A New Game Begins...

When X-Box was first announced, a friend of mine was trying to convince me how it will kick PS2's ass. One of the points I made to him was that it's content that matters and that in this regard, "Sony is the Microsoft of everything".

I doubt I mananged to sway his opinion much, but something else has happened, somewhat behind the scenes, that I think will change the entertainment we see and how we see it.

I had heard of the Final Fantasy movie and I also knew that Sony was looking into digital content delivery, such as downloading games, movies and music into your PlayStation2. What I didn't know at first, was that Sony has made something called the GScube - a box with 16 of the PS2's chipsets in it that was shown this past summer rendering some Final Fantasy footage.

Some of the stories online seem to imply or assume that Square has been using GScube already, but the EETimes articles seem to dispute this, and also seem the most credible. Apparently, the present GScube is only a prototype and the final version will have 64 of the chipsets, enabling real-time rendering of the Final Fantasy movie!

Hmm, maybe sometime in mid-2002, PlayStation2 owners will get a new kind of exclusive title...

Update: Here's some good news for PS2 owners!

Here's the best of the links I found:

http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20000727S0028

http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20000913S0026

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20000804/crespo_pfv.htm

http://ps2.ign.com/news/22490.html

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