Talk Playstation 3 News

Has 2008 been a great year for Sony? Yes and No, some people have already said why Sony havent had the best of years and i have to agree with them, but theres one thing i didnt do, buy an Xbox 360!

Anyway, was 2008 the year of PS3? No. Will 2009 be the year of PS3? Possibly. The following games are the ones to look out for and could make Sony leader of 2009. Please note these are PS3 only games, some of them may not make 2009 (some of them aren’t even announced but could be announced soon) but maybe, just maybe.

In no particular order.

• Infamous
• Killzone 2
• God of War 3
• Ratchet and Clank
• The agency (also on PC)
• Gran Turismo 5 (see here)
• Yakuza 3
• Trico
• Uncharted 2
• Jak 4
• Heavy Rain
• White Knight Chronicles
• Final Fantasy XIII Versus
• Demon’s Soul
• MAG
• Wardevil
• Twisted Metal

What games are you looking forwards to?

Many people are slightly dissapointed in Heavy Rain and we’ve heard people say that the visuals have took a downgrade since the tech demo that was shown all the way back at E3 2006. We’ve finally seen some actual gameplay footage of the game, shown at the Leipzig Games Convention 2008 just a few days ago.

Many people thought the tech demo at E306 was just a rendered feel of how the game could look.

We’ve put together a screenshot comparison for you to take a look at.

If you enlarge the image above you’ll see that the tech demo is almost identical to the actual gameplay visuals. In fact, some of the gameplay visuals look slightly better than the tech demo especially the colouring.

If you want to see both in motion, click here for the tech demo and click here for the gameplay video.

Which do you think looks better, Tech demo or Gameplay?

Sony recently said that they have 12 announcements lined up for Leipzig 2008. Many gamers have been wondering and guessing what these announcements could be. Here’s our verdict.

1. Uncharted 2.
2. Hopefully Team Ico’s game.
3. BBC secret game (see here and it wasn’t MAG).
4. Seed Studios game.
5. A new Ratchet & Clank or Jak and Daxter.
6. Ports from the 360 such as Dead Rising and Left 4 Dead.
7. Acquisition of a studio such as Quantic Dream.
8. Twisted Metal.
9. Home release date.
10. A Rockstar game.
11. Wipeout HD release date.
12. Something to do with Square Enix.

The 12 announcements don’t necessarily have to be games. This is what we are hoping for.

What are you hoping for? What would you like Sony to announce at the Games Convention 2008?

If Final Fantasy VII got remade exclusively for the Playstation 3, what effect will it have on the market? First of all it will make everyone forget about FFXIII and all those Xbox 360 fans that wanted FFXIII on their system will suddenly change their minds. A FFVII remake will be gigantic and a HUGE system seller. FF7 remake is one of the most wanted games this generation.

Here’s some points on the effects an FF7 remake could produce.

• It could sell millions of PS3 units easily
• A never ending surge of sales
• Japan would explode
• Could it be the end of the console war?
• Would Microsoft try and buy rights for it to bring it to their console?
• It will either lead Sony to victory or do nothing, it depends how Square does it
• It will most likely be the best selling game this generation ever

I mentioned that IF a FFVII remake were to be done, Square Enix can’t mess with the game and has to do it right. They have to keep the game the same and can’t change a thing such as changing the battle system from the old turn-based. They need to keep it exactly the same but with this generation graphics.

More and more rumors are popping up all over the internet regarding FFVII. If a remake isn’t done, then it will be released on the Playstation Store as a classic, which probably won’t have as big an impact.

Any other effects it could have?

Firmware 2.40 (or 2.41 for some people) was a fantastic upgrade, in fact, it’s the best firmware release we’ve had so far (apart from a few problems, so lets call it 2.41). Lets identify whats missing and needed in the next Firmware upgrade presuming its firmware 2.5 if there are no small updates in between.

In no particular order:

In game web browsing

This is something we need, if we are in the middle of a game and your computer is not in the same room as your Playstation 3 it means you will have to quit the game and launch the web browser. It would be nice to access the web browser in-game. It will be quicker.

Send voice messages

Not vital but we’d love to see it. Sending text message is good at the moment but we want a bit more. Voicing someone a nasty message sounds fun!

Access the XMB no matter what

What i mean by this is that you can only access the XMB from PS3 games. Ok thats fine by me, we all wanted in-game XMB and we got it. What about the same for PS2 games and DVD’s etc.

Change more settings while in-game

You can add a bluetooth headset while in-game but what about changing some of the other settings would be a bonus.

Access the Playstation Store in-game

So we can track our downloads but what about accessing the Store while in-game to maybe start a new download or something?

Custom Soundtracks

This was rumoured to be included in the 2.40 update but wasn’t. Eric Lempel showed us a short demo of custom sound tracks while playing Pixel Junk Monsters. Custom soundtracks if the developer makes it so.

Cross game invites

This is a needed one. The invite system on the Playstation 3 isn’t very reliable, you should be able to invite people when your in-game and basically join the server they are playing on. Think GameSpy.

Smoother in-game XMB

While in-game XMB is brilliant, it feels a bit sluggish and takes time to navigate around. A much smoother experience will do the job.

Appear offline

You know, the feature used in instant messaging programs such as MSN. Appear offline to friends while signed in.

Delete Multiple messages

So you send/receive a lot of message but you have to delete them one by one. It would be nice to select all and delete.

Any Avatar

Getting sick of the default avatars for your PSN profile? What about uploaded your own image and using that?

Is there anything we’ve missed? What would you like to see in Firmware 2.5?

There are chances. Let me explain the theory as to how and why Final Fantasy Versus XIII could appear to the Xbox 360. Whether Square-Enix announce it at a later date as a straight release or a timed exclusive on the Playstation 3, then makes it way to the 360 some time after, it could happen.

Why it could go to X360

As some of you know there is a connection between FFXIII and Versus. The only real connection is they’re all under one compilation (Fabula Nova Crystallis) that unites the games under one big theme. Not only that but both games take place in the same universe, but neither story conflicts with each other. Square-Enix probably still doesn’t know what to do yet and are most likely still thinking of ideas. The two stories may conflict in some way. If this is true and Versus doesn’t get a X360 release, are they screwed?

What if the rest of the story unfolds in Versus? What if you need to play Versus to find out what happened to so and so? There are many things that could lead into Versus.

Square-Enix went through bankruptcy when they release the Final Fantasy movie and they are still chasing the loses. This could make their minds up eventually. Also, if FFXIII sells well on X360, whats to stop them from releasing Versus?

Remember a year ago when Square-Enix were saying that FFXIII is a PS3 exclusive?

Why it won’t go to X360

The first one is that Tetsuya Nomura doesn’t want it to go to the X360. Why? Because he probably knows that the Playstation Fanbase will go against Square-Enix, he loves the PS3 and has no intention of making the game for the X360. Afterall, PS3 isn’t getting Start Ocean 4 or Infinite Undiscovery… yet.

They announced at E3 2008 that Versus is a PS3 exclusive.

If Versus went to the X360, what will the PS3 have in terms of exclusivity from Square-Enix? Ok, they are going to be announcing something shortly that is supposed to turn the favour back into Sony’s hands. it has to be a big announcement like a Final Fantasy VII remake.

Versus exclusivity at the moment

At this moment in time FFXIII Versus is a Playstation 3 exclusive. Do you think Versus could make an appearance on the Xbox 360?

From what we’ve seen in the trailers and videos from E3, you can’t shoot while running in Resident Evil 5. Resident Evil 4 has this same problem and quite a lot of people complained about it. The stop and shoot mechanic is back.

We contacted Capcom regarding this issue and they sent a quick response back:

“At the moment you have to stop running to start shooting, we’re using the RE4 control scheme at the moment. The game is still in development and may change nearer to release”

So Capcom may add the ability to shoot while running. I think this is needed because it would be annoying to keep stopping and then shooting. If Capcom changed this, would it make it too fast-paced for an RE game?

Many people are fearing that if Capcom add this ability then it will be classed as a run ‘n gun game. Personally i had no problems with having to stop to shoot, it did get annoying when i died because i simply wasn’t quick enough. Every RE game has been like that. Would adding this ability take the suspense away? Yes it would.

A good example of a run ‘n gun survival horror game is Dino Crisis, do you remember that? It made it fast paced and at the same time scary!

If Capcom were to do something about this then i’d like to see walk and shoot, not run.

Here’s a question: Would you like to see run ‘n gun, walk ‘n gun or stop ‘n gun?

So, E3 is over and a lot went on. Sony lost exclusivity to Final Fantasy XIII but managed to keep Metal Gear Solid 4 and other titles such as Final Fantasy XIII Versus. Some people thought Sony’s press conference went well others say they weren’t too impressed with it.

Let’s take a look at the missing games of E3 that could have boosted Sony’s value and possibly have took the E3 show.

La Noire

Developed by Team Bondi and published by Rockstar Games, LA Noire is a Playstation 3 exlusive game set in a re-created Los Angeles in the late 1940s. LA Noire is still tipped as a Playstation 3 exclusive and has only been officially announced for the Playstation 3. The game is due out sometime in 2009.

Team ICO Game

According to rumors a new game by Team Ico is in the making for the Playstation 3. This would have been good if it was revealed at E3. Many people refer to this secret game as ICO3 or Shadow of the Colossus 2.

Naughty Dog Game

Sony could have at least shown a new Naughty Dog game at E3 for example Uncharted 2 or a new Jak & Daxter game. This could have wow’d fans and stolen the show.

Final Fantasy 13 versus

Ok so this is the exclusive Final Fantasy game we are getting but did we see or hear anything at E3? Not really. I can only hope something is planned for the Tokyo Game Show.

Red Dead Revolver 2

So we saw the logo for this game at E3 but no trailers or anything. This could be Rockstar’s exclusive game they announced months back.

Twisted Metal

We are all waiting for the next Twisted Metal game. Incognito should have announced or shown a trailer. I expect something at TGS.

Kingdom Hearts 3

Nothing was mentioned at E3 which was kinda dissapointing. If Sony secure KH3 it will make up for the loss of FFXIII.

If the above games were revealed at E3 as Sony exclusives i think they would have blown us away. While they weren’t shown at E3 whats to stop them from showing them at TGS?

Are there any other games you would have liked to have seen at E3?

So what has the Playstation 3 got to offer in the year 2009 and how it will be better than 2008. Don’t get me wrong, 2008 has a very strong line up with the following games being released; Socom Confrontation, Wipeout HD, LittleBigPlanet, Motorstorm 2 and Resistance 2. It doesn’t stop there, 2009 will be even better!

First of all, Killzone 2 will be released at the beginning of 2009, february, which will make a great start to the year. Again, it doesn’t stop there. InFamous, another great looking game that will be available in Spring 2009. Finally Home will be released after being in Open Beta towards the of this year after a fair few delays.

Although Final Fantasy XIII has been made multi-platform and will appear on the Xbox 360 outside of Japan, but most likely sell better on the PS3 because PS3 has from now until the end of 2009 to catch the 360 up. The series has always been more popular in Japan anyways which is why its staying as a PS3 exclusive.

The one everyone has been waiting for, God of War III. Look how good God of War and God of War II looked on the PS2, breathtaking! God of War III is set to raise the bar even further and demonstrate what the PS3 can really do, just like GOW2 did with the PS2. Sony has said that GOWIII could appear in 2009.

Massive Action Game is believed to be released as early as spring 2009, a game that promises a massive 256 player online battle, another PS3 exclusive that will drop some jaws.

Not really a game but a price cut will almost definitely happen in 2009 if it doesn’t happen in 2008. If a price cut is due this year it will most likely be around xmas time. If a price cut does happen this year i think 2009 will see a price cut later on in the year.

Firmware updates – what will be available in 2009? As you know firmware updates have contributed to the success of Playstation Network and beyond and it can only get better via future firmware updates.

Uncharted 2 will be released in 2009 at some point, i can’t see it being release this year at all. Uncharted Drake’s Fortune is a fantastic game and a sequel would be just brilliant.

Gran Turismo 5. Although recently believed that it may not hit the shelves until 2010 it could still make it out by the end of 2009. GT5 will be the most complete racing game, containing a proper career mode.

Have you heard of Heavy Rain? This game is supposed to be coming out this fall but i think it will slip into 2009.

Other games that could be released in 2009

• Wardevil
• Tekken 6
• White Knight Chronicles
• A new Naughty Dog game
• Insomniac Games will release something
• Team ico’s new game

There’s probably more games to come in 2009 these are just some of the highlights. 2008 isn’t over yet with games such as GTA4, GT5P and MGS4 already out and more to come as suggested at the beginning of this post, 2008 will be very hard to beat… can you think of anymore 2009 games? Will 2009 beat 2008?

There has been a lot of talk about the Playstation 3’s Random Access Memory (RAM) vs Xbox 360’s RAM, saying that the 360 has more RAM to work with etc. Here’s an article to explain the situation of its RAM.

Just so you know that the PS3 has 512MB of RAM (256 for video and 256 for system). The Cell chip has 256MB of completely sharable RAM, the GPU has 256MB of dedicated RAM. Now the key here is what type of RAM it is.

The Playstation 3 has 256mb of GDDR3 at 700mhz  and 256Mb of XDR at 3.2ghz. So what exactly is XDR ram? Here are some of the highlights:

• XDR makes PS3 super effiecient
• XDR aids in faster cache mapping, both direct and indirect
• XDR ram works by a pointer to pointer technology and needs very small buswidth for execution
• XDR is not just faster than GDDR3 but it is much more efficient
• XDR RAM works by breaking down data into several packets which prevents data loss and exceptions

The Rambus XDR™ memory architecture is a total memory system solution that achieves an order of magnitude higher performance than today’s standard memories while utilizing the fewest ICs. Perfect for compute and consumer electronics applications

The PS3 has two times as much cache at 2x the speed, making it way faster for direct/indirect mapping. Not only that but it has 512k of L1 cache + 1.7m of L2 cache for the 7 spes. The PS3’s GPU, RSX was made to work with the Cell processor, it is not some GPU they took and slotted in. It is made to be compatible with the Cell.

More RAM does not mean a faster system it means more data can be stored in a fast access area. Games don’t always need 512mb of RAM.

The RSX can freely use as much of the 512MB total RAM that the PS3 has because the Cell doesn’t need much RAM because its fast enough. And the fact that the PS3 has XDR means that it has faster access to data files.

A lot of people are saying that the RSX only has 256mb of RAM, whereas the 360’s GPU has 512MB of RAM. To make it sound a bit simpler, here’s the real deal. The PS3 has it’s RAM in two separate parts, 256MB for the RSX and 256MB that can be used be either the Cell or RSX.

The Official Playstation Magazine (August issue) has the reasoning as to why a certain amount of Playstation 3 games require an install. Its because its quicker to read the game data from the hard drive rather than the Blu-Ray disc. This also means shorter loading times during gameplay.

Chief software architect at Eutechnyx, Dr Andrew Perella says:

“The biggest benefit of loading data from hard drive as opposed to Blue-ray is that the seek times are lower. Games that make use of lot of user customisations are hit hard by this as the developer cannot know ahead of time what will need to be loaded”

I bet your now thinking ‘does that mean every game will be installed to the hard drive’, the answer is no. Look at Call of Duty 4 and Uncharted Drake’s Fortune, they didn’t require an install and ran fantastically well.

Game developers are working around this by taking a more pro-active approach to Blu-Ray’s data transfer technology. Some are working with streaming methods that load data while your playing, others are duplicating frequent required data around the disc so it can be located and loaded up faster.

Pete Hines of Bethesda, the vice president of public relations and marketing says:

“we get around it by doing caching to the hard drive behind the scenes. And yes, we do have more than one copy of data on the disc in different locations to make the streaming process faster.”

It is understood that in the future, game installs for the Playstation 3 will be a thing of the past.

If your filling up your Playstation 3’s hard drive and looking for more space, you might consider getting a faster hard drive at the same time. The standard hard drive seen in PS3’s has a rotations per minute speed of 5400, you might want to look at a 7200rpm.

Ok, so lets take a look and compare the speeds and temperatures of the 5400rpm against 7200rpm. The following are system speeds – not in game.

PS3 startup time

• 5400rpm: 15.7 seconds
• 7200rpm: 13.5 seconds

Game background load time

• 5400rpm: 1.9 seconds
• 7200rpm: 1.9 seconds

Source.

Now, lets take a look at the temperatures for each drive in different conditions.

Idle

• 5400rpm – 111 degrees / 43.9c
• 7200rpm – 116 degrees / 46.6c

Stress test (ran some games and folding at home)

• 5400rpm – 129 degrees or 53.9c
• 7200rpm – 131 degrees or 55.0c

Below are install times for the following games.

Grand Turismo HD

• 5400rpm – 1:42.636
• 7200rpm – 1:32.993

About 10% increase in speed.

Jericho demo

• 5400rpm – 2:08.629
• 7200rpm – 1:58.685

About 8% increase in speed.

Tony Hawk demo

• 5400rpm – 4:11.184
• 7200rpm – 3:32.045

About 16% increase in speed.

DIRT Demo

• 5400rpm – 1:29.289
• 7200rpm – 1:25.385

About 5% increase in speed.

Special thanks goes to hotpocketdeath over at the Playstation Forums.

To be honest, i wouldn’t bother getting a faster drive, i would stick with a 5400rpm and get an even bigger drive. Its not worth the minus extra few seconds and more temperature.

Another thing is that upgrading your hard drive does not void your warranty. If i was to ever upgrade, i will be sticking with a 5400rpm drive to be on the safe side.

Pioneer has come up with a whopping 16 layer Blu-Ray disc capable of holding 400GB. The disc has 16 layers, each layer being 25GB, thats a lot of information it can hold.

Now the question is, can it be played in the Playstation 3 for its games or movie playback, whatever? Pioneer has stated:

“Since the optical specifications of the objective lens…are the same as those for the existing BD discs, it is possible to maintain compatibility between the new 16-layer optical disc and the BD discs.”

Source.

This means that we can probably put one of these 400GB disc in our PS3’s, but why 400GB, we will see any gaming benefits from this? Of course we will, simply because developers will be able to add a lot more content. Games such as Metal Gear Solid 4 and Heavenly Sword reached nearly full capacity of a dual layered 50GB Blu-Ray disc. But then again developers can use a 100GB blu-ray disc if they ever need to go above 50GB, i highly doubt they will go above 50GB this generation.

Games can fit on an 8GB DVD, HD Movies can Fit on a 25GB Blu-Ray disc so why do we need a 400GB you may ask? Here’s a famous quote:

“Nobody will ever need more than 640 kB RAM [Bill Gates, 1983]“

Anyway, down to a technical point of view, we won’t be seeing 400GB games this generation simply because they won’t be able to mass market them due to the failure rate each layer produces.

400GB this Generation? No.
100GB this generation? More than likely.

I can see Final Fantasy XIII being on a 100GB quad layer disc.

400GB Blu-Ray disc’s for the Playstation 4 anyone?

A TalkPlaystation.com user sent me the following to post. It basically argues that why people made the firmware 2.4 bug a big deal and how its happened to Microsoft with their Dashboard update.

“Should we trust Sony with their next Firmware update? Presumebly it will be firmware 2.41 that will be released next just to reasure Playstation 3 owners they havent got a dodgy firmware.

I’m sure Sony will be careful next time, just as careful as they should have been when they released 2.4 and then took it offline due to reports saying that it ‘bricked’ their PS3. The majority of people upgraded to 2.4 with no problems at all and are happily trophy hunting.

I think we can trust Sony because Microsoft, Nintendo and now Sony have screwed up when updating their systems. Remember when Microsoft updated the Dashboard and it screwed poeples 360’s, producing lag etc. The effect was very minimal and people have a go at Sony for a quick bug that is most likely fixed.

People are just exaggerating because Sony pulled it down because they wanted to see if there really was a problem. If your PS3 got bricked due to firmware 2.4 all you need to do is format the hard drive, yes you will lose all your data but its the only way to get your PS3 back.

Not everyone update will be perfect. Besides its Sony’s first BIG update.”

[UPDATE] As Paranoimia stated in the comments section “A very small minority have experienced problems with the update, while most people had no problems whatsoever.”

“It may well be that a minority of people have been affected in some way, but I’d put money on a lot of the internet talk being from Xbots who have picked up on this minority and decided to blow it out of all proportion”

Whats your say on this?

Ever wanted to see what the Final Fantasy box art could look like? Like this:

Its what Final Fantasy VII could look like if it got remade for the Playstation 3. Looks fantastic, only if it was real!. I bet a lot of you are wishing this was real… one day, just maybe… one day.

Now who wouldn’t buy this if it got remade…

Anyway, what do you think of the above box art?