Developer: PS4 is an “adapted PC”

Developer reaction to the PlayStation 4 has been overwhelmingly positive. Sony built the console with developers in mind, and practically all of the console hardware is based on PC parts. It’s no coincidence the PS4 is called a “supercharged PC”, but we would call it a lot more than just an “adapted PC”.

[BitbyDeath]

RTS has always been a genre that consoles have not been able to transfer correctly, hopefully the PS4's touchpad will mean we could see games like Total War: Rome 2.

[Pope_Kaz_Hirai_II]

Developer: PS4 is an “adapted PC”

Believe me that can only be a good thing.. Expect a non gimped version of BF4 and possibly faster development.

[Ju]

I don't agree with that. What it'll lead to is PC ports without really taking advantage of the platform. I guess we'll get a lot of gimped ports. But w/e. As long as it looks good, so be it.

[HammadTheBeast]

@Ju

PC ports to platform is what basically happens most of the time. Or should happen anyways. With the new PS4 architecture, a few tweaks can make the PC/PS4 ports easy and quality.

[classic200]

Imagine at E3 sony comes on stage and say, total war 2, starcraft 2 and every single major strategy game will be available for the PS4.

It would be interesting because the Playstation 4 would be doing something that no other console manage and that is to take everything possible from the PC platform and bring it into the living rooms on consoles.

It seems that where they are heading because bohemia the makers of arma is working on a title for PS4 and that could be arma 3 port while blizzard is bring diablo 3.

[Ares84HU]

I only want Total War Rome 2. Man I used to play a lot with the first one. Total War games are the best strategy games. Nothing compares.

[landog]

honestly, Total War Rome 2 would NOT run on ps4 in anything but sub-hd, way dialed down unit detail and a huge limit to unit cap

shogun 2 stresses modern high end pc's with cpu's 10x better than the mobile chip in the ps4

ps4 could handle starcraft 2 on medium settings in 1080p, still be a slideshow in a 200v200 unit battle

diablo 3 will be fine on ps4, crisp 1080p, even some aa and maybe even 60 frames, with slowdowns only in heavy mob areas

Total War Rome 2, not possible in any respectible settings on ps4

look at shogun 2, impossible on ps4;

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

the different detail on each and every unit, 1000's of individual a.i.'s on screen at once, thats insane sumber crunching right there, and ps4's 1.6 ghz cpu is NOT up to it....sorry

[Ju]

You know that crowd dynamics is a perfect use case for a highly parallel machine, right? Like one with 8 cores, for example.

[Irishguy95]

Have to say Langod is quite right about the Total war games. It could run it on lower settings though landog, it wouldn't be maxing it out. They'd have to redesign it as well probably and adapt it to the Ps4's hardware. The CPU is just a bit too weak to handle all those units.

The GPU of the Ps4 is quite good and would have no problems with the Total war games. But that's just they way RTS's are these days. CPU must be all well and good.

However again landog, even I can 'run' shogun 2 on my PC, which is a Q6600 @ 2.4Ghz. It just looks like **** and has a low FPS..I mean...I wouldn't call it playable...but it runs!

[BitbyDeath]

@landog, when you're proven wrong.
Are you going to -

a). stay in denial
b). go really really quiet
c). leave the site
d). accept you are wrong

All consoles are PC's but they are built differently, they are built for gaming.

Hence why a game like God of War Ascension can run on 7 year old hardware with 512mb of ram where a PC of equivilant specs couldn't even run it on the lowest of settings.

[Ju]

Actually, I found a nice article. You guys should probably look at this (and keep the disagrees coming guys ;)

http://www.xbitlabs.com/new...

Since it includes Dice (you know, the Battlefield guys) you might actually care...

[Qrphe]

landog has been developing console and PC games since the 1980s. He also knows a lot of hardware engineering...

He reminds me of all the naysayers from 2005/2006. There are always detractors and supporters at the start of every gen.

[dcbronco]

Landog,

I think you're ignoring the fact that the guys that make the game say it's possible on the next generation consoles. The architecture of the APUs allows more efficient use of the GPU to help the CPU. A lot of the needed power is there in the GPU. The PS4 has part of the GPU specifically set aside for compute functions. Not many people have really seem what this architecture can do. Even fewer with the modifications that each console maker will design. And add to that the optimization specific to the specs and there is no reason to believe that Total War isn't possible on the new machines.

As for controls, I'd like to see that taken in a whole new direction. Forget the mouse and keyboard. And the game pad. To me RTSs are the perfect game to make Kinect a buy for me. With it's voice recognition the best controls would be your voice. Just like it was really done. Call for defensive stance. Tell the Calvary to attack the enemies left flank.

Tell the archers to loose their arrows. Yes we will hit our own troops too. But we have reserves.

[ATi_Elite]

Dude the PS4 is a PC!

don't make up a bunch of Lame terms but just call it what it is which is a PC.

x86-64 Kernal is the same as a PC.

Console Machines are DEAD
Long Live the PC!!

EDIT *PS4 = supercharged PC, Don't make me Laugh!! Your not Encoding or Transcoding video on a PS4. Your not running a small business with a PS4. Your not burning Blu-ray disc on a PS4. Your not controlling your Home security system on a PS4 so kill that Supercharged PC crap*

It just irks me how fanboys take stuff way outta proportion and then RAGE like Idiots when someone CORRECTS them on their LIES!!

[Flewid638]

you're*

[KwietStorm_BLM]

"It just irks me how fanboys take stuff way outta proportion and then RAGE like Idiots when someone CORRECTS them on their LIES!!"

Pot, meet kettle.

[smashcrashbash]

You mean RAGE like an idiot like you are doing now?

[FlameBaitGod]

I just hope the ps4 supports M&K for all games

[showtimefolks]

It's a very good thing

This time around developers have no excuse for lazy ports

[shutUpAndTakeMyMoney]

Does it even have enough room to ship fully??? Touch pad is tiny..

[WeedyOne]

PS3 could have easily played RTS games because you can plug in ANY USB mouse and keyboard and they work on the ps3 just fine...

Only a few games actually let you play with a mouse and keyboard though, one being unreal tournament 3.

So i dont think we will suddenly see RTS games on the PS4 because we have a touchpad now. Ever play an RTS with a touchpad? It SUCKS!

[ziggurcat]

all consoles are adapted PCs.

[dc1]

You're purposely distorting the intentions of the quote.

[KillrateOmega]

Consoles are basically PCs with static hardware. Anyways, it would be cool to have a Total War-like experience on the PS4.

[KwietStorm_BLM]

Except the architecture has never been PC level like this before, so while people have made a habit of saying consoles are some kind of PC over the years, no that's not really true at all.

[KillrateOmega]

Obviously the architecture is different, but the same hardware components are there. You have a CPU, GPU, motherboard, RAM, HDD, monitor (TV), etc.

Maybe I should've clarified my first post by saying, "...LIKE PCs with..."

[RememberThe357]

Where do these "PC is dying" comments even come from? Are people so ignorant of the past that they forget that this is always how it goes? PC is always "the" platform at the end of console generations because as console stay the same throughout their life spans while PCs are ever changing. It's not a hard concept to wrap your mind around: When consoles come out they push PC. A few years in, PC has passes consoles again. It happens every time and it's gonna happen again. And we're only talking performance, quality is relative.

[Derekvinyard13]

Why do people hate moving forward

[Count]

It's called a supercharged PC? Really? By who?

[KwietStorm_BLM]

Sony said it right at the conference.. Some developers echoed it as well.

[Count]

Propaganda. Propaganda everywhere.

[DivineAssault]

i dont care about its PC similarities.. Its only going to help both console & PC gamers this way.. Games will have similar coding to make em easier to develop.. That means better ports for both sides.. PC will always have better graphics because theyre upgradable & some ppl like buying new cards every year but PS4 games will be optimized to use the consoles strengths in all ways, have more features, & a bad a$$ controller.. Ya, PS4 is good enough for me.. PCs arent worth the trouble imo

[Mister_G]

Adapted PC is okay, all that counts is that the games are awesome :)

[Psn800]

Every Console available is an adaption from a PC of some kind .

[CEOSteveBallmer]

If you "disagreeers" on PS4 being supercharged PC then don't buy it!. after its release and awesome games with great graphics and gameplay, don't ever buy one. Idiots will never cease to exist. Typical PC and Xbox fanboys downplaying the PS4 already. I'll believe you if you can manage to get a prototype or mass produced PS4 in secret and see the specs inside and show it to us so that you will all embarass yourselves.

[carreirabr]

Less anatomically gifted pc owners running for their lives, as next gen approaches.

Hope all those german and russian kids keep supporting Nvidia and its expensive toys as windows desktop fades away in memory for the next years.

[hiphopisdead]

The points this article tries to make is just outright wrong. You cannot draw out conclusions in comparing specs on PS4 to specs on a PC.

Best example is the PS3 and a game like Uncharted 3 or God of War Ascension. It is impossible to find a game for the PC that will look anywhere near as good if you had a PC with 256MB of system memory. Even if you doubled the memory specs to 512MB, you would barely be able to run your computer with Windows 7 let alone be able to run a game that looks as good as Uncharted 3 or God of War Ascension.

Sure you can get a games to look better on PC vs the PS3, but you'll have to start with at least 2GB-4GB of system RAM (8-16 times better specs).

Some devs are biased to their platform, or are just "unaware", so this article's comments just do not line up.

There are other factors to consider:

1 - how will the specs/hardware be put together
a) pcs have to interface their hardware through a motherboard, and connectors. it has to work this way to be compatible with other types of hardware.
b) ps4 doesn't have to support other hardware types, so they can fuse and integrate the hardware a lot better.

2 - how will developers code to access the hardware
a) pcs have to support many different types of drivers/OS/RAM/CPU/Video Cards/etc... They interface through different drivers. This means more overhead (more middle men between the dev and the hardware).
b) ps4 devs can go directly to the hardware. Much less overhead because devs are guaranteed the gamer will have that same hardware. Also, you can make decisions like (in this particular scene, I'm actually going to put this extra process load on cpu core 4 because I know for a fact that I have room there).

3 - hardware focus
a) pc developers have to learn, use and support new hardware every 6 months. they will never have enough time to become an expert on 1 piece of hardware.
b) ps4 developers focus on 1 piece of hardware for 6-10 years, so they'll be refining, refining and refining. Studios will even share what they learn between each other (i.e. naughty dog and guerilla games).

There are more points to be made, but bottom line, you need much more specs on a PC for the experience to be comparable.

[Alcohog]

True mouse/keyboard support on consoles this coming generation would be grand,

[deanobi]

"a supercharged PC” haha yeah right.

[ajax17]

Streamlined development! No more delays! Hopefully :|