Did a search. couldn't find. Stolen from Christoph Nahr on the QT3 forums:
Continuing its GDC Europe series, Gamasutra http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20050901/jenkins_01.shtml has just posted a transcript of a talk by Sony Europe's George Bain. He didn't have an actual PS3 development kit, and there's still not too much detail, but some interesting tidbits nonetheless.
On the boomerang controller:
Quote:
Bain paused to discuss the new controllers in more detail. He reiterated that the new boomerang designs were concepts only and were not necessarily representative of the final retail models.
On the hard disk:
Quote:
Bain also touched upon the PlayStation 3's removable hard drive, confirming that Sony did consider it an important peripheral, but saying that the company had not yet decided its price, its size or most importantly whether it would be bundled with the console or available only as a stand alone extra.
Thank you, Microsoft, for allowing Sony the easy way out on this peripheral.
On the Cell architecture and the mysteriously missing eigth SPE:
Quote:
Concerning the individual SPEs (Synergistic Processing Elements) of the Cell chip, Bain emphasized that it was no longer necessary to program in assembly language to achieve superior performance, although this did still exist as an option. In response to an audience question it was also confirmed that although each Cell chip will feature eight SPEs this was purely to guarantee seven working elements even if the eighth SPE did work it would be fused during the manufacturing process and could not be used in any way.
On the difficulty of developing for Sony consoles:
Quote:
[H]e acknowledged that the PlayStation 2 had proven difficult to program for and assured the audience that Sony had learnt its lesson. Bain suggested that this was one reason for using NVidia's graphics technology, since it would enable the use of more widely familiar APIs. OpenGL ES, described as a lightweight subset of OpenGL, was being used for the same reason and was part of what was explained as a very different approach to graphics when compared to the PlayStation 2.
[...] [The SDK] would include all existing PlayStation tools as well as fully licensed versions of physics tools Havok Complete and AGEIA's NovodeX. These will be available free to use for developers and will require no additional licensing fee to publish games using the technology.
After admitting that the PlayStation 2's default compiler was rubbish, Bain also indicated that SN System's new compiler would also be included in the SDK, along with support for (but not free licensing of) Epic Games' Unreal Engine 3. He emphasized that the Unreal Engine 3 demo shown at E3 was real and proceeded to display some new screenshots using the engine which if they were, as claimed, real-time were certainly on a par with the kind of imagery seen in the infamous E3 Killzone demonstration.
Continuing its GDC Europe series, Gamasutra http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20050901/jenkins_01.shtml has just posted a transcript of a talk by Sony Europe's George Bain. He didn't have an actual PS3 development kit, and there's still not too much detail, but some interesting tidbits nonetheless.
On the boomerang controller:
Quote:
Bain paused to discuss the new controllers in more detail. He reiterated that the new boomerang designs were concepts only and were not necessarily representative of the final retail models.
On the hard disk:
Quote:
Bain also touched upon the PlayStation 3's removable hard drive, confirming that Sony did consider it an important peripheral, but saying that the company had not yet decided its price, its size or most importantly whether it would be bundled with the console or available only as a stand alone extra.
Thank you, Microsoft, for allowing Sony the easy way out on this peripheral.
On the Cell architecture and the mysteriously missing eigth SPE:
Quote:
Concerning the individual SPEs (Synergistic Processing Elements) of the Cell chip, Bain emphasized that it was no longer necessary to program in assembly language to achieve superior performance, although this did still exist as an option. In response to an audience question it was also confirmed that although each Cell chip will feature eight SPEs this was purely to guarantee seven working elements even if the eighth SPE did work it would be fused during the manufacturing process and could not be used in any way.
On the difficulty of developing for Sony consoles:
Quote:
[H]e acknowledged that the PlayStation 2 had proven difficult to program for and assured the audience that Sony had learnt its lesson. Bain suggested that this was one reason for using NVidia's graphics technology, since it would enable the use of more widely familiar APIs. OpenGL ES, described as a lightweight subset of OpenGL, was being used for the same reason and was part of what was explained as a very different approach to graphics when compared to the PlayStation 2.
[...] [The SDK] would include all existing PlayStation tools as well as fully licensed versions of physics tools Havok Complete and AGEIA's NovodeX. These will be available free to use for developers and will require no additional licensing fee to publish games using the technology.
After admitting that the PlayStation 2's default compiler was rubbish, Bain also indicated that SN System's new compiler would also be included in the SDK, along with support for (but not free licensing of) Epic Games' Unreal Engine 3. He emphasized that the Unreal Engine 3 demo shown at E3 was real and proceeded to display some new screenshots using the engine which if they were, as claimed, real-time were certainly on a par with the kind of imagery seen in the infamous E3 Killzone demonstration.
