Yamauchi on the PS3: "...beginning of a new world..."

[jvd]

Well if the game is 1080p should it need 4X fsaa? Why so much?

of course . I play at 1600x1200 and love it when i can have 6x fsaa on my x800xt pe .

It makes the game look much better .

Also remember people will be playing these systems on 30-60inch tvs (mabye bigger) and the asailing will be much more noticable in a bigger screen than on a pc monitor .

 

[jvd]

That's partly because MS entrusted their design partners to do almost everything for them last gen.They still lack their own fabbing plants today.

No doubt that the PS3 and Xbox360 games will not look far part from each other but I believe that the PS3 will have the slight advantage.Their early real time rendered demos are already showing better HDR lighting effects with more vivid colours that I believe is atributed to Nvidia's better pixel shading technologies.

Well your not looking at the whole picture .

Ati's first generation of cards capable of hdr was just released. Thus all the demos we've seen from ms were on sm 2.0 non hdr cards like the x800 series. So the real time rendered demos weren't showing better hdr they were merely showing hdr vs non hdr images .

Not that one company is better at pixel shading than the other ( which has nothing to do with hdr really )

As a matter of fact ati has the advantage in speed with hdr when you factor in thier fp10 format on the xenos. This will allow them to use less bandwidth and less of ah ardware hit in general vs nvidia's fp16 or fp32 format . Of course fp16 and fp32 offer more percision but on a game that needs fp16 the xenos can step up to the plate and we really don't know how usefull fp32 will be or if the ps3 will be capable of doing it with out a huge performance hit (the 6800s had a huge fp16 hdr hit when it was enabled and the g70 still have a decent hit with fp16)

 

[hugo]

Don't forget that hte xbox launched after the ps2 and the ps2 already had an established base of 10 million . It had software pricing that was lower than the xbox (it had games on the shelves for a year )

This time it will be the reverse . The xbox will be on the market and will have the larger installed base and the cheaper software .

Remember everyone starts at 0 installed base. However ms launches first which means while sony is still at 0 the xbox installed base will start climbing and it will be in the market in some places for almost a year before the ps3 is released

As far as I know the PS2 bottleneck were its graphics and lack in middlewares for game developments.Game developers found it relatively hard to design games for it and yet the console is still there selling.

If MS thinks that they're going to get Sony with pricing they have a more serious competitor at their back too this time.Nintendo will be there with a console which cost chaper and a platform that developers will find comfortable developing with since they're saying it's a extention of the the Gamecube platform.

 

[jvd]

That's partly because MS entrusted their design partners to do almost everything for them last gen.They still lack their own fabbing plants today.

No doubt that the PS3 and Xbox360 games will not look far part from each other but I believe that the PS3 will have the slight advantage.Their early real time rendered demos are already showing better HDR lighting effects with more vivid colours that I believe is atributed to Nvidia's better pixel shading technologies.

Not really . actually in some cases it would be cheaper to outsource than to make your own fabs .

1) you have to pay the r&d on the fabs
2) u have to build the fabs (costs hundreds of millions)
3) you have to operate the fab (people , power , heating and what not costs
4) you have to upgrade the fabs


Where as with ms they
1) pay a small premium on the chips made( its already been said that umd and tmsc make razor thin margins on chips )
2) can move from fab to fab when better tech or yields meet thier goals . I.e if tmsc has 65nm ready next december but umd wont have it ready till march they can move to the tmsc line and produce 65nm chips in december. If sony doesn't have 65nm they have to wait till they have it
3) i believe fabs only charge per working chip not wafer which means it can cost them less per chip (of the same complexity or tranistor count ) than sony ( i can be wrong on this one
4) if they need more fab space they simple go to another fab and order chips from them too .


Lets also not forget that assuming a spring launch ms can have as many as 8 months of mass production on the xbox 360 units which will of course increase yields and drive down cost of the units before sony starts producing ps3s .

 

[jvd]

As far as I know the PS2 bottleneck were its graphics and lack in middlewares for game developments.Game developers found it relatively hard to design games for it and yet the console is still there selling.

If MS thinks that they're going to get Sony with pricing they have a more serious competitor at their back too this time.Nintendo will be there with a console which cost chaper and a platform that developers will find comfortable developing with since they're saying it's a extention of the the Gamecube platform.

Games were made for the ps2 because before the xbox was even released sony had 10 million + units sold . As a game developer would u rather develop for a 10 million + user base that is still growing or a user base of 0 that is going to grow ?

The smart money is in the ps2 even with its harder to program for cpu and gpu you didn't need a top of the line game to sell esp since early on most of the games were nothing to look at .

If this time around the xbox 360 is easier to develop for than the ps3 (which i've heard it is easier but not the gap that was there last gen) and has a larger user base before the ps3 even launches u will see alot of titles released on the xbox 360 which will only allow the xbox 360 to sell more . Then being on the market longer they will be more likely to drop prices with out taking it in the wallet as bad thus selling more units and attracting more devs .

Its not so clear cut as sony lead last gen and they will lead this gen. While i admit that is the most likely senario it wont happen when the ps3 launches and will most likely not happen untill the end of 2007/2008 before the ps3 passes up the xbox 360 .

But remember once nintendo had 90% + of the market and sega had almost 0%+ and in one generation they were able to capture half hte market from nintendo. The same can happen here. All it takes is proper pricing (Both software and hardware ) and games with good hype around them and they will capture the market or at least a very large part .


As for nitendo . They are there and may have the lower price but of course it apears the xbox 360 is the more traditional console . So i don't see them being a factor with ms this time around . I actually see them hurting sony .
For the simple fact that this year u have the xbox 360. Sometime next year u have the ps3 and then following that most likely the ns5. Now as you said you think the xbox 360 games will look close to the ps3 games . So now you hae a console on the market that can do games that look almost as good as the ps3 but most likely at a cheaper price (hardware and software costs ) and then a system with a unqiue controller and u may see sony loose some of thier hype if both nintendo and ms play things right

 

[hugo]

Where as with ms they
1) pay a small premium on the chips made( its already been said that umd and tmsc make razor thin margins on chips )
2) can move from fab to fab when better tech or yields meet thier goals . I.e if tmsc has 65nm ready next december but umd wont have it ready till march they can move to the tmsc line and produce 65nm chips in december. If sony doesn't have 65nm they have to wait till they have it
3) i believe fabs only charge per working chip not wafer which means it can cost them less per chip (of the same complexity or tranistor count ) than sony ( i can be wrong on this one
4) if they need more fab space they simple go to another fab and order chips from them too .

The small premium is where their money is flowing to.Sony and Toshiba's fab are not newly built.They have been operating them for quite some time even when the PS2 was already in production.MS can move from fab to fab but it shows that loyalty is not quite their ballgame and companies sees that too.

To add to this Sony may not have decided to take this route if it has more disadvantages than the goods.

 

[jvd]

The small premium is where their money is flowing to.Sony and Toshiba's fab are not newly built.They have been operating them for quite some time even when the PS2 was already in production.MS can move from fab to fab but it shows that loyalty is not quite their ballgame and companies sees that too.

To add to this Sony may not have decided to take this route if it has more disadvantages than the goods.

sony just built brand new fabs for the psp and ps3 so i don't know what your talkng about . They built these fabs for 90nm and below . They dumped billions of yen into them .

As for ms they are a busniess and can go from fab to fab like any other busniess. I don't see umd and tsmc not building nvidia parts after they jumped to ibm for awhile and then back again to umd and tsmc .

I don't see any of your points .

I do understand your last sentance and I agree that they wouldn't have gone with this route if there were no advantages and there are advantages but that doesn't mean that being fabless doesn't have its own advantages .

If this was the case both nvidia and ati would own thier own fabs and this clearely isn't the case

 

[fireshot]

As far as I know the PS2 bottleneck were its graphics and lack in middlewares for game developments.

Thats the worry for sony. Splinter Cell 4 will be as good on both consoles, possibly better playing on live. How long can sony play the most powerful card in the same contxt as Xbox?

if i am sony, i will stop internal fueding and put everything behind PS3.
360 killing sony's cash cow is scary. how many spiderman movies left?

 

[hugo]

If this time around the xbox 360 is easier to develop for than the ps3 (which i've heard it is easier but not the gap that was there last gen) and has a larger user base before the ps3 even launches u will see alot of titles released on the xbox 360 which will only allow the xbox 360 to sell more . Then being on the market longer they will be more likely to drop prices with out taking it in the wallet as bad thus selling more units and attracting more devs .

Its not so clear cut as sony lead last gen and they will lead this gen. While i admit that is the most likely senario it wont happen when the ps3 launches and will most likely not happen untill the end of 2007/2008 before the ps3 passes up the xbox 360 .

But remember once nintendo had 90% + of the market and sega had almost 0%+ and in one generation they were able to capture half hte market from nintendo. The same can happen here. All it takes is proper pricing (Both software and hardware ) and games with good hype around them and they will capture the market or at least a very large part .

As for nitendo . They are there and may have the lower price but of course it apears the xbox 360 is the more traditional console . So i don't see them being a factor with ms this time around . I actually see them hurting sony .
For the simple fact that this year u have the xbox 360. Sometime next year u have the ps3 and then following that most likely the ns5. Now as you said you think the xbox 360 games will look close to the ps3 games . So now you hae a console on the market that can do games that look almost as good as the ps3 but most likely at a cheaper price (hardware and software costs ) and then a system with a unqiue controller and u may see sony loose some of their hype if both nintendo and ms play things right

Where quality is concerned,Sony has already realised that their PS2 has lots of unplayable games but because they wanted quantity as part of building their games library they've succeeded at a cost that games became repetitive.Consumers no longer want that kind of same experience with every game they played and they are geting smarter today.Even Nintendo is aware of this.

Now looking back at this the next gen of consoles generally need more funding to make games and mentioned by some game developers they can only afford to make games for only 1 console at most.

Traditional console or not don't let Nintendo fool you that their console is revolutionary.They may have some creative ideas but a console remains a console.With their kind of setup it clearly shhows that they are intending to impress gamers with new ideas yet retain their cost efficiency and not to blow holes in pockets.Sony knows that and whie they wait for development cost to drop they have Nintendo to compete with MS with the lower ends.This is pretty much the same situation when Sony launched the PSP.They said it will not compete directly with the GB but what do you know it did in fact affected Nintedo handheld sales.

 

[mckmas8808]

if i am sony, i will stop internal fueding and put everything behind PS3.
360 killing sony's cash cow is scary. how many spiderman movies left?

You need to work for Sony. I think Howard Stringer is starting to do this now. Lets just hope the rest of Sony follows behind him. I still till this day don't understand why Sony doesn't have it's Sony Connect website pumping music, music videos, movies, and Sony owned TV shows ready to download to the PSP.

And yes Sony should start to make Spiderman and James Bond games PS3 and PSP only. I mean they do own them.

 

[MBDF]

Xenos is most certianly better than the 7800 GTX in shader capabilities by not a small margin. PS the 50 more mhz of the RSX will not help alleviate that fact either.

I'm sorry but you're wrong. And If you think I'm wrong then prove otherwise.

By the way... I adore Xenos... I think it is an inteligently designed GPU for a closed system, and is in many ways ahead of it's time.

 

[Neeyik]

I'm sorry but you're wrong. And If you think I'm wrong then prove otherwise.

Surely you should attempt to show why he/she is wrong before requesting that you are proved incorrect, yes?

 

[MBDF]

Surely you should attempt to show why he/she is wrong before requesting that you are proved incorrect, yes?

I would but I think the onus is on him to back up his facts first... he posted first, is that not fair?

I'll go one further and retract my previous comments of him being wrong... so long as he can explain himself...

I look forward to his response.

 

[dantruon]

Not really . actually in some cases it would be cheaper to outsource than to make your own fabs .

1) you have to pay the r&d on the fabs
2) u have to build the fabs (costs hundreds of millions)
3) you have to operate the fab (people , power , heating and what not costs
4) you have to upgrade the fabs


Where as with ms they
1) pay a small premium on the chips made( its already been said that umd and tmsc make razor thin margins on chips )
2) can move from fab to fab when better tech or yields meet thier goals . I.e if tmsc has 65nm ready next december but umd wont have it ready till march they can move to the tmsc line and produce 65nm chips in december. If sony doesn't have 65nm they have to wait till they have it
3) i believe fabs only charge per working chip not wafer which means it can cost them less per chip (of the same complexity or tranistor count ) than sony ( i can be wrong on this one
4) if they need more fab space they simple go to another fab and order chips from them too .


Lets also not forget that assuming a spring launch ms can have as many as 8 months of mass production on the xbox 360 units which will of course increase yields and drive down cost of the units before sony starts producing ps3s .

Ever heard of economies of scale? is the principles that suggest when a firm invest in large fixed cost in the long run such as Sony with it fabs, the proportion of total average cost increase is gonna be less than the proportation increase in total ouput, which mean that is more cheaper for Sony to manufacture their own stuff in the long run.

 

[one]

Where as with ms they
1) pay a small premium on the chips made( its already been said that umd and tmsc make razor thin margins on chips )
2) can move from fab to fab when better tech or yields meet thier goals . I.e if tmsc has 65nm ready next december but umd wont have it ready till march they can move to the tmsc line and produce 65nm chips in december. If sony doesn't have 65nm they have to wait till they have it
3) i believe fabs only charge per working chip not wafer which means it can cost them less per chip (of the same complexity or tranistor count ) than sony ( i can be wrong on this one
4) if they need more fab space they simple go to another fab and order chips from them too .

Super offtopic but chip companies are not innocent, nice guys... why do they have to lend their brand-new, shiny 65nm lines for cheaper than 90nm lines even when yield is still low? They have customers from all over the world not only MS. Fabs may charge per working chip not wafer, but chip price will include estimated amount of wafers wasted in production. Those chip companies have to make profit out of customers pockets. Besides, Xenos daughter die uses eDRAM so practically they can't change the fab from NEC for the part.

 

[MBDF]

Eh, why waist any more (of your) time

Never you mind!

 

[Laa-Yosh]

I'm totally freaking out on this thread. What's this stuff about Cell doing AA???
It's been discussed several times before that it's not that simple, as you'd need a massive amount of extra data that's normally kept within the GPU while doing the calculations. It's not just the framebuffer that you'd need, and the bandwith hit would be massive. I seriously doubt that any developer would resort to this...

 

[nAo]

No matter how many times I've said this thing, I'm going to say it another time

SHADER OPS ARE A MEANINGLESS WAY TO MEASURE/COMPARE GPUs PERFORMANCE!!!!

why? cause shader ops aren't based on a standard definition, every vendor has its own definition!

 

[MBDF]

whops.... I was caught

No matter how many times I've said this thing, I'm going to say it another time

SHADER OPS ARE A MEANINGLESS WAY TO MEASURE/COMPARE GPUs PERFORMANCE!!!!

why? cause shader ops aren't based on a standard definition, every vendor has its own definition!

I've heard this said before (most likely by you:smile What exactly is the standard defenition... if there is one

What more is there to it?

I am always eager to learn

Btw, how is it working with the 7800 GTX? *too many questions*

 

[Shifty Geezer]

GPU SHOPS are like GPU FLOPS. You can trust every GPU manufacturer to keep stretching the definition to get bigger numbers than their rivals.