You Sure the PS4K is a Real Thing!?

[KBG29]

DM235 said:

kitler53 said:

being forward/backwards compatible in part means targeting the the old version first and then optimizing forward.  that's how iphone developers work at least.  no one targets the latest and greatest they target the version 2 versions back.  new development will basically target the latest version of the hardware when the project starts or 1 hardware revision back (depending on MSony's release schedule and the development's expected development length) and then when the project completes they'll optimize a bit for any newer hardware versions.

i don't believe anyone will make development targeted for the ps4k for quite a while,.. like 3-6 years.  they will develop for the ps4 and do a bit of optimization for the ps4k when it happens.  a game that released in 2015 will never be optimized to take advantage of any of the newer hardware revisions but a game that released in 2015 will always work on any of the newer hardware revisions.

i think we'll see less skus dedicated to harddrive size like we did last gen.  if the harddrive size is changed it will piggyback on to the interal hardware revisions.  harddrives are upgradable anyways so there isn't really a need to have too many sizes and being that this gen installs are manditory there is no reason to have a tiny (4Gb) drive like last gen  supported.

I get what you are saying.  If Sony builds a robust OS, and handles all of the drivers in the background to handle all of the different hardware revisions (which I am assuming Apple does with iOS), developers can target any particular revision, and then do some regression testing to confirm it still works with the other hardware revisions.

If this happens, would there ever be a PS5?  Personally, I think I would miss that "wow" you get from a totally new generation of hardware if they just decide to do incremental changes for 10 years (and I guess the "wow" would still be there if you compare revision 5 to revision 1, but i think it would be somewhat hidden if you compare revision 5 to revision 4, for example).

There will absolutly be a PS5, that will be the moment when Sony ends 1st party dvelopment for the PS4 series of consoles. When they transition from the PS4 series to the PS5 series, it will be a simple indicater to consumers that PS5 games only work on PS5 devices. 

Of course PS5 will also play PS4 games, as PS5 will be fully backwards compatible with all PS4 software from day one. It will also come with a fully fledged OS as well, and won't be seeing the reset we saw from X360/PS3 to XBO/PS4.

As far as the wow factor of PS5 goes. It will be substancial. When we move from 100MBps 5400RPM (500MBps PS4K) as the standard to 2GBps SSD's, it will greatly change the development landscape. We will jump from 8GB of GDDR5 (32GB in the PS4K+) to 128GB of Stacked RAM, and a 1.84 TFLOP APU (8 TFlops in PS4K+) to 40Tflops of power in PS5. This will bring rich 4K VR experinces at 120fps, and 8K in the traditional flat panel gaming. 

I see PS4K hitting early next year based on what Sony has said about bringing 4K media players out. Then I think we will see the PS4K+ around 2019. That will lead us to the PS5 in 2023 - 2024 which shold be right around when a console with the specs above would be possible at the sub $500 price range.

The reason I think this has to happen is that we will not have the tech available in 2018 - 2020 to make a PS5 that does anything PS4 can't already do. All you would have in a $500 system is at most a 500MBps 2TB SSD, 64GB of RAM, and a 12 - 15TFLOP APU. That is only going to give you PS4 games in 4K/60fps, it is not enough to push gaming to a new level, and therefore a completely new console cycle at that point would be a complete waste, but the PS4K+ as stated above, would be a perfect $400 unit to cap off an awesome run on the PS4 APU tech.