The clock is ticking - PS4

[InfiniteStates]

Sounds like Sony won't be beaten to market next generation...

The successor to the PlayStation 3 is currently in development, Sony confirmed during the company's investor meeting today.

Executive vice president and chief financial officer Masaru Kato was asked to explain the rising research and development costs for the company's fiscal year. "In the game segment, we have the NGP to launch later this year. So we have development expenses to be incurred for this product," he explained.

"For the home console, the PS3 still has a product life, but this is a platform business, so for the future platform - when we will introduce the product I cannot discuss - but development work is underway, so the costs are incurred there."

Nintendo recently announced plans to reveal its new console at E3 next month, with a full product release in 2012. Meanwhile, Microsoft began hiring for its "next generation console" this past March.

[InfiniteStates]

LOL at this guy's comment to the above story:

I don't think one kidney won't do it this time. Two or maybe three. I'm not that stupid I know that we only have two, but I didn't say they had to be mine.

By the way, I'm looking for new friendships, blood type AB+ and 0- preferably.Also not being inmune to chloroform is a plus.

[Astro]

LOL at this guy's comment to the above story:

I don't think one kidney won't do it this time. Two or maybe three. I'm not that stupid I know that we only have two, but I didn't say they had to be mine.

By the way, I'm looking for new friendships, blood type AB+ and 0- preferably.Also not being inmune to chloroform is a plus.

lol.

[Symonator]

[DJ-Daz]

LOL at this guy's comment to the above story:

I don't think one kidney won't do it this time. Two or maybe three. I'm not that stupid I know that we only have two, but I didn't say they had to be mine.

By the way, I'm looking for new friendships, blood type AB+ and 0- preferably.Also not being inmune to chloroform is a plus.

So that rules out a night at a hotel at Eurogamer then.

[YorkshirePud]

FFS been moaning about it on my blog today, PS3 hasnt been out long enough IMHO

awaits flaming

[DJ-Daz]

As Dave has said a few times before, the PS2-ps3 has a 10 year life cycle, and the PS2 hit that mark late last year, so the PS3 is due for a successor within the next two - three years.

So Yorkshire, there still life in the old dog yet.

I am curious to know the hardware details though, dual Cell processors? High-end GPU? 1+ gig of Ram? Most importantly absolute backwards compatability throughout? Decent soldering?

It's a given that the blu-ray will be staying, but what about the HDD, will it go solid state?

[InfiniteStates]

^Yeah don't worry Pud - it will be in development for a good few years yet. I'm glad to see they seem to be ahead of M$ for the next gen though.

[DJ-Daz]

I think sony would have still been behind MS, but not by much, if you remember they had problems with Blu-Ray development.


Side question, has anyone installed a solid state HDD in their PS3 yet?

[YorkshirePud]

what pissed me off was crytek moaning we NEED MOAR MEMORY ffs has anyone seen crysis 2? its gorgeous! i dont give a shit what the PC brigade say about lowering the graphics for the console version they did a good job

remember what they squeezed from the PS1 with Gran Turismo 1 and 2? apply some hard craft and you can make that black box perform miracles.

best get saving now for the PS4, shitty name though can we have something more snappy?

Playstation Delta.

hmmm i like.....

[DaZzy_94]

All depends on microsoft tbh. I think 2(maybe 3?) years time we will be close to the ps4.

But you could say that theres a 10year cycle. Wasnt the ps3 released during the ps2's 8th year?

[DJ-Daz]

i've been reading a lot about the PS4, and it's all rumour and speculation.
But apparently the NGP is rumoured to have had it's available RAM cut by half, from 512mb to 256mb, and thats just a toy. If the cost cutting is anywhere near as severe with the PS4, it could be the death rattle of the playstation.

The biggest problem with the PS3 launch was the blu-ray drive, it took sony over 12 months to manufacture enough to launch the PS3, giving the Xbox 360 a major lead... a lead that the PS3 is cutting into daily.

But it's not all bad!

The IBM/Sony Cell CPU is a bit of a beast, and it's fully scalable, so if IBM can make them a little smaller, and cut the heat, you could easily have 2 or 3 of them in the next Playstation.

Sony will almost certainly be using the existing blu-ray drive too, so no development costs there.

The only part of the PS4 that will incur cost is the Graphics chip. As long as sony stick with NVIDIA, then backwards compatabilty should also be assured. Thats IF Sony stick with upgrades rather than new technology.

Some people think that new technology is paramaount, it is'nt! look at the Xbox 360, Microsoft didn't need to add an entire Xbox PCB to the the 360 to make it backwards compatible, it's done in software and existing hardware... the 360 is basically an upgrade from the original Xbox.

So in theory Sony can cut development costs and street prices just by adding upgrades. One or two more cell processors, one gigabyte of system ram, same for GPU ram, a new HDD and it's all good.

[Symonator]

i think we will see minimum 1gb and possibly 2gb of ram in the next gen, this 512 overall is no good for games like battlefield or intense on screen action games.

[DJ-Daz]

i think we will see minimum 1gb and possibly 2gb of ram in the next gen, this 512 overall is no good for games like battlefield or intense on screen action games.

+1 there's too much "streaming" going on now, black ops, MoH, Uncharted 2, BFBC2 to a lesser extent, and BF3. Sure it helps improve the games look, but it will kill blu-ray drives dead.

[Symonator]

yeah black ops crunching from disc wasn't good.