News broke out earlier this morning from a European source that the upcoming PlayStation 4, or more famously known as Orbis around the Interwebs, is going to have some crazy specs. Seeing how Sony for better or worse is a hardware company first and software second (though they are learning with the PS Vita, which has a nice mixture of both), its not hard to believe that Sony will pack the PS4 with powerful specs. While many frowned upon the PS3 with its higher price, Sony at the end was right to include units which from the beginning had built in wireless, hard drives, HDMI out, Blu-ray drives, and 3D capabilities. On the other hand, the Xbox 360, Sony’s closest competitor, has seen 10 different revisions since its launch which has fragmented the user market where some have HDMI out and others don’t while the base model still lacks a hard drive.
Still, at some point, enough is enough and with the PS4 rumored to have 10GB of RAM, we have to issue a public service announcement to help bring everyone back to reality. After the jump, let’s separate fact and the pipe dreams.
RAM has dropped quite a bit in price since the PS3 launched over 5 years ago. Despite the PS3 rocking out monster game graphics in up to 1080p and offering 3D content in 720p (movies in 1080p), the gaming console only has 512MB RAM. The rumored PS4 specs would see the system jumping up to 10GB RAM. To put that into perspective, Sony’s high end laptops with quad-core i7 graphic cards don’t come with 10GB RAM and they are priced at $2,000. Unless Sony wants a $2,000 gaming system, there is no way the PlayStation 4 will have that much RAM. In fact, I’d be shocked if the system came with 4GB RAM while it will more than likely houses 2GB RAM. Looking back, the PSone housed 2MB RAM while the PS2 offered a more appropriate 32MB RAM. Do we really expect the PS4 to jump up by nearly a 1000 percent?
Rumored Specs:
— An “advanced Cell processor” equipped with “10GB of working memory.”
— Max 2D resolution to be 3840 x 2160; max 3D resolution to be 1080p.
— Two custom Nvidia graphics chips provide “video display and plenty of power.”
— Backwards compatibility is included: “The aim is older PS discs without problems.”
— Release window of Q4 2013.
Other rumors which I believe are just more common sense than “leaked” information point towards the system displaying a max 2D resolution at 3840 x 2160 and a max 3D resolution at 1080p. Seeing how the PS3 can already perform full 1080p (1920 x 1280) and the Japanese PS3 received a 4K firmware update, allowing for images to be displayed at 4K (4096 x 2160), it’s not hard to imagine the PS4 to offer native 4K video games and movie playback.
In fact, Sony is already releasing 4K cameras, 4K Blu-ray players and 4K projectors to the market. Televisions will be the next likely candidate for the technology as more 4K content becomes available. Blu-ray, the defacto HD format, is also equipped to offer 4K content, which reduces another 4K hurdle for consumers who don’t want to invest in another format. Even if 4K televisions don’t hit the market in the next two years, you can bet that the PS4 will be ready for the format, much like how the PS3 was ready for 3D long before there was talk of mainstream 3D gaming and movies.
Backwards compatibility is another debated topic as previous rumors pointed towards a lack of the beloved feature. Since then, SCEA President, Jack Tretton has come out in support of the feature. The inclusion of two Nvidia graphics cards is truly irrelevant, too, as it’s just tech jumbo. Sony may opt for one MEGA powerful video card or two powerful video cards. The point is that the PS3 displays beautiful graphics and we can only expect the PS4 to have an equal jump in quality. The number of cards really won’t change that and neither will the processor, be it a next generation cell processor or a more standard Intel processor.
In the end, don’t expect to have any real information revealed about the PS4 till next year. I assume that this year’s E3 will be dominated by the PlayStation Vita while E3 2013 will see the debut of the PS4 with a holiday release date.
Discuss:
How much RAM do you think the PlayStation 4 will have?