There's general agreement that Sony stumbled out of the gate with the PlayStation 3. Months of intense hype were followed by a late launch (fully a year after the Xbox 360) and a staggering $600 price tag for the deluxe model.
Even worse, the PS3 didn't initially have any real must-have exclusive titles, and despite the power of its vaunted Cell processor, multiplatform games from third-party developers didn't look appreciably better than the respective titles on the Xbox 360.
Since then, the company's been modifying the PlayStation product line to better fit the competitive market landscape. As of August 2008, a new "bargain" PS3 is available with a larger, 80GB hard drive, and a "deluxe" model is due in November, doubling the capacity to 160GB.
Both, however, lack backward compatibility with PS2 games and do not come with flash card readers. If those features are a must, it might be best to pick up the 80GB "Metal Gear" bundle version on eBay w... More »
Leadtek has announced that it will start selling its first PC graphics card based on Toshiba's SpursEngine graphics co-processor next week.
The SpursEngine is based on the same architecture as the CELL that powers the PlayStation 3 and was partly developed by Toshiba.
To quote: Leadtek will next week start selling its first PC graphics card based on Toshiba's SpursEngine graphics co-processor, it announced today.
The WinFast PxVC1100 will hit stories in Japan's Akihabara electronics district from November 19 and will be cost about ¥29,800 (£199).
The SpursEngine is based on the same architecture as the Cell Broadband Engine microprocessor that powers the PlayStation 3 console and was partly developed by Toshiba. While the Cell contains a Power PC core and eight "Synergistic Processing Elements" cores, the SpursEngine contains only four of the SPE cores.
Xbox Group product manager Aaron Greenberg has refuted reports that Toshiba-Samsung Storage Technology Corp will develop a Blu-ray drive for the Xbox 360, claiming owners of the console would not be interested in such an add-on.
"We have no plans to integrate Blu-ray into the Xbox experience," he told Major Nelson. "We believe that we shouldn't force people to pay for things they don't want."
Following the commercial failure of the HD-DVD format Microsoft decided to invest in, Greenberg also stated that Microsoft's position on high-definition movie and TV content is currently centred around digital distribution.
"We've invested in a massive library of entertainment content. That's why we're bringing things like Netflix to members in the US, that's why we're growing our library in Europe, that's why we're adding all types of entertainment experiences around the world.
"And Blu-ray: who knows? I'll tell you one thing: if you look... More »
According to XBitLabs (linked above), Toshiba-Samsung Storage Technology Corp. has been contracted to manufacture external Blu-ray disc drives for Microsoft XBox 360 game consoles.
Toshiba-Samsung Storage Technology Corporation is a joint venture between Samsung Electronics and Toshiba Corporation. The Blu-ray disc drives are rumored to cost in the $100-$150 range.
To quote: It is still unclear when exactly Microsoft plans to release its external Blu-ray solution for Xbox 360. Hypothetically, the company may launch it slightly ahead of the holiday season in an attempt to steal an advantage from the PlayStation 3. B
ut since sales of Blu-ray are still on a low level, the software giant may decide to postpone the unveiling till Consumer Electronics Show early next year in order to get the most attention of the media with new device.
Microsoft and TSST did not comment on the news story.
In 2005 the Xbox 360 was launched in North America with a price point of $500 for the premium model and $400 for the “core” model. At this time the Xbox 360 was the only “next generation” console on the market, and it would stay like that for at least a year.
Originally, Sony was to launch their console, the PS3 in early 2006, however the console was delayed into November of 2006.
Weeks after launch many found flaws in the system and wondered why they were their. It seemed like many people forgot about Sony’s original plan of releasing their console a few months after the 360 because they constantly refer to it has Microsoft’s own greed to launch a year before the competition, although the competition was to launch just months after.
Later it was revealed that Microsoft had “skipped” some of the details when it came to the development of the Xbox 360, but why?
1. “Last Generation” Microsoft took second place to S... More »
Self-proclaimed veteran games industry marketer, Bruce Everiss, believes Sony's GPU is holding back the console and that it has made it a less powerful gaming machine than the Xbox 360.
Everiss uses a quote from Richard Huddy of ATI to back up the claim: “I think Xbox 360 technology is likely to outperform PlayStation 3 technology by a pretty healthy margin in the long run. It looks like the GPU is holding the PS3 back.”
To quote: For the PS3 Sony wanted to have a technology advantage so they developed, in conjunction with Toshiba and IBM, the Cell processor. A clean sheet design with many innovations this took $400 million and four years to develop.
The intention was to use two of these in the PS3, one as CPU and one as GPU. However at the last minute Sony realised that the Cell GPU wasn’t up to the job so they went to nVidia and bought their 7800GTX GPU. This gave them a number of disadvantages:
Speaking at the SCEE PlayStation Day in London yesterday, SCEE president David Reeves said that PS3's hard drive is staying at 40GB in Europe for the foreseeable future.
“I don't know that any other hard drive configuration is even planned,” he said when asked when an 80GB SKU - so popular in the US - would release in Europe.
Continuing on the topic of PS3 hard drives, Reeves went on to indicate that those looking to get involved with PlayTV in September are likely going to have to buy a new one.
“I think eventually, yes, it will be,” Reeves said when asked if hard drive size was significant to the consumer SCEE's trying to reach in Europe.
“I think the person that wants to be multimedia – and when we bring out PlayTV, they're going to find that 40Gb is too small. But it's not proprietary. You can go out and you can just buy another hard drive and just plug it in.
Hot on the heels of last week’s report from ABI Research noting that many consumers may not see the picture quality difference between Blu-ray and standard DVDs comes the latest Blu-ray sales figures from NPD Group. And they’re not pretty.
According to NPD, sales of Blu-ray standalone players plummeted 40 percent from January to February, then rose a scant 2 percent from February to March. The general consensus was that once Toshiba dropped its support for the HD DVD format early this year, sales would increase.
In fact, sales of Blu-ray standalone players remain so low that NPD has not yet released actual numbers, for fear that it would be easy to identify individual retailers. The research group will start to give actual figures later this year, said Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis at NPD.
The end of the format wars clearly did little to boost Blu-ray’s prospects. Like others, Mr. Rubin said the much cheaper upconverting standard DVD pl... More »
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