i'm not really sure but i keep hearing how expensive the ultra fast ram is, so i started thinking wouldn't it be cheaper if had they gone with a 2.5 gflops GPU and 4gb gddr5, wouldn't that make the system cheaper and give it better graphics, i just don't see how they could use the 8gb or even 4gb, the budget for the game would be insane.

Hmmm

By itself no I don't think it's mistake. But knocking down the RAM to put a better GPU in is an interesting question. Personally I would say yes but developers have been begging for RAM for years so who knows

Nope not at all.

4 GB of shared RAM would have caused problems in the long run with the social features they were planning. Cramming those features into 512MB or less would have left little room for future features to be added to the OS (like cross game chat on PS3) and cramming next gen quality games into 3.5GB would have caused problems for the more ambitious games.

Going for 8GB of RAM is the right choice for the long term, and will allow for much more expansive and dynamic games without sacrificing visuals.

depends on what MS does and if the nextbox sells. if xbox dosent sell theyre specs are irrellevant as 3rd party will go to sony, but if ms is weaker but sells it will just be like last gen where devs dont use the full potential

Thing was, PS3 was just simply harder to develop for. This time around it looks like it'll be extremely easy to develop for.

They couldn't have changed the GPU last minute because it would have screwed all development and release dates, but adding more RAM is easy.

that's what i'm thinking i would love to see a developer actually explain what's the benefit of so much ram is, cause hardly any games uses more then 2gb, and with game budgets being so high i don't expect games to use more then that, i just don't want sony to make the same mistake as blue ray, increasing the price of the system with out a huge gain.

I doubt that 8GB of GDDR5 is in any way comparable to the PS3's CELL + BluRay costs.

good point UnitSmiley however ow that xbox has support i doubt it will drop it quick, its possible it drops to say 40mil but i believe alot of 3rd party support will still be there (at least on the western side)