37 
With any luck, the next generation of big-boy gaming consoles is just a few months away, so the leaks are starting to come thick and fast. According to unnamed “developer sources”, the PS4 will–specs-wise, at least–totally own the Xbox’s sorry arse.
According to respected gaming blog VG247, the PS4 will have a run-capability of 1.84 teraflops, whereas the Xbox will have to make do with a measly 1.23 teraflops. If these numbers are true–and given the source, we’re inclined to think they’re in the right ballpark–then the PlayStation will have a good 50 per cent raw power advantage over the Xbox.
Mind you, there are some other leaked specs that swing more in the Xbox’s favour — Microsoft’s machine will supposedly pack 8GB of RAM to the PS4′s 4, giving it a serious memory advantage. Microsoft is also reputedly sticking a Blu-ray drive into the Xbox 720, nixing the hi-def-video-playback advantage that the PS3 currently holds.
Still, hopefully we’ll only have a few months to wait. The grapevine is currently whispering for a late March launch with a November on-sale date; which one are you cheering for? [VG247 via TechRadar]
Rumour: Xbox 720 "Aligned" With PS4, Controller Almost Entirely Unchanged
Leaked Microsoft Document Reveals the Xbox 720, Kinect 2, and a Possible Google Glass Competitor
Microsoft Dismisses Rumours of 2012 Xbox 720 Launch
Isn’t the PS3 supposed to have a similar advantage over the XBox 360?
In this instance the benchmarks will be completely meaningless if the game developers don’t take advantage of the hardware, something MS are all too well aware of – expect the effort required to port an XBox 720 game to WinPho or Win8 to be minimal as an added incentive.
Correct. Raw power is meaningless if developers can’t take advantage of it in a meaningful way and quickly enough to actually produce something that can be released.
I think the performance advantage is proportionally even greater in PS3, but that’s not a very good measure, since the vast majority of cross-platform titles perform better on Xbox 360. That’s partly because Xbox has marginally more available, and more flexibly configurable RAM, partly because it’s got a slightly better graphics card, but mostly because the PS3 GFLOPS number is a flat-out maximum maths performance, and real life code doesn’t all run like that – in fact the Xbox’s CPU is rather better placed to handle normal code, because it’s just a triple-core CPU rather than using loads of weird “Synergistic Processing Units”.
However…
Unlike PS3′s foolishly-designed expensive mistake of a CPU, PS4 is rumoured to have a pretty off-the-shelf AMD X86/X64 chip, which is potentially even better at general-purpose code than the IBM Power7 unit in the new Xbox. So we might well be at a stage where one of the high-end consoles has a genuine technical advantage over the other next time around.
now that’s a comment! Thanks Menty.
Adding to all this… People will probably just continue to run with whatever franchise they have already bought into. Having an Xbox now I will almost without doubt stick with Microsoft.
The next gen consoles are going to be as much about the added third party content available as the games they can play, they are geared up as full on media centres as opposed to just for games.
That and who wants a console without Halo?
The last mainstream console to have an x86 instruction set was the original Xbox if memory serves. That could run distros of Linux and of course spawned the venerable XBMC. Would be interesting to see what the homebrew community would do with it.
Good points… However PS devs or Sony will have some issues if they go for the X86/64 way in the compatibility department.
What will happen to ps3 games? Emulator on PS4? or not compatible at all? or devs will have to port old titles to new platform by means of some converter?
In XBOX end, dont see much problem for compatibility as new one is extension or better put upgrade of the previous both in software and hardware…
But speculations are meaningless until we see them at launch…
Also as mentioned by many, raw power is meaningless if software devs cant use it efficiently.
http://www.gaikai.com/
“http://www.gaikai.com/”
Your point being?
Yup, having looked it up, using the same performance metrics as mentioned above Xbox 360 has 77 GFLOPS, PS3 230 GFLOPS.
To be perfectly honest that’s pretty abysmal performance increase. If you consider that it has been 7-8 years between generations and processing power should have a doubling time of about a year.
Last Gen performace = 153.5 GFLOPS (average between ps3 and Xbox 360)
Next Gen performance = 1.535 TFLOPS (average between ps4 and Xbox 720)
So that gives a performance gain of exactly 10 times (pretty weird coincidence).
You should expect something closer to 153.5 GFLOPS x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 9.824 TFLOPS.
That’s a huge difference!
I just hope the prices aren’t x10!
But as true as a there’s a pit pony in ya burger, I bet you’ll need to take on the debt of a small nation to afford one.
£300 I reckon. I don’t think they can justify anything higher than that. Actually I don’t think they can even justify £300 if these specs are correct but people will buy it anyway.
I play computer games…..
I also play computer games. But your insinuation that we shouldn’t care about the hardware and should just play the games they give us is a little simple. It would be like someone talking about the spec of a soon-to-be-released car and you saying “I drive a car”.
It’s important what’s inside the hardware since that is one of the main factors that dictate the limits of what the console can do.
Your formula is wrong…
The transistor count (also more cores) & power increase isnt 1-1 parallel! There are a lot of factors in there that effects the end results as we have seen in the past and even now (see AMD vs Intel at same freq vs performance differences for different tasks). But one thing certain for the moment is that the increase in cpu generation/cpu power is decreasing as we are approaching the architecture’s limitations.
Put it in perspective: Processing Power increased between 1990-2000 was 100times vs 2000-2010 was 10! So xbox released in 2005
and use very simple maths (not logarithmic scale) would be 8-9 times… 153.5x(7-8) = 1.2-1.4 TF, lets assume abit more advancements to skew it 10 times, it would would be the exact no you have seen in your arithmetic average 
Just saying…
Ooh, will this comment section become a console flamewar? I hope it does, it’s -2 here and I could do with warming up. I’ll get us all started: xbox sucks because it’s not my chosen gaming platform of choice.
*slaps you in the face with a glove* na ahh, xbox doesnt suck… ps3 sucks because its not my chosen gaming platform of choice… xbox and pc for the win!
ooh ooh! Can I be the ‘PC gaming master race’ guy?!
flame wars always make me think of this:
http://youtu.be/LXQMoyhPNJA
Xbox360 sucks with monthly subscription (free on ps3), sucks with no bilt-in Wi-Fi (until recently) and sucks big with no blu-ray! Now slap yourself!
i dunno £30-40 a year doesnt seem too bad… i’d like to think my money goes towards not having any repeated hacking attempts (and successes) and no down time… (i havent experienced any)
http://venuspatrol.com/oimages/consolewars.jpg
This strikes me as something you should look at.
Unless the rumoured power advantage offers a significant difference in visuals then for most people I doubt it’s really going to make a difference to which system they buy.
Personally I’m more likely to be swayed by game exclusives, online community, media services, brand loyalty, cost, what my friends have and which of the two is released first (this is why I bought a 360 and have never owned a PS3 despite owning a ps2 and having never played an original xbox).
I think the actual horsepower of the machine will probably be a secondary or even tertiary issue for most people.
I’ll be sticking with Sony.
I’m inclined to stick with em too but I’m ready to be wooed if the specs and price are right.
I used to have an Xbox 360. I prefer the UI on the PS3(although dated) over the cluttered Xbox UI.
Some really seem to hate it but it’s not intrusive, so it’s fine by me.
I remember the first big change to it. I couldn’t find bugger all lol.
I meant PS3 btw, which thankfully never seems to change, just have things added to the ‘TV’ section.
I know a few friends that do not like having their xbox menu tampered with!
Uhhh…. are these the only updgrades we’ll be seeing? This is disappointing. In terms of actual difference in gameplay and graphics, what exactly is being promised here?
XboX has a bigger, friendlier eco system with the PC, Surface and Windows Phone 8 thrown into the mix as well. Also, Microsoft has heaps of money to fan into R&D projects and the future looks promising, atleast, from whats seen in the patent filings.
If you go with PS, you risk isolation. Sony is broke, and PSN doesn’t have a great reputation for being secure.
Will these consoles actually widen the frontiers of game development, I do not know.
PS. Microsoft also has Kinect, that they haven’t completely squeezed the juice out of.
And my GPU alone does 2TFLOPS and new GPUs will dow 5TFLOPS.
Also most developers will still programme for 32bit so they won’t be able to use all that RAM.
I think we should get chris to re-write the article and include your PC too.
I benchmarked my GPU’s after reading this too. I got 5.27TFLOPS. I would like to know what Sony are putting under the hood, especially as they’ll be going for a fairly conservative price. I doubt they’ll go above £400 or even £350. So I’m intrigued as to what the final hardware and specs will be.
(I’ll just put this here as well)
To be perfectly honest that’s pretty abysmal performance increase. If you consider that it has been 7-8 years between generations and processing power should have a doubling time of about a year.
Last Gen performace = 153.5 GFLOPS (average between ps3 and Xbox 360)
Next Gen performance = 1.535 TFLOPS (average between ps4 and Xbox 720)
So that gives a performance gain of exactly 10 times (pretty weird coincidence).
You should expect something closer to 153.5 GFLOPS x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 9.824 TFLOPS.
That’s a huge difference!
My GPU does about 3 TFLOPS.
I think I’ll stick with Sony this time round, if I get an Xbox it will break after the warranty
, Original PS3 still running perfectly, stuck a 250GB SSD in.
I have the Xbox but I can imagine the next one being even more of an advert machine than ever, keep it slick and simple Sony and you have a winner, so long as the price is right.
And what will you do once Sony is skint and pulls the plug on PSN and game developers stop making games for PS?
Get an xbox
I would like proper remote play between the PS and the Vita. That’s got to be a big priority to boost sales of the Vita.
Xbox for life.
Although whilst i wait for the new console i am going to try my hand at Pc gaming for the first time..
I’ll get both, like I have a 360 and PS3. Why bother getting involved in pointless fanboi politics when you can just have the best of both worlds.
What one will I get first? I guess it largely depends on launch titles and which one gets out of the door first.
4GB is a joke. Ram is so insanely cheap right now that even consumers can buy 4GB of ram for £15 and sony won’t be paying anywhere near that price. Even the cheapest notebooks have 4GB now. I was expecting some really amazing specs considering the extremely long time between generations but it’s looking much more like both Sony and Microsoft are going to be concentrating on services rather than core gaming.
I know it’s still early but it’s hard not to be disappointed by this news.
talks of them using much higher speed ram than in PCs. well, system RAM anyway. more like the RAM on your GFX card. which is much more costly.
i still think they should have at least 4GB available for the game, never mind the OS
Yeh I heard they want to use DDR5 RAM. And you’re right, it is much better in-terms of raw speed but the actual amount of RAM does limit things like high quality textures. I just think it’s worth them investing in hardware now so that the consoles can get the longest life-time possible.
Personally I’d have thought Sony would have boosted the memory much more than 4GB due to lessons (possibly) learnt this gen.
An 8GB set up would be great where as a 4GB machine may struggle in a few years time. The cost of both machines is going to be pretty expensive, regardless of both Sony and Microsoft taking a hit in the bank account.
After the Vita im not sure I will ever trust Sony again. Some of their launch videos of games were not even destined to be released on the Vita and were show cases of upcoming Playstation games, just screen sharing or now released, a companion app.
They always lie and what you end up getting is a slap in the face.
That’s why some Japanese guy randomly slapped me in the face!! fuckin Sony!
Ah yes, cos it’s the lack of horsepower that caused the Wii to sink without a trace.
With the same games available on all platforms it doesn’t really which camp you’re in. Although I find Xbox has far more cheating going on. I have had Xbox then got through five 360s until I could no longer be doing wirth RROD traded for a PS3 slim. But after my Son was born I had no time for gaming. Maybe in another 6 years or so…
Their benchmarks and press conferences sprout so much bullshit, I remember when they were trying to pass off the RSX chip inside the PS3 has having similar power to what the Nvidia 580 has lol. Turned out in the end that the 360s ATI GPU could push more pixels than the Nvidia chip inside the PS3 lol.
Not to mention Sony decided to go with that bullshit Cell CPU that lets be honest has never delivered anything beyond what the 360 has. The only reason why games like Uncharted or whatever look better is simply because Sony actually have a first party and Microsoft barely has anything worthwhile.
The new consoles will be of similar power and games will look pretty much identical on each platform but Nintendo s failing Wii U. They have to make the games for the broadest market so that means making the games for the lowest common denominator and then porting it to the more powerful systems.
I myself couldn’t care less though because consoles are shit, the PC is much better, you don’t get treated like crap from any company on the PC. Lets be honest too, Steam is light years ahead of what is available on the consoles, you still cannot download most games directly on a console and you get overcharged. I don’t agree with paying to play a game I’ve already bought either, if I’ve bought a game then why is a lot of multiplayer content locked out until I pay for a Gold sub? Bullshit Microsoft.
Anyways PC gaming is cheaper too, there is this weird myth that it is expensive but it is just a myth. You can use most of your old PC parts for one, really all you need is a new mobo, cpu and GPU if you already own a PC with DDR3 and a good PSU.
I just do that every 3 years and it costs like £500, I’m still using a DVD drive from 2003 because lets be honest, you never really use DVDs anymore unless you’re making a Windows disc which you’ll want to burn on the lowest speed anyways.
Also have to factor in I’d be buying a new PC every few years anyways for everything else even if I didn’t play games. Also Steam games you can often get on Sales for like 50%-75% off, I picked up games that were like £40 on consoles, for £15 on Steam during the Christmas sale. If you’re really cheap you can always torrent…
In the end it’s probably cheaper, don’t have to buy all the companies patented peripherals and pay a sub to be able to play your games lol.
every single console gen we get this very same argument. “y console is more powerful than x console” “pcs are more powerful” etc etc.
Consoles do not work like that. A dedicated game machine can operate with only a fraction of the power a pc operates at and have largely the same performance. i remember the Jaguar 64bit console, it came out when the mega drive and snes had only 8bit. and it was aweful.
i also seem to remember an article last year about a NES emulator running on the most powerful hardware money could buy, and it STILL wasnt as good at SNES games as the SNES was.
numbers like this mean next to nothing. the PS4 could be a million times as powerful as the 720, but EA will still make FIFA 14 on both, and it will look the same, on both.
MS will still make Halo, and it will still look amazing.
IF you only game on PCs, and hate consoles because they use a controler, youar argument is invalid. If you think Consoles are superior to PCs in every way, your argument is invalid.
Formaula one, Touring Cars and Rally are all Motor sports.
damnit, SNES emulator not NES Emulator
PCs are the best, there is no reason to buy a console if you own a PC and the sooner these closed platforms fuck off and die the better.
you are an idiot.
MS will never put a Blu-Ray in the new Xbox. Why would MS want Sony to earn money on every Xbox sold?
The same reason Apple want Samsung to earn money on every iPhone sold.
It’s pretty common for companies to licence tech from other companies that they are simultaneously competing with. Blu-ray is an established standard now, maybe they have decided they have more to gain by using it than depriving their competitor of a small amount of income.
Anyway, there are many companies behind Blu-Ray, not just Sony. I’m not sure who gets the money from the licencing, but it’s probably shared between a lot of companies.
who invented the CD and the DVD genius?
of course itl have blue ray. blue ray is the media of choice. MS will follow the cash, giving away a small amount of billions is better than keeping one dollar to yourself.
I think the numbers game is meaningless tbh.
For the present generation there are some significant differences between the XBox and Playstation platforms, inexhaustively (word?);
XBox has Kinect – motion gaming without stupid accessories that make you look like a tool (the ‘Move’)
Playstation Network may be free, but I have never had a satisfactory multiplayer experience with it compared to XBox Live – I have 120 meg broadband but find the PSN multiplayer experience laggy and generally woeful.. XBOX Live officially costs about £39.99 a year, and yet for the last 4-5 years I have picked up an annual subscription for £24.99-26.99 – hardly big bucks, and I’ve been getting a much smoother multiplayer experience because of it.
Playstation has Blu-Ray – the reason I bought a playstation 3 in the first place. even after all these years I can’t bring myself to pay for a dedicated blu-ray player. that said, blu-ray as an advantage is being steadily eroded by the advent of streaming and downloadable high-def content from Ultraviolet, the and more importantly, the iTunes store – why would I pay £22 for the latest blu-ray in tesco when I can download it for £13.99 from iTunes? Netflix and Lovefilm have also significantly affected my film/TV purchasing habits as well, they may not offer HD, but for £5-6 a month for a vast range of content who is complaining?
XBox, quit simply, has better controllers… PS controllers are frankly shit, uncomfortable and dire for FPS, additionally the built in batteries are a serious disadvantage, when XBox controllers die you just bung in a couple more AA batteries (which is rare as they are lasting around 50 hours on a pair of eneloops).
after-sales support… my first PS3 died and sony wanted at the time; £35 to inspect it, up to £126.99 to repair it and £126.99 to replace it if unrepairable and… drum roll.. £35 shipping and handling to ship it back to me whatever the outcome. I have no idea what their current pricing policy is but this was only 2 years ago. I had to purchase a whole new playstation 3 to replace it, at full price as sony’s support option was simply untenable.
to contrast;
XBox died outside of warranty – collected by courier, replaced outright with brand spanking new xbox free of charge. replacement died 2 years later, same again. each time done inside of a fortnight, actually the first one was replaced in three days. that final replacement is still going strong in my daughter’s bedroom as we speak.
and finally;
everywhere I go I see playstation games at 39.99 – 49.99 on launch, yet xbox ones seem to come in at 34.99 – 39.99 with some even around £25 on offers in tesco etc. Sony somehow seems to stifle discounting of their games yet microsoft seem to encourage it. additionally sony have got a big hate on for the pre-owned games market which is a big source of my sons games collection.
the above are just my £0.02 on the subject. overall I would say that Xbox has offered a much greater and more enjoyable ownership experience over time than the playstation has – and yet the playstation is supposedly “more powerful”.
*Token PC gaming master race comment*