NGGP: NextGen Garbage Pile (aka: No one reads the topics or stays on topic) *spawn*

[(((interference)))]

Seriously though assuming the rumors are correct about Durango, the largest detriment against the PS4 IMO is not the DDR2+sram vs GDDR5, it's that MS might actually reserve 3GB for the OS and background tasks.

That sounds insanely high to me (I have trouble believing it), and it would significantly impact the difference between the two if Sony's OS only takes up .5-1GB - more so than the bandwidth limitations I believe.
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Well, you better start believing it! ERP has heard it's ~3 reserved, Richard has two sources saying 3GB and 2 cores are reserved, thuway, karak and Andy H on GAF and agree and even bgassassin stated so recently.

It's due to them running Win 8 with backgrounding of IE, Skype, DVR/Netflix etc and having to keep the Kinect skeletal and voice databases in memory

 

[XpiderMX]

Well, you better start believing it! ERP has heard it's ~3 reserved, Richard has two sources saying 3GB and 2 cores are reserved, thuway, karak and Andy H on GAF and agree and even bgassassin stated so recently.

It's due to them running Win 8 with backgrounding of IE, Skype, DVR/Netflix etc and having to keep the Kinect skeletal and voice databases in memory

The last I read is it will be less than 3GB, but not too less.

 

[Silenti]

Now people are clinging to rumors of a "Durango Dual GPU" set up. If this were true than why haven't any reliable sources pegged it as such?

I heard those initial rumors but nothing from the regular leakers. I don't think this is something one could easily hide and sweep under the rug from those guys.

I will cling to a hope for a nice cheap price. Ala 300$. At 350$ I will balk. At 400 it better have a nice SSD and play mkv since the 360 will not.

 

[bkilian]

I agree, and if they can't "eat" it and MS comes out swinging (say 299$) then they are in though position. They either lose money or customers pay more which would mean bigger price point. But then again, if they don't pack PSEye in every box it could be much closer in price because MS is packing Kinect in every box.

Sony could try an "apple" and position the PS4 as a premium device that shouldn't even be compared to those plebeian offerings from the "other guys". People don't even think twice about paying $699 for an iPad, and apple sells many millions a quarter. If they pull that off, then it could neutralize a lower priced Microsoft offering.

 

[jonabbey]

I assume Microsoft will take the approach that Major Nelson hinted at, and show off their system in a greater stage of completion at their unveiling. Sony has obviously been working on PS4 for a long time, but we only got a glimpse of the UI and the system services. We saw the dual camera bar, but didn't see it in action. I expect Microsoft to demonstrate a more complete system including Kinect 2 and the UI they've built around that, as well as all the video streaming / sharing stuff that Sony showed. They've got room to announce free online multiplayer to oblige Sony to possibly forego some of the revenue stream that Sony is counting on to pay for their BOM.

Add in a large collection of Win8 Metro apps and whatever timed 3rd party exclusives they've got, and they'll do fine, or more than fine.

Speaking of 3rd parties, I'm assuming Microsoft's contract with Bungie forbade Bungie from publicly announcing Destiny at a Sony event, hence the last minute Sunday reveal.

 

[jonabbey]

Sony could try an "apple" and position the PS4 as a premium device that shouldn't even be compared to those plebeian offerings from the "other guys". People don't even think twice about paying $699 for an iPad, and apple sells many millions a quarter. If they pull that off, then it could neutralize a lower priced Microsoft offering.

Listening to Shuhei talk, it sounds like five hundred and ninety nine US dollars is pretty well seared into their memory, though.

 

[jonabbey]

Oh, there's also backwards compatibility. If Microsoft comes out and announces (and demonstrates) a working backwards compatibility story, they could make a very good impression with that. If 720 can play 360 games somehow and stream them to SmartGlass right out of the gate, they should be able to keep some good percentage of their fan base with them into next gen.

 

[scently]

Sony could try an "apple" and position the PS4 as a premium device that shouldn't even be compared to those plebeian offerings from the "other guys". People don't even think twice about paying $699 for an iPad, and apple sells many millions a quarter. If they pull that off, then it could neutralize a lower priced Microsoft offering.

But they will have to demonstrate the "premium" value. That can be done either through games (visuals, ip, genre, etc) or through services and pricing. Truth is, I am still unsure what 8gb gddr5 vs 8gb ddr3+32mb eSRAM, and 1.4 tflops (going by the rumors) vs 1.9 tlfops would mean in terms of visual impact. EDGE, who first stated Sony's intention to match MS's 8gb RAM, also stated that the ps4 was "slighty more powerful" and that we will see another ps360 situation. If it does mean anything, it definitely won't be showing up immediately. I would argue that MS, despite the difference in spec, will be able to show amazing looking games when they unveil the Xbox. Most third party developers that were in ps4's unveil will be there and then some. Epic, Activision, Square, Capcom, Ubisoft, etc will all be there, along with the likes of EA, and co. The durango, if going by the rumored specs, is close enough to the ps4 that it will always get games that "look and feel" the same on the ps4, even if on closer inspection, you might spot one or two differences.

So, we are left with services and price. Watching the ps4 unveil yesterday, one thing that struck me was how most of the services it is going to offer are the same as some rumored services that the durango is going to offer. Sure we don't for sure what services it will have until its announced but the whole "reserving one or two cores and around 3gb" means it is going to pack quite a number of features and services. I am speculating here, but I think part of the reason Sony bumped up their RAM is so that they can be able to accommodate their plans for features and services. Enough that, should MS announce a particularly interesting service they too will be able to implement it.

So, price. From what I can understand 8gb gddr 5 RAM is really expensive and its either absolved by Sony in the console's price or they sell at loss. Its also possible that kinect is also very expensive from a BoM point of view but you can already see similarities in feature set between the PSEye and the kinect; both have 4 mics, one has 2 rgb cameras, the other has an rgb camera and a depth camera, and so one an do forth. So its looking like MS might have the advantage in pricing flexibility.

Ofcourse, even with all this MS themselves might decide that their own product is "premium" quality but at least they have quite the flexibility in pricing as compared to Sony.

 

[expletive]

Sony could try an "apple" and position the PS4 as a premium device that shouldn't even be compared to those plebeian offerings from the "other guys". People don't even think twice about paying $699 for an iPad, and apple sells many millions a quarter. If they pull that off, then it could neutralize a lower priced Microsoft offering.

You'd have to make the case that Apple has shifted the public's preferences to being more accepting of premium products with premium prices because honestly if Sony couldn't make that happen with the PS3, i doubt they can do it this time around. In the US at least, this will be the 3rd generation where the mainstream consumers will view Sony,MS,Nintendo as peers, convincing anyone that now all of a sudden one of them is a 'premium' product will be very very difficult.


EDIT:

Technical question: If a dev were to put a game on Durango at 1340 x1080 with the 1920x1080 HUD display plane, while the PS4 goes full 1080p for both, does that completely level the IQ and frame rate playing field?

 

[Strange]

Technical question: If a dev were to put a game on Durango at 1340 x1080 with the 1920x1080 HUD display plane, while the PS4 goes full 1080p for both, does that completely level the IQ and frame rate playing field?

Huh?

 

[jonabbey]

Technical question: If a dev were to put a game on Durango at 1340 x1080 with the 1920x1080 HUD display plane, while the PS4 goes full 1080p for both, does that completely level the IQ and frame rate playing field?

Not enough information. Presumably the small step down in non-HUD resolution would affect IQ some. Frame rate would depend on how much a game was stressing the PS4's greater GPGPU resources.

 

[expletive]

Not enough information. Presumably the small step down in non-HUD resolution would affect IQ some. Frame rate would depend on how much a game was stressing the PS4's greater GPGPU resources.

So its not a linear "the Durango GPU has 30% less TF so 30% less pixels evens things out" equation?

(aside from any IQ drop that the lower res is responsible for as you point out)

 

[jonabbey]

So its not a linear "the Durango GPU has 30% less TF so 30% less pixels evens things out" equation?

(aside from any IQ drop that the lower res is responsible for as you point out)

For some games it may be linear, for others not. There are games on PC that are more CPU bound than GPU bound, after all. It all depends on what an individual game's bottlenecks are.

Durango is rumored to have some tricks to help it with memory handling, it has lower latency to its ram.. all of which could change the ratios under certain circumstances, too.

I'm sure a whole lot of games won't stress either system enough for them to have trouble running at 1080p/60Hz.

 

[Proelite]

Sony could try an "apple" and position the PS4 as a premium device that shouldn't even be compared to those plebeian offerings from the "other guys". People don't even think twice about paying $699 for an iPad, and apple sells many millions a quarter. If they pull that off, then it could neutralize a lower priced Microsoft offering.

So like last generation, but worse since they don't have the momentum to carry them over?

 

[Deleted member 11852]

What else would the cameras need to be? It only needs dual cameras and 4 mics. It's exactly what I was expecting, 2 mobile-spec cameras in a bar. Although I hope there's some well engineered 'clip' to secure it on the TV.

There's quite a difference between the tech in today's Kinect and today's Eye so there was scope to do a lot more, not to mention there were rumours swirling that the console would be capable of measuring certain biometrics. None of the leaks provided any details on that but cameras capable of capturing different wavelengths can capture certain biometrics. It doesn't look like Sony have gone this route - or it could be something to reveal later.

To me it looks like a cheap solution that's 'good enough' because there is a perception that they have to offer it out of the box. Compared to the rest of the console, this does look like an afterthought and a cheap one at that. But.. good enough.

Re the clip comment, is this so you can attach it to the top of your screen?

 

[Deleted member 11852]

So like last generation, but worse since they don't have the momentum to carry them over?

Sony needed momentum driven by brand loyalty last time because their product was late and ridiculously expensive. This will be a very different battle for the hearts and minds of gaming consumers this time around, much much fairer on timing and capabilities. Price will set it apart, but do you think Sony don't know this?

 

[patsu]

There's quite a difference between the tech in today's Kinect and today's Eye so there was scope to do a lot more, not to mention there were rumours swirling that the console would be capable of measuring certain biometrics. None of the leaks provided any details on that but cameras capable of capturing different wavelengths can capture certain biometrics. It doesn't look like Sony have gone this route - or it could be something to reveal later.

To me it looks like a cheap solution that's 'good enough' because there is a perception that they have to offer it out of the box. Compared to the rest of the console, this does look like an afterthought and a cheap one at that. But.. good enough.

Re the clip comment, is this so you can attach it to the top of your screen?

The new PSEye is not an afterthought. Sony have always been interested in both 3D and HD PSEye. They want to use these technologies to develop core games, not merely casual titles.

We found Sony patents on biometric sensors, 3D visors, ultrasonic sensors, brain wave control, etc. We will likely see more later.

The clip is for securing the camera on top of the TV.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

The new PSEye is not an afterthought. Sony have always been interested in both 3D and HD PSEye. They want to use these technologies to develop core games, not merely casual titles.

Ok, 'afterthought' was a poorly chosen word. Let's say that in terms of technical capabilities, Sony were less lavish (than they could have been) with this component.

We found Sony patents on biometric sensors, 3D visors, ultrasonic sensors, brain wave control, etc. We will likely see more later.

And as I said above, it may be we don't know everything about the DualShock4 yet. Perhaps they will implement sensors to measure your blood pressure or how hard your gripping it. I wouldn't get too carried away by the patents, Sony have a medical products division that could be responsible for some of these.

 

[kots]

I will cling to a hope for a nice cheap price. Ala 300$. At 350$ I will balk. At 400 it better have a nice SSD and play mkv since the 360 will not.

Even 300$ seems too much .

I assume Microsoft will take the approach that Major Nelson hinted at

Major Nelson will have a lot of explaining to do the coming months

Ofcourse, even with all this MS themselves might decide that their own product is "premium" quality but at least they have quite the flexibility in pricing as compared to Sony.

They must have some nerve , looking at the specs , to call their product "premium" .

 

[Aeoniss]

Even 300$ seems too much .



Major Nelson will have a lot of explaining to do the coming months





They must have some nerve , looking at the specs , to call their product "premium" .

No different than them believing Xbox Live is a "Premium" service worth monthly payment..

Hell, as a Netflix subscriber I have to pay MS just to have access to my paid service on their box lol.