http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/ptech/0...eut/index.html
Looks like Sony is trying to merge their electronics with computers. Sounds like Microsoft is going the other way. A lot of people always mentions how big and wealthy Microsoft is, well, Sony isn't a push over either. This is going to be the battle to watch. Although I think that ultimately, they'll end up working together. Nah, Gates is too greedy.
Xbox 2 for $500? What common appliance nowadays goes for that much?[/url]
self-lubricating dildoes
I think it's a smokescreen. This can't possibly yield a device or set of devices by 2005 that will do what they want it to IN THIS COUNTRY. Sure, they might be able to do something in Japan, but it won't be close to the hype that's already building.
If there's one thing we learned from PS2, it's don't believe the hype. Next Generation magazine claimed in 1999, before the launch of Dreamcast and when PS2 was still on paper that the system would be a minimum of 5 times the computational power of the DC. That was so far from the truth it's not a wonder the mag is dead.
Sony are the masters of spin and hype. They can kill systems before they're launched by simply announcing something that might be their next big thing. They've started early with PS3 because they perceive some weakness against Microsoft I suppose. Given the Xbox' failure in Japan, near-failure in Europe and marginal success in the US, I don't think they have too much to worry about. But this whole network devices thing is bordering on science fiction for the next generation of consoles. How on Earth would developers make games for something with the power of Deep Blue?! You can't create software when you don't have equivalent equipment to test it on.
Get our your tweezers cause you'll need it for all these news stories and the grains of salt necessary to take them with.
--Dave
About the time I started "surfing the internet", I found it was best to just start downing salt by the handfuls while online.
I didn't know there was anyone left, this side of a Dreamcast Emu website, that still believes the DC's hardware could compete with the PS2. I'm sorry, but aside from the quality of the DC's video signal output, the PS2 stomps all over the DC. And not just any old stomping, neck stomping.If there's one thing we learned from PS2, it's don't believe the hype. Next Generation magazine claimed in 1999, before the launch of Dreamcast and when PS2 was still on paper that the system would be a minimum of 5 times the computational power of the DC. That was so far from the truth it's not a wonder the mag is dead.
I would be very surprised to see something that was such a radical departure from the norm in less than 3 years. People have to develop software for it, you know.
And I think the whole "DC > PS2" thing was in reference to the fact that it took FOREVER for PS2 titles to really outclass the DC. For the first year of its life (starting from its introduction in Japan), the PS2 really didn't look that hot.
And it still doesn't. The PS2 is aging about as well as Kathleen Turner at this point.
But that was a development learning curve problem, and not emblemantic of raw computational deficiency compared to the Dreamcast. At this points I you can no longer justify the position that the DC was terribly underpowered for the generation it tried to compete in. Even if it could hang in with the PS2, it couldn't hope to compete with the Gamecube and Xbox. That's why it's best that Sega pulled out of hardware. They were always in such a hurry to get to market first that they settled on hardware that couldn't compete in the long run. They had to tack on a second Hitachi CPU at the last minute in the Saturn when they found out what the PSX was going to be capable of. Even then it couldn't perform some very basic 3D functions like transparency. Sega was so busy making the best 2D machine they could they never realized 3D was the future. With the Dreamcast they built a system that could make some pretty good looking N64 or PSX games. Everyone else was looking beyond that.And I think the whole "DC > PS2" thing was in reference to the fact that it took FOREVER for PS2 titles to really outclass the DC.
Well, it's pretty clear you never owned one because that statement takes talking out of your ass to a new level. When the system sold more games per unit than any other, maybe ever, I don't think it was just a bunch of pretty looking N64/PSX games that ended up on it.With the Dreamcast they built a system that could make some pretty good looking N64 or PSX games.
The PS2 is not that far advanced beyond the Dreamcast. It's a completely different architecture that stresses polygons over textures. The DC had a pile of RAM devoted to texturing and it shows. You need look no further than the comparison of Soul Calibur to Soul Calibur II to see just how powerful the DC was/is. The system could easily have competed in this generation. Show some of its games to someone today and they'll not be able to tell the difference between it and the others.
Amazing how Sony can fool people.
--Dave
I wouldn't say it had a "pile" of RAM. I believe the DC has 16MB of main and 8 of video. The PS2's big point was polygons, but it is held back in other areas like video memmory(regardless of the bandwidth), and in some games today it still doesn't look much if any better than some DC games. Look at SC or DOA2 among others.
to bring this back from the fanboys, this is actually an interesting development. For the last 3-4 years the holy grail of electronic manufacturer's was the set top box, one box that can do anything. It looks like they might be aiming for a departure from that. I wouldn't read anymore in to the article then that, but it looks like their starting to signal a change. Not sure of it is still the same but there is usually a five year product cycle in electronics, or it takes that long to get a new product to market. Looks like they are starting the get people used to the idea things might be different next time around.
Which in video game system terms is a pile of RAM. The PS2 has only like 4MB of VRAM though you can do things to make up for it. The Cube has some odd number like 28MB of VRAM and the Xbox has the unified memory architecture of 64MB. The DC, comparatively with the other consoles available at the time and those available today had a pile of RAM, especially for video.I believe the DC has 16MB of main and 8 of video.
The PSOne only has...2 MB of Main RAM, 1 MB of Video RAM, and 512 KB of sound RAM. The Dreamcast is clearly a next generation with an excellent design that was outmarketed and outhyped by the market leader and was done in by the parent company's near-death experience.
--Dave
"I wouldn't read anymore in to the article then that, but it looks like their starting to signal a change."
They are thinking about attempting a change. Its yet to be shown people will buy into a all-in-one DVD, stereo, Tivo, satellite, console etc system.
Well, if I don't own one then I wonder what exactly it is that EB sold me. It seems to run all the DC games I've ever bought for it. Yup, without any evidence to the contrary I'd say the that I do indeed own a Dreamcast. And frankly the best games look fairly crude compared to what's being done on the PS2. Skies of Arcadia looks really old next to FFX. NFL 2K2 looked similar on both platforms, but they rebuilt the graphics engine this year to take advantage of modern hardware and 2K3 on the PS2 puts 2K2 on the DC to shame. And DC's 2K series didn't come close to Madden visually, no matter what they were saying at DC.IGN, until this year with the rebuilt engine. Gran Turismo 3 ran circles around Sega GT 2001.Originally Posted by Dave Long
Actually, the cube has 3 MB of embedded-type VRAM (less than the PS2! but they call it "buffer"), 2 MB for frame and 1 MB for texture. Then it has 24 MB of 1T SRAM which is its fast system memory (3.2 GBPS bandwidth, but really low latency) and 16 MB of really slow "Sound" RAM. I guess you could say the DC has gobs, though, as no other system in the generation handles texture memory in the conventional way SEGA chose. Sony and Nintendo both chose small amounts of blisteringly fast embedded VRAM buffer with a bunch of system memory that's twice as fast as the DC's VRAM anyway. And of course you've got the Xbox with it's budget consciencous dynamic unified memory. Face it, the DC is antiquated. Sure, it has a bunch of really cool games, but that isn't what we're talking about. But lets keep this friendly, I like you. Us Xbox realists have to stick together!Which in video game system terms is a pile of RAM. The PS2 has only like 4MB of VRAM though you can do things to make up for it. The Cube has some odd number like 28MB of VRAM
Yeah, my ass comment was probably a bit much for a messageboard. In conversation that wouldn't have seemed so angry. I use that expression a lot with friends and it doesn't get misconstrued as easily.
Anyway, I hear you, but I sort of disagree. I think the DC could have competed well in this generation if Sega wouldn't have had to pull the plug. People that own the system and those that see it now after three years often can't tell the difference. Sure, to people that know what's inside there, it's not as technically sophisticated. But my point was and remains that the PS2 is simply not head and tails "better" as a console. It's just different. My biggest beef with the PS2 is the renderer which looks a lot like a resolution bumped up PSOne. Wumpus comments about things being so blurry in the distance hold water. That's the system's biggest limitation is its lousy output.
--Dave
I'm probably in the minority, but I absolutely LOVED Next Generation. Sniff, sniff. I'm very sorry that it had to go.
Don't get me wrong there... I loved Next Generation too even when they were idiots with their coverage of certain stories or companies. We need a magazine like that in this industry. Unfortunately, magazines that don't do the standard reviews/previews thing as a focus don't sell too well.
--Dave
Sony is a very concieted company: inexorably convinced of their superiority in all things and their ability to do everything any other technology company can do, only better.
Design 3D graphics chips? They can do it better than the engineers at NVIDIA or ATI (or Imagination Technologies for that matter). Manufacture said chips? They can build their own fabrication plants to crank out a giant chip with embedded DRAM better than Infineon, who's been working on it forever. Compact Flash or SmartMedia? Nah...let's develop our own proprietary Memory Stick and never support anything else. Need a new music format? Develop MiniDisc (and charge exhorbitant licensing fees so it never catches on).
Don't get me wrong: Sony makes some good stuff. I buy and use some Sony products. I have a PS2 and like it.
But the PS3 is not the first time, nor will it be the last, that Sony makes wild claims about the astounding power of a product that in practice doesn't really turn out to be quite so marvelous. They'll also talk a lot about this high-speed distributed computing model thing and totally downloadable EVERYTHING (games! music! movies!) that sounds really keen. It'll make super-impressive demos under their controlled conditions.
But toss it out into the Real World and the PS3's amazing demos and amazing specs are going to fizzle. The 'net will be too slow for distributed computing. Game downloads will be fine, but the music and movies will only come from Sony's labels and the other studios/labels won't want to pay Sony's fees to be on the network. The fantastically powerful cell chip will take herculean programming efforts to get the most out of and their development tools and libraries won't be good enough to cut out all the hard work. There will likely be some sort of major design oversight: not enough memory bandwidth, or poorly-sized caches, or not enough total RAM, or some bus bottleneck, or something.
That's not to say that the PS3 is going to be a piece of crap. Not at all. Just that when Sony says "we're going to do this, we're going to have this," you need to replace that with, "well we've got this cool stuff in the lab..."
Remember when the PS2 was just about to launch, and we were promised that in no time flat it would going to be this digital entertainment hub where we'd all download movies and music and games and do our email and web browsing and all that? Three years later now and they just started with online games, and none of the other stuff is there at all. It even plays DVDs and didn't so much as make a dent in DVD player sales outside Japan.
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