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Kotaku Rumor: Microsoft 6 months behind in game production for X720 [Pastebin = Ban]

KidBeta

Junior Member
So you assume Sony is as capable as the chip in Durango until proven otherwise? Because they build audio-chips doesn't mean the chip will be capable as the Durango's.
MS builds Visual Studio and DirectX, yet some people see an advantage in dev-tools by Sony...

Yes until we have a rumour that indicates the features of the sony chip I'd say don't make the comparrasion or assume they are equal. The vita chip seems similarish In power do the Durango one just less streams so I think it's reasonable to assume for now atleast that the hardware in the ps4 would be atleast as powerful as the vita which is pretty similar to Durango
 

Alx

Member
You guys know Sony is a audio company too right ?

I'm sure they could produce such hardware and put it in their console if they wanted to. The question is, do they ? Any additional hardware has a cost, and you have to decide whether it's worth adding it, or it's better to ask more from the CPU.
It's mostly a question of priority. Since MS will obviously want to set the kinect interface as a standard, echo cancellation and voice recognition are an important part of their console (dedicated hardware may even be a requirement if they want it to work in low power mode). Sony may decide that voice commands are not worth increasing the cost of the console, and will still let the developers do it through software when required.
 

c0de

Member
Yes until we have a rumour that indicates the features of the sony chip I'd say don't make the comparrasion or assume they are equal. The vita chip seems similarish In power do the Durango one just less streams so I think it's reasonable to assume for now atleast that the hardware in the ps4 would be atleast as powerful as the vita which is pretty similar to Durango

Why do you think the vita chip equals it in power? The source says "The alpha kits had an extra 8 CPU cores to emulate the sound block but even that wasn't enough processing power so they never implemented the emulation" and you say Vita has a chip as powerful as this? Any proof for this? Detailed information to the vita-chip is welcome.
 

Principate

Saint Titanfall
Lol at Sony in a bidding war, Sony doesn't do too great in bidding wars, this a company that's not doing great financially and managed to not secure the one third party software that could prevent the failure of the Vita in Japan, the biggest handheld market.

If the third parties willing to give microsoft is gonna wipe the floor with them.
 

gofreak

GAF's Bob Woodward
Why do you think the vita chip equals it in power?

I think he's saying more similar in features than power.

I don't know about that, but it does do similar processing as some of the bullet-points in VGLeaks re. SHAPE - decoding, mixing, resampling - as well as 'other DSP'. Obviously though with far fewer streams. And obviously one chip might implement processing at one level of quality vs another. And Vita's chip may not do some of the other points SHAPE's does. 'Other DSP' is a bit vague on Vita's side, I haven't seen any more info on what that means.

The appeal to emulation on CPU cores...I don't know how much it tells us. Audio processing that's done in specialised hardware can be very intensive on general CPUs. Vita's system was done in software on PC before final hardware was available but I don't know if I'd say it was super powerful vs chips in the non-handheld space, at least.

I think if KidBeta is saying 'we don't know', that's fair enough. Durango may have more powerful dedicated audio hardware than PS4, but we don't really know. I think it's fair to assume PS4's audio hardware may be more than a decoder also based on Vita anyway. Or maybe not if preservation of CPU resources was a bigger concern in Vita than PS4. Until we have more information about PS4's, we can't say very much...
 

c0de

Member
I think he's saying more similar in features than power.

I don't know about that, but it does do similar processing as some of the bullet-points in VGLeaks re. SHAPE - decoding, mixing, resampling - as well as 'other DSP'. Obviously though with far fewer streams. And obviously one chip might implement processing at one level of quality vs another. And Vita's chip may not do some of the other points SHAPE's does.

The appeal to emulation on CPU cores...I don't know how much it tells us. Audio processing that's done in specialised hardware can be very intensive on general CPUs. Vita's system was done in software on PC before final hardware was available but I don't know if I'd say it was super powerful vs chips in the non-handheld space, at least.

I think if KidBeta is saying 'we don't know', that's fair enough. Durango may have more powerful dedicated audio hardware than PS4, but we don't really know. I think it's fair to assume PS4's audio hardware may be more than a decoder also based on Vita anyway. Or maybe not if preservation of CPU resources was a bigger concern in Vita than PS4. Until we have more information about PS4's, we can't say very much...

I am just wondering because he explicitely said "power" when I intentionally used "more capable" which is not the same as power.
And I think it's wrong to assume that PS4-audio-chip is as "capable" because I believe the chip in Durango has to do a lot more due to kinect. Until we know otherwise we shouldn't make any comparisons to power like KidBeta did but we can reasonably assume the chip in Durango is more capable.
 

KidBeta

Junior Member
I think he's saying more similar in features than power.

I don't know about that, but it does do similar processing bullet-pointed VGLeaks - decoding, mixing, resampling - as well as 'other DSP'. Obviously though with far fewer streams. And obviously one chip might implement processing at one level of quality vs another.

The appeal to emulation on CPU cores...I don't know how much it tells us. Audio processing that's done in specialised hardware can be very intensive on general CPUs. Vita's system was done in software on PC before final hardware was available but I don't know if I'd say it was super powerful vs chips in the non-handheld space, at least.

I think if KidBeta is saying 'we don't know', that's fair enough. Durango may have more powerful dedicated audio hardware than PS4, but we don't really know. I think it's fair to assume PS4's audio hardware may be more than a decoder also based on Vita anyway. Or maybe not if preservation of CPU resources was a bigger concern in Vita than PS4. Until we have more information about PS4's, we can't say very much...

Bingo i was saying the feature sets are similar and iirc the steams is roughly half on the Vita.


I am just wondering because he explicitely said "power" when I intentionally used "more capable" which is not the same as power.
And I think it's wrong to assume that PS4-audio-chip is as "capable" because I believe the chip in Durango has to do a lot more due to kinect. Until we know otherwise we shouldn't make any comparisons to power like KidBeta did but we can reasonably assume the chip in Durango is more capable.

My bad. Also i don't see how Kinect adds things that would be worthwhile doing on a DSP to the audio processing part of things, what such requirements are there.
 
I think it's a safe bet that they'll have Forza ready, considering when F4 came out. It's probably going to be another year until Halo 5, though. And I doubt Lionhead will have anything. Rare might have some Avatar bullshit, I guess.
 

TheKayle

Banned
Microsoft went conservative considering the time between PS3/360 and PS4/Durango. 1.23 TF + 8 GB DDR3 + DMEs isn't exactly setting the world on fire. It's a safe bet. I can imagine a scenario where games won't run at 1080p natively on Durango in favor of better effects and post processing filters.

Sony, themselves, can barely call themselves next-gen. I understand why both manufacturers have went conservative, but I wouldn't be surprised to see 1080p dropped rather quickly in their first party titles to achieve something that looks similar to Deep Down.

After reading interviews though, I am hoping we see faster refreshes between console cycles. These machines will be bending over and tapping out after 5 years.

a question ...

so ur source still point at 1.23 tf for xbox?
 
I am just wondering because he explicitely said "power" when I intentionally used "more capable" which is not the same as power.
And I think it's wrong to assume that PS4-audio-chip is as "capable" because I believe the chip in Durango has to do a lot more due to kinect. Until we know otherwise we shouldn't make any comparisons to power like KidBeta did but we can reasonably assume the chip in Durango is more capable.

But can devs use the audio chip of Durango for other things? I am sure the PS4 audio chip has no problem with 7.1 PCM, so I don't quite see how it is an advantage if Durango has a better one. You don't need something better than 7.1 PCM.
 

TheKayle

Banned
Outside of the ridiculous dual APU bollocks I don't think there has been a rumour of anything aside from 1.23TFLOP.

i know that u hope would be less than dat :D

anyway i was asking coz we know that vgleaks papers r 1+ old docu
waiting to see what thuway could know about it
 

c0de

Member
My bad. Also i don't see how Kinect adds things that would be worthwhile doing on a DSP to the audio processing part of things, what such requirements are there.

Perhaps special circuits for speech recognition? Multiple users talking to Kinect which Kinect has to differentiate and react to while a game also produces sound for a game?
 

c0de

Member
Gemüsepizza;56586976 said:
But can devs use the audio chip of Durango for other things? I am sure the PS4 audio chip has no problem with 7.1 PCM, so I don't quite see how it is an advantage if Durango has a better one. You don't need something better than 7.1 PCM.

Because audio doesn't need to be limited for output. So because you don't see it doesn't mean anything. And I doubt MS builds such a capable chip to just output audio.
 

KidBeta

Junior Member
i know that u hope would be less than dat :D

anyway i was asking coz we know that vgleaks papers r 1+ old docu
waiting to see what thuway could know about it

Im just going by what I've been told and what has been shown, and please, 1 year is not a great deal of time when creating a console, the amount of time it takes to get something out the door is not small, it is actually rather late.

Perhaps special circuits for speech recognition? Multiple users talking to Kinect which Kinect has to differentiate and react to while a game also produces sound for a game?

I do not think its a good idea to do speech recognition in a DSP, it would be pretty limited, and there would be huge troubles with getting it worth with multiple languages and dialects i think it would be better to offload that to a data centre via the internet like Apple.
 
Because audio doesn't need to be limited for output. So because you don't see it doesn't mean anything. And I doubt MS builds such a capable chip to just output audio.

They probably use this chip for kinect, that's nice and all, but I don't find it that appealing. And as far as I am aware, we have practically reached the limit of what makes sense regarding audio output, so I still don't understand how this chip is a significant advantage if it can't be used for other processing tasks, which also could only be done with reduced effectivity, because it's not a chip for general processing.
 

c0de

Member
I do not think its a good idea to do speech recognition in a DSP, it would be pretty limited, and there would be huge troubles with getting it worth with multiple languages and dialects i think it would be better to offload that to a data centre via the internet like Apple.

I am not saying they put the whole algorithm in an asic but perhaps crucial parts of it.
But no matter what, this chip seems to be very capable and very powerful so it has to suffice for special needs. We can only guess what it is but playing the game "name me examples" and then "naa, I don't think so" is useless by now. This is built with intention and we can only wait until MS tells us what it's doing.
 

iceatcs

Junior Member
Gemüsepizza;56586976 said:
But can devs use the audio chip of Durango for other things? I am sure the PS4 audio chip has no problem with 7.1 PCM, so I don't quite see how it is an advantage if Durango has a better one. You don't need something better than 7.1 PCM.
Aww, I want 22.2 PCM.
 

c0de

Member
Gemüsepizza;56587436 said:
They probably use this chip for kinect. But as far as I am aware, we have practically reached the limit of what makes sense regarding audio output, so I still don't understand how this chip is a significant advantage if it can't be used for other processing tasks, which also would further reduce effectivity, because it's not a chip for general processing.

Yes, but MS and others don't care what you don't understand - it is of no meaning :) The chip is there, it was built the way it is and it will meet MS' needs. After 21st we can talk again but now all discussion of what it is used for is useless. It is what it is: a capable and powerful audio-chip which couldn't be emulated by an 8-core cpu. No need for comparisons.
 

KidBeta

Junior Member
I am not saying they put the whole algorithm in an asic but perhaps crucial parts of it.
But no matter what, this chip seems to be very capable and very powerful so it has to suffice for special needs. We can only guess what it is but playing the game "name me examples" and then "naa, I don't think so" is useless by now. This is built with intention and we can only wait until MS tells us what it's doing.

Did the vgleaks article given any indication of this (I haven't read it thoroughly). I can see where your coming from but even then it gets into the whole cost per benefit thing.
 

TheKayle

Banned
Im just going by what I've been told and what has been shown, and please, 1 year is not a great deal of time when creating a console, the amount of time it takes to get something out the door is not small, it is actually rather late.



I do not think its a good idea to do speech recognition in a DSP, it would be pretty limited, and there would be huge troubles with getting it worth with multiple languages and dialects i think it would be better to offload that to a data centre via the internet like Apple.


well in a year and half u could certanly get more flops...i dont know how much more than a year is old that docu for this reason i asked
 

KidBeta

Junior Member
well in a year and half u could certanly get more flops...i dont know how much more than a year is old that docu

You don't just 'get more flops', you either have to raise your thermal, power, and cooling budget, and over clock and maybe suffer horrible yields if your unlucky or you have to go with a significant redesign to drop in a different chip. Neither of these things are something that should be taken lightly.
 

c0de

Member
Did the vgleaks article given any indication of this (I haven't read it thoroughly). I can see where your coming from but even then it gets into the whole cost per benefit thing.

Where am I coming from? :) I don't remember that the chip was talked about explicitely and won't look it up :)
 

TheKayle

Banned
You don't just 'get more flops', you either have to raise your thermal, power, and cooling budget, and over clock and maybe suffer horrible yields if your unlucky or you have to go with a significant redesign to drop in a different chip. Neither of these things are something that should be taken lightly.


in fact we had that yields problem and heating rumors too no?
 
Lol at Sony in a bidding war, Sony doesn't do too great in bidding wars, this a company that's not doing great financially and managed to not secure the one third party software that could prevent the failure of the Vita in Japan, the biggest handheld market.

If the third parties willing to give microsoft is gonna wipe the floor with them.

Microsoft will try to lock up third party titles, but as development costs rise, third parties will want to maximize their profits. A high profile exclusive third party title is very unlikely. You're going to start seeing co-developed third party exclusives because Sony or Microsoft would have to take on some of the development costs and risks associated with the game being one console only. A lot of third parties will have a wait and see approach. Hitching your horse to a wagon early on in the generation could backfire immensely. For any third party.
 

TheKayle

Banned
Yield problems could happen to anyone with any chip they are in no way a indication of hardware change.


oh im not drawing a picture where the new xbox is a 10tf machine
but for me is more easy to trust that a company with deep pockets as ms dont let go out rivals with 30% 40% more capability expecially when the rivals r in economical trouble and when in the last years u fightin to take piece of their market ..is this hard to thing that ms maybe know the specs of ps4 and just going with something around that target perf?
i think that x360 / ps3 situation is what we willl get again (IMO)

(and no..i dont think ms is poiting to casual gamers..not with a 500$ console)
 

ekim

Member
oh im not drawing a picture where the new xbox is a 10tf machine
but for me is more easy to trust that a company with deep pockets as ms dont let go out rivals with 30% 40% more capability expecially when the rivals r in economical trouble and when in the last years u fightin to take piece of their market ..is this hard to thing that ms maybe know the specs of ps4 and just going with something around that target perf?
i think that x360 / ps3 situation is what we willl get again (IMO)

(and no..i dont think ms is poiting to casual gamers..not with a 500$ console)

There is always a minor chance that MS will surprise us at the #XboxReveal in terms of specs.
 

KidBeta

Junior Member
oh im not drawing a picture where the new xbox is a 10tf machine
but for me is more easy to trust that a company with deep pockets as ms dont let go out rivals with 30% 40% more capability expecially when the rivals r in economical trouble and when in the last years u fightin to take piece of their market ..is this hard to thing that ms maybe know the specs of ps4 and just going with something around that target perf?
i think that x360 / ps3 situation is what we willl get again (IMO)

(and no..i dont think ms is poiting to casual gamers..not with a 500$ console)

MS doesnt have time to redesign.

End of story.
 
oh im not drawing a picture where the new xbox is a 10tf machine
but for me is more easy to trust that a company with deep pockets as ms dont let go out rivals with 30% 40% more capability expecially when the rivals r in economical trouble and when in the last years u fightin to take piece of their market ..is this hard to thing that ms maybe know the specs of ps4 and just going with something around that target perf?
i think that x360 / ps3 situation is what we willl get again (IMO)

(and no..i dont think ms is poiting to casual gamers..not with a 500$ console)

Unless they looked at Wii last gen and realised that they could have made a TON more profit if they had modest tech with a low price and broad appeal. Look at the market indicators for that - not having 3tf in the box has not stopped gaming becoming the top earner on the iPad - they are looking well beyond the hardcore and when you take a holistic view of that and the relative value of different markets... its easy to see why they would.

If it were my money on the line I'd build just enough to deliver games that will satisfy a hardcore audience, but not so much that the box was expensive for the mass market, or a mass market price hurt my profit. That is what MS have done.

They exist to make profit.
 

KidBeta

Junior Member
They have enough money to design multiple differently powered setups in parallel.

They did, and Durango is the one they picked.

I think people need to stop dreaming that Microsoft somehow jacked up the power of everything or they are hiding secret sauce in every part of the machine, either accept the rumours or don't but don't try and start another one that they have more powerful machines waiting in the wing when theres 0 indication of this happening.
 

TheKayle

Banned
Unless they looked at Wii last gen and realised that they could have made a TON more profit if they had modest tech with a low price and broad appeal.

They exist to make profit. Sony are in the situation they are in as a whole company because they existed to engineer products under a 'build it and they will come' mentality for way, way too long.


yeah but the rumored price that paul thurrot said ..is higher than what rumor say about the ps4...so i dont think they toke the wii road at all
 

Satchel

Banned
Microsoft will try to lock up third party titles, but as development costs rise, third parties will want to maximize their profits. A high profile exclusive third party title is very unlikely. You're going to start seeing co-developed third party exclusives because Sony or Microsoft would have to take on some of the development costs and risks associated with the game being one console only. A lot of third parties will have a wait and see approach. Hitching your horse to a wagon early on in the generation could backfire immensely. For any third party.

Wrong.

Early on is EXACTLY when you take a money hat while the base is small and sales aren't guaranteed.
 

TheKayle

Banned
They did, and Durango is the one they picked.

I think people need to stop dreaming that Microsoft somehow jacked up the power of everything or they are hiding secret sauce in every part of the machine, either accept the rumours or don't but don't try and start another one that they have more powerful machines waiting in the wing when theres 0 indication of this happening.


i did a question....how old r that documents 1,5 years?....and i aske directly to thuway if he had any recent confirmation if the picture is pointing at that 1.2tf or he is basing his info on that docu too...

if he got recent info....ok is a 1.2tf machine

if is 1.5 years old..im more into the idea ms will suprise ppls

isnt about dreaming its about logic....im not a genius and i would never let my direct rival go out with a win win situation....

thats all
 

ekim

Member
They did, and Durango is the one they picked.

I think people need to stop dreaming that Microsoft somehow jacked up the power of everything or they are hiding secret sauce in every part of the machine, either accept the rumours or don't but don't try and start another one that they have more powerful machines waiting in the wing when theres 0 indication of this happening.

I'm not dreaming at all - just pointing out that they probably always had and still have a plan B.
 
yeah but the rumored price that paul thurrot said ..is higher than what rumor say about the ps4...so i dont think they toke the wii road at all

The $499 could very well only exist to make the subscription version look attractive - just like the mobile phone market.

Pricing strategy is different to pricing only to make a margin of X.
 

gofreak

GAF's Bob Woodward
We were even more sure we knew everything about PS4's spec before it was revealed, yet Sony sprung a surprise.

I think it's quite conceivable the final spec may differ a bit from what we heard so far. But I'd lean on 'easier' changes.
 

KidBeta

Junior Member
i did a question....how old r that documents 1,5 years?....and i aske directly to thuway if he had any recent confirmation if the picture is pointing at that 1.2tf or he is basing his info on that docu too...

if he got recent info....ok is a 1.2tf machine

if is 1.5 years old..im more into the idea ms will suprise ppls

isnt about dreaming its about logic....im not a genius and i would never let my direct rival go out with a win win situation....

thats all

You don't have time to change the situation unless you delay which is bad.

And vgleaks has said there info is from 2013. So yeah.

The document most people allude to is from February last year and it detailed what they were going to launch

to the programmers working on games for it. I don't think thats going to change.
 

rdrr gnr

Member
We were even more sure we knew everything about PS4's spec before it was revealed, yet Sony sprung a surprise.

I think it's quite conceivable the final spec may differ a bit from what we heard so far. But I'd lean on 'easier' changes.
Right. But could one rank changes that would make the biggest difference inversely with how likely they are. It seems as though if the change were at any point particularly revelatory, would know something.
 

Satchel

Banned
We were even more sure we knew everything about PS4's spec before it was revealed, yet Sony sprung a surprise.

I think it's quite conceivable the final spec may differ a bit from what we heard so far. But I'd lean on 'easier' changes.

Didn't Sony even say the specs are subject to change?

In which case, I don't see MS couldn't change them.
 
We were even more sure we knew everything about PS4's spec before it was revealed, yet Sony sprung a surprise.

I think it's quite conceivable the final spec may differ a bit from what we heard so far. But I'd lean on 'easier' changes.

Sony surprise was rather easy to do hardware wise and we knew about it but most people did not want to believe it .
I don't doubt MS could have change the specs some what but i feel some people are hoping for to much in term of power .
 
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