The PlayStation 4
What you've heard
NEXT GEN BITCHES! The PlayStation 4 is here and it raises the bar on gaming for everyone. We’re going to see performance beyond our wildest dreams and graphics that are going to make movie CGI look like claymation. More importantly, it’s going to make the current gen system and the Wii U obsolete as its massive processing power processes circles around them. This is the gen revolution baby, and the future is NOW! Well I mean the future is holiday 2013, not NOW now, but you get what I’m saying ...
Except...
This is going to be a little tech heavy, but the PS4 doesn’t really have a lot going on under the hood. As a rule when a presentation has more buzz words in it than specs it’s a bad sign, and we didn’t even get to see what type of RAM the PS4 had until after the conference. And while the 8GB of GDDR5 RAM is easily the most impressive feature of the new system, it’s not enough to take away from the shortcomings. Let’s start with the CPU, which is an AMD APU with 8 cores. This isn’t a custom chip, it’s based on the Jaguar architecture that’s been around for over 2 years, so it’s not going to break any new ground for AMD. In fact the eight cores based on AMD’s Jaguar architecture are unlikely to be as fast as AMD’s current high end chips based on the Piledriver architecture, which lag significantly behind the i5 and i7 offerings from Intel. This is because the Jaguar isn’t even a desktop architecture; it was intended for use in low power devices like laptops. On the bright side, heat generation shouldn’t be a problem, which means they’ll likely turn up the clock speed a little.
The choice of a slower, 8 core system is Sony’s biggest miss this generation. Like the cell processing of the PS3, notoriously hated by developers for being difficult to work with, Sony is once again putting the onus on the game designers to use extreme hyper threading to take advantage of the 8 core set up. This could be devastating if Microsoft goes with a faster chip in their upcoming system. The Wii U has 3 processing cores which means if MS sticks to 2 or 4 cores in the new Xbox, developers will continue to do what they do today; write code for the the Wii U and Xbox and never bother to optimize it to take advantage of the PS3’s cell processing. This undermines any benefit Sony gained by going with a x86 processor this time around, a baffling move that is going to have a huge backlash in the community. For anyone who doesn't follow Sony, they are a bit nuts when it comes to pirating. They tried to lock up someone who hacked the PS3 and invented the DRM rootkit, and the community responded by taking down PlayStation network and all Sony owned MMOs for 63 days. Now the PS4 will release with a chip so fully understood that it almost guarantees a day one hack.
The GPU is what’s really going to make or break the PS4, and the numbers here are less than encouraging. The 1.84 TFLOPS promised at the conference is an impressive number, but not even close to what I would expect from a custom rig. By contrast a 7970 can push 4.3 TFLOPS in the much less friendly PC architecture. It doesn't get any better when you break down the details; Sony said the GPU would support 18 composite units, a useless figure without also telling us what architecture it’s going to be based on, but that in itself tells a story. If this was a new generation of chip, they would have been showing that off. So it’s safe to assume this means the same 64 stream processors, 4 texture units, and 1 render unit per composite of the current line of AMD chips, given us a total of 1152 stream processors, 72 texture, and 18 ROPs. This puts it more in line with the 7800 series, and although the numbers don't align perfectly with anything currently on the market, its closest match for architecture and Tflops is the 7850. Amazon has them for around $200. This is bad news for 4k gaming. Sony has said the system officially supports it, but based on these numbers ... I don’t see how. Frame rates on the 7850 running even 2560 x 1600 are generally horrendous.
So what’s the deal?
The PS4 is a much better system than the PS3, and for a lot of people that’s all that matters. When you look at the numbers above, it’s clear the PS4 doesn’t even hold a candle to a custom PC, but $1000-plus gaming rigs are simply out of the picture for a lot of gamers. So we have a system that’s better than what they currently have and better then what they could get for the money elsewhere. The media is focusing on that while ignoring the simple fact that it’s just not enough. When the PS3 and Xbox came out they weren’t mid ranged PCs at a decent price - they were better than any PC money could buy. Developers saw this, and took advantage of the new options open to them. They created games that couldn’t be played anywhere else, and even the hardcore PC enthusiast was given the choice; buy a gaming system or miss out on the best games. This time around, most games shown as “next gen” are being released on the current gen systems as well, and it’s only going to be a few years until you can buy a PC in the $500 range that outperforms the PS4. Without a gimmick the PS4 doesn’t do a lot for the average gamer that they can’t do with current gen tech, and when it comes to gimmicks, MS and Nintendo have always have Sony beat.
Sony's stock took a hit after the announcement and Nintendo's went up, and for good reason. For 2 years Nintendo has been saying "next gen" isn't even a thing, and the next irritation of systems will need to focus on social connection, player experience, and what they can do outside of gaming. They then released a disappointingly under-powered system that did just that. Sony on the other hand spent 2 years telling us how the only thing that will matter in next gen is pushing the envelope in teams of power and performance. Then they released a disappointingly under-powered system that focused on social connection, player experience, and what it can do outside of gaming.
What you've heard
NEXT GEN BITCHES! The PlayStation 4 is here and it raises the bar on gaming for everyone. We’re going to see performance beyond our wildest dreams and graphics that are going to make movie CGI look like claymation. More importantly, it’s going to make the current gen system and the Wii U obsolete as its massive processing power processes circles around them. This is the gen revolution baby, and the future is NOW! Well I mean the future is holiday 2013, not NOW now, but you get what I’m saying ...
Except...
This is going to be a little tech heavy, but the PS4 doesn’t really have a lot going on under the hood. As a rule when a presentation has more buzz words in it than specs it’s a bad sign, and we didn’t even get to see what type of RAM the PS4 had until after the conference. And while the 8GB of GDDR5 RAM is easily the most impressive feature of the new system, it’s not enough to take away from the shortcomings. Let’s start with the CPU, which is an AMD APU with 8 cores. This isn’t a custom chip, it’s based on the Jaguar architecture that’s been around for over 2 years, so it’s not going to break any new ground for AMD. In fact the eight cores based on AMD’s Jaguar architecture are unlikely to be as fast as AMD’s current high end chips based on the Piledriver architecture, which lag significantly behind the i5 and i7 offerings from Intel. This is because the Jaguar isn’t even a desktop architecture; it was intended for use in low power devices like laptops. On the bright side, heat generation shouldn’t be a problem, which means they’ll likely turn up the clock speed a little.
The choice of a slower, 8 core system is Sony’s biggest miss this generation. Like the cell processing of the PS3, notoriously hated by developers for being difficult to work with, Sony is once again putting the onus on the game designers to use extreme hyper threading to take advantage of the 8 core set up. This could be devastating if Microsoft goes with a faster chip in their upcoming system. The Wii U has 3 processing cores which means if MS sticks to 2 or 4 cores in the new Xbox, developers will continue to do what they do today; write code for the the Wii U and Xbox and never bother to optimize it to take advantage of the PS3’s cell processing. This undermines any benefit Sony gained by going with a x86 processor this time around, a baffling move that is going to have a huge backlash in the community. For anyone who doesn't follow Sony, they are a bit nuts when it comes to pirating. They tried to lock up someone who hacked the PS3 and invented the DRM rootkit, and the community responded by taking down PlayStation network and all Sony owned MMOs for 63 days. Now the PS4 will release with a chip so fully understood that it almost guarantees a day one hack.
The GPU is what’s really going to make or break the PS4, and the numbers here are less than encouraging. The 1.84 TFLOPS promised at the conference is an impressive number, but not even close to what I would expect from a custom rig. By contrast a 7970 can push 4.3 TFLOPS in the much less friendly PC architecture. It doesn't get any better when you break down the details; Sony said the GPU would support 18 composite units, a useless figure without also telling us what architecture it’s going to be based on, but that in itself tells a story. If this was a new generation of chip, they would have been showing that off. So it’s safe to assume this means the same 64 stream processors, 4 texture units, and 1 render unit per composite of the current line of AMD chips, given us a total of 1152 stream processors, 72 texture, and 18 ROPs. This puts it more in line with the 7800 series, and although the numbers don't align perfectly with anything currently on the market, its closest match for architecture and Tflops is the 7850. Amazon has them for around $200. This is bad news for 4k gaming. Sony has said the system officially supports it, but based on these numbers ... I don’t see how. Frame rates on the 7850 running even 2560 x 1600 are generally horrendous.
So what’s the deal?
The PS4 is a much better system than the PS3, and for a lot of people that’s all that matters. When you look at the numbers above, it’s clear the PS4 doesn’t even hold a candle to a custom PC, but $1000-plus gaming rigs are simply out of the picture for a lot of gamers. So we have a system that’s better than what they currently have and better then what they could get for the money elsewhere. The media is focusing on that while ignoring the simple fact that it’s just not enough. When the PS3 and Xbox came out they weren’t mid ranged PCs at a decent price - they were better than any PC money could buy. Developers saw this, and took advantage of the new options open to them. They created games that couldn’t be played anywhere else, and even the hardcore PC enthusiast was given the choice; buy a gaming system or miss out on the best games. This time around, most games shown as “next gen” are being released on the current gen systems as well, and it’s only going to be a few years until you can buy a PC in the $500 range that outperforms the PS4. Without a gimmick the PS4 doesn’t do a lot for the average gamer that they can’t do with current gen tech, and when it comes to gimmicks, MS and Nintendo have always have Sony beat.
Sony's stock took a hit after the announcement and Nintendo's went up, and for good reason. For 2 years Nintendo has been saying "next gen" isn't even a thing, and the next irritation of systems will need to focus on social connection, player experience, and what they can do outside of gaming. They then released a disappointingly under-powered system that did just that. Sony on the other hand spent 2 years telling us how the only thing that will matter in next gen is pushing the envelope in teams of power and performance. Then they released a disappointingly under-powered system that focused on social connection, player experience, and what it can do outside of gaming.
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