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from the finally-enough-room-for-my-battlefield-videos dept.
Until now, expanding the storage space on your PS4 from the standard 500GB to 1TB built into the system involved opening up the system and sliding in a new internal drive. That process won't be necessary for much longer, as the PS4's upcoming Version 4.5 firmware will add support for USB 3.0 hard drives up to 8TB.
Just before the PS4 launched in 2013, Sony noted that PS4 games had to be "cached to the hard drive to ensure a smooth gaming experience." If streaming all that game data to the system over a USB connection was a bottleneck at launch, it's apparently no longer a concern for Sony (at least for drives that support USB 3.0's faster data transfer rates). Games, saved data, and captures screenshots and videos will all be storable on external drives, and that data will show up on the main system menu without the need to shuffle them to the internal storage.
The announcement of the external HD support comes as the beta of firmware version 4.5 rolls out to selected PS4 users today. That firmware also brings the ability to use in-game screenshots as home screen wallpapers, streamlined interface improvements, and new support for stereoscopic 3D Blu-Ray discs.
Source:
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/02/ps4-will-soon-support-external-usb-hard-drives/
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Pino P on Monday February 06 2017, @04:15PM
If a game console's firmware is Libre, other economic considerations of the interactive entertainment market will probably cause it to fail. We've seen this before with the Atari 2600 and OUYA consoles.
What am I missing?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 06 2017, @04:38PM
The goal of something like OUYA cannot be to provide a platform for the existing paradigm; the goal must be only to find a sustainable existence in the niche market of tinkerers, so that it can exist long enough to evolve a robust ecosystem of its own, one which can exist under the selective pressures that surround such an open system. The goal of OUYA cannot be to provide a gaming platform, but rather an open gaming platform.
That being said, a 200$ million quadruple-A video game is always going to be able to provide an experience that some homebrew game cannot, and would thus still be useful to people who want control of "their" machines; by all means, allow such "high-end" software to be locked down with hardware-based DRM—that doesn't mean you must also lock down my ability to add a fucking external storage device. Get it yet?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 06 2017, @05:23PM
Actually I don't like games being locked with DRM crap. It might get more of a pass on consoles since it is a single hardware ecosystem. DRM causes probl ms, and even on consoles I dislike having to connect to the net so I can download more bullshit DRM just to play a game I bought. What if my internet is down? What if I don't want to connect to the net? Fuck these game companies punishing regular users while not even stoping their games from being hacked and released.
Also, do you get it yet? That phrase is dumb and makes you sound like a completely arrogant tool.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 06 2017, @05:27PM
Get it yet?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 06 2017, @09:44PM
You're not right. DRM and proprietary software are abominations to be boycotted. That means making sacrifices.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 06 2017, @11:05PM
Do you get it yet?
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Wednesday February 15 2017, @11:52PM
I understand the other AC's comment as implying that if video games cannot be distributed to the public without digital restrictions management, video games ought not to be distributed to the public at all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 06 2017, @11:57PM
2600 had more success because of what Nolan Bushnell did. He managed to corner the market. Yep. He knew exactly what it took to make the Atari 2600 and the games. It took at 650x processor a bit of ram and a graphics processor and sound chipset.
Not terribly hard to make for most companies in the Bay area at that time. The thing was seriously expensive when it came out at about 200 bucks in 1977. So not many companies actually got into the game (hehe). But he figured out who wanted to. He would then order custom chips from them for the 'next atari 2600'. Who would turn down a 200k custom chip run from Atari?! Throw in a bit of NDA with non-compete and vendor lockin contracts. With no intention of making that console. He basically clogged up the whole parts ecossytem with purchase orders from Atari. If you look at the nintendo it is not much better tech wise than the atari (with a slightly different CPU and bit more memory). Atari could get the memory/cpus to build the games. No one else could. So companies would cut a deal with Atari to make the game. Once that came unglued the glut you pointed out happened.
Nintendo went with a lockout chip to basically do the exact same thing Atari did. Lock out competitors. Bushnell would have just flooded out the competition from getting memory chips to lock them out (and he did). Nintendo with with a DRM sort of way to do the same thing. When the Atari board ousted him is when the glut started to happen as they went on a 'cost cutting' binge. Those things they cost cut? The very things that let them enjoy a near monopoly on the game market.
Shady as hell. But just as effective.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Tuesday February 07 2017, @03:14AM
If you look at the nintendo it is not much better tech wise than the atari (with a slightly different CPU and bit more memory).
I fell out of my chair reading that. The NES has the same CPU as the Atari 2600 at 50 percent faster clock rate (and no MOS patented BCD acceleration). But its PPU is essentially the ColecoVision's TMS9928A VDC plus scrolling and twice the bit depth, capable of far more detailed graphics than the Atari 2600 TIA.