Who's Curious To See If Sony Unveils The PS4?

[TheMailMan78]

Originally Posted by cadaveca

I DO have a PS3 and about 80 games...and I don't care.. Because I already have a PS3. The WiiU's success, with adding another device laying around, having to plug in and charge, etc, doesn't matter to most users. WiiU is still sold out regularly locally.

The WiiU also plays older games.

[cadaveca]

Originally Posted by TheMailMan78

The WiiU also plays older games.

so did the Wii.


The PS3..doesn't really. PS1 only, PS2 only with launch consoles. To expect backwards compatibility from Sony is expecting too much, especially considering how the new backend all works. I have a PS2 or three still. Not sure why, It's not like I'm gonna go back and play those older games. It's only those that cheaped out and missed out that care.

And actually, I expect the cost of this console to greatly reflect the pricing of those that upgrade their phones yearly. $399. It could be more, but I expect that Sony will take a loss on launch unit as they always have, just to get them in people's living rooms. Phones need big back-end upgrades too, and they charge monthly for it..to the tune of $60 a month or so for most. Oh look..games cost $60...

[TheMailMan78]

Originally Posted by cadaveca

so did the Wii.


The PS3..doesn't really. PS1 only, PS2 only with launch consoles. To expect backwards compatibility from Sony is expecting too much, especially considering how the new backend all works. I have a PS2 or three still. Not sure why, It's not like I'm gonna go back and play those older games. It's only those that cheaped out and missed out that care.

And actually, I expect the cost of this console to greatly reflect the pricing of those that upgrade their phones yearly. $399. It could be more, but I expect that Sony will take a loss on launch unit as they always have, just to get them in people's living rooms. Phones need big back-end upgrades too, and they charge monthly for it..to the tune of $60 a month or so for most. Oh look..games cost $60...

Well I know a few people who like backwards compatibility. Like you said I personally wouldn't care myself BUT I do know there are people out there that do. Hell I know my wife wouldn't let me get a WiiU if it couldn't play all the old games we spent money on........women just don't get it. They are all about budgeting and making sense....NOOBS

I might get a PS3 now so I can play some of those exclusives I've always wanted too like Killzone, Ratchet and Clank etc.

[Fourstaff]

Originally Posted by Aquinus

You know what you're talking about right? OpenGL is pretty low level. Any lower and you would be designing hardware, not software or at very least, firmware.

Ah yes, allow me to clarify: they will probably use an x86 API as a base, but because they are addressing a standardised set of hardware its inevitable that some developers will communicate straight to the hardware rather than through an API (at least for some functions).

[Aquinus]

Originally Posted by Fourstaff

they will probably use an x86 API as a base

x86 is not an API, it is an instruction set and a way of running a CPU. Any CPU has an instruction set.

Originally Posted by Fourstaff

but because they are addressing a standardised set of hardware its inevitable that some developers will communicate straight to the hardware rather than through an API (at least for some functions).

You don't want to re-invent the wheel every time you want to make a game, that's why these libraries exist. Also if you're working at a low level you're going to be accessing memory directly anyways. Your explanation is vague and confusing. Also your use of certain terms are rather peculiar.

Libraries aren't always to abstract stuff away from the hardware, more often they're made so you don't write the same thing over and over again.

[Fourstaff]

Originally Posted by Aquinus

x86 is not an API, it is an instruction set and a way of running a CPU. Any CPU has an instruction set.


You don't want to re-invent the wheel every time you want to make a game, that's why these libraries exist. Also if you're working at a low level you're going to be accessing memory directly anyways. Your explanation is vague and confusing. Also your use of certain terms are rather peculiar.

Libraries aren't always to abstract stuff away from the hardware, more often they're made so you don't write the same thing over and over again.

My ability to explain something is pretty shit today

Yes x86 is not an API, what I meant was they are going to use an API as a base (any guess is a good guess for now), but allow direct access towards hardware at times rather than through something like, say, OpenGL. They have done this for Xbox 360 (bypassing the D3D API), but apparently Microsoft wasn't too pleased.

Edit: something like this http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/di...nce-blog-entry

[digibucc]

Originally Posted by Easy Rhino

says the guy with hundreds of games on steam that he never plays

lol i am much more selective now. in total truth - i felt really guilty for pirating games when i was poor so i bought all of the ones i pirated plus some more once i finally got a good job. now i can never play them because of that job but hey, it's something.

[yogurt_21]

Originally Posted by Crap Daddy

Sony confirms that the PlayStation 4 won't play PS3 games natively
Legacy compatibility may come in the future through streaming services, however.

Originally Posted by TheMailMan78

Wow if I had a PS3 that would upset me.

Well I'm sorry but those punks will just have to take the hit so We PC Gamers get better console ports. (we've long given up on a dedicated PC game industry) The AMD apu design likely makes backwards compatibility improbable. However that same design will likely make for much better ports with much better graphics.

[xenocide]

Originally Posted by cadaveca

The WiiU's success, with adding another device laying around, having to plug in and charge, etc, doesn't matter to most users. WiiU is still sold out regularly locally.

What in heavens name are you talking about? The Wii U is a phenomenal failure thus far. They have almost no exclusives to speak of, and the games in development that were praised have since either been cancelled, or expanded to other platforms (Rayman was a huge one). It has sold less units total than the Playstation Vita, and was outsold in January by the Xbox 360 at a rate of 5 to 1. I'd imagine anywhere that you see it sold out probably just moved them elsewhere to clear up space for products that actually sell, or you happen to live in the one place where people want that hunk of crap.

If the Playstation 4 and Xbox 720 are going to be x86-based, that further screws the Wii U by the way. It means this time next year when all three systems are out, developers are going to sit down and ask if they really want to have a team to build the Wii U version of the PowerPC-based console with (so far) depressingly low sales numbers and software attachment rates (worse than the GC and Wii so far) or if they'd be better off skipping it entirely.

[Frick]

I don't know if this has been talked about, but this paragraph from an Ars Technica article is pretty interesting, and something I have not thought about:

The upshot is that there's a fair amount of CPU performance here—nothing record-breaking, but more than enough to work with. But it does mean that developers who want to take full advantage of the PS4's CPU are going to have to optimize their games to be heavily multithreaded. Sony's development tools will probably help developers do this, and taking advantage of eight x86 cores is still likely to be less difficult than developing for the complicated Cell processor (note that one of Sony's refrains at last night's unveiling was all about ease-of-use for developers). Still, it's an interesting move, given that most games on x86 PCs still benefit more from a few very fast CPU cores rather than many slower cores.

So, could this mean we get better ports? Because that system is basicly a medium/low-range gaming PC with lots of threads.

[xenocide]

Originally Posted by Frick

I don't know if this has been talked about, but this paragraph from an Ars Technica article is pretty interesting, and something I have not thought about:

So, could this mean we get better ports? Because that system is basicly a medium/low-range gaming PC with lots of threads.

They will make them heavily threaded and they will be coded natively to optimize x86 instruction sets, which means ports will be infinitely better in terms of performance. If the Xbox 720 is in fact using an AMD CPU as well, I expect performance in PC games that are multi-platform to be substantially better.

[yogurt_21]

Originally Posted by xenocide

What in heavens name are you talking about? The Wii U is a phenomenal failure thus far. They have almost no exclusives to speak of, and the games in development that were praised have since either been cancelled, or expanded to other platforms (Rayman was a huge one). It has sold less units total than the Playstation Vita, and was outsold in January by the Xbox 360 at a rate of 5 to 1. I'd imagine anywhere that you see it sold out probably just moved them elsewhere to clear up space for products that actually sell, or you happen to live in the one place where people want that hunk of crap.

If the Playstation 4 and Xbox 720 are going to be x86-based, that further screws the Wii U by the way. It means this time next year when all three systems are out, developers are going to sit down and ask if they really want to have a team to build the Wii U version of the PowerPC-based console with (so far) depressingly low sales numbers and software attachment rates (worse than the GC and Wii so far) or if they'd be better off skipping it entirely.

lack of advertising likely to blame for poor january sales in the US. Nice try with the selective numbers tho. The wiiU sold 890,000 units over the holidays in the US alone. Its sold over 3 million units in less than 3 months. It's not at the original Wii sales, but its not tanking either.

[cadaveca]

Originally Posted by xenocide

What in heavens name are you talking about?

I live in Canada, and we make up just a small part of those numbers, so the situation here is not accurately reflected by numbers like those.

[xenocide]

Originally Posted by yogurt_21

lack of advertising likely to blame for poor january sales in the US. Nice try with the selective numbers tho. The wiiU sold 890,000 units over the holidays in the US alone. Its sold over 3 million units in less than 3 months. It's not at the original Wii sales, but its not tanking either.

The console launched 4 months ago, and most of the sales were in the holiday season--January is the first non-holiday month of sale, and it posted horribly poor numbers. basically it sold just under 3m over 2 months, and has stagnated. According to VGChartz the PS Vita by comparison has sold 4.1m units to date--which Nintendo is on the path to--and is widely considered a huge failure.

There's also the problem of Software Attachment, check out the Software Sales numbers for the Wii U. Notice anything? Nobody is buying games. Lets check out how they are selling as of last week tracked (actually two weeks ago). A whole two games in the top 100. For a system that came out 3 months ago. That is terrible.

I'm not cherry picking the numbers, the system is really doing that badly.

Originally Posted by cadaveca

I live in Canada, and we make up just a small part of those numbers, so the situation here is not accurately reflected by numbers like those.

It's probably a supply issue, Nintendo is huge on artificially limiting supply to make it look as though their system is in crazy demand. They probably tried funneling shipments into areas where the system actually sold well and cutting off low sales zones. I find it hard to believe that anywhere people are stilling fighting to find Wii U's since I have seen a dozen or so in every major retailer around here since the new year.