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This article also mentions them using WiFI direct:
http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/156628-how-do-the-xbox-one-and-ps4-controllers-stack-up
I don't know why they're using it, lower latency perhaps?
Technical Comparison Sony PS4 and Microsoft Xbox
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This article also mentions them using WiFI direct:
http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/156628-how-do-the-xbox-one-and-ps4-controllers-stack-up
I don't know why they're using it, lower latency perhaps?
The Xbox One controllers use WiFi-Direct so I suppose its possible, but I think it should also be possible to use the controller even if it is connected to the console.
They gave a number for latency improvement when Geoff Knightley did his tour of their campus. I think it was a 15% improvement, or something like that? It wasn't anything crazy.
Edit: There could be cost considerations. Seems like it could talk to the console over the consoles wireless networking antennae rather than having a special receiver. Maybe easier for 3rd parties to build controllers too. I don't know that much about it, but the receiver wouldn't need anything other than the ability to set up a Wifi protected connection.
Range is an interesting consideration though.
I'd missed that completely, good to see MS step back from a proprietary solution this time around. Fascinated by the choice of WiFi though, range could be one aspect it offers over BT but I thought as a higher power radio it's worse on batteries? They've already stated they have better battery life this time though so perhaps WiFi radios are just getting more efficient.
Or the battery has gotten better. They aren't going the AA route this time. It has a battery pack (removable?). They intentionally changed the placement of the battery so it's away from the top of the controller. That way you don't feel the weight as much in your hand because the weight is closer to your wrist. Could be the battery is slightly heavier, even if the controller is lighter (is it?) making that change a necessity, even though it's a good design anyway.
It's not about range, bluetooth class1 is 300ft.
Not about power either, Wifi Direct claims an improvement over old Wifi of 15% to 40% less power, that's still an order of magnitude more power than BT. But with big batteries it could become a negligible impact when you also have a rumble motor and what not.
Wifi offers a LOT more bandwidth, maybe they need it for something. There's barely 2Mbit/s of real world bandwidth available on bluetooth for the sum of all connected devices on the same master, with headsets into controllers and multiple players it could become an issue.
Or there's a feature we don't know about the controller?
arijoytunir
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what is wifi radio stack mentioned at the conference ?
Well, each one supports 5.1 channel audio out of the headset port. That could add up with multiple controllers.
Sony's Gaikai ambitious detailed in February and Microsoft's game streaming plans described in the 2010 strategy doc both imply eventual Remote Play functionality to PCs, tablets and phones. As long as you can implement proper controls at the client end it's a pretty obvious extension of the built in video streaming capabilities of both systems. Vita is only the most obvious candidate, but you could see any tablet synced with a DS4 or any PC with an Xbox One controller should work just as well. I was thinking pre-reveal we could even see forward compatibility features announced where any PS3 or 360 on the same network as the successor could be used as a Remote Play client.
It still supports AA batteries. No word on rechargeables yet....
http://kotaku.com/the-tiny-cool-details-of-the-new-xbox-one-controller-509188976
Tommy McClain
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Strange, seems far more logical to use WiFi direct for SmartGlass (which they seem to be betting pretty hard on - rumor is some form of support may be mandatory for games)
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Can't they use it for both SmartGlass devices and the controllers?
The One has 3 WiFi n radios so yeah, WiFi-Direct will be used for both controllers and SmartGlass devices.
Sony talked about it, but it seems they meant mechanical precision, not numerical precision. They removed the center "slack" and removed the programmed dead zone. Guerilla Games said it "feels" much more precise.
Looking at the xbox motherboard, I was surprised how far away the memory chips are from the main SoC using 3 sides. That makes the area (SoC+Memory) fairly large. I think it's because DDR3 requires "trace length matching" and you can see it on the high resolution shot.
http://images.anandtech.com/doci/6972/20130514-XBOX-ONE-TEARDOWN-015.jpg
I think the PS4's motherboard could be less expensive and require a much smaller footprint for the GDDR5 memory, first because it needs the area of half the number of chips (clamshell puts two chips on top of the other), but also because GDDR5 doesn't need trace length matching.
It wouldn't take more space than a 256bit GDDR5 GPU:
http://www.ixbt.com/video3/images/sapphire-23/sapphire-7870-scan-front.jpg
http://images.anandtech.com/doci/6972/20130514-XBOX-ONE-TEARDOWN-015.jpg
I think the PS4's motherboard could be less expensive and require a much smaller footprint for the GDDR5 memory, first because it needs the area of half the number of chips (clamshell puts two chips on top of the other), but also because GDDR5 doesn't need trace length matching.
It wouldn't take more space than a 256bit GDDR5 GPU:
http://www.ixbt.com/video3/images/sapphire-23/sapphire-7870-scan-front.jpg
What about heat? is GDDR5 "hotter" than DDR3?
Yes but that doesn't affect the layout, just needs some air to flow over the chips, which I think is the reason the console wasn't being shown, it had to be redesigned at the last minute (they presumably added chips on the underside when they moved to 8GB, air then must move under the board). The biggest size issue will be the heatsink design for the SoC, which I'm pretty sure will be a flat centrifugal design, not a "tower" like the xbox.
My theory is that when they dropped the speed from 192 to 176, it had nothing to do with the move to 8GB, it was to move from 1.5V to 1.35V. The lower power could make the difference between needing a heatsink on the chips or leaving them bare.
They could be using the Hynix H5GC4H24MFR-T3C which is the fastest 1.35V part available now (according to hynix it's full production Q2'2013). Magically it's also exactly 176GB/s
BTW, I'm just saying the motherboard itself would cost less... GDDR5 still suffers from the "chips-are-horrifically-expensive" problem. But each little bit of money saved left and right can make the cost difference less dramatic.
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