Blade47167
Newcomer
Would they need to? Cell is scalable right? So future renditions can run any code designed for an older one?
Also would this mean enhanced backwards compatibility? IE better framerates and such?
The Future of the Playstation
- Thread starter Color me Dan
- Start date
Would they need to? Cell is scalable right? So future renditions can run any code designed for an older one?
Also would this mean enhanced backwards compatibility? IE better framerates and such?
Yes.
No. Not without running the risk of potentially breaking games. Higher fps isn't always a good thing, especially when event timers are linked to the atomic clock of the CPU, or with frame-locked animations (i.e. an animation that is set to occur over x frames).
Blade47167
Newcomer
I didn't mean like that exactly. Say you have THPS8 which is 30FPS. Well sometimes it drops to like 20FPS. Would it not help THPS8 stay at its intended framerate?
Color me Dan
Regular
If you read the entire post you'd see i was aiming at a co-cpu, using it for backwardscompatibility would just be a good enough back of the box reason to add one 
It would be a curiosa for devs, and it's just my imagination talking considering the manufacturing of the cell cpu in PS3 would probably be very far along and quite cheap to add by the time the next Playstation is out.
I read on Gamespot that Toshiba is introducing a 3d technology that automatically creates a 3d image of a movie. I'm assuming by the short piece written that it is akin to nintendos Virtual boy or other 3d goggles where you have two almost identical images with one slightly offset to create a sense of depth. I know there was alot of rumors and talk, most just imagination, about one console this gen having 3d support for games. Will this be a next gen thing perhaps? I can imagine the memory requirments being quite steep for this kind of technology.
It would be a curiosa for devs, and it's just my imagination talking considering the manufacturing of the cell cpu in PS3 would probably be very far along and quite cheap to add by the time the next Playstation is out.
I read on Gamespot that Toshiba is introducing a 3d technology that automatically creates a 3d image of a movie. I'm assuming by the short piece written that it is akin to nintendos Virtual boy or other 3d goggles where you have two almost identical images with one slightly offset to create a sense of depth. I know there was alot of rumors and talk, most just imagination, about one console this gen having 3d support for games. Will this be a next gen thing perhaps? I can imagine the memory requirments being quite steep for this kind of technology.
Resolution will be an interesting issue.
With every Playstation we've had an increase in supported resolution.
It comes down to memory footprint, bandwidth and processing, and of course, output technology. I'm sure PS4 will be capable of rendering images in realtime well beyond 1080p, but whether a developer will do so will probably depend on the situation with display technology at the time, and whether the HDMI output (or whatever..) can support that resolution. If 1080p adoption reaches a critical mass, I can't see many developers going beyond that. But some may push into 2K or even 4K territory, and I could see Sony welcoming that if a developer chooses to do so, and there are some high end TVs supporting those resolutions.
With PS1 and PS2, resolution was constrained not least by memory capacity, but those limitations are beginning to disappear, and it becomes more a question of how thinly or thickly you want to spread your processing power and bandwidth. And things will be even more flexible with PS4. It's a good bet, though, that they won't mandate anything more than 1080p as the minimum resolution to be supported by games
With every Playstation we've had an increase in supported resolution.
It comes down to memory footprint, bandwidth and processing, and of course, output technology. I'm sure PS4 will be capable of rendering images in realtime well beyond 1080p, but whether a developer will do so will probably depend on the situation with display technology at the time, and whether the HDMI output (or whatever..) can support that resolution. If 1080p adoption reaches a critical mass, I can't see many developers going beyond that. But some may push into 2K or even 4K territory, and I could see Sony welcoming that if a developer chooses to do so, and there are some high end TVs supporting those resolutions.
With PS1 and PS2, resolution was constrained not least by memory capacity, but those limitations are beginning to disappear, and it becomes more a question of how thinly or thickly you want to spread your processing power and bandwidth. And things will be even more flexible with PS4. It's a good bet, though, that they won't mandate anything more than 1080p as the minimum resolution to be supported by games
archangelmorph
Veteran
If you read the entire post you'd see i was aiming at a co-cpu, using it for backwardscompatibility would just be a good enough back of the box reason to add one
It would be a curiosa for devs, and it's just my imagination talking considering the manufacturing of the cell cpu in PS3 would probably be very far along and quite cheap to add by the time the next Playstation is out.
Contrary to popular belief, sticking an additional CPU into a console is NEVER cheap by any means.. & the fact that the next generation of playstation will almost certainly contain a much more advanced Cell derrivative, it would be unnecessary to add the [PS3's] Cell since the chip could be easily emulated on the new CPU which would be based on a very similar design/layout albeit just scaled up to the extreme (tens of SPUs & possibly multiple PPUs..)..
To be honest I don't think the BC issues would come from Cell but rather from RSX.. If Sony decide to go for a much more integrated hardware solution for both graphics and core processing then it could potentially be much more problematic using this single chip to emulate a Cell+RSX combo at full speed without several complications (well... Unless the chip was a complete monster..)..
Why?
You'd only require enough extra memory to render two 1080p frame buffers instead of one surely..?
Color me Dan
Regular
I was under the understanding that to comeplete a true 3d image you would require more memory to store the two images, perhaps even having to re-render the same image from a slightly different angle as with stereoscopic filming where you have two cameras at a set distance from eachother.
I agree that it's probably not "cheap" to add a PS3 cell, but if the internals of the Cell evolves to a point where previous Cell code itself would need to be emulated on the new Cell core, wouldn't it be better? You would either way need a emulator for the next gen Cell for backwards compatibility with the PS2 and PS1 games. And when not in use for backwards compatibility it could be used for other tasks.
How'd you suppose the RSX would be emulated though? IF the next Playstation uses a Cell with an intergrated graphics core and functionality of a graphics chip, wouldn't this make (like pointed out above) emulating the old Cell harder? Obviously i'm not the expert, you regulars have more knowledge in this stuff then me.
I agree that it's probably not "cheap" to add a PS3 cell, but if the internals of the Cell evolves to a point where previous Cell code itself would need to be emulated on the new Cell core, wouldn't it be better? You would either way need a emulator for the next gen Cell for backwards compatibility with the PS2 and PS1 games. And when not in use for backwards compatibility it could be used for other tasks.
How'd you suppose the RSX would be emulated though? IF the next Playstation uses a Cell with an intergrated graphics core and functionality of a graphics chip, wouldn't this make (like pointed out above) emulating the old Cell harder? Obviously i'm not the expert, you regulars have more knowledge in this stuff then me.
archangelmorph
Veteran
Ah true..
I guess resource wise it would be rather demanding..
Using soley the functionality of the new Cell I would imagine you could just build a software layer (emulator) which allows you to translate your PS3/PS2/PSX code into native PS4 assembly.. However observing how strong the selling point of BC has been for the PS3 (or for the Wii, Xbox360 for that matter..) I question whether Sony would even want to support BC beyond PS2 in their next hardware iteration..
It could potentially be less complex judging form the fact that RSX usage is based around an OpenGL abstraction layer.. However i'm not completely sure about all of this.. There maybe other factors which could bring up further complications..
The subject of this thread was "The Future of the Playstation". A lot of the discussion is around the PS4. I have a feeling the PS4 may be quite far away and that we will see some evolution of the PS3 before we get there.
Kutaragi has numerous times mentioned that the PS3 will be upgradeable in a similar way to the PC, he even mentioned BTO (built-to-order) versions for each customer. The harddrive is one example of that turned up in the PS3, but he also indicated that Sony might add a BD-RW-drive and more memory later on (link). Other persons at Sony have also hinted at changes in the memory spec in the future, (couldn´t find a link).
Izumi Kawanishi said in an interview that dual HDMI and multi GbE-ports may be possible in future PS3 versions (link).
I don´t know if anything of this PC talk is valid any longer since Kutaragi left Sony, but I think it´s possible. I could see an upgraded PS3 with twice the XDR RAM (512 MB), dual HDMI ports, some more USB ports, a big harddrive and a Cell with 8 working SPUs start as a PS3 Elite or PS 3.5.
As its main advantage it would offer users better Internet browsing functionality and dual screen output. It would be priced to give better margins than the plain PS3. Which would be pretty easy since the main differences compared to the plain PS3 would be the extra RAM on the main board and the larger harddrive, the ports would just add some pennies to the BOM (assuming the logic of the extra HDMI port is integrated in a future RSX and the yields of the Cell improve).
The question is would Sony do a Nintendo and make the hardware of this PS 3.5 available in the dev kits so games could take advantage of it. What if Sony starts to push the PS3.5 for $50 more than the PS3 at the time their competitors starts pushing their next generation of consoles? Maybe they will add a fancy camera controlled interface as well?
It's fun to speculate.
Kutaragi has numerous times mentioned that the PS3 will be upgradeable in a similar way to the PC, he even mentioned BTO (built-to-order) versions for each customer. The harddrive is one example of that turned up in the PS3, but he also indicated that Sony might add a BD-RW-drive and more memory later on (link). Other persons at Sony have also hinted at changes in the memory spec in the future, (couldn´t find a link).
Izumi Kawanishi said in an interview that dual HDMI and multi GbE-ports may be possible in future PS3 versions (link).
I don´t know if anything of this PC talk is valid any longer since Kutaragi left Sony, but I think it´s possible. I could see an upgraded PS3 with twice the XDR RAM (512 MB), dual HDMI ports, some more USB ports, a big harddrive and a Cell with 8 working SPUs start as a PS3 Elite or PS 3.5.
As its main advantage it would offer users better Internet browsing functionality and dual screen output. It would be priced to give better margins than the plain PS3. Which would be pretty easy since the main differences compared to the plain PS3 would be the extra RAM on the main board and the larger harddrive, the ports would just add some pennies to the BOM (assuming the logic of the extra HDMI port is integrated in a future RSX and the yields of the Cell improve).
The question is would Sony do a Nintendo and make the hardware of this PS 3.5 available in the dev kits so games could take advantage of it. What if Sony starts to push the PS3.5 for $50 more than the PS3 at the time their competitors starts pushing their next generation of consoles? Maybe they will add a fancy camera controlled interface as well?
It's fun to speculate.
archangelmorph
Veteran
The subject of this thread was "The Future of the Playstation". A lot of the discussion is around the PS4. I have a feeling the PS4 may be quite far away and that we will see some evolution of the PS3 before we get there.
Kutaragi has numerous times mentioned that the PS3 will be upgradeable in a similar way to the PC, he even mentioned BTO (built-to-order) versions for each customer. The harddrive is one example of that turned up in the PS3, but he also indicated that Sony might add a BD-RW-drive and more memory later on (link). Other persons at Sony have also hinted at changes in the memory spec in the future, (couldn´t find a link).
Izumi Kawanishi said in an interview that dual HDMI and multi GbE-ports may be possible in future PS3 versions (link).
I don´t know if anything of this PC talk is valid any longer since Kutaragi left Sony, but I think it´s possible. I could see an upgraded PS3 with twice the XDR RAM (512 MB), dual HDMI ports, some more USB ports, a big harddrive and a Cell with 8 working SPUs start as a PS3 Elite or PS 3.5.
As its main advantage it would offer users better Internet browsing functionality and dual screen output. It would be priced to give better margins than the plain PS3. Which would be pretty easy since the main differences compared to the plain PS3 would be the extra RAM on the main board and the larger harddrive, the ports would just add some pennies to the BOM (assuming the logic of the extra HDMI port is integrated in a future RSX and the yields of the Cell improve).
The question is would Sony do a Nintendo and make the hardware of this PS 3.5 available in the dev kits so games could take advantage of it. What if Sony starts to push the PS3.5 for $50 more than the PS3 at the time their competitors starts pushing their next generation of consoles? Maybe they will add a fancy camera controlled interface as well?
It's fun to speculate.
I don't think your idea of a PS3.5 could/would ever happen because
- no devs would support it
- it would seggragate the PS3 demeographic and allow devs to provide user experiences which differ from machine to machine
- scalable hardware adds a VERY unwelcome amount of extra work to developers which we really don't need/ aren't interested in..
In terms of differing hardware with respect to their services offered relating to non gaming functionality from the box then I guess it could be a possibility.. Problem is I don't think it would help confusing consumers any less when they walk into a store and see three or four PS3s only to find that after walking out with the cheapest one, it doesn't have the right connections, media interfaces or is just generally not what they were looking for..
Consoles sell en-masse to the average joe who wants to be able to see one box, with one spec that can play any game he picks up from the store..
Target any other consumer and your platform is doomed to failure..
Yeah you might as well make wholesale changes rather than incremental ones.
The effect on the installed base would be similar.
Better to go all in instead of nickel and diming around.
You wonder if there are other technologies 4-5 years from now Sony would want to feature. Probably no new optical disc format.
Would they push a higher resolution format? Kind of pointless to go beyond 1080p when no TV providers are showing an interest in going beyond 720p/1080i. Without that, there's no push for displays greater than 1080p.
And without such newer displays, what would be the point of rendering games in higher resolutions? Could they render in higher resolution and then gain benefits from outputting at lower resolutions? Do CGI features like the Pixar movies render at 4k but then display in theaters at lower resolutions? Well certainly a lot of viewers will see those movies at 480i upscaled to various consumer display resolutions.
The effect on the installed base would be similar.
Better to go all in instead of nickel and diming around.
You wonder if there are other technologies 4-5 years from now Sony would want to feature. Probably no new optical disc format.
Would they push a higher resolution format? Kind of pointless to go beyond 1080p when no TV providers are showing an interest in going beyond 720p/1080i. Without that, there's no push for displays greater than 1080p.
And without such newer displays, what would be the point of rendering games in higher resolutions? Could they render in higher resolution and then gain benefits from outputting at lower resolutions? Do CGI features like the Pixar movies render at 4k but then display in theaters at lower resolutions? Well certainly a lot of viewers will see those movies at 480i upscaled to various consumer display resolutions.
Rainbow Man
Veteran
Perhaps in the future. So far magnetic media outperforms flash drives on most tasks except small random accesses. Particulary when writing is involved.
And there's the wear factor as well of course..
There's no specific "parking procedure" that needs to be gone through. That hasn't been the case since the late 80s or early 90s depending on manufacturer/model.
With any harddrive manufactured for a long long time the onboard electronics will draw power from the momentum of the rotating platter(s) and park heads immediately as soon as external pwer is cut. The process takes a second at most, probably a lot less on most drives.
It's not parking the harddrive that takes relatively long. It's shutting down the OS and any application running on the system and flushing write buffers to the HDD etc. Remember that Sony allows for non-game apps and OSes to run on the PS3 so some care is needed to protect data files and the filing system itself. This would be the case even with a flash drive.
You may want to notice that the 360, which does not allowf or non-gaming apps to run on it power off instantly even with a harddrive installed. So it's clearly not 'parking the harddrive' which takes a lot of time on PS3.
That's pretty much nonsense from beginning to end. Like I said, a HDD will park itself even if you pull out the power cord while it's running. If power fails unexpectedly during a write a SSD would suffer data corruption in just the same way a HDD would. No difference there.
Peace.
I'd be very surprised if that happened in this time-frame. That'd make Cell a short-lived CPU! If you're progressing a processor family, whether x86 or PPC or Cell, you introduce new products that run existing code faster as well as adding new features. If you don't offer an actual upgrade path, all the software developed for the old CPU becomes redundant, which means companies that have invested in your processor no longer have the benefit of transposing old software onto new, faster hardware. And if that happens, they can readily make a switch to another platform. Instead STI want to sell Cell systems now, and then get those developing Cell applications to buy into Cell in the future when there's more rivals. "Don't buy the ATi Vector Processor system, as none of your software will work! Buy our Cell 2 and get an immediate 4x performance boost on existing code!"
The structure of Cell is such that big improvements can be attained with minimal alterations to the key design. Whereas OoO cores have developed more complex pipelining and code management, future Cells can potential just upgrade with manufacturing abilities to add more cores and LS. There's no particular reason to modify the IPA or change the operation. Cell is designed how it is for a particular purpose, and that design should remain valid for many years to come. Thus the next Cell could add better DP performance, more LS, more cores at a faster clock, yet be intrinsically the same to Cell1 and run the same code directly. It would be surprising shortsighted I think if the designers produced a system that couldn't maintain code compatibility on subsequent revisions. Unless there was a catastrophic oversight in the original design process that left out essential features that need to be put back in, the designers must have been thinking their design will scale to future requirements without fundamental changes in design.
While the future of process nodes may dictate such, 45nm and 32SPEs is an aweful small leap from where we are now. 32nm may pose too many issues (namely with 22nm and 16nm process shrinks for cost saving) but 45nm may not offer enough power. Maybe Sony will look at 2x 45nm Cells (like Intel with their first dualcores?) with a 32nm die shrink that brings them more natively close later on...
And this is why Kutaragi isn't there anymore. There are so many business/market hurdles to the above plan it would be horrible--worse than the PS3 gameplan. Which is pretty bad considering where Sony was and where Sony is.
I can elaborate if you wish...
As an aside, Crysis may only require SM2.0, Crytek has said it "scales back 2 years". Good luck getting your Radeon 9700 and P4 2.8GHz with 512MB memory running Crysis. I think any PlayStation owner in a similar position would pull their hair out when MGS5, GT6, or whatever was put into this situation.
I am not saying you are wrong, but the Wii was an incremental upgrade of the GamCube with a fancy interface and it is doing pretty well.
If Sony scales the harware once after let us say four years which would lead to two different hardware configurations, one slightly upgraded. That scenario would be ininitely less defragmented than what the PC-environment looks like to the developers, so I am not that sure it would be that cumbersome to the developers, they could just scale the techniques they are using.
Concerning PC-developers, I thought this interview was very interesting, where Geoff Heath, boss of NCSoft is prediciting that many PC gamers will move to the PS3.
It would be really interesting to hear him ellaborate on the reasons why he thinks so. Probably it boils down to that the PS3 later on will offer a cheap gaming device, with good networking capabilities, Edit: mouse & keyboard support and it offers an open environment for third parties to provide servers and downloadables (as pointed out by Reins at Epic), but Geoff may have some different in mind as well.
If Geoff´s prediction comes true, the PS3 will have a set of customers who will be more sophisticated than your average Joe. The PS 3.5 may appeal to that group, while Joe settles for the plain cheap PS3.
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That's one of the reasons why they are touting the 10-year life of PS3. The issues of slower and harder process shrink and a power envelope that is nearing a dangerous point for a CE product. So you can't expect a 10x or more leap anymore for the 5-year cycle. What's possible for the client side is more gradual, scalable updates for an existing format. If you want to maintain the growth pace in terms of entertainment experience, you have to turn your eye to the server side where you can stack up thousands of computers with a smaller latency.
Of course everyone suspects it's why Kutaragi is gone. But the fact is the die is cast and we have the PS3 hardware as it is, left people have to carry on his game to some extent while Hirai handles software license business to recoup the investment.
The intent of this plan is, IMO, to get out of the risk that visits console makers every 5 years. When Microsoft entered the game 7 years ago, it could be easily expected that it'd get harder or impossible to be unharmed by the loss-leading practice of the game console market against the deepest pocket in the world, regardless of winning the market share. Cell and the PS3 hardware format is the last and biggest investment by SCE as the answer to this problem. The plan itself is legitimate and Cell could meet a deadline, but other issues such as software management failures for games, OS and SDK, delays due to Blu-ray and HDMI 1.3, and the economically difficult in-house semiconductor process development after 65nm, and the launch day confusion are more related to why Kutaragi had to leave I think.
How Nintendo coped with it is as you know by using an updated previous-gen hardware with a new controller as a means for product differentiation, and it's very successful for now. PS3 has Cell and Blu-ray for product differentiation, but obviously they both add to the cost and take time to exploit unlike Nintendo's solution. You don't want to compromise on computing processing power either. The only way that makes it possible without being like Nintendo is to sell goods for their fair prices. Or in Mac's or VAIO's case, more than their raw hardware prices with added brand/service value. Sony sells a $200 DVD player and a $2000 DVD player, you can watch the same content on them but in a different way. Why not do it for computer games, why does everyone have to buy a new-gen console at the same time? They know consoles get price drops and PS2 is still growing in emerging markets.
The current PS3 doesn't have enough RAM for PC-like activity. The firmware gets many AV-related updates recently, it's a way to make it a good media player (or a recorder with a tuner), not a computer per se. To run Linux smoothly side-by-side with a realtime OS (Game OS) on a hypervisor like the Toshiba Cell Reference Set, it needs 1GB XDR RAM like the Cell Computing Board. But these added computer capability or superior AV capability sell only to a very small number of enthusiasts even though they can sell this version of PS3 for $1000. The only way to make more people swallow a higher price and establish the game business at the same time is the capability to run a game better.
As for "Crysis scales back 2 years" and game development for a new faster PS3 format, let's see archangelmorph's counterarguments.
Basically my current forecast is based on this comment by Kawanishi (the current CTO at SCEI) that says they don't exclude the possibility of a new PS3 that can run the same game better.
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=970846&postcount=23
I think there'll be developers who support it, even though they are not first/second-party. PC developers are doing it already, and you know they are complaining that Cell is harder to program and they have difficulties to port 360 games to it, not to mention porting PC games to PS3. PS3.5 makes them easier, you can even port Crysis and whatever to it without losing fidelity to the original PC game. Why Crysis scales back only 2 years is they can't optimize it to a lower-spec PC hardware unlike a fixed console spec. As for segregation, why do they care when Madden runs 30fps on some PS3 and 60fps on the other, as do today on PS3 and 360? OTOH the existence of PS3.5 makes the life of PS3 longer and more competitive. You don't have to argue a 1080p screenshot with AA as a bullshot anymore! As for scalable hardware, as long as they are in the same linear spec hierarchy and don't have more than 3 models, I think it won't be a problem. Recently there was an encouraging comment from one renowned developer - John Carmack. He praised Mac for its uniformity when he was promoting the new engine tech.
To recap my forecast, it'll be like this. In 2010 a PS3 with 32 SPEs and 2GB XDR2 RAM will launch for a price you feel a bit expensive. This time it'll be released before or at the same time Microsoft and Nintendo release their next consoles. PS3 games will begin to support it by running it at higher frame rate, higher AA, more objects, or other bonus as you see in PC games options on different spec PCs. Then, a year or 2 later with enough PS3.5 on the market, there may be a new game profile that requires PS3.5 and doesn't run on PS3 - this is a conservative form of PS4. If the future network infrastructure allows, a new server-side entertainment form with a PS3 as a thin client may appear. Which one is called as PS4 depends on market situation at that time, but they are not mutually exclusive. Also a PS3.5-only game may be introduced at the same time as PS3.5 release to stimulate demand. Anyway my bet is PS4 = PS3.5 + massive Cell server farms.
This is an interesting idea, returning to computing's routes and fulfilling some common sci-fi ideas. The question for me though is if it is truly attainable? To get the same PS3 experience now with a server, you'd need a server equipped with one Cell and one RSX for each PS customer. That's a server with 3 million processors and GPUs. We're talking some big rooms to fit all this in! Then Sony would have to pay for the upkeep. At the moment the cost of running PS3's is spread across millions of owners. Semms to me the only way this would be viable is as a subscription service. Or if Google do it and place adverts everywhere. I guess the other route is the old set-top box route. If customers are buying downloaded content, that would support running costs of servers. You'd need a big investment for an uncertain future though. If MS and Nintendo offer conventional consoles, what if the masses prefer that? What happens to you server plans then?
In the long run, the cost to run would diminish. If we have a sort of virtual console, as technology progresses you could get more clients per rack. You could add 4GHz Cells when they become available, and then different configurations. You'd need software that was tuned for that though, which would be inferior to software that hammers the hardware directly. And let's not ignore latency. That could really ruin some game types.
I don't see it happening myself.
I (very!) rarely disagree with you, one, but in this case, I do. If the PS3 is ever going to have different configurations in terms of RAM or even processing power, then that will only be because it will be successful in a non gaming direction. For instance, if the Linux platform gets RSX support and people start optimising all sorts of streaming code and other stuff for the SPEs in Linux, then it has the potential to become a very cost efficient, open platform PC like machine. If it combines with the rise of Citrix for remote access to work stuff, and a great, simple, effective and very fast and well-designed Linux desktop, who knows? In that scenario, different configurations could work.
However, the strength of the PS3 as a console is and will always remain in the fact that it's a closed system for which software can be optimised to the max. However expensive the hardware may seem at this point in time, this turns it very quickly into a platform where the software (games) make the most of the hardware, and thus becomes very cost-effective, at all sorts of levels. You are, I think, mistaken to think that upgradability is a strength for PC gaming. It is not. The strength of PC gaming, more than anything, lies in the openness of the platform. I could build a PC game right now, no licenecs or expensive dev-kits required. Sure, it is possible to continually upgrade and get more performance out of a PC, but it's going to cost a lot more money in both terms of hardware and software level. And no matter how many PCs are out there, this is what makes PC gaming a relatively small group that is still losing ground to the consoles (it's not shrinking at this moment vis-a-vis itself, but the consoles are still growing faster).
On the other hand, I do think that there are possibilities for creating a game world in which the work of all PS3s involved can create a more immersive world together. It's not going to be easy, and it may require some very novel thinking, but I definitely think there's a lot of potential there.
However, the strength of the PS3 as a console is and will always remain in the fact that it's a closed system for which software can be optimised to the max. However expensive the hardware may seem at this point in time, this turns it very quickly into a platform where the software (games) make the most of the hardware, and thus becomes very cost-effective, at all sorts of levels. You are, I think, mistaken to think that upgradability is a strength for PC gaming. It is not. The strength of PC gaming, more than anything, lies in the openness of the platform. I could build a PC game right now, no licenecs or expensive dev-kits required. Sure, it is possible to continually upgrade and get more performance out of a PC, but it's going to cost a lot more money in both terms of hardware and software level. And no matter how many PCs are out there, this is what makes PC gaming a relatively small group that is still losing ground to the consoles (it's not shrinking at this moment vis-a-vis itself, but the consoles are still growing faster).
On the other hand, I do think that there are possibilities for creating a game world in which the work of all PS3s involved can create a more immersive world together. It's not going to be easy, and it may require some very novel thinking, but I definitely think there's a lot of potential there.
Megadrive1988
Veteran
well in the early days of Sony talking PS3 before the PS2 came out they were talking about an Emotion Engine 3 and Graphics Synthesizer 3 chipset.
The EE2 and GS2 were going to be evolutions of the EE and GS but for workstations only. the EE3 and GS3 would be completely new architectures that would offer anywhere from 100 to 1000 times the overall power of PS2.
the final PS3 is only a fraction of what Sony had talked about in 1999-2000.
even the 4-CELL (4 PPE:32 SPE) 1+TFLOP CPU that Sony had hinted at in patents and announcements would not have matched the original vision--and the final PS3 was a large step down from a 4-CELL CPU.
hopefully Sony will be able to achieve in PS4 what was impossible to reach in PS3.
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