Next Gen Consoles - What would YOU SACRIFICE?

[j^aws]

This is a hypothetical but realistic scenario. This is NOT a FAN-BOY question but a business decision for next gen console manufacturers that would affect their stakeholders, i.e. gamers, developers, publishers, shareholders etc.

This is the scenario...It's nearing the lockdown of Next Gen console specifications. YOU have to offically reveal the specs to the general public. Years of R&D, investments, testing etc. have come to this....*DRUM BEATS*

There is a preferred embodiment from public hype (that's YOUR expectations!). Due to COST reasons and NOT TECHNICAL reasons, what would YOU CHOP? Please give reasons for your decision if you can.

There is a high chance that next gen consoles will be compromised for cost reasons. I've avoided speculating on actual specs but use what you can from your expectations. Also I've tried to generalise on the options whilst trying to keep their relative cost savings on the same order of magnitude...well, you get my drift.

 

[wco81]

I don't understand the thing about affordable games? What is affordable? Do we expect next-gen games to cost more than current ones? Or less than current ones?

The prices will be determined by whatever the market will bear. Hot games will stay at $50 for months after release while other games will be aggressively discounted fairly quickly.

It's possible that Blue Ray or some other next-gen disc format will be too expensive that the floor for prices will be higher than they are now.

It might be good to have a poll of items which are the features you most treasure.

 

[j^aws]

I don't understand the thing about affordable games? What is affordable? Do we expect next-gen games to cost more than current ones? Or less than current ones?

The prices will be determined by whatever the market will bear. Hot games will stay at $50 for months after release while other games will be aggressively discounted fairly quickly.

It's possible that Blue Ray or some other next-gen disc format will be too expensive that the floor for prices will be higher than they are now.

It might be good to have a poll of items which are the features you most treasure.

Affordable console launch price around $300-$400 i.e. from previous indicators....

Affordable games = current launch prices.

It's possible that in order to meet the 'preferred embodiment' the console manufacturers might also pass the cost onto publishers to recoup costs. It would be upto the publishers then to decide whether to take a lower cut or pass the cost back to the public? The public will decide! The prices of todays games are 'lower', taking inflation into account, from the 16bit era 10-15 years ago...

EDIT: I did think about a poll for treasured features but predicted everone would want more polys or more fillrate! ...or may be not...

EDIT: Ohhh...this is bugging me...I did think about adding 'Backwards Compatabilty' as an option but figured it as a likely addition or you could just use your old console's!

 

[Fox5]

I would sacrifice.......
Either high geometry or pixel shading capabilities. No real need for both.
For hdtv resolutions I'd sacrifice pixel shading, pixel shaders really eat up performance at hi res, and often don't look right when going beyond a tv res.

I would easily sacrifice blu ray/hd-dvd for standard dvd. Pointless to have more, developers need to learn how to compress data if they're able to fill a dvd. Plus, you can always use multiple dvds.

High capacity hard disk I would sacrifice, unless there was a way to put homebrew stuff on there, or some actual use for the harddrive. Xbox's and ps2's current uses are pretty pitiful.

Significantly delay the console launch is a maybe....if the pc game market were better I would say yes, however it would severely cripple the console's market and I don't like waiting, so no.

 

[Megadrive1988]

I didn't vote - but I'll say this, detail and effects should be sacrificed for framerate. 60fps should be standard on all games. like Sega's Model 2 and Model 3 games. Model 3's Real3D graphics processors had a feature that kept the framerate at 60fps no matter what. and all of the image features did not impact framerate. this needs to be a main feature of nextgen console's GPUs.

 

[wco81]

I would only give up Blue Ray/HD DVD if you could get such players at comparable prices when these consoles debut.

If not, it would be good to have consoles set the new benchmark price, to push the next-gen movie distribution format forward. Kill the DVD.

 

[cthellis42]

A goat.

 

[j^aws]

A goat.

M$8)

*Ducks, runs and hides...*
not a fan-boy remark! They could just concentrate on their game divisions then...
*Phew...*

I would only give up Blue Ray/HD DVD if you could get such players at comparable prices when these consoles debut.

If not, it would be good to have consoles set the new benchmark price, to push the next-gen movie distribution format forward. Kill the DVD.

Wouldn't it be interesting if next gen M$ pushed HD-DVD and Sony pushed Blu-Ray...

 

[Fafalada]

Wouldn't it be interesting if next gen M$ pushed HD-DVD and Sony pushed Blu-Ray...

M$ likes to go against DVD-Forum standards at least as much as Sony. Just because HDDVD 'might' use WM9, it doesn't mean they will also support the format as such, or not support Blu-Ray for that matter.

Heck, if MS was IBM, they would certainly not only support Blu-Ray, but also create a new compression standard incompatible with WM9 but slightly better and force Sony to use it as the exclusive Blu-Ray standard, while at the same time manufacturing their own HD-DVD drives with WM9.

 

[j^aws]

Wouldn't it be interesting if next gen M$ pushed HD-DVD and Sony pushed Blu-Ray...

M$ likes to go against DVD-Forum standards at least as much as Sony. Just because HDDVD 'might' use WM9, it doesn't mean they will also support the format as such, or not support Blu-Ray for that matter.

Heck, if MS was IBM, they would certainly not only support Blu-Ray, but also create a new compression standard incompatible with WM9 but slightly better and force Sony to use it as the exclusive Blu-Ray standard, while at the same time manufacturing their own HD-DVD drives with WM9.

Wouldn't M$ get a market advantage if they released earlier than Sony with HD-DVD, otherwise I cannot see XBOX2 with Blu-ray before PS3. They would have to stick with DVD...

Why isn't Sony using/developing/licensing a better/ newer compression standard with Blu-ray aswell :? Would be best of both worlds I would think...

 

[wco81]

Nobody wants a codec from Sony. They will shove ATRAC down people's throats when everybody wants MP3 for digital audio.

I think we know why Sony won't go for WMV. Why it won't do H.264, we don't know. Maybe H.264 has higher royalties than MPEG2?

They invested a lot in blue laser development. If they could have used the newer codecs and these newer codecs are as efficient as people claim -- I've seen people express sketicism about how good WMV and H.264 are for single pass real time encoding -- then maybe Sony would have to deal with the argument that they should just use a cheaper to manufacture format like HD DVD, since the new codecs would allow them to get away with doing more with lower bitrates.

 

[Pepto-Bismol]

This is the scenario...It's nearing the lockdown of Next Gen console specifications. YOU have to offically reveal the specs to the general public. Years of R&D, investments, testing etc. have come to this....*DRUM BEATS*

Like most monolithic corporations, we'll do what we've always done: we won't tell them anything.

Marketing will spoon-feed reporters more propaganda. And while they're speaking the usual rhetoric (a summary of a summary of a summary of an architectural synopsis), maybe we'll tell them to cash in on the horseracing phenomenon and "codename" some of the electrical components Triple Crown and Seattle Slew and War Admiral.

 

[pc999]

I didn't vote - but I'll say this, detail and effects should be sacrificed for framerate. 60fps should be standard on all games. like Sega's Model 2 and Model 3 games. Model 3's Real3D graphics processors had a feature that kept the framerate at 60fps no matter what. and all of the image features did not impact framerate. this needs to be a main feature of nextgen console's GPUs.

Interesting , I didnt know that , but I agree with you

 

[j^aws]

I didn't vote - but I'll say this, detail and effects should be sacrificed for framerate. 60fps should be standard on all games. like Sega's Model 2 and Model 3 games. Model 3's Real3D graphics processors had a feature that kept the framerate at 60fps no matter what. and all of the image features did not impact framerate. this needs to be a main feature of nextgen console's GPUs.

Interesting , I didnt know that , but I agree with you

Ditto...a neat trick by Model 3's hardware but aren't all arcade games always released with 60fps anyway? There shouldn't even be an excuse this gen to realease anything below 60fps IMHO...and a constant 60fps...can't stand sloooowww down

 

[pcostabel]

Developer environment. Give me hardware specs and gcc. I don't need no stinkin' IDE/API

 

[MrSingh]

60 fps mode in Model 3? They must have disabled the 60 fps dip switch in that Harley Davidson game then...

 

[pc999]

60 fps mode in Model 3

Anyone knows who they get that?

 

[j^aws]

Nobody wants a codec from Sony. They will shove ATRAC down people's throats when everybody wants MP3 for digital audio.

I think we know why Sony won't go for WMV. Why it won't do H.264, we don't know. Maybe H.264 has higher royalties than MPEG2?

They invested a lot in blue laser development. If they could have used the newer codecs and these newer codecs are as efficient as people claim -- I've seen people express sketicism about how good WMV and H.264 are for single pass real time encoding -- then maybe Sony would have to deal with the argument that they should just use a cheaper to manufacture format like HD DVD, since the new codecs would allow them to get away with doing more with lower bitrates.

Anyone know what the relative royalty costs are? Would M$ save money on WMV royalties if they went HD-DVD as they own the tech? It would be an incentive for going HD-DVD before Blu-ray hits the mass market. Could be another reason why most content providers are sitting on the fence...next gen consoles might be the trigger for them. Some would argue the ps2 was the mass market trigger for DVD's.

 

[j^aws]

Developer environment. Give me hardware specs and gcc. I don't need no stinkin' IDE/API

...but you might need alot of asprins. ...especially with muticore nextgen chipsets. Might aswell go a step further and try it in assembler or machine code. 8) That'll give you hairs on your chest.

Would be great to see devs going for the 'metal' nextgen for that extra mileage though...

 

[DeanoC]

Developer environment. Give me hardware specs and gcc. I don't need no stinkin' IDE/API

...but you might need alot of asprins. ...especially with muticore nextgen chipsets. Might aswell go a step further and try it in assembler or machine code. 8) That'll give you hairs on your chest.

Would be great to see devs going for the 'metal' nextgen for that extra mileage though...

At least one next-gen console has promised us access to the GPU at the lowest level (direct to the GPU DMA command stream).

Low level access is by developer request, don't underestimate how hard-core graphics devs are