Kuturagi Enables Claim Mode Again

It's easily done.

I accept your points about pixel stabilisation, and while the science illudes me, I am also prepared to accept that there are many things relating to grid adressing in display hardware that I do not understand.

But my point remains that technology is improving, and will continue to improve. Sony is not suggesting that people are going to be running 2160p. Nor are they suggesting that people will play 2 games, and watch 2 DVDs simultaneously.

They are, in the way that ALL manufacturers have throughout the history of computing, postulating based on their hypothetical performance maxima.

This does not make them any worse than any other manufacturer. It certainly does not make them better.



And my point is that they are currently receiving a very bad rap. Worse than they deserve. All manufacturers make exaggerated claims about their hardware and software.

Currently, Sony are being held up as the poster boy for unrealistic claims. But we did a little research, and most of these claims seem to have been exaggerated on usenet and various fora by a process of chinese whispers. Claims Sony never made have become fact by repetition.

We revisited the original PS2 tech demos. And pretty much everything that they showed can now be delivered in real time.



Lambasting Sony for not showing real time at E3 2005, over a year before hardware debuts is fine. But Microsoft did not show real-time Xbox360 at E3 2004 - which would have equated to the same thing.

What Sony did is demonstrate pre-rendered that matched their calculated hardware performance.



Yeah, but at E3 2005, the Cell processor had only been in die for a matter of weeks. Performance of demos running at that time was not optimal. My friends who are developing on the machine say that the rendering power is awesome.



But PURE processing power is secondary in a games machine to rendering a shading power. And when that is taken into consideration the PlayStation was clearly not going to be the winner in the last generation. From what I hear from people who know what they are talking about (and are currently developing for both the new platforms) PS3 will be the most powerful machine in the next generation.

Well boy am i glad this didnt become a pissing match =).

Anyway, x360 did show live demos, but no x360 was playable on the floor in the MS booth (just dual mac g5s). They did have actual running hardware at their news conference though.

The point about sony's ps3 demos are well taken too. I agree that there would be no problem with them showing what the ps3 "should" be capable of, but claiming that it was running in real time just places the word bogus all over the sony empire. So that is my beef with sony at this past years e3.

i do not think one person would have blasted sony if they had simply stated "this is real time, and this is pre-rendered but should easily represent what the ps3 will be capable of when it is released next year". I do no appreciate being treated like i am a total dummy when i am a guest at their conference (i did not make it to e3 this year but will not miss next year, but i did watch the whole conference via video).

I would say that the ps3 will easily be able to render everything they showed at this past years e3. I will also agree that the ps3 is also easily the most powerful console coming out this generation. But i will not bow to the power of the ps3 simply because of all of these claims, when many of them are somewhat silly.

My worries though are that sony is over spending again and making the consumer absorb the costs. Does the consumer really need the processing power of the cell to play games when a much cheaper power pc processor(s) in some iteration will do fine? Not only do the consumers have to pay for the cell, but the have to pay for the development of it.

Folks like sony and nintendo have totally different philosophies, and you can see that MS has now seen the light. Sony wants to pack the latest and greatest hardware into their machine at almost any cost simply to be able to make the claim "most powerful blah blah blah". "It can do this and that and the other...". You can see the beauty of the simplicity of Nintendo's philosophy. They say "we are here to entertain our customers, here are our ideas for next gen games, what hardware can we use to get that done". Then they find the cheapest solution to do what a game machine is supposed to do. I guess it is the difference between being an entertainment hub, and being a game/toy machine.

Thing is gcn by far was the cheapest to make this gen, and really it didnt sacrifice in the graphical department, while sony spent all that money with their emotion engine chip, and forgot to implement texturing technology that could keep up with the emotion engine.

Game programmers usually have a background of working on a pc so the closer a console comes to working like a pc, the less the transition required by the game maker when it comes to making games, and then porting them.

i am worried that sony is overdeveloping their console again this time, and while it may be easy to program for, there will still be a learning curve in learning the architecture of the cell and ps3 layout.

So all this to say, sure the ps3 will again be the processing champ this gen, but that may not be enough to get gamers or programmers on board this time. I know that i dont need the ps3 to process 8 different hd streams at once, so i wont be investing the overkill that is the ps3.

Christian

its quite interesting this generation, we have three consoles with different philosophies:

Sony, seam to be saying that its all about the latest cutting edge hardwear;

Microsoft, are saying that its all about a balance between hardware/software and services;

Nintendo, are saying that its all about the software and the interface.

It's gonna be really exciting.

So Doc can you give us some insider information on the 360 and PS3? Is the 360 as balanced as they say and does the PS3 really have a problem with over heating? Will i have to sell a kidney to get one? Is that killzone demo really possible?