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What's Known About the PS3
1up has an expansive piece up exploring everything they know about the PlayStation 3. They cover rumours, prices, technology, and the limited information currently out there on upcoming games. From the article: "While the hard facts are still tough to nail down, the general consensus is that the PlayStation 3 is the most powerful of the three next-generation systems, although probably not by as much of a margin as Sony would like us to think. The arguments for the technical strengths of the PS3 go into CPU floating-point capabilities and the difficulties surrounding programming for parallel architectures, but the long and short of it is that whether or not the advantages of the PS3 are apparent will depend on developers' ability to utilize the PlayStation 3's unique architecture."
Does it look cool? Most end users care only about graphics, sound and ease of use. Personally I think the X-Box 360 will reign King.
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It won't cost $1,000,000 and thanks to Sony not having Microsoft's "Rush To The Market" attitude you don't have to worry about it melting to your carpet!
Firefox 2.0 - Spell Rightly.
...is the PS3. Yes, this will have TWICE the delays with its new marketing and rumor engine. Capable of thousands of speculations a second!
(it's a joke kids, someday that PS3 will come out).
In the near future we may see more emphasis being placed on strict functional languages, such as Haskell, for such massively multithreaded and parallel development at the commodity level. Many of the issues associated with concurrent development with traditional imperative or imperative OO languages can be avoided via stateless computation.
Even a language like Erlang may begin to gain widespread popularity among game developers, as they begin to see the benefits that it brings when writing multithreaded applications.
With more industry support behind such technology, we may witness a computing revolution. It has been decades in the making, but its time is quickly coming upon us.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
An article of guesswork. Oh yay.
Doesn't really matter. The rabid fanboys alone will make it a success, even if it's unreasonably expensive, sucks at online play, and runs a twenty percent failure rate on its first production run.
I'm not buying a next-gen console. I'm perfectly content with my "old" XBOX.
i think the thing that gets me is "hey, why all the secrecy?" if you are gonna release a product, at least TRY to convince me its better then the competition. when people start getting (publically) fired for making opinions known, it makes you wonder
Other things known about the PS3:
* It is not a strapless evening gown.
* Ducks may not try to mate with it.
* It is not a flotation device.
* Is not a good substitute for snow chains.
* It will not remove tough grease stains.
* It will not get you an automatic first post on Slashdot.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
OK, so it's slightly more powerful than the xBox360, will probably retail around $400 without HDD (and $500 for Net/HDD config bundle) (figure initial cost to start at $500 so they can drop to $400 over a year, unless you get it cheap at Costco in a bundle), has 100-150 original content games, including an Anime Dating sim "Akira Project", a Nintendogs non-clone "Active Dogs", a lot of wierd anime games, a lot of RPGs, a lot of scary games, the obligitory sports games, the obligitory FPS games, Bomberman, Clown Combat (yup), ...
...
OK, looks like xBox360 is going to lose a lot of market share when it ships, probably starting in December when most of the new titles ship.
Hmm, maybe I should sell my MSFT stock
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The thing that's going to kill the PS3 is the price. If they don't release at the same point, or less, than the X-box, people are going to have to strain their wallets to afford this thing. Very few people are about to spend $800 for a console - there's a lot better ways to spend that money (you could even buy a 360, and several games).
Not to mention that, by the time the PS3 comes out, there will be many titles available for the 360. Although (as TFA shows) there are a good deal of games in development, the 360's titles will have matured while those for the PS3 will remain untested.
Finally, the longer it takes for Sony to put this console out, the less people will have confidence in it. Console developers are always hush-hush about their products, but at this point, it would do Sony well to clarify some things; they keep saying that they're going to release on-schedule, but nobody else sees how they can possibly do that. If they _do_ release on schedule, I for one will be forced to assume that it was rushed to market, and therefore not worth the risk (especially at that price).
http://nemilar.net - It's just a blog.
I'm surprised that none of them have a physics chip. That is the next avenue that needs development. Graphics and sound are already "good enough".
XBox360: Most hype.
PlayStation 3: Most CPU power.
Nintendo Revolution: Most fun.
Personally I'd say Nintendo is the best in the means of innovation. The competitors are just "the same old, just faster, better, stronger", while Nintendo takes a step in a completely new direction.
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Just wait for the damn thing to come out already. Does it really matter if it's got 26 super nano vector spline processing engines with 18 pixel flushers and a quantum video output if it is still vapor? Will it make the games any better if it DOES? No, just prettier with more depth. Boring.
It's a waste of breath, any of thsoe features can disappear between now and then. Further, I've done HW design long enough to know that the only people who actually know what will and will not work on launch are 2-3 HW guys who actually work on it, and 2-3 SW guys who actually work on it. Their managers, coworkers, beta customers, that guy in procurement? They only know some post-processed garbage that the engineers came up with to get some sleep, or worse, some counter-garbage politics devised by unfriendly managers to look for an excuse for why they can't make a commitment (look up the term "estoppel").
WoW and Galactic Civilizations 2 should be able to tide all of us over until the console wars v4 have subsided enough to make a buying decision.
In the software demo, they then enabled the cell processor, or re-routed the processing to it in some way (it was hard to tell exactly, and they weren't too forthcoming). The difference was remarkable. 30 - 40 fps, and a crystal clear picture. The data they were using was from (or at least they said it was from) satellite images, GPS data, aerial photo surveys, and USGS maps. It was extremely well rendered, down to pebbles. Clouds and such were just remarkable.
At the end they offered to let us "fly", so I jumped at it and took the first turn. While not a real game by any stretch, it was a lot of fun to manuever through the terrain and look at the detail. So, taking what they said was going on at face value, the cell was a very impressive processor.
One thing of note, though... the "cell processor unit" they had hooked up to the G4 was HUGE. Bigger then a standard PC case, with 6 120mm fans on it. Not exactly heartening for something that's supposed to go into a console.
Still, my impression of it was that it's got a TON of possibility, and it really is working hardware.
XBox360: Shipped
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
"One thing of note, though... the "cell processor unit" they had hooked up to the G4 was HUGE. Bigger then a standard PC case, with 6 120mm fans on it. Not exactly heartening for something that's supposed to go into a console."
Maybe they overclocked it? Or it was more than one cell processor in a module.
say no more. I'm getting one.
I was under the impression that the original Playstation 2 took a while to come out as well, and did just fine on release despite the dreamcast being available long before it (and, in some ways, being a superior piece of hardware). I look at all the hype that's being slung around, and I wonder why people obsess so much about the systems themselves. Ultimately it's going to come down to a matter of games - it doesn't matter what your system is capable of if no one developes for it. The Dreamcast should be proof positive of that.
Release titles are what will matter - how many people would have picked up an xbox had it not been for Halo?
From TFA:
Sony claims the machine is 35 times more powerful than the PlayStation 2, and has implied that the machine may be capable of nearly twice the performance of the Xbox 360.
My question is: will it have any game that can provide me some fun time?
So say we all
No film at 11.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Really, the article is a bit more like "here's the stuff we really don't know the answer to :"
- when will it ship
- what will it cost
- will games actually be able to live up to the great graphics and model/AI processing promised by the Cell processor marketing, or will they look pretty much like XBox360 games ?
- will there be a halfway decent online component ?
- is a hard drive included ? An add-on ? What's the deal ?
All we *really* seem to know is that there's a Cell processor inside, it'll support HD, include a Blu-ray drive, will take some sort of hard drive ( at least as an add-on ), will have built-in networking ( like crazy ), and will have a *ton* of games written for it... seriously, that's a long, long list of games. Oh, and it'll play existing PS2 games, though the article doesn't say that I think it's a well-known given. That and the controller they showed just looks weird.
So in the PS3, the Cell processors aren't doing the rendering. The Cell should render about as well as everything else with a current NVidia part.
Flyovers are easy if you have enough RAM and a GPU. How much RAM did the demo rig have?
Is will it have a new version of Star Wars: Masters of Teras Kasi?
Or, as my friends in college liked to call it: Jedi Bitch-slap
Last I checked, there was a lot more to the Revolution controller than just the shape.
It's like sex, except I'm having it!
Moving to the Cell processor is not a step in a completely new direction. Right...
Moving to the Cell architecture is like a car moving to a hybrid engine: It's not really gonna change the way you drive.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
uh, shape...? Shape is irrelevant.
;)
Try to use the XBox360 controller as a tennis rocket handle, as a frying pan handle, as a steering wheel etc.
Let's count in the means of variables of space, starting from oldest.
Directional Keys: 4 bits in separate devices, one key one bit.
Everything since incorporated some keys so let's omit the key=bit count.
Paddles: 2 floats in 2 separate controllers.
Digital joystick: 4 bits combined in one manipulator with combinations limits. 8 directions.
Mouse: 2 floats indicating position (relative)
Analog joystick: 2 floats indicating position (absolute) in one device.
Analog joystick and analog trigger: 3 floats in 2 devices.
Manipulator with 2 analog joysticks: 4 floats in 2 devices.
Manipulator with 2 analog joysticks and analog triggers: 4 floats in 2 devices plus 1 float 1 device for each trigger.
Nintendo manipulator: 8 floats in one device (pitch, roll, yaw, acceleration X,Y,Z, angle horiz,vert from the base station (no distance)),
The direction is obvious: Put more variable generators in the controller, at first splitting them over multiple sub-devices (2 joysticks in 1 controller), and later trying to integrate them into one (paddles->mouse). Nintendo made an enormous leap here.
And add the funny fact of 360 degrees rotation freedom against some 30deg which you can turn the XBox 360 joystick
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Today, game consoles compete on graphics capbility. I find that kinda funny since most people I know can't tell the difference between 640x480 and 1440x1080, can't distinguish a progressive image from an interlaced one, aren't bothered by aliasing, think 24fps isn't choppy, and can play Mario cart in 1/4th of the screen just fine. I bet the console manufacturers could support 480p, wide screen, and then upscale to everything else. Just keep it above 24fps. The gamers wouldn't notice or care.
Personally, I'm more interested in new controls and new game play innovation.
Maybe the consoles are really made just to impress the reviewers?
Well, I'm just basing this on the actual games that will be there by December for the PS3, and their broad range of appeal, which will give the PS3 a category killer that has appeal to non-FPS, non-Sports gamers, such as boys, girls, women, and guys who don't like to play FPS because they spent too many years actually doing that when they were in the Army and it tenses them up too much so it's more fun to play other games.
But, hey, whatever. I'm still saying, since I've seen no real moves in the 360 area to broaden the appeal, kind of like the Big Three pushing cars/SUVs/trucks noone wants, that the market will expand, but the 360 won't be getting much of that action, unless something is happening I haven't heard about.
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Can somebody please post the text? The proxy at work is keeping me down.
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.-TJ
I'm tired about all the speculation about how much of a loss Sony will take on each initial device. Of course there will be a loss, and the amount of the loss depends MORE on how you decide to distribute the cost of engineering (both at the component level, and at the system level) over the lifespan of the PS3.
How much will it cost to manufacture, excluding the up front investments? Probably reasonably close to the XBox360. Just look at the pieces. 200M transistor CPU and GPU's cost pretty much the same no matter the design. The cases are reasonably comparable. Power supplies will be similar -- unless the PS3 magically is able to use a whole lot less power than the Xbox, but I doubt it. The one difference major difference would be the DVD drive vs whatever the PS3 will have, but this added expense is offset by helping Sony launch their next-gen DVD format.
It's too funny to be flamebait...
The PS3 is starting to look more and more like a Daikatana scenario. Is Sony changing the specs trying to make it better considering the competition? (As John Romero did with Daikatana) This could be ugly for Sony. All of the Kings of the Industry always come tumbling down sooner or later. (3dfx->NVidia->ATI, Sears->Walmart, etc)
and based on the review and the titles shown, I'd say the 360 just had their clock cleaned.
Sure, some will be multi-platform, but most won't.
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if it integrates with the PSP and people end up shelling out for:
PS3 - break even
PS3 controllers (extra, say two or three) - profit
PS3 game - profit, after first two
PSPs to attach and interact with PS3 - profit
PSP versions of PS3 games that interact with PS3 - profit
PS3 extra services - classic games, etc - profit
Not a bad market move.
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Personally, I'm buying them both, the same way I have since the Atari 2600 (Coleco, Vectrex, Intellivision, nintendo, playstation, etc etc).
This comment is my opinion and does not represent an official position of Donald Trump or others I do not work for
ANYTHING you've heard at this point is just hype.
It stops being hype when it ships. Until it ships...it is nothing but hype, rumor, and PR.
No reason to lie.
It is obvious to me what Sony is doing with the PS3. They are letting the analysts talk about how expensive it will be. The analysts are commenting on how hard it will be to develop for. The analysts talk about potential delays.
All this does is get the consumer to expect the worst.
Then when Sony prices it at $399 and delivers it on time, consumers will flock to it because now to them "It's $400 cheaper than I thought it would be! I've got to go get it!"
Sony loves right now that people are talking about $800 and $900 price tags. When they deliver at around $400 it will seem like the bargain of the century.
"Chances of RHIC-induced Armageddon are exceedingly rare, but... you never know." - MIT Physicist Bob Jaffe
Really, the article is a bit more like "here's the stuff we really don't know the answer to :"
- when will it ship
Fall 06, in time to get one-to-two months of buzz and hit stride for Novemeber-December sales.
- what will it cost
I'd say $500 at ship time retail, premium if preorder, $400 about a year later.
- will games actually be able to live up to the great graphics and model/AI processing promised by the Cell processor marketing, or will they look pretty much like XBox360 games ?
Don't really care. They'll look as good, which is the mark. The wider selection of more fun, more multi-gender, more age-range-capable, plus extra stuff that Euro and Asian zones go hot over means higher market share. My guess is 360 will have edge for standard US sports games and standard US FPS, but will lose out for most other categories.
- will there be a halfway decent online component ?
Don't really care. If you want a babysit-me version, probably not, go with 360. If you want a good quality one, yup. Looks like lower entry so far.
- is a hard drive included ? An add-on ? What's the deal ?/I.
My guess is it would probably be a removeable/upgradeable, shipping version included, larger one add money, ultra-gamer version out with multi-disk Blu-Ray library capabilities within six months.
Hope this helped.
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Ssh. That's called marketing.
And it's working, since xBox360 set the bar so low by rushing to market.
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What are the games on the 2600 that were among the best, and never replicate.
Warlords
Circus Atari
Kaboom
These games were great because largely because of the controller. The joystick/pad has limited us in what we do with games. When Nintendo swapped the buttons from our left hand to our right, we became even more limited in what the games can really do. The Atari paddle was just a pot and a switch, but it allowed a game like Kaboom to be played. There is not a game console out today that can run a decent game of Kaboom.
So, yes. Controls are absoultuly important on game design, and have been terribly neglected.
I agree with you that game quality and play are far more important than resolution, but I should point out that I went and bought the xBox version of Sims 2 instead of the GameCube version, due to the better graphics.
So, for a cross-platform game, I think it's critical.
For a single-platform, or console (PS3) plus portable (PSP) decision, I don't think it matters that much. It won't make me buy one console over the other.
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...is the PS3. Yes, this will have TWICE the delays with its new marketing and rumor engine. Capable of thousands of speculations a second!
Sources have verified that the controllers will have ten buttons, two analog sticks, and a D-pad. Some have doubted the validity of this claim in the past but it is now quite certain that it's true.
---GEC
I'm but the humble pupil, seeking to snatch the scratchbuilt pebble from the master's fully articulated hand
Yea, they sound like shit if you're in the frat boy halo2/madden demographic...
I totally agree.
From what I've seen, if you are in the frat boy halo2/madden/tigerwoods demographic group, you should just go out right now and buy the xBox360 with the biggest HD you can get and soup it up. You will be very happy. Ignore the other consoles, they won't have anything you can't get on the 360, and the 360 version will probably be way better.
So, don't wait around, you won't be missing much.
Besides, all your friends will be so psyched you got the 360 and have real games you can play right now that they all love. When one of them ends up getting a Nintendo Revolution or a PS3, you can be nice and play the cross-platforms on it, and try not to diss them too much.
So, go out and buy the PS3 - today - if you are in that demographic - and don't let anyone make you feel bad for choosing the best console for the games you want to play. You'll have a great time! And you can start saving up for the biggest HDTV screen you can buy in 2007, when the prices drop enough to finally justify it so you can see the big game in all its glory.
[note - that is not tongue in cheek, it is real honest opinion, and very heartfelt]
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Guns don't kill people. The PS3 kills People.
There is no theory of evolution. Just a list of animals the PS3 allows to live.
The PS3 does not sleep. It waits.
The chief export of the PS3 is Pain.
There is no chin under the PS3's Beard. There is only another fist.
The PS3 has two speeds. Walk, and Kill.
The leading causes of death in the United States are: 1. Heart Disease 2. the PS3 3. Cancer
The PS3 drives an ice cream truck covered in human skulls.
The PS3 is my Homeboy.
The PS3 doesn't go hunting.... the PS3 GOES KILLING
Ok, so everyone is hyping up the power of the cell processor. No doubt the cpu is going to push some impressive numbers when code is correctly optimized for cell. But how long is it going to take developers to really discover and understand how to effectivly use the power of the processor?
Lets take a look at console history. In every case you can see that for any particular console, the console's first generation games pale in comparison to games created towards the end of the consoles life cycle, at least on technical merit. Game worlds are more complex, graphics are better, AI is better, etc. This is because as time goes on, the developers become more familair with the specific capabilities of with the hardware and learnt o exploit the strengths and avoid the weaknesses. To me at seems that jsut as soon as developers really come to grasp with the specifics of the hardware they're wroking with, the hardware companies decide to release new consoles and the cycle starts over. Developers have to once again start the process of learning the ins and outs of the new hardware. In this case of the recent generation, I'd be hard pressed to say that the XBox and Gamecube games are even close to achieving their maximum potential. We'll never see it though, because, with the exception of 1 or 2 games, their life cycles have effectivly come to end.
Fast forward to the new generation of consoles that are coming to market. Well except for Nintendo I guess. (Nintendo seems to be trying to avoid this problem by basing the Revolution on a souped up Gamecube architecture. We've all read how they've said they're trying to make it easier on developers). This new generation, more so than any other transition, with the advent of multi-cpu parallel processing is really shaking up the development community. Developers who are used using the same old way of thinking, but just adjusting for specifics of different hardware, now need to completly reevaluate just how to program their software in a way that effectively takes advantage of all the parts of the processor. Many of us are still waiting for quality apps that take advantage of our dual core PC's, which is arguably a much easier platform to code for than the cell.
So here are my questions:
1) How long is it going to take developers to really exploit the power of the processor? We've seen that this can take several years, and with cell so radically different, it may take longer than usual.
2) When is the next-next console cycle going to show it's head (PS4, NextBox, etc)? 4-5 years? I have heard people say Sony intends the PS3 to have a long life (8 years?) but I think that is suicide. Gamers love new consoles and have become quite used to and supportive of the current console life cycle situation. If microsoft or whoever in 5 years comes out with another box thats better, Sony won't idly sit by, they will release a new console of their own or risk losing out.
3)So based on 1 and 2, I have to ask, by the time the next-next generation of consoles come out, will all this extra power of the cell processor even have been exploited? Based on the current situation of XBox and Gamecube, my prediction is no the maximum potential will not have been reached.
This brings me to my final point. If a) the cell is going to be initially difficult to program and it takes developers a long time to exploit the potential of the processor, and b) the lifecycle of the console will probably end before this potential can be reached anyway then c)what's the point? It seems that this technology is just going to drive up the cost of the system with out really giving gamers any of the benefits the processor has the potential to give. Hell, I doubt even XBox 360 developers will have been able to push its so called "weaker" hardware to the max before another generation of consoles is upon us. Do gamers really need all this hardware being thrown at them?
"To lead the people, you must walk behind them"
i think they have already won with the DS. that is an amazing platform by any means. Fun to play, cheap. Nintendo is on to something here.
Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
Caveat emptor means the buyer beware. It's a general disclosure principle in most aspects of the law, specifically in real property and contracts, that says the buyer is not under a duty to make sure YOU know everything that could possibly concern that which you are buying. It's the court's way of saying YOU as the buyer needs to take some initiative to make sure you're getting a good product because YOU as the buyer are the one that will be harmed if you didn't make a prudent and informed decision.
As for ethics, nobody is buying stock on your word. NOBODY. You don't have a duty to disclose your ownership of MS stock because you're not creating some kind of reliance in us upon your word wherein your status as an MS stockholder makes us suspicious of conflict of interest. It's not like we have reason to believe you're neutral or that otherwise you'd be misrepresenting yourself by not telling us.
It's not relevant at all. You want to pretend it's relevant because you want us to be impressed. That's why you're throwing out that BS 15k range of stock value.
The ethical thing is to tell us truth about a situation when that truth has an impact on the situation. Supreme Court justices tell us their stock holdings when there's a potential conflict of interest because their decision may have some effect on the US. YOU telling us how much money you'd like to have invested in MS is equal to me posting "PS, I own a Ford and plan to buy another when this one dies" every time I mention cars because hey, that was a huge 5k-20k investment I made in that company, or that I took out student loans through one bank (becuase hey, that's a huge 16k-130k investment in that company) or that I took out a mortgage through another bank (because hey, that's a huge 1k-250k investment in that company.)
Your logic is so illogical it's like, I'm having trouble even semi-seriously attempting to take your concept of ethics seriously, it's like a doctor walking in, seeing that you have Nikes on and then telling you he prefers Converse and just wants you to know that despite his preference in shoes, he's going to try to not kill you on the operating table.
I'm quite content with the current battery of games I've accquired. With the not-so-modest amount of time I have at my disposal (between work, classes, and other life-stuff), I've been consumed by World of Warcraft, Call of Duty 2, and Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories.
I can't add to Sony's coffers because of the DRM scandal. I find it morally reprehensible. Same goes for Apple - whom I've loved dearly for years, and who is due for a cash infusion from my wallet (my AppleCare on the PowerBook just expired) - they're in bed with Intel who seems to be causing a larger-than-normal price gouge, as well as the whole Intel & Skype versus AMD bitchfest. I'd almost jump on the 360, but, well, I'd be better off with a waterproof camera in Loch Ness, looking for Nessie and Bigfoot having a swim together. I believe someone here commentted on how it's 'less of a challenge to find a decent margarita in Kuwait'.
Long story short: I'm going to wait on the new tech until all of the cards are on the table. For now, I'm quite comfortable with what I've got. Wait... wait... did you hear that? I think my checking account just sighed with relief...
Microsoft rushed a product out the door. It comes with rehashed titles, and nothing really New (tm). They also can't keep them in stock. We'll see the PS3 at the end of fall, just in time for the xmas rush, with the typically Sony-style artificial shortage, followed by an explosion of new titles, game pads, enhancements, and other fun bells and whistles.
This will be followed closely by the Xbox 1080, and the iMac Intel CoreQuadra Pro, running at a whopping 3.0GHz.
Informatus Technologicus
Well, it was sorta helpful and at least interesting, but by your own admission... all guesswork.
The article is what we know and don't know. While it's unlikely, it's entirely *possible* that Sony could ship a lot earlier ( or a lot later ) than we all think. It's equally possible ( although totally unlikely because it'd be suicide ) that the machine will initially be priced higher than we think... or lower, with Sony taking a big hit to get Blu-ray going or shame MS or whatever other justification they might make for initially taking a big hit. The games could look way better, or way worse, than we think, ( or be all over the map due to differing skills of developers )... we don't know until we see the real thing, and so far, we haven't. Online is a fine question mark, and something that could possibly change with time. As for hard drives, it's entirely possible they'd ship as-cheap-as-possible configurations with no hard drive included, which is what I'd actually bet on ( w/ a high markup on drives, and drives bundled with games that really need/use them, and crappy DRM or connectors to keep you from *really* using the drives or using generic drives- it's still Sony ).
but that's all guesswork. The other stuff, like I said, we know. Our guesses might be good, and could even turn out to be right, but we don't know, or Sony hasn't told us, to be more accurate. Actually, I guess they have said it'd ship this "Spring", so maybe we don't know what we think we know, even...
These physics chips (like Agea PhysX) are programmable chips. You can make them do any physics you want. Same way as you can do unrealistic 3D graphics with the current crop of 3D hardware.
I'm no market analyst (well, my clients don't know that.. but times can be hard), but this really does look like Sony has dropped the ball this time by trying to innovate too much.
I've long been a Sony fanboy, but in recent times it seems that Microsoft have finally clicked as to what makes a successful console, and Nintendo are innovating while managing to keep the fun and simple goals in view for their market.
They should just able to break even with the PS3 in the long run, but I don't forsee a PlayStation 4 becoming reality unless they take a good hard look at consoles of the past and present (hmm, Dreamcast?) and honestly sort out their direction.
But Will It Run Linux?!? Seriously, the PS2 had a linux add-on available for it. The XBox, well, people just modded that. Can someone Mod the PS3? I have a feeling that it'd be nice to run other things besides games on that platform if it's all it is hyped to be. Properly compiled linux software for it would be quite slick and I'd be willing to say it'd give many other server platforms a run for their money.
That is if it's ever released...
-=JML=-
This is a real question, and there might be a perfectly good answer to it, but I haven't been able to figure it out...
Aside from the projected cost to manufacture and the willingness of console manufacturers to "eat" costs for the first months of production, how is Sony going to get away with charging signifigantly less then the $1000 the first dedicated Blu-Ray players are going to cost? If, like Samsung, I were making a Blu-Ray player that cost that much, and then Sony comes in and charges half that for the PS3, I'd be royally pissed. Sure, cost to manufacture would drop eventually, and perhaps the PS3 won't be seen until Christmas, but still, no one's going to buy something that only plays movies when there's another device out there that costs less or close to what I'm selling my device for.
Again, price for dedicated players may drop dramatically over the coming months, but with Sony still saying the PS3 is coming out this spring, how could this work? Is this a potential contributing factor in any delay? Am I overlooking something? When the PS2 came out, how much did DVD players go for? Where are my pants?
Anyway, this is my #1 question about the PS3. Anyone care to shed some light?
It's more like moving to a car with 8 engines.. ;-)
I'd say it's a bit more complex then you suggest.
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
Just FYI, *all* the buttons on the OG Xbox controller (except White and Black) are analog. That makes...
2 analog sticks (4 floats)
4 analog face buttons (4 floats)
2 analog triggers (2 floats)
For a total of 10. Now, I'm not going to claim that the analog face buttons can be used easily as analog buttons (since they don't move far enough), but they *are* analog regardless.
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The only think you can know about a Sony release is that anything can change, up to the day it hits the shelves.
The US Army: promoting democracy through unquestioned obedience
Yes, but you're still missing the point of the parent poster. What's important is what's done with it, not what it CAN do. If its games play pretty much the same as any other game made today, then what's the point? I'll take my 4-cylinder Camry over an Formula-1 any day of the week, because I can actually drive around town in my Camry (and it has a kickass stereo system). Just because something has a more powerful engine doesn't mean it's better.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
Same with the PS2 controller, just add two more shoulder buttons to that count. But what's the point? Only, like, 3 games utilize this feature, and it's combersomb. GC shoulder buttons are, to this day, the ONLY pressure sensitive buttons worth a damn.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
What can be done with it is amazing. But it can't be done in the same manner as other. for the most part, single threaded games.
It takes alot more work, but the results can be incredible. To give you an example, this can mean the same kind of improvement that happened when 3d accelerators where introduced, and the processing of 3d content was being processed by a card meant to do it, instead of the CPU in the system.
Alot of people comment on how the processors AREN'T doing any of the video rendering. That there's an nvidia card in there to do it. But who says that card *IS* doing all of the rendering. The video card could just as easily just be used to manage memory, and get the memory onto the screen, without actually doing much acceleration at all.
Granted, alot of games are going to be strait ports, single threaded, and will be on par with the xBox 360. It's the producers who can manage the abilities of a new platform that is gonna kick yer camries are all over..
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
thats is a bad analogy; changing the steering wheel of a car DOES directly change the way you drive, but changing the way your engine works does not? that doesnt make sense...
whats under the hood [that which actually powers and is responsible for moving your car] has a larger impact on your overall experience than just your steering wheel. how fast can you go? how quickly can you come to a stop, whats your turning radius. any racer will tell you that even something a simple as changing the type of tires you use can have a serious impact on your driving experience. the steering wheel is but the interface. [i will admit it would be cool to be able to "drive" by just pointing a wand in the direction you want to go] the cell is like the engine. a steering while can be swapped in and out easily; you cant change your engine without radically changing your entire car. radical changes are out of the question when discussing consoles, so why not opt for a supposedly more capable engine from the start?
and sad, but true... changing your steering wheel may change the way games are made, but its still just a peripheral. nintendo knows that peripherals can [read: will] be copied, and if its up to sony... improved. thats why they arent giving away all the revolution's secrets yet. think of controllers as an aftermarket item. sony took and improved upon the nintendo idea of analog movement by adding a second analog stick to use for controlling the camera, they also improved upon the rumble feature. patents can be skirted, console makers do it all the time. outside of inherent console properties, peripherals dont mean much. the DS as genius on nintendo's part because two screens could not be added in for the psp, nor could touchscreen abilities. the DS is in fact unique.
if the revolution controller takes off, expect to see copies for all other consoles. if the ps3's architecture pays off, dont expect to see any do-it-yourself upgrade, "cell-n-solder" kits available for any of the other consoles anytime soon.