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US PlayStation 2 To Have A Modem & Hard Drive?
rit writes, "It looks like Sony is trying to beat Microsoft to the punch with the Playstation 2 - according to this article at CNet, they have announced plans to release the U.S. Version of the Playstation 2 with a modem and a hard drive. No details on modem speed or hard drive, but we can assume it will be at least up to par or close to what Microsoft plans to offer with the X-Box; giving Sony a one-year head start on Microsoft for gaining a stronger foothold in the gaming market. Now if only they'd ship it with an ethernet card...
"
What am I going to do with a modem in a house
with no phone line? (But full ethernet connectivity)
Now, they just have to add a keyboard and a tape drive and they would have the Colecovision 2000.
I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they make as they fly by
Dreamcast already has this now. Does anyone know how useful this is? Can you really surf the Internet or play online games?
But of course, if you are going to surf the Internet, I'm sure that the first thing you are going to go to is the "JenniCam", since it is such a fixture of the Internet.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
Microsoft will probably only release anything decent after the fifth version, and by the time it does, it probably only be as good as PS1, but seriously, Microsoft *is* going to flop with this very much in the same way that they flop in every single field that they go into in which they know nothing about, **unless**, they buy into someone, and judging by Sega and Nintendo's poor showing, I wouldn't be that surprised.
-I can only program my video,ahh, I am not a gook, but a joook -The World is a theatre of the absurd
sony is a giant too
--
--
blinko - "the nail that sticks up gets hammered down"
At last the console manufacturers seem to be catching onto the idea of online gaming. Everyone and their online dog know the future is broadband so it's not difficult to see how Sony can exploit this with their Playstation. Welcome news indeed - let's just hope someone can produce some decent games.
I thought that the PS2 (as is) was supposed to be capable of handling anything Micro$oft would be creating. The Emotion Engine would slaughter the competition, hands down, and I wouldn't have to worry about what choice to make. Now they're going to throw a modem and a HD in there (which I am assuming will increase the already outrageous $300+ cost). The modem I understand, but a HD? Why? Developers for the Japanese PS2 must not have had a HD in mind, and I doubt the American developers did/do either. What the hell does this do to the games already in development? And why even put a HD in a system with these performance numbers, I would think it would just lead to *lower* performance. BAH!
_______
I just wish I could c:\format Internet
I don't see a reason to ship it with a hard drive and modem. The IEEE 1394, USB and PCMCIA ports should be a clue to anyone (who knows what they are) that it can easily support modems, hard drives, etc...
Shipping them with hard drives and modems will soon become obsolete. I hope sony takes the direction of making them optional accessories and not turn to a proprietary bus to market sony-only accessories (that's all we would need).
Personally I think they should leave it alone and work on developing a front-end for the Playstation (hmm - SonyLinux?) to make hardware support and driver detection so the hardware really has no limits to what is plugged into it.
- Detritus
"I never really liked computers, but then the server went down on me"
Modem and hard drive
Playstation peripherals
Will it run linux?
Thank You.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It's not running Linux. Its OS is not open-source. It doesn't use a Transmeta CPU. It doesn't have Ethernet. They don't even talk about it on Userfriendly, and Hubble hasn't spotted one near yet.
Really, I wonder why any slashdotter would be interrested into it...
But... I WANT ONE!!!!
max
-- It's always darker before it goes pitch black.
The next PSX 2 in the US will have a modem, a hard drive,... In other words, il will be a computer with proprietary harware.
;)
I can't see the point of it : wouldn't a cheap console be better for simple gaming ? With a cheap PC next to it for Internet apps and word processing ?
OK, it would have an refreshing architecture compared to the usual x86 crap. But I'll be really happy the day I'll see a story about cheap PowerPC boxes, or something like this.
I mean... Real non-x86 computers with open hardware which aren't labeled as 'game consoles'.
Moderator : this is NOT flamebait nor troll... In fact, those are just my ideas
Stéphane
Instant Karma's gonna get you, Gonna knock you right on the head (John Lennon, 1970)
Well, a nice side effect for Sony of having a hard drive in the Playstation is that hard drives generally have a lifespan of a few years which means that people will be back in a few years for seconds (or to buy Playstation III's). That's the one thing which has been bothering me about everything turning into a dedicated PC - the lifespan is being shortened on these things because failures are much more likely when you having moving parts (i.e., the hard drive). Then again, five years from now when the hard drives fail in my PSX, TiVo, and whatever else, the state of the art will probably have advanced so much that I'll be excited to upgrade.
-----
Free P2P Backup, Windows & Linux
And, you just KNOW that as soon as it's released, three dozen geeks will start working on porting Linux to it, and two weeks later, distributed.net will have clients for it!
CSG_Surferdude
LongTail SSH Brute Force analysis tool is here!
But where's the games for PSX2? No one's talking much about them that I've heard. It seems like if I want a box to just play games with, the Dreamcast is the way to go. I've got plenty of computers already; give me a gaming console for a change.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
According to here, the hard drive will be 8GB, matching that of the X-Box. IMHO, Sony is doing this for two reasons, to counter the onslaught of the X-Box as well as to strangle the Dreamcast out of exsistence. The only thing the Dreamcast had going for it was its modem, but with the PS2 now having a modem, apparently, you can expect Dreamcast sales to lag off. As for the X-Box, even with its launch well over a year after that of the PS2, Sony could still feel the heat from the fire. Sony basically doesn't want Microsoft to do to them what they are doing to Sega, having more features and thus strangling off sales.
SYSOP ('sih-sop) n.: the guy laughing at your typing.
Does anyone else think there should be some destinctions between console games and PCs? They should just leave it as it is, you buy a console becasue you don't want to buy all the extra stuff that comes with a PC. You just want to plug in you cart and play. You buy a PC to do al sorts of crazy stuff and games on the side. It's just not right I tell you!
Now if only they'd ship it with an ethernet card...
I can see why it would be easier, and more profitable for them to ship a modem rather than an ethernet card. They can charge for their dialup service, and they don't have to worry about things like cable modem DHCP issues. But a modem is going to be of NO USE to a lot of people. I can't have my phone line tied up with data calls, that's part of the reason I have DSL. Then again, I imagine that most of their market will be people with nothing but a phone line in their house.
How much will the price get augmented by something somewhat useless as a hard drive on a console? I'm not cool with paying $100-200 extra for a somewhat inexpensive console just so I can cache web pages, and store ugly e-cards from my aunt Darlene.
Competition is good, I just hope that Sony has considered consumers in this, instead of starting a peeing contest with Microsoft.
You have to remember, that the specs on the XBOX are bound to change, as the 8GB HDD is only an estimate simply because this is the size they can afford to package fairly cheaply. I would surely assume that if they can add better components in the up coming round of the console war, they will. Not that there is any historical evidence to back this up, rather, just look at this level of technology compared to years past. They will have to just to survive. I don't see too many people in Japan with a PS2 that do not already have a computer, and I am sure it will be the same here. Ethernet and an IP would surely make or break a next gen system market, so they could network with their home computer and use it for storage.
This should have been expected, it's just a further part of the process of everything technological slowly melting together. Game boxes are becoming computers, computers are becoming game boxes, entertainment centers are becoming obsolete.
This is all leading to that eventual day when all your computing power and entertainment value will all fit on a little card (probably branded AOL/Time Warner) that slips in your back pocket, and then we'll all accidentally lose them in our sofas and society will disintegrate and we'll be back to the dark ages.
Hail the march of technology!
-Mad Dreamer
-Mad Dreamer
tcd004
Ethernet makes sense even for those without a permanent net connection (big gaming party in the house?). Also, most people with cable modems use Ethernet - the connection between the cable "modem" and your computer is often an Ethernet link. Add a cheap hub, and voilà!
GNU/Linux. The Freshmaker.
IBM is making some pretty durable IDE drives these days; 10, 12 and 14mm form factors with a guarantee of G-rating while spun up. They're very pricey, but I doubt you could kill one without intentional violence (hammer, chisel, 1962 Dodge).. They may be referring to something like a solid-state flash disk; SanDisk, anyone? O/T: I've seen IBM full-height drives still run after a fifteen foot fall from the second floor landing onto concrete. I had to replace the lower daughterboard, as it was crushed into PCB dust, but the mechanism itself survived with only a bent surround.. When IBM says 100G, they mean it!
.sig: Now legally binding!
"Yeah, my playstation is making a funny grinding noise..."
"You'll have to replace your harddrive, sir."
"How do I do that?"
"You bring it into the shop and they'll charge you $$$ for the drive, and $$$ for installation and $$$ for not knowing any better..."
'cause not every video game enthusiast is tech savy.
BlackNova Traders
Think about it for a moment.
* First you would need to build a cross-compiler that compiles for the PS2's CPU
* Next you would have to get it onto the PS2 somehow. You can't just go into Easy CD Creator and burn a CD for it. Obviously Sony is probably using a proprietry CD format which hasn't been implemented into a CD burning application
* There probably is a keyboard for the PS2, but even with this the kernel would need to be rewritten to support it.
* No Ethernet in it, so it's only suitable for servers which don't get enough traffic to fill a 56k line
Put all that together and you'll find that you need a lot of Coca-Cola (maybe by injection) in order to make this worthwile.
--
Vote for mind21_98 this November!
US businesses that currently accept chip and PIN/signature
Don't worry. If it doesn't run Linux yet, it will...
Oh, yes, it will....
;)
It's a neat concept and all, but what would someone honestly do with the modem / hard drive?
The main reason that I download stuff for my PC games is that a lot of the PC game companies release games before they are totally done, and have to update Video Card drivers, etc.
The only POSSIBLE thing that I would want to use it for would be for updates to games that I own (ie Updating the Belts and Character Profiles on WWF Smackdown to match the show!!)
But of that was a priority for the companies that make these games we would already have that kind of functionality for the PC, which we sadly don't.
Just my $.02
With the wide spread deployment of xDSL and Cable Modem technology in the metropolitan areas of the U.S., why didn't Sony take a more modular approach? Drop the price of the console and charge for an upgrade which will either add a modem or an ethernet adapter?
The ethernet adapter option is also a good way to get people to buy MULTIPLE playstations in homes with multiple kids & TV sets. Some games frankly suck when four people are on the same screen. PC gamers have an edge here in FPS's and other competetive (rather than collaborative) games.
Screw Micro$oft.
"What am I going to do with a modem in a house
with no phone line? (But full ethernet connectivity) "
You know there was once a time when games didn't need to connect to the damn net to do anything. There's something called isolated programming that works quite well and dosn't have any problem.
I don't want all of my games to be network required so that I have to pay massive ammounts of money just to play a game.
I predict people are going to loose a lot of money on this little thing if that's what they're trying to pull.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
I can't see the point of it : wouldn't a cheap console be better for simple gaming ?
This isn't supposed to connect you to the internet. I'd be suprised if it even had a web browser. The modem is there to set up up for multiplayer games and the hard drive is there to more effectively store saved games. Previously, storing data onto those memory chips would have been difficult to work around- you'ld only be granted a very small amount of space.
Additionally, the processor is extremely well for rendering for games. It is not well designed to deal with normal day to day functions. There is no real use for slapping on a keyboard because the machine really isn't designed to deal with that sort of thing.
Remember, this box is only going for $200 or whatever. There is only so much you can do with that kind of budget.
With Squeak, we can use the PS2 to surf the web and use e-mail. Squeak's license is more open than the GNU License.
--Ivan, weenie NT4 user: bite me!
--weenie NT4 user: bite me!
"Computers are nothing but a perfect illusion of order" -- Iggy Pop
No, no, no! No offense, but you just don't get it. I used to be a hardcore console gamer several a few years ago. It might seem strange to the tech-heads here, but the way the console game industry works is different than the computer game industry.
As a console gamer and developer, if the system doesn't come with a harddrive or a modem or whatever peripherial, then they do not exist, period. Sure, Sony themselves could sell an official harddrive addon and an official modem addon, but almost every developer and gamer will act as if they do not exist. Its the all-in-one-shrinkwrapped-box theory of the console game industry.
They key to the console industry is that you have fixed hardware. So this pretty much rules out most peripherial components. I could name tons of examples with past console systems... but I will let you do your homework on that, if you need.
Lets all hope that the harddrive and modem for the PSX2 don't mean that console game developers will develop buggy games like most computer game developers.
Why does a game console need a harddrive?
:)
Faster access time? You know these win/dos games that have that full-super-install that copies everything (including FMV stuff) to the hard drive to speed things up? I have no idea how fast a dvd-drive is, is a goodish hard drive faster?
A cache for web access? A big memory card could do this, or using free memory+compression would work. But even a big cache doesn't make a dent in 8 GB.
Storing drivers/other data that would usally be on a mem card? This seems most likely. But 8 GB seems like overkill.
Ripping a DVD to the hard drive and then using the ports to copy it to another drive? Nah.
Wait. If this thing is so close in power to a "standard PC", a hard drive could store work. Just add a keyboard and type up your term paper by staring at your fuzzy tv for hours. Ick.
Any other ideas?
Does this mean they weren't planning on shipping with a modem previous to this? That doesn't make sense. They would be at an enourmous disadvantage against Dreamcast in the online gaming arena. Surely Sony realizes that online is the future of gaming. Even Microsoft realizes that. Microsoft has enough vision (!) to include an ethernet adapter with their upcoming console. Does the Japanese PS2 not have a modem? Did Sony not think online gaming has a future? Or is Sony one of those greedy companies that want you to waste $100 on their "special" PS2 modem? I find it hard to believe that Sony had not planned on shipping built in modem with their new console. Idiotic
"At last the console manufacturers seem to be catching onto the idea of online gaming. Everyone and their online dog know the future is broadband so it's not difficult to see how Sony can exploit this with their Playstation. Welcome
news indeed - let's just hope someone can produce some decent games."
Online gaming is something that really isn't a terribly good idea for several reasons:
1. Point of control/failure.
I don't like the idea of someone else holding my "game" and having to have control over it. I want to access my game from anywhere and without a net connection of any sort. If their server goes down, they go out of business, or make another product that superceedes the current one your our of luck.
2. Cost
When I buy a game I want to have that game for the rest of my life without extra cost. With these things they will most likely cost and I don't want that.
3. Interactivity dosn't take the place of a real isolated program that is done well.
Just because you can't code your way out of a paper bag dosn't mean that I have to look at some shitty program that just has multiplayer capabilities built into it.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
I'd hate to see a modem be the only method of net access on this beast. I got DSL for the speed and so my phone line would never be tied up again. It seems ridiculous that I could have 5 machines on a LAN in my home and have an equally powerful box sit on a regular phone line. It's my hope I could drop a regular Ethernet card in the PCMCIA slot, but what's that do to the price point of the whole package (currently about $300) if a modem is included, especially one I won't ever use? Same thing goes for the hard drive, why not keep the price low and not include a hard drive, since you could just hook up a Firewire drive if you really wanted it? I mean, PS2 comes with extraneous hardware, but doesn't even come with a game? Come on.
I want my PS2 to have a static IP.
I've been modem free for seven months now. Why the hell would I want to go back? They'd better off putting in an ethernet NIC of some sort and providing a way of setting up an IP address either static and/or dynamic. I would want to plug this into the switch on my LAN so that it can use my DSL connection (which BTW uses the crappy PPPoE protocol). It would also need some way for me to configure proxy settings too, although playing around with NAT tables I can handle, unlike the average consumer.
Modem? Bah! Nasty evil thing that should be thrown out with floppy drives. Shame we couldn't start the new century without them.
The source didn't want to be named
There is no official PS2 in the US yet. What's to say it will ever be released with these accessories?
It's an early enough announcement to put the kibosh on DC sales until the PS2 is out.
The main competitor with the HD is vaporware. Why bother with the announcement, just do it. Cheapest thing to do: Fight vaporware with vaporware
I wonder what the result of this announcement will be in Japan. The consumers there just bought a new system, and now it is being released with more features (for the same price???) somewhere else. I know I would be PO'ed
Quite possibly - as a matter of fact the PSX 1 development kit uses GCC as it's compiler! doesn't that mean there's already GPL code that targets the PSX. My bet is the PSX2 dev kit will ship with GCC also. I'm a little shocked no one has ported linux to their PSX. Although with a hard drive and a modem, it'll suddenly be useful to be running linux on it. :)
By the way: Screw hopes for an ethernet card by default - that can be bought seperately and use with the USB port. The important thing is that if the system comes with a default modem installed, more games will take advantage of it; then when you buy your ethernet adapter, there will games for it. If it doesn't come with either then games won't come with networking either. :(
Now if only Sony could figure out that a default of 2 controllers aren't enough. Not enough games come out with 4 player modes for the PSX because the system only has two ports standard. And a few too many games that say they support the 4player multitap don't work well with the tap!
Joseph Elwell.
who needs a special hard drive?
just get a good one...
I move my computer at least 1 a week
and it has been bump plenty of times...
my friends computer even droped off of
a 4 foot desk (that can cause a heart attack)
and nothing even happened to his hard drive.
*- You play with fire, and you get burned!
I know of a US firm that is planning on making a cheap (sub $50) adapter to connect a game platform with a modem (or any device with a modem) to a LAN. No offical project release yet, but I got the tip from an old high school friend that works in the Valley. Supposedly, this thing simulates a phone circuit, (dis)assembles packets for differences in MTU, and looks totally like a NIC from the network. I thought something like this existed before and tried to tell her that, but she insisted that their RnD department said there was no such animal. I've never had such a use for a device so I've never cared. Has anybody ever heard of this?
"I threw up my hands in disgust and wondered if it had been such a good idea to have eaten my hands in the first place."
Games don't have to be on-line only to be played online. Witness the typical PC game with a huge on-line following, like Quake, Half-Life, StarCraft, etc. Most of these games also allow you to play on-line for free, assuming you already have an ISP. Whether it will be that way in the console world remains to be seen, I suppose.
Personally, I think that on-line gameplay with other humans is much better than single player for most games. You haven't fully appreciated Half-Life until you've played Team Fortress Classic on a good server with a good team.
what is goin to happen to the memory cards?
i doubt that they will be able to seriously convince people to purchase these if they knew that there was already a storage media in the box to save your game data to...
-fezzgig
I always wanted to write games since I've been playining the Atari and 8-Bit Nintendo. Infact, I tried messing with some game and code a while back for the Emulators when they came out and had a blast trying to make my own moving charachters, etc. Just an idea to be thron around... very doubtful Sony would even take it serious since there are soo many develoeprs for commercial.. However this would bring in a lot of unknown talent to commercial Vendors? Think of 989 Studios seeing little Johny programming a RPG and liked his skills, they could offer him position...
Just food for thought...
I like the idea of console online gaming, it'd be nice to play someone in Syphon Filter 2 and *NOT* see them in the split screen... other then the 2 tv link (never used much huh?)... I just doubt it's going to catch on quick because they'll start with atleast a $20 fee... Where most gamers also use an ISP for $20 a month or more if cable...
Welps, that's just my 2cents...
------- What exactly is real?
There is no need for ethernet, as Firewire can handle all the network protocols, and firewire networks can be set up at four times the speed of 100BT. I've set up a firewire network (between two macs) and it works super duper. I just hope (can't wait for) I can connect my PS2 to my G4 and at least display it on my computer, and hopefully have access to my DSL connection. I have the software to do this, if the PS2 has any networking capabilities, and with a HD, I'm sure something could be worked out ;0) . . . there's just too many possibilities with the PS2, I sure something will be hacked up. Peace,
"I like systems, their application excepted", George Sand (French)
1) Linux is a better Server for dynamic content. Linux will soon become a better server for static content when the 2.4 kernel comes out within the next couple of months. Win2k costs a lot lot more, Linux is free. You might also want to consider FreeBSD, which is also free, and runs Yahoo and Hotmail (the Microsoft email service).
2) Linux is harder to pick up than Windows, but that is because it is more configurable and powerful in the end. A clever person should be able to pick it up within a week though, and you shouldn't be hiring dumb people, MCSE or not.
3) It isn't important - Java programs run fine under Linux.
4) Linux people spend more time getting the job done and working, while MS people spend all their time tidying up and trying to look neat and tidy to hide the fact that they only do 90% of the job. They can't actually do 100% though, because the OS won't let them.
5) Offer a good wage and a nice working environment. Let them show you the benefits of Linux or FreeBSD. They probably don't need Windows skills - it is all obvious anyway. Don't you know that MCSEs are worthless yet?
6) They are available on Linux/FreeBSD - but they are not standards, they are proprietary Microsoft languages and protocols designed to tie the developer into the Microsoft environment from the desktop to the server. Linux supports more powerful scripting languages such as Perl and Python and Scheme and PHP. ActiveX is a security hole, don't use it.
7) Linux/FreeBSD are specialised (moreso than the Windows click-and-nearly-do system). Twice the wage would be fair, because of the amount of time and effort they have put in to become experts at the system. A true Unix expert in invaluable to a company, as they an work true wonders.
8) FreeBSD.
9) No. unless eating Pizza and curry is left wing.
10) No, this is more prolific amongst the Microsoft crowd actually - Napster was originally a Windows program. Unux administrators (well paid) pride themselves on their security measures, and you will get the best security for you money.
11) No it is not. Only if you take existing GPL software and modify it is this true. You would be more interesting in FreeBSD, and you can take the BSD code and use it without contributing back. If you are writing your own software it does not matter.
This answer has cost you $500 in consultancy fees. Please email me to arrange delivery of the fee.
My computer, which is connected through ethernet to my DSL modem (and my roommate's PC) is a gateway (software router) and has firewire ports. Seems like some good possibilities. . .
"I like systems, their application excepted", George Sand (French)
Many people seem to be asking why a hard drive and modem, so I thought I might provide a few answers that could help.
First, the PS2 runs on a linux kernel, and thus with a hard drive and modem could be as close to a recompile away to have mozilla/netscape running on it, and many many other full featured applications like office suites and things of that sort. Your next question might be what good is this with a keyboard. Well, there is a USB port on the back where you could stick in a USB keyboard and mouse, and with multiple linux projects working on providing full USB support under linux it might not be that far away.
The hard drive could also be a good place to keep save games rather than the annoying little packs you have to buy.
Now we also know that it has a PCMCIA slot. I believe some people were wanting the feature of ethernet. So drop in a PCMCIA linux compatable card, and away you go. The other trick of having a hard drive is that you could then drop the linux kernel on the hard drive rather than the boot rom, and get it to have more options for configuration.
Many poeple have posted saying, ohh big deal, the performance of the PS2 is far superior to anything the competitors can provide now. So let's think about this for a second. Console groups tend to release new consoles about every 3 or 4 years at best. Graphics card manufacturs come out with a new generation of cards about every 6 to 9 months in which they double or more the speed. The PC market could come up and bite Sony with outperforming them by far in a year or two.
Now, we have this other feature of the X-Box that it is Intel based, and runs windows, which means that a lot games might be instantly availble for it.
Sony is probably just trying to make sure there product will be able to endure for the next few years, since they don't want it to end up having to give the thing away for new users to use it.
Sony already tried the direct link thing w/ the Playstation, and people whined and moaned incessantly about it. Nobody wanted to lug around their TV sets and playstations, and the games that supported multiplayer via a link didn't support split-screen multiplayer. Handling things like ethernet (profoundly simple as it is) seems to take more dedication than your average 9-year-old has.
I figured 2.5in laptop drives are designed to be bounced about, and so far (3 years now) it's still going, though it now seems tiny at "only" 250MB.
-Elendale (amazing how it's better than most of the real games...)
IANAT (I Am Not A Troll)
Sony has stated in the past that they wouldn't be shipping a modem because it didn't make sense to slap such outdated technology on a machine as cutting edge as the PS2. They're waiting for more people to get DSL or cable modems.
The PS2 case has already been designed and is in production. Is Sony really going to start over on this now?
There's no purpose for a hard drive. The Sony Network isn't ready yet. No online games are in development. People are writing games for 32MB RAM and a huge DVD. What is a hard drive going to add to the mix that will justify the significant extra cost? It would be cheaper to just add another 32MB of memory, or to double the VRAM.
Hard drives are a consumer nightmare: relatively high failure rate, not suited to being kicked around in a console.
On the other hand, a US release date for the PS2 hasn't been announced yet, so anything is possible.
Come on, everybody is complaining about the hard drive driving up the cost and not being practical. I would think that slashdotters would embrace the hard drive. It allows one to save virtually infinite games with an incredible amount of detail. How much do those VMUs and memory cards cost? $25 and you can save little more than one game of NFL2k on them. The hard drive will allow developers to release demos over the internet. Imagine being able to hack PSX2 games just like we used to do with NES ROMs. Changes in gameplay, add certain features...Enhance a game for online play. (Ahem, Counterstrike.) Stop complaining and start thinking about all of the cool things you could do with this!
"I threw up my hands in disgust and wondered if it had been such a good idea to have eaten my hands in the first place."
According to my coworker..During development, it was used with Linux. It had a Linux development system. I guess it wouldn't be that hard. Hehe :)
<3 Kat ^_^
"Never give up, for that is just the time and place when the tide will change." -Harriet Beecher Stowe ^_^
6) XML is a standard of course.
And more comments:
The system of code development under Linux and FreeBSD promote peer review and updating, resulting in more secure, optimised and relevant software. Security through Obscurity does not work (the Microsoft model) as seen today when the big security hold was found in Frontpage for Windows. Security through peer review works, and even if holes are found, they are patched up quicker (sometimes 10's of orders of magnitude faster than the closed system).
Also think about the following scenario: You have your servers distributed nationwide, and some of them need updating. With Microsoft you have to physically go to each server and update it manually, often at huge cost to just be attending those servers. Or you can go the costly Terminal Server method to do things from a remote location. Better hope that there is a lot of bandwidth available though, as it will send all of the GUI through to you - a hassle if you want to add a new user account to the system.
With Linux/FreeBSD you automatically get this for free, and secure as well, using SSH. This allows a remote shell into any of your servers where you can change settings. WIth SSH you are not restricted to a text interface either - you can tunnel X over it, thus you can have the ease of use of Microsoft systems for free, and from a remote location in an efficient manner.
Just value-add for that $500.
Is anybody making a plug-in Ethernet module for Dreamcast yet?
If they did, I'd buy one today. I have a use for it right now!
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
Release is set for 1st quarter 2001, not 2000. I did preview, really I did!
Ah, the death knell of the PS2 is sounding. I live in a corner of New York State, where the economy is permanently in a recession. I got a Nintendo when they got down to $100 and my brother saved money from his paper route to buy it. Super Mario Bros. was state-of-the-art, and my Final Fantasy addiction began there.
Then we got a SNES when they were down to $80 and the NES had broken. Super Street Fighter II, Mortal Kombat II, and Final Fantasy II/III(aka VI) filled another few hundred hours of time. The PSX was only $120 when we got it, so we could play FF7 and FFT (Tactics).
But by the time the PS2 gets down into my price range, two things will have happened. One, I'll be too old to be spending 70 hours running characters up to Level 99 to splatter Kefka like a plastic toy. Two, the hardware will be obsolete. "Sorry, Final Fantasy 37.3 requires 2 GB of free hard drive space to install. Since you have 786 MB free, FF 37.3 cannot be run."
Install? Sure, why not copy one DVD of a 2-disc game to the HD for "speed"? All this is beginning to remind me of "How much land does a man need?" by Leo Tolstoy. We constantly grab for more and more... but does it ever occur to us that DOS might have been all we really needed? I run DOS on my box downstairs, and I'm satisfied with its 133MHz Pentium speed. Windows 95 is just an Internet connection, albiet a low-bandwidth one (one floppy per 5 minutes).
~~~LXT~~~
Life is like a computer program: anything that can't happen, will.
my hard drive dropped like 2cm once inside my case because of a screw fell out, and it got damaged.. my brothers hard drive totally died just because he hit his chair against his desk that the pc sits on
Where these Hardrives ceramic? I have a two year old Gateway that has been in moving vanes three times. I have also gotten mad at my computer and I whack the side of it HARD and nothing has ever gone wrong with it since I bought it. Your brother hits the desk the PC sits on and the PC dies, I hope you had someone replace the computer. Also whatever you do quit buying from whoever you were buying from.
The PS2 already has an extremely fast processor, plenty or RAM, a USB port, a Firewire port, a PCMCIA port, and a DVD-ROM player, and now they're adding a modem and a hard drive? All for ~$300?
Obviously the hard drive is there for you to install Linux!
I say get one for every student! And put them in the classrooms!
Kevin Fox
Kevin Fox
firewire hubs might have an ethernet gateway.
also, doesn't it include a pcmcia slot?
The HD is not necessarily for the games; the downloaded content that Sony and licensees would market, such as new songs for Bust a Groove 3, or more maps for Final Fantasy X Online, or music videos to go with James Bond:Whatever the Sequel is Titled, etc.
It's primarily a preemptive strike against M$ if it does come out, but it's not like you'd need it yet either.
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
I mean, they aren't marketing it as such. You're not supposed to do your taxes on it, you're not going to program a QuakeIII mod on it, you won't be doing AV stuff on it...
It's meant as an entertainment device first, and a computational device second, even though there are definite overlaps.
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
It's all about ROB, the Robotic Operating Buddy.
Trees can't go dancing
So do them a big favor
Pretend dancing stinks!
First...I should say I know nothing about gaming really...
But..is it possible that the hard drive could not only be used for online access...but for larger games and FMVs...throw a SCSI card in there and a nice 10000 RPM hard drive and all the sudden you could quickly take a compressed video and use the hard drive to store it temporarily. It seems like a way to avoid running out of space..even though I know they are like DVD size...but..hey...my copy of Goodfellas is 2 sided...as many other DVDs are...so this could be a good way to help with large games?
I predict this backfiring on Sony. After all, one of the advantages of launching their hardware in Japan first is the ability to fix all the problems before the larger US release (From what I've heard, there are so many video game fanatics over there, they will buy systems even though they know there will be bugs). But since they are adding new hardware to the US version, with only a few months to test it, I would expect a whole new parcel of bugs to creep in.
So, how will this affect the first few generations of games? I doubt the developers knew about this.. does this mean these features won't be used much, at first at least? Will this be like the 3d chip Sega added to the Saturn at the last minute? Hmmm.
Most likely, they'll get in the same DVD playback woes they got into in Japan... except now the problem will be the hard drive. I'm sure plenty of other things wil go wrong as well. One good point- the US PS2 is now officially the first truly hackable console. And it's cool we finally get gaming hardware before Japan does... A rarity.
Oh well, I'll probably still buy one... They just look so cool.
Josh Sisk
A hard drive connected to your TV?..
Would increase price but sounds like the modem is for looking up an online TV guide and setting when to record TV to disk. (The CNet article mentions access revenues a la WebTV but that doesn't sound like such a big market any more.) With this you might be able to view different camera angles of the Super Bowl with personalized 3D effects. Might also give advertisers feedback.. who needs cookies when you have a serial number and strong encryption?
Off the deeper end, could also become the hub of the home network (Sony wants a home server), allowing other devices to share the modem or 3D graphics capabilities of the PS2.. XHOST +sony_videophone
Might actually get people to program their VCRs too if it has your favorite animated character walk you through it (download your own!)
Personally I'd rather have ten times the current RAM and buy an external hard drive myself.
Sony obviously wants the PS2 to be the centerpiece in any home's audiovisual entertainment center. So what has this to do with the extra hardware?
Simple!
Sony sees this huge,untapped market for distributing MP3s over the internet! I mean, what else do 12 year olds do nowadays besides play video games, right? And as we all know, it takes quite a bit of HD space to hold a substantial amount of MP3s...so voila! Sony is set and poised to become an MP3 power...
Coming soon...Sony's buyout of Napster, and the addition of banner advertising...a la ICQ!
telnet://bbs.ufies.org
Trade Wars Lives
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
If they do add the modem and hard drive to the US version, won't that effectively split the market for the game designers? Now they can either write a game that doesn't use the modem and drive storage, so that international release is limited to PAL/NTSC changes and language translation. Or, they can write the game to use the modem and hard drive in the US, and have to dummy down the game or not release it at all internationally.
It seems that for game platforms, creating multiple configurations will fragment your market and give an advantage to a competitor who has the same configuration accross all markets.
If they do add the modem and hard drive, I hope they make a low cost add-on available to the Japan version that is functionally compatible so that they don't suffer from having multiple variants of the console in different markets.
Consoles ALWAYS sell at a loss. ALWAYS. Sony would toss in their mom if they thought that they'd make more money. If a Web browser will make people use thier $29.99 a month (I'm guessing) internet sevice, toss it in. If they can sell MP3 that can only be played on the PS2, toss it in. This isn't about mindshare or games, its about money. Companies are willing to lose in the short term if they think they'll win in the long term. However, it doesn't always work. (*ahem* iopener *ahem*)
When are these console companies going to realize that modems are quickly turning into a technology that serves only those that have no other choice. DSL and cable, and who knows what else in the next couple years are available to an increasingly massive proportion of the public. Ethernet is really the only option that makes sense for these situations, and it would make a lot of sense for console designers to add it in.
Ethernet is a proven technology. The last network card I bought consisted of ONE chip and a couple capacitors. Its not a big deal to add network support to almost any architecture anymore. Perhaps not every potential customer has a home network yet, but this is quickly changing. This is another prime example of a company not embracing the future. The iOpener is another perfect example. Hardware hackers made it obvious real quick how much they fell short of what people really want.. Just wait until someone ports linux to the PS2.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
--
The PS 1 has had a high rate of return in its lifetime, and still managed to come out on top. I'd say that for most people, they aren't going to bang the thing around enough to kill it.
totally correct.
THAT'S why we need to push for ethernet cards NOW. Otherwise, online multiplayer games may not ever be properly developed for this platform.
IMHO, games are either single player OR multiplayer. Games writen for single player suck as multiplayer and visa versa (Diablo is the only exception). I don't want a platform where the only multiplayer action is the poorly implemented options within singleplayer games opperating over a rarified ethernet cards. Maybe I'm a cable snob but modems just plain *suck*.
I had generally heard estimates of $300 for the US lauch of the PS2. But with this news, I have to think that the launch price will be closer to $400.
Although I agree that having some sort of on-line gaming ability built in is a really good idea, wonder how well that balances out against the loss in sales from the higher price. I think $300 is supposed to be the price at which the mass market generally starts accepting a component, and even though the PS2 looks fantastic there are probably a lot of people who won't buy one at $400.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
- Andy R.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
Yeah I guess I don't really know about that. See most companies like to betray people with massive inefficient code that breaks almost all computers.
What exactly is Half Life about? What makes it so good? What about online play is any different from the usual fare about having things where you see how quickly you can kill your fellow players and the like.
Playing online has never been very fun for me at all (when I can find a computer that isn't mine that can actually do anything). The whole idea makes me sick. I am tired of playing people who kick my ass 700 times before I fall to the ground. To me the concept of playing against others is a rather bad idea. I don't want to play a game I can't win. I don't want to fight a game that I never can do anything with.
A good example for you:
Starcraft. Ok I get the shareware version and play the entire thing all the way through in a college cumputer lab. That was somewhat challenging and I rather enjoyed it. Next I decide to try to play some multiplayer stuff on the net. Well after several days I hadn't won a single game with large ammounts of time dedicated to this.
I didn't win a damn one. Not only this but I wasn't enjoying it much at all (you should know how it feels to loose).
I tried almost every conceivable military tactical strategy that I had heard published and some of the stuff from the Art of War. Nothing helps. I almost never win anything.
Second example:
Quake III arena. This game obviously was on a better machine that I didn't own as well. I started playing the damn thing and for the life of me I never seemed to avoid death or deliver any death to almost anyone. Nothing worked at all. Seemed that it was an impossibility.
Now maybe I am "ignorant" but this dosn't seem like something I would want to do for free and especially not for a fee.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
The Genesis had it all.
There was a modem for online multiplayer games.
They invented home broadband access. Remember the Sega Channel? Pay five dollars a month and plug your cable tv into the genesis, download games. That was crazy.
There was a genesis web browser. too.
It even had parallel multiprocessers. A Z80 slapped on to run an independent sound system.
A mere ten years ago, this was all too insane for your small minds to comprehend.
- My password is slashdot
--Buckaroo Banzai, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai
-------- "All I want in life's a little bit of love to take the pain away" --Spiritualized
Microsoft covered this when the X Box was announced, I'll re-iterate a bit for you here.
1) Caching Game Data to the hard drive for faster access (you mentioned this).
2) Internet Cache (you mentioned this)
3) Updates, patches, savegames, add ons, free demos.
I think the hdd could be rad if they use a totally new game-content-centric filesystem.
-------- "All I want in life's a little bit of love to take the pain away" --Spiritualized
The reason the PS2 doesn't come with ethernet, and for that matter the reason the Dreamcast doesn't come with it either, is that MOST users in the US (and the world) don't have the option of a cable modem or DSL. But nearly everyone has a phone line.
I mean, duh. Isn't that pretty obvious?
If you have a fast connection, buy an Ethernet adapter and plug it into the USB port or one of the PCMCIA slots.
I'd say this post gets best troll of the day, hands down. Should be +5 funny.
--GnrcMan--
Don't get a PSX2.
Long signatures suck.
http://www.pccablesdirect.com/products/DLDSB650.ht m who needs ethernet when you have USB ports, which I believe the Play station 2 will have
3) Updates, patches, savegames, add ons, free demos.
:)
Updates and patches? Uh-Oh. I don't like the sound of this. I will hate to see console software get into that "Ship it now, and release patches later" mindset. And most people will be using modems untill bandwidth becomes VERY cheap. And most patches are BIG.
This is not fun, and connections have a bad habit of breaking when you need them most. When bugs did surface on console games, you either sent in the game for a new disk, or got the bums rush from the company. Thankfully, most of the console games are mostly bug-free (and I mean bugs that kill a game, not little graphics burps), because of the bad PR/cost of making new disks is high. But the whole "patch it later" could be a headache.
As for savegames, 8GB is overkill. I only own 2 1Meg mem cards for my Playstation, but then again, I delete saved games when I get bored with a title. Even if you save tons of data, you don't need that much space. If you have games on your PC, pick your lastest game and see how big your saved game files are.
For add-ons/mods, that would be cool. But you'll still need either small mods or fast bandwith. Connections are flaky, even with a good modem. Yes, some people still use modems.
Free demos? Bandwith strikes again. Games are big. DVD based games will be Really Big, since they'll have all the cool, wizzbang stuff on them. Feel like downloading a DVD or a large part of it?
The current method of getting demos are demo CDs. I rather spend a few bucks for a slab of plastic then tie up the phone line.
Maybe Sony should look into software that will resume broken downloads, at least.
For anyone that was paying attention, the Dreamcast has a modem which is attached to an expansion port. This means (put on your thinking caps) you can *remove* it and add an Ethernet or Firewire adapter to this so-called expansion port. Having an expansion port is a good thing because you can attach anything you like to it as long as you pack it with a driver disk. I think the expansion port is a much much better idea than hardwiring a modem into the DC for the very reason that more people are getting xDSL and cable access. If Sony has a smart set of fellows working for them they will do something similar, hopefully even make the hard drive an option. They could just ship the PS2 with an expansion bay you COULD stick a hard drive into, it would keep the price down and give them some room to expand.
As an aside I was thinking about Sony and what their plans might be for the future, I'm thinking after the PS2 has been out for a year or two, maybe three, they're going to start building VAIO PCs and laptops based around the EE (maybe with some modifications to make it a little more general purpose) and some of the PS2's architecture. Right now they are making a run for consumer's living rooms and the next logical step would be the office. The PCs they sell now are Intel's bitches and in many ways are being held back by Intel and x86. Don't give me crap about Itanium, the EE is out NOW not sometime next year. The EE would be a real boon to Sony in the audio/visual editing department considering audio and video filters are just a bunch of operations performed on the samples or pixels (the vector units on that puppy would tear through high demand video filters). The PS2 is primarily a gaming machine but I think it's secondary objective is to test out some architectural ideas. Sony might even try to poise itself as the next decade's SGI. That's just my five pesos.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Ethernet would be an exelent addition to the PS2. Think about it. Lets say that you want to play final fantasy 11 (which is going to be entirely online) but you don't want to pay for some outrageous phoneline-connection to the game network. Alternative? Plug in some ethernet cable, and hook it up to your LAN at home. Voila, instant connection to the game server (and many others) all with one simple cable.
It would be very wise for Sony to do this, and support connecting as I described... but of course, we all know what they are after. The buck always stops here. *sigh* Never know though. Heck, if PS2 comes with ethernet, I think it would be damn cool. I'd love to hook my playstation to my LAN at home.
Fran Frisina (franf@hhs.net)
http://www.zero-productions.com/money
Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.
I've had a different multiplayer experience. The first true multiplayer computer game I ever played was Quake... loved it as a single player game then I played on the internet and was killed constantly. Then I discovered an internet cafe in my town that had weekly tournaments, which I frequented regularly... Just a fun thing to do on a Saturday afternoon. Slowly I got better.
About the same time, my friends and I discovered to joys of Red Alert and Warcraft II on a Lan. Thus far, I had found multiplayer gaming, LAN-style to be awesome and internet to be lacking.
After this, I became a Quake II fanatic, writing console scripts for myself and others, making skins and levels, etc... I found playing Quake online to be fun... Not a replacement for the single player game, however- I don't like this multi-player only trend... It's fun, to log on, play for like half an hour, kill a bit, get killed, whatever. And since it's a FPS you don't get all the disadvantages that RTS games have in online play (I'm getting to that).
RTS games, in my experience are something you play with friends. I've played Starcraft extensively with friends and kids I've taught at a computer camp and am pretty god at it. I love to play, but online... There are just too many groups of people who form a game just to stomp on the one or two guys in the game they don't know.
I think a console online multiplay option would be good for many games... Imagine being able to fight a REAL, single elimination tournament in a fighting game. I mean, most fighting games already have very little single-player content, so they'd be perfect for this. There could be a tournament running constantly. The winners would get their names up on the game's web site for a week or something... Or maybe every month, the person who wins the most tournaments wins a tshirt or other prize. The money lost on prizes and keeping the server running would be offset by the fact that the company would be developing a community of fans for _it's_ brand of fighting game...
I think online play will be good for the consoles, not replacing the single player mode, but simply adding a new mode...
Josh Sisk
To me the concept of playing against others is a rather bad idea. I don't want to play a game I can't win.
Same here. I gave up on online multiplayer games a long time ago. I got tired of kiddies with no real lives taking glee in ruining it for everyone else.
Besides, I don't enjoy competitive games. That's why I've always preferred role-playing over board games.
I'll love it when someone invents a gaming AI that can handle being a halfway decent game master. Couple that with Quake-style 3D, slap on some online/multiplayer functionality, and a pretty good role-playing experience will be possible. Not great, but it'd be a start.
Until I can meet up with people online and go on a cooperative adventure through a virtual world, combating the game's AI instead of one another, I'll continue to pass on online gaming.
It shouldn't *MATTER* to the games programmer whether or not they are doing their network code over a Modem line, or using the local LAN port.
This is what device drivers are for.
And this is *far* more important an issue than whether or not the PSX2 ships with a LAN card or modem out of the box... yet nobody is really looking at this, because the OS part of these consoles is not subject to the same sort of review that OS's like Windows or Linux are.
Microsoft's X-Box presumably is designed around the same concepts of modern OS technology, with a driver layer between the API and the wire. This may in fact be to their advantage, because it means that developers can write software without having to worry about whether or not a particular peripheral is installed - this task should be a function of the OS, not the App (Game).
So in my opinion, its more relevant to investigate whether or not the PSX2 gaming API's are device-agnostic due to a well written (and well supported) device driver layer from Sony... because if this is *not the case* (as in the past, with the PSX2), then X-Box has a leg up on PSX2...
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
It's hard disk, not hard drive, dammit!
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
It's this close to being an iMac DV ^^;
DVD support, Firewire support, USB support, decent PSX compatibility(with CVGS), and a modem. In one unit.
It'd be amusing if Apple released a iBox or something; a headless iMac for use with TV or monitor, with a G4 processor and AltiVec, for $500 or something. Then the biggest difference would be market targetting of the devices.
Of course, the iBox would have ethernet support over the PSX2 modem, and the PSX2 would have better controllers and peripherals(unless they were USB... then switch and plug!)
Just random rambling on my part
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
PS2 does NOT run Linux - I have a DLT-T1000 (the 'Tool' development box) right here on my desk and I can tell you that for a fact.
You COMPILE on linux (if you aren't using Codewarrior or Pro-DG which are commercial development toolsets for Windows) but there's no real OS on the target hardware at all. You don't need one.
Linux would be of limited use on PS2 or PSX anyway. There's no MMU (and thus no memory protection). There's also a buttload of custom silicon that's really no use for anything much besides 3d math and graphics for games.
To keep this a little on-topic, there's NOTHING in any of the official developer forums about the hard drive or the modem. Don't you think they'd tell developers about this hardware at least 6 months before they ship it to consumers?
Oh, lastly, 2 controller ports are plenty. A multitap is $30 or thereabouts. Those people who really need more ports can spend that. Most N64 owners have never used the 'extra' 2 ports despite the really good sales numbers of Mario Party etc.
I really wanted one of these, but I don't think I'd buy it if I had to buy a modem and hard drive. One of the nice things about consoles is not worrying about your media breaking.
Online -- Quake 3 on the PC
Console -- Final Fantasy 10 on the PSX2
Actually no. The SNES CDROM was being developed by Sony in response the SegaCD. Near the end of the project, Nintendo backed out and went with Philips (that project didn't come to anything either.) Pissed off, Sony added some stuff to the design, came out with the Playstation, and ate Nintendo's lunch. If anything, its is Nintendo that did the screwing, not Sony.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Why the !@#$ would a console need a HD. What are they thinking? Sony's already gone too far by including Firewire and other bs. It's a console, I want to play games on it. Nothing Else! Let's get a slimlined product without all this excise.
Sony included Firewire (or, as they call it, iLink) because they are trying to create a synergy between all theri products. Most of Sony's hardware now comes with iLink... It will allow your PS2 to hook up to your Sony Receiver and automatically adjust the surround sound to be perfect for a given game or DVD... Admittedly, most people have no use for this, but Sony is putting iLink in everything now. I'm suprised they didn't use memory sticks for the memory cards of this thing.
Josh Sisk
An ethernet card is not necessary for something that has firewire. You can set up a firewire network that approaches the speed of 100mpbs ethernet. Sony actually already does this in their VAIO line of desktop PCs.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
So, supposing the PS2 has a modem and a hard drive, could developers write whole games for the PS2 and make them available through download sites such as Download.com. What kind of operating system has (should have) the PS2 that would be necessary for this download-and-play thing to happen?
This would change a lot of things because now you could have freeware, shareware, demoware for the PS2; you could preview PS2 games before you buy them. I think this would be a good thing for independent developers.
Oh, and other comments have said that the HD would be used to save game states but isn't that what memory sticks are supposed to do? The HD should have another purpose.
"All the things one has forgotten scream for help in dreams". Elias Canetti
They will probably just throw in what would have been an add on later into the crate. They probably aren't going to modify the plastic just to fit in a new piece of hardware; the development time alone on a new shaped box would be too much and too long.
Sony has been known for developing a new kind of hard drive with a plastic based platter...
Yes, the saturn did have two processors, but the design was horrible. Actually, design is too good of a word, since the dual processors were just a kludge put together at the last moment. The saturn was orignially designed to be another 2-D platform, like previous 16-bit machines, but when the playstation's 3D capabilities were announced, Sega quickly hacked on another processor into the design.
This caused a lot of problems in many different aspects. First of all, since the design was a hack, it cost a lot to manufacture the damn things (wires had to be soldered on, etc.), so that sega could never benefit from the economies of scale that the more elegantly designed PSX could, and forced Sega to keep the price of the machine higher than they would have liked, which didn't allow them much room to maneuver around Sony. Secondly, because the basic design was a hack, the libraries for the system were not very good, so that the developers had a hell of a time trying to make games for it. Sony's libraries for the PSX, on the other hand, were very easy to use, which made developing games much easier. Thirdly, even if someone managed to work around the libraries for the Saturn, the basic problem of the hardware not being designed for 3D games came up again. The PSX has 2 (main) processors as well, a RISC 3000 chip, and a graphics processor that was designed to support 3D operation, so that even from the very beginning of the PSX, it was fairly trivial to get a working 3D game working. On the other hand, even the later Japanese Saturn games that I saw (the Saturn did MUCH better in Japan than in the US) had horrible problems with 3D graphics. So the problem with the Saturn wasn't so much that it was difficult to develop for (although it was), but instead the fact that the basic design was inadequate. Of course, it didn't help that the playstation was much easier to work with, but it wasn't as if the saturn never got a chance.
of course it matters. bandwidth is a huge issue when designing an online game. the device drivers handle the interface, but thats not going to help the problem of code being designed with ethernet in mind but then run over a modem. the poor modem owner will be swimming in a sea of lag.
by including modems, sony will influence the game designers to cut back on data transfer, which will serve to hinder what they can do. only so much information can be transmitted over 56k before lag becomes an issue.
however, if sony goes all-ethernet, they will basically be giving developers free reign. not only that, but all the PS2 owners who can't get [insert broadband delivery method here] will start bitching and complaining until someone DOES offer ADSL/cable/whatever. this would be a GoodThing®.
You seem bitter over VA resaerch shares.
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
If Sony just want to outrun Microsoft, PSX2 just needs to work. Period.
It would help if they released it though...
The modem is for internet connectivity alone - there is NO NEED AT ALL for an Ethernet connection, that's just dumb. If you have internet connectivity seperately you don't need the PS2 to connect to the phone line, so just forget the feature. Remember Sony are trying to sell 100 million of these - they are trying to make it a ubiquitous appliance that *everyone* has. To do this, they need to sell it to non-gamers, hence the extra features (and I predict that video editing will be a future feature of the console too, given it has an iLink interface).
Trust me, the PS2 is going to rock. It's *not* just a games console.
Ed xxx [PS2 developer]
--
It's a
-- Danny Vermin
Here is where you are mistaken -
Several aftermarket add-ons have been successful - the Sega CD, Jaguar CD, Light Guns, the Nintendo 64 4MB Memory Pak, Sony Multitap, and Nintendo 64 Rumble Paks. It is quite possible to create accessories that developers use, they just have to be worthwhile. The Famicom Disk and the Sattelaview for the Famicom and Super Famicom were unsuccesful since no one was interested in downloading text games from satellite or in a format that offered no advantages over the cartridge. Similarly, I would be surprised if the Nintendo Robot offered anything to anyone. Lots of failed add-ons exist (Sega 32X), but in general, if there is enough of a use for hardware add-on, developers will support it at least secondarily.
However, internet support is a massive add-on that is very worthwhile - plus, if you are developing a multi-player game, adding in support for broadband internet access is pretty easy. Since Sony has refused to allow a modem connection for the PS2, developers will NOT need to worry about optimizing network code for high-latency low-bandwidth connections, so adding internet support to Gran Turismo 2001 or Madden 2002 won't be terribly time-consuming. Net games are already in development for the PS2 (Final Fantasy XI, anyone?)... I doubt that the internet add-on will be anything but successful.
As for the hard drive... From what I've read of Sony's white papers, the HD is not designed for heavy games use. Sony envisions a broadband network where you can setup the PS2 to download a DVD movie while you play Tekken, and cache it on the hard drive, or store tons of MP3s. Its use will be primarily as multimedia storage for the internet/application side of the PS2, not for gaming. It will be a convenience for the PS2 owner, not the console developer, so it should be reasonably successful - especially for people who don't own computers and use the PS2 as their primary internet device.
Also, all current information points to an external 50GB+ Firewire hard disk released at the same time a PCMCIA Ethernet card is released - early 2001. Sony is already losing enough money on every PS2 that they sell to include $200 more hardware in the box.
The reason I got a PSX was that it was simpler. When I buy a PlayStation, I DO NOT have to worry that it won't work the first time. I have complete confidence that unless the CD is physically damaged (which hasn't happened yet) when I put the CD in the box, I can turn it on and just have it work. I don't have to deal with making sure I have the most recent version of DirectX installed. I don't have to worry that my sound card will conflict with some bizarre piece of code in the game, and result in GPFs every 5 minutes. I don't have to make sure I have enough HD space. I don't have to install anything. I don't have to consider for the slightest moment that the game won't run 5 minutes after I get home, with NO issues. How many PC games have you bought that didn't have a Troubleshooting section in the back of the manual (or should have, if they didn't)? How many console games have you bought that DID?
Putting a few more transparent features on the PS2 is a great idea. It would be difficult for me to be more excited about the PS2 also being a DVD player. But if I ever have to check the bottom of the box for system requirements on a console game, I will probably switch to exclusively PC games. That would suck, because I really LIKE not having to worry about this stuff. I hope Sony doesn't shoot themselves in the foot.
"I've had my N64 freeze on me, twice. That's the only time I've ever seen I've ever seen a console crash, including NES, SNES, Genesis, PSX, Saturn, Sega CD, Dreamcast... you get the picture. I'd hate to see buggy console games become as common as buggy PC games."
Yeah, the only buggy PSX game I own is Grand Thieft Auto. Heavy slowdown and dead crashes. The only thing that keeps me playing is that it's one of my favs. I think the fact that it's free formish is it's best feature.
1. Get drunk
2. Start killing as many people as you can. (i.e. drive on the sidewalk)
3. repeat 2 as long as you can before the cops kill you....
p.s. this is odd, while I am typing this, music from my quake2 CD is playing for no reason (I just stopped a gamespy session a half hour ago), and quake2 is NOT playing in the background...
My guess is that sony plans a launch of the system in two versions, one with modem & hard drive, one without. This way, you can legitimately say 'So the X-box has feature y? Got that, and a years worth head start...' while still offering a 'value-priced' console for people who don't need feature y.
Remember, the NES was released in two versions- the Super Mario Bros. version, and the Duck Hunt/Gyromite versions, so there's a good precedent to follow here... A hard drive and modem sounds much cooler than a 'Robotic Operating Buddy', though I don't know if you could have convinced me of that 15 years ago...
But I'm older and wiser now, and have learned to steer clear of the R.O.B.'s of the world... wait a second... What did you say CmdrTaco's real name was?
What exactly is Half Life about? What makes it so good?
...Well after several days I hadn't won a single game...wasn't enjoying it much at all (you should know how it feels to loose).
;) It's just like anything else though: practice makes perfect. I can remember playing Master of Magic for hours on Impossible level, only to get overrun 6 hours into it. True, the learning curve is steeper in most multiplayer games: it's harder to predict the moves of a human opponenet. This however, IMHO, is what makes success all the more rewarding.
The Team Fortress Classic mod for Half-Life is great because it's not just a "kill at 100mph" Quake deathmatch style. With 7 unique character classes, it generally takes teamwork to succeed. Myself, I don't play much Quake DM, because your right, it's basically just a contest of who can move faster and get the most rockets.
I am tired of playing people who kick my ass 700 times before I fall to the ground
A good example for you: Starcraft. Ok I get the shareware version
Oh yeah, I know how to get my ass kicked in Starcraft real good
This could be a really great thing to watch. Maybe now, becuase of Playstation add-ons, X box will start to put better stuff on, and then Sony will add more, and then X box will add more... and after many years of more and more, and the realease date being pushed back for many years, Sony and Microsoft will release two game systems that are so powerful they can directly link with your brain and cost millions and millions of dollars too make, and since they have to sell it at $350 or so they will both go bankrupt... and we, the consumers, will chuckle, and then be forced to play pokemon, yet once again...
When anyone in your party wears Sprint Shoes, your party will walk twice as fast as before.
I've got a PS2 sitting in the living room right now and it is incredibly disappointing. The visuals are underwhelming. I'm looking at Ridge Racer V, Streetfighter 3, Dead or Alive 2, Eternal Ring, and none of it looks as good as SoulCalibur or Shenmue. OK, the Sega needs a VGA adapter to shine and the PS2 is going through an NTSC/PAL converter, but what I'm seeing is fundamentally broken.
There are 4 Mbytes of DRAM. Allocate 2 frame buffers and a Z buffer and there's not much room for textures. It looks like they've shrunk the buffers to the bare minimum to make space for textures, there are huge crawling jaggies, sparkly junk on textures, big blocks of smooth colour (no texture), bleah! BTW, the DVD software went away at random as advertised on Slashdot, never to be seen again, so no opinions about the video.
Now, we all know game developers need time to get the best out of a machine, but Sega play by the same rules and got off the blocks in good shape, whereas doing PS2 must be like running with a ball and chain attached.
Last I heard a PS2 cost $560 to build, a modem and a hard drive will take that up to what, $700? If it sells for $250 that's a lot of title revenue needed to subsidise it. Maybe they can make the modem ($40?) work as a business, because that way lies online games, but what is the hard disk for? They could make a TiVo with it for sure, but bundling doesn't make sense, they should sell it (or the services it enables) as an option instead of carrying the cost for all those kids who use it for games.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't believe articles about PS2 taking over the world anymore.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
..rocks.