An interesting article on Watch Impress this morning, with Editor Goto Hiroshige claiming that he’s received PS4 spec from a few Japanese developers. Said developers, presumingly remaining anonymous given the nature of the information, got the info directly from SCEI who were looking for feedback from devs.
According to the report, which obviously we’re marking as rumour, the PS4 will be no more than twice as powerful as the PS3, and there won’t be any new Cell development - the PS4 will use the same chip, but dump the XDR and just standard RAM for it’s main memory.
It’s all techy, geeky stuff, and we’re sure there’ll be a better translation later today, but the key point is the date: apparently SCEI wants to beat the next Xbox to launch, and thus is aiming at 2011, or sooner, for Japanese release.
Thoughts, please.
September 30th, 2008 at 8:31 am
this is to soon!
fredrikpedersen Says:
September 30th, 2008 at 8:34 am
Way too soon :/
juzlian Says:
November 3rd, 2008 at 9:35 am
i know, to soon i got my Ps3 like 6 months ago and it was SOO expencive and I CANT AFFORD THE NEXT ONE! ARGHH i think ok new one good i guess but it better run the same BLU-RAY games cause if they start makeing games that arent BLU-RAY i will rage quit sony
September 30th, 2008 at 8:35 am
Sounds more like a new model PS3 than a new machine.
Pixl1983 Says:
September 30th, 2008 at 8:53 am
But why would it have different specs?
Michael Says:
September 30th, 2008 at 9:01 am
I’m not saying it isn’t a different machine, just that it sounds like a PS3 ‘upgrade’. Need more info.
3shirts Says:
September 30th, 2008 at 9:06 am
Given the ground breaking changes from PS2 to PS3, I have to agree, this doesn’t exactly sound like the quantum leap forward you’d expect from the next, next generation. I really hope 2011 isn’t true though, PS3 is only just getting going, 2 and half years after launch so another 2 and half isn’t enough
September 30th, 2008 at 9:08 am
Hmmm. I wouldn’t be suprised if both Sony and Microsoft don’t attend the next games generation.
The CEO’s of both parent companies may just decide it’s not worth the billions wasted by both companies (Microsoft by rushing to release, and Sony by including loads of stuff as standard like BD Drive & HDD)
Nintendo are the only one of the three making a profit on consoles sold, and the Wii 2 will probably beat them both again
September 30th, 2008 at 9:11 am
ooops posted to soon again.
All Sony need do, is put more cores in the Cell, and get rid of the stupid 256+256 RAM and make the BD drive read speed as fast as possible
The 256+256 RAM and the access speed for the BD drive are all that wrong with the ps3
betahoven Says:
September 30th, 2008 at 10:42 am
The 256+256 RAM isn’t worse (actually there are good performance reasons for keeping main memory and graphics memory separate), it’s just different to how it is on the PC, and therefore according to most devs it must be bad.
Anyway, back to this rumour. I call BS, there’s no way Sony would want (or could afford) to put a new console out by 2011. The only doubt in my mind is when I think about how they keep updating the PSP, and whether they would be tempted to try the same thing with their home console. But it doesn’t feel right, and if Sony were serious about launching a console before MS then they would be that paranoid of leaks that this “rumour” wouldn’t even exist. Actually I wonder if this is just sneaky tactics, and they’re putting out rumours on purpose to try to spook MS into rushing to market early again…
Br0ken Says:
September 30th, 2008 at 10:51 am
To be honest I don’t think with the way things are at the moment that the Xbox 360 has got more than maybe another 2 years of life. The whole Xbox Live Service certainly does but I think their hardware will be replaced in 2010. And I think they’ve learnt a lot with the RROD issues that they’ll come to market with a new console which at least hardware wise is solid.
juzlian Says:
November 3rd, 2008 at 9:38 am
SHHHH DONT TELL THEM
September 30th, 2008 at 9:17 am
The hardware is hardly the major fault here. Sure the RAM setup is weird, and the dev tools overcomplicated.
But Sony’s handling of titles this generation has been the real problem. They can’t shift units of this generation’s console not because of specs - but because of the lack of games.
It’s not rocket science. PS2’s domination was down to that immense library.
cc_star Says:
September 30th, 2008 at 9:21 am
Games are slow coming to the market because of the problems I mentioned
September 30th, 2008 at 10:35 am
Perhaps it is a PS3 Slim&Light.
Somewhere I read/heard/made up (:S) that Sony were aimning for a 10 year life-cycle for the PS3.
Whether its a new SKU or a new console we know it’ll have Blu-ray, right.
September 30th, 2008 at 11:50 am
2011’s Just too soon, that’s something XBOX does, rush things to market, those things break, costing the company more.
But then again, the PS2 had a 10 year life cycle (released in 2000), and the first info on the PS3 was 5 years later. And the PS3 was released in ‘06 (a year late)(lets face it, we in Europe don’t really count, so that’s why I put ‘06), so in away 5 years after the PS3 launch, is when we should expect to hear some wild specs for the official concept. And then about 2 or 3 years after (who knows how long it’ll take then to finalise the console (and delay it), we shall have a new console.
Just a theory anyway…
Also it seems odd that its based directly around the PS3, sounds again like something XBOX would do (hinting at the re-use of DVD).
September 30th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
I to think it’s BS, and just internet talk.
It is also rumoured that neither will make a new console http://gamer.blorge.com/2008/09/27/sony-and-microsoft-to-exit-console-wars-after-ps3-and-xbox-360/
Everyone knows the PS3 is the trojan horse to get BluRay into peoples living rooms, so Sony can make huge royalties of the new optical disk format.
If Sony can make a bit of money by selling games, then great.
But consoles themselves don’t make money for anyone, not even retailers who have to come up with bundles to make money.
The other thing consoles do is promote a brand, to (generally) younger people, a demographic that advertising campaigns often can’t reach or don’t reach effectively
What Micorosoft has realised is you make money by selling accessories and extra’s (like Apple)
hence, it not having wireless in the basic models, paying to play online and no HDD, and not eve the option to add standard HDD only expensive Microsoft one’s
Sony’s business plan is harder to understand, and it’s in their interest that the next generation is as far away as possible
This Christmas is key to Sony, particularly as Microsoft are the price-leaders, and parents may not get the whole ‘added value’ scenario
Sony may be researching a new console, but it’s in there interest that it isn’t leaked, as why would people buy a PS3, you may as well just get a X360 with Halo3 for 129.99, and sit it out till the ps4
At this stage of the PS3’s life, leaks would harm Sony, not help them.
Unless the leak came from Microsoft or a marketing company linked to them, in which case it’s marketing genius
September 30th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Well Sony releases a new console every 6 years which would make 2012 more likely. Until I hear it from Sony I won’t believe this artical.
September 30th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
I’m treating this like BS. It wouldn’t make business sense for Sony to release another console with better specs when they’re still not gaining a profit from the PS3. The Entertainment division will literally go bankrupt!
Sony have said themselves the PS3 WILL have a 10 year life span.
The PS3’s CELL is being put to waste, I think Sony need to overclock it via a firmware update. Who uses 256MB XDR RAM to back up a CELL processor? That is putting the CELL to shame, is that!
The PS3 won’t kill off the PC, rather it’s already the other way round. I own a PS3 & would like to say, has anybody opened up the XMB when you got Life With Playstation running? Flippin’ hell, imagine trying to run a PS3 game with it open, the RAM card will set on fire! I wonder why I rarely donate to Stanford University, I’d much rather play my games! If Sony did give us an update so we could run more apps at once i.e. Life with Playstation, PS3 game, PS Store, Web Browser etc. then I’d definitely leave folding@Home on!
Another thing which Sony need to fix is downloading in the background, it always says pending when playing online, why can’t we do both at once! I’m sure we could allocate a certain amount of bandwith to playing online and downloading off the PS store at the same time!
cc_star Says:
September 30th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
F@H does stress the processor, thats the whole point of it… it isn’t a background process, the number crunching needed takes processor cycles, so it isn’t compatible.
Have you ever tried F@H or SETI on a home PC, look at your processor usage in the task manager!
Since the Life ‘update’ F@H no longer features Auto-PowerOff. This is a travesty as I used to leave my PS3 Folding for an hour after I’d finished playing, now I can no longer ‘Fold’ else it will mean my PS3 being on all night
Because the ps3 only has 256 RAM (+ a further 256), it takes really clever programming to get games to run in this limited memory. If you wanted to open the XMB, then start an application, then start a browser, the go to the store and then start a download. It’s just going to be possible with only 256 RAM to play with.
The 256 has already been maxed out. EA have said that the action replays in their sports games have less animation than the the 360 because of these limitations
As game dev’s get more and more used to the PS3, and middle-ware like the ‘Unreal Engine’ get further optimised then there will be improvements in forthcoming PS3 games frame-rates etc
However every single developer would prefer more straight forward RAM.
I don’t read anything into this rumour but,
Another way of looking at it, is perhaps the PS3 is the PS4, some of the tech in the ps3 is so far ahead of it’s rivals, like the Cell BE, the BluRay etc… that all they need to do is release a new console, and up the number of cores in the Cell and the RAM
5M1L3Y Says:
September 30th, 2008 at 7:19 pm
You can set f@Home to auto power off after it’s completed the work unit or whatever, just look properly in the configurations & all that, you should find it…
cc_star Says:
September 30th, 2008 at 8:32 pm
All I’ve got is auto start, not off
September 30th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
New 360 SKU before Christmas?
Is Microsoft rubbing salt in to the wounds following their successful price drop
details of SKU
http://www.split-screen.com/2008/09/29/update-on-slim-360/
Biased version X360 sales figures
http://www.xboxer.tv/2008/09/xbox_360_sales_up_214_outselli.html
LBP can’t come soon enough
September 30th, 2008 at 10:48 pm
The whole future-proof thing for PS3 is in effect then?
Not worried about PS4 at all. Let’s get Game 3.0 going first.
November 5th, 2008 at 1:32 am
If you want PS4 information, look at the PS4 secrets website at:
http://www.edepot.com/playstation4.html
If you want PS3 information, look at the Ps3 secrets website at:
http://www.edepot.com/playstation3.html
Jas-n Says:
November 5th, 2008 at 2:02 am
Lol, this is so funny, it’s unbelieveable
Jas-n Says:
November 5th, 2008 at 2:25 am
Its basically a case of replacing the Characters PS3, with PS4.