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PS3 Details Slowly Emerging
The Playstation Magazine (PSM) has a feature coming up in the next issue which discusses Sony's new console with a few new details. Both Maxconsole and Ferrago have a look at the piece. From the Maxconsole article: "We've received a lot of letters asking about how PS2 will be backwards compatible with PS2 and the original Playstation if it doesn't have memory card slot. Well, we have an answer, and it's both good and bad. First, the bad news: All of those old memory cards you have won't be usable with PS3. Okay then, wha's the solution? Sony has actually decided to only use Memory Stick Duo cards(the same format PSP uses) for PS3 save data. However, if you play a PS1 or PS2 game on PS3, the system will treat the Memory Stick like it's a normal memory card."
OK, so there I am on the prior story saying how much I look forward to the PS3 because of the backwards compatibility and here comes an article telling me that my save files are junk. Good grief, they couldn't put a *single* reader slot for the old cards? I wouldn't care if they made me copy the data over prior to use, except for those few games with "protected" save files that you can't move are still in trouble. I wouldn't even care if it was on the back or something silly, since I would only copy the files once.
Please tell me that they aren't this stupid? I have games from the PS1 that I haven't finished (turn based strategy games may look bad, but still play great) and a lot of games on the PS2 in progress.
Sig under construction since 1998.
We've received a lot of letters asking about how PS2 will be backwards compatible with PS2 and the original Playstation [...]
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How long would it take to make a hack that gets saves from the old memory cards onto the new memory cards. Not long by my guess seeing as there are already ways to get PS1 and PS2 saves to a computer. All it would really take is a PSP hack to get the saves on the new sticks.
...sell Memory Sticks.
it wouldn't be so bad if they didn't keep updating the specs so you can't use new high-capacity sticks in previous-generation electronics.
"about how PS2 will be backwards compatible with PS2"
Boy, I hope they are compatible! I'd hate to buy a PS2 and find myself with a suddenly obsolete PS2 when the PS2 comes out a week later or something. That'd suck.
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The article was a bit scarce on details, but they made it sound like the Compact Flash and SD slots announced at E3 will not be used. I hate these stupid "leaked stories"....
So it plays PS, PS2, and PS3 games, can play Blu-ray movies if they ever come into frutation, can display 2 HD outputs, used to serve as a router (functionality removed), supposedly it will run Linux out of the box, and other impressive features.
Unfortunately, it doesn't take old PS and PS2 memory cards (I found it annoying that you could save PS data onto a PS2 card, but this just really sucks). Dance pads and other old PS2 periphels won't work on it (I guess I can laugh at my brother for buying a $300 DDR dance mat that won't work with a PS3). Next thing we know, it won't even play games.
Is anyone else disappointed that the PS3 is becoming less and less of a game machine and turning more and more in to an all-in-wonder-box? I recall when Sony talked about how MS was basically releasing a PC with the Xbox, and now it seems the tables have turned. Some part of me honestly hopes that Nintendo and MS kick the crap out of Sony this round.
I hope that someone will create a piece of hardware that copies information from the old memory cards to the memorystick.
Those who know, do not speak. Those who speak, do not know. ~Lao Tzu
at least I'll have a use for the otherwise useless 32meg memory stick that came with my psp.
So I get to buy some kooky, expensive third party device in order to transfer my final fantasy, xenosaga and street fighter data to this expensive memory stick?
I wonder if it would be possible for those who are lucky enough to have PS2 Linux kit's to trasnfer the game saves over a network onto a PC and then from there to a memory stick?
The solution of course would be for someone to make an adaptor that allows memory card data to be transferred to PC - from whence the information can be moved around willy nilly
The article mentioned that the DexDrive would be a possible solution to transfer game files. It's the first thing that came to my mind as well.
Stupid memory stick. Stupid Sony. USB storage is the way to go, you stupid, stupid people.
I'm gonna be hella pissed off if my old saves won't work on the PS3, or if I have to buy some crappy $30 gizmo to do it. I've invested well over 100 hours into some of my RPGs (slow summer, give me a break!) and if Sony's gonna throw all those hours out the window... I'm gonna be one unhappy camper.
When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.
I've got a great 36" Sony TV. Picture is beautiful. Nice HD display. Takes Sony memory sticks as the memory stick of choice ... but NOT the duo. Now, I don't really expect a TV to take ANY type of memory card, so it doesn't bother me that much ... but it was a brand new TV 2 years ago and it didn't support the Duo. The manual was even new enough to know that the Duo existed, but that it wasn't supported by my TV. Like I said, it doesn't bother me since I don't use memory sticks.
... "hey, it's their product ... they can do what they want ... right?" ... talk to me in 10 years, when a new storage medium has come out ... and your PS3 is still using a storage format you can only find used on eBay.
Now Sony has billed the Playstation3 as a 10-year device. It makes me wonder if they truly intend to stop the evolution of their memory stick line at the form factor of the Memory Stick Duo. What happens if 4 years down the road, they come up with a new format with a new form factor that's incompatible with the interface of the PS3? Is everyone that's 4 years into a 10 year PS3 investment screwed?
The ONLY reason Sony is obligating users to use the Memory Stick Duo as the storage media is that it allows them to recoup some of the loss they're taking on each machine sold. And while it may seem okay today
...the PS2 will now be backwards-compatible with PS/2, which means I can use my 3-button mouse to play SOCOM II--YAY!!1
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
Your sig ("Be incomprehensible. If they can't understand, they can't disagree"), oddly enough, applies perfectly well in this case.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
You know, Sony updates the specs for a reason. Sure I'm pissed I can't use my old 1.3 MP Digital Camera with a brand new 4 GB Memory Stick Pro... but if I remember right... they needed to update the specs in order to breach the 128 MB gap... something about file system instability. I guess there are those users who wouldn't mind flipping a toggle switch 37 times so they could access a few more megabytes of data..........
Deja Vu
n. 1. The sensation that you've read this very article before.
Eh, it's irritating, but it's not a HUGE problem. I'll just run MGS3 or something on the PS3 to get an idea what the save format looks like, then I'll use execftps to yank all my PS2 saves, then lastly hand-reformat them to the memory stick filr structure. Shouldn't be too hard-- chances are it'll use the same directory/file structure, so I probably won't have to do anything more than just move the files as-is.
for Sony to make a slot for the old Memory cards (doesn't need to be in the front, it could be hidden), and make a small function that reads the old saves and writes them on the new disk?
They have the code.. they have the tech.. now all they need to do is implement this into the PS3 and save themselves a marketing nightmare.
Seems like Sony and MS are both playing "Let's see who can screw up the next console generation more!" This game may backfire if Nintendo's hardware beats expectations.
That was a pretty useless article if you ask me. Nothing new there and it was all speculation, speculation and more speculation.
Call me when you get some concrete info from sony themselves, instead of this "a freind of a freind said at e3 that they said that..."
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Am I the only one who thinks it would be great if even just one of these manufacturers built a system that could save games to a USB flash drive? More and more people are buying them, they're based on a decade-old standard that's been, for all intents and purposes, perfected, and they could potentially open up new worlds of fan-modding for console games (trading maps, custom characters, saves, etc.) If they're that concerned about piracy, all I can say is that I've yet to see a 50GB USB drive.
I know it can be done since the Codebreaker allows the updating of codes via the PS2's USB ports. So how's 'bout game saves? Hmm? Anyone? Bueller?
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Man you people b@$ch about some stupid stuff. I mean seriously, people. At least the old games will still work at all. Look at the 360, you are going to have to buy the game again if you want to play it on the new system. I think having to play the game again > is not such a huge deal. I think having to spend another $20-$40?!? for the same game again would call for the "wah" sound, and maybe a little bitching. Microsoft has the code for those games and could easily make it somewhat backwards compatible. I mean if they have to rewrite the games to play on the 360 in the first place, wouldn't it be easier to write one bunch of code in the OS rather than rewriting 20 games? Just be happy we will still get to enjoy FFIV on two HD screens :-)
w00t
Anyone wonder why Sony even bothers with using memory sticks at all? Havent we evolved enough in the console market to expect a built in means for saving game data? Sony gets to continue to bilk you for the price of buying these little one generation piles of junk. Why?
Uh, PS3 also has slots for Compact Flash and SD, so your point is now moot.
And if you think the PS3 will allow games to save or load from them, then you need to get a MRI.
The PS2 had USB slots, and didn't acknowledge USB thumbdrives at all. Only a literal handful of games in Japan would save/load from the HDD.
I have to disagree with people here. The Memory Sticks are not that bad. OK its a different standard to SD, but SD is equally proprietory. The MS and MSD actually work fairly well if you buy Sony equipment so it is quite interchangeable. In response to another poster the Duos should work with normal MS ports with the adaptor that comes with them.
The SD standard in itself if maybe a bit better as it does come slightly cheaper and is supported by more manufacturers. But the deriviatives are a joke - the miniSD and the b*stardised offsrpring the TransFlash. Especially for mobile phones it makes buying this haphazard as there is no guarantee that a standard will be in operation in the near future, especially with added 'convenience' of Nokia's reduced MMC.
In this way Sony's MS and MSD (with the increasing concentration on the Duo) seem more sane. It just works across the product lines esp with the PSP and the PS3 coming out. I'm sure someone will make an adaptor to convert the old cards anyway (the PS2 one being essentially a different form factor memory stick).
Yeah, because heaven forbid that Sony should have designed their Memory Sticks with an eye towards the future.
They designed the Memory Stick format to obsolete itself.
Why does it seem like every announcement regarding the 360 or PS3 makes Nintendo look like they're doing the right thing?
In Soviet Russia, backwards is everything.
We're lucky we'll be able to play those older games?! You've got that backwards, man. They're lucky if we buy their console, and having backwards compatibility is one of the ways they'll use to entice us to do so.
Now excuse me while I go "thank" Sony for selling me something I don't even need.
You're right. It kind of reminds me of how great the IDE specification is. That whole 137 GB barrier... We'll never see hard drives bigger than that. I mean never. Absolutely never.
(of course I'm being completely facetious. the point i am making is that in 1998 when the MS first rolled out, flash memory was still a new technology. no one was absolutely certain it would take off as well as it did. give sony some slack for what they accomplished with the medium. we could still be using FD Mavicas... Need I remind you a decent picture with one of those could take up to 30 seconds to write...)
Deja Vu
n. 1. The sensation that you've read this very article before.
Either way, the golden rule here is to give more options.
I personally couldn't care less about backwards compatibility. (Honestly, I don't care much about the PS3 either.) But, Sony bothered to tell us about dual video out for crying out loud, and there's a much smaller audience there than there are people who might wanna play older games on their new system.
After all, people can't keep their old systems connected forever, as they're going to need to make extra room for the second HD screen, right?
Blatant attempt to sell more PSPs, as a device you can use to transfer your old saves onto the new files (with the help of your existing PS2 and it's USB port)... Even a DexDrive solution is less than useful, as how many people have a computer capable of reading MemoryStickDuo without a PSP (or other external reader), so you still can't get your saves to the PS3 without one of those. Scary.
Sony has actually decided to only use Memory Stick Duo cards(the same format PSP uses) for PS3 save data.
No doubt CF/SD cards will be readable for photo viewing or whatnot, but according to the article, not for save games.
Make a utility available to get the saves off of the PS2 with a USB cable. Or if you were cool enough to purchase a Dexdrive you should have no problem to begin with. Either way... I can't imagine all of your savegames are going to get you into replaying your old games since you're posting about it complaining instead of playing them in the first place. I'm more likely to replay a game that I don't have every item or every level completed in before the ones i do.
Flash memory was hardly new in '98. In '98, CompactFlash, SmartMedia, MMC, SD, and ATA flash were all available. MemoryStick was *not* an improvement on any of the existing formats. The only reason it existed was simply to line the pockets of Sony and to continue to drive vertical integration at the cost of functionality.
Further, MS has been through four iterations now. The MemoryStick Pro broke the 128 MB barrier, but the Duo and Duo Pro offer no improvements upon their original designs aside from form factor. It should be noted that Duo sockets cannot accept non-Duo media.
So, basically, I think a lot of us are gun-shy about the idea of ever backing the MemoryStick format, since CF and SD are both doing quite well in the market, and Sony has a very bad history with proprietary media formats (Beta, MD, MS, MagicGate, UMD...).
The anonymous source said it was true, so it must be!!!
Aside from the issues of having to find some sort of dongle to transfer saves, this is goin to hurt them at launch when their comptetitors are a little more backwards compatible. If the PS3 launch is anything like the PSP launch, there will be maybe 3 games total available at launch (and maybe 1 of them will be worth playing), so without the ability to also play the older library with older saves, there is no game-related reason to actually shell out money for the box at launch.
go here and just download new saves. Extract them and copy to your ps3 over your home network.
False, memory stick was faster
but the Duo and Duo Pro offer no improvements upon their original designs aside from form factor
And speed
It should be noted that Duo sockets cannot accept non-Duo media
There are adapters.
Sony has a very bad history with proprietary media formats (Beta, MD, MS, MagicGate, UMD...).
At present, there are over 600 supporting companies* from a diverse range of fields MS seems to be doing fine, UMD is selling fine and has been declared a standard, Beta is being used for just about all News stations, and MD was rather popular. So you were only right on magicgate
I wouldn't be surprised if the article is correct, though it definately isn't a sure thing.
(See what the grand parent said about Sony and its memory cards.)
But, the most important question: Will it support FLAC out-of-the-box?
Nintendo was smart. They never even bothered with backward compatibility. No mem stick problems, no complaining. As that Korean guy said to me at the Korean market when I tried to return some bad frozen fish I bought there, "You no complain!" (true story)
The Memory Sticks are not that bad. OK its a different standard to SD, but SD is equally proprietory.
In practice, SD card readers are not proprietary. All SD cards and 99% of MMC cards can be read and written through the SPI interface.
Agreed. The thing that annoys me is that my PS2 has a perfectly good USB port that you can plug flash disks into, and yet it won't let me save anything on them.
To sum it up: Can't use your old ps1/ps2 saves without hokey pokey. Nobody cares. Almost nobody uses backward compatibility as it is. No old peripherals supported. Nobody cares. there'll be adapters for the few who need them. Specs aren't set in stone. Ok, that's nice. Let's hope what they add is more than what they will inevitably cut (router functionality anyone?) HDD won't be for games. Duh! else it'd be bundled with the console. HDD mp3 bla bla hub bla bla photos bla bla movies bla bla share bla bla tivo bla bla psp bla bla. This is just a bunch of marketspeak bullshit. None of those functions will be used by anyone. The alternatives available to us will far surpass what the ps3 can offer. 80 gb HD? don't make me laugh... 720p to be the resolution of choice. Again: Duh! 720p offers 60 fps instead of the 1080i's 30 fps. Games are definitely 720p territory. As far as 1080p, that's just too hard to push for the nextgen consoles. Maybe for the generation after next. Doesn't mean a couple games won't support it though. Afterall, Gran Turismo 4 supports 1080i and it's just a PS2 game. And OF COURSE 480i/p will be supported. Sheesh, next thing you know, they'll start announcing that games will still have loading times... In conclusion: PS3 games are going to look real pretty and we'll be able to watch bluray movies on it. If you expect more than that, you're in for a disappointment.
I'd like to point out that there are no less than 90 million MagicGate devices out there, and I imagine a larger number of MagicGate media. Last I looked the logo was stamped on the PS2 Memory Cards.
Sure, I don't necessarily like MagicGate, but I wouldn't call it unsuccessful.
Deja Vu
n. 1. The sensation that you've read this very article before.
"UMD is selling fine and has been declared a standard"
Being "declared a standard" has no relevance to any practical discussion. UMD is supported by a grand total of one piece of hardware. The NES cart was a more successful storage medium than the UMD appears to be. Sony execs can call the UMD whatever they want, but for all intents and purposes, it's a proprietary medium.
I can't really comment on the current standings of Beta, but the MiniDisc was only marginally successful. It was a redundant format, just like the MemoryStick is.
When Sony released the first MS format, we already had CompactFlash and Secure Digital, both of which were, and still are, supperior to the MS format, never have had any specs changed and even this day come in faster packages with larger storage. They didn't need to breach the 128MB limit, because they didn't have that limit.
;)
The reason you give for Sony updating the specs, to break the 128MB limit, is exactly the reason MS is a crappy standard; if they designed the thing in a decent way to begin with, they would never have needed to update the specs.
Seems like all things abreviated to "MS" suck
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The few people out there who will play PSX, PS2 and PS3 games on their PS3 will have to restart (probably*) PSX and PS2 games. However, they will not need a minimum of three memory cards; they'll only need the one (until it runs out of space).
One of the problems with playing both PS2 and PSX games on a PS2 is the need for two types of memory card. A minor problem, but for anyone willing to start their games anew, this problem is gone with the PS3.
Of course, the possible return of fan noise (which neither of the previous consoles have now), the inability (probably*) to use the Glorious Dual Shock 2**, and the imperfect nature of emulation, will still all be problems.
*Third-party hardware unaccounted-for.
**Assuming the new controller isn't better. A safe assumtion methinks.
Seems like all things abreviated to "MS" suck ;)
LOL omg u made teh FUNNY!!!
Just wait till Sony releases another Holiday Demo Disk that erases all your PS2 memory cards. That should take care of all your worries of getting PS2 saves onto the PS3.
Only the Pro was faster. Duo changed the form factor but didn't change the performance at all. Read what I write please.
And they only needed to offer the Pro before the original wasn't terribly fast. I had no problems with the speed of CF at the time.
There are Duo-to-MS adapters, but not MS-to-Duo adapters. Currently, the only workaround is to use *two* adapters to adapt Duo to CF, and then CF to MS. So, if you don't mind all the extra hardware, then sure, I'll give you that.
Beta may have been superior, but it still required you to pay sizeable licensing charges to Sony to use, as opposed to VHS. And as one of the other posters responding to your troll said, MD is hardly popular. Especially considering it was originally intended to be a CD replacement.
Oh, and hey - let's also remember the SA-CD format. That one definitely has reached critical mass.
Show me a consumer product *NOT* made by Sony that uses MS. I don't give two shits about how many companies claim to support MS. I haven't seen anything supporting the format except for Sony products.
See the above, and substitute MagicGate. There was no reason for it to exist on the PS2 - it only inhibited the manufacture of 3rd party memory cards and interface peripherals.
You know, I own a lot of games that I haven't played in a long time. My PS1 memory cards are full of games that are complete or damn-near it. My PS2 memory cards are in the same predicament.
I own a peripheral that would let me get my saves onto my PC harddrive, and from there I can probably work out some way to get them onto a memory stick. But I don't think I'm going to do that. Those games just sitting around in my room are classics, and it would be a CRIME not to want to play them again.
Yes, the AC who responded earlier about said it all.
Are you a pro Sony apologist?