Kev's Development Toolbox

I managed to find a PS3 before Christmas, thanks to the itrackr website. Our Christmas present to ourselves this year was a 46″ Sony Bravia XBR2 LCD TV. Wow. The two in combination is absolutely amazing. Playing any game on a screen that large is just awesome, but seeing HD graphics like from Ridge Racer 7 in full 1080p is absolutely amazing.

The highlight so far though has to be watching Phantom of the Opera on Blu-ray. This can be described in just a few words – “eye-popping”, and “jaw-dropping”. Absolutely stunning. The sharpness is incredible, and the colors are so deep and rich. Absolutely amazing, and worth every penny.

The father of the Playstation, Ken Kutargai, promised the release of a purely audio/visual PS3 based device in the near future, the main focus of which would be only on delivering mutlimedia content and not as a games console.

This is rather surprising, since Tivo-like functionality was rumoured for the PS3 months before it’s launch, so it’s uncertain what shape this is now going to take – it may be delivered in a box derived from a PS3, but not actually a PS3?

Phil Harrison, Sony Computer Entertainment Executive VP was interviewed this week and mentioned some of the new features that are coming along for the March 2007 firware update, which also ties in with the European launch: (taken from www.videogamesblogger.com)

• Multi-tasking (included will be audio/video conferencing while browsing the Cross Media Bar (aka XMB) and its features/gameplay).
• New XMB display options.
• New animations for audio playback.
• New photo album options.
• PlayStation Store auto-resume.
• PSP remote play advanced access option, so you can have access to your PS3‚Äôs content anywhere where there‚Äôs an internet connection.

Also mentioned are the addition of a TV tuner and TiVo-like service coming in Q4 2007. If these features are going to be available as add-on’s (the tuner) or firmware updates (TiVo functionality), I believe the PS3 is really going to be an attractive ‘do-it-all’ box, that will truely shine above the XBox360.

Sony Computer Entertainment’s Exec VP Phil Harrison made some impressively bold statements this week about the capacity of the PS3, stating that the current PS3 launch titles are not using even half of it’s processing capacity, and that ‚ÄúNobody will ever use 100 percent of its capability.‚Äù

That’s a strong statement to make. I expect as the manufacturer of a gaming console you’d expect developers to use it’s full capacity at some point, at least a couple of years after it’s launch anyway (which is typical for consoles – current releases of latest PS2 games are only just reaching the point where they are pushing the PS2 to it’s max).