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Just Cause dev claims “PS4 will out-power most PCs for years”

by Mark Tyson on 12 March 2013, 10:30

Tags: PlayStation, AMD (NYSE:AMD)

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Linus Blomberg, CTO and Co-founder of Avalanche Studios, is openly excited and optimistic about Sony’s upcoming PlayStation 4 console. Both the expansive new hardware and the social aspects and integrated software marketplace, akin to the mobile platforms, will bring a lot of exciting development opportunities to games developers said Blomberg in an interview with Gaming Bolt.

Console industry needs a boost

After so long since the last generation of consoles, and the smartphone and tablet revolution having occurred in the meantime, Blomberg believes that “a new console cycle was needed desperately” according to Gaming Bolt. He noted that consoles were overtaken by the gaming capabilities of PCs several years ago.

PS4 will out-power PCs for years to come

Blomberg talked about the PS4 hardware and focussed upon the 8GB of GDDR5 RAM the machine will be equipped with as standard “It’s a perfect fit for the types of games we do, and we are confident that we’ll bring open-world gaming to a whole new level because of it. I’m glad Sony decided to go with 8GB RAM because it means that the PS4 will out-power most PCs for years to come”.

Looking to the future Blomberg imagined the possibility of incremental improvements and upgrades which will help the platform stay ahead “preventing the inevitable loss of market shares that the long console cycles entails”. That is an interesting idea but may cause fragmentation of the platform, I’m thinking back in ancient history to the Sega 32X add-on.

Software and online marketplace

“The PS4 will not only be a very powerful gaming machine from a hardware perspective, but it will also be a social tool and integrated marketplace more akin to the successful mobile devices,” asserted Blomberg. “It’s the best of all worlds in a way; great performance for demanding high-end gaming, good social ecosystem and connectivity, and integrated business marketplace.”

Just Cause 3 is currently under development and is probably not going to be released until June 2015. I’d guess it will be released for the PS4.

HEXUS Forums :: 134 Comments

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Posted by b0redom - Tue 12 Mar 2013 10:38
Well that's not really surprising is it? I would guess that the PS3 is still on a par with ‘most’ PCs. Maybe not most gaming PCs, but most PCs.
Posted by bendabanga - Tue 12 Mar 2013 10:43
the PS4 will out-power most PCs for years to come.
If he's talking about Gaming PC's not general computers, that's one funny man.
I fail to see how that system will overpower a mid range gaming PC even for a year.
Posted by kalniel - Tue 12 Mar 2013 10:43
Yep, given ‘most PCs’ are laptops and tablety type things these days I'm not surprised.
Posted by jimbouk - Tue 12 Mar 2013 10:49
“8GB of GDDR5 RAM” - not just normal RAM. It's getting common to have 8GB of normal ram in a machine, but if they've got 8GB dedicated to the graphics card then that's plenty ahead of the curve atm.
Posted by w1ntergr33n - Tue 12 Mar 2013 10:59
jimbouk
“8GB of GDDR5 RAM” - not just normal RAM. It's getting common to have 8GB of normal ram in a machine, but if they've got 8GB dedicated to the graphics card then that's plenty ahead of the curve atm.

It's not dedicated - it's shared RAM. It's definitely a good amount, and that they used GDDR5. However, it's hardly world-beating even at the moment. Most PCs have in the region of 4-8GB system RAM (DDR3) and 1-2GB (GDDR5 - and *actually* dedicated this time) for the GPU so.. probably on a par with current really (referring to gaming PCs here, not your average beige box ofc).

The real step-up up is over the paltry 512MB (MB!!) that the last generation shipped with, which was pretty pathetic even at the time tbh

The GPU is a bit of a disappointment, although console games are generally better-optimised but still.. the truth is that although the PS4 (and the new xbox) will be huge steps up from the old gen, the cycle of PCs far outstripping them in brute force is going to be repeated again this time around. Probably the best news from all this is the fact that all the platforms are finally sharing the x86 architecture (taken of course, from the PC and not the console market.. no coincidence there).

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