Ken Kutaragi Interview by Hiroshige Goto (PC Wach)

[ralexand]

Having now read One's translation (thanks one!), it gets me wondering what the Cell Storage is. It's accesible from anyone KK says. This makes me think it'll have an IP, like the HDIP EyeToy. Your Cell Storage for your house is a terabyte (so KK says) HD (cluster?) linked to the net and your PS3. The Gigabit network is fast enough for full speed access (save latencies of corse). Likewise your EyeToy is connected over the internet with it's own IP.

So you go to your freind's house, with their PS3 (or Cell based TV?) and access your Cell storage over the network, plus access your EyeToy over the network to video call your mum and tell her you'll be home late for tea.

Plus homebrew. He's talking about video editing and photo editing on PS3. KK's really aiming for a slice of the PC market it seems.

This seems to be his approach to HD. An HD isn't needed for gaming (KK seems to think) but it is needed for other things. It takes the form in the Cell Universe of a separate mass storage, comparable to XB360 streaming media off a media PC. But different, in that it's available all round the world. So the HD (first level of Cell Storage) might be sold as a 'PC upgrade', with OS, some graphics/media packages of sorts, and be priced as such? :? Who'll supply the video editing software I wonder?

A big vision. Definitely a dreamer is our Ken. I'm dubious he can pull it off. Didn't really work with PS2...

What good will the gigabet network be if the highest internet access is 1.5 mb? Am I missing something here. Does it reduce latency compared to 100mb lan connections?

 

[mckmas8808]

If they add a HDD to the PS3 standard can't it still have its own IP. I mean it is deteachable so whats the problem? But I see what your saying scooby if you can't rip movies then why have 120 GBs of HDD space. I always had this picture that if I had a PS3 at my house I could tap into my friends HDD at his house and watch a movie.

I mean that should be possible, thats what they are doing with the PSP.

 

[jvd]

I never said they WOULD, I was pointing out how preposterous your statement was that even at $10 no-one would buy it.

Well you should reread because I never said no one would buy it , i said not enough would to make devs support it .

Okay, so I said no-one. Let's rephrase the question:

Do you REALLY believe that if Sony sold an HD+GTA//FF-Next gen bundle, not enough people would buy it to make a large enough user base to attract further developments (3+ million say)?

Yes i believe that not enough would buy it .

Add ons are just not popular .

 

[scooby_dooby]

If they add a HDD to the PS3 standard can't it still have its own IP. I mean it is deteachable so whats the problem? But I see what your saying scooby if you can't rip movies then why have 120 GBs of HDD space. I always had this picture that if I had a PS3 at my house I could tap into my friends HDD at his house and watch a movie.

I mean that should be possible, thats what they are doing with the PSP.

I don't see why the PS3 couldn't have it own IP.

So it could be possible, but to put it in perspective, if you're downloading at 50k - 100k/s(respectable speeds) you're looking at about 13-26 hours to download a DVD.

So it won't stream, not over today's internet connections anyways.

My rough calc's say you would need speeds over 900kb/s in order to stream a DVD, assuming a 90minute DVD at 4.5GB. Feel free to correct me if that number is off.

That doesn't take into consideration that the majorit of todays DVD's are dual layer, from 6-8GB.

 

[jvd]

If they add a HDD to the PS3 standard can't it still have its own IP. I mean it is deteachable so whats the problem? But I see what your saying scooby if you can't rip movies then why have 120 GBs of HDD space. I always had this picture that if I had a PS3 at my house I could tap into my friends HDD at his house and watch a movie.

I mean that should be possible, thats what they are doing with the PSP.

Thats not going to happen.

Does your friend have a connection fast enough to stream you video at a res and rate that you will find acceptable ?

Then you have the problem of what if he wnats to use his ps3 for games on the net ? Or what if he is playing a game and his father is surfing the net and downloading a new song off itunes ? ALl this will affect performance


I agree with sony that 20gigs isn't alot and i will most likely buy a usb drive for my x360 to suplement the 20 however .

1) you can't make up for lack of local storage .

2) to get people interested in using the ps3 as a media hub other than just watching bluray movies and dvd movies you need to let them be able to see what your going to be able to do with it .

A 20 gig drive while not great for a power user to dowlnoad movies and watch them or other things . Its big enough so that a casual user can get used to doing these things and then they can move foward . All add ons are a tough sell and I have yet to hear of an add on to even sell 1 to ever 4 units or 1 to ever 6 units .

 

[Titanio]

That's one game selling that hardware that required subscription fees

Even if only a small fraction of the userbase buys HDs, it's still a worthwhile market, particularly if the extra content or whatever is already there from other versions on other systems. The market could even be bigger than that of competitors despite it not being standard hardware.

Why are you arguiing this? It's a known fact that perohpherals that aren't bundled do not recieve anywhere enar the same level of support that they would if they were included. There's nothing up for debate here, it's always been this way with consoles.

As I mentioned earlier, do a search for PS2 games and Xbox games on Gamespot, tick the online box, and see how many it returns. 155 PS2 games, 170 Xbox games. So standard hardware bought Xbox 15 more online games..

Wow, do you really believe that logic? You have to take into account the PS2 has many more games overall than the XBOX.

According to gamespot XBOX: 1012 Games
PS2: ~1700

So only 9% of PS2 game were online VS. 17% for the XBOX. Also if you look at number of gamers online, having a built in NIC increased by 4 TIMES.

You're talking in terms of percentages, I'm talking in terms of absolute figures. If devs support a smaller or equal size market on one console with a feature as standard, there's no reason not to support a larger market on another even if that feature isn't standard. The audience is the same or larger, it's worth the same or more. Sure, if the feature was standard, a higher percentage of users would use it, definitely, but that's not relevant when discussing whether devs will support a feature on one system vs another. Again, not to repeat myself, but if the "optional" market is the same or bigger on another console, there's little reason not to.

 

[scooby_dooby]

You're talking in terms of percentages, I'm talking in terms of absolute figures. If devs support a smaller or equal size market on one console with a feature as standard, there's no reason not to support a larger market on another even if that feature isn't standard. The audience is the same or larger, it's worth the same or more. Sure, if the feature was standard, a higher percentage of users would use it, definitely, but that's not relevant when discussing whether devs will support a feature on one system vs another. Again, not to repeat myself, but if the "optional" market is the same or bigger on another console, there's little reason not to.

Again, the "features" that you support for a given console are not dependant on user bases or statistics from another competing console.

When designing a game for PS2, dev's don't loo at the number of XBOX users online!! It's not how it works. They look at the total users for THAT system, because the game they're designing will be sold on THAT system.

I thought this was made clear in the ConsolA vs ConsoleB scenario. Once a copany has decided to make a game for a certain console, they then must chose which features to support for THAT SPECIFIC console.

Percentages are what matter here, not raw numbers in comparison to other consoles. The number of users using a given peripheral on another competing console has no effect on whether a Dev decides to include that feature on the console the7 are currently bulding for.

If 99% of the useers don't have something, it doesn't matter of that 1% is 100million users, you will still support the 99% because that represent a 10000million users!

It's all relative to the demographics of that specific system.

 

[marconelly!]

if you can't rip movies then why have 120 GBs of HDD space.

Probably for buying movies and games online and storing them there. Or storing your own videos, although you can obviously stream that wirelessly from the PC, but why not store them on a PS3 when you can.

Not to mention, the obvious answer - on a modded console, 120GB will quickly be nothing when you start putting games there I have a 40GB in my PS2 and can't even put all my favorite games on it, much less everything I have...

Percentages are what matter here, not raw numbers in comparison to other consoles.

Going by your logic, developers shouldn't be bothering developing online component in games for Xbox either, as the percentage of those online is not very big. The truth is, it's bit more complex than that. Publishers know that even though it's a low percentage, those people are more likely to buy a game once it can be played online, thus getting bigger sales than they normally would.

 

[scooby_dooby]

You won't be able to buy and download movies online dude.

Not going to happen.

They didn't spend millions of dollars creating and enforcing copyright protection on DVD, to simply let you download them from the internet onto your HD. Think about it.

If DL movies were legal, there would be no reason as to why ripping a DVD should not also be legal. And ripping DVD's is not legal....well at least on your side of the border!!!

Not too mention it would take like 20 hours, and after 4 or 5 movies your ISP may come-a-callin.

Also, running game backups from sony's CELL storage device?? Come on, you can't really think Sony is that stupid. Never gonna happen, they'll make sure that's next to impossible.

 

[jvd]

if you can't rip movies then why have 120 GBs of HDD space.

Probably for buying movies and games online and storing them there. Or storing your own videos, although you can obviously stream that wirelessly from the PC, but why not store them on a PS3 when you can.

Not to mention, the obvious answer - on a modded console, 120GB will quickly be nothing when you start putting games there I have a 40GB in my PS2 and can't even put all my favorite games on it, much less everything I have...

I don't see this becoming big , with movie sizes actually increasing the time to download just wont be reasonable . No one wnats to download a 4-8 gig movie today why would they download a 15-30 gig movie next year ? Speeds of service aren't going to jump to anywhere fast enough to make that plausiable

I don't even see games taking off that big for downloads . I mean downloading half life 2 pissed me off to no end and i wont rush out and do it again.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Well Broadband isn't anything like good enough for streaming movies off your personal Cell Storage from home, but I get the impression KK's looking far into the future. PS3 is a first step. Quite possibly none of this will be available at launch, but it'll be available somewhen. He also talks of local storage (removable drive bay) as a passing remark. "Course, there's local sotrage, but this huge cell network storage is the really exciting bit!"

As he talks of PS3 being a computer, the HD is needed for computing functionality. This ties in with MS's suggested two-tier XB360 platform, and rumours of PS3 going two-tier.

Basic : Plays games

With local HD : Does 'more stuff' and computing (but only fun computing - no spreadsheets or databases!

With Cell Storage : Tivo etc.

 

[scooby_dooby]

pet peeve of mine, file size is really starting to outpace bandwidth....

 

[marconelly!]

They didn't spend millions of dollars creating and enforcing copyright protection on DVD, to simply let you download them from the internet onto your HD. Think about it.

Tha's what DRM is for. Same way you can download music legally from iTunes, and use it on a limited number of devices, you can also create the same service for movies. You are kidding yourself if you think it won't be done.

Not too mention it would take like 20 hours, and after 4 or 5 movies your ISP may come-a-callin.

It will take some hours, and you can leave it over the night. For some people it will be easier than going somewhere to buy it, especially if it's cheaper. My ISP won't be calling as I have unlimited transfer, and so does pretty much every broadband provider here in Canada.

Btw, nicely encoded MPEG4 movie in EDTV resolution (480p) is around 1.5GB for 2 hour movie.

Also, running game backups from sony's CELL storage device?? Come on, you can't really think Sony is that stupid. Never gonna happen, they'll make sure that's next to impossible.

What Cell storage device? I'm talking about the hard drive. Running game backups from a HDD is something you can do today on modded Xbox and unmodded PS2. Is not legal but I don't think anyone cares.

 

[Titanio]

Again, the "features" that you support for a given console are not dependant on user bases or statistics from another competing console.

When designing a game for PS2, dev's don't loo at the number of XBOX users online!! It's not how it works. They look at the total users for THAT system, because the game they're designing will be sold on THAT system.

I thought this was made clear in the ConsolA vs ConsoleB scenario. Once a copany has decided to make a game for a certain console, they then must chose which features to support for THAT SPECIFIC console.

Percentages are what matter here, not raw numbers in comparison to other consoles. The number of users using a given peripheral on another competing console has no effect on whether a Dev decides to include that feature on the console the7 are currently bulding for.

If 99% of the useers don't have something, it doesn't matter of that 1% is 100million users, you will still support the 99% because that represent a 10000million users!

It's all relative to the demographics of that specific system.

I think you're doing what I mentioned earlier - comparing to the platform's own potential if it had a HD or whatever as standard. On that point, I completely agree, it won't get as much support as it would have if it were standard. Not nearly as much. And certainly for that reason it is a shame for the feature not to be included as standard.

But that's comparing to what might have been for the same platform, comparing it to itself. If you want to ask the question about how support would then compare to other systems with the feature built-in, in absolute terms, there may be little difference regardless. As already pointed out, while PS2 may not have received anywhere near as much online support as it could have if every system were online as standard, it still received about as much support as its "online-standard" competitor. That's a byproduct of the size of the audience and the platform, and unfortunate one perhaps, since it may encourage laziness with respect to feature-inclusion.

So there are two points there. Comparison to what might have been for itself (yes, there's an impact there, definitely) vs comparison to what's going on on other machines (probably not so much of an impact, volume dependent).

This relates a lot to multiplatform games too - if you have a multiplatform game going to platform X and Y, and you need to decide what features to support, if in absolute terms the same numbers can use that feature on both systems, regardless of whether it's standard or not, I'm sure it'll be supported on both systems.

 

[BlueTsunami]

Something is really bothering me......that I think may, or may not be big...but what is CELL STORAGE that KK is talking about? I know we talked about the NAS (Network Attached Storage) deal....but I really don't think its that. I also know that their (Sony) being to passive about not including a HDD, which I find extremley weird (and about 95% of the board users here)......

>.>

I say this again....what is this CELL Storage..I think that may be the key to the Missing HDD in the PS3....

 

[scooby_dooby]

My ISP won't be calling as I have unlimited transfer, and so does pretty much every broadband provider here in Canada.

No they don't. I'm with Shaw right now and they have a 30GB recommended limit for home users. And a 50GB limit for xtreme users.

Now, that's not to say that they actually enfore it! So it is pretty much unlimited, to a point, once you start doin over 100gb/month they WILL call you.

And us Canadians have it pretty good, I don't think they get such sweet deals on BW in the states.

 

[mckmas8808]

You know whats killing me? jvd and scooby making perfect posts back to back. jk Hey guys so if you are saying downloading and movie is not possible from PS3 -> PS3, then can you explain what Phil Harrison is talking below.

Can we expect to see Sony really working to catch up in that department on PS3?

I think that philosophically, PlayStation 2's online offering is an add-on to the hardware and software and operating system. In PlayStation 3, online is part of the DNA of the machine - in fact, the Cell processor itself is designed from the ground up to be connected to a broadband network.

So from switch on, day one of the machine, network functionality will pervade every aspect of the machine. We talked a little bit about that at the conference, but there's a lot more detail to go into about some of the really cool things - like, if your PS3 is switched on at home, it can be a media server to your PSP on the other side of the planet. Now that is incredibly cool. I could sit here in LA and navigate the data which is stored on my PS3, and download music and other data off my PS3, onto my PSP.

Whats the big difference between the PSP and PS3?

 

[Titanio]

I say this again....what is this CELL Storage..I think that may be the key to the Missing HDD in the PS3....

As I understand it, it's a server on the network that offers lots of storage (LAN, internet (?)). Simple as that. The cell bit comes from Kutaragi's ideas of having cell processor(s) work on data being stored in the background...for example, if you have a movie on your disc, it can be working away while you're not using it, upconverting it to high def or "adding detail" as he puts it, I guess applying filters or whatever to improve quality. So I guess you could think of it as somewhat intelligent storage..storing your data and "improving it".

The storage part is practical, obviously, the whole processing angle I'm not so sure however.

I don't think it's really going to play a big part in the PS3 story for most people. Unless Sony was offering storage space from their own server farms over the net for all PS3 users as standard (and this would really "only" be practical for games vs general media or apps). But that's just really really unlikely. I don't think they've really worked on this too much, I think they're just ideas in Kutaragi's head. I believe he even said that this was something they'd look into after PS3 had launched, so it's not something they have waiting in the wings, ready now.

 

[jvd]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You know whats killing me? jvd and scooby making perfect posts back to back. jk Hey guys so if you are saying downloading and movie is not possible from PS3 -> PS3, then can you explain what Phil Harrison is talking below.

Huge diffrences

1) a 640x480 video is going to be much larger than the psp res .

2) a 720p video is going to be much larger than a 480i video

3) a 1080p video will be bigger than a 720p video .


If we figure the average dvd video is 4-5 gigs who here is going to download a 4-5 gig video through the net to watch a movie they can have net flix send to them or they can walk out of thier house and go to a video store ? A small part of the usa is on broad band and none of that part can download a dvd sized video fast enough to make it a realitly


If you had a ps3 and brought it to my house and we connected them together then i see no problem , but going through the network over the web to grand mothers house we go isn't going ot happen for a long time


Do you honestly want to sit in japan and download a 200 meg eps of smallville ?

I can agree with music. Now a days 3 megs is nothing even with broad badn it be a matter of mins . But a hd quality video ? Not going to happen .

 

[jvd]

also if you suggest bittorrent and illegal videos i think u will find that wont happen as the other movie companys will be all over that like white on rice