PS3 On Track For Spring 2006 47
Reuters is reporting that, despite some reservations by analysts, Sony's next-gen console appears to be on-track for a Spring 2006 launch. From the article: " The timing of the release of Sony's updated PlayStation console has become a matter of speculation in the $25 billion video game industry and among the studios, hardware makers and other companies looking to handicap the battle over next-generation DVD technology. A spokesman for Sony, the No. 1 provider of game consoles, said it was still targeting a spring 2006 launch for the PS3, which is key to maintaining its lead in the game console market against Microsoft Corp. which recently launched its competing Xbox 360 console."
Re:Guess which console I want! (Score:5, Informative)
I'd like to add some detail to this. There are two big myths regarding PS2 pre-launch claims:
The first myth is wrong; Sony never said this. If you don't believe me, try and find a quote, from a Sony spokesperson, that says this. Given all the articles are still on the web, this should be fairly easy to do, if this is true. However, it's fairly easy to find quotes from Microsoft spokespeople, like Bill Gates [weekly.org], that the XBOX would have "Toy Story quality graphics" (this particular case is from CES 2001).
The second myth is a result of people being wowed by realtime graphics that blew away the current stuff, and forgetting how crappy the graphics at the time were. Here are two screenshots I managed to find from the FF8 tech demo:
Decent. Way better than the PS1 [ign.com]. (Note, in that screenshot, only the characters are 3D, the background is prerendered.) However, the original FMV was still far superior:
Now, regardless, the claim is that the original demo was faked, and they haven't matched the quality. You be the judge:
Most of these are at least as good, if not better than the screenshots for the FF8 demo, and most of them are early to mid PS2 games. There are many more examples, but this is enough to compare.