Predict: The Next Generation Console Tech

[pjbliverpool]

I think that works both ways, though. GTX 580 owners won't consider the per pixel quality of console hardware in their assessments. Like console gamers, they won't know(or care) about the difference.

I'm not sure how that related to my post in any way

 

[Proelite]

The more I think about it, the more I think a stop gap Xbox for 2012 makes complete sense and should have been what MS went along with.

It's a 360 turbo console (6-8x faster) that can play all 360 games at 1080p/60fps. It comes with Kinect 2.0 controller and the latest iteration of the standard controller. Discontinue all models of old 360s and replace them with the ultra slim 360 turbo. Introduce the subscription plan but don't drop the current price.

Take your time and release the Durango in 2014 / whenever TSVs, 3d wafer stacking, 3d ICs, and 20nm nodes becomes economically viable. The 360 turbo should be forwards compatible with Durango games, and backwards compatible with 360 games.

If it becomes clear in 2013 that a market for Durango / cutting edge console is limited, just fallback to the 360 turbo for the next generation.

You compete against Nintendo in the same year and also preempt Sony, who probably can't make console much more powerful in 2013.

 

[gongo]

saw the size and perf. of GTX 670....something like 'dat in PS4 would be gud...wonder if lady luck hates Sony or something...missed the boat on Nvidia rise again (and potential BC)....

 

[RedVi]

...Using a modern Nvidia GPU would not guarantee BC with RSX anymore or less than using a modern AMD GPU. Besides, the problem is pretty much entirely on the CPU side.

 

[Sonic]

The more I think about it, the more I think a stop gap Xbox for 2012 makes complete sense and should have been what MS went along with.

It's a 360 turbo console (6-8x faster) that can play all 360 games at 1080p/60fps. It comes with Kinect 2.0 controller and the latest iteration of the standard controller. Discontinue all models of old 360s and replace them with the ultra slim 360 turbo. Introduce the subscription plan but don't drop the current price.

Take your time and release the Durango in 2014 / whenever TSVs, 3d wafer stacking, 3d ICs, and 20nm nodes becomes economically viable. The 360 turbo should be forwards compatible with Durango games, and backwards compatible with 360 games.

If it becomes clear in 2013 that a market for Durango / cutting edge console is limited, just fallback to the 360 turbo for the next generation.

You compete against Nintendo in the same year and also preempt Sony, who probably can't make console much more powerful in 2013.

Bad idea. If the 360 turbo was 6 - 8x faster than regular 360 then that would be MS's next gen system. There's no need for MS to segment its home market with a 360 turbo model and Durango. They would need to support both, and that would cost them dearly. Sure they have enough money, but there's no reason for two systems.

 

[Proelite]

Bad idea. If the 360 turbo was 6 - 8x faster than regular 360 then that would be MS's next gen system. There's no need for MS to segment its home market with a 360 turbo model and Durango. They would need to support both, and that would cost them dearly. Sure they have enough money, but there's no reason for two systems.

The turbo can be nothing more than a life extension of the 360, it's made to play 360 games at a high res and frame-rate. It's not going to have a blu-ray drive or have games non-compatible with the 360. I would probably drop Kinect 2.0 since that might segment the market like you said. It will have an improved dashboard performance such simultaneous game and dashboard usage, sleep mode, etc.

I don't see how it can segment the market anymore than the 360 S did.

In the case Durango isn't needed, Microsoft can "unlock" the extra power of the 360 turbo so that devs can make game tailored specifically for the turbo and downport to the 360.

I understand that released 360 titles will probably need to be patched. Given logistics, probably a fraction of past 360 titles would be able to run at 1080/60. It's up to the developers to patch their game or support the up-porting of their future titles. I think all developers should be able to do up-porting of their current titles easily, especially if they're multiplatform titles already.

 

[Sonic]

The turbo can be nothing more than a life extension of the 360, it's made to play 360 games at a high res and frame-rate. It's not going to have a blu-ray drive or have games non-compatible with the 360. I would probably drop Kinect 2.0 since that might segment the market like you said. It will have an improved dashboard performance such simultaneous game and dashboard usage, sleep mode, etc.

I don't see how it can segment the market anymore than the 360 S did.

In the case Durango isn't needed, Microsoft can "unlock" the extra power of the 360 turbo so that devs can make game tailored specifically for the turbo and downport to the 360.

I understand that released 360 titles will probably need to be patched. Given logistics, probably a fraction of past 360 titles would be able to run at 1080/60. It's up to the developers to patch their game or support the up-porting of their future titles. I think all developers should be able to do up-porting of their current titles easily, especially if they're multiplatform titles already.

No, the 360 S Turbo would be a new platform if it has more powerful hardware. The Wii is a different platform as Gamecube despite having the same hardware, just Wii 50% faster. If the Turbo has 6 - 8x the power of regular 360 then developers would be all over it making games specific for it. It would end up getting its own exclusive games. Sure, make them forward compatible with Durango. It segments the market because Microsoft would then need to support two platforms once Durango is released. It would also add confusion amongst consumers because they don't know where MS is really headed. And it might just piss a bunch of devs because they will see two platforms with decently powerful hardware from the same company and may also wonder which direction MS wants to go.

As someone who's experienced this before in the industry trust me when I say it can lead to disaster. Of course MS has a lot more money than that other company, which is now a shell of its former self, and would be able to support two new platforms simultaneously. They would pull it off, but it would cost them, and could cost them market share in the end.

The subscription model would work with Durango too, especially Durango.

 

[Blazkowicz]

every upgraded platform failed without exception. the NEC PC Engine whatever-it-is, Sega 32x, Amstrad CPC+, Jaguar CD etc.
or the extra capacities just went unused. I even remember a review for a flight simulator : "this Amiga 1200 version is looking good with thin and nice graphics, but too slow. if you want to play $flight_simulator on your Amiga 1200, buy the Amiga 500 version"

the memory expansion for N64 was somewhat successful, but only served for playing a handful of games.

 

[jonabbey]

every upgraded platform failed without exception. the NEC PC Engine whatever-it-is, Sega 32x, Amstrad CPC+, Jaguar CD etc.
or the extra capacities just went unused. I even remember a review for a flight simulator : "this Amiga 1200 version is looking good with thin and nice graphics, but too slow. if you want to play $flight_simulator on your Amiga 1200, buy the Amiga 500 version"

the memory expansion for N64 was somewhat successful, but only served for playing a handful of games.

Well, every upgraded platform besides the PC and Mac and iOS and Android devices, you mean?

 

[Sonic]

Different markets different rules.

 

[TheWretched]

The Amiga was... middle ground I suppose. But it was never as "big", at least I think it wasn't. When the Amiga 500 waned, and the 600 and 1200 came (as consumer products that is) with the AGA chips, the era of Amiga was over, although it was an upgraded machine. I still love my 1200^

But... the ones mentioned above where ALL addons to old machines, not upgrades as a Wii was to the Gamecube. Fully new machine with perfect (because same hardware) backwards compatibility.

With PC specifically, there never was A platform. There were standards, and that standard still is x86. Windows 7 still runs on a AMD K5 CPU from the mid 90s. Not well, by any means, but it sure does. What game console can (natively!) run any game that is nearly 20 years old? PS3 can do PS1... that's it. The rest do run emulation (anyone with enough CPU power can), though. Or I'll ask the other way around... which old console can play the newer games... but badly? None, other than the phones (and not all of them, either, but that's true on PC, too).

I am asking myself... what were the BEST and the WORST decisions made with releasing new consoles, hardware wise... some say CELL (which I disagree with, at least long term), others say the split memory bank on PS3, whereas 360 has one RAM bank. What would a next gen console have to do to not fall in "any" traps? I don't mean "take the best PC hardware there is and shove it into a box". That's not feasible. I mean like designing a system that is cheap, yet as powerful as can be given the budget. For example on PS3, Sony could've "easily" not have gone with Nvidia and gone with ATI, which would've saved them a lot of anger. That's unfortunate and wasn't an option for them at the time, I suppose.

 

[Blazkowicz]

Stopped reading there, because that's simply not true. PC gaming is going through a bit of a Renaissance at the moment thanks to the stagnation of this generation

I don't think PC gaming ever actually died, there's just a big media echo chamber. consoles, then tablets (which run games slightly better than flash games), etc. but it's been permanently growing ever since the early 90s.
even in third world where they can't afford an x360 or something they go into cybercafés and play PC games.

though I have to admit I lost interest in games, because I found other things to do and abandoned Windows.
Crysis 2 demo killed gaming for me, I wasted time downloading and installing it and.. it was a centrally controlled networked thing, shut down one week after its release
I quickly sold my graphics card after that.

been thinking about buying a Dingoo and playing megadrive, NES and neogeo games on that.

 

[Proelite]

No, the 360 S Turbo would be a new platform if it has more powerful hardware. The Wii is a different platform as Gamecube despite having the same hardware, just Wii 50% faster.

Wii had a new controller that required made forward comparability difficult.

If the Turbo has 6 - 8x the power of regular 360 then developers would be all over it making games specific for it. It would end up getting its own exclusive games.

I am pretty sure most developers, and MS first party would make 360 games first and up-port for the turbo. Most developers would not ignore the 70 million install base, and even if they make a game that takes advantage of the increased hardware power, there won't be enough increase to differentiate it from 360 games run up resed, unless they decide to make a 720/30 game. They'll also be prohibited by MS to make the game specifically for the turbo, both policy-wise, and API-wise.

It segments the market because Microsoft would then need to support two platforms once Durango is released. It would also add confusion amongst consumers because they don't know where MS is really headed. And it might just piss a bunch of devs because they will see two platforms with decently powerful hardware from the same company and may also wonder which direction MS wants to go.

Is MS going to support 360 once Durango is released? If they were planning to support to the 360, they'll support the turbo.

I think 360 bundles with Kinect segmented the market far more a 360 turbo would ever do.

The only risk for MS is that if the turbo failed to prolong the life of the 360, they'll have wasted money on R&Ding the new innards. The cost per unit is alleviated by the fact that they don't have to do a price drop.

The rewards for a turbo are:
1. Additional users, like me, rebuying the console to play Halo 4 and select titles at 1080p/60fps.
2. Re-invigorating 360 like the Slim and Kinect did, and thus keep momentum going until when the successor is released.
3. Force Nintendo to compete with a potential cheaper platform that has arguably better graphics, HDD, and Kinect.
4. Force Sony to compete with a cheaper platform that has graphics that's still relevant. A turbo would have over a teraflop of power. I doubt Sony would be able to achieve anything over 4 teraflops in 2013.
5. Insurance in case the market for cutting edge console collapses.

 

[Blazkowicz]

there's no market case for the Turbo if they include the xbox 360 CPU in the next-gen consoles (let's call it the x720)

concerned players with a huge television set can buy the x720, people who care a bit less can buy an x360 while it's still alive. if the x720 doesn't include x360 CPU or is otherwise uncompatible with it.. then the Turbo and x720 would be eating each other.

also with games coded to the metal, buffer and texture sizes and all, you will have trouble running x360 games at 1080p.
30 fps game at 60 fps game will be impossible because of hard-coded ticks or because you can't have a 6.4GHz Xenon.
basically an x360 Turbo would have been to be planned for back in 2004 and coding practices enforced (resolution agnostic rendertargets, shadow buffers etc.)

 

[Blazkowicz]

But... the ones mentioned above where ALL addons to old machines, not upgrades as a Wii was to the Gamecube. Fully new machine with perfect (because same hardware) backwards compatibility.

actually the Amstrad CPC+, and Nec Supergrafx were both new machines with expanded capabilities, which went complely ignored. the Atari STE or Commodore 128 are other examples.

Amiga 1200 fared much better next to these but by the time it came out the PC, with VGA and optional soundblaster compatible card was beginning to take over.
the nintendo DSi maybe worked in the console space.. maybe not after the novelty effect, I'm not sure if consumers actually cared or even knew it was better than the DS, and now the 3DS is replacing both as a clearly different console.

 

[Proelite]

there's no market case for the Turbo if they include the xbox 360 CPU in the next-gen consoles (let's call it the x720)

concerned players with a huge television set can buy the x720, people who care a bit less can buy an x360 while it's still alive. if the x720 doesn't include x360 CPU or is otherwise uncompatible with it.. then the Turbo and x720 would be eating each other.

The market for the turbo would be the market for the 360, because the turbo would replace the 360 for all the SKUs, and the old 360s would be discontinued. People won't be able to buy OG x360s anymore once the turbo version replaces it.
Turbo = 360 in all scenarios involving BC and market segmentation. The turbo and x720 would not be eating each other more than a x360 and x720 would.

also with games coded to the metal, buffer and texture sizes and all, you will have trouble running x360 games at 1080p.
30 fps game at 60 fps game will be impossible because of hard-coded ticks or because you can't have a 6.4GHz Xenon.
basically an x360 Turbo would have been to be planned for back in 2004 and coding practices enforced (resolution agnostic rendertargets, shadow buffers etc.

Past games would require significant patching, so it's possible that a few and even maybe no past 360 titles would be updated. A consolation would be Halo 4 and future releases in 1080p and 60fps.

6 core OOE PPC with 2-way SMT at 3.2 GHZ+. Maybe poach the Wii-U CPU?
1.5-2GB GDDR3 Ram
7570 GPU at 750 mhz

Would that be enough for 1080p/60fps?

In addition, throw in a 100GB+ HDD and Blu-ray player for movie playback / potential game usage if Durango is canceled.

I would call it Xbox 360+ or Xbox 365.

 

[function]

I would call it Xbox 360+ or Xbox 365.

But this is a leap year!

 

[DuckThor Evil]

The market for the turbo would be the market for the 360, because the turbo would replace the 360 for all the SKUs, and the old 360s would be discontinued.

Do you really think it would be worth it to MS to bring a short lived stop gap solution in to the market which would kill their current profit margins on the hardware or are you suggesting that it would be more expensive than the current models making the cost of entry higher? Why on earth would they discontinue the current model?

I dunno perhaps if this "turbo" machine came out a little sooner as a high end premium SKU supplementing the current line up, it could have been something, but now almost on the verge of next gen it just doesn't sound like a good idea on any level. Reminds me of Sega 32X. I'm sure someone thought that was a great idea

 

[Proelite]

Do you really think it would be worth it to MS to bring a short lived stop gap solution in to the market which would kill their current profit margins on the hardware or are you suggesting that it would be more expensive than the current models making the cost of entry higher? Why on earth would they discontinue the current model?

I dunno perhaps if this "turbo" machine came out a little sooner as a high end premium SKU supplementing the current line up, it could have been something, but now almost on the verge of next gen it just doesn't sound like a good idea on any level. Reminds me of Sega 32X. I'm sure someone thought that was a great idea

Wont they have to drop the price of the 360 soon anyways? If that $50 price drop can be used for some hardware upgrade instead.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

But why bother? This late in the game people buy a 360 because it's cheap and has a ton of games. They don't care about a turbo version slightly better than the old versio but not nearly as good as the machine coming out next year.