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

[Shifty Geezer]

so consoles follow the business model of google nexus and amazon devices . they sell the hardware without taking and profit or loss ;i.e bom prices and make up the profit through their services .

does the profit really that much more on subsidised products like consoles ? like a console is selling for 200 bucks to make even with its manufacturing cost and then the manufacturer is making profit through their cuts in games and services . so if the console is sold at 500 bucks making a profit of 300 bucks - then will the services and games be priced significantly less ? and if so why arent the console companies trying this model ?

A high initial price scares off buyers. You are much better able to take their money by invinting them in at a low price and selling lots of cheaper items where the price is less of a concern. The extreme model of this is free-to-play games, where there's a massive take-up of players and then some who spend a fortune on in-game content - way more than they'd spend on a full-priced retail game in some instances.

We don't know the business strategies of Orbis or Durango, so for all we know there may be a pricing shift. Yes, you heard it here first - Microsoft's free-to-play console!

 

[french toast]

A high initial price scares off buyers. You are much better able to take their money by invinting them in at a low price and selling lots of cheaper items where the price is less of a concern. The extreme model of this is free-to-play games, where there's a massive take-up of players and then some who spend a fortune on in-game content - way more than they'd spend on a full-priced retail game in some instances.

We don't know the business strategies of Orbis or Durango, so for all we know there may be a pricing shift. Yes, you heard it here first - Microsoft's free-to-play console!

Oh yea I completely forgot about that! I was one of people who was banging on about such a scenario when it got leaked last year...like a set top box/smartphone style contract..via xbox live...thats why its such a good idea to have complete new game lock in and "always on".

I believe you are correct shifty..and what we are going to see is xbox live part deux .

Isnt the cpu clocked abit low though?...there ie loads of tdp head room to spare I would think...unless the shell is wii u like??

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Isnt the cpu clocked abit low though?...there ie loads of tdp head room to spare I would think...unless the shell is wii u like??

We have no idea. All we have are general hardware specs, taken completely out of context of the business and value propositions that MS and Sony will be offering. It may be that MS is going for cheap, at which point, with the Durango talk questioning if they have targeted a tile based, virtual texture/mesh based platform, we can see that the 'horrifically low specs' that some across the internet are lamenting are in fact a highly efficient, well consider total platform strategy, marrying low cost but effective hardware with a low entry price and massive adoption and forwards compatibility for platform progress yada yada....we just don't know. There is so much 'we don't know' it boggles my mind that people can still manage to form opinions and have reactions to news. It's like summarizing the consoles with a colour. Orbis is red. Nothing about the shade or intensity such that no-one can know if they'll like that red or not (what if Orbis launches at $500 and games cost $80?). And Durango is blue, but deep or pastel or cerulean or indigo we know not. And now people argue over red being better than blue.

This is the craziest thread on this board, I reckon.

 

[Hecatoncheires]

what if Orbis launches at $500

Latest rumors point to roughly $400: EUROGAMER

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Latest rumors point to roughly $400: EUROGAMER

That's missing the point...

 

[Hecatoncheires]

That's missing the point...

I thought this was your point:

This is the craziest thread on this board, I reckon.

 

[dobwal]

If there are two redundant CU's it would make sense to keep the units together so any two bad CU's mean you still have a usable part. Is there some logical (beneficial) reason to split four of the CU's off from the GPU?

If a 20 CU 8 APU part is too costly to manufacture it makes sense to keep some CUs close to the CPU cores as the CPUs were designed to have fast and easy access to the CUs for computational purposes. The further you move the CUs away the more the weaknesses of the simplified CPUs are exposed.

 

[dobwal]

so consoles follow the business model of google nexus and amazon devices . they sell the hardware without taking and profit or loss ;i.e bom prices and make up the profit through their services .

does the profit really that much more on subsidised products like consoles ? like a console is selling for 200 bucks to make even with its manufacturing cost and then the manufacturer is making profit through their cuts in games and services . so if the console is sold at 500 bucks making a profit of 300 bucks - then will the services and games be priced significantly less ? and if so why arent the console companies trying this model ?

ps : sorry for being off topic

The problem with going to a low cost hardware model is that is that enthusiasts still drive a disporportionate amount of software sales. There are plenty of posters here who have not only subsidized their console purchase but about 5-10 other console purchases as well. Low cost hardware would have a negative effect on this group. And their impact on software sales are far bigger than their impact on hardware sales. Publishers wouldn't devote as much resources to the console market if it wasn't for us. We also drive acceptance as the competitor with the lowest price has never automatically dominated hardware or software sales.

Furthermore the lower you go down the totem pole of performance the more competition you run into on your way down.

 

[TheChefO]

Roughly equal can mean they have no intention of building their game to the capabilities of the individual systems but to some level that all systems can attain.

This.

I expect given the similarities of both architectures and timelines for launch, devs will essentially drop the same game on both and tweak (a bit) to get a baseline of performance (Durango) and let _____ do what it will with extra compute.

This will mean less resolution, framerate, screen tear, limited IQ (AA), or all of the above for multiplat games on Durango.

With how most multiplats turned out this gen, I imagine for the most part, Durango titles will attempt to maximize visuals by pushing the system beyond a stable 30fps frame rate (30fps with tears and dips to 20fps) while on ____, the same titles will have no problem pulling a solid 30+ (60?) fps (Rops + bandwidth) with headroom for better IQ and higher/stable resolution.

I still hold a shred of hope that the gpu in Durango is a bit more than standard GCN, but that seems more and more unlikely at this point.

 

[patsu]

Sony is said to encourage low level GPU programming, but I doubt their early devkits have such tools.

 

[patsu]

It depends on their target audience and business model. Most Wii customers are "non-gamers" and the h/w is sold at a profit.

e.g., if low cost hardware is achieved via subscription or subsidies, it may be "ok".

 

[TheChefO]

It depends on their target audience and business model. Most Wii customers are "non-gamers" and the h/w is sold at a profit.

e.g., if low cost hardware is achieved via subscription or subsidies, it may be "ok".

True, but most Wii owners aren't paying $50/yr for MP gaming nor are they paying $60/game, nor are they buying 3rd party software at the same clip as ps360 owners, nor are they buying as much software in total as ps360 owners.

Perhaps the bean counters thought the Wii method was the way to go, but I hope they realized they put their cash cow in jeopardy in the process.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

I would expect that approach from publishers to backfire seriously.

I expect most games to aim for 1xxx*1080 resolution with vertical scaling, so it will be relatively easy to just decrease the vertical resolution if performance isn't adequate. Say, run the PS4 version at 1600 and the Xbox at 1280 and you have immediately compensated for a 25% performance advantage, with a very little to modest visual difference, especially considering the HW overlay for GUI text on Durango.

Then there's the question of virtual texturing and titles relying on it. If UE and Cryengine both implement it with efficient platform specific code, the DMA hardware can go a long way to compensate Durango's weaker raw performance. Same could be the case for deferred rendering, and so on.

Last but not least, I'd expect the Xbox dev tools to be better once again, which would mean that maintaining stable performance would require less resources compared to doing the same on the PS3.

 

[patsu]

Perhaps they are eyeing subscription. The value proposition may not be gaming specific. They can go after "multiple play" (phone, music, movie, game, home security, education, ...).

They want to dominate Apple, Google, Sony and perhaps Samsung (in case they create their own software platform) at home.

If it's not sold as a game console, they can promote it aggressively in China too.

 

[Lucid_Dreamer]

We have no idea. All we have are general hardware specs, taken completely out of context of the business and value propositions that MS and Sony will be offering. It may be that MS is going for cheap, at which point, with the Durango talk questioning if they have targeted a tile based, virtual texture/mesh based platform, we can see that the 'horrifically low specs' that some across the internet are lamenting are in fact a highly efficient, well consider total platform strategy, marrying low cost but effective hardware with a low entry price and massive adoption and forwards compatibility for platform progress yada yada....we just don't know. There is so much 'we don't know' it boggles my mind that people can still manage to form opinions and have reactions to news. It's like summarizing the consoles with a colour. Orbis is red. Nothing about the shade or intensity such that no-one can know if they'll like that red or not (what if Orbis launches at $500 and games cost $80?). And Durango is blue, but deep or pastel or cerulean or indigo we know not. And now people argue over red being better than blue.

This is the craziest thread on this board, I reckon.

I thought this thread, in this section, means business discussions wouldn't belong here. This is suppose to be just the technical aspects of what's been leaked. This thread shouldn't be "the craziest", as long as the business aspects stay out.

I don't believe the specs will ever be announced by MS, so that only leaves us the leaked info to go by. Sony never announced that RSX was downclocked, did they? In other words, it doesn't get much better than this. At the same time, this thread must exist. It seems perfectly sane.

 

[bkilian]

This.

I expect given the similarities of both architectures and timelines for launch, devs will essentially drop the same game on both and tweak (a bit) to get a baseline of performance (Durango) and let _____ do what it will with extra compute.

There will be at least some gameplay difference between the different console versions. The MS TCRs will guarantee that.

 

[DJ12]

I believe they did at or just after e3 if I recall correctly

 

[Scott_Arm]

There will be at least some gameplay difference between the different console versions. The MS TCRs will guarantee that.

TCRs?

 

[LightHeaven]

There will be at least some gameplay difference between the different console versions. The MS TCRs will guarantee that.

Every durango game required to support kinect in any way?

 

[liolio]

True, but most Wii owners aren't paying $50/yr for MP gaming nor are they paying $60/game, nor are they buying 3rd party software at the same clip as ps360 owners, nor are they buying as much software in total as ps360 owners.

Perhaps the bean counters thought the Wii method was the way to go, but I hope they realized they put their cash cow in jeopardy in the process.

Imo that is pushing there are more critical factors imo for masses to adopt the product, the first hat spawn in my mind is price. Price depend on BOM for the system by self and also peripheral included with the system.
If they include Kinect in every SKU, the impact on price is going to be worse than the xx% pixels they are not going to render (vs the competition). This whole gen the xbox was significantly cheaper, lot of people got a silver account, but MSFT does not disclose the amount of those account that are connected / usage, they no longer give the amount of gold subscribers.
Why do I get here? Because it impacts price, the TCO of the system. It safe to say that lot of people (/ the majority) bought the 360 without planning to spend extra bucks on a subsctiption, so the PS3 and the 360 were more comparable in price (for an online player it is different, whereas the basic price is lower, the TCO for owning a 360 get higher than the PS3 one pretty fast).

Now it seems that the xbox should be cheaper to produce (but not as much as I were expecting, sadly...), the main difference being RAM type, but not by a significant amount. Say MSFT subsidizes more than Sony, the difference could be 50$, not a game changer for a buyer imo.
Now if Kinect is mandatory, they are likely to be at a price disadvantage, and it should be the same with perfs. Not really sexy, I agree. Thought for years (and still now) I think that lot of people think the ps3 is significantly more powerful so whereas it is mostly a wash.

Then there is the functionality available without subscription, here to I could see MSFT pushing too hard too.

Overall the issue I have are more on the business side than with the product by self, actually for the sake of avoiding direct comparison, and imo not being in the same price bracket should do the trick, I would have preferred an evven more cut down system ( I described in one post, go with a custom(ized) VLIW4 GPU as the overhead for GCN is 50% more transistors for the same amount of SIMD as vliw4/vliw5 design (and the VLIW4 are quiet efficient already), may be cut tthe main bus to 192 bit, etc.). Now I' m really iffy about their positioning.

Their chip could in the same ballpark as the one Sony uses, Sony spends more on RAM, but the difference is not enough to set the system apart. Let see how it turns, with all I hear I start to hope the steam pulls something interesting, either way I more and more happy with sticking to windows gaming (/steam).