The only way consoles are going to intrigue me is if they make the hardware upgradable, or they make the devices much cheaper, with a 2 year life span. And even then I want the hardware to be over the top powerful, so the console is super powerful during its life.
Point is, I look at the 360 on our awesome Samsung TV, and it just looks like ass. Has for years. This is no longer acceptable.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
The only way consoles are going to intrigue me if they make the hardware upgradable, or they make the devices much cheaper, with a 2 year life span. And even then I want the hardware to be over the top powerful, so the console is super powerful during its life.
Point is, I look at the 360 on our awesome Samsung TV, and it just looks like ass. Has for years. This is no longer acceptable.
If consoles turn into PCs, then it's the death of consoles... sounds like you want a PC, not a next-gen console. It's not going to happen.
I'd say it's a pretty good bet to guess that the next generation of games will be all 11.1 with all the bells and whistles that brings (like Tesselation) and that the games are going to be taking full advantages of the 8 core (probably 7 cause 1 for OS like PS3) and all the multi-threading etc.
Actually, I'd expect the PS4 and Xbox 720 games that use tessellation appropriately to be a distinct minority for quite some time. Most computer programmers don't have the math background for it, let alone artists. Every single model that is going to use tessellation has to have data built in to tell the GPU how to tessellate it, which means that whatever you do with tessellation needs to be something that your artists can handle. Any tools that cover up the mathematics well enough that artists can handle it aren't going to enable anywhere near the full power of what tessellation can really do.
The only way consoles are going to intrigue me if they make the hardware upgradable, or they make the devices much cheaper, with a 2 year life span. And even then I want the hardware to be over the top powerful, so the console is super powerful during its life.
Point is, I look at the 360 on our awesome Samsung TV, and it just looks like ass. Has for years. This is no longer acceptable.
If consoles turn into PCs, then it's the death of consoles... sounds like you want a PC, not a next-gen console. It's not going to happen.
Wrong. What I don't want is a console that basically already has, at best, mediocre graphics capability at launch, and then ages horribly over the course of eight or so years of its life. Seeing my daughter use the 360 on our incredible Samsung TV makes me throw up in my mouth a little. Especially in contrast to my gaming PC.
Also, computer hardware costs nothing compared to what it cost eight years ago. If they are selling these new consoles for $500-600+ at launch, I'll piss myself laughing at the idiots who buy them.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
The only way consoles are going to intrigue me if they make the hardware upgradable, or they make the devices much cheaper, with a 2 year life span. And even then I want the hardware to be over the top powerful, so the console is super powerful during its life.
Point is, I look at the 360 on our awesome Samsung TV, and it just looks like ass. Has for years. This is no longer acceptable.
If consoles turn into PCs, then it's the death of consoles... sounds like you want a PC, not a next-gen console. It's not going to happen.
Wrong. What I don't want is a console that basically already has, at best, mediocre graphics capability at launch, and then ages horribly over the course of eight or so years of its life. Seeing my daughter use the 360 on our incredible Samsung TV makes me throw up in my mouth a little. Especially in contrast to my gaming PC.
Also, computer hardware costs nothing compared to what it cost eight years ago. If they are selling these new consoles for $500-600+ at launch, I'll piss myself laughing at the idiots who buy them.
I think that much of the point of going with Jaguar cores and integrated graphics is precisely to make consoles much cheaper to build--and thus, so that you can sell them much more cheaply.
It's possible that the consoles could be expensive at first if they're trying to use a silicon interposer or DDR4 memory or a 20 nm process node before they're ready, or if the first generation has an enormous die size or MCM before subsequent generations clean it up into a smaller SoC. But it's better to make a console that you have to charge $500 for at first and then can break even at $300 a year later than to trail badly in performance with only a minor cost advantage for all but the first year of the console's lifetime.
The only way consoles are going to intrigue me if they make the hardware upgradable, or they make the devices much cheaper, with a 2 year life span. And even then I want the hardware to be over the top powerful, so the console is super powerful during its life.
Point is, I look at the 360 on our awesome Samsung TV, and it just looks like ass. Has for years. This is no longer acceptable.
If consoles turn into PCs, then it's the death of consoles... sounds like you want a PC, not a next-gen console. It's not going to happen.
Wrong. What I don't want is a console that basically already has, at best, mediocre graphics capability at launch, and then ages horribly over the course of eight or so years of its life. Seeing my daughter use the 360 on our incredible Samsung TV makes me throw up in my mouth a little. Especially in contrast to my gaming PC.
Also, computer hardware costs nothing compared to what it cost eight years ago. If they are selling these new consoles for $500-600+ at launch, I'll piss myself laughing at the idiots who buy them.
I think that much of the point of going with Jaguar cores and integrated graphics is precisely to make consoles much cheaper to build--and thus, so that you can sell them much more cheaply.
It's possible that the consoles could be expensive at first if they're trying to use a silicon interposer or DDR4 memory or a 20 nm process node before they're ready, or if the first generation has an enormous die size or MCM before subsequent generations clean it up into a smaller SoC. But it's better to make a console that you have to charge $500 for at first and then can break even at $300 a year later than to trail badly in performance with only a minor cost advantage for all but the first year of the console's lifetime.
Getting the right price point is pretty important, take NA, around 25m xbox's and 15m ps3's, can't help but wonder if the reason there is significantly more of one than the other was due to the price of the console itself, which, last i heard, Sony was still making a loss on the ps3's but MS had actually managed to turn a profit on them.
It wouldnt really surprise me if the next generation of consoles ends up being significantly cheaper than the previous ones.
I think that much of the point of going with Jaguar cores and integrated graphics is precisely to make consoles much cheaper to build--and thus, so that you can sell them much more cheaply.
It's possible that the consoles could be expensive at first if they're trying to use a silicon interposer or DDR4 memory or a 20 nm process node before they're ready, or if the first generation has an enormous die size or MCM before subsequent generations clean it up into a smaller SoC. But it's better to make a console that you have to charge $500 for at first and then can break even at $300 a year later than to trail badly in performance with only a minor cost advantage for all but the first year of the console's lifetime.
Getting the right price point is pretty important, take NA, around 25m xbox's and 15m ps3's, can't help but wonder if the reason there is significantly more of one than the other was due to the price of the console itself, which, last i heard, Sony was still making a loss on the ps3's but MS had actually managed to turn a profit on them.
It wouldnt really surprise me if the next generation of consoles ends up being significantly cheaper than the previous ones.
Rumors say that AMD was a lot more cooperative with Microsoft about doing die shrinks than Nvidia was with Sony. In other words, that AMD was a lot more cooperative about helping them bring down the cost of production in subsequent years. And that that's a big reason why none of the console makers want to deal with Nvidia this round. Jaguar cores aren't that powerful, so Nvidia could have offered similar performance from integrated graphics by adding ARM Cortex A15 cores.
The answers to my question about the 'power gap' between consoles and PC's was surprising, i may not have completely understood the reasoning used, but it does sound like quite a few of you do. Consoles seem to be a case of different rules apply i guess. But i do appreciate the detail in the answers, even if it did point out how little i know about multithreading etc
The only way consoles are going to intrigue me if they make the hardware upgradable, or they make the devices much cheaper, with a 2 year life span. And even then I want the hardware to be over the top powerful, so the console is super powerful during its life.
Point is, I look at the 360 on our awesome Samsung TV, and it just looks like ass. Has for years. This is no longer acceptable.
If consoles turn into PCs, then it's the death of consoles... sounds like you want a PC, not a next-gen console. It's not going to happen.
Wrong. What I don't want is a console that basically already has, at best, mediocre graphics capability at launch, and then ages horribly over the course of eight or so years of its life. Seeing my daughter use the 360 on our incredible Samsung TV makes me throw up in my mouth a little. Especially in contrast to my gaming PC.
Also, computer hardware costs nothing compared to what it cost eight years ago. If they are selling these new consoles for $500-600+ at launch, I'll piss myself laughing at the idiots who buy them.
I think that much of the point of going with Jaguar cores and integrated graphics is precisely to make consoles much cheaper to build--and thus, so that you can sell them much more cheaply.
It's possible that the consoles could be expensive at first if they're trying to use a silicon interposer or DDR4 memory or a 20 nm process node before they're ready, or if the first generation has an enormous die size or MCM before subsequent generations clean it up into a smaller SoC. But it's better to make a console that you have to charge $500 for at first and then can break even at $300 a year later than to trail badly in performance with only a minor cost advantage for all but the first year of the console's lifetime.
The more important matter for me is how poorly these consoles age. I suppose if all you ever play is a console, you wouldn't know any better, but since I play PC games too, I know just how aweful the conosole looks.
There are other offerings coming down the line too, such as Valve's Steam Box project, cloud gaming (nVidia Grid), and Apple is supposedly working on livingroom gaming options. Things are going to become more interesting in this space soon.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
As soon as consoles introduce upgradable componets, you run into many many more issues for programers, drivers, etc. Consoles are great for programmers because they don't change - you dont' have to worry about compatiblity with different hardware, etc. If a company made a console with upgradable compoents, the second you offer a new GPU for example, it becomes a mess from a developer and consumer standpoint.
Will my game work with this version? Do I need a specific upgrade to have this work? Do people with GPU have more advatange online, etc. etc. Then programmers have to code and test0- will the game have any bugs with this GPU? what about this one? What do we need to code to have them work with this, etc. etc.
The only way consoles are going to intrigue me if they make the hardware upgradable, or they make the devices much cheaper, with a 2 year life span. And even then I want the hardware to be over the top powerful, so the console is super powerful during its life.
Point is, I look at the 360 on our awesome Samsung TV, and it just looks like ass. Has for years. This is no longer acceptable.
If consoles turn into PCs, then it's the death of consoles... sounds like you want a PC, not a next-gen console. It's not going to happen.
Wrong. What I don't want is a console that basically already has, at best, mediocre graphics capability at launch, and then ages horribly over the course of eight or so years of its life. Seeing my daughter use the 360 on our incredible Samsung TV makes me throw up in my mouth a little. Especially in contrast to my gaming PC.
Also, computer hardware costs nothing compared to what it cost eight years ago. If they are selling these new consoles for $500-600+ at launch, I'll piss myself laughing at the idiots who buy them.
I think that much of the point of going with Jaguar cores and integrated graphics is precisely to make consoles much cheaper to build--and thus, so that you can sell them much more cheaply.
It's possible that the consoles could be expensive at first if they're trying to use a silicon interposer or DDR4 memory or a 20 nm process node before they're ready, or if the first generation has an enormous die size or MCM before subsequent generations clean it up into a smaller SoC. But it's better to make a console that you have to charge $500 for at first and then can break even at $300 a year later than to trail badly in performance with only a minor cost advantage for all but the first year of the console's lifetime.
The more important matter for me is how poorly these consoles age. I suppose if all you ever play is a console, you wouldn't know any better, but since I play PC games too, I know just how aweful the conosole looks.
There are other offerings coming down the line too, such as Valve's Steam Box project, cloud gaming (nVidia Grid), and Apple is supposedly working on livingroom gaming options. Things are going to become more interesting in this space soon.
Cloud gaming doesn't have much hope of being competitive with the next generation consoles before they're replaced.
Moving to DirectX 11/OpenGL 4 class hardware is a big jump in graphics API capabilities as compared to the previous generation consoles. But what's really missing from the latest graphics APIs? Better transparency options, certainly. Anything else that doesn't constitute minor tinkering around the edges? Maybe if you happen to believe that ray-tracing or voxels or something else is the future rather than rasterization. Quadratic surfaces are handled very well by tessellation, though, and it's not clear what new API options that we don't already have would help voxels all that much. Ray-tracing would take a major overhaul of how everything is done, though.
Comments
The only way consoles are going to intrigue me is if they make the hardware upgradable, or they make the devices much cheaper, with a 2 year life span. And even then I want the hardware to be over the top powerful, so the console is super powerful during its life.
Point is, I look at the 360 on our awesome Samsung TV, and it just looks like ass. Has for years. This is no longer acceptable.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
If consoles turn into PCs, then it's the death of consoles... sounds like you want a PC, not a next-gen console. It's not going to happen.
Actually, I'd expect the PS4 and Xbox 720 games that use tessellation appropriately to be a distinct minority for quite some time. Most computer programmers don't have the math background for it, let alone artists. Every single model that is going to use tessellation has to have data built in to tell the GPU how to tessellate it, which means that whatever you do with tessellation needs to be something that your artists can handle. Any tools that cover up the mathematics well enough that artists can handle it aren't going to enable anywhere near the full power of what tessellation can really do.
Wrong. What I don't want is a console that basically already has, at best, mediocre graphics capability at launch, and then ages horribly over the course of eight or so years of its life. Seeing my daughter use the 360 on our incredible Samsung TV makes me throw up in my mouth a little. Especially in contrast to my gaming PC.
Also, computer hardware costs nothing compared to what it cost eight years ago. If they are selling these new consoles for $500-600+ at launch, I'll piss myself laughing at the idiots who buy them.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
I think that much of the point of going with Jaguar cores and integrated graphics is precisely to make consoles much cheaper to build--and thus, so that you can sell them much more cheaply.
It's possible that the consoles could be expensive at first if they're trying to use a silicon interposer or DDR4 memory or a 20 nm process node before they're ready, or if the first generation has an enormous die size or MCM before subsequent generations clean it up into a smaller SoC. But it's better to make a console that you have to charge $500 for at first and then can break even at $300 a year later than to trail badly in performance with only a minor cost advantage for all but the first year of the console's lifetime.
Getting the right price point is pretty important, take NA, around 25m xbox's and 15m ps3's, can't help but wonder if the reason there is significantly more of one than the other was due to the price of the console itself, which, last i heard, Sony was still making a loss on the ps3's but MS had actually managed to turn a profit on them.
It wouldnt really surprise me if the next generation of consoles ends up being significantly cheaper than the previous ones.
Rumors say that AMD was a lot more cooperative with Microsoft about doing die shrinks than Nvidia was with Sony. In other words, that AMD was a lot more cooperative about helping them bring down the cost of production in subsequent years. And that that's a big reason why none of the console makers want to deal with Nvidia this round. Jaguar cores aren't that powerful, so Nvidia could have offered similar performance from integrated graphics by adding ARM Cortex A15 cores.
The more important matter for me is how poorly these consoles age. I suppose if all you ever play is a console, you wouldn't know any better, but since I play PC games too, I know just how aweful the conosole looks.
There are other offerings coming down the line too, such as Valve's Steam Box project, cloud gaming (nVidia Grid), and Apple is supposedly working on livingroom gaming options. Things are going to become more interesting in this space soon.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
As soon as consoles introduce upgradable componets, you run into many many more issues for programers, drivers, etc. Consoles are great for programmers because they don't change - you dont' have to worry about compatiblity with different hardware, etc. If a company made a console with upgradable compoents, the second you offer a new GPU for example, it becomes a mess from a developer and consumer standpoint.
Will my game work with this version? Do I need a specific upgrade to have this work? Do people with GPU have more advatange online, etc. etc. Then programmers have to code and test0- will the game have any bugs with this GPU? what about this one? What do we need to code to have them work with this, etc. etc.
Cloud gaming doesn't have much hope of being competitive with the next generation consoles before they're replaced.
Moving to DirectX 11/OpenGL 4 class hardware is a big jump in graphics API capabilities as compared to the previous generation consoles. But what's really missing from the latest graphics APIs? Better transparency options, certainly. Anything else that doesn't constitute minor tinkering around the edges? Maybe if you happen to believe that ray-tracing or voxels or something else is the future rather than rasterization. Quadratic surfaces are handled very well by tessellation, though, and it's not clear what new API options that we don't already have would help voxels all that much. Ray-tracing would take a major overhaul of how everything is done, though.