Slashdot Mirror
What To Expect From Sony's Next-Gen PlayStation (wired.com)
Daetrin writes: Sony is unwilling to confirm "Playstation 5" as the name, but their next console is "no mere upgrade" according to a report from Wired, which cites Sony executives -- who spoke on the record:
"PlayStation's next-generation console ticks all those boxes, starting with an AMD chip at the heart of the device. (Warning: some alphabet soup follows.) The CPU is based on the third generation of AMD's Ryzen line and contains eight cores of the company's new 7nm Zen 2 microarchitecture. The GPU, a custom variant of Radeon's Navi family, will support ray tracing, a technique that models the travel of light to simulate complex interactions in 3D environments. While ray tracing is a staple of Hollywood visual effects and is beginning to worm its way into $10,000 high-end processors, no game console has been able to manage it. Yet."
The console will also have a solid-state drive and is currently planned to be backward-compatible with both PS4 games and PSVR.
"PlayStation's next-generation console ticks all those boxes, starting with an AMD chip at the heart of the device. (Warning: some alphabet soup follows.) The CPU is based on the third generation of AMD's Ryzen line and contains eight cores of the company's new 7nm Zen 2 microarchitecture. The GPU, a custom variant of Radeon's Navi family, will support ray tracing, a technique that models the travel of light to simulate complex interactions in 3D environments. While ray tracing is a staple of Hollywood visual effects and is beginning to worm its way into $10,000 high-end processors, no game console has been able to manage it. Yet."
The console will also have a solid-state drive and is currently planned to be backward-compatible with both PS4 games and PSVR.
Seems like only phones get numbered sequels these days.
Pixel count! Pixel count! Pixel count! Oh but you're still only going to see between 15-20 frames per second, because consoles are no longer about providing a quality gaming experience.
super speed SSD is not really needed bigger is needed.
Or maybe dual drive 1 fast and 1 slower big disk.
a whole bunch of fancy marketing speak that makes it sound like the console will be the second coming of Jesus Christ. But its actual release will just be a powerful computer with a Sony emblem on it. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but come on, this'll be the 5th one. We've seen this show before.
Why would you quote Sony executives, they couldn't find anyone who isn't a paid liar?
It will do not to 60 in 2 second flat... among other things I bet.
Their Sales and marketing team feel like their job is in jeopardy if they just rebrand the product with a new number. 3 or 4 times of doing this normally gets them nervous so they will want to give a new edgier new name. Heck Microsoft decided to call their Latest Browser Edge. I expect they will rename Windows 10 in a few more years to just Windows or Windows Edge or something stupid like that.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
So, here's my problem with this ... when we transitioned from SD to HD, there were a lot of games which had been rendered for the HD, and were almost unplayable on a SDTV ... I recall a Tiger Woods golf game where when downgraded to SD the screen was dark and unreadable and the game was almost un-playable.
Sony is anticipating selling 8K TVs, but the problem is we already went through the HD format wars, had to buy new AV gear, and haven't owned it long enough to even consider a new format.
This will end up with games that are beautifully rendered for displays nobody owns, and which will look like shit on 4K or existing HD.
Unless it dies unexpectedly, I'm years away from replacing my current HDTV.
Then again, I wouldn't buy anything from Sony, and I have no interest in modern game consoles which always want network connections ... because like apps, that will just be used for ads, analytics, DRM, and other bullshit.
"beginning to worm its way into $10,000 high-end processors"
lolwut? You can get an RTX 2060 for $350
What really has my interest is that it seems that it will be compatible with PSVR
I've not gotten as much use out of PSVR as I thought I would but it's always a hit with friends (Fruit Ninja VR or watching friends get motion sick playing DoomVR in full locomotion mode is always a hoot)
The idea that it will be backward compatible with PSVR makes me happy as it'll give me more time to feel I really got my money's worth out of it as more titles drop
Though it also means they're likely ~not~ going to change their basic operation premise .. using the camera which means no room scaling
Yeah, yeah, I know if I really cared that much I'd go get an HTC Vive
Honestly, I would have except that I need a whole new gaming rig as my gaming laptop is just a bit underpowered/old for VR but still doing well enough for the games I play on it... oh first world problems...
SO yeah, the idea that PSVR will be compatible with it means I'm much more likely to go for it.. but also means that PSVR is not likely to see much in the way of innovations.
Still, just the updated processing power combined with the fact that devs can count on Sony continuing to support it will likely encourage more titles .. which is never a bad thing
Anyway, I've certainly enjoyed the Playstation 4 (though its pretty much just been "VR gaming or Fallout4" and not much else for the past year or so in my house)
The Digital Sorceress
People here are expected to know these things! This is not US Weekly, you know?
Put a "jihadist" on it, since it is essentially a terrorist training device for the sand n1ggers.
Sadness, disappointment, features you don't want or need, and still no version of kodi.
and true 16 bit. None of this "8 bit CPU with 16 bit graphics".
I'm still kind of on the fence about CD-ROM vs cartridge though...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Consoles are usually low-end PCs by the time they're released, plus lockdown and a limited input device. That's it.
Which is no surprise, given that they have to cost a fifth of a new high/mid-range PC.
Somebod calculated the SoC to/cost about $65. My Ryzen 3 cost more.
This is about stealing as much money from you as physically possible, while/by working as little as possible.
If they could, they'd just Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V the whole console, and tell you they had to manufature it anyway.
Hell, they'd make YOU Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V and pay for it too. And you'd go to prison if you'd do it by yourself and they'd catch you, or follow the same logic and Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V the money you pay.
OK, now I've described iTunes.
"backward-compatible"
Remember to buy some pop-corn.
The whole point of buying a video game console was to not have to worry about different "tiers" of quality and performance like you have to with PCs.
With the recent generation pulling this "PS4/Xbox-Lite" crap where games run at worse performance on the cheaper consoles, it makes me wonder why should I even purchase a console when a desktop will be infinitely better in terms of cost, performance, and longevity? That ignores the fact that I could easily set on up to run in the living room.
Consoles nowadays nothing more than overpriced specialized computers for the living room, of which there are many free options available for PCs if I so desire to go that route.
Every game will have a requirement that some portion of its processing be done on centralized servers, for a monthly fee, without which they won't play.
(Warning: some alphabet soup follows.)
That wasn't even alphabet soup the year Wired started. Are their readers that dumb?
Of course the way Wired is trending it will soon be:
(Warning: some alphabet soup follows that will only make sense to heteronormative, cisgendered male caucasoids. We deeply apologize and humbly beg forgiveness of the humanist inquisition in advance.)
I expect they will rename Windows 10 in a few more years to just Windows or Windows Edge or something stupid like that.
Only if they ever make it all-subscription. Otherwise they need version numbers to make people feel bad about their old Windows, because more is better.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The video gaming industry is the biggest dog and pony show around. Every few years another console generation comes around, and the 'retro' genre grows.
At this point, you cannot even buy a full AAA game outright on launch-day. You are instead offered a framework of minimal features, and are expected to pay again a few more times for 'expansions' and 'DLC', which are just code for 'the rest of the game'. Let's not forget loot-boxes, micro-transactions, GB scale day 1 updates, data harvesting stores, always online requirements, and the death of the second-hand market.
All of this despite the truly massive library of 'retro' games with no such shenanigans for pennies on the dollar. The big players have to make big PR noise every few years before the next generation develops an interest in what the older gamers are playing, and to keep the older gamers from realizing they already have more than they can play in a single lifetime.
I used to spend a sizable portion of my income on gaming, and it used to be worth it. Before that, my childhood was fixing and playing the rich kids broken consoles and computers. I grew into a respectable engineer on the skills I earned doing that, but now I buy maybe 1-2 games a year.
Had I played my Fender instead, I'd be fucking a rockstar. Today they learn those fucking obnoxious dance moves, and how to talk shit like a racist-sailor-criminal.
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
This is capitalism. In Murica.
You're either a lying criminal psychopath or you're bankrupted by one.
Aren't you a big fan of that?
Neoliberals are morons- won't proof? Read the comments here- they make the avergae Redditor look like a genius by comparison. Of course the neoliberals that visit Slashdot thinking it 'good' do so for their daily dose of Russia/China bashing.
So nothing worthwhile on the story itself- yet...
IBM fell (yeah, it still exists but in nowhere that matters). DEC fell. Sun fell. SGI fell. Motorola fell. etc etc etc.
Each were kings of computer tech, lauded by b-etas as kings FOREVER in their various computer niches.
The REAL significance of this story is the fall of Intel and Nvidia. Both are current kings in their sectors. Both are dead. Both killed by AMD- in the usual story of the race to the bottom, and good enough affordable cost-plus tech.
AMD is building the tech for the new consoles from Microsoft and Sony, both of which will have more PC type computing and graphics power than 99.9% of all Windows and Apple desktops and portables currently in use across the planet. The only general PC that will have more power than the new consoles will be today's high end gaming PCs. The new consoles beat Nvidia's 1080TI/2080 GPU, and only Nvidia's 1200 dollar 2080TI is faster.
Of course next year AMD will have affordable discrete GPUs faster than the new consoles, but this year AMD is releasing affordable GPUs that will be somewhat slower than the new consoles- a strategy AMD uses to please Microsoft and Sony (both of whom want their consoles to have their brief time in the sun).
But here's the thing. Unlikie Intel and Nvidia, who NEED vast profits per chip, AMD is a cost plus operation- looking for a simple overall profit. Cost plus companies ALWAYS win out in the end in tech. And today, AMD's CPU tech is vastly better than Intel (with a little help from Taiwan's TSMC), and AMD's new GPU tech is at least as good as Nvidia's. The latter has yet to be proven in the eyes of the hard-of-thinking fanboys, but the tech in new chips is always described by years old patents, and we know what AMD patents foretell.
Intel is wasting billions, working with cast-offs from Nvidia and AMD, on its TWENTIETH attempt to design a worthwhile GPU, and like the other 19 attempts before, that project is falling flat on its face. It's new CPU architecture, being designed by the man who designed the briiliant AMD Ryzen/Zen CPU, is at least FIVE years away. In the meantime Intel has to sell the same Spectre/Meltdown fully compromised garbage Intel has been selling for the last ten years.
Nvidia is much better than Intel save for one tiny fact. Nvidia's need for insane profits. Nvidia wins when AMD is at peak incompetence, which was the case for AMD GPUs across the last 5 years. But AMD is now shot of the dreadful 'engineers' behind VEGA, and NAVI leapfrogs Nvidia's current tech. Nvidia's prices, and thus margins, are going to collapse, and Nvidia's attempts to broaden its product base have been a massive failure. Tegra dead- the car computer project dead, Nvidia AI computing dead, Nvidia supercomputing dead. Nvidia is going the way of DEC and SGI and Sun.
The new consoles will be giants of 4K gaming, and in Sony's case VR gaming. And TSMC has two new process improvements coming rapidly over the next 4 years allowing plus versions of both consoles with up to a 75% performance uplift. Unlike Nvidia and Intel, AMD has the right mix of broad tech capabilities for the future.
I'm a game developer. And none of that has ever been a problem.
Every main quality level is like a console generation, has certain minimum expectations, and the game enigne checks your hardware to see which one is completely fulfilled by your hardware.
The only difference is that PC games ship with the assets for all levels, while for ever, consoles we support, We only add one.
(It's a bit more complicated, since screen site can still vary. And the checker is much smarter, often having per-GPU profiles.)
In the end, you *always* have to design and develop for multiple qualities anyway. Not just because you release for multiple consoles and multiple GPUs, but because the game itself might change in ways that give you less or more resources for key scenes or entire levels.
Game enines have gotten MIP mapping of textures and models, and scaling of lights, effects and even actors (like moving things, or enemies out of attack range), down since decades now!
excited.
Can't leave that analog loophole open, can we? /s
Somebody might not let us steal their money in exchange for no work!
Not having ads displayed in your entire visual field all day IS THEFT!
In fact, not buying everything we release, whether you need it or not, IS THEFT!
As is killing yourself to get out. Or dying of old age.
With Windows 10, Windows became a service. It is currently a "buy once and use forever" service application. What we dread is the day when that switches and they make us start paying a subscription fee to get updates.
I have a 7 year old high end PC for my GF, and nearly ALL games still run in good quality settings! The GPU can keep up with a 1050!
It's even better than for consoles! Because with old consoles, you just won't get recent games AT ALL. At least with PCs, you can scale them down until they do.
And as a game deveroper... games *always* had to be designed to be perfectly scalable for a wide range of performance. Do you think we design with only one console at one resolution ever in mind?
A "next-gen" console with an old-school platter drive is a deal-breaker for me. There is no reason, in a 2020 console, why they shouldn't have 2TB+ SSD drives (or at least offer them as an option). There is only so far you can optimize a platter drive (and MS pretty much reached this wall with the Xbox X). At some point you have to bite the bullet and move on to SSD. No one wants long load times anymore, and the technology has gotten cheap and reliable enough now that there is really no excuse for using spinning magnetic discs going forward.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
What makes you think speedy isn't needed? You need larger because games are getting larger (in size) but expect loading times to remain the same?
Consoles are designed to be as cheap as possible, support as much DRM as possible, and have as few hardware specs, so they can drive the same warmed over titles year after year.
What would be nice if Sony made a Playstation that was worth buying:
1: Have the ability to use as a computer. DRM has advanced almost ten years since the "other OS" days. You can bring Linux, Windows, or whatnot without worry.
2: As the parent said, hard disks are great for a console from 2009. A console in 2020 or 2021 really needs a good SSD, at least 1-2 TB, and maybe NVMe, so it can be used as swap if need be.
3: Have the platform useful for something in the enterprise. Add zero client functionality and a zero touch method of configuring the devices for this. A mass produced device that can work for a VDI endpoint would sell just as many units for that purpose as they would as game consoles.
4: Multiple monitor support.
5: 10gigE support or even 40gigE support so LAN gaming can be done.
6: Built in cellular modem as a failover. This way, if someone is playing single player games, and their Internet connection drops, the DRM can still be happy.
7: Build a Kensington lock slot into the darn device.
As it stands now, this is just another money grab. I'd say save your cash and buy a Windows PC, and have a better gaming experience.
Xbox 960 incoming lol...
When that day comes, all the dumbasses will pay to keep using it.
Tha'a not how ANY of this works!
You were too incompetent to set your brightness and contrast levels correctly, and that game failed to adapt its HUD scaling, probably because HD was digital, and SD was analog with screen info available.
Both non-issues nowadays.
Also, games haven't been pre-rendered since Doom3 came out!
All those things are realtime, viewport and HUD settings are already screen-space-aware in the game engine. No game developer has to do anything here!
And no 8K rendering will be done.
All models and textures are always MIP-mapped, and only the resolutions matching the amount of pixels it's rendered to, will be loaded.
So all the 8K-readiness will do, is fill up the disk and waste texture design work. (3D models are already designed in higher resolutions than games need, because it's easier, and then downscaled for all the MIP map levels, with the rest going into normal maps.)
PS5 1TB super disk only $1499 vs PS5 with sata ssd $799 vs $899 1TB pci-e or just by an apple at $1999
The playstation's (3 & 4) harddrive is officially user-replaceable. Feel free to exchange it for a bigger one (or ssd)
A console with a 1-2Tb SSD? Come on, SSDs sure are cheaper now, but not ultrageously cheaper.
Maybe the gen after next gen. This one will certainly have rotating platters for big storage.
A 5 and an S look too similar. They don't want it to look like PSS when abbreviated. Didn't stop Samsung from having an S5, which looks more Nazi than urinary.
Write cycles are going to be low since games are basically write once + patches. You can easily get away with QLC, which is pushing 1TB down near the $100 mark at retail for even M.2 (at SATA speeds).
I still have my original launch PS4 and games run fine on them. Do you recall how games were at the end of previous generations? Developers really start pushing the envelope in terms of visual fidelity and you see that take a priority over frame rate.
For example Shadow of the Colossus ran at a low frame rate on the PS2 but it was trying to do things like simulate physics, draw crepuscular rays, use motion blur and bloom lighting, and present a sprawling landscape with giant beasts.
It's the same story with any console generation.
Twinstiq, game news
Playstation V.
Technically though, neither will take full advantage of the speed a SSD provides. On the OG PS4, you actually get faster speeds putting it in an external usb3 housing.
The key word I'm seeing is "expense". I used to fund a videogame obsession on a relative pittance back in the day, but the next generation will need a full-on salary to keep up with Sony :(
Mind you, even that starts to look reasonable when I see teens carrying iPhones everywhere!
People have put SSDs into the PS4 and it made virtually no difference to load times because the PS4's mass storage interface is unbearably slow.
An SSD in PS5 will only be a win if the mass storage interface also gets an upgrade.
Take my money, please
Installing drivers is 2 clicks.
Plus how many more clicks when a driver has a regression? The reduced variety of console hardware reduces the chance of regressions.
I mean I would like to expect that. But if not, that's OK. I'll maintain my PSOne, PS2, PS3, PS4... or just buy them all over again on the new PS Now streaming platform. *throws all PlayStations in trash and re-buys games on steam for pennies*
All thing thing consumers hate.
Lots of manufacturers sell console either at thin profit margin at a loss and make crapload of money on games (and accessories).
Selling console that will not be used for gaming will make a huge cut into their profit stream.
It won't happen.
So no comeback of officially sanctioned "Other OS" (you'll have to wait for the homebrew scene to find a way, and then Sony will block them in a game of cat and mouse "because piracy !"), no enterprise features, no multi-monitor setup(*), etc.
---
(*): for the "enterprise" variety. For the gaming applications, it won't catch-on because it boils to an "add-on".
Unless in their largest market it suddenly becomes common to have 2 TVs in the living room, so by the time a dual-monitor console is released it seems natural to everyone to plug it into the 2 pre-existing screens at the same time.
If that doesn't happen, dual monitor support would be a weird corner case that few studio will put efforts in supporting.
See:
- past add-on in console history (the classical example being SEGA's CD-ROM and 32x)
- under utilized attempts at second screen (Nintendo's Wii U (an extra feature compared to same generation consoles, so few 3rd party multi-platfrom games exploit it) as opposed to DS/3DS/New 3DS family (the most popular console in everyone's pocket has it so it's worth trying to exploit) )
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
The original use of the word comes from one of the developper speaking about cool tricks that you could do by abusing DMA to blast data to the VDP.
(Among other doing high color tricks mentioned in the Eurogamer articles, explored but eventually unused by some developers back in the day, and found on some modern-day demos).
Then marketing department found the term cool and ran with it, basically using it to say "our device has more raw power than the competitor's" and plastering it all over any communication channel.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I'm still very happy with my Ubuntu 16.04...
I think they should go for PS5s
Nvidia's 2000 series starts at $350 and goes up to $1200. What are these, "$10,000 high-end processors", mentioned in the article?