It also gives a fair boost to sharpness which helps PS2 games a lot, but can actually cause PSOne games to look quite shitty. I had to keep my composite cables around for awhile back when I still had a SDTV for games like Vagarant Story and Valkyrie Profile. I just emulate all my PSOne games now, though, since they all look like shit on a HDTV regardless of connection! :-D

Got a tech question for you guys.

I bought a copy of the first Sly Cooper game today cuz I wanted to replay it, and I got it on teh ch34p. Put it in the PS3, played it for a bit, everything was fantabulous.

Started the game back up, and the PS3 locks up. The controller won't even switch off to be rebooted into PS2 mode. In fact, while I can eject the disc, holding my finger on the power button doesn't turn the system off -- I've had to flip the switch to turn the system off.

What's going on? I have the new 80 GB PS3 which, if I'm not mistaken, uses software emulation instead of the previous models' hardware emulation. Is that the problem? Of course I did start with the troubleshooting basics and tried another disc, one that my roommate had been playing earlier in the day. It caused the same problem.

What you described is exactly what used to randomly happen during the early phases of the Warhawk beta. You couldn't simply reset or turn off the system from the front, but had to actually reach behind the console and flip the power switch. I would assume that it's an emulation problem, as the software isn't quite perfect :/, but I'll let someone who actually knows what they're talking about diagnose the cause of your problem.
Well, then this is a definite purchase for me if it will improve the image quality. I'm a little confused on what to go out and actually buy, since I didn't really see an S-Video slot on the back of the PS3. I assume I need a special PS3 cord like this one? Or will any third party cord do just fine...? Thanks a lot guys.

Don't go with third-party ones. If anything goes wrong and they find out you used third-party cables, they can void your warranty a la Microsoft and the 360 Intercoolers.

However at the same time I can't say as though I've ever heard of someone's system being damaged by any way by a set of A/V cords. A power cord on the other hand I would agree.

@BlueBomber
As long as it's a set of PS2 or 3 S-video cords you'll be fine. If you do go third party though, I only ever trust Nyko or Intec, no one else.

Also Loling at the backwards compatibility problems already. Stupid Sony should have just left the chip in. I got my friend to get a PS3 before the EE was removed and I have the 60gb as well. I feel bad for people who missed out.

People want the thing to be cheaper, but they want more at the same time. No wonder Sony can't win for losing.

Cutting the EE out would not save a whole hell of a lot on manufacturing costs per unit, y'know.

Haven't the Euro consoles lacked the EE from the start though? And I don't remember seeing the Euronerds complaining about software emulation. :confused:

Also slayer, you can stop being a Sony apologist now, we get it already.

Yes and you must have missed it, respectively. It's certainly better now than it used to be, though.

It sure as hell didn't make the damn thing any cheaper here, that's for sure.

Hey, did anyone update to 1.92? It says that it makes the XMB faster and I do notice it loading quicker than usual. The update also tells us that it fixes a few bugs with the ps1/ps2 compatibility issues.


This concerns me because when I play Marvel vs Capcom 2, etc, I lose sound and when I change the channel to go back to hdmi , No picture shows. I'll probably check a few other ps2 titles because it's getting annoying. I would have to plug out my hdtv cord and then plug it in so it'll go back to normal. So far, no ps1 titles do that. At least not when I play Valkyrie Profile 1 countless times.

I noticed a video speak feature. Don't know if it's new or not but it's there. Allows you to chat while you're watching a movie I guess.

However I've heard that you can make your video files have like animated thumbnails... how do I turn this on if it exists.

That feature's been around for a while now. You gotta have the video on then you press triangle and select "Change Icon" and where you have it set up , it will be that way for 15 seconds only.

Dang...I went out to Circuit City and bought the official Sony Playstation S-Video cord, and it didn't do jack :(. I thought that maybe it was getting electronic interference from the power outlet or something, so I waited for my roomate to arrive and have him hook up his Game Cube. He booted it up and it looked perfctly fine...

I wonder what the hell is wrong? It's hard to decribe what I'm seeing. They are faint wavy black lines that are constantly moving across the screen from left to right. Is anybody else having this problem with an SD tv?

In far more positive news, an article from IGN has the list of playable PS3 games at this year's TGS, among them are the new LocoRoco screensaver and, more importantly, White Knight Story! Finally, a progress report.

Other notables include Devil May Cry 4, Echochrome, LittleBigPlanet, Uncharted, Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, Ratchet and Clank Future, Time Crisis 4 and Assassin's Creed.

Should be a hell of a show. I'll be heading off to Las Vegas for a vendor show conference and I'll hopefully get the chance to play some of those games as well.

...okay? The EE chip costs about 30 dollars, which means that if Sony had used software emulation right from the start, at this point they would have saved more than a hundred million dollars from that. Throughout the whole lifetime of the PS3, it could save them as much as a billion dollars. It's not exactly small change.

Sony was already losing hundreds of dollars from each unit sold, what a surprise that a price-cut was not the first thing on their minds after reducing the losses a little.

Right, right. Feel sorry for them, they're already making an overly expensive piece of equipment, so the least we could do is NOT feel cheated when we get a version with shittier features and a bigger pricetag.

I don't feel sorry for them, I'm just applying common sense. I doubt enough people care about a 9% loss in backwards compatibility to make it worthwhile for Sony to spend hundreds of millions of dollars. And it can't be said that they aren't constantly improving the software emulation. I heard that 1.91 fixed Silent Hill 3 and Hitman: Blood Money, and 1.92 made Digital Devil Saga playable.

And virtually all electronics are more expensive in Europe, that's not exactly news. I personally just ordered the American version like a normal person.

Uh, yeah. I know that.

Let me throw a hypothetical situation out there, actually. The profit margin of this console (by itself) is basically zero at this point. Before the price drop, they were losing about 300 bucks on every 20 gig (manufacture cost: 805.85), and 240 on every 60 gig (manufacture cost: 840.35). Assuming, for a moment (since I don't have figures for manufacturing costs that postdate the price drop), that those manufacturing costs remain basically similar, they now lose 340 on every 60 gig.

While saving a little bit on each unit is great, they're going to have to sell 16 80 gig consoles with the 30 dollar savings to make up for one person saying they now won't buy the thing if it doesn't contain hardware emulation. Or, similarly, they'll have to sell 3 80 gigs to make up the 100 dollar price difference if Joe Customer goes to nab a 60 now so that he gets his EE.

Hell, If Joe Customer really wants his EE, and the 60s are no longer made, and he buys secondhand, that's basically the same deal. At this point you'd figure moving MORE units would make more sense than potentially reducing customer support by removing a key feature. (It could be argued that as time goes on, backwards compatibility means less and less, but right now it's still rather important.)

That doesn't take into account how much they are saving in other areas with the move to the 80 gig, but at this point I don't see just removing the EE as that beneficial to them from either standpoint. It also assumes that after the 60s are gone, they'll be putting the 80s at the new, lower price point, which I imagine they will.

This, of course, assumes that people are smart enough or observant enough to care about the backwards compatibility issue, which may or may not be the case. Sony's obviously banking on the fact that they aren't, though.

In the final analysis, Sony has stated they intend for the life-span of the PS systems to be what, generally 7-10 years? If Sony is dumping hardware emulation of PS2 games within just the first year of console's life-span, then they will need to make software emulation work or suffer the consequences for the next decade. Basically, they had better make it work.

And they really aren't. But not in the way Sony would probably assume. Half of the questions I get about the PS3 are "Will PS2 games play in the PS3?" "Yes, but only with a memory card adaptor if you want to use your saved games." "Oh, really? I thought I'd be replacing everything."

People don't even know backwards compatibility exists until you tell them, and that's not just on the PS3. If they removed the EE chip I bet a good chunk of their customers wouldn't be the wiser. Granted, I work with the demographic of "idiot parent", but for some reason gamers are willing to forget that "idiot parents" have the money to spend on a system for their 8-year-old regardless of whether it's good or not.

As long as they don't pull a 360 and add that extra step of downloading shit to the system for backwards compatibility through a method other than automatically through the system. That ticks people off so much. People come in all the time bitching about how their barbie horse adventures doesnt work on their 360. :(

Aren't your manufacturing cost figures as of launch though? Is it not also true that since then, the cost to produce the blu-ray laser dropped over $100 by itself {which would cover the price drop on the 60 gig models}. I'm not saying that they are no longer losing money per console sold, but I am going to make an educated guess that they are not losing $340 on every 60 gig.

As far as the EE chip costs are concerned, I am wondering if over the long run it would be more expensive to include the $30 chip per console or to have employees coding for backwards compatibility for some period of time.

If the costs are a hundred bucks less per unit nowadays than before, it would apply to all three SKUs, and the price difference for the EE alone would still be the same. (That's all my calculations took into account. The initial "They lose XYZ per console" was only used as a benchmark.)

As was pointed out, people aren't smart, they're fuckin' idiots. I'm fairly sure most people who buy a PS3 don't even know what 'HD console' or 'Blu-ray' means. I very much doubt that one in sixteen potential PS3 buyers would choose to pass on the console because of the missing EE chip. Frankly, I even doubt that one in sixteen buyers knows what the EE chip is and whether the 80 GB PS3 has it or not.

By normal consumer standards, we're all supernerds in this thread, and I think there's no basis to be assuming that the vast majority of potential PS3 customers want anything else than 'that console on which you can play the new GTA, Metal Gear and Final Fantasy'. As much as you'd like to imagine otherwise, perfect backwards compatiblity isn't a 'key feature'. Just look at the 360.

Besides, you're talking as if the 80 GB version doesn't have backwards compatibility, which is simply wrong. Nearly all PS2 games work, and look better than on the original console due to upscaling, and you know that they are constantly updating the compatibility list. I wouldn't be surprised if, in half a year or so, there was no discernable difference between hardware and software emulation. Since spring, they've already improved the compatibility rate from the original 72% to a bit over 90%.

Hardware is much more expensive by far. Assuming they sell about five million consoles a year, it means they spend approximately 140 million dollars on EE chips. Even if they have a large team of 50 coders working for backwards compability, each of which receives 200 000$ per year, that's still only 10 million spent.