Sony Corp will make a break from traditional polygon-based methods of rendering 3D graphics for the next-generation version of its best-selling Playstation video console. The Japanese consumer giant is gambling that cinema-style graphics will help it win market share over Sega Corp’s next generation offering, named ‘Dreamcast’ (CI No 3,416) which will offer advanced polygon rendering through a customized Microsoft Corp CE operating system with Direct X application programming interfaces (API). Ken Kutaragi, executive vice president and co-chief operating officer at Tokyo-based Sony Computer Entertainment Inc told Electronic Engineering Times that Sony was shooting for a filmlike graphics quality that won’t make viewers conscious…they are indeed looking at computer graphics, for its new console. One company already claiming to offer DVD-quality audio/visuals with its Project X video entertainment platform is VM Labs, developer of Atari’s ill-fated 64-bit Jaguar console. The Los Altos, California-based start up’s embedded technology is a based around replacement circuitry for MPEG 2 decoders and a set of development tools and APIs, which the company claims transforms ‘passive digital video products such as DVD players’ into ‘interactive multimedia centers.’ Nick Gibson, games analyst at Durlacher Research, is wary of such claims – at least for the time being – saying that the Project X technology is not performance tested. And performance tested is exactly what any new technology from either Sony or VM Labs will need to be, to succeed in the cut-throat and fickle world of the console market. Details about the Sony product are extremely sketchy at present. The company is developing the entire product in house, but Gibson now expects the new console to be released early in the next century, where it will face an already established rival in the Sega machine – out in 1999 worldwide. Ken Kutaragi, blasted Sony’s rivals obsession with the polygon race but the Sony machine will have to offer a very different picture to compete with the state of the art rendering and Microsoft development support offered by Dreamcast.
