Should Sony have waited with PS4 Pro?

[ProspectorPete]

Now that the cat is out of the bag: the "custom" jaguar in Scorpio is not custom at all, just re-marketted features already present in jaguar which is in PS4/ Pro/Xbox1/S, I am seriously wondering what CPU Sony had in mind when it was leaked that PS4 Pro could use a different CPU. Could Sony have incorporated Ryzen??

 

[Jubei]

My belief SOny should have passed, they forced MSFT hands and had them to jump into a generationless approach to the market. On such market my belief is that MSFT has a fundamental edge on them, MSFT got some Xbox games running on the 360, and 360 games on the one, etc. they also have the PC platform which may even allow them to have a tier approach to the market later on.

Unless Microsoft dramatically changes their approach to markets outside the US/UK, i dont see them ever being competitive with Sony worldwide. Not unless Sony fumbles the ball again with another PS3 console

 

[turkey]

Now that the cat is out of the bag: the "custom" jaguar in Scorpio is not custom at all, just re-marketted features already present in jaguar which is in PS4/ Pro/Xbox1/S, I am seriously wondering what CPU Sony had in mind when it was leaked that PS4 Pro could use a different CPU. Could Sony have incorporated Ryzen??

What has changed with regards to the custom CPU?

The clarification on the customised command processor is located in the GPU, the clarification does not alter the CPU makeup that I can see. Or is there more?

 

[BRiT]

What has changed with regards to the custom CPU?

The clarification on the customised command processor is located in the GPU, the clarification does not alter the CPU makeup that I can see. Or is there more?

It's not a CPU thing, unless people were considering Command Processor as the CPU?

For what it's worth, it's being discussed in the proper thread, and seems to be some sort of initial miss-explained or misunderstanding: https://forum.beyond3d.com/posts/1975960/

 

[Rangers]

Did Microsoft find a novel way to cheaply increase performance significantly on a console via the vapour chamber cooling?

One belief that became more solidified in the post 2008 economic crisis was a need for the next generation consoles to be conservative in with energy usage. I remember hearing about this strong sentiment with console manufacturers in 2010. PS3 launch console ran much hotter than PS4 launch console. So instead of following that trend and increasing die size even larger than what was done, they broken that console gaming tenant that these need to be <200W power devices now days. By shying away from the need to be somewhat conservative with consumer energy bills they found a cheaper way to increase performance without as large an increase in die size, through incorporating the novel vapor chamber cooler.

Could all future midgen premium consoles from Sony/MS be featuring this cooling solution since its too good to pass up for a premium product with a particular consumerbase that are less concerned with energy consumption of the device?

It doesn't even use a lot of power. The Scorpio PSU was reported rated at 245 watts correct? That's surprisingly low. Xbox One original brick was rated ~215w by comparison from what I could google.

 

[ProspectorPete]

I could not find any other articles referencing it, I am sure I read it somewhere else

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/d...-sony-upgrade-playstation-neo-specs-in-theory

For some time, there has been some discussion about the technological make-up of Sony's new console. It kicked off with a NeoGAF thread with insider info suggesting that the platform holder had been considering two different specs with a price differential, the more expensive offering featuring a faster CPU and possibly a more capable graphics component.

 

[Rangers]

My belief SOny should have passed, they forced MSFT hands and had them to jump into a generationless approach to the market. On such market my belief is that MSFT has a fundamental edge on them, MSFT got some Xbox games running on the 360, and 360 games on the one, etc. they also have the PC platform which may even allow them to have a tier approach to the market later on.

Now they are not completely out of luck as I think the executive at MSFT are not good they are in reaction vs pushing a vision. They reacted to the pro so they will offer something more powerful than Sony but still bound to same IPs and limitation and a year later.

imho VR not being worse them fractioning their user base was predictable and I think that offering a redesigned, cheaper yet slightly superior Slim design should have been the priority to really grow the market in some emergent countries. The extra money asked for the pro may help maintaining revenues or (somehow) artificially faking some revenues growth but it might not prove a good strategy in the longer run.

Does this sort of imply MS released Scorpio as a reaction to Pro? From what we can tell, both were being actually pushed by AMD at Sony/MS, and were somewhat inevitable probably. Scorpio had to have been in planning well before Pro was announced, Spencer was the first to start making noises about iterative consoles, before we knew PS4 Pro existed. In short, it's doubtful PS4 Pro "caused" Scorpio. So your premise that by Sony withholding Pro, Scorpio wouldn't exist, is flawed.

 

[ProspectorPete]

It's not a CPU thing, unless people were considering Command Processor as the CPU?

For what it's worth, it's being discussed in the proper thread, and seems to be some sort of initial miss-explained or misunderstanding: https://forum.beyond3d.com/posts/1975960/

I have no post privileges in that forum (Why is that btw?) but this is how it works:

1)MS through DF markets GPU features as new ; trying to pass them for hardware improvements
2)Who would have thought, they (IMO deliberately)misrepresented it. the GPU features have been inside Xbox since 2013
3) 1+1=2
4) If there was anything, anything, even *remotely* custom about the Jaguar, they would have made sure Richard Leadbetter published it

So I am really wondering what kind of CPU Sony could have used instead of the Jaguar

 

[BRiT]

The Sony PS4 Pro has had no impact whatsoever on the designs or plans of the Xbox One. There is no way it could have, considering it didn't exist at the time the Xbox One was being designed. Consider the major design decisions behind the Xbox One to use Hypervisors, since that was a major item used to allow for Forward Compatible which would more easily facilitate for iterative/rolling generations of consoles.

More accurately, the actual release of the Sony PS 4Pro might have triggered Microsoft to go ahead with their release of the Xbox One Scorpio. But in no way shape or form did the 4Pro have any impact on the Scorpio design.

Both companies had their own plans and designs in flight for iterative/rolling generations.

 

[BRiT]

I have no post privileges in that forum (Why is that btw?) but this is how it works:

So I am really wondering what kind of CPU Sony could have used instead of the Jaguar

It's not just you. Many have lost their posting privileges through their own actions, actions which clearly indicated they could not contribute positively to any discussion regarding Microsoft.

Onto the real topic: It seems to be unknown what CPU Sony could have used. The quote I saw posted earlier indicates "faster cpu" but never says how it's faster. Is it through major architecture change (Zen instead), minor architecture changes (internal tweaks and adjustments to Jag), or just higher clock speed? We don't know and no one has said. I think everyone merely assumed it was Major Arch change because of Zen's release date for PCs.

 

[ProspectorPete]

It's not just you. Many have lost their posting privileges through their own actions, actions which clearly indicated they could not contribute positively to any discussion regarding Microsoft.

Onto the real topic: It seems to be unknown what CPU Sony could have used. The quote I saw posted earlier indicates "faster cpu" but never says how it's faster. Is it through major architecture change (Zen instead), minor architecture changes (internal tweaks and adjustments to Jag), or just higher clock speed? We don't know and no one has said. I think everyone merely assumed it was Major Arch change because of Zen's release date for PCs.

Thanks for clearing that up.

Ontopic: It was implied that the changes could have made PS4 Pro more expensive. But it is not clear if that was also because of the increased GPU.. I'll try to find some posts on that subject

 

[ProspectorPete]

Related info from a meeting we had yesterday was waiting for it to be approved before posting.

Price is currently $399.99 they were discussing a better CPU which would raise the price to $499.99 we were guaranteed the price will be no higher than $499.99 (He mentioned the CPU upgrade quite a bit almost as if they haven't really decided on a final spec could be a pricing issue.) also there is currently no plan for any type of trade in program for current PS4 users but that could change.

They stated that the GPU is twice as powerful as standard PS4 and much faster. They did not say exactly how fast but that is was running at a higher clock speed while being much smaller than the original.

30-3-2016

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=199646466&postcount=1

The poster is 'approved', which means that he/she supplied evidence to a moderator that the person is actually a developer or what they claim. So in a way it's legitimate information even though other things from that post did not manifest (UHD BD for example)

 

[MrFox]

It doesn't even use a lot of power. The Scorpio PSU was reported rated at 245 watts correct? That's surprisingly low. Xbox One original brick was rated ~215w by comparison from what I could google.

You can't use rated PSU specs as a reference. It can be used at 50% or 60% specs for efficiency and reliability (the industry norm) or at 80% or even 90% for lowest cost and shitty long term reliability.

PS4 Pro have a 310W PSU specs and max power consumption so far is 155W.

Launch Xbox 360 had a 203W PSU specs and 178W gaming. (otherwise known as an overheating PoS)

 

[Rangers]

Neither do most products ever sold. You think TV manufacturers etc. should release one product every five years when there's a really cutting edge or novel new tech to use?

Not to mention the never ending need to sell people something new.

HDTV was a big one. Since then TV manufacturers are struggling a bit. 4K, HDR, maybe OLED, it's a grab bag with nothing super compelling. But they cant ever stop trying.

Still as we always mention, it's a thing where if you just go buy a TV now it's gonna be 4K whether you like it or not. Except the 32" and under, I have noticed those remain back at 1080P or 720P, I guess on the correct theory nothing more is needed for those sizes which are now relegated to the low end/2nd Tv market.

Edit to posts above: 399.99 would be quite nice. It's plausible at least.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

I think it was needed for Sony's investment in PSVR to really hit their vision. Haven't kept up to much on PS4, but isn't VR on PSPro markedly better than the OG PS4?

I have the same understanding/questions too, but I haven't seen much news on VR games so not certain if the vast improvements were only for specific titles or if that pattern applies across the board, nor am I certain as to the quantity and quality of the improvement(s).

I had a PS4, then a PS4 + PSVR, then a PS4 Pro + VR.
The difference is quite large.

The problem with PS4 + PSVR is that games run at best at 2*960*1080 without any kind of antialiasing in order to maintain constant 60FPS at all times.
But then many games render below that resolution, either the whole frame or through FOVeated rendering (e.g. Arkham VR) or selected zones (Driverclub VR apparently renders well below the headset's resolution for the exterior, making it a terrible mess IMO).

With the Pro we get either native resolution (worst-case scenario) or in most titles we get supersampling, which in a rather low-DPI headset makes everything look gorgeous in comparison.
You can see it for yourself in this video. If you notice a clear difference in a screen >50cm away from your eyes, imagine if that was taking up most of your view range.

 

[Johnglen]

Yeah I forgot about the psvr. As a psvr owner I must admit that the difference in vr games is huge and , somewhat, justifies the pro's existence for someone that likes vr.

 

[Inuhanyou]

Rather than wait, i think they should have just not released it. I think they would be in a much better comparison with MS if they had only PS4 OG, and a PS4 Slim/4K similar to XB1S.

Same form factor and size as slim(16nm APU of OG PS4 APU ect) but with HDMI 2.0, 4K 60fps output support for games and media content to upscale to 4K televisions, support for 4K media apps and such along with crucially a 4K blu ray drive, and i could see them coasting on that easily until 2019, getting that down to a mass market price point. Hardware comparisons would be null because what do you really expect comparing a fall 2017 midrange machine to a fall 2013 midrange machine?

People who want Playstation oriented software would get one regardless of its power and would still have the 4K features that the other consoles have.

With Pro however, its slightly harder because you have a directly competing machine in Scorpio that does literally everything better and its not a flattering look if your trying to carry that out for years. Sony have put themselves into this position by even thinking something like this was necessary IMO.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I really don't understand people who want to limit other people's choice.

"I don't like this product, nobody should be allowed to buy it. Nay, it should never have existed!"

 

[Clukos]

No, there's no point. For what it is the Ps4 Pro is good enough, it is supposed to run Ps4 games at 1800p/2160p checkerboard with some extras on top and more stable framerate. For them to hit 4k native at Ps4 quality they'd need to hit for at least 7-8 tflops GPU (and more vram) which would increase the cost dramatically, even if they could do it. Plus, I'm sure they are already planning on releasing the Ps5 (or whatever they end up calling it) and that would also mess the timing further. In terms of power and timing, the Pro is exactly where it needs to be imo. 2019-2020 is time for the next playstation anyway.

 

[Inuhanyou]

I really don't understand people who want to limit other people's choice.

"I don't like this product, nobody should be allowed to buy it. Nay, it should never have existed!"

Rather than limiting choice, i don't think that choice of hardware specs is what consoles are about to begin with, and put Sony themselves in a bind in terms of comparisons to their competition. I have no interest in Pro or Scorpio, but i just feel they would have been better off coming strong out of the game with PS5 in a few years while letting the original PS4 continue chugging along on the strength of its software. Horizon shows that the hardware itself still has a lot to offer.

They would have had more than enough hardware launches last year to stay competitive with PSVR and a more minor PS4 refresh.