Fivewin
Power Member
28 April 2002
The news will put an icy chill in the heart of every parent with school-age children. Sony, the Japanese entertainment titan striving for total domination of the video games market, is understood to be in advanced stages of developing PlayStation 3.
It is unlikely to get a warm welcome from Sony's two chief competitors – Nintendo and Microsoft – who have only just brought out machines to compete with PlayStation 2.
Plans for the third installment in the PlayStation saga were rapidly stepped up when Sony saw the capabilities of Microsoft's Xbox, says sources within its development team.
Although the company believes it has enough good games in the pipeline and a wide enough global customer base to compete for the moment, PlayStation 3 is being designed specifically to handle online gaming – seen by many analysts as the future of video games.
Sony has courted alliances with some of the technology industry's biggest hitters in an effort to "soundly beat whatever our rivals produce next''. IBM and Toshiba are jointly designing the central chip that will control the PlayStation 3 at a top-secret technology lab in Austin, Texas. The project, which aims to create the ultimate graphics and sound processor, is believed to cost around $1bn (£650m).
City analysts estimate that the global games market could reach $40bn within the next decade – riches that no one in the industry wants, or can afford, to miss. Because of the UK's strength in game design, the forthcoming console war will also benefit the many small software houses that have been making hit games since the heady days of the ZX Spectrum and the Commodore 64.
The British market is experiencing a glut of new launches. Nintendo's hand-held Game Boy Advance hit the shelves before Christmas, Microsoft's Xbox was launched six weeks ago, and this week will see the last piece falling into place: Nintendo's GameCube.
The three-way struggle for supremacy has seen each company adopt different tactics. Sony got its PlayStation 2 machine on the market before anyone else, and reaped the rewards of being the only player on the block for 18 months. Microsoft's Xbox, meanwhile, has made its appeal to what it sees as more serious gamers. Although the enormous Xbox – much larger than other consoles – is Microsoft's first step into the world of video games, its rivals cannot afford to dismiss the machine. After all, Sega and Nintendo seemed to have the market sewn up in 1993 when Sony arrived and sold 85 million PlayStations.
The Xbox's software makes full use of the machine's huge graphics and memory capabilities, and the games line-up includes "Halo", one of only a few games to which reviewers have given a "perfect" rating. Unfortunately, the past six weeks have not gone Microsoft's way: sales have been sluggish and, within five weeks of launch, the company decided to drop the price by 38 per cent to drum up custom.
The Xbox may have the best technology, but the market is only interested in the quality of the games. Nintendo, a past master at producing must-have titles, has not only got a meaty selection of games to accompany the launch of the GameCube, but is also selling the machine at less than half the original cost of the Xbox.
Lá se vão a XBOXE e o QUADRADO cus porcos
The news will put an icy chill in the heart of every parent with school-age children. Sony, the Japanese entertainment titan striving for total domination of the video games market, is understood to be in advanced stages of developing PlayStation 3.
It is unlikely to get a warm welcome from Sony's two chief competitors – Nintendo and Microsoft – who have only just brought out machines to compete with PlayStation 2.
Plans for the third installment in the PlayStation saga were rapidly stepped up when Sony saw the capabilities of Microsoft's Xbox, says sources within its development team.
Although the company believes it has enough good games in the pipeline and a wide enough global customer base to compete for the moment, PlayStation 3 is being designed specifically to handle online gaming – seen by many analysts as the future of video games.
Sony has courted alliances with some of the technology industry's biggest hitters in an effort to "soundly beat whatever our rivals produce next''. IBM and Toshiba are jointly designing the central chip that will control the PlayStation 3 at a top-secret technology lab in Austin, Texas. The project, which aims to create the ultimate graphics and sound processor, is believed to cost around $1bn (£650m).
City analysts estimate that the global games market could reach $40bn within the next decade – riches that no one in the industry wants, or can afford, to miss. Because of the UK's strength in game design, the forthcoming console war will also benefit the many small software houses that have been making hit games since the heady days of the ZX Spectrum and the Commodore 64.
The British market is experiencing a glut of new launches. Nintendo's hand-held Game Boy Advance hit the shelves before Christmas, Microsoft's Xbox was launched six weeks ago, and this week will see the last piece falling into place: Nintendo's GameCube.
The three-way struggle for supremacy has seen each company adopt different tactics. Sony got its PlayStation 2 machine on the market before anyone else, and reaped the rewards of being the only player on the block for 18 months. Microsoft's Xbox, meanwhile, has made its appeal to what it sees as more serious gamers. Although the enormous Xbox – much larger than other consoles – is Microsoft's first step into the world of video games, its rivals cannot afford to dismiss the machine. After all, Sega and Nintendo seemed to have the market sewn up in 1993 when Sony arrived and sold 85 million PlayStations.
The Xbox's software makes full use of the machine's huge graphics and memory capabilities, and the games line-up includes "Halo", one of only a few games to which reviewers have given a "perfect" rating. Unfortunately, the past six weeks have not gone Microsoft's way: sales have been sluggish and, within five weeks of launch, the company decided to drop the price by 38 per cent to drum up custom.
The Xbox may have the best technology, but the market is only interested in the quality of the games. Nintendo, a past master at producing must-have titles, has not only got a meaty selection of games to accompany the launch of the GameCube, but is also selling the machine at less than half the original cost of the Xbox.
Lá se vão a XBOXE e o QUADRADO cus porcos