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

[Blazkowicz]

I thought sub-1080p was pretty much guaranteed for many titles next-gen, but this pretty much confirms it for Durango. If they have built in hardware to ease implementing dynamic resolution, as those Display Plane rumours suggest, then I'm guessing there will be quite a few titles that dip down to 720p, and maybe some games close to that at most times. If there's really nothing behind that patent in terms of Durango, then I'm guessing the upper-end resolution will come down a bit to guarantee stable framerates. 1080p is looking like a rarity for gaming on Durango. The question now is how much people will notice the difference, and I'm sure MS is hoping they won't. It'll definitely be an interesting generation of consoles.

While I don't quite exactly know what the "Display Plane" feature is, I have a feeling this can facilitate a useful feature. Have a 1080p HUD, text fonts, crosshair etc. composited on top of a 3D scene that was rendered at a lower resolution (worst case, always at 720p in a given game).
Optionnally, something smart and dynamic can happen as to which resolution the game is being rendered at.. This can look more or less good, but at least you would keep crips text and icons etc. no matter what.

Possibily, the text and HUD can be generated solely by the CPU, if there's a reason you want that.

 

[Inuhanyou]

I'm just saying that for sub 500$ machines, these are pretty good consoles we are getting. Its not gonna be anything more than that to begin with no matter what the SKU.

Now if Durango was actually in Wii U's general range with only a small uptick from 360, then i'd be mad. But that is clearly not the case.

Will they though?

This lowest common denominator business stems from the PS2 and xbox, PS2 sold over 150 million and the xbox 25, why would you invest your money when the difference in userbase was so vast? You develop games for the one that will make you the most money in this instance and seeing as multiplatform games this time round ran considerably better on 360 in the most part, doesn't that actually disprove your theory?

And no third party dev is seriously going to release a game that looks considerably worse than Uncharted 4 and other first party games, they will have to much pride for that in my opinion.

I predict we will see what happened this time, which in reality is games being made for the better system and being made to run as best as possible on the weaker one.

Of course they will! For many reasons not just power. One is ease of development. Its just easier to seek parity in these situations. When time and efficiency is becoming much more coveted, why would they make a game based on more powerful hardware and then go back and try and cut out things to make it work on weaker machines? If that was the case PC would always be lead platform with the best components used and no current gen games would exist.

The amount of PS3 to 360 conversions is much much rarer this gen than 360 to PS3/PC conversions. Its not because of power.

 

[Averagejoe]

Or maybe MS is betting everything on the price of 249/299$.Honestly, according to rumor I do not see other possible selling point.

The 360 now cost $300 dollars as it is,i don't think Durando will ship for less than $399.

 

[Proelite]

I have no idea. I guess they would have to be prepared for something like this if they knew beforehand that their spec would be lower than PS4. (Actually, I know exactly what the management response was when questioned about relative console power - and other non-leaked things that may have significant impact on the sales of consoles, but it's not my place to say. Let's just say that I got flashbacks to my days in a different, less successful, org in some meetings.)

Kin?

I guess that's a wrap. Durango to be discontinued within a year of launch.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

The 360 now cost $300 dollars as it is,i don't think Durando will ship for less than $399.

360 drops to $150, Durango releases at $300 with Kinect. There's plenty of scope of market manoeuvrings.

 

[Inuhanyou]

TBF, that's because the components in 360 and PS3 are still somewhat expensive even after shrinking them. They went with a lot of silicon that made it hard to shrink and make back costs, won't be the case this gen.

 

[Scott_Arm]

I would not say that, definitively the PS4 should have an significant edge, I expect higher resolution rendering to happen quiet often.
If the resolution is the same definitely the ps4 should be able to do "more", higher precision lightning, higher quality effects overall, higher FPS (though with V-sync... it should not happen and the gap is not enough to go from 30fps to 60 fps without making trade off).

Honestly, the biggest difference will be if online multiplayer games support larger maps and more players. If COD on PS4 supports larger maps and 32 players vs smaller maps and 24 players on Durango, then it's pretty much settled which console is going to sell more.

 

[Bagel seed]

I have no idea. I guess they would have to be prepared for something like this if they knew beforehand that their spec would be lower than PS4. (Actually, I know exactly what the management response was when questioned about relative console power - and other non-leaked things that may have significant impact on the sales of consoles, but it's not my place to say. Let's just say that I got flashbacks to my days in a different, less successful, org in some meetings.)

"at xbox, we are driving to serve the greater needs of the broad market. thank you for your insight, bkilian"

 

[Ruskie]

Man its awesome having someone like bkilian on forum. Durango sounds exactly like I expected it to be like. I do not think it will be a bad console, but I have a feeling with MS pretty much giving up on spec race they are giving up on large part of their success (multiplatform games).

Oh when I think about the days of Allard, Bach and Ed Fries

 

[Bagel seed]

It all depends. Most expect the console with greater power will run the games better so it will sell more. But in order for 3rd parties to stop coding to lowest common denominator, they need the more powerful console to start pulling ahead in sales to be worth it. And I think that question will arise for them when a figure like say 2:1 in sales starts to appear.

 

[Love_In_Rio]

I have no idea. I guess they would have to be prepared for something like this if they knew beforehand that their spec would be lower than PS4. (Actually, I know exactly what the management response was when questioned about relative console power - and other non-leaked things that may have significant impact on the sales of consoles, but it's not my place to say. Let's just say that I got flashbacks to my days in a different, less successful, org in some meetings.)

Did you suspect Sony could launch with VR glasses?.

 

[RobertR1]

Kin?

I guess that's a wrap. Durango to be discontinued within a year of launch.

Yes, he worked on he Kin team based on history.

Ballmer and team seem to be allergic to success. If their motto with Durango was "secure the core, draw in the casuals" they could easily ensure success next gen.

However, I'm sure the bean counters want Wii like profits and are convinced they can do the same. I'm not convinced....

 

[expletive]

Honestly, the biggest difference will be if online multiplayer games support larger maps and more players. If COD on PS4 supports larger maps and 32 players vs smaller maps and 24 players on Durango, then it's pretty much settled which console is going to sell more.

Wouldn't more RAM be a benefit for larger maps and more players? Even if Durango is rendering at 720p instead of 1080p i would think RAM would play an important role in map size/complexity/players?

 

[Bagel seed]

Well, if they profit on h/w from the start it might not be a bad venture for them this time. As long as they don't Dreamcast themselves they can make a decent chunk of change even selling half of what they did this gen. But who knows what the expectation is now.

 

[Alexct]

I have no idea. I guess they would have to be prepared for something like this if they knew beforehand that their spec would be lower than PS4. (Actually, I know exactly what the management response was when questioned about relative console power - and other non-leaked things that may have significant impact on the sales of consoles, but it's not my place to say. Let's just say that I got flashbacks to my days in a different, less successful, org in some meetings.)

Thanks for the reply.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

In short MS is committing suicide as regards the department of xbox.Many clever send to slaughter their only new product in the last 10 years that has been a worldwide success

Hyperbole runs strong in this one. Doom, DOOM, you say, while knowing virtually nothing about either console.

Regards,
SB

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Wouldn't more RAM be a benefit for larger maps and more players? Even if Durango is rendering at 720p instead of 1080p i would think RAM would play an important role in map size/complexity/players?

For large multiplayer maps with lots of players the CPU will become more and more important. You are more likely to become CPU starved on a large multiplayer map than you will GPU starved. Each additional player isn't going to add much to GPU overhead, but will add relatively more to CPU overhead.

RAM also shouldn't come into play (over and above what would be needed for a single player map of similar size).

Using Planetfall 2 (online FPS MMO) as an extreme example. It is almost entirely CPU bound due to the number of players that can be in any given scene. The client in this case has to worry about predicting the path of each individual character in your FOV as well as tracking where shots fired will land and any physics (ragdoll, debris, particles, etc.) associated with any given player in your FOV.

In this case, both Orbis and Durango should easily support the same number of players for online multiplayer for cross platform games. At least with how we are currently interpreting the leaked rumors.

Regards,
SB

 

[mrcorbo]

They could have started with G and upgraded to N later just like PS3. They didn't include Wifi in the launch 360 because of cost and no one else had done it. Once the PS3 and Wii launched, however, they didn't really have a great excuse.

The PS3 doesn't support wireless n, Never has, AFAIK.

 

[RobertR1]

Hyperbole runs strong in this one. Doom, DOOM, you say, while knowing virtually nothing about either console.

Regards,
SB

Well, outside of the 360, MS has been pretty disasterious.

Bing still bleeding. Kin failed. Win 8 mobile, luke warm start, Win 8 tablets no big impact, Win 8 desktop OS very mixed reviews.

The 360 has actually been the bright spot during this whole trail and (mostly) error phase. The same braintrust for the products above seem to now be pushing that mentality onto Durango also.

Maybe they'll buck the trend? we'll see but history isn't strong with them....

 

[liolio]

Well I don't get the gloom and doom, let wait for the respective prices of the ps4 and xbox, that is massive factor imo.