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[Panajev2001a]

What I noticed was Closed platform closed source mentioned several times. From what I understand there are several ways to support cross platform games and applications but they are open source. Did Sony write a JITengine just for PS Suite, they certainly have the experience to do so now with a PS1 and PSP emulator on the PS3 and a PSP emulator on the Vita as well as having ported JSC to both the PS3 and Vita. Could be Mono as several people have speculated in this thread but from what I have read, that incurs significant fees for use in a game console.

Sony is supporting Air applications and has a contest for the best written for the Android S & P which would be sold through the Sony store. They appear to be fragmented or are covering all the bases to see which works.

Mono... significant cost? Why?

 

[gofreak]

That's not confirmed yet. Sony may have some way to transfer licenses to PS Suite for games we already own, maybe automatically which is why the new licence agreement terms came out.

Reading a google translate of the watch impress interview with that Sony-guy-whose-name-escapes-me, it sounds like the PSone sales are separate. I would guess that's because Sony has to re-license PSone games for Android, so they can't extend your existing PSN license to that platform. Shame they didn't see the possibility of Android support coming when they started putting PSone games up on PSN :\

I have to imagine/hope it's different for Suite content though - that the licensing arrangement for Suite apps from the start will cover all supporting platforms.

 

[jeff_rigby]

Mono... significant cost? Why?

Just from reading about Mono

http://www.mono-project.com/FAQ:_Licensing Parts of Mono have Microsoft patents

When do I need to obtain a license from Xamarin to the Mono Runtime?

We only require licensing for uses of Mono and Moonlight on embedded systems, or systems where you are unable to fulfill the obligations of the GNU LGPL.

For example, if you manufacture a device where the end user is not able to do an upgrade of the Mono virtual machine or the Moonlight runtime from the source code, you will need a commercial license of Mono and Moonlight.

Or if you ship an application that requires to statically link the Mono runtime and you are not able to provide the object code to relink Mono, you must obtain a commercial license from Xamarin.

PS3, Xbox, game consoles mentioned as requiring a license in other links.

The Mono project has gone beyond both of those components and has developed and integrated third party class libraries, the most important being: Debugging APIs, integration with the Gnome platform (Accessibility, Pango rendering, Gdk/Gtk, Glade, GnomeUI), Mozilla, OpenGL, extensive database support (Microsoft only supports a couple of providers out of the box, while Mono has support for 11 different providers), our POSIX integration libraries and finally the embedded API (used to add scripting to applications and host the CLI,

And at the risk of suffering another theBishop insult, it appears that Vita is using Gnome/GTK/pango/cairoGL/gstreamer (GTKwebkit) and anything written for Vita using those libraries can be ported using a Mono engine designed for an Android platform not the Android engine/language. GDK/GTK2 is now just GTK3+ (Xwindows not required) and Pango was designed to work with Cairo. Mono appears to be very fast; apx three times faster than Python.

EDIT: My opinion is that the Vita OS derived from the OLPC Sugar interface which runs on eLinux + Gnome Mobile using Python scripts for the UI. Substitute Mono for Python and include support for shader assets and that = Vita OS.

My understanding is that every Android platform would need a custom Mono engine designed for that platform's hardware as well as a native language port of Cairo (mono uses Cairo), Gstreamer, Pango, GTK; I.E. any Gnome libraries being used by Mono applications.

Point is it's too soon to confirm Sony is using Mono although it fits all the functional requirements we know about. Perhaps Sony is getting a deal on Mono Licencing.

 

[Man]

Android apps are Dalvik so its just a c# compiler which emits Dalvik bytecode upon compiling.

No CLR or JITter in this case likely. Just the C# language directly compiled to Dalvik like you say.

 

[KurowaSan]

I know nothing about objective-c, i've never tried it, but being c# doesn't mean it has to run on a, let's say, mono runtime. They could have very well done something similar to Vala, which is a Gnome programming language almost exactly like C#. I've tried it at work and other than a few small differences here and there, it's pretty much the same thing.
When you compile Vala code, the compiler translates that code into native c code and then generates an executable that doesn't need any runtime to work. Although that sounds like an awful lot of work if you wanna have portable code. I guess it's easier to have portable code using a runtime environment compiled on PSP/PSVITA/Android... and have it run PS Suite code. And even then, it doesn't have to be mono. (which for portable devices you have to pay a licence)

 

[nubbe]

PSVita TGS Keynote is now uploaded to YouTube.
You can watch the PS Suite part here, they demonstrate a 3D game as well as the GUI component library:

http://www.youtube.com/user/OkpaProductions#p/u/0/fHLAfRztF0k

Cool stuff.
It is really clever of Sony to try to take game platform ownership on Android.
Developers could reach a big market if more hardware makers made certified devices.

 

[Amir0x]

Man those PS Certified titles just makes me wonder why we still have never got a Jet Moto revival

come on Jet Moto HD!

 

[Omiee]

man i have high hopes for suite, i really hope this becomes sort of a android market on the vita.

 

[Fafalada]

Python would be better.

Mind you I don't have any particular hard-on for C# syntax, but... seriously?

 

[zomgbbqftw]

Reading a google translate of the watch impress interview with that Sony-guy-whose-name-escapes-me, it sounds like the PSone sales are separate. I would guess that's because Sony has to re-license PSone games for Android, so they can't extend your existing PSN license to that platform. Shame they didn't see the possibility of Android support coming when they started putting PSone games up on PSN :\

I have to imagine/hope it's different for Suite content though - that the licensing arrangement for Suite apps from the start will cover all supporting platforms.

Sony already have a way of connecting Steam and PSN accounts, maybe they are going to have a way of connecting Google and PSN accounts so that licenses can be transferred and games downloaded via PS Suite and the marketplace without having to repurchase them.

PSOne games already have a flexible licence structure whereby the games can be played and transferred freely across different platforms and accounts and I'm sure Sony have made an agreement with the publishers to extend the number of platforms to include PS Suite devices.

 

[yurinka]

What's with all those C# SDKs ? Real men use C and C++...

But they don't know a shit about developing games mobile phones. I developed them for 6 years.

When you are developing a game that will run in thousands of devices with low budget, each one with its own resolution, memory, cpu, control inputs, etc you prefer to have a VM.

You loose a bit of performance but you skip a lot of headaches. Back in the past the game for mobile phones runned using Java.

Sony choosed the right way. Skipping C and C++ makes way easier, faster and cheaper to bring the games to a ton of new Android devices.

PSOne games already have a flexible licence structure whereby the games can be played and transferred freely across different platforms and accounts and I'm sure Sony have made an agreement with the publishers to extend the number of platforms to include PS Suite devices.

All major smartphone gaming publishers already announced their support when Xperia Play was announced. Sony is negotiating PS Certification with all major Android device manufacturers, and they are interested to have a decent game store on it to face Apple.

BTW, I remember a link (don't know if it was something like a patent filling or something similar) that registered future PS Suite in more platforms, including iOS (and not sure, but I think it also included even 3DS).

I know nothing about objective-c, i've never tried it, but being c# doesn't mean it has to run on a, let's say, mono runtime. They could have very well done something similar to Vala, which is a Gnome programming language almost exactly like C#. I've tried it at work and other than a few small differences here and there, it's pretty much the same thing.
When you compile Vala code, the compiler translates that code into native c code and then generates an executable that doesn't need any runtime to work. Although that sounds like an awful lot of work if you wanna have portable code. I guess it's easier to have portable code using a runtime environment compiled on PSP/PSVITA/Android... and have it run PS Suite code. And even then, it doesn't have to be mono. (which for portable devices you have to pay a licence)

When you are programming for a VM (Virtual Machine) like in Java or PS Suite, you program for a generic HW. Then every real hardware that uses as its own VM implementation, that interprets this generic code converting it to native code. Sometimes it is even compiled directly as a native executable.

Recently, Adobe released Flash 11 beta and its new Adobe Air, that converts your Flash game into iOS, Andoid or Blackberry native apps without needing code modification.

 

[panda21]

Android apps are Dalvik so its just a c# compiler which emits Dalvik bytecode upon compiling. Its nothing "complex" like what you are saying.

android apps are indeed Dalvik, but how do you know that these ps suite games are android apps?

also you can't necessarily run C# on the JVM, since it doesn't have all the features you would need, the dalvik and clr virtual machines are different. also what you are saying would require the vita to have dalvik.

 

[Man]

BTW, I remember a link (don't know if it was something like a patent filling or something similar) that registered future PS Suite in more platforms, including iOS (and not sure, but I think it also included even 3DS).

Yup, Nintendo Wii, DS and DSi actually. http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=429879
If anything I would expect the next platform for PSSuite to appear on to be Windows Phone 7.
I doubt iOS will be possible as Apple probably demands that all apps are distributed from App Store (unless this can be worked out in the background somehow).

 

[Panajev2001a]

No CLR or JITter in this case likely. Just the C# language directly compiled to Dalvik like you say.

Such code would not even run inside Dalvik, it would sit alongside it. Tools such as the NDK already serve the purpose of allowing developers to write at a lower abstraction layer. Fun trivia, last I checked you need to use the NDK to get access to the twin touch pads on the XPERIA Play.

I am very interested in this SDK, writing games for Android could benefit a lot from it.

To Jeff,

Stand corrected, but...

1.) Sony could pay the required royalty... well, actually every developer would help them pay it with the SDK license and the royalty on the store for Suite apps.

2.) Sony could take the promise not to sue MS made for the open and standardized portions of C# and the .NET CLR which are available to anyone (things such as WinForms are still off limits though) and then make their own VM.

 

[androvsky]

this is weird.

interesting because it means (unless they are insane and have written their c# interpreter in java) the PS suite itself must be running in native code on the device, which i don't think regular android apps are allowed to do.

and it must be interpreting/JIT the c# bytecode to native, which is what android does with java already. so why not just make them regular android apps?

I believe Android apps are allowed to run in native code (C, C++) starting with Android 2.3, which happens to be the Android version PS Suite requires.
http://developer.android.com/sdk/ndk/index.html

 

[Chesskid1]

so devices that were hacked to android (cyanogenmod), will never have PSSuite right?

 

[Limanima]

Wow, this is very interesting to me.
I'm currently developing a XNA game for XBox and Windows Phone 7. I guess that I can replace all XNA with the PS Suite libs and the game will work.
Nice, now I don't have to port the code to Java.

Is PS Suite available to everybody like XNA in WP7 and XBox?

 

[clav]

 

[nasos_333]

Wow, this is very interesting to me.
I'm currently developing a XNA game for XBox and Windows Phone 7. I guess that I can replace all XNA with the PS Suite libs and the game will work.
Nice, now I don't have to port the code to Java.

Is PS Suite available to everybody like XNA in WP7 and XBox?

I am thinking the same thing, i am making an XNA game too and this could be really great

But wont we have to change the lower level rendering methods and draws for OpenGL and the new framework ? I dont know how automatic or a simple issue of replacing libraries will that be

What do you think ?

 

[theBishop]

Mind you I don't have any particular hard-on for C# syntax, but... seriously?

For a high-level SDK vs C#, yes.

 

[AcceptableGhost]

I am thinking the same thing, i am making an XNA game too and this could be really great

But wont we have to change the lower level rendering methods and draws for OpenGL and the new framework ? I dont know how automatic or a simple issue of replacing libraries will that be

What do you think ?

Depends on how the PS Suite framework handles things. If it abstracts graphics down to a renderer object and texture objects to render like XNA and SFML it should be pretty simple to make wrapper classes for the PS Suite stuff. I wouldn't be surprised if someone makes some free and easy to use libraries to do this.

 

[ZealousD]

Hmm, C#

Having experience in C, C++, obj-C and Java, how easy will this be to pick up?

C# is extremely similar to Java. More similar to Java than Java is to C++. You shouldn't have any problem picking it up.

 

[Limanima]

I am thinking the same thing, i am making an XNA game too and this could be really great

But wont we have to change the lower level rendering methods and draws for OpenGL and the new framework ? I dont know how automatic or a simple issue of replacing libraries will that be

What do you think ?

I think there will be some hard work to do. Will not be as simple as I made it look like.
The content pipeline as we know it in XNA will for sure not be available for instance.
Fortunately all my graphics code is in a separate assembly.
But it sure will be simpler then porting all the code to Java.

 

[Seraphis Cain]

This obviously means a new PS3 web browser is coming.

Spoiler

:lol

 

[mugurumakensei]

I believe Android apps are allowed to run in native code (C, C++) starting with Android 2.3, which happens to be the Android version PS Suite requires.
http://developer.android.com/sdk/ndk/index.html

The apps don't actually run in native code. It allows you to embed native functionality in a Android App (think driver calls and things of that sort). If you write every portion of your app native aside from the small stub to call the first native method, it'll be expanded out to a bunch of JNI calls which will cause some tremendous performance issues as you'll be doing a bunch of "Dalvik vm interprets command as JNI call -> Dalvik command executes JNI call -> Dalvik vm receives data set -> Dalvik VM reads next instruction-> Dalvik VM interprets command as JNI call -> ..." cycles.

 

[PetriP-TNT]

This obviously means a new PS3 web browser is coming.

Spoiler

:lol

Funnily enough, that was the first thought/joke I got from reading the topic title, and it became more funny as Jeff posted on this very topic

 

[patsu]

android apps are indeed Dalvik, but how do you know that these ps suite games are android apps?

also you can't necessarily run C# on the JVM, since it doesn't have all the features you would need, the dalvik and clr virtual machines are different. also what you are saying would require the vita to have dalvik.

It's up to the compiler to target the platform. C# is just the language frontend.

Hirai also mentioned iOS as a possible target platform.

 

[Swifty]

What's with all those C# SDKs ? Real men use C and C++...

It's a lot easier to secure a platform using a managed language rather than allowing straight up natively compiled code. This is a smart way for Microsoft and Sony to channel an outlet for legal homebrew apps on their platforms without having another Other OS fiasco.

So yes, maybe real men do use C and C++ but you'll need to buy the real developer's SDK for that.

EDIT: Does any one think it's weird that Sony is using a programming language developed by Microsoft? Isn't Mono still controversial because of the patents Microsoft holds over C# and .NET libraries?

 

[Alx]

since my original message got quoted twice recently, I should make clear that I was (half) joking... of course it makes sense for a SDK targeted to a wide audience to handle languages like C#.
Still, it bothers me to see so many young coders who started programming with java, and don't know how to use a pointer. And it's slightly annoying to see performance reduced when developing on small architectures like telephones and portable devices, when it's one of those situations where embedded programming would prove useful.

 

[Lynn616]

Cool stuff.
It is really clever of Sony to try to take game platform ownership on Android.
Developers could reach a big market if more hardware makers made certified devices.

Has anyone said they are making PS Certified devices besides Sony?

 

[Man]

Has anyone said they are making PS Certified devices besides Sony?

CES in January should bring some news.

 

[theBishop]

The apps don't actually run in native code. It allows you to embed native functionality in a Android App (think driver calls and things of that sort). If you write every portion of your app native aside from the small stub to call the first native method, it'll be expanded out to a bunch of JNI calls which will cause some tremendous performance issues as you'll be doing a bunch of "Dalvik vm interprets command as JNI call -> Dalvik command executes JNI call -> Dalvik vm receives data set -> Dalvik VM reads next instruction-> Dalvik VM interprets command as JNI call -> ..." cycles.

Good post. I didn't know the NDK had some of these restrictions.

 

[theBishop]

EDIT: Does any one think it's weird that Sony is using a programming language developed by Microsoft? Isn't Mono still controversial because of the patents Microsoft holds over C# and .NET libraries?

I think it's really weird. And don't you think they're probably using Mono libs in the build system? As far as I know it's the only way to build C# for Android.

Maybe it's good for getting XNA developers working on Playstation Suite, but I don't see any other upside.

 

[dragonelite]

C# is extremely similar to Java. More similar to Java than Java is to C++. You shouldn't have any problem picking it up.

This.

I had 1 year experience with C# at school and now in the second year they give OOP in java and till now i haven't even open a java book maybe some google searches on how to print text and how to make classes(inheritance and polymorphism). I would say the transition is almost 1 to 1.

 

[jeff_rigby]

This obviously means a new PS3 web browser is coming.

The Mono project has gone beyond both of those components and has developed and integrated third party class libraries, the most important being: Debugging APIs, integration with the Gnome platform (Accessibility, Pango rendering, Gdk/Gtk, Glade, GnomeUI), Mozilla, OpenGL, extensive database support (Microsoft only supports a couple of providers out of the box, while Mono has support for 11 different providers), our POSIX integration libraries and finally the embedded API (used to add scripting to applications and host the CLI,

No, the choice to use Mono...if PS Suite is based on Mono, may have required support for Gnome/GTK because it's a replacement/alternate to the Sony Network Application Platform (SNAP). All 2011 Sony Networked platforms (TVs and Blu-ray players) as well as the SNAP developers web site now MIA have/had Gnome Mobile Libraries as does the PS3 GTKwebkit port and most likely the Vita (which will be confirmed in a required LGPL disclosure when it's launched in the US). This only applies to applications and libraries that might be called by games.

Given the OLPC elinux OS UIs used Python (VM) scripts calling Gnome Libraries, Vita UIs may be Mono doing the same. Mono is more efficient/faster with more security for IP but incurs a Fee for it's use. [/B]

Any Gnome applications written for the Vita (if it's using Gnome libraries and that now includes webkit) would be portable using Mono to Android or any other Mono supported platform. If, as I have speculated, the PS3 OS is getting a rewrite to use Gnome libraries (GTKwebkit) then any Vita networking applications like Skype or Facebook or Near or many of the Vita features will be easily portable to the PS3.

Mono may never need to be ported to the PS3 as it already supports Gnome (Speculation Edit: no longer speculation after the Charles Ying Post, also depends on the definition), is a closed platform and has PS1 and PSP emulation. For convenience and marketing Mono may be ported to the PS3 so any PS Suite application can be run on any Sony certified Platform including the PS3 but that's a management decision.


*****************

The SNAP (Sony Network Application Program) was on-line April of 2010 then put on hold several months later and eventually deleted in 2011. Key Gnome libraries have been ported to Android, iOS and Windows and were known to be in-progress when SNAP was put on-line. 2011 network connected Sony Blu-ray players and TVs contained core Gnome libraries running in a eLinux OS. SNAP was an effort to use GNU/Gnome compiled to native language using Objective-C. Mono uses/calls the API of the compiled to native language Gnome libraries but Mono applications are C# running on a Virtual Machine. permitted by the Android NDK/SDK and NACL. I expect as has been mentioned in this thread, the ability to seamlessly have games and applications on multiple POSIX platforms with Mono was more attractive.

I'd guess that Sony knew the following was coming sometime summer 2010 and put SNAP on hold. This was made possible by Google releasing the Android NDK/SDK revision 5 allowing native code 12/2010

Mono-dev] [PATCH] more support for Google Native Client
Elijah Taylor
Tue, 21 Dec 2010 12:13:09 -0800

Sony announces PS Suite Jan 29th 2011 and deletes the SNAP site.

Google Native Client Support Feb 15th 2011

This release adds support for Google's Native Client, a technology that allows native code to be executed as a web application in a secure fashion. Google's Native Client contains a native code verifier that enforces a set of programming patterns in the native code and enforces what the code can and can not do. This allows developers to use native code while giving users of those technologies a peace of mind, knowing that the code will be executed in a security sandbox that wont let malicious code get access to confidential data, or compromise your system.

The support for Native Client allows Mono's virtual machine, garbage collector and Just-in-Time compiler to be used inside a Native Client sandbox.

http://downloads.snei-opensource.com/pub/webkit/ and if you inspect the required PS3 GTKwebkit disclosure it contains references to GTK toolkit (GDK/GTK), Cairo, Gstreamer, Pango and the Sony INTERNAL libraries list most of the Gnome Shell libraries.

Please read The Gnome Mobile Embedded Initiative just so we can be sure we are on the same page.

Gnome Technologies
ATK · Bonobo · D-Bus · GConf · GLib · Keyring · GVFS · GObject · GStreamer · GTK+ · Mono · Pango · Vala -- Drawing uses Cairo; I.E. Pango is designed to work with Cairo, GTK+ with Cairo or Cairo-Clutter

Mono can be run on Android, BSD, iOS, Linux, Mac OS X, Windows, Solaris, and Unix operating systems as well as some game console operating systems such as the ones for the PlayStation 3, Wii, and Xbox 360.

The GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative (GMAE), also known as GNOME Mobile, is an initiative for developing and promoting the use of the GNOME platform in mobile devices. It was announced at the Embedded Linux Conference in Santa Clara, California on April 19, 2007.[1]

September 2007 Collabora demonstrated Gstreamer with Cairo bindings for GTKwebkit
November 2007 Sony sent a PS3 developer kit to Collabora.
September 28th 2009 PS3 firmware 3.0, according to Hirari, was a complete PS3 OS rewrite to support Media and Networked Media. Video introduction, the Future of digital Media, was played and featured Augmented Reality and overlays which can be supported by Gstreamer with Cairo bindings.
April 2010 3-D games released.
October 2010 Firmware 3.5 contained a webkit javascript engine which Sony disclosures indicate was Target=GDK/GTK using gstreamer for HTML5 video with rendering using CairoGL (Open GL Speculation based on the drawing backend being "PS3" placed in the webkit diff file where OpenGL would have been) 3.5 also contained blu-ray 3-D movie support but both Sony Network connected Blu-ray players (which disclosures have Gnome libraries (Cairo/Pango/Gstreamer/Glib/D-buss)) and the PS3 could not support lossless audio. With Gstreamer 1.0 released, PS3 firmware 3.7 now supports both blu-ray 3-D lossless audio and Dolby 7.1 for audio redirected to the new USB wireless headphones.
March 2011 Sony PS3 webkit disclosures have a complete GNOME GTKwebkit disclosure
My belief is that 3.0 was a rewrite using some of the Gnome libraries, at least Cairo & Gstreamer.

RE: Python & theBishop comment; in 2009 software developers were commenting that the ideal development language (could be personal bias & I'm not trying to start a fight) would be Python (because of it's syntax and ease of use) but with Mono implementation because Mono developers were doing a better job.

RE: Sony delay in implementing PS Suite. If you look to the completion date for the latest major revision in the Mono site I cited it's Feb 15th 2011 (Sony announced PS Suite Jan 29th 2011) and Gnome Libraries are going through a major revision to 1.0 (or Stable) this year...finished by the end of the year. Games for the most part would not need Gnome support.

 

[Panajev2001a]

If you write every portion of your app native aside from the small stub to call the first native method, it'll be expanded out to a bunch of JNI calls which will cause some tremendous performance issues as you'll be doing a bunch of "Dalvik vm interprets command as JNI call -> Dalvik command executes JNI call -> Dalvik vm receives data set -> Dalvik VM reads next instruction-> Dalvik VM interprets command as JNI call -> ..." cycles.

Do you have more data about this btw?

http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2011/01/gingerbread-ndk-awesomeness.html

Of course, access to the regular Android API still requires Dalvik, and the VM is still present in native applications, operating behind the scenes. Should you need to do more than the NDK interfaces provide, you can always invoke Dalvik methods via JNI.

Also, when they talk about direct OpenGL ES access from the NDK itself, I assume that they might have a faster path to the GL driver rather than wrapping your code in JNI calls.
From what Google says, it seems that if you want to access features and data not explicitly made available to you through the NDK that you indeed have to use JNI to complete that particular task even from native code. The purpose of Native activities is to allow you to write your entire app or almost all of it in native code.

 

[Bollocks]

jeff_rigby, serious question, do you have any programming experience?

Also I wouldn't jump to conclusions just yet.
From all your "web browser research " you weren't able to foresee that sdk let alone that it's based on C# syntax.
Now that this is confirmed and a fact you're trying once again way to hard to mix these facts with your (ridiculous) assumptions.

Just because the sdk uses C# syntax for its source code doesn't necessarily mean it uses .net or Mono(with Gnome lol) as runtime.
Likewise Android uses Java syntax for its source but that is the only common ground there is to traditional Java apps. Android and Java apps are executed in separate VMs they are totally incompatible.
I fully expect the sdk to have a dedicated compiler, wasn't it mentioned in the press release that it runs in a VM?

And please stop with your Gnome talk it doesn't even make sense, somehow the webkit source on Sonys server is gtk webkit even though the ps3 specific bindings lack gtk stuff. Now Sony uses Mono because it features Gnome bindings, totally ignoring the fact that GTK!=Gnome and the 2 supposed libraries Sony is using are in 2 different languages, it makes no sense.

 

[Utako]

Meh, I'll come around when they have a JavaScript SDK like Windows 8 (soo ironic!).

 

[mugurumakensei]

Do you have more data about this btw?

It's one of the first things mentioned on the ndk google code repository on the underlying android application model staying the same since native apps are still packaged in Dalvik apk files. you can write completely native apss but you should not. Native bytebuffers and methods that call native bulk rendering functions tend to work better for rendering.

 

[Durante]

But native activities (introduced in 2.3 I think) should fix the JNI overhead. It's a slight drawback in portability, but as long as all those devices are ARM it's actually not that bad.

C# is extremely similar to Java. More similar to Java than Java is to C++. You shouldn't have any problem picking it up.

That's not really hard, the only similarity there is on a superficial syntax level. C++ is powerful, elegant, huge and hard to learn, all things that Java are not

Maybe it's good for getting XNA developers working on Playstation Suite, but I don't see any other upside.

Well, one upside is that C# is a much better language than Java, but still similar enough so that it should be possible to target Dalvik with it.

 

[jeff_rigby]

I remember a news blog reporting that Sony last week purchased the rights to use Microsoft's Playready DRM. I believe in a commercial product that Mono's Moonlight's DRM can not be used and Rights have to be purchased from Microsoft for Playready out of Silverlight. If this is correct is this another point indicating Mono is PS Suite? I can't think of a Sony product that would require Playready that doesn't already have the rights.

http://news.sel.sony.com/en/press_room/consumer/home_video/release/59741.html “

Sony has been providing customers with new types of network entertainment offerings and as a founding member; Sony has been working to proliferate content protection technology “Marlin” in order to protect copyright owners. Simultaneously, in order to enhance the customer’s convenience of access to various network entertainment; Sony has been considering adopting additional content protection technology. We hope to increase customer convenience and enjoyment by adding PlayReady,” said Yoshiki Okada, Senior General Manager of Software Design Technology Center, Sony.

The first Sony device to include support for Microsoft PlayReady is the Sony Blu-ray Disc™ Player which launched in U.S. this February.

So what benefit over Marlin?

I assume it's a Sony 2011 Network enabled blu-ray player with Gnome (Cairo, Pango, Gstreamer) libraries (from Sony on-line disclosures). Is this getting an update to use Mono? You have to understand that this was a part of the now MIA SNAP developer platform. Midstream conversion to mono?

 

[blu]

Well, I'd rather program in C# than Java, that's for sure. It's surprising though given ow much of the Android ecosystem is built around Java.

Something's telling me that C# suite might be built on top of NDK..

 

[jeff_rigby]

And please stop with your Gnome talk it doesn't even make sense, somehow the webkit source on Sonys server is gtk webkit even though the ps3 specific bindings lack gtk stuff. Now Sony uses Mono because it features Gnome bindings, totally ignoring the fact that GTK!=Gnome and the 2 supposed libraries Sony is using are in 2 different languages, it makes no sense.

That's the point -GNOME-, I edited my post to support my statements. You have several FACTS in error in your post. The GTKwebkit dependencies are mostly Gnome libraries. GTK is a part of Gnome.

And yes it's too soon to confirm PS Suite is Mono and only when others speculated that PS Suite could be Mono did I look it up and discovered it was under my nose all the time and part of Gnome.

Functionally PS suite could have been supported with Air and true cross platform like Mono running on a VM . Sony could create their own VM to support PS Suite as I speculated several messages ago but that would require their creating a VM for each platform. While doable and would fit with their statements in supporting only Android at this time due to more platforms being overwhelming all at once, would require a whole department to constantly update the VM for each platform which Mono now does rather well.

Edit: You also could be confused as older versions of Mono before Feb 2011 did convert C# to Dalvik. After that date the Android Mono JIT engine can run native language rather than just convert C# to Dalvik and can also API call Gnome native language libraries. Sony for PS Suite games can also include native language game engines callable from Mono. This is what Second life does and what Home using Lua does.

Spoiler

I expected you to edit your post to correct the errors I mentioned in my email to you.

Edit: PS Suite is MONO! Mono is a GNOME technology.

 

[Feep]

This is extremely relevant to me.

 

[jeff_rigby]

Now that we know when and possibly how PS Suite is going to work we can revisit some of the PS Suite information in interviews given early this year.

PS Suite SCE President Interview

I wrote a post about this on Feb 12th (with slight editing it follows):

Google TV coming to the PS3 via PS Suite?

Quote: "If the use of the "Sony Internet TV Powered by Google TV (Google TV)" spreads and its sales volume increases, we might provide the PSS to its users, too. Also, we might provide the PSS as a killer application to spread the use of the Google TV.

Again, we are not going to ignore other platforms than Android. But we will put importance on sales volume and start with Android. '

Some translation errors here I think. " we might provide the PSS as a killer application to spread the use of the Google TV." I think should be: we might USE Google TV to provide a PSS Google TV killer application to multiple platforms.

We also have Kaz stating that Sony will port to non portables as in Google TV platforms. Again, Google TV platforms do not have a current channel for games and is an open market. So what other platforms don't have a channel for games yet....TVs. Many 2011 TVs and Blu-ray players with Broadcom SOC can support games.

What about the PS3, will PSS be used to port a Killer Google TV application to the PS3?

So yes, after the Webkit port to the PS3.....very possible and might show up on the PS3, NGP and Sony cell phone at the same time (Android platform too). There might be tie-ins to Cable TV companies via RVU and AllVid as well as accessories like Play TV, Torne and Sony DVR blu-ray recorders. Cable companies might allow access to Cable TV DVR boxes via WiFi or a home network. Play TV & Torne can be a tuner input and DVR for Google TV. IF PS Suite is Mono, it supports webkit and IE and Mozilla and will protect IP. Sony is a perfect candidate to support AV via Google TV.

If as I've speculated, the reason Play TV and Torne have been kept out of the US is because Gstreamer (Bad plugin=copyright) (PlayTV) and Gstreamer/Cairo SVG (Torne) were being used and LGPL copyright laws in the US are stricter. We now have Sony properly disclosing Cairo as of March 2011 and with the Gstreamer 1.0 release Sony should disclose that also allowing Playview and/or Torne access to the US.

Correct if wrong: Mono uses the native libraries on a platform so support for WEB has to be provided by the platform which is why/how Mono supports multiple browsers as in IE, Mozilla and Webkit. For Gnome libraries I expect some support is built in and some will require native libraries. Mono Gstreamer support must require native libraries and those are available for Android, are in the PS3 and Vita (If GTKwebkit is being used by the Vita). Mono drawing is via Cairo which is the drawing library for GTKwebkit so GTKwebkit support on a platform confirms support for Gnome Mono. Sony 2011 networked TVs and blu-ray players have Cairo, Pango, JSC (Javascript engine) and gstreamer support native. No GTK though. Edit: A new video for the Sony-Erickson Android phone confirms a modified browser to support PS Suite. The Android browser diverged from the webkit API and I assume could not be called by Mono.

Mono uses/calls the API of the compiled to native language Gnome libraries on a platform like Android but Mono applications are C# running on a Virtual Machine permitted by the Android NDK/SDK and NACL.

The above is to correct a miss-impression given because of my first quote that is no longer accurate after Feb 2011 with Mono now using the Android NDK/SDK (Mono used to convert C# to Android bytecode.)

Another Vote for Mono:
http://news.yahoo.com/playstation-suite-games-apps-coming-android-vita-171200196.html
http://forum.deltaengine.net/yaf_po...te-dev-kits-for-C--available-in-November.aspx

More Mono info:

A version of Mono for the native PLAYSTATION®3 operating system is under development but no times are available yet.

The most basic mono install currently takes about 3.7 MB of disk space, this includes about 1.7 MB for the JIT Mono engine and 2 MB for mscorlib.dll.

The runtime memory requirements depend on how complex the target application is. A simple application will be happy with 2 MB of writable memory for the mono process itself and 5 MB of readonly shared memory for the mmapped libraries and assemblies. At this time we suggest that the minimum system memory is 32 MB, though of course mono can be run in less memory, the total depends on the applications that run on the system.

http://www.mono-project.com/GtkSharp

 

[jeff_rigby]

http://gritengine.com/game-engine-forum/viewtopic.php?t=309

Professionals Discussing Mono replacing Lua that touches on many of the points in this thread.

Second life uses Mono for the scripting part of Second Life which is essentially the same as Sony's "Home". Home uses Lua for the scripting part and I assume native libraries for shader and other game functions. If Mono is the basis of PS Suite then I expect Home will shift from Lua to Mono for scripting and will be available on PS Suite Platforms in 2012.

PS Suite's suite of applications might possibly include a Store for all Sony products not just PS Suite applications and games (Javascript based), Google TV, Playview, E-Reader, Ultraviolet player and Home. All Gnome based technologies.

Sony could also support their consumer cameras with Mono applications like a video editor using a gstreamer core.

 

[gofreak]

Wasn't totally sure if this was very new thread-worthy, on the games side at least, but since it's probably most relevant to Suite in a gaming context, I'll pop this here.

Sony Nears Deal to Buy Out Ericsson From Joint Venture

TOKYO—In a sign of the central role smartphones will play in its future consumer-electronics strategy, Sony Corp. is nearing a deal to buy out Telefon AB L.M. Ericsson's stake in their mobile-phone joint venture, people familiar with the matter said.

By wresting full control of Sony Ericsson, a 50-50 joint venture created in 2001 that is the world's sixth-largest cellphone manufacturer, Sony aims to integrate its smartphone operation with its businesses in tablets, hand-held game machines, and personal computers to save on costs and better synchronize development of mobile devices, the people said.

The article goes on, but I don't have a subscription.

Might make it more likely that a broader range of Sony mobile phones - if not all of them - will be PS certified in the future.

 

[Shanlei91]

Wasn't totally sure if this was very new thread-worthy, on the games side at least, but since it's probably most relevant to Suite in a gaming context, I'll pop this here.

Sony Nears Deal to Buy Out Ericsson From Joint Venture



The article goes on, but I don't have a subscription.

Might make it more likely that a broader range of Sony mobile phones - if not all of them - will be PS certified in the future.

Oh boy, I always imagined their partnership was what was holding back a PSP-phone.

 

[gofreak]

Oh boy, I always imagined their partnership was what was holding back a PSP-phone.

If Vita's market shrinks vs PSP too much, PSP3 will be a Suite style initiative on a grander scale, IMO. You'll still have a standalone handheld, probably, but the whole platform would be rolled into and available on their mobile devices also, instead of a subset ala Vita & Suite. A lot more like iTouch to iPhone - total platform uniformity.

Bringing the phone wing totally under Sony would make that easier anyway.

But, we get ahead of ourselves. For now it'd probably good news for Suite as it will be for the next few years.

 

[jeff_rigby]

"TOKYO—In a sign of the central role smartphones will play in its future consumer-electronics strategy, Sony Corp. is nearing a deal to buy out Telefon AB L.M. Ericsson's stake in their mobile-phone joint venture, people familiar with the matter said.

By wresting full control of Sony Ericsson, a 50-50 joint venture created in 2001 that is the world's sixth-largest cellphone manufacturer, Sony aims to integrate its smartphone operation with its businesses in tablets, hand-held game machines, and personal computers to save on costs and better synchronize development of mobile devices, the people said. "

If Vita's market shrinks vs PSP too much, PSP3 will be a Suite style initiative on a grander scale, IMO. You'll still have a standalone handheld, probably, but the whole platform would be rolled into and available on their mobile devices also, instead of a subset ala Vita & Suite. A lot more like iTouch to iPhone - total platform uniformity.

Bringing the phone wing totally under Sony would make that easier anyway.

But, we get ahead of ourselves. For now it'd probably good news for Suite as it will be for the next few years.

Yup, Nintendo Wii, DS and DSi actually. http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=429879

If anything I would expect the next platform for PSSuite to appear on to be Windows Phone 7.

I doubt iOS will be possible as Apple probably demands that all apps are distributed from App Store (unless this can be worked out in the background somehow).

Old News but does it apply here?

We know absolutely nothing about the reason, but we have confirmed that Microsoft has registered the domain names “sony-microsoft.com” and “microsoft-sony.com.”

To be more precise, the domains are registered by the “Microsoft Corporation Domain Administrator” via “Corporate Domains, Inc,” exactly like all other 45,000 domains owned by Microsoft.
With no more clues or rumors we can resort only to guessing; and our guess is that Sony might be collaborating with Microsoft to start a line of smartphones running Windows Phone 7. It is also possible that the two companies are collaborating on a new gaming console

PS Suite

1) Mono-.NET associated with Microsoft
2) Sony purchased the rights to use Playready from Microsoft
3) Silverlight 5 used by Sony?
4) PS Suite partnership announced for windows phone OS?

Or Sony using Microsoft software WP7 in phones & PS Suite in WP7 phones reciprocal agreement? Best guess!