Predict: The Next Generation Console Tech

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I predict that Microsoft will release the xbox 720 (or whatever it is called) This fall during christmas retail season. It will have a blu-ray drive, 2 gig of ram, and a 3 year newer GPU and and CPU, but otherwise will just be a mildly faster (say 4 to 8 times the existing pixel fill rate over all) than the existing 360. Microsoft brand XBox 360 perephrials will be compatable with it, but third party accessories will all be broken. Oh and it will include the MS version of the wii mote. Because it is, from a technical standpoint, the existing 360 just with a few upgrades, it will be 100% backwards compatable with 360 software.

I think the MS version of the wii mote will forgo the motion controls, and it will just be a pointer. Its main use will be for some version of Internet explorer on this device. Web developers only option for getting multi-media enabled web pages on it will be silverlight, it will never support the Adobe products. It might even be hampered in the areas of DHTML, again to get those sorts of effects, you will need to use Silverlight.

It will retail in North America for about $600.


This fall? What? No way for a mild updated 360 basically.

Next xbox will not appear until sometime in 2011.
 
There was some survey recently which suggested game consoles were helping to stimulate HDTV sales.

Maybe it was more related to Blu-Ray in the PS3.

Obviously would be in Sony's interest to market a console which supports "Full HD." They touted it but the reality is, not really.

But you see in a lot of CE products these days the "Full HD" sticker. Not just on displays and Blu-Ray players but also camcorders are starting to come out with support.

Obviously both Sony and Microsoft are working to reduce costs on current generation so they can get a return on their investments.

Plus the market simply isn't conditioned for new consoles before at least 5 years.

Then again, you wouldn't have thought it was conditioned for consoles costing over $300 either.

Not likely that "Full HD" stickers on consoles will be that meaningful right now.
 
This fall? What? No way for a mild updated 360 basically.

Next xbox will not appear until sometime in 2011.

I don't think Microsoft is going to wait until no one cares about their console anymore this time around. I think their unit sales are at or near their plateau, and the momentum has clearly shifted away from the xbox this year.

A new console would inject a lot of excitement back into the brand, and if they followed an incremental development strategy, their R&D costs would be hundreds of millions of dollars, rather than billions of dollars.

Also, there are all these persistent rumors of BD, and a wii mote like device. I don't seeing either of those products being successful if they are not embedded in a new console. I don't see Microsoft releasing a new console without taking the opportunity to set themselves apart from the competition.

It continues to seem... odd to me... That Microsoft has not leveraged IE in the console race. I just don't see a pointer device... without IE on the xbox.

Plus... All the rumors converge this fall. BD rumors all point to this fall. Wii mote rumors all point to this fall. XNA, once again, this fall. Also, you have some side projects that are huge, like the Peter Jackson Halo project, we know nothing about it, other than it exists...

In the mean time, Microsoft has grown quiet about all these developments. Its as if they know a new console will canabalize their existing console sales.
 
hm... I'm inclined to believe the 10MiB figure was also considered for adding 4xMSAA to backward compatible games very easily. Seems like the simplest rationale. :p
Ahh yes, forgot about that. Not just BC games, but everyone without HDTV can get 4xAA w/o tiling. Not sure what untiled games are actually doing, though, as it seems like many just downscale the original HD image. Any game with framerate problems should really consider 640x480 w/ 4xAA when SD/480p is the output mode.
 
Ahh yes, forgot about that. Not just BC games, but everyone without HDTV can get 4xAA w/o tiling. Not sure what untiled games are actually doing, though, as it seems like many just downscale the original HD image. Any game with framerate problems should really consider 640x480 w/ 4xAA when SD/480p is the output mode.

hm.. yeah I wonder about that too. It's going to be a fair chunk of the market not hooking it up to an HDTV. IIRC, one example is a patch for Saints Row that enable 480p with 4xAA. Kyleb might know a few more examples of games rendering 480p(I have a hazy memory on what CoD2 and a couple other games that rendered 480p, but not sure if there was AA).
 
I predict that Microsoft will release the xbox 720 (or whatever it is called) This fall during christmas retail season. It will have a blu-ray drive, 2 gig of ram, and a 3 year newer GPU and and CPU, but otherwise will just be a mildly faster (say 4 to 8 times the existing pixel fill rate over all) than the existing 360. Microsoft brand XBox 360 perephrials will be compatable with it, but third party accessories will all be broken. Oh and it will include the MS version of the wii mote. Because it is, from a technical standpoint, the existing 360 just with a few upgrades, it will be 100% backwards compatable with 360 software.

I think the MS version of the wii mote will forgo the motion controls, and it will just be a pointer. Its main use will be for some version of Internet explorer on this device. Web developers only option for getting multi-media enabled web pages on it will be silverlight, it will never support the Adobe products. It might even be hampered in the areas of DHTML, again to get those sorts of effects, you will need to use Silverlight.

It will retail in North America for about $600.

I predict this won't happen at all.

There won't be a new generation of Xbox until 2010 or 2011, not counting any & all redesigned/repackaged versions of Xbox 360.


During 2008-2009 could there be:
new 360 SKUs? yep
a newly designed thinner/smaller/redesigned 360? yep
a 360 with built-in Blu-ray for movies? yep
a 360 with packed-in motion sensor controller? yep
different combinations of the above? yep
a next-gen Xbox with new, more powerful base specifications? highly doubtful
 
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Are Sony & MS really going to spend so lavishly again on CPU & GPU next gen? Someone at gaf made this graph (see below). This "lose ridiculous amount of money for 2 years before seeing any profit" model doesn't seem to work so well. In two years, the PS3 has already lost all the profits from PS2 record sales years. And even if we forget all the money the original xbox lost, the 360 will need a few very good years just to recover from the 3 years of losses. So you guys just see Sony and MS going down the same road again, with the best available CPU & GPU?

Code:
FY*       Sony**        Nintendo        Microsoft
1998    974,000,000    629,000,000
1999   1,130,000,000   645,000,000
2000    730,000,000    421,000,000
2001    -409,000,000   726,000,000
2002    623,000,000    800,000,000     -750,000,000
2003    939,000,000    560,000,000     -1,191,000,000
2004    650,000,000    316,000,000     -1,215,000,000
2005    404,000,000    777,000,000     -485,000,000
2006    75,000,00      894,000,000     -1,262,000,000
2007   -1,969,000,000  1,489,000,000   -1,892,000,000
2008   -965,000,000    2,480,000,000   532,000,000      
                  
Totals  2,182,000,000  9,737,000,000   -6,263,000,000
 
Just because it works for nintendo doesn't mean it would work for Sony or Microsoft. Microsoft and Sony have other interests aside from video games.

And those numbers aren't entirely accurate as we don't have console specific numbers from Sony or Microsoft.
 
Indeed. How much is Sony going to profit from the BRD standard? That needs to be factored in. How much may Sony save on the next console by reusing their scalable chip design? The 'console' investment isn't just for consoles with no benefit to other sectors in the company or future products. Whereas Nintendo's choices are dirt simple - they make consoles and sell consoles, and every choice is how to make that business most profitable.
 
Are Sony & MS really going to spend so lavishly again on CPU & GPU next gen? Someone at gaf made this graph (see below). This "lose ridiculous amount of money for 2 years before seeing any profit" model doesn't seem to work so well. In two years, the PS3 has already lost all the profits from PS2 record sales years. And even if we forget all the money the original xbox lost, the 360 will need a few very good years just to recover from the 3 years of losses. So you guys just see Sony and MS going down the same road again, with the best available CPU & GPU?

Code:
FY*       Sony**        Nintendo        Microsoft
1998    974,000,000    629,000,000
1999   1,130,000,000   645,000,000
2000    730,000,000    421,000,000
2001    -409,000,000   726,000,000
2002    623,000,000    800,000,000     -750,000,000
2003    939,000,000    560,000,000     -1,191,000,000
2004    650,000,000    316,000,000     -1,215,000,000
2005    404,000,000    777,000,000     -485,000,000
2006    75,000,00      894,000,000     -1,262,000,000
2007   -1,969,000,000  1,489,000,000   -1,892,000,000
2008   -965,000,000    2,480,000,000   532,000,000      
                  
Totals  2,182,000,000  9,737,000,000   -6,263,000,000
Really nice of you to provide us with this chart.
I didn't do the math, but it's really enlighting ;)
Both Sony and MS have lost ~3 billions dollars for establish theirs new systems.

I agree Nintendo have teach them a lesson there, and even if the techies/ingeneers might want to push the envelop again, Auction owners won't allow for this again (epecially if market dominance seems out of reach).

Could someone give us (me :LOL:) an approximation about how many transistors would allow a ~300mm² silicon budget @32nm process?

EDIT:
Between i found this article intersting:
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2008/04/30/david-kirk-interview/1
(It was linked in some larrabee thread on this board)

The guy have obviously an agenda (he is the Nvidia's Chief Scientist so :LOL: ), but he makes it sounds like Nvidia at least will do its max to allow the kind of design I was speaking about earlier (ie few core (cpu) optimize for serial execution + huge GPU ).
 
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Indeed. How much is Sony going to profit from the BRD standard? That needs to be factored in.
Jury is still out on that one. Beating some baby - HDdvd - is one thing, beating a giant - DVD - is quite another. Especially with other formidable challengers - download, streaming - waiting in the wings.
Just because it works for nintendo doesn't mean it would work for Sony or Microsoft. Microsoft and Sony have other interests aside from video games.
That's the thing. Does it take the latest & greatest CPU/GPU combo just to play media? And sure, having all that power gives them the bragging rights. Too bad the "most powerful" hasn't translated to being most successful in almost a decade.
 
Downloads and streaming are not formidable challenges.

Apple just announced that movies will be available day and date with DVD releases.

So would you buy movies from iTunes for $15 or buy the DVD, which has better encodes not to mention that it doesn't use up hard disk space which most people don't have?
 
Another obstacle to downloading/streaming which is unpredictable and out of the hands of the gaming industry,is how ISP will respond to these new forms of distribution.
My ISP(Rogers Canada) just introduced a dowloading cap and fees for going over.They may also be traffic shaping and I know they are already facing challenges WRT to just streaming HD channels.
 
Another obstacle to downloading/streaming which is unpredictable and out of the hands of the gaming industry,is how ISP will respond to these new forms of distribution.
My ISP(Rogers Canada) just introduced a dowloading cap and fees for going over.They may also be traffic shaping and I know they are already facing challenges WRT to just streaming HD channels.

Rogers is also supposedly going for a "utility" approach to internet, much like paying for electricity where you pay purely on how much you use...if this becomes popular, suddenly direct distribution on the 'net becomes very unattractive.
 
Rogers is also supposedly going for a "utility" approach to internet, much like paying for electricity where you pay purely on how much you use...if this becomes popular, suddenly direct distribution on the 'net becomes very unattractive.


I can't really disagree or agree on whether it will better or worse since I haven't seen any dollar figures yet.
I'm what I would call a heavy user in terms of DLing content. Not hardcore like some but more than most,and so far I have not exceeded my EXPRESS cap.
But it's something that every gamer when looking at next gen systems and thinking about more online distribution,should factor into future costs just in case.
 
Rogers is also supposedly going for a "utility" approach to internet, much like paying for electricity where you pay purely on how much you use...if this becomes popular, suddenly direct distribution on the 'net becomes very unattractive.
They will always have both forms of payment, though, just like the cell phone industry, because people will demand it.

Flat rate is attractive to a service provider when most people consume within, say, a factor of four from each other. That's how cell phone plans are, and why we had to wait so long for prepaid that wasn't a ripoff. Charging proportional to usage is attractive when a small percentage of users consume a large percentage of the service. Internet is like that.

I think bandwidth wasn't really a problem before so it was okay for ISPs to keep that 'fair', 'equal' image of flat rate, but now it is and the utility approach is the best way to keep as many customers as possible.

I agree it could be an issue for direct distribution, but it depends on the rate. Obviously it won't affect Rogers own On-Demand service.
 
Downloads and streaming are not formidable challenges.

Apple just announced that movies will be available day and date with DVD releases.

So would you buy movies from iTunes for $15 or buy the DVD, which has better encodes not to mention that it doesn't use up hard disk space which most people don't have?
Just like music files, right? I'm sure the record industry used to scoff at the idea of people giving up the pristine quality of CD audio and a physical product in order to use some ephemeral, lower quality format.

Sony isn't prepping their own online content system for kicks, some element of the company knows that's the future. The problem is they have a very strong competing interest inside the company trying to stifle it.
 
Downloads and streaming are not formidable challenges.

They aren't? Hmm, that would be news to just about everyone inside and outside the motion picture industry. Between Amazon unbox and itunes, I think well see you proven wrong. BR looks headed down the same road that SACD and DVDA road off on.

Downloads and streaming are major formidable competitors to ANY and ALL content distribution formats going forward. Like wise and to bring this on topic, I would be surprised if the next generation of consoles supported physical medium as anything but a distribution system for those with slow networks, ie, everything will be HD based.

Apple just announced that movies will be available day and date with DVD releases.

So would you buy movies from iTunes for $15 or buy the DVD, which has better encodes not to mention that it doesn't use up hard disk space which most people don't have?

Here's my prediction, itunes movie downloads will forever outsell blu-ray sales.

Within 4 years, apple will be the #1 seller of movies as well!
 
ISPs will raise prices if there's any kind of widespread downloading of video files.

Not the crappy torrents that most movie consumers do not download but when big services like iTunes and Amazon starts putting stresses on the broadband infrastructure.

There are caps, the ISPs just don't advertise them. But more and more people will hit them and they'll be cut off or charged more.
 
Downloads and streaming are not formidable challenges.

Apple just announced that movies will be available day and date with DVD releases.

So would you buy movies from iTunes for $15 or buy the DVD, which has better encodes not to mention that it doesn't use up hard disk space which most people don't have?

I'll admit to a guilty pleasure: I'm a huge fan of South Park, Futurama, and Simpsons. I have a few full episode of Simpsons and Futurama, and have the entire South Park collection on DVD. Unfortunately, they really amount to an expensive archive I don't even watch. That's because I can't be bothered to dig through each box for the right disc for an episode I am looking for -- and that is how I tend to enjoy them. As the mood strikes, I'll want to watch a specific episode. Now that southparkstudios.net (the official site for South Park) has all episodes via. stream from their website, despite the lower quality and lack of "extras" -- I solely watch old episodes from their site. I can pretty much promise you there's no going back for me. I have swore off on buying any more DVD's... or CD's for that matter. Up until recently, I would buy a CD, and immediately rip it onto an external HDD that serves as my music library, only to file the CD into a box. That is, until I decided to subscribe to eMusic.

I've already been hooked by digital distribution. It happened in 2005 for me with music. 2007/8 for me with videos (Amazon unboxed and my TiVo).
 
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