I really don't understand why people make such a big deal about these console specs. I am not trying to brag, but I love video games. I have a Wii U and I have both my Xbox One and PS4 preorders fully paid. I hope that there is never a day that there is one consoles. I love what each one brings to the table and will always get all of them. I wonder how many people will have all 3 at launch also.

I could not think of a more insecure reaction than blaming Xbox One fans for posting here. It really shows how mad some of the posters in this thread are.

The critical reaction after the Xbox One reveal was huge and a lot of gaming nerds on forums criticised that the XBox One is a multimedia machine and not a pure gaming machine. Now it turns out that the PS4 will do the exact same thing and suddenly you guys try to spin this like it is great news.

Any developments on this?

With the One, there is an actual excuse for the RAM actually being used, with the 3 different OS.

Id like to know exactly what the fuck is going on that requires so much on PS4.

Eurogamer has updated the article and now the "flexible" ram is only 512 mb, and not 1gb, so developers can only access up to 5gb ram.

Is this still  a rumor? This is what Hiphopgamer has to say.

If this rumor is true: It's probably 3.5 to compensate for how bad the OS on the ps3 was with the amount of ram it had. They could make the OS use less ram in the future, but for now, since no games need over 4 rams yet - they're using it for the OS instead and will work to optimize it over time and allot more ram to be available for developers. At least that's what many people were saying on gaf.

There really isn't another reason why the ps4 needs more ram for its OS than the xbox one. I'm guessing they don't want something like cross-game chat to be an issue this gen or make multitasking as good as possible. If rumors are to be believed- the ps4's OS was once only using 512 megs - but then they doubled the amount of ram on the ps4 from 4 to 8. Why not use the extra space to future proof the OS and make it as smooth as possible.

But honestly, Eurogamer's track record for these things lately have been bad and I doubt we'll see 3.5 for the OS at launch.

Why haven't Sony responded?

damn.. at this rate we'll end up with the PS4 having 1gb reserved for games at monday..

Eurogamer

UPDATE: A new source familiar with the matter has provided additional information to Digital Foundry that confirms only 4.5GB of the PS4's 8GB GDDR5 memory pool is guaranteed to game developers right now, while also clarifying how the PS4's "flexible memory" works in practice.

In real terms, an additional 512MB of physical RAM may be available in addition to the 4.5GB mentioned in the SDK. Flexible memory consists of physical and virtual spaces, and the latter introduces paging issues which impact performance. In our original story we combined them together.

For practical game applications, the correct figures for this story, as we understand it now, are a guaranteed 4.5GB for development and a further 512MB from the flexible pool. We have updated the headline accordingly.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-ps3-system-software-memory

Yes and no. 

The PS4 for certain has 512MB less (4.5GB) than the Xbox One, and at best it has 512MB more.  At least with developers, if this information is correct, Sony needs to clarify what the deal is with the 1GB in between.  Because if that 1GB is for features that may or may not be used by the developer, than you'll see some games limited by memory (in the future) and some not.  If that 1GB is being reserved for any other reason then developers can only be certain that they have 4.5GB available to them and will develop accordingly.  They might go for broke and do 5GB and hedge bets, but unless developers get some guarantees from Sony that they won't lose that 1GB then they're not going to use it.

Why would they risk a game not being playable in the future?

I don't think Sony has to communicate with the public as importantly as they have to communicate with developers.  However, the speed of memory or the number of shaders doesn't matter.  Memory allows you to take a set amount of data on disc, and put it into a location that is fast and quickly accessable.  1GB of data on disc is 1GB of data in memory.  The less of it you have, the less data you can store in it.  And if you're looking at specs, the last spec you want to rely on is the transfer rate of the SATA 2 interface.

So, this is important.  It isn't important to gamers, but it is important to developers.