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Encryption Security

Sony PS2 To Sport Netscape and SSL 88

Posted by Hemos from the making-things-more-secure dept.
joq writes "Just when you thought you'd heard it all... RSA Security Inc. announced it will market a development tool to equip software for a PlayStation2 game console developed by Sony with Netscape and SSL. The new development tool will allow game developers to equip online games for PS2 with SSL or other encryption means to prevent such games from being copied. Sony will sell a PS2 compatible hard disk drive unit with a broadband communications capability and is expected to sport Netscape equipped with SSL. The browser would not be necessary, however, for using game software with SSL because such game software itself processes an amount of money charged with users of networked games through a credit card number securely. Full story is on NikkeiBP and also the RSA press release"
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Sony PS2 To Sport Netscape and SSL More

Sony PS2 To Sport Netscape and SSL

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  • Competition for the X-box (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Isn't it quite natural to equip game consoles like the PS and the X-box with browsers? And SSL? Sure! Why not?

  • hehe (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    bring it on! I will have just more free games,
    that I can get from rental outlets and make
    copies of... but wait I don't have PS/2, nor I
    will acquire one in my life time. Nintendo
    or XBox it is. Why? Because sony is more or less
    evil than microsoft, or others, while others
    have sane architectures like XBox + DirectX and
    possibly OpenGL implementation. Having distributed
    rendering pipelines within same machine, is just
    insane, considering if you don't use it, your
    games will look just like Dreamcast console or
    even worse, because of such small video memory size.
    And you have to sign non-disclosure just to use
    their fucking APIs. Fuck that.

  • Saddam will love this... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    now his stockpile of Playstation 2-based missile guidance computers will skirt even more US export laws!! :-)
  • Well, it depends on what Netscape you're looking at. My guess is that it's going to be a 6.x version...
    --
    The world is divided in two categories:
    those with a loaded gun and those who dig. You dig.
  • All I need is a $50 case/power supply, $100 mainboard, $100 cpu, $20 worth of RAM

    Are you going to toggle in programs from front panel switches? Don't forget a DVD drive. You should also add the price of a decent gamepad. I also suspect the PS2 has better graphics and MPEG display than most on-board solutions, although if we're just talking about the cheapest way to get a functional computer, that's not an issue.
  • Sony uses the Mozilla/6.xx codebase, doing any necessary massive bugfixes to the code, but possibly waiting for the 6.5 release, which I've caught the rare passing mention of in Bugzilla. I have no idea if Netscape ever plans on doing another branch from the Mozilla trunk; I personally think that would be a very wise idea, giving a big boost to the Mozilla project's profile, as well as Netscape's credibility, no thanks to that 6.0 business.

    When Mozilla 0.9 (on Linux) crashes for me (which is rare now) the "Talkback" window that pops up to send back a bug report has "Netscape 6.5" in the title. This led me to assume that Netscape would branch from Mozilla again before Netscape 6.5. It only makes sense as the current Mozilla is an order of magnitude better than 0.6, or whatever version it was that Netscape branched off of originally.

  • Since Sony will be using a Netscape-branded version of mozilla, they will have full CSS1/2, DOM1/2, etc... they're not using the braindead 4.x! I also would highly doubt they would use Netscape 6 since mozilla has progressed so far since then..
  • Sony has been porting mozilla to the PS2 with the help of Netscape, thus a Netscape branded Mozilla.. not 4.x
  • You don't need a PS2 in order to do that. Get a Geforce2 MX400 [nvidia.com] and the latest NVidia drivers. Hook the s-video port up to your TV (PAL or NTSC) and enjoy! I have successfully played Quake 3 on my TV, excellent picture quality and very fast too! Here's [alsaplayer.org] proof. And here [alsaplayer.org] is Konqueror displaying /. This card will even display the console at bootup if you only have your TV hooked up, unlike the Matrox cards.

    -adnans
  • What about if the game was free to download, all that you needed to play it was a few pennies per game. This beats having to pay £35 for a box with a CD in it.

    Even if you don't end up paying more the games manufacturer wins because he doesn't have to worry about the retailer making a 100% mark up on selling it.

    I think that this has a good chance of flying.

  • That and of course to go with IE would be to bed down with their competitor.

    Vermifax
  • It has many players. Good ratings, and is considered by the gaming media to be a sucessful online console game.

    Vermifax
  • my dreamcast can already do this, using broadband too.

    Mine can't. See, Sega released their broadband adapter and then released a whopping 3 pieces of software that work with it: Quake III, Unreal Tournament, and the execrable Pod Speedzone. Without going through all sorts of nonsense (involving pirate Japanese web browsers and other such silliness) THAT IS IT.



    Why this sad state of affairs? Because the "online" games (and browsers) Sega released before only work with the stupid freaking dialup 56K modem. Why? Because Sega never wrote/licensed a general purpose TCP/IP stack, so all the other software is FREAKIN' HARDCODED to a STUPIDUSELESS analog modem.


    Sony was at least smart enough to license [scea.com] a modern IPV4/IPV6 stack from a company that maybe knows a little about [cisco.com] TCP/IP.

  • Are you suggesting that Microsoft has ported IE to the PS2? Wow! That *would* be news. Microsoft developing software for a direct competitor? Hmm, somehow I don't think that will happen (OK, so MS did this very thing with Apple...but that was to prevent them from looking like a monopoly).

    I imagine what they mean is that Sony is working with Netscape, the company, to use the Gecko rendering engine on the PS2. Netscape provides software engineers that are familiar with Gecko (Mozilla couldn't offer software engineers as easily, being an open-source movement). I could be *way* off base with this, though.
  • LOL. I aim to please :-P

  • You sound very educated. I wish i knew which
    university you attended.

    And about communism: Since it's obiously unstable
    and prone to deteriorate to fascism, perhaps you
    should take that as a clue that the entire concept
    is flawed.

    The desire for individual survival and success is
    much stronger than any political ideology. What
    are the benefits of communism anyway?

  • I made the assumption that the guy buying a PS2 is much more likely to have a TV than a monitor, so I felt like I could get away with that little slight of hand. But I wasn't aware that you could get a system with a TV-out that cheap, so I'll just shut up now. :)

    Except - the gameplay on the PS2 will blow your cheapie computer out of the water. Okay. Now I'll shut up. :)

  • No monitor, keyboard, mouse, or hard drive (or any network connectivity out of the box, iirc).

    Except that your box is lacking TV-out, something the PS2 has, and you neglected to buy a monitor. Figure about $100 for a monitor, and suddenly you're looking much closer to the PS2's price point. Unless you plan on enjoying those state-of-the-art on-board video graphics by plugging the VGA cable right into your optic nerve...

  • That's why Everquest and Ultima Online make absolutely no money; because everyone would rather play on MUDs for free than submit to a pay per play model.
  • The point of Mozilla was to make Netscape a cross-platform-something-or-other. It would be ridiculous to waste time porting or writing an emulation layer to run NS4.
  • Netscape 6 is out though. IMNSHO, Netscape 6 is the best and most compatible version they've made yet. The only major problem I've run into with it
    is a small bug in the way tables are displayed. Not a big issue. It crashes far less often than the IE beta 6.00.2462 and has a much prettier GUI.

    I'm happy to see Netscape make headway, if for nothing else but competition's sake.
  • In my opinion, success of a GAME system will have nothing to do with the web browser. Who wants navigate the web with a PlayStation controller. I think most of us would rather have a keyboard and mouse to do that. Using these on a couch can be somewhat difficult. What'll sell these systems is games like Tony Hawk 3 online. Game counsels fit the bill of comfortable game playing in the living room. Computers will always be used to get the real work done. Well, that and StarCraft. That would be pretty tough to play with game controller.
    --
  • To respond,
    A - This is true. I've done this. I also struggled to find a suitable position to use a keyboard and mouse from the couch. I just don't believe people are going to use this a primary means of "surfing" the net.

    B - Quick means of looking up info? Possibly. I'm not sure how quickly you'll be able to leave the game and fire up a web browser. It's not like a PC where you can have multiple apps running. It might just be easier to pause the game walk over to your PC and find it that way. Which is really true if you have broadband access.

    C - That's probably true too. I don't use cheat devices, so I don't how often you would need to use it. A good point nonetheless.

    D - I wonder how big PS2 demos would be. This is also a good idea. I just wonder if it's feasible to download large game files. On a side note, I wonder if individuals will be able to their own games to distributed online. That would be cool.

    All in all. I wouldn't worry about the web browser. I don't think you'll need it that much. This thing isn't going to replace your PC. Maybe it'll bring out some interesting innovations (I see a wireless keyboard and trackball made to fit your lap), but it's gotta long way to go surpass the PC workhorse.

    Also, Netscape sucks. Mozilla rules. Maybe they'll use a more recent version of Mozilla to build the PS2 Netscape.
    --
  • I also was going off my personal setting. I have two oafish roomates. Between the three of we have 8 computers all routed through a DSL (I can't wait to route my PS2). We literally have computers everywhere and most of them are on 24-7. For me it would be easier to pause a game and turn to the computer to do something. But that's just my setup. It'll all depend on the individual's personal setup.

    Of course, this is all based on what I assume the PS2 online experience is going to be like. Right now, only Sony knows exactly what it's going to be like. What kind of interface. How much access to system resources. How involved will the operating system be. Guess we'll have to wait and see. Maybe people really will use it as a computer. Who knows?
    --
  • Except that even the cable companies would love to deliver all pay-per-view content.

    I see TV going this way in the years to come.

    I don't know how I feel about it (maybe I can Ask Slashdot how I feel). There are not too many shows that I really try to catch (Stargate SG-1 and Futurama), but I like to have the TV on in the background.

    --
  • I bed to differ on this one. I use Mozilla 0.9 (even with its graphic corruption) almost exclusively. It is more stable than Netscape 4.77 on my machine.

    --

  • A great resource for such questions can be found at:

    Here you can search a range of dictionaries, giving this definition (among others):
    verb (past sported, past participle sported, present participle sporting, 3rd person present singular sports) 1. transitive verb wear: to wear or display something, usually proudly or with the intention of impressing others (informal)

  • I'm suspicious of that claim in NikkeiBP. Note that the RSA press release is entirely reasonable, and doesn't discuss piracy but privacy. Presumeably of credit card numbers and the other things SSL is typically used for.

    If one of the intents really is to prevent unauthorized copying, I'm surprised RSA has signed on to this, as they're normally a fairly non-bogus company.

  • The Netscape thing may be questionable (Score:4)

    by Platinum Dragon ( 34829 ) on Wednesday May 30, 2001 @03:38AM (#189399) Journal
    First: don't flame me if I'm blatantly, clearly way off in wackyland on this one. I'm just going off what I've read in the linked articles.

    The only mention of "Netscape" comes in the NikkeiBP article, a single mention in a paragraph midway down the page claiming Sony will likely sell a hard drive unit with Netscape and one of the SSL technologies pre-loaded. No mention of Netscape is found in the RSA press release, and there is nary a mention of the version of NS expected to be included.

    My first thought was "why wouldn't Sony go with a customized version of IE?" Several ideas quickly leaped to mind; no Windows infrastructure in the PS2, MS will be competing directly with Sony within months, MS hasn't said a word about such a deal, and other, less-developed nagging thoughts.

    I don't know why Sony would go with an ancient, cruddy codebase like the 4.x series. Outside of the Windows and Mac platforms (and maybe not even then), the Java support is atrocious, and the browser is extremely prone to crashing. Unless Sony uses the Source and does some mad fixing of the 4.x code, I don't really see them using 4.77 in the PS2.

    Netscape 6 was a brainfart. Enough said.

    The only possibilities that make anything close to sense in my mind:

    1) Sony uses the 4.x codebase, does some fixes and tweaking

    2) Sony uses the Mozilla/6.xx codebase, doing any necessary massive bugfixes to the code, but possibly waiting for the 6.5 release, which I've caught the rare passing mention of in Bugzilla. I have no idea if Netscape ever plans on doing another branch from the Mozilla trunk; I personally think that would be a very wise idea, giving a big boost to the Mozilla project's profile, as well as Netscape's credibility, no thanks to that 6.0 business.

    2b) Sony uses Gecko and builds a simple browser around it, including PSM 2.0. Better option for them, IMO.

    3) Sony doesn't bother with Netscape, the NikkeiBP report is off on that point, and Sony has their own plans that no one will be able to guess at.

    Take your pick, can't wait to see how this development turns out...
  • > After all, then the price is lowered a bit (they will be forced to when the Xbox arrived) they sell the hardware at loss and are supposed to make it up on the games.

    Even without the Xbox, the PS2 sells at a loss... all consoles do. And the money they make is not just on games, it's on the IDEs and the SDKs as well.

    Sony will sell a PS2 compatible hard disk drive unit with a broadband communications capability and is expected to sport...
    What they're hoping for is probably to make more money on the consoles themselves by selling premium equipment like the hard disk and the modems. For all you know, it might require you to sign up with some service that offers in order to play the online games, thereby increasing revenues.

    The browser could possibly limit the sites visitable by the user (a-la-AOL) to those relevent to the PS2.
  • heh.. did I read that headline incorrectly?
    It looks to me (from that) as though they're pusing for games you rent, regardless of wether or not you own the disc.
    I mean, read this from the initial posting:

    such game software itself processes an amount of money charged with users of networked games through a credit card number

    Now, the next logical step is for them to charge for the games by-use. I think I'll remain away from this hyped up overmarketed underdeveloped crap..
  • SSL is merely about encryption of data in transit, along with a mechanism for authentication of the client and server parties.

    The certificate you are mentioning is PKI - public key infrastructure. This means that the information has been signed using a mechanism that cannot be easily be spoofed.

    This is very different to using SSL. SSL includes the ability to do this, using some of the algorythms supported as part of SSL.

    It's not SSL that provides the certificate based kicking/banning or assertion that these CDROMS are genuine, thats a factor of the encryption signing algoryths that SSL supports. If you think thats SSL, please read the papers surround the technology.

    You lovely man,

    Dan
  • Is it me, but the article says that SSL is used to prevent the copying of games?

    When I last checked SSL stood for Secure Socket Layer. As in sockets. TCP/IP ones.

    Still, using SSL for the communications to online gaming servers should slow down the hack-a-bility we've all seen to often on Counterstrike et-al.
  • Ultima Online, Everquest, etc. have tried the pay-per-play model. Admittedly, I haven't tried them, because I find the pricing model extremely distasteful, but from what I've heard from friends and online, the idiot-to-real-player ratio is no better than any other "free after initial purchase" online game. Which would seem to indicate either 1) there are as many stupid people who would pay to play as there are those who would not, or 2) charging a fee to play discourages (proportionally) as many real players as it does the idiots.

    Actually, the second possibility is just a restatement of the first. Anyway, as a prospective "real player", I think both items are true. So let's encourage the gaming industry to charge us in the way we would prefer to be charged. Isn't that what capitalism is supposed to do for us anyway?

    Dave
  • if you cant fill in your tax return... [slashdot.org]
  • The browser would not be necessary, however, for using game software with SSL because such game software itself processes an amount of money charged with users of networked games through a credit card number securely.

    PARSER ERROR! Caught SIGTERM, dumping core.

  • No, I can see how this would work (Score:5)

    by marm ( 144733 ) on Wednesday May 30, 2001 @05:09AM (#189407)

    SSL is not merely about encryption of data in transit, it's also a cryptographically secure method of authentication. Imagine that each and every PS2 DVD-ROM is pressed with a unique SSL certificate. Now, when playing online games the game server can require that all client PS2's authenticate themselves with this certificate. If the same certificate is used more than once at the same time then all connections using this certificate are kicked from the server and probably banned. The advantage of doing this with SSL as opposed to just serial numbers is that it has been tried and tested in the field and shown to be secure cryptographically, and the data is encrypted in transit so replay attacks are useless.

    It doesn't prevent copying per se but it makes playing online with a copied game all but impossible. Given how much of a part of modern gaming is concerned with playing online, this is a major deterrent to copying.

  • Plus, you had to build the computer yourself. I think we're talking about off-the-shelf computers for $300 here, not some cobbled together geek-rig with a cardboard case.

    When you actually limit your examples to the actual realm at hand, you'll see the PS2 could make a decent cheap computer.

    Ah... to have a replacement for the C64.


    Refrag

  • 100$ (Score:2)

    by luugi ( 150586 )
    I know that if the hard drive and network capabilities cost over 100$ US, Sony won't be selling many of them. People do not like to buy add-ons. I own a couple of consoles but I never bought anything other than more joysticks. People rather buy a brand new console than buy an upgrade. It's simply not worth it.
  • Interpret it as "proudly wear" - like "sporting a new pair of shoes".
  • Remember how many quarters you spent on video games in arcades when you were a kid? I know I lost countless quarters to joust, defender etc. Well, heads up... with they way they are pushing this kind of technology, within a year or two, computer games will probably be on a pay per play scenario, and if you have no internet access, then you will probably miss out on the vast majority of games. And if you do have internet access, then you can expect to pay $1 and up a pop for a game. Just wait and see. As horrible as this sounds, I bet it becomes all too regular.

  • Angles (Score:3)

    by Alien54 ( 180860 ) on Wednesday May 30, 2001 @03:01AM (#189412) Journal
    I look at this story, and think about who would care about this beyond a technical or professional interest.

    This is important in case this technology becomes usable by the RIAA or similar agencies. Otherwise I take a look at this and see several reactions that become occasionally troublesome.

    Most consumers will not care too much as long as the games don't cost too much.

    Some will get not care, as long as their parents buy them the game.

    Certain folks will take joy at a new toy to crack.

    Some will be outraged that they actually have to pay money for a game since they will not be able to copy the game.

    and then there are those that will figure out some way to apply this to their favorite hot button issue whether it applies to the situation or not, be it civil rights, crime in the inner city, or the massive Australian-American trade imbalance problem [joke]

    (sigh) somehow I do not think of this as being very important by itself.

    Check out the Vinny the Vampire [eplugz.com] comic strip

  • I wouldn't mind playing against stupid, rich people.

    1. Challenge a SRP to a deathmatch or something.
    2. Offer to "spice it up" by gambling on the outcome.
    3. Because they're stupid, you kick their arse, and take their money.

    Job done.

    J.


  • I use keyboard and mouse (okay, trackpad) on the couch all the time. It's called a laptop. I use it for computing, though. When I want to play games I fire up the Sega Genesis or Playstation (and frankly, I almost like the older 2D games better than most of the newer stuff I've seen-- the only game I want in 3D is Wizardry).

    I can't imagine spending a bunch of extra money to attach a keyboard, hard drive, or a bunch of other crap to my game console when I can buy a pretty nice computer for $500-$700 and be reasonably sure of software upgrades, Linux support, etc etc. And since most of us already own a real computer, that's money that could go into upgrades for the CPU, more memory, peripherals, etc.
  • A hard drive would be nice and all... but I'd rather they spent the extra engineering effort on equipping the PS2 with more than 4 megs of texture memory and a rasterizer that can do perspective correct lighting, and I'd rather spend my extra money on more games. I have a PC for my Web browsing.

    Seriously, consoles are good because you can buy a box for a couple hundred bucks, pop in games, and play them till your eyes pop out. I don't WANT a hard drive or a Web browser. Maybe a network card would be nice so you could play networked games at LAN parties, but even that's pushing it. C'mon, give me a cheap console with decent graphics, and forget about the rest of this crap.

    -John
  • I don't know, but it sure uses a lot of "SSL with Netscape."

  • Slightly Offtopic, but are there any more news on the rumoured Linux which they got to run on a PS2?

    It's not rumored anymore--they had it on display, running, at LinuxWorld today (apparently Sony lent out one of their kits ahead of time), and it looked sweet. Now I'm looking forward even more to when I get mine on the 20th of June. (:

    --
    BACKNEXTFINISHCANCEL

  • Slightly Offtopic, but are there any more news on the rumoured Linux which they got to run on a PS2?

    A vision... MameSX: 1 CD with 2048 emulated arcade games for the PS2...

  • But there are alot less stupid rich people than stupid people per say. Thus a reduced number of idiots, and possibly a better place to have fun.

  • Pay per play would be great (Score:3)

    by onion2k ( 203094 ) on Wednesday May 30, 2001 @03:13AM (#189420) Homepage
    Internet gaming relies on the fact that its enjoyable to play a game with and against lots of people whom you've never really met. I never play online at the moment for a number of reasons, but the biggest is absolutely because there are far too many childish idiots who enjoy nothing more than ruining it for people who are there for a good time. Make them pay, and (hopefully) the lamer ratio would drop to an alltime low. Also, the game creators would be more pressed to make a game fair and reasonable to keep the gamers happy. It might cost a bit more to play, but I'd certainly pay to keep the losers out.
  • If I can't Mod it AND Play it, I don't want it.

    Jaysyn
  • I can browse on my TV right now through my Dreamcast or my convergence PC. And the basic fact is that the highest resolution that works well on my TV is 640X480. And it looks like web developers gave up fitting their pages in such a low resolution. console-based browsers will continue to suck as long as the TV is a low resolution device.
  • Netscape is more stable than Mozilla, and the source is a tad easier to obtain than IE's. ;)

  • I wonder why they did this with Netscape and not Mozilla. Or even IE <ack!>. I mean is Netscape that much better in its extensiblity than IE? If extensibility is the issue then you'd think they would use Mozilla. How much more extensible can one get than an open source implementation?

    Onorio Catenacci


    --
    "And that's the world in a nutshell -- an appropriate receptacle."

  • Which would work as an argument against "There are no stupid rich people", but not "There are fewer stupid rich people than stupid not-rich people."

    I'm all for a pay-per-play model. There is the risk of people acting like idiots, but if I'm paying to play, I'm also expecting some sort of moderation, management or bouncer to oust idiots.
  • Those online games arn't pay-per-play though, they a service-based pay per month. This way, you play as much as you want on a monthly basis. Overall the deal isnt that bad. What ticks me off is that they make you buy the game then they carge you to play it.
  • On the bright side, you wouldn't be paying $50 for a boxed game and getting tired of it in a day because it sucks. If there were pay per play, that would never happen. What's more indsidious is that game companies could sell you a box at retail which includes N plays. Then, play numbers N+1 and greater will cost you an incremental amount, conveniently billable to your credit card (for those without credit cards, prepaid cards will be available). Then they get to have it both ways.
  • Ok, A - the PS2 has standard USB ports on it! As long as the browser reads the ports, mouse and keyboard work fine! And they don't have to be Sony brand!

    B - Net access on the console (oh dear God please don't let it be Nutscrape...My own crappy little website doesn't even work in Nutscrape!) would be super-convenient: Stuck in Silent Hill 2? Save game, hop on over to Usenet, a quick search later, and voila!

    C - Companies like InterAct are gonna be all over this with direct GameShark/other cheat device/other interface device updates from their sites - no PC or link cable needed.

    And finally, D - Try before you buy. Most big games have demos that don't get a lot of distribution (I'm still trying to buy the GT3 demo...). If they can figure out some way to package them for online distro, gamers could select from a wide range of demos to test out. I suppose online rentals could be handled similarly, but then you get into all the piracy...

    GTRacer
    - Has large display boxes for all versions of GT

  • My apologies, InstantCool...I wasn't really responding to your assertion that PS2s would replace PS/2s ;)

    What I was angling for was how net access could complement the gaming experience and perhaps move it forward, like with your wireless key-ball idea.

    My points were based on my personal setting, which may or may not reflect others'. My PC is in my bedroom and the PS2 is in the living room. My wife uses the PC a lot and we have to work around each other. Also, we're on dial-up right now, and with 2 curious kids, we keep the machine OFF as much as possible. Further, I stay up later than she does and can't use the computer at night - peak gaming hours!

    I see a day when I have broadband/DSL and network the connection so both the PC and console have high-speed access. I'd suspect that whatever browser they come up with will have miniscule load-times since it will probably run off a very small kernel and won't have any overhead.

    GTRacer
    - I hope the 3rd time's the charm...

  • Is it a Posting, or is it Plagarism? (Score:3)

    by Mr. Obvious ( 243243 ) on Wednesday May 30, 2001 @03:09AM (#189430) Homepage
    What ever happened to quote marks (and or the blockquote tag)? Most of this posting seems to have been cut-and-pasted directly from the "full story" at www.nikkeibp.asiabiztech.com.

    I noticed this because I went and read the "full story" in the hope of getting slightly more readable English than in the posting, only to get the posting all over again, including the charming sentence:

    "The browser would not be necessary, however, for using game software with SSL because such game software itself processes an amount of money charged with users of networked games through a credit card number securely."

    If you read it three times, with your head on your left shoulder, it eventually kind of makes sense, even if I still don't quite see the connection implied by the use of the word "because". But I kind of like the idea of "...an amount of money charged with users...".

    I don't mind this kind of text from sources from the Far East --- it makes it kind of a sport (used as a noun) to decode the stuff --- but straight from slashdot? Really.

    Ron Obvious

  • Who modded that up with informative??

    1. but wait I don't have PS/2, nor I will acquire one in my life time.

    2. Because sony is more or less evil than microsoft, or others, while others have sane architectures like XBox + DirectX ... (two Microsoft products... wtf?)

    3. And you have to sign non-disclosure just to use their fucking APIs. Fuck that.

    That's not very informative. As a general rule, I never mod up something that makes no sense.


  • Dude, you have a point - but please understand that the browser developers (MS and Netscape) have played leapfrog for years where standards are concerned. Both products have never implemented a full set of W3C standards. Instead, they have selectively implemented the standards when it complements the inclusion of their own "standards".

    This has been an on-going pain-in-the-ass for the W3C folks. The problem, of course, is that no vendor ever got rich implementing standards verbatim - there's just no competitive advantage. Hence the "extensions" that vendors - most noteably MS - needs to include and hype in their products.

    While IE is certainly a leader in standards implementation today, the V6.0 Netscape embarrassment (and other products) actually implement a fuller spec. There's a great book on the subject called "Raggett on HTML 4" by Dave Raggett - lead architect of the 4.0 spec. While the book is about HTML, itself, it's salted with a lot of insider glimpses of how specs evolve and how the software vendors (MS and Netscape) thrust-and-parry with the W3C. It's worth a look.

  • Re:think back to the day.... (Score:3)

    by IanA ( 260196 ) on Wednesday May 30, 2001 @03:19AM (#189433)
    total FUD.

    Scenario: Half-Life 2 comes out in a pay-per-use model like you describe.
    You know what would happen?
    Everyone would stick to Half-Life.
    Most games in the PC gaming market (95%+) are just updates and revamps of games already out.
    No one will lose their individual rights in that type of manner for no major improvement.
    I would rather play Quake DM as regular then play Return to Castle Wolfenstein with a pay per play model.
  • There was a posting a few days ago on Slashdot about PlayStaion 2 gaining Net access via AOL (http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200-5928280.html ). That's more than enough reason for Sony to use a Netscape branded version of Mozilla. Mozilla is going beta with 0.9.1 in a few days, that's a lot of time for making the branded versions befor Christmas.

  • > Everyone would stick to Half-Life.

    Unless, say... the WON servers stopped authenticating. Wouldn't that just be rough!

  • Up here in the Great White North(tm), the PS2 runs at $450.00cdn. No monitor, keyboard, mouse, or hard drive (or any network connectivity out of the box, iirc).

    I can buy, for much cheaper than that, a bare-bones computer. All I need is a $50 case/power supply, $100 mainboard, $100 cpu, $20 worth of RAM (let's assume the board has onboard sound/video, not unreasonable for the lower end manufacturers). The PS2 is by no means competative to this, at least not yet.

  • The board I had in mind actually comes with tv-out (not exactly a big ticket option these days). And I don't recall the PS2 coming with a free monitor/tv either ;)

  • What are they talking about? (Score:3)

    by CrackElf ( 318113 ) on Wednesday May 30, 2001 @02:58AM (#189438) Homepage
    Are they saying that you can purchase games for the playstation securely on the playstation, and download them (without being copied by other pplz) ... what would prevent someone from copying it once it was in a non-encrypted state on the local drive? (I presume that they will not be encrypting multistation game sessions ... after all, performance is, i think, a higher priority than encrypting the session)

    Or is this another one of those pay as you play schemes?
    -CrackElf
  • Now I can surf on my TV :)
  • ...they sell at loss.

    That is my point. If they sell at loss and people use it for other things than games they may have a problem.
  • My point is: The PS2 is quite expensive today since they have not much competition on consoles that fast. However, when new consoles in the same performance class arrive they have to lower it to the normal console prices (it may be xbox, it may be gamecube, I don't care witch one and it doesn't matter one bit).

    They sell the PS2 at loss today and with normal console prices they sell at huge loss as all consoles do.

    If people don't use it for games (witch they get royalties for) they end up selling hardware at huge losses. Can't be that good, can it?
  • ...to make all kind of toys for the machine (like hard disk). After all, then the price is lowered a bit (they will be forced to when the Xbox arrived) they sell the hardware at loss and are supposed to make it up on the games.

    But what happens is people use it for other things and done give a damn about the games?

    Keyboard, harddrive and internet connection and it can be a really cheap computer at Sonys expense.
  • IMHO - just by a computer, it'll be cheaper in the long run.
  • Sony had me scared with their ideas of releasing the PS3. With all the games out for the ps2 being generally shitty so far, I was hoping on getting a nice unhackable netgame from a console. Until some nice net games come out, my Ps2 is just a trumped up dvd player.
  • ...seems a little like trying to marry a global distribution of pet food and a toaster.

    If you have studied any history of gaming, you know that network access over consoles has ranged from a moderate to tremendous failure, from the early NES-enabled modems to the Dreamcast web. Obviously this is not what they plan to use SSL for, as Sony has a lot of corporate resources to do at least a little research with.

    What SSL can be to them is an extension of their "set top box" theory of gaming (whose benefits we won't go into... *cough* 3D0 *cough*). This is their first step to being able to sell movies, music, or other traditional media that corporate-types understand, as well as the rather odd proposition by Square of selling character upgrades and new levels.

    None of this seems likely, yet, to take off. Can you imagine typing in a credit card number with a dual-shock controller? It's heinous enough as is with a qwerty. And trying to stuff a DVD quality movie through even the most modern Cable modem is like trying to haul the Statue of liberty with the latest Dodge Durango and being surprised that it still doesn't fit.

    Even things like character upgrades in traditional media have to be given away for free (without requiring a secure connection) or else must be so substantial as to consider it an expensive add-on and a separate purchase. None of this, of course, has any sort of real gameplay use or reason.

    I guess the real story here is how Sony is paying all of its attention to the doomed convergence of paid movies, e-commerce, and consoles and how little attention it is paying the things that will matter in the coming console wars: good second and third party support and a wealth of fun, exclusive games.

  • I don't think pay to play is the way forward.

    It is certainly true as you say that there are a lot of idiots out there on the net, and they spoil it for other gamers. I put this down to the fact that internet access is becoming easier and easier to get, as well as cheaper.

    Easier access means that stupider people can get on. Hence the decline.

    This can be seen all over the internet, and not just with gaming. Net gets easier, people on the net get stupider.

    Personally, I think pay per play would only encourage stupid rich people to spoil it for everyone.

  • Actually, you have a point here. I've always been fundamentally against 'pay - per - anything' really.

    But thinking about it...

    When I am at home my father pays for Sky Digital at the rate of 32 pounds a month. When I consider that if I was paying the bill, I think I'd end up paying about 10 pounds a month for each show I actually really wanted to watch.

    But having the choice of either, a full monthly charge or pay per view everything might offer a better deal.

  • Again, I have to disagree.

    I call, Exhibit A, the English Royal Family.

    I rest my case.

  • While they may offer a pay per play service, my bet is that there will be a subscription-based service instead. So, it'll be like paying a separate cable bill for your kids to play games. Hmmm, I think my son is going to be encouraged to play lots of sports instead. :)

    GreyPoopon
    --

  • Which version of Netscape? (Score:3)

    by GreyPoopon ( 411036 ) <gpoopon@gma i l .com> on Wednesday May 30, 2001 @02:50AM (#189450)
    I wonder which version of Netscape will ship. Will it be 4.7x or a newer version based on Mozilla (a la Netscape 6.0 or better)?

    GreyPoopon
    --

  • Do people pay for playing games online?
  • It means to contain or have the feature of. Such as being "my watch sports the ability to change its own time"
    ----

  • If anything was an indication of the Xbox's impending triumph over the PS2, this is it. I mean, Netscape? There's a tiny little organization known as the W3C [w3.orgtitl...consortium] which tells us to use things like HTML and CSS. Oh no, wait. Who needs stylesheets and real HTML when you have the blink and spacer tags! Yay!

    I'm glad that an industry leader like Microsoft [www.micros...ompanyever] had the foresight to adhere closer to the specifications set forth by the W3C than Netscape did.

  • First off, not everyone would be able to/want to download a game that was considered "modern" by today's standards. We seem to forget that not everyone has a broadband connection going to their domicile. I'd hate to be the person downloading return to castle wolfenstein on a modem.

    Secondly, I would think that sales of not so well known games would drop considerably once retailers stopped stocking their shelves with a companies games. This would mainly be due to the fact that the game maker would be back-dooring the retailer by giving away/selling a game that the retailer would normally make profits off of. By losing products being sold by a retailer, the game also loses exposure to the general public. I would think that by switching over to a pay per play a game would lose revenue.

  • Well..AOL is also an competitor of MS and they practically begged them to include IE in the next version of AOL.
    Remember that the goal of MS is to spread their dominance throughout the land...especially on their competitor's platforms.
    I mean.."Sorry, PS2 players..the IE in PS2 is buggy..but XBox..."
  • http://www.jp.playstation.com/linux/image/main.jpg they actually made 2,000 copies of this, linuxkit for ps2(beta), available, and it took only 8 minutes to receive 2,000 reservations. and there 3,500 people on the waiting list.
  • Most sensible thing anyones had to say so far.

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