Rumor: PS4 50% More Powerful Than Xbox 720

[AlwaysPractical]

And still, the 7970 GHz edition is half a year old and does 4 teraflops. I know where my money is going.

 

[hermes]

We just had two generations in a row where the most powerful hardware has not been the most successful. Besides the part all this is all based on rumors, how good a machine is does not determine how good it is as a console; which games it has does...

 

[Kahani]

The Xbox360 was claimed to be capable of 1 teraflop while the PS3 is supposedly capable of 2. While raw power isn't everything, making the new generation less powerful than the one it's supposed to replace would be quite an odd choice.

 

[LordMonty]

Games will be made for the lower spec machine and it screws the other over it'll be a mess as always consoles suck bring on afordable gaming pc's for all valve

 

[Roxas1359]

But will the games be good?

That's basically it. A gaming console is only as good as the games it has. I mean the companies nowadays are adding so many home entertainment crap that it feels like they are just trying to make more of a entertainment console than a gaming one. The other thing that is annoying is that there are so many rumors that are flying around instead of actual confirmed specs. I mean I love Sony's consoles and have had each one, but if they sacrifice so much to where the games are too much of a hassle to play then I'll stop buying them. Heck the Wii U looks like it's gonna be a lot of fun so I'm gonna be buying that.

 

[J Tyran]

What will matter for me is the rate of failing and overheating consoles of either company.
I know current consoles are much more complex then the old ones.
Still there is no justification why NES and SNES still run and many a gamer had their third current gen console.

Incoming anecdote, I was an early adopter of the 360 and picked mine up within days of launch. I gave my brother in law my XBox, the 360 console cooked itself with six months. The old Xbox is still working.

 

[Terramax]

I just wanna know what happened to Crimson Dragon. Is coming out for the 360, or has Microsoft held it back for their next console. I NEED ANSWERS MICRO!

 

[grigjd3]

I really don't care to be a part of the console wars, but as someone who has spent a great deal of time using supercomputers, I feel a need to point out that flops are an almost universally useless benchmark.

For more accuracy, we should really be comparing things with bogoMIPS, the one true measure of computational power.

I don't know if you were joking or not

I sure hope I was, considering part of the origin of the name is "bogus". Heh. As a developer, I'm familiar with how little things like that actually tell you, and how misleading synthetic benchmarks can be too.

Sorry. I teach classes on occasion and sometimes I just drop into didactic mode.

 

[Griffolion]

Well, let's hope this rumour is unfounded, or at least the truth isn't quite as far fetched as this. Of all people, surely Sony should have learnt that more powerful doesn't win you the generation war. Focus on the companies using the platform to make the next generation of titles. Numbers relating to computational power impress minutely compared to a well made release title.

By the way, unless Sony is wanting to double the price of the PS4, there will be no backwards compatibility with PS3. Maybe PS2 and most likely PS1, as the additional hardware chips for those will be so inexpensive, nowadays.

And we'll most likely see a similar situation in Microsoft's camp.

The move to x86 architecture on both sides (according to the latest "intel") is interesting, too, I wonder if this was done to give developers a break when looking at ports. Using one assembly language for 3 major pieces of hardware would be a boon.

 

[Ishal]

Games will be made for the lower spec machine and it screws the other over it'll be a mess as always consoles suck bring on afordable gaming pc's for all valve

FINALLY a PC gamer that advocates this. This brings a smile to my face, and yes, if Valve really does bring a better, user friendly gaming PC for the same or lesser cost, I'll welcome it with open arms.

Isn't that what the Steambox is? Or whatever it is called?

 

[Ishal]

Games will be made for the lower spec machine and it screws the other over it'll be a mess as always consoles suck bring on afordable gaming pc's for all valve

FINALLY a PC gamer that advocates this. This brings a smile to my face, and yes, if Valve really does bring a better, user friendly gaming PC for the same or lesser cost, I'll welcome it with open arms.

Isn't that what the Steambox is? Or whatever it is called?

I know next to nothing, right now, about the Steambox, but I like the buzz about it. If it truly is a self contained gaming PC and not just some accessory for people who already have a high powered PC, I'm going to be all over it.

That's the thing; I want out of the console scene. I really do. But between the high start up costs and this baffling "master race" mentality, it's making what should have been an easy jump a hesitant one.

Oh yeah I'd be all over it as well. Why do you want out of the console scene?

As for the PC master race, its mostly just a smug sarcastic term (did it really originate from yahtzee?) to further segregate themselves from everyone else. Hell, I think its kinda funny.. I love calling my friends who aren't PC gamers "peasants" or "surfs", we all share a laugh. I do however feel sorry for the bunch that actually believe they are superior for building a gaming PC.. its not hard by any means.. and CERTAINLY not as hard as they make it out to be.

I won't say how you can easily build a PC since you said you didn't want to hear that. I'll just say that if you budget it and take the time it pays off. Build it..and it will keep for years with you only having to upgrade things as you need/want.

Or... just buy the steambox if it is what we hope it is lol

 

[BloodSquirrel]

Frankly I'm starting to believe Yahtzee's view on the futility of console wars. A single unified architecture, with competition in the form of UI, value-added extras, platform-unique exclusives, etc is what's best for the consumer, not multiple devices that split the community and allow no crossing over.

We already have that. It's called a PC.

Consoles are able to do as well as they are because games and tools can be heavily optimized toward the specific hardware. You'd see a pretty massive performance decrease if games had to run on "Next gen consoles" instead of having an Xbox and a PS3 version.

It's something sounds simple in theory, but doesn't pan out when you actually start delving into the technology.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

hypothetically if this was true, I'd be inclined to believe that Sony still hasn't learned anything from the PS3

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

And none of that extra power will be worth a DAMN if it exists.

Why? Because most games are multiplatform. Meaning the devs will in no way make the Ps4 version better than the nextbox version because that would require more work. They will cater to the lowest (reasonable) common denominator.

FACT.

 

[bobajob]

Beyond having enough RAM to run the game on max with nicer textures, the amount of RAM has no effect whatsoever.
The FREQUENCY at which the RAM operates combined with the frequency of the processor = amount of data you can theoretically push at once.
If that combined number is high enough it gives enough headroom for a good graphics card to do it's job properly.
You DO have a good one, don't you?? You owe it to yourself as a seasoned PC gamer. Seriously.
Basically, it doesn't matter as long as you have a reasonable amount of RAM, but it does help if you tend to have lots of resource-intensive programs open at once(like, when would you do that on a console anyway?) or you're running a goddamn server.
Lack of RAM in a PC means the HDD gets abused by the page file, signalled by a massive performance hit(ever waited 5 mins for something to load on a netbook? I've had so many people bring them to me for fixing only to find they have failing hard drives! In under a year, mind you! The things have 1GB of RAM in them & come shipped with Windows 7 - which uses over that amount just to run. Just WHY? The mind boggles :-0
You may have noticed that on RAM-crippled current-gen consoles, the games have to be designed to have more frequent loading areas. This saddens me.


Long live the PC gaming master race!

That is all.

 

[Burst6]

Despite that they apparently are going to incorporate draconic DRM measures that will have you entering a highly illegal construction where you just rent the game, and any number of circumstances can destroy it?

Because if your console fails, has parts replaced and you play it, then the anti-used games DRM kicks in and reduces your entire games collection to a useless pile of plastic. I mean, that's like buying a house while a loonie with a disturbing grin and a box of matches is posted permanently outside it.


To me it seems the factor of which developer has the worst anti-customer policies should play a large part in the decision what one wants to buy.

All they really did was patent a system. I highly doubt they'll actually go through with it. If they do i'm betting they'll do it when Microsoft does. When that day comes we'll all be getting WiiU's.

Actually i'm sort of hoping Sony and Microsoft go through with it. I can only afford one console and i want to catch up with the Monster Hunter series.