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Sony PlayStation (Games)

Sony To Debut Two New PlayStation 4 Consoles Next Month, Says WSJ (cnet.com) 86

Posted by msmash from the new-gaming-consoles dept.
An anonymous reader writes: Sony could be about to announce two new PlayStation 4 consoles, according to the Wall Street Journal. Both units are set to be introduced next month, people familiar with the matter told the newspaper. The upgraded console outlined by the company earlier this year, capable of outputting 4K-resolution graphics, could be joined by a slimmed-down, cheaper version of the console. That would give gamers options to suit their varying budgets and demands. Sony is set to hold a press conference at the PlayStation Theater in New York on September 7 where the company is expected to outline the consoles in further detail.
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Sony To Debut Two New PlayStation 4 Consoles Next Month, Says WSJ More

Sony To Debut Two New PlayStation 4 Consoles Next Month, Says WSJ

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  • Related Leaked Images (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Leaked images of the ps4 slim http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/08/ps4-slim-specs-price-release-date/

  • The console advantage. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Monday August 22, 2016 @10:11AM (#52747823)

    I don't get this changes with Microsoft than Sony.
    They key advantage of Consoles isn't their power and performance but the fact that they are a common setup for the entire platform. Having different models with different features, will degrade this advantage and will end up with the same problem that we get with PCs. Games not optimized for the platforms, where they will not support the features that want to use, or will perform at a level that will cause a disadvantage to the other lesser box.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Higaran ( 835598 )
      Yes, but 3 or 4 configurations is much easier to deal with then the almost infinite processor/ram/gpu/hard drive configurations out there.
    • Well there's two things to say about that. Firstly, the 7 year console cycle sony was locked into was losing them money, they can now make tons more. The other side is, eventually consoles become a service, you no longer by play station 4, you buy "playstation" and pay a monthly fee, when the hardware gets updated, you get a new console in the mail, send back the old gen (or the parts replaced) and enjoy the new hardware. This is where it's going, this is a slow first step towards it
      • wow that comes off as if I'm supporting the decision, I'm not, I'm so butthurt over buying a ps4 and instantly finding out they are putting out a better one probably next year, with game devs already saying how the new ps4 will change their games (meaning I get fucked TWICE, first by paying 70$ for a digital game without a physical copy, then again for round two as I watch the game I bought become better on the neo while I get to play fucking shitty half assed ports.) I do not support this decision. I do

      • That's no where near where this is going. You're right in that you just buy "Playstation" rather than a Playstation XYZ. But your new console will play all your older games and all newer games going forward for X number of years without needing a subscription. Sure if 2023 a game might come out that requires a 2017 or newer version of the hardware, but how if that different than the normal generational increases?

        I find this much more attractive than the PS3/360 -> PS4/XBone shift. On the Microsoft si

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Holi ( 250190 )
          a thirty year old game will be at best 16 bit, so no, without an emulator of some kind, you won't be playing it on a modern (64 bit) operating system.

          • Yes you might have to use something like DOSBox. But you can still run your original copy on the latest hardware. You can't run anything that's not PS4 on a PS4 (PS3 digital, PS2 disk, PS1 disk, etc). Hopefully the way consoles are going will fix that.

        • I can play ps3 games on my ps4. What's wrong with yours?
    • Are console exclusives written anymore without ownership or heavy incentivization from the console manufacturers? If the software writers are going to go cross platform anyway, it probably isn't a great deal more effort to code in some PC-style performance settings hardcoded to the different console revisions. Certainly it is easy to do a few performance settings for different Xboxes versus Xbox and Playstation both, and yet most do the latter anyway. Console peripherals like controllers can add up to a

      • Re:The console advantage. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by DarkOx ( 621550 ) on Monday August 22, 2016 @10:37AM (#52748015) Journal

        On the developer side not its not probably that much harder to make the games able to support a range, all be it a limited one, of hardware.

        On the consumer side though, I am not thrilled. I know many will disagree with me but I liked the least common denominator aspect of consoles. It meant that you could go to the store bring the game home and just play it. It worked and played the way it did in the store or on the TV commercial. Granny just had to understand little Timmy has a PlayStation and this is a PlayStation title to buy him a birthday gift.

        Now its going to be back to the world of PC games. Where you have to buy the thing to find out it runs all choppy on your hardware or many of the cool visual effects are disabled etc. Now its back to having to go read a bunch of forums to see if Grand Theft Auto 19 is actually worth playing on my PlayStation 9 model 1B+ or if I really have to go invest in a PlayStation 9 model 2X or maybe a PlayStation 9 model 2X+ to enjoy it.

        I don't see this as being terribly good for consumers.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Quirkz ( 1206400 )

          I know many will disagree with me but I liked the least common denominator aspect of consoles. It meant that you could go to the store bring the game home and just play it. It worked and played the way it did in the store or on the TV commercial. ... Where you have to buy the thing to find out it runs all choppy on your hardware or many of the cool visual effects are disabled etc.

          I'm with you on this, because that's exactly the principle that got me into buying consoles rather than constantly fiddling with my computers. However, I've honestly had some issues with earlier Playstations. I can think of one PS3 game I've got that I've never finished, because there's a scene halfway through with some sort of memory error due to too many things on the screen. There are supposedly fixes, but I've never gotten them to work, and unlike a computer where I might add more RAM, on the PS3 I'm ou

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by jezwel ( 2451108 )

          Granny just had to understand little Timmy has a PlayStation and this is a PlayStation title to buy him a birthday gift.

          Right now Granny has to know which of the 4 versions of Playstations to target. Theoretically, the future would be just 'PlayStation' and the game will detect the capabilities of the console on which it is running and customise settings to cater for the setup.

      • Are console exclusives written anymore without ownership or heavy incentivization from the console manufacturers?

        There were third-party games released on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 but not PC. One of these was Red Dead Redemption. There are also third-party games released on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One but not PC. One of these is Mortal Kombat XL. This number increases if your home PC runs anything other than Windows. Did you also mean to count handheld games for PlayStation Vita or Nintendo 3DS?

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

          Are console exclusives written anymore without ownership or heavy incentivization from the console manufacturers?

          There were third-party games released on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 but not PC. One of these was Red Dead Redemption. There are also third-party games released on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One but not PC. One of these is Mortal Kombat XL. This number increases if your home PC runs anything other than Windows. Did you also mean to count handheld games for PlayStation Vita or Nintendo 3DS?

          I think OP m

        • I meant more in terms of games that are available only on a single platform ie Xbox One or Playstation 4, but not both. Everyone else is already writing their games for multiple performance scenarios.
        • I don't think anyone counts playstation vita for anything, not even sony.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tepples ( 727027 )

        To improve the median quality of games available for their platforms, console makers do background checks on their authorized developers to ensure some minimal level of experience and financial stability. So if a developer is making the jump from PC or smartphones to consoles for the first time, its qualification to develop on one console might still be pending, and the game might hit one console's download store before the developer gets a chance to start on a port to the other(s).

        If a third-party game is

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dissy ( 172727 )

      That doesn't make any sense.

      The new ps4 provides playback for 4k bluray movies. The current/old ps4 only provides 1080hd playback of movies.

      How does that effect or give advantage to someone in a game?

      • it doesnt, except that the upscaler probably works for games as well. So you can output 4k for games, just upscaled from 1080. Not much of an advantage, then again many of the 4k sets Ive seen have horrible upscalers and anything but 4k looks like utter crap. So hopefully the xbones/ps4+++ upscaler does a better job

      • no, that's the slim xbox - the ps4neo is supposed to have a faster cpu, faster gpu, more memory bandwith, etc. which will probably have more advantages than running the same graphics just with higher resolution (although i hope it's mostly just that). it's definitely not just upscaling of video.

    • This.

      A thousand times this.

      And it's not just that they wouldn't know and have to learn that now. That's basically been the problem since the days of the Atari 2600. Remember the train wreck its successor was, that 5200? Yes, it was "better". But nobody built jack shit for it. Because there were a ton of 2600 machines out there that would not be compatible, while the 5200 was compatible with 2600 games. So why the hell build for a console that was, first, not that much better, second, far more complicated to

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dissy ( 172727 )

        Because there were a ton of 2600 machines out there that would not be compatible, while the 5200 was compatible with 2600 games.

        Just a tech-nit, but it was actually the 7800 that was the "next gen" 2600 that had backwards compatibility with games and utilized the same controllers.

        The 5200 was a totally different and unique beast that wasn't forward or backward compatible with anything, used completely different shaped cartridges, and a different controller protocol and connector (it was analog input with a keypad of buttons and the new pause from the controller function)

    • I agree with you mostly, but it seems to me that Sony has done it (based on the leaked info IIRC) as well as can be done -- no "high end version only" games, only ADDED features (e.g. VR).

      Also, hasn't Nintendo had multiple different versions of GameBoys out at the same time very often? GBA, GBA SP, the various 3D ones, etc? I know not all of those were at the same time, but I thought they had multiple ones, that didn't always play all of the games, out at the same time... and the Wii U seemed to be the on

  • Death Rattle of an Industry (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    That would give gamers options to suit their varying budgets and demands.

    I don't want console options or gimmicks. I want good games, at a reasonable price.
    Log into the PS4 store sometime. Game bundles of €100+ are visible, or last gen cinematic crud like Uncharted, and "next-gen" FPS like Doom, which won praise for actually getting within shooting distance of gameplay from 15 years ago.

    Consoles are a waste of money now. You can get 95%+ of all their shit on PC, cheaper, more conveniently, and more re

    • I don't want console options or gimmicks. I want good games, at a reasonable price.

      You say this, then you rant about the stuff that's on the PS4 store.

      I'm VERY MUCH more a "physical media" person than a digital download person, largely because it is the "backup", in that I can put it in another console too...

      But games are often cheap enough on PSN that even I have been sucked into the digital download thing. I have even re-bought a few games that got CHEAP ENOUGH (literally a few dollars at most) to make i

  • Hmmmm (Score:3)

    by hipp5 ( 1635263 ) on Monday August 22, 2016 @10:48AM (#52748091)
    The slim version makes sense. As the platform matures, get out a barebones system at a lower price point. Console manufacturers have been doing this for a while now. I had the PS1 slim and the second gen PS3. If the PS4 slim hits the right price point I'll finally jump into PS4 land. The 4k version is a little more iffy. Now developers have two configurations they have to consider.
  • I could see 4k video sure. But 4k games? It can not even handle 1080p currently a lot of the time.

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