Ubisoft is a massive publisher best known for titles like Rainbow Six Siege and Assassin’s Creed. Their CEO, Yves Guillemot, is easily one of the biggest players in the game industry. Given this standing, it’s safe to assume he would have the best knowledge of when to expect the next generation of consoles. Speaking on an investor call, he revealed Ubisoft’s predictions for when we’ll potentially see the PS5 and Xbox 2. They believe that it’s still at least 2 years before we’ll see the new system. Let’s discuss! How Sure is Ubisoft About This Prediction? During an investor call, Ubisoft’s CEO Yves Guillemot said that the company’s belief is that the next major consoles are a “minimum of two years away.” Guillemot went to explain: As Sony launched PlayStation 4 Pro last year and Microsoft Xbox One X this year, we think we still have a minimum of two years in front of us before something new is coming. But that’s our perception, we don’t have any confidential information on that front.” So, according to Guillemot, there’s no evidence to support their claim that the PS5 is two years away, but it does make sense. After all, the PS4 Pro has only been out for about a year, and the Xbox One X just released. Customers won’t be happy if their new system is obsolete in a year. In the eyes of Ubisoft, the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X aren’t a bad thing, either. Guillemot believes they will be beneficial to the industry in the long run: We really like the fact that Sony and Microsoft are really putting more power in their machines, using the evolution of technology to give power to our developers to create better games for our players. That is going in the right direction, rather than trying to do accessories or other things. That is going to help the industry a lot because the games will be really beautiful on those machines. While Guillemot’s comment about accessories could be seen as a knock to PlayStation VR, it’s true that the new systems do offer more horsepower for developers to expand on. Even so, they aren’t able to complete run with the new systems, instead being forced to ensure all new games run on both the original hardware and the new ones. With 4K being the main focus, is it really realistic to think that these new mid-generation systems can carry the industry forward for 2 years or longer? This is where our speculation comes into play. Finding the Balance Between New Hardware and Loyalty Ubisoft immediately assumes that the PS5 is at least two years away, based mostly on the fact that the PS4 Pro and the Xbox One X just released. While these new systems are nice, they don’t really empower developers as much as a new generation would. Since games are required to work on all hardware, the new systems can only go so far before they are leaving the old … Read More
Most PlayStation Fans Prefer to Wait for the PS5
Gamers are used to have console generations, but all of that has changed. Now, we have the PS4 Pro, along with the standard PS4, to choose from. While this new option is 4K enabled and more powerful, it’s not the PS5. The PS5 is still coming, which leaves gamers with a decision to make: should they wait for the PS5? We ran a poll to ask that very question, and the results were very interesting. Join us as we look at the answers our fans gave us, and how you can decide for yourself. We Asked and The Fans Answered We were curious about how our fans thought of the PS4 Pro. Was it something they had to have, or would they rather keep their PS4 systems and await the inevitable PS5? It was an interesting question to ask. After all, wouldn’t PlayStation fans leap on the opportunity to try out a new console? Well, since the PS4 is more of an upgraded PS4 Pro, the difference wasn’t as striking as a next generation console would be. So, we went to work to see what the fans wanted. As part of our poll, we gave gamers three different choices: Buy the PS4 Pro Wait on the PS5 Neither As of this writing, the poll shows a whopping 60% prefer to wait for the PS5! It’s followed up by those who will buy the PS4 Pro, and the neither crowd came in the last place. So, it’s clear that the majority want to wait on the PS5. It makes sense, given the fact that PS4 Pro is simply an upgraded PS4. The fact that it exists within the same generation as the PS4 means that it will play all of the same games and that all future games will have to work on the PS4 as well. That means that the difference, while noticeable, won’t ever be the generational leap that the PS5 could provide. Sony has also focused intensely on the 4K aspect of the system. While it doesn’t always hit native 4K resolution, the checkerboard rendering it uses does give resolutions well above 1080p. The problem with this is that this is only something that 4K TV owners can have. 1080p owners can get benefits like supersampling, higher frame rates, and better graphics, but these features are rarely advertised or used to their fullest potential. Exceptions include games like Rise of the Tomb Raider, which offers multiple modes for PS4 Pro owners to choose, including higher frame rates or improved graphics. Beyond cases like this, the PS4 Pro hasn’t managed to really offer a major leap. It offers a lot for 4K TV owners, but the incentive for 1080p owners isn’t as high. That being said, if you’ve opted for PlayStation VR, the additional power of the Pro does create noticeably better experiences fairly consistently. Even with these things in mind, the PS4 Pro is still a $400 console. With Microsoft selling the Xbox One X for $499, it’s … Read More
Unparalleled Console Upgrades: Should We Fix What Isn’t Broken?
Since the dawn of gaming, there have been a few constants that we never thought would be broken. Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft will always be in competition, games based on movies will usually be crappy, and consoles come out in generations. With the release of the PS4 Pro and the Xbox One X, that last constant has been forever shattered. Iterative consoles are here, but do they represent the future? Will we never see a quantum leap forward with a next generation machine? Will it always be just one upgrade after another? It’s time we looked at the facts and speculate on the future of console gaming. Shifting The Playing Field: How The Industry Has Changed Until this latest generation, console releases moved at a pretty normal pace. You had the PS1, the PS2, the PS3, and now the PS4. Consoles moved at a relatively predictable pace, but in the background, there was alway this tension between console gamers and PC gamers. As consoles aged, so too did the hardware. While developers always did an incredible job of pushing the consoles to their limits, the gap between console and PC hardware has always represented an elephant in room. As the growth of PC power accelerated, this gap only widened, so it’s only fair that Sony wanted to prevent people from leaping from consoles to PC as the generation goes on. Their solution was to introduce a console that would sit alongside the PS4 within the same generation, but offer additional power that would entice hardcore gamers to stick around instead of jumping to PC. Andrew House, the boss of PlayStation, spoke with Polygon prior to the release of the PS4 Pro, and explained this reasoning behind the iterative upgrade. In the interview Andrew house said: “There’s a dip mid-console lifecycle where the players who want the very best graphical experience will start to migrate to PC, because that’s obviously where it’s to be had. We wanted to keep those people within our ecosystem by giving the very best, and very highest performance quality.” In seeking to hit the PC bar with a console, PS4 Pro doesn’t quite meet the expectation. Thus far, it’s only really focused on 4K, which is something PC gamers enjoy, but the not the sole reason people tend to gravitate to PC for gaming. Other things like frame rates, graphics, and effects are also higher fidelity on a high-powered PC. The PS4 Pro does offer more power, but with almost a year under its belt, I haven’t seen enough from it to convince gamers that it’s the better choice over a PC. This is mostly due to the fact that the console is focused primarily on 4K, which is nice, but PC power offers more than just higher resolutions. Better graphics, higher frame rates, and the option to continuously upgrade are all good reasons to choose it over consoles. Don’t get me wrong, I like the PS4 Pro and I do own one, but I don’t … Read More
PS5 in 2018? 5 Reasons Why It Absolutely Won’t Happen
Recently, the PlayStation 5 has been on everyone’s mind. No, it’s not because Sony said something about its inevitable release, it’s because a major analyst named Damian Thong predicted that Sony would be releasing the PS5 in 2018 to record breaking sales. Where does this leave new PS4 Pro and VR owners? Is Sony really moving on this quickly? The answer is no. Releasing the PS5 in 2018 would be a foolish move, and it’s not likely that Sony would make such a grave mistake when they’re doing so well. Join us for five reason why this prediction absolutely will not happen. 5 Reasons Why We Won’t Be Seeing The PS5 in 2018 (Despite Predictions) While I respect the opinion of Damian Thong, I don’t believe the PS5 will be coming in 2018. Beyond the obvious reason that it’s too soon, I’ve compiled my top 5 reasons why PS5 needs to come out later. Holiday 2020 seems about right, given the evidence we’ve compiled on our PS5 Release Date Page. Let’s take a look: 1. Sony is Winning in Sales Sony has literally zero reasons to rush the PS5 out of the gate. The PS4 has sold over 60 million consoles and that number continues to grow. Furthermore, Microsoft has only pushed between 25-30 million consoles to date, according to estimates. Even with Project Scorpio (Xbox 2) looming over the horizon, there’s still no rush. Even if Scorpio sold like crazy (which it won’t because it’s going to be expensive), it would take years for Microsoft to catch up. With Sony dominating the market, it just doesn’t make sense for them to compromise their lead by rushing out a new console. So, why did Damian Thong predict this? Well, it’s hard to say, but I would venture to guess that he say Microsoft’s upcoming console, how it was more powerful than Sony’s PS4 Pro, and threw in some other numbers to get to his prediction. I can understand that side of things, to an extent. The PS5 would, and will, sell like hotcakes, but it will sell better if people are ready for it. For this reason and all the others, that’s simply not the case. 2. PS4 Pro is Still Young The PS4 Pro hasn’t even been out for a year and we’re already talking about PS5? Sony committed to this concept of a mid-generation hardware refresh and said that it would be their focus for the foreseeable future. Two years (2018), is within the foreseeable future. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that gamers would be utterly enraged if they found out that their brand new console was about to be obsolete. It just doesn’t make any sense from a customer service perspective. Not to mention, look at the power that developers have managed to squeeze out of the PS4. The games continue to increase in both size and scale, and graphics have never looked better. Even though the PS4 Pro isn’t as powerful as … Read More
Why The PS5 Will Run at 8+ Teraflops For True 4K
When new consoles are announced, people want to know what it can do, and how powerful it is. While the typical consumer isn’t interested in RAM, GPU, or teraflops, hardcore games absolutely want to know what’s under the hood. Knowing the specs of a system empowers us to make a lot of predictions as to what it will be able to accomplish. Today we’re going to look at the teraflop, and what it does for a console’s power. Then we’ll look at the PS4 Pro’s specs, and why the PS5 will hit the fabled 8 (Actually 10.28) teraflops to play games in native 4K. Uh, Remind Me Again: What’s a Teraflop? The term “flop” refers to a floating point operation. This is a basic measurement of computational power. At the heart of both Sony and Microsoft consoles are chipsets manufactured by AMD. To calculate the teraflops of a console, you follow this formula: multiply the amount of shader cores by the clock-speed, then multiply that by two. That last step is to account for each clock (one multiply, one accumulate operation) that runs simultaneously. This will get you a huge number, so we divide that by one million and that will give us a teraflop measurement. Let’s look at an example, using the Xbox One and PS4: Xbox One: 768 shaders (x) 853MHz (x) 2 instructions per clock = 1,310,208 megaflops or 1.31 teraflops PS4: 1280 shaders (x) 800MHz (x) 2 instructions per clock = 1,843,200 megaflops or 1.84 teraflops So how does this apply to games as a whole? Well, we have to remember that teraflops are a very basic measurement and only apply to computational power. You have to consider several other factors before you can make a prediction on the performance of a machine. The software drivers and architecture of the GPU also contribute to the overall performance. It’s about efficiency as much as it is importance. On paper, for example, the PS4 Pro is 2.3x more powerful than the PS4, but a 40% increase in computational power doesn’t necessarily equal out to a 40% increase in performance. When it comes down to it, teraflops alone cannot define a console or PC’s performance. There are other factors like the GPU’s memory bandwidth that play into the equation. Thus far in the console war, the Xbox One’s 1.31 teraflops has been at a distinct disadvantage when compared to the PS4’s 1.84 teraflops. This is also a result of the Xbox One’s lower memory bandwidth. Developers have been very good at handling the difference in specs over the course of the generation, but we’ve seen resolutions swing wildly between the two consoles. What the PS4 runs in 1080p runs at 900p or lower on Xbox. The same situation may become the case with Xbox 2 (Project Scorpio) and PS4 Pro. Microsoft is targeting native 4K and 6 teraflops with their new console, but how they will manage that remains to be seen. There are some who believe that 6TF … Read More
The 4K Dilemma: How PS5 Will do What PS4 Pro Won’t
The PS4 Pro (previously known as the PS4.5 or PS4 Neo), releases in November of 2016. For the first time in the gaming industry, we’ll have a new console release with better hardware and more capabilities that still exists within the same generation. That’s right, the PS4 Pro is not the PS5, it’s something new. Furthermore, the extra power isn’t able to run games in native 4K as of yet. Instead, Sony has opted to upscale games to this higher resolution. Combine this with the lack of a 4K Blu-Ray player, and you have to wonder how all of this fits together. Today, we’ll break down the details of the PS4 Pro and ultimately use it to peek into the future and find out what Sony is planning for the PS5. Mark Cerny Breaks Down the PS4 Pro Mark Cerny is the system architect for PlayStation. He’s also been involved with countless other game franchises like Crash Bandicoot, Uncharted, Spyro, and even Ratchet & Clank. He worked on the PS4 and now he’s sat down with The Verge to talk about the approaches he took to PS4 Pro. It’s safe to say that Mark, and his wonderfully smooth voice, will also be the architect on the PS5. Moments like these offer a lot of great insight into what he and Sony are thinking. For starters, the PS4 Pro is indeed 2.28 times more powerful than the PS4. The first caveat, even with this power, is that not everything will run in native 4K resolutions. When asked about the new GPU, Cerny revealed that it’s not actually new. Instead, they decided to install a second GPU that’s almost identical to the first one with a 14% boost to 911MHz. The standard PS4 hits 1.8 teraflops, but the Pro is bringing 4.2 teraflops to the table. The same eight Jaguar CPU cores are being used, but they’ve been clock at higher speeds. Furthermore, the RAM has a higher bandwidth, and they’ve also added an additional gig of conventional RAM to boost the speed of menu applications and switching between them. This power allows the system to hit native 4K in certain situations, and what Cerny calls “extremely close to 4K” in others. For games like Call of Duty and Horizon: Zero Dawn, the system uses a workaround called checkerboard rendering. This allows the system to reach 2160p resolution by changing the way pixels are arranged so the resolution is in fact higher. Other games will use this same technique to run in 1080p. As you may already know, a shocking amount of titles only run at roughly 900p on PS4, so this will also offer a boost for 1080p television owners. Games will require a “Pro” mode or a patch to take advantage of the extra hardware. This means that games will run the same on the new system unless modified to use the extra power. For 1080p television owners, the difference won’t be huge, but developers can use this power to … Read More