dragonelite
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I was told that sony doesn't even own major part of the bluray patents anymore.
Not sure if that is even right?
Predict: The Next Generation Console Tech
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I was told that sony doesn't even own major part of the bluray patents anymore.
Not sure if that is even right?
What. I just linked an article referencing the iSupply report, according to which RAM cost was just 12,4% of the whole Bill of Materials.
MS can say whatever to Epic, they knew from the start that Gears of War was going to be the number 1 userbase builder for them, and that money would come back manyfold.
I've always heard they're but one patent holder of many in the technology (think Panasonic is another), although I always assumed they're one of the biggest.
Back to the RAM topic, I think it's a tradeoff. The costs will come down and it should help you later in the generation technically, is it worth the slower sales start caused by tacked on dollars to the initial price? That is the seesaw the platform makers must judge. It probably also depends a lot on the competition. If you already have significantly more RAM than the other guy, at some point you're probably just increasing your costs without benefit by adding more. OTOH if you're deficient like the 360 256MB example, it's probably crucial to increase.
Personally I'm always a more grunt guy, I would rather see a console launch at even 499 and be beefier.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-08-24-sonys-shuhei-yoshida-interview?page=2 suggests that PS4 will be a minimum of 2 years after the Vita launch, likely 3. That would suggest late 2014 / 2015 for PS4. Still seems a *very* long time from now to be honest, but it fits the vibes we've been getting from the industry so far.
Let's look at this another way using your iSuppli figures. Given a BOM of $525, that was apportioned 27% to GPU, 20% to CPU, and 12% to RAM. This 12% was the third largest single component. Doubling the RAM within the same cost would have increased the RAM's portion to 24%, and you'd have had to cut back somewhere else. The rest of the components don't give you much leeway, and the mobo didn't look particularly expensive where you could make savings there, so you'd have toreduce the CPU or GPU. Do you really think XB360 would be better off overall with more RAM and less GPU performance? Lower resolutions and poorer framerates for the sake of better textures? I wouldn't go with that. The only other option was to increase the intial price. That'd mean either slowing adoption considerably, or losing a lot more money until the RAM becomes cheap enough for you to break even. It'd slow price reductions right down. As you say, the majority of consoles have sold at the end of the consoles lifecycle. This is because it is much cheaper than at launch. the added RAm would slow that adoption right down. Now if it would extend the life of the platform another two years, that reduction would probably be a net gain. But if the platform still looks long in the tooth because graphics have moved on, and a new platform is on the horizon, it could seriously backfire.
I won't say console designers always make the right decisions, but the argument in favour of more RAM is not cut-and-dry, and I'm sure they looked at the figures and the projections and the choices were very rational. The choice of how much RAM is something of a gamble, and considering all the other aspects of making a console a success, such as software and features, money spent on RAM could well see better use applied elsewhere.
I'm pretty sure Microsoft will launch in late 2013, 8 years after Xbox 360, 3 years after Kinect launch, and 1 year after Windows 8. 2013 seems a sweet-spot to me for them.
No offense but, to me we've kind of reached that point imo. There's many signs, UC3 isnt that big a jump from UC2, nor KZ3 from KZ2. In contrast both UC2 and KZ2 were quite astonishing upon reveal. They were big leaps. now we only are getting small leaps. The underwhelming look of BF3 console relative to PC is another. Forza 4 is another game that maybe it looks nice, but it's not blowing my mind relative to Forza 3 despite the hype. Will we see minor continued improvement? Of course, but nothing that's blowing my mind like titles in 2006, 2007, 2008.
We're still getting small improvements, but the lions share seems to be done, and 512MB RAM is a pretty hard cap that no amount of fancy programming defeats. We are in a mature generation. Now of course whether Sony in this case admits it or denies it for a while because of prior strategy timelines, is another matter....
Then they might as well not bother until the next next-generation.
Two to 3 years after each of your competitors have a chance to build up an installed base?
You wonder how a PS3 will sell compared to next-gen Nintendo and MS consoles. Sure it will be cheaper but this gen is pretty saturated -- probably a lot of sales now are replacement sales. There may not be much of a Playstation business left if they wait that long, unless the Vita is a runaway hit, which nobody really expects.
DRAM prices are at one cent/MB, the price premium for 4GB vs 2GB is just $20, similarly $40 for 4GB vs. 8GB. In two years time, when next gen happens, prices will be half a cent per MB. The price will continue to fall exponentially.
Cheers
I can safely say that my current BB connection gives me significantly less that 8gbps!
Is that the price premium or the cost premium.
Often an incremental cost of $10 translates into something like $50 incremental price increase.
You cut off my next sentence where I said it was the right choice!
As you say, the platform was stronger as a result and has remained highly competitive with a newer and more expensive platform. There was a big upfront commitment to spending though, with an uncertain return. So it was a gamble, and MS (with some encouragement) made the right call.
Surely this still differs depending on the type of ram, and demand for that ram though?
I'm changing the topic completely to PAD. Internet is a weird thing and thanks to Kotaku I found out this "Avenger controller add-on". I don't know if anyone here tried but it struck my curiosity.
I went out to watch some video/review of it on youtube. To my surprise return are good and while having never experienced it in practice I can see the greatness in the design.
So the question do you think that this should be made standard next in a native, even more ergonomic fashion? I could see this fix some of lacking of the 360 pad design, the non symetric placement of the analogue stick. I could also this allowing a way more convinient use of the side buttons which always ask me to move my hand to reach.
Obviously it can continue as an add-on but native implementation may allow for way fancier design.
It looks scary but I really feel that there is greatness in the idea.
I went out to watch some video/review of it on youtube. To my surprise return are good and while having never experienced it in practice I can see the greatness in the design.
So the question do you think that this should be made standard next in a native, even more ergonomic fashion? I could see this fix some of lacking of the 360 pad design, the non symetric placement of the analogue stick. I could also this allowing a way more convinient use of the side buttons which always ask me to move my hand to reach.
Obviously it can continue as an add-on but native implementation may allow for way fancier design.
It looks scary but I really feel that there is greatness in the idea.
You're mixing up price and cost. The cost of DRAM is almost exclusively defined by die size and process tech and thus the DRAM array itself regardless of what interface is slapped onto it.
Cheers
Yes, I'm a little confused. When you say that "DRAM prices are at one cent/MB" do you mean this is how much it costs to manufacture?
I hadn't stopped to think that, like with processors, die size and process are the only things that matter (and that different memory types must use exactly the same manufacturing processes). Speed binning is a separate issue.
This is a massive exageration. Yes the SPU's add a ton of SIMD power which is good for certain non-graphics related tasks to greater or lesser degrees depending on who you talk to. But if you look at cells ability to handle general, none SIMD code then either core of that Core2 makes Cell look like a toy.
Cells great if you want your CPU to act like a GPU but if you just want a great CPU that isn't going to spend all it's time on GPU type tasks then it's arguable if it's any better at all.
Or put another way, IF the PS3 had contained an 8800GTX, would developers have made better use of that alondside a powerful general purpose CPU like the Core 2 or Cell?
Yes and there are tons more where the 360 CPU is massively outperformed by Core 2 based CPU's. And given the hugely greater level of optimisation Xenon would recieve compared to specific PC CPU's, plus the addiitonal API overhead PC CPU's need to deal with compared to consoles I'm not sure what conclusions you're trying to draw from the handful of games that seems to perform better on Xenon (incidentally, Lost Planet certainly didn't perform any worse on my E6600).
I doubt there are many serious developers out there that wouldn't have been happier to see a Core 2 in the 360 rather than Xenon. PS3's different given how much RSX needed the extra graphics umph cell could deliver.
Shuhei Yoshida can say what he likes about when Sony would *like* to launch their new console, but in practice both Sony and MS are inevitably going to be playing chicken as to who moves first to bear the costs of introducing a new generation.
My guess is that Shuhei is directing his comments more to Microsoft than to anyone else, and the message is 'please, please hold off on starting a new generation!'.
He was talking about roar powah, and he was wrong. That's really all there was to it. He was chest beating, and seemed unaware that Cell does actually have some pretty huge strengths.
The point about Lost Planet was directed at his claims that optimisation and the various Windows related overheads meant nothing ("no matter it has to run Windows XP"). Actually it does matter, and it matters even more on Vista / Win7. The fact that there are titles where his PC loses out, performs about the same or performs marginally better show that, infact, overheads and optimisation make a big difference!
Edit: Oh yeah, and 64-bit CPU PhysX on an Athlon 64. Hahaha!
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