This has to be a joke, right? I couldn't put that in my entertainment center, even if I wanted to. I hope the mid-cycle refresh has a more sensible design.
Xbox Series X similarly looks like it can't either. It's weird given how PC-like these devices are that they didn't design for an existing PC chassis, but that's their decision I guess.
That one can at least be easily placed horizontally, even if it would still look pretty out of place. Very few TV stands or lowboards can fit a vertical console inside.
@lmcd, I'm not sure. In the end it does have active cooling so I imagine the efficiency may be lower but not necessarily "not work". The vertical setup really doesn't fit most people's furniture...
Standing up vertically increases the surface area, so you can get a console that's cooler, quieter, and faster all at the same time. In fact, it will also use less electricity too, since you won't have clocking inefficiencies. But it requires careful tuning, and the use of larger fans and heatsinks, as opposed to having more smaller heatsinks and smaller fans.
That's what MS went for with the Xbox V/Series X. They're using vertical alignment, with a massive heat spreader, and large fans. That means it can maintain clocks much easier, whilst the more efficient cooling keeps things quiet and chilled. You're basically getting extra performance, at the same or slightly less electricity use too.
Not to mention XB1 was using an outdated DirectX API, with the XB1X not faring much better with the Premature API that is Dx12 Async. Now they have something that fares (slightly) better than Vulkan with Dx12.1 Ultimate. And MS is optimising the whole system, by going for "faster IPC" on the CPU front which is better than Sony's approach. Also going with a "wider compute" on the GPU front which is also better than Sony's approach. MS is also using a monolithic die, which is a bit more expensive, but is more efficient. We don't know, but Sony could be using a chiplet design.
In terms of SSD, this is a mixed bag. MS's use of a proprietary expansion simply sucks, whereas PS5 will allow people to add an extra M.2 storage. Whilst the use of a proprietary internal SSD for the PS5 kinda sucks, compared to the Mainstream NVMe that MS is using. Both actually have dedicated chips for de/compression and are using modern software for it. But Sony's approach is a bit more "dedicated". And the particular drive in the PS5 is slightly faster at max 5.5GB/s (~5GB/s in use), whilst MS's is slightly slower at max 4.8GB/s (~4.5GB/s in use). So in terms of games, you can build a game that is "infinite" on the PS5 as it can stream content from the SSD within half a second, or at the same speed your character turns around in-game. The Xbox is going to be very similar, but might have a few occasions where it requires the game to pause for one second and catch up. Hence, first-party titles that have been developed and optimised for many many years on the PS5 are going to make Xbox owners jealous.
Overall, third-partly developers are going to have to "downgrade" the level design ever-so slightly to make the PS5 match the Xbox. And the opposite goes for the physics and AI, where they're going to downgrade the Xbox to match the PS5. But when it comes to graphics, it is far more malleable, so the Xbox is going to have a definite advantage there when it comes to Real-Time Raytracing, HDR, Lighting and Shadows, and probably better sustained sustained (dynamic) resolution and sustained framerates.
Also I want to summarise: Without a doubt, the Xbox V (Series X) is cheaper, faster, quieter, uses less power, more durable, much better online servers, and has more TV functionality. On top of that, it also has superb Backwards Comparability for thousands of games ranging from the Original Xbox, the 360, Xbox One, and the XB1X... all upscaled in quality.
However, this slightly "worse" Sony console is going to outsell it. It's got nothing to do with the gimmicks of the controller's TouchPad or PS VR. Simply put, it is because the PS5 will have the exclusive titles people really want.
I'm hyped for both teams, since this is the closest consoles have been to Gaming PCs since the initial release of the 2005 Xbox 360 (though the 2002 Xbox, the 2000 PS2, and the 1996 N64 were pretty competitive too).
Better online servers? Did you every try to use the Master Chief Collection? Or GTA Online? Nothing on the pricing or power consumption front has been confirmed not has anyone done decibel tests (no one has the official units out yet). Also the XBX got rid of the second HDMI port and optical port and both have CEC so I don't get what you mean by better TV functionality. We didn't see the back IO of the PS5 yet. Everything you are saying is speculative so yes there is doubt to everything you said.
You're 100% correct. I was trying to be a little hyperbolic, so yes, it may be inaccurate.
We might be pleasantly surprised by the individual traits and the overall package of the PS5. Or we might be shockingly disappointed by the Xbox's individual traits and/or the overall package. Or both. Those are definitely possibilities.
I was moreso dealing with "probabilities" based on the information we know, and the history associated in this segment. Sony's online servers still have more issues, and much more often than Microsofts. The 2017 XB1X was diverging away from the 2013 Xbox One when it came to TV Functionality, but, Microsoft still has Media as a core component of the Xbox platform. Sony after their problems with BluRay and the PS3 has gone the opposite direction, and they are now "for the players". So that's a probable assumption too. The way the Xbox SeX works is that it has the motherboard split into two, sandwiched by the largest heat spreader I've seen. Then a massive fan is used to cool the entire system. This philosophy is how we build Gaming Rigs. Sony has instead adopted "style" instead of practicality. They seem to have adopted small seems to release air, and the direction hints that we are looking at more fans, but smaller and less efficient fans. Also the size means the inside will house the usual things, but won't house an oversized heatsink like the Xbox otherwise it would be too top-heavy and prone to falling down hard when agitated (eg: subwoofer vibrations). Other points of efficiency lie in the software. With the PS4, Sony had a small advantage over MS by using mostly native code, whilst the Xbox One was using an outdated software version of DirectX API. The latest version, which should be called v13, but is named v12 Ultimate has basically closed the gap on Vulkan and based on history, likely to have slightly surpassed it. Also the Xbox SeX is using a monolithic die, just like your phone, and not using a chiplet design like the Ryzen desktop chips. Chiplet design is more flexible and cheaper, and Sony may have resorted to this. If they did, it would mean a slight hit to power draw and performance. So the Xbox could in fact use less electricity too, as that has been something of focus from the Redmond team lately. As for performance, I already spoke about SSD above. However, in the CPU and GPU front it is a victory for Xbox. And for price, MS has cash reserves to take a hit but Sony doesn't. This could mean a superior Xbox hardware at the same price, or maybe even lower.
Again, these are probabilities. What we should likely expect. It's kind of telling based on MS's confidence, as they have been the first to release details and openly. Whereas Sony looks like the underdog who has to obfuscate information to not seem weak. You notice how I praised the Xbox, and criticised the PS5; this isn't because I am biased, I am simply giving credit where it's due. In fact, if anything I lean closer to Sony based on my past purchases.
With all said and done, I truly am hyped for both teams... let's hope we witness some competitive spirit. It is always refreshing when consoles are giving Gaming PCs a run. We haven't had that for a long time, more than a decade (2008-2020) since the PS3/360 didn't age well against Gaming PCs (mostly a RAM issue) and the current-gen consoles were limited by CPU and originally weren't impressive by GPU either. There's no hope for Nintendo in being competitive, their entire business model is centred around nostalgia and family-fun.
"With the PS4, Sony had a small advantage over MS by using mostly native code, whilst the Xbox One was using an outdated software version of DirectX API."
What are you basing this on? Xbox's Directx suite is not exactly the same as what you get on PC. Game devs have always been able to write low-level, native code on xbox, starting with the original xbox.
Digital Foundry: DirectX 11 vs GNMX vs GNM - what's your take on the strengths and weakness of the APIs available to developers with Xbox One and PlayStation 4? Closer to launch there were some complaints about XO driver performance and CPU overhead on GNMX.
A Way Out dev's next game is "emotional" co-op action adventure platformer It Takes Two Read more
Oles Shishkovstov: Let's put it that way - we have seen scenarios where a single CPU core was fully loaded just by issuing draw-calls on Xbox One (and that's surely on the 'mono' driver with several fast-path calls utilised). Then, the same scenario on PS4, it was actually difficult to find those draw-calls in the profile graphs, because they are using almost no time and are barely visible as a result.
In general - I don't really get why they choose DX11 as a starting point for the console. It's a console! Why care about some legacy stuff at all? On PS4, most GPU commands are just a few DWORDs written into the command buffer, let's say just a few CPU clock cycles. On Xbox One it easily could be one million times slower because of all the bookkeeping the API does.
But Microsoft is not sleeping, really. Each XDK that has been released both before and after the Xbox One launch has brought faster and faster draw-calls to the table. They added tons of features just to work around limitations of the DX11 API model. They even made a DX12/GNM style do-it-yourself API available - although we didn't ship with it on Redux due to time constraints.
"Did you know that Microsoft now allows developers to bypass DX11 and talk to the hardware directly in the similar manner to Sony's GNM API? "
You also commented the part that says: "They even made a DX12/GNM style do-it-yourself API available - although we didn't ship with it on Redux due to time constraints."
That article is from August 2014, so low-level coding has been available on X1 for many years now.
Also, the vanilla DX12 is already low-level; before the Ultimate variant.
P.S. I was under the impression that X1's directx had low-level access since day-one, like previous xboxes, but apparently it wasn't the case. It seems it was very similar to DX11 on windows. On the plus side, they added low-level access very quickly; in a year or so, it seems.
I'd not read too much into the SSD specs - these are theoretical. Having owned many generations of (mostly) high-end consumer SSDs, the reality will be a consistent 7-800MB/s (none of this multu-gigabit nonsense) for bigger assets and 2-300MB/s for smaller stuff. Still 20-30 times that of the currentl HDDs. The difference between XB an PS5 will be affected far more by how old the devices are and what else is on them. I'd wager there will be no discernable difference in day to day use.
Not even its parent company could resist teasing it over being slower than the upcoming XBox?
"PC-like"
It's not PC-like. "Consoles" have been PCs since the switch to Jaguar. They're merely straight-jacketed by software walled gardens to justify their existence.
For consumers, having a unified PC gaming platform, with Vulkan and OpenGL as the software basis and Linux as the OS, makes the most sense. Of course, sense doesn't translate into artificially-inflated levels of profit for certain companies (MS, Sony) at everyone else's expense.
And my Switch definitely gets more playtime than my gaming PC. Console developers have always done great work making beautiful games despite console hardware not being up to par with high-end PC's. Too many developers on PC try to brute-force good graphics rather than having half-decent art direction.
The number of PC games with "half-decent art direction" eclipse the total number of console exclusives - good and bad - in their entirety. There are so many PC games that are playable today from any point over the last 40 years. It's not even a fair comparison.
With the nonstop trend of retro-looking games, I would argue that there are too many PC games that do NOT even attempt to have "good graphics".
Consoles, we beg for backwards compatibility so we can put the old console away and still play the games.
I still have Warcraft 2 and Unreal Tournament installed on my machines today. Literally have games that are 26 years old installed so I can play them whenever I want. Can't do that with a console.
I do agree with the original statement tho about game creators trying to brute force everything. There was a time when they created good games that ran on everything. The last couple of years it seems that the goal is to make a $1,200 GPU and a $700 CPU seem like garbage so they can brag about how intense the game is.
Crysis may have started that but you could set everything on low and play it on a pretty potato system.
This is so incredibly stupid I don't even know what to say. PowerPC is a valid PC CPU, making the Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, and GameCube also PCs. Xbox was also a PC and just about could've shipped as one.
No one cares.
The whole point of games is that when you buy them, you know you are able to play them. A unified PC gaming platform does not offer that. There will never be a singular target that PC developers target. Developing a singular target costs a huge amount of money, so preventing copycats is essential for those that attempt to do so to recoup on the cost. The gaming market is benefited by a low barrier to consumer entry.
So no, I strongly disagree. Walled garden consoles with strong Indie Game publishing options is the best blend of walled garden and open platform. Xbox lets anyone turn their console into a developer console and game submission, from what I can tell, isn't *that* hard to get.
Sure, but if you build a game for pc it will run with anywhede between 5 and 500 fps and stutter on half the systems due to i/o being half the speed you designed the game for while the ui looks weird on a third as the resolution isn't what you expected oh and will it run dualmonitor?
On a console you know what you get and don't have to invest in making Intel integrated graphics work to avoid customer complaints.
Consoles are not defined by the type of their processor or components. MS and sony could use off-the-shelf, pre-built Dell desktops and they still won't be PCs.
Consoles are defined by their software platforms. Yes, it's a "walled garden" but that's the very thing that makes these machines "gaming consoles". They don't have the freedom of PCs obviously, but instead offer a hassle-free way for non-tech savvy people to play games.
P.S. The original xbox had an x86 CPU and desktop grade GPU long before X1/PS4.
It looks great in my teenage mind, not my old mind :) People forget when you are young... I loved the Green Transparent N64 and thought the Gamecube was the coolest thing when it came out.
Anybody know how long before a launch Sony and Microsoft historically offered pricing? Am I right in thinking that it seems late in the game to have no pricing? I wonder if they are waiting to see who blinks first, each not wanting to announce a price that's significantly undercut by the other, but also each having no interest in sparking a price war with a price that is low for the very expensive designs they chose this time around.
Speculation, but both of these companies are probably hoping to come in at $500. How much they lose to hit that price point is anyone's guess. Both chips involved will be absolutely massive if they don't use a chiplet design. If they do use a chiplet design, I wouldn't be shocked if either of them lose only $50/unit, but a monolithic die could push them to $100/unit loss at $500.
My assumed cost breakdown: case costs are probably ~$60, cutting-edge SSDs probably cost $130 bulk at that capacity (might even be understating their price), disk drive $40, $90 GDDR6, $60 board, $30 heatsink/fan, some $ assembly (at least $20, I'd assume, but I don't really know).
I'm pretty sure I'm underselling some of these costs, but that's at least $430. Throw in at least $120 of silicon (no idea what these companies pay for custom silicon but it's probably more) and that's a minimum of $550 BOM. With a monolithic die, that silicon price is at least doubled.
That humpless PS 5? Better make sure you got a really, really fast internet connection, or this will be painfully slow; loading a BluRay full of game information from the net makes for more time gaming on the smartphone. Maybe I am overly pessimistic, but not everyone has gigabit internet, plus the servers have to cooperate even if.
Huh? As a PC gamer I haven’t bought physical media in well over a decade, most AAA games download and install in an hour and I’ve only got a 75mb connect. The reason for a disc drive, IMO, would be IF it is backwards compatible and you still had discs lying around.
In my country(Indonesia), 10mbps network speed subscription is most people got. Over 50mbps is a luxury. People who buy ps5 in my country will get the disc edition rather than digital only
consoles are a joke. they are basically removing any last remaining trace of user control. soon these companies will demand to put 1GB software inside our body, and have 24/7 remote updates available for sony.
who thinks its a good idea to get rid of the competition of say epic store and steam, for one company to have exclusive control of the store. who thinks its a good idea to let sony decide what content is offensive and should be removed. how long before sony views GTA the same way ISIS does, cover up the ladies or you are out.
I'd mostly be concerned about game resale. They might be signaling that games will attach to your account with a code and the code is the game. The disc is just a distribution method. I know they have been salivating over killing the used market.
Soystation 5, their new IP are a horrible disaster and pushing political garbage into games. The Last of Us 2 is a prim example of that. God of War 2018 reboot was a horrible game with ultra castrated Kratos. I don't know which game is worth to buy a PS4, Horizon Zero Dawn also screams agenda.
Their GPU is max, 2060 Super and CPU will barely match the high performance Desktop CPUs because of it's limited clockspeed vs the Zen 2 parts with 4GHz boost clocks. Get a PC which can do more and enjoy GOG store as well.
I know it is a scary prospect and conservatism is all about fear, but the whining is really annoying... sometimes I wonder if force feeding you rednecks some kale like a 3 year old who refuses to eat his vegetables would be the best thing to do so you find out it isn't all that bad and worth trying to blow up all of society over by voting for megalomaniac, kleptocratic madmen...
Consoles have always been less powerful than PCs available at the same time, the console is a machine that plays games optimized specifically for it's hardware in a reasonable way for a low price.
You don't have to buy one if you don't want to. PCs continue to exist and the PC games market is doing better than ever.
Xbox was released in Nov 2001. On the CPU side, P3 and Athlon had already passed its performance more than a year earlier.
On the GPU side, Geforce 3 Ti500, released a month earlier, had a bit better pixel shading performance. Xbox did have two times better vertex shading performance, although at the time games were more pixel shader dependent than vertex.
They usually compare to the slowest thing that exists. They even said nothing can compare with their SSD forgetting the existence of Optane. That being said I like the design (maybe not the colour scheme), consoles are usually ugly, except for the original 360, the GameCube.
Based on the data available it beats the fastest PCIE gen 4 NVME drives pretty easily.
Optane? Optane loses, badly, to the fastest drives now, I'd suggest looking at what Sony is actually doing here, Linus already published an apology video for talking this kind of trash about their storage setup.
That isn't going to help the meh CPU and the apparently very weak GPU(can't handle GI in GT with Polyphony handling the code... Ouch).
I'm still a bit confused by the CPU and GPU being described as "meh", when AFAIK there has never been a console generation that ranked this high compared with contemporary PC hardware. It's a risk going narrower/faster compared with Microsoft's wider/slower approach, but it's not exactly weak.
Cell curb stomped desktop CPUs from its time and the GPU isn't going to be compared to the two year old parts we have now, but from what we have seen that is it's class of performance.
Yes, this gen is *way* better on the CPU side than the laughable failed tablet Jaguar CPU from last gen, but it is questionable if, compared to contemporary hardware, it is top three from Sony(EE was absolutely ahead, PS1 wasn't great but neither were desktop parts in 1994).
Well, non-compressed it is somewhat faster than the fastest current drives. Including compression, it is multiple times faster (2-3x as fast). It isn't marketing bullshit, they do have a very fast SSD in there. But it is the only insanely fast spec of the console - their CPU and GPU aren't as impressive as MS's.
Excuse me. Compression? No files in game storage are uncompressed. You’re already running close to the shannon limit before you start moving data from storage to memory.
... it's a 12-channel PCIe 4.0 controller, with 5.5GB/s sequential reads and likely heaps of IOPS. The PS5 also has dedicated compression/decompression hardware to offload the CPU, as well as other hardware and firmware implementation to speed up storage access that PCs lack. The fastest consumer PC SSDs are 8-channel PCIe 3.0 or 4.0 controllers; some have fast sequential speeds but fall behind in real-world use, the fastest ones are premium 3.0 devices that likely won't hold a candle to this SSD. Here's hoping MS brings DirectStorage to PCs soon.
Agree that the use of more than 8 channels for a consumer unit is worth noticing. 12 Channels and more are otherwise seen in server-type fast storage. Now, with Sony ordering millions of these setups, maybe there's hope they'll make it to desktop PCs at affordable prices.
Forgot TOA add: Not that Sony will sell them, but once economy of scale kicks in, this might happen. Having that raw speed in a HEDT or workstation would be nice, especially for 4K and 8K video editing.
Now, it's going to be surpassed pretty soon, and before its launch, but it IS true. And the SSDs that will surpass it alone will likely cost at least half the price of the PS5 for a while. Even then, the PS5 will have a pretty decent SSD that won't be that much lower than the maximum of PCIE 4.
IKR? Any non-garbage SSD offers all the performance available pretty much, software/OSes still aren’t able to take proper advantage of their abilities.
Looks like a Toyota. A million lines drawn from various places with absolutely no sense, beauty. Probably it has been designed by a Japanese teenager. This is the modern "art".
Looks like a typical "aerodynamic" design, i.e. one that in real life is meant to look "techy" and "sci-fi". I would guess it takes in air from the bottom/widest side and expels it out the other side, though it might be in at both sides/front and out the back. As for wasted volume? Likely quite a lot. I would expect a mostly squared off steel casing inside the plastic panels.
Sony has a thing for designing poor cooling into their consoles. The PS3 too was a disaster here right from the Fat to the Slim models (can't speak for PS4). There are many hacks available (one including a CPU delid and one involving drilling holes into the plastic casing above the CPU fan) that let it run at below 50°C. Standard operating temps routinely touch 70°C and some go as high as 85°C - which is when you get the red and yellow Colours of Death.
I'm personally really happy to see a media remote announced from the start, as getting a decent one for the PS4 has been basically impossible on my end.
Now my most wished for feature is a really quiet cooling solution (and UHD BD-player).
I don't miss a media remote for the PS4 because it has a pretty good HDMI CEC implementation. This means that my TV remote works pretty well for playback controls.
Unfortunately my experience differs from that, despite having a Sony TV no less! :P
HDMI CEC works, technically, but the navigation on the TV remote isn't working as expected - as it works on the TV - leading to a lot of confusion.
To be fair that's less the remote and more the PS4 I expect. The fact that different apps, say the media player, BD player and Netflix app for example, all use different navigation controls is a clusterf*ck.
Enabling the functionality also leads to the PS4 randomly waking up and taking focus from the TV if you press the wrong button on the remote, which is another annoyance to deal with.
I'm glad HDMI CEC exists as it's better than nothing. But the technology is more frustrating to use than anything.
I may be shielded from the rough edges by the fact that my ps4 is connected to an AVR rather than directly to the TV. I also almost exclusively use only the directional buttons for browsing, and the select button to confirm choices. The back button works as youd expect too, along with Play/pause and seeking.
I have a sony tv too and it appears to be relatively painless. The only inconvenience is the lack of a "Home" or PS button. When I need that a few hours into the viewing session, I reach for the controller.
It's been a while since I used the TV remote for the PS4 but IIRC the major issue was that the media buttons don't work. Navigating with the directional buttons and the select button is fine, it's when you get into any kind of media it breaks down.
I haven't actually used any media remote with the PS4, as I mentioned they've been impossible to get, so I may well be enjoying rather unrealistically high expectations of it. :P
Is it weird that the first xboxes had a white and stylish design and now they have a boring black box. And when Sony had only boring black boxes, they went for stylish white?
Personally, I prefer the boring black box. Unless something's gone very wrong in the design process, it should easily have better cooling characteristics due to having larger fans and a more staightforward airflow path.
I'm more excited about what a PS5 release will do to current console prices and availability. Although I don't use my PS3 much because of how much heat it generates compared to my laptop in the summer, I am looking forward to picking up a refurbished or used PS4 Slim after the new generation goes on sale - though I have to admit that its hard to even justify that since most of my gaming happens on my phone nowadays so even a cheap console feels redundant and unnecessary.
Here a suggestion: make those white side panels a bit taller and wider, put a tempered glass plate on the top, and you got yourself a post-modern coffee table; plays games, too.
This would explain why they couldn't clock as high as xbox. Shitty airflow. This thing I guarantee will be loud, just like ps4 pro with it's tiny fan spinning full speed.
At least xbox is promoting a larger slower moving fan, and a far more efficient design.
I'm not picky when it comes to the way a system looks as long as it works well and lets me play the games I want to play. That being said, I think the design is hideously ugly and would gladly take a generic looking black box instead of this. Not that it matters since I know I'll end up buying both eventually.
"They don't have the freedom of PCs obviously, but instead offer a hassle-free way for non-tech savvy people to play games."
What they offer is hassle-free profits for MS and Sony.
There is no good justification for "consoles" these days, outside of portables like the Switch (which aren't consoles, they're handhelds). The reason portables are justified to have some incompatibility is novel form factors.
"Consoles", by contrast, are nothing more than artificial walled software gardens that exist because of consumer stupidity.
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reckless76 - Thursday, June 11, 2020 - link
This has to be a joke, right? I couldn't put that in my entertainment center, even if I wanted to. I hope the mid-cycle refresh has a more sensible design.lmcd - Thursday, June 11, 2020 - link
Xbox Series X similarly looks like it can't either. It's weird given how PC-like these devices are that they didn't design for an existing PC chassis, but that's their decision I guess.close - Thursday, June 11, 2020 - link
That one can at least be easily placed horizontally, even if it would still look pretty out of place. Very few TV stands or lowboards can fit a vertical console inside.lmcd - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
I thought they said the cooling wasn't designed for it?close - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
@lmcd, I'm not sure. In the end it does have active cooling so I imagine the efficiency may be lower but not necessarily "not work". The vertical setup really doesn't fit most people's furniture...lmcd - Saturday, June 13, 2020 - link
If there are intakes/exhausts on both side edges, could certainly be a problem.voicequal - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
Looks like a picture was added to show horizontal placement, so it should fit fine.Looks good to me as long as the thermals work out -- those vents running down the center are a positive sign this thing will run cool and quiet.
patel21 - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
Xbox Series X looks a lot better, mature and restrained compared to this ****showiphonebestgamephone - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
Ah yes,maturity is measured in cubes.patel21 - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
Exactly. I am pleased that you get me.0ldman79 - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
Resistance is futile.You will be assimilated.
iphonebestgamephone - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
Sigh.Tams80 - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
It's a GAME console.Mature and restrained is fine, but to expect it?
s.yu - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
A sigh of relief. This is worlds better than that v shaped engineering model leaked previously.Tams80 - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
You shouldn't be suffocating machines that need good airflow in an entertainment centre in the first place.As for the look; I'm sure you could buy a skin or shell out for Colorware to change it.
austinsguitar - Thursday, June 11, 2020 - link
looks horrible. why make a console stand up straight if its thin? just make it beafy already.Kangal - Saturday, June 13, 2020 - link
Standing up vertically increases the surface area, so you can get a console that's cooler, quieter, and faster all at the same time. In fact, it will also use less electricity too, since you won't have clocking inefficiencies. But it requires careful tuning, and the use of larger fans and heatsinks, as opposed to having more smaller heatsinks and smaller fans.That's what MS went for with the Xbox V/Series X. They're using vertical alignment, with a massive heat spreader, and large fans. That means it can maintain clocks much easier, whilst the more efficient cooling keeps things quiet and chilled. You're basically getting extra performance, at the same or slightly less electricity use too.
Not to mention XB1 was using an outdated DirectX API, with the XB1X not faring much better with the Premature API that is Dx12 Async. Now they have something that fares (slightly) better than Vulkan with Dx12.1 Ultimate. And MS is optimising the whole system, by going for "faster IPC" on the CPU front which is better than Sony's approach. Also going with a "wider compute" on the GPU front which is also better than Sony's approach. MS is also using a monolithic die, which is a bit more expensive, but is more efficient. We don't know, but Sony could be using a chiplet design.
In terms of SSD, this is a mixed bag.
MS's use of a proprietary expansion simply sucks, whereas PS5 will allow people to add an extra M.2 storage. Whilst the use of a proprietary internal SSD for the PS5 kinda sucks, compared to the Mainstream NVMe that MS is using. Both actually have dedicated chips for de/compression and are using modern software for it. But Sony's approach is a bit more "dedicated". And the particular drive in the PS5 is slightly faster at max 5.5GB/s (~5GB/s in use), whilst MS's is slightly slower at max 4.8GB/s (~4.5GB/s in use). So in terms of games, you can build a game that is "infinite" on the PS5 as it can stream content from the SSD within half a second, or at the same speed your character turns around in-game. The Xbox is going to be very similar, but might have a few occasions where it requires the game to pause for one second and catch up. Hence, first-party titles that have been developed and optimised for many many years on the PS5 are going to make Xbox owners jealous.
Overall, third-partly developers are going to have to "downgrade" the level design ever-so slightly to make the PS5 match the Xbox. And the opposite goes for the physics and AI, where they're going to downgrade the Xbox to match the PS5. But when it comes to graphics, it is far more malleable, so the Xbox is going to have a definite advantage there when it comes to Real-Time Raytracing, HDR, Lighting and Shadows, and probably better sustained sustained (dynamic) resolution and sustained framerates.
Kangal - Saturday, June 13, 2020 - link
Also I want to summarise:Without a doubt, the Xbox V (Series X) is cheaper, faster, quieter, uses less power, more durable, much better online servers, and has more TV functionality. On top of that, it also has superb Backwards Comparability for thousands of games ranging from the Original Xbox, the 360, Xbox One, and the XB1X... all upscaled in quality.
However, this slightly "worse" Sony console is going to outsell it.
It's got nothing to do with the gimmicks of the controller's TouchPad or PS VR. Simply put, it is because the PS5 will have the exclusive titles people really want.
I'm hyped for both teams, since this is the closest consoles have been to Gaming PCs since the initial release of the 2005 Xbox 360 (though the 2002 Xbox, the 2000 PS2, and the 1996 N64 were pretty competitive too).
quiksilvr - Monday, June 15, 2020 - link
Better online servers? Did you every try to use the Master Chief Collection? Or GTA Online? Nothing on the pricing or power consumption front has been confirmed not has anyone done decibel tests (no one has the official units out yet). Also the XBX got rid of the second HDMI port and optical port and both have CEC so I don't get what you mean by better TV functionality. We didn't see the back IO of the PS5 yet. Everything you are saying is speculative so yes there is doubt to everything you said.Kangal - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link
You're 100% correct.I was trying to be a little hyperbolic, so yes, it may be inaccurate.
We might be pleasantly surprised by the individual traits and the overall package of the PS5. Or we might be shockingly disappointed by the Xbox's individual traits and/or the overall package. Or both. Those are definitely possibilities.
I was moreso dealing with "probabilities" based on the information we know, and the history associated in this segment. Sony's online servers still have more issues, and much more often than Microsofts. The 2017 XB1X was diverging away from the 2013 Xbox One when it came to TV Functionality, but, Microsoft still has Media as a core component of the Xbox platform. Sony after their problems with BluRay and the PS3 has gone the opposite direction, and they are now "for the players". So that's a probable assumption too. The way the Xbox SeX works is that it has the motherboard split into two, sandwiched by the largest heat spreader I've seen. Then a massive fan is used to cool the entire system. This philosophy is how we build Gaming Rigs. Sony has instead adopted "style" instead of practicality. They seem to have adopted small seems to release air, and the direction hints that we are looking at more fans, but smaller and less efficient fans. Also the size means the inside will house the usual things, but won't house an oversized heatsink like the Xbox otherwise it would be too top-heavy and prone to falling down hard when agitated (eg: subwoofer vibrations). Other points of efficiency lie in the software. With the PS4, Sony had a small advantage over MS by using mostly native code, whilst the Xbox One was using an outdated software version of DirectX API. The latest version, which should be called v13, but is named v12 Ultimate has basically closed the gap on Vulkan and based on history, likely to have slightly surpassed it. Also the Xbox SeX is using a monolithic die, just like your phone, and not using a chiplet design like the Ryzen desktop chips. Chiplet design is more flexible and cheaper, and Sony may have resorted to this. If they did, it would mean a slight hit to power draw and performance. So the Xbox could in fact use less electricity too, as that has been something of focus from the Redmond team lately. As for performance, I already spoke about SSD above. However, in the CPU and GPU front it is a victory for Xbox. And for price, MS has cash reserves to take a hit but Sony doesn't. This could mean a superior Xbox hardware at the same price, or maybe even lower.
Again, these are probabilities. What we should likely expect. It's kind of telling based on MS's confidence, as they have been the first to release details and openly. Whereas Sony looks like the underdog who has to obfuscate information to not seem weak. You notice how I praised the Xbox, and criticised the PS5; this isn't because I am biased, I am simply giving credit where it's due. In fact, if anything I lean closer to Sony based on my past purchases.
With all said and done, I truly am hyped for both teams... let's hope we witness some competitive spirit. It is always refreshing when consoles are giving Gaming PCs a run. We haven't had that for a long time, more than a decade (2008-2020) since the PS3/360 didn't age well against Gaming PCs (mostly a RAM issue) and the current-gen consoles were limited by CPU and originally weren't impressive by GPU either. There's no hope for Nintendo in being competitive, their entire business model is centred around nostalgia and family-fun.
eddman - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link
"With the PS4, Sony had a small advantage over MS by using mostly native code, whilst the Xbox One was using an outdated software version of DirectX API."What are you basing this on? Xbox's Directx suite is not exactly the same as what you get on PC. Game devs have always been able to write low-level, native code on xbox, starting with the original xbox.
P.S. XSX
Kangal - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
Here you go:Digital Foundry: DirectX 11 vs GNMX vs GNM - what's your take on the strengths and weakness of the APIs available to developers with Xbox One and PlayStation 4? Closer to launch there were some complaints about XO driver performance and CPU overhead on GNMX.
A Way Out dev's next game is "emotional" co-op action adventure platformer It Takes Two
Read more
Oles Shishkovstov: Let's put it that way - we have seen scenarios where a single CPU core was fully loaded just by issuing draw-calls on Xbox One (and that's surely on the 'mono' driver with several fast-path calls utilised). Then, the same scenario on PS4, it was actually difficult to find those draw-calls in the profile graphs, because they are using almost no time and are barely visible as a result.
In general - I don't really get why they choose DX11 as a starting point for the console. It's a console! Why care about some legacy stuff at all? On PS4, most GPU commands are just a few DWORDs written into the command buffer, let's say just a few CPU clock cycles. On Xbox One it easily could be one million times slower because of all the bookkeeping the API does.
But Microsoft is not sleeping, really. Each XDK that has been released both before and after the Xbox One launch has brought faster and faster draw-calls to the table. They added tons of features just to work around limitations of the DX11 API model. They even made a DX12/GNM style do-it-yourself API available - although we didn't ship with it on Redux due to time constraints.
eddman - Sunday, June 21, 2020 - link
In that article it also says:"Did you know that Microsoft now allows developers to bypass DX11 and talk to the hardware directly in the similar manner to Sony's GNM API? "
You also commented the part that says: "They even made a DX12/GNM style do-it-yourself API available - although we didn't ship with it on Redux due to time constraints."
That article is from August 2014, so low-level coding has been available on X1 for many years now.
Also, the vanilla DX12 is already low-level; before the Ultimate variant.
P.S. I was under the impression that X1's directx had low-level access since day-one, like previous xboxes, but apparently it wasn't the case. It seems it was very similar to DX11 on windows. On the plus side, they added low-level access very quickly; in a year or so, it seems.
dontlistentome - Monday, June 15, 2020 - link
I'd not read too much into the SSD specs - these are theoretical. Having owned many generations of (mostly) high-end consumer SSDs, the reality will be a consistent 7-800MB/s (none of this multu-gigabit nonsense) for bigger assets and 2-300MB/s for smaller stuff. Still 20-30 times that of the currentl HDDs. The difference between XB an PS5 will be affected far more by how old the devices are and what else is on them. I'd wager there will be no discernable difference in day to day use.Oxford Guy - Thursday, June 11, 2020 - link
"Sony Teases PlayStation 5 Design"Not even its parent company could resist teasing it over being slower than the upcoming XBox?
"PC-like"
It's not PC-like. "Consoles" have been PCs since the switch to Jaguar. They're merely straight-jacketed by software walled gardens to justify their existence.
For consumers, having a unified PC gaming platform, with Vulkan and OpenGL as the software basis and Linux as the OS, makes the most sense. Of course, sense doesn't translate into artificially-inflated levels of profit for certain companies (MS, Sony) at everyone else's expense.
brucethemoose - Thursday, June 11, 2020 - link
Theres something to be said for hardware consistency.Just look at the Switch... you don't see devs backporting AAAs to, say, the significantly faster GT 740.
Dizoja86 - Thursday, June 11, 2020 - link
And my Switch definitely gets more playtime than my gaming PC. Console developers have always done great work making beautiful games despite console hardware not being up to par with high-end PC's. Too many developers on PC try to brute-force good graphics rather than having half-decent art direction.nathanddrews - Thursday, June 11, 2020 - link
The number of PC games with "half-decent art direction" eclipse the total number of console exclusives - good and bad - in their entirety. There are so many PC games that are playable today from any point over the last 40 years. It's not even a fair comparison.With the nonstop trend of retro-looking games, I would argue that there are too many PC games that do NOT even attempt to have "good graphics".
0ldman79 - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
Gotta agree with that one.Consoles, we beg for backwards compatibility so we can put the old console away and still play the games.
I still have Warcraft 2 and Unreal Tournament installed on my machines today. Literally have games that are 26 years old installed so I can play them whenever I want.
Can't do that with a console.
I do agree with the original statement tho about game creators trying to brute force everything. There was a time when they created good games that ran on everything. The last couple of years it seems that the goal is to make a $1,200 GPU and a $700 CPU seem like garbage so they can brag about how intense the game is.
Crysis may have started that but you could set everything on low and play it on a pretty potato system.
olafgarten - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
What I don't understand is why recent games are 100gb+ when a few years ago games were much smaller, and there isn't really any drastic improvement.iphonebestgamephone - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
Mostly the textures i guess, should be upto 4k now.lmcd - Thursday, June 11, 2020 - link
This is so incredibly stupid I don't even know what to say. PowerPC is a valid PC CPU, making the Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, and GameCube also PCs. Xbox was also a PC and just about could've shipped as one.No one cares.
The whole point of games is that when you buy them, you know you are able to play them. A unified PC gaming platform does not offer that. There will never be a singular target that PC developers target. Developing a singular target costs a huge amount of money, so preventing copycats is essential for those that attempt to do so to recoup on the cost. The gaming market is benefited by a low barrier to consumer entry.
So no, I strongly disagree. Walled garden consoles with strong Indie Game publishing options is the best blend of walled garden and open platform. Xbox lets anyone turn their console into a developer console and game submission, from what I can tell, isn't *that* hard to get.
willis936 - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
I would like to inform you that the year is 2020 AD. Graphics APIs with support going back 15 years exist.jospoortvliet - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
Sure, but if you build a game for pc it will run with anywhede between 5 and 500 fps and stutter on half the systems due to i/o being half the speed you designed the game for while the ui looks weird on a third as the resolution isn't what you expected oh and will it run dualmonitor?On a console you know what you get and don't have to invest in making Intel integrated graphics work to avoid customer complaints.
eddman - Saturday, June 13, 2020 - link
Consoles are not defined by the type of their processor or components. MS and sony could use off-the-shelf, pre-built Dell desktops and they still won't be PCs.Consoles are defined by their software platforms. Yes, it's a "walled garden" but that's the very thing that makes these machines "gaming consoles". They don't have the freedom of PCs obviously, but instead offer a hassle-free way for non-tech savvy people to play games.
P.S. The original xbox had an x86 CPU and desktop grade GPU long before X1/PS4.
Alistair - Thursday, June 11, 2020 - link
It looks great in my teenage mind, not my old mind :) People forget when you are young... I loved the Green Transparent N64 and thought the Gamecube was the coolest thing when it came out.nwrigley - Thursday, June 11, 2020 - link
I still think the Gamecube is the coolest thing. Honestly, I'd be curious to see a modern console that was more cube shaped.brucethemoose - Thursday, June 11, 2020 - link
Kinda like the Xbox Series X?lmcd - Thursday, June 11, 2020 - link
Xbox Series X is at least 2x the size of GameCube. Possibly more.Valantar - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
Isn't it pretty much exactly two gamecubes stacked on top of each other? This, though, is much bigger than that again: https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/sony-sh...soylent boy - Thursday, June 11, 2020 - link
There's just something about this look. I love it!iampivot - Thursday, June 11, 2020 - link
Stormtrooper look.samplesizeofone - Thursday, June 11, 2020 - link
It reminds me of a sentry from Portal. That makes me happy :-) I like it.Tabalan - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
Damn, Stormtrooper look = at least -100 to aim in all shooters ;PBlazingDragon - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
I really like it too.bernardl - Thursday, June 11, 2020 - link
Just love the design!Yojimbo - Thursday, June 11, 2020 - link
Anybody know how long before a launch Sony and Microsoft historically offered pricing? Am I right in thinking that it seems late in the game to have no pricing? I wonder if they are waiting to see who blinks first, each not wanting to announce a price that's significantly undercut by the other, but also each having no interest in sparking a price war with a price that is low for the very expensive designs they chose this time around.lmcd - Thursday, June 11, 2020 - link
Speculation, but both of these companies are probably hoping to come in at $500. How much they lose to hit that price point is anyone's guess. Both chips involved will be absolutely massive if they don't use a chiplet design. If they do use a chiplet design, I wouldn't be shocked if either of them lose only $50/unit, but a monolithic die could push them to $100/unit loss at $500.My assumed cost breakdown: case costs are probably ~$60, cutting-edge SSDs probably cost $130 bulk at that capacity (might even be understating their price), disk drive $40, $90 GDDR6, $60 board, $30 heatsink/fan, some $ assembly (at least $20, I'd assume, but I don't really know).
I'm pretty sure I'm underselling some of these costs, but that's at least $430. Throw in at least $120 of silicon (no idea what these companies pay for custom silicon but it's probably more) and that's a minimum of $550 BOM. With a monolithic die, that silicon price is at least doubled.
Meteor2 - Monday, June 15, 2020 - link
Cases, disc drives, heat sinks fans are all sub $10. Assembly cents. These aren't PCs built out of bits from Newegg.eastcoast_pete - Thursday, June 11, 2020 - link
That humpless PS 5? Better make sure you got a really, really fast internet connection, or this will be painfully slow; loading a BluRay full of game information from the net makes for more time gaming on the smartphone. Maybe I am overly pessimistic, but not everyone has gigabit internet, plus the servers have to cooperate even if.Tams80 - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
You know what the easy solution to that is?Get the version with the BD drive.
Icehawk - Saturday, June 13, 2020 - link
Huh? As a PC gamer I haven’t bought physical media in well over a decade, most AAA games download and install in an hour and I’ve only got a 75mb connect. The reason for a disc drive, IMO, would be IF it is backwards compatible and you still had discs lying around.a94 - Saturday, June 13, 2020 - link
In my country(Indonesia), 10mbps network speed subscription is most people got. Over 50mbps is a luxury. People who buy ps5 in my country will get the disc edition rather than digital onlyazfacea - Thursday, June 11, 2020 - link
consoles are a joke. they are basically removing any last remaining trace of user control. soon these companies will demand to put 1GB software inside our body, and have 24/7 remote updates available for sony.who thinks its a good idea to get rid of the competition of say epic store and steam, for one company to have exclusive control of the store. who thinks its a good idea to let sony decide what content is offensive and should be removed. how long before sony views GTA the same way ISIS does, cover up the ladies or you are out.
Gigaplex - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
Consoles were a thing long before Steam et al. You do have the option to not buy one.Midwayman - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
I'd mostly be concerned about game resale. They might be signaling that games will attach to your account with a code and the code is the game. The disc is just a distribution method. I know they have been salivating over killing the used market.Quantumz0d - Thursday, June 11, 2020 - link
Soystation 5, their new IP are a horrible disaster and pushing political garbage into games. The Last of Us 2 is a prim example of that. God of War 2018 reboot was a horrible game with ultra castrated Kratos. I don't know which game is worth to buy a PS4, Horizon Zero Dawn also screams agenda.Their GPU is max, 2060 Super and CPU will barely match the high performance Desktop CPUs because of it's limited clockspeed vs the Zen 2 parts with 4GHz boost clocks. Get a PC which can do more and enjoy GOG store as well.
Beaver M. - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
Either learn to live with it, or start doing something against it. Its only getting worse when these extremists get their will and nobody says stop.jospoortvliet - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
or maybe just get over it and accept you don't live in the 1600's and we have moved on from thinking like cave men?jospoortvliet - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
I know it is a scary prospect and conservatism is all about fear, but the whining is really annoying... sometimes I wonder if force feeding you rednecks some kale like a 3 year old who refuses to eat his vegetables would be the best thing to do so you find out it isn't all that bad and worth trying to blow up all of society over by voting for megalomaniac, kleptocratic madmen...Beaver M. - Saturday, June 13, 2020 - link
Says the one whos side says whites are inherently racist and loves a mass murdering president.Beaver M. - Saturday, June 13, 2020 - link
2 presidents actually. Bush is on your side too now, incl. his neocon squad. Jesus Christ...LordSojar - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
You know what screams desperation? Posting politics on a tech review comment section. Pathetic.Flunk - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
Consoles have always been less powerful than PCs available at the same time, the console is a machine that plays games optimized specifically for it's hardware in a reasonable way for a low price.You don't have to buy one if you don't want to. PCs continue to exist and the PC games market is doing better than ever.
Icehawk - Saturday, June 13, 2020 - link
First Xbox was more powerful than available PCs at the time, for a few months.eddman - Saturday, June 13, 2020 - link
Only in one processing aspect, IINM.Xbox was released in Nov 2001. On the CPU side, P3 and Athlon had already passed its performance more than a year earlier.
On the GPU side, Geforce 3 Ti500, released a month earlier, had a bit better pixel shading performance. Xbox did have two times better vertex shading performance, although at the time games were more pixel shader dependent than vertex.
Geforce 4 was released three months later.
xefe - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
What the fuck are you even talking about? What extremists? Are you both insane?LordSojar - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
Yes, they are.mobutu - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
"a new ultra-fast SSD and storage architecture that is said to be multiple times faster than the best PC storage devices on the market"what a bunch of marketing bullshit crap
Xex360 - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
They usually compare to the slowest thing that exists. They even said nothing can compare with their SSD forgetting the existence of Optane.That being said I like the design (maybe not the colour scheme), consoles are usually ugly, except for the original 360, the GameCube.
Lord of the Bored - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
In fairness, I think most of us forgot about the existence of Optane.Andrei Frumusanu - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
It's a technically accurate description.BenSkywalker - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
Based on the data available it beats the fastest PCIE gen 4 NVME drives pretty easily.Optane? Optane loses, badly, to the fastest drives now, I'd suggest looking at what Sony is actually doing here, Linus already published an apology video for talking this kind of trash about their storage setup.
That isn't going to help the meh CPU and the apparently very weak GPU(can't handle GI in GT with Polyphony handling the code... Ouch).
Spunjji - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
I'm still a bit confused by the CPU and GPU being described as "meh", when AFAIK there has never been a console generation that ranked this high compared with contemporary PC hardware. It's a risk going narrower/faster compared with Microsoft's wider/slower approach, but it's not exactly weak.BenSkywalker - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
Cell curb stomped desktop CPUs from its time and the GPU isn't going to be compared to the two year old parts we have now, but from what we have seen that is it's class of performance.Yes, this gen is *way* better on the CPU side than the laughable failed tablet Jaguar CPU from last gen, but it is questionable if, compared to contemporary hardware, it is top three from Sony(EE was absolutely ahead, PS1 wasn't great but neither were desktop parts in 1994).
Zizy - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
Well, non-compressed it is somewhat faster than the fastest current drives. Including compression, it is multiple times faster (2-3x as fast). It isn't marketing bullshit, they do have a very fast SSD in there. But it is the only insanely fast spec of the console - their CPU and GPU aren't as impressive as MS's.willis936 - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
Excuse me. Compression? No files in game storage are uncompressed. You’re already running close to the shannon limit before you start moving data from storage to memory.BenSkywalker - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
Compression levels are likely much higher, they have dedicated hardware for decompression.Valantar - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
... it's a 12-channel PCIe 4.0 controller, with 5.5GB/s sequential reads and likely heaps of IOPS. The PS5 also has dedicated compression/decompression hardware to offload the CPU, as well as other hardware and firmware implementation to speed up storage access that PCs lack. The fastest consumer PC SSDs are 8-channel PCIe 3.0 or 4.0 controllers; some have fast sequential speeds but fall behind in real-world use, the fastest ones are premium 3.0 devices that likely won't hold a candle to this SSD. Here's hoping MS brings DirectStorage to PCs soon.eastcoast_pete - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
Agree that the use of more than 8 channels for a consumer unit is worth noticing. 12 Channels and more are otherwise seen in server-type fast storage. Now, with Sony ordering millions of these setups, maybe there's hope they'll make it to desktop PCs at affordable prices.eastcoast_pete - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
Forgot TOA add: Not that Sony will sell them, but once economy of scale kicks in, this might happen. Having that raw speed in a HEDT or workstation would be nice, especially for 4K and 8K video editing.Flunk - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
Techincally 1.00000001 x faster is a multiple. Those weasels will say anything.Tams80 - Saturday, June 13, 2020 - link
It's true though. "On the market".Now, it's going to be surpassed pretty soon, and before its launch, but it IS true.
And the SSDs that will surpass it alone will likely cost at least half the price of the PS5 for a while. Even then, the PS5 will have a pretty decent SSD that won't be that much lower than the maximum of PCIE 4.
And PCIE 5 isn't coming anytime soon.
Icehawk - Saturday, June 13, 2020 - link
IKR? Any non-garbage SSD offers all the performance available pretty much, software/OSes still aren’t able to take proper advantage of their abilities.yeeeeman - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
Looks like a Toyota. A million lines drawn from various places with absolutely no sense, beauty. Probably it has been designed by a Japanese teenager. This is the modern "art".nerd1 - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
Absolutely horrible industrial design compared to new xbox. How is it supposed to cool itself? How much volume is wasted by the curved casing?Valantar - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
Looks like a typical "aerodynamic" design, i.e. one that in real life is meant to look "techy" and "sci-fi". I would guess it takes in air from the bottom/widest side and expels it out the other side, though it might be in at both sides/front and out the back. As for wasted volume? Likely quite a lot. I would expect a mostly squared off steel casing inside the plastic panels.willis936 - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
I wonder how much more force it hits the ground because of its low drag design.ads295 - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
Sony has a thing for designing poor cooling into their consoles. The PS3 too was a disaster here right from the Fat to the Slim models (can't speak for PS4). There are many hacks available (one including a CPU delid and one involving drilling holes into the plastic casing above the CPU fan) that let it run at below 50°C. Standard operating temps routinely touch 70°C and some go as high as 85°C - which is when you get the red and yellow Colours of Death.Exodite - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
I'm personally really happy to see a media remote announced from the start, as getting a decent one for the PS4 has been basically impossible on my end.Now my most wished for feature is a really quiet cooling solution (and UHD BD-player).
Valantar - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
I believe what you are asking for is called the Xbox Series X.Exodite - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
Unfortunately, no.We're already invested in the PlayStation ecosystem and the PS5's backwards compatibility with the PS4 is a not insignificant advantage.
nucc1 - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
I don't miss a media remote for the PS4 because it has a pretty good HDMI CEC implementation. This means that my TV remote works pretty well for playback controls.Exodite - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
Unfortunately my experience differs from that, despite having a Sony TV no less! :PHDMI CEC works, technically, but the navigation on the TV remote isn't working as expected - as it works on the TV - leading to a lot of confusion.
To be fair that's less the remote and more the PS4 I expect. The fact that different apps, say the media player, BD player and Netflix app for example, all use different navigation controls is a clusterf*ck.
Enabling the functionality also leads to the PS4 randomly waking up and taking focus from the TV if you press the wrong button on the remote, which is another annoyance to deal with.
I'm glad HDMI CEC exists as it's better than nothing. But the technology is more frustrating to use than anything.
YMMV.
nucc1 - Saturday, June 13, 2020 - link
I may be shielded from the rough edges by the fact that my ps4 is connected to an AVR rather than directly to the TV. I also almost exclusively use only the directional buttons for browsing, and the select button to confirm choices. The back button works as youd expect too, along with Play/pause and seeking.I have a sony tv too and it appears to be relatively painless. The only inconvenience is the lack of a "Home" or PS button. When I need that a few hours into the viewing session, I reach for the controller.
Exodite - Sunday, June 14, 2020 - link
That's good to know!It's been a while since I used the TV remote for the PS4 but IIRC the major issue was that the media buttons don't work. Navigating with the directional buttons and the select button is fine, it's when you get into any kind of media it breaks down.
I haven't actually used any media remote with the PS4, as I mentioned they've been impossible to get, so I may well be enjoying rather unrealistically high expectations of it. :P
tamalero - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
Is it weird that the first xboxes had a white and stylish design and now they have a boring black box.And when Sony had only boring black boxes, they went for stylish white?
Valantar - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
What? https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thu...You must be thinking of the 360. Also, "stylish"? This thing? It is tacky AF.
Spunjji - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
Personally, I prefer the boring black box. Unless something's gone very wrong in the design process, it should easily have better cooling characteristics due to having larger fans and a more staightforward airflow path.StevoLincolnite - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
That's where my DSL modem go to.Valantar - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
It's worth mentioning that this thing is HUGE. Much, much bigger than any previous console, and much bigger (taller) than the XSX. https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/sony-sh...Also, of course, it's ugly too.
ads295 - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
Do you go by the same username on TechPowerUp?PeachNCream - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
I'm more excited about what a PS5 release will do to current console prices and availability. Although I don't use my PS3 much because of how much heat it generates compared to my laptop in the summer, I am looking forward to picking up a refurbished or used PS4 Slim after the new generation goes on sale - though I have to admit that its hard to even justify that since most of my gaming happens on my phone nowadays so even a cheap console feels redundant and unnecessary.Samus - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
It's funny how well the PS2 has stood the test of time as a contemporary design, aging well to this day. Then they come up with this...eastcoast_pete - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
Here a suggestion: make those white side panels a bit taller and wider, put a tempered glass plate on the top, and you got yourself a post-modern coffee table; plays games, too.Sttm - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
This is a stupid design that looks fit for a Chinese OEM console of the 2000s.ET - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
The inter-haters are having a field day, I see.Dug - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
This would explain why they couldn't clock as high as xbox.Shitty airflow. This thing I guarantee will be loud, just like ps4 pro with it's tiny fan spinning full speed.
At least xbox is promoting a larger slower moving fan, and a far more efficient design.
Hardware Geek - Sunday, June 14, 2020 - link
I'm not picky when it comes to the way a system looks as long as it works well and lets me play the games I want to play. That being said, I think the design is hideously ugly and would gladly take a generic looking black box instead of this. Not that it matters since I know I'll end up buying both eventually.Oxford Guy - Monday, June 15, 2020 - link
"They don't have the freedom of PCs obviously, but instead offer a hassle-free way for non-tech savvy people to play games."What they offer is hassle-free profits for MS and Sony.
There is no good justification for "consoles" these days, outside of portables like the Switch (which aren't consoles, they're handhelds). The reason portables are justified to have some incompatibility is novel form factors.
"Consoles", by contrast, are nothing more than artificial walled software gardens that exist because of consumer stupidity.
Foxorroxors - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link
Lol PC5 reminds me of an Alienware 🤣vol.2 - Wednesday, June 17, 2020 - link
yeah, just came here to say the PS5 is ugly. super ugly. Sony, please listen to early feedback and scrap the design.