PlayStation 3 Press Conference Tonight

The official unveiling of the PlayStation 3 is set to happen tonight, with folks such as the Guardian Gamesblog, Kotaku, and GamesAreFun live blogging the event as it happens. From the Guardian post: "The sign on the way into the Sony Press Conference is big - Wi-Fi access will be only available after the event. They lied - a quick wireless search has found me some access and now I'm on. The clock says 1.00pm but my body says 9pm. By the time Microsoft unveils the 360 again tonight I'll be ready for my cornflakes."

Comments

If there is a God...

[Zenikase]

...the PlayStation3 and Revolution will absolutely crush Microsoft's empty offerings of "better graphics = better games" and the Xbox 360 will be a miserable failure in the long-term (I only say "long-term" because it's inevitable that there will be hordes of MS fanboys and frat-boy MTV idiots lining up the night before launch date for their Xboxen).

Re:If there is a God...

[FLAGGR]

I wish I could see the future that clearly.

Re:If there is a God...

[generic-man]

(Score: +1, Stereotypes Xbox Users as "Frat Boys")
(Score: +1, Pluralizes "Xbox" as "Xboxen")
(Score: +1, Connects MTV-watching with Xbox-owning)
(Score: +1, Spins "Better Graphics" Into a Negative)

Congratulations! +5!

Re:If there is a God...

[KDR_11k]

the PlayStation3 [...] will absolutely crush Microsoft's empty offerings of "better graphics = better games"

Does the PS3 promise anything different? I know Nintendo is claiming graphics won't cut it but Sony's marketing seems to be mostly focussed at Skynet/Cell structures and Toystory in realtime. Would them kicking MS's ass really make a difference on that issue?

Re:If there is a God...

[Anonymous Coward]

After the unbelievably retarded unveiling I don't think even the dimwitted and drunk fratboys are going to want to be seen anywhere near an Xbox 360.

Re:If there is a God...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think Sony is even going to have to doing any ass kicking of Microsoft at all. It seems Microsoft has managed to knock themselves out of the console race all by themselves.

I can't imagine how any console will ever have a worse introduction than what Microsoft crapped out last week.

I think Sony's strategy for dealing with Microsoft this generation is to stand back and do their best to politely cover up their hysterical laughter.

Re:If there is a God...

[sordid_mammal]

Congratulations! +5!

...hey a perfect troll. Now where did i put that "Do Not Feed" sign?

Re:If there is a God...

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't stress this point so much if the games shown so far actually brought something new to the table.

Because if there are no groundbreaking games seven full months before the release of the console, there never will be ever.

Oh well. Microsoft gave it a good run, but I guess it's over. All hail our PS3 overlords.

Re:If there is a God...

[Anonymous Coward]

People people, please!

All this bickering over which console is better is really silly.

Can't we just accept our small differences on such minor points of dogma, and unite behind the all-important Truth that vi is the only text editor we need and emacs is a tool of the Devil?

Re:If there is a God...

[Monkeman]

This argument has been done again and again and again and again.

However, I wish to reiterate the following:
Nintendo's Focus!=Graphics
Focus on Graphics!=Good
therefore
Nintendo=Good (i.e. bettar than M$ capitalist faggs omg)

Hurrah for flawed logic. It's what's keeping most business afloat these days.

Re:If there is a God...

[Anonymous Coward]

The big rumor consensus is that the Xbox 360 will indeed be the weakest of all three next-gen systems. If Aries is to be believed, Revolution will be more powerful, and PS3 will be the most powerful.

And now, just because I have the opportunity, I'll state the hype that I think is most likely.

Nintendo On: Proven fake
Aries (self-claimed developer informant): I believe him, but his name has been compromised to the point of dilution now. But I think all of his own posts were made earnest.
Major Nelson's Revolution info sighting: Probably not a joke, but he didn't really see anything substantial anyways
Nesvolution split controller mock-ups: Definitely fake, especially if you believe Aries
Slot-loader Revolution mock-ups (Mac Mini style, wireless controller indicators on the left): Definitely fake (they are not photos), but I think an official design would probably not deviate from this design too drastically, given the dimensions that Nintendo themselves have already announced

I wouldn't expect MS to roll over and die, though. It's on a lot of people's minds and in a lot of people's hearts, but I just don't see it happening yet. I think they will go with their patented "third time's the charm" strategy, and there's no way of knowing whether that system will fail yet.

Re:If there is a God...

[Zenikase]

I never said that. Nintendo has its own share of serious problems -- mainly their prolonged anachronistic means of doing business -- which is what's keeping them back in the leaderboards.

I don't know...maybe it's just the nostalgic NES-playing boy in me, but new Nintendo console unveilings are always kind of magical, because it feels like Nintendo really has something amazing up their sleeves. Of course, that something hasn't been done since Super Mario 64 debuted alongside the N64 back in 1996.

I also bought a GameCube on launch day after drooling over Rogue Leader, Smash Bros: Melee, Wind Waker, Metroid Prime, Mario Sunshine, and the prospect of online Mario Kart. Ultimately every Nintendo-produced GCN title I played was underwhelming, as they all felt like retreadings of previous titles with beefier graphics. Sometimes Nintendo came up with a hardware peripheral to go along with a game, but in the end those were just short-lived gimmicks (*cough*DS*cough*).

But with all the hype that they've been giving the Revolution over the past couple of years, especially with such an ambitious codename, I have a hunch that this time they reall will have something that will blow everyone's socks off. I'm just crossing my fingers.

Re:If there is a God...

[Monkeman]

Clearly my statement was misunderstood. I mentioned something about something, went on to make an unfunny joke satirizing the logic of Nintendo fanboys (and, less, fanboys in general, then stated the logic I had made (in my fanboyesque reasoning) was flawed.

Re:If there is a God...

[EastCoaster]

The info will come out quicker. It is taking forever for anything to come out. Engadget is doing a good job though.

Re:If there is a God...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea.. and I would add: "Does a console that doesn't even run vi out the box (as in 'oficial linux kit') deserve your time?"

Re:If there is a God...

[Anonymous Coward]

You honestly expect Nintendo to be able to outdo one of the richest companies on the planet technologically? Rev. will be the weakest of the three.

Re:If there is a God...

[KDR_11k]

Nintendo knows where to put the performance, especially since Microsoft launches earlier and Sony designs its systems around marketing buzzwords (No, super computers are NOT meant for gaming). Besides, these levels of technology are more limited by what technology actually can produce rather than what you are willing to pay for.

Re:If there is a God...

[Anonymous Coward]

"No, super computers are NOT meant for gaming"

A supercomputer is a machine that meets or exceeds a certain performance level you fucking retard.

Finally Some Substance After All The MS Hype

[Anonymous Coward]

This will be quite a refreshing change from the endless hype MS's marketing department has been carpetbombing the media with.

It will also be nice to not have that nasty feeling of wanting to vomit and laugh at the same time like when the xbox 360 was unveiled.

360??? WTF was MS thinking?

Re:Finally Some Substance After All The MS Hype

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what I love about slashdot geeks--their clear-headed objectivity and lack of bias. Jesus, Microsoft is the third reich for you idiots, isn't it? Stupid children.

Next Xbox Hard To Program?

[Anonymous Coward]

If the next xbox is as hard to program as developers are saying it is, combined with all of Sony's exclusives and more powerful Cell chip, it looks like Sony is going to be even more dominate than they were this time.

Re:Next Xbox Hard To Program?

[FLAGGR]

xbox is powerpc, a well known arcitechture, the PS3 is cell, and heavily vectorized, an unknown architecture. Sony consoles (PS1 PS2 PSP) have always been the most difficult to develop for.

Oh and Cell is a bunch of fluff. I bet you believed Sony when they said the PS2 would have movie quality graphics.

Re:Next Xbox Hard To Program?

[KDR_11k]

Sony exclusives? What Sony exclusives?
Third parties aren't forced to stay with one manufacturer, if they decide MS doesn't bully them as much and lets them make more money they'll jump ship before Sony even knows what's happening. Look at the SNES->PS1 transition, everyone ran away from Nintendo in a way noone would have imagined during the SNES generation.

My hunch says the Cell will be even more of a nightmare than the XB360's hardware. Sony claims the compiler will work around that but when you don't know the memory latencies since you're not sure what's stored on which Cell and which Cell is going to run your code you'll have to plan for a worst case scenario. Never mind debugging.

Re:Next Xbox Hard To Program?

[Anonymous Coward]

Welcome teamxbox readers!

Sorry clown you're not in xbox fantasy land anymore. Your homework assignment for being such a retarded xbox fanboy is to go to your local game store and sit and ponder WHERE THE FUCK DID THOSE HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS of Sony titles come from.

Are there army's of geniuses out there in secret underground bases cranking out Sony titles,

or,

are you just a fucking dunce with a big ugly box with no games sitting in your living-room?

Re:Next Xbox Hard To Program?

[slicenglide]

well if you watch www.own-age.com movies... it's on par.

Re:Next Xbox Hard To Program?

[tc]

Y'know, if being hard to program for is a serious issue, then Sony are fucked. Talk to any game developer - three cores is more work, but at least they're symmetrical and have real random access to memory via a cache. The Cell has only one general purpose core, and you have to explicitly shuttle data to and from the embedded memory on the other processing elements, which is hugely annoying. Sure, it's fine for obvious streaming applications like video decoding, but definitely more problematic for other work. Nobody in their right mind thinks the next Playstation is going to be anything but much more difficult to work with than Xbox 360.

Of course, maybe that doesn't matter. After all, the PS2 is generally considered to be the hardest of the current generation to work with, and yet it's still the market leader by a comfortable margin.

Bottom line is that it's all going to come down to having the best games at the right time, and a superior marketing plan. The hardware is almost irrelevant.

Re:Next Xbox Hard To Program?

[Zenikase]

Uhh, one of the points that made the PS1 successful from the beginning was that even the most novice programmers would write games for it. The dev kits came with preset C libraries FFS. Next to the multi-processor Saturn, it was a very appealing platform.

The PS2 is a different story. As a whole, it is an elegant architecture, but if you want to do multiplatform, forget about it.

Re:Next Xbox Hard To Program?

[LWATCDR]

"the PS3 is cell, and heavily vectorized, an unknown architecture."
Cell is also PowerPC and vectorized architectures are actually pretty common. MMX, SSE, AltaVec, Cray supercomputers...
The three cores in the Xbox 360 kind of bug me. For some reason I think SMP should go up by powers of 2. I mean I have seen 2 cpu, 4 cpu, 8 cpu, 16cpu, 32 cpu ... systems but never 3 cpu, or 5 cpu systems. I have to wonder if one of the PPC cores is dedicated to some type of special task.

Re:Next Xbox Hard To Program?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it is hilarious to see all the 'visual c / directx dudes' go on about the how 'alien' the technology in Cell is.

What is even more hilarious is to see them quoting each other in some bizzaro retarded feedback loop on console hardware. Which is one of the main reasons the console world hates MS and the xbox, now any clown with a copy of visual studio and his spinning cube written in directx is suddenly an 'expert' on console hardware just because MS dresses up a commodity pc in a big ugly case and tried to pass it off as a console.

Re:Next Xbox Hard To Program?

[r_benchley]

I remember when the original Xbox came out. There was a lot of talk about how hard it was to program for the PS2, and as soon as the Xbox closed the sales gap, a lot of developers were going to drop the PS2 and develop for the Xbox exclusively. First, game developers are going to develop for whatever platform is going to line their wallets with fat amounts of cash. The Sega Saturn's well publicized development difficulties were not the reason that developers dropped them. The problem was that Sega of America screwed up every single aspect of marketing the machine, didn't distribute it properly, and overpriced it at launch. The Saturn outsold the PSX in Japan until they prematurely announced the launch of the Dreamcast. If they had supported the Saturn longer, and waited another year on the Dreamcast, the console wars would have been a three-way battle between Sony, Nintendo, and Sega. Microsoft wouldn't have even tried entering the market as a fourth player. Second, good coders learn their way around the system, and learn how to develop for a platform, even if it is problematic at first. Also, there are always companies that provide middleware for a system, taking care of lots of the nuts and bolts portions of the development process. Naughty Dog (creators of Crash Bandicoot and Jak & Daxter) made some good coin as providers of middleware for other developers. They had bright people who understood the PS2's complex architecture, and they were able to ease the development process for other game makers (for a fee!). The console that "wins" the console wars will be the one that targets all markets, makes quality games, and offers a good value for the money.

Re:Next Xbox Hard To Program?

[Anonymous Coward]

Spoken like someone who's never worked as a programmer in his entire life. Do you think those games made it to store shelves because the programmers WANTED to code those games??

You dont suppose it had anything to do with EXISTING MARKET SHARE for the platform, did it?

stupid...

Re:Next Xbox Hard To Program?

[Anonymous Coward]

More like someone who has done nothing but work as a console engineer since high school dummy.

So the PS2 launched with an 85 million installed base from day one?

Go back to Usenet fanboy...

Re:Next Xbox Hard To Program?

[superpulpsicle]

That's very well said. They terminated the Saturn so prematurely, games were still on sale for $49.99 in stores.

About the programming. I have NEVER seen all developers universally agreeing on 1 language being the easiest. I just don't believe all 100% of the developers feel the Xbox SDK was the preferred one.

Re:Next Xbox Hard To Program?

[Anonymous Coward]

Last I checked, the Cell was an in-order unit. But don't let the facts get in the way of a good troll.

Re:Next Xbox Hard To Program?

[Anonymous Coward]

100% of whom?

CONSOLE developers wouldn't touch the xbox dev kit with a ten foot pool unless they work for a company dumping PS2 ports on to the xbox.

Re:Next Xbox Hard To Program?

[Zenikase]

a company dumping PS2 ports on to the xbox. EA?

Re:Next Xbox Hard To Program?

[Anonymous Coward]

Saturn absolutely did not outsell PS as you say, during the run up to the Dreamcast. It was _almost_ neck and neck with PS until the N64 arrived, after which it became the heavy underdog. N64 consistently outperformed Saturn by a wide margin and PS occassionally by a small margin. N64 and PS traded #1 a few times. But then the big RPGs hit, led by FF7, and the PS took off. N64 still sold like crazy, but PS just grew the market. Japanese gamers saw the PS as the logical next step from SNES, for several reasons. (I personally thought it was the Saturn, but meh.)

Anyway my point is that the Saturn was not this runaway success that you thought it was. It was a 2D gamer's dream system, and the industry treated it as such with plenty of support in the way of those types of games, but this had no effect on the reailty that PS and N64 just plain killed Saturn in the market. Sure, Dreamcast marked the official end of the Saturn (along with an ad campaign that is very nostalgic for Japanese gamers), but it had it coming. PS and N64 were the future, and Saturn became the past.

Re:Next Xbox Hard To Program?

[brkello]

Uhh, GTAs (at least at first), a lot of RPGs like Final Fantasy (though they did do FF:TA for GBA and FFC for GC), Katamari Damacy, etc. There are a lot of solid exclusive games for all the consoles. I don't see what you are freaking out about.

Then you make your next statement based on utter bs supposition. Who really knows how hard it will be to program until the dev kits come out. If the dev kits abstract ebough of the lower level away, then it might not even be notciable to the programmers.

Quite frankly, I don't care who comes out "on top". As long as they all have quality consoles with quality games, I will get them all (eventually) like I did with the current generation. Let go of your bias and just have fun playing games.

Re:Next Xbox Hard To Program?

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing that's alien about the Cell tech is that the SPU's can't access main memory. They have their own private address space of a tiny chunk of embedded memory attached to each SPU, and the programmer has to write code to move data in and out of this memory via DMA. This is a big departure from regular architectures.

Contrast to a regular multi-core CPU design, where you can just write code which accesses memory as it pleases. Sure, you have to worry about the performance costs associated with that (i.e. data not in the cache incurs a latency penalty), but at least you can write code that works as intended without having to go through serious contortions.

Now, did you have an actual point? Or are you just a fanboy who thinks it's cool to have hardware that's more painful to program than putting your nuts in a vice?

Re:Next Xbox Hard To Program?

[Anonymous Coward]

"This is a big departure from regular architectures."

Gee let me guess...your hardware experience extends all the way from x86 peecee to x86 peecee.

" and the programmer has to write code to move data in and out of this memory via DMA"

'has to'

Thanks for playing. Those two words were all you needed to write. Leave the embedded multimedia software engineering to us console folks, k?

Re:Next Xbox Hard To Program?

[LWATCDR]

" The thing that's alien about the Cell tech is that the SPU's can't access main memory. They have their own private address space of a tiny chunk of embedded memory attached to each SPU, and the programmer has to write code to move data in and out of this memory via DMA."

But unless you happen to have a Cell workstation you have no idea how hard it is to program the Cell.
A lot will depend on the compilers and tools. For all I know it will be totally transparent to the programmer.
Most programmers working on xBox 360 and PS3 will not be coding in assembly.
Maybe Nintendo just to be really whacked out will instead of using vector cells will have a huge bunch of FPGAs so that the PowerPC core will have x programmer definable hardware accelerators. Since Sony is going for Cells, Microsoft for SMP, what else is left for Nintendo?

Re:Next Xbox Hard To Program?

[ignorant_coward]

what else is left for Nintendo

All of Nintendo's consoles will network into one huge super-AI brain. It will give each gamer the computational power of millions of consoles but with a sentient opponent that can learn from all the gamers to perfect its tactics. Gamers can expect no two games to play the same, and the AI is programmed to learn each player's patterns to ensure the right amount of difficulty.

It is predicted the AI will learn so much that it will then be used to command the world's economies with perfection by 2025, meaning it will take less than a century to achieve Issac Asimov's vision.

Re:Next Xbox Hard To Program?

[HAKdragon]

xbox is powerpc, a well known arcitechture, the PS3 is cell, and heavily vectorized, an unknown architecture.

I was under the impression that all three of the next gen consoles are going to using CPUs that are either PPC or derived from the PPC.

Re:Next Xbox Hard To Program?

[mwvdlee]

In short: XBox 360 will have 3 PPC cores, PS3 will have 1 PPC core and 8 Cell cores where most of the work would be done by the Cell cores.

The PS3 is expected to be better at "streaming" processes, typical multimedia stuff such as graphics and sound processing. The XBox 360 will likely be faster at non-streaming processes such as physics and AI code. These 4 are the most processor-intensive tasks in a game with physics and AI the biggest growth areas.

Only time will tell which will be the fastest architecture overall. My personal believe is that PS3 will win since it shouldn't be too hard to stream physics and AI as well, leaving the XBox 360 with no meaningful areas in which to excel.

Re:Next Xbox Hard To Program?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I DO care. Microsoft has been fucking us over for years, and I don't want to see their monopoly extended. If and when I buy a next gen console, my reasoned anti-MS bias will help me choose.

Re:Next Xbox Hard To Program?

[Anonymous Coward]

What compiler?

It is very hard to develop a good compiler for a regular processor. The limit on production compiler technology today is the XLC compiler from IBM, and it took years of development to obtain good PPC code. Contrast this with Sony's present tools - an inferior port of GCC, with poor vector support, and a scheduling assembler that takes several minutes to schedule no more than ten instructions. The port of GCC lasted probably 3 man-months and VCL was a side project from a Sony engineer, and was not even released until approximately 3 years into the console life span.

What has changed? Who did they employ? How many man-years has gone into this project to establish this compiler which exists at present nowhere in the world?

Sony suggests that they have a compiler that can divide a single PC program into many parts for running on the Cell. I have a doubt that they can even produce good SIMD code for a single core.

Re:Next Xbox Hard To Program?

[mink]

I thought the Xbox360 cores did "in-order execution". If this is the truth from what I read about in order execution that means no SMT. Or am I not understanding something?

Re:Next Xbox Hard To Program?

[mink]

"Talk to any game developer - three cores is more work, but at least they're symmetrical "

I thought the three cores in the 360 processor did "in order execution". From what I am reading supposedly this mean no SMT.
Is there any place to get good info about what exactly the implications of the design MS has chones mean?

Re:Next Xbox Hard To Program?

[Anonymous Coward]

In-order execution means the processor executes the instructions in the order they are specified.

Out-of-order execution is an optimization that modern processors can apply which re-orders instructions on the fly to get around data dependencies and stalls. For example, if instruction A is stalled accessing memory, but instructions B and C don't depend on the result of instruction A, then an out-of-order processor can execute B and C while waiting for A to finish. An in-order processor has to wait for A to finish first.

Important point is that out-of-order execution is just an optimization. To the programmer, there is no difference in result, just in performance.

SMT is still possible on an in-order processor, so long as the ordering is per-thread. In other words, if instruction A on thread 1 is blocked, no more instructions from thread 1 can be issued, but the processor can still issue instructions from thread 2 (in order on that thread).

So, in fact, SMT is a really good thing for an in-order processor, because it allows the core to remain utilized even when one thread is blocked on a dependency.

Joel Johnson from Gizmodo barred from event!!!

[Bill Wong]

It's funny how the kotaku's brian got RSVP'd into the press conference, but, Joel from gizmodo got barred from entering. :)

Oh well, I think engadget's a better blog then gizmodo anyway :)

Re:Joel Johnson from Gizmodo barred from event!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

THAN you fucking simpleton.

This is really exciting!

[DuckofDeath87]

This will be a real surprize. I do not really know a thing about the ps3 other than its cell proccessor. Will it had a hdd? Will it have internet connectivity? Does anyone know anything about it? Will it connect to a PSP? Will it even be called PS3?
Does anyone really know anything about it?
How will it be any differant from the xbox 360? Or the ps2 for that matter, bar the better graphics.

This is impressive

[UWC]

Coming over here straight from the XBox 360 topic on down the Games page, the shift in tone is hilarious. The XBox comments were generallly guardedly optimistic or speculative, with a few straight-out anti-MS comments or rants against assumed fanboys.

So far in this PS3 topic, the base comments are: 1) a prayer for XBox 360's demise, 2) a statement that Sony's bragfest will be "quite a refreshing change from the endless hype" for the 360, and 3) speculation that developers will flock to Sony's 8 Cell vector processors because XBox 360's three PowerPC cores will be too hard to develop for. Oh, and now someone is piping in with typos a-plenty voicing excitement on what will surely be an immensely informative session about this console that is likely at least a year from release.

Granted, there have been swift and thorough rebuttals to most of these, but they are posted alongside further MS bashing from others. The MTV special will be drawing fire for months, I'm thinking. Because, you know, a hilariously pandering noninformative show intended to appeal to an audience whose intelligence they (hopefully) underestimated certainly has the same exact intent as an event aimed at the gaming media. There was a video released on OurColony the same day that provides much more information about the functionality that I hope they can deliver.

And before I'm branded as a Microsoft fanboy/apologist/astroturfer, I own all three current consoles and the current crop of portables. I've found reasons to enjoy all of them. XBox 360 is the next-gen console we know most about so far, and some of what we do know is impressive, like the cohesive Internet experience that it seems that the new Live can offer.

Re:This is impressive

[Anonymous Coward]

Please tell us that was a carefully crafted troll...

What miserable fuck you must be in real life if it wasn't.

Re:This is impressive

[Golias]

I agree, having read both threads, that the contrast between cheerleaders for each platform is striking.

Personally, I'm hoping the PS3 is light-years ahead of the XBox360.

Not because I have anything against the XBox, but because I think the 360 looks like a really nice piece of hardware, and for something to be even better by a large margin, it must really be something special.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

While I enjoy the games on my current X-Box a lot, I still have not signed up for Live and have no intention of doing so. While the service seems nice, I just can't bring myself to pay for that which I'm accustomed to doing for free with almost every network PC game I've ever played (with the exception of MMORPG's, which you just know are going to have another fee on top of the Live costs if they ever come to the X-Box.)

What I really want is a console that lets me play cool, state-of-the-art games without having to sign up for some ongoing service just to take full advantage of them. From what I've seen so far, the XBox360 is not that console... and the PS3 is also not likely to be. The question then becomes, will either console offer a range of games good enough to make me want to put up with the elements I dislike about the platform?

Re:This is impressive

[UWC]

Hm. Maybe about 50/50. The shift in tone from Microsoft hatred in one thread to Sony idolatry in another was immediately obvious to me (though maybe milder than my words might imply), and I felt compelled to comment. Obviously this PS3 unveiling will (hopefully?) be more informative than any single XBox 360 event has been so far, but at this point there have been weeks of information trickling out about that. I doubt more will be known about the PS3 by night's end than is currently known about the XBox 360; it will just be revealed all at once, a situation that is not without appeal to me.

The bias in game threads here is such that attempting to show balance or thoroughly explain a given position is immediately construed as bias against the reader's platform/company of choice.

Also, nice work with the AC posting. Your terse, questionably structured, curse-laden comments sober even the most evangelical of fanboys. No, wait, not "... sober..." The other thing. "... are generally ignored by..." Yeah, that's it.

Re:This is impressive

[Anonymous Coward]

What exactly does your comment bring to the table other than MORE bullshit ranting?

Re:This is impressive

[SetupWeasel]

You can make excuses for the XBOX special all you want, and many, many people have. Microsoft did not only mean for the XBOX 360 special to be viewed by teenage trend-seekers. They meant it for us too. The "professional gamers" segment is proof. They were trying to reach out to the video game enthusiasts with "hard questions" and "game lingo" from "seasoned gamers."

They scheduled it before E3 to get people like us to watch. This is what they think will sell to us. Most of the MTV fanbase isn't going to pour over E3 press releases this week, so Microsoft could have scheduled a similar special weeks from now with similar effect for that demographic.

It was the "Ishtar" or the "Daikatana" of video game marketing. Nothing less, but nothing more. I'm just sick of hearing that Microsoft thinks we are smarter than that show. They don't.

Re:This is impressive

[nb caffeine]

Granted, its not the cohesive expirence of xbox live, and only system link games are supported, but services like xlink kai can be fun in a pinch. I played forza motorsport on xlink this weekend, and while getting 7 other drivers to race against in the class i wanted too a little bit, once we got together, it was a blast. 8 players, battling head to head on nurburg ring, that was great (too bad my integra didnt have enough ponies to win it down the last straightaway, but still was a refreshing expirence, not like YAFPS 2008)

Re:This is impressive

[cgenman]

On the one hand, you have a point. People came down harder on Microsoft than was justified by the quite reasonable specs they announced, with the system setup that looked pretty darned good.

On the other hand, that special was in many ways just plain insulting. It really gave The Wizard a run for it's money. Lucas would be proud.

It looks like neither of the two (Sorry Nintendo) major players have slipped up. Both are using sleek 'n sexy wireless controllers that may actually justify the cost of 1st party controllers. They both have detachable HDD options (remember kiddies, so did the PS2 and look where that went). Microsoft sensibly put their memory card ports back onto their machines, and Sony now appears to be supporting actual real memory cards. The PS3 also happens to look lickably good, whereas the Microsoft console looks much better than the Xbox (though kind of resembles a blob of ice cream).

On the other hands, both systems have achilles heels. They both are going to be a pain to develop for, what with multiple memory speeds, multiple processors, etc etc. One word: ouch. The 360 has all sorts of "Live" functionality requirements that will drive development costs up a bit, but more than that will drive developers up walls. The PS3's 8 processors-on-a-die looks like it's going to continue the PS2's legendary ease-of-programming and development [/scarcasm]. Backwards compatibility of the PS3 is a good trend, though it probably won't make or break the system. And not that I'm partial or anything, but I really wish the cameras had come standard with the consoles. It has to come standard if it's going to get used.

It looks like both systems are pretty easily matched. I eagerly await Nintendo's announcement.

Full Disclosure - I'll probably buy a PS3. If it comes out in a year and a half, that will be about the time that my latest PS2 craps out.

Re:This is impressive

[Anonymous Coward]

"It looks like neither of the two (Sorry Nintendo) major players have slipped up"

Sony looks Golden - no surprise. Nintendo looks like a must have even for PS3 owners.

After Sony today and last week's MTV show, I don't think even xbox owners want to be associated with Microsoft.

Microsoft just isn't relevant to the console world anymore.

Design

[medgooroo]

BUT will it be modelled on a "inhale" or as i like to call it, a suck.

some early info

[Anonymous Coward]

linky:

http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/05/16/news_61246 81.html

in short:
PS3 name confirmed
2006 release date confirmed

Re:some early info

[Zenikase]

in short:
Microsoft fucked

Re:some early info

[jessecurry]

a little more blunt than I would've been, but after seeing the information about the PS3 it's really true.
I know that the quality of games will end up being the real factor, but given Sony's track record I wouldn't expect anything but a good number of solid games. Plus the backwards compatibility will mean that the console will launch with a large number of great games anyways. I didn't pick up one of the current generation consoles (ps2, xbox) but now that I have a little more free time I think that I'll be getting one of these and from what I see my choice will be the PS3. Not only does it look to be the most powerful, but I'll be able to catch up on all of those PS2 games that I missed.

Re:some early info

[Rallion]

If the next generation is like the current one...I'll buy the Nintendo system for the exclusives and for the unique games. I'll play half the PS3 games that look interesting, and 90% of the XBox 360 games that look interesting, on PC. I'll consider buying a PS3 to catch up on all the games I've missed from the PS1 and PS2, but by that time the PS4 will be announced and I'll just keep waiting for that.

4pm PST

[javaxman]

gamesarefun has been blown out of the water, and kotaku has the ( sarcasm-mode ) shocking news ( end sarcasm ) that the PS3 will be backwards-compatable and feature multimedia capabilities. To their credit, they're both more informative than Guardian Gamesblog, which doesn't seem to have anything new past their first entry.
I guess I'll wait an hour, then read about the console that I'll be buying in 2007 sometime after the price drops...

Damn I hate being a news junkie. I really just want to look away and read all about it tomorrow, but I just can't help adding my requests to the masses bringing these servers to their knees. Must... have... PS3 specs!! Damn, I feel so pathetic... my information lust is only made so much more pathetic by the fact that, whatever the news, not only can I not buy it any time soon, but I actively don't plan to buy it for at least another couple of years... sigh... I just want to know.

Damn PR. It works.

Re:4pm PST

[Bobsledboy]

The specs are on Gamespot. http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/05/16/news_61246 81.html?q=1&tag=gs_hp_topslot_click

Specs

[DeadlyDonkey]

Sony also confirmed the PlayStation 3, will use Blu-Ray discs as its media format. The discs can hold up to six times as much data as current-generation DVDs. It will also support CR-ROM, CDR+W, DVD, DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD+R formats. It also confirmed the machine would be backward-compatible all the way to the original PlayStation. It will also have slots for Memory Stick Duo, a SD slot, and a compact flash memory slot. It will also sport a slot for a detachable 2.5 inch HDD somewhat similar the Xbox 360's.

Sexy

Out of the box, the PS3 will have the capability to support seven Bluetooth controllers. It will also have six USB slots for peripherals--four up front and two in the back. Sony also laid out the technical specs of the device. The PlayStation 3 will feature the much-vaunted Cell processor, which will run at 3.2 Ghz, giving the whole system 2.18 teraflops of overall performance. It will sport 256mb XDR main RAM at 3.2 Ghz, and have 256MB of GDDR VRAM at 700mhz.

Seven controllers?!

Re:Specs

[Andy_R]

Interesting... samne clock and ram size as the Xbox360 (if I recall correctly?) but 2.18 claimed teraflops versus 1.0 for the Xbox. Surprised not to see UMD in the list of supprted formats.

Where are you getting this info from? The 3 links in the article are unupdated, 1 line of hype and refusing to serve pages respectively, plus engadget and gizmondo are dead too.

Re:Specs

[javaxman]

Where are you getting this info from?

http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/05/16/news_612 4681.html linked from another post here...

Re:Specs

[Anonymous Coward]

As if we can actually believe anything sony says about the specs of their system. hah what a joke.

2.18 teraflops? how many fucking cores does this thing have? or are they counting the speed of the ram and all the USB ports too?

the 360 has 3 cores running 3.2 and they're calling it 1 teraflop.

Re:Specs

[Anonymous Coward]

"the 360 has 3 cores running 3.2 and they're calling it 1 teraflop."

Try 80 gflops for the 360.

Microsoft lies are unprecedented in the console world. They aren't just bullshitting hyping the 360, they are bullshitting its performance by an order of magnitude.

Re:Specs

[Anonymous Coward]

>Seven controllers?!
Yes, seven bluetooth controllers, plus the 6 wired usb ones, plus other controllers done over 802.11b/g.

Why? well imagine 4 players playing a fps game. besides controllers, they all have headsets. that's 8 down right off the bat. Now some of these people might want to use a keyboard/mouse, so this brings it up to 12 "plugs" being used. there's only one bluetooth option left, plus whatever bandwidth the 802.11g connection can give.... for the last optional component, a video camera to make this a pretty cool aliens-style cooperative fps game.

And that's just the beginning of your options. Imagine an insane 12 player puzzle game, or at the very least every player on the hockey rink/soccer field/quidditch pitch being controlled manually.

Re:Specs

[AltaMannen]

"Seven controllers?!"

PS2 supports 8 controllers using two multitaps. But 7 wireless controllers sounds kind of cool. Speaking of ports, what's the deal with 2 HDMI ports?

Re:Specs

[djdanlib]

Finally! A Sony product featuring a viable alternative to Memory Stick! SD and CompactFlash are half the price of MS.

Ah. Good. There's some hope for them yet.

Re:Specs

[KDR_11k]

The Cell has 8 vector processing units which explains the high FLOPS rating. Unfortunately it has only one all-purpose unit that seems about on par with the cores that Microsoft has three of.

Am I the only one surprised that there is only one Cell in the PS3? I expected atr least two.

Re:Specs

[KDR_11k]

Eight Vector processors could add up to a few TFLOPS, from what I heard MS added the GPU into their number as well. The PS3 is not so hot on non-vector tasks since MS has three all purpose cores while the PS3 has only one. The all-purpose cores are very similar.

Of course, that TFLOPS talk is still inflated marketing numbers, we won't see that kind of performance in real-world tasks just as we won't see the PS2 pushing 66 million triangles per second.

Re:Specs

[mink]

"It will also support CR-ROM, CDR+W, DVD, DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD+R formats."

What no DVD-RAM?

Re:Specs

[mink]

I was under the impression the 8 VPUs were the "cell" part of the processor.

Re:Specs

[mink]

Lets hope Nintendo keeps up the trend of reporting real world performance specs. At least thats why they appear to have done for the Gamecube. If I remember correctly RSIII actually was able to do more then the rate Nintendo quoted at a lot better quality.

Here is a link that is being updated frequently.

[Ectospheno]

Here is a Gamespot link that is being updated frequently tonight: http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/05/16/news_61246 81.html

Wait and see...

[sterno]

For all the noise I've heard about the difficult of programming for these systems, we really won't know the results until the boxes are out and the games start flowing. The original XBox had an obvious benefit in this regard as it was essentially a PC, but that advantage won't exist this time.

So, who knows. My guess would be that the XBox will be easier because Microsoft has a lot of experience in development tools. But who knows, it may be the sort of thing where it's easier on Xbox, but a skilled programmer can get more out of the PS3. But I guarantee that right now only programmers bound by a bunch of NDA's have any idea.

more info

[Funk_dat69]

http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/05/16/news_61246 81.html

mem card slots, 7 bluetooth controllers, 2.18(!) teraflops processing power, 1080p rez

wowzer..

Re:more info

[unclethursday]

The CPU is 218 GFLOPS, the GPU is supposedly 1.8 TFLOPS. Sony is mixing them together to get the 2 TFLOPS performance.

And damn you /.ers all to hell for killing my site! ;-P

Seriously, we (GamesAreFun) went down right after the press conference started, and it took almost 2 hours for our webhost to manually go and hit the reset button...

Although I am upset to have heard that someone found WiFi access in the Sony conference... I know I sure as hell couldn't connect to the only network inside the studio that seemed to have an outside link to the world. and I'm on an Apple...

Info and Pics

[M.C. Hampster]

http://www.firstadopter.com/fa/archives/000988.htm l

Full set of PS3 Pics

[AIX-Hood]

Full set of PS3 Pics: Playstation 3 Pics

Re:Full set of PS3 Pics

[Andy_R]

Looks fake to me - 2.18 teraflops in a box with no air vents at all? Typeface from 'Spider-Man' on the top?

Re:Full set of PS3 Pics

[AIX-Hood]

Not fake, from Sony's press site directly.

Re:Full set of PS3 Pics

[ignorant_coward]

2.18 teraflops in a box with no air vents at all?

There must be a way for companies to exaggerate teraflops. Even one of Sun's web pages from several years back claimed 1 teraflop for the Elite 3Dm6 video card, which while a good card wasn't something that blew people away.

Re:Full set of PS3 Pics

[Andy_R]

It's not clear if this includes 1.8 teraflops from the graphics chip, even without that it would seem to put a single PS3 at about number 86 on the top 500 supercomputer list, which is patently riduculous!

Re:Full set of PS3 Pics

[Anonymous Coward]

top

slot-loading??

[javaxman]

Is it just me, or is that a slot-loading drive?

Re:slot-loading??

[javaxman]

better image of what can only be a slot-loading drive.

7 controllers -- a bluetooth limitation

[Anonymous Coward]

Wikipedia says: A Bluetooth device playing the role of "master" can communicate with up to 7 devices playing the role of "slave". At any given instant in time, data can be transferred between the master and one slave; but the master switches rapidly from slave to slave in a round-robin fashion. (Simultaneous transmission from the master to multiple slaves is possible, but not used much in practice). These groups of up to 8 devices (1 master and 7 slaves) are called piconets.

Re:7 controllers -- a bluetooth limitation

[CosmicDreams]

So perhaps this implementation will lead to lag?

Re:7 controllers -- a bluetooth limitation

[jmank88]

and remember that it is 7 devices, not necesarly 'controllers'. Your not gunna get a 7 way split screen...i hope :-P

Re:7 controllers -- a bluetooth limitation

[PhoenixOne]

Makes you think about the two video out ports in the back. ;) I thought one was for normal TV, the other for HDTV but maybe...

Re:7 controllers -- a bluetooth limitation

[Anonymous Coward]

"Simultaneous transmission from the master to multiple slaves is possible"

Two (!) HDMI Ports!

[Alzheimers]

From FirstAdopter.com

AV Output
Screen size: 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p
HDMI: HDMI out x 2
Analog: AV MULTI OUT x 1
Digital audio: DIGITAL OUT (OPTICAL) x 1


Two HDMI out ports? If the PS3 can drive two displays, that would explain the support for the seven bluetooth controllers. I wonder what kind of performance hit that would mean, at 1080p x2

PS3: lanparty in a box!

Re:Two (!) HDMI Ports!

[Anonymous Coward]

http://zip.4channel.org/v/res/87474.html
http://zip.4channel.org/v/res/87491.html

Re:Two (!) HDMI Ports!

[thule]

Hmmm. Two ports driving two projectors with polarized film in front of them... put the glasses on and you have 12-foot-high 3-D gaming. :) Sounds good to me.

Re:Two (!) HDMI Ports!

[Hast]

Added bonus is that it seems to support PSP to link with it. So each player has one screen (on PSP) plus two common ones. Seems like it would be possible to do some neat things with this.

Unfortunately I doubt all that many games will support it all out. Since not many end users will have multiple screens hooked up to it. Most likely it will suffer just like multi-head gaming on the PC has.

BTW 7 controllers is probably only because Bluetooth per default support 8 devices per pico-net. Of those one is the host device, hence 7 controller devices.

Re:Two (!) HDMI Ports!

[zerocool^]

The Anandtech review shows a slide where it gives some uses for dual screens - for example, a racing game in complete panorama (32:9 aspect ratio), or a game wherein the main screen is the game, and a secondary screen shows a menu or statistics or something.

Another thing that the anandtech review shows is that the damn thing can decode 12 fullsize HD streams, simultaneously, or decode and display 1,000 movies at one time.

I'm very impressed.

~Will

Re:Two (!) HDMI Ports!

[zerocool^]

It might be able to do what the dreamcast + memory card-with-lcd-screen were supposed to do. The first application that comes to mind is the ability to do things like select which play you want to run in a football game without the defense having a clue what you pick.

Or a driving game with the speedometer and tach and fuel in the handheld screen.

Oh, wow.

It's so quiet now...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hrm. So the specs are out along with images... I didn't expect this. I was pretty sure the xbox and ps3 would be comparable hardware - boy I was mistaken. I like to be suprised :)

Why is everyone so queit? I'll give you a topic, xbox or ps3? Discuss...

Specs reposted from Gamespot

[Moby Cock]

Here is a cut and paste from the Gamespot article:

Sony also confirmed the PlayStation 3, will use Blu-Ray discs as its media format. The discs can hold up to six times as much data as current-generation DVDs. It will also support CR-ROM, CD-RW, DVD, DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD+R formats. It also confirmed the machine would be backward-compatible all the way to the original PlayStation. It will also have slots for Memory Stick Duo, a SD slot, and a compact flash memory slot. It will also sport a slot for a detachable 2.5 inch HDD somewhat similar the Xbox 360's.

Out of the box, the PS3 will have the capability to support seven Bluetooth controllers. It will also have six USB slots for peripherals--four up front and two in the back.

Sony also laid out the technical specs of the device. The PlayStation 3 will feature the much-vaunted Cell processor, which will run at 3.2 Ghz, giving the whole system 2.18 teraflops of overall performance. It will sport 256mb XDR main RAM at 3.2 Ghz, and have 256MB of GDDR VRAM at 700mhz.

Sony also unveiled the PS3's graphics chip, the RSX "Reality Synthesizer" based on Nvidia technology. The GPU will be capable of 128bit pixel precision, 1080p resolution, some of the highest HD resolution around. The RSX also has 512mb of graphics render memory and is capable of 100 billion shader operations and 51 billion dot products per second. It also has over 300 million transistors, larger than any processor available commercially today. It will be manufactured using the 90nm process with 8 layers of metal. The RSX is more powerful than two GeForce 6800 Ultra video cards, which would cost roughly $1000 total if bought today.



Pretty damned impressive.

Re:Specs reposted from Gamespot

[kryogen1x]

Yeah, but can it render Toy Story in real time?

Re:Specs reposted from Gamespot

[kiwiboy]

Didn't you know? "Microsoft has already won the next round in the console wars" HAHAHA!! Looks like Bill Gates is at home crying, my only worry is online? I hope cheaper than xbox live with similar features? Any news on the online capabilities?

Re:Specs reposted from Gamespot

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea... but will it play MP3/Ogg and xvid files and attach to SMB shares out of the box? That's all the specs I'm interested in! I expect better graphics and more power and new tech. But what about a true multimedia box with out having to mod it!?

Re:Specs reposted from Gamespot

[Blurredplacebo]

they are claiming it can render spider-man from spider-man 2 this time

Re:Specs reposted from Gamespot

[wheany]

Sony also unveiled the PS3's graphics chip, the RSX "Reality Synthesizer"

That name is fucking brilliant. Even better than Emotion Engine.

Re:Specs reposted from Gamespot

[NeMon'ess]

Only spidey? It'll be pretty boring gameplay if it only renders him and no backgrounds...

Re:Specs reposted from Gamespot

[astrokid]

But where does the X come from? Maybe Sony's Marketing Dept. wanted to call it 'Reality Synthesizer Xtreme!!' but someone thought better. ;)

and three ethernet ports

[javaxman]

lanparty in a box indeed. You don't even need a router. Two PS3s and four displays and 14 players? What ? Are we getting this right?

We'll all be very curious to see what the price point for this sucker is like...

Spider-Man movie font

[zsazsa]

Is it just me or is the font that says PLAYSTATION 3 on the side same as the one used for the Spider-Man movie? The fact that they're both from Sony makes it seem more than just coincidence, even though it probably is.

Re:Spider-Man movie font

[sloose]

The font used in both instances is called "Mata".

Re:Specs are out

[kiwiboy]

check this out "http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2004Jun/bga2004 0712025947.htm"

New controller design

[goodenoughnickname]

Is anyone else disgusted by the new boomerang controller design? It looks very uncomfortable compared to the Dual Shock -- the D-Pad is slightly angled, and the shoulder buttons are very close together. Granted, I don't know how it feels, but I wonder why Sony changed the design that we've been using for a decade...

Re:New controller design

[DaFork]

Maybe that's why Sony used the ad campain "Welcome chang3" to hype the PS3. This controller is a big change. It looks like those cheezy aftermarket controllers that tries to get you to buy it solely based on its K-r4d k3wl l00kz d00d!!!

What annoys me is that all the next gen consoles we have seen so far have rounded surfaces. I like to put my games and controller on top of my console when I am done with them. With the XBOX 360 my stuff will settle in the center and with the PS3 it will slide right off! I guess I need a shelf.

Re:New controller design

[Blurredplacebo]

people call the xbox controller ugly this looks like a deformed boomerang. the i can see it getting changed within a few months of release like the duke did. it just looks mightily uncomfortable, the analouge sticks are still in the wrong place

Re:New controller design

[kenshin30]

they got sued over the other desgin and lost... i too am very sad to see my favorite controller go

Re:New controller design

[goodenoughnickname]

I thought the lawsuit was over the way vibration worked in their controllers. From Joystiq.com:

Sony Computer Entertainment may be forbidden from manufacturing, using, selling or importing into the United States any of their products that include computer controlled vibrating motors because those products infringe on patents held by Immersion Corp.

The physical appearance wasn't included in that lawsuit, was it? And besides, isn't there another way to solve the problem other than reinventing the Wingman?

Re:New controller design

[Fred Or Alive]

In my opinion the old design was a horrible analouge controller, it was a great digital pad, buy they stuck ananlouge on in a half-assed way.

This new boomerang continues with the stupidness, it looks a bit more ergonomic than the old dual shock, but they still have the left hand analouge stick in the secondary position. Sony still don't seem to have realised that for most games nowadays, it would be useful the have the left hand analouge stick in the upper position.

I suppose with backwards compatability they might be a bit stuck though, although swapping the D-pad and an analouge stick surely can't cause that much problems with older games.

(Sorry about spelling, it's probably a bit crap).

Re:New controller design

[Anonymous Coward]

"I wonder why Sony changed the design that we've been using for a decade..."

Maybe you answered your own question.

Quite frankly I can't see how you can be so against the controller when you've yet to use it.

Re:Specs are out

[ignorant_coward]

It's hard to tell from the pictures, but are those _three_ Ethernet ports on the back?

The PS3 will have 512MB, but it's split between the main processors and the graphics processor, it seems.

Sequel-ridden

[spacepirate09]

However, Sweeney's words were only the beginning. Later, Sony trotted out a whole host of publishers that are backing the PlayStation 3. And in the process, it confirmed several games for the console. Hideo Kojima introduced Konami's Metal Gear Solid 4, Capcom showed off Devil May Cry 4, Namco unveiled Tekken 6, Polyphony Digital trotted out a fifth Gran Turismo, SCEE showed off the next Killzone, and Rockstar Games mentioned that a Grand Theft Auto would be released for the console. [gamespot.com] Wow, lots of sequels, eh?

Re:Sequel-ridden

[kiwiboy]

I'm sure there will be plenty of new games, but at a press conference, when you first unveil the console, they probably wanted to make sure no one thinks everyones just developing for the xbox. So, showing off all the games everyone knows shows that they haven't lost touch. But I sure hope the next Killzone is better than the current one *sigh*

Re:Sequel-ridden

[mwvdlee]

Kind of logical considering the relatively short development time (The Unreal team had the dev.boxes for just two months). Sequals are just easiest to push out since much of the foundation work has already been done.

Re:Sequel-ridden

[metricmusic]

You might have a point if the other consoles were any DIFFERENT.

PS3 impression

[eamonman]

From here, the PS3 looks like the most high tech George Foreman Grill in history.

512Mb or 1Gb (combined)?

[Anonymous Coward]

"The RSX also has 512MB of graphics render memory and is capable of 100 billion shader operations and 51 billion dot products per second."

The RSX has 512MB all for itself?

Re:Specs are out

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, 3 ethernet ports with gigabit ethernet built in. dunno if thats a gig per port, or shared from the chipset via an internal hub, though...

the xbox360 shares its 512mb ram as well

The Console Information Ministers at SCE

[Cinematique]

Is it just me or do they have better spinsters than engineers over at Sony Computer Entertainment?

I'm sorry for the trollish opening, but the thing that really chafes my balls about the hype surrounding the Playstation3 can be boiled down to this:

The PS2 was purported to have "Hollywood-style" graphics capabilities.

Anyone remember the line about the PS2 being able to render Toy Story in real-time? I do - it was such a boldfaced lie. Dreamcast had better graphics than the second-gen Playstation. and it was older! Hell, Super Nintendo had better graphics than Sony's first offering... and again, it was older, too.

Re:The Console Information Ministers at SCE

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey buddy the specs don't lie. Read them and judge for yourself. The RSX chip numbers peg it at more than 2x as powerful as the highest end graphics cards made today (GF 6800 I believe). What kind of graphics do YOU think it will have? I am a fairly disinterested third party (don't own any gaming gear) but frankly it looks like Sony is out to put their competitors balls in a vice. This thing is chrome and titanium plated. Not sure about the wacky controllers though.

Re:The Console Information Ministers at SCE

[DeadlyDonkey]

Super Nintendo had better graphics than the PSone? Give me some of what you're smoking!

Re:The Console Information Ministers at SCE

[DeltaSigma]

Really. He was doing good right up until the last sentence...

Re:The Console Information Ministers at SCE

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell, Super Nintendo had better graphics than Sony's first offering... and again, it was older, too.

No it didn't you idiot. SNES had mode 7. PSX had polygons. Polygons won.

Re:The Console Information Ministers at SCE

[TyrionEagle]

Anyone remember the line about the PS2 being able to render Toy Story in real-time? I do

Thank goodness I've found you! I've been asking for a link to that quote for ages. Do you have a link to the Sony press release of conference notes where that claim was made. I need that link!

Re:The Console Information Ministers at SCE

[Anonymous Coward]

The specs do actually lie.
They conveniently added the max theoretical performance of the GPU to the max theoretical performance of the Cell to get that 2TFlops; as if that was a reasonable indicator of potential performance.

It makes one wonder just what other minor details are involved.

Sony has done nothing but lie about performance since the first Playstation. Anyone with a memory that can span back more than 5 years has every reason to doubt their claims.

Re:The Console Information Ministers at SCE

[sloose]

Anyone remember the line about the PS2 being able to render Toy Story in real-time?

Yeah, but it wasn't Sony that claimed it. Sony said the ps2 could render CG, and they followed that up by rendering the ballroom scene from Final Fantasy 8

Blu-ray DVD

[dogmatixpsych]

I can't believe no one has pointed out the obvious that this pretty much cements Blu-Ray as the next generation DVD standard (I know this has been stated in previous /. posts about the PS3 though). This will get BluRay into millions of homes and then Toshiba won't be able to compete. This is a good thing. BluRay is much better than HD-DVD and will have a longer life-cycle.

Re:Blu-ray DVD

[Blurredplacebo]

sony and toshiba have teamed up to make the next gen dvd a hybrid of the two. blu-ray on the hardware side and HD-DVD on the software side. i think it was posted here, if not google it.

Re:Blu-ray DVD

[Aggressiva]

That's not true, Toshiba recently said unification talks between BD and HD were "a waste of time" and that nothing has come from them yet.

http://www.i4u.com/article3416.html is a link that describes how no unification progress was made. The initial claim that there was a successful unification were exaggerated it seems.

Easy according to Epic

[ffrinch]

According to the Gamespot coverage:

In what must come as a relief to developers, Epic Games' Tim Sweeney was on hand to vouch for the PS3, saying it was "easy to program for" and that Epic had received its first PS3 hardware two months ago.

Re:Easy according to Epic

[kyojin the clown]

In what must come as a relief to Sony, Epic Games' Tim Sweeney was on hand to vouch for the PS3, saying his opinion was "easy to purchase" and that Epic had received its first PS3 hardware two months ago.

=)

cell

[kenshin30]

holy shit there are 8 cell cores running at 3.2ghz each, and with the gfz cards im salvating already

Re:cell

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, Sony should release a Fortran compiler for this thing.

Re:cell

[KDR_11k]

Nope, one Cell processor with 8 SPUs (perhaps you got the terminology confused?). If it was 8 Cells you'd see them boast 64 vector processor units.

Where is the old memory card slot?

[Anonymous Coward]

It may be just the photos, but it is a bit difficult to place the exact whereabout of the old memory card slot. The press release pdf (Japanese version) also seem to exclude it in the specs.

Re:Where is the old memory card slot?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if there is a door or something that swings open on the front. The design is just too clean, and all the visible ports are on the back.

Heat?

[r_jensen11]

Has anyone bothered to think how much heat this unit's going to generate? It doesn't look like it's going to have that many fans in it, judging by the case, which also means it could possibly be cooler. But I'm kind of concerned about having however many parts for the Cell, along with having a HDD in the unit. Add the video card to it, and it sounds like it could be a skillet or something....

PS3?

[YowzaTheYuzzum]

I thought it was PlayStation 2*pi...

Cooling

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this thing cooled? I can't see any grills in any of the released pictures.

Impressive trailer

[myspys]

http://www.gametrailers.com/player.php?id=5833&typ e=mov - kill zone, on the ps3, in-game/real-time apparently

Re:Impressive trailer

[KDR_11k]

Someone disputed the realtime claims in this thread. Look for Daz's posts, he even has video evidence.
IOW, that's a prerendered movie, just like most of the XBox 360 footage.

wow, a real live grammar nazi :)

[Anonymous Coward]

*pokes it with a stick*