@MikeB

Happy April Fool's Day MikeB!

@Lou

FYI the report was published on the 30th of March 2011 and I already read about this yesterday.

"the active installed base of PS3s reached 43.4 million by the end of 2010, compared to 42.9 million Xbox 360s."

“While the Kinect peripheral has given a boost to Microsoft’s Xbox 360 strategy, the console’s performance outside of the US continues to disappoint"

I also think the PS3 is likely to overtake the (soon to be discontinued) Wii install base a couple of years from now. At least if Nibiru isn't looming nearby.

Last edited by MikeB on 01-Apr-2011 at 05:44 PM.

@MikeB

Quote:

MikeB wrote: According to a recent study, the PS3 by the end of 2010 had overtaken the XBox 360 with regard to the global active userbase! http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2011-04-01-analyst-figures-show-worldwide-ps3-install-base-bigger-than-360 A great achievement considering Microsoft's marketing strenghts, seemingly unlimited resources and foul play, especially when considering the XBox 360's 1 year headstart for Japan and North America and 2 additional holiday seasons or more for Europe and the rest of the world this is a great achievement! Sony had to digg deep in its pockets delivering a supercomputer level console at competitive pricing. For years Sony lost money on each PS3 they sold at retail due to the console's high specs which the company deemed critical for its long term strategy, including a high capacity Blu-Ray drive for good spec gaming and high definition movie playback purposes, including the at the time latest HDMI standard and uberpowerful Cell processor allowing great support for 3DTVs including with many first party games and for 3D Blu-Ray playback. Congrats Sony!

I think no real suprise that at some point this was bound to happen.

And is this 'good Sony'? They came from #1 (PS2) and barely made #2 (PS3). In doing so they have some interesting hardware but at a multibillion dollar loss to their business. If one offsets the costs minus the sales I think it'll be a surprise if Sony churns a net profit with the PS3 model. The new Move controller was a glowing ball Wii which failed to move the market to the PS3. Clearly the current gen was a war Sony was not ready to fight.

Will the PS3 overtake the Wii in a couple of years? Perhaps.. They have a long way to go. The PS3 is under 44M while the Wii is nearly 76M. By the time the PS3 outsells the Wii I suspect Nintendo will have made their profits and be on to the next profit generating console while Sony is trying to make the PS3 return their investment.

#2 in the market with a financial loss is a victory? Okay MikeB if you say so.

Last edited by BrianK on 01-Apr-2011 at 04:33 PM.

@BrianK

Well I am a consumer, Sony profits or losses don't end up in my pocket. If I can buy a new console well below actual production cost I don't find this bad for me personally at all, especially if that means my console is significantly futureproof this way.

Sony dared to release something different and technically advanced. I am not sure if Sony execs and financial staff were happy with the involved costs to the company, maybe many of them would have preferred a PS2.5, but not myself for obvious reasons. IMO such a console would be more interesting as a kid's console (nothing against this per se, but personally I'm not a kid).

IMO the PS3 paved the way we need to follow. I advocated advanced multi-threading approaches long before the PS3 was here. Actually I would have preferred an Amiga/BeBox like evolution of computing hardware. PS3 game engines will be very well suited to move forward towards future advanced PCs and even handhelds such as Sony's NGP.

@MikeB

As a consumer, Kinect is more fun than Move/Wii.

As for Nibiru, I can't wait to meet our makers.
Yes - really!

@Lou

Have you played Killzone 3 using the sharpshooter? And if not, why make such a statement?

I'm usually not the mini-game type of gamer, so Kinect isn't interesting for me at all (I never bought any EyeToy or Playstation Eye games in the past). But I did like playing the LittleBigPlanet 2 prehistoric moves extras with my wife using Playstation Move.

Kinect can't really be used for hardcore gaming such as for a game like Killzone 3. It's too inaccurate and slow for any such type of game. For example pretending your hand to be a gun won't work, the hardware technology is far too imprecise to make out individual fingers.

Sony seems to be gearing up some interesting kids targeted (and party mini-game) Move-only games as well and plenty of support within their more hardcore games (for example it also feels nice in Heavy Rain, a game I already owned) for which it makes sense, for example:

Playstation Move Heroes:
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/story-trailer-playstation-move/710427

Sorcery:
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/gc-10-sorcery/703013

Ape Escape Shake! Shake!
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/tgs-10-ape-escape/705162

A future pricecut may well make the console combined with Playstation Move more popular amongst kids. This while not alienating the existing userbase with the release of an unmatched amount of high profile exclusives using dual shock 3 controls and optional Playstation Move support where this makes sense.

@MikeB

Quote:

Well I am a consumer, Sony profits or losses don't end up in my pocket.

Companies exist to make a profit or they don't exist. The PS3 exists because it was able to gobble profits from other areas of the company. It's profits that allow companies to set themselves up for the future. If memory serves you loved the NeoGeo. Had it been profitable the Hyper Neo Geo 64 that did 3D in 1997 could have been released. Instead you've had to wait nearly 15 years for 3D. (oh and 3D showed up first on the 360 though they're not going hog wild over something that very few homes have.)

Quote:

IMO the PS3 paved the way we need to follow. I advocated advanced multi-threading approaches long before the PS3 was here

Of course advanced multi-threading approach is on the 360 too. As for the 'way to follow' the Cell way is dead. The market hasn't done speciality cores (Cell) but full cores (Xenon) . The market has done heterogenous computing but not in the Cell manner. It's closer to the Vallhalla 360's CPU/GPU. Even the new Sony NGP is closer to the 360 than the PS3. I suspect the 'Cell2' will be all PPE cores and few (more likely none) SPEs.

Though I'm not sure as an adult I'd want a 3DS or NGP at this point. My new iPad2 certainly rocks. Seems the overall performance of the iPad2 is fairly close to the PS3. IMO it's time for our consoles to be replaced. Gaming is getting long in the tooth, PCs are being held back for consoles. Time for a Xbox 3 vs PS4.

Last edited by BrianK on 01-Apr-2011 at 06:07 PM.

@Lou

Quote:

As a consumer, Kinect is more fun than Move/Wii.

I think this question comes down to what games you want to play. MikeB appears to want to play Killzone with a pointer. All cool but nothing I want to do. I want a controller. Kinect is better than Move/Wii because it involves more of your body. The games I use it for - Dance Central for example - is much better this way.

If memory serves MikeB claimed to be a fitness trainer. If I were him I'd be scared of the Kinect. In a fitness class it's hard for 1 trainer to watch a group of people. It's easy to get away with an incomplete move and not be caught. Certainly a trainer will catch enough bad moves. The Kinect on the other hand can catch all of your bad moves. Immediate corrections to ensure an exercise is being properly and fully executed will have better results. So in some aspects the Kinect will be better than a human trainer.

@BrianK

Quote:

Companies exist to make a profit or they don't exist. The PS3 exists because it was able to gobble profits from other areas of the company.

Yes, that's part of the reason. But they also expect to earn back all their investments and additional profits through especially software (game) sales.

Quote:

The market hasn't done speciality cores (Cell)

The game market is doing this. Not only for PS3 exclusives, but multiplatform games developers as well:

Bioshock dev team: "So instead of declaring a "lead platform" and porting the game to the others, we’ve instead changed the game engine so that all platforms look (to a programmer) more like a PS3.
This means implementing a task-oriented task processor… that mimics the PPU/SPU split of the PS3. Writing code this way is more difficult for us, but has a key advantage: it’s both optimal for the PS3 *and* gives speed improvements on other platforms."

Please read the above quote a couple of times.

@BrianK

Quote:

If memory serves MikeB claimed to be a fitness trainer.

Physical therapist to be exact.

Quote:

So in some aspects the Kinect will be better than a human trainer.

The dance game / excercise stuff I actually stated Kinect is basically good enough for. But on the other hand I don't think anything special has been shown what cannot be done through purely the Playstation Eye with proper software.

Last edited by MikeB on 01-Apr-2011 at 08:22 PM.

@MikeB

Quote:

MikeB wrote: @Lou Have you played Killzone 3 using the sharpshooter? And if not, why make such a statement? I'm usually not the mini-game type of gamer, so Kinect isn't interesting for me at all (I never bought any EyeToy or Playstation Eye games in the past). But I did like playing the LittleBigPlanet 2 prehistoric moves extras with my wife using Playstation Move. Kinect can't really be used for hardcore gaming such as for a game like Killzone 3. It's too inaccurate and slow for any such type of game. For example pretending your hand to be a gun won't work, the hardware technology is far too imprecise to make out individual fingers. Sony seems to be gearing up some interesting kids targeted (and party mini-game) Move-only games as well and plenty of support within their more hardcore games (for example it also feels nice in Heavy Rain, a game I already owned) for which it makes sense, for example: Playstation Move Heroes: http://www.gametrailers.com/video/story-trailer-playstation-move/710427 Sorcery: http://www.gametrailers.com/video/gc-10-sorcery/703013 Ape Escape Shake! Shake! http://www.gametrailers.com/video/tgs-10-ape-escape/705162 A future pricecut may well make the console combined with Playstation Move more popular amongst kids. This while not alienating the existing userbase with the release of an unmatched amount of high profile exclusives using dual shock 3 controls and optional Playstation Move support where this makes sense.

The Move experience is not significantly different to the Wii's Remote hence been there, done that. Kinect is more innovative.

That said, it's a pain in the ass to move furniture around in smaller rooms.
Move also has it's calibration annoyances though.

Honestly MikeB, just like Wii back in 2006/7 was fun having friends over to play tennis or bowling, it's fun having friends over to play Kinect. Move was just late to the Wii game.

One thing that hasn't changed is: World of Warcraft is still my main game. Dare I say my only game. I will play Kinect over friends' houses though when we have get-togethers. You can't sell Move to me on PS3 for FPS games because I've been there and done that on Wii already. Also, FPS is not my favorite genre.

However, Deus Ex 3 looks like it will live up to the original. If all FPS games were Deus Ex clones then I would play more FPS's. But it's an FPS with stragedy, rpg elements and enviromental puzzles.

Run&gun FPS games are boring and all the same to me. Throwing in an occassional 'gimmick' like flying on a jet pack or controlling a mounted moving turrent doesn't really cut the mustard for diversity.

Deus Ex is a thinking man's game with consequences for actions.
It will be out for the PS3 as well and I to you as a gamer give you a strong recommendation to purchase it. I think once you play it, you will forget about these linear games like KZ3 and Uncharted X and will finally understand why I am so critical of those Sony exclusives and every other generic FPS on any system as well.

@MikeB

Quote:

MikeB wrote: @BrianK [quote]The game market is doing this. Not only for PS3 exclusives, but multiplatform games developers as well: Bioshock dev team: "So instead of declaring a "lead platform" and porting the game to the others, we’ve instead changed the game engine so that all platforms look (to a programmer) more like a PS3. This means implementing a task-oriented task processor… that mimics the PPU/SPU split of the PS3. Writing code this way is more difficult for us, but has a key advantage: it’s both optimal for the PS3 *and* gives speed improvements on other platforms." Please read the above quote a couple of times.

But that's a general statement that applies to all development.

5 years ago, I learned how to send emails from within the business apps I wrote for my employer to warn of problems or make notifications and even report errors. In so doing the app would "stop" (seemingly) until the mail was sent. In time I learned how to use multi-threading. I sent the email on it's own thread and my program just chugged along doing it's thing. This ofcourse improved performance. Each message that needed to be sent spawned it's own thread and my app moved onto the next record without waiting.

Until this generation, consoles have not really been multi-core and only marginally multi-threaded (can't recall the threading capability of the original Xbox).

On the 360, early games ran on a single core because ALL game design until then was single-core based and over time, all 360 games used all 3 cores. With the PS3, you had to use the SPU's from the beginning. This forced the developers to think multi-threaded/multi-core from the beginning...which was 1 year later than 360.

So making a game in a manner that uses multiple core design advantages benefits all development that is not for the Wii.

Last edited by Lou on 01-Apr-2011 at 09:33 PM.

@MikeB

Quote:

Bioshock dev team: "So instead of declaring a "lead platform" and porting the game to the others, we’ve instead changed the game engine so that all platforms look (to a programmer) more like a PS3.

This seems a silly statement to me. Instead of 'declaring' a lead platform they use PS3 as the lead platform.

Quote:

This means implementing a task-oriented task processor… that mimics the PPU/SPU split of the PS3. Writing code this way is more difficult for us, but has a key advantage: it’s both optimal for the PS3 *and* gives speed improvements on other platforms."

Seems to me the PS3 is the "lead platform" because it's less flexible. It runs on the 360 because the 360 can also handle being a task-oriented task processor. It runs on the PC because the PC can also handle being a task-oriented task processor. There's less porting this way because the 360 and PC are less picky about the code than the PS3. And that's the key advantage and likely why in the marketplace MIPS, PowerPC, X86 are going the way not of the a single core w/ specialized helpers but with multiple duplicate full cores.

I read it and I see it speaks clearly in favor of my statements. Thanks for the help!

@BrianK

Quote:

Seems to me the PS3 is the "lead platform" because it's less flexible. It runs on the 360 because the 360 can also handle being a task-oriented task processor.

The Cell can run badly written software as well with some performance penalties.

@MikeB

Quote:

The Cell can run badly written software as well with some performance penalties.

Can't any processor? Heck didn't x86 run MS Windows OSes?

@BrianK

I often get the feeling you intentionally pretend to not understand what I am saying, so again more quotes (I shared with you before) with more detail:

A multi-platform programmer:

"Regardless of managed memory or cached memory, the concepts and methods Mike has presented is highly portable. In the case of cached memory, that method results in optimized cache locality and cache utilization (something extremely important when multiple threads are sharing L1 on a single core, and multiple cores are sharing L2), and a predictable way to optimally prefetch. Good data locality, minimal sync points, branch elimination, and vectorization are all required to be able to extract great performance out of the 360 as well."

Another multi-platform programmer:

"Well, that all depends on your definition. Writing code optimized for the PS3 and using threading policies that are suited the SPUs is a given, because not doing so would not be acceptable at all. All our multithreading is done on PS3 first without exception, and other platforms emulate SPURS."

"Secondly, the matters of multithreading policies, the whole job queue architecture, encapsulation of jobs and their corresponding data packets, etc. that work on the PS3 are indeed more than applicable of the 360/PC. And as I've mentioned before, they work better than anything and everything that Microsoft recommends (so far without exception for us). The problems lie in the fact that that work is an absolute necessity on the PS3, whereas they're not entirely necessary on any other platform."

Do you now understand? Do you understand that the PS3 method results into better performing PC/360 game engines?

For example Crysis 2, despite being primarily designed around the 360's capabilities (6.8 GB DVD capacity, less processing power, etc), benefits from PS3 orientated development practices significantly reduces PC system requirements due to better and more efficient game engine design than would otherwise have been the case. It's a win-win situation for consumers.

That's one of the reasons why I think the PS3 has been very important for moving forward the gaming industry. Finally many PC programmers going back to understanding how the underlying hardware actually operates and use and implement this knowledge to benefit consumer (the easy way would be for them for you to buy a faster processor and more memory instead). This will help to make it easier to get the most out of advanced handheld gaming devices such as the NGP as well, as well as from any modern desktop/home console gaming solution.

Last edited by MikeB on 02-Apr-2011 at 10:17 AM.

@MikeB

I often get the feeling you intentionally pretend to not understand what I am saying

Quote:

. All our multithreading is done on PS3 first without exception, and other platforms emulate SPURS."

Again as I indicated the Cell isn't as flexible. What developers are finding is it's easier to start on the PS3 and use on other platforms and more work to do it in reverse order. Companies want to save money so program on the least flexible architecture and moving to something that's more flexible is a lower amount of man-hours and therefore a lower cost.

You believe the Cell is a good way to follow. Except again no one is following the Cell in hardware. Heck Sony themselves even decided against the Cell in their latest gaming machine.

Quote:

Do you understand that the PS3 method results into better performing PC/360 game engines?

Do you understand this means we didn't need the Cell to use 'PS3 Methods' as x86 and Xenon because they were there PRIOR to the release of the Cell? In other words developers could do this w/o the existence of the Cell. It's simply the Cell forced the issue because it's less flexible and harder to use other methods on the CPU. Is this a 'win' for the Cell? I'd agree to this... The Cell won A battle but multiple full cpu cores won the war.

Last edited by BrianK on 02-Apr-2011 at 01:54 PM.

@BrianK

Quote:

Again as I indicated the Cell isn't as flexible.

It is as flexible, even far more so hence we see the Cell used for many things today you stated in the past it would not be suitable for.

Quote:

Do you understand this means we didn't need the Cell to use 'PS3 Methods'

Of course logic and efficient game engine development was possible in the past, but with regard to PC development coding for most became more and more abstracted, this also due to x86 having been extremely outdated and cumbersome to deal with directly.

I think Mike Acton describes well some points I have been addressing here now and in the past:

http://www.develop-online.net/features/181/QA-Insomniacs-Mike-Acton
http://www.developmag.com/interviews/175/QA-Insomniacs-Mike-Acton-Part-2

Please read the above carefully. I think by reading the above you can save me a lot of time/effort.

@MikeB

Quote:

It is as flexible, even far more so hence we see the Cell used for many things today you stated in the past it would not be suitable for.

The Cell is in the PS3. The Cell used to be used in a video cards, GPUs beat it. The Cell might be in a Toshiba TV converter, it can a great job here. But, at $10K few will have it and it's already been overtaken by much lower cost solutions. The Cell used to be new Supercomputers but NEW one's aren't coming. Did I miss anything where the Cell is? And the Cell has a definitive future in what? Not Sony's next system, NGP. Perhaps the PS4 but there isn't any announcements there.

Quote:

Of course logic and efficient game engine development was possible in the past, but with regard to PC development coding for most became more and more abstracted, this also due to x86 having been extremely outdated and cumbersome to deal with directly

Not sure x86 is as 'outdated' as you think. Afterall the x86 chips can deal with the 'modern PS3 programming models' with less of a hassle than the other way around.

Certainly Insomanic love the PS3 and only want to program for that. I see Insomanic's comments as a strong backing for my view that the Cell won a battle but is losing a war. Probably not what you intended.

Sorry MikeB I see your argument as 'Cell won a battle' in game development. But the competition was as good and could use those tactics too. In the hardware marketplace of CPUs the Cell is a non-player outside the PS3. In the marketplace of CPUs multi-core homogenous, like the Xenon, and the heterogenous is being a more tightly coupled GPU, like the most recent Xenon. The Cell has lost this war.

Last edited by BrianK on 02-Apr-2011 at 10:09 PM.

@BrianK

Quote:

The Cell is in the PS3. The Cell used to be used in a video cards, GPUs beat it.

You seem to be confused as the Cell can beat both traditional CPUs and GPUs for many different tasks. One example quoting Digital Foundry:

"The fact that the God of War III MLAA operates on SPU has some very specific advantages - the Cell's satellite processors are far more flexible in terms of how they can be programmed, leading some to believe that GPU implementations will struggle to match the quality level."

This almost sounds like being taken straight from my past comments with regard to performing AA techniques using the Cell processor.

The PS3 also includes a GPU. The GPU is of course faster for performing various bulk graphics related tasks. Tasks which solely need brute force instead of taking advantage of smart programming.

I cannot believe you still haven't changed your tune after all these years of me explaining to you the Cell's merrit and strong points.

Quote:

The Cell used to be new Supercomputers but NEW one's aren't coming

The PS3 is being used for supercomputing due to the Cell. A Cell powered PS3 is way cheaper to scientists than other solutions (even when not really taking much or any advantage of the PS3's extras like the Blu-Ray player, GPU, DS3 controller, Wi-Fi, etc, etc).

This is merely a testament of what a great deal the PS3 really is in terms of the power housing inside the PS3 compared to its retail pricing.

Of course Sony does not like the market to do this en masse as they want to earn back most of their investments through software (game) sales on the PS3. It could not continue this way.

And of course, the investing companies don't just let rivals use their technology for which they invested a lot of money. PS3 sales are going strong. The Cell holds far more influence on the market than the (relatively unremarkable) Xenon.

Quote:

Not sure x86 is as 'outdated' as you think.

I am talking about the flawed architecture originating from the 70s. x86 did not survive because it was such a great architecture, it survived due to backwards compatibility considerations.

Last edited by MikeB on 03-Apr-2011 at 07:31 AM.