"Kikizo presents a detailed, early account of its first-hand experience with a little known console called PS3. Is it looking like a new generational leap, or emotion engine tears? We have some answers," says the site.
Adam Doree got chance to try dev kits at three different developers. However, he's talking about PC-based systems with DVD-style games running off a hard drive in 720p -- no Blu-ray anywhere in sight.
Unsuprisingly, nothing's even close to final. Those PS3 cases are just empty shells, the software is still unfinished, and the controller, well, that's fairly vague. They used a standard USB contoller and didn't actually play anything with the much maligned boomerang concept pad (which is hinted to undergo changes to appease the angry mob). Games are also running in lower resolution than alluded to at the last E3, which might send 1080p HDTV owners into a visual fidelity tizzy.
It's clear that this is nowhere near the finished machine, and nowhere near what Sony has been hyping. In fact, Doree makes it sound pretty much equivalent to an Xbox 360:
The hands-on evidence is beginning to mount up. We're talking about a machine barely superior to Xbox 360 -- not by any significant margin. It's certainly obvious this machine is not "twice" as powerful as 360, let alone a generational leap ahead. But the gap could become bigger: "Realistically, as libraries and experience with both machines grow, I think the PS3 will start showing things the 360 will choke at," offers the source. "But Sony will have to make available to us libraries and new routines for that to happen - something they've been severely lacking at so far."
Fact of life dept: first generation games never exploit the hardware fully, because the programmers don't have the time to develop the expertise required. That was true of the PS2 and will also be true of the PS3 and the Xbox 360. How much Sony can improve it at this stage is another issue, given the short time to the projected launch.
One surprise is that Doree seems to think the PS3 box is as fake as Sony's Killzone graphics demo. He says:
The stylish PlayStation 3 casing design that SCEI boss Ken Kutaragi revealed last year is, and always has been, empty -- and no signs of a final, tangible casing solution appear to be in sight. "I think to fit everything that Sony wants in there AND leave space for a 2.5 inch hard drive," explains one senior developer working on a final kit, ... "the machine would have to grow. The models they're showing off are way too small for what they want."
That may not go down too well in Japan....
