Stephen Colbert
Banned
Here are my hopes for the PS4...
Deny it all you want, but five years from now, many of you will own 4K tvs and will be chomping at the bit to buy the PS4, the first system to support 1TB Holographic Disks.
http://vr-zone.com/articles/1tb-holographic-discs-unveiled/7798.html
It will be the only realistic means for consumers to get their hands on 4K resolution content as well. Most people won't have the bandwidth required to stream or download 4K content over the internet. This the most effective means Sony has to discourage piracy and win back consumers they lost to netflix and hulu streaming.
The PS1 made CDs mainstream, the PS2 made DVDs mainstream, and the PS3 made Blu Ray mainstream and also sold metric tons of HDTVs, Sony using the PS4 as the means to push 4K HDTVs and HVD disks is almost a given at this point.
The market is still a few years off from accepting 4K. But it will be ready. The iPhone 4 has a 326ppi. That brand new 1920x1080 resolution 42 inch HDTV you just bought has a 52ppi. Consumers will be demanding higher resolutions soon enough.
Until the market is ready, Sony will squeeze as much life as they can out of the PS3. And the best option for them might be to release an intermediate system that plays PS3 games at higher fps and at a higher resolution, using higher resolution textures stored on the same blu ray disk as the normal game textures.
If I were a betting man, I would bet that those sticking with their current PS3s will be playing Uncharted 4 at 720p at 24fps, and the average consumer will be perfectly happy with this. Those updating to the PS3.5 will be playing that exact same disk at 1080p at 60fps.
To sum up...
The upcoming gen has to last well past 2020. 4K projectors and 4K hdtvs are already going into consumer production this year, they'll be fairly common in a few years. They offer a ppi of 140 where as current 1080p tvs have a ppi of around 60. The iPhone 4 by comparison has a ppi of 331.
More importantly, 4K is the resolution that is used in film. It's what Avatar and other blockbusters are filmed in. They could be transferred directly, without loss of color accuracy, onto HVD disks, to play on 4K tvs and 4K projectors. Hell, they could even be used by movie theaters rather than the massive film they currently use.
HVD isn't really that big an investment for sony. It uses a modified Blu Ray drive and the same laser. Offering up HVD playback would help Sony sell 4K tvs, and license out the tech to others.
Digital distribution of 4K resolutions is not feasible and will not be feasible over the next decade. In fact Sony pushing 4K is their best hope of staving off digital distribution from getting too popular. The videophiles and enthusists will prefer to view a movie in the original 4K resolution of it's theatrical release over viewing netflix at 720p.
I still want games to run at 1080p next gen. They can continue to be released on blu rays. But there's no reason why the PS4 can't also playback 4K movies on HVDs.
In fact, if anything, it helps the PS4. The PS3 having blu ray plackback inevitably led to a lot of techophiles and early adopters picking it up. It also led to Best Buy and others pushing it and bundling it with 1080p tvs.
HVD/4K playback will push early adopters to pick up the PS4 again, and will lead to Best Buy bundling them with 4K tvs.
Stephen Colbert said:I feel like this upcoming console generation may well be the console generation, or if not, atleast the last generation of consoles that we see until past 2020 (when I'll be too old to game).
So I want them to go all out on the technology front. The current gen is going to last close to a decade. This coming gen has to be built to last yet another decade.
This is why I expect and hope that the PS4 will feature...
The GPU better kick massive amounts of ass while also being easy to program. Something like the NVIDIA Maxwell (The combined CPU+GPU that Nvidia is developing with ARM for 2013 that Nvidia claims will be 10X more powerful than their current high end GPUs) should do nicely.
1TB HVD playback (shouldn't be expensive since HVD players are just modified blu ray players). The PS1 launched CDs, the PS2 launched DVDs, the PS3 launched Blu Rays, it only seems appropriate that the PS4 launch HVDs.
Output up to 4K resolutions (games will still be in 1080p, but the PS4 should playback 4K (film resolution) movies off HVD disks). The ppi of a 42 inch 1080p tv is only 62 (the iPhone 4's ppi is 331). The world will be demanding higher ppi screens soon enough. A 4k 42 inch tv (ppi of ~140) should suffice for the next decade.
USB 3.0 (since so many devices use USB)
Thunderbolt ports (since the technology is so cool and has so much potential)
And don't skimp on the RAM either. I'm hopeful that next gen consoles would pack a bare minimum of either 4GB of normal XDR2 RAM, or 2GB of XDR2 RAM that is upgraded with the technology from the Terabyte Bandwidth Initiative (ideal) or if not, then atleast 4-6GB of GDDR5 RAM (still lightyears ahead of DDR, though not quite as good as XDR2 RAM), a large amount of bandwidth on the memory bus, and a smart api that can split computations between the GPU and CPU.
Likewise, pairing it with a small SSD that houses the actual system OS, and can be used to cache game assets would dramatically reduce boot times and even cut down on power consumption. Considering the $229 iPod Touch houses a 32gb SSD, getting something like that in the PS4 in 2012 shouldn't be too difficult. SSDs are tiny. So running the OS, saving games and streaming game assets off of that, while having a bay that can be used for a regular hard drive to store movies and music would be ideal. It would also mean that you don't lose all your game saves everytime you upgrade your hard drive.
The earliest that Sony can deliver such a device at a price point of $399 for the cheap sku and $499 for the premium sku, that should be when the next gen starts.
Nintendo on the other hand I think can and will deliver on Virtual Reality in the upcoming gen. They already did 3D and they already did motion control, it's time to go that next step, and deliver on what they promised way back in the 90s with the Virtua Boy. What better way to gain more recruits from the blue ocean. Go to any Gameworks and you can experience VR in all it's glory. You step into a booth, put on a headset and it feels like you're on a rollercoaster. And these headsets aren't even 3D. Nintendo's version will be. The technology already exists. Just no one else was willing to take that leap and bring it out of the arcades and into the home yet.
Nintendo has been sinking billions upon billions into R&D for the past several years on something. They clearly wanted to make this happen since the Virtua Boy. And knowing Nintendo, once they get an idea into their head, they'll keep coming back to it and trying it until they can make it happen.
As far as MS goes, I really couldn't care less what they do. They ruined Rare, closed Ensemble, lost Bungie, and really don't have ANY first party studios or first party franchies left that I care about. If Microsoft rushes out a console in 2012, before people feel like they're really ready to upgrade, MS will only get a very short term advantage.
They'll be kicking themselves when Sony shows off a PS4 the subsequent e3 that is based on Maxwell and is almost a generation beyond what Microsoft has to offer.
Deny it all you want, but five years from now, many of you will own 4K tvs and will be chomping at the bit to buy the PS4, the first system to support 1TB Holographic Disks.
http://vr-zone.com/articles/1tb-holographic-discs-unveiled/7798.html
It will be the only realistic means for consumers to get their hands on 4K resolution content as well. Most people won't have the bandwidth required to stream or download 4K content over the internet. This the most effective means Sony has to discourage piracy and win back consumers they lost to netflix and hulu streaming.
jeff_rigby said:
The PS1 made CDs mainstream, the PS2 made DVDs mainstream, and the PS3 made Blu Ray mainstream and also sold metric tons of HDTVs, Sony using the PS4 as the means to push 4K HDTVs and HVD disks is almost a given at this point.
jeff_rigby said:
The market is still a few years off from accepting 4K. But it will be ready. The iPhone 4 has a 326ppi. That brand new 1920x1080 resolution 42 inch HDTV you just bought has a 52ppi. Consumers will be demanding higher resolutions soon enough.
Until the market is ready, Sony will squeeze as much life as they can out of the PS3. And the best option for them might be to release an intermediate system that plays PS3 games at higher fps and at a higher resolution, using higher resolution textures stored on the same blu ray disk as the normal game textures.
If I were a betting man, I would bet that those sticking with their current PS3s will be playing Uncharted 4 at 720p at 24fps, and the average consumer will be perfectly happy with this. Those updating to the PS3.5 will be playing that exact same disk at 1080p at 60fps.
To sum up...
The upcoming gen has to last well past 2020. 4K projectors and 4K hdtvs are already going into consumer production this year, they'll be fairly common in a few years. They offer a ppi of 140 where as current 1080p tvs have a ppi of around 60. The iPhone 4 by comparison has a ppi of 331.
More importantly, 4K is the resolution that is used in film. It's what Avatar and other blockbusters are filmed in. They could be transferred directly, without loss of color accuracy, onto HVD disks, to play on 4K tvs and 4K projectors. Hell, they could even be used by movie theaters rather than the massive film they currently use.
HVD isn't really that big an investment for sony. It uses a modified Blu Ray drive and the same laser. Offering up HVD playback would help Sony sell 4K tvs, and license out the tech to others.
Digital distribution of 4K resolutions is not feasible and will not be feasible over the next decade. In fact Sony pushing 4K is their best hope of staving off digital distribution from getting too popular. The videophiles and enthusists will prefer to view a movie in the original 4K resolution of it's theatrical release over viewing netflix at 720p.
I still want games to run at 1080p next gen. They can continue to be released on blu rays. But there's no reason why the PS4 can't also playback 4K movies on HVDs.
In fact, if anything, it helps the PS4. The PS3 having blu ray plackback inevitably led to a lot of techophiles and early adopters picking it up. It also led to Best Buy and others pushing it and bundling it with 1080p tvs.
HVD/4K playback will push early adopters to pick up the PS4 again, and will lead to Best Buy bundling them with 4K tvs.
