They didn't reserve 1 GB. They reserved 2.5 GB. That tells me they want to provide freedom to devs to make apps that are more than a few MBs in size. Either that or they're retarded. I'm going to go with the former.
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They didn't reserve 1 GB. They reserved 2.5 GB. That tells me they want to provide freedom to devs to make apps that are more than a few MBs in size. Either that or they're retarded. I'm going to go with the former.
I think we all understand RAM quantities and services, thank you very much. What we don't understand is what features, even in the future, will need s much RAM. If someone could even just explain, "we're thinking maybe this or that will happen," to justify it, it'd make some sense. Instead we've got a shrug of the shoulders and a 'who knows', which shows a lack of sensible design. Hell, we're talking about moving everything to the cloud over the coming years! Why do we need a gig of RAM sitting idle awaiting the next 3D Facebook interface that may never happen, when in reality that future will be streamed from the internet as an HTML5 video feed?
I want to know what was said in that meeting when it was decided to allocate 1 GB of RAM just in case.
Fine, but (as we've had before in this same conversation regards other platforms) what exactly will those apps be? What sort of apps are going to need so much space? Apps with hundreds of MBs of animated bitmap UI textures? Because anyone with a bit of knowledge of coding and systems is going to realise what a huge amount of data that is. What am I or anyone else going to want to have running concurrently with our games? We've mentioned websites. That's about it. Everything else can be handled in MBs, not GBs.
Maybe it'll all come out when the vision is revealed, but until then it's plain ridiculous IMO. GBs are needed for photo editing and video editing and productivity, not looking up cinema times and maps and movie reviews.
The only justification I can come up with is if something like Home comes as standard. Let's say the interface to PS4 is actually Home 2, always resident, and you leave games, enter Home, can wander round, call up your library and chat with folks etc. That'd be a service vision that'd actually consume lots of data, as opposed to a blue screen with a few tiles on it as has been shown so far.
Edit: I'll add that Sony's efforts with PS3 were poor, consuming way more than XB360 to achieve less in the OS. Sony also freed up considerable amounts of RAM as they learnt how to write more efficient code, or just abandoned their ideas. I'm not inclined to believe this setup is highly efficient and good VFM.
I'd just wait to see what their OS, interface and app ecosystem looks like before passing judgement. They've barely shown the OS at all, and neither has MS. If you see it, and it looks shit, then flame away. This isn't even information that's supposed to be available right now, so I imagine the story about all of those things was meant to come soon. I guess you could say their "THEY JUST WON E3!!!!! DROPPED THE BOMB" moment at E3 announcing at 8 GB of RAM looks a little different in hindsight. They weren't crushing the competition. They were achieving parity. Perhaps if people buy consoles based on vague notions of perceived "betterness" from the availability of RAM, then those people could be a little miffed for pre-ordering, but I'd argue those people deserve it a little bit. It was likely there would be a large reservation of memory for the "System".
IMO loading apps and losing a few seconds is a better solution as I don't mind waiting for an app which I won't be using most of the time anyway.... The whole multitasking and instant access thing is over stated from my perspective, I don't see how anyone can engage in 2 separate activities simultaneously and besides if I am otherwise occupied why can't I start the app and finish up or stay engaged/focused on the game/movie/music/website I was previously focused on while the new one loads up? I really don't see a lot of utility in watching a movie while playing a game while reading a book and texting/chatting simultaneously.
1. Can Sony even produce devkits that have more than 8GB of GDDR5 in it? Can 256bit APU memory controller even support more [more than 16 512MB chips]? So far I've never heard any leak of devkit with more than 8GB of ram.
2. Where are developers currently placing their game debug tools? Are they placing them inside of 4.5GB of game ram, 2.5GB "OS partition" or in 1GB "Cache" ? How much ram can they "waste" on those tools now?
If Sony physically cant provide dedicated ram for hosting dev tools now, I think that in a year of two when they get their hands on 1GB chips OS/Cache reservation situation will change.
2. Where are developers currently placing their game debug tools? Are they placing them inside of 4.5GB of game ram, 2.5GB "OS partition" or in 1GB "Cache" ? How much ram can they "waste" on those tools now?
If Sony physically cant provide dedicated ram for hosting dev tools now, I think that in a year of two when they get their hands on 1GB chips OS/Cache reservation situation will change.
Why not do those things on your console? People do it on their tablets, and I imagine sitting on your sofa with a wireless keyboard and mouse, or at a desk hooked up to a PC monitor would be a lot more pleasing. Hell, couldn't you run free game SDK and develop indie PS4 games on your PS4? I know compile times wouldn't be amazing with that CPU, but wouldn't it be nice to do that?
If all you have in your mind is calculator apps and a twitter client, then yeah, they don't need all of that RAM.
Just wait and see.
The interface.
Do you think the tiny touchpad on the PS4 controller is best suited to these tasks? The 360 with Kinect may be better, we'll see how accurate its voice tech and gesture recognition is before making final judgement.
But with devices like the 35$ chromecast for dumping media to your TV, and $200 tablets - why would you want to do that stuff from a $400-$500 console?
With a tablet, you have a keyboard when you need it, a responsive touch interface, already a huge selection of apps, the ability to take it with you on the crapper when you're in a Skype call (ok, maybe not) - I don't see at this point what projecting these apps onto a TV simultaneously with playing a game really gives you.
If you're going to need to interact with any of these apps you're going to need to pause the game, but then you're back in the problem of the input method. Maybe Kinect will make a huge leap forward in dictation accuracy, but it will have to be big to be truly useful for responding to emails/facebook posts/Twitter, etc.
If the input method is not as reliable or efficient as that on a tablet or even smartphone, then the minuscule time saved from having to reach over to your phone/tablet is indeed that - minuscule, and over the course of actually using the app you might have been better off if just grabbing your tablet in the first place.
Well sure, maybe we'll see something truly unique - but that may also require the other party to have a PS4/Xbone on the other end as well, which could limit the usefulness of the app somewhat.
That position is basically impossible to argue though, any real-world example we can draw on could just be swatted down with "Well yeah, but Sony/MS REALLY have something here - can't describe what it is or can't speculate, but just you wait and see!". Based on past history of multifunction TV's in terms of added devices or Smart TV's and their utter failure to propagate that model as anything consumers actually want out of TV - or certainly willing to pay any premium for - I think it's safer to err on the side of skepticism at this point.
Hey, sometimes really large organizations can just plain fuck up. Sometimes they do it often.
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I think that having ~5gb at launch and waiting to see how things settle isn't unreasonable. The PS4 has long legs so it isn't a shock that Sony would be conservative with reserved resources. If the UI and such was noticeably laggy compared to the XB1, even though it isn't doing as much, then that might not help sales. Just like PSN, Sony is going to have to prove to people that they are going to get a good consumer experience and maybe hedging their bets early on isn't a stupid idea.
One other point in terms of resources maybe having an extra chunk of memory around might allow some extra cpu/gpu resources to be available which would be much more valuable than memory at this point, just a thought.
One other point in terms of resources maybe having an extra chunk of memory around might allow some extra cpu/gpu resources to be available which would be much more valuable than memory at this point, just a thought.
Wireless keyboard and mouse for apps that would need them. Sitting on the couch while editing your summer vacation photos, videos with the wife or husband doesn't sound to bad to me. You can switch over to your favorite TV show when it's on, or watch a movie and then jump into a game when your spouse goes to sleep . Sounds like a terrible experience no one would ever try because tablets.
I don´t preorder consoles based on "vague notions" of betterness. I know hardware sufficiently to actually really know if one thing is, for me, better than other (my dual titans come into mind).
Having that said, it´s a ridiculous statement to say customers deserve being misdirected by questionable company practices. Sony said they would put gamers first on their priorities and, suddenly, almost half of their ram is reserved for non-gaming stuff.
Considering what Microsoft made with Xbox One, spending a good portion of the BOM in things that are not gaming related, that made this next generation the worst one I have ever seen, with really really weak consoles. They are all driving away who supported them all these years: the gamers who really spend money on, you guess, games. The casuals don´t make a gaming console successful: just look at what happened to the Wii (really low number of games sold per console) and its sucessor.
I want a really great console, what the PS2 was at launch, the 360 and the PS3 were at launch. Not these "jack of all trades, master of none" gadgets.
They didn't announce the amount of ram at E3. Your memory is playing tricks on you.
I'm not sure anyone considered the 8GB ram as a reason to preorder, more like the 4GB being a reason to wait. Because it was the one remaining specs that wasn't equal or superior. I mean, lower price, 50% more CUs, much faster memory, smaller, intergrated PS... beauty. Don't forget sleek beauty.
You forgot the original XBOX.
ramgate?
The full agree here, because we may even understand that there are various fronts such as tablets, smartphones google, apple etc, but what really made the point of interest for gamers on the Sony in this market since 1994 is a game machine. If we have increasingly less focused on games consoles and more directed to the apps I have the impression would be fatal to the market videogames.Be casual or hardcore, a gamer console bought Wii and PS360 for their games .. (sorry talking in these terms exposed my opinion) I hope it stays that way .. I think many will preffer a easy use apps in tablet ,smarhphone than a dedicated console gamemachine... ( the only way to reasonable convinced explain this extreme use of 2.5/3.5 GB high bandwidth GDDR5 for OS etc is at least 1.5GB of this serve as a cache to overcome the slow blue-ray drive... and I'm still thinking 2 GB for OS and apps be absurd!)
Actually 4.5GB and a flexible 1GB, when available. That's still a lot for games.
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