The Next Generation Consoles

[Quark]

One thing that was not certain before E3 was whether Xbox 360 would be backwards compatible with Xbox. MS would claim it was, then say maybe, then say no, then say yes again. Turns out their wishywashy nature was because of the dumbass thing they're calling "backwards compatible." Can it play an Xbox disc? No. It can play a game made for Xbox that's recompiled and re-released.

And they actually have the guts to compare this to backwards compatibility? It's not called backwards compatible because developers don't have to modify the code, it's called backwards compatible because people can use the same disc they already bought, or one that they can acquire cheaper than the brand new games.

There was no reason to even remotely reply that this has compatibility, because consumers couldn't care less how hard or easy it is for some developer to remake a game. They want their games they already have to work.

[Occhidiangela]

1. PS3 was running primarily tech demos.  As others had put it, Sony did the same thing with the PS2 and those looked great.  Look how little came out that looked nearly comparable.

2. The Xbox360 hardware is currently an alpha build, running at an estimated 25-30% power.  Rare said that if the system matches up to the power that Microsoft claims it (and of course it's still an if), they can push 4000-9000 characters on the screen at the same time.
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Check this out: [AnandTech

Some bits.

"Each kiosk had a wired Xbox 360 controller connected to it, running into the base of the kiosk that only had one small window showing off a Xbox 360 console.

"The console itself wasn't on, looking at the right of the kiosk you get to see the actual power behind the demos: A pair of Apple Powermac G5 systems were actually running the Xbox 360 demos, not the 360 console. The consoles in the kiosks weren't actually running, they were just for show - now you know why all the controllers were wired"

If that report is true, 'tis a tad ironic.

Occhi

[jahcs]

Is this true or was that show just feeding me a line of BS?  Ever since I watched that show I am more afraid of being shot with a musket than I am of being shot with a high-powered sniper rifle.
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Another bit of trivia. The miniball and other large slow moving projectiles would sometimes impact on a bone and the bone would be pulverised in that area. It's one reason why they amputated so often from bullet wounds. Other reasons were time (the numbers of casualties they had to treat in a short period), sanitation and infection (there basically was none, sepsis and gangrene were very common), and anasthesia (someone sawing off a limb while a few other blokes held you down was supposedly easier for the patient to take than a "doctor" rooting around in your extremity for a projetile that may have done all those things Doc outlined).

[Doc]

Another bit of trivia.  The miniball and other large slow moving projectiles would sometimes impact on a bone and the bone would be pulverised in that area.  It's one reason why they amputated so often from bullet wounds.  Other reasons were time (the numbers of casualties they had to treat in a short period), sanitation and infection (there basically was none, sepsis and gangrene were very common), and anasthesia (someone sawing off a limb while a few other blokes held you down was supposedly easier for the patient to take than a "doctor" rooting around in your extremity for a projetile that may have done all those things Doc outlined).
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During both the Revolutionary and Civil War the "unnoficial" treatment in battlefield medicine for being gutshot was a good clean shot with a pistol to the back of the skull. It was considered the humane and Christian thing to do. After having a bullet play pinball on your insides, heck, I think I would want somebody to put me down as well.

Getting gutshot with modern ammo is no farking picnic either. **Winces**

[Raelynn]

One thing that was not certain before E3 was whether Xbox 360 would be backwards compatible with Xbox.  MS would claim it was, then say maybe, then say no, then say yes again.  Turns out their wishywashy nature was because of the dumbass thing they're calling "backwards compatible."  Can it play an Xbox disc?  No.  It can play a game made for Xbox that's recompiled and re-released.

And they actually have the guts to compare this to backwards compatibility?  It's not called backwards compatible because developers don't have to modify the code, it's called backwards compatible because people can use the same disc they already bought, or one that they can acquire cheaper than the brand new games.

There was no reason to even remotely reply that this has compatibility, because consumers couldn't care less how hard or easy it is for some developer to remake a game.  They want their games they already have to work.
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They haven't figured out the mechanics of the release yet but I'll agree with you there. It isn't backwards compatible. It seemed to me that they did want to use software to let you play right off the disc however. There's been so little information so I could be wrong.

Also, they claim their future plans are to have the entire library playable on the system. Dunno how that'll work out. I'm personally just waiting on the information. I would be extremely angry if they did go the route that you have to rebuy the games.

[NiteFox]

If that report is true, 'tis a tad ironic.
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Don't you think?

[Alarick]

Don't you think?
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It was known months ago that the Alpha dev systems were Power Macs. The Xbox360 runs on a PowerPC processor, so those were the closest they could get for development.

It is kind of ironic that the Xbox360 is basically a powerful version of a Power Mac.

[Alarick]

Yeah, they looked great back when the tech demos were released.  Time changes perspective on that, and you can't tell me graphics didn't improve as developers have gotten better.  PS2 is no Xbox, mainly because of the times they were released, but the Xenosaga series is a great example of how good graphics can be real time on a PS2.
I'm sorry, but if it's a hardware limitation that's running at "25-30%" capability 6 months before launch, this system will never reach "100%".

But three months is a huge amount of time for hardware changes. Look at WoW. In 6 months, they went from hardware that could barely support many realms, to the point where most realms are incredibly stable.

For Xbox360, the Alpha dev kits are at the end of their lifetime. The next wave of dev kits is coming shortly. The time frame of 6 months could easily get the system to "100%," because it's simply hardware and debugging that's limiting the graphics.

We can talk about the fact that the Xbox 360 has 3 cores, each of which can handle 2 threads, for 6 total thread.  The PS3 has 1 core, but the core offloads work to 7 units (there is an 8th there - for redunancy if one fails, apparantly) individually.  All these threads are great in theory, but I'd like to see a game handle them in practice.  There's only so much work a processor can do before it's stuck waiting for results.  How often are those 6 or 7 threads actually going to be available for use?  How will the compilation or programming to go to make sure threadsafe calculations are actually sent to a seperate line?  The Gamespot article says: "Microsoft has a lot of experience with multithreaded applications, and the company is confident that developing on the processor won't be a problem."  Too bad that says nothing whatsoever about performance.  Making a program threadsafe is not the same as making it work well with threads for speed.


Threadsafe programming, at the basic levels, is probably twice as hard as programming where you don't have to worry about it.  Once the basic levels are in, there's no real difference.  So if the SDKs get it right, programmers shouldn't have to worry about being threadsafe for these consoles.  But how much more time needs to be spent to make sure cores aren't wasted?

Programming for PS3 won't be an easy task, either. The Cell processor isn't just a single processor you program for. You have to write multithreaded code the same as you will for the 3 processing cores of the Xbox360. Proof is here. To quote:

A lot of the burden will fall upon the hardware manufacturers themselves to design systems and provide tools that will make it easier for programmers to write games. Sony has announced that the PS3 will use Open GL/ES, a specialized API closely related to Open GL, and programmers will be able to access the Cell's SPEs using C or C++ tools instead of having to program on the assembly level as with the PS2.

There will need to be threadsafe programming for both systems. The biggest issue I see is that it appears that the Cell has a "main" processor that looks like it will be the controller for all of the sub-cores, while Xbox360 looks like it has three parallel cores that can all act as a "main controller." All of this is speculation, but that's how the design looked to me.

Then there's another problem entirely.  Previews everywhere are talking about how great of an advancement these processors for these systems are.  Then you look at the graphics chips descriptions, and it basically says "more pipes, more transistors, more MHz."  There's no true innovation going on in the graphics, and graphics at the core of the argument.  Not that the extra power won't help, the early screenshots prove it will, but people keep skipping over the graphics chips and those are what really matters here.

I agree for the most part. Video cards are not moving in leaps and bounds. The only significant change I've seen is that there will be onboard cache RAM for the Xbox360's video card. Other than that, it's more pipes (though no dedicated pipes for particular operations) and more speed.

I haven't really looked at teasers yet, as I said I care more about the games then how they look.  Just some thoughts to ponder when the fight continues for "this system's faster!  no this one is!"
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As I said before, graphics are quickly becoming the least powerful thing to bring people to one console or another. We are reaching the point where there is little difference between consoles' graphic capabilities. It's the games and other services that will decide the war.

I think one thing that may be a blunder on Sony's part is the lack of a dedicated online service. Both Microsoft and Nintendo are offering a dedicated service, and Microsoft is even requiring that all games be, in the least, Live-aware, so that online functions will still continue while that game is active, even if it has no real online game modes.
Sony seems to be leaving it to the game companies to set these things up. Now, correct me if I'm wrong here, but I don't think Sony has announced any online service for the PS3, and that may be something that hurts them in the long run.

[Quark]

But three months is a huge amount of time for hardware changes.  Look at WoW.  In 6 months, they went from hardware that could barely support many realms, to the point where most realms are incredibly stable.

Not a fair comparison. Blizzard was taking systems that were already designed, and modifying their code to make it more scalable. If Microsoft is still making hardware changes to go from so-called 25% to 100%, they're not just plopping in faster, ready-made, hardware. They're doing design changes. Considering it takes a few months just for a chip to tape out, it would be completely irresponsible for Microsoft to be making changes right now.

Unless Microsoft wants to miss their deadline, their hardware is already designed 100% and hopefully taped out so they can fix bugs. You don't get a 4x speed increase from changing hardware in between Alpha and release. Software that's possible, but not hardware.

Edit: okay, read a little more, saw the piece about it being run on dual Power Macs. So only ATI had a real Xbox running at this time? That may explain the speed issue, since they were limited not by their hardware design, but by using temporary parts. They couldn't produce 20 preview systems for E3? That's a scary though when you think about console shortages. I see Sony had no hardware on hand according to Anandtech. That's a little less shaky, since they're planning a later release, but if either of these companies have bugs with their chips, there could be delays.

Programming for PS3 won't be an easy task, either.  The Cell processor isn't just a single processor you program for.  You have to write multithreaded code the same as you will for the 3 processing cores of the Xbox360.

If you'll look, you'll see I mentioned PS3 in the thread paragraph too. I'm no less skeptical about performance increases from Sony.

The biggest issue I see is that it appears that the Cell has a "main" processor that looks like it will be the controller for all of the sub-cores, while Xbox360 looks like it has three parallel cores that can all act as a "main controller."  All of this is speculation, but that's how the design looked to me.

If it is that way, I gaurantee one of the three equivalent Xbox 360 cores will become the defacto "main" processor. The others will just be taking offloaded work. The main processor may change per game, depending on the SDK, but it'll still be just as prevelant as Cell's.

I think one thing that may be a blunder on Sony's part is the lack of a dedicated online service.  Both Microsoft and Nintendo are offering a dedicated service, and Microsoft is even requiring that all games be, in the least, Live-aware, so that online functions will still continue while that game is active, even if it has no real online game modes.
Sony seems to be leaving it to the game companies to set these things up.  Now, correct me if I'm wrong here, but I don't think Sony has announced any online service for the PS3, and that may be something that hurts them in the long run.[right][snapback]78080[/snapback][/right]

Sony really hasn't said much about multiplayer that I've seen. Oh well, the games I like on consoles aren't typically multiplayer to begin with, so while I understand if that's a major point for some, it's a minor for me.

[Occhidiangela]

It was known months ago that the Alpha dev systems were Power Macs.  The Xbox360 runs on a PowerPC processor, so those were the closest they could get for development.

It is kind of ironic that the Xbox360 is basically a powerful version of a Power Mac.
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Thanks. :D That closes the loop nicely, and makes mucho sense.

Occhi

[jahcs]

It is definitely ironic that Microsoft's console is running Apple-type hardware. I wonder if that means Apple PC owners will be the first to get an emulator for XBox games?

Correct me if I'm wrong but for heavy graphics wasn't Apple hardware the choice for power users in the industry for a long time?

[Munkay]

PS3 comes in colors!


In other news, asian developers are short in stature. (Images courtesy of C|net)


Since much hasn't been said about the Revolution, I thought I'd post some info (again from C|net)

The nintendo Revolution is tiny

The Revolution will play DVDs, have built-in Wi-Fi and an SD memory card slot, and 512MB of flash memory. Executives said Nintendo would offer a free online gaming service, helping to accelerate the move of console gaming to the Net... The Revolution will be backward-compatible with games created for the GameCube, and fans will also be able to download games from earlier consoles, the company said.

Not too bad for the owners of a GC currently (I think I may be the only lurker to hold that title :P )

And in closing:

The new GameBoy Mini is smaller than an iPod mini but with the same power as a Gameboy Advanced SP (Anyone else notice how Nintendo is "micro sized" obsessed?)

[Munkay]

Where did you see this info?  Last I've heard, there's no way that PS3 is coming out this year, and Xbox is definitely going to be out this winter according to many official sources.  I've been keeping up with things as best I can, and I have yet to see any indications that PS3 will be out in 2005 at all.

Playstation responded to XBox360's release by saying they are going to "step up the release date."

the company released eagerly anticipated details of its upcoming PlayStation 3 and said the console would reach shelves in spring 2006.

Article can be found here

Cheers,

Munk

[Alarick]

Playstation responded to XBox360's release by saying they are going to "step up the release date."
Article can be found here

Cheers,

Munk
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Umm...the article says what I thought it did.

That system [Xbox360] will also beat the PlayStation 3 to market, with Microsoft executives promising that it will reach store shelves in time for the December shopping season. Pricing for the Xbox has not yet been released, but the company gave a detailed look last week at the product's specifications, including a three-processor core, a separate 500MHz graphics processor and a 20GB hard drive.

The PS3 is supposed to come out spring 2006. The Xbox360 is supposed to be out this coming November. Xbox360 is supposed to have about a 5-6 month jump on the PS3, mostly because of the production time of the Cell processor.

What I was looking for was info saying that PS3 would be coming out before Xbox360. Unless I read a previous post wrong, someone had said that Sony pushed the release date of the PS3 to beat the Xbox360, and I've seen no information to suggest that.

I will keep looking, however.

[Munkay]

Umm...the article says what I thought it did.
The PS3 is supposed to come out spring 2006.  The Xbox360 is supposed to be out this coming November.  Xbox360 is supposed to have about a 5-6 month jump on the PS3, mostly because of the production time of the Cell processor.

What I was looking for was info saying that PS3 would be coming out before Xbox360.  Unless I read a previous post wrong, someone had said that Sony pushed the release date of the PS3 to beat the Xbox360, and I've seen no information to suggest that.

I will keep looking, however.

Perhaps the purpose of my post went over your head? I was confirming what you said, not disagreeing, fine sir! There hasn't been a release date set before the Xbox360. Although Sony may have wanted to try to beat the release date, they gave an ambiguous "stepping up the release date" which we now know is (currently) set at Spring 2006.

Feel free to "keep looking", though considering Sony has been officially quoted with a projected release date very recently, it's doubtful you're going to "find" anything else. :)

Cheers,

Munk

[Alarick]

Perhaps the purpose of my post went over your head?  I was confirming what you said, not disagreeing, fine sir! There hasn't been a release date set before the Xbox360.  Although Sony may have wanted to try to beat the release date, they gave an ambiguous "stepping up the release date" which we now know is (currently) set at Spring 2006.

Feel free to "keep looking", though considering Sony has been officially quoted with a projected release date very recently, it's doubtful you're going to "find" anything else.  :)

Cheers,

Munk
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Yea. I simply misniterpreted your post. I doubt Sony will be able to get anything more than a few months ahead of the spring release date they give.

It is interesting to note that Halo 3 is in development, and is slated to be released at the same time as PS3. This was a quote directly from Bill Gates, though I can't find the article I read it in without spending more time than I want to searching for it.

Microsoft has tremendous amount of money to throw in the ring, and it will take the absolute death of either Xbox360 or PS3 for one of the companies to drop out of the race.

[loonygloss]

I think your numbers a bit off.  From what I can gather, the total Operations per second for the Cell processor is 2.18 Tflops.  Again, this may be misinterpreting that available data, but I'm pretty sure the numbers are based on total performance for all of the sub-processors on the Cell chip.
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1.8 Tflops for graphics chip, + 218 gflops for CPU(all subprocs) == 2.18 Tflops total. Horribly misleading figure, really. Just like Sony, really. Misleading because the numbers mean nothing. They are tested in an artificial manner which has very little to do with games, and a great deal to do with getting the biggest possible number. Certainly, your graphics card can do a vast number of flops more than you CPU in any modern computer, but noone has (yet) figured out how to harness that for anything other than graphics. Note that they said that their graphics hardware is ~= to 2xGF6800? That is a reasonable comparison, because it realates to currently existing hardware in a meaningful way. Unlike the FLOPS figure.

To be honest, I don't care (much) about the numbers. All the games from this generation have been pretty good looking, regardless of console, and the gap will only diminish in the next gen.

[snarky mode]
Also, remember the polygon figures we were fed last time?
Xbox: 125 Million
PS2: 75 Million
GC: 10-12 Million

Look! the GC is 5 times weaker than the PS2! Except, of course, Nintendo's figures were based on a realistic approximation of gameplay, and were later exceeded. Sony's were based on black polygons on a black background, no texturing or lighting. Sort of like measuring an FPS framerate in a blank room with your face up against the wall.

Until we see actual gameplay (And from what I understand, the only non-prerended demo on the PS3 was the UE3 one) the Sony + Microsoft numbers will be about as meaningful as the 2000W(PMPO) on a cheap stereo.
[/snarky mode]

[edit]Can you tell I'm a Nintendo fanboy? :D I'm really most interested in the Revo, but the number of PS + PS2 + PS3(possibly) RPGs tempt me to pick up either a PS3 or (more likely) a marked down PS2 once the PS3 comes out to try some older games out. XBOX on the other hand, leaves me cold for games.[/edit]

[jahcs]

Well said loonygloss.

I don't put much into pre-release performance figures. It's kind of like rating a restaurant soley on how many pages it's menu is without checking the menu's content or tasting the food.

Car companies used to test for horsepower on their engines without . They would take an engine with no accessory drive (no alternator or water pump belts), race gas, bumped timing, open exhaust, etc. and run it on a dyno. Woot our car has 235+ horsepower! But only on paper. Good luck seeing that kind of number on your production model. Did I mention 0-60 in about 10 seconds? :P

It's nice to see some performance figures and expected capabilities for consoles but I will never spend $150-$600 based on pre-release hype. How does it play? Are the controllers comfortable to hold? Can I watch a DVD? Will games that I actually want to play be comming out for that platform? Will the system have game manufacturer support for several years?

[Mithrandir]

I can't find the link I had where it was said that Sony was going to try and move the PS3 release up to Christmas, unfortunately. It was probably either just a fabrication of my E3-deluged brain or a wild speculative rumor.

I still have a lot of games I need to finish playing... damn new consoles being on their way.

[Guest]

Huxley on XBOX3 is the game that looks coolest to me.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/r/?pa...php(que)id=7328


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