6 ms·

The Case for the PS4K

35 points by fomoz 10y ago

andrewclunn 10y ago
If I wanted an incrementally upgradable console with games as a service and backwards compatibility, I'd just plug a 360 controller into a computer running Steam. In fact, that's exactly what I do.
- deepnet 10y ago
  SteamOS seems less hostile to users. In Sony's case upgradable has meant forcibly downgradeable. Many bought a PS3 solely because it ran Linux, this was removed by an update. Sony's famous battle over removing 'other-OS' and its shameful tactics against Hotz exemplified a culture of mistrust of end users and disdain for 'off-label' uses. Sadly it has a long history of this culture, q.v. the 1990s software removal of Digital-Video-in for European digital video cameras - preventing one dumping back to digital tape - removing much of the value. Sony, itself, has expressed regrets, like the loss of the digital Walkman market with their near unusable proprietary music codecs that took hours to transcode & upload. Sony, genius engineering hamstrung by legal. Explicitly, by their vast media catalogue & the piracy boojums entailed. When the superior Betamax lost the format wars to VHS because of selective media licensing in the 1980s, Sony responded by becoming a media empire. Sony has broken its own tech ever since.
  - overcast 10y ago
    I think you're really stretching it by saying "many" bought the PS3 because it ran Linux. Many bought the PS3 because it played PS3 games, that's it. Linux on a desktop PC is only a couple percent if they are lucky, no way console people were anywhere near that.
    - deepnet 10y ago
      Not most but many. It was a subsidised platform with great specs, the cheapest linux box available and ran on a tv, never mind free console & media player. A lot of my student contempories bought it solely for Linux as it was the cheapest way to a Linux platform. I cite the Condor cluster using 1760 PS3s, once the 33rd fastest super-computer in the world. There are many other published Playstation clusters (PS2 also). The cell processor was highly desirable and very powerful for the price. I will always thank Sony as 'otherOS' allowed me to evangelise Linux & indeed computing to many families who never considered owning a computer. To kids passively consuming games I could show the power to create them with Linux and turn a passion for gaming into a passion for coding - I was not alone in this. 'OtherOS' use was both significant, socially important, and moreover printed on the box when bought - this seems contractual & IMHO Hotz was in the right to re-enable it. Sony have world leading engineers and tech, that perfection should deliberately be downgraded for non-engineering reasons breaks my heart. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3_cluster https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3_cluster Sadly I feel I can no longer own or evangelise Sony devices until Hotz can too - it was quite unjust behaviour. Hotz did not lose in court, the courts agreed with Hotz, but his exclusion from Sony ownership was coerced against his will, uncivilly, nonetheless.
      - paulmd 10y ago
        Yes, the subsidies used to factor into that bigtime. The hardware was sold at a loss, in the expectation of making a profit on controllers/accessories, games, subscriptions, etc. That's no longer the case nowadays - the XB1 and PS4 are both being sold at a profit (or at least not a loss). I think the trend away from specialty processors with speciality GPUs attached like the Xenon [note: different from Xeon] in the XB360 and the Cell in the PS3, to commodity Jaguar x86 APUs with onboard iGPUs is a big reason behind that. Honestly the XBone is really no different than going out and building yourself a mITX PC on the FM2+ socket, for Linux purposes. Nowadays you're better off with something like the Raspberry Pi for intro-to-computing, although I am a big fan of the ECS Liva series myself. The Cell is actually a really amazing processor in a lot of ways. It's really more of a SMP system with a ring-topology interconnect than a traditional SMT processor. You have to specifically build your design around it, but if you do so it's really fast. It's actually only recently that general-purpose x86 has caught up enough that it's feasible to emulate it. It would have been a very desirable piece of hardware for HPC, if you had stuff tailored to that architecture.
- cm3 10y ago
  But in that case wouldn't it be better to just stream games, provided the connection is sufficiently low-latency?
  - snvzz 10y ago
    How low latency are we talking about? At 60Hz, a frame is 16ms, which is already tight.
    - cm3 10y ago
      Yep, so for VR it's practically impossible to stream over the internet.
  - theandrewbailey 10y ago
    Stream games from where? Over the internet? Where do you live, a datacenter? A box 5-20 feet away? Why not plug it into the screen in front of you? I never really understood the draw of game streaming when you can't use the source device in any way (like Steam, Xbox One streaming).
    - khedoros 10y ago
      > I never really understood the draw of game streaming when you can't use the source device in any way (like Steam, Xbox One streaming). My gaming PC's 30-40ft away from the living room and master bedroom, in what used to be my office. Steam streaming is convenient because I've got plenty of underpowered hardware around, and I can access the PC's power anywhere in the home. It's convenient, and keeps the hardware away from my infant son's increasingly-roving hands.
  - gambiting 10y ago
    Stream from where? I use the Steam Streaming with hardware encoding and decoding, literally from one room to another, over gigabit ethernet, and yes, I do get 1080p@60fps. The experience is still not good enough to play fps games or racing games. While I can recommend it to play Dark Souls or something like Dragon Age, you can really see artifacts creeping in from time to time,and I'm also sure the colours lose vibrancy in the encoding process, the overall image looks duller.
- ascagnel_ 10y ago
  I tried that for most of 2013, but ultimately didn't stick with it. Although Steam/SteamOS has proper 10-foot support, individual games tend to not work well in that mode. Many games lack controller support on PC that they have on consoles (many of Valve's own games, the Mass Effect games) or have annoying launchers (the new Elder Scrolls or Fallout games, for example). Some games also run in a borderless fullscreen mode that doesn't work correctly with Steam's Big Picture mode (Mercenary Kings is one example of this). Consoles, on the other hand, are designed around a ten-foot OS with none of the launcher garbage and gamepad-only controls; the tighter integration sands off these rough edges. Personally, I'd love to have my (substantial) collection of PC games working on my TV, but it's not quite there yet.
monk_e_boy 10y ago
Well, Sony have two things in the pipeline, VR and PS4K so I assume that they are linked. The PS4 never felt like it was powerful enough to drive VR in an interesting way. Sure it just about works, but can you build interesting games with just the power of PS4?
- oflordal 10y ago
  There are games and experiences that people seems to think are interesting enough to play on the GearVR. The PS4 will be more powerful than the phones powering that. Obviously you have to adjust your expectations compared to the Rift but it seems like there can be value for VR platforms that are not as fast as the Rift/Vive minimum specifications.
  - slowmotiony 10y ago
    That's a bit of an exaggeration regarding the GearVR. There are interesting games, sure. Just not interesting enough to hold your attention for more than 10 minutes or justify spending so much money on VR. If PSVR offers the same level or experience, then I think this will be the last generation of VR.
  - cm3 10y ago
    And it's important to recall that VR works best with >=90fps which requires more horse power.
    - radiorental 10y ago
      You do realize the PSVR is 120fps, the PS4 as-is will drive that if the game allows, otherwise is drops back to 90.
      - cm3 10y ago
        My comment was in reference to GearVR.
    - KON_Air 10y ago
forgottenpass 10y ago
The Case for the PS4K reads a lot like the case that consoles are so desperate they're going to caniablize everything that distinguished them from PC. Consoles once represented predictability, stability and ease of use. Do they have much left beyond the set top form factor, 10 ft UI and a bit more flexibility on how often you're required to be online? I don't see this evolution of the console market as positive for consumers. But according to the article people will complain online about anything good or bad, so fuck them, right? Using your adult brain to ask if something is in the interest of consumers is not necessary when children online irk you.
- w0utert 10y ago
  >> Consoles once represented predictability, stability and ease of use. Do they have much left beyond the set top form factor, 10 ft UI and a bit more flexibility on how often you're required to be online? I'd say console still have all of these properties. Also, some of these things like set-top form-factor should not be underestimated. Other important advantages are that the buying experience is much nicer (only 1 online store, or a disc), you can expect any game that runs to at least run well enough for a decent experience, every game is optimized for the control scheme that comes with the console, and initial cost of buying a console is a lower than a capable PC. Really, the only downside is lower graphical fidelity, and lack of games that are not well suited for controller input. I have a PS4 and a PC with Steam BPM hooked up to my TV, and while I enjoy both I still can't cease to be amazed by the abysmal experience playing some PC games, it really is hit & miss. Even though my PC far exceeds the system requirements of some games they still run like crap (screen tearing, framerate spikes/drops, crashes), they have poor to no controller support, tiny fonts that are unreadable from the couch, they like to pop up mouse-only launchers, popups, updaters, whatever. PC gaming can be great but let's not pretend any of the advantages of consoles are suddenly lost because they will have mid-cycle HW upgrades (which I personally think are a great thing, if executed well).
  - serge2k 10y ago
    > you can expect any game that runs to at least run well enough for a decent experience not really. Even ignoring that decent at this point should be minimum 1080p60. A great many games don't even try for that, and they still experience stutter. Still I'm going to go home and play WiiU. Although I am upset at Nintendo for messing up the WiiU so badly. Basically a generation with no new Zelda. >:( It doesn't count when it's getting released for the NX at the same time. I don't want to buy a new console.
overcast 10y ago
The thing that people need to realize about this 4K PS4, is that is just the up-converted output. There is NO WAY this new PS4 is rendering anything at a full 4K resolution. You need an extremely powerful desktop to handle such resolutions, even without post processing. It's sad because Sony has made all the right moves this generation, completely crushing competitors, and now they attempt this incremental nonsense, which was the whole reason consoles were separate from PC's.
- gambiting 10y ago
  The thing you need to realize is that you haven't had a chance to play with the new PS4 or seen its documentation, so you don't know. Rendering at 4K is not difficult at all, the question of course, is how much fidelity you need to sacrifice to enable smooth gameplay in that resolution.
  - overcast 10y ago
    Yes, sure, if you want to render a 4K floating cube. However, a single $700 GTX 980 or even a $1000 Titan X , can't even handle 4K games. Unless you enjoy playing at sub 30FPS levels. PS4 surely isn't fitting either of those monsters in its form factor for $400.
    - dbgm 10y ago
      This push of hardware may be for 4k videos and not necessarily 4k games. It may also be for better VR. 4k games are an absurd idea that probably no one even considers tbh. Plus, it's not even talked about in the article. What motivated your comment?
      - overcast 10y ago
        4K is the whole reasoning behind the "PS4.5" being a thing. It's been mentioned from the very beginning. Yes I agree, it's probably for the VR aspect, but the real issue is going to come when games actually run better on the 4.5 hardware. "Early" adopters get screwed, which defeats the purpose of console hardware.
PaulHoule 10y ago
I disagree with his assessment of the console lifecycle. I bought an XBox 360 and a PS 3 at dirt cheap prices around the time the 1 and the 4 came out and these are both great values, still going strong, etc. Today I am starting to want to play Yakuza 6 and the new Hyperdimension Neptunia game but I can save that for later. The technological story is that (i) console APUs are in a state of technological improvement but that PCs are not (i.e. Intel is obsessed with making a notebook computer that can fit under the door at a hotel and not with improving any product attributes that matter) and (ii) no way Sony can Nintendo get ahead with a more powerful console.
cloudjacker 10y ago
Being unfamiliar with the leaks, this article fails to mention what the PS4K's supposed features are.
joesmo 10y ago
Does the new PS4K play games in actual 4k (not upscaled bullshit)? No. It won't have titles designed to run on 4k screens. It won't be able to have games run at 4k. Sony has already told us this. This is simply an update for people without a PS4 or for people whose original PS4 breaks (I assume it's just a matter of time based on my and others' PS3 experience). It's a ploy to get more money for essentially the same product. Yes, you'll be able to watch 4k Netflix on it, something you can do with a ~ $100 box nowadays, but other than that the name is a misnomer and the upgrade certainly unappreciated in the gaming community. As others have said, if we wanted upgrades every year or two, we'd stick to PC gaming thank you very much.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

35 points by fomoz 10y ago

If I wanted an incrementally upgradable console with games as a service and backwards compatibility, I'd just plug a 360 controller into a computer running Steam. In fact, that's exactly what I do.

deepnet 10y ago
SteamOS seems less hostile to users. In Sony's case upgradable has meant forcibly downgradeable. Many bought a PS3 solely because it ran Linux, this was removed by an update. Sony's famous battle over removing 'other-OS' and its shameful tactics against Hotz exemplified a culture of mistrust of end users and disdain for 'off-label' uses. Sadly it has a long history of this culture, q.v. the 1990s software removal of Digital-Video-in for European digital video cameras - preventing one dumping back to digital tape - removing much of the value. Sony, itself, has expressed regrets, like the loss of the digital Walkman market with their near unusable proprietary music codecs that took hours to transcode & upload. Sony, genius engineering hamstrung by legal. Explicitly, by their vast media catalogue & the piracy boojums entailed. When the superior Betamax lost the format wars to VHS because of selective media licensing in the 1980s, Sony responded by becoming a media empire. Sony has broken its own tech ever since.
- overcast 10y ago
  I think you're really stretching it by saying "many" bought the PS3 because it ran Linux. Many bought the PS3 because it played PS3 games, that's it. Linux on a desktop PC is only a couple percent if they are lucky, no way console people were anywhere near that.
  - deepnet 10y ago
    Not most but many. It was a subsidised platform with great specs, the cheapest linux box available and ran on a tv, never mind free console & media player. A lot of my student contempories bought it solely for Linux as it was the cheapest way to a Linux platform. I cite the Condor cluster using 1760 PS3s, once the 33rd fastest super-computer in the world. There are many other published Playstation clusters (PS2 also). The cell processor was highly desirable and very powerful for the price. I will always thank Sony as 'otherOS' allowed me to evangelise Linux & indeed computing to many families who never considered owning a computer. To kids passively consuming games I could show the power to create them with Linux and turn a passion for gaming into a passion for coding - I was not alone in this. 'OtherOS' use was both significant, socially important, and moreover printed on the box when bought - this seems contractual & IMHO Hotz was in the right to re-enable it. Sony have world leading engineers and tech, that perfection should deliberately be downgraded for non-engineering reasons breaks my heart. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3_cluster https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3_cluster Sadly I feel I can no longer own or evangelise Sony devices until Hotz can too - it was quite unjust behaviour. Hotz did not lose in court, the courts agreed with Hotz, but his exclusion from Sony ownership was coerced against his will, uncivilly, nonetheless.
    - paulmd 10y ago
      Yes, the subsidies used to factor into that bigtime. The hardware was sold at a loss, in the expectation of making a profit on controllers/accessories, games, subscriptions, etc. That's no longer the case nowadays - the XB1 and PS4 are both being sold at a profit (or at least not a loss). I think the trend away from specialty processors with speciality GPUs attached like the Xenon [note: different from Xeon] in the XB360 and the Cell in the PS3, to commodity Jaguar x86 APUs with onboard iGPUs is a big reason behind that. Honestly the XBone is really no different than going out and building yourself a mITX PC on the FM2+ socket, for Linux purposes. Nowadays you're better off with something like the Raspberry Pi for intro-to-computing, although I am a big fan of the ECS Liva series myself. The Cell is actually a really amazing processor in a lot of ways. It's really more of a SMP system with a ring-topology interconnect than a traditional SMT processor. You have to specifically build your design around it, but if you do so it's really fast. It's actually only recently that general-purpose x86 has caught up enough that it's feasible to emulate it. It would have been a very desirable piece of hardware for HPC, if you had stuff tailored to that architecture.
cm3 10y ago
But in that case wouldn't it be better to just stream games, provided the connection is sufficiently low-latency?
- snvzz 10y ago
  How low latency are we talking about? At 60Hz, a frame is 16ms, which is already tight.
  - cm3 10y ago
    Yep, so for VR it's practically impossible to stream over the internet.
- theandrewbailey 10y ago
  Stream games from where? Over the internet? Where do you live, a datacenter? A box 5-20 feet away? Why not plug it into the screen in front of you? I never really understood the draw of game streaming when you can't use the source device in any way (like Steam, Xbox One streaming).
  - khedoros 10y ago
    > I never really understood the draw of game streaming when you can't use the source device in any way (like Steam, Xbox One streaming). My gaming PC's 30-40ft away from the living room and master bedroom, in what used to be my office. Steam streaming is convenient because I've got plenty of underpowered hardware around, and I can access the PC's power anywhere in the home. It's convenient, and keeps the hardware away from my infant son's increasingly-roving hands.
- gambiting 10y ago
  Stream from where? I use the Steam Streaming with hardware encoding and decoding, literally from one room to another, over gigabit ethernet, and yes, I do get 1080p@60fps. The experience is still not good enough to play fps games or racing games. While I can recommend it to play Dark Souls or something like Dragon Age, you can really see artifacts creeping in from time to time,and I'm also sure the colours lose vibrancy in the encoding process, the overall image looks duller.
ascagnel_ 10y ago
I tried that for most of 2013, but ultimately didn't stick with it. Although Steam/SteamOS has proper 10-foot support, individual games tend to not work well in that mode. Many games lack controller support on PC that they have on consoles (many of Valve's own games, the Mass Effect games) or have annoying launchers (the new Elder Scrolls or Fallout games, for example). Some games also run in a borderless fullscreen mode that doesn't work correctly with Steam's Big Picture mode (Mercenary Kings is one example of this). Consoles, on the other hand, are designed around a ten-foot OS with none of the launcher garbage and gamepad-only controls; the tighter integration sands off these rough edges. Personally, I'd love to have my (substantial) collection of PC games working on my TV, but it's not quite there yet.

monk_e_boy 10y ago

Well, Sony have two things in the pipeline, VR and PS4K so I assume that they are linked. The PS4 never felt like it was powerful enough to drive VR in an interesting way. Sure it just about works, but can you build interesting games with just the power of PS4?

oflordal 10y ago
There are games and experiences that people seems to think are interesting enough to play on the GearVR. The PS4 will be more powerful than the phones powering that. Obviously you have to adjust your expectations compared to the Rift but it seems like there can be value for VR platforms that are not as fast as the Rift/Vive minimum specifications.
- slowmotiony 10y ago
  That's a bit of an exaggeration regarding the GearVR. There are interesting games, sure. Just not interesting enough to hold your attention for more than 10 minutes or justify spending so much money on VR. If PSVR offers the same level or experience, then I think this will be the last generation of VR.
- cm3 10y ago
  And it's important to recall that VR works best with >=90fps which requires more horse power.
  - radiorental 10y ago
    You do realize the PSVR is 120fps, the PS4 as-is will drive that if the game allows, otherwise is drops back to 90.
    - cm3 10y ago
      My comment was in reference to GearVR.
  - KON_Air 10y ago

forgottenpass 10y ago

The Case for the PS4K reads a lot like the case that consoles are so desperate they're going to caniablize everything that distinguished them from PC. Consoles once represented predictability, stability and ease of use. Do they have much left beyond the set top form factor, 10 ft UI and a bit more flexibility on how often you're required to be online? I don't see this evolution of the console market as positive for consumers. But according to the article people will complain online about anything good or bad, so fuck them, right? Using your adult brain to ask if something is in the interest of consumers is not necessary when children online irk you.

w0utert 10y ago
>> Consoles once represented predictability, stability and ease of use. Do they have much left beyond the set top form factor, 10 ft UI and a bit more flexibility on how often you're required to be online? I'd say console still have all of these properties. Also, some of these things like set-top form-factor should not be underestimated. Other important advantages are that the buying experience is much nicer (only 1 online store, or a disc), you can expect any game that runs to at least run well enough for a decent experience, every game is optimized for the control scheme that comes with the console, and initial cost of buying a console is a lower than a capable PC. Really, the only downside is lower graphical fidelity, and lack of games that are not well suited for controller input. I have a PS4 and a PC with Steam BPM hooked up to my TV, and while I enjoy both I still can't cease to be amazed by the abysmal experience playing some PC games, it really is hit & miss. Even though my PC far exceeds the system requirements of some games they still run like crap (screen tearing, framerate spikes/drops, crashes), they have poor to no controller support, tiny fonts that are unreadable from the couch, they like to pop up mouse-only launchers, popups, updaters, whatever. PC gaming can be great but let's not pretend any of the advantages of consoles are suddenly lost because they will have mid-cycle HW upgrades (which I personally think are a great thing, if executed well).
- serge2k 10y ago
  > you can expect any game that runs to at least run well enough for a decent experience not really. Even ignoring that decent at this point should be minimum 1080p60. A great many games don't even try for that, and they still experience stutter. Still I'm going to go home and play WiiU. Although I am upset at Nintendo for messing up the WiiU so badly. Basically a generation with no new Zelda. >:( It doesn't count when it's getting released for the NX at the same time. I don't want to buy a new console.

overcast 10y ago

The thing that people need to realize about this 4K PS4, is that is just the up-converted output. There is NO WAY this new PS4 is rendering anything at a full 4K resolution. You need an extremely powerful desktop to handle such resolutions, even without post processing. It's sad because Sony has made all the right moves this generation, completely crushing competitors, and now they attempt this incremental nonsense, which was the whole reason consoles were separate from PC's.

gambiting 10y ago
The thing you need to realize is that you haven't had a chance to play with the new PS4 or seen its documentation, so you don't know. Rendering at 4K is not difficult at all, the question of course, is how much fidelity you need to sacrifice to enable smooth gameplay in that resolution.
- overcast 10y ago
  Yes, sure, if you want to render a 4K floating cube. However, a single $700 GTX 980 or even a $1000 Titan X , can't even handle 4K games. Unless you enjoy playing at sub 30FPS levels. PS4 surely isn't fitting either of those monsters in its form factor for $400.
  - dbgm 10y ago
    This push of hardware may be for 4k videos and not necessarily 4k games. It may also be for better VR. 4k games are an absurd idea that probably no one even considers tbh. Plus, it's not even talked about in the article. What motivated your comment?
    - overcast 10y ago
      4K is the whole reasoning behind the "PS4.5" being a thing. It's been mentioned from the very beginning. Yes I agree, it's probably for the VR aspect, but the real issue is going to come when games actually run better on the 4.5 hardware. "Early" adopters get screwed, which defeats the purpose of console hardware.

PaulHoule 10y ago

I disagree with his assessment of the console lifecycle. I bought an XBox 360 and a PS 3 at dirt cheap prices around the time the 1 and the 4 came out and these are both great values, still going strong, etc. Today I am starting to want to play Yakuza 6 and the new Hyperdimension Neptunia game but I can save that for later. The technological story is that (i) console APUs are in a state of technological improvement but that PCs are not (i.e. Intel is obsessed with making a notebook computer that can fit under the door at a hotel and not with improving any product attributes that matter) and (ii) no way Sony can Nintendo get ahead with a more powerful console.

cloudjacker 10y ago

Being unfamiliar with the leaks, this article fails to mention what the PS4K's supposed features are.

joesmo 10y ago

Does the new PS4K play games in actual 4k (not upscaled bullshit)? No. It won't have titles designed to run on 4k screens. It won't be able to have games run at 4k. Sony has already told us this. This is simply an update for people without a PS4 or for people whose original PS4 breaks (I assume it's just a matter of time based on my and others' PS3 experience). It's a ploy to get more money for essentially the same product. Yes, you'll be able to watch 4k Netflix on it, something you can do with a ~ $100 box nowadays, but other than that the name is a misnomer and the upgrade certainly unappreciated in the gaming community. As others have said, if we wanted upgrades every year or two, we'd stick to PC gaming thank you very much.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]