Predict: The Next Generation Console Tech

[Docwiz]

Source: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=45204161&postcount=2068

sweetvar26 quote....

Personally, I think it is just not Microsoft but Sony as well. So both the companies will launch simultaneously, will launch anticipating each other's launching period.

The thing that made PS3 debut at a later date was the Blu-ray, it had something different from the other consoles out there claiming a significant hardware advantage.

However with the 720/PS4, both of them will release at very identical specs and price point. It will be a tough decision for the consumer to choose which one to pick. So the fan base goes the either way and I am expecting MS to do better in North America while Sony does better rest of the world.

Everyone wants a next gen console right now, at least most of them. The ones who want are also waiting to see the PS4 and the 720. So the first one that releases will have a significant advantage. Neither of the companies can afford to wait 6 months to an year from the other console. Hence we will see launch at a similar interval too.

This is what I thought would happen with Sony and Microsoft launching at the same time with basically the same specs.

 

[Ruskie]

Well, getting hardware from the same manufacturer with same limitations (TDP, yields, size etc.) leaves very little space for them to one up each other.

 

[MrFox]

Well, getting hardware from the same manufacturer with same limitations (TDP, yields, size etc.) leaves very little space for them to one up each other.

There's still cost versus selling price as a possibility of differentiation.
If one of the companies gamble to absorb a bigger loss per console initially, they could make a more powerful console for the same selling price.

 

[Squilliam]

Is it really a good assumption to think that they would have near the exact same performance characteristics?

 

[V3]

The two "GPU"'s would compete for memory for 1 and a lot of the well written, interesting GPGPU code and shaders today are memory limited, not ALU limited.
If you're putting a separate GPU in the box anyway, why not put the ALU's there, so you can use them for rendering or computation?
The only reasons I can think to do that are either you can't because it's too expensive or hot to have them in that package, or because the ALU's you have on the APU are different than the ALU's on the discrete chip.
Then there is what's your cost reduction plan going forwards?

Maybe I understood the silicon stacking technology wrong, but I thought they're going to stack them together.

Something like APU bottom and GPU on top on an interposer with wide bus to some stacked memory (2GB worth ?) probably giving 200-500GB/s bandwidth.

So like for example
APU: low power 4-8 Jaguar cores with HD7800
GPU: low power HD7900 stacked on top APU
Memory: low power 2GB with 512 bit bus on an interposer with the main 3D stacked chip.

Maybe they can get the whole interposer like that to have less than 250W.

So it's basically just some CPU cores with lots of ALUs connected to a memory with lots of bandwidth.

That's the reason why they delaying next gen till 2014 right ? To have that kind of technology mature a little bit more ?

 

[JasonLD]

Is it really a good assumption to think that they would have near the exact same performance characteristics?

I think there is more chance that next Xbox might ends up being more powerful of the two...although I am just speculating purely based on the fact that MS has more financial flexibility.

 

[Squilliam]

I think there is more chance that next Xbox might ends up being more powerful of the two...although I am just speculating purely based on the fact that MS has more financial flexibility.

It just seems that if they're going for the exact same architecture, they may as well go all the way and use the exact same development environment. What's the point in being so similar when you can be identical?

 

[liolio]

I think there is more chance that next Xbox might ends up being more powerful of the two...although I am just speculating purely based on the fact that MS has more financial flexibility.

Which is why I think it is borderline suicidal for Sony to launch a system that fall short of MSFT product but would end in the same price range.
Sony would not have the perceived advantage to have the most powerful system.
They have the advantage of the free online, but that a double edge weapon, it is money MSFT can use to subsidize its hardware.
They won't have any advantage on the media player department this time around.
And wrt to the whole software environment depending on MSFT politics, they are not in the same ballpark.

Anyway I'm starting to believe that next gen is going to be boring, at least from a technical point of view. A lot of tech is already here waiting for the hardware to catch-up. I hope editors like ubisoft get a say and that gen doesn't last more than the usual ~5 years (so see more than 2 generation of lithography, say they launch @28nm replacement should come not when 14 nm lithography "rough edges" have been smoothed).

I was reading the thread about software rendering and that is interesting, I feel like next gen is going to be a lot of more of same with a strong accent on services and overall software environment. As I see it a lot of the rendering technique available on PC (and costly in hardware resources) are kind of approximated on the ps360. Plenty of people here (geeks) seem to think that it is not enough of a difference (on top of resolution increase,etc.), I wonder what the real casual would say (those that play, don't care much for the tech and do no post on the web).

 

[AlphaWolf]

It just seems that if they're going for the exact same architecture, they may as well go all the way and use the exact same development environment. What's the point in being so similar when you can be identical?

What's the point in being identical? You're not going to be able to run ps4 software on the nextbox anyway.

 

[Squilliam]

What's the point in being identical? You're not going to be able to run ps4 software on the nextbox anyway.

What's the point in having two separate development teams with separate development schedules when they are developing essentially the same console? Why not simply shake hands and halve the costs between them? This is why I doubt the idea that the two consoles will be so similar as Microsoft and Sony have different development priorities and different eco-systems. The similarity between the 360 and PS3 has to be a fluke.

 

[JasonLD]

The similarity between the 360 and PS3 has to be a fluke.

It wasn't a fluke. Sony was forced to go with Nvidia to be on the same level with 360 since they couldn't meet the performance target with 2 Cell processors.

 

[MrFox]

It wasn't a fluke. Sony was forced to go with Nvidia to be on the same level with 360 since they couldn't meet the performance target with 2 Cell processors.

When was it supposed to have 2 Cells? Was it before 2002, or was it planned as a combination of Toshiba chip plus an additional Cell?

From what I can remember, the nvidia contract was announced in 2004, and they were working on RSX for an unknown amount of time when it was publicly announced. There was information that Toshiba was supposed to do the GFX chip in 2002, but they failed for some reason and Sony turned to Nvidia. They can't have "reacted" to the xbox specs, they weren't known at the time.

Which brings me to the question, how is it that ALL the partnerships this time are secret (rumors and leaks, nothing is confirmed yet), while back then we didn't have specs, but at least we had announcement years in advance about which company got the contract for the CPU and GPU, and even the RAM (Rambus announced the Sony contract a long time before it came out) We have zero official source less than a year from launch. It boggles the mind.

 

[RedVi]

Because they're all using AMD?

 

[BRiT]

We have zero official source less than a year from launch. It boggles the mind.

Who says it's less than a year to launch of both next-gen XBox or Playstation?

 

[MrFox]

Who says it's less than a year to launch of both next-gen XBox or Playstation?

Ok good point, add this to the list of things we don't know, and is based on rumors.

In 2004 Sony had already said officially that they planned to launch the PS3 in late 2006, and we knew of all the partnerships, and even the Cell's preliminary specs. We're december 2012 and all they say is "We focus on the PS3 right now and have nothing to announce for next gen". While the games companies confimed that they have been playing with dev kits for quite some time now. We can't be that far. This is no rumor, I know personally people who have been working with Dev kits of both consoles for a while, so it's definitely not a 2015 launch. I'd accept 2014 though, but 2013 is the most probable. I mean you don't get a dev kit 4 years in advance, that'd be stupid.

 

[MrFox]

It's a little off topic, but I just figured out that Sony Chemicals, which was sold off this year, was the division producing their state of the art interposers substrate, at the Neagari Plant (which is part of Sony Chemicals). It could mean they simply don't have/need their edge on the competition with interposer? Otherwise they wouldn't have sold off that unit if it was a core part of the playstation production. My conjecture is based on their plan of focusing all their capex on Imaging, Mobile and Playstation. Imaging plants make their own stacking, Vita stacking didn't need an interposer, mobile is not using their own chips, so PS4 doesn't need Sony Chemicals interposer tech either? My wish for an interposer revolution is going down the drain. Or maybe I misinterpreted everything.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Do they need to own the company to use the tech?

 

[MrFox]

I guess not... I assume we're back to waiting for TSMC to be able to make 2.5D stuff in good volume (which I read would be 2014+). Or maybe the interposer is about to become low profit margin, that there's no gain to make them themselves? Or the edge they claimed to have is not related to the interposer substrate itself, but something higher in the production?

It's just that TSMC was supposed to be not ready on time for 2013-2014 consoles, but Sony claimed to be more advanced. Maybe what happened is the opposite of what I thought, that TSMC advanced faster than expected. So there's still hope. I initially thought it meant Sony gave up about the tech, why claim to be pioneers in an area and then sell of the division?

 

[Docwiz]

What's the point in being identical? You're not going to be able to run ps4 software on the nextbox anyway.

I have nothing to add to this conversation except for the fact I have always been hoping that Microsoft and Sony would join forces and have one platform instead of two. A lot of Sony fans gave me grief when I mentioned that both companies should save money and resources and combine their efforts into one machine.

It's too late for that now, but that is what I always wanted. So we can just play games and not platforms.

 

[SKYSONY]

I think the "same power" argument can´t be true. I believe is something some Sony fans have been toying with since the company´s financials are weak and hence a strong investment in hard wouldn´t make much sense.

If the MS proyect is on a higher priority for AMD, I asume at least Durango won´t be weaker than Orbis.