PS3 Firmware 1.80 Announced (PS1, PS2 and DVD Upscaling, DNLA streaming, more)

It would be interesting to see what functionality they continue to add to the PS3. I'd certainly think that the PS3 should be capable of being a DLNA server instead of just a client, so it could then be used to send media to other DLNA devices instead of using your PC to do it. They could probably allow people to use the PS3 as a TV tuner, although that might require a USB tuner (similar to the Linux solution already being used...only this would be official, like the media streaming solution). Factor in the video and music download service that should be up by the end of the year as well as the possibility of Blu-ray movies using MMC in the near-future, and the PS3 could certainly be a nice device to use for all your media, even if you're not using the PS3 directly to view it.

The PS Eye might add some nice stuff too, although they haven't really talked much about it yet.

You mean the PS3 Edge tools? That's not really a compiler, although it should help out developers a lot (seen a few devs speak highly about the tools). I'm assuming you're not talking about the Octopiler, which was developed by IBM for Cell (not necessarily PS3) and has been around for a little while (2005-ish...would have been nice if it was around earlier though).

I'm not sure if the Edge tools contain everything that 1st party devs have access to, but I think Sony definitely needs to work on developer support for 3rd party devs. Sony's 1st party studios have obviously gotten considerably more out of the PS3 than 3rd parties, and I think it is important that they share some of their tech. Unless they want to continue to get poor 360 ports with bad framerates and blurry textures.

NGS wasn't released for the 360. Ninja Gaiden was released for the original Xbox (and is playable on the 360 in HD thanks to upscaling), and NGS is a "remake" of that game for the PS3, so obviously it will look considerably better than the original. Team Ninja is working on NG2 for the 360 though (not sure if this was formally announced), so maybe they can be compared. In this case, NGS would probably be a poor example since NG2 will probably look better.

Plenty of other games to show off the PS3's hardware advantage though.

Pain? You mean the PSN downloadable title that is basically a physics demo (albeit a fun-looking demo)? I'm thinking you meant something else, although I'm not sure what else. The only other FPS I can think of that would be coming out somewhat soon for the PS3 would maybe be Haze (which looks nice), and I'm not really sure that counts since it will eventually make its way to the 360 later on anyway.

If Killzone PS3 is any good and is released this year, it certainly would be interesting to see how the KZ/Resistance combo does against the Gears/Halo combo. You'll probably see 2 of those going against each other every year or so (Resistance 2 and Gears 2 will probably be Fall 2008). Not that I really think the fate of these systems relies solely on these titles, or even the FPS genre itself, but that would be interesting to watch I guess.

Agreed. I know there is a lot of attention on Halo, Gran Turismo, Final Fantasy, MGS, etc., but Singstar could have a big impact too. The franchise has sold amazing well in pretty much just Europe alone, and it could do considerably better if Sony can get it to catch on in NA and Japan (especially with the advantages provided by online content).

The only problem is that Singstar seems to cater to the casual gamer or "non-gamer" crowd, and it won't be easy for Sony to convince them to pick up a $600 system for this game. Unlike a devoted MGS fan, I don't think these people would really feel the need to buy a video game system just for one game, and there probably aren't many other games that would interest them. I don't know....I think Guitar Hero for the 360 cost like $90, and it sold pretty well, so maybe this isn't as much of a hurdle as I thought.

I'm really disappointed in how Sony is handling things like demos. Maybe it will improve as time goes on, but there is a large disparity in how demos get put up on XBL and how they get put up on the PSN. IIRC, MLB 2K7 was submitted to both at the same time. The 360 version was available for download shortly after, but the PS3 version wasn't available until a month later IIRC. And it was one of the few 3rd party demos to actually make its way to the PSN.

If I'm not mistaken, DaDakota already has a nice HDTV, a 1080p Westinghouse display IIRC. I remember him saying good things about them in the past anyway. Your advice might still be valid though. Late 2007 going into 2008 would probably be the best time to start looking into purchasing a PS3, unless there is something the PS3 is providing right now that is hard to resist (either a feature similar to what was provided by this update, or maybe an exclusive game).

 

It probably is a good idea to hold off a little longer. Even the people that have been able to get the PS3 to work with all their media still seem to have weird glitches every so often, which may or may not be fixable via a firmware update or patch.

E3 is coming up pretty soon (July). You can get a better idea of what Sony has planned with the PS3, at least in regards to their games. Although I guess they might touch on a lot of the non-gaming aspects of the PS3 as well, especially since they've yet to publicly show off media streaming with the PS3. E3 is also probably around the earliest they'll announce a price drop, assuming they're desperate enough.

 

At this point, a lot of 360/PS3 releases actually look better on the 360 than the PS3, or at least the same. So there isn't much lost in regards to visual quality, and maybe some gain in getting a 360. Now as time goes on, developers might be able to get (a lot?) more out of the PS3. Kind of difficult to say right now how big the difference in visuals would be, but I would think it would probably not be too much of a difference. Of course, there's not even a guarantee this would happen at all. If PS3 sales continue to disappoint and Sony's developer tools continue to lag behind Microsoft's tools, I don't think developers would really put much effort in pushing the PS3 but rather just continue to port the 360 version of all their games to the PS3 (a method that will result in poor utilization of the PS3's power).

The best indicator of the difference in visual quality would be from exclusive games on both platforms, but I'm not sure if that's what you're looking for. I do think there is a decent gap between the best the PS3 has to offer and the best the 360 has to offer, but a lot of that comes from small things that I'm not sure everyone really notices or cares about. For example, a screenshot of a top PS3 game may look very similar to a screen of a top 360 game, but the PS3 game may have much better animation, a lot more physics, a much larger scale, etc. Part of that can be attributed to the talented developers working exclusively on the PS3, but I think those things are also something the PS3 hardware really excels at (Cell is built for that kind of stuff).

As for other advantages to the PS3, I guess it just depends on what you're interested in. Obviously, something like PS1 and PS2 playback is nice (really important to me actually), but you might not care at all about that. Similarly, I'm starting to really appreciate some of the PS3-PSP connectivity, but that means little if you don't own a PSP. I'll try to touch some of the more general stuff I guess.

I really like that Sony doesn't force you to use proprietary HDDs like Microsoft. The new 120GB for the 360 costs like $180 IIRC. I think you can get a 120GB HDD for the PS3 for $70-$80 (more than $100 less), and that's just looking at 2.5" SATA HDDs which are still pretty expensive. You could also use USB HDDs (only for media though, no use in games AFAIK) or 3.5" SATA HDDs if you're OK with modding you PS3 a bit (might even be an easy-to-use peripheral by now). Along the same lines, a lot of games make extensive use of the standard HDD on the PS3, resulting in shorter load times in general (especially if you get your own HDD that is better than the default HDDs). This generally holds true for other peripherals as well. For example, you can use a variety of bluetooth headsets or USB cameras with the PS3 for voice and video chat AFAIK (although the PS Eye is the only camera for games I guess).

If you're going to play games online, the PS3 does provide a free service while the 360 requires a $50 yearly subscription, although if you also play PC games online, you can use the same subscription to use Live on the PC. Xbox Live offers a lot more than the PS3's online service currently, although I think Sony is adding a lot to their service to make it nearly on par, at least IMO. Another plus is that a lot of PS3 games (especially the major ones) use dedicated servers, and I believe all 360 games use P2P. This usually results in a more lag-free experience, assuming the game does use dedicated servers. There is also the Home service, but it seems like not everyone is as interested in it as I am. I've discussed it enough in other threads anyway, and there's still some questions on the service itself that need to be answered, so no use in really discussing it further here.

The Linux stuff is pretty nice in some aspects, assuming you'd be willing to check it out. For example, I think there is program in development to get media streaming working on the PS3 in Linux, and this would make it a media server as well as a client. I'd guess that if you didn't like the official solution provided by Sony, you might be able to try what others have created for the PS3 (for example, if you don't like the PS3's web browser, you could try using Firefox under Linux). Of course, I wouldn't doubt it if there are some downsides, and it certainly would seem strange that a 3rd party would be able to provide a better solution with limited resources under Linux on the PS3 than what Sony would be able to provide with all their resources (of course, they've had the PS3 acting as TV Tuner for a while IIRC, and Sony has yet to provide that). I admit that it is the potential more so than the actual applications of Linux for the PS3 that interest, so I might be overrating this stuff a bit.

There might be some other things I'm missing (or purposely left off), but that should give you an idea. Mostly just a lot of little things that will only matter if you really care about it, and not anything crazy. Well...except for the fact that the PS3 can also cure cancer thanks to the Folding@Home application.

 

If it is a USB external HDD, then you should be able to just hook it up and use it.

I think the PS3 can only read FAT32 and not NTFS, so if the HDD uses NTFS, the PS3 might not be able to recognize it. In that case, you may have to format or partition the HDD so that it uses FAT32.

 

Who knows? Sony doesn't usually give details on when these updates are scheduled for release. We didn't know about 1.8 until around 24 hours before it went live IIRC. Sony usually puts out new updates every 2-3 weeks or so AFAIK, so I suppose it shouldn't be too long. Maybe by the end of July? Pure guesswork on my part of course.

 

It would be nice if Sony added NTFS support in a future update. Then we probably wouldn't have to worry about that anymore.