Business Approach Comparison Sony PS4 and Microsoft Xbox

[3dilettante]

The reporting for this seems a little wobbly.
The ghist I got was that there was a common 30 FPS floor, and that the PS4 seems to average around 60 with the Xbox One peaking at 45.
A lower performance peak and a twitchier performance profile, coupled with a rather binary 30/60 choice that neither console may actually conform to can inflate a more modest deficit to an apparent 2x.

 

[dobwal]

The 30/60 fps difference doesn't actually mean one box is pushing twice the pixels. It may mean that one box could hold 60fps often enough to where they could cap it at 60fps and deal with the occasional screen tear while the other maybe couldn't maintain 60fps often enough to warrant not capping it at 30fps.

There is also the question of having two different devs handling the ports. XB1 got United Front Games of Sleeping Dogs fame, while the PS4 got Nixxes. Nixxes has mainly been handling Tomb Raider PC ports since 2006 and has previously worked on Legends, Underworld and Anniversary.

SE basically called on one of their top dogs for the PS4 and used a newbie for the XB1 version. LOL.

 

[DrJay24]

The devs who made Sleeping Dogs (open world, great graphics and multi-platform) are noobs, but no name PC port guys with no PS4 experience are top dogs? Bizarro world...

 

[Rangers]

The reporting for this seems a little wobbly.
The ghist I got was that there was a common 30 FPS floor, and that the PS4 seems to average around 60 with the Xbox One peaking at 45.
A lower performance peak and a twitchier performance profile, coupled with a rather binary 30/60 choice that neither console may actually conform to can inflate a more modest deficit to an apparent 2x.

Yeah, that was pointed out early. If the "real" averages are 35/55, you've already lopped one third off the difference (20 FPS versus 30 reported).

Until DF gets it's report up, who knows. I fear it may be another week or more as well. The game isn't officially out until Tuesday, and then it may take DF a while from there.

Be cool if they just threw up a framerate vid to satiate the masses before they went through the full fat face off.

Looks like DF may be our ONLY source of framerate info now too. Just checked Lens of Truth (lol), looks like they rarely update anymore, feels like a bit of an abandoned site, and they haven't done any next gen stuff.

 

[DrJay24]

Averages are useless when the max is 60. But a dip from 30 to 25 is much much worse than from 60 to 55. So it will be interesting where the mode is for both and how often they fluctuate.

 

[steveOrino]

SE basically called on one of their top dogs for the PS4 and used a newbie for the XB1 version. LOL.

Whatever agrees with your confirmation bias.

 

[-tkf-]

The 30/60 fps difference doesn't actually mean one box is pushing twice the pixels. It may mean that one box could hold 60fps often enough to where they could cap it at 60fps and deal with the occasional screen tear while the other maybe couldn't maintain 60fps often enough to warrant not capping it at 30fps.

The way i read is that the PS4 is able to hold 60 while the XB1 is able to hold 30. Still to be DF'd of course

 

[function]

I don't think that's a good idea for various reasons, but one being that voice control is very important in many other product lines and services. Having Kinect in every box can help them gather data to improve voice control in other languages, which in turn will help them on other products like their phones, search engines, translation, etc. Basically it's worth keeping Kinect in the box even if all it ever does for them is serve as a tool to improve multi language voice recognition just because of the various other products they make and services they are involved in.

I'm sure that collecting that data - and at a very high quality - is very valuable, but there's a point where not having a Kinect-less SKU will hurt them in exactly the territories they most need the data and so they lose little and gain more by offering the two SKUs.

Collecting headset voice data might compensate somewhat anyway.

But you are still splitting up the market.. and if you have a Kinect Sku coupled with a pure gaming OS you still lose the Kinect feature, and those that bought the XB1 with those functions in mind will be screwed over..

Well in a sense you're already splitting the market between Xbone owners and people that would be Xbone owners if not for the high price and low gaming performance. The people who bought Xbone with snap in mind will be kinda screwed over, but they can get snap back outside of Pure Gaming OS mode (that not all games will need anyway), and at least they get significantly better games performance as compensation.

The main thing - Kinect party chat - wouldn't be lost even in Pure Gaming OS.

The 30/60 fps difference doesn't actually mean one box is pushing twice the pixels. It may mean that one box could hold 60fps often enough to where they could cap it at 60fps and deal with the occasional screen tear while the other maybe couldn't maintain 60fps often enough to warrant not capping it at 30fps.

Apparently both games have unlocked frame rates (according to NeoGaf). Like, you, I doubt that 30/60 tells the full story though. There's a tendency now for games journos to shit on the Bone for hits and to fulfil the now desired narrative of crippleBone.

35 / 55 seems possible and perhaps more likely as a set of averages. And even that would be closer if Xbox wasn't carrying multiples virtual OSes with a large guaranteed snap reservation.

 

[function]

The way i read is that the PS4 is able to hold 60 while the XB1 is able to hold 30. Still to be DF'd of course

Indeed. I think the DF of Tomb Raider will be particularly interesting.

 

[dobwal]

The devs who made Sleeping Dogs (open world, great graphics and multi-platform) are noobs, but no name PC port guys with no PS4 experience are top dogs? Bizarro world...

Yes, newbies in terms of porting Tomb Raider. Nixxie is who SE uses to regularly port TB games to the PC. These consoles are nothing but PCs in console clothing which should not bother a dev who used to porting console titles to a PC and knows the engine because they worked on the franchise for the last seven or eight years. Nixxes has done port work of the TB series for the PC, PS3, Xbox and GC.

Do you think devs are just plug and play when it comes to porting?

Nixxes actually provided support to United Front on their porting efforts to the XB1.

Since you consider them no names, know that they have done work on or are working on KZ Shadow Fall, the new Thief (which includes integrating AMD's Mantle API), Hitman Absolution and Deus Ex Revolution. Their work goes as far back as porting Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver to the DC.

 

[DrJay24]

I think you are seeing what you want to see. You have no idea of the relative talent or experience of either group.

 

[-tkf-]

I think you are seeing what you want to see. You have no idea of the relative talent or experience of either group.

The question would be, who does? could the xb1 group be the "best" one? What should stop them from working together? They clearly didn't dig deep on either machine so is this game just showing what's there to take from the low hanging fruit?

 

[steveOrino]

Yes, newbies in terms of porting Tomb Raider.

Where is your proof? How do you know anything about what team has more ability than another? Do you personally know each of the developers working on both these projects and their backgrounds?

 

[dobwal]

I think you are seeing what you want to see. You have no idea of the relative talent or experience of either group.

I see what relatively easy to see. Who do you think handle the original PC port of TB? Nixxes has already handled the PS3 and PC port of TB. More than likely these so called definitive versions are derivatives of the PC port that Nixxes originally handled.

So I should dimiss Nixxes experience with porting the same title on three different occasions because UF developed Sleeping Dogs?

Please!!!

 

[Brad Grenz]

No, if you are going to claim the Xbox One version's performance is the result of incompetence by the porting team you should provide some evidence of that incompetence. United Front's resume is very strong and by your own admission they had the support of Nixxes whom you hold in such high regard.

 

[DrJay24]

I see what relatively easy to see. Who do you think handle the original PC port of TB? Nixxes has already handled the PS3 and PC port of TB. More than likely these so called definitive versions are derivatives of the PC port that Nixxes originally handled.

So I should dimiss Nixxes experience with porting the same title on three different occasions because UF developed Sleeping Dogs?

Please!!!

They ported the PC version, so they must be masters of PS4 development? You are making a large number of assumptions. I'm sure all else is equal; team size, time, talent, experience, platform power , platform tool chain, etc. As long as one has done a TR port on a different platform they produce the better results.

 

[dobwal]

Where is your proof? How do you know anything about what team has more ability than another? Do you personally know each of the developers working on both these projects and their backgrounds?

For real? I'm not saying UF is a newbie developer. I'm saying they are newbie in terms of specifically handling ports of TB.

If Sony suddenly switched developers for the UC franchise, would I need to know the background of the current employees at Naughty Dog and the new developers to formulate that that may be a bad ideal. Would you suddenly feel the need to go through employee roster if Sony said UF would be handling UC and TLOU in the future.

Did you form an opinion of whether the hardware difference was the primary factor for the fps difference? If so, why do I need to do a background check on employee rosters when I say that the difference may be due to fact that Nixxes has way more experience in dealing with porting this particular title. This would be their 3rd port of this game as well as additional handling of older TR ports based on the same engine.

 

[dobwal]

They ported the PC version, so they must be masters of PS4 development? You are making a large number of assumptions. I'm sure all else is equal; team size, time, talent, experience, platform power , platform tool chain, etc. As long as one has done a TR port on a different platform they produce the better results.

This is not a scientific investigation. Nixxes has handled the PS3, PC and PS4 ports of current version TR. If you are basing the difference on the hardware, you doing nothing but engaging in the practice you accuse me of. I see ton of experience on one side versus the other, others see more ALUs and faster RAM on one side versus the other. Assumptions have to be made in either case to form an opinion of where that difference comes from.

I never said that the difference is in fact due to the experience difference only that there is a possibility it played a part.

If you all want to form a consensus that the difference is hardware based. Fine by me. I am not stopping you. The difference in handling TR development just doesn't allow me to form an opinion of where the actual difference comes from. It may be the hardware, experience or more likely culmination of a bunch of different factors.

If I'm am guilty of anything it's making the assumption that TR doesn't represent the zenith of next gen console gaming nor is any other game out right now or releases in the immediate future, so its hard for me to simply say "it's the hardware".

 

[dobwal]

No, if you are going to claim the Xbox One version's performance is the result of incompetence by the porting team you should provide some evidence of that incompetence. United Front's resume is very strong and by your own admission they had the support of Nixxes whom you hold in such high regard.

Who says incompetence? By definition UF met the goals provided by SE, who used the term gravy to the PS4 port ability to more than meet those goals. Crystal Dynamics gave the PS4 port to a trusted developer who already handled the PS3 and PC ports. That dev was given hardware that over the last year had more stable builds. A piece of hardware thats more PC like than its next gen competitor.

UF seems to performed admirably in porting TB. But it doesn't change the fact it couldn't rely on past experience of porting TR numerous times to different hardware. It had to port to a more exotic hardware with a more uneven development enviroment.

If you presented the ideal that the performance was simply hardware based. Do you need to do an in depth study on the performance on the two piece using code specifically catered to push performance on each piece of hardware to present on B3D an ideal that may be valid?

 

[Brad Grenz]

The difference is we don't have to assume anything about the hardware disparities. We know what they are and the only logical outcome is superior performance on the PS4. That conclusion is born out by the Tomb Raider port, along with numerous other multiplatform games so far. To pretend that it's equally likely that Nixxes just did a better job porting than United Front is ludicrous.