The Sony Otaku article is apparently misleading: in fact that list is the list of all PSX games that fail to run. Rumour has it that DQVII is also on the list, which is one of the reasons for it being delayed again. The IGN FAQ is certainly out of date: contrary to earlier reports, PS2 does 'enhance' older games with faster load times and bilinear filtering of textures. Note that these features are optional, decrease compatibility, and sometimes make the games look worse rather than better.
PS2 only has 2 ports, though apparently USB controllers are a viable option.
As to the size, it's not as large as it looks. And the DVD doesn't need cooling, though the GS and EE chips both do. The unit looks to be slightly more than two CDs wide, and about one and a half deep.
The memory card encryption has little (nothing) to do with copy protection, though Sony are taking that very seriously as well, of course.
Nor does it have much to do with protecting you from evil hackers (sic) who want to break into your Tekken Tag Tournament scores and change all the names.
AFAICT it's planning ahead for the PS2's network strategy to come online. Encryption can then be used to make it safer to store (for example) credit card numbers on your memory cards.
September is the month to look out for, according to Digitiser. And a price somewhere between 200UKP and 250UKP, which would be nice if only because it would almost certainly mean an end to those evil $1 = 1UKP conversions that certain manufacturers have forced upon us in the past...
I noticed a couple of less-than-entirely-accurate responses to this one, so here are the genuine facts.
Entirely false. If you head over to Core Magazine you'll find a couple of pages of shots of the innards of PS2 (1, 2). From what I've heard, the screws are covered up, but a little bit of effort and you can get at them. Expect this to void your warranty.:)
Entirely false. Every report I've seen of the DVD playback has suggested that if anything it's superior to other DVD players in the price range. And the playback software is upgradeable (stored on the memory card) - future versions of the software will be enhanced. Progressive video is said to be available with the next version. For more information, see IGN's story on PS2's DVD capabilities.
Partly false. It is backward compatible with most PSX games - of the games tested, about 15 don't work so far, and these are mostly obscure Japanese titles (Wing Commander III being the one exception). There may be a few more in the Western lineup, but not that many. Compatibility is considerably better than Bleem, since this is hardware emulation, not software. There's a real PSX chip in there doing the work (doubling as the I/O controller). You can optionally configure the system to enhance PSX games with faster load times and bilinear filtering of textures. This reduces compatibility, resulting in some big-name games failing to work, and bilinear filtering makes the textures look less crisp (but smoother) rather than more so.
It is backwards compatible with the old controllers, but the new version of the Dual Shock controller has enhanced features that you won't get if you're using the old ones, including analogue buttons all round and a slightly better made analogue stick. The expectation is that old controllers/memory cards will mainly be used for PSX games, whereas PS2 games will tend to require the new kit (you can't use a PSX memory card to save PS2 games, for example). At the moment none of the games out there really make use of the analogue buttons, but expect this to change fairly soon.
True, provided your definition of a supercomputer is woefully outdated. This has been rumoured to cause problems with export, but it's mainly marketing hype - the only potential real problem with exporting the system is likely to be the strong encryption on the memory cards.
Bring the US into line with just about everywhere else by giving it its own TLD. It opens up a host of possibilities in the.co.us etc. domains, and leaves.com etc. for international organisations.
Don't the police have to have reason to believe you have the key as well? (Obviously it has to be a good reason, like you being black, or Irish, or them just not liking your face...) I think that would probably be unlikely with PS2 and DVD.
The PS2 figures are also basically vertex counts. Which is one of the reasons the figures are so inflated (75 million pps, anyone?). Still, a real-world 12 million pps is probably within the realms of possibility for PS2.
Not true. Or do you believe that TV programs and movies don't have good graphics either?:)
Marginally more expensive than PC games. Against which, the cost of the hardware (both initial purchase and upgrades) is an order of magnitude lower.
No, but I tried playing Quake 2 with a gamepad, and it worked just fine. Ever tried playing Tekken 3 with a keyboard? That was less fun...
No, but I tried playing C&C: Red Alert with a gamepad, and it worked just fine. Although it's worth mentioning that other peripherals are available for consoles: there's a mouse available for the Playstation, and a keyboard available for the DC (in fact, isn't there a zombie typing game due out at some point?:-)
Not strictly true. There are some freeware games available for the Playstation, as a result of the Net Yaroze scheme. Until recently, the UK OPSM distributed them on the cover disc.
I hope you're not suggesting that Sony games are impossible to copy. If so, there are some very rich gentlemen with CD-burners in Hong Kong who'd disagree with you.:-) You'll even find dodgy copies of N64 carts available for download. Not that this is a good thing, of course.
True. But there isn't less competition. There are plenty of console developers out there. The only thing I can think you're talking about is the three platforms available to develop for on consoles (Sony, Sega and Nintendo) versus the... um... one Wintel platform. Um. Not such a good point after all.
For a prime example of why console games can in fact be considerably better than PC games, take a look at the minimum required specs for Final Fantasy VII on PC and on PSX...
This small resurgence occurring 2 days after the initial posting by/. is unexplained and open to interpretation.
Well, here's one possible interpretation. It represents the most likely point at which people will receive e-mails from friends saying "I saw this great link on/.".
Interestingly, at some of the very early demonstrations/talks about PS2 there was talk of a PS2 version of the Net Yaroze. That would almost certainly bring the price down to less than $1000, which is well within reach. Of course, when it's released you'll have to wait in line to get one. I feel I'm entitled to the first one, since Sony generously cancelled the original Yaroze scheme the moment I sent for an application form.
Besides, I'd be very disappointed if the only way the Linux community could think of to port Linux were by buying a Sony devkit.:) Surely it's not impossible to develop using just a bog-standard PC (running Linux, of course) and a CD-writer for getting the software into the PS2...
"The author of the article has a game available on a Sony site... perhaps that is the source of the obvious bias?"
I doubt it, since there were (ahem) 'inaccuracies' regarding Sony and the PS2 as well. It looks like the whole article was put together based on a quick scan of a few old articles from web games magazines.
One thing worth mentioning is that Sony's TOOL devkit, which is supposed to be the system of choice for writing/testing PS2 games actually runs Linux (though not on the EE - it has an x86 chip in it as well, which is probably not a bad idea given PS2's integer performance...)
An interesting article, but quite a few of the technical details are more than a little on the inaccurate (or at least arguable) side. Let's take a look at a few of them.
"But what will determine the outcome of this desperate struggle? Just this: the fickle tastes of teenage boys."
Hmmm. One of the reasons usually given for Sony's success in the last round of the console wars is their opening up of the market to a higher age group. Particularly with what the article later goes on to say about convergence, the battlefield this time is surely to be decided by the fickle tastes of twenty-somethings?
"All the new systems boast the ability to display millions of polygons simultaneously."
That's just plain wrong. Even assuming that the best of the next generation consoles can display 20 million pps sustainably (out of the question for Dreamcast, highly unlikely for PS2 and doubtful for Dolphin) then even at 30fps that's less than a million polygons on screen at a time. Millions of polygons simultaneously will have to wait for the next generation of consoles.
"Sony claims Playstation 2 can process 75 million polygons per second (Sega claims 3 million for Dreamcast). The claim is greatly exaggerated."
Not particularly exaggerated. Sony make it clear in their press releases exactly what the 75mpps figure is for, and also provides more realistic values.
"Of course, it remains to be proven that console gamers want to play online at all; previous attempts to get them to do so ([...] and Sony's Net Yaroze) all failed miserably."
Sony's Net Yaroze wasn't an attempt to get people playing games online. It was a home development kit for the Playstation. The only 'online' aspect was the fact that you could download software created by other Yaroze owners.
"Sony actually has a bit of a problem. Its machine is so novel and so powerful that it's quite hard to develop for."
Um. No. There were initial bad reactions to a development system based around Linux ([shudder], command-line debuggers!) but developers who've worked with the kit are almost universally positive. In one notable case (Team Ninja, of Ninja Gaiden and DOA fame) they claimed it was easier to develop for than Dreamcast.
"A typical Playstation game costs about $2 million to develop. A typical Playstation 2 game is going to cost more"
A typical game for any next generation platform is going to cost more. The days of single developers knocking up games in their bedroom after work are gone, you know... From the way the article goes on, you'd think that Sega and Sony hadn't done anything at all to ease development (rather than, say, providing solid support for developers in the form of WinCE and Sony's middleware projects) and that Nintendo had the monopoly on such plans.
"Sony makes Microsoft look like the free software operating system Linux -- as a result, many developers are unquestionably rooting quietly for X-Box."
No comment. Incidentally, did you notice that Sony's TOOL devkit for the PS2 runs Linux?:)
All in all, an interesting article. I'm slightly concerned that someone billed as an expert in online gaming thinks that the Yaroze has anything to do with it, though...
Coincidentally, Backbytes in Computing has been talking about microwaving CDs recently, and posted a link to some pictures of the Tesla coil version of the CD-microwaving trick.
You mean it was a sad day, surely? Sibelius has already been used in such cases, to play piano pieces that most pianists just can't cope with (those without twelve double-jointed fingers, that is).
The Sibelius software was really very impressive a few years ago when I last saw it: I'd imagine it has come on a fair bit since then.
Unfortunately, I could tell from five minutes in that Paxman was not going to be able to make the most of the interview. He clearly isn't sufficiently up to speed with the computing world to take Gates to task over even his more obvious evasions and misdirections. Even the introduction ('logging onto the internet' [shudder]) gave that away.
Don't get me wrong - I didn't want Paxman to go after Gates in a bitter, evil, twisted, personal sort of way (like many people here would no doubt have loved him to:), but nor did I enjoy seeing Gates allowed to get away with everything. He's clearly intelligent enough to cope with a more heated debate, but Paxman just wasn't up to providing him with opposition.
Expansion is via PCMCIA slot, a couple of USB ports and Firewire. Sony have allegedly got a large hard drive addon in the works as well, so there's certainly no reason it couldn't run quite happily as a thin client (or even a fairly thick one:).
One question that springs to mind is whether the TOOL box (developer kit based on the PS2 hardware) contains an extra processor or whether it uses the PS2's EE for running Linux. If the latter, then there really shouldn't be any problem converting the PS2 to a relatively nice Linux box (though the integer performance is fairly horrible).
Some nerds use Acorn computers. I didn't see anything about RISC OS 4 being released. Some nerds use just about anything under the Sun [sic] come to think of it. But Amiga gets a disproportionate amount of coverage.
The problem isn't the Amiga news. I love hearing Amiga news. Nothing would give me more pleasure than hearing that a new Amiga machine was available and would blow everything else away. (Actually, I can think of quite a few things that would give me more pleasure, but still, it's pretty high on the list: right below the immediate destruction of all sources of decaffeinated coffee).
The problem is the Amiga not-news. It seems like every press release from Amiga Towers spawns a Slashdot story. Which is a shame, because all the real news appears to be is "Hello! We're still here! We're still not doing anything! Don't forget about us!"
What's tragic is that over the last few months there have been more Amiga articles than Mac articles (looking at the first page of results from the topics page). That's more 'news' for a dead platform that isn't going anywhere than for a live platform that is. Hell, there's even an Amiga article that actually says nothing more than "Nothing's happening over at Amiga". That can't be right, can it?
Perhaps the solution would be to add another topic instead of shifting the Amiga stuff elsewhere or killing all news from that topic. How about an 'Amiga actually do something for a change' topic. I'd quite happily view news from that.
I think you'll find that there was a fairly wide selection of game styles for the original Playstation, including (here comes the better term for Zelda-style RPGs) ARPGs like Alundra (which I found far more fun than Zelda64, although I understand that it's heretical to prefer 2D sprites to 3D rendered loveliness).
Genuine old-school game fans who liked the real Mario and Zelda games (before they went all 3D and icky) are pretty much an endangered species now, and not even Nintendo care about them. They live on the fringes of gaming society, lurking around the emulation sites and running screaming from 3D fighters and plumbers.
[sigh]. I knew it was all going to go wrong when I heard they were making a 3D version of Lemmings...
Slashdot Mirror
The Sony Otaku article is apparently misleading: in fact that list is the list of all PSX games that fail to run. Rumour has it that DQVII is also on the list, which is one of the reasons for it being delayed again. The IGN FAQ is certainly out of date: contrary to earlier reports, PS2 does 'enhance' older games with faster load times and bilinear filtering of textures. Note that these features are optional, decrease compatibility, and sometimes make the games look worse rather than better.
PS2 only has 2 ports, though apparently USB controllers are a viable option.
As to the size, it's not as large as it looks. And the DVD doesn't need cooling, though the GS and EE chips both do. The unit looks to be slightly more than two CDs wide, and about one and a half deep.
The memory card encryption has little (nothing) to do with copy protection, though Sony are taking that very seriously as well, of course.
Nor does it have much to do with protecting you from evil hackers (sic) who want to break into your Tekken Tag Tournament scores and change all the names.
AFAICT it's planning ahead for the PS2's network strategy to come online. Encryption can then be used to make it safer to store (for example) credit card numbers on your memory cards.
IIRC, the TOOL dev machines run Linux on an x86 processor, however.
September is the month to look out for, according to Digitiser. And a price somewhere between 200UKP and 250UKP, which would be nice if only because it would almost certainly mean an end to those evil $1 = 1UKP conversions that certain manufacturers have forced upon us in the past...
I noticed a couple of less-than-entirely-accurate responses to this one, so here are the genuine facts.
Bring the US into line with just about everywhere else by giving it its own TLD. It opens up a host of possibilities in the .co.us etc. domains, and leaves .com etc. for international organisations.
Don't the police have to have reason to believe you have the key as well? (Obviously it has to be a good reason, like you being black, or Irish, or them just not liking your face...) I think that would probably be unlikely with PS2 and DVD.
The PS2 figures are also basically vertex counts. Which is one of the reasons the figures are so inflated (75 million pps, anyone?). Still, a real-world 12 million pps is probably within the realms of possibility for PS2.
- Not true. Or do you believe that TV programs and movies don't have good graphics either?
:) - Marginally more expensive than PC games. Against which, the cost of the hardware (both initial purchase and upgrades) is an order of magnitude lower.
- No, but I tried playing Quake 2 with a gamepad, and it worked just fine. Ever tried playing Tekken 3 with a keyboard? That was less fun...
- No, but I tried playing C&C: Red Alert with a gamepad, and it worked just fine. Although it's worth mentioning that other peripherals are available for consoles: there's a mouse available for the Playstation, and a keyboard available for the DC (in fact, isn't there a zombie typing game due out at some point?
:-) - Not strictly true. There are some freeware games available for the Playstation, as a result of the Net Yaroze scheme. Until recently, the UK OPSM distributed them on the cover disc.
- I hope you're not suggesting that Sony games are impossible to copy. If so, there are some very rich gentlemen with CD-burners in Hong Kong who'd disagree with you.
:-) You'll even find dodgy copies of N64 carts available for download. Not that this is a good thing, of course. - True. But there isn't less competition. There are plenty of console developers out there. The only thing I can think you're talking about is the three platforms available to develop for on consoles (Sony, Sega and Nintendo) versus the... um... one Wintel platform. Um. Not such a good point after all.
For a prime example of why console games can in fact be considerably better than PC games, take a look at the minimum required specs for Final Fantasy VII on PC and on PSX...We Europeans are very late risers. :)
Well, here's one possible interpretation. It represents the most likely point at which people will receive e-mails from friends saying "I saw this great link on /.".
Interestingly, at some of the very early demonstrations/talks about PS2 there was talk of a PS2 version of the Net Yaroze. That would almost certainly bring the price down to less than $1000, which is well within reach. Of course, when it's released you'll have to wait in line to get one. I feel I'm entitled to the first one, since Sony generously cancelled the original Yaroze scheme the moment I sent for an application form.
:) Surely it's not impossible to develop using just a bog-standard PC (running Linux, of course) and a CD-writer for getting the software into the PS2...
Besides, I'd be very disappointed if the only way the Linux community could think of to port Linux were by buying a Sony devkit.
I doubt it, since there were (ahem) 'inaccuracies' regarding Sony and the PS2 as well. It looks like the whole article was put together based on a quick scan of a few old articles from web games magazines.
Yes.
Now, anyone fancy taking on the port?
One thing worth mentioning is that Sony's TOOL devkit, which is supposed to be the system of choice for writing/testing PS2 games actually runs Linux (though not on the EE - it has an x86 chip in it as well, which is probably not a bad idea given PS2's integer performance...)
Hmmm. One of the reasons usually given for Sony's success in the last round of the console wars is their opening up of the market to a higher age group. Particularly with what the article later goes on to say about convergence, the battlefield this time is surely to be decided by the fickle tastes of twenty-somethings?
That's just plain wrong. Even assuming that the best of the next generation consoles can display 20 million pps sustainably (out of the question for Dreamcast, highly unlikely for PS2 and doubtful for Dolphin) then even at 30fps that's less than a million polygons on screen at a time. Millions of polygons simultaneously will have to wait for the next generation of consoles.
Not particularly exaggerated. Sony make it clear in their press releases exactly what the 75mpps figure is for, and also provides more realistic values.
Sony's Net Yaroze wasn't an attempt to get people playing games online. It was a home development kit for the Playstation. The only 'online' aspect was the fact that you could download software created by other Yaroze owners.
Um. No. There were initial bad reactions to a development system based around Linux ([shudder], command-line debuggers!) but developers who've worked with the kit are almost universally positive. In one notable case (Team Ninja, of Ninja Gaiden and DOA fame) they claimed it was easier to develop for than Dreamcast.
A typical game for any next generation platform is going to cost more. The days of single developers knocking up games in their bedroom after work are gone, you know... From the way the article goes on, you'd think that Sega and Sony hadn't done anything at all to ease development (rather than, say, providing solid support for developers in the form of WinCE and Sony's middleware projects) and that Nintendo had the monopoly on such plans.
No comment. Incidentally, did you notice that Sony's TOOL devkit for the PS2 runs Linux?
All in all, an interesting article. I'm slightly concerned that someone billed as an expert in online gaming thinks that the Yaroze has anything to do with it, though...
Coincidentally, Backbytes in Computing has been talking about microwaving CDs recently, and posted a link to some pictures of the Tesla coil version of the CD-microwaving trick.
Looks far more spectacular...
You mean it was a sad day, surely? Sibelius has already been used in such cases, to play piano pieces that most pianists just can't cope with (those without twelve double-jointed fingers, that is).
The Sibelius software was really very impressive a few years ago when I last saw it: I'd imagine it has come on a fair bit since then.
If you really want the URL of a Java application of relative complexity, try:
FreeBuilder - An IDE in Java.
Argo/UML - A UML editor with cognitive support
You missed a few more:
"Java runs slow as hell" - translation: I'm still using an interpreted 1.0.2 VM on a P60.
"Java sucks - Language X RULES" - translation: "I don't know how to use Java effectively. I am only familiar with language X."
Hope this helps.
Unfortunately, I could tell from five minutes in that Paxman was not going to be able to make the most of the interview. He clearly isn't sufficiently up to speed with the computing world to take Gates to task over even his more obvious evasions and misdirections. Even the introduction ('logging onto the internet' [shudder]) gave that away.
:), but nor did I enjoy seeing Gates allowed to get away with everything. He's clearly intelligent enough to cope with a more heated debate, but Paxman just wasn't up to providing him with opposition.
Don't get me wrong - I didn't want Paxman to go after Gates in a bitter, evil, twisted, personal sort of way (like many people here would no doubt have loved him to
Or possibly to cover their deep sea basses.
Expansion is via PCMCIA slot, a couple of USB ports and Firewire. Sony have allegedly got a large hard drive addon in the works as well, so there's certainly no reason it couldn't run quite happily as a thin client (or even a fairly thick one :).
One question that springs to mind is whether the TOOL box (developer kit based on the PS2 hardware) contains an extra processor or whether it uses the PS2's EE for running Linux. If the latter, then there really shouldn't be any problem converting the PS2 to a relatively nice Linux box (though the integer performance is fairly horrible).
Some nerds use Acorn computers. I didn't see anything about RISC OS 4 being released. Some nerds use just about anything under the Sun [sic] come to think of it. But Amiga gets a disproportionate amount of coverage.
The problem isn't the Amiga news. I love hearing Amiga news. Nothing would give me more pleasure than hearing that a new Amiga machine was available and would blow everything else away. (Actually, I can think of quite a few things that would give me more pleasure, but still, it's pretty high on the list: right below the immediate destruction of all sources of decaffeinated coffee).
The problem is the Amiga not-news. It seems like every press release from Amiga Towers spawns a Slashdot story. Which is a shame, because all the real news appears to be is "Hello! We're still here! We're still not doing anything! Don't forget about us!"
What's tragic is that over the last few months there have been more Amiga articles than Mac articles (looking at the first page of results from the topics page). That's more 'news' for a dead platform that isn't going anywhere than for a live platform that is. Hell, there's even an Amiga article that actually says nothing more than "Nothing's happening over at Amiga". That can't be right, can it?
Perhaps the solution would be to add another topic instead of shifting the Amiga stuff elsewhere or killing all news from that topic. How about an 'Amiga actually do something for a change' topic. I'd quite happily view news from that.
I think you'll find that there was a fairly wide selection of game styles for the original Playstation, including (here comes the better term for Zelda-style RPGs) ARPGs like Alundra (which I found far more fun than Zelda64, although I understand that it's heretical to prefer 2D sprites to 3D rendered loveliness).
Genuine old-school game fans who liked the real Mario and Zelda games (before they went all 3D and icky) are pretty much an endangered species now, and not even Nintendo care about them. They live on the fringes of gaming society, lurking around the emulation sites and running screaming from 3D fighters and plumbers.
[sigh]. I knew it was all going to go wrong when I heard they were making a 3D version of Lemmings...