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Phil Harrison On Sony’s E3
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Corporate News, E3, PlayStation 3,
Following up on last week’s interview with Satoru Iwata, today, Edge Magazine’s interview with Phil Harrison of Sony is published. Overall, while Sony showed some great games at E3, their exclusive press conference left a little to be desired. Harrison admits as much; when asked if there was a letdown after the previous year’s showing, he states, “Yeah, I agree with that, and I don’t quite know why that is. I guess, um, when something is new and exciting and heard for the first time, that elicits a certain reaction emotionally, compared to when you’re just confirming something that people already know.”
Certainly gamers would be glad to have the old Playstation-style controller back, but when your large controller innovation is “motion-sensing” which had already been announced by Nintendo, then this strongly gives the impression of someone that is a follower, and not an innovator. Add to that the fact that despite their justifications of the dual SKU market, it does appear that Sony went back on their word. Harrison’s explanation, that “he PlayStation 3 format is exactly the same between the two SKUs. Our competitor has a different format between the two SKUs - one with a hard drive, one without - but all PlayStation 3s have a hard drive” rings a little false when there are clearly differences between the hardware, and there is no upgrade path between on PS3 SKU to the other. On the Xbox 360, at least, if the gamer wants to add a hard drive later, this is possible, but to this day, there has been no announcement of a way for the lower priced PS3 SKU to get HDMI support; while this may not impact games at the beginning, the higher picture quality promised by HDMI 1.3 all but ensures a different experience between the two PS3 tiers.
The pricing of the PS3 on its own probably would have acted as a buzzkill, but combined with the apparent aping of its competitors and the backtracking of several promised from the 2005 E3, it is easy to see why the announcement was less successful.
Read More 
| Next Generation
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How Much Power Does Your Console Use?
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Hardware, Nintendo Gamecube, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox, Xbox 360,
Just in case anyone was wondering how much power a console draws when it is in standby, and when it is running games, DX Gaming has the rundown. They compare several consoles, including the original Playstation, Playstation 2, Xbox, Xbox 360, Gamecube, and the Dreamcast, to determine how much power the consoles utilize when off, when at the “dashboard,” and when in use. It will come as no surprise to anyone who has seen the Xbox 360 power brick that that console was the biggest eater of energy, but there were some other interesting data points.
First was that the Playstation 2 in standby consumes as much power as the Xbox 360 in the same state, 2 watts. When powered on, but running no games, the Xbox 360 is the pig, pulling 145 watts, followed by the Xbox at 61 watts, and the Playstation 2 at 23 watts. While running games, the order of the console’s power hunger doesn’t change. The Xbox 360 boosts up to 165 watts, the Xbox jumps to 70 watts, and the PS2 runs up to 30 watts.
DX Gaming also runs some numbers to try and determine the average cost of a console over a year’s time, as well as the watts drawn per cycle. Gamers might have some issue with the estimate of 14 hours per week, and then the Xbox 360 causes problems in the watts per cycle measurement, since it operates a multi-core CPU, the numbers depend on whether one considers the megahertz rating additive, or in parallel. Still, the numbers are interesting, and give some insight into what might be expected from the Wii and Playstation 3 consoles.
Read More | DX Gaming
Build Your Own Racing Game Chair
Posted by Josh Smith Categories: Driving, Nintendo Gamecube, PC, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox, Xbox 360,
Do you feel full of jealousy any time you spy an arcade racing setup being used to own others in Ridge Racer or Project Gotham Racing 3? Store bought racing chairs are often poorly constructed and expensive or good quality and even more expensive. Over on the ToolMonger blog there is a how-to for making your own racing chair setup for just $80 in parts. All you need after parts is the racing wheel and pedals for your particular system. The project requires welding and isn’t for everyone. If you decide to tackle the project, the original makers recommend a $380 welder, which is quite cheap for a quality welder. Judging from all the required welding it is a good thing that video games are good for hand eye coordination.
If you don’t have the hands on ability to make your own, or are just too busy playing video games, ToolMonger is giving one away! To enter, just post a comment somewhere on their site by July 31st.
Read More | ToolMonger
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New Frontlines Fuel Of War Trailer
Posted by Josh Smith Categories: First Person Shooters, PC, PlayStation 3, Trailers, Xbox 360,
Kaos Studios, the company developing Frontline Fuel of War, has made available the trailer which was shown at E3. Fuel of War is a FPS set for release in the Fall of 2007 and is being published by THQ. The game will be available on the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC. Judging from early screen shots it looks impressive.
Game Overview:
Set in a fictional near future based upon the headlines of today, FFOW brings players into the world’s next great war. As society succumbs to a worldwide energy crisis, a new global depression takes hold. Amidst this gritty backdrop two superpower alliances emerge. Join the battle on the frontlines of tomorrow as the Western Coalition (U.S./E.U.) or the Red Star Alliance (Russia/China).
Sadly the release date of 2007 underscores the shortage of next gen games available for play this summer or even this year.
Read More | IGN
Get Ready For Playstation Bundles Over $1,000
Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: Accessories, Hardware, PlayStation 3, Rumors,
If you’re thinking of saving up the money to buy a Playstation 3 at launch, you might want to start now. European retailer Play.com is offering the Playstation 3 for a pre-order bundle with the 60 GB HDD and 3 games - Warhawk, Singstar, and Formula One - for the equivalent of about $1,000 US dollars. Unfortunately, there aren’t too many other sites with prices and bundle offers listed, so it’s not clear yet whether this will be the norm for large retailers like Target and Amazon.com.
Personally, we could see this going either way for Sony. One possibility is that the PS3 will be this year’s must-have Christmas item, and people will be willing to shell out over a grand just to get the system (even if it comes with some games they don’t want), meaning retailers will make a killing. On the other hand, this could further add to the negative reaction that Sony’s been receiving for the price of their console, and could push gamers towards cheaper alternatives like the Xbox 360, Wii, or even a new desktop PC.
Read More | 1Up
Sony Scoffs At Playstation 3 Downgrade
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Corporate News, Hardware, PlayStation 3, Rumors,
Yet another rumor about possible performance problems with Sony’s Playstation 3 made the rounds this week. This time, suggesting that due to heat and other issues, the PS3 Cell processor would be downgraded, and wouldn’t match the performance that Sony was promising at E3. Today, Eurogamer got the straight information directly from Sony, and one could almost feel the dismissive tone in their words. A Sony spokesman was quoted as saying, “Developers have been working with PS3 dev kits for anywhere between eight and 12 months, and to suggest that we’d now take the decision to downgrade the hardware at such a late stage, is, well, ridiculous.” One has to wonder why the Playstation 3 seems particularly targeted for rumors and wild speculation, but realistically, the bloom came off the rose a little bit at E3 after Sony dramatically scaled back on their previous showings, and introduced the dual SKU launch and pricing. Still, the amount of attention these “some guy said” rumors is getting seems out of proportion to the weight of the sources.
Read More | GamesIndustry.biz
Guitar-less Hero Games On The Way?
Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: Hardware, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Rumors,
RedOctane President Kai Huang talked with Next-Generation.biz today and dropped more interesting hints about their plan for next generation consoles. According to the article, there’s a “very very high likelihood of additional Hero games”. Not all that surprising considering what a boon Guitar Hero has been for the company, but it’s still good to hear that they’re working on new ideas.
Huang also pointed to the online arena being the next big stage for the Hero titles:
“We will [utilize online features]. As far as games like Guitar Hero and other music games that we have in the pipeline are concerned, I think there are going to be significant changes to the gameplay.”
“Online is definitely going to be a huge component of what we’re planning, whether that’s downloading new music or characters or skins or online play features, those are the things that are really going to be the major changes for next-gen.”
Put the two pieces together, and you have another indication that RedOctane might be working on some sort of cooperative rock-band game with multiple instruments. Do we have to buy a peripheral for each though? And just how big is the “Drum Hero” controller going to be.
Read More | Next-Gen.biz
John Woo’s Stranglehold Will Launch With PS3
Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: Action, Fighting, PC, PlayStation 3, Release Dates, Xbox 360,
It had been suspected for a while, but today IGN confirmed with Midway that John Woo Presents Stranglehold will launch on November 17th with the Playstation 3. Of course, the title will also be launching for the Xbox 360 and the PC at the same time. This is great news for fans of gunfighting, slow-mo and Chow Yun Fat, and appears to be one of the stronger launch titles for the PS3.
IGN earlier had a chance to play through a demo and was impressed with the completely destructible environment and free-form gunfighting controls. This sounds like one of those games that’s going to be a great way to demo your brand-spanking new PS3 to your jealous friends on launch day.
Read More | IGN PS3
Interview With Matt Lee, Xbox 360 Game Technology Group Developer
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Hardware, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360,
Ars Technica has a fairly in depth interview with one of the developers from Microsoft’s Game Technology Group, Matt Lee. In his words, his job “is to help game developers make better Xbox 360 games.” There are a ton of technical details in the interview, ranging from improvements in the Altivec units on the PowerPC cores, CPU multithreading issues, and procedural world generation.
Somewhat interesting are the perspectives on the video game market; as a developer, the marketshare statements might not hold a lot of weight. Bandied about is the 10 million unit head start, as if that were fact at this point. With the PS2 outselling the Xbox 360 in May, and an average of 250,000 Xbox 360 units sold by month, if Xbox 360 sales remain the same for the rest of the year, that targets an additional 1.5 to 2 million Xbox 360s in the United States; Europe might add a similar number, and Japan’s sales will be negligable. Add to this the fact that Wii and the Playstation 3 ship in November, and Sony’s marketing machine will be intense. So 10 million sounds good, but is probably as optimistic as Microsoft’s original holiday projections for the Xbox 360. Saying that “Both the Japanese and US markets are reaching saturation at this point” may have some weight in that there aren’t a lot of ways to incrementally add new gamers, but the existing core gamer demographic is still a battle to be fought every generation. Add to this the strong drives that Nintendo is making with its “Blue Ocean Strategy” in all three territories seems to indicate the opposite; that there are new opportunities, just not in the standard game development genres.
Lee also takes some time to discuss the PS3 architecture. Given that he probably doesn’t have a Sony NDA signed or a development kit, he’s probably working off much of the same information as the general public. There might be some insight he has talking with developers experienced on both platforms, so the commentary is interesting from that light. Porting from PS3 to Xbox 360 and vice-versa will be difficult, Lee predicts, but that’s hardly a revelation; the original PS2 and Xbox consoles saw some spectacularly bad cross-platform ports in their day, most notoriously with some of Midway’s releases. The Xbox 360’s unified memory architecture may be somewhat of an advantage, but its hard to tell at this point. It is, however, interesting to get a technical review through Microsoft-colored glasses.
Read More | ArsTechnica
Gamasutra Podcast On Next Generation Development
Posted by George Hatzidimitriou Categories: Culture, PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360,
Gamasutra has updated their weekly podcast with the first in a two part roundtable discussion focusing on the various challenges developers are facing with next generation console development on the PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii.
Featured are:
- Brian Eddy of Midway Games (Stranglehold / Xbox 360, PS3)
- Nicolas Eypert of Ubisoft Paris (Red Steel, Wii)
- Todd Howard of Bethesda Softworks (Oblivion, Fallout 3 / Xbox 360)
- Bryan Intihar (Previews Editor of EGM)
- Aubrey Pullman of Microsoft Game Studios (Forza Motorsport 2 / Xbox 360)
- Evan Wells of Naughty Dog (Unnamed Next-Gen Title / PS3)
Thankfully, the discussion stays away from overtly technical talk, instead opting to focus on staffing, budget and management issues. The panelists all seem to agree that due to limited budgets and an ever increasing amount of required development time, developers must choose more carefully which areas of graphics,physics and AI to specialize in rather than striving for all around perfection. Other topics include middleware, specialization of staff, the definition of “next gen” and what is undoubtedly every one’s biggest concern, realistic trees in video gaming.
Read More | Gamasutra
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