What will Sony add to their RSX GPU development?

[Carl B]

Like any RSX thread started in an information void, this thread is starting to go all over the place.

But on the losses thing, yeah MS has lost $5+ billion on XBox1 at last count I believe, and indeed as crazy as it may sound, I think the $2 billion on Live is the common lore. It does sound outrageous though when you really think about it. Do we have any of the original quotes from back in the day on that subject for reference?

 

[MechanizedDeath]

There is no major claims that the chip has to be revolutionary, Alpha_Spartan.


Random thoughts:

- Graphics Synthesizer was fairly dated when it was announced. Wasn't it a '97 design? Meanwhile EE was quite new and the heart of the system. No reason Sony wouldn't do it again. Stick to something tried and true with a better memory interface to slave it to Cell, which they have promoted heavily, and spent the most money on. It could just be the design team's philosophy that CPU-centricity is the way.

- I believe Phil Harrison or Ken Kutaragi once mentioned, in an interview, that RSX is a chip designed by them. I took this to mean that it is a custom design by them featuring NVidia innards. No reason it has to be exactly the same as the G70.

Anyway, shouldn't there be a more useful patent out there by now? And can someone point me to the E3 slideshow again? PEACE.

 

[leechan25]

My reason for saying ten years is mainly for the industry. Many things need to change in order to support this newer high tech (soon to be interactive movies) gaming. I am not saying PS3's lifecycle should ten years. xbdestroya right, PS4 will come along in about 6 to 7 years but the "HD Era" will end looking this:

Game developers studio seek funding the same way movies do

Gaming nearly completly network based (nintendo is wrong)

HD display, hardware, and content

large Development firms (smaller studios working together within large networks)

Completely over shadow current movie industry (in sales)

In regard to Microsoft trying to push this gen harder; their going to fail for reasons that have nothing to do with hardware. This 10 lifecycle has more to do with industry development than hardware. So what you got a console that really does 2 tflops out in three years, if developers are still learning cell architecture who's going to push their console? Remember Jaguar? came out as a 64 bit whatever-ma-do with low support and wried hardware nobody wanted to work on. 3DO did the same thing only to bong right out the gate!

See Sony is winner because they allow the industry and consumers to grow with their console. PS3 will do the same.

 

[Fox5]

My reason for saying ten years is mainly for the industry. Many things need to change in order to support this newer high tech (soon to be interactive movies) gaming. I am not saying PS3's lifecycle should ten years. xbdestroya right, PS4 will come along in about 6 to 7 years but the "HD Era" will end looking this:

Game developers studio seek funding the same way movies do

Gaming nearly completly network based (nintendo is wrong)

HD display, hardware, and content

large Development firms (smaller studios working together within large networks)

Completely over shadow current movie industry (in sales)

In regard to Microsoft trying to push this gen harder; their going to fail for reasons that have nothing to do with hardware. This 10 lifecycle has more to do with industry development than hardware. So what you got a console that really does 2 tflops out in three years, if developers are still learning cell architecture who's going to push their console? Remember Jaguar? came out as a 64 bit whatever-ma-do with low support and wried hardware nobody wanted to work on. 3DO did the same thing only to bong right out the gate!

See Sony is winner because they allow the industry and consumers to grow with their console. PS3 will do the same.

Regardless of their 64 bitness, Jaguar and 3do were weak consoles that didn't have a chance against the hardware Sony, Sega, and Nintendo released.
Though Jaguar had the problem that its early games didn't look much better than SNES games, and 3do had the problem that most of its games followed the Sega CD/PC-CD train of thought. (bad movies with minimal interaction)

 

[leechan25]

that's because developers and industry we're at a certain level. You just prove me right.

 

[scooby_dooby]

Live probably cost a few hundred million at most -- there is nothing about Live that costs 2 billion dollars, not even close. Honestly, it doesn't cost billions to set up a matchmaking service and a software client that is able to DL videos, and game demos and have a friends list of sorts -- the most expensive part is the servers that can handle a few million users "logged" in at a time, and that is likely to be done rather simplistically since it isn't a mission critical situation (especially given the closed nature of the client/server). 2 billion is a lot of money.

well if forbes was off on that, they were probably off on the entire #. Allard has said he has no idea how they came up with that number.

Also, I would argue that customer service, testing, set-up, upgrades, fixes, all add up to a pretty penny. If it was so easy to do(only a few 100million) Sony would've done it a long time ago.

 

[leechan25]

Fox 5 all you have to do is look at what NEo Geo did over its lifecycle.

 

[Carl B]

Yeah but Allard's just putting up a smokescreen on that. Going by their Home Entertainment division quarterly performance over the life of the console, and knowing that in fact some of XBox's losses are buffered by other profitable operations within that division, a rough estimate of losses can be compiled by anyone willing to do the research. There were some threads back in the day that took a look at exactly that, and the losses were definitely substantial (~$6 billion or so from what I recall).

 

[leechan25]

yup,

If xbox was not made by microsoft they would be dead already. So it making you wonder what is Microsoft goals are?

Maybe they see where this gaming industry is go and just want a seat at the table because xbox never completed with PS2 in term of sales and profit.

 

[Carl B]

Microsoft and Sony just see a convergence of entertainment and computing both in the living room, and they're trying to head each other off at the pass in order to be *the* provider of such solutions to the consumer. In the future it will include content via digital distribution and other such aspects. Microsoft is kind of playing a two-pronged strategy with the PC and the XBox, Sony going in with Playstation, and next year Intel's Viiv and Apple's supposed effort joining the fray as well.

It's going to be a living room convergence free-for-all, with everyone coming into the ring from a different direction.

 

[Mythos]

Microsoft and Sony just see a convergence of entertainment and computing both in the living room, and they're trying to head each other off at the pass in order to be *the* provider of such solutions to the consumer. In the future it will include content via digital distribution and other such aspects. Microsoft is kind of playing a two-pronged strategy with the PC and the XBox, Sony going in with Playstation, and next year Intel's Viiv and Apple's supposed effort joining the fray as well.

It's going to be a living room convergence free-for-all, with everyone coming into the ring from a different direction.

You got to wonder as well whats MS intentions in the game industry...Some time ago they stated that they we're looking down the road to a DVD model for the games industry where they will provide a blueprint and have different CE companies offer products out of MS blue print.

 

[Bobbler]

well if forbes was off on that, they were probably off on the entire #. Allard has said he has no idea how they came up with that number.

Also, I would argue that customer service, testing, set-up, upgrades, fixes, all add up to a pretty penny. If it was so easy to do(only a few 100million) Sony would've done it a long time ago.

I'd bet the entire number was off.

I don't think Sony feels that it was of utmost importance, as even on Xbox only about 10-12% thought it was a worthy service. What's the point in dropping millions to satisfy a rather small fraction of the userbase? (especially midway through a generation, when you can't be sure that the same percentage would take to online play on the ps2, because it is a slightly different audience) This last generation I can understand why Sony didn't bother doing much with it, I sure as hell wouldn't have either if I was in charge -- it wasn't worth it for Sony (MS probably needed it to differentiate themselves from everyone else -- more of a marketing point).

I think it'll be a bit more important this gen, and I wouldn't be surprised to see them roll out a service that has the basic features of live (matchmaking, friends lists, downloadable junk).

 

[leechan25]

That's right! Its called growing with the times (consumer & industry). So what you jump out there first... right timeing is more important.

 

[expletive]

I'd bet the entire number was off.

I don't think Sony feels that it was of utmost importance, as even on Xbox only about 10-12% thought it was a worthy service. What's the point in dropping millions to satisfy a rather small fraction of the userbase? (especially midway through a generation, when you can't be sure that the same percentage would take to online play on the ps2, because it is a slightly different audience) This last generation I can understand why Sony didn't bother doing much with it, I sure as hell wouldn't have either if I was in charge -- it wasn't worth it for Sony (MS probably needed it to differentiate themselves from everyone else -- more of a marketing point).

I think it'll be a bit more important this gen, and I wouldn't be surprised to see them roll out a service that has the basic features of live (matchmaking, friends lists, downloadable junk).

Seeing as sony had an installed userbase with zero native capability to get online, i can see why they wouldnt spend any money on it either.

 

[Bill]

Yeah but Allard's just putting up a smokescreen on that. Going by their Home Entertainment division quarterly performance over the life of the console, and knowing that in fact some of XBox's losses are buffered by other profitable operations within that division, a rough estimate of losses can be compiled by anyone willing to do the research. There were some threads back in the day that took a look at exactly that, and the losses were definitely substantial (~$6 billion or so from what I recall).

Err, I always had the impression home and entertainment was a money loser before Xbox came along.

It had webtv, and other money losing ventures.

The way to tell would be to look at home and entertainment's losses in the qaurters before Xbox. Of course, I haven't the foggiest how to do that. Also Xbox R&D might have factored into that.

Pretty sure it was losing money before xbox, though.

I think anti-MS people often overstate Xbox losses, not that they weren't large enough.

 

[hugo]

If Sony was to announce the actual specs for RSX now, I am sure their Christmas PS2 lineups won't sell.

 

[Carl B]

Err, I always had the impression home and entertainment was a money loser before Xbox came along.

It had webtv, and other money losing ventures.

The way to tell would be to look at home and entertainment's losses in the qaurters before Xbox. Of course, I haven't the foggiest how to do that. Also Xbox R&D might have factored into that.

Pretty sure it was losing money before xbox, though.

I think anti-MS people often overstate Xbox losses, not that they weren't large enough.

The way to do it would be to look up Microsoft's consolidated quarterly financials for the period before the XBox launch and then on through the Xbox's life. Now, that's not anything I'm going to try and do right now.

R&D will of course have factored into the losses somewhere or other in MS' financials, and I don't see why anyone would assume otherwise. *Of course* R&D is factored in, but it's factored in to Sony's quarterly results also, for example, when they report a profit as well. But really I don't see how R&D for XBox1 could have amounted to too much considering the componentry used. (essentially off-the-shelf) Live of course was a big infrastructure outlay, whether $2 billion or otherwise.

Overstate, understate, there's no way to know. One can feel those numbers are understated without hating MS, and I do follow this stuff pretty closely.

You can go back in time to read the thread when the Forbes article originally hit here I guess for 'contemporary' arguments on the subject.

Other than that I can say that I found a chart online with the H&E division's losses Q1'03 through Q2'05 that showed $2.13 billion in losses. I don't know the losses for the preceding quarters but they're probably in the $2 billion (or greater) range as well, and honestly that's likely how Forbes reached their numbers.

Ah well whatever.

 

[aaronspink]

From listening to rumors it seems RSX taped out only quite recently. If the chip is more or less a G70 with narrower memory interface and rambus redstone I/O interface instead of PCIe, then what the hell took them so long? The chip should have been finished six months ago or more. Or are we supposed to expect that the process shrink down to .9u really would take THAT much time?

You make the assumption that they have been working on it for quite some time, which may or may not be true. If you espouse the oh crap or backup path, then they really haven't been working on it for that long, and they somewhat recently started working on it. Also you don't take into account what actually is involved in moving to a new process from a new vendor.

Aaron Spink
speaking for myself inc.

 

[Bill]

The way to do it would be to look up Microsoft's consolidated quarterly financials for the period before the XBox launch and then on through the Xbox's life. Now, that's not anything I'm going to try and do right now.

R&D will of course have factored into the losses somewhere or other in MS' financials, and I don't see why anyone would assume otherwise. *Of course* R&D is factored in, but it's factored in to Sony's quarterly results also, for example, when they report a profit as well. But really I don't see how R&D for XBox1 could have amounted to too much considering the componentry used. (essentially off-the-shelf) Live of course was a big infrastructure outlay, whether $2 billion or otherwise.

Overstate, understate, there's no way to know. One can feel those numbers are understated without hating MS, and I do follow this stuff pretty closely.

You can go back in time to read the thread when the Forbes article originally hit here I guess for 'contemporary' arguments on the subject.

Other than that I can say that I found a chart online with the H&E division's losses Q1'03 through Q2'05 that showed $2.13 billion in losses. I don't know the losses for the preceding quarters but they're probably in the $2 billion (or greater) range as well, and honestly that's likely how Forbes reached their numbers.

Ah well whatever.

The only point I'm making is I believe home and entertainment was losing money before Xbox came along. I mentioned that Xbox R&D may have factored into those prior to Xbox losses, just to be fair.

So obviously..there would be some different assumptions. Xbox losses might be less than H&E's losses, obviously.

And Forbes, they're probably not being very accurate here.

And lately, H&E has not been losing much or profiting a bit, as well.

And I googled a bit, didn't find much on 2000 H&E profits/losses.

It seems H&E didn't exist until like 2002, so never mind.

 

[Carl B]

Google won't do it easily, any search string I could think of would probably come back with a bunch of crap. You'd just really want to try and find MS' consolidated financials for some quarter in 2000 to get a snap-shot. Maybe H&E was lossy, maybe it was profitable, maybe the rest of the aspects within the division became profitable, or became lossy, I really don't know. We could find out if we really wanted to, but I mean... not tonight, at least for me.

Forbes was no doubt just going with the combined losses for H&E; like you said, I doubt they were really going too in depth.