The upcoming PS4...

[Welshdude]

What are you guys thoughts on the upcoming PS4 now some details have been revealed?

 

I'm very happy with the look of the controller (always liked playstation controllers) and graphic previews look great:)  Disappointed that it won't include backwards compatibility though:)

[FrenchCanadian]

It seems to be good, I'll most likely gonna get one within the first year. However, I'm very curious to see what will be the price tag!

[W_L]

Hopefully, they learned their lesson with the PS3, don't kill yourself with price points and power that can never be fully utilized.

 

As long as the PS4's GPU and interface are improved with a starting price below $400.00, I'd expect them to sell well.

[Bumblebee]

I own all the play stations, and I don't really care about anything besides that I want one and I want it now! But if its over $450 Australian dollars then ill only be getting one if mum helps pay for it

 

Well the only annoying thing is that you couldn't play the ps2 games on the ps3

[Arpeggio]

Someone needs to buy it for me. Nothing but lint in these pockets.

[Dark]

I loved my PS2, but couldn't afford the PS3 when it came out and I put all my games in storage when I went back to school....

 

What's the news on the PS4?  I don't know much except it's due out this Christmas.

[Traveller_23]

Relieved that it's gonna play second hand games! If it hadn't, I would've boycotted Sony

 

Disappointed with the backwards compatibility thing, but it wasn't a big surprise - I've come to expect that. Also, they just want to milk us with the PSN games. I still have a working PS2 that can play all my PS1 and PS2 games, and will keep my PS3 as well I suppose. But I can see this getting too complicated with more Playstations over the years! I suppose I can worry about that later...hopefully Sony will sort out their PSN so that you can get all the old games on there and play on emulators. Or maybe everything will just be on Steam.

 

I don't care about the price, it'll have come down by the time I buy it!! I bought my PS3 just a little over a year ago and for me the system hasn't peaked yet. So many more games to play!

[Rilbur]

Hopefully, they learned their lesson with the PS3, don't kill yourself with price points and power that can never be fully utilized.

 

As long as the PS4's GPU and interface are improved with a starting price below $400.00, I'd expect them to sell well.

It's not that the power could never be fully utilized, it was that the architecture driving that power was so difficult to make good use of, most people never bothered.  I'd argue that the air force, which has a 'supercomputer cluster' consisting of a couple hundred networked PS3s, is making 'full use' of that power.  (It was actually cheaper to install linux on the PS3s than build a dedicated supercomputer cluster -- more horsepower, less price.  The only issue was when Sony decided it didn't want linux on PS3s...)

Edited February 26, 2013 by Rilbur

[W_L]

Yeah, I was part of the gene mapping group too

 

However, seriously, a game console that could overpower my PC was overkill.

[Rilbur]

Yeah, I was part of the gene mapping group too

 

However, seriously, a game console that could overpower my PC was overkill.

Yes, but imagine if developers had been able to figure out a way to make good use of seven processor cores...

[W_L]

Yes, but imagine if developers had been able to figure out a way to make good use of seven processor cores...

Does not compute !

 

I said the same thing for nearly a half a decade, but it never happened. Gpu, not cpu , won the gaming development contracts.

 

My dream for the Ps3 was that somehow they could develop a game to mimic human actions like sims with more AI independent learning and even adaptation or randomness between the simulated humans.

[Rilbur]

Does not compute !

 

I said the same thing for nearly a half a decade, but it never happened. Gpu, not cpu , won the gaming development contracts.

 

My dream for the Ps3 was that somehow they could develop a game to mimic human actions like sims with more AI independent learning and even adaptation or randomness between the simulated humans.

The reason GPUs won is because graphics (and eventually physics) are what are reffered to as 'infinitely parallelizable' tasks.  It's very easy to break graphics and physics calculations down into separate tasks that can be performed independently -- something GPUs are explicitly designed for.

 

Most other aspects of games are too heavily built around being done in serial, step one then step two.  That's one of the big reasons CPU power has started to stagnate (and become less relevant) in recent years.  Processors have reached a wall of sorts in increasing their raw speed, even as we've started being able to build CPUs with multiple cores.  The issue is almost all our programming is built around a single-core approach; programmers are still trying to come up with ways to work across multiple cores -- something that is VERY difficult, and horrendously error-prone.  As far as I know, the best anyone has done with that is splitting out separate components of a game across multiple threads -- AI, music, etc each getting their own thread.  There's a limit to how far you can do that before each component is independently threaded, and you don't get any further gains (especially since the actual game state updates generally can't be threaded, unfortunately).

[W_L]

Why not borrow an idea from Sci-fi, use quantum entanglement and get the information transmitted across the cores nearly instantly?

 

That way each thread would be operating with the others in tandem and you could improve the efficiency of threading. An idea for the PS5

[Rilbur]

It's not the transferring of information between cores that's the issue -- we've got that licked.  (Mutexes semaphores and check-and-sets oh my!)  It's a bit of a pain, programmatically speaking, but the tools are there if used correctly.  They've existed for years, because most of them were in use before multiple cores existed!  (They were utilized back when pre-emptive multitasking became possible, allowing the operating system to avoid 'surrendering control' of the system hardware to guest programs)

 

The issue is that programmatically, humans suck -- and suck hard! -- at doing the work involved.  And our egg-heads are still working on ways for machines to take our code and multi-thread it for us at the compiler level.  Its difficult to even explain the issues involved with multi-threading without a blackboard and a couple of hours to work things through.  Solving those issues?  Fun-fun-fun!  Not because it's impossible, but because it's easy to get wrong -- and almost humanly impossible to get right.  And that's after you figure out how to break things out into multiple threads.

 

Lets try this a different way...

 

I'm willing to bet that when you work on something you do often, you have a reasonably defined pattern of how you go about it.  Step one, step two, step three, step four, and so on.  Some tasks you could easily break up amongst multiple people, have one person take this set of steps while someone else does some others.  But what happens when each step is dependent on the step before it?  That's the issue that's preventing full use of multiple core machines -- though we're getting some great results simply from being able to run the OS on one core, background programs on another, and then having two spare cores for whatever the user is actively doing.

[W_L]

That's why I wish adaptive programming could evolve in a system, where behaviors for a set of steps are anticipated by each core. Animals and human beings are capable of working independently and interdependently on goals and projects, steps 1 to step 5 in a five step process may rely on the preceding step, but at the same time, each core knows based on experience how to act even if the prior step was incomplete to start with.

 

Even if your stomach does not have food yet to digest, your body could release acids in anticipation of an incoming meal based on knowledge that it is normally lunch time If each core could act like that at least, we would be at a higher efficiency.

[Welshdude]

Some new screenshots of the PS4 Menu.... http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/gaming/news/a462227/ps4-user-interface-screens-show-video-sharing-activity-feed-pictures.html

[Celethiel]

my thoughts are meh, I didn't even buy the ps3

Because I wasn't interested in it for one, and for two i couldn't afford it... besides what games do I like that are on it and it only...none.

Kind of like the Wii...

I personally think it's too soon after the ps3 came out for the ps4 to show up...

[Rilbur]

my thoughts are meh, I didn't even buy the ps3

Because I wasn't interested in it for one, and for two i couldn't afford it... besides what games do I like that are on it and it only...none.

Kind of like the Wii...

I personally think it's too soon after the ps3 came out for the ps4 to show up...

'Too soon'?  That's a joke, right?

 

It's been over seven years!  Technology has moved and left the PS3 far behind!  Furthermore, with the new Wii U out, and the new XBox system coming soon, they more or less have to release in this timeframe.  (I'm talking in terms of years, here, not days or months)

[katjaxx]

@Celethiel: you think seven years is too short a time?  Interesting.  In the world of technology, that's like waiting years from a brick of a cell phone to an iPhone 5.  Personally, I think it's time for a new console.  And as a bit of a Sony fangirl myself, I am happy with the announcement they made on the 20th of Feb.  You also have to remember that it's not coming out until later this year, which is practically 2014 already.  And we haven't even been fully immersed into what the console is capable of doing.  Considering how hush-hush they were about it, not even showing the console itself, I can expect to see much more at E3 this year.  I will reserve my judgment until then.  But, at this point, they can count me on the list of folks who will be purchasing the PS4 when it is released.

Edited March 1, 2013 by katjaxx

[Celethiel]

@Celethiel: you think seven years is too short a time?  Interesting.  In the world of technology, that's like waiting years from a brick of a cell phone to an iPhone 5.  Personally, I think it's time for a new console.  And as a bit of a Sony fangirl myself, I am happy with the announcement they made on the 20th of Feb.  You also have to remember that it's not coming out until later this year, which is practically 2014 already.  And we haven't even been fully immersed into what the console is capable of doing.  Considering how hush-hush they were about it, not even showing the console itself, I can expect to see much more at E3 this year.  I will reserve my judgment until then.  But, at this point, they can count me on the list of folks who will be purchasing the PS4 when it is released.

 

Really it's been 7 years already... it don't seem like it...

boy does time fly...

Well put it this way....

I didn't see anything good come out for (just) the PS3 and now the ps4 is comming out...

But then the only really good thing that came out for the Nintendo gamecube (besides the Phantasy Star Online 1&2 plus which originally was a sega game) was Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess which was right before the Wii...

which again hasn't had anything good.

[Y_B]

Doesn't matter.

 

All the new games these days suck anyways

 

Or maybe I'm just getting over games

 

Omggg I'm growing up

 

Edited March 2, 2013 by Y_B

[Rilbur]

Doesn't matter.

 

All the new games these days suck anyways

 

Or maybe I'm just getting over games

 

Omggg I'm growing up

 

Honestly, all the best games are on the PC.  

 

Antechamber, Braid, Space Pirates And Zombies, FTL, World of Goo...

 

I'd continue, but then I realized that Fez was an Xbox eclusive, and XCom was on multiple platforms.

[W_L]

...Endless Space, Civilization, and Simcity for PC

 

Yang, you need to go back to your inner gamer, I suggest buying a game and locking yourself in a room until you finish every level and discover every possible secret, while uploading it to your youtube account

[Y_B]

...Endless Space, Civilization, and Simcity for PC

 

Yang, you need to go back to your inner gamer, I suggest buying a game and locking yourself in a room until you finish every level and discover every possible secret, while uploading it to your youtube account

 

What if I buy a toy, lock myself in a room until I finish every level, discover every possible secret, while uploading it to my xtube account?

[W_L]

What if I buy a toy, lock myself in a room until I finish every level, discover every possible secret, while uploading it to my xtube account?

 

I'd pay a subscription to see that

 

.....<Bad horny Puppy!>

 

On the extreme, I know guys who spend days locked in their rooms playing Halo 3 to unlock everything from headshot achievements to gun-less levels.