I don't think you understood me. I asked the question because GTA is ~25 mil seller and I think the question of what happens if one of the consoles where half of those games are sold on doesn't get the game, or gets the game that is severely downgraded is legitimate.
You are answering me, right?
Well the thing is not really technical as Shifty pointed out but let get there quickly.
Imo the situation get so tense this gen with comparisons made between every single games released between the 360 and the ps3 because the systems are so damned close and that matter of fact didn't match the initial manufacturers claims. Both consoles are also almost in the same price bracket. 360 is cheaper but to match (or exceed depending on one pov) the basic ps3 offering you need to spend extra on a HDD and pay the Live Gold subscription fee.
I no longer care at all for the comparisons that are made across the web, and it's been a long while ago that I quit ready those papers, my belief is that most of the gamers no longer care either, it's mostly fanboys interest or legit interest from people owning both systems.
Point is there are many reason for people to expect the same performances out of the PS3 and the 360. I don't think costumer are that dumb (in Europe it seems clear to me that costumers are seeing through the 360 low price and consider the TCO of the system, may be a more price sensitive market than US) that they would expect the same performances out of two systems in different price brackets. The obvious counter part to that is that the price have to be really different. Looking at the leaked specs sheet (which I'm not sure what to think about it, I lay more on the fake side for now), even if MSFT subsidizes it, Sony has a clear shot to be cheaper.
For me "cheap" would be to aim at the same price as the Wii, which is 249$ for the complete SKU.
Looking at it from a, let say, "soft" core pov, a complete SKU for me is the system, a controller and a HDD. Fighting on price all means keep the PSN free ( and to make money with an upgraded PSN+). For Sony that means selling at best in the grey or subsidizing lightly, at first. They should make it in a way that they have a margin to further lower the price if needed (may be plan to be able to match the 50$ rebate MSFT offers every year at fall).
The implication of this on the hardware pov is that it has to be cheap. That is why I though of a dual APUs set-up, possibly using even some salvaged parts, and plain entry level DDR3 or DDR4. In any case if Durango specs are anything like the leak we got, Sony has to find its path to costumers living room as if they were to manufacture such a system, they would have to sell it at a higher, significantly higher imo, price point than MSFT. That is the sad reality about their financial situation now, they are in a dreadful situation. Worse is the fact that if they were to match (financial data aside) MSFT, the latter may still have beefy hedge on them thanks to the overall environment they are providing or could provide along with the product main offering (games to make it clear).
The system could run some form of Windows 8, interact with the devices still popular in our house hold, like laptops, desktop, and more depending on their success in the embedded realm.
Windows 8 comes with a market place, I could see MSFT making it so it is trivial to provide XBLA kind of games on all their platforms. Sony has its playstation suite but the extend of the push and the achievable reach of the project is not in the same ballpark.
You said that industry has room for one cheap core console, and what games is that cheap core console gonna get when the majority that buy that console expect it to get games like GTA, AC, RDR, COD etc. What if it doesn't get those games? I mean, Dreamcast failed the same way. 3rd party rushed on PS2 side and since Dreamcast (nor the PS or Xbox for that matter) never had 1st party appeal of Nintendo and fan base that will buy it no matter what because of titles like Mario, Zelda and Metroid, it failed.
point 1, it is not that I said that the industry has room for a cheap console, it is a fact, consoles sell the most when they are getting cheap.
The Dreamcast is a completely different matter, Sega were broke and made too many bad decisions before the release of the Dreamcast that jeopardized its financial health (sadly Sony is for me doing a lot of the same crap, I disagree with what they did with the PSV among other things...).
I can not envision a world where if you have a system which is profitable for editors (so significant user base even if the user base has been built only on the merit of affordability instead of technical prowess or other considerations) where editors would pass on such a system. Going further, I don't envision a world where editors would alienate, on top of one established system, a lot of PC gamers either.
The increase in GPUs perfs has significantly slow down, more and more people buy laptop instead of desktop, within a few years IGP may become more relevant than they ever been to PC developers. The same editors will have access to a market place in Windows 8 to make costumers aware of their products, etc. In my views there is a dynamic that makes that I can't see requirement in the PC world increase significantly. The bottom line is to raise as sooner than latter APUs will be freed of their severe bandwidth constrain, thing is the mass market will run APUs (most laptop, and even desktop).
From a more technical pov, I can't see how a properly design system, even cheap, would fail to run any games. There would be down grade, in resolution, some effect would be toned down and so on, but I can't see why a game could not run. The most visible thing to the average joe I would say is asset quality, in case on a cheap system fed on DDR3/4 having a more than reasonable amount of RAM would be easily provided. If anything it may be wise to sacrifice bandwidth for the sake of RAM size (and so running the same assets as PC and the competition), it's economical on top of it, bandwidth is expansive.
It all comes down to " you get what you are paying for", the difference in visual perception has to be matched by the difference in system price, service price (live gold vs free psn), and may be even games prices. Sony is in my opinion in survival mode, they may cut their royalties for the sake of user base and remaining relevant, from there once the company is stabilized rebound on the user base they could consolidate . They have to put themselves in a situation where they know they have a significant price hedge across the whole board, a price hedge MSFT can't reasonably match (not too mention that the entertainment division is now a profit center and usually tough to do a 180 in the face on investors after years of losses).
I do believe Sony is asking themselves the same question. They can't let it go and go for very cheap and modest console now that they cemented their position in gaming market for last 3 gens. And anyway, I doubt that they are going to release something like that. They can build quite nice machine that won't be left far behind and still not break bank. All rumors point to that direction anyway...MS can't go that much beyond of what Sony is currently shooting for for obvious reasons.
For me you want them to bankrupt them selves. They are no longer on an equal footing as MSFT, MSFT won USA, Sony financial state is dreadful and so on. Like Nintendo they have to find their take on this market, they can no longer use "brute force" (or brute financial force).
I fail to see the direction you are speaking about, the rumors about Sony are a bit all over the place but it seems lately clear that MSFT might end with something significantly powerful.
There are a lot of wishful thinking but how many time we heard that MSFT system will pack more CPU power, more ram and so on. We got pretty iffy rumors, close to the noise threshold imho, about Sony having a better GPUs. Overall if I had to bet now, based on noises and rumors as every body else, I would not put a dime on Sony delivering a more powerful system than MSFT and that on any metric.
Imo if it is to be out gunned on all acounts: specs, subsidizing power, software environment and so on, I don't see something based on an A10 as a good omen, it is big and power hungry for what it does and as such it bites significantly into the GPU silicon and power budget, and BOM.
), but you had a few wrong numbers for Trinity's GPU part (in runs at 800 MHz) in there. Just to be correct:
