Playstation 'Orbis'

[McDangerous]

Erm, Trinidad & Tobago? :P

Dunno actually, just stopped posting for a while, and actually played more games that spending time talking about them. Y'miss me?

[Wesley]

Erm, Trinidad & Tobago? :P

Dunno actually, just stopped posting for a while, and actually played more games that spending time talking about them. Y'miss me?

The last few months I've been wondering why the hell I wasn't thinking about buying a Big Mac whenever I was in the Tech section. Then I saw your avatar again today. Now I want a truckload of Mickey D's fries.

GTFO before you ruin my balanced diet! :-P

[McDangerous]

Pah, balanced diets are for quitters! I want to die happy, not slim. Even my Xbox is phat! :)

[Zoop]

Back on topic of the actual console, the resolution limit is pretty absurd, unless you're really going to shell out $965,000 for this 152in QuadHD TV.

I'd be happy to see consoles finally getting the most out of the FullHD resolution that's been available on TVs for years now.

Yes, but considering that the lifetime of the console is probably going to be long, I think it's smart that they're planning ahead.

[McDangerous]

While that is true, I highly doubt that the graphics adapter is going to be able to handle actually playing games at that resolution, unless Sony runs three 7970s in the PS4. QuadHD will murder video memory.

Personally, I hope that the PS4/NextBox can run a game like BF3 with the settings turned up at 60fps, 1080p. That would be ideal. Although, to be honest, graphics isn't really the main concern when buying a console, well not for me at least. I found Red Dead Redemption to have amazing visuals even though they weren't as high quality as a DX11 PC game. Gameplay mechanics and storytelling are the factors that make games amazing. Look at HL2! You can play that now, and it'll still feel like an epic game, even though it's nigh-on 8 years old already.

[Wesley]

While that is true, I highly doubt that the graphics adapter is going to be able to handle actually playing games at that resolution, unless Sony runs three 7970s in the PS4. QuadHD will murder video memory.

I think this is actually a move to support something else. One of the biggest problems Sony will run into in future is next-gen 3D movies that use different algorithms and light effects that can't be done with the ageing GTX7950-ish hardware still running on the PS3. If anyone's noticed, all PS3 games are supposed to have support for 720p and 1080p visuals, but very few of them actually scale up to 1080p. Most sit at 720p because of a lack of video memory.

The biggest thing about the H.265 codec which is coming up for review next year is the Digital Cinema-2K standard, which will be used in projectors that don't have a size restriction like HDTVs. All those full HD TV's still have panels that need to be made as spares, and I very much doubt anyone in the panel industry has started to even look at a vertical pixel height of 2160. Its just too far out for manufacture now, but for high-resolution projectors this might become the next must-have.

But yeah, 1080p Dead Space 3 in a comfortable armchair, a PS3 controller and a nice Bravia TV should look wonderful.

[McDangerous]

Bravia TV, tsk tsk tsk, what a Brand-whore.

I totally get why they're going to support it, but for the average Joe, that doesn't mean squat. An 8400GS supports 2560x1600, that doesn't mean it can actually do anything at that resolution, besides shudder.

I hope that they actually do something to the new DualShock controller this time around though. Specifically the triggers. Good gawd, the DualShock 3 triggers are horrible.

My biggest problem will be the lack of used game sales. That will really limit the user base, guaranteed. And true, while most of us have ADSL connections, there are still many of us who don't. Even with ADSL, I'm sure I'm not the only one who's experienced the dreaded mid-Steam-download connection drop. If your connection dies while Steam is still in online mode, sorry for you, you aren't touching any of those games. I've had that for two weeks, which was absolutely horrible, since 90% of my games are on Steam.

[Squirly]

The whole online download BS is really irking me, granted, mostly because my connections sucks and I'd never consider downloading most of today's games. Nevermind that I don't have a credit card and online purchases are a non-issue anyway. Having recently experienced a crash on my PC that screwed up my Steam installation, I'm now sitting with Shogun: Total War trying to download 5 GB of data for some reason. It was installed and working, but one screwup and suddenly I can't play it anymore even though it's right there in the steamapps directory. This will make the 3rd time in as many weeks where Steam ****ed me over, leaving me staring at the game I was enjoying just yesterday. I can't imagine having to put up with that **** on a console as well.

[Zoop]

The 5gb Shogun 2 update is an actual patch for the game. The patch was released alongside Fall of the Samurai.

[Squirly]

Right, that's the other thing. Shogun keeps downloading updates for DLC that I can't even use. And I can't play it until it updates. And I know you can set your game to download updates only when you tell it to - Steam just seems to lose those settings regularly. If I don't check in regularly he'll be be back to downloading automatically.

I wouldn't mind if it was just a patch for the game. But the DLC is useless to me so why force me to download that?

[Zoop]

Those patches are just to ensure there are no compatibility issues between people playing multiplayer with and without the DLC. But as for the 5gb patch, it was not only for FotS, it added a host of new features to the Shogun 2 base game as well. :P
I feel your pain about it ignoring the update settings, though. My Shogun 2 was set not to auto-update either. Fat lot of good that did. When I looked back, 5gb patch.

But still, there's really no need to think these issues will be carried over to any other download platform. Steam is one of the few platforms that is so absolutely anal with downloads. Not even Origin is as anal about patches, and allows you to actually play the game while the patch downloads, unlike Steam, which forces you to wait for the patch to finish downloading first.

We can't really say how a system like this will work on the Orbis until we see it in action.

[Munkie]

All very valid points.

BUT (yes that is a big but.)

Knowing Sony and their hardware very well, they will certainly make sure that even though they are probably going to include all of above said "features" they will make it easy on us and simplify the process.

So if you bought the game from a retailer and have your console with an Internet connection (by its release date our connections will hopefully be up to par with international speeds, availablity etc) you will still be able to enjoy your game, which at the end of the day is the only thing that really matters.