Wednesday 25th May 2005

SUB $370 PRICE TAG SLAPPED ON PS3

Reports now suggest launch price of PS3 will be close to original launch price of PS2

10:34 During E3 last week it was reported that Japanese newspaper Mainichi Shimbum was claiming to have received word from Sony chiefs that PS3 would launch in Japan with a sub 50,000 yen (£255, $465) price tag.

Now Japanese website Impress PC Watch is revealing a new figure, stating that its business cohorts have been informed by Sony Computer Entertainment that PS3 will launch with a sub 40,000 yen (£203, $372) price tag.

It's getting cheaper every week.

Anyway, there's been no official announcement on the launch price of PS3 from Sony of course, but the latest suggested pricing figures to emerge have sparked speculation that the company is planning to echo PlayStation's and PS2's launch price tag - in Japan at least at 39,800 yen - for PS3.

Sony would presumably go down the same road with PS3 launch price tags in other territories. But it's all speculation at this stage.

Stuart Bishop

Monday 4th July 2005
INTRODUCING PLAYSTATION 3

11:43 Los Angeles, May 17th, just before the E3 games show. Ken Kutaragi, head of Sony Computer Entertainment, stuns the world by unveiling the most powerful video games console ever: PlayStation 3. And now we're going to show you everything. Prepare to be amazed.

To call the PlayStation 3 powerful is a pitiful understatement. Its central Cell processor alone is as powerful as 35 PS2s linked together. Add in a graphics chip that's well over twice as powerful as the fastest PC graphics card available, and you've got a behemoth capable of creating movie-level computer-generated imagery in real time. No wonder its creator Kutaragi says it has "supercomputer-like performance."

PlayStation 3 arrives as the industry gears up for a new generation of console wars - and it's certain to win by a huge margin. PS3 is twice as powerful as Microsoft's Xbox 360, you see. And we haven't even mentioned the removable hard drive, the hidefinition display technology, the 50-gigabyte Blu-Ray discs, the
Bluetooth controllers, the Wi-Fi technology enabling PSP link-up... the list of new features seems endless.

Kutaragi announced a Spring 2006 release for the new superconsole (Japan) with a UK release expected around October 2006. That's just a little over a year away people! But that shouldn't trouble you now. Come with us, and we'll show you everything we've learned about PS3, from the stunning hardware shots, to
tech specs, to groundbreaking technical demos. And a simply huge, unbelievable catalogue of games, all ready to change interactive entertainment forever. Are you ready for the future?

THE CONTROLLER

TECH SPEC: 14 analogue buttons, two analogue sticks. Lengthened grips, Bluetooth wireless communication for seven controllers.

WHICH MEANS: All our favourite buttons are back, including the four shoulder buttons you can't see here. Best of all, it's totally wireless, using Bluetooth short-range radio to communicate with the main console without any delay. What's more, you can link seven controllers to one machine, making the unwieldy Multitap device a thing of the past.

But the main thing isn't the technology, it's the design. The thing looks like a) a boomerang designed by a techno-literate aborigine, or b) the horns of a cyborg cow. Quite why Sony has seen fit to extend the controller's grips is beyond us right now.

It's worth pointing out, however, that everyone thought the original PSone controller, the first ever to have grips, was a ridiculous idea. And for Sony to ditch the classic Dual Shock design, it must mean that the PS3 pad is significantly better.

THE PROCESSORS

TECH SPEC: CPU Cell Processor running at 3.2Ghz with seven special purpose 3.2Ghz
processors capable of 218 gigaflops of performance. System Floating Point Performance
of two teraflops.

WHICH MEANS: Wooh, baby! This silicon beast is as powerful as 35 PS2s put together. And about a fifth as powerful as an industry-standard workstation used to create graphics for the Spider-Man 2 movie. Only a fifth, you say? Considering that these workstations are some of the most powerful computing devices in the world, that's an astounding achievement. It's about twice as powerful as the pitiful upstart Xbox 360. It's the most powerful home computer ever, and it makes your mate's 5000 PC look like a scientific calculator.

TECH SPEC: GPU RSX at 550MHz 1.8 teraflop floating point performance.

WHICH MEANS: You mean there's more? Helping the central processor on its way is a graphics card that's so fast, it's already gone. It's at least twice as fast as any commercially available graphics card for a start. It's made up of 30 million transistors. If you took all the transistors out of a PS2, an Xbox and a GameCube, it still wouldn't be as many as are crammed into a PS3. It kicks in grannies for cash. It's the Che Guavara of graphics cards, and it will make PS3 games look like nothing we've ever seen.

THE ADDED EXTRAS

TECH SPEC: Removable hard disc drive, 1000BASE-T Ethernet Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, 1080p Standard, Dual Screen Output, Blu-ray DVD format.

WHICH MEANS: The PS3 has been designed from the ground up as a cutting edge multimedia
entertainment system. And they mean it this time. PS3 plays games off Blu-ray discs, which look a bit like DVDs but store about six times more information. And it plays DVDs, of course. And CDs. And everything else. You'll be able to save everything onto a removal hard drive too. The size hasn't been confirmed, but expect 20 gigabytes as an absolute minimum.

PS3 is so powerful, it displays every game in top-end high definition 1080p standard. That's a bit like having four PS2 screens stuck together. Hell, you can play a game on two TV screens if you wanted - PS3 doesn't care. Perfect for two-player titles. It doesn't end there. PS3 will even be able to communicate wirelessly with gadgets like the PSP, leading to all manner of cross-platform goodness.

Sony claims Playstation 3 Linux & Tiger capable

Desktop replacement?

By Aaron McKenna: Monday 08 August 2005, 10:22

SONY HAS stuck an interesting sentence into the very last line of a release that tells us the wonderful technological heights that the console will be able to aspire to. The company said: "The integrated Cell processor will be able to support a variety of operating systems (such as Linux or Apple's Tiger)."

In the upcoming age of online-enabled consoles with plenty of ports and capabilities for extra peripherals - a keyboard, for example – it doesn’t take a genius to spot where Sony might be going with this line of thought.

So, are future consoles a PC replacement? Well, at least a Mac replacement at this stage.

The company does mention just before that little bombshell that "Sony is expected to offer optional hard drives for the PS3 with potential memory capacity of 80 or 120 GB", meaning that the HD space is there for computer replacements.

Interesting strategy. µ

Tecmo talks PS3 development

Company's president makes first comments about game development for Sony's next-generation console.

Already on board with the Xbox 360, Tecmo is considering signing up as a third-party developer for Sony's PlayStation 3 as well. According to Japanese site Mainichi Interactive, Tecmo president Junji Nakamura confirmed at a midterm briefing today that his company may develop games for the PlayStation 3 platform.

While the news isn't entirely surprising (Tecmo has released multiple games on the PlayStation 2), this is the first time Nakamura has addressed game development for Sony's next-generation console.

When asked by investors whether development costs for next-generation games will rise, Nakakura stated that development of Xbox 360 games will cost 20 percent more than current platforms.

When asked about developing for the PlayStation 3, Nakamura commented that the console feels different to gamer creators than the Xbox 360 and current consoles. He believes the developers will need to change their ways of thinking to adapt to the PS3's architecture.

In other news from the briefing, Tecmo reported sales of 3.9 billion yen ($35.4 million) and an operation profit of 400 million yen ($3.63 million) for the six-month period from January through June. The company forecasts annual sales of 14.4 billion yen ($131 million) and an operating profit of 2.8 billion yen ($25.4 million). Tecmo's fiscal year ends December 31.

By Staff -- GameSpot
POSTED: 08/24/05 12:21 PM PST

PlayStation 3: What if...?

Is Sony engaging in early damage control – or some incredibly savvy (and risky) marketing?

August 24, 2005: 12:27 PM EDT

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) – I'm starting to wonder if Microsoft might have gotten suckered.

As you may have heard, the company unveiled plans last week for two pricing levels for the Xbox 360. The $400 package is significantly more expensive than console prices of the last few generations, but it offers everything you need to really see the machine at its best. A bare-bones $300 version falls into traditional pricing structures, but won't fully showcase the power of the 360.

Microsoft would never acknowledge that perceived competitor pricing played into its decision – and that may very well be true. But it's worth noting the company made the plunge past the $300 point at the same time Sony has been shouting far and wide – to anyone who will listen - that the PlayStation 3 is going to be an expensive piece of hardware.

Last month, for instance, Sony Computer Entertainment president Ken Kutaragi reportedly told attendees of the company's PlayStation meeting "I'm not going to reveal [the PS3's] price today. I'm going to only say that it'll be expensive."

At that same event, Kutaragi mentioned "I'm aware that with all these technologies, the PS3 can't be offered at a price that's targeted towards households." And just one month earlier, he reportedly told Japanese magazine Toyo Keizai "Our ideal [for the PS3] is for consumers to think to themselves, 'OK, I'll work more hours and buy it.' We want people to feel that they want it, no matter what."

Now, before the emails start, I should probably mention that, like the rest of you, I have absolutely no firm idea what Sony will charge for the PlayStation 3. It may indeed be as expensive as the company has been warning.

But just for argument's sake, what if Sony is playing a high-stakes round of chicken?

After all, the company has almost a year before the PS3 hits the streets (or more if you believe some conspiracy theorists) – and we probably won't see it in the U.S. until next holiday season. Wouldn't it be a sharp marketing move to set consumer expectations for a high price, then surprise them with something drastically lower?

It's not like Sony hasn't done so before. The PSP, when it launched in Japan, cost just $186, despite rampant speculation the portable device would cost upwards to $300. Granted, those were analyst expectations and not company proclamations, but Sony sure didn't go out of its way to guide those analysts lower. In fact, it even stayed silent after Atari CEO Bruno Bonnell lobbed a public verbal grenade, predicting the machine would cost $500.

By prepping consumers to spend $400 or $500, then announcing a retail price of $300, you convince them they're getting a bargain and potentially create an even bigger buying rush than a system launch normally does.

Microsoft, meanwhile, scares off some potential buyers with its $400 price tag, giving it a smaller head start in the race to a substantial installed customer base and erasing some of the competitive advantage it has in being first to market.

There's a flipside to this hypothesis as well. Sony might have been talking up higher prices to convince Microsoft to make the first move.

While a few historical consoles have crossed the $300 price point, none were serious contenders for significant market share. The Xbox 360 is a test case – and one that could meet some consumer resistance.

But it also gets buyers used to the idea of paying more than $300 for a video game machine. If the PS3 does, in fact, come out at a premium price, it won't be the first time consumers have seen a higher price. They might be unhappy about it, but by the time the PS3 hits shelves they will have had time to adjust to the fact that prices are moving up.

Don't misunderstand: The Xbox 360 will sell out this holiday season with ease. After that, the images in the crystal ball get murkier. And Microsoft's decision to offer two pricing tiers may have been solely tied to the cost of the hardware. But Sony is quite adept at using the media to its advantage. And I can't help shake the feeling they've done so again.

IBM, Sony and Toshiba Unveil Full Details of the Cell

By: César A. Berardini - "Cesar"
Aug. 25th, 2005 8:49 am

IBM, Sony, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc., (Sony and SCE together referred to as "Sony Group") and Toshiba today announced the release of key documents that describe technical details of the revolutionary Cell Broadband Engine architecture.

The documents are available at ibm.com and cell.scei.co.jp. Toshiba will release the documents once it completes its customer support structure.

Today's announcement is the next major milestone in the Cell project, which began with the formation of the STI (Sony Group, Toshiba and IBM) Cell Design Center in Austin, Texas in March of 2001. High level technical specifications were released in much-anticipated papers delivered at San Francisco's International Solid State Circuit Conference (ISSCC) in February 2005.

By opening up a wide set of detailed technical specifications to software developers, business partners, academic and research organizations, and potential customers, IBM, Sony Group and Toshiba continue their work to aggressively stimulate the creation of Cell-based applications. The goal: establish a thriving community of interest and innovation around Cell, allowing all interested parties to rapidly evaluate and utilize Cell technology.



Specifically, the companies will make available documents describing the following components of the Cell microprocessor:

* The Cell Broadband Engine Architecture -- defines a processor structure directed toward distributed processing and multimedia applications. The architecture contains a control processor based on the Power Architecture, augmented with multiple high-performance SIMD Synergistic Processor Units and a rich set of DMA commands for efficient communications among processing elements.

* The Synergistic Processor Unit Instruction Set Architecture (SPU ISA) -- discloses the high performance SIMD RISC processor designed to accelerate media and streaming applications for systems based upon the Cell Broadband Engine Architecture.

* Synergistic Processor Unit C/C++ Language Extensions, Application Binary Interface, and Assembly Language specifications -- which aid software developers in unleashing the full processing power of the SPUs.

* SPU Application Binary Interface Specification -- which defines the ABI of the SPU and aids software developers in unleashing the full processing power of the SPUs.

* SPU Assembly Language Specification -- which describes the specifications of the SPU assembly language and aids software developers in unleashing the full processing power of the SPUs

"IBM and its partners are committed to providing the development and open source communities with comprehensive, early access to the Cell Broadband Engine architecture and to encouraging those exploring the infinite possibilities of Cell," said Jim Kahle, IBM Fellow. "We strongly support an environment that removes virtually all barriers to building innovative applications based on Cell."

"We believe that the Cell architecture disclosure will allow more people to freely access the core technologies," said Masakazu Suzuoki, deputy senior vice president, Semiconductor Development Division, SCEI. "Through this we aim to firmly support software development technology in the mid to long term, particularly for middleware, and to accelerate the dissemination of Cell to stimulate the industry as a whole."

"The release of these technical documents is important for our customers, allowing them to see for themselves how the Cell Broadband Engine and its superb capabilities can support them in developing breakthrough applications," said Mitsuo Saito, chief fellow, Toshiba Corporation Semiconductor Company. "We will now reinforce our support for Cell with solution proposals based on combining Cell with other resources we have developed, including the 'Super Companion Chip' dedicated peripheral LSI, software, reference sets and system development environment. These tools will allow our customers to create powerful, remarkable systems."

IBM, Sony Cell processing details disclosed

Technical acronyms in abundance

By Aaron McKenna: Monday 29 August 2005, 10:28

IBM, Sony and Toshiba have released a bunch of new technical details about the Cell processor which is to power the Playstation 3.

See Playstation 3 architecture revealed (2003).

The release is what the three companies call a "milestone" in the processors development as they seek to advertise its capabilities to far more than simply the consoles market where the processor is currently making a splash.

The 90nm multi core processor which has been in development for four years now certainly has some impressive features to its name. At the Hot Chips conference Cell engineers put the clock speed of the processor down at 3.2GHz, though reports suggest that it has been successfully clocked up to 5.2GHz.

The heavy lifting is done by the chips eight SPEs (Synergistic Processing Elements) which chain together to handle individual elements of a program, similar to threads, passing them from one SPE to another until the data reaches the end user.

The EIB (Element Interconnect Bus) is the backbone of the system, bringing data to, from and around the SPEs at a rate of 16GB in and out of the processor concurrently per second.

Rambus are the people behind the memory that backs up this system with their XDR (Extreme Data Rate) and I/O controllers. Although only 1GB – 2GB of RAM is likely to be seen in most consumer electronic devices, Cell can technically support up to 64GB of RAM on one system.

As well as being multi core the Cell architecture can be multi processor, with the chips existing I/O bus allowing two chips to be directly connected together without any problems. Then a special separate switch can be used to connect multiple groups of two processors together. When combined with 64GB of RAM this gives Cell the ability to be rigged into large super-computers that will do much more than simply game.

This is a key point that the three companies behind Cell are now trying to put across. Whilst the showcase for the processor remains the PlayStation 3 they now want to market Cell to many other markets that can take advantage of the processing architecture, with the Blade servers being the first of what they hope will be a profitable market. µ

Playstation 3 GPU "slightly less powerful than GeForce 7800"

Here's the techy math

By Aaron McKenna: Wednesday 31 August 2005, 15:14

SOME INTERESTING SPINOLA has been spouting from the PlayStation 3 camp today after an nVidia spokesperson was quoted in PlayStation Magazine saying that the RSX GPU is basically a slightly less powerful GeForce 7800.

So says Evil Avatar, having seen the magazine.*

This puts paid to the rumours that the RSX was basically an off-the-shelf 7800 chipset, though the big news is in the "RSX is slightly less powerful" part of the statement. If one was to do some quick graphics card math, this would mean that the RSX chip powering the PlayStation 3 is less powerful than two GeForce 6800's running in SLI mode – as the 7800 is – and according to Microsoft and ATi, the Xbox 360 GPU is more powerful than the same SLI combo.

However, we reported a while back that a headline graphical title for the PS3, Fight Night: Round Three, is going to look exactly the same on the two next-gen consoles. How could this be so if the PS3 is technically inferior?

Well, doing some math we’ve worked out that the GeForce 7800 GTX flavour, the high-end of nVidia’s high-end chipset, is almost equivalent of two GeForce 6800 Ultras. So technically there could be nothing in it, presuming that the RSX chip is based off of the GTX flavour of the 7800.

It's all awfully confusing we know, though it is an interesting tech mystery to try and get to the bottom of. Of course Microsoft and Sony engineers all know exactly what's in the difference between the two consoles, but the marketing people want to tell us that their console is twenty times better than everyone elses, so we must wait until someone rips the two boxes open and benchmarks them, at which point we can search through our archives and head off to get the "Well what we really meant..." speeches from the PR folks. µ

Playstation 3 supports mouse and keyboard

Games Developers Conference Europe Has six USBs to threaten PCs

By Fuad Abazovic in Londinium: Thursday 01 September 2005, 10:30
SONY OFFICIALLY revealed many details about upcoming Playstation 3 hardware. At the game developers conference, held at the Cafe Royal, where George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde used to hobknob, the company decided to provide developers with some more information about the machinery.

We learned that despite having up to seven Bluetooth 2.0 compliant controllers, and six USB slots, and you will also be able to plug in a keyboard and a mouse. The company representative added that you will be able to play games such as Unreal Tournament 2007 with the keyboard and the mouse. This can mean the end of the auto aiming that you now have on Playstation 2, but I guess that developers will need to make the game fit the controller and keyboard and mouse.

Otherwise, if your game is so important, you might take a stand and make people buy a mouse and keyboard for your Playstation 3. At the same time you will be able to use your Playstation portable as a remote device for Playstation 3, but right now won't be able to use it as a controller for games. But you will be able to do some things such as play a video or a song.

With a keyboard and a mouse, the Playstation 3 might be a real threat to the PC.

Monday 7th November 2005

SONY CHIEF STRINGER ON PS3

PS3 to launch in US for next Christmas for around $3-400? Plus the HD future and Blu-ray... it's all in here

15:25 Sony chief Sir Howard Stringer has gone on record with the Hollywood Reporter in a wide ranging interview in which he talked about PS3, the future of Blu-ray, Sony's vision of a high definition future and how the combination of PS3 and PSP, plus Sony's music and movie content would return the Japanese giant to market dominance as the leading digital entertainment provider.

The new Sony boss, who took over this year and is currently masterminding a major restructuring of the company, began by pointing to the PS3 as a major force which would spearhead Sony's drive into the home and confirmed that the Cell processor and HD will be the heart of the next wave of consumer electronic entertainment devices. Stringer said: "[We have a] high-definition value chain that starts with cameras and goes through projectors and television sets and ends up with the PS3. You can see an HD necklace with all the pearls connected."

Perhaps the major revelation though is one which the Reporter infers from its conversation with Stringer, saying: "The company soon will unveil a line of compact, portable video devices to fill the time gap before PlayStation 3 launches in Japan in March and in the US a year from now." While that's not exactly a set in stone date, it kind of ties in with what we'd expect, with the PS3 launching in time for next Christmas in the US and hopefully European territories too.

Other gems? Well, the Reporter continues: "In keeping with the PlayStation business model, PS3 will roll out at a loss for the first six months, then rapidly turn profits on game-license fees. PS3 will be bundled with a selection of preloaded films, TV programs and games and sell for between $300-$400." Again it's pretty much what we'd expect although that price point is very intriguing and lower than previous comments from Sony's Ken Kutaragi might indicate, making the PS3 much more competitive in a direct head to head with the Xbox 360. It also shows Sony are thinking well out of the gaming box and going all out for digital entertainment dominance.

However on the big Blu-ray front, Stringer was more forthcoming: "Our alternative format [...] is based on the premise that if you are going to take the DVD to the next generation, the customer experience better be more exotic. So, Blu-ray offers far more capacity and the potential for 3G (third-generation wireless technology) and interactivity. The Blu-ray package has greater selling power than transitional technology."

As to Sony's overall position, the self-billed Sony corporate 'warrior' concluded: "Innovation and quality will win the day. It just doesn't hold the day as long as it used to because you are going to be copied faster and imitated faster. So your market leadership is more difficult to sustain over a longer period of time."

Stringer also said that the release of new Sony movies like the Da Vinci Code and new James Bond movie Casino Royale, plus the introduction of the PS3 would return Sony to profitability through a series of revenue spikes next year.

Ending on a high note, Stringer said that the PS3 and PSP would sit with Sony's vast number of new consumer electronic TVs and devices, combining with its huge range of movie and music content to dominate the market over the next few years. "Eventually consumers are going to want devices that play everything and everybody's content in the end. And the customer is king. So, I have no doubt that Sony will prevail."

John Houlihan