Predict: The Next Generation Console Tech

[kagemaru]

Am I the only one who firmly thinks neither MS or Sony would risk giving up the hardcore market to other party so they will both release high end machines next gen?

Say most design decisions are done, manufacturers is selected, could ~two years be enough to push a system out? I mean the people they search may just be there make sure of proper execution of the project, to pilot it. What do you think about it?

After the whole RRoD fiasco this gen, I'm not so sure MS would be willing to rush anything.

Lets see a possible timeline:

2012: Xbox next releases.
2013: Nothing? PS4? Releases?
2014: Xbox next refresh.
2015: Nothing?
2016: Xbox next next releases?

If they keep within a strict architecture such as X86 and development environments like DX11+ they could easily push out revisions to hardware if and when desired or needed. Furthermore I could also see their saving big software changes for alternative years. The years where I wrote nothing could actually represent big Live feature implementations.

IMO this would be a horrible horrible idea.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Am I the only one who firmly thinks neither MS or Sony would risk giving up the hardcore market to other party so they will both release high end machines next gen?

You're not the only one. They might be more conservative than last gen, but that's not to say they'll be as conservative as Nintendo.

 

[AlNom]

Reading it in context, I think he means no compatibility with XB360's optical disc games. The quotes are fractured and this line isn't even a direct quote! "No optical disc compatibility" would be a weird way to say "no optical drive" or "DD only", whereas it is an suitable, if awkward, way to say no compatibility with 360's disk titles but could be compatible with download titles, assuming download titles are fully XNA compliant where disk titles are more adventurous in use of the hardware.

I wonder about the delayed and non-universal release of Games on Demand titles for Xbox Live Marketplace...

I can dream.

edit: to clarify, I was thinking that the delay may also be a result of MS certifying backward compatibility, at least from a CPU standpoint. We sort of know that they don't encourage devs to do anything wild on the low-level for graphics either, and translating those calls should be trivial.

 

[assen]

I certainly hope not! What would I do with all my 360 games?

You will rebuy them in "HD HD" remake collections.

 

[kagemaru]

I can dream.

edit: to clarify, I was thinking that the delay may also be a result of MS certifying backward compatibility, at least from a CPU standpoint. We sort of know that they don't encourage devs to do anything wild on the low-level for graphics either, and translating those calls should be trivial.

I always thought the delay was due to third parties trying to keep in good terms with the retailers. Of course MS has a part in it as well I'm sure since it's their service, but don't the 3rd parties have most of the say so to when something is offer over DD?

 

[Boxercide]

I've also wondered why there are some full game releases available on PS3 and not on 360.

Also, what does a potential tighter relationship between Valve and Sony mean for the next incarnation of the PSN on the PS4?

 

[AlNom]

I always thought the delay was due to third parties trying to keep in good terms with the retailers.

Doesn't seem right when you consider PC/DD sales, but I suppose.

 

[kagemaru]

I've also wondered why there are some full game releases available on PS3 and not on 360.

Also, what does a potential tighter relationship between Valve and Sony mean for the next incarnation of the PSN on the PS4?

I thought most of the day one releases (Socom, Warhawk, GT5p, etc) were either Sony published titles or late ports like ME2.

I would also put money on it that Sony follows the Live model next gen. PSN+ is a step in that direction, but there would be too much backlash if they forced people to pay to play now. Regardless of what does end up happening, I see Sony handling it themselves as they would probably want the highest profit margin possible.

I guess I can see Steam offered as an option next gen though, if the publisher/studio is willing to pay Valve whatever fee there may be.

edit:

Doesn't seem right when you consider PC/DD sales, but I suppose.

The PC market doesn't have anywhere near the same retail presence as the consoles do. I highly doubt Gamestop, Walmart, Best buy, etc. care much about DD sales eating into their PC game sales when they either don't carry PC games or give them very little shelf space (comparatively).

 

[(((interference)))]

I'm in Shifty's boat here. I think it's a reference more towards BC for disk-based games rather than no optical drive altogether (which would equal suicide).

It's either a mistranslation or utter BS. No in between

I don't think it was a translation since the quotes seem to be in English (I highly doubt that Sundbery wouldn't be able to speak English).

And of course this is just industry speculation on the makeup of the consoles, not an actual rumour or leak.

If Shifty's right and there's no BC for DVDs it wouldn't make much sense from a technical standpoint (as there'd still be prob a Blu-ray drive which can still read DVDs) and obviously the next 360 will be BC at least with digital content (there were all those 'future compatibility' rumours about how the next Xbox would run 360 games out of the box at 1080p with high AA and texture filtering etc.).

So if the next gen systems aren't backwards compatible with disk based titles it'll primarily be a money grabbing decision to force people to buy HD remakes or digital editions of 360 games.

 

[(((interference)))]

Am I the only one who firmly thinks neither MS or Sony would risk giving up the hardcore market to other party so they will both release high end machines next gen?



After the whole RRoD fiasco this gen, I'm not so sure MS would be willing to rush anything.



IMO this would be a horrible horrible idea.

I think Sony/MS will collude to some degree to ensure that both systems have similar performance and launch within a year of each other. It probably would be detrimental to both Sony and MS if there was a three way platform split in the market with the Wii 2 with the least horsepower, the PS4 being a beast and the 720 falling somewhere in the middle.

It'd be too complicated for developers to target so many different hardware capabilities (in addition to PC and NGP etc). The great thing about this gen was that PS3/360 are basically all but identical in capabilities and there's almost 3 hardware platforms out there: PC, 360/PS3 and Wii.

 

[Boxercide]

I thought most of the day one releases (Socom, Warhawk, GT5p, etc) were either Sony published titles or late ports like ME2.

I wouldn;t disagree, but why are some third party games available on one platform and not the other. It just strikes me as odd.

I think Sony/MS will collude to some degree to ensure that both systems have similar performance and launch within a year of each other. It probably would be detrimental to both Sony and MS if there was a three way platform split in the market with the Wii 2 with the least horsepower, the PS4 being a beast and the 720 falling somewhere in the middle.

It'd be too complicated for developers to target so many different hardware capabilities (in addition to PC and NGP etc). The great thing about this gen was that PS3/360 are basically all but identical in capabilities and there's almost 3 hardware platforms out there: PC, 360/PS3 and Wii.

I disagree. PS2, Gamecube and Xbox were all fairly different and yet had ports with different features tweaked.

 

[(((interference)))]

I wouldn;t disagree, but why are some third party games available on one platform and not the other. It just strikes me as odd.




I disagree. PS2, Gamecube and Xbox were all fairly different and yet had ports with different features tweaked.

True, but PS2 had way more marketshare than either of the other two, so they had to develop for PS2, but look at all the Xbox games that weren't able to be done on PS2, Doom 3, HL2, Unreal Tournament, Morrowind etc.

I think for MS/Sony prefer having their machines roughly equal so either customer base doesn't miss out on certain MP titles (or gets the watered down version, which as we all know, no one likes).

 

[Xenus]

I wonder why instead of using system ram for the OS they don't take a small pool of slower ram for that purpose? It would give the devs back their expected amount of ram even if it would slightly complicate chip design with the addition of another memory controller.

 

[Lucid_Dreamer]

True, but PS2 had way more marketshare than either of the other two, so they had to develop for PS2, but look at all the Xbox games that weren't able to be done on PS2, Doom 3, HL2, Unreal Tournament, Morrowind etc.

I think for MS/Sony prefer having their machines roughly equal so either customer base doesn't miss out on certain MP titles (or gets the watered down version, which as we all know, no one likes).

Just a question, but how do we know those Xbox games weren't able to be done on PS2? Is it just because there were off the shelf PC parts in the Xbox? I ask because nowadays we don't tend to make those statements as easily as back then.

 

[(((interference)))]

Just a question, but how do we know those Xbox games weren't able to be done on PS2? Is it just because there were off the shelf PC parts in the Xbox? I ask because nowadays we don't tend to make those statements as easily as back then.

Mainly due to the Xbox having 2x the RAM, programmable shaders, x86 architecture and of course a HDD

 

[Arwin]

Mainly due to the Xbox having 2x the RAM, programmable shaders, x86 architecture and of course a HDD

Wasn't Halo 2 the only game to ever really use the HDD on the original Xbox? Of course, the EDRAM in the PS2 also caused some issues in the other direction, but yeah, 2x the RAM was a biggie.

To take it back to topic, thinking about the next gen design, I'm thinking if it makes sense to have SPE like cores in the future CPU/GPU hybrid, because that is what I would consider to be the most likely candidate. Then the question is how to divide fixed function, programmable simple shaders, programmable complex shaders (more like SPE) and what kind of memory interface would bind them.

I am thinking that perhaps something not so dissimilar from the EIB could work, in that perhaps all different components could tap into the data-streams in similar ways, simple shaders with groups at the same time in paralel, and complex shaders in smaller numbers or individually, with the option to have the data circulate to make multiple passes, with the ideal case where you could do several full circles within 16ms in order to do multi-pass rendering.

Does this make any sense at all?

 

[(((interference)))]

Wasn't Halo 2 the only game to ever really use the HDD on the original Xbox? Of course, the EDRAM in the PS2 also caused some issues in the other direction, but yeah, 2x the RAM was a biggie.

I'm pretty sure most of the games made use of it, Blinx did and stuff like Morrowind, Far Cry, Doom 3, HL2 etc would have had to.
http://wiki-scene.com/Caching_(Xbox)

To take it back to topic, thinking about the next gen design, I'm thinking if it makes sense to have SPE like cores in the future CPU/GPU hybrid, because that is what I would consider to be the most likely candidate. Then the question is how to divide fixed function, programmable simple shaders, programmable complex shaders (more like SPE) and what kind of memory interface would bind them.

What if they just went with a cutting edge GPU (like Xenos was back then) with as much EDRAM as necessary for 1080p with 2xAA and full HDR (30-40MB?) and loads of bandwidth, with a quad (or maybe 8?) acore Intel/AMD tweaked PC CPU, is there any reason that wouldn't perform as well as Cell? Or is it primarily a cost thing, with something like Cell cheaper to include than a top shelf PC CPU. If it is a cost thing, would it mostly be due to the cost of licensing the design out from Intel/AMD or fabrication costs.

 

[ShadowRunner]

To take it back to topic, thinking about the next gen design, I'm thinking if it makes sense to have SPE like cores in the future CPU/GPU hybrid, because that is what I would consider to be the most likely candidate. Then the question is how to divide fixed function, programmable simple shaders, programmable complex shaders (more like SPE) and what kind of memory interface would bind them.

Have been thinking down similar lines. Current hybrid solutions im aware of have essentially been normal CPU cores just on the same chip. Would it not make sense instead of having say 8xCPU cores + the GPU parts, to have something like a 4xCPUs + 32xSPEs + GPU parts. In theory it would allow higer efficiency where the SPEs could be in use constantly, switching between general or graphics processing workloads where needed. Sort of like unified shaders.

 

[msia2k75]

If NGP is to go by, i doubt we will see another exotic architecture again.

 

[Xenus]

As much as it is more dev friendly I hope they don't go away from exotic architectures. That's what makes the consoles technically interesting instead of a pc in a box.