AMD: Next-gen consoles. 5 times more powerful. VR-focused. Expected production 2018.

• Information from a source close to AMD about the company’s future plans. Not official announcement.
• The company is confident that its GCN architecture will be able to achieve at least 5x the performance/watt of the current generation.
• Power leap seems reasonable and necessary for VR.
• AMD has already been working extensively on virtual reality with its LiquidVR development kit and has actually integrated the (now publicly defunct) Mantle API into the same – improving it internally.
• The company has plans to provide said chips by 2018 to console manufacturers.

WCCFTech Article

Next Gen should be able to 1080p 60fps

'VR-focused"

well ****...

5x the performance of current gen consoles by 2018 with an affordable price is actually pretty much expected.

With that being said, if this is true NX is probably going to get really rekt.

I hope this generation of consoles is shorter than the last. For console gaming's sake...

<---- only been saying this for the past two years. PSVR will make or break Sonys next-gen plans along with Oculus Rift. By 2017/2018 it should be a lot clearer whether VR is here to stay. Expect PS5 by 2019.

This gen will not last anywhere near as long as last gen did. These consoles are too shit and do not have the staying power.

Well, shit. I don't want VR.

IF this is true, I think people won't adopt VR. The other thing is, if it's going to be 5x Ps4, how can they bundle that with a VR headset for an affordable amount of money? It'd be $800 minimum... What I think this means is the consoles will simply be capable of a decent representation of VR, but are bundled with standard controllers.

And also, if they're just 5x PS4, then NX will actually be closer to them than Wii U is to Ps4. I expect NX's gpu to be at least 3 teraflops.

5X performance per watt....so are they planning to have the same power draw (so essentially the PS5 wil be 5X as powerful as the PS4) or are the power requirements going up.

5X is not a huge lead for a console gen. hell if its true nintendo could actually catch up to the others with the NX next year (if they are that way inclined...they are not).

still with the cost of development at the moment its understandable. basically its just a power bump to get more games with todays visuals running at better performance levels (and, as mentioned, VR).

but generally, as a rule of thumb, the horse power increases by 8-10X from one gen to the next.

Next gen will will have battles about who is running a game just under 4k?

Assuming that is true, doubtful, that would make my 5 year gen predictions be off by 1 year.

color me shocked if sony or ms release a new console that soon

Called it, also Halo 6 will be a launch title.

Personally , i think 5x could turn out to be true but 2018 ? Don't think so.

And VR is a fad.

5x the performance!? my 980ti Is already next gen!

With the disaster known as Xbox One, they better have every single exclusive as their launch title for Bone 2 or no one will even notice this thing coming out.

The article claims that AMD will only be giving the chip to console manufacturers in 2018. The actual launch of those next-gen consoles will likely take place a fair amount of time later.

I don't mind a new a new console sooner. However it is mandatory that all PS4 games will work on the PS5, otherwise Sony will cop it. If consoles stay in the same PC architecture that they are now then there is really no excuse not to have backwards compatibility.

that means at the current rate most of the upcoming exclusives announced for ps4 will actually probably be on ps5, or release at the very end of the cycle to be remastered again like tlou.

i heard you like remasters so we remastered our remasters to be PSVR compatible on the ps5.

WCCFTech, lol you know these guys have the reputation of being one of the most click-bait hungry technology ''news'' sites out there?

lawl.....ikr

It doesn't say 5x the performance, it says 5x performance per watt. Meaning if the new consoles use half the wattage, they will be 2.5x more powerful than the current consoles.

And let's be honest, VR is a gimmick at this point. Consoles built around gimmicks usually don't fare well with hardcore gamers in the long run. Virtual Boy or Wii, anyone?

Only 5 times?

The PS3 was 20 times from the PS2, same with the 360 and Xbox.

Nx will probably be more powerful

Just 2.5x - 5x? Another low end Console generation incoming.

WCCFTECH...

Diminishing returns.

I will LMFAO if these consoles only last until 2018. We had the driest year in history before they came out. It then took them two years to get something resembling next gen and let alone good, and I'm still not sure I'd consider them good enough, and then they want to replace them in two or three years, **** that.

Not getting another one, these consoles being week is Sonys and MSs problem. Wasted enough money on this excuse of a gen. They had better last another good five or so more years before I even look at getting another one.

Also I don't think the next consoles will be VR focused. MS won't risk innovation by having some of the resources go into a peripheral when they know Sony won't. It cost MS too much this gen. These consoles will be in competition from now on, with who can hold back on innovation the most while making these consoles all about teh powah. Which would all be well and good, but since they give so much up to the PC in the way of games, I just don't see the point.

@loco145:

1. Our 980 Ti does not have "full" DX12 when compared to DX12's software raster render reference.

2. Nvidia Maxwell's may not age well after Pascal is released next year e.g. Kepler.

I don't want to play an RPG with VR. Who'd want that ?

Unless and until they used some radical new tech, the performance boost is going to be minimal. Having said that, MS or Sony can't use new tech with a price tag of $400.

They ARE planning to use fairly new tech, which is why they can even manage that power leap without increasing the price tag. Getting x5 the power of a console on PC is VERY easy even today, and doesn't cost that much. However, it's still way more than what can be accepted as a console price I imagine.

screw VR up it's ass I don't want that shit

+1

Enough with this 10 years cycle nonsense ... making majority of games feel one of the same after a while. So much potential wasted because of ...easy money. So my question is ... does the whole industry really cares about gaming ? I dont think so , with very few exceptions i dont ... they just want to exploit everything in their hand other than advance gaming itself , for easy money thats all ... and i got pleeeenty of examples to give ...

VR is never going to catch on in the mainstream, guys. They still can't fix the motion sickness issue, and they likely never will. When your eyes are telling your brain you should be moving, but you aren't actually moving, it throws your brain off and gives you motion sickness. Granted, this doesn't affect everyone, but it affects enough people to be a severe issue and make it a niche device.

The only VR device that has come close to fixing this issue is Valve's solution, which is to put laser sensors around the room and actually have you walk around. The problem with that is it requires a pretty large, but empty room. Which most of us DON'T have access to. Even then, how many of us really want to get up and walk around a room to play a video game? I'm guessing the same amount of people who want to fire up their Wii and wave their arms for the entire play session.

15X more powah in 2019 or bust.

Yea, this will never happen. Strapping something to your face is not something I'd imagine everyone wants to do when playing games. What an absurd prediction.

VR is going to flop harder that motion controls in terms quality content... Gut feeling.

I'd want it to be more along the lines of 10 times the power in 2020.

I don't think it's a viable option for gaming in general, but I think some things will thrive on it just like dance and sport games did with motion controls. Like a horror game or something. The only issue is that it's all basically just an elaborate 3D TV. It's not like you can touch the game and actually feel like you're there.

Production in 2018 = release in end 2019/2020? That's a long ass (generation).

@bobrossperm: Well, and it can create a sense of presence, which a 3DTV can not. And it let's you look around which is useful for say dogfighting / racing games.

I would like to see next gen consoles sometime in 2019

I don't think so because poorly designed VR games may actually make it unplayable / make people sick. So I think there will be more care put into even the worst VR titles than with motion control games.

Considering you can make traditional games compatible with VR, I say it already has a huge lead on content.

E.g. Skyrim in VR is glorious.

What I worry about right now is VR and less retail releases not power.

I have the same card

Can't come soon enough. I hope they don't focus all of the hardware for VR. We just need some raw horsepower.