Unfortunately for all of us this site is a one-man show, and when that one man is off on holidays, there won’t be much happening. Sorry about that. This site came into existence this year, and I’ve had a blast doing it. I have a feeling it’ll be even more fun next year, once the PS3 is released especially. Look for some exciting things to come in January both from Sony and from me! Don’t forget about me, I’ll be back!

Battling perceptions that the PS3’s RSX graphics chip is weaker than the 360’s Xenon, and that the Cell processor isn’t suited to games, a poster over at datafuse.net had some great insights to share.

For example, when the Xenon’s unified shader architecture was mentioned as superior to the RSX’s more traditional architecture:

Unified shaders do not necessarily provide any more power. It’s just a new way to arrange power. In terms of raw horsepower, RSX beats Xenos quite handily - floating point power is greater, shader ops are higher, it’s clocked faster, higher fillrate etc. Xenos’s claim to fame is that while it has less of a punch, it should be used more efficiently, but in a closed box such as a console, such concerns are somewhat mitigated since a dev can hunker down and get the best out of ANY chip. Xenos is also the first implementation of a new architecture - not always a good thing, and we’ve seen suggestions of some sacrifices on the part of devs.

And on the Cell processor, when people said it wasn’t suited to games:

Pure nonsense. This guy has obviously not been paying attention to IBM’s work with raytracing and rendering on Cell for example (or The Getaway demo which was apparently rendered only using Cell) and too much time reading Major Nelson-style ramblings. If you simply listen to what developers are saying they are using more CPU power for, Cell starts looking exceptionally suited for games. Most devs seem to be using extra cores for physics, animation, particle systems, graphics, audio, fluid/hair/cloth dynamics - these are the things which are most compute intensive, and these are the things the SPUs in Cell are really good at. As good, if not better than a conventional core, and there are 7 of them there in addition to the PPE. If you don’t believe me, look up Tim Sweeney’s comments about Cell on anandtech.com - basically he says that the things SPUs aren’t suited toward only take a small proportion of execution time anyway, and can be easily accomodated on the PPE. Or Crytek’s comments about potentially achieving a linear speedup across the SPUs. Cell is a clear and large advantage for PS3 when it comes to games, there’s no doubt in my mind.

Now of course you can throw a dart in a room full of gamers and hit 17 opinions, but I still like to see people standing up for the PS3 with all the 360 hype floating over the airwaves these days.

DataFuse.net - Sony PS3 Graphics, there’s more to it

In a conference call with analysts (or whatever), EA revealed a few interesting pieces of information.

Jenson then specifically cited the Xbox 360 launch, although commenting that “it’s gone extremely well: in North America and Europe”, he indicated that he and his colleagues “don’t see [the Xbox 360] getting to the installed base numbers we expected.” So even though it’s going extremely well, at the same time it’s not going as well as expected. Hmmm…..

he mentioned the consumer belief that the PlayStation 3 may be launching in Spring 2006, noting that it’s “causing some people to stay on the sidelines”, even though EA believes that a second-half 2006 launch is much more likely for the console in America. Well, I don’t know what consumers he’s talking to, but I mostly hear that people think it’ll launch in Japan in the spring and fall in North America. And then people hope they’re wrong.

Gamasutra - EA Reduces Forecast, Talks Xbox 360, PS3 Issues

Here are ten things I hate about the PS3. (Yeah, I know, some of them are a little far fetched. But I wanted to get up to 10 this time, unlike my 8 Things to Know about the PS3.)

1. HDD not for savegames. Mr. Kutaragi has said that the add-on HDD for the PS3 would be used for media storage and the like. Not for savegames. That’s retarded.
2. No built-in HDD in every PS3. One of the greatest things about the Xbox was that developers could count on the existence of an HDD. This is no longer the case, and the Xbox 360 has lost one of the major advantages that the original had. Sony had a chance to take over that advantage, but it seems they’re not taking it. There’s always a chance Sony will change their mind, but right now it doesn’t look like it.
3. No triggers on controller. One of the great things about playing racing games at my friend’s place is that his Xbox controllers have triggers. We don’t have them on the PS3 (AFAIK). I want them!
4. No PS2 memory card reader. How do I port my savegames from the PS2 to the PS3? I don’t have a PSP to transfer them (if indeed that turns out to be a valid method to do so). Hopefully I can connect a USB cable between the two and they can do a mind meld.
5. No 802.11a. Sure, the PS3 supports 802.11b/g wireless networking out of the box with no additional adapters required (*cough*Xbox 360*cough*). But what about 802.11a support?
6. Too many unkowns. We don’t know its launch date or territories yet.
7. Cell speed. The Cell processor was originally supposed to come out at 4GHz. They’ve since scaled it back to 3.2GHz. Man, it would be nice to have an extra 25% speed boost.
8. No PGR3. I make no bones about it. The PGR series of games are my favourite racing games. And PGR3 is an Xbox 360 exclusive. (Just like the previous two PGR games were Xbox exclusives.) It only makes me feel a little better that PGR3 is only two player and has much fewer locales than PGR2.
9. Controller looks kinda dumb. I put this one near the end because it’s not that big a deal. But the controller does look a little weird. But in the end, if it works just as well or better than the previous one, I’ll be happy.
10. The PS3 is too good to think of 10 things. I really wanted to make this list reach ten, but I just couldn’t do it.

Since I couldn’t think up #10, maybe someone else could help me out…

Edit:

So far suggestions for #10 have been:

1. No unified online service. Personally I don’t care, but I know a lot of people do, so…
2. It looks like a breadbin. I think it looks nice!

Not long ago I mentioned that Merrill Lynch Japan is predicting a $1.18 billion dollar loss for Sony on the PS3 during its first year. Mr. Ken Kutaragi has responded:

Ken Kutaragi … understandably refutes MLDS’ analysis; “Whether consumers think a product is expensive or cheap all depends on the balance between its appeal and price,” said Kutaragi, again hinting that the PlayStation 3 may indeed be a pricy piece of kit. “Our idea is for consumers to think to themselves, ‘Right, I’ll work more hours and buy it.’ We want people to feel that they want it, no matter what. When Nintendo was selling its 16-bit machine at around 12,500 yen ($114), we sold the first PlayStation at 39,800 yen ($364). The press was saying that it was expensive, but it was a huge hit. It’s the same thing with the PlayStation Portable from last year. The Game Boy Advance is a similar handheld gaming machine, and it costs less than 10 thousand yen ($91). On the other hand, our PSP had cost 25,000 yen ($229). And there were people lined up overnight to buy it, and it sold out on the day of launch. It all depends on whether people want it. Of course, I’m confident that PlayStation 3 is a product that people will definitely want.”

SPoNG points out that Mr. Kutaragi is making some orange-to-apple comparisons here, but that doesn’t mean we can’t see what Sony is thinking. They obviously believe the PS3 will be something everybody wants. They obviously believe that gamers will be willing to pay a premium for it. This is not unlike Apple’s strategy to date. Give consumers an exceptional product, and expect them to pay for it.

Will it work?

On the hardware side alone, I think they have a little more work to do. Sure, the specs show that it’s about as powerful as an Xbox 360. (Once developers learn how to use all 7 SPE’s, that may change.) But it also has some extra gadgets on it like memory card readers, BlueTooth, Wi-Fi, and dual HDMI outputs. So I guess you can give a slight edge to the PS3.

But that’s not enough.

What Sony really needs is knock-out games. So far we’ve had hints that games like Unreal Tournament 2007, Lair, Fatal Inertia, and WarHawk will be launch titles. Unless the developers haven’t been showing us the real goods, those titles don’t really seem like killer-app games to me. So where are the killer-app games? Sony needs titles like MGS4, Gran Turismo 5, Heavenly Sword, MotorStorm, and Killzone. At launch. Actually, just three, or maybe even two, of those titles would be good enough to make the PS3 a must-purchase at launch.

Do you agree?

Kutaragi refutes $1 billion PlayStation 3 hole will bring SCE to its knees - News at SPOnG.com

Us PS3 fans are hoping we won’t be like the many rabid Star Wars fans exiting theatres after seeing The Phantom Menace. Disappointed. Sony is attending CES 2006 in January, and they’re getting one of the largest pavillions they’ve had in a long time, and right in the middle of the show floor. Big things are brewing in the Sony camp, and we’re all hoping that some PS3 details will be revealed.

And to that end, Sony has created a website for Sony CES 2006 information. Right now there’s not much there, but hopefully soon it’ll be full of Jedi PS3 goodness.

Sony CES 2006

PS. I just finished watching the Clone Wars cartoon episodes I hadn’t seen before (20 - 25). Man they’re good! I need the DVD.

What’s a cheap console? $299? $399? $499?

When the PlayStation was first introduced in Japan it cost upwards of $500US.

Late in 1994, there were two videogame systems introduced unto the world. The Sega Saturn and the Sony PlayStation…and these consoles were not cheap. With the exchange rate at the time, both consoles were well over $500 US each.

When the PS2 was introduced, Sony shocked the world with its $299 price tag State-side. (It was more expensive in Japan.)

So while we North Americans enjoyed a relatively cheap $299 console, others had paid much more than that. So all in all we got a pretty good deal.

Which wasn’t what you got with 3DO. Their console originally sold for, what, $700?

So if Sony decides to charge $399 for a PS3, I’m not gonna complain. At $499, my wallet might hurt a bit, and I’ll have to feed my kids noodles for a week, but it’ll work out in the end. More than that? Hmm….

Acts of Gord - The Book of Chronicles

I’m a fan of the Bond movies, but not a rabid one. As such, I find some of them a bore and others a treat. The next film is called Casino Royale, and EA is working on the associated game. And that game will be PS3/360 exclusive, if M16.co.uk is to be believed.

Intriguingly though, instead of being the multi-platform release that usually accompanies all things Bond from EA, Casino Royale is being targeted directly at the next gen on both PS3 and Xbox 360, although there’s no word of a Revolution version yet.

Work on the game has apparently already begun and concept artwork and some of the 3D modeling of Casino Royale’s characters is already finished. The game will apparently share the third-person perspective of recent release From Russia With Love and be based on the movie’s plot, which has a new beginning and ending, with Fleming’s novel neatly sandwiched in to provide both movie and game’s middle section.

C&VG - FIRST NEXT-GEN BOND GAME IS CASINO ROYALE

Financially things aren’t looking so good for Sony. According to Merrill Lynch Japan the cost of a PS3 is about $494 and it will sell for $410 in Japan and $399 in North America. That will result in a loss of $1.18 billion in the first year.
Merrill Lynch Japan thinks it’s in the know […]