Ben-DutkaWell, it was bound to happen at some point: "inside" whispers of the next PlayStation console, despite the fact that Sony repeatedly tells every media member they can find that the PS3 has a 10-year lifespan.
None of the following can be considered "official information," but it'll be super fun for all you tech geeks out there. Check out this massive article at GamingFront, and you will see how Sony supposedly intends to pursue the PS4 project. According to this, Sony plans to utilize the "Cell BE" (Cell Broadband Engine), and although the translation is broken, it seems that the PS4 won't be as crippling in terms of production costs. Basically, they've already secured the foundation with the PS3 and this will be built upon in the PS4; there would be no need to spend a gazillion more dollars on research and development, and they wouldn't have to produce an entirely new piece of technology designed from the ground up. On top of which, it seems Sony will reduce the chip size itself, which would again point towards lower costs. If all of this is to be believed, the PS4 will be the first PlayStation console that doesn't use a completely new hardware architecture. There are pluses and minuses to such an approach, but perhaps the former outweighs the latter…
First of all, if they're using the same base technology, developers won't be complaining (as they always do when a new PlayStation launches), because they'll be quite familiar. Secondly, the instantly lowered production costs means Sony won't have to operate in the red (or black) for so long; they could turn a profit much faster. Thirdly and finally, general improved reliability should come along with familiar hardware. Besides, it's not like the PS4 won't be a lot more powerful; it will be. Sony may just change their style a bit, that's all.
I won't believe this info until Sony announces something offical themselves. I can't see them making another console anytime soon, since recently they have said they are consitrating on software and other innovated things for the PS3, where would they have the time for making or looking into another Playstation console. But nice article and info, even though i;m not a tech person it was informative.
Yea I have a hard time with this. I read the source of this and it's confusing as Hell. I'm a tech head and it's confusing. All I know is that Sony stated last year that we will prolly see a 10-20 core Cell processor in the PS4 near 2014-2015. By then alot of programmers will have a strong grasp of the architecture of the Cell. IBM keeps improving the Cell every year. Cell type design should be common place in PCs by then.
Well if that's the case i don't wanna see a $600 price tag when it's first released.
You might anyway due purely to inflation.
Last edited by WorldEndsWithMe on 1/29/2009 3:52:57 PM
But, will that give the PS4 a shorter lifespan? Will the lack of a learning curve for developers mean we won't see the games getting better over time, but instead hitting a plateau early in the lifespan?
Those are things that were concerning me as well. If Sony uses the same build and just improves on it then there is not a lot of ceiling increase in terms of quality. I mean sure you can make the shading better and put a bigger CPU and GPU in it but that only pushes you so far.
I'm not too worried about that. While Sony shops may have finally gotten around to making the best out of Cell BE, this gives plenty of time for third-party support to get their act together.
That just means more good games that take advantage of the hardware, rather than being forced to wait three years.
Hmm. It might take a lil more next gen.
My point being the PS2 and original Xbox as many people still play those and just look how much better games look on the new consoles. I look at the 360 and PS3 and am amazed by how the games look.
I do love the idea of lower costs and such. Im sure PS3 BC will be there to because of similar hardware so thats 2 pluses.
I haven't read the massive article so I don't know if they are thinking this but I hope they use a 45nm chip from Intel. Those things look screaming and the way they changed the transistor layers make data processing even faster which is nice.
It will be interesting if they do decide to build on their existing architecture though since they have always built from the ground up.
Well here is to wondering.
Dual Cell Broadband Engine maybe?
All they really need to do is throw in a more capable gpu, more faster ram, and maybe a larger hard drive.
Last edited by RebelExtrm02 on 1/29/2009 11:19:17 AM
"If It ain't broke, don't fix it"
This is a complete 180 in terms of their past practices. Something about this makes me feel worried…
PS3WIZARD YOU AND ME BOTH I FEEL YOU.
Same.
It's not like Sony will be releasing a new console next year :D. And yes, thanks to some engineering gods at IBM and Sony (and why not? kutaragi's vision) PS3 got a very innovative, powerful and EXTENSIBLE arch. In a simplistic way, they only need to add more cores to CELL and fine tunning its interaction with available memory and dedicated graphic card. Im almost sure PS4 will be essentially a fine tuned and more powerful PS3. Advantages? drastic reduction on R&D spending and a BONUS, FULL "backward" compatibility. You see?
Sound pretty good to me. 😀
F yeah to the B/C, that was a mistake taking that away but I see why they did it this time, no reason not to have it next time.
yea it damn well better be backwards compatible if this is the case
It makes sense to keep using Cell. It's a powerful architecture which is still being actively developed (it's used by more than just the PS3, after all). Plus developers should already have some familiarity with it.
But if Sony is smart they will put more effort into their development tools. If you make it easier for developers to make games then you get more games…
All they need more cores on cell and more gpu ram atleast 1gb and new OS
Didn't they say they were going to put 21 cores in the cell or was that a rumor?
PSN ID Biggest_GMoney
@ troy powers,
I agree with you and coverton341,I would hate Sony to turn around and do something like this just to "please" developers and consumers, listen the PS3 is at a awesome price tag,it pushes the bar the develeopers need to be open minded and learn the technology, cause what happens if say M$ says we have a new console that has new technology or even Nintendo (and everyone laughs) they can't hide from new technology. I think thats the biggest issue i've read is developers are saying it's hard to make a game for the PS3, if they gave it a chance and learned what it has to offer for them ext… they wouldn't have such an issue.
Great point just look at what Killzone 2 offers. If more studios put together a PS3 dev dream team then I think they would start to produce games that they never thought possible, but as it stands now it seems that most studios use the dev teams they have for both consoles and realistically that has to be a poor choice considering the differences in the architectures.
This makes me wonder what else they could possibly do with the PS4. Consoles (some) already have 1080p res and 60 fps, so what else could they do to raise the bar?
make better TVs too?
i remember when launch day came for ps3,i was watching a special on bbc about the ps3,& how it would still be decent in 2016,they also said they think the next gen would incorporate everything in one(tv and all)like arnie's tv in total recall.
sounded right to me considering its ten years in the future,an all purpose entertainment centre no bigger than an lcd screen fit directly in ur wall.
games,movies,internet,music,shopping&communication.
so maybe there won't be a ps4,i'm sure u'll have 3 different brands though.
What they need to do is not let IBM di** around with their sh** the next time around.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/jan/01/sony-xbox-ibm
The next Xbox will be out much sooner than Sony would be ready with new hardware so this would make perfect sense.
Come out with the PS4 the same time as the Xbox 720 to compete but still have the backwards compatibility for PS3.
It would be like a Supercharged PS3!
Supercharged Turbo with NOS
Last edited by WorldEndsWithMe on 1/29/2009 4:01:12 PM
xbox 720 that sounds weird i think xbox 1080 sounds better
Sexbox.
That sounds good.
The 10-year lifecycle of the PS3 and the launch of the PS4 are not mutually exclusive. Look at how the PS2 and PS3 co-exist.
I don't this is news really, because Sony has probably been working on the PS4 when they launched teh PS3.
The Sony fanboys need to chill on PS3 sales and talk of price cuts. Sony will survive the recession and will come out of it in a better position. They took a chance in developing the PS3, so moving forward, developers will be well versed in programming for probably the next two PlayStation systems.
The question will be how much different technologically from the 360 will MS make its next console?
It don't believe that. This is TOTALLY contradictory to the rep Sony has built. The Playstations always have some new tech that's developers eventually conform to.
The PS4 would be an xbox if this was the case. Great start, w/ a fast burn-out. But w/o the hardware errors 😉
Leading edge tech designs for the PS were largely due to Ken K. and his vision of how it SHOULD be. As he was quietly shown the door so early on this gen (no executive alive and in their right mind would accept being pushed to 3rd in market share), it's hard to believe the new decision maker/s would tread the same path. Clearly something different has to be done next time round.
I dont think its all doom and gloom though, Sony will still come out with something kick a$$.
That's exactly what they should do. Blu-ray should last a lot longer than DVD. PS4 will probably just get more memory and a better graphics chip. They'll be cheap to produce and we' ll get reasonably priced PS4's. I don't see the problem. You can't get much better than the ps3 as it is.
Last edited by Blaiyan on 1/29/2009 1:55:07 PM
Is that a Martian Yankees fanboy?
Let's go with that lol.
It's just slam man. He's supposed to be for boxing practice.
Ps4,PS5 lets not forget its all about quality games. Current gen gfx can stick around 4 the next ten years for all i care. Since im psfan i would not mind if sony released a ps3.5 which will be ps4 for business reasons just as long as they keep the games quality up, i guess they will have more funds to make that sure. It would be cool if ps4(ps3.5) would be backward compatible & can play downgraded ps4 games by downloading a patch, ofcourse ps3 owner would have to pay for the patch. Business guys sony needs 2 make money.
Thats what the ps2 was. powerful and cheap
keeping the same architecture i think would outweigh the down sides… while it may not be the extraordinary leap ps2 –> ps3 was i think it will benefit both the consumer and sony. lower prices means more adoption, similar programming means easy backwards compatibility and the games will plateau early on (not necessarily a bad thing)
You guys gotta understand that when they make the ps4, it WILL be able to add a drastic increase in power considering how much time will have elapsed from the development of the ps3 to that of the ps4, which will take longer to develop at that matter, even if it's an improved "version". The rate that software becomes more sophisticated is many, many times smaller than the rate at which hardware becomes more sophisticated, which should be considered when pondering the lifespan of the PS4. The jump from ps2/xbox to ps3/360 was like an evolution from the neanderthal to the modern human, so I'd imagine going from ps3 to ps4 is like that modern human on steroids. Lots of steroids. And a guy on lots and lots of steroids sure as hell is a lot stronger than the average person.
Another way to look at it is that the jump was made to multi-core processors from single core (again, from neanderthal to modern human). The jump was the hard part, now it's time to push the multi-core to the limit, not make another jump to like crazy, multidimensional, exponential core.
I guess now I should actually read the article…
I hate doing future proofing. But here it goes…
In the PS4 this is what your "Prolly" looking at: 10-20 core Cell i series. No GPU for system render (all done in the Cell). 120 fps/Hz @ 1440 rez. Solid state Flash Drive @ 1 terabit of space. Blu-ray disc support for 50gb-200gb @ 4 X disc read. 3D support for games and film. All major film studios are now shooting films with stereoscopic imaging. Dual HDMI support upto 40-60 GB transfer rate. Possibly a 10.2 surround support as well. This may all look expensive now, but technology is improving by leaps and bounds every year. So price on the PS4, im guessing $300-350. Why I say that price is because Sony don't have to do heavy R&D on the tech, like the PS3.
Last edited by LCF on 1/29/2009 4:04:24 PM
LCF you are vastly more of a techie than I but wouldn't a nice GPU be able to take some of the pressure off the cell in order to free it up for more power down the road?
The problem with CPU+GPU is that it's not fast or efficient enough compared to doing it all in the Cell. GPUs are alway govern by the CPU. You'll prolly see GPUs phase out by the time the PS4 is out.
Too much give and take?
I hope you meant Terabyte, because a Terabit is only 125GB. By the time the PS4 comes out, I expect at least a 5TB SSD. It's probably going to release around 2014 (5 years), so I think there will be a socket for the GPU with access to the main RAM. Though I don't doubt that the Cell could do all the graphics processing, this would be a good extra measure for future proofing. I also expect it to support at least the resolution currently available on 30" PC monitors. EDIT: They will use eight (or more) layer Blu-ray discs.
BTW, AMD/ATI is working on the above mentioned graphics solution for PCs. For PS5, I expect a Cell of MONSTROUS proportions, or a CPU and GPU on the same die.
Last edited by somethingrandom on 1/29/2009 5:36:44 PM
10 years or not everyone knows that Sony are working on the Playstation 4 maybe the PSP 2 in thier spare time.
But it should be kept secret then it will shock us with technology that exceeds the Playstation 3 in every way possible
You mean 4K.
Thing is, I consider this particular stage to be the equivalent of R&D because let's just say they want to release a PS4 in 5 years time: The tech will be much better by then and although the cell is clearly the future more options will be available as far as how to push it to the max, I really don't think we'd see it become a sprinter like 360. Sony will always make it a paced marathon if they can.
PSN DonovanTheICEMAN
it makes perfect since.. buy time ps4 launches developers will be use to the cell so why not release a ps4 will a cell times 2, 2gigs of ram and a 1tb hdd.. makes perfect sense.. if true ps4 will be a ps3 on steroids..