StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Link: http://www.planetxbox360.com/?view=arti ... 1024&cat=1

It will probably be delayed until 2007 in the U.S. That's horrible news for Sony...

None of this is a surprise at this point, Sony made some very crucial mistakes in the technology used. I've been saying for years that Blu-Ray support was a shitty idea because it would delay the box and make it more expensive, but people insisted that it was necessary to prevent multiple DVD games.

Now that we know Oblivion will ship on a single DVD, I really don't see any advantage to Sony using the Blu-Ray format aside from pushing their own next gen DVD standard (a dubious benefit in light of the fact that Blu-Ray/HD-DVD is going to be DVD-R/DVD+R all over again) whereas they get the disadvantage of being late to market and missing two Xmas seasons in a row in the biggest game market in the world.

I think it needs to be said at this point that Microsoft is simply much better at executing than Sony. Microsoft's production delays with the X360 pale in comparison to this debacle, and at least Microsoft managed to put cutting edge technology in their box without a host of delays.

The Kernel wrote:None of this is a surprise at this point, Sony made some very crucial mistakes in the technology used. I've been saying for years that Blu-Ray support was a shitty idea because it would delay the box and make it more expensive, but people insisted that it was necessary to prevent multiple DVD games.

Now that we know Oblivion will ship on a single DVD, I really don't see any advantage to Sony using the Blu-Ray format aside from pushing their own next gen DVD standard (a dubious benefit in light of the fact that Blu-Ray/HD-DVD is going to be DVD-R/DVD+R all over again) whereas they get the disadvantage of being late to market and missing two Xmas seasons in a row in the biggest game market in the world.

I think it needs to be said at this point that Microsoft is simply much better at executing than Sony. Microsoft's production delays with the X360 pale in comparison to this debacle, and at least Microsoft managed to put cutting edge technology in their box without a host of delays.

I'm with you. I read in another article that Microsoft dedicated 90 747's to shipping 360's from Asia to the U.S. as soon as they were ready, just for the publicity - just thought that was noteworthy.

Microsoft is also pushing HD-DVD over blue-ray. It's cheaper, and you can still fit a ton of data on it. The fact that Oblivion can fit on a normal DVD damn near proves how moronic Sony was to go with Blue-ray, and Oblivion has something like 16 square miles of completely explorable territory, and I believe some, if not most, of the characters are like 100,000+ poly's.

Its a more interesting example than that. Much of Oblivion's content is procedurally generated, so it doesn't have to directly stored on-disk. I've read many articles here about procedural generation of textures and maps, so I have no doubt this will become more widespread - considering that many games *aren't* getting bigger, this will actually tend to make many games *smaller*.

I still have no doubt that there will be multiple DVD games for the X360, but it will be far less of a multiple disc situation than the PSX and it was plenty cost effective.

From a slashdot post wrote:The big announcement of course being that Sony is skipping the Playstation 3, ditching the Cell and going right to Playstation 4 which is powered purely by marketing.

From here.

I suppose this means Halo 3 is delayed as well?

If possible, I care even *less* about another bog-standard FPS than I do about another bog-standard Sony marketingfest. I'm pretty much resigned to just getting a revolution, and that only for the older games on me telly.

Utsanomiko wrote:I suppose this means Halo 3 is delayed as well?

The PS3 is on track to being delayed to the Halo 3 release

I wouldnt be suprised if people at Microsoft banked on the PS3 being released late so Halo 3 + the Halo movie could be released in a similar time frame

From the horses mouth, Early November this year. Worldwide launch

Yep, there's going to be a big shortage.

skyman8081 wrote:From the horses mouth, Early November this year. Worldwide launch

Yep, there's going to be a big shortage.

While people are whining about not getting a PS3, I'll be patiently awaiting the Revolution.

skyman8081 wrote:From the horses mouth, Early November this year. Worldwide launch

Yep, there's going to be a big shortage.

*Spits drink across the room*

Worldwide launch!?!?! What the fuck is Sony smoking? Are they trying for a mere token holiday presence? Even the X360 at least shifted a few million units...

Lets start a pool for the PS3 launch.

I'm putting 5 cents on disc read errors with the launch units.

Just announced:

Sony's PS3 announcement wrote: PS Biz Brief '06: PS3 HDD Required
It's 60GB and Linux too.
by Jeremy Dunham
March 14, 2006 - As part of the PlayStation Business Brief today in Tokyo, Ken Kutaragi confirmed that the PlayStation 3 will require the hard drive peripheral. In total, it will be 60GB big, be completely upgradeable, and support Linux OS. Additionally, the peripheral will act as a home server and allow users to store various forms of media to be pulled up elsewhere.

Interestingly, Kutaragi didn't confirm if the system will actually ship with a hard drive or not -- just that it's required. It's semantics, we know, but we thought that it was worth pointing out.

Stay tuned.

EDIT:

They just announced their online plans:

IGN wrote:March 14, 2006 - Sony today finally unveiled info on its PlayStation 3 online plans at its PlayStation Business Briefing currently happening in Japan.


Beginning at the system's launch, currently scheduled for sometime this November, the system will feature community tools including lobby matching and voice chat, commerce features that includes bootable software via the hard drive.

The service was created with the help of Sony Online Entertainment. Best of all, the "basic" service will be free of charge.

Stay tuned as more is sure to turn up very, very soon.

THAT'S their XBL-killer, the same thing as the PS2, but with voice chat? Whoop de fucking do.

A required 60GB hard drive? With the costs already sky-high on this thing? How the fuck do they justify that? That has to be wrong, I can't imagine how they would justify that.

PS3 games will be in 4D!

IGN, covering the PS3 conference wrote:March 14, 2006 - At the PlayStation Business Briefing 2006, Ken Kutaragi has just added another infamous quote to his belt, this time stating that PS3 games are "live" and that the PS3 concept is "4D".

He claims that games have gone from 8-bit to 16-bit planes, to the "space" that you saw on the PS1/PS2, and now PS3 will be "live".

Umm..... what?

Well all 3D games are 4D games. We live in 1 temporal and 3 spatial dimensions

Chris OFarrell wrote:Well all 3D games are 4D games. We live in 1 temporal and 3 spatial dimensions

By that argument, there never was such a thing as a 2D game.

Sounds like Kutaragi has been hitting the bottle again...

Despite all the big announcements today, NONE of them included a price tag for the system, or any games shown.

What a dissapointment.

But it sounds like sony was able to tap into the string theory.

Oh, I just heard there will be no price-drop on the PS2 when the PS3 comes out.

Say what?

Damn you, Sony!

The PS2 is already dirt cheap anyway, and I'd be looking at getting that money saved for a PS3 anyway. Assuming it isn't turning into some US military project and going to be delayed and 1000x overbudget. I doubt there's a market for a fifty-grand games console.

None of this is surprising. IBM has been working their asses off on research for the Cell and such, but it's a fundamentally new way of computing. It's not just about multi-threading; it's about full-blown non-deterministic computing. Creating a compiler and development environment that produces code which can take advantage of the Cell's capabilities and produce something reliable is not an easy task.

Since Sony was talking about optional 120 GB hard drives, I assume that they're using regular desktop drives and not uber-expensive laptop drives like the one in the 360. That might justify the cost.

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3148775

Kutaragi also revealed details on the online service Sony is planning for the PS3 called the "PlayStation Network Platform". Beginning at the system's November launch, the service will feature such functions as matchmaking, messaging, rankings, friends lists, voice/video chat, in-game shopping, and game downloads to the hard drive. Best of all, the service will be free (as of right now, it isn't clear on whether there will also be a paid tier of service similar to Xbox Live Gold). The service will also allow for publishers to connect their own game servers. Sony Online Entertainment (SOE), makers of such online games as EverQuest and Star Wars Galaxies, is provided the infrastructure and GameSpy is providing tools and middleware. Kutaragi also mentioned that the PS3 can serve as a wireless access point for the PSP.

To those that believed Sony wouldn't have a unified online service: Told you so.

also...

He also revealed that the system will be backwards compatible with the entire PS1 and PS2 libraries, and that games will be displayed in high-definition resolutions when played on the PS3 (similar to what the Xbox 360 does with compatible Xbox 1 titles).

PS1 games in high definition? How does this work for sprite-based games like MegaMan X4-6? Interesting...maybe they'll just add borders and bump up the resolution like a PC emulator.

You know, I think the optional Linux support for the PS3 is just there to deflate the modding community.

Of the people who don't mod consoles to run pirated games, a lot of them do it to run Linux and homebrew apps. With having optional support for Linux through the official channels, you are left with people who want to mod their PS3 to play burned games.

Meaning that Sony can crack down on modders without much community backlash.

IMHO though that's a good thing. That means that those of us who spend money to hack their machines for homebrew can now do it for free, and without fear of backlash because we use the same hardware as the pirates (for example, XBox modders found themselves banned from XBox Live- early DS hackers found that Nintendo's newer DS's blocked PassMe and had to buy PassMe 2 which got around the block for newer DS's).