Penguin-powered PlayStation 3 – No Hard Disk Bundled

(*sigh) Why can't my game console be a game console. Only if it's going to benefit my game experience (eye-toys as retinal scanners, hard drive to rip music to play in games, keyboard and mouse support) do I want to see it in my system. I suppose gone are the days when consoles were used to play games. F**k them for trying to appeal to EVERYONE! Jeez, someone has to NOT play videogames, so we can argue with their uninformed and unsubstaniated thoughts. What if all those anti-violence politicians started playing video games... (*shudder)

So, Sony are finally allowing mLinux onto a box without - who needs an Xbox anymore!

Well this is Sony trying to get the jump on Microsoft when it comes to the whole media centre PC under your TV thing. A thing that some of us here on SPOnG have been playing with for a while now. Config has a Windows PC in his lounge, DoctorDee has a wall-mounted iMac all-in-one and I have a very small form factor Linux box.

To be honest, I can't talk for the other guys, but I've enjoyed having the system there to play with.

All my CDs are ripped to MP3s and I have access to them through a simple to use GUI without having to change and media.

I haven't done it myself, but there is no reason you couldn't do the same thing with your DVDs and not have to change media there either.

I have found episodes of (unavailable in the UK) TV series on my PC hard drive too. Don't know how they got there, but they looked and sounded good played through software on the little black box.

I don't see any problem with Sony giving users access to Linux if they want to get to it.

Let's face it, there has to be a minimal OS on the consoles just to detect disks and launch the games. Now that online play is becoming more important, there needs to be a central way to set up your online preferences. An embedded version of Linux would be one of the choices for this minimal OS anyway.

Here's the fun side of it. Install MAME or MESS and play old games you have the cabinets or carts for in the comfort of your own living room. Once you have a full OS on a console, you can get up to all sorts of fun, even if you stick to just playing games.

Without what? Inquiring minds and all that.

So let me get this right. They want it to be called a Super Computer by bunging a copy of Linux in the box but aren't going to include a hard disk drive as standard. A Super Computer without mass storage ? Er, ok.

Welcome to the Sony Way of Thinking, where everything comes at a price in a nice little addon box. Don't give away what could cost! Squeeze the little bastards dry! And give them an OS with no standard store-buyable software, too!

While it's a little scary perhaps this is what Sony need to go up against MS and I feel it's a wise move. Especially so if Sony want to improve their online service to match Xbox Live, something that I don't recall Sony hardly mentioning at E3. Linux needs more support and linking with Sony will help them and Sony a lot.

This just makes me wonder more what Nintendo will do next.

Now if Sony will just sort out that silly pad without copying Nintendo.

Nah, not going to happen, i think this sis more of the scenario Sony is tinkering.
"Right lets make this crappy banana-controller so Logitech can't sue us on that and show that"
*E3*
"Why does your controller look like crap Sony?"
*Ken looking at Nintendo and winking a few times*
Shigsy going "okeeee...why are you staring at us like that... Aha...well surprise ,we're not showing it Ha! And change that D-pad with the analog stick...thats like soooo 1997, dumbasses"
Ken going "Oh yeah! well well... our banana is still pretty, the most beautifull thing we ever created! We're going to keep it! *fading voice* and come out with a new version after we saw yours"

And promoting a console as a SuperComputer without offering a hardrive standard is just plain dumb. Is it me or is Sony getting really arrogant lately... YOU'RE ALMOST BANKRUPT YOU KNOW THAT!
Nintendo's online network will be a result of 20 years of expermiments and other goofing around with online stuff. The NES was the first console to go online (well not real online gaming, you could read stocknumbers on it though) and they had Randnet ready with the N64 but it flopped togheter with the 64DD (which it needed to work). Probably the reason they didn't get online with the Cube was that it would cost bucketloads of money while they had a very good service in mind and they had to charge the gamers (BIG no-no in Nintendo's book).

Thats the whole exciting thing about the Revolution. It will bring togheter 20 years of constant R&D at Nintendo (online, 64DD-ideas and many more they had in mind) that they coudn't do before, bring it on!

sorry to burst the perverbial sony bashing bubble (my favorite kind of bubble as im sure you well know) but they said linux would come pre-installed on the hard drive, which is an add on... so if you want a hard drive and hard drive functionality... you get it... in spades... so where as MS may or may not add tivo liek abilities the ps3 could do it riught off the bat with the hard drive add on.. if you want it.

plus it give peopel a reason to want a hard drive...

that said... considering the insane system bus and unified ram with 10 megs on gpu ram... evene if the xbox cpu /gpu arent up to snuff with sonys machine... the 360 may yet be able to out perform it graphically in soem ways due to the greater abilitiy to handle more textures and such... plus streaming to the HD for added load speed and cashing levels... seems a shame to me that sony want put the HD in standard as it could help what may well be a very seveare bottle neck... no matter how fast your gpu is it can only do as much work as the cpu provides it... its a problem even in todays pc's... the 500 dollar video card you own now will still probably get a performance boost from next gen chip sets with fater ram and bus speeds cause they will fill the pipeline better...

anyway... thats my two cents... party on dudes!
______

Yeah, you're absolutely right. Much better to make EVERYONE pay for something that most won't use. That way you can squeeze ALL the little bastards, not just the ones who want/need this functionality.

You HAVE got to be kidding. From what I can tell, what you are saying is, "Nintendo has LOTS of on-line experience because they've been... erm, thinking about it... a lot."

If any of that R+D had been worth a dime, we'd have seen a successful on-line service. As it is, they have done R+D that has not been tested in real world scenarios. Well, Sony, Sega, and my cat have all done that.

DS will show us if Nintendo can manage a viable on-line games network. Until then, everything is supposition and optimism.

I didn't say that... i'm saying that Nintendo has been doing over a period of 20 years some serious conceptthinking/expermenting about online(gaming) and many other forms of gaming (Earthbound 64DD rings a bell?)

The problem probably were hardware or cost restrictions by Nintendo's defenition (not ours, theirs).

And to be a prick, yes Nintendo has the most expercience with online, can't you read they made the NES bloody online! :p
And trough randnet you could play with 30 people on 56k modems F-Zero X against each other with no considerable lag. online pc-games choked at that time at 20 people.[/not being serious]

But Nintendo's up-coming online network is indeed its first real online network (like the X360 being Microsoft first real console kind of way, the Xbox was just a PC flip-flopped, not built from the ground-up as console).

So...Sony will repeat the mistake it made with the PS2 and not bundle a HD? Interesting. They'll likely loose a good deal of money on this, because as we should all know, game makers tend to write their games so they can run on all systems, not just those that have peripherals (unless the game is bundled with one, like the DDR games, or some lightgun type games)

As far as this whole "media center" with movies, music, and the kitchen sink, they're playing catch-up with MS, that's all. MS already announced that they are allowing the 360 to be a part of the MediaCenter, so you can play your movies and music that are stored on your computer on the TV, over wireless...

Linux wasn't the big announcement to me, it's that there's no HD bundled. ouch.

So they have the LONGEST experience. But not the most. Xbox live, Everquest, World of Warcraft and Ultima all have MORE experience than Nintendo...

We need to talk about what you've been feeding your cats.