Perhaps you are right.
So what is this new exotic architecture which has so many benefits it's worth throwing away the existing architecture?
I'd love to hear about it!
*spin-off* Importance of Backward Compatibility Discussion
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Perhaps you are right.
So what is this new exotic architecture which has so many benefits it's worth throwing away the existing architecture?
I'd love to hear about it!
It could be any of a million things and it certainly doesn't need to be exotic, just different. It could be as simple as moving to OoO. They might decide edram isn't the way to go anymore or they might want to shift graphics design entirely (moving from nv to amd or vice versa). The point is not choosing something because of BC, but choosing something because it gives the best performance for the price and/or watt. They might wind up with a design that's close enough that it offers a reasonable amount of BC, or maybe not and the best they can do is some software ports.
Tell that to George Lucas...Don't forget, the "HD remake" resell can only be done once....
Yeah, scalable in the same way GC hardware was scalable to Wii. You have an idea that code is emminentaly portable, can be ported from one console to another in a matter of weeks at no cost, and can run on new hardware as well as the old hardware as long as there's a bit of similarity between them. I'll point you to the DirectX Box, a games console built around a middleware API, which failed to maintain BC. I'll point you to Al's post above:You couldn't replace RSX with a more efficient US architecture and have it just run. You could scale Cell up, but if that adds considerably to the cost of your console versus using another more general processor, that BC isn't going to be free.
MS and Sony and everyone else gets that the future of forwards compatibility lies in hardware abstraction. PSSuite and MS Apps will be content that works forever more same as iOS and Android, which is what you're basing you need for BC on DD on. Following legacy hardware designs will cripple future systems, and adding hardware BC support will add considerable costs. The only sensible business approach would be to have optional hardware that someone can buy, although that'd be an interesting design problem. Then those who care to keep their old, crusty-looking games can buy an extra adaptor/expansion, while everyone else stops playing their old stuff and plays their new, better stuff instead.
I hope Sony does support BC in PS4, for a couple of reasons.
First, I agree with TheChefO that Cell was designed to be scalable and could prove a real asset in a PS4 when combined with a better GPU and perhaps a unified memory architecture. Cell has some unique strengths even today, and if they passed over the opportunity to benefit from the huge investment they put into Cell development, it would be a pity, it seems to me.
Second, because of the digital downloads that Sony sold over PSN. The big difference with digital downloads is how easy it is to buy that stuff, and as a consequence, how *much* of it I bought.
I think I've got about 3 times more digital downloads on my PS3 than I do Blu-Ray games, and I've got a lot of those. If I got rid of my PS3 (or it died), I'd be looking at the total loss of a great deal of content I paid for.
And Sony couldn't be too happy at the thought of losing future sales of their PS3 library to PS4 owners, or of having to have all of their games rewritten to work on PS4 in order to sell them. They obviously view BC as having some value to them for catalog sales, as they've finally started selling select PS2 titles on PSN using their software emulator.
Vita has support for playing PSP games, as well, let's not forget.
First, I agree with TheChefO that Cell was designed to be scalable and could prove a real asset in a PS4 when combined with a better GPU and perhaps a unified memory architecture. Cell has some unique strengths even today, and if they passed over the opportunity to benefit from the huge investment they put into Cell development, it would be a pity, it seems to me.
Second, because of the digital downloads that Sony sold over PSN. The big difference with digital downloads is how easy it is to buy that stuff, and as a consequence, how *much* of it I bought.
I think I've got about 3 times more digital downloads on my PS3 than I do Blu-Ray games, and I've got a lot of those. If I got rid of my PS3 (or it died), I'd be looking at the total loss of a great deal of content I paid for.
And Sony couldn't be too happy at the thought of losing future sales of their PS3 library to PS4 owners, or of having to have all of their games rewritten to work on PS4 in order to sell them. They obviously view BC as having some value to them for catalog sales, as they've finally started selling select PS2 titles on PSN using their software emulator.
Vita has support for playing PSP games, as well, let's not forget.
Via cheap emulation, without impacting the hardware choices for the platforms. Adding BC is going to have value, but designing around it is going to be expensive. Also, I'd have to see sound figures for how much people revisit their old content before I could be convinced that people who buy DD games expect to be able to play them over and over and want BC for that purpose. I've bought plenty of DD content, but I play it, finish it, and move on. There's enough new content coming that people surely don't have that much game time to spend on their old content. There might be a psychology of possession, where knowing you can't get content back strikes a nerve even if you'd never actually use that content, but actually reusing old content seems a rare thing. Technology, hardware and software, moves on, and everyone's generally happy to move on with it. VHS doesn't play on DVD players. Didn't matter - people bought DVD players, and then when the technology arrived to allow their old home moves to be copied over (emulation), we make use of it. Those classic games won't play. Never mind - when the technology moves on and we have an emulator in 5+ years time, we can revist that content. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I don't know anyone who buys a game or movie or music track with an eye on accessing that same resource 5, 10, 25 years after they've bought it. We buy stuff because we want it now, we enjoy it now, and then if we can revisit it later, great, but no big loss if we don't.
I ask you, out of all the content you have bought, how much of that would you want to play a year or two after buying into next gen when the better sequels for all that same content are available?
I ask you, out of all the content you have bought, how much of that would you want to play a year or two after buying into next gen when the better sequels for all that same content are available?
The VHS to DVD comparison to BC only works if the content on VHS was never put onto DVD. It's certainly much harder to rewrite a game to work on a new hardware standard than it is to put old video content out on DVD.
Better sequels? I don't expect to see a better sequel to "The Last Guy", "Pain", "PixelJunk Monsters", "Flower", and so on. There are a lot of neat one-off smaller games when you talk about digital content.
Heck, I still spend a good bit of time playing "Go! Sudoko", which came out at the PS3's launch. I don't expect to want to upgrade to get a newer, better Sudoku experience.
Sorry, I didn't see where he made a HD BRD disc set which was only compatible with the first generation BRD players and is now coming out with a new set which unlike the old set, is only compatible with players made after 2011.
Speaking of movies, ever wonder why BRD players can also play DVD's? I wonder how well they would be selling if not for this cross compatibility...
And Wii would have actually had SOME decent games if they literally dropped a quadcore GC cpu and a dx9+ gpu. Let's not pretend that the cpu is the reason wii games look like ****.
Emulated on VERY DIFFERENT ARCHITECTURE which for single threaded operations, wasn't that much more powerful, if at all. And even with that, they managed to do a decent job in getting the majority of the popular titles to work.
Lucky for all involved, such a painful transition isn't necessary this time.
Sony isn't banned from using Nvidia again. Pretty sure nvidia also has a fairly decent gpu these days and wouldn't mind helping them to get their RSX code to run on a Cuda.
How is scaling Cell up adding any more costly than using another architecture? Is the silicone of Cell not allowed to be programmed for ps4 games? Did I miss the programming revolution which left Cell so outclassed or expensive to license, that they had to abandon it?
Where is the magic bullet architecture that makes abandoning BC worth the cost? (there is a cost to abandoning BC, from the consumer side)
Here is where we disagree. Yes, everyone knows that things bought digitally should be compatible with the new version of the digital device which plays them. (see every digital ecosystem in the world, PC, mac, linux, android, iphone, ipad, winphone, palm, kindle, (and hard media: PSP
, 3DS, DS, GBA, BRD, PS2, Wii, XB360*, PS3*) ... that's the whole point of a platform!)I've still yet to see an argument for different architecture which would break BC that is so clearly head and shoulders above Cell/Xenon that it would be worth it. The GPU situation is simply a matter of continuing with the same vendor or licensing the tech for the next generation if MS/Sony feels the need to jump ship.
No, the sensible solution is to utilize the architecture which was already purchased, and scale it appropriately.
That may mean a 6 SPE 10 PPE Cell, or it may mean a 32 SPE 4PPE Cell, or even a 16SPE 2PPE Cell.
Bang for the buck in die size (cost) there isn't much better out there. What could they possibly replace it with that would net them above a >20% advantage in either die-size, or TDP, or Performance?
Same goes for MS. A 12 core 24 thread Xenon would be more than enough. OoOE? Sure, if it's worth the die size. But I'm not seeing OoOE being a deal breaker WRT BC.
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Bottom line, this generation has seen both Microsoft and Sony pushing digital download content FOR SALE significantly more so than last gen. In all forms. From classics, to prior gen, to smaller "arcade" or indy games, all the way up to selling FULL current gen games after they've been on the shelf a few months. Not to mention the add-on collections and DLC for games like Rockband and the like.
For them to drop BC and say, "OOPS! Sorry! All of that DLC you bought is now useless. Would you like to buy some more?" ... this just would not go over very well for all involved.
There's a reason Nintendo doesn't do it, there's a reason Sony didn't do that with PSPVita, (and didn't do it initially with ps3), there's a reason MS went through so much effort not to do it for Xbox (even though they were forced out of their architecture for financial reasons, they still did what they could).
And there's a reason the movie industry doesn't do it.
BTW, did you know in the first generation DVD players, Sony actually put in two lasers? One for CDs, the other for DVD's. Why would they do such a wasteful thing?
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This would be the only medium, and only disc generation where BC was just tossed aside and told "FU!" by the platform holders and this at a time when they were pushing console and user specific DLC more than ever!
I'm sure customers will understand that the Arm cores were just "A bit more affordable" or "slightly cooler".
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No, People BUY stuff because they want to OWN it.
The model you are inferring is a rental model. One which PSN and XBL, DO NOT HAVE.
It's not setup to rent a xbl arcade title for a week, play it, beat it, and off you go.
If so, those are some expensive rental games!
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No, the implied intent with the DLC is that of ownership. Regardless of how many times one goes back to play it or not. If it is simply play and done, then that is a rental model which the current prices do not reflect.
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The mediums are completely different. It is physically impossible to have this compatibility.
But low and behold, what did the movie industry do when they DID have a physically possible means for BC?
This whole concept of abandoning BC is beyond moronic.
At a time where there is talk of diminishing returns, digital ecosystems, center of the living room, the Wii dominating, mp3s overtaking better quality CD's...
And we are discussing whether BC is "worth it".
Seriously?
It's not like the architectures are so out in left field that to scale them would either be uber expensive or not provide a suitable performance for NG hardware.
I suppose it's all about priorities ... but I'll laugh if one of them DOES recognize the importance of not only creating (that part is done) but MAINTAINING the digital ecosystem while the other, does not.
Good luck to the idiot Executive that makes his last mistake at that company.
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Imagine if Phillips (or whoever it was that made your VHS player) came to your house, and took back all of your VHS tapes with them when you bought your first Phillips DVD player.
That's what this idea of zero BC is akin to, in this, the golden age of DLC.
Svensk Viking
Regular
Since all content on Live is tied to your Gamertag or needs a License Transfer to be played on another 360, I will never ever buy a 720 if it doesn't have BC...Especially not after seeing how Microsoft killed Live for the Xbox 1
And I don't own much outside of the DLC included with games and some XBLA games gotten from lucky drawings, can only imagine the rage from folks having their whole libraries tied to these services
Lose the dramatics, it doesn't strengthen your argument.
I'm sure you are not alone.
Now imagine if the other platform had full BC, and all the content which was accumulated on said platform was compatible moving forward ...
I'd think you'd be more inclined to jump ship. Yes?
Or
You say, "nah I still like the MS platform", how many new DLC items will you be spending money on after the way your previous purchases were discarded? Not many right?
Either way this is a losing proposition from a platform perspective.
If either of them think people will be happy as lemmings to keep buying the same content every 5 years, they will be sorely mistaken. And FORCING this buying pattern by eliminating BC will only worsen the effect.
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Seriously though, let's take a step back in time here a minute.
MS had no choice but to abandon intel and to avoid nvidia for business relation reasons.
So with this wildly different architecture, why did they bother with BC at all? They only had 25million users, 966 games, and a miniscule DLC library. It's not like they would miss much, right?
But they did go through a considerable investment to make sure the BC was as good as it could be and got roughly half of them working. And this, with consumers having a choice to sell, trade, lend, store, burn, meltdown, or whatever else they choose to do with the media.
Now contrast this with the here and now.
Xb360 has more than double the number of users at 55million. They are pushing more DLC than ever before:
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=195522008 said:
http://www.maxconsole.com/cgi-bin/maxconsole/rknewz.pl?function=detail&id=RKSID000000000000000001692011 said:
So with almost a billion dollars in revenue in the US alone for DLC (in one year), double the userbase, a scalable architecture, we are to believe that it is likely for them to say, "Nah, won't do BC. It's not worth it this time."
Ok
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Dominik D
Regular
Why would MS do that? This makes no sense at all. :S
Sure that's a viable means of attracting gamers to the new platform ..."hey guys, give me a minute to find my old console, hook it up, find my old game, and well jump into a match!".
vs
"{join party/game}" - done
And for this abrupt and inconvenient scenario above, what hardware would be worth it? How much of an advantage would it provide to offset such an inelegant solution?
Indeed.
Especially given that they only had 25million boxes in the wild and only 2million xbl members.
Why go through such an investment?
Apologies, I missed this.
OoO should not break BC.
The Edram in xenos may be difficult to emulate, true. But the Edram itself has merit in reducing BW required from main Ram. Improving the design to provide more flexible use of Edram for the CPU and GPU would be including BC HW but improving it for future use. Granted, Edram does have cost, but it also has benefits.
Moving to Nvidia from Ati/AMD would have to offer a significant benefit to justify the move.
If BC were an anchor as was the case in the prior generation(s), I could understand the resistance. In this case though, neither ps4 or xb720 would be held back by sticking to their architecture, and scaling/expanding them.
I don't think anyone is implying xenos (x8) will be a perfect xb720 GPU. I think most expect both machines to use cutting edge GPU's (and emulating their old gpus). However, it is difficult to argue that the CPU's would be significantly held back by sticking to the existing architectures ... even if that meant sticking to IOE!
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MS paid Nvidia to license their nv2a gpu tech so that MS could emulate it.
Why would they do that?
Why was that deemed necessary back in 2005 when there was only 2m xbl members and 25m xboxes in the wild?
Why then would it be expected for MS to say with 35million xbl members, $900million/yr DLC in the US alone, and 55million xb360s in the wild that "nah, BC not necessary." when it was before?
Seems um ... kinda backwards ... innit?
Dominik D
Regular
Yes, I know you like repeating yourself in hope that people will just take it for granted, but let's just skip that part and get back to my question: why would they need that and what do you think they were licensing? I'm not asking about your opinion on the importance of back-compat, I'm asking really simple questions. I'll even merge them into three essential ones. 1) What specifically did MS license? 2) What's the source of the claim? 3) Why did they need the thing specified in the first answer? MS has/had a bunch of virtualization products. For example today you can run a bunch of virtual machines in Hyper-V and more than just GPU is being abstracted out. Why would MS license anything from Nvidia for the back-compat if the entire software-side ecosystem available to Xbox 1 devs was developed by MS and MS is/was in a perfect position to write a "shell" Xbox 1 games would run in, translate calls to the new GPU and patch this on the title-by-title basis to make games look right? Or even let me ask this: what kind of IP Nvidia had would make it easier and more cost effective for MS to get Xbox 1 emulation running on Xbox 360?
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