PS4 and Xbox One Developer Leaks a Ton of Details About Power, Cloud, Sony, Microsoft and More

Yesterday night an AMA was held on reddit by an alleged PS4 and Xbox One developer with seven years of experience on AAA games in the industry, describing quite a lot of interesting details about working with Sony and Microsoft.

[XiSasukeUchiha]

Hmm interesting I Sasuke Uchiha will use my Sharingan to analyses the situation, at hand.
But I like that fact that he thinks PS4 is a lot easier,and user-friendly, while agreeing that MS security policies about the Indies should go away!

[OpieWinston]

Please STOP!

[Kingthrash360]

Sasuke would never announce what he plans to do with his Sharingan...o.O he just does it, you imposter!

on topic:
this was a very informative read..to thos who only read titles and not the actual article..please read. the cloud explanation from an insider was a good explanation of what it actually does and the state that its currently in.

note: i understand that most of this info was already known but too many people (especially trolls) seem to miss this info. weather its good or bad thos who are misinformed should read this.

[nope111]

Guys, leave Sasuke alone, he's just angry because his clan was slaughtered by his older brother which he very much adored.

[christocolus]

Why is everyone picking on N4Gs beloved sasuke? the guy is only trying to communicate with us and besides the hidden leaf lingo is quite different from what we speak over here.it will take some time to adapt.

[ThunderSpark]

I'll take this with a grain of salt, but I found it interesting when he said "Just for the record: there is storage but when the server boots it needs to download the state from a remote storage. It cannot run when the game session is finished so you cannot do background tasks."

And also "You have two fast consoles one of which is faster than the other one but does not include fancy motion controls. From this point onward software will count and since both will have a long shelf live anything can happen."

He definitely sounds like he knows his stuff. Sony definitely did a great job with their dev kits.

He also mentions wishing that he wishes Sony would stop pushing for 4K displays because PS4 is not strong enough. Does he mean game development wise or video and media play?

[GameNameFame]

To paraphrase,
Cloud="basically a dedicated server"

So many reasonable people have said this. Based on how MS devs have talked about and used Cloud, it was nothing fancier than good old dedicated server that Sony, Acitvision, EA and etc all have for almost a decade.

MS puts some PR fancy name on something that already everyone else have, desperate fanboys who wanted to fantasize that Xbox One console is not as weak as people think eats this up.

[UltraNova]

@whathappened

Playing 4K videos will be fine. 4K games
? Impossible. I doubt ps5 and xboxevery_one (???)will be able to do 4K. Doubt? scratch that, they wont!

[Qdog]

Okami HD for PS3 had an internal resolution of 4k, don't see why PS4 couldn't have it as well. The consoles aren't being fully utilized yet as we aren't far enough along on the roadmap yet.

[ABizzel1]

@UltraNova

The PS5 and XB? should be able to do 4k gaming. A R9 290X can play most current games in 4k, Ultra settings, at playable fps.

THe PS5 / XB? should be 4 - 6 years away, and GPU's are about to enter their next big evolution with Maxwell and Volta, and maybe a response for AMD, so 4k gaming should be a simple thing for the next gen consoles.

[UltraNova]

As an owner of an OC 290x let me tell you 4K is long ways to be at playable fps with a fairly mainstream adoption price not even mentioning that Dell 28 inch that I am still paying for the last 3 months!

As consoles the ps5 and next XB will not be 4K, even if they suport 4K 95% of the games wont run at 4K. This time around they didn’t even do 1080p/60fps properly something that was, is and will be debated for the duration of this generation.

Where do I base my assumptions?

2 things, 4-6 years from now 4K TV's mainstream adoption will still be very low and barely emerging from the niche market. It will be standard eventually but not in time for the development of the next gen consoles which will start in 3-4 years from now based on your projection for the next round.

And second, with PlayStation Now, Steam OS and MS's Azure and all these digital mainframes and digital everything emerging ever so strongly these days what makes you think that both MS and Sony will invest in such powerful and expensive systems to begin with when they can simply do it in house and stream the games to us? Hell the expensive part more than covers the argument!

I m not saying game streaming is the only way to go but I can definitely see this happening instead of 4K being affordable to the point of a $400 console can support it let along most consumers buying a 4K tv and the console.

Dont get me wrong of course I want 4k support next gen but I cant see it happening they will play it safe just like they did this time around. Live and learn.

[Abriael]

You're trying way too hard mate.

[forcefullpower]

Wish they would both stop. They should start banning people on this site they cause nothing but issue in threads

[Boody-Bandit]

" They should start banning people on this site they cause nothing but issue in threads"

If only.
Worst decision N4G ever made was doing away with the 2 zones. That way we wouldn't have to endure those that are just here to derail discussions.

[saladthieves]

He sounds like a really really bad and terrible Doge

[Rhythmattic]

Brutallyhonest

I agree ... Lets hassle the Admins to bring back the open zone @ N4G.

[Heisenburger]

I see your condition has worsened, young one.

@Abriael Well said. Certainly an interesting read.

[Eonjay]

LOL :)

[WalterWJR]

I predict this is your last comment under this account.

[PrinceOfAllSaiyans]

Naruto is pure shit. Dragonball and Attack On Titan FTW.

[nope111]

One Piece is king.

The current arc is friggin' awesome btw.

[Kingthrash360]

HunterXHunter.
Nuff said

[KinjoTakemura]

Bio-Boosted Armor Guyver

[Qrphe]

>hates on popular Anime
>likes some other popular Anime

It's like hating on Flappy Bird but loving Angry Birds

[crowsticky1234]

I like Anime and all but what does Anime have to do with anything on this article. Take that argument to a forum. This is a XB1/PS4 related topic here. Sorry to ruin the fun for you guys but wow.

[Blasphemy]

why did he have to be anonymous for this, he basically said nothing.

[Lionalliance]

Dude stfu, is not funny and is not even original.

[showtimefolks]

very interesting info

Thanks for sharing

MS did so much right yet became arrogant with success of xbox360. Almost every publisher thought xbox one would kick ps4's ass yet here we are and its totally the other way around

sony had to be humbled with ps3 and now its MS's turn. You don't turn your backs on gamers who made you successful to being with. MS saw wii's success and totally forgot about core fans and just focused on casual stuff

from 2010 MS as a gamers company died and became a wii wanna be/apple

I have a lot of confidence in phil spencer, since he is a gamer. I hope he works hard and make xbox one a gaming console first

[rsnotz]

Have to agree with you there. Last gen the X360 really resonated with a lot of gamers and Sony seemed to have lost the plot early in the cycle. They kept talking about the Power but it was hard to develop for and since the X360 was easier most multiplats performed better as well. It took Sony years of hard work and humbling themselves to finally catch up last gen.

This gen MS came off the X360 and expected all gamers to blindly go along with their plans while Sony just decided to play to their core audience. MS really needs to stop talking about power, cloud and all the other PR spin and just deliver. It's still going to be a while before MS gains everyone's trust again, then too only if Spencer sticks to his guns and makes it about games again.

Either way can't wait to see what happens this gen.

[Irishguy95]

Jesus, I feel like a turd just for having an Avatar from Naruto but ****, at least its Madara and not faggy Sasuke

[XBOTTOX]

Troll Feast? "I Love The PS4"

[Applejack]

Interesting stuff but this is something I wasn't happy reading.

"When I looked at the Wii U it was madness, but that’s par for the course with Nintendo, so not news. It’s pretty much irrelevant for third party developers. Almost every studio outsources their Wii U ports to some poor guys".

If that's true, then it's very clear on why 3rd party developers aren't fond of the Wii U. Development difficulty along with poor sales doesn't go well together. I hope this turns out to not be true.

[MrSwankSinatra]

developers haven't been fond of Nintendo hardware for a long time, they always do weird stuff with their consoles.

[Baccra17]

"When i looked at the Wii U it was madness, but that’s par for the course with Nintendo..."

So much truth, but that's what happens when the enablers enable Nin.

[Fixay]

Interesting read, thanks

[cfc78]

Basically he prefer's PS4 over XB1 and thinks microsoft have some improving to do nothing we didn't already know.

[Eonjay]

Well, we also learned that Wii U is a mess to program for, we learned that Microsoft needs to move some red tape to get more indie support and we learned that people perfer Direct X to OpenGL.

[christocolus]

Yeah nice info in there but i actually thought the wiiu was the easiest to develop for cos a lot of devs praised it and the complaints i usually saw where those claiming it wasn't as powerful as the ps4 and xbox one.

[malokevi]

Good read. Lots of practical information.

[MasterCornholio]

"Microsoft should stop being a dick about their security policies. they are annoying, a huge waste of time and don’t do much. publishers might think different but for actual developers all that crap is just annoying."

Place your bets who do you think this developer is?

Sounds like Jonathan Blow.

"When i looked at the Wii U it was madness, but that’s par for the course with Nintendo, so not news. It’s pretty much irrelevant for third party developers. Almost every studio outsources their Wii U ports to some poor guys."

Poor guys? I dont think its that bad to make a game on the Wii U. Seriously Blow is making a Wii U game (the Witness) so i dont think its him.

Phil Fish maybe?

[MysticStrummer]

lol Probably a good guess.

[christocolus]

Yeah. You may be right. He is one of the few devs who use words/phrases like that. Lmao.. but if he is, then he has come a long way. The old joe blow wouldnt give an ounce of credit to anything MS/ xbox.

[OrangePowerz]

Why does it have to be either of them just because they say the truth? There are many devs out there and both Blow and Fish made public comments previously and not anonymous.

[WeAreLegion]

What about the Just Add Water dev?

[Codey47]

Are you sure it's them?

If it is indeed them, I'm pretty sure after this they'll be known as Just Add Fire.

[christian hour]

Doubtful its Jonathon Blow or Phil Fish, the guy works for a AAA studio with Unreal Engine and other middleware programs stitched on. He's not an indie developer. Could very easily be Rocksteady :) Or one of the other bajillion studios using a heavily modified Unreal Engine.

[jnemesh]

Best quote: "PS4 hands down. The Xbox One devkits are crappy and the software stack is a stupid moving target. they are a software company so they will fix that, but currently it’s just pain."

[imt558]

Yep!

Xbone fans, there is no "power of the cloud". IT IS JUST DEDICATED SERVERS! Or storage for some files! Period!

For indies we already know. Swapper developer already said before about Microsoft's indie program : http://gamingbolt.com/mouse...

So, according to this article, as we already know :

PS4>>>Xbone

[Volkama]

He's an indie dev. If the cloud is just a dedicated server per player session as he says well... That's pretty damn awesome actually.

Silly to assume the 3rd and particularly 1st party studios are limited to the same offering every indie gets free of charge.

[n4rc]

It reads like What he's describing is what is offered for free.. It can do much more but requires services that aren't provided free to devs.

[MCTJim]

Ever notice that..when there is positive press...these so call insiders(retired ones with new names) and now "developers" are coming out of the woodwork?... Please...just enough. Not a credible source, so why do these articles get approved? I get people want to know whats going on, but I cant for the life of me even believe for 1 second that any of its true or his word carries any weight.

Edit: its a disgruntled developer...J Blow
edit: Its a disgruntled retired insider

[OrangePowerz]

How would you know that it's not true? A lot more credible than the "insider" from MisterX.

[DragonKnight]

HEY! One day that dGPU will be found and then... AND THEN!!!!! You'll know when it happens.

http://weknowmemes.com/wp-c...

[MCTJim]

There is no secret sauce, I dont think there is. But I mean really..every time there is positive news, these clowns come out of the woodwork and spread garbage. That is all I'm saying. I myself think its all about games.

[theXtReMe1]

Explains exactly what I was saying about the cloud and people putting faith in it making their machines more powerful. It's not fast enough for CPU and GPU calls, through the Internet, to make any difference in programming or performance. The only thing Cloud is good for is storage and it's barely good enough for that, depending on your Internet connection.

These pipedreams of cloud making any console exponentially more powerful are unfounded and truthfully crazy. It would only make sense if people all had the same speed Internet connection, straight to Microsofts servers, with no nodes in between. As of now, there are still parts of the United States that do not have high-speed Internet and probably will remain that way for five years or so. Satellite Internet is wonky and still isnt reliable enough to get to a lot of these people.

It's going to take a total Internet overhaul in the United States and other parts of the world, for cloud processing to be viable. With so many variables at the moment, it would be impossible to provide the same experience to every gamer across the globe, if the cloud servers were used for any type of CPU or GPU processing.

Talk to me again in 10 or 20 years and maybe my opinion will change on the matter. But right now I just don't think it will be possible for a very long time. Unless, they are streaming the entire game from cloud servers(or your own) and you have a very fast Internet connection... like remote play.

[ThatOneGuyThere]

i think there should be a class action lawsuit about the cloud and MS's claims. that toe shoe company is getting its pants sued off for claiming that their shoes are better for you. wouldnt you think that MS blatantly lying about performance from the cloud would be enough to be sued over?

[Cryptcuzz]

I agree man. When I visit my brother for the weekend, his internet is so terrible it is not funny. He lives just one block away from where there is either AT&T or Comcast service is available. He subscribed to Satellite internet, but that was way too laggy for online gaming. What I ended up doing was root his unlimited grandfathered Verizon phone to be able to use the 4G tethering feature and we game that way.

So I agree that unless High speed with low ping internet is available to the majority of people that game online at a reasonable cost is available, the cloud will never be a viable means to increase a games resolution, texture, frames per second, etc.

It would be a marketing headache to be honest.

[rsnotz]

If the power of the cloud is really a USP of the X1 its going to fail MISERABLY in a lot of places in Asia. Where I am a 2 Mbps line is difficult to use. Its laggy and down 5 days in the month. Even getting a PS4 is something I'm on the fence about simply because the plans mostly have a FUP of 20GB (I mostly have all digital downloads). Anything more than 20GB is outlandishly expensive. To top it all the ping is a crazy 110 - 150ms.

[OC_MurphysLaw]

Not really tons of details rather this developers spin/take on several topics and / or his perception of the companies and how they handle certain things.

[choujij]

"It’s basically a dedicated server that is given to you for the duration of one game session. you cannot have any persistence with it unless you serialize your game state out and store it in some other service. But that’s not what you get for free from Microsoft. They might change that apparently but presently it does not exist. It’s quite literally a random dedicated server with a random 64bit cpu but predictable ram."

But... but how can this be? I thought the underlying technology was so much more than this?

[Volkama]

He's only talking from the perspective of an indie developer, and a free dedicated server per game session is not trivial.

This says nothing about what cloud can or can't do, so retain whatever mix of skeptism and optimism that you had before reading.

[choujij]

You seem to know quite a bit. How exactly does the technology behind the cloud differ from say, dedicated servers used for PC games?

[Volkama]

Choujij from a user perspective it really doesn't. Anything the cloud could do, any other server farm could do to.

The differences are supplier side, server availability is dynamic and therefore they can meet resource demands without any waste so it enables them to provide local servers in a very cost effective way.

That might sound disappointing on the surface, but it's actually a pretty big deal. If what this chap is saying is true and a dedicated server is available per session then effectively every xbox live subscriber is getting a server to themselves as part of their live subscription.

[1nsomniac]

I'm glad he publicly points out how poor the PS4 WiFi adaptor is - It's pretty shocking how bad it is in this day an age!

[pyramidshead]

I imagine/hope that that's one of of the things that gets upgraded in the PS4's first hardware revision.

[Mister_G]

The wifi module inside the PS4 supports dual band...

source: http://www.marvell.com/wire...

I got the wifi module details from ....

http://www.ifixit.com/Teard...

But 5ghz is disabled currently. 802.11n is supported but only in 2.4ghz.

Maybe a driver update could enable 5ghz wifi?

[DemonChicken]

Quote
"It’s basically a dedicated server that is given to you for the duration of one game session. you cannot have any persistence with it unless you serialize your game state out and store it in some other service. But that’s not what you get for free from Microsoft. "

This is why I do not like this cloud gaming idea for Microsoft, in a number of years times when they decide to close these dedicated servers then my game will look like shit on the scale of how much of the processing is transferred between the cloud and console. Beside the already shitty connection i possess =(

[Kingoftherodeo]

didn't care much for what he said mostly i don't take insiders too serious. but i came away with ps4 better wifi? seriously dude we all know ps4 doesn't do 5ghz and my ps4 controllers dies way faster than my xboxone controller. then again i use the battery pack so maybe that makes a difference.

[uth11]

No I think those were his suggestions for improvement on the PS4. It was badly worded and I first thought he was praising them too...

[Kingoftherodeo]

ahh i see sounded like he was praising them

[uth11]

yeah, it did! I had to read it twice!

[DoubleM70]

I need name of Dev and what games he has worked on. No credentials we only take what these guys say with a grain of salt.

[jay2]

WAIT! PS4 isn't powerful enough for 4K, yet MS are doing 4K on XBONE??????????????

[ThatOneGuyThere]

theyre both plenty powerful for 4K, just not anything too graphically intensive. they could for example stream 4k video content, or play fairly simple games. But if youre expecting the graphic fidelity of Ryse at 4k....its not going to happen. PS4 could rock 4k pacman all day long.

[isthe]

Yet another article talking about how Sony's got their stuff together better than microsoft

[Predaking77]

Confirms what we've been hearing.

MS is typically hard to work with especially as an indie dev.

Xbox One SDK is "crappy" and "super wonkey".

Sony isn't going anywhere.

"The Cloud" is remote server hosting, nothing mind boggling.

PS4 is faster than Xbox One.

[WheatBread]

and the Wii U sucks

[rivencleft]

definitely some good information in there

[Ginesis]

Everything he said are things anyone could claim. For the simple fact that he doesn't have the balls to say who he is says to me that he just couldn't think of a good name and company to imaginarily work for.

Good press week for MS=A bad article the next week. If you all haven't figured this out yet I don't know what to tell you lol

[MultiConsoleGamer]

It's all pure bullshit.

This guy literally knows nothing.

The phenomenon of phoney insiders needs to end. Any real insider will tell you that in order to work for most of these companies you have to sign an NDA, which is legally binding even if you leave the company. Also a coder isn't going to work directly with Microsoft or Sony, they're going to report to their superiors who will then report to representatives from each company. That's how you know this guy is a liar.

Rumors need to be excluded from the front page of N4G.

[Gunstar75]

"developer leaks a ton of details".

Really.... barely told us anything IMO

[assdan]

Nothing new really, but nice to get some confirmation on things that have been speculated.

[N8]

Like people have said he basically stated what we already knew. But it's good to have some confirmation.

[PSN_ZeroOnyx]

” Initially Microsoft talked about this generation of consoles being the last one but i think that changed. ”

Of the big 3, M$ was the last to arrive, they do not decide when console gaming ends, they decide when they cut their loses and drop out.

And loses don't always mean financially, I refer to the fact that they always lose in global sales.

[sAVAge_bEaST]

Exactly,, It's called "Paid Dues, Sunn,." M$ has never paid them. Just came in -
& to tried to Monetize the game.

[Aussiebeachbabe]

This guy is allowed his opinion but personally I thought he was a bit of a dick. If he wants me to take his comments with an bit of credibility he should have stated who he is and whom he works for rather than staying anonymous.It could be joe bloggs a butthurt fanboy for all we know...

[kingPoS]

The XBO as a dev kit, just remember to plug it in a UPS.

Quote: -if you unplug it from power it forgets that it’s a devkit and you need to provision it again …

Buy a UPS - save your hard earned data.

Gateway MT6706 2008

[ZayBo06]

Hey am I reading this right!!! Did he say whenever the Xbox one is using the cloud, you can't use the Xbox one background or multi features??? Can somebody confirm me?

[Skate-AK]

Some negatives and positives for both companies.

[mochachino]

If cloud isnt providing more than that at this stage, no one is going to see any visual advantages until the end of the generation if at all.

[Gamer666]

"Microsoft should stop being a dick about their security policies. they are annoying, a huge waste of time and don’t do much. publishers might think different but for actual developers all that crap is just annoying."

I don't care what a devt thinks on that. MS has kept people's data safe for years and have had no major compromises where they needed to shutdown their network for days or weeks to deal with it. This is the biggest reason why I have no quams paying for Gold. I know MS takes security seriously.

[BadlyPackedKeebab]

To be fair though he didn't say anything I wouldn't have as a non game dev.

[supercpu]

keep the security policies MS .... ive been a LIVE member for 10 years no problems .

read with a bucket load of salt :)

[Buff1044]

Typical N4G bias. The AMA should be the source, but hey it's DualShockers so front page!