Predict: The Next Generation Console Tech

[Rangers]

I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to see a niche, 2D focused, targeted download only console..while I dont know if the triple A, high graphics consoles can go that route.

It'll have to be like that, I dont think an established player can do it. Just like Apple had no ties to break with iPhone gaming, so it was easy for them to do download only because there was no prior base to disappoint. And theyve seemingly succeeded with it so much that now Sony is going that way with PSP. I think it'll have to be a similar scenario in consoles. Zeebo, Apple, or somebody like that will have to be the trailblazer.

 

[V3]

8-16GB ROM will always be more expensive than 25GB BR unless some breakthrough happens. Also NDS was able to fend off PSP because UMD basically failed among other things. NDS ROM carts didn't do anything to help "beat" PSP, it was just along for the ride.

Sure but 25GB BR will still be cheaper than 16GB flash.

Even 2GB SD card is more expensive than a BR ROM. Good luck waiting for 16GB SD cards to reach BR ROM prices.

I am not saying it will beat or match optical in term of cost in the next ten years or ever. But what I am saying as long as it is within acceptable price range and games don't grow more than two DVDs, ROM can be a viable medium worth considering if optical really is too slow.

Even if it's too slow it's still a viable storage medium so all you'd need to do is install the contents onto a HDD or some other type of fast drive.

That's what I thought. But nAo thinks it is too slow. Perhaps he can explain why it is so. Maybe HDD is also too slow ?

I honestly can't see Nintendo going to ROM. The Wii is using DVD which is dirt cheap and there's no ROM that will be as cheap with similar capacity. MS could save money by offering an optional proprietary optical drive, requiring game installation onto a HDD but I doubt it. The optical drive will likely be built-in even if it's too slow to run the game directly from the disc.

Well Nintendo always hated optical. If 8-16 GB ROM is viable they may switched back to ROM. They always like to re release their games. Heck even with BC they still managed to re-release their GC games again.

I always thought optical was a great medium. It is very fast to produce in large quantity and very cheap. It is slow but that can be solved with install. But I would pay five to ten dollar extra to skip the install and have short loading time that ROM can provide.

But then again if next gen games start to use voxels, they may need those 8 layers Bluray. Most of these arguments is on the assumption next gen games don't grow beyond 2 DVDs. If next gen games are 350+ GB each, only optical is the viable medium. ROM won't be big enough and as for download, yeah righ my ISP would most likely cancel my account if I bought 4-8 games in a month.

 

[Squilliam]

But then again if next gen games start to use voxels, they may need those 8 layers Bluray. Most of these arguments is on the assumption next gen games don't grow beyond 2 DVDs. If next gen games are 350+ GB each, only optical is the viable medium. ROM won't be big enough and as for download, yeah righ my ISP would most likely cancel my account if I bought 4-8 games in a month.

If next generation games are 350+GB, heck even if they are ~100GB you're running into the barrier of streaming speed. Blu Ray, even at 6-8* is probably too slow for that much data. Movies are one thing, but getting the data off the disc and into main memory is another.

 

[MfA]

If next generation games are 350+GB, heck even if they are ~100GB you're running into the barrier of streaming speed. Blu Ray, even at 6-8* is probably too slow for that much data. Movies are one thing, but getting the data off the disc and into main memory is another.

Regardless of distribution medium I do hope we have HDs with flash caches in every next gen console.

 

[Squilliam]

Regardless of distribution medium I do hope we have HDs with flash caches in every next gen console.

Theres no need, Ram is cheaper/faster than flash.

 

[MfA]

It isn't cheaper, will not be cheaper in 2 years either ... no MLC for DRAM for one.

 

[Rangers]

The issue with online downloads is that the retailers would get cut out of the game revenue stream and they lose their major incentive to stock consoles in the first place. A ticket to get people into the store.

I've never thought this was particularly true. Even if the worst possible case scenario came to pass for retail, aka the only thing they could carry was system hardware (All games were download only), I believe they'd still do it. Why? First, retail actually do make a profit on hardware..it's around 10-20 bucks on current PS360 hardware for example. I'm in a position to know that for sure because of my job. Sure, the profit margin is low for such expensive items, but it exists. Second, because of competition and getting people in the store. If one store chain (say, Target vs Wal Mart) carries game consoles and another doesn't, the one that does will have a competitive advantage, some people will traffic that store (and buy other things) because theyre buying a console. Therefore all retail will always carry consoles imo.

That's not even to mention they would still also sell hardware accessories with a higher profit margin, controllers, memory cards and the like making it even more worth their while.

I'm sure retail wouldn't be HAPPY about losing game software, but they would still carry hardware without it, no doubt in my mind. Heck even now most "software" seems to be slowly being eliminated from retail, see CD's, which have suffered years of plummetig sales due to digital, and are now being downsized in retail heavily (Best Buy doesnt emphasize CD's near as much as they they used to, nor dedicate as much of theire store shelf space to it, and that's a continuing trend).

 

[V3]

If next generation games are 350+GB, heck even if they are ~100GB you're running into the barrier of streaming speed. Blu Ray, even at 6-8* is probably too slow for that much data. Movies are one thing, but getting the data off the disc and into main memory is another.

But won't there be HDD to help just like this gen ?

At worst it'll probably like that Lair game. In that game frame rate can turn for the worst all of a sudden. From my observation it was mostly because it was struggling with streaming stuff because frame rate can be back to normal again on the same scene. Some other games load low res textures first and stuff to keep up. I am sure game devs will find some solutions to deal with the problem.

Anyway that's the expectation isn't ? Consoles will have 4 GB of memory that means eight times increased. So if the matured tech games this gen (eg Rage) is 2 DVDs (Heck Carmack wanted 3 DVDs) or a single BR, it is not too crazy to assume eight times increase in game size as well.

 

[Squilliam]

But won't there be HDD to help just like this gen ?

At worst it'll probably like that Lair game. In that game frame rate can turn for the worst all of a sudden. From my observation it was mostly because it was struggling with streaming stuff because frame rate can be back to normal again on the same scene. Some other games load low res textures first and stuff to keep up. I am sure game devs will find some solutions to deal with the problem.

Anyway that's the expectation isn't ? Consoles will have 4 GB of memory that means eight times increased. So if the matured tech games this gen (eg Rage) is 2 DVDs (Heck Carmack wanted 3 DVDs) or a single BR, it is not too crazy to assume eight times increase in game size as well.

8* the memory, but 4* the streaming speed (at best)? Sure the HDD can help, but its not the perfect solution especially if people have to install the games or cache to a HDD which means extra cost for every console anyway.

 

[Squilliam]

Faster yes, cheaper? certainly not.

edit: beaten. Mods feel free to remove this post.

Flash also requires a controller as well. Whereas with extra Ram it could just be down to paying extra for double the density. It doesn't seem to make sense to potentially have flash SSD + a HDD + an optical drive. Thats a lot of duplication.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Flash also requires a controller as well. Whereas with extra Ram it could just be down to paying extra for double the density. It doesn't seem to make sense to potentially have flash SSD + a HDD + an optical drive. Thats a lot of duplication.

It does if it works. It's the same in principle to main RAM > (L3 cache > ) L2 cache > L1 cache > registers. Each store exists to speed up the interim data flow to get it where it's needed.

Fast flash offers faster seek times than HDD. We already have cache on HDDs for this purpose. The optical drive would just be a distribution system. So like PC, you'd need an optical drive to install it. Then you'd run it off the HDD to Flash.

In fact, Vista offers exactly this! Disc to copy to the system, then forget about it. HDD to stream, and ReadyBoost flash to increase performance. A deliberately designed flash cache as part of the data pathway should be even more effective, with developers able to manage which data goes where for best performance.

As for extra RAM, you could add 16 GBs of flash for the cost of a couple of GBs of RAM. It's also persistant, so when you switch off your console and then switch it on again to play the same game, you don't ahve to wait for the volatile cache to be filled again, and instead can carry on where you left off.

 

[V3]

8* the memory, but 4* the streaming speed (at best)? Sure the HDD can help, but its not the perfect solution especially if people have to install the games or cache to a HDD which means extra cost for every console anyway.

Well not all of that memory is going to be allocated for streaming. So developers just need to balance the size of the streaming portion with the transfer speed they will have.

Beside if that voxels technology that id are pushing for next gen is similar to their Megatextures, the streaming can be managed with what will be available.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Wont faster Blu Ray drives offer a corresponding speed increase to keep up with what we have today? This is the way optical drives have progressed in the past. Loading seems to stay about the same from generation, you get more ram, but a faster optical drive. The ratio stays about the same through CD, DVD, and now Blu Ray.

IE, sure, you'll have 8X the RAM to fill in next gen, but wont an 8X (+/-) Blu Ray take care of it? Or are those too expensive?

Sure with a corresponding increase in drive noise. Imagine something sounding louder than the original X360 DVD drive.

Yeah, not something I'd be looking forward to in a next gen console.

Regards,
SB

 

[Squilliam]

It does if it works. It's the same in principle to main RAM > (L3 cache > ) L2 cache > L1 cache > registers. Each store exists to speed up the interim data flow to get it where it's needed.

Fast flash offers faster seek times than HDD. We already have cache on HDDs for this purpose. The optical drive would just be a distribution system. So like PC, you'd need an optical drive to install it. Then you'd run it off the HDD to Flash.

In fact, Vista offers exactly this! Disc to copy to the system, then forget about it. HDD to stream, and ReadyBoost flash to increase performance. A deliberately designed flash cache as part of the data pathway should be even more effective, with developers able to manage which data goes where for best performance.

As for extra RAM, you could add 16 GBs of flash for the cost of a couple of GBs of RAM. It's also persistant, so when you switch off your console and then switch it on again to play the same game, you don't ahve to wait for the volatile cache to be filled again, and instead can carry on where you left off.

If you're going to use flash, it doesn't seem to make sense to fill it from anywhere other than a mechanical HDD. An optical drive could spin and spin and not go anywhere quickly against even 8GB of flash. In an ideal situation it would take almost 3 minutes to fill 8GB of fast flash with a noisy 8* Blu Ray Drive.

3 minutes is a long time to wait to achieve maximum performance from a console. Installs would just mean more waiting up front and a HDD for every consumer whether they access online content or not. I personally prefer simplicity in operation, and if one component can do the job of three at a reasonable cost then it makes sense to use just that.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

How do you get your data onto HDD? How do get the data off the HDD as quickly as possible? You need the optical drive (assuming hard media remains). You need an HDD for volume of data. The flash would be in addition as a faster data cache, sitting between RAM and the HDD. It'll cost very little. IMO the balance rests clearly in favour of onboard flash in addition to an HDD.

 

[AlNom]

IMO the balance rests clearly in favour of onboard flash in addition to an HDD.

The latest 360 Arcade is just the first (tangible) step.

 

[Tahir2]

So we are not proposing ODD -> HDD -> Flash drive (as cache).

How big does the flash drive need to be to be useful? 1GB enough?

I don't know I don't like the idea of introducing another storage medium. Is BD-ROM access really that bad currently?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

So we are not proposing ODD -> HDD -> Flash drive (as cache).

I am!

How big does the flash drive need to be to be useful? 1GB enough?

I imagine by next gen, the cost difference between 1 and 4 GBs will be non-existent. I'd look for more than that, depending on how much RAM the systems have.

I don't know I don't like the idea of introducing another storage medium. Is BD-ROM access really that bad currently?

Currently no. Next-gen, quite possibly. Plus this gen there wasn't much alternative. We needed a big optical drive, and flash wasn't cheap enough to cover it. Flash adds another option. Remember this isn't a drive that I'm talking about. It's another pool of memory in the box. We already have optical drive, optical cache, HDD, HDD cache, RAM, L2 cache, memory cards and USB drives, etc. If the performance gains for the considerable seek-time improvements are there (we're talking half a 60fps frame waiting for the HDD head to get to some data!) and the cost is low, why not add flash?

 

[Squilliam]

How do you get your data onto HDD? How do get the data off the HDD as quickly as possible? You need the optical drive (assuming hard media remains). You need an HDD for volume of data. The flash would be in addition as a faster data cache, sitting between RAM and the HDD. It'll cost very little. IMO the balance rests clearly in favour of onboard flash in addition to an HDD.

If you're going to need an optical drive, flash memory and a HDD, why not skip all three and just make the media a flash based alternative?

Then if you want to go for digital online distribution, package the HDD with flash and use it directly as a cache?

That way no optical drive for one and no HDD/Flash for the other.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

If you're going to need an optical drive, flash memory and a HDD, why not skip all three and just make the media a flash based alternative?

Due to cost. The multi gigabytes needed will cost so much more as a flash drive than optical disc. The only way flash could work this way is with the kiosk/download concept argued above.

Then if you want to go for digital online distribution

Digital distribution seems unlikely. As does flash storage distribution. Looks like we're lumbered with an optical drive.

Besides flash makes sense no matter what other storage you have. If there's no optical and only an HDD for downloads, flash improves performance. If there is an optical drive...flash improves performance! The presence/absence of flash isn't tied to the presence/absence of any other drive. It's not a valid replacement for any other drives either. Each device offers a data advantage to the system, a differnt balance of cost per GB, portability, access performance, etc.