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Microsoft fires the first shot in the "NEXT" generation.... - Page 134  

post #3991 of 7006
1/9/13 at 10:00am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Louquid View Post

I just find it funny how anyone can be a fan-boy for anything, consoles especialy. It's as if people are proud of a product they simply "bought". They had nothing to do with the design and development of the actual product, yet they fight so hard keep it on a pedestal. It's quite silly actually. Fan-boys for anything are simply hurting themselves. I'll never understand how someone can be so attached to a product that they refuse to buy the competition's. They miss out on about 30%(assuming a random percentage) of what technologies have to offer at a given time.
Go to an Xbox forum and watch as posters boast about the success of the 360 over the PS3, as if it's devastating. Go to a Playstation forum and watch the posters boast about the PS3 in the same way. Truth is, success wise the two consoles are pretty evenly matched. Third party games will always "look and feel" better on the system it was originally designed for.
If a game is designed for the 360, then it will have very slight advantages over the ported PS3 version. And vice versa.

finally, someone agrees with me... you would think these people developed it themselves!! I got accused of being a 360/wii fanboy on the ps3 side and a ps3/wii fanboy on the xbox side!! it is funny how worked up people get, don't even get started on the whole mac vs. pc thing.. it is one thing if you work for the company or helped create it, but don't understand the "passion" when you had nothing to do with it... i am heavily involved with guns and it is the same way, people get all worked up over 1911 vs. glock, etc.. just a human nature thing.. I know from a psychology standpoint it is supposed to help the mind justify the purchase, but it just seems like people take it so far extreme...

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post #3992 of 7006
1/9/13 at 10:07am
Quote:
Originally Posted by benjamin-benjami View Post

finally, someone agrees with me... you would think these people developed it themselves!! I got accused of being a 360/wii fanboy on the ps3 side and a ps3/wii fanboy on the xbox side!! it is funny how worked up people get, don't even get started on the whole mac vs. pc thing.. it is one thing if you work for the company or helped create it, but don't understand the "passion" when you had nothing to do with it... i am heavily involved with guns and it is the same way, people get all worked up over 1911 vs. glock, etc.. just a human nature thing.. I know from a psychology standpoint it is supposed to help the mind justify the purchase, but it just seems like people take it so far extreme...

Yeah. It's as if people get defensive for the products they've paid for. As if they're fighting to make sure people don't think they're an idiot for making an ill-informed purchase. So it's really all about a person's ego and how much they're controlled by it. It's what companies attack with their marketing. Just sad that it seems to work on so many people.
post #3993 of 7006
1/9/13 at 10:48am
Same thought process apply to politics and religion where people vehemently defends and asserts their beliefs, even if they do not understand those beliefs completely. I guess they call it bias (many types though) in statistics.
post #3994 of 7006
1/9/13 at 11:05am
Quote:
Originally Posted by bd2003 View Post

And not having that 512mb would have resulted in such a clearly inferior system compared to the PS3, that they might have comparatively lost out on billions of revenue. The cost benefit analysis isn't so simple when the industry is so competitive.
Remember, these 360 and the PS3 being ultimately specced so close is really an anomaly in this industry. Usually the consoles have quite a bit of distance between them.
It's conceivable that these consoles come out mere days from each other. No one is going to have a time advantage, and with 80% of games being multiplatform, the software is going to look very similar as well. And especially if their architectures are nearly identical as rumors (x86/AMD) - raw hardware power is going to be one of the main differentiating factors. They have every incentive to out-spec the other guy.

As you point out, the systems will be very similar. These companies both work in the same industry, have the same cost factors, have the same potential benefits - inputs and outputs are te same. These two pieces of hardware will be fundamentally identical. No one system will have the edge over another. Companies will differentiate based on services and exclusive games, not hardware.
post #3995 of 7006
1/9/13 at 11:18am
Quote:
Originally Posted by number1laing View Post

As you point out, the systems will be very similar. These companies both work in the same industry, have the same cost factors, have the same potential benefits - inputs and outputs are te same. These two pieces of hardware will be fundamentally identical. No one system will have the edge over another. Companies will differentiate based on services and exclusive games, not hardware.

When has that ever really been true though? Even this gen, the Wii differentiated on hardware and basically routed the other two for a few years.
post #3996 of 7006
1/9/13 at 11:21am
The market has changed. It doesn't make sense to roll your own custom part like Cell when the industry is all moving towards standardized parts. This has never really happened before in this way.
post #3997 of 7006
1/9/13 at 11:23am
Quote:
Originally Posted by number1laing View Post

First of all, I don't think that increasing the RAM would lengthen the generation. There are business reasons here why we are moving on. These are old systems, taste change and MS and Sony have limited abilities to match it. That would happen even with more RAM.
I remember Epic saying off the cuff that MS increasing RAM from 256 to 512 cost them 100 million dollars. By now, it's probably more. Obviously from a gamer POV, we all want the most. It's not going to happen for other reasons.

Which kind of illustrates the point that RAM does matter. You don't spend 100 million if you don't gain anything. From what I recall, MS had decided to go with 256 before epic demonstrated the difference between Gears of War at 256 and at 512. I really feel like MS is trying to do this thing right in terms of what they feel the system needs to have hardware-wise, to enable them the ability to keep it fresh 7 or 8 years from now.
post #3998 of 7006
1/9/13 at 11:29am
Quote:
Originally Posted by number1laing View Post

The market has changed. It doesn't make sense to roll your own custom part like Cell when the industry is all moving towards standardized parts. This has never really happened before in this way.

Even if we accept that....that doesn't mean they come in at the same level of power. Standardizing around AMD GPUs doesn't mean they all use the same one, even the same series/generation. X86 encompasses everything from atom to ivy bridge.
post #3999 of 7006
1/9/13 at 11:42am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Antiochus View Post

Which kind of illustrates the point that RAM does matter. You don't spend 100 million if you don't gain anything. From what I recall, MS had decided to go with 256 before epic demonstrated the difference between Gears of War at 256 and at 512. I really feel like MS is trying to do this thing right in terms of what they feel the system needs to have hardware-wise, to enable them the ability to keep it fresh 7 or 8 years from now.

Sorry, I didn't mean the amount of RAM doesn't matter. I meant I don't care, and the NeoGAF crowd shouldn't either, until we see more of the system.

Quote:
Originally Posted by bd2003 View Post

Even if we accept that....that doesn't mean they come in at the same level of power. Standardizing around AMD GPUs doesn't mean they all use the same one, even the same series/generation. X86 encompasses everything from atom to ivy bridge.

Sony goes to AMD and says, "we want the best you got for X"
MS goes to AMD and says, "we want the best you got for X"

I say X is the same for both because the companies are working in the same business and have the same cost factors and the same potential gains. You might disagree. But do you really think one system will be materially superior to the other? Systems that come out at around the same time tend to be powered similarly. And we're moving towards a world where software matters more than hardware.
post #4000 of 7006
1/9/13 at 11:50am
Quote:
Originally Posted by number1laing View Post

Sorry, I didn't mean the amount of RAM doesn't matter. I meant I don't care, and the NeoGAF crowd shouldn't either, until we see more of the system.
Sony goes to AMD and says, "we want the best you got for X"
MS goes to AMD and says, "we want the best you got for X"
I say X is the same for both because the companies are working in the same business and have the same cost factors and the same potential gains. You might disagree. But do you really think one system will be materially superior to the other? Systems that come out at around the same time tend to be powered similarly.

Well, it depends what else is in the console box, and how much that console costs. The "X" might be a very different number for Sony and MS.

If both consoles cost the same to manufacture and sell, and MS bundles kinect at a cost of say $50 - Sony could opt to put that $50 towards a better CPU/GPU/whatever.

So yes, I absolutely think they'll be different. They don't want to coexist, they want to bury each other. Much harder to do that when theyre selling an identical product. Seems like the stalemate they have now isn't working for either of them.
post #4001 of 7006
1/9/13 at 3:03pm
The Wii U went the slow main Ram, 32mb of edram route. Microsoft will top that 32mb just so nobody can compare it to the Wii U.

One good thing about RAM dedicated to the OS, as you shrink the OS footprint you can alocate that RAM to future games. (Nintendo did it with the 3DS, Sony and Microsoft did it several times with their consoles)
Edited by PENDRAG0ON - 1/9/13 at 5:31pm
post #4002 of 7006
1/9/13 at 5:39pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by tgable View Post

More RAM does not make a game look better though. It is more important to have high bandwidth than gobs of slow RAM. You can stream assets, so 1-2GB of RAM for video is plenty. Now if the OS takes half your pool, you need a lot, but if you can minimize the OS (512MB?) then a 4GB of high bandwidth shared system seems like a cost effective target. If you go with cheaper slower DDR3 and eDRAM then you can have a 'bigger' 360 model, but then you shift the conversation to how much eDRAM is enough? They fought their 10MB limit all generation long with the 360. You could also do a 4GB DDR3 + 2-4GB GDDR split memory system which would look more like a modern PC or a PS3, but this has issues.

I expect the next Xbox to go for the 8GB DDR3 + 32MB eDRAM . They will use a bunch of the RAM for the OS and media features like DVR and maybe run a Win 8 kernel.

I expect the PS4 to go for a shared 4GB GDDR5 pool and two GPU setup (one in the APU, one dedicated) with a simpler BSD or Linux kernel with less features.

They will probably both be $399 for the base model.

I agree overall with your assessment. But if they are truly going to do innovative stuff with a built in Kinect 2.0 like the attached article suggests. They may even bump it up to 8GB DDR3.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/01/09/ces-microsoft-illumiroom-makes-your-room-a-screen
post #4003 of 7006
1/9/13 at 6:22pm
Give me a high powered $500 console and I am all in, I want the Specs to be high end, I am a graphics whore. I wll gladly pay $500 for an awesome machine.
post #4004 of 7006
1/9/13 at 6:43pm
this is pretty cool.. don't think i would pay for it.. but cool
post #4005 of 7006
1/9/13 at 8:11pm
^ Wasn't that the idea behind the Kinect 2 and the augmented reality glasses that came up in those "leaked" docs awhile back?
post #4006 of 7006
1/10/13 at 3:24am
Quote:
Originally Posted by pcweber111 View Post

^ Wasn't that the idea behind the Kinect 2 and the augmented reality glasses that came up in those "leaked" docs awhile back?

Nah, that was way more ambitious. This is just some cheesy visual effect. The glasses were full on augmented reality that put objects in your room that you could interact with.
post #4007 of 7006
1/10/13 at 5:29am
Quote:
Originally Posted by darthrsg View Post

Same same.

Not me, I am ready for the leap. I considered a Wii U then came to my senses and realized it's not a leap forward, it's Nintendo playing technological catch up, plus I'm 38 years old now and as much I loved Mario in the past, I'm kind of over Nintendo's 1st party stuff now. To me, the next XBOX and PS4 can both be huge leaps forward if they can give us 60fps at 1080p (real 1080p) and look at what it takes on PC's to do that these days......not a whole lot. There is no reason why these two companies can't do this and still be able to bring out a console that will be both affordable and flexible, and maybe even upgradeable or adaptable to new technologies. That might be the console AFTER next, but I'd like to see more personalization available to us console gamers, and there is no reason why in the age of "plug and play" we can't have consoles that can adapt to a constantly evolving tech scene.
post #4008 of 7006
1/10/13 at 5:57am
There almost has to be seperate classes of each next gen system. There should be a real "Base" system, which is simply an un-upgradeable console, sufficient storage, and enough power to last the entire lifetime of the generation.

But, there should also be a real "Pro" model that starts off with higher specs, more storage capacity, no ads and upgradability while also being the model in which games are truly designed for. Games would be slightly toned down a bit (in predetermined settings) for the base model of the console.

This would allow for the base model to be ~$300(or up to $350), while the pro model could easily sell for ~$500.
post #4009 of 7006
1/10/13 at 6:36am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Louquid View Post

There almost has to be seperate classes of each next gen system. There should be a real "Base" system, which is simply an un-upgradeable console, sufficient storage, and enough power to last the entire lifetime of the generation.

But, there should also be a real "Pro" model that starts off with higher specs, more storage capacity, no ads and upgradability while also being the model in which games are truly designed for. Games would be slightly toned down a bit (in predetermined settings) for the base model of the console.

This would allow for the base model to be ~$300(or up to $350), while the pro model could easily sell for ~$500.

A console you upgrade and that has games that need different settings is not a console, it is a PC.
post #4010 of 7006
1/10/13 at 7:12am
Quote:
Originally Posted by number1laing View Post

A console you upgrade and that has games that need different settings is not a console, it is a PC.

They used to say the same thing about patches, expansion packs, hard disk drives, keyboards, cameras, mics, etc.

There is no reason they can't build a console platform with more than one hardware spec. It's never been done before, but especially if they're going with off the shelf hardware, its an idea worth exploring.

This gen devs managed three platforms - two with radically different architectures (360 and PS3) and one with infinitely variable specs and architecture (PC). The idea that two different specs on a fixed platform is some impossible barrier to developers just doesn't hold water. Although I think they'd tend to want to develop for the lower platform, and just ratchet up the settings for the higher - resolution, antialiasing, frame rate, shadow quality, particle density, etc. There's plenty of easy ways for devs to burn spare CPU cycles.
post #4011 of 7006
1/10/13 at 7:40am
Quote:
Originally Posted by number1laing View Post

A console you upgrade and that has games that need different settings is not a console, it is a PC.
Seems to be the route Gabe Newell is proposing. Next gen could be the era when PC and consoles finally meet in the middle. And they may have to if this article is correct:
Quote:
Prices on the best-selling products are rising, as the publishers require more margin to pay for their ever larger bets to grab more of the shrinking market. As they abandon the low end consumers, they cede the market to insurgent players who play by different rules in terms of margin and distribution and consumer expectations.
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/184510/How_retail_figures_may_point_to_a_coming_disruption.php#.UO7fQrY1bwM

The article's worth a glance. He includes a bunch of graph data from 2008-2012, and it paints a grim picture for the big bets in the console market. Effectively the top 15 titles (in terms of sales) are earning over 70 percent of the total software revenue for the entire industry! That's not good. To stay stable and profitable, the console manufacturers will have to tap into the open and fluid market approach of the PC game market. DD and hand-picked indie games are not enough on their own. They need something much bigger and more radical. Otherwise, the consoles run the risk of heading straight into the brick wall of the mobile industry. Folks like me have been saying for years that AAA console game development is unsustainable, and now that's proving to be true.

Next gen will have to go in two directions at once to succeed: high-end tech and lots of room for the "little guys" to flourish. They're going to have to look even more like PCs than they do already.
post #4012 of 7006
1/10/13 at 8:49am
It's not even that AAA games are unsustainable....it's just that the growth is. There is a need for only so many shooters and open world games. The same went for MMOs and casual/motion/wii games. You hear quite a bit about how so few players are actually succeeding in the mobile space - angry birds might as well be call of duty, in the way it just sucks all the air out. There seems to be a bubble growing in the mobile/free to play space that's on the way to bursting. The Facebook game bubble seems like it burst about a year or so ago.

Every few years a new trend/fad comes along and people declare that its the new way of doing things, everyone goes nuts about it for a while, the bubble bursts, and when the dust clears, things look quite a bit like they always have, just with a few new wrinkles. Even the idea of an AAA game is a relatively recent development.

Should be an interesting few years at least, some amazing stuff is going to come out of all of this.
post #4013 of 7006
1/10/13 at 8:58am
Quote:
Originally Posted by confidenceman View Post

Next gen will have to go in two directions at once to succeed: high-end tech and lots of room for the "little guys" to flourish. They're going to have to look even more like PCs than they do already.

I completely agree. To me, the market for games has changed significantly with the introduction of the smart phones / tablets and the next console is going to need to reflect that change. Additionally, the cycle for which we consume tech has rapidly increased with smart phones. A seven year update cycle won't work for the next round of consoles and there will have to be bumps in performance/capacity/features/etc...
post #4014 of 7006
1/10/13 at 9:21am
A mobile phone and tablet are fixed hardware devices. You can't upgrade an iPhone, you can only buy a new one.

I don't think the "Steambox" is going to work. It's a PC, with all the hiccups and flexibility that PCs have. It won't attract people who like the simplicitly of a console, and that is a lot of people. Right now I am playing Far Cry 3 on PC, it looks spectacular. Way better than the 360 version. But I've also spent a lot of time playing around and tweaking settings. Just yesterday I read Nvidia updated their drivers and FC3 gets a big performance boost. So I am off to download those drivers and then play around with settings some more. That's PC gaming. Steambox won't change that, without taking away some of what makes the PC appealing.

The type of person who likes the hiccups and flexibility of a PC already has a PC. I've thought about this a lot, I'm not seeing it.

A console you need to upgrade is a pain in the butt. People buy consoles because they don't want to upgrade. They want to pick the game up from a shelf and play the game as the developer intended for it to run on that device. They also don't want to feel like their neighborhood who bought the "premium" box is getting a better experience. They all want the same experience. It's exactly the same thing as a million other industries. Think of all the money McDonalds has sunk into making sure a hamburger in Los Angeles takes exactly the same as a hamburger in Maine.
Edited by number1laing - 1/10/13 at 9:28am
post #4015 of 7006
1/10/13 at 9:26am
Quote:
Originally Posted by confidenceman View Post

The article's worth a glance. He includes a bunch of graph data from 2008-2012, and it paints a grim picture for the big bets in the console market. Effectively the top 15 titles (in terms of sales) are earning over 70 percent of the total software revenue for the entire industry! That's not good.

I'd just as soon say this is because the hardware has been around forever, the games are entrenched, the audiences are fossilized. There is no room for a new game to come out and disrupt things.

Most of those top 15 titles were not around last gen, or if so, marginal (COD, Elder Scrolls, Battlefield were not huge titles on PS2/Xbox). Mass Effect, Assassins Creed, Skylanders, Gears, Uncharted, LittleBigPlanet, Minecraft - none of these existed last gen. I couldn't tell you what the big games of 2017 are going to be, but they probably won't be the same as the big games today.

There's always stagnation at the tail end of a hardware generation.
post #4016 of 7006
1/10/13 at 9:38am
Quote:
Originally Posted by number1laing View Post

A mobile phone and tablet are fixed hardware devices. You can't upgrade an iPhone, you can only buy a new one.

I don't think the "Steambox" is going to work. It's a PC, with all the hiccups and flexibility that PCs have. It won't attract people who like the simplicitly of a console, and that is a lot of people. Right now I am playing Far Cry 3 on PC, it looks spectacular. Way better than the 360 version. But I've also spent a lot of time playing around and tweaking settings. Just yesterday I read Nvidia updated their drivers and FC3 gets a big performance boost. So I am off to download those drivers and then play around with settings some more. That's PC gaming. Steambox won't change that, without taking away some of what makes the PC appealing.

The type of person who likes the hiccups and flexibility of a PC already has a PC. I've thought about this a lot, I'm not seeing it.

A console you need to upgrade is a pain in the butt. People buy consoles because they don't want to upgrade. They want to pick the game up from a shelf and play the game as the developer intended for it to run on that device. They also don't want to feel like their neighborhood who bought the "premium" box is getting a better experience. They all want the same experience. It's exactly the same thing as a million other industries. Think of all the money McDonalds has sunk into making sure a hamburger in Los Angeles takes exactly the same as a hamburger in Maine.

Except when you buy a new iPhone/iPad, it runs all your apps and games better than the last one. And while people with the old gear might not like the fact that they're getting the second rate experience, people with the new gear *love* having the premium experience, even more so cause not everyone is getting it. So it drives new, high margin hardware sales, and further entrenches people in your ecosystem. What's not to love? As long as it doesn't get too fragmented (see: android), it could be very successful.

I agree that asking console gamers to start messing with video cards and tweaking settings is never going to happen, but if they made their console refreshes more meaningful, they can start getting people into an upgrade cycle.

And especially if I know that any games I buy for the console today will look/play better in 2-3 years? Well, that's the platform I'll buy all my games for. It may very well be the PC if they figure the living room situation out....but the new consoles will be out before then.
post #4017 of 7006
1/10/13 at 9:42am
So you think MS and Sony will turn their consoles into iPads, where they release new ones every year for $300+? Maybe. I'm sure they considered it. It's not something they would do right away though.
post #4018 of 7006
1/10/13 at 9:51am
Quote:
Originally Posted by number1laing View Post

So you think MS and Sony will turn their consoles into iPads, where they release new ones every year for $300+? Maybe. I'm sure they considered it. It's not something they would do right away though.

If not every year, maybe every 18-24 months. I think it's completely feasible that we would see a quicker upgrade cycle that can support better graphics, online play, whatever while still supporting lower performance on an original Nextbox.
post #4019 of 7006
1/10/13 at 9:59am
Well, past a certain point, the old stuff gets kicked to the curb. A lot of software won't run on my iPad 1, for example. It's just how it goes.

So we would have to see if customers are ready to apply this model to their videogame consoles.

I can see it happening though.
post #4020 of 7006
1/10/13 at 10:28am
Quote:
Originally Posted by number1laing View Post

Well, past a certain point, the old stuff gets kicked to the curb. A lot of software won't run on my iPad 1, for example. It's just how it goes.

So we would have to see if customers are ready to apply this model to their videogame consoles.

I can see it happening though.

They could do it on a rolling basis, just like apple.

2013: xbox 3
2015, xbox 4, all games made still need to run on 3, which becomes the new budget model.
2017, xbox 5, all games made still need to run on 3, which is no longer sold, 4 is the new budget model.
2019, xbox 6, xbox 3 deprecated, xbox 4 is still supported, 5 the budget model still being sold.
2021, xbox 7, xbox 5 is now the baseline, etc

This way they'd still have a 4-6 year "cycle" of forced upgrades, so the low end doesn't hold back progress indefinitely. But they've got a whole range of hardware to sell at multiple price points (and profit margins). The games keep looking better and better. Since they'll be moving further into digital distribution, they can keep the games up to date much easier. Older games can be recertified and patched to take advantage of the new hardware, so there's not only backwards but also forward compatibility, so they can maintain a longer shelf life.

I think it'd be brilliant....but it'd be a risk.
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