Rumor: "Very Affordable" PS4 Based on AMD's A10 APU

[Beautiful End]

Of course this is a rumor but I kinda figured. I mean, the fact that the WiiU is less than a month away just means that MS and Sony can't stay behind for too long. And by staying behind I mean they need to deliver a new console. And it's also smart to officially build up the anticipation before E3 and then officially unveil it at E3 so that you can get it during the holidays. Nintendo only got one of those right...

as far as being affordable...I get why the PS3 was so expensive but I'm willing to say it will be around $400 at launch. I dunno, it's just a crackpot theory. The PS2 was $200 at launch because it was new. That's all. So...yeah, I'm betting on $400-ish (Which doesn't seem very affordable to me but whatever). I'm also worried about the software price. Those go up every time a new console comes out, so what, we're looking at $70 or $80 per average game?

*Sigh* Again, crackpot theory but...I'm starting to think I won't be able to keep up with my gaming habits for too long.

Man, if game prices really do go up to $70-$80 per game, I almost definitely will be dropping out of the main part of the hobby. I'll wind up just sticking with a PC and the consoles I already have, playing old classics, new indie games, and F2P titles. I'm hoping "affordable at launch" means "will actually be affordable at some point before the hardware is completely obsolete," because I love Sony's consoles and their exclusives, and they really screwed the pooch this gen with the $600 launch price that was somehow still a loss leader for them. But if the game price goes up another $10, they'll have completely driven me out of the console market and into the PC and smart phone market, regardless of what the system itself costs.

That's true. I love my PS consoles and I don't really wanna have to give them up. PC gaming is just as expensive because you gotta have a top notch computer to play properly and those can be $1000. And you also might wanna update them every so often because computers turn obsolete way faster than systems.

And about the software, as much as I like to complain about it, if the console is affordable, I might just get it and a couple of games. I mean, when I got my Final fantasy XII Collector's Edition for 60 bucks for the PS2, I remember thinking 60 bucks was a lot! And that I shouldn't spend that much on games. And here we are, 2012 where I'm buying not only games worth $60 but CE that are worth around $150 (Damn you, Bioshock!).

Again, a theory but if they turn out to cost $70 or $80, I will probably have to wait a year before playing the game and then get it when it's way cheaper. For example, Rage, Dragon Age 2, AC: Brohood, Rayman Origins, Final Fantasy XIII-2 and many more games are now less than $30. And they're good games! Most of them came out about a year ago.
Either that or I'll buy pre-owned. I have no problem with that, especially if games keep looking gray and dull, are incredibly short and feel repetitive. But that's another topic.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

A name change is wise from a branding stand point if they're not going to support the previous consoles software. Knowing Sony, they won't; especially since their digital signatures and encryption have been broken.

If they're really switching from a RISC based CPU architecture to a CISC based CPU architecture then they won't be able to offer backward compatability without using some heavy weight emulation software... and an AMD APU isn't something I'd want to try running that on.

16gb of RAM on an A10 would be a waist, especially in a limited task focused enviroment like a game console

Yeah but if you look at what's been happening with 'improvements and added features' in the console ecologies, it's pretty clear that neither Sony nor Microsoft have any interested in keeping that sort of limited task environment. They want their consoles to be a household's single sourcepoint/gateway for entertainment and social media and to compete against other platforms/devices, especially when it comes to interoperability, it's going to require a serious investment in expanding the potential available resources.

 

[RicoADF]

Will it be backwards compatible?, if not, then I'm not interested, I don't own a PS3, but if the PS4 is backwards compatible, I'll definitely get one, because by the time the PS4 get released, most of the PS3 games I wanted will be discounted, pretty much like what happened to PS2... and speaking of wich... PS2 games in PS4... please?

It's a completely different architecture. Very unlikely that it could run PS3 games, and PS2 only through software emulation like PCSX2 (so possible).

They could just graft a Cell on the side of the launch machines to allow them to run PS3 stuff, then remove it later on. Like they did with the PS3s and PS2 back compat. However, the PS3 GPU is Nvidia, but this is ATI GPU. You'd have to hide that from games that are trying to bang on the hardware directly, which seems tough. So you'd also have to include the PS3 GPU. As focused as they are on cost, this seems really unlikely.

if their smart they will offer a 'premium' edition that supports full backwards comparability..... for a price

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Either that or I'll buy pre-owned.

If too many people go that route, Sony will be fucked. They need new game sales to offset their inevitable subsidising of the Orbis/PS4 because without using the Loss Leader sales model for their console they'll never get any market penetration (the console will be too expensive for most people to bother with).

 

[Quiotu]

A name change is wise from a branding stand point if they're not going to support the previous consoles software. Knowing Sony, they won't; especially since their digital signatures and encryption have been broken.

If they're really switching from a RISC based CPU architecture to a CISC based CPU architecture then they won't be able to offer backward compatability without using some heavy weight emulation software... and an AMD APU isn't something I'd want to try running that on.

16gb of RAM on an A10 would be a waist, especially in a limited task focused enviroment like a game console

Yeah but if you look at what's been happening with 'improvements and added features' in the console ecologies, it's pretty clear that neither Sony nor Microsoft have any interested in keeping that sort of limited task environment. They want their consoles to be a household's single sourcepoint/gateway for entertainment and social media and to compete against other platforms/devices, especially when it comes to interoperability, it's going to require a serious investment in expanding the potential available resources.

They seemed really keen on game streaming when they bought Gaikai. I know it's not set in stone and probably has a lot they have to work out, but again... they don't have to worry about making it compatible if it's being streamed. If they can get that to work well, backwards compatibility becomes moot.

Then it's just a matter of how they distribute it.

 

[uberDoward]

Like everyone else I am focused on the RAM. My problem however, is I do not like the concept of a console having two different RAM levels, or even the capacity for upgradable ram. Reminds me too much of things like the FX chip on n64. If the high end capacity for the spec is 16... All units need to be 16. And yes for next gen, 16 is an ideal amount.

You just made my brain short circuit.

SuperFX was an add on chip on the SNES, not the n64, utilized in such games as StarFox (the most well known), DirtTrax FX, and Stunt Race FX. You're thinking of the 4MB 'Expansion Pak' for the n64 that allowed for higher res textures on the system.

Hopefully my brain is now fixed.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Of course this is a rumor but I kinda figured. I mean, the fact that the WiiU is less than a month away just means that MS and Sony can't stay behind for too long. And by staying behind I mean they need to deliver a new console. And it's also smart to officially build up the anticipation before E3 and then officially unveil it at E3 so that you can get it during the holidays. Nintendo only got one of those right...

as far as being affordable...I get why the PS3 was so expensive but I'm willing to say it will be around $400 at launch. I dunno, it's just a crackpot theory. The PS2 was $200 at launch because it was new. That's all. So...yeah, I'm betting on $400-ish (Which doesn't seem very affordable to me but whatever). I'm also worried about the software price. Those go up every time a new console comes out, so what, we're looking at $70 or $80 per average game?

*Sigh* Again, crackpot theory but...I'm starting to think I won't be able to keep up with my gaming habits for too long.

Man, if game prices really do go up to $70-$80 per game, I almost definitely will be dropping out of the main part of the hobby. I'll wind up just sticking with a PC and the consoles I already have, playing old classics, new indie games, and F2P titles. I'm hoping "affordable at launch" means "will actually be affordable at some point before the hardware is completely obsolete," because I love Sony's consoles and their exclusives, and they really screwed the pooch this gen with the $600 launch price that was somehow still a loss leader for them. But if the game price goes up another $10, they'll have completely driven me out of the console market and into the PC and smart phone market, regardless of what the system itself costs.

That's true. I love my PS consoles and I don't really wanna have to give them up. PC gaming is just as expensive because you gotta have a top notch computer to play properly and those can be $1000. And you also might wanna update them every so often because computers turn obsolete way faster than systems.

And about the software, as much as I like to complain about it, if the console is affordable, I might just get it and a couple of games. I mean, when I got my Final fantasy XII Collector's Edition for 60 bucks for the PS2, I remember thinking 60 bucks was a lot! And that I shouldn't spend that much on games. And here we are, 2012 where I'm buying not only games worth $60 but CE that are worth around $150 (Damn you, Bioshock!).

Again, a theory but if they turn out to cost $70 or $80, I will probably have to wait a year before playing the game and then get it when it's way cheaper. For example, Rage, Dragon Age 2, AC: Brohood, Rayman Origins, Final Fantasy XIII-2 and many more games are now less than $30. And they're good games! Most of them came out about a year ago.
Either that or I'll buy pre-owned. I have no problem with that, especially if games keep looking gray and dull, are incredibly short and feel repetitive. But that's another topic.

I mostly agree with you, but you're wrong on the cost of a PC. A $600 PC has you set for at least a few years without an upgrade these days, assuming you build it yourself. $1000 is way overkill on that. Considering that most people need a computer anyway for word processing and web browsing, that amounts to an extra $200 over what a Facebook and Microsoft Word machine would set you back. Not a lot, considering how much consoles cost.

As for the price of games, I agree with you. Problem is I've /always/ bought games used and after discounts, aside from a few titles from companies that are known for small runs that don't really drop in price and are almost impossible to find used -- and I haven't even bought one of those at full price since the PS2 was a current system. It wouldn't be so bad if it was my only hobby, but every time I look at a $60 game, I think "That's three full priced movies, 12+ bargain bin movies, or lord only knows how many used movies. Why on earth would I pay that for one game?" This industry is really pricing people out of the market, and it's going to bite them in the butt eventually.

 

[Flizzick]

Personally, I'm a bit concerned about the AMD APU being put in. How exactly is integrated graphics going to stack up against any other machine that uses a dedicated card? Sure the integration might be "higher than average," but in a battle against an actual graphics card, the APU loses. Just about every time. It doesn't matter how much RAM you throw at it, because it just gets redundant and pointless. Maybe I'm being paranoid here, but it seems a bit odd to me when a gaming machine doesn't separate it's processor from it's graphics, so unless they're planning on cross-firing it with another card, I'm remaining skeptical on this one. I understand that they're saving a ton of money by not having a graphics card, but this seems really weird to me.

I'm not a huge tech enthusiast, so if anyone could enlighten me on why they would do this (besides cost), that would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Evil Smurf]

I have a hard time believing anything created by Sony is "very affordable".
It might be like the Vita, where the system price seems reasonable, but you need to pay extra for essentials.

Orbis basic system for $399.99.
Includes 256 GB hard drive and 1 month free Playstation Plus subscription.
Backwards compatibility available only in $499.99 models. Controller sold separately.
Price for controller: $99.99
Price for games at launch: $80.00

If it was Bbackwards compatible all the way back to PS1.. I'd happily drop $500 on one.

Also, sadly, if the graphics whores keep getting their way, we will probably see $80 games in the coming console generation.

HAHAHAHAHA welcome to Australia, where games are always $80+

 

[Antari]

Everything sounds good except the RAM. Isn't 16GB a bit of an overkill?

Not if you looking to let your customers multitask until they are blue in the face.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

I'm not a huge tech enthusiast, so if anyone could enlighten me on why they would do this (besides cost), that would be greatly appreciated.

Well, there are only 2 real reasons for using an APU: price and space.

Forgoing a dedicated GPU card for an on-die GPU allows you to use far less internal space in your platform...

... but it comes at the cost of less power and more heat (you can shift around exactly how much for each but they still remain) because of the problems of being on the same die as the CPU, meaning they're sharing the same cooling system and in extremely close proximity to each other.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

HAHAHAHAHA welcome to Australia, where games are always $80+

Except for when they're more than $80

 

[Warped_Ghost]

Everything sounds good except the RAM. Isn't 16GB a bit of an overkill?

Not if the console is expected to last 10 years.

 

[deadish]

the A10 APU's use AMD HD 6000 series GPUs.

Errr ...

http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/processors/a-series/Pages/a-series-model-number-comparison.aspx

Are you sure?

Anyway, what's your point? I don't get it.

 

[Squilookle]

It better have full backwards compatibility, otherwise it's just a fancy paperweight as far as I can see.

 

[newwiseman]

the A10 APU's use AMD HD 6000 series GPUs.

Errr ...

http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/processors/a-series/Pages/a-series-model-number-comparison.aspx

Are you sure?


Anyway, what's your point? I don't get it.

Right I forgot the new ones rolled out, I was looking at last years list... Regardless, my point was about how the A10 APU is using GPU tech 6 generations newer than what is in the 360. Any fear that the A10 APU will be underpowered is misplaced, especially if your looking at how it performs on win7 systems.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

I have a hard time believing anything created by Sony is "very affordable".
It might be like the Vita, where the system price seems reasonable, but you need to pay extra for essentials.

Orbis basic system for $399.99.
Includes 256 GB hard drive and 1 month free Playstation Plus subscription.
Backwards compatibility available only in $499.99 models. Controller sold separately.
Price for controller: $99.99
Price for games at launch: $80.00

If it was Bbackwards compatible all the way back to PS1.. I'd happily drop $500 on one.

Also, sadly, if the graphics whores keep getting their way, we will probably see $80 games in the coming console generation.

HAHAHAHAHA welcome to Australia, where games are always $80+

And welcome to America, where the minimum wage is only $7.25 an hour, and even "real" jobs don't pay as much as equivalent jobs in Australia. I saw a thread a while back where someone broke it down into two statistics: how many bottles of soda you could buy with the money, and how many packs of cigarettes you could buy with it. Both showed that Australians were, for all intents of purposes, getting screwed to exactly the same degree as Americans are. No less, but no more, either.