By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Sales Discussion - The PS3 not performing as bad as some claim?

MikeB said: Nice post! if you want a 360 (15gb version or however much space is left) with an hd-dvd player, it costs you $100 more than a ps3 with all the same functionality... Except a XBox 360 with HD DVD drive isn't really on par with the PS3's Blu-Ray drive, the HD DVD drive cannot be used for gaming and one thing games seem to do well over the years is that they tend to expand significantly in terms of data usage. Also the XBox 360 HD DVD addon is half the speed of the PS3's Blu-Ray drive. Finally a Blu-Ray disc stores more data per layer and includes impressive protective coatings (must pass steelwool rubbing tests). With regard to movie playback, the movie quality is about on par between both formats, but in theory due to Blu-Ray's higher bitrate, while using identical codecs Blu-Ray movies should be able to produce better picture quality (next to this the PS3's HDMI 1.3 is also a factor here).
Sigh. Always trying to compare a useless HD-DVD to the PS3s Blu-ray. The argument is baseless. The HD-DVD is only there for movie playback, nothing more. Therefore, there'd be no real need for the HD, as the HD is for gaming, not movies. You can complain about how HD-DVD is worse, but it's still a format for media only. There's a reason why MS didn't want the HD-DVD or Blu-Ray as a built-in drive. Still, I'd rather find a $200 core ($100 gift cards are still available), $199 HD-DVD and have a $399 HD-DVD unit rather than a $500 PS3. IF I wanted to just watch movies (of course not, HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are dead to me in terms of my needs)



Back from the dead, I'm afraid.

Around the Network

Agreed, Mike. The negative press has much to do with the PS3's pricetag and the desire for competition to keep Sony honest. NOBODY(except fanboys) wants to see Sony dominate again like they did with the PS2, and so the PS3 is constantly being hamstringed. Most don't look at the long run nor do they have a history of gaming and the reasons why certain consoles sold more than others. The PS3 is and will be alright, and will end up winning the war once more. 12



There is one point nobody seems to realize (which was the reason why I postet my little Story): Back in the PSX and N64 days 50 Million consoles were a huge userbase but the market grows with every new generation, so the 32 million N64´s are probably about 50 million PS3 today. BTW: the NES sold it´s 60 million not in the first 5 years, it needed about 10 years to reach that number. Look at Japan: the DS is doing awesome - but is the PSP really struggling? No, it is far away from it and thanks to Monster hunter and some FF title the numbers will probably increase. I expext the PSP to sell at least 10 million consoles in Japan and maybe 15 are possible, too. What I want to say: DS and Wii can be awesome sucessfull without making the other consoles struggling. It doesn´t matter if the Wii sells 120 million consoles the PS3 can still sell 50 million. Sucess of the Wii doesn´t mean the PS3 will fail - it is an entire new situation on the gaming market. So Kwaad and all the others who say the PS3 numbers will increase are anything but wrong - it may just never reach the Wii. (just a posibility not my personal opinion) So it is not: What will sell better? 360, Wii or PS3? It is "will all consoles sell good or will just one?"



MikeB said: The PPE is a 64 bit processor core (with an Altivec unit), the 7 SPEs are 128-bit processor cores. SPEs offer both enormous strenghts as well as some weaknesses compared to more ordinary processor cores. But at the uses they excel they are many times more powerful than traditional processor cores. One of the SPEs is fully reserved for the SystemOS running in the background and should soon be put to some good use. IMO this can be looked at as a good thing as new additional system-wide features should not impact game performance.
There is no denying that the Cell's unique architecture has its advantages and disadvantages. The whole point of my post was simply to say the Cell is not an 8 core CPU. If the Cell had 8 PPE's it would be an 8 core CPU. Whether we ever get to see the Cell's full power depend on several factors, one of which is the sales of the PS3.
Twelve said: Agreed, Mike. The negative press has much to do with the PS3's pricetag and the desire for competition to keep Sony honest. NOBODY(except fanboys) wants to see Sony dominate again like they did with the PS2, and so the PS3 is constantly being hamstringed. Most don't look at the long run nor do they have a history of gaming and the reasons why certain consoles sold more than others. The PS3 is and will be alright, and will end up winning the war once more. 12
I don't know how you can be so certain of that Twelve. Can the PS3 come back and finish in first? Certainly it can. The problem is th PS3 is out now and is losing ground to both of its competitors each month. It is getting further behind each month in worldwide sales. The longer this continues the less and less likely it will become for the PS3 to "win" this generation. Having the most expensive platform to develop for, the most difficult platform to develop for, the worst development tools, and the smallest userbase is NOT a recipe for success. Its too early for Sony to hit the panic button, the PS3 has yet to launch in Europe yet, but Sony needs to come up with some strategy to increase the PS3's US and Japanese sales. All eyes are on Europe at the moment. If the PS3 launches big in Europe and maintains high sales for several months, it will buy Sony the time to right the ship in the US and Japanese markets. If the PS3 fizzles like it has in the US and Japan in particular. Sony would then need to hit the panic button.



MikeB wrote:

Due to mass production, Blu-Ray related production costs have already dropped significantly. HD DVD and Blu-Ray disc production costs are now about on par, in some cases scratch/smudge protected Blu-Ray disc production is even cheaper.
Here's a good in depth article relating to this. "In fact, we found that Blu-ray is actually cheaper per GB in many situations! It is also interesting to note that at this point, most HD DVD-ROM movies are DL, while most BD-ROM movies are SL, which would make HD DVD more expensive to replicate in most situations." @ mrstickball
Always trying to compare a useless HD-DVD to the PS3s Blu-ray. The argument is baseless. The HD-DVD is only there for movie playback, nothing more. Therefore, there'd be no real need for the HD, as the HD is for gaming, not movies. You can complain about how HD-DVD is worse, but it's still a format for media only. There's a reason why MS didn't want the HD-DVD or Blu-Ray as a built-in drive.
Everyone is of course entitled to an opinion. I think Blu-Ray will offer significant advantages with regard to game design, I expect this will result in larger more complex gaming experiences (even launch games like Resistance and Motorstom with 7.1 audio have already outgrown the storage capacity of DVDs). You are right however there are considerations to stay with DVD, but I think they are mostly cost related. DVD drives are much cheaper so this results in a cheaper and easier to manufacture end product, but for the long run IMO Sony has made a wise decision. Personally I would be very dissapointed if the PS3 like the PS2 would come supplied with a DVD drive by default. The scratch resistance of Blu-Ray discs is IMO already a huge advantage next to more storage capacity, I view Blu-Ray movie playback as a very nice added bonus.



Naughty Dog: "At Naughty Dog, we're pretty sure we should be able to see leaps between games on the PS3 that are even bigger than they were on the PS2."

PS3 vs 360 sales

Around the Network

@ Twelve

Agreed, Mike. The negative press has much to do with the PS3's pricetag and the desire for competition to keep Sony honest. NOBODY(except fanboys) wants to see Sony dominate again like they did with the PS2, and so the PS3 is constantly being hamstringed. Most don't look at the long run nor do they have a history of gaming and the reasons why certain consoles sold more than others.
I would like the PS3 to dominate this round, yet I am not really a Playsation or Sony fanboy, although I do respect the company for a rich history of innovations and their past success stories. I own a nice Sony TV set, yet I never owned a Playstation 2, me and my girlfriend actually own Nintendo DSes, now I also have my sister's XBox 360 Premium sitting here in my living room as a while back I advised my parents the console at the time would be the best choice to suit their HDTV set. IMO there are other considerations to take into account, for instance Kwaad mentioned he likes to use Linux on his console, for this the PS3 is the best console choice available (for instance you can use the Office suite OpenOffice.org with keyboard and mouse on the PS3). Also for developers who are interested in Cell development the PS3 is a very interesting device, the Cell is planned to be used in a huge amount of other poducts, including by Sony's rival Toshiba. From IBM DeveloperWorks (From Part 1 in a series of IBM/PS3 articles): "The Sony PLAYSTATION 3 (PS3) is the easiest and cheapest way for programmers to get their hands on the new Cell Broadband Engine (Cell BE) processor and take it for a drive. Discover what the fuss is all about, how to install Linux on the PS3, and how to get started developing for the Cell BE processor on the PS3. " Part 3 is now available: Programming high-performance applications on the Cell BE processor, Part 3: Meet the synergistic processing unit Link here But Sony allows any 'Other OS' to be installed on the Playstation 3, this is also of interest to some niche markets like the Amiga community. AmigaOS4 has recently been finished and for instance received a very good review over at Ars Technica, but apart from yesteryear's PPC development platforms the OS at this point isn't able to run on anything else (although soon there will be, but these product are mostly aimed at the embedded market, so only the more vivid AmigaOS4 ethusiasts would pay for a limited dedicated AmigaOS4 system, see link below), for such reasons the PS3 is also of interest to the Amiga community and the wider the PS3 market becomes, the more potential this product offers niche OS projects as well. Ars Technica AmigaOS4 review Official AmigaOS4 website ACube systems



Naughty Dog: "At Naughty Dog, we're pretty sure we should be able to see leaps between games on the PS3 that are even bigger than they were on the PS2."

PS3 vs 360 sales

Just to be clear on this, the CPUs in the 360 and PS3 are *NOWHERE CLOSE* to as powerful as any moderately new Intel or AMD desktop chip. These console chips pack a decent punch in some circumstances because they do SIMD so well (this goes for the 360 chip as well as the Cell but it gets less attention) which makes they very good at processing graphical effects, but at general-purpose computing - things like gamecode, physics, AI - they are *EXTREMELY* weak. That's because they've had essentially all their logic and cache stripped. These chips are a *fraction* the size of their desktop counterparts, because they were designed to cost a fraction as much to make. E.g. a PowerPC G5, which these chips are often erroneously compared to, absolutely *DWARFS* these chips. They're not in the same order of magnitude. And that goes for performance as well.



mrstickball said: Sigh. Always trying to compare a useless HD-DVD to the PS3s Blu-ray. The argument is baseless. The HD-DVD is only there for movie playback, nothing more. Therefore, there'd be no real need for the HD, as the HD is for gaming, not movies. You can complain about how HD-DVD is worse, but it's still a format for media only. There's a reason why MS didn't want the HD-DVD or Blu-Ray as a built-in drive. Still, I'd rather find a $200 core ($100 gift cards are still available), $199 HD-DVD and have a $399 HD-DVD unit rather than a $500 PS3. IF I wanted to just watch movies (of course not, HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are dead to me in terms of my needs)
Actually, he responded to me comparing 360 and ps3 prices. The comparison of the HD-DVD add-on with the $400 360 was made with the $500 ps3, showing that besides playing blu-ray games (which for FMVs and games in a few years will be a big advantage), the functionality is the same but the ps3 costs $100 less. HOWEVER, if you take out the hd-dvd add-on...as I compared then:
that extra $100 [for the ps3] gets you a blu-ray player, blu-ray games, ability to use any usb keyboard, mouse, and webcam, free internet service, an HDMI port, etc. I think that's $100 well spent. if you want a 360 (15gb version or however much space is left) with an hd-dvd player, it costs you $100 more than a ps3 with all the same functionality...yeah...600 "big ones"



Death2009 said: The wii won't hit 90 or even get close, It will stall around 60 if the novelty doesn't wear off....30 if it does...
People said that about the DS also, so far that system is only getting more sales.



 

 

Buy it and pray to the gods of Sigs: Naznatips!

@ stewacide

E.g. a PowerPC G5, which these chips are often erroneously compared to, absolutely *DWARFS* these chips. They're not in the same order of magnitude. And that goes for performance as well.
To quote Mintaor (Nicholas Blanchford) from AmigaWorld.net: "There are some early PS3 benchmarks here. The PPE comes out with a score almost identical to a 1.6GHz G5. That's nothing spectacular but do bear in mind that's that's using only 1 core (which happens to be the weakest), it appears to be completely unoptimised and doesn't use AltiVec. It's also Geekbench which is a bit dodgy anyway... A quick port of OS4 to the PS3 should run faster than any A1 or Peg II." "A port to the PPE should be trivial, certainly no more difficult than a port to the G5 (they are binary compatible). Adding support to the SPEs is more difficult but there is a reference implementation and the docs are all available. It's not a traditional SMP system so adding support may not be that difficult." "The real point of Cell though is the SPEs, any real work should be done on them. Getting stuff to work on one of them should be pretty easy as the instruction set is very similar to AltiVec. Altivec is dead easy, I got an app to speed up 20X in less than 3 days last week - with no prior experience of AltiVec. Parallel programming is notoriously complex though so running on multiple SPEs will be rather more difficult." So if we only take into account the PPE, an equivalent to a 1.6 Ghz G5 would be a lot faster than the platforms (called A1s or AmigaOnes, which were only ever sold together with a developer pre-release) AmigaOS4 currently runs on, and it's already very fast! A video showing off AmigaOS4 on a 800 Mhz G3 with 256MB and an old graphics card: http://youtube.com/watch?v=qSA-q1qniMY Nicholas (Minator) wrote quite a few in depth Cell articles, you can find a link on the frontpage here: http://www.cellsupercomputer.com/ Regarding the SPEs here some info from Mikael Haglunds (technical specialist of IBM Sweden) at an Amiga event in 2005: "IBM is still leading in terms of the Watts/Performance ratio with regard to their processors compared to available x86 technology and he believes this will likely continue to be so for the foreseeable future. He also explained that the new Cell processor technology includes a simple yet highly clocked PPC compatible processing core, but for software to really take full advantage of the new Cell technology, software needs to be optimized for using the specialized SPEs. He compared the Cell to how the classic Amigas operated, as the more impressive Amiga software took full advantage of its specialized custom chips. He wasn’t only thinking about complex Playstation3 games taking advantage of such technology (for instance dealing with lots more complex and more quantitive collisions), but also with regard to possible desktop orientated usages, like for instance for enhancing the performance of multimedia software or for advanced spreadsheet calculations." Article here



Naughty Dog: "At Naughty Dog, we're pretty sure we should be able to see leaps between games on the PS3 that are even bigger than they were on the PS2."

PS3 vs 360 sales