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PS3's Smart Back-Compat, PS4 Doesn't Play Discs
Good news for Sony fans looking forward to the PS3. Eurogamer reports that the system will feature backwards compatibility with memory cards as well as games. From the article: "An update to Sony's PlayStation 3 website has revealed that you will be able to use older PlayStation memory cards with PlayStation 3 - providing you buy an adapter. An entry in the official PS3 FAQ states: 'To use saved data on a PlayStation 2 memory card, you must copy the data onto a virtual memory card within the hard disk.'" Microsoft could have really used something like that for the Xbox/360 switchover. Relatedly, Sony is looking ahead ... way ahead, even to their next console. Wired has a piece looking at the future of downloads in the games industry. From that article: "Microsoft is releasing an HD-DVD drive for the Xbox 360. Both companies are even touting the ability of these new discs to play movies in even higher hi-def. That struggle, however, is ultimately meaningless. 'I'd be amazed if the PlayStation 4 has a physical disc drive,' [Sony's Phil] Harrison says."
If it wasn't for the £500 ($800) price tag, I might consider getting one; I've had good use out of my brothers PS2, and a feature like this sounds great. I hope that Nintendo and Microsoft are watching as I havn't bought a Next-Gen console yet, and this can only be good for compitition.
If I have nothing to hide, you have no reason to search me
That's all well and good and exciting. I like the idea of pure digital delivery in some ways. (though I also long for the day of elaborate packaging and pack-ins like the old Wing Commander games had)
But what's this going to do for retail support? EB, Gamestop, Best Buy, WalMart, etc. They make nothing on consoles, and make their money on the games. Just like the Console manufacturers themselves often do. What's the incentive for retailers to carry a product they make no money on, that gives them no future rev stream either?
A few options come to mind, such as binding each console to a serial number, the retailer that sold that console gets a spiff for each game sold to it via the online service. There will be accessory sales to be sure, but they're a pittance compared to game sales.
It's an interesting idea, but I don't know how well it would work. Seems to have problems to overcome as well.
Touch everywhere, even when inappropriate.
I doubt the PS4 will exist if Sony doesn't concentrate more on making the PS3 more appealing.
"Microsoft could have really used something like that for the Xbox/360 switchover." It's hard to say how much good an adapter for xbox memory cards would have done, though. Many xbox games won't allow you to transfer saves to a memory card and given that no game (that I know of) required one, a much smaller percentage of owners had them. There's nothing to say that MS couldn't still release software to allow users to transfer saves from one xbox to another or from an xbox to a 360, though.
'I'd be amazed if the PlayStation 4 has a physical disc drive,' [Sony's Phil] Harrison says.
Considering the reaction to the PS3 thus far, I don't think it's safe to make ANY predictions about the PS4. There will almost definitely be one, yes, but who knows what Sony will have to do to make it successful?
Actually, scratch that - it's an idiotic idea. No longevity once Sony moves on to a new console, no physical ownership, no used games market to help make the hobby more affordable...and there's that fact that broadband still isn't widespread enough or fast enough to support the massive game downloads that this generation of consoles, let alone the next one, is going to demand.
Something tells me that, if Sony eliminates the disc drive, it'll be an even bigger blunder than anything they've done to date.
Goo goo g'joob.
The title of this story implies that it's a known fact that the PS4 won't use discs. "The end of the disc" is inevitable, but how does anybody know it will happen in the PS4 era?
....to find some good news when they're making a big thing about being able to your old PS2 memory cards. Especially when you consider that you need to buy an adapter, and that you can't use the data on the card as such, only a virtual version of it copied to the machine's HD. Therefore what this *actually* means that you in fact *can't* use your old cards, you can only convert the data, assuming you're prepared to shell out for another piece of optional hardware, and I dread to think how much these adapters are going to cost.
This is hardly a major positive for the PS3, but they're trying desperately to dressing it up as one.
If you've got a memory card with game data on, then I'd say it's more than a little likely that you've also got a PS2. Why not just save yourself the effort (and additional cost) and run your old saved games on that?
Let me get this straight...for $500 i get the base PS3. For $600 i get the "upgraded" model and STILL can't import older PS2 game files without buying an adapter. How much is sony going to charge for that? $50 for the basic curcuit board and $60 for the full model with plastic casing.
Where have I heard this before? You know this sounds really familiar...I swear...this has been talked about before...Hm, maybe I am just confused...
"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb."
But I'm sure Phil is talking out of his butt. Or I hope so. I have no intention of relying on an internet connection to play games. Either to download or verify ownership. It would be nice to see manucaturers move away from disc-type media and back on to solid state RAM/ROM. Just for the sake of speed and power consumption. And who knows, maybe in 10years it will be cost effective enough to do just that. I'm sure storing games on a HDD or something similar will be feasable then. Loading times make me lose interest every time I see one.
Who knows, maybe in 10 years the dev costs will go down somehow and great games won't cost 200 bucks each.
This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
I take it you don't play any Valve games then, eh?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Did you mean "you've also got a PS2", or did you mean "you've also got a working PS2"? Remember that Sony consoles tend to break down more often than Nintendo consoles, especially in the first twelve months after launch of a console.
Because I bought a PS3 to replace my broken PS2 (and to play PS3 games).
I think Sony should focus on making a cheaper console when it comes time to design the PS4. I think Nintendo will do quite well with the WII partly because it's the cheapest and partly because of the access to old games. Old games aren't as much fun as they were when we first got them but a lot of them still have many hours of fun left in them. Sony and Nintendo both seem to understand this, although this is the first time that Nintendo has offered anything like this. Sony knew backwards compat was important with the PS2. It's a damn shame MS missed the boat on this. I know the 360 is somewhat compat but I've heard everything from some games don't work at all to they all work great so I don't know who to believe. I have a lot of XBox games but they weren't all mainstream games that were uber popular so I've no idea if they will work. I never had a problem with any of my PS1 games in my PS2. Here's hoping the PS3 doesn't dissapoint in that area.
How is it that one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?
What if... the distribution medium isnt' online, but... solid state? 10 years ought to be enough dev time on that tech..
And to keep this from being totally off topic... you mention that this is the first time Nintendo has offered any sort of backward compatibility. Maybe with consoles, but the new GameBoys have almost always been able to play old GameBoy titles. My GBA can play every single one of my old original GameBoy carts.
Everything I say is a lie. Except that... and that... and that, and that, and that, and that... and that.
"they are the only console maker to really make their next generation console capable of playing previous generations"
-except for Atari, and Nintendo's Gameboys, and Sega Genesis powerconverter...
and I'm a 30 year old console collector....
Theres no way I'm going to move to a primarly online based subscription service.
These pretzels are making me thirsty.
As far as Consoles go; Atari, Did it first.
uh, no. The PS3 is backwards compatible with games, too.
Still waiting...
[javac] 100 errors
You just made my decision for me - I will never buy anything associated with Blu-Ray, as you have just indicated that it is a stop-gap for a diskless content delivery system in approx. 5 years but no more than 10.
I guess I'll just hold on to my "plain old" DVD's and non-HD TV until then, or show patronage to another company's products/standards.
Man, I was on the fence about Steam for quite a while. I bought HL2, I played it, I played a little CS:Source. Now? I'll occasionally consider installing HL2 to give it another play-through, but then I always decide that it's just not worth the time that my computer will be occupied downloading and decrypting shit.
Worse for Valve? I'd like to play Episode I, but I've put off buying it, because I've got unpleasant memories of large downloads and inconveniently-timed, seemingly-pointless Steam updates. At this rate, if I ever play it, it'll probably be a spur-of-the-moment Bittorrent download of some pirated version that'll sit in BitComet for a day or two while I go on with my other gaming and computing tasks (since it's not doing decrypting bullshit like Steam does, eating processor cycles) until I remember that I had it downloading, check, see that it's done, play it, then delete it.
If I didn't have to dick around with Steam, I'd very likely have given up the $20 they want for the box at stores within a couple weeks of it coming out. Now? I doubt they'll ever get my money. It's not an ideological thing, it's just that Steam is too damn annoying.
Yeah, kind of offtopic. Sorry.
..of thinking the vast majority of the PS3's intended audience actually pay attention to things like E3, post to slashdot, or even GET obscure humor related to "gigantic crabs."
The videogame hardcore audience has essentially already made up it's mind, but it amounts to little more than a vocal minority. Most of those Sony is banking on to buy the Ps3 know little more than that they enjoyed the Ps1 and Ps2 so the Ps3 is likely a safe bet. Will the price give them pause? Maybe. But Price is almost never an issue for the "hot product" come holiday season (Remember when tickle me elmo's and cabbage patch kids were going for hundreds of dollars? Parents were fighting each other in Walmart just to get one) and consoles ALWAYS drop in price as time goes on. In a year or two this won't even be an issue.
There are over 100 million PS2's in existence today. Do you not think many of them would like to be able to use existing save games playing older PS2 titles on the PS3? How can you claim backwards compatibility without support the save games a user might also have.
This was a major point of concern for me I had seen no information on, a very practical matter that every PS2 owner would care a lot more about than any squabble over Blu-Ray succeeding as a movie format. I guess you've forgotten the PS3 is primarily for GAMES. So game related news is indeed meaningful and welcome because mostly what we've had till now is a lot of bitching and no new information.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Sony has stated before they want the console to last ten years, so you'll not see a new console with a new format before then.
However that still does not render Blu-Ray as a movie medium obsolete as if everything goes diskless you'll just be able to load your movies into storage - Blu-Ray is just a container.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You're half right. PS3 is compatible with games and memory cards and 360 isn't compatible with either (with a few exceptions).
A sony employee said the words "Playstation 4"! That means they are already designing it! ZOMG! [/sarcasm]
Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
Considering I can buy a 2GB flash drive for ~50$ (on sale now at Best Buy), I don't see why the 'next gen' media couldn't be solid state again. Assuming the trend continues, the price in bulk might be competitive enough to make it happen.
They also could use something akin to Sony's MagicGate (tm) format, where the data is encrypted in the drive itself, except that the content is somehow tied to a TPM chip in the PS4. This would give them the advantage of a solid state memory design, combined with tying it to their platform and "securing" the data from piracy. I would be surprised if I'm the first to think of this.
The only reason, I think, that consoles moved to optical media was because of the density increase and price to produce. If solid state memory improves enough and is cheap enough I see no reason to think colsole manufacturers wouldn't jump back to making carts.
I just hope they throw in an add-on Optical Drive so we can play our PS1/2/3 games/movies on there as well.
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You forgot that a lot of us have games we go back and play from time to time - also a number of PS2 games have looked for saved files from older games and upgraded some features in a newer game if you had specific items in the old one.
Lastly, the PS2 could slightly enhance graphics in PS1 games. If a simialr feature is offered for PS2 support it could be kind of nice to revisit some parts of older games.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"with all or indeed any previous nintendo game console? Oh wait, it isn't. Neither is the Wii compatible with anything but the gamecube. Or is nintendo going to accept my catridges and give me a free download instead?
Hate Sony all you want but they are the only console maker to really make their next generation console capable of playing previous generations. Granted it is far fewer generations and they didn't have a media shift but still. "
I either have the previous generations or don't give a shit. I'm by far not the only person to feel that way.
"Hate Sony all you want but they are the only console maker to really make their next generation console capable of playing previous generations. Granted it is far fewer generations and they didn't have a media shift but still."
Game Boy ring a bell?
My understanding is that the Wii will offer an external unit to provide GameCube compatibility.
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How will they distribute the rootkits?
The PS2 will have gone for about six by the time the PS3 launches, and Sony has stated they want this round to last longer. There is no reason to think they will not do so, that's why it's expensive to start.
I guess it does work that way anymore.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
See, for me it is ideological. Between the "you-don't-really-own-it" aspect and the lack of a Linux or Mac OS version, I can't bring myself to reward Valve by giving them my money.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
The 360 is compatable with about 1/3 of the X-box games published in North America (through Emulation). No memory card compatibility, and no 1st party solution to transfer save files.
The PS3 is supposed to be backwords compatable with the PS2 /PS1 and offers a converter so you can migrate save files to the PS3. You cannot however use a PS2 memory card natively on the PS3.
I wouldn't call the memory cards compatible.
Ps2 and PS1 cards were compatible. I could stick my ps1 card into the slot on the ps2, and use the data on the card.
Buying a reader ($$), and making a copy of the data to the drive on the machine is not compatible, just a cheap hack
to get the data off of another SONY proprietary memory format.
So you can look at it this way too: both Sony and Nintendo have opted for full backwards compatibility in each generation of their home consoles that utilize CD/DVD technology.
No matter what the bulk price becomes, it will never be as low as a 50 cent piece of plastic. That's the reason why nobody will probably ever go back to solid state on home consoles.
As far as Consoles go; Atari, Did it first.
Well, the Intellivision was backwards-compatible with Atari VCS games first, via an add-on unit. So were the Colecovision and Atari 5200. The 7800 may have been the first console to support a previous-generation console's cartridge library right out of the box -- a feature that up until this generation has only been duplicated by the Gameboys Color and Advance, PlayStation 2, and the Nintendo DS.
I think you're mixing specs. The current known specs are that the slot feed drive is specially designed to take Gamecube discs in addition to standard CDs/DVDs, and that the console comes with Gamecube controller ports and memory card slots on the unit itself, for no other purpose than playing Gamecube games.
The only external connectivity is wireless connectivity which allows the Nintendo DS to be used with some games.
You are probably right about the cost vs. disc media, but, consider that the new generation of consoles seems to be trying to ween users from low game prices, and also that locking the game data behind TPM and DRM (even if its locked to 'just work on our consoles', its still technically DRM), might be inticing enough to console makers ... if they believe it will cut down on pirated media ... that they might go for it anyway, at the expense of some profit (laugh), okay, they might just pass along the cost to the consumers.
... of course, legacy support is one of the main reasons people still use Windows. I wonder if Sony isn't trying to build up the same sort of house. Of course I realize that the games market is a very different one, but a lot of people have a few favorite titles they pop in and play, and Sony's support of backward compatibility is certainly hoping to play on this to help justify buying their console over the competition.
Of course, if they are the ONLY one doing this, it might provide enough of an incentive that people would get the 'other' console.
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Obligatory linky
http://lexluthor.ytmnd.com/
I've never seen backwards compatibility as a positive. I don't see what the big deal is. I keep all my old consoles hooked up at all times, and if I ever wanna play an old game, I just do it. And while i'm on the subject, selling your old consoles and games for a couple of bucks is in no way worth it.
"If I sell 50 of my PS2 games and my PS2 console, I may be able to take $100 off the price of the PS3. Wow, what a deal!"
Compare that with the XBox 360, which is only partically backwards-compatible, and requires jumping through hoops to get old game to play. When I get my PS3, I'll still be able to play my entire library of PS1 and PS2 games. That makes the PS3 1. Cheap 2. User-friendly. I couldn't give a shit about a $10 memory card. But when my GF was looking into an XBox or an XBox 360, and I found out about the lack of backwards compatiblity, I thought, "what a fucking rip off". Then, I got home, put a DVD in her new used Xbox, and I couldn't get the thing to play. Oh yeah... you HAVE to buy a DVD remote to get it to play. My PS2 works fine with just the controller. What kind of people are short-sighted enough to buy an XBox 360?
Well, the Intellivision was backwards-compatible with Atari VCS games first, via an add-on unit.
All of those add-ons (for the Intellivision, the Colecovision, and the 5200) were literally the Atari 2600 hardware (or a copy of it) in a box that used the power input and video output of the console they connected to. AFAIK all of them even had seperate joystick ports, so you had to have 2600 joysticks too, in addition to the ones for the main console (although with the Colecovision you could swap over the Coleco controllers, since they're pin-compatible IIRC).
You might as well consider any game console theoretically compatible with any other, as long as someone is willing to hack the video and power connections together and put the "expansion module" in a box that matches the other one.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
Not long ago he upgraded his computer and reinstalled it and assured me that everything was fine, but it still took a few minutes to get to it. Absolutely zero reason for me to own this. And the same amount of desire.
I've been tempted to own games that go online in the past. I've got WoW on my computer but almost never play it, and I probably won't renew it when it comes time in a month or two.
This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
I figured I'd give Valve the benefit of the doubt, and wait until it'd been a few years after the first release on Steam and they'd still not come out with a Steam-less installation of that game (HL2, of course). At that point, I would oppose them ideologically. In the mean time, I tried it, and decided that I already don't like it for entirely different reasons.
It's annoying, almost (*almost*) on the same level as Bonsai Buddy.
Typical experience:
Me: Huh, haven't played CS:Source in a couple of days. I think I'll play a quick round, maybe 15 minutes' worth.
*click on steam*
Steam: UPDATING...
*progress bar makes one tick after nearly a minute*
Me: Right, how about we try offline mode? I don't want to wait for Steam to do its thing before I play the game that was working just fine 2 days ago.
Steam: Now in offline mode.
Me: *click on the game*
Steam: (bullshit about uncompleted updates, or it lost its validation when it started to update and can't play without it, and it can't re-validate until it finishes this update, or any number of other ridiculous things)
Me: *uninstalls Steam, leaves, having now wasted most of my 15 minutes screwing around with it and getting no-where*
That's about how it's gone the last couple of times. I've just given up now. It's not worth it. It would be kind of tolerable if it didn't grind the system to a halt doing its stupid decryption crap for long periods of time; the downloading itself isn't that big a deal, I'd just do something else while I was waiting if that's all it was.
You know what the worst part is? I have a copy of Half-Life one (and TFC, etc.) that worked perfectly well on WONnet, but Valve hijacked it to force me to use Steam even though I never consented to that at the time of purchase!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Why? You didn't buy the PS3 to play PS2 games. If you have a PS2 (or PS1) memory card, you probably have a PS2, and you either own or can rent the PS2 game related to that data.
I'd rather have just a PS3 hooked up in my entertainment center than needing a PS3 and PS2. It's bad enough that I have 4 consoles already hooked up. (PS2, GC, 360, XBOX (until compatibility improves))
What about people who have a slim PS2 or a network adapter? If both machines are online, couldn't you just copy the 8MB of saved games over the internet from one machine to another? Release a transfer disc for the PS2 and everyone saves money.
The PS3 may be "futureproof" but I promise you that it's not futureproof enough to compete with whatever Nintendo and Microsoft will build and release 4-7 years from now.
I'm not sure about that, the PS2 is apparently still outselling the 360 month to month - even in the US, the 360's strongest market.
Good point about the PSOne selling well into the current model market, I think they are still selling it. I wonder if we will see a PSTwo in the same way.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Note that the Sega Genesis contained a Z80 chip for the purposes of a) doing sound processing for Genesis games, and b) providing backwards compatibility for Sega Master System games, much like the PS2 contains a PS1-onna-chip. You required a physical adaptor to take the Master System carts/cards, but it did nothing but the physical conversion.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Nowhere does the $600 model have to enter the equation. Get the $500 model and the $5 (or whatever it may be) adaptor to transfer data to the other system
What makes you think you'll not be able to transfer data to the $500 model?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
How'd that happen? Single player still works, right?
I've got HL1 plus both expansions. Great games. I'd be pissed if they ever stopped working for any reason.
My guess is it would be like Wii. Yeah, you can't bring your virtual console games to your friend's house to play, but it's pretty easy to bring your whole Wii.
Well yeah, single player still works, but that does me a fat lot of good when my favorite parts are Team Fortress Classic and Day of Defeat! And it also doesn't help that if you install any patches, the first thing they do is "update" it to use Steam instead of WON.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I would much rather have the one console that can play all my old stuff, than having 2-3 power strips, a heap of cables, consoles everywhere, a heap of switch-boxes, etc.
Maybe having electronics crap everywhere looks impressive to your nerd friends or something, but personally I think that a minimal amount of equipment in my living room to get the job done looks far less cluttered (and thus, better).
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
It's got a HD, why would you need to use a mem card natively?
So you can take it with you.
"Understand that [Blu-Ray] is the last physical format there will ever be." - Bill Gates, Oct 2005
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
I thought I heard the PS4's codename was something like 'Phantom'.
That's what the card reader on the front is for. It just takes standard media types and not some proprietary Sony cartridge.
.sig: Now legally binding!
>I keep all my old consoles hooked up at all times
You must have one hell of a multiswitch.
>I've never seen backwards compatibility as a positive.
If Nintendo had done it, GameCube might have been successful. I played GameCube once, horrified.
That's gay. No more trading games?
Nintendo is, without a doubt, the Microsoft of the gaming industry.
I take it, you tried one of these then.
Only obtained one recently, actually. I was disappointed to find out that they usually only come with 4-5 ports, especially with the next-gen systems so close. Oh yeah, and then there's the RF one I have for the older systems. And I don't have every system either.
When my NES breaks I'll start thinking about backwards compatibility. I have yet to see a console break so much as to become completely non-functional. So what the cartridge doesn't want to stay down, that doesn't mean I can't jam some cards in there. Presto! All fixed!
By the way, I'm also in it for the collecting aspect. I always value having the original cartridges/disks.
I agree. If it's supercheap, I could possibly live with it. I'd pay a few bucks for Super Mario Bros on the Wii, for example. But I would never buy a game for 20 bucks or more if I couldn't burn it to a CD myself. I don't want to pay 50 bucks for a new PS4 game which then gets "attached" to my console. The reason is simple:
I own a VCS 2600. I still play it from time to time. All my old games still work. If it breaks, I buy another 2600 from eBay. I can go to a flea market and buy old 2600 games, even though that particular instance of Atari is long gone.
I actually bought a SNES last week. I can go into a games shop and buy used SNES games. I can play my old SNES games from 10 years back. I can play my friend's SNES games.
I could do none of these things if games were downloaded and attached to a console. What if Sony goes the way of Atari? What will I do if I want to play my games 10 years later, but I can't transfer them to another used PS4? What if I want to trade games with friends? What if I want to take Super Monkey Ball 7 to a friend's place for a few rounds of monkey race?
It would also give them the disadvantage of people not buying it because they can't take their copy of Halo 3000 to a friend's place for a few matches. They can't sell their used games. They can't buy used games. Stores would be screwed anyway since they make money selling games, not consoles. Hence, no shop would carry the console. But maybe they intend to sell it via the Interweb, too?
Also the Game Gear was essentially a Master System. There was a physical adapter the allowed Master system game to to be played on the Game Gear. The Sega Nomad was cooler, It was a Sega Genesis in a poratable size. Same screen as the Game Gear but it had a plug for a Genesis controller and a Tv output. If you can find a Sega CDX grab it, it has a CD player sized Sega Genesis CD with 2 controller plugs, cartridge slot , and TV output, It could also play CDs from Batteries.
Science is the Real TRUTH!
Uhm, isn't that even worse? Not only can't I sell those games or buy them from other gamers, this also means that once Microsoft stops their Online Service for the 360, I can't play those games anymore?
Do you think I'm stupid? I know I'm not buying the rights to the compiled code. I have never claimed anything like this. I'm not trying to get more rights, just to get the same rights I've always had when buying games. Or books. Or CDs.
If the speed with which my discs (yeah, I bought it at a store) become worthless (it updates it ALL from the web after installing from the discs, anyway) is any indication, backups would have to be done fairly frequently to be at all useful.
It's just not worth it.