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Acer Labs' (ALI) Plans Box To Play PS2 Games, DVD

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the maximize-your-potentialities dept.

bemis writes: "Techweb has an article about Acer's plans to bring PC and PSX gaming to DVD players in China next year (and hopefully domestically here in the U.S.) ..they are also ramping up a chipset for 266MHz DDR SDRAM for Athlon systems to bring the bus speed up from a paltry 200MHz." Not much detail is given about the hinted-at game / video boxes, but the project sounds pretty ambitious. At this rate, DVD players will pass the $100 mark soon.

5 of 55 comments (clear)

  1. It emulates the original Playstation, NOT the PS2 by weeeee · · Score: 5

    It doesn't do PS2, just the original PSX

  2. Controllers? by discore · · Score: 4

    What sort of controllers will be used? My experiance with PC "gamepads" has been moderate to poor.
    PC games are designed to use a mouse and a keyboard. Console games are designed for that systems control pad. It's how it is, and it's probably how it's going to stay.
    Will their controllers provide support for PS2's pressure sensative buttons? Will they be sleek and comfy? Will it provide enough buttons to satisfy an every-key-used-game like THPS? Will it still be simple enough to play Puzzle Fighter on?
    I think that the chip is an ok idea, but there is a fine line between PC games and Console games. Look at Quake* for example. On PC for a while, huge hit, great game. N64 (or whatever your favorite console gaming system is) version of it comes out and sure its fun to play for a little bit. But does it really compare to the PC version? I think not.
    The line must be drawn! All arrows point to this system failing or doing moderatly well.

    1. Re:Controllers? by zaugg · · Score: 3
      I bought a Saitek P2000 Tilt Pad three weeks ago. One day later, I bought another one.

      I was very impressed. It has an analog stick very like the Playstation pad, 2-axis tilt (okay, I don't use it much but feels damn cool in GP3), throttle, d-pad, 4 shoulder buttons, 4 regular buttons and some funky software.

      The buttons don't quite have the same satisfying "push me" quality as those on a N64 or PSX pad, but they're close.

      All this for AU$65.

      Game pads are a must-have for multi-player sports games. A keyboard is pretty cramped even with one player :)

      --zaugg

  3. PS1, not PS2 by ToLu+the+Happy+Furby · · Score: 4

    Way to read the article, folks. "And at its labs in China, the company is developing an embedded operating system and emulation software that would run PC and Sony Playstation games on the RISC chip"

    This is a general-purpose, 300MHz RISC chip. There is no way in hell it could emulate the special-purpose, 300MHz SIMD-based Emotion Engine, nor its dual-channel RDRAM memory.

    Nor is there any reason why ALi would ever want to do so. All gaming consoles, including the PS2, are sold at a loss. The only reason Sony wants to sell PS2s is that they make money on licensing fees for each game sold. The console is a loss leader. There is no way to make a PS2 for less than $300; if there was, Sony would sell them for less than $300. Therefore it is a very simple conclusion that this chip emulates the PS1--simple enough to be emulated without incurring additional cost--not the state-of-the-art PS2.

    Shame on /. once again.

  4. What about the CSS Licence by Why+Should+I · · Score: 5

    Isn't there some law about licencing CSS on machines with software and DVD capabilities as opposed to DVD players with CSS in hardware. Won't this decision place the DVD player in the computer category and hence void the CSS licence?