More PS3 Online Speculation (mostly just from me)

He's the developer that Joystiq was talking about in a recent article:
http://joystiq.com/2006/01/09/a-developers-look-at-the-playstation-3/
We talked about it a little bit in this thread: (at the very end)
http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=107092&z=1

Long story short, he's an artist that works at Sony, or Sony Online Entertainment to be more exact. At first, I doubted he was actually a developer, but after some research, I don't really question his credibility anymore. However, the article that Joystiq was referring to (which has been taken down VERY recently) that contained his thoughts was very, very strange to say the least. He said several things that didn't seem to make sense, such as there only being only 5 devkits in America, the SOE demo at E3 being the only one running off of a devkit, his colleagues that know more about the hardware than he does saying the Xbox 360 was "better" (even though they probably worked at Sony, and may have never even touched a 360 devkit), that no next-gen games have really seemed next-gen to him (same poly counts, no HDR and other effects, etc.), and that Half Life 2 is the best looking game he's seen, including any games being developed that he's seen. Considering he's seen GOW and even gives it several complements, HL2 was still the best he's seen (never commented on MGS4 demo, or even Fight Night 3, which IMO beat HL2 easily). Oh, and he also mentioned that SOE was preparing a launch title for the PS3, and that it looked very bad. I read that he's no longer an employee at SOE. I wonder why.

I haven't seen that yet, although I haven't exactly been looking for new decoding benchmarks for the PS3. That does sound surprising though. Cell should be able to easily decode something like that, at least better than any available alternative; plus, now it seems like the RSX may have kept some of the Purevideo tech that Nvidia puts in their PC GPUs, allowing it to help Cell...although I don't know why it would need it. So from a hardware perspective, I don't see how that could be true (unless the next best alternative can only do like 5mbps, but that seems doubtful). I guess it might be due to some sort of software issue. I might try to check out the AVS forums or something and see if I can find what you were talking about.

Also, I wonder why the PS3's performance (not Cell's performance) was referred to in that benchmark. Technically, the only thing resembling the PS3 as we know it would be the final kits that only started going out recently to select developers. Only these people would have something resembling the final Cell processor and final RSX processor going into the PS3, not to mention the BR drive (if they're putting those in too, which it sounded like they were). And it isn't like someone can just go in and ask these guys how the PS3 performs at these operations; if they did, some more developers would be joining Mr. Robinson VERY soon.

edit: Could something like this be what you read?
http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=2666&p=2

A bit different than what you said, although it seems to have the same numbers. I'm guessing that figure from Nvida came from a 7800 GTX (512 or 256?). If RSX contains the same tech, then it might be able to handle a little more on its own since it would be clocked a little higher than any of the GTX cards AFAIK. So basically, if Cell performs only as well as the "fastest CPUs today", then I guess technically the PS3 could only do it at ~25Mbps thanks to RSX. Still, that doesn't sound quite right to me since I'm assuming "fastest CPUs today" is referring to PC CPUs. It seems like anandtech wanted to see if Cell alone could decode the stream; if they were assuming it was that good at decoding h.264 streams, then surely Cell+RSX could do the 40Mbps, let alone 25Mbps.

 

It sounds like he may have been on his way out anyway. As for the NDAs, since he was just an artist (not trying to diss artists), I wouldn't think he had any major NDAs such as secret coding methods for getting the most out of parallel processors or anything like that. With something like this, pretty much everyone signs NDAs no matter what they do, and something as simple as saying "I'm working on a PS3 game" might break an NDA. I'm guessing it was either him breaking an NDA with something as simple as that (mentioning a SOE launch title could have done it easily) or him dissing his own game/company that got him the axe. That's just something you don't do, especially in an online Internet article. The Sony Ninjas are everywhere.

I'm curious to see if he is able to find a job anytime soon. I read that breaking an NDA is a very serious offense and that employers will certainly think twice before hiring this guy. IIRC, he fought in his spare time...might become his new occupation for now.

 

OK, that makes a lot more sense. That's actually what I thought you meant, but I also thought there was a "Sony Digital" branch somewhere in Sony (not SCE), which kind of confused me.

BTW, the following appears to be big news, but since it is a translation of a translation from a gaming magazine in Japan, I thought I would just post it here: (babel fish translation below)
http://www.gamefront.de/

FWIW, one of the "insiders" at another board said this goes along with what he has been hearing since around September (late March, early April).


Also, going back to the original point of this thread, I realize I never really paid much attention to Josh Robinson's comments about SOE making a launch title for the PS3. I wonder if SOE preparing a MMORPG for the PS3's launch says anything about the importance of online play for the PS3. I guess SOE could make a non-MMORPG, similar to Untold Legends, but it would be interesting to see them pushing a new MMORPG from the start. Also, I wonder if it would require a hard drive; I've been wondering if a HD would be necessary for MMO games next-gen, especially MMORPGs.

 

True. A MMORPG from SOE isn't something I was looking forward to playing this year. And that's assuming this is a MMORPG, which it very well may not be (just makes things interesting). IIRC, SOE got the rights to DC comics (or Marvel? Forget which...MS got the other) and I believe they said they were working on a MMORPG with the license; however, I could have sworn it was more like a 2007 release date for the game. Even if it wasn't, I would think SOE would try to take their time on it instead of trying to push it out for the PS3 launch. Plus, I'm not sure how hard it is to create two MMORPGs in the same timeframe, at least one of which should be pretty big, or at least that's what SOE hopes. The SOE PS3 game is probably just a Everquest-esque single player RPG or something like that; I just liked speculating on the possibilities of it being something a little more than that.

 

Eh...since no seems to care too much about the online speculation, I'll go ahead and throw in some speculation on the other most-talked about PS3 topic: the price. Now, I'm not going to even attempt to give an exact price since I've switched predictions several times already (thought ~$299, then maybe something more like $350-$400, now $400-$500 seems like a strong possibility).

To be fair, things like the RSX and BR have caused me to second-guess any predictions I had previously made. For example, I once thought RSX was basically a G70 (7800) and wouldn't be too costly; now, I'm starting to lean more towards something a little more advanced, such as something more like the G71(7900) that Nvidia will roll out later in the year. The initial BR prices were obviously a bit more than I expected as well, although some reports from Panasonic somewhat softened the blow. In those reports, Panasonic planned on releasing a BR recorder (dual layer IIRC) in Japan this summer for ~$1800, which, as some of you may know, costs as much as one of the BR players shown at CES. They also mentioned disc pricing, which came to ~$8 and like ~$20 IIRC for 25/50 GB BR discs; compare this to the prices at CES, which were basically $1 per GB (~$20 for 25GB, ~$42 for 50GB IIRC). This isn't really a shocker since I assumed that the CES prices were a bit inflated, but it is still nice to see lower prices mentioned. IIRC, I also believe Sony is one of 2 (or at most, a few) producers of the blue-laser diodes, which must help them out when it comes to total costs for these machines. So basically I'm just saying in further detail what I've been saying since CES: the initial prices shown for various BR devices does NOT mean that the technology will force the PS3 to retail at some insane price...depending on what your definition of insane is I guess. For me, that's basically $500+.

The main point I wanted to make in this thread, however, is that even if the tech going into the PS3 will be crazy expensive (even with Sony producing a large part of it themselves, minimizing costs), they still have the cash cow that is the PS2. The December sales numbers came in yesterday, and the PS2 sold 1.5 million units in the US alone. Keep in mind that this was done at the $150 price tag, a price that many thought Sony should have cut a few months back in order to maintain strong sales. I'm not sure how much Sony makes on the PS2 right now, but I'd guess that $50 per console sold is pretty conservative (many wanted Sony to drop to $99, so probably not any less than that). That's basically $75 million in profit (at the very least) on just the hardware alone sold in December. Factor in any profits on the real money makers such as game sales and accessories (imagine if 1.5 million ~$20 8MB memory cards were sold) and you can truly see how much money Sony is making on the PS2. They'll probably cut down to $99 or at least $129 pretty soon (before E3...maybe at the PS meeting) since the holiday season is over. Still, if they are getting these types of sales this late into the life of the PS2, there's no telling how much they'll make on it before they quit selling it. The PS2, from a sales perspective, is simply amazing.

Also, the PSP sold quite well in December, narrowly edging out the DS with ~1.12 million sold in the US despite still being at the $250 price tag, almost twice the price of the DS. I'm not sure if Sony is still losing money on the PSP, but they've stuck to the $250 price tag for far longer than I thought, and it looks like it turned out to be a good idea. The UMD movie success doesn't hurt either. Now they just need to figure out a way to slow down the DS in Japan while also improving its own sales over there. If they can do that, Sony might have their own "third pillar."

So the point I'm trying to make is that any huge losses that Sony incurs with the PS3 can be offset by the huge profits they're getting from the PS2, and probably the PSP to a degree. With this considered, it seems a little more possible that Sony could get away with losing a little more on each PS3 sold than originally thought. Also, they may sacrifice future price cuts in order to keep the initial price "affordable." For example, perhaps they could somehow price the PS3 at $299, a price that would probably shock the world...not to mention potentially forcing Sony to lose a LOT of money early on; however, this may seem more understandable if Sony decided to stick with this price for a LONG time. I forgot exactly when the PS2 reduced down to $199 (think it went from $299->$199 with the Xbox IIRC), but it might be further into the PS3's lifespan before a similar cut occurs. And like the PS2, once the "PSthree" is out and only costing Sony like $50-$100 to make, expect them to milk as much out of the $150-$200 price tag as they can. There's a reason why Sony points out that these machines have a 10-year lifecycle. It is a risky move, but it has worked very well for Sony twice already, and possibly a third time whenever the PSP is done.

So again, I won't give any price predictions, but I wouldn't be totally surprised if Sony made us all look silly for thinking the PS3 would cost $500 or more, which is something I tried to show with this speculation. Of course, this just being my own speculation based on very little info, it is possible that I didn't take into consideration some things. For example, perhaps I underestimated how much some of the hardware going into the PS3 will cost, especially if the RSX is a bit more "exotic" than I thought. Perhaps Blu-ray won't catch on, making it a lot harder to drive down the costs for BR technology. Perhaps the fact that Sony is not doing particularly well as a company overall will force SCE to price the PS3 at a higher cost than they would have liked in order to minimize the high amount of losses they would suffer initially. The list can go on and on, in both ways, but I tried to take all that into consideration. It is amazing what you do when you're bored at 5 in the morning.

Thoughts?

 

Don't get me wrong, I'd actually be quite happy with the performance from a GPU that's basically a G70. I was a bit disappointed at first since I was expecting something a little more "crazy" from Sony, but I came to realize that a G70 in a console could still be quite a beast.

Only recently have I started to second guess the possibilities of RSX being a little more than just a overclocked 7800 GTX with some minor PS3 modifications. I'm not as crazy as some, who are, for some reason, expecting some 600+million transistor GPU that consists of a G70(or G71...or even a G80) core along with some additional SPE-like processing elements to aid the main core. That's a fun thing to think about, but highly, highly doubtful IMO. On the other hand, I could see RSX being more like a G71 or even a G80 in some respects. RSX was supposed to tape out around last summer, yet it seems as though it didn't tape out until much later, possibly even into December (although I think it had to have taped by the end of the year). That seems to be a bit long for something that's basically just a G70. There are also reports that Nvidia will be bringing out both the G71 and G80 some time this year (1st Q for the G71 IIRC); while I think the G80 is too much to hope for (supposed to have unified shaders, like Xenos, and also be SM 4.0 capable), the RSX being more like the G71 could be a strong possibility. According to rumors, the G71 is supposed to be basically a refresh of the G70 with an additional 8 pipes (32 total) and a clockspeed of 600-750MHz. The RAM may also see a higher clock, or Nvidia may even go with GDDR4...can't remember all the rumored specs.

Anyway, it is interesting that both RSX and the G71 seem to be hitting the market at around the same time. In fact, that might even explain why Sony has yet to announce details on the RSX despite the G70 being unveiled more than 6 months ago (although that may just be Sony being Sony). Someone also brought up a report from around E3 where the Nvidia CEO brought up RSX having "32 shading pipelines." It may have been a misquote or something like that since that is the only place where I've ever seen that, but that would seem to suggest RSX having a little more in common with the G71 than I would have previously thought.

Guess we'll have to wait and see. So that was my RSX speculation...what else can I speculate about?

 

BTW, was the Xbox GPU (NV2A) actually worse than the GeForce 3? I thought it had like an extra vertex shader as well as some better pixel shading capabilities...like DX 8+ or something like that. I thought it was kind of in between the GF3 and GF4. Can't really remember some of the stuff I read about it so I might be wrong.

If that's true, perhaps a G70-G71 hybrid could describe the RSX. Better than the G70, but not quite as powerful as the G71. I would think that Sony would be in a better position than MS was 4-5 years ago, so maybe it could be a little bit more like a G71...hey, I can hope can't I?