What's Known About the PS3 234
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."
More power, $400, Anime Dating, Puppies (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Hmm, maybe I should sell my MSFT stock
Too many variables, too little information (Score:5, Interesting)
Not to mention that, by the time the PS3 comes out, there will be many titles available for the 360. Although (as TFA shows) there are a good deal of games in development, the 360's titles will have matured while those for the PS3 will remain untested.
Finally, the longer it takes for Sony to put this console out, the less people will have confidence in it. Console developers are always hush-hush about their products, but at this point, it would do Sony well to clarify some things; they keep saying that they're going to release on-schedule, but nobody else sees how they can possibly do that. If they _do_ release on schedule, I for one will be forced to assume that it was rushed to market, and therefore not worth the risk (especially at that price).
Short summary: (Score:4, Interesting)
PlayStation 3: Most CPU power.
Nintendo Revolution: Most fun.
Personally I'd say Nintendo is the best in the means of innovation. The competitors are just "the same old, just faster, better, stronger", while Nintendo takes a step in a completely new direction.
Played a Cell processor Demo (Score:5, Interesting)
In the software demo, they then enabled the cell processor, or re-routed the processing to it in some way (it was hard to tell exactly, and they weren't too forthcoming). The difference was remarkable. 30 - 40 fps, and a crystal clear picture. The data they were using was from (or at least they said it was from) satellite images, GPS data, aerial photo surveys, and USGS maps. It was extremely well rendered, down to pebbles. Clouds and such were just remarkable.
At the end they offered to let us "fly", so I jumped at it and took the first turn. While not a real game by any stretch, it was a lot of fun to manuever through the terrain and look at the detail. So, taking what they said was going on at face value, the cell was a very impressive processor.
One thing of note, though... the "cell processor unit" they had hooked up to the G4 was HUGE. Bigger then a standard PC case, with 6 120mm fans on it. Not exactly heartening for something that's supposed to go into a console.
Still, my impression of it was that it's got a TON of possibility, and it really is working hardware.
Re:Short summary: (Score:4, Interesting)
Played a Cell processor Demo-A Fan of Fans. (Score:1, Interesting)
Maybe they overclocked it? Or it was more than one cell processor in a module.
Re:Short summary: (Score:4, Interesting)
Remember how the XBox looked set to eat the PS2's lunch? However after 5 years of hardcore low level programming on freakish hardware the latest round of PS2 titles look just as good as the XBox titles.
Frankly the PS3 is a *lot* easier to program than the PS2. All the complaining is coming from PC developers (a.k.a the current crop of Unreal engine licensees) who never touched the PS2 and don't know the meaning of pain.
The weak developers will die out, and the rest will push the PS3 way further than the XBox360.
Will it be sold at a loss? Of course! (Score:3, Interesting)
How much will it cost to manufacture, excluding the up front investments? Probably reasonably close to the XBox360. Just look at the pieces. 200M transistor CPU and GPU's cost pretty much the same no matter the design. The cases are reasonably comparable. Power supplies will be similar -- unless the PS3 magically is able to use a whole lot less power than the Xbox, but I doubt it. The one difference major difference would be the DVD drive vs whatever the PS3 will have, but this added expense is offset by helping Sony launch their next-gen DVD format.
Re:Will it be sold at a loss? Of course! (Score:3, Interesting)
PS3 - break even
PS3 controllers (extra, say two or three) - profit
PS3 game - profit, after first two
PSPs to attach and interact with PS3 - profit
PSP versions of PS3 games that interact with PS3 - profit
PS3 extra services - classic games, etc - profit
Not a bad market move.
Overhyped analysts (Score:4, Interesting)
All this does is get the consumer to expect the worst.
Then when Sony prices it at $399 and delivers it on time, consumers will flock to it because now to them "It's $400 cheaper than I thought it would be! I've got to go get it!"
Sony loves right now that people are talking about $800 and $900 price tags. When they deliver at around $400 it will seem like the bargain of the century.
Re:why the big secret? (Score:2, Interesting)
The developers started talking about it 2 years before its release, and hyped it up to be the best thing in the world with all these amazing features. Problem is, by the time it was released, 90% of those features had been cut due to problems with implementation, and time and budget limits.
Hyping up a product should only be done when you know exactly what the product is, because otherwise, you just spent a bunch of advert money on something that is never going to exist.
How long will next generation really last? (Score:3, Interesting)
Lets take a look at console history. In every case you can see that for any particular console, the console's first generation games pale in comparison to games created towards the end of the consoles life cycle, at least on technical merit. Game worlds are more complex, graphics are better, AI is better, etc. This is because as time goes on, the developers become more familair with the specific capabilities of with the hardware and learnt o exploit the strengths and avoid the weaknesses. To me at seems that jsut as soon as developers really come to grasp with the specifics of the hardware they're wroking with, the hardware companies decide to release new consoles and the cycle starts over. Developers have to once again start the process of learning the ins and outs of the new hardware. In this case of the recent generation, I'd be hard pressed to say that the XBox and Gamecube games are even close to achieving their maximum potential. We'll never see it though, because, with the exception of 1 or 2 games, their life cycles have effectivly come to end.
Fast forward to the new generation of consoles that are coming to market. Well except for Nintendo I guess. (Nintendo seems to be trying to avoid this problem by basing the Revolution on a souped up Gamecube architecture. We've all read how they've said they're trying to make it easier on developers). This new generation, more so than any other transition, with the advent of multi-cpu parallel processing is really shaking up the development community. Developers who are used using the same old way of thinking, but just adjusting for specifics of different hardware, now need to completly reevaluate just how to program their software in a way that effectively takes advantage of all the parts of the processor. Many of us are still waiting for quality apps that take advantage of our dual core PC's, which is arguably a much easier platform to code for than the cell.
So here are my questions:
1) How long is it going to take developers to really exploit the power of the processor? We've seen that this can take several years, and with cell so radically different, it may take longer than usual.
2) When is the next-next console cycle going to show it's head (PS4, NextBox, etc)? 4-5 years? I have heard people say Sony intends the PS3 to have a long life (8 years?) but I think that is suicide. Gamers love new consoles and have become quite used to and supportive of the current console life cycle situation. If microsoft or whoever in 5 years comes out with another box thats better, Sony won't idly sit by, they will release a new console of their own or risk losing out.
3)So based on 1 and 2, I have to ask, by the time the next-next generation of consoles come out, will all this extra power of the cell processor even have been exploited? Based on the current situation of XBox and Gamecube, my prediction is no the maximum potential will not have been reached.
This brings me to my final point. If a) the cell is going to be initially difficult to program and it takes developers a long time to exploit the potential of the processor, and b) the lifecycle of the console will probably end before this potential can be reached anyway then c)what's the point? It seems that this technology is just going to drive up the cost of the system with out really giving gamers any of the benefits the processor has the potential to give. Hell, I doubt even XBox 360 developers will have been able to push its so called "weaker" hardware to the max before another generation of consoles is upon us. Do gamers really need all this hardware being thrown at them?