Predict: The Next Generation Console Tech

[Rangers]

Todays hot new rumors http://www.next-gen.biz/news/next-generation-arrive-2012

Ubisoft Montreal is hard at work on 'target boxes' based on the intended specifications of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 successor, according to an Edge source. Delivery of the first iteration of genuine devkits, running custom hardware, is expected to reach studios before Christmas, and all signs point to the finalised console arriving at retail in late 2012.

Ubisoft’s teams are said to be working on PCs containing off-the-shelf components provided by Microsoft, and it’s our understanding that several other major developers, including certain EA studios, are also in possession of these target boxes. While our source was unable to share precise specifications, it is believed that AMD is providing the bespoke GPU solution for Microsoft’s console. A Ubisoft spokesperson said: "We do not comment on rumour and speculation."

We can also reveal that one major Sony-owned studio has now ceased PlayStation 3 development, its entire focus having shifted to the console’s successor. The studio is also said to have been involved in the development process of the graphics technology adopted by Sony’s new hardware.

I think Edge may have the gist of it right, these rumors seem more reasonable to me than other recent ones, but the timing (which they seem speculative on anyway) wrong, as I've stated countless times I think 12 is completely out of the question for next xbox, for lots of logical reasons (halo 4, lack of leaks, etc) but at least this gives me renewed hope in 2013.

Also will say I've held steadfast against all the ARM and even to some extent, SOC nonsense and said next box will likely sport a traditional IBM CPU and AMD GPU in my opinion, looks like this report agrees at least on the GPU

 

[Dominik D]

LOL yeah, supposedly if you hit Warp 10 you achieve infinite speed & occupy every place in the universe at the same time. Hate that they went there in Voyager. It's always been the worst episode of the series.

Tommy McClain

[trekkie]Actually Warp 10+ allows you to travel through time (see: USS Relativity). [/trekkie]


But back to topic: What Rangers quotes looks to me like the first legit rumor. Most stuff to date was either "obvious" (manufacturers are working on new consoles - yay!) or "bogus" (Win9 on board).

 

[DuckThor Evil]

I think Edge may have the gist of it right, these rumors seem more reasonable to me than other recent ones, but the timing (which they seem speculative on anyway) wrong, as I've stated countless times I think 12 is completely out of the question for next xbox, for lots of logical reasons (halo 4, lack of leaks, etc) but at least this gives me renewed hope in 2013.

I wouldn't bet on 2012 either, but is there a chance that Halo 4 could actually be a launch title for the Next box in 2012? Would they start a new trilogy on 360 just to continue it shortly after on the successor? Halo 4 as a launch title would be pretty big. We haven't really seen anything of the game yet have we?

 

[Rangers]

Here's another thing, with Siri, and all the Kinect voice stuff, why not build voice recognition directly in the next Xbox?

Would seem pretty nifty for basic commands like "Xbox on" or what have you.

They need two mics spaced apart right? Maybe they could do that in the front of the console.

 

[Rangers]

I wouldn't bet on 2012 either, but is there a chance that Halo 4 could actually be a launch title for the Next box in 2012? Would they start a new trilogy on 360 just to continue it shortly after on the successor? Halo 4 as a launch title would be pretty big. We haven't really seen anything of the game yet have we?

Nah but Frankie confirmed literally days ago on neogaf that H4 is a 360 game. http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=32626761&postcount=910

GAF's favorite theory seems to be that Halo 4 will be on both current and next box on launch, a twilight princess GC/Wii scenario. Of course I find that incredibly unlikely. Although Frankie's post doesn't explicitly state ONLY on 360 I suppose, it implies as much.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Ok thanks for the info.

 

[TheChefO]

Nah but Frankie confirmed literally days ago on neogaf that H4 is a 360 game. http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=32626761&postcount=910

GAF's favorite theory seems to be that Halo 4 will be on both current and next box on launch, a twilight princess GC/Wii scenario. Of course I find that incredibly unlikely. Although Frankie's post doesn't explicitly state ONLY on 360 I suppose, it implies as much.

Some of you guys are forgetting that whole "forward compatible" mantra that was being bantered about some time ago ...


Just because Halo4 is "for xbox360" doesn't mean it isn't also "for xb720" ...

Granted, I wouldn't expect a ton of improvement when running on the newer console (*higher res, higher frame-rate, higher res textures, filtering, AA, better mip-map levels), but the improvements would be there and would be a nice excuse for the more rabid Halo fans to grab the newer console with the improved experience.

In fact, for launch software I wouldn't expect much more than this* anyway. As we saw with xb360's launch.

Or there's the possibility that they repackage Halo4 (special edition) at the time of launch with higher res assets on a BR disk ala Twilight Princess which launched on both GC and Wii at the same time.

 

[AzBat]

Some of you guys are forgetting that whole "forward compatible" mantra that was being bantered about some time ago ...


Just because Halo4 is "for xbox360" doesn't mean it isn't also "for xb720" ...

It hasn't been something I forgot. I agree with those on GAF about they don't explicitly say only just 360. They're being cautious & don't want to cannibalize current system. I would be very surprised if Halo 4 doesn't work on 720.

Tommy McClain

 

[Shifty Geezer]

They could easily work on two versions in parallel if hardware compatibility isn't wanted for business reasons (non-PPC CPU for example).

 

[TheChefO]

They could easily work on two versions in parallel if hardware compatibility isn't wanted for business reasons (non-PPC CPU for example).

They could, I just don't see the benefit of abandoning the ppc arch.

The only real alternatives would be Arm or x86.

Benefits for Arm being power conservation and cross compatible OS for winphone/win8.
Benefits for x86 would be compatibility with win8.
Benefits for ppc would be BC/FC & design ownership.

If MS plan on abandoning the razor blade model completely and sell hardware day-one at or above cost, then x86/Arm become viable as selling the xbox as an alternative to a full blown PC would net them another potential revenue stream for Windows8. (while also potentially angering their hardware partners)

But this would be to the detriment of the investment consumers have in xb360 digital/physical content without compatibility for the existing codebase.

The logical method may be to utilize a hybrid approach. Use Arm for a multitude of other benefits while keeping PPC at the core for gaming purposes.

Let the OS run on Arm. This lets cross compatibility exist for winphone8 and wintablet8. It also lets them have potentially strong anti-piracy. And a low power state to wake from and perform functions in the background. Nothing fantastic or expensive, just a simple, frequency scalable, single-core Arm 500mhz-1ghz processor.

This chip could also be utilized for movie playback and simple browsing of the dash/web.

Then for games, a scaled up version of the 3core ppc (6 core ) would do the trick, again with the brunt of the silicone budget spent on the GPU.

IMHO

 

[3dilettante]

I don't think it's a good idea to run a system environment across two independent architectures.
The OS and apps will need to interact on system calls, and that overhead can be prohibitive without adding a hop across architectures.
There is no effort on the part of ARM or IBM to keep a lot of system details and behaviors consistent, so that could go wrong as well.

Then there's paying two licensing fees for the same system.
What would be the benefit from this?

 

[TheChefO]

I don't think it's a good idea to run a system environment across two independent architectures.
The OS and apps will need to interact on system calls, and that overhead can be prohibitive without adding a hop across architectures.
There is no effort on the part of ARM or IBM to keep a lot of system details and behaviors consistent, so that could go wrong as well.

Then there's paying two licensing fees for the same system.
What would be the benefit from this?

I think I outlined the benefits pretty well.

 

[3dilettante]

You did.
That last sentence is my mistake. I was not paying full attention to what was left in the text as I was writing and deleting portions of my post.

 

[Svensk Viking]

Perhaps this is a dumb question(I am no tech head)...But if Microsoft has DX11.2 cooking, or even DX12, and aims to have it out in a year or two, should that have any meaningful impact on the Xbox 3's GPU?

I mean, if Microsoft wants to promote a new DirectX version, the Xbox 3 having it as well would surely help with speeding things up?

 

[archangelmorph]

Consoles don't need DirectX style APIs...

Give me a raw command list API any day of the week...

 

[Prophecy2k]

Todays hot new rumors http://www.next-gen.biz/news/next-generation-arrive-2012

We can also reveal that one major Sony-owned studio has now ceased PlayStation 3 development, its entire focus having shifted to the console’s successor. The studio is also said to have been involved in the development process of the graphics technology adopted by Sony’s new hardware.

This makes it sound like the studio was involved in the GPU design... could that be an indication of some very exotic, i.e. not-off-the shelf GPU for PS4?

Perhaps Shifty will get his Uber multicore PowerVR APU yet

 

[Arwin]

Going by current Sony trends, something exotic should not be expected at all. If anything, you'd expect Vita to be an indication of where Sony is going - Vita too came together with big input from a lot of first and third party input, with a strong focus on ease of development, and ended up a lot of off the shelf parts. It will be interesting to see where this goes. My personal preference from a geek point of view would just be to take it from where they were with Cell and go towards its natural progression, which would be an EIB type structure where all CPU/GPU components (PPE/ARM, SPE, VPU, ROP, whatever) have 'ring-style' access to, while at the same time providing a well performing abstraction layer that matches PC DirectX11/2 style architecture close enough to do easy ports. But how likely is that?

 

[Masuta]

NeoGAF are currently discussing these specs in regards to a new XBox -

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=452095&page=30

CPU : IBM Power 710

- Architecture : IBM POWER7

- Cores : 6 Core

- Clockspeed : 3.72 GHz

GPU : Custom AMD Radeon HD Graphics

- Configuration : Single Die Dual Core

- Clockspeed : 750MHz

- Daughter Die : Renesas Electronics 100MB eDRAM

RAM : 2GB 512-Bit GDDR5 256GB/s (Unified Memory Architecture)

 

[msia2k75]

NeoGAF are currently discussing these specs in regards to a new XBox -

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=452095&page=30

CPU : IBM Power 710

- Architecture : IBM POWER7

- Cores : 6 Core

- Clockspeed : 3.72 GHz

GPU : Custom AMD Radeon HD Graphics

- Configuration : Single Die Dual Core

- Clockspeed : 750MHz

- Daughter Die : Renesas Electronics 100MB eDRAM

RAM : 2GB 512-Bit GDDR5 256GB/s (Unified Memory Architecture)

 

[Dominik D]

One more thought on the legitimacy of the Infinity and Loop rumors... AFAIK there has been sort of a direct order inside MS to have geography-inspired code names for projects (hence: Natal). There's obviously less legal troubles in case of leak when you have Project Kathmandu or Project Chomolungma than Project Coca-Cola or Project Porsche.