Baseless Next Generation Rumors with no Technical Merits [post E3 2019, pre GDC 2020] [XBSX, PS5]

[iroboto]

Do devs get told slightly different numbers as a way to track down potential leaks?

yes.
your documentation is also encoded. You log into site and download your pdfs, all that information is encoded on the document so that it can be traced back to you if it's released.

 

[AlNom]

At the same time, there has to be a reasonable range to leak in broad terms (or one dev leaks their own made-up number that coincidentally matches a figure given to another dev )

 

[Shortbread]

I certainly would MSU (make shit up).

Misterxmedia: No. Microsoft haz special groupxz in org four Dat stuff. Americkas is in war with Japaz and ponys over stolez white papers. Microsoft nevas liez like peeps at sPony. You cee...

 

[AbsoluteBeginner]

I dont see point in sending official documentation and target specs 1.5yrs ahead of release in this day and age.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Yeah but it wasn't just some NVME drive in a dev kit unless they were doing something with the software? My NVME drive don't perform like that in the games I play.

Firmware can drastically change the performance of storage devices, especially SSDs. Going further the controller used on a SSD VERY drastically affects the performance of an SSD. And then there's the storage software interface within the OS itself (multiple layers in the case of Windows, for example).

Change those and it's still just an NVME drive. There's a lot you can change while still being an NVME drive. Remove all the things that help maintain data integrity in a full OS environment and you remove a lot of the bottlenecks that affect pure performance. Something that you can do in a console, because they'll only ever handle a fairly narrow range of operations.

That said, even with that MS are playing it safe (if rumors are to be believed) with a fallback mode that's just the standard SSD behavior. I wouldn't be surprised if Sony also have fallback behavior.

Of course, with little to no information released, there's a lot of speculation on what could be changed, modified, or created to enable the faster speeds on both consoles.

Regards,
SB

 

[Xbat]

I dont see point in sending official documentation and target specs 1.5yrs ahead of release in this day and age.

Why? Game development takes forever these days. I wouldn't be surprised if they sent out rough specs last year sometime.

 

[BRiT]

Why? Game development takes forever these days. I wouldn't be surprised if they sent out rough specs last year sometime.

But it's mostly a variation of a PC build from a software development perspective, and will be a continuation of the existing Xbox dev tools from a MS perspective. Its not like the large transitions from PS2 to PS3 or PS3 to PS4 or even X360 to XOne.

 

[iroboto]

I dont see point in sending official documentation and target specs 1.5yrs ahead of release in this day and age.

Documentation is what you need to develop your game wrt APIs, libraries, extensions, etc.

Whether you have the hardware to test it yet is something else. This late out there should be some alpha kits that are perhaps a GPU or a PC

 

[Shifty Geezer]

yes.
your documentation is also encoded. You log into site and download your pdfs, all that information is encoded on the document so that it can be traced back to you if it's released.

Get around that the same way people do with NPD numbers, releasing a range.

 

[Xbat]

But it's mostly a variation of a PC build from a software development perspective, and will be a continuation of the existing Xbox dev tools from a MS perspective. Its not like the large transitions from PS2 to PS3 or PS3 to PS4 or even X360 to XOne.

Yeah no doubt. That's why actual silicone dev kits probably aren't as important for next gen. The most important thing probably was the storage solution ( software or otherwise) to get into a devkit.
Wouldn't of been able to emulate that with regular hardware/software?

 

[eastmen]

Console gamers already complain about spending a penny over $399, yet Microsoft is willing to offer a $799 dollar console for them? Um, Ok... SMH






And please, no niche / hardcore gamers will buy them comments.

That isnt what I said.

 

[borntosoul]

People citing diminishing returns, whilst true (and it’s debatable how much RT we’ll see) the big thing everyone skips over is the SSD tech.

What is today’s society all about? Immediacy. No-one has patience and loading times can be a real jolt from the game world or long wait. Hibernation this gen has been a game changer for me - I would gladly have a next gen console with this SSD tech and minimal extra grunt because I’m confident the impact of SSD will be one of the biggest impacts on gaming since 3D IMHO.

Haha, just brings back memories of tape loading times on a C64. Games took 20 min to load.
So we made food or did something else while we waited and hoped it loaded ok.

 

[iroboto]

Get around that the same way people do with NPD numbers, releasing a range.

Sure. But that doesn’t benefit anyone. There’s no value in leaking the specs until it’s primed and locked in. Everything else is just too early to leak.

 

[AlNom]

It's already a Circus of Value without the leaks.

(╯°□°)╯

 

[Xbat]

What a studio like Rockstar will be able to achieve with there insane budgets and massive numbers and time they use to develop a game with the streaming capability of next gen will be amazing.

If I'm not wrong it will be possible to have the fidelity of a linear game in an open world one? The amount of work that will take though will mean it's down to the size and time a studio will get to work on said game and I think only Rockstar and Ubisoft will be able to deliver.

 

[borntosoul]

Console gamers are not PC gamers, though. And your average PC gamer spends nowhere near that much on a graphics card either. Back then you got a hell of a lot of hardware for 600 bucks with the PS3 as well. Didn't go over well with the vast majority of gamers regardless. I think 500 bucks is already pushing it. Especially if we're looking at machines that'll ultimately deliver games that look exactly like the ones we're playing right now, except at ultra settings and with quicker loading times. Maybe some hard-to-notice RT goodies shrown in if we're lucky.

The gap between a PS4/One launch title (Killzone and Ryse respectively) and top of the line PS3/360 games (Gears 3 and Uncharted 3 for example) was pretty damn obvious. The quality gap between that Halo Infinite trailer and your average Uncharted 4 cut-scene is only perceptible if you're watching a Digital Foundry video. Maybe I'm wrong, but I suspect these machines will be hard sells for the average consumer unless they're priced incredibly competitively.

the ps1 back in the day was not cheap. Campare inflation and you will discover the cost is not far removed from $600 in today's money.

 

[HBRU]

I'm also convinced this is gonna be the SSD & 60 fps (or even 120 fps) generation... Ok just more comfort & fluidity... Nothing much exiting specially in the beginning (that is till 2022) than the RT & other NAVI & ZEN2 & other custom chips secret sauces will start to be more consistently used in games.

 

[Jay]

Firmware can drastically change the performance of storage devices, especially SSDs. Going further the controller used on a SSD VERY drastically affects the performance of an SSD. And then there's the storage software interface within the OS itself (multiple layers in the case of Windows, for example).

Change those and it's still just an NVME drive. There's a lot you can change while still being an NVME drive. Remove all the things that help maintain data integrity in a full OS environment and you remove a lot of the bottlenecks that affect pure performance. Something that you can do in a console, because they'll only ever handle a fairly narrow range of operations.

Just to add to this, I was watching a vid of some people talking about performance.
One that deals with HPC said that he bypassed the OS and accessed the SSD directly and got over a 2x improvement.
This was on HPC hardware which I assume would already be more tuned for performance.

This alone shows that there is a lot of performance to be gained. Especially in a console from both software and hardware.
MS also could bring some of it to PC for games, could have a specific game filesystem.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Sure. But that doesn’t benefit anyone. There’s no value in leaking the specs until it’s primed and locked in. Everything else is just too early to leak.

There's no benefit in leaking specs anyway. It's just something people do, and there's nothing stopping devs from giving out some ballpark figures. Other than professionalism and a disregard for the crazy impatience of the internet.

 

[Sigfried1977]

the ps1 back in the day was not cheap. Campare inflation and you will discover the cost is not far removed from $600 in today's money.

PS1 was 599 DM back in 1995 in Germany. With inflation that's gonna be €433 in 2020. €600 to €433 is a pretty massive difference.

US inflation has been higher, so that $300 PS1 would cost you $504 now. Arguably closer, but still quite a ways off. Also (and I'm not sure about that), the PS1 didn't really take off in a massive way until CD burners became widespread and cheap, did it?