Playstation 3 Development Underway

At least in the United Kingdom, developers are already being handed development hardware for Sony's next-gen platform in anticipation of its debut at E3. From the article: "Sony plans to show the next-generation PlayStation off in public for the first time at its pre-E3 conference in Los Angeles in May, where it will almost certainly debut within a few hours of the public unveilings of Nintendo's Revolution and Microsoft's next-gen Xbox."

Comments

Too Fast?

[Nos.]

I wonder at what point next-gen consoles will begin to not create the positive hype that seems to currently surround them. I'm not a huge console gamer, but at some point people will no longer be willing to shell out the money to move to the newest console until a time when the price of the console has dropped well below its initial levels. Even in the PC world, the percentage of people that will rush out to pick up the newest video card seems to be dropping. There isn't quite the anticipation that there once was.

not any time soon

[Ender Ryan]

That hasn't even BEGUN to happen with consoles. Console generations are generally at least 5 years apart, whereas new high-end video cards are released like ever single year.

People jump to upgrade graphics cards based on the games they want to play. Several notable games have caused huge surges in card sales.

With PC games in general waning in popularity, and with current cheap cards being able to play the top games well enough, it's no wonder people aren't jumping to buy the latest and greatest all the time.

Re:not any time soon

[Bios_Hakr]

When's the last time the resolution on your TV changed?

For years, the PC monitor has had a resolution that cards couldn't max. That's starting to change.

Especially with LCDs that top at 1280.

But even with HDTV, the current consoles do just fine. A next-gen console has to offer something truly remarkable.

Look at a PS game and then a PS2 game. Compare GT2 to GT4. But the differences between GT3 and GT4 are almost unnoticable.

So, what will the PS3 offer? More CPUs to dedicate taskings between AI, graphics, and physics? Maybe another for sound? Then you add complexity to the developers's job. The games will become very expensive with the testing required to debug locking issues.

Things I'd like to see:

HDTV support.

Better surround-sound.

Better data caching to reduce load times.

Support for a PC monitor.

Headphone jack built in.

Wireless controller standard built in.

Standardised MP3 support for in-game audio.

There are tons of other things they could add. But will they? Or will the PS3 be a PS2 with marginally better graphics?

Re:not any time soon

[MatthewNewberg]

TV resolution doesn't effect quality that much considering the current state of graphics. Much can be still be done even at normal TV resolutions. Sure HD is going to help quality, but resolution is only part of the graphics rendering problem, there are a lot of things (like lighting, bumpmapping, reflection) that developers are just now jumping into.

The P3 is going to offer a lot more processing power in order to add new AI, new Physics, new levels of graphic detail, bigger worlds, better sound, more realistic sound. With more memory, faster processors, and better development tools(Cell Programming). Developers will hopefully not need to spend so much time tweaky every single last bit of performance out of the rather complicated PS2 system. If you really play games, the $300-$500 dollars is going to be completely worth it.

And Yes, I am waiting for the p3 to have good surround sound for in game audio.

I'll take a stab at it

[Gamelore]

Sony's next-gen consoles don't have stupid names?

Mod parent down.

[Anonymous Coward]

Playstation is a stupid name. It is just harder to see when it's been around 10 years.

Re:But how hard will it be to develop for?

[Mandoric]

Sony's made a -lot- of noise about providing mature dev tools; not being a dev I can't say how much of these are accurate, but one of the top rumors is that the multiple processors will be abstractable.

That said, their key advantage in "dev friendliness" this generation won't be so much what they're doing as what everyone else is doing.

While the XBox was effectively a PC in a gaudy box last generation, the Xenon is slated to be a tri-processor PowerPC; this will be much more difficult to port to from PC (as it's no longer the same arch) and develop for in general (as not only are there multiple processors, but they're occasionally pressed into service as graphics coprocessors too).

The Revolution is, well, an enigma. It may well be the simplest machine to develop for, as there's been no reports of it having multiple CPUs; on the other hand, they've got what they consider a big UI secret that might make things all wonky.

Not to mention, it's Microsoft rather than Sony that have been pushing the idea of $55 or $60 games.

As for "did not fare so well" and "loss of market share percentage", I call bullshit. XBox had a decent run in the US and Europe, GC in the US and Japan, but similar patterns occured with the N64 and Saturn last gen.

Yep, memories are short...

[DeadScreenSky]

The same was true of Xbox1. It basically has an early Geforce4 in it (weaker than what eventually was released as a Geforce4 on PC, IIRC). This was released while the PC market was still making due with the cutting-edge Geforce3. Nevermind how many years it was before PC games were really written for that level of hardware...

But yeah, early footage of next-gen console games (like Heavenly Sword) destroys any coming game I've seen for the PC. Unreal3 engine tech is impressive, but I want to see games with release dates. That Heavenly Sword footage shows the kind of graphics the consoles are getting this year (and it will probably look even better, since that footage is of the game more than a year age).

And a lot of the "high end PC games look better than console games always" argument is silly anyway when you look at the games. Panzer Dragoon Orta, Phantom Dust, Amped 2, Team Ninja's games, etc. all look just as good (and arguably better if you don't hold resolution to be the most important visual factor) than the best looking PC games. Writing to a unchanging dedicated gaming platform gives amazing performance benefits.

Even if you want to argue that some PC game does look better than Panzer Dragoon Orta or GT4 (aesthetic tastes certainly vary), you probably won't find one in most of the genres that the consoles provide. Where are the beautiful PC fighting games? 3D action games (a la Ninja Gaiden and God of War)? Platformers (Ratchet & Clank)? Rail shooters (Rez, Panzer Dragoon Orta)? Etc.