Interesting that while Microsoft and now Google are building platforms that are de-emphasizing local hardware, Sony recognizes this as an opportunity to differentiate by focusing on how great their box is. Their was a passing reference to a "cloud strategy", but there hasn't been as much evidence as their competitors.
This will wind up making for the most interesting console generation since the 32/64 bit era, since the platform differences go beyond hardware specs and release date. M/G's platform/subscription approach seems to be more in line with where the world is going, but remains to be seen if the timing's right.
To be fair: Microsoft has the most powerful "local hardware" out there right now, with the One X. Though, having both a One X and a PS4P, while multiplatform games like RDR2 definitely look better on the One X, there are some games (like GoW or HZD) that, to my eye, look better than anything the One X has. Their rumored next-gen hardware (keyword is Project Scarlett) has two rumored consoles codenamed Lockhart and Anaconda, which aims to bring One X performance to a lower price point, and introduce a new console even more powerful than the One X.
In other words, they aren't giving up on local hardware; Microsoft is big enough to do both.
More opinionated point here, but I really think this current generation will go down in history as the most interesting console generation of all time. Its the first generation that's felt like every player is just innovating their fucking heart out and truly pushing what consoles are capable of, while simultaneously releasing literally the highest quality games ever made during any generation. We're in a golden age right now.
With Stadia and, honestly, Apple Arcade kind of competing in the "next generation" of consoles, there are more players than ever, but the narrative will still be driven by Sony and Nintendo. American tech companies get a lot of mindshare, but the reality is that every single Playstation couch console has outsold every single Xbox console, even if you compare cross-generation. PSN is the world's most active gaming community. The reason is the Games. American tech companies get SO DISTRACTED by all this technology and value add services, but American companies just don't get the games right, especially this generation. Stadia can throw money at the problem, but Microsoft has been doing that for years and all they've ended up with is their Three Big Studios (343, The Coalition, Turn10/Playground). Compared to the breadth and more importantly quality of Sony's and Nintendo's studios, the attempt isn't enough. Stadia just can't enter at the 11th hour and expect to do better.
Great to see we're finally getting an SSD by default in consoles. The only thing I'm worried about with this is the fact that high capacity SSDs are more expensive and with a push towards more digital storefronts, I'm wondering how this will work for the users. Then again, it's also a wonderful chance to push streaming, so there is that too.
For a read heavy environment, QLC SSDs should be fine. Sony can probably get the raw QLC flash at something like $.05/GB by next year. They also will have less returns due to damaged consoles, as magnetic HD are by far the most delicate part of the system.
I think consoles are a perfect fit for a fusion drive like in some Apple models. I have tons of games on my Xbox that I'm not going to play any time soon, but don't want to delete. They can be swapped to the hard disk, while games I play more often get loaded onto a smaller SSD.
My guess is that they'll use technology like Apple uses that allows the base game to be downloaded and upcoming assets to be streamed in as needed (and no longer needed assets to be gotten rid of).
The Apple TV does some really interesting stuff with how it manages large games and files. Too bad it doesn't ship with a controller.
not to mention vendors typically sell the hardware at a loss (or at least they used to), and make up those losses via higher margins on content and service sales. I'd be curious to know if that's still the case.
VR can be bandwidth intensive. VR immersive-gaming low-end headsets are 60 fps, and high-end are 90 fps. And I've been told 120 fps is a noticeable "like butter" improvement on 90 fps. So a 8K@30 might mean 4K@120.
VR lenses piss away pixels. With a current 1440x1440/eye, you might get only a ~500 pixel circle of crisply clear pixels. So if you want screen-comparable resolution you're all set now... if that screen is a 1980's VGA IBM PC. With this wastage, 5K/eye might let you render virtual 1080p screens.
A headset providing both wide fov and this year's "high" resolution would be about 4K/eye. And I'm thinking about modding a narrow-fov drone headset (less lens blur) with two 4K panels, because I'm tired of waiting for the game-focused VR HMD market to get around to screen-comparable resolution.
"But won't 8K require an insane graphics card?" No. The old generation of VR headsets was doing brute force. Foveated rendering greatly reduces GPU load. And frankly, even without it, I've run a VR desktop (non-immersive low-fps with camera-passthrough) on a WMR HMD using a crufty old laptop's integrated graphics. GPU isn't a blocker for higher resolution HMDs.
Interesting to see how/if the cable companies respond to the resolution wars - last time I checked the only one offering 4k was DirecTV, with everyone else still at 1080
Newer stuff upscaled from 1080 generally looks fine to my increasingly middle-aged eyes, but content filmed on older cameras looks awful at 4k (Law and Order springs to mind)
The inclusion of ray tracing hardware is interesting to me, and sounds like good news to Nvidia, who has been pushing ray tracing as part of their RTX cards.
Even though this uses a custom GPU, if consoles don't support ray tracing, PC games are unlikely to be designed for it, since most games have cross platform releases.
It's also interesting to me that they're supporting the existing PSVR - The new hardware will really help it have some amazing experiences, and it suggests they're decoupling their VR products from the console releases.
Ray tracing hardware being included kind of worries me actually. Unless they're selling it at a loss I can't see it being below 500 dollars with the prices of ray tracing capable cards being as high as they are.
As far as PSVR, the herculean amount of effort required to get something in the vein of backwards compatibility going between PS3 and PS4 makes me think it was designed from the ground up to work with basically everything PS4.
Is there any prediction on the future of stand-alone gaming consoles with 5G and streaming games(e.g., Google Stadia) coming soon?
While I'm not really much of a gamer now I spent a lot of my childhood playing video games and the thought of dedicated home game consoles going the way of arcades makes me sad.
I think I'll finally pick up that Switch I've been planning on...
The thing is Stadia does nothing new, StreamOn comes to mind just like pretty much every major player in the industry running their own thing, even Nvidia.
Granted: If anybody can make it work, it's gonna be Google, but I'm still quite skeptical. For many consumers network bandwidth and traffic volume are still very real issues, and there's not that much Google can do about that on a global scale, at least in the short time-frame.
Long-term they would have to roll out Google fiber on a global scale and pretty much go into the ISP business with full commitment, which I just don't see happening because Google fiber is dead.
Nice to see that Sony is still dedicated to hardware, knowing that streaming is a pipe dream in the USA, and will continue to be so in the coming years.
I’ve been on Xbox since the first Xbox. But I think I’ll switch over to PS when this one comes out!
Why? Because Xbox UI has been deteriorating from bad to completely unusable. Like infuriating! I mostly use it to watch Netflix, prime and occasionally run Kodi and media player and play CoD or some other game. Would it be possible to always have these <10 titles on startup screen? Of course no, you may get a couple of most recent ones, but then you have to navigate to apps (which must be impossible to find if you don’t know where it is), select all my apps, or games and finally find what you needed. <\rant>
8K doesn't make sense, anywhere. I'm middle-aged, and I can't at 2 meters distinguish 4K from 1080p. Nobody in the world can see the difference between 8K and 4K. It's a shameful waste of resource and ridiculous planned obsolescence.
In fact, it should probably be forbidden for wasting precious resources for no good reason.
Exactly. I would prefer they directed their budget somewhere other than graphics for this reason. The switch still plays most games at only 720p I believe, but this is more than sufficient for enjoyable games. I think 4k is a waste of memory, let alone 8k.
The more pixels you throw at font rendering, the better. It also allows for cleaner upscaling from lower resolutions. However, those two uses are needed more on computer monitors, not TVs.
You are right that most folks with 50-65" TVs at 2-3 meters don't benefit from anything higher than 1080p.
How long have consoles used almost exclusively AMD hardware? It seems like Xbox One/PS4 were the first generation this was true, is there any lock-in in this market? How many consoles are sold vs. desktops and laptops?
I wonder if the 3D Audio system will include special hardware like the PSVR which changes the sound based on the angle of your head? If so, it could be pretty awesome, as that system is incredible for increasing immersion. If not, then it's really only a minor improvement except to those with acute hearing.
Given that the current Playstation and Xbox are based on (more or less) the same AMD platform, is it reasonable to expect that the next Xbox will too (with an identical feature set)?
I wish they make it run at a stable 60fps instead. You have to have a large screen or sit close to the screen in order to benefit from 4K. I can't imagine how large or close a 8K screen needs to be for any benefit at all.
It's a nice spec to make it sound future proof, but I am guessing the ability to run at max visual settings at 4K60 will be the criterion most people will judge the GPU on.
Why? Just because the console can output at 8K doesn't mean games will. The PS3 supported 1080p output but you can probably count on one hand the number of games who rendered at that resolution.
After reading the more detailed Wired article, I can assuredly place myself in the "cautiously optimistic" car of the hype train for the PS5 (I myself own a PS4 Pro that I've been happy with).
There are a lot of solid boxes that Sony's ticking: backwards compatibility with the previous generation, sticking with physical game copies instead of moving towards a "games-as-a-service" cloud model, updates to hardware that justify the new console's number increment, releasing devkits early to get game devs on board with said hardware, etc.
That being said, as others have mentioned, the support for 8K stupifies me. As far as I understand it, 8K displays are only just now becoming commercial, and only for the highest buyers. I'd much rather have higher, consistent framerates.
Ray-tracing, I'm indifferent to. If they can make it work, great, more reflective windows and puddles for all. If not, then perhaps game devs can choose not to implement it.
Shame there will be no additional information on this at E3. Makes me wonder if they're saving their winning hand for a future round of poker, so to speak.
It appears that next year Sony will be releasing a console with similar specs to the PC I purchased last year.
One key difference being that while the PS5 will be backwards compatible with PS4 games, any PC is backwards compatible with virtually every PC game ever made.
If there's a case to be made for purchasing a next gen console instead of a gaming PC - other than artificial reasons like exclusive titles - I'd like to hear it.
Convenience? Single-minded focus? Price? Local coop? People don't want to fuck around with Windows when they play games. They want to pop in a disc and play (once the damn thing has finished installing the game and updates). 99% of my gaming is on my PC, and I really, really don't get why PC gamers are always like "Omg, but consoles are so much more inferior, why doesn't everybody just buy a PC?????" People like consoles. I'm fine with that. Why aren't you?
Not sure that Exclusive Titles is an artificial reason. Some of the best games I've experienced have been released/published by Sony and their first party studios.
The quality, story, characters, and graphically fidelity are often unrivaled by their contemporaries. God Of War(2018), Horizon Zero Dawn, the Uncharted series, and Shadow of the Colossus (remake) are some of my favorite releases of this generation. I'll gladly plunk down $400+ for their next gen console for more games like that, I don't focus on the tech specs, but rather the experience their platform provides.
>other than artificial reasons like exclusive titles - I'd like to hear it
That is literally the reason for the tech inclined, and it's not artificial. The politics behind it don't matter; if I want to play X and I can only play it on console Y, guess what I'm going to buy?
Other than that, consoles are still cheaper than building a comparable gaming rig. Not by a huge margin, but still cheaper, and people already ha e nice TVs to play on (so don't ignore the cost of a monitor.) Beyond price, the fact is that building a rig is harder than plugging in a console. I know it's not _hard_, but most people just don't want to deal with it.
I agreed with you until you got to exclusive titles. Despite Sony's past blunders like the PS3, they did good work with exclusive titles, and it's real reason to have a Playstation. Unlike Epic's exclusives, they're not just timed either. Also most if not all of Sony's back library will run on the latest PlayStation because Sony bought Gaikai years ago. Everything said, I still like PCs better than consoles, and Sony has a history of overhyping their hardware. I'd be surprised if it has good performance in 4k let alone 8k.
The ability to put in a disk and play a game without checking DRM or doing anything other than pressing start. That, and the massive advantage of not having to mess around with tuning graphics settings.
[+] [-] cjf4|7 years ago|reply
This will wind up making for the most interesting console generation since the 32/64 bit era, since the platform differences go beyond hardware specs and release date. M/G's platform/subscription approach seems to be more in line with where the world is going, but remains to be seen if the timing's right.
[+] [-] phonon|7 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaikai
https://www.playstation.com/en-us/explore/playstation-now/
[+] [-] kbody|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 013a|7 years ago|reply
In other words, they aren't giving up on local hardware; Microsoft is big enough to do both.
More opinionated point here, but I really think this current generation will go down in history as the most interesting console generation of all time. Its the first generation that's felt like every player is just innovating their fucking heart out and truly pushing what consoles are capable of, while simultaneously releasing literally the highest quality games ever made during any generation. We're in a golden age right now.
With Stadia and, honestly, Apple Arcade kind of competing in the "next generation" of consoles, there are more players than ever, but the narrative will still be driven by Sony and Nintendo. American tech companies get a lot of mindshare, but the reality is that every single Playstation couch console has outsold every single Xbox console, even if you compare cross-generation. PSN is the world's most active gaming community. The reason is the Games. American tech companies get SO DISTRACTED by all this technology and value add services, but American companies just don't get the games right, especially this generation. Stadia can throw money at the problem, but Microsoft has been doing that for years and all they've ended up with is their Three Big Studios (343, The Coalition, Turn10/Playground). Compared to the breadth and more importantly quality of Sony's and Nintendo's studios, the attempt isn't enough. Stadia just can't enter at the 11th hour and expect to do better.
[+] [-] snvzz|7 years ago|reply
[0] https://www.wired.com/story/exclusive-sony-next-gen-console/
[+] [-] atomi|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] george_perez|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tokiin|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nicoburns|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] phonon|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] foobarbazetc|7 years ago|reply
Since the console is very low on writes they can probably make these like 0.3DPWD for fairly cheap at Sony scale.
[+] [-] freehunter|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pwthornton|7 years ago|reply
The Apple TV does some really interesting stuff with how it manages large games and files. Too bad it doesn't ship with a controller.
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] save_ferris|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mncharity|7 years ago|reply
VR can be bandwidth intensive. VR immersive-gaming low-end headsets are 60 fps, and high-end are 90 fps. And I've been told 120 fps is a noticeable "like butter" improvement on 90 fps. So a 8K@30 might mean 4K@120.
VR lenses piss away pixels. With a current 1440x1440/eye, you might get only a ~500 pixel circle of crisply clear pixels. So if you want screen-comparable resolution you're all set now... if that screen is a 1980's VGA IBM PC. With this wastage, 5K/eye might let you render virtual 1080p screens.
A headset providing both wide fov and this year's "high" resolution would be about 4K/eye. And I'm thinking about modding a narrow-fov drone headset (less lens blur) with two 4K panels, because I'm tired of waiting for the game-focused VR HMD market to get around to screen-comparable resolution.
"But won't 8K require an insane graphics card?" No. The old generation of VR headsets was doing brute force. Foveated rendering greatly reduces GPU load. And frankly, even without it, I've run a VR desktop (non-immersive low-fps with camera-passthrough) on a WMR HMD using a crufty old laptop's integrated graphics. GPU isn't a blocker for higher resolution HMDs.
[+] [-] arprocter|7 years ago|reply
Newer stuff upscaled from 1080 generally looks fine to my increasingly middle-aged eyes, but content filmed on older cameras looks awful at 4k (Law and Order springs to mind)
[+] [-] e1ven|7 years ago|reply
Even though this uses a custom GPU, if consoles don't support ray tracing, PC games are unlikely to be designed for it, since most games have cross platform releases.
It's also interesting to me that they're supporting the existing PSVR - The new hardware will really help it have some amazing experiences, and it suggests they're decoupling their VR products from the console releases.
[+] [-] notTyler|7 years ago|reply
As far as PSVR, the herculean amount of effort required to get something in the vein of backwards compatibility going between PS3 and PS4 makes me think it was designed from the ground up to work with basically everything PS4.
[+] [-] llbowers|7 years ago|reply
While I'm not really much of a gamer now I spent a lot of my childhood playing video games and the thought of dedicated home game consoles going the way of arcades makes me sad.
I think I'll finally pick up that Switch I've been planning on...
[+] [-] freeflight|7 years ago|reply
Granted: If anybody can make it work, it's gonna be Google, but I'm still quite skeptical. For many consumers network bandwidth and traffic volume are still very real issues, and there's not that much Google can do about that on a global scale, at least in the short time-frame.
Long-term they would have to roll out Google fiber on a global scale and pretty much go into the ISP business with full commitment, which I just don't see happening because Google fiber is dead.
[+] [-] srmatto|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sneakernets|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rixrax|7 years ago|reply
Why? Because Xbox UI has been deteriorating from bad to completely unusable. Like infuriating! I mostly use it to watch Netflix, prime and occasionally run Kodi and media player and play CoD or some other game. Would it be possible to always have these <10 titles on startup screen? Of course no, you may get a couple of most recent ones, but then you have to navigate to apps (which must be impossible to find if you don’t know where it is), select all my apps, or games and finally find what you needed. <\rant>
[+] [-] wazoox|7 years ago|reply
In fact, it should probably be forbidden for wasting precious resources for no good reason.
[+] [-] F-0X|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] debug-desperado|7 years ago|reply
You are right that most folks with 50-65" TVs at 2-3 meters don't benefit from anything higher than 1080p.
[+] [-] dasloop|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] s_y_n_t_a_x|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] singhrac|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] russellbeattie|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] CodeSheikh|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tus87|7 years ago|reply
Has any of Sony's next-generation consoles just been "spec-upgraded" versions of previous ones? What a weird comment.
[+] [-] theandrewbailey|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BLanen|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ihuman|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] slantyyz|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Narishma|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] albertgoeswoof|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scoutt|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fisherwithac|7 years ago|reply
There are a lot of solid boxes that Sony's ticking: backwards compatibility with the previous generation, sticking with physical game copies instead of moving towards a "games-as-a-service" cloud model, updates to hardware that justify the new console's number increment, releasing devkits early to get game devs on board with said hardware, etc.
That being said, as others have mentioned, the support for 8K stupifies me. As far as I understand it, 8K displays are only just now becoming commercial, and only for the highest buyers. I'd much rather have higher, consistent framerates.
Ray-tracing, I'm indifferent to. If they can make it work, great, more reflective windows and puddles for all. If not, then perhaps game devs can choose not to implement it.
Shame there will be no additional information on this at E3. Makes me wonder if they're saving their winning hand for a future round of poker, so to speak.
Edit: spelling
[+] [-] phil248|7 years ago|reply
One key difference being that while the PS5 will be backwards compatible with PS4 games, any PC is backwards compatible with virtually every PC game ever made.
If there's a case to be made for purchasing a next gen console instead of a gaming PC - other than artificial reasons like exclusive titles - I'd like to hear it.
[+] [-] jplayer01|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fetus8|7 years ago|reply
The quality, story, characters, and graphically fidelity are often unrivaled by their contemporaries. God Of War(2018), Horizon Zero Dawn, the Uncharted series, and Shadow of the Colossus (remake) are some of my favorite releases of this generation. I'll gladly plunk down $400+ for their next gen console for more games like that, I don't focus on the tech specs, but rather the experience their platform provides.
[+] [-] foobarbazetc|7 years ago|reply
I don’t have time to mess around with PCs and driver updates and what not, and I like sitting on the couch with a controller playing on my TV.
Add the exclusives and that’s enough incentive to spend $300-$400.
[+] [-] ricardobeat|7 years ago|reply
To start with, you’re probably looking at $399 vs $2k.
[+] [-] EpicEng|7 years ago|reply
That is literally the reason for the tech inclined, and it's not artificial. The politics behind it don't matter; if I want to play X and I can only play it on console Y, guess what I'm going to buy?
Other than that, consoles are still cheaper than building a comparable gaming rig. Not by a huge margin, but still cheaper, and people already ha e nice TVs to play on (so don't ignore the cost of a monitor.) Beyond price, the fact is that building a rig is harder than plugging in a console. I know it's not _hard_, but most people just don't want to deal with it.
[+] [-] chaostheory|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] beenBoutIT|7 years ago|reply