No idea. 
Where the rubber meets the road, however, is: Will a modern, cheap, ‘slow’, processor providing it has Fast RAM and a good GPU, provide a good experience as a console? Will it hobble the state of the art, as Senor Beef lamented at the start of the thread?
Well, CPU workloads usually benefit from tight timings over pure bandwidth, so the DDR5 won’t really mean much in terms of CPU performance. It doesn’t hurt it either though.
I think this is a good step up, but I do share Beef’s feelings on wishing that the tech had been more powerful out of the gate. PC hardware had been idling for the past 3 years thanks to consoles, and this gen they came out of the gate with a brand new GPU architecture paradigm. There is no such shift in GPu architecture this time around, and instead of targetting high end GPU’s, they are targetting mid range ones.
Yes, it makes no business or maybe even engineering sense putting in a GTX 680 in there with an i7, but now, instead of starting off one step ahead of PC’s, they’re about a step back. How soon before PC hardware is running circles around it again? And developers start cutting back on their ideas, their worlds, etc, because they need to support console hardware?
Consoles are static, that PC’s will eventually run circles around them is a given. But I would have liked that window of parity to last as long as possible.
I’ll grant that there’s a significant hardware hurdle too. And it’s simply not cost effective to get a billion processors (or an “AI” card, a “physics card” etc in addition to a graphics cards).
As far as I see it, there are improvements that can be made if you go heavily parallel. But at the moment they are not realistic, cost effective, or particularly worth it.
Uh oh!
My spidey sense is a tingling!
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/pre-owned-games-block-on-ps4-is-a-publisher-decision/0111344
Perhaps that solid no, Sony isn’t going to block used games is now a - maybe it will!
I’m thinkin’ it’s an Architectural one, as well. They’re either going to have to throw the Cell Procssors onboard, or Emulate 'em…and I don’t think they can easily do that.
???
He was talking about blocking used games.
You appear to be talking about backwards compatibility?
Backwards compatibility is basically going to be absent. They MAY re-release some PS3 games to run in an emulator on the PS4 the same way they release some “PS2 classics” on the PS3, but it’s not going to be a case of “put in disc, run game.”
There’s definitely something a little shifty going on in the used game space too, but it’s clear from their maneuvering that it’s not going to be some sort of total block.
I also felt that this did a pretty good job of summarizing my feelings on this console.
The MCV story looks like it conflated two quotes from that interview into a single one. From the sounds of the original interview, the PS4 won’t block used games in any official capacity, but publishers could add an Online Pass (or other, more complete blocks) to their games.
This is exactly how it is now. Maybe more companies will jump to an Online Pass on the PS4, but I doubt it. Most are retreating from the concept and offering pre-paid Season Passes for downloadable content instead.
But then why didn’t he just say exactly that?
That whole sidestep makes it seem like there’s more to that. There might be a hardware mechanism built in that would allow a complete block of used games. Sony might essentially be providing the method, then stepping aside and washing it’s hands, saying it’s not them, it’s the publisher.
Sneaky.
Looking at how long the PS2 continued to be made, well into the current generation, I suspect it’s a problem that’s more complained about than anything. The ps3 didn’t take much of a hit when they removed support, and my Xbox is living out its retirement on the kid’s TV.
Is it less convenient that I can’t play older games on my main console? Yeah. Do the people that REALLY want to play old games have the opportunity to do so? Yeah. Do people REALLY play older games? Probably not as much as you’d think. Beyond a few hugely popular games that are intentionally emulated/ported, how many games are used much beyond their GOTY edition?
Because it’s up to the publishers, I don’t think they want to give any one method a Sony stamp of approval. Sony is usually pretty terrible at fighting the headline wars, but I think this is one way to sidestep the question until closer to the release. By talking about the Online Pass option, that can get spun to “all games require an online pass.” Which was a rumor about the PS4 in the past and is making the rounds for the Xbox 720 again now.
ETA: It’s like I said way back in the beginning of this thread. Once the news that the Wii U and now (likely) the PS4 won’t use a used games block, it makes it almost impossible for them to go on that promise or for Microsoft to attempt to go it alone. Sales would be hit hard. And how do you explain that kind of gaffe to the shareholders?
By telling them that they’ll make billions by keeping the used market at bay.
I think you’re giving average Joe Xbox gamer too much credit, if you think that they’ll suddenly all switch to another console because of anti consumer practices form MS.
GameStop execs talked to their customers and seem to think that’s a load of shit. I think I agree with them. Steam was able to take off the way it did because there was never a large pre-owned market for PC games. The same is not true for console games.
Why not? Last generation, it’s more than likely that Joe Xbox Gamer went by the name John Q. PlayStation. The PS2 owned something like 75% of the market. But after a systematic set of anti-consumer moves, Sony was able to shoot themselves in the foot enough to drive a huge percentage of the console market towards the Xbox 360. The same thing happened with Nintendo when the Nintendo 64 didn’t give consumers what they wanted and most of them migrated Sony’s way.
It’s happened before and it’ll happen again. But I don’t believe MS is stupid enough to let it happen yet.
What anti consumer tactics form Sony?
Looking at the success of the Xbox from a PC gamer’s perspective, I think it’s pretty clear that Microsoft had the brilliant idea of bringing what was happening on the PC, to the console space.
And THAT’S what propelled them forward.
$500 and $600… Reams of digital paper has been produced bemoaning the PS3’s launch price. It is the unquestioned reason #1 for why the PS3 was never able to gain on the Xbox 360.
Besides the price, the Xbox 360 leapfrogged the PS3 because it was available for over a year before the PS3 launched and because its game lineup was light years better than Sony’s for until at least 2007.
It’s my firm belief that if Konami had caved with Metal Gear Solid 4 and Square Enix had announced the Xbox 360 version of Final Fantasy XIII sooner there wouldn’t even be a PS4.
The article mentioned above said it better than I could have:
http://gameological.com/2013/02/more-more-morehow-do-you-like-it/
I can’t believe you’re still going forward with that preposterous line of argument. Would all of the great films have been better if they’d have been forced to record and edit them on a smart phone? I mean, if limitations are the source and nuturer of creativity. If we were still using atari 2600s, would our games be that much better? Think how much creativity we could’ve experienced with such limitations! Creativity being spent to get around limitations in your medium is creativity that could’ve been spent on creating greater works of art if you were operating without those limitations.
Even the opinion of your article that’s linked doesn’t actually go so far as to make the case you’re trying to. They just said most games suck because most people are bad at making games, and technology won’t fix that. So what? Technology will make those who do make great games better. Technology creates greater artistic options, allows creativity with greater freedom.
Advancement of technology doesn’t exclude anything. I play FTL on my PC which is about 5000x more powerful than that game needs. Am I somehow unable to play or enjoy that game because of the advanced technology? No, of course not. Technology doesn’t somehow preclude such things. However, could I play Arma 3 on something that was merely capable of playing FTL? Of course not. So the greater technology still allows the technically primitive but creative games or the advanced, high tech games. More options. Fewer limitations.
I think you’re trying to make an implicit argument that somehow those little creative artsy games can’t exist in a world that allows technologically advanced games. That’s certainly not true on PC - there’s a wild, blooming indie game scene with all sorts of creative works. It would be one of life’s great absurdities if that weren’t true on console - if a console game wouldn’t sell because it wasn’t cutting edge enough, considering the whole point of consoles is not to be cutting edge.
So again, you’re arguing for a position that has no upside and lots of downsides. Greater technology only removes technical limitations. It does not force anything. There is nothing that yesterday’s technology can do that today’s technology can’t.
Dude, you really need to switch to decaf.
Nothing I said in that post indicates that I’m somehow angry or overly aggressive. It was a logical takedown of a poor argument - or argument by proxy, as it may be, since we all know opinions are more valuable if you can link to them on a blog or something.
I understand that you’re working from the difficult position of trying to defend the absurd. I will gracefully accept your implicit admission of defeat. Cause that’s what I am. Graceful.
Go for it, Tiger. Life’s too short.
But I don’t recall you weighing in…how do you feel about an 8 Core AMD APU powering the next Sony Console? It’s it a brave new step forward, or is it condemning you to another decade of painful PC cross porting?
You’re not very good at that either.