Following my post from last year, I am happy to announce that the Sony PlayStation 3 has been released in Japan today.
The Premium version of the PS3 features Wifi wireless Internet connectivity and multiple memory card readers. It also has a 60 GB harddisk. It is backward-compatible with the PS1 and PS2.
From Wikipedia,
The PlayStation 3 is based on open and publicly available application programming interfaces. Despite earlier rumours of programming being difficult, IGN reports that they were told that the dev kit “seemed extremely adaptive and easy to program for”. Sony has selected several technologies and arranged several sublicensing agreements to create an advanced software development kit for developers. In addition, in 2005 Sony purchased SN Systems, a former provider of Microsoft Windows-based development tools for a variety of console platforms.
The open standards are specified by the Khronos Group, and are intended to work with Nvidia’s Cg programming language. Scene data are stored with COLLADA v1.4, an open, XML-based file format.
Rendering uses PSGL, a modified version of OpenGL ES 1.0 (OpenGL ES 2.0 compliant except for the use of Cg instead of GLSL), with extensions specifically aimed at the PS3.
Other specifications include OpenMAX, a collection of fast, cross-platform tools for general “media acceleration,” such as matrix calculations, and OpenVG, for hardware-accelerated 2D vector graphics. These specifications have GPL, free for any use, and/or commercial implementations by third parties.
Sublicensed technology includes complete game engines, physics libraries, and special libraries. Engines include Epic‘s Unreal engine 3.0. Physics libraries include AGEIA‘s PhysX SDK, NovodeX, and Havok‘s physics and animation engines.
Other tools include Nvidia’s Cg 1.5 (a C-like shading language, which HLSL was based upon), SpeedTree RT by Interactive Data Visualization, Inc. (high-quality virtual foliage in real time), and Kynogon’s Kynapse 4.0 “large scale A.I.”.
So lots of opportunities for programmers! Notice the use of various open standards with implementations released under the GPL.
The PS3 also runs any PowerPC-compatible Linux (for example, Yellow Dog Linux) and, for once, Sony fully documents the procedure (i.e. they want lots of people to run alternative OSes on their PS3…)
As most of you already know, the PS3 has a fantastic new processor called Cell and a GPU from the Nvidia GeForce 7 series.
There is also a Basic version (compared to the Premium) without Wifi, memory card readers and with a smaller 20 GB harddisk.
The PS3 will cost $499 in the US (i.e. Rs 20,000) and therefore I guess it will be available around Rs. 30,000 in Mauritius in some time.
Is it worth it?
Personally, I’ll never put Rs. 30,000 in a game console. But I don’t mind paying that amount (of course, I’ll have to convince Christina first) if I get a world-class game console compatible with PS1 and PS2 games + a complete media center (MP3, CD, DivX, DVD etc) with top quality audio and video and recording capabilities + an Internet Web browser with full support for latest W3C recommendations)
