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Sony To 'Open' Playstation

Posted by emmett on from the sweeeeeeeet dept.

kaphka writes "Sony will be freely licensing its Playstation 2 platform, as well as opening its architecture, according to this TechWeb article. I guess that's one way to deal with the emulators."

3 of 113 comments (clear)

  1. Open....not! by faichai · · Score: 5
    Everyone seems to think Sony are opening the specs, where in fact all they are doing is selling their proprietary chips to third parties (i.e. like Nvidia, mentioned earlier)

    If I am reading things correctly my guess is this a slap in the face for the X-Box. Microsodt is using commodity components to build a good value console, on the other hand Sony is going to sell the chips such they themselves become commodity items.

    The integration of PS2 chips into TVs and the like would be quite groovy, however the problem with all this integration is the problem of upgrades.

    Perhaps one of the goals of this strategy is to allow people like Creative Labs and the like to produce PC expansion cards that can handle PS2 games, with appropriate restrictions to ensure the games are read from the DVD/CD-ROM drive to ensure "playster" never becomes a reality.

    This will almost definitely be hackable, however with the massive market available, my guess is the card might cost £50 (eventually), and this will almost definitely mean that Emulators (especially considering that most of them are Piss Poor) would be defunct.

    Anyway, thats my 2p, what do you think?

  2. Not so much "opening"... by wowbagger · · Score: 5
    This really isn't "opening" the Playstation 2. This is just allowing other companies to buy the chips. There is no mention of whether the specs for the chips will be under NDA ("You can buy the chips from us, and if you do we'll let you have the specs, but you cannot share them"), nor is there any indication that any other company could make video games. Kiosks, embedded displays yes, but how knows about games.


    However, it's still a very good sign. Perhaps Sony "gets it"?

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  3. Hello... Mcfly!!! by Duncan3 · · Score: 5

    Game consoles are sold at a LOSS, and a big one at that. Sony is opening up the hardware for the clones, big deal, noone cares.

    Sony and everyone else sells the hardware at a loss because all the money is in the games.

    It you wanted to buy the parts and build it yourself (i.e. clone it), it will cost you a few times more then if you just but it at the local story. You might be able to build a system for 3-4x the cost of the Sony subsidized system.

    You wont see the game license fees dropping, or the emulators being allowed ever because that's where the money is.

    Once again the Slash-blurb is grossly misleading.

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