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[chaosblade]

Because who the fuck does that?

Console makers?

I think 8GB for the actual console is pretty laughable. But if that number is remotely true it definitely includes system RAM and VRAM. I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft used a unified pool again, so such a distinction wouldn't even matter.

But my opinion doesn't mean anything anyway, since I'm like the anti-GAF. I expect $300 boxes all around.

 

[Hoo-doo]

PC gaming is eternal.


That said, going with "stock" PC parts means that it'll be incredibly difficult for consoles to keep up the usual 5+ years cycle as they'll appear obsolete even faster than before. Figuring out ways to take advantage of the custom console architecture was always an inherent advantage (since it meant developers spending more time getting familiar with architecture and being able to improve on the same hardware basis for a longer time).

Well, we'll see.

"PC gaming is eternal"

Lol. Let's see how eternal it is once the desktop PC market keeps drying up like it has.

 

[GavinGT]

Nah dont think they will allow us to upgrade.
The mass market is too stupid or doesn't have the knowledge to do it.

It's more that it would split the userbase. Imagine if the 360 received an optional spec upgrade. Only some miniscule percent of the userbase would buy it and, hence, nobody would develop for it.

 

[Eideka]

PC gaming is eternal.


That said, going with "stock" PC parts means that it'll be incredibly difficult for consoles to keep up the usual 5+ years cycle as they'll appear obsolete even faster than before. Figuring out ways to take advantage of the custom console architecture was always an inherent advantage (since it meant developers were spending more time getting familiar with the architecture and in turn, they were able to improve on the same hardware basis for a longer time).

Well, we'll see.

Spoiler

I say everyone goes third party and makes games on the Steam box Splorgenborg.

If this is confirmed it would mean that porting games to PC would be even easier than it is now.

 

[cyberheater]

2Gb Ram really was what you wanted for a high end PC in 2005, less than that and your load times in BF2 went from 20-30secs per map, to well over 60secs.

I didn't know anyone in 2005 who had 2Gb of ram. That would have been a complete luxury. 2Gb of memory in 2005 in the UK would have been a small fortune.

 

[1-D_FTW]

Console makers?

I think 8GB for the actual console is pretty laughable. But if that number is remotely true it definitely includes system RAM and VRAM. I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft used a unified pool again, so such a distinction wouldn't even matter.

But my opinion doesn't mean anything anyway, since I'm like the anti-GAF. I expect a $300 boxes all around.

So what does that mean, though? You expect all the consoles to be similar in power?

This is an impossible feat. Only way MS and Sony can fulfill this obligation is to re-release 360/PS3 and call it a day.

 

[GavinGT]

I think the biggest complaint people have with Kinect is that they haven't found a reasonable way to use it in games other than dancing, not just its accuracy. It's limited by its fundamental design, simply making it more accurate is not going to solve that problem.

If anything they should have tried to come up with new ways of gameplay that are not hindered, but supplemented by Kinect (or actually not possible else) instead of desperately trying to implement it in existing ways of gameplay.



I'd love to hear why this would be amazing.

Finger tracking would open up all sorts of possibilities. NUI is the next step in interface after touch.

 

[BigDug13]

PC gaming is eternal.


That said, going with "stock" PC parts means that it'll be incredibly difficult for consoles to keep up the usual 5+ years cycle as they'll appear obsolete even faster than before. Figuring out ways to take advantage of the custom console architecture was always an inherent advantage (since it meant developers were spending more time getting familiar with the architecture and in turn, they were able to improve on the same hardware basis for a longer time).

Well, we'll see.

Spoiler

I say everyone goes third party and makes games on the Steam box Splorgenborg.

Well I don't think unique, non-PC hardware is what causes devs to squeeze more power later in a console's life. It's the fact that it's consistent which means they can tweak and optimize for a specific spec standard instead of making it playable across a wide range of hardware configs. Xbox1 was basically a PC that Microsoft had slapped together in record time to compete. Games at the end still looked better than games at the launch.

The architecture of the original Xbox is also what made it the most easily moddable console ever with probably the largest homebrew and emulation scene of consoles. So it will be interesting to see if these close-to-PC-architecture consoles next gen will stay unhacked.

 

[Triple U]

PC gaming is eternal.


That said, going with "stock" PC parts means that it'll be incredibly difficult for consoles to keep up the usual 5+ years cycle as they'll appear obsolete even faster than before. Figuring out ways to take advantage of the custom console architecture was always an inherent advantage (since it meant developers were spending more time getting familiar with the architecture and in turn, they were able to improve on the same hardware basis for a longer time).

Well, we'll see.

Spoiler

I say everyone goes third party and makes games on the Steam box Splorgenborg.

Well not really. Regardless of what design they get, developers will still be have the same kind of access they get now to the HW which is beyond what they use for PC development. Stock parts mostly just mean costs will be down.

 

[DeFiBkIlLeR]

I didn't know anyone in 2005 who had 2Gb of ram. That would have been a complete luxury. 2Gb of memory in 2005 in the UK would have been a small fortune.

I had 4x512mb 400Mhz DDR2, wasn't that expensive, £160 or so...which as part of an overall £1500 PC was acceptable, this was still in the time of needing to spend that much in order to run games at their highest settings, the 360/ps3 effect of limiting hardware requirements was still to kick in, thankfully.

 

[wsippel]

You're missing the point i was trying to make. XDR was necessary at the time because it was the fastest available memory capable of working with the cell. There's a reason why sony paid loads of money to RAMBUS

And if and that's a big if sony decides to go with their own propiertary processor like the cell again for the playstation 4 then it would mean XDR 2 in the pipeline

PS XDR RAM is rambus developed not IBM

I'm not quite sure what you're trying to tell me. I know who or what Rambus is. I also know that using Rambus memory was considered a huge mistake by many, including IBM - which is why they threw it out for their improved Cell variant. XDR isn't really any faster than DDR, it's just simpler to design PCBs for XDR (fewer lanes to achieve similar performance). Problem is: The memory itself is so much more expensive that going with more complex PCB designs is still much cheaper in the end, and it's more flexible as there are tons of manufacturers to source from. The PS3 has proven once and for all that the Rambus approach makes no sense for devices like that, as by now, the XDR alone is more expensive than the CPU, GPU or PCB, and more than ten times as expensive as the same amount of GDDR3.

 

[McHuj]

The atom speculation is bad. Ivy Bridge has a completely suitable power envelope for a console, they work fine in Ultrabooks. Depending on clock speeds, they could definitely fit 8 cores in a reasonable power budget (30-40w) for the CPU.

I do find it surprising that MS would go with Intel, that would force them to use Intel for their foundries as well. Perhaps the 22nm process is worth it.

NVIDIA would be a surprise too, but not as surprising.

 

[omonimo]

I don't know how legit could be... I mean, nvidia, 8 gb of RAM, ibm cpu... how the hell will cost? ps3 launch price? I'm not an expert but this hardware seems will have an infernal cost of production for microsoft....

 

[Satchel]

I'd love to hear why this would be amazing.

Because despite your belief, accuracy IS the biggest problem with Kinect games right now.

They fix that, it opens all sorts of doors.

Boxing, better sport games, RTS games with voice and gestures? I'm sorry you don't see it this way, but a lot of people would.

 

[Horse Armour]

The atom speculation is bad. Ivy Bridge has a completely suitable power envelope for a console, they work fine in Ultrabooks. Depending on clock speeds, they could definitely fit 8 cores in a reasonable power budget (30-40w) for the CPU.

I do find it surprising that MS would go with Intel, that would force them to use Intel for their foundries as well. Perhaps the 22nm process is worth it.

NVIDIA would be a surprise too, but not as surprising.

Intel could have the 14nm process ready by late 2013 in enough quantity for MS.

 

[Stealth20k]

eh still think its not real

 

[Triple U]

I'm not quite sure what you're trying to tell me. I know who or what Rambus is. I also know that using Rambus memory was considered a huge mistake by many, including IBM - which is why they threw it out for their improved Cell variant. XDR isn't really any faster than DDR, it's just simpler to design PCBs for XDR (less lanes). Problem is: The memory itself is so much more expensive that going with more complex PCB designs is still much cheaper in the end, and it's more flexible as there are tons of manufacturers to source from. The PS3 has proven once and for all that the Rambus approach makes no sense for devices like that, as by now, the XDR alone is more expensive than the CPU, GPU or PCB, and more than ten times as expensive as the same amount of GDDR3.

Uh XDR is generally ALOT faster than DDR. I really don't see how you concluded that...

The PowerCell was a server product so XDR was a bit overkill which is why it was removed.

eh still think its not real

Why not exactly?

 

[Metalmurphy]

How can you say it had more then 8gb but not know an exact number? If you know it's more then 8 then you have to know how much it is. Anyway, even 8gb seems too high. I'm calling this bogus.

 

[mocolostrocolos]

"PC gaming is eternal"

Lol. Let's see how eternal it is once the desktop PC market keeps drying up like it has.

"PC gaming is dead"

That's what I've been hearing for 10 years.

 

[chaosblade]

So what does that mean, though? You expect all the consoles to be similar in power?

This is an impossible feat. Only way MS and Sony can fulfill this obligation is to re-release 360/PS3 and call it a day.

Not necessarily. New components are obviously going to have new features to get the most out of them and be more capable even if they're similar in "measured" power. But they wouldn't be anyway, because Sony/MS could easily get better "bang for their buck" with newer components than manufacturing the ancient stuff from the PS3/360.

Take a bit of a loss on the hardware at launch (unlike Nintendo) and don't pack in an expensive controller (unlike Nintendo) and they should have something that's noticeably more powerful than the WiiU even at a similar price. And I suppose a Kinect bundle would be more than the $300 entry price, not sure if they'd bundle that with every unit or not. Maybe have basic voice command support in every unit but full support would require a bundle or purchase of the separate unit.

I'm also not onboard the "WiiU = PS360" boat either, for the record.

 

[Delusibeta]

If the Intel/Nvidia rumour is true, then I guess we can strike backwards compatibility off the list of things the Xbox 3 can do, short of them shipping the guts of a 360 in every console (and after Sony tried that and quickly got rid of it in the PS3, I can't see that happening).

"PC gaming is eternal"

Lol. Let's see how eternal it is once the desktop PC market keeps drying up like it has.

Uh huh. Excuse me while I feed the troll, but explain why EA has been saying that the PC is the fastest growing market, or why you're ignoring laptops and self-builds?

 

[Eideka]

"PC gaming is dead"

That's what I've been hearing for 10 years.

Yeah, this beast is really hard to kill.

And is unlikely to die anytime soon.

 

[gabbre]

"PC gaming is eternal"

Lol. Let's see how eternal it is once the desktop PC market keeps drying up like it has.

 

[MagicWithEarvin]

I am so fucking hyped for new consoles.

Me too.

Bring it. Can't wait for the PS4/NeXtBox speculation threads pre-E3.

 

[swampjesus]

They just have to get the common hardware together and join it with their own coding libraries.

Look at what Silicon Graphics did before - they were the forefront leaders with their proprietary hardware and software. But ultimately it was too expensive to them and times changed(mainly because Microsoft bought Softimage license for pc windows...). It's common sense that proprietary hardware as alone cannot exist in this market.

 

[Raide]

So how exactly would you move in the ring as a boxer, using only Kinect ? I'd also love to see a reasonable interface for RTS games that uses voice and gestures. Quite frankly I can't recall any decent article about this that didn't (more or less) completely neglect some issues.

Maybe voice recognition has its use, but Kinect-only ? Feel free to prove me wrong though.

EndWar did pretty well just using the basic voice stuff from the console. I am sure they could get that working for Kinect and add some gesture tech in there.

Me too.

Bring it. Can't wait for the PS4/NeXtBox speculation threads pre-E3.

If they drop E3 2013, it could be pretty amazing for gamers to see the all out battle. More games please!

 

[AdventureRacing]

That seems pretty powerful to me (then again i know very little about hardware). Can't wait to see what sort of games we get next gen, though truthfully i'm most excited to see halo on next gen hardware.

"PC gaming is eternal"

Lol. Let's see how eternal it is once the desktop PC market keeps drying up like it has.

Such an odd comment ot make now. PC gaming is probably in a better state now than it has been for quite some time, partly because of the increased length of this gen.

 

[demigod]

Because despite your belief, accuracy IS the biggest problem with Kinect games right now.

They fix that, it opens all sorts of doors.

Boxing, better sport games, RTS games with voice and gestures? I'm sorry you don't see it this way, but a lot of people would.

Da fuck? RTS is best with mouse and keyboard, not fucking kinect. Boxing ok, official sports in general? BBall, Football, Baseball, Soccer? No. Only game that works on Kinect is Dance Central. Everything else is pretty much on-rails.

 

[ThoughtsOfSpeaking]

No BC, no buy.


As far as I'm concerned BC is even more important now than it has ever been with so many quality titles on XBLA that just disappear if the service goes down.

At least prior to this gen you could always buy another console and play your old discs.

 

[onQ123]

The guy on BY3D was telling the truth he said Nvidia was in one of the next gen consoles & he knew for sure because a friend of his that he knew from childhood told him & he trusted him .

 

[1-D_FTW]

If the Intel/Nvidia rumour is true, then I guess we can strike backwards compatibility off the list of things the Xbox 3 can do, short of them shipping the guts of a 360 in every console (and after Sony tried that and quickly got rid of it in the PS3, I can't see that happening).



Uh huh. Excuse me while I feed the troll, but explain why EA has been saying that the PC is the fastest growing market, or why you're ignoring laptops and self-builds?

All the more reasons to do it. This way you can resell everything if there's not backwards compatibility

As for your second point, there's a lot of those people with this foolish attitude. The desktop is in the same boat as the laptop and consoles. Anyone who thinks the desktop is doomed and the future is a dedicated box next to the tv or an abortion of a desktop in their lap is a fool. They all face the same enemy: convergence. If a tablet/smart phone can do all the things these appliances previously did, all of them are equally in the crosshairs. At least the desktop has some dedicated advantages that gives it a fighting chance to still have some relevancy in the future.

 

[GavinGT]

Da fuck? RTS is best with mouse and keyboard, not fucking kinect. Boxing ok, official sports in general? BBall, Football, Baseball, Soccer? No. Only game that works on Kinect is Dance Central. Everything else is pretty much on-rails.

He's not talking about the current iteration of Kinect. Besides, Kinect Sports was an amazing game.

No BC, no buy.


As far as I'm concerned BC is even more important now than it has ever been with so many quality titles on XBLA that just disappear if the service goes down.

At least prior to this gen you could always buy another console and play your old discs.

They could do XBLA backwards compatibility without retail BC. Besides, this generation has gone on so long that retail BC doesn't matter to most any more.

 

[demigod]

He's not talking about the current iteration of Kinect.

I know he's not, it still won't make those type of games better on Kinect than a controller.

 

[fabricated backlash]

Because despite your belief, accuracy IS the biggest problem with Kinect games right now.

They fix that, it opens all sorts of doors.

Boxing, better sport games, RTS games with voice and gestures? I'm sorry you don't see it this way, but a lot of people would.

Fixing image recognition software and sensors for a consumer product that has to be affordable by an audience aged 14 and up is a pipedream, at least for now. Sure they can throw faster processors and better software at it, but to really solve the problems inherent with this kind of sensoring, it's going to take years and years of research and testing, and then I'm not sure if we're going to see it in consumer electronics first.

 

[Raide]

Voice recognition ? Sure. Gestures ? Seems way too complicated and annoying when compared e.g. to using a mouse. I'd love to be proven wrong by developers though, but then again, people expected a ton of great stuff from Kinect/Wii and so far it was mostly disappointing (with the occasional exception, e.g. Skyward Sword).

Its up to developers to make them more or less complicated. If they have the tech behind them that makes this kind of stuff much easier, then it might be worth them actually putting some effort it.

Some Devs like to push tech, some like to do the bare minimum to get things working. Hopefully we get more of the former and less of the latter.

I cannot wait for next-gen, just to see developers breath some new life into this ageing generation of gaming.

 

[jeff_rigby]

The Curious Case of the Durango Devkit Leak

Remember the guy claiming to sell the Durango devkit a few months ago? Turns out the devkit was real according to digitalfoundry's sources.

I seriously doubt both Intel and Nvidia in Xbox 720. Who is going to make and combine this silicon into a SOC? Can anyone answer this? IBM and AMD are working together on SOI and Common platform and it requires considerable work to get CPU and GPGPU working together. This is the reason Nvidia licensed ARM processors so they can WORK to efficiently combine the CPU & GPGPU. AMD is acknowledged to have an advantage here and it's why they purchased ATI many years ago; they are ahead of everyone.

The presence on this screen of the "immintrin" element strongly suggests that the Durango coding environment is built around x86 CPU architecture, supporting the AVX (advanced vector extensions) instruction set that was added in last year's Sandy Bridge revision. However, AVX is now supported on some of the most recent AMD processors too.

Jaguar is getting AVX co-processors too, to be announced next month.

 

[AdventureRacing]

I know he's not, it still won't make those type of games better on Kinect than a controller.

I could see RTS being easier than with a control (in fact it seems quite likely). Then again any decent RTS on the market would be pretty shitty with either control scheme so the point is moot.

 

[wsippel]

Uh XDR is generally ALOT faster than DDR. I really don't see how you concluded that...

The PowerCell was a server product so XDR was a bit overkill which is why it was removed.

No, XDR is not faster. Don't believe the Rambus/ Sony hype bullshit. It's faster per lane. PowerXCell 8i with plain old DDR2 and regular Cell processors with XDR achieve the exact same bandwidth (8i has better memory latency, though). And the "servers don't need much bandwidth" statement is so wrong it isn't even funny. By the way, PowerXCell 8i is no server CPU.

 

[alexandros]

The Steam box but made by Microsoft essentially.

Not even close. The rumoured Steambx would be an open system, one that anyone would be able to set up shop on.

 

[SparkTR]

It's that time of the generation again. I just hope packaged peripheral devices don't drive the prices up too much.

"PC gaming is dead"

That's what I've been hearing for 10 years.

You're going to hear a lot more of it in the coming year, fresh supplies of fanboy fuel is coming.

 

[FoxRomeo]

Well given that if this is PC based architecture..why does it matter if the dev kit comes with either an Nvidia or ATI GPU, afterall for newly developed games, they will work the same on either brand using DX11.

The final unit could still come with an ATI GPU for reasons of backwards compatibility.

Correct answer. It's the DX11 API that's key. Like X360, Durangos GPU will be co-developed by Microsoft engineers and their GPU partner.

 

[alexandros]

I'm in. Where do I sign up.

I love PC gaming buy why does every single god damn game have to reinstall directX just to play. Plus the constant updates with drivers and the worry that it's going to break something.

Give me a closed box any day.

You're Microsoft's dream customer. My condolences.

 

[specialguy]

haha i broke most of this on b3d before eurogamer

leadbetter needs to give me some credit for his "scoop" lol.

I must say for my own sake I'm a bit dubious of "dae". While certainly he checks out as someone very knowledgeable and deep in the scene (I checked his post history on assembler forums), he also towards the end of our contact changed his story and said it was an AMD 7xxx GPU, not Nvidia. Although, he still maintained it was Intel on the CPU. Then again, he seemed pretty loopy altogether, so who knows.

I mean maybe he was just screwing with me/us. I'd have liked it better if he stuck with one story on the GPU.

I could believe he has a dev kit, but I'm not sure about his "info".

 

[omonimo]

The guy on BY3D was telling the truth he said Nvidia was in one of the next gen consoles & he new for sure because a friend of his that he knew from childhood told him & he trusted him .

Well... I have a cousin who project the next ps4... I think me too I can claims something like this without problem... will see, I don't said nvidia it's absoultely unlikely but how can be cheap or affordable this new xbox with all those things? Sounds pretty expensive to me, how can be 399 $ at launch?

 

[Speedymanic]

No BC, no buy.


As far as I'm concerned BC is even more important now than it has ever been with so many quality titles on XBLA that just disappear if the service goes down.

At least prior to this gen you could always buy another console and play your old discs.

Agreed, but I'm not so sure disc based BC is a must. XBLA BC is probably guaranteed as they'll obviously have account migration so that's a given, but retail BC might not have the same guarantee.

Wouldn't be surprised if they offered a cloud based alternative through Gold. Seems a no brainer.

 

[derFeef]

haha i broke most of this on b3d before eurogamer

leadbetter needs to give me some credit for his "scoop" lol.

I must say for my own sake I'm a bit dubious of "dae". While certainly he checks out as someone very knowledgeable and deep in the scene (I checked his post history on assembler forums), he also towards the end of our contact changed his story and said it was an AMD 7xxx GPU, not Nvidia. Although, he still maintained it was Intel on the CPU. Then again, he seemed pretty loopy altogether, so who knows.

I mean maybe he was just screwing with me/us. I'd have liked it better if he stuck with one story on the GPU.

I could believe he has a dev kit, but I'm not sure about his "info".

Man, leaking seems serious business.

 

[Horse Armour]

Agreed, but I'm not so sure disc based BC is a must. XBLA BC is probably guaranteed as they'll obviously have account migration so that's a given, but retail BC might not have the same guarantee.

Wouldn't be surprised if they offered a cloud based alternative through Gold. Seems a no brainer.

Why would they only offer DD BC and not disc BC? It's not like Xbox 3 won't be able to read DVDs.

 

[Triple U]

No, XDR is not faster. Don't believe the Rambus/ Sony hype bullshit. It's faster per lane. PowerXCell 8i with plain old DDR2 and regular Cell processors with XDR achieve the exact same bandwidth (8i has better memory latency, though). And the "servers don't need much bandwidth" statement is so wrong it isn't even funny.

I know of the latency issue but do mind providing some kind of proof for a claim like this? Its kind of ridiculous considering that Rambus puts its products in direct competition with GDDR.

And XDR being overkill is a country mile away from "servers don't need much bandwidth".

Edit:

By the way, PowerXCell 8i is no server CPU

"In 2008, IBM announced a revised variant of the Cell called the PowerXCell 8i, which is available in QS22 Blade Servers from IBM. "

They also used it for roadrunner(which is basically a HPC server anyway). Im pretty sure server use has been one of Cells primary demographics from the jump.

I seriously doubt both Intel and Nvidia in Xbox 720. Who is going to make and combine this silicon into a SOC? Can anyone answer this? IBM and AMD are working together on SOI and Common platform and it requires considerable work to get CPU and GPGPU working together. This is the reason Nvidia licensed ARM processors so they can WORK to efficiently combine the CPU & GPGPU. AMD is acknowledged to have an advantage here and it's why they purchased ATI many years ago; they are ahead of everyone.

Jaguar is getting AVX co-processors too, to be announced next month.

Maybe a SoC isn't a hard requirement.

 

[Dennis]

"PC gaming is eternal"

Lol. Let's see how eternal it is once the desktop PC market keeps drying up like it has.

PC gaming is dying?

What is this, 2009?

 

[Speedymanic]

Why would they only offer DD BC and not disc BC? It's not like Xbox 3 won't be able to read DVDs.

I'd have thought that BC for XBLA titles would be easier to implement than BC for disc based games. Maybe I'm wrong? They are also rumored to have a cloud service in the works, so it seems possible that disc based BC might be out in favor of a cloud offering through gold.