exiguity spiderweb

An article by Wired.

Wired: 'Sony is attempting to define itself as the anti-Xbox. If that won't work, the game console for gaming gamers is done.'

On Wednesday, Sony announced its new upcoming PlayStation 4.

At the long two-hour event in NYC attended by over 1,000 journalists and fans, the company spent the time talking up its philosophy behind the system and reiterated that it was for 'true gamers': sick new graphics, ungodly amounts of RAM and cool new gaming-centric features like the ability to stream gameplay videos in real time.

However, according to Wired, there?s an excellent chance the PS4 will be the last videogame console ever (at least as we understand the term).

Here are some extracts from the article:

?We?re focusing on that core gamer, the gamer who wants the ultimate experience and lives for gaming,? Sony Computer Entertainment America CEO Jack Tretton told Wired contributor Steven Levy after the event. ?If you?re not a gamer, I don?t think you get it.?

Not a gamer? Beat it, loser. We don?t even want you buying PlayStation 4. So what is all this, then? Why is Sony rallying the gamer troops under its banner? PlayStation 4?s reveal preceded the as-yet-unscheduled announcement of the next Xbox. And it?s clear that Sony is attempting to preemptively define itself against Microsoft.

Over the last few years, Microsoft has been attempting to change the way people think about its Xbox 360. It launched it in 2005 as a game console, the same way Sony is talking up the PlayStation 4 today. But now it wants you to think of it as an ecumenical home entertainment system, capable of streaming television, movies, music and everything else. Depending on your cable provider, you can use Xbox to control your live TV experience too.

With all this in mind, there should be no question that Microsoft?s pitch for its eventual new console, right from the off, will be: This plays games, but it?s not for gamers any more than an iPad is just for gamers. Everybody watches TV, so everybody wants an Xbox to give them a heightened experience. If someday you find yourself caught in a downpour and duck into the nearest doorway and thereby accidentally enter a Microsoft store, you would be able to buy an Xbox on a cellphone-style plan, paying $99 for the box if you subscribe to two years of the Xbox Live service. That?s today. What if that?s the whole pitch for the next Xbox? What if Sony?s machine is $500 and Microsoft?s is $100? That would be the Bambi vs. Godzilla of console wars.

[...]

But the big mistake Sony seems to be making is the assumption that this is a zero-sum equation, in which a lack of other entertainment options means you are by default better at games. There?s no reason the next Xbox can?t be an awesome gaming device even if Microsoft achieves its goal of broadening the scope of the product. It?s so costly to make videogames today that none of the handful of publishers that are not yet bankrupt would fail to put their games on both platforms. Hardcore gamers are not hard to please, at the macro level. They are insanely expensive to please, but not hard: They want shooters with 1080p graphics, the same controller they?ve been using for the last decade, and seamless online play. It is not within the realm of possibility that Microsoft fails to deliver that.

Sony does make better platform-exclusive games than Microsoft. It doesn?t have a shooter as popular as Halo, but Microsoft doesn?t have an Uncharted, a Heavy Rain, a Journey or an Infamous. Sony is killing it with first-party content. But ask Nintendo how that works out for you. It?s not a sufficient condition for success.

[...]

Who knows ? maybe it?ll pay off. But if gamers don?t flock to Sony?s rallying cry, what then? There?s a good chance Sony may realize all too late that it was Microsoft that got it right, and that you actually can sell far more game machines into people?s homes by broadening the appeal of the device beyond ?the gamer? who lives for gaming.? Sony might find itself having to change course and play catch-up again, like it did when PlayStation 3 showed up empty-handed to the online-gaming party that Xbox Live was throwing in 2006.

And if that does happen, and the future is all-in-one entertainment boxes, then PlayStation 4 might be the last traditional gaming console ever released.

So, what do you think? You can read the full article below!

NEWS SOURCE: PS4 Analysis (via) Wired

Our thanks to 'Gauss' for this news item!

03:04 AM

''Microsoft doesn?t have an Uncharted, a Heavy Rain, a Journey or an Infamous''

I don't think those games are reason enough to make people choose PS4 Or not , If thats what they are relying on on , God help them, They are going to need an awful lot more than that.

You never know , Maybe the next Gran Turismo wont take 40 years to produce or suck monkey nuts when it ships , Games like that might help.

07:47 AM

I think somebody just had an intensive Microsoft butt kissing session.
PS3 was a better quality piece of hardware than xbox360 and this is hardly going to change with PS4 vs xbox720.

Oh, and PSN is free, thanks for 2 year subscription plan. (this might change to microsoft style though =/)

Sony is opting for more expensive and faster memory than Microsoft and AMDs APU benefit A LOT from it, so Sony's console is also going to be faster.
Sony has announced hard to implement features to be built in.

Now, consuming some video service (doesn't PS3 already support amazon video? I saw the icon but never used it) is a piece of cake. "OMG controlling video provider", since when does XBox support DVB-C pretty please? Is it about video streaming only? That's oh so 2005...

I think all people in Wired are Xbox fanboy.

Sony is opting for more expensive and faster memory than Microsoft and AMDs APU benefit A LOT from it, so Sony's console is also going to be faster.
Sony has announced hard to implement features to be built in.

Its true they are using fast memory , But we don't know for sure if Microsoft is using slower ddr3 ram or not, Its only rumors we have heard , Ive also heard a rumor Microsoft is putting a dedicated GPU Into the console along with the APU They already have, So don't count all our chickens just yet.

wired just doing some junk journalism to get hits / thread

Its true they are using fast memory , But we don't know for sure if Microsoft is using slower ddr3 ram or not, Its only rumors we have heard , Ive also heard a rumor Microsoft is putting a dedicated GPU Into the console along with the APU They already have, So don't count all our chickens just yet.

It's leaks not rumors and the guy who leaked it was raided by police.
While Microsoft might bump memory, dedicated GPU on top of AMDs APU makes so little sense:
1) much more expensive
2) nearly doubles power consumption => problems with cooling
3) cross-platform games (which are what, 99.9%?) could benefit from slightly more power (say better anti-aliasing, anysotropic filtering) but could hardly put twice as powerful GPU to a good use (lots of effort for only half of the market)

exiguity spiderweb

Sunday, February 24, 2013

PS4: The Last of the Game Consoles?

PS4: The Last of the Game Consoles?

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