Games: Sony Confirms PSPGo Gone; New Consoles Expected 2014
itwbennett writes "Sony on Wednesday confirmed rumors that it is ending production of the PSPGo, the 'slider' version of their handheld gaming system that was introduced back in 2009. Meanwhile, Kotaku posted an article saying that Microsoft and Sony probably won't be launching their next generation consoles until 2014. Whether the Kotaku prognostications are true or not, 'it's fun to think about what a console will have inside it in 3 years,' writes blogger Peter Smith. 'Will it support physical media? Probably. That seems too early for a pure digital delivery system. But I bet they'll have either terabyte hard drives or some kind of cloud storage for digital media.'"
thinking they would release a new console so PC gaming could have the bar raised higher. Looks like were stuck with 3 more years of console ports...
When the hell are they going to put more RAM in consoles? I mean seriously, just cram 8GB in those damn things. I'm tired of consoles being seriously limited in memory for no good reason.
For example when everyone had 512MB of RAM, consoles came out that had like 16MB.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
100% uptime
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Why does everyone assume that everywhere has real hi-speed internet? I live in not so rural PA and the only "Hi-speed" we have is cellular 3G. No cable company will come out here, no fiber, no DSL. If it doesn't use real media, it isn't going to be sold here.
Add to that the rest of the world doesn't always have unlimited bandwidth. So now you have to pay for the game and the bandwidth overages.
Think again
But I bet they'll have either terabyte hard drives
Wow! A whole terabyte?!?!?
In three years, my "console" will consist of my smartphone with an HDMI cable attached to it.
Another smartphone (or constellation of same) will be the controller(s), sensing motion, orientation, compass direction, temperature, sound, and impulses from my nerve endings, all transmitted to the console smartphone via HD Bluetooth, with a data assist via my home Wi-Fi or the local cellular net (which should be 5G or so).
Strap one to each extremety and watch me kick virtual ass in Mortal Kombat 2015 by doing actual martial-arts moves on my living-room carpet.
MS and Sony had better have freaking holograms that hit back if they want to compete with the world that's passing their asses by.
Are you insinuating that the NGP will not be available at any immediate juncture or are you referring to further developments beyond this handheld we have all been promised?
Goatse.
Goatse Troll.
It's a safe bet all the future consoles will make more use of the cloud but oth the PS4 and the XBox 720 (or whatever they will be called) will still use physical media. Sony will still be pushing Blu-ray so that's what will come with the PS4 and I presume the XBox 720 will provide some backwards compatibility with the 360, requiring at least a DVD drive, but quite likely something with a higher capacity that can store higher res textures, etc, for the new CPUs and GPUs to play with.
Apparently not dead in NA markets at this time
No sig for you!!
Never before has goatse been so on topic.
I think the next gen would be a co-op merger where the PS3 and xbox and wii and pc will be able to play together online. That would be the awesome. I'm hoping anyway.
Yes, once again the loop will continue. That damn sony adds Linux support and then removes it.
The PS2 lost Linux support with the PS2 Slim. The PS3 Slim shed PS2 emulation and Linux with a positive impact on costs and sales.
The DIY sysytem install and dual-booting into a desktop GUI with limited access to system resources was not the way to sell Homebrew and Linux-on-the-console to the masses - and without mass support you are in the same predicament as the audiophile who purchased the PS3 for SACD support.
The right way to go is with the PS6 is a free Sony supported SDK and an app store like XBox Live! Where there can be quality control, marketing support, and a clear distinction between the comercial and non-commercial product.
It seems that names that have a trailing "Go" are living up to it. Think MeeGo.
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Honestly, what i see are game server farms like Onlive or something.
It keeps all the game on the server side, so they don't have to worry about peeps pirating it. They way they bitch about pirates and stuff, would seem to me it would be better to keep it all on their end and just stream the shit to us.
Which of course, sucks currently, but they they did bitch slap some fiber optics to the home peeps, would probably be more doable.
Do I want this? Fuck no. Just seems like this is how shit is going, imo
Be seeing you...
Plenty of time for Steam to seal PCs (possibly even time for Macs to catch up) as the dominating gaming platform then. The current gen consoles are already considerably showing their age compared to PC stuff IMO.
Seems a bit of a foot-shooting exercise that they're dragging their heels so much this time around.
not with todays download caps and low bandwidth on most people on DSL and even cable will not be good if most of your block is trying to use on live at the same time. Hell comcast can't even do more then 1-2 MLB EI HD games at the same time and they don't have BIG TEN HD ALTS.
Here's a huge rumor-dump for the new Nintendo console which may or may not be announced at E3 (JSYK, all of this was reported before from other websites; this is just a compilation of the rumors).
To summarize for the lazy, the controller may have a touch-screen, the system is more powerful than a PS3/360, and it looks like a modern version of an SNES. This is all just rumor and speculation though, so we'll have to wait and see. If the rumors are true, then I'm really excited! I used to play those Gamecube games where you connected GBAs to the controller ports so each player had his own screen, for games like Four Swords Adventures and Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (which are both a BLAST to play with friends, btw). It was even useful in the occasional game like Sonic Adventure 1 and 2, Mega Man X Command Mission, and Pokemon Colosseum/XD, for example. This seems just like that awesome concept, but mixed with the DS and on a much more massive scale.
If these rumors are true (or aren't as awesome as it really is), then Nintendo shows, once again, that dedicated hardware can be much, much better than a PC for gaming.
PS: I'm no Nintendo fanboy; I just like them a lot more than the competition. I have a PS2 and might get a PSP/PS3 used sometime.
"Our country is not nearly so overrun with the bigoted as it is overrun with the broadminded." -Archbishop Fulton Sheen
I expect it to have only cloud storage. This would make the machine unusable as a standalone device. When the machine get cracked that user has two choices. A standalone cracked machine or connect to cloud and get "updated". Now Sony has greater control over the user.
Or rather it was expensive, and may become so again. Part of the problem is just when the consoles were designed RAM was at a premium. I remember some computers we got at work during that era that had only 256MB RAM because it was so pricey to upgrade. The other problem is RAM seems to fluctuate. It operates like a commodity market. So you can't spec a lot and count on it being cheap. Unlike most tech stuff, it can go up in price so you need to account for that.
That said, if RAM remains cheap I think you can count on the next gen consoles having a lot more, but not as much as computers.
Another issue, at least with the 360 and Wii, is that they use unified RAM. The CPU and GPU access the same memory. That means you need to use the faster sort of memory videocards use, which costs more. You'll notice that most video cards still have only 1GB of VRAM and even the really high end consumer ones only have 1.5-2GB.
Also you have to remember that pennies count in console design. They want to get a lot of hardware in the things and sell them at a low cost, that means not overdoing anything they don't need to. Past attempts have proven that consumers just won't go and buy extremely high dollar consoles, even if they come with premium hardware. That means you have to keep the cost down and that means not having too much stuff, which includes RAM.
I mean look at it this way: My computer has 16GB of RAM and for that I paid about $220. Quite cheap... However another way of putting it would be that I spent more just on system RAM than you would on an Xbox 360 S.
Not with multimedia apps, upload and download services, Skype, social networking and god alone knows what other software and services will be added in the future.
All these tasks are already done comfortably on iOS and Android even with only 128 MB of RAM, which is one-fourth the RAM of an Xbox 360 or PLAYSTATION 3 console. Therefore, these tasks typically need less RAM than a high-end game.
Just go get yourself a PC, if you love the console controller, go get a 360 controller with PC adapter
Say I hook up my PC to my TV. In the era of HDMI, that's a doddle. Then say I've plugged in four Xbox 360 controllers through a USB hub, and the Game Controllers control panel can see all of them. Now how many games will let me use more than the first controller? Not many, because most PC games are developed with the assumption that they are being played by one person at a desk. PC multiplayer more often than not equates "party" with "LAN party" where each player brings his own PC and his own copy of the game. Even Street Fighter IV, once the poster child for local multiplayer on PC, isn't getting any updates from Capcom for some reason.
I didn't see anyone mention OnLive or it's Micro Console(http://www.onlive.com/game-system) which is my only 'current' console. I didn't like the PS3, in fact just out of personal preference I don't like Sony.. They are partly to blame for killing my beloved Dreamcast... (Along with their other business practices of late). The wii was fun but childish and the sensors are at their best... OK. And i'll never purchase anything from Microsoft. Never have, never will. Anyway, yes cloud gaming sounds terrible, but a 3Mbps connection is all you need for a stable 720p stream, which looks great on my older 720p 42" tv. 5Mbps and you get 1080i I believe. Last week I invited some friends over and decided to max out my Cox "Ultimate" internet, and sucessfully streamed Hulu to my laptop, and two OnLive connections to my Mac and PC desktops, and one connection to my Microconsole simultaneously without lag for hours on end.
They are partly to blame for killing my beloved Dreamcast.
Bullshit.
The only ones responsible for the death of the Dreamcast are Sega. Complete lack of copy protection coupled with a complete lack of marketing. Gods above and below, the first Dreamcast commercial I ever saw was for some Sonic game. This was after Sega announced they were ceasing production of hardware.
Also VMUs sucked, and so did the Dreamcast controllers. And Sega sucks. Sega can go to hell for never doing a sequel to Skies of Arcadia. Bastards, all of them.
Seriously? Do they think all gamers will have that fast of a network connection by then? That is certainly not the case today.
Downloading once isn't an issue for most people, it's probably faster than going to a bricks and mortar store - and much faster than mail order. I'd have to figure that many games would be comparable to HD video in terms of transfer rates required; there's still a lot of people who couldn't handle that over their existing connections. Hence the next consoles will still need local storage. Whether a hard drive or SSD is another question, but it must be local.
Charlie Demerjian made a comment on his site quite some time ago about there were only one console maker (Nintendo) buying new hardware and that the other two looked at a 2014 release. I don't know why the wait. Maybe they want recoup some of the development cost or wait for newer gen gfx on a smaller process node, 28nm. Nvidia's current, Fermi on 40nm, is just plain horrible for console use (hot and power hungry). AMD is currently shifting from VLIW5 to VLIW4 so their next gen should have weeded out a lot of bugs. AMD's current Fusion stuff (integrated CPU + GPU) uses low end Evergreen tech. Nintendo is using a Fusion CPU. (They have been in the ATI camp for a long time) Maybe Microsoft will go Fusion too but with upgraded gfx. Sony's path is more uncertain, IBM has stopped development of the Cell processor. Multicore Arm?
It will be a way for Sony to squeeze that extra margin going to retail stores. Only a few games and games that require exotic controllers will be sold in stores. Instead if you want to buy someone a video games you will buy them a Sony gift card. I on the other hand will continue to rebuff all platforms that don't let me do what I want with my hardware and software. I will not volunteer for lock in.
What would be nice is if instead of buying that gift card you instead got a write once memory card. Something like Sony's own memory stick. You can get 1GB flash for less than 50 cents and I don't know how many games use even that. But flash comes in a variety of sizes. Maybe Sony could produce small capacity flash but optimized for reading. A class 10, 2 GB flash. That would be new.
If they use SD cards (which I think has more or less won the flash package wars) then I think it could push an online music shop as well. Just come up with a variety of music library software that plugs into a common backend. A consumer device for buying and organizing content for all you devices. So you could plug USB optical drives and rip music on the PlayStation while big brother watches you. And let's go one further by having Sony include a few very low power processors for when the system isn't playing videos games. Then the device could become the streaming media center for the home and always be on. And don't forget WIFI for streaming content to tablets! In other words yes it will play beautiful games but for the price it needs to do more to justify that price. In needs to have people buying it that don't often play video games; they buy it for it's other features but of course the grand-kids can use it to play their video games. Turn the thing into the idiot box and subsidize the price even more. Ideal would be around $300 or a little above. That's what people payed for VCR's when they first came out. So Sony you need to bet the farm and concentrate on becoming the media center for the home.
and a trackball
when playing an fps on console the real problem is the aim stick
If a trackball is good enough for Centipede, why isn't it good enough for a first-person shooter?
How young can half-keyboards possibly be? Patents only last 20 years...
I don't remember having heard about them until 2000, back when Slashdot comment IDs were only 6 digits. It hasn't been 20 years since then.
Man my friend who owed me money tried to pawn me his old Gateway 386/SX, it sucked!
The new Gateway PCs are a lot faster, even if not fast enough to crush the scouter. The old Gateway you're thinking of probably had a 25 MHz 386 that would run 6900 iterations of Dhrystone per second, or roughly 4 standardized MIPS. The new Gateway has a Phenom X3 that can do over 28,000 MIPS.
Fuck that shit man, if you want a good sytem get yourself a Sega Genesis!
The new Gateway can probably emulate a couple dozen Sega Genesis consoles in parallel.
Agreed. The 5-year console life cycle has been the standard since the Atari days. They're nuts to almost DOUBLE it. By the time 2014 rolls around, the 360 and PS3 are going to look like children's toys compared to even the weakest of PC's. The gap between PC games and console games is already widening, and both consoles are showing their age (especially the 360, with its DVD drive and no required hard drive). I can't imagine how bad they'll look in 3 years.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Ah - a 360 fanboy, I presume. No more than 17, are you?