Quote:
Originally Posted by JTK
How the hell does second gen come that fast when first gen hasn't even hit the streets yet?
I'm definiely going PS3 all the way and skipping first gen. This pretty much ices any slightly lingering doubts in my mind on that matter.
But here's what doesn't make sense: Basically all the players keeping pushed back practically to November anyways...how can they do something so ridiculous like this? They're going to release a player in November and then another one not even 6 months later? Not sure I'd call that second gen as much as I'd call it "What the first product should have been anyways."
We'll see...
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I agree letting slip about second gen is a mistake - however it's expected. The first gen is much like Beta software. In this case Toshiba was very smart and saw a way to get to market quickly. I think all will agree that the first release of the Samsung was not ready for release - but they had to (well someone had to and they were apparently the closest, or most expendable - I will put money no one here would have bought the Samsung, if they had a choice of another brand, whilst the people that will buy the Samsung in a couple of years will not be aware what occured with the first batch). Now everyone else has to have something.
As for release of the 2nd Generation, if it's anything like software development, at a certain point decisions are made to determine what has to be done to get something out. Code development is then split. The good version that will become release 2 is starved of resources while the effort is put in to get this buggy feature restricted thing to market by covering up the big flaws as best as possible. Once the product is out and now supports problem everyone goes back to where they left off so that release 2 will be what release 1 should have been.
Leaving out the Sales and Marketing departments that have a massive input into products like this for very good reason. The mechanical drive has to be designed. The electronics for the drive are designed by another group, then the 2 have to put together and modified to work together. That's the drive taken care of, now the rest of the player and it has to work with the drive and the standards. The case and interface (outputs and buttons on the front) have to be designed and everthing fitting in, cooling vents or fans etc. We have now got to the prototype stage. If it's thumbs up off to make the tools to mass produce the drive, case, circuit boards and IC's. The packaging has to designed, manual written (and translated, printed etc), processes for testing and production, logistics for storage, distribution and service (around the world). Throw sales and marketing, testing reaction to different case designs etc and many thousands of man hours have vanished. There are plenty other inputs to the process as well.
As soon as a design team has finished they will go back to start on the next model refining and enhancing. After a while teams will reduce in numbers and products will stabalise and little changes except the case. This is where DVD is in the evolution cycle at the moment. It should take fewer generatoins to get to a stable, reliable player, as a Blu Ray player as much of the technology can be modified from the DVD player.
It seems that Panasonic have decided they are going to put up a big fight in 2 areas of HD, Blu Ray and projectors, they seem to be lagging in the consumer HD Camcorder space at the moment (Canon and Sony are about to slug it out there).
The way digital still cameras are being upgraded, if Blu Ray follows the same game, 3rd Generation players will be arriving by Christmas next year. The problem is except for any students here, no one else will be able to wait until next Christmas (most of us won't be able to hold out until this Christmas). I suspect there maybe a PS3 rev2 out sometime next year as well, that will fix a few bugs etc.