RAM Supplier, Date Speculation For PS3

Andrew writes "A press release has announced that Sony have officially licensed XDR DRAM, a joint effort between Elpida, Toshiba, and Rambus, for use in their future Cell broadband technology apps, which should include the next incarnation of the PlayStation series." An additional report at Gamesindustry.biz suggests that "..it's likely that the vast bulk of Elpida's [DRAM] output will be destined for PlayStation 3", and speculates on the PS3's release date based on the DRAM's 2004/5 production schedule: "We're not gambling types, but if we were, we'd put money on a mid-2005 [Playstation 3] launch in Japan, followed by US and European launches only a few months apart later that year - perhaps September 2005 in the USA, and November 2005 in Europe..."

triple play

I'm kind of hoping for a triple launch of all three systems on the same day. =) Just to see how it would play out. Think about it sales comparisons. :) I for one will prolly be buying both a ps3 and the new nintendo system, which I'm really hoping they will call the "Nintendo Entertainment System." I just hope the PS3 has some good launch titles, preferably by square... otherwise, I may hold off.

One thing I've been wondering...

What's the deal with the PS3's supposed ability to have "massive computing power" by connecting up with other PS3s over the internet? They make it sound like somehow that will allow it to have better graphics at somesuch -- where, in reality, the latency would be so high compared to the 15 ms required to output 60fps video that it would be useless. How do they plan on using all of that computing power to make games more fun to play? Or are they just going to sell it out to big companies as the largest parallel computing platform in the world?

Re:One thing I've been wondering...

What's the deal with the PS3's supposed ability to have "massive computing power" by connecting up with other PS3s over the internet?

The deal is whoever said that started a rumor with their lack of understanding. The "Cell computing" that Sony is talking about will probably involve multiple processors inside the PS3, or even on a single die, and not multiple PS3 machines over the internet for exactly the reasons you describe. Sony hasn't said really, so anything you've read about it on the internet has been speculation (including this).

Not according to Sony

From news.com:

"Speaking at the Game Developers Conference (GDC), an annual trade show for the creative and technological sides of the game industry, Shin'ichi Okamoto, chief technical officer for Sony Computer Entertainment, said research efforts for the PlayStation 3 are focusing on distributed computing, a method for spreading computational tasks across myriad networked computers."

and further down the article:

"Okamoto said the method also appears to hold the most promise for dramatically boosting the performance of the next PlayStation. Game developers have said they would like the next console to have a thousand times the processing power of the PlayStation 2. There's no way to do that with hardware advances alone, he said.

"Moore's Law is too slow for us," Okamoto said, referring to the long-held truism that semiconductor power doubles roughly every 18 months. "We can't wait 20 years" to achieve a 1,000-fold increase in PlayStation performance, he said.

Okamoto said Sony is working with IBM to apply Big Blue's research in "grid computing," a variation of distributed computing, to the next PlayStation. While he didn't share details, the plan presumably would involve networked game machines sharing software, processing power and data."

and from theinquirer.net: (not that you could trust a name like that)

"SOURCES SAID that the architecture of the Sony Playstation3 is patently clear when you've found the US patent that it filed September 26th last year.
A reliable source close to Sony's plans explained the way the Playstation3 works to the INQUIRER.

He said that the computers are made of cells, each one containing a CPU, which will probably be a PowerPC, and eight APUs (vectorial processors) each with 128K of memory.

It will run at 4GHz, producing a not inconsiderable 256Gflops, with the cells connected to the central 64MB memory through a switched 1024 bit bus.

It's still not clear how many of these "cells" will be used in the Playstation3, but Sony reckoned some time ago it could be as many as one teraflop, probably making it a four cell architecture.

Optical links - perhaps even FireWire optical links - could be used to share computing power."

I suspect that Sony is deliberately vague on what the cell technology will do, but it appears to be a multiprocessor system with the capability of networked systems to spread the processing demands around.

Who knows what the end result will be, though.

3000 times?

Hmmm... 3000 times more powerful. didn't they claim the PS2 was supposed to be approx. a thousand times more powerful than the PS1? If they crowned the PS2 with the "Emotion Engine" does that mean the PS3 will get the "Hyperbole Engine"?

Consoles

I was seriously underwhelmed back when the PS2 came out. The early games for most consoles, quite frankly, suck. It's much more economical to wait a few months until a) the price comes down a tad and b) some gods-be-damned GAMES come out.

Of course, I'm very cynical of the modern gaming industry in general. The SNES was the last system I genuinely liked (and bought more than a handful games for). Most PS* games look completely uninteresting to me. Even Nintendo's latest offerings seem lackluster (Metroit Prime being a shining example of an exception to that). My favorite RPG is still Final Fantasy IV, my favorite sports game is still Ice Hockey for the NES (Super DodgeBall being a close second)...

Graphics got better, sound got better, but that's it. Innovation is largely dead, and actual fun often takes a back seat to movie tie-ins and deadlines.

I still have my NES and SNES, and I play them far more than I play any of the modern systems to which I have access.

Huh?

...Sony have officially licensed XDR DRAM...

Huh? Have licensed?

Grrrr...

Re:Wohooo! (I get to feed my first troll!!!) :)

I know very little, but I've managed to pump some information from a few insiders (read: the following may be total BS, but it has some backing). The PS3 will have more then enough power to play PS1 and PS2 games so, in addition to any game currently in production; you can access the largest collection of console game on the market today.

Not to bash the GameCube (GCN?), but you will not be able to fault the PS3 for lack of games.