EDGE: "Power struggle: the real differences between PS4 and Xbox One performance"

This is a very flawed way of thinking, and not how the general consumer will see it.

Flawed? They wanted Kinect in every box. I am certain Kinect is worth at least 100 dollars. I despised Kinect this Gen, so would much rather have the console for 400 as well, but that is why there is a 500 dollar price point.
 
Since there have been quite some comments regarding historical console power and its implications on sales I want to add that some of you for whatever reason are stubbornly looking at sales. Sure these are important for long term third party support but also look at it from the pov of an individual gamer.

All things equal, I prefer the most bang for my buck. Some people here make it sound as if more powerfull is something bad, but at the very least, not considering sales at all, it will result in the best looking first party games and to me, that's something.
 
Also this comment from this thread is interesting. :-)

This is anecdotal from E3, but...

I've heard the architecture with the ESRAM is actually a major hurdle in development because you need to manually fill and flush it.

So unless MS's APIs have improved to the point that this is essentially automatic, the bandwidth and hardware speed are probably irrelevant.

For reference, the story going around E3 went something like this:

"ATVI was doing the CoD: Ghosts port to nextgen. It took three weeks for PS4 and came out at 90 FPS unoptimized, and four months on Xbone and came out at 15 FPS."

(by Peter Bartholow - CEO of Lab Zero Games - Guys who made Skullgirls)
 

Or, you know, reporting facts. Facts from actual 3rd party devs who are working on both platforms.

They seem to be on a mission to report the facts regardless of who's feathers they ruffle.

Calm down cowboys, no need to rush in here and defend your dad. Just pointing something out that's been obvious with Edge. Reporting facts to me is actually naming your sources, but its something British journalist seem to get away with.
 
I mean, do you really expect multiplat devs to show off a proper comparison and readily prove "by the way, this version is inferior, so sucks to be you lol," especially if performance is currently struggling as it is? I wouldn't ever expect to see a proper console comparison until the games are released and you get something like DF on the case. Until then, expect to see publishers keep feeding the public with PC bullshots to build up hype for their games.
No but I do expect devs to show us media of the games and both versions. If you gotta go through some sherlock holmes DF stuff to see differences then whats the point other than making sure fanboys can sleep well at night?
 
The PS3 was supposedly the more powerful console. But the only games that showed me that were Uncharted 3 and God Of War 3. I am not biased either way, but I am sick of the Power argument, and just want great games.

Except that this time there actually is power difference. Can't believe that it's so hard to grasp for some. PS3 and X360 both had their own advantages in hardware but PS3 maybe had little bit more juice. Now there is zero things that Xbox one could do but PS4 couldn't as they have pretty much same architecture but PS4 just has way more powerful GPU and better memory setup. It's nothing like last gen.
 
I'll probably get crap for this, but when your publication does things like this, that doesn't exactly make you a trustworthy source for this kind of information.

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What about when they were on point with all of their tech reports (first site to report the PS4 going from 4 to 8GB) for each console and even nailed down the DRM plans that MS had in store for the XBox One?
 
And now, dear soon to be new XB1 owners, please consider that even the PS4 is pretty weak compared to PCs and what PCs will be in 2-3 years. And then think again what you will get for your 500 bucks and if it's worth it. Vote with your wallets, people, really do it. If stationary consoles are not vastly superior in power to what tablets, smartphones or business notebooks can do in 2-3 years - why even bother?

Exclusives?
 
Calm down cowboys, no need to rush in here and defend your dad. Just pointing something out that's been obvious with Edge. Reporting facts to me is actually naming your sources, but its something British journalist seem to get away with.

Who typically names their sources for news like this?
 
Unless they moneyhat every dev on every single game, they can't "enforce" shit.

If a game runs worse on their console, what are they going to do, not accept it? They have zero leverage. They don't own anyone.

exactly, and publishers who are stupid enough to do this because of moneyhat will still have to compete with any PS4 exclusive and other publisher's games who didn't take the moneyhat.
 
Calm down cowboys, no need to rush in here and defend your dad. Just pointing something out that's been obvious with Edge. Reporting facts to me is actually naming your sources, but its something British journalist seem to get away with.

Sources, how do they work?
 
If Microsoft is really pressing devs to "gimp" the PS4 version of multiplat games, Sony's first party devs will shine again.
 
Clearly the PS4 has more power. We've already known this. I still want to see how this will matter with the games on actual hardware, which we can't do until both are out.

Either way, it's the games that will ultimately matter. Just like with the Wii U, if the Xbone has great games, I'll own it.
 
One source even suggested that enforcing parity across consoles could become a political issue between platform holders, developers and publishers. They said that it could damage perceptions of a cross platform title, not to mention Xbox One, if the PS4 version shipped with an obviously superior resolution and framerate; better to “castrate” the PS4 version and release near-identical games to avoid ruffling any feathers.

This claim was later countered by a contact at a different studio. “It would be totally fine for us to make one version prettier without any political difficulties but it usually doesn’t make financial sense,” they said, “unless it’s a very simple tweak.”

It didn't happen with the PS3 versions compared to 360, this better not happen with PS4 multiplats. I'll be pissed if MS starts trying to push parity and is successful. I don't think it'll happen because devs will naturally optimize each as well as possible
 
I'm somehow addicted to reading these console wars threads.

Good thing there are so fucking many of them.


Holy shit that would be a massive gap.

Keep in mind that without optimization, the PS4 will do a lot better than XBO given all the work that's required to optimize eSram + move engines. I was expecting worse actually.
 
Flawed? They wanted Kinect in every box. I am certain Kinect is worth at least 100 dollars. I despised Kinect this Gen, so would much rather have the console for 400 as well, but that is why there is a 500 dollar price point.

Kinect isn't worth anything to me. Certainly not 100$ of my hard-earned money. Perceived value.

Nobody gives a fuck about what it is worth in bare parts or R&D costs.

The thing doesn't understand my language, it has no games working with it right now, it's not mandatory at all, why the hell should I be forced to buy it? It's mind-boggling.
 
I don't know that they really countered each other that much. The second source just implied that they wouldn't go the extra mile to make one version look nicer unless it was super easy.

One said they would gimp the PS4 version for political reasons, the other said political reasons wouldn't stop them putting out a better PS4 game so long as it was an easy tweak.
 
Everything EDGE said there people have been saying for months .
It was rather easy to see for anyone that knew a little about hardware .
I just hope as time goes on the PS4 version don't stay gimp , at launch software going to be rush so expect to see the full picture a year later .
 
Edge stood down on that story a little while ago. I think they've been reporting what the majority of the market is thinking the whole way through the launch cycle. It seems pretty weird to give them shit for writing the overwhelmingly popular opinion.
 
Flawed? They wanted Kinect in every box. I am certain Kinect is worth at least 100 dollars. I despised Kinect this Gen, so would much rather have the console for 400 as well, but that is why there is a 500 dollar price point.

Doesn't explain the gap in price between the two even if Kinect is $100.

We are talking about a 50% performance disparity, with the cost of 8GB GDDR5 v 8GB DDR3 being significant on its own. Then you factor in the more expensive GPU and you come to the conclusion MS is ripping people off.
 
Proof is in the pudding. PS3 was supposed to make 360 look like Xbox 1.5.

We all know how that turned out
Err, this is a VERY different situation.

The two consoles basically use the same basic architecture with components designed by the same company (AMD). The PS3 suffered due to its exotic CPU and less powerful GPU.

This time around, the PS4 has every advantage over the XB1, it seems. It's not a matter of trying to figure out some wacky CPU ala PS3. Code designed for PS4 or XB1 will translate pretty easily to the other and likely run faster on PS4.
 
Also this comment from this thread is interesting. :-)



(by Peter Bartholow - CEO of Lab Zero Games - Guys who made Skullgirls)

This quote is most interesting

"ATVI was doing the CoD: Ghosts port to nextgen. It took three weeks for PS4 and came out at 90 FPS unoptimized, and four months on Xbone and came out at 15 FPS."

There was a poster here that commented before this that we'd be seeing the power different at launch if what he'd been hearing about Ghosts is correct. He didn't mention what that was, but what was posted above seems like it'd obviously fit.
 
One source even suggested that enforcing parity across consoles could become a political issue between platform holders, developers and publishers. They said that it could damage perceptions of a cross platform title, not to mention Xbox One, if the PS4 version shipped with an obviously superior resolution and framerate; better to “castrate” the PS4 version and release near-identical games to avoid ruffling any feathers.

This claim was later countered by a contact at a different studio. “It would be totally fine for us to make one version prettier without any political difficulties but it usually doesn’t make financial sense,” they said, “unless it’s a very simple tweak.”

image.axd
 
And now, dear soon to be new XB1 owners, please consider that even the PS4 is pretty weak compared to PCs and what PCs will be in 2-3 years. And then think again what you will get for your 500 bucks and if it's worth it. Vote with your wallets, people, really do it. If stationary consoles are not vastly superior in power to what tablets, smartphones or business notebooks can do in 2-3 years - why even bother?


So your contribution to this thread was not to discuss the article, but to post some PC elitist bullshit?
 
"without optimisation for either console"

Of course the console with the greater raw power will do better without optimisation. That's why optimisation exists...

Which doesn't really change anything though - If both systems are ripe for optimization, both will get even better performance. It goes both ways, remember.
 
That sounds close to what Timothy Lottes said long ago.

Our contacts have told us that memory reads on PS4 are 40-50 per cent quicker than Xbox One, and its ALU (Arithmetic Logic Unit) is around 50 per cent faster. One basic example we were given suggested that without optimisation for either console, a platform-agnostic development build can run at around 30FPS in 1920×1080 on PS4, but it’ll run at “20-something” FPS in 1600×900 on Xbox One. “Xbox One is weaker and it’s a pain to use its ESRAM,” concluded one developer.

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what a silly comment. This is not even remotely the same situation. Besides some ps4 exclusives did make it look like.... Xbox 1.8.. ;)

Whats silly about saying the proof is in the pudding?

All this PR and tech war is meaningless, just as it was every other generation.
 
I don't understand how people on GAF keep acting like all these developers don't know what they're talking about. Wishing something away isn't going to change reality. Looking at even the most basic specs, we don't need anything else to tell us that the PS4 has a significant power edge for graphics. How is it even debatable or in any way surprising? When looking at the architecture it's quite likely easier to program for too, all things being equal.
 
I'll probably get crap for this, but when your publication does things like this, that doesn't exactly make you a trustworthy source for this kind of information.

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I won't go so far as to suggest that they're being paid, because that's a mighty big accusation to make, but you can't exactly blame anybody for questioning their credibility and motives, if he was even being serious, that is.

edge has never been trustworthy. Its just on the same team as most people here now.

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People only believing what they want to believe. Wowsers!
 
I wonder if a majority of devs think using the Esram is also a pain

Sounds like there is yet relatively little library support for eSRAM and developers have to leverage it and its supporting hardware manually. Development on the SPUs of the PS3's Cell benefited greatly from support libraries like SPURS.
 
I doubt developers will gimp the PS4 versions that much. Is it really worth the effort when the PS4 will likely have the higher install base with its cheaper price? It's not like Microsoft will block them from releasing their games on their platform due to a difference in graphics. That would just hurt them when they need all the games they can get to make a comeback. I don't see what the repercussions for a multi platform developer could be from Microsoft. Especially if they're a big enough studio to make a game with graphics that could push the Xbox One that hard. I suppose losing access to Microsoft's marketing dollars could be a threat?
 
Why the hell did MS go for such a solution then? PS3 already showed that developers hate working around not straight forward architecture.

Because they blew it. They designed a console around slow DDR3 where Sony used their hardware and supply chain wizardry to secure GDDR5. eSRAM is nothing but a crutch to compensate for slow system RAM.
 
I have no doubt that the PS4 probably is faster but I've yet to see a game on PS4 that has impressed me graphically like some of the Xbox launch games do. Infamous looks amazing...but it's not up there with Forza.
 
Because the most powerful console always has the best games and outsells the competition....Oh wait that never happens.

The more powerful console has never been both easier to develop for and cheaper though. This situation is pretty unprecedented in console war history.
 
Exclusives?

Really the only reason, yeah, but I really do think that the time of the super big triple a exclusives will come to an end at some point, especially if the tech isn't there. Those games hype always lived from great tech as well. When people just play slightly better looking Halo, a slightly better looking Forza etc. at some point, they will not care anymore or will care less.
 
Other than stirring up fanboy wars, those comments mean very little to be applied as some kind of general measurement or reference. For example: Ubisoft's game, The Crew, ran @ 10fps on PS4, before optimization, and even then, the process didn't sound to be a cakewalk like people like to believe. With all the games targeting 30fps, I'm sure such horrible pre-optimized performamce is quite commom on PS4(as with any system).
 
I guess my next gen console is going to be a PS4 then...

Honestly MS. Why did you go so cheap and fuck it up. The person(s) who decided to not go for high end graphics should be fired.
Seriously as mostly an Xbox gamer(owned all Sony and MS consoles) this kind of sucks. FPS means everything to me and if multiplats play noticeably better on PS4 it may now be my console I play most of my games on. Fuck I wanted to continue with the Xbox family but it sounds like they really screwed up. Knew it was going bad when they announced the stupid name for their console.
 
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