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Sony Releases New PS3 Screenshots

Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Action, Fighting, PlayStation 3, Screenshots, Simulation, Sports,

Ahead of the upcoming Tokyo Game Show, Sony has released a ton of high resolution screen shots from some of the games they will be showing at the Tokyo Game Show, and Game Watch has them all online. Many of the screens look like 720P screen grabs. Among the new screen shots shown are a couple of shots of a game tentatively titled Afrika. Lair, the dragon-based action adventure was also updated, and apparently the game is now supporting the Playstation 3 tilt controller. Gamers can also check out screen shots of the upcoming Unknown Realms title from Game Republic and Formula One Championship. Finally, Sony also released a bunch of screens for both Heavenly Sword and MotorStorm. MotorStorm and Formula One both look remarkable well-detailed at this point, and the action shots of Heavenly Sword also show promise. Of course, one can not determine framerate from a still, but the games do look like they are in better shape than Sony’s hardware production.

Wait For It… PS3 Loads to be Slower Than Xbox 360, Says Math

Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: Hardware, PlayStation 3, Rumors, Xbox 360,

PS3 On Side It’s been a few hours since we’ve heard some new bad press rumblings about Sony’s seemingly ill-fated PS3, so let’s fill that void… This time, it’s not-so-unbiased blogger Ozymandias, a.k.a. gaming strategist for Microsoft Andre Vrignaud. He reports on some technical details of the PS3’s Blu-Ray drive, pointing out that its read speeds, even for standard DVD discs, will be slower than those on the already-released Xbox 360.

Says Ozy:

At GDC Europe last year Sony mentioned in their presentation that the PS3 Blu-ray drive would have sustained peak transfer rates of 36 MBit/s (4.5 MB/s) at 1x speed. Since then it appears that the drive has been upgraded to a 2x drive, which would enable transfer rates of 9 MB/s. Assuming a full 50 GB Blu-ray disc, at this speed you’d need just over 90 minutes to read the entire disc through memory. Of course, you can’t fit all of that data into system memory at the same time, so you’ll either be streaming a great deal (hard even with faster optical drives) and/or caching data to the hard drive. There’s a reason the PS3 is so expensive - once Sony committed to Blu-ray as a corporate strategy, they were also forced to bundle the hard drive in every box to help mitigate slow disc data transfer rates.

For comparison, the Xbox 360 uses a 12x DVD drive, which can load at about 16 MB/s, making Microsoft’s read speeds about 2x greater. In recent days, this has lead to an online blogging argument, between Ozy at MS and Mark Deloura at Sony, about the importance of this comparison. Still, they seem to agree on the fundamentals of the mathematics.

Says Deloura:

“Admittedly, Blu-Ray looks dicey from several non-capacity angles. Blu-Ray movies require a 1.5x Blu-Ray drive, or 54Mbits/second. Sony announced that PS3 uses a 2x BD drive, which is 72Mbits/second or 9MB/second. The Xbox360 uses a 12x DVD, which should give it about 16MB/second. That is significantly faster for games and will result in shorter load times. And that 12x DVD drive should be a whole lot cheaper. (Note that the PS3 drive will do 8x DVD, and even that is faster than 2x BD.)”

First the official Playstation magazine editor states she doesn’t want the PS3, now former Sony execs are agreeing that the PS3 is too slow?? What’s next—Kaz Hirai admitting that Dead Rising is his favorite game ever?!?

Will The PS3 Be A Failure?

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Editorial, PlayStation 3,

Looks like we opened a can of worms over at Gear Live in article written by Rob Stevens as it pertains to why he believes that PS3 is set to fail in the next-generation console wars. Rob makes an interesting arguement, and the readers are filling in, giving him a piece of their minds - both in support of his opinion, as well as vehemently against it. Go check out the article and let us know what you think - will the PS3 be a failure despite the success of the PS2?

Sony: Still On Target For Launch

Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: PlayStation 3,

Description Following Kaz Hirai’s recent interview with Gamespot, gamers were concerned with a couple of statements. First, that production of the PS3 had not yet begun, and second, that:

…even if you do the simple math you’re talking about less than 700,000 units per territory, per major territory, between launch and the end of the year. So even if there was some fluctuation—you give Japan more, you give the US more, what have you—you’re going to end up with some shortages.

This statement is based on calculations that would seem to indicate that Sony was targeting only 2 million units this holiday. Sony Computer Entertainment of America issued a correction, stating that they were still on target to have 2 million units at launch, and another 2 million shipped by the end of the year. Still, if Sony still has not started production, around now is the time that consumers should start getting antsy. If Sony were able to manufacture 1 million consoles per month, production needs to start soon to fulfill the launch quotas.

Wired Magazine Wonders: Can the PS3 Save Sony?

Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: Hardware, Internet, PlayStation 3,

Wired Magazine Sample Cover While everybody else is wondering exactly the opposite (shouldn’t it be “Can Sony save the PS3”?), Wired Magazine’s Frank Rose in their September issue looks into the history, politics, and economics of the PS3 and points out why it might be Sony’s last chance for redemption as an electronics manufacturer. Among other things, he points to the fact that Sony’s electronics division has seen profits plummet since 2001 and has had only one profitable year in the past five years. Along with these facts, he goes into the usual doom and gloom that we’ve seen from a variety of outlets so far - consumers don’t want/need a Blu-Ray drive; the console’s too expensive; the Cell processor’s too tough to program for; the manufacturing is too expensive. Still, Rose manages to get some interesting comments from some big names in the industry and other analysts.

Says Rishad Tobaccowala, of ad giant Publicis, talking about Sony’s strategy:

It’s very un-Japanese. It’s betting the company. If this thing bombs, there is no second coming. Everything else about Sony is a sideshow. This is the show

To be fair, Wired’s article also points out that this is not the first time developers have complained about creating for a new console, or that speculators have had jitters about a new disc format - many of the same issues being discussed now were pertinent back at the launch of both the PSOne and the PS2, and Sony has fared quite well from both of those.

For now, you’ll have to check out the article on news-stands, as the contents haven’t yet been released online. When it does hit though, you should be able to read the article using the link below! For now, you can head to news-stands and pick up the latest issue, September 2006, which features Beck on the cover.

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