Arbiter’s Weekly Gaming Podcast 16 is now available for download. And just how do you access the podcast that critics call “sex for your ears”? Well, you can download or stream through Switchpod or Digg, but the show is on fast-forward through those sites. Your best bet is to subscribe through the iTunes Music Store. Then you could subscribe and have our show delivered to you automatically!
After a lengthy “Watcha been Playing?” we hop into the news. It seemed like it was “Sony News Blowout” this week, with talk about implenting rumble into SIXAXIS as well as a Mii-like service for PS3. We also delve into Achievement robots, Europe getting even more screwed by PS3, and answer the age-old question: Are vampires in space really that awesome? (Hint: Hell yes!)
I mentioned during the show info about the backwards compatibility issue. Here it is, straight from ThreeSpeech, the “semi-official” blog:
Q: What is Sony’s thinking behind leaving the Emotion Engine off the motherboards of PAL PS3s?
Phil Harrison: “Our thinking involves being able to bring the latest hardware specification of the PS3 to Europe, although that does mean an initial slight reduction in the number of PS2 components. But it’s important to put that into context: there will still be thousands of PlayStation and PlayStation 2 titles playable on the PS3 at launch. It’s very easy to over-react. We’re working to introduce a resource on the Web to detail which titles will have backwards compatibility. And as we make firmware upgrades, we will be able to add to that list.”
Q: Can you give us a ballpark figure for the number of PS2 titles which will be playable at launch on the PS3?
PH: “The situation is changing every day, but on March 23, we expect the list to include over 1,000 PS2 titles.”
Q: And presumably, you will be concentrating on the big titles?
PH: “We can’t give any information about specific titles but, clearly, that would be our policy.”
Q: It has been suggested that reducing the components on the PS3’s motherboard would pave the way for a reduction in its price to come about more quickly. Is that a fair analysis?
PH: “Price reductions are something that we wouldn’t comment on specifically. But you know the business model very well – we strive to get the cost of manufacturing down as soon as possible, and as soon as we can pass cost savings onto the consumers, we will.”
Q: Just how important is backwards-compatibility?
PH: “I think the reasons why people buy PS3s are the new games that it offers, and the HD content experiences provided by games and movies, the opportunity to access the PlayStation Network, and titles like MotorStorm and Resistance: Fall of Man – leading-edge examples of what next-generation games are all about.”
Q: The flaw in the argument that removing the Emotion Engine from PAL PS3s is that you’ve manufactured over 100 million Emotion Engines. So, surely the Emotion Engtine can’t possibly cost you more than a few pence to manufacture?
PH: “If only that was the case.”
Q: Are you shifting capacity in your wafer fabs from making PS2 components to PS3 ones, then?
PH: “It’s not as simple as that – we’re obviously continuing to make PS2s in huge volumes, so there’s no reduction in that. But the Emotion Engine that has previously gone into PS3s on sale elsewhere in the world is a custom component that we have now removed from the motherboard of PAL PS3s.”
Filed under: Podcast
