How long did it take for Crackle to show up on PS3? This just speaks to what I brought up before. Sony had a head start for this sort of thing (both in timing and actual owned IP), and has completely shitted it away with ineptness. MS has already surpassed them on this front, and looks to dramatically step it up next gen.
For background; Sony does not have any commercial DASH IPTV of their own, just Crackle (free) from "Home" even though they own a movie studio and have a site (Crackle) that offers free access to some Sony owned Movies. From disclosures they are using AVM+ (Adobe Flash) which they can use for non-commercial DASH IPTV and third parties are providing their own Dash players most likely Gstreamer for commercial DASH IPTV with DRM.
My guess is they are waiting for Standards and Gstreamer 1.0 + GTKwebkit2 which they will use for XTV, commercial IPTV from Sony Store, Augmented Reality, Ultraviolet player App and more. This should happen by Sept of this year.
I expect a Xbox361 and PS3.5 (will have HDMI pass-thru and 1080P support) also for this holiday season as XTV should take off when Webkit2 (Sept) has advanced enough to support XTV on CE Equipment (TVs, GoogleTV, Blu-ray players with 1080P HDMI in/out (pass-thru) Edit: They may use the same AMD SOC also.
In terms of details that's true (timing, specs, etc) ... but unless there was some sort of dramatic change in course, there's a ton of high level info in here that shows the direction they are going with a variety of products. More importantly, some of these services and products actually have recently materialized. And given that the big picture presented here makes all of these items quite interrelated, it gives a ton of credence to the other services and features presented - at least from a high level. Obviously the details have likely changed.
That's what I find interesting, for instance these hardware specs:
USB3
HDMI
Display Port
LVDS Low Voltage Differential Signal The typical applications are high-speed video, graphics, video camera data transfers,
W-HDMI Wireless HDMI is a colloquial term for wireless high-definition audio and video signals connectivity on consumer electronics products.
Gigabit eithernet
PCI-E
SATA hard disk
802.11N (WiFi)
ATSC (Over the air Digital TV tuner USA)
HSDPA High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) is an enhanced 3G (third generation) mobile telephony communications protocol
WiMAX is a wireless communications standard designed to provide 30 to 40 megabit-per-second data rates,[1] with the 2011 update providing up to 1 Gbit/s for fixed stations. It is a part of a “fourth generation,” or 4G, of wireless-communication technology. WiMax far surpasses the 30-metre wireless range of a conventional Wi-Fi local area network
The 3-D Fortaleza glasses will first generation be wired using LVDS or Display Port which has both power and LCD direct drive. Second generation may be wireless and include a WiFI or 3G or 4G interface.
In any case these specs are able to directly support Phones and tablets with a number of Wireless (RF) protocols and frequencies. PS4 should support the same.
Multiple Power States PS4 should support the same
•Full Power
•Media Playback
•Idle
•Streaming
•Standby
Full XTV support (i.e. linear TV, TV apps, DVR, Always on)
Online Content (Netflix, WebApps/Content/Svcs)
Video/Music Marketplace
Media Hub
A/V form factor
Quiet. Cool. Green.
PS4 the same, PS4 the same for all except for on-live and Kinect2 which according to a Sony Depth sensing camera patent, Sony will have also.
OK we also suspect that AMD is making most of the components and most likely the SOC with both Sony and Microsoft most likely X86 and AMD GPU so I'm wondering why we don't assume both Sony and Microsoft are using exactly the same SOC from AMD.
Remember
microsoft-sony.com and sony-microsoft.com July 2011
Economy of scale and sharing of design cost and AMD libraries should make this sharing of a AMD SOC design attractive for both. But this would be Sony-AMD and Microsoft-AMD partnerships not Sony-Microsoft so something more, some sharing of technology unique to either Sony or Microsoft must be involved.
Sony Dec 2010 published a patent for a 1PPU4SPU wafer that could be used alone or combined with Xbar switch using 4 wafers to make a PS4. Further it looked like the wafer could be full HSA and work in an AMD SOC. It's
stretching speculation but 2 of these wafers (may be 1 later model PPC ISA family + 3 SPUs) could be in an AMD SOC to provide Backward Compatibility for both Xbox360 and PS4 as well as math or other features a game console would need. Add rumors of Barcelona Super Computer center working on a PS4 Cell into the mix; BSC which wrote the Cell simulator for IBM that runs on a X86 platform as well most likely the early PS3 simulator and possibly the Xbox360 simulator and you have a good start given SPUs and PPC processors in the SOC of real time emulation of both Xbox 360 and PS3 using the same SOC.
Xbox361 and PS3.5 would use the same AMD SOC (not the same as the PS4 SOC) and have 2 PPC+SPU wafers in it and would emulate PS3 or Xbox 360 using much of the same emulator code the PS4 and Xbox 720 would use for BC. Software is cheaper than hardware and economy of scale savings should be greater than the cost of creating the emulators.
Project 10 = Xbox361 ?
http://www.egmnow.com/articles/news/rumor-microsofts-next-xbox-codenamed-project-ten-coming-next-year/ said:
The current codename for the next Xbox is “Project Ten”
It will be coming in time for next year’s holiday season
The UI will be heavily based around Microsoft’s “Metro” style of user interface (the current interface for Windows Phone 7, and the style both the Xbox 360 and Windows 8 are moving to)
The console’s OS will have Microsoft’s Silverlight technology deeply embedded in it (potentially for uses such as media functionality)
Microsoft will be going the “Apple route” with Project Ten, meaning the console will extensively integrate with Windows 8 and Windows Phone for better cross-platform functionality
Xbox 361, cheaper Xbox360 with more features:
Page 50
HDMI pass-thru (IF the PS3 had this then Google TV would be possible)
HD-Homerun => access to a Homerun Digital TV tuner (just software support needed) I've got one and it's a 2 digital tuner (Cable and Air) connected to network.
XTV with full 1080P and overlays (Not possible on Xbox 360)
More is implied here, HDMI pass-through implies always on low power modes, Xbox361 as the only input to your TV with it controlling your picture with overlays, windows with information from the web and more.
So this is similar to what we were speculating a PS3.5 would have.
Xbox361 and Slimmer Slim PS3.5 released this holiday season?
Yes, there must be a lower priced PS3 and it must support a HDMI pass-thru for XTV. Same for Microsoft, there must be a lower price Xbox361 with HDMI pass-thru. Both will be SOC based to reduce cost. Since stacked Ram is faster and cheaper than XDR and the Cell would have to be redesigned to be shrunk further (28nm) there could be large changes to the hardware that would require a major rewrite to the PS3 OS.
I expect both will be SOCs built with AMD building blocks (cheaper) and for the PS3.5 the RSX emulated. Building a GPU for a PS3.5 or Xbox 361 in 2012 is going to require a custom massively down scaled GPU that could be used by both. Since economy of scale (AMD building blocks) would have USB3 being cheaper than a custom older USB2, wireless N chip cheaper than G ....you get the point, the PS3.5 and Xbox 361 would be massively advanced over "standard" consoles and cheaper.
A cheaper Slimmer slim could not be produced until the AMD SOC building blocks and processes were ready and that is this year.
Given the above it's a small stretch to believe the redesigned PS3 Cell to fit in a AMD SOC and using building blocks that should be similar to some of the PS4 building blocks with OS emulating RSX that the same redesigned Cell could be in a PS4 for BC. Also with one more PPC in the PS3 SOC and PS4 SOC, Xbox 360 could be emulated in both
Sony and Microsoft can not announce 361 and PS3.5 until they know the Yield stats for the SOC and Sony can not release a PS3.5 until GTKwebkit2 with Gstreamer 1.0 is ready to support XTV and that won't happen till about Sept.
Any announcement of a 361 or PS3.5 will kill sales of Xbox360 and PS3. They will not be announced until stocks of older generation machines are lower and stocks of 361 and PS3.5 are high enough for this season.