Sony's PS3

[cheapprick]

Somebody posted this to the news, but it doesn't really seem like P2P news so :

cnet.com reports: Sony and Toshiba have licensed technology from Rambus that likely will be incorporated into a future version of the PlayStation game console.

The two Japanese giants have licensed "Yellowstone," a high-speed interface for connecting memory to microprocessors, and "Redwood," a chip-to-chip connection, from the processor designer, the companies said. Both Yellowstone and Redwood would be used to enhance the broadband capabilities of "Cell," a complex microprocessor that will likely power an upcoming version of Sony's PlayStation.

Cell, which is expected to come out in late 2004 or early 2005, substantially differs from current chips on the market. Developed by IBM, Sony and Toshiba, the processor will contain multiple chips inside a single piece of silicon and will be geared toward delivering video, entertainment, interactive gaming and other content.

It will have the ability to do north of 1 trillion mathematical calculations per second, roughly 100 times more than a single Pentium 4 chip running at 2.5GHz. Chips churning at that speed, though, need to be surrounded by high-speed links and similarly speedy chips to function properly, which is where Yellowstone and Redwood come in. Yellowstone can transfer data up to 100 gigabits per second, or three times faster than current high-speed memory, said Laura Stark, vice president of the memory interface group at Rambus.

In the end, the two technologies will allow chips to exchange audio or graphics data extremely rapidly, the companies said. the full article can be found at http://news.com.com/2100-1001-979340.html?tag=lh

[Raztro]

sweet. thanks for the news.

[phalkon30]

Awesome, sounds almost too good to be true, but still cool

Think of the rendering power for movies such as toy story, or final fantasy, they could do some mad shit with this setup

Now to find a large hard drive that works even remotely that fast.......

[Spencer45317]

Don't forget about the DVD discs recently revealed at a Sony Technology showcase in Japan, the Blu-Ray DVD format is part of a multi-company effort, which includes Toshiba, and promises to make the current DVD format outdated.

Compared to the current DVD format's 9 gigabytes per side, the new format will be capable of cramming 23GB onto one side of a single disc, which is housed inside of a plastic "cartridge" of sorts. (think mini-disc, this also would mean no more scratched DVDs) Not only that, but the technology is being designed as a recordable medium and fully HDTV-ready from the get go.

According to it's creators, the format is pegged to hold 15 hours of DVD quality video or 3-4 hours of HDTV content. For recording, it will be rewritable. Blu-Ray discs won't play on current DVD players, but players designed for them will be BACKWARDS-COMPATIBLE with original DVDs and CDs.

The format is still years away however it is in the running for consideration for the storage medium used by the PS3.

Imagine the possibilities. The size of the game you could put on such a disc is amazing. You wouldn't even necessarily need a Hard Drive since each game disc could have it's own writable space. I'am sure game developers could think of some great ways to use this new tech.

Also with PS3, Sony plans on having PS3s linked up over a broadband network to spread the computational tasks, this can have a huge effect on the console. According to Sony, this will allow for a potential thousandfold increase in power over the PS2, a feat that traditional hardware advancements would take decades to achieve. Every time you turn on your PS3, you'll be adding to the "collective" power of the system. It sounds like a lot of work to implement the Blu-Ray discs and to implement this sort of broadband network, but Sony president Ken Kutaragi firmly believes his company will be able to pull it off. By 2010, Sony, IBM, and Toshiba hope to have 100 million to 200 million Cell processors to form the broadband network. Cell processors could potentially be used in everything from PS3s to any sort of household appliance, like a TV.

Sony has had a lot of empty promises in the past but, if this pulls through, it will be awesome.

[chipperrox]

oh yea my bad on postin that under p2p (sorry)

ps wow spencer that network sounds awesome- but if each drive has i think 100x p4 2.5ghz, wont each system be able to handle anythin it needs, and much more?i mean we dont need a legion of sony ps3s with more power than a cray(exagerating i think) ...do we?

[overdo]

i'm guessing the US will ban the sale of PS3 to Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea......... If they thought Saddam could launch a nuke with a PS2 then imagine what he could do with one of these.

[Spencer45317]

(Reuters) - Sony Corp. said on Thursday it sold 8.5 million PlayStation 2 game consoles during the key holiday shopping season in November and December, up 24 percent from a year ago and holding well ahead of rivals.

The figures, largely in line with analysts' expectations, showed Sony still far out-selling consoles from Microsoft Corp and Nintendo Co. Ltd., which hit the shelves more than a year after the PlayStation 2.

Sony's results also belied signs of weakness in the game sector, which has seen some downward revisions in earnings targets from game software makers and retailers.

"Most are saying the source of weakness is that (Microsoft's) Xbox and (Nintendo's) Game Cube underperformed their expectations and that PlayStation was strong," said West LB analyst Zachary Liggett.

Sony Computer Entertainment, a wholly owned Sony subsidiary that makes and markets the PlayStation 2, said sales in North America in November and December jumped 42 percent from the year before to more than four million units.

Europe posted a 27 percent rise to more than 3.4 million but in Japan, where the machine has been on the market for nearly three years and is approaching saturation point, sales fell 27 percent from a year earlier to 940,000 units.

The Japanese figures include the first week of January 2003 to take in purchases during the country's extended New Year holiday.

JAPAN NEARING SATURATION

Although holiday sales in North America exceeded internal estimates, a Sony Computer Entertainment spokeswoman said the company had made no adjustments to its global shipment targets.

Changes to the target, if any, would be announced when Sony released consolidated earnings for the October-December quarter on January 29, she said.

The Sony figures followed an announcement by Nintendo on Wednesday that it sold 1.5 million of its GameCube machines in Europe in all of 2002.

Market research firm ScreenDigest estimated Microsoft sold 1.4 million Xbox consoles in Europe last year and Sony sold six million PlayStation 2s.

In Japan, game magazine publisher Mediaworks said on Thursday it estimated Game Cube sales at 409,747 units in the period from October 28 to January 5, less than half the PlayStation 2's 966,089 tally.

Only 62,718 Xbox consoles were sold in Japan during the period, the publisher said.

The PlayStation has become a key profit generator for Sony, the world's largest consumer electronics maker, as it toils along with other Japanese electronics giants to emerge from a slump that hit the high-tech sector two years ago.

In October, Sony raised its shipment target for the PlayStation 2 to 22.5 million units for the business year to this March, up from a prior target of 20 million.

Sony has forecast a 180 billion yen ($1.5 billion) net profit for the year to March, more than 10 times the prior year's total.

Xbox live is doing well though, almost outselling Playstation's network adaptor 5:1. Sony did however sell 525,000 of the product, over estimates of 500,000.

[SUPrEmEBeInGismyFrIeND]

sony blows, XBOX FOREVER!!!

[Karizmatik]

Originally posted by SUPrEmEBeInGismyFrIeND
sony blows, XBOX FOREVER!!!

LoL...Good Luck.

[nasrules]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by SUPrEmEBeInGismyFrIeND
sony blows, XBOX FOREVER!!!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

u can live in hope............hahahahahahhahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!

[overdo]

sony blows, XBOX FOREVER!!!

haha. IMHO they both blow but yeah PS2 is better than the XBox. as for Sony v MS i feel that they are both as bad as each other, sony with "copy-protected" cds and MS with DRM and palladium. ah well it doesn't matter too much cause neither of them do what they try to do properly:fire

[TipYourBartender]

Bring back the VR goggles for PS3!!

[chipperrox]

(tipourbartender):
the japs get enough seizures from their damn pokeman, i dont think virtual reality goggles would be too good for ps3 considreing it will sell 8 mill units first month. half the country will be in amphelectic shock by the time they recall the goggles.
( im just kiddin yal, no hurt feelins)

[SUprEMeBeiNg]

jeez i hate gaystation 3............................

[DainBramaged]

According to recent patents filed by Sony, each PS3 console will contain four processing elements (cells). Each of these cells will contain their own cache and some number of vector units. Important is the fact that each of these cells is fundamentally the same--each cell can do exactly what each other cell can do. A central CPU will dynamically manage each of these cells, allocating code to them as necessary. Additionally, with a network in place, the CPU can allocate code to any other PS3 cell on the network, increasing computational power by untold amounts.

Each console will come equipped with 64, 1 MB banks of DRAM. Connecting all these components will be some sort of high speed bus--as mentioned, this may be Yellowstone.

Sony will likely choose next generation DVD technology as their media of choice.

In short, the PS3 is a group effort.