- Uređivano
Yoshida gostovao na Kinda Funny podcastu, bilo mi je zanimljivo ovo o PS3
Izdvojeno najbitnije (AI):
Inovativnost Cell procesora:
- Cell Broadband Engine (CELL BE) bio je revolucionarna arhitektura s više jezgri unutar jednog procesora.
- Programeri su morali prilagoditi svoj kod kako bi podijelili zadatke na više jezgri, što je omogućilo nevjerojatne performanse, ali je bilo izuzetno složeno za programiranje.
- Peak performanse CELL procesora bile su toliko snažne da je njegova izvozna uporaba bila zabranjena u neke zemlje zbog potencijalne vojne primjene.
Problemi s razvojem:
- Sony je uložio ogromne resurse u razvoj CELL procesora, surađujući s IBM-om i Toshibom.
- Tvrtka je izgradila vlastitu tvornicu za proizvodnju CELL procesora, što je značilo golemu investiciju.
- Ken Kutaragi, tadašnji šef PlayStation odjela, imao je viziju da CELL procesor koristi i izvan svijeta videoigara, što se na kraju nije ostvarilo.
Financijski pritisak:
- Lansiranje PS3 i prve dvije godine nakon njega rezultirale su ogromnim gubicima za Sony.
- Sony je preživio zahvaljujući uspjehu svoje WEGA serije flat-screen televizora, koji su nadoknadili gubitke PS3 odjela.
- Yoshida je naveo kako je mislio da je "gotovo" za Sony u to vrijeme.
Organizacijski izazovi:
- Zbog složenosti PS3 arhitekture, Sony je morao objediniti resurse u svojoj globalnoj organizaciji.
- Formiran je Worldwide Studios (WWS) 2005. godine, kako bi se najbolje tehničke stručnosti podijelile među timovima diljem svijeta.
- Programi i alati koje su razvili studiji poput Naughty Dog-a i Marka Cernyja omogućili su drugim timovima unutar Sonyja i trećim stranama da bolje iskoriste PS3 hardver.
Zaključak Yoshide:
- "Najteže vrijeme bilo je lansiranje PS3," izjavio je Yoshida.
- CELL procesor je bio tehnološko čudo, ali zbog svoje složenosti i visokih troškova proizvodnje, gotovo je doveo Sony do propasti.
- Unatoč svemu, zajednički napor studija i neočekivani uspjeh drugih Sonyjevih proizvoda pomogli su tvrtki da prebrodi teško razdoblje.
Cijeli citat:
"The most difficult time, (was) launch of PS3, it was hard."
"Before the launch of PS3, we get the prototype hardware to work on first party and the team start working on, it multiple months to get the team to have something on screen to see. The PS3 CPU (CELL BE) was such a advanced architecture, CELL processors has mutiple processors inside the processor and a programmer has to divide into these different chunks to simultaneously use these processing power to draw the potential power of the hardware. Great people make it amazing performance, the peak performance of CELL processor was huge, it was even banned from exporting to certain countries because it was considered super computing might be used to military usage or something however it is so hard to program, I learned from Studio teams that was scary."
"The cost of goods (Bill of materials) that we never announced, the company built a factory to manufacture CELL processor and the development of CELL processor was a huge project with IBM and Toshiba. The development cost was huge and the manufacturing investment was huge, when Ken (Ken Kutaragi) explained the business model of CELL processor, he was thinking beyond video games, he had a huge vision, people said he was competing with Intel at the time, PS3 would be huge business outside video games based on CELL processor that was his business plan. So when hear that what would you think, okay, we have to build as big as (we can) business out of this thing otherwise we won't be able to recoup the investment, that was scary. Of course that vision didn't happen unfortunately."
"The launch year and the second year after launch the company made huge loss, I thought we would be over, we are over but luckily these years Sonys TV division had a huge hit with flat screen, big screen called WEGA Series huge success, Sony made lots of money (from WEGA TV business) to cover the loss from PS3, so we survived. When I learned about the losses I thought we are finished."
"Worldwide Studios formed in 2005 it was Ken Kutargi creation, Kens vision because the games are becoming larger in scope and we are divided 3 different companies within Sony Computer Entertainment, Japan, US & Europe had a totally different productions teams and making games individually and each of us are a mid size publisher. Ken thought that it's about time to combine resources together to create the global organisation so that was Worldwide Studios (WWS). Luckly that happened PS3 was so challenging to work on we leveraged the best technical expertise within the Worldwide Studios for example like engine program that Naughty Dog and Mark Cerny created, we provided made that available for all the teams in Worldwide Studios to games on PS3 to extract the performance necessary to make games on PS3 eventually third party companies also struggled we made these programs available through our development portal aswell."
Mnoge multiplat igre su bolje izgledale na X360 jer je bilo lakse programirati nego na PS3. Kasnije je bluray prevagnuo vecim kapacitetom nad DLdvd.
