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[szaromir]

The latest report was that MS had not, in fact, made back that money yet. We just had this discussion in another thread last week. Maybe somebody dug up something new that said otherwise, but the latest figures MS released said nothing about making back that money and the figures didn't add up to a value that would have made that up.

What report? The division is in the black after combining all years since the 360 launch, and they had numerous flops along the way (Zune, Kin, WP7). No way 360 has not turned out profit.

 

[USC-fan]

You are not the same as a mass market.

thank god for that.

Yeah, but you would also post on an internet message board about video games. So...what you would do is largely irrelevant.

Yeah I'm the target market. The core gamer.

 

[Plinko]

What report? The division is in the black after combining all years since the 360 launch, and they had numerous flops along the way (Zune, Kin, WP7). No way 360 has not turned out profit.

Think about how much they lost with the RROD stuff.

Hey, I'm not the one who came up with the numbers--another GAFer had it figured out in the other thread. As of now, it hasn't happened. It probably will soon, though, with how well the 360 is selling.

 

[Plinko]

Do you have a link to the thread, AFAIK everything that's been released points towards it making a profit. Unless Office Mac is some massive money spinner.

I'll try and find it--it's been a week or two and I can't remember the title. It was in one of the insanely large E3 threads, I believe.

 

[Plinko]

The economy's been terrible for years, nothing special about right now. 360 sales didn't really take off until after the housing bubble collapsed.

People are willing to pay for entertainment if you give them something worthwhile. A video game system is still far cheaper than taking the kids on a vacation.

Did you read my last paragraph in that post? I agreed with a lot of what you said. That said, the economy IS worse for the middle-class than it was back then. Expenses have skyrocketed and real wages have dropped. We're worse off now than we were back then.

Edit: It's times like these I need to remember the Multi-quote function. Sorry for the triple-post :/

 

[Demoncarnotaur]

So with some credible sources saying this doc is most likely legit, do we have a summary of the all the juicy bits of it? Also, perhaps an update of the OP with the info, etc.

 

[KageMaru]

Economy is terrible right now for everyone in NA except for the top 10%. Latest report had figures that the middle-class and lower-class have had total income actually drop while every other expense is rising. That extra money just isn't there, and the extra money that is there tends to go to Apple products and/or cell phones.

I'm not saying this wouldn't be successful at $399. In fact, I think that one of the two Sony/MS consoles will be very successful at that price. I just think the other one won't. I think we're hitting a point where there isn't room any more for three home consoles to be supported by consumers. To me, after this generation, we're left with an MS and a Nintendo console future.

Yeah you have a point. I hope your wrong about Sony leaving the market and honestly I see MS leaving before they do.

Either way, I think they can make a $400-$500 console work, especially if they incorporate extra features (which I suspect both will pursue heavily). There is every indication next Gen will be as long, if not longer, as this Gen. So they'll want a system designed for the long haul.

 

[onQ123]

Yeah I'm the target market. The core gamer.

no you're not & you never was.

why would any company limit themselves to only core gamers? they want everyday people buying their console hardcore gamer or not.

 

[Zabka]

Did you read my last paragraph in that post? I agreed with a lot of what you said. That said, the economy IS worse for the middle-class than it was back then. Expenses have skyrocketed and real wages have dropped. We're worse off now than we were back then.

Edit: It's times like these I need to remember the Multi-quote function. Sorry for the triple-post :/

My point is that the economy has little effect on console sales. We had the most successful generation ever during the worst recession since video games were invented, and that's even up against the rise of mobile phone gaming. Escapist entertainment is not affected by the market.

 

[USC-fan]

no you're not & you never was.

why would any company limit themselves to only core gamers? they want everyday people buying their console hardcore gamer or not.

Never said it was limited to just the core gamer but that who wants in line to buy the console at launch. Then they came out with kinect to get the non gamers.

The whole push with the wiiu for example is the core gamer.

 

[Miles X]

Think about how much they lost with the RROD stuff.

Hey, I'm not the one who came up with the numbers--another GAFer had it figured out in the other thread. As of now, it hasn't happened. It probably will soon, though, with how well the 360 is selling.

Your only evidence is some other gaffer, yet you're ignoring people telling you that since 05, 5 months before the 360 release, the EDD has made a profit (yes RROD is factored into this) of 100m~ despite all the money sinks and few money spinners.

You seem determined to think otherwise with nothing to back up your statements. I can provide a break down year by year if it'll help?

 

[Matt]

Yeah I'm the target market. The core gamer.

The core gamer is most assuredly NOT MS's target market. More like an ancillary one.

 

[USC-fan]

The core gamer is most assuredly NOT MS's target market. More like an ancillary one.

Right because look at their AAA games. All target the core gamer...

Halo, gears, forza, ....

 

[Speedymanic]

The core gamer is most assuredly NOT MS's target market. More like an ancillary one.

What do you base this on?

 

[UntoldDreams]

Your only evidence is some other gaffer, yet you're ignoring people telling you that since 05, 5 months before the 360 release, the EDD has made a profit (yes RROD is factored into this) of 100m~ despite all the money sinks and few money spinners.

You seem determined to think otherwise with nothing to back up your statements. I can provide a break down year by year if it'll help?

I think the argument being made is some kind of aggregate cost versus profit. Not that we have the full data on that either mind you.

Companies report profitability by YEAR they don't include previous year losses in those calculations. No company does that.

"Yes we lost 100 million this year but if you add up our profits for the last 100 years we are profitable this year" (Does not happen)

 

[mrklaw]

Brilliant. Yes, massively expensive consoles just as the world economy tanks a second time. Bring that on.

The IMF clearly raised concerns about MS and Sony releasing expensive electronics and how that could destabilise the weak economic recovery in the world.

Oh wait, no they didn't because its some dumb piece of kit that will sell well anyway. We haven't exactly seen people burning their iPads to keep warm have we?

 

[Miles X]

I think the argument being made is some kind of aggregate cost versus profit. Not that we have the full data on that either mind you.

Companies report profitability by YEAR they don't include previous year losses in those calculations. No company does that.

"Yes we lost 100 million this year but if you add up our profits for the last 100 years we are profitable this year" (Does not happen)

I'm not sure I follow? I thought that was pretty much obvious and that's how I've arrived at the EDD being profitable. I've taken into consideration all the years with losses ...

 

[mrklaw]

What are they expecting their 'background processes' to do? Dual core plus GPU sounds like an apple TV sitting there just for streaming etc. I guess you could stream video to a tablet/windows phone while someone is playing a game or watching the main TV, but I guess the GPU is just there as part of a general media box.

 

[StevieP]

Has to be fake. There is no way they're going to focus this much on Kinect 2.0 when the majority of their customers are hardcore gamers and hate Kinect even more than Wii waggle and iOS gaming. If anything, they're going hardcore 2.0 with their next console.

Kinect is bundled with every console, mate

What does it mean by "always on"?

I can still play games offline unlike Diablo 3, right?

It means that the console is always on. It also always online.

Good job jeff.

Somehow you managed once again to beat all odds and triumph in the end.

Jeff may sometimes post walls of irrelevant stuff, but he dug up something good here. It's old as hell, and stuff has changed (such as the ram amount and obviously the APU/SoC) but the plan in motion is the plan in motion. It's coming to fruition as we speak, and E3 was just the tip of that iceberg

lol @ all the posters who said "bu bu but this isn't how a company would do it, it wouldn't look like this"

Anyways, the supposed specs are about what I was expecting, glad to see 4GB of memory, wonder how much of it will be available for games.

It's double that, but a lot will be taken up by background applications (dvr, kinect skeletal processing, yadda yadda) from what little I do know

 

[McHuj]

What are they expecting their 'background processes' to do? Dual core plus GPU sounds like an apple TV sitting there just for streaming etc. I guess you could stream video to a tablet/windows phone while someone is playing a game or watching the main TV, but I guess the GPU is just there as part of a general media box.

Process and overlay advertising over your gameplay.

 

[Speedymanic]

What are they expecting their 'background processes' to do? Dual core plus GPU sounds like an apple TV sitting there just for streaming etc. I guess you could stream video to a tablet/windows phone while someone is playing a game or watching the main TV, but I guess the GPU is just there as part of a general media box.

Push content? Download demos, patches, etc.

It's one of the few PS3 features they needed to copy, the option for your console to automatically download new content, patches, etc during the night/when you're not using your console.

 

[Rösti]

lol @ all the posters who said "bu bu but this isn't how a company would do it, it wouldn't look like this"

Anyways, the supposed specs are about what I was expecting, glad to see 4GB of memory, wonder how much of it will be available for games.

Feeling a bit ashamed, though I actually expected Microsoft or whatever company it contracts for work like this to take a bit more care of what assets they use. Google may be an excellent source for imagery, but quality may not be that good.

Also, that 4GB of memory may or may not have changed (previous comments has it at 8GB). Epic Games recently told they were "constantly pushing" platform holders to implement powerful hardware in the upcoming systems. For Epic standards, 4GB isn't much (at least not of DDR4) and I can definitely see them wanting more. If that amount of memory has remained unchanged since this document was made is the question, if Epic is opposing that amount or something greater/lesser.

 

[szaromir]

Think about how much they lost with the RROD stuff.

Hey, I'm not the one who came up with the numbers--another GAFer had it figured out in the other thread. As of now, it hasn't happened. It probably will soon, though, with how well the 360 is selling.

Yes, I did think how much they lost on the RROD fiasco. MS Entertainment & Devices division lost $3B in FY2006 and 2007, but has earned more than that since then (despite having numerous financial flops outside console business).

I specifically asked you what report you're citing, since Microsoft's financial results suggest otherwise.

 

[Thoraxes]

at $500 not many would buy it. its about majority.

For $500-$600, I could probably build a better gaming PC.

 

[Raistlin]

Was this the case in the US?

In the UK, MS have been lagging behind both the Wii and the 360 in terms of actual content provider delivery. Not having a web browser and doing everything via 'app' and keeping it behind a paywall was a major reason for this.

They're just about on par now.

Yeah I'm in the US. Earlier on, yes Sony had the lead. They were typically the first to get the big name providers and in many cases the first to get high-end features for them (1080p Netflix, etc).

MS however has caught up overall and now has either announced or added a number of providers that Sony does not have. In particular, they've been going after stuff like specialty programming, cable providers and the like, etc. So while Sony may have the big-name providers, MS has those and more.



As for the point regarding a web browser, I don't think that's really relevant to the argument here. While yes it's cool you can stream certain content, it isn't really useful for high quality media. When people talk about set-top box functionality and content ... there's a certain expectation regarding its quality and interface. Most users don't place watching some low bitrate stream from TWiT's website via a poorly implemented web browser at the same level as dedicated apps like Netflix, Vudu, Hulu, etc.

 

[Plinko]

Your only evidence is some other gaffer, yet you're ignoring people telling you that since 05, 5 months before the 360 release, the EDD has made a profit (yes RROD is factored into this) of 100m~ despite all the money sinks and few money spinners.

You seem determined to think otherwise with nothing to back up your statements. I can provide a break down year by year if it'll help?

Do you have the year-by-year losses along with the profit that is reported? Because that's what we're talking about. if you're only taking the reported profit into account, that's almost worthless.

Still looking for the thread, by the way. Post-E3 week was crazy. I'm going to stop bringing it up until I can find it. Shouldn't have said anything without that thread to back me up.

 

[-ImaginaryInsider]

Microsoft has had one good year and still hasn't recovered the money it lost because of that launch and the RROD problem.

...and it doesn't need to. The losses incurred in that year were covered by other divisions, and don't "carry over" and don't need to be paid back.

RROD could have happened with a $199 console, it was a design flaw, it doesn't really fall into the price point arguement.

 

[Plinko]

...and it doesn't need to. The losses incurred in that year were covered by other divisions, and don't "carry over" and don't need to be paid back.

RROD could have happened with a $199 console, it was a design flaw, it doesn't really fall into the price point arguement.

That's fine and I understand that--it's how business works. Microsoft can afford to do that.

Sony, on the other hand, can't.

 

[Raistlin]

?

I don`t think it´s fake and that`s not what i wanted to express with my post. You got the context wrong.

Sorry for that. What were you stating?

 

[Miles X]

Do you have the year-by-year losses along with the profit that is reported? Because that's what we're talking about. if you're only taking the reported profit into account, that's almost worthless.

Still looking for the thread, by the way. Post-E3 week was crazy. I'm going to stop bringing it up until I can find it. Shouldn't have said anything without that thread to back me up.

How can a company report a division as profitable if they arnt including the losses? I don't understand that ... is that even legal?

 

[Graphics Horse]

Feeling a bit ashamed, though I actually expected Microsoft or whatever company it contracts for work like this to take a bit more care of what assets they use. Google may be an excellent source for imagery, but quality may not be that good.

You've got to take into account that Google-sourced images end up in official PR and even boxarts in some cases. Never mind drafts of private internal documents

 

[Plinko]

How can a company report a division as profitable if they arnt including the losses? I don't understand that ... is that even legal?

If they lost a zillion dollars the first year and then made a $1 profit the next year, I believe they can declare in their yearly financial report that the division was profitable because they technically made a profit that year.

That's a ridiculously exaggerated premise, yes, I know. Anyways, like I said, I'll stop bringing it up until I can find that thread.

 

[Matt]

Right because look at their AAA games. All target the core gamer...

Halo, gears, forza, ....

Who else would "AAA" game target? The point of the 720 is digital lifestyle dominance. That includes gaming, but that is just one aspect of the system. To achieve that gole, it is more important for the system to be cheap then it is for it to be powerful.

 

[Matt]

You've got to take into account that Google-sourced images end up in official PR and even boxarts in some cases. Never mind drafts of private internal documents

Right, why would you put in the extra effort and cost for internal documents when Google images work just as well?

 

[Miles X]

If they lost a zillion dollars the first year and then made a $1 profit the next year, I believe they can declare in their yearly financial report that the division was profitable because they technically made a profit that year.

That's a ridiculously exaggerated premise, yes, I know. Anyways, like I said, I'll stop bringing it up until I can find that thread.

Right, but they've made as much profit as they have lost since 360's inception ... they didn't lose 5b at the start then only make 3b. They lost 3.3b~ the first couple of years including the $1b for RROD, and have been profitable for the last 5 years, with $3.4b~ (rough figures)

It's at a stalemate .. so I'm still confused by your reasoning.

Edit - do you mean Q's? So they could lose $3b the first 3 Q's, but if they make $1 in the last Q, they can claim a $1 profit for that year? Again, doesn't seem legal to me.

 

[Massa]

For $500-$600, I could probably build a better gaming PC.

Just the Windows license and a controller probably eats 30% of your budget already.

 

[AgentP]

What report? The division is in the black after combining all years since the 360 launch, and they had numerous flops along the way (Zune, Kin, WP7). No way 360 has not turned out profit.

It depends on how they do the books. They did move divisions around mid gen too. Was marketing, RRoR, research, etc. all on the normal budget for their division or was written off somewhere else in MS?

 

[Glorified G]

Just the Windows license and a controller probably eats 30% of your budget already.

Not to mention that $500-600 gaming pc today wouldn't run third party games as well as a next gen console in 2020.

 

[Satchel]

So it will have at least 4GB of RAM?

Funny. I was called an idiot by a few in an older thread for suggesting it could have anything more than 2.

 

[USC-fan]

Who else would "AAA" game target? The point of the 720 is digital lifestyle dominance. That includes gaming, but that is just one aspect of the system. To achieve that gole, it is more important for the system to be cheap then it is for it to be powerful.

Price comes down over time. Just like every other console ever released.

 

[specialguy]

gotta admit i'm kind of torn. part of me thinks ms has lost the plot here, part of me is kind of excited for all the possibly awesome non-gaming stuff possible with this box.

from a technical gaming design perspective i dont like much of the system, too me it seems clear the ram will be plentiful and thats good, i think the gpu is what it's all going to depend on, the key piece. it needs to be at least decent/acceptable in order for the system to have a chance against ps4 imo.

299 out of the gate is also kind of exciting in a way if true, and could lead to a large deluge in early sales swamping the competition.

 

[StevieP]

So it will have at least 4GB of RAM?

Funny. I was called an idiot by a few in an older thread for suggesting it could have anything more than 2.

The "2" you were quoting was of a unified pool of fast (i.e. GDDR5) memory, as if they were building on what they started this generation (unified pool of GDDR3) - this would make putting in more than 2 of GDDR5 much more costly. Microsoft has gone a different route than a fast unified pool - and is, conversely, including much more.

Price comes down over time. Just like every other console ever released.

The process is not as cut-and-dry in future. Node shrinks ain't what they used to be, in other words. If you're starting at 28nm, well... there's a reason the document mentions removing BC functionality eventually (if that's even in anymore in the first place).

 

[Matt]

Price comes down over time. Just like every other console ever released.

Sure, so start at $299 and come down even more. MS wants people to get a 720 over a Roku or an AppleTV as well as over a PlayStation and a WiiU.

 

[USC-fan]

The process is not as cut-and-dry in future. Node shrinks ain't what they used to be, in other words. If you're starting at 28nm, well... there's a reason the document mentions removing BC functionality eventually (if that's even in anymore in the first place).

How is that? This Gen we started at 90nm and ended I think at 45nm. Intel should be at 14 nm by 2014. Amd will be at 20nm when these consoles launch.

Half is still half. 90 /45 = 28/14

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

So what is better? 4GB of GDDR5 or 8 GB of GDDR3?

It looks like Sony is going with super fast memory while Microsoft is just going for a total volume approach.

But the Sony rumor pegs the memory at 2 GB, which is far too low, imho.

Having 4 GB of super fast RAM may be the best approach though, if they can manage to get that in there. Something tells me that 8 GB of slow RAM is going to go to waste.

 

[bgassassin]

So it will have at least 4GB of RAM?

Funny. I was called an idiot by a few in an older thread for suggesting it could have anything more than 2.

Supposedly double that. Those that probably called you that probably didn't expect MS to only use DDRx memory. I know I didn't.

gotta admit i'm kind of torn. part of me thinks ms has lost the plot here, part of me is kind of excited for all the possibly awesome non-gaming stuff possible with this box.

from a technical gaming design perspective i dont like much of the system, too me it seems clear the ram will be plentiful and thats good, i think the gpu is what it's all going to depend on, the key piece. it needs to be at least decent/acceptable in order for the system to have a chance against ps4 imo.

299 out of the gate is also kind of exciting in a way if true, and could lead to a large deluge in early sales swamping the competition.

They never lost the plot. Most people have always known the console market was just a Trojan horse for MS to get into the living room. Kinect seems to have given them the opening they've been looking for to achieve their original goal.

 

[Raistlin]

For background; Sony does not have any commercial DASH IPTV of their own, just Crackle (free) from "Home" even though they own a movie studio and have a site (Crackle) that offers free access to some Sony owned Movies. From disclosures they are using AVM+ (Adobe Flash) which they can use for non-commercial DASH IPTV and third parties are providing their own Dash players most likely Gstreamer for commercial DASH IPTV with DRM.

My guess is they are waiting for Standards and Gstreamer 1.0 + GTKwebkit2 which they will use for XTV, commercial IPTV from Sony Store, Augmented Reality, Ultraviolet player App and more. This should happen by Sept of this year.

I expect a Xbox361 and PS3.5 (will have HDMI pass-thru and 1080P support) also for this holiday season as XTV should take off when Webkit2 (Sept) has advanced enough to support XTV on CE Equipment (TVs, GoogleTV, Blu-ray players with 1080P HDMI in/out (pass-thru) Edit: They may use the same AMD SOC also.

You may be correct on the technical limitations currently preventing it, but I wasn't really talking about that.

I'd have to dig up the reports and news items, but basically what happening is that Sony was trying to work with providers to create an IPTV service. It's unclear whether it was for channel bundle tiers or entirely à la carte, but basically the point was to provide an alternative to cable/sat. You'd get live and VOD streaming of TV networks over the internet - no cable/sat subscription necessary. Sony would be your provider, and the hope was to get better control and pricing of the content.

Unfortunately Sony hit a ton of roadblocks on the contract side of things. They simply couldn't negotiate reasonable pricing for it and have indefinitely delayed the service. Moreover, it wasn't even necessarily for PS3 (though obviously I'd imagine they planned to use it as a portal). It was meant to be available on a variety of platforms including smart TV's, BD players, etc. With that in mind, SCE wasn't running the show here - so whether or not it was viable on PS3 at this point is immaterial. They weren't directly involved in it.


While obviously we have no idea if it's true, the current rumor is that MS may in fact have been able to pull it off from a contractual standpoint. If that's the case, it's a pile of dirt in the face of Sony. While as gamers we like to pretend Playstation and XBox is all about games, from their inception the execs have been going after 'the living room'. Sony had a head start, and coupled with their HW expertise and their TV and movie portfolio, appeared to logically be the front runner to pull off this sort of thing.

If MS ends up beating them at their own game ... it says a lot about Sony's ineptness. The more I see from MS and Sony, the less confidence I have in Sony pulling off the better set-top box solution.

• While Sony may have HW expertise, the current reality is you can get similar tech and fabrication on the open market. They can no longer rely on their technical expertise to guarantee significant product differentiation or pricing

• Sony has shown basically zero capability in leveraging their TV and movie (and music) IP as a strength. MS's movie and music services are actually more popular.

• MS is simply better at (non-gaming) software. They've consistently been better at laying down OS-level capabilities and providing infrastructure for online features and capabilities

• MS has Windows. That means a majority of computers, and a horse in the phone and tablet races (whether those will be successful remains to be seen). The point being they can easily make something like an IPTV service integrated right into the OS. That gives it serious discovery advantages, and coupled with their SW expertise ... I'd imagine it to simply be a more fluid and consistent experience.

• While Sony should have some advantages due to not being married to an OS like MS, they have done almost nothing to take advantage of it. Playstation Suite while a nice concept is currently going nowhere. It's taking them forever to do anything with it. This really illustrates my main points - slow moving, unable to leverage IP and capabilities, not as good at SW, etc. With no real horse in the OS race, Sony should have all sorts of cool interoperability with other devices. The problem is they can't because they're terrible at this sort of thing. Look at their prior MP3 music service attempts and the UI and SW they produced to go along with it. It's terrible. They just can't seem to put the pieces together.

The funny thing here is that while MS has historically been slow moving, they now appear to be full steam ahead in a variety of sectors. The sleeping dragon has awoken as it were. And while you'd assume their marriage to Windows, while having some benefits, would severely hamstring interoperability with other products and OS's ... SmartGlass demonstrates a major swing in direction for the company. After this all plays out I fully expect MS, not Sony, will be the one to have more and higher quality interoperability with other devices and OS's. Sony is basically one missed opportunity after another.

That's what I find interesting, for instance these hardware specs:

USB3
HDMI
Display Port
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)
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 “fourth generation,” 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 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. PS4 should support the same.

Multiple Power States PS4 should support the same
•Full Power
•Media Playback
•Idle
•Streaming
•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.

Yep, we both think from an architecture perspective they are going after some similar goals regarding set-top box functionality. IIRC, when rumors first started showing up regarding PS4 having a very odd archiceture of 'dual GPU's', etc, we were tag-teaming the thread speculating its obvious use is for lower-power modes that are for media/set-top box functionlity.

Again though, that's not where I see their problem. What I see are questions regarding how their UI, services, interoperability, etc will all compare. Sony hasn't demonstrated the capability to put everything together nor leverage what advantages they should have.

The mention of HDMI pass-through however has got me thinking. They are a partner in GoogleTV. If we assume the next generation of GoogleTV is actually successful (good UI and features, and actually takes off in the market) ... that could be an answer to a number of their problems. If PS4 actually uses GoogleTV as its interface, the UI and feature questions are solved. Moreover by being a partner, their services would all be given high priority so discovery would not be a problem.

The only remaining issue would be if MS does in fact get an IPTV service. Hopefully it will be the straw that breaks the camel's back and then Sony and others can get it rolling as well. At best though, that would still involve a delay and likely MS having more deals in place. At worst, it's severely delayed or they never pull it off. I'd like to think Google could help out on that but they've (quite publicly) had similar problems getting deals done. Remember the entire fiasco with networks preventing them from using the GoogleTV browser to access content?

There's a ton of unanswered questions here, but the outlook just seems to have Sony behind MS ... in an area where they should be leading.

OK we also suspect that AMD is making most of the components and most likely the SOC with both Sony and Microsoft most likely X86 and AMD GPU so I'm wondering why we don't assume both Sony and Microsoft are using exactly the same SOC from AMD.

Remember microsoft-sony.com and sony-microsoft.com July 2011

Economy of scale and sharing of design cost and AMD libraries should make this sharing of a AMD SOC design attractive for both. But this would be Sony-AMD and Microsoft-AMD partnerships not Sony-Microsoft so something more, some sharing of technology unique to either Sony or Microsoft must be involved.

Sony Dec 2010 published a patent for a 1PPU4SPU wafer that could be used alone or combined with Xbar switch using 4 wafers to make a PS4. Further it looked like the wafer could be full HSA and work in an AMD SOC. It's stretching speculation but 2 of these wafers (may be 1 later model PPC ISA family + 3 SPUs) could be in an AMD SOC to provide Backward Compatibility for both Xbox360 and PS4 as well as math or other features a game console would need. Add rumors of Barcelona Super Computer center working on a PS4 Cell into the mix; BSC which wrote the Cell simulator for IBM that runs on a X86 platform as well most likely the early PS3 simulator and possibly the Xbox360 simulator and you have a good start given SPUs and PPC processors in the SOC of real time emulation of both Xbox 360 and PS3 using the same SOC.

Xbox361 and PS3.5 would use the same AMD SOC (not the same as the PS4 SOC) and have 2 PPC+SPU wafers in it and would emulate PS3 or Xbox 360 using much of the same emulator code the PS4 and Xbox 720 would use for BC. Software is cheaper than hardware and economy of scale savings should be greater than the cost of creating the emulators.

Project 10 = Xbox361 ?



Xbox 361, cheaper Xbox360 with more features: Page 50

HDMI pass-thru (IF the PS3 had this then Google TV would be possible)
HD-Homerun => access to a Homerun Digital TV tuner (just software support needed) I've got one and it's a 2 digital tuner (Cable and Air) connected to network.
XTV with full 1080P and overlays (Not possible on Xbox 360)

More is implied here, HDMI pass-through implies always on low power modes, Xbox361 as the only input to your TV with it controlling your picture with overlays, windows with information from the web and more.

So this is similar to what we were speculating a PS3.5 would have.

Xbox361 and Slimmer Slim PS3.5 released this holiday season?

Yes, there must be a lower priced PS3 and it must support a HDMI pass-thru for XTV. Same for Microsoft, there must be a lower price Xbox361 with HDMI pass-thru. Both will be SOC based to reduce cost. Since stacked Ram is faster and cheaper than XDR and the Cell would have to be redesigned to be shrunk further (28nm) there could be large changes to the hardware that would require a major rewrite to the PS3 OS.

I expect both will be SOCs built with AMD building blocks (cheaper) and for the PS3.5 the RSX emulated. Building a GPU for a PS3.5 or Xbox 361 in 2012 is going to require a custom massively down scaled GPU that could be used by both. Since economy of scale (AMD building blocks) would have USB3 being cheaper than a custom older USB2, wireless N chip cheaper than G ....you get the point, the PS3.5 and Xbox 361 would be massively advanced over "standard" consoles and cheaper.

A cheaper Slimmer slim could not be produced until the AMD SOC building blocks and processes were ready and that is this year.

Given the above it's a small stretch to believe the redesigned PS3 Cell to fit in a AMD SOC and using building blocks that should be similar to some of the PS4 building blocks with OS emulating RSX that the same redesigned Cell could be in a PS4 for BC. Also with one more PPC in the PS3 SOC and PS4 SOC, Xbox 360 could be emulated in both

Sony and Microsoft can not announce 361 and PS3.5 until they know the Yield stats for the SOC and Sony can not release a PS3.5 until GTKwebkit2 with Gstreamer 1.0 is ready to support XTV and that won't happen till about Sept.

Any announcement of a 361 or PS3.5 will kill sales of Xbox360 and PS3. They will not be announced until stocks of older generation machines are lower and stocks of 361 and PS3.5 are high enough for this season.

The idea of a Xbox 361 is actually quite interesting.

The entire 'Loop' rumor was some sort of low-power set-top box with limited gaming capabilities. What if instead we actually have a die-shrunk 360 with expanded set-top box functionality? While it gives up some TDP/power consumption (which is always risky for this kind of device) ... it obviously has some big advantages in terms of gaming capabilities, economy-of-scale and ease of development. If they've come to the conclusion this makes the most financial sense it's a very interesting idea.


Regarding emulation though, any sort of set-top box functionality of a 361 would not be emulated on 720. Certainly games would be emulated (if viable), but not media features. If 361 has some concerns regarding TDP and power consumption, running those media features via emulation in the monstrous 720 would be simply untenable. Those features would be native to 720, and run in a low-power mode.

Definitely some interesting possibilities

 

[bgassassin]

So what is better? 4GB of GDDR5 or 8 GB of GDDR3?

It looks like Sony is going with super fast memory while Microsoft is just going for a total volume approach.

But the Sony rumor pegs the memory at 2 GB, which is far too low, imho.

Having 4 GB of super fast RAM may be the best approach though, if they can manage to get that in there. Something tells me that 8 GB of slow RAM is going to go to waste.

Depends on the speeds while ignoring GDDR3 is pretty much EOL (end of life). IMSO you're looking at determining if you want larger textures (that need more memory) or better resolution, AA, AF, etc. (the need more bandwidth). Seems safe to say Xbox 3 will have DDR4.

 

[Alcool313]

If I were Microsoft I would release a console that is heavily subsidized through a subscription model like they are doing for some 360s. I believe that for next-gen consoles to revitalize the industry and turn around the current downward trend (on the year to year aggregate), especially if they release late next year, they must reach a large install base very quickly. Even with feature cuts and dual generations on the big franchises, the current business model is not feasible without a rise on video game prices unless the install base is there and quickly.
Even a Next-Gen (720 & PS4) port of MW4 or AC: The Alamo could be a proposition so expensive that it is impossible to break-even with a regular launch window install base. I think that is very evident in the WiiU known launch titles, with everyone except Ubi only showing support with ports. It also has been proven that success goes wherever the third-parties go (and sell). Next-Gen will be very interesting, and I predict that the business decisions (Hardware/Software components, Internet services and pay model) will ultimately decide the winner, not the game selection itself.

 

[Vic]

Supposedly double that. Those that probably called you that probably didn't expect MS to only use DDRx memory. I know I didn't.



They never lost the plot. Most people have always known the console market was just a Trojan horse for MS to get into the living room. Kinect seems to have given them the opening they've been looking for to achieve their original goal.

Well-put explanation of what's going on with MS.