Sony's cooking something for GDC?

[babcat]

I basically have confirmation now that the PS3 does indeed reserve 96MB of memory for the OS.

I am shocked by this, because I was hoping it was not true.

I now believe that the best PS3 games will utilize some sort of advanced decompression scheme where SPEs decompress textures.

 

[Zassk]

They could allow the user to craft a kind of "mii" and then you'd control this avatar in the virtual community space.. You could do things like..:

- Go to the movies with other avatars/by yourself and watch a film (On-Demand-Video-Streaming)
- Go the arcades and play VF & Tekken against other avatars
- Invite other avatars to your house for some singstar..

I read Neuromancer in the 1990's and got hooked on the idea of "cyberspace" like everyone else, but what you described just sounds like a slow and cumbersome way to do the things we can do today* quickly and easily.

*Not necessarily on the PS3, but on consoles in general.

"Second Life" built into every PS3? For free? I'll believe it when I see it. I predict you'll have to pay for a "Gold" account to get it.

 

[patsu]

Anyway, my take is generally that so much speculation rises up whenever there are Sony related rumors that the actual announcement usually turns out underwhelming, however good it was initially. So I'm just going to nicely wait and see ...

I concur !

There have been a lot of developments in this area, where you take a shot from a photo or a camera, and recreate a 3D image from this. If beforehand you know the general 3D characteristics of what you are looking at, it is not impossible - some demos of this have been going around last year. But it's not that likely either. Perhaps it is more like the Sims platform or some kind of Second Life setup.

Sony may not need such an advanced personalization system (without clear benefits). I have seen technologies that can turn a photo into a (limited) 3D world for navigation, but why pay for it ?

EyeToy should be able to read UPC code off the packaging/product (and retrieve product info from Amazon). This is useful for collecting sales/up-sell/cross-sell intelligence, in exchange for consumer economical benefits (i.e., you get discounts because it's easier/cheaper for them to market the goods to you).

Converting and projecting "2D objects" like posters, your own art, family album and video (straight from cameras or PC) should be a piece of cake too. They can start with these to build a viral/social network marketing mechanism.

On top of that, throw in EyeToy's gesture recognition and we should have a reasonably unique experience, which brings us to the next point...

The absolute last thing I want when I'm gaming though is to have other people able to access my system and use both my hard disk, slowing down that performance and my bandwidth as they stream data off my machine...

If we can think of this issue within the timeframe of posting a note, then a full time product manager, plus a whole delivery team consisting of project managers and lead engineers should be well aware of it before the project even commenced. So *if* the rumor is true, we should expect some basic rules and system in place to prevent this sort of lashback.

I guess I missunderstand something, but if everytime I want to do something online, I got to deal with a 3d interface thats just a pain. Visit other people's apartments to see their "achievements"? I don't really understand why everyone is so excited.

This is a more subtle point that killed off many early 3D or 4D (;-)) systems. In recent years, we have seen successes in SecondLife, CyWorld and Habbo Hotel. The key is a mix of abstract UI vs 3D navigation (depending on what the user is supposed to do in this world). We don't have enough information to conclude about the user experience yet.

Anyway, all these are just rumors.

 

[Titanio]

The 4D thing refers to a persitent and virtual world that continues to grow and evolve even when the user is not "jacked in." I thought we cleared this up years ago? Kutaragi was talking about creating a sort of alternate Matrix-like reality. Well, this is it. The idea is that even when you yourself are not logged into home, people might come over to your "place," listen to some of your music, etc etc... maybe you log in and you find them in your house, stealing your stuff, who knows what.

That might be possible in time with always-on-always-connected 'sleep' functionality, but as per the IGN posts, I think the idea initially at least is that you'll be able to visit friends' homes when they are online.

 

[valioso]

This is a more subtle point that killed off many early 3D or 4D (;-)) systems. In recent years, we have seen successes in SecondLife, CyWorld and Habbo Hotel. The key is a mix of abstract UI vs 3D navigation (depending on what the user is supposed to do in this world). We don't have enough information to conclude about the user experience yet.

Anyway, all these are just rumors.

my point was that not all users really care for that type of experience. So why force it on them?

 

[patsu]

But there's no indication that they will be forced to use it ? We have zero info on how everything is packaged together. e.g., there may be quick keys to bring up important screens

 

[Carl B]

That might be possible in time with always-on-always-connected 'sleep' functionality, but as per the IGN posts, I think the idea initially at least is that you'll be able to visit friends' homes when they are online.

Well I think the way it will work is that in your virtual town, their doors will probably be 'locked' when they're not online; aka their system's not on. But if the PS3 itself is connected to the Internet, I don't think that you will have to be active in the town at that very instant to have your buddies able to access your home.

 

[assen]

I basically have confirmation now that the PS3 does indeed reserve 96MB of memory for the OS.

I am shocked by this, because I was hoping it was not true.

I now believe that the best PS3 games will utilize some sort of advanced decompression scheme where SPEs decompress textures.

Decompress them and put them _where_?

 

[assen]

The 4D thing refers to a persitent and virtual world that continues to grow and evolve even when the user is not "jacked in." I thought we cleared this up years ago?

The 4D thing refers to Kutaragi talking out of his nether regions, similar to the 120 fps or the dual 1920p displays, I thought we cleared this up years ago? Is there no threshold of tolerance for stupid PR talk for you people?

 

[one]

The 4D thing refers to Kutaragi talking out of his nether regions, similar to the 120 fps or the dual 1920p displays, I thought we cleared this up years ago? Is there no threshold of tolerance for stupid PR talk for you people?

Actually 120fps HDTVs were the trend at this years CES back in Jan but I digress...

 

[Carl B]

The 4D thing refers to Kutaragi talking out of his nether regions, similar to the 120 fps or the dual 1920p displays, I thought we cleared this up years ago? Is there no threshold of tolerance for stupid PR talk for you people?

We did clear it up, but apparently you didn't read those threads all the way through because you seem confused on what the 120fps was refering to as well. (hint: it wasn't PS3)

EDIT: Assen from post #56 onwards in this thread is where you can clarify yourself on the 120fps situation.

 

[Xpuntar]

I basically have confirmation now that the PS3 does indeed reserve 96MB of memory for the OS.

I am shocked by this, because I was hoping it was not true.

I now believe that the best PS3 games will utilize some sort of advanced decompression scheme where SPEs decompress textures.

I find that extremely strange. 1 year later than X360 and PS3 has (a friction of) less ram for gaming? Did Sony even considered to have additional 256MB ram (total of 768MB) in their "next gen" console? Would additional 256MB GDDR3 ram @ 1400Mhz drastically increase manufacturing cost of PS3? I extremely doubt that as even Geforce 7600GT which ram has exact same spec as in PS3 is quite cheap nowadays. That also means that GDDR3 ram cannot be "to expensive", especially for such a large company as Sony is.

256MB more ram would mean that PS3 would have 192MB more than X360 for gaming. That would be a huge memory advantage for PS3. 40% more ram than competion.

X360-> 512-32=480
PS3-> 512-96 = 416

What if scenario
PS3-> 768-96 = 672

672/480 = 1,4

Technically speaking, PS3 now has only one edge (Cell) against X360 and it's power has yet to be mastered and "released".

 

[Carl B]

I find that extremely strange. 1 year later than X360 and PS3 has (a friction of) less ram for gaming? Did Sony even considered to have additional 256MB ram (total of 768MB) in their "next gen" console? Would additional 256MB GDDR3 ram @ 1400Mhz drastically increase manufacturing cost of PS3? I extremely doubt that as even Geforce 7600GT which ram has exact same spec as in PS3 is quite cheap nowadays. That also means that GDDR3 ram cannot be "to expensive", especially for such a large company as Sony is.

Of course it would add a ton of expense. Remember that Microsoft was planning on only 256MB total for their RAM, but pressure from devs (mainly Epic to hear the story be told) pushed them to up it to 512MB. Microsoft estimated their own cost for doing so at $1 billion for that 256MB increase over the life of the console.

 

[patsu]

Technically speaking, PS3 now has only one edge (Cell) against X360 and it's power has yet to be mastered and "released".

Depends on your point of view. I can actually see more than 1 technical differentiators and edges in PS3 (and vice versa from Xbox 360 perspective). As their visions diverge, it's going to be harder and harder to compare them based on a simple check list.

 

[NERO]

This thread was going to be fun but oh well, I'll particpate in the tangents anyways.

Why do folks treat memory expansion as so far-fetched. Nintendo did it with the N64 for games toward the end of its life (Majora's Mask, Conquers), why not the PS3 or 360. Surely there's some way to plug in extra memory. Folks who say, wanted to play MGS 5 and Crysis would buy the expansion just as those who want to play DDR buy the dance pad.

 

[Xpuntar]

I know, but GDDR3 is now dirt cheap (at least from perceived PC GFX card prices with GDDR3 memory). And for large company as Sony they would have an additional "price bonus" because of quantity.

By my guess GDDR3 (256MB @ 1400Mhz) in GF 7600GT is around €20 ~ €25. And that is per chip already sold to GFX board makers. Original manufacturer cost for such ram is probably at half of that or even lower at around €7,5. Am I wrong?

Otherwise I am still expecting to buy PS3 (someday and not on EU launch).

 

[Bobbler]

This thread was going to be fun but oh well, I'll particpate in the tangents anyways.

Why do folks treat memory expansion as so far-fetched. Nintendo did it with the N64 for games toward the end of its life (Majora's Mask, Conquers), why not the PS3 or 360. Surely there's some way to plug in extra memory. Folks who say, wanted to play MGS 5 and Crysis would buy the expansion just as those who want to play DDR buy the dance pad.

There isn't any expansion ports accessible for that -- the fastest port accessible is USB2.0 or the HDD slot probably, which is, at best, like 60mb/s.

 

[NERO]

There isn't any expansion ports accessible for that -- the fastest port accessible is USB2.0 or the HDD slot probably, which is, at best, like 60mb/s.

:| Yes, to think of it, Nintendo built the 64 - from the get-go - with the expansion port in the middle of the system architecture.

As for the PS3 expansion musings: How bout the HD?

 

[zed]

my point was that not all users really care for that type of experience. So why force it on them?

true ( chatrooms etc hold no interest for me, but for huge numbers of ppl it does )
then again it might be cool to walk down the street hey theres beyond3d ill just pop in. (instead of clicking on a link to go there)

which console has sold 5million in just over 3 months, making it the most successful currentgen console so far? wii, why? cause it appeals to a lot of ppl. + is fun
name some of the most played games on the internet?
doom,halflife, counterstrike etc?
perhaps, but youll find solitaire, chess etc up there as well

theres only a limited number of ppl that wanna play games where u run around shooting ppl, driving cars off cliffs etc.

 

[babcat]

Decompress them and put them _where_?

Decompress the textures and put them into main RAM where they can be sent to the RSX.