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.

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

Eidos announced today that the game previously know as Roll Call, will be redubbed Zero Tolerance. The game is described as a “high-velocity action shooter.” In it, you play Nick Mason, who has just joined the T-Zero anti-gang squad of Franklin City. The goal is to take back the city using all sorts of high-tech weapons and devices.

Currently Eidos is planning to release the game in Europe in 2006. Official plans for a US release have not yet been announced.

Symantec announced on October 6th that they had discovered the first “virus” for PSP. I put virus in quotes because technically the malicious program is a trojan horse. This simply means you have to download and run the beast to have it cause any problems. If you do run it, however, it will delete critical system files, rendering your PSP useless.

The evil program, named Trojan.PSPBrick by Symantec, is advertised as being a hack to modify the PSP’s firmware to allow you to play pirated games. As such, if you destroy your PSP using this technique, Sony has said they will not be covering the damage under warranty (not a big surprise).

So, bottom line is, don’t download strange files claiming to hack your PSP. Especially if they don’t come from a source you consider reputable.

Uhh, just in case you already “brick-ified” your PSP:

More info at Games Digest.

This is actually a bit old, but in case you don’t have them pasted on your wall yet, here are some of the core specs for the PS3, still supposedly to be released next spring:

CPU: Cell Processor
PowerPC-base Core @3.2GHz
1 VMX vector unit per core
512KB L2 cache
7 x SPE @3.2GHz
7 x 128b 128 SIMD GPRs
7 x 256KB SRAM for SPE
* 1 of 8 SPEs reserved for edundancy
total floating point performance: 218 GFLOPS

GPU: RSX @550MHz
1.8 TFLOPS floating point performance
Full HD (up to 1080p) x 2 channels
Multi-way programmable parallel floating point shader pipelines

More details at News.com.

Note that Sony has since proclaimed that the HDD will be nixed. I’d expect to lose a few other bits and pieces before the final hardware comes out.

According to Kagan Research, the XBox 360 is set to dominate console sales in 2006, taking 54% of the market share. By 2008, however, PS3 is forecasted to be back on top with the same share, 54%. Source: GibThis.com

I don’t know exactly how accurately anyone can predict what console sales will be like in 2008, but I imagine the numbers for 2006 won’t be far off. The official word from Sony is that the PS3 will be available both in Japan and the US in spring 2006. This would be quite a feat, and I wouldn’t start lining up just yet. This will give the XBox 360 plenty of time to build market share without any serious competition.

The past has proven that being first doesn’t mean you win, however. Look what happened to Sega with both Dreamcast and Saturn. 3D0 anyone? All of these platforms were ahead of their competition, and all of them pretty much failed miserably. (I owned most of them at one point. That 3D0 sytem cost about $700 if I recall).

I’m inclined to agree with the experts on this one. XBox may gain a temporary lead while Sony hurries to release the Playstation 3. If the PS3 is half as good as we all expect it to be, however, I think it will quickly close the gap and resume pounding Microsoft. As it should be.

More commentary on this at ps3blog.net.

P.S. Somebody leave a comment. Though I do enjoy talking to myself, I’d love to hear from you.

-Gary

As you all likely know, Microsoft’s XBox 360 is being released next month. The Playstation 2 is no spring chicken, by console standards. In fact, it’s pretty much the oldest thing out there. Certainly the oldest thing out there in its price range. You can get a new Nintendo Game Cube for less than $100 now. Used ones of course are much less. Sony’s already done the “look, I repackaged the system in a sexier and tinier box” trick, so what’s the plan for the holidays?

Microsoft told analysts that they are forecasting selling between 4.5 and 5.5 million XBox 360’s between its release next month and the middle of next year. Probably a good chunk of those they’re planning on selling before Christmas. Sony isn’t one to stand by and lose market share, even in the short run. True, even the “cheap” XBox 360 will cost $299, twice the current asking price for a PS2. The pimped out XBox will go for $399. Still, the PS2 has been holding steady at $149 MSRP for about a year and a half now, so many expect a price cut to boost sales for the holidays.

No official word from Sony yet on any of this, so stay tuned if you’re holding out for a $99 PS2. Maybe I need a second PS2. Maybe I need one for each room in the house…

Details from CNN.com

Welcome to Playstation Update!

This site will bring you the latest news, reviews and information from the world of Playstation. I’ll bring you everything from the latest PS3 gossip, to reviews of new PSP and Playstation 2 games. I’ll also likely ramble occasionally about things you don’t care about. Feel free to comment on anything!

Stay tuned for the latest!