Playstation 3 pricing announced

[drothgery]

I am curious: what should have Sony and Microsoft done? And keep in mind that you only have the release dates to work with. You have to launch the console when they did. What hardware changes should Sony have made for the PS3 that would make the most sense?

The PS3's a really wierd, expensive design that has a lot of hallmarks of something being stuffed on at the last minute -- in this case, the nVidia graphics card -- and of spending a lot of effort to promote something (Blu-Ray) that adds a lot to cost and does nothing for games (for the rare games longer than 9GB, spanning multiple DVDs is cheaper than using a Blu-Ray disc).

Sony, in my opinion, should have
- used a more conventional CPU (optimized for working with one or two threads, not eight)
- used a single type of memory (the original Xbox showed that unifying video memory and system memory was a Good Thing for a console)
- dropped Blu-Ray (2006 is too soon for a Blu-Ray promoting console to be sold at anything resembling a reasonable price) and integrated Wi-Fi
- never made any silly pretentions about 1080p -- the PS3 isn't capable of running complex games at a decent framerate at that resolution
- launched only one package (the Core/Premium system sucked for the 360, and it sucks for the PS3)

Microsoft, in my opinion, should have
- used a more conventional CPU
- ensured more high-profile titles were available at launch, even if it delayed launching until 2006
- launched with only one package
- included a larger hard drive

That's all well and good but how does that effect games? Make them look crappy? Makes the AI harder to program? I know I sound like I'm just arguing at this point but what does multithreading actually do? How will it makes gaming better? I'm really curious.

A CPU that's designed to run a lot of threads at once rather than run one or two threads fast means that software has to be highly multithreaded to get the most out of the CPU.

Multithreading means you're trying to do multiple things at the same time. So when you're doing stuff that can be easily broken up into independent tasks, that's great. Multi-threading helps a lot in situations like that. But when the tasks all have to talk to each other, then you're spending a lot of time trying to keep in sync rather than doing any real work (you've probably seen why an eight-man team is rarely eight times faster than one guy at anything that can be done by one guy, unless it's something that can be easily broken up into eight independent things -- the same thing applies to computers).

Games historically haven't been very well suited to being multi-threaded, because there's not much going on that isn't reactive to user input (what the guy with the controller is doing). What it means is that AI is harder to program (maybe to the point where what academic computer scientists think of as AI may be useful, rather than the stacks of if/then and case statements that are game AI today), and that if game programmers are going to get any use at all out of the extra CPU cores, they'll have to think of new things to do with them that can be run largely independently of the main thread. No one knows what they will be. What's certain is that using multi-threading to improve games in traditional ways (more complex and better-looking graphics) is going to be extremely difficult, if it can be done at all.

 

[Orius]

Well, all this hardware talk means very little to me, since I have no idea what any of it means. I'm sure I'm not alone, and there are many people who aren't going to pay attention to such stats. However, I have my impressions of what the different companies are going for, though the impressions may themselves be wrong.

Sony seems to be taking a "bigger is better" approach. Bigger technical capabilties like graphics and processing, bigger storage space, the whole Blu-Ray drive (which is supposed to have more storage space than HD-DVD), and the ridiculously high retail price. They have the advantage of backwards compatibility, but that's not as strong as it was with PS2, because at the time, Xbox did not have games to be backwards compatible with, and GC as a disc system couldn't be backwards compatible with cartrige games (unless Nintendo put in a port for carts). They way I understand, each of these systems is supposed to be backwards compatible which the older consoles (I might be wrong). But if programming for the console is difficult, that could hurt it over the long run. There's also the whole Blu-Ray issue, if Blu-Ray tanks that could also hurt the console.

Microsoft looks like it's going for the online market. People might think it's a joke now, but I think Microsoft thinks it may take off eventually and is trying to take an early lead as possible. It doesn't really surprise me, because over the last 10 years or so, Microsoft has largely been focusing on expanding onto the Internet, which makes sense unless you're a rabid Microsoft hater who thinks their corporate headquarters is a suburb of hell. They seem to be planning on staying in the market over the long term. Mircosoft's weakness is that they're not really popular in Japan, but I suspect they may realize that and are focusing on the international market in general.

Nintendo has been taking it hard in the market the last 10 years, and it seems right now they're not focusing on the tech issues that the average consumer has no clue about, but rather trying to market a fun and inexpensive system that is easy to learn and play. The biggest weakness they seem to have right now is the possiblity of not having enough third party support. That depends on how easy the Wii will be to develop for, and if third party developers can come up with good and different game concepts that work great on Wii, but not so good on the other systems.

 

[drothgery]

They have the advantage of backwards compatibility, but that's not as strong as it was with PS2, because at the time, Xbox did not have games to be backwards compatible with, and GC as a disc system couldn't be backwards compatible with cartrige games (unless Nintendo put in a port for carts). They way I understand, each of these systems is supposed to be backwards compatible which the older consoles (I might be wrong).

They are, but Nintendo's likely going to be the best at it (at least, if the general reports of how the Wii is put together are correct), simply because the Wii is far more like a GameCube than an Xbox 360 is like an Xbox or a PS3 is like a PS2. The PS2 had complete backward compatibility because it included a PS1 CPU in every PS2 box. With the current set of consoles, all three are using software emulation. So most Xbox games don't run on the Xbox 360 yet (though more are added every once in a while with emulator updates on Live!), and the story for PS2 games on PS3 is likely to be the same (though Sony's currently claiming otherwise).

 

[Ashrem Bayle]

FYI - According to Peter Moore at E3, something like 40%+* of 360 users are using Live. That's a heck of an increase over the last generation.

* I can't find the exact quote now, but it was something like 42% or 46%.

 

[Arnwyn]

Actually, that includes "Silver" (read: free, but useless for playing). Not particularly surprising that there's an increase.

I can imagine that "Gold" (read: pay) is quite low (and the percentage won't increase much over time once the casual players start getting 360's in the next few years - casual players are not known to go online, and certainly not known to pay for extra services [especially when they're free on other platform(s)]).

Paying extra for online just isn't in the cards.

 

[trancejeremy]

Sony and Nintendo seem to be following the PC model when it comes to live - that is, leave online play up to the publisher of the game.

While OTOH, MS seems to want to try to push "Live" onto PC Gamers (with it being in Vista, though I dunno if you have to play $50 a year for that)

 

[TwinBahamut]

Nintendo has been taking it hard in the market the last 10 years, and it seems right now they're not focusing on the tech issues that the average consumer has no clue about, but rather trying to market a fun and inexpensive system that is easy to learn and play. The biggest weakness they seem to have right now is the possiblity of not having enough third party support. That depends on how easy the Wii will be to develop for, and if third party developers can come up with good and different game concepts that work great on Wii, but not so good on the other systems.

I actually don't think the Third Party support is going to be a big problem for Nintendo with this generation of consoles. According to what I have read, it is amazingly cheap and easy for companies to develop for the Wii. I am hearing as much praise for how easy it is to develop for the Wii as complaints about how hard it is to develop for the PS3. Just like with the DS, Nintendo is pushing ease of game development as one of the primary goals for development of the Wii.

They are, but Nintendo's likely going to be the best at it (at least, if the general reports of how the Wii is put together are correct), simply because the Wii is far more like a GameCube than an Xbox 360 is like an Xbox or a PS3 is like a PS2. The PS2 had complete backward compatibility because it included a PS1 CPU in every PS2 box. With the current set of consoles, all three are using software emulation. So most Xbox games don't run on the Xbox 360 yet (though more are added every once in a while with emulator updates on Live!), and the story for PS2 games on PS3 is likely to be the same (though Sony's currently claiming otherwise).

I think Microsoft and Sony don't even touch Nintendo on backwards compatibility... The demo consoles for the Wii's Virtual Console system at E3 were letting people play games for the Sega Genesis and other non-Nintendo consoles in addition to NES, SNES, and N64 games. Which I think is cool. If the games are priced right, it opens up a lot more than simple Playstation 2-type backwards compatibility.

Honestly, 600$, or anything over 300$ really, is too much for a videogame console for me. Way too much. Especially for a "secondary" console that I am not as excited about as a certain other one.

 

[Elephant]

Fascinating. People continue talking about the price as if it were to remain the same over the entire console's lifecycle.

History, of course, clearly contradicts such speculation (as I'm sure we all remember the introduction prices of the PSX, Saturn, and N64 - and which one ended up with the most market share).

I don't. What were the respective prices of those three consoles?

 

[drothgery]

I think Microsoft and Sony don't even touch Nintendo on backwards compatibility... The demo consoles for the Wii's Virtual Console system at E3 were letting people play games for the Sega Genesis and other non-Nintendo consoles in addition to NES, SNES, and N64 games. Which I think is cool. If the games are priced right, it opens up a lot more than simple Playstation 2-type backwards compatibility.

Emulating an SNES or Genesis doens't really have anything to do with backward compatiblity; the only systems that are hard to emulate are the immediately previous-generation ones. When you're trying to emulate an earlier system, especially if you've secured the rights to do it legally, it's much less complicated because the hardware you're working with is so much more powerful than the hardware you're emulating that the emulator can be extremely inefficient and still be 100% complete.

 

[John Crichton]

I actually don't think the Third Party support is going to be a big problem for Nintendo with this generation of consoles. According to what I have read, it is amazingly cheap and easy for companies to develop for the Wii. I am hearing as much praise for how easy it is to develop for the Wii as complaints about how hard it is to develop for the PS3. Just like with the DS, Nintendo is pushing ease of game development as one of the primary goals for development of the Wii.

It won't matter. The Gamecube was also very easy to program for. It sold horribly.

Big third party companies will release games, especially exclusives on the system that has the largest user base. That company has been Sony for the last 2 generations. The majority of these same companies are on board with the PS3 and to a much lesser extent, the 360. The Wii has a long way to go if they want exclusive games back on their console that weren't developed in-house.