Sony's PS3 download plans?

[ninzel]

Do you guy's know what Sony's future plans for the PS3 in terms of downloadable content are?The reason I ask is because I've run out of space on my 20GB drive and want to upgrade but don't neccesarily want to waste the money on a huge huge drive.
But I want to be prepared for any future plans.
Is Sony planning to allow downloads of:
MP3 music like I-tunes.
SD or Blue-Ray movies.
Full installed of new games right to the HDD.
Downloadable expansion packs.

Just wondering what size you think would be a safe bet. I was thinking 80GB would be fine but who knows.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Do you guy's know what Sony's future plans for the PS3 in terms of downloadable content are?The reason I ask is because I've run out of space on my 20GB drive and want to upgrade but don't neccesarily want to waste the money on a huge huge drive.
But I want to be prepared for any future plans.
Is Sony planning to allow downloads of:
MP3 music like I-tunes.
SD or Blue-Ray movies.
Full installed of new games right to the HDD.
Downloadable expansion packs.

Yes, to all of the above! the only probable exception is Full Install of games. You won't be putting multiple gigs of game data from disc to HDD on the whole. The largest consumer will be download titles, but with no size limit on these, they could end up pretty huge.

I'd say get the most economical size you can find. Normally HDDs are only a few notes more for a load of extra space (like 100 notes for a 60 GB, 110 notes for 80GB) and then there's a jump to larger storage. Work out the best price per GB and go with that for now. Once you've filled it up, you'll be in a better position to judge future requirements. It may be an external 3.5" drive is a much better choice if you end up downloading lots.

 

[ninzel]

Yes, to all of the above! the only probable exception is Full Install of games. You won't be putting multiple gigs of game data from disc to HDD on the whole. The largest consumer will be download titles, but with no size limit on these, they could end up pretty huge.

I'd say get the most economical size you can find. Normally HDDs are only a few notes more for a load of extra space (like 100 notes for a 60 GB, 110 notes for 80GB) and then there's a jump to larger storage. Work out the best price per GB and go with that for now. Once you've filled it up, you'll be in a better position to judge future requirements. It may be an external 3.5" drive is a much better choice if you end up downloading lots.

Sony needs to get with the program then and start offering their huge library of movies and music for download. I can't believe MS is beating them to the punch on this one.
Going on that PStore and seeing all the potential and then walking way with only a trailer is such a tease.

 

[Arwin]

Right now I think 120Gb is a good size to pick ... relatively cheap, good performance, and quiet. Also a good idea probably is to take a 5400rpm drive rather than a 7400rpm, as the latter might get too hot in the PS3 and at the very least make it more noisy. There's a test of drives and their sound levels in the German magazine's C't PS3 Special. I can post the results here if you are interested.

An alternative is to use an external USB drive. This has the advantage that no matter what device you use it for, you have your data available. Even if you switch between Linux on the PS3 and regular use, you can use this HDD to share data. This way you can reserve the internal HDD for basic stuff like save-games and caching for games that you play at that moment (and I think some games allow you to cache something like 4GB already, something which I can see happen more often when PS3 games are going to be designed more for HDD use, something for which the initial batch of games haven't all been designed afaik).

External drives aren't always the best for lots of small files, I think (at least not the one I tested for work), but for movies, mp3s and so on it's excellent.

If an external drive is not an option for you though (250GB isn't that expensive!) then definitely go for a 120GB drive if you can. That should last you a good while!

But if you get a good deal on an 80GB that's fine too of course. I'm expecting I'll be fine with the default 60GB I have in mine for a while yet myself.

 

[ninzel]

I never considered an external drive,I've just been using my SD cards to transfer files over.
The reviews I've read seem to give the edge to the Seagate Momentus, even over the bigger 16MB cache Toshiba drives so I've decided to go with Seagate( although the Western Digital Scorpios have a better dollar to GB ratio).

 

[patsu]

Sony needs to get with the program then and start offering their huge library of movies and music for download. I can't believe MS is beating them to the punch on this one.
Going on that PStore and seeing all the potential and then walking way with only a trailer is such a tease.

I think they mentioned Fall '07. No idea why they are taking this long but from recent Sony efforts, you can probably infer that they are putting their hearts and soul into it.

 

[Rolf N]

I'm a little torn between the 4200rpm Fujitsu Hornet M60 160GB SATA (MHV2160BT) and the matching Hitachi 5400rpm 160GB drive. The price is a wash, it's really a question of low or very low idle noise.
Thinking seriously about getting one of these for my big PC. Working on a laptop for four months made me even more paranoid about noise.

 

[Sis]

I never considered an external drive,I've just been using my SD cards to transfer files over.
The reviews I've read seem to give the edge to the Seagate Momentus, even over the bigger 16MB cache Toshiba drives so I've decided to go with Seagate( although the Western Digital Scorpios have a better dollar to GB ratio).

/Offtopic

I like Seagate as well. Tigerdirect has an amazing deal for a 320GB external for $100. Let me find the link. Crap. Sold out.

Oh, I just stumbled across this one:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2949302&CatId=2422

A Seagate 650GB for $219! I have zero need for this thing, but I want it now so bad.

 

[ninzel]

/Offtopic

I like Seagate as well. Tigerdirect has an amazing deal for a 320GB external for $100. Let me find the link. Crap. Sold out.

Oh, I just stumbled across this one:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2949302&CatId=2422

A Seagate 650GB for $219! I have zero need for this thing, but I want it now so bad.

You're going to need all kinds of funky porn to fill that thing up.

 

[-tkf-]

Things to consider is heat and speed, minimum speed shoule be comparable to the current drive. Avoid drives that get hot(ter).

Personally i´m holding on to my 60GB for now and wait until i see what sony will offer. Right now i´m at 32 Gb free btw.

Why is Sony so slow with adding content.. well i would say they are stupid, unless they have something "big" inc.

I think the way they fucked up their Walkman days shows just how stupid they can be, they had the chance to do something like Apple, earlier than Apple did, the technology was already in place and with lots of content in stock. Instead they fumbled the ball and completely blew any chance of a headstart instead they have to fight a uphill battle like everyone else against apples iPOD.

 

[inefficient]

According to this week's 1UP Yours, with the latest PS3 and PSP firmware update remote play now works from any WiFi hot spot. You can stream Music and Video to your PSP from your PS3 at say a Starbucks or over at your freinds house.

I don't have a PSP to test this. But if I did, this will add one more reason to have a bigger HDD to store stuff on. Right now I still have 28G free on my 60GB.

 

[Rolf N]

According to this week's 1UP Yours, with the latest PS3 and PSP firmware update remote play now works from any WiFi hot spot. You can stream Music and Video to your PSP from your PS3 at say a Starbucks or over at your freinds house.

I don't have a PSP to test this. But if I did, this will add one more reason to have a bigger HDD to store stuff on. Right now I still have 28G free on my 60GB.

I think instead of providing pushes for the PSP, the PS3 should get more features for itself first.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Why is Sony so slow with adding content.. well i would say they are stupid, unless they have something "big" inc.

At the moment I think they come under 'Stupid'. Or at least terribly slow. PSP was supposed to get this sort of service, and it hasn't yet materialized. However, I wouldn't put it past Sony to be working on a very fancy service. With the hiring of Tim Schaff to create a corporate-wide styling
(said Sir Howard Stringer, Chairman and CEO of Sony. "Tim's expertise is a vital addition to the Sony team, and he will be responsible for developing and deploying a unified, intuitive Sony 'look and feel' to user interfaces and functionality across our entire product line." Dec '05) I think they might be putting off releasing the frontend to their existing vast content in order to get a unified experience. I recall seeing the flOw look in a PS3 interface; I think it was in a Home selection screen. They may be working on designs.

And the Sony interfaces shown so far have been very swish. I would mind too much if this is the case. As long as they don't take too long!

 

[patsu]

I think instead of providing pushes for the PSP, the PS3 should get more features for itself first.

Hey hey hey ! That's my most wanted feature you're talking about ...although the ideal solution is to launch Remote Play automatically on the PS3. So we are still not quite there yet.

I have my own thoughts where Sony is heading in music, movie and possibly ebook distribution. But for now, I hope they hurry up with the Home beta first.

 

[wco81]

Game is over for music downloads. Apple is going to have DRM-less downloads. It's hard to see their momentum being stopped unless the EU forces them out of their markets.

Even Sony is putting out products for iPods like speaker docks and iPod docks for Bravias.

Who knows, Singstar may be a minor hit but unless Apple ports iTunes to the PS3, there is little incentive for PS3 owners to fill up their HDDs with legal downloads of music.

You know it would be nicer if Sony allowed PS3 to see NAS mounts. That is a better way to store media and there are now NAS models which serve as iTunes servers.

For people who've already collected a lot of media, what is the incentive to copy to the PS3 HDD exactly? That's a question that bedevils the Apple TV as well (and legal video downloads have a big obstacle) but at least you can stream photos, music and movies from existing libraries instead of duplicating all those files and constantly having to sync with libraries residing on computers.

That is why NAS makes more sense.

 

[ninzel]

Well right now my PS3 is hooked up to my best sound system.I could always stick a CD into the PS3 every hour or so but I would rather just import all my CD's and hit play and forget about it while I browse the web or do whatever.
The sound system on my home PC is a crappy 2 speaker setup.

 

[Sis]

Game is over for music downloads. Apple is going to have DRM-less downloads.

Just to clarify, EMI is offering it's music in DRM-less form (and a higher bitrate). All online music stores should be able to take advantage of this, including Sony's.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

You know it would be nicer if Sony allowed PS3 to see NAS mounts. That is a better way to store media and there are now NAS models which serve as iTunes servers.

That is why NAS makes more sense.

I thought it could already. Can't you connect a NAS solution over Ethernet?

 

[wco81]

Can it? Can it do Samba or NFL mounts?

And if it could mount a music library on an NAS, will the music playback software be able to stream from it?

 

[patsu]

I don't think it does today (in the Game OS).

Some sort of network storage was mentioned before. Besides file/storage level integration, DLNA is another possible approach. The latter was also demo'ed by Sony in CES last year. Unfortunately, they have not formally announced anything yet.

As for DRM-less music, other publishers have not followed suit yet. There are still ways to differentiate in this space, with or without DRM.

For now, I have transfered my music library to PS3 -- even iTunes purchased ones ;-) I did it because my PS3 is hooked up to the sound system anyway. I also want to access my music from PSP remotely.

My laptop has too many things on it, while my iPod met its end in my son's hands. I didn't want another USD300-400 down the drain.