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PS3 Apparently A Computer
Rinzai writes to mention an article on Gamasutra, noting a statement by Ken Kutaragi where the CEO states that the PS3 is a computer, not a console. From the article: "He went on to outline a scenario where many parts of the PS3 were upgradeable, much more like a PC, noting: 'Since PS3 is a computer, there are no models but configurations', and continuing (though talking in the theoretical): 'I think it's okay to release a [extended PS3] configuration every year'. It's clear from the comments that Sony is indicating that it will be possible to upgrade hard drives and perhaps even other components easily."
'Luck with that one guys.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
Consumers of gaming consoles buy consoles for gaming, not because it is a computer.
Even with the "extra" feature of being a computer, at the price it is, it will most probably sell very badly, if not fail.
Sorry Sony, you made a *serious* mistake. Remember that money is one of the most important things in this world, even if it comes and goes.
...so is my Abacus.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Its certainly priced like a computer, not a console.
So if the PS3 is basically a computer, why not get a computer?
A computer, huh? Sold! And here I was afriad my $600 machine was only gonna be able to play games.
Seriously, is there any distinction anymore? Does being easily upgradeable magically make it a "computer"? I still consider my original NES - having a processor, input interface, and the ability to read instructions on ROMs and provide output - "basically a computer".
This sounds more like a change in marketing strategy than anything else (compare "hey, the PS3 is twice the cost of these other consoles" to "hey, this PS3-computer-thingy is only half the cost of my desktop computer!") Either way, I wouldn't be pleased knowing that after shelling out $600 I will have the option to pay more next year to keep the thing updated.
Disclaimer: I'm a Nintendo fanboy and have never had any interest in PlayStation consoles.
Atari VCS: Atari, Spectravideo, and Perphial Visions Inc. all tried to create a keyboard for it. Only the Spectravideo keyboard made it to market. Only the Spectravision keyboard made it to market. It flopped.
Intellivision: Mattel promised from day 1 that the Intellivision would be able to be turned into a full computer by adding a special keyboard component. Unfortunately, the component proved too expensive to manufacture. When Mattel was finally forced to release the product due to an FTC fine, nearly every unit was returned as broken or defective. Mattel then shifted gears in a hurry and released the Entertainment Computer System, a quick hack produced by a secret project that was intended to get Mattel out of hot water. Predictably, it flopped in the market.
Odyssey 2: Magnavox actually integrated a keyboard into this console, but gave no thought to an OS, tape drive, or printer. There was a BASIC kit released for the European version, but otherwise this console's potential as a computer was sadly underutilized.
Coleco Adam: Coleco had the bright idea of creating a computer that could play Colecovision games. Consumers couldn't decide whether or not it was a game machine or a serious "home computer" system. Combined with its odd design (the power was routed through the printer) it flopped in the market.
Atari 5200: This actually WAS a computer packed into a game system case. Unsurprisingly, no peripheral components were produced to prevent competition with the Atari 400/800 systems.
Atari 7800: Again, a keyboard component was created, but never marketed. With Nintendo deciding NOT to ship the Famicom Floppy Disk Drive in America, Atari may have finally realized that trying to make a game console into a computer wasn't such a good idea.
PlayStation 2: Sony tries to make the PlayStation into a generic computer with a keyboard/mouse attachment, a harddrive, and a copy of Linux. Sony kills the product citing poor sales.
PlayStation 3: Sony tries to differentiate their console by claiming that "it's a computer". Welcome to the 1980s.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Of course they're computers. Whether or not you can use them easily in a general purpose manner is another issue entirely. EG, my Linksys WRT54GL is a computer and can easily be used as a general purpose device by uploading 3rd party firmware such as OpenWRT. So can my Dreamcast. On the other hand, I can't do the same with my XBox 360 (at least until someone figures out how to run unsigned code). But they're all computers nonetheless.
Forgetting for the moment that all videogame consoles are computers...
What else could be upgraded besides the hard drive? I really doubt you'll be able to swap in a new CPU or GPU. Maybe RAM like you could upgrade on the N64. (though I have my doubts) Or, does he mean that new PS3s will be more powerful than the old ones and that the old ones won't be upgradable?
What would be the point of continuing to call it a PS3 then? People who bought a PS3 for $600 in 2006 would be homicidal if a "PS3" game was released a couple years down the line that couldn't be played (or maybe it could only be played at a low resolution/framerate) on their old PS3. People expect a game for a console to just work in that console.
Also, wasn't the PS2's official title "computer entertainment system"? Look how that worked out.
"'I think it's okay to release a [extended PS3] configuration every year'. It's clear from the comments that Sony is indicating that it will be possible to upgrade hard drives and perhaps even other components easily."
Please note that nowhere does it state that the CONSUMER will be able to upgrade hard drives or other components easily. In fact, what they are implying is that they will release a different "upgraded-from-core" model every year. I would assume that one would have to buy the entire thing to get any upgraded components. After all, I don't think Joe Sixpack is going to be comfortable swapping out a hard drive on a PS3 any more than on a "real" computer.
The world moves for love. It kneels before it in awe.
There is no way that plan will pan out. There's a reason that people choose consoles over computers: they are a known, stable hardware platform which is easy for developers to target, and thus every game works reliably. The second you start allowing significantly different versions of the consoles to exist, you run into compatibility issues, users being unclear which version of the console a given game will work on, developers being unwilling to take advantage of the hardware in order to avoid alienating users, and a host of other issues.
Limited, carefully-controlled upgrades can succeed (e.g. memory expansion for N64), but so far has only worked when distributed as a pack-in in a popular game. Significant console upgrades (e.g. every upgrade ever released for the Genesis) have all failed in the marketplace, for the reasons described above.
Sony owned the market. The PS3 was a guaranteed success. A license to print money. And now they seem fixated on painting a target on their feet, merrily humming away, completely ignoring what their potential customers actually want. Nintendo could easily leverage this into a return to first place in the market, if they play their cards right.
ZFS: because love is never having to say fsck
Um, I thought the whole point of a console was to give everyone the same configuration so that developers can target a single stable platform without having to worry about configuration issues....
So, if it's a "computer", does that mean that they'll let me in to hack to my hearts content without any sort of encryption key BS? Or are they still going to try to lock me out of my own "computer"?
The only reason he's claiming its a computer is so it can skip some import duty in the UK and EC.
They tried the same stunt with the Playstation 2.
So now they are saying it's a Computer to explain the price. Ok I can understand that.
What I still can't understand is why they refuse to talk about the OS in it. if they plan for it to be a "Computer" then how are they going to pull it off with a closed OS?
I've only heard them say "It will come preinstalled with Linux!" well big woop there, I could sell PC's preinstalled with linux, doesn't mean people will want to buy it if they find out that Linux is completly locked down with me owning the master account and not telling them what it is so they can't install, update or view hardly anything. Oh and I could access their computer at any point in time I would like when they are connected to the internet.
,br> so far the only thing's I know about the OS are, It's Linux.
Not exactly something that makes me want to rush out and buy this "Computer", especially when doing a search for "Linux OS" returns about 4,560,000 results, and having tried to use linux on 5 seperate occasians I know there are atleast 10 different versions of a "Linux OS" with god knows how many more.
So far they have said it will be Linux and then showed off THEIR web browser (which makes me wonder if it will be possible to even install an alternate browser on this Linux) yet that is all.
So we are basically paying $600 (cause the $500 model is pointless) for a locked down, nonuseable "computer" with a Blu-Ray drive. wow, just makes me all giddy to get one (and I used to be someone who would be waiting in line (and i HATE waiting in lines) to get this thing, till they announced $600 as the price and hardly anything else about it after that).
They downgraded it! I thought it was meant to be a supercomputer...
Did you get that thing I sent ya?
From Sony's past behavior with the PS2, it seems to me that the computer classification is not targeted at the end user, but rather, the bill collectors.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/1003076.stm
about 1 in 5 of these articles turn out to be anything more than misquotes, press releases out of context, rumors or just simple errors.
We get it, we get it already: Sony = Evil, the console is awful and if you buy it the CEO of Sony will come to your house and shit on your children. Enough already.
there is no need to sign your posts. this isn't usenet. your username is right there above your post. stop it.
I'm a Computer!!
"To lead the people, you must walk behind them"
As has been noted countless times, you can do 1080p over component cables. There are TV's out today (for as low as $1700!) that do so. You'll be able to buy Blu-Ray movies and play them at 1080i at least until 2012.
Given all that, why must you spend $100 more when the only thing you gain is an unwelcome does of DRM with HDMI?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It didn't work with the 32X or the Sega CD. It didn't work with the N64 RAM upgrade or the 64DD. It sure as hell didn't work with the PS2 HDD. I have no idea why Sony thinks it can pull this upgrade crap off.
It's getting so bad that the more times Kutaragi shoots off his mouth, the more I think that he is purposely sabotaging the PS3 out of anger that he was not named CEO. I thought Nintendo requiring a $50 (?) upgrade to their $200 N64 was crazy. This is just ridiculous.
Come on, Ken. You are selling this idea to people who pay some goon at Best Buy to install their new sound card.
Watch, in two years $600 will get you a PS3 with BD-ROM with a decent speed, a HD big enough to actually give you some advantage loading your games, and enough RAM to actually play the new games.
There is absolutely no reason to buy a PS3 before Sony makes their plans perfectly clear in this regard. Fuzzy quotes about what you might need in the future to make your $600 paperweight playable again is an insult to any potential customers.
Not to leapfrog over it. If you take a serious look at the Xbox 360 you will see some of the same upgradability built in. Plus since most of it's software is really an internet service, the interface can be upgraded seamlessly on the fly. Sony has to create something similar or face being marginalized.
While I agree with most people here that the PS3 will be overpriced, I want all that functionality to be built in. I want my game console to also play DVD's, MP3 from my computer, record TV, output digital Audio in every format known to man (DTS 7.1 anybody?), download new expansions to existing games through the Internet, etc. Come one people. Why would you not want this stuff? Even if you use only part of the functionality of the system, it still adds to the value if you use that part. Plus Microsoft screwed people by offering reletively small hard drives with the 360 when it shipped. I hope that Sony will offer 300GB upgrades because frankly, I could use them.
And lastly dammit, I want a keyboard! It's freakin' hard typing in chat with a controller! Just allow the device to use a wireless standard keyboard or a USB one like the PS2 does already.
Here's a better motto.
"Winners don't use rootkits."
Oh, wait...
If the PS3 is declared a computer then it does not attract this tax in the UK for example. For this very reason Sony shipped the PS2 with a very simple programming language, thereby allowing them to call it a programmable computer (with some educational value) and qualifying for an import taqx break.
Nick.
Opportunity knocks. Karma hunts you down.
It's called a Mac
Holy crap. Sony has gone insane.
As other posters have pointed out, this has been tried and tried and tried and tried. Intellivision. Atari. Coleco. Even priced efficiently, it's never worked and for good reason: the WHOLE POINT of owning a console is to ONLY HAVE A SINGLE, STANDARD CONFIG!!
I bought Half Life 2 when it came out, and I still haven't been able to play the damned thing despite owning a machine far more powerful than the specs require. The thing keeps crashing, and after several months of watching the Steam forums Valve came up with a workaround for the many, many others who had the same problem: go into BIOS and jiggle your memory timing! Well, that's great. Only my particular motherboard doesn't have that option, and even if it did, I sure wouldn't be screwing around with BIOS just to get a single program running. Far as I know, Valve *still* hasn't fixed the problem; as far as they're concerned, it's already fixed. Just jiggle your timing, guys.
That whole experience drove me away from Valve for good and back to my trusty PS2 for gaming. Yeah, games have bugs, but if a game doesn't work then it doesn't work *anywhere*. In the console world, you simply never have game developers telling you to jiggle your friggin' memory timings just to get their damned product to run. Again, that's the whole advantage of being a console gamer over being a PC gamer; take that away and no thanks, I'll keep my real computer, thanks. Microsoft isn't this stupid and my slimline PS2 is doing just fine.
Dammit, Sony, don't you realize that Microsoft isn't your greatest competitive challenge here? Or Nintendo? Are you so stupidly blind that you can't see that the PS3's most dangerous competitor is the PS2? You know, that extremely stable platform with thousands of quality titles that developers know inside and out, the one that isn't trying to be anything other than what it is? Don't you realize that there are millions of folks like me who aren't debating between the PS3 and the 360, but over whether or not to ditch our trusty PS2s for this trick pony that's looking more and more like a '48 Tucker?
Does this mean I'll be able to class it as a computer for taxation purposes? :D
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
(from "Burning Chrome" (1982), via jessesworld)
sig? Oh, that sig...
All I can see from this is negative. <shrugs> Maybe the console people won't mind creating two seperate versions of the same game, one for the older PS3, and one for the newer PS3's... but something tells me that they won't spend the kind of time and money that that would require. The result will be that customers are going to get screwed.
/dev/random
For that price, and at that size, I'd certainly hope it's a computer. Hell, if it wasn't loaded with DRM that will probably keep me or anyone else from running unsigned code and all that jazz without simultaneously voiding the warranty and breaking the law, and could run any operating system I'd deem fit for it - which it probably won't - I'd consider it a definite alternative to a new personal computer bought from, let's say, Dell. A $600 personal computer that could act as a powerful server, router, or high-end workstation? Now that's a deal! Let's not fool ourselves, though. This thing isn't a personal computer, it's a glorified game console with a number of features usually associated with a home entertainment center. We're not going to be using this hardware to do our work or for other more casual purposes you'd use a personal computer, workstation, or server for. The point of the Playstation 3 is games, and little much else.
That said, these market-tards from Sony need to get their act together. If you want to make a cheap, powerful computer, make a cheap powerful computer. (And for fuck's sake, open it up you morons. One Playstation 3, hold the DRM.) If you want to make an overpriced game console, make an overpriced game console. Clearly they're attempting to justify the high price of the machine, and make it look cheap by comparison to a personal computer. Silly question, Mr. Sony CEO, just how dumb do I look to you?
Oh, is that so? Well, you're a presumptuous asshole. Bite me.
And that's one reason why. If I want a game console, I can get a 360 and a Wii for the price of one PS3. If I want general purpose computing, I already have a computer that I can hack around on, without Trusted Computing BS. There are plenty of good games that work fine, and my monitor is almost the resolution of a high-end HDTV. And if I want high-def video, I can *cough* buy porn that'll play on Linux with no DRM at all, downloaded, in high def, with none of the BS restrictions of Blu-Ray.
If Sony wants me to buy the PS3, they need a killer app for it. Throwing in everything under the sun comes close to being a killer app, even if they haven't come up with a single innovation. The deal-breaker is, I already have a machine that does all that and more, and it's called a PC -- and even if I didn't, I wouldn't buy a PS3 if I could get a decent PC for about twice as much, and I can.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I think this guy is talking bullfluff. Case in point: "possibly" making it easy to upgrade. Either the console, err 'computer' was designed from the bottom-up with the idea to make upgrades simple, or it wasn't. Saying "possibly" tells me the marketing department filtered this one, and poorly at that. Perhaps they should consider calling it a different name other than PS3? You know, catchy in the way only a Sony can be: like MX-DJi7, or PEG-UX9875J.
The PS3 is a "meta format," Kutaragi has stated in previous interviews. This means that the PlayStation 3 platform can exist in various hardware configurations, as long as its meets certain base specifications and can run the same basic games. The two configurations that will be available at launch provide a perfect example.
Source: http://ps3.ign.com/articles/711/711688p1.html
So it seems as though all consoles will have the same base stats for all games. I'll be the only upgradeable stuff will be superficial like a bit more ram for linux apps or more hard drive space.
Hmmm... Pie...
While Sony seems to be pretty much 'all over the place' with regards to their descriptions of the new console, what they are really trying to do with this 'its a computer' type marketing schpeal, is try to emphasize that they are focusing on making a 'computer' that is designed to be component-based, not 'fixed' with it's hardware.
For example, look at a typical home stereo. It's built of several individual components, a tuner, an amplifier, a cd player / dvd player, etc.
What if the gaming console went the direction of just becoming 'another' component in the overall home entertainment unit? don't want a normal dvd drive? want to upgrade to a blue-ray drive? just swap the components. Want a larger storage device? Just plug in a larger USB drive and voila.
That type of thing.
Instead of being a 'computer' like the rest of the industry is used to thinking about them, turn it into just another component in the rest of the Sony 'Home Entertainment' platform, and these statements & Sony's actions as of late begin to make sense.
The funniest part about this is all of the whining about the price point for the PS3. Look at the rest of the components for a mid to high-end entertainment system. Most of those ocmponents are all going to likely be upwards of 500$ or more.
Most people that have hardcore entertainment systems have thousands of dollars in amplifiers, speakers & TV setups - what's $500 for the centerpiece of the entertainment system? Which is really what the so-called 'next-gen' of consoles is really all about - replacing the DVD player / CD player with a single unit that can play CD's, play DVD's, play killer next-gen games, serve as your HD-based storage media device, provide net access etc.
I'd like to know how many people that are complaining about the PS3 price point have an iPod? The new high-end iPod's are almost as much as the PS3 is going to cost, and they JUST play music (ok, so some of them play shit-ass video on a tiny screen that might possibly output low-res video to an external screen).
The PSP was almost the same price when it was released - the DS is almost the same price...
Spending $500 (ish) dollars on something that will 'supposedly' do everything the PS3 can do is hardly excessive, and Sony is more than likely correct in their thinking about the price point.
With all of this said, they really need to get their 'sh*t' together on their marketing though. They have shoot themselves in the foot so many times with confused, contradictory marketing speak that by the time it actually gets released, I'm curious whether anyone will care...
Gekido's Lair
Basically, every games consoles is already a computer, but without an input device, i.e. the keyboard and local storage device. Now the PS3 with Linux, USB keyboard and mouse installed makes an excellent home computer. And the most important thing that a lot of the posters seem to miss, is that every games will run on the basic configuration. The expansion capabilities is mainly for aplications or multimedia capabilities. If you just wants to plays games, there's nothing to stop you. It's like buying a cellphone, today, at the very least it will have SMS function, it's up to you whether you want to use it or not.
The closest analogy of what PS3 is trying to achieved is the Commodore Amiga. I know American are basically ignorant of anything outside of an Apple or Wintel, but this is a computer that outperform both platform in it's days. And it was also the best games machine until rise of the popularity of the dedicated video games console. I suggest you people check the Amiga entry in Wikipedia. Here is some example of choice passages:
The Amiga was originally designed by a small company called Amiga Corporation as the ultimate video games machine. Before the machine was released into the market, the company was bought out by Commodore, and it was redesigned into a real, general-purpose computer. The first model, called the Amiga 1000, was released in 1985 as a successor to the Commodore 64 and a rival to the Atari ST.
Commodore later released several new Amiga models, both for low-end gaming use and high-end productivity use. Throughout the 1980s, the Amiga's combination of advanced hardware and operating system software offered greater power than its competitors, but in the 1990s, other platforms, most of all the PC, reduced or eliminated this advantage.
At the time of its introduction (1985) the Amiga had what was a complex overall architecture, featuring co-processors suited for audio and visual tasks. In many eyes this made the Amiga superior to all competing systems, despite competitors offering faster CPUs, high(er) resolution monochrome graphics and MIDI.
The platform had three significant upgrades (not counting non-Commodore technologies), with the Amiga 2000 in 1987, Amiga 3000 in 1989 and the Amiga 4000 in 1992. These upgrades improved the platform's graphical abilities, allowing for more colors and different display modes, and added expansion slots and ports.
Trivia:
* The Amiga was originally intended to be a workstation. When the A1000 was release, it was advertised as a business machine, but it didn't make it, until it began to be used as an videogame computer.
Trivia: * The Amiga was one of the first computers for which one could buy cheap accessories for sound sampling and video digitization. This means that not only can the Amiga produce computer-generated images and sound, but users can input "real" images and sound for editing, composition, and use in computer games.
The Amiga can display graphics in 32 bit colour, well before microsoft or apple. Its revolutionary visual processor made it the first computer used to do digital effects for a tv program.
In the PC/Amiga/ST rivalry, the quality of the Amiga's sound output, and the fact that the hardware is ubiquitous and easily addressed by software, was the standout feature of Amiga hardware that the PC lagged behind for years.
Operating systems:
At the time of release AmigaOS was the only consumer oriented operating system to feature both pre-emptive multitasking and a GUI. This, coupled with closely integrated custom hardware, gave the average consumer the experience of an OS well ahead of its time. One reason for extraordinarily loyal fan base is due to the strengths of the machine at the time: it has a stable, compact, efficient, multitasking OS, it is relatively easy to program for, software has relatively easy access to the hardware (the base hardware was fixed so software could be coded specifically to the hardware), there is a we