Microsoft and Newsweek are it again, this time wagering on the future of the PS3. Last time, Microsoft's J. Allard bet that Sony wouldn't reach its target goal of sales for the PSP.

This time around it's Xbox Live's director of technical strategy Andre Vrignaud who is making the wager against the same Newsweek reporter N'Gai Croal. Croal describes how Vrignaud wanted to wager with the same stakes - targetting Croal's dreadlocks - but instead they settled for a steak dinner in Gotham steakhouse. In Vancouver, no less.

Vrignaud predicts that Sony will be releasing a low-end PS3 with a 40GB hard drive on the holidays. It will not have WiFi or a memory card reader and will not be backward compatible. An external WiFi device will be available separately to accommodate those who still want the function. This low-end PS3 will be available for US$ 399 while the 80GB version will drop to US$ 499 as the 60GB version drops out of the market.

So in quick summary, here's the wager:

• Vrignaud's predicts a low-end PS3 worth US$ 399 will be out by November 23, Black Friday of 2007.
  
• Croal's side of the bet is that Sony will stick to only one PS3 type for the rest of the year.

Last time, J. Allard had to wear dreadlocks to make good on the wager when the PSP exceeded sales expectations. Croal has been known to give predictions in the past, but we'll have to wait to see who'll pay for that steak dinner.

So the PS3's backwards compatibility may be getting a nerf of sorts, but does it mean a price cut for Sony's cash cow is under way? Well, according to one Microsoft blogger, that may very well be the case.

Ozymandias, otherwise known as Andre Vrignaud, made some predictions early in January about the state of the console wars. According to his new statements, the gimping of backwards compatibility may very well be the first step towards lowering PS3 costs overall:

This is likely a step on that path. I believe the PS3 enabled backward compatibility by basically including PS2 silicon in the box. That hardware has likely been removed to reduce costs, and the PS3 is now moving toward software-emulated backward compatibility. Notice the new focus on firmware upgrades for enabling backcompat?... All of which means the backcompat story is likely to be very similar between the PS3 and the 360 going forward.

Whether or not this is true, we still wish they wouldn't gimp backwards compatibility. That's one of the fun draws of the console. Hopefully, the price cut will actually make it worth the trouble.

Andre Vrignaud, otherwise known to the net as Ozymandias, pulled a Nostradamus of his own recently with his predictions for 2007. Being a Microsoft spokesperson though, you'll have to admit that some of his predictions are somewhat pointed, even if they do happen to be very logical.

We'll tread lightly here with one of the somewhat obvious Microsoft-favored predictions as an example:

By the end of 2007, total lifetime unit sell-through of home consoles will be led by the Xbox 360, followed by Nintendo’s Wii, with the Playstation 3 third. This order will also be true of units sold-through solely in 2007 (ie, not lifetime sales).

There's enough evidence to make that prediction viable, though we'd have to say the Wii is catching up far quicker than anyone expected. Since the total number of PS3 units created does happen to be far less than the total number of Xbox 360 or Wii units sold, Sony is the obvious dark horse for a 2007 sell-through victory.

Here are the rest of his predictions. Take a good note of his PSP-related predictions, as our own Chris L. made a fearless forecast similar to Ozy's. As for everything else, just remember that this is all speculation rather than fact, though you're quite free to put in your own two cents on the predictions he's given.

The original PSP (with memory stick) will be discontinued, and replaced by a new model with an integrated hard drive. The new model will enable connectivity to the Playstation store via internet connection, and allow you to purchase and download both emulated PS1 and native PSP games directly. Over time (meaning not in 2007), it will also allow you to purchase music and movies from the Sony store.

The future will have... ROBOTS! More of Ozymandias' insights and predictions after the jump.

It was just a while ago when we all agreed that Microsoft will definitely issue statements regarding its rival companies. And now here goes the mighty corporation again. This time, it's Xbox Live Director of Technical Strategy Andre Vrignaud's turn to comment on the apparent problems the PS3 is having with certain HDTV units.

"It appears there's no internal hardware scaler in the PS3. As reported, it appears the PS3 is unable to output a consistent signal to your TV based upon your desired selection," wrote Vrignaud in his Ozymandias blog. The official even claimed that he wanted to play Resistance in 1080i (He has a PS3?).

Unfortunately, the console drops down to a lower-common denominator of 480p, in case the game doesn't support it. Vrignaud continued that he was prompted to quit, go to the dashboard, change the PS3's resolution to 720p and then relaunch the game.

Also, according to Vrignaud, older HDTV doesn't support 720p, just 480i/480p and 1080i. So owners of the said units are forced to play in 480i/p because they are unable to scale the output to 1080i. "This smells of the console being rushed to market, and I'm not holding out any hopes for any significant fix. It's bad, and feels like something Sony would have fixed if possible," said Vrignaud.

Earlier we did an article focusing on Microsoft employee Andre Vrignaud (Ozymandias) and his opinions on Sony's online PlayStation Network Service. This post will focus on John Smedley's counterpoint. Just in case you don't know who John Smedley is, the search tab is there for your convenient use. Moving on. John Smedley's response is such:

One of the cool things about integrating both the PlayStation Network and Xfire into our PS3 title Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom is that my friends on Xfire running on the PC can send me messages while I’m playing the game on the PlayStation 3. I can also respond to them if I want.

I can do the same thing (also from within the game) with my friends that are playing other PlayStation 3 games using my PlayStation Network friends list. We’ve integrated both into the game because we realize how important it is to be able to tie into different groups of online friends. I personally think that’s one of the best things about the PS3’s open approach. I am a member of multiple online communities. The fact that the PlayStation 3 will allow publishers the option of hooking my favorite games into these communities is a big plus to me.

I do want to point out that you aren’t just able to see if your friends are online at the cross media bar interface level.. it can happen within games too.

So what is the good Mr. Smedley trying to say? Basically in his point of view it's good that the PS3 is open and is allowing the publishers to dictate who they will be implementing their online community. He also thinks that it's good that, depending on what service a particular publisher is using, people on the PC can send messages to people playing on their PS3's.

Given that it is possible to be able to access the cross media bar at any point, he does have a point that it's convenient to see which one of your “global” PS3 friends are online, and that you can use the game to check which one of your game-specific friends are online.

We'll have to see where this pseudo online debate will go, before we say anymore regarding this topic. Now we say pseudo debate because if you click on our VIA link below and you look at Smedley's previous posts, you'll see that he's been actively responding to Ozymandias' blog posts. We could try to give you guys several metaphors describing what each service looks like so far, but we won't. That would be flame-bait.

Regardless of the direction this argument will go, it's comforting to see that Sony is actively trying to take their PlayStation Network in a direction different than Microsoft's XBL.

It is expected that Microsoft employee's wouldn't think much of Sony's PS3 or Sony's Online service. It's normal. They are working for a company that's in direct competition. But just for the sake of clarity, let's take some time to look at the actual points raised by Microsoft employee Andre Vrignaud (better known as Ozymandias on his blog) regarding the lack of efficiency of Sony's online service.

This starts with the lawsuit that Xfire has brought against Gamespy. You see, Xfire believes that GameSpy Comrade's "Buddy Sync" feature is infringing on its copyrights. How does this connect to the PlayStation Network? Vrignaud says this: "This suit highlights how busted Sony's PS3 online network is, and how companies are fighting to position themselves to take advantage of this financially."

He means that online middleware companies are trying to position themselves to become the eventual de facto solution that publishers will use when online on the PS3. It's the same with the web: These companies are trying to get momentum and a large enough user base that will cause them to be the "PS3 online" solution of choice.

How is the PlayStation Network busted? Why does the PlayStation Network need "solutions" from middleware companies? Well, Vrignaud gives several reasons. In his blog he wrotes:

Even though I already have a "Sony ID", I may have to create a new "Resistance ID" (because Insomniac's Resistance has it's own list) to play. And then start thinking about just how broken the experience is when you try to invite someone to a game. Do you send it via the Resistance UI? What screenname do I send it to? If I want to add you to my "Sony ID" friends list, do I need to send you an in-game message to ask you what your real "Sony ID" name is? What about game invites? How does that work across even just these two IDs?

You think that's bad? Now let's open up a few more games from different publishers. Each of these publishers had to make a choice of what online interface to use - again, because Sony's online network just isn't ready.

Yep, his problem is with Sony's PlayStation Network, is that it is just isn't ready. Publishers will have to either write their own communications interface or license Xfire, or GameSpy, or Quazal, or Demonware. That means many potential networks with different namespaces, and an inherent lack of ability to communicate (chatting, voice, invites, finding friends, etc.) between them.

He further inquires as to what could happen if each publisher doesn't stick with the same online solution for all of their games? This is very likely as most publishers use different developers - so even across a single publisher, you may find fragmented communities.

So what's the point of the Sony ID according to him? The Sony ID gives you a lifeline to be see friends when they are online... but only in the crossbar UI.

PlayStation 3 has been struggling to get good publicity breaks and Sony being mum when confronted regarding certain issues is not helping at all. Being the former Manager of Developer Relations for Sony, Mark DeLoura might want to shed some light about PS3's load times as he comments on the latest tirades done by rival company, Microsoft.

Xbox Team's Andre Vrignaud, known as the blogger Ozymandia, recently reiterated why drive speed is more important than storage capacity. Offense might have been taken but it is a surprise DeLoura didn't make any efforts to debunk such allegations. Instead, he agrees as he says:

"Admittedly, Blu-Ray looks dicey from several non-capacity angles. Blu-Ray movies require a 1.5x Blu-Ray drive, or 54Mbits/second. Sony announced that PS3 uses a 2x BD drive, which is 72Mbits/second or 9MB/second. The Xbox 360 uses a 12x DVD, which should give it about 16MB/second. That is significantly faster for games and will result in shorter load times. And that 12x DVD drive should be a whole lot cheaper."

At this point, it is important to remember that Resistance: Fall of Man, one of PS3 launch titles, is composed of 22GB of data. Logic will leave us thinking just how much of loading time this would take on this next-gen console.

But let us not forget that Sony requires its developers to support the hard drive and couple this with the compression technologies touched on by the debate to shrink the data down. We don't know for sure but Sony might still have some tricks and surprises up its sleeves. We're keeping our fingers crossed...

Ozymandias, aka Andre Vrignaud of Microsoft's XBox team, recently played down the PS3's 1080p capability in his blog. "There's been a lot of interest in the PS3 due to its stated 1080p output for both games and movies (via Blu-ray)." he wrote. "What's interesting is that a lot of folks don't realize how meaningless 1080p actually is in this generation."

Many of his doubts and criticisms of Sony's next-gen high definition platform will most likely attract the ire of Playstation afficionados. Ozymandias argues that "the PS3 has roughly the same pixel-pushing capabilities as the Xbox 360. Don't need to take my word for it, it'll be obvious soon enough over the next year." Even if that weren't the case, he points out that "we live in a multiplatform world," and game developers wishing to develop multiplatform (360/PS3) games will settle for a common native resolution: "the current sweet spot developers are targeting is 720p due to the extremely similar system specifications... In fact, I'll stick my neck out and predict that that you won't see any 1080'x' games for the PS3 this year..." And later in his blog: "As to games, 99% of PS3 titles will natively render at 720p; the few that come out with 1080'x' support are either going to be simple classic arcade ports that don't need to render complex scenes (think the original Battlezone), or will give up a lot of in-game visual effects and simply won't look very good (hence the poor showing of Gran Turismo "HD" at this past E3)."

He's not the only Microsoft employee to play down the PS3's 1080p's capability. Microsoft's game technology group director Scott Henson, in a video interview with Kiziko earlier this year, also expressed his doubts about 1080p: "I think 1080p, just to address that directly, will be basically impossible. I think if you talk to any developer they will tell you that they will not have a performing game at 1080p."

We can bet that Sony will not take this challenge lightly. One of their pre-E3 announcements revealed that the next Gran Turismo will definitely be 1080p output, taking advantage of the hard disk to speed up loading times (and the game will still run on the 1080i format). Worries that the PS3's lack of HDMI output ports will hamper 1080p capability may be dispelled with the possibility that, at least until the Image Constraint Token (ICT) digital flag kicks in around the next decade, the PS3 can transmit a 1080p signal through a traditional cable. One reply to Ozymandias pointedly declares that a few PS3 launch titles will be 1080p: Eye of Judgement, Untold Legends, and Genji 2 (and you can click on the backlinks to check QJ's screenshots and video coverage of these releases).

If we may make a public service announcement, we're definitely expecting this news report to inflame a number of readers out there, particularly PlayStation afficionados. We definitely love to hear everyone's comments and opinions regarding the state of these so-called "next-gen console wars," and what they feel about Ozymandias' latest post in his blog, but given the sensitive nature of this topic we ask that comments be kept informative and respectful of everyone concerned. So please, above the belt, and no flaming. We are ultimately one and the same community of gamers - and besides, there are 360 owners who are also interested in seeing what the PS3 can do.

Speak up, everyone.