Rumours of Playstation 3 in 2003

aosgood writes "PS3 in 2003? Bloomberg's got a story from some manufactures stating that they are to begin trial runs next month. All I can say is WOW. "Cell" is ready?" I've got my doubts on the veracity of this information - unidentified sources and all. But it does indicate that even if it's not this year, Sony may be rolling the 3 out sooner then previously thought.Update: 03/10 14:50 GMT by H : Yep Sony has begun denying it.

Comments

I'm not holding my breath.

[dreamchaser]

I somehow doubt that this (unverifiable) story is true. There may be some prototype units being made to test the new 'Cell' processor architecture, but the debugging cycle of a new processor can be time consuming. If the chip is still under developement, we won't be seeing the final unit this year.

Smells like vapor...looks like vapor...maybe it is vapor!

Hmm... I don't think so

[Gangis]

To be honest, I think the whole "Playstation 3" thing being released in 2003 is bull. I mean, think about it... The Playstation 2 was released with a LOT of fanfare. It was announced 2 years before, pictures of the unit a year before... If this is indeed true, I would be deeply surprised. Sony's famous for it's marketing and hype machine.

I would know, I fell victim to the hype. I wanted one so bad that I wanted to trade my left nut for it. ;)

(Thankfully that didn't happen as I was cheated out of a PS2 at Walmart, although I was able to pick a used one up a few months later for $125. Don't ask.)

Re:Hmm... I don't think so

[Bohnanza]

The Playstation 2 was released with a LOT of fanfare. It was announced 2 years before, pictures of the unit a year before...

A big part of that was to convince people NOT to buy a Dreamcast. If they did the same thing this time, they'd mainly be convincing people not to buy a PS2.

Still early

[LookSharp]

Whether Cell is ready or not, you still have to go through manufacturing trails, quality assurance, a big Japanese release (with requesite game titles), then a US release.

Even with a reputable source like Bloomberg, the odds that Sony would have a US launch before Christmas would be long, in my completely uninformed opinion. :)

Need to press their advantage

[SnowDog_2112]

Sony may be winning the console war, but I'd say their hold on their lead is pretty tenuous. They need to keep people buying their systems.

My impression, and I admit it's from a pretty cursory overview of the console world, is that the PS2 gets its market share because of its market recognition (the name "Playstation" means "home console" in much the same way "Atari" used to) and its huge game library. Folks who are real graphics nuts are talking about how much the PS2 lags behind the competitors in terms of how "pretty" the games are.

A fully backwards-compatible PS3 would definitely help this, without losing their two main advantages in the market. A PS3 that isn't backwards compatible had better have some real big pluses going for it.

Re:Need to press their advantage

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Sony may be winning the console war, but I'd say their hold on their lead is pretty tenuous. They need to keep people buying their systems.

Funny. I was under the impression that they were beating the pants off of everyone else. Hell, I'm seeing PC games being ported to the PS2. Sony's brilliant move was to be loose with the licenses so that developers could afford to take a risk. This may explain the 5 racks of PS2 games at the local game stop as opposed to the 1 rack of Xbox, and the 5 racks of games for the PC.

Frankly I do see a difference between the major game consoles in performance, but if Intel has taught us anything it is be the first with the worst. The PS2 does and adaquate job with every game I've thrown in it. For the price, the selection, and the fact it doesn't eat an entire shelf by itself, PS2 wins.

That said, consoles are gettign to be so cheap that you can afford to have more than one. My wife is talking about getting a gamecube for the little one. I'm for anything that keeps the kids off my PC.

Re:Need to press their advantage

[RedCard]

While it is true that the PS is beating the pants off of every other competitor right now, you're forgetting the volatility of the console market itself. There was a point in time when the NES's lead seemed unassailable, but the SNES was only able to sell 1:1 with the genesis, and then both sega and nintendo were shellacked by the playstation.

So what's the point? The point is that every manufacturer's lead is "tenuous at best" and that the fates of the current generation have little to no effect on the next.

That being said, this is the first generation of systems where backwards compatibility may become widespread. This could act as a wildcard, and reduce some of the historical volatility that we've seen in the industry.

As for 'be the first with the worst' - we've seen that proven untrue time and time again in the games industry.

Finally, towards the end of every console cycle, consoles get so cheap that you can afford to buy more than one of them. When the next generation hits, they'll be so expensive that you'll only be buying one... at least for the first year or two. In fact, I would suggest that you could probably judge the time-to-death of the current life cycle by the relative afforability of the consoles. The more you can afford to buy, the closer they all are to going belly-up.

Re:Need to press their advantage

[cgenman]

The Playstation 2 does have the "videogame shorthand" going for it, as did Atari and Nintendo. However, what keeps it in the #1 position is a full library of great titles, like Devil May Cry 2, etc. That lead becomes cemented because developers looking to stay profitable aim for the dominant console, and so the cycle continues. That is not what I would call a tenuous lead, that's a solid lead.

However, what you say after that is unfortunately totally wrong. A backwards compatible PS3 does not help the PS2 to "catch up" to the X-Box or the 'Cube in terms of graphics capability. A backwards compatible PS3 would be an entirely new system, which would segment the existing market and the development houses into multiple camps. You would have a large group of people who just invested money in the PS2 who would feel cheated by Sony (see also: SEGA), and who wouldn't buy the PS3. Likewise, the PS3 at this point might look better than the PS2, but not enough to justify spending an extra 300 dollars for most people. What you would have is a halfway release, cutting off the value of the previous generation of console while not delivering on the promise of the next. Plus, you again are saddled with a console that isn't as powerful as the machines from Microsoft and Nintendo when they release on the regular 5 - 6 year cycle. In short, Sony releasing a backwards compatible PS3 would ruin the market for them.

A *forwards* compatible PS3 might be interesting, but such a PS2+ in order to not break PS2 compatibility could only contain more RAM, a few more graphical tricks, etc... but would royally tick off development houses who already find the PS2 to be a tremendous programming burden and wouldn't give the games any kick more significant than the PS2 can do for PS1 games (or perhaps the RAM pack did for the N64).

And let's not forget, to achieve backwards compatibility with the PS1, the PS2 uses the PS1's processor internally as a DSP. Many games leverage that extra processor to help balance processing loads. This is one of the things that lead to the developer lament that the PS2 is the hardest console to develop for. For a PS3 to be backwards compatible, it would need to contain the chipsets of the PS1 and the PS2. The Emotion Engine is probably too large of a financial and technical burden to be included as a throw-in to the next generation of consoles (Hitachi made the SH-1 for other uses besides the PS1)... Such a solution would not be feasable until the PS2 chipset can be had for under 40 dollars, and with Sony having to keep a full fab plant running just for the emotion engine that doesn't seem likely.

No, releasing the PS3 now would be an incredibly bad move. Sony needs to accept that the system they released is just not quite as graphically powerful as others on the market, and play up its strengths:

System releases are like a game of chicken... you always want to release with a better technology than the other guy, which usually means launching just after them. But you do have to launch, and you don't want to give your opponent as large a launch window as Microsoft did with Sony. So the game continues, but the PS3 remains, thankfully, quite a while off.

I call shenanigans..

[motardo]

...for one reason only. PS2 is currently taking up the large share of the market as of right now, and sees now signs of slowdown. The only time that I think Sony would bring one out is when it sees imminent competition from the next consoles from microsoft or nintendo.

What about games

[r_arr]

Have they sent out any kits to game makers, you can't sell videogame console without games.

This wouldn't make any sense?

[al_fruitbat]

Why would Sony shoot themselves in the foot like this? They're the current console market leader with millions installed, everyone's developing games for their system and they make money off of every title sold. Hell, in the console war, they're still selling a less powerful machine for more money than the others. All the while, Microsoft is bleeding on each Xbox it subsidises. So according to this article, they go and ruin it all by making the public think the Playstation2 is going to be outdated this year? I don't think so...

Hear, Hear!

[Mantrid]

I truly hope the PS3 will be backwards compatible. Definitely for PS2 games - as there are many I'm sure I will still play for years to come. PS1 would be nice too, but I rarely play any PS1 games anymore - I've got a few kicking around (King's Field, Vandal Hearts, and Frogger for the wife) - but heck it's probably trivial for them to include PS1 compatibility so they'd better do it!!

One thing I would like to see that annoyed me about PS2- I think that they should've included the ability to partition off a small space in the PS2 memory card for a PS1 compatible storage area- it's a pain to swap cards (the PS1 cards don't always seem to like to fit as nice). If the PS3 has a HDD or higher capacity capabilities of some sort, I truly hope they allow this sort of thing for PS2 and PS1 media!

Re:No Way!

[FatherOfONe]

You paint a bad picture for the PS2/3. I will counter that with a bleak picture for the Xbox.

Xboxes currently being built are being sold below cost. One core reason is that Microsoft can't force (easily) Nvidia and Intel to lower the price of their hardware. So while Sony combines chips to lower manufacturing cost, Microsoft must still pay the higher cost, and loose money on each Xbox sold. Nintendo and Sony don't.

Xbox sales are WAY below what Microsoft had hopped they would be. Understand that Microsoft generally sets extreemly low expectations for their products, and then brag about how great it is selling! Their shareholders were kinda pissed about 40Billion in the bank and no dividends being paid. Microsoft paid some, but now those same shareholders don't want Microsoft loosing money.

Microsoft has been trying to get developers to ONLY develop for the Xbox. Very few companies have done this. The core problem is that Sony owns a HUGE chunk of the console market, those developers don't want to exclude that market.

Now the biggest issue. The Xbox is just a Inter/Windows PC. Software development companies that "port" their games to the Xbox from the PC because it is "easy" find out that 95+% of their sales comes from the PC market. The Xbox generally competes against another Microsoft product... the pc. The customers that have an Xbox seem to also have a great PC, and the games play much better on their PC. There are a few exceptions, specifically sports games.

A HUGE mistake Microsoft made was giving up the younger generation market to the GameCube and only going after the ~15-35 year old males. So the way I see it the maket kinda breaks down as follows:
Kids and family gamers - Nintendo
14-40 year old males without a good PC - Xbox
Everyone Else Sony.

That is a HUGE everyone else!

I believe that Microsoft will probably not develop an Xbox2 for a LONG time if at all. If they put in a new Intel and Nvidea combination, then what would that buy them? The games run at 720X512 resolution? How much more is a P4 3GH and new Gforce going to give you, at that resolution? Yes 4X anti-aliasing is nice, but the current Gforce does a fine job at that low resolution. Now if HDTV becomes more mainstream, this may change things... but that will be a LONG way out.

I honestly believe that Microsoft is going to get out of this market, but it will take a few years, and they will continue to support the current Xbox for at least 3-4 more years. Their primary concern is getting Intel and Nvidia to lower the cost of their chips!

It has been said before, but it is the truth. When Microsoft can't leverage it's OS, it doesn't do well. I don't see Office for the Xbox any time soon.

Another mistake is betting heavy on online games with the Xbox. Sony is kinda falling in to this trap to some degree. Nintendo is the smartest in this one... This is a topic for another day though... Just imagine letting your 6 year old play "Mario Online" and having them ask you what all those cuss words mean.