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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
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.
....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?
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?
None whatsoever. So the manufacturers will have to give them higher margins.
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."
I am a twenty year old console gamer. I actually prefer having a physical medium on which the game code resides. I have had too many problems with hard drive failures, damaged systems, etc. to trust the system to hold all of my games. And what if I like to share? I do not want to have to lug my PS4 to my friend's house and hook it up just because my copy of Tony Hawk: Ripping it up in the Nursing Home is bound to my system's serial number. I smell DRM in this, and I do not like it.
Information wants a fueled airplane waiting at the hangar and no one gets hurt.
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?
[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 $20 they want for the box at stores within a couple weeks of it coming out. Now? I doubt they'll ever get my money. It's not an ideological thing, it's just that Steam is too damn annoying.
Yeah, kind of offtopic. Sorry.
Considering I can buy a 2GB flash drive for ~50$ (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.
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
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
It's not naive. I work for a major retailer. And I am privy to our product margins. When the 360 launched (last time I checked) margin on it was something like $0.40 for us. The Gamecube has like a dollar or so. And I think it's the highest margin console we carry (it's had like 10 SKUs through it's life, possibly more, so it's hard to check that one).
We don't lose money on any of the consoles (unless they go clearance at the end of the life cycle, or it's a failed console like the Jaguar for instance, but that's not an ordinary situation). But we also don't make money on consoles. We cary them for a simple reason. We make about $5 on the average new game. Not to mention accessory sales.
Touch everywhere, even when inappropriate.
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.
You're mixing up cause and effect. Though the hot product has sold for hundreds of dollars in previous years, the reason it was so expensive was because it was selling so well that it was impossible to find. Most people who did find it paid for it at retail price, with very few people paying the hundreds of dollars. That is, what you hear about is anecdotal evidence, not the norm. For the PS3 to be the hot product of the year, lots of people would have to buy it in the first place, which isn't likely to happen if you can get a Wii and six games for the same price.
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
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.
The PSone lasted ten years in the sense that they were still selling it (and are still selling it?) 10 years after the 1st Playstation became available and at the same time that the PS2 was also in stores. I'm sure that the PS2 err PStwo will still be selling 5 years from now in stores and that when the PS4 comes out, they will still be selling the PSthree.
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 have a lot of opinions about Cyborgs and Architects
This, coming from the Beta/MD/etc. et al company? The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
And my grandma still insists on using her phone book, her home phone, radio for weather and the newspaper for the news.
/. are not should tell you something. As far as I'm concerned, doing away with physical goods goes against human nature itself. It will not be a successful strategy, any more than e-books so far have been a successful strategy (or ever will be).
I use the internet, the internet, the internet and the internet.
And she can do a lot of things you can't. Namely, look up a phone number in a power failure. USE her phone in a power failure. Read the news while sitting on the crapper or in the subway.
More importantly, she knows to diversify her information sources. You rely on one data path. That data path goes down, for any reason, and you're officially screwed.
Those of us who have been around long enough - even those of us who are just young enough to not really remember the days before the internet - all know the benefits of this data diversification. We also know the benefits of tangible goods vs. virtual goods, because we've all experienced the headaches that come from "losing" your virtual goods - even though we may still have the media that may contain them.
You're underestimating the number of people who would just never buy a console that didn't support physical media. I wouldn't, the guy you're replying to wouldn't and the guy he's replying to wouldn't. There are a lot of us out there. Add in the fact that there will probably always be at least one competitor willing to shuck the current convention and provide what the other systems lack, and I doubt any console will ever succeed without physical media support. I'm serious. Even if we're talking DS-size (or smaller) memory chips... there has to be something you can hold in your hand that contains the game on it, separate from the game console. Something you can buy in a store, trade with friends, borrow, collect, re-sell, back up or whatever. That's just for starters. I'm sure there are people who, like you, are perfectly willing to trust the internet and their connected consoles for all their gaming needs, but the fact that even a number of people here on tech-centric
(It can be *part* of a larger successful strategy, but it is not a strategy unto itself. Games have to be available on physical media, end of story.)
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.
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.