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How the PS3 Hit $600
Joystiq has up an interesting article today, gathering together information from a couple of places to discuss why the PlayStation 3 is so expensive. From the article: "Kutaragi was demoted after being passed over for the role of CEO and, when former Sony Pictures head Howard Stringer assumed the position, the relationship between the content and technology divisions of Sony became even more intimate. Stringer "quickly dubbed the PlayStation 3 as one of the company's 'champion' products." Kutaragi's desire to stratify the console market with Cell technology in effect wed Sony to the unpalatable prospect of charging an unprecedented price. Coupled with Sony's desire to not only push their own content on HD discs, but to control that medium with their proprietary Blu-ray format, the final price was escalated by two very advanced (and very expensive) pieces of Sony technology."
BluRay IS NOT PROPRIETARY.
t ion
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc_Associa
Its board of directors consists of:
* Apple Computer
* Dell
* Hewlett Packard
* Hitachi
* LG Electronics
* Mitsubishi Electric
* Panasonic (Matsushita Electric)
* Pioneer Corporation
* Royal Philips Electronics
* Samsung Electronics
* Sharp Corporation
* Sony Corporation
* TDK Corporation
* Thomson
* Twentieth Century Fox
* Walt Disney Pictures
* Warner Home Video Inc.
Not so proprietary now, is it?
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
I really think Blu-ray will bite Sony in the ass. I know a lot of people who will be getting a Nintendo Wii or XBox because of that price.
The number one reason Sony's PS3 is so expensive is because they are not customer based anymore, they are "theory" based.
The DRM Rootkit seemed like a good idea in "theory".
A $600 game system seems like a good idea in "theory".
In theory I'm not going to buy the PS3, and neither will billions of other humans because of the price.
Oh You POS
I'm really scared for the PS3. I remember reading a recent comment on /. earlier about Sony's last-minute motion-senseing controller reeking of upper management mandating that said feature go into the product. I have a feeling that this same upper management is going to severely harm what was once a pretty sweet console.
-- n
Information collected from RooKit Marketing suggested gamers were willing to pay that much.
Let's face it, they've figured out that without a girlfriend, we've got money to burn.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
From Wikipedia also:
"Proprietary software is software that has restrictions on using and copying it, usually enforced by a proprietor. The prevention of use, copying, or modification can be achieved by legal or technical means. Technical means include releasing machine-readable binaries only, and withholding the human-readable source code. Legal means can involve software licensing, copyright and patent law."
Just because a bunch of companies get together a support a format doesn't mean that format is not proprietary. Is it open? Is it controlled by a common standards body? Can a reader/writer of the format be created by anyone for free?
Not so non-proprietary now, is it?
Developers: We can use your help.
I have inside information from Sony Electronic Entertainment (posting anonymously for obvious reasons) that yields on some of the components like the graphics chip and Blu-Ray controller chipset are as low as 20-30%. In conjunction with those being new and revolutionary technologies only manufactured in a handful of factories in southeast Asia will no doubt contribute to the $649 price point. Oops, did I just reveal something I shouldn't have? ;)
A company blindly ignoring the customer to tend to its own agenda will be its downfall. Or at least the failure of any resulting products.
Developers: We can use your help.
Sorry, but you don't know what "proprietary" means. Proprietary means that the format is owned by someone, which it is. The fact that a bunch of big companies got together and formed an association doesn't change that fact.
Again... because its technology is too cutting edge and too new and therefore too expensive, would have been much better to go with cheap commodity stuff rather than daring to push the boundaries and actually put some THOUGHT into the product.
But what got me most was this
Coupled with Sony's desire to not only push their own content on HD discs, but to control that medium with their proprietary Blu-ray format.
If the PS3 gets reasonable marketshare then this could be considered its master stroke in 2 years time. While the XBox 360 will need a revision to support HD discs, the PS3 won't.
But what irritates me most is the phrase "their proprietary Blu-ray format". I must have missed the bit where the MS Supported HD-DVD was an open standard with no strings attached. So Sony created an HD disc standard, just like they worked with Phillips on CDs and have created several other professional and consumer format standards, some which flew, some which didn't.
Its a sad state of affairs when Slashdot articles don't even celebrate the invention and the investment, but bitch just about the price and want LESS gadgets in the box, and when the MS supported standard is implicitly suggested to be a more "open" option.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
The past 5 articles have all been GAMES. The next one (in the mysterious future) is also GAMES. Sheesh.
Note to Sony:
Profit = (sale price - cost to make and market) * number sold
If the sale price goes to $20,000, and the number sold goes to 3 you make less money than if the (sale price - cost to make and market) was $3 for 10 million sold.
If Sony can't reduce their construction costs perhaps they should start over before they shit on their good name.
The game (and music and movie) industry is bizarre, deal with it. If the PS3 is fun and gets a sexy reputation, then people will buy it. If people think it's lame, then they won't buy it. I don't think the price has very much influence.
For me, the fact that they added "motion sensing" at the last minute sounds much more worrying for Sony. It sounds like they realized the Wii was going to beat the PS3 and they had to copy it. I think I will get a Wii, not because it's cheap, but because the controller has great potential for fun gameplay.
Sony is really heading into a direction that may land them back in the current generation. The PS2 is still going strong, the only reason that next gen systems are so quickly adopted is because their predicessors are so quickly dropped. It wouldn't surprise me if, after an extremely terrible launch, Sony's only option is to continue with the PS2 for another couple of years. I think that the PS2 could easilly take on the 360 in the next generation, not in power, of course, but in how entrenched the software framework is. Many developers will, obviously, jump ship and opt for the most powerful system. But depending upon the success of the Wii (which, unless the big N makes any huge mistakes, is looking pretty positive), this next generation may turn out to not be about horsepower at all, but about innovative game design. As much as I love the concept of the Wii, it doesn't require having a new gadget to be innovative, Katamari taught us that pretty directly. Sony doesn't make any money on their consoles, they'd probably be more than happy if they could continue selling current-gen games at the same rate as they have been, since licensing is where the money comes from. The dirth of so many great last minute PS2 games may insure the success of the PS2 for a while yet to come. It may be that Sony is planning on a slow adoption rate, and a slow drop in price until the system can really take off in 2 or 3 years.
I'm sorry, I'm still diggin Dragon Quest 8 so much, I'm not sure I really see the need for a generational change in horsepower. Nintendo "gets it", the Wii is only about twice as powerful as the XBox, yet is looking to sell like hotcakes.
Thing is, I'm 25, I have a decent professional job (as a TV commercial producer), and I love the games the Playstation line has given us, yet even I can't justify $600 for a next gen console. If people in my position aren't going to buy it, who will? I think the writing is already on the wall for the PS3, at least for the moment.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
What percentage of people actually use their consoles as a primary movie player? Electronics manufacturers are always dreaming of using convergence as a way to take over the world, but the reality is people are used to spending ~$200 or less on a DVD player, it won't take long for HD players to reach that sort of price range, and the ability of a console to play HD disks will be irrelevant to most people. Can't really see it being seen as a "masterstroke".
Doesn't change the fact that the format war does nothing for the consumer whatsoever, hence the pointed tone about proprietary format. The same tone would be taken with HD-DVD, the point is the consumer gets f@#ked again.
Oh no... it's the future.
What Sony management does not seem to realize is that the American middle class will pay a premium only if the product offers premium quality. Nowadays, I do not see much difference, in quality, between a Sony electronic gadget and, say, a Panasonic electronic gadget. I refuse to pay the Sony premium. Increasingly, other potential and current Sony customers refuse to pay a premium without a corresponding premium in quality. For the year ending on 2006 March 31, the electronics divison of Sony lost $0.6 billion ($1.1 billion - $1.7 billion).
If Sony maintains the $600 price tag, Sony will lose the gaming console market to Microsoft. Armed with a well-funded research division, Microsoft poses a formidable threat to Sony.
P.S.
Curiously, with the fading away of Bell Laboratory as the premier industrial laboratory, Microsoft's research division now assumes the mantle of America's #1 industrial laboratory. It is certainly the coziest laboratory, funded by an almost limitless supply of money from Microsoft.
$600 isn't so expensive for first adopters. And don't forget that to play with a XBOX 360 you need a new $1200 TV. So you are spending $1600, but if you buy a PlayStation 3 you are spending $1800. It's so different?
If you want to play XBOX 360 without HD, you can buy a XBOX or a PlayStation 2 at a lower price per hardware and per game.
My city: Barcelona.
It'll be fixed in the dupe.
Video game companies have a pretty good history of putting out game systems at a price point WAY below the market price point for the initial supply of the game systems. Most recently, it's clear that the market was willing to pay well more than retail to get one of a limited supply of XBox 360's.
So a $649 price point may be just fine in the short term, and as the technology shakes itself out, Sony can lower the price.
Early adopters are probaby willing to spend $649, so no reason not to charge it. The people who will only pay $300 or $200 will just have to wait for the price to drop.
paintball
Just set a price. A DECENT price. $400.
Then say "the first two shipments will be sold all on eBay by us. Bidding starts now."
The fanboys and early adopters who are willing to shell out will drive all the systems up to $900 or more. Sony will sell 'em all, they'll make a profit (surely PS3s don't cost THAT much to make), and those of us who will wait for a more reasonable price will get it later.
Instead, they're charging EVERYONE $600. They will sell fewer to "normal" people, and they won't get any of those insane profit margins that eBaying the first two shippment would get them. Sony is worse off, the average joe is worse off.
It's simple economics. If you have a hot product, why fuss with stores and go straight to a market decided price (with a minimum, of course) by eBaying them for a while. I'm sure eBay would cut you a huge deal on the auction.
Heck, you're Sony. You can auction them yourself off your site.
But instead of charging $400 and getting tons of proffit from the people willing to pay $1500, you're charging $600 and getting a large loss.
Genius.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
that's too bad.
sony really didn't learn anything.
they had their chance to completely annihilate microsoft's xbox360 by bringing out a cell-based station at a similar price.
obviously they blew this one chance.
they didn't learn anything from betamax etc.
and i had hoped they'd quickly get to a low price and go on attacking the pc and workstation market with low cost cell-based products
What percentage of people actually use their consoles as a primary movie player?
People who don't want to buy two? Students? No idea, I just know that we coped for several years with a PS2 as the DVD player.
Doesn't change the fact that the format war does nothing for the consumer whatsoever, hence the pointed tone about proprietary format. The same tone would be taken with HD-DVD, the point is the consumer gets f@#ked again.
So what should Sony be doing, trying to get a large industry group behind their standard to help it.... oh hang on they are doing that... how about trying to use a non-proprietary (not yet Open Source) technology such as Java for the interactivity bits... oh hang on they are doing that.
Let's put it this way. If Microsoft, who had an open choice like Intel, had backed Blu-Ray... do you seriously think there would still be a discussion? Can you think of a SINGLE technical reason to back HD-DVD over Blu-ray if you were Microsoft making that decision, BEYOND considering Sony to be competition?
It isn't the same, and it isn't right to say that consumers always get fucked by these standards wars, often they lead to decent competition that drives the price down, and either leads to a dominant standard (VHS v Betamax) or total compatibility (DVD-R+R etc etc). Monopolar approaches tend to work in markets with lots of standards that need to agree(e.g. WiFi with 802.11x).
Microsoft pushing HD-DVD isn't the same as Sony pushing Blu-ray, one company put energy and investment into inventing and creating something, the other made a political decision.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
to different people
,copyright, patents trade secrets etc.
to the stallman like fanatics it reffers to anything controlled in any way by
to others it means something thats controled by one company or a small cabel and not licenseable under "reasonable and non discriminatory" terms.
take MPEG for example, its the closest thing to a standard the video industry has but its certainly patent encumbered. The same goes i'm sure for physical formats like CD and DVD.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Well, you're right to a certain extent ... Early adopters are willing to pay more for a product than the average consumer. I'm an early adopter and if asked by Sony's marketing team wheter I was able to afford a new console at $600 or whether I was willing to pay $600 for a new console I would probably say yes to both questions; but I still think Sony is screwed.
You see inspite of me being able to afford the system, and inspite of me willing to pay the price tag, I'm really not willing to spend that much money on the PS3. The facts are as follows:
- I'm not that interested in HD-DVD or Blu-Ray until one of them demonstrates some sort of market dominance
- The PS3 is not producing games at a graphicaly (or any technical way) better than the XBox 360
- Every PS3 game I am interested in has only been shown in video form, is at least 12 months (more likely 18 months) away and in many cases is multi-platform
I personally see absolutely no reason to own a PS3, thus the $600 price tag will prevent me from buying it; had it been $200-$400 I may have picked it up for the coolness of owning a new gadget or to play some of the average titles that seem to be coming out for it. At $600 Ì'll just pick up some 10 more games for my PS2/Gamecube or the Wii I will own.
"the final price was escalated by two very advanced (and very expensive) pieces of Sony technology." Huh? Cell processors are now a SONY technology? Since when?
Does any game developer need a BR disc to provide a gameplaying experience that right now they can't fit on a DVD-9? Exactly what groundbreaking new gameplay paradigms are they introducing with the PS3?
Just a glance at the PS3 release schedule on IGN (or other sites) doesn't fill me with the desire to open my wallet to experience TeH aweSome. Turok? NHL 2K7? Sonic? WWE Smackdown? NBA 2K7? Rainbow Six? Madden NFL 07? It looks like the same old piss in a new hi-res bottle. And as much as I want to play MGS4, I'm not going to pay the better part of £500 to do so, no matter what resolution I can now watch Stealth in as a side benefit.
You must think in Russian.
PS3 hit $600 for two reasons. First, Sony decided to make a super-system regardless of price. They needed their dvd format to try and force it to be the dominant format. They needed to create a totally new processor for their system which will end up driving their system into the ground before its potential is realized, because no one knows how to program for it. Second, Sony is making poor design decisions. The internal hard drive situation is awful. As for if people will buy it, I have no doubt that at least a few older gamers will buy it, but the casual gaming market won't. I mean, if you had kis, and you wanted to buy them a system, do you go for the $750 system, controller, and game package, or the $275 one? Hell, if you had two kids, they could each have their own...and thats not to mention that people are more interested in the Wii anyway. http://www.obscuregaming.com/
In this sense DVD, HD-DVD, and Blu-Ray are all proprietary. While from the perspective of a programmer or a Linux user DVD absolutely is proprietary, when we talk about things like consumer video formats "propreitary" does not in common parlance mean the same thing as if we were talking about a .DOC file. Consumer electronics standards and software standards are quite different contexts.
Being "owned" is not the same as being propreitary. MP3 is similarly controlled by a commonly licensed patent pool, but nobody tries to pretend Mp3 is propreitary.
By claiming Blu-Ray is "proprietary" in the fashion the article does, it is implying this is something special about Blu-Ray, some quality that HD-DVD and DVD do not share. This is at best misleading and at worst a lie, since Blu-Ray is identical in this respect to other formats.
You're wrong, and the moderators are only moderating you up and the other guy down because they hate Sony and will reward anyone who can make them look bad, whether they're right or not.
When only 15% of American households have HD, going with an ultra expensive storage format only intended for a niche market is not a smart thing. When they don't have HDTVs, consumers can't see any benefits to warrant such a high price, and they'll save their money for something else.
You are wrong. While game licensing is in fact where most of the profit comes from, consoles are not sold at a loss except in unusual circumstances.
An example of the unusual circumstances under which consoles are sold at a loss might be: Sony, historically, has sold its consoles at a loss for a very short period of time at each launch, but targets their prices such that a few months to a year after launch (as manufacturing prices go down) they will be making at least a small profit off of each unit sold.
The idea that selling at a loss is "normal" is an urban myth; in fact we only see consoles being sold at a loss as a "normal" thing in the case of the XBox line, which is frankly a business disaster and has totally failed to earn enough in game licenses to make up for the money lost on the systems themselves.
I just bought a Nintendo DS and having the blast of my life, and it probably will be a Wii once it is out additionally. The DS was a no brainer, the PSP was simply too expensive.
Come on.. calm down. The price will be down to $400 after a few months, unless the Sony CEO prefers to staple all those unsold PS3s in his office.. (presuming he has such a huge office)...
Georg
What percentage of people actually use their consoles as a primary movie player?
That's a pretty silly question, because until the PS3, a videogame console has never the cheapest way to get a movie player.
I know that this applies to absolutely nobody on Slashdot, but if someone did have a HD set and did want to watch HD movies, why wouldn't they drop $5-600 for the Playstation versus $1000 for a standalone player?
Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
There is a great desire among slashdotters to see Sony fail. They can't really fault the hardware so they got to focus on the price and common sense be damned.
The PS3 not having as innovative a controller as the Wii. Neither does the 360. You don't hear people about that.
The cell is actually a really powefull piece of tech so you can't make claims that it is underpowered or something.
The PS3 will fail or succeed based on wether it can have games that are worth the price. Can the hardware be put to real use and can we get games that blast anything on the 360/PC away? So far nothing is showing up that impresses me but then none of the consoles impress me.
The games don't really have to innovative. Give me F.E.A.R and just use that massive CPU to put 60 ai's in the game at the same time. That would sell me. Well if I can use a mouse with it.
Oh just give me a PS3 with linux and an open spec to the hardware.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
You miss the entire point.
Both PS3 and XBOX 360 are going after a shrinking market. There just aren't that many people out there who give a rats ass about either of them; the gaming market has gotten more and more narrow.
Normal people don't spend $400-700 on a video game console with a game or two. That's enough to buy a fully-loaded PC. And let's not forget the $60 games they expect you to continue to buy to go along with it, many of which suck and you feel like a big chump for spending your hard earned dollars on it.
Budgets on these games keep going up, they get more convoluted (not specificly complex), the control schemes are so whacked that it takes 10 hours to figure out just how to play some of them, and so many are simply rehashes of each other with pretty new skins. The audience for these titles is dwindling, not growing.
And among those that do want it, the easy-to-impress-with-pretty-things 12-17 year old market, they won't even be able to afford it. "Gee, Mom and Dad, can I have a $600 game system for Christmas? Oh, and I'll need a few $60 games too!" I don't know many kids in that age bracket that aren't from wealthy families who can save up that much cash from their after-school jobs.
People want fun, easy to play, but hard to master, games. Sony and MS are going after their shrinking audience, and the rest of the world is waiting for something like the Wii, which will be affordable, accessable, innovative, and it looks like will have some hella fun games.
Let Sony and MS fight over the dwindling "hardcore" market, and watch as Wii sells numbers that neither company can possibly imagine. Hell, even my parents want one - and they haven't touched a console since the NES let them play DuckHunt. I'm no Nintendo apologist, but I've got to tell you this time it really looks like their innovation is going to pay off.
AE
no RPG's? What is Morrowind Oblivian then?
I think everyone is daft, even if right now it would cost $600 to make a ps3 that will be completely different in 6 months when it actually comes to market.
Any electronics componet gets cheaper to make over time and 6 months is quite abit of time in electronics. Hell by this time next year it will be a $300 console if not less. everyone is speculating prices based upon what it costs to manufacture right now, not by what it costs to manufacture in the future...
What percentage of people actually use their consoles as a primary movie player? Electronics manufacturers are always dreaming of using convergence as a way to take over the world, but the reality is people are used to spending ~$200 or less on a DVD player, it won't take long for HD players to reach that sort of price range, and the ability of a console to play HD disks will be irrelevant to most people. Can't really see it being seen as a "masterstroke".
I do, and I know lots of other people with small places, do. Actually, I hear that they're extremely popular in Japan because of the high cost of real estate, these are a great convergence box. I know the PS2 is for me. It's always going with a movie, music, or a game.
Then something changed and Sony just started loosing it. Perhaps japan is just finding that korea is now the new japan (Korean quality? or for a bigger laugh Chinese quality?).
Sony kept prices to high while it lowered quality and the competition got better. On their own the effects where not to big but the combination is proving lethal.
So far I agree with you. But consoles are different.
The PS2 continues to be the most expensive console. AND the biggest seller. At least in the home console market so far people seem prepared to pay the sony premium in exchange for the perceived extra quality.
Yes I think Sony is having troubles. The PSP and its screen problems show that Sony is no longer as concerned about as quality as they once seemed to be (all my previous sony stuff just died of sheer old age and overuse).
Will the PS3 be another PSP or another PS2?
The entire move to push its own media format for selling movies for the content doesn't exactly fill me with cheer.
But I think it is too soon to judge. Soon the three consoles will be in the stores and we will see wich has the better demos to lure us in.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I think the PS3 is coming out at just the right time and price point for Sony. HDTVs are flying off the shelves now, this being the first year HDTV sales exceed analog TV. The point of Blu-Ray in the very near future will be as a strong competitor to going to the Movie Theater. In fact if Blu-Ray truly supports 1080P and not just 1080P upconverted from 24fps but full-blown 60fps then in many/most cases the viewing experience will be far better than your average Ciniplex.
I've said this before, but I'll say it again. If Sony really wants to get early adopters on board they should try to get the IMAX catalog converted to 60fps 1080P as quickly as possible, that and start shooting new movies in 60fps in an IMAX-lite version -- it would be fairly easy to adapt 24fps cinema equipment to 60fps. Pans would loose their jitter, double vision look. Action sequences would seem more realistic.
Now it maybe that some future hyper-internet will support HDTV on demand, but for the next 5 years Blu-Ray will offer the best cheapest delivery system despite what Bill Gates has to say on the subject -- that and Hollywood's reluctance to distribute on anything other than a physical medium.
One last note about visual quality, I recently watched "Passage to India" (shot in 70mm) in HDTV. The quality was glorious. This because the graininess of standard 35mm confuses HD compression and robs the final mpeg of the resolution it is really capable of. Films shot either direct to HD, with HD-video cameras, or converted from 70mm prints really show the real potential image clarity of HD. Hollywood will soon have to start factoring image quality of HD viewing into account when shooting new content.
Letter To Iran
I think we may see HD adoption go a lot faster because of the move to digital.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
"what was once a pretty sweet console."
What pretty sweet part are we talking about? 2 HDMI ports I can't use without a 2,000$ new TV? 7 player bluetooth, when I rarely (never) have a situation where I go, "damn, I wish my GameCube had 8 ports so everyone could play Mario Party instead of just 4 at a time"? The part where the PS3 is also an Internet router, instead of my current one, with 3 gigabit ports?
Sony went and said, "everything those guys have, plus EXTRA!" for the past 3 years. Like the online service, next generation graphics, or any of that other shit I mentioned.
Every year, Sony Fan Bois have been going, "OMG CREAM" about it. There is no such thing as a sweet Sony console; it's always a pack of lies. The only reason the PS1 got popular was because everyone hated pompous Nintendo and their "screw everyone" mentality in the mid-1990s. How many 1st party titles (and I don't mean 2nd party, like Polyphony Digital) have there been on the PS1 and PS2 that have been super awesome? How does that number compare to the titles by 3rd party developers?
Sony sells far less PS1s and PS2s than Square Enix, Namco, Capcom, or Konami -- even alone. Hell, the only thing the semi-rational fan bois seem to want on the PS3 is Metal Gear 4 -- a Konami title.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
A new video format that only allows for greater picture quality (with the max resolution of the best res HDTV 1080p) and movie length on a single disc. Thats no reason to upgrade from DVD's 480P, for life yo! What more do you want a new format to do? A dual layer blu-ray disc holds 50gigs and they've already gotten 8 layers working on the lab. Plus blu-ray has this new highly scratch resistant coating that appears to work really well.
I don't know about everyone else but I've been holding out on HDTV's simply because there wasn't much I could do with one. HD gaming and cinema changes all of that. Half the reason most HDTV's don't look so good in stores is that a good portion are playing on dvd's with 480 lines of resolution. About 40% of the HDTV's in sam's are getting an actual hdtv feed.
In summary a blu-ray drive will give you the following:
1) Longer Movie Runtime
2) Maxed out HDTV Resolution
3) Scratch resistant coating that will alleviate one of the biggest longevity issues with dvd's.
I'm not sure what more I could want with a new format.
Hmmm... Pie...
I think the problem with your reasoning here is that, while lots of slashbots rail against the focus on HD by Sony and MS, most of them know HD is going to happen sooner or later. When that time comes, your $500 PS3 is a lot less useful.
You might think I'm clueless, but you should pay attention if you want to know how this is going to go.
I'm 40 years old and I've never owned a game console. Does that make me clueless? No, I've seen other consoles but I've been waiting for a networked enabled version that's really up to PC based gaming. Xbox was not it and the whole line will never will be more than a second rate PC.
We'll see if PS3 sucks or not. When it comes out, I'll walk down to a store and have a look. The descriptions so far look like a winner, no matter what crazy things we might imagine happen inside Sony's corporate headquarters. I'll be the first to admit that I have no idea what it's like to work inside a huge company that speaks a language I can't read or speak. My only doubts come from the fact that it will be non free, even though IBM's got all sorts of SDK for cell and it's going to run a Linux kernel. I can put up with a non free set top box if it works well enough. What really matters is what's delivered. At that point, I just might spend the few hundreds of bucks I have not wasted on Xbox and ultra expensive wintel video cards.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Most importantly: More sound codecs supported. Blueray will allow multiple interface layers to operate at the same time, which means that when flipping through the chapter menus, we won't hear the same music starting over every time we hit "Next" You can use the internet for "additional features" For more, see: http://www.blu-ray.com/faq/
i already sold my ps2 and everything else in my home that had anything to do with sony at all, and i will never , ever spend one single dollar on anything sony has their hands in . for those that dont already know , sony willfully and purposefully installed a root kit on about one and a half million users computers that allowed hackers to gain control of all of the users credit and personal information , when asked why they would do such a thing their reply was " well your avarage user doesnt know anything about stuff like that " as if because i dont know that they have3 destroyed my computer and givin out all of my personal information . that it doesent matter. .... when finally confronted about it their fix to the problem was to send out a patch that actually made the problem worse and when confronted about that they finally returned peoples money for the cd's they had purchased that infected their computers .......... well gee thanks sony , my credit card info is floating around the internet , my identity may be stolen , my computer is trashed , but hey i got 15 bucks back for the cd i bought from you legally .
......... boycott sony forever ... untill these big companys learn that they cant do anything they want because they hold all the chips they will continue to become more invasive , and screw you for every dollar you have
i dont know about any of you but if someone told me my testicals would fall off unless i gave sony some more of my hard earned money , i would just have to sign up for the vienna boys choir
PS2 production couldn't face the demand during the first months. I'm maybe naive :-) but...Maybe they set the price at $600 to face the demand and few months later they will drop the price to challenge the XBOX 360.
;-).
Only fools, fanatics or wealthy people will buy it at such a price.
Anyway I may consider it...If it has a keyboard, a mouse, a VGA/DVI output, USB to a printer and a well known operating system with tons of applications (ie: if it is a PC).
The only console right now that fits to my budget is the Wii. I'm 30, working, a nice job...Bu I've got a house to pay, a car to pay...Blue ray or not
Yep, this is true. I'm almost ready to buy a PS2 now! Anyone know which games I should get for it?
right now,there no much people ith HDTV,but in a near future,there will be probably a lot,thanks to the cheaper OLED process and etc.
but on this day,how the broadband internet connection will be? according to the H.264 standards,you can stream 1080p movies in a 8 mbps connection.
i live in a small city in brazil,and right now if i move a block away,i will be able to pay for connection of that kind for something like 40 dollars per month,and i'm talking about now,not 3-4 years when the Oled tvs come out,just imagine how it will be at that time.
then if microsoft is smart,it will starts to sell streamed movies over the Live service,and just plunk down both HD DVD and BR in the process.
That's a pretty silly question, because until the PS3, a videogame console has never the cheapest way to get a movie player.
It still won't be, even for an HD-capable movie player. Toshiba and RCA already have HD-DVD players available right now that are $500 and it's not at all ridiculous to figure that by the time the PS3 hits the retail prices of those devices will have dropped $50, $100 or even more (depending on which manufacturers release devices within the next six months).
I've got to think that people willing to early adopt a new HD disc format for the purpose of watching movies aren't going to care about having an all-in-one device. I've also got to think that many of those early adopters who are also gamers will already have an Xbox 360. That kind of thing tends to shrink the value of buying a $500-600 Blu-Ray player which can also play a few games.
How, pray tell, can this possibly be 0 flamebait?
It's a 100% accurate statement of fact.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
$599 is the retail price they announced at E3. There will also be a "core" style system for $499. We're not debating what the price will be...we're asking why. Why, Sony, why???
This is the pricing we've been used to in the UK. The Xbox and PS2 were both released here for £299 ($555.89). When they were released in the states for what was the equivalent of £160.825 ($299). So when you're forking out your $600, have a think about what we're gonna have to pay!
Perhaps Sony is much shrewder than we give them credit for. Hear me out. When the Xbox360 was released, there was a huge markup when they were sold on eBay.
First, this proves that there are a lot of rich suckers out there willing to pay a premium for gaming consoles. Second, if you raise the price and sell directly to those people, you cut out the middle men. Thirdly, when the first wave of buyers is saturated and the price of components falls, you drop the price and keep the same margin. It is economics 101 to maximize profit by charging the highest price that the individual consumer will pay.
Crazy like a fox!
- There are piles of unsold PS3s at launch.
- There are spot shortages but by and large, if you want a $600 PS3 you can get one.
- PS3s sell so well you can't get one except on ebay for $1000.
From Sony's perspective, 2 out of 3 outcomes count as a win.Moreover, once the intial "I'll buy no matter what the price" crowd has passed through, Sony can drop their price and /. will dutifully announce the price drop.
To see which way the chips fall, we'll have to wait until Sony ships. Until then, I'm skipping any PS3 rumors on /. .
The research division at Microsoft is the #1 industrial laboratory in the United States. To understand the magnitude of the largesse, note that Microsoft succeeded in convincing several tenured/tenure-tracked professors at top-notch private universities (e.g. Stanford University) to quit the university and to join Microsoft.
Google understands the formidable threat posed by Microsoft's research division. Google's management rushed to IPO, fearing that Microsoft would crush Google and would prevent the management from cashing in a multi-billion-dollar IPO.
In addition, over a quarter of these gamers said they wanted DVD (or HD-DVD, Blu-Ray or whatever) playback in their console. However, they weren't questioned about the price point for a PS3, so I don't know if they would change their tune once they saw the cost!
Because the point of MS Research is not to create products. The point of MS Research is just to employ the best and brightest minds in the business-- for the sole purpose of tying them all up, so they aren't somewhere else creating brilliant projects that would eventually turn into Microsoft competitors. Microsoft doesn't want researchers. They just don't want anybody else to have researchers. Researchers are dangerous, every once in a great while they create innovative ideas, and new ideas change markets, and change is bad if, like Microsoft, you derive your power from stasis.
Better to keep all the brilliant minds fat and lazy, busy being highly paid to contemplate their navels and concentrate on extracting sunlight from cucumbers, instead of letting them run around loose in the real world where they might do something scary like trying to change it.
You ever read Brave New World? Remember, at the end, what it turned out they really did with all of the political dissidents...?
They do not degrade over multiple viewings. Yes, you can damage a CD or DVD beyond repair. However, both tape and VHS slowly deteriorate every time you view them. The average person does notice this, because their favorite movies slowly look worse over time.
They never have to be rewound. This is perhaps the biggest advantage. Don't you remember renting a movie from the video store, only to find out it hadn't been rewound? Or having to remember to rewind your own tapes? Cassette tapes didn't have quite the same problem, but finding the song you wanted to listen to was always hard -- it seemed to always been on the wrong end of the tape and finding the break exactly where that song picked up was difficult. Which leads me into my next advantage:
Chapter stops. Less important for DVDs, more important for CDs. Finding the song you wanted was not only easy, but nearly instantaneous. Got a favorite part of Pulp Fiction you want to watch, or maybe you want to play the lobby scene of The Matrix to show off your new sound system -- you can have it loaded up and ready to go within a minute. Try doing that with a VHS tape.
You can easily listen to them on your computer. Not an early reason for adoption, but it certainly drove adoption the middle part of the cycle. Being able to listen to/watch your music/movies in different ways adds value. This is why CDs and DVDs were adopted. The added sound fidelity was slightly important, but the majority moved to them for those reasons. It is hard to get people to move from them, because the format is nearly perfect. There are few advantages that other formats can offer -- greater quality, which most can't really appreciate and better durability, which most formats don't do without compromising other things and durability isn't much of an issue anyway.
-------------------------------------------------
Again... because its technology is too cutting edge and too new and therefore too expensive, would have been much better to go with cheap commodity stuff rather than daring to push the boundaries and actually put some THOUGHT into the product.
Daring to push the boundaries? By... tacking on motion control in a bog-standard dual-shock?
They're making a stronger PS2, with more storage. The cell is an interesting processor architecture, designed to be surprisingly scalable (both up and down), but MS is shipping multiple cores in a PPC architecture too. And theirs is relatively easy to program for.
More thought definitely would have been appreciated.
But what got me most was this
Coupled with Sony's desire to not only push their own content on HD discs, but to control that medium with their proprietary Blu-ray format.
If the PS3 gets reasonable marketshare then this could be considered its master stroke in 2 years time. While the XBox 360 will need a revision to support HD discs, the PS3 won't.
Very true, assuming the XBox 360 ever supports HD disks (my money is on "no"). However, that doesn't change the fact that Sony went with Blu-Ray over HD-DVD because they wanted to create another Memory Stick / UMD standard that they control and make royalties off of. The Memory Stick has probably Pi@@$#* off enough consumers that there is a degree of backlash against proprietary Sony standards at this point. And if there wasn't before, there is now with the utter failure of the UMD movie standard.
Its a sad state of affairs when Slashdot articles don't even celebrate the invention and the investment, but bitch just about the price and want LESS gadgets in the box, and when the MS supported standard is implicitly suggested to be a more "open" option.
What part is the invention part again? Including the movie hardware standard that their electronics division is pushing? Copying the Wii's controller design? Claiming to copy every feature of Xbox Live, without actually showing anything?
Say what you will about Microsoft, they've really pushed the online thing forward in great ways. Say what you will about their naming people, but Nintendo is really trying something original with the Wii. Say what you will about Sony's behavior as a corporation, but the PS3 brings... what exactly is it bringing new to the plate?
Sony is not leading at this point. They're following.
Sony seems out of touch, both with what the market wants and with reality in general. For example, the 500 dollar version of the system would be perfectly fine if if weren't for the lack of HDMI "protection" that they have been forcing on people. A protection that they say they may not include on disks anyway, making the expensive upgrade useless. It's difficult and confusing to see which way the consumer is going to get screwed. But they're going to get screwed one way or the other due to Sony's lack of clear vision and forced standards. And 600 dollars is way above what the average person is willing to pay for a console.
CF / SD / MS slots? Why would we need all of that? Cut the crap, and give us what we want for what we can afford to pay. Bells and whistles may be nifty, but if nobody buys the system they don't really help.
The ______ Agenda
Because there are enough spoiled kids, dumb parents and gaming yuppies that will buy it for Sony to make a profit.
I have no use for console gaming systems. They are bad model for consumers but the target market just hasn't figured it out yet.
Why would so many bright people that use OPEN SOFTWARE buy PROPRIETARY gaming systems?
For $600, why not buy a PC that can run games and do useful stuff too?
Is that a SCSI connector or are you just glad to see me?
I can't understand why all gamers are so spoiled and keep complaining on the price of the ps3. How much money do you spend on amusements? It seems quite much, since entertainment has driven the PC hardware industry for at least a decade. pci-e video cards were avail. at least 1 year sooner than pci-e 4xgbit lan cards or raid, and you pay ~$250 for nonsense SLI just getting more fps. Now for one time that business really innovates, you shout and scream. The change introduced in the ps3 is a little deeper than dvd to blu-ray, it's leaving the cache based computing to software controlled memory and leaving symetric multiprocessing, perhaps the model that will scale for the next decade.
students are one example, so are late teenagers who for whatever reason are still living at home bt don't wan't to interact with the family as much as they used to.
so picture the situation your living in one room and you'd rather not have to get all your entertainment alongside the others in your house/block/whatever. So you wan't your own private entertainment and the less kit you need to have (bearing in mind the room may be quite small as may be the budget) the better. Your TV is likely a small portable so quality isn't a huge issue anyway and a console pad will easilly reach the place where you sit to watch it.
In the situation the PS2 dvd feature is fine, similarlly if you've already been forced to make room for a PC in that situation (for work,study or because you simply feel you can't live without one) and you don't have a PS2 adding a DVD drive to the PC is highly attractive.
meanwhile those with living rooms where they don't normally use games consoles (except maybe when friends are round to play) are going to wan't a player to dedicate to the living room.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
I believe the term you were looking for is "fucked". Why do people feel like using harsh language, but only in ASCII art?
What. The. Fuck.
Not "frack", not "f*ck", not "fsck", and for fuck's sake, not "frig". No, my dear non-friends whom I care nothing about, the word is FUCK . Say it proudly, god fucking dammit.
I don't know what all the fuss is about. Throughout the life of a console, you will spend hundreds upon hundreds of hours playing, and for the most part, you'll be happily entertatined. Just to run some numbers (and these may be high for some and really low for others), let's say you play for 30 minutes per day, every day, for three years. That's around 545 hours, or just over 3 weeks.
Name some other source of comparable entertainment (non-console) that costs less than that. Drugs? Hookers? Gambling? Booze? No, hell no, no, and no. As far as I'm concerned, $600 is nothing for the amount of entertainment I'm buying - I think the other companies are stupid for not charging more.
Plus, truth be told, the people who are complaining the loudest aren't the people the console companies really care about - if you can't dig up $600 for a console, then you're certainly not going to be opening your wallet to buy new controllers, new games, etc.
You can complain all you like about being poor or whatever sob story it is this week - face it: you own a computer, and you obviously know enough about it to post comments on Slashdot. You're not doing too bad - save the complaining for the kids at the orphanage (and even then, pretty soon they'll have more PS2s than they could ever possibly use).
Its a sad state of affairs when Slashdot articles don't even celebrate the invention and the investment, but bitch just about the price and want LESS gadgets in the box, and when the MS supported standard is implicitly suggested to be a more "open" option.
Although Slashdot folks may salivate at a rocket powered toaster, most will not be willing to spend $600 for it.
There is no benefit in converting native 24fps IMAX content to 60fps... and running IMAX-sized film that fast is not "fairly easy" in the least (both in terms of mechanics and in film-consumption).
Yes, but with DVD on the PS2, everybody knew that DVD was going to be the format that movies were sold on, and it offered tons of advantages over VHS. And, when compared to XBox (New system from microsoft, don't know how good it will be), and GameCube (uses small discs and is purple, can't play DVD), it was maybe the most attractive system. This time, we're not sure sure if Blu-ray is going to be the next DVD, or whether it's going to go they way of UMD/MiniDisc/LaserDisc. We also don't know what exclusive games are going to be released for PS3, or whether the developers will release games that will take advantage of it's full processing potential, since they will want their games to run on at least the XBox 360, if not the Wii also.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Let's face it. When Star Wars Trilogy comes out on blu-ray exclusively at 1080p, we're going to be shelling out $600 plus buying a new 1080p HDTV.
If a hardcore fan has the option of 1080i on 360 or 1080p on PS3, which would they go for?
Basically, Sony better be praying that between now and November, there's going to be a killer app for bluray, if it's not Star Wars.
The price of $600 is repeated endlessly, yet iit is false - the base PS3 is $500. The $600 model really only gets you HDMI, which you don't need to play games at 1080p and watch movies at 1080i. Why would you pay more to get less?
The price of $500 is already expensive enough that you can have good discussions around buy-in at that price, all without over-inflating figures and thus making the rest of what you say suspect. After all, if they can't even get the price right what are we supposed to think about other facts they are presenting? The article mentions the $500 prine in passing as watered-down, but does not explain how - given that lack of completeness I have to assume the rest of the research they have done is similarily half-assed as well.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'm STILL not buying one though.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
what's a stratify
Can you think of a SINGLE technical reason to back HD-DVD over Blu-ray if you were Microsoft making that decision, BEYOND considering Sony to be competition?
I can think of a few off the top of my head:
1) HD-DVD drives are less expensive
2) HD-DVD has a mandatory managed copy requirement
3) HD-DVD doesn't have region coding
4) HD-DVD discs are less expensive to produce
5) HD-DVD discs can be produced with DVD9 content on one side and HD-DVD content on the other (ie: good upgrade story)
6) HD-DVD discs are more fault tolerant than blu-ray
7) Hi-def Movies don't need more than 25 of storage space with modern codecs
What percentage of people actually use their consoles as a primary movie player?
I think the Revolution ("Wii", whatever) is going to be my first console ever when it comes out, but my family used a PC as our only DVD player for about two years (1999 - 2001). We still watch movies on the PC's fairly regularly, as my wife, my son and I have only one TV, but we also have two PCs that can play DVDs.
I am willing to pay $600 for a system that has quality games. Games today are the same shit with a different year or number on them. If somebody can bring back the feeling I got when I first played Super Mario Bros. or Final Fantasy II for the SNES, then they can have my $600. I grew up on video games. They can be very fun, but when I realize the industry is stamping out games from a factory of code monkeys in desperation to keep the company from capsizing, and that there is no passion in making the game, then I am not going to play the games anymore. There are much better things in the world to do then stare at a TV placidly playing the same reptitive crap like a drone. There is a reason I only own a handful of games for the PS2 and it is not money. Most games suck. $600 for a quality gaming system is a good thing.
I read this article and it sucks too. It does not say a damn thing about how the PS3 hit $600.
Turbo Graffix 16. Anyone remember that one? Nope, me either.
What about that 3DO system back in '93? Did anyone actually buy it, or was it reserved exclusivley for trade shows?
If memory serves, SONY is not the first to attempt this pricing strategy, but they would be the first to suceed with it.
barack to the future?
Sure, $600 is quite expensive, and I doubt I'll be getting one in any hurry. but I'm not sure it's overpriced for what you're getting...
Plenty of people have pointed out that the PS3 will double as a Blu-ray movie player, and at launch it will probably be cheaper than the first round of standalone players; but not everyone cares about HD movies.
But what about the reports that:In addition to being a fairly radical departure from Sony's current position on homebrew (eg PSP), this could put the PS3 into a different category to the other consoles -- the potential to be a general purpose home computer, out of the box.
Sure, the PS2 had a Linux addon kit available... for about $200 extra. This got you Linux, a hard drive, a keyboard & mouse, plus a special video adapter was required so you could use a monitor. You also needed to pony up for a memory card dedicated to Linux (there's another $20 or so). Even then you couldn't access some of the basic hardware, like the optical drive, and the PS2 hardware is kind of limited for general purpose use: it only has 32MB memory and a ~300MHz CPU.
The PS3, on the other hand, will come with Linux and the HDD as standard. Any USB keyboard and mouse should work. It's got a very powerful CPU, and 512MB memory. HDMI will give you monitor resolutions (you could even use a DVI adapter to connect to an actual monitor). For that $600, you're getting the next generation Sony console, but you may also be getting quite a reasonable living-room PC as well...
This is all prerelease specs, so it may not turn out this way... but if it does, maybe the PS3 isn't so overpriced after all?
My AI prof said "They are expensive toys, but cheap robots" about the LEGO Mindstorm kits.
... and expensive toy but a cheap supercomputer node :D
Maybe the PS3 will be the same
just my 2 bytes
single link DVI can push 1920x1080 at 60Hz
single link DVI can push 1920x1200 at 60Hz
dual link DVI can push 2048x1536 at 75Hz
dual link DVI can push 3840x2400 at 41Hz
what DVI can do goes beyond HD that is being used.
what DVI can do goes beyond standard Computer Monitors.
It first goes ahead and assume Cell will cost a lot more than (for example) the CPU in Xbox 360. There's no reason to think so. Cell is not a monster chip, it's similar in transistor count to the PS3 GPU, the Xbox 360 GPU and the Xbox 360 CPU.
Second, the article assumes Sony made decisions which made the PS3 more expensive around the end of last year when 360s were selling for $700 on eBay. Whether $700 is a reasonable price for a console or not, PS3 was already set in stone before 360 even came out. The 360 availability fiasco didn't enter into any of the technical decisions.
Both of those things being said, I think $600 is an awful price.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
A comparison of LD to DVD can be seen here. Basically I don't think it stand much of a chance to fit in your regular PC optical drive. For example, a recordable format for LD can be seen here. Although it's an entirely different beast, it keeps reminding me of phonograph records. HD-DVD/BD OTOH, doesn't look much different from your regular DVD. As long as they don't price significantly higher and offer backward compatibility, it'll be relatively easy for them to replace DVD.
As a video gamer, my opinion counts the most.
:-p.
:-).
:-D.
:-p.
:-D. http://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/fileinfo/232/ 23280.html (screenshots included) that is a freaken side scroller on a z80 4mhz processor baby and I soo wish I had another processor processing just graphical crap that wasn't really important to the game play but for "coolness".
:-).
So everyone listen to me
Xbox 360: I dont know anyone who has it. Maybe I am getting too old (still a teen though). I want a next generation system but I am willing to wait because I know the first system out is not always the best one. Dreamcast *ahem* Which I still love
Wii: This is something that shocked me in a good way. I was just wondering how videogames would be in the future, and this one hit that spot on the head. After looking at the controller and watching people play it at e3, I am ready to forget how to strafe and shoot and circle around the guy and own them with my analogs (My teacher would write RO). Because games these days even first person shooters are confusing as hell. I seriously felt like it was uncivilized or something trying to play with a analog stick. And then I got back to reality and I realize that this was my only choice. FOR NOW
*off topic* I was playing halo and owning my lil cuz, untill he took out his sword and kept killing me. I thought their was some skill behind using it but now I learned you just look at the guy and press the shoot button as fast as you can HOW RETARTED IS THAT. and obviously being an old school gamer I could press my fire button the quickest
PS3: The current discussion. First I would like to say I have a pretty decent job and I am living with my parents and going to college so I am not really worried about cash. So my opinion might sound stupid. I WANT IT. I WANT IT NOW. I know I am not gono play it at all after I get my wii, but I still want it. I am not getting a freaken hi-deff tv to see huge pixels and miss drawn shadows. The fact is I am living in the year 2006 and I want to see some tech that will blow my mind. The cell processor sounds crazy. I am majoring in CS, actually almost done with it, and the cell processor is something to really look at from a scientific point of view (for me any ways). I have made games before for my ti-86
So wii is a given. And my other choice is between xbox 360 and ps3. I have xbox and I truthfully play my dreamcast more then the xbox. Kinda sad I know. So I am willing to pay for a pretty looking ps3
PS: can we get a freaken spellchecker in here. What is this web 1.0?
From what I know, only HDMI/DVI are going to get you 1080p and bandwidth being limited you'll only get 30FPS on those cables.
That is incorrect. Do a search on AVSForums or other AV forums (like this post). Component cables actually offer significantly more bandwidth than is required for even 1080p (can handle up to 2048x1200, or something along those lines). There are TV's on the market today (a Westinghouse model for one) that does 1080p from component inputs, in the thread I pointed to a Barco is mentioned.
I have read that a number of different TV's that currently accept 1080p over component allow a maximum rate of 30Hz, vs. 60Hz for 1080p over HDMI. But a constant refresh of 30Hz, if achieved by a game, is still going to look pretty good - after all, it's what TV on HD is broadcast at!
This myth of 1080p not being usable over component cables is I think the biggest factor to not understanding why the $500 PS3 is actually a preferable model over the $600 one. We have all been fed that line to prepare for the need to switch to HDMI, when in fact there was never a need at all other than for the companies to try and protect video content from player to TV at great cost to the consumer.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You need to stop getting your information from MS fanboys.
I am currently writing this post on a computer with a Dell 2405FPW monitor. It is 1920x1200x60fps (progressive) and it is connected to my computer with DVI, single-link DVI.
I have two friends who have Sharp 45" HDTVs. These are direct-view LCDs with full HD resolution (1920x1080). These TVs have 1080p (1920x1080x60fps) HDMI inputs.
This year at E3 I played Gran Turismo in Sony's both. This was a special version on the PS3. It was playing at 1920x1080x60fps ON A PS3.
It is ATSC that doesn't support 1920x1080x60fps progressive. ATSC is the standard (in the US) for transmitting digital (including HD) television over the air to an antenna. It compresses video using MPEG-2 and signals it over 8VSB to fit an HD channel into a 6MHz of RF bandwidth slot. ATSC supports many resolutions, including 1280x720x60 progressive frames per second, 1920x1080x60 interlaced fields per second and 1920x1080x30 progressive frames per second.
DVI (and HDMI) do not use MPEG-2 or 8VSB and do not compress video at all. As such, it takes over 150MHz of bandwidth to display 1920x1080x60 progressive frames per second. But, it can do it and even more.
You need to get a better source of info. Remember, Microsoft press releases (which said 1080p/60 wouldn't work on PS3) are an awful source of info about the PS3, just like Sony press releases are a bad source of info about 360.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
I'm glad to hear this about the component cables then.
As for 30 fps looking good, I think it depends. One of the reason why movies look great at 24fps is because of the fact that the shutter speed is not instant, compared to rendered frames in games. Sure, you can always fake motion blur and stuff like that on good video cards, but I've yet to see a game that actually looks great a 24fps.
Another thing this article left out - the ballooning price of PS3 is also the result of ballooned R&D costs due to design incompetence and failure.
The original PS3 design called for 3 Cell processors and no GPU. Each Cell CPU was to have 1 logic unit and 8 SPE's, and graphics would be done in software mode. Sony ended up with egg on their face and had to run to nVidia to bail them out.
Originally nVidia was called in for "consultation" purposes, and both parties denied a GPU was in the works. But inevitably, Sony's lakluster design forced them to purchase nVidia's PC GPU to overcome the Cells graphical inability. Turning to nVidia costed Sony much more than they planned to spend, and buying the PC GPU's costed them even more.
To add insult to injury, low yields forced Sony to cut the SPE's down to 7 operational SPE's per Cell, and costs forced them to cut 2 Cell processors away completely. Now we have an over-engineered, overpriced, and underwheliming architecture. Don't let Soy's infalted numbers fool you, the X360 was brilliantly designed, PS3 was botched, so for all the hype and price, you pay 2x the money for the same quality system, and Sony loses assloads of money. It's a lose-lose situation for everyone (except nVidia, who will walk away from this with a really fat bank account.)
Let's not forget that Microsoft plans to bundle Halo III with 360 consoles, and launch competitively
launch them on the same day the PS3 launches.
If the $600 pricetag doesn't kill the PS3 all by itself, the competition will.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
I think they could have phrased that more tastefully.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
PS3 supporting 1080p doesn't really hurt it. You're absolutely right that most current HDTVs won't accept a 1080p signal (mine doesn't and the one I had before this one didn't either). But that just means that PS3 will have to support alternate outputs that these TVs do support, like 1080i or 720p. This will mean PS3 has no real advantage over (for example) Xbox 360 on those TVs, but it won't be at a disadvantage either.
But most HDTVs going forward will accept 1080p input (even of many of them can't even render it at full spatial/temporal resolution) and so you'll be happy the PS3 supports it already when you buy a new TV later (if you buy one before PS3 becomes obsolete).
To be honest, supporting 1080p is essentially free for PS3 anyway. All current HDTV chipsets that do DVI can output 1080p over DVI/HDMI anyway, so it didn't add any cost to the unit beyond what just adding HDMI in the first place added.
When Xbox 360 gets its refresh I expect it will sprout a 1080p-capable HDMI connector too. I'll even predict when.
It'll happen in early 2007 (perhaps Feb or March or even as late as E3), and it'll use a 65nm processor, laptop HD-DVD drive (if HD-DVD is still viable at that time, otherwise a laptop DVD drive) and will have a single HDMI output alongside the current connector. This is just a guess based upon a good understanding of the cost of making the current 360 and how MS could make it cheaper to make. It's just a prediction though, you don't always completely redesign something just to save a few bucks, as shown by how MS never did a full redesign on the original Xbox, despite the money there to be saved.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Sadly I think someone's forgetting the blueray drive.
Basically these days on Slashdot if it isn't from Apple or Microsoft, then it sucks. I used to come here for the interesting technology stories, now it is a nonstop flow of Microsoft and Apple marketing stories.
A Passage to India was shot in 70mm. IMDB says so
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0087892/technical
And I believe it, as the economics of shooting in 70mm are pretty dismal. Additionally, A Passage to India is shot in flat (1.66:1), and a 1.66:1 70mm movie would make no sense at all, 70mm movies are all about 2.35:1 (usually2.20:1).
Note that most "70mm" films where actually shot in 65mm, including those by David Lean, whom you seem to be referring to.
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0066319/technical
I really wish 70mm (65mm) would come back. But I expect it never will. It just costs too much. I agree with you (at least what I think you said) that digital will be the next format that delivers what 70mm did.
Note that there are 60fps IMAX movies already, a few of them. The vast amount of film limits the length of the features though, so it doesn't happen much. What did you mean by "converting the IMAX catalog" to 60fps? There's no way to convert 24fps to 60fps (at least that improves anything). Once something is shot in 24fps, it's stuck in 24fps forever.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
I think you are correct. In the past, Nintendo has stumbled with innovation (Gameboy VR anyone?) but as I haven't bought a console in a generation and haven't really played since the Super Nintendo. I waiting for the consoles to make games fun again (I can't control 3d FPS games too well), other than Metal Gear Solid series, Sony doesn't offer much what I want.
I hope Nintendo Wii's new controller is as innovative as they say. And that it will help developers get the beginning players into the games easily, perhaps a return to the simplicity of the 80's/early 90s.
For reasons that you've stated, I whole heartedly feel that Sony will have a successful launch purely because of their fanatical customer base. There are people willing to pay $999 for a CPU in their computer, and there are people willing to pay $600+ for a GPU. Why wouldn't Sony find a few million customers willing to shell out for the next version of their hardware? There is a market of consumers paying extra to watch TV shows in high definition. They want to see their movies in HD as well. To these people, the system is worth it, even if the price of games is increased. Where I expect the market to cool for Sony is 3 months after launch, after the fanatical customers have taken the systems home. After the excitement is gone, and when the realism sets in. Where prices start to matter. And people take things into account such as the idea that it doesn't offer better games, only better looking.
People will be turned off by a film at 60fps.
Movies shot at 30fps are in general less appealing than movies shot at 24fps, because viewers are accustomed to one standard looking more classy and professional than the other. Regardless of the fact that you're technically getting more and a smoother picture in 30fps, it registers as being "worse" than 24fps does. We're used to seeing TV at 30fps, and movies at 24fps. Do the math.
When Sony released the PS2 with the DVD player, it was the right time in that technology's life cycle. DVDs were really taking off and a lot of people were looking for an affordable way to get in on the action. A $300 PS2 fit the bill with a vengeance.
Blu-ray's a little different. It has no market penetration to speak of and will have next to none when the PS3 appears. And while $300 is affordable for the average suburban consumer, $600 really is too much. HD is NOT exploding. I know exactly one person with an HDTV, while I had a couple friends with DVD players when the PS2 came out. The prices on HDTVs still aren't down far enough to where Joe Average can pick one up without too much discomfort. This technology is being foisted on us before its time and offers minimal incentive to upgrade (unlike VHS -> DVD), and the PS3 is going to be pushing a standard that not many people really give a crap about except for the same cinephiles who shelled out for laserdisc.
It's not the right time, but for what it's worth, I'd bet on HD-DVD before I'd bet on Blu-ray. A lot's in a name, and HD-DVD came out of the gate with a $500 player. But I really don't see either of these technologies taking off at all for at least a couple years.
BTW, I my other post, I meant to say Passage to India was shot in 35mm. Big typo. The rest of the post goes along with that, pointing out how 70mm flat doesn't make a lot of sense.
No, IMAX films aren't (usually) shot at 60fps. IMAX burns through film because the frames are many times larger than the frame on a 35mm film and even larger than those on a 70mm film (since IMAX runs the film sideways through the projector and camera).
The big cost to shooting 65mm (or IMAX) is the processing. A regular film has dailies, zillions of effects shots and such. The first IMAX film with even a SINGLE effect was shot over 5 years after IMAX came out because of the expense of doing effects, both as a process and in making them high-res enough to look right. Printing 70mm film costs 5x as much as regular 35mm (super 35, etc.). That precludes using it on most productions. I with 70mm (shot in 65mm, not 35mm blowups) was still around.
I hate to use Wikipedia, but imax.com is all-Flash now. So enjoy this link.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMAX
IMAX is 24fps. There are higher-speed variants, but the majority of the content is 24fps, and as I said, once 24fps, always 24fps.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Thats a change in media delivery. That is not something hardware companies can help you with. This is more so related to your isp(s) and media companies then anything.
Tieing everythign to such a network is nice but what about downtime. You'll lose your tv watching capability, the lack of physical media will mean your cutoff from your media connection too. Your hard drive(s) in whatever devices you have is decent for standard resolution video and music but theres only so much hd video you can affordably store.
Hmmm... Pie...
Upconversion is nice but your not getting any more detail then 480p video. And 480 is far from HD. BTW, what's the resolution of your plasma tv, and model?
Before you say you don't want HD res video why not actually view it? Would people have shelled out the big bucks for DVD's before they saw the differnce. Grante the change from DVD to HD media isn't neary as drastic but lets wait and actually see how it turns out before we knock it, eh?
I personally welcome any new tech that may make movies even that much more immersive.
Hmmm... Pie...
It's also missing wifi and memory card support, although those are less important.
The WiFi I have to admit would be kind of useful but it'll also come with a network port - which I can either hook into a wifi unit they make for consoles today or just run the network over to it.
For memory card support Sony said in an interview you could use an external adaptor. What they are unclear on (in my mind) is if both (or either) units come with a port to reac current PS2 cards, as I think by "memory card reader" they are referring to CF/SD readers only.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
At least the PS3 has better support for Open Standard/Software (eg. OpenGL, Linux etc), while the hardware is as proprietary as its competitors.
For the PC, I'd need proprietary software (eg. Windows, DirectX) for gaming, while I consider the hardware half proprietary in the sense that the manufacturers often ship drivers for Windows only.
WOW, two mistakes in one Post (and still got a 5). "Passage to India" shot in 35mm. I did a quick search when I watched it because the quality was so high. I had assumed the 70mm refered to shot in, but in this case it was only shown in 70mm. Still the HD transfer probably was from one of these 70mm prints. Now I'm really curious what IMAX or true 70mm would look like in HD, I'm pretty sure my comment about graininess is still valid as to muddying final HDV.
Also wrong about IMAX 60fps. It comes in 24 and 48 and not much in 48fps, which is labled IMAX-HD.
Still I think the industry should evolve towards a better frame rate instead of going for effective mega-pixels. To really improve resolution takes MUCH more film. Increasing fps to 60fps will only cost 2.5x as much film. Film's days are numbered anyway, 60fps is probably a physical strain on a film-train anyway. But 60fps will be child's play for the near futures HDV cams. Since compression gets better with less change between frames, digital doesn't even have to take twice as much space for 60fps vs 30fps, maybe something like 1.5.
Letter To Iran
Halo 3 won't be out in time for the PS3 launch. Bill Gates claimed it would be a while back, but that was a completely unrealistic deadline for Bungie.
1 number one being 'this sounds fishy', 1 number two being 'this is slashdot' and 2 being 'you're lying'?
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Its a sad state of affairs when Slashdot articles don't even celebrate the invention and the investment, but bitch just about the price and want LESS gadgets in the box
Welcome to the free market. People will always bitch about the price and having less useless features in the products they may buy.
Even if you earn millions yearly, a bad value/price ratio is still a bad value/price ratio when you go to the shop to pick a new shiny console.
People who don't want to buy two? Students? No idea, I just know that we coped for several years with a PS2 as the DVD player.
I think PS2 didn't cost $600, nor did DVD discs cost $40-$50, nor did they require a special $3000 TV so they look better than a VCR.
Just a little annecdote here. I have an HD cable box pushing 1080i to my TV. When I first hooked it up via component (because I had to get a HDMI-DVI converter), the animation was choppy. When I switched to DVI, the animation was smooth. And this is not a cheap HDTV either. It's a top of the line, highly rated Panasonic. HD over component from my PS2 had no problems. This makes me think that DVI is more robust to something... weak signal... noise. I'm not sure. But I'm gonna stick with DVI when I can.
A few weeks before the release of the PS3 Sony will put the media hype machine in high gear. You won't be able to turn on the TV without seeing adds for the system. They will give sneak peaks to media insiders, there will be a few "unauthorized" leaks, and they will send pre-packaged media kits to all the major and minor media outlets. "News" sources will gladly release this pile of fluff to the general public. The masses will start eating this up fueling the secondary media machine, you know the ones, the bloggers, gamer web sites, your best friend who just read a review on the Playstation website and now thinks the PS3 will be the greatest system since the PS2.
At midnight on the release date you will have hundreds of people lining up outside their favorite electronic stores to be the first one's on the block to purchase their shiny new status symbol. Stores will sell out their initial stock because inventory is "much lower than expected." Some very loud customers will not get their pre-ordered boxes and they will be pissed.
About 25% of the people who were able to purchase a console will rush home and put it up for auction on eBay. Although most of them will sell they will not fetch the price that they have been dreaming about for the past few months.
The media machine lumbers on with stories of sales, ebay, late night game parties and the Christmas shopping season in general.
The reviews start to roll in almost immediately however most say the system does not live up to their expectations. The system is buggy and crashes, although the problem is only with .1 % of all systems sold. (I'm sure their will be a class action lawsuit filed to cover this.) The lack of quality games at launch has many gamers disappointed although one game really stood out.
Ok, start the clock ticking.
Every one else will have to pay $400 for an HD DVD player.
WRONG WRONG WRONG!!!
Hold on, let me say that some more:
WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG!
Welcome to the Real World. It seems you may have spent too much time in Sony Fantasyland, where people behave completely irrationally.
What happened when DVD players cost over $400? Nobody bought them!!(Except insane videophiles with $10 home theater systems.) They kept using VCRs and waited a couple short years until DVD players were $50-80 at any electronics or discount store.
Especially considering how almost no one has an HD-capable set, there is approximately zero demand for these new HD players. Maybe less than zero, considering how crippled they'll be with the HDCP.
NO ONE is clamoring to be an early adopter of this ridiculously useless technology! They don't have either the TVs to watch them on, or any complaints about the current standard--DVD. Perhaps you've heard of it? Also, the reason people switched from VHS to DVD wasn't the higher resolution. It's the convenience of optical over tape (random access, compactness, and durability in some ways). Blu-Ray and HDDVD have NO real advantages over DVD for normal people (except this promised better coating, which is irrelevant for people who take good care of their DVDs).
I dare you to explain why the mass market is interested in being early adopters (in this case that means suckers) for this technology when they could wait, flip the bird at Sony's PS3, grab a Revolution and a 360, keep buying DVDs, and buy a Lite-On BluRay+HD-DVD player for $40 at Costco in 2008?
that is excited to get a $600 HD movie player that also plays games? A player alone is $500 minimum! Basically I am spending $100 on a next gen game console. This is as great a bargin as my PS2. I never had to buy a DVD player.
I never thought Slashdot would be filled with such ludites.
And for the record, if the X-Box had an HD-DVD drive, I would have bought it. But it doesn't and I won't. (Oh and it needed digital video out)
While 24 fps is pretty low, it does give it that film look. I hope films don't lose their style as we move to new and different technologies.
/. ) about how viewers expect different events to have certain looks. TV, live TV, and movies all have their distinct looks, and if one of those has the style of another, then the viewer thinks it looks wrong.
I remember a discussion (I'm pretty sure it was on
They do now.http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060526
Blue Ray I'll admit hands-down is the biggest price gouge - the Cell processor - not so much. Remember the PS2 also had its fair share of custom chipsets including the 128 Bit "Emotion Engine". I don't see the cost of fabrication of the Cell as being any different that the cost-risks assumed with the Emotion Engine.
But 1st generation video playbacks?
Oh yes - there's some bucks there. The hard drive inclusion wasn't exactly hay either (cheap I know - but double that price for your charge at sell and it's a wallop) which is probably why Microsoft made it optional to shave costs.
"What happened when DVD players cost over $400? Nobody bought them!!(Except insane videophiles with $10 home theater systems.) They kept using VCRs and waited a couple short years until DVD players were $50-80 at any electronics or discount store."
I was one of those that bought a DVD player for over $400 and I only had a 27 inch TV. On the other hand, I still haven't bought the surround-sound system to go with it.
The point is that you never know what people will do. I don't think these new HD DVD's are worth it, but other people might disagree.
It's not a question of "zealotry", the word "proprietary" simply means that some entity legally owns and controls it, and that's clearly the case for BlueRay and DVDs. (I believe the patents on CDs and MPEG may be expiring, so they may become non-proprietary fairly soon).
In particular, contrary to what you imagine, standards licensed under RAND licensing terms are, of course, still proprietary.
You can get a 1080p 37 inch lcd flatscreen for 1000.00 at Fry's or you can get a Westinghouse 1080p 37 inch for under 1600.00. I'm not saying 3000.00 is off the mark - unless you think that 1500-2000 dollars off the mark.
I do - but what the fuck do I know.
But is the Wii future proof?
Give me a second here but the latest reports from sites like wii.ign.com claim that the new Zelda is EXACTLY like the GameCube version outside of the control situation. Now - this is "probably" because it's mostly a straight port - but what if it's not? HDTV aside, I'm not so eager to invest in a repackaged game-cube with an interesting control scheme as my entertainment platform for the next 6 years - just as I wasn't eager to get a "slim-line" Atari 2600 just because it was "under 50 bucks".
But that's just me.
Oh and everyone else who bought a NES instead of an Atari 2600 jr or 7800 (and yes of course I'm sidestepping sofware issues, Trammel being a general - or INCREDIBLE - dick etc).
re:"I'm no Nintendo apologist, but I've got to tell you this time it really looks like their innovation is going to pay off."
26 years of Zelda and Mario reruns - now THAT's innovation baby!
Seriously though - the last time Nintendo blew me away was with their overpriced (games were expensive!) N64 - which was mindblowing. At least until Mario 64 was complete. Zelda arriving years later - also was a nice head turner - but didn't exactly blow me away. The funny thing is that while everyone grouses about sequal games plauging Sony, didn't anyone notice a couple of names coming up for Nintendo again - and again - and again?
I'll confess that I WAS looking at the Gamecube until the first Zelda came out for it - and I decided that I'd leave playing with children to Michael Jackson, and not wait another 5 years for a decent Zelda to come out for it. And I'm sorry - the gamecube controller is terrible. Proof? Play SSX. Enjoy the pain.
Dear Joystiq.com
What makes you write these lines?
"HD discs, but to control that medium with their proprietary Blu-ray format".
HD DVD is propriotary too, its specs aren't at ftp.gnu.org for Gods sake.
I am trying to believe you have nothing to do with Toshiba, MSFT etc. Who are them? Well, supporters of "already doomed" HD DVD, another proprietary format having Microsoft as a bonus.
If it wasn't doomed, for example OS X users (not mentioning linux!) would wait for their "never shipping" support on Macintoshes.
Glad Blu Ray has support of major studios so there will be at least competition.
If there is something (!) going on, this is not right way to race with competing format. You lost already Toshiba and MS!
"What percentage of people actually use their consoles as a primary movie player?"
People who don't want to buy two? Students? No idea, I just know that we coped for several years with a PS2 as the DVD player.
So the market segment which actually used the PS2 as a DVD player (students) because they didn't had enough available income before to aquire a PS2 and a (50 bucks) DVD player will either:
a) Spend $600 for the PS3 (plus an extra $800 to get an HD TV with HDMI to actually used it a an HD player)
b) Get a Wii or an X-Box 360
I know where i'll be placing my bet...
It isn't the same, and it isn't right to say that consumers always get fucked by these standards wars, often they lead to decent competition that drives
I think you're missing the problem here. The standard war is not important - none of the competing would be standards offers any real advantage with relation with the current standard, the DVD.
Sure, you get to to see more distinct pixels in you TV (keep in mind that a properly upscaled conventional size movie on an HD TV also has more pixels though not distinct), so long as you have the right sort of HD TV (with HDMI) and your player has an HDMI connector. Still:
a) Does one really notices any significant difference under normal use (if one is not explicitly looking for difference in a side by side comparisson nor seing TV 5 inches from the screen)?
b) Is it worth the premium price for both a new player and a new TV?
c) Is it worth the extra limitations imposed by the new and improved DRM?
It's as if Gillete and Wilkinson had a "standard war" for a new razor standard: one would be a 7 blades razor the other an 8 blades razor, users would need a special mirror in the bathroom to properly use any of them, both shaved an extra 2 microns of each hair (and you'de only noticed it because of the special mirror) compared to traditional razors, both were 5 times more expensive than current blades and if you damaged the handle of your razor, spare razor heads could not be used anymore.
In other words, why should anybody care about this "standard war" if both sides are trying to push products that are very expensive, impose more limitations on consumers and require consumers to once again buy their movie collection in a new format, all the while giving a very small improvement to the user experience and that only when the user has new and specially designed periferals?
Personally, the only reason i care about any of these "standards" is to make sure that my non-techie aquaintaces are aware that this is just the industry trying (once again) to use the consumer as their bitch only this time it's two trying to give us all a taste of their "big boy" instead of one.
>custom-built technology like the Cell processor and Blu-ray to distinguish their product from the others
>(compare this to Microsoft's more nimble strategy of outsourcing the 360's chip-design to IBM).
Actually, didn't IBM help sony make the cell too? At the very least, IBM is manufacturing them...
Does anyone know what companies were involved with the development of the cell and what responsibilities they had?
It will obviously be sold out until march when sony closes its fiscal year in Japan. By that time yields will be higher, bluray supporters will be happy with the number of players in the market and sony will be free to lower prices to reach a wider consumer base. ps. I mentioned the $500 version because Sony didn't even announce the price for the HDMI version in Japan. There is a large number of hdtvs in japan which only have component input and japan was the first country for which the ict requirement was dropped. I beleive most people will choose the no hdmi version also because by 2012 they will want to buy the ps4 anyway.
"they are not customer based anymore, they are "theory" based"
The last 2 Sony products I bought (a PSP, a DSC F717) are both broken now. They simply stopped working.
I don't care how revolutionary their new console is. I am not ever buying Sony again.
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."
Please don't start this bullshit again. This argument is based on an entirely specious argument, that vinyl is supposedly "analog" while CDs are "digital". Well, repeat after me: "THE UNIVERSE IS QUANTIZED".
Vinyl records are made of individual molecules, the pick-up stylus is made of individual carbon atoms, electric current is carried by individual electrons. The final consequence of this is noise. Any good electrical or electronics engineering curriculum will have a course on probabilistic modelling where you learn how to calculate the noise resulting from the discretization of electric charge.
When the CD standard was created, one simple question was made: which level of quantization noise in the encoding will be low enough to be irrelevant, considering other sources of noise and distortion?
I have a Shure V15 type 4 cartridge, which was near to the top of the line in vinyl reproduction technology when I bought it. I don't remember the exact specs for it, but the distortion value was something around 1%, excellent compared to other models, but just terrible if compared to digital technology. If you take a look at the specs for the newest cartriges from Shure you'll see the don't even mention specs for things like distortion or noise. Try to google for distortion specs on audio cartridges, can you find any that comes close to CD quality in fidelity? It's hard to find anyone that actually gives measured specs for noise and distortion, they just say it's "amazingly low" or similar marketese.
If there is any objection to CD quality, perhaps it's that it's too good. Most people are satisfied by the inferior specs of mp3. However only ignorant people, based on faulty reasoning, would believe that something is better just because it's labeled "analog" instead of "digital".
OTOH, I agree with you on what you say about lossy video encoding. But that's not a result of being digital, it's a result of compression. In the analog world, 8 mm film has lower quality than 35 mm film, is that so surprising? Put enough lines in the video, use a better encoding, and the artifacts will disappear.
Differently from CD audio, digital video today doesn't have standards that comply with the best possible quality, because the needed data volume is too big for current technology. Color depth of 8 bits per channel are insufficient, the human eye can see much more than 256 levels of any color. The eye has a variable resolution, but the video cannot count on that. Since you can look at any detail with the best part of your eye, a perfect video encoding should have each part of the scene encoded at the best resolution of the human eye.
A digital video standard designed like CD audio was specified, to comply with the full sensitivity of human eyes, would be something like 16 bits resolution for each primary color, 30 frames per second, 4800x2400 pixels. Without compression, that's 2 Gigabytes / second.
And herein lies the problem. The component standard supports 1080p, but almost no consumer equipment does. And I recall reading somewhere (sorry no link) that the low-end PS3 won't either, as its analog encoder isn't capable of it. Nowhere has Sony claimed that the low-end PS3 could do 1080p in any way.
Not that it really needs to. 1080i still looks pretty good for most things, and most game developers would opt for 720p & fancier effects over a plainer 1080p picture. Even movies will look fine, a 1080i segmented-frame signal is as good as 1080p, for a progressive-frame source like film at least.
The one real problem is the ICT, the "flag of Damocles" the studios hold over us. That's enough reason to avoid any non-HDMI movie system IMHO, unless you're OK with also buying a real HDMI player when they inevitably bring it in.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Great, so it's more expensive than Xbox360. However, it has several things the xbox360 doesn't have:
1. Built-in system for HD movies (Blu-Ray)
2. Motion-sensitive controller
3. More juice. The number of cores (7 vs 3?) will hopefully be used for providing better physics, better AI etc.
So, considering what you get, it's not that expensive. But we'll see. I'm kinda rooting for Wii myself.
Stop the brainwash
I just found out that my current 3Ghz PC with 6800 GT CANNOT play h264 at 1080i. All of sudden a PS3 with cell processor, RSX board and linux pre-installed is a steal.
I believe you are misusing the concept of Backup.
When you backup something, you are not supposed to change it. I you do, then it will be another version and another file. Otherwise you won't be able to access a past version and that might be the version you need.
I you want a remote storage, then go with some USB disk or a more advanced data storage equipment.
Long live TUX!
Could Sony/Japan take Microsoft/the USA to the WTO to stop Microsoft "dumping" 360's on the market at below cost price?
Coupled with Sony's desire to not only push their own content on HD discs, but to control that medium with their proprietary Blu-ray format
Does that sound like Betamax just for me?
So say we all
I agree with other posters. The parent is not flamebait.
U.S. Robotics makes routers and wifi equipment. When you lost interest in Zip drives did you also lose interest in all media formats? Did you chuck away that cd/dvd drive?
I still see you comparing apple's with oranges. It's nice to have better broadcast--satellite and cable are an extension to broadcast imo-- but people have always loved owning tangible movies/music/goods. I don't see that changing in the near future.
Hmmm... Pie...
No one is going to buy BluRay or HDDVD player, but in a year or 2, when the chinese are craking out DVD players that happen to play BluRay and HDDVD for $50, and output HD to component with a menu hack (hoping for this!!!), then we'll see movement....
The CSS license says you can't do that. You have to enforce all of the controls and nonsense, which means you need to build a whole player. You'd think that would violate an FTC regulation or two.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
All traces are disappearing from the net, but there is a system called Maxivision 48 that allowed 48 fps using only 20% (or something) more film than a regular 24 fps film.
e ma.comi visioncinema.com/maxivisioninfo1002.pdf
(late addition)
Perhaps you can see the info you want on the wayback machine:
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://maxivisioncin
And mostly the PDF at:
http://web.archive.org/web/20050312073714/www.max
(/late addition)
It used standard 35mm film stock, but removed the analog audio tracks along the side (rarely used anymore anyway) and reduced the pulldown (the amount the film advances with each frame). Basically, it was Super 35 withj a 3-perf pulldown, running at 48 (or optionally 24) fps.
There is an excellent article on Super 35 on wikipedia, perhaps you can get the idea from there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_35
Anyway, I'd like to see higher frame rates too. It'd take some work to make sure that various TV transfers (including DVDs, both high def and regular) can still be made from the high frame rate movies without looking funny.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
I know that sony bashing is very trendy these days on slashdot, but is it not possible that the ps3 is going to be exactly what we have all been waiting for the last ten years: an energy-efficient state of the art multiprocessor system running linux, hard drive, high density disc drive, powerful wifi capabilities etc etc.
And how about standard java vm? Firefox xul platform? Maybe a contract or two with search engine / online ad companies? Google anyone?
I for one am looking forward to some competition for the pc.
Thanks for the update on the Westinghouse, I'll stop using that as an example...
The one real problem is the ICT, the "flag of Damocles" the studios hold over us. That's enough reason to avoid any non-HDMI movie system IMHO, unless you're OK with also buying a real HDMI player when they inevitably bring it in.
That is exactly why as a consumer you shoud buy non HDMI equipment when possible. If enough non-HDMI equipment is sold then studios will never be able to enable this flag, and eventually what we'll see is cheaper equipment that drops HDMI support (as it is expensive to some degree to include support for it) but does provide DVI outputs for better quality. When that happens ITC is dead by default.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I got a badly scratched DVD from Netflix. It was unreadable due to disk errors. Their website told me to clean it with Windex, using only radial strokes, never circular. I did this, and the disk became readable. And the scratches seemed diminished. Were they not scratches in the first place? Or did the Windex dissolve something in the coating and reflow it?
Since then I've had to repeat the treatment on heavily scratched DVDs, and it's always worked.
Well actually I seem to remember back when PS2 was new, pretty much everyone who had one used it as a DVD player. And except for playing Gladiator in black and white for some bizarre reason, it always looked like a good DVD player.
I think PS3 will do pretty well here in the UK. Due to the general lack of HD content over here until now, a lot of people have held off upgrading so far - I've kept my old 28" CRT until now, because until the proper release of content there was no point in upgrading.
Sky HD launched here a few weeks ago, so I'm planning to wait a few more months, then get the TV and new Sky service together once there's a bit more worthwhile content. Would be nice to have in time for the world cup, but I'll probably be down the pub for that anyway.
That just leaves the DVD player to upgrade. I definitely want to swap that out to make better use of a £1000 or so TV. So far the most logical (and economic) option looks like the PS3.
You say that the ability of a console to play HD discs will be irrelevant to most people, but I seriously disagree here. The opposite might be true (people buying a HD disc player may not want games), but most gamers I know are also into films. For people upgrading their whole TV setup in one go, the PS3 is a very nice option.
...what the man-years (decades? centuries?) of wasted useful thought will be from video games before the Huns come.
(sorry, the last console I played with was a Magnavox Odyssey).
I dunno - I know- Iknow... it's offtopic but really - throw me a bone here. Is the time wasted? Does it contribute to personal (or world, or Hun repelling) development in any way?
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
There have been attempts at 48 fps cinema and according to just about everybody who has witnessed such things (Ebert for example) have said they liked it and it didn't look cheap (because it was shot with film cameras, not video cameras). It's just that the infrastructure isn't there to support movies released in a 48 fps film format.
Progressive 1920x1080x60fps shot with a good camera that can emulate film gamma will look incredible. You simply have no idea. Too bad we're stuck with interlaced 1080 for now :-(
I completely agree with what you're on about regarding Nintendo's franchises. Up until very recently, they've done nothing but re-release old versions of their games (this started just before the original GBA's launch and has been going on ever since). However, a few months ago, they've actually started cutting down on the retro crap. I like retro too, but I don't like it being the only thing shoved down my throat with nary an improvement as the only alternative.
What they've done instead is go for some nice sequels - or at least games in the same series. Yes, yes, they are sequels. I don't hate sequels, I hate *bad* sequels, just as I hate bad games that are the first in their series. And Nintendo's certainly had its share of bad sequels (apparently I'm alone in thinking Majora's Mask a turd, but there are other better examples). But these new games really show a spark that I haven't seen since... well, since early N64 for the Wii, and since Super Nintendo for the DS.
Super Mario Galaxy looks to be based more on the back to basics stages than the arduous Shine-hunting from Sunshine. Yoshi's Island 2 looks to not drag in the touch screen just for the hell of it. Super Princess Peach (some people will laugh now - their loss) looks absolutely amazing, like the Yoshi's Island for the DS. New SMB - what I've been holding out for for years; a new 2D Mario platformer! (Was that so fucking hard?)
For once, they've also got some strong third party support, especially with Red Steel, Need for Speed, Medal of Honor and *two* Square Enix RPGs. And for once, Nintendo's trying to create new games that don't necessarily look like stereotypical Nintendo games with Disaster: Day of Crisis, Excite Truck and Wii Sports.
(As for Wind Waker being "for children", I'm replaying it for the third time and I'm enjoying it way more than I did Ocarina of Time (N64), Link's Awakening (GB) or even A Link to the Past (SNES). I should note that I never liked the graphics in OoT either, but the reasons I like Wind Waker go far beyond the graphics. I don't own one game in which the controller feels painful, which is not saying that it isn't in SSX. I'm just saying that it's never been sub-par in the games I do own.)
To sum it up, I think that Nintendo's finally coming out of their slump. I was going to skip the DS entirely, but with the new games, I'm not so sure anymore. The new games may mostly reuse the old characters and ideas, and it's an issue of personal taste as to whether you think that's still a good idea. Some of the new games may even shoehorn in the Wiimote and the DS touching where none of it was needed, and that's not good either. But at the end of the day I think the new wave of games will be fundamentally better than what we've seen in a long time from Nintendo, and that's what matters.
$10 home theater systems.
Sorry, I missed a "K" there. I meant "$10k" or "$10,000". Hope nobody got confused there.
well,with linux pre installed on the machine,how sony will get her 20 million royalties per game? simply,she will block X from running on the machine using the OS SPE :3
the PS3 will aways have a SPE reserved for the Sony OS,that uses the Cell protection to avoid you to hacking it,then if sony does something that detects and kill X on the sight,there will be no way to use it on PS3
I want to note that I did not think youw ere lying, and in fact there are some good aspects to your post in that I'm not sure 1080p at 60 Hz can be done over component cables (appartenly it is possible over a digital connection such as DVI). I just wanted to make sure everyone was clear that it could be done, since there is a lot of confusion about.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
No one else has pointed this out, so I feel that I have to.
HD porn is amazing.
Sure, plasticised girls with surgery scars don't cut it in HD, but for real people who you'd actually want to see naked in real life, hell yes. It's like having them in the room with you. DVD just doesn't do that for me.
Now, I'm still going to be getting my porn, HD or not, from the internet. But I can imagine a lot of people upgrading, once they see the light(s-camera-fucking action!).
And its only a music player. The playstation is catering to the 18-34 market, lots of disposable income. A market that seems expecially willing to sacrafice large sums of cash on "cool" electronic devices. I think the ps3 will do very well, HT enthusiats and Hardcore gamers will drain the supply until the price comes down alittle. The xbox360 was and is still worth alot more than $399. http://photoud.com/ Photo Host
You are not a sound engineer familiar with phono cartridges i guess.
There are many phonograph needles available with DUAL coils, and the second coil allows frequencies to 32Khz, and measured in lab grade gear.
32Khz is far above the limit of a cd (44100 samples per second is only a max of 22050 Hz)
32Khz > 22Khz
vinyl has more fidelity, provable and measurable with lots of gear.
as for rumble or hiss, consult back issues of "Absolute Sound"
but basically, even if reading a vinyl record using lasers instead of needles, vinly pressings have more frequencies... more fidelity.
you might be able to claim that CD players are better if spending limit is under 40 dollars.
but if you have 5,000 dollars, cd players are not as good as vinyl
I'm certainly not. Anybody can claim to be a "sound engineer". I'm an Electronics Engineer, you have to go through five years of college to claim that. I'll give you a tip, the difference between a "sound engineer" and an Electronics Engineer is the same as between an astrologer and an Astronomer: math, lots of math.
There are many phonograph needles available with DUAL coils, and the second coil allows frequencies to 32Khz, and measured in lab grade gear.
You didn't read my post, did you? I never mentioned frequency response, but, since you mentioned it, vinyl records have that additional drawback, their frequency response is limited by the inductance in the coils. What does this "dual coil" have to do with the points I mentioned, that vinyl cartridge distortion and noise figures are so bad that no manufacturer cares to mention them? But yes, since you mention it, vinyl pick-ups are also limited in their frequency response by the inductance in the coils, so that, in order to get better frequency response, a few manufacturers use dual coils, and worsen even more the distortion and noise inherent in analog technology.
32Khz > 22Khz
And 22 kHz > 16 kHz, the upper limit that humans can hear, but no musical instrument ever reaches.
as for rumble or hiss, consult back issues of "Absolute Sound"
Well, now that you mention it, rumble is *yet another* limitation inherent to vinyl records. CDs can be slightly bent with no adverse effects, but vinyl records cannot.
you might be able to claim that CD players are better if spending limit is under 40 dollars.
The first true thing you have said.
but if you have 5,000 dollars, cd players are not as good as vinyl
If you have $5000 to spend in audio equipment, use about $500 or so to get some good CD player, amp, and speakers, and spend $4500 in beer and girls. You know, like "Wein, Weib, und Gesang"?
Clarification: re:"As for Wind Waker being "for children""
I meant to insinuate that I don't want to play with pedeophile friendly characterizations as my entertainment. After 30 - playing as a toddler depiction just seems - um - WRONG?
And don't get me frigging started on "tingle".
I think the name of the console "wii" is the least of Nintendo's problems.
They won't release the ps3 for 600 retail. There's no way they'll put it out there for more than 400. I personally won't pay over 200, so i'll be waiting a while.
nothing
What percentage of people actually use their consoles as a primary movie player?
My point exactly - I don't know either. It could be high, or it could be low. But one thing's for certain, which is that during my college years, two roommates of mine and two guests that frequented out flat didn't own a stand-alone DVD player for a time spanning at least three years. We all watched DVD out of the same PS2 player.
wich by the way is more expensive
That's stupid. Why don't you compare products in the same price range?
AND less powerfull
It can already show pics, videos, and play music. I have never even heard of a review complaining about lack of power in iPods.
AND has a smaller screen
AND actually fits in a pocket.
AND supports fewer codecs then its rivals
Well... that's very true! But the iPod accessory industry already produces software for converting video to something playable.
That being said, the iPod is not the end-all and be-all consumer product, because people have different needs. That's what the remaining 30% of the market is for.
Please, you dunderhead, understand this:
1 4/qid=1148998944/ref=sr_1_14/002-5539633-6642460?_ encoding=UTF8&s=audio-video
I, or members of my family, have purchased very high quality CRTs in the past. They are fron the usual suspects: Panasonic, GE, Zenith, RCA, etc. With the exception of the console, I've never spent over $400 for a TV.
Now, to tell me I must buy a "very affordable" or, in the words of Ken Kutaragi, "too cheap" $1500 Magnetbox/Sorny/Pahaphonics from Walmart is both idiotic and deceptive. Are you afraid to quote prices from the name brands because they really are too high?
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000A2UAN/sr=1-
This thing is on CLEARANCE for $9000, down from SEVENTEEN THOUSAND DOLLARS. Yes, it's a corner case, but every bit as valid as chucking $1000 off-brands at us as if they're either a desirable replacement for our current equipment or a sign that the entire HDTV market is suddenly affordable to everyone.
When I can get a 27-32 inch widescreen from RCA/Zenith/Phillips for about $500, then we can talk about HDTV affordability and adoption - not a second before.
In case you haven't noticed, you also kill people, sail using a talking boat, shoot frogs in cyclones with arrows... it's a fucking game! Pedophile-friendly? Even if you don't desperately want to hate that game and are running out of real excuses, your argumentation certainly makes it sounds like it. (A "toddler" he's not, by the way - you can't swing a master sword on Outset Island without hitting smaller kids by far, and they look to be about 5 years old.)
I agree with you that Tingle is the biggest pain in the ass in Zelda ever (I did mention how I hated Majora's Mask), but knowing how the rest of the game plays and how little you actually need to interact with him, it's not worth being blinded by that and miss out on the rest of the game.
You have been trolled. Please don't feed the trolls.
I mean pedophile friendly? Technically that's just a flame, like saying "your mother wears army boots" (well, more offensive, but you know what I mean.). There's no point in arguing with it because it's the kind of thing a 12 year old would come up with. It's stupid.
math, lots of math.
as a second year electronic engineering student having just done a communication principles course that basically assumed perfect (as in impossible/non-causal) filters throughout i'm not sure i'd agree there.
maybe in the third or fourth year if you take the right specialisms you'll be able to comment on real modern digital filters.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
If you look at all the cost factors, it becomes fairly obvious the main thing driving up the PS3 console price is one thing - the Blu-Ray drive.
Sadly, since Sony is trying to capture the market, they've priced themselves out of market winner for the console, which will result in lower Blu-Ray sales at the $600 PS3 pricing.
Very short-sighted. They forget that Beta and VHS was won not by technical wonder, but by the fact shift workers like me could go on shift and record the "normal" TV they would have watched if they didn't go to work at 6 pm and come home at 2 am. It allowed us to time shift our TV viewing (which before was virtually nil, as we didn't watch soaps or local news) so that we could appear normal at family gatherings.
I bought one of the first RCA VCRs. I remember all my tech friends telling me how wonderful Betamax was and how silly I was in buying VHS, but all I cared about was getting some sleep and not feeling like a dunce at parties. I was 19, so that was way more important.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Heh - neither was Michael Jackson. His lawyers on the other hand....
Such a brave generalization and troll accusation from someone not wanting to risk karma points. How brave of you. Lessie - I accuse a game of having a todler depiction. OMG! it's a troll!!!! One wonders if you bleed to death in the rain.
I thought it was a valid observation of a game. A brief one - but still valid.
Your comments about "dwindling market" and whatnot are entirely besides the point. The console gaming market is still hugely lucrative (to the tune of $6bn in software sales alone last year), much more so than the PC gaming market (which is less than one-quarter the size).
Now, you might very well be right that there is a market out there for the Wii, but you have no evidence of how large it is or how lucrative it is outside perhaps your own feelings. Meanwhile, there is a very large and very real market out there for Sony and Microsoft to target.
Also, your comments about the demographics of the gaming market are off. The average gamer is now quite a bit older than 18, and if you think a $500 console is going to put-off even the teenage market, think again. These are the same people that spend $100 for a pair of jeans and walk around school with $300 iPods that often get stolen and quickly replaced. The XBox 360 flew off the shelves at $400, $100 more isn't going to hurt the PS3 substantially.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
A D&D life simulator?
The console market isn't hugely into PC-style RPGs. The only console they really took off on is the XBox, whose library heavily overlaps the PC one anyway. When a console gamer talks about RPGs, they mean something like Star Ocean or Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest. These sorts of RPGs are a very big genre, especially in Japan. To put it into perspective, three of the last four Final Fantasy games (VII, VIII, and X) are on the top-20 most-sold games list, each with at least 7.5m sales. Only the top-4 PC games (Myst, Starcraft, The Sims, and Half Life) have more sales. Morrowind isn't even close (at 4.5m for Elder Scrolls III and 1.7m for IV), and even the Halos, as popular as they are, didn't make the top-20.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
The point is that normal DVI does not have to make use of DHCP, yet still is a digital signal that can carry higher resolutions with the same quality as HDMI (since as you know HDMI is just combining encrypted DVI with audio).
I don't find it that much of a convienience personally though since audio generally goes to a receiver, and video to a display.
If you buy HDMI enabled quipment you let them turn on the flag anytime they like. If enough people simply do not have the interface there is no temptation and the flag is certain never to be enabled. Why risk that if you don't have to? The pack is until 2010 so it's a cheap bet to have a high quality device for any number of years, even if they do turn the flag back on in 2010 you've still got many good years of use from your equipment and can buy up.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Slashdot had a story about the 2010 agreement (really from a german source, link in story) - you're right that 's not exactly official.
HDMI may not have to include HDCP but as a practical matter it does in every piece of equipment that has it.
I agree I don't think you can avoid buying displays that have it, as you say pretty much every new HD display includes it (though I do not imagine that always to be true). What you are able to do thanks to Sony and Microsoft is not buy players that make use of it. If you buy any 360 to play HD-DVD, or the $500 PS3 you'll be contributing to a base of people that will not buy movies if they enable that flag. Bteween that and vigilant complaints if they ever do a trial balloon of a title with ICT enabled, we can pretty much halt the thing forever.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
and they still won't care.
If they really didn't care they'd just turn on the ICT flag now.
The fact is they do care, very much - they care to sell. In the end the desire to sell override the other instinct to lock away the media so that no-one could use it.
That is why it's important to keep the equation such that the desire to sell will always outweigh the desire to lock down the content.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Let's not forget that Microsoft plans to bundle Halo III with 360 consoles, and launch competitively launch them on the same day the PS3 launches.
If the $600 pricetag doesn't kill the PS3 all by itself, the competition will.
BWAHAAHAHAAAAHAHAHAH, THAT IS A GOOD ONE! Heh.. Halo 3 & the Xbox360 killing the PS3, who on earth would buy such a load of bullshit......