Sony Nixes Smaller Capacity PS3

[neokaril]

Re: Sony Nixes Smaller Capacity PS3

Although I think PS3 games are blue ray format, so I think that was the only reason it can play BR discs.

Yes but me thinks having the PS3 games in said format was just another tool in the format war for Sony, the system is intentionally BR, it doesn't have BR as a nice addition..

Please correct me if I'm off base with this.

[Macht]

Re: Sony Nixes Smaller Capacity PS3

Yes but me thinks having the PS3 games in said format was just another tool in the format war for Sony, the system is intentionally BR, it doesn't have BR as a nice addition..
Please correct me if I'm off base with this.

Nope you are dead on. Part of the goal the next gen consoles have is to start making more games that are seamless and eventually have drastically less loading screens or get rid of them all together.

PS3 is providing a base were you can have a game in 1080p and to make it seamless is putting them in a good position. I mean what's the point of making a game seamless if your still going to get a screen saying "Please insert Disc #". It's no better then a loading screen.

Also the BR in the PS3 is actually better then the current BR players right now. The current BR players run at 1x only transferring something like 4-8 GB/s, the PS3's BR is 2x transferring something like 8-16 GB/s. I'm not 100% but I don't think the BR technology itself was the expensive part, it's expensive in the player because of the chipsets and all to get it to play. Otherwise I thought the RSX and CBE was the bigger cost?

Yes, I had a recent statement that they were going scale the older games. The PS3's (Japan and US versions, looks like the EU version they removed it) have that chipset in there to scale the graphics, just that the PS3's BIOS doesn't seem to have much for it yet. Future flash updates should hopefully start taking more use of all the systems abilities.

[Manatra]

Re: Sony Nixes Smaller Capacity PS3

GoW on 1080 would be sick, anyone with an in at Sony tell em to get to work!

While it's not 1080p, there is a way to play GoW II at 720p. Check out 1up or GameSpot for a newspost on it, or the IslandofRhodes.org website.

Yes but me thinks having the PS3 games in said format was just another tool in the format war for Sony, the system is intentionally BR, it doesn't have BR as a nice addition..

It is just another tool in the format war. It is well documented that pretty much the only reason Blueray is in the PS3 is because Sony is using it to fight HD-DVD. Including Blueray in the PS3 has had a negative impact for gamers in many ways from delaying the PS3 from 9-12 months to its exhorbant costs. I guess the one plus for gamers in Sony including Blueray with the PS3 is that yes, there are 50 gigabytes of space for developers to put content in. Unfortunately there's one major issue preventing developers from utilizing the 50 gigabytes to its full potential (aside from the fact that developing content is extremely expensive nowadays).

Nope you are dead on. Part of the goal the next gen consoles have is to start making more games that are seamless and eventually have drastically less loading screens or get rid of them all together.
PS3 is providing a base were you can have a game in 1080p and to make it seamless is putting them in a good position. I mean what's the point of making a game seamless if your still going to get a screen saying "Please insert Disc #". It's no better then a loading screen.
Also the BR in the PS3 is actually better then the current BR players right now. The current BR players run at 1x only transferring something like 4-8 GB/s, the PS3's BR is 2x transferring something like 8-16 GB/s. I'm not 100% but I don't think the BR technology itself was the expensive part, it's expensive in the player because of the chipsets and all to get it to play.

8-16 Gigabytes per second? I didn't know that a Blue-ray 2x drive had a higher transfer than that of the PCI-express x16 bus.
Based on that factual error your arguement about loading times falls apart. In fact, a Blueray 2x drive actually has transfer speeds comparable to that of an 8x DVD-ROM drive. Which is slower than the DVD drive that the Xbox360 comes equipped with. The transfer limit of the Blueray 2x drive is already a problem for for PS3 games such as the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, where Bethesda had to place two images of the game on the disc to optimize transfer speeds.

In the end, how can a developer ever hope to properly utilize all of the space available on a Blueray disc? Developing raw content is expensive, and utilizing that space by putting super high resolution, uncompressed textures means more loading times due to the slow transfer speeds. I will end in saying that there is some hope as console developers have become extremely clever in streaming data from the disc, but if Bethesda is having trouble with Oblivion, it signals that alot of other developers are going to be having trouble too.

Otherwise I thought the RSX and CBE was the bigger cost?

Blueray is far and above the biggest cost for the system due to the fact that it is "new" and there is a lot of overhead with initiating the manufacture of a new technology. While CBE is new as well, it has the backing of IBM and is farther along. As for the RSX, it's relatively cheap too since it's basically a slightly modified GeForce 7800.

As for Sony getting rid of the 20GB PS3, can't say I'm surprised, once you're spending 500+ dollars, you might as well just spend the extra $100 and get the full featured system.

[Raydeus]

Re: Sony Nixes Smaller Capacity PS3

While it's not 1080p, there is a way to play GoW II at 720p. Check out 1up or GameSpot for a newspost on it, or the IslandofRhodes.org website.

I haven't tried it yet (I just barely got through that damn dial picture puzzle, good thing the next one was easy ) but it says 480p with full size buffers. Still, really neat and I'll be trying it out as soon as I finish all the puzzles (man I love those kinda sites ).


I wonder if they are gonna give you at least a sneak peek of GoW III when you finish the puzzles.


Edit> Gah! Another timer! Unless I'm missing something on that page (I've been clicking all over it for the last couple of minutes )

Edit +1 > Yep the game looks soo much better now o.O The reason why they didn't include on the main menu is kinda bleh, but at least I'll be able to beat Titan mode in 480p lol, and at least from what I've played so far it doesnt affect frame rate on the PS3.

[Effedup]

Re: Sony Nixes Smaller Capacity PS3

I'm not surprised Sony dropped the "bargain" model, if you're already gonna be dropping $500 on a system, what's $100 more for 3 times the hard drive space and built in wi-fi? With the 360, the only time we ever sold the core system was around launch...then they just kinda rotted in our warehouse while the premiums sold out constantly. You'd think Sony would have learned from that, but Sony doesn't learn easily, as we all know... as a matter of fact, BOTH models of the PS3 are rotting in our warehouse as I speak, I think we've sold 1 since launch.

I'm hoping Sony drops the prices some time this year...I'm still working on getting a 360 (waiting on the 360 Elite now), but PS3 is just way too pricey for me with nowhere near the library to justify the expense. It's a shame, I actually preferred Sony consoles over their competitors since the original Playstation, but I have a feeling this generation isn't going to go so good for Sony.

[Macht]

Re: Sony Nixes Smaller Capacity PS3

8-16 Gigabytes per second? I didn't know that a Blue-ray 2x drive had a higher transfer than that of the PCI-express x16 bus.
Based on that factual error your arguement about loading times falls apart. In fact, a Blueray 2x drive actually has transfer speeds comparable to that of an 8x DVD-ROM drive. Which is slower than the DVD drive that the Xbox360 comes equipped with. The transfer limit of the Blueray 2x drive is already a problem for for PS3 games such as the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, where Bethesda had to place two images of the game on the disc to optimize transfer speeds.
In the end, how can a developer ever hope to properly utilize all of the space available on a Blueray disc? Developing raw content is expensive, and utilizing that space by putting super high resolution, uncompressed textures means more loading times due to the slow transfer speeds. I will end in saying that there is some hope as console developers have become extremely clever in streaming data from the disc, but if Bethesda is having trouble with Oblivion, it signals that alot of other developers are going to be having trouble too.

Hey, I stated that it put something like to point out that the data wasn't completly accurate. It was a recent article I had crossed and just breezed through, in most part it was taking the transfer speeds for the BR in the PS3 and the DVD in the XBox. Yes it stated that the XBox's DVD player was faster, but by the numbers not by much. Still ultimatly I'm sure there are many tricks you can do to bypass that issue, after all there is also a HDD to utilize.

Also Sony had started with BR way before Toshiba presented their HD-DVD. It was pretty much after Sony stated that the PS3 would have BR drives that everything about Toshiba and their HD-DVDs came out. Then that's were the question arose asking if the PS3 may have two versions with one being HD-DVD and one being BR.

More or less XBox 360 seemed to take on HD-DVD just to try to add to combating the PS3 and it using BR. The ofcourse couldn't go BR because it would be like admitting BR is better then the drive they put in their system, which would esentially be promoting the PS3 to be better to the mass of customers.

Also the amount of money that Sony had dropped into the CBE for R&D, I would bet easily puts the cost of the CBE way over what it cost with the getting BR drives from their manufacturer. Hell the manufacturers like any other business, they'll give offers and breaks for mass quantity purchases. Not the same with the CBEs since they were part of the whole development.