The 1.80 SDK has been in developers’ hands for a few weeks, and we can now report on the latest progress of the Sony system utilities and their memory usage. On this front, the 1.80 release has been nothing but good news for developers (and indirectly, consumers). This release heralds both a slew of new features, and, as anticipated, improved memory consumption.
First, both the main memory and graphic memory footprints have been reduced, reaching a new low of 48MB and 24MB respectively. That’s a 12MB reduction since the 1.60 release. The extra memory is sure to be welcome by developers.
The memory reductions are not just restricted to the base system. The various Network Platform utilities have also been addressed in this release. The Friend List utility has gone from 24MB to 16MB (while the online startup utility remains at 8MB). Several Network Platform sub-utilities (providing varying subsets of the functionality in the Friend List utility) have also experienced memory reductions. The video chat utility also sees its base memory requirement drop to 20MB (that number rises back to 26MB when the maximum number of users is reached).
Feature-wise, Sony has responded to requests developers have made (which we previously reported here), adding three new system utilities. The first is a picture export utility, which allows developers to export any pictures (usually screen shots) to the player’s photo profile. For continued symmetry’s sake, readers should note that no such functionality currently exists on the Xbox 360. Consumers will enjoy sharing screen shots of their victorious moments with their friends. You can expect a slew of developers to support this utility as it comes in at a scant 3MB.
The second new utility is a music utility, which will allow developers to give consumers the choice of streaming their own music in game. This utility’s current weight – a hefty 12MB – is likely to be reduced in future releases. Readers should note that the Xbox 360 supports a similar feature (at no extra cost to developers).
Third, a new system allows developers to use a registered PSP system as an extra display. Similar to the PSP remote play utility, this one will require 8MB. It does, however, open up a slew of possible uses for developers. No comparable functionality is available on the Xbox 360 (for obvious reasons).
This release to developers was another very positive step forward for Sony (building on the success of the 1.60 release). Large amounts of memory have been made available to developers, and requested features have been delivered in a relatively short-time frame. We eagerly await the 2.0 release and what new features that may bring, and urge readers to check back with us in the next few days for some thoughts.
