Bingo.
Backwards compatibility?
And it would still be a jerk-off machine!
They just recently announced something about Blu-Ray players being cheaper to produce (thus price cuts at retail), but that wouldn’t make current owners happy.
It’s got to be across the board compatibility with old PS2/PS1 games via a firmware release. That’s the only thing that would make a majority of PS3 owners happy at the same time, other than $300 rebate checks that is.
Warhawk? A BC announcement?
While possible, I doubt it. This is a Phil Harrison keynote - and this isn’t a Sony flack saying it’s major news that will make PS3 owners happy; it’s the actual the director of the GDC.
I’m guessing a major firmware upgrade with new media functionality.
My bet would be on the firmware upgrade as well. I know a few Sony folks who said that they’ll be busy on the night of the 6th because of ‘work reasons’…
Maybe they’ve got a new firmware release that upgrades security by decreasing the amount of things you can use the PS3 for.
I mean, hell, they’ve been making PSP owners happy by doing that for quite some time now.
They’ve been promising that the PS3’s awesomeness is coming (real soon now!) forver. I’m not going to hold my breath. (RIIIIIIDGE RACER! Giant Crab!)
Yeah, my bet is that it’s something they think will make PS3 owners happy, but really won’t, because Sony is completely out of touch with the world these days.
If I had to guess, I would say a major firmware release that adds a video and/or music store.
Sony will announce that all future PS3s will feature software driven backwards compatibility thus ensuring that existing PS3 owners will be “very happy” that they already own a PS3 with hardware backwards compatibility.
WoW on the PS3? That’d probably drive up sales.
Blizzard has confirmed multiple times that WoW is a PC-only game for the foreseeable future. It’s not a technical issue, it’s a game-design issue. The whole game, from the layout of the environments to the party and raid system to the encounter design, is made for you to have a mouse/keyboard interface that gives you instant access to at least a couple dozen “things” at once (powers, items, stances, etc.).
You could make it controller-friendly by allowing users to map abilities they want to the different buttons and have “sets” selected with the D-pad, but that would only get you halfway there and be slow and cumbersome compared to the UI designed for clicking with a mouse or hotkeying with a 100-key keyboard. There’s the chat issue, too.
And sure, they can allow people to hook up a keyboard/mouse to the PS3 (or 360, or whatever console) to play it. But the number of people who would string up their KB/mouse in their living room, clear off the coffee table, and do that on a regular basis is limited compared to the console installed base: most people are going to play the games with the controller the console comes with. So you’d have to design console-WoW around the gamepad anyway.
And it won’t help them sell more in China, where nobody can sell those next-gen consoles anyway.
WoW has no problem selling more copies than they have the support infrastructure for just on the PC. There’s really no need for it to make a console move. I just don’t expect it to ever happen. Now, a new and different console MMO in the Warcraft universe, that’s got potential.
“Guess the announcement” threads like this are always hilarious.
Or Massive Damage
I’m putting my money on the fact that having pre-announced this the actual announcement will now disappoint anyone who actually might have been made happy.
They really need to deliver now though. They really don’t need any more backlash.
Megaton.
-Julian
Real time inventory access in 4D.
Considering how little I care about either WoW or the PS3, I’m surprised that my flip response got such an in depth coverage.
I disagree about people being unwilling to hook stuff up to be able to play on their big screen tv though. If I could play some of my PC games on a big screen, I’d make the extra effort. But then again, I’m not really a market target, so YMMV.