Sony PS3

[The Damned]

Wow. Using any third-party cables or accessories? Say good-bye to your warranty.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=789061

And to those that are thinking "bullshit", from the Sony PS3 manual:

THIS WARRANTY SHALL ALSO BE VOIDABLE BY SCEA IF (1) SCEA REASONABLY BELIEVES THAT THE PS3TM SYSTEM HAS BEEN USED IN A MANNER THAT WOULD VIOLATE THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF A SEPARATE END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT FOR SYSTEM SOFTWARE; OR (2) THE PRODUCT IS USED WITH PRODUCTS NOT SOLD OR LICENSED BY SCEA (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, NON-LICENSED GAME ENHANCEMENT DEVICES, CONTROLLERS, ADAPTORS AND POWER SUPPLY DEVICES).

Nice. Sony can get out of their warranty agreement because you used an identical HDMI cable to theirs, except it didn't have a Sony logo on it.

[TimberWolf]

Wow. Using any third-party cables or accessories? Say good-bye to your warranty.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=789061

And to those that are thinking "bullshit", from the Sony PS3 manual:

Nice. Sony can get out of their warranty agreement because you used an identical HDMI cable to theirs, except it didn't have a Sony logo on it.

It's because sony hates you.

[Airwalker]

Here's the real story..

http://kotaku.com/gaming/business/sony-vp-on-those-stacks-of-consoles-227588.php

"...what we do pay attention to is that month in, month out, the PlayStation 2 continues to outsell Xbox 360. I think you see the consumers voting with their wallets on the PlayStation brand. But also, if people want to go out and buy a 360, their stacked pretty high at retail and yet, six-year-old technology is outselling it. I also think there's another trend going on. Every Sunday in the paper, there's a new deal with a free controller or a free game or $100 off all discounting the 360. I don't think you take those measures if you're selling as expected." Peter Dille - Senior VP of Marketing, SCEA

That was posted on Wednesday. 3 days later, one of Sony's largest retail chains for the PS3, announce a sale for $100 off if you give up ~$150 worth of gear.

I bet his head would have exploded if you asked the same guy as a follow-up why he thought the PS2 was outselling the PS3.

[SilverStar]

Wow. Using any third-party cables or accessories? Say good-bye to your warranty.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=789061

And to those that are thinking "bullshit", from the Sony PS3 manual:

Nice. Sony can get out of their warranty agreement because you used an identical HDMI cable to theirs, except it didn't have a Sony logo on it.

I LOL at Sony.

Then again, this is almost getting as old as mocking Jack Thompson is. And even more predictable.

[linkspast]

I LOL at Sony.

Then again, this is almost getting as old as mocking Jack Thompson is. And even more predictable.

Yeah... When was the last time Sony said some good news...

[Soma]

Not really ps3 related but apparently Toshiba is going to be making triple layer HD-DVD's which hold 51 Gigs of data. But since the xbox 360 doesn't really use HD-DVD's for games (yet) i guess it's kind of irrelevant. But it's a chink in sonys armor since they've just been saying "It's all about capacity."

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/01/15/tosh_touts_51gb_hddvd/

"Toshiba has submitted a triple-layer, 51GB HD DVD-ROM disc to the standard's overseer in the hope the technology will be adopted as a standard by the end of the year. If approved, it allow the format to exceed the 50GB storage capacity of rival medium Blu-ray Disc."

"The snag, of course, is that today's HD DVD players will be incapable of reading the new disc, which is something of a problem for early adopters, who will presumably have to buy new kit. Toshiba last week positioned the new disc as an "extended capacity, high-end option""

[Razumen]

Not really ps3 related but apparently Toshiba is going to be making triple layer HD-DVD's which hold 51 Gigs of data. But since the xbox 360 doesn't really use HD-DVD's for games (yet) i guess it's kind of irrelevant. But it's a chink in sonys armor since they've just been saying "It's all about capacity."

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/01/15/tosh_touts_51gb_hddvd/

"Toshiba has submitted a triple-layer, 51GB HD DVD-ROM disc to the standard's overseer in the hope the technology will be adopted as a standard by the end of the year. If approved, it allow the format to exceed the 50GB storage capacity of rival medium Blu-ray Disc."

"The snag, of course, is that today's HD DVD players will be incapable of reading the new disc, which is something of a problem for early adopters, who will presumably have to buy new kit. Toshiba last week positioned the new disc as an "extended capacity, high-end option""

That's not really much of a advantage over Bluray, considering a single sided BR disc can hold 50GB, they could just as easily make a 2-3 layer disc that holds 100-150GB.

Good news for HD-DVDs though if it becomes supported and not restrictively expensive like DL-DVDs are still today.

[Mr.Roboto]

Worst week for PS3 in Japan(And most consoles in general too.)

[linkspast]

You guys know about this right... Triple layer HD, NOTHING!

This is what its all about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_Versatile_Disc

Hmmm 1gb/s and the ability to hold 3.9 TB (terabytes) of info. a terabyte is 1000gb.

[KWarp]

I think you guys are too caught up in the numbers. Why do they matter?

[SilverStar]

I think you guys are too caught up in the numbers. Why do they matter?

Ask Sony? They're the ones saying you can't make fun games without having access to 50GB worth of storage.

Edit:

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6164439.html

This is ouch for both camps.. but especially for Sony.

According to the latest numbers from Media-Create, only 25,531 PS3s were sold during the week that ended on January 14.

That's 25K PS3 sold in Japan, in a 1-week period.. Compared to 93K units for the Wii. Both are low numbers, but seeing the PS3 sales that low actually hurts me. o.o

[Razumen]

[Originally Posted by KWarp View Post

I think you guys are too caught up in the numbers. Why do they matter?]

Ask Sony? They're the ones saying you can't make fun games without having access to 50GB worth of storage.

I've never heard them say that, and while I'm more interested in how much the new discs can hold for personal reasons (backups, etc.), it is true that the more spacious BR discs do help more than regular DVDs when it comes to the more demanding space requirements of today's games. Sure, BR isn't an absolute neccessity at the moment, but at least when developers start to really take advantage of the PS3, they won't have to worry about space constraints.

It's too bad the read speed of the drive is so slow though.

[Ero Elohim]

That's not really much of a advantage over Bluray, considering a single sided BR disc can hold 50GB, they could just as easily make a 2-3 layer disc that holds 100-150GB.

Good news for HD-DVDs though if it becomes supported and not restrictively expensive like DL-DVDs are still today.

Actually, the 50GB BD is a dual layer disc. A standard-size BD disc is 25 GB per layer.

[SilverStar]

I've never heard them say that, and while I'm more interested in how much the new discs can hold for personal reasons (backups, etc.), it is true that the more spacious BR discs do help more than regular DVDs when it comes to the more demanding space requirements of today's games. Sure, BR isn't an absolute neccessity at the moment, but at least when developers start to really take advantage of the PS3, they won't have to worry about space constraints.

It's too bad the read speed of the drive is so slow though.

BluRay offers -nothing- for gameplay, that DVD doesn't already more than accomplish. If they really want to make something special, they should work on making the in-game graphics, with all their ultra high resolution textures, as clean and crisp as the pre-rendered cinematics.

The only thing eating up all that disc space now, is still the same thing that's been eating it up for years. In-game movies, pre-rendered using something completely unrelated to the in-game engine.

Then again, I see people complaining that Oblivion requires a -10- gig install on the PC.. the game doesn't even fill an entire single-layer DVD. And it is, by far, the largest game out there. Go straight for just the ultra high resolution textures and none of the low res ones, and the game wouldn't be any larger. They could double EVERYTHING in the game and still only fill a single DVD fully, so no.. BluRay isn't needed and won't be for a VERY long time, unless developers want to use all of the PS3's power to render low quality graphics and bluray quality pre-rendered cutscenes.

[The Damned]

I have heard and read that the Cell processor is only good for linear processing (straight number crunching, like physics), and is terrible for anything non-linear (like AI, something that a lot of games use).

Prove/disprove/discuss.

[SilverStar]

I have heard and read that the Cell processor is only good for linear processing (straight number crunching, like physics), and is terrible for anything non-linear (like AI, something that a lot of games use).

Prove/disprove/discuss.

Can only handle floating point numbers to 3 decimal places. Which means the CPU cannot handle doing any sort of 3D graphics rendering, and generally fails at physics processing.

AI processing however, is based on pure integers and boolean logic. So at least the potential is there for someone to program a game with a million potential AI calls per second, if someone wanted to spend a decade calculating all the possible issues that would come up with it.

[Cecilff2]

You could always wait and get this version of the ps3

I wonder how heavy that thing is.

[The Damned]

At $2500 US, it damn well better weigh its price in gold.

[Razumen]

BluRay offers -nothing- for gameplay, that DVD doesn't already more than accomplish. If they really want to make something special, they should work on making the in-game graphics, with all their ultra high resolution textures, as clean and crisp as the pre-rendered cinematics.

The only thing eating up all that disc space now, is still the same thing that's been eating it up for years. In-game movies, pre-rendered using something completely unrelated to the in-game engine.

Then again, I see people complaining that Oblivion requires a -10- gig install on the PC.. the game doesn't even fill an entire single-layer DVD. And it is, by far, the largest game out there. Go straight for just the ultra high resolution textures and none of the low res ones, and the game wouldn't be any larger. They could double EVERYTHING in the game and still only fill a single DVD fully, so no.. BluRay isn't needed and won't be for a VERY long time, unless developers want to use all of the PS3's power to render low quality graphics and bluray quality pre-rendered cutscenes.

So what if they're storing prerendered cinematics on there, some people actually like watching well done cutscenes, they are undoubtably better looking than rendered ones and there's no real point in rendering a cutscene in realtime anyways. (it might help immersion somewhat, but if you're using cutscenes that obviously doesn't matter that much)

You'll also note that I said the extra space benefits games not gameplay, there's quite a big difference there.

As for Oblivion, yeah the world is large, but that size comes at the expense of variety. A lot of the content is reused throughout the whole game, especially for the landscape and monsters (I was hoping Oblivion would have a more interesting landscape, ALA Gothic 2, rather than the boring old sole heightmap based implementation, but it was not to be.)

[The Damned]

So what if they're storing prerendered cinematics on there, some people actually like watching well done cutscenes, they are undoubtably better looking than rendered ones and there's no real point in rendering a cutscene in realtime anyways. (it might help immersion somewhat, but if you're using cutscenes that obviously doesn't matter that much)

The thing is, Sony is constantly talking about how fast and powerful their system is. From the way they hype it, the thing sounds like it should render Pixar movies in real-time.

That brings up the question: if the PS3 is so powerful that it can do a movie in real-time, why bother having all that room for pre-rendered cut scenes?

[SilverStar]

As for Oblivion, yeah the world is large, but that size comes at the expense of variety. A lot of the content is reused throughout the whole game, especially for the landscape and monsters (I was hoping Oblivion would have a more interesting landscape, ALA Gothic 2, rather than the boring old sole heightmap based implementation, but it was not to be.)

You mean like.. almost every game? Look at any actual, large game, and see how many of the textures get reused. Unless the game itself goes between a half dozen worlds, chances are it reuses 90% of the textures in every level.

[The Damned]

And half of those textures are some shade of brown.

[HalcyonSpirit]

And half of those textures are some shade of brown.

Yep, because real is brown.

Rendering movie-quality cut scenes in real time seems a little out of its league, even after developers learn how to use it. Last I heard, it takes a decent amount of time for the computers at Pixar to render a single frame of a movie. Unless the PS3 is insanely powerful, pre-rendered cut scenes are still required, at least when it comes to cut scenes that are comparable in quality to movie scenes. The PS3 is powerful, but unless it's got power in there that we don't know about, it's not that powerful.

[SilverStar]

There's only so many ways you can change up the way things work, while still keeping a unified atmosphere. The ground can only be so many ways, brick walls only have so many textures, cave walls only come in so many colors..

[The Damned]

Yep, because real is brown.

Rendering movie-quality cut scenes in real time seems a little out of its league, even after developers learn how to use it. Last I heard, it takes a decent amount of time for the computers at Pixar to render a single frame of a movie. Unless the PS3 is insanely powerful, pre-rendered cut scenes are still required, at least when it comes to cut scenes that are comparable in quality to movie scenes. The PS3 is powerful, but unless it's got power in there that we don't know about, it's not that powerful.

What I meant was that with the way Sony talks about their hardware, pre-rendered cut scenes shouldn't even exist anymore. I guess the sarcasm was a little too light, there.