Not sure how accurate any of this is but very interesting.
[url]http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000050043558[/url] (I'm pretty sure the console pics here are old concepts)
[url]http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000620043567[/url] (That is surely not the real controller)
[url]http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000203043552[/url] (These seem more believable)
2.18 teraflops @ 3.2GHz? Damn.
Yeah, looks like that thing is the real controller, its appeared in some more shots on gamespot. Looks ugly to me, but then what do I know - I prefered the original XBox controller to the S model [;)]
The console itself seems pretty lacking in design but I expect it'll fit in nicely alongside the rest of home entertainment gear.
It's interesting that they're supporting seven controllers, which is somewhat of an odd number. Guess we'll have to wait and see if they have anything interesting in mind.
The games are looking very awesome.
It's hard to tell if some of the games are pre-rendered or not, they look that good. I didn't know the Unreal 3 engine was going to [url="http://anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=2417&p=7"]run on PS3 as well[/url]. It looks like Epic are in a pretty good seat at the moment.
I'd like to see the footage of the tech demo of the Final fantasy VII movies running real time that's been talked about!
"Contrary to the rumors we've heard, it looks like the PS3 will implement the Cell processor that we all were introduced to a few months ago - featuring a single PPE and 8 SPEs. There is one caveat however; the Cell processor in the PS3 will only feature 7 working SPEs, one will remain disabled in order to improve yields."
"The Cell in PS3 can decode up to 12 HD streams simultaneously at full frame rate."
[:0]
Another interesting point is that the PS3 is said to support HD 1080p, which is better than XBox 360's high-end support for HD 1080i.
They've starting putting up videos from the Sony Press Conference over at [url]www.gametrailers.com[/url]. Hopefully the FF7 demo will follow.
Full press conference of Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo at http://www.gamespot.com/e3/e3live.html
Awesome stuff... Check out the rubber ducky/Eye toy/other tech demos in the Sony presentation. [:0]
gotta say im not a fan of that controller either, or the new xbox one to be honest. Watched the xbox press confrence and theres a lot of bold marketing talk which youd expect but all in all im not that hyped, most of the titles (infact, bar one or two) werent original IP and it was the one or two that were that made me go "wow." even with the crazy new graphics and all. It looks real nice, but im waiting to be completely wowed by the overall system still.
i'll believe spec sheets when i see some unbiased comparisons and some kind of benchmarks. sony have always embelised their console's preformace, and i doubt microsoft would market it any differently. i do agree though that the PS3 looks far more powerful than the Xbox360 so far.
it'll be all about the games in the end that makes me want one or the other if i get one (as well as the nintendo revoluton cos i'm to much of a nintendo fan not to get one). funny that all the punches thrown so far have been along the lines of 'my cpu's bigger than your cpu' - no surprises there. yeah, you've both got stupidly powerful machines, great, i get it. now give me a reason to buy one by showing me some stand out games!
Just saw the clip of the real time FFVII intro movie. Awesome. Anyway, if anyone hasn't checked out that Sony conference on the PS3 at Gamespot that was mentioned earlier, it's definately worth seeing. The demonstrations with the characters (shaders, emulating light through skin, the Spiderman character) is incredible.
quote:Originally posted by MoonUnit
gotta say im not a fan of that controller either, or the new xbox one to be honest. Watched the xbox press confrence and theres a lot of bold marketing talk which youd expect but all in all im not that hyped, most of the titles (infact, bar one or two) werent original IP and it was the one or two that were that made me go "wow." even with the crazy new graphics and all. It looks real nice, but im waiting to be completely wowed by the overall system still.
The worst offender has to be EA who has [url="http://www.joystiq.com/entry/1234000270043116/"]about 14 games[/url] listed, but only Spore being the one game that isn't a sequel or movie tie-in [:o)].
I guess it's not surprising that developers/publishers take the safe route when developing for a new console and all the extra developing costs it requires. Hopefully, all that extra power of next gen consoles will encourage some new ways to play games later on.
I've had a chance to look at some more of those videos. They're just unbelievable.
At the moment, the PS3 is looking like a much more complete system. It seems to beat the X360 across the board (at least in the specs given by MS and Sony). bruce over at [url]http://bigkid.com.au[/url] made up a neat comparison between the two: [url]http://bigkid.com.au/2005/05/17/xbox-360-vs-ps3/[/url].
quote:Originally posted by Souri
Hopefully, all that extra power of next gen consoles will encourage some new ways to play games later on.
Surprisingly, I read somewhere that MS had some big plans to invest a lot of money into new and original ideas and see which ones were profitable. I suppose we'll have to wait for MS's definition of "big plans" and "original ideas"
quote:Originally posted by Souri
The worst offender has to be EA who has about 14 games listed, but only Spore being the one game that isn't a sequel or movie tie-inUtter madness.
MS's ideas of 'profitable' are a quite obvious in the 'marketplace' aspect. I just hope they're not banking on people paying to outfit their in-game characters in fubu and Ecko (like the MTV launch hinted at).
Then again, the idea of paying $5 for a mobile ringtone strikes me as odd and non-profitable too, so I guess we'll see.
-d
PS: Imagine counter-strike being free to download and play, but needing REAL money to buy weapons and ammo every round...?
quote:Perhaps a way to improve "ways to play games" would be to open up a homebrew scene for these consoles...
I'm in total agreement here. Considering the PS3 will use OpenGL|ES as its graphics API and supposedly use content distribution over broadband, there might even be a chance too. Though how much of one remains to be seen; I can't see them just giving indie devs an access-all-areas pass to make what they want.
It'll be fun to see how it pans out though. Have to say I've been suckered into it, not because of the "wow, l33t graphics!" factor, but because of the Cell. It looks like a horrendously complex beast to code for, but at the same time will give programmers a lot more freedom and flexibility (moving some of the graphics work back onto the CPU from the GPU; 7 general purpose cores to play around with).
Grills Steak huh, Not only did Microsoft lose the Jap market with their "No sushi roller" approach, but now Sony will take away the US mid west too!
Apparently though the cocaine aerosol pump peripheral is still on the cards for the 360 so they'll keep the big cities. They'll be in trouble however if Sony actually get's the PS3 playing actual games as opposed to just boring ass CGI trailers like it does now.
I wonder what would be the better weapon in a fight, the 360 powerpack or the ps3 boomerang controller? The controller's surely the agile 'Ninja Girl' weapon wheras the 360 brick is the more, in there, f'off weapon... Surely the Google Vid will someday supply that answer.
[url="http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2493&…"]This Next-gen.biz artoicle[/url] is the best i've read about the PS3 news so far. The info presented at the press conference is all over the net, but this article actually has a closer look at what the news will actually mean.
From the gamesindustry.biz newsletter for 16/03/06:
Watching the reaction to Sony's announcements about the PlayStation 3 yesterday, we couldn't help wondering if the planets have just aligned for Sony in a particularly favourable way - or if this has been one of the most finely stage managed corporate information releases in history.
In case you missed the announcements themselves, the news is simple. PlayStation 3 is going to launch in early November in every worldwide territory - yes, including Europe - and the company is planning to have six million units on the market by the end of March 2007. Final development kits will be shipping in mid-May; there'll be a free and fully-featured online service from day one; the system will have a 60Gb hard drive by default, with strong hints that larger drives may also be available.
In the context of such a flood of information, and such an optimistic promise regarding the global launch timeline, nobody really seems to care that Sony is going to miss its target of launching the system in Spring 2006. Indeed, while Ken Kutaragi apologised profusely, in typically Japanese style, for the huge amount of speculation which has surrounded the PS3 launch plans, you can't help but feel that it's played right into their hands. Analysts confidently predicting that launches in some territories would slip to 2007, publishers expressing concern about the console not hitting Christmas, and the widespread belief that any Spring or Summer launch would be utterly hobbled by a complete dearth of stock for retailers to actually sell, had contributed to an atmosphere of gloom about the PS3's prospects in 2006. By alleviating the gloom caused by that speculation, Sony actually managed to make the announcement of a slippage sound like a positive thing. The stock markets certainly thought so, anyway - they pushed videogames stocks up significantly in the wake of the news of the launch date.
Of course, announcing a global launch is easy - actually executing on one is incredibly difficult, and there are two negative factors that need to be brought into consideration here. The first is the Xbox 360, which last Christmas ripped the heart out of some sectors of games retail by executing a global near-simultaneous launch which left every territory (aside from Japan) with hardly any units to sell. Pre-orders remained unfulfilled, money that should have been ringing through retail tills stayed firmly in gamers' pockets or was spent on other, non-games items, and overall it was hard to come away from the whole affair without thinking that if you can't do a global launch properly, you're better off just sticking to the easy option of a nice, staggered launch.
So a global simultaneous launch is difficult - to the point where Microsoft's Peter Moore was heard to opine that the software giant might never have tried to pull one off if it had known how hard it would be. But if Microsoft knows that, Sony should know it twice as well - because with PlayStation Portable, it promised just such a launch and ended up with a European launch running nine months behind the Japanese date, having found itself with insufficient units to satisfy even the demand in Japan on the originally proposed date of the worldwide launch.
PlayStation Portable, in summary, was a launch disaster by comparison with which even the Xbox 360 shortages look like a flawlessly executed plan. The question is, have Sony learned the right kind of lessons from this - or will the proposed November launch of the PS3 somehow turn into September 2007 in Europe and give Microsoft a head start of almost two years in the marketplace?
For now, it's almost impossible to say - but it's worth pointing out that a number of factors suggest that Sony Computer Entertainment has, indeed, emerged from the PSP fiasco as an older and wiser company.
Consider that the PlayStation 3, when it launches in November - IF it launches in November - will have had one of the longest gestation periods of any console. Early development kits for the system, which most of those working with the kits described as being surprisingly advanced for such early hardware, shipped over a year ago, and the absolutely final development kits - featuring production models of the Cell processor, RSX graphics part, Blu-Ray drive and so on - will be on their way to developers in mid-May, giving them a massive five months of working with final hardware and libraries before they have to ship launch titles.
For developers, that's a huge amount of breathing room, and it means that some of the launch titles in November will have been in full production for around 18 months - quite a lot longer than most console launch titles. For the rest of us, what this means is twofold. It means better launch titles, almost certainly - sure, they'll probably still be a bit on the derivative tick-the-boxes side of things, but at least they'll be polished. More importantly, what this means is that by mid-May, Sony expects to have final versions of every component in the PS3 to give to developers.
Once you have final versions of components to put in development kits, in effect, your console is finished - which means that leaked reports from manufacturing firms earlier this week indicating that Sony will start producing PlayStation 3 consoles in June are probably entirely accurate. In other words, this won't be another PlayStation Portable style mess where units are shoved out onto the market while the manufacturing plants are still limping their way up to full production; Sony has given itself five months to build up launch stocks of the console, and more importantly, to iron out production issues and get its factories cranking out consoles at a million units a month.
Much of this, admittedly, is conjecture - but we know the timeline for the development hardware and software, and huge amounts of information can be inferred from that data. All of it points to a PS3 launch which will be unlike anything we've seen from Sony previously, and a company which has learned bitter lessons from the miserable failure of its best-laid plans with the PlayStation Portable. Only time will tell if the company can really apply those lessons and execute on its ambitious plans - but for now, the enthusiasm of the stock market is understandable. Microsoft has an undeniable head-start, but as of this week, the market leader is back in the game.
I think anyone developer that thinks that Sony and its PS3 is just a joke is deluding themselves.
Based on the figures I have dug up, the PS2 has 91.6 million units, the XBOX 21.9 million and the GCUBE 19.4 million ? Sony have double the market share of both Microsoft and Nintendo combined. Microsoft may have a head start, but I doubt they will take much of Sony's market share ? especially with news of network / multiplayer support and a hard-drive from the get-go.
Nintendo are a wildcard, but I don't see them taking the largest market share ? they seem to me to be a secondary novel console to the average gamer's main console, due to its cheap price point and novel user-interface. Perhaps I am wrong, maybe it will have the same innovative mix and mystique that the IPOD has, and has seen it rise to fame and success. But then again...
I think many a developer likes to think that Sony and their PS3 is a joke, but, I only think they believe that in that believing that if the PS3 even comes close to what Sony are saying it can do, comes anywhere near to the Killzone ?demo,? then that is to believe that they are up shit-creek, without a paddle, without any arms, and only their shrivelled penis to propel and steer their boat.
Do I think that the PS3 will match the Killzone visuals? Probably not, but with enough time spent learning how best to use the PS3 hardware, how best to get the most out of it, it just might come damn close to it ? albeit without the same level of cinematic ?polish.? Sony have had some additional time to address technical issues with their hardware, to add support for new features ? or at least they say ? so their may be some surprises in store for developers as well as the average joe consumer. I also think that the PS3 is not as hard to develop for as some may want developers to believe. There seems to be enough evidence to suggest this, and to point it being easier than the learning curve that was the PS2.
Though, I think anyone with direct experience on a PS3 project, working with the PS3 development kits and building their own tech, could probably shed more light on that matter.
One million consoles produced a month:
32250 consoles produced in a day
1340 consoles produced in an hour
22 consoles produced a minute.
One console produced every 3 seconds
Prove me wrong. But I suspect there will be HUGE quality control issues hardware wise when the system comes out.
Same thing happened with the DS
Just guessing.. but some ppl may be interested in this nice vid :) MGS4 being shown in-engine.. oooooh.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5894964697549657011&q=ps3
And that million consoles a month, is spread over multiple outsourced factories and assembly plants. Its not just one shop making a PS3 :) You may have read about some of them, that are squawking about how they are starting up in June.. July :)
quote:Originally posted by Jackydablunt
I wonder what would be the better weapon in a fight, the 360 powerpack or the ps3 boomerang controller? The controller's surely the agile 'Ninja Girl' weapon wheras the 360 brick is the more, in there, f'off weapon... Surely the Google Vid will someday supply that answer.
The console looks pretty simple, maybe a bit too plain. The controller looks very futuristic. [:D] The game shots look amazing. [:0]
"Capable of handling seven Bluetooth controllers" - I wonder if a developer will take advantage of that. [;)]