i remember reading about that years ago.
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PS3 Originally Planned to Release in 2005, Lacked GPU
- Thread starter Tagg9
- Start date
i remember reading about that years ago.
TheLostBigBoss
Banned
Having a weak link is better than having a gap in the chain.
I'm guessing you weren't around between 2005 and 2008. The PS3's launch and first few years were a disaster compared to the utter domination they had with their previous two consoles. Sony didn't really start turning their fortunes around until 2009-ish, and even since then, Microsoft has continued to dominate in North America and the UK. When all is said and done, with worldwide sales tallied up until now, both consoles are tied.
I think it went from 4×PROTOCELL (4.6 GHz, 8SPEs) to 2+PROTOCELL to 1×CELL/1×SpursEngine-like GPU-ish thingy by Toshiba to finally ending up with CELL+downgraded NV71.
The initial specs in hindsight are completely bonkers. And that was just what was supposed to be in the box, nevermind the whole distributed (dare I say cloud based) computing that it was essentially designed for.
Imagine all that power, in 2005.
The initial specs in hindsight are completely bonkers. And that was just what was supposed to be in the box, nevermind the whole distributed (dare I say cloud based) computing that it was essentially designed for.
Imagine all that power, in 2005.
Man, that actually does sound like an accurate comparison.
EdReedFan20
Member
Yeah. I wouldn't be surprised if that was the driving force for him to make the PS4. It looks like that decision payed off for him.
Heard this before, IIRC it was going to be a full-size CELL that handled everything but it became too expensive so sony went for a combination of 2 "mini" CELLs where one acted as a GPU and it was pretty powerful but...
It was a Sega Saturn-like situation where the 2 CELLs were very powerful in paper but so hard to program that in real-life conditions it was actually pretty underpowered.
Sony made the right choice with a regular GPU, too bad it didn't use a better one, and more memory...
It was a Sega Saturn-like situation where the 2 CELLs were very powerful in paper but so hard to program that in real-life conditions it was actually pretty underpowered.
Sony made the right choice with a regular GPU, too bad it didn't use a better one, and more memory...
Still impressive that their approach ended up working quite well for them everywhere outside of north america. Perhaps it was name alone that propelled them so far but the same hearsay and conjecture that managed to kill the dreamcast off didn't work for the 360 because none of those games shown off in 2005 were real.
Microsoft managed to create an underhanded campaign to attempt to throw off sony at every angle they could- discounting bluray as nothing but a fad while at the same time managing to toss 150 million at toshiba and universal to stay HD DVD only(at the last minute during the final meetings prior to either formats launch) and another 50 million at paramount to get them exclusive for 18 months then finally, launching an HD-DVD add on for the 360 touting it as an inexpensive "option" instead of being forced down your throat like sony was doing with bluray.
They even managed to weasel their way into IBM and used many of the same engineering teams as sony to attempt to make a cheap knock off of cell for their own console.
At the time you had sony doing even more harm on their own then all of that combined microsoft trickery behind the scenes by failing to price their console at a reasonable entry point.
In hindsight I think sony could have just not competed with microsoft for a couple years, instead they could have focused on PS2 and Vita while making a PS3 that competed and exceeded the 360 in every way for a lower pricepoint.
Think about sales that first year, would it really have mattered much if the ps3 wasn't out until June of 2007 in japan and maybe september of 2007 in the US with a EU launch in october/november? Let's just say that it would have been almost identical except the split ram pool would have been 512MB for video and 256MB for system ram. Launched at a price of 449.99 with a 60 GB hard drive , no second sku.
The only issue with that scenario is that bluray might have faltered out of the gate and we wouldn't have that situation in january of 2008 where HD-DVD just up and died.
Microsoft managed to create an underhanded campaign to attempt to throw off sony at every angle they could- discounting bluray as nothing but a fad while at the same time managing to toss 150 million at toshiba and universal to stay HD DVD only(at the last minute during the final meetings prior to either formats launch) and another 50 million at paramount to get them exclusive for 18 months then finally, launching an HD-DVD add on for the 360 touting it as an inexpensive "option" instead of being forced down your throat like sony was doing with bluray.
They even managed to weasel their way into IBM and used many of the same engineering teams as sony to attempt to make a cheap knock off of cell for their own console.
At the time you had sony doing even more harm on their own then all of that combined microsoft trickery behind the scenes by failing to price their console at a reasonable entry point.
In hindsight I think sony could have just not competed with microsoft for a couple years, instead they could have focused on PS2 and Vita while making a PS3 that competed and exceeded the 360 in every way for a lower pricepoint.
Think about sales that first year, would it really have mattered much if the ps3 wasn't out until June of 2007 in japan and maybe september of 2007 in the US with a EU launch in october/november? Let's just say that it would have been almost identical except the split ram pool would have been 512MB for video and 256MB for system ram. Launched at a price of 449.99 with a 60 GB hard drive , no second sku.
The only issue with that scenario is that bluray might have faltered out of the gate and we wouldn't have that situation in january of 2008 where HD-DVD just up and died.
CartridgeBlower
Member
How did Sony go from designing such an easy to develop system for (PS1) to back-to-back nightmarish systems in the PS2 and PS3. What changed with their philosophy? Anyone got an article link or something? PS1's success was based off of how great a system it really was. How did Sony drop the ball with this aspect on their next two systems? Obviously sales-wise it didn't really hurt the PS2, but it definitely did with the PS3, with all the shitty multi-platform games for the first few years.
Luckily, they seem to have recovered with PS4.
Luckily, they seem to have recovered with PS4.
You can probably blame Ken Kutaragi being given more free reign after the massive success of the PS1 for that, hence the use of the hard to master emotion engine on the PS2 and CELL on PS3.
I agree with all but number 1. They pretty much had a monopoly on the market with the PS2, but now due to their arrogance, have lost a large percentage of market share to MS. Obviously the PS4 will fix that, but still. It's hardly an achievement to go from a dominating position to arguably the "underdog" (Plus has the PS3 officially outsold the 360 yet? As far as I was aware, it was still a few million off)
Obviously.
Thanks for this. Amazing thread!I remember when Sony announced they were partnering with Nvidia. That was quite a funny thread and all the rumors on how it was a last resort for Sony which it basically was. Can't seem to find the thread though, maybe it was before NeoGAF went live.
Edit: No, announcement seems to have been made December 7th 2004. http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=26568 - Wow, only 5 pages. It was different GAF back then.
JordanN
Banned
Edit: Here's the real reason.
http://www.edge-online.com/news/kutaragi-details-ps3-computer-claim/Edge said:
The "extending life" was actually Kaz. Thanks Cchum.
That was actually Kaz.
"We don't provide the 'easy to program for' console that [developers] want, because 'easy to program for' means that anybody will be able to take advantage of pretty much what the hardware can do, so then the question is what do you do for the rest of the nine-and-a-half years?" explained Hirai.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/hirai-we-continue-official-leadership-in-this-industry'
Edit: Looks like they both said it. I blame Ken
And that is the man who would one day become CEO.
Maybe Kutaragi was behind the decision to have everything running on Cell processors, but was there really nobody at Sony who thought the decision a poor one? Nobody on the design team went over his head and tried to save the system from the utter disaster it would've been? How on earth did they think that they could replace the gpu's function with a cpu?
I mean, you could make the argument that there are benefits to programmability over fixed function features, but damn... no gpu is an obvious mistake at the most basic level of understanding how a system - especially a console system - works.
I mean, you could make the argument that there are benefits to programmability over fixed function features, but damn... no gpu is an obvious mistake at the most basic level of understanding how a system - especially a console system - works.
hodayathink
Member
Apparently, ICE (and by extension, Cerny) were able to at the last minute.
Lordwindowlicker
Member
It's new to me, and I'm sure many other people as well.
EdReedFan20
Member
Yeah. Like I said a page back, this is probably what got the ball rolling in terms of Cerny working on PS4.
To make multi plat development difficult. So I heard.
That could be it. Or it could just be that Kutaragi was insanely into his processing design and development and was convinced that by the time they'd be finished with Cell, they wouldn't have need of a gpu. Well, I say could.
He wasn't removed for nothing.
Doesn't sound reasonable to me.
IMO they were trying to make multi-plats harder to do, since game dev would have to invest into dominant console, its weirdness didn't matter.
Good that it backfired...
walltowall
Member
Did MS hurt your granny or something?............
1) IBM then, like AMD now, had a good design that they wanted to push into every box they could. And they signed what they thought was holy trinity of hardware deals (Apple, MIcrosoft, and Sony). They spread themselves way too thin and ultimately lost apple because of it.
2) Toshiba, who co-designed the cell, was also the leader of the HD-DVD consortium (which did include MS). They as much as anybody else had to moneyhat studios for the format to survive because Sony had it's own studio and the biggest box office draw at the time in Spiderman, which Sony made sure to leverage everywhere, remember the original PS3 font?
3) The PS3 began design with IBM almost 2yrs BEFORE the 360. Sony only came out later because the first run of the chip design failed and the IBM already had MS next in line at the fabs and chose not to delay 2 customers so Sony moved to the back of the line.