While PC heavy users can spend $1500+ every 3 years, buy games @ 25-50% of the cost that console games cost MOST if not all of the time.

Console players spend $500+ on the console or more apon release admittedly it lasts for longer than 3 years but an extra controller for $50-60, then you have MANY MANY YEARS of games @ $80-90 dollars.
That all adds up. On both sides. Comparisons can be made like that easily enough, I love racing games, but Im not buying a console JUST for racing.
I wouldnt buy a console for the ‘other’ things it tries to do either, I have a PC for that, they should stop trying to imitate the PC’s functionality and just have a better GPU for gaming inside. :)

needs someone to photoshop that onto a console pl0x

Edit: I can do better than that…

Its a PC with its own Facebook.

Has there been any leeks on the consoles design yet?

It was just a fucking pointless article.

dassquid:
Haven’t read anything but the intro paragraph yet but I needed to say.

Tim. Well done. That was an incredibly great intro.

Haha, thanks. I don’t write enough satirical things around here unfortunately so it sometimes just tends to burst out.

Tim. Well done. That was an incredibly great intro.

caitsith01:
So the work devs had to do to get stuff working well on PS3 was wasted in terms of usefulness for PC versions of the same game.

eh I don’t know about that conclusion. from the sounds of it, going from PC to PS3 would be tricky because you are going from general to specific. but going from something specific (PS3 cell) to something general (PC, PS4) should be easier. if it’s a general processor, it should be able to do anything the specific processor can do.

also, most of these companies were devving with the 360′s three general cores. the change is going to be nice for the devs, but from the sounds of it the overall environment hasn’t changed all that much. AFAIK the important thing is working out inter-core communication and splitting up what needs to be done by each core logically and efficiently, and that’s been around for a while.

skitzor:
all the people harping on about multi-core on PS4, do you realise the PS3 had a 6 core processor (or was it 5 after disabling?), and the 360 has a tri-core processor?

Yeah, but the PS3 has a weird asymettrical multicore setup, rather than a PC-type ‘parallel’ multicore setup with all cores being general purpose and interchangeable.

http://www.edge-online.com/features/interview-unlocking-ps3s-cell-power/

What IBM did with the Cell processor is it really embeds about seven processors, one of those being the general purpose core and the other six being these real dedicated specific-use type of processors that are extremely fast. But seeing that they’re not general purpose, they’re a little bit more challenging for programmers to get under control and to write software for.

With these Cell processors and these small processors called the SPEs, we really have to not only write software different but we have to think about how we’re solving problems in a completely different light.

So the work devs had to do to get stuff working well on PS3 was wasted in terms of usefulness for PC versions of the same game.

So the multicore x86 aspect of the PS4 is a big, and important, change for PC gamers.

Wyld:

Basically for us Aussies, it’s better off for us to just hold onto our PS3′s until this workaround works?

multi-processors have been around for ages. devs have been taking advantage of multi-core architecture for ages, but it’s tricky. real tricky. it introduces a whole bunch of issues that either take too long to explain, or I don’t even understand.

devs have been slowly getting better, and this will continue, but I doubt there will be a jump in multi-core efficiency because of the latest gen of consoles.

funnily enough, RAM is probably the more important hardware change. for ages devs have had to work in cramming their games into 512MB or whatever the 360/PS3 has. now they have 8GB to work with. any games that are developed on console and PC should play better with the immense amount of RAM in PCs these days.

the introduction of x86 as well because it likely means that porting around the games shouldn’t be as difficult. this should mean a better developing environment, which might manifest itself as a less shitty port to PC.

schols: At least for the first year of the consoles lifespan.

This is the problem. Some PS3 games did look pretty good when it launched, but within a year the best PC games were already looking better. Six years later… ugh.

While it’s fair to say, as some people have, that you can’t expect Sony to drop a $1000 video card in this thing, on the flipside they have the market power to buy a LOT of RAM/CPUs/GPUs.

The PS3 has sold SEVENTY MILLION units worldwide. What kind of discount/economies of scale can you negotiate with AMD, Intel or nVidia if you can guarantee them a minimum buy over 5 years of 50 million units?

I sometimes wonder how much of the $$ is going in gimmicks (video sharing etc) and how much is actually going on the hardware. People have done teardowns on the PS3, but I’m not sure if they take into account Sony’s huge purchasing power.

Tim Colwill: Yeah, this is basically me. My PS3 is a blu-ray player and pop-in-a-thumb-drive-full-of-avi’s playing device.

Mine is running nicely as a front-end hooked up to an HP server with Ubuntu/PS3MediaServer. Works brilliantly.

My #1 feature for the PS4 is built in wireless-N…

You just have to look at the old Xbox 360. If you were to build a PC with the same specs as the Xbox it would not be able to run the later titles that the Xbox has been like Halo4, Crysis2 etc.

So despite the fact many of us might have PCs with newer hardware and bigger numbers, it wouldn’t surprise me if the next gen consoles will be able to out perform many PCs out there. At least for the first year of the consoles lifespan.

Heh, it WAS running on a PC ;)

Also not streaming video, streaming games that you are in control of. So you could play a demo without a download.

There was also some comments that maybe your PS4 would stream your game out to mates and they would be able to assist your sessions….or something.

caitsith01: I know quite a few people who use PS3s as media centres more than as gaming rigs.

Yeah, this is basically me. My PS3 is a blu-ray player and pop-in-a-thumb-drive-full-of-avi’s playing device.

hobomaster:
What is nice is that the PS4 is using an eight core processor. That means we’ll start to see games take advantage of eight core processors like the FX-8350.

This is probably the best aspect of this from a PC perspective.

More RAM + more cores = cross platform games that actually use some of the power of modern PCs properly.

Overall pretty predictable specs etc. I found it funny reading comments from some people ooh-ing and aah-ing over the graphical demos during the presentation, which for the most part were nice looking but nothing that I would be surprised to see running on a modest-to-good PC.

If they are allowing game resales, that is awesome and a major plus compared to Microsoft.

All this video/streaming stuff – does anyone seriously give a crap? How many times are you going to want to watch someone else play COD8 while sitting on your couch? Sounds stupid to me.

I wish they’d disclosed a LOT more information about this thing’s capabilities as a HTPC/media frontend. The PS3 is excellent at this in some respects, but has some annoying limitations (especially wireless-g, region locked DVD playback, crappy codec support). I know quite a few people who use PS3s as media centres more than as gaming rigs.

I’m surprised they didn’t tell us about how we can install Linux on it, too!

jme:
“250% better”

Actually that’s 150 % better. The word better includes the first 100 %.

4.5 / 1.8 = 2.5 = 250 % of the speed or 150 % greater speed

Fair point, that. Edited. Cheers!

They are going to get every PS1, PS2 and PS3 titles on the store allowing you to (i guess pay a little money) and download it…..Kingdom Hearts Nostalgia everywhere