f13.net

Giant Bomb Stream here (http://www.twitch.tv/giantbomb)

Short version so far:

-Controller has a touchpad on it.
-x86 architecture
-8gb unified GDDR5 RAM (so the leaked specs were BS likely)
-Built in gaming streaming/recording ability (update: Guess this can be done at any time via a literal dedicated "share" button on the controller.)
-All that usual "AND YOU CAN WITH YOUR FRIENDS AND ENEMIES, IT HAS WEBS, AND ON TABLETS" shit.

So yeah it's pretty much a PC. No physical hardware shown yet, and the only game shown so far is a kinda lame looking Pixar/Dreamworks style action/platformer thing called Knatch where you play a weird thing that's basically a cloud of parts to show off the *~particle effects~* the PS4 can do.

So far this has been terribly painful and awkward, and I have no hate for Sony.  The Gaikai integration for demos so far has been the only interesting part.

The guy that's currently on is fucking horrendous.

Drink everytime someone says "the cloud"

spoilers: you'll die

Also they're trying to repush the Vita as the best alternative controller for the PS4. Yeah no thanks Sony I'm not buying a Vita.

The dedicated chip for upload/download is a good idea, but yeah - nothing really revolutionary so far.

Tim Schafer looks weird without a beard.

8 gig of DDR5 ram blows the current known Durango specs out of the water in a significant way. That's a lot more than expected, and will be interesting to see how Microsoft responds and how it affects pricing.

I'm legit kinda liking the streaming thing, and 8gb of RAM pretty much addresses the #1 complaint devs have had about almost every console ever. But ugggh this stream is horrible.

Being able to take over playing someone elses game is kinda cool. Who wants to start a 'get you through the hard parts' business?

Honestly, if Gaikai is actually viable, and actually reasonably well for their backwards compatability more or less forever across all platforms, I'm down.  It's more or less what I've been using Steam for on PC's anyhow.  It's nice that consoles might finally be catching up.

Yup, Killzone is a first person shoot alright.

"Do you like killing things? And grenades? Killzone is your jam. We just saw bullet time."

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, KILLZONE!!

*tumbleweeds blow across stage*

I'm dying squirtle

Driveclub - painstaking graphical detail for a cockpit view you'll never use.

Blah - I wanted to see "Watch Dogs" not an "Infamous" trailer.

Oh boy, Johnathan Blow. Gonna go watch something else for about 10 minutes.

If they mention PlayStation Home, DRINK EVERYTHING!   :drill: :uhrr:

Sony no one is interested in the move, it sucked. Stop it.

What in the living fuck is this

I've always wanted to create a Claymation band.

This translator for the Capcom guy says you'll get free games if you get into the back of his van!

That's cool they got Rob Corddry to translate for the Capcom guy.

Hey it's Dark Souls!

Wait, no, not Dark Souls. Whatever.

I'd sure like to see an actual PS4.

Based on the specs I've seen, it's internally equivalent to the middle-of-the-road PC I bought in 2009.  :oh_i_see:

the forklift bringing the first demo console onto stage has broken down!

Just fyi you can go take a piss now it's the exact same engine demo SquareEnix ran like...last year.

Yeah, that kinda weirded me out when i realized I'd already seen that.  It's like Square can't even be bothered to give a shit anymore about appearing relevant.

Final Fantasy! No wait - check it out at E3 instead.

Okay, Watchdogs finally, you can start watching again unless it turns out to be the same footage from forever ago

YAY WATCHDOGS

Goddammit, show me something new. Pretty please?

I have no idea what accent this guy has.

I need new footage of this damned game.

NEW LIVE DEMO FUCK YEAH.

Blizzard what?

wtf, a wild metzen appears.

Diablo 3 prolly. Or first shot at Titan.

Wait, wut.  Welp, here's the surprise of the announcement.

Or their DOTA. Or WoW on consoles. Whatever. It'll prolly be disappointing.

Diablo whoopty shit.

Well, that was anticlimactic.

Yerp, D3.

 :uhrr:

Yeah, not that interesting, but still kinda out of left field.

Ahahah who fucking cares

Nah not really. They hired a bunch of people to develop a console title a while back.

I more meant that they bothered to bring anyone on stage for a year old port.

Halo references at a Sony announcement is sorta weird.

Soooo here's what didn't happen:

-No hardware shown.
-No price.
-Pretty much nothing anyone didn't expect.

I did like that they showed two games saying 'over-conectivity is bad' on the most connected platform EVER.

Also:

‏@majornelson
Announce a console without actually showing a console? That's one approach

Ha ha.

I guess I'm not the only one who noticed:

The car porn guy was funny.

No kidding - no pricing, no actual hardware aside from the new controller and no details on what PSN will look like/cost.  New Watch Dogs footage and the MediaMolecule presentation saved it tho.

(http://i.imgur.com/41eiEk2.gif)

You might have had 8 GB of RAM in that PC but you were only using fraction of it for games cause of Windows 32-bit limitations so 8 GB is pretty impressive even in 2013. My relatively new GeForce 670 has 4 GB of VRAM but I'm typically only using up to 2 GB of system RAM for my games (i.e. compiled for 32-bit) so that's less than what the PS4 offers.

If its not backwards compatible then they can fuck right off.

Isn't their typical pattern to make the first release of a console backwards compatible with the one before it, and then drop backwards compatibility in the cheaper/smaller version a few years down the line once nobody cares any more?

I just realized that I'm still using the first model of the PS3 that I bought several years ago on eBay.  Never even got around to swapping out the 20G HD.  Pretty impressive that it still gets so much use (mostly as a Netflix player) and hasn't died yet.

Mmm, this isn't really like the waning days of the PS2 where it already felt 'old'. New PS3 stuff still looks good. Not being PS3 compatible would be a really bad idea, I think.

I had Vista-64. Which doesn't mean that many games were designed to use more than ~3GB, but I could multitask pretty much at will.

(http://pbs.twimg.com/media/BDlv1uvCcAAO2Jp.jpg)

(http://pbs.twimg.com/media/BDlvupQCQAAAJkv.jpg)

It's not. Someday you might be able to stream PS3 games over it. Someday.

Being a console gamer used to be the easy road.

I see myself staying out of the Sony pool then. I missed a few important games not having a PS3, if I could go back and play those on it, it would make a much stronger argument to buy in this generation.

Man, really underwhelming.

Why in the hell would you kick off your presentation with some goofy third-rate mascot platformer thing? Is that really how you choose to lead out a presentation designed for salivating tech-heads?

A new Killzone! A new Infamous! Not only are these mid-tier franchises and not particularly exciting, but both Sucker Punch and Guerrilla were rumored to be showing new IP and Sucker Punch was supposedly done with Infamous entirely. So showing two sequels from those companies is below the lowest expectations.

Use the Vita that you don't own as a laggy Wii U tablet! No thanks!

A sim racing game that looks like every sim racing game! Diablo 3! The Witness! Rolling out the hits!

The Capcom Dark Souls plus Monster Hunter game looked like the worst sort of  "cinematic experience." Hopefully it was all fake, because I don't want to play a game where my character does 5 seconds of custom animation every time a dragon breathes fire at him.

The amount of RAM is nice. Everything else was just man...I was really hoping the next gen would introduce some new IP and some new ideas but it looks to be continuing this death march of endless sequels and awful, step-backwards cinematic schlock. There was literally nothing even remotely exciting about this.

Everyone who said the next gen would just be this gen plus looks dead on right now. Absolutely nothing interesting at all. At this point it's the same games with bumped up effects and lighting.

Is the based on anything besides speculation?

Really, no backwards compatibility out of the gate?  That surprises me.  If the new system has a bluray reader (and I can't imagine why it wouldn't, those haven't gone away yet) you'd think emulating a PS3 would be easy with all that horsepower they have to spare.

Porting the old PS3 games by wrapping an emulation layer around them and letting you convert your old disc to a free activation in their online thingy a la Steam would be the next best thing, and I assume it's the way they're going, but it seems like more work, and if it's not ready at release then they look like clowns regardless.

Didn't they say (either Sony or the rumor mill) that the PS3 wasn't going to have PS2 compatibility, and then the first release ended up having it?

Yes it's based on the Gaikai part of the presentation where he talked about eventually, maybe, streaming older PS games (1-3) over their service and the fact that the CPU is x86 and not Cell based.

The original PS3 solved the backwards compatibility problem by literally sticking a PS2 chipset inside. Later they ditched the chipset and tried software emulation which didn't work so well and eventually dropped it all together. The Cell processor is far more complex than the PS2 MIPS CPU they were trying to emulate through the Cell CPU. Even with a top-of-the-line x86 CPU right now it would be an incredibly difficult thing to do.

In this modern age where I can run a console emulator in a JVM in a Linux Virtualbox in a Windows VMware on OSX it's surprising to me that this would be a hard nut to crack, but I guess it's the pecularities of the hardware itself that make things difficult?  Maybe they'll end up caving at the last second and sticking an old chip in there like they did last time, then.  Not being able to play old games just makes them look dumb.

The likely compromise is going to be porting the 20 most popular PS3 games so they can placate 80% of the whining.

The Cell architecture is pretty specialized and also super powerful at what it does. There's no way it could be emulated without including the original hardware.

I wonder if this will make people think twice about digital purchases now. I think the expectation based on precedence is that physical media may not work on new machines but digital content will.

Yes, as I mentioned the Cell architecture is very complex. There's also the issue that the Cell can perform a ridiculous amount of floating-point operations per second given its transistor count. An Intel i7-3770 is just about as fast in FP operations as the Cell but has 5x the number of transistors. Now try emulating a Cell through an x86 CPU and see what kind of FP performance you get.

Streaming games = PC.
RPS continues the tradition of hyping shit.

Every console has been "just a PC" to some degree past the days of dedicated sprite and tiling hardware. It's really a completely pointless thing to say.

Yeah this article on Gamasutra i (http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/EricSchwarz/20130220/187032/PlayStation_4_Here_We_Go_Again.php)n the other hand seems more rational.

PCs are just DIY consoles that require more protection software.  :oh_i_see:

FFS, Why?

Easier for developers.

Don't assume this is a 'catching up thing.'   It's totally a 'fuck those secondhand sales' thing.

Fan that I am of Steam, I write every purchase off as a loss that I'll never be able to play in the future, which is why I don't buy most games at > the $10 price point.  Not to be all Sinaj about it, but any system that can remove your access to purchases you made is a bad thing.

That gamasutra article makes me chuckle because it's mainstreaming a complaint I've had for years.  You can't keep pushing "ooh awesome graphics" because eventually you'll hit a wall where people don't care because the improvements are too minor or you're in full uncanny valley.  We were there years ago and now everyone's realizing that the emperor has no clothes on the gameplay side.   Whoops!

ed: And I realize I'm old but "ooh, instant LP streams!" is a feature?  So now watching other people play games is better than playing them yourself? Dafuq?

Every time I want to like Gamasutra I read some piece there about how shitty social/mobile "mid-core" games are teh future.

Not saying the price makes Microsoft have to make the first move. They are clearly ready to try to right the ship and probably willign to take a big hit on the hardware end of things.

Personally, I came away impressed with the presser, down notes (Square Enix) aside.  The SquareEnix debacle I think proves a bit that the EU/US arm of things had a LOT more say in this generation in terms of marketing and development. Something that I think they did incredibly right this time.

And really, who gives a fuck what it looks like. I remember caring that the PS3 was domed but it ended up, all these years later to not really matter.

As for the streaming/social sharing shit... that is huge for a big part of the gaming community. I've never used it, but there is no mistake why things like Ustream and Twitch have succeeded. People DO like that shit. If you don't, that's great.. I know I certainly don't give a shit, but that doesn't mean it's not an important step for Sony and honestly, still impressive from a technical standpoint.

Put it this way, the PS3 can't really run Skyrim in a non-virtual environment, now put it in a VM.  :why_so_serious:

Yea, no one does that. http://www.twitch.tv/  :why_so_serious:

Until you and Kubrick I had never heard of that.  Being over 35 and not in the tech field does that.

The thing about stream watching is I might watch a Let's Play from a charismatic person, some sort of pre-release stream, a stream of a pro-gamer or E-sports event, but I have no desire to watch a stream from Joe Random Dumbass.

I mean on Twitch you'll see a couple streamers that have 8k viewers then the rest have 8.

This is accurate, and streamlining the process will do nothing to help the signal-to-noise ratio.

It makes it accessible, though. People WANT to share stuff. Only a handfull of people see the stupid pictures I post about my cat on facebook, but I still do that, too.

And there's probably a worse signal to noise ratio on cat pictures on the internet.

Sony is hemorrhaging money. They can't afford to lose money on the PS4. Given that they didn't show the console they probably don't have final hardware yet and don't know yet what it's going to cost them to make. They probably will wait for MS to announce pricing first but they don't have much flexibility in pricing given how bad their financial situation is.
 

The game and entertainment divisions (especially music amusingly) are the things that are keeping them up. The TV Set division is in REALLY BAD shape.

However, this really is a make or break moment, which is why they have to be more flexible than not. I left out mentioning the hardware end of things, because it's more or less moot. They have to knock it out of the park pricing wise, it's an unknown, and regardless what that range is, they're still waiting for Microsoft to tip their hand. Don't read my comments as thinking Sony will be trying to hit the $199 mark. Far from it.

PS2 was $299 at launch. the PS3 was $499 (and up). I'm guessing we see the PS4 at $399 (and up). I think the lowest they go is $349. I think Microsft DOES come in lower with either a subsidized model or another "core"/"arcade" system at $250/$299.

InFamous looked like it might be fun from the setting.  God knows I want to parkour some Seattle hipsters, totally playing evil.  Hopefully there's coffee in the future.

MEANWHILE, KOTAKU ASKS THE HARD QUESTIONS...

Last quarter (Christmas) the game division made $53 million. The quarter before it lost $45 million.

I hate the fact that people use women/woman when "female" is the correct word.

Lack of female presenters is a fair point to make, but i do have to roll eyes at the "100% white dudes" complaint. It's painting a slightly skewed picture.

I think Sony should sue for peace.  This ground war is over.

It will be interesting to see if Microsoft uses this as an opportunity to bury them. They certainly have the money and there's nothing "special" about the machine to give it a system advantage.

My first reaction was 'So, it's another locked down PC "console".' My second was 'All those poor bastards that spent the last 8 years learning Cell programming are stuck with an orphan skillset.'  Then my nephew got bored and wanted to play Black Ops 2.

--Dave

I must be a sucker because I'm going to be queuing for this day 1. Unless the new Ecks Bocks comes sooner, then I'll queue for that day 1.

I'll probably buy one at launch too, but that's more to support Sony than because anything about the system has me excited. I'm pretty disappointed they didn't announce anything for the Vita at the conference either, besides "More Remote Play, for real this time".  :oh_i_see:

Everything we have heard and read abut the MS machine indicates the PS4 is significantly more powerful. Where that apparently will make the difference is that you'll run the same game on the PS4 at a higher res and frame rate than the news Xbox.

Also will be interesting to see the kinect stuff about the new Xbox - the rumours are its embedded into the machine and Microsoft is focussing on the non-gaming side of things to y and transition straight to a media hub in this generation. It may be too soon to do that, and kinect has really not caught the interest of gamers in the long run at all.

Very disappointed in the lack of games shown by Sony though - and the lack of clear in game graphics and gameplay.

It seems to me that everyone is suffering from long development lead times.

I'm sure Diablo 3 sounded like a slam dunk a year ago, now the prospect of getting D3 on PS4 years after release is completely unexciting. When MS was developing the 720 Kinect was booming but I think it's already largely petered out. It's basically the Wii but suitable for a much narrower range of games.

I can't agree with this more, even though it's just a personal opinion.  Having gone back to older games where the graphics are shite, but the gameplay is still engaging, it makes you wonder what the fuck people are actually doing these days.  And I'm not just talking about high profile abortions like Diablo III.

I seem to remember making various comments about today's gamers being focused on the "all-important graphical glitz" at the expense of gameplay, and getting shot down with "your gaming tastes have just changed". :oh_i_see:

One of the strengths of the f13 forums is that there's always someone to hate any given game. So whatever you like, you're wrong!  :why_so_serious:

When I was a kid and the Genesis had just come out I told my parents I still wanted an NES because while the Genesis had better graphics the games didn't have the depth of NES games.

And I was right! At least for the first batch of Genesis games like Last Battle, Ghouls and Ghosts, etc.

There's lots of terrible looking indie games on the PC  :awesome_for_real:

To an extent the consoles, barring the wii, make the big money and get their retail penetration from the huge budget, massively marketed name brand, games. And those brands are always selling on graphics that look great on the trailer and provides a huge wow factor that feeds the "this is something special" reception. You could even argue they're not really very sophisticated gamers and are even happy to sacrifice interactivity for set piece effect in the gameplay.

That and the console with bigger numbers is obviously the better one.

By me ?

Unless you've changed your opinion recently, no. I think they were made a year or two ago, my comment now was more leapfrogging off of both you and merusk's comment about graphics not being everything, it wasn't actually focused on any particular person (if that's why you asked).

Seems I have to ask the dense questions again, if no one else steps up:

Whats the point of a console again if it's just a PC anyway?

Couldn't one just somehow slap Windows on it and run it, like, um a PC?

Or go the other way round, bring out a small PC in some micro case that people can plug their TV in? That's probably cheaper and let the gamer buy a game once on steam, than play it on their couch, at the desktop PC or at the notebook in a train...

I think what's more interesting to me is that my gaming tastes haven't changed ever.  The games I liked when I was young (which was a long time ago) I still like (see the recent release of Grimrock as a damn good example) and it doesn't matter terribly much to me how much graphical glitz you layer on top of it.

It's almost like there's a core of me that likes certain gaming 'types' and is perfectly happy to play those to death irrespective of how they look (though obviously I'm not saying look isn't important.)  Give me a Captive, Dungeon Master, Lands of Lore, System Shock type and I'll gladly play it happily.  Give me the same type and give it an awesome graphical engine and some really sophisticated access control system and I'll play it and love it just as much.  I differentiate very little between Adom and Crysis - The Graphics are different, but my pleasure centers being poked is what really matters.  (Hell, I know there's every chance I'd love Dark Souls, but I've just never got round to it.)

If you take my most extreme example of late, Diablo III, they gave us what looked on the face of it to be the same game with a much more advanced graphical state, but because that was just a lie once you got in front of it (the gameplay had changed massively due to underlying changes) it didn't tickle the spot that had previously gone without food and water for days due to Diablo and Diablo II.  Similarly, Bioshock, while looking on the face of it to be System Shock 3, turned out very, very much NOT to be and was a massive dissapointment on pretty much every level.  Similarly, something that I genuinely didn't thiink I'd like (Mass Effect Series) turned out NOT to be what I thought and tickled that spot very, very much.

Random thoughts.  Sorry.  Being off these pills is killing me.

PCs get viruses and need maintenance.  The draw of consoles (these days) is you have a one time purchase that works like an appliance.  If theres a problem you don't have to fix or troubleshoot it yourself.  Tech for the less savvy.

There's literally just one single reason why I'm not (and won't be) spending much time gaming on consoles: the insistence that mouse/keyboard (or a specialist controller which serves the exact same purpose/delivers the same control mechanism) is verboten.

Remove that ban, and punch anyone who thinks the pad is the "best controller ever devised for any game (especially FPS games)" in the dick, and I'd happily be a console gamer. vOv

Concours are significantly more powerful with their tech than a PC as, they don't have to run overheads such as Windows etc. look at the memory inside a 360 or PS3 and see how far they managed to push that.

Consoles are also good because you cause them in your front room. I know that for tech savvy people having a PC hooked up to your main television is fine but for the vast majority of people that's a no go. It is genuinely more fun playing a game like Mass Effect on your living rooms big screen television rather than a monitor in the study.

It's also better for local multiplayer - playing a game between friends on one PC is a mess, on a console its a lot easier and natural.

I thought shovelware like Guitar Hero 9 and those Kinect dancing and wii-sports-alike games were hugely profitable, despite holding zero interest for the wider gaming press?

For me it's because I can buy a game and 100% know it's going to work and be playable on that system, instead of trying to navigate and decypher the hell that are minimum/recommended specs.  I can just pop the game in, sit down, and start playing (after a retardedly long install of course).

Wouldn't surprise me.  For example, some of our friends have pre-teen girls (ranging from 3 to 10 in age), and they have a library of games that I barely even knew existed.  Big on Kinect games and dancing games in particular.  I think F13 is underrepresented in certain genres.

But this is an interesting segway.  There are just certain things that consoles are better at than PCs and always will be.  Even people like us (the savvy sort) probably don't think of all the ways in which a console is easier than a PC.  Connecting a camera and dancing.  Connecting a microphone and singing.  Extremely simple to find and use DLC for that content.  Put disc in slot, game plays.  As long as you got the right disc for the right system, it is going to work.  You are always running at max settings.  Need an update?  Push the green button.  The sound always works, and it's always coming out in 5.1.  Video always works, and always looks like it is supposed to look.  Controller always works.  They rarely crash, and when they do, even a five year-old knows what to do about it.  Etc.

Those specs looked like something for Valve Steambox (though maybe slightly over the top) rather than something innovative on the console side.  :oh_i_see:

I too know that fear from the olden days, but the last few years, Steam served exactly that purpose for me. There was not one Steam game I bought I had to do anything but install it to make it run. GoG as well.

We've never been representative of anything but a very, very narrow demographic.  I thought this was common knowledge.


Certainly how I understand it, much like the EA Sports shovelware.   Gaming press cares about the 18-25 male demographic with an occasional bone tossed to females. None of those games were aimed at that audience.


Yes, but what about upgrades to your PC.  How old is the newest component in that machine?  My PS3 is older than my machine and able to run new games. My old PC can't touch Skyrim or Mechwarrior and was terrible for WoT.

You know I just remembered how Sony was like, "Oh yeah the cell processor is gonna be in everything just you wait" then everyone realized while it was a kinda interesting architecture it was a pain in the ass to program for and expensive to fabricate for the majority of its life and it went into precisely nothing but the PS3.

Ideally a console, even if it is based on x86 and using commodity hardware will have custom-made pcbs/HSF/etc and cost less since there is no variation outside of very easily removable (and also commodity) storage. PCs have to abide by form factors and standards generally for user interchangable parts, whereas a console is purpose built for one thing and uses the exact same hardware no matter what. Massive bulk chip/hardware discounts and one manufacturing process should again, ideally let you crank out a piece of hardware for a lot less than an equivalent PC.

And even if it's still basically a standardized PC in a tiny box, it'll run its own OS and people writing games for it can write to bare metal with 100% knowledge of what overhead there is and what there is to work with so you can push that same hardware a lot harder than you could in an equivalent gaming PC running Windows/Linux/etc. If you write a PC game today that flat out requires a DX11 capable graphics card and 2+ gigs of ram you've drastically reduced your possible customer base; you can write a console game that practically taxes it to the point it catches on fire and 100% of people with a proper functioning console can still run it.

You can't compare like for like between PCs and consoles. Look at the PCs available when the 360 and Ps3 launched - they would keel over at the thought of running some of the software those machines now run. Consoles are always more powerful, like for like, due to the completely closed nature of the rig. Tiny system overhead, much greater access to the actual bits of the machine, and a guaranteed spec that means you can rely on the exact spec every time.

So far everything I've seen of the steam box indicates its just a PC in a nice shiny new format. Unless Valve are going to be as fixed and specific as the console makers a, the steam box won't have those innate advantages that a console has and so it won't be comparable directly across.

I'm surprised they haven't straight up announced a Steam Big Picture App for the PS4.

I'd buy one in a heartbeat.

The wonderful thing about the console stagnation of recent years is that there wasn't an arms race on gamer PC hardware as well.

My current computer is 4 years old and still runs all games including Skyrim and Farcry 3 in 1920x1080.

Sorry, tgr but an article disagrees with you (http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/02/sorry-to-say-it-but-keyboard-and-mouse-are-losing-the-fps-market/), and I think he is making a good point.









 :why_so_serious:

Re: pc upgrading, if it were just for games it would be apples:apples. But console gamers also need a pc for everything else pcs do. The 'tech savvy' bit about hooking a tv to the pc is nonsense, it's a plug and play monitor at this point. It's not 2003 where you have to create a custom INF file for the tv. And my gpu setup is 460SLI, hardly cutting edge, perfect for 1080p.

THAT SAID.

I've been wanting a console the last couple years but hate buying what amounts to obsolete hardware. I call it the Madden effect. Just want shit like Madden during football season, exclusives like Red Dead Revolver. Tough call to make, because otherwise I'd rather just use my pc. My bet is they price me out of it for at least a couple more years.

Re: zomg it's a pc. Good. Development for the same hardware platform for pretty much everything but mobile devices is a good thing.

So, you've always been an old man.  Time to get a wood stove and an apple tree.  :why_so_serious:

About PC upgrades, I only moved up from the Radeon 4870 in January because I had some bonus money and I thought 1) DX11 might be neat 2) Maybe I can get SS1-CDROM to run.

A console is a securely locked down PC so that it can become vendor exclusive and get exclusive titles to justify it. Most of the other aspects are just incidental such as a single vendor, single model, machine being easier to support and getting good economies of scale.

I guess you could argue they inherit the "lounge-room" focus from when dedicated hardware gaming machines made sense.


... the PS3 is running desktop linux. The fact that windows is so fat microsoft needed to build another OS to run the Xbox is not a property of consoles.
 

The PS4 really does look pretty close to what I'd expect to be standard for mid-highend PCs by the end of 2013.  Technology-wise it's not much of a leap from where we are today.

The main advantage of console platforms, as Fabricated points out, tends to be economy of scale (thus more affordable to end-users, sometimes in recent years even subsidized), and consistency of architecture (it's going to run pretty much the same exact "OS", have the same exact base hardware, etc) making it easier for developers to get more deterministic performance and user experience (leading to the "it just works" experience that many enjoy about consoles).  It's tricky because it's a chicken and egg problem -- if you don't have tens of millions of them in the field they aren't as appealing as targets for your big name titles that can drive sales, and without a compelling set of titles/features, people have less interest in buying this dedicated box.

Of course as the console platforms start looking more like PCs (OS updates, downloadable patches, need network for features to work, etc), they seem to be bringing some of the pain of the PC experience ("why do I have to upgrade the OS twice and accept these patches before I can just play my game?!").

I think there still can be value to people in being able to buy a box that they just plug in and can play games, watch movies, without worrying about "do I have a good enough video card?" "do I have enough RAM?" "will upgrading to the new video driver fix the new game but break something else?" etc.  But the line is definitely blurring, with more and more parties looking to get into this space, and less obvious differences between the underlying hardware.

If the console costs me $500 to get, is it really economically feasible? As they move closer to PCs in terms of functionality, what's the point in not just getting a PC and shunning the console, other than the forced "exclusive" titles? The backlash to that would be developers not going exclusive when they are handing over money to the console guys.

I've actually struggled to be able to justify upgrading my PC the past 3 or so times I've done it the last 4 or 5 years (the last time was actually due to hardware failure), and that's been while running most games at 2560x1600. Most of the time the only thing I've really had to turn off to get an acceptable framerate has been AA, and last I checked most console games ran at 720p or less. The only thing I've really felt I've had to upgrade the last few years has been memory and disk.

Actually, the main performance upgrade I did the past few years was actually moving over to Windows 7, that made it possible to f.ex run 2 eve clients on the same screen without performance suffering (I had to set each client up to run on one specific monitor, and even just having a tiny bit of the window overlapping onto the other screen made performance taking a nosedive).

"It's popular, that automatically means it's better!" :why_so_serious:

Like Skyrim on the PS3?

Part of it used to be that the game would be written only for the target console and tested in depth. With larger games and the more expensive titles pretty much having to go multi-platform that's not as true as it used to be.

Mind you, there's no reason the PC space couldn't gain from some standardisation. Set a sensible spec (or various levels) and badge PC hardware that meets those requirements. So you can look at a game and do a single comparison to see if your system should run it with no problems. But the dominant force in the PC market is not interested as they have a competing product they get a bigger cut on. If the steambox works that might well solve the problem.

These were pretty much my thoughts on consoles. Ease of use is a huge plus for them.

So basically the PS4 is the Steambox with a dedicated controller that has OOOOTOUCH, more limited developer base, one specific set of hardware and a walled garden of software both disc and streamed?

Color me unimpressed. I'll have to see the price first.

For teens, I advise a lot of parents on PCs and getting them to go for a gaming PC rather than a cheap laptop and a console is infinitely harder even if the gaming PC is cheaper than the combination of devices.

Would Steam(box) not qualify as a walled garden as well in this context?

That Wiibar PSbar had better not be battery powered.  If they're trying to ram peripherals down our throats, that's a guaranteed no-purchase from me.  Concentrate on making good games that use the controller and you have the best chance to succeed.

So what do you guys think of the 8 gigs of DDR5 that serves both the cpu and gpu? My pants tell me that should be a whole lot faster than your average gaming pc configuration.

Not if the Steambox is running Windows OS.

Given Gabe's enthusiasm for Win8, I'd be inclined to put money on steambox not running any version of Windows.

I wouldn't be surprised if it runs some flavor of Linux, but that would only make it slightly more open, but I'm still not sure what the OS would change about it being a walled garden or not. I'm not trying to be a dick, I genuinely asking. If we're talking about the games disc/streamed wise, it's not like you can remove your games from the Steambox, nor install non-steam games to it.

If it's running Windows, what would stop you from installing non Steam games?

I don't understand why people keep thinking this is just a steam box.

Unless Valve totally lock down every single component in steam boxes in the same way the console manufacturers do then the steam box will not be equivalent to a console, it will be a very shiny packaged PC with all the advantages and disadvantages that contains.

You cannot compare like for like across consoles and PCs - they arent equivalent in that way. The 360 only has 256 memory or some ing silly and yet outperforms PCs with a gig because its a locked down console. Unless the steam box has the same characteristics (which it doesn't seem to have given what we have seen so far) then the steam box won't be comparable to one of the new consoles.

This. Or really any flavor of Linux. Whereas Sony's walled garden does not allow you to install just any app you can download on the Net. And I'm not even talking about games either. I mean things like a different Internet browser than the one that comes default, or an MP3 player, etc. The Steambox is really a PC with console hardware modularity and standardization (at least I hope). The PS4 looks like a goddamn iPad with PC hardware.

Then you're not using it as a Steambox, and using it as just a PC, which I'm not sure why you wouldn't just build a PC at that point. The conversation seems to center specifically about the Steambox being a Steam... box, and the use as that. If we're not, it's no different than the conversation about PC vs Console. The mention was about software discs/streaming. I assume we were specifically talking about Steam/Steambox.

Steam is a walled garden. It just happens to be the best walled garden at the moment.

The Steambox IS just a PC, only with a loose set of modular hardware standards. It's not an OS. Unless I've misread everything I've read about the Steambox.

I think we're using Steambox differently, slightly. When people talk about Steambox, they generally are talking about the entire experience, which would include the OS. Otherwise, we're talking about Hardware only one side and Hardware/Software (PS4 in this case) on the other. For a level comparison, we have to include what the Steambox will be running. Which will probably be some flavor or Linux, from everything that Newell seems to indicate.

So in actual PS4 news, Sony confirmed that no PSN purchases will transfer from PS3 to PS4.

So... that's happening. I know a couple people for whom this is a flat-out 100% deal-breaker.

Hurm. That bit is troubling. I guess the architecture change has something to do with that? I guess?

It also seems counter to Sony's general great support of the indie crowd. I wouldn't be surprised if they find themselves having to walk back from that a bit.

I heard that and just  :ye_gods: at it. So you can apparently stream PS1, PS2 and PS3 games from ZE CLOUDZ!!!! but you'll likely have to repurchase them on the new PSN to do so? That seems very cockpunchy to me.

Haven't you watched the presentation? Thanks to the power of PS4 the Move controller is totally capable of instantly translating small, vague wavey motions into intricate actions; that's performance you can't even dream of achieving with the primitive mouse/keyboard combo :why_so_serious:

Please don't insult the PS4 by comparing it to the Surface Pro.   :oh_i_see:

PS4 Press Event: The Abridged Version

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rJDn0jRnUQ

Sony seems intent on blowing it's foot off with this boondoggle. For one, I still don't understand why you would buy this instead of a PC. For the other, we've been waiting forever on next-gen consoles, and this seems like an upgrade to 2010 technology. Correct me if I'm wrong.

People have posted multiple times why folks will want this over a PC but people don't seem to actually be reading those posts...

I mean, I'm a PC gamer through and through. Before then I head an Atari st and a spectrum. This generation is the first time I've ever owned a console of any sorts. But they do have distinct advantages over PCs for a variety of reasons, not including first party games.

Plus you know, you cannot compare the technologies across which people keep doing?

Remove the fact that developers are compensated to design for the prior consoles first.

Do the console advantages still exist? I argue that if we're moving this direction in the hardware, they don't, other than just setting up a PC near your couch.

Really? It looks like a mid-highend PC from the end of 2011 to me.

But the technological advantages do exist. ThePs4 will be significantly more powerful than an equivalent PC in exactly the same we the 360 and the Ps3 are far more powerful than an equivalent PC at launch.
 
Well they be the most powerful option? No, of course not. A truly top end PC will be more powerful in the same way they have been every other generation for the last 15 years.  Bt you cannot simply look at the specs and compare across. Coding for a locked down console at the base level is completely different than coding for a billion and one PC configurations. There's a reason that a PC from 2006 would keel over and die running god of war 3 or uncharted 3 whereas the PS3 happily chunters along with it.

Having a completely controlled unit and being able to exploit every aspect of that is far, far more powerful than the pure numbers on the side would indicate.

(Ignoring all the other stuff - ease of use, ease of technology, controllers etc etc)

Yes, even plug and play is beyond some folks.  Haven't you ever been asked to set-up a big-box-brand computer with all the color-coded cables?  I've had people ask me how to hook their HDTV up to their damn cable.

As for "console gamers need a pc for.."  For what, exactly?  Haven't you seen the stats where PC sales have plummeted with tablets coming to the market and the broad adaptation of smartphones?

  People's habits are trending towards: buy a cheap laptop for word processing and occasional web browsing and a tablet or smartphone for the majority of their internet browsing and e-mails.

One step further is that people aren't buying laptops. Smartphones/Tablets are eating EVERYONES lunch.

You guys are both off by a year :awesome_for_real: It's a mid-range 2012 gaming PC. We know the GPU is from AMD and spec'd at 1.84 TFLOPS. That puts it between the 7850 and 7870 GPUs, both of which came out March 2012. NVIDIA released the 680 in March 2012 as well but that's a much more powerful GPU. It wasn't until September that they released the 660 variants at ~2 TFLOPS.

The CPU, also by AMD, is an 8 core (though knowing Sony probably half of those will be used to lock down the system) Jaguar design which is new this year. Jaguar is a mobile/low power design so it won't be as powerful as a desktop CPU of a comparable family.

Goddammit, I just came here to post that.

I think the main point is that if consoles are trending towards PC hardware, then it comes down to an economic choice of power/utility v. cost.

Genuinely surprised that it has about the right amount of RAM given other resources.

Is it too cynical to wonder how much will be available to the application and whether Sony have a ridiculously bloated OS planned to bring performance down to that of a normal console?


Not really.

The way you can do stuff with a console will still be fundamentally different, Sony certainly won't be loosening their grip on the garden. And there is plenty of space in the stack between architecture and api for Sony to make performance incomparably bad (or theoretically at least, good).

How? Other than Sony cockblocking the market.

I'm talking from a consumer standpoint. Not from the developer standpoint.

(https://dl.dropbox.com/u/85916/CosbyFacepalm.gif)

I don't have words to describe how silly that decision is. 

Blame is shifted onto the hardware architecture, but ultimately they're choosing to see who will start repurchasing their 'old' PSN games. 

On one hand, it's not surprising.  On the other, we should expect more from them.

Wow. If Sony subsidises the cost of the console, and I don't see how they can't with that much stuff in it, the ps4 could end up making a really nice budget pc once someone cracks it.

I'm not really buying into that one since there are many non-PS3 games on PSN.  Quite a few PS1 games, for example, including all of the Final Fantasy ones minus III for some reason, and of course Symphony of the Night.  Also, since I'm emulating PS2 games on my PC right fucking now, I can't believe that it would not be easy to emulate them on the PS4.  I honestly don't know what the deal is with emulating them on the PS3, but I suppose there is a reason.


Yep.  I try very hard not to buy a game a second or third time, but shit happens and if they make it easy to do I don't mind popping off $5 to get a new version of something I already had.  However, if they are going to be cocks about it, I'm not likely to want to do this.  Since I can get SotN on XBL, or run it in a PS1 emulator on my PC.

Utility of a PC isn't outweighed by the inconvience cost of maintenance and floor space in most user's minds.  A console takes up an additional ~12"x14" plus the games.  So let's say 3sf total for most people. (no Schild, you don't count)  A PC requires a separate desk, monitor, keyboard, speakers, etc.  Then, as I said, there's the maintenance.  Patches, boot-up, virus updates, software updates and all the other headaches of PC ownership that for nearly 15 years pundits have said will drive the masses to the first workable 'appliance' solution.

Laptops weren't that solution.  They had a lot of the inconveniences of a PC, adding only a smaller form factor and portability.  However the rise of laptops over Desktops in the mass market showed what people were looking for.   So now we have, "Hello Tablets/ smartphones. "

With a separate appliance solution for home entertainment. On the TV you already own.

I think there's a reason we've been waiting on a next-gen console. Pushing them out too close together pisses buyers off. I have no doubt -- no doubt -- that Sony and MS both have paid a shitton of money to figure out when, exactly, the average buyer are happy moves from "Fuck you, money grubbing asswipe" to "Hmm, I've had this one for years and the new one looks like a step up and I bet the new games will be awesome..."

Game junkies might start jonesing for an upgrade quickly, but the average player probably doesn't even want to HEAR "Buy a totally new system" for at least five years -- and probably closer to 10.

The no backwards compatibility is bullshit, though. I don't have a PS3, but if the new Xbox tries that shit I don't see any reason to buy a new Xbox.

F
Figuring PS3 games can play current gen games with 512Mb of total memory, I'm not really worried about that.

Query, and maybe this was already discussed and I missed it, but if the chip is x86 based, how the heck is it able to address more than 4GB or memory?

Cause it has a 64-bit address space.

The steam box looks to be several things. It's a specification that third parties can build to and people can match their PC against. We know this since third parties can build "steambox" machines of their own. And those machines can be open. So in this case it's more like a branding / certification system.

The actual valve version of the steam box, and even things like Nvidia's shield (if it made sense) might well be fully locked down. They're meant to be appliances for the low-brow lounge room crowd who don't want configuration, expandability or any app other than steam running on it. The people who want or need those things will buy a PC, that's not the audience they are going for. Though I can also imagine PC owners wanting both since the big PC in the den and a convenience machine on the TV complement each other.

A fully locked down steam box, booting into big-screen mode, having a single hardware spec, having alternative functions only through apps installed through steam, is a console. And there's no reason it can't be every bit as powerful as the PS4 because Sony can't afford funky hardware any more. Shared memory is not a technological advance, that's an echo from the PC's past, and DDR5 as main memory isn't necessarily better.

As for backwards compatibility not being possible. That was a pretty obvious side effect from a architecture transition stand point and confirmed long ago. The fault was on Sony thinking they were big enough to drive the Cell forward against the volume of PC hardware.

I'm going to have to disagree with you there.  The modern console OSes are getting heavier and on an 8GB machine the overhead of even Win7 starts becoming more in the noise.  Given the specs discussed I don't think there's going to be enough of a performance gap to really matter.  Really the biggest performance advantage of consoles in the last generation has been a very well defined and higher-than-PC minimum spec to target, but again, we just are not seeing as large a technology gap in this upcoming generation.  Building a high volume box with a simplified mainboard with no expansion allows for some cost savings, but does not magically amplify the hardware.  And there's absolutely no way that AMD and I forget which GPU manufacturer are going to intentionally hold back their PC targetted CPUs and GPUs -- the same or better hardware will be available in PCs within six months of launch, worst case.

The main advantage of the console experience remains the "plug and play" experience without having to worry about os and drivers and upgrades and all that because it's a box you plug into your TV and turn on and play games.  However, as the console OSes are getting heftier software upgrades and such are getting more intrusive, though still it's a far more managed experience (and a hell of a lot harder to mess up) than a desktop PC.

AMD is doing the GPU as well -- it'll be one of their integrated "APUs".

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6770/sony-announces-playstation-4-pc-hardware-inside

Remember Fury? Or cross-platform Q3A servers the console monkeys wouldn't log onto if they allowed PC players?  If everyone is running the race with one foot in a bucket, it's fair, but it's still running with a handicap.  So there are more people out there that have only played shooters with dual sticks?  The reason they won't allow any console game to support a mouse even as an option is that the mouse players will kick everyone's ass, and from then on be as ruined for dual-stick as anyone who first played shooters in PC.

--Dave






 :why_so_serious:
[/quote]

No it isn't.

Then why don't PC players use the dual-stick controllers they use for console ports for their shooters?  Even the ones that are also good at console shooters don't attempt it.  Dual stick is a crappy interface for a shooter, only accepted because it's the best allowed for consoles.  It's a handicap deliberately maintained by the consoles to keep them a 'couch-based' experience.

Which raises a big question for the Steambox: If they don't support mice, most of their existing customer base will reject it.  If they do, how will the console players they're trying to reach out to respond?

--Dave

This.

Steam and PC in general has completely and utterly spoiled me. I can't imagine having to friggen go buy disks ever again. Plus, you know, Steam sales.

Special Olympics, man.   :why_so_serious:

A controller is perfectly ergonomic for shooters, you dinosaurs just don't know how to use one. After that it comes a question of game balancing, as Dead Space taught me (normal console difficulty + mouse & kb = god mode).

You go you hardcore you

I am utterly comfortable with the idea of FPS games being ruined for dual-stickers, since they've ruined tons of games for me the last few years.

First of all, it's not a PC. Yes there's similarities, but there's some crucial differences too.

For starters it'll cost about a third to a half as much as a decent gaming PC and won't need you to buy a monitor, mouse, keyboard. Others have already pointed out the differences in maintenance, space requirements, etc. The downside is that you can incrementally upgrade a PC over the years which you can't do with a console. But at the end of the day the PS4 is still a console and if you can't see the differences between the two things then you're a bit blinkered.

Secondly... who cares? The original XBox was lambasted by many people for being "lol just a PC" and it was just as pointless a thing to say then as it is now. I would be very surprised if the majority of regular posters here didn't have both a PC and a console, if not multiples of each. Consoles, PCs, laptops, tablets, all different tools with different capabilities - with increasing amounts of crossover, but for many people they're not exclusive things.

In this house there's 2 PCs, 2 laptops, 2 tablets, 1 console and if you want to consider home entertainment as a total there's also a couple of dedicated music systems and some assorted set-top boxes, oh and a TV with more functions than any TV had 10 years ago.

If by saying "it's a PC FFS" you mean to imply that the similarities the PS4 has to a PC will hamper its sales, reduce it's competitiveness, make it lose out to Microsoft (or Ouya or Steam or whatever) and doom it to failure then I humbly suggest you're full of shit. The TV-connected home gaming market is going to be a total bloodbath over the coming years and is going to be a very competitive arena. It's going to be won or lost on the basis of cost, quality of titles, not fucking consumers over (eg. by prohibiting 2nd hand game use), ease of use, etc etc. Not superficial similarities to PCs.

Personally I think cost is going to be the biggest issue in the early days of PS4/720/Ouya/Steambox sales. If the PS4 is £300 and the 720 is £400 the PS4 will probably sell a lot more at first. I think the biggest questions yet to be answered are those of initial cost plus subscription services, and we're not going to know those for a long time yet.

For me (and I suspect many others) it will remain a question of title availability.  The PS3 has not been as good as the PS2 as far as raw number of games I wanted to play (and could not play elsewhere or were better enjoyed on the big screen in the living room), but still has had a few, and it does reasonable double duty as my dvd/bluray/netflix/amazonvideo box.  I haven't yet found a compelling reason to buy an xbox or xbox360, mostly because the game titles available are either not interesting to me or readily available for the PC.

I am getting a little fed up with the "let's sell you all your content again for a new device" model that Sony's been taking.  Steam's model of content ownership having no relationship to device ownership feels far more reasonable, and given the increasing architectural similarity between the upcoming consoles and commodity PCs, availability of interesting titles seems far more likely to be a factor of exclusive licenses than technical difficulties in porting.

I don't think ouya or android gamestick low cost consoles are likely to have a big impact on ps4/xbox720/steambox (assuming a reasonably featureful, affordable, turnkey steambox) competition in that the low cost competitors are going to be much more last generation (not just GPU-wise, but memory, memory bandwidth, and storage-wise) and not capable of providing many of the higher end (required specs wise at least) titles.  On the other hand, a small $100-200 needs far fewer interesting titles or content streaming services to justify its purchase compared to a bulkier $400-600 device.

PS3's biggest downfall, IMO, was it's "you must be a fucking savant to code for our system" bullshit.  Sure, it kept the shovel-ware devs away, which had them flocking to the Wii, but then for those that tried and failed to make something decent, such failures were painfully obvious.  The patching system was a PITA, and the overall costs/proprietary-ness  of the system and games was Apple-style atrocious.

That they had the PSN for free multiplayer and matchmaking was one big saving grace.  I expect that when the PS4 launches, if it is in fact a little more easier to code with, you can expect the PS3 to get kicked out the door a lot faster than for how long the PS2 stuck around.

Exclusive licensing has always been more or less the reason for title availability. It's not technical difficulties as much as it's sales driven.

Re: steam. That's not strictly true. You still run into hardware issues on abilities to run games. Not all games being playable on Mac or Linux for example. Additionally, you only have a license, strictly speaking, to run it on only YOUR machine. Steam IS still DRM, it's just better developed, really.

How awesome is it that in a discussion about the PS4 and future consoles, Steam is being talked about as much if not more than the actual PS4 console itself?

Well, PC Master Race and all that jazz  :awesome_for_real:

It's exciting that we have a possible third option. Valve really has been reading the trends and pushing right at the time when PC games have gained a foothold again. Which of course, tends to happen at this point in the console cycle. The difference now is the landscape is just a bit better for what Steam was doing 7-8 years ago.

Seeing as we don't know the cost, or how gaming PCs are shifting towards lower pricing, that may not be true. As gaming PC companies, video card makers, other hardware providers, etc struggle to remain relevant in a console/casual/tablet world, they can't afford to price themselves out of the market, or make people pay a premium for small upgrades in performance.

Also, the price of a monitor mouse and keyboard are going to be less than most people's TV. And why can't I hook a PC up to my TV now? There's literally nothing stopping me from using my PC from the couch, unlike the technology that existed when PS3 first came out in 2006. Do you remember 2006? A 42 inch HDTV was $3000 back then. Now? It's better tech and I can get one at Walmart for $350.

The trick is it could be a PC. It's probably running linux underneath and nothing unique in terms of hardware. Break Sony's DRM, attach some peripherals, and you have a computer. Take a PC and lock it down like the valve steambox will be and you have a console.

And I guess from that the value proposition is whether you accept the fact it can't do as much as a PC (being locked down) in exchange for it doing some things much better. Which at the end of the day would be determined by price, game playing performance (which relates to price) and game exclusives (which relates to buying favors).

Since we don't know the price for the PS4 or the next Xbox I guess we are missing the main factor. The more expensive hardware is probably going to push the price up a bit and Sony may not have the money to subsidise it to the same extent and buy exclusives. If they don't Valve has a potential chance to push the advantage of having games that run on both PC's and Consoles which has some nice possibilities.

Should be fun to watch.

It's worked so well for Music and Movies are you really that surprised they're trying to push it with games now?  How many people have LP, 8-Track, CD and .mp3 versions of the Beatles, or some combination of at least two?

I'm not sure what you've read that would make you think the Steambox is going to be as locked down as a console.

I think the conjecture about what the steambox is going to be is far outracing the conjecture over the PS4. At this point we know more about the PS4 than the Steambox/steambox it seems. We also seem to be mixing the usage of Steambox and steambox. IE, the one that Valve is going to put out vs the licensed manufactured ones.

Fuck Yeah!



OTOH, I'm really fucking sceptical about when or if steambox might actually happen. Or if it comes how well the Linux thing will really work. Or how it would deal with Xbox moving into the same space or Originbox appearing and everything getting all crappy.

Honestly, if they can get Steam to take off on Linux and bring developers to start coding for that instead of continuing to appease the Windows/Microsoft gods, I might just force myself to learn Linux.

For dedicated games, the difference between PCs and consoles is at this point largely price cheats and interface (handheld/motion controller vs. mouse and keyboard).

Consoles can rely on the end user not needing to invest in a "monitor" and speakers to go with the box, and they sell the hardware for less than it costs to manufacture, counting on game sales to make up the difference.

I bought consoles from the last generation when they offered things I could not get on PC - the Wii had its then-unique motion control and party games, the PS3 had the best Blu-Ray player. The 360 offered nothing my PC didn't have (and wanted to charge me subscription fees for features I get for free on PC), so I never bought one. I only bought games for console when they were platform specific. That ended up being a whopping 6 PS3 and 13 Wii games.

There's one other fairly important thing that should probably not be overlooked, which is that consoles still have single-device multiplayer games. There's a social dynamic there that just doesn't exist with PC games for the most part.

Someday they'll allow PC gamers to dominate over play with console players in MP.  Someday....

Fixed that for you.
Opinions and all.

Family / drunk multiplayer is only thing I've ever found remotely interesting about consoles.

But it is also an area indies should be well placed to attack on a steam box model I guess.

That's not what I'm talking about, though. You're not going to be sitting in the other room on the PC joining in with people playing Mario Party or whatever in the other room and enjoying yourself at all. (Note: I cannot fucking stand Mario Party, but it makes a good example of the dynamic I'm talking about.)

I think I'll pick up a console eventually for Rock Band 4.

If it ever exists. Harmonix isn't working on RB4 (so they say) and they're ending RB3 DLC in April. Franchise may be dead.

This has become much less common throughout this console generation, as devs focus more on online play and less on local multiplayer. The recent Just Dance craze is an exception, but Nintendo is the only first party developer focused on that sort of interaction which makes that argument sort of invalid in the PS4 : PC debate.

Pretty sure just about every fighting game still works with local multi.

Yeah, but that's a genre that really WORKS with local multi.  Aside from that and the party-style games of MP, what else is there that allows for a top-rate enjoyable experience these days?  I for one am done with split-screen stuff.

Skylanders is a bunch of fun MP and doesn't do split-screen.   Ditto the Lego games.   We don't own many games but those are the two that the kids really love to play MP.   

Basically any Cooperative vs Competitive play games.

Aside: I find it funny watching a bunch of traditional introverts discuss the merits of face-to-face MP.

If you completely ignore the inefficiencies and overhead of the d3d and ogl graphic layer that's true.
http://www.gameranx.com/updates/id/12324/article/ps4-a-speculative-analysis-of-sony-s-next-gen-console/

This is true. Instead you'll need to buy a (more expensive?) TV.

Because as people have observed here that market segment wants low price and doesn't care about expandability or general purpose application. Those who do already have a PC. So I do expect the steam box to be standardised and integrated hardware that does little other than boot into steam in big picture mode. They might not care as much if crazy people use it as a general purpose computer, since they're probably not going to massively subsidise the hardware.

But if you like you can consider that silly Nvidia shield thing as a steambox (they identified it as such) and also a locked down device.


That's mostly historical and already changing. We're starting to get MP games like castle crashers, magicka and dungeon defenders even at this early stage. And if there was the interest the PC could probably learn to use the console peripherals or evolve it's own version. Heck, the PC even has an upgraded motion controller.

The main difference is having a "champion" and owner. Sony is committed to making the PS4 work, though their power has faded a lot. On the PC side valve is the closest and they're not nearly as powerful, and the PC industry as a whole is prone to self destructive behaviour. Whereas microsoft wishes the PC was a tablet for some reason.

You also forgot about MP games like Madden, FIFA and other sports games. Those tend to work well for local multiplayer too.

The Valve Steambox is not "locked down", it apparently comes in a bunch of different configurations from different manufacturers, including choice of OS.

Honestly Steambox sounds to me like the worst combination of PC and console. It has all the disadvantages of both and the advantages of neither. It's baffling. Honestly to me Steambox exists only because Valve doesn't want MS to control their fates and to move in on their territory - purely for business reasons. I don't see the purpose at all from a consumer perspective.

When you work on a console you can do very specific stuff. For example the 360 GPU includes a fast 4x4 bilinear texture sample operation (IIRC) that is really good for stuff like downsampling and shadows that comparable video cards don't support. You can use that knowing it will work on every 360.

You are confusing the spec and the products. There's a single specification for the Nvidia shield and there will probably be a single one for the valve-box. The spec is more about them all being able to use the same software base, without which they'd have no chance at surviving.

It would be interesting if valve could have a single box and that be the only instance. But they don't have the money, power or really want to control the market to that extent. So they're taking a more scatter-shot approach even if it's a little wasteful.

Or, in other words, the initial Google Android approach to cell phones.   :grin:

Pretty much, and for much the same reason. Neither google or valve care too much about who owns and profits off the platform as long as it uses their services.

The price and volume of sales they can get, which is required to be able to capture exclusive content, will be fascinating. And I wouldn't be surprised if microsoft considers them vulnerable to being choked out of the market.

Some good analysis from Gameological: http://gameological.com/2013/02/more-more-morehow-do-you-like-it/

Well struck.  My thoughts exactly.   Yes it works but it's also a mess.

The x86 PC hardware ecosystem is *massively* less diverse than the ARM SoC ecosystem though.  Only two real contendors for GPU and CPU, and pretty close performance parity.  If Valve does a decent job defining a min spec for logo compliance (or just goes with a list of approved CPUs and GPUs and minimum ram/disk), I think they could have a far easier time of it.