We’re a year or so into the PlayStation 4 generation, and we’re yet to really see what the console can do. However, the world of technology never stops advancing, and that means that the system is technically already out of date. It’s a fact that Naughty Dog programmer Cort Stratton – who’s a member of the developer’s fabled ICE Team – won’t deny. However, it doesn’t mean that the device won’t impress you for many, many years to come.
“The hardware is no longer top of the line, sure,” he wrote in a conversation with a fan on Twitter. “That’s how consoles have always worked, and has very little to do with game quality. For example: the PlayStation 3 is 2005 era hardware, roughly; compare The Last of Us (2013) to AAA PC games from 2005. Squeezing five to ten years of performance improvements out of a fixed hardware platform is what console programmers do best.”
Considering that we’re still very much in the era of cross-generation games, we reckon that there’s still a lot to come from Sony’s latest box of tricks. DriveClub’s improvements, for example, highlight what a developer can do with a little extra time to work exclusively on the device, while The Order: 1886 also looks like the first real show stopper for the next-gen machine. Let’s consider just how out of date the PS4’s hardware looks when Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End drops, huh?
[source twitter.com, via gamepur.com, psu.com]
Comments 33
Its the cycle of life, but is not about complaining of that cheap ass car, is all about the places that it can take you while on its prime in the product life what matters in the end.
If we throwed away everything that's out of date we would be changing almost every electronic in our household but for now that's only a trend for Smartphones thankfuly,
Even I have doubts this is possible.
Every piece of hardware goes out of date the moment it's released. The trick is to get the most power out of the box that you can for a consumer friendly price. Time will tell, but I think Sony succeeded in that department.
@get2sammyb still that's one of the things about a closed system like a console but as long as the games are fun I don't care how powerful the system is, that's why I still play my NES
It was never top of the line to begin with though. This isn't the situation of a highly customised piece of hardware like the PS3, we've known how it stakes up since day one.
Normal for console gaming. Its all about making a console that is developer friendly. Xbox360 done it last generation and it appears PS4 have nailed it this time.
Oh who cares that according to current commercially available components PS4 is not the best? It's the acceptable fact about consoles: you buy one, and then you just buy games until a new one comes out If you want to have all the newest things, you could play on PC, but that requires 1) more money, 2) more expertise and 3) passion for tinkering Having PS4 I am amazed how mindblowing are some 3DS games played on my 2DS with a whooping 400x240 pixels screen Graphics and nominal power are not everything
Ps4 was never top of the line even when it launched that said it makes no difference to me a gaming pc at that price with great 1st party games. I'm sold!
@KomrathDE I'm not sure PC gaming is more expensive. Games are a lot cheaper and you don't have to pay for PS+ to play online. Which means you have an extra 50 bucks to invest in your PC every year. Also, illegal downloading, which I'm not encouraging in any way, but it's definitely cheaper..
Main reason I bought a console instead of a PC is couch gaming..I know you can connect a controller to a PC but console games are optimized for use with a controller. Nothing beats hanging on the sofa gaming on the tv.
Of course theres a bunch of other factors like not having to be bothered with the technical component of gaming (what's the right motherboard for your pc etc etc) and it seems the main focus of the gaming industry is on consoles nowadays, which means games often relaese on consoles before they do on PC.
@Flurpsel I checked around Watch Dogs premiere how much would I need to pay for a gaming PC and it was like 1400€ + good screen. Well, it's like 3 times PS4 and PS+ for for few years Also, I don't consider illegal gaming, it's just wrong and unless you're a 11-year old you should never do that (unless you'd like other adults to come to your work and steal your work efforts)
For me it's just a pure convenience factor: I want to insert the game or just download on the console and play on the sofa (still for RTS or some strategy games PC is the best way though )
It was never top of the line to begin with and that's just fine.
Point of consoles are to provide a good sweet spot between price and performance as mass market device. It wouldn't be a mass market device if it was a >€800 with more top of the line hardware.
Considering how good inFamous Second Son, KZ Shadow Fall, Driveclub, Uncharted 4 etc look I think they're doing a good job with the graphics and performance.
Lots of PS3 games still look very impressive to this date imo and that's on hardware from 2006 and for €200 for a PS3 you're still getting fantastic looking games imo. Uncharted 2, Uncharted 3, God of War III, God of War: Ascension, Beyond Two Souls still look absolutely fantastic to this day.
@Flurpsel Let's not try to paint piracy as a positive. Your other points are valid, though.
It wasn't top of the line to begin with. No console ever is. It's just highly optimised. If you build a PC to the same spec as a PS4, you won't get the same performance out of it.
That said, nothing electronic is ever 'top of the line' more than a month after it's released. That iPhone 6 they announced last week? Already out of date. (Though to be fair, that's a bad example... it was already 2 years out of date when they announced it, but you get the idea.)
@Cyrso yep, even destiny is looking good, on par withshadow fall at least
Not sure ps4 will last 8 years though?
When ps4 came i was excited as hell! I did expect holographic disks which hold 6tb of information and have bn out since 2006 and 4-8k for games as 4k was already out and 8k had already finished development, i know it eould have cost a fortune but i would have paid it, realistically tho theve made good choices the console as a whole is a great piece of machinery and at a brilliant price i really cant complain but it better only be a 6yr cycle this time i dont think i can handle the lengthy wait and within 6 years this will look bad! Also dont know why no console company has brought out up graded easy to install parts so u can upgrade every year or so and start matching pc's if u have the cash that is lol 😂
@Punished_Boss
The true test is to show game footage to a non-gamer and to see if they react with wow factor......This Uncharted 4 footage blown everyone away, gamer or not. It is the same feeling i got when seeing the first Uncharted for the first time....therefor indicating that the much debated power jump from last gen to this gen is indeed....as big as before.
buying consoles is always about afford-ability and first party games for me, i bought ps4 to play those games that you can't get anywhere else, i could care less how much power it has. that said i don't mind beautiful games
Despite consoles having a fixed hardware setup they are still my first choice. I enjoy pc gaming but to many times I have bought a pc game just to find out I need to update a driver, or make changes to my OP system to make it run. With work and family I need convenience not power. To be honest if guild wars came to consoles and with the witcher coming to consoles I won't be using my pc to game, for the foreseeable future.
Consoles are never really the most powerful hardware, but they allow for something that PC doesn't have that keeps it more even. Optimization, having set of specs(or two including Xbox) makes figuring out how to squeeze all the juice out of the hardware much more possible and means consoles do more with less specs. Look at the difference between Uncharted 2&3, huge difference, and both used 100% of the PS3's power, but optimization means they could do a lot more with it.
Im not funny but the PS4 was never top of the line. It was already outdated on its launch. Gone are the days when consoles have the six month edge of PC's.
I think this generation could be the first to break this limit, cause of cloud computing. Ps now is cloud gaming, but sony could stream games running on hardware much more powerful than ps4.
@get2sammyb Agree 110%, if the PS4/X1 was bleeding people would wine about pricing. 400$ is the definitely the sweet spot and is honestly why Playstation 4 is selling so well, amongst other features or course.
History says gaming success formula is [fun > high end graphics]
Pretty sure this is a non-issue. We all know PS4 software is going to look outstanding for years to come. If there's thing Sony has proved time and time again it's that their consoles have serious legs.
Why would you want to wait for a game like GTA? It's been one year and they just announced it's coming to PC. The way people spoil games because of the internet (FB) why on earth would you want to wait and have that risk?
It's always about optimization rather than raw power when it comes to PC vs console in my opinion. Dedicated hardware with top level hardware access will always result in a more optimized product. Even at it's launch, PS4 wasn't even close to being "top of the line" in terms of raw power.
All in all, I buy consoles for their ease of use, simplicity, and exclusives.
@KomrathDE I'm not an expert on this at all, I've been console gaming since the PS2 basically, but a friend of mine says he's got a gaming computer for 700euro. Of course you can go as crazy as you want and spend up to 2000euro but I understand 700 will get you pretty far.
of course, I won't want to spend $1200 for a console...
@Flurpsel of course you can have one for even 500€ "Gaming PC" is a broad term Still I was looking at Alienware, their laptops start at 999€ and desktops at ~700€ + screen, so it's still a better deal for me to pay 400€ for PS4, since I already have my TV and I use it anyway for other things (ergo I can assume "already had it before")
I built my gaming PC for about $1000 and it's fantastic, much better than my PS4, but my PS4 is not meant to compete with it. I love my PS4 for what it does and I think it has legs for at least another four or five years. Even the Wii U has legs for another three or four.
The PS4 is definitely a very good price quality combination
@Flurpsel I agree. Very powerful little machine for the price. I could not build as powerful a computer that cheaply.
I still play my snes! Great games will always be great games.
There will always be better hardware as soon as the latest/greatest models hit the stores. PS4 is capable of graphics that would please most people I would think, even though game-play is more important. So I don't see this as any kind of disadvantage.
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