Do you think it would be a mistake for MS and/or Sony to launch in 2012?

Technically the first 28nm GPUs will launch in just a few days but if rumours are true then TSMC is having so much problems that in reality it'll take quite some time before one can actually buy them. Also is there actually a specific date said about when the high-end GPUs show up on 28nm?

 

From what I understand, the first ones will be essentially die shrunk versions of the 40nm chips though, not GCN designs.

Regardless, q1/2012-q4/2012 is plenty of time for 28nm next-gen consoles.

 

Not a million of them.

 

Never has been at launch.

 

Um... 360 was >1M units at launch. 600K for US/Canada by the end of 2005, 300K sent to Europe.

Nintendo did 1M for US alone.

I'd add further months for a launch period (up to 6 months), but I know you'll just say that doesn't count.

 

Vita is a 2011 launch for Japan.

Why not the same road map for PS4, Japan launch Dec 2012, US/Europe launch March 2013?

Didn’t the PS3 have a planned March launch before it slipped to November?

I can see Sony being comfortable with being one Quarter behind WiiU and Xbox720.

Any longer and they have the same issue they had this gen. With this strategy they get to announce things in the same time window as Microsoft, have publishers plan the same releases for 4th quarter 2013.

The release period is always supply constrained, so they don’t lose much ground in the first Christmas season in US.

 

You could say the exact same for MS. They can have a Halo Christmas 2012 and then go right into launch mode Q1. In that way, Nintendo never really get to have any legs with WiiU launch. The only thing could really hurt them is if the actually listened/believed the prevailing wisdom on these boards.

Sony on the other hand, I don't know, but my spidey senses are telling me they've been caught flatfooted and because of that will launch late, half-assed, and having "lost the initiative" to Nintendo in Japan and MS in the US. They may surprise but all I'm seeing at this point is disarray.

 

Rumor Mill:

"Exclusive: XBox Next chip just taped out"

http://semiaccurate.com/2011/12/05/exclusive-xbox-next-chip-just-taped-out/

 

Ok let's assume for a minute that we aren't talking launch and are instead are talking by the end of 2012.

So in your opinion they will "not have a million of them" by the end of the year.

How many can they have by then?

800k?

600k?

400k?

How do you come up with this figure?

 

I don't think it's that clear cut. Trends are showing that portables take an ever increasing share of the gaming pie. Nintendo was always there but has reached new heights, and all the criticism for the 3DS notwithstanding, it is still outselling the DS at the moment as far as i know. All that while Nintendo had competition in the form of the PSP for the first time. At least in terms of hardware sales that expanded the pie significantly. Of course I would agree that the advent of smartphones do make progress in that area less certain, but the potential is there, and less piracy could make a significant difference to the software sales. If you ask me, the biggest threat to the Vita would come from a huge improvement in battery technology and interface improvements. If that doesn't come, however, I think the Vita has a pretty good shot.

Additionally, a Japanese company is going to be more sensitive to such trends, as handheld sales are way beyond console sales there, both hardware and software.

But whatever Sony do, they'll have to be ready within a year from the other guys, at the latest. And I'm pretty confident they know this. Also, development for Vita is easy enough so they don't need their ace developers on it - they will be working on PS4 projects by now already to some extent and involved in the process. The resources that are skint at Sony that I am worried about are their firmware, services, infrastructure and marketing. They would not be able to handle Vita and PS4 too close to each other.

 

If a man jumps out of burning plane and survives the fall, needing only three years of intensive physio to (mostly) recover, it does not necessarily follow that the next time he is on a perfectly good aeroplane that he should do a flying kick out of door at 30,000 ft just so he can beat everyone else to the ground.

 

Indeed.

That's why I wouldn't plan for them Q1/2012 ... Q4 however, is a lot more reasonable.

Let's also not forget that it wasn't the process node to blame, but stupid engineering/design choices that lead to RRoD.

Or is the moral to the story that neither Sony or MS should ever come out with new consoles, cause flying is dangerous?

 

Launching any time this year is jumping out of a perfectly good plane, to try and win a prize a prize that neither MS nor Sony are currently even eligible for. Nintendo are on a burning plane, only due to not being desperate and not rushing they're planning an orderly evacuation with a parachute. They have more to gain than lose by launching in 2012. MS and Sony have a lot more to lose than gain.

MS and Sony need to work on growing their current devices as both games platforms and service hubs. It's hard to get customers on board your current platform when you're already talking up its replacement. The 360 can form the hub of an increasingly low power, set top friendly entertainment and service device - hardware can be added around it and interface through the dash and you could even ship versions from multiple vendors like WP7.

 

I think it'd be far more intriguing to see a plan like this from MS:

2011:
- Grow Xbox and Kinect (done)
- Add more services to Xbox, tied to Gold sub (done)

2012:
- Add Kinect support to Win 8 Metro interface, make it standard feature
- Allow mandatory partial HDD installs to support fast streaming and remove DVD size bottleneck,
use 60 GB model as baseline for I/O latency and bandwidth (20GB drive was really slow)

2013:
- Release Xbox 360 "super slim"
- Offer "super slim" chip (or expanded capability variant) to IHVs to build expanded, 3rd party entertainment boxes around
- Convince ISPs and telecom companies (like Sky) to further join in
- Offer entire Xbox game catalogue (or as much as possible, publisher permitting) through Live

(A cut of revenues from Gold, services and sales would temp all types of people to join in.)

2014/2015
- Third generation Xbox, offers all of the previous capabilities but a lot more. Does not draw 200W, starts somewhere reasonable.

Sony should be thinking about something similar, but might want to wait for PS4 hardware/OS to do it.

Edit: I'm going to bookmark this thread and if MS do this I will demand an internet hi-five from someone at Microsoft, preferably Steve Ballmer

 

Are they?

Code:

		gba	ds	psp	xbox	xb360	ps2	ps3	gc	wii	port.	consoles
2001	33.12	13.13			1.67		16.07		2.25		13.13	19.99
2002	46.57	14.89			5.56		21.29		4.83		14.89	31.68
2003	50.57	18.7			5.79		19.76		6.32		18.7	31.87
2004	46.63	16.19	2.86	0.47	6.83		16.1		4.18		19.52	27.11
2005	55.6	8.76	10.93	9.6	3.62	1.17	18.78		2.74		29.29	26.31
2006	61.15	5.55	20.56	9.39	0.07	6.73	13.66	1.25	1.01	2.93	35.5	25.65
2007	87.16	2.3	29.28	12.36		7.85	11.09	7.7	0.19	16.39	43.94	43.22
2008	97.83		29.93	13.87		10.89	8.93	9.92		24.29	43.8	54.03
2009	89.11		28.18	10.4		10.14	6.18	13		21.21	38.58	50.53
2010	80.76		20.91	9.4		13.61	4.81	14.39		17.64	30.31	50.45

In digging through the numbers a few things jump out at me.

1) Portables WERE trending and indeed above console sales at the very end of the ps2 generation in 2005 and continued until 2007 when ps3 (and other consoles) were more available and more affordable.

2) PS2 was a monster

3) DS was even more of a monster

4) The games hardware biz as a whole is growing pretty strong from 33m units/year in 2001 to 80.76m units in 2010

5) Though it is strong, hardware sales are slowing from their peak in 2008 of 98m total (54m console) and are stagnant on the console side since then.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

And ... Why in the world did Nintendo come out with the DS when the year prior the GBA was having record sales ... 18.7m GBA units the year prior to launching DS ... What in the world were they thinking????

Food for thought for those wondering what incentive MS/Sony might possibly have for coming out in 2012/2013 with new systems.

Oh and 2005 (a year before ps3) Sony sold 18.8m ps2s which was another resurgence for them as the year before was only 16m.

 

I suppose ... if watching grass growing intrigues you.

Or if you're in their shoes, you'd like to see someone come steal your lunch...

This post spells out how things have trended and another notable one referencing the end of the cycle last gen and increased sales to portable was the introduction of DS and PSP in 2004.

The following year after both of these portables were released at the end of the previous hardware cycle, the next gen machines showed up in 2005 (xb360).

Here we are in 2011, next gen DS and PSP show up. Next year Nintendo is launching their "next-gen" in 2012. Will anyone join them or will they wait until 2013?

I don't think either Sony or MS would be foolish enough to honestly plan for 2014 and leave such an obvious opening for their competition.

 

You haven't included smart phones and tablets in the handhelds bit. I don't know where you'd get those figures from tbh, but there's no point pretending that the market is the way you're portraying it.

That they currently had no competition, that they could fight upcoming competition from the dominant home console vendor with a killer hook, and that they could raise margins?

Edit: Oh yeah, and they also realised they could expand their market.

The PS3 had to come out in 2006 because Sony were desperate to respond to the threat from MS in 2005. The PS2 could have carried another year if the 360 hadn't arrived.

In the 2012 analogy, where is 2011's Xbox 360? It's okay, I can answer that. It's nowhere.

 

I get my early-process-node jollies from the PC!

If MS could become a hardware and software licensor for a common or even dominant media and service hub technology, and collect Gold subs, and collect game royalties in an Apple/iTunes style way then that would be an incredible opportunity far outweighing the gains from brining out a next gen system in 2012 or 2013.

 

Ok ... I think we all understand that smartphones exist.

Hence my comment...

Or did you miss that? (it's the origin of my post that you quoted)

Ah so they came out with new hardware and launched early relative to them so as to hopefully gain a competitive advantage ...

Indeed.

WTF?

 

Next-gen doesn't preclude such a plan.