Sony Jumps E3 Launch with PS3 Spec Announcements

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://news.designtechnica.com/article7445.html' target='_blank'>http://news.designtechnica.com/article7445.html</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Sony today pulled the curtain up at the Electronic Entertainment Expo to reveal their development plans and launch schedule for their latest video game console, the Playstation 3. Sony stated in a press release that the backwards compatible Playstation 3 will combine cutting edge technologies including Cell, a 3.2 GHz IBM-Sony-Toshiba jointly developed processor, RSX, a 550MHz graphics processor co-developed by NVIDIA and SCEI and 256MB of XDR memory developed by Rambus. It will also use Sony’s Blu-ray Disc ROM (BD-ROM), which has maximum storage capacity of 54GB (dual layer), to deliver entertainment content in full HD quality. The PS3 will support resolution of 1080p as standard."</i><br /><br />This is going to be a slugfest - the PS3 is no slouch in the hardware department, and in some ways outdoes the Xbox 360. Specifically the inclusion of Blu-Ray and 1080p resolution support. For some people, this will make it their preferred device. For me, neither of those specs matter one bit, so it will come down to other factors. Why? <br /><br />First, there's no real Blu-Ray content out now, and I don't expect to see it widely available until 2007 (if ever). Secondly, my brand new TV supports 720p and 1080i - but not 1080p. 1080p is obviously superior, but TVs supporting that awesome spec have only come on the market in the past couple of months. So the reality is that the vast majority of HDTVs on the market today won't be able to take advantage of what the PS3 has to offer. Some people will buy the PS3 as it's the more "future-proof" device, but since I don't personally plan on getting a new TV for at least five years, it matters not. If you're looking for a new TV in the next year however, the combination of a 1080p and a PS3 would be awesome. I wonder how much of a difference there is visually between 720p and 1080p though?

[mcsouth]

Slugfest indeed - and the winner? Hopefully the consumer! :P

Notice how prominently they mention the backwards compatibility? :wink:

I will admit to being impressed with Sony's approach on this unit (Jason - I read the article this time :wink: ) - unlike their past approaches to stick with their own proprietary gear, this Playstation actually seems to support some more universal standards!

Notable mentions of features from the specs in the press release include support for Dolby 5.1 and DTS, a slot for a 2.5” hard drive attachment, six USB 2.0 slots, slots for Memory Stick, Compact Flash and SD memory cards and built in support for Ethernet, wireless 802.11 b/g and Bluetooth. The wireless Bluetooth option will provide support for up to seven controllers, while the Wi-Fi could enable connection with Sony’s recently released PSP.

Six USB 2.0 slots? 8O Slots for Compactflash AND SD cards? 8O Could Sony finally be realizing that they need to play nice with others in order for the consumers to really get excited about their stuff?

I find the "numbers" to be interesting as well - didn't take long for someone to trump the Xbox 360 (Sys Floating point perf; PS3 = 2 TFlops v. Xbox360 @ 1.1 TFLOPS) - at least on paper! Real world evaluations will have to wait for next year, it appears.

Not much mention of features beyond gaming, though, so at least for now, it would seem that MS has the more well-rounded approach. Sony may have more up their sleeve, of course, but MS will be first to market, and that may help them. I'm sure that come closer to ship date of the Xbox 360, Sony will be hyping the PS3 big time in order to take some steam out of MS's launch, so it will be interesting to see what other details come out of the woodwork.

Interesting, Sony, very interesting......just might convince me to take a more serious look at you after all......

[Jason Dunn]

I think it might play out with the hardcore gamers going with the PS3 and buying a new TV to go with it, and the people that care more about media connectivity going for the Xbox 360. I tend to think there are more people that care about media than 1080p, but who knows. The Blu-Ray component will make it popular in Japan though!

[ctmagnus]

Bluetooth from Sorny? Hope all your other BT peripherals are also from Sorny!

[Felix Torres]

The 1080P vs 1080i difference isn't all that significant, actually.
1080 over 720, yes; the actual displayed pixel count is higher, but when it comes to 1080p vs 1080i the real-world difference is not as big as it would appear because the extra progressive frames are easily calculated from the interlaced data (think of DVDs; 480i data easily converts to 480p in the player; cheaply, in terms of silicon and dollars) and because all 1080p displays come with image processing power to render the 1080p from 1080i inputs.
I'm guessing you'll need to run screen captures and a microscope to see any difference between native 1080p and interpolated 1080i on the the same 1080p display.

On a similar note, I find interesting that while the PS3 can brag some really scary numbers (2 teraflops?!) there is a bit less than meets the eye in those numbers because of how they're produced. Vector teraflops are cheaper than scalar teraflops and less useful.
(Anybody remember the old Intel 860 chip? Or the Transputer? Not very useful outside vector calculations, were they?)

Basically, SONY and MS have taken two different approaches in how to spend their transistor budgets on their CPUs; SONY went for lots of vector units, MS for a balance of vector and scalar. SONY has 7 vector units enabled (out of 8 manufactured--noticeable in itself; they expect the chip to be hard to manufacture) while MS has only three.
But MS has six general-purpose scalar threads to work with while SONY has one full scalar core. So the SONY is probably stronger in pure vector math but weaker in game logic and AI.

Also, note that the memory bandwidth of the SONY is nowhere near twice that of the 360; it is maybe 15% better even though it has to feed 8 cpus instead of three.

The same is true of the GPU where, because of the 10MB cache, the 360 GPU has about four times the rendering bandwidth of the PS3 GPU.

I'm thinking those CELL sub-processors are going to be data starved and twiddling their metaphorical thumbs a fair amount of time.

The PS3 can clearly decode a *lot* of hd streams simultaneously, but how often does one device actually *have* to decode 14 simultaneous video streams anyway? And while vector units are good for physics modelling, game AI is mostly a scalar and branch, general-purpose function.

Which is to say, the 360 probably will have more resources available for AI and game logic, say tracking a couple dozen simultaneous non-player characters, while the PS3 will have more resources for rendering the motion of the characters.

Given how games are developed these days, I'm thinking we'll see a handful of first party exclusives that take advantage of each box's specific strengths and a bunch of third-party cross-platform games tuned to the lowest common denominator: 360 vector processing and PS3 logic, resulting in games that are prettier, but not significantly more sophisticated than the current generation. :?

Two other things that come to mind looking at the PS3 pics; that is one *big* and apparently heavy box. ;-)

And what is it with that boomerang controller?
I can't believe that thing will actually see production. :roll:

Anyway, its going to come down to the games, but with even Square/Enix supporting XBOX these days (not even SONY's part ownership could over-ride market reality, I guess) the two console's game libraries are going to overlap a lot in the next generation.

The quality of the inhouse killer games is going to be key.
And pricing.

That SONY box looks like it'll be pricey to build, what with those Blu-ray drives jacking up the cost...

Interesting...
I'm thinking a slugfest is coming.

[mar2k]

I doubt a large percentage of the total target audience for the PS3 will have a 1080p display in their home before Playstation 4 is ready to drop in 2010.....lets face it, most people will be hooking their new PS3 up to a 480i SDTV for some time to come.... Its mostly us geeks who hang out on sites like this that dream of 1080p displays all over the house.... :)

[klinux]

how often does one device actually *have* to decode 14 simultaneous video streams anyway?

Ah, famous last words Felix. Just like statements like who needs more than x mega/giga/terabtye of storage/memory or mega/giga/terahertz!