Sony Expects 10 year life cycle for PS3

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MrXerxes

Weaksauce
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Sep 10, 2005
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I found this rather curious ... a statement by SCEI President Ken Kuratagi stating that they (Sony) expect the lifecycle of the PS3 to be about 10 years.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/multimedia/display/20050725230636.html

Personally, I think this comment is your basic run-of-the-mill marketing BS. He is trying to make it sound as though the PS3 is so powerful, and packed with so much future-proof technology that you will not have to worry about replacing it for ten years, thearby making the price easier to digest. However, lets pretend for a couple minutes that he was making this a serious comment....

On one hand I find this to be rather absurd (from a [H]ard technology enthusiast), but then started thinking about how long ago it was that the PS2 came out. Obviously consoles have a greatly extended life compared to that of the average PC gaming machine, but still, 10 years..... I find that a bit silly. Just for a second, think back ten years ago, think about what type of technology we had in our TVs, our consoles, our PCs, our home appliances. Think about the games. Now I would argue that the technology has advanced far more than the games' mechanics themselves, but still, that continuous progress of technology has been necessary in working to alleviate limits & constraints from game design.

Even now, at the end of its lifecycle, the PS2 is thriving with titles and shelf space. Do you think that will hold true for the PS3 in 2015?

Further more, do you think Microsoft is going to release the Xbox 360 and then wait ten years before launching another console? I don't.
 
Not really since the original had a 10 year lifespan... Sony has some of the best console support on the market.
 
I believe the system is still being made and sold in some countries but I think in the US its lfespan is basically over. The system has sold more then 100 million worldwide, pretty dam good for the first console from sony.
 
Ah that is a good point, I should specify.

My question regarding the lifecycle had more to do with its lifecycle as Sony's current top tier system. I can still go into shops and find games and accessories for my PS1, but its lifecycle of being Sony's top offering ended long ago.
 
Yeah, it will be officially supported for ten years, but will be replaced long before that.
 
im not at all surprise at the expectations...
i mean the PS2 withs its now ancient architecture is sill faring quite well.
 
It'd be nice to not have to get a new console every 5 years, so I'd like to see them make this happen. At least developers will have more time to fully exploit the current hardware rather than always getting ready for the next big update.
 
heatsinker said:
It'd be nice to not have to get a new console every 5 years, so I'd like to see them make this happen. At least developers will have more time to fully exploit the current hardware rather than always getting ready for the next big update.
Click to expand...

yeah im already planning to hunk down alottle of change for a PS3 set with games and HDTV, and not having to do it again for a long time is reassuring
 
I would kind of like it if we went a few years with no hardware advancement at all to let software catch up, it always seems like if you buy new hardware when it comes out nothing makes use of it yet. We need to get the two re-synchronized, if it ever has been I don't know. I would assume this happens because developing hardware is a much faster process then developing software that implements it, so maybe we should take a look at how we develope software. It's common knowledge that video games keep taking longer and longer to produce the more complicated they become, furthering the gap between hardware and software, and its reasonable to assume that at some point in the future we will reach a point of diminishing returns where the time it takes to develope leading edge software will not be worth the cost of developing it. The only way to fix this is to change the way we create games and other applications.

For instance, 3D modeling takes a tremendous amount of time and effort. If, instead, we were able to scan a real 3D object into a modeling program like you would a magazine page into a scanner, we could significantly reduce development times (I am talking people and cars and stuff here, not just small stuff ). It would seem to me that the technology to do this already exists, and I don't know why nobody has done it yet. We have range finding tools that can determine the distance to an object. All you would have to do is make a cubicle array of those around the object. If you know the dimensions of the cube and you know the positions on the cube and the range that each range finder was reading you could generate a 3D object, right? It wouldn't even have to be very high resolution (IE, not many range finders, 9 per square inch, not 16, for example) because we could extrapolate the rest of the data pretty easily.

Anyways, somebody needs to give me a job because my mind is being wasted at Target (and school for that matter)

*edit* ^^^PATENT PENDING^^^ (why dont we have a shifty eyes smily?)
 
Ken Kuratagi likes to say many things, including that the Xbox 360 is competing with the PS2, and not the PS3... I'd love to get my hands on whatever he's smoking
 
CHollman82 said:
IFor instance, 3D modeling takes a tremendous amount of time and effort. If, instead, we were able to scan a real 3D object into a modeling program like you would a magazine page into a scanner, we could significantly reduce development times (I am talking people and cars and stuff here, not just small stuff ). It would seem to me that the technology to do this already exists, and I don't know why nobody has done it yet. We have range finding tools that can determine the distance to an object. All you would have to do is make a cubicle array of those around the object. If you know the dimensions of the cube and you know the positions on the cube and the range that each range finder was reading you could generate a 3D object, right? It wouldn't even have to be very high resolution (IE, not many range finders, 9 per square inch, not 16, for example) because we could extrapolate the rest of the data pretty easily.
Click to expand...
Because the software utilized to model, rig, and animate makes such practices inefficeint. Modern video games all have a very strict poly count. Taking a hi-res, point mapped obkject and cutting it down to size will often times take far far more time than it would take to generate a low poly model from scratch. Typically, the modelling isn't an issue. Many models will be cracked out in a few hours time. It is the rigging and texturing which take forever and a half. Even before any of that is the design process itself, which can simply take as long as it takes.

You are correct in one sense, however. Production software needs to improve with the technology as well. 3D software has come quite a long ways from where it was 3-5 years ago, but it hasn't scaled anywhere near the complexity and scope of projects for today.

Anyway, don't quit your day job at Target just yet. ;) The whole industry is a mess, but if there is anything Ken has said that is worth something, it's this. I personally don't believe we will 'need' new consoles for about that long. Not in the traditional sense, at least. Regarding the traditional manner of video games, we've seen it. The visual quality of software likely will not improve over the next two - three years in such a manner that we will think it of any importance. High poly count will be arbitrary, if we already have thousands of characters on screen, huge draw distances, and we can hardly see the normals (flat surfaces) in the game. Consider Kameo for 360. Sure, it has a long way to go before it reaches photorealistic, but the point is, first gen 360 games aren't as impressive, visually, as PS2/DC games were to their time period. They are not as impressive as shift from 8-bit to 16-bit systems.

If you will argue there is much left untapped within the system itself, consider a PS2. I had never played ICO, until I recently got my hands on a copy. It's a first generation PS2 title, yet I found myself more impressive with the visuals in it than I have in most modern PS2 games. Shadow of Colossus of the same team, and even utilizing an updated engine doesn't seem to fair too much better. Sure, it DOES take the engine to new levels, but it is no longer anything new or impressive.

Such is a case of 3D. From the NES - SNES, we were wowed by a substantial refinement in 2D. From 16-bit to 32-bit, we were wowed by neato shitty looking 3D graphics. From 32-bit to current gen, we were wowed by substantially refined 3D... what now? Even more substantially refined 3D? Even more more substantially refined 3D? Most PC enthusiasts are of the mindset that progression occurs via evolution. Regarding PCs, this is true. Not so in consoles. They progress in generational leaps. 300-400 bucks every 5 years may not sound too bad when we plop down just as much for a single component more frequently, but the function consoles serve must be worth the price of admission. We can't experience the meat and potatos of video games until we play them. Until we have the opportunity, all we have to judge games, and game systems by is what we can see. If consumer A can no see any difference in product B and upgraded product C, what reason does he/she have to take the plung? I don't believe Sony or MS are faulted in their focus this generation, but Nintendo has a good perspect on the future. Nah, they may not be the ones to take us there, but I don't see what Sony or MS have planned after this generation. If this isn't merely posturing by Ken, then it is quite evident he has no idea where to take Playstation, for at least 10 years. Sounds more to me like he's hoping to ride the wave until a new technology comes out for him.

All that aside, if come 2012 there is no talk of a next generation of standard consoles, I'll have each of these three boxes on my entertainment center. If we already have another generation by then, I really hope we get some fucking awesome gimick technology. Like codpiece peripherals, or even better, direct bi-directional neural interfaces. Fuck panoramic high definition displays and head sets. Fuck force feedback. To hell with controllers, or even remotes. The mouse and keyboard can even go fuck themselves. I want to interact with the games directly, and I want the games to react directly. The pr0n industry would take on new meaning, and the rest of the world would follow the koreans. Game until they die in pure interactive bliss.

Yeah... next next generation is gonna rule.

I shut up now.
 
I don't hold out much hope to see neural interfaces in my lifetime, though that would be the ultimate technology for gaming and many other things, I don't even know where we would go from there, I can't think of a way to improve upon that... It would even be better then the holodecks in star trek, where you have a limited space to move around. In your brain anything goes, if your brain thinks you are running you might as well be running, doesn't matter if your body is sitting still.

Can you imagine a critical error causing a program crash... your brain would be forever disconnected from your body, unless someone else realized it and fixed you. Scary but exciting stuff...
 
Actually, I would be more concerned with a system error that causes me excruciating pain, but prevents me from leaving the game. The last 3-4 days of your life are spent in the absolute worst virtual pain anyone can experience. Yeah, that would suck. I guess I'm not so excited about it, but I am still really anxious. :)

Anyway, we're closer than we might think.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1735380,00.asp
It's not bi-directional, yet, but it's getting damned close. Of course, a bi-directional interface is almost a pre-req for a lot of things to work at full scale. IE, an FPS where you don't think of moving forward, you think of moving your feet, step by step. Until we can have the game suggest the sensation of ground under our feet for each step, and how hard we are stepping down, such a 1:1 intuitive interface can't exist.

We're damn close, though! :)
 
I still have my PS1 that I bought in 95. Besides occasionally needing to reset a few times to get a game to start, it works fine.
 
Givin their track record, I'd be surprised if many 1st generation PS3s are still working in 10 years. 10 years.... yeah right. I bought a PS1 10 years ago, that kept me satiated for about 2 years, same thing with PS2, got one in Summer of '01 and sold it by Christmas of '02. They're nice and shiny the first year, the second year the better games come out and by the third year, the tech is woefully obsolete.
 
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