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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.
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!
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.)
"Black holes are where God divided by zero." - Steve Wright
...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.
Have they sent out any kits to game makers, you can't sell videogame console without games.
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.
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