PlayStation Vita has more RAM than PS3 (hey, cross-game chat!)

@Ezio Auditore da Firenze

Why does everyone hate on Joystiq lately? It's seriously annoying, especially when they've done nothing wrong.

@Ezio Auditore da Firenze

I thought he did a good job writing the article. One of the only ones I've fully read on Joystiq. He raises a good point, why can't the PS3 do crosschat? There's just no use for it. I was super excited to get my PS3, but I'd say it's one of the biggest technological letdowns in the past 6 years. They kept saying it was like a computer and how awesome it would be, so no one complained when it had inferior system software compared to that of the 360. Everyone just KNEW Sony was going to come through and make it shine. I thought for sure they would.

There's no doubting that Sony has done good things, but come on. They've wasted so much time on a reward system that never got fully implemented and on adding useless features and services. The XMB is still bland looking, despite people making countless examples online of how it should look. The XMB is also incredibly slow to come up if you're playing a game, which is just unacceptable. 90% of the buttons on it are unusable during a game. That isn't some great advanced feature. It's not like Microsoft was revolutionary in making a menu that didn't have every possible button on it. That exists on the most simple programs.

Yes, the PS3 has come a long way and it has some great games, but Sony just screwed up bad. I used to be a big fan of them, but I'm not too impressed by them now. There's so much potential with what they have going, but it feels like they're just squandering it. I hope the PS4 gets it right, but I don't see the PS3 really making much more progress. This article barely touches the surface of that, and that's more than fair.

@chimpsmith

"There's just no use for it"

I meant no reason for the lack of xchat, not that xchat is useless. I'm tired.

No party features and cross game chat is ultimately why PS3 is a fail this generation. The games are great. That and Xbox 360 clearly had a big win with ESPN being including if you have XBLA Gold. Where as PS3 has NFL Ticket you gotta pay an insane $340/year for it.

@Ezio Auditore da Firenze

Ezio being a fanboy

/shocker

@Faceless Troll

Why can't we just ban him already? His fanboyism isn't even clever anymore and one of his comments usually starts a stupid flamewars that takes up like a quarter to half a page.

@chimpsmith
So just beacause the PS3 has no cross game chat the complete was a failuire and a big letdown?

That's why everyone troll at joystiq lately.

@phinn

So gaming isn't about gaming anymore? Now it's about party features and xgame chat and that alone makes the PS3 a fail?

Nice.

@phinn cross game chat is annoying to me i tried using it on my xbox don't care for it I don't feel like talking to people who aren't in the game I am playing it's distracting especially on multiplayer and too say the PS3 is a fail cause of that is just stupid

@civilciv he is doing his best imitation of a xbox fanboy troll and he pulled it off successfully congrats

@Faceless Troll yeah really that is something new about ezio he is always annoying to the point of you wanting to strangle him and send him on a one way trip too the moon

@philmcfail ezio is one of those alleged comedians funny in their own mind but in reality he is just a total loser

@chimpsmith
Bravo Chipsmith (Get's up and starts clapping)

@Ezio Auditore da Firenze That's why I use PS3 for single player games and xbox 360 for online.

360 has way better online + cross game chat.
And this is the new era of games, it's not surprising that people can't put up with the fact that PS3 doesn't have it.

Update your software besides from hacking updates Sony.

@chimpsmith

Based on your essay, I'm gonna assume you only use your consoles for games. As a games console, the only major thing the Xbox 360 has, that the PS3 doesn't, is party chat. Cross game chat was never an advertised feature on the PS3, and if you check out the poll on the PS3 forum, most users don't want it. (35k NO vs 26k YES)

Trophies = Achievements. PS3 didn't have them when it came out, but it's there now and they added support for many older PS3 titles. It's not that important and I'm not gonna waste anymore characters talking about it.

On to the XMB. Its simple, fast, and effective. Some people hate, some people love it, that's not important. Pause a game and hit the home button on the PS3 or 360, wait a sec or two and the XMB/guide comes up. Press the guide button mid gameplay, or during some intense mutiplayer action, and both systems will lag.

Gaming aside, you have one of the greatest pieces of A/V equipment in the past 5 years vs a Windows Media Center Extender.

Photo viewer: No comparison between the two. The PS3's is on a whole nother level.

Music: Again PS3 wins. Lossless support. Copy music to and from harddrive. Album Art. 1TB hard drives = a lot more music than the 360's measly 120, 250, or 320 GB HD's.

Video playback: 360 file support is beyond terrible. It's not even funny how bad the 360's video player is. Ms is not gonna fix it because they want you to buy vids from Zune.

Disc playback: 360 has it's same crappy play back controls that it uses for it's video player. PS3 does bluray with dtsma and dolby true HD, plus dtsma with 3D blurays. PS3 can play DVD and bluray rips. Not those crappy rips that you download from the internet, actual rips from the disc to your PC to the PS3. No downconverting. Identical to the movie on the disc, but you don't need the disc anymore!

Internet services: On one console, you pay MS to use your Netflix or Hulu account. On the other you dont. Youtube on the 360? No.

Internet browser: 360 doesn't have one. PS3's isn't the greatest (better than the PSP's !), but it loads up this website fine, has tabs, and you can use a mouse and keyboard.

Video chat: Person to person = on both. PS3 has video editor and uploader. PS3 works with any plug an play camera.

Printer support: PS3 works with a couple cannon printers.

I could go on, but I'm really tired and I'm missing my show, the point is:

Just because the PS3 doesn't have cross game chat, and the XMB lags when the CPU/GPU is at full load doesn't make the PS3 one of the "biggest technological letdowns in the past 6 years." And if anyone is squandering their potential, it's MS. They have so many great products and services that would be crazy popular if they advertise them better: WP7, Windows Media Center, SkyDrive, Zune HD, but they rather advertise the Kinect :(

@philmcfail
Wait, wait, wait. SLOW DOWN!

Are you saying that if I continue reading all these replies I'll still never know where exit 66 is?

Shit...

@Juri You realize this generation or "era" of games is pretty bad right? It's dominated by shooter upon shooter and lacks originality, it's lead to the deaths of many once cool franchises and even development teams. You also realize that the PS3 is pretty much on par with the 360's online? There's barely anything separating them anymore, besides the price, or lack there of.

@phinn You know, just because you say something is fail, it doesnt make it so,

@eNriqeu I listed multiple reasons why I thought it was a letdown, and I never said it was a complete failure. Try to be a little less sensationalist.

@Mr Hett
You raise some good points, but I still stand by mine. First off I would genuinely like to know what the poll was actually about. Was it "Should we have Xgame chat?" and people said no or was it "Which feature are you the most interested in?" My point isn't that the PS3 is horrible or something. I like mine, it's a pretty good system, but it suffers from so many problems that shouldn't have existed in the first place. Sure they didn't advertise it as having Xgame chat, but when you're supposed to be buying a cutting edge system that constantly touts how its like a computer and has so much more potential than other systems then you should expect more out of it.

Sony has done some things right with it, but they've also wasted a lot of time. Sure, it's nice to have your PS3 work with certain services, but I've never even heard of people using most of them besides Netflix. No ones cares about overpriced services just so they can use them on a console. It's nice to see them trying to implement service into the console that way, but that could have and should have come later.

The XMB isn't fast, that's the problem. The 360 menu comes up so quick, and even if it does get a little slower because of intensive play it always gets up faster than the PS3. The PS3 won't be doing anything intensive and it still shudders to come up. You can be at the title screen of a game and it still takes time to load the 500 icons. It wouldn't be very difficult at all for them to design a little menu like MS did, and then they could have icons that people actually used. Sony was promising all these great things, but all the improvements we get are always small and far between.

So you can print on it? Who cares? It's kinda cool, yes, but no one is going to actually use that. They might test it out. Is it bad to have? Of course not. If the PS4 has more little things to tinker with like that then more power to Sony, but they shouldn't focus on things like that over simple convenience. The 360 still stands up great to the PS3 because it's convenient. I'm not a fanboy, I actually like my PS3 a little more, but sometimes the PS3 is just annoying. Practically anything you do is faster on the 360, more visually appealing, and generally more well thought out.

I definitely like the PS store more, but that's one of the only things that really stands out to me. The phat PS3's could cause lines to move across the screens of SDtvs. You know why? Because they have a 3 prong plug. Those are great for grounding when you have a computer or a washers and dryers, but pointless on a system because they cause issues like that. The 360 had 2 prongs, the Ps2 has 2 prongs, why not the PS3? Sony makes computers and game consoles. It's not like they were new to any of this. Even the slim PS3's use 2 prongs now, so there's no excuse for messing that up. Just like there was no excuse for taking out Dualshock or for wasting time on Sixaxis.

All the systems have their own set of problems that shouldn't have existed in the first place, but Sony shouldn't boast about how advanced the PS3 is and then neglect to add simple features for convenience.

@Mr Hett

It's nice to see people who actually know what they are talking about.

All points are very accurate, it's why I love my PS3.

I would love to have cross game chat though. I feel like there are a few methods they could try (maybe try optimizing the xmb to use less memory to allow for the resources necessary to have a cross game chat function. I can't imagine the one processor that's dedicated to the xmb being overloaded by supporting that kind of functionality).

Plus, I do remember them saying us Plus members would get it, so I'd like to think that the potential is possible.

@Ezio Auditore da Firenze
You mean the same way you've been down on anything not Sony related?

@Jon Jon

Got my 360 first then got myself a PS3. 360 is fine and dandy, but does not come near the capabilities of my PS3. Blu-ray player, media server, and game console.

The only game I play on the 360 now is Mass Effect and my brother plays Fable. Everything else is on the PS3. It is just a more well rounded system. But one thing that the 360 got over PS3 is XBOX Live. That is the best online system out there bar none.

@chimpsmith

1st Paragraph: PS3 has 256MB of RAM. 360 Has 512MB. More RAM, more background services (party chat!). I would love to see this magical list where Sony promised us the PS3 would fix the patent system, get us laid, and cook bacon. I just don't know what you're talking about. What problems? When did cross game chat become a standard feature on current gen consoles? I thought it was something unique to the 360.

http://share.blog.us.playstation.com/ideas/2010/03/17/cross-game-voice-chat/

2nd Paragraph: You're gonna have to be a lot more specific. What services? I mentioned Netflix and Hulu because they are the most popular and both systems have them.

3rd paragraph: It would be a lot easier if you just tested this out on your PS3 and 360. I'm starting to question whether you actually own a PS3 or whether you had a short experience with it or this is just something you heard from a friend. Again what great things were promised and weren't delivered?

4th: Sounds like you're bashing features because you don't use them. 360 has a Facebook app. I don't have a Facebook, I don't use the app. I don't go criticizing it because it's useless to me. You shouldn't have declare that you aren't a fanboy, but I guess you thought it would make that last sentence believable.

5th: I also like PS Store. Power cords? Looks like you've run out of things to complain about. Everyone knows the lack of dualshock in the early PS3 controllers was due to the Immersion lawsuit. Immersion patented the us of vibration motors in game controllers. In 2002, they sued MS and Sony. MS settled out of court and bought 10% of the companies shares. Sony lost the case but was able to sell dualshock 2 controllers until 2006. They weren't allowed to make DS3 controllers until 2007, when they made a deal with Immersion to use their tech in their products. They've paid them well over $150m so far.

6th: All three systems are advanced compared to their predecessors. Who cares if they're not cutting edge anymore? They're a lot cheaper now. Again, you're gonna have to be a lot more specific. What simple features?

@Mr Hett
The PS3 works with pretty much any printer. I have an HP all-in-one printer on my home network and my PS3 connects to it without any problems.

@Ezio Auditore da Firenze

I like video games.

@Mr Hett

Blarg, I iz a PS3 fanboy and I want to have teh PS3's man-babies!

No one gives a flip about being able to hook a printer to their video game console, or having a photo viewer on their video game console. The PS3 supports way too many stupid/ useless features at the expense of other, handy features (like custom soundtracks in all games and cross-game chat).

It doesn't even make any sense why the PS3 doesn't support these features. An entire SPU is dedicated for the OS, for crying out loud. On most tech benchmarks, it should be more powerful than the 360 (if only marginally in some ways). Why the 360 can do stuff the PS3 can't is beyond me.

@chimpsmith

Mmmm... Then we are not playing the same PS3. I don't have any of the issues you claim.

@phinn

"No party features and cross game chat is ultimately why PS3 is a fail this generation. " Really?So the gaming experience doesn't matter anymore? Or the quality of the games? All future consoles will be judged solely on whether they have cross game chat? I can tell you cross game chat is one of the features I don't care about.


"...That and Xbox 360 clearly had a big win with ESPN being including if you have XBLA Gold. ..." Again, really? A console is a fail based on whether it has ESPN access or not? You mean the same ESPN I get when I turn on the TV, my computer, or my phone? I'm confused here but I thought gaming consoles were to play games.

@Ezio Auditore da Firenze

No kidding. I gave up on Joystiq being unbiased when Andrew Yoon left.

@chimpsmith I'm playing my ps3 now. I'm on psn, and playing a game of black ops (don't hate :) i timed how long it takes the menu to load. get ready! 2.2 seconds. i think i'll sell my ps3 and buy an xbox :/

@(Unverified) Welcome to 2005 Sony!




(sorry, had to do it)

@Im No Hero

Xbox has 512meg that can be split between the system/video on a game devs whim.

Also has 10megs of super fast ram (eDRAM) dedicated to the video.

@Im No Hero
A wizard did it.

They have to pay their bills too.

@Im No Hero

Microsoft built their system with a persistent online network in mind. Sony did not (as evidenced by the way they've hacked together many of the features they've added, like cross-game invites which are really just a trigger to send the user a cross-game message to tell them they have an in-game invite).

This has been clear for about a year and a half now.

Sony underestimated how big of a deal XBL/PSN would become this generation. Luckily, Sony is by far the best console manufacturer about learning from their mistakes and they appear to be doing that again here. When the PS4 launches, PSN is going to kick some serious ass.

@Vcize I agree, Sony made the same mistake Sega did back with the Saturn by not taking a component seriously enough, in Sega's it was 3d and Sony's online gaming.

Unlike Sega I see Sony recovering very nicely, hell the more info about the Vita comes out the more its what the PS3 should have been on the software side. Remember Sony said they were reaching out to developers to get ideas for what should be implemented for their future systems. Take the fact that the Vita is a hand held and already has some impressive features for 1.0 software and I'm cant wait to see what they have cooking for the PS4.

@R Planteer
eDRAM is not super fast ram, and it is only dedicated to scaling, even tho, the 360 does a really poor job at it.

@Vcize Sony designed the PS3 to be upgradable with functions and features as they saw a need. They chose not to directly immitate MS so that the PS3 wouldnt just end up being a rip off. if cross chat never turned out to be a useful feature (and for many people it still isnt) then they'd have wasted resources on it. and frankly there's nothing about cross chat that you can't do with a text message, these are GAME systems after all, not skype machine.

@eNriqeu
Since when is 256GB/s considered slow?

@eNriqeu
it is pretty well accepted that the 360 has one of the best hardware scalers available.

It's just too bad the PS3 has to suffer from software scaling or just going native.

@Vcize

"cross-game invites which are really just a trigger to send the user a cross-game message to tell them they have an in-game invite"

are you being serious? and people try to claim that PSN is just as good as XBL...

@The angry pro consumer gaming ga

Yeah... you need to buff up on that gaming history of yours. Just about the entire chapter labeled Sega and pre 1997....

@PN04

I feel sorry for you.

@Ordeith
Not really, I have a 1080p LCD and when I played RE5 on the rrod machine, it upscaled it to 1080p making it look like s***, I had to scale down the resolution manually so it was 720p and it looked a hell lot better.
And the videos upscaling sucks too.
Go see for yourself.

@SolidDuck Well yes. It's like 2 Ipad 2, duct taped together.
However I can't shake my slight disappointment at how little ram it has. I know it's a mobile device, but damn. My PC had 512MB 8 years ago.
Phones are coming out with 1GB of ram. I know they have larger OSes, but still...
Ah well... PS3 has great looking games with less ram then that, at larger resolutions. Game developpers on consoles probably know a couple tricks to wring out the most of those limited but standardized specs.

@Hedgeson Consoles don't have to deal with the same overhead as general purpose machines and generally use more expensive/exotic/experimental ram so that they can use the resources in a more flexible manor later on to keep up with developments in the general purpose machines via clever code techniques optimized to their platform layout. For example, the Vita could stream textures from its new cartridge if the databus is fast enough leaving the vram mostly occupied by textures being actively transformed by the GPU. A simular technique was used for a lot of the more impressive N64 titles that actually ended up with games that were technically superior to their PC counterparts.

The paradigms for system building between console and PC are quite different. However, the Vita is making quite a few mistakes even given these instances. For one that one core dedicated to the system at all times throws a huge wrench into the efficiency of the system as a whole, effectively eschewing a large portion of he performance boost normally associated with multicore processors by forcing the developers to deal with what is essentially a duel core processor and an asymmetric single core processor sharing the same bus and cache, which more or less dooms the disjoined core to non-time critical tasks, such as managing IO or mesh generation.

I do not like the current shift in console design to focus on a multitasking operating system over the sparse hardware. It severally limits the potential of the hardware, consoles are not supposed to try to be your PCs and Cell Phones.