Leaked PS3 Price?

[Shifty Geezer]

What about the vorbis libraries? Flac, Ogg, ad such? They should be free to support and they're a heck of a lot better than wma, IMO. I would imagine the fact that Sony's going the Linux route would add to the appeal.

I know OGG is larger on averge than MP3 for better quality. I don't know how well WMA handles higher compression versus OGG, and if it's better then where memory-footprint is important the highest compression-ratio:Audio-quality is important. But I can't see .wma having a huge advantage if any there. Normally isn't most in game audio just uncompressed 16 bit samples anyway? Considering the other routes taken by Sony, OpenGL (at least, that's what the official press releases say even if nAo knows nothing about this ) and Linux, a free open codec sounds more in keeping with Sony's current solutions.

Unless it's to support content over the 'net?

 

[SirTendeth]

With the 360 being the first out of the gate, and unlike the dreamcast, Sony knows it will actually have a decent amount of market penetration.

So having access to a codec allows 360 titles to be brought over to the PS3 more readily. This has even more significance now that Microsoft has used 3-6 month limited exclusives so heavily last gen.

The benefit to Sony could would be a good codec at a decent price. With a significant advantage in recieving ports from the 360.

 

[Cobra101]

I will pay 500 bucks in a heart beat for a PS3.

But I am probably in the minority.

 

[Mefisutoferesu]

I know OGG is larger on averge than MP3 for better quality. I don't know how well WMA handles higher compression versus OGG, and if it's better then where memory-footprint is important the highest compression-ratio:Audio-quality is important. But I can't see .wma having a huge advantage if any there. Normally isn't most in game audio just uncompressed 16 bit samples anyway? Considering the other routes taken by Sony, OpenGL (at least, that's what the official press releases say even if nAo knows nothing about this ) and Linux, a free open codec sounds more in keeping with Sony's current solutions.

Unless it's to support content over the 'net?

I've been under the impression that OGG has the better compression and fidelity. 128kbps OGG is comparable to 192kbps MP3. That's what I've read, and there's definately a dicernable difference in quality (favoring OGG) by my ears. Not saying you're wrong, Shifty, it's just that's how it seems to me, obviously I'm no audio expert though.

 

[Alpha_Spartan]

I will pay 500 bucks in a heart beat for a PS3.

But I am probably in the minority.

Most definately. Everyone knew the Neo Geo was the shit back in the day, but SNES and Genesis still sold like gangbusters.

 

[Johnny_Physics]

there's no way Sony would be dumb enough to do that. $600? No way. lol, that would be like $750 in Canada, those babies would not be selling at that price, no way no how...

That price seems reasonable enough... for us in Sweden
Perhaps the rumour/leak talks about the price at the european launch? If it cost $600 it would actually cost less than the PS2 when it launched over here.

 

[SirTendeth]

How does the price compare to the 360, in each config, and in each region?

I am curious at what price difference you would get a 360 instead? Because it's possible that by the time it's released in Europe, the 360 may have been out over a year and have seen a price drop.

I realize that for some you that the PS3 is the only thing you want, and that’s cool.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I've been under the impression that OGG has the better compression and fidelity. 128kbps OGG is comparable to 192kbps MP3. That's what I've read, and there's definately a dicernable difference in quality (favoring OGG) by my ears. Not saying you're wrong, Shifty, it's just that's how it seems to me, obviously I'm no audio expert though.

I've read on audio forums that Ogg is better fideilty but slightly larger. I know on my experiments a 128kbps MP3 was smaller than the Ogg. But for me the sound quality is much better. It may be a case that for smaller files MP3 goes smaller, but in higher quality Ogg is better?

 

[MrWibble]

Normally isn't most in game audio just uncompressed 16 bit samples anyway?

Just a quick comment on this point...

No, it wouldn't generally be the done thing to use uncompressed audio, certainly on console. Most hardware can do better than that.

For example on PS2, ADPCM is the norm. In fact the hardware prefers this over uncompressed data for performing quite a lot of fairly standard operations.

With games including increasingly vast sound tracks, hours of spoken audio and hi quality multi-channel sfx it all adds up to a lot of disk space and a lot of memory, so compression is pretty important.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

On disc compression makes sense not least for faster transfer rates, but I thought audio in mem was uncompressed. Or rather, not heavily compressed with lossy formats because the decompression would each too heavily into processor cycles.

 

[SirTendeth]

Shifty the licensing of the codec may come down to a simpler reason. The PS3 will likely use multiple standards for developer flexibility. And from a media hub standpoint Sony has already shown their desire to work with Microsoft.
See here- http://news.sel.sony.com/pressrelease/6216

And I don’t think they would want to exclude a lot of PC users from utilizing the PS3 as a media end point control, by not utilizing key MS codec’s.

This is like Microsoft demonstrating PSP and IPOD connectivity. It makes sense from wear they are trying to position their console in the future.

Just as a side note, I am only making justification for how it could be more than a rumor.
I don’t think it more or less real than any other unverified rumor.

 

[MrWibble]

On disc compression makes sense not least for faster transfer rates, but I thought audio in mem was uncompressed. Or rather, not heavily compressed with lossy formats because the decompression would each too heavily into processor cycles.

On current gen consoles it's probably partially true that CPU load would increase for a lossy compression along the lines of mp3 (etc). On next-gen platforms I doubt you'd notice much of a hit for decompressing a fair bit of audio.

Speaking as a graphics programmer, if the audio guys could reduce their memory footprint by 10:1 and didn't, I'd probably have to shout at them. Of course I'd also shout at them for eating CPU cycles decompressing stuff so they really can't win

If the hardware takes a native compressed format (like PS2) then that's probably the sweet spot, as with PS2.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

IS there any real liklihood audio requirements (footprint) will increase next-gen? Perhaps a litle more variety in sounds but overall games can cover the audio nicely now, with DVD audio track and a few spot samples+sound effects. I can't see much scope for taking up multi-megabytes of audio. But I'm not working with game audio so what do I know?!

 

[SirTendeth]

I'd like to know the answer to whether or not audio will be making any major changes this gen as well.

But even if there isn’t a need for the codec in game, I still think that from a media hub standpoint, it would benefit Sony greatly to have access to Microsoft’s audio codecs.

 

[Mefisutoferesu]

Would it really benefit Sony? Not trying to be annoying, but do people really use WMAs that much? I know, you want to support as many codecs as possible for a media hub, but there are real world limitations. MP3, AC3, AAC, OGG, APE, FLAC, WAV, DTS, DD5.1, yada yada I can see, because I know they're well used. Things like WMA and MPC (though I use it... yeah, I don't know why either) aren't really popular, well as far as I'm aware, so is it that necessary? Or am I greatly underestimating these formats?

 

[Johnny_Physics]

How does the price compare to the 360, in each config, and in each region?

I am curious at what price difference you would get a 360 instead? Because it's possible that by the time it's released in Europe, the 360 may have been out over a year and have seen a price drop.

I realize that for some you that the PS3 is the only thing you want, and that’s cool.

The Xbox 360 Deluxe is "cheap" in a way, it costs 1000 kronas less than what the PS2 and Xbox cost when they were released. Anyway, the Xbox 360 deluxe costs almost 4000 kronas, compared to 4995kr for the Xbox 1 when it was released and ~5195kr for the PS2 - just to give a little perspective.

The price for the 360 translates to ~506 USD at the moment, that price also includes the VAT.


Not that the price seems to be a real problem, you couldn't find a PS2 anywhere the day it was released. It was really hard to find a PS2 for a month or two because the demand for the machine was so high. But I don't know how many machines they shipped over here during those months, I don't think it could have been more than 10-20k.
It took more than a year before it dropped in price if I remember correctly, and it didn't drop much either, but it still continued to dominate the market. Microsoft forced a pricedrop a couple of weeks after the release of the Xbox, I think they cut the price with 2000 kronas or something like that.
From 4995 to 2995 in a couple of weeks, that's a large drop. But the early adopters were compensated with games/stuff to make up for the sudden drop.

 

[SirTendeth]

See the link I posted and imagine how the average non-geek user of said system would use it in conjunction with a PS3.

reposted- http://news.sel.sony.com/pressrelease/6216-

 

[SirTendeth]

Thanks Johnny_Physics.
Any other takes from over seas?

And Johnny if the 360 with HDD was around $399 USD including Vat,
would that apeal to you over a PS3/HDD-NoHdd?

 

[Johnny_Physics]

Thanks Johnny_Physics.
Any other takes from over seas?

And Johnny if the 360 with HDD was around $399 USD including Vat,
would that apeal to you over a PS3/HDD-NoHdd?

It doesn't matter to me, actually. There's a large gap between the release of the 360 and the PS3 so there's no reason to choose one when there's enough time inbetween to buy the 360 and lick my financial wounds and then buy the PS3. I have no preference or bias when it comes to hardware.
If they were released on the same day, or very close to each other, then I would have to make a choice on which console to pick up first. Shelling out 1300+ USD in one day to pick up both systems and a couple of games is not something my wallet would like right now, so I would have to choose one of them.


I played Xbox 360 recently and I was a bit underwhelmed, the games looked nice but that was it. They were nice, not awesome, not even PGR3. So perhaps I would go for the PS3 even if it cost a couple of hundreds more, depending on what games it had to offer at the time. But we don't really have a solid grasp on what games we will see when it launches, so it's hard to say.
The choice depends on software, so if in this hypothetical situation the PS3 has a crap lineup I would wait a month to purchase it and go for the 360 instead, price is really not a concern for me or anyone I know.

 

[SirTendeth]

Thanks, that was what I was looking for.

I think most gamers that can afford it, and have time for there hobby, will choose to get both.

I know I would, as long as they both had titles that delivered on their promises.

My problem is the Time thing. I just don't have enough time to spend gamming, that would justify owing multiple consoles.

Even though I work on a computer extensively, I rarely have time to post- today being a nice exception

Now if only the PS4, or Xbox720 could have the ability to give me more time in a day.