Sony @ GDC: Phil Harrison's Keynote

Region-free PS3.....????

taken from ign article...

The one caveat of this new region-free structure is that games made for specific regions' electrical and TV standards may have problems on your TV set. A PAL PS3 game, for instance, will have difficulty running on an NTSC TV, unless the developers have thought ahead and planned for that issue. It is currently unknown how the PS3 will cope with this problem (whether there will be a warning when you run an import about possible TV incompatibility, or if possibly there might be a no-play screen for incompatible games depending on your PS3's TV settings.)


This just doesn't sound correct. Shouldn't the RSX be able to output any of these res?[PAL or NTSC] This shouldn't be a problem..right?
 
fulcizombie said:
It seems that it also looked a lot worse than last year's E# with washed out textures according to people at GAF who were at the presentation.

Everything resembling real time(warhawk,motorsport,insominiac FPS) seemed so-so

I'm not sure what impressions you're reading, but those I've seen thusfar would paint the picture more like:

Motorstorm - mixed reaction, some say very good, some say less impressive than the E3 demo (and both could be true..it'd be possible for something like this to look excellent but not up to the CG standard)

Resistance - very good

Warhawk - mostly very good

Kb-Smoker said:
This just doesn't sound correct. Shouldn't the RSX be able to output any of these res?[PAL or NTSC] This shouldn't be a problem..right?

For non-HD resolutions, you presumably have to code explicitly to support Pal or NTSC or both, as is the case normally. A game might support NTSC resolution for non-HD TVs, and not PAL, which would be a problem for PAL gamers who're importing and who don't have a HDTV.

Another note, on what was shown today:

Harrison, the deliverer of the company's keynote address during the trade show made the surprising comment that "all" of the demo's shown today were in fact compiled and finished in December of 2005. The Sony executive reiterated that what was shown today is still a long way from what users can expect to see in when the console releases, as the provided demo's fail to mimic the quality of what is currently produced.

http://psp.advancedmn.com/article.php?artid=2660
 
Last edited by a moderator:
This is contrary to what he was quoted for saying in the conference...

Although by the way he words it, it sounds as if a "Value Pack PS3" is coming...and everyone will forced to get a 'bundled' drive. That's not to say every SKU from now to the end of the system's lifecycle will have a HDD standard. I think this is why they are wording it funny and as 'required'.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Here's some quotes from Gaming0age(not the forum,the actual site) about the games shown:

"Another tech demo was shown and co-developed with Ninja Theory which had a thousand characters reacting to complex rag doll physics. The graphics were all PS2-caliber with nice post processing effects such as depth of field"

"Warhawk, while looking great, was essentially a barren section of ocean with a lot of fighter ships (they were aiming for a hundred for the final game) going around destroying larger vessels and some nice looking water (wave simulation with procedural animation) and clouds (volumetric raytracing). Overall it was a great demo but a far cry of what was shown last year and gave a nice sobering introduction to the rest of the demos which was shown towards the end. Fortunately it will be playable at E3. "

"Next up was Motorstorm and just like Warhawk was no where near the E3 target render. The car models and physics were decent although the texturing and the environment was PS2 level of quality. The real star of the demonstration was the deformable terrain which worked quite well with the physics of the cars. The demo also had HDR, post processing effects, and occlusion. "

"The next game was Resistance, the title formally known as I-8. Out of all the games this one was the farthest along but unfortunately the least interesting. It was your standard FPS affair with highly linear levels, decent A.I. and moderately interesting weapons. The lighting/texturing/modeling was all decent but nothing groundbreaking"
 
Titanio said:
....
"The basic service for Playstation Live will be free, Harrison reiterated, with only third-party and micro transactions costing anything. ....

so is he saying that 3rd parties can choose to charge us per game for their online game usage?
 
Fulcizombie, if that's by tekunorobby (I can't check who the author is), then you should probably hold off on declaring it as the truth. He's a bit overzealous/overcynical/blind it seems.
 
fulcizombie said:
Here's some quotes from Gaming0age(not the forum,the actual site) about the games shown:

"Another tech demo was shown and co-developed with Ninja Theory which had a thousand characters reacting to complex rag doll physics. The graphics were all PS2-caliber with nice post processing effects such as depth of field"

"Warhawk, while looking great, was essentially a barren section of ocean with a lot of fighter ships (they were aiming for a hundred for the final game) going around destroying larger vessels and some nice looking water (wave simulation with procedural animation) and clouds (volumetric raytracing). Overall it was a great demo but a far cry of what was shown last year and gave a nice sobering introduction to the rest of the demos which was shown towards the end. Fortunately it will be playable at E3. "

"Next up was Motorstorm and just like Warhawk was no where near the E3 target render. The car models and physics were decent although the texturing and the environment was PS2 level of quality. The real star of the demonstration was the deformable terrain which worked quite well with the physics of the cars. The demo also had HDR, post processing effects, and occlusion. "

"The next game was Resistance, the title formally known as I-8. Out of all the games this one was the farthest along but unfortunately the least interesting. It was your standard FPS affair with highly linear levels, decent A.I. and moderately interesting weapons. The lighting/texturing/modeling was all decent but nothing groundbreaking"

as expected
this seems the most fair comments, with good and bad points
 
Tap In said:
so is he saying that 3rd parties can choose to charge us per game for their online game usage?

Yes, the business relationship between you and third parties is wholly independent, as it was on PS2.

I think effectively most third party games will be free to play. MMORPGS etc., obviously wouldn't be so likely though.
 
Tap In said:
so is he saying that 3rd parties can choose to charge us per game for their online game usage?

I doubt it, that would provide for a very inconsistent onloine experience. Where Sony's game would be free online play while other games would cost you to play online. I don't think that's an experience Sony is trying to give to users. We'll see soon enough.
 
fulcizombie said:
"The next game was Resistance, the title formally known as I-8. Out of all the games this one was the farthest along but unfortunately the least interesting. It was your standard FPS affair with highly linear levels, decent A.I. and moderately interesting weapons. The lighting/texturing/modeling was all decent but nothing groundbreaking"

It was your standard FPS affair with highly linear levels, decent A.I. and moderately interesting weapons.

LOL, and all that from a 30 second or so tech demo :)


The announcements so far have been great. About the HDD Standard, I think they are just delaying as much as they can and not outright confirming things to not give MS any chance to counter if they planned to. Keeping ambiguity about the HDD gives them free press and keeps people talking about it.

Speng.
 
Bobbler said:
Fulcizombie, if that's by tekunorobby (I can't check who the author is), then you should probably hold off on declaring it as the truth. He's a bit overzealous/overcynical/blind it seems.
1up is reporting similar things.
 
speng said:
It was your standard FPS affair with highly linear levels, decent A.I. and moderately interesting weapons.

LOL, and all that from a 30 second or so tech demo :)


The announcements so far have been great. About the HDD Standard, I think they are just delaying as much as they can and not outright confirming things to not give MS any chance to counter if they planned to. Keeping ambiguity about the HDD gives them free press and keeps people talking about it.

Speng.
Ms could counter that at the next minute of the "announcement".
 
speng said:
The announcements so far have been great. About the HDD Standard, I think they are just delaying as much as they can and not outright confirming things to not give MS any chance to counter if they planned to. Keeping ambiguity about the HDD gives them free press and keeps people talking about it.

Speng.

True, keeping it as ambigous as possible will keep the competition second guessing delayin any response. Still, it would be good to have it written iin stone.
 
fulcizombie said:
1up is reporting similar things.

1up didn't say much about any except Warhawk and Motorstorm - the former of which they were positive on, the latter less so (but again, relative to the E3 CG). And various others are reporting differently as cited throughout the thread. Personally I'll make my own judgement once we get some freakin media! :LOL:

TBH, I think the mixed nature of reactions is due to different people using different measuring sticks to compare against. Some are holding everything up against the CG shown last E3, and over-compensating with negativity because of it (which may be why Motorstorm is the one getting most "mixed" reactions), while others are judging what was shown on its own merits vs what we've generally seen in games to date.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Titanio said:
Back to square one on the HDD issue unfortunately, it seems!

"First, he declined to talk about whether the hard drive will be included in the PS3. Instead, he said that all PS3 games will require the hard drive."

http://www.kotaku.com/
It would be hilarious if, after all this hubbub, it turned out that "HDD support" means that PS3 games can save to the HDD. :p

"The basic service for Playstation Live will be free, Harrison reiterated, with only third-party and micro transactions costing anything. In other words, you will be able to play online for free and, at least it sounds like, there will be no tiered system like what is found with Xbox Live."
Am I the only one who thinks this is fishy? The basic service is free and there are no tiers? No tiers means that "basic service" doesn't mean anything. I think they're just throwing curveballs now for the heck of it. We're already guessing enough, but they want to have additional fun.
 
Inane_Dork said:
Am I the only one who thinks this is fishy? The basic service is free and there are no tiers?

I think it just means that while free from Sony's POV, publishers can charge if they wish. So you don't pay a subscription only to later have publishers adding more charges on. It starts free, and then its up to publishers to decide for specific games how and if they'll charge. I think most games will be free to play.
 
Inane_Dork said:
It would be hilarious if, after all this hubbub, it turned out that "HDD support" means that PS3 games can save to the HDD. :p

Am I the only one who thinks this is fishy? The basic service is free and there are no tiers? No tiers means that "basic service" doesn't mean anything. I think they're just throwing curveballs now for the heck of it. We're already guessing enough, but they want to have additional fun.

I think you're reading into things too much.
 
Back
Top