The American Who Designed the PlayStation 4 and Remade Sony • Hacker News Board

Re: The American Who Designed the PlayStation 4 and Remade Sony

#31

Post by ekianjo » Fri, Nov 08, 2013, 12:56 AM UTC

ye wrote: post #3

PS4 is just a PC stuck in one configuration, linked to a popular delivery system. I don't get what the hype is about. Yes, it's a pretty good configuration at a reasonable price. But that will only be the case for a few months. PCs will catch up very quickly and will become cheaper, and then much cheaper. As somebody who loves games, I don't see a reason to buy PS4. I'd rather spend a bit more on a PC, and then upgra…

> Yes, it's a pretty good configuration at a reasonable price

Not even. Actually for a repackaged PC (which is more or less what it is), I find the launch price relatively expensive. I have also heard that both Sony and Microsoft took the strategy for this generation to make money on the hardware itself from day 1, so they are not selling anything at loss, apparently.

Re: The American Who Designed the PlayStation 4 and Remade Sony

#32

Post by ginko » Fri, Nov 08, 2013, 1:16 AM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #29

ginko wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The APU in the PS4 picks up many ideas from the Cell processor. You have some heavy cores for program logic and many small ones for graphics and computation tasks. Both on the same piece of silicon and attached to the same memory space.

Maybe, but it does not seem to be very powerful at all. I've seen most of the upcoming games for launch (and played about half of them) and I was far from being impressed. It feels like a mid-range gaming PC kind of power at best, and many games apparently struggled to run in full HD, with the framerate low enough to make you feel you were back in the PS2 days. If they are planning to sell these consoles solely on th…

That's another topic. It's still a lot more powerful than the original Cell in the PS3. (And a lot easier to program to boot)

Sony originally intended to have the cell do all the rasterization work in the PS3. They had to add an additional NVidia GPU in the last moment once Cell proved too slow to do that at competitive speed. That was one of the reasons why the PS3 was so expensive at launch.

Re: The American Who Designed the PlayStation 4 and Remade Sony

#33

Post by georgemcbay » Fri, Nov 08, 2013, 1:27 AM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #29

ginko wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The APU in the PS4 picks up many ideas from the Cell processor. You have some heavy cores for program logic and many small ones for graphics and computation tasks. Both on the same piece of silicon and attached to the same memory space.

Maybe, but it does not seem to be very powerful at all. I've seen most of the upcoming games for launch (and played about half of them) and I was far from being impressed. It feels like a mid-range gaming PC kind of power at best, and many games apparently struggled to run in full HD, with the framerate low enough to make you feel you were back in the PS2 days. If they are planning to sell these consoles solely on th…

A mid-range gaming PC that's ready to play out of the box for $400 is nothing to slouch at.

Also, keep in mind that the original launch titles for the Xbox 360 looked like this:

http://ve3dmedia.ign.com/ve3d/image/article/655/655564/perfe...

Launch titles are generally either carry-over concepts from earlier consoles and/or are drastically rushed to hit a very hard deadline, the titles hitting in the next couple of years will up the ante significantly.

That aside, I'm personally looking forward to next Friday quite a bit, as my preordered PS4 from Amazon is supposed to be arriving that day and having played around with some of the games already I'm really looking forward to more time with Killzone, Knack and Assassin's Creed 4.

FWIW, I'm one of those gamers who was a huge fan of the Xbox, mostly due to Live as a multiplayer platform, but I'm looking much more forward to the PS4 than the Xbox One, in fact I have no immediate plans to buy a One, though I'm sure I'll probably buy one eventually (much like I bought a PS3 eventually, but that wasn't until this year).

Re: The American Who Designed the PlayStation 4 and Remade Sony

#34

Post by 6ren » Fri, Nov 08, 2013, 1:28 AM UTC

I'm seeing a pattern, a cycle between hubris and humility.

When Nintendo ruled, Sony broke in by courting game developers. Then, they became arrogant, and made the best hardware they could, they was difficult to use. Thus, Microsoft won, simply because it was easier for developers. It was then amazing to see how arrogant they had become with the xboxone trying to squeeze everyone, in every way - similar to how they removed the ability to cancel xbox live online.

What Microsoft didn't realize is that they didn't win - Sony lost, by shooting themselves in the foot. But in this generation, if PS4 is easy to develop for, cheaper, more powerful, and not trying to squeeze every cent and control every aspect... things will be different.

Of course, Microsoft will see their mistake and adjust (as they've done many times). But while they can drop prices and relax controls, it may be difficult to make their console more powerful. Also, next year, mobile devices should reach GPU parity with last gen consoles... and with their faster iteration cycle, match PS4/xboxone three years after that. (unlike CPUs, GPUs scale really well).

Re: The American Who Designed the PlayStation 4 and Remade Sony

#35

Post by mkr-hn » Fri, Nov 08, 2013, 1:33 AM UTC

Arelius wrote: post #15

ye wrote: post #3

PS4 is just a PC stuck in one configuration, linked to a popular delivery system. I don't get what the hype is about. Yes, it's a pretty good configuration at a reasonable price. But that will only be the case for a few months. PCs will catch up very quickly and will become cheaper, and then much cheaper. As somebody who loves games, I don't see a reason to buy PS4. I'd rather spend a bit more on a PC, and then upgra…

Well you get a few benefits. > stuck in one configuration This is a massive benefit to development everywhere. Additionally to really being able to push the hardware to the limit. It's a lot easier to learn how to properly "abuse" a single configuration then thousands of different pieces of hardware in millions of different configurations. And just in reliability and testing. You can be sure that your exact hardware,…

> This is a massive benefit to development everywhere. Additionally to really being able to push the hardware to the limit. It's a lot easier to learn how to properly "abuse" a single configuration then thousands of different pieces of hardware in millions of different configurations.

This is most obvious near the end of a console's life after developers master the hardware. Compare launch games and final releases for any console.

Re: The American Who Designed the PlayStation 4 and Remade Sony

#36

Post by 6ren » Fri, Nov 08, 2013, 1:40 AM UTC

  It makes a lot of sense to just a build a piece of it first — but that piece needs
  to be representative. You can’t just hack something together.” He calls this
  prototype a “publishable first playable,”

A better explanation of MVP than most.

Re: The American Who Designed the PlayStation 4 and Remade Sony

#37

Post by Volpe » Fri, Nov 08, 2013, 1:46 AM UTC

voidlogic wrote: post #25

dntrkv wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what are you trying to say exactly?

The poster I responded to mapped out why logically PC, Linux and Android is the best combined platform, but then suggested that it is not really true is intangible reasons ("Not everything can be reduced down to specs and numbers"). I was expressing that I follow his logic and think this logic is valid. And not just for techies like me, but lay people as well.

So people who bought iphones and macs just didn't understand the options available to them through linux? I seriously doubt that premise.

Re: The American Who Designed the PlayStation 4 and Remade Sony

#38

Post by Keyframe » Fri, Nov 08, 2013, 1:52 AM UTC

6ren wrote: post #34

I'm seeing a pattern, a cycle between hubris and humility. When Nintendo ruled, Sony broke in by courting game developers. Then, they became arrogant, and made the best hardware they could, they was difficult to use. Thus, Microsoft won, simply because it was easier for developers. It was then amazing to see how arrogant they had become with the xboxone trying to squeeze everyone, in every way - similar to how they r…

I get what you're saying, but Microsoft never won any console race http://www.geekwire.com/2013/xbox-360-wii-ps3-won-console-ge...

Re: The American Who Designed the PlayStation 4 and Remade Sony

#39

Post by benched » Fri, Nov 08, 2013, 2:01 AM UTC

ye wrote: post #3

PS4 is just a PC stuck in one configuration, linked to a popular delivery system. I don't get what the hype is about. Yes, it's a pretty good configuration at a reasonable price. But that will only be the case for a few months. PCs will catch up very quickly and will become cheaper, and then much cheaper. As somebody who loves games, I don't see a reason to buy PS4. I'd rather spend a bit more on a PC, and then upgra…

Over twenty years of this, the only reason I have ever bought any console is for exclusive games.

Re: The American Who Designed the PlayStation 4 and Remade Sony

#40

Post by wmf » Fri, Nov 08, 2013, 2:05 AM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #29

ginko wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The APU in the PS4 picks up many ideas from the Cell processor. You have some heavy cores for program logic and many small ones for graphics and computation tasks. Both on the same piece of silicon and attached to the same memory space.

Maybe, but it does not seem to be very powerful at all. I've seen most of the upcoming games for launch (and played about half of them) and I was far from being impressed. It feels like a mid-range gaming PC kind of power at best, and many games apparently struggled to run in full HD, with the framerate low enough to make you feel you were back in the PS2 days. If they are planning to sell these consoles solely on th…

I suspect the $400 PS4 contains roughly $400 worth of hardware, so it's not surprising that it would be similar to a mid-range PC. This generation isn't as "generous" as the $600 PS3 that cost $800 to make.