Here we go again. This time around it’s the International Development Group with their forecast about the next-gen console war. It’s easier to just show the chart, so here it is:

They predict that four years from now the PS3 and the Xbox 360 will be neck and neck, with each at about 24 million units sold (with the 360 being slightly ahead). The Wii will have about 14 million sold. Not to shortchange Nintendo or anything, but I find the Wii numbers hard to believe. Uh… what am I saying? These are projections, man! Ah well. They’re fun to look at, at any rate.

New Hardware Projections Arrive

I’m a fan of racing games. While I wouldn’t say I’m a huge fan, because I don’t play them all, or even spend hours upon hours playing the games I do have. I’ve always thought, however, that it would be fun to get a racing wheel. Today I just finished watching the last race of the F1 season (this post is time-delayed) so it would be fun to get something to tide me over until March when the F1 season starts up again. If my thoughts ever become more than thoughts, then I’ll keep this new steering wheel from Logitech in mind. It’s the GT Force RX, and it will be making its way to Japanese retailers on November 11th. It’ll cost 9980 Yen, which is about $84US. My guess is that this steering wheel should also make its way to North America. Safe bet?

PS3 to get GT Force RX on November 11

Well Sony’s last big show off event before launch is well and truly over, and people now have definite impressions of how the PS3 will shape up as a platform- we’re only missing minor details now, most of them game-related rather than hardware.

The first thing I feel I should address is actually a unifying feature that links all the games and how much fun you have with them - the controller. Following IGN UK’s hands-on it appeared there was good reason to be concerned with it. Some of their choice descriptions were “cheap, plasticky, uncomfortable and disconcertingly light.” Well the good news appears to be that their opinion is not widely supported. Kotaku’s Brian Crescente doesn’t usually hold back if he finds something bad, but his comments - “While it was unnerving for a few seconds, I quickly got used to it and then promptly forgot about the lack of rumble all together… While the controller is as light as a feather, it still feels pretty solid in your hands and the thumbsticks were absolutely fine.” imply that he has no issues with the Sixaxis. Similarly positive impressions came from Gamespot’s editorial team, Gamedaily and, you guessed it, I.G.N. It’s worth noting that most people see the rumble as a loss, but few chart it as a huge dealbreaker. Nobody really supports IGN UK’s point of view though, believing the light weight could be a benefit in prolonged play. The controller doesn’t seem to attract the same praise as the xbox360 one, but it’s by no menas bad.

Anyway, these are the titles that stood out for me.

Read the rest of this entry »

During Sony’s Gamer’s Day Gamespot managed to snatch a word with Sony Computer Entertainment America president Kaz Hirai. Particularly challenging obstacles in the run up to launch have been the network and getting the titles together, Kaz explains, I would probably add getting enough units to that too Kaz! When pushed though Kaz keeps his lips sealed on how many consoles will be delivered for launch, simply saying that whilst issues have been ironed out they are now focusing on having as many available production lines as possible. He also says that retailers and Sony will keep a close eye on demand after launch, the implication being how many 20GB and 60GB systems various stores get- something he later reveals is getting set by pre-order demand, and favours the 60GB model.

Kaz does not seem to bothered about Blu-ray production, believeing that there will be a quick turn-around- he also seems to feel that Sony’s previous experience with console launches will help ensure a steady flow of accessories. Again he implies the PS3 is great value and that the system will be around for a decade, the same as the PSOne and (he hopes) the PS2 (7 years and still the best-selling home console). Kaz reaffirms Sony’s commitment to future XMB updates (I’m hoping for voice messaging, codec updates and DVD upscaling), and that new hardware will possible, as required by certain games. Kaz also seems confident the PS3’s Blu-ray support will drive Hollywood to produce more Blu-ray movies. This interview is low on new details, but most interesting if you are pre-ordering in the states.

Gamespot

Sorry to go off topic but I’m moving home tomorrow and unfortunatley I’m leaving my PC behind which means I will be offline for a while so will be unable to contribute to this excellent site.

As soon as I can afford an iMac (if someone wants to give me one for free I won’t refuse ) and broadband connection I will be back and posting my usual inane rubbish!

I have to admit I’ve really enjoyed writing on here and being part of this place so I must thank Henning for giving me the opportunity to write about all things PS3. Thank You it’s been a pleasure!

I also would like to thank everybody that has commented on my posts, you’ve made me feel like all the effort has been worthwile even though a great deal of our readers still prefer to lurk rather than to make their voices heard.

I’ll still be visiting this place at every opportunity to keep up to date with Henning, Tom & Darrin’s view on the PS3 and everything to do with it, so play nice.

Oh and whoever writes about DMC4 had better do a good job ……just kidding!

Thanks and see you soon!

Fans of the PS2’s ability to enhance PSOne games through smoother texturising may be in for some disapointment with the PS3’s backwards compatability solution. As Phil Harrison puts it, in regard to playing backwards compatible games on PS3, “They are as exactly as they were,” before going on to claim that Sony prefered to rather deliver them in their original state. I can kind of understand how this will have happened, rumour has it that Sony went with the option of putting in PS2 hardware to guarantee nigh-on full backwards compatability, but it is a bit of a disappointment. Lets hope the PS3 can at least upscale them if you have an HDTV! Full backwards compatability has yet to be demonstrated, but we will keep an eye-out for it!

Harrison also explained Sony download support too. Sony’s aim is to eventually support the whole of the PSOne’s catalogue… yep… that should mean you can download in the region of 2,000 PSOne games in the future, although Harrison admits that some of the titles might not make it due to licensing issues. Harrison says this means that PS3 users will be able to download and play PSOne sleeper hits like Vib Ribbon (bizarre and fun music-based platformer) and MotorToon GP (Polyphony Digital’s game before Gran Turismo). The first titles will be Syphon Filter and Twisted Metal and at first these games will only work on PSP, but Harrison believes that by the end of the year it should be possible to play these titles on PS3. One download covers both PSP and PS3 versions and you should be able to download these titles five times, using your account, on any PS3. Basically, that means, if you want to demo something to a friend you can, but it sounds like once you log off, they cannot keep it- the same applies to the “arcade” games. Sounds like a great idea!

Pro-G

Game Informer had a little chat with Sony’s President of Worldwide Studios, Phil Harrison after yesterday’s Sony Gamer’s Day event.

Here is what was revealed:

* If you have a USB hard drive full of music you can plug it in and transfer what you want onto your PS3 from day 1 but you can’t transfer movies or images just yet.

* Sony’s biggest rival this Nov is hardware supply and not rival consoles with less than 500,000 PS3s available at launch

Phil Harrison Talks PS3

Since Sony announced that the PS3 pad will use rechargeable Lithium Polymer batteries that can’t be removed once they have died, some people have complained that they will have to buy a new pad once the battery is dead.

Although the North American price point has been announced as $49.99, the European price hasn’t, but I’m expecting the pads to retail at £29.99, so it’s not exactly going to be cheap to go out and buy a new pad everytime your current one fails.

A Sony spokesperson spoke to GI.biz and tried to calm some of the more concerned soon to be and future PS3 owners about the longevity of the batteries and offered the possibility of Sony doing some sort of exchange to replace pads that no longer work:

“This is a purely speculative story and is largely untrue. The latest generation of Lithium Polymer batteries hardly suffer any memory effect at all, so it’ll be many years before there’s any degradation in terms of battery performance. When and if this happens, then of course we will be providing a service to exchange these items.”

Just exactly what kind of service will Sony provide to replace the pads once they go & will it be free?

I’m not too concerned about the lifespan of the batteries as I’ll have a spare one anyway because I’m prone to smashing my pads during extreme moments of gaming rage!

As long as I get a good couple of years use out of my pads before the battery dies I’ll happily pay for a new pad.

I just hope they don’t break as easily as the PS2 pads…

Sony Will Exchange PS3 Pads

Want some coverage of yesterday’s Gamer’s Day event? Both IGN and Gamespot have some blow-by-blow accounts of the event, which both make for very interesting reading.

One interesting thing to come of all this is that if you purchase a game from Sony’s online gaming portfolio of cheap games, you can share said game with up to five of your buddies. So how about several of us get together to buy these games and share them? The only wrench would be if those shared versions of the game were somehow crippled or multi-player only versions of the games. But ah well. It’s pretty cool that Sony is allowing these games to be shared.

Also revealed is what’ll come with your PS3 when you buy it. The first half-million or so PS3 consoles will come with the BD movie Talladega Nights. I would have preferred The Transporter myself, but oh well. Can’t look a gift horse in the mouth. As far as cabling goes, the PS3 will come with a power cable, a USB cable for charging the included controller, a network cable, and a multi-out cable with composite video connection.

The SIXAXIS controller will have a built-in battery that is not replaceable. It has a 20 meter wireless range, and 30 hours of battery life. Buying an extra controller will cost you $50. The PS2 memory card reader will set you back $15, while the BlueTooth BD remote will be $25 once available. First-party PS3 game titles will be $60. (I’m rounding up to the nearest dollar.)

IGN: Sony Gamer’s Day 2006
Gamespot: PS3 Online, Sixaxis Shown at Sony’s Gamer Day
Sony Gamer’s Day: GameSharing Comes to PS3

Remember when Kataragi said that the PS3 is a PC and not a game console? It came across as annoying PR nonsense. Well, now I understand what he was saying. The PS3 really is a full blown PC. It will run a real copy of Linux and let you run real applications. You can browse the web, do email, word processing, spreadsheets, and other PC tasks all on your PS3 in addition to the playing the best console games. Wow!

The PS3 won’t just be competing with the 360 and the Wii, it will be a direct competitor to budget PCs and even iMacs. Lots of people want basic email, web, word processing or spreadsheet functionality, and of course games. The PS3 does a great job at that.

Think about the PS3 from a PC perspective. It has:

• Extremely powerful CPU
• Extremely powerful GPU
• Blu-Ray drive
• Hi-resolution digital video output for both PC monitors and TVs
• Replaceable SATA hard disk drive, 4 USB ports (which can support a keyboard and mouse), Gigabit ethernet
• Optional flash reader and integrated WiFi

That’s a well equipped PC. The only thing that PS3 may lack for PC functionality is RAM. It has 256MB general RAM and 256MB video RAM. The main RAM can also be used for video RAM but can the video RAM be used for general RAM? Can Linux use the full 512MB? If so, 512MB is actually usable for a current PC (that’s what new iMacs ship with). If not, a lean OS can make 256MB work well too.

Remember when Kataragi said they may offer more variants of the PS3 with different upgrades and options? Of course, all PS3 games must target the minimum configuration. But if you could put 1GB or 2GB of RAM on a PS3 it would make a great Linux system. I could put Eclipse or NetBeans on it and do software development or load a web server and database server on it and it would be a great server.

The PS3 has the potential to be

• an amazing second-to-none game platform
• a media center with full HD movie, digital music jukebox, and online content capabilities
• a full blown Linux PC

I can’t wait to hear what Sony announces tonight.

(BTW, sorry this overlaps somewhat with this morning’s excellent post on Yellow Dog Linux, however, there is more to cover, and this news is worth it!)