Jump to content

PlayStation 3

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 66.27.111.77 (talk) at 15:25, 28 May 2006 (→‎Controller). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Template:Future product

PlayStation 3
PlayStation 3 Logo
PlayStation 3 Logo
ManufacturerSony Computer Entertainment
TypeVideo game console
GenerationSeventh generation era
LifespanNovember 11 2006 (Japan)
November 17, 2006 (North America)
November 17, 2006 (Europe)
November 17, 2006 (Australia)
MediaBD-ROM
DVD-ROM
CD-ROM
CPU3.2 GHz PPC Cell with 7 3.2 GHz SPEs
Online servicesPlayStation Network Platform (PNP)
PredecessorPlayStation 2

The PlayStation 3 (PS3) will be Sony's seventh generation era video game console in the PlayStation series. It is the successor to the PlayStation 2 and will mainly compete against Nintendo's Wii and Microsoft's Xbox 360. The PS3 will be released on November 11, 2006 in Japan and November 17, 2006 in the rest of the world, and will ship in two initial configurations.

The PS3 was officially unveiled on May 16, 2005 by Sony during an E3 conference, where the console was first shown to the public. A functional version of the console was not at E3 2005 or the Tokyo Game Show in September 2005, although at both events, demonstrations were held on devkits (for example Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots) and comparable PC hardware, and video footage based on the predicted PS3 specifications was produced (for example for Mobile Suit Gundam).

Thus far, public reception of the console has been mixed with the Sony stockmarket price declining partially due to worries about the future of the PlayStation brand and its profitability.[1] However, Sony's chief has cited its widespread developer support and advanced "future-proofed" technologies such as Blu-ray and the Cell processor, will ensure the continued success of the PlayStation platform.[2]

Retail configurations and pricing

Sony's current retail strategy for the PlayStation 3 will involve two different configurations that are detailed in a Sony Press release.[3] The "premium" or 60 GB version of the PlayStation 3 comes with an internal 60 GB hard drive. This version of the console will also include Wi-Fi connectivity, HDMI output, and multiple flash memory card readers out of the box.

The 20 GB version of the console will not feature Wi-Fi, HDMI, or a memory card reader. The hard drive is upgradeable, and memory card and Wi-Fi support can be added through adaptors. The only non-upgradeable feature is the HDMI support.[4]

The lack of HDMI output in the 20 GB model could potentially cause problems with restricted output resolution on Blu-ray video. An ICT flag can be set by content producers, which forces non-HDCP video down to resolutions comparable to DVD-Video. SCEA president Kaz Hirai stated that it is "too early to speculate at this point" whether movie producers will activate the ICT feature.[5]

System Features
Feature 20 GB System 60 GB System
Size of hard drive 20 GB 60 GB
Blu-ray drive Yes Yes
Upgradable hard drive Yes Yes
Bluetooth controllers Yes Yes
Wi-Fi connectivity No Yes
HDMI connection No Yes
Flash memory card reader No Yes
Suggested retail price by region
Region Expected pricing on release
20 GB version 60 GB version
Europe Europe (Euro)[6] €499 €599
United Kingdom United Kingdom (GBP)[7] n/a £425
Japan Japan (Yen)[3] ¥59,800 Open price
United States United States (USD)[8] $499 $599
Canada Canada (CAD)[8] $549 $659
Australia Australia (AUD)[9] $829 $999

* Prices and release dates subject to change

For the UK market, Sony Computer Entertainment UK has stated that it is likely that they will only launch the 60 GB version.[7]

In Japan, Sony has opted to go with an open pricing scheme for the 60 GB model, allowing retailers to set a pricepoint themselves. Rakuten, one of the biggest Japanese online retailers, has set their pricepoint at ¥71,800, or ¥75,390 (about US$675) with taxes added.[10]

The PS3 has received mixed reactions for its price, which is higher than its same-generation competition in all world markets.[11] Sony has publicly defended its pricing model, citing the PS3's higher performance and inclusion of a Blu-ray drive, of which stand-alone players will cost an estimated US$1000.[5][11]

Games in development

Main article: List of PlayStation 3 games

As of March 2006, there are already over 230 PS3 games announced by multiple developers and publishers, like SCEI, Electronic Arts, Konami, Namco, Ubisoft, Capcom, Square Enix, Sega and many others. As well as announced titles there are likely to be many 'secret projects' already under development.

A number of developers have already announced games for the PS3. Some anticipated ones include: Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots , Assassin's Creed, Final Fantasy XIII, Killzone PS3, Resident Evil 5, Devil May Cry 4, Silent Hill 5, Shin Megami Tensei, Armored Core 4 , NBA Live 07, Unreal Tournament 2007, Resistance: Fall of Man, Grand Theft Auto IV, Tekken 6, Heavenly Sword, Warhawk and Mercenaries 2: World in Flames

At the E3 2005 Press booths, Sony showed some pre-rendered and some real-time videos of games in development with the codenames Eyedentify, Vision Gran Turismo and MotorStorm. However, it was later determined that the Gran Turismo demo was in fact, running on a PC system, not PS3 hardware.[citation needed] Also shown at E3 was a Final Fantasy VII technical demo of the opening sequence remade for the PlayStation 3 system. At this time, 8 games have been mentioned as possible PS3 launch titles: Lair from Factor 5, Warhawk from Incognito Entertainment, Unreal Tournament 2007 from Epic Games, and Resistance: Fall of Man from Insomniac Games, Sonic the Hedgehog from Sega, WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2007 from THQ, , Call of Duty 3 from Activision and Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie from Ubisoft.

Sony Computer Entertainment CEO, Kaz Hirai said that as many as 15 PS3 titles could be available for launch.[12]

Backward compatibility

Sony has stated that the PlayStation 3 will have backward compatibility with the PlayStation and PlayStation 2, and that every PS1 and PS2 game that observes its respective system's TRC (Technical Requirements Checklist) will be playable on PS3 at launch.[13]

At the 2006 PlayStation Business Briefing, SCE president Ken Kutaragi asked developers to adhere to the TRC to facilitate compatibility with future PlayStations, stating that the company was having some difficulty getting backward compatibility with games that had not followed the TRCs. "Either it's accidental or on purpose; there's actually a lot of games that don't follow the TRC."[14].

The PlayStation 3 does not include interfaces for legacy PlayStation devices such as the DualShock controller. It is not known at this time whether USB devices for PlayStation 2 will be compatible with PlayStation 3.

Online services (PNP)

Main article: PlayStation Network Platform

In response to Microsoft's successful Xbox Live network, Sony announced a unified online service for the PlayStation 3 console at the 2006 PlayStation Business Briefing meeting in Tokyo. The name of the service has been given the working title of "PlayStation Network Platform" and Sony has confirmed that the service will be free and include multiplayer support. However developers will be free to charge a subscription fee if they should choose to, as is commonplace for massively multiplayer online games (MMO). It is being jointly developed by Sony Computer Entertainment and Sony Online Entertainment.[15]

Online features

Communication/Community:

  • Online Gaming
  • Voice/Video chat
  • Messaging
  • Lobby/Matchmaking
  • Score/Ranking
  • Friend list/Avatar
  • Game data upload/download

Commerce:

  • Shop (accessible from inside games)
  • Content Download
  • Micro Payment
  • Subscription
  • Entitlement (user access rights) management

Account:

  • User Registration
  • Login ID/Handling of name issues

Interface and operating system

The PS3 will use the Cross Media Bar (XMB) already used in the PlayStation Portable and PSX devices. The version demonstrated at E3 2006 included options for different user profiles, the ability to explore photos, play music and movie trailers from the hard drive, compatibility for a USB Keyboard and Mouse, a full Internet browser and a Friends menu. In a separate demo Sony also presented the "Marketplace" where players can buy and download music, have a profile, and act in karaoke's in a service called "SingStar".

It has been confirmed that Linux will be pre-installed on the PS3 hard drive. Sony hopes this will encourage homebrew development.

"Because we have plans for having Linux on board [the PS3], we also recognize Linux programming activities... Other than game studios tied to official developer licenses, we'd like to see various individuals participate in content creation for the PS3."[16]

Currently it is unknown if Linux will be the operating system used to run everything, including the Cross Media Bar, or if the system will operate as a dual boot environment, where Linux would be loaded from the Cross Media Bar menu. Sony has not said what Linux distribution they will use, or if they will make their own.

Hardware specifications

The following specifications are based on a press release by Sony at the 2005 E3 Conference,[17] and slides from a Sony presentation at the 2006 Game Developer's Conference.[18]

Central processing unit (CPU)

3.2 GHz Cell multi-core processor: 1 PowerPC-based "Power Processing Element" and 8 3.2 GHz Synergistic Processing Elements (SPEs). The PPE has a 512 KB L2 cache and one VMX (AltiVec) vector unit. Each of the eight SPEs is a RISC processor with 128-bit 128 SIMD GPRs and superscalar functions. Each SPE has 256 KB of software-addressable SRAM.

Only seven SPEs are active; the eighth is redundant, to improve yield. If one of the eight has a manufacturing defect, it is disabled without rendering the entire unit defective. Additionally, one SPE is reserved for use by the system's OS, leaving six SPEs directly available to applications.

Graphics processing unit (GPU)

File:Ps3 2.jpg
The rear of the 20GB PlayStation 3 as it was shown at E3 2006. AC IN, AV MULTI OUT, DIGITAL OUT and an RJ-45 network port are visible

Custom RSX or "Reality Synthesizer" design co-developed by NVIDIA and Sony:

  • Based on NVIDIA NV47
  • Clocked at 550 MHz
  • 128-bit DDR memory interface
  • 211.2 GFLOPS programmable (384 FLOPS per clock)
  • Theoretical 1.8 TFLOPS if combined with CPU.
  • Multi-way programmable parallel floating point shader pipelines
  • 136 shader operations per clock
  • 74.8 billion shader operations per second (100 billion with CPU)
  • 24 2D texture lookups per clock
  • 1.1 billion vertices per second
  • 128-bit pixel precision offers rendering of scenes with high dynamic range imaging
  • Full high definition output (up to 1080p)

Memory

Theoretical system bandwidth

  • 204.8 GB/s Cell Element Interconnect Bus (Theoretical peak performance)[19]
  • Cell FlexIO Bus: 35 GB/s outbound, 25 GB/s inbound (7 outbound and 5 inbound 1Byte wide channels operating at 5 GHz) (effective bandwidth typically 50-80% of total)[20]
  • 25.6 GB/s to Main Ram XDR DRAM: 64 bits × 3.2 GHz / 8 bits to a byte
  • 22.4 GB/s to GDDR3 VRAM: 128 bits × 700 MHz × 2 accesses per clock cycle (one per edge) / 8 bits to a byte
  • RSX 20 GB/s (write), 15 GB/s (read)
  • SB 2.5 GB/s write and 2.5 GB/s read

Audio/video output

Video

Sound

Storage

  • Blu-ray Disc: PlayStation 3 BD-ROM, BD-Video, BD-R, BD-RE. 2x (9.0MB/sec)
  • DVD: PlayStation 2 DVD-ROM, DVD-Video, DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW. 8x (11.0MB/sec max)
  • CD: PlayStation CD-ROM, PlayStation 2 CD-ROM, CD-DA, CD-DA (ROM), CD-R, CD-RW, SACD, SACD Hybrid (CD layer) SACD HD. 24x (3.5MB/sec max)
  • Hard Drive: Pre-Installed 20 GB / 60 GB (depending on package), 2.5", detachable/upgradeable, with Linux pre-installed.[21][22]
  • Memory card readers (60 GB model only)

Communications

Controller

File:Ps3controller.jpg
The final PlayStation 3 controller.

At Sony's 2006 E3 press conference, a new PlayStation 3 controller design was revealed. The design was superficially very similar to a wireless version of the DualShock 2 controller, as opposed to the wireless "boomerang" prototype design showcased a year earlier.

The PlayStation 3 controller features a USB mini-B connector terminal at the top of the controller for charging the internal battery through USB, and also for wired play. There are four numbered LED indicators, to identify and distinguish multiple connected wireless controllers.

In addition to the basic design, the other major feature revealed at the press conference was the ability to sense "3-posture-axis" of roll, pitch, yaw and translational acceleration to allow for six degrees of freedom. The controller does not sense angular acceleration. A special version of the game Warhawk was used to demonstrate these new capabilities during the presentation of the new controller.

The 2005 "Boomerang" or "Banana" controller was officially abandoned.

The announcement of having a motion and tilt sensitive controller followed Nintendo's announcement of similar functionality in their Wii Remote controller at the Tokyo Game Show 2005. Sony executives have spoken on the matter, saying they are happy to admit they have not started the wave, but have jumped onto the wave, because they believe it will be one of the defining characteristics of next-generation gaming. [23] Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto has called the similarity flattering, but unconcerning.[24]

The rumble capability of the previous controllers was omitted, according to Sony to prevent interference with motion sensing. This has resulted in a lighter controller. Immersion Corporation, who previously won a lawsuit on the DualShock 2's rumble functionality, has stated that they are certain that rumble features could be integrated with motion-sensing in the PS3 controller. They have offered to work on the technology pending an end to litigation.[25] Some developers were not notified about the lack of rumble in the controller until late in development.[26]

Some minor refinements have also been made to the controller. In place of the "Analog" button and light found on previous PlayStation controllers, a button with the PlayStation logo has been added to the center of the controller face, similar to the Guide button of the Xbox 360 controller. Some of the buttons have been raised from their previous versions, to enhance their pressure-sensitive analog functionality. In particular, the L2 and R2 shoulder buttons have been redesigned to allow for a much deeper depression range, making them more trigger like. The analogue sticks also have a wider range of motion and finer analog sensitivity—at 10-bit accuracy, an improvement upon the 8-bit accuracy of the previous models.[27]

Power

The power supply will be built into the console.

Overall floating-point capability

In a slide show at their E3 conference, Sony presented the "CPU floating point capability" of the PlayStation 3's Cell CPU, and compared it to other CPUs. In their official press release, the same statistic regarding the PS3 as a whole was reported to be 2 TFLOPS[17].

The figures are rounded estimates for single-precision operations based on addition of the theoretical maximum floating point performances of the processing units in the Cell CPU and those of the RSX GPU. Inevitably, real-world performance for both systems will be lower. PlayStation 3's Cell CPU achieves 256 GFLOPS single precision and is reported at around 26 GFLOPS double precision. Additionally, programmers may find it difficult, initially, to optimize their game engines to make the best use of the highly parallel architectures of both systems, further reducing real-world performance.

Miscellaneous

Software development

The PlayStation 3, unlike the PlayStation and PlayStation 2 systems, is based on open and publicly available application programming interfaces.

The list of open standards includes:

Sublicensed technologies includes:

The list of standards they are reported to be considering includes:

Sony has selected several technologies and arranged several sublicensing agreements to create an advanced software development kit for developers. In addition, in 2005 Sony purchased SN Systems, a former provider of Microsoft Windows-based development tools for a variety of console platforms; including PlayStation 2, GameCube, PSP and Nintendo DS to create additional GNU development tools. Sony is providing all developers with GNU toolchains where SN Systems will provide more customer-oriented GNU tools at an additional cost.

Region coding

During a Q&A session at the 2006 Game Developers Conference, Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios President Phil Harrison confirmed that the PlayStation 3 will feature region-free gaming. [34]

Blu-ray movies will still use a region code, the Blu-ray region code will be different from the DVD region code.

See also

References

  1. ^ Kageyama, Yuri (2006-04-28). "Sony stock falls after earnings report". MSNBC.com. Retrieved 2006-05-23. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  2. ^ "Exclusive: Sony's Phil Harrison Tells All on PS3, Peter Moore, Nintendo Wii". GamePro. 2006-05-14. Retrieved 2006-05-24. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  3. ^ a b "PLAYSTATION®3 LAUNCHES ON NOVEMBER 11, 2006 IN JAPAN" (PDF) (Press release). Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. 2006-05-08. Retrieved 2006-05-18. {{cite press release}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  4. ^ Gibson, Ellie (2006-05-16). "20GB PlayStation 3 will be upgradeable, says Sony". gamesindustry.biz. Retrieved May 16. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  5. ^ a b Morris, Chris (2006-05-11). "PlayStation 3 boss defends high price". CNNMoney.com. Retrieved 2006-05-21.
  6. ^ "PLAYSTATION®3 LAUNCHES ON NOVEMBER 17, 2006 ACROSS MAINLAND EUROPE AND AUSTRALASIA" (Press release). Sony Computer Entertainment Europe. 2006-05-08. Retrieved 2006-05-18. {{cite press release}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  7. ^ a b "Report: PlayStation 3 to cost £425 in UK". GameSpot. 2006-05-19. Retrieved 2006-05-19.
  8. ^ a b "PLAYSTATION®3 LAUNCHES ON NOVEMBER 17, 2006 IN NORTH AMERICA" (Press release). Sony Computer Entertainment America. 2006-05-08. Retrieved 2006-05-18. {{cite press release}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  9. ^ Ramsay, Randolph & Asher Moses (2006-05-09). "Australian PS3 launch date locked in". CNET Networks Australia. Retrieved 2006-05-18.
  10. ^ "【楽天市場】SONY Play Station （プレイステーション）：アットワールドオンラインショップ". Rakuten (in Japanese). Retrieved 2006-05-22.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link)
  11. ^ a b Slagle, Matt (2006-05-10). "Analysts, Experts Debate Cost of Console". Forbes.com. Retrieved 2006-05-21.
  12. ^ Lahti, Evan (2006-05-17). "15 Titles Available At PS3 Launch?". Gaminghorizon.com. Retrieved 2006-05-26. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  13. ^ Remo, Chris (2006-04-22). "Sony Keynote by Phil Harrison". Shacknews. Retrieved 2006-05-18.
  14. ^ Hirohiko Niizumi (2006-03-15). "Spot On: The 2006 PlayStation Business Briefing". GameSpot. Retrieved 2006-05-18.
  15. ^ "PlayStation Network Platform detailed". www.gamespot.com. Retrieved Mar 15. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  16. ^ Carless, Simon (2006-05-12). "E3: Kawanishi Talks Homebrew Linux PS3 Development". Gamasutra. Retrieved 2006-05-24.
  17. ^ a b "SONY COMPUTER ENTERTAINMENT INC. TO LAUNCH ITS NEXT GENERATION COMPUTER ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM, PLAYSTATION®3 IN SPRING 2006" (PDF) (Press release). Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. 2005-05-16. Retrieved 2006-05-26. {{cite press release}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  18. ^ "Slides from Sony's 2006 GDC Presentation". Game Watch. Retrieved 2006-05-25.
  19. ^ Chen, Thomas; et al. (2005-11-29). "Cell Broadband Engine Architecture and its first implementation: a performance view (The Element Interconnect Bus)". IBM. Retrieved 2006-05-18. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Explicit use of et al. in: |author= (help)
  20. ^ Chen, Thomas; et al. (2005-11-29). "Cell Broadband Engine Architecture and its first implementation: a performance view (Flexible I/O Interface)". IBM. Retrieved 2006-05-18. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Explicit use of et al. in: |author= (help)
  21. ^ "PS Biz Brief 06: PS3 HDD Required - It's 60GB and Linux too". ign.com. Retrieved 2006-03-15.
  22. ^ "CONFIRMED: PS3 to Ship with HDD". next-gen.biz. March 20, 2006. Retrieved 2006-03-20.
  23. ^ Fahey, Rob (2006-05-12). "E3: Sony's Phil Harrison". gamesindustry.biz. Retrieved 2006-05-22.
  24. ^ Hatfield, Daemon (2006-05-22). "Miyamoto Flattered by PS3 Controller". IGN. Retrieved 2006-05-23.
  25. ^ Brightman, James (2005-05-19). "Immersion Speaks Out on PS3 Controller". BusinessWeek. Retrieved 2006-05-22.
  26. ^ Hurley, Oliver (2006-05-13). "PS3 Key PS3 developers still unaware of new pad's lack of vibration". GamesRadar. Future Publishing. Retrieved 2006-05-22.
  27. ^ "SCE ANNOUNCES NEW CONTROLLER FOR PLAYSTATION®3" (PDF) (Press release). Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. 2006-05-09. Retrieved 2006-05-24. {{cite press release}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  28. ^ Surette, Tim (2005-11-28). "PS3 to include parental controls". GameSpot. Retrieved May 24. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  29. ^ Arnaud, Rémi. "PS3 to include parental controls" (PDF). Khronos Group. Retrieved May 24. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  30. ^ "pixeluxentertainment.com". Retrieved Sep 15. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |org= ignored (help)
  31. ^ "alias.com now autodesk". Retrieved Feb 25. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |org= ignored (help)
  32. ^ "Kynogon joins SCEI's "PLAYSTATION®3" Tools & Middleware program" (PDF) (Press release). Kynogon. 2006-01-25. Retrieved 2006-05-18. {{cite press release}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  33. ^ "Juniper Networks on IPv6 and MPLS networking in Asia – Part I". DigiTimes Publication. Retrieved June 10. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  34. ^ "Region-Free PS3 Gaming Announced". IGN.com. Retrieved March 22. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=PlayStation_3&oldid=55579464"