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[KageMaru]

This is my issue, though. I don't really think people did. They'll buy the new hot thing; I find 'loyalty' laughable.

I think the Playstation brand was much stronger back then, right before the PS3 shipped, so I find it believable. I think many expected what happened between the DC and PS2 to repeat between the 360 and PS3. I don't think it's any coincidence that much of the PS3's announced specs were roughly twice as much as the 360's specs back at E3 2005. Between all the talk of super computers, how the 360 and Wii were toys, xbox 1.5, etc. Sony was trying to recreate what happened with the PS2 launch.

I agree with you on the whole loyalty thing, but look at these threads and you can see it everywhere.

 

[bgassassin]

Given how MS wants Xbox to be the ultimate entertainment box for the living room, not including a Blu-ray movie playback would be a really stupid decision. People have their own collection of movies and want to watch it somewhere.

I agree. Sony is a part of the DVD Consortium and that didn't stop MS from allowing DVD movie playback on its consoles.

 

[SneakyStephan]

It'll be more powerful! (...ummm.... on paper, but it'll cost you $600 and the games will be generally technically inferior for the first five years, and by the time it starts to finally (barely) outpace the Xbox it'll be completely outclassed by relatively affordable PCs, but still MORE POWERFUL!)

Actually multiplat games looked and ran significantly better on pc since the 8800gtx was released (5 years ago).

A time at which the ps3 was only just released in europe and just as expensive.

So you have it backwards.
Consoles are only good value for the first year after release hardware wise, and after that only if and when the price drops low enough.

 

[Auto_aim1]

That is true about BC, though I don't know how much lower manufacturing would be since they would make a more advanced version of Cell. But honestly I don't think BC has enough weight to make them do that. Especially since it seems pretty likely they are going with AMD over nVidia for the GPU.

Oh yeah, I forgot about the AMD GPU. But in a way, I'm glad everyone is ditching nVidia.

 

[rdrr gnr]

Thanks for the responses, guys.

 

[StuBurns]

Given how MS wants Xbox to be the ultimate entertainment box for the living room, not including a Blu-ray movie playback would be a really stupid decision. People have their own collection of movies and want to watch it somewhere.

But they also want you to use their video services. I don't know though, just speculating. I won't be surprised either way.

 

[Emitan]

But they also want you to use their video services. I don't know though, just speculating. I won't be surprised either way.

I doubt they'd forgo Blu-Ray in the hopes of you using their video services. I'd think they'd use Blu-Ray to entice you to buy the system and then hook you with their services.

 

[iamshadowlark]

For its power, it has underperformed. It shined brightest in those games only because it could compensate for a weaker GPU somewhat. For the billions of dollars of investment, a huge chip, $90 manufacturing cost, and the difficulty of 'getting it right', its performance has been very disappointing indeed. Microsoft's CPU stole components of the Cell, released a year earlier, and still gets over half its computation performance (and it has a better GPU to boot).

Ok. The Cell budget/cost was nowhere near a billion dollars lol. And yes it was a big chip and did have early manufacturing issues. Not debating that.

You're comments on performance seem largely off-base however. It is not as simple as "Xenon gets half the performance of Cell". There are a wealth of gaming tasks that Cell absolutely smokes Xenon in and other things like logical operations where it is more or less on par. Also you comment about why Cell shined the brightest is ironic, that is exactly what it was designed to do.

The Cell architecture has not been (publicly) improved since 2006 either. Why should they? For raw computing performance, GPGPUs have outclassed Cell since 2006. For networking and video performance, the CPU is too much a niche application and in most cases it's better to have a cheap ARM chip or some dedicated hardware do it. The PS3 was its largest seller and Cell wasn't even optimized for gaming.

Where to begin? Youre comment about GPGPUs is moot, because the latency was so bad that there was still no practical use, you couldn't do those calculations and render your target at the same time. And even still to this day I don't think many PC games have any meaningful application for these features on these cards. Certainly none as sophisticated as some of the systems that devs have implemented on the SPUs. Then when consider that 2006 GPGPUs sucked even moreso than CELL and Xenon with branching and such it would be absolutely insane to try and included one.

What the hell are you getting at with you "niche application" line? Were you suggesting that they should've just added an ARM chip along side a separate CPU? If so, LMAO. Also Ibm released a new version of the cell in 2008.

There's absolutely no way Cell will be the PS4's primary CPU. If it's in there at all, it will be an additional processor, maybe doing various jobs like image post processing (upscaling, FXAA) and used primarily for backwards compatibility. As I said previously, the PS4 CPU will probably share its architecture with either the Wii U CPU or AMD's next generation of laptop APUs.

It is very likely that Cell will be in the next PS.

 

[hullostranger]

PS4 better have a freakin hardware scaler built in so I don't have to send a 720p feed to a 1080p TV. That was a bonehead omission on the PS3. Forcing TV's to do the scaling can lead to a number of issues with many 1080p TVs (more lag, more screen cutoff, etc).

This. Please Sony.

 

[JayTapp]

Why should cost of development go up drastically?

At the start of this gen, costs when up because developers had to learn new hardwrae and artists had to learn how to effeciently create high fidelity assests. (For instance why in Gears 1, "The Stranded" characters were outsourced and were much worse looking than main characters.

However now a days this is not the case. High resolution High Fidelity models are already being created and then scaled down to run on current hardware.

Look at the high fidelity models from Gears 3.

They already create it, and then dumb it down for current gen.

Not to mention much of the cost of these games comes from over blown marketing campaigns. Look no further than 150 million dollar ad campaign for Battlefield 3.

That is more than 1/3 the cost of the production of Avatar in marketing alone!

That can be rained in by quite a bit.

The Samaritan demo, which has a ton of high quality assets was done in the span of 2 months by a handful of people.

This! Great explanation.

Take the same tools as we have now: i.e.: Unreal, Crytek etc. Dev can create better looking game easily with the same technique they do now because they would not be as severely constrained by the hardware. Imagin fallout with faster/less loading but with more fx, higher res model etc.

Then after a couple years they are able to push the console almost to the max. I don't think cost will be as higher as people think compared to this gen.

 

[bgassassin]

It is very likely that Cell will be in the next PS.

If by very likely you mean unlikely, then I agree.

 

[BradleyLove]

PS3 is in third place because they included a bluray drive. It delayed the system, and significantly inflated the price with no serious benefit to SCE.

Release adjusted, the PS3 beat the 360, at considerably higher prices. People were willing to buy the PS3, it would have performed far better without the nice, but ultimately worthless bluray drive.

Uh, how about the fact that PS3 games ship with significantly better sound in almost all cases, even multi-plats.

For those of us who have 7.1 AV systems, being able to use 7.1 uncompressed PCM is by no means "worthless" and is only possible due to BD.

Dead Space 1 and 2 are also excellent examples of multi-plats where the PS3 has by far superior sound. Again, due to the "worthless" BD drive.

 

[iamshadowlark]

I saw that, but our difference is in the reason why they went with a poor GPU. My first sentence probably unintentionally negated my intention. I don't attribute it to Cell's cost considering how much the GPU cost them based on early BOMs. I attribute it to them believing it wasn't really necessary to go with something better gaming-wise and it being more of a "last minute" decision. That's why I brought up the rumor about them using multiple Cells.

And as already mentioned by DCKing, current GPGPUs would make Cell unnecessary. They could get an OoO processor from AMD and make life much better for devs going forward. I see Sony being much smarter about that this time.



.

Erm no. GPGPUs are still limited in the number of threads they could handle, latency is still crap, and an updated Cell's vector units would still outclass them. GPGPUs are still not that elegant of a solution.

 

[bgassassin]

Erm no. GPGPUs are still limited in the number of threads they could handle, latency is still crap, and an updated Cell's vector units would still outclass them. GPGPUs are still not that elegant of a solution.

When looking at benefits of using a current OoO CPU with a GCN or Fermi GPU, they would outweigh the benefits of a more advanced Cell. I bet if you asked a dev which one they wanted, a clear majority would go with the former.

 

[StuBurns]

http://newsimg.ngfiles.com/236000/236689_whatchu_talkin_bout_willis.jpg[IMG]

Uh, how about the fact that PS3 games ship with significantly better sound in almost all cases, even multi-plats.

For those of us who have 7.1 AV systems, being able to use 7.1 uncompressed PCM is by no means "worthless" and is only possible due to BD.

Dead Space 1 and 2 are also excellent examples of multi-plats where the PS3 has by far superior sound. Again, due to the "worthless" BD drive.[/QUOTE]
You mean the sound that is ultimately still compressed into the even smaller RAM than on the 360? Yeah, sure.

 

[Jharp]

The PS3 is more powerful than the 360 and that hasn't done shit for Sony, so what difference does it make?

No, I didn't read anything past the first page, so if this has been covered, I apologize.

 

[Metalmurphy]

You mean the sound that is ultimately still compressed into the even smaller RAM than on the 360? Yeah, sure.

Hum... what? You don't honestly think sound gets stored into RAM do you? It's all, or mostly all, streamed. It would be impossible to have anything else there otherwise.

 

[StuBurns]

Hum... what? You don't honestly think sound gets stored into RAM do you? It's all streamed.

Hum... You're wrong. Sound is mixed on the fly, how do you think that's possible?

 

[cyberheater]

For those of us who have 7.1 AV systems, being able to use 7.1 uncompressed PCM is by no means "worthless" and is only possible due to BD.

Yes. It's totally worth having the extra cost of a Bluray drive for games for the 1% of the folks that actually:-

1) Have a true 7.1 audio system.
2) Route their PS3 through it.
3) That have the games that properly support 8 channels of audio.

 

[DCKing]

Ok. The Cell budget/cost was nowhere near a billion dollars lol. And yes it was a big chip and did have early manufacturing issues. Not debating that.

No, it was $400 million of R&D, much more than MS or Nintendo (duh) spent. They did lose/invest billions of money selling the thing, though.

You're comments on performance seem largely off-base however. It is not as simple as "Xenon gets half the performance of Cell". There are a wealth of gaming tasks that Cell absolutely smokes Xenon in and other things like logical operations where it is more or less on par. Also you comment about why Cell shined the brightest is ironic, that is exactly what it was designed to do.

I was specifically referring to computation performance. I'm not denying that Cell doesn't have its merits, but if Sony wanted to improve graphics they should have included a better GPU. Maybe that was not an option in 2006, but they can't hope for a Cell to have any meaningful to contribute to the graphics alongside a 2012 tech GPU in the PS4, which is the entire point of this discussion.

Where to begin? Youre comment about GPGPUs is moot, because the latency was so bad that there was still no practical use, you couldn't do those calculations and render your target at the same time. And even still to this day I don't think many PC games have any meaningful application for these features on these cards. Certainly none as sophisticated as some of the systems that devs have implemented on the SPUs. Then when consider that 2006 GPGPUs sucked even moreso than CELL and Xenon with branching and such it would be absolutely insane to try and included one

What the hell are you getting at with you "niche application" line? Were you suggesting that they should've just added an ARM chip along side a separate CPU? If so, LMAO..

What did I say to get such a condescending response? I think it was clear from the context that here I was talking about the (lack of) merits of continued Cell architecture development by the STI alliance after the PS3 release, not about the merits of the PS3 hardware itself. I'm not denying Cell is doing its job in the PS3.

Also Ibm released a new version of the cell in 2008. It is very likely that Cell will be in the next PS.

IBM's 'new Cell' was a die shrink and rebrand of the original Cell for supercomputers that apparently only improved its double precision performance (which is irrelevant for gaming) to match what was already achieved by competitors. 2008 is more than three years ago, and IBM has since then switched to using GPGPUs in their supercomputers (edit: also this). It is likely that there's a Cell in the PS4, but there's no way Cell is going to be the primary chip.

Sony potentially going with an AMD Fusion chip actually fits the trend they always had to include massive floating point and vector computation power on the CPU. I wonder if it's going to happen.

 

[iamshadowlark]

When looking at benefits of using a current OoO CPU with a GCN or Fermi GPU, they would outweigh the benefits of a more advanced Cell. I bet if you asked a dev which one they wanted, a clear majority would go with the former.

An advanced cell would most certainly be OoO. And again I repeat, GPGPUs would provide just as many challenges and learning curves as the spes did, and would still be inferior at the same type of code.

 

[rdrr gnr]

Yes. It's totally worth having the extra cost of a Bluray drive for games for the 1% of the folks that actually:-

1) Have a true 7.1 audio system.
2) Route their PS3 through it.
3) That have the games that properly support 8 channels of audio.

Most people don't have HDTVs and therefore...?

 

[StuBurns]

Most people don't have HDTVs and therefore...?

Those people still get hugely better looking games from the HD consoles though.

 

[cyberheater]

Also games are hitting parity more often than not, any difference are negligible and hardly worth nit-picking over. We don't see Bayonetta differences all too often these days.

If Sony had chosen a less exotic architecture then there wouldn't have be any differences between multiplatform games so yeah, Cell did hurt PS3 from the get go and is still hurting it. It's not even debatable.

 

[charlequin]

But I think for Sony overall (not just their gaming interest) that cost was worth it

Almost certainly not. Gaming was a consistent moneymaker for them, something they could rely on to prop up weakness in their other divisions. On a pure costs-vs-profits basis over, say, ten years, BluRay licensing fees will never come close to the $6+ billion that PS3 lost them; if you start bringing intangibles in, it's unlikely that boosting HDTV adoption or whatever could make up for the rest of the delta on the gaming division (i.e. they didn't just lose $6b, they lost their market leadership and the speculative billions of profit per generation that market leadership entailed.)

(And all this is still assuming that the PS3 was single-handedly responsible for BluRay's victory, when I think it's very possible that it still would've won anyway.)

Sabotaging the game line to try to earn an incremental benefit in video was a huge mistake. Ultimately, it only happened because the people okaying it really did think it would be a Trojan horse, a value-added feature on a system that was already successful on its merits, and therefore provide a two-for-one return (successful PS3, free advantage in the HD disc war.) However much you attribute BRD to tanking the PS3 (and our best info suggests it was one of the biggest contributors), that was a price that was too great to bear.

 

[cyberheater]

Most people don't have HDTVs and therefore...?

It scares me to think how many folks will buy a PS4 and use a composite lead on a 14inch tv in their bedroom. I would love for all next gen systems to be HD HDMI only.

 

[rdrr gnr]

Those people still get hugely better looking games from the HD consoles though.

And those who use traditional stereo set-ups don't?

 

[Metalmurphy]

Hum... You're wrong. Sound is mixed on the fly, how do you think that's possible?

You mean just like textures/normal maps/etc also get "mixed" despite being streamed? Have you ever bothered to look how big some of the sound files, specially the sound track, and the insane amount of sound effects used in a single level? There would be literally no space for anything else, or even enough for just all the sound effects.

 

[Emitan]

It scares me to think how many folks will buy a PS4 and use a composite lead on a 14inch tv in their bedroom. I would love for all next gen systems to be HD HDMI only.

Imagine how many people pay for HDTVs and still use composite cables for everything.

 

[Death Dealer]

Cell carried them because they put so much focus on it. It had no choice but to carry the PS3. The decision to go with Cell affected other decisions, like the GPU.

I don't think it necessarily made a huge impact. Sony announced PS3 would be using an Nvidia GPU at the end of 2004. While released in 2006, it was a mild customization of the latest Nvidia PC GPU to hit the scene in late 2005. (The same time X360 launched)

They couldn't just decide at the last minute to ditch a dual Cell non GPU design and go with what they did. The non conventional GPU-less option obviously had to have been in the early stages of design. The engineers start thinking about the next, next gen console the same year a new one comes out.

RSX turned out to be less flexible than Xenos, the vertex shading in particular, due to a fixed number of pipelines. And it's easy to say in hindsight Sony should have used a stronger GPU, but at the time, RSX was a safe option. ATI just had better stuff at the time Sony was finalizing the hw for PS3. The timing was bad since RSX was based on the trailing edge of the legacy way of making GPUs for years, before a new paradigm shift of unified shaders.

RSX was considered a balanced design for a GPU at the time. It had the full number of pixel/vertex pipelines of the high end PC chip. But like the Nvidia PC cards it was based on, it ended up being less future proof, and the programmers were forced into tapping into the Cell's advanced features to assist with the rendering, in order to maintain parity with what the unified Xenos shaders were effortlessly cranking out. Xenos could automatically and somewhat efficiently balance a load, while RSX was locked into 16 pixel pipes and 8 vertex pipes. Plus Nvidia screwed them. The RSX had a fatal design flaw with the scaling function.

These issues, along with the Blu-ray shortage, caused PS3 to launch late and over budget.
From a business perspective, I think PS4 will be far more competitive off the bat.

 

[StuBurns]

You mean just like textures/normal maps/etc also get "mixed" despite being streamed? Have you ever bothered to look how big some of the sound files, specially the sound track, and the insane amount of sound effects used in a single level? There would be literally no space for anything else, or even enough for just all the sound effects.

Are you now implying textures aren't held in RAM too?

 

[cyberheater]

Imagine how many people pay for HDTVs and still use composite cables for everything.

The horror. And I bet some of these folks still bitch about the graphics.

 

[Emitan]

The horror. And I bet some of these folks still bitch about the graphics.

I've heard tales of people hooking up someone's PS3/360/Blu-Ray player/etc with HDMI or component and the person complained everything was "too sharp" and they wanted it back.

D:
D:
D:

 

[Metalmurphy]

Are you now implying textures aren't held in RAM too?

Hum. No?

 

[slider]

The comments folk have about "PS3 being more powerful than the 360 and look what good that did them" is fine but I'm keen to see someone pushing the boundaries. But one small factor of a console's life is just that... on small factor.

That said I'm ignoring the rumour. The nature of confidential reporting means the source will remain hidden (for now?) so it means nothing.

 

[BradleyLove]

You mean the sound that is ultimately still compressed into the even smaller RAM than on the 360? Yeah, sure.

Wow, you really have no idea...

The audio is output as uncompressed PCM. Audio can also be sent as DD5.1, DTS5.1 and all the way down to bog-standard 2.0 PCM.

Yes, the original sound files may be compressed whilst in RAM (but compressed =/= lossey) but PS3 decompresses and outputs as decompressed PCM. You cannot pass compressed PCM to an amp.

But the point is, the capacity of BD allows for DD5.1, DTS5.1 or PCM 5.1/7.1. So no, it's not worthless to those who value such a capability.

Yes. It's totally worth having the extra cost of a Bluray drive for games for the 1% of the folks that actually:-

1) Have a true 7.1 audio system.
2) Route their PS3 through it.
3) That have the games that properly support 8 channels of audio.

Maybe there are only 1%, but there's a hell of a lot more who can have DTS5.1 which again, PS3 can provide.

But yes, options are bad. Being able to watch BD films is bad. Gotcha.

 

[StuBurns]

Hum. No?

But you do believe every time someone shoots a gun, there is disc seek for the sample, and it's placed directly into the game without going to RAM?

You cannot pass compressed PCM to an amp.

You believe that? You believe the device somehow searches for compression artifacting and refuses to output anything with it?

 

[Future PhaZe]

When fewer and fewer titles becoming exclusive during these economic times I have to say that these consoles are really going to have be something special if I'm going to jump in at Day 1 for a 400 dollar price point.

The Uncharteds and Halo 4's of the world are just not worth it in comparison to the open platform nature of the PC, the amazing prices for PC games due to competition in the digital market space, day 1 patches and so much more.

I think I'm leaning towards joining the master race next gen unless I'm blown away by the new consoles.

 

[TheOddOne]

I've heard tales of people hooking up someone's PS3/360/Blu-Ray player/etc with HDMI or component and the person complained everything was "too sharp" and they wanted it back.

D:
D:
D:

This isn't too uncommon, I've seen this multiple times.

Yeah.

 

[McLovin]

Most people don't have HDTVs and therefore...?

Don't you mean didn't have? I would hate to think that most people still run sdtvs. Seriously can you even buy those types of TVs anymore? I don't go into the electronics section of Walmart so I honestly don't know.

 

[Metalmurphy]

But you do believe every time someone shoots a gun, there is disc seek for the sample, and it's placed directly into the game without going to RAM?

I did say mostly everything. You don't really believe they store an entire soundtrack on RAM for example do you?

You were implying that everything needs to get compressed, as well as implying it would be MORE compressed then on 360, so it could all fit in the "smaller" RAM, that's just nonsense.

I'll ask again

Have you ever bothered to look how big some of the sound files, specially the sound track, and the insane amount of sound effects used in a single level? There would be literally no space for anything else, or even enough for just all the sound effects.

 

[KageMaru]

edit:

An advanced cell would most certainly be OoO. And again I repeat, GPGPUs would provide just as many challenges and learning curves as the spes did, and would still be inferior at the same type of code.

Wat? o_0

If Sony had chosen a less exotic architecture then there wouldn't have be any differences between multiplatform games so yeah, Cell did hurt PS3 from the get go and is still hurting it. It's not even debatable.

So you use a hypothetical situation and say it's not debatable? lol ok...

 

[cyberheater]

I've heard tales of people hooking up someone's PS3/360/Blu-Ray player/etc with HDMI or component and the person complained everything was "too sharp" and they wanted it back.

D:
D:
D:

At that point. The video game police should take their machine back.

 

[StuBurns]

I did say mostly everything. You don't really believe they store an entire soundtrack on RAM for example do you?

You were implying that everything needs to get compressed so it could fit in the tiny RAM, that's just nonsense.

You did say everything. Then you edited when you realized you were wrong.

And I didn't say everything was compressed, I said sound is compressed, I didn't specify at all, you did, and wrongly.

 

[rdrr gnr]

Don't you mean didn't have? I would hate to think that most people still run sdtvs. Seriously can you even buy those types of TVs anymore? I don't go into the electronics section of Walmart so I honestly don't know.

Nielsen said that on average, U.S. households have 2.5 TVS, and 31 percent of Americans have at least four televisions. While just two percent of those surveyed already own a 3D TV, 46 percent of people own an HDTV and an additional 10 percent said that they will likely buy one.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2375169,00.asp

 

[Emitan]

At that point. The video game police should take there machine back.

Grammar police should take your keyboard back ;P

 

[Shtof]

Imagine how many people pay for HDTVs and still use composite cables for everything.

Oh the horror, but I've seen it in real life. People usually sit 7 meters away from their 50" screen and responds with "how can it look better than this?".

 

[Emitan]

I'm assuming people who prefer the blurry picture don't wear glasses.

 

[Metalmurphy]

You did say everything. Then you edited when you realized you were wrong..

No

And I didn't say everything was compressed, I said sound is compressed, I didn't specify at all, you did, and wrongly.

When I said everything I meant sound related.

 

[rdrr gnr]

Oh the horror, but I've seen it in real life. People usually sit 7 meters away from their 50" screen and responds with "how can it look better than this?".

I know so many people with a HDTVs that don't have digital cable. Makes me so angry.