More details on Playstation3? (1 Viewer)

[paul h]

Gamespot have posted an interesting article on technology that could well be making its way into the next playstation.
http://gamespot.com/gamespot/stories...908225,00.html
"Cell, which is expected to come out in late 2004 or early 2005, substantially differs from current chips on the market. Developed by IBM, Sony, and Toshiba, the processor will contain multiple chips inside a single piece of silicon and will be geared toward delivering video, entertainment, interactive gaming, and other content. It will have the ability to do north of 1 trillion mathematical calculations per second, roughly 100 times more than a single Pentium 4 chip running at 2.5GHz.
Chips churning at that speed, though, need to be surrounded by high-speed links and similarly speedy chips to function properly, which is where Yellowstone and Redwood come in. Yellowstone can transfer data up to 100 gigabits per second, or three times faster than current high-speed memory, said Laura Stark, vice president of the memory interface group at Rambus. In the end, the two technologies will allow chips to exchange audio or graphics data extremely rapidly, the companies said."

 

[Mike LS]

If the PS3 releases in 05 or 06, would it not be really odd that they would include technology that had just made it to the PC world? Seems that it would be too expensive to include in a game console. Especially since Sony won't own the entire market at release like they did with the PS2, so they'll have to be much more careful of the price they set at release.

 

[GlenHaag]

I still believe that Sony will still carry at least a 50% share(probably more) of the market with the launch of the PS3. MS and Nintendo haven't really made all that huge of a dent in the PS2 market at this point. If Sony is smart, which they have been to this point...They'll continue to get the exclusive titles they need to bring people over to their platform.

Glen

 

[Jeff Kleist]

The problem is that Sony has become complacent. They're happy with their domineering position right now. Honestly I had a PS1 day one, but to this day I STILL don't have any more than 2-3 PS2 games that aren't on other platforms I want

 

[RANDY FISHER]

From Magic Box news end of October 02.

- Strategy Analytics has released a new console shipment forecast report, indicates that Sony will continue to dominate the sales in the console market. Throughout this year, the console sales has increased by 84%, and PlayStation 2 captured 63% of the worldwide market share, with over 41.9 million units shipped. GameCube is in the 2nd place with a 21% market share, or 10.8 million units; Xbox is in the 3rd place with a 16% market share and 8.2 million units.

- Furthermore, the report forecasts that the market share of PlayStation 2 will further increase to 72% by the end of the year. Strategy Analytics pointed out the console war has become a race for the second place, as Nintendo and Microsoft will continue to fight for the second place head to head. The industry experts predict that Nintendo may move to a software-only developer like Sega in the next few years.

Randy

 

[Brae]

GlenHaag, not to defend Microsoft and Nintendo, but you will have to give Microsoft credit for its advances thus far considering they are on the first generation gaming platform. How much longer (pick a percentage) has Sony and Nintendo been doing this? I say give it some time, at least a couple of more years, and we'll see how the market plays out.

I am trying to figure out why of my non-work friends only three have gaming consoles and they are PS2. But, in the workplace my small group (17 people including myself) 6 have the X-Box and none have the PS2. I find this a little strange, but I wouldn't even dream of trying to figure out why.

And although the next slate generation of the PS is scheduled to have a very robust core processing ability I doubt that Microsoft will sit-still as even the P4's will probably be off the market by them and they'll use something similar. Also, I wonder what the next generation consoles will be using for the graphics processing.

 

[Graeme Clark]

How much longer (pick a percentage) has Sony and Nintendo been doing this?

Both of them took hold of the market on their first generation. Nintendo didn't have much competition, but managed to single handedly revive a dying market. Sony managed to take on both Sega and Nintendo, and win.

Nintendo has been on a downwards slide each generation (but still manages to be very profitable despite this) while Sony has most likely gained market share this time.

 

[Rob_Pierce]

Whichever console comes next, I sure hope backwards compatibility is here to stay. If Sony's PS3 is backwards compatible, that will sure help their cause. I think one of the reasons the PS2 is so dominating is the fact that people can still play their old PSX games...I still play Castlevania SOTN quite a bit.

I hope Nintendo and Microsoft follow suit.

 

[Sean Eldridge]

Nintendo has been on a downwards slide each generation

I think they've done a pretty fair job with Gamecube. In my opinion, a better job than with N64.

Sean

 

[Masood Ali]

Nintendo has been on a downwards slide each generation

If it weren't for the fact that they hold 98% of the handheld gaming market (which still uses the highly profitable cartridge format), they might actually have posted a loss.

 

[EdR]

If it weren't for the fact that they hold 98% of the handheld gaming market (which still uses the highly profitable cartridge format), they might actually have posted a loss.

What do you mean by "highly profitable cartridge format"? Compared to DVD? Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, or don't know what I'm talking about...but the OEM cost for DVD media is nearly as cheap as CD-R. I can't imagine that cartridges (which have mutliple parts that require assembly) could be cheaper.

 

[BrianB]

He means that the cartridge format is highly profitable for Nintendo. Every GBA cartridge is manufactured through Nintendo, so they get a slice of the pie for every game sold on top of the platform royalty.

DVDs cost so much less to manufacture, there'd be much less "pie" for Nintendo to get their grubby hands on.

Nintendo's high royalty/manufacturing cost is one of the things killing the GBA software market for third parties.

 

[EdR]

He means that the cartridge format is highly profitable for Nintendo. Every GBA cartridge is manufactured through Nintendo, so they get a slice of the pie for every game sold on top of the platform royalty.

Ah, I got it...so that's why these games are ~$30.

In a way, it makes you hope that the GBA SP is a flop so that Nintendo might need to find a way to reduce game prices.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

Honestly, I could care less about the next generation right now. The current gen of consoles is far more interesting, especially with the battles going on and the fact that these consoles are out now, while the future ones won't be for years.

 

[EdR]

I just hope that Sony learns from the PS2 as far as development environments go. The Xbox has done as well as it has partly due to the friendlier dev tools, which make it easier to make games, and fully utilize the hardware.

The PS2 has been held back by poor tools that make it difficult to get the most from the system. That's why there's been such an improvement in graphics quality since the system's release, developers needed time to get to know the system...Sony can't afford to make it hard on developers any longer.

 

[Ryan Peter]

Nintendo's high royalty/manufacturing cost is one of the things killing the GBA software market for third parties.

Hey Brian, could you talk a little more about this? Those of us not in the know seem to see the GBA through Indigo lenses as if everything there is peachy keen as it efficiently pads Nintenod's wallet. How could the GBA 3rd party market be hurting? Is the cost of designing and creating an original game in 2D as expensive as a 3D game of today? Does porting cost money since if you can't emulate/reuse old code? I'd love to see a more detailed explanation.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

If I can take a stab at it (no insider knowlege)

Based on Nintendo's past fee structure, it's probably give or take $15 a cart including royaties, packaging, and media to get a GBA cart out the door. But they have to keep the SRP around $30. So they have very little space between media cost and wholesale price per unit to pay the dev costs and make a profit. That's why you're seeing so many ports, cause ports are cheap, and once you write an SNES/Genesis Emulator are pretty much clockwork.

But ports of old games have limited appeal, THEREFORE you might not make enough to even make it worth your while

 

[Ryan Peter]

So is the GBA really emulating SNES games? I didn't realize it had that much processing power. What would be an equivilent CPU in terms of processing power? A 586?

 

[EdR]

Apparently Sony has filed for a patent that reveals some details about the PS3:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=7078
Similar info the GameSpot article, there's a link to the patent as well.

 

[Kelley_B]

PowerPC in the PS3....hmmmmmmm.....interesting. Sounds like it could be some awesome hardware but that description sure makes it look expensive.