Playstation's secret weapon: a nearly all-automated factory • Hacker News Board

Re: Playstation's secret weapon: a nearly all-automated factory

#11

Post by rusk » Mon, Jul 06, 2020, 3:35 PM UTC

God I love my PS4 - it has to be the peak of this class of machine. I can't imagine how it could be improved upon without going beyond the "box under the telly format". Incredible piece of machinery. I can't imagine the PS5 will be much more than an upgrade.

In my opinion the second best console is the PS2. I love Nintendo but they're more like toys than hard core gaming and entertainment machines. PS2 up until PS4 was pretty much the pinnacle, but I think the way PS4 improved upon it is the development platform, and the online experience (which even so does require some improvement). I still play games on the PS2 from time to time and they still feel viable as offline single-player experiences and I could imagine development for the PS4 could continue for 20 years or so and still be producing great and relevant games.

Where to from here? VR is one obvious route but may I suggest a HN-friendly alternative? Hows about selling a more open system that allows end-users to tinker and contribute themselves? I think in order for this to be viable in terms of protecting the profitability and stability of the ecosystem there are some business and technical challenges but I would love to see them take this direction. They've dabbled before with the Yaroze system and Playstation Linux … both had their business operational issues but hardly insurmountable?

EDIT - can't respond below any more so I just have "one more thing" to say:

> PS4 is famous for being the cheapest sony home console relatively speaking

and what exactly is the problem with that? This is a feature not a bug. The PS3 was a novel system with exotic hardware but it suffered from some very serious flaws. It's reliance on proprietary technologies meant it was harder for developers to work with. It never took off as a result and is little more than a footnote in the lineage's history. A learning experience if you will.

Surely an extension of making something easier for professional developers to get to grips with is making something that hobby developers (and other classes of creative) can get to grips with?

Re: Playstation's secret weapon: a nearly all-automated factory

#12

Post by ThomW » Mon, Jul 06, 2020, 3:37 PM UTC

rusk wrote: post #11

God I love my PS4 - it has to be the peak of this class of machine. I can't imagine how it could be improved upon without going beyond the "box under the telly format". Incredible piece of machinery. I can't imagine the PS5 will be much more than an upgrade. In my opinion the second best console is the PS2. I love Nintendo but they're more like toys than hard core gaming and entertainment machines. PS2 up until PS4 w…

I can't imagine how it could be improved upon...

When my PS4 Pro is playing stuff like TLOU2, it sounds like it's going to start hovering off my TV cabinet.

Re: Playstation's secret weapon: a nearly all-automated factory

#13

Post by TacoSteemers » Mon, Jul 06, 2020, 3:37 PM UTC

blakesterz wrote: post #5

"The 31.4-meter line, completed in 2018, has the ability to churn out a new console every 30 seconds." That seems.... slow? I mean, I have no idea what I expected, but 2 a minute, is that really fast for this type of manufacturing? How does that compare to Xbox or maybe iPhone output? I'm sure 2 a minute is really impressive, but I started reading that thinking something like hundreds or thousands an hour, I guess I…

I believe that number to be for just that length of factory line. The factory as a whole presumably has more production areas than just the one pictured.

The other article, kindly linked in one of the replies, states the following:

"In this area of 31.4 meters by 6 meters, it takes just 30 seconds for a team of 32 robots to build a PS4. "

Re: Playstation's secret weapon: a nearly all-automated factory

#14

Post by dcsilver » Mon, Jul 06, 2020, 3:38 PM UTC

blakesterz wrote: post #5

"The 31.4-meter line, completed in 2018, has the ability to churn out a new console every 30 seconds." That seems.... slow? I mean, I have no idea what I expected, but 2 a minute, is that really fast for this type of manufacturing? How does that compare to Xbox or maybe iPhone output? I'm sure 2 a minute is really impressive, but I started reading that thinking something like hundreds or thousands an hour, I guess I…

The line can assemble a unit in 30 seconds and will presumably have more than one on it at a time.

Re: Playstation's secret weapon: a nearly all-automated factory

#15

Post by pphysch » Mon, Jul 06, 2020, 3:40 PM UTC

rusk wrote: post #11

God I love my PS4 - it has to be the peak of this class of machine. I can't imagine how it could be improved upon without going beyond the "box under the telly format". Incredible piece of machinery. I can't imagine the PS5 will be much more than an upgrade. In my opinion the second best console is the PS2. I love Nintendo but they're more like toys than hard core gaming and entertainment machines. PS2 up until PS4 w…

> Hows about selling a more open system that allows end-users to tinker and contribute themselves?

We could even call these novel x86 devices "personal computers".

Re: Playstation's secret weapon: a nearly all-automated factory

#16

Post by theandrewbailey » Mon, Jul 06, 2020, 3:44 PM UTC

tbrock wrote: post #10

blakesterz wrote: post #5

"The 31.4-meter line, completed in 2018, has the ability to churn out a new console every 30 seconds." That seems.... slow? I mean, I have no idea what I expected, but 2 a minute, is that really fast for this type of manufacturing? How does that compare to Xbox or maybe iPhone output? I'm sure 2 a minute is really impressive, but I started reading that thinking something like hundreds or thousands an hour, I guess I…

Surely there is a pipeline such that the 32 robots have 32 in flight at a time and don’t sit idle waiting for a single ps4 to complete.

That's kind of implied by the images. But if only two completed units come out the end every minute (regardless of how long it takes an individual unit to be assembled), that does seem a little underwhelming. There has to be more manufacturing lines than just this one to move millions of PS4s every year.

525,600 minutes per year * 2 units/minute = 1,051,200 units per year (assuming 100% uptime)

There has to be at least a dozen manufacturing lines to meet yearly demand of over 10 million. https://www.statista.com/statistics/222403/unit-sales-of-son...

Re: Playstation's secret weapon: a nearly all-automated factory

#17

Post by paulryanrogers » Mon, Jul 06, 2020, 3:44 PM UTC

rusk wrote: post #11

God I love my PS4 - it has to be the peak of this class of machine. I can't imagine how it could be improved upon without going beyond the "box under the telly format". Incredible piece of machinery. I can't imagine the PS5 will be much more than an upgrade. In my opinion the second best console is the PS2. I love Nintendo but they're more like toys than hard core gaming and entertainment machines. PS2 up until PS4 w…

Because of online cheating I doubt Sony will ever open up like they did for PlayStation Linux. My guess is they'll just clamp down harder to differentiate from PCs which can't deliver the same consistency. Of course the PCs openness is what breeds so much innovation.

Re: Playstation's secret weapon: a nearly all-automated factory

#18

Post by amznthrwaway » Mon, Jul 06, 2020, 3:45 PM UTC

kaesar14 wrote: post #6

blakesterz wrote: post #5

"The 31.4-meter line, completed in 2018, has the ability to churn out a new console every 30 seconds." That seems.... slow? I mean, I have no idea what I expected, but 2 a minute, is that really fast for this type of manufacturing? How does that compare to Xbox or maybe iPhone output? I'm sure 2 a minute is really impressive, but I started reading that thinking something like hundreds or thousands an hour, I guess I…

I have to agree, if this ran all day it'd produce 2880 consoles. How do they keep up with launch demand that sees millions of units shipped in a span of a month or two?

Factories have more than one line.

Re: Playstation's secret weapon: a nearly all-automated factory

#19

Post by azuriten » Mon, Jul 06, 2020, 3:50 PM UTC

ThomW wrote: post #12

rusk wrote: post #11

God I love my PS4 - it has to be the peak of this class of machine. I can't imagine how it could be improved upon without going beyond the "box under the telly format". Incredible piece of machinery. I can't imagine the PS5 will be much more than an upgrade. In my opinion the second best console is the PS2. I love Nintendo but they're more like toys than hard core gaming and entertainment machines. PS2 up until PS4 w…

I can't imagine how it could be improved upon... When my PS4 Pro is playing stuff like TLOU2, it sounds like it's going to start hovering off my TV cabinet.

> When my PS4 Pro is playing stuff like TLOU2, it sounds like it's going to start hovering off my TV cabinet.

I have the CUH-7200 PS4 Pro model which is apparently the quietest model and it's insane how loud that thing gets when I played TLOU2.

The copying times for updates/patches is equally bad with downloading taking a few minutes and copying times taking more than 20mins. There's clearly alot of room for improvement - At least Sony have realised this as the PS5 will have a SSD instead of a HDD.

Re: Playstation's secret weapon: a nearly all-automated factory

#20

Post by lm2s » Mon, Jul 06, 2020, 3:53 PM UTC

blakesterz wrote: post #5

"The 31.4-meter line, completed in 2018, has the ability to churn out a new console every 30 seconds." That seems.... slow? I mean, I have no idea what I expected, but 2 a minute, is that really fast for this type of manufacturing? How does that compare to Xbox or maybe iPhone output? I'm sure 2 a minute is really impressive, but I started reading that thinking something like hundreds or thousands an hour, I guess I…

Yes it does seem slow, and being an assembly line I wonder if it's just poor communication in the news article.

I'd think that 30 seconds would be how long 1 PlayStation takes to be assembled, but that there would be a new one every few seconds coming out of the line.