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Jumping to Conclusions…. and other stories.

© Dan Caines

Okay, I now have to admit that I am worried. Not in an "oh my god, is that my hamster crawling under the sink" kind of way, but in a "what is happening to humanity" way. Well, maybe it is not that serious, but in my eyes it is pretty darn close. Just before we start, can I just point out that I am not a 'player hater', to quote some MTV show presented by a ridiculously attired man who inanely blathers a chart introduction. I have no problems with any of the companies dissed herein, and I am not, to quote some feedback I got recently, 'receiving sexual favours' from any of the ones I choose to give good write-ups to. As a columnist whose job it is to inform you, I merely present one viewpoint (and it's the right one, dammit!). If you read my columns, you will see that I shy away from criticising no one, but that I also readily give praise where it is due. It's just that reporting on perceived problems is a lot more fun than saying for the nth week running 'Megabucks Corporation Products are selling well and earning obscene amounts of money - unlike this correspondent'. So, after that, here we go.

I, having eagerly read the early press coverage of the PlayStation two launch, am shocked. I mean, how much are Sony paying you, guys? It's like you have sold your reporting soles for a few thousand million yen and an "incredible Emotion Engine" CPU chip. It is like "... godlike Sony Designer Ken Kutaragi" has slipped something into your drinks - a la RPG you could well have drunk a "-32 objectivity reduction potion. Gives your character the ability to see one-dimensionally, without pesky hindrances like 20/20 vision". There, I have probably got my ass sued off already. 'Carry on regardless'......

The PlayStation 2 is hugely impressive. There, I have said it. There is absolutely no doubt about this. But it is not "the greatest product of all time" or "socially essential" (The Times; Interface). And it most certainly does not "render the PC and every other form of entertainment, including real life, obsolete". Breathe deeply and repeat after me, IT IS ONLY ANOTHER CONSOLE: IT CANNOT FULFILL YOU "ON MORE LEVELS THAN SANDRA BULLOCK". Jesus. We're talking Sandra here.....

Okay, that is my rant out the way. Now I, in a world first, am going to objectively deconstruct everything that has been said about PlayStation 2. And I, for one, am not going to blindly copy out the Sony press release. Let the crap shoot begin. To begin with, it has a very fast processor called the "Emotion Engine". But it is not 'twice as fast as a 733Mhz Pentium 3". This is quite simply not true, and I personally believe that the two chips cannot be compared in terms of speed. For a start, it is designed specifically to run games. It thus takes some of the graphics function onto the processor, and has to give no attention to the (great) demands of running an operating system. And if you plugged a PC chip into a PlayStation it probably would struggle. But a PC chip isn't designed to run games on its own - it has a complete setup around it - graphics and sound cards, coprocessors and suchlike. So, when you put the PC chip in context, it is easily as fast as anything PS2 can offer.

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