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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.
The problem with PC gaming is the difference of quality between two different PC's Depending on your video card, your CPU, how much Ram you have... This makes some games run superior to a console, and on a slightly different PC (Still modern) you have bugs and performance problems.
You get a Playstation or an XBox and match their names, you mostly expect the games to run consistently.
The biggest point of branding, isn't that a brand is superior, but a brand is consistent.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Comparing Ps3 to Ps5, you think there's consistency there? Then you have the whims of developers on top of that. Then you still have bugs and performance issues, frame stuttering even on your "consistent brand"
PC's are modular and not actively trying to tie your hands, that's the real difference. Sony doesn't want you using their box for anything that doesn't make them money, and if you try, they'll brick you.
Comparing Ps3 to Ps5, you think there's consistency there?
Yes. There are consistency among PlayStation 3 consoles, consistency among PlayStation 4 consoles, and consistency among whatever Sony decides to call the next generation.
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.
PC's are modular and not actively trying to tie your hands, that's the real difference. Sony doesn't want you using their box for anything that doesn't make them money, and if you try, they'll brick you.
Do you not understand that this is what many gamers want?
I've got a decently powerful PC that I can play games on, but typically I use it more for coding and web browsing. When I actually want to game, I more often than not use one of my consoles. I don't have to worry about compatibility, whether or not this game runs well on my PC or whether or not I need to upgrade, and I can just sit back and play it on my couch without having route an HDMI cable around the room or anything.
Yes, games on the PC can look a little better, but I'm long past worrying about graphics these days. I take advancements and they're nice but honestly PS3 graphics are "good enough" for me. I could live with that level of quality indefinitely and would be fine. And I'm fine with those consoles being used only for what Sony/MS intended them for. I don't have any use for them. Hell I don't even watch Netflix on them because it feels like a waste of power - I use a Roku instead.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Gamers WANT to be bricked, DRM'ed, and stuck with unfixable problems, that's your argument now? Console retards I swear, you deserve to be raped as you are.
" I take advancements and they're nice but honestly PS3 graphics are "good enough" for me. " - Now you're going to say PS3 should be "good enough for anybody" right?
By that argument nobody would be buying new consoles, genius.
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.
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.
You don't "have to fiddle" to play games lol. Installing drivers is 2 clicks. If you can't install a game, run windows update, and shut down properly, you'll probably shit all over your playstation like a retard also.
"Yeah, I COULD cook a meal in my kitchen" - Per this analogy you got rid of your kitchen, eat exclusively at Burger King, become obese, and can't take care of yourself properly. Yes, there are morons like that.
That doesn't make it a good thing, because the lowest common denominator exists doesn't mean you exclusively have to cater to it or march it into bondage...
Also, per your analogy, if your fast food playstation fucks up THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT. You starve.
overpriced downgraded games compared to their PC version.
Where is the PC version of Horizon Zero Dawn, or God of War, or Astro Bot: Rescue Mission, or Firewall: Zero Hour? Or any of the Uncharted games? Spider-Man?
The best games of the last few years haven't been on PC, and probably never will be. Doesn't matter how good the hardware is -- Sony is killing it with software, which is where things matter.
So take your hardware superiority somewhere else. The adults here are trying to have a conversation.
Yaz
I'm actually fine with people who would prefer to play on a console instead of a PC. Other than bad PC ports of a game originally released on a console it doesn't really affect me. But this stuck out to me as needlessly myopic:
The best games of the last few years haven't been on PC, and probably never will be.
Where is the console version of Oxygen Not Included, or Factorio, or Satisfactory, or Dota 2? Or any of the Total War games? Rimworld?
Don't pretend that just because consoles get exclusives, they get all the best games. It really depends on what you're into. And something to keep in mind is that PCs could handle any of the listed games without requiring any hardware or peripheral changes apart from having an XBOX controller. Some of the games in my list, on the other hand, would be horrible experiences without a mouse and keyboard. Out of all of them, Satisfactory is the only one that even makes sense to try playing with a console controller.
Console games use exclusivity to lock people into their platform to boost sales of the console itself. Not because the platform is inherently a better way to experience the game. PC games are usually only ever exclusive because the experience would be lackluster on a console.
The exception to the above is the Nintendo Wii/Switch systems. Their peripherals wouldn't make as much sense being tied to a PC (and in some cases don't exist for the PC), and many of their exclusive games are intimately tied to their controller type.
For me, there just aren't enough games on consoles for me to justify either having multiple options or switching. Others will choose differently, and that's fine. PC is not the obvious gaming choice for everyone, but there are some aspects it's just inherently better at.
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.
Gaming is cheaper than ever.
Here are some console prices, adjusted for inflation to 2019 dollars:
Atari 2600: $850.19
Nintendo NES: $475.43
Sega Genesis: $392.84
Super Nintendo: $374.71
3DO: $1207.11 (guess everyone was right to mock the price!)
It gets even more interesting if you just stick with Playstations:
PS1: $502.02
PS2: $443.96
PS3: $762.10
PS4: $435.73
Games have gotten cheaper too. Pitfall for the 2600? $80.70. Secret of Mana for the SNES? $141.62. PS1-era games? $67.16 budget titles to $83.95 manlines. PS2-era? $74.24.
All of these are launch prices and assume new, AAA games. Sales, discounts, and indies are less, of course.
Of course, this is just an example of 'When I was a boy, candy bars cost twenty cents!' 'Well yeah, 20 cents was a lot more money back then.'
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.
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(*): 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) )
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