Playstation Update

You may have heard by now that Ken Kutaragi of Sony has stated that the PS3 will be capable of running games at 120 fps (frames per second). The question is, do we care? As many people have pointed out already in discussion of this comment, no TV produced today is capable of refreshing at 120 fps. Pretty much everyone is stuck at 60 fps. I’d also like to go out on a limb and suggest that even were you to get your hands on an imaginary 120 fps TV, you would lilkely not be able to tell the difference between 60 fps and 120 fps. I don’t think your brain can refresh that fast, never mind your TV, so it doesn’t really matter.

What does matter is that the PS3 will be capable of this kind of massive graphical processing. Even if we don’t care about insane refresh rates, this means the PS3 will be capable of dealing with more pixels and polygons per second. It would be capable of handling, for example, 1080p. Now that I do care about. Or I will as soon as I find a giant pile of money to throw down on a new 1080p HDTV set.

From PS3Blog.net.

Guess what boys and girls! If you act fast, you can shell out up to $700 over MSRP for an XBox 360 on eBay. No, you don’t get it now. No, you don’t even get it before it’s released. All you get for paying 3 times as much as the thing is worth is a place in line. You can sleep easy tonight, knowing that you will be one of the first to own it.

Ok, so that doesn’t really have anything to do with Playstation, but I just thought you all should know about this unique opportinity to throw away your money. If you really just have too much cash lying around your house, you may send some to me. I’ll take care of it for you.

From Engadget.

Just what everyone needs! A device to clamp onto the front of your Playstation Portable, so you can watch tiny games on your giant TV. No joke, I think there’s a teeny little camera stuffed in this hideous device, which pipes the screen output through a composite or S-Video output to your screen.

For a mere $99 you can inflict this atrocity on your PSP, though be warned, according to the manufacturer’s website, the device is for “educational purposes only”. Uh, not exactly sure what I’m supposed to learn from this thing, but we’ll just let that go. Quotes from (likely fictional) source proclaim: “Widescreen Bliss!”, “The Most Anticipated PSP Accessory for 2005/2006!”. You must check it out: pspontv.com.

Just what I always wanted.

From Engadget.

Sony announced this morning that it has begun selling a new software package for the PSP called “Media Manager”. The PSP has been marketed as an all in one entertainment package from the get go. It will play games, obviously, but it’s also supposed to be useful for playing music and videos, picture viewing, and so forth. This new software makes it easy to get all this stuff from your computer onto your PSP.

Trouble is, they want $19.95 for it. It should be free. Apple doesn’t charge you $250 for your iPod, and then expect you to shell out another $20 to be able to actually get music onto the device. Just go download iTunes, and you’re off.

Come on, Sony. If you want people to view the PSP as an all-in-one media device, you have to make it easy for people to get their goodies transfered onto it, and you can’t charge them for it. Give the software away, and you might find that in time, more and more people are using the PSP for media. You might even find that you start to acquire users that use it primarily for media, rather than for games. If you really need the extra money, give the software away, and start selling downloadable music and videos a la iTunes.

Sony Press Release
Official Sony Download Site

And speaking of Resident Evil… Everyone needs one of these. Now that the PS2 version of Resident Evil 4 is out, Nuby has released the Playstation 2 version of the Resident Evil Chainsaw Controller. Now don’t get too excited, it’s just a controller in the shape of a chainsaw. You don’t get to go attacking your tv with it or anything. Well, you could, but I doubt it would help much.

Comes “hand spattered” with yucky blood, in it’s very own beautiful collector’s case. Plus, get this, the PS2 version has a pull cord that actually works as a second start button. Pull the cord and you also get nifty rumbling and chainsaw noises. How can you possibly resist?