[ILUG-Social] free Tux/Playstation 2

[Twomey_Mark at emc.com]

Ha!,
	Playstation2 will not be the super console Sony is hoping it will
be.
Nintendo announced that the N2000 (Project Dolphin) will be powered by a
400Mhz PowerPC processor while "Gecko" (The graphics processor, developed by
SGI offshoot ArtX), will run at 200Mhz and have a memory bandwidth of
3.2Gb/sec, as well as incorporating DVD/Networking technology from
Panasonic.
He's the kicker though...the Next Generation Playstation (NGPS) can shift
around 75million polygons a second around the screen, compare this to SGI's
high-end workstations which can render 15Million polygons a second (Less if
the machine is running NT). This being the first time that Games console
hardware is exceeding the specification of the platforms which the games are
developed on, only about 8 to 10 companies on the planet have the resources
to develop for such machines. 4 of them are in direct competition with
Sony...Nintendo and Rare (The big N has a substantial holding in Rare), Sega
and Nomi(SP?) (Nomi is the arcade holding of Sega Enterprises Inc), If your
looking to develop for the NGPS don't bother, However the original
Playstation architecture lives inside the I/O unit of the NGPS to allow for
backward compatibility...you'd be better developing for that. (I think that
all the development teams that do not have the resources to develop for the
NGPS will still crank out 32 bit Playstation games, this I'm afraid could
cause a slew of second rate titles to infest the console though.)
Sony wrestling the market from Nintendo was the best thing that happened to
Nintendo in years, as we all know Competition in the market place is great
for the consumer and forces the lazy companies to shape up or die.
I wonder if Sega can manage to grab some significant market share...??
I was considering buying a Dreamcast (I saw a Japanese import running
Capcom's PowerStone in a shop here in Cork, it looked spectacular and I was
surprised by how well it played!.) in October. Buying a product with the
words made for Windows CE, on the box however makes me slightly nauseous.


Mark.


	-----Original Message-----
	From:	John McDonnell [SMTP:johnmc at student.nuigalway.ie]
	Sent:	Thursday, May 13, 1999 1:25 PM
	To:	Twomey_Mark at emc.com
	Cc:	p.dempsey at elab.ie; social at linux.ie
	Subject:	RE: [ILUG-Social] No such thing as a free Tux

	On Thu, 13 May 1999 Twomey_Mark at emc.com wrote:
	> The moment someone stuffs some Furby circuitry into a Tux, with
Linux
	> evangelism burned into its ROM, I'm moving to SOLARIS.
	heh. read the main list archives. I suggested it a good while back.
	Actually, on a similar note, I'll be introducing my 12 yr. old
cousin to
	the joys of Linux soon.... the first step on the way to games
development
	for the playstation 2 ;)

	johnmc.