Could this really be coming soon - PS3..

[sailor-fuku]

just come across this :-

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

Anouncements:

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

Features of this latest firmware include:

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

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

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

New content on PS Store available on the 8th:

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

Killzone demo for May.

[huxley]

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

^ how will this work with first gen ps3 consoles, will it switch between hard ware and software versions for early adopters.

[Zatoichi_Samurai]

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

^ how will this work with first gen ps3 consoles, will it switch between hard ware and software versions for early adopters.

At a guess I'd say if the game works with software it'll use that, as it should have the enhanced features that way. And if theres a game that won't run on software, it'll use the hardware, whereas people with new PS3s just wont be able to play it.

[On The Edge of Insanity]

Some interesting demos going up, most notably Lair.

[huxley]

still no sign of Flow on the HK and Jap stores.

[mission]

Still no 720p blu ray

[sj33]

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

Does that mean those 720p FF12 shots from before were not running in 720p, but just upscaled? That's slightly less impressive then.