News PS3 trials and tribulations

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2006/11/06/PS3_trials_and_tribulation/

 

still the ps2 id wager, its got to have made its money back now. thats why they can churn them out and sell them cheap.


and the ps3 WILL sell more units than the 360 over tis life, the xbox 360 has an almost 10 million unit lead but thats going to be dwarved by how many ps3's are sold in just japan over a couple of years.

ask someone to name a console, it will be a playstation, you just cant get away from the fact sony is a gret force in console gaming, they ahve had a lot of trouble with the ps3, i for one dont believe its as good as teh hype, no where near in fact and the launch line up is piss poor. but thats not going to stop people buying one jsut to say they have a ps3, even if all they play on it is 2 year old games like fnr3 and oblivion

 

"he makes a good point that these drives are far more complex than the standard Blu-ray drives"

Rubbish. They read 6 formats? well no 3 actually really since ps1 disks are CD standard and PS2 are DVD, and all standard Bluray drives are backwards compatible so they read DVDs and CDs too. More Sony spin - aww look at us we have such a hard job. Be nice to us we didn't mean to screw it all up.

Not swallowing that unlike Mr Garside.

 

Read an account from about a week ago of someone that turned up to a toys-r-us pre-order do in the US, apparently waited several hours to find the staff had reserved 12/15 WII's and 4/5 60gb PS3's heh, said there was one 20gb PS3 also, but that they didn't consider that a real PS3. (they went for the wii, by the way)

Too early to say if the PS3 will defeat the 360 really, but if its really as hard to program for as I've seen made out (while the 360 is heralded as one of the easiest yet) then I wouldn't be at all surprised if the 360 won just on having a much bigger/better library of games.

 

Yet more insulting PR drivle from Sony.

To actually suggest that what they have told us to date is 'definate' and 'honest' is just the biggest load of ****!

I hope when the PS2 outsells the PS3 for the next two years they hold the same point of view.

 

keep in mind still, that PS3 is still backed completely by the entire ps2 and ps1 libraries, not certain games that they decide to support. When it comes to a quite a few parents I met working retail, they rather have the ps2 over the xbox because they can play all of the ps1 games they invested in, and I think you'll find it'll play out the same for the ps3.

 

Do people actually play PSX games on the PS2?? I thought that stopped 6 months after the PS2 release once people had finished the PSX games they were playing during the transition? And what stopped people plugging in their PSX? Or Xbox if the game isnt supported in the 360??

Oh noes, it died the day I purchased next gen.

It's OLD now, I cant even bring myself to USE it.

I have to agree, this is yet another insulting PR statement from Sony and Darkedge was entirely right about the 3 formats. It has NOTHING to do with the diodes and everything to do with the firmware the PS3 has to read DVD/CD/Blu Ray data and recognise what disk is inserted. A £20 DVD drive does 2/3rds of what a blu ray drive does at 1/30th of the cost.

And this BS about "we will tell them when their next shipment is arriving.. etc" isnt that what you'd expect a company to do?? Im not denying they've put a load of effort into the coding and development of the PS3 but the Xbox 360 HDDVD drive alone has 4.7 million lines of code added to the firmware of the 360 to make it compatible, so MS can do it without the willy pulling hoo har too.

 

seconded.

 

Thirded.
And I thought that the production problems were with the diode that produces the laser beam, not the underlying controls to read the discs - so the whole thing of "it has to read x different formats" is just more PR crap.

 

I know. What the heck is about people only write about the bad things
They admit ps3 has bad things and why wouldn't people do it. We are paying 600$ freaking bucks for it..

 

If it is so difficult for Sony to make the blue diode read CD and DVD discs, why didn't they just put in a red diode to read them?
Wasn't something simmilar done with the first generation of DVD/CD-RW combo drives?
And if it is so difficult; how is it that Pioneer are already selling an, all be it crushingly expensive, "everything but *-RAM" drive?

Methinks Sony doth protest too much!

 

Agreed, such a stupid argument. The only console that will have backwards compatibility really going for it is the Wii. If you don't own your NES, SNES, or n64 console, or something happened to it, you can buy & download the games you want to play again. Genius on Nintendo's part because of their vast history.

The only Xbox game I really play on my 360 is Halo 2. The game needs to have a good replay value in order to work on a next-gen console.

 

dude I still play nethack over telnet..
you seem pretty spoilt to me, if you can't use something just because something new's come out...

 

It's because firstly they went down the angle of: "You will be honoured to buy this and will work harder for it", whereas now they are playing the angle of: "It's soooo hard for us ittle wittle people! We are working our socks off and that's why it's so expensive and there's only a few of them to go around *small tear runs down PR mans cheek*"

Spaced: It was sarcasm, dude. It was comments that I was imagining being made on behalf of those people who are in favour of backwards compatability. Like these people don't already own the old consoles, and if they don't I'd hazard a guess to argue that they probably only want to play next gen anyway. Even IF they did want to play previous gen the likelyhood of the games they want to play will be popular ones (ala 360 versus PS3s backward compatability). So it doesn't matter if it plays "My little pony" released in 2002 because the likely hood of someone wanting it is as good as non-existent.

It's amazing that the people that complain about backwards compatability are already the likely targets to OWN the consoles they want backwards comptability for.

 

I bet € to doughnuts that in those two sentences Bindi was being sarcastic.

Regarding the article...I agree with most people here. It's simply stupid to blame the blue diodes or whatever. I can't understand SONY's pr department. OK, there are going to be launch shortages (big deal...there are always shortages at launch with consoles). OK, they have got some bad press due several blunders during the last year. OK, flaming SONY is the "in" thing to do in the Internet. Why haven't all this executives got the clue? It would be better to just shut the **** off. Cut the trash talk, talk only about the console and games and just weather the storm until launch day.

By December the PS3 is likely to be selling like hotcakes despite SONY itself. The hardware is nice if expensive, magazines and websites getting one are saying nice things about it, it's beginning to look polished and the games catalogue seems as strong as ever. The new SONY motto should be "let the console speak for itself"...and they should pass an internal memo:"Every executive that opens his mouth, gets fired in the spot".

And put some handcuffs and a gag on Kutargy and hide him in SONY's HQ deepest basement until December'07 at least. It's scary what he can come up in an entire year if the PS3 finally does half-fine at launch.

Backwards compatibility is nice to have...during the launch days, when games catalogue is weak, you get all the PS2 catalogue and news like GoW 2 and FF XII. 1 year from now, you may not play a single PS2 game, but at least, you have the option and you don't need to take the dust off your old PS2 and find some room in your home-theatre are to plug just another thing. As a matter of fact, it's something that I've thought about myself...I have a huge PS2 library...but if I get the X360 as I think I'll do, I can as well sell all of it. I don't see myself making the effort of plugging the PS2 again just for some light retro-gaming (and at home, I could use that storage space for something else than getting loads of dust). But having all that content available by just putting the DVD into the console would be nice to have.

All in all, it was a great decision from Sony's part to make PS3 compatible with PS2 and PSX. How SONY can be flamed for lacking a 10€ HDMI cable bundled with the PS3, and MS can get away with lying and under performing about backwards compatibility, is way beyond me.

 

Amen to you, it was sarcasm.

But the EFFORT of plugging in another console?? It takes all of a minute to plug in the 3 coaxial cables and a power plug. Is backwards compatability the definition of lazyness??

But a HDMI cable is NECESSARY for the console and blu ray to work. The Wii doesn't include a component cable and Im supprised noone has made a hoo-har about it because the composite cable will only offer 480i. But then again, it isn't necessary for it because it doesn't do HD, whereas you go buy a PS3 for HD and quality then you get offered a crappy coax?? The sad part is most people will just plug in the coax and still be happy.

This whole thing about MS versus PS3 backward compatability is my whole point: people make a fuss about it before the console is released then noone uses it because they already own the old console, and of those that do use it , it's only the most popular games for a short time after release that are possibly used in the new consoles.

 

I understand your point, and in fact, I can't disagree. All my consoles since the SEGA Megadrive (Genesis for you yanks) have been backwards compatible...and I've hardly played old games. Still, isn't it much better to just be able to sell your old console? My PS2 will end getting dust and occupying valuable space just in case I want to play some PES5 matches. And plugging it is no big deal, but it's uncomfortable. Why do I need to keep and old console if the new one is powerful enough to play every old game? (Joe User doesn't care about technical details like emulation or hardware incompatibilities...for him new>old so old games should work fine).

Not necessary. Useful yes, and if ICT is activated then it'll be necessary, but nowadays, it isn't (As a matter of fact, you'll see many X360 fans dismissing HDMI as a mere "gimmik"...I for once would love to get an HDMI port on my X360). You need HDMI...get a 10€ cable and you are set to go. The PS2 didn't include SCART cables, nor VGA cables and nobody made a big deal out of it. In fact, most consoles don't include all the supported cables (the X360 doesn't include HD Component cables IIRC)...that's hardly a new politics from SONY.

Indeed. But can you imagine the outrage if SONY had announced backwards compatibility, then clarify that it would only work with the 60Gb HDD version, then pointed that not every game would work with it, and then dumping it completely on the hopes that nobody cared? I can read the posts:
"OMG, SONY is teh suck3rs!!! they want my money, blood and soul!!! Sony is doomed I tell you, DOOMED!!!"

 

The outrage is my point about people who want it and never use it, or own the old console anyway!?

My friends and I never sell our old consoles. I still have a NES in the loft and we still batter away at Streets of Rage 2 (can't find 3 for less than £30-50 ) on the Mega Drive. My mate still has a PSX (chipped) for old games and imports.

Yes, sure 360 fans are dismissing the HDMI cable as a gimmick, they would, but in the future when they decide to turn on the HDCP thing surely you want a console with it? And plugging your brand new HDTV into a digital connection not only improves quality but you also don't have to go through the selection of output resolution etc that most idiots won't bother with. If it isnt plug in and play they don't care, that's why most people will still use coax on their PS3s: because that's what came in the box.

Admittidly by the time they turn on HDCP, HDMI cables will be ten a penny.

HDMI and Coax is a world standard: Scart is not. And 95% of people with SDTVs use coax.

 

XBOX 360 does come with both component and composite cables.

 

My bad...here in Spain, SCART has been the standard of all TVs for the last 20 years...and it's called Euroconector, so I assumed it was the standard in most of Europe too

Still, I don't think the HDMI cable is such an issue. Perhaps because I'm used to having to get extra cables all the time (I got a PSP and HAD to get the min-USB cable as an extra...and I needed another one for my V3...heck, even the last HP printer I got lacked an USB cable )

The 360 does, the 360 Core doesn't. Say what you want about Core versions, but for a HD console to be bundled without any kind of HD output capabilities sounds a bit lame to me. I'd say that an HDMI cable is more of an accessory for the PS3, while a component HD cable is a must for the X360 Core, but YMMV of course.