The 5-Year Console Cycle Is Dead 422
Pickens writes "The Xbox 360 recently turned five years old, and with no known successor on the horizon for the 360, PlayStation 3 or Wii, Cnet reports on the death of the 5-year console cycle — one of the video game industry's most longstanding truisms. For example, the Nintendo Entertainment System came out in 1985, followed by the Super NES in 1991, the Nintendo 64 in 1996, the GameCube in 2001, and the Wii in 2006. But now, why should console makers upgrade their offerings? Consumers are still buying their machines by the hundreds of thousands each month, and ramped-up online initiatives are breathing new life into the systems. A lot of it has to do with the fact that with the current generation of consoles, each company found a way to maximize either the technology behind the devices, or the utility to a wide range of new gamers."
Wow, not even the first example is right (Score:3, Informative)
Business Model Changes (Score:4, Insightful)
The business model has changed in a way which makes 5-year-console-cycles less important. It used to be turning out a new console would give you new capabilities AND would get people to buy lots of new games. Now you may get a little more power and may be able to upgrade the way a few things are done, but more of your revenue stream comes from subscriptions than from new game or new console sales. (New console sales are actually a net negative, at least for some of the major providers, because they keep the lost low to encourage sales of the games and recoup the loss on games + subscriptions.)
Also, the technology of game platforms isn't advancing quickly enough any more to make a five-year-lag a competition killer.
Re:Business Model Changes (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd be willing to bet that in the past 5 years graphics technology has improved enough to make it worth replacing the whole guts of a console box with something newer.
I'd also be willing to bet that the economy being shite has reduced the disposable income of the planet to the point where profits on such a development program wouldn't be worth the effort.
But unemployed people have less money and more time, so selling them old technology still makes a pretty good incremental margin.
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Especially the Wii would of course benefit from an upgrade.
Kinda haven't played it but was actually in an electronics store today which had it hooked up to a large HD screen and it looked like utter crap, sorta like if you used a non-RGB scart (maybe not in the US?) or JPEG encoded with low quality. Blurry and weird. Cable and TV may had sucked (composite cable?)
Anyway, regardless of course it could had been better.
Heck, the Gamecube could output DVI ..
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Well, it kind of all depends on whether or not you are focused on the gameplay or how pretty the backgrounds are and how anal you are.
Playing a Wii on a 20 foot tall screen is really not the dire sort of thing you would like to make it out to be.
Any new console is going to be about marginal benefit. As time goes by, it becomes harder and harder to achieve significant enough marginal benefit when weighed against all of the costs to the end users. This applies equally well to the "prettier" consoles too.
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The Wii's GFX output looks pretty dreadful on any decent display
If you own the games but want better graphics than your Wii can provide, you should try running them under emulation on your computer, they look fantastic at 1920x1080@60hz true HD and runs just fine on a midrange i5 computer.
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I second this. I have a gaming pc, a ps3, and a wii.
My wii sits collecting dust 90% of the time. My ps3 gets used a lot for netflix, and I play games on it every once in awhile; it gets a ton of use when I get a new game that I really like and I want to beat, like AC2. My computer gets used more regularly, although it's pretty much ignored when I'm playing a game on my ps3 like AC2.
In the end, my wii is great for playing Super Smash Bros, and Mario Kart, when friends come over. Other than that it doesn't ge
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Part of the Wii's success is that development on it is cheap thanks to not needing to adopt different development practices (necessary by multi-core CPUs) and invest in HD graphics.
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I doubt it, as people are really not going to adopt this until we're wearing full-body suits.
They'll waggle a bit, drop their stuff, and go back to a controller.
The only 'waggle' game I consistently play is DBZ:BT3 on the Wii. At least the movements to perform many of the moves are quite realistic and true to the style of the game/series.
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Of course it has. But why should they have to put any effort or expense into it? It's not like consumers care or anything. We've proven that time and time again.
This is the new model of business models: We shouldn't have to actually do anything to have consumers give us money. It's the entitlement mentality of big business circa 2010. Fr
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Sorry you are wrong re: hardware.
The hardware is still advancing but for a variety of reasons there is less incentive to utilise it given that revenues are fantastic using the old stuff. Of course over time this will lead to less impetus to drive hardware but for now hardware is still plowing ahead, thank god.
The proof in the pudding is how a 100 dollar mainstream PC video card can pretty much max out any console port (i.e. most PC titles) on 720p or even 1080p. Five years ago your 100 dollar card would str
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While not a video card, the N64 memory expansion pack doubled the amount of ram in the system.
Maximising technology? (Score:2)
"A lot of it has to do with the fact that with the current generation of consoles, each company found a way to maximize either the technology behind the devices, or the utility to a wide range of new gamers"
That and because most PC games are crippled so they can also run on consoles (or are ports of comparitively cripppled console games), thereby leaving most of their computing power idle.
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I know that some people obsess over pixel count and want their games to look better, but the fact is, it doesn't make the game
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Game Studios (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe in this economy... (Score:2)
People aren't as willing to buy and dispose of consoles, just to get the "latest and greatest". I think the success of the Wii has also shown that there is a market for just "fun" games, rather than just relying on graphical eye candy. In addition, with the Sony Move and Microsoft Kinect, in some ways these consoles are new enough.
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The Wii just appealed to the casual gamer grandmas who would have never considered console before. The only reason it sold so much is because it opened a new market that consoles could previously never break into. It was also relatively cheap, further lowering the bar to its entry into the market. The 360 appealed more to the traditional console crowd. Most serious gamers I know have 360s. Not many have a Wii.
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I am a fairly serious gamer, I play PC games via wine, if they don't work with wine/crossover I just don't play them that way. I have a PS3 and am getting a red Wii. I have an NES, a N64, a gamecube, and a PS2. The PC is not getting upgraded since I can't find games that really warrant it.
The only people who makes these claims about the wii are children. They are afraid if they like something "Childish" people will realize what children they really are.
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am getting a red Wii.
You might want to have that looked at by a doctor.
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The 360 appealed more to the traditional console crowd.
Well, for varying definitions of "traditional." I prefer the Wii because I like fun games, and FPS with horrible controls are not (imo) fun. I was pleasantly surprised to find that many Wii games feel very much like the classics I remember--sometimes because they are 2D (NSMBW, the new Donkey Kong) and sometimes because they capture the spirit of those games (Super Mario Bros Galaxy, Zelda.) No, I think that the Wii is more traditional, and that the Xbox (and later the 360) really broke out and found new
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Most of the "serious gamers" I know play games on a PC. Though at this point I doubt most of us PC gamers want to be associated with the frat boy stereotype that perpetuates on consoles.
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Actually (Score:3, Insightful)
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I still like the PS2....there were some pretty good games for it and the graphics are not all that bad, even today. In fact, I keep meaning to pick another one up so I can keep playing Dragon Quest VIII.
I've Gone Back to PC (Score:2)
I'm sorry, but I can't handle 8800GT-era graphics anymore. The 360 used to look nice, but it's definitely aging, and Microsoft seems intent on going down the casual-gamer road. I started buying more titles on PC than console last year, and I've only purchased a handful this year. I know that I'm in the minority, but this supposed "10-year cycle" is just not for me.
Re:I've Gone Back to PC (Score:4, Interesting)
Indeed. Slashdot has a very, very short memory. Just a few days ago there was an article featured on the consoles being too slow.
http://games.slashdot.org/story/10/11/25/2126215/PC-Gaming-a-Generation-Ahead-of-Consoles-Says-Crytek-Boss [slashdot.org]
Although honestly, I think the larger danger to the consoles is not the PC market, but the mobile market with the iPad and such. I've been surprised at how much the iPad can actually pull off for not being just a gaming device (N.O.V.A., etc).
This article reminds me a bit of some of the early predictions where the people couldn't see the need for more than a few computers in the world. It reeks of something that will come around and bite them in the ass for not progressing quick enough.
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Every time a new, high-profile FPS comes out, I ask myself, "is this game better than Deus Ex?" And the answer is inevitably "no". When a PC developer uses all the superior hardware they like to circlejerk over to make a game that's more fun to play, then maybe they'll have a point. As it is, PC gaming is still generations behind PC gaming.
Only Nintendo seems to need an upgrade... (Score:2)
[Full disclosure: The only modern system I own is the Wii.]
Nintendo seems to be the only one that needs to upgrade the capabilities of their current console. There's lots of games coming out for PS3 or XBox360 that I'd like to play, but these games are not coming out on the Wii because it's simply not powerful enough. I may pick up one of the other ones used after Christmas - not because I can't afford them new, but because I don't want my money going to the prop up companies that approve of DRM laden sof
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The biggest technical barrier in the past 3 generations of consoles have been load times. I don't care
Re:Only Nintendo seems to need an upgrade... (Score:4, Insightful)
Um, what?
The Wii has only one processor core. The Wii has a GPU capable of only ~15 million polygons/second max, and incapable of plain old bumpmapping, nevermind more complex shaders. It has a pitiful amount of memory available. Reducing the resolution of a 360 or PS3 game doesn't reduce the massive amount of shaders and effects the Wii simply could not handle. That's why games need to be completely independently developed for the Wii, it's nearly impossible to do a straight port and downgrade, simply because the limitations are so vastly different. It's a Gamecube. Surely you're not suggesting that a PS2 could play PS3 games easily at 480p as well?
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Take a look at god of war 2 in 480p, looks great. I say this as someone who owns a PS2 and a PS3. Also the gamecube was a good system, the wii is not the same beast. Much faster, still weaker than a ps3 but no gamecube.
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but because I don't want my money going to the prop up companies that approve of DRM laden software and sue people for modding the hardware they sell.
Then why do you have a Wii? Nintendo is who taught Sony and MS' what they know about that.
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Bust as someone else mentioned, current gen consoles can max out the resolution of most HDTVs that are out there...
How to max out the resolution of a hdtv.
Step 1: Buy a good, high resolution camera. (Red One comes to mind, but there are others)
Step 2: Take it out into the natural world. Find something visually interesting,
Step 3. Focus, and attend to lighting.
Step 4: Press Record...
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Actually, current gen console games frequently render at less than 720p:
GTA IV runs at 640p on the PS3 [joystiq.com]
Halo 3 renders at 640p on the Xbox 360 [joystiq.com]
We are getting close to the point (if we haven't passed it already) where low-end ($50) PC GPUs outperform current consoles.
I'm not so sure (Score:2)
There's lots of games coming out for PS3 or XBox360 that I'd like to play, but these games are not coming out on the Wii because it's simply not powerful enough
The Wii is actually a reasonably powerful system in terms of CPU/GUP/ etc, in spite of the fact that it outputs at 480p. I suspect a bigger part of why a lot of games don't come out for the Wii comes down to the most distinctive element of the system - the controller itself. PS3/Xbox360 controllers have what, 40 buttons on them? The Wii controller has about 7 buttons (not including the D pad). Even if you include the nunchuck the total button count just isn't there and the programmers find that a signi
It's probably related to profitability (Score:2)
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But they're so close! (Score:3, Funny)
Just one more generation and we'll finally have a true HD console (one rendering at 1920x1080, not scaling up from a much lower rez). I don't want to build another gaming computer. Give me a console that can do what my current rig can do and I'll be set.
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Though the fact is, even though the majority of the population may now have "HD TVs", most of them wouldn't notice any difference between 720p and 1080p.
Small screens ( 50" 1080p just isn't really that useful from normal living room distances), crappy budget TVs (that $499 "1080p" LCD TV you get at Walmart looks nowhere near as good as a decent 720p Panasonic plasma), and just plain viewer inability to discern it (you'd be amazed at how many people set up their new HDTV in 480i and take months to figure tha
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Argh, /. killed my less than sign... was supposed to be "less than 50" 1080p isn't really that useful"... oh well.
Reason is games... (Score:4, Insightful)
... take too long to make today because hardware power has increased asset production time exponentially. So it's obvious why console generations are no longer 5 years, its pretty much approaching 3+ years between a game and its sequel.
Doing a modern AAA game takes at lest 3 or more years to do it right, and games that are developed in 2 years often show it in lack of quality and the use of rehashed concepts ad-nauseum.
Not to mention all the money and years spent wasted in failed attempts and false starts that is hidden from view.
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"take too long to make today because hardware power has increased asset production time exponentially. So it's obvious why console generations are no longer 5 years, its pretty much approaching 3+ years between a game and its sequel."
Unless its Half Life 3 then the wait is at least three presidents
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Yep - everything you said, plus the fact that after they have just spent 3 years on an entirely new engine for their AAA game, they would really like to be able to reuse that engine as many times as possible rather than toss it out and develop one for the next generation system. As many probably know, the basic GTA4 engine was first developed for Rock Star Table Tennis, of all games, and then was later reused in Red Dead Redemption.
Not to mention with the online play, patching systems, and DLC of the lat
Sony and others... (Score:2)
Disclaimer: I'm not actually from the future. This my best guess
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Or, if 3D television ends up being a short-lived fad, they won't.
It could be that they're waiting to see if 3D TV takes off, but I suspect the real reason is they're waiting for the economy to improve.
Don't forget the economy (Score:2)
It really sucks, and is not getting much better anytime soon. New consoles are very expensive, and a $150 - $200 controller + game combo is a much easier investment than $400 + games + misc crap you end up buying with a new console (e.x: they rarely come with the cables you want). Don't forget that retailers love to throw mandatory bundles at early adopters. So a new console can easily cost between $500 - $600 after all is said and done.
Then you've got to consider the economics of the hardware itself. Both
It doesnt take 2 brain cells ..... (Score:2)
they could use oem parts, they could do their chips themselves. in any case, they would be able to
is it possible... (Score:2)
Is it possible that a down economy won't support a new offering in the numbers necessary to be defined a success? Why put out a console in the middle of a recession? You'd just have to deal with all the slashdot articles saying it didn't sell as well as the last model, which was introduced in boom times.
10 year cycle (Score:2)
I have no citation, but I remember when the PS3 first came out, Sony admitted to having a 10 year cycle. I was skeptical at the time, but it looks like they'll blow past 5 years at least.
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Longer development cycles (Score:2)
Take a look at how long games are taking to make nowadays, a couple of examples being GT5 and FFXIII.
They probably needed to slow down the release of new consoles to prevent "Duke Nukem Forever Syndrome" where nobody would release their games because there'd always be new technology just around the corner.
games on the cloud? (Score:2)
Brilliant. Why do I need a console hooked to my television when the cloud can magically render high performance 3D graphics on my television?
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Seems simple enough. (Score:2)
Personally I see two paths to the next generation. One is a game that can't be made 3D without either a hardware upgrade or a graphics downgrade, com
Ahead of their times... (Score:2)
The real reason is probably that the PS3 and Xbox360 were a bit ahead of their time -- they both cost too much (except for early adopters), and were HD at a time where the installed base of HDTV was pretty much limited to early adopters. As the consumer space has caught up, and the manufacturers have cut costs, they are now taking over the Wii-dominated market. In other words, the next generation is already here.
3DS, iPhone, Android (Score:3, Interesting)
Innovation is in controllers (Score:2)
What the Wii showed Microsoft, Sony, and everyone else is that polygons per second and screen resolution are not the major determinants of success. The Wii succeeded by having an innovative controller, and well-designed casual games. Equating platform competitiveness with fast hardware is an incorrect association, at least right now.
So Microsoft and Sony are doing the rational thing and investing their R&D into new controllers and good games, rather than a new platform rev. Given the risks they'll pr
I won't buy anything from Sony ever again (Score:2)
I feel abused and mistreated by Sony. Sony demonstrated to me a solid record of not admitting to any hardware defects and not standing behind just-out-of-warranty hardware that died multiple deaths. Customer contact policy is beyond condescending. Their next console could be the best in the universe, the aggravation will never be worth it.
Not there's a snowball's chance I would buy from Microsoft either. As far as I'm concerned this is the end of the line for consoles in my home, period. I fondly hope
Premature (Score:4, Interesting)
Let me check the date. Yep, still 2010, four years after the Wii came out. Wikipedia says the Playstation came out in 1994, PS2 in 2000, and PS3 in 2006, so we shouldn't expect a PS4 until 2012. Doesn't the summary contradict itself?
But wait, the Xbox came out in 2001 and Xbox 360 in 2005. Where is my Xbox 720???
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Re:Why do they call it the Xbox 360? (Score:5, Funny)
You need to learn basic geometry.
Re:Why do they call it the Xbox 360? (Score:5, Funny)
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180, you stupid, spaghetti-slurping cretin - *180*! If I did a 360, I'd go completely around and end up back where I started!
Re:Why do they call it the Xbox 360? (Score:4, Funny)
Woosh!
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Perferably moonwalk away after that spin.
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I'd say woosh, except that the joke AC is retelling is so stupid that I think the joke is actually on AC.
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Because when you see it, you'll turn 360 degrees and walk away.
Crazy Ivan!
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Because when you see it you do 3 60's and walk away!!!!!11111lol
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And the Kinect is just a new controller for the 360.
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The hell it was. Gamecube and Wii used different media formats, different input device busses, different CPU, different GPU.
Gamecube GPU - ATI "Flipper", 162 MHz
Wii GPU - ATI "Hollywood", 243 MHz
Gamecube CPU - IBM PowerPC "Gekko", 486 MHz
Wii CPU - IBM PowerPC-based "Broadway, 729 MHz
Re:Say again? (Score:4, Interesting)
As someone who wrote and implemented OpenGL on the Wii and shipped 2 Wii games that used it, actually, you and the GP are both right, and wrong.
The Wii was Gamecube x2. Meaning in the Real-World it was twice as fast. Check the Nintendeo forums where Jack Matthews benchmarks the performance (especially memory.)
Nintendo DIDN'T fix _any_ of the hardware GPU rendering bugs in the Wii, which is why the derogatory Gamecube is applicable.
Cheers
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You're aware that the Kinect is not a standalone console, right?
It's an add-on peripheral for the XBOX 360.
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So basically he claim that if it can run Amiga Bratwurst [mobygames.com] in 1080 there's not need to upgrade the hardware because hey, it's 1080p?
Omg the graphics! http://www.mobygames.com/game/amiga/bratwurst/screenshots/gameShotId,192350/ [mobygames.com] ;D
(Actually it's very fun, zooming in and out as you approach each other.
Amiga Roketz [emuparadise.org] looked better [multimedia.cx] but played worse.
And then there was Gravity Force [pdroms.de] of course.)
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This was to be a Haiku,
but I couldn't think of anything finish up with.
Refrigerator.
Re:It is all about resolution (Score:5, Interesting)
> vast majority of people playing games at 720p max
Your comment skirts around the issue, but is not entirely accurate. It is not the players, but the game devs themselves that are "not demanding" a new console. The PS3's RSX is ~= 7800 GTX. Most _games_ DON'T render at the native 1080p but at 720p simply because most (PS3) games are GPU bound. (XBox 360 games are CPU bound if you are curious.) That said, currently the SPUs are _still_ under underutilized. Naughty Dog said this a few years back, but it is slowly getting better:
http://ps3.ign.com/articles/832/832114p2.html [ign.com]
"I'm more impressed with the hardware the longer we get to work with it. Imagining trying to develop Uncharted without the Blu-ray drive, without the hard drive, or without the Cell processor makes me wonder what kind of game we would have ended up with. It certainly would have required a lot more compromises than I would have been comfortable making. And much like the PS2, I think the longer developers work with the machine, the better the games are going to get. For instance we are only using approximately 1/3 of the processing power of the SPUs on the Cell processor in Uncharted."
The presentation "Getting Unreal Engine 3 to 60Hz" isn't (yet) available on Devnet, but thankfully can be found here...
http://www.scribd.com/doc/15118967/Hitting-60Hz-in-Unreal-Engine [scribd.com]
Other presentations (GDC 2009) worth reading are
* The PlayStation®3's SPUs in the Real World - A KILLZONE 2 Case Study
* Practical SPU Usage in GOD OF WAR 3
It will be REAL interesting to see what Polyphony Digital (Gran Turismo 5), and Team Ico (Ico, Shadow of the Colossus) since these two studios are known to typically push the PlayStation (2 & 3) to its limits.
Cheers
Re:It is all about resolution (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry for the bad netiquette / karma whoring, didn't realize these were available ...
* The PlayStation®3's SPUs in the Real World - A KILLZONE 2 Case Study
http://sijm.ca/2009/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/michiel-van-der-leeuw.pdf [sijm.ca]
* Practical SPU Usage in GOD OF WAR 3
http://www.tilander.org/aurora/comp/gdc2009_Tilander_Filippov_SPU.pdf [tilander.org]
Cheers
-- ...
CPUs & GPUs are still too damn slow.. A graphics programmer who worked on Uncharted 2 (one of the best looking PS3 games available) shares his comments on the future of GPUs / Rendering
http://filmicgames.com/archives/467 [filmicgames.com]
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> they had to bolt on a GTX to the Cell because the cell didn't have the horsepower to compete with the Xbox 360.
Huh? The PPU was never designed to do rendering. Looking at the data flow, say for skinning, you have this:
PS2: CPU (EE) -> vector processors: VU (T&L) -> GPU (VS)
PS3: CPU (PPU) -> vector processors: SPU (T&L) -> GPU (RSX)
Ergo, if you pardon the French, you don't know WTF you are talking about.
One of the reason the PS3 was initially so much was because of the hardware.
No he's quite right (Score:3, Interesting)
Part of the PS3's problems stem from the fact that the Cell wasn't supposed to be just the CPU, it was supposed to be the GPU. Sony had demonstrations to this effect. However that was all wishful thinking, when the real Cell hardware was delivered it couldn't stand up to dedicated GPUs. So Sony remade it in to the CPU only, for which it was not well suited. They then had a problem in that they didn't have a GPU. nVidia was, of course, happy to oblige but the thing was they didn't have time for a full redesi
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The PS3 was not a well planned design, it was what they could hack together in the time they had.
You are being far from accurate in your statement here. The PS3 was well planned, but as it turned out the cost of the cell turned out to be prohibitive. The original PS3 planned for multiple cell processors, as many as four in one design. Multiple Cell Processors would have handled the necessary vector processing to handle what is traditionally off loaded to a GPU (a dedicated vector processor). This is not all that different than the PS2 architecture which also did not have a dedicated traditional GPU
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Re:It is all about resolution (Score:4, Funny)
It's Also About The Power Consumption (Score:4, Insightful)
While the Wii uses a mere 18 Watts or so, the PS 3 and Xbox 360 use well over 100, (earlier models can be closer to 200). If one wants to use the device for watching video, it's certainly worth comparing the Apple TV which uses less than 6 Watts. Streaming from a PC, particularly one with a power hungry GPU card, adds considerably to the consumption.
http://www.hardcoreware.net/reviews/review-356-2.htm [hardcoreware.net]
In areas where power costs about $.13 per kw/h, every 10 Watts used full time runs about $1/month.
Do the math, it really adds up. (Of course more consumption affects the environment more too)
The savings from using an energy efficient setup could cover the cost of new hardware or some paid content.
Power used becomes heat which was a major factor in the 360s' (especially early units) being very unreliable. Monitors/TVs use significant power too, especially with larger screens. Plasma is generally much worse than LCD.
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The early consoles couldn't even take care of the available resolution. NES was 256x240. Not to mention the 16 colour limitation on NES. SNES then looked better with the same (NTSC) display, as did N64. They were all major improvements on their predecessor.
I don't think you can improve that much on the existing consoles, definitely not the leaps and bounds they had in the early days.
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i think the power of my gaming pc in a handheld would be nice
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NES was 256x240. Not to mention the 16 colour limitation on NES.
What 16 color limit? I read wiki.nesdev.com and count 25: one background color, four sets of three for parts of the tile plane, and four sets of three for sprites, not to mention the tint bits that can be turned on for "rising water" effects. Perhaps you're estimating that some of these sets often share identical colors.
Re:It is all about resolution (Score:4, Insightful)
There are non-trivial ways new hardware could improve the experience on existing HDTVs. Very few games can consistently output to 1080p on the current generation of hardware. It could also be interesting to see what improvements can be leveraged for 720p - maybe 2x antialiasing guaranteed for 1080p, and 4x (or higher?) at 720p. Bumped-up levels of anisotropic filtering at all resolutions would be a big, noticeable across-the-board change. Texture resolution is also still an issue for certain titles, though >512 MB total system RAM would go a long way toward fixing that. That doesn't even go into 3D HDTVs, though I know little about them because my level of interest is low.
That said, we're certainly a long way from the NES' 256x240, 16 colors onscreen / 56 color palette output, or even the 640x480x16 the Voodoo Graphics board could manage on its flagship titles.
Re:It is all about resolution (Score:4, Funny)
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2006 Article [xbitlabs.com]
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Graphics are not the same as gaming.
I'd say that if anything is holding back gaming it's the fact that AAA titles are so freaking expensive and are so huge an investment that they need to be incredibly safe.
But gaming is not being held back. There's PUH-LENTY of innovation going on, it's just happening outside the glare of the major developers. The economic factors that force AAA titles to play it safe make it a no-brainer to take risks and try to innovate with less expensive games.