Sony has announced the PlayStation Neo, formerly referred to as "PS4.5" or "PS4K", and Microsoft has announced the Xbox "Project Scorpio". Both will be "mid-cycle refreshes" of the preceding consoles that will significantly boost graphics power, supposedly allowing for existing games to be played at a minimum of 1080p/60FPS, using virtual reality headsets, or at 4K (2160p):
And so gamers have been promised a console for release in 2017 that packs a whopping 6 teraflops of processing power (compared to the current Xbox One's mere 1.31), along with a much improved 320GB/s of memory bandwidth. Even ignoring some of Microsoft's more questionable claims (uncompressed pixels anyone?), those are some impressive specs. Forget 1080p/60fps: Microsoft says that this system is more than enough hardware to push a VR headset (the company isn't saying which one yet, but I'd bet on Oculus), and run regular games at 4K resolution with support for High Dynamic Range (HDR).
[...] The PlayStation Neo has it even harder. Leaked specs put its performance at somewhere around 4.2 teraflops, while its 36 GCN compute units clocked at 911MHz strongly suggest it's using a form of AMD's upcoming Polaris architecture, most likely a down-clocked RX 480. Memory bandwidth is up compared to the PS4 at 218GB/s but far behind that of Scorpio. At this stage, those specs are unlikely to change, particularly as developer kits have already gone out to developers. A radical redesign to match Scorpio's GPU—which, given what we know about AMD's GPU lineup and the cooling setup in Project Scorpio, is likely to be a down-clocked version of Vega rather than an overlocked Polaris—is pretty much off the table.
The two consoles should be available sometime in 2017. Sony is also launching a PSVR head-mounted display on October 13th.
If nothing else, the enhanced capabilities of these new consoles will help relieve "consolitis" (PC games being held back by weak consoles). Both consoles are likely to feature another 8-core AMD CPU: either a higher-clocked Jaguar or possibly a Zen processor.
Previously: Sony Rumored to Be Developing PlayStation 4.5
Related Stories
Sony is rumored to be developing the "PlayStation 4.5," a more powerful version of the PlayStation 4 capable of playing games at 4K Ultra HD resolution.
"Sony is working on a "PlayStation 4.5," a more powerful version of the PlayStation 4 that will be able to play games at 4K resolution, according to a report from Kotaku.
Kotaku cited multiple "developers who have spoken with Sony" about the purported console. Those sources indicated that the "PS4.5" — no word on whether that's the official name — will include improved graphics hardware to power 4K games, and additional processing power for PlayStation VR, the virtual reality headset that Sony is releasing in October.
The PS4 cannot currently output 4K content, and its optical drive cannot read 4K Blu-ray discs. Masayasu Ito, executive vice president at Sony Computer Entertainment, said in an interview with 4Gamer in October (via Siliconera) that Sony was considering an enhanced PS4 that could support 4K Blu-ray discs. Neil Hunt, Netflix's chief product officer, told Huffington Post UK in January that Sony had "promised" Netflix that a new revision of the PS4 hardware with 4K support was coming. And Netflix told Forbes in February that it expected hardware refreshes this fall from both Sony and Microsoft with 4K video playback for the PS4 and Xbox One, respectively.
If Sony is indeed considering a mid-cycle hardware upgrade, the company may not be alone. During a presentation to the media last month, Xbox head Phil Spencer posited a future in which Microsoft will "come out with new hardware capability during a [console] generation."
Hello, console gaming fragmentation? If this rumor is accurate, one of the biggest advantages of console gaming would be gone.
Microsoft's mid-cycle refresh for the Xbox One, the Xbox One X, has been announced. Graphics performance is quadrupled (and then some) to allow for 2160p gaming:
As far as the hardware itself goes, thanks to Microsoft's ongoing campaign, we already know the bulk of the details of the console. The 16nm SoC at the heart of the new Xbox One design is meant to be significantly more powerful than the original and S versions of the Xbox One, vaulting MS from having the least powerful console to the most powerful console. All told, the Xbox One X will offer almost 4.3x the GPU compute throughput of the Xbox One S, while the CPU cores have received a healthy 31% clockspeed boost (Interesting aside: Microsoft is still not calling it Jaguar, unlike the XB1/XB1S). The memory feeding the beast has also gotten a great deal faster as well, with Microsoft switching out their 8GB of DDR3 for a large and very fast 12GB of GDDR5, which has a combined memory bandwidth of 326GB/sec.
AKA the X-OX. Can it run NetHack in 4K?
Previously: PlayStation Neo and Xbox "Project Scorpio" to Bring 4K Resolution and VR to Console Gaming
The Race for 4K: How Project Scorpio Targets Ultra HD Gaming
More Details About the "Project Scorpio" Xbox One Successor
Microsoft has detailed the system-on-a-chip powering its refresh of the Xbox One (the company's answer to the PS4 Pro, which was released in November 2016):
Today at the Hot Chips conference, the company released schematics and details about the internal workings of the SoC that is set to power the upcoming 4K-ready gaming console. We already knew much of what the company discussed at the Hot Chips presentation, including the core count; clock speed; and bandwidth specifications of the CPU, GPU, and memory used in the system, but now we know how the components interact with each other.
[...] The Scorpio Engine is a monster of an SoC developed by AMD, featuring a 359mm2 die with seven billion transistors built on TSMC's 16nm FinFETT+ technology. The GPU compute units (the yellow section of the layout) consume most of the large die's surface area. The Scorpio Engine's GPU components include four shader arrays that each offer 11 compute units. Microsoft said that one compute unit per shader array is left inactive to compensate for yield problems that may occur.
The right side of the SoC die features the two four-core 2.3GHz CPU clusters (represented in dark green on the diagram). A pair of cache controllers flanks each CPU cluster. Twelve GDDR5 memory controllers line the top, bottom, and right edges of the SoC. The retail Xbox One X features 12GB of memory. Developer kits offer 2GB per channel for a total of 24GB system memory.
[...] When Microsoft announced Project Scorpio, the company boasted that the new console would be the first to deliver 6Tflops of 32-bit floating point performance. During the Hot Chips presentation, the company said that it managed to squeeze out "just a hair more than 6Tflops." Each of the 40 compute units can perform 128 floating point operations second. Multiplied by the 1,172MHz core clock, that's a total of 6,000,640 Flops. [sic - see comment below -- Ed.(FP)]
[...] The new console features an eight-core Jaguar-derived CPU like the one found in the Xbox One S console, but it operates 31% faster than the previous version. Microsoft said that most of the CPU performance optimizations revolve around memory latency improvements of the main memory controllers (up to 20%). The company attributes the improvement to tripling the available memory channels and increasing the number of main memory banks by a multiple of six. It also credits the rearrangement and enlargement of the TLB cache, and the introduction of a redesigned and larger Page Descriptor Cache, which "caches information about nesting page translations" and improves performance by "up to 4.3%."
The image in question from the article.
Previously: PlayStation Neo and Xbox "Project Scorpio" to Bring 4K Resolution and VR to Console Gaming
The Race for 4K: How Project Scorpio Targets Ultra HD Gaming
More Details About the "Project Scorpio" Xbox One Successor
Xbox One X, Formerly Project Scorpio, to be Released November 7th for $499
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 16 2016, @08:09AM
Gaming is about graphics. NetHack does not have graphics. Therefore NetHack is not a game. I play a game which is not a game. Therefore I am not a gamer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 16 2016, @08:10AM
Do you get paid to work NetHack?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 16 2016, @08:17AM
In which case nethack looks like the old 'boss screen' in various videogames :)
See boss, I'm working, honest! I mean just look at all those unintelligible characters on the screen!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 16 2016, @08:32AM
I tried telling some friends that NetHack is one of the most rewarding games ever made and is so challenging that it takes years to master. Then they looked at the screen.
"It's just a bunch of boxes!" they said, "It doesn't even have GRAPHICS!"
They never spoke to me again.
(Score: 2) by Webweasel on Thursday June 16 2016, @10:13AM
My son started playing nethack on his mobile phone last week, he thinks its great.
Still, he has watched me play it on and off over the years.
Fucking game, I have still not ascended. Got close a few times and yes, I know deaths are my fault.
"The dwarf hits, the dwarf hits, the dwarf hits."
"You die..."
"Would you like your possessions identified? (Y/N)"
Priyom.org Number stations, Russian Military radio. "You are a bad, bad man. Do you have any other virtues?"-Runaway1956
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 16 2016, @09:21AM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/sony_rootkit [wikipedia.org]
never forget, never forgive
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 16 2016, @09:35AM
You'll be playing the XboneVR then?
(Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Thursday June 16 2016, @10:59AM
PC has VR, so does my cell phone, you could pick neither console and get a much better gaming experience. All consoles are these days are out-of-date locked down computers that you pay a fortune for "exclusive" titles on and as soon as the lifecycle is up you're stuck going out buying the newest out-of-date hardware to play games on and as soon as your previous out-of-date hardware dies all those older games you bought are trash anyway. I'm still playing games from the DOS days on my modern laptop along side new games.
Consoles had a good run when they were considered "state of the art" in an era where not everyone had a PC in their house. 10 years ago they were well matched with PCs, but largely for the last 5-10 years they've seriously lagged behind.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 2) by Celestial on Thursday June 16 2016, @05:35PM
No longer entirely true. Consoles are definitely still less powerful than PCs, and you will still have to replace it every so often. However, now that the Xbox runs on x86-64 based hardware, Microsoft has stated that they intend for all Xbox One games to run on all current and future Xbox consoles. So, if Microsoft sticks to their word (yes, I know), the inability to play old games on new consoles is no longer an issue as of now. For the Xbox at least.
(Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Thursday June 16 2016, @06:09PM
Yeah, I'll believe it when I see it. Sony did it with the first gen PS3's, I have one with PS1 and 2 compatibility, but they ditched that. I suspect the issue with backward compatibility is people aren't going to run out and buy the latest games for a new console. They'll play their old ones and bide they're time until the games they want are released. They don't make money off the consoles so if people aren't buying games, for the sake of having games for their console, they're not making any money. MS might go one gen with backward compatibility, but i think they'll artificially gimp that later to force people to go buy new games.
I'm pretty sure the PS4 is also x86 based, which was they're excuse for not being PS3 backward compatible because the PS3 was a parallel cell processor. I could be wrong though. I think it's only a matter of time before someone gets emulators working to play PS4 and XBox games on a PC. Should be easy enough given most gaming PCs are way more powerful than even up-to-date consoles and they're using the same CPU architecture.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 2) by Webweasel on Thursday June 16 2016, @10:33AM
Two points I have here:
A) Damn, did M$ and Sorny fuck up with the cheaped out designs on their consoles.
B) I have a DK2 and I'm not convinced VR is ready for mainstream yet. I feel this is the 1990's all over again and it will be dead in a few years.
So we all know how underpowered both the xbone and the piece of shit 4 are, I find it funny that they did not learn the lessons of the 1990's. Sega died because they kept releasing failed addon's to extend the life of a console (The cd things, the 32x) fragmenting the market is never a good idea for these systems. Preventing the majority of your customers from being able to play the games available is alienating and people don't like it. This is why none of these add on devices were a success. Seems M$ and Sorny have forgotten these lessons. The consoles will be 4k "capable", but 4k televisions have not really penetrated the market yet. Dunno about the US, but there is no 4k signal available on broadcast TV in the UK, so the only way you can really get 4k content is via streaming services like netflix, but then you have to have the RIGHT device for this to work, due to DRM crap. 4k is not available for PC's AFAIK, only for streaming devices and smart TV's. (I might be wrong about that). So the display base to drive sales does not exist right now. VR is expensive and won't be a typical xmas present like a console is.
So I think these new consoles will be sales failures, too expensive, VR add on too expensive, needs a 4k tv to even use it. The price point of the market has been raised too high for most consumers. I might as well buy a decent gaming PC for the same money.
That and I don't think VR is going to be a success. I have not tried any of the new kits, but I do own a DK2. Which is sitting and gathering dust on my desk. The only game I have found it to be a good experience with is Elite: Dangerous. For dogfighting, its amazing. But the res is too low. Text is hard to read and you can see every individual pixel. I think they need 4k res min (2k each eye) to make the experience better. That and it's incredibly isolating, which is curious. At work I LOVE to be isolated when coding etc, so noise cancelling headphones. At home, I'm a single dad. Here I hate isolating myself, I like to be aware of what's going on in the house make sure the kids are not fighting, knocks at the door etc, so I find isolating myself really uncomfortable at home. Add the fact I like to drink beer and smoke joints while playing and well... You can't drink out of a pint glass when wearing the rift. Bottle is OK. Ever tried lighting your joint when your in a rift? Its hard... very hard, then I put it in the ashtray and have to take the rift off to find it. Really needs a webcam and a "real world" button on it or something.
Heh, me and my first world problems eh?
Don't get me wrong, the rift is pretty amazing. Its the VR experience I was lusting after as a teenager, everything I hoped it would be. I have had some real "uncanny valley" moments with it. In ED, it has the Saitek x52 joystick HOTAS setup. My desk positions are identical. The game renders the arms of the pilot holding the controls and moves them as you move the joystick. This gave me the experience that my are was in the game, wow! So then you reach up to your face and the game arm does not move. Still, the immersion factor is stunning. To look at your own body in the game and it moves with you as you do in real life? Wow, even in that very limited scenario, just jaw dropping WOW moment.
Beyond that the experience has been... Difficult? Its very very hard to get the rift working with non-native games. I have tried the vorpx software to try and get it working, but for the life of me cannot get it to line up the 3d to be "perfect" its real guess work with the vorpx controls and I just cannot get it calibrated correctly. 3d looks flat, or double images etc. Half life 2 wasn't bad but skyrim looked awful. I have not looked at it in a year or two, I need to see if it has been updated with better calibration.
So, TLDR: I laugh that console manufactures have forgotten the lessons of the past about fragmenting the market, I don't think VR is quite there yet and this generation of it will be a damp squib. Happy to be wrong about that though.
Still, fuck sorny.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Vanderhoth on Thursday June 16 2016, @11:14AM
I'm pretty much in agreement with you except for the VR thing... Well I agree VR is likely a gimmick that's going to die, just like 3D. BUT!
A buddy I work with brought in a Gear VR headset. It was $100, which I don't consider overly expensive (I spend more on flowers my wife for valentines day every year), all you do is snap your smartphone into it and it downloads the software, which basically just splits your phone into two displays. I only watched a trailer for the jungle book with it, but was incredibly impressed. He was telling me he plays some detective game on it, so it's like you're actually walking into a room and looking at the crime scene and interacting with clues and characters to figure out the mystery, sounded pretty interesting to me.
I see a lot of potential, but there are issues that have to be worked out. Cords and battery life as an example.
I've never been that impressed with 3D.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 16 2016, @11:41AM
VR will work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rz3ovutYJtg [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by Webweasel on Thursday June 16 2016, @12:06PM
DUDE NSFW WARNING PLEASE!!!!
There was a fuck scene in that, nice.
Still, brought back some memories, I was so excited to try a virtuality machine back in ... 91.
Wow that was a long time ago.
Priyom.org Number stations, Russian Military radio. "You are a bad, bad man. Do you have any other virtues?"-Runaway1956
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Thursday June 16 2016, @10:32PM
I don't think so. Have you tried the Vive with their controllers? I used it for quite a bit the other week and it was a fantastic experience. The Robot repair demo was one of my favorites of the lab demo but the longbow game convinced me that VR certainly has a place in the future. The downfall of the occulus is the lack of immersive controllers. Before that I never used any real VR save for a google cardboard for a few minutes.
The one negative I can see if the holodeck effect. Once you go into a VR world where you can do anything, the real world starts to suck. VR might become another bogey man like rock music.
(Score: 2) by Webweasel on Friday June 17 2016, @07:41AM
No, not had a chance to try the vive yet. Ill give it a look if I get a chance.
Occulus downfall was being bought by facebook.
Priyom.org Number stations, Russian Military radio. "You are a bad, bad man. Do you have any other virtues?"-Runaway1956
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Friday June 17 2016, @08:56PM
Give it a try if you can. My brother and I just got finished with some new demos and we increased the perimeter. With the Vive, you can physically walk around limited by a perimeter which can be a maximum of 5mx5m or 16x16 feet. And the IRL and VR movement is pretty much 1:1 seamless. That movement heavily adds to the immersive experience. My only beef is the damn cable keeps getting in the way but that will be remedied by hanging it from the ceiling. They also need to get shoe sensors to locate your feet but the virtual hands via the controller help with orientation.
The valve Lab demo has a bunch of things to mess with and the robot repair was very impressive. If you played Portal you'll remember the final battle with GLaDOS. GLaDOS makes an appearance toward the end of the robot repair demo and as she approaches you, you really get an actual sense of how massive she is.
We wanted to try a horror game and after some searching we found the Brookhaven Experiment. I have to admit, both of us couldn't deal with more than a few minutes in that damn game. Way too unnerving. The gun has no cursor, like real life, so you really have to aim. Meanwhile, the zombies are approaching from all around. As your aiming trying to kill them you hear the others closing in on you from all around. Panic actually starts to set in and I took the headset off. That's immersive.
Agreed. Facebook doesn't have a clue about gaming. They just threw money at Oculus to gobble up a piece of hip new tech to capitalize on it. That was a good thing because it motivated Valve after some of their employees left to work on the Oculus. And no disrespect to the Oculus developers but don't have shit on Valve/HTC. HTC is an experienced hardware company along with Valve who pretty much set the bar in 1998 with half life and again with Steam, TF2, DotA, Portal, etc.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday June 19 2016, @12:22PM
Oculus will have a similar controller, but didn't have it at launch. Tough for them if the delays made Vive's premium product look that much better.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Sunday June 19 2016, @06:38PM
It's going to be an uphill battle for them. while they have a well established name, they don't have a strong gaming oriented backing. Though, It's entirely possible Facebook could be developing some type of second life like VR world that directly ties into FB. There is certainly a lot of potential in that area. Either way, it's still in its infancy. But it stands that Vive is the better of the two currently and clearly demonstrates that VR is here to stay.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 16 2016, @05:00PM
please don't post slaveware propaganda on this site. "people" buying this type of closed garbage should be ashamed of yourselves.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Thursday June 16 2016, @05:56PM
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 1) by tractatus_techno_philosophicus on Thursday June 16 2016, @09:04PM
slaveware
Thanks. I'll be using that phrase henceforth. I can't think of a better way to describe the flashy, DRM-ridden surveillance toys that pass for today's "latest technology".
No moral system can rest solely on authority. ~A.J. Ayer