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[Giant Panda]

Define serviceable.

Note: It looks like WiiU will be getting ports from PS4/XB3.

Anything similar to or smaller than a PS2 to Xbox level difference. The WiiU could probably get decent ports of most games during its life.

Also all these "Make it super powerful because it needs to last 8 years!" posts are missing the point. Consoles are going to be technologically obsolete pretty early in their life cycle no matter how powerful they start off. It is much better for the console ecosystem if they launch at reasonable level instead of trying to future proof the console for the next decade. That would only stunt their growth due to over-engineered over-priced monsters. The games will still look great with just sustainable leap, and frankly, graphics are getting harder to improve anyway. I would I prefer more RAM, flops, etc for the consoles? Yes, but not if it results in what I described above.

 

[jeff_rigby]

On what exactly? Most data in games is transient and therefore well suited to streaming and preloading. Ultimately you're primarily serving information visible within the viewing frustrum, and that isn't going to change because its intrinsic.

More memory is just more. Not better.

Next gen's games are just going to be like this gen's with improved graphics. Fill-rate is still going to be king because in 9/10 cases rasterization is the biggest bottleneck, and therefore the only significant difference maker is GPU throughput.

What about a more accurate Speech and gesture recognition, they need more memory <grin>.

 

[KageMaru]

On what exactly? Most data in games is transient and therefore well suited to streaming and preloading. Ultimately you're primarily serving information visible within the viewing frustrum, and that isn't going to change because its intrinsic.

More memory is just more. Not better.

Next gen's games are just going to be like this gen's with improved graphics. Fill-rate is still going to be king because in 9/10 cases rasterization is the biggest bottleneck, and therefore the only significant difference maker is GPU throughput.

If you say so...

What about a more accurate Speech and gesture recognition, they need more memory <grin>.

Actually speech and gesture aren't that dependent on memory according to what was said at B3D.

 

[StevieP]

I think PS4 will be more powerful because Xbox720 will need to devote some of it's processing power ( maybe a couple threads ? ) to Kinect, while PS4's move is less taxing.

You think the PS4 will be free from extraneous packed in devices geared to differentiate? Serious question.

I'd probably be happy with approx half the power of a 7970, which in a console should be able to hit the same kind of performance as a full 7970 in a PC.

That's not a reasonable claim at all. You have less overhead on a console, but you still can't grow CU's out of nowhere.

Simple fact is if the PS4 has 2GB of memory, it will suffer if the NextBox has 5+GB usable RAM.

Sure, but don't forget about the whole issue of memory bandwidth/direct access. The "sipping from a giant pool with a coffee straw" analogy is one to consider when talking about slower memory vs faster memory in any amount.

Consoles are going to be technologically obsolete pretty early in their life cycle no matter how powerful they start off.

These ones are going to be (mostly) technologically obsolete upon their release.

MS have had 3 years to prove my assumptions wrong with Kinect, and they haven't!

Perhaps they will... they're doubling down on their current market strategy - this time not as a peripheral.

 

[Clear]

If you say so...

What would lead you to think otherwise?

Look at the putative specs of these machines compared to what high-end PC's offer today. There is no paradigm shift in prospect; its an iterative improvement. Even Carmack is saying we're basically 99% there already and therefore it isn't a terribly thrilling future.

What about a more accurate Speech and gesture recognition, they need more memory <grin>.

How much memory does Siri require? And as for gesture recognition, I maintain that its a dead-end technology outside of a few select applications. MS have had 3 years to prove my assumptions wrong with Kinect, and they haven't!

Optical recognition is fundamentally flawed due to its need to have a predictive layer to workaround occlusion cases. This is never going to be desirable for performance critical usage.

 

[jeff_rigby]

I think PS4 will be more powerful because Xbox720 will need to devote some of it's processing power ( maybe a couple threads ? ) to Kinect, while PS4's move is less taxing.

PS4 is going to have a depth camera and so will PS3.5. Kinect 2 is I think a 3-D + depth camera.

 

[jeff_rigby]

How much memory does Siri require?

Isn't Siri just local vocal pre-processing then a cloud server does the heavy database array processing. That's the way Google does it. The assumption is less powerful handheld without hard disk and little free memory.

And as for gesture recognition, I maintain that its a dead-end technology outside of a few select applications. MS have had 3 years to prove my assumptions wrong with Kinect, and they haven't!

Really, a platform that was not designed for gesture recognition, that has to have shortcuts taken because it does not have enough memory or CPU power and you think that using the same platform for 3 years and it can't improve, proves it's dead. Sony has stated they did not provide gesture recognition because it could not be properly supported with the existing hardware.

Optical recognition is fundamentally flawed due to its need to have a predictive layer to workaround occlusion cases. This is never going to be desirable for performance critical usage.

True. Tell me how many fingers I'm holding out behind my back. That's real life. Notice the Sony LCD VR glasses have a camera. Using the same IR intensity scheme that camera can do depth sensing too. So a different perspective can be supported.

 

[StevieP]

Jeff is on the money on this one - I know for a fact it will be an integral part of at least one of the consoles (though certain diagrams released last year indicate both).

 

[Just Lazy]

Any chance that the ps4 will use Kaveri?

 

[StevieP]

Any chance that the ps4 will use Kaveri?

The first "target specs" did have Steamroller cores, so a Kaveri-like architecture was certainly possible (with a beefier GPU obviously). However rumours of a Jaguar replacement have been prevalent in the past few months.

One mistake I wouldn't expect Microsoft to make is to settle for a less than optimal memory setup.

Well they certainly have a *lot* of memory. But, as I said, you can't expect that amount of memory to be of a faster/higher-bandwidth type in of itself.

 

[REMEMBER CITADEL]

Sure, but don't forget about the whole issue of memory bandwidth/direct access. The "sipping from a giant pool with a coffee straw" analogy is one to consider when talking about slower memory vs faster memory in any amount.

One mistake I wouldn't expect Microsoft to make is to settle for a less than optimal memory setup. Back in the day when Sony finally made their PS3 specs public, pretty much everyone at the Xbox camp started shitting their pants. Everyone but Nick Baker, that is, the general manager of the Xbox console architecture (still at that position, as far as I know). He allegedly took the schematics into his office, made some calculations, returned and said that PS3 would have trouble taking advantage of all that power because of its suboptimal memory subsystem. As we all know, that really turned out being the case.

 

[Clamps123]

More memory is just more. Not better.

So going by your logic, less memory is just less, not worse. So let's have next gen consoles launch with 256MB of ram, since, you know, it's not worse or better, it just is.

 

[spwolf]

The question is will next gen be mostly about gaming? If the rumors are true regarding 720, doesn't seem to be the case.

The amount of RAM required is depending on the architecture and system usage.

I very much doubt they will have more than 2 GB, or maybe 2+1. Thats 6x-7x more than currently (taking into account OS usage).

 

[StevieP]

I very much doubt they will have more than 2 GB, or maybe 2+1. Thats 6x-7x more than currently (taking into account OS usage).

8 (without OS usage, at least)

 

[REMEMBER CITADEL]

Well they certainly have a *lot* of memory. But, as I said, you can't expect that amount of memory to be of a faster/higher-bandwidth type in of itself.

Yes, all I'm saying is I expect everything to be nicely balanced. As you know, PS3 also uses much faster technology for half of its memory pool, but the difference is offset by the clever use of eDRAM which solves the bandwidth problems.

 

[Clear]

So going by your logic, less memory is just less, not worse. So let's have next gen consoles launch with 256MB of ram, since, you know, it's not worse or better, it just is.

No, what I mean is that its just a number on a spec sheet until its demonstrated that giving that sort of headroom has any value.

 

[KageMaru]

Sure, but don't forget about the whole issue of memory bandwidth/direct access. The "sipping from a giant pool with a coffee straw" analogy is one to consider when talking about slower memory vs faster memory in any amount.

Very true, though I suspect MS and Sony to do something to help mitigate bandwidth issues.

What would lead you to think otherwise?

Look at the putative specs of these machines compared to what high-end PC's offer today. There is no paradigm shift in prospect; its an iterative improvement. Even Carmack is saying we're basically 99% there already and therefore it isn't a terribly thrilling future.

There are GPUs out now that have 2GB of memory, that's just for the framebuffer, and not including things that would be in the system memory. Memory can be eaten up rather fast, especially with deferred rendering and such. So I wouldn't assume that 2GB would be enough for a console.

 

[Shikoro]

Yes, all I'm saying is I expect everything to be nicely balanced. As you know, PS3 also uses much faster technology for half of its memory pool, but the difference is offset by the clever use of eDRAM which solves the bandwidth problems.

What eDRAM?

 

[REMEMBER CITADEL]

What eDRAM?

eDRAM on the 360 side.

 

[Shikoro]

eDRAM on the 360 side.

You make it seem as if PS3 has eDRAM, though...

 

[KageMaru]

I'm wondering if a split pool of both GDDR5 and DDR3/4 may be the best viable option. Using something like eDRAM has it's share of risks, especially since it's pricey and predicting the correct amount for a system's 10 year life cycle is a challenge.

What eDRAM?

He's talking about the eDRAM in the 360.

 

[Raistlin]

I very much doubt they will have more than 2 GB, or maybe 2+1. Thats 6x-7x more than currently (taking into account OS usage).

I never said they would?

Simple fact is if the PS4 has 2GB of memory, it will suffer if the NextBox has 5+GB usable RAM.

It suffering depends on a lot of things.

 

[AuthenticM]

PS4 is going to have a depth camera and so will PS3.5. Kinect 2 is I think a 3-D + depth camera.

How can you be so sure that there is going to be a PS3.5? I sure would like it to happen, but it seems so out there. If Sony was going through with this, surely they would have mentioned something at E3, no?

 

[KageMaru]

It suffering depends on a lot of things.

Such as?

 

[jeff_rigby]

How can you be so sure that there is going to be a PS3.5? I sure would like it to happen, but it seems so out there. If Sony was going through with this, surely they would have mentioned something at E3, no?

No, neither has Microsoft (Xbox365) for the same reason and we have 4 cites that it is coming.

The PS3.5 and Xbox365 will kill sales of normal older PS3s and Xbox360. Sony won't announce and sell PS3.5s until after they have the HTML5 apps ready and that includes Media heavy apps that can't be released until HTML5 <video> API is supported by Webkit2.

800 million new Connected CE users between now and 2016. Sony expects to sell 20 million PS3.5s the first year...that should tell you something about how attractive they will be.

Not definite but the Tokyo Game Show (Sept 20-23) is where I would announce the coming major PS3 OS upgrade and PS3.5. Depends on a number of sales issues I don't know.

 

[AuthenticM]

Sony expects to sell 20 million PS3.5s the first year...that should tell you something about how attractive they will be.

Where do you get these numbers?

 

[REMEMBER CITADEL]

Where do you get these numbers?

The browser speaks to him in his sleep.

 

[jeff_rigby]

Where do you get these numbers?

Digitimes rumor & http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=39248378&postcount=1518

Taiwanese component makers tell tech site DigiTimes that Sony is readying a new home console for 2012. But that&#8217;s not the interesting part.

These component manufacturer sources tell DigiTimes that the PlayStation 4 will feature body-movement controls like Microsoft&#8217;s Kinect. That&#8217;s the interesting, if not unexpected, part.

The PS3 currently has PlayStation Move motion controls, which are similar to the Wii&#8217;s motion controls.

The report states Foxconn and Pegatron Technology will assemble the PS4 for Sony. Foxconn and Pegatron Technology both assemble the PS3, which was originally manufactured in Japan.

Sources told DigiTimes that the PS4 will go into production at the end of 2011 for a 2012 launch. Apparently Sony will manufacture 20 million PS4 consoles for 2012.

Rumor has the PS3.5 confused with a PS4.

 

[Clear]

There are GPUs out now that have 2GB of memory, that's just for the framebuffer, and not including things that would be in the system memory. Memory can be eaten up rather fast, especially with deferred rendering and such. So I wouldn't assume that 2GB would be enough for a console.

You don't need 2Gb for only frame-buffering, thats fast-access storage for textures and geometry and irrelevant under a unified memory model.

The key thing though is ensuring that there's sufficient fast access just for the rasterization pipeline, the 360's eDram was a crucial difference-maker.

PS3 on the other hand suffers from a massive difference in fetch-time depending on which region of ram your data is located for GPU/SPU usage; its port problems stemming not from a specific shortage of ram (although OS footprint was higher), but hard limitations on type for function.

Point being, if its a truly unified memory pool you need less than under a segregated system. This ability to function well with a smaller total memory requirement is a trump-card for the cost effectiveness of CPGPU-type solutions.

 

[Durante]

On what exactly? Most data in games is transient and therefore well suited to streaming and preloading. Ultimately you're primarily serving information visible within the viewing frustrum, and that isn't going to change because its intrinsic

That's great if you want just current gen games with better graphics. But what about more realistic open world RPGs, with AI actors that do more than just follow a daily schedule? What about permanent destruction in action games, with an actual impact on gameplay? What about an RTS in which you can jump back and forward in time?

 

[gundamkyoukai]

Jeff i am sorry but what your saying makes no sense , Sony is not going to bring out some upgrade to PS3 then to bring out PS4 a short while later .
Also PS3.5 and Xbox365 won't kill sales of the older system cause they almost dead anyway .

Okay back to PS4 stuff i think Sony going to match MS in terms of power so they don't have a big difference between them .
Yeah they nothing do so good right now but Kaz call gaming on of the main parts of Sony .
So i can see spending the extra money on one of the few things where there brand still has any sort of meaning.

 

[SappYoda]

Nextbox and PS4 are too similar. What if they are the same one system? I know it sounds crazy but we never know.

Also Microsoft registered sony-microsoft.com and microsoft-sony.com.

Of course, that could be unrelated to gaming.

 

[jeff_rigby]

Jeff i am sorry but what your saying makes no sense , Sony is not going to bring out some upgrade to PS3 then to bring out PS4 a short while later .
Also PS3.5 and Xbox365 won't kill sales of the older system cause they almost dead anyway.

That's part of the point and prediction in the 2010 Xbox720 powerpoint; in 2013 sales of Xbox360 were predicted to tank so a cheaper Xbox 360 supporting XTV with HDMI pass-thru was planned for release Christmas season 2012 and Xbox 720 released the next year.

I'm sorry but what you are saying makes no sense given Microsoft already planned to do it and predicted the market accurately.

Now understand that both Microsoft and Sony will have Modern browsers with full HTML5 support by Sept-Oct 2012 to support what? They plan to make money how? Think about it and also Khronos is predicting Augmented Reality will take off Sept of 2012. The current Xbox360 and PS3 do not have interfaces to easily and cheaply support AR. The interfaces (USB3 Kinect like etc) will be the same as in the PS4 and Xbox720 so accessories purchased for PS3.5 will work on PS4, Xbox365 will work on Xbox720.

There is going to be a SUPER disruption in the market.

 

[gundamkyoukai]

That's part of the point and prediction in the 2010 Xbox720 powerpoint; in 2013 sales of Xbox360 were predicted to tank so a cheaper Xbox 360 supporting XTV with HDMI pass-thru was planned for release Christmas season 2012 and Xbox 720 released the next year.

I'm sorry but what you are saying makes no sense given Microsoft already planned to do it and predicted the market accurately.

Companies plan allot of stuff don't mean it going to happen .
Also if they do add something extra to the system that don't make it 360.5 \PS3.5 .

EDIT
Khronos is predicting augmented reality taking off in sept 2012 don't meaning anything .
To tell the truth i think Sony would love to wash there hands from PS3 as fast as they can .
Yeah they still going to make it after PS4 comes out but it has been a pain in the ass for them to get it cheaper .

 

[Proelite]

Holy Crap.
Orbis / PS4 is going to be BEAST.

 

[jeff_rigby]

Companies plan allot of stuff don't mean it going to happen .
Also if they do add something extra to the system that don't make it 360.5 \PS3.5 .

Read posts on page 31 this thread. It's not just one 2010 powerpoint but three other posts 2011 predicting a nextbox in 2012 with descriptions of features that are the same as Xbox365.

Because of the powerpoint we can be confident that nothing else was planned for 2012. Support for this is 100% and I'll take a ban bet on this. PS3.5 I'm 90% sure is coming as there is less support for it. That both Xbox365 and PS3.5 have exactly the same hardware is also about 90%. PS4 and Xbox720 I suspect will be very similar and MIGHT be exactly the same SOC.

Khronos is predicting Augmented Reality taking off in sept 2012 don't meaning anything .
To tell the truth i think Sony would love to wash there hands from PS3 as fast as they can .
Yeah they still going to make it after PS4 comes out but it has been a pain in the ass for them to get it cheaper .

Gesh, you have the first half correct in both cases, read my posts on page 31 for the last half => how they did it..

 

[KageMaru]

No, neither has Microsoft (Xbox365) for the same reason and we have 4 cites that it is coming.

The PS3.5 and Xbox365 will kill sales of normal older PS3s and Xbox360. Sony won't announce and sell PS3.5s until after they have the HTML5 apps ready and that includes Media heavy apps that can't be released until HTML5 <video> API is supported by Webkit2.

What do you think these .5 systems will be?

If they are slightly modded versions of what's already out, it wouldn't matter if they killed sales of the normal systems since they would replace the current systems.

You don't need 2Gb for only frame-buffering, thats fast-access storage for textures and geometry and irrelevant under a unified memory model.

The key thing though is ensuring that there's sufficient fast access just for the rasterization pipeline, the 360's eDram was a crucial difference-maker.

PS3 on the other hand suffers from a massive difference in fetch-time depending on which region of ram your data is located for GPU/SPU usage; its port problems stemming not from a specific shortage of ram (although OS footprint was higher), but hard limitations on type for function.

Point being, if its a truly unified memory pool you need less than under a segregated system. This ability to function well with a smaller total memory requirement is a trump-card for the cost effectiveness of CPGPU-type solutions.

I think you're mistaken if you believe the split pool was a bigger issue than the shortage of memory in the PS3.

 

[Raoh]

No, neither has Microsoft (Xbox365) for the same reason and we have 4 cites that it is coming.

The PS3.5 and Xbox365 will kill sales of normal older PS3s and Xbox360. Sony won't announce and sell PS3.5s until after they have the HTML5 apps ready and that includes Media heavy apps that can't be released until HTML5 <video> API is supported by Webkit2.

800 million new Connected CE users between now and 2016. Sony expects to sell 20 million PS3.5s the first year...that should tell you something about how attractive they will be.

Not definite but the Tokyo Game Show (Sept 20-23) is where I would announce the coming major PS3 OS upgrade and PS3.5. Depends on a number of sales issues I don't know.

The bolded part I selected here is the most interesting part to me, only because that is so not like the sony we all currently know that announces stuff and releases it 3 years later or releases it now and doesn't announce it.

And would a TGS announcement mean Holiday release for Japan and Spring for US?

 

[Raistlin]

Such as?

What both systems are trying to actually do? If 720 is very media-centric and a lot is being allocated for that instead of gaming, then there may not be a major difference in terms of games.



We have no idea what the overall system architecture and features are.

 

[onQ123]

Holy Crap.
Orbis / PS4 is going to be BEAST.

???? did you see some new info? or is this just a delayed reaction?

 

[jeff_rigby]

The bolded part I selected here is the most interesting part to me, only because that is so not like the sony we all currently know that announces stuff and releases it 3 years later or releases it now and doesn't announce it.

And would a TGS announcement mean Holiday release for Japan and Spring for US?

Sony expects to sell 20 million the first year. How that is distributed world wide I don't know.

Interface I/O should be the same as the PS4 and Xbox720 to support the same accessories. There is also an economy of scale for the SOC building block if being used for the 4 platforms. See also the Xbox Loop rumor which describes advanced hardware in the 2012 Xbox.

USB3
HDMI
Display Port supports both HDMI and LVDS. Not mentioned is HDMI pass-thru but I expect it.
LVDS Low Voltage Differential Signal The typical applications are high-speed video, graphics, video camera data transfers,
W-HDMI Wireless HDMI is a colloquial term for wireless high-definition audio and video signals connectivity on consumer electronics products.
Gigabit eithernet
PCI-E
SATA hard disk
802.11N (WiFi)
ATSC (Over the air Digital TV tuner USA) This may not be in PS3.5 or Xbox365, may provide HD Homerun support instead
HSDPA High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) is an enhanced 3G (third generation) mobile telephony communications protocol
WiMAX is a wireless communications standard designed to provide 30 to 40 megabit-per-second data rates,[1] with the 2011 update providing up to 1 Gbit/s for fixed stations. It is a part of a &#8220;fourth generation,&#8221; or 4G, of wireless-communication technology. WiMax far surpasses the 30-metre wireless range of a conventional Wi-Fi local area network

The 3-D Fortaleza and Sony glasses will first generation be wired using LVDS or Display Port which has both power and LCD direct drive. Second generation may be wireless and include a WiFI or 3G or 4G interface.

In any case these specs are able to directly support Phones and tablets with a number of Wireless (RF) protocols and frequencies; this is Orbis and Loop, Ecosystem and accessory support.

Multiple Power States
&#8226;Full Power
&#8226;Media Playback
&#8226;Idle
&#8226;Streaming
&#8226;Standby

Full XTV support (i.e. linear TV, TV apps, DVR, Always on)
Online Content (Netflix, WebApps/Content/Svcs)
Video/Music Marketplace
Media Hub
A/V form factor
Quiet. Cool. Green.

PS4 the same, PS4 the same for all except for on-live and Kinect2 which according to a Sony Depth sensing camera patent, Sony will have also.

 

[gundamkyoukai]

Read posts on page 31 this thread. It's not just one 2010 powerpoint but three other posts 2011 predicting a nextbox in 2012 with descriptions of features that are the same as Xbox365.

Because of the powerpoint we can be confident that nothing else was planned for 2012. Support for this is 100% and I'll take a ban bet on this. PS3.5 I'm 90% sure is coming as there is less support for it. That both Xbox365 and PS3.5 have exactly the same hardware is also about 90%. PS4 and Xbox720 I suspect will be very similar and MIGHT be exactly the same SOC.

Gesh, you have the first half correct in both cases, read my posts on page 31 for the last half.

I can see both MS and Sony coming out with upgrades to there systems MS already did it with Kinect in a way .
If Sony or MS do upgrade there systems with extra stuff this year it will just replace the current systems.
What i am trying to say is that i don't see Sony having PS3, PS3.5 and PS4 on the market the same time.
Also Jeff i use 100 post per page .

I also see you think Sony going to get the PS3 cheaper by having SOC with AMD as the building blocks while they emulate the RSX.
That seem like allot of work when they going to come out with a new system a year plus from now.

 

[jeff_rigby]

I can see both MS and Sony coming out with upgrades to there systems MS already did it with Kinect in a way .
If Sony or MS do upgrade there system with extra stuff this year it will just replace the current systems.
What i am trying to say is that Sony won't have PS3, PS3.5 and PS4 on the market the same time.
Also Jeff i use 100 post per page .

Yup, Xbox365 will kill Xbox360 and PS3.5 will kill PS3...major disruption! PS4 is a 10X performance upgrade to PS3.5 and more expensive. I expect PS3.5 and PS4 to be on the market at the same time.

You can start a whole new thread on the uses for the Xbox365 SOC........

 

[gundamkyoukai]

Yup, Xbox365 will kill Xbox360 and PS3.5 will kill PS3...major disruption! PS4 is a 10X performance upgrade to PS3.5 and more expensive. I expect PS3.5 and PS4 to be on the market at the same time.

You can start a whole new thread on the uses for the Xbox365 SOC........

I really don't see that as a major disruption to tell the truth .

 

[Death Dealer]

I also see you think Sony going to get the PS3 cheaper by having SOC with AMD as the building blocks while they emulate the RSX.
That seem like allot of work when they going to come out with a new system a year plus from now.

What is the market for a PS3.5 anyways ? Developing world ?
Unless the thing costs like $129, I don't see who would give a shit about it.

 

[gundamkyoukai]

What is the market for a PS3.5 anyways ? Developing world ?
Unless the thing costs like $129, I don't see who would give a shit about it.

Well you going have to ask jeff about that .
Since i also think that no one going to care about what upgrades these old systems have.

 

[Raoh]

What is the market for a PS3.5 anyways ? Developing world ?
Unless the thing costs like $129, I don't see who would give a shit about it.

The sweet spot for the PS2 was $199, I don't see $129 in PS3's future anytime soon.

Only us here, and the like, are ready for next gen. I recall being on a line at gamestop during xmas 2011 where a few people were asking for PS2's as holiday gifts.

When you think about the lower middle class and lower class community, a PS3 with no online fees at $199 with a huge library could be consider a great deal/bargain. had they not lost otherOS, a low end linux PC would have sweetened the deal.

 

[KageMaru]

What both systems are trying to actually do? If 720 is very media-centric and a lot is being allocated for that instead of gaming, then there may not be a major difference in terms of games.



We have no idea what the overall system architecture and features are.

It would seem you didn't understand my earlier point. I meant if one system has 2GB while the other has 5+GB left after what's reserved for the OS, there will be a noticeable difference.

Well you going have to ask jeff about that .
Since i also think that no one going to care about what upgrades these old systems have.

IF these .5 systems turn out true, they won't be upgraded as in having faster/overclocked hardware and more memory. It's pointless to release a 360 or ps3 with slightly faster specs since it would never be taken advantage of, especially with faster hardware coming out next year.

Not sure what Jeff is implying they are since he missed my question earlier. If it's just extra support for media and such, it'll hardly be a big deal or disruption.

 

[onQ123]

Well you going have to ask jeff about that .
Since i also think that no one going to care about what upgrades these old systems have.

they will care when it's a replacement for the older consoles with a cheaper price.

 

[StevieP]

IF these .5 systems turn out true, they won't be upgraded as in having faster/overclocked hardware and more memory. It's pointless to release a 360 or ps3 with slightly faster specs since it would never be taken advantage of, especially with faster hardware coming out next year.

Not sure what Jeff is implying they are since he missed my question earlier. If it's just extra support for media and such, it'll hardly be a big deal or disruption.

I do not believe Jeff on this one.

Why? Well, when they switched to the new SoC for the current 360 Slim, they discovered that the chip was more effecient (hence faster in some ways). They actually had to spend a LOT of R&D money to "slow" the chip down to be exactly the same as the original Xenos+Xenon, because they broke game compatibility. I don't see either console manufacturer wanting to spend a lot of R&D money on these aging boxes anymore, as evidenced by the reluctance to invest hundreds of millions into another die shrink for further price reduction.