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HD Era Doesn't Start Till Sony Says So
GamesIndustry.biz is reporting on comments from Phil Harrison, who says that consumers looking for an HD experience should wait for the PS3. From the article: "The true definition of HD is the three elements of the HD value chain - the display, the content and the hardware to play back that content ... and PlayStation and Sony is the only organisation that has all three bits of the value chain together."
The true definition of HD is something along the lines of "a tv set that's more than 640x480." You could say an HD chain is any old thing that can do HD plus any old HD TV. So, why is this even an article?
I thought this was a slam on the 360's reduced hard drive space.
Could we maybe not reuse acronyms?
The resolution of reality is amazing. At least 2x better than HD.
No good programs to watch or games to play though, just a bunch of tables and chairs.
Too bad Sony already said so, when Sony President Kunitake Ando announced on stage with Steve Jobs that this would be the "Year of High Definition."
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
"...and Sony is the only organisation that has all three bits of the value chain together."
Yeah, and the three bits are:
- protecting user from unlawful access to digital content
- improving customers' stored digital media (eg MP3 files on PC hard disk)
- enabling automatic installation of useful software by third parties
Uh, what? You clearly have no idea what NUMA means.
NUMA means that memory access times are non-uniform. In other words, longer for some addresses and shorter for others. Unified memory architecure means that all the memory in the system shares a common address space. You can't compare NUMA to UMA because they don't have anything do do with each other. A system can be NUMA and unified at the same time. It can also be non-unified and non-NUMA.
There is no documented evidence that I can find that the PS3 doesn't have a unified memory address space, dispite the NUMAness of it. In fact it looks like it probably *does* have a unified memory architecture. Also, from what I can tell of the architecture diagrams, it's only NUMA due to the necessity of cache coherancy between the cells (all cells talk to one central memory bank through a switch, cells accessing the same memory need to coordinate before accessing thus slowing down access to shared regions while non-shared regions will have one-step access), and a well written application will not experience the NUMA behavior very often.
That has to be one of the most arbitrary and stupid ways to distinguish between future gaming platforms. Pick on the quality and quantity of the games, and not on the specs that you don't understand anyway.
Or is he saying "If you thought the X360 bundles were heinous, wait until you see us bundle a Sony HDTV with the PS3!"
Hey at least it makes sense, and would be useful. The real problem will be the bundled Stealh BluD and any other real bombs Sony can fit in. I mean there is precedent for them bundling movies, they did it with the PSP. And what a way to pull out ahead in the disc wars, at least in terms of discs "sold". Who cares if they all end up being dumped in haz mat bins.
Really if they knew what was good for them, they would just not bundle and charge more, lots more... people will pay $1000 for a console, ebay has shown us that. And there is no real reason to let the speculators make that money. Charge more, then lower the price when you actually have units sitting on the shelves for more then a day.
I'd do something interesting, but my server can't handle a slashdotting.
Just because Sony makes an array of HD products doesn't mean they're work better than mixing/matching. Just like how having an HP printer hooked up to an HP computer, doesn't suddenly make your prints look better than if you had it hooked up to a Dell.
That still doesn't have anything to do with whether the architecture is NUMA or not. Neither of these platforms are going across multiple busses to hit their memory. Don't think of NUMA as a performance hit for some addresses in the cell architecture. Think of it as a performance boost for memory that's only being used by a single cell. All accesses go through a single switch fabric that (depending on the internals that Sony hasn't told the public about) could easily be faster than the bus model that the intel FSB in the 360 uses. Depending on how many transistors they were willing to dedicate to the problem, the switch architecture could theoretically be the superior interconnect in all respects.
Both of these boxes are powerful machines. The PS3 is a little cooler, but mostly because it's something new and interesting while the 360 is more traditional. At the end of the day, the games are going to look the same for the most part though.
Sony is using classic vapour to promote a product that has "PlayStation" and a number in its name. Where have I seen this before?
Wait a sec, can we just get this clear?
Is Sony DELIBERATELY MIS-SELLING consumers TVs which claim to be HD Ready but can't display a 1080p picture?
Or is Sony DELIBERATELY LYING to consumers when they claim that an output at 720p or 1080i is not HD?
Because I'd quite like to know whether they are breaking consumer law, or merely slandering Microsoft.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
I always believe something when it has the words "value chain" in it.
Now if only all this Sony crap could be "synergetic" in some way, I'd buy it.
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PC developers have provided multiple resolutions for years. i dont see why this gen of consoles would be any different.
most likely it will be a developer choice: design a decent framerate game at 1080p and allow users to downgrade to 720p and watch the framerate skyrocket. or they can design for 720p and rely on the console to upconvert to 1080p where it twitches and dies. also, there are very many developers that believe in providing the very best experience for gamers; team ninja would opt for 1080p if they had the choice. i can see the gran turismo team doing the same and the MGS4 team too. there are developers that want to push the envelope, not everyone is an EA that just wants to pump out quantity.
i can see blu-ray taking off simply because it seems to be in the lead in the next gen HD movie format war. people have these HDTVs and they are looking for more content to use when showing it off. they are going to want movies they can use when showcasing their new home theater.