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Sony Announces the PS4
As many expected, Sony has officially announced the PS4 at the Sony PlayStation Meeting today. The new PlayStation will have an X86 processor, "state of the art" GPU, 8 GB of high-speed unified memory, and a hard drive for local storage. The PS4 will allow gamers to share their gameplay stream and even remotely take control of friend's games. Along with the PS4, Sony has unveiled a new DualShock 4 controller which features a built-in touchpad at the center of the controller, and a built-in microphone jack.
I was looking forward to this.
How does it compare as a general-purpose desktop PC?
So what exactly is gonna differentiate this from a mid-level to high-end gaming rig? And does it run Linux (and will Linux not be snatched away as if it's their right to tell us what we can use our own hardware for)?
I wouldn't be surprised if a simple patch/crack could make PS4 games run on every standard PC (which already will be more powerful right now). And with the lack of actual emulations, it will run at pretty much full speed. Attach a USB controller, and go.
The only question is, as always, not if, but when Sony will go bankrupt. ;)
Cue the usual litany of complaints: Rootkits, OtherOS, proprietary this and that.
Hint: If you're in that boat, PS4 probably isn't for you. You don't have to buy it. You don't have to buy the new Xbox either, which will be equally restrictive.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
Why exactly would I give money to Sony?
* Rootkit fiasco
* Stripping Linux from the PS3
* Hotz Lawsuit
These and many many more.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
I Hope so ! some standard of some kind HID profile... Sony controllers are some of the best and if they want people to say nice things about them simply make them the standard that everyone hacks things with how much press did the Wee get because they used standards...
I hope its standard bluetooth I really do
The one thing that has kept consoles alive today was the fact that they weren't x86. You want to play Halo 4? Buy a '360, because the binaries are not only encoded but compiled for a completely different architecture (PowerPC). You want to play Killzone 2 or 3 or MGS4? Buy a PS3, because it's the same thing.
Now that they're pushing "supercharged PC architectures" (what the hell does that even mean?)- how long until we see a hypervisor or bootloader that fires up the next-gen console OS on a bog standard PC that otherwise has similar specifications to the equivalent console?
Sony must have some insane dedicated hardware security in that system, because if they don't and it's just a tiny little 8-pin TPM chip- someone is going to blow that thing wide open, and then there won't be any point to buying a PS4 at all. Just partition your existing PC or buy a spare $59 hard drive, stick the PS4 GameOS on that, and play all the PS3 "exclusives" without even owning a PS4.
I'm sure they were worried about piracy before, but man- I can't see how they're *not* shitting bricks over that right now with the switch to x86, unless they've got some killer hardware TPM coprocessor that is handling encryption and decryption on a SOC, completely self-contained and relatively unbreakable (until someone decaps the thing and reads out the bits under a microscope).
Consoles have always been proprietary PCs.
The hardware changes constantly, the difference between console and PC in gaming has always been about who has control over the environment.
Any ideas yet on the possibilities of a FrankenStation? The hardware uses standard PC components but the 8GB of unified GDDR5 memory might be a bit tricky, plus we don't know how it boots.
...and I wouldn't buy a Sony product if they paid me to take it. I have not forgotten what they do to their customers in the name of IP. Groklaw it.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Wasn't the big selling point of the PS3 was that it has the Cell processor? Is the Cell officially dead?
I see no mention of whether or not there is an optical drive on this system. Obviously if they have no optical drive they have broken compatibility with existing titles from earlier playstations.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
The PS3 already allowed non-friends to take control of my bank account.
That hardware is as exciting as an empty cardboard box.
Why exactly would I give money to Sony?
* Rootkit fiasco
* Stripping Linux from the PS3
* Hotz Lawsuit
These and many many more.
Rootkit: affected no one other than Sony getting sued once. Microsoft's product allow remote rootkits 100 million times a week.
OtherOS: removal didn't affect anyone, Linux on the PS3 was terrible. Anyone that used it could have told you that.
Hotz: who gives a shit? One dweeb copying a three year old bus glitch to dump memory affected no one, other than a possible connection to a tiny number of pirate games units that cannot update the OS.
Face it, you're an xbot sony-hater for the sake of it. Sony make stuff, buy it, or don't. No one cares. Just save the FUD, it makes you look pathetic.
It's like a Steam box, without Steam!
...not to mention who controls the software ecosystem that surrounds the product. Consoles aren't PC's and vice versa.
I'm not a Linux user but I play one on TrueNuff.tv
One of the most damning things to me is the lack of backwards compatibility (at least, far as I can tell from the Engadget feed I've been sort of following). I lost all interest in the PS3 when they stopped including PS2/1 compatibility (yes, I know I can find older, used systems, but screw Sony). Considering the library many gamers have, I don't think that having one prior console's worth of compatibility is asking too much, especially to help boost early sales if the launch library is less than tremendous.
But a part of this that I find highly interesting that there's no mention of physical media. Plenty of talk about the cloud, downloading games in the background and playing them as they download (I will be highly interested to see how this works out, if at all), and an internal hard drive... but no physical media. I mean, BluRay is the obvious choice for Sony, but not a mention either in the Ars article or the Engadget feed (unless I missed it.) Even the concise "Informed System Architecture" shows all your regular parts of a system... except the media.
Could make a emulator easy.
Pirate all the games you want and run it on your PC
No money to sony
Set up an easily hackable system
Cry to the gov "they're hacking us dry"
Ger new draconian copyright/drm laws passed
????
Profit
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
I remember getting the PS3 at a time when it seemed like the best Blu-Ray value. If this one brings a new 4k (real, not interpolated) Blu-Ray standard to the party, it might sell on that alone.
Why exactly would I give money to Sony?
* Rootkit fiasco
* Stripping Linux from the PS3
* Hotz Lawsuit
These and many many more.
Except there are not many more. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal have a look its 7 years old, and recalling all the affected CDs. I'd rather give my money to Sony over Microsoft every time. In fact people seem to forget that Sony did this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Corp._of_America_v._Universal_City_Studios,_Inc. As for the whole Linux thing, they should have been rewarded for doing so, and got the tax breaks associated with it. They didn't it got removed. The fact that we a licensing our devices rather than buying them is interesting considering how Microsoft & Apple are doing with *general purpose* devices.
The reality is Sony is by mega-corporations standards pretty good. Personally though I bought an OUYA as I believe in supporting companies, who release hardware that you *own*
Poe's Law: it's not just for religious kooks!
...because it was X86. I wouldn't now I bought a OUYA. The truth is I booted the XBMC on the rasberry pi, and the memories came flooding back.
The reality is the homebrew scene only possible because of its cheap PC internals gave the xbox a serious push.
That's not the point. The point is I paid for it and they removed it. It is not unlike a car owner taking his car in for an oil change and the manufacturer removing the radio... It's not the radio... it's the principle of Sony being jerks.
You can keep your PS4 and XBox 720. I am not interested. Save your fanboy slobbering for the Sony forums.
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
You forgot the Lik-Sang saga.
I dont get it... So you are anti-linux or something?
Like more Linux games [Like it needs anymore]. Sony have been talking about using the Playstation brand more. Opening a cross platform shop could bring *more* money to sony. I would love a playstation certified PC :)
I mean, BluRay is the obvious choice for Sony, but not a mention either in the Ars article or the Engadget feed (unless I missed it.) Even the concise "Informed System Architecture" shows all your regular parts of a system... except the media.
BluRay is dead...???
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Linux on the PS3 was terrible. Anyone that used it could have told you that.
Really??? Tell that to the US Air Force.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Set up an easily hackable system
Cry to the gov "they're hacking us dry"
Ger new draconian copyright/drm laws passed
????
Profit
...Ironically the first reason why I bough the OUYA is because it was easily hackable. The reality implying Sony are *evil* for creating a more hackable box is insane.
Actually this is the long-awaited stealth revival of IBM's PC division -- the PS/4. Internally it runs IBM's new Linux distribution, OS/4, and have the new integrated high-speed peripheral serial bus, MCA-Wire.
no price?
Do you want to download 25 GB 50 GB games / movies. Also need to store them as well at least this has a HDD.
Maybe with DCL setup so you can play while the rest of the game downloads in the background is good but the game makers need to setup it up right or you want have long loading screens.
Price. It will probably cost $500. A similarly equipped Windows PC would be $1,000+
Ease of use. No viruses. No configuring software and hardware. Guaranteed game performance.
Long life. 7+ yrs of life cycle with no upgrades to play all games.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
I would think Sony would include an optical drive because they helped invent CDs, DVDs, and Blue Ray disks. I can see them inventing new DRM for disks. But I don't see them making that DRM a PS3 exclusive.
Price. It will probably cost $500. A similarly equipped Windows PC would be $1,000+
Excuse me, but a similarly equiped Windows PC would cost $600. Of course, that would be a Linux PC after the 10 minutes it takes me to install Ubuntu from the USB stick.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
I remember getting the PS3 at a time when it seemed like the best Blu-Ray value. If this one brings a new 4k (real, not interpolated) Blu-Ray standard to the party, it might sell on that alone.
Don't forget to pick up that 10,000 dollar 4k TV on your way!
Translation: High
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I'll totally buy that. It's not like durring the PS3 days you left your whole network open for casual hackers to get my sensitive data.
Price. It will probably cost $500. A similarly equipped Windows PC would be $1,000+
More like $450 for that PC side, maybe $600. Really, I was in a situation where I was flat broke a few years ago. I didn't upgrade my rig at all, and I could play everything I wanted. In fact if the opportunity to upgrade hadn't come along because a buddy of mine was getting a hell of a deal on new AMD FX Vishera processors by the flat, I wouldn't have upgraded what I was using. I would have stuck with my x4-965 for another year until the 700 series GPU's came out. That's how badly consoles are holding back PC gaming.
And really, right now the only games that make PC's choke are modded skyrim with texture packs out the backside, modded crysis and a few other things. Everything else? 2-3 year old hardware will still do the job as long as it isn't onboard(soundcard not included--but I still like a good PCI/PCI-e card).
Om, nomnomnom...
no price?
If you have to ask, you can't afford it!
If you wanted to use it in a compute cluster with optimized code, then it probably worked pretty well. I actually did install Linux on one and it was utterly unusable; even the browser was gut-wrenchingly slow.
The problem is that the Cell processor relies on highly-optimized compilers to perform branch prediction and Linux distros built with GCC (all of them) don't cut it.
Just because you assert something to be true does not make it true.
The minority are the folks who stand up to defend Sony.
If you don't follow, I'm saying that you don't represent the majority of slashdot, so please quit telling us otherwise.
Translation: High
Translation: Cheap
Gaming PCs have a stonking great discrete GPU that plugs into the motherboard, and requires its own connection(s) to the PSU. Now what if this graphics card, with fantastically massive RAM bandwidths that Intel can only dream about, suddenly had EIGHT x86 CPU cores inserted into the GPU chip? What if this graphic card was given a 'Southbridge' chip for all the usual inputs and outputs found on the motherboard? Obviously, the graphics card would become the entire PC, with no need for the motherboard at all.
This is what AMD has created. NOT a CPU with inbuilt graphics that need to share a horrendously slow CPU bus (2x64 bits), but a GPU with inbuilt CPU cores, sharing an insanely fast GPU RAM bus, and using a common memory addressing model (HSA).
AMDs designs are light-years beyond those from Intel. Intel's great plan is to build a CPU with a massive companion RAM chip die for the GPU, just like the PlayStation 2 (yes TWO- you know that long obsolete console from many years ago). This Intel CPU is so mega-expensive, only ultra pricey laptops can afford to use it, but none will because ultra pricey laptops need graphics from ATI or Nvidia in order to sell. In other words, Intel's new Haswell GPU initiative is a bust before the first chip even hits the market.
Now the market awaits AMD to become really sane, and sell complete single board PC solutions that follow the design philosophy of the PS4- in other words a single board designed around the GPU, with 8GB of GPU memory soldered on, and the CPU cores contained within the GPU, leeching of the unified HSA GPU bus. Obviously these single-board PC systems can use far more powerful GPU designs than the PS4 because they will need far more power and cooling.
Now that the CPU no longer has to render graphics or decode video, the CPU is left with less and less to do on the PCs used by 99.9% of people, driving Intel's advantage into the ground. Metrics like GPU performance and memory bandwidth are increasingly important, even outside of games. The collapse of the price of DRAM means that memory should have been provided soldered to the motherboard years back, allowing much better quality of data signal = bigger possible bandwidth. Simple computer science 'cache' theory shows that very few people will benefit from more than 8GB, and this 8GB of DRAM should be acting as a level-4 cache to the SSD drive anyway.
Expect the new consoles to cause a massive re-think of the design of the desktop PC, to Intel's extreme disadvantage. Sony and MS are not mugs, and went to AMD for an entire PC-based solution for a very good reason. And both are building products designed to have a 7+ year lifetime.
HA!
The only thing that kept them alive at my place was backwards compatibility. XBox360 promised to run XBox games via emulation -- turned out to be a lie -- and our PS3 runs PS2 games pretty much without a hitch. Without those promises, they wouldn't have gotten in the door. Way, way too much money tied up in games for those machines. Before it's asked, no, I don't want to keep every version of every console attached to my system. One per brand is plenty.
Not that I"m actually expecting compatibility this round, but without it, these become irrelevant to me.
The good news is there are tons of games for the older systems, and they'll just get less expensive on the used market. There aren't enough hours in the day in the rest of my life to play everything released to this point, so there's no pressure to buy a new console.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I wonder which great features it will continue to support after I have purchased (i.e. rented) it.
Nah. Just pay the extra 5 euros a month and get the gigabit package.
Why do people, especially here, keep saying that you save money with a console? It may have other benefits (like not having to install game DRM on a general use machine, for family use, where the entertainment system should be isolated etc), but saving money is not one of them. You buy an EXTRA machine OVER your desktop. A gaming desktop is cheaper than a non-gaming desktop PLUS a console. And then there is console tax over games and multi-player, which when accounted, practically compensates the gaming component cost.
Having 2 devices has some advantages, but that's a different matter. PC GPUs can have 7yr life cycles too... if you are happy with 7 yr old settings... which is for most part (console graphics appear to improve over time, partly because the quality of early titles, aside from token exclusives, is poor. The difference is not so great that later titles will get you 1080p instead of 720p) is what you get with consoles anyway. Most recent games, will play on a 8800 (XBOX 360 had a 8800 while the PS3 had a 7800 to compensate the Cell's GPU failings) at 720p and medium to low settings. You only needed a PC refresh in between if you fancied 1080p or more, better physics, textures and tessellation since, that current consoles cannot deliver anyway. In short, PCs *appear* to have shorter life-cycles because *you* want more stuff... because upgrade is an *option*.
Personally, I prefer getting a mid-range GPU, a year after the consoles are released. My GTX 260, inexpensively bought on a sale, has at least another 2 years in it. PC gaming is NOT expensive.
Remeber the console is useless without games to play. So that's $500 + the fact all your games have to be first-hand copies. No sharing, no resale, and probably no pirated copies for the next 2-3 years until someone jailbreaks the system. So while you'll be paying ~$60-80 per game (It's madness to think Sony won't bump the prices of games once it locks each copy to a single console), I'll be buying mine for PC at around $40-50, swap games with friends, and buy used copies for a fraction of the original price. All that amounts to you making a better deal at day-0, but me quickly catching up and overtaking you in terms of what we both pay for content. Smart money is on the PC.
I was forced to install Linux on my PS3. Sony removing it was.. actually, forget it. I can't come up with a believable lie.
Why exactly would I give money to Sony?
* Rootkit fiasco
* Stripping Linux from the PS3
* Hotz Lawsuit
These and many many more.
As someone else pointed out on a previous thread the Rootkit was created before Sony bought BMG, not by Sony.
Will it run Linux? ;)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Why exactly would I give money to Sony?
* Rootkit fiasco
* Stripping Linux from the PS3
* Hotz Lawsuit
These and many many more.
* Biggest Netflix partner
The numbers speak, nobody cares.
Are you living in the 90s? Most US consumers don't buy desktop computers anymore, they buy laptops which usually have Intel video.
Also consoles are owned by kids and lower socioeconomic class people that may not own a computer at all.
Linux on the PS3 was terrible. Anyone that used it could have told you that.
Really??? Tell that to the US Air Force.
Sorry, the US Air Force can afford a mainframe with cell processor blades if they need it. Might not be anywhere near cheap, but that's not their job.
Why exactly would I give money to Sony?
Because your family likes the PlayStation's mix of console gaming, Blu-Ray play and online services ---- and you have made a big investment in video and sound? When your kids vote Disney and DreamWorks and your wife Huu and Netflix, who wins?
If the PS4 has the best games and the best graphics, then I'll be on board. I don't think I have to worry about rootkits, and I wasn't butthurt when I couldn't use Ubuntu on the PS3 anymore (which was a crappy machine to use it on, due to its lack of RAM).
Albeit, I do wish they'd allow Linux on the PS4, but I doubt they'll do it, because their business model depends more on people buying games and not the machine itself. So, if they want to keep us from doing what we want with it, it's their choice. You have the choice to not buy the machine, and the choice to buy/build a Steam Box if that turns out to be a better choice than the PS4.
Competition rules. May the best company win.
what if you are in a cable area and big chunk of people on the same node all try to play the new hot ps4 game at the same time??
Excuse me, but a similarly equiped Windows PC would cost $600. Of course, that would be a Linux PC after the 10 minutes it takes me to install Ubuntu from the USB stick.
And think of all the wonderful games you'll be able to play, like TuxRacer!
PC ports: Should be less expensive to develop and optimize now. :-). The irony would be sweet.
PC mods?: If only these can be turned into full desktops. Sony... largest, accidental maker of gaming PCs
Or perhaps PS4 OS on commodity PC hardware, ala Hackintosh. Better forced GPU features for your PS4 games.
Emulation should also be more efficient when PS4 emulators emerge years later.
If you can't make your point WITHOUT putting various words in all caps you might NOT have a very strong argument.
moox. for a new generation.
So Sony put a 'touch sensitive' pad on the controller. The touch sensitive pad is in a location you can't reach without letting go of the controller.
.. a mouse pad nobody will use. Sony is scared to change and adapt to a market which has long since left without them. And now, the PS4 will be like concrete in Sony's boots. They've committed to it, so it's going to have to stick around for at least 5 years.
.. but 10 years late. There's nothing here but a simple home gaming platform with a slightly more clever collection of network collaboration tools.
We've got touch sensitive screens, we've got motion sensitive controllers, accelerometers, built in cameras, mics, optical recognition software etc etc. And Sony's latest innovation is
Seriously, if you want to get people to buy devices you really need to come up with something new and innovative. The PS4 is just a PS3 with a not quite so screwed up system architecture. It's what the PS3 should have been
Watching Sony sink slowly under the waves is a sad state of affairs for a company that should have long since been shocked into action. It's time to call it how it is. Sony is looking forward to a long series of ~6 billion losses.
Yeah, because the US government has never made a bad decision or anything.
Not saying that Linux is bad on the PS3 but if you can't find a more reputable organization doing something with it I'd be a bit leery of citing the government.
Good if you don't need a full load of VM'S or run a lot of apps at the same time and virtual memory can burn out a ssd.
8GB (shared) is good right now for home use / gameing. The Retina mac book pros come with 8GB min and the top one has 16GB.
Why not have a slower RAM / temp / DDR3/4 pool that not a burning up a SDD or can be used as a FAST Virtual Memory disk that may not be at GPU ram speeds but is at DDR3/4 speed that is faster then a SDD.
More like $450 for that PC side, maybe $600.
You're getting 8GB GDDR5 as main memory for that?
Excuse me, but a similarly equiped Windows PC would cost $600. Of course, that would be a Linux PC after the 10 minutes it takes me to install Ubuntu from the USB stick.
And think of all the wonderful games you'll be able to play, like TuxRacer!
I don't think you can get TuxRacer from Steam...
According to this document at Sony (yes it is a pdf) it does have a 6xBlu-Ray drive. It will also have USB 3.0
http://www.scei.co.jp/corporate/release/pdf/130221a_e.pdf
The US has export control laws to prevent Commies from getting ahold of critical technologies such as crypto, supercomputers, and nukes. Back during the 90s we had a long fight to get US civilian access to open crypto technology (which was being restricted much more by the FBI to prevent Americans from having wiretap-proof communications than actually by the military to hinder the ex-Soviets), and we finally won, though our communications are still much less secure because of it. Supercomputers were banned because enemy militaries might use them to design weapons. Computer technology was changing much faster than the export laws, and both the Playstation and Playstation 2 were illegally fast supercomputers that we weren't allowed to export to enemy countries, and that was before people started making them into clusters to do useful supercomputing. (The thresholds for "too fast" got raised after the spooks got ridiculed about the PS1, but the PS2 exceeded the new limits.)
So will the PS4 also be too fast to export?
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I don't think you can get TuxRacer from Steam...
So it can't even play TuxRacer? lame.
How "Off the shelf" are the components going to be, and how long before the clones start being made in mothers basements?
. .
First, its not *all*-caps (maybe you prefer this style of emphasis) text. It was 4 words out of 276 that were emphasized. Others were abbreviations and one Xbox that was capped in error. Second, all-caps for full text is obviously bad netiquette. But I challenge you to find a general netiquette document that finds my selective style of capitalization in error. You just made up your own rule.
Take control of a friends game... sounds like Windows and IE6 to me.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
No such thing.
a beowulf cluster of these?
Means they haven't got a console to show. I don't think the design has been finalized. Does this remind you of anything?
The PS3 had the same problem where the console on stage wasn't showing the game but something backstage was doing so because of overheating. This console smells of trouble already.
For those who seek perfection there can be no rest on this side of the grave.
Browser? Slow? On the PS2 yes, but the PS3, I think not. You were using ppietro's Firefox builds, fir YDL, right?
Oh please.
Stripping Linux? What about having Linux there in the first place? (which eventually lead to hacking the console)
ONE PLUS ONE EQUALS TWO
It makes for a great adventure game, though.
rice. It will probably cost $500. A similarly equipped Windows PC would be $1,000+ Ease of use. No viruses. No configuring software and hardware. Guaranteed game performance. Long life. 7+ yrs of life cycle with no upgrades to play all games. -end of quote- er...I wouldn't count my chickens til they hatch. With the constant internet facebook integration, X86 processor, hard drive - what more do you need to create a virus for it? And don't forget sony's famous 'hacks of customer account information for millions of users' and denial of service attacks in the recent past. Guaranteed game performance is also an issue - the videos they showed even during the unveiling today showed extreme framerate lagging during play as well as choppy and shaky cam techniques. I have games on the PS2 that frequently crash, lock up, and kill the system and I'd expect no less on a PS3 or PS4 either. The drive lasers wear out before 7 years I can guarantee that, and most hard drives have a 5-7 year warranty so your claim is unfounded unless it comes with a 7 year (instead of standard 1-year Sony warranty). How do you know there will be no upgrades? Ever heard of Downloadable content? The Wii U even had a day 1 4GB download patch that filled half of the stock hard drive space (mandatory). I'd say you're ignoring the reality of the situation. And this PS4 won't even be available for actual SALE until November 2013 so you have a long wait to get your hands on one even if you wanted it. By Christmas this year, DDR4 will be available for the mainstream consumer, so already on launch day this PS4 will be obsolete and surpassed by the XBox720. Microsoft is smart and is holding off as long as possible to take the largest market share they can.
You don't have to buy the new Xbox either, which will be equally restrictive.
Absolutely true. Personally, I got so annoyed with Microsoft's antics and hobbling of my ability to play my games that I legitimately purchased that I gave away my XBox 360, all its hardware, and all my games. I washed my hands of the whole debacle.
Sony is abysmal as well.
The happy days of the PS, PS2, and Xbox are but a distant memory. I just don't want to deal with the frustrating nickel and diming in modern games and the deliberate hamstringing of hardware in order to squeeze the last possible cent from me—that's the antithesis of my definition of "fun".
More power to anyone who doesn't mind these issues, but unless the industry drastically changes course I imagine my days of console gaming are over.
GDDR5 is just DDR3 optimized for raw throughput. DDR3 has lower latencies.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Excuse me, but I just built a 8-core piledriver system with 32GB of RAM, a pretty solid Mobo and case for around $550.
Um, so x86 implies not x64, which implies conventionally a 4GB RAM memory limit for the OS (unless a PAE kernel) along with a 4GB process memory limit. So is most of the unified memory for the GPU then?
Sure, Why not?
It's not like I don't have the space. It might take a couple of hours, but I need to sleep sometime anyway.
Why exactly would I give money to Sony?
Because I want to play games?
Yes, i know, Sony is an evil company. So is Microsoft. If I just want to play games, nothing you list affected me. The rootkit fiasco wasn't about games at all - it was about music CDs, which is basically a completely different division of Sony. Stripping Linux may have ticked off some geeks, but it wasn't anything useful for gaming at all. And while the George Hotz case may have been gaming related - if you just wanted to play legal games, not pirate them and cheat, then it wasn't of interest either.
So, yes - Sony may be evil, but not any more so than most large companies. I'm going to buy a PS4 anyway.
That would be a very good point if the CPU was the only resource that had contention on the system. On that Win 7 box, how much RAM is being used?
GDDR5 is just DDR3 optimized for raw throughput. DDR3 has lower latencies.
Yes, it's significantly higher bandwidth and shared between the GPU and CPU as opposed to each having their own memory pools separated by the PCI bus.
Wow. FUD. On Slashdot. I thought we were against that.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
The drive lasers wear out before 7 years I can guarantee that
Rubbish! You're saying all the original PS3s are going to have drive failures in the next couple of months? Funny my xbox and ps2 refute your idiotic and baseless "guarantee".
and most hard drives have a 5-7 year warranty
Who cares what the warranty is, the HDDs in the original XBoxes still go strong, your statement is worthless.
so your claim is unfounded
Actually *your* claim is unfounded.
How do you know there will be no upgrades? Ever heard of Downloadable content?
Downloadable content is great, didn't have to upgrade my playstation to use it either.
i bought expensive rig once, it was about PS2 generation, i did a few upgrades back than, so i dont need to do it eevry sony release. At the end of the day you need to replace mobo + cpu + gpu + add ram. which will not cost you 500$.
You can put linux if you like, which will have fuckaloda games and aleady has some good ones.
Not being able to customize my shit - makes me feel really bad, so its not a positive point.
I don't buy all those shitty games on PS4 and i can reply some good ones. So i save money. you don't have to upgrade games so often on PC too, you can just lower settings, and PC games will still look better than on PS4.
So, where differentiators are?
except when it doesnt.... ;)
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
And you forgot about out-classed by high-end PCs within moments of... or wait, outclassed by low-end gaming PCs three years or more before launch. At least with the PS3/XB360, they were comparable to gaming PCs available at the time. Those were the days when getting a console would make sense. Now, it seems, power can be had for very cheap, and there seems to be renewed interest in PC gaming because of it. As for viruses, well, that's just one of risks of freedom, isn't it?
In addition, buying a PC isn't an expense, it's an investment. I _make_ money with my PC. Consoles are just a money pit.
Even if I spend $1000 on a high end PC, that same PC will make me back five or six times that amount in one month.
Why exactly would I give money to Sony?
* Rootkit fiasco
* Stripping Linux from the PS3
* Hotz Lawsuit
These and many many more.
Taking linux from the ps3 was your choice. Users had the option to not download the update that removed it. Future ps3 systems didnt not include linux at all so you didnt have to buy one if you didnt want to. Linux did nothing to improve gaming or the ps3 experince at all. Linux was a major source of piracy since it made stealing games much much easier. So sony removed it to protect themselves. If you want linux so badly then put it on your computer. Virtually every system update from everything from smart phones to game consoles all remove some feature or alter a feature but no one ever complains about those. Linux was something sony added in the hopes of opening up the system to more users to give them more options beyond what the ps3 offered and in the end it hurt them badly because it was only used for piracy so they removed it to protect themselves. Removing linux did NOT remove or alter anything the ps3 does like playing games, watching movies, streaming netflix, surfing the net, music storage or any of its features.
Sony sued hotz for cracking security on their console and then releasing it into the wild which led to security bypass which lead to piracy. And you say he is wrong? Its no different than if he stole a key to your house and then gave away copies to anyone who wanted one.
Rootkit fiasco? So sony had a rootkit for a brief period of time. They arent also the only ones. Virtually every company from software to hardware has gone down the rootkit avenue in an attempt at protecting their property rights from thieves. Was it the best choice? No but it they tried it, it didnt work and they stopped doing it. People got upset and they pulled back and yet youre still complaining about what they did and then stopped doing. Not to mention the hundreds of other companies who did the exact same thing but for some reason never got complained about.
And many many more what? Only thing left is the security hack on the psn. And guess what? No one, I mean no one had identity theft issues because CCV numbers and personal information was not stolen. They released a statement publicly quicker than any of the other dozens of companies who had the same thing happen to them from the same group that hacked sony. Infact sony released the information faster than anyother company did. Mastercard, iraqi government, other game companies, paypal, hb gary a government contracted cyber security company also got hacked by them so tell me why is it you act like sony is responsible but dont blame the other companies? Oh and did you forget that sony offered FREE of charge 1 millions dollars worth of identity theft insurance to all affected customers out of their own pocket? And what did the other companies do when faced with the same thing? Nothing thats what. Sony went out of their way to apologize, protect and makeup for something that wasnt their fault. If someone gets their house broken into do you blame and try to sue the people who got robbed?
Youre one of the many people on the internet who hate on sony just because you want to complain and thats it. You want to rant and rave and do so without a single shred of insight. Which is obvious by your post, you just spat out a couple things that have been repeated to death like a dog that shits in the neighbors yard and then walks away. You just repeat what others say on the internet like a mindless drone because you want to rant, nothing more and nothing less. Youre just a sheep following along others and doing what they do without ever having thought for one second why youre doing what youre doing.
If you dont want to buy a ps4 thats fine, but atleast do so because you think you should and not because other people on the internet tell you that you shouldnt.
Me? Ill buy one because I love games, not because I love or hate sony. I like games because Im a real gamer and I dont care what system they are running on and the ps4 will have some kickass games on it I wont be able to play anywhere else.
Grow up kid and act like a mature adult that can think for himself.
I was involved with that project. It was a farce.
Well, 8 gigs of RAM is nice, I guess. The headset jack in the controller is a neat idea. Improving controller latency is wonderful -- I'm glad people are finally taking this seriously. But everything else just seems... irrelevant, somehow. Particularly the controller, which, like the Wii U, apparently wants me to look away from the game while I'm playing. It's got more motion controls -- yawn. And a "share" button? Give me a break. The constant spamming of "trophy" messages and the occasional DLC ads are distracting enough; now you want me to perform for a camera while my friends watch in real-time?
Then there's this bizarre emphasis on streaming games. Because when I spend $600 on a game console, what I'm really looking for is compressed video and more lag. It sounds like a joke, but then they talk about a client/server model where I can stream the game to a Vita or smart phone.
Maybe we're at the point where there's not much room for substantial improvement, or maybe I'm just getting old. But between DLC, day 1 patches, long installation times, and low frame rates, I find myself wishing consoles could take a step backwards. Remember when you could buy a game with virtually no major bugs because there was real quality control? Remember when the game you bought was the whole game, and not missing another $30 of optional bolted-on content? Remember when you turned on the console and the game started up in less than 15 seconds?
Technical specs don't mean much in the end. The real value of a console is its games. As always, the fate of the next generation is in the hands of developers. Let's hope they've learned some lessons.
Visit the
You're getting 8GB GDDR5 as main memory for that?
Why would I want it outside of my video card? Considering that at the upper most end 4GB is the highend limit right now for it. Though 2GB of GDDR5 is most common, and DDR3 is a shared cache across the bus for textures in PC games. But hey, it's only on consoles where we have to worry about poor memory optimizations for things like that.
Om, nomnomnom...
This comes from the Ubuntu USB, this and a 1.8 TFLOPs GPU.
Well, that's the end of the Cell architecture. So much for a "build it and they will come" architecture. The Cell needed a theoretical breakthrough in software architecture to make it work, and that didn't happen.
The PS3 was the only non-shared-memory multiprocessor machine ever sold in volume. Supercomputers have been built with similar architectures, but in small quantities. Nobody ever tried mass marketing something like this before. Such architectures are notoriously hard to program. Having only 256K per CPU didn't help. Sony hoped that someone would figure out how to make it work. Most of Sony's software research staff at SCEA was diverted to trying to figure out how to program the PS3. They achieved some success, but it was much harder to program than the XBox So PS3 games were late and Sony lost market share. So Sony has admitted defeat, and produced what's basically an x86 PC in a set top box form factor.
The Cell might have worked if it had, say, 16MB per CPU. With only 256K, you couldn't render a frame, run a physics simulation, or do much interesting without having to DMA stuff in and out of the big memory. You had to rewrite everything to work by sequential streaming, like a DSP. The audio people loved it, because their problems work that way. Everybody else had to turn their algorithms inside out to cram them into the PS3. Or focus on a competing platform.
What does that prove? That Linux on the PS3 is terrible, but Linux on 1700 PS3's isn't?
Price. It will probably cost $500. A similarly equipped Windows PC would be $1,000+
No, no it would not. Jaguar isn't actually out yet, but it's replacing Bobcat so let's take a look at the cost of that. I can get a top of the line Bobcat CPU with 4GB of RAM *in a laptop* for $350 - that's $350 for the complete laptop. Now, granted, it doesn't have the same video card. But if we look at the 1.8 TFLOP number Sony provided, we see that lines up with about the Radeon 7770 - that costs $100. Remove the laptop stuff you don't need (battery, screen, etc...) and add the video card and as a desktop unit you'd probably be looking at about $300-400. In fact you can buy a desktop with 3ghz A-10 APU and 8GB of RAM which will *destroy* the PS4 on the CPU front for $550.
In other words, the random $1,000+ you pulled out your ass is completely made up and has no basis whatsoever in reality. And if the PS4 is priced at $500, that would be a ripoff.
And if you want that AMD has been selling CPU/GPU combinations that do just that under the Fusion brand for 2 years now.
The xbox 360 doesn't have an 8800, it has a custom ATI GPU that's halfway between an X1800 and HD 2000 (more similar to the X1800, but with some things like unified shaders from the R600).
The 8800 GTX utterly decimates both the "RSX" in the PS3 and the "Xenos" in the 360.
OtherOS: removal didn't affect anyone, Linux on the PS3 was terrible. Anyone that used it could have told you that.
At my university, some labs used PS3 GPUs for numerical simulations. Arrays of networked PS3s doing heavy number crunching. Unfortunately, this required Linux, so once Sony stripped that option out, those PS3s became a limited resource. Not only could you no longer buy new ones, but once it breaks down and you give it for repair, they kindly update the firmware for you and make it useless for further research.
While PS3's primary purpose may be gaming, until Sony's dick move you could use it for much, much more. Screw them.
Probably something like $699.
Then you're not comparing like for like.
I have a GTX280, Intel 2.83ghz quad core system with 8gb of RAM, built in 2008, that cost me £1200 to build, and that was as cheap as you were going to manage at the time, because trust me - I shopped around buying each component from the cheapest place with postage taken into account.
It's still a fine system, but it's no superior than the 360 or PS3 in terms of graphics and performance, yet these systems were released 2 - 3 years earlier at a price of around £400. So even at their peak they were a full £800 cheaper, and if you spend £800 on a normal desktop PC for non-gaming purposes you're an idiot because you could get one for about £200 for that purpose- that's a £600 disparity. Even with 10 years of XBox live subscription paid at full price (you can get it for £30 instead of £40 though) that's still a £200 disparity over 10 years. I'd suggest that you may be able to make up that difference on games if you buy 20 games, but seeing as Diablo 3 stayed more expensive than every XBox 360 game for longer I'm not sure that argument holds any weight - both console and PC games tail off over time. A few years ago the average PC game was cheaper, here in the UK the norm was about £29.99 with £37.99 for a console game on release, but PC games have increased in price such that that's simply not true anymore - Steam is largely to blame, but it's a double edged sword- new releases are more expensive on Steam than they used to be at retail at release which seems to have driven prices up BUT the other side is that Steam gives good bargains on old games - better than retail bargains so it's hit and miss.
Look I'm a PC gamer as much as anyone, god only knows I've been playing them long enough, since well before the web came along, but I don't understand this PC fanboy mindset, PC gamers used to be the smart ones, they used to be better than that but now we have these absurd situations where PCs have mad fanboys that seem feel the need to try and argue that there isn't a single facet where consoles are a better option than PCs and that simply isn't true. There's a spectrum of rationality on this, at one end there are arguments about what looks better and when, what has the better games and so forth, and that's fine, that's a fair discussion to have, but then you have idiots at the far end of the spectrum - extremist fanboys - that feel the need to try and argue the most absurd things, like "PCs are cheaper", "PCs work better in the living room". You resort to nonsensical arguments of trying to compare hardware and say "Well console X had this graphics card, but my PC has a better one" whilst ignoring the fundamental difference between the platforms - the underlying architecture, the interconnection between components is completely different because consoles have been historically designed primarily with gaming and entertainment in mind, but PCs are designed for generic processing and so are not as optimised for the operations and data movement required by games - that's something you can't just fob off and pretend doesn't exist by comparing individual hardware components.
Seriously, it's stupid. You're to the gaming world what the Phelps family is to the religious world - a mad fringe who just have to take things too far. Far beyond rationality, far beyond common sense, far beyond all reason.
That's not the point. The point is I paid for it and they removed it. It is not unlike a car owner taking his car in for an oil change and the manufacturer removing the radio...
It's more like taking your car in for an oil change and radio removal and then being surprised when they remove the radio.
Why do people, especially here, keep saying that you save money with a console? .... A gaming desktop is cheaper than a non-gaming desktop PLUS a console.
The traditional counterpoint to this is that because the console has known fixed hardware, it is easier for developers to code closer to the hardware because they don't need to worry about being compatible with thousands of variations in hardware, and thus the console gains a performance benefit over similarly specced general purpose PCs.
Whether that's true any longer is another question entirely. I don't know anyone who's really hitting the hardware any more in the way we used to.
Personally, I prefer getting a mid-range GPU, a year after the consoles are released. My GTX 260, inexpensively bought on a sale, has at least another 2 years in it. PC gaming is NOT expensive.
When you consider the costs of games, PC gaming is cheaper.
PC's have higher initial HW costs (not including the monitor/TV and assuming you don't buy extra peripherals for the console) but PC games are about $10 cheaper per game. So buying 2 games a month nets $480 over 2 years. $720 over 3 year, the mid range PC pays for it's own replacement.
But Sony hasn't learned, the console market is casual so again, Nintendo wins this generation almost by default (the Wii U is nothing special, but is the only console geared towards console players).
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
roll on the SteamBox...
The nice thing is that there is only one way to be good but so many ways to be evil.
Microsoft loath competition, but seem to be at worst ambivalent to their customers. I think they might even quite like them in that they recognise on some level that customers are somehow key to their success. I mean they created bob and clippy, but out of misguided good intentions, rather than evil in that case.
Sony seem to exist for the sole purpose of making their customers lives miserable. I have never encountered another company which seems to despise their customers and delight in creating new schemes to make them suffer.
But that's just two. There are so many more. Blackwater (like to kill people), the big government contractors (like to steal taxpayers money under the guise of contracts), patent trolls, copyright trolls, union carbide, etc...
See so many ways.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Let's note that they can't simply "remove it" (let's put EULA aside, I assume it allows them to) but you had to roll firmware upgrade, to lose OtherOS.
Consoles are simply more comfortable in a living room. They fit your TV well, you don't have problems with "oh I can't read those small letters". They come with controllers not (yet? Valve I count on your SteamBox) available on PC. They allow game developers to optimize for particular hardware.
We miss you :(
Pretty much the final Consoles before Mobile completely takes over. People just don't need these anymore and are buying less and less home entertainment Items such as TV and Consoles; as people age, their wish to play games fades. The younger gen don't care about TV and Consoles, they are 100% mobile, It doesn't help that these new gen consoles are filled with DRM, Lock-ins, and no ability to buy used games anymore. Truly a sham and good reason NOT to buy any of them.
Unlike before when new consoles had hardware beyond what was offered today; these new consoles are using Mid-Range Computer hardware, that will be surpassed by desktops six months after release. I mean what's the point really? They are just wasting their time and money; should have just stuck with PS3/360 until everybody fully transitioned into Mobile. Might as well buy a Desktop, at least you can upgrade that. I see absolutely no reason buy into these next-gen Consoles.
Somebody had to say it.
The dual core Zacate E-450 at 1,65 GHz reaches a score of 806 in the Passmark CPU test.
Here is a comparison to the bulldozer: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+E-450+APU&id=250
If we are optimistic on behalf of the PS4 and assume that the 8 cores are four times as fast and there is also a boost from higher clock speed, we might get something like a Passmark score of 4000. Which brings us to the level of a AMD FX-4100, $ 105 on Newegg right now.
A matching mainboard: at least $50.
If you look at the GPU, it is more like a HD7850, around $200.
RAM is a bit hard to compare, as PCs don't have GDDR5 main memory. 8 GByte of "slow, ordinary" DDR3 are around $60.
HDD: Sony did not specify the sitze, but lets take a 3.5", 1TByte for comparison. Around $80.
A halfway decent case: $60.
and finally a power supply, 400W or more: $50.
So far we are at about $600. Add a keyboard & mouse, and we approach $650. Of course that PC is way more versatile than the PS4, so I would prefer it over the console (I might also get a different CPU, the FX-4100 was mainly for comparison).
C - the footgun of programming languages
Does your $550 rig come with a Dualshock 4 and PSEye 2 (assuming you want to compare apples to apples). If the PS4 does come out for $500, that price will include everything in the box, not just the CPU and RAM.
> The xbox 360 doesn't have an 8800
You're right. I was working off memory from last launch there. Not sure where I got that flub into my head.
Right, because I paid for a feature of the console and it was taken away. It's not that new consoles didn't have the feature. It was removed from ALL consoles. You fail at logic.
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
One of the conditions for using PSN was to get the updated firmware which removed the OtherOS feature. Granted, I don't play multiplayer online hardly at all, but missing out on a firmware update because I wanted to keep OtherOS got things more muddied and complicated (BluRay updates and such). In the end, I capitulated and lost OtherOS. I wasn't happy about it, because I never got the chance to fiddle with it. (I know, late to the party... etc. etc.)
Sony started out on the right foot with the PS3, but it quickly deteriorated into what Sony does best. The undeniable fact is that Sony is out to make Sony richer, however it doesn't have to come at the expense of customer loyalty or goodwill.
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
Words out of my mouth.
> PC's have higher initial HW costs
Yes. And for people like me who already need a half-decent desktop, the extra cost is just the mid-range GPU.
> $720 over 3 year
I doubt that an average gamer buys 2 full priced games per month on average though, especially with GameStop in business. But they make up enough from most gamers... especially XBox 360 with XBox Live.
> Nintendo wins this generation almost by default
Not too sure. Wii U sales have been underwhelming so far. I imagine a lot of people are looking at the controller and scratching their head. It's utility is not as clear as it was with the Wii controller. But the other two are not doing themselves any favors with their backward compatibility stances. If the other two consoles do worse than Wii U, consoles as a whole are doomed.
my ps1 got replaced with my ps2, which got replaced with my ps3 which will get replaced by something other than a ps4 because... geohot
sag
If only there was a machine in my bedroom where I could stream music / video, access facebook, chat with friends through a steam-like community, and play games. If only it could screen-share and record video and take screenshots. That would be a fantastic machine if I had one....Oh wait.
4K is going to require some *SERIOUS* GPU muscle. I doubt the PS4, with those specs, could handle it.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
You are of course being sarcastic? SuperTuxKart and PlanetPenguinRacer (not sure which one has its roots in TuxRacer) are both easy, easy, installs on Ubuntu and probably also available in every other major Linux distro's repository.
The box I just built in December would absolutely curb stomp the PS4, and that only cost about $1200 with parts bought from Micro Center and that includes buying Win 7 pro. I probably could have done better but I like having a shop I can go directly to if I have a DOA part instead of dealing with shit through the mail and I went with what seemed like the higher end of quality for parts. For that $1200 dollars I got a machine with 32GB ram (DDR3 1600), i7 3770k, 2x intel 120gb SSD, 2TB WD black edition drive, and a GeFroce GT 630 with 2GB ram. Granted I also had to buy things like a case, power supply, mother board, etc but the largest expense was the ram. Since I don't really play games I didn't need a high end graphics card but wanted one with a larger amount of ram as that seems to help with the GIS stuff I do in my spare time but jumping up to a better graphics card wouldn't have added that much expense (seriously it would have been like $25 more).
Time to offend someone
Of course a PC will cost more. But you're going to have one anyway. Or are you saying you're going to live your life with a $500 console game and no computer in the house? Most people aren't that odd.
Sony's long term strategy here is supposedly to provide games through their network. Maybe the hardware isn't as important anymore. But instead of playing games over Sony's insecure PSN network, why not drink a nice glass of water and go to the park.
But on the plus side you get more space than a Nomad. And wireless if you can find the drivers.
Gaming Desktop ($1000) + TabletLite ($600) = $1600
Tablet/Laptop ($900) + Console ($500) = $1400
I'm doing this comparison from the perspective of a professional who wants a lightweight device to take to work, do meetings on, wordprocessing/spreadsheets &c. It'd also apply to a casual consumer who wants something lightweight and unobtrusive for use around the house.
It also applies to someone who wants to do some computing in a home study, and their game-playing in a lounge or on a sofa.
The only potentially troublesome thing is the shared GDDR5 memory between the GPU and the CPU which is something you won't find in a normal PC.
DDR5? I have been using DDR5 since 2003 when I first discovered StepMania. In fact, I discovered Dance Dance Revolution in the first place through an animutation called "We Drink Ritalin", which was based on the song "Hot Limit" by John Desire, which appeared in Dance Dance Revolution 5th Mix.
But seriously, shared memory between the GPU and the CPU has been around a long time. The GameCube had it. The Xbox had it. And the Xbox 360 had it. Just as in PCs with Intel graphics prior to Sandy Bridge, the Xbox 360's "Xenos" GPU was on the northbridge.
The one thing that has kept consoles alive today was the fact that they weren't x86.
The original Xbox was x86, as others have pointed out. That and the fact that consoles come in a much smaller case than the typical PC, encouraging the use of a TV-sized monitor and multiple gamepads. And the fact that consoles have an entry barrier so that players don't have to sort through crap made by startup companies to find a playable game.
I think very few people fit the case you describe. Not many people are buying desktops these days, and if they have one sitting around it's probably old and not capable of gaming, or it's a shared machines that can't be left hooked up to the TV.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
Why is parent rated troll??
It's spot on.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
For a commercial emulator, you don't need the "accurate profile". Good-enough NES and Super NES emulators, such as LoopyNES and ZSNES, became playable on PCs sometime around the end of the fifth generation (PS1/N64 era). Some of these emulators achieved compatibility through hacks. The Xbox emulator in the Xbox 360 was likewise a pile of hacks, and only half the games ever got "profiles" (that is, hack packs) to make them run.
Any company that doesn't let me resell games I have paid for (ie PURCHASED) will not be getting my money.
Let me guess: you haven't bought a PC game since 2004, you've never bought a smartphone or tablet game, and you've never bought a console game that wasn't on a cartridge or a disc. Is this true? To whom should a startup with a low budget be selling games if they're not big enough to fill a disc?
But will enough other people buy an Ouya console to make it an attractive target for smaller companies to develop new games? There are people who bought a lot of previous open systems (such as the GP2X) but ended up disappointed that there weren't a lot of games to buy for it.
I'm disappointed that Ridge Racer isn't a launch title.
I've heard nothing of Jaguar with regard to console usage.
Jaguar has been in console usage since 1993.
Jaguar is AMD's new lowest end part, designed for low power netbooks and such. AMD is positioning it against the Intel Atom - it's that slow.
Then how is AMD going to sell any, seeing as the last makers of 10" laptops discontinued them at the end of last year?
More like $450 for that PC side, maybe $600.
$600? In the console market, an MSRP of "five hundred and ninety-nine U.S. dollars" is fodder for stupid statement dance mixes like this one
PC's have higher initial HW costs (not including the monitor/TV and assuming you don't buy extra peripherals for the console)
That might be true for gamers who live alone, as they're more likely to stick to single-player and online multiplayer. But it breaks down once you count the cost of having to buy multiple gaming PCs and multiple copies of each game for a single household because PC games are less likely to support same-screen multiplayer with gamepads than console games. An extra controller for player 2 is far cheaper than an extra gaming PC. In fact, a lot of console games designed around same-screen multiplayer, such as fighting games, never get ported to PC at all (with the exception of Street Fighter 4).
Of course a PC will cost more. But you're going to have one anyway.
A lot of families live with a console and a PC with Intel integrated graphics. Only very recently (Ivy Bridge, as reviewed by Anandtech) have Intel graphics caught up to PS3 detail levels.
Do not buy Alienware! Build your won and it will always be cheaper.
Your paying $1000+ for a name only.
Why exactly would I give money to Sony?
Because I want to play games?
Yes, i know, Sony is an evil company. So is Microsoft. If I just want to play games, nothing you list affected me. The rootkit fiasco wasn't about games at all - it was about music CDs, which is basically a completely different division of Sony. Stripping Linux may have ticked off some geeks, but it wasn't anything useful for gaming at all. And while the George Hotz case may have been gaming related - if you just wanted to play legal games, not pirate them and cheat, then it wasn't of interest either.
So, yes - Sony may be evil, but not any more so than most large companies. I'm going to buy a PS4 anyway.
This is exactly how the vast majority of the population think and corporations (like Sony) know this very well.
There will never be any significant backlash against a company that provides affordable entertainment.
All I remember is that it was YDL, and I didn't install any packages that weren't included in the distro.
I booted it up once, and the entire OS ran like mud. Personally, I might have given it some more time, but it was on my buddy's system and he thought it was worthless so we removed it.
when one made Playstations that were illegaly fast?
Is it or is it not dual-band capable? I'm sick of b/g for speed.
I cannot understand why a modern game system would go with x86.
And it's going to cost Sony big time.
I've owned every major gaming console from Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony up until the Wii-U was released. I've played thousands of games for thousands of hours. I've had gaming rigs custom built that have cost me more money then I'd care to admit or could reasonably expect to acquire when I bought them. I've played RTS games on PC, FPS games on Consoles, Action Adventure Games on cell phones, 3D-Action Adventure games on handhelds, sports games on everything and suffered from addictions to Racing Games and MMORPGs that have cost me jobs and girl friends without giving either a second thought. I've installed emulators and scoured the internet for old PC games to recapture some youthful nostalgia related to the playing of video games. I don't regret a single cent I've spent, girl friend that's dumped me, job that I've lost or system-crash-that's-cost-me-an-afternoon-of-getting-back-my-progress-to-an-unsaved-point. I've hacked security to play games illegally, I've learned command line interfaces, built my own scenarios, created games for school projects, and even modded a couple of games myself. I have vast libraries of games that I've purchased - more often then not brand new - for each of the consoles that I've owned. I learned how to spell "binoculars" playing Leisure Suit Larry 3 - Passionate Patty in Pursuit of the Pulsating Pectorals. I am really and truly a gamer.
I'm on the fence about getting into the next generation of consoles for a number of reasons. Age, expense, time available to spend playing video games, bored of the same games with minor variations being rammed down my throat etc. I think there are a lot of people like me out there, unsure of how the changing market for games is going to impact console gaming. There's been little innovation in console gaming for two cycles now. The same games are presented with updated graphics, slightly modified mechanics and rehashed ideas fused together spanning multiple genres. The 2D to 3D transition has finished it's evolution and there's little else out there that's compellingly new about video games that would encourage me to come back. My love for my pastime keeps me curious, but when I hear that backwards compatibility isn't offered as a standard feature I immediately lose interest.
I think there are a lot of people like me, gamers that grew up with games and salivated over the next best graphics and mechanics. Now that I've slaked my thirst for photo-realistic graphics, 3D modeled racing cars and persistent online multi-player - things that I could only dream about when I was a kid - I'm left wondering how console gaming can remain relevant and return my large investment in the next round of hardware. Not offering backwards compatibility for me is a deal breaker.
And those APUs are using weaker GPUs and still being bottlenecked by the DDR3 memory, even the high-clocked variations. That's why Sony went with GDDR5.
Mada mada dane.
I don't get it. If it's supposed to be the future why does it cling to the past in that respect? ARM is the future.
You are wrong on a bunch of stuff. The GPU in the PS4 is somewhere between a 7870 and a 7850, rather than a 7770. You are also not taking into account the type of memory it uses. Your netbook has 4 GB of DDR3 while the PS4 has 8 GB of GDDR5, which is much more expensive and isn't even available on PC except on graphics cards.
Mada mada dane.
Today you can basically turn any pc into a dedicated console using windows 8. With windows 8 you can build a custom microatx machine connected to an lcd tv which you can play and surf the web from your bed or couch without squinting thanks to the metroUI. Hopefully, if steam on linux gets better games like far cry, crysis, grid, dirt, f1 2013, tomb raider games, cod, etc... you can build a ubuntu gaming console, i prefer unity as a gaming console since you can enlarge the dock icons, i would even go as far as gnome 3.
It's pretty sad how developers are more concerned with graphics than gameplay. Got rid of the ps3 3 years ago and just using emulators to play nes, snes, genesis,sms, tubro graphics, arcade mameui64, gamecube, and ps2 games. There is a ps3 emulator that's being worked on it does play some games pretty damn well especially on a quadcore system.
Can't wait for the ubuntu tablet and phone.
it means you get steam and a good portion of valve titles like half-life, counter-strike
I have a 10 year old PC. Granted, it was built for some upgradability, and has received some. But with a 10 year old MB, there's only so much I can do (and the only thing left I can do is storage). It runs great for what it does, but would not play the newest games with ease. A second machine is required for games. The only question is, PC or console for the second PC. You present it as discarding a PC for a console. I'd say most people are not making that choice. And, given the sames of consoles, I'd say you are 100% wrong. They are a good value, or they wouldn't sell so well.
Learn to love Alaska
the console gains a performance benefit over similarly specced general purpose PCs.
The key words here are "similarly specced." The console will have the same hardware over its lifetime. The price is likely to not drop that much over its lifetime (it will drop, but not nearly as fast as the hardware - the vendor loses money per console at the very start, and makes back a fortune later).
The suggested strategy was to just wait a year after the console comes out and buy a decent PC. The depreciation on computer hardware over a year's time is something amazing to behold. For the same cost as a console you can get a much more powerful PC a year later. Sure, the games won't be quite as micro-optimized, but having an extra 50% CPU and GPU power to burn is very forgiving of things like that. If you wait a little longer you benefit even more. Sure, the consoles are $50 cheaper or whatever after a year, but comparable PCs will be dropping $50/month in price for months after the consoles come out, until they're discontinued and the low-end budget PCs are vastly superior.
Plus a PC is a more practical investment overall. You get a lot more use out of a gaming PC than a console, and you can always buy controllers/etc for it.
So far we are at about $600. Add a keyboard & mouse, and we approach $650. Of course that PC is way more versatile than the PS4, so I would prefer it over the console (I might also get a different CPU, the FX-4100 was mainly for comparison).
First, half the stuff on your list you only need to buy if you don't already own a PC. If you already have a decent motherboard/HD/etc you're just buying a motherboard/CPU/GPU. That isn't an option if you're buying a console (they don't make a PS3 to PS4 upgrade kit).
However, the big thing is how all that stuff depreciates over time. Wait 6 months and the price of the same PC hardware will be cut in half, while the PS4 might be $50 cheaper if you're lucky. Wait a year and the PC will be way cheaper.
Consoles are made using equipment bought on huge scales and sold at a loss initially (usually), so it only makes sense that they're going to be a bit cheaper to start out. However, their retail price tends to stay pretty flat, compared to PCs that drop in price $50/month until you hit the budget range (then the price stays constant but the specs ramp up every month).
Since many PC games are console games as well the GPU investment tends to last a fairly long time (the graphics requirements don't keep inflating like they used to). If you just buy it a year after the console comes out you save a lot of money and get a more useful system overall. During that first year just play the games on your somewhat-underpowered system, and then when you upgrade both those games and all previous ones benefit from the upgrade (unlike when you upgrade a PS4 it isn't like your PS2 games get faster).
The ecosystem reveals itself. Seriously speaking, what if those console buyers could participate in various Sony and third party sponsored distributed computing projects in return for games and game related items?
Thank you very much for making my point.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Except for very large and very small values of one.
Price. It will probably cost $500. A similarly equipped Windows PC would be $1,000+
Excuse me, but a similarly equiped Windows PC would cost $600. Of course, that would be a Linux PC after the 10 minutes it takes me to install Ubuntu from the USB stick.
After you buy 8GB of GGDR5, how much do you have left over to build the rest of the PC from the $600 budget?
Excuse me, but I just built a 8-core piledriver system with 32GB of RAM, a pretty solid Mobo and case for around $550.
Is that GDDR5 RAM?
I'm surprised someone on ./ hasn't caught this yet. 'Players will be able to connect with people they know using "real names and profile pictures seeded from your existing social network."' What is the reason for real names being shown to the entire world? Don't they already know who you are when you sign into PSN?
And if you want that AMD has been selling CPU/GPU combinations that do just that under the Fusion brand for 2 years now.
And if we circle back the original question, are you getting GDDR5? No.
Why would I want it outside of my video card?
Because it's much higher bandwidth and shared between the CPU and GPU, a much more optimized setup than separate memory pools of different types and speeds for the CPU and GPU separated by the PCI bus.
Considering that at the upper most end 4GB is the highend limit right now for it.
How is that a limit?
But hey, it's only on consoles where we have to worry about poor memory optimizations for things like that.
No this is just a better architecture.
Actually, the Radeon 7770 is about 1.2TF, you should compare it to the 7850-7870.
[iconv --from-code=utf-7]
Why do people, especially here, keep saying you save money with a console ?
PS3 with the Assassin's Creed series and your GF is all set.
Believe me, you save money.
Defining Statistics and Social Research
Ah you were probably using Enlightenment as well, that's the default DE which is sluggish on the PS3 in YDL, Gnome 2 is actually better.
That's silly. People don't choose either a console, or a PC. Most people have PCs these days, and my guess is that probably 95% or more people who have a console will also have at least one PC in the house.
The console is properly viewed as an extra, optional toy - a single purpose PC hooked to the TV. If anything is optional, it's the console, not the PC.
Another way of viewing this is that you could run a cable to the TV from the PC and save the entire price of the console, because PEOPLE ALREADY OWN THE GOD DAMNED PC!
They don't need high end stuff because they don't have to deal with the cruft of PC architecture, not to mention supporting multiple types of CPUs supporting different instruction extensions, multiple GPUs with different architectures and different extensions from different vendors with different drivers, different chipsets, different bus speeds, different memory types, different memory speeds, different memory sizes on the GPU and the CPU, different cache sizes, different operating systems and OS versions and the millions of combinations of all of these things.
You need a lot of shit to abstract away all of those differences and the result is code that isn't optimized for any of those systems so you need powerful hardware just to cope with all the abstractions, even today's PC exclusive titles hardly look better than console titles which are running on hardware that wasn't even state-of-the-art 6 years ago. PC titles have to support old hardware since people aren't upgrading their PCs anywhere near as much as they used to, so that just requires more effort and more abstraction layers and less optimization for any particular hardware configuration.
The Wii was the same architecture as the GameCube, so they just down-clocked the processor to have backwards compatibility there.
The "acNES" emulator on the Game Boy Advance (used for Animal Crossing Advance Play, e-Reader, and Classic NES Series) could only update raster scrolling effects every four scanlines, which breaks Rad Racer. Yet it was good enough for the games that were released for it. Likewise, PocketNES ended up used in a few emulators. This emulator is more accurate than acNES but still not cycle-accurate in all components, notably using high-level emulation of the graphics and audio. The NES emulator in Animal Crossing itself and Virtual Console is probably far more accurate, given that it has a 486-729 MHz PowerPC G3 to work with, but the Super NES emulator in Virtual Console is probably not as accurate as the bsnes emulator in higan.
Nor do the smaller apartments in areas with a high cost of living, such as Japan, have unbounded space next to the TV to store all the previous-generation consoles. Even if you just collect on Nintendo consoles, do you have enough space for an NES, Super NES, N64, GameCube or GameCube-compatible Wii, and Wii U?
The price of the FX-4100 is irrelevant because that's a very different architecture, and Jaguar is also on a process shrink. The motherboard will also be cheaper than because it doesn't have things like PCI-Express. Similarly the GPU will be much cheaper because it doesn't have all the power circuitry, doesn't have a PCB, doesn't have its own RAM, etc... We'll see what the equivalent PC actually costs when Jaguar drops, but we clearly are both in the similar range, and are both *way* under $1,000+
Also GDDR5 is based on DDR3, they aren't that different.
No, of course not, but it comes with a keyboard and mouse which is better for playing FPS and RTS games anyway.
GDDR5 is based off of DDR3, they aren't that different. Also a big [CITATION NEEDED] on the "more expensive" claim. A GTX 650 with 1GB of GDDR5 is $110. A GTX 650 with 2GB of GDDR5 is a whopping $120. $10 for 1GB of GDDR5 isn't exactly what I'd call "expensive".
Ah, yes, my mistake. So you're talking a $180 video card.
DualShock 4 will come with a built-in speaker and stereo headset jack, enabling PS4 users to enjoy high-fidelity sound effects of games from both the TV and also from the controller.PS4 Eye, a newly developed camera for PS4 integrates two high-sensitive cameras with wide-angle lenses with 85-degree diagonal angle views which can recognize the depth of space precisely. Read More......
Well, I wanted to establish a realistic price estimate for comparable PC, with components that are available today. Based on similar capability at least in the specs. I agree that a comparable PC might be cheaper by the time the PS4 is out. I also agree that the PS4 will be cheaper to manufacture.
BTW, I wonder if AMD will come up with similar PC mainboards for its APUs. These things are increasingly running into bandwidth limits, and the higher bandwidth of the GDDR5 would help. It might be worth the tradeoff of not being able to put in more RAM later.
C - the footgun of programming languages
Well duh. And what's that cost? $15? Compared to $150 for the DS4 and PSEye2? My point, since you missed it, is that the cost of the peripherals must be factored into the price tag when doing an apples-to-apples comparison. So comparing a theoretical $500 PS3 retail box to a $500 PC rig (keyboard/mouse included) doesn't make sense.
So much for the Sony boycott, "We'll never buy Sony products again.." pfft
Looks like y'all can't hold out for shit.
Making them? None. Exporting them to Official Enemy Countries? That violated ITAR, the International Trafficking in Arms Regulations criminal codes. Was this ridiculous? You betcha.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Yes, they were manufactured in Japan (and the fact that the chip was designed in the US wasn't relevant.) It was legal to import to the US, but not legal to reship to Commies, even though they could buy Playstations directly from Japan. That was many things that made it embarrassingly obvious that ITAR was broken, though the fact that a toy for kids was officially an illegal-to-export supercomputer was a bigger factor.
There were other demonstrations of how ridiculous the rules were, like the request for an export permit for a T-shirt with a 4-line PERL script implementation of RSA (they never replied to that one, even though the forms were all filled out correctly, and they never sent Raph his T-shirts back either.) (I'm a little fuzzy about timing; that version of the shirt might have been a 3-line or 2-line PERL script, since the original 4-line version inspired people to write even terser uglier implementations.)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks