PlayStation 4 'Orbis' pegged for 2013 release Details of Sony's next-gen console flooded the web today, with the PlayStation 4 - apparently codenamed Orbis - set for a Q4 2013 release, it has been claimed. While Microsoft insists there will be no talk of next-gen consoles at E3 2012, gamers' attentions have switched towards its Japanese rival. And now "reliable" insiders …
Barely any games on the PS3 support native 1080p and even those that do - like Wipeout HD - take shortcuts, like dropping the resolution during the more graphically demanding scenes in order to maintain the framerate. Plenty of games on the PS3 run at less than 720p, like GTAIV and Viking: Battle for Asgard. The PS3 is no less "shit" than any of the other consoles on the market.
You can play the whole "PS3 is better than X360" nonsense until you're blue in the face but the reality is that both consoles are graphically dated and should have been replaced years ago. The only gaming platform that offers 1080p @60fps for all games is the PC.
Wipeout 1080p @ 60FPS
debate all you want about how it happens, but it happens.
Developers are lazy as possible when it comes to porting too and figure most people can't tell the difference anyway. They're right. most people don't bother to look on the back of the box to read the resolution spec.
since the highest resolution monitor I've been able to find is 2048 x 1536 and they started at about 5 grand (Australian). Sub-1000 dollars gets you 1920 x 1200 at best, and it's been like that for a while now.
I recently went looking for a monitor to upgrade and what I found was this: the 2048 x 1536 was a 22" LED job and that was the biggest (in fact the only) screen I could find at that resolution. I found loads of monitors up to 24" with 1920 x 1200, but oddly enough the bigger monitors (26" and 28") only sported 1920 x 1080, or 1080p. I could not, after 3 hours of searching, find a monitor bigger than 24" that had any higher resolution than that.
So unless the LCD/LED manufacturers suddenly and dramatically increase the resolution of their screens, having the ability to display 4k x 2k will simply be a waste since nobody will have a monitor (much less a telly) that can support it.
"The sources also said there will be no backwards compatibility for PS3 games and that the brawny console will come with measures to prevent secondhand games being played without the prior purchase of an unlock code."
Sounds totally shitty. I quite like my Playstation too, won't be buying one of these though, they simply want to eradicate the second hand / rental / lend-to-friend market.
They might as well burn the R&D and production money instead of wasting it to bring this to market.
They really have missed the whole "knowledge of your market". Game sharing only ADDS to sales. I have often gotten a game from a friend to try and liked it so bought it when he took it back. Without that loan, i wouldnt have tried it, hence wanted it.
Bloody Apple and their walled garden!!!! :-)
Amen. Unless the retail games are cheaper as a result, or start offering more than 6 hours of half-arsed gameplay, you can count me out of that one. I love my 60GB PS3, and not least because I can shove PS2 and PS1 games into it.
It really is a massive shift in attitudes. Back when the PS1 emerged, Sony didn't care at all that it was being pirated left, right and centre (if they did, they did sod all about it). These days, all 2nd hand gamers are criminals.
Well, I don't give a toss about graphics, and games are turning Hollywood in their shittiness and lack of polish. This past year I've bought several games new that didn't work properly and have never been patched. So sod 'em, I'll buy up the previous 3 consoles' worth of good games, and go back to my PC, where the prices are cheaper, the graphics and controls are better, and the gameplay is far more involving.
Hmm... online connectivity required? What about the poor folks who are on dialup? Will Sony be building in 3G connections for those without broadband or unreliable broadband? (like they have with the Vita?).
Guess it's too early to say at the moment.
Still it's good for AMD providing the CPU and GPU, doesn't that mean they now provide the GPU for all the next gen consoles?
Rob
I bet this is actually an attempt to get some money out of the rental market, all those Lovefilm et al subscribers who don't pay any money directly to Sony....
Mind you, they might end up having some interesting conversations with Amazon concerning stocking of the console and games if they do try it. (Amazon being Lovefilm's parent, in case you don't know.)
Personally I would like to see them spending more money on creating tools which allow developers to develop quicker and also to reduce the game creation costs.
Add to the that something that will allow them to break out of the FPS and MMORPG shell. We need new blood, new ideas , simpler techniques and an increase in originality.
A new console will simply require even more setup costs for the small developement studios that are already struggling to keep up.
The current consoles are already damned powerfull machines, Sony should focus on the games developers not the shareholders.
"The sources also said there will be no backwards compatibility for PS3 games and that the brawny console will come with measures to prevent secondhand games being played without the prior purchase of an unlock code."
"may require online connectivity for authentication too."
It's not li,e I was going to buy one anyway.
Well, there's a graveyard place in the digital arena awaiting for another console/device. PlayStation next to lay beside Minidisc?
- Unneccessary second-hands DRM (keeps a console alive well past its sell-by date)
- No PS3 backward support (surely the cloud could host virtualised PS3 games that could be streamed to the PS4?)
- Online authentication (I know we're in the 21st century, but how about emerging markets with no/lack of internet?)
- AMD chips (really don't understand logic here where developers will have to again learn new coding sets etc)
Sony's execs heads are ruling the hearts of the developers again. The nuke bomb is ticking within Sony HQ.
I agree with everything you said except for the AMD bit, which is actually where this console makes sense. Part of the PS3's problem is that it's insanely powerful, but the Cell is not something people are used to. The AMD chips, on the other hand, will use an instruction set people will almost certainly be familiar with.
A console specifically designed to prevent the play of "used" games? Zero backwards compatibility (naturally, so they can start selling "ports" of games in the PS store forcing you to buy the game you already own again)...know what would be funny, if the next X-Box release did the exact opposite...reliable backwards compatibility, none of this ultra-DRM bullshit. But that would require forward thinking at Microsoft.
Man, I miss the golden era of PC gaming. So sick of consoles.
"know what would be funny, if the next X-Box release did the exact opposite"
Yeah, that'll happen. It was MS who started this whole unlock-code business, and it was a fair old while before it started to infect the PS3 library on any kind of scale. If this horrendous anti-consumer crap is what Sony are doing, how bad are MS going to be?
Unfortunately the PC is just as shite and getting worse.
If it has Steam, I'm not interested. If it's by EA, Ubisoft or Valve, I'm not interested. If it demands online "activation", I'm not interested. Basically I can walk into a shop and see absolutely NO games that are worth getting now, due to them all coming with a free helping of malware.
Fuck the lot of them and buy only games that don't pull this shit. If everyone did that the devs would change their tune. They won't though, because too many people are addicted to the shiny.
And too many people will buy the PoS 4.
Well, Steam has its benefits. You don't have to worry about program updates, for one thing. And it has a vibrant community and a huge library.
As for price, only one or two games in a collection of some 200+ games were bought full price. Kinda hard to do anymore anywhere else. So it's become rather take-it-or-leave-it. So I say take it...but not at full price.
Yeah, i cant see this ever materialising. The backlash will do Sony no good at all...
More likely if you want to play a 2nd hander online then you will be required to purchase an unlock code. If you stay single player (me!) then they should run without further purchasing.
Anyway, it will be cracked at any rate....
Sure I have a PS3. The Blu-Ray reading part of the optics crapped out about 6 months ago reducing it to a power-hungry media center that can't play Blu-Ray (but can still read CD/DVDs, strangely). Not buying another one. IF the PS4 wasn't such a DRM-filled crapfest, I would have gotten one...but nach, zero backwards compatibility.
My next upgrade will be a DNLA-capable Blu-Ray player. Pretty sick of console games at this point, since most have boiled down to cookie-cutter "realistic" military sim shooters or 3rd person fighting games.
If you find one, lemme know. I'm having a devil of a time locating one with proper DLNA support (by that, I mean supporting AVC, especially High Profile, over networks). Most opt for Web2.0 products, most of which I'm not interested. The consoles actually come second closest to my ideal setup (the closest one I have is an XBMC box I scrounged secondhand and reinstalled--it can do High Profile, but it's not powerful enough to do 720p and up), but their UIs are a pile of Librarian-poo.
> I mean you have a PS3 already to play the old stuff on anyway.
Let me bring up two points:
1: A TV only has so many HDMI ports (mine only has three). HDMI switches aren't cheap and most doesn't even come with remote controls,. requiring you to go up to the device to flick the switch.
2: PS3s die. My PS2 has already bit the dust, clock stopped working and there's no easy way to replace the clock battery. There will come a day when the PS3's clock also stop working (and if you use the drive heavily, the laser gives out).
Also, I do not agree to the second hand lockout. And I'd be cautious at this point, because if they're willing to pull off dick moves like this, the next thing you know they make regional lockout mandatory again.
Is the next generation of consoles shaping up to be completely not exciting, or am I just getting too old to get excited about this stuff?
I generally prefer new games to secnd hand anyway, but I hate the idea of the big console makes and games publishers taking the option away for their own benefit. I believe the devs have the right to make money, but most other industries don't stop things from being sold on, and I don't think that should happen here.
Personally, I think this generation needs a new player to enter the market that produces a powerful machine with open/semi open software, tolerance for the second hand market, etc. Something that is to consoles what Android has been to smartphones (but not Android). It would obviously need to come from a company with enough clout to pull something like that off, attract developers etc. But I would happily pay for such a console if it were done right.
I'm not holding my breath - if anything like that were to come along, now would be the ideal time, before the XBox 3, PS4 and Wii-U gain momentum.
I had to check the date there for a second. Not April the 1st yet, is it? Bugger.
It *would* be cheaper for them to use an existing CPU set & architecture, but as mentioned, that means the devs have to learn another set of skills.
Also, no backwards compatibility? Again? Seriously? (although again, if they move away from Cell tech, nothing would work without an emulator, and as one commenter suggests, that would take SOME doing).
Unlock codes are sadly also easy to do - buy disc with leaflet, install game - enter code from leaflet and game plays. Code flagged as "used" (ala PSN) and tied to your PSN account, so you can at least move consoles as you can now, in case one dies.
BUT, and this is a big but - at present, if your PSN account is banned, you can still play offline. If you can't validated your games/codes, due to a banned account, you can't play? (as if you are banned you need a new account, etc etc).
Similarly if they also (or alternatively) banned the console, then it's technically useless - are they going to refund you all your money/console etc? Seriously risky propositions ahoy.
So *IF* it's true, it's a bloody stupid idea!
Refund your money? Haha, no.
If your Xbox gets banned from XBL, the general response is "tough shit, sucks to be you."
Of course you can then sell your banned Xbox to an innocent third party and they get told "tough shit, sucks to be you."
Ain't the games industry just fucking wonderful?
Although I do buy the occasional new game, most of the time I wait for it to drop in price or get it second hand. I do this because games are so expensive, and if the PS4 (or whatever it's called) aims to block second hand games in any way then I doubt I would be able to afford it.
First sensible post.
With regards to the second hand games I don't think it they will stop the second hand market. What will happen is that if you buy a game second hand and want to play online you will have to buy a network pass. It seems that this is happening on the PS Vita. When new games come out they announce the price and also a price for the network pass. The network pass is for the second hand games market.
Where would European Law stand if they removed your right to re-sell the product. It is not illegal to do so and if they block it they are denying your right to do so.
And just to make it clear, if they did block selling of second hand games this would be because of the games MAKERS, and not Sony themselves. The games makers are probably threatening to boycott the PS4 if Sony do not take action.
Anyway, the article is bullshit. The source is probably an MS employee who is trying to put people off the next Playstation and garner interest in the next XBox.
And you have to wonder where this would work in the United States, where the Right of First Sale is enshrined in law (and many would argue that a license can itself be considered a salable good). Maybe Vernor v. Autodesk fell out due to a technicality, but if Sony tried this stateside, SOMEONE's gonna sue...and then a LOT of companies (including Valve) would be paying attention to the court. It'd become the second-biggest case of late.
Something I'm surprised no one mentioned yet: screwing secondhand sales means that once a title goes out of print, it's effectively unavailable forever. As a sometime collector who often plays games long after they come out, that is *very not cool* to me. Sometimes you can still get them new. But sometimes not.
Yes, piracy exists, but it's just not the same. Fuckers.
Well, let me put this case up: LittleBigPlanet for the PS3, in Asia. Specifically, Malaysia.
It is a classic. It is a must have for the PS3.
And it's out of print.
Buy it from the PSN? I would. But: it's not available on the PSN in Malaysia!
More like an annoying move to make it impossible to get games they don't want you to play anymore...
Unlike the Cell, BluRay WON its format war. And they are still improving on the format with quad-layer discs and so on. Allegedly, some of these improvements can actually be used in existing drives with just a firmware update (that remains to be seen--firmware can't overcome hardware limitations, after all).
So Sony are proposing to build what is essentially a mildly fast PC with locked down user unfriendly software stuck on it. Why on earth would anyone other than Sony think this is going to be a good idea?
It'll be obsolete within months of launch because mainstream PCs will move on.
Sony will be having to do an awful lot of work to provide a software platform that works, whereas PCs can have Windows. Like it or loath it, Windows does provide a feature stuffed run-what-you-like platform that is readily deployed on a wide variety of hardware specs.
It sounds like it's going to be all GPU. An AMD 64bit CPU isn't a bad thing, but it's not exactly a major step up in performance. So what's the point? Why not keep churning out PS3, or maybe just pep up PS3 a bit with a better GPU?
Why bothering developing a game for a locked down thing like this? The developers could just as easily develop for the PC market. They'd get roughly the same qualitative result because the PS4 is so PC like in hardware spec. And they'd reach a far wider market because there's loads more PCs out there than there will be PS4s. The only attraction of PS4 is that it might in effect be offering a pre-packaged anti-piracy environment, but as PS3 showed that's not a guaranteed thing.
I think this is a clear sign that Sony are running out of money and can't afford the grand development projects any more. They're going the PC-esque route because it's cheap (er, affordable?), and they'll have to put up with the consequences no matter what. Trouble is those consequences might mean being irrelevant all of a sudden.
I own a PS1 and PS2 and I nearly bought a PS3 last month and have been thinking about doing so again next month. If the PS4 has 2nd Hand DRM and no backwards compatibility then obviously I'll never buy it anyway and neither will anyone else.
But in addition I wont now be buying a PS3 either. What's the point of buying games for it when I know that when the time come to get a PS4 they wont work?
Were the "insiders spilling the beans" working for Microsoft to kneecap Sony? Because if this is true expect PS4 sales worldwide to scale the dizzy heights of at least half a dozen units.
Pffft.
Understandable since they're going for the x64 architecture and that a Cell CPU is nigh impossible to emulate.
And the extra lockdowns... pathetic. A step back from the early openness that earned the PS3 songs of praises.
And weren't they initially against the need for disc games to require unlocking via Internet?
Something's went really wrong at SCEI HQ...
And then the fact that it uses off-the-shelf component (unlike Cell CPUs, you can buy AMD CPUs and GPUs off the shelf) means that the enterprising can cook up Hackstations, just like the Hackintosh, which can be programmed to subvert the internet checks of the games, using a Linux stack and compatibility libraries ala Wine, which will always return true on check. Sony lawsuit be-damned (and they can't sue if the compatibility stack is clean room reverse-engineered anyway)
Way to go Sony, setting yourself up for the crapper.
I have a suspicion that the AMD question will not be the complete story. From the earliest days of the PlayStation, Sony's always made sure to put in a few chips of its own design to make things interesting, from the XA chip in the PS1 to the Emotion Engine/Graphics Synthesizer in the PS2, to the Cell co-designed with IBM and Toshiba in the PS3. I imagine there will be at least one Sony-designed custom chip in there. Probably a coprocessor of some kind or a proprietary encryption ASIC, neither of which would be easy to emulate in hack jobs, particularly if those chips perform timing-sensitive operations.
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