Did Sony catch Microsoft by surprise with their system specs?

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purbeast0

No Lifer
Sep 13, 2001
53,038
5,920
126
That's true, today it would be like stuffing a Radeon 7970 into the XB1. They really really wimped out with the new console specs, probably for a combination of reliability and cost concerns. That's why it's so idiotic when you hear people say that the new consoles are like 'high end PCs'. They're just not. Hell they will struggle with 1080p in many titles.

Will there be tons of great games? Yes.
Will they be way way better than current gen consoles? Yes.
Are they anywhere near as high end relatively speaking as 360/PS3 were on their launches? No, they're massively gimped by comparison when you look at same-era specs, outside of ram. They really put too little ram in last time, and this time they got that right. But the CPU is weak, and the GPUs are weak. No way to really argue that.

Console overhead is lower though. Not quite as low as some try to say, after all an 8800GTX @ 1280x720 and medium details/low AA can still run most games just fine. And that's a card older than Moses. It has more to do with low target framerates, high optimization over time, and so on. In 3-4 years PS4 and especially XB1 will look incredibly weak. We should be approaching the ability for single GPUs to run 4K with high details by that time.

and you know who cares about this? about .0001% of the people who are going to be gaming on the consoles. and yes, i made that number up.

the 99.999% of people who are going to be gaming on the xb1 and ps4 fall into the first 2 questions you asked.
 

smackababy

Lifer
Oct 30, 2008
27,024
79
86
The PS3 was using 2 year old graphics technology when it release and IIRC, the Xbox 360 was as well. They weren't bleeding edge and the new consoles also aren't.

Nobody that is just a console gamer cares about specs. I can bet you nobody who plays COD on console and doesn't play PC games can tell you it isn't rendered at 1080p. They will answer "well, my TV is 1080p and it fills it up; must be 1080p then".

The idea that people who pay $400 for a console care that it can't run Crysis at 1440p, 60FPS, on ultra is pretty stupid.
 

Spjut

Senior member
Apr 9, 2011
931
160
106
The PS3 was using 2 year old graphics technology when it release and IIRC, the Xbox 360 was as well. They weren't bleeding edge and the new consoles also aren't.

The 360's GPU is known to have been advanced for its time, it was the first GPU that featured unified shaders.
 

Arkaign

Lifer
Oct 27, 2006
20,736
1,377
126
The PS3 was using 2 year old graphics technology when it release and IIRC, the Xbox 360 was as well. They weren't bleeding edge and the new consoles also aren't.

Nobody that is just a console gamer cares about specs. I can bet you nobody who plays COD on console and doesn't play PC games can tell you it isn't rendered at 1080p. They will answer "well, my TV is 1080p and it fills it up; must be 1080p then".

The idea that people who pay $400 for a console care that it can't run Crysis at 1440p, 60FPS, on ultra is pretty stupid.

That's true, nobody that plays console does care anything about specs. That brings me to the question, why would they bother making new consoles at all? Nobody will care that the specs are better. They obviously cost a lot of money to develop, and until they sell many many millions they will actually be in the hole on them. Seems pointless.
 

purbeast0

No Lifer
Sep 13, 2001
53,038
5,920
126
That's true, nobody that plays console does care anything about specs. That brings me to the question, why would they bother making new consoles at all? Nobody will care that the specs are better. They obviously cost a lot of money to develop, and until they sell many many millions they will actually be in the hole on them. Seems pointless.

i think he meant no one cares about the numbers and details of the specs, not that there can be better graphics.

there is a reason when the SNES and Genesis came out they were simply known to the general public as "16 bits" and that was that. no one knew the specs and shit back then, because no one cares. it's the same thing now. 99% of people don't give a shit what the technical specs are, just that they have "more bits" than the previous consoles.
 

BrightCandle

Diamond Member
Mar 15, 2007
4,762
0
76
I care if it means we find ourselves once again at sub 1080p resolutions and mostly at 30fps. Its a shame that the hardware choice might impact the way games look so dramatically.
 

cmdrdredd

Lifer
Dec 12, 2001
27,052
357
126
I care if it means we find ourselves once again at sub 1080p resolutions and mostly at 30fps. Its a shame that the hardware choice might impact the way games look so dramatically.

I read an article on edge that talked about the new consoles with developers and a couple of them mentioned something that caught my attention. I think, taken in context, it shows how much the software optimizations really matter and that there is still work to be done. It also shows that there is no incentive or reason for developers to use kinect or the PS4 touchpad because it would make them look bias perhaps or hurt their sales on another platform because of what I would call "fanboy outrage". If theirr platform of choice gets an inferior version, they won't buy it claiming the developer sucks or whatnot. Plus if it takes extra resources to do it, it may be better just to keep them the same. So they will continue to play it safe. At least that's what I gather. I've posted the link and some quotes below. It is important to remember that the developer's are still learning the quirks and don't have finalized software.

http://www.edge-online.com/news/pow...erences-between-ps4-and-xbox-one-performance/


without optimisation for either console, a platform-agnostic development build can run at around 30FPS in 1920×1080 on PS4, but it’ll run at “20-something” FPS in 1600×900 on Xbox One. “Xbox One is weaker and it’s a pain to use its ESRAM,”

Even this close to launch, “the hardware isn’t locked,” said another source. Sony and Microsoft are each still working on the graphics drivers for each console, and Xbox One is lagging behind in this regard – Microsoft “has been late on their drivers and that has been hurting them,”

Both platform holders are, of course, encouraging developers to take advantage of each console’s unique features (the DualShock 4’s touch pad and Kinect, for example) but there’s little enthusiasm for either among the developers we spoke to. “They really want us to make use of platform specific stuff to give their version a leg up over the other,” said one source. “But unless there’s a good design reason or incentive we rarely do.”

One source even suggested that enforcing parity across consoles could become a political issue between platform holders, developers and publishers. They said that it could damage perceptions of a cross platform title, not to mention Xbox One, if the PS4 version shipped with an obviously superior resolution and framerate; better to “castrate” the PS4 version and release near-identical games to avoid ruffling any feathers.

This claim was later countered by a contact at a different studio. “It would be totally fine for us to make one version prettier without any political difficulties but it usually doesn’t make financial sense,” they said, “unless it’s a very simple tweak.”
 

zerocool84

Lifer
Nov 11, 2004
36,041
472
126
That's true, nobody that plays console does care anything about specs. That brings me to the question, why would they bother making new consoles at all? Nobody will care that the specs are better. They obviously cost a lot of money to develop, and until they sell many many millions they will actually be in the hole on them. Seems pointless.

The reason why the made it with its off the shelf and not high end hardware is so they can make money on each system out the gate which they are for a change.
 

RussianSensation

Elite Member
Sep 5, 2003
19,458
765
126
On the hardware side, MS got caught with its pants down plain and simple. They have now scrambled to increase the GPU speed from 800mhz to 853mhz and CPU speed from 1.6Ghz to 1.75Ghz. That still won't cover what is about a 40-50% disadvantage in overall GPU performance.

"Memory reads on PlayStation 4 are 40-50 percent faster than Xbox One, says the report, and the arithmetic logic unit (ALU) on Sony's graphic card is also said to be twice as fast than its next-gen competition."
http://www.gamespot.com/news/playstation-4-noticeably-faster-than-xbox-one-report-6414431

http://www.gamespot.com/news/microsoft-boosting-xbox-one-cpu-console-now-in-full-production-6414025

Then you have Sony's major studios that will pump out some awesome looking games with great gameplay.

Then you have non-upgradeable HDD, $100 more expensive price and XB1 "exclusives" like TitanFall coming out on the PC anyway. While most of the multi-platform titles should look similar, over time this might change:

http://www.videogamer.com/ps4/need_...r_on_one_next-gen_console_than_the_other.html

The biggest issue with XB1 is that for a PC gamer the console has almost nothing to offer right now and if it ends up like 360 that will remain true for the rest of its life unless one has many friends for online gaming in the US on XB1. Right now the generalization over the world is that PS4 is more powerful, that Sony has a better track record for releasing a larger # and higher quality exclusives and we know that PS4 costs less. Because of that more people will be drawn to PS4 and as that happens more of their friends will want to play with them -- i.e., drawing even more people towards PS4s. Unless MS signs some key exclusive games and drops prices, PS4 will blow them away worldwide, except in the U.S., U.K. and maybe a couple other countries.
 
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desprado

Golden Member
Jul 16, 2013
1,645
0
0
Let's not be dense.

Xbox 360 graphics were comparatively very high end when it was released 8 years ago in 2005.
yup that is my point.These next gen console could not survive like ps3 and xbox 360.Ps3 and xbox 360 at there launch there specs were really high and it was rare on pc but if u compare ps4 or xbox one both have low to mid range specs compare to present date.
 

BladeVenom

Lifer
Jun 2, 2005
13,365
16
0
without optimisation for either console, a platform-agnostic development build can run at around 30FPS in 1920×1080 on PS4, but it’ll run at “20-something” FPS in 1600×900 on Xbox One. “Xbox One is weaker and it’s a pain to use its ESRAM,”

So that's a 1.44x advantage in resolution with a 1.5x advantage in frame rate. 1.44 x 1.5 = 2.16 so when it comes to graphics the PS4 is twice as powerful as the Xbox One.
 
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futurefields

Diamond Member
Jun 2, 2012
6,470
32
91
Ryse is confirmed 900p. That's a Crytek first party game, Crytek are known to be pretty good at getting performance out of hardware. I think its also 30fps.
 

cmdrdredd

Lifer
Dec 12, 2001
27,052
357
126
Ryse is confirmed 900p. That's a Crytek first party game, Crytek are known to be pretty good at getting performance out of hardware. I think its also 30fps.

With crytek though they often put details on stuff you don't really see. Remember the tessellated frog in crysis 3? I am sure the game looks good in its own way.
 

Spjut

Senior member
Apr 9, 2011
931
160
106
yup that is my point.These next gen console could not survive like ps3 and xbox 360.Ps3 and xbox 360 at there launch there specs were really high and it was rare on pc but if u compare ps4 or xbox one both have low to mid range specs compare to present date.

That's debatable. The 360/PS3 only had 512MB total RAM, minus whatever footprint their OS took. 512MB RAM wasn't high even when the 360 launched

Capcom compared the 360's CPU to a Pentium D.