SAN JOSE, CA - Sony vice president Phil Harrison introduced GDC attendees to the technology that will serve as the backbone of Sony's next generation PlayStation console. The new console is due as early as this winter (up to the end of March 2000) in Japan and sometime in the fall of 2000 here in the states.

　　During the keynote, Harrison didn't introduce the attendees to any new product announcements, prices, or games, but instead began his speech by talking about what he calls the "Era of Media Synthesis." This new era includes technologies like real-time algorithms, emotion emulation, skeletal modeling, and inverse kinematics. These were some of the factors that Sony focused on as it worked with Toshiba to develop the world's first true 128-bit processor, the Emotion Engine. And the emotion engine lives up to Sony's dream. It processes data with an amazingly high bit rate for transfer, with a massive output of about 66 million polygons per second. These specs are unparalleled by any other machine.

　　This was the first chance that an American audience has ever viewed the PlayStation 2 in action, and Harrison assured the crowd that since its first showing in Japan, the demos in the US were the first showing of demos on the final 300 MHz platform - what is destined to be the successor to the current PlayStation.

　　Sony wanted to clear up one issue that we've brought up here at GameSpot News several times - that Sony is looking to push the powerful 128-bit chip into the PC market as a possible competitor with Intel and Microsoft. While Sony says that the powerful chip is vastly superior to current Pentiums, it would only be focused on the console market and had no intentions to leap into the PC market.

　　Before showing off the new demos, Harrison fired up an original PlayStation and showed off the original tech demo shown to developers a few years back, before the arrival of the PlayStation. The demos showed off a series of spheres floating in a 3D space. And while the demos that were show were interesting, they were shown merely to show off the PlayStation's history and to put into context what we would be seeing in today's presentation.

　　Harrison then pointed to a series of white boxes connected by cables - all beside a larger box with a series of light on it. This, Harrison continued, is the current next generation PlayStation. Each component was housed in its own separate box.

　　The first demo to come up was a modeled gold statue that sparkled on screen. Harrison said that while object looked complex, it was built using about 2,000 polygons or so - and only being drawn by the Graphics Synthesizer and had nothing to do with the Emotion Engine.

　　As the demo continued, he showed off a 3D modeled Statue of Liberty with a series of lighting effects showcasing the details involved. This demo was running at 640 x 480 at 60 frames per second. Other demos showed off what had already been shown in Tokyo earlier this month. For example, a shallow pool surrounded by small hills following their own sine waves up close. The waves and water all built with 65,000 polygons.

　　With detail like this, developers could build almost anything. Harrison himself said, "I could just imagine Lara in that water quite nicely." From the sound of the laughs in the auditorium, apparently everyone else could as well.

　　Then he moved onto a water-filled sink with a submarine and a rubber duck floating in it. Harrison was using a standard Dual Shock controller to move the duck and the submarine around the sink. He "drained" the water and then "filled it" back up. The crowd gasped as the water really did look as true as water as has ever looked on any console.

　　When Harrison moved on to shut the demo down to talk about what information developers would need to start building game, the crowd sighed "awwww." Harrison replied that if he finished a few minutes early - he'd show the demos again at the end of his speech.

　　With the eye candy over, Harrison confirmed what we've been hearing for a little while now - that PlayStation 2 software has been developed on the Linux OS. Why? Harrison says that while developing the platform, the company needed a stable OS (an obvious jab at developers' distaste for Windows OS problems). And the crowd cheered.

　　Sony has shown only one of the cards it holds right now - and with developers cheering about what they saw today, the future could be a brilliant one for the company.