Sony Introduces Playstation 3, to launch in 2006
by Anand Lal Shimpi on May 16, 2005 9:12 PM EST- Posted in
- Trade Shows
Introducing the Playstation 3
Ken Kutaragi, President and Group CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment, lead the introduction to most of the Playstation 3 specifications. For starters, the console will not be out until Spring 2006 - contrary to recent rumors.
The console itself will be available in three colors - white, grey and black:
As we all know already, the Playstation 3 supports Blu-ray storage technology, marking one of the fundamental differences between it and Microsoft's Xbox 360, which will ship with a DVD drive.
Mr. Kutaragi also reaffirmed that the PS3 would feature backwards compatibility with both the original Playstation and PS2 games, potentially another major advantage over Microsoft's Xbox 360 from a developer and even a consumer standpoint. Microsoft has yet to confirm backwards compatibility for original Xbox games on their new 360 console, but we expect to find out for sure this week.
One of the most publicized features of the Playstation 3 is the new Cell processor. We've talked about Cell in great depth already, but here's how it applies to the Playstation 3:
Contrary to the rumors we've heard, it looks like the PS3 will implement the Cell processor that we all were introduced to a few months ago - featuring a single PPE and 8 SPEs. There is one caveat however; the Cell processor in the PS3 will only feature 7 working SPEs, one will remain disabled in order to improve yields.
The processor will also feature a 512KB L2 cache and each SPE will feature 256KB of local memory, all running at 3.2GHz built on a 90nm process.
The Cell in PS3 can decode up to 12 HD streams simultaneously at full frame rate.
Sony also showed off Cell displaying 1000 movie thumbnails at the same time:
With one fewer SPE than we originally expected, Cell continues to be the shining star of the PS3 and we aren't disappointed with its implementation in the console.
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jimmy43 - Wednesday, May 18, 2005 - link
Have you guys seen the PS3 Launch list? its HUGE, with lots of sequels albeit, but still much more impressive than the Xbox360.GoatHerderEd - Wednesday, May 18, 2005 - link
I wonder what DDR will be link on the PS3 :Pglennpratt - Wednesday, May 18, 2005 - link
DestruyaUR - Please, just about any piece of electrical hardware will be tested to determine a safe operating range.ImJacksAmygdala - Don't try to tell me that the 'before' shot is representative of a good deinterlacing job, I'll bet money that is a worst case shot. The quality you get from the faroudja chip of FFDshow has everything to do with quality deinterlacing and nothing to do with upconverting (upconverting to native res is just a necessity for you fixed pixel size users, a good display should do a good job on its own.)
DestruyaUR - Tuesday, May 17, 2005 - link
I still think the biggest problems with these consoles (both XB360 and PS3) are going to be overheating.The MS Dev team called a heatpiped heatsink "watercooling," for God's sake.
They test these things in 68 degree or lower air-conditioned labs when they SHOULD be testing them in 85-90 degree non air-conditioned dorm room environments.
tipoo - Thursday, April 7, 2016 - link
Funny reading this 11 years later where they called the heat pipe in the Lumia 950XL "water cooling". The more things change...ShadowVlican - Tuesday, May 17, 2005 - link
will do the same as #10if they remake ff7 for ps3, i'll preorder one right NOW.
ImJacksAmygdala - Tuesday, May 17, 2005 - link
#65 You might want to look at this guide to see exactly what 480I upscaled to 1080I looks like...http://htpcnews.com/main.php?id=ffdshowdvd_1
This is what you can do with Theatertek or Zoomplayer using FFDshow, but certain consumer DVD players using the Faroudja chip with proper upscaling can produce the same results. One of the most popular consumer DVD players that fit this criteria can be had for $159.99. If a console that costs $499 and plays games at 720p why can't it also produce similar results?
If these new consoles can't upscale DVD video to HD resolutions while we wait for Sony and Toshiba to hash out HD dvd video, and they can't surf the web I am not buying.
glennpratt - Tuesday, May 17, 2005 - link
ImJacksAmygdala - Xbox upscans DVD's at least to 480P. If you have a decent TV, this will look just as good as upscanning to a higher res. Really, P.scan DVD isn't great, just a small stop gap before HD DVD (you can't make something from nothing).I'm just hoping MS will be undercutting PS3 in big time in price when PS3 comes out, on account of the lack of BluRay/HDDVD. I really don't care to use my game console as a DVD player, especially if it's Sony's BetaMax 2006, but I will take a pricecut for the loss.
ImJacksAmygdala - Tuesday, May 17, 2005 - link
Did I miss something? Does it play DVD's or not? If it does will it upscale DVD video from 480i to 720p or 1080i? I will be a bit miffed if I spend $400 on a Xbox360 or a PS3 and it can't even upscale DVD resolution while it plays games at 720p. That would just be retarded.And what about web access? Can I surf the web from my couch?
HD Games, upscaled movies, and surfing the web all from my couch. The first company that gets this right has the winning console that should be more popular than TIVO.
I guess I'll go back to spending money on HTPC parts and fighting compatibility and setup problems.
slatr - Tuesday, May 17, 2005 - link
Neither of them were sucessful in delivering the last round of high end GPUs on time and in anywhere near the volume that these units will demand.******
Is IBM making both the processor and the GPU for the new consoles? Maybe they can do better than that Taiwanese outfit.. TSMC or whatever