The engineers at Sony's labs have already moved on to the next generation machine. Officially code-named 'Jellyfish,' most of the design team refers to it simply as PS3.
Lateral Compatibility
The most revolutionary feature of the PS3 is the concept of 'lateral compatibility.' 'A major flaw with the Dreamcast and NCube (Nintendo's latest console due to be released in 2001) is that you can't play the games you bought for the Saturn or N64 on them. With the PS3, they've moved beyond backward compatibility to what is refered to as lateral compatibility,' which is the ability to play any game on the PS3, be it a Dreamcast, NCube, X-Box or even a PC game. Not only do you not have to keep an old console lying around to play old games, you don't need any other console period. You don't have to worry about which console's going to have the best third party software support; just buy the PS3 and then buy any game you want. It's a very powerful concept and we believe this patented process will be hugely successful.' When asked how such compatibility could be implemented despite certain opposition from rival console makers, Rakueki said simply, 'It's a Sony.'
Human encoding
With human encoding, a small chip about the size of a pinhead would be inserted into a gamer's arm when he or she buys a game. The serial number on the pin would match that of the game, so that the buyer would have to be present for the game to operate. While health concerns have been raised, the only glitch so far, according to Rakueki is that they 'have had some instances in multi-player sessions where the game will cease to function when the purchaser leaves the room temporarily.'
Marketing a Life
'Our research has shown that a large part of our customer base doesn't have a strong social life. In fact, only about 27% of our core demographic has had a date in the last year.' To address that issue, Sony has tied up with Blockbuster Video to introduce girlfriend rentals with the rental or purchase of a game. 'We believe this strategy addresses a core need of our audience and should be a huge success. We're working with Blockbuster and other retailers right now to work out the details, such as what size to make the after-hours return slot.'
The PS3 is set to go on sale April of 2002.
*(ok, ofcourse you're not supposed to take this article seriously, cause it's clearly a joke. But wouldn't we all wish "Lateral Compatability" and "Girlfriend/Boyfriend rental" was a reality ???)
