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The changing state of the PS3: What stays and what goes?
There is a lot of information in Game Informer's interview with Sony's VP of marketing Peter Dille. One discussion point is the rumble feature mentioned by Cory Barlog for God of War III. Dille passes over the question because there currently is no rumble feature in the PS3 controller -- but it's obviously coming. The rumor of a redesigned PS3 has been floating out there for a bit and seems probable given all the changes occurring with the system (coupled with poor sales). It might be time to wonder what the PS3 redesign will entail.We know that rumble controllers are going to be in this redesign. Sony and Immersion buried the hatchet, which prevented the PS3 from shaking in the first place, and Sony is currenly "working closely with them" to explore "new and innovative ways to utilize this technology in PlayStation products." There's been some significant changes in the storage capacity of various PS3 models and how the company has dealt with them. Today the 80GB model was announced for Korea, a global release shouldn't be unexpected. The lack of a European 20GB model was the harbinger of its North American death and we're still waiting for the official Japanese death, but like we said before, we expect that to happen when the 80GB model is officially announced for the region. Plus, each model released during this incremental launch has been slightly different than the last. We can watch the evolution (and the survival of the fittest) in progress.
3.0 manual online; confirms PS3 necessary for downloadable games!
Our reader Matt T. sent in a very hot tip. It appears that the online manual for PSP version 3.0 is up and running. Thankfully, it doesn't have any features removed. However, it confirms our fears that a PS3 is necessary to download games to the PSP. Here's the proof:"Play PLAYSTATION®Network titles downloaded from (PLAYSTATION®Store). A PLAYSTATION®3 system is required to use this feature."What??? Didn't Peter Dille confirm that you didn't need a PS3 to download games to the system? Sony's got a lot of explaining to do...
Peter Dille calls DS for kids in Engadget interview
Dave Karraker isn't the only Sony executive to face the mic in the past day. Our sister site, Engadget, went face to face against Peter Dille, about PLAYSTATION 3 and PSP. Just like Karraker, Dille says that the PSP does not compete directly with the DS:We're not focused on competing with the DS head to head against the consumer they're going after. If we were, you'd see a very different top-down strategy. You'd see a very different technology that would deliver to games geared towards kids. Which is for the most part what they're doing. And so when people talk about how we're doing vis-a-vis the Nintendo DS, again, it's not the whole story. We're selling a device to guys our age, who are using it to play games, to play movies, to access video on the net, music, etc. And it's a very different product than Nintendo DS... You can look at the software that they sell. All their licensed kid stuff. So, what we're doing with the PlayStation Portable is really establishing a new marketplace, and establishing, frankly, a new beachhead. And that takes time. Having said that, it's the fastest selling platform we've launched to date. We're up to 20 million units worldwide, and that's off to a great start. So, we just need to sort of set people's expectations based on what we're trying to do, not compete against a kid machine.Ouch. Calling the Nintendo DS exclusively a kid's machine sounds like something a fanboy would do. Didn't Mr. Dille get the memo? The DS is for old people too! Regardless, he makes a very good point about how the DS and PSP are targetting different consumers: they are different devices, and there's no need to directly compare the two. It's similar to how Nintendo keeps saying the Wii doesn't compete with PLAYSTATION 3: they focus on different markets, and do very different things.Other highlights of the interview include Dille apologizing about how they didn't focus the UMD's library correctly (but they still plan on trying to expand the UMD market. Uh...). Check out the rest of the interview at Engadget to see Dille avoid some crucial PS3 info, and fail to apologize for Kutargai's insanity.
