Depending how you look at it and assuming you start long cycles with PS4 you can have both 7 and 3.5 year lifecycles also. Scorpio we might assume can have any console as the start or long cycles.
Middle Generation Console Upgrade Discussion [Scorpio, 4Pro]
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Depending how you look at it and assuming you start long cycles with PS4 you can have both 7 and 3.5 year lifecycles also. Scorpio we might assume can have any console as the start or long cycles.
D
Deleted member 11852
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Speaking as a non-patisan programmer who has programmed both Xbox One and PS4, how does this compare to the large hadron collider?
What do you mean by saying start and long cycles? PS4 is long cycle?
I was commenting that sebbbi's idea could be seen with the PS4 as well as Scorpio depending how you count it. sebbbi has a rolling 7 years of support for all console purchases but if you assume folks who want 7 years buy the base system PS4 and the hardcore always upgrade they have the pro you still can have one set of users doing 7 year base console cycles and early adopters getting a refresh to their system every 3.5 year.
you cannot opt for 7 year support from mid year refreshes which may work out the case for Scorpio you would need to start that long cycle with PS4.
hopefully that makes sense, its really interesting to see how Microsoft position Scorpio and how the market interpret the press releases.
I think Sony and Microsoft have different strategies and tools right now, however they may look partly similar in execution.
I am not videogame developer just someone knowing developer working on PS4 exclusives in France and Amsterdam. I am developer in a bank..
He just said to me what he thinks about PS4 Pro... And the possibility to do much better than the first PS4 Pro title..
And what he likes the most about the possible specs of Scorpio, funnily it is the 12 GB even if he likes all other things bandwidth memory and TFlops too...
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Everybody is arguing over whether the mass market will buy into Scorpio...and that's fine. But for someone following the gaming industry and looking on the horizon...Scorpio is going to be able to play games from the last 10+ years (if not more with Xbox Original compatibility)...plus will be getting the latest games well into the future. This doesn't seem like complicated calculation from my point of view....the value is there without a doubt in my mind.
I think we've already seen that there is some value based on the success of the PS4 Pro. If Scorpio can come in at that price it should have more value, in general.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
I'm not sure that is the case. Just because something is designed for a more current generation of hardware, doesn't mean it won't still run on a previous generation of hardware.
Just look at every single game released on PC since the new generation of consoles was released. Many of them are a marked upgrade over games released prior to the relatively large jump in graphics fidelity, etc. Yet all those games can still run on hardware that is 4+ years old (similar to the 3-4 year theoretical cycle of consoles going forward).
Why do I mention PC? Because it's relevant to this thread. Just because development focuses on the latest generation of hardware or in some cases future generations of hardware (Crysis 1 on PC) does not mean it won't run just fine on far older and far less powerful hardware.
Lets go back to Crysis 1. It was for all intents and purposes a rather large generational leap graphically over anything that had come out prior. At the time it released it could not run at max graphical fidelity on the most powerful hardware that existed at the time at playable frame rates. Yet at the same time, it could run at playable framerates on hardware much older than the generation of hardware that was available when the game came out. It would be multiple generations of hardware before Crysis 1 could run at max settings at playable framerates.
Granted Crysis 1 is a rather extreme example. It was designed for PC hardware that didn't appear due to CPUs suddenly hitting a brick wall with regards to power and speed prior to the game releasing and hence not continuing to scale upwards at the rate it had been doing for many years.
However, if an extreme case can show the relative ease of supporting hardware that a game is not targeting and is massively inferior to the hardware specifications that the game was targeting, then it should be relatively simple for modern developers to scale their games across a wide range of hardware.
The only time this may become difficult is if the programming paradigm changes significantly as in the case of the introduction of Dx12 in the PC space. Where to take full advantage of Dx12 it has to be designed for Dx12 and not just be a Dx11 rendering path with Dx12 bolted on. But even when games start to be designed for Dx12, there will still be a Dx11 rendering path, it just won't be as optimal.
TL: DR - Designing a game for current generation hardware does not in any way mean it won't run on significantly older generations of hardware at playable frame rates. If programmers can make it scale across multiple generations of hardware on PC, I fail to see why they couldn't do so on consoles. Especially when there is no significant departure with regards to hardware capabilities as has existed in the console space up until now. This is assuming PC derived hardware in consoles going forward, and thus hardware capabilities of GPUs and CPUs progressing in a similar to way to how it's been on PC..
Regards,
SB
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Scorpio looks like it's the same kind of strategy as Surface. For the PC space, Microsoft was offering just the OS, but started to offer their own hardware even though Dell and Lenovo are against it. But you can't play good looking games on Surface and it's still expensive, enter Scorpio. It will compete with Steam-dominated Windows 10 gaming PC.
This obviously is what's happening. Consoles are becoming glorified PC's with a software abstract layer that is being written too rather than any specific hardware. Just like PC games. The benefits are pretty strong, such as backwards compatibility with ease as a standard feature. They may have to tweak the code for individual games, but it shouldn't be a huge undertaking.
One negative aspect is it would seem to be pretty darn limiting hardware wise. Traditional X86 only need apply. I guess that likely would be happening anyway though. And also guess if something compelling enough came along (which seems basically impossible, maybe ARM?), you could do a true clean break next generation if necessary.
I think the story here is....consoles have been more successful at adopting the benefits of a PC more than PC's have been successful at adopting the benefit's of a console . Which is why steam machines have failed in my opinion.
Quicker hardware leaps (aka hardware upgrade-ability) and backwards compatibility are just a few more things that consoles are successfully adopting. They are doing this while maintaining the biggest console advantage...mass produced single spec hardware (alright well I guess now there is two specs per platform but still).
Quicker hardware leaps (aka hardware upgrade-ability) and backwards compatibility are just a few more things that consoles are successfully adopting. They are doing this while maintaining the biggest console advantage...mass produced single spec hardware (alright well I guess now there is two specs per platform but still).
Game Mode/Xbox app/XPA/Xbox Live are only the beginning IMO and Microsoft will eventually introduce Xbox dashboard/OS for Windows 10.
Reading between the lines, there are things developers are willing to comment on, and things not willing to comment on ;-)
There's a lot of beating around the bush, and for good reason, we're entering the area of nda.
I ranted about issues I was having with my SP4 this morning. I don't believe MS will be able to execute a stable console-like experience on a PC unless the have a sort of XBox Boot mode that literally switches out Windows and runs a game VM. But even then I doubt it'll work seamlessly with every hardware combo. MS aren't even able to get their own OS working on their own fixed-hardware platform.
I repeat this argument a fair bit, but there's little precedent for MS executing a classy PC solution that works by-and-large for the millions. It's great in theory but the execution isn't going to happen without some major changes.
This is one of my concerns about MS potentially PC'ifying the Xbox. The added capability/flexibility this gives the device brings with it added complexity and more potential for hardware and software problems and I'm not sure that consumers looking to buy a console are going to want to make that trade-off.
Is you buy a new console really hardware upgrade-ability ?
now if you could buy something that turned your xbox 1 into a 1-s or a ps4 into a ps4 pro then that would qualify
Yeah. No sudden "drop shock" for consumers and more workable transitions for developers and publishers.
I don't think it would lead to games being "held back", as games will typically run on lower spec PC GPUs than new consoles - a GTX 560 can still run new games decently if you configure appropriately. Come 2019 / 2021 I can't see Scorpio being below the performance that games will already be targeting on PC - and it's important to bear in mind that consoles get away with much, much less memory and CPU.
Battlefield One is already listing 8GB Ram with 2GB GPU ram minimum, yet runs brilliantly on the 5GB of ram available to PS4Bone (the minimum CPU requirement is so much higher than console it's comical). Scorpio shouldn't have a problem when PC games are targeting 16GB ram and 4 GB GPUs as the baseline. And I suspect 2GB GPUs will be popular for a while yet.
Game Mode resource management is very similar to XB1:
More on that in the link: http://www.techradar.com/news/windows-10-game-mode-6-of-your-burning-questions-answered
All of Microsoft efforts are in early stages and I expect them to get better. However I think there will be problems at the beginning. This is also interesting:
Here's a question to all:
What is the likelihood of continued BC into future generation consoles if the current consoles of today are cracked and games become pirate-able?
Intuitively, I would think less likely, if not at all. I'm not sure why I feel that way. Hoping someone could provide some anchor points on which way this would roll if XB1 or PS4 get cracked.
We do know that Ps4 is getting dangerously close though.
What is the likelihood of continued BC into future generation consoles if the current consoles of today are cracked and games become pirate-able?
Intuitively, I would think less likely, if not at all. I'm not sure why I feel that way. Hoping someone could provide some anchor points on which way this would roll if XB1 or PS4 get cracked.
We do know that Ps4 is getting dangerously close though.
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