PlayStation 4 (codename Orbis) technical hardware investigation (news and rumours)

[rockaman]

+1 to two last above posts.

One of their most obvious priorities is making gaming and interfacing with games seamless... 1 GB to 1.5 GB seems to guarantee smooth transitions between applications, including games which are using the rest of the 6.5 GB.

1.5 GB doesn't sound ridiculous to me at all, also given than the PS4's bandwidth doesn't seem capable of letting any one application access the whole 8 GB per frame (even in 30 FPS).

 

[Cjail]

Cerny said:
"Another thing the PlayStation 4 team did to increase the flexibility of the console is to put many of its basic functions on dedicated units on the board -- that way, you don't have to allocate resources to handling these things."

Could some of these dedicate units be for OS functions?

 

[Bagel seed]

Someone needs to invent a way to not make web browsers and/or web pages suck up so much ram.

Like TBDR or virtual texturing tech but for web sites..

 

[pjbliverpool]

Now that we have tablets and smart phones I'm not sure how relevant web browsing is going to be on consoles. For serious web use people will still want to use a PC (mainly for screen space and keyboard) while more casual browsing will no doubt be a better experience on a tablet and possibly even a phone.

In fact most "apps" aside from gaming are likely to give a better experience on one of the above. The killer app for this coming generation outside of gaming and playing movies will IMO be Skype. This alone has huge potential IMO.

 

[Grall]

Applications must start quickly, browser must support lots of open tabs, multitasking must work

I totally don't buy any of that. A console is not a tablet or a smartphone, and I don't think people use them the same way or expect the same things of them. Why would a browser need to support lots of open tabs when you won't even have a fucking keyboard connected to your console, and why would the console need to hold all of those tabs in RAM when they could simply be paged out to disk, as not to totally gimp the main and primary purpose of a console (which is to play games) just to satisfy a tiny tiny minority of powerusing websurf-masturbators? (As IF the browser in PS4 would ever stay up to scratch with any of the main desktop OS browsers btw - durango gets IE, so MAYBE there... But Sony? No.)

 

[BRiT]

I totally don't buy any of that. A console is not a tablet or a smartphone, and I don't think people use them the same way or expect the same things of them.

Not yet ... but that is about to change.

 

[Grall]

I'll believe it when I see it.

 

[rockaman]

Not yet ... but that is about to change.

I think so too, I think the demand for task switching in the family/TV room is going to be a very important thing for any box.

We can see the changes with games and such offered on DVR/PVR boxes even! Consoles have a great opportunity to fortify their position in the home theater by offering tons of content on demand, and very fast.

For my family, we only really use TV via a conventional TV provider, I use the TV for gaming, and we started using Netflix. So really if PS4 becomes the machine to do 2/3 of those things, it becomes the only other box we need other than the PVR and TV itself.

Since PS4 will be the unchallenged "powerhouse" device in my living room, if PS4 adds in remote play for all games, a quality browser, improved multimedia functionality and viewing, and rapid task switching it will be "the" only computer hardware needed under the TV for my family

 

[infamous]

Definitely not a good idea to make a console like a computer with so much memory been wasted Although they did say Vita, smartphones, tablet will be interconnected with the console. Jack tretton was very clear about about PS4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPbM1NHwqFo

 

[pjbliverpool]

Not yet ... but that is about to change.

But there's no getting around the general inconvenience of the interface and display when compared to a tablet. Even first rate voice control won't bring a console on par with the user interface of a tablet (or PC) for web browsing IMO.

And what other apps are there that have general appeal?

We have:

• Playing games
• Playing movies
• Listening to Music
• Recording/playing TV
• Browsing the Web
• Communications

The first 3 are no change from the current generation, the fourth may not be a feature of next generation and is of debatable value anyway given the excellent pre-existing solutions for this. I've already expressed my concerns over the value of web browsing on a console above so that just leaves communications. This is the one that I think is going to be killer - at least on the XBox.

What other apps will have mass appeal on a TV?

 

[Gradthrawn]

What other apps will have mass appeal on a TV?

This is just my personal rambling but perhaps a news and personal info aggregator? I'm sure there's a standard word for it, but I'm thinking of a Daily Outlook type of view that can greet me when I wake up (or easily switch to on demand to quickly come abreast of things). Give me tiles to customize, along with a default view that includes things like a daily agenda (Google and Active Sync compatible), new emails (POP, IMAP, AS), RSS feeds, social media updates and a tile for a live video feed (traffic, news, something along those lines). Pull and aggregate the critical information I want so I don't have to hunt for it (I can browse the web later on a more suitable device) and use nice large tiles that are easily navigated with a remote (along with controller, voice and motion). Keep the interface consistent throughout (clicking a tile should open a full screen view of it, and not launch some webpage that breaks ease of navigation). Oh, and include an alarm clock that turns my console on (and with HDMI CEC, turns my TV on). I'd like something like that and think it would be perfect for the TV, before I've even fired a computer up and I'm still getting ready for the day. Much the same way some people turn on the news in the background as they move about getting ready to start their day. I suspect there's a 0 chance of me seeing it, but I would like it.

Oh, wait, you said mass appeal. Never mind. Ignore me.

 

[szymku]

A pure games console probably isn't going to fly anymore, so if you're one of the people that want that you're just going to have to suck it up and accept that it's not going to happen.

I don't know a single person (and I am talking about over 100 people including my friends , family and the ones I am talking to on daily basis on gaming forums) who is using their PS3 for anything other than playing games except for occasional (I mean once or twice in a month) BluRay playback. They are not buying console for FB, TV or browsing because console will never be as good at this as cheap laptop.

All this additional functionality is important for endgadget/techradar. Ordinary gamer (and I'm not talkin about casual 40+ who are buying console because they are curious/read about it in Maxim) is buying console for sole purpose of gaming. And this gamer person is the one who's spending real money on games.

 

[rockaman]

^That is completely in contradiction to the information that says over half the time people spend on PS3 consoles is not playing games. Also to keep in mind there are many things to do on the PS3 that is not playing games, including BD playback.

This includes, I suspect, services such as YT, BBC iPlayer, Netflix, and other streaming formats.

How true that is, I don't know, but I suspect it has some external validity

Gamers do use Netflix and watch TV. At least, I do

 

[Bagel seed]

The browser should always be a secondary nice to have function. I don't want them to bend backwards to make it as fully featured as the one on my laptop if they have to reserve a whole bunch of ram for it.

When PS3 first came out I used the browser only out of pure novelty factor. And even now if it were completely on par with anything else I wouldn't use it. Why bother when the laptop/iPad/phone with high res retina display and quick loading with all my bookmarks, saved passwords, cookies, plugins, and etc is right by me anyways? Pretty much goes for anyone these days I think. I've got a nice TV but it's not going to be as comfortable to read off of than my other devices meant for that purpose.

 

[ERP]

I don't know a single person (and I am talking about over 100 people including my friends , family and the ones I am talking to on daily basis on gaming forums) who is using their PS3 for anything other than playing games except for occasional (I mean once or twice in a month) BluRay playback. They are not buying console for FB, TV or browsing because console will never be as good at this as cheap laptop.

The number one application used on PS3 is Netflix by a VERY large margin, the YouTube application is also very heavily used.

Given that people use consoles to watch media, it would be my expectation then that improving that portion of the experience and making it as seamless as possible to swap between media viewing and game playing is probably going to get some effort expended on it.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Now that we have tablets and smart phones I'm not sure how relevant web browsing is going to be on consoles.

For those apps you talk about. A robust HTML5 browser will allow service to use a common interface instead of requiring specialist apps. eg. iPlayer can use the full browser interface instead of the limited console interface, or whatever HTML interface the BBC go with in future. That'll be important if Sony offer things like Music Unlimited and Video Unlimited via an HTML5 interface. And if you have a web browser (webkit) to support apps, make it available for use. Looking up things on IMDB, for example, is perhaps a little more natural and intuitive on the console you were just playing the movie on then digging out the tablet. I go to my tablet currently because PS3's browser is a dog. If it wasn't, I could leave the tablet where it is.

 

[Cjail]

Definitely not a good idea to make a console like a computer with so much memory been wasted Although they did say Vita, smartphones, tablet will be interconnected with the console. Jack tretton was very clear about about PS4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPbM1NHwqFo

The fact that PS4 has a PC-like architecture doesn't make it any less a console.

 

[Brad Grenz]

The number one application used on PS3 is Netflix by a VERY large margin, the YouTube application is also very heavily used.

Given that people use consoles to watch media, it would be my expectation then that improving that portion of the experience and making it as seamless as possible to swap between media viewing and game playing is probably going to get some effort expended on it.

Yeah, I think the ability to switch to Netflix without having to quit out of a game first will basically be the most important form of multitasking for next gen consoles. I also think that is achievable with a fairly small memory reservation.

 

[rockaman]

The browser should always be a secondary nice to have function. I don't want them to bend backwards to make it as fully featured as the one on my laptop if they have to reserve a whole bunch of ram for it.

When PS3 first came out I used the browser only out of pure novelty factor. And even now if it were completely on par with anything else I wouldn't use it. Why bother when the laptop/iPad/phone with high res retina display and quick loading with all my bookmarks, saved passwords, cookies, plugins, and etc is right by me anyways? Pretty much goes for anyone these days I think. I've got a nice TV but it's not going to be as comfortable to read off of than my other devices meant for that purpose.

Very much agree. I think the browser should simply be in for convenience for the user, it doesn't need to be extremely good. Workable and just fast, like the Vita browser. That way it can just be there and do the job when it's called on. It doesn't need to be a primary browser for anyone.

Maybe if people don't want to hook their HDMI to their laptop or wirelessly transmit from their phone, it's another convenient option just to be there if need be.

Also it would be cool to swap between FAQs and RPG games if one gets tired of carrying another device around with them or looking at a small screen

If it could sync bookmarks with another browser, that would just be a very good bonus though.

 

[MrFox]

A web browser is very awkward on a TV and I wish them good luck improving it enough to replace the tablet that's on the coffee table. I think ANY major features they want to add must pass the test of "requiring the living room", i.e. the large TV and/or sound system. They should use tablet/smartphone softwares as remotes and extend functionalities to get a certain synergy instead of trying to replace them with duplicate functions.

Also if I have to quit a game to use other functionalities, ANY other devices would become a better choice. That's why the OS needs enough memory at all times, and enough reserved cores. But 1GB is huge, I don't see why they'd need more than that, for god's sake it's BSD! It's even more efficient than linux! 1GB is the new 640k