5 ms·

They don't do it initially to lock the purchases so much so as to ensure people aren't getting free hardware. Due to the economics and competition, consoles ar

by ethbro 10y ago

They don't do it initially to lock the purchases so much so as to ensure people aren't getting free hardware. Due to the economics and competition, consoles are almost always sold at a hardware loss early in the generation, and only begin to become profitable at some much later point. Ergo, if someone buys a console and buys no games, Sony/MS/Nintendo (maybe not the last) loses money.

notyourwork 10y ago
> They don't do it initially to lock the purchases so much so as to ensure people aren't getting free hardware. This is an interesting thought I hadn't considered until now.
- AtheistOfFail 10y ago
  This is why console development is expensive. You have to rent your dev kit and you pay per update. This ensures the hardware is "below cost"
zanny 10y ago
Interestingly enough, none of the consoles in the most recent generation (PS4 / Xbone / WiiU) were ever sold at a loss leader price. They were all profitable at their release prices (400 / 500 / 300) from the get go.
- gild 10y ago
  Source? I seem to recall that the WiiU was sold at a loss from the get-go, but I may be confusing that from around a year later when they cut the price down to $250.
  - qbrass 10y ago
    The hardware cost less than the retail price, but they had to recoup development costs. They claimed that the purchase of just one game was enough to make the console purchase profitable.
  - ekianjo 10y ago
    The WiiU hardware is previous generation class of hardware and nothing it uses would cost the price they sell it for. Same thing for the Wii at the time, it was never sold at loss.
    - mynameisvlad 10y ago
      > it was never sold at loss. That is incorrect: http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/25/3552686/nintendo-wii-u-loss-leader-launch http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/25/3552686/nintendo-wii-u-lo...
- jsnell 10y ago
  The PS4 hardware became profitable after about 6 months, at launch it was described roughly as a loss that'd be offset by the buyer also getting a PS Plus subscription.
smnrchrds 10y ago
Exactly. People were making supercomputers and computing clusters with PS3 when it was possible to install Linux on them. It was at least partly because it was cheaper than paying for full-priced hardware. http://phys.org/news/2010-12-air-playstation-3s-supercomputer.html http://phys.org/news/2010-12-air-playstation-3s-supercompute...
- niklasrde 10y ago
  Wasn't the PS3 originally sold at less than material cost which made this very economical for that kind of use case? Also means it was in Sony's interest to sell many more games/accessories/licences/however else they make money with the PlayStation ecosystem than consoles.
ComodoHacker 10y ago
And second, open hardware means games will be pirated quickly after release. So again, less game sales and less support from game makers.
wiz21c 10y ago
I'm not in the business, but I'm sure that the console makers, since they sell someone else's software, must probably take all measures to protect intellectual property. They must probably be able to demonstrate that to lawyers (and the lawyers for Electronic Arts may probably be of the most convincing type. )
- criddell 10y ago
  And since so many games have a multi-player component, they also have to protect the integrity of online play.
- ethbro 10y ago
  What would make an "Other OS" feature enable piracy? Especially nowadays where the online service component is manufacturer hosted and controlled and we have access to relatively hard TPMs. Sure, the hypothetical pirater now has access to device drivers and an open OS environment, but why wouldn't something like SecureBoot work to ensure that if you want to connect to the multiplayer / social network then you have to have loaded an unmodified OS as verified by the TPM. No one said SecureBoot was a terrible idea technically, only that MS (and ARM/Android) were telling half-lies about a strong commitment to customers being able to make another OS choice, if they so choose.
  - pandaman 10y ago
    >What would make an "Other OS" feature enable piracy? It was an attack vector and it allowed the initial hypervisor dump[1], which led to the PS3 getting hacked. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Hotz#PlayStation_3_security https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Hotz#PlayStation_3_secu...
    - ethbro 10y ago
      That's the security through obscurity model though. As fail0verflow continually notes in their blogs [1], piracy is the least interesting use case of exploits for them. Yes, the additional attack surface available when loading a user-controlled OS is helpful in writing exploits. But Sony bungling the PS3's PRNG for code signing would have still been broken even without Other OS. [1] https://fail0verflow.com/blog/2016/console-hacking-2016-postscript/ https://fail0verflow.com/blog/2016/console-hacking-2016-post...
captn3m0 10y ago
I'd buy a console if one of the companies makes a commitment to open it up after X amount of sales. They can keep that number as high as they want, but I'm sure lots of folks would be interested in such a promise.

by ethbro 10y ago

notyourwork 10y ago

> They don't do it initially to lock the purchases so much so as to ensure people aren't getting free hardware. This is an interesting thought I hadn't considered until now.

AtheistOfFail 10y ago
This is why console development is expensive. You have to rent your dev kit and you pay per update. This ensures the hardware is "below cost"

zanny 10y ago

Interestingly enough, none of the consoles in the most recent generation (PS4 / Xbone / WiiU) were ever sold at a loss leader price. They were all profitable at their release prices (400 / 500 / 300) from the get go.

gild 10y ago
Source? I seem to recall that the WiiU was sold at a loss from the get-go, but I may be confusing that from around a year later when they cut the price down to $250.
- qbrass 10y ago
  The hardware cost less than the retail price, but they had to recoup development costs. They claimed that the purchase of just one game was enough to make the console purchase profitable.
- ekianjo 10y ago
  The WiiU hardware is previous generation class of hardware and nothing it uses would cost the price they sell it for. Same thing for the Wii at the time, it was never sold at loss.
  - mynameisvlad 10y ago
    > it was never sold at loss. That is incorrect: http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/25/3552686/nintendo-wii-u-loss-leader-launch http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/25/3552686/nintendo-wii-u-lo...
jsnell 10y ago
The PS4 hardware became profitable after about 6 months, at launch it was described roughly as a loss that'd be offset by the buyer also getting a PS Plus subscription.

smnrchrds 10y ago

Exactly. People were making supercomputers and computing clusters with PS3 when it was possible to install Linux on them. It was at least partly because it was cheaper than paying for full-priced hardware. http://phys.org/news/2010-12-air-playstation-3s-supercomputer.html http://phys.org/news/2010-12-air-playstation-3s-supercompute...

niklasrde 10y ago
Wasn't the PS3 originally sold at less than material cost which made this very economical for that kind of use case? Also means it was in Sony's interest to sell many more games/accessories/licences/however else they make money with the PlayStation ecosystem than consoles.

ComodoHacker 10y ago

And second, open hardware means games will be pirated quickly after release. So again, less game sales and less support from game makers.

wiz21c 10y ago

I'm not in the business, but I'm sure that the console makers, since they sell someone else's software, must probably take all measures to protect intellectual property. They must probably be able to demonstrate that to lawyers (and the lawyers for Electronic Arts may probably be of the most convincing type. )

criddell 10y ago
And since so many games have a multi-player component, they also have to protect the integrity of online play.
ethbro 10y ago
What would make an "Other OS" feature enable piracy? Especially nowadays where the online service component is manufacturer hosted and controlled and we have access to relatively hard TPMs. Sure, the hypothetical pirater now has access to device drivers and an open OS environment, but why wouldn't something like SecureBoot work to ensure that if you want to connect to the multiplayer / social network then you have to have loaded an unmodified OS as verified by the TPM. No one said SecureBoot was a terrible idea technically, only that MS (and ARM/Android) were telling half-lies about a strong commitment to customers being able to make another OS choice, if they so choose.
- pandaman 10y ago
  >What would make an "Other OS" feature enable piracy? It was an attack vector and it allowed the initial hypervisor dump[1], which led to the PS3 getting hacked. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Hotz#PlayStation_3_security https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Hotz#PlayStation_3_secu...
  - ethbro 10y ago
    That's the security through obscurity model though. As fail0verflow continually notes in their blogs [1], piracy is the least interesting use case of exploits for them. Yes, the additional attack surface available when loading a user-controlled OS is helpful in writing exploits. But Sony bungling the PS3's PRNG for code signing would have still been broken even without Other OS. [1] https://fail0verflow.com/blog/2016/console-hacking-2016-postscript/ https://fail0verflow.com/blog/2016/console-hacking-2016-post...

captn3m0 10y ago

I'd buy a console if one of the companies makes a commitment to open it up after X amount of sales. They can keep that number as high as they want, but I'm sure lots of folks would be interested in such a promise.