Middle Generation Console Upgrade Discussion [Scorpio, 4Pro]

[dobwal]

Reading the eurogamer article on PS4 Pro where they interviewed Mark Cerny it seems that both from a "philosophical" perspective and technical perspective PS5 would be a clean break an entirely new generation.

Xbox one could be considered a clean break from the 360 at least from an hardware perspective. That didn't stop the backwards compatibility.

Outside of switching to ARM and maybe Nvidia, I don't see an opportunity of Sony to depart greatly from their current design. Not enough to make backward compatibility an outright impossibility.

 

[iroboto]

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Xbox one could be considered a clean break from the 360 at least from an hardware perspective. That didn't stop the backwards compatibility.

Outside of switching to ARM and maybe Nvidia, I don't see an opportunity of Sony to depart greatly from their current design. Not enough to make backward compatibility an outright impossibility.

technically feasible, it looks purely like a business choice on behalf of Sony.

 

[dobwal]

I mean, are people really going to look to play their PS3/360 era games on the next gen?

By then those games will be at least 5-6 years old?

Backward compatibilty offers more than playing your old last gen titles. It offers the ability to play last gen titles you've might of missed. I just downloaded farcry:blood dragon and a few other BC titles I've never played because they were cheap or offered by live for free. My son's xb1 is his first console, so it's been a pleasure throwing a few 360 titles at him and letting him experience the "good ole days".

There are also other circumstances. Imagine someone being a devout PlayStation gamer and decides one day to buy an Xbox. BC can provide the opportunity to experience not only Xbox exclusives offered by the current gen but potentially previous gens.

 

[Michellstar]

Digital libraries as time passes are eating into the traditional physical market, and many people used to android/ios and steam would expect to carry them to the next machine. You don´t buy a program/game to the new galaxy whatever, or for a 1080ti

Consoles has been one of the last strongholds of the traditional physical market, but with iterative consoles and digital downloads, finally its ending.

I don´t expect PS5 to be a clean break, to me what Cerny told was just smoke and mirrors

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Consoles has been one of the last strongholds of the traditional physical market, but with iterative consoles and digital downloads, finally its ending.

That's the theory. Is there any actual evidence that a clean break would see consumers rebel though? If PS5 doesn't play PS4 games, will all the existing PS4 owners choose to buy XboxToo because it's BC with a library of XB1 games they don't own? Or will they choose to buy PS5 because it has the exclusives they bought a PS4 for?

Truth about mobile is people do switch ecosystem, just as they have with consoles.

 

[Jay]

I didn't take cerny to mean that there wouldn't be bc.
but that it's a new generation, and therefore ps4 will not be fc with games. (he's also not guaranteeing bc)
where Ms are aiming for bc and fc.

there's good and bad to both approaches.
but getting people to buy into digital eco system is getting to be bigger than it used to be.
physical you can sell games and console if you choose to upgrade etc.
digital you can't, it would be investment that is wasted in many people eyes, even if you never play them on next gen, that fact you can means it's not money lost.

edit obviously if gifting and selling of digital games become a reality then that will again change things

 

[iroboto]

That's the theory. Is there any actual evidence that a clean break would see consumers rebel though? If PS5 doesn't play PS4 games, will all the existing PS4 owners choose to buy XboxToo because it's BC with a library of XB1 games they don't own? Or will they choose to buy PS5 because it has the exclusives they bought a PS4 for?

Truth about mobile is people do switch ecosystem, just as they have with consoles.

In the absolute best case, there would be no losses due to a lack of BC. Meaning everyone with a PS4 would happily buy a PS5 and restart a new library. On the flip side, Sony certainly won't be gaining any customers as a result of it.
In my case, if PS5 were to break BC, I'm not buying into it. I don't want to have to wait for TLOU R, TLOU RPII, UC 1-4+DLC to be remastered x2, Horizon, ICO series, and other games, and pay $89 bones for them.
I'll be honest, I like the exclusives on Sony, but if every time they make you buy a new library from scratch, I'm never going to buy into the system. There just aren't enough pure Sony exclusives for me to justify the purchase (for myself). With BC that library continually grows prompting in an eventual purchase for me.

 

[Cyan]

Eurogamer called it a "misquote".


Or hopefully bandwidth three orders of magnitude more powerful!



It may be Microsoft know what level of throughput they need to target but have not yet decided which of their various technical options they will use to implement it. I'm not seeing anything untoward here.



Because Microsoft is a company with a dubious history with monopoly legislators and adopting a predatory pricing strategy is probably not the greatest idea. Personally I don't see how this would realistically result in a huge market share, for Microsoft's share to grow, Sony's console share would need to shrink (or at least freeze for perpetuity) so you'd need to attract a sizeable portion of existing PlayStation owners to Scorpio otherwise you're just subsiding people already in the Xbox ecosystem. I.e. you're basically giving people who would have probably bought the console anyway, a cheaper console. They've buying the same games so you're not making more from them.

How is this supposed to be profitable?

This makes me think about how the Scorpio is going to turn out. Microsoft is capable of the worst (Xbox One, though Xbox One S is what the Xbox One should've been), and the best, for instance, C# (C Sharp language is made by an European, no wonder it has some european philosophy in it). C# + Xamarin Studio

Then there are things like Edge, which tends to be fast, but it crashes sometimes for some reason without even complaining). so it is a company that lives amongst light and shadows. While it is Sony and Nintendo who must take this industry forward because of history and success and dedication, hopefully Scorpio is going to turn out great, under Phil Spencer. Xbox was the console I had for the first time and I got used to that -had the GC and PS2 that generation too, but I usually played Xbox-

 

[dobwal]

We've all been conditioned to keep our hardware and physical titles if we want access to titles on previous gens. The question is what happens when we start becoming conditioned to the opposite. Gamers might become more tied to a brand where BC is robust and unencumbered. Having one manufacturer offer BC as a standard ongoing feature while the other major competitor doesn't, can create a situation where one user base is far easier to induce into switching brands than the other.

It all depends on the circumstance. But BC offers flexibility. Imagine a future where MS makes all previous gen first party titles free for new gen owners. It wouldn't cost MS a dime to offer a dozens of titles to each new owner but any competitor without BC would have to dig into their pockets to produce an alternative perk.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

The way I see it, one of the most prominent reasons for both Microsoft and Sony going with a very traditional arrangement of a PC-like architecture was to get PC-like perks, like making BC more accessible in future iterations.
These half-gens should keep the latter years' software sales flowing better than the PS360, so BC on the PS5 and XBTwo should be more important than the last iteration.

yea, I've heard it many times, went cheap with ddr3 & esram.

I think the decision for going with DDR3 + ESRAM was based on how much Microsoft wanted to make sure they had 8GB of total system RAM. Sony took the risk of only ending up with 4GB when they chose to use GDDR5, Microsoft did not.

I think the long-term costs associated with having to use 16 separated chips of some of the fastest DDR3 (on the way to becoming EOL'd for large-scale production BTW) won't end up being cheaper on the long run, and Microsoft's hardware team is fully aware of that.
Just like they were fully aware that bringing a substantially less powerful console to the gunfight would lose them some customers (either it's a substantial amount of customers or not is a whole other story).

That said, I'm sure there will come a day when the PS4 Pro is set free but in general it looks to be held back somewhat.

The leaked "Neo documents" and statements from Sony reps and developers don't seem to indicate towards any restrictions. I don't doubt there will be some learning curve to take full advantage of the Pro's architectural improvements (e.g. 2*FP16 processing), but I don't know of any limitations being imposed to the Pro, at the moment.

I also don't believe MS would wait a year and put in something older than Polaris / Vega if Sony already has a Polaris hybrid in their system

From Cerny's statements, I think you mean a Polaris-Vega hybrid?

GDDR5X at a very modest (for GDDR5X) 10 gHz would deliver 320 GB/s on a 256 bit bus, and indeed this was nvidias preference for the 1080 so 384 bit certainly isn't MS's only option ... though it may well be the cheapest and easiest to engineer with AMD.

I think the 12GB on a 384bit bus idea came from the fact that the rendered PCB in the reveal video showed 12 RAM chips, and not from the bandwidth numbers.

Once you go over 8GB of GDDR5 - which Scorpio really needs to anyway - moving to a 384-bit bus is likely the cheapest option.

They could use an approach similar to the Pro and implement some slower memory through the southbridge for app switching + certain system tasks while simply unlocking more of the GDDR5 for the developers. Truth be told, for game developers it matters little what memory is being used for system tasks.

Why are people are assuming they wont offset the initial launch price of Scorpio to win huge market shares? They would make it up through the sale of a couple games and increasing their consumer footprint.

By late 2017 the current gen will probably see some >70M PS4 and >40M XBone sales, not to mention the Nintendo Switch possibly taking away some more of the "console budget" from the populace.
I wonder if the winning huge market share expression will even be applicable by then.

 

[dobwal]

This makes me think about how the Scorpio is going to turn out. Microsoft is capable of the worst (Xbox One, though Xbox One S is what the Xbox One should've been), and the best, for instance, C# (C Sharp language is made by an European, no wonder it has some european philosophy in it). C# + Xamarin Studio

Then there are things like Edge, which tends to be fast, but it crashes sometimes for some reason without even complaining). so it is a company that lives amongst light and shadows. While it is Sony and Nintendo who must take this industry forward because of history and success and dedication, hopefully Scorpio is going to turn out great, under Phil Spencer. Xbox was the console I had for the first time and I got used to that -had the GC and PS2 that generation too, but I usually played Xbox-

Going from good to bad and back is not limited to MS. The same company that gave you the NES and DS also gave you the Wii U and virtual boy system. And the PS1, PS2 and PS4 had or is having a better time than the PS3 of persuading gamers to buy in. People love the DC and Genesis but you don't hear those same people extolling the virtues of the 32X. Platform owners effing it up is a hallmark of the console space. LOL.

And without the competition that exists between Sony and MS, I'd doubt we would have come as far as we have. None these companies drive the space forward due to desire of dedication or excellence. It's the competition and the desire to operate in the space that keeps them honest.

 

[Rikimaru]

Do not forget MS is still making a Win10 shitfest and its store (forced lockscreen on desktop is very useful, recent wtf).
C# and any garbage collected languages are bad for games, especially on consoles.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Microsoft is huge and its divisions operate mostly (one could say way too much) independently.
For example, the Surface division has been mostly successful for quite some years while the Windows Phone division failed so much for so long that the whole ecosystem is being disbanded even with new products in the horizon.

And even the same division can get completely different results by changing who's in charge. Just look at Don Mattrick's Xbox Division vs. Phil Spencer's Xbox Division. One screwed up the brand while the other brought it back from the ashes.


I don't think it's good practice to assume stuff about the Scorpio because of C# and whatever is happening with the Windows Store.

 

[BRiT]

The 30 million gap is what I mean by huge market share; that's the area that I think MS wants to go after, or at least make sure to narrow the gap so it's not a 2:1 ratio. It would be a huge win for MS to even narrow it to 1.5:1 ratio.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

The 30 million gap is what I mean by huge market share; that's the area that I think MS wants to go after, or at least make sure to narrow the gap so it's not a 2:1 ratio.

Understood but how? There are effectively three sales vectors that will result in this:

• Scorpio converts tens of millions PS4/Pro owners to Scorpio owners. They burn their PS4, i.e. no resale to a new owner.
• Scorpio/Xbox One/S attracts 30 million new owners while Sony attracts none.
• If Sony continue to sell PS4 (probably quite likely) Xbox suddenly outsells PS4/Pro by ummm 3:1 for the next four years solidly?

I don't see Scorpio doing any of this unless it comes with free weekly blowjobs.

This is the issue I had with folks in Neo thread where people who favour a more powerful console thought Pro would diminish the demand for PS4 Slim because Pro is 'good value' in terms of the price/performance delta. It's not happened because the 'enthusiast' console owner willing to spend more on shinier pixels is in the minority. I reckon most woild rather spend their money or more games (or blowjobs). This is as I would expect given consoles have build a sustainable market for people who want cheap hardware that is 'good enough'.

PC has been catering for the rest and it may be Scorpio does see a surge of sales from people who are happy with Scorpio instead of a PC. They are other compromises to console over PC but it's as good a chance as any and way more likely than the above scenarios.

 

[BRiT]

I don't see Scorpio as having immediate impact of making huge sales but more of a righting the ship for the next 3-4 years. Perhaps enough to have the post 2017 release sales ratio as more of a 1:1 ratio. That would effectively be 30 million more sales than they would get with the current 2:1 ratio. I don't think MS is content with keeping the current status quo.

As to the how, I figure it's by having great performance for value (hardware sold at a loss) on Scorpio and then selling the Xbox One S as cheap as possible. That makes a squeeze play on the market.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I think the ship was righted with the Xbox One S. I'm all for the option for those who want to pay a little more for a better experience but I'm not optimistic Pro or Scorpio will sell enough to convince either manufacturer this is worth the effort in future. I hope I'm wrong though because I'll always pay a little more for a better experience.

 

[iroboto]

Understood but how? There are effectively three sales vectors that will result in this:

• Scorpio converts tens of millions PS4/Pro owners to Scorpio owners. They burn their PS4, i.e. no resale to a new owner.
• Scorpio/Xbox One/S attracts 30 million new owners while Sony attracts none.
• If Sony continue to sell PS4 (probably quite likely) Xbox suddenly outsells PS4/Pro by ummm 3:1 for the next four years solidly?

I don't see Scorpio doing any of this unless it comes with free weekly blowjobs.

This is the issue I had with folks in Neo thread where people who favour a more powerful console thought Pro would diminish the demand for PS4 Slim because Pro is 'good value' in terms of the price/performance delta. It's not happened because the 'enthusiast' console owner willing to spend more on shinier pixels is in the minority. I reckon most woild rather spend their money or more games (or blowjobs). This is as I would expect given consoles have build a sustainable market for people who want cheap hardware that is 'good enough'.

PC has been catering for the rest and it may be Scorpio does see a surge of sales from people who are happy with Scorpio instead of a PC. They are other compromises to console over PC but it's as good a chance as any and way more likely than the above scenarios.

Yea, absolutely, this type of thing takes years to right, maybe even a decade or more.
No company has a perfect running, and every major company that was too big to fail has failed hard before. Good leadership and management is all about making moves for the long term survival, and not catering to the immediate/flavour of the month. And this is what makes the difference between companies that have been around forever, and companies that just belly up. You need to invest in doing the difficult things, and making a stronger console is actually not that difficult compared to doing things like BC and running a massive reliable online network with all sorts of features and services.

Microsoft isn't one of those companies that will belly up and this isn't their first bad rodeo. And they have corrected very well in 3 years and continue to take steps in the right direction imo. People aren't [edited] going to flip on a dime, but each quarter MS makes the right moves to keep themselves relevant. Its clear that they have a long term direction now, and it is interesting to see how it will play out. Nothing MS has done with centralization of an OS and XBLG has been easy or trivial and it will be silly to expect their competitors to follow in the same direction as if they could make those changes on demand.

Sony has their way, MS has theirs, and Nintendo's theirs. As long as they continue to evolve, no one is exiting the console market.

 

[Jay]

I think the decision for going with DDR3 + ESRAM was based on how much Microsoft wanted to make sure they had 8GB of total system RAM. Sony took the risk of only ending up with 4GB when they chose to use GDDR5, Microsoft did not.

I think the long-term costs associated with having to use 16 separated chips of some of the fastest DDR3 (on the way to becoming EOL'd for large-scale production BTW) won't end up being cheaper on the long run, and Microsoft's hardware team is fully aware of that.
Just like they were fully aware that bringing a substantially less powerful console to the gunfight would lose them some customers (either it's a substantial amount of customers or not is a whole other story).

don't disagree. I just think that if they went with 4GB, 2.5-3GB gddr5 for games that would be a worse gaming machine.
given what they saw as their options at the time, I think they chose right.
like I said I don't subscribe that they went cheap.

when people say that ms can't cut into sonys lead substantially, what time frame they giving?
as MS has said their moving away from generations.
if Sony resets with ps5 (which they have implied they will be doing) and MS doesn't with Scorpio 2, doesn't that then mean that they by default end up with the bigger user base at that time?
we don't add 360 to x1, and ps3 to ps4.
so wouldn't be adding ps4 to ps5 even with bc, but you would be adding x1 to subsequent machines.

 

[eastmen]

don't disagree. I just think that if they went with 4GB, 2.5-3GB gddr5 for games that would be a worse gaming machine.
given what they saw as their options at the time, I think they chose right.
like I said I don't subscribe that they went cheap.

when people say that ms can't cut into sonys lead substantially, what time frame they giving?
as MS has said their moving away from generations.
if Sony resets with ps5 (which they have implied they will be doing) and MS doesn't with Scorpio 2, doesn't that then mean that they by default end up with the bigger user base at that time?
we don't add 360 to x1, and ps3 to ps4.
so wouldn't be adding ps4 to ps5 even with bc, but you would be adding x1 to subsequent machines.

MS has a ton of options and we shouldn't assume Sony will stay on top. Scorpio is getting one of the best design team in the industry on it and its going to be a very powerful system. IF the system can show a big enough difference in 3rd party games while xbox one s continues to drop in price MS can squeeze Sony in the middle where sony doesn't have the cheapest or the most powerful system. Add to that MS could price scorpio the same as the ps4 pro and then sony wouldn't even have a price advantage at the higher end.

2017/2018 is going to be really interesting and will really show how much MS wants to be a part of the console market.

Also at this point sony dumping compatability with the ps5 would be a huge mistake. MS would have 360 / xbox one / scorpio consistantsy vs sony's ps5. There wouldn't be any upgrade path