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

asia.nikkei.com

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

#101

Post by vmception »

zbrozek wrote: post #45

Lots of folks here are talking about the latency and throughput, but nobody is amazed at what the robots are doing. Plugging in cables and putting down tape is fiddly and hard. I'm super impressed that they elected to automate those things based on cost merit. Massive kudos to the manufacturing engineers who managed to pull that off.

I had invested in a semiconductor factory early last decade, and it had started making bitcoin miners, it had reminding me of Zion from the Matrix because it seemed like the first time that a machine could make another machine which could immediately start earning a negotiable asset and then transacting for resources.

Very surreal to think about.

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

#102

Post by [deleted] »

zbrozek wrote: post #72
imglorp wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really. A dot of hot glue to hold a cable down must be easier.

All the manufacturing engineers I've talked to hate doing fluid dispense. Glue is in a class all its own because if you take the line down it tends to cure in the dispenser or nozzle.

[deleted]

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

#103

Post by dfox »

actuator wrote: post #51

This looks so amazing and I wasn't aware that Playstations are still manufactured in Sony's home country itself. I guess automation helps in keeping the manufacturing cost low. Now I am intrigued about what high selling electronic devices are manufactured in their home country itself and not by the ODMs/CMs in countries with cheap labour like China.

Japan always had its “peculiar” approach to electronics manufacturing automation. While rest of the world tries very hard do design out any kind of “fiddly” steps, Japanese manufacturers got very good at automating such things. Just look at any kind of Japanese home AV gear with its typical large single sided boards full of obviously robot placed jumper links and thru hole components.

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

#104

Post by Retric »

foxfired wrote: post #79
zbrozek wrote: post #45

Lots of folks here are talking about the latency and throughput, but nobody is amazed at what the robots are doing. Plugging in cables and putting down tape is fiddly and hard. I'm super impressed that they elected to automate those things based on cost merit. Massive kudos to the manufacturing engineers who managed to pull that off.

There is a interview of Elon Musk with MKBHD. He was precisely referring to this as being one of the issues when they were trying to automate the pipeline. The machines just couldn't plug a loose tube in its place. Maybe they should have consulted with Sony.

Tesla tried it because the technology was mostly ready back then. The difference is a PlayStation has vastly fewer cables, far simpler routing, and problems can more easily be fixed. People can physically pick up a PlayStation diagnosis the problem and then put it back, try to do that with a car.

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

#105

Post by dfox »

jbob2000 wrote: post #81
hobofan wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me it's almost more surprising that with that high degree of automation they are not splitting the factory up into smaller ones and building them per-continent.

Electronics are fairly light, you probably don’t save much by shipping raw/incomplete products to the consuming country for final assembly. It’s not like soft drinks, where you want to bottle them close to the point of consumption so you aren’t shipping the dead weight of water around.

Also shipping the manufacturing/automation technology is not particularly cheap, not to mention the amount of on-site setup/calibration that would be required.

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

#106

Post by vmception »

chinathrow wrote: post #4

More graphics directly at https://vdata.nikkei.com/en/newsgraphics/sony-playstation/

That's a great sub-site. This is such a good year for exclusives! 2020 was always going to be epic for that, and I haven't been disappointed.

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

#107

Post by wnevets »

hobofan wrote: post #34

If you enjoy that you will probably also enjoy the fully-automated Valve Steam Controller assembly line (including video)[0]. [0]: https://www.theverge.com/2015/12/11/9890914/valves-steam-con...

that assembly line looked better than the controller.

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

#108

Post by PeterisP »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #77
actuator wrote: post #51

This looks so amazing and I wasn't aware that Playstations are still manufactured in Sony's home country itself. I guess automation helps in keeping the manufacturing cost low. Now I am intrigued about what high selling electronic devices are manufactured in their home country itself and not by the ODMs/CMs in countries with cheap labour like China.

I have a feeling that automation slowed down in many sectors when China came "online". I think this cycle is coming to an end, and there is no comparable pool of labour anywhere in the world so that fully automated factories are going to be the next step (that wasn't technically possible in the early 90s but I think we now have the technology or very close to).

" there is no comparable pool of labour anywhere in the world " -> this is not fully true, as when wages in China started to rise, lots of labor offshoring moved to SE Asia (e.g. Vietnam) and there's still a lot of potential for the same to happen in various African countries.

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

#109

Post by motoboi »

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…

You are probably missing the fact that PS4 became obsolete the same year it was launched and it couldn’t be otherwise.

They can’t change the console capabilities, because games would not take advantage of it, as a ps4 game need to run in all ps4 versions.

If you want to upgrade the hardware, you have to launch a new product, as they are doing with ps5.

It’s all about having a stable ecosystem which allows developers to spend hundred of millions and be sure to reach all ps4 users. And milk that cow for years.

The same will happen with ps5: incredible machine at launch, obsolete within 1 or 2 years, but will remain in the market as is for 7-8 years while development houses (and users) reap the benefits of the ecosystem.

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

#110

Post by [deleted] »

tetraca wrote: post #30
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? The appeal of a console is that it's an appliance - you can just plug the thing in, not worry about any of the technicals, and go play games with minimal fuss. If you are an enthusiast of such things and inclined to tinker, I think making a Mini-ITX PC to stuff under your TV mostly effectively already covers this niche?…

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