Last month, we told you that Sony was working on a new, improved model of the PS4, what was basically a PS4.5. Now Giant Bomb is reporting some further details on this new console, and it all sounds…a bit weird.
Their report says Sony is referring to the upgraded hardware as NEO (something we’ve also heard), and that it will “feature a higher clock speed than the original PS4, an improved GPU, and higher bandwidth on the memory.”
Some rumoured specs, from Giant Bomb’s report.
Now here’s where it gets interesting. The new specs mean that there’ll be two types of PS4 games available; those that can run on any PS4, and those that take advantage of the newer console’s extra power. Rather than divide the market, the report says that from October 2016, every single PS4 game that’s released must have a “base mode”, which would work on older consoles, and a “NEO Mode” for the new machines (which would put put in 4K, etc). Developers wouldn’t be allowed to make “NEO-only” games, nor could they “separate NEO users from original PS4 players while playing on PSN.”
The NEO wouldn’t replace the current PS4, but “will exist alongside of it and use the same user environment”. And while there’s an October deadline for NEO-compatible releases, that doesn’t mean the new console will be out that month.
Finally, for games that have already been released, Giant Bomb’s report says older titles can also create “NEO mode” versions if they’d like, they just have to go back in and release it as a patch.
Comments
134 responses to “More Details Emerge On PS4.5, Which Reportedly Won’t Get Its Own Games”
Sony’s getting bold/arrogant again. Not sure I’m one for this thing.
I think they’ll be careful about alienating existing users. The primary reason for this will be to bring it up to spec for decent VR (Neo + Morpheus…lol). I can see Sony releasing it as a ‘kind of nice to have, but not necessary’ SKU which will retail for US$399 (with existing model PS4 staying at the current US$349). Sony will then phase out OG PS4. Kind of like a soft transition.
There will inevitably be some horror stories where the performance on OG PS4 is sub-par because the game has been designed to work better on the NEO PS4, but it will be a gradual process with the install base of NEO being smaller and therefore less important to cater for (in the beginning). It should be a few years before games start being designed for NEO PS4 as a primary platform.
I think this is spot on. I for one am excited to get an upgraded PS4 and PSVR in October. That October due date for games lines up perfectly with PSVR’s release.
Even if a new console is AU$600 it’s still going to be cheaper to get a PS4K+VR than to get a Rift or Vive with a sufficient PC.
I think console gaming will be more like mobile gaming, in that targeting multiple iterations/quality levels on the same platform will be the norm.
LMAO im so stupid i only just picked up the matrix reference when you spelled it out so clearly!!!!
Ya its only “good” if you haven’t bought a ps4 yet. If you have its like a kick to the face with a steel capped boot.
I forsee this causing a lot of problems. Either the older compatability games are going to look like ass or the newer ones wont be super different. Ps4 developing just got a lot more complex. The more complex you make something the more likely it is that somewhere a screw up will happen.
I don’t think it’ll get too complex. Same engine, same coding, just different textures depending on which console you have.
I have a PS4 and I don’t think it’ll be a kick to the face. I’ve enjoyed a lot of game time on it. If you asked me had I got my $400 worth, I can only answer you with a “hell yes!”
This is a joke, right? Come on. They’re trying to goad us into updating our consoles every 12/24 months just like our phones.
Fucking no. Now to get the “best and intended experience” I have to fork out hundreds more $ again.
How does this affect you at all?
All games going forward are going to be required to still run as they normally would on the standard hardware. You won’t miss out on any gaming experiences.
If Sony weren’t coming out with this new hardware, as it seems you would prefer them to do, you would still be able to play all games on the standard hardware, you won’t miss out on any gaming experiences.
Either way, your gaming experience is the same, only difference is now some people can choose to pay a bit extra if they want a higher framerate or resolution.
Either way, your gaming experience is the same, only difference is now some people can choose to pay a bit extra if they want a higher framerate or resolution.
So what you’re saying is my gaming experience will not be the same.
…..
Cause that’s clearly a difference.
Why does it matter if anyone else’s experience is different? Your experience will be the same whether they have the newer model or not.
They aren’t forcing you to update anything. Just because you choose not to have an improved hardware model, why should that mean that no one else should?
What? I never said nobody else could have one; if you have the money and inclination, power to you. That does not mean that I am not capable of providing criticism; nothing is above criticism, nor does it make the concept of mid-cycle console upgrades any less ridiculous.
The fucking internet these days. Why is everything now Us Vs Them / If You’re Not With Us Obviously You’re Against Us.
lol ok
You tried bro, you tried 🙁
Only the sith deal in absolutes.
“Do or do not; there is no try” — Yoda
So the alternative is that they *don’t* put out a new console, which means your current experience is unaffected anyway. The PS4.5 won’t have it’s own titles, the games will just look better if you have a 4K TV.
There is no way this is going to do 4K resolution.
The claim it can do 4K is the whole point of the upgrade.
You might get 4k blu ray playback but not games.
Look at the proposed specs. It’s a small bump. How many games can run at 1080p at full framerate? There is no way they are going to be able to push 4 times that with the hardware suggested. A PC capable of doing that costs several thousand.
I’ll defer to your expertise and wait to see what the final product is actually capable of.
You don’t need expertise at all. It’s very simple actually.
4k is 4 times 1080p.
That’s 400%.
They are not even doubling the CPU or GPU.
But mate, those numbers could be wrong. The 4k Playstation 4.5 could be coming out. RRP $4500.
Well according to the specs in the article they’re doubling the CUs on the GPU (from 18 to 36) and bumping the framerate. The RAM apparently does 218GB/s instead of 17GB/s? I assume that last one is a typo. Also I’m not entirely convinced that the step up to 4K requires a 400% increase in processing power. But again, I’m deferring to your expertise, as relative as it might be.
If Sony comes out and says all this thing is doing in 4K is Blu-ray movies, it’ll crash and burn. No one cares enough for that.
Sorry, I didn’t notice the doubling of compute units, only the clock speed. This still won’t do 4k. There is no way they can make it work and have this thing priced at anything even close to reasonable. Look at how much it costs to do this on a PC. Just the graphic cards alone, forget the rest components.
The PS4 is said to do 1840 GFLOPS now (2 ops per clock per shader), which, just comparing compute power, is a little bit less than a Radeon R7 370 or somewhere between a GeForce GTX 950 and a 960. If these numbers are accurate, the NEO would have about 4200 GLOPS of processing power, somewhere between a GeForce GTX 970 and a 980 or between a Radeon R9 380X and a R9 390 (again just comparing this one stat).
That would represent a big improvement on the existing console, but still not putting it on par with the GM200-based GeForce cards or the Fiji-based Radeons that are the gold standard right now for 4K and VR (and both of which will be succeeded by new high-end cards over the next few months).
It costs one GT750M or better graphics card.
I would say that there will be games that can do 4k but they will be more cartoony style of games.
Mid range PCs can do 4k in lower detail games on PC such as league of legends. You just wont see Triple A style games like Uncharted or Assassins Creed in 4K as it would be far too much for the hardware.
An example of the above is how Nintendo can make Mario Kart run at 1080p/60 on much slower hardware than something like Forza on an Xbone because Mario Kart doesn’t have the same level of detail due to its cartoon design.
I see your point but not totally convinced. One console vs pc advantage is that often greater optimisation is required to get a game running well on a console. Yes it will still need to run on the older machines but it could easily provide an excuse for a lower benchmark.
Except that it’s forcing devs to do more work for a game to be on PS4/4.5 which (as some devs have already said) will lead to many getting fed up and simply telling Sony to fuck off – goodbye 3rd party support…
Pretty sure that affects all PS4 owners.
I doubt it. At most you’ll get developers not opting in and just releasing stuff optimised for OG PS4 with no bells and whistles for NEO. The work required to optimise for NEO shouldn’t be too much if the devs are already doing a PC version. It’s the equivalent of having a tick box for ‘high’ and ‘ultra’. I’d be more surprised if there were major fps differences between OG version and NEO.
Doesn’t sound like they have a choice to opt out.
I hope it’s as simple as adding graphics settings but it’s rarely worked that well in the past with console Vs PC settings/ports.
Sorry, I meant opting out in terms of spending time to optimise rather than just doing a straight ‘port’ of the PS4 optimisation to NEO. So in effect you’d get a ‘decent’ performance on PS4 but a ‘slightly smoother’ performance on NEO (no better textures, for example).
I agree with your point about graphics settings too.
You really think they’ll optimise up?
I’d go so far as to say that MOST developers will be making these games from the ground up to look as good as possible for the E3 trailers and other marketing and worry about getting it to run ok on a standard PS4 later on in the process.
That process will inevitably result in PS4 games getting less optimisation and worse performance than they otherwise would.
I read that as reinforcing the fact they can’t do NEO-only games, not that they couldn’t do OG-only games.
“All games going forward are going to be required to still run as they normally would on the standard hardware.”
No, what this means is that in time, the Neo optimised games will be running normally, and base model will get frame-rate issues etc.
Have you ever tried running Hearthstone on an iPad 2? Definitely does not run “normally”.
The thing is that it will be a few years before NEO install base equals or surpasses OG PS4. It is in the publishers’ interests to design for the platform with the larger install base, as most of the sales will come from there. NEO will likely provide marginal returns for early adopters, before the install base hits a critical mass.
Good point. And if/when the install base hits significant numbers, will consumers with base models be left behind with sub-optimal ports?
Absolutely. Look at the cross-gen efforts with releases on PS3/PS4 like Tomb Raider, Watch Dogs, Thief. An egregious example was Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor, where the PS3 version ran like crap. http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2014-shadow-of-mordor-last-gen-revisited
Yeah, but by then, an upgrade to a new PS4, especially if you sell your old one, won’t be all that expensive.
People update their phones every 12/24 months and they can cost double or triple a new console.
As long as they stick to the rule that your PS4 will always be able to play every game, it’s not such a big deal.
It might actually work better for the life span of the PS4, they still release games for the PS3 and it is almost 10 years old, if they keep updating the PS4 rather than releasing the PS5 you’ll get access to more games before needing to update.
They are providing options.
Personally, I went through 6 PS3s… So when i get a new unit it will be nice to get a PS4.5 and put m y original in the spare room or something
Yeah, I think I bought 2 fat ones and 2slims myself.
If you were to look at it from another point of view, if they markedly reduce the price of the old PS4, their market base would grow even stronger. Games will still be heavily targeted for the old machine, and no one is going to make a dent there.
As for the NEO, I would love to see it come at a slight premium and push the hardware a little further, than be a half-hearted attempt.
All things considered, I think this a step in the right direction but only if the consumer end of the deal is respectfully handled.
Considering phones are upgraded yearly, I have absolutely no issue with this
Nor do I. If you don’t want it, don’t get it. Sony have indicated then there will be no Neo exclusives, so original PS4 owners won’t be missing out on anything.
Some people seem to feel because they won’t (or can’t) pay for a new model that no-one should be able to.
Most people only upgrade their phone because their ongoing/new contract allows them to upgrade their phone, it doesn’t add any cost (or sometimes a minimal one). New consoles are a huge cost in addition to the huge cost of the last console.
Phones on a contract cost more than simply buying a phone outright. The cost is spread out and hidden within the contract’s monthly fees, but you’re still paying for it.
Not really… Assuming you are actually planning to use said phone you’re going to need some form of phone plan anyway so those costs can’t really be counted towards the cost of the phone (assuming you didn’t sign up to something more expensive just to get the phone).
E.g. my contract is something like $60 per month but it’s really only a $40 plan – so $20 per month for the phone, 20×24 (two years) = $480 (slightly cheaper still because I can upgrade for free at some point before my plan ends), fuckload cheaper than a Note 5 costed outright at launch.
Quite often, the plan does turn out to be more expensive than buying the handset outright. Separate from any extra fees charged for the phone itself, the plans are not identical to the BYO plans.
Take Optus as an example, the $40/month BYO phone plan gives you 6GB of data, unlimited calls and SMS, and 300 minutes of international calls:
http://www.optus.com.au/shop/mobilephones/SimBYO
If you look at their plans for the new Samsung Galaxy S7, the equivalent plan is $80/month:
http://www.optus.com.au/shop/mobile/phones/samsung/galaxy-s7#buynow
So over 24 months, that is equivalent to paying $960 for the phone. Checking price comparison sites it looks like you could buy the phone outright for ~ $800, so if you can afford the handset you’re probably better off buying it outright and picking a BYO plan.
The “free upgrade” option on these Optus plans is to trade your phone in after 12 months for $99 and start a new 24 month contract. Including the trade in fee, this means someone on the $80/month plan would have paid off $579 of the full $960 at this point. So you’re effectively selling your old handset to Optus for $381. That’s not necessarily a good deal if you could do better on e.g. eBay.
You can bundle a PS4 into a price that doesn’t make it feel like you are paying a lot of money just like a phone contract.
I am yet to see a phone contract that doesn’t just include the full price of the phone over 2 years.
I work for a telco (tragically) and I can guarantee you people upgrade because they want whatever is the best and will happily pay out their contracts. I just spent $3000 on a computer that has absolutely no guarantees. Every PlayStation product I’ve bought has lasted me at least 8 or so years, so that’s saved me tones of coin on what is actually a really cheap pastime.
Show me where to preorder
I’m in the positive bucket – the keys to getting this right will be working with retailers to allow for an ‘upgrade path’ for those already onboard – ie. hand in your base unit to get $$$ of a new NEO. They’ll need to announce it soon as I’m sure people will now hold off their PS4 purchases, based on these rumours.
The risks will be if developers get lazy and not refine their code to make the base unit experience as good as it can be – this will ‘split’ the user base anyway, and turn the ‘base’ PS4 into the ‘white Wii U’ (which will happen eventually)
If this rumour was actually Microsoft & Xbox, most people would be like ‘this makes sense’ – they’re trying to upgrade it to Xbone 1.5 to encourage people to jump aboard and beat the perception their console is not as powerful as PS4.
and I’ll add Xbox already has an ‘elite’ edition with Hybrid disk drive. Could you consider this to be PS4’s ‘elite edition’?
That’d be a stretch.
Hard drive improvement and a new set of key hardware complete with alternative modes ect are rather different.
Most consoles have improved their storage options mid-gen over the last few generations.
No, as Xbox elite edition runs games exactly the same as base model.
Actually, as an xbox owner, I would go far as to say that the Xbox elite edition’s hybrid hard drive is all marketing fluff.
I havent looked into it much, but I’m not sure if it would be “just” marketing fluff.
I didnt realise there was an elite xbox when i bought mine – but load times on consoles suck – especially for large games like fallout. Had i known i could buy one with a hybrid hard drive i probably would have (after doing some research into it though)
a hybrid hdd does have faster load times over a conventional hdd, so i cant see it being purely marketing fluff.
oh it definitely does, but in this specific case, there’s not much difference. It cuts the loading time from the interface by 20%. Some might find that worth the extra $$$. I call it marketing fluff. each to their own i guess.
I’m already holding off, at least until E3 to see if anything comes out there. Plus I’m heading OS on holidays soon, so I’m hoarding money for that and don’t really want to drop $600 beforehand.
So how many people have 4k TV’s right now?
I know I don’t have one (I bought a brand new 1080p just before the PS4/ Xbone launch when I knew their max resolutions), so I have no idea what this would mean for me.
If I’m NOT playing in 4k on a PS4.5 does that mean I’ll get better performance? And if so does that mean that PS4 games in the future will be less-optimised for standard PS4 hardware… because that’s almost inevitable and not ideal for the millions of people who already own PS4 hardware.
It seems to me like they’re rolling the dice on VR being a huge success and will ultimately start making VR-only games that require PS4.5.
As someone who doesn’t expect it to be a mainstream success (too expensive, physically uncomfortable for decent play sessions and too immersive to be played casually by normal people) I think that might be a mistake.
I personally can’t see games being played in 4K even with this thing. Completely agree with your other points though – doubt this is aimed at the casual/mainstream market. Sony maybe taking their branding ‘4 The Players’ a little too far?
I’d be fascinated to know if anyone with a solid knowledge of things (or who just wants to guess) thinks games will be able to run at 60fps and 4k with this hardware improvement. I’d guess that it’s not that much of a leap?
I mean plenty of PS4 games are running at less than perfect 60fps 1080p already.
Doubling the CU’s won’t double the performance. I wouldn’t expect any performance enhancements to older titles unless they get patched. Most games are locked to 30fps. It may help with framerate dips but that is not worth the money of a new console (imo).
It’s value depends heavily on how much devs support it in future titles. But i suspect this is just a machine ready to go if VR takes off.
I’d hazard a guess towards “unless it’s a 2d sprite-based game, no.” This is based on what I’ve read of current high-end GPU benchmarks, and remembering that a few XBLA games for the X360 actually did run at full 1080p60 because they weren’t graphically intensive 3D games.
Current AAA games on PC run terribly at 4K even on the best of the best setups, most of which cost upwards of $4000. No way in hell this thing will be able to do 4k60 gaming – I’m pretty sure all the mention of 4k is alluding to the GPU actually properly supporting 4k video output. Especially due to the quiet rumblings early last year regarding 4k Netflix support on the consoles.
There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of this running 4K 60fps. There are dual 980Ti gaming PCs that can’t run 4K 60fps on a lot of AAA games. That’s a $3500 PC, at least.
Disclaimer: own both a PS4 and a reasonably powerful gaming PC.
Thanks (and to @os42 )
I was pretty sure that was the case. I can’t see it making that big of a difference.
My understanding is that most people still question whether the NEXT generation of consoles will be running games at 4k.
As in it’s still 50/50 when we’re looking 5+ years down the track and with a fully revised set of hardware (PS5).
I can’t see people rushing to 4k TV’s the way they have 720/ 1080p (which was still a 5-10 year process) just because it’s not a massive difference for the naked eye the way SD to HD is. I mean it WILL happen, but it’s just going to be a natural progression as people upgrade their old TV’s as 4k ones fall into the average consumers cost bracket as opposed to something that people will go out of their way to prioritise.
The more I think about it the more this seems like a rather weird move by Sony. They’re already comfortably ahead of the competition in terms of performance, I don’t see anyone screaming for Uncharted 4 to be available in NEO mode…. It just makes people with vanilla-mode feel shit.
They must be entirely focused on VR with this move.
Has to be VR based decision. I highly doubt we will see 4k in the next generation either. That is 4 times 1080p and we aren’t even getting that at 60fps consistently.
I thought they pretty much admitted that a week or two back. The 4.5 is specifically to run the Sony VR, because the 4 falls just a little short.
What it does do is put pressure on Microsoft with the Xbox, because VR wont be a thing, or at least not to the same level.
Could console-only optimisation make up (most of that) shortfall?
Console optimisation can make a difference (look at some of Naughty Dog’s games and other first party titles) but definitely not as much as it used to.
Especially now that the current gen consoles are essentially just a bespoke gaming PC. They’re essentially running an AMD CPU and an AMD GPU. They’re not like the PS3’s funky Cell architecture or anything like that where you have room to play around. They’re a much more “known quantity” at this point in their lifecycle than say, the PS3 was at this point.
TL;DR console optimisation will help a bit, but nothing like closing the gap between 30fps 1080p (or 30fps 900p) and 60fps 4K. If you use compressed H264 as a guide, you’re seriously talking about a jump in bandwidth from around 1Mb/s to 80Mb/s(!)
An Nvidia Titan X graphics card (with 12GB of vRAM on board) can handle 4K games, a fair few at 60fps or higher as well (source: http://4k.com/gaming/a-review-of-the-nvidia-geforce-gtx-titan-x-graphics-card/), although that card alone is $1600AUD, so the chances of something of that caliber finding it’s way into a $600 console is just about impossible.
Didn’t they specify in the article that they weren’t allowed to make PS4.5 only games?
It’s all rumours, but would you believe Sony even if they said it?
I don’t think they’d split the player base any time soon, but particularly with VR already dividing the market it wouldn’t surprise me at all if they made a “slight change” to allow for VR games to be PS4.5 only in a year or twos time.
Ok so question. Why can’t the consoles work like a computer, where you put the game media into the tower and dependent on you hardware capabilities determines your graphical and performance output. Am I not understanding this right, why do they need to release multiple versions of games?
I read it as it will be the same game / SKU – it might need ‘patches’ though to include driver support for the new ‘Neo’ GPU, particularly for games already out which won’t have support for that new GPU. Every time a new PC game gets released, the video card companies release drivers as well to support the new game, plus add driver refinements to existing games.
Oh yeah makes sense. Just made it sound like 2 versions of the game were going to be made. One for PS4 and PS4.5
Ummm no. If I wanted hardware upgrades every 2-3 years I wouldn’t purchase a console I’d just stick with my PC. Sod off Sony, stop double dipping.
I don’t think Sony is doing this to make lots of money from hardware. They are doing it to capitalise on PS4’s sales momentum, allow for better VR and edge out Microsoft. If MS doesn’t follow suit then they will be left behind, because gradually the NEO install base will grow larger and game publishers / devs will start designing games for it in preference to the PS4/X1 parity model.
Of course, if MS does follow suit it will have an exacerbated problem because its current install base is around half of Sony’s, so adoption of the X1.5 will be slower.
These specs look more like 1080p 60 fps than 4k.
Looks like I won’t be playing uncharted 4 till Xmas while I hold off for this new machine.
Agreed I don’t think that’s going to run 4k very well iether. Wonder if previous titles will get any benefit typically they’re capped at 30fps regardless of whether they can render the scene any better. It might help with fps dips but is that worth the outlay of $400 – 600 for a new console?
Not sure i like where this is heading – will depend on developer support. I have a sneaky feeling this is a “just in case” VR takes off. They’ll lift that restriction for VR titles.
Can’t say I blame you. There was similar non-sense with the X360 where the hardware was often revised and some games did play differently.
Don’t get me wrong, I think the current PS4 is OK but if you are thinking about getting a PS4, you are wise to wait for Sony to get its house in order.
Can’t imagine this will end well. Does this mean that devs will now have to take significantly more time to release games? I thought the whole point of consoles was to lose money on the hardware to make it back on the games? If they reduce the number of games they pump out per year that means less money right? Unless they start charging even more for games? Will I be paying $110 for a 4k capable game?
I can just see this as going “Game works great on PS4.5 unfortunately the PS4 version has significant frame rate issues” followed by multiple articles for 5-6 months about how latest patch still doesn’t fix issues with PS4 version.
You’d expect Sony to crack down pretty hard on certification until the NEO install base grows large enough for OG PS4 owners to be relegated to 2nd-class citizen status.
You could expect that but in reality you know that expectation won’t be met 😀
Yeah you’re on the money with both your comments here. It will create also new point of frustration for those that bought the 4.5, one that a lot of PC players experience.
If PS4 and 4.5 are playing with each other, I could see the people with the newer hardware getting frustrated waiting for their poor cousins to load in.
Add in a PS4.5 population getting better framerates than the PS4 in multiplayer…. It just sounds a bad idea.
It just adds further division within a market. A market where the console should in general be the consistent factor.
No because there will be no 4k games. Most likely not for the PS5 even.
Look at the difference in specs. Not huge. They are not going to be able to put 4x the resolution out.
I am ok with those only because my PS4’s 500 GB hard drive is starting to feel inadequate and plus it start to show symptom of the infamous disc ejecting error. So it is a good time for a mid-cycle upgrade.
On the other hand I am afraid this practice will encourage similar antics. Should we expect NEO2, 3, 4 before Playstation 5 come out?
If this goes the way a lot of theories are suggesting, there probably wont BE a ‘Playstation 5’… It’ll just be incremental upgrades over and over.
And when they get to what people would consider the ‘PS5’ they can just go “Games for this console will not run on older hardware.”
This is their foot in the door to absolutely destroy what has been a key benefit of consoles for decades… Not having to worry about upgrading it like a PC, or about (for the most part) games not working, etc.
Simplicity is a huge advantage that consoles offer. They will really be shooting themselves in the foot If they go down that road…
That is exactly the kind of decision that would get me to buy this – ensure that developers make their games for the basic PS4 so that running them on the 4.5 merely improves their performance. I buy multiplayer titles on PS4 because that’s where my friends are; I buy single-player games on PC cos they’re cheaper and I can get twice the framerate for the same visuals. This could actually get me to consider buying sp games for my console again…
Hyrule Warrior Legends wasn’t New 3DS exclusive either and look how that turned out. I’m not really liking these rumours because we’re still in an age where developing for two different quality levels still means one is held back by the other. Although if we can get a version of Dark Souls III on PS4 that doesn’t have constant pop-in, and frame drops then that might be nice.
Well put – a horrible ‘base’ edition of the game will kill off the base PS4 very quickly and that section market might flock to the Xbox One
Wastn’t MS also making an Xbox 1.5?
Depends which Phil Spencer you believe, the ‘Upgradeable Xbox’:
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2016/03/microsoft-could-release-hardware-upgrades-for-the-xbox-one/
Or the ‘No Xbox 1.5’:
http://www.trustedreviews.com/news/there-ll-be-no-xbox-one-5-from-us-says-phil-spencer
It seemed that way for about two weeks then Phil Spencer backed off from the idea only to have all these PS4K rumours spring up shortly after!
One good thing will come of this – I believe PS5 and Xbox 4 will both be 100% backwards compatible with their predecessors which will hopefully also eliminate the need for endless remasters!
To be fair, Hyrule Warrior Legends barely runs on the New 3DS too. You turn 3D mode on and the framerate chugs. Not sure if it’s because the 3DS itself isn’t up to the task, or it was just a crappy port. (I’m still enjoying the game though)
Lol this is ridiculous. The majority of console gamers arent going to buy into this. If you enjoy playing games, go out and buy a PC, plug it into your TV with a controller and you’re set. Unless you’re a huuuuuuuuuuuge Uncharted/Halo fan there is really no reason to own a console anymore.
I like the dinging of trophies 😉
No one looks at your trophies mate 😛
I’m just conditioned to that particular sound 🙂
https://youtu.be/zzTrYk0VWu0
What about the cost? That generally prevents me from going out and buying a PC which can run games nicely.
That factor used to be disproven but has become fact again with many publishers refusing to pay developers a decent wage and give them the appropriate time to make games work the target platform.
As they are well mapped, it is easy to write optimisations that work based on the console itself. Advantages that are most likely non-existent on PCs thus the publisher hopes the old ‘throw a bigger processor at it’ will quell the masses.
Correction, those who already have a PS4 most likely will not while those thinking will wait.
I enjoy games; that is why I have both a PC and a set of consoles but the enjoyment is about the games and not the platform they run on. Especially given how some games run better on consoles than PCs because they are better optimised there and vice versa for other games.
Convenience, less invasive DRM are two good reasons. Not having to deal with ATi and nVidia for leaving driver development to drunks from the street another.
Oh, here is a good reason to own a console over the PC version; you don’t have to install f*ckin’ Origin if one wishes to play an EA game. A damn good reason for getting a console.
I wanted to get an Xbox one to avoid the horrible windows store platform but then i’m still just giving money to Microsoft!
Maybe they are making all their windows store games terrible on purpose to drive traffic to the Xbone.
Doesn’t matter if the games are good. The main turn off (at least for me) is the DRM is so inhibitive.
But at the same time, consoles have an advantage over PCs. As they are basically fixed and the internals of the hardware mapped/mappable, good programmers can look at the console and say “Well bus X sucks, but through this trick on the unified memory, we can do the same thing but less over head.”
Don’t know if this is still the case but when it comes to PCs, not only goes the memory of one’s graphics card need to be mapped to the physical RAM, it needs to be copied to and from the card depending on the processing.
Console I don’t think have that overhead, the memory is often unified meaning both the GPU and CPU share the same region of memory so there is a performance advantage.
But back to the topic. PCs, contrary to popular belief, are just one platform in the eco-system. And are more difficult to code for due to their diversity.
Now, publisher would rather spend money to advertise a game rather than have it optimised on all platforms. And that mentality needs to go. Besides fuelling the console-port rhetoric, it’s harming the industry where even if one platform is chosen optimisation is not taken seriously anymore in the majority of cases.
Having no exclusives for the PS4.5 is nice, I mean even with the New Nintendo consoles that didn’t work out so well (I can only recall one game that was exclusive to the new nintendo)
I have no problems with this at all. Don’t want to fork out for the up spec console? doesn’t matter because everything has to be available on the original PS4. It’s just like buying an up spec PC, sure your current one plays the Division on Medium, but that doesn’t mean you can’t buy a better one to run it on High.
Only thing they could of perhaps done, is waited a little longer and had better specs on the 4.5, if the PS3 had of done that 4 years into it’s 8 year run, it would of been a brilliant way to fill the gap between aging console and ever faster PC’s
WTF, can’t you see this is a comments section of a gaming website?
Take your rational thoughts and logical analysis elsewhere!
See that? That’s the vein bulging above my head, and it needs to be fed dammit! So come back when you’re ready to spout some emotional, knee-jerk reactions which contain a lack of perspective on how big of a deal this actually is, OK?!
sorry i’ll go again (with spelling and grammatical errors for effect).
Typical fuking Sony!! mony grubbing bastards, they chern out these BS consoles which are way shitter than my Bro’s gaming PC and evn the Xbox 360 is better than the Gaystation 4hore and even my DS is better than this crap $ony trys to flog us. They shuld be lokking at how the XBOX does it man, I seen them in on a video recently and they are a company than can run stuff eh! No way i’m buying a shitstation now.
Perfect!
http://i.imgur.com/wW1dH66.gif
Kotaku AU needs a ‘buy a beer’ feature in the comments, cause that surely deserves one, good sir.
I would accept your beer, and drink it with pinkie out like a sir.
In theory sure….
Wait till E3 2017 though when everyone is announcing phenomenal looking games that are half-bullshot half-PS4.5 and then see how much time they spend optimising them downwards to match the PS4 (and Xbone) hardware after they’ve made their amazing trailers. It won’t be a priority for a LOT of developers.
One of the best things about consoles is the ability to optimise the shit out of the hardware over the life of the console. Have a look at early PS3 games compared to The Last of Us, it’s a MASSIVE leap.
PC’s don’t get that. $600-$800 worth of PC hardware isn’t going to be getting the same support and be running games looking better than ever 8 years later. This kind of hardware upgrading splits the optimisation process and will inevitably result in the standard PS4 never reaching the level of optimisation that it otherwise would have.
This is a brilliant move by Sony, think of how many people will make the switch to the new 4k, and all the used PS4’s hitting the market, in turn spreading market saturation. Sony has 40 million PS4’s sold currently, with the new 4K they could hit 50 million by the end of the year, and 60-70 million by the end of 2017.
Why would everyone with a PS4 sell it and get a 4k computer? Coz they sure as hell won’t be getting 4k out of their playstations, 4.5 or 5.
I would rather 60fps than 4k, not even Resident Evil HD hits 60
This is the reason I want one, I don’t plan on getting a 4k TV anytime soon, but would love all games to run at 60fps.
The only thing I’m waiting on eagerly here is if it has a UHD Blu-Ray player in it, instead of a normal Blu-Ray Player. I need some other devices to play 4K content on my 4K TV, other than streamed videos (cause our internet is shite!), UHD blu-ray should fill that gap, but I don’t want to waste my money on a stand alone player if the PS4 will offer it soon.
Will it be a 4k Blu ray player?
The answer to this and if i will buy one are the same.
We need a poll on this please Mark.
Also while I’m at it how about some kind of article on Miitomo. Silence kinda deafening there. Praise you.
Has there been anything newsworthy about Miitomo?
it launched?
PS4s and ones were outdated the moment they released, this is the only thing they can do to keep up without releasing a 5 and angering console users.
All they have to do is fix that fucking annoying disc eject issue and use some decent buttons.
If you’re talking about the eject sensor getting too hot and ejecting discs randomly, they fixed this with newer models.
My PS4 has an eject button on it.
I don’t own a 4K TV, chances are the people who can afford 4K TV’s can afford the asking price of the newer more Expensive PS4 Neo.
All I can say is the Mega CD & 32X where not anywhere near as successful as the Mega Drive.
Call me crazy, but if all I had to do was fork over $150 a year in some way, shape or form to Sony/MS for ‘the latest hardware’, it would be a no brainer for me.
I understand the ramifications of fragmentation, but surely there’s a solution in the middle somewhere.
games can’t even run at 60fps @ 1080p and they’re dreaming about 4k.
lmfao
I’m still in complete denial over this.
I don’t have a 4K TV so have no immediate for an upgraded PS4, but the higher framerate and performance thing worries me a bit because while we won’t miss out on games on the old PS4, I would hate to get a substandard product that barely runs on the old hardware.
If this does happen then Sony should be setting minimum standards for games to run on the original PS4, while upgraded versions can have better textures or something, I dunno.
Hopefully this is just a rumor. When I bought my PS4 – I bought it assuming it would last 7 years. Sorry I’m not made of money.
I can see this putting developers off making games for the PS4 entirely simply due to being required to make sure the game works appropriately for two different consoles in the same generation.
Time will tell I guess.
Also, the phone upgrade comparison being thrown around is irrelevant. That mindset in general is actually ridiculous.
In line with such absurdity I propose we make everything you own require upgrading every 12-24 months. But don’t bother complaining how stupid that idea is as I’ll just respond with, “But you upgrade your phone every year!” as the argument winning silver bullet a lot of people foolishly think it is.