Phil Harrisons GDC Keynote details

[wraggster]

Via Neoseeker comes leaked details of Phil Harrisons GDC Speech:

Details from Phil Harrison- Sony Computer Worldwide Studios
Keynote at GDC March 7th 2007:

Anouncements:

Firmware update available on the 8th for North America/Japan and Asia. European PS3's will be preloaded with this latest update.

Features of this latest firmware include:

More refined PS Store frontend
Playstation Network integrity enhanced
Wallpapers from pictures
Ability to change background colours
Sony Connect Store for music and movies added to the PS Store. Hundreds of trailers/full films/song videos and mps3's available for download.
Playstation Card option in PS Store enabled.
Playstation Lifestyle- Similar to my space/youtube. User generated content and experiences are the key.
+ more.

Removal of Emotion Engine chips in PS3's in NA and Japan to follow in April. Reason for this is to reduce costs and focus on enhanced opportunities via software. Benefits include the ability to upscale selected PSone/PS2 games to 1080i/720p.

Lots of development talk.
Release dates for key games. Warhawk in June/July 2007. Heavenly Sword delayed. Killzone and MGS4 in late 2007.

New content on PS Store available on the 8th:

Tekken 6 trailer
Lair demo & trailer
Rainbow Six Vegas demo
EA: Skate trailer
Battlefield Bad Company trailer
Warhawk demo
Virtua Fighter 5 demo
Virtua Tennis 3 demo & trailer
GRAW 2: trailer
Mortal Kombat 2 game
Killzone trailer

Killzone demo for May.

More details. Stay tuned on the 7th.

[Terial]

So.... does this mean that all PS3's with Emotion Engines will loose Emotion Engine functionality when they're flashed with this new firmware?

[hksrb25s14]

nah, it's to make the PS3's cheaper, my thing is would this affect the ones with it??? I mean with upscale selected PSone/PS2 games to 1080i/720p be enable for the old PS3??? lol I'm sick of playing PS2 games with 480 ><.

[jerrt]

the way i see it is it will happen like this:
when they get the emulation nailed down they will use the firmware to disable the hardware chip and allow the software to work. granted. i would rather have the option to choose between the two. but i'm sure it would be hard to make a firmware that detected the hardware and allowed for a switch between the two.

i'd like to get some more info on the technical aspects of this, either way, i just want the best options available. [:

oh, and it looks like it will be big doings at the GDC this week, i can't wait. i've always said that the only way to stay a head of the hacking scene is to make a product better. it looks like the ps3 is gaining a little ground. [:

[yoshinatsu]

So.... does this mean that all PS3's with Emotion Engines will loose Emotion Engine functionality when they're flashed with this new firmware?

I don't think so. It just means that new PS3s will not contain the Emotion Engine. I thought of that. We all doomed.
Oh, I live in Europe. I was doomed either way.

[Terial]

but i'm sure it would be hard to make a firmware that detected the hardware and allowed for a switch between the two.
[:

They do it with the PSP. and the architect of the hardware would be different w/o the emotion Engine, so of course it would have to detect between different harware, or sony would have to release two different firmwares with each update, unless they just screwed their early adopters by not dicerning between the different hardware... and I'd be a mad mother... anyway, the PS3 is probably going to have HUGE bugs when this happens, at least for people with Emotion Engines. And it PS2s are selling for around a benjamin, how expensive could it REALLY be to slap a Emotion Engine into the PS3? couldn't be more than 75 bucks at most I wouldn't think...