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One problem with first person shooters on consoles has always been control. Having two analog sticks is good, but it just doesn’t do justice to games that were designed to be controlled using a keyboard and mouse. Thankfully, Sony will be including keyboard and mouse support in the PS3.
Hope to see you in a killer deathmatch sometime soon.
According to PS3Portal.com, the Playstatition 3 is still on track to launch in 2006. Or at least Sony says it’s working hard to make it so. As far as we know, Spring 2006 is still the target. Whether this is a Japan-only or a combined Japan and US launch is still unknown. My guess is they don’t have enough time to get it ready for the US as well. Guess we’ll see.
It’s expected that Sony will give us a more official update on their progress at the upcoming Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in January.
Pretty impressive prize for just posting to forums. They’re even going to try to set up a live video feed of the actual drawing later this year.
An earlier version of this story appeared with statements erroneously attributed to Sir Howard Stringer, CEO of Sony Corporation, regarding pricing and availability of the PS3. Stringer has not commented publicly on how much the PS3 is expected to cost, or how soon it will appear in the US after the Japanese launch in spring 2006.
I’m guessing he may have mentioned a few things “off the record” (and/or while intoxicated), as the correction only states that he has “not commented publicly.” Guess we’ll see.
But, uh, mid-2006? Didn’t he just say a week or two ago that it wouldn’t be arriving in the US until the end of 2006? Maybe he meant it would sell for the equivalent of $300-$400 when it goes on sale mid-2006 in Japan. Or something. I’ll keep you posted as new conflicting rumors develop.
From Games Galore
Here are the Top 10 from IGN:
10. Xbox 360 Doesn’t Have a Killer App
9. Dual-Screen and 1080p Support
8. Dual-Screen and 1080p Support
7. You Can Still Pre-Order
6. Seven-Player Wireless Support
5. The HD IP Camera
4. Full Backwards Compatibility
3. Stronger Japanese Developer Support
2. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
1. The Blu-ray Player
You may wonder why the Blu-ray device is their #1 reason. Well the answer is capacity. A Blu-ray disc can hold 45GB. That is just an immense amount of data. That’s enough to fill 4 DVD-ROM’s. Transfer rate should also greater than anything you’ve seen yet, which translates to shorter and fewer loading screens.
In case you can’t wait…
According to XBox Today, the Playstation 3 may end up costing twice as much as the XBox 360. This speculation comes from an analyst report from Merrill Lynch, which cites higher production costs as the main reason.
The total cost of the PS3 (to the manufacturer) is estimated at $495, while the XBox comes in at a mere $340. A major source of the difference is the Blu-Ray drive, which will cost a whopping $100. Compare that to $25 for a DVD-ROM drive, and you wonder what exactly Sony is thinking. The other major discrepancy in pricing is the processor, with the PS3’s cell processor gizmo costing $160, $60 more than the IBM PPC processor used by the XBox.
Despite the cost difference, I can’t imagine Sony would sell a PS3 for $600 (assuming they mean twice the cost of the base XBox model). That’s just too much for a gaming console. For most people, that has moved from the realm of “cool Christmas gift” to “major investment”. Sony and Microsoft both make more money on games than the hardware anyhow, so I’m thinking Sony will just end up taking a bigger hit up front in hopes that people will buy plenty of games.
My personal prediction is $400. If I’m right, maybe I should apply for a job as a Merrill Lynch analyst. Ya think?
According to Games Digest, PS3Blog.net, and other sources, there is a rumor flying around that the PS3 may not play second hand games. The idea is that when you fire up a disc for the first time, it gets marked to play only in this particular console. The main purpose supposedly would be to help stamp out piracy, but it would also mean you can’t resell used games. Furthermore, you couldn’t take your game over to a friend’s house, or borrow his games.
I’ve never tried to pirate PS2 games, but don’t you have to have a hacked system to play pirated games even now? I’m pretty sure you can’t just make a copy of a PS2 dvd and have it work. Should this new rumor to turn out to be true, someone will have hacked the PS3 within about 5 minutes of its release anyhow.
Personally I just can’t imagine this could be true. I do see how game makers (and thus Sony) could make more money by stamping out the market for used games, but it just seems too suicidal. This would be a fatal blow to all but the most diehard Playstation fans, likely sending a great number of them to the competition.
Also, what happens if your PS3 dies and you have to buy another one? None of your games would work on the new console. Do you have to ship them all off to Sony so they can re-stamp them for your new box?
Someone point me to some evidence. I’m calling BS.
Ars Technica reports that according to a recent interview with Howard Stringer, CEO of Sony, PS3 won’t be released until a year from now. The Hollywood Reporter conducted the interview. They say:
“[Sony] soon will unveil a line of compact, portable video devices to fill the time gap before PlayStation 3 launches in Japan in March and in the U.S. a year from now.”
Seem clear enough. Japan gets it in March, we wait until next holiday season. Up until recently most were speculating that the PS3 would be released simultaneously (or close to it) in Japan and the US. Sigh.
So the question is, if it’s going to be ready in March in Japan, and Microsoft is introducing the XBox 360 in less than two weeks, why on earth is Sony going to sit around and wait to release it here for a whole year?
Steve Thinks speculates that it may have been planned all along. Since Sony can’t beat Microsoft out the door, they might as well wait until next Christmas to launch. Obviously the first reason is just that Christmas is a good time to launch, but by waiting an entire year, they can more convincingly tout the PS3 as a next generation console, superior to that old XBox 360 that came out waaay back in 2005.
I guess we’ll see how it pans out. Microsoft clearly thinks that the reason they’re losing to Sony right now is that the PS2 beat the first XBox out the door, creating a gap in market share too big to overcome. However they’d do well to note that being first doesn’t always mean winning. Witness the permature demise of Sega’s Saturn and Dreamcast systems. Unlike Sega, however, Microsoft has something like $50 billion sitting in the bank. They can quite literally just keep throwing money at this thing until they win.
So what do you think? Good idea to wait until next Christmas? Or should Sony be flogging the team day and night to get the PS3 out as close on the heels of XBox 360 as possible?
As you likely know, the PS3 will employ a spiffy new “Cell Processor” to do the massive graphical weightlifting necessary to render insane models like that of Snake in MGS4 (click to enlarge him, he’s pretty impressive).
In case you want to know what a cell processor is, there’s a pretty good writeup at cell-processor.org. Basically you have a bunch of tiny processors that share common memory. These mini-processors are called Synergistic Processor Elements (gotta love synergy).
In any case, the PS3 cell processor is going to have 8 of these SPE doo-dads. Only 7 of them, however, will be active. PS3Blog.net reports that the 8th SPE may or may not be redundant. Seems the official line from Sony is that it’s just a backup, allowing the processor unit to remain functional, even if 1 of the 8 is defective from the factory. This reduces waste, and cuts cost in the end, as they don’t have to throw away an entire chip if just one SPE is a dud.
There’s now a rumor flying about, however, that the 8th SPE will be reserved for security and DRM (Digital Rights Management). Perhaps Sony really doesn’t want to see any pirated PS3 games floating around. Or maybe it’s protection for some other kind of media. Or maybe not. Who knows?
