Sony not launching PS4

[DJ-Daz]

I've read on several blogs today that one of the big (only?) three console manufacturers are not launching a new console, or rather completely skipping the next (new) gen.

Microsoft are already working on the 720 (another rumour) and Nintendo are ramping up for the next Wii and tablet controller, so that leaves only one... Sony.

The reasoning isn't so far out of whack either. The PlayStation 3 only started making money last year, just before the massive downtime after the hack. Vita sales are tanking (well not really, but the PSP still managed to match sales, but it's early days yet), even Japan has started to cut Vita prices.

But like I said, it's still early days and everything you read here is still just a rumour.

Personally I think it's all bollocks, or just a scam to get some information from Sony about the Ps4

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/Gaikai-Sony ... 13858.html
http://electronictheatre.co.uk/industry ... ims-gaikai

[InfiniteStates]

Rumour - certainly. Bullshit - maybe?

http://kotaku.com/5896996/the-next-play ... he-details

[Killzone_Kid]

Orbis...sounds like a chewing gum. For healthier teeth always chew Orbis!

[Symonator]

inevitably a new ps system will come out, let's hope it does ditch the current processor and it's all good.
A mainstream cpu with decent gfx output will own all this current gen.

[InfiniteStates]

Fuck having to register games online though. Especially if it does that check every time you start it up. When Sony inevitably fuck up their network again, all your games will be rendered useless...

[DJ-Daz]

Dont you just fucking hate the rumour mill sometimes? A few months ago they said they aren't even considering a new console yet, and now said console has been in development for 2 years.
Now Sony are adamant they'll launch the next gen first.
http://www.vg247.com/2012/04/02/playsta ... 0-release/

It had better have some amazing amount of RAM and proper VOIP this time.
2GB of RAM MINIMUM! 128mb reserved for Voip.
1080p on ALL games with good AS filtering and AA.

[InfiniteStates]

More to the point, it better not cost me £0.5k on release...

[theENIGMATRON]

More to the point, it better not cost me £0.5k on release...

Of Course, with a Slim costing around £200 - £250

You have to double that Figure for a Better and LATEST unit

[DJ-Daz]

In all honesty the CPU/GPU they are using is less than £200 right now.
Add a mobo, ram, blue-ray and the price jumps to around £300 per unit, and thats retail not cost price.

Ram: 2GB@ £10.00
HDD 1TB @ £93.00
CPU unknown AMD, my guess is at least quad core. AMD quad core 3.0ghz @ £97.00
GPU again unknown AMD. A guesstimate of Nvidia 550GTX (Very good card)@ £110.00
Mobo £50.00
total price today: £360.00
By launch day that should drop at least £100 due to fast moving CPU/GPU markets.

As for blu-ray, I'm sure Sony can make them for less than a tenner each (£10.00)


I want to know what happens to the cell cpu factory Sony just bought? If they knew they were dropping Risc and going Cisc (X86) why bother buying the factory, it only helps current production values?

[DJ-Daz]

Oh yes and Sony take my advice...DON NOT PUT THE PSU INSIDE THE MACHINE!

[InfiniteStates]

More to the point, it better not cost me £0.5k on release...

Of Course, with a Slim costing around £200 - £250

You have to double that Figure for a Better and LATEST unit

I'm just going off the £500 it cost me to have a 60gb fat and HDMI cable on launch day. It did come with Resistance, Motorstorm and some other shit though, so that's at least £80 worth.

[chrisdfa1]

will definately be at E3 next year to compete with the next xbox.
considering developers have hired people for - next gen development already!

[Symonator]

if they use a proper cpu they should be fairly cheap overall, it will be a mini pc really, usual cpu, decent gfx card, standard motherboard, etc.. not going to cost alot since it's already been made for pc's no doubt.

[DJ-Daz]

Hardware rumours are being thrown around today like yesterdays snowballs, tomorrow it'll all change no doubt.

CPU: AMD - We knew that already. A8-3850 2.9ghz Quad core with a APU-HD 6550D.

GPU: Radeon 7670

If this is true and there's no reason to think otherwise right now, it promises to be slightly better than the Xbox 720 (but that can all change at anytime).

The fact that both manufacturers are using off the shelf parts means that specs can change at anytime, and it wont affect developers too much.

If you also think that these hardware specs are middle of the road and wont be that good in 18months time, think again. Windows is recource intense, and even while playing games it still uses CPU/GPU cycles. Take away windows and create a dedicated gaming OS and this hardware suddenly has more power to spare. One major bonus of this hardware combo though... both graphics chips (the one integrated on the CPU and the dedicated GPU) will be able to work in parallel, meaning even more of a performance boost.

Also like I said above, change the CPU/GPU at anytime in the next 12 months and performance will improve without causing devs too much hassle.

Personally I cant wait to play ALL future games at 1920x1080p


Now for a question at InfiniteStates:
can you give us some solid info on how higher resolution games are more expensive to produce?

[InfiniteStates]

... both graphics chips (the one integrated on the CPU and the dedicated GPU) will be able to work in parallel, meaning even more of a performance boost.

To a degree - not every task lends itself to parallelisation. Take something like anti-aliasing for instance. You could run separate chunks of the frame buffer through separate threads, but then you would need a second pass around the chunk seams to anti-alias the chunks back together. Else you'd get aliased lines where the frame buffer had been divided.

Now for a question at InfiniteStates:
can you give us some solid info on how higher resolution games are more expensive to produce?

Sure, simple answer - art.

In coding terms it makes very little difference. Just change the numbers you plug in to certain parameters.

Take a couple of extreme examples, with made up but reasonable numbers...

Elite. Everyone's favourite original space shooter. Maybe 32 or 64 polys in a ship. Probably took an artist a day to make each...? Maybe a 64x64 or 128x128 texture takes maybe 2 or 3 days. Call it 5 days per ship.

The Last of Us. Naughty Dog's graphic power house. Maybe 100,000 polys per character? Plus no doubt multiple 1024x1024 (if not bigger) texture sheets. Maybe 2 or 3 months per character.

Note, animation is not factored in in either case as it is resolution independent. But you can see from the two extremes that to populate Elite with 5 ships will take you, say, 25 days. Where as to populate The Last of Us with 5 different characters you are looking at 15 months.

So suddenly your wage bill has jumped 15 fold. Whether you hire more artists to reduce the production time only adds to the cost as you need a bigger office and more PCs.