back to article Sony preps PS3 with old-school design

Sony is set to release a third design of its PlayStation 3 console, with a higher storage capacity and a top-loading disc tray. The unannounced PS3 - spotted in testing labs in Brazil - will apparently touch down with a choice of three new storage capacities: 16GB, 250GB and 500GB, Brazilian site Tecnoblog reports. New PS3 …

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  1. Code Monkey

    Not so good for my living room

    Given that my PS3 lives under the telly, a toploader would be a bugger. Or it would if I used the PS3 for anything other than iPlayer.

  2. Miek
    Linux

    Wow at least it will be easier to clean the laser mechanism with a top-loader instead of having to completely dismantle the unit to do so. Perhaps this is an acknowledgement from Sony that their Blu-Ray drives are liable to stop working after a year in a smoky environment and that cleaning them is essential maintenance not a warranty invalidating act.

    1. JDX Gold badge

      Mine is several years old without problems. But then I live in a clean house.

      Blaming Sony their hardware can't clean itself when your lungs suffer the same problem is optimistic.

    2. Rich 2 Silver badge
      Thumb Down

      Obvious solution...

      ...is to not subject your PS3 to a smoky environment. Computer kit, of whatever type, is generally not at home in such an atmosphere. Neither are most people come to that.

    3. Silverburn

      Stop smoking.

      More money for games, longer lasting hardware and wetware.

      Simples.

    4. Miek
      Trollface

      Ah, non-smokers. Bunch of whining maggots. I'd give up smoking if I didn't think I'd become one of you. Don't take that wrong!

      1. Sean Timarco Baggaley

        Ah, smokers! Bunch of eye-wateringly foul-smelling pillocks who seem to enjoy pissing staggering sums of money up the wall to feed their drug addiction.

        And a jolly good thing too! The UK needs the tax revenues. The shortened lifespans and agonising deaths are merely icing on the cake. Keep it up! (Just don't do it near me, please. I have enough problems with allergies as it is.)

        1. Andy Fletcher

          Baited

          Sean, everyone dies of something, and it's almost always unpleasant. I doubt if you die of bowel cancer you'll be laughing about having avoided the lung variant. Quite frankly, if we were to meet it's a good bet I'd find some (who knows, maybe all) of your personal habits distasteful. Personally, I tend to find smokers to be a genial bunch of people.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Baited

            Everyone dies of something. Smokers just get to do it a good bit sooner (which is certainly good for the welfare/pension system, so I'm all in favour).

            Personally, I don't have a problem with people smoking (or doing other recreational drugs of their choice) on their own time, with their own money and in their own place (whatever floats one's boat as long as it doesn't sink anyone else's). I do get a bit annoyed when people who choose to smoke whine on about their chosen vice's effects on them (or their property).

          2. MJI Silver badge

            Re: Baited

            Lung cancer/bowel cancer.

            A friends dad had bowel cancer, was cured then lung cancer from passive smoking killed him. His mum has lung cancer and is a lifelong smoker.

            I lost 2 grandparents to smoking caused lung cancer - one also lost a few fingers.

        2. Fibbles

          As an ex-smoker

          I feel I should point out to the overly smug non smokers a few facts:

          1) Fewer than 1 in 10 people who smoke develop lung cancer.

          2) The majority of smokers who develop cancer go on to beat it.

          Most smokers in the end die from some form of vascular disease often culminating in heart attack or stroke. Ironically these are the same illnesses which plague office workers (such as those in the IT industry *hint* *hint*) because of their general inactivity and traditionally poor diet.

      2. This post has been deleted by its author

      3. simm0
        Facepalm

        Beats being a wheezy plagarist.

        Line used without credit from the late great Bill Hicks.

        http://youtu.be/w9ySCcnoo3c

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Guess what? games consoles get hot and use fans which suck in air to cool them down. If you smoke then the games console sucks in smoky air which coats the console with shitty yellow smokey crap (the same thing that is lining your lungs).

      Smoking gives humans health problems, so why do you expect an inanimate object to be any different?

      I bought a house off an OAP who smoked and everything smells of smoke and is yellow the best thing you can do is go outside or give up.

    6. MJI Silver badge

      Don't smoke near them then!

      That tar jams everything.

      CD DVD BD lasers

      VCR heads

      Lungs

  3. Thomas 4
    Trollface

    Old School

    A Sony executive was quoted as saying "We're really going back to our old school roots with this new design. We're even restoring Other OS and PS2 backwards compatability," before collapsing on the floor in a heap of laughter.

    1. Piro Silver badge

      Re: Old School

      I don't really care about Linux support, although it was no doubt a fun toy, but the PS2 backwards compatibility is what kills it for me.

      I have an original fatty PS2 with a hard drive, and it works fine, but it'd be nice to have one machine that could play PS3 and PS2 games so I could store it away. I don't have a PS3, but the odd game has taken my eye. Not enough to buy one though, especially with the lack of backwards compatibility.

    2. RAMChYLD
      Pint

      Re: Old School

      Damn you had me for a second :/

      I'd do anything to have my PS3 play PS2 games again. Given that my PS2 just started exhibiting clock troubles recently :(

      Beer. Because I have a few games I was playing on my PS2 when the clock trouble arose and now want to drown my sorrow.

  4. leon stok
    Headmaster

    16GB?

    Seems like somebody made a typo in the source article, and intended to write 160GB. (which is the same size as the current models)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: 16GB?

      people are guessing that it is intended to compete with the Xbox360 4GB.

      note, other sites are actually referring to the Sony's -FCC Brazilian equivalent- filing as saying 16GB.

    2. thefutureboy

      Re: 16GB?

      Word (or rumours) is it will be a PS3 aimed at media and possibly game streaming.

    3. 27escape

      Re: 16GB?

      16G is fine as they want you to stream your own content of their nasne NAS out about the same time as this variant.

      1. Miek
        Linux

        Re: 16GB?

        "16G is fine as they want you to stream your own content of their nasne NAS out about the same time as this variant." -- Will it mute the sound for all the videos I try to play from it though ?

  5. K
    WTF?

    Top loader... why?

    I understand cheaper production = cheaper to consumers.. but surely the price difference between top loader and an auto-loader is not that much difference. Personally I think this thing looks ugly.. so Sony, you can count me out.

    1. Dave 62

      Re: Top loader... why?

      My PS3s auto-loader mech struggles a bit and I don't think I'm alone, it doesn't eject fully and takes a few presses to get the disc out far enough to pull it. I've heard of some getting knocked out of alignment and loading discs into the wrong position so they won't read and even one that had a penny posted in and promptly broke, with a top loader it's easy to take the pennies, toy cars and jam sandwiches out and there's no risk of the load/eject mech braking because there isn't one.

  6. Ben 56
    Stop

    Top loading's nick name

    Top loadering mechanisms on consoles used to be referred to as toilet seats by owners of newer fangled tray/front loading mechanisms. Does this mean PS2 owners can now laugh and point fingers at PS3 owners?

  7. Ben 56
    Stop

    Top loading's nick name

    Top loading mechanisms on consoles used to be referred to as toilet seats by owners of newer fangled tray/front loading mechanisms. Does this mean PS2 owners can now laugh and point fingers at PS3 owners?

  8. Zombieman

    Two thoughts...

    Top loading mechanism = Sony making sure there is plenty of ventilation because you need to get to the top of the unit???

    Also... with another new design for this console... the question needs to be asked... what features are being dropped with this revision? Seems every other hardware revision has dropped something...

    1. jai

      Re: Two thoughts...

      i suspect it's more that the top loading mechanism is far cheaper that a slot loader - no need for motors or for moving the laser head and spindle up and down.

  9. The FunkeyGibbon
    FAIL

    The last drawn out death rattle of the current generation...

    This is absolute proof that this generation is coming to a close. Sony did this with the PS1 and PS2 to try to eek out some last cash from the few people they could persuade to buy it.

    12 months and this will be irrelevant.

    1. Peter Hewitt-Dutton

      Re: The last drawn out death rattle of the current generation...

      You assume that anyone who owns it is only interested in it being cutting edge. I have one, have had it for years, and have never played a game on it. I am tempted by this new one, to get bitstreaming HD audio, and if its quieter than the old one I have.

      Assuming it matches both of those, it will be far from irrelevant in a year for me, and I imagine many others.

    2. Andy Fletcher

      Re: The last drawn out death rattle of the current generation...

      @The FunkeyGibbon you're out by a country mile. PS2's continued to sell FAR into PS3's lifecycle. If I remember correctly PS2 was at some points outselling the combined efforts of PS3 and XBox360. Same thing will happen again if/when Sony release their next console. PS3 game prices will plumment and cheap PS3's will sell by the bucket load.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: The last drawn out death rattle of the current generation...

        Cash Converters: I bought our PS2 from there long after the PS3 came out, along with loads of games for less than a fiver, and me and my son have hours of fun on it.

  10. Rich 2 Silver badge

    Ugly

    I've always considered the PS3 to be one of the ugliest, misshapen, lumps of plastic ever to make it on to the consumer electronics market. I'm not sure this fixes much of that.

    1. Loyal Commenter Silver badge
      WTF?

      Re: Ugly

      Really? Compared to pretty much every previous console, the smooth curves and shiny 'piano' black finish is a vast improvement in my eyes. just look at teh ugly grey box that was the original playstation, the cubist monstrosisty of the PS2 or the shoddy plastic thing that was the Nintendo Master System to get an idea for what came before.

      1. Jediben
        Headmaster

        Re: Ugly

        Sega Master System. As an aside, the Master System 2 was a beauty compared to this monstrosity.

        1. Loyal Commenter Silver badge

          Re: Ugly

          My bad. T'was Sega. Nintendo's offerings were equally shabby though IIRC.

      2. BrownishMonstr

        Re: Ugly

        @Loyal Commenter

        Wasn't the original PlayStation's ugliness because the deal between Sony and Nintendo went tits up?

  11. Greg D
    WTF?

    another PS3?

    Jeez, bring out the new one already! We need a PS4 so that game devs can start working on better games with better hardware under the hood.

    I say this as a PC Gamer. These ancient consoles (in tech years) are bringing down the standard of my PC games :(

    1. Daniel B.

      Re: another PS3?

      It ain't the PS3 dragging down your games... it's the xbox360. Games taking full advantage of the PS3's arch aren't looking that outdated...

      1. Davidoff
        Holmes

        Re: another PS3?

        "It ain't the PS3 dragging down your games... it's the xbox360. Games taking full advantage of the PS3's arch aren't looking that outdated"

        Sorry mate but he is right. Both consoles are holding back PC games, the PS3 with it's stripped-down ancient Geforce 7600 graphics core (which even predates programmable shaders) and the lacklustre Cell (which always has been a technological dead-end in a console) probably even more than the XBox360.

        Certainly there are nice games for both consoles, and some do look quite nice, but none of the games can hide the fact that both console platforms use midrange technology from 7 years ago.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: another PS3?

          Wow, how much can you get wrong in a single post?

          Any PS3 developer knows that the RSX (which isn't actually a GF7600, but a derivitive of), is only actually the end og the rendering pipeline framebuffer and used for some post-processing, the Cell doing the actual GPU heavy lifting (each of it's 7 SPE's is onpar with a Pentium4 for "grunt"), only on crappy multi-platform titles, where lesser consoles have to also be catered for, and games are coded in a sloppy fashion does the RSX get used as the main GPU amd the cell's PPE used as the logic and game engine, and the SPE's sat there twiddling their thumbs at worse, or doing physics at best.

          The XBox360 has massively held back the PS3 this generation, with it's ancient PC-Like design and last-gen storage specs. So many games could have been so much better had they not had to cater for the Xbox360 system. I'm guessing Microsoft knew that the Xbox hardware design was disruptive, and gamers were too stupid to work it out, they also knew the American gaming media would back the American console no matter what, even RROD was "let off" by the media (which we all know, had it been Sony, would have been treated totally differently).

          1. MJI Silver badge

            Re: another PS3?

            You are Barry Shitpeas and ICMFP

            PS3 vs XBox360

            Well from what I have read from various places

            X360 has a better graphics chip which is better when used in a similar fashion to a PC game, but the PS3 can offload a LOT of processing to the Cell, which nullifies this when used in an Uncharted fashion.

            The Cell is substatially more powerfull than the Xenon, and the interchip link between the Cell & RSX is a lot faster than the link between Xenon & Xenos.

            It seems like PS3 is about 10% to 20% more powerfull than the 360, but unless you are Naughty Dog or Guerilla 360 is easier to exploit.

            Holding back - yes I have seen it - example is Rage, this has two regions, with a slow transfer between them, this coincides with the 360 disc swap, would have been nicer as one area.

            Poor PS3 ports - seen these too.

            Multiplatforms looking good, yes they can, but seem to lack something compared to the best exclusives, best 3 so far in my opinion Uncharted 3, Killzone 3, Uncharted 2, and the quality of Killzone 3s multiplayer is something to behold, so much detail and such a fun game.

    2. BrownishMonstr

      Re: another PS3?

      "These ancient consoles (in tech years) are bringing down the standard of my PC games"

      Just have to say that BF3 looks awesome on PCs. Consoles are forced to have the lowest settings that PC users may use. So I guess it's up to the development teams.

  12. MJI Silver badge

    Ugly

    The PS3 is getting progressively uglier.

    As to Remove Disc - no it doesn't I still have to remove it from the slot, Eject Disc sounds much nicer.

  13. ninjatjj

    PS4?

    Lazy R&D

  14. measmyself
    Stop

    For me graphics are not something im after changed incredibly, I want interesting genres, good voice acting and depth to games, no devs spending years on detailed graphics.

    So therefore I want the devs to keep working on the current spec, what's this fascination of them wanting to spend all their money ploughing into a new console/hardware all the time? they like throwing money away??

    1. Davidoff
      FAIL

      "For me graphics are not something im after changed incredibly, I want interesting genres, good voice acting and depth to games."

      Interesting genres, good voice acting and depth are required for a good game. But so is adequate graphics. Good games tick all the necessary boxes, crap games may only tick a few or even none at all.

      Good graphics can make a good game even better as it increases the immersion level and makes the environment more lively. Just because 20 years ago games came with a text console doesn't mean that this is the best way to do it.

      "no devs spending years on detailed graphics"

      Son't worry, devs don't spend years on detailed graphics, thanks to modern development environments. Even more, often enough a lot of effort is put into scaling the gaphics details down so that current consoles can maintain reasonable frame rates, something which is only necessary because current consoles use such outdated technology.

      "So therefore I want the devs to keep working on the current spec, what's this fascination of them wanting to spend all their money ploughing into a new console/hardware all the time? they like throwing money away??"

      FYI: the current console generation is 6 (ps3) to 7 (XBox 360) years old, using technology which at the time these consoles came out were already midrange only, so I don't know where you get the idea from 'spending money ploughing into a new console/hardware all the time'.

    2. MJI Silver badge

      Re:measmyself

      Interesting, & good voice acting, well guess what.

      Some of the best games of this generation have some of the best console graphics.

      I still remember when I first played Uncharted 2, that ticks every box there is, only seen two console games with better graphics and one is Uncharted 3, good game but just doesn't have the same wow because the wow came with Uncharted 2 - that said the ships graveyard is absolutely fantastic.

  15. Joe K
    FAIL

    Wrong.

    Those pics are mock-ups done by NeoGAF member MYE: http://neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=39844890&postcount=601

    They have no basis in reality, there is no confirmation at all that there is even a sliding door.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Wrong.

      I know, it's going to be fun when all these idiots are made to look like fools again...

      Sounds like the iPhone5, i mean iPhone 4s debacle all over again....

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Wrong.

      The second set of pics are indeed mock-ups, but the full thread from your link shows they were made as cleaned-up versions of the photos taken in the Brazilian article. Also, looking at the front & rear views of the Tecnoblog photos seems to show half of the top is higher than the other, giving credence to the sliding door.

  16. Luke McCarthy

    Still looks pretty big

    I guess it will never get down to the size of the PS2 slim.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A PC by other name.

    I dont care what it looks like outside, i care if i can yank out that measly 16(0)GB thingy and shove an 1TB jobbie back in without a fuss. For half the price of a 500GB out of the box. And call it a sony-walled-garden pc. Without voiding warranty.

    PS. I hate torx screws. My dvd-hdd combo recorder will never see one of those again.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    £99 RRP.

    Killer pricepoint, and of course, no recurring subscription fees for an advertising network pretending to be a gaming network.

    http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/ads-up-games-down-the-ugly-profitable-truth-about-xbox-live-advertising

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