[Edited with additions.]

Q: When will the PS3 be released?

A: Novemeber 11th in Japan. November 17th in North America and Europe.

Q: How much will the PS3 cost?

A: Sony has two versions of the PS3. One with a 40GB HDD, no memory card readers, two USB ports instead of the 80GB’s four, and no PS2 BC. The other has all that stuff and 80GB instead of 40GB HDD. In the US, the prices are $499US for the 80GB and $399US for the 40GB.

Q: What resolutions will the PS3 support?

A: The PS3 will support the HD resolutions of 1280 x 720, 1920 x 1080i, and 1920 x 1080p. There are a few HDTVs starting to come out with 1080p HDMI inputs, from the likes of Sony and HP. The PS3 will also support SD (standard definition).

Q: How do I hook up my PS3?

A: See this article just on this subject.

Q: Will the controllers be wireless? How? How many?

A: The controllers will indeed be wireless, using standard Bluetooth technology to achieve this. The PS3 will support up to 7 controllers. (More accurately, it supports up to 7 Bluetooth devices - they don’t have to be controllers. The PS3 itself takes up the eighth spot in the Bluetooth hardware’s scheme of things.) No more multitap!

Q: How will I recharge my wireless controller?

A: Through the USB port on the PS3.

Q: What about a HDD?

A: Sony’s initial two PS3 machines had 20GB and 60GB HDDs. Now they’re 40GB and 80GB.

Q: What kind of discs will games be distributed on?

A: Sony has indicated that games will be distributed on Blu-ray Disc (BD) media. BD supports capacities of 25GB for a single-layer disc, and 50GB for a two-layer disc.

Q: Will I be able to play PS2 and PSone games on the PS3?

A: Yes, except for the 40GB PS3, though you won’t be able to use your old controllers, memory cards, or other peripherals. The PS3 will upscale the PSOne and PS2 games’ video to HD resolutions, should you choose. The 20GB, 60GB, and 80GB PS3’s have PS1 and PS2 backwards compatibility. The 40GB PS3 can only play PS1 games.

Q: Will it be available in multiple colours?

A: It seems that black will be the only available colour.

Q: What about network connectivity? Does Sony have an answer to Xbox Live?

A: Yes. It’s called the PSN (PlayStation Network). It includes free player versus player gaming, lobbies/matchmaking, scores/ranking, game data upload/download, friend lists, avatars, voice and video chat, instant messaging, downloadable content, and more.

Q: What are the launch games?

A: No official launch list has been released. The closest we have is a list of games in development, released at TGS, available here.

Any other FAQ-like questions you’d like answered? Please contact us.

Mike wrote me asking about PS3 clusters (edited for clarity):

It seems from what I’ve heard that multiple PS3’s can be connected together through their ethernet port to double, triple, etc. the PS3’s power. Do you know anymore details about this, and how it might be used? For example, could this mean that all of the PS3’s power could be doubled, like the GPU, or would this only apply to the cell processor? And, if this turns out that it can be done then, do you think that it could be possible that after the PS3 has been out for like a year or more that, some games might come out that say, “this game will only run with 2+ PS3’s?” If so, then the PS3 could honestly reach true life-like graphics, and there really wouldn’t be a reason to make another PlayStation. This is such an interesting feature that it is irresistable not to ask more about it.

When hyping up the Cell processor, statements were indeed made that multiple Cells could conceivably be hooked up together. This would provide an almost linear improvement in performance with each new Cell added. I say “almost” linear because there is additional communications and other overhead involved in connecting more than one CPU together, so when you have two processors, you might get, say, 1.8 times the speed. Three processors would give 2.6 times the speed, etc. In the talks of connecting multiple Cells, no mention was made of using the graphics chip in any way, though it must be noted that the Cell is plenty powerful enough to render great graphics without the RSX. For example, in the interview I mentioned yesterday, Mr. Chatani says “For example we showed the demo that renders London City, it’s not rendered in the GPU but the CELL does lighting and texture processing then outputs it to the frame buffer.” So for that demo, the graphics chip was bypassed entirely. So putting together several Cell processors would greatly increase the graphics computing power put to bear on a problem, even without a graphics processor. (That said, NVIDIA does have technology to use more than one graphics chip to solve an image, if I remember correctly.) I’m no technical guru, but I am a software developer. I don’t think there’s anything technically stopping game developers from connecting a couple PS3’s to increase the power for a task.

That said, I don’t think it’ll happen. How many people will have more than one PS3 to take advantage of all the effort required? Especially given the rumours that the PS3 will be an expensive console, I think it is very unlikely that many people would own more than one PS3. You could argue that if the software is there, people would buy more than one PS3. But that’s asking game developers to take a very large leap of faith that if they did develop something, people would pony up the dough for both the game and another PS3. Not gonna happen.

A more likely scenario is that Sony will just release the PS4 with several Cell processors in it. You heard it here first, folks!

During the Sony reorg presentation, Mr. Stringer outlined a very few details about the PS3 launch. Most importantly, he confirmed again a spring 2006 launch for the PS3, though he made no mention of what regions it would be launched in. CVG expects a simultaneous worldwide release (let’s hope!), but gameindustry.biz thinks it’ll launch first in Japan, with other regions like North America half a year or more behind.

If you head on over to GameFront and scroll down a bit, their article about this news contains a link to an image that looks to be from the presentation.

gamindustry.biz - Sony CEO confirms spring launch plans for PS3
CVG - PS3 LAUNCH PLAN OUTLINED IN MEETING YESTERDAY

[Update: More Details]

If you’re a fan of the pod-race sequence in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, then you might like that KOEI has up its sleave. Developed by KOEI’s new studio in Toronto (why can’t game companies ever come to Ottawa?), Fatal Inertia screenshots looks very much like the pod-racing scenes. The game is expected to be a release title for when the PS3 hits in the spring of 2006. (Everybody keeps saying spring 2006, maybe that’ll make it true!) IGN says:

Officially described as “a contrast of vibrant, futuristic vehicles battling and racing in a variety of beautiful, natural environments,” Fatal Inertia is a 23rd century sport that mixes street racing, rally racing, and demolition derbies and is also said to have six main goals: 1.) to have a realistic world based on physics, 2.) to have a variety of physics-based weaponry, 3.) to boast completely customizable vehicles, 4.) to entertain a large variety of game modes, 5.) to show off several nature-based stages, and 6.) to thrill gamers in multiplayer battles.

Imagine shooting a missile to cause a landslide on an opponent. Or to close off a canyon behind you. Or, or, or! The possibilities, man! Don’t believe me? Right from KOEI:

The foundation of Fatal Inertia is its physics engine, which uses the power of the PS3 to create weapons and environments that are unlike anything seen before. The beautiful natural environments aren’t just scenery — they are there to be used in combat, and rock walls can quickly become avalanches to use against your opponents. You’ll have unparalleled freedom, and with all the possibilities the physics-based engine has to offer, you’ll never have the same play experience twice.

PS3 IGN - TGS 2005: KOEI Reveals Fatal Inertia
KOEI - Fatal Inertia

At TGS the Sonic team showed an interactive demo of the next Sonic game for the PS3. IGN has some screenshots. I’ve seen them elsewhere too. And well, I wasn’t impressed. They looked very current-gen. I pondered that if this is the best they could come up with, then I’ll be pretty disappointed come spring 2006.

But then! I decided to watch the video before coming to any conclusions, and well, talk about a difference! Once you see the shadows moving about, stone walls crumbling, and impressive sets actually playable, it changes everything. Definitely a step up from current gen. Definitely next-gen. Sonic himself, though, could have been rendered better. How about some fur?

Sonic the Hedgehog was one of the reasons I bought my Sega Genesis. Now I’m looking forward to seeing how well it fares on the PS3.

PS3 IGN - Sonic the Hedgehog

Quick, who’s the current generation’s market leader? PS2, right. Second? Xbox, right. Third? GameCube. Nintendo’s relationship with the video gaming public has gone from darling to black sheep. The GameCube, while it does have some pretty good games, is embarrassingly behind the other two consoles.

Nintendo is hoping to change all that with their new controller. I’ve heard some people call it gimicky, and it kind of looks that way at first. But upon further reflection, I think these controllers could be really fun. And fun is really what video games are all about, right? So what if you’re waving your arms about like a possessed monkey. Maybe the monkeys know how to have all the fun!

My friend Steve has a GameCube and is wondering whether or not to get a revolution. He doesn’t like the fact that it doesn’t support HD. His TV is started to act possessed as well, flickering brighter and darker as we try to dodge other monkey balls. So Steve will be getting a new TV probably sooner and not later. And it’ll be an HDTV. Needless to say, he wishes the Revolution supported HD.

But you know, in a way, I hope he does end up getting the Revolution. I am really curious about these controllers, and I think that some really fun games can be made with them. Nintendo of Europe’s senior director of marketing, Jim Merrick, believes the controller “Certainly could make us market leader.” But I somehow doubt that. But I sure am looking forward to what kind of games Nintendo has in store for those controllers.

gameindustry.biz - Rev controller ‘could make Nintendo market leader’

The other day I reported that EA expects to keep the cost of next-gen games to 150% of the current generation. Bandai thinks that number is a little bit low and is targetting 200%.

Bandai managing director Shin Unozawa has said that he expects development costs to double in the next generation of games consoles.

Unozawa, who has worked on a number of Digimon titles for Bandai, estimates that the development of a new title will increase to ¥1 billion ($9.0m), from between ¥100 million ($0.9m) and ¥500 million ($4.5m) in the current generation. “Costs will begin to fall a year or so after the consoles are released and game makers become used to the systems,” said Unozawa.

Gamasutra - Bandai: Next-Gen Development Costs To Double

A reader asked about the PS3’s disc capacity and whether or not developers will use BD or DVD. Chris from Australia writes (edited for clarity):

I was listening to another Podcast where there where some Xbox360 fans and they were discussing whether the PS3 really needs Blu-ray discs and whether game companies would take advantage of the 50GB or so of storage space.

That’s a good question Chris. I don’t have any inside info, so all I can do is make some educated guesses.

First of all, BD discs will be expensive to begin with. As economies of scale start taking effect, prices will come down. Also, BD is a new technology, so gaming companies might want to wait and let the movie studios iron out BD production problems before jumping in. So game companies might decide to use DVD to begin with, then move to BD.

But of course they’ll only make the move to BD if they require all that disc space.

So obviously, big multi-disc PS3 games (like previous Final Fantasy games) will likely move to BD. It is cheaper to produce one BD disc than several DVD discs, probably even from the outset.

But what about other games? Champions of Norrath for the PS2 was a dual-layer DVD disc. The developers cited problems using the dual-layer approach as the reason for going to a single-layer DVD in the sequel, Return to Arms. In the process gamers lost random dungeons because that feature took so much disc space. Games like these are excellent candidates to move to BD as well. You can have 25GB of storage on a single layer, versus 4.7GB.

Lastly, we have to wonder about games that previously used 4.7GB or less. Are games like this going to be expanded in scope so that BD becomes a feasible alternative? One Japanese developer has already complained about the Xbox 360’s disc format, especially given how many HD cutscenes they want to include in the game. One HD scene at 1920 x 1080 takes 6.75 times the memory of a 640 x 480 scene (uncompressed). So any cutscenes in HD will take up that much more space. However, this is at least partially offset by greater codec effeciency, so who knows? Gaming companies are always pushing the envelope. I think that the first generation of games will not need more than the DVD format’s capacity. But as the PS3 platform matures, I think that many BD games will be released.

Thoughts anyone?

In the world of computing and hitech, it’s a given that costs go down, products become cheaper, and everybody’s happy. For example, I just bought myself an iPod nano, and it’s a tiny little device with 4GB of flash RAM in there. This is the first iPod to be cheaper than its competition (this time, its in the flash MP3 player market).

The exception to this rule is the cost of producing game software. As consoles (and computers) become ever more complicated, software developers just have to put in that much more work to wring the most out of the hardware.

There have been many doom and gloom predictions about developing software for the PS3 and Xbox 360. Costs will double! Costs will triple! But at least one developer, the biggest one at that, is aiming to keep costs reasonably in control. EA is targetting a 50% cost increase for their games. What? 50%! Yeah, well, that’s what “reasonably in control” means these days. But at least it’s not 200% or 300%!

Gamasutra - TGS: Electronic Arts Talks MoH PS3, Next-Gen Costs

Over at Aelon, Vermouth postulated that the next generation of consoles isn’t fixing any of the problems with the current generation. They’re just doing the same thing faster and fancier:

I recently saw an interview with Gabe Newell, in which he pointed out that none of the big products coming out, Revolution, Xbox 360, Vista and the PS3 are solving his problems. In fact he went on to tell us how the next gen consoles are really creating more problems for him. Thursday night, Nintendo unveiled the Revolution controller and I realized that as a gamer none of the next generation machines are really dealing with solving my problems with games.

Any thoughts?

Aelon - The Sound of Crickets: The Problem With Next-Gen

At a pre-TGS press briefing, Microsoft announced that the Xbox 360 will support both region-locked DVDs (of course) and region-locked games (doh!). So if you want to import games from Japan, or any region not your own, you’ll be out of luck unless you do something as dastardly as mod your Xbox 360. My guess is that one of the very first mods for the 360 will be to get around region locking.

I don’t see any reason for region-locking games, except to annoy consumers. But then Microsoft has always been very good at that. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)

the INQUIRER - Xbox 360 games, DVDs will be regionally locked