Sony confirm Playstation 3 price in the UK!

[soze]

Cheaper one will be £50 less but will be crippled in many ways sadly, the lack of digital HD movie playback over HDMI for example so people will be forced to use composite cables and settle for 720p.

Or route it through your pcs graphics card. The cheap one will still have a hd out put i though just missing the 2 hdmi that come with big one.

I will buy one becuase £400 is not alot for a consol to last 5 years there is no way 360 will still be microsofts top dog in 5 years. That and im a blinkered Sony whore

 

[cHodAX]

Or route it through your pcs graphics card. The cheap one will still have a hd out put i though just missing the 2 hdmi that come with big one.

I will buy one becuase £400 is not alot for a consol to last 5 years there is no way 360 will still be microsofts top dog in 5 years. That and im a blinkered Sony whore

Erm if you do that you are losing quality and adding at least 2 extra conversions of the signal, you are also still limited to 720p effectively and whilst your PC might upscale it is still going to look like shit after all the extra noise you have added during the conversion. No one who likes a clear picture could put up with that crap, it is fine for current TV with it's low definintion picture but it would ruin the clarity of a high definition picture. The point of HD is that the signal is supposed to be digital all the way, adding analouge conversion into the mix and then converting back to digital would be an abortion.

 

[chretien]

Or route it through your pcs graphics card. The cheap one will still have a hd out put i though just missing the 2 hdmi that come with big one.

I will buy one becuase £400 is not alot for a consol to last 5 years there is no way 360 will still be microsofts top dog in 5 years. That and im a blinkered Sony whore

The old Xbox lasted 5 years (2001-2005) I don't see why the 360 shouldn't. It's not as if M$ don't have enough leverage with developers to continue producing games for it even when it's a bit elderly.

Do you have shares in Sony or something? You're clearly a fan but I have to say I find the level of devotion to a platform no-one's really seen yet a bit disturbing.

The old PS1 and 2 succeeded not because they were the best consoles around but because Sony could bring huge amounts of pressure to bear on developers so they had billions of games. Lots were absolute gash, but there were inevitably some gems. Nintendo and Sega had better consoles but didn't have Sony's stranglehold on developers. I think M$ are in the strongest position of all the 3rd gen consoles at the moment. They actualy have a product people can buy, they've either bought or are closely linked to a lot of very creative game studios and they have gargantuan amounts of money to throw at making sure they win. By contrast, Sony are losing market share and developer confidence rapidly and even Nintendo who'd been all but written off are now looking like causing them serious grief.

 

[soze]

Erm if you do that you are losing quality and adding at least 2 extra conversions of the signal, you are also still limited to 720p effectively and whilst your PC might upscale it is still going to look like shit after all the extra noise you have added during the conversion. No one who likes a clear picture could put up with that crap, it is fine for current TV with it's low definintion picture but it would ruin the clarity of a high definition picture. The point of HD is that the signal is supposed to be digital all the way, adding analouge conversion into the mix and then converting back to digital would be an abortion.

I am probably wrong but but the cheap one should still have hd output up to 1280 but it will not have the hdmi port?? Unless i am missing something

And the only reason i dont see the xbox 360 lasting is because like the wii they have not made it future proff even if the hd dvd wins the new betamax vhs war it will still need a new drive in the 360??? Again i dont know but i just dont get the feeling the 360 is built to last. But i am a Sony whore.

Do you have shares in Sony or something? You're clearly a fan but I have to say I find the level of devotion to a platform no-one's really seen yet a bit disturbing.

I have said a million times i do own a 360 and i will buy a ps3 just for gt5 and mgs4 and no i dont own shares but i am loyal to my complete sony entertainment system.

 

[Rellik]

going for the xbox 360 + halo 3 when that launches


maybe ill make my brother buy a nintendo

 

[cHodAX]

I am probably wrong but but the cheap one should still have hd output up to 1280 but it will not have the hdmi port?? Unless i am missing something

And the only reason i dont see the xbox 360 lasting is because like the wii they have not made it future proff even if the hd dvd wins the new betamax vhs war it will still need a new drive in the 360??? Again i dont know but i just dont get the feeling the 360 is built to last. But i am a Sony whore.



I have said a million times i do own a 360 and i will buy a ps3 just for gt5 and mgs4 and no i dont own shares but i am loyal to my complete sony entertainment system.

The Blu-Ray spec states that 1080p films CANNOT be transmitted over analogue only over HDMI for copyright protection reasons, iirc 720p was intially the same and the analogue output was going to be restricted to 480p which is the current standard for DVD playback. Sadly Sony have yet to clarify the 720p issue but I can assure you there will be no 1080p HD movie play back over analogue, Sony have effectively crippled the movie playback on the Basic package and if 720p over analogue is denied too then having a Blu-Ray drive in the base model is utterly useless for films and will only be good for game data storage. Time will tell I guess but removing HDMI from the base model was a very bad idea.

As for games, 95% of PS3 games are going to be 720p anyway as many big developers have stated because it is much easier to achieve the framerates required (usually 60fps) for action games at 720p than it is at 1080p even on even with the cutting edge graphics chip inside both X360 and PS3. Think about it, not even a top of the range £400 graphics card can do 60fps at 1920x1080 with all the bells and whistles enabled like HDR, AA and x16 AF. The PS3 and X360 hardware certainly couldn't, 30fps would be achieveable but it isn't really suited to fast action gaming so developers will use the 720p resolution and go for 60fps. It also makes porting games across both platforms easier, they don't need different resolutions of source art and textures for a start.

So, on a base PS3 you will probably get 720p movies (not officially announced yet though iirc so 480 is possible) and 1080p gaming although the vast majority of games will be 720p.

On the premium PS3, you will get full 1080p support in movies and games but again 95% of games will be 720p anyway or 720p games upscaled to 1080p if the hardware can push the framerate needed.


None of this is criticising the hardware btw, the PS3 might be a pig to program for but it has a ton of potential, it is just annoying that Sony are going to gimp the movie playback on the model that 75% of the customers will buy.


Oh and HD-DVD on Xbox-360 is an expansion drive via USB2, not very elegant but a nice option for those that actually want high definition movie playback and at a sub £150 price it seems. For those that don't want high definition movie playback they will be able to go out and pick up the console (both base and premium) for under £200 this November. Going to be hard for Sony to beat that kind of competition, you will be able to buy both an X360 premium and a Wii for much less than a single PS3 base system.

 

[soze]

Ahh got you thanks for clearing that up.

 

[Chronictank]

chodax has it spot on, i wouldnt mind paying the £400 odd to be quite honest if it didnt have the blue ray crap on top, they are crippling great technology before it is ever realeased.
But saying that ps3 has ALOT of potential and i think it will probably outlive the next xbox (beyond 360) release because of that if it can hold out and they can sort the blue ray issues.
But time will tell, i just hope sony havent put all of their hope in the ps3

 

[cHodAX]

chodax has it spot on, i wouldnt mind paying the £400 odd to be quite honest if it didnt have the blue ray crap on top, they are crippling great technology before it is ever realeased.
But saying that ps3 has ALOT of potential and i think it will probably outlive the next xbox (beyond 360) release because of that if it can hold out and they can sort the blue ray issues.
But time will tell, i just hope sony havent put all of their hope in the ps3

Lol! Please don't believe the Sony hype, the PS3 like every generation before it has a 5 year lifespan. The PS3 cpu/spus has more theoretical power than the triple core of the X360 but that power is extremely difficult to tap, even for great developers like Carmack and Sweeny. The GPU in each console will be the limiting factor 4-5 years down the line, both are very evenly matched and both will have the same kind of effective lifespan but 5 years down the line they will be light years behind PC GPU's and so the next-gen console cycle starts again. I know Sony have uttered a load of marketing bullshit about an 8-10 year lifespan but trust me, half way into that figure and the tech will be old hat.

Think about it this way, AMD are releasing QUAD core CPU's next year, by 2010 we can expect to see server CPU's with 8 cores with the next generation of die shrink. That is only 4 years away and we are talking about CPU's that are 2 generations beyond what we have now, GPU's will be 3 generations further along and memory density will have all least doubled meaning 2gb as standard in your average PC. Consoles will have to catch up to survive, consumer demand drives technology and the consumer always wants more more more. Neither X360 or PS3 will be able to deliver what people want anymore after 5 years, peoples expectations will be higher and rightly so.

 

[Chronictank]

Lol! Please don't believe the Sony hype, the PS3 like every generation before it has a 5 year lifespan. The PS3 cpu/spus has more theoretical power than the triple core of the X360 but that power is extremely difficult to tap, even for great developers like Carmack and Sweeny. The GPU in each console will be the limiting factor 4-5 years down the line, both are very evenly matched and both will have the same kind of effective lifespan but 5 years down the line they will be light years behind PC GPU's and so the next-gen console cycle starts again. I know Sony have uttered a load of marketing bullshit about an 8-10 year lifespan but trust me, half way into that figure and the tech will be old hat.

Think about it this way, AMD are releasing QUAD core CPU's next year, by 2010 we can expect to see server CPU's with 8 cores with the next generation of die shrink. That is only 4 years away and we are talking about CPU's that are 2 generations beyond what we have now, GPU's will be 3 generations further along and memory density will have all least doubled meaning 2gb as standard in your average PC. Consoles will have to catch up to survive, consumer demand drives technology and the consumer always wants more more more. Neither X360 or PS3 will be able to deliver what people want anymore after 5 years, peoples expectations will be higher and rightly so.

not quite, ps3 and the xbox 360 did something very different (the same as adding a physx card to your pc), the gpu, physics and maths are done on different cpu's. Hence the big jump in image quality and system performance and various manufacturers boasting longer lifespans.
They have only just managed to get round getting the maxiumum out of the playstation and how long has that been around?

But the big thing for me is whether physx will become a standard adding £200 odd to the average pc build as i am not a console fanatic really

 

[cHodAX]

not quite, ps3 and the xbox 360 did something very different (the same as adding a physx card to your pc), the gpu, physics and maths are done on different cpu's. Hence the big jump in image quality and system performance.
They have only just managed to get round getting the maxiumum out of the playstation and how long has that been around?

Chronic you are missing the point, the CPU on each console will probably be just fine 5 years down the line, they have a ton of potential and the surface has barely been scratched yet. The problem is the GPU performance and the amount of system memory. Think about it this way, do you consider Xbox/PS2/GC graphics to be decent by 2006 standards? Of course not, they are low resolution, low detail with very basic texturing by today's standards.

As great as the GPU's in X360 and PS3 are they have aleady been surpassed by the latest generation of PC GPU. What looks great now will not look so great in 2012, certainly not 2015 as some Sony executives have claimed. Yes the graphics will improve over the course of time on both consoles, that is the nature of the beast but they will reach a point where they start to become limited by the hardware itself. It has happened to every single console in history, just this time it won't be the CPU and video subsystem but the actual GPU perfomance iself as the limiting factor. Both systems will still be delivering great games in 4 years time but they won't be jaw dropping by 2010 standards, by 2006 standards sure but technology moves on and so does consumer expectation. If it didn't we would all still be playing SNES and home computers like the Amiga.

As Axel Rose once said 'nothing lasts forever, even cold november rain'.

 

[cHodAX]

But the big thing for me is whether physx will become a standard adding £200 odd to the average pc build as i am not a console fanatic really

Physix (sp?) hardware has a long way to go it seems, the lastest reviews of the first card have been very poor. It increases detail but chops framerate in half by doing so, if they every get the kinks ironed out though it will be interesting to see how far it can go. Personally I think Vista is more important, by letting the games get closer to the hardware you will see a big performance jump with games writting for Vista systems. Letting the game get closer to the GPU leaves more time for the CPU to do things like physics work.

Here is a review, doesn't exactly show that the hardware is ready for primetime just yet.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2759

 

[Chronictank]

Physix (sp?) hardware has a long way to go it seems, the lastest reviews of the first card have been very poor. It increases detail but chops framerate in half by doing so, if they every get the kinks ironed out though it will be interesting to see how far it can go. Personally I think Vista is more important, by letting the games get closer to the hardware you will see a big performance jump with games writting for Vista systems. Letting the game get closer to the GPU leaves more time for the CPU to do things like physics work.

Here is a review, doesn't exactly show that the hardware is ready for primetime just yet.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2759

i know but its whether developers will push for it (remember dual core in games not so long ago),
remember the new unreal tournament comes physx enabled, and i think soon as it becomes a must have the gfx card producers will start loading them onto the cards themselves meaning the gfx cards will go from £70 on average to £170 but i think we are going off topic Soon as the big boys like nvidia and ati jump on the band wagon its only a matter of time imo
Saying that i duno if thats a bad thing, atm consoles are leaps and bounds ahead of pc's because of the dedicated physics chips, would it really be a bad thing in pcs to bridge the gap ?

 

[cHodAX]

i know but its whether developers will push for it (remember dual core in games not so long ago),
remember the new unreal tournament comes physx enabled, and i think soon as it becomes a must have the gfx card producers will start loading them onto the cards themselves meaning the gfx cards will go from £70 on average to £170 but i think we are going off topic
Saying that i duno if thats a bad thing, atm consoles are leaps and bounds ahead of pc's because of the dedicated physics chips, would it really be a bad thing in pcs to bridge the gap ?

Aye but GRAW is enabled for the hardware and it cripples the framerate, it does the same to every game that is enabled for it. What I am saying is that when the hardware/software issues are sorted it will be interesting, right now though it is just a white elephant and the people buying are paying way over the top for hardware that doesn't improve thier gaming exprience. Personally I hope it doesn't become standard, dual core cpu's have more than enough cycles left over to produce decent physics effects.