Playstation 2 delayed again

D4MO writes "Saw the news that the Playstation 2 will probably be delayed. Apparently, Sony is having a really hard time getting the graphics chips right, and so they will miss their December launch, and probably be in more of a Feb/March range. Sega's Dreamcast, OTOH is out already in a lot of areas."

Comments

Yet another closed console

[Tet]

I find it hard to get tremendously excited about all these new consoles. Sure, the specs are awesome. But at the end of the day, Sony, Sega and Nintendo are every bit as bad as Micros~1. They may be great for the average end user, but what about me? If I want to write some software for any of them, I need to splash out $25,000 to get an official development kit, and I won't be able to release anything I write without official blessing from the company that designed the console. There is no third party software industry for consoles. Everything you see is officially sanctioned. Sony made a step in the right direction with the Net Yaroze, but then deliberately crippled it to prevent Net Yaroze discs be used in a regular Playstation.

Prediction: the first company that allows open development for its console with make an absolute fortune. Unfortunately, I think they're all too paranoid about losing intellectual property to risk it. Sigh.

Re:Yet another closed console

[Tet]

The development itself will (GASP!) Linux based. Correct me if I'm wrong, please.

OK, then -- you're wrong :-) Yes, PSX2 development will be Linux based. However, don't be fooled into thinking you can write PSX2 software with your Linux box at home. You need a specific devkit machine from Sony, which will effectively be a PC running Linux with some additional custom hardware, and a proprietary software development environment. The hardware will essentially consist of a PSX2 on a card. The software environment will give you appropriate access to the card. This lets you write and compile the software, and then run it, without the need to continually burn discs to put in a real PSX2. The software environment may include a full IDE/compiler, but will more likely let you use native Linux tools (e.g., gcc/gdb etc.) Of course, this is all conjecture, 'coz I haven't actually seen a PSX2 devkit yet, but I doubt it'll be far off, based what others in the industry have said.