Now It's a Good Idea: Sony Looking into PS4.5

[themodernagenb]

Source: http://kotaku.com/sources-sony-is-working-on-a-ps4-5-1765723053

 

Multiple sources coming out of GDC have claimed that Sony is looking into upgrading the PS4. The new device, called PS4.5 or PS4K for now, it supposedly able to run games at 4K resolution.

 

It's unclear how they will implement this, but I am 100% positive it will be a just another console release just like the New Nintendo 3DS rather than something you will plug into your existing PS4.

 

This come right on the heels of MS's announcement this month about the potential for Xbox upgrades. A source mentioned that this sounds exploratory for now, so it seems like Sony doesn't want to be left behind this generation - you get a lot of attention as the most powerful console, and I bet Sony doesn't want to lose that crown.

 

I don't know how they will make this work, because as of right now it is really expensive to run 4K video games at 60 FPS. Whatever this console is, it may be really expensive. Console manufacturers don't like seller these things at a loss anymore.

[PlayStation 2]

This... isn't good for anyone.

[Minsekt]

stopped reading this crap at 4k.

 

kek

[ShadowCaptain]

bad bad bad bad bad idea

[Scionx]

4k res and 300+ particle effects in a 24men destiny/cod lan party using dual or 4 player split screen. RIP. The lag is real.

 

 

[Sauron]

That's ridiculous.  Nobody in their right mind would buy a current generation console to play games at uhd. They probably count on running 2d or low fidelity games at that resolution and upscale the rest, but fragmenting the market over it is nonsense. Besides unless you use your ps4 with a monitor you'll be sitting too far from the screen to notice a big difference.

 

What could be cool is updating the firmware to have the build in hdmi port natively support 1440p or ultrawide 1080p. Just throwing that out there.

[Prysin]

10 minutes ago, ShadowCaptain said:

bad bad bad bad bad idea

not if this means custom AMD ZEN APU

[AshleyAshes]

While generally this is a resounding bad idea as one of a consoles core strengths is it's compatibility.  That is that every PS2 game runs on every PS2 and every Xbox game runs on every Xbox game, you don't have to worry about specs, I submit to yo this: The Nintendo Wii.  The Wii was really just an upgraded GameCube.  The Wii had the same GPU and CPU as the GameCube, they just ran faster and better, but fully supported the GameCube.  It had GameCube memory card slots and game ports.  It ran every GameCube game or it could use it's few extra features to run Wii games with what extra features it had.  The Wii was really just GameCube 2.0.

 

Since the PS4 is just an x86 machine, you could do the same thing.  You could swap out the chip for one with more GPU cores, keep complete compatibility with old PS4 games, but run these PS4.5 games that required the extra graphics hardware.  It wouldn't even be hard to do, though it would create a dual SKU system for marketing and retailers to deal with.

[Orangeator]

Considering most console players think console graphics are already better then PC 4k graphics, I would suggest not doing this...

[dragosudeki]

I'm betting that this new console is what is actually needed to properly use the PSVR headset that they are also planning. Pretty lame to create another segment in a segmented market.

[don_svetlio]

PS 4.5 with 4.5GB HBM?

[ivhyn]

1 minute ago, AshleyAshes said:

While generally this is a resounding bad idea as one of a consoles core strengths is it's compatibility.  That is that every PS2 game runs on every PS2 and every Xbox game runs on every Xbox game, you don't have to worry about specs, I submit to yo this: The Nintendo Wii.  The Wii was really just an upgraded GameCube.  The Wii had the same GPU and CPU as the GameCube, they just ran faster and better, but fully supported the GameCube.  It had GameCube memory card slots and game ports.  It ran every GameCube game or it could use it's few extra features to run Wii games with what extra features it had.  The Wii was really just GameCube 2.0.

 

Since the PS4 is just an x86 machine, you could do the same thing.  You could swap out the chip for one with more GPU cores, keep complete compatibility with old PS4 games, but run these PS4.5 games that required the extra graphics hardware.  It wouldn't even be hard to do, though it would create a dual SKU system for marketing and retailers to deal with.

Which isn't really the issue since backwards compatibility always was there in some form. You couldn't run Wii games on the gamecube, which is one of the reasons this upgraded console thing is a bad idea.

What about people who just bought a PS4 and want to play future titles? If this PS4K turns out to be true, devs either had to optimize their games for two different consoles (less time will be spent perfecting a title) or just release it for the new one exclusively which would piss people off (and rightfully so).

Also, x86 alone doesn't mean old and new PS4 would be 100% compatible as they had to have the same memory architecture, one probably has to have a bigger framebuffer and there currently is no SoC that has the power of a high-end GPU and a strong CPU (and knowing AMD, it should be cooled with liquid N2 because otherwise it would burn your house down).

[ShadowCaptain]

16 minutes ago, Prysin said:

not if this means custom AMD ZEN APU

yeah fucking over the other console owners is great

honestly i dunno how good zen will be so im not really bothered about it

[flibberdipper]

This is fucking retarded.

[Egla]

Maybe in 2.5 years, it will be called PS5.

[Prysin]

12 minutes ago, ShadowCaptain said:

yeah fucking over the other console owners is great

honestly i dunno how good zen will be so im not really bothered about it

anything is better then the two AMD Athlon 35w 5350s quad cores that make up the "8 core" CPU part of the Xbox and PS4

[AshleyAshes]

14 minutes ago, ivhyn said:

What about people who just bought a PS4 and want to play future titles? If this PS4K turns out to be true, devs either had to optimize their games for two different consoles (less time will be spent perfecting a title) or just release it for the new one exclusively which would piss people off (and rightfully so).

Also, x86 alone doesn't mean old and new PS4 would be 100% compatible as they had to have the same memory architecture, one probably has to have a bigger framebuffer and there currently is no SoC that has the power of a high-end GPU and a strong CPU (and knowing AMD, it should be cooled with liquid N2 because otherwise it would burn your house down).

Let's be clear here: There was no SoC as powerful as the SoCs made for the Xbox One or PS4 until they made them.  Seriously, these things have more than double the raw graphical horse power of any of AMDs mobile or desktop APUs.  They're custom and huge. Upgrading the SoCs for either platform would be easy: They'd just have AMD bolt on more GCN 1.0 cores and build new chips like that.  Backwards compatibility would be handled in the OS.  The system would basically turn off the parts that the older software didn't need.  This is why the Wii's compatibility with GameCube was literally 100%.  Every single GC game ran on Wii. (Excluding the Wii models that dropped the GC ports to save money)  Despite having more memory available, the Wii's OS was easily designed to fully support running the hardware in a way that was 100% compatible with GameCube games.  Doing the same for a 'PlayStation 4 Point 5' would not be a major technical feat

[captain cactus]

4K.

 

[Prysin]

1 minute ago, lots of unexplainable lag said:

4K.

 

4k 30 FPS isnt that hard

[captain cactus]

Just now, Prysin said:

4k 30 FPS isnt that hard

On a PS4.

 

[ShadowCaptain]

6 minutes ago, Prysin said:

anything is better then the two AMD Athlon 35w 5350s quad cores that make up the "8 core" CPU part of the Xbox and PS4

Sure but a 4,5 console is bullshit

[zMeul]

4K 

do you mean 4096 × 2160

or 3840 x 2160

 

because one of them it's not 4K! one of them is UHD-1 and the other is 4K

and between them there is a ~1/2mil (552960) pixels difference 

 

since the consoles are build to be connected to a TV, I'd say you're talking about UHD-1

[Monkey Dust]

If it can run games natively at 1080p at decent frame rates, that will scale up nicely to 4K. It's not 4K gaming as we'd define it, but a welcome improvement over the current consoles. Working on a more powerful PS4 probably isn't entirely unrelated to their VR headset, they might come out at a similar time.

[ivhyn]

3 minutes ago, zMeul said:

4K 

do you mean 4096 × 2160

or 3840 x 2160

 

because one of them it's not 4K! one of them is UHD-1 and the other is 4K

and between them there is a 2.7mil pixels difference 

Sadly most people don't differentiate between those two.

Also, the difference is around 553000 pixels

[handymanshandle]

1 hour ago, themodernagenb said:

Source: http://kotaku.com/sources-sony-is-working-on-a-ps4-5-1765723053

 

Multiple sources coming out of GDC have claimed that Sony is looking into upgrading the PS4. The new device, called PS4.5 or PS4K for now, it supposedly able to run games at 4K resolution.

 

It's unclear how they will implement this, but I am 100% positive it will be a just another console release just like the New Nintendo 3DS rather than something you will plug into your existing PS4.

 

This come right on the heels of MS's announcement this month about the potential for Xbox upgrades. A source mentioned that this sounds exploratory for now, so it seems like Sony doesn't want to be left behind this generation - you get a lot of attention as the most powerful console, and I bet Sony doesn't want to lose that crown.

 

I don't know how they will make this work, because as of right now it is really expensive to run 4K video games at 60 FPS. Whatever this console is, it may be really expensive. Console manufacturers don't like seller these things at a loss anymore.

 

1 hour ago, Dan Castellaneta said:

This... isn't good for anyone.

I think that as long as it's not like a totally different console and that it uses the same games as the PS4 and the PS4 could play games that might be destined for that new hardware.

Though I do agree with Dan that it's not a very good idea. Also most people still only have 1080p TVs.