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[Mr Invader]

QUOTE(shaded @ Oct 26 2006, 11:26 AM)

im so happy i ordered an xbox 360 3 days ago. sony fails so hard. i dont want to be apart of some big lie.

 

[Pheidias]

As I said I don't hear or see any lies on the commercials. Maybe someone could point one out?

[Foe-hammer]

I didn't find the commercials too bad myself, neither.  They over exaggerated a few points, but that is to be expected.

And i applaud sony for actually using in-game graphics and not FMV.  It's just funny how they go on about how amazingly god like the ps3 is then show the less then convincing games.  They would have been better to not show any game footage at all (they were the downer of the add), and let the uninformed and fanboys imagination run wild.

[throwingks]

QUOTE(Pheidias @ Oct 27 2006, 01:04 AM)

As I said I don't hear or see any lies on the commercials. Maybe someone could point one out?

blu-ray is not 50x the size of DVD

[KAGE360]

QUOTE(Pheidias @ Oct 27 2006, 01:04 AM)

As I said I don't hear or see any lies on the commercials. Maybe someone could point one out?

Cell does not have 8 CPUs, they slip in pre-rendered footage during the warhawk footage, the size of a game doesnt matter entirely of the storage medium, and its nothing new to perform thousands of calculations in a game.  should i go on?

a lot of hyper-bull and typical sony

[m_hael]

saying that games will use 8 of them is an out and out lie... regardless of perception or misconception... games can use 1PPE + 5 SPE's... period.

[KAGE360]

QUOTE(m_hael @ Oct 27 2006, 09:15 AM)

saying that games will use 8 of them is an out and out lie... regardless of perception or misconception... games can use 1PPE + 5 SPE's... period.

very interesting, i thought the PPE was busy acting as the "controller" for the 6 free SPE's for game code.

silentbob i dont know what there is to defend against.  you say "let's get in to SPEs vs. processor in a commercial to the public" when there is no "vs" they are both processors, its the fact that there are not that many active processors that is the lie.  

what you dont realize that sony approach is flawed in the fact that the casual gamer dont care much for tech specs (nor do they understand them) and most of the tech educated people know that sony is full of it with these ads.  so either the message of the ads are either uninteresting tech babble or complete BS depending on who is watching.  funny isnt it?

and yes, that squad footage they showed during the warhawk footage was from a pre-rendered clip from E305, one of the many clips that sony tried to pass of as real-time.

QUOTE

I know that, but again how much detail do you want them to go into in a advert. Never said "will use all 8 for games" and I'm too lazy to type out word for word what is said in the second video. At best you could say it was implied.

thats just what you dont understand though, none of that should be "implied".  whether its fear, desperation, or just plain ignorance to the truth; there is no reason sony couldnt have just said more accurate (true) numbers.  again to the casual gamer, the real numbers wouldnt have looked any more or less impressive and to the educated gamer/tech-head at least they would know sony isnt spewing shit as always.

[KAGE360]

QUOTE(silentbob343 @ Oct 27 2006, 09:48 AM)

Small thing to nitpick on.  I know saying X, Y, Z companies do worse is no defense, but these ads were pretty tame.  Again the ad stated there were 8 processors , not all 8 would be used in one time.  The reason for the SPE vs. Processor was becasue of this statement.

Yes, it does.  At least you didn't try to say that the SPEs aren't processors as I've seen many do.

you obviously miss the point entirely.  nothing you can say changes the fact that sony is spewing shit once again.  while it may not be commen, those that actually feel that these quotes makes a difference may make the buying decision based on these false facts.  if you dont know any better and i gave you 2 boxes, one with 8 CPUs and another with 3, with $100-$200 price difference which would you take?  <- this is the effect they are trying to make.  

also its not just not all 8 will be used in one time, it's actually 8 wont be used at all, the number is smaller.  unfortunatly i doubt anyone can state false adverstising because the Cell does have 8 SPEs, they just leave out the fact that some of them are not used.  

is it clever advertising?  maybe to an idiot.  however is it intentionally misleading?  you bet your ass it is.

[KAGE360]

QUOTE(silentbob343 @ Oct 27 2006, 09:57 AM)

That 8 is a real number. Does Intel or AMD say our dual core processors are really fast...when used with properly multi-threaded programs? No they shout out dual core and 64bit to get the masses drooling. People take issue with marketing and I can understand that, most marketing is deceptive, but I'm not going to hold it against Sony when they are merely doing what every other company does

again I hope you apply the same level of standards to everybody.

and what would youl like Sony to say;  "we have 8 processors and they have 3, but it's about even as far as performance?

i will try to make this simple for you....

the

ps3

does

not

have

8

processors

there is a difference between throwing out techy buzzwords and flat out lying about your products potential.  IF i was the average-joe consumer i would be PISSED to find out that my "8 processor" system only used about 6 of them.

when your competition sets standards for being mostly honest with the specs, you tend to look bad when you dont follow the same route.  what do you owe sony to make excuses or defend for their bullshit?

[incognegro]

QUOTE

Yes, let's get in to SPEs vs. processor in a commercial to the public. It's a commercial, not a processor architecture primer and there is greater chance that the consumer has heard the word processor than SPE, and a larger storage medium can hold more game data. Sure it's nothing new to perform many calculations very quickly, but it doesn't stop other companies, i.e. NVIDIA, ATI, and 3DFX, when they were around, from touting those numbers

So if they can't effectively communicate to the public what an spe is compared to a processor in one commercial then why don't they just not mention it? That would be the more honest approach...

[m_hael]

QUOTE(silentbob343 @ Oct 27 2006, 07:06 AM)

.. and yes it does have 8..

please englighten me on this... I've been working on it for about 13 months now, published one game on it and wrote code specifically for spe's on countless occasions. Technically the cell CAN have 8 SPE's, the one in the ps3 has 7 hardware level spe's but only 5 of those are available for games.... thats the truth, no lies, no veiled inference... the truth.

Now I'm pretty much a laymen when it comes to law ... but I know for a fact those adverts will NOT get by the ITC in england... adverts have to advertise the truth, not veiled lies.

in america however... you're allowed to lie until the cows come home... its all about whether or not you can get away with it.

[twistedsymphony]

They didn't outright lie in the commercial, and they didn't make any direct comparisons to the Xbox 360 or the Wii.

They Said "The Cell has 8 SPEs" which is entirely true, it DOES have that many, they don't tell you that one is disabled to allow for manufacturing defects, one is reserved for the OS and another just busses data to the other 6 leaving developers with just 5 for actual game use.

As for talking about millions of calculations per second. Also not a lie, they said the the cell can do that and it can, just because they don't tell you that pretty much every modern processor can do millions of calculations doesn't make it a lie.

Honestly I think these are some of the best game console advertisements I've seen recently

The first Sony advert I saw was the AI one on the European PS3 website (it's in HD and done in the same style).


Why do I think these adverts are good? Because even though they exaggerate the truth through leaving out information and showing visuals to reinforce the exaggeration they are educating the consumer.

After watching an Xbox 360 ad what do you know about the console? NOTHING, hell you don't even know what the frigging thing looks like? People are jumping rope and an Xbox logo... great I don't care.

The PS3 ad tells the consumer exactly what makes their console so great, it lets them imagine the kinds of games that might be made for it, and it puts a reason behind the price tag.

After watching an Xbox 360 ad how much do you know about the console? How much do you know about the games? Could you tell me what kind of processor it has? What kind of Discs it uses? Is it HD? Is it even more powerful then the Xbox 1? What does it look like?

Heck "is the 360 just an Xbox 1 accessory? ... a game? ... what is it? ... I don't really care anymore CSI is back on and I only own a PS2 anyway."

After watching the PS3 ads how much do you know about the console? You can tell people that it supports Blu-Ray discs, you can tell people it uses a Cell processor, you can tell people it's capable of 1080p High Definition.

You need to realize that people here in the forums are far far more informed about these things then the general public that make up most of the consumers.

I STILL TO THIS DAY run into people who honestly think that the Xbox 360 is a "slim" Xbox 1 similar to how the Slimline PS2 replaced the fat one. HONESTLY... what is MS doing to inform these people, not much really. It also doesn't help that 4 out of 5 kiosks I walk by STILL aren't setup correctly and are showing 480p letterboxed and stretched to widescreen on a 720p LCD making it look like total garbage graphically.

The people who know about the 360, and what it's capable of only know by word of mouth and research they've done themselves.

Sony's advertisements can instantly make any viewer who even has a remote interest in video games a walking talking Sony zombie: "I'm going to buy a PS3... I'm going to buy it because it has Blu-Ray, Cell and 1080p...."

Sony hasn't lied in these commercials, but they've creatively carved the nuggets of truth to let people's imaginations fill in the blanks with the person's own self crafted lies resulting in a perception superior to the product.

Most importantly they're telling the consumer exactly the message that they want to hear, they've made the console seem SO incredibly impressive that when they walk into the store and see $600 they'll think "really, that's it? heck it's cheaper then a Blu-Ray player, of course I'll buy one"

It wouldn't even matter if the 360 was twice as powerful, had a built in HD-DVD drive, and came with every game released for the system so far... KNOW ONE KNOWS ANYTHING ABOUT IT, simply because MS's advertising sucks by comparison.

[KAGE360]

QUOTE(silentbob343 @ Oct 27 2006, 10:16 AM)

hmm now that is a good point, well kind of, but numbers sell and with most people more is better.  As was already stated though SPEs are indeed processors and I misunderstood Kage's statement, well I think his intial statment of "Cell does not have 8 CPUs" was poorly worded.  

His point is The PS3 does not use all 8 of the SPEs/processors, rather than it does not have 8.  

I have heard a couple different numbers on how many SPEs will be utilized.  From m hael's 1PPE + 5SPE to 1PPE + 7SPEs with the 8th being used for "redundancy".

I will admit I have actually enjoyed this discussion and have no ill will towards anybody.

sony stated that the PS3's Cell has 1 PPE + 7 SPE's, the 8th is redundant to improve yields.  however what they dont say is how much of the Cell is actually used for gaming which is what M_heals statement is for.

however keep spinning the truth.  yes we all know the Cell has 8 SPEs, however are you really trying to say that it's right to state it has 8 processors working together??  very true that as long as the games are good, what does it matter.  in that way of thinking though, why not just be honest then??

twisted, great write up and i agree in a lot of ways.  sony's PR team has always been top-notch, but to compare them to the 360 commercials is not accurate IMHO.  

there were a few 360 commercials that showed nothing but gameplay and clearly stated about HD-gaming (CoD2 commercial comes to mind) and yes there have been a few commercials which shows nothing of any games or even the console.  however i think those commercial are geared more towards the casual gamer or general public who usually dont care about tech specs.  i agree that maybe their direction isnt always the most clear, but its not hard to see what message they are trying to send with those commercials (people playing different games in real life).  i see your point and agree to an extent, while i havent run into one person who thinks the 360 is a slim xbox, sony does clearly send a more direct message.  i think microsoft was trying to follow sega's and sony's pre-launch advertisement strategy: to show and state little about the actual product but instead create curiousity and interest in it (sega's "its thinking" and sony's "ps9" commercials showed and said nothing of the product).  i see what you mean but the impact can go both ways, its obvious that microsoft was going for a broader range of consumers and the gamers alike (with two types of commercials out) and sony's techno babble ads may not matter to the general consumer who usually dont get hooked by tech talk.

[silentbob343]

QUOTE(m_hael @ Oct 27 2006, 10:22 AM)

please englighten me on this... I've been working on it for about 13 months now, published one game on it and wrote code specifically for spe's on countless occasions. Technically the cell CAN have 8 SPE's, the one in the ps3 has 7 hardware level spe's but only 5 of those are available for games.... thats the truth, no lies, no veiled inference... the truth.

Now I'm pretty much a laymen when it comes to law ... but I know for a fact those adverts will NOT get by the ITC in england... adverts have to advertise the truth, not veiled lies.

in america however... you're allowed to lie until the cows come home... its all about whether or not you can get away with it.

lol I can't get in to the law either.  Since you have first hand knowledge of the cell I would like to ask you some questions.  So the Cell in the PS3 has 1 PPE and 7 SPEs no redundant 8th SPE, I'm speaking physically?  Is there ever an instance when all 7 SPEs could be utilized for something other than gaming, i.e. HD Audio/Video playback?  Would you say that 1 PPE and 7SPEs is 8 processors, thus the ad was still technically correct?

I trust you when you say; "but only 5 of those are available for games.... thats the truth, no lies, no veiled inference... the truth."  

KAGE; it's not so much spinning the truth, I believe there are two ways of looking at it.  What is physically there, i.e. how many cores on the die and how many are utilized.  I don't see it a lying if there are indeed 8 processors, we'll toss out the redundant SPE.  Would it have been better for Sony to go into detail about how many will be used like twisted just did, perhaps...

Twisted I do agree on the 360 commercials, after I watch one I want to have a waterballon fight.  Just a little bit of humor guys.

[m_hael]

the yield rate for CELL is LOW.. so low that the median yield provides only 7spe's WORKING... so they made a choice. They reduced the HW to 7SPE's, the CELL in the ps3 does NOT have 1 redundant spe, it has one ENTIRELY Disabled spe at the hardware level... sony will not magically enable it at some future point, the hw simply doesn't have that ability.

1 PPE + 7 SPE's..

it should also be noted that the PPE is roughly HALF the throughput of 1 core on 360... it has 2 hw threads but can only issue/execute on one of those at a time.

all of this info is public btw - I'm not breaking any NDA's telling you this... IBM have published it all.

and regardless of whether sonys ads are "good" my personal bent is that sony should be made to tell the truth... sadly they won't because to do so would set a president that would eventually crumble america... but thats a whole other argument.

their ad's are "good" in the eyes of advertising geeks the world over.

bubba will probably buy a ps3.