Predict: The Next Generation Console Tech

[Shifty Geezer]

It works for a car manufacturer. You get a status symbol, reproduction location, sound stage and transportation in the one device. Anyway, funny talk aside most people who play games nowadays are 18+ and if they cannot afford a console then they probably can't afford the games. This generation has proved pretty conclusively that people will pay for an experience they value.

Yes, but you can't say PS3 would be bought over and above XB360 because it has BRD value if people value BRD, which was the argument put forward -"if people valued BRD playback, they'd have bought PS3's instead of XB360s". Unless we ignore bottom-line pricing and say people only ever buy on perceived value (in which case why did XB360 arcades ever sell?), choosing a $300 360 versus a $500 PS3 has an immediate $200 price difference. Even if BRD movies are an interest, and standalone players are $500, if you want HD gaming and can't stretch that extra $200 now, you can buy 360 now and buy something BRD capable later. Once the entry level price comes down, people can be more considered about total value and compare similar price-bracket items for overall features.

Quite simply though, all things being equal, if you have a choice between Box 1 with HD movie playback, and Box 2 without, for no price difference, which would you pick? It'd be a differentiating feature if one console has it and the other hasn't, hence the interest in including it.

How does it sound to have multiple different X86 cores on the same die? I.E. Have one Bulldozer module in order to kick amdahl's law in the pants for code which simply will not parallelize and bobcat for low power / relatively small cores for code which does. Bobcat is meant to be 90% Athlon X2 performance on 50% of the area with a very low TDP.

I can't see any reason not to consider such options. It's certainly an interesting idea to have different cores with different optimisations but running the same instruction set, making code portability and development a lot easier.

 

[Fafalada]

I'd call that a service rather than DD products. The applications can be distributed via any means, and WOW got onto a lot of subscriber's computers via a boxed disc.

Indeed, and even free to play games(the successful ones at least) get distributed on discs in some regions, but that's more a reflection of limitations of broadband-infrastructure rather then some inherent desire for people to get discs. WoW isn't really different - considering that 60$ that you pay for the discs buys you nothing but the right to pay Blizzard a monthly subscription.

Regarding DD unit sales - they will look marginal compared to other online revenues, but IMO that's more a reflection of the issues sales business model is dealing with as a whole nowadays.
Services or not, physical distribution is rapidly losing ground (and has already become virtually obsolete in places that corduroygt argued were the least popular for DD).

 

[MfA]

I'm still trying to catch up with this long thread, but I honestly don't see how anyone can disagree with optical being needed.

Mostly they accomplish it by being retardedly contrary or by plain being a troll.

Online activation with one time only free DLC as a resale deterrent will probably be universal, support for DD will be universal, optical will be universal.

 

[eastmen]

Mostly they accomplish it by being retardedly contrary or by plain being a troll.

Online activation with one time only free DLC as a resale deterrent will probably be universal, support for DD will be universal, optical will be universal.

Or we see it as a way to completely cut off used game sales and perhaps even piracy itself.

 

[kagemaru]

Or we see it as a way to completely cut off used game sales and perhaps even piracy itself.

I can see it cutting off used games sales, but not piracy.

Either way, the fact remains that you scale down your user base by cutting out the optical drive, thus it would be a bad move.

 

[Rangers]

http://hollywoodinhidef.com/2010/07/blu-ray-grows-112-through-june/

I'm not a Blu-ray fanboy or anything, but it's a successful format and still growing. It's the preferred choice for owning movies, while I see DD's advantages for renting them.



Wait...so you include piracy with DD? Then of course it's the most popular distribution method in the world since it has no DRM and it's free As far as revenue generation, paid DD has no chance of exceeding Blu-ray, which is slowly replacing dvd, because good luck trying to make the pirates pay for the same thing they're getting for free. At least with a disc, the cost is justified with the better quality and owning a physical product, so even the pirates sometimes would buy them.


Unlike some people I reply to here (not you), I don't post without having proof:
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/01/cd-sale-free-fall-continued-in-2009/

10+ years on the market plus the incredible price advantage of downloading individual songs vs. CD's, and none of the technical issues that come with huge file sizes and it's still at 40%, and that's US only. I can guarantee everywhere else, far less songs are sold through itunes or amazon in favor of piracy.

Paid DD in those markets is non-existent, because there's the free alternative. If you look at revenue generation, Blu-ray discs have a better chance than DD since they differentiate themselves from pirated material by owning a tangible product that's also higher quality.

Eh, you're still fighting a losing battle. It's funny I was looking at recaps of the Apple keynote today and thoughts of this argument came up. For example, Apple said "relatively soon" iTunes will be outselling "physical media". And that's just iTunes. They're even changing their logo to get rid of the spinning CD. And another instance was the new Apple TV hype. 99 dollars and 720P movie rentals for 4.99. Most of the hype is already around DD and not physical media.

High end, hardcore game consoles are I think the one place where Blu Ray can maintain next gen. I think they're unique compared to movies.


It's interesting, in preparation for Reach, I've been wanting to buy Halo Wars and Halo 2. Both of those are probably available on XBL, but I'd rather have them on disc because I like having the disc. Still, that's me, and no guarantee others care. But more and more games are available via DD especially on Xbox already. It's been very quiet, but between Xbox classics and Games on Demand, a lot of games are now available for download on XBL, plus of course XBLA. So even on the high end hardcore consoles, there's a lot of DD going on.

 

[corduroygt]

Eh, you're still fighting a losing battle. It's funny I was looking at recaps of the Apple keynote today and thoughts of this argument came up. For example, Apple said "relatively soon" iTunes will be outselling "physical media". And that's just iTunes. They're even changing their logo to get rid of the spinning CD. And another instance was the new Apple TV hype. 99 dollars and 720P movie rentals for 4.99. Most of the hype is already around DD and not physical media.

You're quoting Apple marketing who have a vested interest in pushing downloads vs. my data obtained from an independent third party?

The numbers are there...cheaper, portable, small, yet only 40% in 10 years for music. Bigger files like movies and games have far bigger hurdles to clear, especially as long as they're not cheaper than disc.

720P movie rentals have been available for 4.99 from PSN, Xbox, and your cable company for YEARS, why do you think the Apple TV will change this? Especially when you can go to a redbox kiosk, which is already inside the supermarket you go for food anyways and rent the superior 1080p blu-ray for $1.50? Or a Netflix membership to get discs in the mail for far cheaper, as well as streaming of older titles?

Apple products that you cannot take with you and show off to other people are not big sellers. Think about it, the best selling Apples are iphone, ipod, ipad, and macbook pro. This new Apple TV will not do well, especially since there are many more competitors, and I'm sorry but not many people will pay $0.99 per episode, when they can watch it on TV, or record it, or get it from a torrent, all for free and just as conveniently.

It's interesting, in preparation for Reach, I've been wanting to buy Halo Wars and Halo 2. Both of those are probably available on XBL, but I'd rather have them on disc because I like having the disc. Still, that's me, and no guarantee others care. But more and more games are available via DD especially on Xbox already. It's been very quiet, but between Xbox classics and Games on Demand, a lot of games are now available for download on XBL, plus of course XBLA. So even on the high end hardcore consoles, there's a lot of DD going on.

You can get them on disc for far cheaper than the $30 MS is charging on Games On Demand for Halo Wars. Also, when you say, there's a lot of DD going on, could you please quantify with sources. DD is only strong when the dollar amount is low.

 

[aaronspink]

On top of the reduced possible audience, you also have old school stubborn gamers like me who prefer to have a physical disc that I can claim full ownership over instead of a digital download that would probably be infected with DRM and still controlled to an extent by the publisher.

Eh? Its a console, you signed up with planet crushing levels of DRM at the very start. Before you even purchased a single game. Consoles sole basis of existence is DRM. It is entirely fundamental to their being. Complaining about DRM on consoles is like complaining that outer space is big black and mostly empty.

I don't see next gen dropping optical media, the gen following that though, it's quite a possibility.

I'm not convinced they'll drop it, but I'm not convinced that it will be a playable media rather then just a distribution medium aka DD physical container.

 

[Squilliam]

I can't see any reason not to consider such options. It's certainly an interesting idea to have different cores with different optimisations but running the same instruction set, making code portability and development a lot easier.

So when do you think we're going to see 22nm from Global Foundries / TSMC?

The longer we wait it seems the more likely we are going to see a console just released with a CGPU instead of the typical CPU + GPU architecture. Maybe the next generation chips will look like the current Xbox 360 with the CGPU and the off die ED-Ram or similar?

 

[Rangers]

You're quoting Apple marketing who have a vested interest in pushing downloads vs. my data obtained from an independent third party?

The numbers are there...cheaper, portable, small, yet only 40% in 10 years for music. Bigger files like movies and games have far bigger hurdles to clear, especially as long as they're not cheaper than disc.

720P movie rentals have been available for 4.99 from PSN, Xbox, and your cable company for YEARS, why do you think the Apple TV will change this? Especially when you can go to a redbox kiosk, which is already inside the supermarket you go for food anyways and rent the superior 1080p blu-ray for $1.50? Or a Netflix membership to get discs in the mail for far cheaper, as well as streaming of older titles?

Apple products that you cannot take with you and show off to other people are not big sellers. Think about it, the best selling Apples are iphone, ipod, ipad, and macbook pro. This new Apple TV will not do well, especially since there are many more competitors, and I'm sorry but not many people will pay $0.99 per episode, when they can watch it on TV, or record it, or get it from a torrent, all for free and just as conveniently.


You can get them on disc for far cheaper than the $30 MS is charging on Games On Demand for Halo Wars. Also, when you say, there's a lot of DD going on, could you please quantify with sources. DD is only strong when the dollar amount is low.

Sigh. Now you got my juices flowing And this isn't even all that OT. But anyway.

So I actually looked at your "independent source". I never thought of it the first time, but there's no source that has DD figures since all the DD platforms are going to closely guard their numbers. The best you're going to get is very rough estimates. Second, it's funny your article is all about how CD sales are plummeting ("Another year, another collapse in CD sales."), and you're sourcing it as defense of physical media! Third, as far as I can tell there's no source for the 40% figure in the article at all. So claiming it as an "independent source" as if it's ironclad is rather ironic. Fourth, yes, I believe Apple. I believe Apple who actually knows the iTunes numbers over and unknown source claiming 40% who doesn't have the data. Apple is known to make misleading sales claims, but they wont directly lie. A specific claim that iTunes will soon surpass physical media for music sales is certainly true, it's not general enough to be misleading.

BTW TV is not free for another of your claims. Cable bill? People could afford a lot of 99 cents episodes if they drop their 100+ cable bill... not saying this will happen en masse, that's another debate anyway.

Redbox is fine and all, but if anything it's another tool that will destroy physical media sales, not help them. It just is another "instant access" type tool that reduces the amount of physical media purchases. Besides, the selection of redboxes that I see seems pretty bad, and Blu Ray selection even much much worse, of course that will change. At least they now actually have Blu Ray!

720P movie rentals have been available for 4.99 from PSN, Xbox, and your cable company for YEARS, why do you think the Apple TV will change this?

Change what? Change falling DVD sales? They wont They are part of the reason for falling DVD sales. Yes, movie rentals have been available online for years. And for about the same amount of time, DVD sales have been decreasing. Apple Tv will just be another option, and probably a more popular one. Game console as movie rental box/settop media box is an inferior strategy to dedicated movie rental box/settop box all along (there's no reason to have hot, expensive video game hardware, that a good portion of people dont even want, attached to your settop box). Looks like finally Google Tv and Apple Tv will be finally getting it right soon. And I predict at least one of them in a big way. And just go on Engadget, EVERY DAY there's new settop boxes, new DD services (including one coming from Sony, of course!) etc. This is a flood that's increasing not stopping. It doesnt even matter if Apple TV specifically does well, though I'm guessing it will.

You can get them on disc for far cheaper than the $30 MS is charging on Games On Demand for Halo Wars.

Where? I saw Wal Mart had Wars on sale for 24.96 a couple weeks ago, in their circular. Not sure if this was a temporary sale, I assume so. At any rate, on the one hand you speak of the huge advantages of DD music "and yet it still isn't selling" or whatever. So why cant I say "despite huge disadvantages, more expensive, lack of trade ability, etc, DD keeps growing"? Anyways I've never been a big mail order guy, preferring instant gratification. I'm not going to find Halo Wars locally a whole lot cheaper than $30. Maybe I can find it used at Gamestop for a bit less, gamestop's website lists it 24.99 pre-owned. if I can find a used copy, maybe...and I dont even like buying used games, rather pay a little extra for pristine newness.

Also, when you say, there's a lot of DD going on, could you please quantify with sources. DD is only strong when the dollar amount is low.

You seem big on making a few unsourced claims yourself, while demanding sources from me Where's your source that "DD is only strong when dollar amount is low"?

But I think just as you should be able to obviously accept that "there's a lot of DD going on" because it's obvious, I understand that DD is stronger at lower price points currently, without really needing a source for it. Still there's a big difference between a $15 XBLA game (which some sell very well) and a 99 cent junk iPhone game or steam sale. Further, Steam would likely be a place significant high end buying is going on, and there's nothing to say DD couldn't get stronger at higher prices, except that currently the 59.99 price point is mostly reserved for retail. If you saw day and date DD of 59.99 titles at PSN and XBL, things might change at least some I suspect.

In this whole debate I havent even touched on steam...only like the biggest trend in PC gaming. What my quote you were responding to was saying is, I say the high end consoles will be a bastion so to speak of physical media, even after movies and music have moved on. I still believe that. Yet even on Xbox 360, you have XBLA, you have DLC, you have indie games, you have Xbox originals, you have game room, and you have games on demand, which GoD seems to be quietly expanding it's scope rapidly. That's already a whole lot of DD in a space that I personally am claiming will be a bastion of physical media! About the only thing lacking is first run new releases. And as for GoD profitability, well it's simple, publishers obviously put their games on there voluntarily, and obviously they wouldn't do that if it wasn't netting them dollars. That simple. Many of those games of course aren't even in stores any more.

 

[corduroygt]

Eh? Its a console, you signed up with planet crushing levels of DRM at the very start. Before you even purchased a single game. Consoles sole basis of existence is DRM. It is entirely fundamental to their being. Complaining about DRM on consoles is like complaining that outer space is big black and mostly empty.

I signed up so that as long as I put original branded discs in the console, the games would play with all their functionality enabled, with no stipulations about those disks being new or used or the ability to trade them after I'm done with it. Change that, and millions will walk away unless all games are priced $20 or lower. There is a strong resistance against expensive DD, thanks to itunes, we're conditioned to expect a lower price, especially since we're not getting anything tangible in our hands.

I'm not convinced they'll drop it, but I'm not convinced that it will be a playable media rather then just a distribution medium aka DD physical container.

Given the backlash against game installs, that's unlikely. If a disc is only installable to one console/account, it'll also fail just like the DD component.

Like movie studios, publishers would like to make money each time we play a game. And just like movie studios didn't get it, they're not going to get it either, since what they're selling isn't an essential product like food, water or energy. You act like as if the consumer is at the mercy of game publishers, when in reality it's the other way around. Companies aren't like governments, they can't forcefully take your money.

 

[corduroygt]

So I actually looked at your "independent source". I never thought of it the first time, but there's no source that has DD figures since all the DD platforms are going to closely guard their numbers.

The DEG isn't credible now? They also get their numbers from NPD, so you're barking up the wrong alley on this one. They're far more credible than anyone in this forum for sure.

The two biggest DD music companies are apple and amazon, both publicly traded, and they release their numbers and sales through their online stores in their financial statements, since they're obligated to do that for their shareholders. You are simply wrong on this count.

You seem big on making a few unsourced claims yourself, while demanding sources from me Where's your source that "DD is only strong when dollar amount is low"?

I've posted it earlier in this thread. DD accounts for 48% of PC game retail sales, but brings in only 36% of the revenue, search my previous posts and you'll see. Almost equal sales but less revenue = cheaper selling price.

Another example, according to the link in the post you replied to, it says 80% of album sales are CD's. So obviously $9.99 albums on iTunes aren't hot sellers since they don't have a price advantage over CD's. Again, people are used to paying around a dollar for music, so it's an impulse purchase category. CD priced music doesn't sell much digitally...

DD is the most popular distribution out there for movies, games, music, etc. That's because 90% of those are pirated, thus free. It's incredibly difficult, if not impossible for people to get used to paying for stuff they've been getting for free. However, even pirates are used to paying money to get physical products. The most popular digital downloads are cheap games, movie rentals, and music, all very cheap. Very few people pay more than $20-$30 to own a copy of a movie or a game without any physical format. For rentals though, DD can be cheap and has its place.

 

[eastmen]

I can see it cutting off used games sales, but not piracy.

Either way, the fact remains that you scale down your user base by cutting out the optical drive, thus it would be a bad move.

http://steamreview.org/posts/finances/

Profit margins for developers are a major selling point for digital distribution, and Steam does not let the side down. I’m pleased to say that there are now figures as accurate as possible for each margin: 10%-20% for traditional retail/publisher deals; roughly 60% for Steam developers; and an incredible 86% for Valve themselves. Add to that the fact that Valve doesn’t take the developer’s IP and the effective margin becomes wider still.

With dd you know they will have internet conneciton so you can have it randomly check to make sure you own that content or it will block you. So i can see it affecting piracy more. The ps3 has lasted what 3-4 years with no piracy so I can see a next gen console lasting just as long if not longer.

 

[MfA]

Given the backlash against game installs, that's unlikely. If a disc is only installable to one console/account, it'll also fail just like the DD component.

Once HD becomes standard across all the next generation platforms they can start asking developers to go the extra mile and make installs streameable during play. They will want it any way for DD.

 

[kagemaru]

Eh? Its a console, you signed up with planet crushing levels of DRM at the very start. Before you even purchased a single game. Consoles sole basis of existence is DRM. It is entirely fundamental to their being. Complaining about DRM on consoles is like complaining that outer space is big black and mostly empty.

Not even close. I can take MY disc and do with it what I please, use it on a friend's console, use it on future BC consoles, play it without an internet connection any time I want or trade it in. I can not do that with DD infected with DRM (at least without hassle like redownload/install). Like I said, there is something to be said about us gamers being able to claim full ownership over the games we put money towards.

Edit:

Just realized corduroygt addressed the same thing, so what he said too.

 

[Squilliam]

Bobcat?

If each Bobcat core is only 8mm^2 with 512kb of L2 cache each on the 40nm process: Source. Then perhaps its the ideal candidate for consideration as the possible primary contender for the next generation console(s) architecture(s).

Maybe for a Nintendo system, all they would need would be four of those cores plus a reasonably strong GPU for their next generation architecture. If Ontario is 2 Bobcat + 80 stream processors on 74mm^2 then if they target 28nm as their process of choice they could likely easily fit 4 Bobcat cores plus 240 stream processors into a very slender TDP / die size budget and produce more than adequate performance in an efficient overall design without sacrificing their Wii design philosophies.

For an Xbox next style system maybe the Cell processor architecture is a good idea? What if they used a multi-level Bulldozer + Bobcat architecture with a large L3 cache instead of local store which is shared between the CPU and the GPU on the same die?

They could have say, 1-2 Bulldozer modules for heavy lifting and around 8 Bobcat cores which would give them excellent compute density. Then they would have a large on die cache (ED-Ram, Z-Ram?, Rambus special?, standard L3 cache) in between the CPU and the GPU and shared between both. That way they have a power efficient die with as much of the data possible kept at the CPU level and they would have flexibility in terms of allocating resources between different parts of the chip.

Just a rough idea. Im not sure about the pitfalls of such an architecture but it was just something I was pondering.

 

[brain_stew]

Would Bobcat's SIMD performance be reasonable enough for a console? That's the only area of concern I'd have but would it really matter all that much when you can pack so many of them into such a tiny space and you have a hulking big GPU on the die anyway which can perform much of the traditional vector work anyway? Either way it would be a design decision that is sure to win favour among the development community, a bunch of homogeneous out-of-order x86 CPUs is about as familiar a CPU setup as you could get.

Console design is all about being as area efficient as possible so that you can get as much performance out of your silicon budget as possible and with AMD now seemingly having best in class in terms of both CPU and GPU area efficiency, they've got to be front runners for all 3 contracts. The impressively low TDP is important as well as I can't see any next generation consoles getting away with increasing the TDP of launch consoles this time around, I'd expect it to be reduced, in fact.

As for the question about cache, what about IBM's on die eDRAM which they're using as an L3 cache for Power7? That would seem like a good fit but would AMD have access to that technology?

Its interesting that both of AMD's "Fusion" designs forgo the use of L3 cache entirely though.

 

[Squilliam]

Would Bobcat's SIMD performance be reasonable enough for a console? That's the only area of concern I'd have but would it really matter all that much when you can pack so many of them into such a tiny space and you have a hulking big GPU on the die anyway which can perform much of the traditional vector work anyway? Either way it would be a design decision that is sure to win favour among the development community, a bunch of homogeneous out-of-order x86 CPUs is about as familiar a CPU setup as you could get.

That is where a Bulldozer module or two would come in handy. Its for code which for whatever reason doesn't fit into the weaker Bobcat core structure or GPU SIMD arrays or cannot easily be parallelised and you need significantly better single threaded performance than Bobcat provides.

As for the question about cache, what about IBM's on die eDRAM which they're using as an L3 cache for Power7? That would seem like a good fit but would AMD have access to that technology?

IBM licenses anything and everything. If anything IBM would approach them in order to hawk off the technology.

Its interesting that both of AMD's "Fusion" designs forgo the use of L3 cache entirely though.

Are you sure? I thought Llano had L3 but Ontario did not.

 

[brain_stew]

Are you sure? I thought Llano had L3 but Ontario did not.

Positive. The CPU part is Phenom ii based but with an increased 1MB L2 cache per core but no shared L3 cache. I've got to wonder why they chose to increase the L2 cache size over trying to fit in a shared L3 cache which both the CPU and GPU have access to á la Intel's approach with Sandy Bridge.

Having a shared L3 cache between the CPU and GPU appears (at least initially) to have helped Intel with their IGP performance, although we won't truly know until we've seen more Sandy Bridge chips (with differing L3 cache sizes) benchmarked.

Maybe something like that is better suited to a closed box though, where you can have more fine grained control over what's stored in that L3 cache but I do find it interesting that AMD have decided against it initially. Maybe it isn't such an obvious benefit to performance as one would initially assume, that L3 cache in Phenom ii CPUs sure eats up a lot of die space (though again, maybe that's where IBM's eDRAM cache tech. can come in).

 

[Blazkowicz]

actually even a console using straight up Ontario would be desireable to me, just assemble a custom Ontario mobo with 1GB ddr3, have a cheap bluray drive and standard 2.5" hard drive, offer both VGA and HDMI output.

this can be real cheap, is a giant step above Wii's fixed function GPU and composite output, could be powered by straight, regular 12V DC and is powerful already, really - it would be fun to see how would the CPU compare to the X360 CPU in real world tasks for example.

as for the GPU side it's crap but you may say, about half the bandwith of PS3's GPU, and enough horsepower to run many games at 720p (imagine a doom 3 release for instance)

if you want something more powerful, don't imagine too complicated things, just look at llano - it's simpler than mixing x86 architectures, fighting Amdahl's law, and lack of L3 is understandable if you focus on compute density.

beware of the bandwith limitation anyway