Mixed Information on Consoles or How I learned to loathe PR *spin off*

So, I understand that the online community will be the same for the new iteration of consoles. I understand that this automatically means that we do not(*) get increased fps performance, as this would give part if the only community an advantage.

However, imo, this means that we will see a general push to 60Hz (* in this sense we do get performance upgrade across all consoles) gaming. The X1 version will be 60Hz and the Scorpio as well with much better graphics and/or resolution of course, such that there is no advantage in online play...

However, thinking about it...say Battlefield 1, a game where draw distance and resolution matters a lot for sniping and detecting people from afar...wouldn't people on Scorpio still have an advantage in online gaming because of this?

While this is common on PC, where the biggest machine gives you often an advantage...it has never been the case for consoles so far...

 

Okay, checked. I was right (woot!):

https://www.engadget.com/2005/07/06/sony-wants-you-to-earn-that-playstation-3/

 

I hope at least everybody agrees about Kutaragi and Mattrick?

[comedy]
If you say something negative against an exec, you'll be labelled a fanboy, unless you wait until the exec was publicly shamed and fired. Because then it means your favorite company actually agrees and is no longer in a weak position, you are still loyal if you talk against the ousted usurper. It's not your fault, he was never the one true king.

Anyone posting more than 2 or 3 times receive the butthurt argument, because arguing means you are suffering deep in your soul. Eventually it brings up my favorite, the Victim Argument "The fanboys are responsible for all the wars, sugar tits, Mattrick was fired for your sins!", which then leads to the False Equivalency argument "Sony did it too!", "But that was over 10 years ago!", "Never forget!", and then it's a Red Herring changing the subject, moving the goal post, "You're butthurt because we have Naughty Dog!", '"You're butthurt because TLG looks like a PS3 game!", "Okay you win".
[/comedy]

Spoiler

 

There seems to be a consistent difficulty for posters in general around the way they perceive corporations. They seem to want to personify them in the way that people often do to animals. Attaching human motivations to either or applying ethical or moral judgement as you would to a person is inherently flawed.

I'm not saying you can't make moral or ethical judgments of a corporation. I'm just saying that when you do you have to do it in the context of what a corporation is and why it exists.

And on the subject of PR, specifically, the way people conflate "person at MS/Sony said" with "MS/Sony said" is maddening. You'd expect there to be a difference between how an individual who's part of an organization might express a concept in the moment during a live interview and how the organization might collectively choose to express that same concept officially. Dismissing the latter in favor of the former because the latter is "just going to be PR spin" is silly. You just need to properly contextualize both.

 

[wall of text, just rambling about brand]

That's true, and at a higher level, it's complicated to talk for/against a specific decision coming from a company. It all depends why bad decisions or anti-consumer decisions are made (where are the profit motives). Bad decisions are simple, the company replace the incompetent person and that's about it. Anti-consumer decisions are not that simple.

A brand is a symbol. Billions are spent by corporations to make sure the brand is perceived positively by consumers, and the company is perceived as if it's a trustworthy person giving consumers candies. Both the brand and the company reputation contribute to profits. They can change the CEO or the entire management and it's still the company name and the brand name being talked about, and the media helps a lot with that. Stock value is linked to the brand value. Purchase intent is linked to consumer trust.

Even if it's illogical on the surface, I am not against gamers focusing their comments on a console brand, because ultimately it's the only voice they have to have an impact, because it goes both ways. The PR messaging becomes an indication of whether we can expect them to realign with the consumers or not. It tells us if they made a mistake or an informed business decision. The Kutaragi and Mattrick arrogance was extremely damaging to the brands, it also exposed an underlying problem with the vision of each platform. It's the stockholders money and everyone in the management is employed to protect stock value, be it short term or long term, including the CEO.

The problem arise when they try something anti-consumer which they honestly thought to be profitable regardless of consumer reception. It happens successfully in a monopoly situation, or a cartel-like agreement (imagine if MS and Sony met in secret to establish onlineDRM policies). Otherwise competitors will take advantage of the blunder, their brand value and reputation rises, and investors are happy.

Many gamers trust there will always be great first party games on playstation, which takes decades to build that brand strength. Gamers expect good games regardless of the launch line up, because historically that's always been true. So the business statement "some people would buy it at launch even with no games" is factually true, and is not stupid in that context. If they didn't make any games on PS4 leaving third parties only, they are done for the next 20 years, despite a great launch with no games. They would damage the brand beyond repair. The same goes with the trust about the lifespan of PS4, it's a big PR nightmare trying to sell us the Neo unless they make sure we believe them the PS4 will continue to have games.

 

I think Sony should trade off some performance and move ahead with an API that should allow for forward compatibility.

 

Wow this is interesting! ( maybe wrong place)

"
So as far as you're concerned, Microsoft will not dictate to developers that they render games in 4K? That, if they wish, they can have their game run at, say, 60 frames per second and not render natively at 4K?

Albert Penello: Yeah. We had to pick a number. Why did you choose six teraflops? Why did you choose 384Gb/s in memory bandwidth? What's the point of those numbers? The point of those numbers was to deliver Xbox One-quality games in 4K. That's the point of those numbers. But we're not going to dictate to developers that that's how they have to use that power."

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...ect-scorpio-ps4-pro-marketing-and-xbox-tweets

 

Bit of a mix-up (or spec upgrade) in the latest interview with Eurogamer: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...ect-scorpio-ps4-pro-marketing-and-xbox-tweets

I'm guessing that was 384-bit bus and not gb/s, which would confirm what everyone thought, 12 gigs of gddr5 on a 384-bit bus width. And also that statement pretty much confirms that their aim (for now at least) is to offer the same games between XB1 and Scorpio, with the exception of VR of course.

 

They've said this so many times (from the start), so I'm always amazed that people find it hard to believe.
At 1080p the Scorpio is a beast.
at 4k it's a mildly better xo.
They've always said xo quality at 4k, maybe slightly better textures here and there, etc.
How Devs choose to use power is up to them, but the console itself can do xo quality at 4k. Well that's the philosophy and goal anyway

 

People mix up facts with fantasy, neither the first nor the last time that'll happen

 

hmmmm....I don't know. When I was reading through the article and hit that point it sounded like it could have been a slipup as much as a mixup...

Even if you intended why would you even reference mem bus width when talking about general overall specs?

Although weirdly it is written as Gb/s as opposed to GB/s...confusing.

Interestingly 390/390X cards had 384GB/s mem bandwidth. Is Vega 11 going to be the presumed 490 card or is that Vega 10?

 

There were three other typos in that article if you check the comments, not to mention one I've noticed that's gone missed...

 

http://www.xbox.com/en-us/project-scorpio

Holiday 2017
True
4K
Gaming
6
Teraflops
of power
320
GB/s
Memory
bandwith
8
CPU
Cores

 

Oh didn't know they had a website..

"True 4K Gaming"...

 

You can only play True 4K with uncompressed pixels, not even PC can claim of having that feature yet to be added (W10 exclusive).

 

Another interesting part of the article:

"Scorpio obviously will have a more powerful spec, but won't PS4 Pro always be cheaper? Scorpio has a bigger processor, more RAM, potentially a 4K Blu-ray drive - that can't be cheap. I get the sense it's already being billed as a premium product. Won't you run up against a tough comparison next year when Scorpio is more expensive than PS Pro?

Albert Penello: Well, we haven't announced the price yet, so we'll see.

Sure, but the expectation is PS4 Pro will be cheaper than Scorpio, right?

Albert Penello: It will be an interesting discussion next time we chat!"

Seriously wonder if Microsoft would go $399 and announce a price well in advance to stem PS4 Pro sales?

 

"We compressed the fuck out of the frame rate but believe me when I say these are the most beautiful pixels I've ever seen!"

 

The classiest and best pixels !!

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