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[MichaelC]

Ummm no. Me personally I come to the conclusion that the Xbox One is not a gaming system first based on what they prioritized when designing and building the system. If they had focused more on gaming we would not be having these discussion about the major power gap between the consoles.

That's not even considering the fact that MS has been constantly referring to the XB1 as an all in one entertainment center.

IMO its not because of how they designed it but how they're promoting it. Do you actually believe that if there are 2 powerful PCs (built for gaming) in front of you and one has better specs that only that more powerful one is a dedicated gaming machine?

Ultimately, a lot of people don't like how they promote it. The 360 is an entertainment console and i wouldn't say it isnt a good gaming machine because of that.

 

[DangerMouse]

Ah i see.

edit: But you could also say that Sony added all that extra ram since then for the same exact reasons. They did not want to be left out of that piece of the pie. I have a lot of trouble believing that they went from 2 to 8 purely for the games and nothing else.

Nope, you can't say that, since a full 6GB is currently available for game developers to use, as reported/hinted at by several GAF insiders and moderators. The main reason they went from 2 to 4 to 8 as each became more viable for GDDR5 was for gaming even if they are getting other benefits from having more total RAM.

 

[Bgamer90]

No. But you are in a very small minority. The best selling games on both consoles will be multiplatform.

How do you know I'm in a very small minority? I'm pretty sure that everyone who is buying an Xbox One during its first year are gamers who therefore care about the games that will be coming to the system.

And very few people are going to spend an extra $100 to play Fifa, COD, etc, let alone worse performing versions of them.

You say this when yet very few had a problem with paying more for the PS2 even though other systems had better 3rd party multiplats.

 

[IN&OUT]

They can make APU's as big as they like, but as you increase the size of the APU, the failure rate becomes higher, if one thing on the chip doesn't work then the whole chip is for the bin(unless you have designed a redundancy like the 14 CU's in xb1(12 used) or the likely 20 in PS4(18 used) or the 8 SPE's in Cell(only 7 used)).

IMO, and I would assume Microsoft's too, the XB1 APU is as big as you can get, without the yields plummeting. The size of the APU is the reason why everyone was so willing to listen to the yield rumors.

Thought that too, APUs are already complex enough, thanks for clarification .

 

[Nafai1123]

I feel like I need to dig up old Xbox 360 rants about Playstation 3 ports been inferior and how that was the worst thing ever.

I mean if it was the Playstation 4 that was going to be recieving shitty ports, it would be justified to say 'so the PS4 will get worst ports, doesn't matter the games are the same' because to be honest that's what they've been saying all last generation.

But to have the whole argument turned over. We now have the ones attacking sub-720p, "blurry" textures and dodgy framerate ... trying to justify a weaker system.

It's ... ironic.

This thread has been pretty console war free the past couple pages so no need to spark it back up. Believe it or not people can discuss the two systems and their hardware without resorting to one side vs. the other.

 

[Sword Of Doom]

IMO its not because of how they designed it but how they're promoting it. Do you actually believe that if there are 2 powerful PCs in front of you and one has better specs that only that more powerful one is a dedicated gaming machine?

Ultimately, a lot of people don't like how they promote it. The 360 is an entertainment console and i wouldn't say it isnt a good gaming machine because of that.

But the lower specs are a direct result of wanting the xbox to be an all in one living room console. Especially going with 8gb of DDR3 because they absolutely needed 8gb and didn't have the luxury of "betting" on GDDR5 like Sony did.

 

[BruceLeeRoy]

How do you know I'm in a very small minority? I'm pretty sure that everyone who is buying an Xbox One during its first year are gamers who therefore care about the games that will be coming to the system.



You say this when yet very few had a problem with paying more for the PS2 even though other systems had better 3rd party multiplats.

BG were you around for the launch of the PS2? I ask cause you talk about it like someone that wasn't there. DVD was huge for PS2. My parents bought a playstation 2 just for DVD. You can't look back at history for any type of precedent for what is going on in the industry right now because there is no precedent.

 

[MichaelC]

Nope, you can't say that, since a full 6GB is currently available for game developers to use, as reported/hinted at by several GAF insiders and moderators. The main reason they went from 2 to 4 to 8 as each became more viable for GDDR5 was for gaming even if they are getting other benefits from having more total RAM.

The "entertainment" aspect might be more of an afterthought to them sure, but im still fairly sure they will make it an effort and add to their system everything MS has on theirs if only just to have those "bullet point" on their box as well. In the end i think they both want the same things, they just went about it with different messages.

 

[Night Angel]

Bgamer, if you can't see that MS's main focus has been media features (as evidenced by the console reveal, confusing design choices, and general messaging) while Sony's has been gaming (as evidenced by the console reveal, design choices that make sense for a gaming console, and general messaging), then that's your fault. You will never be convinced if you can't see it from the proof people have provided.

Does that mean that each console can't do both? No. It means that one company messed up their priorities for a gaming console, and now they are paying for it.

 

[Sword Of Doom]

PS4 games do continue to run in the background. I think it was at gamescom when Yoshida demonstrated Killzone actively running in a window while browsing through the PS4 OS.

No Yoshida was watching a stream of his friend playing Killzone. He then jumped into his friends online game but at no time was the dashboard running during him playing.

 

[Skeff]

Not buying it and/or agreeing with it. The PS4's power will help with OS features will it not?

Many of these features will be used outside of gaming though that's not to say that good software design will help too. Both areas are going to go hand in hand in terms of keeping things smooth when using various features of the console (outside of gaming).




It all comes down to how a person uses the system does it not?

I mean heck, if we took this logic to even greater lengths then it would be like saying the PS2 was a DVD movie player than just happened to play games since the latter is the main reason why it sold so well during its first full year after it released.

Companies can set up various things about their products in terms of how they want to get mainstream success but in the end, the users themselves will obviously play the biggest role in how the products will be used.

I don't think your grasping what people are saying, The PS4 was designed with GDDR5, even when it meant that it was likely it would ship with 2/4gb of ram, which would mean it would miss out on a lot of media features. At that point in time Sony were giving up media for gaming if necessary. The exact opposite is true about Microsoft, they chose their 8gb even though it would have downsides for gaming.

Putting a HDMI in into the xb1 doesn't make it media before games, because it doesn't negatively impact the gaming performance. You can add whatever you like to make it better at media and it doesn't make it a media first device, until it begins to compromise the gaming like the DDR3 did.

When your considering what comes first for a device you don't look at what they did for it, you look at what they did to compromise other aspects.

If you can tell me a compromise Sony made to get media on their system, then you'd have more of a point.

 

[Bgamer90]

I feel like I need to dig up old Xbox 360 rants about Playstation 3 ports been inferior and how that was the worst thing ever.

I mean if it was the Playstation 4 that was going to be recieving shitty ports, it would be justified to say 'so the PS4 will get worst ports, doesn't matter the games are the same' because to be honest that's what they've been saying all last generation.

But to have the whole argument turned over. We now have the ones attacking sub-720p, "blurry" textures and dodgy framerate ... trying to justify a weaker system.

It's ... ironic.

I never participated in those "multiplatform wars" last gen, and neither did the majority of people who own a Xbox 360 or PS3.

The majority of people don't own multiple consoles and therefore they will simply buy the multiplatform game(s) for the system they own, regardless of whether or not it's the best console version.

I mean, didn't Bayonetta sell more on the PS3 than the Xbox 360 even though the PS3 version was known for being worse?

Overall, when it comes to multiplats, if mainstream gamers do have to choose between a console to get a game for they will seemingly do it mostly for online friends or preference in controller for certain genres rather than a version looking better (especially since many of them usually can't even tell the difference anyway).

 

[jordan0386]

You say this when yet very few had a problem with paying more for the PS2 even though other systems had better 3rd party multiplats.

TheRockClapping.gif

 

[LukasTaves]

You need all the Gbuffer in eSRAM, you're not going to move Gbuffer from and to eSRAM, it will be really bad for performance.

TBH I'm not even sure you'd want to put the entire gbuffer in the esram most of the time... The low latency might be suitable for some screen space calculations, but in those you are probably just using the depth buffer, that by itself is not that big... The final render target, specially if there's too much transparency might be generally a better fit to go in the esram.

But it's definitely a possible, and performant, scenario. All the leaks points to this, and also was an example given by Ms themselves on good utilization on esram.

I don't think its this particular article in question that's biased but more so the recent trend of "positive news" DF have run since E3, most notably the June 28th Bandwidth article & the recent CPU GPU upclock article's, oh and a couple of comparisons that gave the XBone gpu way more leeway than required.

Seems to be the DF trend at present but they (by they I mean RL) doesn't paint the whole picture regarding the differences between the PS4 & XBone where the gap always seems to come out smaller than common sense equate's for.

What about the all the articles before? Where they "bashed" xboxone for being weak spec wise, to have high level apis that carried the legacy burden of directx, or how was Ms was using the cloud to take people's mind attention out of the weak specs of the console?

Look at the articles in the order they were published. He was very much certain about Ps4 being significantly faster at first, but once he started hearing feedback from developers and testing things himself he started changing tone. Unless he is lying about being told to the stuff he claims to be, there's nothing fishy about these articles at all.

Along with the title, there are a number of things in the authors recent history that show a Bias, ignoring that the pieces that show Bias in this interview IMO are:



generally acknowledged by who? Let's be honest, later in the article we have this Microsoft quote:



but of course generally acknowledge as overkill.

Ms is saying that in some cases, for a 1080p/60fps title that they might be ROP bound during a time slice of the frame... That means that for all the other times it's not ROP bound, they could get away with even less ROPs... So yeah, double that number might be an overkill?

Not to mention the interesting point they made about ROP/Bandwidth ratio...

 

[JaggedSac]

No Yoshida was watching a stream of his friend playing Killzone. He then jumped into his friends online game but at no time was the dashboard running during him playing.

How does Twitch and UStream stuff work on PS4? Is there a chat dialog, PS Eye video feed, or anything overlayed on the game? I believe for the Bone that stuff is snapped to the side.

 

[MichaelC]

But the lower specs are a direct result of wanting the xbox to be an all in one living room console. Especially going with 8gb of DDR3 because they absolutely needed 8gb and didn't have the luxury of "betting" on GDDR5 like Sony did.

So if MS switched the ram to DDR5, it would be a gaming machine? How are lower specs (rather than higher) a better result for achieving an all one machine when DDR5 would only do all those things better?

 

[FranXico]

But the lower specs are a direct result of wanting the xbox to be an all in one living room console. Especially going with 8gb of DDR3 because they absolutely needed 8gb and didn't have the luxury of "betting" on GDDR5 like Sony did.

Microsoft can afford anything Sony can, and even more. The choices made by Microsoft are all down to priorities.

Moving to 8GB GDDR5 was a very risky gamble, and Sony was lucky it paid off.

 

[fastford58]

I never participated in those "multiplatform wars" last gen, and neither did the majority of people who own a Xbox 360 or PS3.

The majority of people don't own multiple consoles and therefore they will simply buy the multiplatform game(s) for the system they own, regardless of whether or not it's the best console version.

I mean, didn't Bayonetta sell more on the PS3 than the Xbox 360 even though the PS3 version was known for being worse?

Overall, when it comes to multiplats, if mainstream gamers do have to choose between a console to get a game for they will seemingly do it mostly for online friends or preference in controller for certain genres rather than a version looking better (especially since many of them usually can't even tell the difference anyway).

You know what most people can tell the difference between? $399 and $499. When there is "no perceivable" difference, there still is.

 

[Sword Of Doom]

So if MS switched the ram to DDR5, it would be a gaming machine? How are lower specs (rather than higher) a better result for achieving an all one machine when DDR5 would only do all those things better?

You're completely missing the point. I'm done with this

 

[mrklaw]

How does Twitch and UStream stuff work on PS4? Is there a chat dialog, PS Eye video feed, or anything overlayed on the game? I believe for the Bone that stuff is snapped to the side.

You can if you want. In the gamescom demo, the guy streaming killzone had picture-in-picture of his face as he played.

 

[B_Boss]

Ars Technica has the better article title:

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/...ing-takes-up-10-percent-of-xbox-one-gpu-time/

 

[JaggedSac]

You can if you want. In the gamescom demo, the guy streaming killzone had picture-in-picture of his face as he played.

Gotcha. Chat dialog? Just curious because that is an OS level thing and chat dialogs would probably require some GPU reservations, not sure if PiP would.

Ars Technica has the better article title:

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/1...-one-gpu-time/

Surprised Ars is wrong on this.

Still, setting aside nearly a tenth of the GPU's processing time to support background execution of non-gaming apps is a bit surprising.

Background applications need CPU, not GPU. Only applications using GPU would be snapped applications, not ones in the background.

 

[Glorified G]

Standard is PC tech. It always have been. 7850-7870 is mid tier cards you can buy for your PC and PS4 have basically 7850-7870 feature wise (+more ACE/ques)

You're making up your own standards. In 'PC Tech' there are a variety of cards including ones that completely obliterate either a 7850-7870 and cards that's the complete opposite. How you gather mid-range out of that is impossible. The closest you can get is actually try to measure what pc gamers are using and Steam hardware survey is the only one really doing that. And by that measure 7850-7870 is not even close to mid range, much higher than that actually.

 

[MichaelC]

You're completely missing the point. I'm done with this

So did you. Two gaming PCs with different specs are still gaming PCs. Even if one has less FLOPS. There isn't just one spec standard on PC for what is considered gaming rigs. Just go in the BF4 thread and you'll see.

 

[Bgamer90]

I don't think your grasping what people are saying, The PS4 was designed with GDDR5, even when it meant that it was likely it would ship with 2/4gb of ram, which would mean it would miss out on a lot of media features. At that point in time Sony were giving up media for gaming if necessary. The exact opposite is true about Microsoft, they chose their 8gb even though it would have downsides for gaming.

Putting a HDMI in into the xb1 doesn't make it media before games, because it doesn't negatively impact the gaming performance. You can add whatever you like to make it better at media and it doesn't make it a media first device, until it begins to compromise the gaming like the DDR3 did.

When your considering what comes first for a device you don't look at what they did for it, you look at what they did to compromise other aspects.

If you can tell me a compromise Sony made to get media on their system, then you'd have more of a point.

No, I get what people are saying about specs and how both systems were designed. There's obvious differences -- never disputed that. I've stated from the get go that the PS4 is the more powerful console.

However, the Xbox One should still have impressive games, and the same will obviously be true for the PS4 too. This fact combined with both having great 3rd party support will continuing on making both systems be viewed by many as gaming machines regardless of what Sony and/or MS state and show in ads and press conferences.

When people consider what aspect comes first for a device they have interest in, they look at what that device gives them -- not what a company does for "compromises" especially if those same people can't see them and/or don't know what they even are.

And what's funny about that is at the same time the compromises should have an impact on what a device has for the very few people who actually greatly care about that area. So either way it's going to all boil down to what a device has for its users instead of how that device was actually made.

So to sum things up about these upcoming consoles, it's going to be all about the content. If the consoles have appealing content, then people will want it. It has been seen/shown time and time again throughout 25+ years of console gaming that the weakest console in the main "head to head battle" can still have a decent amount of memorable games and I'm pretty sure that that fact will remain true for next gen.

 

[Nafai1123]

So if MS switched the ram to DDR5, it would be a gaming machine? How are lower specs (rather than higher) a better result for achieving an all one machine when DDR5 would only do all those things better?

I'll give this a shot.

Instead of going with the best GPU/RAM they could based on their planned BOM and TDP, they went from the get go with 8 gig of RAM. Not because it would improve game performance, but because they knew they needed it for OS functionality. Since they knew they needed 8 gigs, they went with DDR3 because GDDR5 was not available in those sizes at the time of development and would've been too expensive for what they had planned. They used ESRAM to make up for the slower bandwidth DDR3, which helps with bandwidth but introduces slightly more complexity when developing games and increases the APU size. Since the ESRAM took up a lot of space on the APU, they could'nt fit a more powerful GPU, so they went with weaker spec. They did all this while at the same time knowing they were going to be including the Kinect in the box, and needed to plan accordingly for the BOM of that as well.

In conclusion, the console was not designed "with the best specs in mind" but instead was designed with their media goals in mind. Primarily, the ability to snap between applications, watch TV, etc.

Edit: And just to let you know, there is no DDR5. There is DDR3 or GDDR5. DDR3 is used for system RAM in a PC and GDDR5 is used as video RAM in a PC.

Second Edit:

So did you. Two gaming PCs with different specs are still gaming PCs. Even if one has less FLOPS. There isn't just one spec standard on PC for what is considered gaming rigs. Just go in the BF4 thread and you'll see.

That's true, two gaming PC's with different specs are still for gaming; however, if I had $700 to spend on my gaming PC, and you have $1000 to spend on yours, it goes without saying that your gaming PC would get better performance than mine if you are actually focused on gaming and not other functionality.

 

[Bgamer90]

You know what most people can tell the difference between? $399 and $499. When there is "no perceivable" difference, there still is.

That's where exclusive games and features come in. There will be things on the Xbox One that won't be on the PS4 and vice versa.

PS2 was worse for multiplats but people could use it as a DVD player right out of the box. Hence why a good number of people didn't care about the former fact added in with the PS2 being more in price than the competition.

 

[Sword Of Doom]

So did you. Two gaming PCs with different specs are still gaming PCs. Even if one has less FLOPS. There isn't just one spec standard on PC for what is considered gaming rigs. Just go in the BF4 thread and you'll see.

Check your messages. i sent you a link. Hopefully it clarifies what I'm trying to say

 

[Pristine_Condition]

Digital Foundry really feel like a press release forum for Microsoft nowadays.

I for one enjoy Richard Leadbetter's weekly Microsoft talking-points updates. It lets me know what certain juniors will be posting about in advance.

 

[KKRT00]

And by that measure 7850-7870 is not even close to mid range, much higher than that actually.

How are GPUs below 200$ not mid range?

 

[MichaelC]

Check your messages. i sent you a link. Hopefully it clarifies what I'm trying to say

Got it, thx.

 

[Glorified G]

How are GPUs below 200$ not mid range?

Ask Valve

 

[BruceLeeRoy]

No, I get what people are saying about specs and how both systems were designed. There's obvious differences -- never disputed that. I've stated from the get go that the PS4 is the more powerful console.

However, the Xbox One should still have impressive games, and the same will obviously be true for the PS4 too. This fact combined with both having great 3rd party support will continuing on making both systems be viewed by many as gaming machines regardless of what Sony and/or MS state and show in ads and press conferences.

When people consider what aspect comes first for a device they have interest in, they look at what that device gives them -- not what a company does for "compromises" especially if those same people can't see them and/or don't know what they even are.

And what's funny about that is at the same time the compromises should have an impact on what a device has for the very few people who actually greatly care about that area. So either way it's going to all boil down to what a device has for its users instead of how that device was actually made.

So to sum things up about these upcoming consoles, it's going to be all about the content. If the consoles have appealing content, then people will want it. It has been seen/shown time and time again throughout 25+ years of console gaming that the weakest console in the main "head to head battle" can still have a decent amount of memorable games and I'm pretty sure that that fact will remain true for next gen.

Yes this is very true.

 

[KKRT00]

Ask Valve

Why would I ask Valve? Just dont say, because of Steam Survey, which is relevant due to number of people running Steam on laptops in addition to their PCs.
For anyone bought GPU in last 18 months both 7870 and 7850 were mid range.

 

[Y2Kev]

Yeah they were right. And let's face it, microsoft has been really leaky regarding the xbox one.
Go back a year or so, and everything that was being said about it was true, from specs to policies.

But reiko said there were no leaks! Lmao, may seems so long ago.

 

[skdoo]

PS2 was worse for multiplats but people could use it as a DVD player right out of the box. Hence why a good number of people didn't care about the former fact added in with the PS2 being more in price than the competition.

PS2 was one of the best consoles ever made because of its exclusives. Especially those who like Japanese games, the MGS series, all the JRPG's, etc... PS2 had a WAY better library than the competition did. Period.

 

[dragonelite]

Ask Valve

Have they released any specs yet?

 

[CassidyIzABeast]

Why would I ask Valve? Just dont say, because of Steam Survey, which is relevant due to number of people running Steam on laptops in addition to their PCs.
For anyone bought GPU in last 18 months both 7870 and 7850 were mid range.

low
7750
7770

mid
7850
7870

high
7950
7970

enthusiast
hd 7990

is how I always thought the tiers went.

 

[SwiftDeath]

So if MS switched the ram to DDR5, it would be a gaming machine? How are lower specs (rather than higher) a better result for achieving an all one machine when DDR5 would only do all those things better?

Because to run all the multimedia features MS wanted they needed a larger RAM pool

They needed 8GB's

Not 2 or 4 or 6 but 8 gbs (Maybe not actually 8 but certainly more than 2)

And thus at the time of original conception and planning of the console the logic goes something like this

Need Multimedia functions

Multimedia functions require 8GBs of ram

8gbs of GDDR5 ram is prohibitively expensive

Thus must use DDR3 to achieve the ram pool size required

Memory Bandwidth and complexity suffer due to multimedia demands which do not require either element to function well

Gaming however does require both of the above

Edit: severely beaten

 

[Wishmaster92]

Funny the LOLtaku was right in this one

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=565505

Respects to kotaku on this one.

 

[gaming_noob]

But reiko said there were no leaks! Lmao, may seems so long ago.

Feels like yesterday eh? Aaron Greenberg gave the PS4 reveal back in Feburary a rating 6 out of 10. How far up his ass was he knowing what he knew about the Xbone...? LOL

 

[DBT85]

Respects to kotaku on this one.

Kotaku have been on the money with loads of Next Gen stuff.

 

[Guerilla]

OK seriously guys, is there anyone taking Leadbetter seriously anymore after all PR he's been doing on behalf of Microsoft the last few months?

 

[Sword Of Doom]

Feels like yesterday eh? Aaron Greenberg gave the PS4 reveal back in Feburary a rating 6 out of 10. How far up his ass was he knowing what he knew about the Xbone...? LOL

lol

 

[NoMoreTrolls]

I'm going to try to put this in a positive light, since I'm a "glass half full" person.
At least 10% isn't terribly much reserved when the GPU is only 1.31 tflops!


Seriously, though, this doesn't affect my decision to purchase the system (Xbox One exclusives won't be better on my PS4), but it definitely further cements the PS4 as my multiplatform console of choice.

I will say that the people who immediately jumped to "this is good news" are either blind with brand loyalty, lack reading comprehension skills, or didn't read the article. Don't know which of the three is the worst...

Spoiler

I do. It's the last one. Immediately posting bullshit without reading the OP, or the article in the OP, should be bannable.

 

[SquiddyCracker]

Not sure I agree with the notion of graphical differences not being important to the majority of customers.
Directly, they might not, but I'm sure the sentiments expressed by those who can tell the differences might influence the less knowledgeable buyers.

That's on top of whatever other potential advantages the PS4 might have over the Xbone (such as price).

We're in a unique position to witness a clearly superiour HW being sold at a lower pricepoint than a competing product. Not sure that has ever happened in previous console gens.

 

[MichaelC]

Because to run all the multimedia features MS wanted they needed a larger RAM pool

They needed 8GB's

Not 2 or 4 or 6 but 8 gbs (Maybe not actually 8 but certainly more than 2)

And thus at the time of original conception and planning of the console the logic goes something like this

Need Multimedia functions

Multimedia functions require 8GBs of ram

8gbs of GDDR5 ram is prohibitively expensive

Thus must use DDR3 to achieve the ram pool size required

Memory Bandwidth and complexity suffer due to multimedia demands which do not require either element to function well

Gaming however does require both of the above

Edit: severely beaten

lol ya.

All that to say MS had their specs locked down longer than Sony did.

 

[SwiftDeath]

lol ya.

All that to say MS had their specs locked down longer than Sony did.

Uh who just upclocked their CPU and GPU again?

It's like talking to a brick wall

 

[Bgamer90]

We're in a unique position to witness a clearly superiour HW being sold at a lower pricepoint than a competing product. Not sure that has ever happened in previous console gens.

As I've said before, it has. The PS2 was more in price than the GameCube upfront.

That doesn't even put into factor the add-ons that a decent amount of gamers got for features that came standard on the competition.

Many didn't care though -- it was all about the games as well as the PS2 having DVD playback.

 

[slade]

Feels like yesterday eh? Aaron Greenberg gave the PS4 reveal back in Feburary a rating 6 out of 10. How far up his ass was he knowing what he knew about the Xbone...? LOL

Yeah, but he and everybody at MS thought they had a winner on their hands in those early days. And then their reveal and E3 happened.