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PlayStation 3 Unveiled
The PlayStation 3 was unveiled yesterday afternoon in a press conference at Sony Pictures Studio. The event was full of beautiful demonstrations, specifications, and talk of the games of tomorrow. The machine is certainly impressive, with backwards compatibility, support for up to seven Bluetooth controllers, multiple HD signals, and intimate interactions with the PSP. Coverage, screenshots, and specs available from 1up.com, Gamespot, Joystiq, NYT, Voodoo Extreme, Gamespy, BBC, GamesIndustry.biz, Engadget, Anandtech, Kotaku, Gamasutra, and CNN Money. The only downside I see so far? The controller. Update: 05/18 21:35 GMT by Z : Gamespot has up a comprehensive look at the console based on what is known so far.
Yup. The new contoller looks crappy. Trying to tweak perfection = bad idea.
I hope they either provide a way to connect old PS2 controllers (bluetooth device with controller ports?) or release a 'classic' controller identical to PS2 model as option.
So, the games I played on my C64 are now available as a battery powered joystick that plugs into a TV. The games I played on an Amiga are now available as cartridges for the GBA. The games I played on my PSOne and PS2 are being ported to the PSP. Square is releasing a sequel for Final Fantasy VII and there have to have been at least that many Armored Core games.
Notice a theme here? The horsepower of these systems surpassed the requirements of gamers a long time ago. The only reason for releasing the PS3 is to try and boost sales through increased press exposure and slightly prettier explosions.
Clear, Dark Skies
The console also boasts a new graphics chip from Nvidia, which Sony claims can create movie-quality images in real time in games.
Sure there was something said about the Playstation 2, Toy Story and realtime graphics quality that never turned out to be true......
Actually what you can see is Sony and MS really putting a design effort into their products (whether they succeeded or not is of course an other question and would make great flamewar material.)
But in the vain light of iPod popularity? No, not really when you look at them.
The only thing where the iPod might actually have played a role is in reminding tech companies that design does indeed matter, which btw. is a good thing.
I also think that the controller wont be as good as the ps/ps2 one. I think that the ps/ps2 controllers are an incredible feat of ergonomic engineering, and nothing else has come close (xbox controller anyone?). However, i am prepared to give them a chance when they're released. And then hate them.
I wouldn't call it the vain light. Rather, the iPod, in this case, inspired designers to break out of there black box designs.
It's also obvious these don't copy the iPod. What they do is suggest more creative and liberal industrial design - empowered by Apple's success. More power to everyone for that.
-dave
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I hope they either provide a way to connect old PS2 controllers (bluetooth device with controller ports?) or release a 'classic' controller identical to PS2 model as option.
Since it is supposed to be - quoting TFA - "backward compatible all the way to the original PlayStation" - it will be obviously possible. Backwards compatibility was the key factor for me to chose PS2 instead of XBox - I just would miss Syphon Filter and my kids would miss Crash Bandicoot games too much to scrap all our old collection of our favorite games. PS2 even reads PSX memory cards, so we could move even our saved game profiles. I hope this will be possible with PS3 too. If it will - and it looks like it will - then Microsoft has nothing to offer me. Again.
I will never quite comprehend how so many people think the puny little PS2 controller (designed to fit the tiny hands of Japanese children) is somehow the only acceptable size and shape for a controller to be.
Shit, I get CTS just looking at that cheap plastic hunk of junk.
The original "huge" X-Box controller was fantastic. This new PS3 controller looks pretty good.
Don't like it? I'm sure somebody will release an alternative just for you whining bitches.
Yep. The old controller don't have this problem, since they aren't wireless. You can just pull them back by the cord.
Try out fish, the friendly interactive shell.
I highly doubt that Microsoft would risk such a leathal blow as to slip the all-important holiday season. They'll need all the help they can get now that the PS3 has announced they're full backwards compatible, with some nifty features that the Xbox 360 doesn't have (Bluetooth, 1080i).
I'm sure someone could, but unless you don't really understand the writeups that are out there, their explanation will boil down to "They're both fast. We'll know more when they're actually released."
Doubtful. Why would people have a reason to upgrade *all* their cherished DVD's, which they spent oodles of cash on, just so they can play them on their *gaming console*? And what's so wrong with DVD's anyway that a new standard is needed?
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The PS3 architecture is much more robust and will allow for developers to tap into features that will make the games better and easier to code. The XBOX 360 brings power but at the cost of useless features as far as developers are concerned. Xbox will need to almost totally rely on in-house developed games and exclusive titles because no developers I know are excited about the hardware, and porting will be almost impossible to easily do this time around. What this round of consoles comes down to will be who can put out the best and most exclusive titles and I think Nintendo will be at the top with Sony right there too... halo and perfect dark zero are not enough.
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Completely untrue that microsoft is ending xbox game development this year.
also, blu-ray technology guarantees the highest graphic quality....what. i guess sony are planning on making FMV games then? Sure you might be able to store more textures on a blu-ray disc, but really you could do the same exact thing with DVDs, just might need multiple ones.
from gamespy
"While just about everyone is (rightfully) focused on the future, Robbie wanted to make sure gamers knew that Microsoft would still be very supportive of the current generation system, as would their third-party partners. He said that their success is ultimately rooted in games, and we were treated to a glimpse of things to come, and a video rolled that showed off a ton of upcoming games, including titles like Half-Life 2, Ultimate Spider-Man, and Conker: Live and Reloaded. We were told that there will be over 200 Xbox games released this year, and there will be more to come in 2006."
Both Xbox 360 and PS3 have wireless controllers. Is this going to work out?
With our regular xboxes we often play system link games where we have 2-3 xboxes in the same/adjoining room. See the potential problem? I'm sure they've thought of something to solve this.. I hope.
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What I want to know about the controllers is their battery life. Bluetooth sucks up a decent amount of power. I don't want to be replacing batteries every day.
"The advanced societies of the future will be driven by competing systems of psychopathology." -JG Ballard
So far all the wireless controllers are third party addons as well. I'm sure sony tested these things much more intensivly than any third party seller has. Simply due to the bluetooth protocol though, you are right there will be a lag, the only question is how much of a lag 10MS would be an accetable amount anymore than 30 would become noticable. I'm willing to bet they worked hard on this problem though. And as well any games that come out FOR the PS3 will be designed around the lag so it won't be a problem.
It may have more FLOPS, but I'm not sure that's going to necessarily translate into much better games. Both systems are PowerPC derivative chips running at 3.2 GHz with PC-like video chipsets and are coming out within six months of each other. I suspect the game quality (graphics, etc) will be very close between the two.
Here is a better comparison, taken from CNN.com:
Revolution will be "two-to-three times more powerful than GameCube," according to Nintendo, which also acknowledges that the next-generation race isn't solely about new technologies. By contrast, Microsoft's Xbox 360 console is 13-15 times more powerful than the first, according to the publisher. And Sony says it's PlayStation 3 is roughly 35 times more powerful than PlayStation 2.
What does it all mean? Absolutely nothing. Statements like this show how it's all marketing b.s. that can't be believed. When we see how the technology is used in an actual game, then it will matter. In the meantime, I'm about four-to-five times more excited for this generations console launch then I was last time.
Consoles are becoming more powerful and games take less and less time to be completed. There should be a new Moore law behind. Epic (Amiga): months were needed. Xwing or Wing Commander, : weeks were needed. DOOM 1: days and days...I even had difficulties to complete the free shareware version. HALO 2: completed in 6 hours I guess with these new consoles we will have just one hour of fun for twice the current price. Olivier
If you look at the specs at GameSpot for the current generation. You'll see that the PS2 and XBOX are 5 to 10 times more powerful than the GameCube. This is, of course, not true.
Nintendo never gives what I call "pissing contest" specs, even when asked for them.
And if you look at the new one, it's really not very different at all from the existing ones.
The only thing that really seems to have changed are the 'arms' or whatever.
I don't think judgement can be passed on the controller until it's been tried in person.
No Comment.
Check the video of the full conference at the bottom of this page.
While they did not say it is real-time or not, as far as Killzone is concerned, the PS3 seems more than capable of making a game look like this. The only issue I have with how the clip is presented is that it's a hell of a lot more "cinematic" than what actual gameplay would look like. I don't care if you script the hell out of everything that happens on the screen, it will still not end up looking like you're inside a CG "movie". It probably WILL look like a CG movie from a graphical standpoint, but not from the presentation.
At the press-conference, several real-time demos were screened. One of the most impressive was probably the boxing game that EA demoed. The character detail and animation looked absolutely staggering. It honestly looked like state-of-the-art CG of the Final Fantasy: The Movie variety. Like Killzone, it too featured an exagerated cinematic camera to showcase the game, but the game was completely controlled by the guy on the stage. He actually was playing it. They merely programmed the camera to zoom in on faces and really show off the graphics.
UNIX: A computer user is defined as a programmer. WINDOWS: A computer user is defined as a consumer.
"Nintendo never gives what I call "pissing contest" specs, even when asked for them."
That's because it's been *years* since they've been in the technological lead. They used to tout the SNES' scaling and rotation over the Genesis every chance they could. Even with the N64 they constantly talked about their fog effect even though it was really nothing more than a way to hide the system's horrible performance at drawing scenes at a distance (where you could see the background being drawn in on racing games, for instance).
Nintendo still makes a great system with some great games, but they just don't compete with Sony or MS technology. They have to win with great games.
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
Back in the Xbox 360 article I said that Nvidia is probably putting the most powerful silicon they can in the PS3, and at 1.8 TFlops They didn't disappoint, and either did sony with the Cell. This thing is almost 2x+ the Xbox 360 in just about every stat but RAM.
The SDK however, has got me a little concerned. Sony is notorious for having bad SDK's for their hardware, specifically the PS2 at launch. Although it's unclear what the Xbox or PS3 SDK is like, my guess is that Xbox 360 dev kit is going to be easier than the Sony one, simply because it's what Microsoft does; make software and programming tools.
Nvidia in the PS3 is definitely going to make it a lot easier for devs since it's probably going to be documented by Nvidia, and will most likely use hardware calls that are similar to their PC counterparts. The only question left is how easy is it to program the Cell, and how will Sony's SDK stack up to the MS one.
Overall if these specs are attainable, Sony's got something here, and it's Developer base will see to it that it trounces the Xbox 360 with it's sheer power, it just might take a year for it to show it's full potential. Nintendo, on the other hand, better show off something that truly lives up to it's "revolution" name.
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Too much technology kills the games.
Do you realize that to produce graphics that make use of the ever more powerful technologies out there, it takes more and more time, more and more sophisticated tools, and thus more and more money ?
The amount of money to produce one hour of game content is rising after each new generation of technology.
The game development budgets aren't rising.
Result: games life duration is shortening. Innovation is more and more relegated only to things that make the game more appealing on a superficial level.
Loading times increase.
Also, given how bugged games are nowadays, I think that quality insurance budgets are suffering.
I have nothing against the ps3 in particular, the same holds true for the other consoles, and for the whole gaming industry for that matter.
People are so used to having exponential improvements of the graphic quality and overall "wow" factor that everything else is being dissed to keep it going.
When this new crop of new consoles are out, we'll get the same games as we have now, only with more eye candy. And everyone yet still manage to go all "wow, that's amazing" everytime a new console is released.
Maybe you don't agree, but listen up fanboyz: That wasn't a troll, that was opinion.
Can't tell the difference? Maybe you should head back to JK until you can learn to play nice.
No Comment.
My friend showed me the specs of his console, along with video clips taken from Lord of the Rings, which he claims renders in real-time on his console. Basically his specs are twice as high as Sony's PS3 specs, in every category. Yup, just like the big guys, any bozo can make big claims.
Where is the beef? How do we know that Sony is not lying like they did with the PS2?
As for the programming thing, Sony figured out with the PS2 that they need to help the programmers along a bit. The positive is that now, all of those programmers who know how to effectively use both of the PS2's vector units will be a leg up when it comes to using all X of the PS3's vector units...
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
480i is the resolution of Standard Definition TVs that has been selling for the past few decades.
That's an incredibly cynical approach. This generation we've had:
* Zelda Windwaker, that took the idea of cel shading and perfected it.
* Halo 2, which perfected playing online with an incredibly strong interface.
* PSP, which shows you can turn a game console into a strong movieplayer and vice versa.
* World of Warcraft, that brought MMORPGs to the masses and along the way redefined "art" in a video game.
* Grant Theft Auto 3, the first truly mass market game.
All of these have great gameplay AND great graphics. Would WW, Wow, etc. be the same without great graphics? Not really. The core gameplay would likely still be fun, but there's a reason we don't play Space Invaders anymore.
The developers have proven time and time again that new power is a tool, and they're more than happy to get their creative juices flowing to use it (think Katamari Damarcy). Yes, there's fluff -- there was fluff with the 80s generation of games too (remember ET)? The gaming industry, however, produces a lot of original ideas to combat the fluff, and frankly it's never been stronger.
Well, I guess I can do your research for you: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1815596,00.as p
115.2 GFLOPS for the 360 CPU. And like I said, there's an photo at the PS3 press event that showed the same thing on a graph. Surely you've seen those pictures?
I wouldn't bank on a HDD being included until they say so. If they were planning on it, I suspect they would have said 'HDD included' and not specified capacity if they hadn't decided on that point yet.
It provides an entry for people who are not PS1 or PS2 owners. I never owned a PS1, but have several PS1 games for my PS2. There are just a lot of fun games from the past that probably will never get remade, too.
Technical specs could theoretically have made the difference for Dreamcast -- if one or the other had just conspicuously kicked the competitor's butt -- but for Joe buyer it comes down to "There are two cool new systems, and they're both about the same in coolness. Which one has [fill in game franchise]?" XBox has tried for the 'monopoly on cool games' thing already. So has Nintendo with its younger niche. Neither one's going to take out Sony on that ground.
Unless XBox really has a feature that sets it out -- amazing advantage in networking -- it and Nintendo will probably still be on the edges. (Personally I'll probably still get coerced into buying Nintendo's next system unless it's completely marginalized or my kids turn the teen corner in a big way. They're 11 now, and still way into those franchises. The quality of the real name games -- Zelda, the Mario stuff -- is consistently very high, and I kind of prefer a more innocent tone myself anyway.)
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Don't forget the hard drive: included on the 360, an expansion item for the PS3. You didn't overlook it on purpose, did you?
That's a non-consequential detail when not taking into account the price of the hard drive. Basically if the PS3 + HD is the same cost as the Xbox, who cares?
Anyhow, I wouldn't put a dinky 20 gig HD in there, if they let me put anything it will be the best performance 80+ gig 2.5" HD I can find.
It takes time to take advantage of a platform because programmers aren't used to it yet.
It took years for a 32 bit protected mode operating system to be available to the public despite the 386 having been spec'd out forever.
In fact Intel even went back to bragging about how fast a 286 was for 16 bit applications to ship more of their lower cost units.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
I'd like to know how much they weigh.
I don't use wireless controllers because I like my controller lighter than a can of soup if I'm going to hold it for a few hours.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Basically, I'll believe it when they actually ship it -- in both cases. One of the mainstays of FUD is to announce your own much better product that won't come out for a long time, to try to distract momentum from the product you can actually buy TODAY.
:-)
Admittedly, in neither case can you actually buy the consoles in question, but Sony is going to be late to the party... so even if they don't ship what they promise to, or if it doesn't work as well as they claim, they might believe that the backlash would be less damaging to them than letting the 360 get a solid foothold in the market.
I personally find it hard to believe that they can ship that much hardware at a resaonable price point. They've been known to overstate future products before. And the XBox appears more likely to be able to hit $299, which I think is critical to any kind of mass-market acceptance.
And then, of course, you have Nintendo, whose claim to fame appears to be "Our console is much smaller." Yeah, that's a big selling point, for sure.
As a state gets corrupt, its laws multiply; the most corrupt states have the most numerous laws. (Tacitus, Annales 3:27)
Since it is supposed to be - quoting TFA - "backward compatible all the way to the original PlayStation" - it will be obviously possible. Backwards compatibility was the key factor for me to chose PS2 instead of XBox
What would the original Xbox be backwards compatible to? I'm sure there are lots of comments here about modding the Xbox already, but I'm quite happy that my Xbox is "backwards compatible" with perfect emulation of all 16-bit and earlier generation consoles/arcade games.
--falz
Tim Sweeney's team got the Unreal 3 engine running pretty fn good after having the SDK for just two months, I'm not sure your worries are justified.
"Proper" 1080p is actually 1920 by 1080, due to the 16/9 aspect ratio, so it's actually a fair bit more than your desktop; not enough to worry a whole second 6800 though, I agree.
But then the XBox's graphics processor isn't that different from ATi's next high-end chipset (i.e. it will fully support version 3 shaders). Just as with a single 6800 versus an X800, I won't be surprised if the PS3's graphics pipeline is notably faster under some engines, but actually slower with others.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
How does it look too good? Look at the previous evolutions of console generations. You expect there to be no significant improvement this time around? Based on what? The fact that PC games are currently not capable of this? One of the top graphical-intensive PC games, Doom 3, is running flawlessly on the Xbox, a 5 year old piece of hardware.
The GT video you speak of looks EXACTLY like the graphical evolution that one would expect between consoles released 6 years apart.
The Grand Canyon looks in no way more impressive than the real-time demo showcased of this system generating 3D terrain on the fly from satellite and topographical demo.
There is motion blur (often optional) in most racing games released in the last several years, see videos of the Need for Speed: Underground franchise for examples.
Focus depth has been shown in replay footage of racing games for a decade. The camera tracking, zooming, and focus in the footage you refer to are common in most modern racing games.
Why would there not be impressive lighting effects? What exactly would limit this? They have lighting effects of nearly this caliber on the PS2 and Xbox, systems that are 6 years old now.
Why would there not be realistic trees? If it can be done in CG with limited amount of effort, it can surely be done on this new system. All it requires is a well-modeled tree. Even current generation consoles have some games with trees far more realistic than anything on the PC.
Why would the pit stops not have tons of guys running around? Look at any game that features many well-animated characters on the screen. The most basic example would be one of the football videogames. Why would it be out of the question that this pre-scripted animation of each character be transported out of a sports stadium environment and into a race track pit environment? If you refer to numbers of characters, why is it out of the question that this system, which is SEVERAL TIMES more advanced that it's predecessor, would be unable to double, tripple, or quadruple the character count on screen while at the same time also significantly increasing each of their polygon counts?
There are only two reasons I can imagine why you would suggest that it looks "too" good: 1) You have not been following the evolution of gaming consoles in the past, or noted the significant differences they had (the improvements have always been incredibly significant); or 2) You have not played any of the top current console games at any great length.
UNIX: A computer user is defined as a programmer. WINDOWS: A computer user is defined as a consumer.
Any idea's what the cost is most likely going to be around for this blazing system? Seems great, but I'm not about to fork over $1,000 for a gaming system.
Will we ever learn?
Travel back in time to 1999 when the Dreamcast was about to launch and Sony showed a realtime demo of a character from Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, looking great, with no aliasing problems and looking just like the pre-rendered movie. Then they showed a realtime version of one of the prerendered scenes from Final Fantasy VIII. All PS2 games will look like this, they said. This blows away Shenmue and Virtua Fighter 3tb and Soul Calibur on the DC. Why buy a Dreamcast?
What did we get for PS2 launch? Fantavision.
Soul Calibur DC looked so much better than Tekken on PS2 (made by the same company, mind you) and DOA looked amazing. The colors were more saturated and the images were fully anti-aliased on the DC, but most of the gaming public purchased the PS2.
Now they are pulling the wool over your eyes again.
When I hear comments like "it's not about the specs, it's about the games", I honestly question whether that is true. The DC had so many great games with new ideas (Skies of Arcadia, Samba De Amigo, Soul Calibur, Power Stone, ChuChu Rocket!, NFL2k, Jet Set Radio, Typing of the Dead, Seaman, etc.) and yet it died a horrible and early death.
6 stunning cars vs. 12 stunning cars? Platoons vs. Armies? Really? Are you comparing real world games or figments of your imagination?
Truth is, unless it's a first or second party exclusive title, all games will be made with two (or all three) next-gen systems in mind. Developers make multi-platform games, and they will use a development solution that pumps out builds for more than one platform.
IMO, the choice of what game system you should get (PS3, Xbox 360, Revolution) should be based on the First Party exclusive games you want to play. A good number of major third party titles will be released on multiple platforms anyway.
In addition they mentioned a 'Marketplace', and although they didn't describe it in too much detail they did mention that users would be able to create in-game content and sell it to other users. Microsoft will most likely be taking a cut of those sales.
*A side note, they mentioned that users would be able to stream audio and video "...from their Media Center computers." Does this mean that users cannot directly load content from say, a disc with pictures, onto their Xbox 360?