NGGP: NextGen Garbage Pile (aka: No one reads the topics or stays on topic) *spawn*

[Bagel seed]

Anyhow, I doubt any dev worth their salt making a serious title would just drop 600Mflops on the floor and not utilize it for anything because only one of the two major consoles offer that level of performance. No, that does not make sense.

It might if there were some stipulations made like, if our visuals are noticeably different then we pull our ad dollars or something like that. So they might use that extra 600 to bump AA or have a better quality SSAO but anything further than that I'd say it's tricky. Devs will get strong armed. Just like how the extra space on blu-ray was mostly relegated to holding minor extras like making of videos.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

In the case of middleware engines that run on PC and also scale, I expect a substantial improvement of one platform over another to show, similar to how it does ow on 360 vs PS3. The target for assets will be the lowest common denominator, but the more powerful machine will render in higher quality, with more foliage, better shadows, yada yada, depending on what the various strengths are. I expect strong competition from the engines in how they use hardware as that'll be a key point of competition between them. "We can use Engine X or Engine Y for our next game. Engine Y will make our game better on Platform M without any extra effort, whereas Engine X will make Platform M's game only as good as Platform N. " I'm sure those considerations come well down the priority lists after tools, experience, etc., but it must be an area the engine developers are aware of and will invest in, adapting their engine to better use features of a platform.

 

[Arwin]

Even that is an incredibly complex play of platformholder politics and publishers wanting to show they all platforms equally by not showing they favor one or the other etc. But you are right, that for Unreal Engine multi-platform games, most of them typically favored the same console.

In that sense, perhaps the smartest thing that a platform holder can do is commission an exclusive launch-game from the major multi-platform engine holders a la Gears of War last gen ...

 

[upnorthsox]

Well Epic has issues going in to this nextgen. They're new engine is late and what little we've seen is not overly impressive.

In the meantime, Crytek 3 and ID 5 are recently finished and ready for implementation.

Maybe MS getting an exclusive with Crytek is a wise choice, and maybe Sony should consider doing the same with Id.

 

[Bagel seed]

Interesting comment from Kaz:

No one knows definitely when Microsoft and Sony will unveil their successors to the current Xbox and PlayStation, but Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai has said that it will let Microsoft make the first move.

In the Business section of The Times today, Hirai said, "Why go first, when your competitors can look at your specifications and come up with something better?"

http://ca.ign.com/articles/2013/01/...e-first-move?abthid=50fd5eed8edfc2245c00002ep

Haven't seen the full context of it from the original Times article to see if the quote should be taken at face value but it's something to think about. Could just be talking in generalities though.

 

[BRiT]

Yes, it's really something to think about ... completely changing the product you've been designing over the course of the past 5-8 years to just magically change it within 6 months of your competitor making the first move. Yes, totally believable. Yes, totally doable. Yes, it's the Sony way.

IE: Give me a break. More PR bullshit.

 

[Bagel seed]

With the spec either company has set at this moment I wouldn't say it's not possible for at least minor tweaks to be made depending on how they've currently designed their systems, and more so if they are mostly going with "off the shelf" parts as we hear.

That aside I think we can take his comment as that they just don't want to be one upped tech wise in general at the very least.

 

[BRiT]

I don't think it would be that feasible to change the size of the hard drives, as they'd have millions of units to adjust that they've already been building up inventory for. Not to mention those items will take time to be fulfilled through the channel.

Even a tweak of the price by $10 would have an impact on their marketing and press materials that have already been finely crafted.

The only tweaks I could see being done is in the sort of pack-ins to include, perhaps like a cheap-o USB memory drive or such. Perhaps include a coupon or code for free online movie rental or other subscription service they control.

 

[Bagel seed]

I don't think it would be that feasible to change the size of the hard drives, as they'd have millions of units to adjust that they've already been building up inventory for. Not to mention those items will take time to be fulfilled through the channel.

Even a tweak of the price by $10 would have an impact on their marketing and press materials that have already been finely crafted.

The only tweaks I could see being done is in the sort of pack-ins to include, perhaps like a cheap-o USB memory drive or such. Perhaps include a coupon or code for free online movie rental or other subscription service they control.

Yeah that would be on the level of minor side tweaks. Since we can't gauge the level of commitment to his philosophy by his comment it could very well be anything from minor changes to 6 month delay chip swap levels.

 

[BRiT]

For those not paying attention, talk about the VGLeaks Durango is in it's own thread here: http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=62867

 

[Rangers]

^^ No.



Yeah that would be on the level of minor side tweaks. Since we can't gauge the level of commitment to his philosophy by his comment it could very well be anything from minor changes to 6 month delay chip swap levels.

or, you could be wishful thinking.

 

[Bagel seed]

or, you could be wishful thinking.

lol, I was completely neutral in what I said. Don't get too worked up over this console war.

 

[Love_In_Rio]

It would be funny that the 'special sauce' of Orbis ended up being the good one as,at least by this leak, it has not special vector units to assist the GPU.

 

[Scott_Arm]

There's no way they'd redesign/respin a PCB at the last minute to fit in new/better hardware as some reactionary move to one-up the competition. All of the cooling and mechanical design would already be done. That is unless they want to launch over a year later than the new Xbox, but that would be stupid.

 

[upnorthsox]

It's all part of the "it's a secret, 10 year lifecycle, no comment" bs both sides have been putting out for a while now. If you're not releasing for another 3 yrs then hey, you've got plenty of time.

However, this is b3d and I'd hope we're all sophisticated enough to recognize that in the real world it's too late to change.

 

[Rangers]

It's all part of the "it's a secret, 10 year lifecycle, no comment" bs both sides have been putting out for a while now. If you're not releasing for another 3 yrs then hey, you've got plenty of time.

However, this is b3d and I'd hope we're all sophisticated enough to recognize that in the real world it's too late to change.

No, no, Sony can easily one up anything MS does! It's right there in print! Stop saying that!

 

[nightshade]

Interesting comment from Kaz:


http://ca.ign.com/articles/2013/01/...e-first-move?abthid=50fd5eed8edfc2245c00002ep

Haven't seen the full context of it from the original Times article to see if the quote should be taken at face value but it's something to think about. Could just be talking in generalities though.

Lol what bullshit is that ?
And why go first ? Well if we are talking about direct competition then you should never be too early as that's when your competitor looks at you and improves upon and you can never be too late as that's when you risk losing market shares.

 

[babybumb]

There is higher chance of 30fps vs 60fps than many believe. 4GB GDDR5 UMA and 50% more GPU is huge. Its not a wash

This isnt RSX and Cell magic sauce anymore which was questionable already at E3 2005.

 

[patsu]

Kaz is probably referring to multiple configurations that exist in-house. Hardware companies always have more than one prototype in-flight. Minor stuff from storage config, additional units, bundled stuff, ...

I wonder if the config with additional compute unit(s) was thrown in late. We didn't hear about it until Eurogamer's article. Or it could be misreporting...

 

[Aeoniss]

There is higher chance of 30fps vs 60fps than many believe. 4GB GDDR5 UMA and 50% more GPU is huge. Its not a wash

This isnt RSX and Cell magic sauce anymore which was questionable already at E3 2005.

Are the rumors of the Orbis GPU being that much stronger credible?

As for Durango.. We don't have the full picture yet. But it is shaping up to be a bit skewed in favor of the next gen Playstation.

I have a question though, and that is.. If the Durango is truly using DDR3 and has no GDDR anywhere.. What kind of performance disparity GPU wise is there for a DDR3 vs GDDR5 scenario?