Playstation3-ps3.com

Updated job listings are, once again, giving indications of new developments for Sony’s PlayStation 3.

The job positions of Programmer, Tools Programmer and Graphics Programmer are for Treyarch Development Studio, and are needed for two Activision-published games, specifically Spider-Man and Call of Duty.

Although it is well known that Activision is involved with these two popular franchises, the job listings state that the recruitment is for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

It is believed that with the next Spider-Man movie due out in 2007, the game that will appear on PlayStation 3 will coincide with the movie release. Unfortunely, no other information has been revealed. Call of Duty is an even more mysterious title, as the PS3 iteration could follow a port of Call of Duty 3 from PC, or may go in the direction of the Treyarch-produced “Big Red One”.

We’ll keep you up to date on any developments.

Via PS3land.com

Electronic Arts has now confirmed that Medal of Honor Airborne, the latest in the MoH series, is headed to the PS3 and Xbox 360. The next generation versions will join PC, PS2, and Xbox versions already in progress.

One of the new gameplay features is the ability to choose your “spawn point� or starting point during a mission. Being able to choose where you are dropped should add another layer of strategy to the MoH formula. After parachuting into position you will be able to freely fight throughout war-torn Europe, completing your objectives, eventually landing you in Germany.

Medal of Honor Airborne, which promises to bring “innovations that will redefine the series and impact the genre as a whole�, is scheduled to drop in winter 2006. We will keep you posted when any new information regarding MoH:A is released. Look for this title to be one of EA’s big games shown at E3 coming up in May.

via ps3portal.com

The playstation3 is creating a tidal wave of news and rumors, despite not being released until the summer of 2006. The following 30 PS3 games are launch titles, as compiled from E3 press releases and various news sources. The PS3’s launch title library is large and diverse. There should be a game here for everyone.

6Gun 2 - BattleBorne Entertainment
Avalon - Climax Studios
Dark Sector - Digital Extreme
The Darkness - Starbreeze Studios
Devil May Cry 4 - Capcom
EA Sports Fight Night Round 3 - EA Chicago
Eyedentify - TBA
Fifth Phantom Saga - Sonic Team
Final Fantasy PS3 - Square Enix
Formula One PS3 - SCE Studios Liverpool
The Getaway PS3 - SCE Studios Soho
Heavenly Sword - Ninja Theory
I-8 - Insomniac Games
Infraworld - Quantic Dream
Killing Day - TBA
Killzone PS3 - Guerilla Games
Metal Gear Solid 4 - Kojima Productions
Mobile Suit Gundam - TBA
MotorStorm - Evolution Studios
Ni-Oh - KOEI
Omikron 2 - Quantic Dream
Possession - Blitz Games
Project Delta - Playlogic International
ShadowClan - Tiger Hill Entertainment
Tekken PS3 - Namco
Vision GT - Polyphony Digital
Warhawk PS3 - Incognito Entertainment

via about.com

The Playstation3 graphics processor is the result of a two year collaboration between nVidia and Sony. Following on from Sony Computer Entertainment and NVidia announcement, further details regarding the graphics processor set to feature in the forthcoming Playstation3 have today come to light.

Speaking at a San Jose Press Conference, Jen-Hsun Huang President nVidia, claimed that the processor set to feature has been specifically created for the Playstation3 and is not based on a PC chipset. Huang claimed that both Sony and nVidia have been working closely for the last two years on the design of the chip, backing up earlier speculation that both companies were in collaboration.

Naturally Huang believes the Playstation3 to be far more powerful then anything currently on the market, with some vague suggestions hinting at a 50 fold increase in performance compared to the Playstation2.

via nvidia.com

Sony will host Destination PlayStation 2006 at the Loews Miami Beach resort February 27–March 3. The annual “business casual” gathering is intended to provide retailers with SCEA and third party companies’ plans and strategies for the coming year. If Sony does launch the PlayStation 3 in North America this year, one would have to assume that a timetable is going to be laid out during the course of the Destination PlayStation conference. Here’s to hoping there’s a mole in the mix!

via joystiq.com

This bold statement came from Ken Kutaragi himself at the Las Vegas Consumer’s Electronics Show last week.

Could this mean the PS3 is almost done testing? No one knows for sure, but Sony hasn’t released much information about it, which leads many gamers to think that it will go on sale in fall - not spring as Sony has stated. There wasn’t much talk about the PS3 at this year’s CES and even the PS3 demos were still subject to change.

Ken has been very straightforward, saying that:

“BD is technologically right. I hope the purely technologically innovative one wins.�

This statement was regarding the format war between the Blu-Ray drives and the HD-DVD drives that will supposedly take over the now common DVD-9 format.

However, this does not necessarily mean much as a few years ago the Sony Betamax lost to the now old VHS format. It lost, even though Betamax was technologically superior.

via ps3land.com

The UK edition of PSM has run an article that claims the next Grand Theft Auto game will be a PlayStation 3 exclusive, to be unveiled at E3 2006.

Rockstar, the creators of the popular GTA series that first debuted in 3D on PlayStation 2, release a new Grand Theft Auto game every two years. San Andreas was released in 2004, and so this year we should see the arrival of a brand new GTA.

The US edition of PSM recently asked Sam Houser, Rockstar President, about an online iteration of GTA. Houser referenced Everquest, a popular RPG for PC. It seems Rockstar wants to do more than just deathmatches:

“With PS3, it looks as if it might be time for interactive entertainment to become the world’s dominant artistic medium.”

Apparently, GTA4 will be set in Europe, or in a “world” with six cities, and will be available as a UK launch title for PS3 in 2006.

However, whilst all of this information is exciting, it is questionable. Rockstar recently announced that Liberty City Stories, which was released for PSP in October last year, will be making its way to PlayStation 2 this year. This could account for the “one game every two years” theory.

Hopefully Rockstar will reveal official details in the coming months.

via ps3land.com

CNNMoney is now speculating, along with other industry analysts, that the Sony Playstation 3 will release wth a $500 price tag.

Although Sony hasn’t officially announced the console’s price, SCE president, Ken Kutaragi stated,”it’ll be expensive.”

A.T.R.’s (American Technology Research) P.J. McNealy in a note to clients on Monday said, “[Sony] could now consider launching its PS3 at a price range of $399 to $499, with the $499 price point more likely.”

The biggest thing leadint to the $500 price tag is the fact that Sony includes Blu-Ray technology. While high, this price level, however, is still considerably lower than other Blu-ray players shown at CES, whuch reached prices up to $1,800.

Game developers have also speculated that the PS3 will launch around $500, with some saying more. They also agree that the system will most likely beat the highest price package of the Xbox 360, which could sway either good or bad for Sony.

Until Sony make a public annoucement about this, everything is speculation. From what Sony has said, though, we should probably hear the official annoucement at or before E3 2006.

via ps3land.com

After E3 in May last year, you would be forgiven for not remembering the slew of information Sony threw at us about the PlayStation 3. But what really stood out? Between all those figures, specifications and PowerPoint slides, what do we have to look forward to?

What will make the PlayStation 3 the killer console of the next-generation?

Unrivalled Industry Support And Kickass Games

Sony’s developer support has grown with the PlayStation 2’s userbase. There are now thousands of brilliant and varied games, both first party and third party. The Grand Theft Auto series especially stood out with the PS2, and San Andreas is arguably one of the best games to hit the system.

Without doubt, GTA will be back for PS3, better than ever. But the PS3’s launch titles prospect is looking good too. Games such as Warhawk, Tekken, Gran Turismo and Killzone were shown off at E3 - all looking astonishing. At CES, it was announced that 4000 dev kits had been shipped to developers. This is promising news, as the developers should have had enough time with the kits to refine their games for launch.

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is a game that has caused considerable hype after Hideo Kojima showed off a mouth-watering trailer at the Tokyo Game Show. Knowing Kojima, it will be a fantastic game, but consequently is unlikely to be a launch title if Sony hopes to meet its Spring 2006 launch date.

Connectivity & Expansion

From the specification sheet, and from Sony themselves, it is clear that the PS3 is designed to be a gaming and media device. The PSP is an amazing media device, capable of playing games, music and movies. And this is for a handheld device. The PS3 will ship with six USB ports, card readers for Memory Stick, Compact Flash and Secure Digital (SD). A removable hard disk drive will also be available. All of this could make it the ultimate media device.

In addition, the PlayStation 3 will be free of the restrictions put on the Xbox 360. Sony’s support of Linux suggests a much more open and free interface. Hopefully this will allow the support of more formats, and connectivity with more operating systems. Unfortunately, some of the best features on the Xbox 360 can only be exploited with a Windows Media Centre PC. The PlayStation 3 could appeal to a whole separate, Linux-orientated market.

Wireless Controllers & Bluetooth

The PlayStation 3 will be capable of handling seven wireless, bluetooth controllers. Whilst the Xbox camp believes seven controllers is an overkill, it certainly is not. Football (soccer) games in particular can currently support up to eight players with the use of two multitaps. The WWE SmackDown series by THQ can support up to six players.

Bluetooth technology is a bonus. This way, there will definitely be no interferance with other devices in the home. Just to point out, the “seven” controllers is a technical limitation.

Backwards Compatibility

The PlayStation 3 will be able to support thousands of PlayStation and PlayStation 2 games. Those games you bought over ten years ago will still be playable on the PlayStation 3.

The PlayStation 3 will also enhance older games, in the same way that PS2 did to PlayStation games. We could see quicker loading times, anti-aliasing and much more.

1080p

Many people think 1080p output is useless because no one has 1080p-compatible TVs. 1080p TVs are becoming more and more common, and with Toshiba shipping Cell-equipped TVs this year, the PS3 will output superior quality high definition in the best resolution, and in progressive scan to some of the most technically advanced TVs. Blu-Ray will be able to hold full movies and interactive menus at 1080p as well.

Sony have definitely looked well into the future with this feature, and it’s a very good move. With the first Blu-Ray players going on sale for $1800, the PS3 will have consumers sorted for the coming years at an incredible price (the PS3 will sell for much less than $1800!).

Blu-Ray

This is the killer feature of the PlayStation 3. Blu-Ray has industry-wide support, and by shipping it with the PS3, it will be in millions of homes very, very quickly. This will give it a significant advantage over its rival, HD-DVD.

Blu-Ray is capable of holding 25GB on a single layer, and 50GB on dual-layer. Developers will never have to worry about space whilst making games, and movies studios will be able to store a whole movie at 1080p and standard definition on a single side.

So there you have it - The PlayStation 3’s killer features could quite possibly make it the killer console of all time.

Via ps3land.com

Official Playstation3 Specs:

CPU
Cell Processor
PowerPC-base Core @3.2GHz
1 VMX vector unit per core
512KB L2 cache
7 x SPE @3.2GHz
7 x 128b 128 SIMD GPRs
7 x 256KB SRAM for SPE
* 1 of 8 SPEs reserved for redundancy
total floating point performance: 218 GFLOPS

GPU
RSX @550MHz
1.8 TFLOPS floating point performance
Full HD (up to 1080p) x 2 channels
Multi-way programmable parallel floating point shader pipelines

Sound
Dolby 5.1ch, DTS, LPCM, etc. (Cell- base processing)
Memory
256MB XDR Main RAM @3.2GHz 256MB GDDR3 VRAM @700MHz

System Floating Point Performance
2 TFLOPS

Storage
Detachable 2.5″ HDD slot x 1

I/O
USB Front x 4, Rear x 2 (USB2.0)
Memory Stick standard/Duo, PRO x 1
SD standard/mini x 1
CompactFlash (Type I, II) x 1

Communication
Ethernet (10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, 1000BASE-T) x 3 (input x 1 + output x 2)
Wi-Fi IEEE 802.11 b/g
Bluetooth 2.0 (EDR)

Controller
Bluetooth (up to 7)
USB 2.0 (wired)
Wi-Fi (PSP)
Network (over IP)

AV Output
Screen size: 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p
HDMI: HDMI out x 2
Analog: AV MULTI OUT x 1
Digital audio: DIGITAL OUT (OPTICAL) x 1

Disc Media
CD PlayStation CD-ROM, PlayStation 2 CD-ROM, CD-DA, CD-DA (ROM), CD-R, CD-RW, SACD, SACD Hybrid (CD layer), SACD HD, DualDisc, DualDisc (audio side), DualDisc (DVD side)
DVD: PlayStation 2 DVD-ROM, PlayStation 3 DVD-ROM, DVD-Video, DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW
Blu-ray Disc: PlayStation 3 BD-ROM, BD-Video, BD-ROM, BD-R, BD-RE

System Bandwidth
Main RAM 25.6GB/s
VRAM 22.4GB/s
RSX 20GB/s (write) + 15GB/s (read)
SB< 2.5GB/s (write) + 2.5GB/s (read)