[PS3] PlayStation 3 Discussion Thread

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.

FELIPE NO

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.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by Aardark

...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.

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.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

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.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by 2401 Penitent Tangent

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.

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.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by 2401 Penitent Tangent

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.

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.

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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.)

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by 2401 Penitent Tangent

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.

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%.

Originally Posted by russ

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.

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.

How ya doing, buddy?

The BC compatibility team would still be working even if they left the EE chip in because it wasn't 100% either. Sure getting the non EE version will take a bit longer to perfect, but I don't think that it will take long to regain that 5% increase that they had with the EE chip.

Running with what Mo0 pointed out;

"Another such area, across all systems measured, is backward compatibility. For example, at 71 percent, PS3 owners and likely purchasers, rate backward compatibility as the most important PS3 function, yet only 37 percent are aware it even exists as a PS3 feature. The same types of trends can also be seen in different areas (varying by system) such as ability to link to portable systems and Internet connection via gaming device." - David M. Riley of NPD

Therefore considering that they can get away with saving $30 a system minus development time for the software should still save them a considerable amount of cash in the long run. Even if the non-EE chip of the version had a non-compatible rate of 10% (which it doesn't) If 10% of the 37% of people who know about and use the BC feature, that means that only 3.7% of people who use the feature will have problems. That's a small sacrifice for the $$ they'll save.

Really though I could care less. I don't own stocks in Sony and my system doesn't have any BC issues so far. But I thought it's be fun to throw that in.

FELIPE NO

Oh, people are as dumb as bricks, I'll give you that. I'm not trying to say they aren't, or even that most would know about this issue. I'm just bringing up the fact that the EE removal might not even be the great super fix for reducing unit manufacturing costs even if it alienates only one in thirty customers. Or even fifty, that'll cut down how much is saved by half, or just under a third.

It just seems kinda strange to remove that feature when I wonder if there could possibly be other cost saving methods in production that could be taken that might present an even smaller difference to your average customer.

Quote:

As much as you'd like to imagine otherwise, perfect backwards compatiblity isn't a 'key feature'. Just look at the 360.

The 360 backwards compatibility fucking disgusts me, actually. It's terrible how slow they put out updates, and how few titles actually do get updated every 6 months.

As for "key feature", I only mention that as it starts out being somewhat important for folks who don't want to have every system hooked up to their TV at once, but it gets progressively less important as a console's library grows.

Quote:

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%.

I didn't mean to imply that it didn't. However, the software emulation *is* inferior, and if it locks up occasionally like has already been mentioned in this thread, then there are problems that currently need to be addressed. I doubt the emulation will ever be as good as the dedicated chip, and I am curious if Sony will continue to work on it with as must gusto as they're doing now after more AAA titles drop, or if they'll shuffle it off to the side like MS has done, that's all.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Well I think that only time could answer thoes questions then.

ADDITIONAL POST
Rumour has it that the V1.92 update also improved LAIR's controls (or the motion sensor in general). What do you guys think, fact or fiction?

-> VIDEO: Gametrailers.com - User Movies Contests, User Movie Contests

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Not that anybody cares or anything, but I fixed the whole dark wavy lines problem I was having with my TV. Turns out that the auxilary inputs located in the front of the TV were just a little screwed up and gave out that interference. I plugged it into the back and there were no wavy lines. Boo yah. And you guys were right - S-Video does look sharper. Thanks guys.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Yay for double posting, and yay for previously exclusive titles going multiplatform!

As listed on the Namco Bandai site, the PS3 is getting Eternal Sonata as well as Beautiful Katamari.

Beautiful Katamari is just screaming for some motion controls. With the option to use the analogue sticks, of course. Here's looking at you, Lair.

EDIT:

Originally Posted by Beautiful Katamari ESRB Rating

Rated E for Everyone:
Alcohol Reference
Comic Mischief
Mild Fantasy Violence

lol.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by BlueBomber

Beautiful Katamari is just screaming for some motion controls.

No it's not, the game is perfect for a pair of analog sticks.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Well, yeah. I guess I meant that I wouldn't mind trying it out, since it seems like motion controls might actually work decently enough in this game :/. In theory, anyways...

You always need options though, and I'm pretty sure that 97% of players will not want to use motion controls, so the option for analogue sticks are definitely a must.

How ya doing, buddy?

I think that the motion controls would be a lot more natural to use then the current dual analog setup. Despite the fact that I beat 1 & 2 the controls to this day never quite sat right with me.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Yeah, maybe the motion controls would be good for that kind of game if the motion controls weren't, you know, absolute garbage on the PS3.

FELIPE NO

?? Motion controls are motion controls. Don't matter if they're in a SIXAXIS, Wiimote, or a NASA robot control. They all have the same properties and downfalls. Hence the real problem, people want motion controls in every game ever made not knowing how the game will have to change if they do do that. Also they arn't aware of how a motion control works and you end up with reviews like LAIR with reviewers complaining because they can't figure the controls out. With LAIR I find most people who've played a Wii can play LAIR just fine because they know what the detectable gestures are. But when you give it to someone less experianced they tend to do overdramatic gestures which confuses the fuck out of the game. (Accounting for most of LAIR's reviews) Therefore for people to get used to the motion sensor more games need to use it, whether it be a primary or decondary control scheme doesn't matter. (but the latter is better in order not to tank your game for the time being)

That was a bit of a rant I know, but it still pertains to the topic of motion controls in Katamari and games in general.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

HA! RATCHET & CLANK DEMO ON OCT. 4TH!

Quote:

Despite it sounding like a euphemism for robot hemorrhoids, we're big fans of Insomniac's Ratchet and Clank series. Thrillingly then, Sony's told IGN that a demo of upcoming Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction will hit PSN on October 4.

I've been waiting for a demo of this game, as it looks very promising. Even though I never played the Ratchet games, I love me some platforming. 3 weeks!

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Slayer X

?? Motion controls are motion controls. Don't matter if they're in a SIXAXIS, Wiimote, or a NASA robot control.

Uhh, no. And you should be banned from this thread (and possibly the gaming forums) for saying such horrible bullshit. A simple tilting accelerometer featured in the SIXAXIS is different from two IR emitters used to track the Wiimote's position. The six axis detects translational and rotational input ONLY. The Wii is capable of knowing where your Wiimote is in 3D space, using the sensor bar.

To say they are the same is to be wrong. There are things the Wiimote can do that the SIXAXIS can not. Wether one prefers simple tilting or not is up to that person's opinion, but they are NOT the same.

Also, if you're implying that the people who all reviewed LAIR poorly haven't played a fucking Wii yet, then you're god damn retarded. The hate for lair is nearly universal. To assume ALL THESE PEOPLE haven't played a Wii before is fucking ludicrous. They're professionals. They play games for a living. If you're telling me that these people haven't played the Wii and therefore "don't understand motion controls", then you've sunk to a new low of making shit up.

We understand at this point that you're on Sony's payroll. You have to find a way to silence these people who don't accept the moneyhats that PLAY magazine does. It's probably a decent job. I can imagine you get paid fairly well for it. And if you don't, you should. But that doesn't change the fact that you're a fucking retard.

Get the FUCK off my internet, you shit headed, thick skulled, troll. Your posts are the scourge of this gaming forum.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

PS3
"A major feature of the controller is the ability to sense both rotational orientation and translational acceleration along all three dimensional axes, providing a full six degrees of freedom." -Wikipedia

Wii
"The Wii Remote is a controller that uses a combination of accelerometers and infrared detection (from an array of LEDs inside the Sensor Bar) to sense its position in 3D space." -Wikipedia

And that infrared part has nothing to do with motion control. It's for pointing triangulation like a light gun. Therefore other then how they do what they do, both do the same thing when it comes to motion.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Umm...thanks for proving my point? Yes, they are different implementations of an idea, capable of different things, and while they rely on some similar broad technological concepts, they are not the same in ability or design.

Quote:

"Motion controls are motion controls. Don't matter if they're in a SIXAXIS, Wiimote, or a NASA robot control.

Feel free to keep backpedalling over your own argument. It's amusing.

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What is it that you think the Wiimote does when detecting motion that the SIXAXIS doesn't? The infrared has nothing to do with the Wii's motion detection for 25% of Wii games you hold to the side with the infrared towards your palm but still use the motion controls to steer a vehicle or plane. So what's the difference? You tell me because right now your case is not evident? Because I never said that they both accomplished the same ends by the same means.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Slayer X

What is it that you think the Wiimote does when detecting motion that the SIXAXIS doesn't? The infrared has nothing to do with the Wii's motion detection for 25% of Wii games you hold to the side with the infrared towards your palm but still use the motion controls to steer a vehicle or plane. So what's the difference? You tell me because right now your case is not evident? Because I never said that they both accomplished the same ends by the same means.

So by your logic, the SIXAXIS controller is essentially the same as a conventional gamepad because most PS3 games don't use the motion sensing capabilities of the new design. Just because game companies don't program for a feature doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Slayer X

PS3
"A major feature of the controller is the ability to sense both rotational orientation and translational acceleration along all three dimensional axes, providing a full six degrees of freedom." -Wikipedia

Wii
"The Wii Remote is a controller that uses a combination of accelerometers and infrared detection (from an array of LEDs inside the Sensor Bar) to sense its position in 3D space." -Wikipedia

I don't even know why anyone is willing to argue with you when you basically have commited the biggest cardinal sin when it comes to citing facts.

FELIPE NO