PS3 details

bk

I think a point that most people are missing is that the next gen won't be so much about better graphics, which I agree only look similiar or a bit better then current high end PC tech, it will be more about the Physics and AI. Having massive worlds with loads of different things going on independent of your direct control.

While I'm sure many of the screen shots were pre-rendered, the PS3 demos really got this across to me. Their was far more going on in all the demos then you would see on any high end PC. For instance just take a look at London in the Getaway.

Another thing to remember, the first generation of PS2 and Xbox games were also underwhelming. It wasn't until the 2nd gen games that we really saw the capabilites of these consoles. It will take time for the develpers to get to grips with these new architectures.

For instance the developers at Epic (Unreal games) said that their demo on PS3, didn't make use of the Cell processors, it was mostly only the graphics card and only about 40% of the graphics cards abilities at that!!! Even at that, the Unreal demo looked great, it ran much more smoothly then it did a few months ago at another conference on a super highend PC (cost about $4000). And it is only using 40% of the GPU and little of the CPU. This just goes to show how much untapped capaility is in these machines.

BTW to those of you who are say that 360 having three cores is better the PS3 single core, please don't talk about stuff if you haven't got a clue. They are quiet different architectures and very difficult to compare. Instead you should listen to what the experts have to say, here is what Anand Lai Shimpi from anandtech.com fame has to say:

I've repeatedly called the PS3's Cell the more powerful processor out of the two when compared to the 3-core PPC chip in the 360. I've also said that the difference in real world performance between the two chips may be very different from the on-paper performance differences.

The strength of Cell is truly derived from its SPE array; with reference to 3D graphics and gaming, we've long since known that two things result in the best performance: lots of bandwidth, and specialized hardware. All of the previous generation consoles implemented (in one way or another) these fundamental principles of making stuff fast. At the same time, PCs always caught up by, at first, embracing the GPU and then by simply increasing general purpose CPU speed by leaps and bounds from one year to the next.

The 3-core PPC processor in the Xbox 360 is no slouch either. Remember that just one of these cores, regardless of its clock speed, isn't exactly the most powerful core on the market. But being relatively narrow 2-issue cores, if you stick a bunch of them together you get something fairly powerful - especially if the applications you're running on them are properly multithreaded.

The main difference between these two CPUs is the general purpose vs. specialized hardware approach. If the goal of either of these consoles was a machine that could run any application well, then the 360 has the upper hand. You don't really see people running MS Office on their MPEG-2 decoder chips. But, if you're talking about tons of physics calculations, 3D calculus and other complex floating point math, similar to what's required in video decoding as well as 3D gaming, then specialized hardware will always give you better performance. To use the MPEG-2 decoder example, there's a reason why video decode and encode assist was pulled off of general purpose CPUs in PCs as fast as possible - there are some things that can simply be done better with specialized silicon. We saw another example of this with the move to the GPU and away from CPU based software rendering of games. Ageia's announcement of the PhysX PPU also echoed the need for specialized hardware when dealing with the complex physics and AI modeling that must be done for the next generation of 3D games. It is because of the Cell's extensive use of specialized hardware that I refer to it as the more powerful processor, on paper.

The distinction "on paper" is particularly important because a lot of the performance debate will really come down to two things: 1) how much processing power will be needed for the next generation of games, and 2) how much of it will be taken advantage of on Cell.

Tim Sweeney made it a point to mention that their Unreal 3 tech demo (which was rendered in real time) only took two months of work on the PS3 hardware they received. The sheer number of demos and quality of demos that were shown off at the press event leads me to believe that the PS3 isn't impossible to program for (given that all developers should have had similar amounts of time with the dev kits). But the question isn't whether or not the PS3 will be impossible to develop for, it is how much of its power will be used.

The first hurdle is obviously getting game developers to multithread their engines. This is a much bigger hurdle than optimizing for Cell or the 360's 3-core PPC processor. I have a feeling that it may take a while before we see properly multithreaded game engines running on consoles (the current estimate is year-end 2006 for multithreaded game engines to appear on the PC), so the first generation of games for the 360 and PS3 may end up being more of a competition of GPU horsepower. From what I've seen thus far, the demos that are being showcased aren't really focusing on the physics or AI aspects of what these next-generation consoles can do, rather mostly focusing on the fact that we finally have consoles with GPUs powerful enough to render scenes at 720p or 1080p resolutions.

Some of the PS3 demos did show off the rag doll physics but nothing appeared to be any more complex than what we've already seen in Half Life 2.

If that is the case, and the first generation titles aren't really well multithreaded then the performance argument for Cell begins to fall apart. The question then becomes whether or not its performance potential will be truly seen during the lifetime of the console. I have a feeling it will, but I'm not much of a fortune teller.

So when will PCs catch up? The console vs. PC debate has always been a balance, consoles would always debut more powerful than PCs, then PCs would catch up and surpass consoles during their ~5 year lifespan. The difference this time around is that the desktop CPU industry is going through a big of a transitional period, it may take a little longer than usual for desktop CPUs to be able to outclass (in all areas) their console counterparts. As far as GPUs go, by the end of this year I'd expect to see 360 and PS3 class (or faster) GPUs offered for high end PCs. By the time the PS3 is released, I would say that the upper mid range GPUs will offer similar (or very close) performance.

The truly limiting factor will be the transition to 65nm on the desktop, the faster that can happen, the quicker the PC will regain its power advantage. But despite any power advantage, this next generation of consoles will definitely be powerful enough to tempt away some PC gamers...at least for a while.

Kiith

firstly, i dont think the ps3 is as powerful as sony say it is, and secondly, your so wrong about the physics of ps3/360 being better then the pc, since the pc is the home of physics(says einstien), and thirdly, you say you cant compare the ps3 cell precessor to the 360's three precessors, then stop comparing the ps3 to pc architecture. its totally different, relying heavily on the graphics cards, over the cpu.

and if just look at enemy teritory 2: ground wars, for some amazing pc graphics

Nietzschean

Kiith wrote:

firstly, i dont think the ps3 is as powerful as sony say it is,

I don't think sony can outright lie about its specs.....it would be rather poor press...

and secondly, your so wrong about the physics of ps3/360 being better then the pc, since the pc is the home of physics(says einstien)

Simply , WTF? says einstien? do you know in what year Einstien died?

and thirdly, you say you cant compare the ps3 cell precessor to the 360's three precessors, then stop comparing the ps3 to pc architecture. its totally different, relying heavily on the graphics cards, over the cpu.

What the hell? have you read anything at all? ever ?
the ps3 has a gpu and its cpu , similar to a pc. But the cpu of the ps3 is completely different and for a well written multithreaded game would kick current pc arch easily

and if just look at enemy teritory 2: ground wars, for some amazing pc graphics

no comment needed.

fade2black

Christ, it's a long way from CJ's Elephant antics.

Altheus

Am I the only one to spot the resemblance between the new PS3 pad and these




As for the PS3 tech specs, I think they are great, probably a little bit ahead of PC architecture now, but in a year's time?

Look at the way a 733Mhz Celeron/GeForce Ti was able to handle games so much faster than a PS2. You would have had a hard time trying to convince Sony fanboys that a 733Mhz Celeron was better than their hardware.

Sony have shot themselves in the foot in my opinion. They're counting on a quick transitional rate from PS2 users, which isnt going to happen. Let's not forget how slowly the PS2 was picked up originally. Also the technology they're using is not looking to come down in price anytime soon.

Lets look at Sony's track record of splicing and editing realtime footage with heavily rendered sequences. This happened with the PS1 and PS2 respectively. The screenshots from Killzone quite clearly show some kind of focal blurring which is beyond the capability of 6800 Ultra's currently, so I do question how exactly they are managing to do this ingame (never mind at 60FPS).

I'll admit Sony have put together a fine system, but I'm going to wait for the final spec sheet prior to release.

bk

Kiith wrote:

firstly, i dont think the ps3 is as powerful as sony say it is, and secondly, your so wrong about the physics of ps3/360 being better then the pc, since the pc is the home of physics(says einstien), and thirdly, you say you cant compare the ps3 cell precessor to the 360's three precessors, then stop comparing the ps3 to pc architecture. its totally different, relying heavily on the graphics cards, over the cpu.

and if just look at enemy teritory 2: ground wars, for some amazing pc graphics

Haha, it isn't often you see a PC fanatic.

Actually I'm a PC gamer myself (P4 3.4GHz, 1GB Ram, Geforce 6800 Pro) and I don't own either a PS2 or Xbox (I do have a GC but I don't play it much).

The only reason I was comparing it to a PC is because PC have the best graphics/physics at the moment and they are what it needs to beat.

Actually the general CPU (AMD/Intel) in a PC aren't ideal for physics, better then the current consoles, but not ideal. In fact their is a company getting ready to launch a separate Physics Processing Unit (PPU) that will be on an add on card like the GPU's for PC's

In my experience (my first games palying machine was a ZX Spectrum with a whole 48k of memory!!) the consoles are normaly more powerful for 2 or 3 years after their launch, the the PC catches up and goes far beyond the console, showing us what is possible in the next gen of consoles. It has been like this since the PS1 days and I expect this gen won't be any different.

bk

Altheus wrote:

Sony have shot themselves in the foot in my opinion. They're counting on a quick transitional rate from PS2 users, which isnt going to happen. Let's not forget how slowly the PS2 was picked up originally.

Ehm, they sold 1.5 million in the US in the first month alone. Any company would give their right arm for that sort of take up. Only the DS has beaten this take up rate.

monument

on the release date - http://gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=8997

evad_lhorg wrote:

screw killzone lookin great it will be just a cack as the first one.

And you know that because you like to time travel so you can play game before everyone, right?

flogen wrote:

As I've said already bloodbath, these graphics aren't as far ahead of the pack as some people expected, and calling them next gen is a bit much when the current gen of PC's can match them or is just behind them.
I honestly think graphical capabilities have hit the roof for now, and when I look for a next gen console I wont go for the one with the best graphics I'll go for the one with the best overall realism and most importantly the most original ideas in gaming.

The real-time EA and Epic stuff shown on Monday are far beyond what the industry was expecting from the PS3.

How much I dislike the word, they’re calling the consoles next gen has nothing to do with PCs – they’re next generation consoles.

"graphical capabilities have hit the roof for now" - what the hell are you talking about?

Nietzschean

bk wrote:

Haha, it isn't often you see a PC fanatic.

lmao legend so true.


PC would currently be my gaming machine 6800GT OC'd style box, but like i can recognise being out classed when i see it

Altheus

bk wrote:

Ehm, they sold 1.5 million in the US in the first month alone. Any company would give their right arm for that sort of take up. Only the DS has beaten this take up rate.

Source that figure. Also bear in mind that they wont be releasing it in Japan 6 months prior, and will have an even more limited game stock before release. Then another 6 months, we might just get it hear. So I'm looking at a 2007 release date realistically. Then it's going to be €500 or so. Do you really expect the same sort of migration rates when the XBox will already have established itself on the next-gen market.

Lets not forget that previous "Next Gen" wars and the technology that were originally for the PC that made these systems what they were.

The CD-ROM Drive: The Playstation vs The Saturn | "WTF is Nights? I WANT FIFA" Winner: PS1

Bilinear Filtering: The N64 vs The Playstation | "Where's the FMV?" Winner: PS1

3D PC Graphics Card: Dreamcast vs The Playstation | "Didnt PowerVRs suck? Just like the Titanic, this behemoth sank" Winner: PS1

Nintendo the puritans ... PS2 vs GameCube | "Rambo vs Barney" Winner: PS2

PC in a box: PS2 vs Xbox | "You cant make a PC a console.... can you?"

Next gen consoles have never done anything revolutionary... ever.

Ciaran500

Darth Bobo wrote:

I don't think sony can outright lie about its specs.....it would be rather poor press...

Sony are well know for lying. e.g. creating their own reviewer for films, stating the PS2 could handle 75million polygons per sec, the emotion engine :rolleyes:,

Nietzschean

Altheus wrote:

Next gen consoles have never done anything revolutionary... ever.

Uh huh, so where's the pc's with triple core powerpc processors or cell cpu's? i certainly don't have one and would love one. So if your hogging all the suppliers let me in on it!!

someone or other wrote:

Sony are well know for lying. e.g. creating their own reviewer for films, stating the PS2 could handle 75million polygons per sec, the emotion engine

75million polygons under ideal conditions maybe? , and also nothing lie'n about having your own reviewers now is there , it reeks of cheating but its not illegal/lie'n.

Nietzschean

Altheus wrote:

S. Also bear in mind that they wont be releasing it in Japan 6 months prior, and will have an even more limited game stock before release.

As regards availability, one big thing ur missing here about the ps3 is, it uses cell cpu's, between sony and ibm they have an army of fab facilities, how ever many they need they can produce, and in that quantity cheap too i'd say.

Only thing i see as being a possible stumbling block is the ram, can see shortages of that maybe holding things up.

bk

Altheus wrote:

Source that figure. Also bear in mind that they wont be releasing it in Japan 6 months prior, and will have an even more limited game stock before release. Then another 6 months, we might just get it hear. So I'm looking at a 2007 release date realistically. Then it's going to be €500 or so. Do you really expect the same sort of migration rates when the XBox will already have established itself on the next-gen market.

This info was suprisingly hard to find and I have to admit I was slightly wrong.

It turns it Sony sold just under 1 million units in Japan in just two days!!!!! (this was compared to 100,000 units for the PS1 launch)

They sold 3 million units after 3 months in Japan.

In the US they shipped 500,000 units the first week and 100,000 units for each subsequent week totaling 900,000 units in the first month.

The biggest problem they had was that demand way outstripped supply.

My point being was that PS2 wasn't picked up slowly, it was one of the quickest take up rates in console history.

Source: http://www.emulationstation.com/systemlist.asp?ID=24

Altheus wrote:

Then another 6 months, we might just get it hear. So I'm looking at a 2007 release date realistically.

There are already articles on the web that are saying PS3 might get a worldwide realease like 360. Even if it doesn't it will be in Europe by Christmas 2006.

Altheus wrote:

Then it's going to be €500 or so.

Some people have such short memorys.

The PS1 was £300 (€380) which 10 years ago was a lot more money then now. That still didn't stop it becoming the most succesful console.

The PS2 cost about €450 afair, didn't stop people buying it in record numbers.

Altheus wrote:

Do you really expect the same sort of migration rates when the XBox will already have established itself on the next-gen market.

Yes, I saw what Sony did to Dreamcast, they will do the same to 360.

Sony ran a big wait for PS2 campaign against Dreamcast and it worked. If they can convince people that PS3 is more powerfull, more future proof and has better games (weither it does or not is irrelative, it is all about marketing), then many people will wait and see.

Anyway many of the 87 million PS2 owners are loyal to Sony and will be attracted by it's backwards capability.

Also the first few months aren't that important. In the first few months the Xbox and Sony fanboys will buy them in big numbers. It is christmas 2006 and specially christmas 2007 is when the real fight will be on and they both drop price and compete for the mainstream customers.

A few months head start has never made any real difference to who wins, remember Saturn had a 4 month headstart in Europe, Dreamcast was out months before PS2, even the Sega Mega Drive was out far before the SNES, it didn't make a difference to the final outcome of any of these machines.

Altheus wrote:

Lets not forget that previous "Next Gen" wars and the technology that were originally for the PC that made these systems what they were.
......
Next gen consoles have never done anything revolutionary... ever.

Not true, in my experience as a PC gamer, when PS1 and PS2 came out they where more powerfull then PC's for about 2 or 3 years.

bk

Darth Bobo wrote:

As regards availability, one big thing ur missing here about the ps3 is, it uses cell cpu's, between sony and ibm they have an army of fab facilities, how ever many they need they can produce, and in that quantity cheap too i'd say.

Only thing i see as being a possible stumbling block is the ram, can see shortages of that maybe holding things up.

Actually I think the stumbling block for both PS3 and 360 could be the GPU's. Time and time again the GPU's for PC's have been delayed and paper launched.

BTW both IBM and Toshiba (a Cell partner) and Sony have been tapping out the Cell processors since last December!!!

Altheus

Umm, Sony/IBM/Toshiba have a lot of answering to do...

First up:

http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20050425/104149/?ST=english

That's supposedly 48 MPEG-2 streams stored on a HDD were read, decoded and projected onto a 1,920 x 1,080 resolution display divided into 8 x 6 cells.

Now call me a liar, but that looks like Windows Media Player to me. Seems odd that...

I dont trust Sony. They've lied before. They'll lie again.

I dont trust MS but at least they didnt lie about the Xbox.

The CELL CPU tech would be the only thing I can see outdoing the Xbox, but even that is purely theoretical. I'd imagine it's probably one of the trickiest platforms to code for, or else it's going to have to use a middleware (see Windows CE on the Dreamcast) which will mean a performance hit.

I'm going to go with the Xbox on this one. Why? The XBox beat the PS2 hands down at everything the PS2 did. Games, sounds, DVDs, internet play.

Sure Sony have about 12 titles I got tired of back in 98 with the latest iteration, but really they're nothing more than interactive tech demos. I'm a games player. I like eye candy as much as the next man, but as usual with Sony it's style over substance.

Nietzschean

bk wrote:

Actually I think the stumbling block for both PS3 and 360 could be the GPU's. Time and time again the GPU's for PC's have been delayed and paper launched.

BTW both IBM and Toshiba (a Cell partner) and Sony have been tapping out the Cell processors since last December!!!

wasn't the biggest bottle neck in the last refresh the samsung ram that both high end gfx cards used?

Nietzschean

Altheus wrote:

Umm, Sony/IBM/Toshiba have a lot of answering to do...

First up:

http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20050425/104149/?ST=english

That's supposedly 48 MPEG-2 streams stored on a HDD were read, decoded and projected onto a 1,920 x 1,080 resolution display divided into 8 x 6 cells.

Now call me a liar, but that looks like Windows Media Player to me. Seems odd that...

"At the COOL Chips VIII event held in Yokohama from April 20 to 22, 2005, the company showed a film demonstrating the decoding process."

I dont trust MS but at least they didnt lie about the Xbox.

From what i've seen of their presentation all they did was discuss market share...not much to lie about

The CELL CPU tech would be the only thing I can see outdoing the Xbox, but even that is purely theoretical. I'd imagine it's probably one of the trickiest platforms to code for, or else it's going to have to use a middleware (see Windows CE on the Dreamcast) which will mean a performance hit.

Why so? its not going to be that tricky to code for, you make it out like its a purely custom tech that they are going with, remember that blue genel yoke? And considering that sort of distributed setup for processing is the way forward it seems devlopers maybe inclined to future proof their training of employees

I'm going to go with the Xbox on this one. Why? The XBox beat the PS2 hands down at everything the PS2 did. Games, sounds, DVDs, internet play.

Thats very subjective, for one the ps2 is quite a bit older than the xbox. And the xbox fell down in some areas , style, games...
and DVD's? they both play em what do ye want?
sound? ps2 has optical out, thats all i wanted 5.1 sound, does the xbox do 7.1?

Sure Sony have about 12 titles I got tired of back in 98 with the latest iteration, but
really they're nothing more than interactive tech demos. I'm a games player. I like eye candy as much as the next man, but as usual with Sony it's style over substance.

lol subjective xbox fanboy tripe.

bk

Altheus wrote:

http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20050425/104149/?ST=english

That's supposedly 48 MPEG-2 streams stored on a HDD were read, decoded and projected onto a 1,920 x 1,080 resolution display divided into 8 x 6 cells.

Now call me a liar, but that looks like Windows Media Player to me. Seems odd that...

Yeah, that is someone having taken a picture of their computer with it playing the videos from E3 on WMP downloaded from E3. If you had actually bothered your as$ to actually watch the E3 conferences yourself, you would have seen that there wasn't any WMP.

Altheus wrote:

The CELL CPU tech would be the only thing I can see outdoing the Xbox, but even that is purely theoretical. I'd imagine it's probably one of the trickiest platforms to code for, or else it's going to have to use a middleware (see Windows CE on the Dreamcast) which will mean a performance hit.

Haha, and that it actually what DNA is, a middleware for the 360.

A developer from Epic (Unreal) has said that you can program the PS3 using C, CG (Nvidias C like programming language for its GPUs) and OpenGL. All very standard and easy to program stuff for any developer.

Altheus wrote:

I'm going to go with the Xbox on this one. Why? The XBox beat the PS2 hands down at everything the PS2 did. Games, sounds, DVDs, internet play.

That is ridiculous, so your going to go with a new console just because the old one was good!! Would you have gotten a Sega Saturn or a N64 so?

Don't be such a blind fanboy, open your mind to new ideas.

Personally I'm going to get whichever console has the best games. I'll probably end up getting them all at some stage. All I'm saying is from a completely unbiased view point (I have neither a PS2 nor a Xbox) the PS3 looks to be the more powerfull console and looks to have the more revolutionary and interesting games.

BloodBath

God theres a lot of BS being talked by people who don't know what the're talking about. I don't claim to be any expert on the exact workings of hardware but I do know this.

The ps3 and x-box 360 are currently 2.5-3 times faster than any high end pc (excluding sli)

Developers have already stated that the ps3 is quite easy to work with and the cell processor isn't causing any major programming problems.

The tech demos released so far far exceed any pc game that is currently available graphically. You are either blind or stupid if you can't see this. I also beleive that they are true representations of what they are capable of based on the specs.

If you think $450-500 is too high a price then stick with the last gen and stop moaning. That is incredibly cheap for the hardware you're getting and you can be guarenteed that both sony and microsoft will be still losing hundreds on each console sale. I paid £300 for my ps1 on release day which is pretty much equivilent to that price by todays standards taking the euro and inflation into account.

bk

I couldn't agree more Bloodbath.

Ciaran500

Darth Bobo wrote:

75million polygons under ideal conditions maybe? , and also nothing lie'n about having your own reviewers now is there , it reeks of cheating but its not illegal/lie'n.

Having your own reviewer is pure lies. The point of a reviewer is to provide an independant view.

75 million is under ideal conditions when all other competitors quote under real world conditions.


Sony have a terrible track record of glossing and just out right lying just to sell a few more consloes. This is why I'm very suspicious of the amazing claims Sony is making at E3.

Nietzschean

Ciaran500 wrote:

Having your own reviewer is pure lies. The point of a reviewer is to provide an independant view.

The point of a reviewer is to give a view, not nessarily independent ( http://url.ie/8m)

75 million is under ideal conditions when all other competitors quote under real world conditions.

Erm so good marketing then?

bk

Ciaran500 wrote:

75 million is under ideal conditions when all other competitors quote under real world conditions.

Sony have a terrible track record of glossing and just out right lying just to sell a few more consloes. This is why I'm very suspicious of the amazing claims Sony is making at E3.

Are you kidding, they all over exaggerate, a good rule of thumb is take what each of them has been saying and divide by 2.

Nintendo is the only one who hasn't over exaggerated, but that is because they unfortunately have little to say

Smellyirishman

X-box going to reach over a billion people? Doubt it.

They all spin thier lies. Franky I could not give a crap, if the games play well and look nice then I could not give a crap about the numbers.

Altheus

I'm actually all about the Nintendo Revolution, I've always felt that the Playstation has consistently done more harm than good, that perhaps is why I have such a Vendetta against Sony. Also perhaps it would be the fact than by exclusivity rights, bully tactics, and clever marketing they've actually brought the entire industry to it's knees (see SEGA/Nintendo).

The Xbox seems to be putting out realistic, believable figures.

What you seem to be saying is that it was a video, that is absolutely inconclusive about the real power of the chip, just like the games Sony is showing at E3, it's prerendered búllshít until proven otherwise.

As for the Xbox360 being 2.5/3 times as fast as a high end PC, I call bull****. It's not. It's proprietary, and software will run faster on it sure. It's basically an Apple XServe with an excellent GPU, so whether you believe that Apple's G5 tech is 2.5 times as fast as the new dual-core 64-bit PC processors is up to you.

I really dont know how Sony manage to do it everytime they release a new console. People are blinded by hype, technology hidden behind "emotions", and the fancy prerendered FMV. I'm yet to see substance. I've seen launch titles of tired franchises. The Xbox360 has some new and some old, and frankly looks to have a finer suite of games for a game's player. The PS3 suite seems to be just the latest editions of franchises that have been around since the PS1.

The Xbox is a superior console to the PS2, in every respect. It is my opinion that the Xbox 360 will be superior to the PS3, for innovation and for games.

If you have some hard evidence of the PS3's speed, and I'm not talking about hypothetical articles, then maybe there's some argument to be made. As yet the Cell processor sounds great. It's essentially a fancy multi-core with specialised subsets which is great, I cant wait for the x86 processors to follow suit... wait... arent they?

DNA is a middleware like DirectX, which is a proven middleware technology, go back and read what Sony had to say about DirectX back when version 2 was about, and a certain evangelist call Alex St. John in a magazine called 'boot'.

Sony's hardware has typically been trickier to code for than most other platforms. The easiest hardware in the next gen's to code for is the Xbox360 by far, so it would seem that easy coding means more headspace for designers, more innovation and better games. The core is a multithread but not specialised in the same manner as the PS3.

To make something of PS3's Cell CPU would mean programming for specific APUs and thread processes, this may produce great results, but is certainly not just bread and butter for developers. I'm sure you can code in C and CG, but you'll need to basically rewrite the code for a distributed processor to get the most out of the system. I see huge development times ahead.

As for this Xbox fanboy tripe, I'm still playing my Dreamcast, NeoGeo and SNES. I play my brothers Xbox for some new titles that arent on PC, and I play the PS2 for other ones. Every game, bar none, that is cross-platform, looks better and plays better on the Xbox.

steviec

Well of course multiplatform games look better on XBox 1 than they do on PS2. What has that got to do with anything? The XBox is much newer. There is no signifigance in this whatsoever.

As for originality. Sony have MGS4, GT5, Tekken 6, Devil May Cry 4. Microsoft have Halo 3, Project Gotham Racing 3, Ghost Recon 3, Dead or Alive 4. The numbers are only bigger on the PS3 games because they've two previous consoles instead of one. Both consoles also have a number of original titles. Gears of War, Killing Day, Motor Storm, Full Auto, Eyedentify, Kameo. I don't think theres a huge amount to differenciate them on those grounds. As for Nintendo, so far all they've announced for their console is nes, snes, n64 and gamecube games. Lots of originality there. There's no point talking about originality now though. Original, ground breaking games are never the ones talked about a year before they come out. We'll see original games when they happen.

But in terms of specs theres just no denying that the PS3 is more powerful. Of course Sony's 2 Terraflop statistic is in ideal circumstances. But are you trying to suggest Microsoft's 1 Terraflop statistic isn't? If you divide it by 2, divide it by 3 if you want, both numbers get smaller but the Cell is still twice as big. Look at EA's showing for another example. They've always encompassed every system. Their XBox showing was your typical montage of semi-impressive clips from usual yearly updates. Their PS3 showing consisted of a proper, real time, very impressive demonstration of what the technology could do for one game, Fight Night being the example. Lots of third party developers have been very clear in what they've said, the PS3 is incredibly powerful and Sony aren't making it up. The XBox 360 is also incredibly powerful but it's not the most powerful anymore.

It all depends how developers use them, I reckon a lot of games are going to look similar on the two consoles in most cases, but there could be a few really special games, the ones with the highest production values that will really push the Cell to its limits. I'm thinking games like Metal Gear Solid 4.

steviec

Altheus wrote:

Also perhaps it would be the fact than by exclusivity rights, bully tactics, and clever marketing they've actually brought the entire industry to it's knees

I can't help finding that sentence ironic when the rest of the post is spent praising microsoft.

Altheus

The irony is that it took a behemoth like Microsoft to redress the balance. I'd prefer if the games companies made the games consoles. Would I prefer to see SEGA, Nintendo and Atari making consoles? Damn right I would. Unfortunately Nintendo have had to diversify to the point of near marginal status despite market share.

As far as Xbox praise goes, I'm not trying to praise MS or the Xbox, but merely point out it's strengths over the PS3, and the weaknesses both consoles have against PCs.

I think also important to note that by the time these consoles hit the market, the new ATI/nVidia hardware, as well as the new Audigy (which is going to pretty much revolutionise audio hardware as we know it). The PhysX chip too.

I have no doubt the Cell processor is quite an excellent piece of kit, but just like the "Emotion Engine" and the "3D" Playstation before it, I dont think any of Sony/IBM/Toshiba's figures can be trusted. Also remember the G5 benchmarks that Adobe pulled?

These companies are talking about 1080i like it's going to revolutionise gaming, I've been running games at 1280x1024 with FSAA since the Radeon 9700 Pro, and beyond in certain circumstances.

Most developers are going to see the similiarities between the cores of the Xbox360 and PS2 and code around that. You're talking about a 6 month wait period to fully optimise it for a smoother ride at 1080i, how exactly is this going to benefit the gamer?

The back catalogue is certainly an impressive weight to carry through to the next generation of consoles, but to be honest, I wouldnt be surprised if a PS2 emulator pops up on the Xbox360.

Again where is the hard proof, not speculative estimations and 'representations', it's not available whatsoever.

It's so easy to forget how good things like GT3 looked in the video, and how they actually looked in game. One was amazing, the other was... a little dissapointing, very much a trick of the eye, and hardly a compelling gameplaying experience. This is Sony's history, deception, lies and vast overestimates of the capability of their hardware. It's all smoke and mirrors again at E3 so I'm just going to join the dots and say Sony are just doing it again.

About the Killzone footage: http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/617/617172p1.html?fromint=1

A 'representation'.

TerrorFirmer

So now we come to it... What do IGN editors think. Is the Killzone video real? Will the game look like that?

David Clayman - IGNXbox - "No. No. No. If that's the style of the game, it will look like that, but not at that level of quality. That had separate animations for every single movement. That is not a game. It was total CG. Those little things giveaway stuff like that real well."

To all the fanboys who insisted that Killzone will in fact look identical to the video and will have the same level of detail :rolleyes: