“For The Witness we’re mostly interested in the base machine and how fast it is – the fact it has faster RAM than a PC, which really helps in shuttling graphics resources around, and since it’s not running a heavyweight operating system like Windows that gets in the way of your graphics,” he told us. “Rendering stuff through Windows has an impact on performance. Since a console is just about games, that doesn’t happen, and the equivalent game will run faster. And if you can target to specific hardware you can make it run faster, too.”

http://www.edge-online.com/news/jonathan-blow-on-the-power-of-ps4-and-how-sharing-will-change-the-way-we-play/

That's good to hear, not sure I'm sold on the share feature yet though...

Best console ever confirmed

Two minute buffer, does that mean it records the last two minutes? I thought it was 15, or that's what the rumours said.

He doesn't say easier, apparently he said leaner (whatever that means) and that isn't a direct quote but something the article writer interpreted. Given the direct quote that is in the article is about the fact that the PS4 doesn't have the Windows API overhead (which no shit every console has that advantage and always will) and how targeting specific hardware allows more optimisation (also nothing new) which would suggest by leaner he meant no API bloat. I have no idea how you got easier to develop for from that... The only PS4 specific part is about the high bandwidth GDDR5 offers helps but that isn't new info.

Easier than PC? Games are made on PC and the first source code and alpha stages are PC code. The main advantage of consoles is the uniform architecture, every unit has the same hardware as this allows for better optimizing of code and engines.

The development itself isn't easier on consoles, the fact that you don't need scaleable engines and varying compression rates makes it more streamlined in the mid-process and up to final product. Allthough, in many cases with multiplatform development, you need to account for different consoles having different hardware, in those cases the process is not unlike that of fitting PC engines into scaleable form to fit several sets of hardware architecture and software acceleration.

Who is Jonathan Blow and why doesn't he know the difference between GDDR5 and DDR3.

No console runs a full fledged Windows.

And something tells me The Witness isn't that much of a graphics resource monster.

Not really no.  It depends on the game.  For something like Braid or a FPS it's better... for something computer intensive though like Civilization or a RTS...  DDR3 would be better.  There you need DDR3's better latency to process all the PC moves that you mostly don't even see due to fog of war.

Ever play a Civ game with a shitty CPU but good graphcis card?  You can be waiting a whole hour for the damn PC to finish it's moves.

But my point was, GDDR5 has better bandwith and worse latency.  One moves faster while the other can carry more per movement.

It's like a difference between a racecar and a truck... and GDDR5 is the truck.

DDR3 is faster.  GDDR5 can process more at once.   Meaning for games where you just have the graphics show up, and they basically stay that way.  GDDR5 is better.   For games where you need to make tons of trips where there are tons and tons of decisions being made one right after another.  DDR3 is better.

Not that it should make THAT much of a difference anyway.