Did We Create the PS3?

Back in October of 2000, Sony showed the world its next generation console. Complete with a DVD drive, backwards compatibility with the PS1, and gorgeous graphics, the Sony PlayStation 2 was the most anticipated console of the new millennium. With such a large consumer fanbase and brand loyalty to boot, the PS2 was on an imminent path to success. Yet with all its success, outselling the Dreamcast and selling 100 million consoles the PS2 had its fair share of criticism.

People were in agreement that, despite the power of the console and the great games, the PS2 had some noticeable faults....

[OutpostCommand]

That link says it all.

[ronin_oni]

Agreed, very good editorial. Consumers want this that and the other thing, Sony gives it to them, and yet there is still outcry. In my opinion all this Sony hate is just a passing fad, sorta like a certine clothing style. It will pass with time. Either that or all the X-Box boys don't have enough people on Live to play with, and are trying to influence potential PS3 buyers away.

[Islandkiwi]

I don't like the idea that consumers are being blamed for the last minute changes to the ps3. If the controller had been a good one, they would have kept it.

If they were listening to consumers, they would realize that Blu-Ray isn't that important to the consumer. A cheaper console would have been preferable. No, this is Sony pushing against consumer opinion, not because of it.

[USMChardcharger]

what he is blaming on the consumer is not really so. the stuff he mentions is really the xbox fault (although it was a good fault)

the ethernet connection, hard drive, online service, tons of ram, in-game support of 5.1 surround, and also from the first xbox was HD support...all came to be expected because of the xbox.

so wether you are a sony fan or a M$...the xbox was a good thing for all gamers.

[TheMART]

So if they listen to the world, they better should cut the betabluray player out of that brick to cut cost, to be able to compete on the price level of 400 dollars and to stop lying about all the nescessary space one doesn't need.

Last gen games

98% was 2 to 3 GB's
1% was 4 to 5 GB's
1% was over 5 GB's max. 7 GB's

So this gen will be (also because of better compression and programming techniques)

98% will be 4 to 6 GB's
1% will be 6 to 7 GB's
1% will be 8 GB's or more

And if that one game that reaches that level really need it, just put it on 2 DL DVD's. Is that a problem? No. Does it save you a lot of money and a betablurayplayer problem like UMD, Betamax or Minidisc? Yeah

[AuburnTiger]

It sounds like you have a valid point. However, do you have links that supports what your saying?

[Chronical]

Actually i can

http://www.gamesfirst.com/?...

[Liverpool4ever]

huh?

[CAPS LOCK]

the mart ur not a game designer or publisher so how would u know how much is needed in a game??? also dont start Bullsh!ting about oblivion, i know its a big game now but what bout the future?? havent u thought bout if the developers had more space to use in a disk they wont be restricted ? which means they could use programs do speed up game(like UMD did)or to enhance the graphics better...so think of it before abusing the ps3 and blu ray

[achira]

yes oblivion is a nice game, but a bad example. after 20 hours the games becomes very boring, because of the repetition. the caves are repeated again and again. everything looks equal. i mean if the game would have more variety they would need far more Disk Space.

[gokuss122002]

First of all, I don't totally disagree with you, but the point of the matter is, your prediction on the data space needed is waaay off. As we all know the better the picture quality, the more space required: have you ever payed attention to the size of the videos from IGN, GAMESPOT or GAMETRAILERS: notice the normal vid will be like 13mb, but a HD vid of the same exact content will be like 51mb. Also note that GTA SAN maxed out the dvd, and those graphics were low for the this gen, so how do your expect to have even more massive evironments HD graphics and everything else that is comes with the TRUE next generation
of gaming.Furthermore I do totally disagree with you because not having to switch between multiple disc is part of that "everything", just off the simple strength of load time, as well as, not having to get up and switch the disc(which seems small, but is still one less inconvience). Just imagine if they decided to just stick with cds instead of dvd, the PS2 would have been cheaper, now imagine playing GTA SAN or SPIDERMAN 2 with cds.

[Daewoodrow]

what kind of BS is this? It's just another PS3 fanboy writing with deceptively good grammar.
Sony got rid of the extra ports and made the dual SKUs to reduce production cost and to copy MS, not to please the customer.

My guess is when they showed the "PS3" at E3 2005 it was just a plastic case, and a budget estimate. They realised all the s**t they threw in the blueprint would make the console launch at £500-600, so they made major cutbacks. Don't be surprised if they announce it will have a 30% performance cut 2 months before launch.

Oh wait, they already did that with the PSP.

[THAMMER1]

All you have to do is think. Most people do not think they just do what others do. I f people really new what they were reading on spec. sheets they would not want a PS3 at all if you compared it to the 360 or if you wanted the best for your buck. If you want a PS3 it should just be because you like Sony. I do like PS but the PS3 is a serous pass. Never get mixed up in a company when they are having public relations problems and financial problems too. The Xbox 1 started all the great controls, 480p and 720p HD, and online play, triggers instead of bumpers for shooters, and internal HDD. But Sony fans do not see that they see Sony PS 123 as some sort of false idol.

[jedicurt]

i'm not saying wether i am either way or what console, you should buy. I already have a 360, and i will get a PS3 (just don't know if it will be a launch).

but what spec. sheets can you read. i mean, come on, if you are going to made a statement atleast be able to back it up, there is no official spec. sheet for the PS3, so you are right, it is quite easy to make your conclusion if you compare a non-existant spec. sheet, to one of a console already on the market.

Why don't we just wait until all the information is availble before we disect and attempt to crucify a console, that none of us have had a chance to play yet

[THAMMER1]

You can get the spec sheets from ign.com just go to the PS3 link on the home page and search PS3 specs. Or go to goggle and type in PS3 specs. Do not pretend to be dumb. I have a 360as well and that is one of the major reasons I feel I could skip the PS3 for a home console. If one of my friends buy it I will not hesitate to play with it but from the knowledge I have gained from 2 years of research the PS3 will be fun but not a smart but for cautious consumers. You must be new to this site or a old person trying to post under a new profile.

[jedicurt]

i have looked for PS3 specs, and i find the information that everyone saw from E3 2005, that was May of 2005. those are not the official specs of what the PS3 is going to have. like i said, there are no OFFICIAL techinical specs that have been released for the PS3 as it will be released on November 17th

[THE TRUTH]

let me prove to you about the PS3's value so we can end this debate and move-on.

Playstation 3 and Xbox360 – Comparing and Contrasting:
Before I compare and contrast with the Xbox360 hardware, here are some quick facts about the Xbox360 hardware:
Xbox360 Quick Hardware Summary:
The Xbox360 has a tri-symmetrical core CPU. Each one of the cores is based on the POWER architecture like the PPE inside the Cell, and is clocked at 3.2GHz. Each core has 32kb L1 instruction and 32kb LI data cache, and has a 1MB shared L2 cache. Each chip also sports an enhanced version of the VMX-128 instruction set and execution units. This enhanced version expands the register file from 32 128-bit registers, to a pair of 128 128-bit registers – with one execution unit per core. Each of these cores can also dual-issue instruction and handles two hardware threads, bringing the Xbox360 thread total to 6 hardware threads. The CPU and GPU share 512MB of GDDR3 RAM. Xbox360’s GPU, codenamed “Xenos” is designed by ATI and sports 48 shader pipelines using a unified shader architecture. The Xbox360 GPU also has 10MB of eDRAM for the frame buffer and over 200GB/s of bandwidth between this eDRAM and a simple logic uni, for a limited set of 3D processing effects such as anti-aliasing and z-buffering.

The system sports a DVD9 optical media drive from which games are loaded, a controller with rumble features, and 100mbps Ethernet.

Head To Head:
General Architecture Differences:
One thing I think is important when looking at CPU architecture is visuals. In the world of computing, physical distance between parts of a computer system generally corresponds with the speed (latency-wise) of their communication,

Bandwidth Assessment:
I recall an article IGN released short after or during E3 2005 comparing Playstation 3 and Xbox360. Microsoft analyzed their total system bandwidth in the Xbox360 and came up with some outrageous numbers compared to the Playstation 3. One of the big reasons for this total number being higher is the 256GB/s bandwidth between the daughter die and parent die in the Xenos(graphics chip). I will explain the use of the eDRAM memory later, but it is important to know that the logic performed between those two components with 256GB/s bandwidth hardly constitutes a system component where considering game processing takes place. Additionally, Microsoft added up bandwidths that weren’t relevant to major component destinations such as “to CPU” or “to GPU.” Context like that matters a lot, because bandwidth between any two elements is only as fast as the slowest memory bus in-between. The only bandwidth figures that make sense to add together are those on separate buses to the end destination.

The biggest ugly (and this really is a big one) in the Xbox360 diagram should be the location of the CPU relative to the main system memory. It has to be accessed through the GPU’s memory controller. The Xbox360 GPU’s memory has 22.4GB/s bandwidth to the system’s unified memory, and this bandwidth is split between the GPU’s needs and the CPU’s. A simple investigation would show that if the Xenon(Xbox360 CPU) was using its full 21.6GB/s bandwidth to system memory, there would be 800MB/s left for the GPU. If the GPU was using it’s full bandwidth to this memory, none would be left for anything else. Additionally, the southbridge(I/O devices) is connected through the GPU also, and all of these devices are actually destined to go to the CPU unless sound for the Xbox360 is done on the Xenos. The impact of this is considerably less since I/O devices probably won’t exceed more than a few hundred MB/s during a game, and isn’t shared by GPUs 22.4GB/s access to main memory. This bandwidth is still going through the same bus that the CPU uses to access RAM though.

Looking at the diagram of the Playstation 3, you can see that the RSX has a dedicated 22.4 GB/s to its video memory, and the Cell has a dedicated 25.6GB/s to its main memory. Additionally, if you wanted to find the bandwidth the RSX could use from the Cell’s main memory, it go through the 35GB/s link between the Cell and itself, and then go through the Cell processor’s FlexIO controller, on the EIB, to the Cells memory controller which is the gatekeeper to RAM. The slowest link in the line is the bandwidth the XDR memory controller provides which is 25.6GB/s. If the RSX uses this extra bandwidth it is being shared with the Cell. In general though, the major components in the Playstation 3 have their own memory to work with which provides maximum bandwidth.

In terms of peak performance, if both the GPU and CPU for both consoles were pushing the maximum bandwidths from their respective memory banks, the total for Xbox360 would be 22.4GB/s, and the total for the Playstation 3 would be 48GB/s. I believe this to be the most important bandwidth measure as both of these elements are the major programmable elements of a gaming machine. They will be processing game data or graphics data independently, and need fast access and high bandwidth to what they are working on.

While the Xbox360 shared bandwidth is a big downside on the grand scheme of things considering potential, Microsoft probably allowed this due to the nature of a game loops often not involving both the CPU and GPU needing high bandwidth simultaneously. Overall, during a game loop, Xbox360 will probably use its 22.4GB/s bandwidth almost constantly due to the CPU using it heavily for a part of the game loop, and the GPU using extreme bandwidth during another part of the game loop. While a Playstation 3 game, if it uses a typical game loop design, would show half of the frame time, the CPU is using high bandwidth to its memory, the other half being mostly unused; and the same thing for the GPU’s use of video RAM. That isn’t a disadvantage of the Playstation 3’s part, but it is a lack of using its full potential. A modified game loop that kept both rendering and CPU processing high would fare far better on the Playstation 3’s bandwidth and design than the Xbox360.

In the worst case scenario for the Playstation 3, if the GPU literally only used bandwidth for half of the game loop, overtime, you could consider it’s bandwidth to be half of its peak. Same thing applied to the Cell and XDR RAM would yield 12.8GB/s bandwidth if it only used XDR half of the time. Although Playstaiton 3 not to be outdone - if the situation of a game loop is like this, the RSX might as well take the XDR RAM bandwidth while the CPU is idling and increase its total bandwidth to 48GB/s.

Xbox360 “Xenon” compared to Playstation 3’s “Cell” – the CPUs:
Inter-core communication speed:
Another mystery with the Xbox360 (at least in my view) exists with the inter-core communication on the Xenos CPU between its cores. IBM clearly documents the Cell’s inter-core communication mechanism physically and how it is implemented in hardware and software. This bandwidth needs to be extremely high if separate cores need to communicate and share data effectively. The EIB on the Cell is documented at a peak performance of 204GB/s with an observed rate at 197GB/s. The major factor that affects this rate is the direction, source, and destination of data flow between the SPE and PPEs on the Cell. I tried to find out the equivalent piece of hardware inside the Xenon CPU and haven’t found a direct answer.

Looking at the second architectural diagram of the Xenon, it seems that the fastest method the cores can use to talk to each other is through the L2 cache. Granted, the Xenon only has 3 cores, game modules are usually highly dependent and will need to talk to each other frequently. I might be a jumping the gun a bit, but given the L2 cache and FSB are running at half of the core speed, as opposed to the Playstation 3’s EIB which runs at the same clock speed as the cores, I’m pretty positive using L2 cache to communicate is not going to be very fast. It seems that independent threads are really what Microsoft was aiming for with the Xbox360 CPU design, and games are not optimally implemented if they have massive streaming transfers to hand off to other cores. What would suggest that the Xbox360 cores can communicate quickly and with high bandwidth, would be evidence that the reading and writing to the L2 cache are in larger segments than the writes to the EIB, compensating for the lower clock speed. Additionally, just writing to memory isn’t enough as the receiver needs some sort of notification that it has new data unless it is a permanent buffer. If anyone wants to do research on the topic, please add it to the discussion and include links to your sources.

Enhanced VMX-128 instruction set:
This is one of the features Microsoft boasts to claim they have a better gaming machine than Sony. They focus on the fact that their enhancements support a single cycle dot product instruction, and the larger register file. The problem with this boast over the Playstation 3 is that it compares it to the PPE’s VMX-128 unit which comparably only has 1 set of 32 128-bit registers and presumably less instructions. If the code requires 128 128-bit registers, or more complex instructions, then the code is most definitely vector processing heavy and should be run on an SPE which sports the exact same register file size, and includes a superset of the VMX instructions in terms of functionality(it is not a superset in terms of being binary compatible).

While each core in the Xbox360 also has two VMX-128 register sets, this is done to support the dual threaded nature of the cores better. It doesn’t actually have two vector execution units. Each core only has one VMX-128 execution unit meaning that even though there are two sets of registers per core, two threads that are using vector code have to share this single execution unit.

Comparably, the Cell’s PPE has the limited 32 128-bit register file with a single VMX vector unit on the PPE. This is what Microsoft usually singles out when they compare Playstation 3 to the Xbox360’s CPU. They forget(purposefully) that the Cell has 7 SPEs running at 3.2 GHZ, which is far greater SIMD performance than their 3 enhanced VMX-128 execution units. For vector based computations, the Playstation 3 undeniably outdoes the Xbox360 by an order of magnitude.

The dot product instruction claim is matched at least on the SPEs on the Playstation 3 though a simple multiply-add instruction. For those of you that aren’t mathematically inclined, a dot product is basically a measure of how parallel or perpendicular two lines are. The calculation of a dot product is basically multiplying each corresponding dimension value together, and then taking those products and adding them all together. Take two vectors <2, 3, 4> and <6, 7, 8>. The dot product would be: 2*6 + 3*7 + 4*8 = 65. If you read the earlier section in this post covering the SPES and SIMD architectures, you should remember that at the very least, an SPE can do all of the multiplying in one cycle, and all that needs to be done is a follow up add between the elements in the result vector. I do know that the SPEs have a few multiply-add instructions, but the bit of haziness is if the multiply can be an intra-vector(between two separate vectors) operation, while the add instruction is an inter-vector(between elements in the same vector) instruction from the result of the multiply. Sony claims that the dot product can be done in one cycle on an SPE, and it is very reasonable that this is the case as there are vector permute/shuffles/shift instructions in the SPE instruction set. There just isn’t a labeled dot product instruction in the SPE instruction set – but an intelligent programmer should find what he needs.

I found the multiply-add instruction in the Cell BE Handbook. It takes 4 vectors, one is definitely the result vector and two are operands, but the third parameter named ‘rc’, which I think represents a control register that dictates how to perform inter and intra vector operations. That means the multiply-add instruction has to operate on only two vectors, and the control vector is able to dictate an add between the result components of the multiply.

Symmetrical Cores?:
Symmetrical cores means identical cores. The appeal to this setup is entirely for developers. It represents no actual horsepower advantage over asymmetric cores since code running on any of the cores, will run exactly the same as it would run if it were on another core. Relocating code to different cores has absolutely no performance gain or loss unless it means something with respect to how the 3 cores talk to each other. It should be noted though, that thread relocation does matter between the cores, as a thread might not co-exist well with another thread that is trying to use the same hardware that isn’t duplicated on the core. In that case, the thread would be better located on a core that has that execution resource free or less used. The only case of this I can think of is the VMX-128 execution unit. I think most other hardware is duplicated on the cores in the 360 to allow for two threads to co-exist with almost no problem.

The Cell chip has asymmetrical cores, which means they are not all identical. That being said, the SPEs are all symmetrical with each other and the code that runs on an SPE could be relocated to any other SPE in the Cell. While the execution speed local to the SPEs are the same, there are performance issues related to the bandwidth the SPE is using and who it’s talking to on the EIB. Developers should look at where their SPE code is executing to ensure optimal bandwidth is being observed on the EIB, but once they find an optimal location to execute the code on, they can just put it there without rewriting anything. If a task was running on the PPE or PPE’s VMX unit, then it would have to be recompiled with C, and probably rewritten if hardware specific instructions are in the code(C or ASM) before it moves to an SPE, and the same applies in reverse. Good design and architecture should immediately let developers know what should run on the PPE and what should run on the SPEs, eliminating the chance of rewriting code if they see something better fit to run on an SPE later in development.

Is general purpose needed?:
Another one of Microsoft’s claims for the Xbox360’s superiority in gaming is the general purpose processing advantage since they have 3 general purpose cores instead of 1.

To say “most of the code is general purpose” probably refers to code size, not execution time. First, it should be clarified that “general purpose code” is only a label for the garden variety of instructions that may be given to hardware. On the hardware end, this code fits into various classifications such as arithmetic, load/store, SIMD, floating point, and possibly more. General purpose applications are programs made up of general purpose code on the scale that one function might be arithmetically heavy, and another might be memory bound. Good examples of this are MS Word, a web browser, or an entire operating system. With MS Word there is a lot of string processing which involves some arithmetic, comparison, a lot of branching, and memory operations. When you click import or export and save to various file formats, it is an I/O heavy operation. Applications like these tend to not execute the same code over an over, and have many different functions that can occur on relatively a small set of data depending on what the user does. These functions can vary from being very I/O device bound (saving to disk), to string processing intensive (spelling/grammar check), to floating point intensive(embedded Flash media game or resizing an image). Ultimately, there is a large amount of code written to handle the small set of data and most of it never gets executed.

Games are not general purpose programs. Any basic game programming book will introduce you to the concept of a game loop. This loop contains all of the functionality a game performs each frame. This loop handles all of the events that can occur in the game. An important principle in a game loop is to avoid branches when unnecessary as it slows down execution and makes the code on screen extremely and unnecessarily long. A good example of this is the Cohen-Sutherland line clipping algorithm. Instead of writing lengthy and complicated branches to check the 9 regions a point lies in, the code performs 4 simpler checks, and computes a region code which can be easily be used.

This automatic and repetitive processing has to occur for many game objects which represents a massive amount of data, with a relatively small code size. This is opposite of the general purpose paradigm, which typically has a small set of data (word document or html) and performs many various functions on it representing a large code size. Games processing has a large data size, but much smaller code size. Game objects also tend to be very parallel in nature as game objects are typically independent until they interact (collision) – which means they can be processed well on SIMD architectures if they are well thought out..

The whole integer advantage claim for the Xbox360 CPU is pretty stupid considering the SIMD architectures can operate on 4 32-bit integers at the same time, and integer processing abilities of games are not the bottleneck of 3D games processing.

What this general purpose power does grant Xbox360 owners over Playstation 3 is the ability to run general purpose applications faster. If the Xbox360 had a web browser(official or not), the design for such an application would work better on a general purpose CPU(s). That being said, it’s too bad Xbox360 doesn’t come with one, and web browsers don’t put the highest demand on general purpose processors to begin with. Most general purpose applications remain idle until the user gives actually input. The application will then process the task and complete before sitting idle again.

AI routines that navigate through large game trees are probably another area where general purpose processing power might be better utilized since this code tends to be more branch laden and varying depending on the task the AI is actually trying to accomplish. The plus side for the Playstation 3 is generating of these game trees, which is also time consuming. Generating a game tree is a more computational oriented task, and is likely to be executed faster by SIMD architectures. I am largely speaking speculatively under my Computer Science knowledge in this area. Anyone who knows more or has done more research on AI algorithms is welcome to add to discussion in this area.

The only case I can really see the general purpose computing power of the Xbox360 cores manifesting itself as a true advantage over the Playstation 3, is if Windows or similar OS was put on an Xbox360, having multiple applications running simultaneously along with some background services. Again, it is funny that Playstation 3 is more likely to have a general purpose operating system running on it than Xbox360 even though it would perform worse doing such a task.

XDR vs GDDR3 – System Memory Latency:
XDR stands for eXtreme Data Rate while GDDR3 stands for Graphics Double Data Rate version 3. XDR RAM is a new next generation RAM technology from those old folks at Rambus, who brought out that extremely high bandwidth RDRAM back during the onset of Pentium 4 processors. DDR was released soon after and offered comparable ...

[Nodoze]

Was the intent of the article to outline that Sony is a company that values and listens to the customer/fan base? HAHA!! That is without a doubt the funniest thing I have ever heard. So I guess that Sony polled PS2 owners and asked if they wanted a Blu Ray player? Additionally I guess they also polled all the owners and asked which feature is more important Rumble or Tilt....HAHA. Not even the developers knew of that change (aside form the internal SOE Warhawk team).

Come on people, open your eyes!! Sony is grasping at straws, they are in a DIRE financial situation and are betting the entire companies future on the BluRay adoption and the trojan horse that is the PS3. We shall see if this 'all in' strategy works for them, I for one do not see it panning out at all.

Only time will tell, and in the end one company will stand as the victor!

[Sphinx]

100%, Sony is going all in with a Jack, 10 off suit.

[jedicurt]

what was the point of your poker analogy????

a Jack, 10 off suit, still sets up for a good pair, a great 2 pair, and still a shot at the high straight. cause you never know what is going to come out

[DG]

Sony did poll its fan base. I DONT have a link to prove it but I remember reading about it. They polled mainly for PSLive service but did ask about blue ray. The majority wanted an HD player in their PS3 (about %80). However their fan base that was polled were japanese and as we know they love their gadgets and are not affraid to pay for it.
Edit:I prety shure they did not state that it would come with a $600 price tag, but thats just common sense.

[TheXgamerLive]

The graphics of this yet unreleased so called ps3 is ok, but wont ever be better than the XBOX 360's. I mean it cant, it doesnt have the power. Power to even keep it from bottlenecking even now after 2+ years of it. You probably wont see it's release even this year do to it's numerous faults as it's inherent errors are going to keep it from ever out performing the power of the X! Sorry, it's just facts. When you have a system that continues to bottleneck when it play's a demo well guess what that means???? The betabluray is also very slow and your not going to be happy w/your 1x or 2x beta but I hope you are.If it's release come's by Feb.2007 as I've predidcted since last year then you'll be lucky. Expect major problems and delay's as well w/your sony live system as well. Hyped up empty promisses is all you'll get for quite a while. I dont think you'll see a ps3 online until mid summer of 2007. Again, just my thoughts based on the empty promisses of sony so far. MS and the XBOX 360 is leaping miles beyond the ps3 and sony hates it but it's what happens when you lie and dont think things through first w/trial and error. Even Nintendo will be so far ahead of ps for many reasons not to mention price. You can buy a Nintendo Wii (probably this october)for about 249.00!!!!
Most anything and everything that's printed about the ps3 can do this or that is a joke, I laugh so hard everyday b/c of this. And, this motion sensor feature is fine for a bunch of 6 year olds who might like it but to be honest no way, give me rumble anyday, I'm a big boy I like big boy games. Sorry wittle boy's. And,I mean it's being delayed right before your very eye's "again" and you'll still read and nod like pavlov's dog. "ring ring ring" now get along lil doggie's!!!

[DG]

"the XBOX 360 is leaping miles beyond the ps3"

How do you figure. Im not saying if it is or isnt but how do you know?

[TheXgamerLive]

B/C as of now the ps3 still cant play a demo w/o bottlenecking and freeze framing and it's being tested on many levels for over 2 years and this is it's current state. I always mention the march show in which for the "first" time konami and sony together demo'd a level of MGS4 and it went unbelievably bad/horrid and it's on video so watch it unless its been removed from the www. The game froze and bottlenecked every few frames, nothing was fluid and so I say at this point it's miles apart. In fact the honest truth is that there's NO way that sony can even contemplate a fall or winter release with it's current state. How do they overcome these problems and yes there are more, but I dont know what they will do unless it's revamp the rsx. As of now it's to under powered to handle info no matter how small from 7 + 1 cores. It's spread to thin so to speak and that's it's main inherent problem, not the only one mind you but the main one i'n my eyes.

[achira]

"The graphics of this yet unreleased so called ps3 is ok, but wont ever be better than the XBOX 360's. "
with such a statement you proof a lack of intelligence. the launch games of the ps3 look better than the xbox360 games (for example cod3). so whats your point ? please dont mention GOW, look at the new screenshots ! they decreased the level of detail, because the xbox360 cant handle it. i dont want to speak about the frame drops this game will have. i mean you see that on the in game videos. and you can be sure that they didnt use the normal xbox360, they used a special one with more power. so the final step of development will be the reducing of details. the game is far too overhyped. it will be a good fps, but by far not the best. period.

[The Real Deal]

That damn blu ray player in it. I don't think its time for that. Let blu ray hit the market for a few years and become a success before you experiment with it in a console. Secondly, The Cell is an experiment too. WHY? Nintendo and Micrososft improved upon proven hardware. You had to go invent new hardware thats not tested. Also the lack of rumble sucks big time. Its not a last gen over and done with feature. I was just playing Prey and the rumble immerses you in the experience big time. Same with Chromohounds. WOW...Its become part of the experience and you don't miss it till its gone and you can't feel certain moments in the game anymore. Now the things I agree with are

The hard drives included

Nvidea as your graphics card

1080p and hdmi output out the box

motion sensing controller

So i'm not a Sony hater. I just disagree with some of their choices. I have the right to do that right? I have been playing games all my life. Not that I'm more important than anyone else becausae I'm not. But I know I'm not the only one that feels this way. And I'm not a Fanboy of any system. Though I am very pleased with Microsofts choices. And as I have stated before, its the best 400 dollars I had ever spent.

[THAMMER1]

I will be 25 on 07/15/2006. That is 21 years of gaming in all of that time I have never seen such poor handling of a new console. Other consoles that cost more from previous generations had major detectable advantages over their competitors. That made it easy to say "Yeah I paid $600.00 for this." And not feel like a tool. But Sony is not offering that. Price is one thing but tampering with my experience is another. I understand why Sony made the tilt control design but that dose not make it a smart choice. The generation that dose not understand the ethics behind gaming console generations, there focus brand loyalty and this is really sad. Because that means that Sony can put out what ever and just because all you know is PS2 that is all you can wrap around your head. I now say the hell with it most of the people who want this thing do not know what they are getting into so I will just watch the sheep fall off the cliff 1 by 1.

[mikeeno7]

Sony will never delay from this november. Imagine the consequences. Sony will launch with 100 units for for all continents if that's all they had. They need market share.

[TheXgamerLive]

This would be hilarious to see. Every best buy has a cardboard cut out of a ps3 and that's it. Pissed xmas shoppers, lol.

[SDS Overfiend]

Don't blame Sony's shortcommings on us cause i never had anything to do with its creation do i have a job with Sony? NO! Basically this is what happens when somethinbg comes and you don't work hard for it. Sony never experience coming in second gaming wise for the last 10 years now that its a reality they don't know what to do,They never experience trial and error or playing catch up.

[DG]

The only thing Sony came short on "SO FAR" is lack of rumble and supply and demand.

[Kekkei genkai Kid]

imagine how much the ps3 would have costed with the added features that where trimmed of 2 hdmi sockets it would have been $700

and THE MART about disc space onimusha and Grandia 3 are both over 7gb need double disc final fantasy 7 four discs shenmue 3 discs

xbox 360 really messed up on the format and blu-ray is really the next gen media for games

[Chronical]

do you have a link that says its over 7 gigs

[TheMART]

Well how many games are that on the total amount of games? And then what percentage is that?
I bet 1% of all games as I stated

Still my point remains:

98% of all last gen games did fit on a SL-DVD

and I bet that the same percentage of this gen 360/PS3/Wii can fit on a DL-DVD

Even more when you think compression techniques and programming skills have evolved

Did it maybe come up with you that those multidisc games were because of bad programming or just being lazy with space?

[BIadestarX]

The PS3 should have a little logo that says, "Powered by Microsoft"

[achira]

yes thats the dream of you xbox fanboys. i bet you would will for this ps3.

[pRo loGic II]

Microsoft messed up in not going with WHAT!?. No one will give a sh!t if they have a 2 disc game. Get you're big but up and change the disc. I guess you think DVD went wrong because of the double disc Movie's. Most will be happy to simply get up and change the disc rather than pay $200- $500 extra just to save them a trip. lol friggin Sony what a joke.

[Tempo]

Havent u been reading the news or paying attention to the other posts. The 360 uses DVD9 that's like what 8..9gigs of space. FFVII used rergular 800 MB cds the kind u burn music on, hence the reason for the 7 discs same for shenmue (im guessin u mean for the dreamcast) same reson there. And lets see some links that support 7GB of space onimusha used, and i can garantee its either due to poor coding or the CG movies those Japan developers like to put in there games

[Shadow Flare]

microsoft should sell little white flags you can attach to your xbox 360. I think they already sell them in japan haha

[Aflac]

grow up

[TheMART]

And Sony would be best off taking the PS3 logo down and put the word 'Kamikaze' on their betabluray players

[Aflac]

...if we did, it would at least work decently, and it would be widely available already.
Having Ken Kuturagi in charge is the reason why the ps3 is turning out as crappy as it is.

[Shadow Flare]

having ken kuturagi in charge is the reason playstation has won the last 2 console wars

EASILY

[96impala]

Im not going to bash sony but the truth is, if you are a gamer then you would have just gotten the 360, its next gen, and has great specs, and is a great machine flat out. Waitin on sony cause you had the ps2 is kinda stupid. I had the ps2 which i loved but when i learned about the 360 i checked it out and preordered it, and i have no regrets, i just want more great games but of course that'll happen. But buyin somethin just cause you had the last version of it isn't always the smartest thing to do. Imagine if i woulda waited on the ps3 and past up the 360 i would have missed out on a great system. And blaming gamers for the ps3 is terrible. I don't mean to push my beleifs off on people but, the 360 is the greatest. Hopefully sony can bounce back from this but i feel good in knowin that through all of this im still playin next gen. MS did a great job.

[specialguest]

i agree with you for the most part, but you missed out on one big key element. the exclusive games and the type of games expected. some of us are willing to wait for some of our favorite titles as well as the shiet load of RPGs(good rpgs and bad).

MS fans can make a list of all the games they want in comparison, but the fact is, the Playstation has the most variety in games whether crappy or amazing. that, we know can be garanteed based on PS1 and PS2 library of games, that the PS3 will deliver.

[96impala]

that's a damn good point and i agree, if you want to stay on the path of playstation i won't knock that. Enjoy.

[Aflac]

and make other consoles sound like crap. Read "What Really Happened to the Dreamcast" that article uncovers the truth about the ps2's victory last gen, the article is on the las section of the 'gaming' area of this site.

[gamerriffic]

sony is trying to please us and our demand. we wanted so much, they gave it, but only with a high price could we get it. so now we complain about the high price. the critisizing will never stop.

i'm not complaining about the price, i see the potiental. you cant expect games to look better than the PC games because PC games set the standard. when PC games get hardware demanding for the xbox 360, you'll see the ps3 continue to keep up with what PC games are pushing.
so obviously you wont see a drastic change in games now. just wait a few years, let xbox 360 age ( like ps2 did ).. and see ps3 take exclusives and better ports due to hardware ( like xbox )

[ACE]

that was from a sony droids site so what ever man lol ,,,, you sony droids are getting very desparet lol

[achira]

your lemming opinion is not asked.

[JIN KAZAMA]

is offering us somethign incredibale, for a reasonable price. for 200 dollars more than the dvd player your guys bought, I will be getting a HD-DVD player, a awesome gaming machine with tons of features. An online service that will be comparable to XBL, but Free. Tilt sensing controllers, HDMI 1.3. You have to realize, the Blu-ray disc is not only for visual, it will sound much better too. This is going to be an awesome machine, no matter how much you DVD360 fans try to put a spin on it.

[DG]

Lets face the facts sony is going out on a limb, some like the strategy others dont. PS3 is a game machine and a blue ray player, some like it many dont. They are using the same strategy as last time. Yes its not as needed as before. If you dont like them boycot the fuqers, dont buy the PS3. Just stop B!tch!ng about it like some 2 year old fanboys!
BUT ADMIT THAT THE PS3 IS GOOD FOR GAMING OVERALL.
If anybody wants me to list the reasons why please let me know.

[Chronical]

Sorry there are none

[The Real Deal]

YOU SAID......."I will be getting a HD-DVD player"...

NOT TRUE. ONLY THE 360 WILL HAVE AN HD DVD PLAYER. YOU GET BLU RAY. BLU RAY IS LIKELY TO FAIL JUST LIKE PSP UMD FORMATT. EVERY STUDIO THAT SUPPORTS BLU RAY SUPPORTED SONY'S OTHER FORMATT AND NOW TARGET AND WALMART IS NOT SELLING THEM ANYMORE. WITHOUT CONSUMER SUPPORT FORMATS FAIL. ALL POLLS SHOW THAT CONSUMERS WILL BUY HD DVD OVER BLU RAY MOVIES.

YOU SAID " a awesome gaming machine with tons of features."

SAD TO SAY BUT DEVLOPERS DISAGREE. THEY SAY ITS HARD TO PROGRAM FOR AND IT WILL TAKE 3 TO 4 YEARS BEFORE THEY CAN TAP THE POTENTIAL OF THE PS3.

YOU SAID...." An online service that will be comparable to XBL, but Free."

NOT TRUE. SONY HASN'T ANNOUNCED WHICH FEATURES ARE FREE. AND YOU CAN'T SAY ITS COMPARABLE YET. XBOX LIVE WILL FEATURE LIVE ANYWHERE AND AS OF NOW THERE ARE ALMOST 6 MILLION XBOX LIVE USERS. SO YOU CAN'T MAKE ANY STATEMENTS ABOUT SONY'S LIVE PLANS UNTIL MORE IS SHOWN. NICE TRY THOUGH.

YOU SAID......" Tilt sensing controllers".

MICROSOFT DID THAT 6 YEARS AGO AND DECIDED IT WASN'T NEEDED OR EVEN WANTED FOR MOST GAMES. THE Wii HAS MADE IT IMPLEMENTAL IN JUST ABOUT ALL THERE GAMES. SONY ADDED IT AS A LAST MINUTE FEATURE. MICROSOFT COULD EASILY USE WHAT THEY HAVE ALREADY DID WITH MOTION SENSING IF THEY FEEL CONSUMERS AND DEVELOPERS WANT IT.

YOU SAID......"HDMI 1.3. You have to realize, the Blu-ray disc is not only for visual, it will sound much better too."

MICROSOFT WILL HAVE THAT FOR THOSE WHO NEED IT. BUT RIGHT NOW LESS THAN 5 % OF PEOPLE OWN A HD DVD TV. I HAVE NEVER ONCE READ ANYWERE THAT BLU RAY SOUNDS BETTER THAN DVD. SHOW ME A LINK. OR ARE YOU MAKING THAT UP?

YOU SAID....."This is going to be an awesome machine, no matter how much you DVD360 fans try to put a spin on it."

IT LOOKS LIKE YOU WAS TRYING TO PUT A SPIN ON THINGS WITH YOUR COMMENTS. THATS WHY I BROKE DOWN WHAT YOU SAID. PS3 MIGHT BE GREAT. IT MIGHT NOT BE. YOU DON'T KNOW. I DON'T KNOW. WE CAN ONLY GO OFF OF WHAT SONY IS SAYING AND WHAT DEVELOPERS ARE SAYING. THATS IT. BUT WHEN IT RELEASES WE WILL ALL KNOW AND HYPE WON'T BE ENOUGH. THEY HAVE TO DELIVER TO CONVINCE MOST CONSUMERS.

[JIN KAZAMA]

When I said, HD-DVD player, meant it as teh Blu-Ray discs are High Definition, not the HD-DVD format. Anyways, I am getting sick and tired of the "devs said its hard to program for" look at assasins creed, look at Rainbow six, look at motorstorm, look at heavenly sword. Think about this, if Ps3 is so difficult to program for, and the potential hasnt been tapped yet, then why does rainbow six and call of duty 3 look just as good as the 360 version, and comming out at the same time. Imagine what the devs will do when they DO tap into its power. Its more powerfull, thats a fact, even carmack said it. Yes, online gaming will be free, they plan to make their money by micro payments. It will have video chat, text chat, score boards, video cam, all the things XBL will have, except Live anywhere, which really doesnt bother me. Tilt sensing is awesome, maybe when MS did it, the technology wasnt good enough, but from what i have seen, its looks awesome, but I DO hope they have the rumble back in, that NOT last gen. HDMI 1.3, MS will have that for those who need it, well I have a LCD HDTV, I need it, and i dont want to buy an add-on. Also, the HD-dvd add on is only for movies, wont play games. Once the 1080p tv's become standard, and devs start tapping into the ps3 power and potential, you'll see a lot of games in 1080p, guess what, 360 wont be able to do that. So, I repeat, for an extra 200 dollars, the PS3 is a good choice over the 360 for me.

[The Real Deal]

Devs are porting those titles from the 360 to the ps3. So most of their work in developement is done with the 360 in minde and then they have to make adjustments to the code to get them running on a ps3. Now I said difficult to program for. Not impossible. Devs were able to make games for the ps2 and they will for the ps3 as well. But it doesn't change the fact that its more expensive by 1/3 in developement and its more difficult for developers to realize their visions on the ps3. You have to understand developing games to understand what I'm saying. Yes...multiplatform games will look just about the same so they say. Assasins creed was in developement for the 360 and PC years ago. As of now ps3 is the only system announced to be official.

But your way off....examples

No one needs hdmi...lol....as of now dvi,hdmi, and componant cables all can do 1080p. that won't change untill 2012.

If 5% of consumers have hd tv's now...lol...how long do you think the majority of people get a hd television? lol....are you serious. A standard? Give it at least 5 years minimum.

There won't be but 1 or maybe 2 games in this next year that might have 1080p in games. But most likely they won't do to the hit on the hardware. You really don't understand do you?

Hd dvd isn't intended to play games. And they shouldn't market it as such. But I bet if they sell enough of them, developers might consider making a game using it. But really there is not need for extra storage for games unless you have hd cg cut scenes. lol....

And Carmack said there is a lot of horse power. Kind of like a Lamborgini that can't get out of first gear. You know the power is there....you just can't tap into it because of the bottle necking of the system ram and threads. Over your head huh?

Oh, and 360 will do 1080p with movie playback when the hd dvd launces. There will be an update in the dash board to choose 1080p. Like I said earlier.

Good luck if the ps3 is what you choose. But I can tell by your comments, you are ill informed on your purchase. You need to do more research because you are way off in your claims.

1080 p a standard...lol....

Devs have already said it will take 3 to 4 years to tap into the potential of the ps3. You buy it for 600 and I will buy it when the price drops to 300 in 3 to 4 years when developers can take advantage of its potential. In the meanwhile...I will play most the games you will play on your ps3 on the 360...for less money...same quality...and Halo 3, GTA 4, and Gears of War. Remember by this christmas 360 will have 150 games to ps3's 10 or 20 and thats pushing it. 360 is the best choice for me and by the time the ps3 launches 10 million others. I respect your choice. Now you respect mine.

[achira]

wasnt it you xbox fanboy who said it is difficult to port games from xbox360 to ps3 ??? the fact is the games are not ported and its not difficult to port. if its a only a fast port then its a shame for the xbox360 that it has not better graphics thant the ps3. you can see it like you want, the ps3 is far more powerful.