Re: Well hello there...

>Good luck with that. PC games such as the Civilization series would be a nightmare minus mouse and keyboard (shortcuts).

The PS4's Dualshock controller has a touchpad on it.

Re: Well hello there...

Sure if you play the FPS game for kids like COD then there is heavy auto-aim. But I find the mouse and keyboard suck for FPS games. Movement using binary left/right/up/down controls is so archaic in this day and age, that's what we had decades ago. Analog movement is far superior. While the mouse is more accurate that for me is it's down fall, I don't want a point and click adventure game. Play a real FPS without the autoaim using a joystick, it's more challenging and once you get good at it you won't miss the mouse at all.

Re: Well hello there...

So you wouldn't be interested in a second hand copy of Civ II for the psone?

Re: Well hello there... FPS

Play with Move - great fun

KZ3 CinC here

Re: Well hello there...

Having a x86 processor doesn't itself mean it will be easier to develop for (look at all those ARM processors flying about these days). In fact personally I'd prefer to deal with PowerPC assembly than x86.

It's the exotic architecture that includes the cludge that is the Cell multicore arrangement with very specific requirements (in order execution being one of the features) that made it so difficult for developers to grip with.

Now that we have a octo-core x86 processor in a more conventional setup (with a yet unknown secondary custom chip), yes it'll be much easier with out-of-order processing, but the headache of adapting to more parallel processing still remains (current-gen games still generally make better use of fewer but more powerful processing units). It'll be a leap that every platform will have to contend with, notably as more mobile phones start to move towards quad cores.

The GDDR5, whilst high bandwidth, will have its own quirks, so along with a different OS, you're not going to be able to simply recompile a PC game and dump it on the PS4.

Overall though I'm optimistic about the PS4, and I think developers will find it easier to find some fancy tricks to max out the hardware and look forward to some nice shiny bling in the near future.

(after all, if you're busy trying to juggle 8 flaming cell torches, how are you going to find new fancy tricks on that bike you're trying to ride hands-free at the same time?)

Re: Lightbar

Sony really havnt copied Kinect. All they have done is allowed the standard controller to be used as a stand-in for the previously required glow-in-the-dark dildos.

Kinect is cutting edge, and it remains to be seen if Microsoft move it past it's currently limited implementations in games. Certainly it is clear that Kinect 2 has substantially improved capabilities...

Re: Now...

'Destiny', though it won't be a PS4 exclusive. With the next gen consoles being built upon PC lines, I expect platform exclusives to be rarer- though if you have a fetish for Japanese titles then the PS4 will be the one to go for.

Re: Sony and Valve should Merge?

One wants to infect all of your games with malware, the other wants to infect your music CDs with malware.

A match made in heaven. They can disappear up each others' arses and I never have to deal with either again.

Re: AC. Sony and Valve should Merge?

"I think I will play Portal 2 tonight just to annoy you doubly!"

I think I will too, just minus the Steaming shit. As for whether fanbois hate me.. well, I hope they do. I hope they'e crying into their cornflakes at the idea that somebody thinks differently to them, absolutely will not play Valve's "all your base are belong to us" game, and refuses to give Sony an inch.

Re: AC. Sony and Valve should Merge?

If someone wanted the 'it just works out of the box' approach for games, they'd just get a console. Macs offered neither the constant upgrade path of PCs, nor the 'plug and play' big screen experience of consoles.

I do remember the Pippin, but then I remember the Phillips CDi, the 3DO and the Windows/Sega Terradrive.

Re: AC. Sony and Valve should Merge?

'Steam' has fans? Fans of a DRM system? Are you sure?

Re: AC. Sony and Valve should Merge?

That'll be the fans placed all around to try and waft the smell of bullshit away.

If everyone were like you we'd never

get a good flamewar going.

Re: If everyone were like you we'd never

Sorry, I meant I will never buy a Playstation because they are for losers!

The specs of "Durango", Microsoft's hardware are widely leaked and while there is some difference, they are so broadly comparable that regardless of whether you chose MS or Sony you're probably going to get a similar experience, at least as far as games go.

What happens outside that is open to question - I expect Sony will have the best blu ray and 3D support, but perhaps MS will be better in the online and social media realm. I expect Microsoft are also working on their own cloud offering too - it's been a fairly obvious undercurrent in the last few years so they're hardly likely to pass it by.

if the specs are similar, and the chipset is very similar, presumably this will make it very easy for developers to write games for both systems? so perhaps no longer any need for a title to be on one device and not another perhaps?

Connections

See they mention WiFi but what about hardwired ethernet?

And of course

Sony will have the GAMES. You know the platform exclusives you can't play anywhere else.

Microsoft have Halo.....

Sony studios: 32

Microsoft studios: 3

Go figure.

Re: Connections

From the spec sheet...

Ethernet (10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX,1000BASE-T

IEEE 802,11 b/g/n

Bluetooth® 2.1 EDR

I'll be waiting too, but in my case I'll be waiting to see what my friends buy. They all went Xbox last time out whereas I bought a PS3. Sad times.

Sad times... for my friends

fixed it for you

I believe the idea of platform-locked titles is rather to artificially inflate the allure of a particular console as opposed to it being a problem simply because it's hard to do.

Re: And of course

As long as I get to play Final Fantasy XV (if it comes out before I turn grey) and either Forza or GT, I don't care what logo is on my console. But then I'm not a fan of FPS titles on any console.

platform lockin

As a PC user this does annoy me as there are actually a few games I wanted, but refused to spend a grand for all three consoles.

Platform locked.

Something to do with the owners of the studios.

Sony own rather a lot

Re: And of course

Unfortunately for Sony none of their 32 exclusives tempted me into buying a PS3

Re: And of course

Title exclusives on the PS3 seemed conspicuous by their absence. A few tempting games did emerge (WipEout HD, Flower, some of the stranger Japanese titles) but nothing major at launch. On the previous gen, we'd been used to the PlayStation getting first dibs at Grand Theft Auto, and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater.

When the PS3 came out, many people didn't yet have the HD TVs required to take advantage of BluRay, either.

Re: And of course

Microsoft SELL the most games. An attach rate of ~ double that of the PS3 - therefore guess who developers will tend to focus on....

Re: Nice

Thre's actually a whole load of "API crap" between the programmer and the hardware on a modern games console, too. In fact, consoles are historically a bugger to program for because they are a whole new bespoke architecture each time. Usually a horrible mash of intermingled subsystems that have changed a few times in development, too.

Re: What a shame! What a fraud!

And your point is?

The main workload of a games console is graphics rendering. How good will that Intel CPU do that?

The next main important thing is that the CPU in the console doesn't cost Sony a metric buttload. Intel don't like selling their CPUs for cheap. In addition there's no way to create an Intel based SoC with AMD graphics.

In short, quit moaning, it can't happen, and in the real world of gaming there isn't a massive difference in CPU performance.

Re: What a shame! What a fraud!

I actually have to reply again to what is possibly the stupidest comment I've seen on the internet in at least an hour.

Do you really think that a games console would use a $286.99 CPU? Which would require a discrete GPU?

I like that you compare it to a $123.79 APU that gets twice the performance in GPU benchmarks.

In addition the Playstation APU uses eight Jaguar cores, not 2 Piledriver modules. And to be honest, we don't know how it will perform at all.

Re: What a shame! What a fraud!

Who cares? It's a games console. You know.. a toy.

Following the same pattern as every other games console release: Fairly beefy on release. Outdated within six months by £50 graphics cards on £100 computers.

Difference is, the games are usually designed around that less-than-optimal hardware so that they still run smoothly. I have a DS and 3DS here that probably have less poke than your average Android phone. The games are still awesome, though.

Proof of the pudding

There is zero need to try to extrapolate its performance from its specs if you can just watch a video of what it can output. The demonstrations looked very impressive.

Judge for yourself.

Re: What a shame! What a fraud!

3D benchmarks would have been a better choice for this purpose.

The A10 can be seriously pushed: my sons got theirs running at 4.6GHz (rather than 3.8 with 4.2 turbo) with the iGPU at 1.2GHz (rather than 800MHz) and our RAM is running at 2.4GHz rather than 800MHz, doubling the stock 3D benchmarks.

PS: With air-cooling and only a tiny voltage increase, this isn't some impractical LN2 system (in which the A10 has hit nearly 8GHz!)