According to 1UP.com, analysts Piper Jaffray have predicted that the PS3 will be the leading next-gen platform by 2008 with a a market share of 45% - 50%. The 360 will trail with a 35% - 40% marketshare.

Hmm, didn’t I mention this once a long time ago? It sounds so familiar. But I searched and couldn’t find the article.

Anyway, take it with a grain of salt. Believing a soothsayer is almost as bad as believing a politician.

1UP.com - Analyst Predicts PS3 Lead, Next-Gen PSP

PS3 playable at TGS? Didn’t happen. It was quite a disappointment, because Mr. Kutaragi had previously said that we would see such. Reason? Well, according to Japan’s Famitsu magazine:

Sony could have shown playable software, but it decided that since this was the first time the PS3 was going to be shown on Japanese soil, it would be best to show only video footage first. Pressed further by the magazine, Saeki states that SCE wanted general users to feel the same impact that industry members felt upon seeing the E3 trailer footage for the system, and thus opted for trailer footage only , even though Saeki admits that being able to play the games would have caused a greater buzz.

Uh, doesn’t really make sense to me.

Also, that PlayStation Conference in February? It now looks like Sony is planning a different approach to it. Something that will “surprise gamers”.

IGN - Sony Talks PS3

Jim Merrick is Nintendo’s head of European marketing. He’s recently been interviewed by C&VG, and he gave away some juicy morcels.

Nintendo had several objectives with their new controller - interesting new gameplay was just one of them. They also wanted something accessible, like a TV remote. The resemblance isn’t unintentional. The new controller can even be used to turn the new console on and off, just like a TV remote.

Mr. Merrick thinks the new controller has so many different ways of using it, you won’t miss the relatively fewer buttons. For example, to control an airplane you can bank left, right, dive, pull up, do a loop, and not press a single button. And he says that when combined with the analog stick on the nunchukk accessory, that you’ll never go back to using a traditional controller for first-person shooters.

The new console will continue to support existing GameCube controllers. That’s a backwards compatibility that Sony and Microsoft won’t be offering with their PS3 and 360. They’re also working on a classic-style controller with a hole wherein you slot the the free-hand controller. I saw a mockup of this somewhere on the net a while ago and thought it was a bunch of baloney, but evidently I was wrong.

C&VG - INTERVIEW: JIM MERRICK

Sony solidarity in the ranks:

Sony Corp. President Ryoji Chubachi said Tuesday there was no division in the company’s management team, despite CEO Howard Stringer’s recent remarks indicating he met resistance in trying to cut more jobs than the 10,000 layoffs planned.

“There are no contradictions or conflict. I can say with confidence we stand together,”

He said that while not everyone will come up with the same solution to a problem, Sony’s team backed Stringer’s decisions. This kind of solidarity is good for Sony and good for us, the consumers.

Sony, in this time of minor trouble, doesn’t need dissension among their top decision makers. Sony employees worldwide will see a united front at the top, and this will only help to keep up morale in a time of 10,000 layoffs.

Forbes.com - Sony President: Management Team Is United

Mike just keeps the questions coming (great stuff!):

It has been suggested by Sony that one of the advantages of being able to use 2 televisions with the PS3 is that, when playing a game that allows for 2 people like, deathmatch, each player could have their own screen. With that said, do you think since the PS3 allows for 7 players that, more than 2 screen might be able to be linked together for 2+ player deathmatch, etc. And what connects on the PS3 allow for a dual television setup?

The PS3 has two HDMI outputs and a multi-out output. Sony has said that the two HDMI outputs could be used to drive two displays. They have given no indication at all of supporting any more than two screens. Even if the hardware was physically capable of this (given that there’s also the multi-out that you could use) it’s doubtfull that the RSX would support more than two framebuffers. Even when the PS3 was doing all the heavy lifting in the London demo, it had to write the final results to the framebuffer. And if the graphics card doesn’t support more than two, plus the associated video-out circuitry, then you won’t get more than two screens.

Someone (codenamed ‘Han Solo’, so you know it’s gotta be good, right?) claims to have the inside scoop on the Revolution’s specs. Here they are:

• CPU: 1 IBM Custom PowerPC 2.5 GHz
• GPU: ATI Custom based RN520 core, running at 600MHz, HD support still undecided, though this GPU is physically capable of it
• 512 MB of RAM
• PPU chip (Physical Processing Chip) with 32MB of RAM
• Sound chip with DD5.1 and DTS7.1 support

Supposedly the CPU will lag a little behind the PS3’s Cell and the GPU will be ahead. Of course, a large part of this is pure speculation.

The thing that caught my eye was the PPU. Is this anything like the AGEIA stuff whose library Sony has licensed?

This is really quite interesting. Everyone always assumed that since Nintendo was being so quiet about its system and not talking up the specs, that it would be behind the other two consoles. If these specs are close to accurate, then the Revolution won’t be giving up anything to its two competitors.

ArsTechnica - Nintendo Revolution specs revealed?