Sony PlayStation 4

[Gollgagh]

I'm probably an odd one out (lol yeah right), but I've bought more PSP games than any combination of games for any other handheld that I've ever owned.

[zircon]

No, I agree. I think the PSP (after the first or second iteration) was an excellent handheld. The library of games is just amazing. I have 0 interest in getting a 3DS but I'm still enjoying my PSP today.

[Brushfire]

Most folks don't realize that the Genesis was backwards compatible with the Master System. So the whole "Sony did it first isn't true." Hell the 7800 from Atari was backwards compatible with the 2600 in the late 80's.

Though for them to not offer BC shows that they just don't care.

No, I agree. I think the PSP (after the first or second iteration) was an excellent handheld. The library of games is just amazing. I have 0 interest in getting a 3DS but I'm still enjoying my PSP today.

I liked the PSP, but even with the 3000 series the PSP still was slow, and that UMD grind is really unsettling. There was a lot of good on the PSP, but the system itself to me didn't feel good, you know.

I'm probably an odd one out (lol yeah right), but I've bought more PSP games than any combination of games for any other handheld that I've ever owned.

Total I think I owned about 25 PSP games. My most played was the remake of Mega Man X. The port for Parappa the Rapper was broken because they didn't change the timing for the game to match the refresh rate for LCDs. I own more DS games than I did PSP, by a small margin. I can keep my DS games though as they can be played on my 3DS. PSP games got no love on the Vita though unless you lived in Japan.

Edited February 22, 2013 by Brushfire

[EC2151]

It's not that they "don't care," it's that BC would make the console more expensive, and you can bet your ass that Sony doesn't want another FIVE HUNDRED AND NINETY-NINE U.S. DOLLARS.

Backwards compatibility did not really benefit the PS3 in any way. Why put in more dollars for laggy support?

[zircon]

Well, the nice thing about PSP (regarding UMD grind) is that many games were downloadable. In fact many of my favorite games were not on disc. Also, with a hacked system (easy enough) you could just dump your game and run it off an SD card, way faster.

[Crowbar Man]

The Genesis/Mega Drive was backward compatible, but did require an adapter to switch it into Master System mode (the hardware for compatibility was built into the Genesis' design ie: Master System's Z80 was the sound CPU of the Genesis, the adapter itself didn't do much). It was sold Separately though, quickly discontinued and forgotten in time. Interestingly enough, it looks like the Saturn could of been backwards compatible at some point in its design, with the Genesis' Motorola 68000 being used as a sound CPU in the Saturn, and a largely unused cartridge slot, but for some reason they never pursued this.

The Atari 7800 did offer compatibility with the 2600 (not the 5200 though, so not really backwards) but that was mostly because all its major competitors were ALSO offering compatibility with the 2600. That is a very unique situation

Either way I wouldn't consider the Atari 7800 or the Genesis "modern" consoles. But no, Sony wasn't technically the first, just the most popular to do it.

Edited February 22, 2013 by Crowbar Man

[Brushfire]

I am staunchly against piracy though Andy. And I owned Patapon 2, which I am pretty sure was Download Only.

[Crowbar Man]

Dumping a game yourself you legally own isn't piracy though.

Edited February 22, 2013 by Crowbar Man

[linkspast]

So Watch Dogs for PS4 looks pretty cool.

[The Legendary Zoltan]

The thing I am most excited about is that the PS4 is supposed to be easy to develop for. I hope this results in a vast game library like the PS2 had. Also, how come nobody is stoked about having CONSTANTLY RECORDED GAMEPLAY? That's going to be so fun! By the way, I heard that the tentative price is 40,000 yen or 400 dollars.

[Gollgagh]

Also, how come nobody is stoked about having CONSTANTLY RECORDED GAMEPLAY? That's going to be so fun!

Because a lot of people have no idea how difficult it is to get a good-looking recording from a game without expensive equipment and/or technical inclination.

[prophetik music]

I don't think you can really look at raw numbers and just be able to tell how powerful a console is just by comparing it to a PC. Consoles are (normally) way different hardware wise because they're optimizes and because most of the components are soldered right to the board. The original XBOX had 64MBs of RAM. PS3 has 256MB of RAM and 256MB of vRAM. I wouldn't particularly have called PS3 weak for it's time, and PS4 is light years beyond that.

I'm not saying it's going to be WAY better, because I don't know...and like I said I can't even begin to make a decision until I see performance, but I don't look at 8GBs of RAM on a console and say "Oh that's such a small amount" because PCs have 2-4 times more than that right now.

i'm not comparing it to a pc. i'm comparing the relative differences between the xbox/ps2 and the 360/ps3 to current hardware at the time that it was released.

maximum pc said it best - the days of the console beating pc graphics are done and gone. when each of the four systems i mentioned above came out, they had hardware that was able to be comparable to the highest-end pcs available in terms of performance. that will not be the case with this generation. part of that is moore's law, and part of that is just that pcs are so fast. 8gb of GDDR5 ram sounds fantastic but will easily be able to be outstripped by this machine, particularly with all of the background garbage that they're planning on implementing as well.

additionally, this system *will not* support 4k gaming, which is ridiculous considering that 4k is already here and will continue to be here for the forseeable future thanks to the hard limit they're hitting with lcd pixel density. 4k has just under the market penetration of high-def back in 2005 when the Big Two came out, but those consoles were functionally able to handle 1080p gaming upon release (although games took a year or two). ps4 can display 4k video theoretically (although the blu-ray drive doesn't seem to have the bandwidth to support it, another gaffe), but the built-in equivalent of a 7850 won't be able to handle rendering that kind of content with any clarity other than just upscaling existing HD content.

This. There is no way to make performance judgments about a console without running real software on real hardware. Each console will have a specific way that it runs, and that will affect performance. Especially since the tech specs are so similar between PS4 and Xbox 720, a couple of GB of RAM or a slightly faster GPU may not matter depending on the way the system uses those assets.

Consider that an average PC uses 1 - 1.5 GB of RAM just for the OS. That's obscenely high compared to a console OS, which does a hell of a lot less and uses a hell of a lot less resources. Consoles are very strict about what hardware and software they can use. This makes them somewhat limited, but very efficient. This is why your Xbox 360 with 512 MB of RAM can run a game that may require 1 or 2 GB of RAM on a normal computer.

i realize that most people don't know that almost a quarter of the 360's and PS3's ram went towards the OS that the system runs, but yeah. just because it's a console doesn't mean that it doesn't still have operating requirements for the in-game overlay that the console provides.

---

all that said, i was wrong in my initial view of the system. the setup of the cpu - it's a true octa-core instead of two quads or four duals dovetailed together - and the way that the memory controller is integrated into the system is quite interesting and should provide unheard-of bandwidth between the two, hence why they're springing for GDDR5 for RAM instead of standard DDR2 or DDR3. i think we might start seeing some of that tech in consumer motherboards soon too. i'm still underwhelmed at best with the graphics card, though, and the complete lack of eventual 4k support.

[Soma]

Because a lot of people have no idea how difficult it is to get a good-looking recording from a game without expensive equipment and/or technical inclination.

It's a cool idea. I don't know how practical it is though. Like you said, it eliminates the need for expensive 3rd party equipment for recording gameplay, which is awesome.

In the Halo series, it's a cool novelty to pick out your coolest kills and send them to friends. I think I only messed with it in Halo 3, and never since. Uncharted 2 had that broadcast trophies to your twitter feed thing, which it sounds sorta like one of the social features that will be implemented into the OS its self. I don't know if that's what I want from a system, but that's probably just me being an old man.

The biggest game changer for me is being able to play something as soon as you start downloading.

[Tensei]

Also, how come nobody is stoked about having CONSTANTLY RECORDED GAMEPLAY? That's going to be so fun!

But streaming has been a PC thing for ages already, I regularly watch Let's Plays and competitive Dota 2/SC2 matches. That's pretty much my point when it comes to scepticism for modern consoles: none of these features are actually new to me. When Nintendo came up with stuff like the D-pad or the analog stick, it pretty much revolutionized gaming across the board, but the next generation of consoles seems to just be retreading stuff that has already been done before in some form.

Now that they're apparently not even going to push the graphical capabilities by a whole lot, I'm having a hard time rationalizing the purchase of a console short of a few exclusive games. And face it, the only reason FF and MGS are PS exclusive is not because of some hardware limitations, but because Sony is throwing money at those devs.

[Crowbar Man]

Are we really complaining about not supporting 4K? No console this generation is going to bother with that

Consoles barely supported 720p or Anti Aliasing last generation (some of the AAA titles were sub-720p and/or no Anti Aliasing), and still produced some amazing games/visuals. Heck, Wii with 480p produced some amazing games/visuals. You don't need 4K to have a good game.

You know what you might need? Lots of RAM. Covered. A powerful easy to develop for CPU. Covered. Multiple types of input for interaction. Covered.

but those consoles were functionally able to handle 1080p gaming upon release (although games took a year or two).

This statement is completely false. 360 had a max resolution of 720p when it came out. It was only a firmware update released after the PS3 came out that they added the 1080p option, and that is mostly just to upscale, not native.

Only maybe a handful of very low demanding PS3/360 games support 1080p naively (less than 1%). Most of the PS3/360 library are native 720p, with a lot of the AAA titles sub 720p (upscaled to 720/1080).

i realize that most people don't know that almost a quarter of the 360's and PS3's ram went towards the OS that the system runs

A quarter of 256MB/512MB is still pretty small compared to a PCs OS. And you do realize that shrinks the available RAM they had to work with right?

the days of the console beating pc graphics are done and gone

As far as I'm aware, this happened a few generations ago. PCs have been consistently the leading platform for graphics for over a decade now. I'm a big console fan, but anybody who expects consoles to look better than a high end PC has obviously lived under a rock for quite some time (since 3D video cards came out, in fact)

They produce amazing things for the money, but high end they are not.

I'm having a hard time rationalizing the purchase of a console short of a few exclusive games

Well, exclusives are the number one reason to get a console! If you can play a game elsewhere, why would anybody bother?

And face it, the only reason FF and MGS are PS exclusive is not because of some hardware limitations, but because Sony is throwing money at those devs.

By the way, neither are exclusive to Sony/PlayStation anymore

The thing I am most excited about is that the PS4 is supposed to be easy to develop for. I hope this results in a vast game library like the PS2 had.

Well, I'm hoping for good games on ANY platform (and a dev friendly CPU is always great) but just so you know: PS2 was a nightmare to dev for. Sheer brand popularity (both fans and devs) creating a large installed base almost completely uncontested for over a year is the only reason it got good games. Not because it was good hardware or easy to dev for. (It was crap hardware that was hard to work with :/)

Edited February 23, 2013 by Crowbar Man

[Thin Crust]

Dude! I just saw that the PS4 is shipping with a headset bundled in. This is great news and bad news. I shelled out the money to get a headset for my ps3 and I never got a lot of people with their own. But at the same time, I'm kind of worried about the screaming 12 year olds that everyone complains about on XBOX.

http://www.ign.com/videos/2013/02/22/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-ps4-this-week

EDIT: Yes, I just said dude.

[Flash Strife]

The thing I am most excited about is that the PS4 is supposed to be easy to develop for. I hope this results in a vast game library like the PS2 had. Also, how come nobody is stoked about having CONSTANTLY RECORDED GAMEPLAY? That's going to be so fun! By the way, I heard that the tentative price is 40,000 yen or 400 dollars.

Just a FYI there's going to be like two RPGs released for this system. Progress! =/

[Kanthos]

just so you know: PS2 was a nightmare to dev for. Sheer brand popularity (both fans and devs) creating a large installed base almost completely uncontested for over a year is the only reason it got good games. Not because it was good hardware or easy to dev for. (It was crap hardware that was hard to work with :/)

Yeah, speaking from experience as a game dev (a 4-month co-op term), the XBox was the easiest to develop for, especially for cross-platform games because there wasn't much difference between XBox and PC thanks to both using DirectX. NGC was a pain because its specs were so much worse, so a lot of things had to be scaled back (textures and cpu usage were the big things in our shop). PS2 was almost as easy as XBox to develop for, but only because other teams wrote in-house tools and libraries so that much of the complexity of particular hardware was hidden from the actual game developers. It definitely had the reputation of being a more complex system to code for at the hardware level, though.

[zircon]

i realize that most people don't know that almost a quarter of the 360's and PS3's ram went towards the OS that the system runs, but yeah. just because it's a console doesn't mean that it doesn't still have operating requirements for the in-game overlay that the console provides.

I think some people actively working on AAA dev could confirm this but I'm pretty sure that isn't accurate...

Now that they're apparently not even going to push the graphical capabilities by a whole lot, I'm having a hard time rationalizing the purchase of a console short of a few exclusive games. And face it, the only reason FF and MGS are PS exclusive is not because of some hardware limitations, but because Sony is throwing money at those devs.

I think the advantage of consoles is that they generally 'just work' without having to worry about lots of other factors. Every week I hang out with Level99 and we routinely play games on his gaming computer hooked up to a TV. Relative to a game console, it's not bad, but it suffers from random controller connectivity problems, controller configuration problems, lag/performance issues, operating system bullshit popping up, etc. Being able to pop in a game on 360/PS3 to play with your friends is generally going to be a smoother experience.

Again IF you have a gaming computer that you've already spent a lot of money on, and IF you have controllers, and IF you can hook it up to a large TV without messing up your workflow, then yeah, there's not much of a point in getting a console (except for exclusives). But many people aren't in that situation and don't have the ability to move their computer (assuming it's good enough for nextgen gaming) next to their TV. Console is just an easier solution for that.

Simply put, consoles are devices for the living room. That's the big difference and the big advantage.

[Brushfire]

I think the advantage of consoles is that they generally 'just work' without having to worry about lots of other factors. Every week I hang out with Level99 and we routinely play games on his gaming computer hooked up to a TV. Relative to a game console, it's not bad, but it suffers from random controller connectivity problems, controller configuration problems, lag/performance issues, operating system bullshit popping up, etc. Being able to pop in a game on 360/PS3 to play with your friends is generally going to be a smoother experience.

All of those problems are his computer. He emulates a 360 controller via a program that probably isnt that stable. I don't experience any of the problems that he has on my gaming rig. Most of the time the biggest issue I have is a a once in a while crash, similar to what 360 users and PS3 users have. Once in a blue moon lockup is not that big of a deal.

Considering the versatility of the PC, it has more of a reason to go in the living room than the consoles.

Edited February 23, 2013 by Brushfire

[Brandon Strader]

All of those problems are his computer. He emulates a 360 controller via a program that probably isnt that stable. I don't experience any of the problems that he has on my gaming rig. Most of the time the biggest issue I have is a a once in a while crash, similar to what 360 users and PS3 users have. Once in a blue moon lockup is not that big of a deal.

Considering the versatility of the PC, it has more of a reason to go in the living room than the consoles.

I couldn't agree with this more.

[Tensei]

PCs are slowly creeping up in the living room environment though. The fact that there already is such a thing as dedicated gaming rigs hooked up to a TV (which didn't exist a few years ago), not to mention the near-ubiquitous controller support and things like Steam's Big Picture mode says a lot, and it won't be long before the first PCs specifically designed to hook up to TVs will make their entrance.

Also, with regards to console exclusives: My point is that in 1996, something like Super Mario 64 couldn't have had a decent PC port because the analog stick required for precise 3D movement was completely novel, and at that point, unique to the N64.

Back then, consoles actually offered something fundamentally different from PCs, but nowadays PCs can do everything consoles do, and more. The reason that there even is such a thing as console exclusives anymore is because of business practice, not because of hardware limitations or anything like that.

[Crowbar Man]

Consoles are still the go to for unique control input though. The only reason PC games started supporting controllers last gen was because the cross development tools offered by Microsoft/Sony to both lure PC devs over (and in MS's case, also to lure console devs over to Windows platform). It became cheaper to include controller (well, 360 controller) support in the engine so it didn't need to be retooled. However, without consoles this whole controller support thing would of never caught on. Before last gen, barely any PC games supported controllers. And even still, most of the PC games that support controllers are cross platform console games and not really "PC" games in origin

However you still have a wide range of unique inputs you probably wont see supported by many games on PC. Better/more support for controllers/features (ie Touch pads/screens, speaker output, dual screens, companion apps, etc). And even though I don't particular care for either: Motion controls and Kinect style is still pretty exclusive to consoles. These are possible on a PC too but you wont see anybody developing games for the PC like that. Even your example with N64's analog stick: Analog was available on the PC too, the devs there just limited it flight sticks, because flight games sold on PC. Platformers didn't (and still don't). Gyros were in PC controllers years before the motion craze hit consoles, but PC devs didn't do anything with it. The PC has unlimited possibilities, but if nobody DOES anything with it, then whats the use? Any tech can be used on the PC but its usually consoles that make it popular. PC users and devs are too satisfied with KB/Mouse. If a game can't be mapped to a KB/Mouse, it will probably not be ported, and even if it was, probably wouldn't sell. Console devs (especiallly Nintendo) specialize in doing something different in a hardware idea AND having developers to continuously write software to drive it.

All of those problems are his computer. He emulates a 360 controller via a program that probably isnt that stable. I don't experience any of the problems that he has on my gaming rig.

I've said this before: A lot of PC games now ONLY support the 360 controller (Don't like 360 controller? Have to use emu), or no controller at all (no choice but to use alternate programs like Joy2Key/Xpadder/MotioninJoy). Sometimes this is your only option on the PC. This isn't a problem on consoles. Your computer must be pretty magical to be different

EDIT/Update:

Oh no guys, currently it has confirmed that the PS4 will not read CDs might as well forget about it [/sarcasm]

Edited February 24, 2013 by Crowbar Man

[Brandon Strader]

I'm pretty excited for E3 just because I know the stuff coming to Ps4 is going to be awesome but also likely will be on PC, especially third party stuff. Not the exclusives, of course. Though I think not putting the new ps4-exclusive Final Fantasy also on PC is a terrible business move. :3

Unless, of course, Sony is pumping enough cash into its exclusives to support the devs, then it's ok. I guess. But not for PC gamers.

[The Legendary Zoltan]

After hearing that Sony may not block used games, I have high hopes for the system. We'll see what happens. I think this E3 will be one of the more epic ones.