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PlayStation 5 - Next gen is expensive

Eighthours

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rafaqat

rafaqat

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9 hours ago, jonamok said:


If there’s one thing we’ve learned from resolution and frame rate comparison videos over the years it’s that the difference (or not) is very much in whichever console you own..

 

Fixed it.

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Isaac

Isaac

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1 hour ago, JPL said:

Obviously all this progression is good and I really appreciate all the new, fancy things we get, but I can quite happily go back to playing Goldeneye on the N64 and enjoy it as much as the latest cutting edge games. As long as the games are good, I’ll put up with anything, but I’m still really excited to see where things go in the upcoming generation.

 

The controls for Goldeneye in 2020 are absolute garbage though.

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JPL

JPL

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1 minute ago, Isaac said:

 

The controls for Goldeneye in 2020 are absolute garbage though.

Well yeah, but I can still adjust after an hour or so playing. Like I said, I do love the progression I’ve lived through and that goes for QoL stuff, like control systems as well. I love where gaming is heading, but it’ll never stop me from enjoying where it came from.

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metallicfrodo

metallicfrodo

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15 hours ago, Ferine said:

Portals – such as in Portal or the original Prey – aren't taking you to another environment, they're repositioning the player within the currently loaded one. The explorable space has to be resident in memory.

 

It's a similar situation for Titanfall 2's Effect and Cause, or Dishonored 2's A Crack in the Slab, with the player switching between their relative position within different versions of the same environment which are loaded concurrently, stacked atop one another. One of the obvious downsides is that you are now effectively keeping two levels' worth of assets in the same memory budget you have for one, so you either have to dial back on the complexity/variety or sink a lot of time and effort into the "smoke and mirrors" of loading airlocks, elevators, corridors, etc.

 

I've posted this before – it's timestamped – but I think it's a great example of how masking loads can be both possible in certain situations and yet totally impractical:

 

 

 

I'm trying not to sound negative here, I'm just laying out my thoughts on why what was shown didn't blow me away. I'm well aware that the R&C gameplay footage that was shown is Alpha and that everyone is new to development on the platform and the tricks that they will be able to pull in the years to come will be way beyond what the first gen of software manage.

 

I think I just came away from the Cerny talk with the idea that the SSD tech they were using in the PS5 was sooooo fast that you were basically going to be able to use it almost as if it were RAM, such that you could pull off the things seen in Titanfall or Portal but on a much grander scale, because basically everything is 'loaded into memory'. I looked at the R&C trailer and there are still loading corridors, they are short, yes but those purple bits are hiding the dumping of old data from memory and then pulling in (huge amounts) of new data. It's not like in Portal where I can see through the portal, or Titanfall 2 where the environment warps instantly around me.

 

Ultimately I watched the trailer and I didn't see what affect what they were doing had on the gameplay, you were on a partially on rails section (by the looks of it on an animal) and then you fell through a purple portal, then you were on a literal on rails section, then you fell through a purple portal, then you were in a fight. I don't see what actually changing the environments added*. To me from a gameplay perspective it wouldn't have made any difference if that entire section was in the same area. It just felt a bit like the sliding down the slopes in Starwars: Jedi Order, where there are points you just know the game is loading in the background but you can't see it, except here it was blatant because they put great big purple tunnels in.

 

*I realise they did it to try to show off the SSD loads. But for me all everyone has been going on about is how fast the SSD, and it just didn't look as fast as I expected. I mean don't get me wrong I love the idea of the QoL improvements that we will get out of it, but I want to see something like being able to look through the oblivion portals and actually see the other side etc.. Or form a portal in one area of Skyrim and directly look through it in real time to another area, and be able to shoot an arrow through it. Being able to hit fast travel and appear somewhere in a shorter time is all well and good, but it's not materially affecting my engagement with the game.

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Dudley

Dudley

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13 hours ago, Alex W. said:

Edge’s Unreal Engine thing this month includes the interesting proposal from one of their engineers that - and I’m making up my own metaphor here - now that your local storage is as fast as RAM used to be, you can use a fast network connection the way we used to use local storage. Have absolutely enormous games with tens of gigabytes of assets available in real time at the player’s location, and potentially unlimited assets coming in off the web for the experience as a whole.

 

That’s where Flight Simulator is right now, isn’t it?

 

Oh Jesus fuck no.  Beautiful game streaming assets in at 17mbits just because they've used expensive local storage.

 

And of course the second your internet isn't perfect for half a second the game falls apart quicker than Stadia.

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Spacehost

Spacehost

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I gotta assume you'd want to use it to manage what gameworld content is available at any time, so eg Destiny 3 might not have all the planets in local storage at once, but it'll be able stream in what it needs for a particular Raid for the first year rather than having it banished to the Destiny Content Dungeon.

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Ferine

Ferine

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8 hours ago, metallicfrodo said:

I'm trying not to sound negative here, I'm just laying out my thoughts on why what was shown didn't blow me away. I'm well aware that the R&C gameplay footage that was shown is Alpha and that everyone is new to development on the platform and the tricks that they will be able to pull in the years to come will be way beyond what the first gen of software manage.

 

I think I just came away from the Cerny talk with the idea that the SSD tech they were using in the PS5 was sooooo fast that you were basically going to be able to use it almost as if it were RAM, such that you could pull off the things seen in Titanfall or Portal but on a much grander scale, because basically everything is 'loaded into memory'. I looked at the R&C trailer and there are still loading corridors, they are short, yes but those purple bits are hiding the dumping of old data from memory and then pulling in (huge amounts) of new data. It's not like in Portal where I can see through the portal, or Titanfall 2 where the environment warps instantly around me.

 

Ultimately I watched the trailer and I didn't see what affect what they were doing had on the gameplay, you were on a partially on rails section (by the looks of it on an animal) and then you fell through a purple portal, then you were on a literal on rails section, then you fell through a purple portal, then you were in a fight. I don't see what actually changing the environments added*. To me from a gameplay perspective it wouldn't have made any difference if that entire section was in the same area. It just felt a bit like the sliding down the slopes in Starwars: Jedi Order, where there are points you just know the game is loading in the background but you can't see it, except here it was blatant because they put great big purple tunnels in.

 

*I realise they did it to try to show off the SSD loads. But for me all everyone has been going on about is how fast the SSD, and it just didn't look as fast as I expected. I mean don't get me wrong I love the idea of the QoL improvements that we will get out of it, but I want to see something like being able to look through the oblivion portals and actually see the other side etc.. Or form a portal in one area of Skyrim and directly look through it in real time to another area, and be able to shoot an arrow through it. Being able to hit fast travel and appear somewhere in a shorter time is all well and good, but it's not materially affecting my engagement with the game.

I agree that the Ratchet set piece doesn't change a huge amount in mechanical terms, but then that's what it is: a spectacular set piece, likely from near the start of the game. I think it's a clear demonstration of something not possible on the current consoles, and whilst they didn't dig into all the ways the game might make use of such techniques – which isn't surprising given we've seen a few minutes of a 10-ish hour game – I'd say it's enough to fuel people's imaginations as to what they might do.

 

Rift Apart is also an extreme case in that they're seemingly dumping an entire level and loading another one with very few shared elements. That's kind of a worst case scenario as they're likely having to free up and refill the vast majority of RAM, yet it happens in a couple of seconds as opposed to the minute plus you'd be facing on PS4. Insomniac are certainly a very talented studio but this is still one of the first (unfinished) games made for the new system, so it's inevitable that the SSD will be better utilised in future games.

 

It's important to recognise that modern games are streaming in new data constantly, not just during load screens, and the SSD will have a huge impact here. Loading an entirely new area in a couple of seconds is impressive but most use cases will be dealing with more manageable chunks which can be brought in within milliseconds. For example, if there's a building behind your character, out of view, a game might not even have any of its textures in RAM because by the time you turn around it can load them in. This boost in efficiency for memory usage can ultimately lead to upping the richness and variety of whatever you can see, as they don't need to keep a bunch of stuff on hand just in case you decide to turn around sometime in the next 30 seconds. And this applies to everything, from enemy models to animations, alleviating a lot of the limitations that have been causing developers headaches for generations.

 

(Bit of an aside, but as an illustrative example in Mass Effect 3 you can't holster your weapon during combat sections – like you can in the prior two – because they didn't have the RAM budget for the additional animations. It's easy to see why such a non-essential function got cut but it's those kind of concessions which can really add up to impact the 'feel' of a game.)

 

Regarding your specific Elder Scrolls examples, an SSD (and other aspects of next-gen hardware) makes all of them significantly more viable. As with most things it's something you could do now if you built your game around the idea – Outer Wilds gets most of the way there – but few 'AAA' games are so focussed on a particular mechanic. Loosening the grip of memory management is going to make a lot of those internal arguments around implementing cool ideas a lot easier for people to win.

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Eighthours

Eighthours

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The Ratchet intro thing with the purple portals looked incredible, but what appeared to be the proper gameplay footage later featured something that was just effectively a teleport around the level they were showcasing, and was nowhere near as impressive. So I don't know whether they just don't have gameplay ready for something that's equally as impressive as the pretty on-rails section, or whether this kind of thing won't actually exist in the game (or just wouldn't make for good gameplay), so they have this very cut-down version instead. One to watch, I love Ratchet games.

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Eighthours

Eighthours

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12 minutes ago, Ferine said:

It's important to recognise that modern games are streaming in new data constantly, not just during load screens, and the SSD will have a huge impact here. Loading an entirely new area in a couple of seconds is impressive but most use cases will be dealing with more manageable chunks which can be brought in within milliseconds. For example, if there's a building behind your character, out of view, a game might not even have any of its textures in RAM because by the time you turn around it can load them in. This boost in efficiency for memory usage can ultimately lead to upping the richness and variety of whatever you can see, as they don't need to keep a bunch of stuff on hand just in case you decide to turn around sometime in the next 30 seconds. And this applies to everything, from enemy models to animations, alleviating a lot of the limitations that have been causing developers headaches for generations.

 

The next GTA should be astonishing with this tech. Insane graphics plus no pop-in = yum.

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footle

footle

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37 minutes ago, Ferine said:

For example, if there's a building behind your character, out of view, a game might not even have any of its textures in RAM because by the time you turn around it can load them in.

 

I'm sure I've played some games where the character's turning circle is slow enough to allow that today.

 

An interesting one we might see pretty near launch is quantifiable improvements to Forza/Dirt 5's rewind systems - rewind, rather than rewind then reset.

 

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Kevvy Metal

Kevvy Metal

Posted
Posted

If you just google "PlayStation 5 price" There's loads of stories of an Amazon France price leak. 

The PS5 Disc version listed at €499 and the Digital Edition at €399. It was quickly taken down. 

 

Might just be placeholder prices. But yes please at that price. 

£400 / £450 mibbies?

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Uzi

Uzi

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Posted

The price will be a well guarded secret while the two stare each other off - any retailer price is just a placeholder so they are meaningless for now. If MS reveal price in their july event - sony will prob follow.

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cultofweaver

cultofweaver

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, Kevvy Metal said:

If you just google "PlayStation 5 price" There's loads of stories of an Amazon France price leak. 

The PS5 Disc version listed at €499 and the Digital Edition at €399. It was quickly taken down. 

 

Might just be placeholder prices. But yes please at that price. 

£400 / £450 mibbies?

 

Both the new machines will be launching in the middle of full Brexit: Yes, we really mean it now season and the pound will be worth less than cat litter by that point. If either console is priced lower than the Euro cost in Sterling both Sony and Microsoft are being incredibly generous.

 

Not least because when we go on WTO no deal terms the import cost to the UK will go through the roof.

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Kevvy Metal

Kevvy Metal

Posted
Posted
16 minutes ago, cultofweaver said:

 

Both the new machines will be launching in the middle of full Brexit: Yes, we really mean it now season and the pound will be worth less than cat litter by that point. If either console is priced lower than the Euro cost in Sterling both Sony and Microsoft are being incredibly generous.

 

Not least because when we go on WTO no deal terms the import cost to the UK will go through the roof.


Well that’s cheery! 
PS5 everyone yay! 

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Hitcher

Hitcher

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18 minutes ago, cultofweaver said:

 

Both the new machines will be launching in the middle of full Brexit: Yes, we really mean it now season and the pound will be worth less than cat litter by that point. If either console is priced lower than the Euro cost in Sterling both Sony and Microsoft are being incredibly generous.

 

Not least because when we go on WTO no deal terms the import cost to the UK will go through the roof.

Fake news. ;)

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