PS3 General Discussion

[Robin]

This is one of the reason why I won't get a PS3 at launch.

Same..... Im abit worried about cross platform been the same graphics and features as 360... I think il wait a while to see what happens..... also the likely shortages and price are going to hold me back for a while.

Just because the game has larger medium does not mean it will be a longer game. Just that it will be easier to manuevre game data.

I agree..... games could always do with more data space to store sound files, motion caputure, AI, graphics etc etc... The games wont really be longer but just of a better quality.

can you name one 360 game that looks better than MGS4?

fisrt party titles will be big to separate both consoles... if there´s a huge difference, then crossplataform titles will be taken a different aproach.

MGS4 is indeed one of the best graphics ive seen out of all of this... and seeing as what we are being shown is in game it should ba amazing! This shows how good it can be when a developer soley works on a title for PS3 based on its power and features alone instead of a likely 360 port!

Exclusive Console developers will be keen to show of the talents on each system but multi platform is likely to be a port..... and this is worrying as more and more games are for all consoles.....

Robin

 

[DuckRacer]

Same..... Im abit worried about cross platform been the same graphics and features as 360... I think il wait a while to see what happens..... also the likely shortages and price are going to hold me back for a while.

Well, at first, generic multi-platform games (NFS Carbon, Madden) will look alike, and multi-platform games that are originally designed for the PS3 (Assassin's Creed) will have slightly better graphics and all on the PS3. Over time, however, the PS3 will have a lot more of it's power utilized, and generic multi-platform games will be looking better on the PS3. By then, anyway, those games will probably have 1080p capability, and so that by itself will be an advantage. I'd be very, very surprised if most multi-platform games on the PS3, over time, looked the same on the 360.

Not to mention, there's the motion-sensing controller for the PS3. That should warrant a few extra features by itself.

I'll be getting a PS3, but it'll probably be in summer/fall 2007, so most of the bugs (if any) are worked out, and there's enough in stock so I won't have to call every shop known to man to get one, like I did with the Gamecube.

 

[Mr Deap]

it might still be ? for some cases, but...

can you name one 360 game that looks better than MGS4?

fisrt party titles will be big to separate both consoles... if there´s a huge difference, then crossplataform titles will be taken a different aproach.

I don't feel like naming games...

 

[DuckRacer]

I don't feel like naming games...

But also, Gears of War is a 2nd gen X360 title. MGS4 is a 1st gen PS3 title. I'll bet you cookie dough that a 2nd gen PS3 title will look better than GoW.

 

[Mr Deap]

But also, Gears of War is a 2nd gen X360 title. MGS4 is a 1st gen PS3 title. I'll bet you cookie dough that a 2nd gen PS3 title will look better than GoW.

I've discovered some really interesting article about compression.

http://www.ati.com/products/radeonx800/3DcWhitePaper.pdf

During testing we also noted that Far Cry’s logs enabled “3Dc” Normal Map compression when running on G70, suggesting that 3Dc was supported by G70. NVIDIA say that 3Dc isn’t supported by G70 hardware, however they do support a V8U8 format which can be used for 2:1 compression of two component Normals. When an application calls for 3Dc the NVIDIA’s driver will convert the relevant textures to this format at the load time and use these during the applications operation.
Finally we’ve confirmed that G70 does feature an on-chip thermal diode that the 7800 GTX board can reference core temperature information from such that the fan speeds are scalable dependant on temperatures, allowing quiet operation in 2D / low utilisation scenarios with the fan scaling up to increase airflow in high utilisation situations.
http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showpost.php?p=507724&postcount=1

For more info about texture compression:

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20051228/sherrod_pfv.htm

Aye, GPU does make a huge difference & if you read all that, It make some sense for most games on PS3 that look kinda blury & all...

 

[Dave A]

I'd argue that MGS4 does infact look better than Gears of war.

Granted the difference isn't staggering either way, but MGS4 is a lot further off than Gears of way and Kojima has said more than once, isn't finished graphically.

 

[Mr Deap]

Edit:

The pic was way too big, But it's in real time, click on it & it's noticeable.

 

[Tornado]

Is it possible for you to resize that so you can't see it from space?!

 

[Dave A]

In full size I can still see jaggies on every surface. The textures in Gears of war are phenonimal on the characters especially, that's very obvious but that alone does not great graphics make. The textures in MGS4 are also phenominal, like I said, there isn't much in it either way at this stage. But MGS4 isn't finished yet and it's one of the earliest games to start being developed on the PS3, whereas GoW wasn't.

As for screenshots, I delibeartely picked the one I did from GoW, the point of that was to hope that you'd point out that it wasn't the best example of a screen shot from the game. That was to demonstrate that anyone can find a pic of one good game that looks better than a pic from another good game. The effects in MGS4 are hands down better imo, the textures are a close call, but MGS4 has the effects and as a preferrence it also has the better art direction. But that's a preferrence as I said.

 

[Mr Deap]

In full size I can still see jaggies on every surface. The textures in Gears of war are phenonimal on the characters especially, that's very obvious but that alone does not great graphics make. The textures in MGS4 are also phenominal, like I said, there isn't much in it either way at this stage. But MGS4 isn't finished yet and it's one of the earliest games to start being developed on the PS3, whereas GoW wasn't.

As for screenshots, I delibeartely picked the one I did from GoW, the point of that was to hope that you'd point out that it wasn't the best example of a screen shot from the game. That was to demonstrate that anyone can find a pic of one good game that looks better than a pic from another good game. The effects in MGS4 are hands down better imo, the textures are a close call, but MGS4 has the effects and as a preferrence it also has the better art direction. But that's a preferrence as I said.

Better art direction yes, but graphic art=no.

Though this is my opinion.

EDIT: Why do you guys make me always end up making me post 360 thing..... >_>

 

[Jeremy Ricci]

Because you insist on thinking that Gears of War looks amazing, when in fact it's running at a pathetic frame rate for the LACK of action on screen.

 

[DuckRacer]

Because you insist on thinking that Gears of War looks amazing, when in fact it's running at a pathetic frame rate for the LACK of action on screen.

I don't think the GoW framerate has been announced yet.

 

[LaBounti]

Whats wth the obsession with compression? Disc compression and texture compression are not the same.

 

[Mr Deap]

Whats wth the obsession with compression? Disc compression and texture compression are not the same.

>_>

Texture remain compressed in the disk...

Edit: here you can see the gameplay of the first level of Gear of War.
http://movies.teamxbox.com/xbox360/gearsofwar/gow_e306demo_2mbps.wmv

There's a huge speech in the beginning, I recommend the download to see the actual gameplay of this game.

 

[Jeremy Ricci]

I don't think the GoW framerate has been announced yet.

every single build, including the near final build at E3, was 30fps. Not ONE build has been above 30fps.

Resistance, however, has 40 player online, 720p+ resolution (with 1080p being possible, and aimed for, as stated by insomniac) and a considerably larger scale environment (and much more interactive as seen in videos so far).

Gears of War, IMO, is pretty lame and bland, it's simply as last gen game with next gen visuals.

edit: Fresh off the rumor mill, it's "rumored' that a Killzone will make it's reappearance at TGS in a few short weeks...we'll have to wait and see. While I'm skeptical, it comes from the same source who also dropped rumors about increased online capacity for Resistance, and the new lighting for Resistance as well...he also spilled the Assassins Creed demo announcement early as well...so we'll have to see how it turns out...I'm not holding my breath though.

 

[Robin]

Gosh Killzone is a name I havent heard in a while! I remember how amazing the video looked and then we all found out it wasnt real ....... hopefully there be some real stuff for it and TGS.

 

[Jeremy Ricci]

Gosh Killzone is a name I havent heard in a while! I remember how amazing the video looked and then we all found out it wasnt real time ....... hopefully there be some real stuff for it and TGS.

Remember, Gorilla said that it wasn't real time. That would *suggest* that it was running on some sort of engine or something similar. We'll see if those statements hold true, or also turn out false like their prior ones.

 

[YSSMAN]

So where did you read that the game was running at 30 FPS? I haven't found any evidence to prove either way other than it is a damn-fine looking game and will certainly have a following on level with Halo in the near future. Although the last of the "demo" titles looked great, Epic Games has pointed out several times before (read the last write-up from 1up.com) that the game will look even better by the final edits are made, and the game goes gold.

...Given that we still don't have a very clear idea of how "good" the PS3 will look overall, you really cannot compare real-life apples to somewhat-real oranges...

 

[Jedi2016]

I'm pretty sure he's right about the framerate, YSS. I don't recall the exact article (of the hundreds that are out there.. I'm not going to go looking for it), but they talked about the framerate for one short paragraph. Basically, the game would run higher than 30fps, but it was uneven. It would vary between 40-50fps depending on what was happening on-screen. Since most gamers are still using standard televisions, that's not an acceptable framerate. It has to be either 30 or 60 (50 for PAL regions). So, in the interest of maintaining a solid framerate with zero fluctuations, they locked it at 30fps. This also allowed them to bump up a couple of effects, since it gave them a little bit of power to spare.

I'd call it a good thing. I'll take a rock-solid 30fps over a constantly varying higher framerate any day. Fluidity is more important than framerate, IMO.

 

[YSSMAN]

Thanks for the explanation... I couldn't remember hearing anything myself, but I don't follow everything word-for-word these days now that I'm back at school. Either way, the game is rather nice looking, and seems to run quite well by comparison to other titles on the 360, and even some demos from the PS3 as well.

I still hold much of my 360 confidence in GoW for keeping the tide with Microsoft, but there are plenty of worries as well. The buzz may be too great for a well-accepted game with some possible flaws, but given it is a first-run as a franchise, it doesn't have as much to lose as say a Halo 3 or Call of Duty 3.

It will be a system-seller much alike Halo has always been, and it will be interesting to see how the numbers game plays out in November once all three systems are on the market, each taking out their own corner of the landscape.

 

[Jeremy Ricci]

Thanks for the explanation... I couldn't remember hearing anything myself, but I don't follow everything word-for-word these days now that I'm back at school. Either way, the game is rather nice looking, and seems to run quite well by comparison to other titles on the 360, and even some demos from the PS3 as well.

I still hold much of my 360 confidence in GoW for keeping the tide with Microsoft, but there are plenty of worries as well. The buzz may be too great for a well-accepted game with some possible flaws, but given it is a first-run as a franchise, it doesn't have as much to lose as say a Halo 3 or Call of Duty 3.

It will be a system-seller much alike Halo has always been, and it will be interesting to see how the numbers game plays out in November once all three systems are on the market, each taking out their own corner of the landscape.

An 8 player online 3rd person shooter is not going to be a system seller.

Many PS3 titles look as good or better than GoW.

Say what you want about "somewhat real" apples, but that's just a ridiculous comment in itself. Who gives a rats tail if it isn't "out". 27 playable titles at TGS speak louder than anything. Tons of high res screens and vids speak louder than anything.

PS3 looks amazing, 360 looks amazing, PS3 has the edge for physics and heavy computation, like AI etc.

Done and done.

 

[Nasadus]

There are some new images available of Fight Night Round 3 for the PS3 at IGN.
Check it out.

 

[LaBounti]

>_>

Texture remain compressed in the disk...

Data compression (on disk) is different that texture compression(in ram). Texture compression is not for saving disk space, you know the whole point of the debate, its for using less video ram for high quality textures. Your post about 3Dc is for normal mapping and nothing about disk space.

Aye, GPU does make a huge difference & if you read all that, It make some sense for most games on PS3 that look kinda blury & all...

Again, this has zero to do with disc compression. PS3 uses texture compression just like XB 360. Games wont be blurry and texutes wont look any different on 360 and ps3. The GPU has nothing to do with disk compression.

 

[Mr Deap]

Data compression (on disk) is different that texture compression(in ram). Texture compression is not for saving disk space, you know the whole point of the debate, its for using less video ram for high quality textures. Your post about 3Dc is for normal mapping and nothing about disk space.

Again, this has zero to do with disc compression. PS3 uses texture compression just like XB 360. Games wont be blurry and texutes wont look any different on 360 and ps3. The GPU has nothing to do with disk compression.

Compressed texture take less space than uncompressed texture. It's all about saving space for the overall memory. 3Dc don't hurt on performance & quality. I have to agree that it doesn't affect that much the memory on the disk, but it affect the loading time & all.

If current games would use all BMP as texture, games on PC would look like PS2 games texture.

Image compression is the application of data compression on digital images. In effect, the objective is to reduce redundancy of the image data in order to be able to store or transmit data in an efficient form
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_compression

When we say about storing = storing in the media storing device, so disk & main memory. & that transmit = loading time, disk to main memory.

 

[LaBounti]

The point is, textures are not compressed to save disk space but to use less video memory.

the words, Disc, Disk, Ram, Memory, Game, Video do not show up in the artical. What does this have to do with video/pc games?

Give up man, just give up

 

[Mr Deap]

The point is, textures are not compressed to save disk space but to use less video memory.

the words, Disc, Disk, Ram, Memory, Game, Video do not show up in the artical. What does this have to do with video/pc games?

Give up man, just give up

Crazy Taxi on Dreamcast only takes 70MB

How come this game is so small?

 

[LaBounti]

I see why tha_con got banned.........

 

[fasj6418]

interesting post here, from a guy that went to GC in leipzig.

totally fanboish, but since at least 5 or 6 informations that he gave turned out to be true one week later, might be a good read.

just need to avaliate what´s fanboism and what´s a fact.

_____________________________________


All credit goes to Scrivener from Genmay, so don't ask me any questions. Take all of this with a grain of salt, as I do not know his credibility, but no one over there seems to be objecting. I just thought it was worth sharing:

Quote:
Wow, so much to cover - where do I even start? I'll just have to be careful here as there's certain things that aren't supposed to be revealed until the TGS.

Note: This post is by no means unbiased. I make no warranty that what I have to say will not piss you off – especially if you’re a one-company fanboy whore. I’ll answer questions and I'll share what I know… but I’m not going to argue with the retards lurking in the Games forum shadows… especially when I am way more informed than you are*. Believe that or not (it's a fact), I don’t give a flying **** what some pimple faced punk in the digital jungle thinks. This is a favor for those who appreciate it. Hence, if you do not appreciate inside information, then do us all a favor and **** off.

Now that that’s out of the way…

Lets start with the bad news - the launch lineup is shrinking. Originally, the list was 30 titles (1st and 3rd party). Currently, the list is about 15 titles (can’t get more specific because at this stage it literally changes by the hour). There is an up-side, however. The extra development time is making a world of difference. Some of you saw Heavenly Sword at E3 and it looked pretty good... that is, it looked like your typical 360 game. The team has been hard at work piling on layers and layers of detail and as of right now, it looks like ****ing Advent Children (you thought Metal Gear looked good? You gotta see this). It's also being given a God of War type violence upgrade, since they found out the graphical realism and brutality of the combat (bloodless though it was) was getting it a Mature anyway. Seriously, it will blow your mother****ing mind (although it’s sad that having really awesome graphics influences the ESRB ratings these days). The current release target is March.

Killzone 2 - This one has been MIA since last years E3. It is still in development and it is, unequivocally, the PS3s big "secret weapon." Announcements are being held back until closer to the PS3 launch as it's going to generate a monumental amount of buzz. It's one of those things that I can't get into too much detail about. However, it looks exactly like the video. Yeah. That video.

LAIR - This won't be out until next summer at the earliest, but this one is also abso****inglutely incredible. Missions basically involve unscripted AI-driven massive scale battles (we're talking Helms Deep here) and you control a single dragon and rider. The game is essentially playing an RTS with itself and it's up to you to influence the tide of the battles. This is also very dark and mature.

More bad news, these titles are all now Q1 '07 releases or later. Resistance: Fall of Man is being primed as the killer ap launch title. Some of you are sure to go nuts for it as it's like a crossbreed between Half Life 2 & Call of Duty. Personally, I ****ing hate both those games so I was not terribly impressed with the single player. Now multiplayer is a whole different beast, because the weapons are strange as ****. For example, there's this energy-burst weapon that just passes through solid matter. Almost everything in the environments is destructible as well and has physical properties. Hence, certain materials will offer better protection than others. Multiplayer is the big focus of R:FoM anyway, with half a dozen game types and support for up to 40 players.

Someone asked about sound in the other thread - and while specific technical details were not divulged, the sound in Resistance was discussed at length. Resistance has fully simulated sound waves. The system actually checks distances, atmospheric density, wind, what materials the sound is bouncing off and passing through, etc, and modifies the base sound accordingly. Hence, every sound travels through space in real time and distorts just as it does in the real world. There is also support for 5.1, 6.1, and 7.1 sound setups... so however they are doing it, it borders on overkill.

This brings me to BluRay, a controversial topic on this forum as of late. Remember when I was talking about the 360s disc capacity and how it ****ed up Oblivion? Some of you will remember, because I got flamed pretty hard for that (OMG it still looks great, the PC version is the same, waa waa, don’t criticizes my console). The Xbox totally ****ed up Oblivion, you can look at the textures and tell where Bethesda cut corners to make it fit on the disc.

As a quick side note, Bethesda is working on a special edition of Oblivion just for PS3. We were shown some screenshots (sadly, not the actual game) and it looks like an entirely different game. Every texture is being replaced with new extremely-high resolution ones. It’s basically what Bethesda wanted to do the first time until they ran into the DVDs capacity limit. BluRay fixes that little bottleneck.

Those DVDs you love so much, they’re the reason PS3 games are going to ****ing destroy anything available on the 360. 85% of the games currently in development for PS3 will not fit on a single DVD9. To give you an idea of the implications, Resistance: Fall of Man is currently 20GB, and is expected to ship at around 35GB. Publishers are not being forced to use BDs, but it’s expected that 95% of all PS3 games will use BD discs. The big exception is EA, who uniformly develops for the lowest common denominator. Sony is dedicated to helping companies develop for the superior PS3 then downgrade for the weaker systems. The fruits of this labor won’t be seen for another year at least.

There was a demo, side by side, of an upcoming sports game (can't tell you which one). One was playing on 360 (DVD9) connected to an HDTV running at 720P. The same game was running on a PS3 (BD50) on an identical HDTV at 720P. The differences were unbelievable, simply because the BD has the space to hold all those extremely high resolution textures. The 360 could probably handle them, but they just plain won't fit on the disc. This is just one example of how storage capacity is hurting the 360. Of the parade of developers that spoke to us, the BDs capacity was the number one item of praise. No more having to cut corners or find creative ways to make your game fit on the disc. DVDs are just plain obsolete when you're talking about High-Definition hyper-detailed 3D environments.

On a similar note, those of you rooting for HD-DVD as the High-Def standard might want to start selling your stuff while it’s worth something. The format war was basically decided before it even reached store shelves. 80% of the major manufacturing plants have already adopted Blu-Ray. There’s also the small matter of Sony owning, directly or indirectly, nearly half of the movie industry. I could go into more detail, but I’m getting a little off-topic. The point is, Blu-Ray is here to stay and it’s not going anywhere. HD-DVD, having considerably less support at retail and among manufacturers and movie studios, is ****ed. Also, when it comes to the end-user, the Blu-Ray capabilities of the PS3 are going to be very very heavily advertised. Not only will the PS3 ensure that Blu-Ray is the most widely owned HD player in the world, but Sony is going to make sure that people know it and use it.

Go ahead and throw your tantrums if you want, it won’t change a thing. It’s just plain out of your hands. If you were rooting for the inferior technology – well, oops.

Concerning BD movie costs, they’ve been available for several months now and the average price is $20-$30. Amazon.com is your friend.

Ok, onto the multiplayer. Sony is going all out here. Actually, the entire philosophy behind the PS3s development is “no holding back.” You may whine about the price, you may whine about the features (and those of you that do that regularly really look like huge tards, btw. You know who you are) but Sony really wanted to deliver a system with every cool feature they could think of. Furthermore, they want to deliver a system that will survive another decade. MS may release a new Xbox every couple years, but Playstation owners know that their system isn’t going to be obsolete any time soon. Anyhoo, the online service is absolutely, positively, 100% free… no tiers, no subscription. It’s like having Xbox Live Gold, but you don’t have to pay for it. Some of the features include: multiple online IDs (not just one gamertag), friends lists, rankings and skill-based auto-matchmaking, full online profiles, EyeToy and EyeToy HD integration (photo profiles, possibly video chat).

There is a full featured web browser and the PS3 will have native Keyboard and Mouse support, although Sony will not be making any 1st party Mice or Keyboards for the system. As for using those peripherals in games, it’s entirely up to the developers but Sony is not disallowing it. Still, they would prefer developers make use of the motion sensitive controller instead.

As a side note, the controller motion capabilities are extremely sensitive and accurate. Playing LAIR and WarHawk with it just seemed way more accurate and natural than analogue sticks alone – plus it frees up the analogues for other functionality. You’ll see what I mean when you get a taste of LAIR. It’s ****ing incredible.

In terms of 3rd party support, more than 10,000 SDKs have been shipped and more than 350 confirmed titles in active development. Production of the console itself is proceeding right on target. Reports of cell yields and HDMI 1.3 available have absolutely no impact on the production process. The cell has naturally lower yields due to the fact that it’s a new and more powerful technology. The yields were of the Cell were known far in advance of active production. As some of you know, wafers are rated. Only the best make it into the PS3, the others are sorted for other less demanding uses.

The PS3 is shipping with all 8 cores enabled (1PPE + 7 SPEs). Reports of SPEs “dying” are just plain rubbish.

3rd party developers (EA, UbiSoft) have already announced their pricing schemes for next-gen games. PS3 games will generally cost the same as Xbox 360 titles. The $10 hike in price across the board is meant to cover additional production costs resulting from the need to produce higher quality HD-quality assets. Better graphics means higher production costs.

North America will be getting approximately 700,000 of the first 2 million units. For comparison, the 360 shipped 400,000 units in NA followed by a 5-month complete production shutdown. There will be a second major shipment before Christmas, with an equal number of units (1.4m in NA before Christmas). As of right now, the balance between 20GB and 60GB versions has not been decided. Since both SKUs will be produced at the same plants using the same materials, production can be shifted as needed. It’s most likely that the 60GB version will be the most “common”, however.

The 20GB version is indeed capable of 1080p via component. The only holdup is that there is currently no TVs on the market that support 1080p via component. It’s purely an issue of support from TV manufacturers.

For the uninformed, the difference between the two models (other than HDD size) is that the 60GB has the following additional features: 802.11g Wireless Networking, Flash card reader (CF, SD, MSP), HDMI (v1.3).

Ok, so onto some PSP news…
The GPS is currently on hold. Bummer, I know. PSP has outsold DS and DS Lite by 1.2m units. The PSOne emulator will be attached to an October firmware update. The online store for PSP and PS3 will launch soon thereafter (before November 11). A new PSP entertainment pack is coming next month. It costs $250 and includes a 1GB MSPD, ATV Offroad Fury: Blazin Trails (game), and Lords of Dogtown (movie). No headphones.

PSP integration with PS3 is still planned. You’ll be able to use your PSP as a remote control for your system. Currently, the plan is that you’ll even be able to see your PS3 screen on your PSP so long as both are connected to the same network (almost like a location-free player). This feature may not be ready for launch, but if it misses, it will be added in an update soon after.

More than 200 new PSP titles will ship between now and Christmas!

You know about the disaster that was UMD movies? Well there’s a reason for that. Usually Sony works with companies who license their products and lay down certain ground rules (pricing, features, etc). With UMD, they had a hands-off approach and movie studios just started releasing every piece of **** movie in their vault, without special features, at highly inflated prices. Sony is not happy about this at all and is going to try to jump start the UMD movie scene again (could take up to a year) by requiring that releases meet certain guidelines. Guidelines may include an MSRP limit of $15 and that UMDs include all the special features of their DVD equivalents. It’s possible that it may be too late to save, but Sony has a lot of muscle and the PSPs multimedia features are its biggest selling points… especially considering the target consumer is a male between the ages of 21 and 40.

since there´s nothing to read about PS3 on sundays, and this haven´t been posted, well, some might like...

 

[DuckRacer]

Thanks for the stuff. I'll be picking it apart in a few minutes.

 

[DuckRacer]

Killzone 2 - This one has been MIA since last years E3. It is still in development and it is, unequivocally, the PS3s big "secret weapon." Announcements are being held back until closer to the PS3 launch as it's going to generate a monumental amount of buzz. It's one of those things that I can't get into too much detail about. However, it looks exactly like the video. Yeah. That video.

I'll need to see that video, since, well, I haven't.

Someone asked about sound in the other thread - and while specific technical details were not divulged, the sound in Resistance was discussed at length. Resistance has fully simulated sound waves. The system actually checks distances, atmospheric density, wind, what materials the sound is bouncing off and passing through, etc, and modifies the base sound accordingly. Hence, every sound travels through space in real time and distorts just as it does in the real world. There is also support for 5.1, 6.1, and 7.1 sound setups... so however they are doing it, it borders on overkill.

Great to hear, but too bad I won't be playing it.

This brings me to BluRay, a controversial topic on this forum as of late. Remember when I was talking about the 360s disc capacity and how it ****ed up Oblivion? Some of you will remember, because I got flamed pretty hard for that (OMG it still looks great, the PC version is the same, waa waa, don’t criticizes my console). The Xbox totally ****ed up Oblivion, you can look at the textures and tell where Bethesda cut corners to make it fit on the disc.

As a quick side note, Bethesda is working on a special edition of Oblivion just for PS3. We were shown some screenshots (sadly, not the actual game) and it looks like an entirely different game. Every texture is being replaced with new extremely-high resolution ones. It’s basically what Bethesda wanted to do the first time until they ran into the DVDs capacity limit. BluRay fixes that little bottleneck.

It'll be interesting to see (that if Oblivion is on the PS3) the graphics compared to the X360/PC version.

Those DVDs you love so much, they’re the reason PS3 games are going to ****ing destroy anything available on the 360. 85% of the games currently in development for PS3 will not fit on a single DVD9. To give you an idea of the implications, Resistance: Fall of Man is currently 20GB, and is expected to ship at around 35GB. Publishers are not being forced to use BDs, but it’s expected that 95% of all PS3 games will use BD discs. The big exception is EA, who uniformly develops for the lowest common denominator. Sony is dedicated to helping companies develop for the superior PS3 then downgrade for the weaker systems. The fruits of this labor won’t be seen for another year at least.

Interesting specs.

There was a demo, side by side, of an upcoming sports game (can't tell you which one). One was playing on 360 (DVD9) connected to an HDTV running at 720P. The same game was running on a PS3 (BD50) on an identical HDTV at 720P. The differences were unbelievable, simply because the BD has the space to hold all those extremely high resolution textures. The 360 could probably handle them, but they just plain won't fit on the disc. This is just one example of how storage capacity is hurting the 360. Of the parade of developers that spoke to us, the BDs capacity was the number one item of praise. No more having to cut corners or find creative ways to make your game fit on the disc. DVDs are just plain obsolete when you're talking about High-Definition hyper-detailed 3D environments.

Great to hear.

Ok, onto the multiplayer. Sony is going all out here. Actually, the entire philosophy behind the PS3s development is “no holding back.” You may whine about the price, you may whine about the features (and those of you that do that regularly really look like huge tards, btw. You know who you are) but Sony really wanted to deliver a system with every cool feature they could think of. Furthermore, they want to deliver a system that will survive another decade. MS may release a new Xbox every couple years, but Playstation owners know that their system isn’t going to be obsolete any time soon. Anyhoo, the online service is absolutely, positively, 100% free… no tiers, no subscription. It’s like having Xbox Live Gold, but you don’t have to pay for it. Some of the features include: multiple online IDs (not just one gamertag), friends lists, rankings and skill-based auto-matchmaking, full online profiles, EyeToy and EyeToy HD integration (photo profiles, possibly video chat).

Good to hear (but not exactly new news).

As a side note, the controller motion capabilities are extremely sensitive and accurate. Playing LAIR and WarHawk with it just seemed way more accurate and natural than analogue sticks alone – plus it frees up the analogues for other functionality. You’ll see what I mean when you get a taste of LAIR. It’s ****ing incredible.

Interesting.

In terms of 3rd party support, more than 10,000 SDKs have been shipped and more than 350 confirmed titles in active development. Production of the console itself is proceeding right on target. Reports of cell yields and HDMI 1.3 available have absolutely no impact on the production process. The cell has naturally lower yields due to the fact that it’s a new and more powerful technology. The yields were of the Cell were known far in advance of active production. As some of you know, wafers are rated. Only the best make it into the PS3, the others are sorted for other less demanding uses.

Holy freaking crap mother of God. 350?!?

3rd party developers (EA, UbiSoft) have already announced their pricing schemes for next-gen games. PS3 games will generally cost the same as Xbox 360 titles. The $10 hike in price across the board is meant to cover additional production costs resulting from the need to produce higher quality HD-quality assets. Better graphics means higher production costs.

Is this guy talking about a $10 price hike to the already hiked-up $60 price tag? Or is this describing why it was hiked up from $50 to $60?

North America will be getting approximately 700,000 of the first 2 million units. For comparison, the 360 shipped 400,000 units in NA followed by a 5-month complete production shutdown. There will be a second major shipment before Christmas, with an equal number of units (1.4m in NA before Christmas). As of right now, the balance between 20GB and 60GB versions has not been decided. Since both SKUs will be produced at the same plants using the same materials, production can be shifted as needed. It’s most likely that the 60GB version will be the most “common”, however.

Sounds like there'll be a lot more time to get a PS3 before they're gone from shelves.

Ok, so onto some PSP news…
The GPS is currently on hold. Bummer, I know. PSP has outsold DS and DS Lite by 1.2m units. The PSOne emulator will be attached to an October firmware update. The online store for PSP and PS3 will launch soon thereafter (before November 11). A new PSP entertainment pack is coming next month. It costs $250 and includes a 1GB MSPD, ATV Offroad Fury: Blazin Trails (game), and Lords of Dogtown (movie). No headphones.

Last time I heard, the PSP hasn't outsold the DS. I believe the DS has sold 22 million units, where the PSP has shipped 21 million, which equates to 18~ million sold. Also, I wonder what will happen to the other two PSP packs? If the base PSP drops to $150 I might get one again.

PSP integration with PS3 is still planned. You’ll be able to use your PSP as a remote control for your system. Currently, the plan is that you’ll even be able to see your PS3 screen on your PSP so long as both are connected to the same network (almost like a location-free player). This feature may not be ready for launch, but if it misses, it will be added in an update soon after.

Does that mean I would be able to stream videos and music to a PSP?

You know about the disaster that was UMD movies? Well there’s a reason for that. Usually Sony works with companies who license their products and lay down certain ground rules (pricing, features, etc). With UMD, they had a hands-off approach and movie studios just started releasing every piece of **** movie in their vault, without special features, at highly inflated prices. Sony is not happy about this at all and is going to try to jump start the UMD movie scene again (could take up to a year) by requiring that releases meet certain guidelines. Guidelines may include an MSRP limit of $15 and that UMDs include all the special features of their DVD equivalents. It’s possible that it may be too late to save, but Sony has a lot of muscle and the PSPs multimedia features are its biggest selling points… especially considering the target consumer is a male between the ages of 21 and 40.

If that's true, and it's possible you can view UMD movies through a PS3 on a TV, I think UMD movies still might live. Might.

since there´s nothing to read about PS3 on sundays, and this haven´t been posted, well, some might like...

Thanks for posting that. 👍