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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
(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