I can't believe it's been 10 years, but this time a decade ago we saw Kaz Hirai take to the stage at Sony's E3 press conference to detail the future of the PlayStation business, PlayStation 3. This conference should not be confused with the 2006 conference where Sony somewhat undid everything they'd built up, no this conference was in my opinion one of the best ways to introduce a new console and was full of great content and promise for the brand.
At the start of the conference we see Kaz Hirai take the stage to confirm that PlayStation is doing better than ever with more than 190 million cumulative units of hardware shipped between PlayStation and PlayStation 2 and over 2 billion units of software which is a huge accomplishment.
Ken Kutaragi then took to the stage and proudly unveiled the PlayStation 3 computer entertainment system as the successor to the extremely popular PlayStation 2. Kutagari outline the specifications of the console starting with the processor, he noted that the PS1 came with a chip capable of real time 3D-CG graphics which was the most advanced at that time, PlayStation 2 launched 6 years later with the most powerful 128 bit micro processor called the emotion engine. With PlayStation 3, Kutaragi claimed the same, that the console would ship with the most powerful processor of its time, the Cell Broadband engine developed jointly between Sony, IBM and Toshiba.
Kutaragi then detailed the evolution of the disc drive started with CD-ROM on the original PlayStation which allowed for higher storage and cheaper games, DVD on PlayStation 2 which allowed higher storage and ultimately allowed DVD to become widely adopted as the number 1 format for movie and games. With PlayStation 3 Kutaragi was set to do the same as he unveiled the Blu-Ray disc which was capable of holding 54GB of content per disc to deliver bigger and better games than before.
Kutaragi also confirmed that the PlayStation 3 would have backwards compatibility to enjoy over 13,000 titles across PlayStation and PlayStation 2 however this was a short lived feature of the PlayStation 3.
At this point, Kutaragi talked more abou the Cell processor to demonstrate how powerful the Cell was. The project originally started in mid 2000 with the creation of the STI alliance which included Sony, Toshiba and IBM. By March 2001 the team had already started working on the design of the processor and 4 years later the development was complete. Cell’s breakthrough multi-core architecture and ultra high-speed communications capabilities deliver vastly improved, real-time response for entertainment and rich media applications, in many cases 10 times the performance of the latest PC processors. It was effectively a super computer on a chip.
Kutaragi confirmed that the PlayStation 3 would utilise the Cell processor and RSX graphics processor to provide a total of 2 teraflops floating point calculation performance. Kutaragi confirmed that the Cell would be running at 3.2GHz with 8 SPE's. 7 SPE's were activated for the PS3 with 256kb SRAM each. The PS3 would also launch with 256MB main RAM @3.2GHz and 256MB GDDR3 VRAM @700MHz. A detachable hard drive slot would also ship with the system. Kutaragi also confirmed that the PlayStation 3 was a gaming system first but had other functions such as being able to listen to digital audio, watch digital video and also access the internet. #NumberOneForNetflix.
Kutaragi then invited Jen Hsun Huang, the CEO of Nvidia, to the stage in order to talk about the RSX Graphics processor. Jen Hsun Huang confirmed that Kutaragi had 3 goals for the PlayStation 3, to build the worlds most advanced GPU, to synthesize movie quality graphics and to take full advantage of the power of Cell. Nvidia were able to create the RSX graphics processor which was a graphics chip that allowed for beautiful graphics in real time. The RSX introduced many new technologies, the first major breakthrough was that RSX was able to processes 136 shader operations per cycle, as well as this it had 128 bit pixel precision, RSX could also output in 1080p and finally the RSX was able to communicate efficiently with the Cell processor.
The RSX was confirmed to be more than twice as powerful as two GeForce 6800 Ultra's and was built on Nvidia's most advanced next generation architecture which was yet to be released in PC's. The RSX also had 300 million transistors which is equivalent to the number of transistors in the the Xbox CPU and GPU, PS2 CPU and GPU, GameCube CPU and GPU and the Athlon FX55 CPU. In other words it was the most powerful and complex GPU ever built. Nvidia wanted this GPU to articulate the subtle effects that computer generated graphics had been able to capture before. In ending, the PS3 had a throughput bandwidth of 35GB/s between the GPU and the Cell processor allowing for high quality performance.
To end his presentation, Jen Hsun Huang then introduced the founder of Epic Games to demo a live game running on PS3 using Unreal Engine 3. The demo showed the new next generation graphics capabilities running in real time.
Sony's CTO then took to the stage to detail the PlayStation 3 schematics which showed elegant simplicity combined with outstanding performance. New innovations were introduced such as online capabilities with voice chat in game and support multiple wireless controllers with real time response. The PS3 also came with Wi-Fi built in, gigabit ethernet and USB. Also introduced was the PlayStation Eye camera that would be used for video chat and later PlayStation Move. PlayStation Network was also introduced in this part of the presentation allowing users to play online, download games and much more.
Now to the games with Phil Harrison, many will remember the famous duck demo where a bath was filled with ducks to demonstrate the tremendous power of the PlayStation 3. Rendered in beautiful 1080p at full 60 frames per second the demo solidified the outstanding performance that PlayStation 3 was able to provide to gamers. As well as this demo, Phil introduced a number of other demos that demonstrated how immersive the graphics could be on PlayStation 3 and how game creators would be able to tell new stories by taking advantage of Cell and RSX. As well as game demos, Phil showed the other media capabilities of PS3 by streaming 12 HD videos simultaneously using the Cell broadband engine.
After the demos, Kaz Hirai returned to the stage to show what developers had been working on for PlayStation 3. EA showed off content from their sports titles such as Fight Night 3 demonstrating the ultra realistic graphics capable on the system. Square Enix demonstrated a Final Fantasy demo on PlayStation 3, this was a technical demonstration of what Final Fantasy 7 could look like with utilising the power of Cell and RSX. Unfortunately a remake was not confirmed. Other developers and publishers such as Insomniac Games, Koei, Factor 5, Kojima Productions and Rockstar games showed their support for the console. Kojima even confirmed Metal Gear Solid 4 for the PlayStation 3 computer entertainment system. Gran Turismo Next Generation was also confirmed for the system.
Other titles shown from third parties were F1 next Gen, Ni-Oh, Devil may Cry, Mobile Suit Gundam, Tekken and Red Dead Redemption. Sony also demonstrated their own Gran Turismo and Killzone titles for PlayStation 3. Sony confirmed new IP for the next generation of gaming starting with Resistance: Fall of Man, Eyedentity, Fifth Phantom Saga, Heavenly Sword, WarHawk, Killing Day and Motorstorm. Finally, Kutaragi unvieled the PlayStation 3 at the end of the conference to huge applause from the audience.
At this conference, Sony solidified themselves as the primary choice for the next generation of systems. Of course this would all be undone at next years E3. Despite a sluggish start, the PlayStation 3 has come very far and now has a huge library of exclusive and third party games and has sold over 87 million worldwide making it a successful console.
Can't believe it's been 10 years! What was your reaction to this great conference? Did it give you confidence in the future of PlayStation, how did you feel after the E3 2006 conference? Do you think Sony were able to turn the tide in their favour or do you still see the PS3 as a wasted potential. Discuss.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtZ-rK349aY
At the start of the conference we see Kaz Hirai take the stage to confirm that PlayStation is doing better than ever with more than 190 million cumulative units of hardware shipped between PlayStation and PlayStation 2 and over 2 billion units of software which is a huge accomplishment.
Ken Kutaragi then took to the stage and proudly unveiled the PlayStation 3 computer entertainment system as the successor to the extremely popular PlayStation 2. Kutagari outline the specifications of the console starting with the processor, he noted that the PS1 came with a chip capable of real time 3D-CG graphics which was the most advanced at that time, PlayStation 2 launched 6 years later with the most powerful 128 bit micro processor called the emotion engine. With PlayStation 3, Kutaragi claimed the same, that the console would ship with the most powerful processor of its time, the Cell Broadband engine developed jointly between Sony, IBM and Toshiba.
Kutaragi then detailed the evolution of the disc drive started with CD-ROM on the original PlayStation which allowed for higher storage and cheaper games, DVD on PlayStation 2 which allowed higher storage and ultimately allowed DVD to become widely adopted as the number 1 format for movie and games. With PlayStation 3 Kutaragi was set to do the same as he unveiled the Blu-Ray disc which was capable of holding 54GB of content per disc to deliver bigger and better games than before.
Kutaragi also confirmed that the PlayStation 3 would have backwards compatibility to enjoy over 13,000 titles across PlayStation and PlayStation 2 however this was a short lived feature of the PlayStation 3.
At this point, Kutaragi talked more abou the Cell processor to demonstrate how powerful the Cell was. The project originally started in mid 2000 with the creation of the STI alliance which included Sony, Toshiba and IBM. By March 2001 the team had already started working on the design of the processor and 4 years later the development was complete. Cell’s breakthrough multi-core architecture and ultra high-speed communications capabilities deliver vastly improved, real-time response for entertainment and rich media applications, in many cases 10 times the performance of the latest PC processors. It was effectively a super computer on a chip.
Kutaragi confirmed that the PlayStation 3 would utilise the Cell processor and RSX graphics processor to provide a total of 2 teraflops floating point calculation performance. Kutaragi confirmed that the Cell would be running at 3.2GHz with 8 SPE's. 7 SPE's were activated for the PS3 with 256kb SRAM each. The PS3 would also launch with 256MB main RAM @3.2GHz and 256MB GDDR3 VRAM @700MHz. A detachable hard drive slot would also ship with the system. Kutaragi also confirmed that the PlayStation 3 was a gaming system first but had other functions such as being able to listen to digital audio, watch digital video and also access the internet. #NumberOneForNetflix.
Kutaragi then invited Jen Hsun Huang, the CEO of Nvidia, to the stage in order to talk about the RSX Graphics processor. Jen Hsun Huang confirmed that Kutaragi had 3 goals for the PlayStation 3, to build the worlds most advanced GPU, to synthesize movie quality graphics and to take full advantage of the power of Cell. Nvidia were able to create the RSX graphics processor which was a graphics chip that allowed for beautiful graphics in real time. The RSX introduced many new technologies, the first major breakthrough was that RSX was able to processes 136 shader operations per cycle, as well as this it had 128 bit pixel precision, RSX could also output in 1080p and finally the RSX was able to communicate efficiently with the Cell processor.
The RSX was confirmed to be more than twice as powerful as two GeForce 6800 Ultra's and was built on Nvidia's most advanced next generation architecture which was yet to be released in PC's. The RSX also had 300 million transistors which is equivalent to the number of transistors in the the Xbox CPU and GPU, PS2 CPU and GPU, GameCube CPU and GPU and the Athlon FX55 CPU. In other words it was the most powerful and complex GPU ever built. Nvidia wanted this GPU to articulate the subtle effects that computer generated graphics had been able to capture before. In ending, the PS3 had a throughput bandwidth of 35GB/s between the GPU and the Cell processor allowing for high quality performance.
To end his presentation, Jen Hsun Huang then introduced the founder of Epic Games to demo a live game running on PS3 using Unreal Engine 3. The demo showed the new next generation graphics capabilities running in real time.
Sony's CTO then took to the stage to detail the PlayStation 3 schematics which showed elegant simplicity combined with outstanding performance. New innovations were introduced such as online capabilities with voice chat in game and support multiple wireless controllers with real time response. The PS3 also came with Wi-Fi built in, gigabit ethernet and USB. Also introduced was the PlayStation Eye camera that would be used for video chat and later PlayStation Move. PlayStation Network was also introduced in this part of the presentation allowing users to play online, download games and much more.
Now to the games with Phil Harrison, many will remember the famous duck demo where a bath was filled with ducks to demonstrate the tremendous power of the PlayStation 3. Rendered in beautiful 1080p at full 60 frames per second the demo solidified the outstanding performance that PlayStation 3 was able to provide to gamers. As well as this demo, Phil introduced a number of other demos that demonstrated how immersive the graphics could be on PlayStation 3 and how game creators would be able to tell new stories by taking advantage of Cell and RSX. As well as game demos, Phil showed the other media capabilities of PS3 by streaming 12 HD videos simultaneously using the Cell broadband engine.
After the demos, Kaz Hirai returned to the stage to show what developers had been working on for PlayStation 3. EA showed off content from their sports titles such as Fight Night 3 demonstrating the ultra realistic graphics capable on the system. Square Enix demonstrated a Final Fantasy demo on PlayStation 3, this was a technical demonstration of what Final Fantasy 7 could look like with utilising the power of Cell and RSX. Unfortunately a remake was not confirmed. Other developers and publishers such as Insomniac Games, Koei, Factor 5, Kojima Productions and Rockstar games showed their support for the console. Kojima even confirmed Metal Gear Solid 4 for the PlayStation 3 computer entertainment system. Gran Turismo Next Generation was also confirmed for the system.
Other titles shown from third parties were F1 next Gen, Ni-Oh, Devil may Cry, Mobile Suit Gundam, Tekken and Red Dead Redemption. Sony also demonstrated their own Gran Turismo and Killzone titles for PlayStation 3. Sony confirmed new IP for the next generation of gaming starting with Resistance: Fall of Man, Eyedentity, Fifth Phantom Saga, Heavenly Sword, WarHawk, Killing Day and Motorstorm. Finally, Kutaragi unvieled the PlayStation 3 at the end of the conference to huge applause from the audience.
At this conference, Sony solidified themselves as the primary choice for the next generation of systems. Of course this would all be undone at next years E3. Despite a sluggish start, the PlayStation 3 has come very far and now has a huge library of exclusive and third party games and has sold over 87 million worldwide making it a successful console.
Can't believe it's been 10 years! What was your reaction to this great conference? Did it give you confidence in the future of PlayStation, how did you feel after the E3 2006 conference? Do you think Sony were able to turn the tide in their favour or do you still see the PS3 as a wasted potential. Discuss.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtZ-rK349aY
