1
00:00:04,400 --> 00:00:07,800
Speaker 1: Welcome to text Tuff, a production from I Heart Radio.

2
00:00:12,080 --> 00:00:14,800
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,

3
00:00:14,960 --> 00:00:17,720
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio

4
00:00:18,000 --> 00:00:21,360
Speaker 1: and I love all things tech, and it is time

5
00:00:21,400 --> 00:00:24,960
Speaker 1: to continue our dive into the history and evolution of

6
00:00:25,000 --> 00:00:29,680
Speaker 1: the PlayStation line of consoles. In our last episode in

7
00:00:29,720 --> 00:00:33,080
Speaker 1: this series, which was the second one, I talked about

8
00:00:33,120 --> 00:00:36,000
Speaker 1: how the success of the PS one led right into

9
00:00:36,080 --> 00:00:39,920
Speaker 1: the even bigger success of the PS two. This is

10
00:00:39,960 --> 00:00:43,840
Speaker 1: one of those rare cases where the sequel outperforms the original.

11
00:00:44,320 --> 00:00:48,160
Speaker 1: The PlayStation two was a phenomenal success. I also talked

12
00:00:48,159 --> 00:00:51,360
Speaker 1: about how the dual shock controller debut late into the

13
00:00:51,400 --> 00:00:54,320
Speaker 1: life cycle of the PS one, and that the PS

14
00:00:54,360 --> 00:00:58,160
Speaker 1: two version became the real basis for all dual shock

15
00:00:58,280 --> 00:01:02,480
Speaker 1: style controllers moving for word with some exceptions. But I

16
00:01:02,520 --> 00:01:06,280
Speaker 1: didn't spend any time talking about how those controllers actually work,

17
00:01:06,680 --> 00:01:08,800
Speaker 1: so I thought I should give a moment to do

18
00:01:08,840 --> 00:01:10,959
Speaker 1: that before we continue down the path of the history

19
00:01:11,000 --> 00:01:13,280
Speaker 1: of the consoles. Because this is tech stuff, we do

20
00:01:13,400 --> 00:01:17,039
Speaker 1: talk about how tech works. And besides, I like using

21
00:01:17,080 --> 00:01:20,080
Speaker 1: these histories as a way to introduce people to different

22
00:01:20,080 --> 00:01:25,600
Speaker 1: types of technologies. So the original PlayStation one controller did

23
00:01:25,640 --> 00:01:30,399
Speaker 1: not have the analog thumbsticks. It had fourteen buttons, and

24
00:01:30,440 --> 00:01:32,920
Speaker 1: those were the eight that I've already mentioned in the

25
00:01:32,920 --> 00:01:35,759
Speaker 1: previous episode, the four direction buttons on the left side

26
00:01:35,840 --> 00:01:38,280
Speaker 1: and the four action buttons on the right side. Can't

27
00:01:38,280 --> 00:01:40,839
Speaker 1: wait for people to yell at me for calling something

28
00:01:40,880 --> 00:01:45,559
Speaker 1: that was pink red or whatever. But I was looking

29
00:01:45,560 --> 00:01:47,319
Speaker 1: at a really bad photo and I didn't have my

30
00:01:47,319 --> 00:01:49,280
Speaker 1: PlayStation controller in front of me, and this just tells

31
00:01:49,320 --> 00:01:52,800
Speaker 1: you I don't play the PlayStation very much anyway. The

32
00:01:52,840 --> 00:01:56,160
Speaker 1: action that the buttons did all depended on the game.

33
00:01:56,400 --> 00:01:58,919
Speaker 1: Right it might be a jump button or a weapon button,

34
00:01:59,200 --> 00:02:02,560
Speaker 1: or it might have you speak or whatever. In between

35
00:02:02,600 --> 00:02:05,279
Speaker 1: those two banks of buttons are a pair of buttons

36
00:02:05,400 --> 00:02:09,600
Speaker 1: labeled start and select, and typically games would map these

37
00:02:09,639 --> 00:02:13,240
Speaker 1: two functions like pause or an inventory button, or to

38
00:02:13,280 --> 00:02:16,280
Speaker 1: back out of a menu or something similar to that. Then,

39
00:02:16,440 --> 00:02:18,760
Speaker 1: on the back of the controller, or rather on the

40
00:02:18,760 --> 00:02:20,960
Speaker 1: the side of the controller that faces the television. Some

41
00:02:21,000 --> 00:02:24,200
Speaker 1: people call it the front of the controller, um, but anyway,

42
00:02:24,240 --> 00:02:26,520
Speaker 1: it's facing the same way you are toward the TV.

43
00:02:27,240 --> 00:02:29,680
Speaker 1: There are four shoulder buttons, two on the left and

44
00:02:29,680 --> 00:02:33,040
Speaker 1: two on the right, mounted in a top button bottom configuration,

45
00:02:33,480 --> 00:02:38,280
Speaker 1: and under each button inside the controller is a metal disc.

46
00:02:38,800 --> 00:02:42,480
Speaker 1: Pressing on the button means that the button presses against

47
00:02:42,480 --> 00:02:46,880
Speaker 1: the metal disc, which deforms, and a thin conductive strip

48
00:02:46,960 --> 00:02:50,280
Speaker 1: that's mounted above a circuit board inside the controller is

49
00:02:50,320 --> 00:02:53,640
Speaker 1: pushed so that it makes some contact with that circuit board,

50
00:02:53,680 --> 00:02:55,919
Speaker 1: and that acts like an on switch in a regular

51
00:02:55,919 --> 00:02:59,400
Speaker 1: old circuit. It completes a circuit. So when you press

52
00:02:59,480 --> 00:03:02,200
Speaker 1: down on the button, you complete that circuit. You let

53
00:03:02,240 --> 00:03:04,760
Speaker 1: current move through that particular path, and that sends a

54
00:03:04,800 --> 00:03:08,400
Speaker 1: signal to the game system that that specific button has

55
00:03:08,440 --> 00:03:11,840
Speaker 1: been pressed and that the game maps that to whatever

56
00:03:11,919 --> 00:03:16,200
Speaker 1: input it's uh it's it's keyed to, so that your

57
00:03:16,360 --> 00:03:18,960
Speaker 1: character or whatever in the game does whatever it is

58
00:03:19,000 --> 00:03:22,799
Speaker 1: supposed to do. The PS two's dual shock two controllers

59
00:03:23,120 --> 00:03:27,520
Speaker 1: introduced a new feature with those buttons. They were pressure sensitive,

60
00:03:27,680 --> 00:03:29,440
Speaker 1: so it wasn't just that you could push the buttons,

61
00:03:29,639 --> 00:03:32,640
Speaker 1: it was how you push the buttons that would determine

62
00:03:32,800 --> 00:03:36,640
Speaker 1: actions in certain games. So game developers could actually design

63
00:03:36,720 --> 00:03:40,040
Speaker 1: games in which the gameplay would change depending on how

64
00:03:40,080 --> 00:03:42,880
Speaker 1: hard they pressed a button. So a game developer could

65
00:03:42,880 --> 00:03:45,280
Speaker 1: program a game so that if you tapped on a button,

66
00:03:45,360 --> 00:03:47,760
Speaker 1: you might do a little hop in the game, but

67
00:03:47,880 --> 00:03:50,560
Speaker 1: pushing harder on the button would make your character do

68
00:03:50,640 --> 00:03:53,600
Speaker 1: a full jump in the game. Or you could map

69
00:03:53,640 --> 00:03:56,080
Speaker 1: a melee attack buttons so that if you tapped on it,

70
00:03:56,200 --> 00:03:58,760
Speaker 1: you just give a little love tap to somebody, and

71
00:03:58,800 --> 00:04:01,080
Speaker 1: if you held the button down nice and hard, you

72
00:04:01,120 --> 00:04:03,880
Speaker 1: to really wallop them. So how did they do that

73
00:04:04,040 --> 00:04:06,520
Speaker 1: from a tech perspective, Well, it's similar to what I

74
00:04:06,560 --> 00:04:09,880
Speaker 1: already described, except when you push lightly on the button,

75
00:04:10,080 --> 00:04:14,240
Speaker 1: only a small portion of that conductive strip would make

76
00:04:14,360 --> 00:04:17,080
Speaker 1: contact with the circuit would be pressed down and make

77
00:04:17,120 --> 00:04:19,400
Speaker 1: a light point of contact on the circuit. If you

78
00:04:19,440 --> 00:04:23,120
Speaker 1: pressed harder than more of the conductive strip would make

79
00:04:23,160 --> 00:04:26,279
Speaker 1: more of a contact with a circuit board, and the

80
00:04:26,360 --> 00:04:29,640
Speaker 1: change in conductivity gets registered by the PS two. It's

81
00:04:29,680 --> 00:04:33,520
Speaker 1: essentially metering them, it's measuring it. So the PS two

82
00:04:33,560 --> 00:04:36,400
Speaker 1: is looking not just from a for a signal and

83
00:04:36,440 --> 00:04:39,400
Speaker 1: where it's from, but how strong that signal is if

84
00:04:39,440 --> 00:04:41,640
Speaker 1: you can think of it that way and then interprets

85
00:04:41,680 --> 00:04:46,600
Speaker 1: that as the appropriate in game action. Now I should

86
00:04:46,600 --> 00:04:48,920
Speaker 1: add that this is a feature that wouldn't last through

87
00:04:49,000 --> 00:04:53,720
Speaker 1: all dual shock controllers after the dual Shock too, Sony

88
00:04:53,760 --> 00:04:56,440
Speaker 1: would end up dropping this further down the line, and

89
00:04:56,480 --> 00:04:59,600
Speaker 1: that caused some gamers frustration because it meant that if

90
00:04:59,600 --> 00:05:03,680
Speaker 1: they were playing older games on newer consoles. Let's say

91
00:05:03,720 --> 00:05:06,280
Speaker 1: you buy a new console that's got some backwards compatibility

92
00:05:06,279 --> 00:05:09,320
Speaker 1: to it and you want to play an old game

93
00:05:09,400 --> 00:05:12,159
Speaker 1: that had this capability build into it. Well, your current

94
00:05:12,200 --> 00:05:16,479
Speaker 1: controller no longer has that function, so their game is

95
00:05:16,680 --> 00:05:20,320
Speaker 1: somewhat hampered because of it. That's one of the risks

96
00:05:20,720 --> 00:05:24,800
Speaker 1: of including new features in hardware, because further down the line,

97
00:05:24,839 --> 00:05:28,640
Speaker 1: in a future iteration, you might drop that feature and

98
00:05:28,720 --> 00:05:32,800
Speaker 1: you might lose some access to legacy software. This supplies

99
00:05:32,839 --> 00:05:36,760
Speaker 1: not just to video game consoles, to everything really anyway.

100
00:05:37,040 --> 00:05:38,720
Speaker 1: At that point, you could argue that some of those

101
00:05:38,720 --> 00:05:41,120
Speaker 1: games would turn into abandoned ware because you couldn't play

102
00:05:41,200 --> 00:05:45,200
Speaker 1: them properly. Getting back to the controller, the thumbsticks are

103
00:05:45,240 --> 00:05:49,159
Speaker 1: analog and they rely on potentiometers, which in turn are

104
00:05:49,440 --> 00:05:54,360
Speaker 1: variable resistors, and that means that these components create electrical

105
00:05:54,520 --> 00:05:58,120
Speaker 1: resistance in a circuit. And these components are adjustable so

106
00:05:58,160 --> 00:06:01,200
Speaker 1: that you can change the amount of electrical resistance that

107
00:06:01,360 --> 00:06:04,760
Speaker 1: is applied and yeah, if you're like me, a sense

108
00:06:04,800 --> 00:06:07,200
Speaker 1: like that doesn't necessarily clear stuff up right away, So

109
00:06:07,279 --> 00:06:10,800
Speaker 1: let's break it all down. Resistance is what it sounds like.

110
00:06:10,880 --> 00:06:14,640
Speaker 1: It describes how a particular material resists the flow of

111
00:06:14,720 --> 00:06:18,400
Speaker 1: electricity through it. And it's kind of like friction. If

112
00:06:18,440 --> 00:06:20,480
Speaker 1: you think of a surface, like a rough surface, having

113
00:06:20,520 --> 00:06:23,359
Speaker 1: a lot of friction, trying to push something across it

114
00:06:23,400 --> 00:06:26,279
Speaker 1: is really hard. Trying to push something across a very

115
00:06:26,320 --> 00:06:29,240
Speaker 1: smooth surface is much easier. You still have friction, but

116
00:06:29,360 --> 00:06:32,520
Speaker 1: not nearly as much. Well, the same is true with

117
00:06:32,560 --> 00:06:37,200
Speaker 1: electrical conductivity. Conductive materials have some level of electrical resistance.

118
00:06:37,560 --> 00:06:40,160
Speaker 1: Some of them allow electricity to pass through pretty easily

119
00:06:40,560 --> 00:06:45,720
Speaker 1: and some don't. And like friction, typically the byproduct you get,

120
00:06:46,000 --> 00:06:49,039
Speaker 1: you know, because you're losing that energy somehow. Energy cannot

121
00:06:49,040 --> 00:06:52,280
Speaker 1: be created or destroyed, but it can be converted. Instead

122
00:06:52,279 --> 00:06:54,599
Speaker 1: of that being electrical energy, you're losing it in the

123
00:06:54,640 --> 00:06:58,240
Speaker 1: form of heat. So your electronics heat up because they're

124
00:06:58,279 --> 00:07:01,680
Speaker 1: not perfect conductors. And uh so that's that's kind of

125
00:07:01,680 --> 00:07:04,520
Speaker 1: a basic description of electrical resistance, and a lot of

126
00:07:04,560 --> 00:07:09,520
Speaker 1: stuff can affect the resistance of a particular type of material.

127
00:07:10,080 --> 00:07:12,800
Speaker 1: You know, you can't just say that copper has a

128
00:07:12,880 --> 00:07:17,520
Speaker 1: specific electrical resistance, because things like the thickness of a

129
00:07:17,560 --> 00:07:21,440
Speaker 1: copper wire can determine that the thinner a copper wire,

130
00:07:21,480 --> 00:07:23,520
Speaker 1: the higher the resistance. So if you have a thick

131
00:07:23,640 --> 00:07:27,000
Speaker 1: copper cable has a much lower electrical resistance than a

132
00:07:27,040 --> 00:07:30,400
Speaker 1: thin copper wire. But also temperature can affect it. If

133
00:07:30,440 --> 00:07:35,800
Speaker 1: you cool conductors down, then their resistance decreases. That's why

134
00:07:35,840 --> 00:07:39,000
Speaker 1: things like the large Hadron collider have these super cooled

135
00:07:39,920 --> 00:07:43,920
Speaker 1: elements to make super conductors, and those are conductors in

136
00:07:43,960 --> 00:07:47,520
Speaker 1: which you don't lose any electrical energy at all to heat.

137
00:07:47,520 --> 00:07:49,640
Speaker 1: They just what you put in is what's getting out

138
00:07:49,680 --> 00:07:55,480
Speaker 1: the other side. Essentially, potentiometers are slightly different. They have

139
00:07:55,600 --> 00:07:59,040
Speaker 1: components that let you adjust the amount of resistance that's

140
00:07:59,040 --> 00:08:00,760
Speaker 1: in a circuit. You can turn it up or turn

141
00:08:00,800 --> 00:08:03,520
Speaker 1: it down, and that allows you to control the amount

142
00:08:03,520 --> 00:08:05,840
Speaker 1: of current flowing through a circuit, assuming you've got a

143
00:08:05,880 --> 00:08:08,680
Speaker 1: constant voltage. And if you want to think about it

144
00:08:08,720 --> 00:08:11,960
Speaker 1: in terms of pipes and water, a potentiometer is kind

145
00:08:12,000 --> 00:08:14,760
Speaker 1: of like an adjustable valve that can either let more

146
00:08:14,960 --> 00:08:18,240
Speaker 1: or less water through it. And I'm oversimplifying here just

147
00:08:18,320 --> 00:08:20,520
Speaker 1: to kind of give you an analogy, but you get

148
00:08:20,560 --> 00:08:23,760
Speaker 1: the point. So back to the controller. The thumbsticks on

149
00:08:23,800 --> 00:08:27,920
Speaker 1: the dual shock controller have two potentiometers each, and they're

150
00:08:28,280 --> 00:08:31,160
Speaker 1: under the controllers and they're mounted at right angles to

151
00:08:31,200 --> 00:08:35,000
Speaker 1: one another. And the what happens is when you move

152
00:08:35,040 --> 00:08:39,920
Speaker 1: the thumbstick, it changes the potentiometers slightly, and current flows

153
00:08:39,960 --> 00:08:42,720
Speaker 1: through these at a steady rate. As you move the thumbstick,

154
00:08:42,800 --> 00:08:46,720
Speaker 1: it changes the resistance in those potentiometers. And by monitoring

155
00:08:46,920 --> 00:08:50,240
Speaker 1: the current flowing through these circuits, the PlayStation can determine

156
00:08:50,240 --> 00:08:53,760
Speaker 1: the exact position of that thumbstick. So moving it one

157
00:08:53,800 --> 00:08:57,000
Speaker 1: way might affect the electrical resistance of one of those

158
00:08:57,000 --> 00:09:00,760
Speaker 1: two potentiometers and not the other. But owing that, the

159
00:09:00,800 --> 00:09:03,880
Speaker 1: PlayStation knows which way the thumbstick was moved and exactly

160
00:09:03,920 --> 00:09:06,600
Speaker 1: how far it was moved, because this is in degrees, right,

161
00:09:07,679 --> 00:09:10,720
Speaker 1: Maybe you move it one way, both potentiometers increase the

162
00:09:10,720 --> 00:09:13,960
Speaker 1: electrical resistance. You move it another way, both the potentiometers

163
00:09:14,040 --> 00:09:17,160
Speaker 1: decrease the electrical resistance. All of this is invisible to

164
00:09:17,240 --> 00:09:19,480
Speaker 1: the player. You know, we would not be aware of it,

165
00:09:19,720 --> 00:09:21,960
Speaker 1: but this is how the PlayStation is able to determine

166
00:09:22,000 --> 00:09:25,160
Speaker 1: exactly where the thumbstick is at any given moment, and

167
00:09:25,200 --> 00:09:29,400
Speaker 1: it gives very precise controls to the player. So a

168
00:09:29,480 --> 00:09:32,560
Speaker 1: game developer can create a game where you can have

169
00:09:32,640 --> 00:09:38,080
Speaker 1: these very precise requirements for players to maneuver their characters through.

170
00:09:38,400 --> 00:09:41,760
Speaker 1: It's really what allowed game developers to create that frame

171
00:09:41,960 --> 00:09:46,760
Speaker 1: perfect kind of rage inducing platforming game that I am

172
00:09:46,840 --> 00:09:51,400
Speaker 1: so bad at. Anyway, that's how the thumbsticks work, and

173
00:09:51,520 --> 00:09:54,840
Speaker 1: it's all about converting that information into essentially a location

174
00:09:54,880 --> 00:09:57,000
Speaker 1: on an X Y access. It's just the same as

175
00:09:57,000 --> 00:09:58,600
Speaker 1: if you were to get a bunch of chart paper

176
00:09:59,160 --> 00:10:01,720
Speaker 1: and you were to start plotting points on the chart.

177
00:10:02,240 --> 00:10:04,040
Speaker 1: It's the same sort of thing. The points would represent

178
00:10:04,080 --> 00:10:06,800
Speaker 1: the position of the thumbsticks. It's pretty neat and and

179
00:10:07,400 --> 00:10:11,520
Speaker 1: I think it was a clever way to engineer these

180
00:10:11,600 --> 00:10:15,160
Speaker 1: uh these thumbsticks in an analog way. Now, not all

181
00:10:15,240 --> 00:10:20,080
Speaker 1: games support this feature, right Like some games might have

182
00:10:20,120 --> 00:10:21,600
Speaker 1: it where you have a character and if you push

183
00:10:21,679 --> 00:10:24,280
Speaker 1: the thumbstick a little bit, your character starts to creep

184
00:10:24,320 --> 00:10:27,079
Speaker 1: across the screen, and if you push the thumbstick all

185
00:10:27,080 --> 00:10:30,400
Speaker 1: the way to its stopping point, then your character will

186
00:10:30,400 --> 00:10:32,920
Speaker 1: break out into a run. But some games take a

187
00:10:32,960 --> 00:10:37,520
Speaker 1: more digital approach, meaning it's either happening or it's not happening.

188
00:10:37,559 --> 00:10:40,080
Speaker 1: So if you push the thumbstick a little or a lot,

189
00:10:40,160 --> 00:10:44,200
Speaker 1: your character moves the same either way that that sometimes happens.

190
00:10:44,200 --> 00:10:46,640
Speaker 1: That's that's sort of a good way of understanding the

191
00:10:46,640 --> 00:10:49,760
Speaker 1: difference between digital and analog. Analog is a is a

192
00:10:49,840 --> 00:10:55,320
Speaker 1: nice smooth curve, right, it's it's degrees, it's uh, you're

193
00:10:55,360 --> 00:10:59,280
Speaker 1: moving in a nice smooth motion from one state to another.

194
00:10:59,679 --> 00:11:03,480
Speaker 1: Dig All is much more step like. It's either on

195
00:11:03,640 --> 00:11:07,560
Speaker 1: or off, or it's in steps, so it has a

196
00:11:07,640 --> 00:11:12,040
Speaker 1: discrete amount that is added with each step. It's not

197
00:11:12,200 --> 00:11:14,640
Speaker 1: something that's a smooth curve. Now, you can have lots

198
00:11:14,679 --> 00:11:17,640
Speaker 1: of tiny little steps, and if you have enough tiny

199
00:11:17,679 --> 00:11:21,079
Speaker 1: little steps, you can simulate a smooth curve. But in reality,

200
00:11:21,080 --> 00:11:22,800
Speaker 1: if you were to zoom weigh in, you would see

201
00:11:22,800 --> 00:11:25,160
Speaker 1: it's more like a staircase, not a not an unbroken

202
00:11:25,160 --> 00:11:29,280
Speaker 1: curve the way analog is. Then there's the vibrating component

203
00:11:29,320 --> 00:11:31,400
Speaker 1: to the dual shot controller and this works the same

204
00:11:31,440 --> 00:11:34,240
Speaker 1: way vibrating motors work and stuff like cell phones, and

205
00:11:34,240 --> 00:11:37,720
Speaker 1: it's pretty simple gun electric motor or in the case

206
00:11:37,760 --> 00:11:40,520
Speaker 1: of a dual shot controller, you actually have two electric motors.

207
00:11:40,520 --> 00:11:43,400
Speaker 1: They're both in the base on either side of the

208
00:11:43,440 --> 00:11:47,160
Speaker 1: controller where your your hands go, and on the shaft

209
00:11:47,280 --> 00:11:51,760
Speaker 1: of this electric motor is a slightly offset unbalanced weight,

210
00:11:52,320 --> 00:11:55,720
Speaker 1: and so as the shaft spins, that unbalanced weight causes

211
00:11:55,800 --> 00:11:59,319
Speaker 1: some wobble in the electric motor. Except the electric motor

212
00:11:59,400 --> 00:12:02,600
Speaker 1: is actually firmly mounted inside the controller, it can't wobble

213
00:12:02,640 --> 00:12:06,760
Speaker 1: because it's mounted to a larger structure. However, that wobble

214
00:12:06,800 --> 00:12:09,520
Speaker 1: then gets transmitted to the controller as a whole as

215
00:12:09,559 --> 00:12:13,240
Speaker 1: this sort of vibrating, buzzing thing. And that's where that

216
00:12:13,400 --> 00:12:16,439
Speaker 1: technology comes from as how it works, and it's used

217
00:12:16,440 --> 00:12:18,800
Speaker 1: in all sorts of stuff like cell phones, for example,

218
00:12:18,880 --> 00:12:20,959
Speaker 1: have these If you have a cellphone with a vibrate function,

219
00:12:21,240 --> 00:12:23,679
Speaker 1: that's what's happening. So let's jump back to the PS

220
00:12:23,720 --> 00:12:26,480
Speaker 1: two now. As I mentioned in the last episode, the

221
00:12:26,520 --> 00:12:29,000
Speaker 1: PS two had a phenomenal launch and it would go

222
00:12:29,040 --> 00:12:32,320
Speaker 1: on to become the best selling home console of all

223
00:12:32,440 --> 00:12:35,160
Speaker 1: time as of the recording of this podcast, And in

224
00:12:35,200 --> 00:12:38,239
Speaker 1: case you're wondering, second place would go to the Nintendo

225
00:12:38,440 --> 00:12:42,480
Speaker 1: d S handheld system. And even that's about a million

226
00:12:42,559 --> 00:12:46,320
Speaker 1: units behind the PlayStation two. Pretty phenomenal, especially when you

227
00:12:46,360 --> 00:12:49,360
Speaker 1: look at the you know, the expense of both of

228
00:12:49,400 --> 00:12:53,400
Speaker 1: those consoles, and the fact that the handheld one being portable,

229
00:12:53,480 --> 00:12:56,720
Speaker 1: has its own level of of pros and cons to it.

230
00:12:57,240 --> 00:12:59,720
Speaker 1: I mentioned in the previous episode that Sony did not

231
00:13:00,040 --> 00:13:03,080
Speaker 1: jump on the internet bandwagon right away. Back during the

232
00:13:03,080 --> 00:13:06,719
Speaker 1: original PlayStation days, Sony did introduce a link cable that

233
00:13:06,800 --> 00:13:11,280
Speaker 1: would let players link to PlayStation systems together for network play.

234
00:13:11,320 --> 00:13:13,960
Speaker 1: You could do system to system play. However, that also

235
00:13:14,040 --> 00:13:16,720
Speaker 1: required both of these consoles to be connected to their

236
00:13:16,720 --> 00:13:20,000
Speaker 1: own respective television sets, so you would need to PS

237
00:13:20,080 --> 00:13:22,680
Speaker 1: ones and two televisions to make this work, but it

238
00:13:22,760 --> 00:13:26,280
Speaker 1: wasn't capable of connecting online. The PS two initially didn't

239
00:13:26,320 --> 00:13:29,680
Speaker 1: come out with any way to connect to the internet either. Instead,

240
00:13:29,960 --> 00:13:33,320
Speaker 1: two years after they launched the system, Sony released a

241
00:13:33,360 --> 00:13:36,720
Speaker 1: modem as a peripheral most of the PlayStation two models,

242
00:13:36,800 --> 00:13:38,880
Speaker 1: and keep in mind there were a lot of different

243
00:13:38,880 --> 00:13:41,920
Speaker 1: PlayStation two models. You can say PlayStation two and you've

244
00:13:41,920 --> 00:13:44,480
Speaker 1: got the same basic idea of what it is, but

245
00:13:44,520 --> 00:13:47,480
Speaker 1: there are a lot of variations. The company would refine

246
00:13:47,679 --> 00:13:51,319
Speaker 1: the design and production largely in an effort to streamline

247
00:13:51,360 --> 00:13:53,800
Speaker 1: things and also to cut down on costs over the

248
00:13:53,960 --> 00:13:56,320
Speaker 1: entire course of the life cycle of PlayStation two. Anyway,

249
00:13:56,640 --> 00:13:59,360
Speaker 1: the original ones had an expansion bay on the back

250
00:13:59,360 --> 00:14:01,240
Speaker 1: of the console. So if you looked at the back

251
00:14:01,280 --> 00:14:02,920
Speaker 1: of the console, you would see that there was a cover,

252
00:14:03,280 --> 00:14:04,840
Speaker 1: and you could take the cover off and it would

253
00:14:04,840 --> 00:14:08,040
Speaker 1: remove that cover to the bay. You could see the bay.

254
00:14:08,040 --> 00:14:10,080
Speaker 1: It was a compartment that was large enough to hold

255
00:14:10,120 --> 00:14:12,920
Speaker 1: a hard drive. Sony would also introduce hard drives that

256
00:14:12,960 --> 00:14:17,440
Speaker 1: you could purchase in addition to the base console, and

257
00:14:17,440 --> 00:14:20,560
Speaker 1: it also had a port that the cover would cover up.

258
00:14:20,880 --> 00:14:24,320
Speaker 1: Sony offered up a network adapter, which in North America

259
00:14:24,360 --> 00:14:26,760
Speaker 1: had a phone jack and an Ethernet port on it.

260
00:14:26,800 --> 00:14:29,480
Speaker 1: Everywhere else pretty much just stuck with the Ethernet port

261
00:14:29,960 --> 00:14:32,640
Speaker 1: and it would fit on the back of the console.

262
00:14:32,960 --> 00:14:35,640
Speaker 1: It would just plug directly into that that port, that

263
00:14:35,760 --> 00:14:38,040
Speaker 1: outlet I had talked about a second ago in the

264
00:14:38,080 --> 00:14:40,560
Speaker 1: back of the PS two. It did not fill up

265
00:14:40,600 --> 00:14:43,240
Speaker 1: the bay. It just covered up the bay. However, if

266
00:14:43,240 --> 00:14:45,560
Speaker 1: you wanted to get a hard drive, you would need

267
00:14:45,600 --> 00:14:48,720
Speaker 1: the network adapter and the hard drive. You would connect

268
00:14:48,920 --> 00:14:51,760
Speaker 1: the hard drive to the network adapter. Then you would

269
00:14:51,760 --> 00:14:54,360
Speaker 1: slide the hard drive into the bay. It would be

270
00:14:54,400 --> 00:14:57,080
Speaker 1: nestled in there. The network adapter would plug into the

271
00:14:57,080 --> 00:15:00,320
Speaker 1: outlet in the PS two, so the network adapter acted

272
00:15:00,320 --> 00:15:03,400
Speaker 1: as its own outlet for the hard drive. You couldn't

273
00:15:03,440 --> 00:15:06,320
Speaker 1: just bypass it. There were third party companies that would

274
00:15:06,320 --> 00:15:11,720
Speaker 1: make a type of UH plug that essentially acted like

275
00:15:11,760 --> 00:15:14,400
Speaker 1: the network adapter, except it didn't have a network adapter

276
00:15:14,520 --> 00:15:16,240
Speaker 1: in it. It was just the plug so that you

277
00:15:16,240 --> 00:15:19,200
Speaker 1: could use your own hard drive. But that's another story.

278
00:15:19,480 --> 00:15:22,840
Speaker 1: But now you could have online capabilities after running a

279
00:15:22,840 --> 00:15:25,720
Speaker 1: special startup disc that is in your PS two, and

280
00:15:25,760 --> 00:15:28,800
Speaker 1: you could play games online, certain ones, very few not

281
00:15:28,840 --> 00:15:31,840
Speaker 1: only if you had online capability, the hard drive would

282
00:15:31,880 --> 00:15:35,680
Speaker 1: let the PS to load more game data into the

283
00:15:35,720 --> 00:15:39,360
Speaker 1: memory area. Essentially, it was acting like memory and it

284
00:15:39,400 --> 00:15:43,520
Speaker 1: would bring loading times down during game play, and it

285
00:15:43,560 --> 00:15:45,360
Speaker 1: could also be used as a memory card. You could

286
00:15:45,440 --> 00:15:49,400
Speaker 1: store saves to the hard drive, for example. Some enterprising

287
00:15:49,440 --> 00:15:52,960
Speaker 1: gamers even figured out how to load full games onto

288
00:15:52,960 --> 00:15:55,960
Speaker 1: the hard drive using this system, and that removed the

289
00:15:55,960 --> 00:15:58,240
Speaker 1: need to have a disk to run certain games. It

290
00:15:58,320 --> 00:16:02,040
Speaker 1: also circumvented copy part action, so that would become something

291
00:16:02,080 --> 00:16:04,120
Speaker 1: of a headache for Sony down the line, but not

292
00:16:04,240 --> 00:16:06,000
Speaker 1: many people did it. The people who knew how to

293
00:16:06,000 --> 00:16:08,160
Speaker 1: do it, we're doing it like crazy, but but that

294
00:16:08,240 --> 00:16:11,400
Speaker 1: was a small percentage of the overall population. The PS

295
00:16:11,440 --> 00:16:14,400
Speaker 1: two would also feature an innovation that Sony would build

296
00:16:14,400 --> 00:16:17,000
Speaker 1: on later, and that would be the Eye Toy, and

297
00:16:17,080 --> 00:16:19,880
Speaker 1: that debut in two thousand three. The Eye Toy was

298
00:16:19,960 --> 00:16:23,359
Speaker 1: essentially a webcam. You would set it on your television

299
00:16:23,480 --> 00:16:25,520
Speaker 1: or a shell or whatever. You plug it into the

300
00:16:25,520 --> 00:16:28,040
Speaker 1: PS two. You would have to adjust the focus manually.

301
00:16:28,080 --> 00:16:29,680
Speaker 1: You know, you have to actually turn the lens to

302
00:16:29,880 --> 00:16:32,520
Speaker 1: get it and focus. And you could play certain games

303
00:16:32,560 --> 00:16:36,000
Speaker 1: through motion capture technology. One of my friends is actually

304
00:16:36,080 --> 00:16:38,240
Speaker 1: married to a guy who worked on the Eye Toy

305
00:16:38,320 --> 00:16:39,800
Speaker 1: back in the day, so I got to hear all

306
00:16:39,840 --> 00:16:41,680
Speaker 1: about it back when it was first launching. That was

307
00:16:41,680 --> 00:16:45,280
Speaker 1: pretty cool. A typical Eye Toy game would actually put

308
00:16:45,320 --> 00:16:47,800
Speaker 1: you in the middle of the action. You would see

309
00:16:47,880 --> 00:16:51,800
Speaker 1: a video image of yourself on the television. Your image

310
00:16:51,800 --> 00:16:53,400
Speaker 1: was captured by the Eye Toy, and so as you

311
00:16:53,400 --> 00:16:56,120
Speaker 1: would flail around on the screen, you would get attacked

312
00:16:56,160 --> 00:16:59,240
Speaker 1: by flying monkeys or whatever. So you'd swatted stuff that

313
00:16:59,320 --> 00:17:02,680
Speaker 1: you saw on the sreen and UH that's how gameplay

314
00:17:02,720 --> 00:17:06,119
Speaker 1: typically would unfold. The Eye Toy also featured a microphone

315
00:17:06,160 --> 00:17:08,560
Speaker 1: so it could pick up voice commands, so again it's

316
00:17:08,600 --> 00:17:13,000
Speaker 1: a little prescient. This was years before Microsoft would introduce

317
00:17:13,040 --> 00:17:16,320
Speaker 1: the Connect that wouldn't come out until The Eye Toy

318
00:17:16,600 --> 00:17:20,240
Speaker 1: wasn't quite as sophisticated as the Connect. That's putting it lightly,

319
00:17:20,320 --> 00:17:23,080
Speaker 1: but many of the same design concepts applied to both

320
00:17:23,119 --> 00:17:26,960
Speaker 1: pieces of hardware. Both have cameras and software or firmware.

321
00:17:27,080 --> 00:17:30,080
Speaker 1: They could interpret your movements as input commands for games,

322
00:17:30,560 --> 00:17:35,320
Speaker 1: and both were you could argue, criminally undersupported. Games using

323
00:17:35,320 --> 00:17:38,000
Speaker 1: the Sony Eye Toy were few and far between. From

324
00:17:38,000 --> 00:17:40,320
Speaker 1: what I can tell, there were a fewer than thirty

325
00:17:40,359 --> 00:17:43,840
Speaker 1: titles that actually required the Eye Toy, and only eight

326
00:17:43,880 --> 00:17:47,240
Speaker 1: of those were ever available in the United States. There

327
00:17:47,240 --> 00:17:50,600
Speaker 1: were some other games that included eye toy support so

328
00:17:50,680 --> 00:17:54,200
Speaker 1: as an option, not a requirement, but those were more

329
00:17:54,240 --> 00:17:58,280
Speaker 1: like games that had some added features. They weren't created

330
00:17:58,359 --> 00:18:01,640
Speaker 1: with the Eye Toy experience mind, and most of those

331
00:18:01,680 --> 00:18:04,560
Speaker 1: games would end up being really similar most of the

332
00:18:04,560 --> 00:18:07,159
Speaker 1: Eye toy games that you could buy, they were all

333
00:18:07,240 --> 00:18:09,760
Speaker 1: like variations on the same themes like rhythm games that

334
00:18:09,760 --> 00:18:14,000
Speaker 1: would require you to reach towards certain points around you

335
00:18:14,080 --> 00:18:16,240
Speaker 1: on a timed beat, so kind of like Beat Saber,

336
00:18:16,400 --> 00:18:19,119
Speaker 1: but on a very primitive level. Or there might be

337
00:18:19,160 --> 00:18:21,920
Speaker 1: a fighting game where you're you know, moving your arms around,

338
00:18:21,920 --> 00:18:24,680
Speaker 1: flailing wildly trying to fight off a boxer or martial

339
00:18:24,800 --> 00:18:28,440
Speaker 1: arts opponent. You know, the details changed from game to game,

340
00:18:28,520 --> 00:18:31,680
Speaker 1: but the basic gameplay was really similar across the board.

341
00:18:32,160 --> 00:18:36,359
Speaker 1: Microsoft would go through its own kind of the same

342
00:18:36,400 --> 00:18:39,359
Speaker 1: story with the Connect years later, and also the Second

343
00:18:39,359 --> 00:18:43,320
Speaker 1: Connect even after that, but that's a different story. Another

344
00:18:43,400 --> 00:18:46,600
Speaker 1: game type debuted on the PS two and that required

345
00:18:46,640 --> 00:18:50,879
Speaker 1: a peripheral and that would be singing games. Harmonics was

346
00:18:50,960 --> 00:18:53,719
Speaker 1: the first to do this with Karaoke Revolution in two

347
00:18:53,800 --> 00:18:57,960
Speaker 1: thousand three, which shipped with a Logitech headset that included

348
00:18:58,000 --> 00:19:01,639
Speaker 1: a microphone. Later, game like sing Star would launch with

349
00:19:01,760 --> 00:19:04,639
Speaker 1: a handheld USB mic or a pair of them, and

350
00:19:04,680 --> 00:19:07,040
Speaker 1: you could plug them into the PS two, and both

351
00:19:07,080 --> 00:19:09,560
Speaker 1: games had players try to match the pitch of a

352
00:19:09,640 --> 00:19:12,440
Speaker 1: song that's indicated on screen. The closer you were to

353
00:19:12,520 --> 00:19:15,639
Speaker 1: being on pitch, the higher your score would be. Harmonics

354
00:19:15,680 --> 00:19:18,000
Speaker 1: would follow this up in two thousand five with Guitar

355
00:19:18,080 --> 00:19:21,800
Speaker 1: Hero and the iconic guitar shaped controller that debuted on

356
00:19:21,840 --> 00:19:25,639
Speaker 1: the PS two. So a lot of very innovative style

357
00:19:25,720 --> 00:19:28,560
Speaker 1: games were starting to make their first appearance on the

358
00:19:28,600 --> 00:19:31,359
Speaker 1: PS two, and that really helped the console as well.

359
00:19:32,000 --> 00:19:36,840
Speaker 1: They had tons of iconic games from established developers as

360
00:19:36,880 --> 00:19:39,920
Speaker 1: well as uh. They were acting like a platform where

361
00:19:39,960 --> 00:19:44,120
Speaker 1: you could find some really interesting or downright weird games

362
00:19:44,160 --> 00:19:47,120
Speaker 1: from more obscure companies and developers, and that mix would

363
00:19:47,119 --> 00:19:49,520
Speaker 1: be something that Sony would foster throughout the life cycle

364
00:19:49,560 --> 00:19:52,560
Speaker 1: of the console and beyond. I'll talk more about them

365
00:19:52,600 --> 00:19:54,280
Speaker 1: in a little bit later, and when we come back,

366
00:19:54,320 --> 00:19:56,600
Speaker 1: i'll wrap up with the PS two, and then we'll

367
00:19:56,640 --> 00:19:58,480
Speaker 1: start to look at the console that would follow in

368
00:19:58,520 --> 00:20:02,800
Speaker 1: its footsteps by taking some pretty drastic changes to the model.

369
00:20:03,160 --> 00:20:14,119
Speaker 1: But first let's take a quick break. So the PS

370
00:20:14,160 --> 00:20:18,280
Speaker 1: two saw incredible success, that's loving it. Lightly huge games

371
00:20:18,320 --> 00:20:20,880
Speaker 1: like God of War got their start on the PS two.

372
00:20:21,280 --> 00:20:24,119
Speaker 1: Grand Theft Auto three, which, while it was the third

373
00:20:24,240 --> 00:20:27,240
Speaker 1: entry in a series, took a game that had previously

374
00:20:27,280 --> 00:20:30,360
Speaker 1: been a top down view game you were looking at

375
00:20:30,359 --> 00:20:33,080
Speaker 1: the world from above and you would control a car

376
00:20:33,280 --> 00:20:36,680
Speaker 1: that way. They switched it to a third person style game.

377
00:20:36,760 --> 00:20:40,199
Speaker 1: They helped launch the sandbox game genre, not that it

378
00:20:40,280 --> 00:20:42,760
Speaker 1: was the first or only one of its type, but

379
00:20:42,800 --> 00:20:44,399
Speaker 1: it was one of the most popular ones, and it

380
00:20:44,560 --> 00:20:46,560
Speaker 1: got a lot of other game developers getting into that

381
00:20:47,080 --> 00:20:50,000
Speaker 1: realm of game, and we've seen so many since then.

382
00:20:50,640 --> 00:20:53,720
Speaker 1: Shadow of the Colossus was a game that gave people

383
00:20:53,720 --> 00:20:56,440
Speaker 1: who argued the video games are a form of art.

384
00:20:56,520 --> 00:20:58,800
Speaker 1: They gave them a lot of momentum because that game

385
00:20:58,880 --> 00:21:03,199
Speaker 1: is gorgeous. The Final Fantasy series continued to dominate on

386
00:21:03,280 --> 00:21:06,679
Speaker 1: the PS two. Ratchett and Clank became a franchise on

387
00:21:06,720 --> 00:21:09,359
Speaker 1: the PS two. The series would go on through many

388
00:21:09,400 --> 00:21:13,760
Speaker 1: future generations of the PlayStation console. Katamari Demassi was one

389
00:21:13,760 --> 00:21:17,680
Speaker 1: of the stranger games for the console that got mainstream support.

390
00:21:18,160 --> 00:21:20,480
Speaker 1: So if you don't know what that game is, you

391
00:21:20,560 --> 00:21:23,359
Speaker 1: are in charge of rolling around a little sticky ball

392
00:21:23,440 --> 00:21:25,760
Speaker 1: that picks up stuff in game environments. The ball gets

393
00:21:25,800 --> 00:21:27,720
Speaker 1: bigger as you do it, and you pick up bigger

394
00:21:27,760 --> 00:21:30,679
Speaker 1: and bigger stuff. And it's also that you can rebuild

395
00:21:30,680 --> 00:21:33,400
Speaker 1: the cosmos because your dad done blowed it up real

396
00:21:33,480 --> 00:21:38,720
Speaker 1: good by accident. There are literally hundreds of popular titles

397
00:21:38,760 --> 00:21:41,320
Speaker 1: on the PS two that either got their start there

398
00:21:41,760 --> 00:21:45,439
Speaker 1: or they found incredible success there, and justice Sony had

399
00:21:45,480 --> 00:21:47,879
Speaker 1: done with the PS one, the company would continue to

400
00:21:47,920 --> 00:21:51,920
Speaker 1: support the PS two long after introducing the next generation

401
00:21:51,920 --> 00:21:56,280
Speaker 1: of PlayStation. The PS two would be in production well

402
00:21:56,359 --> 00:21:59,320
Speaker 1: into the life cycle of the p S three. Uh.

403
00:21:59,359 --> 00:22:01,680
Speaker 1: In fact, I'm to say it was about eleven or

404
00:22:01,760 --> 00:22:06,240
Speaker 1: twelve year life cycle. That's an incredible run, and people

405
00:22:06,240 --> 00:22:09,000
Speaker 1: were still buying PS two's and PS two games well

406
00:22:09,040 --> 00:22:12,120
Speaker 1: after the PS three had hit the shelves. But now

407
00:22:12,160 --> 00:22:15,000
Speaker 1: it's time to kind of switch over to the PS three.

408
00:22:15,080 --> 00:22:19,360
Speaker 1: And this one is a really complicated story, largely because

409
00:22:19,480 --> 00:22:23,520
Speaker 1: of some controversial decisions in the design process. Now these

410
00:22:23,840 --> 00:22:28,760
Speaker 1: weren't necessarily bad decisions, mind you, but Kudaragi, that's the

411
00:22:28,800 --> 00:22:32,120
Speaker 1: father of the PlayStation kin Kudaraki and his team had

412
00:22:32,160 --> 00:22:36,560
Speaker 1: made some choices that would present some unique challenges to developers.

413
00:22:37,200 --> 00:22:41,520
Speaker 1: So in two thousand five, Microsoft releases its second console,

414
00:22:41,760 --> 00:22:45,440
Speaker 1: the Xbox three sixty, and that opened up the seventh

415
00:22:45,560 --> 00:22:49,159
Speaker 1: generation of consoles, era, the three six. He got a

416
00:22:49,240 --> 00:22:52,680
Speaker 1: head start on both Sony and Nintendo. Both of them

417
00:22:52,680 --> 00:22:57,000
Speaker 1: would release their competing consoles, the PS three and we, respectively,

418
00:22:57,080 --> 00:22:59,880
Speaker 1: in two thousand and six the fall of two thousand six,

419
00:22:59,880 --> 00:23:03,960
Speaker 1: so Microsoft had kind of an open playing field to

420
00:23:04,080 --> 00:23:07,399
Speaker 1: really establish itself for almost a full year. Now, if

421
00:23:07,440 --> 00:23:10,679
Speaker 1: you've listened to the previous episodes in this series, you

422
00:23:10,720 --> 00:23:14,000
Speaker 1: know that each generation of video game consoles has its

423
00:23:14,040 --> 00:23:18,560
Speaker 1: own defining characteristics. The third generation of video game consoles

424
00:23:18,880 --> 00:23:22,480
Speaker 1: was the eight bit gaming system era, the original Nintendo.

425
00:23:22,600 --> 00:23:26,440
Speaker 1: In other words, the fourth generation was a sixteen bit

426
00:23:26,520 --> 00:23:30,560
Speaker 1: system like the Super Nintendo. The next generation, the fifth generation,

427
00:23:30,640 --> 00:23:33,520
Speaker 1: was the thirty two bit era. The sixth generation was

428
00:23:33,640 --> 00:23:37,000
Speaker 1: sometimes called bit era, but that was about when we

429
00:23:37,000 --> 00:23:41,400
Speaker 1: were finally getting away from using raw processing power as

430
00:23:41,400 --> 00:23:45,280
Speaker 1: a way to describe consoles because it became less important,

431
00:23:45,640 --> 00:23:47,800
Speaker 1: and we started to see this. In fact, we continue

432
00:23:47,840 --> 00:23:50,760
Speaker 1: to see this where the hardware advances to a point

433
00:23:50,800 --> 00:23:55,280
Speaker 1: where the the real differentiators lie not necessarily in the

434
00:23:55,320 --> 00:24:00,800
Speaker 1: processing power, but in other ways that the console sense games.

435
00:24:01,240 --> 00:24:04,720
Speaker 1: So the seventh generation saw the consoles diverging even more

436
00:24:04,760 --> 00:24:08,240
Speaker 1: than they had before. On the Microsoft side, the Xbox

437
00:24:08,280 --> 00:24:13,400
Speaker 1: three sixty would really emphasize HD video games and online

438
00:24:13,440 --> 00:24:16,320
Speaker 1: play with the Xbox Live service. That was kind of

439
00:24:16,359 --> 00:24:20,000
Speaker 1: the bet they were they were placing uh that sort

440
00:24:20,000 --> 00:24:23,040
Speaker 1: of became. The defining features for the Xbox three sixty

441
00:24:23,040 --> 00:24:27,879
Speaker 1: were the HD video gaming for an HD era and

442
00:24:28,400 --> 00:24:34,120
Speaker 1: this online play approach. The Nintendo we marked Nintendo's decision

443
00:24:34,160 --> 00:24:37,920
Speaker 1: to focus not on traditional stuff like graphics, but instead

444
00:24:38,040 --> 00:24:41,679
Speaker 1: innovating in control systems like the we mote and the

445
00:24:41,720 --> 00:24:45,680
Speaker 1: we pad and new forms of gameplay. That was really

446
00:24:45,680 --> 00:24:50,120
Speaker 1: where they were backing. Sony's PS three was going with

447
00:24:51,040 --> 00:24:55,040
Speaker 1: really incredible processing power. Plus it included a Blu ray player,

448
00:24:55,560 --> 00:24:57,920
Speaker 1: which meant, just as the PS two would become a

449
00:24:58,000 --> 00:25:00,600
Speaker 1: DVD player with benefits for a lot of people, the

450
00:25:00,640 --> 00:25:03,600
Speaker 1: PS three would do the same for Blu ray. When

451
00:25:03,600 --> 00:25:06,080
Speaker 1: Blu ray players first came out, they were more than

452
00:25:06,119 --> 00:25:10,200
Speaker 1: a thousand bucks, so when the PS three first came out,

453
00:25:10,240 --> 00:25:12,720
Speaker 1: it was pretty expensive to It's like six hundred dollars,

454
00:25:12,760 --> 00:25:15,159
Speaker 1: so it wasn't cheap, but it meant that if you

455
00:25:15,200 --> 00:25:17,080
Speaker 1: were in the market for a Blu ray player, you

456
00:25:17,160 --> 00:25:19,120
Speaker 1: might think of a PS three because it could also

457
00:25:19,119 --> 00:25:22,080
Speaker 1: play games, just like the PS two could also play

458
00:25:22,160 --> 00:25:26,320
Speaker 1: DVDs as well as games, So maybe that was a

459
00:25:26,359 --> 00:25:28,760
Speaker 1: deciding factor for a lot of people. Also, Sony had

460
00:25:28,760 --> 00:25:31,120
Speaker 1: a big advantage over this because the company was behind

461
00:25:31,240 --> 00:25:36,680
Speaker 1: Blu ray player technology, and Microsoft being a competitor, it

462
00:25:36,720 --> 00:25:40,040
Speaker 1: would have been really hard to get that licensing agreement

463
00:25:40,040 --> 00:25:42,640
Speaker 1: to get a Blu ray player into a three sixty.

464
00:25:42,680 --> 00:25:45,480
Speaker 1: That was a real sticking point. Oh and also, the

465
00:25:45,560 --> 00:25:49,639
Speaker 1: PS three would feature a radically different processing architecture that

466
00:25:49,720 --> 00:25:52,560
Speaker 1: had a ton of potential but threw up more than

467
00:25:52,600 --> 00:25:56,639
Speaker 1: a few boundaries for developers. So the CPU was no

468
00:25:56,800 --> 00:26:01,520
Speaker 1: longer the fabled Emotion Engine, although the early versions of

469
00:26:01,560 --> 00:26:05,240
Speaker 1: the p S three still retained Emotion engine chips. Instead,

470
00:26:05,240 --> 00:26:08,439
Speaker 1: we're talking about the Cell processor, which in turn was

471
00:26:08,440 --> 00:26:11,480
Speaker 1: a short way of saying the full name Cell Broadband

472
00:26:11,640 --> 00:26:17,080
Speaker 1: Engine architecture. The processor was a joint project between Sony,

473
00:26:17,240 --> 00:26:21,399
Speaker 1: Tshiba and IBM, and they called their partnership S T

474
00:26:21,640 --> 00:26:25,200
Speaker 1: I for short, the first letter of each of their

475
00:26:25,280 --> 00:26:29,840
Speaker 1: company names. The Cell is a multi core processor, something

476
00:26:29,880 --> 00:26:32,720
Speaker 1: that's common these days, but was fairly new to the

477
00:26:32,760 --> 00:26:36,000
Speaker 1: console world. It had been around for PCs for a while,

478
00:26:36,080 --> 00:26:38,520
Speaker 1: but it was new for consoles. So what the heck

479
00:26:38,680 --> 00:26:41,920
Speaker 1: is a multi core processor? Well, I've talked about these

480
00:26:41,960 --> 00:26:44,439
Speaker 1: a lot in previous episodes, but it's one of my

481
00:26:44,520 --> 00:26:47,840
Speaker 1: favorite analogies. So we're gonna do it again, gosh darn it.

482
00:26:47,920 --> 00:26:52,080
Speaker 1: So think of cp us like they are math students.

483
00:26:52,080 --> 00:26:56,560
Speaker 1: These are microprocessors, but imagine that they are math students. Now,

484
00:26:56,720 --> 00:27:00,600
Speaker 1: let's say you've got a really powerful single core prod assessor,

485
00:27:00,880 --> 00:27:03,639
Speaker 1: and we're going to represent that by a super smart

486
00:27:03,720 --> 00:27:07,000
Speaker 1: math student. Maybe she can solve complex equations in a

487
00:27:07,080 --> 00:27:11,160
Speaker 1: third of the time of her fellow students. Then let's

488
00:27:11,200 --> 00:27:13,960
Speaker 1: say we've got a multi core processor. This means we

489
00:27:14,040 --> 00:27:17,080
Speaker 1: have a processor on a single chip, but as multiple

490
00:27:17,280 --> 00:27:21,840
Speaker 1: units that each can process operations. They can do their

491
00:27:21,840 --> 00:27:27,360
Speaker 1: own tasks, and they all do work pretty well. But individually,

492
00:27:27,440 --> 00:27:30,479
Speaker 1: none of them are as good as that single souped

493
00:27:30,560 --> 00:27:33,480
Speaker 1: up single core right there. None of them are as

494
00:27:33,480 --> 00:27:37,320
Speaker 1: powerful as that single core CPU. But they each of

495
00:27:37,359 --> 00:27:40,399
Speaker 1: the of these multi core ones are good. They're just

496
00:27:40,440 --> 00:27:43,159
Speaker 1: not great. This would be like a small group of

497
00:27:43,280 --> 00:27:46,200
Speaker 1: smart math students. They're not as brilliant as the young

498
00:27:46,240 --> 00:27:49,440
Speaker 1: woman who solves complicated problems in a flash. And let's

499
00:27:49,440 --> 00:27:52,119
Speaker 1: say that this is a quad core processor. So we

500
00:27:52,160 --> 00:27:55,159
Speaker 1: have four cores. We've got four bright math students in

501
00:27:55,200 --> 00:27:58,240
Speaker 1: this analogy. Now, if you were to give the same

502
00:27:58,320 --> 00:28:02,280
Speaker 1: math problem to the gene yes, single core student and

503
00:28:02,359 --> 00:28:06,639
Speaker 1: the four very smart but not as genius quad core

504
00:28:06,760 --> 00:28:10,040
Speaker 1: students and then tim them. The single core would win out.

505
00:28:10,119 --> 00:28:12,600
Speaker 1: The single core would finish the math problem first. She'd

506
00:28:12,640 --> 00:28:14,880
Speaker 1: solve it the fastest. But let's say you hand out

507
00:28:14,880 --> 00:28:18,360
Speaker 1: a quiz and the quiz has four math problems on it,

508
00:28:18,880 --> 00:28:22,280
Speaker 1: and you tell the single core student that she has

509
00:28:22,320 --> 00:28:26,080
Speaker 1: to solve all four problems. But you look at the

510
00:28:26,200 --> 00:28:30,680
Speaker 1: four bright students, the quad core group, and you say

511
00:28:30,720 --> 00:28:33,600
Speaker 1: each of them has to solve one problem on that

512
00:28:34,040 --> 00:28:37,360
Speaker 1: four problems tests, so they divide it up. Each student

513
00:28:37,440 --> 00:28:41,120
Speaker 1: takes a different problem. In that case, you would expect

514
00:28:41,240 --> 00:28:44,000
Speaker 1: the group of four students to finish first. They're not

515
00:28:44,120 --> 00:28:47,960
Speaker 1: brilliant like the first student, but they're smart, and they're

516
00:28:47,960 --> 00:28:51,040
Speaker 1: each only having to solve one fourth of the overall test.

517
00:28:51,720 --> 00:28:55,360
Speaker 1: That is sort of how multi core processors work. They're

518
00:28:55,360 --> 00:28:58,200
Speaker 1: good at what is called parallel processing. That's when you

519
00:28:58,280 --> 00:29:02,680
Speaker 1: have different processors tackling different operations all at the same time.

520
00:29:02,680 --> 00:29:06,080
Speaker 1: And this only really works if the type of operations

521
00:29:06,120 --> 00:29:09,240
Speaker 1: you're asking for it to do can be divided up

522
00:29:09,400 --> 00:29:12,200
Speaker 1: like that. So if you need to do a single

523
00:29:12,280 --> 00:29:14,520
Speaker 1: big task and there's no way to break up that

524
00:29:14,600 --> 00:29:18,479
Speaker 1: big task into smaller tasks. Multi cores don't have an

525
00:29:18,480 --> 00:29:22,040
Speaker 1: advantage because the work can't be divvied up between them,

526
00:29:22,080 --> 00:29:26,000
Speaker 1: But if the task can be separated into several different processes,

527
00:29:26,320 --> 00:29:28,960
Speaker 1: then each core can take on a different part of

528
00:29:29,000 --> 00:29:33,160
Speaker 1: that and the whole effort takes less time. And most

529
00:29:33,200 --> 00:29:36,160
Speaker 1: of the processing that we work on tends to be

530
00:29:36,320 --> 00:29:39,000
Speaker 1: in that category. Not all of it, but most of it.

531
00:29:39,640 --> 00:29:43,160
Speaker 1: The cell processor in the PS three had two hundred

532
00:29:43,360 --> 00:29:47,720
Speaker 1: thirty four million transistors on its spread across essentially nine

533
00:29:47,760 --> 00:29:51,280
Speaker 1: processing chips. At the time, that was a big deal.

534
00:29:51,720 --> 00:29:55,080
Speaker 1: On top of the line PC CPU from Intel would

535
00:29:55,160 --> 00:29:58,360
Speaker 1: sport two hundred million transistors, and it would also set

536
00:29:58,440 --> 00:30:00,920
Speaker 1: you back a cool thousand buck in the US when

537
00:30:00,920 --> 00:30:05,280
Speaker 1: the PS three debuted in two thousand six. These days, though,

538
00:30:05,760 --> 00:30:09,400
Speaker 1: companies like Intel rarely advertised the number of transistors on

539
00:30:09,480 --> 00:30:12,400
Speaker 1: a chip. But we are easily in the billions range,

540
00:30:12,440 --> 00:30:15,520
Speaker 1: like three to seven billion transistors on a single chip.

541
00:30:16,000 --> 00:30:19,480
Speaker 1: We have left the millions far far behind. But again,

542
00:30:19,520 --> 00:30:22,200
Speaker 1: back in two thousand five when they first unveiled the

543
00:30:22,240 --> 00:30:24,000
Speaker 1: PS three, and then two thousand and six when it

544
00:30:24,120 --> 00:30:28,560
Speaker 1: became available for purchase, this was incredible technology. The approach

545
00:30:28,760 --> 00:30:31,880
Speaker 1: st I took in designing the cell was really interesting

546
00:30:31,920 --> 00:30:34,200
Speaker 1: as well. So at the center of the PS three

547
00:30:34,280 --> 00:30:38,200
Speaker 1: cell was a power PC microchip with a clock speed

548
00:30:38,240 --> 00:30:40,719
Speaker 1: of three point two giga hurts. You can listen to

549
00:30:40,720 --> 00:30:43,360
Speaker 1: my earlier episodes about the PlayStation to hear more about

550
00:30:43,400 --> 00:30:47,080
Speaker 1: what clock speed means. The chip had its own five

551
00:30:47,320 --> 00:30:50,440
Speaker 1: D and twelve kilobytes of RAM or random acxis memory,

552
00:30:50,800 --> 00:30:53,680
Speaker 1: and the chip kind of acts like a supervisor. Its

553
00:30:53,720 --> 00:30:57,400
Speaker 1: main job is to assign tasks to the eight coprocessors

554
00:30:57,480 --> 00:31:01,320
Speaker 1: on the same CPU chip and actively. These are all

555
00:31:01,360 --> 00:31:06,720
Speaker 1: called the synergistic processing elements or SPEs. So you've got

556
00:31:07,640 --> 00:31:11,720
Speaker 1: a boss who takes in assignments and then parcels out

557
00:31:11,760 --> 00:31:16,400
Speaker 1: those assignments to each of his direct reports, will say,

558
00:31:16,520 --> 00:31:19,080
Speaker 1: and the direct reports are the sps. So the power

559
00:31:19,120 --> 00:31:22,400
Speaker 1: PC core a k a. The power processing element or

560
00:31:22,480 --> 00:31:25,760
Speaker 1: PPE in this system looks at what jobs need to

561
00:31:25,800 --> 00:31:28,240
Speaker 1: be done. It looks at what the cores in the

562
00:31:28,240 --> 00:31:32,960
Speaker 1: synergistic processing elements are already doing. Right, is anyone busy?

563
00:31:33,280 --> 00:31:37,720
Speaker 1: Are there people who have availability? And then the PPE

564
00:31:37,960 --> 00:31:42,720
Speaker 1: that power PC core assigns jobs to available processors. It says, oh, well,

565
00:31:42,720 --> 00:31:45,320
Speaker 1: the process or number three is available, so I'll send

566
00:31:45,320 --> 00:31:48,320
Speaker 1: this job to process or three. And we're getting to

567
00:31:48,360 --> 00:31:50,280
Speaker 1: the real crux of what the PS three was all

568
00:31:50,320 --> 00:31:54,520
Speaker 1: about from the perspective of its creator, Ken Kutaragi. Now,

569
00:31:54,800 --> 00:31:57,720
Speaker 1: past episodes, you've heard me talk about Kutaragi leading the

570
00:31:57,800 --> 00:32:02,000
Speaker 1: charge in Sony getting into the video game console business.

571
00:32:02,640 --> 00:32:05,440
Speaker 1: He argued that it was something they definitely wanted to do,

572
00:32:05,520 --> 00:32:08,120
Speaker 1: and no one really was giving him much attention about it.

573
00:32:08,920 --> 00:32:14,480
Speaker 1: But as passionately as he argued about this stuff, it

574
00:32:14,560 --> 00:32:17,520
Speaker 1: didn't mean that he was really that interested in video games.

575
00:32:17,880 --> 00:32:21,120
Speaker 1: He saw it as an engineering challenge and a market opportunity,

576
00:32:21,400 --> 00:32:23,200
Speaker 1: and also as a way that he can make his

577
00:32:23,280 --> 00:32:26,200
Speaker 1: mark in the company and rise in the ranks. The

578
00:32:26,240 --> 00:32:31,440
Speaker 1: cell architecture wasn't just about making the next generation game console.

579
00:32:32,160 --> 00:32:35,760
Speaker 1: Ken Karagi's long term goal was to create a hardware

580
00:32:35,880 --> 00:32:39,120
Speaker 1: architecture for all sorts of products moving forward. The PS

581
00:32:39,160 --> 00:32:43,640
Speaker 1: three would be the first consumer electronics product to feature it,

582
00:32:44,200 --> 00:32:46,160
Speaker 1: but the idea would be he would use this same

583
00:32:46,280 --> 00:32:49,800
Speaker 1: architecture in all sorts of Sony products. It would be

584
00:32:49,800 --> 00:32:51,960
Speaker 1: a stepping stone to even bigger things that would perhaps

585
00:32:51,960 --> 00:32:55,200
Speaker 1: even put him on track for leading the entire company,

586
00:32:55,320 --> 00:32:58,560
Speaker 1: all of Sony, not just Sony Computer Entertainment, which is

587
00:32:58,600 --> 00:33:01,920
Speaker 1: where he was he was current Lee uh serving as

588
00:33:02,000 --> 00:33:07,200
Speaker 1: the president, but to lead Sony overall the Sony corporation.

589
00:33:07,320 --> 00:33:09,640
Speaker 1: So this was a really big deal for him, and

590
00:33:09,680 --> 00:33:13,720
Speaker 1: the processor was super powerful for the time, and since

591
00:33:14,160 --> 00:33:17,240
Speaker 1: that debut there have been a few other computer systems

592
00:33:17,280 --> 00:33:20,400
Speaker 1: that have taken advantage of that architecture. The cell design

593
00:33:20,440 --> 00:33:24,600
Speaker 1: emphasized speed and a reduction in latency. A latency is

594
00:33:24,640 --> 00:33:28,240
Speaker 1: the lag we experience between when we submit an input

595
00:33:28,600 --> 00:33:32,240
Speaker 1: and when we get an output. Generally speaking, the simpler

596
00:33:32,280 --> 00:33:35,120
Speaker 1: the application and the simpler the machine, the lower the

597
00:33:35,200 --> 00:33:37,840
Speaker 1: latency tends to be. So if you're working with something

598
00:33:37,880 --> 00:33:42,400
Speaker 1: like a standard calculator, which by design only accepts limited

599
00:33:42,480 --> 00:33:45,600
Speaker 1: kinds of input, and you do some simple arithmetic on it,

600
00:33:45,800 --> 00:33:48,680
Speaker 1: you get results that are to us instantaneous, you can't

601
00:33:48,680 --> 00:33:52,560
Speaker 1: even detect a delay. But as software gets more complex

602
00:33:52,840 --> 00:33:56,000
Speaker 1: and requires greater amounts of processing power, stuff can slow

603
00:33:56,040 --> 00:33:59,880
Speaker 1: them down. So in some applications this can be irritating

604
00:34:00,240 --> 00:34:03,360
Speaker 1: and others it can be dangerous. High latency in a

605
00:34:03,440 --> 00:34:07,040
Speaker 1: standard video game is frustrating latency in a virtual reality

606
00:34:07,080 --> 00:34:10,120
Speaker 1: game can be disorienting and cause motion sickness. You know.

607
00:34:10,160 --> 00:34:12,760
Speaker 1: That's like if you turn your head in real life

608
00:34:12,880 --> 00:34:15,560
Speaker 1: but your point of view in the game lags behind.

609
00:34:15,920 --> 00:34:18,040
Speaker 1: That can make you feel really sick to your stomach.

610
00:34:18,080 --> 00:34:21,239
Speaker 1: I speak from personal experience. Laten seeing something like an

611
00:34:21,239 --> 00:34:25,880
Speaker 1: autonomous car would be deadly well. In addition to these processors,

612
00:34:25,920 --> 00:34:29,759
Speaker 1: the VS three also boasted a graphics processing unit or GPU,

613
00:34:30,239 --> 00:34:35,800
Speaker 1: called the Reality Synthesizer or or SX. This was developed

614
00:34:35,800 --> 00:34:39,200
Speaker 1: in a partnership with Nvidia, a company that's famous sports

615
00:34:39,239 --> 00:34:41,719
Speaker 1: g p U s and the RSX was similar in

616
00:34:41,800 --> 00:34:46,279
Speaker 1: design to the Nvidia G Force line of processors. This

617
00:34:46,360 --> 00:34:49,400
Speaker 1: one chip had three hundred million transistors on it, so

618
00:34:49,520 --> 00:34:52,360
Speaker 1: even more than the CPU did, but it operated at

619
00:34:52,360 --> 00:34:55,120
Speaker 1: a much lower clock speed at five fifty mega hurts.

620
00:34:55,680 --> 00:34:58,840
Speaker 1: Unlike the PS two, the p S three came with

621
00:34:58,920 --> 00:35:02,319
Speaker 1: an Ethernet port as a standard feature rather than as

622
00:35:02,360 --> 00:35:04,960
Speaker 1: an add on peripheral. However, originally it was supposed to

623
00:35:05,040 --> 00:35:08,359
Speaker 1: have three Ethernet ports when it was first announced. When

624
00:35:08,360 --> 00:35:11,480
Speaker 1: it debuted, that had been whittled down to one. It

625
00:35:11,560 --> 00:35:14,960
Speaker 1: supported Bluetooth two point oh, and it had an optical

626
00:35:15,040 --> 00:35:18,359
Speaker 1: audio output. I'll have to talk about optical audio in

627
00:35:18,400 --> 00:35:21,799
Speaker 1: some future episode. It also had four USB ports for

628
00:35:21,880 --> 00:35:25,120
Speaker 1: other accessories. It had an HDMI output to go to

629
00:35:25,160 --> 00:35:27,759
Speaker 1: a television. It was actually supposed to have two of them,

630
00:35:27,760 --> 00:35:30,600
Speaker 1: but that got whittled down too. And it also had

631
00:35:30,680 --> 00:35:35,080
Speaker 1: composite component and s video ports. And since we're on

632
00:35:35,080 --> 00:35:38,360
Speaker 1: the subject, why not explain what those are really quickly?

633
00:35:38,640 --> 00:35:42,040
Speaker 1: Or were? Most people these days wouldn't use them. H

634
00:35:42,160 --> 00:35:44,319
Speaker 1: d M I is really the standard way to hook

635
00:35:44,360 --> 00:35:46,279
Speaker 1: up a television to other components. But back in the

636
00:35:46,360 --> 00:35:49,160
Speaker 1: day we had a whole smorgage board of options. So

637
00:35:49,200 --> 00:35:53,319
Speaker 1: we're gonna go from most primitive to most advanced. So

638
00:35:53,480 --> 00:35:57,600
Speaker 1: that means we start with composite cables. These cables are

639
00:35:58,520 --> 00:36:02,080
Speaker 1: yellow video cable and they're typically bundled with a red

640
00:36:02,120 --> 00:36:03,960
Speaker 1: and a white cable. But the red and white cables

641
00:36:04,000 --> 00:36:07,320
Speaker 1: aren't video. Those are audio channels. They actually carry audio

642
00:36:07,360 --> 00:36:09,799
Speaker 1: to stereo channels to the left stereo and the right

643
00:36:09,840 --> 00:36:13,520
Speaker 1: stereo channels. The yellow cable carries a video signal and

644
00:36:13,600 --> 00:36:17,520
Speaker 1: these cables are limited to standard definition resolution all in

645
00:36:17,600 --> 00:36:20,640
Speaker 1: one channel on the cable, so all the all the

646
00:36:20,719 --> 00:36:24,120
Speaker 1: data is in one channel of information. So this gives

647
00:36:24,160 --> 00:36:29,359
Speaker 1: you the lowest resolution, the lowest uh color representation, Like

648
00:36:29,400 --> 00:36:33,360
Speaker 1: it's it's the lowest quality of all the different options.

649
00:36:33,880 --> 00:36:36,680
Speaker 1: Next up, we have the S video cable now that

650
00:36:36,680 --> 00:36:41,160
Speaker 1: would carry two channels of video information. It's separated the

651
00:36:41,400 --> 00:36:44,200
Speaker 1: colors from black and white, so you got black and

652
00:36:44,200 --> 00:36:46,400
Speaker 1: white and one channel and all the other colors in

653
00:36:46,480 --> 00:36:49,560
Speaker 1: another channel, and that would create a better image quality

654
00:36:49,760 --> 00:36:54,680
Speaker 1: than composite video. However, like composite, S video cable was

655
00:36:54,719 --> 00:36:57,239
Speaker 1: limited to standard definition signals of four A d I

656
00:36:57,560 --> 00:37:00,600
Speaker 1: or five seventy six I for some markets. Then you've

657
00:37:00,640 --> 00:37:05,680
Speaker 1: got component video cables. These cables were red, green, and blue,

658
00:37:06,000 --> 00:37:08,919
Speaker 1: and they represented the three colors used to create all

659
00:37:08,960 --> 00:37:13,279
Speaker 1: colors in video. However, they didn't each carry, you know,

660
00:37:13,440 --> 00:37:16,080
Speaker 1: their respective colors. The red didn't carry red, the blue

661
00:37:16,120 --> 00:37:18,160
Speaker 1: didn't carry blue, and the green didn't carry green. One

662
00:37:18,280 --> 00:37:22,319
Speaker 1: cable carried luminants or brightness information, and the other two

663
00:37:22,360 --> 00:37:24,960
Speaker 1: carried information about the hue of colors that should appear

664
00:37:25,000 --> 00:37:27,720
Speaker 1: on screen. And through combinations of all of those elements,

665
00:37:28,000 --> 00:37:33,040
Speaker 1: you could get a really wide range of colors displayed

666
00:37:33,160 --> 00:37:37,160
Speaker 1: on screen and brightness as well. And you could also

667
00:37:37,280 --> 00:37:40,640
Speaker 1: get up to high definition levels of resolution up to

668
00:37:40,680 --> 00:37:43,359
Speaker 1: ten A d I. So this was finally getting into

669
00:37:43,400 --> 00:37:45,759
Speaker 1: the h D side of things. H d M I,

670
00:37:46,000 --> 00:37:50,399
Speaker 1: or high Definition Multimedia Interface, can carry uncompressed video and

671
00:37:50,680 --> 00:37:54,319
Speaker 1: audio to the other elements. I just talked about composite

672
00:37:54,360 --> 00:37:57,560
Speaker 1: component and s video. None of those carried audio. You

673
00:37:57,560 --> 00:38:00,640
Speaker 1: would need separate audio cables to get sound from the

674
00:38:00,680 --> 00:38:04,239
Speaker 1: PlayStation into your entertainment system. HDMI cables can carry both

675
00:38:04,320 --> 00:38:08,120
Speaker 1: video and audio to the same source, so they are

676
00:38:08,239 --> 00:38:12,120
Speaker 1: UH superior in that respect. There's a whole thing I

677
00:38:12,160 --> 00:38:16,320
Speaker 1: could go in about UH with copy protection that relates

678
00:38:16,360 --> 00:38:19,720
Speaker 1: to which cables would get supported or would lose support

679
00:38:19,760 --> 00:38:23,719
Speaker 1: over time, but that's a topic for a future episode. Anyway,

680
00:38:24,000 --> 00:38:27,880
Speaker 1: h d m I, or High Definition Multimedia Interface is

681
00:38:27,960 --> 00:38:31,640
Speaker 1: now essentially the standard we use to connect things together

682
00:38:31,920 --> 00:38:35,960
Speaker 1: for video game consoles, DVD players, that kind of stuff,

683
00:38:36,000 --> 00:38:38,759
Speaker 1: two televisions. So the p S three was the first

684
00:38:38,760 --> 00:38:41,600
Speaker 1: of the PlayStations to have an HDMI port. Now, the

685
00:38:41,640 --> 00:38:44,480
Speaker 1: combination of the cell processor and the GPU made the

686
00:38:44,600 --> 00:38:49,440
Speaker 1: PS three a truly intimidating console. On paper, it clearly

687
00:38:49,520 --> 00:38:52,839
Speaker 1: overshadowed the Xbox three sixty and the we wasn't even

688
00:38:52,840 --> 00:38:56,759
Speaker 1: in the same weight class. But that's on paper. In reality,

689
00:38:57,120 --> 00:38:59,600
Speaker 1: Sony would see PS three sales get off to a

690
00:38:59,719 --> 00:39:03,480
Speaker 1: slow start and trail behind the Xbox three sixty, and

691
00:39:03,560 --> 00:39:05,960
Speaker 1: even the we that would launch like a week after

692
00:39:06,120 --> 00:39:09,160
Speaker 1: the PS three would end up beating the PS three

693
00:39:09,160 --> 00:39:12,399
Speaker 1: in sales in many markets. So why is that? Why

694
00:39:12,600 --> 00:39:16,320
Speaker 1: was the successor to the greatest selling video game console

695
00:39:16,400 --> 00:39:19,719
Speaker 1: of all time more of a slow burn? While I'll

696
00:39:19,840 --> 00:39:30,640
Speaker 1: tell you after we take a quick break. So kim

697
00:39:30,760 --> 00:39:34,200
Speaker 1: Kutaragi made his big move setting up the CPU system

698
00:39:34,239 --> 00:39:36,160
Speaker 1: for the PS three to be the foundation for a

699
00:39:36,200 --> 00:39:40,040
Speaker 1: new generation of electronics and computer systems at Sony. That

700
00:39:40,160 --> 00:39:42,799
Speaker 1: didn't turn out so well. And it's not because the

701
00:39:42,800 --> 00:39:46,040
Speaker 1: tech wasn't good. For one thing, the new design required

702
00:39:46,200 --> 00:39:50,200
Speaker 1: hundreds of engineers working primarily in Austin, Texas, and getting

703
00:39:50,200 --> 00:39:53,080
Speaker 1: it right was challenging, so the project hit some delays,

704
00:39:53,200 --> 00:39:56,120
Speaker 1: and that in turn made Sony have to push back

705
00:39:56,160 --> 00:39:59,080
Speaker 1: the PS three's launched by about half a year, which

706
00:39:59,080 --> 00:40:01,960
Speaker 1: gave Microsoft a lot more time to really entrench the

707
00:40:02,000 --> 00:40:05,640
Speaker 1: three sixty as the definitive seventh generation game console, at

708
00:40:05,719 --> 00:40:10,080
Speaker 1: least for a while. PS three sales would ultimately eclipse Microsoft,

709
00:40:10,800 --> 00:40:13,880
Speaker 1: but it took some doing to make matters more complicated.

710
00:40:14,000 --> 00:40:17,960
Speaker 1: Nintendo launched the Wii console shortly after the PS three debut,

711
00:40:18,400 --> 00:40:20,040
Speaker 1: and at first a lot of people were ready to

712
00:40:20,080 --> 00:40:23,440
Speaker 1: dismiss the Wei. The name struck many as being laughable.

713
00:40:23,920 --> 00:40:28,239
Speaker 1: The console clearly didn't emphasize graphics or realistic gameplay, but

714
00:40:28,360 --> 00:40:32,200
Speaker 1: nintendo strategy was to take aim at casual gamers, at

715
00:40:32,239 --> 00:40:35,279
Speaker 1: non gamers, maybe people who had been gamers but they

716
00:40:35,280 --> 00:40:38,000
Speaker 1: hadn't really played any video games and years those kind

717
00:40:38,000 --> 00:40:41,799
Speaker 1: of folks weren't really being marketed to, and Nintendo saw

718
00:40:41,840 --> 00:40:45,880
Speaker 1: an opportunity and people flocked to buy the Wii. It

719
00:40:46,080 --> 00:40:49,720
Speaker 1: would lead to shortages and stores, so competition was stiff

720
00:40:49,840 --> 00:40:53,439
Speaker 1: against Sony even when it launched. On top of that,

721
00:40:53,640 --> 00:40:57,319
Speaker 1: Sony had to do some quick backtracking after receiving a

722
00:40:57,440 --> 00:41:01,759
Speaker 1: powerfully negative reaction when going off the PS three and

723
00:41:01,840 --> 00:41:05,000
Speaker 1: its new controller at E three two five, so this

724
00:41:05,040 --> 00:41:08,440
Speaker 1: is one year before the console was to launch. The

725
00:41:08,520 --> 00:41:12,920
Speaker 1: new PS three controller looked radically different from the basic

726
00:41:13,040 --> 00:41:16,880
Speaker 1: design introduced with the PS one and refined into the

727
00:41:16,960 --> 00:41:20,040
Speaker 1: dual shock form factor. UH. It had all the same

728
00:41:20,080 --> 00:41:24,520
Speaker 1: buttons as those controllers, but it was a totally different shape.

729
00:41:24,560 --> 00:41:27,680
Speaker 1: It was a Boomerang shape and still have the two thumbsticks,

730
00:41:27,680 --> 00:41:30,960
Speaker 1: still had all the old buttons. But this shape caught

731
00:41:31,120 --> 00:41:34,000
Speaker 1: people off guard, and a lot of people had a

732
00:41:34,080 --> 00:41:35,799
Speaker 1: very strong negative reaction to it. I mean, it was

733
00:41:35,840 --> 00:41:38,120
Speaker 1: meant so that you could hold either end of the

734
00:41:38,120 --> 00:41:42,440
Speaker 1: PlayStation easily in your hands. Uh. At the E three presentations,

735
00:41:42,480 --> 00:41:46,040
Speaker 1: Kutaragi really didn't say anything about the controllers. They never

736
00:41:46,080 --> 00:41:48,919
Speaker 1: got an official name to the public, and the fan

737
00:41:49,000 --> 00:41:51,840
Speaker 1: reaction was pretty brutal. So Sony made the call to

738
00:41:52,000 --> 00:41:54,719
Speaker 1: scrap the Boomerang controller and to build out a new

739
00:41:54,760 --> 00:41:58,680
Speaker 1: game pad modeled on the more standard duel shock form factor,

740
00:41:58,800 --> 00:42:02,880
Speaker 1: so the Boomerang never even to consumer stores. Instead, Sony

741
00:42:02,880 --> 00:42:05,640
Speaker 1: would introduce a controller called the six Axis, and it

742
00:42:05,719 --> 00:42:10,080
Speaker 1: was called this because it included accelerometers inside the controller

743
00:42:10,120 --> 00:42:12,759
Speaker 1: that could pick up movement along the X, y, and

744
00:42:12,920 --> 00:42:16,120
Speaker 1: Z axes, and that allows for six degrees of freedom

745
00:42:16,160 --> 00:42:19,200
Speaker 1: of motion, so the controller could detect when and how

746
00:42:19,239 --> 00:42:22,040
Speaker 1: it was moving, which in turn could be leveraged by

747
00:42:22,080 --> 00:42:25,720
Speaker 1: game developers. So you know, if you designed a game

748
00:42:25,719 --> 00:42:28,279
Speaker 1: with this in mind, you could create one where let's

749
00:42:28,280 --> 00:42:31,120
Speaker 1: say it's a survival horror game, you know, saying like

750
00:42:31,160 --> 00:42:34,360
Speaker 1: Resident Evil, and it's got stealth based mechanics in it

751
00:42:34,400 --> 00:42:36,960
Speaker 1: where you need to be really quiet and sneaky so

752
00:42:37,040 --> 00:42:39,799
Speaker 1: that the bad guys don't see you. And if you

753
00:42:39,840 --> 00:42:42,640
Speaker 1: were to move too much while holding the controller as

754
00:42:42,640 --> 00:42:45,080
Speaker 1: you're trying to sneak around, your character in the game

755
00:42:45,239 --> 00:42:47,640
Speaker 1: would give away their position. You know, they'd stumble, or

756
00:42:47,680 --> 00:42:50,080
Speaker 1: they'd make noise or something and they would become a

757
00:42:50,120 --> 00:42:55,080
Speaker 1: target for some sort of clever wielding pumpkin monster or something.

758
00:42:56,080 --> 00:42:59,640
Speaker 1: One thing the six Access controller didn't have besides the

759
00:42:59,640 --> 00:43:03,440
Speaker 1: boom ring shape, was a rumble feature. A lawsuit that

760
00:43:03,520 --> 00:43:06,759
Speaker 1: was between Sony and a company called Immersion had led

761
00:43:06,800 --> 00:43:10,399
Speaker 1: to Sony temporarily at least stripping the vibrating motors out

762
00:43:10,440 --> 00:43:14,560
Speaker 1: of the six Excess controllers, so the controllers that launched

763
00:43:14,560 --> 00:43:17,840
Speaker 1: with the PS three did not have haptic feedback. The

764
00:43:17,920 --> 00:43:20,560
Speaker 1: six Excess controller would be the official controller for the

765
00:43:20,560 --> 00:43:22,839
Speaker 1: PS three for just two years, when the company would

766
00:43:22,840 --> 00:43:26,440
Speaker 1: then replace it with the dual Shock three. I'll probably

767
00:43:26,440 --> 00:43:29,279
Speaker 1: talk about that a little bit more in the next episode,

768
00:43:29,640 --> 00:43:32,880
Speaker 1: but the controller wasn't the really big problem that Sony

769
00:43:32,920 --> 00:43:35,759
Speaker 1: faced with the PS three, It really was that the

770
00:43:35,880 --> 00:43:39,680
Speaker 1: architecture of that CPU was so different from what video

771
00:43:39,719 --> 00:43:42,919
Speaker 1: game developers were used to. It took time a lot

772
00:43:42,960 --> 00:43:45,960
Speaker 1: of time for game developers to really make titles that

773
00:43:46,280 --> 00:43:50,680
Speaker 1: tapped into the PS three's capabilities. Essentially, developing games for

774
00:43:50,760 --> 00:43:55,560
Speaker 1: the p S three was hard. Specifically leveraging those sp

775
00:43:55,920 --> 00:44:00,520
Speaker 1: s that those eight co processors effectively was not easy

776
00:44:00,560 --> 00:44:05,080
Speaker 1: to do. According to one developer, creating a Hello World message,

777
00:44:05,160 --> 00:44:07,719
Speaker 1: which is typically one of the first things any programmer

778
00:44:07,880 --> 00:44:10,640
Speaker 1: does when they're learning, you know, how to code for

779
00:44:10,719 --> 00:44:14,440
Speaker 1: any given system. Typically that would require three to five

780
00:44:14,560 --> 00:44:18,120
Speaker 1: lines of code for most systems, but to have one

781
00:44:18,560 --> 00:44:23,359
Speaker 1: spe processor you take this request and follow it through

782
00:44:23,920 --> 00:44:28,600
Speaker 1: would require an incredible one hundred forty four lines of code.

783
00:44:29,120 --> 00:44:32,440
Speaker 1: Sony even took some amount of pride in this. They

784
00:44:32,520 --> 00:44:35,360
Speaker 1: essentially said, it all boils down to nothing worth having

785
00:44:35,560 --> 00:44:39,840
Speaker 1: is ever easy. So they said, yeah, it's hard to

786
00:44:39,840 --> 00:44:42,360
Speaker 1: program for this thing, but this thing is super powerful,

787
00:44:42,400 --> 00:44:45,680
Speaker 1: so it's worth it. The design of those co processors

788
00:44:45,719 --> 00:44:48,480
Speaker 1: made coding for them really hard to do, and using

789
00:44:48,520 --> 00:44:50,920
Speaker 1: them effectively would be a big challenge. So many of

790
00:44:50,960 --> 00:44:53,880
Speaker 1: the early games weren't great at showing off the PS

791
00:44:53,920 --> 00:44:57,840
Speaker 1: three's true potential because they couldn't tap into that processing power.

792
00:44:58,160 --> 00:45:00,760
Speaker 1: On top of that, many game develop helpers were creating

793
00:45:00,800 --> 00:45:03,960
Speaker 1: games that would be available on multiple platforms, right cross

794
00:45:04,040 --> 00:45:08,279
Speaker 1: platform game titles. Typically that involves a core design team

795
00:45:08,360 --> 00:45:11,640
Speaker 1: that are building out a game for specific platform, maybe

796
00:45:11,640 --> 00:45:16,320
Speaker 1: the PC, maybe an Xbox whatever, and then they poured

797
00:45:16,400 --> 00:45:19,920
Speaker 1: it over to other platforms. So many titles that were

798
00:45:19,920 --> 00:45:22,759
Speaker 1: already available for the Xbox three sixty we're going through

799
00:45:22,800 --> 00:45:25,960
Speaker 1: this porting process to the PS three. But due to

800
00:45:26,000 --> 00:45:30,759
Speaker 1: that complexity in the p S three's design, the developers

801
00:45:30,760 --> 00:45:33,120
Speaker 1: had to take a lot of shortcuts. Some of them

802
00:45:33,200 --> 00:45:37,040
Speaker 1: even skipped using those coprocessors entirely. They said, these sp

803
00:45:37,320 --> 00:45:40,600
Speaker 1: s are too hard to code for. Instead, and you know,

804
00:45:40,840 --> 00:45:43,399
Speaker 1: we're working on a timeframe here. We could learn how

805
00:45:43,440 --> 00:45:46,160
Speaker 1: to code for those sps, but it would set us

806
00:45:46,280 --> 00:45:49,160
Speaker 1: behind schedule. So instead they focused on just that central

807
00:45:49,200 --> 00:45:51,759
Speaker 1: power pc, you know, the one who's supposed to act

808
00:45:51,760 --> 00:45:54,719
Speaker 1: as an administrator and hand out jobs. Instead of that,

809
00:45:54,760 --> 00:45:56,760
Speaker 1: they're saying no, no, no, no, you do the work.

810
00:45:57,080 --> 00:45:59,840
Speaker 1: Don't don't hand it to your direct reports. We just

811
00:46:00,000 --> 00:46:02,960
Speaker 1: want you to do it. So the power pc had

812
00:46:03,000 --> 00:46:05,400
Speaker 1: to act as the CPU for the whole console, and

813
00:46:05,480 --> 00:46:08,760
Speaker 1: so some titles that were available for both platforms, particularly

814
00:46:08,920 --> 00:46:12,120
Speaker 1: early on in the PC PS three's life cycle, just

815
00:46:12,320 --> 00:46:14,719
Speaker 1: they ran better on the three sixty. If you did

816
00:46:14,719 --> 00:46:18,120
Speaker 1: a side by side comparison, the three sixty just ran better.

817
00:46:18,880 --> 00:46:21,839
Speaker 1: And it wasn't that the PS three was not as

818
00:46:21,840 --> 00:46:24,040
Speaker 1: good a system. It was a great system. It's that

819
00:46:24,239 --> 00:46:26,719
Speaker 1: people had not figured out how to program for it

820
00:46:26,800 --> 00:46:30,880
Speaker 1: effectively yet, so the development process in general was slow,

821
00:46:31,480 --> 00:46:34,799
Speaker 1: and in gaming circles this led to a somewhat incorrect

822
00:46:34,840 --> 00:46:38,320
Speaker 1: observation that there were no games for the p S three.

823
00:46:38,520 --> 00:46:40,560
Speaker 1: This is a meme. You can look it up now.

824
00:46:40,560 --> 00:46:43,279
Speaker 1: The three sixty had been around for months and had

825
00:46:43,280 --> 00:46:46,520
Speaker 1: built up a pretty substantial library of games bout the

826
00:46:46,520 --> 00:46:49,560
Speaker 1: time the PS three launched, so no matter what, Sony

827
00:46:49,680 --> 00:46:52,040
Speaker 1: was going to be playing catch up. But the general

828
00:46:52,080 --> 00:46:54,840
Speaker 1: since was that there just weren't enough really compelling titles

829
00:46:54,840 --> 00:46:57,480
Speaker 1: on the PS three early on, and thus PS three

830
00:46:57,520 --> 00:47:00,839
Speaker 1: doesn't have any games. Was born as a meme, and

831
00:47:01,120 --> 00:47:04,160
Speaker 1: you can see lots of different variations of that same

832
00:47:04,200 --> 00:47:06,799
Speaker 1: statement that wouldn't be true in the long run. I

833
00:47:06,800 --> 00:47:09,120
Speaker 1: don't even think it was a fair assessment. Towards the beginning,

834
00:47:09,120 --> 00:47:13,120
Speaker 1: the PS three had games, and it introduced some games

835
00:47:13,160 --> 00:47:17,520
Speaker 1: that in times that have passed have become real classics.

836
00:47:17,560 --> 00:47:21,120
Speaker 1: So the original Uncharted came out, that was a game

837
00:47:21,160 --> 00:47:24,280
Speaker 1: by Naughty Dog. That one came out for the PS three,

838
00:47:24,600 --> 00:47:27,680
Speaker 1: So did Uncharted two and Uncharted three. They all came

839
00:47:27,719 --> 00:47:29,839
Speaker 1: out for the PS three. And this is a great

840
00:47:29,840 --> 00:47:32,560
Speaker 1: example to show how developers got a better handle on

841
00:47:32,640 --> 00:47:34,880
Speaker 1: the PS three in general, because if you were to

842
00:47:34,880 --> 00:47:37,520
Speaker 1: look at a side by side comparison of the original

843
00:47:37,640 --> 00:47:41,640
Speaker 1: Uncharted on the PS three and then Uncharted three, you

844
00:47:41,640 --> 00:47:45,919
Speaker 1: would see an incredible jump in graphics quality. The two

845
00:47:45,960 --> 00:47:48,799
Speaker 1: games would look like they belong to different systems. So

846
00:47:48,840 --> 00:47:52,280
Speaker 1: with PCs we expect this because developers are always pushing

847
00:47:52,320 --> 00:47:55,400
Speaker 1: the limits of what hardware can do with every release

848
00:47:55,440 --> 00:47:58,160
Speaker 1: of every title. But the PS three is a video

849
00:47:58,160 --> 00:48:01,920
Speaker 1: game console. You don't grade the GPU chip and a

850
00:48:02,000 --> 00:48:03,960
Speaker 1: video game console, you know when you buy it off

851
00:48:04,000 --> 00:48:07,400
Speaker 1: the shelf, that console is that console for the life

852
00:48:07,560 --> 00:48:10,319
Speaker 1: of that console. It doesn't. You don't. You don't take

853
00:48:10,360 --> 00:48:12,960
Speaker 1: it apart and upgrade components. If you're going to do that,

854
00:48:13,080 --> 00:48:15,719
Speaker 1: you should be a PC gamer. The hardware and a

855
00:48:15,760 --> 00:48:17,800
Speaker 1: PS three towards the end of the console's life cycle

856
00:48:17,880 --> 00:48:20,480
Speaker 1: was identical to all intents and purposes as the hardware

857
00:48:20,480 --> 00:48:23,120
Speaker 1: and the original PS three's that launched in two thousand six.

858
00:48:24,000 --> 00:48:26,839
Speaker 1: The game developer, in this case, Naughty Dog, just learned

859
00:48:26,840 --> 00:48:30,839
Speaker 1: how to develop games for that hardware. More effectively, they

860
00:48:31,120 --> 00:48:34,319
Speaker 1: learned the system, so using the exact same hardware that

861
00:48:34,360 --> 00:48:38,400
Speaker 1: they developed Uncharted one four, they produced Uncharted three, and

862
00:48:38,440 --> 00:48:42,040
Speaker 1: the differences are astounding. Naughty Dog, in fact, has even

863
00:48:42,080 --> 00:48:45,759
Speaker 1: said that maybe Uncharted the first game took advantage of

864
00:48:46,000 --> 00:48:49,600
Speaker 1: thirty percent of the PS three's processing power, So that

865
00:48:49,680 --> 00:48:52,239
Speaker 1: all comes back to that complexity of learning how to

866
00:48:52,320 --> 00:48:54,800
Speaker 1: program for the PS three. It was a real barrier.

867
00:48:55,360 --> 00:49:01,239
Speaker 1: The PS three supported some backwards compatibility, which honestly was

868
00:49:01,280 --> 00:49:03,840
Speaker 1: a bit of an achievement considering how dramatically different the

869
00:49:03,840 --> 00:49:08,240
Speaker 1: consoles cpu architecture was from earlier models. The PS three

870
00:49:08,400 --> 00:49:12,160
Speaker 1: could play nearly all of the PlayStation one games. PS

871
00:49:12,200 --> 00:49:14,360
Speaker 1: two games were another story, and that one is a

872
00:49:14,400 --> 00:49:17,920
Speaker 1: little more complicated. So the original PS three consoles often

873
00:49:17,920 --> 00:49:20,680
Speaker 1: called the fat consoles because they were much larger than

874
00:49:20,760 --> 00:49:23,760
Speaker 1: future models. You had the the slim and the super

875
00:49:23,800 --> 00:49:27,920
Speaker 1: slim PS three, but those original ones contained hardware that

876
00:49:28,000 --> 00:49:31,279
Speaker 1: made them compatible with at least some, but not all

877
00:49:31,600 --> 00:49:33,759
Speaker 1: PS two games, So you can get one of those

878
00:49:33,760 --> 00:49:36,280
Speaker 1: original PlayStation three's and you can still play some PS

879
00:49:36,320 --> 00:49:39,680
Speaker 1: two titles. However, future versions of the PS three would

880
00:49:39,680 --> 00:49:44,239
Speaker 1: remove that compatible hardware and you just couldn't play a

881
00:49:44,320 --> 00:49:48,560
Speaker 1: PS two game in a PS three, especially a hard disc.

882
00:49:49,280 --> 00:49:52,560
Speaker 1: You could play PS two games that were emulated to

883
00:49:52,719 --> 00:49:56,439
Speaker 1: run on a PS three, but the the experience wasn't

884
00:49:56,480 --> 00:49:59,839
Speaker 1: always ideal, and there were a lot of different very

885
00:50:00,400 --> 00:50:03,880
Speaker 1: of the PlayStation three console, mostly in hard drive size,

886
00:50:03,920 --> 00:50:07,960
Speaker 1: so you had twenty, forty sixty eight and one sixty

887
00:50:08,000 --> 00:50:10,799
Speaker 1: gigabyte hard drive versions of the PlayStation three that were

888
00:50:10,840 --> 00:50:13,320
Speaker 1: available at one point or another during its life cycle.

889
00:50:13,719 --> 00:50:16,640
Speaker 1: Most models also supported WiFi, so you didn't have to

890
00:50:16,680 --> 00:50:19,239
Speaker 1: have a physical cable to connect to a network. One

891
00:50:19,280 --> 00:50:22,080
Speaker 1: exception was the twenty gigabyte model. That one only had

892
00:50:22,080 --> 00:50:28,200
Speaker 1: the hardwired ethernetport, not a WiFi connective ability. Now, this

893
00:50:28,320 --> 00:50:30,080
Speaker 1: means for the early years of the p S three's

894
00:50:30,080 --> 00:50:33,800
Speaker 1: life cycle, the console underperformed. This wasn't helped by the

895
00:50:33,840 --> 00:50:35,640
Speaker 1: fact that the launch price for the PS three was

896
00:50:35,680 --> 00:50:37,799
Speaker 1: six hundred dollars here in the United States and made

897
00:50:37,800 --> 00:50:41,320
Speaker 1: it the most expensive of the seventh generation consoles, and

898
00:50:41,360 --> 00:50:44,479
Speaker 1: it would have been a challenge to overperform. Obviously, because

899
00:50:44,480 --> 00:50:47,920
Speaker 1: the company's expectations had to have been incredibly high given

900
00:50:47,960 --> 00:50:51,280
Speaker 1: the amazing success of the PS two. They were probably

901
00:50:51,280 --> 00:50:54,040
Speaker 1: thinking this was just gonna be a hockey stick, that

902
00:50:54,120 --> 00:50:55,960
Speaker 1: it was just gonna keep going up and up and up.

903
00:50:56,400 --> 00:50:58,560
Speaker 1: Kim Kutaragi, who at this point was the head of

904
00:50:58,600 --> 00:51:02,279
Speaker 1: Sony Computer Entertainment, must have had some complicated feelings about this.

905
00:51:02,719 --> 00:51:06,360
Speaker 1: He had created an entire division within Sony, an entire

906
00:51:06,480 --> 00:51:10,120
Speaker 1: business that Sony had not been in, and had seen

907
00:51:10,239 --> 00:51:13,280
Speaker 1: impress of success over the course of just a decade.

908
00:51:13,719 --> 00:51:17,080
Speaker 1: But in November two thousand six he would change positions,

909
00:51:17,120 --> 00:51:20,200
Speaker 1: going from being the president and group CEO of Sony

910
00:51:20,200 --> 00:51:24,920
Speaker 1: Computer Entertainment to its chairman and group CEO. Now that

911
00:51:24,960 --> 00:51:28,760
Speaker 1: sounds like a promotion, right president to CEO, But according

912
00:51:28,840 --> 00:51:32,040
Speaker 1: to most sources I was reading, it was really showing

913
00:51:32,080 --> 00:51:34,480
Speaker 1: that the company was moving him out of a role

914
00:51:34,480 --> 00:51:37,440
Speaker 1: where he would have day to day operations control of

915
00:51:37,480 --> 00:51:40,360
Speaker 1: the division. It was more of a general oversight, but

916
00:51:40,400 --> 00:51:42,480
Speaker 1: he would no longer be the person calling the shots

917
00:51:42,600 --> 00:51:46,359
Speaker 1: day to day. Sony was dealing with a serious shortfall

918
00:51:46,640 --> 00:51:50,440
Speaker 1: with this PS three. The sales were falling behind Microsoft

919
00:51:50,520 --> 00:51:53,360
Speaker 1: in those early days, and Nintendo's WE was winning out

920
00:51:53,440 --> 00:51:54,920
Speaker 1: as well. And I should add that when it was

921
00:51:54,960 --> 00:51:57,880
Speaker 1: all said and done, when everything is done with the

922
00:51:57,920 --> 00:52:01,560
Speaker 1: seventh generation of consoles, WE would be the king. They

923
00:52:01,719 --> 00:52:04,919
Speaker 1: sold far more consoles of the week Nintendo did than

924
00:52:05,040 --> 00:52:08,080
Speaker 1: Sony or Microsoft did with their consoles. But then Sony

925
00:52:08,080 --> 00:52:10,880
Speaker 1: would make up lost ground. It would actually take second place.

926
00:52:10,920 --> 00:52:14,279
Speaker 1: So while the Xbox three sixty led the way for

927
00:52:14,440 --> 00:52:17,000
Speaker 1: most of the early years of the P S three,

928
00:52:17,120 --> 00:52:20,680
Speaker 1: Sony would ultimately make up that lost ground before the

929
00:52:20,760 --> 00:52:22,560
Speaker 1: end of its life cycle. Of course, this is also

930
00:52:22,600 --> 00:52:26,160
Speaker 1: helped by the fact that Sony supports its consoles much

931
00:52:26,200 --> 00:52:30,040
Speaker 1: longer than the other companies do. Howard Stringer, the CEO

932
00:52:30,320 --> 00:52:33,480
Speaker 1: for Sony around this time, said that Kutaragi was a

933
00:52:33,480 --> 00:52:38,879
Speaker 1: star executive with um let's say communications issues. Stringer said

934
00:52:38,880 --> 00:52:41,000
Speaker 1: that kudarag he wasn't very good when it came to

935
00:52:41,200 --> 00:52:45,200
Speaker 1: communicating with other folks in the company, including people higher

936
00:52:45,280 --> 00:52:47,960
Speaker 1: up on the hierarchy like his boss. He was seen

937
00:52:48,000 --> 00:52:51,320
Speaker 1: as brilliant, but stubborn, difficult to work with, and maybe

938
00:52:51,360 --> 00:52:55,040
Speaker 1: a little bit arrogant. Kazhai, who had been with Sony

939
00:52:55,040 --> 00:52:58,480
Speaker 1: Computer Entertainment since nine and who had been a large

940
00:52:58,520 --> 00:53:01,280
Speaker 1: part of the success story of the PS two, would

941
00:53:01,280 --> 00:53:03,799
Speaker 1: shift from being the head of Sony Computer in North

942
00:53:03,840 --> 00:53:07,600
Speaker 1: America to stepping in as president for the entire Sony

943
00:53:07,640 --> 00:53:12,880
Speaker 1: Computer Division, the global head of that part of Sony,

944
00:53:12,920 --> 00:53:15,240
Speaker 1: and he would also later on go on to become

945
00:53:15,280 --> 00:53:19,120
Speaker 1: the head of Sony Corporation overall. That again, was probably

946
00:53:19,160 --> 00:53:21,960
Speaker 1: something Kutaragi had hoped for at one point. He didn't

947
00:53:22,000 --> 00:53:26,480
Speaker 1: make it. His protege did. In two thousand seven, Kutaragi

948
00:53:26,560 --> 00:53:29,480
Speaker 1: surprised a few people by announcing he was stepping down

949
00:53:29,520 --> 00:53:32,880
Speaker 1: and retiring. He would be named an honorary chairman of

950
00:53:32,920 --> 00:53:36,600
Speaker 1: Sony Computer Entertainment, but his formal leadership role had come

951
00:53:36,640 --> 00:53:39,440
Speaker 1: to an end, and so the father of the PlayStation

952
00:53:39,640 --> 00:53:43,080
Speaker 1: would leave Sony. But the story of the PlayStation was

953
00:53:43,160 --> 00:53:46,680
Speaker 1: far from over, So in our next episode, I'll wrap

954
00:53:46,800 --> 00:53:49,560
Speaker 1: up the rest of the PlayStation three story talking a

955
00:53:49,600 --> 00:53:51,960
Speaker 1: little bit about the duel Shock three controller, which would

956
00:53:51,960 --> 00:53:55,800
Speaker 1: come out a year after Kutaragi left the company. And

957
00:53:55,840 --> 00:54:00,280
Speaker 1: also how the PlayStation for change direction again, how all

958
00:54:00,680 --> 00:54:03,800
Speaker 1: the course that was laid with a PS three switched

959
00:54:04,120 --> 00:54:06,920
Speaker 1: again with the PS four, and how that leads up

960
00:54:06,920 --> 00:54:11,040
Speaker 1: to the PS five. I anticipate that next episode will

961
00:54:11,080 --> 00:54:14,279
Speaker 1: be the last one in this in this series for now,

962
00:54:14,760 --> 00:54:16,680
Speaker 1: with a little bit at the end to talk about

963
00:54:16,719 --> 00:54:19,759
Speaker 1: the announcements of the PS five. We'll see. As you

964
00:54:19,760 --> 00:54:23,319
Speaker 1: guys have noticed, I am luquacious in nature, and sometimes

965
00:54:23,400 --> 00:54:27,480
Speaker 1: these episodes end up having more to them than I anticipated.

966
00:54:27,920 --> 00:54:30,400
Speaker 1: But if you guys have any suggestions for future episodes

967
00:54:30,400 --> 00:54:32,480
Speaker 1: of tech Stuff, whether it's a quick one off, maybe

968
00:54:32,480 --> 00:54:34,760
Speaker 1: there's a company you want to hear about, a specific

969
00:54:34,800 --> 00:54:37,200
Speaker 1: product you want to hear about. Maybe there's a trend

970
00:54:37,239 --> 00:54:40,040
Speaker 1: in technology you want to know more about, let me know.

971
00:54:40,440 --> 00:54:43,240
Speaker 1: Send me a message on Facebook or Twitter. The handle

972
00:54:43,280 --> 00:54:46,200
Speaker 1: for both is text stuff H s W and now

973
00:54:46,200 --> 00:54:54,759
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you again really soon. Text Stuff is

974
00:54:54,800 --> 00:54:57,920
Speaker 1: an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from my

975
00:54:58,040 --> 00:55:01,680
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio, you app, Apple Podcasts,

976
00:55:01,760 --> 00:55:08,200
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H