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A PS3 Hands-On Report?
Via a Joystiq post, a story on the site Kikizo which claims to have hands-on experience with the PS3. From the article: "Firstly however, the box. The stylish PlayStation 3 casing design that SCEI boss Ken Kutaragi revealed last year is, and always has been, empty - and no signs of a final, tangible casing solution appear to be in sight. 'I think to fit everything that Sony wants in there AND leave space for a 2.5 inch hard drive,' explains one senior developer working on a final kit, who will be our guide for much of this report, 'the machine would have to grow. The models they're showing off are way too small for what they want.'" Please view this with the appropriate amount of skepticism.
... If they go through with the 'purchased content is locked to a specific player' trick, I won't be buying one. I don't care how many formats it will play or how many Metal Gear's come out. The horribly low sellback value of videogames etc already makes me feel like I've been taken advantage of, I'm not going to support anything that makes that market worse.
The site was painfully slow, so here is a summary of the information in the article:
The case we've seen for the PS3 is empty, and many developers are not convinced that sony will actually be able to fit everything into the case they've designed. The current development machines are towers. Along with a possibly redesigned case, Sony seems to be redesigning the controller, but is planning to keep the basic dual shock2 layout.
As for the graphics, looking at games running in realtime there is certainly nothing as impressive as the Killzone trailer, but but MGS4 trailer seems realistic to be ran in realtime. The graphics right now seem to be about equal to the "creme of the crop" 360 titles, and while the PS3 will certainly be able to provide better graphics than the 360- it will probably be a fairly marginal difference.
One thing to remember is that, while the PS3 may not be able to produce graphics that are substantially nicer looking than on the 360- it does seem to handle many more objects on screen at once.
Game developers seem to be targetting 720p as the target resolution. Developers aren't really expecting games to run at 1080p because the system isn't powerful enough to do 1080p at a reasonable resolution (or even 1080i)- but the PS3 is capable of doing some nice upscaling to 1080p. Dual 1080p output is a joke at this point.
The spring '06 release date isn't looking very likely. Developers are predicting summer 06 for Japan and a fall 06 or winter 07 release for the US and Europe.
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
720p as the target resolution. Developers aren't really expecting games to run at 1080p
This seems to be key. Higher resolution does not always equal better image quality. When you boost the resolution of a shot, you reduce the amount of processing available for each pixel. If these systems are 10x the power of current systems, going from 640i to 1080p will consume 8x that power, giving you basically today's graphics, but sharper.
Some games would be wise to spend those clock cycles on higher resolutions. Geometry Wars, for example, would be great candidate for 1080p. Others should spend the clock cycles on effects, like the swirling clouds in survival horror games. Still others should be looking towards more intelligent character interactions (I'm looking at you, tactical squad shooters with AIs that runs blindly into death).
Personally, I feel that 640p ought to be enough for any game. Higher resolutions would be nice too, but better dynamic lighting, cloth effects, water effects and hair effects would be better. Higher resolutions expose poly problems and any effects shortcomings more, so it is best to shore these up first anyway.
Guaranteed placement on-screen would be great too. You're losing something like 30% of your usable screen area simply to not being sure that an edge pixel is an edge pixel. Ever wonder why the HUD floats annoyingly close to the middle of the screen? That's why.
And can we please stop putting an environment map on absolutely everything? Old stones in run-down castles are not high-gloss.
The ______ Agenda
Ah yes, this from Kikizo Games, who claimed to serve "12 million unique users per month" in an issue of MCV (UK trade mag) last year.
Y'know. More than IGN, Gamespot and every other game site around.
And you know what's worse? Them getting REWARDED for it. Because stupid editors at major sites decide that they'll throw HUGE amounts of traffic at articles that consist of lies, hyperbole and what amounts to stock photos.
Why is game journalism just a bunch of hot air and attention grabbing headlines? Slashdot, Joystiq - any other publication that decides to link to such rubbish. Well done, Kikizo. You've pulled the wool over their eyes - but most people will realise that you've not so much as got past security at any of Sony's offices.
My Mind Is Rewired. Is Yours?
The human eye has limited resolution, and there's little benefit to be had by exceeding that, so unless you have a very large screen (or you like to sit unusually close), you simply can't tell the difference between 720p and 1080p at "normal" viewing distances on an average-sized HDTV. Some numbers:
The average eye is capable of resolving one minute of arc, a sixtieth of a degree. This equates to roughly 300 dpi, when viewed at a distance of one foot. Let's say the average distance from a couch to a TV is 7 to 10 feet. At 7 feet, you can resolve 300/7 = 43 dpi, at 10 feet it's 30 dpi.
So in order to fully resolve a 720p picture (1469 pixels diagonally) at 7 feet, the TV would have to be at least 34 inches diagonally to make out all the detail. At 10 feet you'd need a rather large 50 incher. For true 1080p, even at 7 feet, anything under 50 inches and you're missing out - and at 10 feet you'd have to get a whopping 74 inch TV!
Of course, for computer monitors, where you sit much closer (say 18 inches), it's a different story - optimal resolution really ought to be 200 dpi (for a 24" widescreen monitor, that's an amazing 4183 x 2353, or one of these). But if you're on a couch, you probably don't need true 1080p unless you're watching a projector on an 80" screen, or unless you spent so much money on your TV that you can't afford a decent-sized loungeroom.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Microsoft tried the mostly-PC approach, it netted them a huge loss because consoles are sold at a price point way below the cost of building a PC like that. Without license fees on games the hardware has to make a profit on each sale. Do you know how much such a console would cost and how pointless it would be (consoles have the big advantage of a single fixed hardware config, no worrying about incompatibilities or hardware that doesn't perform like your testing machines)? Consoles last 5 years on average, BTW, no matter how outdated the hardware is at the end you can be sure the newest games will still work on your unmodified launch system.
If you want a PC then use one, don't try to turn a completely different system into one.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
the times. A true NextGen console would have had used a 64bit Intel or AMD CPU, a Linux based OS, dev tools open to all developers, a choice of Nvidia or ATI graphics hardware, a modular casing that allows for hardware upgrades and expansion cards, et cetera et cetera et cetera.
Whats the point of having three completely proprietary platforms with virtually identical hardware specs, zero compatibility between them and no hardware upgrade path? Games just 2 to 3 years from now will need more RAM, beefier graphics chipsets and quite possibly hardware physics accelerators and the like. What do you do with your PS3/360/Revolution then? Throw it away? Buy a NextGen II console? What?
Sorry, but what Sony, MS and Nintendo are doing seems very 90s-thinking-applied-to-mid-00s-tech. Difficult to get excited about three proprietary consoles with no cross-platform compatibility.
Typical Slashdot idiocy. Let's review:
64bit Intel or AMD CPU
64-bit CPUs are really only helpful when you need to address more than 4GB of memory. There are other advantages, but most code is not significantly faster on AMD64 than it is on the same CPU running in 32-bit mode. Also, x86 CPUs are expensive - MS is no doubt getting an excellent deal on the CPU in the 360.
dev tools open to all developers
The majority of console profit comes from game licensing fees. Sony/MS/Nintendo gets paid for every game sold for their system. Why should they give this up?
a choice of Nvidia or ATI graphics hardware
No, no, no! Consoles are about having a standardized hardware platform. By changing that, developers now have to target a range of hardware with different capabilities, different performance, and different bugs. It makes development and debugging more difficult, and takes away the fundamental advantage of having a system that "just works".
a modular casing that allows for hardware upgrades and expansion cards
No, no, no, no, no! Again, the Slashdot reader misses the entire point of consoles. With a PS2, you can buy any system and any game and know that it will play the same way. Developers have one platform to target. Console add-ons have failed many times (32X, Sega CD, 64DD, PS2 HDD) for a very good reason - developers can't target hardware that is only installed on a minority of systems. You can't code a game that requires 1GB of memory if the base system only has 512M; the smart developer doesn't even bother coding for add-ons because only a minor percentage of users will actually be able to see any advantage.
What do you do with your PS3/360/Revolution then? Throw it away?
No, you keep it because it still plays the same games that it played 5 years ago. And you buy a new console. It's worked well for 20 years, why should we change it now? $400 every five years is still cheaper than whatever you would pay to "upgrade" some old system.
Upgrading went out of style in the mid-90s. It's not the console makers that are stuck in the past, it's you. Ever since Intel started using new chipsets for new CPUs, it hasn't made sense to upgrade the core system. Most people never open their system; why should they, when new PCs are so affordable?
Basically, your post boils down to, "I like PCs and hate consoles, so I'm going to claim that consoles are out of date and should be like PCs". Too bad that you're 10 years too late. Consoles are more popular than PCs for gaming, and for good reason - because the games offset the cost of the hardware, and because the hardware is game-tuned (e.g. no parts that aren't needed) and standardized (economies of scale make it cheaper), consoles are cheaper than PCs. And because of their standardized platform and long lifecycle, there's a bigger selection of games and you never have to worry about whether your system will be able to handle a particular game. Pop in the disc and play.
After 20 years, you would think that the PC gaming industry would have figured that out. They haven't, and neither have you.