5/9/2006

It’s not exactly Japan-only, but since Sony is a Japanese company and gaming’s home is here in Japan, I thought I’d better post this.

At E306 in Anaheim, Sony announced the launch details of their next generation gaming console, Playstation 3. It will have a nearly synchronous worldwide release in November and will come in two flavours: one with an inbuilt 20GB hard disk and another with an inbuilt 60GB hard disk.The 20GB release will retail for US$499 – a half-price Blu-Ray player, it seems. The 60GB variant will retail at US$699. Steep. Quite steep. Especially since I think in Australian conversaion-and-markup rates which means my PS3 will cost me AUD$849.95…for that money I could buy an awesome video card for my PC.

The controller for the PS3 has also been changed. Last year’s banana/boomerang design was scrapped and the new controller looks exactly like the old one, but now the cable connecting it is USB and it also has functions similar to Nintendo Wii’s remote shaped controller – that it, tilt motion detection. On the downside is the fact that the vibrate function available in old DualShock controllers will not be available in this new “DualShake”.
Other features of the console include Bluetooth, the Blu-Ray optical drive, a Compact Flash/SD/Memory Stick slot (in the premium model), 802.11g wireless (in the premium model) and HDMI output (in the premium model). There’s a lot of extras for forking out about $100 more.

The launch details have sparked criticism of Sony stealing Nintendo’s ideas but I’m not entirely convinced those allegations are fair. The idea of having motion sensors in controller devices has been around for a while. And apparently Microsoft and Logitech came up with a similar device a few years ago, in which case, Nintendo is the thief.

But theiving or not…the patents system has been put in place for problems like that and I don’t think Sony has breached Nintendo’s patents as the systems are a only similar, not exact. Then again, Sony has been to court before over patent breaches so I might have to eat those words one day.

What I’m trying to say is that Sony may not have had the innovation to come up with a concept like a motion-detecting controller, but they were at least smart enough to realise that the idea could make their product even better. So adopting it, even in the seemingly under-developed fashion that they have, has added some value to their console.

And while it is disappointing that Sony could not keep the vibrate function from the DualShock controller (while the Wiimote will have it), I’m not going to miss those vibrations too much. That was the gimmick, if you ask me. “But while you were driving your car in Gran Turismo, you could feel the controller vibrate!” you say? So? It wasn’t very realistic. For something like a car racing game, I’d like a very low, smooth rumble, growing and fading as the engine does, not just going in bursts like the controller did. I get better vibration control out of my sex toys.

Anyway, basically, I am looking forward to PS3 even if only for the HD onset that it will bring. All of the major gaming sites are writing about this more in-depth than I am – go check them out.

Links:
Kotaku
Engadget