Dave

If there were price fixing we wouldn't consistantly see ATI Shader 2 cards with the same performance as nVidia Shader 3 cards, costing 20% more.

A 20% premium to get the same performance, but a lower shader version, lack of FP texture filtering, lack of automatic shadow map PCF filter, and slightly better Aniso and AA.

No, I don't see price fixing between companies. They each set their own very high prices.

Previously, Microsoft had claimed the only 1080P games you'd see on the PS3 would be like the original arcade BattleZone. (http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=144727)

While Sony has proven it can do quite a bit more in 1080P than that, it will be interesting to see if the 360 can play such simple games in 1080P. In Microsoft's own words, that's about the limit of what we can expect from the 360.

I'm guessing the D-Pad is for navigating the marketplace menus, used to purchase the other 90% of your game.

"If that wasn't mysterious enough, the OPM folks have given us one final clue to chew on... the unknown and unannounced launch game's title is five words long"

Grand Theft Auto: London 1969. Sony isn't worried about losing GTA IV exclusivity because they've got this. Doesn't anyone remember there was a 4th city to GTA 1 (as an expansion pack)? GTA 1 = 2D versions of Liberty City, Vice City, San Andreas, and London 1969.

Sony has always said they're aiming to future proof the PS3, and that it would play 1080p movies at 120 FPS. It's possible that in 5-10 years it will be common to have TVs capable of displaying such an image, and they'll need a standard that can support that kind of data transfer... HDMI 1.3 would be a requirement for the PS3 to pull this off, as would Blu-ray. Sony really is packing in a ton to tech to make your game and movies experience better.

As for being too expensive, a cheap PS3 is CDN$50 more than a high-end 360, and matches and often beats it feature for feature. You won't need a Live! subscription, so after a single year, the consoles have the same cost. If you get the HD-DVD addon, that easily makes the 360 more expensive.

As someone pointed out Gran Turismo will do 1080p, so we won't have to wait long for atleast a few games to support 1080p. Can they really pull it off? The PS2 can play Gran Turismo 4 in 1080i. All the PS3 needs is a bit more fill rate than a PS2, which is pretty much guaranteed.

Anandtech has look at the new PhysX card from Asus. GRAW provides no method of running high quality effects with software, or low quality effects with hardware. However, I imagine I'm not the only person who thinks that adding a card to offload the work, which then cuts performance in half, is good. If this is what we can expect, this generation of PhysX is already over.

I've always assumed they meant spring in the other hemisphere. It would go along with all the September projections, and it's still Spring 2006.