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?