When Sony unveiled the first details about its new PlayStation2 game console, it not only presented a new high in video game technology, it challenged the computer world’s conventional thinking.
Computer hardware always has followed the axiom of Intel executive Gordon Moore, who stated that companies should double the speed of their fastest processor every 18 months. Unlike computers, which are upgraded regularly, video game consoles are closed systems that are replaced every five or six years. Their evolution typically has been fairly linear – eight-bit games of the mid-’80s, replaced by 16-bit Genesis and Super Nintendo, replaced by 32-bit PlayStation and similarly powerful 64-bit Nintendo 64.
Sega even followed Moore’s logic with the release of Dreamcast, its new 128-bit system. Dreamcast has twice the processor with about 10 times the graphics-rendering abilities of Nintendo 64 and PlayStation.
Sony, on the other hand, chose an entirely new direction for its PlayStation2. Instead of simply doubling the size of his processor, Sony Computer Entertainment President Ken Kutaragi had his engineers evaluate the processes that define game performance. He then expanded these processes exponentially, creating a highly specialized processor that completely changes the face of gaming.
Sheer Power
Kutaragi is unique among game company executives in that his traditional background is in engineering. In the early ’90s Sony placed Kutaragi in charge of the team designing the Nintendo PlayStation, a CD-ROM peripheral that Sony and Nintendo were co-creating for the Super Nintendo game console.
At the heart of PlayStation2, which is scheduled to be released in Japan on March 4, 2000, and which will retail for 39,800 Yen (about $298 U.S.), is a custom processor Sony has dubbed the “Emotion Engine.”
While most Pentium III computers can outperform the Emotion Engine’s 300-megahertz processor on many levels, the Emotion Engine has the power where it counts – graphics rendering.
Sony has worked hard to educate the public about its technological slight-of-hand, but the big news is PlayStation2’s performance. Computer-rendered 3-D characters are drawn by lacing together flat polygons with textured skins like a mosaic. The more with which polygons artists have to work, the smoother their art looks.
Over the last several years, much of the evolution in electronic games has come in the form of generating more polygons. Hence, early attempts at 3-D images such as the arcade games I,Robot, Virtual Fighter and Hard Drivin’ had crude graphics with objects that looked like they were built with blocks.
PlayStation, which set a new standard for home 3-D graphics when it was released in 1995, generates about 360,000 polygons per second. Dreamcast, which follows the standard “double the speed” philosophy, generates 3 million polygons per second, and you can see the difference.
Characters on PlayStation tend to look somewhat robotic. They have rubbery-looking skin, stiff joints and plasticized hair. The better-made Dreamcast characters have subtle limbs, clothes that wrinkle like cloth instead of flexing like skin, and hair that looks like it comes in strands instead of sheets.
PlayStation2 generates 66 million raw polygons per second. While that ridiculously fast rendering rate slows down when you factor in effects such as lighting and curved surfaces, PlayStation2’s performance is still staggering. Even adjusting for fog, lighting and curved surfaces, PlayStation2 generates about 16 million polygons per second, more than five times the graphics performance of Dreamcast. And polygonal performance is only the beginning.
Sony designed the console around a DVD drive, meaning that by definition, PlayStation has built-in AC3 Dolby Digital Sound and MPEG 2 video – a video compression standard that produces a clearer picture than VHS videotape.
During last month’s Tokyo Game Show, Sony dropped a bomb on the electronics industry when it announced PlayStation2 also would be able to play DVD movies. But this is not the only way Sony has diverged from convention. PlayStation2 will contain the original PlayStation’s architecture, so old run favorites such as Crash Bandicoot will work on the new console.
While running PlayStation games on PlayStation2 will not enhance their look or game play, it means consumers will not have to amuse themselves with one or two games while waiting for new ones. There are more than 3,000 games for PlayStation worldwide, several hundred of which are available in the United States.
No game company has made a backward compatible console since the 1984 release of the Atari 7800, which played games from the Atari 2600.
PlayStation2, expected to be released in the U.S. in 11 months, can sit as a horizontal or vertical console, much like a PC.
GAMES ARE IN THE WORKS
Do not be scared off by Sony’s 39,800 yen retail price (about $400 U.S.). The original PlayStation debuted in Japan on March 4, 1995, for the same price, then launched in the United States on Sept. 9, 1995, for $299. Most industry experts expect PlayStation2 to carry the same U.S. price as the original console and a release date of Sept. 9, 2000.
While they prepare for the Japanese and American launch dates, Sony executives are using this time to attract game publishers to make titles for their system. More than 150 companies have signed letters of intent to make games for the system.
Most importantly, several companies that have not supported Sega’s Dreamcast have agreed to back PlayStation2. Square Soft already has announced its first PlayStation2 title, a highly cinematic action adventure called “The Bouncer.”
Interestingly, Square Soft executives have decided to release “Final Fantasy IX,” their most anticipated game, for the original PlayStation. “That will allow owners of both systems to play the game,” says Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, “since the new PlayStation will be backward compatible.”
Electronic Arts, America’s largest independent game company, already has announced projects for PlayStation2 as well. So has Enix, one of Japan’s top role-playing game publishers.
In the end, game consoles are only as good as the games that have been designed for them. With more than 80 games announced for PlayStation2 by many of the industry’s top publishers, Sony is off to a very strong start.
