The Tech Fixes the PS3 Still Needs, Eight Years On

An anonymous reader writes "The PlayStation 4 has well and truly arrived, but Sony's still selling its last-gen console by the pallet-load, eight years after first going on sale. Of course, as a new article points out, that's nothing compared to the PS2's astonishing 13 year manufacturing run. To help achieve that, the author outlines some tech fixes the PS3 could still do with, even after all this time, from tighter PS Vita integration, to yes, cross game chat. Can it make it past a decade, too?"

Comments

If they brought back OtherOS

[Khyber]

Maybe they could keep selling them 20 years from now.

Real tech fixes

[Anonymous Coward]

How about making better Blu Ray drives to combat YLODs?

I have had 4 since launch.

Re:Real tech fixes

[SScorpio]

The Blu Ray drive has nothing to do with the YLOD. Yes the laser can burn out, and I've had to do a single replacement.

YLOD is caused by micro fractures in solder eventually leading to connections failing. This is because the PS3 came out in 2006, which is the same time PC video cards were also combating the move away from lead based solder (thanks California, do you have that sign up that the state of California contains things known to cause cancer so anyone visiting or living there is aware?).

The YLOD and RROD caused both Sony and Microsoft to be very conservative with power and heat in the new console.

Re: Real tech fixes

[Anonymous Coward]

Ylod on ps3 is for more than one error. It can be for a bad CPU, or GPU connection, it can also be a drive read error.

HTPC

[tepples]

You can buy Other OS in a box. They call it a home theater PC. Alienware is only one of several companies making them. Slashdot's own Hairyfeet build them for a living.

Re:HTPC

[loufoque]

It doesn't have a CBE.

Re:HTPC

[tepples]

GPGPU has made Cell obsolete anyway in my opinion.

Re:HTPC

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would that matter? IBM let CBE die a horrible, painful death, like everything else in the Power line.
Apple even left them because they let Power stagnate compared to x86 offerings.

If IBM ACTUALLY worked on Cell, it could have went somewhere. But IBM are too monolithic to keep up with the rate of other companies.
They are stuck in the last century.

Sadly I see that cool new brain chip they made with DARPA probably getting left to rot.
Please don't IBM. That thing is actually pretty damn useful. That thing alone could make voice recognition USEFUL. And even basic AIs useful at parsing abstract concepts.

You'd be better off just getting any generic high-core processor. Sure Cell has a pretty unique and great design, which I would love to see replicated (take the hint IBM, sell sell Cell!), but good luck making use of it when even smartphones will beat it in about 10-15 years.

Re:HTPC

[Khyber]

You can't get a PC that can dedicate ~2TFLOPS of processing power to a task, and the state of home PC GPU accelerated stuff is rather poor right now in comparison.

Re:HTPC

[hairyfeet]

Yes I do and they have never been more powerful or cheaper thanks to the AMD Socket AM1 chips, which just FYI is the same Jaguar platform used by the XB-One and PS4. If you use a Linux HTPC build like OpenELEC you can easily get one built for less than $250 although i have to say that HTPCs are frankly the only place Windows 8 makes sense, its large startscreen is a perfect 10 foot UI for HTPCs.

But unless you were doing VERY specialized code the OtherOS running on the cell just wasn't a good idea, the cell was just too specialized to use as a general purpose CPU. You'd be better off with a Jaguar quad where the entire system uses less than 65w under max load and if you use an SSD idles in the teens. And of course thanks to it being X86-64 you can run any flavor of Windows/Linux/BSD you want without needing a corp to approve.

Re:HTPC

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't get a PC that can dedicate ~2TFLOPS of processing power to a task

The Cell CPU in the PS3 came in at a whopping 230GFLOPS, so I'm not sure why you're using 2TFLOPS as a point of comparison. The GPU was not accessible except as a frame buffer in OtherOS mode, and even if it was fully accessible it would not contribute 1.8TFLOPS on its own.

the state of home PC GPU accelerated stuff is rather poor right now in comparison.

In comparison to what? The wide world of homebrew Cell-accelerated software? Hint: Software that actually took advantage of the Cell is virtually non-existent outside of PS3 games and HPC.

You seem to have a remarkably optimistic view of what the PS3's Cell was capable of and what was done with it. In reality, having worked professionally with both Cells (the real ones, for grown-ups, with double precision support and everything!) and GPUs:

(a) The cell was not really competitive with GPUs, performance-wise, except for the very earliest part of its life. Today it is not even worth mentioning.
(b) From the moment CUDA was released, Cells were much worse to program for than GPUs, and this gap has widened as GPUs have seen improvements in language features, tools, and available libraries that have not been matched by Cell.

Re:HTPC

[Khyber]

"The Cell CPU in the PS3 came in at a whopping 230GFLOPS, so I'm not sure why you're using 2TFLOPS as a point of comparison."

The overall performance of the PS3 architecture. Are you that brain-dead?

Re:HTPC

[Anonymous Coward]

Citation needed.

Re:HTPC

[Khyber]

Citation? Uh, Sony marketing, IBM notes, wikipedia, and anyone that actually bothered hacking the system!

Re:HTPC

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you literally stop reading half way through a paragraph that contained only two sentences?

Re:HTPC

[Anonymous Coward]

In other words you don't have proof that a PS3 has 2TFLOPS of processing power.

Re:HTPC

[Khyber]

Uh, yea, I just listed the sources. If you're too stupid to do the searching for yourself and read that the RSX alone had 1.8 TFLOPS to go with the ~250GFLOPS of the Cell processors, I can't help you.

Re:HTPC

[Khyber]

Did your brain fail? It would appear so, since you can't follow the conversation.

given Sony's behavior...

[Anonymous Coward]

Given Sony's behavior and customer-hostile attitude over the years, why buy anything from Sony?

Just say no. Let them go bust. It's past time already.

3D Blu-Ray Player

[Vandil X]

I lost interest in mainstream console gaming after the SNES/Genesis and the Saturn/PS1 eras. The way gaming was going on consoles (Xbox, PS2, GCN) just turned me off and I spent more time playing MMOs on PCs. So when the 360 and PS3 came out, I bought a PS3 only to serve as an easy-to-firmware-update Blu-Ray player that can play my PS1 games and, perhaps, any PS3 game that catches my eye (SF4 for example) and retro collection discs.

The killer app for me was when 3D Blu-Ray capability was added. For me, the PS3 will continue to have it's honorary position in my entertainment scenario, so long as it can play Blu-Ray movies and allow me to play Symphony of the Night on the big screen.

If my PS3 breaks while they're still making them? I'm not sure I'd buy another. I'd just get a cheap 3D-capable Blu-Ray player and play SotN by other means.

Re:3D Blu-Ray Player

[JaredOfEuropa]

I play most games on my PC as well, but sometimes it is just nice to boot up a quick game on the console and have at it with some friends. My main niggles about the PS3, compared to the older consoles:
1) The old games were very much about head-to-head action, but many PS3 games have poor support for multiple players on one console, and instead focus on networked play
2) The updates. The god-damned updates. The PS3 is switched on only every now and then for a few quick games, only to find that both console and game require a patch, which sometimes takes over an hour to download and install. Fail. The whole point of a console is that it's instant-on.

Re:3D Blu-Ray Player

[Anonymous Coward]

2. It's the same shit on Xbox.

Re: 3D Blu-Ray Player

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes except the Xbox takes about 3 seconds to download and install a patch which is about 1000x faster than the ps3 does it

Re: 3D Blu-Ray Player

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes if you are talking about downloading and installing a small patch for games or the patch that gets downloaded and installed to download the real os update patch. The real os patches take a long time to download just like the ps3.

Re:3D Blu-Ray Player

[CronoCloud]

2) The updates. The god-damned updates. The PS3 is switched on only every now

THAT is your problem, switch it on more often. PS+ helps because then you can have it automatically download updates at say 5 in the morning.

which sometimes takes over an hour to download and install.

slow internet and an older hard drive in that PS3?

Re: 3D Blu-Ray Player

[Anonymous Coward]

The Xbox doesn't take anywhere near as long for os updates either. 3 min tops twice a year. The ps3 takes 5-10+ every couple of weeks.

Re:3D Blu-Ray Player

[Anonymous Coward]

Switch it on more often? I don't play PS3 games very often and I'm not going to start because Sony stupidly made patches mandatory, even if I just want to play a single player game. And PS+ costs money that I should not have to waste to have something as rudimentary as auto-patching.

I'll continue stick with my superior PC gaming experiences and only use the PS3 on the exceedingly rare occasion that it has a game which is a) any good and b) not also available on PC.

Re:3D Blu-Ray Player

[Anonymous Coward]

2) The updates. The god-damned updates. The PS3 is switched on only every now

THAT is your problem, switch it on more often. PS+ helps because then you can have it automatically download updates at say 5 in the morning.

which sometimes takes over an hour to download and install.

slow internet and an older hard drive in that PS3?

Whatever happened to using a tool only when needed?
You must be an American, or the the kind of globalization sympatizer that leaves their lights and TV on all day in an empty room. Everyone else agrees that power is expensive, bandwidth overages and caps are a thing, and wear and tear can kill your electronics. When you own an old device, you'll be more careful to power it off because when it goes dead in the US, you won't find repairs or even used parts.

I have a few game DVDs I bought for the PS2 starting just 7 years ago. Scratches or some laser problem I can't pinpoint started to become a problem. Load times for random battles or even unplayability of some parts of the game are sure a thing showing the console's age. Now sure how long my money will be good for.

Re:3D Blu-Ray Player

[Dahamma]

Mandatory patches are ok if they are properly managed. Xbox does 2 per year and they generally add a bunch of useful features. Sony randomly releases mandatory patches a half dozen times or more a year, and once in a while even every few weeks...

Re:3D Blu-Ray Player

[tlhIngan]

If my PS3 breaks while they're still making them? I'm not sure I'd buy another. I'd just get a cheap 3D-capable Blu-Ray player and play SotN by other means.

You'd get better quality using a cheap 3D blu-ray these days - the PS3's HDMI output means it only supports half-resolution 3D, and in doing so, lossy audio, making it one of the most undesirable 3D players out there.

3D over HDMI comes in 4 formats - side-by-side (SBS), Top-and-bottom, line-interleaved, and frame-packed. The latter format involves fitting two full resolution frames (1920x1080 x2) per frame, while the others are fitting two frames in a 1080p frame. Side by side means the two frames are 960x1080 in size (losing horizontal resolution), while top and bottom means they're 1920x540 (losing vertical resolution), while interleaved means every other line belongs to a frame, again losing half the vertical resolution.

Couple that with lossy audio (the PS3 can't do lossless audio in 3D mode, go figure), and it was a nice "how do you do" feature. The people who could use it however, generally were people who spent a lot of money with a nice system. Even today, they still are since 3D has disappeared practically from store shelves. Relegated to a few high-end models so if you wanted it, you paid for it.

Re:3D Blu-Ray Player

[CronoCloud]

You must be an American, or the the kind of globalization sympatizer that leaves their lights and TV on all day in an empty room.

Yes, I am an American, and I live in a state with 11 nuclear reactors (IIRC) and a ton of wind-farms, but I don't leave lights and TV on.

Everyone else agrees that power is expensive, bandwidth overages and caps are a thing, and wear and tear can kill your electronics.

what, over 6 - 8 years? Having the PS3 turn on at 5 to check for updates and then shut itself off is nothing. I've still got a fully functional CECHE model PS3, with it must be said, an upgraded hard drive.

The situation is better with the PS4, it can do that in standby without turning on fully.

I have a few game DVDs I bought for the PS2 starting just 7 years ago. Scratches or some laser problem I can't pinpoint started to become a problem. Load times for random battles or even unplayability of some parts of the game are sure a thing showing the console's age.

DRE's. Not likely scratches, PS2 DVD's are resistant to scratches,PS3 Blu-ray discs even more so. Google "PS2 disc read error", it can and probably will get worse. Some PS2 models are more resistant, SCPH-50001's in particular. You can send it to Sony to get it fixed, it used to be a free repair, but isn't anymore.

Re:3D Blu-Ray Player

[CronoCloud]

I'm not going to start because Sony stupidly made patches mandatory, even if I just want to play a single player game.

Turn off it's internet connection, then it won't even check and you won't have to worry about updates at all.

And PS+ costs money that I should not have to waste to have something as rudimentary as auto-patching.

Yes, they shouldn't have kept that PS+ only for so long. You get some automatic updates if you're not PS+....now. But you have have it turned on, and many people...especially if they don't keep up with PS3 news, don't know it's available.

http://manuals.playstation.net...

http://www.polygon.com/2013/10...

If you have PS+ it keeps track of your disc based gameplay and automatically gets the updates for those most recently played games for those too.

Change PSN account anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

It can be done but throws all your game saves into disarray.

Wet Dream

[ameoba]

That's a fanboy wishlist, not a well thought out, profit-oriented list of reasonable items that have any hope of getting added to a down-market, end of life console that's in cost-cutting, discount sales mode.

The only one of those that seems halfway reasonable would be upgrading the WiFi & that's only because it might be easier/cheaper to source modern WiFi chips during the extended production run.

Re:Wet Dream

[PopeRatzo]

That's a fanboy wishlist, not a well thought out, profit-oriented list of reasonable items that have any hope of getting added to a down-market, end of life console that's in cost-cutting, discount sales mode.

When you say "fanboy", I think you meant, "customer".

I know consumers are only supposed to accept what the corporation deigns to give them nowadays, but there was a time when companies used to say, "the customer is always right" and actually try to give them products that they wanted.

Today, it's "The customer needs to just STFU, accept the EULA and use our product the way we want them to use our product, until we decide to take that away too and force them to buy our next product, because corporations are people, my friend. People who happen to be your goddamn overlords. Now bow before, me, worm".

Re:Wet Dream

[Anonymous Coward]

A customer would be someone who buys a PS4. A former customer would be someone who bought a PS3, back in the day.

Re:Wet Dream

[ameoba]

This is in like somebody demanding a $12k Kia have premium sound system, leather seats & a V-8 under the hood.

Re:Wet Dream

[PopeRatzo]

So, you think wanting a feature that was in the product when you bought it and then taken away is the same as demanding a premium stereo, leather seats and a V8?

You think wanting a feature as easy to include as in-game chat is going to double the cost of the PS3 to Sony?

Wait a minute, we're talking about Sony here. I don't have to argue a case proving that they are hostile to their customers. They're behavior over the past few decades is proof enough that they think you are stupid enough to buy their products. They laugh at you.

Re:Wet Dream

[Anonymous Coward]

So, you think wanting a feature that was in the product when you bought it and then taken away is the same as demanding a premium stereo, leather seats and a V8?

Nope, but I do think that the OtherOS post is over there. ;)

Re:Wet Dream

[PopeRatzo]

It's not about just the feature, but Sony's willingness to degrade the value and capability of the products it sells you after you've already bought them.

This is the main problem with consoles: When you buy one, and you buy a bunch of games, you don't own squat. You're completely at the mercy of Sony. They can take back what you've paid for without your permission.

Sony counts on people not reading or not understanding their EULA. If people knew what they were actually agreeing to, I'm not sure there would be nearly as many consoles sold. But clearly people don't care, until they do. Me, I've learned my lesson about Sony and they are on my permanent pay-no-mind list. It's not that I think my purchasing decision is going to make a difference to them, but it damn well makes a difference to me.

Re:Wet Dream

[Chaos Incarnate]

Backwards compatibility was taken away, in conjunction with a price drop because eliminating those chips significantly lowered the cost to build the machine. I'm more than happy to have saved $100 on my PS3 to lose that.

Cross-game chat (which is what's really being asked for; plenty of games have implemented their own in-game chat), while trivial from a technical perspective, has the issue of Sony not being able to increase the memory or CPU footprint of the OS while a game is running, lest they break one or more of the thousands of existing games. So if they added that, they'd have to find something to carve out. Theoretically I suppose they could build more RAM/a faster CPU into the newer machines, but only those would be able to support chat.

Re:Wet Dream

[R3d M3rcury]

...or a customer who, say, buys a brand new PS3 from Sony's online store..

No, they're not suggesting that Sony upgrade everyone's WiFi for free. They are saying that if you buy a new PS3, it would be great if it came with support for more modern WiFi implementations.

Re:Wet Dream

[David_Hart]

That's a fanboy wishlist, not a well thought out, profit-oriented list of reasonable items that have any hope of getting added to a down-market, end of life console that's in cost-cutting, discount sales mode.

When you say "fanboy", I think you meant, "customer".

I know consumers are only supposed to accept what the corporation deigns to give them nowadays, but there was a time when companies used to say, "the customer is always right" and actually try to give them products that they wanted.

Today, it's "The customer needs to just STFU, accept the EULA and use our product the way we want them to use our product, until we decide to take that away too and force them to buy our next product, because corporations are people, my friend. People who happen to be your goddamn overlords. Now bow before, me, worm".

No, he means fanboy. Normal console customers will see that all of the new games are being released on the PS4 or Xbox One and move on. Also, it's unrealistic to expect a company that has the next gen product out to make any changes to the old product. The reason why is because they have put any new R&D into the new console and need to recover their investment.

Re:Wet Dream

[Rakarra]

This is the main problem with consoles: When you buy one, and you buy a bunch of games, you don't own squat

Oh, you own it, and you own it completely. After all, no one HAD to upgrade the system BIOS to the version that disabled OtherOS. What people need to know if they can only count on being able to do what they can do NOW. They can not count that future games will be playable, at least not without a lot of nasty strings attached.

counts on people not reading or not understanding their EULA. If people knew what they were actually agreeing to, I'm not sure there would be nearly as many consoles sold. But clearly people don't care, until they do

They usually don't care because it doesn't affect them. Weird, short-lived reports from Sony that researchers were using them in clusters did not affect the average gamer. Those researchers didn't lose out, either, since they didn't upgrade the BIOS. They just used the machine like they always had.

The removal of OtherOS didn't affect the average gamer, it only affected a very small group of people who installed Yellowdog Linux out of curiosity. I was one of those who did so -- a year later, I didn't particularly care that the feature was removed, because as everyone else who tried it discovered, OtherOS sucked. The hypervisor, which can't be worked around, locked out much of the hardware. Want to use it as a cool games emulator? Good idea! But since the hypervisor has always restricted the RSX, the PS3 runs much slower than your standard HTPC, and has almost no graphics acceleration.

It's only been recently that some exploits with specific hypervisor versions have allowed the Linux kernel to boot in "game mode," unlocking full graphics acceleration, but that's not a Sony feature and wasn't available through OtherOS.

OtherOS always sucked because Sony was scared it would lead to pirated games or homebrew games that competed with their own offerings, so they crippled it from the very start.

Re: Wet Dream

[Anonymous Coward]

A customer would also be someone who buys PS3 games, Pays for PS3 DLC, and has a PlayStation account.

Re: Wet Dream

[Anonymous Coward]

That sounds like LG. If you don't agree with their latest EULA for their TVs, you no longer get to use the features that you originally paid for.

Re:Wet Dream

[CronoCloud]

So, you think wanting a feature that was in the product when you bought it and then taken away

I own a CECHE model PS3 that at one time had a YDL install on it. I was even a moderator over at the Yellow Dog Forum. I have said the following many many times.

The thing is, you have to agree to have the feature taken away, it won't be taken away without you agreeing to do so....twice.

The choice is yours, keep Linux and lose access to PSN because your PSN isn't "trusted" or keep access to PSN and lose Linux. Your choice.

Now perhaps Sony shouldn't have required you to make that choice, but they believed that Geohot gave THEM no choice and the final choice is yours.

Re:Wet Dream

[CronoCloud]

but Sony's willingness

Sony wasn't willing. They believed that had no choice other than do what they did. At least give them some credit for supporting it in the first place. No other console maker has had official support for Linux in one console, let alone two of them.

Re:Wet Dream

[ildon]

The PS3's customers all bought one already over the past 8 years.

Re:Wet Dream

[Anonymous Coward]

No one came into your house and removed PS2 backwards compatibility from your old Fat PS3. The compatibility was dropped from new models and was made clear to customers. In fact, they've actually gone back and recompiled/emulated several popular games and put them on the PSN store for cheap as a secondary solution since they removed the PS2 hardware.

Re:Wet Dream

[tlhIngan]

The removal of OtherOS didn't affect the average gamer, it only affected a very small group of people who installed Yellowdog Linux out of curiosity. I was one of those who did so -- a year later, I didn't particularly care that the feature was removed, because as everyone else who tried it discovered, OtherOS sucked. The hypervisor, which can't be worked around, locked out much of the hardware. Want to use it as a cool games emulator? Good idea! But since the hypervisor has always restricted the RSX, the PS3 runs much slower than your standard HTPC, and has almost no graphics acceleration.

It's only been recently that some exploits with specific hypervisor versions have allowed the Linux kernel to boot in "game mode," unlocking full graphics acceleration, but that's not a Sony feature and wasn't available through OtherOS.

OtherOS always sucked because Sony was scared it would lead to pirated games or homebrew games that competed with their own offerings, so they crippled it from the very start.

And you know what? It helped keep piracy at bay.

Here's one thing Microsoft learned on the original Xbox - when the interests of homebrewers and pirates align, you lose. It's why the Xbox360 is locked down and to this day, unbroken save for limited piracy hacks.

Sony had the same with OtherOS. Within 6 months of them removing OtherOS, the PS3's horrendously broken security system was breached - by people looking to run OtherOS! And what happened after that? The pirates came in and basically took over. It's so bad in the early days, you could still use PSN with a fully opened console (which led to the PSN shutdown a few months later). And these days, you still can since the complete console security system was breached - anything Sony tries is a element of "trust the client". Which means it works for a few days, then fails as everyone learns how to spoof the response.

And perhaps another factor was Microsoft's "opening" of the Xbox360 using XNA and the Xbox Live Indie Arcade where homebrewers can write code and then play them and even offer them for sale.

It's lead to the Xbox360 being unbreached - no "hacked" console can be connected to Xbox Live without being detected, and the security of the software is such that it still only runs Microsoft's code.

So if you hacked your xbox, you could play pirated games, but never online.

Re:Wet Dream

[PopeRatzo]

In fact, they've actually gone back and recompiled/emulated several popular games and put them on the PSN store for cheap

You mean the games people already owned and then couldn't play because of Sony's "update"? Gee, they should be grateful Sony is letting those people buy those games again...for cheap.

Re:Wet Dream

[PopeRatzo]

The removal of OtherOS didn't affect the average gamer,

So, you're saying that as long as they screw a few people, but not the average gamer, then it's all OK.

Uh-huh...

With Sony, it's about a body of work.

OtherOS always sucked because Sony was scared it would lead to pirated games or homebrew games that competed with their own offerings

You're making my point. Sony treats their customers with hostility. Does anyone really believe a homebrew culture would compete with AAA games? And down at the bottom, this is the very reason why it should be illegal for one company to provide both hardware and software. Because they will inevitably act in an anti-competitive manner.

Re:Wet Dream

[PopeRatzo]

So if you hacked your xbox, you could play pirated games, but never online.

As tiny as the effect of piracy is on games, it's shocking how badly the games industry has reacted.

But I guess it's the same thing with movies and TV and music. The industry has over-reacted to the detriment of their paying customers.

Re:Wet Dream

[PopeRatzo]

They believed that had no choice other than do what they did

Oh, BS. Sony had lots of other choices. They've had choices every step of the way in their miserable history of hostility toward customers.

Do you need me to recount some of their...um...exploits?

Re:Wet Dream

[tepples]

What people need to know if they can only count on being able to do what they can do NOW.

I don't know if I'm misunderstanding what you're trying to say, but it sounds to me like one should expect to wait until all desirable games for a given console have been released before buying the console because otherwise, one runs the risk of having the ability to run games released after the purchase of the console taken away. If this is the case, then even "count[ing] on being able to do what they can do NOW" isn't guaranteed because console makers have a history of permanently shutting down matchmaking servers for online multiplayer components of games that are still being sold in stores. During the PS2 era, I could buy a game at the store, take it home, unwrap it, put the disc in my PS2, and be greeted with "DNAS Error -103: This software title is not in service."

Re:Wet Dream

[Rakarra]

So, you're saying that as long as they screw a few people, but not the average gamer, then it's all OK.

Well you were sortof wondering (I think) why no one cared. Because for the vast majority of people, the feature was pointless, and those who used the feature in the first place felt suckered already that they had bought into the hype of OtherOS in the first place. The removal of OtherOS was the twist of the knife that had lodged there for a year already.

And down at the bottom, this is the very reason why it should be illegal for one company to provide both hardware and software. Because they will inevitably act in an anti-competitive manner.

Maybe, but it came about because Nintendo learned from Atari how not controlling the platform led to the short-lived death of the games industry. That's why Nintendo made a big deal of the "Nintendo Seal of Quality" in the early days, because no one trusted the game makers. They wanted the locked-down console with fewer, better offerings.

Re:Wet Dream

[Rakarra]

I don't know if I'm misunderstanding what you're trying to say, but it sounds to me like one should expect to wait until all desirable games for a given console have been released before buying the console because otherwise, one runs the risk of having the ability to run games released after the purchase of the console taken away.

Maybe, the point I was trying to make was that PSN didn't just immediately shut off OtherOS, it came through an agreement that the end user had to agree to. If they didn't do THAT, I think they would have been quite open to legal liability. As it played out, making it user choice (OtherOS + current games vs no OtherOS + current/future games) made Sony a lot safer in the courts. There's still a class action suit around, but the courts have weighed in Sony's favor in other cases.

Re:Wet Dream

[PopeRatzo]

Maybe, but it came about because Nintendo learned from Atari how not controlling the platform led to the short-lived death of the games industry.

It led to the death of one platform, not the entire industry.

Re:Wet Dream

[CronoCloud]

You don't need to, I'm well aware of the incidents, and the non-proportional Slashdot bias. I'm also aware that the Sony BMG rootkit was done by an outside contractor, not Sony themselves. And I'm aware that Sony sued the rootkit company.

And I'm also aware that Sony divisions are very independent of each other and don't entirely get along. Sometimes Sony's hardware brances win and get to make decisions, sometimes sony's media branches do.

I am also aware that some think that Sony should split itself up into two separate companies because of that.

If you want to complain that Sony doesn't trust it's customers....that's right, they don't. People, especially in the second and third worlds have given them good reason not to. Why shouldn't they stop cheapskates from being able to install some pirated FFX.iso from "scandinavians-are-third-world-piracy-enablers-because-we-have-been-cheapskate-pirates-ourselves-since-the-amiga-bay-which-is-why-our-own-game-companies-make-more-money-from-americans-than-ourselves.se" or "russian-mafia-game-torrents-with-trojans.ru" on their "flip top PS2" that they supposedly modded just for "imports" but actually did so for piracy reasons.

I was a moderator on the YDL forum remember? And 75 percent of newbies were some second or third worlder wanting to know how they could install emulators on YDL or if YDL would let them play PS2 backups.

Re:Wet Dream

[PopeRatzo]

I am also aware that some think that Sony should split itself up into two separate companies because of that.

Five, at very least.

And 75 percent of newbies were some second or third worlder

So, it's those people with no money in the Third World that are the threat to Sony. How big do you really believe the threat of Playstation piracy could be? Haven't we been over the actual statistics about piracy in the entertainment industry to be able to drop this notion that piracy is some "existential threat" to the industry? Sony makes a device. A different Sony makes a game. So who really is Sony's customer? The person who buys a Playstation or one of their "strategic partners"?

All you're doing is making my case for Sony being a company that is hostile to the people who buy their products. And their corporate structure and philosophy is what makes them evil. Anyone who does not buy the Sony nameplate is well rid of them. A company that deserved a lot of respect in the 60s, 70s and 80s has now lost all claim on respectability.

Re:Wet Dream

[CronoCloud]

Five, at very least.

Sounds about right.

So, it's those people with no money in the Third World that are the threat to Sony. How big do you really believe the threat of Playstation piracy could be?

Serious. Think about all the second/third worlders supporting piracy on Slashdot. The hungarians/romanians/russians saying they pirated everything and then complaining about how no one wants to pay for their own software they make so they're thinking about emigrating...but that everyone should pirate Game of Thrones because media companies who want to make a profit are evil.

Or the swedish game designers who admit to pirating games themselves, and tell everyone else to pirate theirs. Leaving the game development to be paid for by Americans.

Haven't we been over the actual statistics about piracy in the entertainment industry to be able to drop this notion that piracy is some "existential threat" to the industry?

It is a threat, people aren't paying for stuff they obviously want. Software, hardware, physical goods, doesn't matter, it's still taking something without paying. Even the Humble Indie bundles get pirated. People can go on how Sony or Microsoft and other companies are evil and information wants to be free and all that.....but really it's just a bunch of people who don't want to pay. And the more we as gamers tolerate and condone piracy, DDOS attacks against servers, the more things Sony and other companies believe they have to do to protect their stuff.

We might think it's no big deal when some kid pirates a few games....but what happens if that kid grows up and keeps on pirating. We've got adults bragging about it on Slashdot. In the old days it was "Sure kids pirate, but once they get a job they'll pay for games", but it's not the case anymore.

Re:Wet Dream

[PopeRatzo]

Think about all the second/third worlders supporting piracy on Slashdot. The hungarians/romanians/russians saying they pirated everything and then complaining about how no one wants to pay for their own software they make so they're thinking about emigrating...but that everyone should pirate Game of Thrones because media companies who want to make a profit are evil.

Forget about their reasons. Is it a problem that would make Sony unprofitable?

We've had the music industry give up on DRM over a decade ago, and they're still in business, doing better than ever. In fact, the Super Bowl is now making half-time acts PAY for the privilege of playing at the half-time of the Superbowl. All that piracy of music and there is still a huge music industry, still musicians making livings all over the world. Maybe some of the power shifted, but do you doubt that there are just as many musicians making livings today as there were in 1980?

The industry wants to say it's a SERIOUS problem, but all we have to go on is their outrageous estimates of lost revenues, and dire warnings. We had the same dire warnings about the music industry and they turned out to be completely false. I don't need a Playstation 4 if I want to play the latest music from my favorite musician. In fact, there are more ways for me to get that music and get it for free than ever before. Movies are pirated left and right and there's still a movie industry, in fact, it's bigger than ever. More independent movies than ever. More people making a living in the movie industry than ever, in more places than ever. The music industry and the movie industry have surrendered to piracy and lived to tell the tale. Yet, you tell me that somehow the game industry is different.

I call BS.

People can go on how Sony or Microsoft and other companies are evil and information wants to be free and all that.....but really it's just a bunch of people who don't want to pay.

And yet, somebody is paying. Here, look for yourself:

Billboard:

Global digital revenues were up 8% to $5.8 billion, climbing from $5.4 billion the previous year. Performance rights revenue was the fastest growing sector in the music industry, rising 9.4% to $943 million, up from $862 million in 2011. Synchronization grew 2.1% and totaled $337 million, up from $330 million. Global revenues from physical was $9.4 billion, a 5% decrease on 2011’s total of $9.9 billion.

And,

Statista:

Filmed entertainment revenue in 2013 was $88billion

That's billion with a "b". And the projections through 2018 are all up up up.

http://www.statista.com/statis...

All in all, the entertainment industry in the US made $632billion in 2013. So somebody is paying. Piracy my ass.

Re:Wet Dream

[CronoCloud]

All in all, the entertainment industry in the US made $632billion in 2013. So somebody is paying. Piracy my ass.

Yes, somebody is paying....Americans . American's are subsidizing entertainment for the rest of the planet. And I don't think a bunch of eastern european freeloaders and a few American cheapskates on Slashdot should be convincing Americans to stop paying too, because somebody has to pay.

The various industries are profitable and still exist, but I don't think people should use that as a justification to continue piracy. It's still wrong.

I remember when people used DRM as an excuse to pirate music. Some music may be DRM free (I don't count Spotify and Pandora as being DRM-free), but the same people still pirate the music...just with new excuses about how Music companies are evil and artists don't make money.

And you know what would happen if video was DRM free. one Russian would download it and then upload it with a trojan to russianmafiatorrents.ru.

This stuff costs money to make.. If people want our games, music, books, movies, they should pay, and not enable piracy. If people can't afford it, they shouldn't pirate it and do without. Just because I don't have the money to buy every PS4 game doesn't give me the right to break into gamestop and steal copies I didn't pay for.

Re:Wet Dream

[PopeRatzo]

Yes, somebody is paying....Americans . American's are subsidizing entertainment for the rest of the planet.

So, it's about "fairness", is it? Well, that's a completely different discussion then.

As I've shown, there's plenty of profit to be made from DRM-free media. And there's no question that DRM is only a hassle for the paying customers. So you punish the ones who pay to get back at the ones who don't.

The question is, does Sony (and does Microsoft) actually need to be hassling their customers? Does their business model fail without DRM? Clearly it does not. It's just about control, not about profits, not about successful business, not about making sure the people who actually create the media get paid.

The PS2 is still going strong

[Anonymous Coward]

The stores are still selling brand new PS2s, I bought one in the beginning of 2014. I also have a modchip for it that I have not had time to install yet.

PS2 is my favorite console, as it also plays all the PS1 games.

Re:The PS2 is still going strong

[CronoCloud]

The stores are still selling brand new PS2s

Where? They aren't here.

PS2 is my favorite console, as it also plays all the PS1 games.

It actually doesn't play all PS1 games. A few games have issues or won't run at all. The PS3 has the same issue with those few PS1 games. X-Files graphical adventure game....I'm looking at you.

Re:The PS2 is still going strong

[Anonymous Coward]

Where? They aren't here.

I bought mine at a store in nothern Europe, but I know that at least Amazon still sells new PS2s in America.

It actually doesn't play all PS1 games. A few games have issues or won't run at all. The PS3 has the same issue with those few PS1 games. X-Files graphical adventure game....I'm looking at you.

You are correct, I will rephrase and write "It plays all the PS1 games I own"

Re:The PS2 is still going strong

[Nyder]

The stores are still selling brand new PS2s, I bought one in the beginning of 2014. I also have a modchip for it that I have not had time to install yet.

PS2 is my favorite console, as it also plays all the PS1 games.

Why a mod chip when you the MCBoot? http://bootleg.sksapps.com/tut...

Re:The PS2 is still going strong

[Anonymous Coward]

Why a mod chip when you the MCBoot? http://bootleg.sksapps.com/tut...

Because Free MC Boot do not work without modchip on PS2 SCPH-9000x with date code 8c or later.

did they even think when they made that list?

[Anonymous Coward]

bring back backwards compatibility? from what i understand they took it out of the original PS3 because they were essentially putting most of a PS2 in there. if there was a way to do it with software and there was a big enough demand, it would have happened way back when everyone was bitching about them removing it.
new WiFi? hardware
update controller? hardware
bring back slot in drives. Hardware and there is a reason why everyone other then Apple has stopped using them, they break and are unreliable. I personally have had 3 slot in drives die on me over the last 14 years (2 of them were apple super drives that i didnt have a choice about) but guess what all the tray drives i have owned either out lived the device or are still kicking. The first slot in drive i had in the early 2000's died because the plastic used for CD/DVDs changed and discs became lighter and the drive wouldn't load them properly and finally wouldnt spit out a disc.
It would be financially idiotic to do a hardware refresh after you know doing a hardware refresh (PS4).

i was very surprised to see such an article on /. because it was clearly written by someone who is tech illiterate and just looking for clicks

Re:did they even think when they made that list?

[tepples]

PS3 emulates PS1 in software if I remember correctly. So why doesn't the PS4 emulate PS2, which is likewise two generations back?

Re:did they even think when they made that list?

[Movi]

Because it was a really complex architecture, which even todays PC can’t get right and accurate

Re:did they even think when they made that list?

[drinkypoo]

PS3 emulates PS1 in software if I remember correctly. So why doesn't the PS4 emulate PS2, which is likewise two generations back?

Installed base, and the desire to sell new games. Anyone who really wants to play PS2 games can have one for next to nothing now to play their PS2 games on. Since it doesn't have HDMI, odds are good you'll have someplace appropriate to connect it. But the idea is to get more of your money.

Re:did they even think when they made that list?

[SScorpio]

The PS4 doesn't do PS1 at the moment either. But Sony is reportedly working local not PSNow, PS1 and PS2 emulation on the PS4. It's been rumored to all be disk based, but no confirmed information about how the backward compatibility will work has been released.

PC couch multiplayer is a thing now

[tepples]

I play most games on my PC as well, but sometimes it is just nice to boot up a quick game on the console and have at it with some friends.

You're in luck. PC supports couch multiplayer now, and not just with emulators. Install a game on one of these lists, grab a few Xbox 360 controllers and a wireless transceiver, and have at it.

Re:PC couch multiplayer is a thing now

[CronoCloud]

You ever watch Mean Girls, where Regina George tells Gretchen Weiner to stop trying to make "fetch" happen?

Stop trying to make couch multiplayer on the PC happen, it's not going to happen.

Re:PC couch multiplayer is a thing now

[tepples]

I know I can't make it happen. Only established companies can make it happen, like Valve and Alienware and publishers of games in Steam's controller friendly section. I'm just trying to let others know what has already happened.

Re:PC couch multiplayer is a thing now

[Anonymous Coward]

Now? I've been playing local multiplayer PC games for decades. The reason you don't see many of them any more is because gamers have moved away from small groups sharing one screen to massive global groups each with their own screen. PC gaming was and is the pioneer in this area, as it was for most game innovations.

Re:PC couch multiplayer is a thing now

[NonUniqueNickname]

Thank you for the link. I was not familiar with the term "couch" multiplayer and your link greatly improved my search for the next game. For other players looking for a "couch" game I'd recommend Ibb&Obb, nice ambient, smooth platforming gameplay, and quite the linguistic challenge to talk through a puzzle since the words up and down have lost all meaning.

Re:PC couch multiplayer is a thing now

[CronoCloud]

Gamers aren't stupid, Tepples. People know about Big Picture mode.....it's just that most don't really care. Your average PC gamer doesn't care because he's a PC gamer and believes that a desk is better for his keyboard and mouse.

Console gamers aren't going to switch to Steam, because they have had "Big Picture mode" for decades and already can play the games they want to play that way.

Re:PC couch multiplayer is a thing now

[tepples]

Console gamers aren't going to switch to Steam, because they have had "Big Picture mode" for decades and already can play the games they want to play that way.

Until they learn they can actually get 1080p on the Steam version of a game when they can't on the version of the same game for a major console. Didn't someone sue Sony about a game not actually being in 1080p? And not everybody has the same set of "games they want to play".

Re:PC couch multiplayer is a thing now

[CronoCloud]

Until they learn they can actually get 1080p on the Steam version of a game when they can't on the version of the same game for a major console.

yeah right? has that actually happened? Do you really think that's going to happen? I don't think so.

Didn't someone sue Sony about a game not actually being in 1080p?

And the consensus was that guy was a frivolous overly entitled jerk.

Re:PC couch multiplayer is a thing now

[tepples]

has [players choosing one platform over another on the basis of graphical detail] actually happened?

I imagine that a lot of hardcore gamers chose PS3 over Wii and PS4 over Wii U for just this reason: graphical detail.

Do you really think it's going to happen [with Steam Machine]? I don't think so.

I must respectfully disagree on this point. A Steam Machine would have the extra detail plus Steam sales, which I'll grant decrease revenue per copy but often dramatically increase the publisher's continuing revenue from a title long after launch. And though the reviewed machine is set to cost $100 more than the PS4, I imagine Steam games are less likely to need the recurring fee of a subscription to PlayStation Plus.

Re:PC couch multiplayer is a thing now

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah right, like anyone is going to spend actual money for a DRM loaded indie piece of shit. Show me a real game.

Re:PC couch multiplayer is a thing now

[CronoCloud]

I imagine that a lot of hardcore gamers chose PS3 over Wii and PS4 over Wii U for just this reason: graphical detail.

More likely it was because there were good games other than Dance game-foo, or party-game foo, or cute mii-sports pack-in-foo. Sure there's Zelda and Mario....but that's not enough.

And until the supposed steam machines reach the shelves, their vaporware. And besides, PS+ has benefits besides online play.

Re:PC couch multiplayer is a thing now

[tepples]

And until the supposed steam machines reach the shelves, their vaporware.

So is every PS4 or Vita game that hasn't reached shelves.

Besides, now that I think about it, you might have missed my "Alienware" allusion. Alienware is among PC makers that have begun selling set-top gaming PCs with Windows ahead of Steam Machine's release date. Fetch is happening.

So again, you have to choose your platform around the games you desire to play. If they're PC-only or PC-first, you might choose PC. This goes double if you like to play mods, as PC versions of games tend to have more thorough community modding tools than console versions of the same game. Or if you can cover more of the multi-platform games with a PC than with a PS4 alone or an Xbox One alone, you might choose PC.

Re:PC couch multiplayer is a thing now

[CronoCloud]

you might have missed my "Alienware" allusion. Alienware is among PC makers that have begun selling set-top gaming PCs with Windows ahead of Steam Machine's release date. Fetch is happening.

But how many are they actually selling?

So again, you have to choose your platform around the games you desire to play. If they're PC-only or PC-first, you might choose PC. This goes double if you like to play mods, as PC versions of games tend to have more thorough community modding tools than console versions of the same game. Or if you can cover more of the multi-platform games with a PC than with a PS4 alone or an Xbox One alone, you might choose PC.

The only reason you're so gung ho on the PC now is because you can't get a console dev kit, and the bar for entry is lower on the PC. But that doesn't mean that people are going to buy the same-screen after-school multiplayer games you want them to buy...for the PC. Pc gamers don't want them and console gamers are happy with what they have.

How about Bluetooth pairing fixes?

[Rakarra]

Every once in awhile, the PS3 will get in a state where it can't pair with the bluetooth devices it'd already paired with. No wireless dualshock controller, no blu-ray remote control. It just can't sense devices anymore. The only way around this is to power off the PS3. Not "system off" which puts the system into low-power mode, but to flip the power switch on the back. Turn it back on again, Bluetooth works.

Poking around online reveals many people with the same problem, and Sony's never put out a firmware fix for it.

Re:How about Bluetooth pairing fixes?

[freeze128]

That's because I'm outside your window with a bluetooth jammer.

Won't someone think of the ... eject button?

[thegarbz]

It also means that the eject button on your remote control simply won’t work any more

What on earth does a slot loading drive have to do with an eject button on a remote?

Sold on not buying Sony

[Anonymous Coward]

The Sony PS3 that we've had for years has gone through many updates, each seemingly removing features and adding more proprietary junk/DRM? The majority of 'downloaded' video files are unsupported content, and you must sign-in to Sony network to use youtube and other apps that shouldn't have anything to do with PSN.

Lessons learned however, never will I purchase a Sony.

Games on disc; shared PS3

[tepples]

Or without someone else in the household agreeing to do so twice. Not everybody lives alone. And it's not just PSN that was taken away but also access to newly published games on disc.

Besides OtherOS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Besides OtherOS, they could fix the web browser (massively sukky), USB ports that can't see any USB stick formatted over 2GB (plug in a 2.1-64GB or bigger memory stick and it can't see it), and dlna file formats more than the (apparently) one format that Sony specifies. I've got a DLNA server on my NAS box, and I feed movies from it to an LG video player (does blu-ray plus usb and dlna either cat5 wired or 802.11b/g/n wireless). The LG player can read damn near any format you like. The DLNA server in the nas box likewise, any format. But try to watch even a smidge on the PS3 and "Unsupported Format". WTF?!?!? On the other hand, seeing what Sony did to GeoHot and what they did removing OtherOS and screwing over the Linux community, I'm not holding my breath. I just won't ever ever ever buy Sony anything again, and will strongly recommend to anyone I can find to never ever ever ever buy Sony ever again.

Re:Besides OtherOS?

[Daniel Klugh]

Not sure what a "memory stick" is (you mean a SIMM?) but I've used a 40GB HD along with numerous flash carts larger than 2GB with no problems. Are you sure you're using the "FORMAT/FS:FAT32" command and not just "FORMAT"?
Or else use fat32format.exe.

Stupid list

[Anonymous Coward]

This is is idiotic. It's asking for features that require hardware improvements. Consoles do not exist to have hardware improvements. They exist to be a static target to design for. Their manufacturing process gets cheaper specifically because the platform is static.

It's not like Wireless N would improve speeds when the bottleneck has always been Sony's servers.

Native PS2 compatibility is a ship that's sailed. They're not going to put the PS2 hardware back in the box for a new revision when they already took it out 7 years ago to reduce manufacturing costs, and a ton of PS2 games have already been made compatible if you're willing to pay for it again in the PSN store via emulation/recompilation.

Changing the controller? Really? Yes, let's add analog buttons to the controller when the software lifecycle of the thing is basically dead, where the entire existing install base would have to purchase new controllers to see the support in-game, at a point when basically no new games would even bother taking advantage of the feature because they're focusing on current gen consoles instead of last gen, and let's make the USB port different so that all existing cables people have for their console will be incompatible. Good thinking.

Improve the browser? Why bother. People have smart phones, tablets, and laptops. No one actually uses the PS3 browser seriously.

Slot loading drive? Yeah, let's increase the manufacturing costs again for no reason. Good thinking.

Anyway, thanks for the Redbull Slashvertisement for a shitty content farm article, Timothy. We really needed more of that here.

Re:Stupid list

[tepples]

People have smart phones, tablets, and laptops. No one actually uses the PS3 browser seriously.

Except those tend not to be used with TVs. If people were willing to connect a laptop to a TV, then why would they need a PlayStation family console in the first place when they can just game on a laptop?

Not a single "fix"

[YoungManKlaus]

All of these are feature requests.

Case in point: AOL

[tepples]

But how many are they actually selling?

Ahead of the big marketing push? Not many, I'll admit.

The only reason you're so gung ho on the PC now is because you can't get a console dev kit

In part. But I can see which way things are going. People currently buy consoles because they're easy despite the lack of flexibility, and I understand this. People used to want America Online service for the same reason. But eventually, commodity Internet service won out. And with current-generation "hardcore" consoles switching to what's essentially laptop PC hardware and operating systems derived from PC operating systems (*BSD and Windows), it'll become a lot easier for major developers to include at least AMD-powered PCs as an optimization target. This has already led and will continue to lead to more PS4/PC and Xbox One/PC multi-platform releases of games from major third parties.