According to Engadget Japan, Sony’s imaginative Ken Kutaragi wants an AV-centric PlayStation 3 to be in your living room. What does this mean? He wants a box that is more expensive and puts gaming on the backburner.
According to an interview conducted by Japan’s Impress, Sony’s Ken Kutaragi has gone on record with a “promise” for what he’s calling an AV-centric PS3. In other words, audio and video capabilities first, gaming second (if at all), in a device built around the Cell-processor platform. Ken says that the device would certainly be more expensive, reflecting the prices and margins expected on high-end consumer electronic devices such as TVs, Blu-ray personal video recorders, etc. — not the relatively cheap, but powerful gaming rigs sold at a loss under Sony’s Computer Entertainment division. Impress speculates that the device could cost as much as ¥300,000 or about $2,500. The new Sony-branded living room box would, in Ken’s (translated) words, “be a standard AV component sized box with a more powerful, power supply unit, anti-shake insulator, twice the main memory, and 2x HDMI to split sound and video output.”
Sound good? Would you rather shell out a couple grand for a box that cared more about movies and entertainment and less about mythical elves having sex with each other? Perhaps Sony and crew should focus more on the gaming PS3 and its success before jumping to the next project.
