They're still a looooong way off. By the time they release there should be plenty of GPUs that can stem 4k@60fps.
So the manufacturers will probably do the same as this gen. Cheap out on GPUs and have something that can do 4k@30 and sub 4k at 60. Then again, higher resolutions are getting less and less noticeable so maybe a lot of developers will opt for 60fps sub 4k. The ghigher resolutions will take their toll and I think we will see 16-32GB of RAM in them coupled with an SSD. There might be even a few TB heavy HDD in there that uses the SSD as cache.

 The biggest guess is probably the medium. We will have to have either lightning fast Blurays(or whatever is the established standard then) or complete digital distribution.

Probably, they will have Nvidia or PowerVR mobile based.

It's always funny reading of stuff like superfast SSD with some terabytes.
Ther was that 'next year we'll have a quantum computer' or ther'll be terabyte optical discs years ago.

And no, there's no need for terabytes of RAM as long as the hardware isn't powerful enough to simulate pretty much evereything from sandparticles to real water drops. Until now, thats just shiny shader fx. We don't even have softbody physics on consoles.

Nope, between 32 and 64GB RAM at best. But loads of storage space, probably still HDD's as long as they're cheaper.
I'd guess 32GB RAM, because console OS's won't get much fatter. One thing many forget, 360 OS in background was about 32MB, now we have 1GB on Wii U and about 3GB on PS4One just for multitasking shareplay etc.
Actual free and usable RAM right now is just around 5GB, last gen had almost 0,5GB.
RAM will get much faster though with new stacked 3D RAM.

HDD's just because of the price as long as they're cheaper. Possibly as much terabytes as possible to get people download only. SSD's will only come if they get much, much cheaper as mass storage.

CPU will again be low clock manycore but handing over more and more work to the GPU.

As of now with decreasing speed of raw power growth i would expect next gen GPU's to be somewhere between 8 and 16 TFLOP/s. Again, the power consumption will be an issue. Most people don't want consoles with the size of AVR's or minitower PC's. Plain fact, right now everyones moaning about Xbones size.

Nintendo again might show up a little earlier with a little slower hardware. Though that wont be a big difference anymore.

That's a strange thing. Cell is powerful in some terms, yes. Give it an ideal workload and it is fast. That's like doing pretty much of the same physics stuff.
Give it other workload and having no data prefetch, being in order architecture, the G5 core moderating the SPE's and so on will make Cell a pain in the ass.
And the stuff Cell was intended to do is already done on GPU's or will be done on GPU's soon. Just don't make the mistake, only look at the ideal cases like Ubis physics demo and say Cell's faster. Because there's much more in an actual game that slows down Cell extremely.

captain carot said: It's always funny reading of stuff like superfast SSD with some terabytes. Ther was that 'next year we'll have a quantum computer' or ther'll be terabyte optical discs years ago. And no, there's no need for terabytes of RAM as long as the hardware isn't powerful enough to simulate pretty much evereything from sandparticles to real water drops. Until now, thats just shiny shader fx. We don't even have softbody physics on consoles. Nope, between 32 and 64GB RAM at best. But loads of storage space, probably still HDD's as long as they're cheaper. I'd guess 32GB RAM, because console OS's won't get much fatter. One thing many forget, 360 OS in background was about 32MB, now we have 1GB on Wii U and about 3GB on PS4One just for multitasking shareplay etc. Actual free and usable RAM right now is just around 5GB, last gen had almost 0,5GB. RAM will get much faster though with new stacked 3D RAM. HDD's just because of the price as long as they're cheaper. Possibly as much terabytes as possible to get people download only. SSD's will only come if they get much, much cheaper as mass storage. CPU will again be low clock manycore but handing over more and more work to the GPU. As of now with decreasing speed of raw power growth i would expect next gen GPU's to be somewhere between 8 and 16 TFLOP/s. Again, the power consumption will be an issue. Most people don't want consoles with the size of AVR's or minitower PC's. Plain fact, right now everyones moaning about Xbones size. Nintendo again might show up a little earlier with a little slower hardware. Though that wont be a big difference anymore. The PS3's Cell processor is actually more powerful than the PS4's CPU. That's a strange thing. Cell is powerful in some terms, yes. Give it an ideal workload and it is fast. That's like doing pretty much of the same physics stuff. Give it other workload and having no data prefetch, being in order architecture, the G5 core moderating the SPE's and so on will make Cell a pain in the ass. And the stuff Cell was intended to do is already done on GPU's or will be done on GPU's soon. Just don't make the mistake, only look at the ideal cases like Ubis physics demo and say Cell's faster. Because there's much more in an actual game that slows down Cell extremely.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/12/18/crossbar_jumps_over_higher_rram_bar/

I have a really hard time imagining a generation after this one. We just made such a tiny jump, and we're having such a hard time with it. I wouldn't be surprised to see this gen last even longer than the last one, just because it's becoming ridiculous to develop these games. Give devs all the power in the world and they just won't be able to utilize it without spending hundreds of millions of dollars on every title. So I really couldn't tell you what the next consoles will look like.

If I absolutely had to guess (without getting all technical like you other dudes), I would say that gen 9 will barely look any better than 8, if at all, but they'll finally be able to comfortably do 4k and all the multitasking you could want, as well as streaming limited only by your internet connection. If you don't count the next Nintendo system which I believe will be released way more than a year ahead this time, the next gen will start in 2022. Some will scoff at that number, but there was a time when I would have scoffed at an eight-year generation, and we're even closer to the plateau now.

Its very difficult to predict, as Sony and Microsoft will be probably hoping for a 6-7 year cycle with their current consoles, making it 2019-2020 before the new tech arrives. Nintendo however favour a 5-6 year cycle and are 2 years along so they may release new hardware in 2017-2018. This will be very interesting if this happens. Even the big N realizes that the main obstacle that they currently face with 3rd party support is the fact that PS4/PC/Xbone games cant be easily ported over to Wii U and devs don't want to take the risk.
Could it be that Nintendo launch something significantly more powerful than Sony/Microsoft 2 years before the competition are ready to upgrade?
If you really want to know what the next consoles will perform like look to what the very best PC's are doing today and that's about right.
One things for sure, if I have to endure a 3rd generation in a row where 1080p/60fps isn't standard I am going to shit a chicken.

tripenfall said: Its very difficult to predict, as Sony and Microsoft will be probably hoping for a 6-7 year cycle with their current consoles, making it 2019-2020 before the new tech arrives. Nintendo however favour a 5-6 year cycle and are 2 years along so they may release new hardware in 2017-2018. This will be very interesting if this happens. Even the big N realizes that the main obstacle that they currently face with 3rd party support is the fact that PS4/PC/Xbone games cant be easily ported over to Wii U and devs don't want to take the risk. Could it be that Nintendo launch something significantly more powerful than Sony/Microsoft 2 years before the competition are ready to upgrade? If you really want to know what the next consoles will perform like look to what the very best PC's are doing today and that's about right. One things for sure, if I have to endure a 3rd generation in a row where 1080p/60fps isn't standard I am going to shit a chicken.

isn't this the 8th straight gen where 1080p 60fps isn't the standard?

JustBeingReal said: jonathanalis said: Hello! I was wandering how will be the power of the 9th gen consoles, PS5 and Xbox 2. And we have to considers things like: -We have always seen almost the same size of jumps to the next gen: 8x to 16x more memory, more and more processors power, teraflops, etc. Always folowing the moore law. -But, meanwhile( and because of that), games are becaming each time more and more expensive to develop. -Other thing to consider is that we are reaching visuals almost as rich as the real life! at some moment, someday, more power wont lead to more realistic visuals than we will achieve. -And we are reaching a bottle neck in the size of transistors, using silicon, we wont be able to keep the same proportion of hardware power increase and proce drop due the transistor size limitation. So, soon we can throw moore law away. But it is starting. Considering all these statements, how do you think that will be the ps5 and xbox 2 specs? we can expect 128 Gb ram memory consoles? one of the components wont be able to improve to follow the other?if so,what will be the bottle neck, the processor, bandwidth? If the jump wont be as bigger as we expect, it can help nintendo(that usually dont go full specs)? I would really like hardware experts opinions. Universal Memory is right around the corner, next year there is a company that will begin production of this tech and it's basically an SSD that can be used like RAM, fast access comparable to GDDR5, with all the benefits of big storage, so capacity by 2018/19 will be ridiculously huge compared to what it is now, forget 128GB, we're talking Terabytes worth of accessible memory, even if the platform holders limit how much is useable by devs they could easily have 512GBs just for game use, not that they'd need it, but he options will be there. For VRAM there will also be HBM built onto the AMD APU die, likely a few GBs connected using an interposer and bandwidth for that could be several TB/s.   A stage of memory usage will be gone, so latency improves massively. If we stay at 200 watts then CPU and GPU performance will jump up like it has in past generations, so 20X the power of the current platforms is feasible, but having Universal Memory means even more of that extra performance is usable and less is wasted. We end up having fewer bottlenecks because of Universal Memory.   IMO the jump will be pretty huge, 4K will be useable for sure, 120FPS too, huge improvements in image quality, a very likely night and day jump beyond what we'll be seeing by the end of this generation.

wow.

When you said that, i start rechearcing about such a technology, and i found about Resistive ram, and i got impressed, i didnt know about this technology!

If this technology be mass produced and spread until next gen, and if it dont change the way developers work(i think that counts too), we can believe in that big jump.

Seems that nintendo wont have time to jump into this technology, and will be far behind MS and sony (again)

 

Current gen barely does 1080p so 4k is out of the question. Plus they need to keep price within $399. Many of you guys are ambitious but price tag don't agree with it.

one think is what is possible to do, and other is what they would do.
here in brazil, there is no need for 4k displays, not even 1080p.Now the TVs are starting to show HD images, only netflix uses 1080p.
If 4k TVs wont be popularized in the next gen times, they wont deliver 4k on consoles. But it that happens, there will be no need for a generation leap.
So i im starting to agreeing with DerpSandwich, and also JustBeingReal. This gen will last until 2022+, and the jump will be massive due the new technologies.Nintendo would release a console at 17/18, but will be powered near to ps4 power.