@BigD

Good article. I think it spells it out well -- Microsoft approached this from a software perspective. Fix it with patches. Hardware IS a different animal.

It appears in the piece that estimates are ~15 of consoles replace/repaired. Definitely a bad deal. Interesting to see newer consoles are 90%+ up from a 80% rate.

Though the last point is right on. Microsoft sees this as a 10-15 year approach. Microsoft is good at learning from their mistakes. They kind of live by the motto - 3rd time's a charm. I think either Sony or Nintendo would be a daft if they didn't expect the 3rd Xbox to be even more competitive.

@BrianK

...and people under-valued Nintendo when they annouced they were going to build a small, cool & low power consuming device...

The Wii's motherboard is about the same size as Efika & SAM ... has more processing power than either and includes 802.11g and bluetooth.... So the gpu is a little on the weak side, but I digress...

I think that is a very good article from Dean Takahashi, as always. I have actually read his Xbox 360 and respect his writing and research a lot. Very good to get a sort of post mortem on this issue.

That said, Xbox 360 is - still - also my favorite console this generation. Can't be helped, it just still stirs more excitement than PS3 does. Can't really explain why either. I'm really looking forward to the fall update. Anyways, I wouldn't give up my PS3 either.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/metroid-prime-devs-form-new-studio

/cry

Quote:

Microsoft’s Xbox 360 outsold Nintendo’s Wii and Sony’s PS3 in Japan during the week ended September 14, Famitsu reports. According to an MCV translation of the report, weekly Xbox 360 sales hit 28,681 units, a massive jump on the 843 units shifted a week earlier (Media Create data pegged prior week 360 sales at 1044). In comparison, Nintendo moved 27,057 Wii units and Sony sold just 8,050 PS3s. A number of reasons were cited for the hike in Xbox 360 sales, including a recent price cut to the entire range of 360 models, the launch of a 60GB unit, and renewed stock following widespread shortages. The release of Square Enix’s Infinite Undiscovery, which reportedly sold 86,708 copies in its debut week, also contributed to the system’s weekly hardware victory. According to the report 717,275 Xbox 360s have now been sold in Japan. We’ll publish the usual weekly hardware sales figures from Media Create on Friday and the Japanese software top ten on Thursday.

http://www.edge-online.com/news/japan-360-topples-wii

Industry insider gets banned for making a pro-Wii remark on NeoGAF
http://nintendo-revolution.blogspot.com/

NeoGAF credibility -> toilet.

@Lou

Nvidia recently laid off 360 employees. I guess cuz PS3 isn't a number.

NPD says 195K 360 sales in the US for August Sept 5th price cut appears to be pushing consoles in the US. Arcades selling 6x the previous rate. With the Wii still in short supply it appears the lower end is turning to the Arcade. Fable 2, Guitar Hero, Rockband 2, Gears of War 2 and the new online interface the early predictions are the 360 and Wii duke it out while the PS3 watches. (of course in the US). I'd think the slowed economy will focus familes on the lower priced consoles. Will the PS2 beat the PS3 for a 3rd Christmas?

RRoD over heating? VGCHartz Has a new power test section. The latest revision 360, Falcon model, is impressive. 74-77W idle down from 132-135W. Running game 76-83W down from 140-145W. DVD playback 69-74W down 120-126W. Impressive change. Overheating was one of the RRoD causes, surely these lower draws will help keep things cooler. I'd expect Jasper, late this year, might even better these numbers.

For others that don't want to look, Wii 16-19W for idle or gaming. 40GB PS3 134W idle up to 142W gaming. 60GB PS3 148W idle up to 166W gaming. Strangely the older 60GB PS3 was 7W Standby and the newer 40GB PS3 was up 35W standby. The 40GB was 65nm cell w/ 90nm video. It'd be interesting to see the new 80GB w/ 65nm for both cell and video.

@BrianK

The standby Watts is not to be believed. The test was done with a cheaper type
of power tester. As mentioned by several commenters of the feature.

For example the older 60GB PS3 has been tested before with real power testers
by others. It was then measured at 1.9W, Wii at 1.8W and 360 at 2.4W. The 40GB
35W standby is surely as wrong as the testers 360 16W is. Also I wouldn't be
surprised if the newer units of both 360 and PS3 has lower standby than their
older versions had.

I read a Watt reading by someone that owned the newer 80GB and it was measured
at 110-115W in idle and 130-135W maxed if I remember correctly. Standby Watt was
not mentioned by the person.

Btw the Watt usage of the newer 360's is really impressive. Good work by MicroSoft
there.

_________________
/Harry

[SOLD] µA1-C - 750GX 800MHz - 512MB - Antec Aria case

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@BrianK

Btw the latest 360 is the ultimate proof that we DO NOT want to use ANY console
for DVD playback.. Compared to a stand alone DVD player they have huge power
consumption, about 13-14W for a stand alone DVD player.

_________________
/Harry

[SOLD] µA1-C - 750GX 800MHz - 512MB - Antec Aria case

Avatar by HNL_DK!

@Samwel

Quote:

Btw the latest 360 is the ultimate proof that we DO NOT want to use ANY console for DVD playback.. Compared to a stand alone DVD player they have huge power consumption, about 13-14W for a stand alone DVD player

Well penultimate as the PS3 had a slightly higher rate for DVD play back. You are right we don't want to use the DVD playback option of the consoles. If I recall correctly Blu-Ray players use about 3x the power of DVD. For example, Marantz's low end DVD uses 10 Watts. The Blu-Ray uses 68 Watts. Blu is only available in their most expensive player right now a similar level DVD player is 35 Watts. Depending on how one wants to slice it that's a 2-7x additional usage for Blu-Ray.

Well, I have consciously avoided this thread and cannot contribute to the detailed technical discussion, but I can confess to having a wii console, two controllers and the wiifit board. In a fortnight I've almost painlessly reduced the tummy by about 3 kilos which the wii sternly says is too great a rate! Today I introduced an 86 yr aunt and her 20 something grand daughter to it. They did get really involved. The old lady was not going to have anything to do with the shooting range game. Her hand shook too much to keep her sights on the screen but she accidentally knocked off a few ducks, insisted on trying again and again until her arthritic hand was perfectly steady and her score climbed and climbed. The wii programming is rather strong on encouraging beginners to improve themselves and slyly helps here and there the achievement of positive results. When I demonstrated tennis my aunt was indignant at the way my computer driven partner provided so little assistance whereas the opposition was using both players to make things hard for me.

On a slightly technical note, there was a period when the pointer became over sensitive and very difficult to aim or select with. Was battery power running low, something else failing, no. The tv screen was unusually high, we tended to point all over the place and were using reflections on the screen instead of the main signal! One learns. grin

Noel

From Ars Technica AmigaOS4.1 review:

Quote:

A Hyperion developer told me that not only has the OS been run on a PS3, but they have even tested support for the seven SPU units in the Cell processor.

@MikeB

Quote:

MikeB wrote: From Ars Technica AmigaOS4.1 review: Quote: A Hyperion developer told me that not only has the OS been run on a PS3, but they have even tested support for the seven SPU units in the Cell processor.

Lie, no OtherOS can use the 7th SPE (which contains the SPU) as it is locked to manage the hypervisor. However, I do hope every other part of that comment is true as the PS3 along with its hypervisor was designed to be able to boot up an PPC compatible OS. It is then just a matter of creating a directory for applications to interact with the SPU.

@Lou

It would be interesting to see what kind of smooth running graphics can be squeezed out of the Wii. I am personally looking forward to how Mushroom Men: The Spore Wars plays out.

@ReverseGTR

Quote:

ReverseGTR wrote: @Lou It would be interesting to see what kind of smooth running graphics can be squeezed out of the Wii. I am personally looking forward to how Mushroom Men: The Spore Wars plays out.

The thing with Wii programming is that the architecture is designed for a high polygon count with smaller textures...where as the 360/PS3 were designed with high-res textures to keep polygon counts down...so art assets not tailored for the Wii have to be comppletely re-tooled. In the end Wii ports usually just get PS2 assets with no other changes...

Now take a game like RE4 on the GC which used models with 10,000 polygons vs. the PS2's 4,0000 polygon models and you see why despite the higher resolution and better textures, the GC version came out on top...which carried over into the Wii version...

@ReverseGTR

Quote:

Lie, no OtherOS can use the 7th SPE (which contains the SPU) as it is locked to manage the hypervisor.

IMO try to not sound like an extremist, don't attack people like that Jeremy is right the PS3 Cell uses 7 SPUs in addition to the PPU. Probably his wording was a mistake or confusion.

@MikeB

Quote:

Quote: A Hyperion developer told me that not only has the OS been run on a PS3, but they have even tested support for the seven SPU units in the Cell processor.

IF this was acheived it's likely not done in a friendly PS3 way. The PS3 has blocked access to the SPEs. Did a Hyperion find a way around it where all Linux Geeks have failed? Perhaps but I for one wouldn't put any cash on it. The next logical question is IF the SPEs were active what software made use of them? I'd assume either the OS itself would have to be written to mask the SPE or an SPE.library created which future developers might use.

@BrianK

Quote:

IF this was acheived it's likely not done in a friendly PS3 way. The PS3 has blocked access to the SPEs.

Why? Sony and IBM encourage SPE usage.

Some new Resistance 2 footage:

Huge Goliath:
http://gamevideos.1up.com/video/id/21582

Screenshots:
http://www.1up.com/media/03/6/1/5/lg/545.jpg
http://www.1up.com/media/03/6/1/5/lg/556.jpg
http://www.1up.com/media/03/6/1/5/lg/543.jpg
http://www.1up.com/media/03/6/1/5/lg/540.jpg

The game seems to be shaping up very well!

@MikeB

Quote:

Quote: IF this was acheived it's likely not done in a friendly PS3 way. The PS3 has blocked access to the SPEs. Why? Sony and IBM encourage SPE usage.

What was blocked by Sony was it RSX? I recall there's something Linux can't get to.