Predict: The Next Generation Console Tech

[cbarcus]

The rumor has been debunked by MS, and such a modest upgrade doesn't seem likely.

Would it be the first time that a company like Microsoft flatly denied a rumor that turned out to be true? And if you are referring to the CPU upgrade as modest, I'd respond that it seems to be a natural consequence of their chosen architecture (a GPU-centric design). How much more of a benefit is there going to be with more cores? How much more of a benefit by waiting until 2011? Reduced cost, but then they increase the chances of launching with Sony. Of course 28nm may not be ready by 2011.

2011? For these specs and price? Extremely unlikely. I think Sony is going to play the long term game with MS, since they both took such a beating financially to bring their respective consoles to market. Sony is close to breaking even on console manufacture, they wouldn't want to throw that away so soon. You might say they'll keep supporting the PS3 while they produce the PS4, but can they really get the current PS3 to manufacture under $200 by 2011? I'd expect a slim PS3 in 2009/2010 which could put Sony on the path to a significantly cheaper console.

I also expect a "slim" PS3 soon, probably later this year.

Further, a next generation Cell of that level would be such overkill for a console in 2011, and incredibly expensive to produce. Not to mention being very unbalanced (overpowered) with respect to whatever GPU nvidia can offer in 2011. Also if Sony went with a Larabee powered GPU, there would be even less of a need for so many SPUs. The memory you've listed does seem like a practical amount.

On the face of it, 28nm provides about 10 times more area than 90nm, so assuming that the new cores take up as much area as the old cores (unlikely), we're talking 90 cores from the process shrink. I'm of course assuming what is driving the number of cores for the next Cell to be the following: 1) the scalable design of Cell, 2) the 28nm roadmap, 3) the 8-1 ratio of PPEs to SPEs, 4) the economics of silicon area (keeping somewhat in line with previous generations), and I'm providing a high and low estimate of what is possible under those conditions. I of course have no idea what other problems 28nm might introduce in terms of leakage and heat...

As for the "too many cores" argument, I'd question whether Sony's first-party developers would have trouble figuring out what to do with them. I seem to recall hearing somewhere that Naughty Dog (Uncharted 2) is already approaching the limit with the current Cell. Anyway, if your goal is to produce real-time interactive CG films, say Pixar-quality, how can you say that we have too much processing power?

And I do not see any possible role for Larrabee, unless Sony completely abandons their current architecture and software, and who is going to argue that that would be a prudent course? Larrabee is a new and unproven GPGPU architecture that appears (to me anyway- maybe I'm *completely* wrong, please let me know) to provide considerably less flexibility than Cell.

Neither console will go over 16x speeds on their optical disc drives either, as noise and reliability become an issue. In fact, according to Wikipedia, the maximum theoretical speed for BD is 12x (54MByte/s). With ODD speeds becoming more limited, if they don't move to high speed SSDs, I hope they'll offer a high speed flash scratch space that developers can background stream to.

Taken to heart...

The next Xbox in 2010 (based largely upon a recent rumor pointed out in this thread):

IBM Xenon w/6 cores @ 45nm @ 3.5 Ghz (likely cache size?)
AMD Shader 5 GPU w/32mb EDRAM @ 600 Mhz
1 GB of GDDR5
~100 GB/s bandwidth
32 GB SSD
16x DVD drive?
Natal motion-sensing tech
$300

The next Playstation in 2011:

2 GBs main memory & 1 GB GPU memory (XDR2)
Cell w/32-64 SPEs and 4-8 PPEs @ 28nm @ 3-5 Ghz
100's of GB/s bandwidth
Nvidia-derived GPU
160 GB drive?
12x Blu-ray (can read 200+ GB discs)?
$400?

 

[Rangers]

IBM Xenon w/6 cores @ 45nm @ 3.5 Ghz (likely cache size?)
AMD Shader 5 GPU w/32mb EDRAM @ 600 Mhz
1 GB of GDDR5
~100 GB/s bandwidth
32 GB SSD
16x DVD drive?
Natal motion-sensing tech
$300

Umm, this is ridiculous. A 32GB SSD? Arent those like $300 in PC's? The rest of the specs are from the fgnonline rumor. To give you an example what a joke that site is their latest report posted in the last days is that Sega is coming out with a new handheld with all the bells and whistles in 2010.

SEGA shall be releasing a new handheld in time for holiday season 2010, it shall have dual touchscreens and both screens shall have force feedback, a revolutionary new technology which has never been implemented in the videogame space prior to this. The touchscreens shall vibrate at the same level that a standard speaker does i.e you don't visibly see it's movements. The vibrations can give any illusion that the software programmer desires to program. For example the pressing and depressing of a mechanical button without there actually being anything mechanical present, there are only two screens, there are no keys whatsoever. The user feels the same sensations as they would when interacting with actual physical controls.

Give me a break.

Also, MS is still struggling mightily with the hardware cost beast with it's current console, and every price drop is precious, and now theyre probably going to be adding the cost of Natal in at least one SKU on top of that, and you expect them to spit out those massive hardware improvements on top of it all for $300, the same price as the current Pro SKU with none of that??? And theyve lost how many dollars on 360 hardware again?? Which as Grandmaster pointed out, those improvements wont even have any great effect on games, at great cost? Come on.

 

[Tahir2]

The GPU in the next Playstation definitely needs to compliment the rest of the system better.

No point in oodles of processing power with tiny legs to push vertices!

 

[cbarcus]

Umm, this is ridiculous. A 32GB SSD? Arent those like $300 in PC's? The rest of the specs are from the fgnonline rumor. To give you an example what a joke that site is their latest report posted in the last days is that Sega is coming out with a new handheld with all the bells and whistles in 2010.

32GB SSDs go for about $100 (according to PriceWatch.com). I wouldn't call this ridiculous, but perhaps unlikely. What will they cost in bulk in 2010? Probably not going to happen unless the cost goes below $40, but these devices appear to have a potential throughput in excess of 10x a HDD. You are right about the source of the rumor, but a 6-core CPU coupled with an AMD GPU w/32mb of EDRAM seems very reasonable (which is why I'm even bothering to take any of this seriously).

Give me a break.

Also, MS is still struggling mightily with the hardware cost beast with it's current console, and every price drop is precious, and now theyre probably going to be adding the cost of Natal in at least one SKU on top of that, and you expect them to spit out those massive hardware improvements on top of it all for $300, the same price as the current Pro SKU with none of that??? And theyve lost how many dollars on 360 hardware again?? Which as Grandmaster pointed out, those improvements wont even have any great effect on games, at great cost? Come on.

We could be looking at a separate Natal accessory for maybe $100 (for the 360), and a new updated console for $300 (with built-in Natal capability). What are the expected improvements from an updated GPU (it will be 5 years by 2010)? Bandwidth is over 5x higher, shader count is now in the hundreds (48 for Xenos), etc. I'm sure others here are far more qualified to give a detailed comparison, and can probably give a much better idea of what can be expected of an updated GPU at 40nm that consumes about 100 watts (this is a total guess on my part- didn't the 90nm Xenos consume about 100 watts?)?

 

[cbarcus]

One drawback of SSDs involve how many times they can be written to before "wearing out". Here's what AnandTech had to say about the lifespan of Intel's SSDs:

Intel went one step further and delivered 5x what the OEMs requested. Thus Intel will guarantee that you can write 100GB of data to one of its MLC SSDs every day, for the next five years, and your data will remain intact. The drives only ship with a 3 year warranty but I suspect that there'd be some recourse if you could prove that Intel's 100GB/day promise was false.

Throughput for Intel's SSDs appear to be about 200 MB/s, where today we might see a decent HDD get about 40 GB/s. So we have a real world example where lifespan is probably not a problem and throughput is about 5 times better. Obviously cost in 2010/2011 will be an important factor for whether this technology is included in the roadmap that I'm suggesting.

 

[cbarcus]

where today we might see a decent HDD get about 40 MB/s

 

[RudeCurve]

You people who keep talking about how slow ODDs are should go back and read post #2391...

 

[cbarcus]

You people who keep talking about how slow ODDs are should go back and read post #2391...

Multi-layer reading sounds like a great solution, but I haven't heard a peep about any implementation for Blu-ray. Could be pretty useful when BDs have 8+ layers.

 

[RudeCurve]

True-X is not multilayer reading. It's multitrack reading. If MS stays with DVD then it's a no brainer. Much better solution than a stupid expensive SSD.

 

[cbarcus]

True-X is not multilayer reading. It's multitrack reading. If MS stays with DVD then it's a no brainer. Much better solution than a stupid expensive SSD.

Oops, my bad, but True-X still has poorer throughput than an HDD solution, doesn't it?

 

[archangelmorph]

My bet would be a decent-sized flash RAM for supporting the optical drive, but let's be honest - HDD storage space is something we're all going to be paying for as an optional extra.

I wouldn't be so sure about that if I were you..

Considering the focus on DD going forward, consumer HDD space is going to become MUCH more of an issue than it has been in the past. In fact platform holders will have to work hard to make high density storage as accessible as possible to every customer since this will have a direct impact on all software sales (with consumers not likely to purchase new games as often if they're forced to consider whether they have the available capacity for it..)

So taking this into account, and the added factors of software/firmware installs, saved games, other user media etc, it's pretty clear to me that a "decent sized" solid state drive (however beneficial it maybe for developers) is not going to cut it due to capacity (which has vastly greater revenue implications)..

I'd expect next gen consoles shipping with replaceable high density standard hard drives with the possibility (small to medium) of an embedded SSD cache (2-32 GB maybe?) for data transfer support..

 

[Blazkowicz]

right now the cheap 2.5" HDD are 160GB and the biggest one is 500GB. 1TB models are due next year. By 2012 there should be 2TB 2.5" HDD on the market, and a cheap one to be included in a console should have a 500GB capacity at least.

The cost would by then be similar to a cheap 32GB SSD (or 64GB SSD at best), and throughput not so bad (current 3.5" drives do 100MB/s)

 

[Arwin]

How about rather than that the HDD becomes optional, the optical drive becomes optional?

I could also see two configurations which have the one included, and the other optional.

 

[Gubbi]

How about rather than that the HDD becomes optional, the optical drive becomes optional?

I could also see two configurations which have the one included, and the other optional.

I think next gen console will be born with 32GB flash memory, HDD will be optional. The flash store can be used for downloadable content as well as a cache for games on optical media.

HDDs or SSDs will be optional, - or on higher end SKUs.

Optical media wont go away. In two to three years the physical BluRay drives will reach price parity with DVD drives.

I could imagine a entry level SKU without the software/licenses to play BluRay movies.

Cheers

 

[RudeCurve]

I would like to see entry level SKUs to have the HDD optional with the provision for using standard off the shelf external USB HDDs if needed. I would also like to be able to upgrade my HDD with off the shelf units instead of having to pay rediculous money for a proprietary one.

 

[MfA]

Without a HDD as standard or allowing normal consumer drives they will not be able to get into MMORPGs ... which make up what, a quarter of gaming revenue now?

Delaying the introduction of new consoles will already cause some defection back to the PC ... allowing the hegemony in online gaming to continue for the PC on top of that is a dangerous game.

 

[silhouette]

The upgrade should be either very modest (that would give better graphics with modest extra effort on the developer side (extra shader cores/more EDRAM)) that will replace the current hardware in the long-run while developers can still maintain full backwards compatilbity with original 360 in the same DVD or it should be quite large (as in between xbox and xbox 360) that will drive the current hard-core gamer 360 crowd to upgrade.

Honestly, I think none of those two will happen. Probably, we will see a new 360 box (maybe a slim version) packed with Natal, which is cross-compatible with the current line-up of 360s (i.e. you can buy the current controller to play non-Natal games as in the case of the GC compatible controllers on Wii). Same apply for the old 360s where you can get a Natal to play Natal games on old 360s.

I think a real upgrade to 360 comes in 2011 time frame; when the current Pro 360s and Natal-360's price drop below 200$ segment. They can then release again a 400$ console for hard core gamers once more (with full backward compatilbility with current 360s).

 

[aaronspink]

32GB SSDs go for about $100 (according to PriceWatch.com). I wouldn't call this ridiculous, but perhaps unlikely.

Um, those are basically no better than a bad USB flash drive. No seriously, anyone buying one of those should have their head examined. All of them have horrible stuttering issues and reliability issue.

 

[ShadowWolf64]

The upgrade should be either very modest (that would give better graphics with modest extra effort on the developer side (extra shader cores/more EDRAM)) that will replace the current hardware in the long-run while developers can still maintain full backwards compatilbity with original 360 in the same DVD or it should be quite large (as in between xbox and xbox 360) that will drive the current hard-core gamer 360 crowd to upgrade.

Honestly, I think none of those two will happen. Probably, we will see a new 360 box (maybe a slim version) packed with Natal, which is cross-compatible with the current line-up of 360s (i.e. you can buy the current controller to play non-Natal games as in the case of the GC compatible controllers on Wii). Same apply for the old 360s where you can get a Natal to play Natal games on old 360s.

I think a real upgrade to 360 comes in 2011 time frame; when the current Pro 360s and Natal-360's price drop below 200$ segment. They can then release again a 400$ console for hard core gamers once more (with full backward compatilbility with current 360s).

I think the next xbox should launch in either the Fall of 2011 or 2012 to be honest with you.Have the hardware be very powerful but also affordable with 3 different SKU's.Each SKU should come with a hdd as standard but of course, they differ in hdd space.Also, do you any of you guys believe the next xbox would use a manycore processor?

 

[ban25]

Um, those are basically no better than a bad USB flash drive. No seriously, anyone buying one of those should have their head examined. All of them have horrible stuttering issues and reliability issue.

My 80 GB Intel X-25 was $325 from Amazon. But it was well worth it considering the reduction in build times and solution-load times. I believe it's down to $314 now -- a great deal for software developers, but of course completely unsuitable for consoles.