PlayStation 4: Balanced or unbalanced?

Recently we have heard a lot the word “balance” in the videogame industry. We were the first ones to bring the term with our unveil of ORBIS (PlayStation 4) specs. Later, Mark Cerny talked about our information regarding the balance and the 14 + 4 CU setup. Finally, Microsoft used it to defend the Xbox One performance and design against PlayStation 4 theorical superiority.

On the other hand, we would like to show you how Sony is presenting this sort of information to developers. This information is presented as high level (for instance, tech directors shouldn’t have problems digesting the material showed in these presentations).

We understand that Sony found that using 4 CUs in GPGPU tasks can be more efficient and with better overall results than using all of them for rendering tasks, but they don’t stop developers to use them only for rendering or GPGPU, as they wish depending on the game demands. It’s not mandatory at all. Sony is only providing more resources to the developers.