Duderino

While not as eye catching as jumping between worlds, the encounter design on display does illustrate a break from limitations of last gen. If you haven’t done so already, watch the NXgamer breakdown posted a page back.

I do hope these services end up consolidating like this.

Was expecting less RAM, but not this level of a speed hit.

Control also had one of the more perfomant Raytracing implementations (on PC).

Agreed. The best these Apple lawyers can hope for is minimizing the restrictions placed on Apple as a result of this lawsuit and others.

Not sure exactly how many current gen consoles either Sony or Microsoft are expecting to sell before transitioning fully to the SeriesX/PS5, but there is a limited timeframe where either company can realistically expect these systems to sell and retailers to have dedicated PS4/Xbone spaces. Perhaps Covid may have extended it a bit, but the clock is still ticking. The fact of the matter is neither of us have the inside scoop on how many PS4s/Xbone’s are sitting in store shelves, but the Xbox X’s ceased production does speak to where we are at in the generation, even if the consoles prices do not (yet) reflect it.

Same reason sales happen; to clear stock, gain new consumers, and meet fiscal year goals.

$300 for an Xbox One S or PS4 Slim in 2020 is not a great price point. $300 for the Xbox Series S on the other hand in a few months, is a far better deal. Yes, both current gen consoles still provide a lot of value for $300, but at this point in time we should be seeing deeper cuts. Whatever the reason, they are not being priced yet to clear out stock.

Heads up, Microsoft’s DirectStorage API, which RTX i/o relies on, is not going to be made available to developers until 2021. Direct Storage will also requires an nVME drive, so SATA SSD owners will need to upgrade to receive these benefits. (SATA SSDs are significantly slower already) Some have also noted nVidia slides use 14 GB/s as their peak number, whereas the PS5 lists 22 GB/s as the theoretical peak. I wouldn't read too much into this comparison, but if the PS5 actually ends up being faster in the early years, it'll likely be due to Kraken.

Some key points: Quick Recap: Theoretically, when developers start applying this tech, a 5 GB/s nVME 4.0 drive + RTX GPU card could get you around PS5 speeds. A few potential caveats: Some of the GPU load will go towards decompression. This is an accelerator for data sent to the GPU, not necessarily data sent to system memory. Fewer lanes on most PC SSDs. All and all, this is excellent news. Bodes well for future tittles taking larger leaps forward.

What I’m saying is there is reason to look forward to what the PS5 is bringing to the table here. Some steps forward don't happen simultaneously on every platform and that is ok.

Apple is also blocking Facebook from notifying users within their App about the 30% cut.

To clarify, the Series X by default uses zlib for general compression and the new bcpack for texture compression. For the PS5 Sony licensed RAD Tool's Kraken for general compression and for textures, the new Ooodle Texture. Both Series X and PS5 have dedicated decompression hardware blocks, unlike PCs. The PS5 difference is a faster SSD, more channels/lanes, and Kraken as a standard (which provides much better compression + faster decompression compared to zlib). Remains to be seen how Oodle Texture and bcPack compare, or how other architecture specifics will contribute here. The SSD speed + compression tech will clearly raise the baseline for games exclusive to PS5. For 3rd part tittles, I think it's reasonable enough to predict improvements to asset streaming and reduced load times compared to other platforms. I agree that consoles moving from HDD to SSD is the biggest initial leap forward, but following directly behind that is the leap in compression tech. The two are related and will result in an even larger impact together. I don't subscribe to the idea that average SSD speeds today are the peak of what developers can successfully leverage/benefit from, or that compression has only a small role to play.

Agree that the SSD alone is not unprecedented, but the integration of Kraken is. That decompression edge will only be the lowest common denominator on the PS5. I imagine though many Series X and PC developers will license Kraken from RAD Tools as well. It just won't be the baseline on those platforms.

8 channels is common for consumer SSDs. Server storage though is more likely to see a split across more channels.

The PS5’s 12-channel SSD is an uncommon configuration, but from a hardware perspective alone it is not new tech. There is however no PC configuration you can buy on the market today that will standardize the use of Kraken decompression across all tittles, let alone offload that work from the CPU. I'd say that qualifies as unprecedented. The difference just doesn't initially register for the hardware spec junkies out there.

Long time coming:

Epic breaking the Apple TOS will be a point of contention in this case, but the real billion dollar question is if Apple's terms and actions have violated the Sherman Anti-Trust Act in the first place. Hoeg is obviously far from the only voice in the legal world on this matter. Polygon reached to a few others (quoted important bits in case you want to avoid the clicks): I agree. The law on this matter is already in place. The question is if Apple and Google's lawyers can make a compelling case that their market-status and integrated App stores do not violate the same law that lost Microsoft the Windows + Interent Explorer anti-trust case.

Novel? No Divergent revenue from the past? Yes Protected under the law? No ( Mac OS hardware rights ruling has no application here) In violation of anti-trust? TBD, but there is precidence.

The Mac OS platform's supported hardware limitations is entirely separate from the situation on iOS that is landing Apple in anti-trust lawsuits. This tangent is not only irrelevant, it's not addressing the actual issue.

What exactly is the legal precedence for Apple to block competing storefronts and/or in-app payment methods on iOS anyways? Seems like a good way to not just give themselves a leg up with Apple Pay and royalties, but also dictate who the winners and losers are in their sizable space in the mobile market.

All artificial locks are the same, no matter how they are achieved. Apple writing code into Mac o to prevent it being installed on non Apple hardware was done for exactly the same reason as Apple not allowing third party App installers. It's quite a different situation for developers, which is the whole point of this debate.

Apple's mobile division is very much still in the business of making large margins on hardware (check out the iPhone's). App Store service royalties have not changed their hardware profit model.

From a user standpoint, iOS and it's suite of Apple developed software has seen nowhere near the evolution that Mac OS and it's applications have during Apple's most prolific development years predating the App Store. If this 30% fee for external developers is really going back into iOS, Apple's engineers output is coming up way short.