Sony Talks to Stanford Engineering

Phil Harrison, vice president of third party relations and research and development for Sony Computer Entertainment America, stopped by Stanford University today to demo the PlayStation 2 for a group of eager Electrical Engineering students, videogame aficionados, and interested faculty. While the bulk of the lecture focused on the internal chip and system architecture (this was an EE class, after all), a few small tidbits of information were revealed.

Harrison confirmed the existence of additional storage media for Sony's new box. In addition to the standard memory card, the PlayStation 2 will support an "enhanced memory card, as well as additional media options." The "enhanced memory card" is likely to be the Memory Stick storage media that Sony has adopted for its current VAIO series of PCs. Smaller than a stick of gum, the Memory Stick (available in 4 and 8 MB configurations) is expected to become a new industry standard for quick storage and transfer of media.

During the lecture, Harrison also said that PlayStation 2 users also be able to input video and audio through the IEEE1394 and USB ports. Unfortunately, Harrison could not reveal exactly what the additional media options were. Current USB peripherals available for the PC and iMac include force feedback controllers and small web cams.

After showing the recent GDC demos, talk turned to developer support. Harrison said that, given the machine's popularity, Sony was looking to eventually support non-gaming industries and academia with hardware and APIs. He also said that given the success of the first PlayStation, Sony was "strongly considering" extending the Yaroze program to its new machine.