anexanhume
Veteran
My mistake. Thanks.
NGGP: NextGen Garbage Pile (aka: No one reads the topics or stays on topic) *spawn*
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My mistake. Thanks.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Bing is still steadily gaining marketshare. It's still a struggle, but MS knew it was going to be.
Kin. was a good product launched a few years too late. It was an extremely good feature phone at a time when feature phones were losing their appeal in western countries. So much better than something like Microsoft Bob.
If the market demand hadn't suddenly switched to wanting smartphones, it could have been a huge success. WP8 we'll still have to see. It's still gaining marketshare so that isn't bad.
Win8 tablets. The well designed ones are constantly selling out (Asus, HP, Lenovo). The ones with crappy build quality or crappy design choices aren't (this is for x86 tablets, I always figured Arm based Windows tablets would have a difficult time proving itself). It's hard to say how well it would do if Asus, HP, and Lenovo could manage to make enough Win8 tablets to meet demand. I haven't tracked the sales of the convertible tablets from Dell, Sony, etc. as those are less interesting than the pure slates with keyboard docks.
Finally put Win8 on my desktop computer. Converted my Win7 slate to it, and it's fantastic there. On desktop it's fantastic except for the way you have to access the start screen. I don't even have a problem with the start screen, just how you access it. But that's minor as I now have a reason to use the Windows key on my keyboard for something other than a shortcut key combo.
In all other ways Win8 is a huge upgrade over Win7. I wish I would have upgraded sooner. Oh and it's a bit different to get used to no Aero.Either way, so far other than Kin, most are either tracking similar to Xbox (Bing/WP have a tough time similar to launch Xbox) or doing significantly better than the original Xbox. How it plays out in the future remains to be seen.
Myself, I think Bing is likely here to stay. It's only a matter of time for Windows based tablets. And Windows Phone may fail or may not. It's too early to tell if it'll go one way or another.
Regards,
SB
Kin was absolutely a beautiful phone, with a revolutionary UI. I _still_ prefer the Kin UI to Windows Phone with it's pseudo-integration of facebook. Kin's problem was Management blindness to the fact that their intended audience either a) did not buy phones with a smartphone data plan, or b) wanted an iPhone. We offered this amazing phone that integrated facebook natively and completely changed the way you interact with your phone, and then, for some reason, aimed the marketing squarely at teens and hipsters and charged a _hefty_ $30/month mandatory data fee that didn't include texting!!. Minimum monthly cost of the phone if you actually (like any teen) wanted unlimited texting: $85 before taxes and fees on it's own plan, or $55 added onto a family plan.Bing is still steadily gaining marketshare. It's still a struggle, but MS knew it was going to be.
Kin. was a good product launched a few years too late. It was an extremely good feature phone at a time when feature phones were losing their appeal in western countries. So much better than something like Microsoft Bob.
All questions about price and market penetrations were answered with either "These are not the droids you are looking for", or my favourite: "Our studies show that initial price is more important than monthly fees, we don't see any issue with the monthly fee structure"
Sorry, just had to get that off my chest.
/rant
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Yup. Completely agree. Kin was amazing. But changing market conditions combined with not targeting the phone correctly led to its downfall. I'd completely forgotten that texting wasn't included in the data plan. I remember thinking at the time, "What is Microsoft thinking?"
Regards,
SB
Fuck...this got me laughing.
Kin reminds me of Vita. Good design, etc but poor or no market focus.
Question is has MS learned from this experience or will they attempt to charge for online MP on the next system?
anexanhume
Veteran
Live is doing fine. They increased the price from $50 to $60 this generation. Sony saw the light and added a paid tier. Sure, they have a lot more free features and PS+ has a lot of features Live never would, but the paid model has only been verified this generation, over and over.
60 bucks a year is not an issue. It's half of what you pay for netflix streaming, and I'd dare say most gamers get a lot more value out of Live Gold than they get from their netflix subscription. It's just multiplayer luddites like me who absolutely refuse to play MP games that don't get a whole lot of added value from Live. Although even with Netflix on my Tivo, my Blu-ray player, the apple tv and the 360, I find myself using the 360 for it 99% of the time, the implementation is just so much better, and voice control is awesome. (And I only pay $25 a year for Live Gold...
)But to answer your real question: "Did microsoft fire the person responsible for the Kin debacle?" No. That person moved on to the XBox org, heading a team titled "Next generation experiences incubation" or something like that. Although she disappeared a while ago, and I didn't keep track.
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As much as I'm trying to stay optimistic WRT the appeal these consoles will have for me, I am beginning to understand why some are disappointed that these consoles aren't more exotic. Purely from a hardware standpoint, the sense of something new and exciting that's like nothing else we've ever seen before that has been present going into previous console generations is completely missing.
At best, with Orbis, we have what can be looked at as an enhanced implementation of AMDs APU concept that's unfettered by the restrictions of the PC platform. It's interesting, for sure, and cool in its own way, but not really exciting. Orbis development should enable awesome PC multiplats, though. So, extra points there.
And then there's Durango, which at this point, I find interesting architecturally in that it seems to be geared towards achieving maximal efficiency with middling hardware and the tweaks that they have done to achieve that seem clever (at least with my limited technical understanding). But it's pretty much impossible to get excited about middling hardware no matter how cleverly it's being used. Exciting is achieving maximal efficiency with maximal hardware!
I understand the reasons why the consoles are what they are, but I can't help but feel a little nostalgic for the way things used to be. Hopefully, once all is revealed there's something about one (or better both) of these consoles that ratchets up my enthusiasm, because (so far) the hardware itself isn't really doing it.
At best, with Orbis, we have what can be looked at as an enhanced implementation of AMDs APU concept that's unfettered by the restrictions of the PC platform. It's interesting, for sure, and cool in its own way, but not really exciting. Orbis development should enable awesome PC multiplats, though. So, extra points there.
And then there's Durango, which at this point, I find interesting architecturally in that it seems to be geared towards achieving maximal efficiency with middling hardware and the tweaks that they have done to achieve that seem clever (at least with my limited technical understanding). But it's pretty much impossible to get excited about middling hardware no matter how cleverly it's being used. Exciting is achieving maximal efficiency with maximal hardware!
I understand the reasons why the consoles are what they are, but I can't help but feel a little nostalgic for the way things used to be. Hopefully, once all is revealed there's something about one (or better both) of these consoles that ratchets up my enthusiasm, because (so far) the hardware itself isn't really doing it.
Inuhanyou
Veteran
Thanks SB
It clear to me that MS' primary constraint on the console, the one thing they could not compromise on to meet their requirements, was RAM. For Sony it was to maximize GPU and overall computational power. Everything about Durango seems to work backwards from the RAM amount they needed.
MS person 1: "We need 8GB of RAM for features XYZ, we cant compromise on that"
MS person 2: "Well then it cant be fast RAM and that will impact the bandwidth and thus graphics"
1: "Can we hang something off the GPU to alleviate that?"
2: "Yeah ESRAM and Bob has been working on these 'Move Engines'"
1: "Sounds great, how much bandwidth will that give us?"
2:"Roughly 170GB/s give or take"
1:"Ok, not horrible, what kind of GPU, would hit the sweet spot for that?"
2:"12CU, 1.2 TF"
1:"Is that enough?"
2:"Its plenty for 720p"
1:"Do we need 1080p?"
2:"Not for most things, heck my TV used to be 480i and was "real life" but the HUD will look like shit."
1:"Ok, not good, people will notice that, especially the COD crowd. Now what?"
2:"Well joe has this thing where we can overlay a 1080p HUD on a 720p game in his basement"
1:"Sounds elegant."
2:"It'll do"
1:"Ok, so GPU is a little smaller than we expected, what do we do with those transistors we planned on?"
2:"Audio can be a pain, especially 7.1 like NEO X etc, how about some hardware"
1:"ok, done. what else?"
2:"triple the CPU FLOPS"
1:"What about the bandwidth stuff?"
2:"wont impact that much"
1:"ok but will Sony have more FLOPS?"
2:"Yes but they wont have XYZ"
1:"good point, how much for all this with kinect 2.0 in the box?"
2:"$399"
1:"ship it"
fwiw, i'm not aware of any leaks that confirm jaguar as the CPU in durango. Its also conspicuously missing from the list of available poll items on vgleaks to be 'exposed'. If you want to believe some journalist insiders the CPU in Durango is definitely different then Orbis, I'm assuming "better" but who knows at this point. If its worse that would be disappointing.
(((interference)))
Veteran
With the data move engines, ESRAM and various DSPs, I think Durango is somewhat more interesting architecturally than 360 (though not obviously not as powerful relative to the time or as cutting edge.)
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Even without knowing explicitly what CPU is in Durango, it's unlikely to be less powerful than what is in Orbis. I can't think of many 8 core CPU's that would be less powerful that would also make sense to put into a console.
So as far as the CPU is concerned, both consoles should basically be able to support the same number of players in online multiplayer. And since GPU and memory don't affect that significantly (at least not with the minimum rumored 3.5 GB [Orbis]) then it's safe to say they will likely be equal with regards to number of players in cross platform multiplayer games.
Regards,
SB
Averagejoe
Regular
Days like today are when I wish I didn't ban myself from B3D at work
I haven't got a chance to look through all the architectural notes and compare to GCN but, efficiency aside (which you know MS is going to ride hard in regards to the ESRAM), Durango is looking to be GCN architecture and a Cap Verde class GPU. It isn't just the Flops but also the Pixel and Texel fillrate and the vertex/poly setup rate is still 2 per clock. Below are the numbers I came up with and compared to AMD's offerings.
The 102GB/s for the ESRAM is especially disappointing. Yes GDDR5 is expensive and the traces require a bit of power and a wide bus causes problems for cost reduction (pads don't shrink quickly so if, to throw out a number, if the smallest die size you can get with a 256bit bus is 200mm^2 it cuts into future process shrinks) but the bandwidth, along with the Flops, Texels, and Pixels rates all indicate something along the lines of Cap Verde like performance. Blah blah blah blah closed box blah blah blah way better than PS360 blah blah blah I am gonna buy it no matter what apologists blah blah blah This is without a doubt a huge reduction in silicon budgets. Unless this thing is launched at $199 (har har har) it looks like a major redirection of MS's console philosophy. The hope was the ESRAM may have had the ROPs tied in somehow with higher internal bandwidth for some amazing overdraw but this looks simply like Cape Verde and instead of ponying up for the bandwidth they are going to force developers to micromanage ESRAM to get decent performance (because the 8, er 1 disabled, err 1-2 for OS, 5-6 CPU cores need bandwidth, too).
With that said:
Durango
CUs: 12 (768) Note: @ 800MHz = 1.23TFLOPs
TMU: 48 (38.4GT/s)
ROP: 16 (12.8GPixel/s)
7770 Cap Verde
CUs: 10 (640) Note: @ 1GHz = 1.28TFLOPs
TMU: 40 (40.0GT/s)
ROP: 16 (16GPixel/s)
Memory: 128bit bus, 72GB/s
Other: 80W TDP, 123mm^2 die
7870 Pitcairn
CUs: 20 (1280) Note: @ 1GHz = 2.56TFLOPs
TMU: 80
ROP: 32
Memory: 256bit bus, 192GB/s
Other: 175W TDP, 212mm^2 die
7850 Pitcairn
CUs: 16 (1024) Note: @ 860MHz = 1.76TFLOPs
TMU: 64
ROP: 32
Memory: 256bit bus, 153GB/s
Other: 130W TDP, 212mm^2 die
Oddly enough: the PDF leak had 2 GPUs, one at 640 ALUs and another at 480 ALUs (QoS for apps and OS it seemed). Consider:
640 Cape Verde ALUs @ 1GHz ~ 768 Durango ALUs @ 800MHz.
So is there another 480-ish ALUs running around?
Or are those QoS reserves coming out of this pool as well?
Ps- All the talk about using the GPU for GPGPU on Durango needs to stop. The thing has 8 CPU cores with AVX. The GPU is pretty underwhelming, tasking it with GPGPU tasks is going to wipe away rendering performance even further.
EDIT: Fixed 4x GFLOP/s to TFLOP/s
I haven't got a chance to look through all the architectural notes and compare to GCN but, efficiency aside (which you know MS is going to ride hard in regards to the ESRAM), Durango is looking to be GCN architecture and a Cap Verde class GPU. It isn't just the Flops but also the Pixel and Texel fillrate and the vertex/poly setup rate is still 2 per clock. Below are the numbers I came up with and compared to AMD's offerings.
The 102GB/s for the ESRAM is especially disappointing. Yes GDDR5 is expensive and the traces require a bit of power and a wide bus causes problems for cost reduction (pads don't shrink quickly so if, to throw out a number, if the smallest die size you can get with a 256bit bus is 200mm^2 it cuts into future process shrinks) but the bandwidth, along with the Flops, Texels, and Pixels rates all indicate something along the lines of Cap Verde like performance. Blah blah blah blah closed box blah blah blah way better than PS360 blah blah blah I am gonna buy it no matter what apologists blah blah blah This is without a doubt a huge reduction in silicon budgets. Unless this thing is launched at $199 (har har har) it looks like a major redirection of MS's console philosophy. The hope was the ESRAM may have had the ROPs tied in somehow with higher internal bandwidth for some amazing overdraw but this looks simply like Cape Verde and instead of ponying up for the bandwidth they are going to force developers to micromanage ESRAM to get decent performance (because the 8, er 1 disabled, err 1-2 for OS, 5-6 CPU cores need bandwidth, too).
With that said:
Durango
CUs: 12 (768) Note: @ 800MHz = 1.23TFLOPs
TMU: 48 (38.4GT/s)
ROP: 16 (12.8GPixel/s)
7770 Cap Verde
CUs: 10 (640) Note: @ 1GHz = 1.28TFLOPs
TMU: 40 (40.0GT/s)
ROP: 16 (16GPixel/s)
Memory: 128bit bus, 72GB/s
Other: 80W TDP, 123mm^2 die
7870 Pitcairn
CUs: 20 (1280) Note: @ 1GHz = 2.56TFLOPs
TMU: 80
ROP: 32
Memory: 256bit bus, 192GB/s
Other: 175W TDP, 212mm^2 die
7850 Pitcairn
CUs: 16 (1024) Note: @ 860MHz = 1.76TFLOPs
TMU: 64
ROP: 32
Memory: 256bit bus, 153GB/s
Other: 130W TDP, 212mm^2 die
Oddly enough: the PDF leak had 2 GPUs, one at 640 ALUs and another at 480 ALUs (QoS for apps and OS it seemed). Consider:
640 Cape Verde ALUs @ 1GHz ~ 768 Durango ALUs @ 800MHz.
So is there another 480-ish ALUs running around?
Or are those QoS reserves coming out of this pool as well?
Ps- All the talk about using the GPU for GPGPU on Durango needs to stop. The thing has 8 CPU cores with AVX. The GPU is pretty underwhelming, tasking it with GPGPU tasks is going to wipe away rendering performance even further.
EDIT: Fixed 4x GFLOP/s to TFLOP/s
I may be late to the party. Sorry if I am but my next gen interest just recently started to get going.
But I am willing to bet that MS strategy revolves around scalabilty using tessellation on the software front and multiple upgradeable skus on the hardware front..
http://www.nvidia.com/object/tessellation.html
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7928979.html
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2010/0214294.html
http://patent.ipexl.com/U2S/20110128285.html
Why is tessellation important? It reduces memory footprint in terms of bandwidth and amount needed for main memory. It would help explain MS going ddr3. Also it makes the artwork creation pipeline more efficient. You can build one model and scale it up or down depending on the hardware. That makes multiple skus based on performance practical as developers can just tune the amount geometry and mapping displacement going on.
MS has released patents showing a scalable console and the gpus containing embedded ram and match up well with current rumored configuration.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-microsoft-scalable-platform-patent.
To further my point.
http://developer.amd.com/wordpress/media/2012/10/apu101.pdf
Page 22 is AMD scalable apu. External SIMD engines connecting directly to the apu's internal SIMD avoiding the pcie and northbridge.
What we may be looking at with the vgleak is the 720 version of the Arcade.
But I am willing to bet that MS strategy revolves around scalabilty using tessellation on the software front and multiple upgradeable skus on the hardware front..
http://www.nvidia.com/object/tessellation.html
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7928979.html
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2010/0214294.html
http://patent.ipexl.com/U2S/20110128285.html
Why is tessellation important? It reduces memory footprint in terms of bandwidth and amount needed for main memory. It would help explain MS going ddr3. Also it makes the artwork creation pipeline more efficient. You can build one model and scale it up or down depending on the hardware. That makes multiple skus based on performance practical as developers can just tune the amount geometry and mapping displacement going on.
MS has released patents showing a scalable console and the gpus containing embedded ram and match up well with current rumored configuration.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-microsoft-scalable-platform-patent.
To further my point.
http://developer.amd.com/wordpress/media/2012/10/apu101.pdf
Page 22 is AMD scalable apu. External SIMD engines connecting directly to the apu's internal SIMD avoiding the pcie and northbridge.
What we may be looking at with the vgleak is the 720 version of the Arcade.
I know MS's marketing strategy. The new console name is the Xbox 720p.
Fixed. So much for changing 1280GFLOPs to 1.28TFLOPs...
Fixed. So much for changing 1280GFLOPs to 1.28TFLOPs...
So what exactly does more RAM buy you in terms of gaming performance or IQ?
Like a Sega 32x? I'm not sure how you would cool or power external processors without it being big and loud.
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