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PlayStation (Games) The Internet

September PS3 Launch, Online Service 93

Posted by Zonk from the that's-not-the-spring dept.
Next Generation (which has generally been fairly reliable regarding information of this nature) has a report indicating that the PlayStation 3 may be launching in September of this year. They also have information about the Sony online console service that has been rumoured for the last few weeks. Apparently called HUB, they theorize details about that aspect of the console will be made available in the next few weeks. From the article: "PlayStation HUB is being described to developers as a 'subscriber service' suggesting a monthly charge. We understand the service is being created by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, although this is unconfirmed. Sony boss Howard Stringer is pushing for all media content to be available for distribution over PlayStation HUB, such as music and movies, thus opening up a powerful iTunes-like distribution network for Sony."
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September PS3 Launch, Online Service More

September PS3 Launch, Online Service

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  • What? (Score:3, Funny)

    by voice_of_all_reason ( 926702 ) on Wednesday February 15, 2006 @11:22AM (#14724951)
    thus opening up a powerful iTunes-like distribution network for Sony.

    Except it's not portable. Insert "wah-wah-wah-waaaaah" sound.

    Come on, an internet-required playstation is about as portable as a grammaphone.

    • Expect (Score:4, Informative)

      by brunes69 ( 86786 ) <slashdot AT keirstead DOT org> on Wednesday February 15, 2006 @11:27AM (#14725007)
      Expect the ability to transfer stuff from your PS3 directly to your PSP for portability.

      Also expect the ability to transfer music and small videos directly to your Walkman phone.

      • Can't the PSP already go out onto the interwebs? Why the extra work?
        • Maybe the PSP will be able to connect directly as well.

          It isn't out yet so we don't know, do we?
        • they are supposedly playing up psp/ps3 connectivity. ill wager this is how they plan to charge for psp content as well. download music and video to your psp from the website; play the files on the psp or ps3. what i would be interested in knowing is if psp/ps3 connectivity will finally give people a way to play umds on their tvs. im sure the ps3 can handle the upscaling, if the psp can provide some form of video output. can anyone chime in about this psp locationfree stuff?
          • Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't UMDs below standard DVD resolution? (I forget the dimensions) If so, viewing them on a TV would look like.. well.. ass.
            • Apple is selling tons of video at low resolutions. So I guess there would be a market for something similar to this.
              • That's not the point. He's discrediting the utility of playing UMDs on a TV. Sure, PSP videos (would) have a market, but playing them on a TV wouldn't.
            • the UMD movies are encoded around the same resolution. but using better compression. [i think...]. besides, supposedly the ps3 should be able to upscale video pretty well.

            • PSP resolution is 480x272 pixels. Though DVD in NTSC regions is encoded at up to 720x480 pixels, there are major differences between what's on the DVD and what the viewer sees:

              • Most people watch DVDs through a composite video cable, which sends luma and chroma over different frequency bands (roughly 0-2.7 MHz and 2.7-4.5 MHz) on one wire pair. In order for the luma not to overlap the chroma and cause color fringing, the DVD player horizontally filters the image down to the equivalent of 480 pixels wide.
              • I don't know much about the subject, but the fact that I know that this statement is total crap makes me disbelieve all of it:

                Most people watch DVDs through a composite video cable, which sends luma and chroma over different frequency bands (roughly 0-2.7 MHz and 2.7-4.5 MHz) on one wire pair. In order for the luma not to overlap the chroma and cause color fringing, the DVD player horizontally filters the image down to the equivalent of 480 pixels wide. Now you're down to 480x480, the same resolution as SV

                • You can take any S-Video cable (which by your definition would not have said filtering), stip it, twist the luma and chroma wires together, and pop it into any composite jack. I would challenge anyone to see any "color banding".

                  Even on your TV that displays S-Video, can you get 360 distinct vertical lines of luma (720 pixels alternating white and black) to display clearly? If not, then your TV doesn't have enough luma bandwidth for 720x480. I allege that most consumers TV don't have enough luma bandwidt

      • Too bad I own an iRiver IHP-120 which does not support DRM. Plus I don't want a portable video device, but I would like to take movies to my friends' house to watch. Guess I'm SOL? Screw this, I'm just buying content the old way where I can rip + do what I want.
    • Are we sure that most /.'ers know what a grammaphone is? In other words, its not............
  • Movies and music... that only work on your Sony device. We are already familiar with the tiff Sony had with Apple regarding iTunes in Australia, and we know how loathe they are to open up their own formats.

    So you can potentially buy movies and music, and apparently the thing also plays video games (which we haven't heard much about). The Xbox360 lets you plug your iPod in at least (and apparently does a pretty good job of handling it). Yet Sony wants people to not only pay a monthly fee, but also use t

    • You download music from HUB onto your cute little Memory Stick. You put that memory stick in your PSP. You connect that PSP to your PC via the easily available USB Mini-B connector. Voila.

  • Sony who? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Rude Turnip ( 49495 )
    There used to be such a company that existed up until they willingly attacked the worldwide information infrastructure with malicious software and assumed all their customers were criminals. But now that company is dead as far as I am concerned.
    • The above comment is not a troll. The defnition of trolling is expressing a view that you do not believe in order to elicit a desired response. If anything, it would be flamebait, except badmouthing sony isn't exactly going to start a flame war. The parent comment is not deserving of negative moderation. (This one is offtopic - consider this parenthesized statement a continuance of your moderation education information.)
  • Or this "live" is an internet based service.

    And, if it is an internet based service, then ISP will ask for their cut as the "Free ride" thing with Google?

    Or this will be another reason to push the tiered internet?

  • Speculation of Info (Score:2, Interesting)

    by VGMSupreme ( 228396 )
    This is so layer in speculation, that I can smother my pancakes with it. Probably doesn't taste as great though.

    It seems wierd that they mention none of the details are specific, nor confirmed by Sony, but they can say that Japan and US might get it around the same time? Somehow, I think Sony would honor their Japanese market before it every makes it over the Pacific.

    As for the subscription service, I would like to see it in action, and how well it can hold up to Xbox Live. "an iTunes like distrubtion"?
    • Actually the DS was released in the US a week before it was in Japan(to take advantage of "black Friday"). And the truth of the matter is, in terms of sales the Japanese video game market is in decline, and while the west isn't growing in leaps and bounds, it holds more and more interest to console manufacturers and game publishers.
    • It would be retarded for them to charge anything. Suddenly Joe Sixpack has to get out his credit card and pay to play an online game that he just paid $50 for, after just having made fun of us PC gamers for doing the same thing with something like World of Warcraft.

      How fun would it be if you had to pay $10 a month to play HL2 online? Or even BF2?
      • How fun would it be if you had to pay $10 a month to play HL2 online? Or even BF2?

        When did the video game industry start having anything to do with fun?

        I agree it would be retarded to charge extra. However. There's no such thing as a stupid product. Only the people who buy them.

  • So Much for Online Games... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by superdan2k ( 135614 ) on Wednesday February 15, 2006 @11:59AM (#14725281) Homepage Journal
    A subscription model? You're kidding me, right? I'm sorry, if I am going to be paying $50-$60 for a new game, the last thing I am doing is shelling out more money on a monthly basis to play online. Furthermore, given the stupid subsciption model, where's the incentive to upgrade from my PS2? I can still play SOCOM and Madden online, if I'm inclined.

    OTOH, I don't think there's a single PS2 game that has me inspired to play online -- of the four years I've owned my PS2, I've had it plugged into a network for maybe 10 days.
    • I think that the service should be tiered. A basic free online matchmaking service for games. Then you can purchase higher levels of service with more options such as online chat (without a game), file sharing (save games, etc.), marketplace (new expansions, extra levels), music, videos, etc. I believe Xbox Live is already tiered and does something similar. I agree with you that online multiplayer should be free or at least included with the console. If they want to charge, there should be more than ju
      • Milton Friedman said it best: "There's no such thing as a free lunch."

        $45 yearly seems reasonable for matchmaking and actual servers, to me at least. Those servers cost real money to maintain and provide bandwidth for, regardless of whether you paid for it all up front or not. Along with that, you also get at least a certain level of service that random, player-owned servers don't give. If Joe Random's Q4 server dies, there aren't any real consequences to him beyond the loss of the server. If something goes

    • Re:So Much for Online Games... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Bellum Aeternus ( 891584 ) on Wednesday February 15, 2006 @12:40PM (#14725632)
      You're kidding me, right? I'm sorry, if I am going to be paying $50-$60 for a new game, the last thing I am doing is shelling out more money on a monthly basis to play online.

      Why not, 5.5 million WoW users do it every month?

      Subscription service may even let us see free games in the coming years as developers realize that the majority of their income is from the subscriptions and not the sold box; especially once they stop selling boxes and start providing downloadable content. Of course, faster network connections and a very large audience is need to support that; but that's what this all about right? M$ vs $ony for the title of network/distribution owner?

      You think M$ is willing to lose millions on the XBox and 360 because they hope to make it up in game sales? No way, they want the network and control. Same as $ony.

      • yes but WoW is designed with long term playability in mind. do you think someone is going to pay a monthly sub to play madden 07 which they will then trade in? or worse (for sony), play on xbox for the one year fee? and with WoW you buy one box. if sony does monthly, they expect people to buy 3-4 games a month plus their sub? uh, no, sorry. with WoW you spend 50 once and 15/month. not 50 (or 60 if next gen prices average that) dollars every time a diff. title comes out plus the subscription fee.
        • Your assumptions don't make sense, here are mine:

          1) It definitely will not be a pay-per-game subscription I expect you will pay a monthly fee for access to PS-HUB.
          2) Most likely the subscription service will have a free level and paid level and there will be restrictions on what you can play at the free level.
          3) Most likely the prices will be competitive with the Xbox subscription.
          4) Most likely they're developing this specifically to compete with Xbox Live.
  • I haven't seen anything to suggest it, but will the PS3 play the UMD discs that work with the PSP?
    • I'd say not a chance. It's just another peripheral they'd have to include in the price. We haven't seen another device that utilizes the UMD. No players or computer add-ons via USB or even the 3.5" ports on your box (remember those? they had the floppys). UMD likely won't make it off of the PSP, at least for a while. Maybe if there's a PSP2 it will be backward compatable. I hope it isn't though. Expenses aside, they should be using solid state.

      In my opinion, no handheld should have moving parts. E

      • hmmm... i like the thought of a console with a suspend button. hmmm... or maybe im the only idiot that pauses games if im not near a save point, and walks away for hours.

        its funny to see that ive spent 24+ hours playing a game and ive only gotten to the fourth level.
        • A friend of mine couldn't afford a memory card for his Playstation. He bought Gran Turismo and played it for around 8 days without powering it off. He went to the bank to get money for the card and when he returned, the game had finally frozen on him. I think he had 38 hours of play in.

  • Will HUB bring anything new? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jchenx ( 267053 ) on Wednesday February 15, 2006 @01:08PM (#14725858) Journal
    Will HUB bring anything new to console gaming? Or is Sony going to primarily focus on copying as much of Xbox Live as possible? It's pretty easy to point at an existing competitor and try to copy as much as their features as possible, but much more difficult to bring something new to the table. The concept of having HUB be a "media HUB" for Sony music, films, etc. is interesting, but I really wouldn't call that new. (And it's something that can already be done on the 360, and presumably Nintendo's Revolution)

    As much as people like to whine about the 360's subscription model (which only applies to the "Gold" membership) and the lack of users so far, I do enjoy some of the new features introduced in the latest incarnation of Live. For example, the gamerscore and the achievement system have turned into "mini-games" in themselves (if you enjoy that kind of thing). However, there are definately improvements that can be made. I wonder if Sony's going to go the extra mile, or if they're just going to be content (for now) with playing catch up?

    • "The concept of having HUB be a "media HUB" for Sony music, films, etc. is interesting, but I really wouldn't call that new."

      Well, there's a couple of problems. First off, Sony already has a music store [connect.com]. The fact that no one seems to mention it tells me that it's not very well known or well-used. Their Japanese online music service [sonymusic.co.jp] might be faring a bit better, I don't know. Both sites reek of "me too"-ism... if Sony is going to let the Media part of their company control the other divisions (as it currentl

      • TFA mentions that Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) is rumored to be developing HUB. I'm looking at the Wikipedia entry for Sony [wikipedia.org] and the most well-known product I can see from SCEE is Killzone (from Guerilla Games). I wonder if this means that HUB will be a bit more FPS-centric. Although you can easily argue that the first Xbox Live iteration was much the same way with Halo 2.

        Yeah, it's going to be very interesting to see how much pressure is put on SCEE from other Sony divisions. (Not like Microsof
    • "(which only applies to the "Gold" membership)"

      Yeah. I want to see Sony come up with an online gaming service that doesn't let you play online. Cause that's extreme, or something.

  • Perhaps it's because the PC has always been my primary game platform, but I simply am unwilling to pay a fee to game online. I see this as nothing more than a way to have a sustained monthly income for Sony and M$.
  • I've noticed that lately there has been a trend among /.ers.

    1. Pick an evil corporation that is making billions of dollars.
    2. Hate evil corporation! Say bad things about it and refuse to acknowledge any good aspects it may have!
    3. ?
    4. Profit!

    Guess what? It's possible to like all the consoles for different reasons! *Gasp!* You don't have to take sides at all! Sony isn't better than Microsoft, and vice versa. They're both companies, and it is their job to make their stockholders happy by increasi
  • Is it really wise to launch a new platform at the same time in two countries that speak different languages? Many of the games - actually, all of them - that I own for my PS2 are English translations of Japanese games. The only reason I own a PS2 is in fact for the Japanese console RPGs and Gran Turismo. Unless SONY pulls off a miracle, launch titles in the US will mostly be cross-platform franchise titles (i.e. EA Sports games) and it could be 6+ months until the good Japanese games are released in English

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