Sony PS3: Doom & Gloom

Does XBox 360 even have 1080p games?

The PS3 having 1080p is not going to be a huge advantage. Even so, 1080p isn't a night and day increase, considering most LCD 1080p capable displays will upconvert th 1080i signal to 1080p anyway it's a mute point.

geez, I just love PS3 fanboy rationalization.

upconverted 1080i != 1080p

Actually it is: 1080i film-based content can become true 1080p

The following examples refer to content that is encoded in progressive-scan form during recording or transmission—what would be considered "native" progressive signals. However, where 24 fps film-based material is concerned, a 1080i encoded/transmitted stream can become a true "1080p" signal during playback by deinterlacing to re-combine the split field pairs into their original progressive film-scanned frames. Regarding 24 fps film-source material presented in conventional 1080i60 form, the deinterlacing process that achieves this goal is usually referred to as "3-2 pulldown reversal". The importance of this is that, where film-based content is concerned, all 1080-interlaced signals are potentially 1080p signals given the proper deinterlacing. As long as no additional image-degradation steps were applied during signal mastering (such as excessive vertical-pass filtering), the image from a properly deinterlaced film-source 1080i signal and a native-encoded 1080p signal will look exactly the same. As more and more processors and displays come to market able to apply 3-2 pulldown reversal to film-based 1080i60 signals, the amount of available "1080p" content for viewing expands (encompassing film-based 1080i60 feeds from broadcast HD, cable, and satellite).

Source: »en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1080p

If it's outputting 1080i/60, then it can becomes 1080p/30.

look back at the original statment. user said that 1080i could be upconverted to 1080p No comment was made about the original source material. I'm not going to ASSUME that the originating signal is carrying 1080/24f.

again 1080i != to 1080p

I stand corrected, if it's being upconverted then it's not the same. If the source material is being deinterlaced at half the speed, then we're all good.

Supafly, here's a question...

What film-based content next-gen game do you know that will run at 24 fps?

none.

also, do you really want to play a game at 24fps? I know I dont. 30 is just barely acceptable.

I doubt anyone will be playing 1080p games at 60fps anytime soon either.

Which is probably the main reason that no one is releasing any 1080p games at launch.

Interlacing simply takes half of the vertical resolution and places it into a field, instead of a frame. The other hald of the vertical resolution is contained in a second field. The two fields are combined into a frame. The frame plays at the same rate as a progressive frame, BUT each of the two fields within the frame must share their allotted frame-time.

The act of interlacing video is not difficult nor process-intensive, but the reverse is also true: to deinterlace and interlaced frame it is very process-intensive in order to not lose information, or cause deinterlacing anomalies (artifacts).

A lot of manufacturers cheap their way out of deinterlacing by simply throwing away one of the fields in each frame thereby leaving a progressive frame of half the resolution. They then simply line-double this and call it the progressive original resolution. Those people should be shot, IMO.

As video codecs get more and more efficient at compressing video, the task of deinterlacing get's even more difficult. Why? Because, you can only scale a progressive frame, which means deinterlacing comes first. The next part is that deinterlacing must be done in the uncompressed world, and not while compressed in a cozy MPEG-2/4 codec.

The Microsoft Xbox 360 cannot do 1080P, but then again neither can any of the currently available HD DVD players either even though their movies are mastered-to-the disk as 1080P. But the 360 is worse as its mother doesn't believe in anything beyond 720P at this time.

Actually, I saw it as an argument for XBox. Just based on what the OP actually wrote, it seems to imply that even if the first generation PS3 games were 1080p, most gamers wouldn't really see much difference anyways.

why does sony care so much about performance? I thought the reason ppl liked ps1 and ps2 wasnt because of its screaming performance, but because it had lots of good games.

That's a good question. For some reason Sony believes in a different destiny these days. Meanwhile, Nintendo DS games are still topping the charts.

moot

When more than 1% of all HDTV owners (less than 5% of you) have 1080p, then not having 1080p on PS3 or 360 or Wii will matter, for now it is just FUD.
The bigger issue is SONY backing off some of the BS they were spouting when the 360 was launching, dont fault for it, trying to keep people waiting for the PS3 to come around. If you just today decided you wanted a PS3, you wont get one til next Spring...be-lee-dat.

They said there would be 1080p games at launch????

Consdiering the 360 is not capable of displaying 1080p I'd say no. 360 games use the same old DVD technology that the XBOX and PS2 use so how can it show games in high def? Blu-ray/HD-DVD is new technology so in 2 or 3 years when the full potentional of those 50 GB Blu-ray discs are realized the PS3 will show why it is vastly superior to the 360. How far can games go with regular DVDs that hold 9 GB at most? Unless omeone comes up with a deca-layer DVD format.

You need to educate yourself before posting Sony fanboy drivel about something you obviously know nothing about. There is a difference between encoding in 1080p for movies and rendering in 1080p for games. DVD, HD-DVD, and Blu-Ray are nothing but storage formats. It's the politics of those formats that determine what they can and cannot do. The DVD forum will not allow for DVD's to output an HD source, but the format is capable of doing so. High Def movies can fit into the 9Gb that a DVD offers if one uses the right codecs and compression like WMV-HD. As for gaming in HD people have been doing that on the PC for years already even when most games were on CD.

I can actually run Quake 1 in 1920x1200 on my monitor, even better than 1080p, and the game is 10 years old.

Your TV sets will not support 1080p.

Everyone whined about the shortage of 360's and said the PS3 will be better at launch... well it looks like its heading down the same road..

Time will tell.

Ryan

Technicaly it's better than the XBOX launch, but hardly. People who want a PS3 will either be camping out on launch night or waiting a while.
I think the important thing for Sony is that they have enough for holiday sales.

agreed.

i camped for my 360 and found it to do the 3 red lights of doom a week later..

and rumor has it the PS3 is being shipped where 1 or more cores on their 8 core CPU is dead. However the PS3 only requires that 7 cores be operational for it to boot.

Ryan

So, 1 or more dead, but requires 7 to boot, makes mathematical sense

Um ... where have you heard that? Link to anyone reporting it?

You know those silly rumors, just so much info on the net

»www.dailytech.com/articl ··· sid=3295

That's ABSURD, why a console would need 8 cores is beyond me to begin with, then 10-20 percent that actually work? Wow, that's just.....shakes head. It's a shocker the price for the PS3 isn't higher due to just THAT fact alone.

Edit due to spelling, in bold. Thanks for your cooperation in this critical matter.

From the article:

-- With Reeves' statements, it appears as though Sony will be producing PlayStation 3 consoles with different Cell processors -- some with all eight cores operational and some with just seven. Reeves however does not believe that Sony will offer different pricing for the machines and only time will tell if there will be performance differences. Reeves says however that users will not see any differences in speed. "The PlayStation 3 only uses seven of [the eight cores]. You'd have a spare."--

I don't see a problem if IBM is already saying the PS3 will fully function with no degradation at 7 cells. The thing to look out for is the possibility of a second cell burning out and making your PS3 an expensive deadweight (after warranty). Doesn't seem like it would be likely with the testing IBM is doing, and even if there is a percentage out there Sony will likely do the same thing Microsoft did with the Xbox (DVD drive scratching disks to the point they are unreadable) and just keep repairing or replacing the faulty equipment regardless of warranty .

Yeah, it's pretty much a non-issue. While most of the processors made will not have all the cells working, the PS3 will be shipping with chips that have either 7 or 8 cells working. There is no reason (yet) to believe these cells have high burnout rates. If I were to buy a PS3 I would wait before buying to see what happens.
It's a further non-issue for me as I'm going for the cheap-o wii.

It's just a cpu, Cpu's don't generally go bad. Besides I seriously doubt that the chip will be able to function if a cell burns out whether it has 7 or 8 working to begin with. I imagine the chip goes thru a grading process and after that process something is done to lock in the number of cells the chip will use be able to use; similar to how many of the first PII chips were made into Celerons.

From what I've read previously about cell, if Sony is shipping any PS3's with 7 cell's developers will only develop titles that will use 7 cells. It doesn't seem that it's a matter of throwing code at the processor and it figures out how to distribute it amongst the cells; the compiler generates code that say's "I need six cells and here's what they'll do" thus they'll have to compile the code that they write for the lowest common denominator, that being seven cells. Furthermore most of the games at launch won't even use the cells for much relying on the PPC core to do the work. Again this is what I get from various things I've read over the past year or so, correct me if I'm wrong.

That DailyTech story seems fishy if you didn't notice.

iirc, even if a cell burns out, the rest would remain intact and function. they all connect to a central PPE module that dictates where specific instructions go to, which SPE (one of those "cores") will do the work, and which are free to assign other tasks. So if one is dead. it will just skip it and go to the next available core. It should anyway.

As far as the possibility of cores burning out. Its hard to say. this is a new technology, brand new. We dont know for sure if the architecture itself tends to become overheated, if the internal stores (think l1 cache for each of the cores) tend to overheat. Or if the whole process itself will tend to be bottlenecked by some performance problem in the PPE (which is the single most important thing needed to funtcion in a cell chip)

while im sure the developers CAN write code specifically to use a number of cells, im pretty sure they can also just wring code segments that will be queued and run in order of available spe.

That's not really rumor, it's pretty widely understood. The specification for a cell chip is to have 8 SPE's and 1 PPE. By default, one of the SPE's is going to come turned off. Developers have known all along that they are only going to have 7 SPE's and 1 PPE the whole time, so this really isn't an issue.

Must be a slow news day. Another PS3? problem memo lol ::Yawn:: When is TiVo 3 coming out?

Wasnt there a post around here saying that 1080p has no real purpose?

Nintendo Wii to take marketshare from Sony and Microsoft.
Nintendo won't charge for online gaming access, only for oldskool Nintendo games. This is a PLUS.

Sony won't make the numbers it forecasts.

Game magazines will utter "ultimatte fan-boy praise" for Sony PS3.

Microsoft has secret weapon ready to drop once Sony can get the PS3 out. Will steal thunder. Likely the rev2 of Xbox 360 (smaller 65nm processors, Halo 3, new accessories)

ebay will see thousands of scams of PS3 units and Wii units.

Just ask the developers who write the games: MS and Nintendo have cheaper development kits. Better licensing deals for retail software.

Am I biased against Sony? maybe. But until it's out and I see that all my friends have bought one, an extra controller, online access, and games...then I'll not be so skeptical. FOr now, it is just Sony FanBoy Hype. Long Live SoNy BluRay!

Last I heard, they haven't even started producing units yet.

Is this still the case?

They started production a week ago in China and Taiwan.

No they have not started assembly of the PS3; that's slated for late September. They have, on the other hand, started production of its components.

As for the Xbox 360, there were 600,000 that were made available to the US when it launched. True, when you look at the big picture, 200,000 consoles isn't a staggering amount. Still, it's a lot more than the 400,000 PS3's that Sony will ship.

Well, it's been a rough year over at Sony, not just a rough week.

First, Dell announces a massive recall of Sony produced laptop batteries that burst into flames, then Apple announces a similar recall of laptop batteries. Both recalls will cost Sony millions.

Now, no PS3 for the Euro market for the holiday season, and half the units they thought they would have for North America.

Tough times at Sony. It's a shame, they've been one of the best producers of consumer electronics for over 20 years. I have several Sony products I am very happy with (among them, a 55" projection LCD TV).

I may find myself waiting in line to buy a PS3, but you can be it won't be to play it. If they're gonna be that scarce, I'm buying one and keeping it until 2 weeks before Christmas, and making a killing on E-Bay.

I've been with all consoles, PS, PS2, Xbox, Genesis, Dreamcast. No console has ever given me more entertaining games than the Nintendo consoles. Sure, the graphics were never the best, but really that's not important to me. That's not to say any of the other consoles never had good games, it just seems to me the number of good games was higher.

Nintendo once again made me happy with the DS Lite. The games are unique, and very entertaining. I can only play so many Maddens before I get bored, and I don't care how good the graphics get.

So, I'm investing my money in a Wii. Nintendo has not let me down yet. The 360 just doesn't have games I want to play yet. I don't care about Halo, to me it is nothing new or unique.

I will buy a 360 and then a Wii.

Well said. Though I somewhat liked Halo, it became a boring game with in a few months. The 360 has no games to my liking. The Wii's controller looks quite impressive (especially at their E3 intro)

Wired's excellent, long article about Sony:

»www.wired.com/wired/arch ··· ony.html

I doubt any single product is going to make or break Sony. The PS3, costly due to its forced-inclusion of the BD transport system, is part of a much larger project Sony hopes to bring the revenue.

Adding 1080P playback for content (game, movie, etc.) to their SXRD (LCoS) display initiative is an even bigger and bolder attempt to do things their way and not consider anything from outside their own tight control.

Bad business model if they expect most of there customers are with high end equipment they should think again. No kid will have a 1080p screen and probably the money to pay for the PS3 anyway.

So whose going to buy?

Well, IBM is shipping the chips to Nintendo so assembly and packaging should only take another week or two. This may be true that Wii is going to ship in a few weeks in Japan.