Sony's Kaz Hirai Hints at Xbox 720 Reveal Before PS4

[kinggraves]

[citation][nom]CaedenV[/nom]But you know what the lesson learned was this last console generation? Price does not matter (to a point), console sales do not matter, system specs do not matter. The only thing that really truly matters in the console world is the games selection. The Wii was cheap, profitable per sale, and sold tons and tons of units... but there are no (well, to be fair; very few) good games on it, so it was the least profitable platform in the end. The PS3 was the hardware beast, and they managed to track price with the xBox360 in spite of the hardware cost difference... but most of the major releases for the PS3 were also on the xBox. xBox was not the best value in hardware, nor did it have much in the way of innovation, but it simply has games, and has been focused on the GAME ecosystem, and so while the xBox has not exactly broken any records on sales or specs, it enjoys the most active community at the end of it's life cycle because it has the most game sales.So Sony, we sadly do not care what your next console looks like. We do not care about your system specs and show-boating. What we want is game selection, which means you need to start kissing some royal developer A$$ and ensure that you have the easiest platform to develop for, with the lowest entry cost, and with the best developer support group. You did it with the PS2, and I still enjoy that platform better than any current console, but unless you can do it again then the PS division will be axed in the process of Mother-Sony restructuring to avoid going out of business.[/citation]

I fail to see how you find the Wii to be unprofitable. Nintendo not only moved a lot of units, they did so without the costs that MS and Sony suffered and sold their own 1st party games with all the profits going to them. The amount of "good games" does not matter at the end of the day. How many of those XBox players do you think own less than 5 games and only play CoD? How many PS3 players initially bought a PS3 just to play Blu Rays and only bought a few games here and there?

Just going to throw in that I believe Playstation is one of the more profitable brands Sony has at this point, so it won't be Sony Axing PS4, it will be Sony going bankrupt. It's an odd thought from such an international powerhouse like Sony, but really who cares about them anymore? When's the last time Sony really had a namesake, the Walkman? The only thing they've really had going for them was a quality LCD plant they shared with Samsung, but they sold off those assets.

[citation][nom]CaedenV[/nom]what rock are you under?PS4 and Nextbox look to be very similar in hardware with the exception of the GPU and Ram. [/citation]

PS4 and Nextbox look to be nothing. PS4 and Nextbox do not have any official announcements out and anything "known" so far is rumors and speculation. Reality is that they could both be toasters for all you know.


Anyway, this entire discussion is moot. Consoles just like to be coy, XBox and PS4 will both be announced at E3 this year. Neither one wants to show their cards any sooner and give the other a chance to rethink anything at all. Wii U may not be impressive graphically, but it's still out and still counts as next gen. It would be foolish to not have a new console to compete with it out this year. A release in 2014 means the Wii U will have two years to entice devs into putting some titles out onto what is still probably the most current console. A 2014 release means they have plenty of time to polish up HD Metroid and Zelda. Consoles are not Apple, releasing new hardware is imperative. If the Wii U had been out in 2011 then they probably wouldn't even be in the red at this point.

On a side note, I am sick of the waiting. Everyone is just sitting around waiting for E3 this year. No one is announcing anything for certain. Even the publishers that aren't busy going bankrupt (Bye Atari) are just sitting around saying "Yeah, we're gonna wait and see."

 

[Abion47]

[citation][nom]ceeblueyonder[/nom]i don't care to be wrong. nor do i think my post is even in the context of right or wrong. my main points being not excited.to compare pentium 4 vs. the ps3's cell processor was also not my intention. my intent was purely being excited at that time of a console having something different than pc's.... and cutting edge at that time. the gpu was also at the time of the ps3 launch--a powerful gpu in pc terms since it shared the same architecture at the 78oo series, if i am not mistaken--which launched in the same time frame as the ps3. in comparison, the rumored specs of the ps4 gpu is an HD6670 equivalent, which is like two yrs old. so, i am just meh for the next generation since i don't see anything next about it, in terms of rumored specs.[/citation]

If the point was that you weren't excited for the specs of the new consoles, then just say that. Don't go off on a tangent that the specs won't even run BF3 at 1080p, because that makes you sound like an idiot. Sure, those bits of hardware might have issues in a PC environment, but consoles are a completely different ball park. You can't compare results directly across from PCs to consoles because they are different platforms designed for different things. It's like comparing a casual commuter's car to a monster truck in terms of horsepower - they aren't comparable.

Don't post something on the internet as fact if you aren't willing to have it argued against you. Having 90% of your post illustrating a certain argument then later saying it wasn't your main point just makes you look retarded.

 

[ceeblueyonder]

[citation][nom]Abion47[/nom]If the point was that you weren't excited for the specs of the new consoles, then just say that. Don't go off on a tangent that the specs won't even run BF3 at 1080p, because that makes you sound like an idiot. Sure, those bits of hardware might have issues in a PC environment, but consoles are a completely different ball park. You can't compare results directly across from PCs to consoles because they are different platforms designed for different things. It's like comparing a casual commuter's car to a monster truck in terms of horsepower - they aren't comparable.Don't post something on the internet as fact if you aren't willing to have it argued against you. Having 90% of your post illustrating a certain argument then later saying it wasn't your main point just makes you look retarded.[/citation]

are u calling me retarded? or threatening to call me retarded?

i wasn't comparing anything. AMD A10 APU is what the PS4 is rumored to be packing. my reaction comment about not being excited and BF3 running in such a setup is what i tried to convey, which is MEH. i am willing to bet, also, that a pc with AMD A10-5800k APU running BF3 at 1080P would have MEH performance.

why can't i compare what reviewers has already done regarding the AMD A10-5800k and what to expect of it if a similar APU is supposedly inside the upcoming PS4. are you saying that the PS4 with similar APU design cannot be compared to a PC with the same APU? that doesn't make sense. that is like saying one cannot compare BF3 running in a windows pc and a mac using bootcamp. if the gpu/cpu in the windows pc and mac are the same, and the drivers are the same, then the game should run the same in either environment--a windows pc or bootcamp under os x.

 

[internetlad]

ITS RIDGE RACER! RIIIIIIIIIIDGE RACER!

 

[Abion47]

[citation][nom]ceeblueyonder[/nom]are u calling me retarded? or threatening to call me retarded? i wasn't comparing anything. AMD A10 APU is what the PS4 is rumored to be packing. my reaction comment about not being excited and BF3 running in such a setup is what i tried to convey, which is MEH. i am willing to bet, also, that a pc with AMD A10-5800k APU running BF3 at 1080P would have MEH performance. why can't i compare what reviewers has already done regarding the AMD A10-5800k and what to expect of it if a similar APU is supposedly inside the upcoming PS4. are you saying that the PS4 with similar APU design cannot be compared to a PC with the same APU? that doesn't make sense. that is like saying one cannot compare BF3 running in a windows pc and a mac using bootcamp. if the gpu/cpu in the windows pc and mac are the same, and the drivers are the same, then the game should run the same in either environment--a windows pc or bootcamp under os x.[/citation]

I'm not saying you are retarded. I'm saying your comments make you sound retarded.

And no, you cannot compare what benchmarks people have already made with the AMD A10-5800k APU as indicative to the performance that the PS4 will have, because those benchmarks weren't run on a PS4. They were run on a PC, using the Windows (or Mac) OS. The PS4 (and consoles as a whole) use a specialized OS designed to be as functionally unobtrusive as possible, and hardware that is specifically engineered, tuned, and optimized for running games. A PC OS, such as Mac or Windows, are designed for general purpose applications as to run a wide variety of programs and cater to any number of uses, so they cannot have that same level of optimizations. There is A LOT of overhead running on a Windows while it is running that game, so performance takes a big hit. You can't really tell nowadays because hardware has taken such huge advances that even running windows a PC can produce comparable or better performance to an equivalently priced console because the hardware in the console is 7 years old or more. Upgrading that console hardware so it is only 1-2 years old and still taking advantage of those optimizations is a big deal.

Think of the hardware as a pipe with flowing water. A console would be like a single pipe to a single destination, so all the water that fits in that pipe would go to that destination. A PC is like a pipe with the same amount of water flowing into it as a console pipe, but with a lot of branches and end up in different places, so the water intended for the same destination as the console pipe would have to fight through all those branches to get there, and the resulting amount of water would be less. Now if, say, you upgraded the PC to have much more water flowing into it, so that the ending amount of water going to the gaming destination is the same as a console. This is like the difference in years between old consoles and current PCs. Now the consoles are getting upgraded as well, and this is like upgrading the console pipe to having a slightly less amount of water coming in as the PC pipe. It has less overall pushing power, but it has no forks and obstacles in the way, so you get much more water coming out as a result.

TL;DR version: No, you can't compare benchmarking results on a desktop platform to a console, because a console was designed for games whereas a desktop platform isn't. (And, technically, you probably shouldn't compare Windows to Mac w/Bootcamp either, since Bootcamp will add a layer of software emulation that will invariably cause a performance hit. Not being a Mac user myself, though, I can't really say how big of a hit it would be, and it might even be trivial.)

 

[ceeblueyonder]

[citation][nom]Abion47[/nom]I'm not saying you are retarded. I'm saying your comments make you sound retarded.And no, you cannot compare what benchmarks people have already made with the AMD A10-5800k APU as indicative to the performance that the PS4 will have, because those benchmarks weren't run on a PS4. They were run on a PC, using the Windows (or Mac) OS. The PS4 (and consoles as a whole) use a specialized OS designed to be as functionally unobtrusive as possible, and hardware that is specifically engineered, tuned, and optimized for running games. A PC OS, such as Mac or Windows, are designed for general purpose applications as to run a wide variety of programs and cater to any number of uses, so they cannot have that same level of optimizations. There is A LOT of overhead running on a Windows while it is running that game, so performance takes a big hit. You can't really tell nowadays because hardware has taken such huge advances that even running windows a PC can produce comparable or better performance to an equivalently priced console because the hardware in the console is 7 years old or more. Upgrading that console hardware so it is only 1-2 years old and still taking advantage of those optimizations is a big deal.Think of the hardware as a pipe with flowing water. A console would be like a single pipe to a single destination, so all the water that fits in that pipe would go to that destination. A PC is like a pipe with the same amount of water flowing into it as a console pipe, but with a lot of branches and end up in different places, so the water intended for the same destination as the console pipe would have to fight through all those branches to get there, and the resulting amount of water would be less. Now if, say, you upgraded the PC to have much more water flowing into it, so that the ending amount of water going to the gaming destination is the same as a console. This is like the difference in years between old consoles and current PCs. Now the consoles are getting upgraded as well, and this is like upgrading the console pipe to having a slightly less amount of water coming in as the PC pipe. It has less overall pushing power, but it has no forks and obstacles in the way, so you get much more water coming out as a result.TL;DR version: No, you can't compare benchmarking results on a desktop platform to a console, because a console was designed for games whereas a desktop platform isn't. (And, technically, you probably shouldn't compare Windows to Mac w/Bootcamp either, since Bootcamp will add a layer of software emulation that will invariably cause a performance hit. Not being a Mac user myself, though, I can't really say how big of a hit it would be, and it might even be trivial.)[/citation]

first of all, bootcamp is not an emulation. There is no performance hit.

i get your water pipe analogy. but i think you are wrong that an OS, perse, such as in a windows pc is hampering the performance or full potential of what a pc game can be. it isn't that an OS is on the way, or creating obstacles for the game engine to run its full potential. it is from what i understand how the game is coded or run in a pc that is different than on a console. in a pc, the game has to run in a variety of configurations. it has to run well on a low end cpu and gpu to a high end cpu and gpu and anything in between. while in a console, a game has one fixed configuration. so perhaps, in a console, the game can be balanced better or optimized better. and then you add how long a console usually lasts and you have the learning curve worked out and the game libraries and engines built specifically to push the console's "potential" to the limit. on the pc, there is this thing where each year there is a new gpu or cpu and games will run on the new hardware at super ultra settings and at unbelievable framerates and sometimes at not so great fps because the gamemaker has decided to add a super duper ultra mode setting option and so this game chugs along at a sprintly 30FPS at 1080P but it is low in the pc world especially for a current top of the line gpu and so the wheels keep turning for newer better faster gpu's and cpu's and so on and so forth.

anyway, i think i sort of lost my train of thought there but the point is that it isn't the OS hogging all the performance out of a game. But, how the game is optimized to run on a particular configuration.

 

[Abion47]

[citation][nom]ceeblueyonder[/nom]first of all, bootcamp is not an emulation. There is no performance hit. i get your water pipe analogy. but i think you are wrong that an OS, perse, such as in a windows pc is hampering the performance or full potential of what a pc game can be. it isn't that an OS is on the way, or creating obstacles for the game engine to run its full potential. it is from what i understand how the game is coded or run in a pc that is different than on a console. in a pc, the game has to run in a variety of configurations. it has to run well on a low end cpu and gpu to a high end cpu and gpu and anything in between. while in a console, a game has one fixed configuration. so perhaps, in a console, the game can be balanced better or optimized better. and then you add how long a console usually lasts and you have the learning curve worked out and the game libraries and engines built specifically to push the console's "potential" to the limit. on the pc, there is this thing where each year there is a new gpu or cpu and games will run on the new hardware at super ultra settings and at unbelievable framerates and sometimes at not so great fps because the gamemaker has decided to add a super duper ultra mode setting option and so this game chugs along at a sprintly 30FPS at 1080P but it is low in the pc world especially for a current top of the line gpu and so the wheels keep turning for newer better faster gpu's and cpu's and so on and so forth.anyway, i think i sort of lost my train of thought there but the point is that it isn't the OS hogging all the performance out of a game. But, how the game is optimized to run on a particular configuration.[/citation]

I went back and looked into Bootcamp, and yes, it isn't emulation, so I redact that point.

What you are referring to in an OS only covers what you see on the surface. There's a lot more going on than just what you can see. An OS doesn't limit the potential of any particular game as much as it hampers the potential of the PC as a gaming platform in the whole. On a PC, the OS is always running in the foreground. It has a huge laundry list of services, processes, tasks, and other things that are constantly running, and it has to monitor all of them simultaneously. This includes things like task scheduling, managing the desktop, regulating and trafficking input, performing background processes like defragmentation and backup, etc. Then there's the level of abstraction that nearly all games use nowadays. This abstraction is what allows them to run on many different configuration, and includes technologies like .NET, DirectX, OpenGL, etc. Abstraction introduces a layer of software runtimes and involves a slew of other issues that introduce performance hits that development for a single configuration of a platform doesn't need to worry about (though if handled right, this specific type of abstraction doesn't involve a very big hit at all, thanks to the maturity of these technologies).

A console doesn't need to worry about either of these concepts. Sure, the console's OS has its own set of background processes, but they are very few (such as social notification or achievements) and they are designed to be as far in the background as possible to the point that they barely take any resources at all 99% of the time, and while a game is actually running the vast majority of the OS is essentially sleeping, handing all possible resources over to the game itself. In a sense, while the game is running, it IS the OS.

And as far as abstraction goes, there needs to be none at all. Yes, in a sense that all Xbox 360's run at (I believe) 30 Hz/720p so settings are universal, but also at a much more technical level, such as from the standpoint of, for example, the machine interpreting instructions. On a PC, it needs to detect what language or format an instruction is written in, then converted to a language that the computer can understand. And nowadays, it isn't uncommon for programs to be written in such a way that this interpretation is done on the fly, at least in part. In a console, the single-configuration setup means there is only one language that any game needs to ultimately end up written in, so all that "on-the-fly" interpretation is completely done away with. If you want to see an illustration of this abstraction in action, you can write (or find written) three programs that all do the same task. One is written in Assembly language, one in a low level language like C, and one in a high level language like Java, and compare execution times between them.

There's a lot more to this concept than what I've said, but there's so many pieces to why this is the way it is that universities have entire classes and major focuses on the subject.

 

[ceeblueyonder]

Abion:

btw, are you taking computer science or programming courses? if not, are you working in this field? i am curious because you spewed out abstraction, which is not a familiar or common term. but, you wanted to use it anyway in this argument to expound how much you know. i had to look up the word abstraction just to get your reference.

i don't know if i wanna go any further with this argument, especially when you use examples like backup and defragmentation when those functions are totally independent of anything related to pc gaming.

 

[Abion47]

[citation][nom]ceeblueyonder[/nom]Abion:btw, are you taking computer science or programming courses? if not, are you working in this field? i am curious because you spewed out abstraction, which is not a familiar or common term. but, you wanted to use it anyway in this argument to expound how much you know. i had to look up the word abstraction just to get your reference. i don't know if i wanna go any further with this argument, especially when you use examples like backup and defragmentation when those functions are totally independent of anything related to pc gaming.[/citation]

Yes, I am a programmer and CS major.

And no, defragmentation and backup have nothing to do with gaming, and THAT IS EXACTLY MY POINT. They are common functions that desktop platforms perform, and often times do so in the background. And the list of said background functions is long and inexhaustive, and there are likely a large number of them that you didn't even know your computer did. PCs aren't gaming machines. They are general purpose, and therefore do a lot of things both on the surface and under the hood that is in no way related to gaming and contribute to the performance hit of a game run on a PC compared to a console.

 

[ceeblueyonder]

[citation][nom]Abion47[/nom]Yes, I am a programmer and CS major. And no, defragmentation and backup have nothing to do with gaming, and THAT IS EXACTLY MY POINT. They are common functions that desktop platforms perform, and often times do so in the background. And the list of said background functions is long and inexhaustive, and there are likely a large number of them that you didn't even know your computer did. PCs aren't gaming machines. They are general purpose, and therefore do a lot of things both on the surface and under the hood that is in no way related to gaming and contribute to the performance hit of a game run on a PC compared to a console.[/citation]

well, good luck with that. i think this debate of pc vs. console will continue although i am not sure if what we are arguing will matter in the end. i just don't wanna pigeonhole a pc as this or a console as that, which is what most arguments end up being. just because a pc can do more tasks doesn't mean that it is giving less to certain tasks or not doing more than it can be. and a console just because it has to do less tasks than a pc doesn't mean it will have more for gaming.

i know exactly what tasks are running, btw. anyone can just by running task manager in windows or activity monitor in a mac to see what is running in the background.

also, using the example of the backup and defragmentation functions in a pc as an issue or reason for pc's having too many background processes is unfair because the backup and defragmentation functions don't just occur by themselves without the user's input. nor does one should play a game while their computer is defragmenting or backing up data.

i still think that your argument of a pc having to do too much is not its weakness. but, it's strength. our main argument was that a supposed PS4 with AMD APU cannot be compared to a PC with the same APU. and i asked why not. even though this supposed PS4 will be running a leaner OS and a PC will have a full fledge OS, once the game is on, the OS will be dedicated to running the game. and the performance during this period when this PS4 and this PC with the same APU will and should have a similar performance, give or take.

 

[Abion47]

[citation][nom]ceeblueyonder[/nom]well, good luck with that. i think this debate of pc vs. console will continue although i am not sure if what we are arguing will matter in the end. i just don't wanna pigeonhole a pc as this or a console as that, which is what most arguments end up being. just because a pc can do more tasks doesn't mean that it is giving less to certain tasks or not doing more than it can be. and a console just because it has to do less tasks than a pc doesn't mean it will have more for gaming.i know exactly what tasks are running, btw. anyone can just by running task manager in windows or activity monitor in a mac to see what is running in the background. also, using the example of the backup and defragmentation functions in a pc as an issue or reason for pc's having too many background processes is unfair because the backup and defragmentation functions don't just occur by themselves without the user's input. nor does one should play a game while their computer is defragmenting or backing up data. i still think that your argument of a pc having to do too much is not its weakness. but, it's strength. our main argument was that a supposed PS4 with AMD APU cannot be compared to a PC with the same APU. and i asked why not. even though this supposed PS4 will be running a leaner OS and a PC will have a full fledge OS, once the game is on, the OS will be dedicated to running the game. and the performance during this period when this PS4 and this PC with the same APU will and should have a similar performance, give or take.[/citation]

If there is a reason to not continue this argument, it is because you aren't listening to what I am saying. Yes, on a PC you can open the task manager and view tasks, but there are two problems using that as a counter argument. One: the list in the task manager isn't a list of every single thing your computer is doing at any given time; and two: if you could open a task manager on a console, I would guarantee you that there would be a small fraction of the tasks that a PC would have.

Defrag and backup are background processes, meaning that if they are scheduled to run then they will run without necessitating user input, and in the case of defrag it has become a practice of Windows to automatically schedule it out of the box. And, like I said, these are only two examples of the large number of background processes a PC runs.

I would like to ask where you got the information that a PC OS will be dedicated to a game once it runs, because that is flat out wrong. If that were the case, you wouldn't be able to run any other program while a game is running, and last I checked I could run Metro 2033 for a couple hours, then tab out to check my email in my browser with 12 open tabs and the browser would be just fine, then tab over to Photoshop and work for a bit, then tab back to the game which would still be fine. All processes on a computer (be it PC, console, or whatever) are given a level of priority, which specifies how much of the CPU's processing time it is allowed to have per cycle. On a PC, games have a lower priority, so they have to fight for system resources. On a console, games run with a much higher priority while simultaneously having significantly fewer processes to fight with, thus gaining a much larger percentage of the processor's time.

For the points above as well as what I have posted in previous replies (and I am going to put this in caps so you don't skim over this), ANY GIVEN PIECE OF HARDWARE IN A SPECIALIZED ENVIRONMENT WILL ALWAYS PERFORM BETTER THAN THAT SAME HARDWARE IN A GENERALIZED ENVIRONMENT. It is the nature of the system that the above statement will always be true. If the APU is placed in an environment where it has less to do, then it will have more to give to what it is doing. If the APU is placed in an environment where it has a lot to do, then it will have less to give. Is that so hard a concept to grasp?

 

[ceeblueyonder]

i listen. or read your post. and i totally understand your concept. it is not that hard to grasp. my argument though is that it shouldn't be that much of a difference. the performance gain of the PS4 because it is a dedicated gaming machine is not gonna be anything astonishing. if the rumors are, of course, true that the PS4 will carry an AMD APU like the A10-5800k, which might not be even the case, in which case makes this whole argument moot. all a waste of time.

but, for the sake of the argument, let's say the rumors will come true. i will bet you that the performance of an AMD APU in a PS4 will be similar to an AMD APU in a PC, if the APU's are the same. i just don't buy your concept in regards to how better, if that is your argument, the AMD APU will be running in a dedicated and specific platform that is the next playstation because it has to do less.

dude, the ps3 use to be able to run linux, it has an OS that can be accessed via PS button, check messages, email, chat, surf the web, rent videos, it has an app store, download... the ps3 can even edit videos, wacth videos via nas, etc.... the ps3 is almost like a pc.


task manager allows one to to see cpu resources. there are processes by the system and the user. if the user has no apps running, including disbabling automatic backup and defrag functions, the cpu should be around 1%. maybe it will idle between 1% and 2% because of aforementioned system processes. i don't even know where i am going with this. your concept is not hard to grasp, though. i am arguing that it if the PS4 will have an AMD APU like the A10-5800k that it will have a similar performance. if so, y

 

[ceeblueyonder]

so what processes are being omitted from task manager if task manager doesn't list them?

you are just coming up with stuff to counter out of nowhere.

if task manager isn't listing processes that the are being used, then something is wrong with your computer.

you switching between apps from surfing the web to playing metro on your pc is not so much a cpu resource, but a memory issue. once you switch from one app to the next, the app goes in the background and takes no cpu resources. just memory. for instance, once you switch from playing games, metro should be taking up 0% on your task monitor. or close to 0% anyway since it might have other processes such as a web client talking to the network in the background. i made that up. i don't know. point is, near to no activity in the task monitor.

 

[killerb255]

[citation][nom]game junky[/nom]Sony, Sony, Sony - haven't you learned from the early days of the PS3/Xbox ware. First to market means you get to reap the benefits of being the only game in town. I hope this means they're trying to reduce the cost of their console without it negatively impacting the quality of the gaming/user experience.I currently just use my PS3 as a BD player anyway, just wish they would cowboy up and go toe to toe with Microsoft at near simultaneous launches.[/citation]

Sega would disagree with that one. Sega Genesis, Saturn, and Dreamcast were all first to market for the 16, 32, and post-32 bit generations respectively. We all know where that went...

 

[Abion47]

Yeah, I think this argument is done, because we are both just spouting points that have been said over and over again. For whatever reason, you don't seem to be understanding the concept that an optimized and lightweight OS will always perform better than a generalized one, and those performance gains translate into the programs that run in those OSs.

Even ignoring all the technical stuff, the proof is in the current generation of consoles. Look at them. Play the games. Sure, PCs generally look better, but the consoles still look really good. And they run on hardware that has been obsolete for years. Play BF3 on a PS3 right now. The hardware is only getting better, and by quite a large margin. It's only logical that the performance gains will reflect that.

Your point about games in the background makes no sense. A program doesn't stop running just because it doesn't have the focus. As I type this, I have an open running instance of League of Legends running, and I still see the units moving around and hear the sound effects. Whether or not a program has focus also has no effect on how much memory it is using, either. If you have programs that use little to no CPU and a bunch more memory when minimized, then I think you need to take another look at your programs.

On a related note, I have learned to not trust the CPU monitor as an indication of how the system is actually running. I've done a bunch of tests regarding my programs, and there are times where the system is only using 25% or less CPU load, but the computer is sluggish as hell, and other times where it is a solid line of 100% with no visible impact on system performance.

 

[Draconian]

Sony already tried this strategy with the PS3. They let Microsoft launch first. Guess what? People snatched up the Xbox 360 and never looked back. Sony has been left playing catch up.

I was really hoping the PS4 would launch first. You disappoint me, Sony. Whatever. If you want to continue your losing launch "strategy" then so be it.