Japanese article about PS3 backwards compatablilty

Seems to be from a magazine article. Doesn't cite sources directly so hard to know if they got this info from Sony or what. But it claims that 'almost' EE+GS are included in PS3 - for now - to facilitate backwards compatability. SCE have been working on software emulation but it's not where they want it to be yet, hence the inclusion of hardware. Later when/if the software emulation reaches an acceptable level, they'll stop including the hardware to cut costs. They also talk about using the hard disk to transparently "patch" games due to changes in the internals of the hardware. So for example if they shrink a chip down and it leads to some incompatabilities as we saw with PS2 Slim, the OS will be able to patch the game automatically to ensure consistency between the software and the verison of the hardware.
 
wow


But it claims that 'almost' EE+GS are included in PS3 - for now - to facilitate backwards compatability. SCE have been working on software emulation but it's not where they want it to be yet, hence the inclusion of hardware.
Click to expand...

so they went and added the EE/GS .... good for them :smile:

That was not an easy decision I'm sure considering everything else they already have built into the machine.

Are you saying emulation will be the ultimate goal eventually, when they get it working better?
 
Tap In said:
Are you saying emulation will be the ultimate goal eventually, when they get it working better?
Click to expand...

That's my understanding. They'll keep working on it in the hopes they can switch to it later.
 
"Almost" EE+GS, eh? I guess they are just including the logic components that as a backend would make comprehensive software emulation feasible. Wasn't archie or Faf hinting something of the sort earlier?
 
Yeah, I'm wondering what that means too. Presumably at least there might be some stuff they can cut from the chips to make it cheaper.
 
The Toshiba IOP Processor for PS3 is clocked around 333Mhz and it doesn´t seem to have any logic related to EE+GS chip.
 
They really need to not spend money on this.

I really dont know what Sony is doing sometimes these days.

BC is nice, if it were snap your fingers I'd rather have it than not, but I wouldn't invest any significant resources whatsoever in it, if I was running Sony or any videogame company.

Just, wow.
 
sonyps35 said:
They really need to not spend money on this.

I really dont know what Sony is doing sometimes these days.

BC is nice, if it were snap your fingers I'd rather have it than not, but I wouldn't invest any significant resources whatsoever in it, if I was running Sony or any videogame company.

Just, wow.
Click to expand...

It makes all the sense in the world, particularly when you can potentially make more money for longer off of it than at any time in the past (watch them make PSone and even PS2 games available for download at a fee..something they never could do before). Which really also helps your partners..it makes your argument a lot more convincing also when you talk about building a platform that will persist versus a machine (that may only last 6-10 years or whatever).
 
We can't really discuss this until we get a proper translation as to what they mean by 'nearly EE+GS'. But if they are putting PS2's innards in PS3 for BC, and we're not getting any improvements on PS2 games, I'll be disappointed :(
 
Titanio said:
It makes all the sense in the world, particularly when you can potentially make more money for longer off of it than at any time in the past (watch them make PSone and even PS2 games available for download at a fee..something they never could do before). Which really also helps your partners..it makes your argument a lot more convincing also when you talk about building a platform that will persist versus a machine (that may only last 6-10 years or whatever).
Click to expand...

Does not make sense to me because I don't want to pay for it. I would rather they left it out and made the system cheaper. Even with a broadband connection it would take a long long time to download ps2 games that are 5gigs or larger. I know alot of you love bc but it sucks that I have to pay for it even though I will never use it. I just don't like this direction sony is going of forcing stuff on people who just wanna play next gen games.
 
Urian said:
The Toshiba IOP Processor for PS3 is clocked around 333Mhz and it doesn´t seem to have any logic related to EE+GS chip.
Click to expand...
If you refer to Super Companion Chip by "Toshiba IOP Processor" I don't think it's in PS3.

The blog article (by Munechika Nishida, who interviewed Izumi Kawanishi of SCE at E3) clarifies the EE+GS in PS3 is strictly meant for backward compatibility, not for other purposes at all, which is different from PS2 where the PS1 chip acts as IOP. According to SCE, though they have to include EE+GS in the first generation PS3 to achieve 100% backward compatibility because of the delay in the emulator development schedule, when the software is completed the chip can be removed from PS3 for cost reduction unlike IOP in PS2.

The other topic is about the HDD, it is an essential component to virtualize the PS3 platform which allows different configurations and chip versions. According to SCE, when a game is loaded PS3 compares the version of PS3 and the version of the game and downloads game patches. This way, it's like PC. Nishida worries this system may become too complicated for a game console and apparently SCE themselves share the same concern. He hopes in the future SCE work it out to make it a successful computer platform.

Shifty Geezer said:
We can't really discuss this until we get a proper translation as to what they mean by 'nearly EE+GS'. But if they are putting PS2's innards in PS3 for BC, and we're not getting any improvements on PS2 games, I'll be disappointed :(
Click to expand...
The 'nearly' part is unclear in the article, anyway the accent is clearly on 'EE+GS as is' and if it's different from that of PS2 it'd be trivial.

This is my guess but it's likely that only games that require the hardware to emulate are not improved, while the software emulator handles most games. Later you'll get the complete software emulator as a firmware update, or not ;)
 
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quest55720 said:
Does not make sense to me because I don't want to pay for it. I would rather they left it out and made the system cheaper. Even with a broadband connection it would take a long long time to download ps2 games that are 5gigs or larger. I know alot of you love bc but it sucks that I have to pay for it even though I will never use it. I just don't like this direction sony is going of forcing stuff on people who just wanna play next gen games.
Click to expand...
uhhh... they're not forcing anyone to anything.
There are alternatives to Sony's PS3 you know, just go for the platform that offers the featureset you want/need/afford, or most of them.

It's simple as that, just make a list with +'s and -'s for each, and weigh the points accordingly and see what comes on top.
No company can make a device that appeals to everyone's needs/wishes/economics, it's up to you to consider and choose, no company is going to do it for you.

Personally, I find the PS3 featureset most balanced to my needs/wants/economics, but that says nothing whether you should feel the same way.
 
Bleh. If (and it's a big if) they include EE + GS to support backwards compatability, that's nuts. If I could get my PS3 for $50 less (or $100 less when I think about it) I certainly would prefer that to BC.

Each to their own. Make a PS3 without BC cheaper .
 
MasaC said:
Can anyone say how much the estimated cost of EE+GS is today?
Click to expand...

EE+GS is roughly the size of an Athlon64 chip at 90nm; so it probably costs them about ~$50 to fab it.

On the side, if you read through this thread here, Archie seems to be indicating a path similar to what's being suggested here with the hardware solution initially, moving to software later. Though GS bandwidth I believe would still need to be accounted for somehow. Quick-read thread.
 
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one said:
The other topic is about the HDD, it is an essential component to virtualize the PS3 platform which allows different configurations and chip versions. According to SCE, when a game is loaded PS3 compares the version of PS3 and the version of the game and downloads game patches. This way, it's like PC. Nishida worries this system may become too complicated for a game console and apparently SCE themselves share the same concern. He hopes in the future SCE work it out to make it a successful computer platform.
Click to expand...

Some English-speaking media seems to be going a little further into the article and indicating that PS3 has an ample supply of Flash-memory on board to keep the OS and all updates off the hard drive, in order to allow for their vision of third-party hard drive compatability.

Since you're the man with the Japanese skills One, thought I'd get your take on it all and whether or not you ave further insights and/or verification.

...The PS3 comes equipped with, in addition to a default hard disk, a "large amount of flash memory," the magazine reveals. This is used to house the operating system and all future system updates. Based on the wording in the magazine, it seems that the hard disk is to be used exclusively for multimedia content and will not contain any system features; users will, after all, be able to swap the built in hard drive out with any standard drive they pick up at a computer hardware store...
Click to expand...

http://www.gametab.com/news/589491/
 
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