Ever since the PlayStation 3 was announced, industry watchers have been prognosticating its price point. Just over a month after E3 2005, Merrill Lynch predicted the game would sell for 9, even though it would cost an estimated 4 to make--before labor.

However, when Microsoft announced the Xbox 360, which uses current-generation DVDs, would sell for 9, many thought the PS3's internal next-generation Blu-ray disc drive would push its cost higher. That assumption was reinforced at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) last week, when the first stand-alone Blu-ray disc player was unveiled--with a ,800 price tag. (The Xbox 360 uses conventional DVDs, but will get an external drive which supports Blu-ray's rival format, HD-DVD).

In the wake of CES, CNN/Money correspondent Chris Morris decided to poll a nonscientific sampling of game analysts and developers to see how much they thought the PS3 will cost. "Several developers I spoke with (under the condition of anonymity) said their studios were expecting the system to launch at 9," wrote Morris, who included quotes from analysts who concurred with the assessment.

However, Morris said that not all insiders' estimates were the same. Some pegged the console as matching the 360's 9 price point--which, according to last year's Merrill Lynch report, means Sony could lose more than billion during the console's first year on the market. Several developers also lowballed the console at 0, while others said it could cost as much as 9. However, as Sony is staying resolutely mum on the PS3--until GDC 2006, anyway--no price is yet official.

[via, Gamespot]

According to remarks on its official website, DevStation, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe's yearly development conference for Sony platform developers, will this year focus exclusively on game development for the PlayStation 3.

The conference, which will take place in London's Brick Lane from March 1st to March 2nd, has posted an extensive agenda online, which includes significant discussion on the Cell chip, graphics, art, performance, audio, networking, and a new tool named PSSG, which is described as "a PS3 optimised cross-platform graphics engine and tool-chain."

There will also be a third-party demonstration and a lecture from Unreal Engine creator Epic, as well as middleware input from companies such as Havok and Ageia, who have already officially signed up to provide their physics technology to PlayStation 3 developers.

More information on the conference is available on its official website, which notes: "DevStation 2006 is a PlayStation 3 Development Conference, to receive a delegate space your company would have to have an executed TMLA agreement with Sony Computer Entertainment Europe."

[via, Gamasutra]

Cell Processor

American Mercury Computer Systems has announced that the “Cell Technology Evaluation Systems (CTES)” has started shipping on January 10, 2006.

CTES was a computer system based on the “Dual Cell-Based Blade”, announced back in last October, which was using the “Cell Broadband Engine (BE)” developed by IBM, developed in Intel Architecture development environment, with open-source “Cell Technology” soft pre-installed (Phew~).

Dual Cell-Based Blade

CTES was equipped with Mercury’s software for optimizing the data-flow inside the Cell BE Processor, as well as the cooling technology owned by the same company, system-on-chip (SoC) management software, and unified with the Net-boot under Y-HPC Linux of Terra Soft Solutions.

Hitachi Japan has announced that they will be shipping external Blu-ray drive for PC in May in Japan.

The external drive not only works on Hitachi's own PC series "Prius", but also other personal computer systems via USB interface. The drive supports current DVD format as well as Blu-ray read/write.

Panasonic and Pioneer are also going to ship external drives in the near future. The personal computers equipped with next generation DVD drives will start to show up in the stores in this spring in Japan.

The war between the two formats - "Blu-ray Disc" backed by Sony and Panasonic, and "HD-DVD" backed by Toshiba, is going to heat up this year.

Toshiba's mass-produced HD-DVD player priced at 9USD, which is only half of the predicted price, will be released in March, in both Japan and North America.

On the Blu-ray side, Sony, Panasonic, Pioneer, Sharp and Philips are going to release their Blu-ray products in this summer.

Blu-ray Disc Association, the next generation development advancing group, has finally completed the specification of Blu-ray disc format, and now accepting licensing BD-ROM, BD-RE, BD-R.

On January 2, BDA announced that the specifications of BD-R and BR-RE2.0 have been completed on December 26, 2005. Therefore, the Blu-ray products using the specifications of single layer (25GB) and double layer (50GB) of BD will start to emerge on the market from this spring.

The copyright protect method AACS (Advanced Access Content System) has reinforced the compliance rules for the contents business companies and makers. The biggest issue about “the limitation on analog resolution” has finally been decided – not to apply until 2010 in Japan and other designated areas.

But, Japanese machine makers are facing for more strict items. After year 2011, AACS supported machines are not allowed to output video to HDTV through analog interface. And after year 2014, analog video output will be totally prohibited.

This compliance rules has been discussed among all the companies from DVD forum and BDA (Blu-ray Disc Association) for two weeks, and will be decided in January of 2006. After that, AACS will start to offer licenses. The makers are now pushed to make a quick judgment to support this compliant rules or not.

It was revealed on E3 2005, that the PS3 would be using HDMI interface for HD video output. On CES, Sony has told us more about it.

With the released of PS3, another important standard that needed to be pushed is the HDMI. The current HDMI is suffering from the limitations of the band range, makes the colors to be transferred in only 8bits. But on 3rd of January, the 7 companies that works with HDMI has announced the next generation of HDMI, which supports transferring each color with 16bits at most, in the first half of 2006.

“Processing under 16bits internally while outputting under 8bits is meaningless. Mach band’s defect is also present at the moment.” and “We hope to get 16bits. And 12bits is the bottom line. A next-generation HDMI with doubled band range is one of our strong hope.” said Ken Kutaragi.

Hmm… so when will the PS3 be released if the complete date of the new HDMI standard is even unknown? D’oh…

VU Games has announced that they have acquired High Moon Studios. under the agreement, the organization of High Moon’s team will be retained as is.

High Moon Studios has been famous for their vampire-horror FPS “Darkwatch”. The senior members of the company are elites from Midway, Oddworld Inhabitants, Rock Star San Diego, and Sony Computer Entertainment.

Let’s hope the acquisition would bring us more excellent next generation games soon, as suggested in the Press Release.

(This is an old picture on Playstation Meeting 2005.)

Sony has shipped over 4,000 development kits to the developers according to Sony’s announcement on CES 2006. It is good to know this fact. Hope we could see some great lineups soon.

[via IGN]

Samsung has announced their BD-1000 Blu-ray player. It will be shipped this spring within the United States.

Does this mean the PS3 will not be released in the spring as a player? We hope not.

[via I4U]