John Carmack: PS4 and Xbox One Are "Essentially the Same"
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
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I think what he meant, & I could be biased here since I had a similar assumption myself, is that it'll be quite a long time before latency is ever a non-issue with mo-cap gaming controls. A button press translating into an action in game is simple enough, as it's a dedicated & specific input for an action within that particular game; motion cameras like the Kinect have to detect your motion, map & calibrate it within a 3D space, interpret the input the player meant for that particular arm-flail to be (aka: the chief complaint people seemed to have with the Kinect 1), then perform the action on screen. Add to that the fact that pressing a button is just faster than swinging an arm or leaning in a particular direction, it'd take some serious tech to pull off zero latency, if it's even possible at all with present technologyBaldr said:
But then again, who knows? I guess we'll see when it comes out
They may behave the same now. But it's common knowledge that true power of a console isn't unleashed until later in it's life cycle. And that's when bigger numbers start to matter.
There is always going to be latency, I don't imagine zero latency is possible. In terms of what Microsoft did on Kinect 2, is they upgraded the data speed. Kinect 1 ran on USB 2.0 protocols. Kinect 2 uses USB 3.0 speeds from what I understand. Kinect 1 ran the programming on top the OS, where as Kinect 2 calculations are integrated into one of the Operating Systems. Just these two things by themselves should really improve latency. However, Carmack may have a point when it comes to latency of the Kinect for use in online games. We really don't know the impact as there were not many Kinect games that were available to compete online.Zombie_Moogle said:
The PS4 and the Xbox180 Are both using the same CPU and the same family of GPUs. The PS4 has also adopted the Xbox's shared memory architecture. There's very little environmental difference between the two now.Jadak said:
I'm going to disagree with the "witch hunt" comment. It wasn't a witch hunt. And if it was, Microsoft was playing the part of the witch beautifully. Someone should nominate them for an award for that level of acting. The DRM was draconian and pointless. So, no. I disagree with his assessment of that.
As for the rest, well, nothing we didn't already know. The systems aren't too different in general specs. But I think the PS4 has better features and functions on top of just plain enjoying Sony's IP's much more and the console being cheaper. This is a no brainer to me. The only reason I would have considered the Xbox One was my friends. And they all seem to have jumped ship to PS4.
As for the rest, well, nothing we didn't already know. The systems aren't too different in general specs. But I think the PS4 has better features and functions on top of just plain enjoying Sony's IP's much more and the console being cheaper. This is a no brainer to me. The only reason I would have considered the Xbox One was my friends. And they all seem to have jumped ship to PS4.
Except for the whole DDR3 RAM vs GDDR5 RAM. Not that that matters at all or anything. Psssst. It does.BloodSquirrel said:
Nah, if he did there would be a pudding reference before "whatnot".Morsomk said:
OT: So if they're "essentially the same", then it comes down to features. Rumor (heard it from a friend at work today, so take it for what you will) has it that MS is planning to "re-announce" the Xbox One due to the reaction to the features that were announced. If that's true, I'd say that Sony is still coming out ahead in this one. Though the fact still remains that the majority of the gaming market was "not impressed" with what MS was bringing to the table...to put it lightly.
This is my favourite description of Kinect, ever, of all time.Andy Chalk said:
I am curious about this whole thing however. Microsoft are really pushing Kinect with this console, but a lot of developers out there, especially indy devs (where this market seems to be heading), know that the majority of people hate Kinect. And therefore, will not be including it's functionality in their titles. So what's Microsoft's end game in making an easily re-gateable DRM console, with Windows 8 installed and a control mechanism very few use?
Honestly? Most of the third party world is going to do with the Kinect what they already do with Nintendo Consoles. Ignore it and pretend it doesn't exist. The otherwise near identical nature of the two main consoles pretty much guarantees this. The XBox One and the PS4 are essentially running on the same hardware and architecture. There will be virtually no effort needed to port games between one and the other (or PC for that matter) except for coding for the few dedicated specialized console gimmicks. While the PS4's controller touchpad is pretty much a non issue (It's a mouse, the same as the PC versions use), the Kinect is going to find itself mostly ignored save on first party titles or exclusives.008Zulu said:
I think we should really wait for the actual benchmark analysis. I wouldn't expect a huge difference in processing power but other analysts have directly disagreed with this statement.
Reading the article I'm still not sure he actually said anything in terms of actual processing power so much as capabilities. Without benchmarking them, I don't know what he'd mean by that unless he has software that is specifically optimized for each console like games being developed for them will be.
It's kind of interesting though. I generally trust Carmack and am grateful for his contributions so I won't rule any of this out. But with him starting with saying he hasn't actually benchmarked them this comes across as too early an analysis to take for granted. Especially with so many other dissenters. In any event, if they are that similar then $400 vs $500 is an interesting call when you're also not a fan of the kinect.
Reading the article I'm still not sure he actually said anything in terms of actual processing power so much as capabilities. Without benchmarking them, I don't know what he'd mean by that unless he has software that is specifically optimized for each console like games being developed for them will be.
It's kind of interesting though. I generally trust Carmack and am grateful for his contributions so I won't rule any of this out. But with him starting with saying he hasn't actually benchmarked them this comes across as too early an analysis to take for granted. Especially with so many other dissenters. In any event, if they are that similar then $400 vs $500 is an interesting call when you're also not a fan of the kinect.
I would not expect MS to be down-and-out ala Sega (or Nintendo) as of both systems being cut from the same (AMD) cloth with a Benjamin of a price difference between them.
Remember as of devs pushing MS hard to give the launched 360 the same amount of RAM as the devkits at the time, they where at the mercy of graphics ram (GDDR3 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GDDR3]) manufacturing capacity, and that severely limited the number of systems MS could put on store shelves at the end of '06 and much of '07. Sony may be in the same boat now: no one outside of boutique workstation add-in-board makers are requesting a dual-layer DVD's worth (8 billion* bytes, aka 8 gigabytes) of primary graphics memory (GDDR5 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GDDR5]) per device right now. Meanwhile there is a glut in the desktop computer memory (Double Date Rate 3 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDR3_SDRAM]) market, and the Xbox One uses (aggressively clocked) ordinary desktop memory.
Likewise Microsoft is simply in a much, much better financial position than Sony, and may well out-manufacture [http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2013/07/23/analysts-says-xbox-one-could-outship-ps4-3-to-1-at-launch/] Sony.
Unlike the relatively few folks like us (or Carmack) who follows this stuff, Joe-Public seems to have far less of an aversion to the Kinect, as it is the best selling (and was the fastest selling) console peripheral to date, so the larger inventory of One at and past launch may have no problem flying off shelves despite Microsoft's $100 price handicap. It'll get bought because it's there, while the PS4 is simply unavailable for days if not weeks at a time.
[sub]*like a baker's dozen, JEDEC's billion is different from your billion. Theirs is 1024*1024*1024 (2^30)[/sub]
Remember as of devs pushing MS hard to give the launched 360 the same amount of RAM as the devkits at the time, they where at the mercy of graphics ram (GDDR3 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GDDR3]) manufacturing capacity, and that severely limited the number of systems MS could put on store shelves at the end of '06 and much of '07. Sony may be in the same boat now: no one outside of boutique workstation add-in-board makers are requesting a dual-layer DVD's worth (8 billion* bytes, aka 8 gigabytes) of primary graphics memory (GDDR5 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GDDR5]) per device right now. Meanwhile there is a glut in the desktop computer memory (Double Date Rate 3 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDR3_SDRAM]) market, and the Xbox One uses (aggressively clocked) ordinary desktop memory.
Likewise Microsoft is simply in a much, much better financial position than Sony, and may well out-manufacture [http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2013/07/23/analysts-says-xbox-one-could-outship-ps4-3-to-1-at-launch/] Sony.
Unlike the relatively few folks like us (or Carmack) who follows this stuff, Joe-Public seems to have far less of an aversion to the Kinect, as it is the best selling (and was the fastest selling) console peripheral to date, so the larger inventory of One at and past launch may have no problem flying off shelves despite Microsoft's $100 price handicap. It'll get bought because it's there, while the PS4 is simply unavailable for days if not weeks at a time.
[sub]*like a baker's dozen, JEDEC's billion is different from your billion. Theirs is 1024*1024*1024 (2^30)[/sub]
Yeah, other than the PS4 having faster RAM, a faster CPU and being £100 cheaper. Also the fact that the PS4's controller comes in the box, it has a chargeable battery and you get a free headset. With the Xbox One all you get is the controller, if you want a play and charge kit and headset you have to buy them separately because Microsoft say the Kinect will be your microphone.