Predict: The Next Generation Console Tech

[ERP]

MS bought the design rather than the chips so than it could avoid the headache of Intel refusing to lower the price of the chips, right?

It's a bit more than that.
Consoles rely on die shrinks for cost reduction, and ultimately combining pieces of silicon onto the same die.

If you buy from Intel, intel will produce the silicon in their own fabs, they usually don't just shrink existing designs for cost savings and how would you combine the CPU and GPU now or further down the line.

Consoles are as much or more about the cost 3-5 years from launch, as they are about the cost at launch.

 

[3dilettante]

If MS buys the chips from AMD, couldn't AMD do to MS what Intel did to MS? That is, refuse to lower the price of the chips?

That would depend on the contents of the agreement. Price schedules and shrink estimates would be decided there.
Back with the Xbox, Microsoft couldn't take advantage of cost improvments such as yield improvements or process shrinks.

It may be possible to make an incrementally improving price schedule to account for yield improvement, but the big driver in cost savings is node transitions.
Unlike the Xbox era, node transitions are harder, farther apart, and not necessarily better cost-wise. Microsoft paid money for the chance at doing the physical implementing themselves, and they got the RRoD recall and then paying AMD/ATI the costs of doing it right with the Xenos shrink.

The upside to licensing GPU IP is that they avoid the scenario with Nvidia where a few GPU instructions got in the way of future graphics backwards compatibility. There's no significant fear of that from the x86 platform, which is extremely backwards compatible on purpose.

 

[bkilian]

I know all that but people are raging about Intel having control over the x86 licence, doesn't AMD have control over the x64 stuff?

Surely if these machines are going to be packing 4Gb+ of RAM then x64 would be a better option?

The current x64 design was developed by AMD and copied by intel. (Intel's proprietary 64 bit arch is referred to as ia64 generally). It does however rely on a x86 base, which is owned by intel. As far as I know, microsoft has cross-licensing deals with intel, and has had for years, I don't think licensing issues would be a barrier to using and controlling an AMD designed part.

 

[MrFox]

The current x64 design was developed by AMD and copied by intel. (Intel's proprietary 64 bit arch is referred to as ia64 generally). It does however rely on a x86 base, which is owned by intel. As far as I know, microsoft has cross-licensing deals with intel, and has had for years, I don't think licensing issues would be a barrier to using and controlling an AMD designed part.

If MS gets the license already as part of an existing deal, can we assume Sony would be paying more than MS for a similar chip from AMD, they'd start at a disadvantage to match the price/performance?

 

[3dilettante]

Why would there be an existing deal where Intel gives the right to manufacture x86 processors to a company worth twice as much as they are with four times the cash on hand?
Intel barely allowed AMD to have x86 foundry rights, a company a fraction of their size with more debt than company.

If Microsoft had the right, why has it never made one? Did it pay Intel money or license patents just so it can look at a list of x86-related patents under glass?

 

[bkilian]

If MS gets the license already as part of an existing deal, can we assume Sony would be paying more than MS for a similar chip from AMD, they'd start at a disadvantage to match the price/performance?

No idea.

Why would there be an existing deal where Intel gives the right to manufacture x86 processors to a company worth twice as much as they are with four times the cash on hand?
Intel barely allowed AMD to have x86 foundry rights, a company a fraction of their size with more debt than company.

If Microsoft had the right, why has it never made one? Did it pay Intel money or license patents just so it can look at a list of x86-related patents under glass?

I don't have any clue why companies enter into specific cross-licensing agreements. Microsoft and Intel have history predating the 80s and they collaborated on a lot of the features in current intel chips, like virtualization, security, caching behaviours etc. It would be surprising, given the number of patents they each have that could effect the other, if they _didn't_ have cross-licensing deals in place. Other companies MS has cross licensing deals with are Toshiba, Apple, and a ton of others.

 

[3dilettante]

Companies can pick and choose what patents and copyrights they can cross-license.
Microsoft doesn't need patent rights on the hardware that runs its software, because it doesn't make CPUs using those patents.
Intel would be rightly suspicious of Microsoft asked for completely irrelevant hardware patents, much like I should be suspicious if a waiter at a restaraunt wanted my house keys.

 

[tunafish]

a company can achieve the same results using less resources, its about efficiency

No, you really can't. Silicon costs money. Bandwidth costs even more money. Given that there are only a handful of suppliers, both of the companies will be paying essentially the same for the silicon and the bandwidth. There are no hidden efficiencies to exploit -- if you want to ship a console with a surprising amount of power, you first need to spend billions to get it. There really is no way around that.

but this is just a hypothesis, we must not forget that different departments in companies could have their relative financial autonomy and different strategies, I mean if for example the department of TVs is doing badly, this is not an execuse for Kaz Hirai to sanction his old department of entertainment which is making profits for the company by not providing enough financial suppport for its next important project (PS4)

It's not about how much support Sony executives choose to give the PS4. It's about how much they can give. When we say Sony is broke, we really mean it. They do not have the cash on hand to pay for a uberconsole, and they are not able to borrow it.

 

[cal_guy]

While the Intel-AMD patent license seems to be ironclad on preventing licensing to third parties it's important to note that much of the agreement has been redacted and it's unwise to assume anything from the publicly available agreement.

I'm also really skeptical that IBM has ever been a realistic option once Apple turned to Intel, and focused on specialized applications such as servers, supercomputers, and network processors while turning away from general purpose computing.

 

[MrFox]

It's not about how much support Sony executives choose to give the PS4. It's about how much they can give. When we say Sony is broke, we really mean it. They do not have the cash on hand to pay for a uberconsole, and they are not able to borrow it.

Huh? What do you base your assumptions on?

If I remember correctly, Sony's Capex in 2012 will be almost 5 billion, and they are betting the farm on only 3 of their divisions: Gaming, Mobile and Imaging. Look at what they did with Mobile and Imaging (billions of capex spending), you can deduce where they are going with Gaming. They had 2 choices, selling non-core assets, or cutting capex. They obviously decided to sell non-core assets, which they have a truckload of. I fear for their TV divisions, and for their shareholders losing money (nah I don't care), but so far Gaming looks safe.

 

[3dilettante]

While the Intel-AMD patent license seems to be ironclad on preventing licensing to third parties it's important to note that much of the agreement has been redacted and it's unwise to assume anything from the publicly available agreement.

While I grant that it is possible that something is redacted that gives AMD an out on this, does it make sense to allow AMD to assign away parts of Intel's own patent portfolio?

 

[bkilian]

Companies can pick and choose what patents and copyrights they can cross-license.
Microsoft doesn't need patent rights on the hardware that runs its software, because it doesn't make CPUs using those patents.
Intel would be rightly suspicious of Microsoft asked for completely irrelevant hardware patents, much like I should be suspicious if a waiter at a restaraunt wanted my house keys.

I'm not sure what your point is. My point is that Microsoft and Intel have a history of cooperation and have deals already in place. There are intel engineers permanently stationed at MS headquarters, and MS engineers at Intel headquarters. Licensing the rights to x86 architecture, if not already taken care of, would not be a barrier for Microsoft. That's assuming MS would even need to license those rights, which is arguable.

 

[3dilettante]

I'm not sure what your point is.

My point is that cross-licensing IP in one area doesn't make cross licensing happen in another.
I don't follow where giving the Microsoft the right to manufacture competitive x86 chips as opposed to buying them from Intel makes sense for Intel.
The minutia of x86 implementation are, at least on the face of it, none of Microsoft's business and have no relevance to the software.

That's assuming MS would even need to license those rights, which is arguable.

I would recommend getting the waiver on full-scale billion-dollar patent infringment in writing.

 

[bkilian]

My point is that cross-licensing IP in one area doesn't make cross licensing happen in another.
I don't follow where giving the Microsoft the right to manufacture competitive x86 chips as opposed to buying them from Intel makes sense for Intel.
The minutia of x86 implementation are, at least on the face of it, none of Microsoft's business and have no relevance to the software.

Ok, you're obviously a lot more informed on microsoft business than I am. I stand corrected, it's absolutely impossible for microsoft to have any hardware IP interests in common with intel, and therefore the idea of cross-licensing is completely infeasible.

 

[3dilettante]

Ok, you're obviously a lot more informed on microsoft business than I am. I stand corrected, it's absolutely impossible for microsoft to have any hardware IP interests in common with intel, and therefore the idea of cross-licensing is completely infeasible.

I'm not saying it's impossible, but I'm finding this to be a more extraordinary claim than AMD just selling the chips to Microsoft.
Over the last several years, Intel fighting to maintain or contract the pool of licensees, with the pool including bit player Via and nipping Nvidia's software emulation chances in the bud.

Is there some kind of tri-part licensing deal where Microsoft has licensed from AMD the right set of patents and licensed from Intel the complementary set used in whatever core they are using?

 

[Helmore]

I'm not saying it's impossible, but I'm finding this to be a more extraordinary claim than AMD just selling the chips to Microsoft.
Over the last several years, Intel fighting to maintain or contract the pool of licensees, with the pool including bit player Via and nipping Nvidia's software emulation chances in the bud.

Is there some kind of tri-part licensing deal where Microsoft has licensed from AMD the right set of patents and licensed from Intel the complementary set used in whatever core they are using?

You're forgetting IBM, though now I'm just nitpicking.

 

[shiznit]

It sounds reasonable to me for Intel to a have an interest in x86 ruling the next console generation, potentially leading to more and better pc ports, even if AMD is providing the design.

 

[arijoytunir]

http://www.pcper.com/news/Graphics-Cards/AMD-Announces-Mobility-8000M-Graphics-Family-Modified-Architecture

so can this top hd 8800m gpu be in the APU of nxt gen consoles ( specifically in orbis)? pcper is saying that hd 7770 is about 30% more powerful than the hd 8870m . The architecture is more efficient than hd 7000 series.

 

[RedVi]

That's about as low end as I'd expect either to go, hopefully something around twice the capability of that chip is what we end up with. Not that any actual performance or power figures are around yet, but just remember that mobile chips cannot be fabbed in the quantities needed for consoles. Basically, whatever the power usage is, it's unlikely that whatever ends up in a console could be that low.

 

[Blazkowicz]

Radeon 8870M is actually a Cap Verde, i.e. same chip as 7750/7770 and the previous 7870M.
Memory clock is slightly higher, and it now has "turbo" (or "boost", but anyway this feature dynamically underclocks the GPU if it uses too much power)