gaming due to latency issues with 3g (uzor, that destroys our 3g pings in the US, we get around 180ms)

I've actually read this on some website, so unless soemthing has changed, you can't game on 3G

**6souls** · 2012-01-23 15:10

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7010/6...54a0cd9a37.jpg

Over the last few weeks, we’ve been examining the steadily falling sales of the PlayStation Vita in Asia, as it managed to limp past 500,000 unit sales after five weeks on the market. Since the numbers haven’t been too stellar despite its holiday-time release period, we’ve been wondering about when or if Sony would drop the system’s price to spur sales, much like the 3DS was forced to do earlier in 2011 when that system’s sales started to nosedive after its release.

Part of the question, though, relates to profits for units sold. Traditionally, Sony’s systems have typically cost more to manufacture than the price for which they sell. But after a tear-down of the Vita performed by UBM TechInsights, and a cost-analysis by Eurogamer, it turns out that each system costs around $160 to manufacture, meaning that selling the Vita at $250 will net Sony a nice little profit.

That helps explain why the company has maintained such a serene attitude in the face of the system’s sluggish sales—well, that, and because public relations are important, and it wouldn’t look too good for Sony execs to be running through the streets, naked, screaming about being “in the red.”

It’s pretty common, actually, for a high retail markup for devices in general, so it’s good for Sony (and the longevity of the system) that they’re reaping a profit now. Also, keep in mind that this will definitely make it easier for the company to drop the price of the Vita when the time is right. Even bringing the Vita down to $170, the exact same price of the 3DS, would still, in theory, bring in some profit for the company. Even if they brought the price down below the manufacturing cost, the sales of games are where companies usually make most of their profits, so it seems as though Sony’s got a pretty solid game plan ahead of them.

Here’s the breakdown of components and their estimated costs, reposted from Eurogamer:

Code:

    Display and touchscreens: $50
    Battery: $3.60
    Cameras: $3.50
    Wi-Fi/BT/GPS: $3.50
    NAND: $6.00
    SDRAM: $9.25
    Processor: $16.00
    BB+XCR: $16.25
    Non-electronic: $11.00
    Other: $30.00
    Supporting materials: $10.00

http://www.insidegamingdaily.com/201...imated-at-160/
http://www.ubmtechinsights.com/teard...paign_id=13825
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...vita-worth-230

**Hyan** · 2012-01-23 15:15

Yeah that doesn't even cover everything though....

**Salodin** · 2012-01-23 15:27

..packaging, and recouping the loss from R&D come to mind. They are definitely not rolling in the dough at that price point, especially if/when they lower the price.

**Skidz** · 2012-01-23 19:25

Originally Posted by Hyan

Yeah that doesn't even cover everything though....

Yeah, what the fuck... seems most idiots fail to realize that marketing/manufacturing/R&D actually costs a decent amount of money.

**6souls** · 2012-01-23 19:47

Eurogamer article

Spoiler: show

What a difference six months makes. In June last year Sony boss Kaz Hirai proudly took to the stage at E3 to announce that the Vita would retail for $250 (or $299 for the 3G version) - a figure that was generally greeted with enthusiasm by both press and gamers alike. Meanwhile, the considerably less powerful 3DS was floundering at around the same price, just a few months after its launch.

Fast forward to January 2012 and the 3DS is flying off shelves following an unprecedented pricing rethink while the Vita has got off to a miserable start in Japan, with numerous internet commentators already starting their 'cut the price' catcalls.

So, one month ahead of the machine's global launch, we've enlisted the help of technical intelligence experts UBM TechInsights and taken a screwdriver to Sony's new portable in an attempt to divine two things - whether you're getting good value for money, and whether Sony has left itself any room for an emergency price drop should the Western launch belly-flop.

UBM's VP of business intelligence, Jeffrey Brown, tells us that the total bill of materials for the 3G-enabled version of the system comes in at an estimated $159.10 - that's around £102.90. That figure breaks down as follows:

Code:

    Display and touchscreens: $50
    Battery: $3.60
    Cameras: $3.50
    Wi-Fi/BT/GPS: $3.50
    NAND: $6.00
    SDRAM: $9.25
    Processor: $16.00
    BB+XCR: $16.25
    Non-electronic: $11.00
    Other: $30.00
    Supporting materials: $10.00

As a point of reference, the equivalent raw material cost of the 3DS at launch was an estimated $101 per unit (around £61.76).

To work out exactly how much Sony is taking home on every system sold, we need to know the trade price that it's asking from retailers. Alas, a source within UK retail tells us that a figure has not actually been set yet by the platform holder. They speculate that this is a move by Sony to prevent the aggressive discounting that took place in the run up to the 3DS launch. If a retailer doesn't know how much it's going to have to pay for the device, it's going to err on the side of caution until it does and offer it at Sony's RRP.

Similarly, the source tells us Sony is holding back on confirming allocations for individual retailers too. Again, if a retailer doesn't know how many consoles it's going to get, it'd be foolish to discount the price if it's not going to be able to cover its customer orders.

That said, we can make an educated guess at the trade price. Tradition dictates that the margin offered to retailers on hardware is between five and 7.5 per cent before VAT has been added. If we conservatively assume it's six per cent, then the trade price for the 3G model is around £210 (given VAT of £56) and the non-3G model around £173 (given VAT of £46).

(UPDATE: Our retail source has since come back to us with Sony's official trade price - the standard model costs vendors £179.05, while the 3G model is £217.97. We've amended the figures below to reflect that.)

That means that Sony is earning around £115 on every 3G Vita sold in the UK, give or take currency conversion factors.

Of course, that's by no means pure profit. Very substantial labour, R&D, marketing and distribution costs all need to be taken into account too. Without a sneak peak at Sony's books, it's virtually impossible to ascertain exactly what proportion of the take-home is profit. However, it's worth noting that Nintendo earned about £108 on every 3DS sold at its launch price. And as we've learned since, it managed to find ample elbow room for a price cut on that margin.

Will Sony need to follow its rival's lead? It's far too early to tell, though the word from games industry commentators suggests it's unlikely to happen, no matter how the Vita performs when it launches on Western shores next month.

"I think that the Vita is a great value for the money, but it is launching at an inopportune time," Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter tells Eurogamer.

"The number of people looking for a dedicated gaming device is shrinking, and the media cards are insufficient to allow a lot of multimedia downloads.

"The price is great for what you get, but the fact is that the Vita is priced the same as the PS3. As a practical matter, someone without a PS3 would probably be happier if they bought a console first, and someone with a PS3 might look hard at the Xbox 360 at a similar price before a Vita.

"If a consumer already has a PS3, they won't really feel compelled to buy a Vita to play Uncharted, for example, but they might want to play Gears of War or Halo. Thus, although a good value, I think Vita is a tough sell. It would have been great in 2004-2006."

Pachter added that he sees the addressable market of PlayStation 3 owners looking for an additional portable console experience as around 10 million over the Vita's first couple of years.

He notes that "price drops will cause demand to rise," but suggests Sony is unlikely to go down that path.

"They likely don't have much room for a price cut at a profit, so my best guess is that they will stick with the introductory price for the wi-fi model at least for a year, and will reduce price only when the cost to build drops.

"I don't think they are going to make a very big business out of Vita, so it would be silly to chase a small market by incurring losses on each unit sold."

Screen Digest's Piers Harding-Rolls echoed Pachter's judgement in our recent Trends of 2012 feature.

"I expect Vita to get away relatively strongly at launch because of its strong content line-up but, like the 3DS, may suffer due to pricing after the initial rush has subsided. I expect Sony to be reluctant to make any significant pricing move, outside of value bundles, until at least 2013."

Only time will tell whether Sony can indeed find a significant audience for its new device. As is generally the case, its fate most likely rests not on the price of the hardware itself but on the quality of its games - not to mention how they're priced, though that's a different discussion for a different day.

As our recent Vita review explains, it's a machine with stacks of potential. In terms of its feature set, Sony has got nearly everything right - bar those awkward proprietary memory cards - and, as such, few should balk at the price tag.

Here's hoping there's enough people out there that can stomach the RRP and give third party developers suitable impetus to help Sony see its ambitious vision through. The gaming landscape will surely be healthier for it.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...vita-worth-230

tl:dr Pretty much goes into further discussion on the other costs & figures that Sony doesn't have much room for a price reduction at this time.

**Insanecyclone** · 2012-01-23 19:50

2:40 gameplay

**6souls** · 2012-01-23 19:58

Full Tech Insights posting with pics

Spoiler: show

As portable gaming slowly becomes the domain of super-powered smartphones, traditional gaming companies such as Nintendo and Sony continue with their efforts in maintaining the lion’s share of the market with their distinct portable devices. Nintendo earlier this year released their next generation console, the Nintendo 3DS, to a lukewarm reception. Eyes then turned to Sony to see what the Japanese consumer electronics leader would bring to the table.

At the E3 Expo, Sony unveiled their latest portable gaming console, the Playstation Vita – a console that looked to magnify the gaming experience of their previous portable, the PSP, with numerous new features that took gaming beyond the controller environment. Of that feature set, the standouts include a five-inch OLED multi-touchscreen that provides an incredibly vibrant 16 million colors. To add a new level of functionality, the Playstation Vita also includes a touch-sensitive back. This touch panel located on the back of the Playstation Vita allows game developers to incorporate new actions into their games, as tracing your fingers along the backside of the system corresponds to movements on screen.

The Playstation Vita also incorporates all the bells and whistles of today’s high-end smartphones, including GPS, a three-axis gyroscope, a three-axis accelerometer and a three-axis electronic compass, with both 3G and WiFi connectivity (a WiFi-only model is also available).

From a technical perspective, the Playstation Vita is of great interest because it is the first portable computing device (apart from laptops) to incorporate a custom quad-core ARM-based processor. Sony has apparently turned to IBM once again for a customized processor to maximize its quad-core graphics processor. With the selection of a quad-core powerhouse, Sony hopes to differentiate itself not only from other gaming consoles, but also the gaming experience offered on tablets and high-end smartphones like the Apple iPhone 4S.

When we opened the Playstation Vita, the inside featured 4 separate PCBs that served different purposes. Two of the PCBs were relegated to the system’s analog and digital joysticks, another dedicated to the wireless communications of the Vita and a main board that housed the powerful processor, GPU and other components used to make the Vita functional.

The big design winners in the Playstation Vita were Toshiba, Qualcomm and Avago. Toshiba was able to leverage their relationship with IBM and Sony to aid in the manufacturing of the quad-core processor that powers the operations of the Vita. Toshiba also received design wins in providing the multichip memory package and the system memory of the device.

Qualcomm again wins a socket in a major consumer electronic device (their last being the Apple iPhone 4S) by providing their MDM6200 HSPA+ GSM modem solution. Unfortunately, it looks as though Sony decided to make the Vita a GSM-only device so CDMA customers will be out of luck hoping for their providers to offer the cellular-enabled version of the Vita. Qualcomm also scores another design win for the PM8028 power management IC, which we have seen in numerous devices this year.

Avago scored six socket wins in the Playstation Vita – recording a number of devices on the communications board. Other design winners include Kionix with their accelerometer and STMicroelectronics with two design wins.

Inside the Sony CXD53155GG

http://www.ubmtechinsights.com/uploa...CXD53155GG.jpg
http://www.ubmtechinsights.com/uploa...55GG-die-1.jpg
http://www.ubmtechinsights.com/uploa...55GG-die-2.jpg

Powering the Playstation Vita is a chip that is an industry-first for portable gaming (and handsets) - a quad-core ARM-based processor designed by the same partnership that brought out the CELL processor used in the Playstation 3. Manufactured in a joint effort between Sony, IBM and Toshiba, the CXD5315GG is a four core ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore processor. There was some speculation that Samsung would be the manufacturer but Sony looks to have chosen a fab that it had comfort with working in the past.

Primary Component Listing

Code:

    Sony CXD5315GG – Quad-core processor with two Samsung K4P2G324EC 256 MB Mobile DDR2-S4 SDRAM Memory die (512MB total memory)
    Toshiba THGBM3G5D1FBAIE - Multichip Memory Package – Memory and Memory Controller
    Marvell 88W878S-BKB2 - Avastar WLAN/Bluetooth/FM Single-Chip System-on-Chip
    Fujitsu MB44C026A – Possible Multichannel Switching Controller
    Sony 1144KM427 – suspected AKM Magnetic Compass
    Wolfson Micro WM1803E – Audio Codec
    Qualcomm MDM6200 – Gobi Single-mode Modem
    Qualcom PM8028 – Power Management IC
    Toshiba TY890A111222KA - Mobile SDR SDRAM Memory
    Kionix KXTC9 - Three-axis MEMS accelerometer
    Avago ACPM-7868 - GSM Power Amplifier
    Avago ACPM-5005 - W-CDMA Band V Power Amplifier Module
    Avago ACPM-5001 - W-CDMA Band I Power Amplifier Module
    Avago ACPM-5002 - W-CDMA Band II Power Amplifier Module
    Avago ACPM-5008 - W-CDMA Band VIII Power Amplifier Module
    EPCOS B7429 - SAW Duplexer
    Sony CXM3555ER - SP10T Antenna Switch Module
    Atmel MXT224 – 224-Channel Touchscreen Sensor
    STMicroelectronics 32P10SOD
    STMicroelectronics 3GA51H - Gyroscope

http://www.ubmtechinsights.com/teard...paign_id=13825

Additional Pics

Spoiler: show

tl:dr Technical shit

**6souls** · 2012-01-23 20:01

Originally Posted by Insanecyclone

2:40 gameplay

BF3 on Vita

Batman & Mortal Kombat as well

http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/975...=1#post5010815

**Crab_Cake** · 2012-01-24 00:06

Originally Posted by avelle

Are all of the PSP titles guaranteed to work with the Vita? There weren't enough games in the PSP library to interest me in buying the unit but I'd definitely like to go back and play the few that did if there is guaranteed backwards compatibility.

Only ones on the PS Network (most of them on the PS Network should work).

Check this list.

Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep and Crisis Core aren't downloadable sadly.

Also @3G comments,<<link and quote removed due to copyright problem>>

**djzombie** · 2012-01-24 00:25

I've tried to play lots of games over 3g and its rarely a fun experience.

MW3: terrible, 1 bar ping on every server, can't even connect to the match making service, have to use the dedicated servers, so i doubt you could even do it on brobox.
Minecraft: terrible terrible lag

Really the only one I had success playing over 3g was swtor.

**Odin'sLaw** · 2012-01-24 16:19

Vita just seems like a terrible console from everything i've read, and I'm a hard copies kinda guy not so happy with having to download everything :/ oh well 3ds will keep me busy

**hey** · 2012-01-24 16:32

Originally Posted by Odin'sLaw

Vita just seems like a terrible console from everything i've read, and I'm a hard copies kinda guy not so happy with having to download everything :/ oh well 3ds will keep me busy

Seriously? People still think vita is download only? Wtf are people even getting this shit from? The only people who have ever said this was idiots who can't read and/or just made it up because they didn't feel like reading.

**Uzor** · 2012-01-24 17:45

So basically, the 3G version is pointless since you can't do shit with it anyway?

Good thing I have unlimited 4Mbit/s 3G on my mobile phone (my iPad has unlimited 8Mbit/s; but I bought it before my iPhone. Don't ask me why). Can just tether it to my iPhone as a wireless hot spot and play away on the go.

**richardd** · 2012-01-24 18:45

you cant help but pity sony a little bit

with that said, i hope the hackers keep getting better with the CFW thing by the time it hits the US

**izembo** · 2012-01-24 20:20

what IGN said is true. you aren't going to be doing regular gaming over 3g...thats 1.5MB internet in the us, thats total laggy garbage for things like CoD. and yeah...most games are on cards, not download

**Lucavi** · 2012-01-24 23:13

Originally Posted by richardd

you cant help but pity sony a little bit

with that said, i hope the hackers keep getting better with the CFW thing by the time it hits the US

I can't pity Sony when its the hackers that are always hacking sensible technology into Sony's peripherals that should have been in since launch.

And I've said it earlier in this thread and I'll say it again: Launch the damned thing with some titles worth buying and I'll buy the damned thing. Its not hard. Where the fuck is the badass mobile Armored Core? The good TRPG?

I'm not some Apple hipster tech fanboy. I don't buy a product because it "looks cool" or "has nifty gadgets". If there's nothing that I want to do with it, I'm not buying it. I had no interest the PSP. Lo' and behold, when they brought out Tactics Ogre, I went out and bought a PSP - for a single game.

Try harder, Sony.

**Reality** · 2012-01-25 02:38

Ruin looks awesome

but not launch title ; ;

preordered two games so far on newegg, Little Deviants and Ruin. btw, buy your games on newegg. there's 0 tax and 0 shipping if you live outside Cali. :D

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