I imagine they would if Sony allowed the game makers to use the extra memory. I think they will keep some for cross chat - we all know its coming.

So if they do give the devs more memory, it will be used for steady frame rates and maybe better graphics, less pop ups and sorts.

Only time will tell, but them shrinking the footprint is pretty promising.

The whole point of reducing the memory footprint is so they give it back to developers.Just because the memory footprint used to be 100mb didn't mean the OS was actually using it.

figures...ms makes better software and sony makes better hardware....makes perfect sense actually, each company excelling in their area of expertise

Um, Microsoft are known for making some of the worst software ever released. Have you ever heard of Windows? More specifically Windows Vista?

Oh no... I used the V word. You have to love the new ads: "Windows 7, it was my idea!". They are already shifting the blame.

Not to mention, the XMB is a million times better than the 360s dashboard mess. Navigating the dashboard with the d-pad is another mess on to itself. The XMB is clean and smooth, you always know exactly where everything is, because it is intuitive. Something Microsoft has never been good at.

And I run them all. Windows, os, linux, etc. I repair computers and I can tell that windows is the most complete, relevant and compatible os around.
When a computer is built properly, it's also amazingly reliable.

It's people who fudge it up, not MS.
Even Vista is very good if your computer is up to snuff.

Sounds like some company didn't do their homework and released half @ssed software. How the hell do you use a quarter of the available memory for your OS? When you reduce software from 120MB to less than 50MB, a 60% reduction and add features it is clear that you were extremely wasteful.

It is amazing to me that that is even an acceptable solution.

"More specifically Windows Vista?"

Have you ever actually used Windows Vista past Service Pack 2? It's surprisingly stable and works just fine. If Microsoft makes terrible software, then why do they still dominate 88.7% of the market share?

"Not to mention, the XMB is a million times better than the 360s dashboard mess. Navigating the dashboard with the d-pad is another mess on to itself. The XMB is clean and smooth, you always know exactly where everything is, because it is intuitive. Something Microsoft has never been good at."

Your entire comment just sounds absolutely nuts. Why would you even use the D-Pad to navigate the dashboard when the analog stick works just fine? Hell, you hardly have to tap it to move between the menus. Also, how is the dashboard not intuitive? I mean, if you cant find your away around in an OS that basically babies you, then that just sounds like a personal problem.

Edit @ Perkel

I guarantee you that the 88.7% marketshare is not comprised of all gamers. Most big businesses use Windows due to it's business networking system and overall performance. Sorry, but the whole "Windows will be dead in 10 years" has been a statement used for quite a while, and it's marketshare, while lower this year, still retains it's overall lead.

@ Arnon

because you can't play many games on mac os and apple don't give their system for any pc and linus wasn't friendly to 2005.

If you could play games on any system win for home would be dead in ten years.

It's funny how people were running back from Vista to XP. I had it with Windows XP because like all previous Windows versions it gradually slows down and after couple of years it takes forever to boot up. Just try starting Installed Programs or whatever it was called. It takes forever just to show you what you have installed. In addition whatever resources you have left, a big chunk is used for Antivirus, Firewall and other security software that is a must if you ever do things like online shopping etc. After using only Ubuntu for more than two years, I can say that these problems don't exist in Linux, no performance degradation at all. MS is good in pushing software not making it.

The XMB is certainly a lot faster during gameplay since 2.40.

one's predominantly a software company an one's a hardware company.So it makes sense that ms would know how to make their footprint small while sony knew how to make the ps3 an all around beast of a system. each one suffers(however slightly) by not having the prowess of the other. IT IS A FACT. if it wasn't, this article wouldn't exist.

by the way, windows 7 is just a streamlined vista with a bunch of stolen linux functions...the theft sucks but it doesn't mean it doesn't work well.

"Sounds like some company didn't do their homework and released half @ssed software. How the hell do you use a quarter of the available memory for your OS? When you reduce software from 120MB to less than 50MB, a 60% reduction and add features it is clear that you were extremely wasteful."

you are practically talking about almost every software maker out there! looked like you're trying to bash sony but what do you call the Service Packs for windows? or game patches? or you are gonna pretend those things don't exist?

Sony is improving the system with the same set of hardware by firmware updates time after time and most of the time, this prevent people from exploiting the older firmware by forcing you to update if you wanna go online which in a way, works great for them so far! yet here, you're complaining about it and guess what, amazing games like MGS4, GT5P, Uncharted series, Heavenly Sword, Resistance series, R&C series, KZ2 etc all run great on the PS3 the way it was! say what now?

I think I can do like what you do too. remember Vista? the OS that have initial requirement higher than the one for running half life 2! why the hell should I upgrade most of my hardware just to boot the OS and even with the "Vista Ready" sticker, my PC have problems running Vista?? why the hell did Vista don't support drivers for many "existing" hardware at launch?? lazy? wasteful?

the difference between the case of XMB and Vista was the improvement for XMB was all on Sony (no need to buy anything) but for vista, it was all on consumers (hardware upgrades!)

@chrisnick
"... by the way, windows 7 is just a streamlined vista with a bunch of stolen
linux functions...the theft sucks but it doesn't mean it doesn't work well"

What funcions? Can you name some of those functions they have stolen from Linux?

This powerful beast just got more powerful, able to use more memory towards its games.

Sweet.

I'm Windows 7 and the Blue Screen of Death was my idea..
@Arnon:
Microsoft has that market share because Windows was (note: was, not is) the best OS around back then.. however, they used to have something like 98% marketshare, look at how much is has decreased. Mac is gaining in on Windows, and linux (altho slowly) is also gaining. Hell Microsoft recently saw Linux as a threat while Mac has been a threat for a while. these days more and more people realise a mac exists and i wudn't be surprised if mac has a 15% market share in a few years.
ontopc:
i'm confused as to why everyone cares how much memory each OS uses. its a concern for devs, not end users. you will get your features and you will keep your features..

It went down by a whole 10% in 20 years. Sorry, but the other OS's out there are not anywhere near Windows in terms of market share.

first off, apple is being weird and not letting anyone but themselves build their hardware.. second, microsoft is being ga y with their big pockets and paying hardware developers to not put anything besides their products on their hardware, only since the last few years companies like Dell and HP have decided to allow Linux (namely Ubuntu) as an option! and its only in these past years that Linux has had gotten a bigger market share, namely thanks to Ubuntu..

Is the xbox memory footprint some sort of new benchmark?

Considering all the features the PS3 has besides gaming I think 50mb is pretty good. 70mb saved for more in-game content/better textures is a lot. I would love to see an improved music player/browser and faster in-game xmb though.

MS forces devs to implement half their features in game for them with a mandatory feature list so the OS overhead is drastically reduced. Sony doesn't strong arm devs with a feature list, so they reserved the memory to add features through their OS!

Amazing how much better PS3 exclusive games look and perform even with this handicap! The wonders of 3.5 Ghz XDR ram!

:P Maybe one day the PS3 will be as good as the 360...

/P

:D

@Da Truth,

now that PS3 games has trophies, at least we know that Sony is also mandating the devs with something and with the distinctive architecture of the Cell+RSX, that can also be considered as another thing Sony is kinda forcing the devs to work things out of their comfort zone to gain desired quality level and games like Uncharted 2 and KZ2 (although 1st party) are the great example of what you can achieve.

sorry, browser problem

Please see my comment above!