Will the PlayStation 3 include a hard drive? The PS3 has the capability to use a removable hard drive, but Sony hasn't commented whether or not a hard disk drive would be included with the system. It's quite possible the unit will be sold separately, like it was on the PS2, if a recent interview with SCE's chief technology officer Masayuki Chatani is any indication of what Sony's plans are.

In the Japanese magazine Famitsu, Chatani commented that the issue had yet to be decided, citing people wanting  to increase the capacity of the drive in the future as one possible  reason for not including one with the system. Chatani also mentioned that people would want to take the drive to friend's homes to share data, which would certainly indicate any hard drive for the PS3 would most likely be removable. Another reason that nothing has been announced could be that Microsoft has yet to reveal a price point for the Xbox 360, which will be the PS3's main competitor.

It's all speculation at this point, but it's curious to see Sony pondering making the hard drive an additional peripheral, considering how poorly that strategy worked for them on the PS2.

On Thursday, we sat down with David Kirk for a chat about the future of NVIDIA and its technology. David is the Chief Scientist at NVIDIA: his job is to oversee the technology progression, and, simply, to create the next generations of graphics technology.

If there's a man that knows what the future holds for PC gamers, then, it's him.

Looking back at G70

The G70 launch - the 7800 GTX - has come and gone, though there are still other members of the GeForce 7xxx family to be introduced. Generally hailed as a stonking success, doubling the power of the 6800 series, we thought it rocked.

We asked David how he thought the launch had gone. "I personally didn't work on it, but the team did a tremendous job. They set out to double performance from the previous generation. The hardest part was to do that and reduce power at the same time. As a techical achievement, to get 2-3 times the performance with lower power consumption is unbelievable."

However, some sectors have criticised NVIDIA for not really introducing any new features: UltraShadow is the same; there's only really tweaks to the shader pipeline; although there is a lot more performance. Is that fair? "Whilst there may be no new visable architecture, that's because there's no new API - we're still on DirectX 9," said Kirk. "We've had a major opportunity to polish and refine the hardware. The first product for each API - in this case, GeForce FX - is a struggle. The second one hits the stride. With this, the 7800, we've put together an awesome package. It's been a great opportunity to improve."

For more on the unseen architecture in the G70, see our news story from last week.

The subtext to this is the feeling that NVIDIA is on its third generation DirectX 9 product, whilst ATI are, with the X800, still cranking out upgraded versions of their 9700 architecture. As they make the transition to a fully Shader Model 3 architecture, they have faced a great many problems with R520 being delayed again and again.

Is ATI facing the prospect of R520 being their GeForce FX? "Well, I think that's to underestimate the FX. We know it had faults, but it paved the way for the 6800 and 7800. Without the FX architecture that we put in place, we couldn't have had two such successful generations of hardware. ATI are still waiting to make that translation, fully."

Of course, part of the problem with the FX architecture was that they were trying to make a transition to a 130nm process at the same time as everything else. With the 520, ATI are moving to a 90nm process. Is this part of the problem? "I don't think ATI can attribute all their recent problems to process, although I'm sure they'd like to."

So a definite maybe, then.

Official PS3 Specs

Here are the official technical specifications for the PS3, taken directly from Sony:

CPU
Cell Processor
PowerPC-base Core @3.2GHz
1 VMX vector unit per core
512KB L2 cache
7 x SPE @3.2GHz
7 x 128b 128 SIMD GPRs
7 x 256KB SRAM for SPE
* 1 of 8 SPEs reserved for redundancy
total floating point performance: 218 GFLOPS

GPU
RSX @550MHz
1.8 TFLOPS floating point performance
Full HD (up to 1080p) x 2 channels
Multi-way programmable parallel floating point shader pipelines

Sound
Dolby 5.1ch, DTS, LPCM, etc. (Cell- base processing)
Memory
256MB XDR Main RAM @3.2GHz 256MB GDDR3 VRAM @700MHz

System Bandwidth
Main RAM 25.6GB/s
VRAM 22.4GB/s
RSX 20GB/s (write) + 15GB/s (read)
SB< 2.5GB/s (write) + 2.5GB/s (read)

System Floating Point Performance
2 TFLOPS

Storage
Detachable 2.5" HDD slot x 1

I/O
USB Front x 4, Rear x 2 (USB2.0)
Memory Stick standard/Duo, PRO x 1
SD standard/mini x 1
CompactFlash (Type I, II) x 1

Communication
Ethernet (10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, 1000BASE-T) x 3 (input x 1 + output x 2)
Wi-Fi IEEE 802.11 b/g
Bluetooth 2.0 (EDR)

Controller
Bluetooth (up to 7)
USB 2.0 (wired)
Wi-Fi (PSP)
Network (over IP)

AV Output
Screen size: 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p
HDMI: HDMI out x 2
Analog: AV MULTI OUT x 1
Digital audio: DIGITAL OUT (OPTICAL) x 1

Disc Media
CD PlayStation CD-ROM, PlayStation 2 CD-ROM, CD-DA, CD-DA (ROM), CD-R, CD-RW, SACD, SACD Hybrid (CD layer), SACD HD, DualDisc, DualDisc (audio side), DualDisc (DVD side)
DVD: PlayStation 2 DVD-ROM, PlayStation 3 DVD-ROM, DVD-Video, DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW
Blu-ray Disc: PlayStation 3 BD-ROM, BD-Video, BD-ROM, BD-R, BD-RE

Sonic Running To The PS3?

Sonic on the PS3 could soon become a reality and that's one of the possibilities raised by a deal announced today between Sega and the San Francisco-based developer Secret Level. They announced that they are partnering "to re-create a classic Sega franchise" for Microsoft and Sony's next-generation consoles.

The two companies did not identify which franchise Secret Level would be undertaking but Sega of America President Simon Jeffery made the comment that "The talented design team at Secret Level has demonstrated innovation in game development and has a history of technical achievements that will help Sega reinvigorate a vintage and highly commercial franchise."
Secret Level president Jeremy Gordon followed enthusiastically "We are excited to be working with Sega and honored to bring one of their classic franchises to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360," he said.

Secret Level is best known for developing the Xbox editions of Karaoke Revolution and their upcomming game America's Army: Rise of a Soldier for the Xbox and PlayStation 2.