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.

[JIN KAZAMA]

And I have made mine, and since they are oppinions, we can go on forever on this topic, which really wont make any sense. So I understand your point of view, and I hope you understand mine.

[JIN KAZAMA]

here is your link you wanted. This shows you that HD-DVD and Blu_ray provide HDAudio as well, and now with HDMI 1.3, its going to sound even better.

http://www.smarthouse.com.a...

[Shadow Flare]

i loved my psone and went on to buy a ps2. But i also went along with optimistic 'promises' and thus bought gamecube and xbox

i came out disappointed with xbox and gamecube but loved the ps2

Hardware had nothing to with it for me,it was always the games and experience it brought me (Final Fantasy 7)

And thats y i'll always stay with playstation, cos i love their games and i dont have the same conection with other consoles as i do with playstation

No matter how good 360 may be,it will never appeal to me

[Aflac]

...u exressed your opinion in a peaceful manner. I respect your opinion, and I hope the rest of the xbox fans on this site do as long as you remain peaceful in expressing your opinions.

[The Real Deal]

yeah if you have an hdmi connector on your tv but its nothing to brag about. Most people don't have it and most people don't even have an all out surround sound system. But 360 will do the same thing when the hd dvd launches. But in all reality the difference is very minimal with video and sound and thats with you having the proper equipment to get the most out of it. I think Sony has forgotten what made them number one the last two generations. Thats my issue. The average Joe is who made Sony ps1 and ps2 a major success. They have left the average Joe behind with all this talk of hdmi 1.3 and 1080p and blu ray movie playback. Thats the truth. You have to agree. Its cool for you and I to get a ps3 and utilize all the features but what about all the kids who like sony? What about all the average gamers who only buy 1 or 2 games every year? The bulk of their core base. Thats why I was dissappointed in them this time around. Yeah Geeks like us will get it. But without the mass consumer support, devs won't take the high risk in making games for a system that has a smaller install base compared to 360 and Wii.

[Shadow Flare]

devs will want to develop for the ps3 mate

as far as HD is concerned, i dont care about it now, but it doesnt mean i wont care bout it in the future

No one cares too much about HD now. But its about future proofing. Cos in years to come, HD WILL be standerd and it will be nice to have a games console that has the best HD functionality on it

It will matter in the future

[The Real Deal]

I do respect your opinion. At least we ain't calling eachother names. My whole issue with Sony is I feel they are out of touch with what made them successful. They are trying to do to much in my opinion. And us as consumers pay with our money and they are asking us to spend 600 dollars and then be patient as far as the potential being tapped into. I have an issue with that. Then they put a formatt that is untested and unproven into the machine. That bothers me as a consumer. I don't like being anyones guieny pig. They are making us try out their blu ray drive. A first gen blu ray drive. Then I have an issue with the Cell and how there is a high failure rate with the dsp's and how they all run off of one processor. That plays well for doing CG on the fly but from what devs say its not so good for running game code. Can it be done? Sure...Does it make games better? Not from what Devs say. But we will see. I'm patiently waiting to see what the ps3 can do. But if it don't blow me away. I will wait. It can't just be as good as the 360 for 200 dollars more for me to purchase it. I'm sure many people feel the same. Not everyone. But I know of at least 5 million to date.

[achira]

Dear RealDeal why do you write all the essays ??? we know like you that you will buy a ps3. ppl like you (and me) are the first one who will buy it. so why do you make this ? this is nonsense. we know that the ps3 will be outsold. and in a half year the price will be dropped and everything is fine. but i cant wait, and i will buy the ps3 at launch ! i know that you are a person who buys every console, and i know you look forward to buy a ps3.

[JIN KAZAMA]

We have ported this game to the PS3. Show me where it says that assasins creed has been ported to the PS3, or any game. What happens is, they have the dev kits, its a totally new architecture of the Cell, so right now, they might be still developing "conventionally" on the PS3 for multiplatform games. They are NOT porting it. Look at resistence fall of man, that looks just as good as gears of war, and its set to be out at launch. Also, your question to me was, " I HAVE NEVER ONCE READ ANYWERE THAT BLU RAY SOUNDS BETTER THAN DVD. SHOW ME A LINK. OR ARE YOU MAKING THAT UP? " Now that i gave you a link and showed you, now your argument is, oh Well, it wont sound that much better, but the point was, you didnt even know there was a differnce between the audio quality of HD-DVD's to dvd. maybe that was over YOUR head. There was a study done in 2005, that the HDTV in housholds doubled in percentage form the previous year to 7%. That might not sound like a lot, but its going up at a pretty good rate. They are also becomming cheaper, so give it a couple of years and you will see, they will be in the mainstream. You said the 360 will have a 150 games, dude, right now 360 has only like 2 or 3 good games, the rest suck. Look at Prey, that was supposed to be the big hit of the summer, FLOPPED. Look at Chromehounds, got decent reviews. Come on. Also, the "casual gamer" are you kidding me, you think the casual gamer will buy a 360 for 400 dollars. THink of it this way, the PS3 is a Lamborghini Murcielgo, the 360 is the lamborghini Diablo, the casual gamer isnt gonna buy any one of these. These systems are for hardcore gamers, the casual gamer is gonna buy the wii, if at all. Or he/she will just keep their PS2, or xbox man. Also, you said " difficult for developers to realize their visions on the ps3" are you kidding me. The PS3 is a power hungry beast, MGS4, Assasins Creed, MotorStorm, you think they had to cut back on stuff because of the PS3's limitations????? You gotta be kidding me.

[JIN KAZAMA]

There is no DVI on the 360, the component cable is okay, but the hdmi makes it look so much better, you ahve to agree on that.

[JIN KAZAMA]

We are some true geeks.

[Aflac]

...ad componet cables

[JIN KAZAMA]

then why even bother creating the HDMI if there is no difference. come on dude, you didnt have to say that, thats pretty ridiculous

[Aflac]

hdmi just puts the five component plugs into 1 small plug that has a SLIGHT bit higher quality, but probly unnboticeable. Component cbles give th same resolutions as hdmi. 720p is 720p, 1080i is 1080i...

[achira]

Sir N. sorry thats fals, there is a big difference !!!

[The Real Deal]

I disagree with you. With me having every 360 game thats out. There are many good 360 games out now. You are now bashing. It went from intelligent convo to bashing. Thats not cool. And I will provide you with a link to which games were runnin on the 360 and will be ported to the ps3. And yes DVI and HDMI will be an option when the hd dvd is out. Do you hope its not? lol...Why does that bother you? If you are only getting a ps3 the fact that the 360 will support DVI shouldn't bother you. Once again. yes Dvi and hdmi make video look so much better to the less than 5 % of consumers that have hdmi or dvi support on their hd tv's. Put it in perspective. lol... Most people just don't have what we have. Can you accept that as a fact? You will see all the launch titles for the ps3 yourself. Sony is already doing damage control by saying it will be 3 to 4 years before developers use the potential of the ps3. He is basically prepping the media before they bash the games for not living up to the hype. Will they be good games. I would assume so. Will they live up to the hype. I don't think so. We will see. I'm anxious and curious. But from everything I read...I'm very doubtful. And don't fault me for not blindly following Sony. Okay? Lets cut the bashing of games. I love my 360 games. Even the few that got 6's which is passable as a next gen game. You see. Editors across the board have given the 360 games as a whole 7's which means Good. 8's which means Great. And nines which means Classic. Most games for the 360 is in the Great and Classic rating from most editors. Ign gave Prey a 9. Others have given it 8 to 9. But there are much more games that got 8's and 9's on the 360. So no bashing. We know you like Sony. We know you don't like Microsoft. Lets keep it informative.

http://ps3.ign.com/articles...

[achira]

theRealDeal yes you are right he shouldnt do that. he spoke of his opinion. there are sure more than 2 good games on the xobx360 ! but you moust admit most of them are fps games and have short game time (for example prey, game time 7 hours). perhaps he didnt like ms, like me, although i like some games from them like Age of Empires, and i think windows xp is a good os. but i (like many other ppl) dont like that they get the urge for monopoly. the only reason they get more support for this gen is they payed everyone with their dirty money. i on my side stay on the side of sony (i like their design and quality). you must understand this and respect this. you should not try to convince ppl.

[Cyclonus]

UMD Format is now Officially Dead:
http://www.realtechnews.com...

This should not be coming as a huge surprise, but the demise of Sony’s UMD format for movies is going away faster than the Mini Disc got shelved for music. This week Sony quietly announced a new entertainment pak called the Memory Stick Entertainment Packs (MSEP) that contained movies on a Sony Memory stick, and many paused to wonder what that meant for the UMD. And now it is official.

Sales of movies on the PSP’s once-hot proprietary format have slowed to a trickle, causing several major movie studios to cease supporting it. In March, the Hollywood Reporter ran an article claiming that the home-entertainment divisions of Universal Studios and Paramount Pictures have “completely stopped” releasing films on the format, and other studios have been cutting back their release slates.

Perhaps more disturbing for Sony were unconfirmed reports that retail colossi Wal-Mart and Best Buy were scaling back UMD displays in their stores. This week, speculation turned into reality when Target decided to discontinue stocking UMDs entirely. A manager at a San Francisco Bay Area Target outlet told GameSpot, “We no longer carry PSP movies. We stopped carrying them nationwide.”

In typical Sony fashion, moving to the Memory Stick Duo as a movies release platform makes more sense, but the execution is convoluted and expensive. The 1GB version is $60 and the 2GB version $100, and you only get what look to be lame Sony Pictures releases (Hitch, S.W.A.T., The Grudge, or XXX: State of the Union??)- not much of a catalogue. To make matters worse, Sony steps down the resolution to 240x320 instead of the nicer 480x272 the PSP can do. Meanwhile, most people are simply converting DVDs to MPEG-4 and copy movies onto the PSP with a simple USB cable. Don’t expect this new move to change that.

Is Blu-ray next?

[The Real Deal]

ONE THING YOU DIDN'T TAKE INTO CONSIDERATION IS THAT MICROSOFT ALREADY HAS THE 24 MILLION XBOX OWNERS AND 5 MILLION 360 OWNERS IN THEIR POCKET. ALL 30 MILLION OF US CHOSE MICROSOFT BECAUSE IT WAS THE MOST POWERFUL CONSOLE ON THE MAREKT. MICROSOFT ALREADY HAS THE TECH GEEKS ON BOARD. ALL 30 MILLION OF US. EVERYONE WHO BOUGHT AN XBOX BOUGHT IT BECAUSE IT WAS MORE POWERFUL THAN THE PS2 BY FAR. AND ALL THOSE PEOPLE WHO BOUGHT XBOX WAS IN LOVE WITH HOW MICOROSOFT DID THEIR LIVE AND THEIR EXCLUSIVE TITLES. 1 OUT OF 3 XBOX OWNERS BOUGHT HALO 2. THEN YOU TAKE INTO CONSIDERATION FABLE, FORZA, PERFECT DARK, KAMEO, PGR3, AND SO ON. THOSE ARE ALL MILLION SELLING TITLES THAT MICROSOFT FANS LOVE. THE 360 IS GUARENTEED THE HARDCORE GAMER MARKET. THATS WHY THE 360 HAS A RECORD 4.5 GAMES SOLD PER CONSOLE. NO OTHER CONSOLE EVEN COMES CLOSE. WHAT DOES THAT TELL YOU? WELL IT TELLS YOU PEOPLE WHO BUY XBOX BRAND BUYS GAMES. WHAT DOES THAT TELL DEVELOPERS? IT TELLS THEM IF THEY MAKE A GOOD GAME THEY CAN SELL A MILLION COPIES EASY. PEOPLE CAN GET AN XBOX 360 FOR THE SAME PRICE THEY GOT AN XBOX FOR WHEN IT LAUNCHED. 300 DOLLARS. THEY CAN GET THE HARD DRIVE LATER IF NEEDED. LUCKILY THEY CAN PLAY GAMES RIGHT OUT THE BOX FOR 300. IT HELPS PARENTS WHO WANT TO GET THEIR LITTLE BOY OR GIRL A NEXT GEN SYSTEM WITHOUT SPENDING TOO MUCH. AND YOU COUPLE THAT WITH THE FACT THAT MANY YEAR OLD GAMES WILL START TO SEE PRICE DROPS. YOU ALREADY SEE SOME AT 39.99. I JUST LOVE HOW MICROSOFT DID THINGS. IT WAS THE PERFECT PLAN.

[achira]

you are right. but this time the ps3 is more powerfuller and all 30 mil ppl will byu the ps3. and if ms has no competition, then i bet with you that you will get crappy games with crappy quality with crappy console and high price.

[TheXgamerLive]

No, it's not more "powerfuller, as you say, lol". It's, oh well what's it matter, you dont pay attention to the truth, only what your bottle fed, or is that bottleneck fed:))

[The Real Deal]

IGN PS3 TOLD ITS READERS THEY WILL BE MISSING OUT ON GREAT NEXT GEN CONTENT IF THEY DON'T GET AN XBOX 360. NUFF SAID. SO YOU CAN CONVINCE YOURSELF THAT XBOX 360 SUCKS BUT THE FACT REMAINS IT WON JUST ABOUT EVERY AWARD AT THIS YEARS E3 AND ON THE BOX OF PREY IT STATES THAT THE GAME CAN ONLY BE REALIZED ON THE 360 AND PC. CARMACK HAS GONE ON RECORD SAYING THAT YES THE PS3 HAS BRUTE POWER BUT HE BELIEVES THE 360 WILL BE ABLE TO MAKE BETTER GAMES IN THE END. WHY? THE MESH OF SOFTWARE AND HARDWARE. I'M NOT SAYING THIS. MANY DEVELOPERS ARE.

[ASTAROTH]

COME ON DUDE CALM DOWN. HOW MANY DOES MICROSOFT PAY YOU. I BELIEVE NOTHING. HOW MANY DOES SONY PAY US PS FANS, NOTHING. SO DUDE CALM DOWN. WE ARE ALL CONSUMERS. WE BUY THEY PRODUCTS NOW MATTER WHAT. AS FOR WHAT EVERYBODY SAYS, JUDGE FOR YOURSELF. PRAY COULDN BE POSIIBLE ON PS3 WHEN IT ALREADY HAS GAMES THAT LOOKED BETTER THAN IT. COME ON DONT BELIEVE ALL THE HYPE. DONT ACT LIKE AN A$$HOLE. I KNOW YOU ARE, BUT TRY NOBODOY ELSE NOTICE IT.

[The Real Deal]

"I think PS3 will almost certainly be slower and less powerful," says graphics guru Richard Huddy; backward compatibility explained.
By James Yu, Tim Surette, GameSpot
Posted Jun 10, 2005 7:19 pm PT
In an interview with Web site bit-tech.net, ATI developer relations manager Richard Huddy waxed technical about Microsoft's upcoming Xbox 360 and ATI's role in the machine. The 360 will be using ATI's Xenos graphics processor, and Huddy's job is to chat with potential developers and then help them develop the tools that best use Xenos' capabilities.

With regard to the console's architecture, Huddy says, "It's way better than I would have expected at this point in the history of 3D graphics." He sees the unified pipeline, rather than segregated pixel and vertex engines, giving the 360 a huge advantage in accessible processing power.

Huddy goes on to shed some light on backward compatibility. Each Xbox game is written with specific Xbox hardware in mind, and the 360's move to PowerPCs and ATI graphics doesn't jibe with the Xbox's Intel chips and Nvidia graphics processors. To add to the difficulty, the 360 wasn't designed for backward compatibility early on in development.

To solve this, Microsoft has implemented the use of emulator programs that will let the Xbox 360 play Xbox games. According to Huddy, "emulating the CPU isn't really a difficult task. ...the real bottlenecks in the emulation are GPU calls--calls made specifically by games to the Nvidia hardware in a certain way. General GPU instructions are easy to convert: an instruction to draw a triangle in a certain way will be pretty generic. However, it's the odd cases--the proprietary routines--that will cause hassle." Once complete, the Xbox emulators could come preloaded on the unit's hard drive or be downloadable via Xbox Live.

Huddy also dispels the notion that the PlayStation 3's higher graphics clock speed (550MHz versus the 360's 500MHz) means the Sony console will outperform the Xbox 360. He believes that its ATI's unified pipeline will make the biggest difference between the Xbox 360 and PS3. ATI archrival Nvidia, which is providing the RSX graphics processor for the PS3, has chosen not to go the route of a unified pipeline.

"This time around, [Nvidia doesn't] have the architecture, and we do. So they have to knock it and say it isn't worthwhile. But in the future, they'll market themselves out of this corner, claiming that they've cracked how to do it best. But RSX isn't unified, and this is why I think PS3 will almost certainly be slower and less powerful."

[achira]

you know this interview is a joke and is proofen false. games like cod3 look better on the ps3 than on the xbox360, that says a lot.

[TheXgamerLive]

But as I've already said, you cant handle the truth. And, NO COD3 will not look better on the ps3, lol, it may even not be released for the so called ps3 as there doesnt even look like there will even be one at this point.

[JIN KAZAMA]

You're talkin about 25 million and 4 million. Well, do you know how many users Sony has, i dont even have to tell you, but I think there is a reason why its called the king of consoles, and market domination. I cant believe you are actually defending the games of 360. You are saying ign gave it a 9, well i assume that is ign360 right. You are showing this article "ATI: Xbox 360 will outperform PS3" which was in jun 2005, come on dude. And on the box of prey, it states only on 360 and PC, you actually believe that? That game is 5 hours long, 8/10 grapphics at gamespot.com, it got a 7.5 or something. The game is weak. Most of the games on the 360 are weak man, thats for sure, maybe not to you, but for they are. Please, tell me when you have seen a little boy or girl getting a 360? These 2 machines are meant for adults, and teenagers. Teens will jsut work and save up to buy it, your making it look like a 8 year old is gonna get a 360, if they have one, the parent are dumb, same goes if they buy them a ps3. The PS2, is such a better built machine, your saying the xbox was so much more powerfull, but look at both late gen titles, they are the same. The ps2 did what the xbox could do with less power. Now imagine the same people that built that little machine, building the most powerful system to date, more powerful than the 360, imagine what they can do when they have the more POWERFUL system. yea, so if PS3 IGN said, ok, i'll be missing out on great next gen content, meaing Gears Of War, ok, and Halo 3, wasnt a big fan of Halo 1 or 2, but that doest mean, they said, to buy it over the ps3. Yes I had the Xbox, i thought it was great, but just like the ps2 better so i sold it. yes, i know that most people dont have the surround sound, the HDTV like me or maybe you. But These things will drop in price, and people are buying them at a faster rate each year, thats a fact. OKAY, the article you showed about ATI having the better GPU than RSX, first off, like i said, its in June of 2005. Second It is Richard Huddy speaking, you know who Richard Huddy is???? "Richard Huddy is the European Developer Relations Manager at ATI." Also, when the DVI and HDMI come out on your add-on, it wont play games in 1080p, just play movies.
COME ON MAN, talk about biased, i cant believe you posted that, ofcourse he is gonna say that. Most of the games for the 360 got average ratings for a Next-gen prespective. I can list out all the games that got decent to low reviews, only a very few got above average, and you can count them on one hand. Not to mention, the 360 launch lineup, it was horrible. Ps3's launh lineup looks so much better.

[TheXgamerLive]

What you stated wasnt even close to the truth, lol!! You just believe all that sony tells you like pavlov's dog, fetch boy, ring bell...ding ding ding!!!
It's going to be a wait and see thing I see, well you'll be waiting for a long time as there may not even be a ps3 at this point unless they can fix the inherent problems with the cell and rsx combo, there bottlenecking on most everything so they(sony) cant release a system that still doesnt work.

[THELANDSOFSAND]

we didn't create the PS3, and we aren't going to take the blame for it!

lol

this article seems a little ignorant of how sony reacted to competition, not consumer feedback- if sony actually listened to customers i think the ps3 would be a lot more like the 360...

[THELANDSOFSAND]

lol

i think missy says it best about you jin,

"get a life troll, no one believes you. i don't read you're post, fanboy..."

http://www.blogsmithmedia.c...

[THELANDSOFSAND]

I don't need to deal with you. My wife will handle your sorry @ss on her own.

[pappajessicafresh]

Pappa Jessica Fresh only takes one mans protien, bit(h, and it ain't yours.
http://img.photobucket.com/...

Now, go be a good little boy and tell your mother I will be back around this evening to get whatever money she made whoring your ass on the streets and it better not be pocket change this time either or you and she will both be getting your @sses bit(h slapped.

Peace.

[MISSY E]

This is how it goes, we made 360, 360 made PS3. In the end we made PS3. lol

[THELANDSOFSAND]

yep... maybe when they run out of diodes in october they can just start spray painting 360's black and sticking a sony logo on them.

now that i would buy!

lol

[Shadow Flare]

i thought thats what microsoft did with the 360. You know, spray painted the original xbox white and stuck in a more advanced graphics chip. Cos its basically the same as the original xbox, what with the dvd drive and all

The ps3 is so different in design to the ps2

The most striking difference from 360 to xbox is the appearance of the console

Not much effort put into designing the 360 at all. Just to get on the market before the ps3 innit

[MISSY E]

Gamers could have worked and saved up for the Neo-Geo. Console's aproching one grand for an extra controller and a couple of games don't do so well, FACT!!!. Prey was built mainly for online, and the lenth of Prey has nothing to do with the inferior capabilities of the PS3. And as far as weak games theres nothing the PS3 has thats any better. forget it im posting as i read you're comment and it's getting to fanboy jibberish, it no longer makes any sense.

[MISSY E]

Maybe the new God of War will be longer.lol "Jin" you better bad mouth the 360 games while you can. lol

[JIN KAZAMA]

PREY, YEA THAT WAS A GREAT GAME, THE WHOLE 5 HOURS WORTH. THEBLANDOFSPAM, YOUR A FUNNY GUY, ALONG WITH YOUR WHORE WIFE. MISSY BIT(H, IF YOU DONT READ MY POST, THEN WHY ARE YOU REPLYING TO IT, YOU DUMBASS TRICK. YOU AND THEBLANDS WIFE BETTER START TURNIN TRICKS FOR ME SOON, OR ELSE I'M GONNA HAVE TO PIMP SLAP BOTH OF YOU. YOU 2 DOLLAR HOS

[pappajessicafresh]

How cute, the little virgin is getting all worked up. You may have to go and expend your energies by yourself with your favorite hand, but make sure to keep those photos of your mother handy-- we all know what a slut you are.

It's always amusing when little boys try to pretend to be pimps. Maybe when you grow up I'll give you your first pimp-stick. Until then, the wages you're bringing in for your stretched out @sshole are not high enough. I demand you start doing keegle excercises immediately in order to improve your profits. You and your mommy can practice together. It can be a family affair; we all know how fond you are of incest, after all.

[The Real Deal]

I apologize Jin. I actually thought I was talking to someone with some common sense. You get your ps3...lol....and you think what you want about 360 games...lol...its sad that you are so ignorant. You have no idea...you just run your mouth and make things up and express an opinion that is clearly biased. Sony was dominant with the ps2 because of price and games. They will have neither this next gen. TOO expensive for all their prior fans and not enough systems sold for companies to give them the exclusives that once gave them 40 million consoles sold for the ps2. GTA series alone as an exclusive sold them 40 million ps2's. No more. Times have changed and you will adapt. So enjoy your cheap blu ray player. But Prey is unbelievable and since when is 8's and 9's not a HIT. lol....8.5 is great. And IGN gave it a 9. that is classic status. I can't wait to see the reviews for the ps3 games..lol...your gonna get a kick out of that. lol.... And regardless of what you say or think....We love our 360 and this is coming from someone who plays computer games, ps2 games, xbox games, ect...not someone who is blindly waiting for a ps3 and downing anything thats not on a ps3. lol.... Prey can't be done on the ps3's limited hardware...Get over it and move on. And its longer than 5 hours. And Multiplayer is unbelievable....And guess what. Every Reviewer thats reviewed it agree's....It hasn't recieved anything less than GREAT. lol...What? Don't be sad. Just wait for your ps3. I can't believe I thought I was talking to someone with a little knowledge. You are just like Gametime.

[pappajessicafresh]

Awesome. Jin managed to get bit(h-slapped in geekspeak as well. Nicely done, sir.

[The Real Deal]

Today at Comic-Con International, the world’s largest comic book convention, Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq “MSFT”) and Marvel Enterprises Inc. (NYSE: MVL) announced a licensing agreement that will team the entertainment powerhouse Marvel with Microsoft’s proven creative and technology success in the interactive gaming space. Under the terms of the agreement, Microsoft has obtained the exclusive rights to develop and publish massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) featuring Marvel’s iconic universe of Super Heroes™ for use in games developed for the Xbox 360™ system and published by Microsoft Game Studios.

[THE TRUTH]

Here is a great post form a gamer made on one of the news articles

Kevmac83 wrote:

Is it at all possible for a piece of PS3 news to come out without it immediately being pounced upon and criticized? I'm well aware that everyone's free to share their opinions, but that doesn't necessarily mean you have to. Over time, it becomes evident that certain people dislike certain consoles. But all this says is "God of War 2's shaping up well; a third may arrive on the PS3."

How can that possibly be worth someone's time to insult? It's just a statement. It's not an attack, it's not being glorified as some greatest game ever . . . just a statement. Today, I did something I've NEVER done before . . . I clicked that little "Xbox 360" tab up there, and went over to foreign territory. I went through the system-specific news posts on the site, and saw it a very peaceful land indeed. Everyone was talking about the games or the news. People were getting along, having friendly banter, and productive conversation. The first thing I noticed was there were no PS fans over there harassing anyone or invoking their rights to share their opinion. The second thing I noticed is that Xbox is getting a Zegapain game, which I hope sells well (love the series).

Anyways, all this was probably for naught, and I'll most likely recieve some sort of bad feedback from someone, but I can't help it. Tis my nature to advocate peace :-)

[JIN KAZAMA]

would not have let you post an article about the ATI GPU being superior being that it came from the European relations manager of ATI, thats common sense son. And, I love you too Mrs. TheBlandOfSpam. Kisses

[The Real Deal]

If you go to the top of the thread it started out peaceful. If you read you can see who turned it into xbox 360 games suck...and from there it gets ugly. Sony fans don't know how to contain there anger problems and all the delays and bad news ain't helping them. But many articles are multi sectioned. Like the Article I posted on Half Life being on ps3 and 360. If you read that thread its very peaceful...and its in two sections at the same time. It all depends on if people are being civil or if you got Sony extremist start with the bashing and name calling.

[THELANDSOFSAND]

your welcome jin. if you want to involve her in your flames then expect further 'love'.

&&the real deal is right- YOU started with the name calling and personal flaming against me/my wife. if you can't stand to read people discussing the endless bad news about PS3, then don't read it. its not my fault there isn't more good news to talk about!

so deal with it or get some anger management...

[Aflac]

over where I live, for every xbox owner, 3-5 ps2 owners decided to convert to MS's side. Me and each of my friends who have had ps2 ended up hating it, and are turning to the 360.

[The Real Deal]

Die Hard Sony fans that love their Ps2 that are excited about Saints Row. I know many many many people who said thats when they are getting a 360. The more footage and screen shots they show the more the excitement builds with it. Anyone who loved GTA...which is over 50 million gamers cross consoles....have always dreamed about a game like this. Its going to be crazy...6 on 6 gang wars online with total custimizing of your charactor and clothes, accessories...the multiplayer video looked sooooo fun. This is one of many must have games that will ONLY be on the 360 months before the ps3 even hits the stores. And with digimask signed on with Micorosoft....people will be putting themselves in the game when the x vision cam hits the stores soon.

[The Real Deal]

9.0 Presentation

Strong characters and dialog, and all-around high production values.

9.0 Graphics

The ambitious scale alone garners Prey accolades, but the art design and attention to detail seal the deal.

9.0 Sound

The music and sound are quite good, but it's probably the voice acting and ambience that carry the weight here.

9.0 Gameplay

The AI isn't so sharp, but the puzzles, story, and scope of the environment add some compelling elements.

9.0 Lasting Appeal

It's on the short side, and one additional difficulty level won't make you scream for more; mutliplayer, however, carries over Prey's crazy level design ideas.

9.0
Outstanding OVERALL
(out of 10 / not an average)

[The Real Deal]

Sony is the main company that lies and where do you get your opinion and info from? lol...At least Microsoft and ATI follow through on what they claim. ATI is the leading video graphics card maker in the World. And Tell it like it is. Microsoft is the leading software innovator in the world...They have always said they made a system by gamers for gamers. And me being a gamer, I can agree with that and appreciate that. Sony is the leading company in the world with lying to their consumers and overstating what their video game consoles can do. They never ever ever live up to the hype that SONY creates. I can write a list of things the ps2 was suppose to do and never did. I can only imagine with the ps3. And developers have been speaking out this time. I believe them over SONY anyday. So don't be mad at the world because we don't believe SONY anymore. You have faith in them and you spend your money. But don't be upset because we don't blindly follow them just because they sold 100 million ps2's supposively. Most people need more than that before they spend 600 dollars on SONY's promised potential in 4 years. Who buys a car and the company says...well sir...you can't drive it over 30 miles per hour till after 4 years. But its still a cool car. You can drive it slow and people will look and point and say "man your cool"..."just understand that in 4 years not only will the price drop on that car but then you can drive it full speed."...lol...No thanks...I'll pass. Don't be mad at us because we are using better judgement and waiting for a price drop and waiting for games that show off what the ps3 can do one day down the line. In the meanwhile we will be playing Next Gen now with a system that developers across the board rave about. I love it. Live Anywhere.. Its a great time to be a gamer.

[achira]

wrong ati is not leader, nvidia is leader.

[The Real Deal]

Who could be better judges of hardware than the game developers themselves?

"It's a wonderful machine to work with. I never lied about my impression of the hardware. It's definitely software-friendly hardware. From a developer's perspective, it's exactly the kind of hardware you want to work with."

—Tomonobu Itagaki, leader of Team Ninja and creator of Ninja Gaiden® and the Dead or Alive® series, quoted at E3 2006.

"It's the best development environment I've seen on a console."

—id Software's John Carmack on Xbox 360, quoted at QuakeCon 2005 (reported on GameSpy).

"The advantage of the Xbox 360 is that it's designed to run our game, period. You know if you have a 360 it will look as good as it can possibly look no matter what system you choose."

—Pete Hines from developer Bethesda, quoted on 1up.com.

"I can't speak much for Sony right now—yeah, we're working on stuff for the PS3 but honestly I'm so busy with Gears [of War] that it's all I'm seeing and I can tell you—Microsoft is giving you a hell of a system. This thing is a BEAST and is capable of MUCH GREATNESS."

—Cliff "Cliffy B" Bleszinski, creator of the Xbox 360 shooter Gears of War™, on his 1up.com blog.

That Indefinable Quality
Talk about numbers all day—and without a doubt, the numbers on Xbox 360 show how powerful the new console is. But beyond simple numbers, there's the power of having one system that serves as the center of your entertainment lifestyle.

Xbox 360 isn't just about swinging its stats around like a club, it's about bringing you into the club. The Media Center Extender, wireless adaptability, an endless variety of USB-compatible hardware, and of course the greatest games in the world make the power of Xbox 360 crystal clear.

Welcome to the next generation of gaming with Xbox 360.

Article by Danny Chihdo

[The Real Deal]

According to IGN an 8 is Great and a 9 is Outstanding. WOW...soooo many Great and Outstanding games for the 360 and the second gen games haven't even hit yet. Remember the low scores ps2 games got within the first six months? lol...its was horrible.

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, The RPG 9.3 3/24/2006

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter Shooter 9.2 3/07/2006

Prey Shooter 9.0 7/10/2006

Dead or Alive 4 Fighting 9.0 12/28/2005

Call of Duty 2 Shooter 9.0

Burnout Revenge Racing 8.9 3/06/2006

Project Gotham Racing 3 Racing 8.8 11/15/2005

Condemned: Criminal Origins Action 8.7 11/17/2005

EA Sports Fight Night Round 3 Sports 8.5 2/17/2006

Moto GP 2006 Racing 8.4 6/09/2006

2006 FIFA World Cup Sports 8.4 4/18/2006

Perfect Dark Zero Shooter 8.4 11/23/2005

Kameo: Elements of Power Adventure 8.4 11/15/2005

Far Cry Instincts Predator Shooter 8.3 3/30/2006

Tony Hawk's American Wasteland Sports 8.3 11/15/2005

Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II, The Strategy 8.2 7/05/2006

Tomb Raider: Legend Action Adventure 8.2 4/05/2006

QUAKE 4 Shooter 8.1 11/21/2005

Hitman: Blood Money Action 8.0 5/30/2006

Astropop Puzzle 8.0 4/26/2006

Zuma Deluxe Puzzle 8.0 1/04/2006

Peter Jackson's King Kong Action 8.0 11/23/2005

Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved Shooter 8.0 11/21/2005

Need for Speed Most Wanted Racing 8.0 11/16/2005

Madden NFL 06 Sports 8.0 11/15/2005

[JIN KAZAMA]

That Sony is such a bad company, and MS isnt huh. Lets see, Windows was taken from Apples OS, Internet Explorer was taken from netscape, MS Live is trying to copy google, Media PLayer was taken from Real Player, the list goes on. Talk about being unoriginal man, they just bite off other peoples innovations and put it in windows. Why do you think they have settled all these anti-trust lawsuits man.
Once again you are quoting these people, well, Kojima isnt complaining, resistence fall of man programmers arent complaining, motorstorm programmers are complaining, Assasins creed devs arent complaining, so your post is irrelevent. Also, you were trying to defend that you posted a article comming from the manager of ATI, like he is going to say anyhitng less, come on man, just admit that was a bad move. Also, you are taking your review off of ign360, hmmm another biased site, dude, open your mind, find a neutral site!, what the hell is wrong with you. here is a list from gamespot.com

chromehouds 7.9
Prey 7.5
OverG Fighters 5.9
MotoGP 06 8.2
Hitan 8.2
Table Tennis 8.5
X-Men 5.3
Uno 8.1
Fifa 8.2
Final Fantasy 6.0
Baseball 2K6 6.8
Tomb Raider 7.8
BattleFied2 7.5
LOTR ME2 8.3
Far Cry 7.9
Top Spin 2 8.2
Rumble Roses 6.6
Dynasty warr 7.1
Oblivion 9.6
Blaz. Angel 6.9
GRAW 9.2
The Outfit 6.7
Burnout rev. 8.8
Fight Night 8.3
Full Auto 6.5
DOA4 8.8
King Kong 8.2
Tiger Woods 7.8
Ridge Racer 8.1
NBA 06 6.4
PDZ 9.0
Quake 6.6
NHL 7.5
Amped 3 7.6
PGR3 8.8
Madden 7.4
Condemned 8.0
NFS 8.4
Tony hawk 6.6
Gun 6.4
COD2 8.8
NBA2K6 8.3
Kameo 8.7

331.4/430 = 77.06%
there, the average of those reviews comes out to me 77.06%, just that, average. with 3 games only in the 9's. Just three and its been out, how long now? Wow, thats really pushing the limits, thats really next gen. No new innovative type of gameplay, same old stuff, just shinier graphics. Other than that, its an xbox.

[The Real Deal]

So yes there are many good games and a few passable according to IGN. But get a wiff of ps2 games the first year...lol...now shut up and get off the computer. You ain't worthy...lol.....I'm the Real Deal. I let the Facts Speak. You stated earlier that there are only 2 or 3 good games for the 360....you lied. lol...There are many many good games and many many Great games and a few Outstanding games. All within 6 months. WOW...

[The Real Deal]

Street Fighter EX3 Fighting 5.0

Q-Ball: Billiards Master Sports 5.0

NCAA Final Four 2001 Sports 5.0

Fur Fighters: Viggo's Revenge Action 4.5

Army Men: Sarge's Heroes 2 Shooter 4.5

Real Pool Sports 4.5

Orphen: Scion of Sorcery Action Adventure 4.5

Ephemeral Fantasia RPG 4.2

Yanya Caballista City Skater Action 4.0

NBA Hoopz Sports 4.0

Surfing H3O Sports 4.0

Frogger: The Great Quest Action 3.0

Shaun Palmer's Pro Snowboarder Sports 3.0

Arctic Thunder Racing 3.0

ESPN National Hockey Night Sports 3.0

Paris-Dakar Rally Racing 2.5

RC Revenge Pro Racing 2.5

Driven Racing 2.0

[ronin_oni]

Your missing out on alot of the other launch year titles RD. What about Tekken tag, RR, Armor Core, ICO, Devil May Cry, MGS2, Onimusha... I believe that Jin Kazama linked alot of the big brand names the 360 is riding on, he didn't link just the bottom of the barrel like you did.

[ironwolf]

I go away for a few hours, come back, and all I have to do is look at the post numbers to find todays flame war.

You guys all claim to be adults, how about acting like it. These posts read like a bunch of whiney 12 year olds arguing over which GI Joe doll is the biggest badass.

[THELANDSOFSAND]

if people stay on topic, (which for this thread is: 'did sony make its recent PS3 decisions based on consumer reaction') then there wouldn't be such endless flame arguments.

[JIN KAZAMA]

But I just had to get Sand back, thats all. Yo, thesand, I'm offering you a truce man, lets drop it. We can be cool, if its cool with you?

[THELANDSOFSAND]

fine by me

i just try to voice my opinion, i know you don't agree with me about the PS3. i honestly have given it praise where I feel its due. though so far, that has only been in the afrika thread. sony just aren't impressing or exciting me, its nothing personal.

I really hope when you get your PS3 it makes you happy. You should be pissed off if it doesn't.

[omansteveo]

ICO,Devil May Cry nor Metal Gear were launch titles look up the release dates

[JIN KAZAMA]

Your fighitng a losing battle here. Take a look at the crappy games the 360 has, and its been almost a year, still nothing spectacular. and yes, 2 or 3 decent games for me, i havent seen anyhitng great that will make me run out and buy a 400 dollar system with all these games. You are putting these quotes and articles from xbox sites, form ATI's general manager, and stating it like its neutral. Thats a joke.

[THELANDSOFSAND]

i think you are fighting the losing battle jin, 360 is next gen. PS2 is not. PS2 games are not MS's competition, PS3 games are. and a large variety of those are looking very poor indeed, in my opinion. You have to admit there are at least a few killer games on 360- graw, oblivion, COD2, PGR3. Next comes Saints Row, Gears of war, Dead Rising, Lost Planet, Mass Effect and Viva Pinata- people are excited about these games!

[JIN KAZAMA]

Gers of War looks sweet, Oblivion, i really didnt like it, COD2, well we have COD3. PGR3, well, we got motorstorm, you might not think it looks good, but it looks sweet to me man, plus being online with like 16 vehicles, anyways, its your oppinion, you have a right to it. Graw looks good though. Saints Row, its looks good, but GTA4 looks just as good. We can go thru the list of future games all day man, that doesnt do anything. Good luck with your job hunting, apologize about thw wifey comments.

[The Real Deal]

I'm not trying to win you over...lol...You will loose and be stuck with your choice in ps3...lol...

Pray your cell doesn't malfunction with 4 working dsp's.

Pray your blu ray actually works...you know that the blu ray player for sale now skips frequently during playback...lol....

Pray your games look half as good as the dominant 360 games.

Pray that Sony sells enough to convince developers to make games for the system with a small fan base.

Pray that other developers don't jump ship like many already have because of rising costs and low gain in quality of the more popular better quality 360.

Pray that 360 doean' thit 10 million before the ps3 launches in November. NO console has ever came back from a 10 million to 0 start.

Pray Ps3 don't get pushed back again.

Pray it doesn't break like 30 percent of ps2's that launched at first.

Pray while we Play. Have faith and stop bashing what IGN Ps3 recommends its readers to buy. An xbox 360. lol...Oh thats right being since IGN is the most respected and popular gaming site they must be biased toward the 360....lol...YOu are a JOKE. Do we believe a fanboy who is blind or editors of the most popular gaming site on the planet. lol....Thats a tuff one. lol....But Jin Kazama said the games suck...He is so educated on the matter...lol....Its not our fault that you hate microsoft and you love sony. Love kills. And I can't wait till all you sony only fanboys get what you been waiting for. lol....I wish I could see the looks on your faces when you put the game in and turn on your system...lol....I would pay 600 for that. So angry. So red in the face. But you will convince yourself that its not all bad. lol...Thats what blind faith gets you.

Pray......While we Play......Live Anywhere.....

[JIN KAZAMA]

You just have went from dumb, to dumber. You are the true fanboy, quoting IGN360 site, quoting a ATI general manager, and saying thats why ATI is better. Thats like when I kid says, "I am good at this, my mom told me I was" You are just shaming yourself.

[The Real Deal]

Buy the system that you want. But don't flame a system that you don't have just because others LOVE it. Chill with all that. If the ps3 was getting good news. I would be happy for it. Its not. And its not our fault. But just because Jin doens't like games he hasn't tried because Microsoft made it don't mean there aren't Millions of people who love it. Respect the millions of People who love Graw, Oblivion, PGR3, Prey, Perfect Dark, Kameo, DOA4, Call of Duty 2, and so on. Millions of people around the world love these games. Respect that. Over G got a low review by IGN compared to other games. In the 6's. But I love it. It was in the top 10 games sold two weeks straight. So reviews don't always tell the whole story. Let the Gamers speak. They buy the games. Same with Chromohounds. I have had a blast online will gamers all over the world. I haven't seen graphics like that on a computer game PERIOD. Sure it may not be everyones cup of tea. But if you like Mech Sim games or Flight sim games. Those both are Great in my view and many others that bought the two games and play them online.

[The Real Deal]

Just because you choose Satan by calling me names don't mean I will stoop to your level. I love God too much. I forgive you for calling me names. I realize thats your defense mechanism kicking in. Calm down. The day will come where you will get yours. Your PS3 is coming. I think. So they say. Love God and be happy. I am.

[THELANDSOFSAND]

i'm not sure we need to bring religion into all this...

he chooses PS3, not satan!

lol

[The Real Deal]

Him choosing Satan has nothing to do with him choosing the ps3. It has to do with him Lying...."A SIN"...and him calling me out my name. He has issues and I forgive him and I pray for him.

[The Real Deal]

Plays a part in everything I do in life. So with me he is always in this. Be postive, love thy neihbor and don't lie. Telling someone elses lie is a lie as well. He believes his own lies. And thats a problem with his core being. All I can do is Pray. I can't help him with words. Just Prayer.

[THELANDSOFSAND]

well jah love moves with me too, i have no issues with god. i just worry about religious retoric being instigated here against people in any form...

I'd rather say he chooses PS3- at least we know that to be true!

[THELANDSOFSAND]

-

[JIN KAZAMA]

in everyones lives realdeal. SO relax. Its videogames for "gods" sakes. HAHA

[The Real Deal]

You quoted Gamespot 360 site....lol....

[The Real Deal]

Sony has just postponed the launch of its Blu-ray players again, which prompts the question: Is Sony really going to get the PlayStation 3 out this year, even in Japan, and if so, what sort of specificaiton will it have? There seem to be few or no real facts around, but there are plenty of negative rumours.

Over at Kotaku.com, for example, their "Phantom Insider" points out that "Fully functional PS3 betas still do not exist" and suggests the specification will be downgraded again. Either you can't get enough Cell processors at the promised speed or the machine still runs too hot: "The current designs despite having vents all over the place apparently still cant dissipate the heat to sufficient levels", says Kotaku's PI.

The promised compatibility with the PlayStation 2 is also a problem, which Sony is apparently solving by sticking real PS2 chips inside -- at least temporarily.

Since this implies the PS3 hardware design may not really be finished, the obvious solution would be to put it in a bigger box. However, the PlayStation 3 is already the biggest console ever -- even bigger than the original Xbox.

These are just the latest problems in a string of missteps that started with the faked Killzone video shown at last year's E3 games trade show. The result is that Sony's credibility is diminishing fast.

So where did it all go wrong? In my view, Sony has made two big mistakes. The first is the design of the PS3, which seems to be too ambitious for the company to handle.

The whole idea of a games console is that it should be cheap and relatively simple to mass produce -- and cost reduce. That suggests using (mostly) known parts. You can get lots of buyers if your console provides better games than a PC that costs three or four times the price, and that is less hassle to maintain. Trying to produce a console that is ahead of PC technology and costs two or three times as much as a PC to manufacture is insane -- especially since console buyers won't pay an economic price. But that's what Sony is doing.

Sony's second big mistake is strategic, and concerns its use of the Blu-ray disc format.

The PlayStation 2 certainly benefitted from providing buyers with a cheap DVD player as well as a games console. However, the DVD format was agreed in 1995 and the first players went on sale in Japan in 1996. The PlayStation 2 wasn't launched in Japan until March 2000, roughly four years later. By the time most US buyers were shopping for a new games console, DVD was already an attractive and established format.

If Sony intended to repeat this successful strategy, it should have included Blu-ray in the PS4 in 2010-11.

However, with the PS3, Sony is attempting to do the reverse, and pull off a strategy that has never worked. Instead of capitalising on a successful video format, it's trying to use the PS3 to establish what is starting to look like an unsuccessful one.

Look at it this way. The original smash-hit PlayStation was launched in 1995, the same year that the two competing high-density CD camps agreed to back a single format: DVD. What would have happened if Sony had refused to agree a compromise with Toshiba's SD (Super Density) format but decided to use its own system in the PlayStation in 1995 -- and sell it at twice the price?

Would you have bought one? I don't think so....

PlayStation is a huge brand and may well be strong enough to swing it, but there's still a sting in the tail: the more PS3's Sony sells, even at $600, the more money it loses.

It's a safe bet that Microsoft's bean counters have noticed that Sony is financially vulnerable, and I'll be surprised if Sony isn't walking into a price war. And if you have to fight a price war, it's better not to face a company with $38 billion in the bank.

[JIN KAZAMA]

You are also guilty of flaming, you say your not, but all your comments on the PS3 are negative. So dont act like you are innocent. Yea, I chose satan, what names did I call you, dumb? haha, i'm sure God will forgive me for that. Whats the bad news about the PS3, the Cell yields, oh nooo, everyhting is going to fall apart, too difficult to program for....wow, that was like a year ago. No good launch lineup...thats once again a matter of oppinion. Anyways, this is ridiculous. I am buying a PS3, you have a 360. OK great. If mine burns in flames, i'll be pissed. But i doubt it will happen. I'll get a warranty on it just in case.

[JIN KAZAMA]

its a little late for you now, and you're really talking nonsense about praying for me, go to bed now. I called you dumb, you called me ignorant, thats the same thing there buddy. So quit acting like you are innocent and a man of God, you're a hypocrite.

[The Real Deal]

I forgive you. Ignorant isn't negative. Ignorant is a lack of knowing. Which you show in just about all your posts. But calling me dumb is negative. I love God. Always. I thank God for everything so he is always relevant in my life. You should be thankful that someone is praying for you. You want to call me names. I saw the stuff you wasn saying about Land. Its not right. And I'm not perfect but I will NEVER call anyone a negative name. Everyone is ignorant on different topics. You have to not know before you know. We aren't born into this world knowing all. We grow...we learn....as we go. but once again. I forgive you for your negative comments and God is Beautiful. When you know him you are a much happier person.

P.S. If me bringing up God bothers you. I'm sorry. I love God. And as long as people bash me verbally I will use God for strength rather than resort to the name calling and out right lying to make points. You choose to lie. I choose to love God. You choose to bash...I choose to forgive you. Lets keep it cool and on topic. Without the name calling and lying. Can we do that? If so. I'm done with expressing my faith when I'm being bashed.

[achira]

hey you two brawlers. thank god that there are two next gen systems. so everyone can enjoy his favorite system. they are both good, ok ! but in my opinion i am going with the ps3. stop this talking, its nonsense, lets talk about games !!!

[THELANDSOFSAND]

OK you guys, please stop it

this is what i meant

religion is too personal to be brought up here

360 vs PS3 is not the topic
how posting effects your religious standing is not the topic
who lies and misrepresents industry news is not the topic

the topic is did PS3 result from consumer feedback to sony.

[The Real Deal]

I don't think ps3 listened to their core base. I think they made a huge mistake with the un proven blu ray player and the Cell with low yields and not being ideal for game production but rather hd movie playback. I count as a sony consumer because I bought their ps1 and ps2 just like the other sony fans. My opinion counts just like theirs. And I know in my city I'm not the only one who feels this way. Here in Seattle many people feel this way and it has nothing to do with Micorosoft being in Redmond. I'm from NY. I'm just sincerely dissappointed in Sony's decisions. It will cost them in the end and all the first ps3 adopters will be stuck with an overpriced undervalued system. Thats my opinion from everything I have read. Sure it ain't going to sit well with the sony fans who don't want to see no wrong. I'm a gamer first. And I see plenty wrong with Sony's plan this time around. I'm allowed to have that view in light of every lie sony has told right? Ok. Good.

[The Real Deal]

Just to comment on your gamespot review list. lol...Go look at ps2 reviews by the same site. lol...ps2 hasn't got an 8 for any game for a long long long long time. they on an average get 4's and 5's. lol...Say what you will about microsoft. You proved with the site of our choice that 360 games on an average score waaaaaaay higher than sony ps2 games. And you would think more games would have tapped into the power of the ps2 by now...lol....why so many very very low scored games? Microsoft's first gen games on the site of your choice averages out at very good. 7 on game spot is Good. 8 is great. and 9 is classic status. Thats really impressive accoding to your data. I know its off topic but I had to respond to your nonesense. lol....I don't want you to think you got away with another one. lol....

[kingboy]

just bring me the damn console on november ..that`s all

[ronin_oni]

"It's going to make the large-size LCDs available at a more reasonable rate," she said. Partly because of the new factory, the average price for LCD televisions that are 40 inches or larger should fall from about $8,000 to $1,500 by 2008, Patel said.

http://news.com.com/Sony,+S...

[ronin_oni]

http://www.cnet.com/4831-11...

[CAPS LOCK]

listen u x-box fanboys u dont know what ur talking about.

let me start with Xgamer, he said this:

"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"

WTF is he talking about blu ray 2 speed is equvilant to 10 speed dvd u can work this out 50gb divide 4.7gb= 10.6 and that isnt slow at all.

ok now to the mart he said:

"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"

the mart ur not a game designer or publisher so how would u know how much is needed in a game??? have u designed 98% of games? i dont think so and where do u get that info from? i will tell u cause ur not fully satisfiesd with ur x-box and u want ps3 to fail, u know that all ps3 games will use blu-ray for a reason because the games will be better developed and longer. 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.

ok now for the real deal and his 2 page comments, ur biased how can u say most ps2 games got a bad score? ur just proving ur self right by naming all the bad games, so cut back on ur 2 page comments that are all bull and concentrate on making a good coment.

by the way sorry for the wrong post, things had to be said.

[Sidherich]

the mart ur not a game designer or publisher so how would u know how much is needed in a game???

Game designers and publisher know nothing about disc sizes. Programmers do.

Example 1:

A simple 32 bit texture that is 1024x1024 pixels occupies 4 MB if it is uncompressed. DXTC compress ratio is about 4:1 so your texture would need only 1MB. About 8000 textures could be stored on a single DVD9. Even more if you use a lossy Compression such as Jpeg.

Example 2:

Uncompressed 44khz 16bit Stereo Sound can store 74 minutes in 650mb. (Standard CD size)
compressed to MP3 files you will have 60 minutes down to about 50-100MB. So again we would be able to store 90 hours of music, sound effects and voice over.

Example 3:

One single frame of a 720p video clip is 2.7 MB. If we have a 30 fps animation we can store 1 second every 79.1 MB (without sound). In facts this would be technically impossible to do on either console because the the Disc Drive would have to read 79.1 MB per second.

You can compress your HD video to about 500MB/Hour without loosing much quality. This will result in about 16 hours of video.

Those are pretty much the only things that will make a game big. Your actual program code results in about 4-20MB where you would want to optimize your program to be smaller if possible. Smaller can be faster sometimes. 3D Models arent that big either. Worst case scenario would be 192 bytes per polygon and the minimum would be about 36 bytes. But even then you could make it smaller if you reuse data with index buffers or other techniques.

Many games are larger than they actually need to be. This is determined by two major factors.

1. Stuff that isnt used in game doesnt get deleted:
Lands of Lore 2 actually had a few cutscenes hidden on their 4 discs that never got used during gameplay.

2. Disc Padding:
Since a CD/DVD/HD-DVD/BluRay is circular the movement speed is different if you are in the center than at the outer parts. higher movement speed means higher reading speed. A CD is recorded from the inner parts towards the outer parts where the outer parts are faster to read. So some games fill the CD up with crap like a 1GB file consisting of 00000000's and then after that they put the actual game related stuff so that it benefits from faster reading speeds.

[The Real Deal]

Developers have said thanks to the hard drive they can stream the slows 2x speed game info from the blu ray to the hard drive to increase the bismal load times. Thats why all ps3's have to have a hard drive. lol...no mater how you make it sound. A first gen 2x speed drive is slow. lol...PERIOD. If you would like to convince us that 2x speed is fast show us a link saying just that. Common sense tells us 2x speed is very slow...

[Sidherich]

A 2x Blu-Ray (72MBit/s) drive is a little slower than a 8x DVD (88.64MBit/s) drive. The Drive that is built into the PS3 can read standard DVD's at 10x speed (110.80 MBit/s). The Xbox 360 reads DVD's at 12x speed (132.96 Mbps).

So the built in drive the PS3 has is only half as fast as a Xbox 360 if it reads Blu-Ray medias ( 72MBit / 132.96MBit = 0,5415) and only two/third as fast if it is reading DVD's (88.64 MBit / 132.96MBit = 0.6667).

those speeds are of course only doable at the very outer parts of the disc. So the PS3 could theoretically pad a full DVD9 to the outer parts of a Blu-Ray disc to improve its overal read speed. I'm not sure if that would be faster than just reading a plain DVD 10x tho.

Actually i think that many developers will publish their games on a standard DVD because of a few reasons.

1. Its cheaper to manufacture

2. Loading times are lower

3. As i said above there is no reason to use that much storage

Sources: http://de.wikipedia.org/wik...

[CAPS LOCK]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/...

[The Real Deal]

Are posting links to support your false claims. You guys make up numbers and statistics and expect people to believe you. Show links to back what you say. We don't believe you. 98% this and 1% that. Links please. Not lies. Thanks.

[THELANDSOFSAND]

i have to say, majority of PS2 games get bad reviews, but the system is FLOODED with software, so more crap is going to get through.

[THELANDSOFSAND]

i think PS1 was 1 speed or 2 speed drive

ah how times change.

[The Real Deal]

The IGN Editors' Choice Award is a sign of excellence reserved for only the best products. The award signifies excellence in entertainment value, performance, design, originality, and lasting appeal. A product bearing this award has our unequivocal recommendation and is sure to become a classic in its field.

Prey

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter

Burnout Revenge

EA Sports Fight Night Round 3

Dead or Alive 4 Fighting

Condemned: Criminal Origins

Call of Duty 2

Project Gotham Racing 3

[heihoosilver]

from good intentions is the hell full.
it´s going to be nice when ps3 launchs and after 2 or 3 years people notice that ps3 and xbox360 are on par in every area.

I think they don´t give a damn to what people says
they just cut just to price isn´t even bigger than it is.
Ps3 to be more powerfull than xbox360 it has to have a nvidia dual SLI graphic card and i think it don´t have.

[SDS Overfiend]

First off i was looking for a PS2 with my boy on that launch day and it was ugly. a bunch of dudes looking for a PS2 on a weird hot october day.Only to be turn around by Toys r us and plenty of chain market Stores saying we having 5 and they are pre-ordered.
Then back in Brooklyn we make a call to a mom and pop store in chinatown that a PS2 on sale for 650$ with SSX Tricky and Jagged Egded filled Tekken-tag and they both were not up to standards. Xbox 360 Launch was much better compared to that disaster Cause i found one at Target store waiting on line for a whole night in the rain (Even though I politicked in Pathmark reading game books and other mags to burn time while someone held my spot in line.). I got a core system for 299$ then the harddrive the next day but the launch games were much better than PS2. Condemned, NFS:MW,PDZ,COD2 etc. so lets not jump the gun on launches or launch games.

@ Ronin oni- ICO,Devil may cry,Omnimusha, MGS2 Were not launch games the all came a year or 2 later.

[Sidherich]

the ps2 launch had 13 games for the japan launch and about 30 for the North American launch. If we compare the 360 launch and the ps2 launch we would have to use the ps2's japan launch. Many games that were on the NA launch were in fact second generation games.

Otherwise we could just use the Phillipines launch date for the 360 that was planned for may 8th along with all the games that were available by then.

These are the ps2 Japanese launch games:

Ridge Racer V (Racing Namco)
Eternal Ring (Adventure, From Software)
Kessen (Strategic sim, KOEI)
Popolocrois 3 ("Romantic anime," Sony)
Unison (Dance action and sim, Tecmo)
Drum Mania (Action, Konami)
Den Sen Electric Lines (Action, Sony)
A-Train (Sim, Artdink)
Street Fighter EX3 (Fighter, Capcom)
Morita Shogi (Strategy, Yuki Enterprise)
Kakinoki Shogi (Strategy, Ascii Entertainment)
Doukyu Billiards 2 (Simulation, Ask)
Stepping Selection (Dancing Arcade, Jaleco)

The North American launch had:

Orphen - Activision
Wild Wild Racing - Interplay
Unreal Tournament - Infogrames
Summoner - THQ
Ready 2 Rumble Round 2 - Midway
Silent Scope - Konami
ESPN X Games Snowboarding - Konami
ESPN International Track & Field - Konami
Ridge Racer V - Namco
Tekken Tag Tournament - Namco
SSX - EA Sports
Madden 2001 - EA Sports
Swing Away Golf - EA Sports
X-Squad - EA
Theme Park Rollercoaster - EA
Armored Core 2 - Agetec
Eternal Ring - Agetec
Evergrace - Agetec
Smuggler's Run - Rockstar Games
Midnight Club - Rockstar Games
Timesplitters - Eidos
Fantavision - Sony Computer Entertainment America
Gungriffon Blaze - Working Designs
Silpheed - Working Designs
Street Fighters EX3 - Capcom
DOA2: Hardcore - Tecmo
Dynasty Warriors 2 - Koei

Sources: http://www.gamespot.com/new...

http://www.allps2.net/ps2_f...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

[REDMOND BOYZZ]

Pawa Puru Next!; PLEASE! "PLAYSTATION" ( in the female computerish Voice)

[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 ...

[Sidherich]

A few followups on the Xenon GPU tho:

Because of that piece of eDRAM the Bandwhidth is reduced on the GPU <-> Memory bus. When Rasterizing you not only copy Pixels to VRAM you also copy of course Z-Values and your additional AA Samples. But since you not only render to the Backbuffer these but rather to Textures for fancy pixel shader effects it will really stack up if you have to copy 4 (in case of 4x AA) times as many pixels to VRAM or not.

Another thing is your Unified Shader Architecture comparison. Since Xenon supports MEMEXPORT you can just copy the product you get from a pixel or vertex shader and use it in subsequent passes.

Games use multiple render passes today.

Lets assume a scenario that renders a particle system where the particles themself need 2 render passes.

the worst you can do is to compute the particles in vertex shaders and the first pass of the pixel shader. Then render compute the particles in vertex shader again and render the second pass in the pixel shader.

a little more clever way would be to render the particles in pixel shader, rendering them to a texture and fetching this texture during vertex shader once for the first render pass and once for the second render pass.

can we do better?

compute the particles in vertex shader and export them to memory then do the first pass. for the second pass use the exported vertex data from the first pass and do the second pass.

it works pretty similar to the geometry shader introduced in DirectX 10.

Image the usability of this? Doing physics on GPU is alot easier to do that way :)

But i agree that the Cell processor is slightly more powerfull than the three symmetrical cores.

As for your controller and Blu-Ray statements.

Well for that i guess it all comes down to preferences. I dont think that Blu-Ray was put into the console so that game developers can use the higher storage capacity. Its mainly a movie playback feature. We'll see about the future of Blu-Ray.

As for the Hard Drive: Xbox 360 devs can use the harddrive too and in fact use it already. They just have to make sure that the game runs without a harddrive as well. As a dev i would much rather have a HardDrive in all 360's but microsoft has the better dev tools so that somehow balanes it out :) 2GB of the HardDrive are reserved for Xbox 360 games for caching plus 4GB for xbox emulation.

[Cyclonus]

do you honestly expect anyone to wade through that dictionary-long post? Next time, try being a LITTLE more succinct.

[pRo loGic II]

Microsoft doesn't boast or claim LOL; it either is or isn't, do or don't. Everybody knows the Xbox 360 is better where it counts and is a more powerful console. in the end 360 will out perform PS3 and have better graphics. PS3 will have grand effects so it can play movies better like FF CGI and caned gameplay fussion. We all know RSX is not really not next-gen. No one believe's you; PS3 will be downgraded even more than they're telling people it's just the way Sony is. lol Why does it matter if 360 is better if you're not playing it; be happy with you're FF?, Warhawk, tekken and MGS4, as long as you can play you're childhood games what's the problem?. That hole post is nothing more than wishful thinking by an extream Sony fanboy. PS3 will be out dated by the time it starts to pull away from the 360 if it ever does (Im sure it will like PS2 was super computer), the XboxGlobe (X3) will be out.

[The Real Deal]

You took the time to copy and paste the same thing you have posted before. Made up numbers and facts. No one believes you. Maybe you should just post a link so we can read it ourselves. You aren't the Truth. You are the exact opposite of that. And the Truth is 9 out of 10 developers believe the 360 is more powerful as a GAMING system.

[ASTAROTH]

YOU A$$HOLE.

[SDS Overfiend]

You talk to Damn much make it short and strong Rather than long and weak.

Oh yeah F.Y.I. DUH

[zinnia]

I expect the ps2 to still sell better then the ps3 in 2007. There is a huge library of used low cost ps2 games out there, instead of shelling out $600 you can buy tons of used games that are fun, time consuming, and don't empty your wallet. I own a xbox and since the 360 came out the price of used games drop drastically, it is a true golden age, I recently picked up a used copy of Forza Motorsports on amazon for $5.62! I expect a similar golden age for ps2 owners next year. Why buy a ps3 when you can get more bang for the buck on a ps2. # 43 you're an POS that's my girl.

[zinnia]

http://www.datazap.net/site...

Now that the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 specifications have been announced, it is possible to do a real world performance comparison of the two systems.

There are three critical performance aspects of a console:

Central Processing Unit (CPU) performance.
- The Xbox 360 CPU architecture has three times the general purpose processing power of the Cell.

Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) performance
- The Xbox 360 GPU design is more flexible and it has more processing power than the PS3 GPU.

Memory System Bandwidth
- The memory system bandwidth in Xbox 360 exceeds the PS3’s by five times.

The Bottom Line

When you break down the numbers, Xbox 360 has provably more performance than PS3. Keep in mind that Sony has a track record of over promising and under delivering on technical performance. The truth is that both systems pack a lot of power for high definition games and entertainment.

However, hardware performance, while important, is only a third of the puzzle. Xbox 360 is a fusion of hardware, software and services. Without the software and services to power it, even the most powerful hardware becomes inconsequential. Xbox 360 games—by leveraging cutting-edge hardware, software, and services—will outperform the PlayStation 3.

[zinnia]

Sony boast about PS3's handle on color but it has poor memory for it. lol

[The Real Deal]

See, now thats some facts for you. And thats not made up. Those are numbers Sony and Microsoft gave for their consoles. And it was an article by IGN. Not some fanboy giving his take on which is more powerful...And you know it has truth to it because developers across the board have been saying the same things. The developers for Prey said that the game is only possible on the 360 and a PC. The ps3 just doesn't have enough memory. Not disc space, not hard drive space, but Memory for game developers to tap into and access for highly detailed games like Prey. Yeah the game is a tad on the short side but its a ONLINE multiplayer shooter. Thats where the game truly shines. Its a good 10 to 15 hours to complete it straight through. But man oh man is it a fun 10 to 15 hours. And online play is endless. Think about it. A good HD dvd movie is 2 hours long for 20 dollars. A good HD game at 15 hours is still a better value than a movie. And I can compare Prey to a movie and even the reviews say it rivals a top notch movie script. I've put 60 hours into Oblivion and I still haven't done all there is to do. Thats simply amazing.

[zinnia]

I wish MS would label the focus on each game a little better, CH's is a very complex and great game and i love it but single mode is just training, i love to hear the trigger happy kids get mad because of the style of the game. lol , i do hope MS doesn't go over-board with the lack of single player games.

[zinnia]

FLOPS, GPUs, and game consoles
Very high FLOPS figures are often quoted for inexpensive computer video cards and game consoles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...
For example, the Xbox 360 has been announced as having CPU floating point performance of around one hundred GFLOPS, while the PS3 has been announced as having a theoretical 1.8 TFLOPS. By comparison, a high-end general-purpose PC would have a FLOPS rating of around ten GFLOPS, if the performance of its CPU alone was considered. The 1 TFLOPS for the Xbox 360 or 2 TFLOPS for the Playstation 3 ratings that were sometimes mentioned regarding the consoles would even appear to class them as supercomputers. These FLOPS figures should be treated with caution, as they are often the product of marketing. The game console figures are often based on total system performance (CPU + GPU). In the extreme case, the TFLOPS figure is primarily derived from the function of the single-purpose texture filtering unit of the GPU. This piece of logic is tasked with doing a weighted average of sometimes hundreds of pixels in a texture during a look-up (particularly when performing a quadrilinear anisotropically filtered fetch from a 3D texture). However, single-purpose hardware can never be included in an honest FLOPS figure. http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

[JIN KAZAMA]

Even Carmack has said the PS3 is more powerful, so quit with all your posting, and cutting and pasting articles that you dont even understand. Ps3 is more powerful people, get over it.

[COVER GIRL]

Carmack also said 360 will out perform PS3, PS3's numbers are high on paper but in real world computing the 360 is more powerful, it's you that doesn't understand, tweaking the post to make it look like you understand.

[COVER GIRL]

A system memory bandwidth on each console is a major factor to its performance.

[The Real Deal]

Lying again huh? lol... Show us the article that John Carmack says that in. He never said that. Give us the link to the article or stop posting your lies. lol.... Not again. What he did say is he believes that games will look and play better on the 360. The developers of Prey even said that ps3 isn't powerful enough to run their game. lol... Get your ps3 and be happy with it. We are more than happy and we exuberate the same confidence 90% of developers have in the 360 over the lesser ps3. Get over it. And show the link so we can see exactly what he said in CONTEXT. Liar.

[COVER GIRL]

Earth/PS3 in the center of the universe.

[The Real Deal]

Author: Matt | Published: 12 July 2006 | Community Forums

ATI Technologies today announced that Microsoft Corp. has chosen ATI's H.264 decoder for the Xbox 360 HD DVD player, bringing users sharper, more true-to-life visuals and smoother playback of high-definition content.

HD DVDs encoded using one of three approved codecs deliver up to six times the resolution of traditional DVDs all on a single disc. Built on ATI's Avivo technology, the decoder used for the Xbox 360 HD DVD player brings to bear ATI's considerable multimedia know-how to ensure gamers, home theatre buffs, and casual viewers alike get a more perfect picture from the H.264 format.

"The Xbox 360 gives consumers access to a world of high-definition games and video content through Xbox Live Marketplace. With the new Xbox 360 HD DVD player using ATI's decoder technology, we're giving consumers the choice to playback the latest in high-definition movies," said Todd Holmdahl, corporate vice president of Xbox 360 hardware development. "HD DVD brings new meaning to the term home theater. When people see the visual clarity and realism that Microsoft and ATI are delivering through the Xbox 360 this holiday, they will be blown away."

To enable the smoothest H.264 video playback possible, the ATI decoder technology makes use of the Xbox 360's graphics processing unit (GPU) to accelerate video processing. The unified shader design of the GPU enables high-end processing techniques such as comb filtering and automatic gain control to ensure that video artifacts such as blockiness or color bands don't disrupt playback.

"With the Xbox 360 HD DVD player, Microsoft and ATI are pushing the boundaries of high-definition multimedia content," said Rick Bergman, senior vice president and general manager, PC Business Unit, ATI. "The decoder technology used in the new drive provides high fidelity visuals unlike anything ever seen before. This is another example of the close cooperation between our two companies, and the commitment we both share to delivering the most immersive experience possible for audiences around the world."

For more information about ATI's decoder technology, please visit http://www.ati.com/technolo... For more information about Microsoft's new HD DVD player for the Xbox360 please visit http://www.xbox.com/hddvd.

About ATI Technologies

ATI Technologies Inc. is a world leader in the design and manufacture of innovative 3D graphics, PC platform technologies and digital media silicon solutions. An industry pioneer since 1985, ATI is the world's foremost graphics processor unit (GPU) provider and is dedicated to deliver leading-edge performance solutions for the full range of PC and Mac desktop and notebook platforms, workstation, set-top and digital television, game console and handheld device markets. With fiscal 2005 revenues of US $2.22 billion, ATI has more than 3,700 employees in the Americas, Europe and Asia. ATI common shares trade on NASDAQ (ATYT) and the Toronto Stock Exchange (ATY).

[COVER GIRL]

The world/PS3 is flat.

[The Real Deal]

Author: Matt | Published: 06 July 2006 | Community Forums

Thomson announced that leading consumer electronics, software and technology companies are implementing its Film Grain Technology. Developed by Thomson's Technology division in collaboration with its Technicolor business, Film Grain Technology was recently adopted as a Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) registered disclosure document. Consumer electronics giants Toshiba and RCA; technology innovators Broadcom, Sigma Designs, Horizon Semiconductors and NVIDIA; and software leaders Microsoft and Sonic Solutions are set to deploy Film Grain Technology, with two Toshiba HD DVD players, an RCA HD DVD player and a Broadcom IC decoder now entering the marketplace.

"As soon as we identified the impact of advanced compression on film grain, we set our minds to developing Film Grain Technology," said Jeff Cooper, head of Thomson's Princeton Corporate Research Center. "The industry's adoption of our solution is great recognition for our hard work in support of next generation entertainment."

Broadcom's BCM7411D and Horizon Semiconductor's Hz100 and Hz300 are integrated solutions that will incorporate Film Grain Technology and Sigma Designs will offer an IC solution, as well. Sonic Solutions is integrating Film Grain Technology in its HD DVD production tools. NVIDIA is building hardware-accelerated Film Grain Technology for its advanced line of Quadro Graphic Processing Units and InterVideo and CyberLink are integrating the technology into their personal computer HD DVD players. Finally, all HD DVD players will be manufactured with Film Grain Technology, notably RCA's HDV5000, Toshiba's HD-A1 and HD-XA1, and Microsoft's Xbox 360 HD DVD Player.

The first tool of its kind formally documented in cooperation with SMPTE, DVD Forum selected Film Grain Technology for mandatory inclusion in HD DVD products. The technology allows compressed motion pictures to be delivered more efficiently and improves their visual quality. It enables film grain that is extracted before content is compressed to be faithfully re-created during playback.

Film Grain Technology is a streamlined, low-cost solution that is embedded in broadcast and home theater play-out devices. Broadcasters maximize bandwidth; packaged media content creators gain disk space; and viewers see movies that match the filmmaker's intent. It is easily deployed with H.264 compression (also known as MPEG-4 Part 10/Advanced Video Coding), and can be adapted to support other compression solutions.

Film Grain Technology also has significant artistic applications beyond the delivery process. Creatives can use it in postproduction to add the look and feel of conventional film to digitally captured or rendered imagery.

[The Real Deal]

Carmack's platform of choice for console development is the Xbox 360, and he explained why.

The Xbox 360 was designed to have a very thin API layer. In Carmack's words, he can "basically talk directly to the hardware ... doing exactly what I want."

Here Carmack heaped praise on the decisions that Microsoft has made with the Xbox 360. "It's the best development environment I've seen on a console," he says. Microsoft has taken a very developer-centric approach, creating a system that's both powerful but easy to code for. This is in contrast to Nintendo, Sony, and (formerly) Sega, who generally focused on the hardware.

Carmack points out that there could be diminishing returns with the next generation of consoles, thanks to the architecture of the hardware. Although the PS3's Cell processor is powerful, it's still a single-thread processor (unlike high-end PC processors). There's not much more technology can do to crank more speed out of a single-threaded processor. To make up for this deficiency, multiple processors are used: multithreading and parallelism is the way to go. But this isn't easy to do in games! "The returns will initially be disappointing," he explains.

It will take a long time before game developers will figure out how to get the most out of parallel processors, and in the meantime, it's going to make high-end game development more difficult -- "Not a good thing," Carmack says. There's no easy solution to this problem, no special compiler that'll take away the grunt work. "There's no silver bullet for parallel programming."

Sony's position seems to be similar to the company's stance with the PS2: Sure, it'll be hard, but the really good developers will suck it up and figure it out. But Carmack wonders aloud: wouldn't it have been better to use multi-threaded processors to begin with?

[JIN KAZAMA]

Unline you, who posts articles that are totally biased with ATI and 360, I post unbiased articles. Now, for example, you had posted an article which claimed the 360 GPU was better than the PS3 GPU. First, it was a article in JUNE 2005, then on top of that, the guy they were interviewing was the Eurpeon Manager of ATI. HOw lame is the realdeal, ofcourse he is going to say its better. Thats like Bill Gates saying 360 is better than Ps3, ofcourse he is going to say that.
Once again, i have to prove you wrong about something else. Now you are calling me a liar about John Carmack saying the PS3 is more powerfull, well i am not lying kid.

Read it.
http://www.gamepro.com/news...

[The Real Deal]

The link you provided is from the ps3 section of Gamepro..lol...they took quotes out of context. lol....I gave quotes from Carmack straight from the original interview. lol..... Nice Try. Your trickery and lies don't work on Grown ups...lol...

http://www.gamespy.com/arti...

[The Real Deal]

So says John Carmack, the legendary programmer of the Doom and Quake series, in an intriguing interview with Buzzscope. Though Carmack expresses a "preference" for the Xbox 360's CPU design, he admits that the PS3 "will have a bit more peak power."

Sony fans shouldn't break out the champagne just yet, however, as Carmack notes that "it will be easier to exploit the available power on the 360."

Thats what Sony was shooting for. Peak Power. Not developement power. Not substained power. "slightly more Peak on Paper Power". lol...Thats all they could muster up to convince fanboys that they will be getting a more powerful system. But Carmack and many other developers have stated they can get more performance from the developer friendly and Powerful 360. Don't be mad. get your ps3 and Deal with it.

[JIN KAZAMA]

I gave you the link which quoted Carmack as saying it is more powerful, and you are lying to cover your ass. You are a complete moron. Gamepro is an unbiased magazine, the article was in the you bafoon. Then you turn around and post the same quote about Carmack saying PS3 is more powerful. You are a waste of time

[The Real Deal]

I used your quote against you. lol... And Gamepro Ps3 is reporting news for the ps3. The link I gave is the full article. The Gamepro ps3 quotes were taken out of context. Once people read what John Carmack says as a whole they can see what you tried to do. lol... You can't fool grown folks. And your name calling is sad. John Carmack never once said in his full interview what you stated. He never said the ps3 is more powerful. You take a out of context quote and turn it into somthing he didn't say. Most intelligent people read the FULL article and see that he clearly believes games WILL look and PLAY better on the 360. Deal with it. He isn't the only dev to say that. lol....

[The Real Deal]

Standard DVD & CD Performance: As I’ve mentioned earlier in this article, the Samsung is not my choice for being my upconverting DVD player of choice. I’d rather use my older Pioneer Elite unit to handle the DVD tasks than the Samsung. The Toshiba is, however, a great upconverting DVD player. The image is very clear and detail approaches HD quality. I did some A-B comparisons between my Pioneer and the two players with “Jarhead” and “Alf: Season Two.” You could see many more details on “Jarhead” on the Toshiba. It was quite impressive how it handled the standard DVD presentation. The Samsung was slightly better than the Pioneer, but much of the film the picture was about identical. The old Alfer really showed how far superior the Toshiba is. The colors and details were remarkably better than what the Pioneer or Samsung could handle. Additionally, the Toshiba player pillar boxes the 4:3 image. Nice. I hate having to always change my display settings on the television when using the Pioneer and the Toshiba does it for me. At $499, even if HD-DVD fails, the Toshiba is perhaps the finest DVD player I have seen yet.

Next-Generation Performance: Here it is, the part where we can talk about how Blu-Ray and HD-DVD compare where it counts – High Definition. Sadly, this comparison is not entirely accurate for a few reasons. First and foremost, Blu-Ray is currently saddled with space limitations on the media. They are having a difficult time mass producing dual-layered media and are not expected to deliver dual-layered films until after the holiday season. Because of this, the Blu-Ray titles are being presented in near ancient MPEG-2 conversion. I hope this is the cause of my player’s hiccups and they will go away through time. I have a five year warranty, just in case. The HD-DVD films utilize Microsoft’s VC-1 compression. The films are being released in Dual-Layer. Here is the sentence you are waiting for: At the current time, HD-DVD offers a superior picture to Blu-Ray.

[JIN KAZAMA]

You just keep talkin about the same thing over and over about the System memory, its like you have that to hang onto, and you think that will make you look smart. so what you say is a non issue. Quit talking about the memory, when you have no idea. You jsut heard it once and thats all you birng up.

[The Real Deal]

She only says it over and over because thats a major area for developers. Thats why Prey won't be coming to the ps3. Not enough system memory. I know you want to ignore that. But its a big gripe developers have. Ps3 has one real processor and very little system memory. Everything is based off of the cell streaming info with its dsp's. And developers have been on record saying thats good for hd movies or cg but not games. It bottle necks the system memory. Its just the way it is. All that PEAK power and developers can't substain it and utilize it due to the dismal system memory. Sony, you messed up trying to make it look powerful on paper. Remember, Games sell systems. And developers make games. lol....You would think Sony would know this. But whith there choices you can tell they don't. They think its all about them and their blu ray format. Thats all they really want. They want blu ray to be a standard and they are using the ps3 as a first entry in this experiemental field. Sad indeed. If I was a Sony only fan I would be mad too. I feel you Jin. lol...

[JIN KAZAMA]

You're just a kid that cannot afford the PS3, i got you man. You lie in your artcles, you post artilces that are from the company which makes the product, how dumb is that. But its okay, you're just a kid, you dont know any better. Why even bother. If you were so happy with your 360, you wouldnt be on here every second looking at PS3 news. HAHA, i get it now, you're just broke and cant afford the ps3, and you dont want anyone else to have it. Its all good. Say whatyou want kid. PS3 will dominate. Thank you.

[The Real Deal]

Your attempt to call me names, to say I'm broke, ect... Just shows you can't deal with the truth. Its ok.

[email protected]

Kobebryantlaker on xbox live

http://www.myspace.com/jlon...

I'm touchable...I'm real...I don't hide behind a computer and tell lies. And then call people names and say they are a kid because they don't agree with Sony's way. Ask for a link for anything I have stated and I will provide it with not excuses or problem. I have over 40 links in a folder on my computer thats backs EVERYTHING i say. And one thing you will never hear me say is ps3 sucks. I have never done that yet and I will never do that. You can lie and say all my links are from the people who make the product. Thats not true. Sure a couple are. But Most are from Nuetral sites. I'm not trying to convince you. You are blind and you will have to learn like the rest of us X sony fanboys. See you have to understand. Most gamers at one point in their lives tried the ps1 or ps2. And they let us down. We now are happy with the choice we have made and we are happy that Microsoft did everything right with the 360. How do I know this. All the Great games I play on it and all the awards it has already recieved and all the devs that rave over the hardware software mesh. So Deal with it.

P.S. I never lie. I always make statements taken from Devs or articles themselves. Very rarely is anything I state directly from me. As it shouldn't be. I'm not a dev or a programmer. I'm just a gamer. Thats it. I love games. I don't love sony like you. I don't love Microsoft. I don't love Nintendo. I love Games. And I look foward to good games regardless of the platform. Don't be mad because many of us are happy with the 360. There is room for competition right? So if you choose to get one platform. Good for you. If you choose to talk bad about games you haven't played. Good for you. I will never ever ever do that. Its not cool.

[ironwolf]

All the subtle social dynamics of a nursery school recess.

[THELANDSOFSAND]

hmmm. so the PS3 is so damn powerful eh?

from ign.com:

"EA brought its gorgeous new racer by the IGN office Wednesday, and it took no time for PS3 editor Chris Roper to write up a massive three-page preview on Need for Speed Carbon. I gave the 360 version a go and was impressed with the three different car classes: muscle, exotic and "tuner" cars, which are pimped-out Civics, as Roper puts it. We saw a quick tease of the PS3 version and came away with one quick conclusion: NFSC does not look very hot on the PS3 right now. Still, there's plenty of time before this baby ships and we expect it to be on par with the 360 version."

[The Real Deal]

I read that same article. They said the same thing about the Madden comparisson. The 360 version looked much better than the ps3 version to date. See, now everyone is assuming that the ps3 version will be on par with the 360 version. But me, I wouldn't be surprised if its not. Why? Because of what the devs have been saying across the board.

[The Real Deal]

I would love to hear your reasons why you "think" Ps3 will dominate. Humor us.

Is it.....

A. Because it has blu ray and everyone wants a blu ray player.

B. Because it is the most powerful system in the world?

C. Because its sooooo affordable for the Majority of gamers?

D. Because Sony makes it and they sold 100 million plus in the previous gen at 130 to 199 ?

See what you have to realize is you are you. You don't represent the average gamer. Stop thinking everyone is like you. Not everyone blindly believes in Sony. Not everyone has 600 dollars to spend on a video game system. Not everyone was happy with their ps2. 100 million ps2 so called owners but less than 2 million copies of Gods of War have been sold. so less than 2 out of 100 ps2 owners bought Gods of War. Whats that about? With such a huge user base. I have to admit as a GAMER that Gods of War is by far the best game for the ps2. Thats strange. Could it be that many ps2's are broken? Could it be that many ps2 owners don't like the ps2 therefore they don't buy the big must have titles? What could it be? I have to admitt. I don't know or understand it. You being such a Sony Die hard maybe you can help me understand it. You have a ps2...God of War is a great game. Yet it sells the same amount as xbox minor hits like Fable, Forza, ect. And the xbox only has a 24 million user base. A system seller is like the GTA series on the ps2. 40 plus million games sold with all 3 games. Or Halo 2 with 8 million games sold. So one out of every 3 xbox owners bought it. Those two titles did what they are suppose. Sure Grand Tourismo 3 did what it should with a 100 million user base. but whats up with any other ps2 game? Calling all sony fans. Please help me to understand why the 100 million plus ps2 owners don't buy games. Is that going to affect people purchase of the ps3. I mean damn if you ain't buying games for the ps2. Are you going to buy an expensive system and expensive games? Microsoft is lucky. The people that buy their system aren't shy about buying games. 4.5 games sold per console is a record for consoles.

[The Real Deal]

While we previewed Tiger 07 from Chicago earlier this week, we finally got our hands-on one hole of Tiger on a PlayStation 3 development-kit, which is the size of a large briefcase and sounds like a giant bee-hive. Tiger PS3 is noticeably behind the 360 version,

[Perfect Sin]

Hey guys, my name is Greg Bergen. I'm a Gaming Journalist for the site www.PS3Land.com . I wrote this article and might I say I greatly appreciate the feedback from your 193 comments... O_o

Anyways, too clear a couple things up... I'm really not biased towards the PS3. I'll admit i've owned a PS, PS2 and plan on owning a PS3. But I also own a Xbox, Gamecube, and plan on getting a 360 and Wii later in my life. I wrote this article to express a viewpoint that some people haven't considered. Whether this viewpoint is what Sony really expresses is up for you guys to determine. I made this article argumentative and from all the comments, I've succeeded in that aspect.

Anyways, if you guys want to e-mail me, my e-mail is [email protected] or you can visit me on PS3Forums.com My username is Perfect Sin

P.S. If anyone is decent at Halo: CE (PC) feel free to challenge me online. My SN is Perfect Sin.

[JIN KAZAMA]

Unfortunatley, the comments really werent really about the article. Its always about which console is better. I prefer the PS3, like millions of others, and its going to be the market leader once agian.

[The Real Deal]

Good to see there are other True gamers out there who can report on Sony for a Sony site and still enjoy other consoles and games. Thats awesome. A gamer is a gamer. They love games and they play the best that different consoles have to offer. That can be repsected unlike some sony fanboys who only play sony and have no idea what being a gamer is all about. They bash anything not sony without ever playing it. Like I have been saying. Not only is an editor from ps3land buying a 360 but editors of other ps3 sites recommend getting one if you can. Otherwise you miss out on a whole generation of exclusive 360 top notch games. Be a gamer. Enjoy games. Good job on the article by the way.

[nergal]

It is not in gamers interest for there to be a absolute winner in the next gen console war. Simply because as consumer we will suffer. The winner will no longer has competitor constantly lighting fire under its ass and as such complacency will set in.The quality/creativity of game will go down while the prize will likely go up. We seen before anytime a company is without competitors. APPLE,MICROSOFT,WWF/WWE.What it usually result in is lost of consumer interest and a decline inthe industry. Personally i have always bought PS console without a second thoght for the others but for the first time i am looking forward for the wii. Why?(sorry)Because the originality of the machine and the creativity in the game. Sony thinks that the only things we care about is graphic but as a gamer it is gameplay that is far important to me. I been playing GOD OF WAR and SHADOW OF COLOSSUS recently and there is nothing wrong with the graphic. A s for BLURAY it will be years before it is affordable in this part of the world

[kingboy]

i`m not the one everyday on ps3 news looking for fun..that`s how desperate u are..who ?i mean u!bored of ur console already? give it to me ..

[Aflac]

who cares if Carmack says the ps3 is more powerful? All he did was look at the totals of numbers, not how the system WORKS with those numbers, the ign article and the ATI article were valid technical analysis based on how the systems actually work. It's almost as if it were a court case in which MS and ATI bought in the proof that won the case, eliminating any reasonable doubt that the 360 is more powerful.

If these tech analyisis were actually false, sony would have said something specifially against it just as they did against those downgrade rumors. Sony knows that the ps3 doesn't have to be the most powerful system of its generation to appeal to customers.

Not a single ps3 fan has posted a link to any tech analyis that finds the ps3 superior based on how the systems work, nor have any ps3 fans posted proof to any link that we use to be proven false.

[Aflac]

who cares if Carmack says the ps3 is more powerful? All he did was look at the totals of numbers, not how the system WORKS with those numbers, the ign article and the ATI article were valid technical analysis based on how the systems actually work. It's almost as if it were a court case in which MS and ATI bought in the proof that won the case, eliminating any reasonable doubt that the 360 is more powerful.

If these tech analyisis were actually false, sony would have said something specifially against it just as they did against those downgrade rumors. Sony knows that the ps3 doesn't have to be the most powerful system of its generation to appeal to customers.

Not a single ps3 fan has posted a link to any tech analyis that finds the ps3 superior based on how the systems work, nor have any ps3 fans posted proof to any link that we use to be proven false.

[The Real Deal]

You hit the nail on the head. ATI is the leading graphics card maker in the World today. They haven't lied before and they were just speaking technical about their product compared to Sony's. Same with Microsoft. I would love to read some articles from anyone is Sony's camp expressing how the ps3 will out perform the 360. You won't see that. What ATI and Microsoft have been saying is backed by 3rd party developers. The only thing Sony can say is the ps3 has more peak power. Thats it. Peak power according to Developers means nothing in terms of Games. ATI, Microsoft, 3rd party developers have all said you can get better graphics out of the 360 than the ps3. The best thing sony can come up with is "Give us 3 to 4 years to get the performance that we expect out of the ps3." Thats it? So my suggestion is in the meanwhile play next gen now with the 360. Then 4 to 5 years into the 360's life cycle "if" you believe sony, buy the ps3 when the price has dropped and games start to utilize the hidden power of the ps3. Just be ready for the xbox 720 to be launching about that same time as Tech changes rapidly in the gaming industry. Sony looks ONLY to make money. Microsoft gives Gamers what they want. Great Games.

[ASTAROTH]

Microsoft is not interested in my money. It is interested in that I play good games, because microsoft games are the best of all time. I heve an Xbox with more than 40 games and you know what A$$hole, Microsoft didnt gave them for free. I have to pay for all of them. So MICROSOFT IS NOT INTERESTED IN MY MONEY YAEH AJA!!!!

[Aflac]

who cares if Carmack says the ps3 is more powerful? All he did was look at the totals of numbers, not how the system WORKS with those numbers, the ign article and the ATI article were valid technical analysis based on how the systems actually work. It's almost as if it were a court case in which MS and ATI bought in the proof that won the case, eliminating any reasonable doubt that the 360 is more powerful.

If these tech analyisis were actually false, sony would have said something specifially against it just as they did against those downgrade rumors. Sony knows that the ps3 doesn't have to be the most powerful system of its generation to appeal to customers.

Not a single ps3 fan has posted a link to any tech analyis that finds the ps3 superior based on how the systems work, nor have any ps3 fans posted proof to any link that we use to be proven false.

[The Real Deal]

Do you think game consoles and games are becoming more expensive with each generation? Clearly the development costs are skyrocketing. How does Microsoft plan to combat this and grow the market?

We alleviate this by providing excellent software and development tools, comprehensive online services, and a great piece of hardware that is relatively easy to understand and use. Our development tools in particular allow developers to make games faster and focus more time on making the game, not wrestling with the hardware and software. XNA Studio will help contain the costs of content production by streamlining content builds and making artists and teams more productive. Xbox Live Arcade opens up a market for smaller games, which require smaller investments and are intended for a broader audience.

[The Real Deal]

What do you think of the PS3's Cell architecture? How much harder is it for developers to write asymmetric multiprocessing code that will run on the PPE and the SPE's? How difficult will it be to port code that is tuned for the Cell over to the 360 while maintaining good performance? Do you think Sony made the architecture complex deliberately to make porting that way harder, or were they just trying to get maximum performance out of their system?

I don't think the Cell is as well designed for game development as Sony would have you believe. Some aspects of the SPEs, such as the lack of branch prediction, make them particularly unsuited to running most game code, which contains a lot of branches. They appear to be designed more for serialized streaming math code, more common in video codecs and audio processing, the traditional domain of digital signal processing chips. The memory architecture of the SPEs, specifically their lack of automatic cache coherency in favor of DMA transactions, seems like a lot of overhead is needed to feed work units to the SPEs and copy the results back to system memory.

The PPE appears to be essentially identical to one of the Xbox 360 cores, except without the VMX128 enhancements and with half the cache. However, a much greater assortment of work has to be crammed into this single core—all of the game loop, all of the rendering commands, and the system allegedly takes over some time as well. Only the second and third cores on Xbox 360 use a small timeslice to provide cool stuff like the Guide, music playback, Dolby Digital encoding, and more things that we can add in the future to all games, past and present.

I think porting from Xbox 360 to PS3 will be reasonably difficult, since the Xbox 360 has a lot more general purpose processing power that can be flexibly reallocated, and all of the Xbox 360 CPU cores have equal access to all memory. The asymmetric nature of the Cell could easily lead to situations where the game has too little of one type of processing power and too much of another. And the content might suffer as well, since you'll never see a PS3 title with more than 256MB of textures at any given time, due to the split graphics and system memory banks. When we announced 512MB of unified memory on Xbox 360, I think all of our game developers (and the artists too) did a little happy dance. It's easier to use and gives developers much more flexibility in how they allocate memory for various resources.

In terms of performance, I think that the PS3 and the Xbox 360 will essentially be a wash. We ran the numbers a while back and the two systems come up surprisingly close in theoretical peak performance, despite the one year difference in release dates. However, I know for a fact that we have a great advantage in software and services—our development environment and tools are years ahead of the competition, and this will ensure that Xbox 360 game developers can easily realize all of this performance and make superior games. Xbox 360 is a great system to develop on, a real pleasure—and I believe our developers agree.

[The Real Deal]

Ge-Maga, a long running Japanese gaming magazine, polled a large number of game developers on their opinions of the recent PS3 developments. The results are in, and it looks seemingly grim for Sony.

90.29 percent of the developers feel the PS3 is too expensive.
56.31 percent disagree with Sony's choice of releasing two versions of the console.
55.82 percent feel that the PS3 will not sell with the current lineup of launch titles.
32.52 percent say they are not confident in the PS3 as a console.
62.13 percent feel the system will not reach its 6 million sales goal by March of next year.
3.39 percent said they were relieved by Sony's announcements at E3 06.

Other responses carried minimal results. "Unsure" responses never reached beyond 5 percent. Given these results, one would think that the vast majority of Japanese developers are now considering the Wii as the best alternative to the PS3, for both consumers and developers, as the 360 has gained almost no ground at all in the Japanese market.

Sony seems to be relying on the PS3's low Blu-ray pricepoint. For reference, most Blu-ray players cost $1000, while the PS3 is only $500 or $600. This might make the PS3 more appealing, but the majority of consumers currently have no interest or knowledge in a Blu-ray player.

If consumers think anything like developers, then Sony may be facing an uphill battle in the future.

[The Real Deal]

FiringSquad: What features does Xbox 360 have that really set it apart from what we know so far about RSX and PS3?

ATI: Well, it has a lot. I’ll go through the main features. It has a great anti-aliasing story, it has a powerful shading story, in that we can, well performance but also it has a rich instruction set, giving you great image quality and its flexibility.

It has lots of headroom. This is something that developers will find is easy to program for and rich enough to last for years. It has the performance and feature set to last for years.

[The Real Deal]

We’d like to thank Bob Feldstein for taking the time out to answer our questions about Xbox 360’s graphics. As you can see, ATI’s gone well beyond what we see today in RADEON X850 XT. While Bob didn’t want to project how much more powerful the Xbox 360 VPU is over X850, clearly the chip sports many features that we won’t find in anything on the PC.

[The Real Deal]

With regard to the console's architecture, Huddy says, "It's way better than I would have expected at this point in the history of 3D graphics." He sees the unified pipeline, rather than segregated pixel and vertex engines, giving the 360 a huge advantage over the Ps3 in accessible processing power.

[The Real Deal]

So how about this one: can those E3 PS3 demos be achieved on Xbox 360?

I think it's more likely that they can be realised on an Xbox 360 than they can be on a PS3. Those things are movies generated using whatever DCC software the houses had in mind. The Epic demo was running on a PC, and it was done using an early 7800 in SLI mode, so that was a high-end PC demo, but the movies were generated as movies and dressed up as: 'This is what you can expect from a PS3', but that's probably overstating what the PS3 can do a little bit. Indeed, it's well beyond what we expect the PS3 to be able to do. So I guess we'll just have to see what happens..."

[SDS Overfiend]

Nowadays everything in this world is user-friendly,Remote controls,Video games,PC,s, Xbox 360, Etc. Now Why would PS3 do something like that? Make hard to develop for hardware knowing that it cost more man-hours and a bigger production staff to handle. basically im a gamer but i don't like being lied to by anybody for my money. i feel The MS delievered and Sony BS'ED me.Until Sony stop trying to strongarm the Video game industry like they do everything else im buying American (It is true America eats it own.).

[The Real Deal]

Why would John Carmack, programming superstar of id Software fame, prefer developing on the Xbox 360?

Sony would have us believe that the PS3 is the best electronic device ever invented, certainly superior to the foul X360 and puny Wii, but they do have a bit of a vested interest in the matter. More important to us as gamers is the opinion of game developers, for they are the ones who must enter the arena and wrestle with the beast before emerging triumphant with the games we will come to know and love. Ars Technica recently featured an interview with Matt Lee, a developer in the Xbox division over at Microsoft. Squeezed in between paragraph after paragraph of gushing praise over the Xbox can be found his opinions on the PS3; in short, he’s unimpressed.

Lee concedes that the two systems are pretty equally matched in terms of total processing power, but goes on to say that the design of the Cell processor at the heart of the PS3 is more suited for processing audio/video streams than for game code. This statement is actually corroborated by Sir Howard String himself, Chairman and CEO of Sony Corporation; in a speech given in early January of this year, he emphasized that the Cell processor is designed to support broadband consumer applications and HD video streams.

I don’t see mention of gaming anywhere in there, do you? All of this lends weight to the idea that Sony is focusing on the PS3 as an entertainment centre, not just a gaming console. Lee goes on to claim that not all of the PS3’s overall processing power and memory will be available to games, due to the way resources are allocated. The PS3’s memory banks are split between graphics and system, unlike the Xbox 360's unified memory architecture. Again, good for watching movies, but not necessarily for playing games.

[The Real Deal]

The X360’s real advantage, according to Lee, is the ease of development on the platform. Microsoft has had plenty of time to improve the development environment and tools, which makes things a lot easier for X360 developers, and which Lee believes will result in superior games. Happy developers = better developers isn’t the kind of math I can disagree with. John Carmack, superstar developer of id Software/Doom fame, agrees.

[The Real Deal]

In an interview with G4 TV last month, Carmack revealed that the PS3 not as optimal of a development platform as the X360. He went so far as to claim that development will be twice as difficult as it should be when optimizing code for the PS3. This is a pretty grim picture, indeed. No need to despair quite yet, though; Carmack believes that plenty of people will still develop for the PS3 simply because they have no choice, due to the sheer market power and weight Sony currently enjoys. Sony themselves have proclaimed that they are riding on the goodwill and success of the PS2, which makes them sound a bit arrogant.

[Karibu]

stop spamming, no one isn't interested in you BS.

[MISSY E]

Microsoft created PS3: XB-Live like service, Hard-drive, two SKU's, guide features, Motion sensing with standard gaming, HD games. Basiclly every thing that makes the PS3 next-gen besides Blu-ray and the cell (which the cell isn't really next-gen)was MS's creation. lol

[MISSY E]

All you Sony fanboy's have been doing sence the anouncment of PS3 is spam, everything that comes out of you're mouths is spam. We will stop spaming as soon as you guy's stop spaming. PS fans are not interested because you guy's believe Sony's BULLSHIT!!!... watch PS3 will under-perform just like the PS2, I'll bet my house on it. lol

[Karibu]

lol for your self.
stop spamming and quit with your bs.

xbox360 is good, but... it's no where near PS3.
live(lol) with it.

[Cyclonus]

They say the outcome of a war is not determined on the battlefield, but rather in the strategy rooms long before the first shot is fired. And so it is with the great "format war" between the new high definition video disc rivals HD-DVD and Blu-ray. From our vantage point, it appears that HD-DVD has already won. It only remains for the various battlefield moves to be played out before it becomes obvious. The real question now is not whether Blu-ray will win, but whether it can survive to capture a reasonable share of the home theater market.

HD-DVD is currently well-positioned to take the lion's share of the market for one very simple reason: HD-DVD offers a much better value proposition to the consumer. That value proposition comes in the form of three formidable advantages: (1) At this writing, HD-DVD image quality is clearly superior to Blu-ray, (2) HD-DVD player prices are half those of Blu-ray, and (3) HD-DVD has twice as many movie titles on the market as Blu-ray, and that ratio will hold through the end of this critical launch year. In short, HD-DVD is aggressively delivering what the consumer wants today. Meanwhile, Blu-ray is far behind the power curve with overpriced and underperforming products. If it does not turn itself around its survival as a vehicle for home theater movies is questionable.

Image Quality

We have spent the last two weeks with Blu-ray and HD-DVD, doing various side by side comparisons with two identically calibrated Optoma HD7100 projectors. How do the formats compare to each other, and how much of a leap forward from standard DVD do they represent? Based on the discs that have been brought to market so far, HD-DVD wins in a runaway.

We started by viewing the film U-571 in both standard DVD and its new HD-DVD version side by side. The DVD was played on the Oppo 971 DVD player, and the HD-DVD disc was played on the Toshiba HD-A1. Both players were set to feed the signals at 1080i via DVI.

[Cyclonus]

The result: a night and day difference. The HD-DVD image was much higher in contrast and showed beautiful detail in high resolution that was completely lost in the DVD. It was smoother, cleaner, and much more three-dimensional. The standard DVD looked surprisingly dull and grainy in comparison. This was true despite the fact that the U-571 DVD is actually a much better than average video transfer.

This dramatic improvement in image quality was apparent across all HD-DVDs we have seen thus far. From the outset we were happily surprised by the substantial improvement in image quality being delivered by the $500 Toshiba HD-DVD player. And after investing $1000 for the Samsung BD-P1000, we were expecting to see at least comparable results. After all, the player is twice the money, and the discs are encoded in the same 1080p resolution format. How different could it be?

Quite different, as it turns out. The Blu-ray launch delivered a rude surprise—picture quality that is moderately better than that available on standard DVD, but not rising to the level of anything one could call high definition. We viewed The Fifth Element, Terminator, and The House of Flying Daggers side by side in their DVD and Blu-ray versions, deriving the same results from each test: the Blu-ray discs showed somewhat better contrast and detail over their DVD counterparts. But the difference was not nearly as dramatic as the comparisons between DVD and HD-DVD. Moreover, none of the Blu-ray discs matched the higher quality of the HD-DVDs.

Rumors are circulating that the problem with Blu-ray is due to an alleged defect in the HDMI output of the Samsung player. Some have said that one needs only to switch from HDMI to component video output to solve the problem. There is a bit of truth to this. We do see marginally better images from the Samsung player on most discs when using component video. But the improvement is not dramatic. The resulting image still looks only incrementally better than DVD. So while the use of component video yields a somewhat better picture, it does not transform Blu-ray into a great deal for the money. Furthermore, it should be noted that the Blu-ray demo disc being used by many retailers at the moment plays just fine over the Samsung BD-P1000's HDMI interface. There is not the slightest hint of a defect in the player with this particular disc. So we are more inclined to suspect that this oddity is related to Blu-ray disc quality, and will reserve judgment until more is known.

[Cyclonus]

Part of the reason for Blu-ray's present lackluster image quality may be attributed to a strange confluence of unfortunate events. First, they have not yet been able to successfully mass-produce dual-layer Blu-ray discs. That means the storage capacity on the first releases is limited to 25 GB rather than the 50 GB available with the dual-layer structure. Second, someone decided to use MPEG-2 on these initial releases. It appears that 25 GB is not sufficient storage space for high quality video at 1080p/24 resolution when compressed via MPEG-2. Somewhere along the line vital video information is not making it onto the Blu-ray discs, and it is visible on the screen.

The solution to this problem would be to either switch to a more efficient codec like MPEG-4 or VC-1, or solve the problem related to manufacturing the dual-layer discs. We have no idea how long it will take before either of these solutions find their way to market. But once either one of them shows up, we have little doubt that Blu-ray image quality will rise to the level of HD-DVD. However, there is no reason to imagine Blu-ray quality would ever exceed that of HD-DVD.

At this point we should address what can only be characterized as a hoax—the notion that Blu-ray must be technically superior to HD-DVD because the Samsung player outputs 1080p, whereas the Toshiba player is "only 1080i." One high-end home theater retailer told me last weekend that the reason you pay $1000 for the Blu-ray player is for the "higher resolution 1080p output." This is absolute baloney. If you encounter any retail sales rep feeding you this line, keep your wallet in your pocket and leave the store.

[Cyclonus]

The truth is this: The Toshiba HD-DVD player outputs 1080i, and the Samsung Blu-ray player outputs both 1080i and 1080p. What they fail to mention is that it makes absolutely no difference which transmission format you use—feeding 1080i or 1080p into your projector or HDTV will give you the exact same picture. Why? Both disc formats encode film material in progressive scan 1080p at 24 frames per second. It does not matter whether you output this data in 1080i or 1080p since all 1080 lines of information on the disc are fed into your video display either way. The only difference is the order in which they are transmitted. If they are fed in progressive order (1080p), the video display will process them in that order. If they are fed in interlaced format (1080i), the video display simply reassembles them into their original progressive scan order. Either way all 1080 lines per frame that are on the disc make it into the projector or TV. The fact is, if you happen to have the Samsung Blu-ray player and a video display that takes both 1080i and 1080p, you can switch the player back and forth between 1080i and 1080p output and see absolutely no difference in the picture. So this notion that the Blu-ray player is worth more money due to 1080p output is nonsense.

(As a side note, 1080p could offer a subtle improvement in motion smoothness if (a) the player was able to output at 24 frames per second, and (b) you happened to have a video display that could take 1080p/24, which is a rarity these days. In the future it is probable that both HD-DVD and Blu-ray players will output 1080p/24. But neither one does it today, so it is not relevant to the present competition between the formats.)

So why all the confusion? If live video is originally captured with an HD video camera in 1080p, that is a much higher resolution than capturing in 1080i. The reason is that when an HD camera captures in 1080i, it is scanning 540 odd lines at one moment in time, and the 540 even lines at a subsequent moment in time. So in motion sequences, vertical resolution drops to 540 lines rather than 1080. Furthermore, interlaced capture produces motion offsets in the reassembled frame, resulting in the interlacing artifacts that people don't like. That does not occur with either HD-DVD or Blu-ray 1080p film-sourced material since it is all progressively scanned from film frames that represent single moments in time. So this material can be transmitted from the player to the display via 1080i without introducing interlacing artifacts.

[Cyclonus]

The Price Factor

Currently we have the bizarre phenomenon of the $500 Toshiba HD-A1 HD-DVD player delivering a markedly better picture than the $1000 Samsung BD-P1000 Blu-ray player. As noted previously, this is due primarily to the inadequacies of the Blu-ray discs, and not the relative merits of the two players. Once the Blu-ray consortium is able to issue discs encoded with VC-1 or MPEG-4, the image quality should begin to rival that of HD-DVD. But that is the best one can expect. Since both formats will (a) encode film in 1080p/24, (b) eventually use VC-1 and MPEG-4 as preferred video codecs, and (c) output via HDMI, there is no material difference in the technologies that would cause one to produce a better quality image than the other. In point of fact, image quality variances between titles will be dependent on the quality and condition of the original film source and its restoration rather than any inherent differences in the HD-DVD or Blu-ray processes.

Retailers who are currently promoting Blu-ray over HD-DVD point to two "advantages" of the Samsung player over the Toshiba player. The first, already discussed, is that the Samsung BD-P1000 outputs 1080p whereas the Toshiba HD-A1 does not. For reasons just discussed, this feature is not worth an incremental $5, much less $500. Now, if either player could output 1080p/24, that would be a small advantage worth mentioning. But neither one will do that, and 99% of the HD video display systems on the market wouldn't recognize that signal even if they did.

The second purported advantage of the Samsung player is that it loads faster, and indeed it does. Everyone has complained about the slow load times on the Toshiba HD-A1. However, let's put this into perspective since the Samsung is not as fast as a conventional DVD player either. Starting from power off, without a disc in the drive, the Samsung player takes 25 seconds to boot up and open the drawer. The Toshiba player takes 39 seconds to do the same thing. So the Toshiba player requires you to wait an additional 14 seconds in this part of the start up cycle.

Once you drop a disc into the tray and press the close button, the Samsung player take 32 seconds to recognize the disc and commence delivery of the image to the screen. The Toshiba player takes 60 seconds to do this. So the incremental wait time to load and play is 28 seconds. The bottom line is that it takes an additional 42 seconds to power up the Toshiba HD-A1 and get a movie playing compared to the Samsung BD-P1000. True, that can seem like an eternity for consumers used to the instant response of a DVD player. But in the grand scheme of things, we don't see this as a big factor in deciding between the formats, especially when there are differences in image quality to worry about.

[Cyclonus]

Film Studio Support

The most unsavory aspect of this entire format war is that some of the major film studios have elected to take sides. This, more than any technical issue, is causing many consumers to sit on the sidelines and wait for some clarity. Quite understandably, nobody wants to invest in the next Betamax fiasco. It seems that Sony would have learned a lesson with Betamax, in that attempting to dictate an industry standard sometimes doesn't work out so well. But here we are again, with Sony now holding the substantial film libraries of Sony Pictures and MGM as hammers over the consumer: "Buy the expensive Blu-ray players, or you won't see our films in HD." Other studios, notably Disney, Fox, and Lion's Gate have joined with them and, as of this writing, indicated that they will release their films only in the Blu-ray format (although Disney has recently indicated that it is considering support of HD-DVD).

There is one little problem—all the money these studios want is currently in the consumers' wallets. And consumers do not react kindly to threatening "buy this or else" marketing propositions. The success of the HD-DVD format is clearly in the interest of the consumer. Not only does it represent a much better value today in both performance and price, but if Sony's Blu-ray is to survive at all, the influence of HD-DVD in the marketplace will drive down the prices of Blu-ray through natural market competition. Either way, the consumer wins with a healthy HD-DVD presence in the market.

Thankfully, a number of major studios have taken a pro-consumer position in this battle. Universal Studios has established a solid commitment to HD-DVD and refuses to lend any support to Blu-ray. Others like Paramount/Dreamworks, Warner Bros, New Line Cinema and HBO have taken the position that the customer ought to be able to acquire their films in whatever format they choose—they will release their titles in both HD-DVD and Blu-ray editions. The good news is that the combined film libraries of Universal, Paramount, Dreamworks, Warner Bros, and New Line Cinema contain many thousands of titles. Their collective support of HD-DVD is more than sufficient to ensure the success of the format. The films from these studios alone will give the consumer who chooses HD-DVD a lifetime of great HD movie viewing.

So we must ask ourselves as consumers: How big of a deal is this fuss over studio support anyway? What if I invest in HD-DVD today and Disney decides not to support it after all? Our answer is an emphatic so what? Not being able to see a Disney film in HD is not the end of the world. Disney films will always be available on regular DVD. You can pop those DVDs into your HD-DVD player anytime you want, upsample them to 1080i, and see them in very close to the same quality as Blu-ray is delivering today. Problem solved.

Meanwhile, you'll have a huge variety of titles from the HD-DVD friendly studios to select from, so you can enjoy true HD quality at prices that are much easier on your budget. If Disney, in the end, chooses not to actively support HD-DVD, the company will simply lose out on your HD disc purchases. Oh well, that's the breaks. Let Disney management explain to their shareholders why they backed what is now looking like it might be the lame pony in this horse race. This is not the consumer's problem.

We believe the Hollywood studios will eventually wake up to the fact that HD-DVD is not only in the consumer's interest, it is in Hollywood's interest as well. HD-DVD's low prices and high performance will ensure a rapid proliferation of HD-DVD players in consumer households. That will, in turn, fuel a new boom in HD disc sales and rentals. There are many hundreds of millions of dollars to be made in the HD revolution, and the "Blu-ray only" studios are just shooting themselves in the foot by not supporting technology that is in the consumer's best interests.

[Cyclonus]

Conclusion

HD-DVD has proven itself to be an outstanding value for the money. Blu-ray has not. If Blu-ray is to survive it needs to drop the price of its entry level players to $500 and increase the quality of its discs. In essence, it needs to match the price/performance benchmark established by HD-DVD. Surely better Blu-ray discs will be forthcoming at some point. But from the looks of things it may already be too late. HD-DVD is solid, it delivers superb quality for a nominal price, and there are twice the number of HD-DVD titles on the market as BDs. The outlook for the holiday season is that there will be over 400 HD-DVD titles released, while Blu-ray will be lucky to have 200.

In addition to the strength of the HD-DVD release, the technology has a latent cost advantage in manufacturing. HD-DVD players can be built at lower cost, and that will translate into lower prices to the consumer. Faced with this challenge, Blu-ray will eventually need to deliver image quality that is superior to HD-DVD in order to justify premium player prices. It is certainly not doing that today, and we do not believe there is any realistic chance that it could happen in the future.

For these reasons, we enthusiastically endorse HD-DVD. If Blu-ray can ever demonstrate that it is able to deliver similar quality at similar prices, or even better quality at a premium price, we will be happy to endorse Blu-ray as well. But based on the less than stellar performance of Blu-ray coming out of the starting gates, we wonder whether it will survive in the home theater market.

Our message to consumers is this: Do not be concerned by the demands of the "Blu-ray only" film studios who ask that you pay top dollar for Blu-ray players to see their movies in HD. The HD-DVD launch has established that you do not need to spend $1000 or $1500 to see great HD films in your own home. If some studios don't want to accommodate you, buy from those who will. At the very least, the competition between HD-DVD and Blu-ray will ensure that prices of both formats become rapidly accessible to the maximum number of consumers.

On a final note, think about this: Your real objective should be to get the absolute best picture possible for the budget you are willing to spend. In order to meet that objective, you will be much better off buying HD-DVD and investing the incremental cash you would have spent on Blu-ray in a higher quality projector or flat screen HDTV instead. Once consumers begin to spend big money in pursuit of their own best interests, the studios will fall into line.

[ASTAROTH]

I conside myself a gamer,I bougth the PS2, XBOX and GAMECUBE, (which I prefer over Xbox, RE 4 loks like a 360 game). I hve Bougth every single game I have. Neithet Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo are going to bring something free for their cunsommers. I talked to you 360 fans, cause you are all praising the 360 when there is really nothing worth next gen on it. It has better graphics than the original Xbox, but not by an extremely different margin. Compare NINJA GAIDEN, Conker, Half life 2 or Far Cry. You guys are bashing the PS3 and you even have played a single game. You are saying that 9 out of 10 developers said the 360 is better. If this is true why bother making games for the PS3. An expensive and inferior system. Im not going to buy the PS3, even when I consider myself a PS fan. I am not going to buy the 360 either, and I consider myself an Xbox fan. It really has good graphics, but LACKS GOOD GAMES. So guys, you said you are mature people who only express their point and opinion. To me you are a bunch of kids with nothing good to say, only to blame the others opinion. So guys, have a life go play your 360 and the "awesome" games it had. Guys like the Real Deal seems to live in a PC, always posting and defending its fanboyism as if Microsoft pay him. Instead he could be playing his collection of 360 games. But, as the rest of the 360 fans, seems more interested in the PS3 news. Wait til Next year, then you could blame whatever you want. For now we fans just want to see how every system works.

[Sidherich]

was spending some time browsing thru some cell specs and found something interesting.

While the Xbox 360 CPU has to ask the Xenon CPU for its memory its just the other way around on the PS3. RSX's memory access is done thru the cell processor. At least if i'm not mistaken by the chart sony presented http://www.anandtech.com/tr...

I must admit that i really enjoy browsing those technical articles and love to discuss them as well :) For me it is a good learning experience. So my current stand is that the ps3 has a slightly more powerfull CPU while the 360 has a better GPU which i guess will balance itself making both consoles about equal in power. But it will make it difficult to develop cross platfom because of that. But since its the games that sell the platform no numbers are meaning anything. Except for tech freaks like myself :)

[pRo loGic II]

I'm sure the PS3 will be proven to be in the same boat as Blu-ray; when it comes to PS3 vs 360. Im sure of it!!! Very sure, im positive about it. MS/Toshiba will come out with something (Player/360) that will be the straw that broke the camels back after the PS3 launches. Sony comes from the old-school marketing days when "truth" didn't matter at all! as long as people believed.

[pRo loGic II]

You PS3 fans keep posting nonsense the truth is 360 and HD-DVD is better, there's no getting around it; must you see the 360 out perform PS3 like the way HD-DVD is out performing Blu-ray players and the Blu-disc. Keep spaming lies and fanboy wishfull hopes. Very funny lol Cover girl is right it's like tring to convince people 500-600 years ago that the world was round.

[pRo loGic II]

There's tons of games coming out for 360. how is PS3's games more next-gen than 360's?.

[The Real Deal]

My main computer is in my living room right next to my 1080p Samsung Dlp 65 inch Tv. So yes I'm on this site often...but if you have xbox live you will see I'm always on that playing games as well. What I do is play on live then take a break, browse this site, make some comments, then play more xbox live. I play video games about 6 hours every day. I am on this site all together maybe 3 hours a day total. I go to the gym and play basketball for 2 hours every day, and when I work, I'm on the computer as well. So it may seem like I'm always on here. Its only because my computer is always on and I always have access to it as it is in my work place and in my living room. I love to information share. But when someone says that the 360 games are slightly better than xbox games... they have obviously haven't played 360 games on a hd television. Thats where you see the MAJOR difference. I was playing Halo 2 side by side against Prey and it was a HUGE difference in Graphics. It made me look at Halo 2 so different. There is no comparisson between xbox and the 360 games. I played Elder scrolls on the xbox and then oblivion on the 360 and the differnce was out of this world. Huge leap in every area. So if you don't want a 360 or a ps3 thats your choice but don't lie and say there isn't a major difference. Because there is. No one said the ps3 is weak. We just say for the price difference you don't get a better system. Thats all. Its that simple. Its still going to blow the ps2 away in every area. But for 600 dollars it better. But for 600 dollars its not up to par as of now with the 360. Whether in the future it gets better....We'll have to see. Sony said for 600 you pay for potential. Hmmmmmmm

[ironwolf]

First, I'm not trying to start more flaming, but you should consider this:

The entire porn industry has thrown it's weight behind BluRay.

"What the hell does that have to do with anything" you ask?

Maybe nothing, maybe everything.

The reason that the Betamax format lost out to VHS (when it was with out any doubt the superior format) can be and has been traced entirely to the porn industry. I do not remember the business details, but Sony required some sort of licensing agreement with studios in order for them to use their format to commercialy release a film on it. They refused to give the agreement to Porn studios. The VHS people required no such agreement agreement, and so the porn studios all adopted VHS.

As sad as it maybe, it was the easy availability of porn on video tape that drove the adoption of the VCR as a household appliance, not the ability to time shift or watch Hollywood films. When the first VCRs reached consumers, they were outrageously expensive, as were the movie tapes that were available.

I was stationed in Germany in 1980 when I bought my first VCR. They were becoming very popular with officers and NCOs because it was possible to get tapes of stateside TV shows that were not available on AFN. I payed $1500 at the PX for my first VCR a Hitachi unit that was the best available. You could run all it's function with a remote control unit (attached via a 20 ft cable). $1500 may not seem like that much to you guys right now, but that was 6 weeks pay for a leutenant.
I was drriving a Triumph TR7 sports car that cost $6000; how many of you would be willing to pay a quarter of the cost of your car for a home entertainment device.

The cost of the movies that were available averaged $70 to $100 each. This resulted in video clubs springing up on every post in the country. People would pay a membership fee which was used to buy blank tapes ($10 apiece) and members would make copies of movies they owned and establish a library that was maintained by volunteers after hours (the one I belonged to was run out of a master sergeants storage unit in the basement of his quarters). At least half of the tapes in these libraries were porn tapes.

When the first video rental stores began to open (usually run by retirees just of post) 25 to 50 percent of the available tapes were porn tapes; the percentage dropped over time (and has continued to do so) but that was the way it was and thats what was being rented.

Video porn isn't as visible today, because the movie studios are now fully vested in the video industry, but it is still there in the back rooms of the rental stores.

The point of all this is, there is a chance that the availability of hidef porn could possibly drive the adoption of the BluRay format over HD/DVD. I hope not. Not just because I think HD/DVD is the superior format this time, but because I hope humanity is better than that; but alas, I've spent the last 50 years watching the rapidly increasing speed of the decline and fall of western civilization.

[The Real Deal]

I heard the opposite. I heard the porn industry is behind HD Dvd.

[ironwolf]

I saw a report from the porn industry convention on G4TV, but here is a link to one story; it's my understanding that the company mentioned is currently the industry leader.

http://www.cdfreaks.com/new...

[The Real Deal]

Ok. thanks for the link. Thats one movie studio not the entire porn industry.

[pRo loGic II]

I also have a large Hitachi HDTV hooked to an Area 51 PC, it's great i could be watching the game! and with a click of a button be online WoW. 10 minutes out of an hour; a few hours a day takes so much time out of my day. lol

[The Real Deal]

I check it once an hour spend a few minutes commenting then I'm back to gaming. Kobebryantlaker is my live screen name. You will always see me online playing games all day long. Lately I have been playing a lot of ChromoHounds, Prey, Lord of the Rings Middle Earth, and Over G. Of course I still play Oblvion as well. I just downloaded the new area and quest yesterday. I can play that game forever. I'm a level 32 Warrior and I have put over 60 hours into that game alone. I love it.

[pRo loGic II]

The porn industy will go with the format that will have the most consumers behind it, as will holly Wood.

[pRo loGic II]

Times have changed in reference to that porn industry crap. I just don't see it making the difference or being the leading force in "HD"-DVD sale's, Pixar and Disney took over in that theory/fact.

[ironwolf]

I fear you're not.

[Cyclonus]

Yes, it made a difference back in the infancy of VHS. But its not nearly the same situation now. before the advent of Home Video, there was no convenient source for watching movies at home(porn or otherwise); 8mm and 16mm were the only options at the time, and those really weren't options at all.

Then VHS exploded on the scene, and the porn
industry just rode the wave. hehe.

Fast-forward to 2006, and what do you have; VHS porn, DVD porn, and, most germane, INTERNET porn, which is by far the most popular porn delivery method. People who watch pornography really dont give a sh!t about HDTVs and 1080ps; they care about DPs, and G-on-Gs!

bottom line, porn is NOT going to do for Blu-ray(or HD-DVD for that matter) what it did for VHS. Period.

[The Real Deal]

You are talking about one porn movie studio. And the porn industry will aways go with the cheapest format when its all said and done. I had porn on Laser discs and laser discs failed. The porn industry will have titles on blu ray and hd dvd and they will go with who ever wins. But people will NOT run out to get a blu ray player because there is a porno movie that is made for blu ray. lol....thats just retarted. lol....

[pRo loGic II]

Are you saying there's more people watching more porn than movies, that their going to spend $500 extra to see an high rez D*ck go in to a High rez P*ssy. Most porn has sh!tty quaity anyways. You have an interesting poin of view. if you can afford $1000 DvD players it would seem like one would not need it if you know what i mean. lol

[ironwolf]

But, you guys seem to have more faith in peoples good sense than I do.

[Cyclonus]

what does "faith" and "good sense" have to do with PORN? lol.

Nobody NEEDS to see two million pixels of skeet!

[Cyclonus]

I'd watch porn on a DS if I had to.

[pRo loGic II]

90% of porn is of very poor qaulty, im sure the theory will be welcome to PS3 gamers with so little time with all those of hundreds of games to play.

[Cyclonus]

PS3 owner: "Lets see, do I play Genji 2, or beat off to Briana Banks for half an hour?" Hmmmm

[Aflac]

who cares if Carmack says the ps3 is more powerful? All he did was look at the totals of numbers, not how the system WORKS with those numbers, the ign article and the ATI article were valid technical analysis based on how the systems actually work. It's almost as if it were a court case in which MS and ATI bought in the proof that won the case, eliminating any reasonable doubt that the 360 is more powerful.

If these tech analyisis were actually false, sony would have said something specifially against it just as they did against those downgrade rumors. Sony knows that the ps3 doesn't have to be the most powerful system of its generation to appeal to customers.

Not a single ps3 fan has posted a link to any tech analyis that finds the ps3 superior based on how the systems work, nor have any ps3 fans posted proof to any link that we use to be proven false.

[Aflac]

who cares if Carmack says the ps3 is more powerful? All he did was look at the totals of numbers, not how the system WORKS with those numbers, the ign article and the ATI article were valid technical analysis based on how the systems actually work. It's almost as if it were a court case in which MS and ATI bought in the proof that won the case, eliminating any reasonable doubt that the 360 is more powerful.

If these tech analyisis were actually false, sony would have said something specifially against it just as they did against those downgrade rumors. Sony knows that the ps3 doesn't have to be the most powerful system of its generation to appeal to customers.

Not a single ps3 fan has posted a link to any tech analyis that finds the ps3 superior based on how the systems work, nor have any ps3 fans posted proof to any link that we use to be proven false.

[Aflac]

everytime I hit the refresh button on my pocketpc on this page, it reposts the last comment I made...weird crap.

[pRo loGic II]

Madagascar 1 or 2 in HD vs Sally's freak night in HD lol. ironwolf you do have a point. But the driving force in the HD format will be more about family entertainment. But you never know.

[pRo loGic II]

This site is still buggy.

[pRo loGic II]

I hear gamers say 360 has nothing next-gen to offer. So who is defining next-gen where do you Sony fans get you're info what console is setting the standard for next-gen?. On topic, We made the PS3 by shaping Xbox, what would the PS3 be if Xbox never was?. 360 is nothing more than the most advanced Canvus in the world. Remember 90% of games will suck on 360 as they will on the PS3. Im going to pick up some beer and then get some pratice in with ChromeHounds before the Japanese become unstopable. lol Peace!

[ironwolf]

Remember it drove not just VCRs, but pay per view cable and satellite (Direct TVs currently most popular pay per view channel is Hi-def porn) and the world wide web (the last I heard there were still mor porn sites than all others combined). And the Porn industry produces and releases about 10 or 11 thousand films a year. "Deep Throat" is the bestselling movie of all time (and incidently has recently been released in 720p for the Xbox 360)and one of the up and coming internet businesses is hidef porn downloads. So, no, I don't have much faith in peoples good sense.

[Cyclonus]

"'Deep Throat'" is the bestselling movie of all time (and incidently has recently been released in 720p for the Xbox 360)"

Uh, when did this happen?

[ironwolf]

Obviously since the 360's release. Found it a few minutes ago while reading (I think) a Slate article.

[ironwolf]

just Googled for it, found this as first link.

http://www.theinquirer.net/...

[DOLBY DI GA TAL pf]

Price

[THELANDSOFSAND]

i think while porn is cheap and plentiful on DVD, HD-DVD or blu ray will have little impact.

and i keep seeing the basic instinct 2 trailer for blu-ray and umd. it makes me think of this porn topic, and generally how lame the blu-ray titles are!

[Cyclonus]

Who wants to see Sharon Stone's 48 year old beaver?

[The Real Deal]

Whats wrong with you? lol....you gave us a link to the Enquirer...lol...

[SDS Overfiend]

@Real Deal You said

"My main computer is in my living room right next to my 1080p Samsung Dlp 65 inch Tv. So yes I'm on this site often...but if you have xbox live you will see I'm always on that playing games as well. What I do is play on live then take a break, browse this site, make some comments, then play more xbox live. I play video games about 6 hours every day. I am on this site all together maybe 3 hours a day total. I go to the gym and play basketball for 2 hours every day, and when I work, I'm on the computer as well. So it may seem like I'm always on here. Its only because my computer is always on and I always have access to it as it is in my work place and in my living room. I love to information share. But when someone says that the 360 games are slightly better than xbox games... they have obviously haven't played 360 games on a hd television. Thats where you see the MAJOR difference. I was playing Halo 2 side by side against Prey and it was a HUGE difference in Graphics. It made me look at Halo 2 so different. There is no comparisson between xbox and the 360 games. I played Elder scrolls on the xbox and then oblivion on the 360 and the differnce was out of this world. Huge leap in every area. So if you don't want a 360 or a ps3 thats your choice but don't lie and say there isn't a major difference. Because there is. No one said the ps3 is weak. We just say for the price difference you don't get a better system. Thats all. Its that simple. Its still going to blow the ps2 away in every area. But for 600 dollars it better. But for 600 dollars its not up to par as of now with the 360. Whether in the future it gets better....We'll have to see. Sony said for 600 you pay for potential. Hmmmmmmm "

I can f@#$% with you cause that sound exactly like my day except i have a Daughter/Tyrant to watch for and you always provide facts for the Brainwashed folks That Got caught up with Phony's schemes.

@ Astaroth, You said
"I conside myself a gamer,I bougth the PS2, XBOX and GAMECUBE, (which I prefer over Xbox, RE 4 loks like a 360 game). I hve Bougth every single game I have. Neithet Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo are going to bring something free for their cunsommers. I talked to you 360 fans, cause you are all praising the 360 when there is really nothing worth next gen on it. It has better graphics than the original Xbox, but not by an extremely different margin. Compare NINJA GAIDEN, Conker, Half life 2 or Far Cry. You guys are bashing the PS3 and you even have played a single game. You are saying that 9 out of 10 developers said the 360 is better. If this is true why bother making games for the PS3. An expensive and inferior system. Im not going to buy the PS3, even when I consider myself a PS fan. I am not going to buy the 360 either, and I consider myself an Xbox fan. It really has good graphics, but LACKS GOOD GAMES. So guys, you said you are mature people who only express their point and opinion. To me you are a bunch of kids with nothing good to say, only to blame the others opinion. So guys, have a life go play your 360 and the "awesome" games it had. Guys like the Real Deal seems to live in a PC, always posting and defending its fanboyism as if Microsoft pay him. Instead he could be playing his collection of 360 games. But, as the rest of the 360 fans, seems more interested in the PS3 news. Wait til Next year, then you could blame whatever you want. For now we fans just want to see how every system works. "

To me You seem confused a bit, Start over and this time take the Green Pill and open your eyes.

[HDDVD360]

Yes the xbox 360 is more developer friendly.

Yes the xbox 360's games will look better than ps3 games.

But a Ps3 is a blu ray player at 600 dollars. Thats 400 dollars less than the stand alone blu ray players. Plus you can play cool games. Sure the 3rd party games will be the same or less impressive as the 360 counterparts. But with the name Sony on it, you could do a side by side comparssion of games and Sony fans will say ps3 looks better just to save face. Even if it looks like garbage. Thats part of the perks of having sold over 100 million ps2's. Broke or not. People bought them. And sure we have turned our back on our core base consumer with the price being so high. Maybe those idiots should get a job and save to get a lesser system for more money. And when you play a game on the ps3 and it doesn't look quite as good as you imagined. Just remember, you have a blu ray player and a game system. All for 600 dollars. What do you expect. The games to look as good as the 400 dollar xbox 360 which is dedicated just for HD games? Get real. Enjoy what you have and Get over it.

P.S. We haven't commented on the 360 making better games because its true....duh....its a hd gaming only dedicated sytem dorks. Sure we may have been trying to do too much. But who cares? Sony fans will flock and buy it up. If our grand plan works, die hard will buy it, it will break, they will re buy it, it will break, and they will re buy it. So if we really only sell 20 million consoles, it will look like we sold 60 million consoles. And game developers will be forced to work with our system. And then they will never have a clue to why games don't sell well....it will be because the user base is alot smaller than they think because of the broken consoles. It pays to have blind sony loyalist backing you.

[Cyclonus]

You're a sage.

[HDDVD360]

Thanks

[HDDVD360]

We did a taste test with sony fans and this was the results. Brand Loyalty is Great.
We tested 1000 die hard Sony fans with this...
Toilet piss water......0% liked it
Ice cold lemenade......100% liked it
Toilet piss water with Sony labeled on it.....100% liked it.
What did we conclued?
Well....Sony fans will love what ever we give them. So why not push our blu ray product on them and sell it as a high tech game machine. Its genious. Sony die hards will never believe the developers who complain. hahahahahahahah

[Aflac]

that was bloody brilliant!

[THELANDSOFSAND]

LMFAO

[SDS Overfiend]

Or Maybe Japan think were total idiots and don't support the Xbox brand or american made products because of hard over what happened to Hiroshima after Pearl Harbor. I Bet that Campaign won't be in COD3.

[Say's you]

and for one thing ATI isn't the leading graphics card maker to the world today what a bunch of bull thats Nvidia and plus if the 360 is so powerful why is it using Epics Unreal Engine 3 way to much to just make the great graphics?!

like Gears of War ChromeHounds and Halo 3 and Mass Effect and Too Human and Prey as well please you call that powerful I don't thinkso that goe's to show that its the other way around its the 360 thats inferior to the PS3 knowing it has better graphics and gameplay unlike the 360.