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Forums - Sony - Sony: PS4's main selling point will NOT be improved hardware specs

Raze on 08 February 2013
nnodley said:
Raze said:
Not a surprise, they're likely using a similar processor to the PS3, considering 8 cores is still peaking it for the majority of PCs out there. They're likely taking a page out of Nintendo's book, where Nintendo used GC parts to put together the Wii, Sony is likely transporting its PS3 investments into the PS4. Extra memory, a faster gpu, and more HD space will be the main features, not major graphical leaps.

Interesting to see how they're going to go, seems like they're planning to make a go for the casuals. Worked well for Nintendo last gen.

What in the world are you talking about.  The ps4 is more than likely using a CPU and GPU that are like PCs.  All the rumors on the ps4 specs, which are all saying the same thing now, point to the ps4 being a pretty big jump.  It will be a huge mistake for Sony and MS to not get specs that will play all of the high end PC games at 1080p and 60fps at ultra settings plus having room for even more improvement on graphics and other stuff.  

The Sony Cell is an 8 core processor, which fares to current max cores on the PC market. Jumping to a different company's 8 core processor makes little sense for little gain. Optomising the Cell's design to run at higher mhz per core saves them money, which keeps production costs down.

The GPU, for all the rumors floating around, is little known yet. I don't doubt it'll be a faster GPU than the PS3, but the improvements will be sublte, as you said - likely more a framerate increase instead of added shadows or big jump in poly count.

As console development takes time, the specs never match high end PC gaming. New video cards are coming out every few months, by the time a console developer decides on a GPU, there's already something better in the PC market. As development likely started at least 1 year, if not 2 years ago, the GPU will be on par with high end PC graphics from that time frame.

With luck, the PS4/720 specs might perform graphically equivalent to my PC, which I built in 2011, and that's not a bad thing. Radeon HD 6790 with 1 Gb ram on it, I can play L4D2 on max settings. Of course with the new PCIe standard coming out in 2014, it'll be time to upgrade the mobo and vid card to get something even stronger.

Yet the point being, Sony is looking to push in different directions than hardware specs, the message of the OP. So, likely Sony is either going to capitalize on their Cell technology, or finding a cheaper alternative.  There's really nothing wrong with the Cell, it's a good processor, and even PS3 devs haven't unlocked its full potential.  Remember, spec rumors are often WAY off the mark.



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Cold-Flipper on 08 February 2013

As I said in another thread, Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft are all going to aim for innovation next-gen



nnodley on 08 February 2013
Raze said:
nnodley said:
Raze said:
Not a surprise, they're likely using a similar processor to the PS3, considering 8 cores is still peaking it for the majority of PCs out there. They're likely taking a page out of Nintendo's book, where Nintendo used GC parts to put together the Wii, Sony is likely transporting its PS3 investments into the PS4. Extra memory, a faster gpu, and more HD space will be the main features, not major graphical leaps.

Interesting to see how they're going to go, seems like they're planning to make a go for the casuals. Worked well for Nintendo last gen.

What in the world are you talking about.  The ps4 is more than likely using a CPU and GPU that are like PCs.  All the rumors on the ps4 specs, which are all saying the same thing now, point to the ps4 being a pretty big jump.  It will be a huge mistake for Sony and MS to not get specs that will play all of the high end PC games at 1080p and 60fps at ultra settings plus having room for even more improvement on graphics and other stuff.  

The Sony Cell is an 8 core processor, which fares to current max cores on the PC market. Jumping to a different company's 8 core processor makes little sense for little gain. Optomising the Cell's design to run at higher mhz per core saves them money, which keeps production costs down.

The GPU, for all the rumors floating around, is little known yet. I don't doubt it'll be a faster GPU than the PS3, but the improvements will be sublte, as you said - likely more a framerate increase instead of added shadows or big jump in poly count.

As console development takes time, the specs never match high end PC gaming. New video cards are coming out every few months, by the time a console developer decides on a GPU, there's already something better in the PC market. As development likely started at least 1 year, if not 2 years ago, the GPU will be on par with high end PC graphics from that time frame.

With luck, the PS4/720 specs might perform graphically equivalent to my PC, which I built in 2011, and that's not a bad thing. Radeon HD 6790 with 1 Gb ram on it, I can play L4D2 on max settings. Of course with the new PCIe standard coming out in 2014, it'll be time to upgrade the mobo and vid card to get something even stronger.

Yet the point being, Sony is looking to push in different directions than hardware specs, the message of the OP. So, likely Sony is either going to capitalize on their Cell technology, or finding a cheaper alternative.  There's really nothing wrong with the Cell, it's a good processor, and even PS3 devs haven't unlocked its full potential.  Remember, spec rumors are often WAY off the mark.

I guess we'll see soon. But, what it sounds like to me when they say that hardware specs are not gonna be there focus is that they just are not gonna go out and just boast about their specs like they did with the ps3.  To me they mean they will actually focus on games and showing more social aspects of the consoles than anything like MS, but with more social aspects with games rather than just social aspects on the conoles to dominate your living room so you just spend money on MS instead.  IMO, MS is going the wrong way with their console and forcing people to do everything MS's way.