Sony PS3 Q+A (Leaked)

scooby_dooby said:
The question is how feasible is it that Sony will actually deliver this functionality. Given their past promises, and the overall state of their software, I would say not very.

There is too much freeware they can put like firefox. Very easy. I have firefox on my windows pc and it is great! :)
 
ihamoitc2005 said:
What hype my friend?
This hype seems to be lost in the mists of time, and I think was something only those who were paying attention at the time would have experienced. I came to see PS2 without ever hearing about EE or claims of unbelievable abilities. It never got out of the gaming press into the widestream news that I got to encounter. I've been digging before now, looking for quotes and hype. I found a couple of pretty 'out there' statements and the official tech specs but not huge amounts of falsified claims. That's actually how I came to B3D. Ages back I visited forums asking for tech details on consoles, and just got stupid comments and no explanations, but following one forum (mis)quoting another smarter forum for insight, I followed a paper trail to the top of tree.

Regards bogus comments, I actually found more rogue comments from MS. eg. Lucas said PS2 was producing Star Wars graphics in realtime, not Sony, but as you point out MS claimed XB was producing Toy Story visuals.

I think the main complaint though is more regards features than PR hype. Sony talked of extensive online functions and networking and lots of what they are suggesting for PS3, from what I can gather, and much of it didn't materialise. Equally, PSP isn't providing the extensive online media experience that it is supposed to. I think there is precedent from Sony that they under-deliver on features (PSX is another example), whereas MS are a better source of the 'out there' PR claims (lucid dreams...) but they do provide the feature set claimed.
 
scooby_dooby said:
No. I think Apple and MS both have far more credibility than Sony, not to say the other guys are angels but...

No. MS and Apple (in the 90s) both missed their OS roll out for years and years. Apple's Pink OS project was eventually scratched after 10 years (They had to buy NeXT), and people found out that the Pink OS essentially was just years of demos. At that time, I wouldn't call that credibiity at all... but they managed to pull through thanks to Steve Jobs.

As for MS, you probably know the story better than I do. Other than their early days vaporware strategy, the rest are due to sheer complexity and inherent hi-tech risks.

The same problems Sony face today.

Can we get back on topic now ?
 
ihamoitc2005 said:
There is too much freeware they can put like firefox. Very easy. I have firefox on my windows pc and it is great! :)
Someone's still got to write it/compile it for Cell though, unless they all run on virtual machines. It's a shame Java never took off as the platform independent language it could have.
 
patsu said:
For the record, according to IGN, Peter Moore at 2005 E3 said, "Next generation games will combine unprecedented audio and visual experiences to create worlds that are beyond real and they'll deliver storylines and gameplay so compelling that it will feel like living a lucid dream. The result is a state where you achieve the perfect mind-body equilibrium as you forget your physical surroundings and you become completely immersed in the game itself; this controller becomes an extension of your body, it becomes the gateway to the Zen of gaming."..

You know, you are 100% correct there! MS is trying their best to emulate what Sony has successfully done. The difference is nobody takes Peter Moore's statements like those seriously! At least nobody I know. Sony is the master of Marketing. They masterfully combine rediculous with fact in such a manor that it makes one question exactly what is fact and what is fiction. Ms are not in their league yet and one can clearly look past that pr statement. But when one starts repeating "ps3 = computer, ps3 = computer, ps3 = computer, ps3 = computer", it doesn't matter if you or I are correct in what that actually means because regardless Sony is not lying in this statement.

They are making you and I and everyone else on this board question exactly what that will mean. We will all come to our own conclusions as to what ps3 = computer means and in the end of the lifecycle they will be on to "ps4 = ?". At that time will it matter how computer like it was or will you have been happy with "ps3 = console + potential". Afterall, if when they release it and claim "we are working on the pc functionality and here's this web browser to chew on in the meantime" will that suffice in holding off your final opinion of "ps3 = computer"? I'd say to most it would.

I'm not saying that they won't do a great job at actually having ps3 be a suitable living room pc. I'm saying I'm going to withhold judgement on what ps3 is until I see it doing what it does.

Until then, ps3 - Sony Hype = ?
 
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Shifty Geezer said:
Equally, PSP isn't providing the extensive online media experience that it is supposed to.

Could you care to expand on this a tiny bit? What was promised that hasn't been delivered on? At best I could say that they could have delivered a little sooner on a few things. That's also my only worry for the PS3, really, though now with the extra launch time they got and experience with the PSP, I'm more optimistic.
 
Shifty Geezer said:
Someone's still got to write it/compile it for Cell though, unless they all run on virtual machines. It's a shame Java never took off as the platform independent language it could have.

http://www.blachford.info/computer/articles/CellProgramming1.html said:
Higher level languages (e.g. Perl, Python, Ruby etc.) will already run on the PPE as it’s a standard PowerPC but will not take advantage of the SPEs until support is added. You can be forgiven if you get the impression these languages are not suited to the SPEs but this is not the case, many of the functions these languages perform (e.g. text processing) could potentially run very fast on the SPEs. An SPE based XML parser already exists [XML] and Java is said to be working well.
- http://www.blachford.info/computer/articles/CellProgramming1.html
 
Arwin said:
Could you care to expand on this a tiny bit? What was promised that hasn't been delivered on?
Be careful with wording. I never said promised, I said 'supposed to'. PSP is a portable media that was supposed to provide direct to device content. You could go online on your PSP, find music or movies, and download them and use them on the device. Here's one such pointer
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4396481.stm

Sony are still talking about this, and I expect it will happen eventually. But at the moment, PSP only functions as a multimedia device when paired up with a computer (or PC, depending on which definition Titanio wants me to use :p) to find music and vids to put onto PSP.

There's a lot of talk of PS3's potential to deliver varied services, but the track record for PS hasn't ever seen most of such potentials met before in previous iterations. However, in PS3's case, I think open development would enable far more even if Sony didn't work on anything themselves. Like the PSP movie rippers that are far better than Sony's efforts, created by freelance home devs. Even if Sony fail to implement movie ripping and transmission to PSP, someone else will do it if coding for PS3 is that accessible. Of course that's far from an ideal solution.
 
Shifty Geezer said:
Sony are still talking about this, and I expect it will happen eventually. But at the moment, PSP only functions as a multimedia device when paired up with a computer (or PC, depending on which).

In Japan, Firmware 2.71 ("Portable TV") allows you to browse and buy TV programs on a PSP. I have not tried it personally but it's there (in Japanese).

EDIT: Typo
 
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Shifty Geezer said:
Someone's still got to write it/compile it for Cell though, unless they all run on virtual machines. It's a shame Java never took off as the platform independent language it could have.

If the code is just standard C, and not processor specific, then it should compile like on any other system. I've read that Firefox/Thunderbird etc. have been compiled successfully on PS2 Linux, for example (although the former, at least, is a bit of a pain to use because there's only 32MB of RAM). But something like Wine wouldn't compile, because it relies heavily on X86-specific optimisations, and thus would require a specific port.
 
Java

Shifty Geezer said:
Someone's still got to write it/compile it for Cell though, unless they all run on virtual machines. It's a shame Java never took off as the platform independent language it could have.

I think because of too slow performance for old computers and most people still have old computers with only little bit RAM which is not enough for good Java performance. I think Java can have more success than web-browser application when more people buy new computers with good RAM. But Microsoft says next Windows OS needs too much resources so I don't know. I wonder maybe even 256MB RAM is not enough soon for Java on windows.
 
Shifty Geezer said:
How many applications have been written in Perl? If PS3 is to use currently available free software like Firefox, unless that's all written on portable languages, PS3 won't be able to run them.
Apparently binaries for PPC Linux need no recompilation to work on Cell.
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/power/library/pa-cell/
The integration of support for the PPE in one of the next kernel releases will enable the use of a single kernel binary for all current 64-bit PowerPC machines including Cell, Apple Power Mac, and IBM pSeries.

While no plans are in place to support 32-bit Linux kernels on Cell, it is possible to run both 32- and 64-bit distributions on it using the PowerPC 64 kernel with support for the ELF32 binary format. Note that all 32-bit PowerPC applications are expected to work without modifications.

The Cell evaluation system from Mercury Computer Systems uses Yellow Dog Linux.
http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/products/ydl/
 
Makes you wonder if SCE will bother putting together their own distro or just use an existing PPC one, then. Also makes you wonder if and how you could put other PPC distros onto the system. I guess we'll find out in due course.
 
Yay for server or terminal type app. That means LAMP, RoR, J2SE/EE, Python, ...

Still need RSX driver
Will probably run at 1/3 - 1/4 speed without optimization due to lack of OOE ? :D

But it's a start nonetheless.
 
What'd would be the point in putting a Linux in the HDD, if you wouldn't be able to run software on it?
You seriously think it'll be some butchered Linux that has nothing else but the OS and not being capable to run any software? Or are you saying it'll only run some Sony/IBM Linux software?

I think there's currently more of a chance of it happening than not, just because a Linux has clearly been stated to be on every PS3.
There is little to none info on the PS3 Linux and it's capabilities, but in light of current info (you seriously think the PS2 Linux had nothing to do with this?) the odds are against your joyful pessimism.
 
Realistic

scooby_dooby said:
And you actually think this has a realistic chance of happening? :LOL:

Of course my friend. PS2 needs extra hard-drive for linux and many PS2 owner did not and could not buy this (and most did not even know about Linux) but PS3 already has standard hard-drive and ethernet and standard PowerPC chip just like any powerpc computer. If we can have linux partition like PS2 hard drive we can have any linux software.
 
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