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The trademarked PlayStation Home logo - Image courtesy Kotaku
Sony set to upgrade PS3 with PlayStation Home; No more EE+GS chips after April

The 2007 Game Developers’ Conference is less than a week away, and many eyes are on Sony for what is supposed to be a significant announcement planned for the event. GDC Director Jamil Moledina is appears to be privy to the keynote topics, and said to GameDaily last week that Sony will be delivering news that would make PlayStation 3 owners very happy.

Gaming blog Kotaku has posted what could be the subject of Sony’s massive announcement: PlayStation Home. According to the rumor-filled story, the PlayStation 3 will soon be getting its own version of “Mii avatars” and “Xbox 360 achievements.” As a new requirement for all future PS3 titles, each game will feature its own virtual room, where users “will receive items with which to adorn the room that are specific to the game,” as part of an achievement system.

The anonymous source also says that Sony is bringing social networking concepts to the console in a manner that should be similar to MySpace. Voice and text chat, along with video are to be some of the new features.

Another source from the Neoseeker forums mirrors some of the information found in the Kotaku story. According to forum member “DevelopersHeart,” Phil Harrison will be delivering a keynote at GDC to announce a new firmware update that will be available on March 8 that will include new features such as a more refined PS Store frontend, Connect Store support for movie and music downloads, and wallpaper options. A social networking feature, similar to MySpace and YouTube, is also mentioned, except that it is named by the message author as being called “PlayStation Lifestyle” rather than “PlayStation Home.”

On the topic of name, Sony Computer Entertainment has recently registered the trademark for “PlayStation Home,” defining it as an “electronic games services provided by means of the Internet,” for the “creation and development of virtual and interactive images and environments,” and “introduction and social networking services, namely introducing electronic game players to others.” The trademark description certainly lends credence to the rumors.

Also said in the post by “DevelopersHeart” is that the Emotion Engine and Graphics Synthesizer chip will be removed in North American and Japanese consoles in April, unifying the two territory’s machines with the European spec.

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The wait is over ... for me
By enlil242 on 3/3/2007 12:08:45 PM , Rating: 4
Well, as I stumbled past 2 stacks of PS3s at my local Best Buy (30 total) . I thought for a minute, cool, I may pick one up ... Cheap blue-ray player and a console to play games that are not on my 360. But I decided against it. (no movies and no games!) Then, I remembered something I decided a while back ... My ~$500 - $600 will be going to either an ATI or NVIDIA DX10 card which will (supposedly) blow away next-gen consoles graphics ... emphasize SHOULD.

I am satisfied with the 360 for console gaming as I love "multiplayer gaming" on the PC - Especially with COD4 on the horizon.

Plus, I like sitting back and watching all of the bashing going on in both directions (either buy both, or just enjoy your purchase ... no need to find justification on the internet). But I do think Sony is tripping over themselves trying to put so much into their PS3. It's just a console. By the time they drop the price to a reasonable level, Microsoft, who are now making ~$75 per console, can easily drop their price $100 - $150. I bet they are just waiting to pull this one out of there arse.

Is the 360 perfect? no. But for $400, I am enjoying streaming my music / HD video to my 50" screen as I type and playing Rainbow 6 Vegas, cursing the screen every time I get shot in the head and have to play the whole level over again! (Grrrr)

Will I ever get a PS3? I dunno. If the DX10 us as good as it is being hyped, then prolly not ... If Blue-ray wins the format war, I'll wait and get a $100 standalone player - as with any piece of tech, in time, players should be at or less than this price.

Until then, I'll check back to hear people defend their purchase decision with such passion and vigor. It really is rather humorous...




RE: The wait is over ... for me
By afkrotch on 3/4/2007 5:35:37 PM , Rating: 3
Actually current DX9 cards blow away both consoles. The PS3 is pretty much on par with the 360 for graphics, and it's based off the G70 (7800 GTX) of course it's gimped down a bit. So pretty much any card above that is better than the consoles graphics. You also have the ability to change your resolutions and quality settings. I'm wondering when they'll start doing that for consoles.

The problem nowadays is that ppl see consoles as just that. A console. Both 360 and PS3 can play games, play movies, play HD content, surf the net, play music, view pics, etc. You can even load a new OS on the PS3 and get PC functionality.

Me, I own both a 360 and PS3. I've spent about $600 on the 20 gig 360, 2 games, faceplate, rechargeable battery w/ cable, and 5500 Microsoft points. I've spent about $700 on the 60 gig PS3 and 7 games. I only use them as consoles and nothing else, cause I prefer to do all my PC functions on my actual PCs.


RE: The wait is over ... for me
By ViperROhb34 on 3/4/2007 6:52:57 PM , Rating: 3
The problem with PS3 isn't its GPU or CPU.. the problem is the real power of PS3 is beingheld back by its memory system. Neither GPU or CPU can reach full power without a memory system to back up fillrates.

The Xbox 360 has a 10mb buffer built on-die to the GPU that is there only for a frame buffer. This memory can transfer at an astounding 256 Gps ! ! To put it into perspective the rest of 360's graphics memory does 22 Gps .. While the PS3's Graphics system does 22 Gps one ways and 15 Gps another ( one is up and one down ) So the PS3 has nothing remotiely close to the speed of 360's built in eDRAM which does 256 Gps.. being able to cache and at this speed helps with frame rates. I speculate its one reason PS3 has a frame rate problem in some intense areas of games in which 360 doesnt.. like COD3, Tony Hawk.


RE: The wait is over ... for me
By afkrotch on 3/4/2007 11:45:28 PM , Rating: 3
Wow! 22 gbps you say, yet the memory can't even do that speed. You can keep talking about the bandwith, but if it's not utilized, it doesn't mean crap.

Here's something to think about. The PS3 has a possible 2 teraflops of power, while the 360 has one. Does this make the PS3 significantly better than the 360? No.

Here's something to speculate for the games. Could it possibly be a bad port? Could it possibly be a poorly made game? The PS3 is harder to code for than a 360.

Me...I really don't care which is better than which. I have both and I'm good. For me, both had their merits. I lean more towards the PS3, as it's more non-FPS oriented in their games and those are the games I purchase. I don't care about Halo, Gears of War, R6: Vegas, etc. I get my FPS fun on my PC. Even in the small amount of launch games, more appealed to me than what was available on the 360. Course when I heard that Idolm@ster was coming on 360, I went out and picked one up. It's been great too. I like the 360's interface more than the PS3s, but I hate Microsoft points. Achievements also seem to be just tossed in and no real thought is put into them. Their online service is better than the PS3s by a large amount, but they can better that with time.

Anyways, I like both consoles.


Lolz
By scrapsma54 on 3/2/07, Rating: 0
RE: Lolz
By Loc13 on 3/2/2007 9:03:27 AM , Rating: 3
The Xbox360 didn't have some important features at launch either, such as multitasking. March and the European launch is a big month for Sony, they better bring some of the rumors to life. Motorstorm got a few good reviews, but the lack of splitscreen is VERY disappointing. :(


RE: Lolz
By michal1980 on 3/2/07, Rating: -1
RE: Lolz
By rdeegvainl on 3/2/2007 9:28:20 AM , Rating: 1
I already posted so I can't rectify the situation, but it seems like somebody down rated your post for no reason. If they had any proof to the contrary they should have posted it instead of just clicking to downrate.


RE: Lolz
By edpsx on 3/2/07, Rating: -1
RE: Lolz
By scrapsma54 on 3/2/07, Rating: -1
RE: Lolz
By Scabies on 3/2/07, Rating: 0
RE: Lolz
By spwrozek on 3/2/2007 10:06:44 AM , Rating: 4
I don't know if I buy that. As I recall the 360 had a lot of issues at launch. Overheating, loud, giant power brick, red circle of death, shortages, etc. DT reported on them and people bashed on them. That was well over a year ago though. People are going to be talking about the current and forgetting the past. So now it is the PS3s turn. The Wii even had the Wiimote issue but Nintendo fixed it real quick. When it comes to Sony people are just pissed off. It just seems like they are back talking everything, changing their minds, and making some features, which consumers really want, an after thought. Then to push it over the edge the people in charge just don't know when to say 'no comment'.


RE: Lolz
By Kefner on 3/2/2007 10:12:22 AM , Rating: 2
Well said!


RE: Lolz
By scrapsma54 on 3/2/07, Rating: 0
Soft emulation of PS2 games.
By nurbsenvi on 3/2/2007 10:04:12 AM , Rating: 2
So from future firmware updates those PS3s equipped with GS/EE will still utilize the chip or will they abandon the use of it?




RE: Soft emulation of PS2 games.
By threepac3 on 3/2/2007 10:22:23 AM , Rating: 2
You know what thats a very good question... That would be intresting what Sony decides to do about the old chips. It could end up like this; SOny may say to themselves that maybe they could get a higher compatibility threshold if they disable the chips in firmware and emu. them in software.


RE: Soft emulation of PS2 games.
By Scabies on 3/2/2007 10:43:52 AM , Rating: 2
more importantly, if they go to software compatibility/emulation, perhaps they can upsample the graphics? FFVII with no jaggies!


I can see the Future.
By DarthKojima on 3/3/2007 4:12:02 AM , Rating: 2
I can see that Sony will dominate EuroAsia 2 years from now.

Gran Turismo, F1 Series and Winning Eleven alone can dominate PS3 sales here in Europe.

and in Asia hmm.. more Japan RPGS and Action-Adventure titles.

Xbox is for FPS only. no wonder they praise MS so much ;)




RE: I can see the Future.
By splines on 3/3/2007 6:46:39 AM , Rating: 3
I love JRPG's.

I love the bits where you do absolutely nothing to affect the outcome, since you're watching an overblown cutscene full of faux dramatics.

Or the bits where they show you tons of pretty and forget to mention that stuff only happens in the non-interactive bits during battles and that in reality it doesn't look much better than anything out on the market.

Or that when it arrives here it mainly seems to be aimed at wannabe western otaku who love their hentai and fan-service.

Or that the mechanics in any JRPG's you'd care to mention are essentially a grind towards a boss fight with absolutely no real characterisation, plot or compelling reason to stick around.

Give me Fallout any day of the week, in other words.


nice but?
By dome1234 on 3/2/2007 8:47:51 AM , Rating: 2
all these new features are nice addition to all ps3 owners or would be owners I'm sure, but I can't help but thinking, for the console to be really competitive, a price drop is a must. I wouldn't be surprised at a fall price drop since they're going software emu for ps1/2 games and I remember reading somewhere that they're switching to 65nm for cell.