What's Known About the PS3

1up has an expansive piece up exploring everything they know about the PlayStation 3. They cover rumours, prices, technology, and the limited information currently out there on upcoming games. From the article: "While the hard facts are still tough to nail down, the general consensus is that the PlayStation 3 is the most powerful of the three next-generation systems, although probably not by as much of a margin as Sony would like us to think. The arguments for the technical strengths of the PS3 go into CPU floating-point capabilities and the difficulties surrounding programming for parallel architectures, but the long and short of it is that whether or not the advantages of the PS3 are apparent will depend on developers' ability to utilize the PlayStation 3's unique architecture."

why the big secret?

[psycho chic]

i think the thing that gets me is "hey, why all the secrecy?" if you are gonna release a product, at least TRY to convince me its better then the competition. when people start getting (publically) fired for making opinions known, it makes you wonder

But..Over a Barrel.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm surprised that none of them have a physics chip. That is the next avenue that needs development. Graphics and sound are already "good enough".

Re:But..Over a Barrel.

[AuMatar]

Because physics was good enough in Super Mario 1. Not all games need, or want, realistic physics. In most cases, unrealism is prefered (try a true Newtonian physics space sim- changing directions is hard). Whats needed is gameplay innovations, and they don't make hardware for that.

Re:More power, $400, Anime Dating, Puppies

[nearlygod]

OK, looks like xBox360 is going to lose a lot of market share when it ships, probably starting in December when most of the new titles ship.

Probably since the XBox 360 has 100% market share for the newest generation.

A correction

[toupsie]

XBox360: Shipped

Re:With any luck...

[Anonymous Coward]

and thanks to Sony not having Microsoft's "Rush To The Market" attitude you don't have to worry about it melting to your carpet!

Considering all the launch problems with PS2 this is good if it's meant as irony, and funny if not.

Graphics power

[MobyDisk]

Today, game consoles compete on graphics capbility. I find that kinda funny since most people I know can't tell the difference between 640x480 and 1440x1080, can't distinguish a progressive image from an interlaced one, aren't bothered by aliasing, think 24fps isn't choppy, and can play Mario cart in 1/4th of the screen just fine. I bet the console manufacturers could support 480p, wide screen, and then upscale to everything else. Just keep it above 24fps. The gamers wouldn't notice or care.

Personally, I'm more interested in new controls and new game play innovation.

Maybe the consoles are really made just to impress the reviewers?

Re:New Directions

[bigman2003]

ANYTHING you've heard at this point is just hype.

It stops being hype when it ships. Until it ships...it is nothing but hype, rumor, and PR.

Re:Graphics power more important than game?

[WillAffleckUW]

I agree with you that game quality and play are far more important than resolution, but I should point out that I went and bought the xBox version of Sims 2 instead of the GameCube version, due to the better graphics.

So, for a cross-platform game, I think it's critical.

For a single-platform, or console (PS3) plus portable (PSP) decision, I don't think it matters that much. It won't make me buy one console over the other.

Re:But..Over a Barrel.

[Silverstrike]

Who said the chip has to compute realistic physics?

Millions of blocks all falling on the same screen takes a ton of CPU time. Now, weather they are falling with an acceleration of 9.8 m/s^s is immaterial to CPU time -- millions of real-time collisons take loads of number crunching, realistic or not.

Re:Short summary:

[poot_rootbeer]

Waiting for games to trickle out isn't my idea of fun.

Buying a new game every month or so isn't MY idea of fun. I'd rather have four titles a year with superlative replay value than 20 a year that get stale after three weeks.

Re:More power, $400, Anime Dating, Puppies

[amliebsch]

but when you hold somewhere between $5000 and $20,000 in a firm, it's ethical to mention it.

Why? Are you holding yourself out as some kind of expert? Do you believe that your slashdot postings are so important that it's vital that nobody rely on them without full disclosure? Do you think that you have such an important position of slashdot trust that must be maintained by disclosing conflicts of interest?

No, it's not caveat emptor or ethics.

[dyoung9090]

Caveat emptor means the buyer beware. It's a general disclosure principle in most aspects of the law, specifically in real property and contracts, that says the buyer is not under a duty to make sure YOU know everything that could possibly concern that which you are buying. It's the court's way of saying YOU as the buyer needs to take some initiative to make sure you're getting a good product because YOU as the buyer are the one that will be harmed if you didn't make a prudent and informed decision.

As for ethics, nobody is buying stock on your word. NOBODY. You don't have a duty to disclose your ownership of MS stock because you're not creating some kind of reliance in us upon your word wherein your status as an MS stockholder makes us suspicious of conflict of interest. It's not like we have reason to believe you're neutral or that otherwise you'd be misrepresenting yourself by not telling us.

It's not relevant at all. You want to pretend it's relevant because you want us to be impressed. That's why you're throwing out that BS 15k range of stock value.

The ethical thing is to tell us truth about a situation when that truth has an impact on the situation. Supreme Court justices tell us their stock holdings when there's a potential conflict of interest because their decision may have some effect on the US. YOU telling us how much money you'd like to have invested in MS is equal to me posting "PS, I own a Ford and plan to buy another when this one dies" every time I mention cars because hey, that was a huge 5k-20k investment I made in that company, or that I took out student loans through one bank (becuase hey, that's a huge 16k-130k investment in that company) or that I took out a mortgage through another bank (because hey, that's a huge 1k-250k investment in that company.)

Your logic is so illogical it's like, I'm having trouble even semi-seriously attempting to take your concept of ethics seriously, it's like a doctor walking in, seeing that you have Nikes on and then telling you he prefers Converse and just wants you to know that despite his preference in shoes, he's going to try to not kill you on the operating table.

Here's what I'd like to know...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a real question, and there might be a perfectly good answer to it, but I haven't been able to figure it out...

Aside from the projected cost to manufacture and the willingness of console manufacturers to "eat" costs for the first months of production, how is Sony going to get away with charging signifigantly less then the $1000 the first dedicated Blu-Ray players are going to cost? If, like Samsung, I were making a Blu-Ray player that cost that much, and then Sony comes in and charges half that for the PS3, I'd be royally pissed. Sure, cost to manufacture would drop eventually, and perhaps the PS3 won't be seen until Christmas, but still, no one's going to buy something that only plays movies when there's another device out there that costs less or close to what I'm selling my device for.

Again, price for dedicated players may drop dramatically over the coming months, but with Sony still saying the PS3 is coming out this spring, how could this work? Is this a potential contributing factor in any delay? Am I overlooking something? When the PS2 came out, how much did DVD players go for? Where are my pants?

Anyway, this is my #1 question about the PS3. Anyone care to shed some light?

Re:With any luck...

[tonywong]

Let's be realistic here. In NO way is Sony going to ship this in Q1 06. Where are the production SAMPLE units, SKUs or final plastics? No one has even developer SDKs that are in any way finished or polished (besides Sony owned entities) and they are still throwing about theoretical performance numbers. If Sony was any way serious about launching in this time frame, you'd see their factories gearing up for such a launch. The only thing happening here is that they're trying to steal away hype from the 360 launch...and doing pretty well at that it seems.