More PS3 published

[wautd]

Are there limitations that I'm not aware off why consoles don't include an optional mouse to play? You know, for people who like RTS games or games like total war?

Environment.

Consoles (for those of us who don't live in our bedrooms) are primarily a living room device, racked up with your DVD player and big ass TV.

You play them in comfort, on your sofa.

Mousing surfaces, and a comfortable mousing position, are not compatible.

There was a mouse peripheral for both the SNES and Megadrive, but no-one wanted it.

I might be wrong on this but isnt it also that there werent any good games for it to play with a mouse? The only "game" I remember for the SNES that could use a mouse was a friggin drawing program

[HyperionX]

No, but think of it this way: in the US the Xbox and the Playstation brands are about equal in popularity as of right now. If a person sees a PS3 for $400 and an X360 for $300, which are they going to chose? Especially if this is a parent buying a console for a kid, they are probably going to go with the cheapest option as long as it will make the kid happy.

That's very hard to believe, seeing how PS2 has sold around 30 million in the US versus 10M or so for the Xbox.

And before you say "Well then I guess the Revolution will sell the best" remember what I said about a sweet spot and that while most kids are going to settle for an Xbox over a PS3, they won't settle for a Nintendo box because they can't play their choice of games on it.

Same could be true for PS3.

No, not doomed. Handicapped is the word I'd choose.

Maybe, but there's still no reason to believe that PS3 won't be the overwhelming winner.

Actually, considering that the Xbox/PS2 gap has been shrinking in the US, I'd say Microsoft has a good chance at pulling off a sales victory in the US and possibly in Europe.

The point is not the units shipped at first, its the mindshare that the X360 creates.

The sales gap in US is no longer shrinking, and hasn't since the PStwo shortage. The mindshare of Dreamcast did not stop PS2, same could be true for X360.

They have a possible year head start on the PS3 in the US, possibly more in Europe. That's quite a lead.

Possibly, but unlikely to matter. Most of PS2's ultimate lead came after Xbox was released.

Sure it could happen, but since it doesn't I don't see why you think this is relevent. That's like saying that the console with the most memory is going to be the higher performer because games could sap all availible memory.

The console with more memory is almost always better looking due to better textures and more detail. Same could be true with the console with significantly more FP power.

Indeed, it's damn time Sony figured this out.

Ok.

Assuming devs are interested in making physics a big part of game design. This is a big assumption given the cost, and the fact that advanced physics has never really played a major roll in a game before.

That's true of virtually every new feature for every console or new PC graphics card. Ultimately, game devs spend the extra time and money to utilize these new features. There's no doubt that devs will try to use lots of physics, so the only question is what it will add to the gaming experience.

The Xbox did. It has 6.4 GB/s of memory bandwidth, which was enough for the GeForce 3 to do it with a "relatively painless" performance hit, at least if you go by your 10-15% assumption (at least at 2x).

Simply no. The more graphical games did not have enough bandwidth to spare for even 2xAA. On more modern games the GF3 and 4 series gets murdered at higher rez or AA. Also, games in the future are going to be more pixel shader limited than textures, so memory bandwidth is not as vital as before, making the AA hit proportionally smaller relative to memory bandwidth.

I'll believe it when I see it.

You'll definitely see, but it is to been see if you will be impressed.

Color and z bandwidth are not just used in AA.

Color data and z are used primarily in the framebuffer. If you don't use AA or something like HDR lighting those things will drop dramatically.

I'm well aware of this, I said that the yields of Cell was the reason for disabling an SPE. But the fact that they originally planned on 8 SPE's indicates yields are not where they should be.

You simply cannot know this. All that can be said is that it is more cost effective to disable one SPE. This is not evidence of manufacturing problems.

But with the Xenos it's easier to get total performance out of the availible units, you don't have to worry about bottlenecked PS's or VS's, you can assign them as you see fit. As long as the programmers for the X360 know how to adapt to the architecture of the Xenos, it's total performance might well be higher.

Indeed most of this is true, given the improved efficiency of X360's design. However barring a poorly made game for PS3 it is unlikely that a PS3 game will look worse given the net power difference. I expect that games may have a similar look initially, with PS3 pulling away later on when devs become more familar with the architecture.

It has a fixed T&L pipeline with no programmable shaders. That's not a programmable GPU.

It had programmable features. Beyond that I do not if it can be considered programmable.

Incorrect. Here is the 1T SRAM for Flipper: (EDIT: Correction below in my next post)



Distinctly off chip.

*Issue dropped*

I said it is on-chip, not on-die. And it has a much wider/faster interface than Flipper had to its 1T SRAM.

Usually that means on the same die...

Anyways Flipper was rendering at 640x480 whereas Xenos will render at 720p. That explains the bandwidth difference.

Ahh, okay, conceeded.

Chips from TSMC also comes with a profit margin in the cost. As long as Nagasaki or Oita doesn't run too far short a dedicated in-house fab will usually have lower average costs. Sony's fabs most likely will also be much more aggressive at die shrinks than TSMC will be.

Assuming they can fill their production capabilities. But it's a gamble.

So I guess PS3 will be cheap to make if it succeeds.

The GPU for the PS3 was nearly finished and it was a dumb renderer design. These costs are part of the PS3 R&D costs.

You have no way of knowing how finished the GPU was. Also if it is a dumber rasterizer then it won't cost billions either.

You are missing the point. Sony is selling at $400, if that hurts their sales drastically, then it won't matter how cheap they can get them years later.

Only if low initial sales eliminate mindshare and hype, reducing eventual sales. Otherwise as long as PSthree sells many millions the fixed costs will be absorbed. The ultimate cost structure for PS3 will still be lower than the X360.

Also, we need to address the $400 price point, since it has not been affirmed as the ultimate launch price. Logically thinking, if X360 is a success Sony will launch PS3 with a low of a price as possible. If not then we may see the higher prices.

We are talking about games, not consoles.

Same can be true for both, especially if the games are on a certain console.

We'll see.

We will indeed.

We'll see.

Same here.

[Medic]

snip few paragraphs
I do wonder if the game developers that leapt to the X-Box because it was the, and I quote one developer here, 'High end content machine', will bail on Microsoft if the PS3 comes out late with superior specs and it's vastly superior storage.

There's one more factor: ease of development for games. How easy were the two to program? If my memory serves me correctly, the PS2 was very difficult to program for but X-Box was (relatively at least) much easier.

If PS3 comes out a powerhouse in the end, which is still well within the realm of possibility seeing it's coming a year late, then it'll be a cost-of-development vs. raw power and potential debate for developers.

[Praxis]

Also, we need to address the $400 price point, since it has not been affirmed as the ultimate launch price. Logically thinking, if X360 is a success Sony will launch PS3 with a low of a price as possible. If not then we may see the higher prices.

In fact, the $400 price tag is pure speculation.

Sony's initial comment was, "We'll launch at the same price as the PS2". PS2 was $300 US, $360 in Japan.

Their later comment was, "It'll be expensive."

The $400 price tag was speculation from an analysist.