Predict: The Next Generation Console Tech

[Proelite]

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.

They dont care but they'll be forced to buy it regardless if they want to play 360 games.

Then you'll have people like me wholl rebuy it for the res and framerate increase.

If Durango isnt going to happen turn the switch and have the turbo be the next gen.

Like I said before the only risk is the R&D cost.

 

[AlphaWolf]

They dont care but they'll be forced to buy it regardless if they want to play 360 games.

Then you'll have people like me wholl rebuy it for the res and framerate increase.

If Durango isnt going to happen turn the switch and have the turbo be the next gen.

there aren't enough of you to warrant a new sku, the cost to benefit ratio isn't there.

 

[Proelite]

there aren't enough of you to warrant a new sku, the cost to benefit ratio isn't there.

People rebuying the xbox is secondary, I've already listed the other potential benefits of such a refresh earlier. Feel free to adress them. I would also avoid calling it a sku as it be the default 360 for all skus.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

But where is the gain? There wont be millions of people rebuying a 360 just for some extra power and that group will be even smaller as probably most games won't be patched to take advantage of the extra power. The group who's buying a 360 for the first time doesn't care about gfx so a more powerfull 360 doesn't matter to them and is just a waste of profit.

So basically only people who could be botherd rebuying a slightly more powerfull 360 would care. And there won't be millions of them. In all other cases it's just a waste of money.

 

[AlphaWolf]

People rebuying the xbox is secondary, I've already listed the other potential benefits of such a refresh earlier. Feel free to adress them. I would also avoid calling it a sku as it be the default 360 for all skus.

Benefits to who? What is the benefit to MS? What is the benefit to developers? Benefits to the few who are willing to pay more to buy an upgraded box which won't have any software support? Maybe some AA, maybe a higher FPS?

There's no upside of any significance, it makes no sense.

 

[Proelite]

Benefits to who? What is the benefit to MS? What is the benefit to developers? Benefits to the few who are willing to pay more to buy an upgraded box which won't have any software support? Maybe some AA, maybe a higher FPS?

There's no upside of any significance, it makes no sense.

The real hurdle would be upgrading the 360 to 1080p/60fps capable for Halo 4 with a $50 budget on parts. I think I got over-optimistic on what it takes to enable 1080p/60fps for 360 games.

 

[AlphaWolf]

No the real hurdle would be getting any significant number of people to pay extra for an upgraded SKU to warrant developers even bothering to make any effort at all to support it. You need to convince millions of people to upgrade, or prove that there are millions waiting to buy into the xbox platform if only the games were higher resolution or had better AA or something. I don't think there's that many people who will jump in just because they release a new box to run halo at 1080p.

 

[Proelite]

Point taken.

 

[almighty]

No the real hurdle would be getting any significant number of people to pay extra for an upgraded SKU to warrant developers even bothering to make any effort at all to support it. You need to convince millions of people to upgrade, or prove that there are millions waiting to buy into the xbox platform if only the games were higher resolution or had better AA or something. I don't think there's that many people who will jump in just because they release a new box to run halo at 1080p.

They could market it as being 'True/Full HD'

 

[steviep]

They could market it as being 'True/Full HD'

Both Sony and MS played that card at the beginning of this generation. I would like to see them play it again when the most likely predominant resolution of next gen will be (non-subHD) 720p.

 

[Proelite]

Both Sony and MS played that card at the beginning of this generation. I would like to see them play it again when the most likely predominant resolution of next gen will be (non-subHD) 720p.

New Buzzword: Dynamic resolution.

 

[babybumb]

Both Sony and MS played that card at the beginning of this generation. I would like to see them play it again when the most likely predominant resolution of next gen will be (non-subHD) 720p.

If next-gen will sub 720p standard Wii U ports will have to be stripped down low settings at sub 480p. ugh.

 

[XpiderMX]

Epic want a "non-api" world... Can Durango be a "C++ AMP" console (no Direct3D)?

 

[Proelite]

Epic want a "non-api" world... Can Durango be a "C++ AMP" console (no Direct3D)?

How will porting work then? Wouldn't it also make development harder? Have we learned any lessons from this generation?

 

[XpiderMX]

How will porting work then? Wouldn't it also make development harder? Have we learned any lessons from this generation?

Epic (Tim Sweeney) want 100% software rendering: http://graphics.cs.williams.edu/archive/SweeneyHPG2009/TimHPG2009.pdf

 

[steviep]

If next-gen will sub 720p standard Wii U ports will have to be stripped down low settings at sub 480p. ugh.

No, I think most developers of your standard Michael-Bay-film games will actually hit a more consistent 720p this gen. The simpler games (a la Rayman/NSMB/LBP/etc) will likely hit 1080p.

We want 100% software rendering

Good luck with getting the industry to follow that one, Tim.

 

[Blazkowicz]

He thinks long term, with nice concepts such the four layers of execution. one of them deals with functional-only code (think Haskell or strict ML variant). all for a converged many-core endgame.

this is for next-next gen I believe.
for now Intel is the single one company that has a working many-core CPU, and it's meant for HPC more than graphics.

for next-gen all rumors point to classical CPU (not different in concept from a quad pentium pro set up from 15 years ago) and the current crop of GPGPU, that still have the ROP and TMU from the Voodoo Graphics days. (omitting them will just make your performance tank and you end up with something hot and slow like Larrabee)

 

[XpiderMX]

What if Unreal Engine 4 is C++ AMP based? Microsoft is promoting C++ AMP in Visual Studio 2011 and Eric Mejdrich (currently working at Microsoft) have been working in a "Network on Chip" for IBM (PowerPC A2?).

 

[MrFox]

Developers like Epic are in some kind of uneasy conflict with hardware manufacturers. Their ideal world is where all consoles have similar hardware performance, they are selling both games and multi-platform engine. On the other hand, Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo want to have a significant differentiation in hardware, ideally up to the point where a popular game is either not possible or inferior on competitors hardware. At the very least, first party games need to be superior to third parties. That's not going to happen if the hardware is very similar.

Not sure how to reconcile the two from their perspective. But from my gamer's perspective, I love the competitiveness of hardware platforms, buying hardware for less than their production cost is fun, they must continue to shower me with gifts if they want me to remain a fanboy

 

[kagemaru]

Good luck with getting the industry to follow that one, Tim.

While I agree that it'll be some time before this happens, to be fair he's not the only developer I've seen that wants to move back to software rendering. Could have sworn both John Carmack and Corrine Yu have made comments about it in the past. Even when computing power reaches a point that it's a viable option, I wonder if engine complexity will always create a need for APIs within the industry.