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Games Entertainment

Playstation 2 Launched in Japan 218

Posted by Hemos from the want-to-see-it dept.
ozzie wrote to us about yesterday's Japanese launch of the Playstation 2. IGN has a good site devoted to the PSX2. The launch in Japan was greeted with massive fanfare, as expected. We'll have to wait here in North America for six months. Unless, of course, someone wanted to send us one. *grin* Check out some great shots of the inner workings of the machine, as well.
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Playstation 2 Launched in Japan More

Playstation 2 Launched in Japan

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  • Re:PS2 Connectivity (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The PS2 has no modem "in the box" and no ethernet capability either. Sony have said they plan to add 'broadband access' down the line in 2001, but have yet to give any concrete details...

  • Re:So how long until linux/psx2 is out? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Actually, the development station for the psx2 has an x86 processor. (http://online.next.com.au/industry/news/ps2_work/ ). I'd be surprised if linux ran on the custom cpus.

  • Why people will still get consoles (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Just because computers can pretty much do everything doesn't mean they can do everything better.

    1) You're a little in the dark if you haven't realized by now that the PSX emu for the PC is highly flawed and is no suitable replacement for the actual thing by *any* means.

    2) No one's going to come up with an emulator for the PS2 for a *long* time, nor are they going to have TCP/IP multiplayer functionality anytime soon. Even if one is developed for the PC within the next 3 years, you can bet it won't be anywhere near as robust, compatible, or pretty as the real deal.

    3) 7.7 feet away from each other? What are you smoking?

    4) Even in the magical, fantasy-land, drug-induced scenario that someone develops a PS2 emulator within the next year that's compatible with everything, looks beautiful, and can play 8 player games over the 'net, your argument still remains insulting. "...makes me wonder why anyone even get console games now that computers can pretty much do EVERYTHING.." Not only are you missing words, but logic too. Believe it or not, Sony's target market doesn't have the patience or the money to pay $2000-4000 for a computer capable of emulating the system. It's infinitely more convenient to buy a relatively cheap, little box that plops down in your living room, connects to your TV, and lets you play games on a funky controller just by popping one in and turning the system on.

    5) Regardless of whether or not computers can create the kinds of games you see on consoles, the undeniable fact remains that most console games ARE radically different than the games you get on PCs, and many people prefer that console style of game.

  • Re:Amiga is a dead platform. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I seriously doubt that. Else why would Amiga still have the largest Public Domain library in the world? For as long as people use and support their machines, their platform of choice is still an alive platform. There are thousands of Amiga related websites to be found on the web. Ask those webmasters if they think they are dead!?

    Some examples:

    http://www.amiga.org
    http://www.amiga-news.de
    http://www.ann.lu
    http://www.stormloader.com/amiga
    http://www.amigaflame.co.uk
    http://www.amigacentral.com
    http://www.realdreams.cz/amiga
    http://www.amigarealm.com

    Imagine you bought an A2000 in 1987, you would be able to upgrade it with G3/G4 accelerator boards and outperform all modern PCs! Now take you 1987 IBM PC XT and try something similar........ (or any PC that`s just 5 years old!) :)

  • Re:The dark side of Play... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Hmm... I'm getting one to play DVDs and PS2 games.
    Do you think I'm going to throw out my PC or the planned PCs I want to get in the next 6 months? No.

    This same (strawman) argument could be raised to a lesser extent against Sega and Nintendo.

    Do I care if there is ever a Napster client for PS2? No. Same for SDMI-3 MP3 player, not a fleeping worry, since it doesn't play MP3s on CDs anyways. The ability to save and store info on the PS2 will come when someone hacks the firewire interface, no doubt someone with the tools and skills will do so once Sony ships the "official" versions, and hacks the hardware interface and can provide a useful user interface (USB keyboards) in software. But this will probably mean that Sony will be big buttolas and try to squelch the information and crush the source, ala the DeCSS authors...

    Do you plan on buying new cars? Look at new Euro cars the next time you are at a car show. See that big plastic cover on their engines, the ones that practically scream, "don't mess with the innards of your carefully crafted precision European Luxury Sport Automobile"? How soon is it before you think you'll see "no user servicable parts inside. Breaking this seal voids manufacturer warranty" stickers on them? Some day CARB will figure out an almost surefire way (say, GeneralFordDamnlierChryMoCo figure out a way to use X10 to make "intelligent" components that network to the engine control computer, of which a major side effect will be enabling "autorities" [intentional SIC] like CARB to get the ECC to blab about any modifications you might have made, and get them to look further under the hood). Will YOU still buy a new car at that time?

    Corporations already control or influence our daily lives, like it or not. We all have individual choices about how much of that intrusion we let into our lives or not. If you don't have any children, whenif you do finally have a couple, the horizons of your areas of responsibilities, as well as the number of holes in your dike that you have to try and keep filled, will change dramatically, for better or worse.

    And to think I'm only really pissed off at the Discovery Channel for trying to pimp viewers to their website during primetime. Get that fucking crap off the damned screen! Do you think I'm going to remember later to go login and pull from the ether the useless info you've blabbed about? Is this the Brave New World of subscriber (cable) TV, where our subscriber "rates" will be kept "low" because of the content being boxed in with Juno-like message streams (aka Advertisement)?

    Or are you holding your breath until the day that the possession and/or dissemination of paper media (books, mags) becomes illegal?

    Maybe you're like me, and you have Digital Cable. It's cool. Too bad in my area (north of Chicago) it has what seems to be about half of the channels that Cox in San Diego has (which already had about 75 channels on analog cable). What sucks is if you're late with your payment, your box is shut off. The good thing is is if you call on the phone and pay by credit card, it's back on in about 5 minutes...but I have a stinkin' suspicion that AT&T is able to grok what channels I'm watching and when, or it can query the box periodically (the box calls back to update its "TV GUIDE") to get the same info. With the other info that AT&T Cable I'm sure has correlated from my customer information, wow, it's just another way that consumers get whored out en masse to advertisers. Do you believe any company's privacy statements? Do I? No.

    From the land of "counter-competition" (where Ameritech doubled the price on 411 service, because other directory services cost about that much currently. Wait, isn't competition supposed to drive prices down inexorably?

  • Re:So how long until linux/psx2 is out? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It wouldn't be all that suprising if Linux could run on the custom CPUs. I seem to recall the MPR article on EE stating that Emotion Engine executed an extended MIPS III (IV?) instruction set. Since there is already a port of Linux to MIPS, it shouldn't be a huge amount of work to get Linux running on Emotion Engine, should it?

  • Re:PCI slots?! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The T-10000 (Sony's part number for Tool) does indeed have PCI slots. This is because in addition to the PSX2 chipset it has a 440BX motherboard with a P2-450 running Red Hat 5.2 off a 4GB hard drive. The PCI slots belong to this secondary board.

    The PC motherboard is there to interface to the PS2 chipset. It's what you talk to (via a web browser) to administer the box (set its IP address and so on) and what downloads into the PS2's RDRAM (the Tool has 128MB of Rambus RAM!) and so on. I've tried telnetting to it but you don't get any password to do a shell login.

    All the 'default' development environment tools run on Linux but commercial vendors are offering Windows versions of the toolchain. I have to say I'm fine with ee-gcc and dsedb personally though.
    And yes, they do come with source versions. Distributing them in either form would of course violate Sony's IP NDA however.

    You couldn't (easily/usefully) run Linux on the PS2 itself; there's no memory protection for one thing. After all, when you have a single 'task' using the whole machine it becomes rather less necessary than in a shared work environment.

    There are VGA out and video in connectors too (the latter is non-functional at this time). These are for use in Workstation mode rather than Tool mode. This is where the thing is used as a standalone graphics workstation for content creation or whatever (never run mine like that so I don't know exactly what is entailed). And yes there are two USB connectors and a Firewire (oops, now I owe Apple $1) connector on the front.

    My Tool also doesn't have a DVD drive - we're supposed to swap the units for ones that do, sometime in the near future.

    By the way, don't assume that because everything about PS2 is closed and proprietary now, that it might stay that way. Sony are a huge corporation and they have bet their entire financial future on PS2. Right now their focus is to get lots of killer games on sale for the system. After that, their business model expands dramatically. Who's to say they won't release some openly programmable environment in a year or two?

  • Re:PS 2 Myths (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I've had one for months: 1. Not the PS2. Possibly the memory card... The memory card contains some encryption mecanism, so it would be wise to seal this. I don't have a memory card, so I can't confirm. 2. no. As with all DVD players, your external hookup and TV will matter most. The PS2 renders pixel accurate information. I hooked it up to my PC monitor using a video capture card and it looks perfect. The only thing that sucks, is no remote control. expect one soon. 3. Most PS games will work. Basically anything that sold more than 50k units was tested to work. Some less popular games may have some glitches. Graphics quality will be the same (not enhanced). The sound chip is identical to the PS1 sound chip. 4. Don't know. I used a PS1 controller on my unit and it works fine - but I have don't have the final release product. 5. Not anymore. I believe until recently anything with a sum clock rate >1GHZ was considered a supercomputer. The ps2 has a 300MIPS, 2 300VUS, and a sound, IOP, and MPEG decoder chip that put it over this mark. If I'm not mistaken this legislation (for the US) was changed or will be changed shortly. It's kind of silly now that you can get PC chips that fast.
  • Does anyone know if the final specs of PS2 actually includes the ethernet("broadband") card Sony said it would? Or did they downgrade to a modem? Or nothing at all?

    To me it makes more sense to include a modem by default, with an ethernet card available seperatly.
  • I'll agree that a good proportion of PC games are very poorly written, released too early and so on. The flip side is that the few decent ones that come out can really take advantage of the higher-spec hardware found in recent PCs. Although slickly presented, PSX games look terrible these days. Thank God you have to look at them on a television, because on a monitor the blockiness would make me nauseous. Add on the fact that you only get a limited range of software (needs a keyboard or mouse? Oh well...) and PCs are as bad as they first look.

    They may cost four times as much, but they're a much more versatile platform for games. Consoles definitely have their place though. Nothing better than a post-pub game of Tekken with your mates!
  • I guess the PS2 is nice and all, but I'm just really not all that excited.

    At the moment I have a PSX. I don't use it much, and I typically like to save my money by only getting used CDs and selling them back when I'm done. (given as how I have a job these days, I can no longer beat most games within the span of a 5 day rental)

    But honestly, I don't see that I'd be getting one of these until the price for the console drops to ~$100 and there's a large library of games and used games to choose from.

    Call me boring, I guess. (heck - I didn't even get to fool with any console between 1988 - 1997 so I've never been all that wrapped up in it)
  • Should be the end of Sept, probably a couple of weeks after the US launch (of course, the extra wait and the trip across the atlantic will cost us brits about an extra $50 minimum :))

    Unlike Sega and Nintendo, Sony have a serious set up in Europe (including several 1st class uk developers), and so don't treat it as a 3rd class region.

  • If one posts and is attacked by an AC, is one's response to the AC really off-topic?
  • I can see that someone might disagree as to whether the above was funny or not, but I'd say it was perfectly on-topic.
  • ..and what Sony has managed to squeeze into the price.

    ahem.. well, I have heard (nope; no links or references) that Sony sells the ps2 (as they did with the ps1) with loss. However, they earn it back on accessories and games.
  • Go take a look at the picture on the bottom of this page [coremagazine.com].

    The page is showing the differences between the "TOOL" PS2 prototypes that were given to developers for testing and the production units.

    It looks like there are 3 PCI slots on the TOOL unit. There are also some mysterious connectors (one to the right of the power cable, one on the bottom of the panel to the left of the cable) which look a bit like USB ports. Could be wrong on this one, as the PSX has similar connectors.

    There's also what looks like an analog VGA output on the aforementioned panel.

    I'm going to be very interested to see exactly what these really are.
  • Does anyone happen to know if PS2 will play normal Redbook Audio CD-R's? Judging by the blue color of PS2 CD-ROMs I don't think it'll be a problem, but who knows...? And what about VCDs or video CD-R's? I personally have a number of small European and Japanese CD-R-only audio releases and some Asian martial arts films on standard VCD (the ONLY way to see Jet Li, etc). It'd be nice to find a console unit that will play all of these. My current Sony S550D has a VERY hard time when it comes to CD-R media because of it's single laser.
  • You could easily fit every Atari 2600 game on one standard CD-ROM. The largest are only 8K in size, most are 2-4K.

    I think about 2000 games were made for the 2600, which works out to around 8 - 16 MB storage for all of them.
    --
  • That sounds like the "3D0 2 to be based on Amiga Technology" rumor from a bit back. Mostly wishful thinking, I'd guess.

    The Amiga console machine (CD32?) was out 8-10 years ago. Do you really think it's got anything to offer a modern system? Any rewrite or other OS (QNX, Linux, Be, whatever) doesn't really count as "Amiga technology".
    --

  • ebay (Score:1)

    by meebs ( 12692 )
    check out ebay... man these things are already going for over $1100. Talk about some money makin'. :)
  • Yes, I do *suspect* that the big corp wants to lock out their competitors. Yes, they *propably* have strategies for promoting their own services and protocols. Yes, their strategy *probably* encompasses internet access by the masses. Yes, big corps *probably* want a monopoly, which looks like restricting your *need* to make a choice.

    Yes, it *looks* like it's your own choice to buy these things. Yes, having someone say you *should not* buy them looks like an infringement on your *sence* of freedom. Yes, the free market *looks* free.

    OK, now that I've tried to see your points of view, let me point out some subtleties/obvious points:

    Games/life (ie. any human activity) is more fun for everybody when played with fair rules. So we have rules for driving, aimed (I hope) at making the flow of traffic safer and more efficient. I am *free* to go when it is green *if* everyone else obeys the stop-if-red rule.
    So, within reasonably FAIR rules, I have MORE freedom.

    Regarding free markets... someone dropping a bomb on my head is a violation of my freedom to live. The people that *made* the bombs, *sold* the bombs, and *transported* the bombs have *responsability* for my death. (Note that I stop there. I do not include the manufacturers of the cars that the bomb factory workers used to drive to work.)
    The FREE MARKET concept usually *sounds* good.... but it gets more credit than it's worth, simply because someone stuck the word *FREE* on it. What other people are supposedly free to sell, does affect me. And the environment. So we have rules about asbestos and DDT. They cause direct, unavoidable harm if used... in many cases.

    Does a playstation cause harm?
    First, notice how *seductive* it is. Second, notice it's aimed mainly at children. Does a child, or adult, really have a *choice* about *wanting* one?

    I'm talking will power here... like the will of a scientist to forego fame for the sake of not devising some new cunning weapon. I *think* a playstation can be looked at from the 'temptation' angle. Which is why some people, like Hobbex, can *reasonably* observe that consumers are VICTIMS.

    But does a playstation cause harm?
    I am tempted by chocolate and maybe I get fat. But being a bit overweight (not including obesity) is not immediately life threatening... but does a playstation have potential for 'damage'?
    Are there studies on brain development and computer games...?

    I'm not advocating that fat people sue chocolate manufacturers. And I am in *favour* of the people who quit working for companies that make drinks targetted at kids that contain way too much sugar.

    Smokers, on the other hand, are victims, in the *sence* that they were actively seduced *while* the companies knew, and witheld, the knowledge of it's harm. Notice I don't say smoking (in private) should be banned...

    I agree with warning people that the internet has potentials that we would be wise not to squander. Take for example transportation:
    car looks convenient, so
    more cars + less busses,
    but then too much traffic,
    so try to give up car,
    but can't
    because busses are too run down, which is like saying:
    We need MS Windows because everyone else has poor market share.

    Yes, we are free to buy these games consoles, but are they in our best long term interests? Perhaps we have already learn't our lesson with Windows.
  • No matter how big this ps2 is, I think the X-Box is going to give the ps2 a good run for its money. Lets think about it shall we?

    Whats the one most undesirable thing about the p2?

    price.

    What can microsoft leverage the most with x-box?

    price.

    Microsoft can take a hit bigger than anyone of the others (sony,sega,nintendo).

    I feel microsoft might have the last laugh in this one.

  • Personally I want to get one as soon as they come out - I've been wondering about buyind a DVD player for a while and I'm just gonna hold out for the PS2 - that way I get the games console part of it for practially free!
  • New PC titles are generally $49.95 US and up.

    What magical world have you been living in where Console games are cheaper than that?! N64 games pretty much start at $60. The main difference between the PC and Consoles as gaming platforms are the genres of titles available. Try to find a decent fighting game for a PC or a good strategy or Western-style RPG (vs. Asian-style, not cowboy-style) on a console.
  • >and would like to pretend that all companies that are massively successful will somehow transform all who use them into slaves so the company

    Dose that mean that Slashdot and Andover is evil?

    Be a tad realistic... not everyone on Slashdot is calling for the heads of the CEOs of every major corp.
    The complaints (when there are complaints) are generally valid (open to argument but not "wealthy therefor evil" arguments)

    On one side you do have "Eat the rich" mentality and on the other side you have the "might makes right" mentality.. both are wrong...
    Being a sycophant you start defending corprate villens...
    Being a Zelot you attack every generous deed.
    You end up paranoid eather way you go. "X" is allways right and "Y" is allways wrong..

    In reality you need to do a case by case assesment... Not everything Microsoft dose is evil... Not every move by a corperation is monopolistic... that is a far cry from saying Microsoft is ALLWAYS right or that everyone with money is a good guy... It just happends.. some times evil.. some times not... You can not work at extreams.

    The same goes for Slashdot.. There is no hive mind here... there is caose.. and that caose is a good thing. Diverse views and diverse opinions...
    That also means that there is a vocal selection of posters who fervently attack or defend Microsoft and/or anyone with money. While they exist they are not everyone.. they are individuals who have selected to think in extreams. Thats sad when that happends but it dose happen.
  • Of course with 2 USB ports, I am assuming that Sony will supply/support one of those USB --> Ethernet adapters for "broadband" access (hopefully in the near future)
  • actually, they're just finishing school over there (i think)... basically the whole reason sony chose this date is that when your in junior high, you must pass a test to decide what highschool you go to... its kinda like a mini-SAT type thing. Traditionally parents buy their kids big expensive gifts for passing, and around now is when everyone is getting their test results back ^_^ kinda like mixing graduation presents with free time over the summer... if anything summer jobs will be lost because of this ^_~

  • September is the month to look out for, according to Digitiser. And a price somewhere between 200UKP and 250UKP, which would be nice if only because it would almost certainly mean an end to those evil $1 = 1UKP conversions that certain manufacturers have forced upon us in the past...
  • IIRC, the TOOL dev machines run Linux on an x86 processor, however.
  • The memory card encryption has little (nothing) to do with copy protection, though Sony are taking that very seriously as well, of course.

    Nor does it have much to do with protecting you from evil hackers (sic) who want to break into your Tekken Tag Tournament scores and change all the names.

    AFAICT it's planning ahead for the PS2's network strategy to come online. Encryption can then be used to make it safer to store (for example) credit card numbers on your memory cards.
  • PS2 only has 2 ports, though apparently USB controllers are a viable option.

    As to the size, it's not as large as it looks. And the DVD doesn't need cooling, though the GS and EE chips both do. The unit looks to be slightly more than two CDs wide, and about one and a half deep.
  • The Sony Otaku article is apparently misleading: in fact that list is the list of all PSX games that fail to run. Rumour has it that DQVII is also on the list, which is one of the reasons for it being delayed again. The IGN FAQ is certainly out of date: contrary to earlier reports, PS2 does 'enhance' older games with faster load times and bilinear filtering of textures. Note that these features are optional, decrease compatibility, and sometimes make the games look worse rather than better.
  • Only a sadist would push TV-based internet on anyone. TV's are fuzzy, interlaced, and have crappy resolution because they weren't designed for this. People need webpads, with crisp LCD screens. They don't need another WebTV.
  • Actually, there were some 16k games as well. Plus, if you had the Supercharger addon, you could run games that were 32k...maybe 64k too, but i'm not entirely sure.

  • There already is one. It comes as part of the PSX2 development environment. It's not real-time of course and it doesn't emulate the graphics chip either. Its primary use was before people had real silicon although running code on an emulator can be useful to analyse what's going on cycle by cycle, especially when dealing with multiple function units.
  • Not a big deal, to some, but this sort of thing _really_ bothers me (when people take credit for stuff that they very obviously didn't do). Compare the pictures at http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/pc/docs/article/200 00304/ps2_e1.htm [impress.co.jp]

    with the ones in the article (handily linkified here)http://www.coremagazine.com/news/1844.ph p3 [coremagazine.com]

    Sure, they give credit to Furukawa-san & Soba-san for the pictures but they had to slap their own watermark on the pics which have been up on the Japanese site for a day or two already. Just thought i'd point that out.
  • Does anybody know when this baby will reach Europe? Oh well... We will probably be able to buy one for Christmas. I can wait. No hurry here. No Sir. Not me.

    AAAARGH! ICANTTAKEITANYMOREGIMMEGIMMEGIMME!

    OK, I'm alright now. But damn those fascist region codes to Hell!

  • This isn't the real Vector Inspector, it's the incredibly gay GeeKing
  • The PS2 accessories article [ign.com] has pics of the "PocketStation". What the hell is that?
  • think linux...

    -
    We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way.
  • Final Fantasy IX is coming out for PSX this spring in Japan.

    FFX and FFXI are coming out for PS2 next year. FFXI will be online-only, kinda like Everquest or something.

  • Yes, but PS2 will still cost a fraction of the price of a fully decked-out PC.
  • P.S. the Dreamcast has an MMU because WinCE wants a MMU, and Sega wanted WinCE, in case it took off. That's why it can run a relitavly normal NetBSD or Linux port (I don't know of a Linux port, there was a BSD port of some sort).

    Oh come now. At least part of the reason that the Dreamcast has an MMU is that there is no SH-4 part shipping without one. Hitachi is targeting SH-4 to WinCE with or without Sega. You buy an SH4, you get an MMU.

    Microprocessor reports says about EE: While the Emotion Engine is not cheap, neither is it wimpy. It's based on a superscalar MIPS R4000 core, but it has a new set of 128-bit integer SIMD instructions. At its target frequency of 300 MHz, it packs a floating-point punch of 6.2 GFLOPS, three times that of Intel's 500-MHz Pentium III with SSE and 15 times that of a Celeron-400 (which lacks SSE). With the Emotion Engine pumping out 75 million polygons per second and the rendering chip drawing polygons at 2.4 billion pixels per second, the new PlayStation will have real-time graphics that rival the computer-generated animation in movies like Toy Story.

    Interestingly it doesn't specifically state that EE has an MMU, but it's rather hard to believe that Sony would ship PS2 without an MMU - since we're being led to believe that PS2 is supposed to be much more than just a game platform anyway.
    It is interesting that the MPR report says that EE is "based on" an R4000 core, rather than just saying it's executing an extended MIPS instruction set. If it is based on a R4000 core, it becomes much harder to believe that EE doesn't have an MMU built in.
  • Well, I know people who still own a NES, and their controller ports are still working fine. And I bought my N64 back in September '96 it's ports are working just like new still, and yes, that's with heavy use. I seriously doubt that's what Sony was thinking when it only went with 2.
  • Close. You see, Japanese students get out right about now, and as "graduation" presents, many Japanese parents will buy their children gifts. Well, you know what alot of kids will be asking for this year.....
  • http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem& item=275374748

    $1,225 at posting, with about a day and a half left of bidding.
  • About those multi-taps, why the hell did Sony only put two controller ports on the damn thing? It's so stupid of them. the N64 has 4, Dreamcast has 4, and I'll bet my life the Dolphin will have 4, but yet Sony only puts TWO(!) controller ports on it. Granted, I had always thought the workaround would be daisy chaining some USB controllers, but if that's the case, why release a multitap? They have to be on crack or something.

    As for internet accessiblity, Sony has plans to make a broadband machine out of it, but I have no idea how, since many places still don't get broadband. And it doesn't ship with a modem, it'll be an add-on purchase. Again, Sony is on crack.
  • But the point of the matter is you have to go buy a multitap for the PS2, while it comes built in on the N64 and DC. And 4 is pretty much the limit for most mulitplayer games, so very very few games let you have more than 4. I'm just sorta wondering about Sony since it wouldnt' take that much extra money to stick in 4 controller ports, and then everyone would be happy.
  • Yes, that sort of OS was very popular the first time it was released, when it was called . . . DOS.
  • Sony's quality control? Guess you didn't buy GT2 when it came out. It was so full of bugs, omissions and typos it wasn't even funny. What was funny was that all the mags and such were giving it rave reviews, but none talked very much about the problems, such as the bug that would corrupt your save game (basically delete your garage) when you used the machine test and set more records than there were record display slots, or the breaking the lap record display so that it doesn't work unless you are doing time trial, no drag racing (it was removed at the last minute because they were having difficulties and instead of taking the time to fix it just took it out) but you can still win drag cars plus they didn't recalculate the total percentage of wins so the most you could complete was 98.8%, or having an AI that is so brain dead the cars all drive in a neat little pack unless the race is longer than 3 laps, replays are set to automatically play and there's no way to default them to off, the menu system and user manual was developed by crack smokin' lab monkeys, AI bugs that cause the cars to try to drive through the wall (I mean, at the start of the race, the opponent in a rally starts, the turns abrubtly left, right into the wall, and stays there, trying to drive through it. You can just sit there and watch it, it's pretty funny, for a little while) or the lack of conversion of metric and yen to inches and $ (a ride height of 100 inches? 5000cr for a cars wash when it really only deducts 50cr), Pezzoil for Penzzoil, Bast for East, or... or... I could go on, but you get the gist. They did release a new disk, which fixed the garage bug, the end percentage, the driving through the wall bug and a couple of typo's, but it still has nowhere near the polish and feel of the original GT. I hope they don't totally botch GT2000 the same way.
  • They had at one time been intending to put four ports is it. I remember reading early stories about it that clearly said four. Guess they just want to make sure that everyone has to drop $40 on a multi-tap again.
  • Linux for one of these machines would be cool..

    A Commodore 64 emulator would be even better. Imagine it, buy a new game console and have instant access to all your favorite games of yore. THAT would boost sales.
  • I was wondering why there was no mention of this on ./ before. The launch was a few weeks ago! They went officially on sale for the first time in Japan today -- they expect to sell a million units in the first two days.

    They are already in shops in Hong Kong (at twice the list price) and look pretty cool. We were playing with one today.

    I'll wait until you can buy a hacked box in Bangkok which supports all zones as well as PAL and NTSC -- bit of a waste of money to buy one for the Japanese market -- 110 Volt and NTSC.... That shouldn't take more than a month or two.
  • That's exactly what I am going to do. I have been wanting a DVD player and some more gaming options for a little while, and now I can have both for one low price! And to top it all off, they will probably have all _bugs_ squashed by then, and maybe even some better DVD software. Cool!!

    Later...
  • Got mine and it rocks. The graphics are incredible. Of course not knowing how to read kanji characters makes it difficult to play some of the games, but who cares. Here in Japan people are going nuts for this thing. Spending hours in line to get, beating the crap out of people to get one...is this really Japan? There are always ways around the export ban. If you have friends in the Military that are stationed in Japan give them a call.
  • Here's the link to a file about memory cards and exporting. It's dated 3/3/00
    If anyone's into reading PDF files, go ahead.

    http://www.scei.co.jp/corp/pdf/000303.pdf [scei.co.jp]

    It's prolly in Japanese too.
  • But, I'm afraid of Sister Ray. Not to mention Weapon!
  • To clarify:

    The Playstation 2 doesn't really have an operating system in the typical sense of the word. It has a layer of APIs (kind of) that make it easier to access hardware functions. This layer doesn't have to be used/loaded if the programmers wish to bypass it.

    As programmers become more familiar with the hardware, they will cease to use most of those APIs, since writing 'to the metal' is faster and offers more flexibility.
  • The specs on the IGN site [ign.com] (scroll the page about 1/3 down) promise even bigger numbers:
    • System Clock: 300 MHz
    • Co-Processor: FPU (Floating Point Multiply Accumulator x 1, Floating Point Divider x 1)
    • Vector Units: VU0 and VU1 (Floating Point Multiply Accumulator x 9, Floating Point Divider x 1)
    • Floating Point Performance: 6.2 GFLOPS
    I mean, the pure DSP power is pretty impressive. For example, the new state-of-the-art Analog Devices ADSP-21160 SHARC [analog.com] does 5 floating point multiply-and-accumulates in one cycle and runs at 100MHz.

    The PS2's vector units are running at three times that speed and are almost two times longer. Plus, there are two of them in there.

    Two words: Holy shit.

  • Hi from Tokyo. I don't have a PS2 yet since I would rather be developing for it then playing it right now. Working on that.. they sold almost a million units in the first 3 days but some of the chips are out of stock and apparently will take 2 weeks for some people who ordered to get theirs. Development system is Linux apparently. It has PCI Type 3, ilink and optical output, and USB according to http://www.scei.co.jp/ps2/ and Sony rates it at 66 million polygons/sec and 6.2 Gflops ("for soft-looking smoke and realistic hair rendered strand by strand").. Hmm I better pick one of these up! Display using special process chip called Graphics Synthesizer, a 147.456 MHz "ultra-parallel display writing circuitry" for TV, S-Video, and future DigitalTV. Emotion Engine is one big LSI chip (0.18micron,128bit) at 294.912 MHz which they say is fastest 128bit CPU as of January, only 32MB main memory (increases by 25% with memory card), 4MB VRAM (?), 48+ simultaneous sound cannels, 2MB sound memory (!). Surely would be a love hate relationship unless repackaged on a PCI card.. Oh and the MagicGate encryption is called Encryption/Authorization capability ("security for the network era"..) Wonder if tha means there's a harware serial number.. guess that is inevitable.
    <P>
    All I really want are the big chips.
    <P>
    PocketStation is a 3000 yen peripheral (http://st1.yahoo.co.jp/nojima/pocketstation.html where you can buy it for 2700 yen, or http://www.scei.co.jp/news/pocket/menu.html and links in that directory) which zdnet Japan calls a PDA. Looks like a play on the Dreamcast Visual Memory game saving thing, comes in white and skeleton (or "crystal" as Sony calls it). According to ZDnet Japan You can store 15 memory blocks on it, each of which can be a PocketStation program, so you can play games on it. It was supposed to come out 12/23 but ended up being a month late, production projected at 1 million units a month. It has a 32 bit cpu and talks they say (!). Monochrome display, docks with old PS, you can download soft from CD or.. I found one page where you can download (http://www3.freeweb.ne.jp/misc/q-_-p/html/pks.htm l ..note smiley in url and see menu.html for other stuff) a zip archive of a game written in assembler.. for ARM. Now I don't have a PS, so I probably shouldn't buy the PocketStation.. better get a dev unit somehow!
  • What everyone *INCLUDING* IGN has forgotten is that Sony doesn't have to release PS2 multi-taps for games like Street Fighter EX3 to be played in 4 player mode because you can use the PS1 version of the m-tap.
  • sony has taken measures such that they're not allowed to leave japan, so i don't think you're going to be getting one any time soon, hemos...
    --
    DeCSS source code! [metastudios.com]
  • You should definitely check out the Newsweek article that a previous poster provided a link to. In that article, they equate the PC to being like a "scaled-down '60's mainframe" and not very exciting. Sony wants to position the PS2 as an exciting way to get online, allowing you to play games collaboratively and surf the web. They equate it to being "like the movie The Matrix" in excitement. It's easy to see that they intend to do exactly what you describe: provide a simple and visually appealing way for people to get online. The consequence of this is probably as you say, locking consumers into a more proprietary solution than a generic PC running whatever operating system you want.

    Actually, though, Sony may be able to succeed simply because most people don't really care about HOW they get online. They couldn't care less if they're running on a PS2 or on a PC with Windows or Linux. (You and I care about running Linux and using PCs, but we're different from consumers since we're geeks.) In fact, the easier and less expensive it is to get online and play some games and surf the web, the happier most consumers will be.
  • Does anyone know whether it will be possible for developers to release games which will work on both PS1 and PS2, from the same CD, using the enhancements of the PS2?

    Of course, they'd be limiting themselves in terms of space on the CD, but I can imagine it would be cheap to have games which used PS2 features in just a few places to make it look much better if possible (rather than just the interpolation) but was reasonable on a PS1.

    I'm sure I can't be the only person to think of this, but I haven't seen anything about it yet.

    Jon
  • The most interesting thing I saw in the IGN article wasn't the info on the Playstation2 -- thats been done to death. In the article they had on PS2 accessories though, they listed the PocketStation -- which looks suspiciously like a handheld Playstation!

    Has anyone heard anything about this?
  • Oh come now. At least part of the reason that the Dreamcast has an MMU is that there is no SH-4 part shipping without one. Hitachi is targeting SH-4 to WinCE with or without Sega. You buy an SH4, you get an MMU.

    Is it that hard to beleve that the SH-4 was chosen so the Sega could run WinCE? Or that if Sega had not wanted the MMU they could have had a respin of the SH-4 with no MMU (the graphics chip has more transistors if you ignore the cache and is Dreamcast specific, it is a PowerVR with a new Bus and a few other small tweeks)? The sound chip is a ARM7 plus DSP extensions and a few I/O ports (and I assume DACs).

    Interestingly it doesn't specifically state that EE has an MMU, but it's rather hard to believe that Sony would ship PS2 without an MMU - since we're being led to believe that PS2 is supposed to be much more than just a game platform anyway.

    We have the same facts. Nobody said it has an MMU. Nobody said it didn't. It is in a market where MMUs normally arn't. It was baised on a CPU that has one (but embeded MIPS CPUs have skiped them before). Sony claims they are going for a wider market.

    We merely disagree on whether Sony did "the right thing" and put a MMU in it. Personally I think it would be nice if it had one. I also think odds are aginst it.

  • It wouldn't be all that suprising if Linux could run on the custom CPUs. I seem to recall the MPR article on EE stating that Emotion Engine executed an extended MIPS III (IV?) instruction set.

    But I havn't seen anything about a MMU on the PSX2. If it doesn't have one you won't get a normal Linux to run on it. You will need to port uLinux or whatever the Linux varient that doesn't have memory protection, and has either a relocator, or requires PIC code.

    Doing that will substantally reduce the stability of Linux (or any OS), as errors in one program can easally damage another program.

    Personally I think it is very possable that Sony will have left an MMU out. MMUs are of modest complexity, and tend to add a big chunk of work right in the LOAD/STORE pipeline where modern CPUs are striving for minimal extra cruft to reduce memory latency. They arn't needed in a game machine. They arn't needed in a DVD player. They arn't needed anywhere there is only one task going on and you can basically reboot into the next task. It is possable they were farsighted enough to decide that if they want to be a "PC killer" a MMU could have been useful, but I wouldn't bet any money on it.



    P.S. the Dreamcast has an MMU because WinCE wants a MMU, and Sega wanted WinCE, in case it took off. That's why it can run a relitavly normal NetBSD or Linux port (I don't know of a Linux port, there was a BSD port of some sort).

  • yes, but PlayStation has only one use -- playing games. PC stands for Personal Computer and there is a reason for that.
    ___
  • You may want to check out www.gamespot.com and ps2.ign.com probably by Tuesday/Wednesday time frame for detailed reviews on hardware and some of the launch titles.
  • Funny you should mention Linux in regards to PlayStation 2. That's because the developer's machine for PS2 games RUNS on Linux--Sony admitted this when they unveiled the PS2 hardware last September.
  • Think about it.

    Sony has a near-hammerlock on the US market for console videogames. Given that Sony has been hyping PlayStation2 since May 1999 and the fact that Sony did manage to sell 1 million PS2's in Japan on its first day of sale, imagine what the pent-up demand will be for the North American version when that comes out this fall (most likely 9/9/2000).

    I am absolutely serious about my prediction. Sony won't need to do much in the way of PR for PlayStation2, because all the videogame magazines and videogame news web sites will hype PS2 like crazy anyway.

    Remember, Sega sold 500,000 Dreamcast units in the first week of sales alone, not a mean feat considering how much smaller market share they have versus Sony. (Of course, it helped that when Dreamcast shipped in the USA they already had several "kill app" titles shipping: Sonic Adventure, Soul Calibur, NFL2K, and Power Stone.)

    I will not be surprised that Sony will have five million PS2's in the USA for sale on the North American release date, if only from the inertia of the huge number of PSX owners who want to get the latest and greatest.
  • Given the penchant for Americans to do things at the "stroke of midnight" in terms of sales of new items, I can guarantee that the same Electronics Boutique that was mobbed with people waiting for the Dreamcast on 9/9/1999 will be repeated on 9/9/2000, only writ four times as large, as I mentioned in my original message.

    Remember, Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA), the division of Sony that head USA operations for PlayStation, is based in Foster City, CA. This means that I expect many Sony upper-management people--including Ken Kutaragi (sp?), who heads SCEA--to be there at the unveiling party at Electronics Boutique I mentioned originally in force. Sony may want to seriously consider blocking off the corner of Stevens Creek Boulevard and San Tomas Expressway to create a block party atmosphere for the unveiling.

    It's either that or use the wide-open convention space at the Santa Clara or San Jose Convention Centers.
  • I do believe you are exposing a real danger that's hidden in the way big corporations do business nowadays...

    BUT:
    Is this really different from Intel changing processor slots every 6 months, so that I have to buy another motherboard for no practical purpose?
    Is this really different from proposed "display encryption", or from they Processor ID codes?
    Is this different from many Microsoft strategies, where your only freedom is when, in a 6 month window, you'll upgrade your system before it becomes incompatible with the new MS software? Or with their nice little strategy to put out of market every worthwhile technology they don't control?

    What is the difference from having to obtain a license from Sony, or being instantly put out of business by a free integrated Internet Browser, a free integrated Streaming Media Player, or a very cheap microprocessor- or chipset-integrated 3D video board?

    Hopefully, Sony will steal some of their market share, propelling competition and hopefully better practices. Will they be as nasty as the US companies behind DMCA, UCITA, the DeCSS affair? I don't know, but IF (and it's a big if) they know for themselves, they should also know why the original playstation sold 70 millions unit, and why the PS1 sales graph is strikingly similar to the CD-Writers sales graph....

    Beside this kind of reasoning, there's another advantage I do see in the PS2: as many said here, PS2 WILL be a simpler instrument to use, allowing many more people to access internet and its contents. It will steal the control over the web from MS, and from the other nice people (AOL, Realnetworks...) that NOW are controlling it, and are the only means for the vast majority of people to access the net: if you're not a 'computer geek' of some sort, you are stuck with Windows. Or maybe, if you have more money, with a Mac.
    The freedom you have with linux is only for you, me, and other computer skilled people. It do cost you a little fortune, in hardware if you want to stay 'on the edge', and in time you spend to learn and follow the OS. This does not compare to a $350 machine that allows many more people to buy it (it's cheaper) and to use it (it's simpler).

    Moreover, nothing and noone can tell NOW if tomorrow linux will be able to run on the PS2: if Sony wants to use it as a "digital content access tool", I believe they'll want a flexible and stable OS on it, and I bet that inside Emotion Engine there _is_ an MMU.

    Ciao,
    Rob!
  • How many Japanese students are going to find themselves with much worse grade averages this semester :)

    Pope

  • Anything that's been released in Japan other than the fifteen listed elsewhere in this thread, pretty much.

    From the reports I've seen so far, here are a few of the big names:

    • Vagrant Story is the one being used as an example in most places (quite an underwhelming one, though - check this screenshot [ign.com]).
    • Gran Turismo - the texture filtering looks nice, but due to the way tracks are loaded, the faster CD option crashes the game.
    • Bloody Roar - also looks better with texture filtering, though it's less noticeable than with GT. Faster CD option works fine.
    • Final Fantasy VIII - works fine, but allegedly looks worse with the texture filtering.
  • Yes it is. You sir you are the one that wants to destroy freedom you are the danger not Sony. Free Trade is the backbone of a free society by limiting it you are limiting MY freedom.

    Let's see, could you point to where exactly I said I wanted to ban or forbid the PS2?

    Get rid of the copyright laws that Sony needs to pull this shit off an I will stop whining right now. I don't want to ban anything, but how much are you willing to bet against that Sony will want to ban the first program that cracks the PS2s copyprotection schemes? (please make it a large amout of money and contact me asap).

    -
    We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way.
  • Hmmm... I wonder if the NDA's would ever allow Linux to be ported to the PS2. Meanwhile, if it ever does get ported, I can think of making it a compute node on my network here and using it to render images 24 hours a day. The 24 hours, of course, would be reduced in practice due to the need to use it for 4 hours a day for its original purpose. ;)
  • It is really shitty that PSX2 is not going to be compatible with all PSX-1 games as initially thought. Stupid move on Sony's part.

    Actually, it's not Sony's fault. The PS2 is backwards compatible with all games coded to Sony spec. The only one's that don't work are one's that did their own thing instead of coding it like it was supposed to be. And those kind of games are a very very small minority, so it's almost like a moot point.
  • PSX Emus run slowly? Not on my old Pentium II. You've probably made some kind of incompetant, major error in the set up of either the machine or your emulator, or else you only like games that aren't really compatible with the emulator.

    Try getting someone who knows what they are doing to set the emulator up for you.

  • No, this is more akin to DOS with libraries that directly access every piece of hardware and support acceleration. What exactly is wrong with that?
  • Yes, you are a victim. You are a victim because you are being played as pawn in Sony's game for a future where they and their kin control the very freedom and integrity of your online existence. You are a victim because you are mindlessly giving up freedoms in cyberspace which you would not have dreamed for a second of compromising in the world which you are used to.

    Does anyone else see the irony in this statement?

    What are you proposing? that Sony not be allowed to sell these things? wouldn't the be an attack on freedom.


    No one is forcing anyone to buy it no one is forcing you to use it. That is what freedom is all about.


    This is not about being anti-capitalistic..


    Yes it is. You sir you are the one that wants to destroy freedom you are the danger not Sony. Free Trade is the backbone of a free society by limiting it you are limiting MY freedom.

    This is about a cancer to capitalist society that has gone to far, and that is threatening the very freedom that capitalism exists ONLY to support

    Let me remind you the capitalism is an economic issue not a social one. By limiting trade you would be taking away MY fredom.

    It is a shame that people are not yet aware enough of the importance of electronic freedom to realize that they MUST reject the intrusion of electronics into their homes that is serving somebody else's agenda rather than theirs.

    Have you lost your mind. People want this thing it is not an intrusion. You sir you are trying to intrude into my home by telling me not to buy something. You have no right!!!

  • Gotta wait 6 months huh?

    I wonder if someone will have a PSX2 emulator out before the hardware hits the USA...

  • A brief quote from the link above:
    The report mentions that one of the possible reasons is because of the implementation of Sony's unique encryption technology, called Magic Gate, onto the PS2 memory card. This is the first time a game console has been given such prohibition,...
    I think this gets a couple of points across:

    Sony is very serious about copy protection, as befits their status as big-shot members of RIAA;

    Sony is very serious about maintaining their marketing plan, with different introduction dates, and probably different prices, for different regions. Again, this is like the region coding in the DVD's.

    It seems that the reason that this is cheap is that Sony plans to make their profit on the consumables, such as games, internet access, and so on. They haven't magically made the hardware cheaper, I suspect; they're willing to sell this very restrictive hardware at a loss so that they'll have you over a barrel. It's a pity, really, since this seems to be a really nifty little thing, which could make a great successor to the spirit of the old Commodore 64.

  • COMPATIBILITY UPDATE ( http://www.sony-otaku.com/news/0200/021700/021700a .html [sony-otaku.com]):

    Sony's Japanese site tested fifteen Playstation games on the Playstation 2 in order to see exactly what is flawed with the PS2's backwards compatibility. Sony picked a lot of Japan-only titles, but some notable (and random) flaws include the following:

    In some titles after loading from the memory card the previous screen's image remains on the screen, overlaying the entire game.

    Some titles, like Gradius Deluxe Pack, experience major slowdown throughout the entire title.

    After exiting a menu or a part of a game, some sounds might continue playing.

    In one RPG, the dungeon maps would not display on screen.

    In Wing Commander III, the animation starts looping until an error message appears on the screen and the game freezes.

    Gallop Racer, a very popular Japanese title from Tecmo, doesn't display many screens including the race times after an event.

    In some strategy titles the wrong menus come up, or a menu will pop up at a random time in mid-battle.

    In some games sound effects and background music won't even play at all.

    Some repeat offenses included the image overlay problems, memory card bugs, and general sound screwups. If this is just a random sample of fifteen titles, imagine what will happen with the over 2600 other titles out there.


    Here's a list of 15 games which do not work properly on PS2 ( http://ps2.ign.com/news/15350.html [ign.com] ):

    Not Treasure Hunter
    Gradius Deluxe Pack
    Aidoru Promotion -Suzuki Yumie
    Toua Plan Shooting Battle
    Oukyuu No Hihou: Tension
    Wing Commander III
    Gallop Racer
    Ongaku Tsukuuru: Kanadeeru 2
    Monster Farm
    Dragon Beat
    Susume! Kaizoku
    Tsuiridou Keiryu Kohen
    Virtua Pachinko V
    Virtua Pachinko EX
    Konya Mo Senryobako! 2000



    From IGN PSX2 FAQ's ( http://ps2.ign.com/news/14132.html [ign.com] ):

    Will it be backward compatible with all older PlayStation games?

    Yes, the PlayStation 2 will be able to play original PlayStation games. Because the system's I/O (input/output) processor is essentially the core (main processor) of the original PlayStation, the system will use this processor to insure backward compatibility with all existing PlayStation games. Sony will most likely continue to institute the territorial lockout to make sure that only US PlayStation 2s play original US PlayStation games.

    Answers to questions as to whether or not the PlayStation 2 will "enhance" original games with effects like a high-resolution mode and texture filtering has been answered. Sony has said that the system will not enhance PlayStation games, but rather play them in their original look, speed and context.


    I wish I had a complete list, but I do not. I looked on Sony's Playstation website and could find no mention of incompatibility. The available information seems intentionally ambiguous when Sony could just test all the games and let us know. I wonder why Sony does not let us know?
  • Consumers don't HAVE to buy into it... but they will. They look for the largest spec list and most buzzwords for the dollar. If it's a quick, short-term investment, all the better, especially if it puts them ahead of their neighbors (or classmates).

  • A question for all you tech heads (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 05, 2000 @06:30AM (#1224719)
    As I understand it, the max theoretical limit for the Playstation 2 is around 75 million polygons per second. However, this would be without any texturing, shading, or other necessary things like AI or physics modeling. The realistic maximum limit for the PS2 during gameplay is said to be 20 million polygons per second.

    So, at what time will PC technology surpass the Sony box? Considering the imminent arrival of 1 GHz Athlons, plus the hardware T & L of video cards like the GeForce, will a PC system be able to match the PS2 by the time of the North American launch date? Or will the I/O limitations of the PC cripple it in comparison to the PS2?

  • Re:PS 2 Myths (Score:3)

    by Ewan ( 5533 ) on Sunday March 05, 2000 @06:24AM (#1224720) Homepage Journal
    1) False.

    2) False, its actually very good, at least the equal of any software only solution for the PC.

    3) Only backwards compatible with ones written exactly to spec (and thats surprisingly few). If you've seen bleem! the psx emulator youll know the compatibility problems it has due to this very reason.

    4) The buttons in the new ones are capable of detecting levels of pressure applied to them. but it can use the old models, as well as usb ones.

    5) It was until some recent law changes. So was the P3-700 and above though so its not a big deal.

  • Re:VGA connector? (Score:3)

    by RayChuang ( 10181 ) on Sunday March 05, 2000 @03:38PM (#1224721)
    According to ps2.ign.com, there are three types of video connectors available for PlayStation2: composite video (RCA jack), S-video, and component video. I expect Sony to release an accessory that will allow connection to a variable-frequency VGA monitor fairly soon.

  • If you think the Japanese launch was crazy.... (Score:3)

    by RayChuang ( 10181 ) on Sunday March 05, 2000 @05:17AM (#1224722)
    From what I saw on ps2.ign.com, it appears that the Japanese were extremely eager to get their hands on the PlayStation 2. Mostly because Sony has been hyping it since May 1999.

    However, the long lines for the Japanese launch of the PlayStation 2 may be totally nothing versus the North American launch, most likely pencilled in for September 9, 2000, the fifth anniversary of the US launch of the original PlayStation (and the first anniversary of the launch of Dreamcast). Can you imagine lines similar to the lines before Star Wars Episode I was released in front of the majority of the Babbages, Electonics Boutique, FAO Shwarz, KayBee Toys and Toys'R Us stores in the USA? Sony may have to manufacture around five million PlayStation 2 machines just to meet the demand for pre-orders and the first few days of sales here!

    I remember the Dreamcast launch last year on 9/9/1999 at the Electronics Boutique in San Jose, CA next to the Barnes & Noble bookstore--it was an absolute riot scene out there. Now writ that larger by a factor of four and that will be the scene before the release of the PlayStation 2 in North America (shudder). If I were Sony I would seriously consider renting out either the San Jose Convention Center or Santa Clara Convention Center on the launch date for a big show unveiling the machine and allow the retailers to sell PlayStation 2 consoles and software there just to prevent riot scenes in the retail stores (at least in the San Francisco Bay Area), especially since 9/9/2000 falls on a Saturday.

  • eBay not far behind (Score:3)

    by Rayban ( 13436 ) on Sunday March 05, 2000 @09:35AM (#1224723) Homepage
    And a whopping one day after release, eBay has about 10 of these wonderful machines available from anywhere between $500 and $1100. Not to shabby if you have the cash.

  • Re:The dark side of Play... (Score:3)

    by Kalie Ma ( 34184 ) <me.erikhess@com> on Sunday March 05, 2000 @05:58PM (#1224724) Homepage

    "As can be said for virtually any product ever manufactured. You don't really believe that VCR's and televisions and CD-ROMs were designed as objets d'art, do you?"
    Well, that is true - but remember that Sony (and even retailers) lose cash on every system sold. VCRs and CD-Roms are close to commodity levels in availablity, number of manufacturers, and price. The PlayStation 2 is proprietary Sony hardware that can only play proprietary Sony games - just like any other console. Sony makes their cash in the buisness from selling the games, which have an extremely high markup and the liscences to produce games on their proprietary hardware.

    "I work for an ISP, and I answer hundreds of phone calls a week from customers who need a box just like this one. They are desperately perplexed by any technology more complicated than a toaster, and it would save us and them literally thousands of hours of frustration and stress if they had purchased a box more suitable for their limited needs. I see the PS2 and future incarnations of similar hardware as the salvation of the consumer, not the enemy."

    Well, congratulations. I work for a major video game (PC, console, and handheld) retailer, and I answer hundreds of people's questions a week who need something that'll do everything for them too. Not "a box just like [the PS2]", but something that'll provide them with everything they need. They too are perplexed by anything more complex than a fly swatter, but they buy PC's. I see the PS2 and future consoles (with the exception of the Dreamcast if Sega ever releases the spec on the GD-Rom format) as the primary component in the corporate scheme to use us for as much cash as possible - with little regard for the freedom of information or thought.

    The unsophisticated consumer-level users can still buy their PlayStations and Nintindo 64s and bow down to their corporate masters and laugh at the geeks with their complex PC's.... and they will.

    It's the dark side, alright - but it's actually a little more attactive than the real "dark side".

  • Re:The dark side of Play... (Score:3)

    by Hobbex ( 41473 ) on Sunday March 05, 2000 @01:00PM (#1224725)
    So, I am a consumer who wants access to the Internet for the purposes of playing cutting-edge massively-multiplayer games, chatting, checking my e-mail, browsing the web, and engaging in on-line forums. I buy a box like the PS2 which does all of these things conveniently, cheaply, and easily, and this box _isn't_ for me, or consumers like me? I am a victim of Sony and other companies who make these non-consumer products?

    Please, victimize me more!

    Yes, you are a victim. You are a victim because you are being played as pawn in Sony's game for a future where they and their kin control the very freedom and integrity of your online existance. You are a victim because you are mindlessly giving up freedoms in cyberspace which you would not have dreamed for a second of compromising in the world which you are used to.

    Indeed there are many people who need a simpler device than a PC for their Internet access, and those people should have such a device. But this is not what the PS2 is about, the PS2 is about being the troyan horse into peoples homes that Sony needs to make sure that it can provide customers with information without granting them freedom. It is about giving the mega-corps back the power that the Internet and the PC has threatened, a hundred times over. Read between the lines of the corporate doublespeak of Sony's talk of a "platform for digital content delivery", and this is exactly you will see.

    This is not about being anti-capitalistic, or luddite, or not wanting to give newbies a chance to go online. This is about a cancer to capitalist society that has gone to far, and that is threatening the very freedom that capitalism exists ONLY to support. This is about the DMCA, the UCITA, the arrest of sixteen year old for nothing but protecting fair use, and the continued growth of corporations abusing laws meant to encourage "creative effort" to be parasites to this very process in every way.

    It is a shame that people are not yet aware enough of the importance of electronic freedom to realize that they MUST reject the intrusion of electronics into their homes that is serving somebody else's agenda rather than theirs.

    It is a shame, but it is understandable.

    It is not understandable that people like you defend this process.

    -
    We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way.

  • Re:PS 2 Myths (Score:3)

    by m3000 ( 46427 ) on Sunday March 05, 2000 @04:44AM (#1224726)
    1. no idea, but I doubt it. Sony probally just doens't want you opening the box since it'll void the warrenty.

    2. From dailyradar.com, they said it looks great and all, just that controlling a movie with a controller sucks. That was their major grip.

    3. Backward compaticble with all PSX games coded to Sony spec, and can improve some of them. Not really noticable though from the screenshots I've seen.

    4. Yes, all PSX peripharls work, but the PS2 comes with controllers that look almost exactly like the Dual Shock, only all the buttons on it are analog and not digital.

    5. No idea, but I'm guessing it was just some marketing hype by Sony to make it sound more impressive. I think the deal on that was it was a age-old law that classified it as a supercomputer, when it would classify almost every computer made today as a super computer.

  • OS? Who needs an OS? (Score:3)

    by be-fan ( 61476 ) on Sunday March 05, 2000 @05:36AM (#1224727)
    Hey, now that its out, has Sony released any info about the OS, (or any PS2 developers like to comment about it?) It seems to me that they did the right thing and stayed with their propriotory, lightweight OS, but what stuff have the put in to facilitate internet transfers, DVD playback, and web-browsing? Does this even have memory protection? While on the topic of OS, this is the kind of OS people dream about writing too. No bloated OS services to get in your way, direct access to every piece of hardware, and no other programs stealing your compute time, no worrying about swap file issues, tweeking the code perfectly to keep the pipes flowing, and no worrying about configuring perhiprals.

  • PS 2 Myths (Score:3)

    by Sits ( 117492 ) on Sunday March 05, 2000 @04:34AM (#1224728) Homepage Journal
    Could someone shed some light on a few PS 2 myths that I've heard?

    1. The PS 2 is hemetically sealed and opening it will casue various chips to damage themselves.
    2. The PS 2 DVD playback is actually not very good - even your average joe will not be impressed by the quality.
    3. It is backward compatible with most PS1 games and actually enhances them (crisper graphics faster frame rate).
    4. It is backwards compatible with PS1 periphrals, but the pads are somehow improved.
    5. The PS 2 is calssified as a supercomputer.

    Cheers.

  • Links re. banning (Score:4)

    by Christopher Thomas ( 11717 ) on Sunday March 05, 2000 @05:13AM (#1224729)
    Wasn't there just an article about the Playstation 2 being banned for export from Japan?

    This is correct. Tom's Hardware had a link to this article about it:

    http://headline.gamespot.com/news/00_03/01_vg_impo rt/index.html [gamespot.com]

    Digging through Sony's pages, I can't find anything about this in the North American page. The Japanese pages, naturally, I can't read :). If someone with knowledge of the language could confirm that there's an actual announcement there, it would be much appreciated.

    URL for the Japanese playstation pages is:

    http://www.scei.co.jp/index-n.html [scei.co.jp]

  • Why does viewing the "internals" shots... (Score:4)

    by TheDullBlade ( 28998 ) on Sunday March 05, 2000 @06:07AM (#1224730)
    ...feel strangely like viewing a page of celebrity nudes? If only they had a half-dozen popups which redirect you to pages like "Emotion Engine acid-strip show!", "two female connectors coupled!", and "Brazilian Plug Pornography! [chello.se]"... (sigh)

  • The dark side of Play... (Score:4)

    by Hobbex ( 41473 ) on Sunday March 05, 2000 @05:27AM (#1224731)
    Like everyone here, I can't help but drool over the technical specs to this machine, and what Sony has managed to squeeze into the price. It is obviously a damn fine piece of technology, and I salute Sony's developers for this achievement.

    But, on the other hand, there is a side to this that I can't help worrying about, and choices made for which I do not salute Sony (aka a leading member of both the RIAA and MPAA). These machines are the most propietary of the proprietary, and include copyprotection schemes that make CSS look childish. And Sony's goal with the PS2 is not just to push another console onto the market, but to start chipping into the things which PCs are used for today, making there machines the standard way to access the Internet.

    The PS2 is not a machine designed as an instrument for the consumer, it is designed as an instrument for Sony to drive consumers into buying more games, more movies, and more of whatever other services they plan to offer. Inviting a PS2 into your living room is not buying a piece of electronics to serve _your_ agenda, it is opening the door to a piece of robotics maticulously designed to use you, granting you as little freedom as possible ("lets see, what Sony licensed proprietary title shall we play today") in the process.

    The personal computer will always be more than just a piece of electronics, because it is a tool designed for you, and only for you. The PC is a statement of integrity and freedom. It serves your agenda, when you want it to, and, with a little knowledge, in whatever way you want it to. It is the PC that povided the basis for the developement of Linux, and it is freedom of PC usage that has shaped most of our ideas about electronic freedom.

    The bad things that Microsoft do with their control of the PC desktop are nothing compared to the bad things that companies like Sony will do if the PC is replaced by closed machines like the PS2 as the primary tool for accessing the Internet. Do you think there will ever be a Napster client for the PS2? Or an SDMI-free mp3 player? Or the ability to save and store information on your terms?

    The proliferation of the PS2 is a further step into a future where corporations control every aspect of your electronic life. A world where the machines that should be our tools are instead turned against us, meant only to ensure the continued cashflow toward existing capital, where large money will not hesitate to fuck you over at any point.

    Oh happy day!

    -
    We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way.

  • Re:PS 2 Myths (Score:5)

    by iapetus ( 24050 ) on Sunday March 05, 2000 @07:04AM (#1224732) Homepage

    I noticed a couple of less-than-entirely-accurate responses to this one, so here are the genuine facts.

    1. Entirely false. If you head over to Core Magazine [coremagazine.com] you'll find a couple of pages of shots of the innards of PS2 (1 [coremagazine.com], 2 [coremagazine.com]). From what I've heard, the screws are covered up, but a little bit of effort and you can get at them. Expect this to void your warranty. :)
    2. Entirely false. Every report I've seen of the DVD playback has suggested that if anything it's superior to other DVD players in the price range. And the playback software is upgradeable (stored on the memory card) - future versions of the software will be enhanced. Progressive video is said to be available with the next version. For more information, see IGN's story on PS2's DVD capabilities. [ign.com]
    3. Partly false. It is backward compatible with most PSX games - of the games tested, about 15 don't work so far, and these are mostly obscure Japanese titles (Wing Commander III being the one exception). There may be a few more in the Western lineup, but not that many. Compatibility is considerably better than Bleem, since this is hardware emulation, not software. There's a real PSX chip in there doing the work (doubling as the I/O controller). You can optionally configure the system to enhance PSX games with faster load times and bilinear filtering of textures. This reduces compatibility, resulting in some big-name games failing to work, and bilinear filtering makes the textures look less crisp (but smoother) rather than more so.
    4. It is backwards compatible with the old controllers, but the new version of the Dual Shock controller has enhanced features that you won't get if you're using the old ones, including analogue buttons all round and a slightly better made analogue stick. The expectation is that old controllers/memory cards will mainly be used for PSX games, whereas PS2 games will tend to require the new kit (you can't use a PSX memory card to save PS2 games, for example). At the moment none of the games out there really make use of the analogue buttons, but expect this to change fairly soon.
    5. True, provided your definition of a supercomputer is woefully outdated. This has been rumoured to cause problems with export, but it's mainly marketing hype - the only potential real problem with exporting the system is likely to be the strong encryption on the memory cards.

  • Re:The dark side of Play... (Score:5)

    by Chasuk ( 62477 ) <chasuk@gmail.com> on Sunday March 05, 2000 @11:03AM (#1224733)
    "The PS2 is not a machine designed as an instrument for the consumer..."

    So, I am a consumer who wants access to the Internet for the purposes of playing cutting-edge massively-multiplayer games, chatting, checking my e-mail, browsing the web, and engaging in on-line forums. I buy a box like the PS2 which does all of these things conveniently, cheaply, and easily, and this box _isn't_ for me, or consumers like me? I am a victim of Sony and other companies who make these non-consumer products?

    Please, victimize me more!

    "...it is designed as an instrument for Sony to drive consumers into buying more games, more movies, and more of whatever other services they plan to offer."

    As can be said for virtually any product ever manufactured. You don't really believe that VCR's and televisions and CD-ROMs were designed as objets d'art, do you?

    I work for an ISP, and I answer hundreds of phone calls a week from customers who need a box just like this one. They are desperately perplexed by any technology more complicated than a toaster, and it would save us and them literally thousands of hours of frustration and stress if they had purchased a box more suitable for their limited needs. I see the PS2 and future incarnations of similar hardware as the salvation of the consumer, not the enemy.

    The geeks can still buy their power systems and tweak and upgrade and laugh at the unsophisticated consumer-level users.

    If this is the "dark side," then R2-D2 and C-3PO are serving the wrong masters.

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