Playstation 3 shipping in Nov. with online service

[vjvj]

http://www.gamespot.com/pages/news/story.php?sid=6145972&page=1
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6145981.html

Looks like game downloads are a strong possibility, which is great news for all of us. Being able to reach both X360 AND PS3 owners is huge.

There were also some really cool PSP announcements like game downloads and a GPS adapter.

[Sakura Games]

ALL of us? I think that only the portals will be able to gain any benefit from the consoles, or you can simply have someone download your game xbox or ps3 version from your site (I know absolutely nothing on how this works).

[vjvj]

I was thinking more in the capacity of Xbox Live (downloadable casual games, of which there are several).

Obviously there are implementation details to be worked out, the most obvious of which is porting... But it's a big step in the right direction. It might also be useful to see if GarageGames etc. has anything planned.

[PoV]

Well, the really fascinating part is Sony is still saying the system will be shipping Linux on the hard drive. If it's the same deal as the PS2 Linux kit was (i.e. hardware docs available), it might do a number to keep development costs lower, and make the platform more accessable to everyone. However, I don't know any studios that took advantage of Sony's Linux Kit for PS2 development last time. Probably because it was available far too late in the lifetime of the system.

[soniCron]

Am I the only one who doesn't believe the November release date? First, it was supposed to be last year. Then, it was supposed to be this Spring. Now it's supposed to be November. I only briefly scanned the article, but I saw no mention of Sony taking the PS3 to the factories. Did I miss that part? As far as the on-line service is concerned, it sounds quite nice! :) They'd have to be fools not to allow game downloads...

[PoV]

I don't think Sony ever said they were going to match Microsoft's time frame. If anything, I remember them saying exactly what they've done. Either coming out 6 months after, or a year after with a "better launch lineup". Mind you, the reasoning why it's delayed seems mostly because of technical problems than any launch line up, but that's what E3's all about anyways.

I'd still take Nintendo and Microsoft over Sony, but I'll be wherever the opportunities are.

[svero]

Seems like the whole market is shifting towards downloads and consoles. The PC casual market could conceivably take a serious hit if something like the revolution catches on.

[vjvj]

WRT to the Linux kit, I think one of the other factors involved in the low developer adoption rate was the fact that you didn't have access to the hardware. Everything ran in some weird CPU emulator or something, so getting performance out of the system was pretty difficult.

What's funny is that the kit shipped with all the hardware manuals, too. So you had a full list of the DMA/GPU registers that you couldn't access. Neat! :) It was still a pretty cool kit for hobbyists though.

WRT release date, my guess is that they're shipping in Nov. with whatever they've got, otherwise Kutaragi is firing half the staff. It's unacceptable market-wise for them to slip to 2007.

[arcadetown]

Seems like the whole market is shifting towards downloads and consoles. The PC casual market could conceivably take a serious hit if something like the revolution catches on.
Not sure the consoles pose much if any threat to PC gaming. You just don't see many 30+ yr old console gamers. Longer range I probably see more of a threat from people using PCs less as devices such as Crackberries / Treos do web browsing / email / communications / etc better.

[svero]

Not sure the consoles pose much if any threat to PC gaming. You just don't see many 30+ yr old console gamers. Longer range I probably see more of a threat from people using PCs less as devices such as Crackberries / Treos do web browsing / email / communications / etc better.

Well that's why I mentioned the new Nintendo unit specifically. They really seem to be aiming at a more casual audience with their new system. I don't know if it will catch on, but it might very well appeal to exactly that group that currently plays PC casual games. I'd say a real threat is there, I just can't predict with any certainty how it will go. But I for one am keeping an eye on this. I probably should already be doing xbox stuff.