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Sony Fesses Up

by Jack Mathews, Oct 30, 2000 10:00am PST
Related Topics – Sony, Hardware (PC only)

The Register reports that Sony has finally fessed up to the reasons behind the PlayStation 2 shortage. Basically, the "industry wide" shortage was actually, umm, not. I can't say it any better than The Reg did, so here it is:

Some time back, Sony decided to upgrade its Nagasaki chip foundry from 0.25 micron technology to a 0.18 micron process. And the shift, which involves making significant changes to the plant, hit production of the PlayStation 2's Graphics Synthesiser chip hard. Basically, it knocked chip yields right down, and Sony is only now beginning to catch up.
Yields, by the way, signify the amount of good chips vs. bad chips they get from production. Lower yields = Less goods and less profit. I haven't heard much in the way of greatness for the PS2 games that are out now anyway, what about you guys?


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  • #165
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    By: Dynotaku x
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    My impression of the PS2 so far:

    Graphics are really doog, but so far, nothing that blows away the Dreamcast, for instance, I think Soul Calibur looks better than Tekken Tag, and SSX and Crazy Taxi are about equal, but SSX doesn't have any pop-up that I've seen.

    The games I got:

    SSX:
    As much fun as Crazy Taxi, and really purty. Definitely worth my time.

    Tekken Tag:
    It looks good, but it's just Tekken 3 with much better graphics and a tag mode, really, that's the only difference. The models look really good, but since the game is just Tekken 3, you never really get a good look at them except for the end game movies, which are realtime, not prerendered, unlike Sould Calibur, which was designed to be 3D from the get go, (I know the whole Tekken series has been poly characters, but the gameplay is pretty 2D) SC zooms in and around the characters after fights and on some moves like throws.
    Armored Core 2:
    I've never been one for mech games, but I like it enough, and it's really in depth as far as upgrading your mech, first time in a long time I've taken out a pencil and piece of paper to compare items (in this case mech parts) to try and get the most efficient upgrades. The graphics aren't exceptional, but they're nothing to sneeze at either.
    Time Splitters:
    This game reminded me why I hate FPS's on consoles. I can't stand the controls. Mind you using the dual analog sticks for movement and looking is probably the best solution for such an inferior control system. Absolutely all the challenge from the game comes from the difficult control interface. I can't even beat the medium difficulty level, and I'm certian that I could whip the whole game if they had just sat one programmer down for a few hours and hacked together a decent mouse driver, I'd like it a lot more. If I couldn't afford to play the upgrade game, and I was stuck with console FPSs, I'd still rather play UT on the PS2 for multiplayer, even if UT didn't have mouse support, but if I was coming from playing hours of Perfect Dark or Goldeneye, or even Turok 3, I'd wlcome both games as a Godsend. Basically, I couldn't recommend it for any PC owners, but console junkies will probably like it a lot more than me.

    I'm looking forward to the next generation of PS2 games tho, Feyd-Rautha put it well, talking about comparing the 1st gen stuff to the last gen stuff, once the conslole makers stop trying to make games that are PS1 games with prettier graphics, well see a lot more stuff like SSX.
    Oct 30, 2000 1:51pm PST