@BrianK

Quote:

BrianK wrote: @fairlanefastback Sony claims the disc-read errors have nothing to do with the firmware updates. Eurogamer IMO it was added to ensure the PS3 feels like a PS2 even if it can't play PS2 games.

That's what Sony says but no one is convinced...

@Lou

Quote:

Quote: Sony claims the disc-read errors have nothing to do with the firmware updates. Eurogamer That's what Sony says but no one is convinced...

Including the many who are taking part in a Class Action Lawsuite against Sony .

@Lou

More Sony fluff ---

"In an industry that has certainly had its challenges this year, we like to say that the environment where the PlayStation wins is best for this industry," Sony CEO Jack Tretton told Forbes.

I think he meant to say is best for our company.

It would seem to me the approach of a more expensive console is not best for the industry. In so far as it's garnered less console sales, less game sales, and likely lower profits for game manufactures.

No single console is the 'best for the industry' option. All have their good points, and bad points. Clearly the Wii and 360 being more popular than the PS3 at is 'good' as it forced Sony to be more competitive with their console. Sony, in turn, ripped out features (dual HDMI and PS2 backwards compatibility) and added the right ones (rumble and lower manufacturing costs) and this helped to lower the price of the PS3.

I'd have to say what is best for the industry is competition.

@BrianK

Quote:

BrianK wrote: @Lou More Sony fluff --- "In an industry that has certainly had its challenges this year, we like to say that the environment where the PlayStation wins is best for this industry," Sony CEO Jack Tretton told Forbes. I think he meant to say is best for our company. It would seem to me the approach of a more expensive console is not best for the industry. In so far as it's garnered less console sales, less game sales, and likely lower profits for game manufactures. No single console is the 'best for the industry' option. All have their good points, and bad points. Clearly the Wii and 360 being more popular than the PS3 at is 'good' as it forced Sony to be more competitive with their console. Sony, in turn, ripped out features (dual HDMI and PS2 backwards compatibility) and added the right ones (rumble and lower manufacturing costs) and this helped to lower the price of the PS3. I'd have to say what is best for the industry is competition.

It's been nice watching Sony getting force-fed some humble pie. Even MS has quieted down since what's his name went to EA.

@Lou

Quote:

It's been nice watching Sony getting force-fed some humble pie.

Certainly things such as Xbox Live have improved Sony's offering. For another example of improvement - Without Acheivements on the 360 I doubt we'd have trophies for the PS3.

Quote:

Even MS has quieted down since what's his name went to EA

Microsoft simply doesn't have to talk smack about the gaming console. It has brought the ball to the court. In addition, I doubt anyone needs a 'big' leader for the 360 at the present state. I suspect we'll see some action when the Xbox 3 (whatever it is called) is announced.

As for the ex-360 head and recent head of EA. Rumors have been that this means Microsoft will buy EA. I doubt it. It'd definitely make it interesting for Sony should that happen.

Did you see the CRYEngine has been announced as ready for PS3 and 360 consoles?

New Xbox slated for 2012 and to stick with AMD (ATI) gpu.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/new-xbox-to-be-powered-by-amd-report

Successor to DSi running NVIDIA chip:
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/new-ds-slated-for-late-2010-release

Last edited by Lou on 14-Oct-2009 at 05:32 PM.

@Lou

Quote:

New Xbox slated for 2012 and to stick with AMD (ATI) gpu.

Interesting. I think this makes sense as ATI was first out of the gate and is pushing hard the DirectX 11 technology. 3 years from now is a generation if not 2 in video cards. I'd look for the successor to the new 58xx series to be at least the Xbox3 processor. Perhaps 2012 would mean 2 past the latest greatest 58xx.

Quote:

Successor to DSi running NVIDIA chip:

The line about Tegra in early 2010 is confusing. Tegra is out now in the ZuneHD. Perhaps an improved Tegra line? Which of course brings the question will Nintendo work with Microsoft on gaming and bring in the Zune? Microsoft has been quiet about the gaming potential of this handheld.

@BrianK

Quote:

BrianK wrote: @Lou Quote: Successor to DSi running NVIDIA chip: The line about Tegra in early 2010 is confusing. Tegra is out now in the ZuneHD. Perhaps an improved Tegra line? Which of course brings the question will Nintendo work with Microsoft on gaming and bring in the Zune? Microsoft has been quiet about the gaming potential of this handheld.

Well, they haven't been quiet but I don't think they are about to invest in that market segment like they did with the Xbox... Let ZuneHD establish itself in it's primary market as a media player first. Games can come second. No one will develop for a new platform with a relatively small installed base.

If this successor is the real deal then porting to Zune could be a low cost option for developers then.

@Lou

Fall-Winter of 2010 is the ATI Hecatoncheires. Not much info is available but one would have to believe it'll be a sort of massive (100 handed) core GPU. I'd suspect in the vein of Larabee and Fermi. Microsoft working with ATI now to get a new GPU in a couple of years allows them time to fine tune the product for their particular application, and of course fine tune the software too.

Rumors are Sony will be going Cell + Larabee. The Cell duplicates some of the functions of a GPU. If the GPU (Larabee/Fermi/Hecatoncheires) have 100 cores adding another couple from the Cell really won't be a benefit. It'll be interesting to see if Sony indeed modifies the Cell. They've switched CPUs for all 3 of their consoles. Certainly there are good choices out there they might switch again. It appears technology is going a different path than the Cell approach.

@BrianK

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BrianK wrote: @Lou It appears technology is going a different path than the Cell approach.

Who would have thunk it?

In all seriousness, they'd be crazy to switch again.

In all seriousness, I think they'd be better off releasing a 4.8GHz version with all 8 SPE's available to maintain B/C and get som ROI out of the platform... Pull a "Nintendo" in other words...and actually make money... Perhaps they can make the PPE an out of order processor to get more performance out of it along with the clockspeed bump... How much more cpu do these consoles need? The gpu was their achilles heel...well, that and the 2x256MB issue...

@Lou

Quote:

The gpu was their achilles heel...well, that and the 2x256MB issue...

True, did they limit RAM for any particular reason? I heard it was a fairly exotic type of RAM which was quite expensive. It really has backfired thoughas developers complain it's not worth putting better (and hence larger) textures on the bigger Blu-Ray discs (compared to the XBox360's DVD) if the PS3 can't copy enough of them into RAM at a given time! They shot themselves in the foot. Ghostbusters was much better on the 360 with awesome textures and the PS3 didn't match it! Let's hope 'Uncharted 2' raises the bar!

Last edited by BigD on 15-Oct-2009 at 02:15 PM.

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@Lou

Quote:

Lou wrote: New Xbox slated for 2012 and to stick with AMD (ATI) gpu. http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/new-xbox-to-be-powered-by-amd-report Successor to DSi running NVIDIA chip: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/new-ds-slated-for-late-2010-release

It looks like a re-run of AMD/ATI Vs NVIDIA in non-PC consumers space.

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@BigD

Quote:

BigD wrote: @Lou Quote: The gpu was their achilles heel...well, that and the 2x256MB issue... True, did they limit RAM for any particular reason? I heard it was a fairly exotic type of RAM which was quite expensive. It really has backfired thoughas developers complain it's not worth putting better (and hence larger) textures on the bigger Blu-Ray discs (compared to the XBox360's DVD) if the PS3 can't copy enough of them into RAM at a given time! They shot themselves in the foot. Ghostbusters was much better on the 360 with awesome textures and the PS3 didn't match it! Let's hope 'Uncharted 2' raises the bar!

$$$

Recall that Epic's Gears of War is the reason the 360 came with 512MB instead of 256MB. Mark Rein begged for more memory and MS obliged.

It's not so much the quality of the textures, but the quantity. As I tried explaining to MikeB...

Game engines generally aren't too big compared to video and sound from a memory footprint. With the 360, a game engine can be 100MB and a/v can have 412MB of memory. On the PS3 you are limited to 256MB and if you dip into the Cell's 256MB then you lose fps because of bandwidth. In addition, the faster average seek times of 12xDVD means you can buffer or stream faster as well when you have to.

This is a problem the Wii has as well with it's 24MB of on-die gpu RAM and 64MB main ram.

With NVidia bowing out of the high-end gpu race...one wonders what will be in the PS4... If a PS4 simply has the last high end gpu from Nvidia with 2x or 4x the dedicated RAM then you'll still see a graphical improvement over the PS3...but TV's aren't going to get better than 1080p for a while so it will be about maximizing 1080p with solid framerates and realistic lighting and rich textures. Also, linear games like Uncharted 2 can become more wide-open game like GTA4 but with Uncharted 2's visual fidelity.

Other than that, I don't think 3D capable TV's will penetrate the market enough to see that taken advantage of for some time. Controls are where innovation is going, not graphics.

Last edited by Lou on 15-Oct-2009 at 03:17 PM.

@Lou

Quote:

With NVidia bowing out of the high-end gpu race...one wonders what will be in the PS4...

Huh? Isn't the nVidia Fermi coming in 2010 going to be used for the high-end race? I thought they already had High Performance Computing clients in the wings.

@BrianK

Quote:

BrianK wrote: @Lou Quote: With NVidia bowing out of the high-end gpu race...one wonders what will be in the PS4... Huh? Isn't the nVidia Fermi coming in 2010 going to be used for the high-end race? I thought they already had High Performance Computing clients in the wings.

http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/2009/10/day-of-nvidia-chipset-reckoning-arrives.ars

@Lou

Quote:

http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/2009/10/day-of-nvidia-chipset-reckoning-arrives.ars

That's nVidia bowing out of the integrated chipset not the high end GPU. Perhaps you mean because they won't have an integrated chipset moving their new high end Fermi GPU to the motherboard for a console will prove to be more difficult?

And of course the rumors are that Sony selected the Intel Larabee for their PS4. But one even has to wonder about that. Will Intel want a PPC CPU and Larabee to exist? I'd think that Intel will try to encourage Sony to move to multicore x86.

@BrianK

Quote:

BrianK wrote: @Lou Quote: http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/2009/10/day-of-nvidia-chipset-reckoning-arrives.ars That's nVidia bowing out of the integrated chipset not the high end GPU. Perhaps you mean because they won't have an integrated chipset moving their new high end Fermi GPU to the motherboard for a console will prove to be more difficult? And of course the rumors are that Sony selected the Intel Larabee for their PS4. But one even has to wonder about that. Will Intel want a PPC CPU and Larabee to exist? I'd think that Intel will try to encourage Sony to move to multicore x86.

I'm sorry. I read another article that said Fermi was still far from done and that they were cancelling all current gpu projects and focussing on the embedded market and things such as the deal with Nintendo. Can't find the links though. They are giving up the high end in other words.

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/10/15/pachter-project-natal-will-cost-50-sphere-will-be-over-100/

This Patcher guy is a clown. MS sells an 802.11N adapter for $100 but Natal is supposed to be $50 dispite the high quality camera, cpu and speakers it includes?

As for Sony, Sphere could cost $30-$40 if you don't already have the "Eye"...

This is why MS and Sony will never capture the market like Wii did, however for people who already have a 360/PS3, spending another $100-$200 to be able to play ported Wii games may be an option ... until the next Wii price drop...

@Lou

Quote:

I'm sorry. I read another article that said Fermi was still far from done and that they were cancelling all current gpu projects and focussing on the embedded market and things such as the deal with Nintendo. Can't find the links though. They are giving up the high end in other words.

Check out the nVidia thread here . It contains recent nVidia news. NV announced they are stopping Intel x86 embedded due to Intel. NV announced they were stopping AMD x86 embedded due to AMD's small marketshare. They stated they'd continue with ION embedded for Atom. For non-embedded they are going forward with Tegra (Nintendo DS2 contender) and Fermi. They recently 'showed' Fermi and slipped the date into early 2010. I say 'showed' because it appears the Fermi card was a mock up.

@all

Sony to launch PlayStation with bigger hard drive

link

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