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.

Comments

too many mirrors...

[HTL2001]

guess we wont be taking any servers down on this article...

Re:too many mirrors...

[SilentChris]

I'll boil it down: here's what you need to know.

* The hardware absolutely rocks. The tech demos they showed off were incredibly impressive, and it's very clear that Cell (programmed correctly) will be the most powerful platform out there.
* There's already signs of DRM and locking down the platform. There was a slide on "hardware security built-in" (they probably meant the way the Cell protects data when shuttling it off to another processor, but it's easy to get the double-meaning).
* As it stands right now, this thing is going to blow the doors off of Xbox 360. This is coming from an Xbox fan (I've got 30 titles lined up in the den). I'm a gamer, but I also love the best hardware. Barring what Nintendo introduces (and they could very well surprise us, despite the "graphics don't matter" marketing they've been doing), this is clearly going to be the most powerful console around.

Re:too many mirrors...

[KirkH]

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.

Re:too many mirrors...

[MORB]

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.

Re:too many mirrors...

[Mysticalfruit]

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...

Re:too many mirrors...

[KirkH]

I very much doubt you will see any games support 1080p at first...and maybe not ever. Why spend the cycles rendering all that extra data that no one is going to see? I suspect that the developers would much rather use those cycles improving graphic quality or throwing more characters onto the screen at once than rendering double the data for no gain.

Almost no HDTVs support 1080p right now. And if you buy a nice HDTV today, are you going to replace it in five years? 1080p would be wasted on this generation of consoles, IMO.

Re:too many mirrors...

[KirkH]

You don't play specs, you play games. And I'm not sure why you think the PS3 GPU is so much better than the 360's. Care to enumerate?

At the debut of the PS2, Sony claimed it was 10 times as powerful as the Dreamcast, but it took quote a while before any PS2 games looked/played any better than the Dreamcast games. Now they're saying the PS3 is twice as powerful as the 360 -- in marketing speak, I'd call that a wash. :)

Re:too many mirrors...

[SilentChris]

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.

Re:too many mirrors...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll enumerate.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5,...Is that good enough for you. Sorry I'm trolling

Re:too many mirrors...

[MikeBabcock]

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.

Re:too many mirrors...

[Anonymous Coward]

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a scripted demo.

Re:too many mirrors...

[Malor]

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. :-)

Re:too many mirrors...

[rxmd]

Grant Theft Auto 3, the first truly mass market game.

If you think GTA3 was the first "truly mass market game", I guess you're not around that long. I think that title belongs to Tetris on the Gameboy, which is about the only game every single one of my non-Geek friends knows. Different opinions are always welcome, of course.

Re:too many mirrors...

[jericho4.0]

"But for any multiplayer capture-the-flag game like 'bzflag' or 'quake' the levels have to be well balanced in order to be playable."

Given the current limitations of games, that's has been very true. But imagine a game with a massive, persistent, seamless, fractaly generated map. With the right game design, "found" features of this landscape could be developed by players into defencive zones, just like in real life. The gameplay could balance itself.

It's a tough, but solvable, challenge. The game that delivers it will win the console wars.

Re:too many mirrors...

[Jagasian]

Actually polls show time and time again, that Pacman is the most widely known video game and video game character.

Re:too many mirrors...

[CityZen]

No no no. You need to put POINTS behind each of your numbers!

Like this:

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

a related link

[jbeaupre]

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/614/614619p1.html

Controller

[Jarnis]

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.

Analog sticks

[SpiffyMarc]

They still didn't move the analog sticks.

My thumbs surrender.

Why 7?

[XgD]

7 bluetooth controllers? Why 7? not 8? even the current Playstation 2 lets you have 8 controllers!

Seems a step back... 8-way FIFA games are awesome!

Re:Why 7?

[bosz]

In a bluetooth piconet you can only connect 8 devices. So that means 7 controllers and 1 console.

Re:Why 7?

[killmenow]

Why not 6, Blake? Why not 6?

Re:Why 7?

[Trejkaz]

However, nothing really stopped them from having two piconets for 14 total controllers...

Re:Why 7?

[Hast]

Each device can only be Master in one piconet. And last I looked there were no chipsets that handled scatter-nets properly. (Ie having a device be master in one piconet and client in another.)

IOW if they wanted more than 7 devices they'd need multiple Bluetooth adaptors. And I believe they really don't expect more than 4 players per game. But this allows you to keep other devices (Eye-toy etc) hooked up while you play 4 player games.

Don't pre-judge the controller, folks

[l33t-gu3lph1t3]

Only long hours of gameplay experience will reveal the merits of the new Playstation-3 controller. Don't get all huffy - yet. One thing I'm wondering about is the # of controllres. Why 7? Is it a bluetooth limitation?

Re:Don't pre-judge the controller, folks

[Johnboi Waltune]

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.

Re:Don't pre-judge the controller, folks

[MindStalker]

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.

Re:Don't pre-judge the controller, folks

[daVinci1980]

Oh please.

On modern wireless controllers, there is no such thing as wireless lag. Do the math.

And single frame precision? Gee.. Modern console games limit framerates to 30 fps. That means each frame is ~33 miliseconds. You honestly believe that controllers lag for anywhere near 33 ms?

That's an eternity to an SOL signal.

Re:Don't pre-judge the controller, folks

[DigitalDemon617]

You never used the Wavebird for Gamecube did you? It is controller perfection. Gets excellent battery life, doesn't lag, and has excellent range. I blame your issues on crappy third party controllers.

Re:Don't pre-judge the controller, folks

[EulerX07]

I watched the whole press conference on gamespot. The battery life of the controllers was stated as 24 hours many time by the presentators.

Re:Don't pre-judge the controller, folks

[MikeBabcock]

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.

Re:Don't pre-judge the controller, folks

[EulerX07]

Well, you're pretty lucky because logitech says the controller you have lasts 50 hours with 2 AA batteries. That's pretty good, but the info I've read about the PS3 controller mentionned inductive recharging, meaning you could play from 6AM to 11PM, put your controller on a pad without plugging anything in, wake up the next morning, pick it up for another 17 hours, every day of the week, for months. 50 hours seems about right for 2 AA batteries on your controller, my i-river 790 lasts about 40 hours on a AA battery.

Worst case scenario if you gotta play for 40 hours in a row, you'd probably plug in your controller to charge it via USB for hour 24 to 28 and then unplug it. Like I said, I'm unclear about how these will recharge.

Re:Don't pre-judge the controller, folks

[srussell]

I like my controller lighter than a can of soup

I have to ask... why a can of soup? Is this some new SI measurement? Or are you just used to carrying around cans of soup?

--- SER

Re:Don't pre-judge the controller, folks

[daVinci1980]

No, that would be a waste of resources, and would cause ugly tearing on all televisions due to the nature of interlaced TV. Imagine the worst case, where every frame you are alternating a clear to black or white. If you draw at 60 hz, you get this extremely ugly image that is black and white striped. If you limit to 30, you get exactly what you want: solid white followed by solid black.

It's true that newer televisions (read: HD) will update at 60 hz, but games are not taking full advantage of this yet, in the general case.

The controller

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like my sister will love this controller what not with it's vibration function.

Re:The controller

[xxavierg]

that is a really disturbing post. perhaps "girlfriend" or "wife" or "partner" instead of sister would make it a little less...uhh...wrong...

Re:The controller

[inherent monkey love]

" that is a really disturbing post. perhaps 'girlfriend' or 'wife' or 'partner' instead of sister would make it a little less...uhh...wrong..."

Did you forget that this is slashdot?

Re:The controller

[BioCS.Nerd]

The poster failed to mention he's Angelina Jolie's brother.

Re:The controller

[Ruis]

Did they design this controller so that when you got mad at the game and chucked the controller that it would come back to you?

Re:Boomerang

[bosz]

I think it is shaped that way, so that if you get really mad because you lost for the 100th time, you can throw the controller away and it will come back to you as a boomerang. You don't have to get up anymore to get te controller.

The Controller..OMG

[cOdEgUru]

The top five reasons why Sony might want to rethink the controller design:

1) Players would use it as a boomerang to exact revenge on their opponents outside the realm of the PS3

2) A certain religious group might object to the "crescent" shaped design and might get their panties in a knot.

3) The controller ends up being a tool to massage your pressure points and used less for gaming

4) Female Players take it further and use it to simulate two spots at once. Oh goody!

5) It looks like one of those guns in Battle Field Earth

Re:The Controller..OMG

[FunWithHeadlines]

"Hmm, just curious... What two spots do women need to simulate? :-)"

The centers of the brain that are stimulated by chocolate and shopping. Of course. Why, what were you thinking?

Rehashed quote?

[Richard_at_work]

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......

Re:Rehashed quote?

[blighter]

I thought that was funny as well.

But my favorite was this quote in the NYTimes: "It will also be able to display images at a high-definition resolution equivalent to that of digital projectors in movie theaters."

I'm not totally up on everything movie-related, but don't the digital projectors in theaters have many, many times the resolution of even the highest-def home TVs?

It strikes me as taking unrealistic marketing-speak to a whole new level to claim that your video game machine is capable of rendering movie-quality computer graphics at movie quality resolutions on the fly.

Re:Rehashed quote?

[mapmaker]

The console also boasts a new graphics chip from Nvidia, which Sony claims can create movie-quality images in real time in games.

Notice they didn't say current-generation movie-quality images. The Last Starfighter was a movie, after all.

It's just you

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:It's just you

[Golias]

While there's a lot to like about both consoles, I don't like the design of either of them.

This stand-it-up-on-the-side crap might look cool to some people, but it really doesn't fit in to the scheme of most media rooms very well.

And both of them have goofy contours with absolutely no function dictating the form, and not even much appeal from an aesthetic sense.

It's like Sony wanted their console to remind people of a Toyota Prius... And Microsoft has a consultant tell them that curved panels are "hip" right now.

The PS3 "boomerang" controller looks like an interesting industrial design choice, though. As a typical adult American, it will be fun to try playing Sony games with a controller that actually fits my hands, for a change. (Although I'm sure there will be howls of anguish from old-school Playstation bigots who think anything bigger than a suppository tablet is way too big for a game controller.)

Re:It's just you

[zardo]

One thing I noticed is that the PS3 has slots for memory stick, compact flash and secure digital. This gives me some insight into what took place into the designers meetings:

"Memory stick, memory stick and we sell more memory stick!"

"Noooooo! Memory stick sucks! People like SD and CF, like their cameras!"

"Memory stick make us more money!"

"Nooooooo memooory stiiick!! Hai-yah!" *chop*

backward compatable! -Blu Ray

[acomj]

This will get Blu-Ray players into peoples home like the playstation did with dvds.

Interesting to compare tatics, as MS is ending xbox games development this year and Sony is continuing for 2 more. Nintendo is also continueing development.

Also playstation will be backward compatable. This is great, because there will be a huge library of working games for it. Also they get that games are not just about the graphics, so HD will not be requires .

From NYT
"
While every Xbox 360 title must be developed in high definition, Sony officials are playing down that aspect of the new PlayStation. "Blu-ray technology guarantees the highest graphic quality," said Jack Tretton, executive vice president of Sony Computer Entertainment America. "HD is not the be-all and end-all," Mr. Tretton said, noting that the depth of game play could be more important.

Microsoft executives have decided to end internal development of games for the current Xbox this year, but Sony will continue to create titles for the PlayStation 2.

"We'd be crazy to abandon them," said Mr. Tretton, speaking of PlayStation 2 owners.

Re:backward compatable! -Blu Ray

[javaxman]

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?

People aren't going to replace their current DVDs. Well, not most of us. I still have a bunch of VHS tapes, for that matter, and I'm not re-purchasing those on DVD as a general rule. But, WHEN we get HD displays, AND happen to have a PS3 because we want to play GTA:USA (or whatever), we'll want _new_ movies we purchase look at least as good on our HD consoles as our games, and we'll want as few disks taking up space on our shelves as possible. A few of our favorite DVDs with serious cinematography, we'll replace those ( I'm thinking the Lord of the Rings movies, stuff like that ). We certainly won't buy more DVDs when higher-definition sources with more content per disc are available... IF the player is cheap enough and/or already in the house because we wanted a PS3.

It's clear from your post you don't have an HD display. If you get your hands on one, compare an early-generation DVD with a newer one that lists itself as "Widescreen Animorphic" or "Enhanced for HD". The second one will blow the first away, and an HD-DVD or BD disc on a 1080i or 1080p player will likely blow the regular DVD away in a similar manner. The BD disc will also have plenty of room to sqeeze in even more extra features on a single disc, or collapse 2-3 disc sets to one.

You're right with a condition. Until you get an HD display, there's no need for another DVD format. Once you do, DVD, even multi-layer, is a bit restrictive.

Re:backward compatable! -Blu Ray

[douceur]

"Blu-ray technology guarantees the highest graphic quality"

Yeah, because that makes a lot of sense. What does higher capacity discs have to do with quality? Sure, if current games were using all 9.5 gigs of a dual-layered DVD, that might be true. They're not, however, so it doesn't make much sense.

That controller looks familiar

[brian0918]

I'm fairly certain the Feral Kid used the PS3 controller in Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior.

Like the XBox controller

[valkyriekl]

might look crappy...but it might work out fine...

I like the old PSX controllers, except for one point: the grips are too small for my hands; after a couple hours of intense gameplay, my hands ache from trying to squeeze something so small. The XBox controllers, on the other hand, fit my hands quite nicely (although I don't really like where the buttons are), and everyone seemed to pick on the controllers back when the XBox was released.

Re:Like the XBox controller

[Anonymous Coward]

my hands ache from trying to squeeze something so small.

Ahem.

Re:Controller

[basshedz2]

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.

Re:So....

[MankyD]

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.

Re:I don't like how it looks

[taskforce]

The controllers are Bluetooth, you can have up to 7 of them as opposed to the 360's 4.

Re:Controller

[Trurl's Machine]

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.

programmability

[distantbody]

After all is said and done about the design,the real make-or-break will be the ease of programmability. As im sure you have heared, the ps2 was a nightmare to code for compared to the xbox. ps2 games slowly increased in graphical complexity as developers learned how to get the most out of the ps2. The xbox plateaued very early as devs learnt how to get the most out of it very quickly (due to its familiar architecture). Now hears the thing: CELL. Its the ps3's strongest asset, but potentially its greatest liability, if it proves to be a nightmare to code for. I have a strange feeling that two powerpc cores (or whatever the fuck the 360 has) will be a hell of a easier to code for than the unique eight string (?) CELL. I just hope im wrong though, because i beleive the ps3 has a lot more potential. Thats your hardware lesson for the day folks, now let your teacher drown his sorrows in his cheap imported brandy.

-- im TIRED. leave me alone

Re:Controller

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Boomerang

[/ASCII]

Yep. The old controller don't have this problem, since they aren't wireless. You can just pull them back by the cord.

Controller

[ctid]

Did anyone else look at that controller and think, "steering wheel". I wonder what is inside it.

Re:Microsoft vaporware

[Faeton]

I'll take your $20. Too bad they've already announced that the XBox 360 will be out this holiday season, and the PS3 will be out 6 months later. What you're predicting is that the XBox 360 will be MORE than 1 year late.

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).

someone with CPU knowledge?

[NeMon'ess]

Can someone who actually has a clue speculate on what it means to compare the

PS3: PowerPC-base Core @3.2GHz
1 VMX vector unit per core
512KB L2 cache
7 x SPE @3.2GHz
7 x 128b 128 SIMD GPRs
7 x 256KB SRAM for SPE * 1 of 8 SPEs reserved for redundancy

to the xbox360:
Three symmetrical cores running at 3.2 GHz each
Two hardware threads per core; six hardware threads total
VMX-128 vector unit per core; three total
128 VMX-128 registers per hardware thread
1 MB L2 cache

Also, what is XDR RAM? I've never heard of it, but the PS3 has 256MB of it running at 3.2GHz. It also has 256MB of GDDR3 VRAM at 700MHz.

The xbox360 has 512MB GDDR3 RAM at 700MHz unified, for the ATI video chip and CPU to share. How will these compare? Unified vs 256MB of blazing fast? Is it too late and or costly for Microsoft to switch to XDR?

Re:someone with CPU knowledge?

[Oliver Aaltonen]

Anand's

Re:someone with CPU knowledge?

[rAiNsT0rm]

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.

Re:someone with CPU knowledge?

[techstar25]

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.

Re:someone with CPU knowledge?

[SetupWeasel]

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.

Re:someone with CPU knowledge?

[digidave]

"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.

Re:someone with CPU knowledge?

[mrtrumbe]

Have they been the leader in the current generation of consoles? No. But the Gamecube was certainly technologically superior to the playstation.

Get the specs from wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_2

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_GameCube

They both lagged the XBox, but Nintendo still had some bragging rights over Sony. We'll see what the next generation brings, I guess.

Taft

Re:someone with CPU knowledge?

[linuxbikr]

What isn't being explained to the uninitated is that line for the Cell on '7 x SPE @ 3.2Ghz'.

The Cell isn't a single core: it's 8! The CPU (or PU as it is called) is a POWER5 core. It is connected to 7 APUs/SPEs (Attached Processor Units/Single Processing Elements (whatever you want to call them)). Each SPE is a limited CPU in its own right with its own local caches and memory. The PU acts as a controller, dispatching work to the APUs.

Each APU is essentially a very fast CPU optimized for moving data streams and calculations. Cell was designed to chew on large amounts of similar data very, very fast. It isn't a general purpose core like the POWER or Intel cores found in Xbox 360 or the original Xbox (or your PC for that matter).

Caches aren't everything. PCs and XBox depend on caches to maintain performance levels as in a mixed instruction stream it is tough to know what's going on. A cache miss in a general purpose core can (and is) expensive in terms of cycles. Cell (and the original PS/2) get around caching issues by simply not having them (or just enough to feed the processor) and rely heavily on moving data across a very wide and fast memory bus on demand, as needed and repeated as necessary. Dramatically simplifies the architecture and permits much more focused optimization of code. Programmers for PS/2 had to learn to live without caches and learn a new way of development since PC experience doesn't translate over into the PS/2 world and clearly not into the PS/3 world.

A big part of this contest between XBox 360 and PS/3 is seeing how programmers managed to take advantage of that parallel power. Multiple cores in XBox will be useless if they can't be taken advantage of. Same goes for Cell.

I think PS/3 has the advantage and will eventually win. I'm surprised at the specs as original discussions on the machine had indicated it would be fitted with FOUR Cell processors, not one. Perhaps the initial round of prototypes are single Celled (forgive the pun) to permit development and gaining familiarity with the hardware. Perhaps inside are empty slots for more chips.

Don't confuse PS/3 with a PC because it's not. It is designed to be a very fast SIMD media machine focusing on graphics, video and audio. It may suck as a general purpose server and perhaps a PC can hammer it on some benchmarks but if Cell performs half as good as the information on it speculates in the media realm, there isn't a PC (or Xbox) out there that can hope to keep up with it.

Re:someone with CPU knowledge?

[EulerX07]

XDR is a Rambus technology. This doesn't make the PS3 evil by association imho, Sony chose the technology, they weren't forced by patent lawyers to use it.

Re:someone with CPU knowledge?

[nokiator]

The PowerPC core in the PS3 cell chip is probably not a Power4 or Power5 core. According to this Microprocessor Report article:

But the team didn't just take an existing core like the PowerPC 970FX and build an SoC around it. The core for Cell is new and appears to have been designed before the clock-frequency-is-dead era. The core was designed to reach certain power and die-size goals and is designed to be able to run at clock frequencies in the 4+GHz range. The engineering theam did simply some of the core design (for example, it's an in-order design and only a dual-issue superscalar) and used some dynamic logic in the design in certain critical timing areas.

The core complies with the PowerPC instruction-set architecture version 2.02 (and the 2.01 public version of teh specification). The core was designed with a particular balance of die size, clock speed and architectural efficiency that is different from that of PowerPC 970. This instantiation of the Power Architecture still has a relatively long pipeline, much like the Power 4 and PowerPC 970, but the Cell design does not have a very wide issue pipeline or out-of-order execution, nor does it have as many functional units.The Cell Power core has hardware fine grain multi-threading.

So it looks like the PS3 core is a lot simpler than even the simplified Power4 core in the PPC970. Looks like they decided that instruction level parallelism does not help with game code and went with a smaller dual issue design with reduced number of instruction units.

This is quite insteresting. Unlike general purpose processors, which are often optimized for a set of specific benchmarks, the processor for a game console is actually designed to optimize the performance for a specific set of applications, i.e., 3D games. The most demanding applications driving the performance of high end PCs today also happen top be 3D games. I wonder if we are going to see a transition to back to simplified cores with higher clock speeds soon. Given the current trend to integrate multiple cores on a single processor die, a multi-core design with a large number of simple, high speed processors would be an interesting design trend.

The multi-threading feature of the Cell core may be ported over from the Power5 design as a way to deal with memory latency at high clock speeds.

I think it would be pretty safe to assume that the PowerPC core in the Xbox360 chip is very similar, if not the same design. Here is an IBM paper that shows, at least in the lab, they were able to run the cell processor above 4GHz.

Re:someone with CPU knowledge?

[NeMon'ess]

I forgot to mention that by Sony's own press release, they claim their CPU (Cell and IBM PowerPC combined) can do 218GFLOPS. The other 1800GFLOPS is from the Nvidia GPU. Really we'll have to wait for the games to show the differences, but it might be really hard to tell which system is actually better since the best games will be locked up as exclusives, so less direct comparison.

Re:someone with CPU knowledge?

[ek_adam]

Each APU is essentially a very fast CPU optimized for moving data streams and calculations. Cell was designed to chew on large amounts of similar data very, very fast. It isn't a general purpose core like the POWER or Intel cores found in Xbox 360 or the original Xbox (or your PC for that matter).

So, how long before someone ports SETI@home for this?

Re:someone with CPU knowledge?

[snorklewacker]

> but one is apparently reserved in the PS/3 Cell for system use so that leaves 7 remaining for general purpose use

According to Anand's review, they're allowing for one of the SPE's to be defective, in order to increase yields, and disabling one of them in all of them regardless, so that the hardware is identical.

This is a pretty common practice in the industry, and the resulting chips are still plenty usable. Otherwise the PS3 would have real price and possibly even volume problems.

Speaking of volume, that's probably why they're not launching it this year: they don't want a repeat of the shortage fiasco of the PS2.

One good thing about the controller...

[ProppaT]

At least when you get pissed off at the game and throw the controller at the tv, it'll come back to you now...

Killzone

[Ford Prefect]

There's a utterly spectacular Killzone video doing the rounds, along with some rather pretty screenshots.

Except they look a bit too good. Almost, dare I say it, pre-rendered. Has Sony done the ultimate and presented a completely non-PS3, non-game 3D animation as actual gameplay?

Re:Killzone

[ilyaaohell]

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.

Re:Killzone

[Tim C]

Of *course* we want to believe it - eye candy is important to most gamers (as is good gameplay, etc, of course, but it's eye candy that makes that all-important lasting first impression, and gameplay is very hard to see in screenshots).

That doesn't necessarily mean that we all *do* believe it, though.

Xbox 360 v. PS3

[Pao|o]

I took the time out to compare and contrast between the Xbox 360 & PS3 and I came to to this conclusion.

Xbox 360 has a CPU FPS of 45 GFlops*
PS3 has a CPU FPS of 218 GFlops

Xbox 360 has a GPU FPS of around 955 GFlops**
PS3 has a GPU FPS of 1.8TFlops

Xbox 360 has a combined FPS of 1TFlops
PS3 has a combined FPS of 2.18TFlops

Xbox 360 has a DVD-ROM
PS3 has a BD-ROM

Xbox 360 is WiFi ready
PS3 is WiFi built-in

Xbox 360 has 3 x USB 2.0 ports
PS3 has 6 x USB 2.0 ports

Xbox 360 has support for 4 wireless controllers
PS3 has support for 7 wireless (Bluetooth) controllers

Xbox 360 uses Memory Units
PS3 uses MS Standard/Duo/Pro, SD standard/mini & Compact Flash Type I/II

Xbox 360 has support for select Xbox1 games
PS3 has support for PS1 & PS2 games

Xbox 360 has support for 1 720p & 1080i display
PS3 has support for 2 480p, 720p, 1080i & 1080p displays

Note:
* Derived from CPU Game Math Performance of 9 billion dot product operations per second
** Derived from subtracting published Overall System Floating-Point Performance of 1TFlops with derived from CPU Game Math Performance of 9 billion dot product operations per second

Source:

Wikipedia's PS3 Tech Specs
Official Xbox 360 Fact Sheet
Formula for Dot Product Operations Per Second to GFlops

Re:Xbox 360 v. PS3

[Queer Boy]

All that and Gameboys still dominate.

Re:Xbox 360 v. PS3

[KirkH]

The Xbox 360 CPU is actually rated at 115-130 GFLOPS depending on your source. A Sony slide at the PS3 unveiling showed it (the 360 CPU) at 115 GFLOPS.

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? :)

Re:Xbox 360 v. PS3

[Pao|o]

480i is the resolution of Standard Definition TVs that has been selling for the past few decades.

Re:Xbox 360 v. PS3

[KirkH]

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.

Re:Xbox 360 v. PS3

[EulerX07]

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.

Re:Xbox 360 v. PS3

[EulerX07]

I would much rather some type of storage included so I don't have to mess around with memory cards.

Then you have the option of buying the HD for the PS3, which is what most people will probably do anyway. Carrying a big box and a small box home from best buy won't be much more work then carrying one big box home.

I'm not expecting budget price at all, I'm expecting them to price for people with too much income and not enough dependents (enough of them around to take care of the first few shipments before they drop the price).

Re:Xbox 360 v. PS3

[Chanc_Gorkon]

Because GFLOPS only matter to us geeks thats why. They are a meaningless metric. GFLOPS are horrible at measuring true performance. Benchmarks are better, but still not good. The only thing that matters is does the game play at an acceptable rate and most games will do just that.

Bluetooth?

[Lussarn]

I have a logitech dinovo blouetooth keyboard/mouse combo and I do not use that mouse for gaming. It's way to laggy, I think bluetooth has maximum update of 80hz or something. Have they worked around that?

controller

[Paralizer]

Why not stick with a controller for a few systems. I understand new items are added to controllers to upgrade performance or add some new element to the game (rumble pack for GC for example), but there's a clear threshhold where a controller doesn't need to be "enhanced" much more to be suitable for a new system. Just update the system, gamers will probably like you better for it. Then again, they aren't getting the extra sales for those controllers they would have been selling... perhaps thats the motivation.

2 Teraflops??

[dolphi0]

The PlayStation 3 will feature the much-vaunted Cell processor, which will run at 3.2GHz, giving the whole system 2 teraflops of overall performance.

Am I reading that correctly? 2 Teraflops? Right now the #5 computer on the '04 Supercomputing Top 500 list has just under 10 TFlops. Wow.

Re:burner

[Slashcrap]

another diff is that the xbox has a burner and the ps3 doesnt.

Jesus. Look, when a drive is said to support "CD,CDR,CDRW,DVD,DVDR,DVDRW" etc..etc.. that doesn't necessarily mean that it can write to them. It just means that it can read from them.

So just because the XBox 360 press release said "CDR" support doesn't mean it's going to have a burner.

Try and use a bit of critical thought in future. Here, I'll give you a start :

Q.What advantages would MS get from building a CD/DVD burner into the XBox? What disadvantages would result?

If you'd have thought about it long enough to come up with that question I suspect you would also have come up with the answers :

None whatsoever. Extra cost, extra point of failure, piracy etc..

Not so hard was it?

Goodbye HD-DVD, hello Blu-ray

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, say goodbye to the HD-DVD standard. All Sony will have to do is release a few dozen of their blockbusters in 1080p resolution and put them on the top shelf of the PS3 sales rack. Newly scanned James Bond collection exclusively on Blu-ray, a new rerelease of some popular trilogy, etc.

Apple will help to make the hit a home run with HDTV iMovie on a new Blu-ray sporting iMac. Watch your home movies at high resolution. They already joined the Blu-ray camp and had Sony come on stage to showcase their 1080i consumer cam. Anyone stupid enough to have bought one will be laughed at as sales persons will deem 1080p the standard; each frame is a perfect still, you can fill a photo-album with the best frames. I would not be surprised if iMovie gains a CoreVideo filter to enhance DV material to HDTV for those who can afford an iMac but not yet the camcorder which will start at outrageous 'pro-sumer' prices, but then again your kids will only once take their first steps ;-).

Sony could even disrupt the upcoming Christmas sales for Microsoft if they launch a 'prepare fo playstation 3' campaign and start selling '1080p enhanced PS3 compatible' games for the PS2 where the render engine can be network patched in the summer to render to 1080p, or where the splitscreen racer will become dual 1080p on a PS3. Or simply by enhancing the graphics of PSone puzzlers to be 1080p friendly as a tie me over / keep up the grades in your final year graduation (or you won't get a PS3) present.

untrue

[ShaggusMacHaggis]

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."

Re:untrue

[CaymanIslandCarpedie]

but kindly piss off unless you actually have something to say

I don't get it. GP make it sound as if there was an impending end of xbox games. This guy then pointed out this wasn't true and even quoted a very relevant quote. What more was he supposed to say?

As far as blue-ray, it think it will be a cool extra. However, at this point I think the extra storage is a bit of an after-thought for Sony. XBox 360 I've heard is going to require all games to be HD while Sony isn't. Not that its a big deal, but with that info I doubt many games will require more than one DVD even with HD (otherwise MS is going to annoy a lot of people with having every game require more than one DVD). The reason Sony is including Blu-Ray is to push thier standard. Right now there is competion for the next DVD standard and Sony being able to ship millions of units including Blu-Ray will certainly tip the contest in thier favor. This is smart and good. I'm guessing they will need to make price competitive with XBox, so I'd guess they'll even include Blu-Ray at a loss to keep the price down. They can easily recoup this if Blu-Ray wins the standards war through licensing. Now if this is the case, it could be a great chance to get the "next" DVD player at a great price and makes the PS3 even more appealing, but I don't see it as an issue in game play.

Wireless Controller Worries

[th0mas.sixbit.org]

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.

Re:Wireless Controller Worries

[damiangerous]

Yes, it's called Bluetooth. 79 frequencies available cycled 1600 times a second (23 frequencies in the Japanese spectrum). Once a piconet links up (which is what a given console and set of controllers will be) they cycle frequencies in sync. Unless you plan on having more than several dozen systems within about 10 meters there won't be a problem. Bluetooth was designed to be ubiquitous.

Re:Wireless Controller Worries

[damiangerous]

Oh and another possibility that seems more likely when I think about it is that a console will have an "acquisition mode" in which it's willing to accept new controllers. Probably something accessible from a Pause or System sort of menu so you can access it during a game.

Re:Controller

[digidave]

Everybody said the same thing when they first got a look at the PSX controllers, too. It was crazy... the traditional D-pad was replaced by four buttons! How absurd!

Sony kept the same controller around for two console generations so you know they're not the type of company to come out with a new design just because there is a new console. They probably did hundreds of hours of user testing.

Who cares what it looks like?

[John Harrison]

At this point I am just excited to be able to buy bluetooth controlers. I assume that they will be normal bluetooth and compatible with PCs. Maybe this will spur the development of bluetooth devices the way the original iMac made USB ubiquitous.

Yes, but...

[jounihat]

...will it run Linux? Seriously, that makes one heck of a server, if it's sold below 500. And managing Apache with that controller! I just can't wait.

Re:256 vs 512?

[thenetbox]

From gamesindustry.biz

"Like Xbox 360, PS3 will have 512MB of RAM, but unlike its rival console, which has a unified memory architecture that shares RAM betwen the CPU and GPU, it will divide that up in much the same way that modern PCs do - with 256MB of very high speed XDR main RAM running at 3.2Ghz, and 256MB of GDDR graphics RAM running at 700Mhz."

Both have 512 MB but XBOX360s RAM is unified. I guess benchmarks will tell us if that causes a real difference or not

Playstation Banana

[Deathlizard]

I don't know about boomerang... looks more like a banana to me.

It's pretty sad when I can look at an Xbox 360 Controller and say it looks better than this one.

I won't finally judge it until I actually hold one, but I dont understand why Sony would screw up a good controller design for what looks more like an asethethic change rather than a functional one, unless they had to make it bigger to hold the wireless circuity.

Exactly.

[porkchop_d_clown]

I assume you mean this goes for any gaming system and/or game right? Halo/Doom3 is nothing more than a FPS with prettier explosions. The XBox2 is nothing more than a typical game system with more horsepower, right?

I'm glad to see you understand.

Don't get me wrong - I've been a computer/video/arcade gamer for 30 years now (they didn't exist for the first part of my life). I currently own two PS2s, a PC, a Linux server, a couple of Powerbooks, a GBA-SP and a PSP. (I'll omit the list of all the machines I used to own.)

I rarely play games on any of them now - I had high hopes for the PSP, but I've discovered I'm having more fun writing software to hack it than I am playing the actual games.

Re:Will the PC hardware prices come down?

[ilyaaohell]

There is not a huge PC gamer community. PC game sales are a tiny fraction of the overall industry.

However, you're asking why would people stick with PCs and not consoles? Because PCs have different types of games on them than consoles. Although the console world has seen a significant explosion of first person shooters coming out left and right, these games are, for the most part, not quite suited for console gaming. Additionally, you won't find many games along the lines of Civilization on the consoles. So, I guess my point is that PC gaming and console gaming targets different demographics. This is why the MUCH cheaper cost of being a console gamer isn't enough of an incentive to outright "switch" and abandon PC gaming. And, this doesn't even take into account the fact that most people already have a PC in their house to begin with, so it wouldn't be much of a switch but rather ignoring one device that they already own for another.

PC hardware prices will not match console hardware prices for MANY YEARS after the console's release. Even today, if all the hardware in the Xbox was put into a regular PC case, that would still run you several hundred dollars at the least. Meanwhile, the Xbox current costs a measely $150. The kicker here is that it costs $150 to YOU. To Microsoft, it costs a hell of a lot more. The system hardware sales are sold as a loss to the company because profits in the console industry come from game licensing and sales. From each game sold, no matter who released it, Microsoft sees some money. So, it's an incentive to get the hardware into as many homes as possible.

And, by the way, for this same reason you should not pay attention to any of the wildly uninformed price speculations computer geeks will spew about these new console prices. If either the Xbox 360 or the PS3 costs anywhere above $299 when it comes out, expect a significant consumer backlash. The PS2 and the original Xbox were just as technologically impressive for their time as these successors are, and their final retail price remained very competitive. There will be no change in that because this is simply how this industry works. They're not in the hardware-selling business, they're in the game-selling business. Selling the hardware is merely a facilitator.

So, no. PC hardware prices will not come down. Not because of these consoles.

Does anybody notice it?

[oliderid]

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

Re:Controller

[Gudlyf]

I heard each controller comes with a utility belt, a 300-lb. zipline and gas pellets.

Re:Controller

[GeckoX]

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.

Finally the Review

[a3217055]

You guys should check out the gamespot.com E3 coverage. You can use bugmenot.com to login for free and take a look at the Sony Press Conference. Also it is a windows media stream, sorry *NIX guys. The stream is about 1 hour 50 mins long. It shows all the new games and tons of presentations. Lot of stuff about capturing new markets but the PS3 console looks amazing.
http://www.gamespot.com/e3/e3live.html

The Cell processor is IBM's jewel, it might be the single killer against the x86 market. Not to mention that the Cell processor in PS3 is revision 3 while the one in the xbox is revision 2. The new cell processor is gonna knock the socks of all you folks.
Trust me :)

Another thing is that 7 controllers that run Blue Tooth, I don't get it either. But the main thing is that games will be more and more interactive. But the Final Fantasy games out there look amazing but beyond that the Gran Turismo games are also kick ass (please cars flip over...please ) But the Tekken for PS3 was an amazing intro. You could see Jin's muscles and sweat and then the heat rising from his body and with the punch you could see sweat fly from his fists. There was another game a FPS that was amazing where marines come in through the sky and fight on the ground urban warfare style. I don't know how much of it are rendered movies and how much is real time work but the Unreal PS3 engine was amazing, it really was the explosions with the rockets and the smoke. But beyond that they had the CEO of EA come in ( yeah I know he didn't pay overtime ) and brought in Fight Night, that was great with the facial expressions of the boxers at every punch I just can imagine Rockstar Games' new GTA will definately be something. And also there are tons of new API's in the Nvidia GFX processor subsystem that have tons of stuff, like transparency and skin diffusion, water refraction. Amazing stuff. Xbox to be cool had to come on MTV, Sony being classy just went to E3 and showed who's who what there lil box can do. But over all whole press conference was kick ass, marketing venture yes. But the xbox360 on MTV was so .... teenager oriented that the PS3 is for bigboys, and the lil'boys. Sony was cool and professional while the Xbox 360 was like in your face kind of advertisement. End result xbox360 looks good PS3 looks kickass, kungfu punch, matrix lobby scene better. Also the PSP using 802.11 can become an auxillary input into the PS3 ( huh, why what do they want us to buy everything that Sony has to offer or what?? ).
But the dual HD output is great, and it also takes VGA :) . And it is backward compatiable with PS, PS2 etc.
But the estiemated price of the PS3 is $250 for just the gaming rig and $500 for the works. But definately they will sell there console for a loss.And make money on the games. Looking at the way the PSP sold I wouldn't be suprised it would sell for US$300.
Also our beloved Hedijo Kojima of MGS showed up, may the Lord Bless his soul, yes there is going to be a MGS for the PS3.
The xbox 360 has major major competiton. Cell technology puts them on the same playing field including the Nintendo Revolution. What makes them different are the games they have to offer. Even with life like reality in the end it is the simple thrill of Pong and Pacman and Mario Bros. that makes us want to play more and more games.
Frag away, Drive away, Super Combo away and what ever Final Fantasy does ...

Re:PS3 - PS2 - PSX

[matts-reign]

did you read the article ;) Mr. Kutaragi also reaffirmed that the PS3 would feature backwards compatibility with both the original Playstation and PS2 games

Re:Sony SDK ?

[Deathlizard]

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.

Another acceptible response...

[Anonymous Coward]

...would be "my hot, lesbian, identical twin sister".

Re:Another acceptible response...

[vasah20]

Seeing how pasty and beareded alot of us Slashdotters are, I think we're better off with just a "hot, lesbian sister".

Re:Controller

[de Siem]

I wonder when it will be used in a lesbian porn flick as a replacement double dildo. (or vibrator rumble pack pending).

Re:Microsoft vaporware

[John Miles]

Cool, the PS3 supports 1080p... the obvious irony being that only Bill Gates can afford an HDTV display device that can handle 1080p.

Re:Controller

[ignorant_coward]

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.

Developer support and "killer features" matter

[ianscot]

The items from that list that might matter to me would probably be:

• backward compatibility edge for Sony (in overall "you don't have to worry" scope, in vastly larger number of games, and in previous market share);
• WiFi ready as opposed to built-in

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.)

So it begins

[superultra]

Oh geez.

Remember back in the day, the debates we would all have in our neighborhood backyards as kids, about how certain consoles had more bits and therefore were better?

Looks like *flops are the new bits.

Yes because they are using Bluetooth 2.0.

[celerityfm]

According to the specs sheet, they are using Bluetooth 2.0+EDR which fixes the refresh rate problem, amongst other things.

Read more

are you sure?

[KZigurs]

http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i =2417&p=3

As far as I understood it - PS3 WILL have a hdd.

Re:are you sure?

[KirkH]

Check it:

STORAGE
--HDD Detachable 2.5" HDD slot x 1
--I/O--USB Front x 4, Rear x 2 (USB2.0)
--Memory Stickstandard/Duo, PRO x 1
--SD standard/mini x 1
--CompactFlash(Type I, II) x 1

It has a slot for a HDD, but no mention of actually including one in the box. If it was included, don't you think they would specifically say so?

Source: http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/05/16/news_61246 81.html?q=1

HD, right on time

[sterno]

1080P, so that's 1080 lines right? Right now on my desktop I'm doing 1280x1024 for all the games I play. So this would be just a hair above that, non?

I've got a 6600 GT, which is able to keep that 1280x1024 filled with data, no problem. So if the card on the PS3 is equivalent to an SLI linked pair of 6800's, it's got more than enough power to pull that off with insane levels of detail.

It seems to me that the XBox is an evolutionary step, taking the XBox, making it a better performing system, and including the obvious enhancements. The PS3 seems to be trying to set the ground work for the next level. Sony is thinking way beyond being the next generation game platform and media hub here.

While XBox can play on HD, what formats does it support? It's just a DVD player, non? The PS3 does Blu-ray, and that will allow it to play high definition movies. Of all the features on the PS3, this is the key piece of the pizzle. Now you may be thinking, nobody has high def movies, but Sony knows that too. Why have a format war over the next high def format when Sony can pre-empt that by having millions of PS3's that already do blu-ray? Expect Sony to begin releasing a lot of their films on Blu Ray when PS3 launches.

This is the first time I've seen Sony really take advantage of all their pieces. I mean Blu Ray has no obvious benefits over HDDVD, but if I've already got a PS3, it has a huge benefit. No matter what people think of the 360, the PS3 will sell millions of units, and that will give Sony it's foot hold. From there, they make money on:

1) Selling games
2) Royalties on the Blue Ray format
3) Selling everybody their favorite movies all over again in high definition
4) Selling TV's that take advantage of all of these capabilities

Very very smart, IMHO. Microsoft has a serious problem here because they can only make up their hardware losses on game licensing. Sony has a lot of channels they can use and it actually will create markets for them that do no currently exist. Microsoft will just sell more games but otherwise be doing the same thing they have done.

Re:HD, right on time

[iainl]

"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.

Re:Controller

[SnprBoB86]

No kidding?

I am deathly afraid of being pissed at a game, throwing the controller, only to have it turn around and put out my eye...

Re:Controller

[falzbro]

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

Re:Sony SDK ?

[EulerX07]

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.

Re:Microsoft vaporware

[EulerX07]

Quick search made me come up with this press release. Right now a 52" DLP 720p/1080i television from toshiba runs about 3500$CAN, altough I've seen them as low as 3200$CAN. By april of next year I'd wager you'd be able to pick up a 52" 1080p DLP for less then 4000$CAN (roughly 3200$US).

Not exactly cheap, but you probably won't have to sell one of your kids to get one if you want it. Right now I'm using a 26" 720p/1080i CRT from toshiba, should be good enough to enjoy the new system at first, especially since I've read that most games probably will run at 720p instead of 1080p (I'd assume for the first generation at least).

Re:The PS3 controller port?

[9Nails]

The controllers are Bluetooth, and you can connect up to 7 of them to the PS3. That has me interested! My family loves party games, and well, the neighborhood likes to come in to my home to play too. I can imagine 7 player Bomberman or something in the future. I hope some developer will exploit this potential.

But those picture that you pulled up, they are four USB 2.0 ports, there is two more on the back of the PS3. And there is what looks like THREE Ethernet ports! (Two of the ports are output, someone say LAN Party?!)

Here's a better picture of the front ports: Front
And a picture of the back of the PS3: Back

I think the USB layout is good for memory sticks. Better than stacking since some sticks are too chubby for that. And I'd imagine that some people would get right on the PC support, eventually.

Playstation 3 vs Xbox 3(60)

[Basehart]

When will Microsoft come up with an original naming convention?

Are they destined to rip off the names of competing products for the rest of eternity?

Sony currently have a product which is currently at version 2. They either release a new product called 3 or drop the numbering convention completely, so they release the Playstation 3.

Along comes Microsoft with a product that doesn't rely on a numerical versioning system, the Xbox, and what do they come up with next - Xbox 3 (with a 60 added on to make it seem like even more than 3).

The same thing happened with Apple, they had OS 7, 8, 9, and the instead of 10 they went with X.

What does Microsoft do?

Windows 95, 98, 2000 and then - erm - X (with a P added to make it even more than X).

What's next?

Re:just like the GT video

[ilyaaohell]

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.

I dissagree

[DumbSwede]

Anyone that has a VGA monitor should be able to hook these things up to use 1080p. I'm guessing that Sony will make the Component video out switchable to RGB. If not, you can get Component to RGB adapters.

At Home I watch DVD in 1080p straight from my computer on a 10' front projection screen (yes it is upconverted). Then I click a dial to watch HDTV off of my cablebox which comes out Component and goes through a component to VGA adapter.

The point is the Playstation 3 might be the appliance that truly ushers in HDTV as most everyone has VGA monitors that can be used as an entry level HDTV system, and unlike the crappy rear projection stuff you see at BestBuy and Wal-Mart these will work at 1080p not just 1080i or 720p.

suggested retail price?

[kdigs]

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.

Unreal Tournament demo was real-time.

[javaxman]

How do we know that Sony is not lying like they did with the PS2?

While we know there is marketing hype involved, at least one demo was shown to be real-time. From the Gamespot article :

To show off the PlayStation 3's graphical brawn, Sony showed several game demos, including an Unreal 3 engine show-off of what appeared to be Unreal Tournament 2007. 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. He proved the tech demo was real-time by showing it again and by manipulating the camera and zooming in.

Why is it hard to believe that Sony, working on this project for the past 3 years or more, might just be able to best Microsoft's 18-month project? It should not be. While the specs might be a tad inflated, it's probably safe to say that the PS3 is a more graphically and computationally capable machine than the Xbox 360. What that means for market share remains to be seen.

Both MS and Sony are going to be pulling out all the stops. Nintendo is likely to step up to the plate as well. You know what? Competition is good.

Tech Specs vs. Games

[nick_davison]

You don't play specs, you play games. And I'm not sure why you think the PS3 GPU is so much better than the 360's. Care to enumerate?

Generic Racing Game:
Graphics...
X-Box:360 - 6 stunning cars on a track.
PS3 - 12 stunning cars on a track.

AI...
X-Box:360 - 6 cars fighting it out for their share of 3 PowerPCs.
PS3 - 12 cars each running their AI on a separate sub processor that's optimized specifically for that task.

Flight Sim:
X-Box:360 - 10-15 planes filling the skies.
PS3 - 20-30 planes filling the skies making for truly chaotic dogfights.

Space Sim:
X-Box:360 - The original cut of StarWars with maybe six X-Wings and six Tie Fighters shown at any one time.
PS3 - Return Of The Jedi with waves of them coming in.

Shooter:
X-Box:360 - A platoon of enemy troops charging your squad.
PS3 - Two enemy platoons trying to flank your allied squad while you try and find a way to out flank them.

If I'm playing a WWII game, I want occasional set piece massive battles not constant squad action because the system can't handle making that number of troops look good. If I'm playing a world war two flight sim, I want to defend a thousand bomber formation not be one of two planes guarding a six plane flight of B-17s. If I'm playing a racing game, I want all the other cars of a big race, with constant jockeying for position, not an arbitrary six needed to keep the framerate decent.

I could go on. The point is, we play games, not specs. But double the amount of processing power means developers have the ability to put double the amount of content on screen at any one time (assuming they don't simply increase detail on existing numbers). Double the amount of adversaries etc. makes for much better, more realistic games.

So, directly, I don't care that much about the tech specs. I care about the games. But the tech specs give the developers far more freedom to make the games I want to play.

As for proof of that power differential: I could argue about how [only when well coded] massively parallel simple processors can blow the crap out of only a couple of very powerful, highly generic processors. You build a processor that can do hundreds of different complex multimedia tasks - great - but half that silicon isn't getting used for any given specific instruction whereas it's all getting used in massively parallel simpler units and, because they're simpler, they can be optimized to cycle faster.

Regardless of theory though, there's a far simpler solution - take a look at the demos. The X-Box:360 demos look good. Great even. They're definitely an incremental improvement over the current generation. The PS3 demos, however, look like something a movie studio rendered. It's like the difference between companies doing better and better stop motion animation and what Weta did with huge numbers of troops in Lord Of The Rings. That is why I'm tending to believe the PS3 claims. They may just be tech demos, not real games. But what tech demos they are.

Re:Tech Specs vs. Games

[stu_coates]

X-Box:360 - A platoon of enemy troops charging your squad.
PS3 - Two enemy platoons trying to flank your allied squad while you try and find a way to out flank them.

That's done it, I'm definitely getting an XBox360 - the games sound a lot easier! ;-)

Re:Tech Specs vs. Games

[Jagasian]

The PS3 demos, however, look like something a movie studio rendered.

Hasn't Sony been busted many times before for doing just that with their "tech demo" footage? How much you wanna bet that most of the demos shown were not running in real-time on a Playstation 3?

Re:Tech Specs vs. Games

[madgamer]

Disclaimer: I used to work for Sega and now I work for a major third party publisher, so my words may seem biased.

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.

PSP as Thin Client to PS3

[troy144]

I just watched the pre-E3 Sony Press Event (insider.ign.com) and at 44:19 into the video Masa Chatani is introduced and 47:50 he states that "[Playstation 3] there is also a built in wireless network interface that allows connection to Wi-Fi devices, including Playstation Portable. This allows PSP to become a remote controller, as well as remote screen. Whether you are in the next room, or on the other side of the world. From any remote location, PSP can have access to PS3 to play the local playing game, which runs from the PS3 out of your home. The always on, always connected nature of the PS3 means that your secure media can be accessed remotley at anytime over broadband or wireless networks."

Re:Controller

[zev1983]

I for one might actually like this new Banana/Boomerang controler. One thing I have noticed is that the current controller arms end a quite a bit short for me so instead of resting my hands on it when playing I have to sort of hold my hands apart, which can get tiring. Or I can rest my elbows on whatever I am on, whether armrests or bed etc. and have the circulation reduced to my hands, making them go numb within 10 minutes. Nothing kills control like not being able to actually feel the controller in your hand.

The other really annoying thing is the screw holes on the underside that leave indentations on my hand and give a weird itching sensation when playing for a long time.

I'm looking forward to trying this new controller.

Re:Microsoft vaporware

[Valdrax]

Holy moly. I just erased a huge rebuttal to what you just said after reading the good news. Last time I checked back in November (when Samsung's original 61" 1080p DLP was officially overdue), Samsung said that it was jacking up the price on its offerings from $6500 to $9000. How we're seeing price ranges from that company from $4500-$7000 for 1080p DLPs. We might actually see relief.

I was going to mention the price increase and couple it with the fact that all the LCoS sets including Sony's new SXRD are going to be going for >$10000, but this is good news. You might be right. It'd be nice to get a 1080p screen with some decent black levels as opposed to my current Sharp AQUOS set.

You're forgetting a few things...

[idontneedanickname]

I watched the stream of Microsoft's presentation/show. They've built in several revenue generating factors as well. Since they stated that they're looking for a wider audience, they've included things like purchasing music and videos/other content through their concole. I doubt they're going to give away that kind of service to the stores they provide it to, so they'll probably be getting a cut of each purchase in addition to charging all the content providers up front for the privelage to sell through their network and on their platform.*

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?

Re:Figments of imagination vs. real [demos]

[madgamer]

bitching about things you've evidently not even seen the commonly available demos for

ok... let me make it clear then.

i don't need to see demos. i'll see them plenty enough tomorrow when i head off to e3.

i work for a game publisher and we are currently making games for both ps3 and xbox 360 using the unreal 3 engine (which many other game developers are also using to make next-gen games, and it's well known so i'm not breaking nda here). both games will be running off basically the same codebase and assets.

now tell me... will one look and play significantly better than the other by any leaps and bounds? if they are seen side-by-side, will you be able to tell the difference?

you are mentioning first party exclusive titles that are not also being developed on the other platform(s), so there can be no direct comparison made.

maybe the second or third wave of games for this next gen will widen the gap between which console is more "powerful" than the other, but even then, most games will be similar and look similar. with PS2 v. XBOX 1, it's truly the case. same with SNES v. Genesis, etc. where you will see a major difference from the get-go is with online play (microsoft seems to have their stuff together) and with major existing franchises and original ip (sony and nintendo seem to have this going for them).

which brings me back to my point. imo, the best determining factor of what next-gen console one should get should depend on what first party exclusive titles you want... because the rest of the major games will be made for both systems anyway.

we are far beyond the days when you could tell at first glance which game system x game is on.

Re:Controller

[ShinGouki]

you think a 300-lb test line is gonna be enough for the ps3 crowd?