It shouldn't be a huge deal , don't the server cell chips use ddr ram ?
Also a split pool of 512 megs and 2 gigs would work well I'd say for a ps4.
PS4 to be based on Cell?
- Thread starter tuna
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It shouldn't be a huge deal , don't the server cell chips use ddr ram ?
Also a split pool of 512 megs and 2 gigs would work well I'd say for a ps4.
I can't remember literal 10 year lifecycles ever having been discussed. I must not have been around. Sony has always talked about the 10 year lifecycle that a console has in terms of first party games support, manufacturing etc. This has been true for 20 years now, and everything about the PS3 seems to suggest that this won't change - in fact, one of the reason why it has had trouble competing early on is because it is even more built for a 10 year lifespan than any of the previous playstations (with default BluRay and HDD - the importance of RAM actually becomes less over the years as PC ports become less common - at least that's what it used to be like).
And if Nintendo and Microsoft have shown anything, it's that software (and services) matter more than anything else, and that hardware innovation doesn't have to mean better performance.
Five years in the prime-time I think is a good lifespan for console hardware.
For now I'm still perfectly happy with the PS3 - right now we're starting to see the software that makes use of the console in the way it was designed to be used.
And the machine still has to hit $299, let alone $199!
I don't envy those in charge of the next-next-gen though, it's going to be tough to determine the right hardware.
And if Nintendo and Microsoft have shown anything, it's that software (and services) matter more than anything else, and that hardware innovation doesn't have to mean better performance.
Five years in the prime-time I think is a good lifespan for console hardware.
For now I'm still perfectly happy with the PS3 - right now we're starting to see the software that makes use of the console in the way it was designed to be used.
And the machine still has to hit $299, let alone $199!
I don't envy those in charge of the next-next-gen though, it's going to be tough to determine the right hardware.
Hi deer moderators
wouldit be possible to paste here some of the posts of the "predict the nextgen..." thread here.
It's difficult to keep track of the conversation as different opinions are spread among those two threads.
Mod Note: Merge Complete. /Starcraft Archon
I have no idea if this rumor is true or not, though it (unfortunately) makes kind of sense,
I imagine PS4 will be equipped with a more powerful GPU and an improved CELL. Too bad a 2011 GPU coupled with CELL doesn't make any sense, but that's the price you have to pay when you make so many mistakes in the first place.
If Sony is going along this route for real I see MS doing exactly the same: they can 'just' add out of order execution to Xenon (and perhaps remove a core..) and replace Xenos with an improved version (more ALUs/TMUs) or a more modern GPU. Though having OOOE is probably a pipe dream, they will just add a few cores.
I imagine PS4 will be equipped with a more powerful GPU and an improved CELL. Too bad a 2011 GPU coupled with CELL doesn't make any sense, but that's the price you have to pay when you make so many mistakes in the first place.
If Sony is going along this route for real I see MS doing exactly the same: they can 'just' add out of order execution to Xenon (and perhaps remove a core..) and replace Xenos with an improved version (more ALUs/TMUs) or a more modern GPU. Though having OOOE is probably a pipe dream, they will just add a few cores.
If this is true, Sony will be pulling an MS, basically killing a product early to stop the bleeding and restart "fresh". If they launch in 2011 with a 2x PS3, will it be enough to differentiate itself from 360? 2x PS3 is pretty powerful but we all know that mass consumers don't care about graphics they care about price. At that period, there is no doubt 360 will be around $99-129.
If this is Sony's plan, I am not so sure MS has to do a fully upgraded next-gen box but follow suit. Make a 2-4x powerful 360, built-in BD drive, wireless, massive hdd, BC and release it for no more than $299. Maybe in 2011 as well. MS won't let Sony beat them to punch.
If both are true, I am all for it as long as 1080p is standard def.
If this is Sony's plan, I am not so sure MS has to do a fully upgraded next-gen box but follow suit. Make a 2-4x powerful 360, built-in BD drive, wireless, massive hdd, BC and release it for no more than $299. Maybe in 2011 as well. MS won't let Sony beat them to punch.
If both are true, I am all for it as long as 1080p is standard def.
I hope this isnt true. I always have high expectations for each of Sony's new consoles.
From all the consoles in the market back in the 90's, PS1 to me looked like a breakthrough. Sega wasnt planning for a console with dedicated 3D capabilities at the beginning, Jaguar and 3D0 simply did not deliver, and the N64 came late and it wasnt using CDs. Ironically the PS1 managed to come up with visuals that competed the N64.
Then Sony announces the PS2 and God it was a beast. The tech demos made me crazy. The console then gets released and reaches my expectations. I have recently been playing some Dreamcast games and the difference between the PS2 and the DC truly shows. In terms of polygons, lighting and physics the PS2 had an edge over it easily. Tekken Tag Tournament still amazes me like nothing on the DC and it is surprisingly close visually to todays's fighting games.
Then I was expecting something similar with the PS3. News about Cell starting from 2001 were intriguing. Just by knowing that Sony along with Toshiba and IBM would have been working for something powerful and different for years, increased expectations. And news about Blu Ray in the console were appearing probably a couple of years before the console's release. Everything looked awesome. Unfortunately though something went wrong. And I believe it is the fact that the HD market came late. The unproven and very new Blu Ray technology gets in the PS3, and suddenly it increases costs too much. This is not like what the DVD drives were in 2000. Sony back then found a cheap and efficient solution for the PS2. This couldnt happen with the BR. Sacrifices had to be made. And I bet they were made in performance. If Blu Ray was older and cheaper, we might have seen a performance difference that we have seen between the PS2 and XBOX, considering that the console came a year late
From all the consoles in the market back in the 90's, PS1 to me looked like a breakthrough. Sega wasnt planning for a console with dedicated 3D capabilities at the beginning, Jaguar and 3D0 simply did not deliver, and the N64 came late and it wasnt using CDs. Ironically the PS1 managed to come up with visuals that competed the N64.
Then Sony announces the PS2 and God it was a beast. The tech demos made me crazy. The console then gets released and reaches my expectations. I have recently been playing some Dreamcast games and the difference between the PS2 and the DC truly shows. In terms of polygons, lighting and physics the PS2 had an edge over it easily. Tekken Tag Tournament still amazes me like nothing on the DC and it is surprisingly close visually to todays's fighting games.
Then I was expecting something similar with the PS3. News about Cell starting from 2001 were intriguing. Just by knowing that Sony along with Toshiba and IBM would have been working for something powerful and different for years, increased expectations. And news about Blu Ray in the console were appearing probably a couple of years before the console's release. Everything looked awesome. Unfortunately though something went wrong. And I believe it is the fact that the HD market came late. The unproven and very new Blu Ray technology gets in the PS3, and suddenly it increases costs too much. This is not like what the DVD drives were in 2000. Sony back then found a cheap and efficient solution for the PS2. This couldnt happen with the BR. Sacrifices had to be made. And I bet they were made in performance. If Blu Ray was older and cheaper, we might have seen a performance difference that we have seen between the PS2 and XBOX, considering that the console came a year late
Betanumerical
Veteran
Mostly agree with you; however Sony has really fallen behind this gen due to super high price of entry. Pretty sure their stockholders agree as well and would not accept another $600 PS4. I think the age of where succeeding consoles are massively more powerful than the last may be at an end... at least for the next-gen that is.
I'd say Ken was one of the main reasons for that in the past...
I don't think Sony is ditching the PS3 so soon. Even being at 3rd place the system is far more successful then the Xbox 1 and GC. It will easily pass the 30 million mark LTD and if continue support grows I don't see why it should stop. The PS3 still has a shot at 2nd place if they stick with the 10 year plan. They are at a point where the system is about to break even and Stringer said they are making more money off of software then losses on hardware. If they can speed up the process on die shrinks we can see a 300 PS3(incredible value) sooner then later. Demand will stay up and Sony may incur no losses.
2011 is the right time to release the PS4. 5-6 years has been their memo since the PS1 launched. And the PS3 will still be around. It's there to be the cost absorber if Sony plans to sell the PS4 at an initial but affordable lost since they are cheaping out on new technology.
2011 is the right time to release the PS4. 5-6 years has been their memo since the PS1 launched. And the PS3 will still be around. It's there to be the cost absorber if Sony plans to sell the PS4 at an initial but affordable lost since they are cheaping out on new technology.
What exactly would be Sony's strategy with this PS3.5? Wii only works because Nintendo packaged it with an appealing controller, appealing titles, sold it 'cheap' and marketed it Lifestyle. If Wii was Gamecube 1.5 with no fancy controller change and the same old marketing, it'd have flunked. And now PS3.5 can't Lifestyle market themselves into the strongpoint Nintendo has because Nintendo were first with that punch.
If PS3.5 isn't far enough ahead of PS3 in specs, they won't sell to the hardcore. If it doesn't have a paradigm-shift controller it won't compete in unique titles. Basically, there's nothing they could do with a PS3.5 in 2011 and they couldn't do with PS3 except a lot cheaper and at lower fidelity.
Basically, what would be the USP of PS4? 'It's PS3 with better graphics'?
If PS3.5 isn't far enough ahead of PS3 in specs, they won't sell to the hardcore. If it doesn't have a paradigm-shift controller it won't compete in unique titles. Basically, there's nothing they could do with a PS3.5 in 2011 and they couldn't do with PS3 except a lot cheaper and at lower fidelity.
Basically, what would be the USP of PS4? 'It's PS3 with better graphics'?
With how vauge the rumor is it is hard to say... if they change the memory controller, what else? How will they approach just shy of 2x performance without significantly ramping up the frequency? Seems like adding some more trannies makes sense, in which case why not the 1 TFLOPs Cell (2 PPE / 32 SPE) on 45nm IBM has slotted for 2010? That should hit 32nm by 2012 you would think, giving Sony some price mobility quite quickly and a chip like that would be, what, roughly half the size of the 90nm PS3 Cell in area (90nm vs. 32nm)? Time will tell, but as an enthusiest I hope we see at least 1 console take technology pretty seriously and I think this gen shows there is a market for early adopters who buy a lot of games and who want pretty graphics
Who knows if the Wii success could be repeated?
Don't a lot of Wii casuals just buy a couple of games, usually Nintendo while the 3rd-parties bring little to the table?
And it seems a lot of hardcore gamers bought into the Wii but have gotten over it?
If people didn't care enough about graphics to get the Wii in the first place, why would a Wii2 with better graphics sway these people?
As for the PS4, an incremental upgrade over the PS3 could be okay if they are able to deliver a lower launch price like no more than $399. That incremental upgrade could be 2 GB of RAM, bigger HDD, faster optical drive, much better GPU.
Also the idea of keeping the same power envelope is attractive. If they could shrink down the Cell and minimize fan noise (a lot of PS3 sales went to HT enthusiasts), it would be a good differentiator.
Don't a lot of Wii casuals just buy a couple of games, usually Nintendo while the 3rd-parties bring little to the table?
And it seems a lot of hardcore gamers bought into the Wii but have gotten over it?
If people didn't care enough about graphics to get the Wii in the first place, why would a Wii2 with better graphics sway these people?
As for the PS4, an incremental upgrade over the PS3 could be okay if they are able to deliver a lower launch price like no more than $399. That incremental upgrade could be 2 GB of RAM, bigger HDD, faster optical drive, much better GPU.
Also the idea of keeping the same power envelope is attractive. If they could shrink down the Cell and minimize fan noise (a lot of PS3 sales went to HT enthusiasts), it would be a good differentiator.
Actually, there are quite a few areas for them to pan out even based on just PS3 (let alone PS4). I agree from business perspective that it probably makes the most sense continuing the Cell lineage. They (Toshiba and Sony) will need more time to put Cell in CEs too.
I think they should focus on system software, system architecture, applications, network services and marketing to differentiate, rather than banging on just the CPU. They will need to make sure developers' concerns on Cell's limitations are addressed though. The rest of the resources can be spent on other aspects.
Sort of...I've always argued that the primary purpose of PS3 was to make blu-ray the next standard format. It has done that, so it's purpose is fulfilled. As a game console though, it is a failure. I don't mean that from a point of 'do people like the games', I mean from a business point of view. It's a money loser and always will be, and it has been a loser with developers. With blu-ray having won, they now need to cut their loses and launch a new machine asap both to stop the financial bleeding, and also to try to win back the developer community which for all intents and purposes has made the Xbox 360 the standard development platform. The PS3 is at a permanent financial and development handicap with no hope of changing that, so it's time to move on. Also, if MS were to launch a year before them at $299 with a Halo launch title, Sony would be in big trouble. They can't afford to let MS launch a year early next time, they have no choice but to launch at the same time.
I've been arguing that $299 is where the new machines should launch, a point which has mostly met with scorn here. But I believe it's the right thing to do, combined with a name brand launch title. Further, I still don't believe that having an hdd standard is required. I'm repeating myself from one of my older posts, but I think they can make hdd optional, and provide a bit of standard flash memory for game loading optimizations.
It's all stuff I've posted before, but it's worth repeating. Cost is king. Game development costs are likely to go up again next gen, so we need the next consoles to be adopted faster than the current ones just to make up the dev cost gap. Launching at $399/$499 to me makes no sense, it just means that some developers will wait on the sidelines and stick with the current gen instead of risking making games for new platforms that people won't buy, because they will be waiting out for price drops.
Wow Deadmeat is running again
That Hiroshige Goto article is a filler type he usually inserts between articles about mainstream PC parts based on analysts meetings, which means it's 99% speculation at Goto's side. As for his recent hit rate, do you remember Goto insisted G80 would not use unified shader? I don't put much faith in his speculation and leak-based articles, I would omit most of his speculation when translating and summarizing his articles (By the way I heard he doesn't like his articles translated as Chinese web sites used to "borrow" his articles ripped off of his signature). If I did that for this particular article, there would be a few sentences left, and probably not new info for most of you, so I didn't pay much attention this time. It's not that Goto is a bad journalist, but sometimes he goes too far and mixes hard info and speculation. His style certainly makes his articles fascinating for some.
Anyway
is a complete bogus. The article uses "it is said that..." or "allegedly" and no more details are mentioned about his sources and such. He writes them as a certain kind of rumors.
To clarify what are in this article,
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2008/0929/kaigai469.htm
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tongue_of_colicab
Veteran
Maybe a stupid comment, but what I remember of it sony has since the early days of ps3 development always been saying that they also wanted to use cell for their next products. If im right later they also said that ps3 now might be a bit hard to work on but that it should be a advantage in the future as their next console would also use it thus giving it a advantage over what nintendo and ms would do as they keep changing architectures (well, Nintendo didnt it this case, but I suspect they will have to for wii2).
"What the hell !?" at OP (first translation). Thanks, one.
But count my vote for Cell... as long as they address the limitations. They can gain extra mileage by sticking with it as a platform. Toshiba and Sony's work in Cell CE are not done yet. If they choose something else, it probably means that the new CPU has an amazing breakthrough in bang/buck ratio.
But count my vote for Cell... as long as they address the limitations. They can gain extra mileage by sticking with it as a platform. Toshiba and Sony's work in Cell CE are not done yet. If they choose something else, it probably means that the new CPU has an amazing breakthrough in bang/buck ratio.
I fail to see the logic in that. Ive argued the opposite of this for a while now. IMO, The fact it has blue ray and other great components should future proof the console over the 360. They have all the power and features to make good of the PS3. The only thing holding them back is software and machine price (Which a new console launch wont fix). I mean even the Wii2 prob wont have more power than the PS3. So why not work on building the PS3 brand and getting price down and software up, and let the PS3 compete with Wii2.
Or if its purely a marketing / branding issue then....
Is their gravitas in trying to rebrand the image of playstation? Surely if they were going to do this, the best thing they could do is make an entirely new games station brand and format for the casual market (competing with Wii2). Continue the Playstation 3 as the hardcore brand which will eventually scale down in to the mainstream ps2 audience as before. Then have two games brands running side by side for two sets of audience?
Where is the value in capping the PS3 life, screwing the devs, and the people who invested in PS3 who were promised a system that would future proof them. Just to release another console that isnt far removed from the capability of the PS3 based in the same tech (Cell). That is surely commercial suicide?
just my thoughts though
I agree that this is pure hyperbole speculation, it seems that article writers aka bloggers tend to use certain events during slow news months to generate hits for their web sites.
That said, it is fair to possibly have a negative outlook on PS3 with a PS4 being something that could happen sooner than expected because of recent events in Japan with XBox 360 hosting almost all of the "current gen" RPGs and its starting to reflect in Japan sales.
Sony seems to unlike Nintendo, made a console for the hardcore gamer and the hardcore game developer in the PS3, more so than Microsoft did with the Xbox 360 because when you boil things down, it won't take a colorful glowing article about Xbox 360's capabilities to know how limited it is by its API and how PS3 will always be a much more efficient use of game taking advantage of console hardware.
However it seems the hardcore gamer that the PS3 was targeting, the same "so called hardcore gamers" who were paying over $1000+ for PS2s in 2000 and well over that ammount for Xbox 360s in 2005 have basically turned their backs on Sony with their slow adoption and price complaints or just dropping Sony in favor of Microsoft and then there is the Nintendo casual factor just making a mockery of high technology and progress.
So basically graphics whores, tech spec geeks, and progressive futurists for consoles better not get all angry and mad and puffy faced once Sony releases the PS4Wii with casual games at 99%
One thing that seems left out though is that there was a recent article talking about IBM jumping Intel over chip engineering fabricating process with a hint of Cell BE being that chip that IBM wants to make into 22nm so it does lend credibility that one day a multi core Cell BE would be made for...
The challenge of Intel Larrabee and their intentions of offering it to Microsoft as another rumor that got on the interwebs and makes sense since Intel want a way to spread their chips everywhere.
That said, it is fair to possibly have a negative outlook on PS3 with a PS4 being something that could happen sooner than expected because of recent events in Japan with XBox 360 hosting almost all of the "current gen" RPGs and its starting to reflect in Japan sales.
Sony seems to unlike Nintendo, made a console for the hardcore gamer and the hardcore game developer in the PS3, more so than Microsoft did with the Xbox 360 because when you boil things down, it won't take a colorful glowing article about Xbox 360's capabilities to know how limited it is by its API and how PS3 will always be a much more efficient use of game taking advantage of console hardware.
However it seems the hardcore gamer that the PS3 was targeting, the same "so called hardcore gamers" who were paying over $1000+ for PS2s in 2000 and well over that ammount for Xbox 360s in 2005 have basically turned their backs on Sony with their slow adoption and price complaints or just dropping Sony in favor of Microsoft and then there is the Nintendo casual factor just making a mockery of high technology and progress.
So basically graphics whores, tech spec geeks, and progressive futurists for consoles better not get all angry and mad and puffy faced once Sony releases the PS4Wii with casual games at 99%
One thing that seems left out though is that there was a recent article talking about IBM jumping Intel over chip engineering fabricating process with a hint of Cell BE being that chip that IBM wants to make into 22nm so it does lend credibility that one day a multi core Cell BE would be made for...
The challenge of Intel Larrabee and their intentions of offering it to Microsoft as another rumor that got on the interwebs and makes sense since Intel want a way to spread their chips everywhere.
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