I'm just happy with the Facebook integration. That way if I'm playing the latest Ratchet & Clank and run out of ammo I can go ask my friends to come help tend my bullet making factory. Oh and I just need 4 more friends to tend my pit crew and give me better tires on Drive Club.
I know you're just being snide for the sake of it, but in Driveclub's case, the social features in Motorstorm RC were fucking fantastic. Instant ghost transfers so you always had your friends ghosts on the track with you at all times, great integration of challenges and leaderboards for each race. Everything was just super integrated and seamless. It made that game ridiculously addictive.
They aren't aiming for "harhar, facebook spam" with this.
Origin for Dragon Age: Inquisition Shenanigans: Inksplat776
Destiny is confirmed as not coming out in 2013. That means it cannot be a launch title for a "Holiday 2013" release.
Aw. Well, Watchdogs still. And I'll be grabbing D3, because my wife and I used to play a ton of D2 together, but we only have one desktop now. And Knack looked cute.
Origin for Dragon Age: Inquisition Shenanigans: Inksplat776
Watch Dogs, Madden 25 and Call of Duty 2013 are givens, but GTAV on Playstation 4 would be historic. I don't think a GTA game has ever been at a console launch.
When you guys are talking about PSN titles no longer being supported, you just mean PS3 titles, right? Why would PSone Classics suddenly be invalid? They're emulated on the PS3 in the first place.
No, they mean PSN games. It would cost Sony resources and money to emulate them again on PS4. They have declined to do so it seems.
"For no one - no one in this world can you trust. Not men. Not women. Not beasts...this you can trust."
When you guys are talking about PSN titles no longer being supported, you just mean PS3 titles, right? Why would PSone Classics suddenly be invalid? They're emulated on the PS3 in the first place.
Emulated by a program running on the Cell right? A program that won't run on the new architecture?
This is the question: How big an asshole is Sony going to be?
Historically, taking the under on that bet has not been a good proposition.
When you guys are talking about PSN titles no longer being supported, you just mean PS3 titles, right? Why would PSone Classics suddenly be invalid? They're emulated on the PS3 in the first place.
No, they mean PSN games. It would cost Sony resources and money to emulate them again on PS4. They have declined to do so it seems.
Yay for speculation put forth as fact! And even then, they could easily allow streaming of the PSOne games you own later, as there's no issue with discs being passed around to activate it on multiple consoles.
Origin for Dragon Age: Inquisition Shenanigans: Inksplat776
I'm just happy with the Facebook integration. That way if I'm playing the latest Ratchet & Clank and run out of ammo I can go ask my friends to come help tend my bullet making factory. Oh and I just need 4 more friends to tend my pit crew and give me better tires on Drive Club.
I know you're just being snide for the sake of it, but in Driveclub's case, the social features in Motorstorm RC were fucking fantastic. Instant ghost transfers so you always had your friends ghosts on the track with you at all times, great integration of challenges and leaderboards for each race. Everything was just super integrated and seamless. It made that game ridiculously addictive.
They aren't aiming for "harhar, facebook spam" with this.
While I was being snide, I get that Sony isn't out to do that initially I do think we'll see this in the future. There is no way that we won't see some form of Facebook spam encouraging other people to play your game for some form of reward/bonus in game.
Do people just think that PSN games were developed for some x86 chip hidden in the PS3 or what?
While I can see that - I think the problem is that many, many PSN games are not only PSN games - they were released on 360 or Steam as well. While I get that you can't guarantee you'll bring them all over, it would be nice if they could simply bring over what they can do with minimal work and make them available. It's hard for people to accept "You bought the PSN version of Castle Crashers but you can't play it on the PS4 because it doesn't have a Cell processor".
For me I can handle that maybe I can't play my Castle Crashers on the PS4. Where the anger comes in is, hey would you like to buy Castle Crashers for the PS4?
When you guys are talking about PSN titles no longer being supported, you just mean PS3 titles, right? Why would PSone Classics suddenly be invalid? They're emulated on the PS3 in the first place.
Emulated by a program running on the Cell right? A program that won't run on the new architecture?
This is the question: How big an asshole is Sony going to be?
Historically, taking the under on that bet has not been a good proposition.
Well, x86 is infinitely less complex than Cell, so getting PSone games to run on this new hardware probably isn't too difficult. There have been PSone emulators on the PC for awhile now, I believe.
Dashui on
Xbox Live, PSN & Origin: Vacorsis 3DS: 2638-0037-166
When you guys are talking about PSN titles no longer being supported, you just mean PS3 titles, right? Why would PSone Classics suddenly be invalid? They're emulated on the PS3 in the first place.
No, they mean PSN games. It would cost Sony resources and money to emulate them again on PS4. They have declined to do so it seems.
Yay for speculation put forth as fact! And even then, they could easily allow streaming of the PSOne games you own later, as there's no issue with discs being passed around to activate it on multiple consoles.
When you guys are talking about PSN titles no longer being supported, you just mean PS3 titles, right? Why would PSone Classics suddenly be invalid? They're emulated on the PS3 in the first place.
Emulated by a program running on the Cell right? A program that won't run on the new architecture?
This is the question: How big an asshole is Sony going to be?
Historically, taking the under on that bet has not been a good proposition.
Well, x86 is infinitely less complex than Cell, so getting PSone games to run on this new hardware probably isn't too difficult. There have been PSone emulators on the PC for awhile now, I believe.
Oh yeah, and it shouldn't be a big deal to bang up an emulator to run on it, at least for the PS1 stuff. Why you'd have to be big asshole to not do that for your customers right?
When you guys are talking about PSN titles no longer being supported, you just mean PS3 titles, right? Why would PSone Classics suddenly be invalid? They're emulated on the PS3 in the first place.
...using an emulator that operates within the Cell architecture.
Sony would have to create an entirely different emulator.
When you guys are talking about PSN titles no longer being supported, you just mean PS3 titles, right? Why would PSone Classics suddenly be invalid? They're emulated on the PS3 in the first place.
No, they mean PSN games. It would cost Sony resources and money to emulate them again on PS4. They have declined to do so it seems.
Yay for speculation put forth as fact! And even then, they could easily allow streaming of the PSOne games you own later, as there's no issue with discs being passed around to activate it on multiple consoles.
Sony would have to create an entirely different emulator.
For PS1 games... that's not a very big task.
The only difficult/impossible task would be to make PS3 emulation on the PS4. Emulating PS1 and even PS2 wouldn't be that big of an undertaking at all, considering homebrew coders have made both for windows already. PS2 apparently is a bigger challenge to emulate in an x86 environment, but its still being done.
When you guys are talking about PSN titles no longer being supported, you just mean PS3 titles, right? Why would PSone Classics suddenly be invalid? They're emulated on the PS3 in the first place.
Emulated by a program running on the Cell right? A program that won't run on the new architecture?
This is the question: How big an asshole is Sony going to be?
Historically, taking the under on that bet has not been a good proposition.
Because two words: PSP, Vita.
PSP is MIPS, Vita is ARM.
If they can make the PSOne classics also run on those, there's no way that the Cell excuse can be used.
It probably will come down to how big an asshole Sony wants to be, however.
No one knows about FUTURE games, yeah...but unless every article under the sun is wrong "Does not transfer" is pretty clear.
"For no one - no one in this world can you trust. Not men. Not women. Not beasts...this you can trust."
+1
GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
PSOne games will probably end up on the PS4. Hell maybe PS2 games will as well. Anything coded specifically for the Cell is not going to make the jump. So basically every PS3 exclusive, including PSN games. Whether non-exclusive PSN games make the jump won't even be up to Sony, it will be up to the makers of that game.
Imagine if Valve came out and said they were releasing a new version of Steam that didn't work with older games, but all new games would require it. Haha. Even then you could still just have both programs on the same system though.
Imagine if Valve came out and said they were releasing a new version of Steam that didn't work with older games, but all new games would require it. Haha. Even then you could still just have both programs on the same system though.
The internet would've figured out how to get old games to work with newsteam in less than two minutes.
Everyone has a price. Throw enough gold around and someone will risk disintegration.
Imagine if Valve came out and said they were releasing a new version of Steam that didn't work with older games, but all new games would require it. Haha. Even then you could still just have both programs on the same system though.
That's not even close to the same thing, but thanks for trying!
Imagine if Valve came out and said they were releasing a new version of Steam that didn't work with older games, but all new games would require it. Haha. Even then you could still just have both programs on the same system though.
I'm not sure you could possibly make a worse analogy. The basics of PC hardware haven't changed in 25 years. Our basic hardware is still based on the Intel 8086 and it's instruction set. All we've done is extend it and add more goodies.
I know it's not the same thing. But the point is that PC users don't have to put up with that so why should console users? Back when we were using cartridges it made sense, but as we move toward consoles that are practically PCs and use digital media instead of physical media, it starts to sound like a money grab more than a legit reason.
Of course the big question is whether Sony can be arsed to spend the time and money creating new PSOne and PS2 emulators.
Switch: 3947-4890-9293
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GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
edited February 2013
PC users don't have to put up with it because our hardware basics haven't changed in literally forever in technological terms. If PC architecture was reinvented ever 5-10 years, we'd be dealing with it to.
In fact, we DO deal with it. Older games can be a BEAR to get running, and that's with a consistent architecture over a span of decades and our biggest OS provider (Microsoft) having a serious hard on for backwards compatibility in it's OS. We have some work arounds like DOSbox, but even DOSbox requires configuration to work correctly.
Imagine if Valve came out and said they were releasing a new version of Steam that didn't work with older games, but all new games would require it. Haha. Even then you could still just have both programs on the same system though.
Thats why I love PC over consoles. I own consoles and enjoy watching the little "war" that comes out each generation... in the end I play PC and buy the consoles for exclusives.
I still have copies of my first PC games in the early 90's. They still work fine on my new fancy pants hardware.
I know it's not the same thing. But the point is that PC users don't have to put up with that so why should console users? Back when we were using cartridges it made sense, but as we move toward consoles that are practically PCs and use digital media instead of physical media, it starts to sound like a money grab more than a legit reason.
There is an entirely valid reason why ps3 games whether they be retail physical or psn can't be played on the ps4, and that is that including a cell chip in each ps4 would add $1-200 to each console, a price no one is willing to pay, and that emulating it is really really hard, not impossible, but it would take a lot of resources at Sony to get it working for every game.
I suppose psn games could be recompiled for the ps4, but who is going to pay to have that done? I don't think the developers would want to put in a bunch of work just so you can play it on a new console, there's no money to be made for them doing that.
ps classic games though should easily be transferable to the ps4, this is the only area where if they make you pay again I would consider a horrible cash grab.
Sony did the math and saw how much it would cost to get BC on the ps4, and decided it wasn't worth it.
PC users don't have to put up with it because our hardware basics haven't changed in literally forever in technological terms. If PC architecture was reinvented ever 5-10 years, we'd be dealing with it to.
In fact, we DO deal with it. Older games can be a BEAR to get running, and that's with a consistent architecture over a span of decades and our biggest OS provider (Microsoft) having a serious hard on for backwards compatibility in it's OS. We have some work arounds like DOSbox, but even DOSbox requires configuration to work correctly.
Actually the chips these days have a quite different internal architectures than chips from years ago. But the chips also basically emulate that old architecture as far as what the interface is. At least that's what I understand.
Basically both Intel and Microsoft put a lot of effort into BC.
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
Imagine if Valve came out and said they were releasing a new version of Steam that didn't work with older games, but all new games would require it. Haha. Even then you could still just have both programs on the same system though.
Thats why I love PC over consoles. I own consoles and enjoy watching the little "war" that comes out each generation... in the end I play PC and buy the consoles for exclusives.
I still have copies of my first PC games in the early 90's. They still work fine on my new fancy pants hardware.
Yeah. I tend to get some on the PC and some on console depending on a few factors. If consoles continue to screw us with this BC thing I may end up just going for PC more and more.
I know it's not the same thing. But the point is that PC users don't have to put up with that so why should console users? Back when we were using cartridges it made sense, but as we move toward consoles that are practically PCs and use digital media instead of physical media, it starts to sound like a money grab more than a legit reason.
There is an entirely valid reason why ps3 games whether they be retail physical or psn can't be played on the ps4, and that is that including a cell chip in each ps4 would add $1-200 to each console, a price no one is willing to pay, and that emulating it is really really hard, not impossible, but it would take a lot of resources at Sony to get it working for every game.
I suppose psn games could be recompiled for the ps4, but who is going to pay to have that done? I don't think the developers would want to put in a bunch of work just so you can play it on a new console, there's no money to be made for them doing that.
ps classic games though should easily be transferable to the ps4, this is the only area where if they make you pay again I would consider a horrible cash grab.
Sony did the math and saw how much it would cost to get BC on the ps4, and decided it wasn't worth it.
Sure, that is an entirely valid reason. Unfortunately, it is a reason they chose to create. If they chose differently, that reason wouldn't exist. So it's still their fault, right?
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GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
Emulating the cell on an x86 architecture would be the programming equivalent of waterboarding. The architectures don't just have differing instruction sets, they have completely different ways of operating. Cell is RISC, x86 is CISC. Cell uses an incredibly short, multi-fed pipeline, x86 uses a much longer preemptive single feed pipeline with a lot of pre-fetching and fancy caching. The Cell is incredibly good at a lot of small, asynchronous tasks (thus the total headache it was to synchronize), while the x86 is better at a smaller set of longer running sequential tasks. This doesn't even get in to the way the Cell is actually designed, as a series of interconnect aligned chips, rather than a single cache coherent package.
It's not just a simple "translate instruction set X to instruction set Y", the actual silicon of the Cell is fundamentally a different animal than x86.
I know it's not the same thing. But the point is that PC users don't have to put up with that so why should console users? Back when we were using cartridges it made sense, but as we move toward consoles that are practically PCs and use digital media instead of physical media, it starts to sound like a money grab more than a legit reason.
PC users absolutely have to put up with the same shit. DOS games sure as shit won't work in Windows 7 without a third party application. Hell, sometimes you can't even get a game from 2000 to work!
You have to at least give Sony credit for taking the design of the PS4 away from the Japanese divisions and giving it to someone new to try and win back the western developers that will earn them sales in the US and Europe.
They could have been stubborn and tried to do what they've always done, but they didn't.
InkSplat on
Origin for Dragon Age: Inquisition Shenanigans: Inksplat776
I know it's not the same thing. But the point is that PC users don't have to put up with that so why should console users? Back when we were using cartridges it made sense, but as we move toward consoles that are practically PCs and use digital media instead of physical media, it starts to sound like a money grab more than a legit reason.
Gnome Tank has the right of it.
To use a language analogy, PC's have been speaking English (x86) since forever. Current English isn't the same as original English, but it's a drift, an evolution.
Whereas consoles - Sony in this case - were originally speaking in Japanese (PSOne,PS2 - MIPS), then German (PS3 - Cell/PowerPC), and now English (x86). So even though some PSN games are relatively small and simple, they're still being delivered in another language. If you ask "where is the bathroom" without pantomiming, but the person you're speaking to doesn't understand your language, you're going nowhere.
This is Sony's problem. And probably Microsoft's, as the 360 is PowerPC-based, and they may switch to x86 as well.
EDIT: For contrast, the GameCube, Wii, and Wii U are all PowerPC-based.
GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
edited February 2013
I think a lot of people take things like DOSbox for granted, as if it didn't take years for DOSbox to be perfected so that we could run older DOS games. And that wasn't a capability provided by any of the vendors, that's basically a fan service emulator written by regular programmers who had time and energy.
In the end, this all goes back to how ridiculously stable the x86 architecture has been in the world of computing, despite the pace of change. It's just now in 2013 that x86 is seeing any serious competition and that's only in the mobile space. x86 still absolute rules the roost in larger form factors, now including consoles (again).
Imagine if Valve came out and said they were releasing a new version of Steam that didn't work with older games, but all new games would require it. Haha. Even then you could still just have both programs on the same system though.
Thats why I love PC over consoles. I own consoles and enjoy watching the little "war" that comes out each generation... in the end I play PC and buy the consoles for exclusives.
I still have copies of my first PC games in the early 90's. They still work fine on my new fancy pants hardware.
Indeed. Which is why I just can't back digital distribution for console games.
Keeping the physical copies of console games seems to be the best way to continue playing old games. As an example, I can go out and get a NES just as easily as anything else. As long as I still have those old games I'll still have a way to play them, even if I have to buy another console (which I think is way cheaper then buying old games :P).
However, this move by Sony and (presumably MS) to make consoles that seem to effectively be PCs (that ain't a knock against them) it does give me hope for the next-next-gen allowing you to play PS4/720 games on the new-new-console.
We'll see how things play out I guess, but if the next-next-gen is is just an upgraded version of the PS4/720 (much like simply upgrading your PC) and they do allow BC with everything you have bought I will reassess my stance on digital distribution.
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
Emulating the cell on an x86 architecture would be the programming equivalent of waterboarding. The architectures don't just have differing instruction sets, they have completely different ways of operating. Cell is RISC, x86 is CISC. Cell uses an incredibly short, multi-fed pipeline, x86 uses a much longer preemptive single feed pipeline with a lot of pre-fetching and fancy caching. The Cell is incredibly good at a lot of small, asynchronous tasks (thus the total headache it was to synchronize), while the x86 is better at a smaller set of longer running sequential tasks. This doesn't even get in to the way the Cell is actually designed, as a series of interconnect aligned chips, rather than a single cache coherent package.
It's not just a simple "translate instruction set X to instruction set Y", the actual silicon of the Cell is fundamentally a different animal than x86.
Hey man, if Jeff Goldblum could put a computer virus on an alien mothership with a Powerbook...
+3
G RolDorsia? Nobody goes there anymore...Nell'sRegistered Userregular
I'd like to pretend to be in the "leaning PC" camp, but I'm put off by all the posts I see from people having trouble getting a game up and running. I don't want to have to fuck around with .ini files (or whatever). Plus, I'd have to invest in a setup for my TV that would cost more than a console anyway. My current desktop is an ancient beast that I use exclusively as an internet machine.
I'd dig being part of the master race, but my tech skill set and funds don't allow for it. Still bummed that I never got to play Vampire: The Masquerade.
0
GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
PC users don't have to put up with it because our hardware basics haven't changed in literally forever in technological terms. If PC architecture was reinvented ever 5-10 years, we'd be dealing with it to.
In fact, we DO deal with it. Older games can be a BEAR to get running, and that's with a consistent architecture over a span of decades and our biggest OS provider (Microsoft) having a serious hard on for backwards compatibility in it's OS. We have some work arounds like DOSbox, but even DOSbox requires configuration to work correctly.
Actually the chips these days have a quite different internal architectures than chips from years ago. But the chips also basically emulate that old architecture as far as what the interface is. At least that's what I understand.
Basically both Intel and Microsoft put a lot of effort into BC.
The internal architectures of the CPU's is fundamentally different, but the instruction set is the same. That's what x86 is, it's an instruction set, not really an architecture. ARM, as a side note, is the same thing. ARM is an instruction set, a common way to talk to silicon that speaks that language.
Over the years x86 the basic instruction set still very much exists in every Intel and AMD CPU. Things have certainly been added (SIMD, MMX, SSE, those are all instruction set extensions), but the basic instruction set hasn't changed in years.
Every CPU since the 8086 has had something called an "instruction decoder", and this is what you're thinking of when you think of the CPU "emulating" things, though it's fundamentally a different technology. The CPU's are still absolutely designed under the auspices that x86 code will be run on them.
Imagine if Valve came out and said they were releasing a new version of Steam that didn't work with older games, but all new games would require it. Haha. Even then you could still just have both programs on the same system though.
They have, it's called Steam for Linux
But seriously, emulating a complex system like the PS3 is an enormous task. Even if it was possible, the performance would be horrible.
You have to emulate the CPU, I/O, sound processors, graphics processor, etc. It's crazy.
This is why PS3/PSN software isn't going to run on the PS4. Their source code is compiled to work with the PS3 SDK and its hardware instruction set. It's not just going to be a simple case of the developers taking their game and recompiling it for the PS4. Their will be a different API for the SDK and probably hundreds of different nuances to cater for with the architecture and hardware of the PS4.
Developers aren't really going to do this, then have their entire product go through weeks of internal testing, then through Sony certification, all for free.
Even taking the PC versions of those PSN games isn't just a simple day's work of porting it over. The majority of them could be using XNA or DirectX, API's that won't exist for the PS4 SDK. The developers would need to rewrite their wrapper libraries around all these to cater for the PS4.
Posts
I know you're just being snide for the sake of it, but in Driveclub's case, the social features in Motorstorm RC were fucking fantastic. Instant ghost transfers so you always had your friends ghosts on the track with you at all times, great integration of challenges and leaderboards for each race. Everything was just super integrated and seamless. It made that game ridiculously addictive.
They aren't aiming for "harhar, facebook spam" with this.
Aw. Well, Watchdogs still. And I'll be grabbing D3, because my wife and I used to play a ton of D2 together, but we only have one desktop now. And Knack looked cute.
No, they mean PSN games. It would cost Sony resources and money to emulate them again on PS4. They have declined to do so it seems.
Emulated by a program running on the Cell right? A program that won't run on the new architecture?
This is the question: How big an asshole is Sony going to be?
Historically, taking the under on that bet has not been a good proposition.
Yay for speculation put forth as fact! And even then, they could easily allow streaming of the PSOne games you own later, as there's no issue with discs being passed around to activate it on multiple consoles.
Yes it sucks but it was inevitable. I bet if you look back to when PS3/Cell was unveiled someone would've brought up future compatibility concerns.
The funny thing is it will be easier to emulate PS4 games on a PC than PS3 games on a PS4.
While I was being snide, I get that Sony isn't out to do that initially I do think we'll see this in the future. There is no way that we won't see some form of Facebook spam encouraging other people to play your game for some form of reward/bonus in game.
For me I can handle that maybe I can't play my Castle Crashers on the PS4. Where the anger comes in is, hey would you like to buy Castle Crashers for the PS4?
Well, x86 is infinitely less complex than Cell, so getting PSone games to run on this new hardware probably isn't too difficult. There have been PSone emulators on the PC for awhile now, I believe.
Better tell Sony it's speculating! They could do anything, sure. But your PSN games as of now aren't going to work.
Oh yeah, and it shouldn't be a big deal to bang up an emulator to run on it, at least for the PS1 stuff. Why you'd have to be big asshole to not do that for your customers right?
So....How big an asshole is Sony going to be?
...using an emulator that operates within the Cell architecture.
Sony would have to create an entirely different emulator.
You were saying? You're speculating. Those two lines easily leave an opening for PSOne titles to be available.
For PS1 games... that's not a very big task.
The only difficult/impossible task would be to make PS3 emulation on the PS4. Emulating PS1 and even PS2 wouldn't be that big of an undertaking at all, considering homebrew coders have made both for windows already. PS2 apparently is a bigger challenge to emulate in an x86 environment, but its still being done.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Because two words: PSP, Vita.
PSP is MIPS, Vita is ARM.
If they can make the PSOne classics also run on those, there's no way that the Cell excuse can be used.
It probably will come down to how big an asshole Sony wants to be, however.
The internet would've figured out how to get old games to work with newsteam in less than two minutes.
That's not even close to the same thing, but thanks for trying!
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
I'm not sure you could possibly make a worse analogy. The basics of PC hardware haven't changed in 25 years. Our basic hardware is still based on the Intel 8086 and it's instruction set. All we've done is extend it and add more goodies.
In fact, we DO deal with it. Older games can be a BEAR to get running, and that's with a consistent architecture over a span of decades and our biggest OS provider (Microsoft) having a serious hard on for backwards compatibility in it's OS. We have some work arounds like DOSbox, but even DOSbox requires configuration to work correctly.
Thats why I love PC over consoles. I own consoles and enjoy watching the little "war" that comes out each generation... in the end I play PC and buy the consoles for exclusives.
I still have copies of my first PC games in the early 90's. They still work fine on my new fancy pants hardware.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
There is an entirely valid reason why ps3 games whether they be retail physical or psn can't be played on the ps4, and that is that including a cell chip in each ps4 would add $1-200 to each console, a price no one is willing to pay, and that emulating it is really really hard, not impossible, but it would take a lot of resources at Sony to get it working for every game.
I suppose psn games could be recompiled for the ps4, but who is going to pay to have that done? I don't think the developers would want to put in a bunch of work just so you can play it on a new console, there's no money to be made for them doing that.
ps classic games though should easily be transferable to the ps4, this is the only area where if they make you pay again I would consider a horrible cash grab.
Sony did the math and saw how much it would cost to get BC on the ps4, and decided it wasn't worth it.
Actually the chips these days have a quite different internal architectures than chips from years ago. But the chips also basically emulate that old architecture as far as what the interface is. At least that's what I understand.
Basically both Intel and Microsoft put a lot of effort into BC.
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
It's not just a simple "translate instruction set X to instruction set Y", the actual silicon of the Cell is fundamentally a different animal than x86.
PC users absolutely have to put up with the same shit. DOS games sure as shit won't work in Windows 7 without a third party application. Hell, sometimes you can't even get a game from 2000 to work!
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
They could have been stubborn and tried to do what they've always done, but they didn't.
Gnome Tank has the right of it.
To use a language analogy, PC's have been speaking English (x86) since forever. Current English isn't the same as original English, but it's a drift, an evolution.
Whereas consoles - Sony in this case - were originally speaking in Japanese (PSOne,PS2 - MIPS), then German (PS3 - Cell/PowerPC), and now English (x86). So even though some PSN games are relatively small and simple, they're still being delivered in another language. If you ask "where is the bathroom" without pantomiming, but the person you're speaking to doesn't understand your language, you're going nowhere.
This is Sony's problem. And probably Microsoft's, as the 360 is PowerPC-based, and they may switch to x86 as well.
EDIT: For contrast, the GameCube, Wii, and Wii U are all PowerPC-based.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/
I write about video games and stuff. It is fun. Sometimes.
In the end, this all goes back to how ridiculously stable the x86 architecture has been in the world of computing, despite the pace of change. It's just now in 2013 that x86 is seeing any serious competition and that's only in the mobile space. x86 still absolute rules the roost in larger form factors, now including consoles (again).
Indeed. Which is why I just can't back digital distribution for console games.
Keeping the physical copies of console games seems to be the best way to continue playing old games. As an example, I can go out and get a NES just as easily as anything else. As long as I still have those old games I'll still have a way to play them, even if I have to buy another console (which I think is way cheaper then buying old games :P).
However, this move by Sony and (presumably MS) to make consoles that seem to effectively be PCs (that ain't a knock against them) it does give me hope for the next-next-gen allowing you to play PS4/720 games on the new-new-console.
We'll see how things play out I guess, but if the next-next-gen is is just an upgraded version of the PS4/720 (much like simply upgrading your PC) and they do allow BC with everything you have bought I will reassess my stance on digital distribution.
Hey man, if Jeff Goldblum could put a computer virus on an alien mothership with a Powerbook...
I'd dig being part of the master race, but my tech skill set and funds don't allow for it. Still bummed that I never got to play Vampire: The Masquerade.
The internal architectures of the CPU's is fundamentally different, but the instruction set is the same. That's what x86 is, it's an instruction set, not really an architecture. ARM, as a side note, is the same thing. ARM is an instruction set, a common way to talk to silicon that speaks that language.
Over the years x86 the basic instruction set still very much exists in every Intel and AMD CPU. Things have certainly been added (SIMD, MMX, SSE, those are all instruction set extensions), but the basic instruction set hasn't changed in years.
Every CPU since the 8086 has had something called an "instruction decoder", and this is what you're thinking of when you think of the CPU "emulating" things, though it's fundamentally a different technology. The CPU's are still absolutely designed under the auspices that x86 code will be run on them.
They have, it's called Steam for Linux
But seriously, emulating a complex system like the PS3 is an enormous task. Even if it was possible, the performance would be horrible.
You have to emulate the CPU, I/O, sound processors, graphics processor, etc. It's crazy.
This is why PS3/PSN software isn't going to run on the PS4. Their source code is compiled to work with the PS3 SDK and its hardware instruction set. It's not just going to be a simple case of the developers taking their game and recompiling it for the PS4. Their will be a different API for the SDK and probably hundreds of different nuances to cater for with the architecture and hardware of the PS4.
Developers aren't really going to do this, then have their entire product go through weeks of internal testing, then through Sony certification, all for free.
Even taking the PC versions of those PSN games isn't just a simple day's work of porting it over. The majority of them could be using XNA or DirectX, API's that won't exist for the PS4 SDK. The developers would need to rewrite their wrapper libraries around all these to cater for the PS4.