Technology: Learn and Share » Fighting diseases

Interview with Vijay Pande, Mastermind behind Folding@home

toonster76 — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 18:23:35 +0000

Interview with creator of Folding@home – Vijay Pande. Richard Marks of SCEA’s research and development team was kind enough to answer some Playstation 3 related questions.

Playstation 3 or Nintendo Wii? Who is to judge what is better or worse?

Sunny Walia — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 04:07:08 +0000

There is so much controversy about which console is better between the two and which is going to do better then the other. Both Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii have their own pros and cons, just like any other console out there. It basically comes down to who can afford what and what they are looking for in a gaming console.

One of the things I have noticed time after time is that there is a big count of people who dislike Playstation 3 and either like Nintendo Wii or Xbox 360 in most of the cases. Of course there are some cases where these people making comment/judgement are entirely basing it on what they have read on different websites or what their friends have told ‘em. Honestly, I am no expert and probably am the last person who should be comparing these two considering some friends and I run a Playstation fan site (TotalPlayStation.com) which has been around for eight-nine years, but this is my blog so it is place for me to voice my opinions. So here goes…

What do we look at when we are comparing these two consoles? One thing most forget is, who is the intended audience? And are these two consoles really competing against each other? Having played both Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii, my conclusions are: No they are not intended for same audience and no they are not really competing against each other. If anything, Xbox 360 is the one competing against Playstation 3.

I do have to agree with masses that Nintendo Wii is a lot of fun to play. But for me, so is Playstation 3. I have enjoyed playing Nintendo Wii with my friends and family but I have noticed that I don’t enjoy playing it alone. It is a party console to me.

Next big thing Nintendo Wii has going for it which Playstation 3 won’t have for LONG time or maybe never, which is price. I bought the Playstation 3 60 gig version for normal price of $600.00 at US launch held at Sony Metreon, San Francisco California. Good friend of mine was nice enough to stand in line to get it for me. I know $600 is a lot of money but I have been a gamer for long time and love to have newest things to play with. And then I got another controller which costs $50 more. So overall cost, lets just say, $700. Compare that to Nintendo Wii’s price: Wii itself costs $250 + extra set of nunchuck/remote which is another 70$ so lets say $350. So Nintendo Wii is about half as much as what Sony Playstation 3 would cost you for two players. So obviously price wise Nintendo Wii is A LOT better for most people. This is where your traget audience comes in. People I know who bought Playstation 3, do not mind paying $5-700 for console. They, like myself, want a machine which can do awesome graphics and be on the cutting edge. Granted that most games at the time did not use the power of Playstation 3, but I really just need one game which happens to be Resistance: fall of man. Since then I have enjoyed many more games on my Playstation 3.

I even tried to buy Nintendo Wii but no go. I just ended up playing with my friends/family’s Wii instead. I played Wii Sports and it was lots of fun. But like I said above, that got old. I can see myself playing it when I have friends over and with my wife. I honestly haven’t tried any other major games (tried Happy Feet fun for a while too). I still think it is nice console to have since it is not that much money plus can be great party game. The games I did play on Wii, I was not impressed by graphics much. I know they are for gameplay and not looks, but I love good looking games. Maybe that the reason why I like Playstation 3 gameplay/looks more than Nintendo Wii and can actually enjoy playing more.

And then last week Sony released new firmware for Playstation 3. This update added few features/upgrades to Playstation 3. Biggest one I like is Folding@home client. Ever since they released the update, my Playstation 3 has been sitting there running Folding@home client, well when I wasn’t using it. It is nice to know atleast there is something good coming out of all that raw power Playstation 3 has to offer. Out of curiousity, I wonder how Nintendo Wii or Xbox 360 would do running similar client. If somebody knows, please do comment.

CONCLUSION:

Playstation 3:
cons: expensive, not too many games which can use the power
pros: fun, great graphics, using it to finding cure for diseases, has backward compatibility for huge selection of Playstation 2 games, upto 7 people can play locally

Nintendo Wii:
cons: some game might get boring fast, mediocre graphics, expensive nunchucks/remote,hard to find
pros: fun, cheaper than Playstation 3, up to 4 people can play locally, backward compatibility for other Nintendo games

Playstation 3 hardware used to find cure for diseases.

Sunny Walia — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 08:03:36 +0000

The news of Sony pushing for use of its Playstation 3 hardware was no surprise to me. There has been many talks about using Playstation 3’s power to do things in medical world but this is more of a official news. All of us who know what Playstation 3 is about know that it is more powerful than any standard PC’s we may possess yet its a gaming console. Not anymore! Sony has come out and said that it will allow Playstation 3 owners to join the network of owners to help finding cure of diseases.

That puts a whole new spin on Seti@home. We are no longer joining a network of processing power to find life in the universe, instead we are joining into save lives around us. Once you join the network, you can either let it run when it idles or you can actually watch it process proteins! Which I think would be real amusing to watch. We will just have to wait and see how that looks and works once its released end of this month. A friend of mine, Kyle Sutton, wrote this article which talks in more detail about this: http://totalplaystation.com/ps3/news/7013

I am glad to see that Sony is using Playstation 3 to actually do some good while most developers get their act together and create games which can use all the power this awesome, but expensive, gaming console has in its great looking black casing.

Please digg the article @ http://digg.com/hardware/Sony_allows_PS3_to_help_with_curing_cancer