Digital Foundry: PS4 vs Next Box (Orbis vs Durango)

[itachi73378]

PS Vita is NOT just a gaming device. It is already doing the things that is promised by next gen (multitasking, cross game chat, apps etc) and if Sony can match what the next xbox does with 1/6th the OS RAM (512mb per rumours) it will truly be a slap in the face for MS (since they are a software company)

[Soldier 95B]

That's just speaking in general terms though, as we still don't exactly know what Sony and Microsoft will do.

Apparently some know what they are doing.

[Lefein]

Apparently some know what they are doing.

I don't pretend like I sift through corporate memos, but I can take a look at the hardware and take some pretty heavy swings at it.

Let's just say, I wouldn't be surprised if we see a rebranding of Live subscriptions. Like how we have Silver and Gold now. There might be Platinum and Black in the not-so distant future. Just don't be surprised when it happens.

[Soldier 95B]

I was hoping we would see free access to Live multiplayer in a lower sub model. Doubt it will happen though

[Sufi]

I think Live will become majority of movies/music/games subscription sort of like PS+ but more of a whole package. This way they can still charge you for online and if you do dive in, you have a lot of stuff to take advantage of.

That would fit perfectly with these rumors of 8GB slower RAM and it would fit perfectly with Live's future. It would be a huge mistake if they went with what they already have and not offer a lot more and they want to charge...since Sony can easily do all that Live does now (but probably not as good or integrated since MS has been doing this for a longer time) and do it for free too without ads.

So it only makes sense for MS to go down the services route and go all into it because then you don't need to rely too much on game development and let 3rd party do the talking and whatever they have and acquire as 1st party and it will be good enough to stay in competition for a long time.

Services are the future, so I totally see this happening. On the other hand, Sony will always try to catch up but I think MS' focus again will be to truly expand Live into something much bigger. I honestly don't think they can do much with Live relevant to gaming (other than making it prettier, faster, efficient and integrated, which is a big deal too) but to add more components to it such as other stuff I listed.

From a marketing perspective, that would be worth money. They can easily charge more for the higher services and then take some out for the lower tiers, so you have people that want the whole package and some that just want the basics and online...then you have silver (donno if they will keep it or not but if they do) and that's where you can try out everything like you do now.

[Soldier 95B]

I honestly don't think they can do much with Live relevant to gaming (other than making it prettier, faster, efficient and integrated, which is a big deal too) but to add more components to it such as other stuff I listed.

I agree here. I can't imagine anything "groundbreaking" being added to Xbox Live related to online gaming/multiplayer. Other than the frequent "give me a clan features, or give me 1000 friends on my friends list", I haven't really seen any other demands coming from gamers related to Live (or PSN) online gaming.

MAYBE more players supported online? But again, nothing earth shattering. Granted, we had MAG with 256 people, but if you saw the video on youtube where a 256 players gathered in the same space in the game, it as a clusterfuck of lag in a game with shit graphics anyway. Maybe the new consoles will support more players.

[Sufi]

I agree here. I can't imagine anything "groundbreaking" being added to Xbox Live related to online gaming/multiplayer. Other than the frequent "give me a clan features, or give me 1000 friends on my friends list", I haven't really seen any other demands coming from gamers related to Live (or PSN) online gaming.

MAYBE more players supported online? But again, nothing earth shattering. Granted, we had MAG with 256 people, but if you saw the video on youtube where a 256 players gathered in the same space in the game, it as a clusterfuck of lag in a game with shit graphics anyway. Maybe the new consoles will support more players.

I heard once that it's due to a bandwidth cap? Whatever the reason, the amount of players I believe has to do with the developer. I think once the graphics move up where it can support a lot more players and the CPU power to compute what's going around them, this shouldn't be an issue and PC has seen this already with Planet Side 2.

MAG was just a trick they pulled off...it's 256 but at any given time, you're not getting info from 256 players, you're just getting stuff from people around you.

Especially since MAG wasn't exactly a huge vehicular war game (although it did have vehicles), they could do 256 without getting too many people close together.

I don't know or think that 256 at one point would've been possible still...not even talking about lag, I think they know it would just crash the server or game.

See, looking at online features for video gamers, all you have to do is look at PC gamers...the best we will probably get is a dedicated server for our own stuff (paid obviously), like a place to hang out and play games...I could see that as the next big thing.

Sort of like what Sony was "trying" to do with Home but failed miserably. Well, if they were smart, they would've just done a simple room like roger wilco or teamspeak and you're done! That's what gamers want, and not walking around like a douchebag, hitting on other dudes dressed like girls.

They had to disable voice chat because people were being dirty on the mics lol.

[MATRIX 2]

No arguments there. Sony got wrapped up in videogames earlier than that when they made the sound processor for the Super Nintendo. They were obviously doing their homework.



Again, a console born of paranoia from a capital-bloated company. Seems you corroborated my version of the story quite well. Riddle me this, riddle me that.. How come when Sony dominated gaming we saw more games come to console than any other time in history? This notion that gaming NEEDS Xbox is at the heart of my debate, and we may never see eye to eye on it, at least until a fourth player steps in or investors tire of Xbox not finishing first evrar.



Well, considering BluRay is able to handle 4K and HD-DVD wouldn't, regardless of anyones high intentions or not, BRD was the right choice and consumers saw through the smokescreen. I'm not claiming Sony is high and mighty for leveraging BluRay. I'm stating quite the opposite, they played their hand and it hurt. A lesson that MS appears to be lining up for with Durango.

But, let's not kid ourselves. I'll call a spade a spade. No one with three IQ numbers to rub together in their pretty little head would foresee HD-DVD going anywhere. ALL that was accomplished by Microsofts vouchers and dirty tactics was that they ensured the PS3 would have as high a cost as possible to manufacture. The first generation of those diodes were extremely costly to manufacture and Sony did not produce them internally. Every diode that went into an HD-DVD player was one essentially ripped out of the hands of a potential PS3 owner. If you can make a claim that Sony plays THAT dirty, then hats off to you. Until then? Spare me the sanctimony.



And again, I say, PC seems to be alive and well without the need of Live. In fact Steam, which is a free service, is so far beyond Live in revenue generation that it makes the subscription model look archaic. There is nothing that Live does that is necessarily new or innovative, it just takes what has already been done and gives it an interface.. An advertisement swollen one at that.



..and now, with Durango, they are abandoning having a strong specification in order to change focus from those games. Kinda ironic, don't you think? It's like rain on your wedding day..



Now, let's pause for a moment and ask the important question.. How does that benefit you as a gamer or as a Microsoft customer? It doesn't.



How does this benefit you?



Bro, it was the Wii. It was the fad. It was "the wave of the future".. Hope you get the reference.



I would agree. It was a fad. Thankfully, I can only point at ONE MANUFACTURER who dumped half a billion dollars into trying to suckle that honey when it had ran dry. It just so happens to be the same one that sold Bungie.. Lulz.



It's about the results.



You're absolutely right. I think I was spending more time LoLing about seeing whether or not people actually wanted MovieGear Solid 4 to come to the 360 or not when they were jumping on just about every rumor that it would and then crapping all over it when it wouldn't. I was always focused on the games. Never backing down from the "8GBs is enough for gaming" argument.. By the way, how is Spartan Ops? Lulz.



But you are SO wrong. It was the Playstation 1. You may have heard of it. Final Fantasy VII says Hi. It had the easiest development environment amongs the game consoles of its generation. So easy it was, in fact, that you should probably do a Google search for "Net Yaroze." Oh yeah, how is XNA coming along? ...Lulz.



So after that diatribe you're saying it's okay for MS to not make a straightforward game console... why? Now we're getting into the part of the debate where all we can do is argue over speculation and conjecture, but why premise it all with this? Methinks you've lost the plot here.



You are entitled to your opinions. I reiterate, that I am in "wait and see" mode.



Well, I'm not sure why this would convince me to buy their next product knowing that games and IP will become anemic by the end of a generation as the producer silos in for its next product offering. What do you benefit from that?



Draconian DRM. Which may or may not be in the PS4 as well. As much as you want to label me a Sony flag waving fanboy, I will buy a WiiU on the 21st if Sony implements what is being said Durango will have in its DRM and always connected BS. Would you say the same about 720? I'd actually love to see you answer this so we can see who is actually a bigger fanboy



Ahhh, now I get it. You took my post personally. That was a mistake. I didn't reply to anyone or mention names.

Please don't take personal offense to the things I post. I use terse language and it tends to dig under people's skin. If I want to call someone out, I'll just do it. Lord knows I have enough infractions to at least prove that LOL.

Again, a console born of paranoia from a capital-bloated company. Seems you corroborated my version of the story quite well. Riddle me this, riddle me that.. How come when Sony dominated gaming we saw more games come to console than any other time in history? This notion that gaming NEEDS Xbox is at the heart of my debate, and we may never see eye to eye on it, at least until a fourth player steps in or investors tire of Xbox not finishing first evrar.

Is it really paranoia? Look at what happened to Apple over the past 12 years. Their first major hit was the ipod. Nothing wrong there, just them locking down a segment of the consumer electronics market, right?

Not so because they used those profits (among other things) to help develop/launch the iphone and ipad. We see where they are today due to that.

MS always wanted a windows PC in the living room. They realized that won't occur with a traditional computing device so they needed to develop an alternative means of entry. The xbox is a suitable "vehicle to do that". Hindsight is everything in these cases, I don't believe it was a mistake for MS to enter the console market for the reasons they did.

Why were there so many games on the PS2? Well I'll say cost had a lot to do with.

Games were easier and cheaper to develop back then. That is one reason. Another was the cost of the console. Starting at $299 and dropping to $199 very quickly (and lower prices on a short schedule) ensured the PS2 would sell well and enter many households. Being the fastest selling console to 100 million certainly help the PS2 become a lucrative platform for a game developer. That combined with the ease/lower costs of game development made the PS2 the ideal platform for game developers.

You mistake one generation of that kind of success as indicative of what would have happened with future generations had MS not entered the market. That is a mistake, too much of a claim to make/belief to hold without substantive evidence to support it.

Last I checked, the gaming industry did fairly well with at least 3 major players. With the exit of Sega, somebody had to step in. That happened to be Microsoft. I highly doubt we will see a 4th major player since the gaming market seems to be fairly well covered. Be it the home consoles, handhelds, PC or smartphones/tablets there really isn't a particular area when another company can step in a be successful/offer something that doesn't exist in that category.

And when was a monopoly (essentially since Sony was killing nintendo before MS showed up) ever a good thing in a particular industry?

And the shareholders only care about profits, not the rat race of what position a console is in.


quote]Well, considering BluRay is able to handle 4K and HD-DVD wouldn't, regardless of anyones high intentions or not, BRD was the right choice and consumers saw through the smokescreen. I'm not claiming Sony is high and mighty for leveraging BluRay. I'm stating quite the opposite, they played their hand and it hurt. A lesson that MS appears to be lining up for with Durango.

But, let's not kid ourselves. I'll call a spade a spade. No one with three IQ numbers to rub together in their pretty little head would foresee HD-DVD going anywhere. ALL that was accomplished by Microsofts vouchers and dirty tactics was that they ensured the PS3 would have as high a cost as possible to manufacture. The first generation of those diodes were extremely costly to manufacture and Sony did not produce them internally. Every diode that went into an HD-DVD player was one essentially ripped out of the hands of a potential PS3 owner. If you can make a claim that Sony plays THAT dirty, then hats off to you. Until then? Spare me the sanctimony.[/quote]

4K? 4K wasn't on anybody's radar until 2011. Sorry but that is not a valid line of support for why blu-ray "won" several years earlier.

And it wasn't the consumers who decided, it was the movie studios finally throwing their weight behind 1 of the 2 formats.


I think you underestimate MS's ability to see the shortcomings of others and avoid them while still being successful in the marketplace. I'm sure MS will make sure the next xbox excels at both kinds of functions and not have either be half assed. MS know they could go another 8 years before launching a new console (though I think it will be 6 years with the coming generation) so they have to ensure that it will be relevant for that long. I'm betting it can be no worse than how the 360/ps3 fared this generation.

Sorry but you are making claims about motives that have no real basis. MS simply backed an alternative standard. Were we just supposed to accept 1 standard being pushed on the market as the next optical disc format with no competition at all? I don't think so. The PS3 could have launched with DVD and been more competitive with the 360 in several ways. That may not have helped the division of Sony behind Blu-Ray, but I think anybody at Sony will admit that the Playstation brand is worth a lot more to them than Blu-Ray.

Also you assume that the lack of availability is what hampered PS3 sales. I disagree and say it was the price (and a lack of justification to the consumer for it).

I still remember tretton's quote about finding a PS3 on store shelves and him paying out $1200 for it. I believe several different people posted images of PS3's on store shelves.

And again, I say, PC seems to be alive and well without the need of Live. In fact Steam, which is a free service, is so far beyond Live in revenue generation that it makes the subscription model look archaic. There is nothing that Live does that is necessarily new or innovative, it just takes what has already been done and gives it an interface.. An advertisement swollen one at that.

I don't see how bringing in the PC as a response is even relevant here?

We are talking about consoles, PC's are treated in a very different manner. You can criticize live all you want, I'm chalking this up to you being jealous of the success it has had. On consoles Live is more than competitive, it is dominant. If that was not the case than many more people would buy PS3's if they mostly played multiplat games/existing ps3 owners would buy more multiplat games for the ps3 rather than the 360.

MS spent 1 billion in creating live. Just that figure alone should tell you how much work went into it and that is much more than you claim it to be. Many people (including myself) were willing to pay for just online gameplay (and nothing else) back in the original xbox days. Today you get quite a bit more for your gold subscription.

Hate all you want but MS makes at least 1 billion every year off of gold subs alone. How much does sony make on PSN+?

And about those ads. Funny how you bring them up when I haven't even noticed them. Perhaps that is because I don't spend much time in the dashboard these days, but I think you are vastly exaggerating this issue trying to make it into something it is not. If it really was than much of an issue, MS would change things in response to consumer feedback.

..and now, with Durango, they are abandoning having a strong specification in order to change focus from those games. Kinda ironic, don't you think? It's like rain on your wedding day..

Do we actually know what the real world difference is? It looks worse on paper,but how much does that matter in the real world. I remember the same claims being made with the PS3 vs the 360.

And on another note, lets assume MS used 4GB of DDR5 for a second like Sony seems to be doing with the PS4. Then what difference would there be between the two? If made just that change alone the only major difference would be the power of the GPU's in Sony's favor. If MS rectified that as well the consoles would be the same regarding hardware (the significant parts). What point would there then be in releasing both consoles with the same base hardware?

Now, let's pause for a moment and ask the important question.. How does that benefit you as a gamer or as a Microsoft customer? It doesn't.

It ensures that microsoft makes money/has sufficient motivation to stay in the game. Without those things they could very easily pull the plug. And that would not be a good thing for all gamers. MS did what it needed to to make up some of the losses previously incurred involving the xbox project.

How does this benefit you?

Are you seriously asking me what benefits there are to the end user regarding an ecosystem like the one I described involving your smartphone/tablet, computer, online services and gaming console in your living room?

That would outdo everybody else (Including the much envied Apple and their ecosystem (even they have not conquered the living room/online services part))

The only relevant question here is how that would not benefit me.

I would agree. It was a fad. Thankfully, I can only point at ONE MANUFACTURER who dumped half a billion dollars into trying to suckle that honey when it had ran dry. It just so happens to be the same one that sold Bungie.. Lulz.

Yes, lets laugh at something MS makes a lot of money on. I guess it doesn't help that Sony doesn't make money in this area.

In case you hadn't noticed the Wii U seems to be tanking. Who is going to be there to pick up the slack? Not Sony. But Microsoft will be there, and not just there but as prepared as one could be.

And don't act like Sony doesn't have failings in this in related areas. First it was sixaxis (without rumble).
Then Move. Now its the obsession with linking the Vita (which is getting killed by nintendo/smartphone/tablet gaming) to the console for various reasons. And on the software side, of course, Home.

It will be a fad for Nintendo, and Sony. But MS is gearing into tapping a fairly abundant goldmine for quite some time.

The thing you fail to realize is that by sticking to core gaming you fail to expand the market. MS is doing what it can to cover core gaming and expand the market to tap into that potential revenue source.

And I have a feeling that Destiny will turn out to be a major blockbuster franchise up their with COD, Battlefield, Halo, GTA, ect. As long as Bungie hasn't become complacent/incompetent from Halo.

It's about the results.

As far as I can tell, MS has done a pretty good job of generating revenue from their implementation. Sony? Nowhere near as much with their multimedia implementation.

You're absolutely right. I think I was spending more time LoLing about seeing whether or not people actually wanted MovieGear Solid 4 to come to the 360 or not when they were jumping on just about every rumor that it would and then crapping all over it when it wouldn't. I was always focused on the games. Never backing down from the "8GBs is enough for gaming" argument.. By the way, how is Spartan Ops? Lulz.

SMH? Not sure what you mean by that.

But you are SO wrong. It was the Playstation 1. You may have heard of it. Final Fantasy VII says Hi. It had the easiest development environment amongs the game consoles of its generation. So easy it was, in fact, that you should probably do a Google search for "Net Yaroze." Oh yeah, how is XNA coming along? ...Lulz.

PS1 sales: 102 million. Reached 100 million in 9 years and 6 months.

PS2 sales: 153.6 million as of Nov. 2011 Reached 100 million in 5 years 9 months.

Yeah, a big WTF there.

And we are talking about hardware here, so I don't see how a game title fits in here. Same with ease of development.

So after that diatribe you're saying it's okay for MS to not make a straightforward game console... why? Now we're getting into the part of the debate where all we can do is argue over speculation and conjecture, but why premise it all with this? Methinks you've lost the plot here.

Why shouldn't they try doing more with their console? After Sony will be as well. Perhaps not to the same extent. You bemoan MS trying to do both things? It may or may not work, but we will never know if nobody tries. If neither company is going to try an put in the most powerful, advanced, future proof hardware than they have to take risks in other areas.

Back to premise, you are assuming that MS has weaker hardware with nothing to show for it regarding gaming. But I think that they have been working on making the next Xbox even easier to develop for that the 360 as a sort of consolation prize. May not be the post powerful, but may end up being the most lucrative to develop for.

You are entitled to your opinions. I reiterate, that I am in "wait and see" mode.

What I'm saying makes sense.

For the first part, MS would consult developers to get their feedback on what they were trying to do with the next xbox. I'm fairly certain they came up with the final design to advance their goals while still satisfying developers as much as possible.

For the second part, what motivation does a 3rd party developer have to do more than the minimum?

It's not like a significant amount of gamers will reward them for their extra effort. Plenty of people bougt shitty multiplat ports on the PS3 and were happy to do so.

How many normal gamers (those that don't participate on online forums/websites) do you think even know of/about digital foundry and what they do.

Hint, the don't and wouldn't really care anyways. We do because we are enthusiasts.

And if you were really willing to wait and see you wouldn't open your mouth regarding the PS3 until the 20th and the next Xbox after this years E3.

Well, I'm not sure why this would convince me to buy their next product knowing that games and IP will become anemic by the end of a generation as the producer silos in for its next product offering. What do you benefit from that?

Do you remember what people said about the 360 at the beginning of this generation? Why should I bother when MS will kill it after 4 years like they did the original Xbox. Of course they neglected to look at the reasons why MS killed the original Xbox. The same thing applies here. The goal of this generation for MS was to become profitable. There were 2 gaming factors regarding that. #1 developing exclusive games that would sell well. #2 Using Kinect to carry them through the latter half of this generation.

MS has been profitable with the 360 for quite some time now. At the same time they were evaluation future strategy regarding future consoles. IT seems they chose to put more effort into exclusives/first party games for the next Xbox. But this isn't an instant process, it takes years. Which is why they focused on Kinect to carry them through the end so they could focus on preparing for the next gen.

Seeing as Kinect 2.0 Seems to be fully integrated and shipping from launch that takes care of that.

And because they went through the entire process I just mentioned this generation, they won't go through the same process again with the successor to the next Xbox.

I'd also think the costs of development would be somewhat less than they currently are which should reduce sales thresholds of games for profitability.

Draconian DRM. Which may or may not be in the PS4 as well. As much as you want to label me a Sony flag waving fanboy, I will buy a WiiU on the 21st if Sony implements what is being said Durango will have in its DRM and always connected BS. Would you say the same about 720? I'd actually love to see you answer this so we can see who is actually a bigger fanboy

If that turned out to be the case? I wouldn't buy a Wii U (there wouldn't be much of a point when the games I desire aren't on it, and I despise their controller). I would likely hold off on the next Xbox at least till it became dirt cheap. In the interim I'd consider going back to PC gaming. (though the DRM sucks there too)

Who knows I may even give up gaming altogether if things became bad enough. My wallet would appreciate that (especially as I take up other more expensive hobbies).

I don't think anything like that DRM crap would happen though since the backlash would be too great for it to end well for anyone. (and it wouldn't just be pushed by one side, it would need to be near universal to have any chance of "success")

Ahhh, now I get it. You took my post personally. That was a mistake. I didn't reply to anyone or mention names.

Please don't take personal offense to the things I post. I use terse language and it tends to dig under people's skin. If I want to call someone out, I'll just do it. Lord knows I have enough infractions to at least prove that LOL.

The fact that you posted right after myself and used rather singular language did not make it unreasonable to think that you were directly addressing me without mentioning names or being a quoted reply.

Your words would have more value if you were coming from the center (objectivity) rather than other end of the spectrum.

[MATRIX 2]

I'm going to call bullshit on this.

What was so unappealing about them to you?

It's not like the genre distribution was particularly different this generation (the way it was in the PS2 vs Xbox1 era), nor the art-styles found across them--as most things went for 'gritty' and 'realistic' this gen.

In all likelihood you found them unappealing because they were Playstation games. Truth be told, I am given no reason from you to think otherwise.

I wasn't very happy with the game selection this entire generation, either for the 360 or PS3, but I ended up getting the latter simply because I saw that I would have a greater quantity of high budget software to play there, even though my overall tastes weren't being catered to as well as it was during the previous era.

I'm also baffled as to why you think MS entering the race was such a great thing for gaming. The 360 and PS3 COMBINED, have significantly LESS games than the PS2 itself did. How was this going to be a culmination of a 'dull' domination by one company when you had more games than this fragmented generation did period? And with this greater selection of games came a more eclectic pool of visual and playstyles in the games to choose from.

The PS2, the most dominant home console ever by far, was also the most varied console as far as game choices went. By far.

According to wikipedia there are 143 exclusive games to the PS3 as of Jan. 14.

Keep in mind I have basically lost all interest in Japanese style games. I have no interest in racing games, save for GT5 which turned out to be a disappointment compared to GT4 and GT3. I have no interest in sport games.

Quickly eliminating those games from the list, there are only a handful of release games that catch my interest:

Warhawk (though its sequel starhawk seem to get poor reviews)
The Uncharted games (assuming the story holds up)

As for unreleased games:

Dust514 (assuming it doesn't suck)

So, a very limited selection out of the 143.

The answer to the other part of your question is in my other post.