A good article from Eurogamer detailing some new (and old) info about the online service for the PS3: http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=68677 Some interesting parts:
Not really related to the PS3's online service, but something I want to bring up... If you may recall, when Sony announced the price for the PS3, they mentioned that the 60GB SKU would have an "open price" in Japan. At TGS, Sony dropped the price of the 20GB SKU in Japan to ~$420 (in yen though of course). Given that only 100K PS3s will make it to Japan at launch, I kind of assumed the Japanese that wanted a 60GB SKU (or those that wanted a 20GB SKU but couldn't find one) would be paying a LOT of money for a PS3. After all, there is no set price, and given the low supply, retailers would probably have no problem selling out of them even at insane prices (think of eBay). However, there is at least one Japanese retailer that doesn't appear to be screwing over the Japanese as much as I expected: The price you see for the 60GB model is equivalent to ~$525. So my question is how much did the retailers have to pay for them? IOW, how much did they pay Sony for the systems? In the case of both SKUs, the retailer certainly wouldn't be selling the systems at a loss (maybe about even at worst), and given the conditions, you would think they'd overprice the 60GB model as much as they could to make big profit (again, think of eBay). Sony seems to be selling the systems for cheaper than $420 and $525, but how much cheaper is the question. To be fair, it is difficult to come up with a good conclusion based on prices in Japan given the economy over there (paying 62,800 yen there may be worse than paying $600 here), but I can't help but wonder if perhaps Sony isn't quite losing as much money on these systems as we may have thought...which kind of ticks me off (people know how I feel about this sort of thing based on some of the Wii threads). Maybe I'm reading too much into something that doesn't really say much. If this is true though, Sony better be more aggressive in their pricing in the future. I certainly wouldn't want to still be looking at a $500/$600 PS3 a year from now (especially since they'd be a lot cheaper to make thanks to the transition to 65nm).
Think XBox live might go all free in response? That would be nice. No way I am paying them to play FPS's online when I can do it for free on my PC.
Can't say I ever understood why these companies have to lose money on the console, even to make money on the games.... ...seems like there is just too much technology in the PS3...not in any way that hurts the game play, but it definitely hurts the wallet. At this point, I'd actually almost prefer a laptop/game console combo, if I'm going to pay that much for the console anyway. By the time PS4 comes out, it'd be time for a new laptop anyway.
I'm curious just how hackable the PS3 will be. Microsoft doesn't want their Xbox to be seen as a computer- putting out a powerful computer for $400 or less could be frowned upon by computer vendors. Sony, however, doesn't have that issue. So, how hard will it be to get linux rolling on there, for instance? Will it even be possible with such a new out-of-the ordinary processor like Cell? If the open-source community gets its hands on it, and starts harnessing all of that power under the hood... that would get me interested.
Now that you mention it, I remember Sony talking about something like this WAY back during their E3 2005 press conference. I checked it out again, and they mention that one of the things the "HD IP Camera" provides is a "next-generation personal homepage", where you can broadcast yourself from anywhere in the world live or accessed from a HDD (so someone can take a virtual tour of Hawaii from their PS3 or whatever). I guess I didn't think of it at the time since youtube wasn't quite as big back then, but if Sony does push this idea with the new Eyetoy camera (or whatever the PS3 camera is called), it does seem as though some sort of youtube-esque functionality could be provided. That's assuming that everything Sony said then was part of their actual plan and not just BS though. Besides that, I think I've seen Phil Harrison or someone mention the ability to record game footage and upload it to the network for others to see. Singstar also has a Myspace/Youtube-esque setup; I'm too lazy to find a pic, but it does allow you to take videos of yourself singing as well as some information about yourself (favorite song, favorite band, etc). Not really what we're looking for in either case though (especially since they'd be game-specific). Or, as Nolen said, I guess you could just use your PS3 as you would your PC and actually use Youtube itself, rather than some Youtube-esque service made by Sony. In case anyone wants to see it, I might be able to get some links of the web browser in action. They've already shown it a couple of times, but it wasn't really all that notable. Worked kind of like the PSP Web Browser I believe. They have a pretty cool multiple window feature, but that's about the only exciting (if you can even call it that) thing about the demonstrations. If Sony can actually somehow get something together that comes close to matching XBL, I suppose MS might consider doing that. Makes you look kind of silly charging $50 a year when a competitor can offer a similar (or maybe even better, at least in some regards) service for free. Unless XBL really is a huge rip-off, I doubt Sony will be able to make their online service exactly like XBL (or better) on November 17. They'll still have a bunch of bugs to work out I imagine at the very least, not to mention that it seems like some developers are still clueless on how to get their games to work with the PS3 network. Then again, I suppose they don't have to get THAT close to get MS to at least think about making XBL a little cheaper. Basic matchmaking services, free (and stable) online play, a descent UI, and nice downloadable content might be enough for some gamers to think XBL is a rip-off (at $50 a year anyway). Some think that already actually (PS2 online is better just because it is free basically). I'd say the results speak for themselves. Do note that always losing money on the hardware is not really a good idea. Sony did lose a lot of money on the PS1, PS2, and PSP early on, but they all became profitable during their lifespans ; PSP turned profitable pretty quickly IIRC, which makes me even more angry that they haven't dropped the price on it yet (good thing it has been profitable for a while considering the sales it has been getting). I guess another thing to consider is that even if something is really expensive to make, pump out 10M of them and they'll be getting a lot cheaper. If Sony actually comes through, it won't be very hard at all to get Linux working on the PS3...it is supposed to be pre-installed on every PS3! Earlier this year, Sony mentioned that every PS3 would have Linux installed on the HDD, and that user-created applications would be supported. I'm guessing it wouldn't be all that different from what they did with the PS2 Linux solution they had, only that it would be in every PS3 from day one. You can get some info on that from here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ps2_linux All that said, Sony hasn't said ANYTHING about this in a while, so I wouldn't be surprised if they dropped the Linux idea (at least having it installed on every PS3...might have the ability to install it yourself like you could do with the PS2). Also, while Sony does seem to encourage this sort of thing, they've been REALLY strict on how the PSP should be used. It is mostly due to piracy, but Sony has been forcing firmware updates which makes it a lot harder on the homebrew developers. In the end though, Sony has tried to push the PS3 more as a computer than as a video game console, and thus, has tried to offer a lot of the same features a computer would have (M&KB support, support for a variety of standards, upgradeable components, ability to install an OS, etc). I've mentioned this before, but for any of you guys interested in Folding@home, the PS3 will come with a version of this that will use the PS3's vast amount of processing power when it isn't in use. As with the Linux stuff, I'm not sure exactly how this will work, but as the Wiki article says, if they can get 10K PS3 users, the F@H project could reach up to a petaflop in performance (which is a LOT if you don't know). That would be awesome...and why you should buy a PS3...because it can help cure cancer.
On a somewhat related note (more related than my rant about the prices of the Japanese PS3s), there are some videos at youtube that show off the multiplayer stuff in Resistance. They show off all the stat tracking, the messaging system, friend lists, clans, etc. I'm guessing a lot of these things are specific to Resistance though and not part of the PS3's online service specifically. Menu And Settings Part One http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xKWvK0v3J0 Menu And Settings Part Two http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHOkyzElbVw Player Stats http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2GVuQYXoxs Breach Match Part One http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1O4uZvBmW0 Breach Match Part Two http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MAE1vgGP3Y Chimera Demo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkjJpq2dcpw Thanks to "SilentHill" at NeoGAF for not only posting about these, but also uploading them to Youtube. They're from Gameinformer, but their servers are terrible.
