[Kinan]

Interview with Kanehide and Kawanishi (lets call em K-Team :) ) in watch impress:

http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/do...0614/rt033.htm

Translation here:

http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=567411

So many good stuff, I dont know where to start. I love these guys:





Just some excerpts:

if we did a normal bilinear upconversion, then the picture quality would just be the same as what is normally done by TVs and computers. Since we had the Cell, we thought we had to do better than that.... We have gotten feedback from them regarding several failure patters for upconverting, but we are getting closer to the goal. I think we can improve another 30 to 40%.

Question: Linking to games, the 360 has a feature to allow music in the HDD and network to be played back as game BGM. Kanehide: PS3 already has such function in the system software. It is up to the game developers to use the function. Same goes for pictures and videos.

Question: From that point of view, how about playback of WMV and Divx? Kanehide: The problem with those formats are that they are not industry standards like "mpeg-4", but format that is locked in by various corporations. But I understand the demand (laugh).

Question: The biggest problem with the use of remote play right now is that the PS3 has to remain turned on when you leave the house. Is there a solution to this? Kanehide: Wait and see (laugh).

Wake on LAN is coming?! ;)

Nothing yet comes close to the load that Folding@Home applies. And I can see the possiblity of a fanless PS3 in the future, just like there was for the PS2.

Confirmed by Cheesemeister. :(

[Zombie James]

So in-game custom soundtracks are in?

[Shamrock]

I'm still waiting for the Update that does the 4D.

[womfalcs3]

I'm still waiting for the Update that does the 4D.

Wasn't Max Payne 4D? You could vary time.

[Ploid 3.0]

Isn't 4D teleporting? Lots of games do that, and blah blah blah. Let's not get side tracked. This sounds like a good interview. That should be the focus of the thread. Let's talk without the jokes, and Ken's quotes. There is a thread about his retirement that will fit those posts.

[Metalmurphy]

That was some pretty great reading! Thanks!

[MadFuzzy]

So in-game custom soundtracks are in?

It does sound like it's all up to developers now, although it will probably be on a per-game basis (a bit like on PSP) rather than the 360 approach of custom soundtracks over everything.

[KTallguy]

Q. The biggest problem with the use of remote play right now is that the PS3 has to remain turned on when you leave the house. Is there a solution to this? A. Wait and see (laugh).

:D

[Beer Monkey]

How we got to 1.80

1) Skipped regression testing for headsets
2)

[kaching]

That's just a buttload of interesting stuff...have to read when I get home. Thanks!

[neverknowsbest]

Q. Why only client for DLNA? I think PS3 should have a server function. K1 The primary reason is that PS3 does not have a tuner. Another reason is that consumers are not yet familiar with DLNA, and emphasizing the server function may lead to more confusion. I personally feel that DLNA has a lot of restriction that may make it hard to use. I think the easiest way is to allow network browsing of files by using samba, for example.

He has the right idea and hopefully that means we'll see SAMBA support in the future.

[Greg]

I never understood the excitement over custom soundtracks.

When I play a racing game, I want to hear the engine, not some shitty music. Swap that shitty music to music that I enjoy, and I still just want to hear the engine.

Unless it's a God of War/MGS kind of music, I don't care to hear it. As a matter of fact, that's one of the first things I change when I start a brand new game - crank that shit down to 0.

[Ploid 3.0]

How we got to 1.80 1) Skipped regression testing for headsets 2)

He skipped it just for you beermonkey.

[Panajev2001a]

Very good interview :D.

[KTallguy]

I never understood the excitement over custom soundtracks. When I play a racing game, I want to hear the engine, not some shitty music. Swap that shitty music to music that I enjoy, and I still just want to hear the engine.

Man, I gotta disagree, driving games are the one game that NEEDS custom soundtracks. I usually put on some techno or something. I almost feel like I perform better with good music :)

[Wollan]

Wake on LAN, oh yes. The media features of the console is starting to get dazzling.

[DrXym]

Wake on LAN is coming?! ;)

Hmm, this would be markedly different from how remote play works now. At present you have to sign onto PSN from the PS3 and then sign on from the PSP. I expect that it uses PSN sign on so the PS3 has an open port on PSN that allows it to receive incoming UDP packets without firewall / NAT issues.

The problem with wake-on-lan is that so many people use DSL and firewalls so they may not know where their PS3 is. And even if they did, they'd have to put in a firewall rule to wake the device up in some fashion. Would PSN be responsible for pinging the PS3's IP addr from some port to wake it up, or would the PSP hit it directly?

I can also see opening up the firewall could lead to some interesting denial of service hacks. If I know that PS3s wake up on calls to port 1234, I might be able to craft packets that crash them or even exploit them.

[Firewire]

Music playback is already there! f'n developers suck big time!

[MadFuzzy]

The problem with wake-on-lan is that so many people use DSL and firewalls so they may not know where their PS3 is. And even if they did, they'd have to put in a firewall rule to wake the device up in some fashion. Would PSN be responsible for pinging the PS3's IP addr from some port to wake it up, or would the PSP hit it directly?

Maybe it'll work like the LocationFree hardware, which I believe has a dynamic DNS client built into it and has wake on lan? Has anyone played around with one of the base stations and knows how it works?

[Ragnarok10]

Music playback is already there! f'n developers suck big time!

This article is in reference to FW 1.8 and beyond. It may just be that custom soundtrack support was only recently added.

[Kinan]

Hmm, this would be markedly different from how remote play works now. At present you have to sign onto PSN from the PS3 and then sign on from the PSP. I expect that it uses PSN sign on so the PS3 has an open port on PSN that allows it to receive incoming UDP packets without firewall / NAT issues. The problem with wake-on-lan is that so many people use DSL and firewalls so they may not know where their PS3 is. And even if they did, they'd have to put in a firewall rule to wake the device up in some fashion. Would PSN be responsible for pinging the PS3's IP addr from some port to wake it up, or would the PSP hit it directly? I can also see opening up the firewall could lead to some interesting denial of service hacks. If I know that PS3s wake up on calls to port 1234, I might be able to craft packets that crash them or even exploit them.

Aye, classical wake on lan wouldnt really work here, I suppose. What they need is some kind of deep sleep mode, where PS3 stays logged into PSN, but thats it. And on incoming signal from PSP it goes to remote connect mode automatically.
I remember reading somewhere, that Cell itself has 5 levels of power management, I suppose "barely alive to be able to ping" should be there.

[mrpogi23]

hell yes... virtual surround sound.. i hope theyd get this up soon... i dont have home theather..

[gofreak]

Custom soundtracks aren't a huge deal for me, but for those who do want it more, I'm sure they'd prefer if it wasn't something left optionally to developers to expose in the game. No doubt if devs do choose to use this, it eats a little more RAM as with other optional GameOS components. Hopefully over time they'll roll that into the core OS, exposed via an in-game XMB (whenever we might get that).

Oh, and maybe we'll see native PSone HD rendering in time?

Right now, output from the GS (PS2 graphics chip) is upconverted. Can the GS output higher resolution by itself? K1 Currently, the upconverion is done at the final stage of the output. For PS2 software, it would be difficult to increase the resolution natively. PS1 is a different matter, since it is software emulation.

Would be nice..

[Firewire]

K is it me or does it seem the PS3 is constantly improving and the 360 has been basically the same tech for almost 2yrs now? All the things that made the 360 better are eroding away at a near alarming rate as Sony seems to be ever improving and looking beyond what the 360 can currently do!

[Kittonwy]

Custom soundtracks aren't a huge deal for me, but for those who do want it more, I'm sure they'd prefer if it wasn't something left optionally to developers to expose in the game. No doubt if devs do choose to use this, it eats a little more RAM as with other optional GameOS components. Hopefully over time they'll roll that into the core OS, exposed via an in-game XMB (whenever we might get that). Oh, and maybe we'll see native PSone HD rendering in time? Would be nice..

Damn it I need that in-game XMB cross-game messaging like now.

[mr_nothin]

K is it me or does it seem the PS3 is constantly improving and the 360 has been basically the same tech for almost 2yrs now? All the things that made the 360 better are eroding away at a near alarming rate as Sony seems to be ever improving and looking beyond what the 360 can currently do!

Its not just you ;)
But then again....lots of features that the 360 had werent originally with the ps2 so they played a little bit of catch up.
But still....they seem to have lots and lots of interesting concepts coming for the ps3 and psp/ps3 and all of that good stuff.

[fernoca]

Wow!
Couldn't they be any more excited..in those pics? :lol

[mr_nothin]

Sony has already CONFIRMED that they are working on cross game invites and cross game chatting and in game Crossbar access....

"It wont be in the next update though"

[The Jer]

There are other functions for Audio and Visual that are upcoming. Wait and see.

:)

[soco]

that's pretty cool. thanks for the link.

[djkimothy]

Awesome interview. :) I like the laid back tone.

And this make me happy. :D

Q. What is the current system software development span? K1 We try to get one out every quarter. Q. For how long? K1 The scary thing about the PS3 is that we can continue to add updates as long as there is space on the HDD (laugh) We won't stop though, since adding new functionality is a lot of fun. We really enjoy getting feedback from the customers, and finding thing we really didn't think of.

[djkimothy]

Wow! Couldn't they be any more excited..in those pics? :lol

They've been working hard to satisfy you, you ungrateful swine! ;) They're probably tired.

[gofreak]

And this make me happy. :D

That was a bit confusing, actually. They said they aim to get one out every quarter, but they've practically been doing them monthly. Maybe they mean 'major' updates quarterly or something..

[M3wThr33]

It'll be interesting to see how far they can take the updates. The PSP ones only slowed down because they're nearly out of flash memory.

[djkimothy]

That was a bit confusing, actually. They said they aim to get one out every quarter, but they've practically been doing them monthly. Maybe they mean 'major' updates quarterly or something..

Yah, I noticed that discrepancy. However, it was the promise of regular updates that may possibly expand the PS3s current feature set that got me excited.

I'm still waiting for the time when I can use my photos as the backdrop. Also, to have music playing in the background while in XMB would be nice. Will probably never happen. :(

[Firewire]

They've been working hard to satisfy you, you ungrateful swine! ;) They're probably tired.

Yeah those guys deserve a vacation but first they have to do...

1.cross game invites
2.in game video chats
3.fix the headset issues

then & only then can they go on vacation!:lol

[djkimothy]

Yeah those guys deserve a vacation but first they have to do... 1.cross game invites 2.in game video chats 3.fix the headset issues then & only then can they go on vacation!:lol

Their penchant for quality has probably lead to long waits for these features, but the results have been well worth it, wrt scaling.

[Koren]

I remember reading somewhere, that Cell itself has 5 levels of power management, I suppose "barely alive to be able to ping" should be there.

If there's power managment, I'd like to see XMB not using ~90% of the power required in games or folding... That's completely retarded.

That's #1 on my wish list for upcoming firmware... 170W for a menubar ?

#2 is a fix for interferences with pads (my japanese PS3 still receive many "ghost" commands I've never send, mostly triangle and up... moving itself in XMB, bringing menu during Bluray playback, and so on...)

[Firewire]

Their penchant for quality has probably lead to long waits for these features, but the results have been well worth it, wrt scaling.

I have to totally agree! I have been impressed with the quality of there updates. They are doing a great job of it!

[Madman]

I'm still waiting for the time when I can use my photos as the backdrop. Also, to have music playing in the background while in XMB would be nice. Will probably never happen. :(

Press the Home button while viewing photos/videos, listening to music.

[kaching]

Nice interview. These two engineers seem very approachable.

K1 We haven't really decided on the positioning of the PS3 as a music player. We don't know how much people want a music player that requires you to turn on the TV, for example.

Easily solved by assigning one button on the sixaxis or the remote for "random play all" so the PS3 immediately jumps to the music section upon powerup and starts playing the music library on shuffle. And then the user can use L1/R1 as normal to skip tracks. TV not required.

[PowerSmell]

Q. Your intention for remote play is to make people play outside the home? K1 Yes. There are SDKs out to allow game developers to integrate remote play into their games, so it is a matter of time before such games arrive. However, it is now suitable for all types of games. There is a certain amount of latecy involved.

What what?

[vdo]

With how good the Cell appears to be with video processing, I wonder if they will ever have the PS3 be able to be a video processor for video inputs such as satellite or cable. If they ever expand to having DVR capabilities, then having additional video processing on top of that would seem possible, and this would be great especially if it was good enough to compete with the quality of dedicated video processors.

[Dragona Akehi]

Guys, think we can have some ****ing .AVI support? It's kinda silly that I can encode the same data with the same codec, but if it's an unholy .AVI container it's "not supported".

[Agent Icebeezy]

Guys, think we can have some ****ing .AVI support? It's kinda silly that I can encode the same data with the same codec, but if it's an unholy .AVI container it's "not supported".

You think they want to give Microsoft some money as they created the AVI container, but even then, you can't even use it on the 360.

[UltraMagnanimous]

When people say AVI do they really mean Xvid & DivX support? :p

Are there any groups who release in formats readable by 360/PS3 - theres bound to be demand for it by now?*

*Ignore this question if it's against the rules to talk about such things.

[M3wThr33]

Guys, think we can have some ****ing .AVI support? It's kinda silly that I can encode the same data with the same codec, but if it's an unholy .AVI container it's "not supported".

TVersity. Streaming the data from the computer is just so much awesomer.

[garrickk]

If there's power managment, I'd like to see XMB not using ~90% of the power required in games or folding... That's completely retarded. That's #1 on my wish list for upcoming firmware... 170W for a menubar ?

The PS3 doesn't use 170W while on the menu bar. These readings are because of cheap power meters that don't account for recycled AC current prevalent in certain power supplies.

For simple proof, read the laws of thermodynamics and notice the difference in heat generation from the PS3 when it's just in the XMB and when it's cranking on Folding@Home. FYI, a 4x increase in heat equals a 4x increase in power.

[DarienA]

Awesome interview.

[joesmokey]

Great read, that was an insightful interview.