Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Sony reveals PlayStation 5 details

theverge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 239 posts

Re: Sony reveals PlayStation 5 details

#41

Post by Dylan16807 »

freehunter wrote: post #26
Tokiin wrote: post #4

Great to see we're finally getting an SSD by default in consoles. The only thing I'm worried about with this is the fact that high capacity SSDs are more expensive and with a push towards more digital storefronts, I'm wondering how this will work for the users. Then again, it's also a wonderful chance to push streaming, so there is that too.

I think consoles are a perfect fit for a fusion drive like in some Apple models. I have tons of games on my Xbox that I'm not going to play any time soon, but don't want to delete. They can be swapped to the hard disk, while games I play more often get loaded onto a smaller SSD.

You probably don't want the drives combined for that, though. You want the active game to be fully loaded onto the SSD.

So at that point of needing a pretty big SSD, make the console less expensive by only having the SSD, then let the user plug in a cheap external hard drive. Five minutes to transfer a game is pretty reasonable.

Re: Sony reveals PlayStation 5 details

#42

Post by fetus8 »

phil248 wrote: post #36

It appears that next year Sony will be releasing a console with similar specs to the PC I purchased last year. One key difference being that while the PS5 will be backwards compatible with PS4 games, any PC is backwards compatible with virtually every PC game ever made. If there's a case to be made for purchasing a next gen console instead of a gaming PC - other than artificial reasons like exclusive titles - I'd lik…

Not sure that Exclusive Titles is an artificial reason. Some of the best games I've experienced have been released/published by Sony and their first party studios.

The quality, story, characters, and graphically fidelity are often unrivaled by their contemporaries. God Of War(2018), Horizon Zero Dawn, the Uncharted series, and Shadow of the Colossus (remake) are some of my favorite releases of this generation. I'll gladly plunk down $400+ for their next gen console for more games like that, I don't focus on the tech specs, but rather the experience their platform provides.

Re: Sony reveals PlayStation 5 details

#43

Post by falcolas »

jamescostian wrote: post #7
bsagdiyev wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer: I am an SIE employee, but this is my opinion and how I understand it from the article description. It may not be correct. It sounds like this will be similar to the way some other sound card manufacturers have created "3d audio" in that you won't need something like a 7.1 system to be able to better portray where exactly a sound is coming from. Stereo headphones will be able to give you a more immersive f…

I've always wondered, which is better: a 7.1 system or stereo headphones with "3d audio"? And if 3d audio is so great, why doesn't everyone just use stereo speakers (maybe with a subwoofer)?

7.1 for positional audio. Your ears are sensitive to the direction of sound in more than just left and right. They can also determine front from back, and up/down (for sounds in front of a person).

Headphones simply can't mirror that effect, and you can tell this by simply turning your head while wearing them. If the soundscape doesn't change, it's not going to be accurate in terms of position.

Re: Sony reveals PlayStation 5 details

#44

Post by frou_dh »

ricardobeat wrote: post #37
phil248 wrote: post #36

It appears that next year Sony will be releasing a console with similar specs to the PC I purchased last year. One key difference being that while the PS5 will be backwards compatible with PS4 games, any PC is backwards compatible with virtually every PC game ever made. If there's a case to be made for purchasing a next gen console instead of a gaming PC - other than artificial reasons like exclusive titles - I'd lik…

What are the parts in that PC that can do 8K with ray tracing? To start with, you’re probably looking at $399 vs $2k.

The PS5 rendering games at 8K as a matter of course is not going to happen.

We always get outlandish supercomputer hype preceding every console generation. It's a story as old as time!

Re: Sony reveals PlayStation 5 details

#45

Post by jdietrich »

justinclift wrote: post #32
jdietrich wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've always wondered, which is better: a 7.1 system or stereo headphones with "3d audio"? Stereo headphones all the way. You only have two ears; they can only ascertain direction based on a) the amplitude and phase differences between the sound reaching each ear and b) the frequency and time-domain filtering effects of your outer ear. These effects can be very accurately emulated using a physical head model or digi…

> Stereo headphones all the way. I've done both, and (for me) it's the opposite. You're probably right for "accuracy of sound", but when gaming having a bunch of powerful speakers making sound effects gives a better "experience". :) eg You can feel decent sized speakers with your whole body, which you're missing when using just headphones

>I've done both, and (for me) it's the opposite.

Headphones provide a worse spatial experience than stereo speakers where the source material has been mixed for speakers; the equation becomes significantly different with flexible spatial formats like Dolby Atmos.

>You can feel decent sized speakers with your whole body

Using headphones with a subwoofer is a workable (albeit highly antisocial) option. You can't feel frequencies above about 150Hz, which is comfortably within the bandwidth of most headphones. You can also fit a low-frequency transducer to your chair, which will provide a similar feel to a powerful subwoofer without annoying the neighbours.

https://soundshaker.com/

Speakers are undoubtedly more convenient and more practical for shared listening, but headphones provide a simply unmatched price-to-performance ratio; to get the best out of a pair of speakers, you need to spend at least as much on acoustic treatment to control the resonance of your listening environment.

Re: Sony reveals PlayStation 5 details

#46

Post by jplayer01 »

jamescostian wrote: post #7
bsagdiyev wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer: I am an SIE employee, but this is my opinion and how I understand it from the article description. It may not be correct. It sounds like this will be similar to the way some other sound card manufacturers have created "3d audio" in that you won't need something like a 7.1 system to be able to better portray where exactly a sound is coming from. Stereo headphones will be able to give you a more immersive f…

I've always wondered, which is better: a 7.1 system or stereo headphones with "3d audio"? And if 3d audio is so great, why doesn't everyone just use stereo speakers (maybe with a subwoofer)?

Given the choice, I'd always pick the 7.1 system. I've been forced into playing primarily headphones because of where I live, but it pales in comparison with my old 7.1 setup. There's just something about the whole room being filled with sounds and vibration that you feel with your whole body that can't be replicated by headphones. If I ever get to live in a house again, first thing I buy is a good 5.1 or 7.1 system.

Re: Sony reveals PlayStation 5 details

#47

Post by falcolas »

jdietrich wrote: post #27
jamescostian wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always wondered, which is better: a 7.1 system or stereo headphones with "3d audio"? And if 3d audio is so great, why doesn't everyone just use stereo speakers (maybe with a subwoofer)?

> I've always wondered, which is better: a 7.1 system or stereo headphones with "3d audio"? Stereo headphones all the way. You only have two ears; they can only ascertain direction based on a) the amplitude and phase differences between the sound reaching each ear and b) the frequency and time-domain filtering effects of your outer ear. These effects can be very accurately emulated using a physical head model or digi…

> your eardrums can't tell the difference between a binaural recording and actually being in an acoustic environment.

They can, primarily because ear shape varies, and you're going to hear the sounds from different positions based on the differences between the modeled and actual ear shapes. The infamous barber shop recording fails (for me) because it isn't clear what's in front of the user, and what is behind the user.

A great example of why ear shape matters is that ears can tell the location of objects in a vertical space based on the shape of the ear.

That said, I mostly agree with you in terms of the sound quality, especially in terms of price.

Re: Sony reveals PlayStation 5 details

#48

Post by pwthornton »

notTyler wrote: post #40
e1ven wrote: post #28

The inclusion of ray tracing hardware is interesting to me, and sounds like good news to Nvidia, who has been pushing ray tracing as part of their RTX cards. Even though this uses a custom GPU, if consoles don't support ray tracing, PC games are unlikely to be designed for it, since most games have cross platform releases. It's also interesting to me that they're supporting the existing PSVR - The new hardware will r…

Ray tracing hardware being included kind of worries me actually. Unless they're selling it at a loss I can't see it being below 500 dollars with the prices of ray tracing capable cards being as high as they are. As far as PSVR, the herculean amount of effort required to get something in the vein of backwards compatibility going between PS3 and PS4 makes me think it was designed from the ground up to work with basical…

Almost all video game consoles are sold at a loss -- sometimes a huge loss in the first few years. Making money on console hardware has never been the name of the game. Every game sold for a Playstation comes with a licensing fee. It's in Sony's best interest to sell as many games as possible, which often means selling consoles at a loss.

Sony and other hardware makers also sell a lot of accessories, which often have huge margins too. The online services they sell also have big margins.

Selling hardware at a loss is one reason that consoles have always punched much higher graphically relative to price.

If the PS5 comes out for $500, it probably cost Sony around $700 to make it, and this is with getting massive volume discounts (guaranteed CPU and GPU contracts over several years with huge volumes of orders coming in) that your PC can't get.

And then because consoles only have one CPU and GPU combo to program to, you can get a lot more out of the hardware than you can with a PC.

This is why when the PS5 and the new Xbox launch, it'll probably give you better fidelity than a much more expense gaming PC -- and it will only get better visual fidelity for years to come as developers learn to exploit the architecture better.

Re: Sony reveals PlayStation 5 details

#49

Post by save_ferris »

Tokiin wrote: post #4

Great to see we're finally getting an SSD by default in consoles. The only thing I'm worried about with this is the fact that high capacity SSDs are more expensive and with a push towards more digital storefronts, I'm wondering how this will work for the users. Then again, it's also a wonderful chance to push streaming, so there is that too.

not to mention vendors typically sell the hardware at a loss (or at least they used to), and make up those losses via higher margins on content and service sales. I'd be curious to know if that's still the case.

Re: Sony reveals PlayStation 5 details

#50

Post by pwthornton »

Tokiin wrote: post #4

Great to see we're finally getting an SSD by default in consoles. The only thing I'm worried about with this is the fact that high capacity SSDs are more expensive and with a push towards more digital storefronts, I'm wondering how this will work for the users. Then again, it's also a wonderful chance to push streaming, so there is that too.

My guess is that they'll use technology like Apple uses that allows the base game to be downloaded and upcoming assets to be streamed in as needed (and no longer needed assets to be gotten rid of).

The Apple TV does some really interesting stuff with how it manages large games and files. Too bad it doesn't ship with a controller.

Post reply on HN