Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion Archive [2014]

[Shifty Geezer]

Personally I didn't buy games when they had a really bad PS3 port: so all Ubisoft games, as well as Rockstar games until.. GTA5 had been avoided. I am pretty sure that more people felt this way

I agree - more than one person in the entire world felt this way. What matters is how many? Sales figures will give us that information. Someone like Rangers who tracks the sales should be able to weigh in on NPD sales of cross-platform titles and provide real data showing if <1080p has adversely impacted a game's acceptance with XB1 owners.

 

[DrJay24]

A couple hundred comments under a digital foundry article may look impressive on a web page, but at the end of the day it's still just a drop in the ocean (and most of these comments are from console/PC warriors anyway. Guys who made up their minds long before the article was published). The only game I ever skipped because of technical inferiority was Bayonetta because it was supposedly a heavily compromised experience on the PS3. Unlike the majority of console owners I follow this kinda stuff really closely. So when even a guy like me doesn't really care that much when push comes to shove (I enjoyed Red Dead Redemption just fine on the PS3), how much do you think "XxXCoD_FifaXxX" cares?

I agree. People are going to buy and play the games regardless. Most people won't even know there are differences. These technical differences will only affect the general consoles narrative and can change or maintain console sales momentum, but they won't change software sales.

 

[Scott_Arm]

I agree - more than one person in the entire world felt this way. What matters is how many? Sales figures will give us that information. Someone like Rangers who tracks the sales should be able to weigh in on NPD sales of cross-platform titles and provide real data showing if <1080p has adversely impacted a game's acceptance with XB1 owners.

Pretty sure millions of people bought GTA4 and Read Dead Redemption on PS3. Anyone that skipped them because of a digital foundry article missed out for a stupid reason. Those games were great.

Digital Foundry can be great for people who own more than one brand of console, and it can be fun to read out of curiosity for the technical details. Unless they discover a game is really screwed up (very rare, usually screwed up on all platforms), then it's not a great way to figure out what games are worth buying. For that it would be better to read user impressions or an aggregate like metacritic. Digital Foundry does not tell you what games are fun to play. It's not a review.

 

[Sigfried1977]

I agree. People are going to buy and play the games regardless. Most people won't even know there are differences. These technical differences will only affect the general consoles narrative and can change or maintain console sales momentum, but they won't change software sales.

Probably doesn't even inform the general narrative at large. Or rather the narrative wouldn't have impacted hardware sales in meaningful ways. If the Xbox One came out of the gate with a similarly clear pro consumer / pro games message (or at least some form of clear message) as the PS4 did, and with a price point to match, the gulf in power and the articles resulting from it probably wouldn't have mattered. The prospect of Halo 5 would have.

 

[Cyan]

Seriously, this is the worst generation ever.

I completely agree! WiiU is mediocre for Nintendo standards. Xbox One was tainted by former greedy managers of the division. PS4 is the most generic console I've seen in years, powerful but yet not powerful enough to say you have something special.

Previous generation is my favourite ever. I only disliked about it how PS3 owners didn't enjoy 2 of my favourite games ever made, Skyrim and RDR 'cos of the architecture of the console.

I am dissatisfied with this generation of consoles. It's boring. Thankfully I still have my X360.

 

[SlimJim]

I agree - more than one person in the entire world felt this way. What matters is how many? Sales figures will give us that information. Someone like Rangers who tracks the sales should be able to weigh in on NPD sales of cross-platform titles and provide real data showing if <1080p has adversely impacted a game's acceptance with XB1 owners.

I don't know if those numbers would show the real picture; it's entirely possible that smart Xbox gamers (people who are able to comprehend raw specs) abandoned the Xbox-platform, so they did care about sub1080p, sub30fps, sub-particle, -stuff; but it will never show in any attach-rates.
I know a few people who did not buy the Xbox One out of utter disappointment. If they had the console however, if they had already invested in the console, xbox live, some games, then I am pretty sure that they would just get the game on the One, instead of buying a PS4 and getting a game there.

Looking at this (enthusiast) forum, how many people even have both consoles at this point?

 

[Deleted member 13524]

I completely agree! WiiU is mediocre for Nintendo standards. Xbox One was tainted by former greedy managers of the division. PS4 is the most generic console I've seen in years, powerful but yet not powerful enough to say you have something special.

What exactly makes the PS4 generic in comparison to its predecessors? It's a good-performing yet cost-conscious console that presses all the right buttons. The gamepad is great, game lineup is looking very promising, exclusive titles have been showing the most spectacular visual leaps we've seen in a while, Morpheus has been shown and will bring decent VR to the console experience, it has the most affordable launch price ever from any Sony console, the Vita is being explored as a 2nd screen to add to the already available mirror capability, hard drive is standard and can be changed by the user on the long run...

What exactly is the PS4 missing? An always-on mandatory connection to play its games? A mandatory camera that no one wants? A mandatory tablet controller that would bring compromises the console's cost or hardware performance (which can be voluntarily replaced by a Vita)? The hardware equivalent to a Radeon 290 and 4GHz AMD Piledriver that would require a 600W PSU, a cooling system in need of a console 3X bigger and a launch price of 800€?


I understand that Sony could never leave the whole world 100% pleased, but you must admit the PS4 is by far the console better suited to 2014 in hardware design and features. The worldwide sales of the past 6 months are a proof of that.

 

[Airon]

I don't know if those numbers would show the real picture; it's entirely possible that smart Xbox gamers (people who are able to comprehend raw specs) abandoned the Xbox-platform, so they did care about sub1080p, sub30fps, sub-particle, -stuff; but it will never show in any attach-rates.
I know a few people who did not buy the Xbox One out of utter disappointment. If they had the console however, if they had already invested in the console, xbox live, some games, then I am pretty sure that they would just get the game on the One, instead of buying a PS4 and getting a game there.

Looking at this (enthusiast) forum, how many people even have both consoles at this point?

It seems to me that you fail to realize how the PS4 & X1 are similar in terms of potential performances...
A part that you sound really like a Neogaf Sony hyper fan, but let me say: have patience!
Maybe next year you could find yourself in a complete different position..

 

[SlimJim]

What exactly makes the PS4 generic in comparison to its predecessors? It's a good-performing yet cost-conscious console that presses all the right buttons. The gamepad is great, game lineup is looking very promising, exclusive titles have been showing the most spectacular visual leaps we've seen in a while, Morpheus has been shown and will bring decent VR to the console experience, it has the most affordable launch price ever from any Sony console, the Vita is being explored as a 2nd screen to add to the already available mirror capability, hard drive is standard and can be changed by the user on the long run...

What exactly is the PS4 missing? An always-on mandatory connection to play its games? A mandatory camera that no one wants? A mandatory tablet controller that would bring compromises the console's cost or hardware performance (which can be voluntarily replaced by a Vita)? The hardware equivalent to a Radeon 290 and 4GHz AMD Piledriver that would require a 600W PSU, a cooling system in need of a console 3X bigger and a launch price of 800€?


I understand that Sony could never leave the whole world 100% pleased, but you must admit the PS4 is by far the console better suited to 2014 in hardware design and features. The worldwide sales of the past 6 months are a proof of that.

It's way too "off the shelve" to be a PS console, IMO.
Kutaragi would have come up with an embedded CPU cluster inside the GPU, allowing for terra flops of sustained double precision floating point operations, completely changing computing paradigms. But only the best developers in the world could have unlocked it's true potential, you'd have multiplatform developers complaining their asses off to just do a simple port of Splinter Cell

 

[steveOrino]

I don't understand the pessimism... unless your favorite team isn't winning which some of these comments seem to imply.

If you are disappointed in the hardware then fine, it was bound to happen, commodity hardware won and nothing is changing that. A real shame for tech discussion because the comparisons at this point are so cut and dry.

But, for me a least (primarily a PC gamer), the consoles set a new baseline they will hopefully move gpgpu forward in product development. I will probably buy one or all these consoles at some point in the future once their game libraries flesh out. If you are really starving for games I would highly recommend a PC because it has the biggest game library of them all.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Launch years are always lame. The only issue with the boxes is the software right now. I'm not sure how anyone could read digital foundry articles and conclude this generation is a bust. We have better graphics, better framerates than we did last gen. It's plainly obvious from reading DF. Personally, I'm not that excited about anything yet this gen, but that's more to do with me as a person, becoming tired of gaming in general. All of the platforms available right now, including WiiU, are good.

 

[taisui]

Honestly it's very easy for a technical person to spot non-technical ones. To answer the question, yes, and my name is listed in the credit of several video games made a decade ago, though I left the industry and not exactly eager to return. Is your name listed any where? If not, what qualifies those of you being experts on video games when you have never worked in the industry? Because you play them?

I take issue in those of you who disguises your favoritism under the charades of so-called "technical discussion," calling it naive is an understatement when few of you even dare to attempt in taking few components of a complex system so that you can proclaim so-and-so is exactly this much more powerful than that. (and while we are on the subject, some of you can't even simplify the comparison properly to try to make a case)

Let's exam the statement below:
"This console is not weaker, it's just got a more difficult architecture to workaround, eventually the developers will figure this out."

Anyone want to guess which console is being referred to here?
(funny how you see some had used this one at some point, but it always seem to work only on their system of choice and it just can't work on the others.)

 

[Cyan]

What exactly makes the PS4 generic in comparison to its predecessors? It's a good-performing yet cost-conscious console that presses all the right buttons. The gamepad is great, game lineup is looking very promising, exclusive titles have been showing the most spectacular visual leaps we've seen in a while, Morpheus has been shown and will bring decent VR to the console experience, it has the most affordable launch price ever from any Sony console, the Vita is being explored as a 2nd screen to add to the already available mirror capability, hard drive is standard and can be changed by the user on the long run...

What exactly is the PS4 missing? An always-on mandatory connection to play its games? A mandatory camera that no one wants? A mandatory tablet controller that would bring compromises the console's cost or hardware performance (which can be voluntarily replaced by a Vita)? The hardware equivalent to a Radeon 290 and 4GHz AMD Piledriver that would require a 600W PSU, a cooling system in need of a console 3X bigger and a launch price of 800€?


I understand that Sony could never leave the whole world 100% pleased, but you must admit the PS4 is by far the console better suited to 2014 in hardware design and features. The worldwide sales of the past 6 months are a proof of that.

The problem is that every single person's opinion is going to be biased because they only have theirself and their own experiences to go from. But anyways...

I would say that yeah, your reasoning is good. I actually don't see why it wouldn't be...

You explained quite well why it is selling so high, and added some points I had never thought of tbh.

Anyways, my very personal opinion on it is that the PS4 lacks soul and it was kind of meant to please rather than doing something out of the ordinary which SlimJim pointed out already. I think it is probably the second worst console from Sony ever -PS3 being the absolute worst-

The last generation PC gamers respected consoles and looked at them with different eyes. I don't see consoles offering something different from what you can have on a PC anymore -save the mandatory Wii U tablet, but it depends on how you consider it a plus or not-.

When X360 and PS3 were launched I've seen people considering them praise-worthy and one offered the 1st GPU with unified shaders, while the other had a CPU that seemed to be revolutionary.

 

[Cyan]

Launch years are always lame. The only issue with the boxes is the software right now. I'm not sure how anyone could read digital foundry articles and conclude this generation is a bust. We have better graphics, better framerates than we did last gen. It's plainly obvious from reading DF. Personally, I'm not that excited about anything yet this gen, but that's more to do with me as a person, becoming tired of gaming in general. All of the platforms available right now, including WiiU, are good.

Wii U is ok, I wouldn't say it's bad either, but that doesn't mean it is going to be a timeless console. I wish it sells ok to keep things afloat but not enough so Nintendo will try to come up with something "interesting" that's worth hating/loving again.

I am excited about Halo: The Master Chief Collection to relive my favourite Halo games ever, especially Halo 2, which was the first.

But yeah, I am missing Skyrim, all the fun roleplaying I did on it, telling the background of my characters to my best friend online, the nostalgia it brings me when I think of Red Dead Redemption, the crying with laughter moments in Call of Juarez...

I had none of those this gen, although I lived nice moments.

On the other hand, launch games were nice on the X360; Kameo, Condemned, PGR3, and some sports games.

Additionally, we had one of my top 10 games ever, Oblivion, in March 2006.

It was a happy generation for me, and in this one I got tired of defending the Xbox One and how consuming it can be, just to realise that... well, it's a nice console to have but I just hope that Microsoft sells just ok with it but not so high enough so they learnt from this and remain faithful to how Xbox started.

In a sense, I feel like you, but mostly like tired of fighting over a console. I just want to buy the games I like and enjoy the simple things.

Even reading DF articles has lost interest to me. Unlike before, I skim through them. Read "PS4 has better AF, AA and a couple extra shadows" and say to me; "Ok, that's to be expected, hope X1 improves, but these consoles are limited 'cos even the PS4 doesn't have anything unexpected that a PC can't do".

 

[djskribbles]

Meh, personally I think the PS4 is the second best console Sony ever made, behind the PS2. I also don't see what's 'generic' about it. What makes XB1 so special? Consumers obviously don't see it either.

 

[Cyan]

It's way too "off the shelve" to be a PS console, IMO.
Kutaragi would have come up with an embedded CPU cluster inside the GPU, allowing for terra flops of sustained double precision floating point operations, completely changing computing paradigms. But only the best developers in the world could have unlocked it's true potential, you'd have multiplatform developers complaining their asses off to just do a simple port of Splinter Cell

I think that's one of the reasons why the PS4 isn't selling so well in its native country, which has a very marked personality as a country. It's all about your tastes.

I for one prefer memorable MIDI'd music than boring orchestral sounds we usually get these days in games, but you could say I am weird. It is that it's nicer and kinder to my ears, it has more charm to me than over the top sounds with lots of effects and compressors needing to do their job to keep the sound under control, etc.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

It's way too "off the shelve" to be a PS console, IMO.
Kutaragi would have come up with an embedded CPU cluster inside the GPU, allowing for terra flops of sustained double precision floating point operations, completely changing computing paradigms.

Yes, he could reinvent the wheel.. or he could hire a company with 10x more CPU/GPU/APU hardware experts, 10x more man-hours dedicated to the subject than Sony, 100x more registered patents on the subject and pay them to build the best humanly possible hardware that could be done within a 100W power budget and 28nm fab technology, saving billions in hardware development costs, thousands of hours in software development costs from 1st and 3rd parties and years of delays.

To my best knowledge, Cell ended up as a dead end. There's no Cell 2, no follow-up to the spursengine, nothing..
For all we know, Cell's influence on the computing paradigm is less than nVidia's G80 or AMD's R600.

 

[taisui]

Meh, personally I think the PS4 is the second best console Sony ever made, behind the PS2. I also don't see what's 'generic' about it. What makes XB1 so special? Consumers obviously don't see it either.

They are just 400 dollar toys, if you can't afford all of them, just buy the ones that you prefer to play. (and try to actually play the toys instead of trolling 'my toy is better than yours' all day).

 

[Cyan]

Meh, personally I think the PS4 is the second best console Sony ever made, behind the PS2. I also don't see what's 'generic' about it. What makes XB1 so special? Consumers obviously don't see it either.

Maybe just the software, same as with the PS4, but I don't drool over X1 as I did with the X360. You know I just want a "console" and expect something different and capable offering experiences you can't have anywhere else.

You don't consider the PS4 generic 'cos you are happy with it. I think the easy answer is to say that it depends on the person. I would like to hate it or love it more, right now it is just like.... well... I might head more towards hate... although I can't see that happening, but eh. xB

This generation has been pretty intense with all the discussions already, so I just don't want to bother/care about those things now.

 

[Globalisateur]

Anyways, my very personal opinion on it is that the PS4 lacks soul and it was kind of meant to please rather than doing something out of the ordinary which SlimJim pointed out already. I think it is probably the second worst console from Sony ever -PS3 being the absolute worst-

X360 had a powerful GPU with unified shaders
PS3 had a powerful CPU with its SPEs
PS4 has a powerful GPGPU with a fully unified memory.

Games like Resogun or the particle effects and generaly graphics shown in Infamous are only possible thanks to the GPGPU.

But, like you said, it is your personal opinion and I respect that; but on paper and with already 2 games this console has as much "soul" than X360 or PS3.

And the first "soulful" X360 and PS3 games, Gears of war and Uncharted were only released ~1 year after launch...