NPD December 2015 Sales Results

[ShyGuy]

So looking at the current sales trends, when do we get to the point where MS seriously start the ball rolling on the next XBOX ? I mean I know planning starts for the next console almost as soon as the previous console ships but I mean in terms of serious prep and looking at possible rough launch dates and software launch line ups ?.

I know if I was Mr Spencer I would be telling 343i to start development on a Master Chief focused Halo 6 for the launch of the next console using target specs instead of "wasting" it on XBO in late 2018. Alan Wake 2 is another game I would start development on as soon as Quantum Break ships targeting the next XBOX launch.

I think MS would be well served to go for serious hardware power and a late 2018 launch which should give them a year to 18 month head start over Sony much like they had with 360. If they can offer a console which is a full 10x generational power leap over PS4 in late 2018 for $399 with Halo 6 as a launch title then they will be able to hit the ground running full speed ahead esp in their traditional strong regions like the UK and North America.

 

[Globalisateur]

So looking at the current sales trends, when do we get to the point where MS seriously start the ball rolling on the next XBOX ? I mean I know planning starts for the next console almost as soon as the previous console ships but I mean in terms of serious prep and looking at possible rough launch dates and software launch line ups ?.

I know if I was Mr Spencer I would be telling 343i to start development on a Master Chief focused Halo 6 for the launch of the next console using target specs instead of "wasting" it on XBO in late 2018. Alan Wake 2 is another game I would start development on as soon as Quantum Break ships targeting the next XBOX launch.

I think MS would be well served to go for serious hardware power and a late 2018 launch which should give them a year to 18 month head start over Sony much like they had with 360. If they can offer a console which is a full 10x generational power leap over PS4 in late 2018 for $399 with Halo 6 as a launch title then they will be able to hit the ground running full speed ahead esp in their traditional strong regions like the UK and North America.

They can't. Nobody can. Too soon.

 

[Sonic]

It's still a bit early to speculate on the next generation of consoles. After a phenomenal holiday for both Sony and MS (in the US) I would seriously hope both companies are deep into the R&D for their next consoles but take their sweet time. MS is in bad shape worldwide but doing just fine in primarily English speaking countries and if XB1 is turning a profit then there's no need to rush a release of the next console. But when it does launch I really wouldn't mind them going full force into Hololens support because that alone I want bad.

Sony has now cemented its dominance worldwide this generation going by their holiday sales in the US. I expect the sales gap between XB1 and PS4 to continue to grow at a faster rate than the previous years.

 

[bgroovy]

So looking at the current sales trends, when do we get to the point where MS seriously start the ball rolling on the next XBOX ? I mean I know planning starts for the next console almost as soon as the previous console ships but I mean in terms of serious prep and looking at possible rough launch dates and software launch line ups ?.

I know if I was Mr Spencer I would be telling 343i to start development on a Master Chief focused Halo 6 for the launch of the next console using target specs instead of "wasting" it on XBO in late 2018. Alan Wake 2 is another game I would start development on as soon as Quantum Break ships targeting the next XBOX launch.

I think MS would be well served to go for serious hardware power and a late 2018 launch which should give them a year to 18 month head start over Sony much like they had with 360. If they can offer a console which is a full 10x generational power leap over PS4 in late 2018 for $399 with Halo 6 as a launch title then they will be able to hit the ground running full speed ahead esp in their traditional strong regions like the UK and North America.

If they are at the point where they are thinking about giving up and cutting their losses on the Xbox One, I'd have to believe they'd also be at the point where they'd cut their losses on traditional console hardware all together.

 

[ZhugeEX]

from take 2/rockstars financial statements

the $2.3B is GTAV alone, ie its digital & non digital.
The $1 billion is only digital over the last 3 years but all games combined (not just GTAV)

Ah yes! Sorry, I misread your post. My fault.

 

[zed]

They can't. Nobody can. Too soon.

Yeah the PS4 (CPU&GPU) is less than 10x the performance of a PS3 and it launched 7 years later!
Yet this guy thinks a greater power difference in 2 years less time (not to mention relative performance advancements have been slowing down for the last few years) for $399 is doable,

 

[function]

In terms of what the GPU can do, PS4 is likely to be rather more than ten times faster. I'm not even sure how you'd try and measure PS3 GPU compute ....

I suppose 20x for next gen is technically possible, even if we know it ain't going to happen. Unless we're talking about the WiiU.

 

[zed]

PS3 GPU 400Gflops PS4 GPU 1840Gflops coupled with the CPU of the PS3 actually being more powerful than the CPU in the PS4, we can safely conclude that its not 10x more powerful. Though it has > 10x more memory

GPU only 20x 1840 = 36800Gflops
GeForce GTX Titan X = 6144 Gflops
yes the top of the line GPU's should reach 36800 by 2020-2022
Don't know what moores law rate for GPU's is. I see intel are now saying moores law is up to 2.5 years, so it went
moores law over history

double transistor count every 12 months (WTF I cant copy paste in my reply!)
" " " 18 months
24 months
30 months

I believe in science it goes hypothesis -> theory -> law
so how did this get to be a law? I assume because it rhymes

double transistor count every 12 months
double transistor count every 12 months
double transistor count every 12 months
double transistor count every 12 months
double transistor count every 12 months

double transistor count every 12 months

 

[Arwin]

It's actually every 24 months, has been revised a long time ago

 

[London Geezer]

And It's always just been more of a guideline that journalist - of course - turned into a real 'law'. At times the real progress has been faster and at times slower. In the real world, Moore's law is as valid as Murphy's law.

 

[zed]

It's actually every 24 months, has been revised a long time ago

During a conference call to discuss Intel's latest earnings, CEO Brian Krzanich explained that "the last two technology transitions have signaled that our cadence today is closer to 2.5 years than two."

edit: btw sorry for the formating in the above post but for some reason I can't do and copy&paste in my own post, forum bug or design issue

 

[Zeross]

PS3 GPU 400Gflops

RSX is nowhere near 400GFlops, even its theoretical performance isn't that high its real world performance is quite far from its peak due to the various limitations of the G7X architecture.

 

[function]

PS3 GPU 400Gflops PS4 GPU 1840Gflops coupled with the CPU of the PS3 actually being more powerful than the CPU in the PS4, we can safely conclude that its not 10x more powerful. Though it has > 10x more memory

I'd be wary of comparing GPU power based on paper flops. The 400 gflop figure was from before the clock drop from 550 -> 500, but even then I seem to recall that Nvidia's figures came from adding up simultaneous operations that could never actually happen. Sony's own GDC presentation from 2006 claimed 384 flops/clock, meaning 192 gflops @ 500.

But that was an old and inefficient architecture, and the 172 gflops VLIW5 WiiU handily beats it. And VLIW5 has now been superseded by the far more efficient GCN, which outperforms VLIW5 for the same flops/clock. GCN even allows async compute to squeeze more work out of the ALU idle time.

I would argue that we can safely conclude that the PS4 GPU is easily rather more than 10 times as fast as RSX at actually doing the things that game developers (and consumers) want done!

GPU only 20x 1840 = 36800Gflops
GeForce GTX Titan X = 6144 Gflops
yes the top of the line GPU's should reach 36800 by 2020-2022

FuryX is 8.6 TF, and I was thinking of a dual GPU setup on 14 nm for my "never actually going to happen" 20X faster system. A 20X faster PS5 could actually happen this year, but the chance of it is -1. Nor should we actually want such a console to trash the market either!

 

[zed]

RSX is nowhere near 400GFlops, even its theoretical performance isn't that high its real world performance is quite far from its peak due to the various limitations of the G7X architecture.

Change the Wikipedia page article then if you think its wrong

I was thinking of a dual GPU setup on 14 nm for my "never actually going to happen" 20X faster system

Why stop at Dual?, Go Quad (these exist IRL ) Hell I'm pretty sure they could Chuck 8 or even 16 GPU's in a machine
aka Obviously Im talking about a single GPU

 

[Rangers]

Change the Wikipedia page article then if you think its wrong

Good luck with that, I remember years ago I changed the RSX wiki to say it had 500 mhz clock (based on information from this forum) instead of the 550 mhz probably listed to this day, it was instantly reverted back by another user (probably a fanboy who didn't like performance implications of downclock).

Too be fair it's not exactly like there's any source for this stuff. If 550 mhz was published once at any time by Sony, however incorrect, it beats "forum information", even though the latter was correct.

Edit: Just went to RSX wiki, it now to my surprise says the correct 500mhz clock. No source that I see though, so I guess it's just take what somebody wrote on faith system (even though I'm sure 500 mhz is correct, Sony never acknowledged any downclock to my knowledge, when it was changed they simply never mentioned RSX clockspeed in any public specs after that point).

 

[Arwin]

I think next gen should wait for quantum computing, not built into the box, but leased from the cloud.

 

[chris1515]

Good luck with that, I remember years ago I changed the RSX wiki to say it had 500 mhz clock (based on information from this forum) instead of the 550 mhz probably listed to this day, it was instantly reverted back by another user (probably a fanboy who didn't like performance implications of downclock).

Too be fair it's not exactly like there's any source for this stuff. If 550 mhz was published once at any time by Sony, however incorrect, it beats "forum information", even though the latter was correct.

Edit: Just went to RSX wiki, it now to my surprise says the correct 500mhz clock. No source that I see though, so I guess it's just take what somebody wrote on faith system (even though I'm sure 500 mhz is correct, Sony never acknowledged any downclock to my knowledge, when it was changed they simply never mentioned RSX clockspeed in any public specs after that point).

It is 500 mhz

 

[AlNom]

Edit: Just went to RSX wiki, it now to my surprise says the correct 500mhz clock. No source that I see though, so I guess it's just take what somebody wrote on faith system (even though I'm sure 500 mhz is correct, Sony never acknowledged any downclock to my knowledge, when it was changed they simply never mentioned RSX clockspeed in any public specs after that point).

This page? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSX_'Reality_Synthesizer'
Seems 500 is only there for the first mention, but it's showing 550 for various bullet points. Also the memory clock should be 650MHz.

I think next gen should wait for quantum computing, not built into the box, but leased from the cloud.

So we can either know if the flops are there but not how many, or how many flops but not where?

 

[function]

So we can either know if the flops are there but not how many, or how many flops but not where?

Kinda like RSX?

 

[Arwin]

This page? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSX_'Reality_Synthesizer'
Seems 500 is only there for the first mention, but it's showing 550 for various bullet points. Also the memory clock should be 650MHz.


So we can either know if the flops are there but not how many, or how many flops but not where?

Or neither ... I think.