They didn't mention anything about the hardware, and you've jumped to the conclusion that this means hardware is dead? Talk about linkbait...
Gamers may not care about hardware aesthetics (the original Xbox is a fat, ugly hunk of cheap plastic), but they sure as hell care about the technical aspects. E.g. Is it backwards compatible? Will it play used games? Can I take my save data to a friend's house? Can I replace the HDD if it fails or I run out of space? Etc.
> E.g. Is it backwards compatible? Will it play used games? Can I take my save data to a friend's house? Can I replace the HDD if it fails or I run out of space? Etc.
Only one of those desires is about the hardware, and it's not central to the user experience.
But I agree - the hardware is very much alive, but it is moving to the background, no longer center stage.
I worked with Mark Cerny (who presented yesterday) on Crash Bandicoot, and even by HN luminary standards he is a god-like superhero. Given that he's evidently played a key role in developing the PS4, I seriously doubt anyone will be disappointed when they see the physical machine. Sony probably just didn't want to leak details that could help competitors.
The console manufacturers don't have any reason to copy each others aesthetics, because confusing branding doesn't help any of them, and there's no functional reason for them to all have the same shape/form factor.
> Sony didn't talk about hardware, because the PS4 doesn't really differentiate itself with the next-gen xbox hardware-wise.
I think it does, actually. It has little over 50% more GPU shading power, twice the pixel throughput, and more than twice the main ram throughput. The difference is just about enough to make sure that PS4 can run at twice the resolution (720p vs 1080p) or twice the frame rate compared to XBox next.
The fact that they both use very similar system architecture, with PS4 just having more of it, will mean that it will be easy for multiplatform titles to scale to the difference. I'm willing to bet money that once the MS specs are actually out, Sony will talk about the specs a lot.
From my reading, four of the shader units in the PS4 are reserved for Compute Units; things like physics (just cause 2) and lighting (battlefield 3), which cuts the raw advantage from 50% to 16%. Apparently on the 720, developers will be able to choose how to allocate compute units across the cores.
> twice the pixel throughput
Mainly useful for stereoscopic images or 4k. How many people have 4k tvs and 3D tvs? 16 render output units are plenty for 1080p (the PS4 has 32).
> twice the main ram throughput
At the cost of half the storage (4GB vs 8GB).
It's pretty much a tossup. Orbis is choosing different things to optimize compared to Durango. Textures will probably be able to be larger on Durango, while level loading will happen faster on the Orbis.
> with PS4 just having more of it
More of some things; less of others. Faster at some things; slower at others.
Either way, I'm not giving a dime to either of these evil companies.
> From my reading, four of the shader units in the PS4 are reserved for Compute Units; things like physics (just cause 2) and lighting (battlefield 3), which cuts the raw advantage from 50% to 16%. Apparently on the 720, developers will be able to choose how to allocate compute units across the cores.
You are reading bad sources. PS4 can allocate everything to graphics. And even if it couldn't, a lot of the graphics work in today's game engines is run as compute shaders anyway, so it would not matter in the slightest. The whole "cuts the raw advantage" spiel was concocted by fanboys to make themselves feel better. I strongly advocate that you pay no heed to anything said by anyone who mentions it.
> Mainly useful for stereoscopic images or 4k. How many people have 4k tvs and 3D tvs? 16 render output units are plenty for 1080p (the PS4 has 32).
Completely untrue. The load on rops doesn't depend on just resolution, but on what they draw. In deferred engines (which everyone uses now), you can often reduce load on other parts by storing intermediate results, spending more fillrate. On consoles, everyone designs their games to spend all the fillrate that is available.
Fillrate does, however scale linearly on resolution and frame rate, so if a game is designed to run on Xbox next at x resolution and y frame rate, to run at 2x or 2y you would need twice of it. Which is probably why Sony has exactly twice of it.
> At the cost of half the storage (4GB vs 8GB).
?!? What exactly are your sources anyway? PS4 has 8GB of GDDR5.
> Textures will probably be able to be larger on Durango
Umm, no. More memory means larger textures. The textures will be pretty much identical for the consoles.
> More of some things; less of others. Faster at some things; slower at others.
No, Orbis is strictly superior in everything. Which is my point.
I'm not sure that our (asserted) collective lack of interest in console aesthetics implies the 'Death of Hardware'. Honestly, that's a bit of a link bait claim with virtually no argument that makes any sense to back it up.
Fulfills my contention that in advertising/promotion, specs are an excuse for inadequacy. Most users don't care what the numbers are, they just want the darn thing to just work. Apple has brilliantly embraced this, reducing admission of specifications (ex.: iPad RAM content) and pushing technology to the point where it just doesn't matter (ex.: "retina" displays - nobody cares how many pixels 'cuz you can't see them). Sony has long been prolific in their specifications, which as a then-fanboy I learned were hard limits more fulfilling of marketing checkboxes than usable performance (ex.: yes, it's a 50GB drive; no, you can't use 10GB of it because we're obligated to store "installation copies" of software which you can't get to). Maybe Sony is realizing that, to most users, it doesn't matter what hardware the games run on, just that they DO run and convincingly so.
They also seemed to have announced the Death of Software, as purchased content will not transfer over to the new console[1].
Edit: This comment came off as more trolling than intended. My point is that it's fantastic that they're focusing on software and services. However, they're simultaneously indicating that software and services are to be disposed with along with the hardware. My hunch is that consumer expectations have moved on from this due to services such as the Apple App Store, Google Play Store, and to some extend Netflix and Rdio.
My guess is that in the future the device in your living room is more or less just a PC which is streaming content (games, movies, music) to you. You pay for a subscription to the playstation network/xbox live/steam to get the content they offer, but they are rendered in the cloud and streamed to you.
I tried some of Gaikais game demos last year and was very impressed at how well it worked. Of course for the mass market this is atleast 5 years away, but its coming!
As even games are now moving to the cloud, i wonder how much longer the computing power of your local device really matters. The quality of your internet connection is getting increasingly more important than your hardware.
So if the hardware is going to die, what will we run our software on?
Ok, what the article says is that nobody is going to care about the hardware. But if they want me to pay for it, I want to know what I'll get. I'm sure others feel the same.
All Apple hardware is lavished with extreme attention. People still gravitate to pretty physical things and users mostly want the software to just get out of their way.
Hardware is certainly not dead, especially if there is a box consumers will be going to best buy to pick up. Also, parent's will have no ability to remember whether they need a Playstation, Playstation 2, Playstation 360, Playstation wii, Playstation Nintendo, or Playstation 4. The hardware, at least it's appearance, will be heavily marketed.
One of the few devices Apple makes that is intended to be stuck on a shelf somewhere and ignored, the AppleTV, is a rather humble looking device. It looks nice, but not amazing.
It's things like the iPhone that you grip and handle to the point of becoming a fashion accessory that are fussed over the most.
With digital delivery, the requirement for touching the hardware becomes even less of an issue. For most people, apart from changing discs, the hardware itself is just a bother. The thing they interact with the most is the controller and the television it's connected with.
They discussed for a good hour about the specs only and how/why they ended up designing it this way (they consulted developers). So, basically the architecture is a very powerful PC in a custom configuration: 8-core x86 CPU and custom GPU on same chip, unified 8GB GDDR5 RAM.
What they didn't show is the physical design, which is a good move because the device isn't launched until later. They'll be able to get in the news again when they show the design / launch the device.
How is physical hardware becoming less relevant when it's all about "how well it performs"and "how it interfaces with its users"? Hardware is a great factor in both of those.
Physical aesthetics of game consoles have never been fussed over that much (at least among geek/core gamer audiences). PCs were the same in the past. The current "industrial design boom" that Apple started is historically the exception. And yeah, something you hold in your hands and keep on your person vs. something you keep under your TV makes a big difference - note they did show the controller (the part you interact with directly).
Hardware isn't dead. Sony just stopped using it a selling point because the average consumer doesn't care what the hardware is, just what the device can do.
I wonder how dead an issue it will be if vents are in the wrong place and it overheats within an hour, or if the fan sounds like the wailing of a thousand banshees.... and so on.
I'm not saying the PS4 will have these issues, but we all hope it doesn't, and that's firmly in the hardware domain.
Except physical hardware kind of does matter. In the case of the new Xbox, as well the new MS Office, whatever software you buy is locked to the device it's purchased on for life, no matter what.
Have a PC/console die on you? Guess you'll be buying all new software.
>In the case of the new Xbox... software you buy is locked to the device
What gives you that idea? Even on the Xbox 360, I own many games that are "on demand" (no physical disc) and I have them installed on multiple consoles as long as I'm logged into my Xbox Live account. I haven't heard Microsoft say that this would be changing.
Gamers may not care about hardware aesthetics (the original Xbox is a fat, ugly hunk of cheap plastic), but they sure as hell care about the technical aspects. E.g. Is it backwards compatible? Will it play used games? Can I take my save data to a friend's house? Can I replace the HDD if it fails or I run out of space? Etc.