The Next Gen consoles

[b00dles]

Because it would run the OS while you're running the game, so you'd be (in theory) able to use all the OS functions without quitting out.

That's one thing that I really do think Nintendo have done better in regards to OS/ Online functionality. Being able to just pause a 3DS game and then open a browser to find a clue to something, or to use the notepad functionality is really quite clever. Similarly with the WiiU (although no notepad function that I've noticed for some reason).

I have always liked being able to play your music library in other games with xbox though but I can't imagine any of the functions being that useful to me personally, to eat up 3GB. If it's all going to be facebook and twitter notifications etc which then impacts the ability for devs to make a good game somehow (bottlenecks or whatever due to missing that 3GB) then I'll genuinely be annoyed about the whole 'media hub' nonsense. Baseless conjecture I know, so hopefully it won't be a problem and I'll be able to BING to my hearts content if I'm stuck in a game or something.

[scottcr]

Isn't it obvious though that the next Xbox is an under the telly windows 8 pc?

[Alex W.]

Do the digital foundry guys actually play and enjoy and games???

If their DmC discussion is anything to go by, they're as deeply involved in the feel of games as the tech behind it.

3GB is a lot of reserved memory. Even Windows 7 running iTunes and Firefox with umpteen tabs doesn't touch that much. Something else has to be going on. Maybe a game's HDD cache is copied into RAM at launch? Probably not.

[Barny]

Do the digital foundry guys actually play and enjoy and games???

Penis!

(specs don't matter, Nintendo, yadda-yadda)

[Alex W.]

Isn't it obvious though that the next Xbox is an under the telly windows 8 pc?

If Windows 8 could be used without touching the legacy Windows interface, and Metro apps could be trusted to all be joypad-friendly, sure.

[Barny]

I used to know a guy who basically spent his evenings maximising his frame rate on the PC racer 'screamer'. He never actually PLAYED the thing. Just observed the frame rate and then tweaked his config and memory settings an bought extra kit to get the frame rate up.

People like that confuse me

So what? Dude get's fun from tinkering, What a mess.

[Smitty]

Do the digital foundry guys actually play and enjoy and games???

Why do you come out with shit like this, Scottcr?

Do you resent them for doing technical analysis of games graphical performance?

TRUE STORY: You'd see Scottcr in here raving about DF if they published an article praising the graphical performance of a Wii U game.

[Alex W.]

When I owned a gaming PC most of my tweaking was to make it quieter. Lost hours to that.

[Cthulhu Steev]

I'm as excited about the tech in these things as I am the games, even if I don't understand most of it it still does something to my gaming glands (testicles).

Fuck yeah!

[SMD]

That's one thing that I really do think Nintendo have done better in regards to OS/ Online functionality. Being able to just pause a 3DS game and then open a browser to find a clue to something, or to use the notepad functionality is really quite clever. Similarly with the WiiU (although no notepad function that I've noticed for some reason).

I have always liked being able to play your music library in other games with xbox though but I can't imagine any of the functions being that useful to me personally, to eat up 3GB. If it's all going to be facebook and twitter notifications etc which then impacts the ability for devs to make a good game somehow (bottlenecks or whatever due to missing that 3GB) then I'll genuinely be annoyed about the whole 'media hub' nonsense. Baseless conjecture I know, so hopefully it won't be a problem and I'll be able to BING to my hearts content if I'm stuck in a game or something.

The way I see it is this: if you're playing a game on your 360/PS3, you're limited to what is available on the menu. So for the 360, you can check your achievements and friends list, send messages and stuff but if you want to view your game library, Marketplace/PSN Store or more, you have to quit out of your game.

3Gb means you could in theory run the rest of the features of the console while in game - so the media stuff like you suggested, or going on the shop and finding DLC or new games. Or perhaps Bing/IE/Youtube/whatever. I guess it remains to be seen how devs feel about the amount and type of RAM we'll get.

If their DmC discussion is anything to go by, they're as deeply involved in the feel of games as the tech behind it.

3GB is a lot of reserved memory. Even Windows 7 running iTunes and Firefox with umpteen tabs doesn't touch that much. Something else has to be going on. Maybe a game's HDD cache is copied into RAM at launch? Probably not.

It depends what they plan for the console to do. Maybe there are new features that ties into Kinect 2? We don't really know what that room filling VR thing is going to actually turn up as, so maybe there's that.

Actually, there's a point - does Kinect 2 have its own processor like Kinect does or will it be more tied into the console? In which case, if you don't use Kinect, is it just wasted memory?

[Eoin]

The way I see it is this: if you're playing a game on your 360/PS3, you're limited to what is available on the menu. So for the 360, you can check your achievements and friends list, send messages and stuff but if you want to view your game library, Marketplace/PSN Store or more, you have to quit out of your game.

On the Vita, though, you can run a game, swap over to the PlayStation Store, run Skype, change some settings, "view your game library" (whatever that actually means), open the web browser and start browsing around, check the Twitter app, and play some music....without quitting the game.

The Vita will limit the amount of apps that can open at once and start closing them off (the limit is 5) but it manages to do that with I believe 96MB reserved for the OS (or perhaps it's 128MB). Double that amount and I'm sure it could also do things like play videos and whatever else.

I thought that the Wii U's 1GB for the OS was odd. 3GB seems excessive in the extreme and while "being able to do lots of things while the game is open" is clearly part of the explanation, I don't think it can really be the biggest part.

[Super Craig]

The Metal Gear Rising thread reminded me that we really need a universal animated GIF exporter in the PS4 and XB3. Would be amazing.

[Spacehost]

On the Vita, though, you can run a game, swap over to the PlayStation Store, run Skype, change some settings, "view your game library" (whatever that actually means), open the web browser and start browsing around, check the Twitter app, and play some music....without quitting the game.

The Vita will limit the amount of apps that can open at once and start closing them off (the limit is 5) but it manages to do that with I believe 96MB reserved for the OS (or perhaps it's 128MB). Double that amount and I'm sure it could also do things like play videos and whatever else.

I thought that the Wii U's 1GB for the OS was odd. 3GB seems excessive in the extreme and while "being able to do lots of things while the game is open" is clearly part of the explanation, I don't think it can really be the biggest part.

I didn't realise the WiiU OS RAM demands were so high. It's only got about a gig of OS in flash storage to start with, is it keeping the Mini Plaza and stuff in RAM in game?

[Barny]

On the Vita, though, you can run a game, swap over to the PlayStation Store, run Skype, change some settings, "view your game library" (whatever that actually means), open the web browser and start browsing around, check the Twitter app, and play some music....without quitting the game.

The Vita will limit the amount of apps that can open at once and start closing them off (the limit is 5) but it manages to do that with I believe 96MB reserved for the OS (or perhaps it's 128MB). Double that amount and I'm sure it could also do things like play videos and whatever else.

I thought that the Wii U's 1GB for the OS was odd. 3GB seems excessive in the extreme and while "being able to do lots of things while the game is open" is clearly part of the explanation, I don't think it can really be the biggest part.

That's a cool feature on the Vita. But when jumping out of game and using the browser and going back to the game often means the browser has to reload the page you were on. And even on super-fast WIFI the browser is slooow. But cool anyway.

[Eoin]

That's a cool feature on the Vita. But when jumping out of game and using the browser and going back to the game often means the browser has to reload the page you were on. And even on super-fast WIFI the browser is slooow. But cool anyway.

There are limitations, yes, but I don't think it would be much of a stretch to say that you could remove many of those limitations by doubling or trebling the amount of RAM reserved for the OS, rather than multiplying it more than twenty times.

[SMD]

On the Vita, though, you can run a game, swap over to the PlayStation Store, run Skype, change some settings, "view your game library" (whatever that actually means), open the web browser and start browsing around, check the Twitter app, and play some music....without quitting the game.

The Vita will limit the amount of apps that can open at once and start closing them off (the limit is 5) but it manages to do that with I believe 96MB reserved for the OS (or perhaps it's 128MB). Double that amount and I'm sure it could also do things like play videos and whatever else.

I thought that the Wii U's 1GB for the OS was odd. 3GB seems excessive in the extreme and while "being able to do lots of things while the game is open" is clearly part of the explanation, I don't think it can really be the biggest part.

The game library thing I only mentioned because it's something that you have to quit out of your game to do on the 360. Not entirely sure why that is but there you go.

Do we have any idea what sort of window we're expecting for announcements to be made? What is there before E3? GDC?

The Metal Gear Rising thread reminded me that we really need a universal animated GIF exporter in the PS4 and XB3. Would be amazing.

Or even just export to Youtube/mp4.

Or if they really wanted to push the boat out, you could save replays in any game and have like sharetube where you can show people in your party videos.

[scottcr]

Why do you come out with shit like this, Scottcr?

Do you resent them for doing technical analysis of games graphical performance?

TRUE STORY: You'd see Scottcr in here raving about DF if they published an article praising the graphical performance of a Wii U game.

Just for fun really - they just remind me of that screamer guy

[b00dles]

The way I see it is this: if you're playing a game on your 360/PS3, you're limited to what is available on the menu. So for the 360, you can check your achievements and friends list, send messages and stuff but if you want to view your game library, Marketplace/PSN Store or more, you have to quit out o

I know, that's what I mean for all of the 'OS needs to still run, lets leave aside some RAM' needs - the only one that I think that has done it really well from the current gen is the 3DS. Which for Nintendo's history with online stuff, is actually quite good.

Although very few things beat the ability to send a message to someone to tell them I've beaten a score in Pinball FX and very few things will make me stop whatever I'm currently playing / doing apart from getting a similar message about being beaten.

I imagine otherwise you must be right in regards to Kinect 2 stuff as it's not like you're ever going to need to all of a sudden (or at the same time) rent a movie or something while you're playing Gears of Duty: Absolute ReVengerance

[Josh128]

Just for fun really - they just remind me of that screamer guy

They are just like the "screamer" guy. I do enjoy DF articles though, been a faithful reader since 2008. I'm one of those nerds that finds the tech analysis interesting. I've been interested in tech specs ever since the 16 bit wars, and I suspect most DF like guys have been as well.

[Robo_1]

This mock up of the DS4 has appeared:

It seems to be designed around the current rumours, that Sony are experimenting with lcd touch screen and biometrics on the controller. I actually like the look of the controller, as it's essentially a Vita with added grips. The potential this has for cross controller and indeed cross play with the Vita is quite exciting.

If they went with a controller which matched Vita for inputs, then it makes their Vita strategy far more interesting. You could use Vita as a second PS4 controller, and if they do go with this cloud based 'your content anywhere' approach, then I guess you could stream your PS4 games to Vita with no control compromises.

Hadn't expected they would go in such a direction to be honest, as of course they then have to foot the bill for that controller, but given that the specs point to a fast but not expensive machine, it's possible they've got room to maneuver with the controller, especially if MS has to factor in bundling Kinect into their next box.

[Pob]

What would they do about losing R1 and L1?

[iris]

It's a gamepad.

[scottcr]

But but but but but

[iris]

To be fair it's a gamepad that can't be held sideways.

[bobin]

But but but but but

It's a good thing Scott - this should guarantee more third party games for the Wii U.

If MS don't follow suit, it could have interesting implications for them.

[Ferine]

That's just a fan's interpretation of yesterday's rumour. I wouldn't read too much into it.

[squirtle]

The thumb sticks are way too low.

[DocG]

I think it'd be great to put screens in controllers. Inventory management in Skyrim and the car tuning and painting interfaces in Forza are two examples that immediately spring to mind where a standard joypad interface could be meaningfully beefed up by the versatility a touchscreen can offer.

[scottcr]

Oh I agree... Screens in te controller are great. Totally. But some people seem to irrationally hate the idea.

MS won't go down this path... They've got smart glass. I predict a plastic doofer that will allow you to put your phone onto your controller...

Which will be great until someone phones or texts or whatever.

[DocG]

Oh I agree... Screens in te controller are great. Totally. But some people seem to irrationally hate the idea.

Well, people fear it will only be used for novelty stuff, like motion sensing in far too many Wii games. That's not an irrational fear.

Fragmentation of control scheme is going to be highly interesting. Suppose (for the sake of argument) that PS4 controller rumour is about right, so it has a smallish screen. The WiiU has a comparatively huge screen, so ports have to be carefully thought about; you can't present the same amount of info. Now suppose MS don't have a screen, but does something else unexpected; say, outlandish fine-grained gesture support via Kinect 2: Son of Kinect. Meanwhile Oculus is doing its thing and Steam brings in biometrics.

That's going to make it bloody hard for third party devs to decide how to support what. The little kid in me thinks we'd get dozens of really cool unique ways to use each tech. The cynical adult thinks devs will mostly just target the lowest common denominator and we'll get The Same Old Same Old with some tiny, token amount of touchscreen/gesture/VR ladelled over.