3427

Yeah… talk of the PS4 “handily outclassing” and being an entire “generation ahead” is, in a word, absurd. John Carmack is not on the Xbox One payroll. But he does know programming. And he disagrees.

3428

Sounds like it. Evidently they undershot their TDP, which gave them overhead for it. This can happen.

Jason - You’re joking, right? AMD’s Fusion parts are going to hit this kind of power for integrated GPU’s by the end of this year / early next year. Moreover, you’re trying to compare a discreet GPU design intended for insertion into a case with slots with a SoC which has a custom-designed entire-case…

(The 7790 can have a single-slot cooler design per AMD’s tech docs, for reference)

3429

No one said “a generation ahead” and a 40 or 50% advantage in GFlops (plus twice as many ROPs, more memory bandwidth, more asynchronous compute pipelines and a simpler memory architecture) easily qualifies as “handily outclassing”. It’s the same way a Radeon 7850 easily outclasses a Radeon 7770, which is why the former costs $100 more.

John Carmack also didn’t make any proclamations about the relative performance, in fact he was careful to say he hadn’t actually done a performance evaluation. When he says they are “very close” he’s talking from his perspective as a developer and to him both having 8GB of RAM, 8 core x86 CPUs, hard drives standard and similar GCN-based AMD GPUs IS “very close” as far as he is concerned. That doesn’t mean one doesn’t have a clear performance advantage.

3430

Indeed. This isn’t a 360/PS3 situation, where leading on one will mean that the game will basically be ported, it’s basically the same hardware platform, you can just push more graphically on one of them - and I think a lot of companies making AAA games will. (Indy games, well sure that’s not an issue…)

3431

People are amazing.

You’re being excited because they decided not to do really shitty things to you.

Imagine i own a pizza chain. My pizzas have rat poison and soap on them and when you give me your credit card, i charge you twice. If i then go out to my customers and tell them i’ve decided to remove the rat poison and soap, i’m not doing something special for them, i’m just not being a huge asshole to them. Not to mention i’m still charging their credit card twice (ie +$100 for forced kinect which almost nobody wants).

Microsoft should have made the xboner kill you when it turns on. Then when they changed their minds about that, people would have been parading in the streets, thanking microsoft for all of the improvements.

Yes, be thankful that microsoft was FORCED to take a step back from their plans to absolutely fuck their customers over, but don’t ever forget they that they were indeed forced and even in the end, at best we’re back where we started, not better. You shouldn’t have to thank a company for not screwing you, it should be expected.

3432

Well said, MS surely hasn’t gotten any love from me. When most of your big announcements are actually retreats then it really takes a glass half full outlook to see them as actual advantages. They’ve removed a lot of minuses so far but they haven’t added any pluses which still leaves them at zero in my book.

3433

Yeah… Brad, we share a love for our VITA, but I’m going to take John Carmack’s word on this one. And he absolutely WAS talking about performance.

Everyone is welcome to view the video for themselves: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNWAcEu1jpU

3434

No you can’t say he was since we know for a fact their is a distinct difference with the GPU’s. The PS4 has a flat 50% more shader units than the Xbox Ones. Whether developers take advantage of it is another thing but its there.

3435

Capabilities /= Performance. Just because both are capable of running the same code doesn’t mean they will run it at the same speed. The things relevant to Carmack’s needs include stuff like “is there a hard drive in every box?” or “what is the optical disc?” or “what kind of CPU does it have?” and “what level shader model does this support?” In all those cases the two systems are identical. Performance isn’t a huge concern. He can always implement dynamic resolutions to maintain 60fps. But those things I listed are important when he’s architecting an engine for these platforms.

3436

Pretty much. Capability is identical, since they both use the same SoC with varying amounts of cores and memory speeds. The PS4 will be faster, but that totally won’t matter except to fanboys flaming on messageboards.

Honestly, I doubt the variance will even approach that of the PS3 vs 360 in the current gen. They’re completely different architectures, but the xbone and PS4 are not. At most the xbone might render to 900p to keep framerates up, and the difference between upscaled 900p and 1080p is extremely difficult to discern sitting on your couch.

3437

Actually, I said it’s newsworthy. And of course, it’s newsworthy. ANY changes Sony or Microsoft make to their consoles between now and launch will be newsworthy by definition (or heck, even after launch).

Further, all of us should of course be excited when corporate policies change that favor us. If Sony made multiplayer gaming free on the PS4, like it was on the PS3, I would be excited and so would everyone else.

As I’ve said before, there’s a spectrum of thinking when it comes to consoles - on the far ends of the spectrum are those people who irrationally hate all things Microsoft/Sony and all things Xbox/PlayStation. There’s nothing you can say or do to convince these people. They are extremist.

The rest of us? We might lean in one direction or the other, but for the most part, we’re close to logical consumers. And as a logical consumer, I think it’s FANTASTIC when competition in the marketplace results in better outcomes for consumers. And that’s exactly what’s happening now. And I predict it will keep happening. Microsoft has made clear that they have more announcements to make. And I bet you dollars to donuts that at this stage, Sony is talking intensely about what they can unveil, announce or change.

3438

All Microsoft has done so far is slowly move towards what the ps4 already offered, and yet are still lagging behind on price and the streaming video paywall. As a logical consumer, you should probably ignore them until the xbone at least reaches parity with the ps4.

3439

As someone who has pre-ordered the PS4, I hope this is happening but honestly, what else can they do? I mean, they’ve pretty much hit a the right talking points so far. The only thing I can think of is the PS Plus service for multiplayer but for me personally that doesn’t make too much of a difference as I’ll have it anyways for all the free games. Heck, I’m going to have two different PS Plus accounts just so I can get all the euro games as well!
So just what can Sony do on top of everything they’ve already done? Throw the eyetoy back into the package? Drop the price to $349? Do they even need to do anything? I’m not convinced that MS backtracking on their missteps has really brought them much closer to Sony in the opening race.

3440

I think its pretty clear from your posts here what direction you “lean” in, though ;-)

3441

Yup. Based on my posts everyone knows that I love the Vita. Even thought the PSP was better than the Nintendo DS. Believe the Last of Us is the GotY for 2013, bar none. And I already ordered a PS4. That’s me. Truly.

I get what you’re saying but as some on these boards know, I’m in the “own everything” category (though don’t have a Wii U - yet). I’m much more fascinated by the Xbox One at the moment because they are making news. Sony had an E3 spike of media savvy engagement and then… zilch-o.

3442

I don’t see why there could be more than that in differences. Just like you have different choices on a PC game under video options(low, med, high etc) developers could tweak games to take advantage of the better GPU on the PS4 since its all based on the same x86. No screwing around with multiple architectures anymore. At a minimum PS4 only devs like Naughty Dog can optimize without thinking of a lower baseline.

3443

Gods, I wish they would do that.

I know the general tone around here is that motion control is a gimmick that’s only good for dance & exercise, but the stuff in development now is far past gratuitous flailing. Some exciting possibilities that would be a lot more likely to happen if more than a tiny fraction of PS4 owners had motion control too.

3444

My list of things Sony could do (some they will do):

Show off the OS (not an edited video like we’ve seen but an actual here’s how this works video). People who I trust with Sony info have said that the PS4 also has instant switching but they admit they’ve not seen it either, but have only been told.

Talk more about the games in the launch window. The Xbox One, IMHO, has a better launch lineup. Fine. What does Sony have around the corner? Nintendo does this all the time.

Tell me more about your plans (as Sony) to use the touchpad on the controller. Microsoft is definitely talking about Kinect 2.0, making clear the improvements over the last generation and some of the features (voice, gesture control) and possible use cases (using Kinect, developers can create virtual sniper rifles, where you make the shot by lining up your eye to your hand to the screen - honestly, I want a duckhunt version of this now).

Beyond games, what are the apps you are looking to build? Xbox One is built on the Windows kernel, which will make it easier to transport over apps from that eco system. Tell me it doesn’t matter and that you have developers lined up for programs for your OS.

Surprise me. This year Xbox has had surprises. Some of them were announcements that simply caught them up with the competition (hey there free games for LIVE members - Crackdown. Still awesome), some were hardware related (upping the GPU speed) and some were feature related (dear lord, bring back family sharing because if nothing else I want to digitally buy some fun indie games for my nephew to try out). I get that the PS4 plays games and blurays but so does my PS3. What else do you have up your sleeve?

I’m hoping that silence = something in the works. I think cologne will be telling.

3445

I must have missed this, do you have any hard details? I can only speak of myself, but i base my opinion of motion controls on what i’ve seen and what i’ve seen had been very bad. Hell, the very best game on the wii (xenogears in my opinion) doesn’t even use motion controls at all!

I agree the xboner’s launch lineup is better than the ps4’s, but they both suck (as far as exclusives go), so the xboner being slightly better isn’t exactly a glowing endorsement.

I don’t personally care very much about things like the OS UI and non game apps. I want my console to directly play games well and support playing games well (ie easily letting me update them, buy dlc, load games, etc etc). I notice that i’m in the minority on these forums (and possibly outside as well) though.

Yes, microsoft is strongly backing and counting on the kinect to carry the day in the next generation, but this is against their customers’ wishes as the current generation of motion sensing sucks (i haven’t tried wii U yet, so maybe that is good) for anything except gimmicks. I’m not spending $400 on promises of maybe using something in the future.

Your xbox surprises are all things that Microsoft does terribly. Xbox live is a great example. PSN+ is actually a decent deal with lots of value added stuff, including many free games. They have been doing this for a long time and i have every reason to believe they will continue with the ps4. On the other hand, xbox live is negative reinforcement “give us money or we won’t let you use netflix or do anything online.” In order to fix some of the bad publicity, they finally added some benefits to xbox live, but i am pretty sure these are just temporary.

I don’t need my game console to cook a good sunny side up egg, manage my personal home network or wash my car. I just want it to play games well damn it!

But on the topic:
Things i’d want sony to show me:

[ul]
[li]A better launch lineup. I realize there probably won’t be as many exclusives this generation, but you can do better than this.
[/li][li]A better store UI. The ps3 UI for buying DLC sucks. I want to be able to see a list of the games i own and what dlc i can buy for them. On a closed system you should be able to do this easily.
[/li][li]Show me what you’re doing with all of the Ram you’re reserving for OS use. No, i don’t buy that you need 3.5GB to do freaking cross game chat and i don’t care about streaming my games or recording constantly.
[/li][li]Improves Save/load system. The current one on ps3 sucks. Very slow to do anything, lots of button presses and a hard cap of saves per game
[/li][/ul]

3446

Eh. To each their own. I wouldn’t say they both suck. When it comes to the launch lineups, I would say the Xbox One gets a B and the PS4 gets a C (scale being: A = homerun launch! So much to choose from!; B = Pickings are slim but there are must buys here; C = Uhm, this is your launch lineup? Nothing excites me yet, but I’m willing to wait for review because I don’t recognize some of this stuff; D = I am not going to buy any of these, sorry. But they look good at least and I’ve not lost faith; F = bad idea jeans with these games).

The Xbox One gets a B because of their launch list, I see two titles as must buys, one as a likely-buy, one as a question-mark that I won’t buy until the review are in and one I’m just not interested in at all:

Dead Rising 3 \ Capcom
Forza Motorsport 5 \ Turn 10
LocoCycle \ Twisted Pixel
Killer Instinct \ Double Helix
Ryse: Son of Rome \ Crytek

Compare that to Sony’s lineup. Of these, I don’t see a single must buy; or even a likely buy; but I do see two titles I’m interested in hearing more about - Killzone and Knack - but won’t buy until the reviews are in (Killzone in particular - fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me):

DC Universe Online \ Sony Online Entertainment (really? this is the game you’re launching your console with?)
DriveClub \ Evolution Studios
Killzone: Shadow Fall \ Guerrilla Games
Knack \ SCE Japan Studio
Warframe \ Digital Extremes