Phil Harrison Answers Your Questions

Right around this time last month, we asked for your questions to pass on to President of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios Phil Harrison. With the launch of the PlayStation 3 console in Europe, Mr. Harrison has had kind of a full month. He still found us the time to answer your questions, and today we have them to read. Below are his very thorough responses to the questions you posed, ranging in subject from the European delay to the public perception of SCEA. Make sure to give them a look, and many thanks again to Mr. Harrison for his time. 1.) 'Ask 1996-Phil' by The-Bus
According to your Wikipedia bio, you joined SCEA in 1996. If you could go back in time and give professional advice to your 1996 self, what would you say? If you were to give professional advice to people interested in entering the industry today, what would it be?

Phil Harrison: Wikipedia is great, but as you probably know, my bio was not written by me, so I'd not trust it completely...I actually joined Sony's game division in 1992 just before SCE was formed. I joined the nascent Computer Entertainment Project to help bring PlayStation to the European developer community, while simultaneously kick-starting our in-house development team in London. I moved to the US in 1996. To answer your time travel question, the professional advice I'd give myself is to "think bigger". When we launched PlayStation we really had no idea we'd be talking about an industry that would more than triple in size and reach a 3rd of US homes so quickly. If I'd had the chance to revisit my 1996 self I would have encouraged him to be more ambitious, bigger scale, more aggressive in changing the way games were made and also to have invested more heavily in creating online experiences - however experimental, however unsuccessful.

As for professional advice to how to get into the industry, the way I came in to the business was a rocky road which, frankly, has got even harder since I made it my full-time career in 1987. The entrepreneurial, freelancer approach is very difficult without a portfolio of work or very good contacts. My advice to anyone thinking about joining this industry is first and foremost get as much formal education as you possibly can. If you are interested in a programming or technical career, a degree in a computer science-related area is vital, as is a very high level of mathematics. Specialize as late as you can in your educational path. For an artist or designer, the need for a degree is less vital if you have a clearly demonstrable talent, but that puts the emphasis on a brilliant, and differentiated, portfolio of work. Even so, I would encourage anyone to get a well-regarded degree-level education as a minimum before even considering applying for a position. Animators and 3D modellers should take advantage of systems at school to start building a portfolio of work. Putting up your own website is a great way of pointing potential employers at your work - even if it's a selection of 10 second clips or a gallery of rendered stills. But please make them different and unusual. Finally, when you come to an interview make sure you are prepared! Research the company you are applying to, play their games, be prepared to comment on industry trends and issues and know as much as you can about the area you are interested in working in. Go to GDC if you possibly can, make friends through the various online communities and societies dedicated to game developers and start building up an industry "buddy list". It will come in very useful.

Both really great questions, by the way.

2.) 'Philosophy of gaming...' by 7Prime
What is your personal philosophy regarding the future of videogames as a genre? For example, where do you see games, in terms of social and cultural identification, 20 years from now, and how do you think the nature of the PS3 plays into the culmination of this overall vision?

Phil Harrison: Another very good question - and hard to answer properly in the space available. My personal philosophy is to make the entertainment experience of videogames available to everyone. I want to see the audience of people who play videogames, of any type, on any device, include practically anyone on the planet. Whether it be an immersive action game that appeals primarily to young adults, or a casual game that is enjoyed by the entire family, I hope that videogames and electronic forms of interactive entertainment continue to expand to new audiences, all the time. Linked to that, I want to see videogames given more credibility as a mainstream form of entertainment through appropriate cultural commentary and criticism. If you read a newspaper in pretty much any country in the world, you will read intelligent discourse on the cultural impact of film, music, literature, theatre, television, radio, art and fashion every day - although it's unusual to read anything about videogames apart from occasional reviews. There are, of course, exceptions - and it is thankfully changing, but we've still a long way to go as category or a genre before we can be considered culturally and socially significant. This is changing - and anyone who plays games will see the influence game graphic design has today on general graphic design in a multitude of ways - from websites and posters to TV commercials. What I hope is that 20 years from now the distinctions will be completely overcome and videogames as a passtime will be given the same cultural and social currency as a book, a film, a TV show or a piece of architecture. After all, the popular culture creators of 20 years from now will all, largely, have grown up playing, or at least being intimately aware of, videogames. The writers and commentators on those same popular culture creators will all have had the same experience playing videogames growing up - at which point the circle is complete. I don't think there is a culmination to this overall vision - it will be a constant process. Each successive platform brings new technology to the experience of games and helps expand the audience still further. I hope PS3 will be seen 20 years from now as a crucial influence in the growth of our industry.

3.) 'Choices' by mothlos and drinkypoo
Now that you have a few months with PS3s in the hands of consumers and plenty of reviews to pour over, is there anything that you would have done differently in designing the machine? Given the problems that seem to have come with Blu-Ray, does it still look like including the drive in the system was worth it? And if so, was it worth it for the PS3, for the Blu-Ray format, or for both?

Phil Harrison: First of all, I would not take credit for designing the machine. As Chairman and CEO - and head of the architecture lab in SCEI Tokyo, Ken Kutaragi is responsible for the hardware design strategy for SCE. I think that PlayStation 3 is a masterpience of design and technology - it packs a huge amount of performance into an amazingly small (and quiet) box. Now it may not yet be apparent what all that technology is actually for - something that gives us plenty to focus on for the next few years - the overall design of the machine is very good. The Cell processor is wildly powerful and developers are now beginning to understand what that means for game design. The choice of putting a hard disk drive in every machine was the absolute right decision technically, but is a tough choice financially. There is no denying we had some start-up challenges with Blu-ray at the beginning but that is the price you pay for leading edge technology. Thankfully, those challenges are behind us and I stand firmly by the decision to include BD-ROM as the physical media format. Next generation game design demands the capacity of Blu-ray. Once we'd adopted BD as a game format, there was little incremental cost to support BD as a movie format. Given that the majority of BD movies are now using dual layer (50GB) discs, we're seeing the importance of the higher BD capacity much earlier in the life of the format compared to DVD. First and foremost, I believe it was the right decision for PlayStation 3 to use BD for games - and the fact that is helps kick-start BD as the next generation movie format is a bonus for all of us, players and game-makers.

4.) 'Homebrew Gaming' by Anonymous Coward, maynard, and flitty
If someone manages to get homebrew games running on the PS3, will there be firmware updates to stop this kind of development, to protect your software developers, or is homebrew something you are planning on and even encouraging? Is there a chance that the policy of restricting access to PS3 graphics hardware (via the hypervisor) could be revised to encourage us homebrew developers? How does this strategy differ from your strategy with PSP homebrew? Has Sony considered offering kernel patches and an RSX optimized OpenGL library for PS3/Linux?

Phil Harrison: Now, let me first say that Homebrew is sometimes a misused term and so for the purposes of this answer I will exclude pirates and hackers with illegal intentions from the definition.

I fully support the notion of game development at home using powerful tools available to anyone. We were one of the first companies to recognize this in 1996 with Net Yaroze on PS1. It's a vital, crucial aspect of the future growth of our industry and links well to the subtext of my earlier answers. When I started making games on the Commodore 64 in the 1980's, the way I learned to make games was by re-writing games that appeared in magazines. Really the best bit about a C64 was when you turned it on it said "Ready?" with a flashing cursor - inviting you to experiment. You'd spend hours typing in the code, line-by-line, and then countless hours debugging it to make it work and then you'd realise the game was rubbish after all that effort! The next step was to re-write aspects of the game to change the graphics, the sound, the control system or the speed of the gameplay until you'd created something completely new. I might share this with a few friends but not for commercial gain at that time. But the process itself was invaluable in helping me learn to program, to design graphics, animations or sounds and was really the way I opened doors to get into the industry. Now, those industry doors are largely closed by the nature of the video game systems themselves being closed. So, if we can make certain aspects of PS3 open to the independent game development community, we will do our industry a service by providing opportunities for the next generation of creative and technical talent. Now having said all that, we still have to protect the investment and intellectual property rights of the industry so we will always seek the best ways to secure and protect our devices from piracy and unauthorized hacking that damages the business.

5.) 'Retaining PS3 Exclusives' by Sciros
With a number of previously-PS3-exclusive titles having gone multiplatform, are there any efforts to prevent this from occurring in the future, or is it of little concern to SCE?

Phil Harrison: We have the widest selection of meaningful exclusives on PlayStation 3 - by virtue of our own investments in our development studios and strategic support of independent developers and publishers. I really don't believe gamers mind who makes the game, so long as the games they buy on their system are the best games they can get anywhere - and that their system investment is secure in the knowledge that there are plenty more coming in future. Within SCE Worldwide Studios we have the largest platform-dedicated development resource in the industry - with more people, and more teams, dedicated to making games exclusively for PlayStation 3. So my main "concern" is to make sure those games are absolutely the best they can be.

6.) 'Rumble' by SuperCharlie
How long will we have to wait until we see a first party controller with rumble?

Phil Harrison: As we've only recently resolved our legal differences with Immersion, it's a little early to answer this. However, you can play games on PS3 that support devices that have force-feedback already, most notably driving games through steering wheels. 7.) '20 GB PS3' by !ramirez Why is Best Buy discontinuing sales of the 20 GB PS3?

Phil Harrison: I can't comment on any specific retailer's stocking decisions, but I think that retailers know their customers very well and make their product selections based on anticipated demand. In Europe, we've only sold the 60GB version based on retailer demand and over 800,000 units have already been sold in just over 2 weeks.

8.) 'Europe?' by Ant P. and Zonk
Given that the hardware sold in Europe has less robust backwards compatibility than in the US and Japan, and the high price the console sells at because of the VAT, do you feel that you've in any way alienated the European gamer? Can you give us some insight into why the EU launch of the system has been so long delayed?

Phil Harrison: It was an unfortunate and unavoidable problem caused by the slower-than-anticipated ramp up of the production on the Blue Laser Diode, a key part of the BD drive technology. Although this is now well behind us, we could not predict the production volume with any degree of certainty to launch globally in all markets at the same time back in November 2006. However, we have more than recovered from this situation with what is objectively a very well-executed launch in Europe with a great selection of games on disc and network. Gamers have responded really positively and purchased over 800,000 units already making it the most successful launch in the history of the video games industry in Europe. I accept that is not entirely satisfactory compensation for having to wait, but we were able to reward European gamers with a free copy of Casino Royale on BD when they registered for the PlayStation Network.

9.) 'Public Image' by Gothic_Walrus
People on the internet and in the tech media in general have been raking the PS3 and Sony over the coals, with a noticeable backlash directed towards Sony's PR department. Debacles like Jack Tretton's 'you can't find the PS3 in stores' comment, and 'All You Want For Christmas is a PSP', has left some gamers with the impression that Sony thinks poorly of them. You in particular have taken a lot of fire as one of the main figures connected to the PlayStation 3, and the consensus seems to be that Sony has a lot of work to do to win over the gaming public. I'd like to ask you, then, how is Sony going to go about changing this mindset? Are there any plans for this you'd be able to share with us?

Phil Harrison: I really don't know how to answer that question entirely to your satisfaction, but allow me to try: I don't deny that we've made some mistakes and have been rightly flamed for some of them. We learn, we cringe slightly at the memory of some of them from time to time but we move on. And hopefully we're not stupid enough to repeat them! But I also have to point out that millions of people around the world have bought PS3s and are loving the experience - and frankly they become our advocates and evangelists far more effectively than I could ever be. If we continue to deliver great software, services and experiences to our gamers they'll become even more comfortable in recommending PS3 to their friends and family - that's what builds a loyal fanbase. We absolutely have a lot of work to do but I'm convinced we have the right strategy - and recent announcements like Home and Little Big Planet have resonated very positively with our audiences around the world, including some commentators who had been previously critical of us.

10.) 'Price drop?' by RyanFenton
I understand the strategy of never announcing price drops until they're imminent, but the PS3 is not even on many people's radar at the moment, because of the staggering price. Sony's CEO Howard Stringer has even stated that the price might be too high. Are you even considering price drops on the PS3 hardware?

Phil Harrison: Probably no surprise to hear that we've no plans to drop the price but it's also no surprise to anyone reading this that core to our business plan is growing the installed base of hardware. But price is only one part of the motivation to purchase a system. We need to maintain the high desire for the product through great software, services and support combined with great awareness. I want to make sure we're focused on the best possible gamer and user experience and that will bring PS3 onto more people's radar - to use your expression - much more effectively than simply dropping the price.

Phil Harrison
SCE Worldwide Studios

Comments

I Love Slashdot

[SighKoPath]

So, I clicked Read More, and was greeted with this:

Nothing for you to see here, move along

It had me laughing for a good ten seconds, especially considering the subject.

Re:I Love Slashdot

[flitty]

So, if we can make certain aspects of PS3 open to the independent game development community, we will do our industry a service by providing opportunities for the next generation of creative and technical talent. Now having said all that, we still have to protect the investment and intellectual property rights of the industry so we will always seek the best ways to secure and protect our devices from piracy and unauthorized hacking that damages the business.

Translation: Abandon hope, all ye (independant developers) who enter here!
What a bunch of PR speak about "having an open community" and yet killing it all at the same time.

Re:I Love Slashdot

[taracta]

At least we know that he has some understanding of were we are coming from. COMPUTE! was a great magazine! What Sony needs to realize is that this is not a "want" but a "need" from the independent development community. The PS3 bring totally new technology (the CELL) to the entire development community and people are eager to to exploit its features but a main feature is locked away. The CELL is not enough to satisfy the "need" (if there were dual CELLs maybe :)). Independent developers need access to the GPU too. It's like programming a game on the C64 with no access to the SID chip (or the sprites.) It is just not enough. Sony needs to rectify this situation.

Re:I Love Slashdot

[nuzak]

> COMPUTE! was a great magazine!

Bah. I remember typing in programs from COMPUTE! magazine that were more than half DATA statements that would be POKEd in. I felt stupid for not being able to understand what these long sequences of numbers meant, I thought all programming was like this, and for years it stunted my interest in learning. To say nothing of MLX ... shudder. To this day I have a basic dislike of low-level programming ... but I'd blame that on the way I like to over-abstract things, not on one non-educational magazine.

Re:I Love Slashdot

[Paradise Pete]

The person who actually wrote the code didn't just type a bunch of numbers - he wrote in assembler. The reason you had to poke in a bunch of meaningless numbers was that you were typing in the compiled result of the code. It would pretty much the same if you wanted to type in, say, the compiled executable of Photoshop. It would just take a little longer.

They could have published the assembly code, but then you'd have to have a compiler and know how to use it.

Re:I Love Slashdot

[cowbutt]

They could have published the assembly code, but then you'd have to have a compiler and know how to use it.

Back in the day, some of the Spectrum magazines published assembly code and I remember being somewhat baffled as to what exactly to do with it, until I received the guidance of a grey-beard at the local computer club who gave me a simple assembler that had been given away on a cover tape. The closest I had come until then (aged about 11 or 12) was poking the ASCII for the assembly source code into memory and attempting to run that (needless to say, that didn't really give the results I was after!). I was only one stage away, though, as in the ASCII charts in the back of the manual, there were additional columns for the Z80 mnemonics, so eventually I may have tried manual assembly of my own accord!

Perhaps I'd have grokked assembly quicker if the Spectrum had a built-in assembler, like the BBC did...

Re:I Love Slashdot

[Paradise Pete]

Yeah, my first computer was an Atari 400, and I can still remember 6502 assembly. You'd think by now my brain would have found a better use for those brain cells, but apparently not. I wrote a two-player Tetris clone in assembler, and the entire complied executable was 8K. I wrote it by hand in a notebook, then at night I'd type it in.

Re:I Love Slashdot

[Xman73x]

Lame excuses Phil Harrison! $599.99 is Ridiculous! Hey maybe Europe can buy but not in America! I call BestBuy Walmart Circut City Nobodys buying the PS3!There get this! The Xbox360 and the Wii! The Wii actually the 1# seller right now! Not the PS3 Phony Entertainment Of America!.You Fools! LMAO!

Is the PS3 supposed to play games?

[stratjakt]

Because the sales pitch is basically, "it plays BluRay discs".

I think you need to get on-target with the message, if indeed, this thing is a video game console.

Re:Is the PS3 supposed to play games?

[Chandon Seldon]

The sales pitch is that it lets you play modern video games with decent graphics!

That's exactly the same as the sales pitch for the XBox 360. Yes, it costs 25% more than the XBox. On the other hand, it has some technical advantages over the Xbox and has different exclusive games. Remember that the blueray disks aren't just for movies - they also allow game developers to have something like five times as much game data as an XBox 360 game can have.

Disclaimer: I don't own a PS3, and I won't buy one until there is an official patch from Sony (not some hack) that allows the graphics system to be accessed by 3rd party operating systems. The platform has amazing potential, but I'm not going to start buying hardware that prevents me from using it for Sony.

Re:Is the PS3 supposed to play games?

[Anonymous Coward]

More accurately, it's priced 25-50% more than a console that is itself overpriced.

Re:Is the PS3 supposed to play games?

[Chandon Seldon]

Overpriced based on what? What a PS2 or Original XBox costs now? What they cost when they were first released, ignoring inflation?

Consoles have always been expensive when they first came out. These two consoles (PS3 and Xbox360) happen to be the first generation of consoles that supports HDTV resolutions - that's a giant jump from supporting SDTV in terms of computing power. If you consider what a decent TV that takes advantage of that power costs, a couple hundred bucks of console price really doesn't seem like that big a deal.

If you're not interested in high def gaming, fine. Don't buy the currently-high-end consoles. That does mean that you won't be able to get some of the new games - but that's the choice you've made, sorry. Those people who do want to play games with nice graphics on their nice TVs aren't going to stop having an awesome time gaming to feel sorry for you.

Re:Is the PS3 supposed to play games?

[stratjakt]

How about overpriced as in the market is for the most part ignoring it, and clamoring to get their hands on a Wii.

Re:Is the PS3 supposed to play games?

[Chandon Seldon]

Yea, and the market is for the most part ignoring the Wii and clamoring to get a PS2.

The Wii is interesting in that it was introduced at a price in-line with consoles that have been on the market for a while. It was quite a while before the PS2 or the XBox got down to that price level. It'll be the same with the PS3 and the Xbox360 - the early adopters buy them in the first year or two, and then there are price drops and everyone else joins the current generation. Then a couple years after that new systems will come out that only the early adopters will buy.

Re:Is the PS3 supposed to play games?

[DrXym]

Actually the pitch appears to be "it plays games, dvds, cd, blu ray, mp3s, aacs, pictures, video clips, browses the web etc.". Some people appear to have latched onto blu ray as if its a bad thing that it plays hd content.

Re:Is the PS3 supposed to play games?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Wii is outselling the PS2 both in hardware and software.

Re:Is the PS3 supposed to play games?

[Chandon Seldon]

Reference?

There are many millions of people who have a PS2 and still want more games for it. The "hardware" claim is possible, but the "software" claim seems ridiculous unless you have a solid reference.

Re:Is the PS3 supposed to play games?

[MeanderingMind]

Given that God of War II for the PS2 sold 800k+ units in March according to the NPD, the software claim does seem tenuous.

It's likely that overall they're near even, but there certainly isn't a clear software sales monster at the moment.

I like this guy now.

[Spazntwich]

I don't deny that we've made some mistakes and have been rightly flamed for some of them.

What kind of corporate head uses flame with its internet definition? Fucking awesome.

Re:I like this guy now.

[Rob T Firefly]

What kind of corporate head uses flame with its internet definition? Fucking awesome.

The kind that's tailoring his responses to appeal to the interview's Internet audience.

Re:I like this guy now.

[Spazntwich]

Yes, but how many corporate heads could even bother to familiarize themselves with the lingo of their target audience? I remain impressed, though you'll get moderated much more favorably than I will around these parts.

Re:I like this guy now.

[stratjakt]

The guy heads a major tech company, I don't think the "lingo" is all that foreign to him.

These are the same guys who put root kits on audio CDs. I don't like him no matter how many times he refers to the "Web 2.0 blogosphere"

And the PSP and PS3 are, frankly, both dogs.

Re:I like this guy now.

[Guppy06]

"What kind of corporate head uses flame with its internet definition?"

He's edgy, he's hip, he's "with it," he's using the kind of lingo the kids today are down with!

Far out, man!

Re:I like this guy now.

[Guppy06]

"Yes, but how many corporate heads could even bother to familiarize themselves with the lingo of their target audience?"

The kind with a marketing department the size of Rhode Island. No doubt there were countless focus groups, surveys, polls and statistical aggregations behind the decision to use that one word alone.

Re:I like this guy now.

[Floritard]

flaming - the act of sending or posting messages that are deliberately hostile and insulting, usually in the social context of a discussion board on the Internet

Term officially jumped the shark Friday April 20, @02:43PM.

Re:I like this guy now.

[Guppy06]

Tubular! Radical! Awesome! Reaganomics!

Re:I like this guy now.

[7Prime]

Hot diggity!

Re:I like this guy now.

[Rob T Firefly]

23 skidoo!

Re:I like this guy now.

[gral]

The guy talks about hacking Magazine games on a Commodore 64 and finding out they suck, so he rewrote them. I think he is of a different caliber higher up based on that more than his use of lingo.

Re:I like this guy now.

[Spazntwich]

ahahahahahahahaha ohhhh I love you, Robot Chicken

Re:I like this guy now.

[drcagn]

Congratulations, you fell for the propaganda technique in which the propagandist tries to make you think that you are both alike.

Re:I like this guy now.

[Maxwell]

These are the same guys who put root kits on audio CDs. I don't like him no matter how many times he refers to the "Web 2.0 blogosphere"

Uh, no they aren't. Sony Japan bought a record label many years ago. Nothing to do with SCEA of which Phil is the president. He probably doesn't know anyone from the record side..

And PSP is awesome. Besides the hundreds of commerical games, the emulators are amazing. I Can't imagine being tied to stupid TV set for gaming anymore..

JON

Re:I like this guy now.

[NoMaster]

These are the same guys who put root kits on audio CDs.

Uh, no they aren't...

If I get slapped by one hand, I don't turn around and shake the other...

It's still Sony, and they've still shown themselves to be untrustable - not just untrustworthy, but totally unable to be trusted - on many occasions and across almost all divisions.

Now the PS3 may be awesome, and you can rationalise your Playstation-love with your hatred of Sony's music & movie divisions any way you like - but it doesn't change the fact you're putting money in one hand while the other hand reaches around and rams a stick up your arse...

Re:I like this guy now.

[RoloDMonkey]

Either he, or more likely his staff, just did their research, and knew exactly who the audience was going to be.

We absolutely have a lot of work to do but I'm convinced we have the right strategy - and recent announcements like Home and Little Big Planet have resonated very positively with our audiences around the world, including some commentators who had been previously critical of us.

Re:I like this guy now.

[feepness]

He's edgy, he's hip, he's "with it," he's using the kind of lingo the kids today are down with!

Far out, man!

Yeah, but does he have an onion on his belt?

Re:I like this guy now.

[Anonymous Coward]

A particularly insidious one?

Evasive

[Mr2001]

Look at his response to #4. He didn't answer the question at all, he just talked about the good ol' days and snuck in a couple references to piracy. Will homebrew developers be able to access the PS3's 3D hardware "officially" or not? If not, and if someone manages to find a way to access it "unofficially", will Sony release a firmware update to block it or won't they? We still don't know.

Re:Evasive

[portrayed]

It seems he "unofficially" said that Sony won't attempt to block homebrew gaming. Lets hope so, as I enjoyed fiddling with my PSP

Re:Evasive

[Rob T Firefly]

I like this bit:

So, if we can make certain aspects of PS3 open to the independent game development community, we will do our industry a service by providing opportunities for the next generation of creative and technical talent.

"If we can..." "Certain aspects..." That's nice and open-ended. Still, as he seems to have some memory of the glimmer of hacker spirit from his C64 days, he knows full well that whatever they can't give us, given enough time and inclination, we can get for ourselves. Should the platform become as successful as he and his bosses hope, we will do so with or without Sony's hand-holding.

Re:Evasive

[jimstapleton]

Actually, the answer in that was an implicit "never in hell"

He mentioned a strong desire to protect their investment and IP. Given that money for the system comes from licensing of the games and the movies from their manufacturers, that response amounts to the answer I gave. That is, unless the creators pay royalties to Sony. If they do not pay royalties, then they simply provide less incentive for people to buy products from the companies who do pay said royalties.

Countering the first obvious argument that will probably come up - yes the homebrewed may not cost money, and thus not compete in the players pocketbook, but they do take time to play, and if a player doesn't thing he or she will have enough time for all the games he or she might like to play, some may not be purchased, or may be purchased more warily (say by trying them at a friends house first, and/or a rental at a blockbuster). If they had more time, they might buy a game tested, that they wouldn't with less time.

Re:Evasive

[Anonymous Coward]

Blind agree. I haven't seen this much spinning since kindergarden when the class learned what dreidels were...

Re:Evasive

[beef623]

That's funny, I read it as "Sure, I even encourage it, but we want to protect our IP so you'll have to figure out how for yourself."

Re:Evasive

[eln]

I believe he was grouping people that would access the hardware "unofficially" in with the illegal hackers that he "excluded" from his answer.

Re:Evasive

[Anonymous Coward]

The joke being that Linux has near zero percentage of the gaming market now, so linux on the PS3 will be significantly less. Just what are they afraid of?

Re:Evasive

[Anonymous Coward]

of course he answered the question. you just dont realize that his answer is manager-speak for "no - go F-off and die"

Re:Evasive

[twistedsymphony]

The response to the first question was fantastic, and dare I say after question 2 I gained a shred of respect back for 'ol Philly. The Blu-Ray question he started honestly and ended up with a sales pitch by the end and it was back to the old PR side stepping from then on out with Mr Harrison taking on the role of Michael Flatly.

On one hand it's aggravating not being able to get a straight answer out of these guys. We know he's capable of speaking honestly after reading the first couple of questions. On the other hand, what did we expect? If he really felt that Blu-Ray was a bad idea or that homebrew should be supported do you really think he'd speak his mind on the issues considering his position within Sony?

Re:Evasive

[jimstapleton]

That point is so much more accurate than you may realize.

So much gaming is done through MS, via Windows or XBox360...

By providing GPU access, even in binary form, to the PS3/Linux system... They are taking a cheap and simple pot-shot at MS that has the potential to be quite effective.

Re:Evasive

[kinglink]

Considering that even developers have to jump through hoops to directly access the hardware of a PS3, this will likely be considered illegal access and blocked off.

The biggest secret that Sony has is how little support developers get (hell Early versions of the PS2 only allowed printf debugging, attaching to process didn't even seem to work.)

Re:Evasive

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt it will ever be accessible. Its nothing to do with piracy: if homebrewers could access the GPU they could potentially be making games that rival commercial ones (and maybe even distribute them on live cds) without paying royalties, that is all there is to it.

As for accessing it 'unofficially' this is pretty much impossible - the hyper-visor is physically isolated - there is no software means to over-ride it - you are its bitch.

Re:Evasive

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention, the Yaroze project was a total fucking flop in the United States. Here's why:

* It cost a little under US$1000 for someone to get the kit (yeah, because amateur developers are rich -- hahahaha),
* Despite there being no region lockout on the black Yaroze units, there was efforts near the end of the project to introduce that ""feature"",
* You were limited to 1MByte of space to play with and absolutely nothing more,
* You had to use Sony's Yaroze-specific API (which many people tried to bust out of, because it was retarded (both in the literal and slang sense of the word) and unnecessary),
* You were limited to Sony-provided development tools (which were useless in most cases, and downright broken in others),
* Documentation was, to put it lightly, fucking atrocious,
* You could not share or interact with other Yaroze members who were in different countries; Japan could only talk to Japan, and US could only talk to US. Net "Cold War" Yaroze...

Most hardcore amateur developers I knew at the time went out and illegally obtained blue PSX units (which were actual development units being sold on the black market). I knew of one guy who went to E3 solely to steal a blue PSX unit (for development, not resale). Aforementioned fellow, and more than a handful of other developers ended up working at gaming companies around the globe. No one I know of gained ANYTHING from the Yaroze project, because the environment made development worthless -- well, except for Chris Chadwick.

Thus, I cannot believe the present-day CEO would even bother bringing up the Yaroze project. He'd have been better off stating that the Yaroze project was a failure because Sony was too paranoid of its competitors and of its users. Sony's the same way with other departments too; it's not limited to their PS3 group. Look at Aibo -- amateur hobbyists finding ways to get Aibo to do things by bypassing the API and accomplishing goals they couldn't due to Sony's ignorance. Sony, of course, went apeshit about it. AMERICA, FUCK YEAH, GONNA SUE EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING YEAH!!!

So what it is going to take for large companies to actually embrace amateur developers and stop worrying about piracy? I swear, every time there's interest in such things, corporate legal or IP fucks come along and destroy it for fear of piracy. Piracy is going to happen no matter what -- limiting your development platform because of it makes no sense. Give people what they pay for, and imprison anyone who breaks the law. Otherwise, let developers do what they do best: use their minds.

Re:Evasive

[jonwil]

The reason why they would be very reluctant to release a PS3GL module for PS3 linux is because of the things it would open up. For example, with PS3GL, it becomes possible to make a downloadble ISO that (once you have the otheros installer in place) installs on the PS3 and gives you a fully functional Second Life client. Which then competes directly with Sony's new Second Life clone for PS3 Online.
No doubt with PS3GL people would make other things that compete with stuff you have to pay for. (Quake 3 on linux anyone?)

Sony wants PS3 linux so people can write things that take advantage of the powerful CELL CPU, not the RSX GPU.

Re:Evasive

[senatorpjt]

if homebrewers could access the GPU they could potentially be making games that rival commercial ones

Yeah. That's why all of the Windows users I know keep a Linux install on a separate partition, just for playing games.

Re:Evasive

[DrXym]

I doubt its anything to do with the time it takes to play homebrew. After all, it takes an hour to install YDL on a PS3 and you CAN'T play PS3 games while running Linux. But there's your answer if you want to write homebrew.

Does it have 3D hardware access? Nope, but somebody could and should write a Cell powered driver for Mesa. Hook up Mesa to a couple of SPUs to do rapid transforms and other 3D operations. It would probably be comparable to most IGP offerings and would suffice for most homebrew games.

Re:Evasive

[Anonymous Coward]

Buy dictionary, look up potentially.

Interesting

[Jarjarthejedi]

I liked most of it but I must object to one statement.

"My personal philosophy is to make the entertainment experience of videogames available to everyone. I want to see the audience of people who play videogames, of any type, on any device, include practically anyone on the planet."

If that was truely his guiding principle the PS3 would not cost more than 50% (Min) of gamers can afford. It's also pretty much an exact copy of Nintendo's goal. Something tells me this principle is relatively new...say it began about when the 4 millianth Wii sold...

Other than that an interesting interview.

Re:Interesting

[BobMcD]

Was that an ad for the PS3 I saw last night with the blue-haired granny gaming it up in the living room with those two nice Japanese fellows?

Seems like they said something along the lines of Wii would like to play...

Oh well, must have been Sony, because exclusivity has NEVER been part of their mission.

Re:Interesting

[ucblockhead]

You realize that they haven't discontinued the PS2, and that it costs less than a Wii, right?

Re:Interesting

[Suzumushi]

You realize that the Gamecube (which is the same generation as the PS2) also costs less than a Wii right?

Furthermore, a quick look at the list of games being developed for the PS2 shows that it is already a dead system anyway. Sony priced themselves out of the market, and for years wankers at the SCEA have been sabotaging their own market share by blocking releases of Japanese games in the US. Sony is reaping what they sowed.

Re:Interesting

[senatorpjt]

And, if they released a motion-sensing controller for the PS2, it would be equivalent to the Wii. Maybe that's what they should have done instead of developing a new console.

Re:Interesting

[Breakfast Pants]

Then they would be copying Nintendo, who released a motion-sensing controller for the gamecube and called it a Wii.

Re:Interesting

[DeadScreenSky]

If that was truely his guiding principle the PS3 would not cost more than 50% (Min) of gamers can afford. It's also pretty much an exact copy of Nintendo's goal. Something tells me this principle is relatively new...say it began about when the 4 millianth Wii sold...

Or you know, after they sold more than 100 million PS1s and 100 million PS2s, the most successful gaming systems of all time, hence reaching a larger audience than anybody else had before or since.

I'll certainly agree with you that the PS3 isn't aimed at that market right now, and because of decisions like the required hard drive it might never reach the right price level, but Sony's gaming history demonstrates that they aimed to make gaming more inclusive than anybody else has - including Nintendo.

Re:Interesting

[MeanderingMind]

...than anybody else has...

I'm just going to be nitpicky, I like everything else, but "had" might be more appropriate. To date the PS2 has done what you say, but it's unclear whether Nintendo's current aim will surpass it. As such, it might be a little more precise with "had" and maybe a short aside about current trends.

Aside from that, quite insightful.

Re:Interesting

[Caffeinate]

Do you know why those Japanese guys showed up at the house to play? Because there's no chance of anyone figuring out how to play with someone else over WiiConnect24.

Seriously, I have a 360 and a Wii. 360; plug in an Ethernet cord, choose a Gamertag, online with a Silver account. Slightly more to Gold, but nothing that a competent person can't manage. Wii; once you manage to get the thing online (which requires WiFi unless you pony up for an adapter - therefore needs WPA keys - nothing for the /. crowd, but most people have no idea what this shit is) you have to trade 15? digit friend codes for EACH GAME.

Seriously though, it's ridiculous.

Re:Interesting

[Caffeinate]

Then they would be copying Nintendo, who released a motion-sensing controller for the gamecube and called it a Wii. No, they duct-taped two GameCubes together.

Re:Interesting

[BobMcD]

As a Wii owner, I'm pretty sure you're wrong about some of your points here.

Networking - I don't use WPA, just WEP, and it works fine. It took the ASCII code, too. I'm also pretty sure that there's an ethernet port on the unit. I'd have to check to be certain, though, but I remember being impressed by it having both. At any rate, wireless probably was the way to go since it isn't too likely that you'd have CAT5 at your TV set in most cases.

"WiiConnect24" - This doesn't yet do anything. There are, to my knowledge, zero games using this functionality. Pokemon is to be the first one that does. It will also be the first one to interface with the DS. Yes the system codes could turn out to be a pain, but shouldn't we wait until there's a game to try it with before we jump to conclusions.

Oh, and you can also email said code right out of the Wii to a known email address via the 'invite' feature.

Does Xbox do Xbox Live better than Nintendo? Sure. Wouldn't you be surprised if that WEREN'T the case?

Nintendo's system for online play is still very unpolished, but that's because it's, well, new. Let's come back to this topic in say, six months.

Re:Interesting

[Caffeinate]

a) I do own a Wii. b) You're correct that the Wii can use WEP, but i) it's no easier to set up that WPA and ii) why are you using WEP? You do know someone can get access in a few minutes, right? c) No ethernet. You have to purchase a dongle from Nintendo to get it to work. d) I believe you are correct about there being no games currently with online functionality, but Nintendo has stated the codes are going to be per game: no just jumping online. e) I agree: see you in 6 months.

Less PR Questions

[hansamurai]

The first few questions were really great, we actually got to hear the real Phil Harrison in those answers as opposed to the PR/spin guy in the rest where we learned nothing new. I know we all like to rag on Sony but it's not like we're going to trap Phil in some mind-boggingly tricky question where he's forced to admit Sony's ultimate failure. He does this for a living. Anyways, decent interview and it's interesting to see how this all played out.

Amazing!

[Anonymous Coward]

I did a within-page search for the word "rootkit" and it wasn't there. I have two questions for Mr. Harrison: 1, how can you sleep at night knowing you work for a company evil enough to put rootkits on music CDs, and 2, how in the world could I possibly trust Sony after they destroyed my PC?

mirth

[aschoeff]

A first glance I read the headline as: "Phil Spector Answers Your Questions."

My thought was "Wow, I didn't know Slashdotters were especially interested in a celebrity murder case!"

Re:mirth

[Anonymous Coward]

Warren's brother killed somebody?

Which planet is he on?

[Andy_R]

"the most successful launch in the history of the video games industry in Europe"

Hang on, Sony missed Christmas, gave us hobbled backwards compatibility and priced the thing so you can't get a console and a game for less than $900 here. Stores are full of people queueing for the Wii and ignoring stacks of unsold PS3s. I'd hate to see this guy's idea of an unsucessful launch!

Re:Which planet is he on?

[Floritard]

Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling! Forty years of darkness, Earthquakes, volcanoes! The dead rising from the grave! Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together - mass hysteria!

Re:Which planet is he on?

[Xest]

He was basing his comment on the number of units sold. The question is of course, whether units sold automatically infers most successful launch ever. If they sold the 800,000 units because they had enough units available to fulfil demand due to them delaying the Euro launch by 5 months then don't sell hardly anymore units over the next few months, whilst the competitor only sells 400,000 at launch as that's all they could produce in time but sells another 1million over the next few months then I'd say their definition of best launch is irrelevant - it's the playing out of the first 6 to 12 months after launch that really matter I'd say.

Certainly if you defined "best launch" by attendees and purchases at launch parties then Sony haven't earnt that title for the PS3, it was a flop in that respect. Whilst Sony has used the first 2 weeks as their measure of time for judging best launch I'd bet that the Wii/360 would claim this title back if you used say, the first 6 hours or perhaps even first few days as the measure of time for judging it instead.

Re:Which planet is he on?

[Penguin's Advocate]

"Hang on, Sony missed Christmas, gave us hobbled backwards compatibility and priced the thing so you can't get a console and a game for less than $900 here. Stores are full of people queueing for the Wii and ignoring stacks of unsold PS3s."

Yes...and despite that, they still sold more in the first two days than the Wii or the 360 did in their respective first months. Despite all that was wrong with the launch, they still sold more. That is far more successful than I think they had any right to even hope for. "Selling more" is a far more meaningful success than "perceived internet public opinion." As demonstrated by Snakes on a Plane, all the talk on the internet can mean next to nothing in reality.

Re:Which planet is he on?

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

The backwards compatibility was better than the xbox360's is NOW...

Hobbled?

Re:Which planet is he on?

[Raenex]

Yes...and despite that, they still sold more in the first two days than the Wii or the 360 did in their respective first months. They sold more because they had more to sell. Once the initial demand sold through, sales plummeted.

"Selling more" is a far more meaningful success than "perceived internet public opinion." Indeed, and they aren't selling more -- look at the March NPD numbers. Sony has lost this round. Really.

No Phil, I do care.

[Anonymous Coward]

Phil Harrison: [snip]I really don't believe gamers mind who makes the game [snip] So my main "concern" is to make sure those games are absolutely the best they can be.

no phil, you're wrong. i *do* care who makes the game. i know from previous experience that game titles from a certain vendor (*cough* ea *cough*) are probably dressed up rehashes. i know that a game that has rockstar's logo on it could be a clunker, but more-than-likely is going to be worth my money. so yes, phil, while i share your "main concern" that the game is the best, i immediately begin my purchasing decisions based on WHO MADE THE FUCKING GAME.

Re:No Phil, I do care.

[laffer1]

That is very true. There are games from some companies that I automatically buy just because I know it will be a good game. Blizzard games come to mind. id games up to Doom 3 are also in there. There are many in the console market as well.

For most people, the lack of a price drop is the most significant problem. I don't own a single sony console, but I'm not impressed with the xbox 360's poor quality*. I'd consider buying a PS3 as a second console after the wii I can't find. If nothing else, its a blueray player. I won't pay $600 for it.

*The xbox360 breaks often. Everytime I'm in a game store, someone wants to get theirs repaired. All of them have been hard drive models, but that is what I would buy.

Re:No Phil, I do care.

[Sciros]

My Xbox 360 broke, but it wasn't the HD that went bad. It was some "general hardware error." So I called them, they told me to send it no question asked, and sent me a working one back within a week. Very good service, and I just played some PC and PS2 in the meantime. So, yes, quality is not so great as far as durability goes, but the customer service mitigates that dramatically.

Re:No Phil, I do care.

[^_^x]

I own a PSX, PS2, and PSP, as well as all sorts of Sony gear (receiver, camera, headphones...)
But even then, the PS3 is way too expensive and at this point, I would only get Motorstorm, and Ninja Gaiden when it comes out.

The 360... I'd get one for $20. I'd pay more, but most owners I know are at least on their THIRD units! Frankly, I'm afraid to even put one in my home for fear it'd burst into flame like the first XBox... If they can make it reliable, then even I might get one. Not before then.

The Wii... eh. If I should ever happen to see one in any store anywhere, I hope there are a few original games for it by then.

I'm mostly a console gamer, but for now I'm still enjoying the "last gen" PS2/Gamecube/Dreamcast and my brand new gaming PC. Looking at the current consoles just makes me sad so far...

Re:No Phil, I do care.

[senatorpjt]

The xbox360 breaks often. Everytime I'm in a game store, someone wants to get theirs repaired. All of them have been hard drive models, but that is what I would buy.

I know this is totally off topic... I use macs... but anyone who is considering buying one should go to an apple store and see how long it takes to get an appointment at the Genius Bar before deciding to buy one. Then again, the unreliability of the hardware doesn't define the overall experience.

Re:No Phil, I do care.

[laffer1]

What is your point exactly? Hardware reliability does define experience. if its not working, there is no experience.

I also found the fact that you brought up Macs odd. I happen to have 4 Macs in my home along with many other types of systems. You don't have to be an MS fanboi to own an xbox. My original point was that people don't expect game consoles to break. They should just work. I've got a Nintendo that still works. I've got a sega genesis that still works. I've got a N64, Dreamcast, GBA, SNES, and Game Cube that still work. Why can't a 3 month old xbox 360 work? In all the years I've played video games, only two consoles have ever worn out and they were 8-10 years old at that point. My original xbox even works. Perhaps the conplexity of these new consoles makes them more fragile like a computer. Then again, I've got a working NeXT and Sun sparcstation built in the early 90s.

How come no one asked him about

[geekoid]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cSd3df1znU ;)

The solution to a high price is... more features?

[fruitbane]

There's a reason that, in the car market, Hyundai and BMW co-exist. Some people want a raging hormone car and some people want something they can afford that gets them comfortably from point A to point B. Phil Harrison's claim that "making the PS3" more desirable does not necessarily involve dropping price really fails to address the question directed at him. There are many people who can't afford the BMW of gaming systems and who are now settling for the Hyundais and Hondas of gaming because of that. Offering these people more "reasons" to buy a PS3 is not going to suddenly supplement their income and make such a high-priced machine worth the smack to incoming cash flow. By not having a true Hyundai model PS3, many potential gamers are locked out of the market because food, the electric bill, and gas to drive to work are more important than playing EXPENSIVE video games.

Given the unique experience offered by the Wii and the more reasonably-priced Xbox360, I think Sony has made a bad move. There's a reason BMWs are not the most prevalent cars on the road, and I suspect it's the same reason the PS3 is not likely to be the most prevalent game console in homes.

Price

[FatherOfONe]

The only real issue with the PS3 over the 360 and Wii is price. If the system was $400 then is would sell a ton more systems and Sony appears to be aware of this. They have dropped the price twice in Japan and will probably do it here in the U.S. late this fall. His response pretty much says it all when he didn't flat out deny a price drop this year.

The real question is if Nintendo can get their act together and sell over 15 million this year. If Nintendo could have met demand; or if they could meet demand they could bury both Sony and Microsoft in this race. Every day that goes by, HDTVs go down in price and more great games come out for the 360 and PS3 AND the chance of a price drop to the PS3 becomes more of a reality.

Xbox 360 - 9.5 million consoles sold (Channel stuffed big time so numbers will remain flat, majority of games are FPS, no standard hard drive, HD-DVD add on never used for games, no )

Nintendo Wii - 6.5 million consoles sold (Supply constrained, very limited game selection, poor 3rd party support, poor online support, weakest hardware platform)

PS3 - 3 million sold (Priced WAY too high, limited game selection, slowly growing online support, no kids games)

Re:Price

[Xymor]

Even risking sounding like a fanboy, you missed poor hardware quality for the 360(rings of death ahoy) and linux support for the ps3.

Re:Price

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux support may or maynot prove to be an asset in the future.
However, their strategy to allow any standard hdd and bluetooth headsets is certainly benefical for consumers.

Re:Price

[Anonymous Coward]

You also fail to mention that the 360 has been out a lot longer and has only sold 9.5 million. A lot has to do with the types of games available, the 360 just has shooters, shooters and more shooters with a user base that is comprised mostly of teenagers.

Re:Price

[OSS_ilation]

I'd argue that the lack of exclusives (or dwindling list anyway) is a much bigger reason than price. People bought iPod when they were $500, so price really wasn't a factor there, right?

In the gaming industry GAMES drive sales in the long run, and so far Sony has not made any kind of effort showing gamers how this system is any different than the 360 other than Blu-Ray -- a technology that, I may add, no one actually asked for to begin with. What they asked for was a gaming console with exclusive titles that warranted the lofty buy-in price. Sony has also shown that it's answer to Nintendo is to introduce a motion control PS2 controller 10 weeks before Warhawk developers are set to showcase their wares at E3.

Playing catchup to a GameCube and TELLING consumers what's good for them (Second Life Sony Home, with advertisements!), instead of showing them a product they really want or need and letting them decide for themselves is a massive failure in the making.

The PS2 is still selling admirably; maybe Sony should have bolted a Blu-Ray drive onto that.

Re:Price

[spideyct]

Majority of games are FPS? Other than Call of Duty 2/3, what popular game is an FPS?

The games I've most enjoyed on my Xbox 360: Geometry Wars, Gears of War, Crackdown, Viva Pinata, Texas Hold 'em, and Guitar Hero 2. Neither of which is an FPS. In fact, I think thats a pretty varied list of game genres. I'll agree that the library of good games doesn't go much deeper than the ones I listed, but thats a different criticism.

And HD-DVD add-on never used for games? Why is that a criticism? "This game would be SO much more fun if the disc was spinning in THAT drive instead of THIS drive". It might be a valid argument if games were running into limitations on the current drive, which other platforms were taking advantage of.

I'll agree, the 360 deserves a list of drawbacks (too loud?) - just not this list.

Re:Price

[JordanL]

Saying Gears isn't an 'FPS' is somewhat disingenuous. Yes, it's from a third person point of view... but I doubt many people would deny that its a direct competitor to other shooter games, particularly big FPS's like CoD and Halo.

Re:Price

[spideyct]

I agree that if you can redefine the meaning of FPS, you will be able to lump more games into the category.
I also think the Gears' use of the third person perspective allowed it to introduce integral new gameplay mechanics that are not possible in an FPS. So I think lumping it in as "just another FPS" would be disingenuous.

Size Matters

[Ikyaat]

"I think that PlayStation 3 is a masterpience of design and technology - it packs a huge amount of performance into an amazingly small (and quiet) box."

The PS3 is ginormous! When I first saw it I was shocked and amazed at how huge it was. I didnt like the original Xbox because I thought it was overly large and I was disapointed with the design of the PS3. I was hoping they would try for first generation PS2 size or smaller. Size matters a lot and for expensive electronics I want sleek and small, not Huge.

I mean as technology gets better it doesnt have to get larger, RAM, Video Cards, and Hard Drives get better and better and remain relatively the same size if not smaller.

How many have actually seen/used a PS3?

[enochweedy]

I see a lot of negative comments on /. regarding the PS3, and I was inlcined to agree with most of the complaints (specifically price). Then I had the opportunity to really play with one, and the next major purchase that I make is going to be a PS3. I love the GUI, I love the graphics (and no, I am not a graphics whore, but it does add to the level of enjoyment one gets from a game) on Resistance: Fall of Man, NFS Carbon, etc etc. I love not having to pay money to Sony so I can frag fools online, unlike the 60$ per year that I have to give MSFT. Yay, more money to Microsoft. The only thing that I hate is the price of the games, but I pay that no matter which system I go with. Am I going to get rid of my 360? No, absolutely not. It may look like I am at my desk working, er, posting on /. but I am actually in line to buy Halo 3. Also, Clive Barker's new one, Jericho, coming out around the same time.

Re:How many have actually seen/used a PS3?

[Anonymous Coward]

Played one in a Sony store out here in LA. I was not at all impressed.

Re:How many have actually seen/used a PS3?

[DarkJC]

I agree completely. The problem with the PS3 is that the only way you can truly see if it's worth it is to sit down with it in your home and check it out. Once you do that, I would say the majority is going to come out liking the system very much. However, at the moment that's impossible. The only way to try it out is at a store in a shitty hotbox kiosk where the system has no airflow, overheats, has old crappy builds of games, etc etc.

I know 3 friends who have PS3s, and we all love them. It's not like we got together and said "Uh oh we hate this system but spent $600 on it so lets convince ourselves we love it," it really is quite nice. One of them also has a Wii, and of course he loves that too. It just makes me laugh when I read all this hate on the PS3 online and figure that the majority of the people hating on the console are people who've never really tried one.

Re:How many have actually seen/used a PS3?

[theTander]

I never post at this forum, just lurk but i feel provoked to respond to some of the complaints posted here. I had a modded xbox in the past, and seriously debated whether to purchase a 360 or a ps3 this generation. I was convinced to buy a ps3 because i had played an amazing amount of xbox games and enjoyed very few; wheras, I played a good amount of ps2 games on my brother's system and enjoyed them all. Mind you, alot of the previously exclusive content was what i made the final decision over and with the titles going multi-platform, the system loses value to me. In the end, I hope phil's comments about unique content prove to be true as I am greatly looking forward to little big planet, home, as well as future innovations.

Re:How many have actually seen/used a PS3?

[Anonymous Coward]

I got the chance to try the system out in several different stores, and the PS3 isn't bad. But I do have a Wii, and I guess it's spoiled me a bit; games that you play by hitting a series of buttons and moving an analog stick don't really seem appealing any more. That doesn't speak to the quality of the PS3s software, but it does affect the product overall. It was foolish of Sony to duplicate their legacy control scheme without attempting to fix some of its shortcomings.
If ignorance of the product were the only thing holding the PS3 back, the Wii would be selling even worse, since most stores don't even have Wii kiosks at all, and others hold your ID in exchange for one of their demo remotes.

This interview is crap, sorry

[drinkypoo]

It's nothing reflecting on slashdot or the users. Hell, I even had a question accepted this time, so it's not even sour grapes!

The reason it's crap is because of the responses, which were obviously all sanitized by the legal department (or are all well-informed by the standards from legal.)

SOME of the answers are good. I don't want to take that away from this interview. The answer to #1 is great. #2 is sort of rambling, but at least it seems like an honest answer. But when we get to #3 (my question) :) then it goes to hell. Every word of the answer to #3 is pure marketing speak. This is not really anything different from what I expected - mostly my goal in authoring that question was to make him aware that we realize where Sony has fallen directly on its face.

But let's look at precisely why his answers are disingenuous, shall we?

"The Cell processor is wildly powerful and developers are now beginning to understand what that means for game design." Translation: The cell processor is horribly complicated to code for, and our internal developers are just now beginning to understand how to get a useful portion of that power out of it. We didn't learn anything from the stupid processor we put into the PS2."

"There is no denying we had some start-up challenges with Blu-ray at the beginning but that is the price you pay for leading edge technology. Thankfully, those challenges are behind us and I stand firmly by the decision to include BD-ROM as the physical media format." Translation: The lack of availability of blue lasers looked like it was going to be a real problem, but those problems never materialized because people didn't actually want to buy all the consoles we could produce, unlike the Wii.

"Next generation game design demands the capacity of Blu-ray." Translation: I am a lying sack of shit, since Microsoft is successfully outselling us with next-generation games on DVD.

[...] "the fact that is helps kick-start BD as the next generation movie format is a bonus for all of us, players and game-makers." Translation: I want you to believe that Blu-Ray's dominance would be good for the consumer, so I will spout this nonsensical drivel.

That's right, it's all lies and bullshit. I didn't quote a couple of sentences, because they were obvious statements that didn't need to be made to a technical audience.

Let's move on to #4.

"We were one of the first companies to recognize this in 1996 with Net Yaroze on PS1" ...which was too expensive for nearly any of their users to afford.

"It's a vital, crucial aspect of the future growth of our industry and links well to the subtext of my earlier answers." Which makes it difficult to imagine why Sony locks out so much functionality of their consoles from Linux users, if homebrew is so important.

"Now having said all that, we still have to protect the investment and intellectual property rights of the industry so we will always seek the best ways to secure and protect our devices from piracy and unauthorized hacking that damages the business." Translation: Having said all that, it is all bullshit because we will load you down with hypervisor restrictions and bullshit DRM that prevents you in some cases from exercising your legal rights and in others simply prevents you from utilizing all of the functionality of the machine.

#5 we can skip. Everyone knows Sony is going to be hurting bad because FFXIII isn't going to be PS3-exclusive, and that squeenix is hardly the only group of guys telling them to stick their exclusivity contract up their arrogant asses.

#6 proves that he is a dumbass as if we needed any further evidence, since he doesn't recognize the difference between vibration feedback and force feedback.

#7 is not very interesting IMO, hardly anyone bought the 20GB model to begin with.

In his answer to #8 he utterly ignores the fact that they're paying

Re:This interview is crap, sorry

[Last_Available_Usern]

Quote: Translation: Having said all that, it is all bullshit because we will load you down with hypervisor restrictions and bullshit DRM that prevents you in some cases from exercising your legal rights and in others simply prevents you from utilizing all of the functionality of the machine. --- Ya know, when I bought my alarm clock, no where in the documentation did it state I would be able to rip apart it's innards and utilize whatever components I wanted. It said it would keep time, and beep when I told it to beep. You didn't pay for a development platform, you paid for a game console. If you feel you were mislead in any way then you should review the countless commercials and web ads that say differently. If you are able at some time to utilize it for those purposes, then that's great, but you have no basis for being angry at the potential lack of that ability.

Re:This interview is crap, sorry

[drinkypoo]

You didn't pay for a development platform, you paid for a game console.

First of all, I didn't pay for shit. Sony is not getting any of my money if I can help it. They are the enemy of freedom-loving consumers everywhere and to patronize them is to be their ally.

Second of all, people who paid for the PS3 did pay for a development platform, because the ability to run Linux on the system was an advertised selling point, listed on the official PS3 website, and has been part of the buzz since long before the console was released. So you are plainly and simply wrong about this point. End of story. Do not try to argue, because you are wrong.

If they had advertised the linux support as being castrated, you might back a backup point there. But they didn't, so you simply do not know what you are talking about.

I also specifically discussed that subject in light of what he had said, specifically because to say those things while the console's Linux functionality is castrated the way it is... well, that's simply hypocritical.

Come back when you know what you're talking about, and have a point.

Re:This interview is crap, sorry

[Fex303]

Ya know, when I bought my alarm clock, no where in the documentation did it state I would be able to rip apart it's innards and utilize whatever components I wanted. It said it would keep time, and beep when I told it to beep.

Yes, but they didn't design the damn thing so that you couldn't rip it apart either. If you wanted to get at its innards, you'd just need a screwdriver. Perhaps you should stick to car metaphors.

Re:This interview is crap, sorry

[king-manic]

"Next generation game design demands the capacity of Blu-ray." Translation: I am a lying sack of shit, since Microsoft is successfully outselling us with next-generation games on DVD.

This one I disagree with you on. While Developers aren't demanding the extra space it does make their lives easier. Most games go through a phase where they need to shrik their assets down to size to fit the media. High res textures, uncompressed audio, multiple channels, bigger models, bump maps, normal maps, lighting maps, The increasingly less common FMV, The increasingly more common NPC audio, etc... Most developers will tell you before the shrikage games are easily 10-30 gigs. They shrink it by lowering texture resolution dropping stuff, compressing stuff etc...

Re:This interview is crap, sorry

[nuzak]

> We didn't learn anything from the stupid processor we put into the PS2.

The chip in the most-sold longest-produced console in history? Yeah, what a bunch of idiots trying to repeat that.

Re:This interview is crap, sorry

[Anonymous Coward]

In spite of, not because of.

Re:This interview is crap, sorry

[Last_Available_Usern]

That doesn't even make any sense. I didn't say the PS3 was physically uncrackable. What I illustrated with my "metaphor" as you put it is that it wasn't designed for that, nor documented. Perhaps it is you that should stick to...well, whatever it is you excel at.

Re:This interview is crap, sorry

[Last_Available_Usern]

First off, why are you so angry? I mean really, think about that for a bit. Secondly, I don't need to argue the point as it's moot. It's clear we both see it from different angles, but for grins, I'll give you mine anyway. Something that is viable of running an OS does not make it developable. You know what it makes it? An emulator. Everyone knew the PS3 would run Linux. Heck, Sony even wrote the code to integrate it's support during the 2.6.20 development. Misinterpretting my comment and then going on a tyrade doesn't justify your point. It merely shows how fanatical you are. I really hope you get some perspective soon.

Re:This interview is crap, sorry

[senatorpjt]

Sony is not getting any of my money if I can help it. They are the enemy of freedom-loving consumers everywhere and to patronize them is to be their ally.

I don't disagree with that statement at all, but if you buy a 360 or a Wii instead because of it, you're a fucking idiot.

Re:This interview is crap, sorry

[feepness]

You know what?

We get that you hate Sony.

Admittedly, I own a PS3, and I'm happy with it. And so your comments irritate me.

But Every. Single. Sony. Thread. Has you in. Discussing how Sony vivisected your grandmother and killed your gerbil.

Ok, we get it.

Even if I didn't like Sony... it's getting old...

Re:This interview is crap, sorry

[revengebomber]

Translation: The cell processor is horribly complicated to code for, and our internal developers are just now beginning to understand how to get a useful portion of that power out of it. We didn't learn anything from the stupid processor we put into the PS2. They're not thinking about the developers, developers, developers, developers! For once, monkey boy pays off!

Re:This interview is crap, sorry

[drinkypoo]

The PS3 is designed with safeguards to prevent you from utilizing the hardware, which you purchased and thus you may modify in any way you see fit under first sale law. You may or may not be permitted to distribute changes to program code, but you can do anything you want to the hardware or the code. However, they did as much as they could to stop you from doing it. This is not true of the alarm clock and that is why it's a silly comparison anyway.

Re:This interview is crap, sorry

[drinkypoo]

I don't disagree with that statement at all, but if you buy a 360 or a Wii instead because of it, you're a fucking idiot.

I'm definitely not buying a 360. I may be buying a Wii because Nintendo is at least giving gamers what they want. They're still a heartless, soulless corporation, though, and I readily acknowledge that. Mostly I'm willing to let them through because they're not fucking lying to us. They came out and said "This will basically be a turbo gamecube but we're going to change the face of gameplay. Get on the bus, or don't. It's gonna be slow." I appreciate the candor, I think more companies should try it, and I want to reward that behavior.

Re:This interview is crap, sorry

[drinkypoo]

Even if I didn't like Sony... it's getting old...

What causes you to imagine that it is more constructive to piss and moan about my pissing and moaning than simply adding me to your foes list and cranking up the foe penalty?

Other people clearly are enjoying my dissections of Sony (if only they were for a post-mortem!) based on the scores of the articles. I mean every word of it, and I am not getting paid, so what's the problem?

If you can give me one good reason why I should stop - and sand in your vagina does not count - then I will do so.

Re:This interview is crap, sorry

[feepness]

That's a good idea on the foe list... I hadn't used that feature before. I'll do that now, thanks.

It's not more constructive. To be honest I'd had a couple beers when I made my initial reply.

One good reason you should stop is that you are making an ass out of yourself, but hey that's your perogative. Knock yourself out.

Lots of people like American Idol too. That doesn't mean it's not trash.

Mocking C64!?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, C64 said "Ready." with a period, not a question mark. Supposedly meaning "I'm ready with the previous task and ready to accept more commands."

Also, FWIW PS3 _is_ rather homebrew-friendly. It's the only console you can install linux on, with vendor-supported mechanisms. There's still possibility that they might in the future implement hardware accelerated OpenGL for PS3/Linux.

Re:Mocking C64!?!

[senatorpjt]

My view of his statement is that RSX access isn't ruled out, but they need to assure that the access to the RSX isn't going to have security problems in regards to the main system. It sounds like they're having difficulty providing access to the hardware without providing a way that doesn't allow the copying of games.

I don't really see how they can get around it, either - If Linux is allowed to access both the Cell and the RSX, then, official games should theoretically be playable within linux via virtualization with a minimum performance penalty.

Re:Mocking C64!?!

[Anonymous Coward]

They would never give direct access to the hardware and it is probably not even up to them: i.e. NVIDIA do not allow open source drivers for their GPUs.

That leaves a binary only driver accessed through OpenGL ES, I don't see how such a thing could compriomise the security of the system, especially given tat the hyper-visor will always have absolute authority. It would also mean that games would not run through virtualisation without a massive performance penalty, but probably not at all since you wouldn't have any idea what was going on under the hood - the cutting edge commercial games will be accessing the RSX directly, (from any of the processing elements).

The only technical difficulty I could see would be that they want to put the OpenGL driver in the isolated SPE and don't have enough room because the hyper-visor is too big.

However, I suspect the only thing Sony are worried about is compromising the their business model.

Re:Mocking C64!?!

[Anonymous Coward]

What I've heard from an SCEA employee is that RSX unavailability to Linux at this time is due to the current nVidia license agreement that SCEI is bound to.
The current license permits access to the RSX only from the Game OS. Support for Linux would require a new agreement between nVidia and SCEI.

He didn't really answer my question

[Sciros]

Phil's reply to my question was somewhat avoidant... but I suppose that's to be expected. PS3 losing exclusives is a result of there being a relatively small number of PS3s out there (therefore a small potential audience for any title, however amazing). So if publishers want to even break even on a game, they currently need to go multiplatform to maximize their audience. Games are expensive nowadays, dev teams are bigger than ever and game devs command high-enough salaries.

Any PS3 Fans here?

[Hemogoblin]

But I also have to point out that millions of people around the world have bought PS3s and are loving the experience - and frankly they become our advocates and evangelists far more effectively than I could ever be. Are there any PS3 owners here that would like to promote the system? I'm genuinely curious to see if there are people satisfied with their purchase and are excited enough to promote it.

Re:Any PS3 Fans here?

[Anonymous Coward]

I love my PS3! My entire experience has been great and I can't wait to see where it will go from here. As far as the price goes - the 360 will cost you the same to get the same included items if you can get them at all. The Wii is always going to cost less but it is a last generation console. The Wii is already at the finish line - there is no where for it to go. I have played all three and the PS3 is the only one I can see playing two years from now.

Re:Any PS3 Fans here?

[Hemogoblin]

What exactly is it that you enjoy about it and use it for? That is, what types of games do you play, do you watch movies, do you download stuff etc?

Re:Any PS3 Fans here?

[DarkJC]

I'm a North American launch owner. Admittedly my initial reason for buying the console was MGS4. I'm a total fanboy for that series, so there was no doubt in my mind that I was going to be getting a PS3.

That said, I have no buyers remorse. I really do love it. I think the reason you don't see a huge amount of PS3 supporters here is not only because there still aren't a ton of systems out there, but because being Slashdot most likely they'll get flamed to hell or called retards for spending $600 on a game console etc etc.

To give you an idea of how I use it, I currently have Resistance, Virtua Fighter 5, and Motorstorm. Resistance was a blast, and while I have no idea how it stands up to Gears (and it's definitely not a Halo killer) it still was great fun, especially with the imaginative weapons Insomniac loves putting in all their games. VF5 is great, lack of online play slightly disappointing but to be expected due to the nature of the fighting engine. Motorstorm I think was the title that most shocked me. I had been looking forward to it for quite a while after the demo but near release the reviews game out and it got relatively mediocre reviews, mainly because of the lack of game modes. So..I held back on my purchase for quite a while but ever since picking it up I'm glad I did. Not only are the graphics amazing, but the gameplay never ceases to be just downright fun, even with the lack of modes like single race and time trial.

I'd also like to mention my thoughts on the PSN. Having very briefly used XBox Live I don't feel I'm qualified to give a comparison between the two, but my experience has overall been very nice. My only complaint is that Resistance didn't integrate it's buddy list with the PSN, something that my other online title, Motorstorm, does very nicely. However, both games are lag free, and Resistance has awesome matchmaking, clan support, and all that jazz built in. I always hear people with XBL touting those features and I just thought I'd point out that we too are enjoying them. As for the Playstation Store, they could use some fatter download pipes, but other than that it's decent. I definitely think the XBLA interface is much nicer though. The PS Store is basically a webpage, and can be sluggish.

I did get Casino Royale to check out Blu-ray, and I was quite impressed. Not impressed enough to go and rebuy old DVDs though, however new purchases will probably be in Blu-ray if available. The picture quality is quite awesome, I just wish my receiver was newer so I could take advantage of the uncompressed LPCM 5.1 audio over HDMI. Oh, and I also convert a bunch of shows I download into a PS3 suitable format and transfer them over to watch them on the big screen.

Overall it's a pretty great experience. I always had plans to get an XBox360 sometime down the line, but what I'm getting now from the PS3 will tide me over until there are a bunch of titles that interest me on the 360 (and maybe a price drop). With Heavenly Sword looking like it's shaping up to be a great game, Lair looking promising (although I'm not completely convinced yet) and some blockbuster hits coming at the end of this year I'm pretty excited. Honestly, I hope this doesn't sound too much like some PR zombie taking advantage of the situation, because I'm not. It's the first time I've really got into about how much I enjoy the experience in hopes of shedding some light on the parts of the PS3 that aren't that bad (namely everything but the price ;)

Re:Any PS3 Fans here?

[Anonymous Coward]

I love my PS3. Ironically, most of why I love it is that I have a massive PS1/2 library and the games load much faster and I don't have to hunt for my damn memory cards anymore. I uploaded em all once, and now life is great, I can switch back and forth easily, and the backcompat is perfect. (Note: I did buy one of the pre-Euro launch ones, so I can't speak for that)

I only actually own Resistance (a great game, I liked it better than Gears but lack of online coop angers me, so Gears wins there) as a PS3 game, but I've logged about 200 hours playing old games that just had hideous load times and they're much more bearable now. Oh, I suppose fl0w counts too, which is very weird but fun.

I'm excited at some of the future games (Lair for example), the box is quieter than the Xbox 360, the online services are nice considering what I'm paying for them, and if my friends were rich enough, I'd certainly promote the system to all of them.

I may be in that rare segment of people that's willing to pay $600 on future promise and a great improvement on the library I already play, but people upgrade their PCs all the time, so I can't be _that_ far off. I just bought it as an expectation that it'd improve what I already do, and it does. And someday later in the mysterious future, I'm imagining there'll be more games I want to play.

To be fair, I greatly enjoy my Xbox-360 (though not as much as I would if it were actually backwards compatible, this is the main reason it took me a year to buy one) and have a lot more games for it, and I might enjoy my Wii if my girlfriend hadn't banned me from playing anything on it until she finished Zelda. I've got em all, and I like em all (if only from what I've seen from the Wii!). I hope they all succeed, competition is good.

Re:Any PS3 Fans here?

[thecheatah]

I have a wii and a ps3.

I dont understand how I am suppose to have fun with the wii. (have wii play, i love golf and zelda i cant adapt to the controls I hate writing with a pen/pencil and i hate drawing so i hate swinging the remote)

But the ps3 is something I get.

I guess I am too old to learn new things.

PS3 was well worth the $600. I am still iffy about the wii.

I know my view of video games isnt popular, but it is still AN opinion.

Re:Any PS3 Fans here?

[ucblockhead]

I own a PS3. I've had it for a few weeks. I've had fun playing Elder Scrolls: Obsidian and Motor Storm. Blast Factor is also fun, though I doubt it'll have much longevity. It was only $5.99, though I've also been working my way through the original God of War. (I never owned a PS2.) I have been, at the moment, "loving in" in that it's taken up all my gaming time. (Though that's partially because my wife monopolizes "Puzzle Quest" when I'm home.)

I bought it because it's the first console I could get hooked up to my LCD. (Mainly, I'm sick of playing the PC-gamer upgrade cycle and sick of bug-ridden PC games and the shitty, bug-ridden copy protection they use.) I thought about a Wii, and may still pick one up, but honestly the sort of games it has don't excite me.

I didn't even consider an XBox, because I refuse to put any money towards Microsoft's efforts to expand their monopolistic bullshit beyond the PC. Honestly, I'm surprised a slashdotter can admit buying an XBox without holding their head in shame.

Beyond that..."excited enough to promote it" usually means "fanboy". Fuck that. I have fun...you can buy whatever console you want and as such, am completely uninterested in arguments about which console is "better". I stopped doing that sort of shit back in the "Apple ][ vs c64" days.

Re:Any PS3 Fans here?

[king-manic]

The system is a great DVD player, a Good blu-ray player. Has a lot of options I find neat and so far I have 3 games for it. 2 are a lot of fun 1 was given to me because my friend was using the game as a coaster (genji). PS1 games are coming online which rocks and I use it as a media center for my HD TV. It's a pretty nice machine. It was worth it for me. The machine is a good one and well made. There aren't the same "disc read error" problems that plagued the launch PS2/Xbox/360.

Re:Any PS3 Fans here?

[cxreg]

Being an early adopter to any new game system is frustrating. Even Wii, with all the hype, is suffering badly from a shortage of new games.

Motorstorm is fantastic, and Oblivion is pretty neat, but I spend more time playing PS2 games than PS3 ones for now. GTA really is the one game I'm waiting most for.

The OS is ok, but it definitely gives the feeling of a work in progress. I have noticed that they don't announce everything that goes into the updates, for example, their Javascript and CSS support in the built-in web browser improved during one of the updates and I heard nary a peep about it anywhere. Sort of a strange take on underpromise/overdeliver, but I'll take it.

Linux works well enough on it, but I've been running Folding when I'm not gaming, so I don't really have a strong opinion about that. Maybe if someone gets a Cell accelerated Mesa going, I'll actually boot it more often.

Oh, and he's right about the noise. As in, there is none. At all.

I've only watched one Blu-ray movie, which was 5th Element, known to be a particularly bad example, so I can't say much about that aspect.

It's really quite an impressive machine, if a little on the big and heavy side. Once the 3rd parties start to deliver, it'll be much more sensible a purchase. I'm just a sucker for new toys :)

Re:Any PS3 Fans here?

[Kohath]

I like mine. I wish I had more time to play games and watch movies.

I have no complaints about the capabilities or operation of the system. It needs more great games and a better online store that sells video though.

I think I clearly made the right choice in buying it. It's still the best choice for HD movies at a semi-reasonable cost.

Re:Any PS3 Fans here?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm content with mine, but also disappointed. Firstly, I'm a linux user since RH5 and couldn't wait to install it on my PS3. I installed a 160G drive immediately, the partitioning was shit. Either 10G for PS3 or 10G for otherOS (this may have changed in recent firmware updates). Well, sony lock out RSX meaning you cannot access a lot of the hardware, including the video. There is no access to the vid, so media playback is awful. Unless you are playing with the cell processors, there's not much point in installing linux, it feels like a P3 with no RAM.

Other gripes:

Does not output 1080p/24 which is surely a must for blu-ray movies.

Very poor format and codec support, making it near useless as a media center, and certainly way behind HTPCs. Having to throw away 5.1 sound when transcoding to play on the box is pretty dumb. mencoder does not output valid containers, so pleaaaase, no mencoder comments.

Apparently there's no playlist functionality. Personally, I can't be bothered moving music to it.

Does not feed DTS/AC3 through to receiver when in a local file, converts down to stereo instead, even though playing audio DVDs passes through the audio as you'd expect.

Region free PAL dvds will not play on the US PS3, why? Broadcast standard is irrelevant these days of LCD and plasma panels. It would be interesting to know whether Euro boxes suffer the same artificial restrictions with NTSC DVDs.

Doesn't upscale DVDs despite having more than enough CPU grunt to do so. This was promised for the European release. It never arrived.

Games are more opinion based. So far we waited for motorstorm to be the big thing. It's ok, but a racing game that doesn't allow 2 player mode?! There are also frame rate problems and polygon bugs. This will improve with newer titles I would imagine.

All in all, the box has power but its hands are tied behind its back. Sony will kill it unless they open it up more and give owners what they want. Even minor things like playing your own music when playing games and changing the background image will appease a lot of owners. So far, all I've seen in firmware breaking existing abilities, and very little to improve the OS and what you can do with it. I sincerely hope Sony wake up, otherwise people should only buy a PS3 if they want PS3 games, and ignore the hype surrounding the (piss poor) media center, which is vert far short of the old xbox + xbmc. The PS1 did so well because everyone was chipping them, likewise with the xbox. I feel the PS3 will be stillborn if Sony don't start fixing the basics.

Re:Any PS3 Fans here?

[theTander]

I enjoy mine and my largest complaint is how often i get attacked by my friends who own an xbox360, as well as by people on boards such as these. for that reason, I go to sites like avsforum to avoid most of partisan pandering and read less biased rhetoric from both sides about my decision

Re:Any PS3 Fans here?

[tc]

"I didn't even consider an XBox, because I refuse to put any money towards Microsoft's efforts to expand their monopolistic bullshit beyond the PC. Honestly, I'm surprised a slashdotter can admit buying an XBox without holding their head in shame."

And yet somehow stuffing the coffers of the same company responsible for the rootkit debacle makes you a model slashdotter (whatever the fuck that means)?

Re:Any PS3 Fans here?

[senatorpjt]

It may be cold comfort, but you can install an external HD via USB and partition it for linux. It's not optimal, of course, but it works.

Re:Any PS3 Fans here?

[senatorpjt]

When the PS3 first came out, I thought it was a pointless piece of shit. When the Wii came out, I really wanted that. After several months of trying to get one, I gave up and bought a PS3. (Sorry, buying the 360 never even crossed my mind.) I thought it was OK, but I still wanted a Wii.

A week after I bought the PS3, I went to someone's house, they had a Wii. It was pretty cool. But, I was there for about six hours, and in that time, I became bored with it. The motion sensing gimmick got boring fast, and it didn't really work that well. After spending a week playing the PS3, the Wii graphics were appallingly poor. After my Wii experience, I'm 100% satisfied in my decision to not wait.

I can't really speak to the 360 vs. the PS3, but the ability to play HD movies on my 61" 1080p TV set definitely makes up for any difference in price.

Re:Any PS3 Fans here?

[senatorpjt]

BTW. I hear a lot about people who go to a friend's house who has a wii, they play it... "That's really cool, i want one." It's pretty cheap, so when they become available, maybe they'll get one, if they remember. However, I've had friends come over, and play Virtua Fighter 5 or R:FOM on the PS3, which gets more of a "HOLY SHIT" response. Then, they hear it's $600, and that's pretty much it. However, when the price comes down, they'll definitely remember it.

Re:Any PS3 Fans here?

[ucblockhead]

Don't call me a "slashdotter". I have more brains than that.

Re:Any PS3 Fans here?

[senatorpjt]

well, I'm not who you asked, but I play games on it (VF5, oblivion, motorstorm, RFOM), all the downloadable games. I don't have any BD movies yet, but DVD's really look like shit on a large TV set. I watch HD movies over cable, and it's a huge difference, even with the obvious overcompression. All I've really seen is a concert BD from my gf, but I'm definitely looking forward to BD movies.

Re:Any PS3 Fans here?

[TrekkieGod]

I'm not the guy who replied to your original question, but I also own a PS3 and am pretty happy with it. Not as a console, mind you...

My roommate bought an hdtv and even though I used to one of the people who claimed standard def dvd's were "good enough" that changed quickly when I started watching high definition stuff. I also have a huge dvd collection, so I figured I'd start buying high definition discs from now on, since there is such a huge difference. Plus, high definition HBO is all well and good, but you get the same movies over and over again for a long time period, so it doesn't really compare to just having a huge netflix blu-ray queue.

Yeah, an xbox-360 + hd-dvd drive would do just as well. However, if you buy the hd drive, the price is comparable to the ps3. And my roommate's tv won't do 1080p over component, only over hdmi. So the ps3 suits that purpose better in our case.

As a result I own a ps3 and watch lots of blu-ray movies. I don't own a single ps3 game. I haven't even tried to see if I could rent a ps3 game. I played some of my old ps1 and ps2 games mostly just to see if they work. Can't really recommend it as a videogame console, at least not yet, but it is the cheapest blu-ray player you can get, so if you want to get one of those, I'm happy with mine.

Re:Any PS3 Fans here?

[Anonymous Coward]

Quite a few of us out here.

Re:Any PS3 Fans here?

[Puff of Logic]

because being Slashdot most likely they'll get flamed to hell or called retards for spending $600 on a game console etc etc. This is a fair point that I think a lot of Slashdotters should consider. I know that we have a large contingent of people who routinely proclaim to be perfectly satisfied with running games on ten-year-old hardware, but we also have a contingent of hardcore gamers too. I'm certainly guilty of having proclaimed the PS3 to be ridiculously expensive, but then two days later I've found myself trying to justify the purchase of a $600 graphics card because my 7600GT just isn't able to drive my games properly at 1600x1080 on my widescreen LCD. My hypocrisy was immediately apparent to myself and since then I've stopped commenting on the PS3's price. My point, I suppose, is that a lot of people jumping up and down about a $600 console purchase might do well to view their own tech expenditures before berating others for their spending decisions.

Re:Any PS3 Fans here?

[Anonymous Coward]

even though i will be listed as an Anonymous Coward, i F'n LOVE my PS3. Is it better than a wii, definitely, 'cause the best game for the PS3 wasn't meant for the ps2 (twilight princess, for the wii). Is it better than a 360, i believe so, and Microsoft validated the insides of the PS3 matter w/ the 360 Elite including a bigger HD and High Def support. The graphics definitely are and in time it will show, especially when games are being developed FOR the PS3 and not for the 360 and ported over. I already recommend it to people i work with, and once the price drops they all intend on picking one up.

Re:Any PS3 Fans here?

[Intellectual Elitist]

I currently own Virtua Fighter 5, Virtua Tennis 3, and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance on disc, plus Blast Factor and Q*Bert from the PS store. I would probably own 4 or 5 more disc-based games if they supported 1080i (I have a 1080i-only TV).

IMO, VF5 is the king of fighting games, period -- and it looks absolutely stunning on the PS3. VT3 is also a lot of fun, though its lack of online play compared to the 360 is annoying. M:UA is nice too, though the lack of voice chat is a head-scratcher, especially because the PS2 version supports it.

I currently own 4 Blu-Ray movies, and the increase in quality over DVD is so large that I can't imagine going back. My local Blockbuster is also the only place in my area that rents Blu-Ray movies, so I've given them some business on the rental front.

The SD slot is also nice for quick previews or slideshows of digital camera photos -- they look great in HD on my 50" TV.

So, the answer to your question is that I use it for everything you asked about, and my only real complaints are with the developers who choose not to provide 1080i compatibility, or who provide weak or nonexistent online support.

Re:Any PS3 Fans here?

[wongn]

It's interesting: in virtually every single discussion board that I have ever read, I have not once noticed someone who's unhappy with purchasing a PS3. There've been plenty of disgruntled Wii (boring) or 360 (it keeps breaking!) owners, but I suppose they have more people who own them :)

Re:Any PS3 Fans here?

[Saint_Waldo]

Bought mine at launch with Tony Hawk. Then got Tiger Woods. Then Resistance. Then Blazing Angels and Ultimate Marvel. Now I'm on Oblivion. I've bought fLow, Blast Factor and Sudoku from the online store. I spent Christmas eve and morning with GT HD. I don't even have an HD TV yet and this thing is great. I've gone through a good chunk of my worthy PS2 games and they all work. Talledega Nights made me wet myself. The software updates keep getting better. The latest one gave us back rumble for steering wheels, and to the guy who wanted to play the PS1 downloads on the PS3, well, that's in there now too. As a satisfied customer, I'd have no problem recommending it. I'd actively promote it, and often do, to those who ask me about it. For free.

Eh... fair enough....

[7Prime]

Not really. Using my question (#2) as a way of painting yourself as the Henry Ford-style, "product for THE PEOPLE", gaming CEO will only get you so far when you fail to price the product at a level that THE PEOPLE can afford.

They're stuck. They have the opportunity to present themselves as the BMW of game consoles, offering the most sophistication for your buck. Yet, they're constrained by being a MASSIVE company, that needs to eat 2x its weight every month to survive, meaning that it can't afford to be that picky. So, its forced to charge luxury rates for a gaming experience that may or may not be any more sophisticated than anyone else's.

Henry Ford wouldn't have had much credibility, had he started out making Lexus's, now, would he?

Wheres our money

[Drakin020]

I am very dissapointed that we did not ask where to pick up our check for finding a PS3 in stores.

Free copy of Casino Royale?

[Jarlsberg]

I'm european. I did not get a copy of Casino Royale when I registered, nor was there ever a mention of a free disc when registering... Not all europeans are born alike, it would seem. ;)

Not that it matters much. I already own it on DVD. And I'm actually quite impressed with my PS3. It has a lot going for it, though the game selection could stand to improve. I'm currently playing Resistance, and after playing Gears of War on the 360, Resistance is not very impressive.

Re:I Love Slashdot - NOT

[Prof Kayyos]

Hell, I thought it said Paris Hilton -- damn --. Oh well.

Next time can we ask better questions.

[kinglink]

I know these questions come from us, but who ever set this up must have seen this coming. We got a ton of user questions and then allow him to get away with fake answers that don't pertain to the question and marketese speak.

Next time we get an interview with a marketing big wig please demand they answer the questions and non compliant answers will be remove. I hate seeing slashdot being turned into a game of softball.

Re:Next time can we ask better questions.

[Skadet]

Don't be silly. The "marketing bigwigs" accept the interview because it can be good PR for them. What did you expect him to say?

"Yeah that whole Blu-Ray thing? Man, don't even get me started."
"Price cuts for the PS3? HAHAHA if you're too poor to buy our PS3 then you're too poor to buy our Blu-Ray movies. We don't want you as a customer anyway."
"Our developers are kind of slow, which is why we haven't leveraged the PS3's power fully, yet."

I mean, really. What's in it for them if they're honest?

Re:Next time can we ask better questions.

[kinglink]

I just hate the fact we ask him real questions and they just immediately try to spin it. The first guy says he joined SCEA in 1996. And then he goes to tell him that Wikipedia can't be trusted, giving his history until he says he joined the American branch in 1996. That's essentially what joined SCEA in 1996 means.

At the very least don't allow them to hijack questions to sell their products or point out shit that has nothing to do with it. Why allow a person to ask a question about the european delay and then allow him to fob it off, then give the company line "800,000 units in europe being the best launch ever" (sad I know that by memory, but I've heard it about 20 times since the european launch because they are so happy) Then talking about Casino Royale? you gave it away free? I'm guessing the fact that you then made it the best selling BD or HDDVD title had nothing to do with it?

Phil Harrison has been a double talking weasel in the industry for too long. I think it's time to get him to stop.

failed again!

[Skadet]

Yet another failed car analogy. BMW had 66.6 Billion USD in revenue in 2006.
Hyundai had 29.5 Billion USD in revenue.

So, bottom line, BMW might move fewer units, but they make more money.

Re:failed again!

[Suzumushi]

Not necessarily. BMW's cost a lot more than a Hyundai does, so naturally their revenue would be higher. However, BMW's expenses are also a lot higher I would imagine. Revenue is not profit.

I'd also rather compare BMW to Toyota which has revenue in the trillions or Honda which has revenue around 86 billion...Hell just combine the two.

It also doesn't change the fact that most people driving BMW's are pompous jerks. ;-P

Re:failed again!

[fruitbane]

I wouldn't say it's a failed analogy completely. It was certainly overly simplistic, but it was useful to illustrate a point. But let's look at more ways the analogy breaks down.

We're just talking about moving the system itself. What about games? Games have a set cost. If every console buyer buys roughly the same number of games, having more gamers makes a lot of sense. And if the folks with money buy a few more games, they still have a lot of extra ground to cover to make up for the smaller console base. Besides that, BMW probably makes more money per car than Hyundai does. But do we know that Sony makes more off every PS3 sold than Microsoft does from every 360 sold, or Nintendo from every Wii?

We know that Nintendo has the cheapest system, the broadest console base, and the highest sales. If Nintendo makes the same money per game in licensing fees and similar profit from every console sold Sony has no hope to compete without growing the user base.

Yeah. I like my PS3.

[maynard]

I have to say, as one of the folks who got a question put to Mr. Harrison that he didn't answer squat. But - I must say - the PS3 is an amazing HD player. I absolutely love watching movies with the thing. OTOH: I also have a 360, and the games are on the 360 at the moment.

*shrug*

Oh really?

[lewp]

My personal philosophy is to make the entertainment experience of videogames available to everyone. I want to see the audience of people who play videogames, of any type, on any device, include practically anyone on the planet.

Personally, I don't think selling a $500 console is the best way to reach "practically anyone on the planet." In fact, it seems like you're going in the exact opposite direction with each successive console generation.

Re:Oh really?

[Anonymous Coward]

$500 is nothing for middle income households. Sure, most kids can't pull that out their assholes, but most of us don't blink for that kind of money. If you don't have modern HDTV, stick to the PS2 or get an xbox360. You can live without HD for a few more years, or stick to playing pirate games on the PCs. Sony have never been the poor mans' company. Not since I've been familiar with them (since mid 80s).

Re:Oh really?

[mollymoo]

The GP and Phil harrison were talking globally. For billions of people, the cost of a PS3 represents what they have to live on for an entire year. What you call "middle income" is actually "very fucking rich indeed".

Re:Oh really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sony have never been the poor mans' company. Not since I've been familiar with them (since mid 80s).

The "poor man", defined as someone who will "blink" at spending $500 on a frivolous piece of electronic entertainment hardware, is easily 90+% of the world's population. So much for getting everybody involved.

PS3 owner, reporting in

[Bugs42]

I've got a PS3, bought it around 4 months ago, and I'm really happy with it. There's a couple of really good games out there that I'm enjoying.

Resistance: Fall of Man - totally awesome, especially co-op, and the some of the weapons are really damn fun.

Blazing Angels - the motion-sensitive controls actually work pretty damn well.

Armored Core 4 - I've only downloaded the demo, but it's just the kind of explosive, giant-robot-action I love.

Flow - great fun just to kick back and relax with. It truly does flow, just like they promised.

Downloadable PS1 games for the PSP - kick ass. My only gripe here is that I have to play 'em on my PSP and not on the 3.

Also, I never had a PS2 so I'm enjoying all the last-gen games from that console that I missed (Final Fantasy XII, Front Mission 4, Katamari Damacy, Red Dead Revolver, to name just a few).

Sadly, I haven't watched any Blu-Ray movies yet, so I can't comment on that feature of the machine.

Yep.

[Intellectual Elitist]

I'm enjoying my PS3 quite a bit, and if it weren't for so many developers targeting 720p without providing 1080i support (I have a 1080i-only TV), I'd have very little to complain about.

Pros:
First to get Virtua Fighter 5
No extra fees for online gaming
Blu-Ray movie playback (it's very difficult to go back to DVDs now)
Hard drive in every unit
Most comfortable next-gen controller
PS1 and PS2 backward compatibility

Cons:
No built-in 720p upscaling for 1080i-only TVs
No rumble (though this will be changing soon)
No online play for Virtua Tennis 3
Pricey

Once they get rumble into the Sixaxis and some marquee exclusives come out later in the year, the PS3 should be on much more solid footing.

Wikipedia reference

[tlambert]

Wikipedia reference

Someone has already updated the Wikipedia entry, citing this Slashdot article as a source.

Maybe it's about time to start trusting it a bit more... ;^).

-- Terry

PS3 Needs Price Drop

[Anonymous Coward]

"But price is only one part of the motivation to purchase a system."

The $600 price tag on the PS3 is the #1 de-motivator for purchasing it...PS3 can not reach a critical mass until it is priced below $300.

says it all

[cfvgcfvg]

http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20051 104

No RSX For You

[Doc Ruby]

4.) 'Homebrew Gaming' by Anonymous Coward, maynard, and flitty
If someone manages to get homebrew games running on the PS3, will there be firmware updates to stop this kind of development, to protect your software developers, or is homebrew something you are planning on and even encouraging? Is there a chance that the policy of restricting access to PS3 graphics hardware (via the hypervisor) could be revised to encourage us homebrew developers? How does this strategy differ from your strategy with PSP homebrew? Has Sony considered offering kernel patches and an RSX optimized OpenGL library for PS3/Linux?

Phil Harrison: Now, let me first say that Homebrew is sometimes a misused term and so for the purposes of this answer I will exclude pirates and hackers with illegal intentions from the definition.

[... lots of nostalgia for hacking other's BASIC games on C64, nothing about RSX ...]

I fully support the notion of game development at home using powerful tools available to anyone.
Now having said all that, we still have to protect the investment and intellectual property rights of the industry so we will always seek the best ways to secure and protect our devices from piracy and unauthorized hacking that damages the business.

He didn't even answer the question about granting access to the RSX, which is the PS3 graphics chip (9x as fast as the really fast Cell CPU). Though he did pick the question as one of the few to "answer". Sony is not going to open access to the RSX for Linux developers, because then unlicensed Linux bootable CD/Blu-Ray games could compete with licensed Sony games. Sony makes all their money on those licenses: Sony sells PS3s at least $240 below production cost just to sell more consoles so they can sell more game licenses. This has nothing to do with piracy, but it certainly does have everything to do with "unauthorized hacking". Which is always the best kind, as anyone hacking C64 or other 6502 PCs in the 1980s knows in our hearts.

You're a marketer's dream, idiot.

[Anonymous Coward]

If I offered to rape the entire female constituency of your extended family, and I expressed the offer in fullblown netspeak, would you give me their home addresses?

Assume that I'm Bill Gates.

Re:Fsck Linux

[senatorpjt]

People should know better by now than to ask multi-part questions. Should just have asked: "When will RSX access be available for linux?"

I've played with a few in stores...

[mbessey]

It's obviously early times for PS3 games. The games I've played (Resistance, Motorstorm, Virtua Fighter) really just seem to be "more of the same", but with higher-resolution graphics. I think when/if developers start to really take advantage of the Cell, you'll see some leading-edge physics and gameplay to go with those graphics, but right now, it's just not that interesting to me.

Then again, I did buy a Wii, primarily due to Nintendo's (and others') focus on "wacky" but fun games. The Wii is shaping up to be the only video game system that will actually increase social interaction at events when it's brought out. Oh, and the Wii Remote, of course. Games like Elebits and Rayman Raving Rabbid could be done on any other console, and in Rayman's case, already has been. But they're just not going to be the same without the Wii Remote interaction.

Harrison is blaming Sony media/legal dept

[Morgaine]

If you read Harrison's words carefully, they have a very direct interpretation:

I fully support the notion of game development at home using powerful tools available to anyone. ... [cut]

Now having said all that, we still have to protect the investment and intellectual property rights of the industry so we will always seek the best ways to secure and protect our devices from piracy and unauthorized hacking that damages the business.

This reads exactly as follows, both in form and logically (I'm not joking):

I know that the right thing to do would be to support the home game developer ... but our I.P./media lawyers prevent us from doing the right thing.

And since we know that this is exactly what's happening at Sony, it seems quite likely that that's what he meant. Of course, since he's a marketting/PR monkey he's far more likely to be simply talking total bollocks for effect. Nevertheless, his words happen to accurately reflect what is going on at Sony, so perhaps he intended to imply this very thing in a way that wouldn't land him in hot water in the company.

Re:Harrison is blaming Sony media/legal dept

[Doc Ruby]

Excellent point. If true, it reveals a pressure point on a fault between legal and marketing. And since marketing drives the company, especially in the gamble of whether to expose HW to both XMB (game) and Linux OS'es, this is an important distinction. If Harrison will continue to tell developers like the Slashdot audience that "Sony wants to give developers everything we can", while developers specifically demand access to the RSX, then Harrison (and his marketing staff) can be used for his power inside Sony.

If Harrison had ignored the question, we wouldn't have his signal that he supports Linux development. Getting full access to the PS3 HW is the #1 issue for developers (not just gamers and technophiles) on Slashdot. So now we know where the allies might lie. Continued pressure just might get them to expose at least 2D APIs to RSX, if not everything needed for at least Beryl, if not Duke Nukem Forever (;), under Linux.

Until I saw your analysis, I thought Sony would never expose RSX to Linux, as that would be the little hole in their license royalty balloon. But if their marketing execs want it, then there is very much a chance. Even if they're just pretending they do to look cool for developers they're planning to leave cold, there's still a chance to campaign on their words to get them to help. It's worth doing. That RSX is 1.8TFLOPS of graphics power, dwarfing even the Cell's 0.2TFLOPS. With Beryl, we're talking about a superfast desktop like in a SF movie (hell, we're talking about a realtime rendered SF movie in full rez on the desktop). Let's get it!

Could GPLv3 prevent such hypervisor lockouts?

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux isn't part of the PS3's regular software, so clearly this question doesn't apply in this specific case.

But in some hypothetical future case, when virtualization performed by some proprietary hypervisor limits what a Linux kernel *used by the manufacturer* can do with the hardware, will GPLv3 provide any redress?

It's a rather different situation to the TiVO, because a modified Linux kernel isn't being prevented from running in the PS3. Instead, it's just being prevented from doing anything more than the manufacturer intended. Rather sad.

Re:Could GPLv3 prevent such hypervisor lockouts?

[Mr2001]

No, I don't think so. My understanding is that the GPLv3 would only address situations where a product ships with free software that the manufacturer can replace (via a signed update, for example) but the end user cannot.

Unauthorized hacking

[Kamineko]

Unauthorized hacking, eh?

Is that when you stay up until 6am on a school night trying to get your port of Thrust working correctly?

The cultural status of gaming

[imgod2u]

One of his answers interested me. In response to question #2, he made a comparison of the cultural attitude towards video games as a source of entertainment vs other, more traditional media. In particular, it's interesting that he compares it to books, television and movies. He claimed that video games were taken less seriously and not as pervasive in modern culture.

This may be true to some degree, and certainly the sheer amount of time that books, television and film have existed with respect to the existence of video games surely can explain how it is less culturally pervasive, I think the answer lies, primarily, elsewhere.

One obvious advantage, of course, is the social aspect. People can watch TV and movies together. They can read and then discuss a book together. In essence, it's social. This is one aspect I feel video games lack in. More and more games that involve (particularly with the help of the internet) multiplayer aspects and even focus on it are coming and they will certainly help push video games into the mainstream.

Another obvious advantage is that it's so attention-dominating. When one watches TV or goes to a movie, it's generally viewed as a social event. Yes, we do have rules with our friends that no one is allowed to cause any noise during a new showing of The Office, but if you're all just kicking back with a beer in your hand watching Conan, then it's a social environment in which your full attention is not required. This, I think, is lacking in video games. One can argue that interactivity will always require more attention and that may be true to some extent. But looking at games like poker and many other such board games, I think it can be well argued that interactivity is not necessarily a social killer in which you can't take your eyes off of the game if you want to play.

The final, and probably most important reason that TV, movies, books, etc. are more culturally favored than video games is content. Let's face it, there are crappy games out there. In fact, I'd say that the majority of games are crappy. The reason that GTA was popular was not because of the graphics, the voice acting or the interface, it was because it was fun. The game was well-made with a (albeit comical) storyline and a variety of things for people to do. In a medium with so much possibility in terms of content delivery, it's a wonder that people have not done more with it. Has anyone even considered how important the story may be in a video game? I don't obsessively watch Grey's Anatomy (there, I said it) every week because I like the graphics (though there is a ton of eye-candy on that show). I watch it because of the storyline (albeit a soap-opera-ish storyline). And having the ability to augment that storyline with interactivity brings leaps and bounds of opportunity that has, thus far, not been exploited. When playing through a game becomes as emotionally thrilling as watching Peter Gibbons take an electric drill and removing the doorknob that shocks him every day, more and more people will regard it as an every-day pass time just like turning on the tube.

Re:The cultural status of gaming

[AigariusDebian]

Try WoW. Now that is social.

Yep, highly recommended

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a solid machine, both in it's potential, and physically (great build quality). Games out right now are pretty good; come January we'll see if it all holds up.

Re:I Love Slashdot - NOT

[Paradise Pete]

Hell, I thought it said Paris Hilton -- damn --. Oh well.

And that would be interesting?

Does this really surprise anyone?

[VE3OGG]

Honestly folks... does this interview, and the ensuing "spin" put on every answer really surprise anyone?

Does it surprise anyone that Sony is going to fight tooth, nail, and probably lawyerly to protect its paying IP-licensees? Does it surprise anyone that his answer to "what would you have done differently?" was something along the lines of job interview answer ("what is my fault? I am a perfectionist, who sometimes likes to work too hard for too little pay") of "I'd be bigger, better!"

Really, having interviews with any companies' frontmen are a ridiculous waste of time: all their answers will be geared to making the company look good (even at the expense of the truth and the question!), they won't answer anything that they don't want to (seriously, you expect to just let it slip that a price drop is even being considered!?), and any time they come up against a question that cannot be answered without harming the company's reputation, they just dance around it with some cute anecdote.

In other news, water still wet, sky still up, news at 11.

And what OS made that possible?

[dbjh]

See the subject line. Besides, ucblockhead didn't claim to be a "model slashdotter".

Re:Fsck Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

All they really need to do it work with Nvidia to get a video driver out.

Why I love sony

[Stefanwulf]

The choice of putting a hard disk drive in every machine was the absolute right decision technically, but is a tough choice financially.

This quote does a good job of representing why I find myself with a little spark of love for sony. Despite being a huge multinational corporation that pushes rootkits, they regularly give in to their hardware geeks.

These are the people who brought you betamax and introduced broadcast-quality video recording and playback to the home. They brought you the aibo, which years after it's discontinuation remains the most advanced robotics package available to the consumer. Both of these things failed for the same reason that the PS3 might fail - they were cutting edge, amazing hardware. That's a niche market right there, and sony is too big to try and sell flagship products to a niche market, so their marketing folks have to try and make it fit the masses.

Now I'm the kind of person who benefits from this, because it meant that in high-school I could pick up a couple beta decks at a garage sale and start editing great looking video. It means that I can use my aibo to set up a basic cognitive robotics lab in my own house for less than a tenth of what it would have cost a decade ago, and it means I'm going to be able to crunch numbers with a cell processor without having to go buy myself a hugely expensive cell dev board. Sony makes all of this possible by being willing - every few years - to give in to their hardware geeks and shoot themselves in the foot financially. And that's why I love 'em.