Xbox 720 is Coming. November 2013

Myrddin

gizmo wrote: »

when was the last time the most powerful console was also the most popular?

Agreed, it's been a while alright. I'd have to say the PS1 was the last big powerhouse that destroyed its competition. Everyone was jumping ship into the 32bit generation so the SNES & Megadrive didn't stand a chance against it. The 3DO & Saturn were inferior, be it technically and through mismanagement at least on Sega's part.

I loved the 16bit console wars I have to say. You had to be either a Nintendo man or a Sega man - or else have both. None of this multi-platform nonsense of today. Short of a few exclusives, the consoles play the same bloody games & for all intents and purposes, the games look the bloody same too.

Overheal

Dcully wrote: »

I laughed hard when i heard they are putting a 5 year old GPU into it.

HD 6670 is circa Feb 2011

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Islands_%28GPU_family%29

regarding DX12, there isn't even a white paper available for it yet, nevermind any GPU with functioning support for it.

DX9 launched in 2002. DX10 came out in 2007 but for many reasons was replaced with improved yet similar DX11 in 2008. Hence DX10 is effectively scrapped. I'd expect DX12 information to surface by the end of 2012 but games supporting it won't be seen until the late half of 2013 or mid 2014. By my estimation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DirectX#Releases

For now though DX11 looks pretty enough, and the big important thing is it specifies multi-thread support. Meaning those of us with Quad (Really it's Tetra), Hexa, and Octa processors, should be getting a lot more mileage out of them.

Kinski

Kinski wrote: »

It's called the Xbox 360 because they didn't want the Xbox 2 going up against the Playstation 3.

not according to the Microsoft reps when they were releasing it

ShadowHearth

EnterNow wrote: »

Agreed, it's been a while alright. I'd have to say the PS1 was the last big powerhouse that destroyed its competition. Everyone was jumping ship into the 32bit generation so the SNES & Megadrive didn't stand a chance against it. The 3DO & Saturn were inferior, be it technically and through mismanagement at least on Sega's part.

I loved the 16bit console wars I have to say. You had to be either a Nintendo man or a Sega man - or else have both. None of this multi-platform nonsense of today. Short of a few exclusives, the consoles play the same bloody games & for all intents and purposes, the games look the bloody same too.

i really dont think its fair to compare current gen with old gen stuff. as we know current gen already proved a lot of wrong, which old gen made a standart. lifespan of all these consoles is waaaaay longer then anything we knew before.

back then they were not using that much of PC components, wheres consoles now are pure PCs inside with console looks.

wii popularity is really a overstated. yes, they sold a lot of the consoles, but they sold alot of consoles to houses where they barely used. anyone i know who has wii is not using it much, just on parties for ****s and giggles. there might be a lot of consoles sold, but that means jack **** if people are not buying software for it.

it would be more accurate to compare by software sold? i am prety sure that more powerful xbox and ps3 are more popular then wii. so more powerful console is more popular.

it is very unique time in video gaming, where it became more popular and it is not looked at like children toys. PC gaming is really kicking off high and becoming more and more easyer to get in to. gamers now see difference between pc and console hardware, because they use same stuff now. its not like:
"this new console is 32BIT!!!!!!!!!!!!"
"what does it mean?"
"i dont know, but it is cooler then 16bit!!!!!"

Retr0gamer

ShadowHearth wrote: »

i really dont think its fair to compare current gen with old gen stuff. as we know current gen already proved a lot of wrong, which old gen made a standart. lifespam of all these consoles is waaaaay longer then anything we knew before.

back then they were not using that much of PC components, wheres consoles now are pure PCs inside with console looks.

Not true at all. 5 year lifecycle with some crossover for the 6th year and possibly beyond is pretty much standard. The Gameboy, NES/Famicom and even the Megadrive for example had lifespans as long if not longer than the current generation. Also you'll find a lot of old consoles are based on off the shelf components with the odd one using one or two custom processors, but that's the exception not the rule.

ShadowHearth

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Not true at all. 5 year lifecycle with some crossover for the 6th year and possibly beyond is pretty much standard. The Gameboy, NES/Famicom and even the Megadrive for example had lifespans as long if not longer than the current generation. Also you'll find a lot of old consoles are based on off the shelf components with the odd one using one or two custom processors, but that's the exception not the rule.

7 years for xbox now and next gen is coming in 1.5 years... 8.5 years :rolleyes:

did you even knew what GPU used your snes or sega mega drive 2 back then? how much ram it had?

Retr0gamer

Megadrive used a 68000 which is why there was so many Amiga ports since it was the same thing. The SNES used a 65c816 which was based on and used the same instruction set as the 6502 based chip used in the famicom so that it could be backwards compatible, although that never appeared in the final version. It why there was so much slow down on the SNES because the CPU was a piece of ****. There was no GPU's back in those days, video processing units would be more correct and their job was to create the framebuffer and organise how it was created. There wasn't a GPU until the Super FX chip in Starfox. And yes I did know that back in the day, doesn't mean they weren't made from or based on off the shelf parts.

As for the Famicom/NES, released in 1983, SNES was released in 1990 and it had a shelf life well into 1994.

ShadowHearth

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Megadrive used a 68000 which is why there was so many Amiga ports since it was the same thing. The SNES used a 65c816 which was based on and used the same instruction set as the 6502 based chip used in the famicom so that it could be backwards compatible, although that never appeared in the final version. It why there was so much slow down on the SNES because the CPU was a piece of ****. There was no GPU's back in those days, video processing units would be more correct and their job was to create the framebuffer and organise how it was created. There wasn't a GPU until the Super FX chip in Starfox. And yes I did know that back in the day, doesn't mean they weren't made from or based on off the shelf parts.

As for the Famicom/NES, released in 1983, SNES was released in 1990 and it had a shelf life well into 1994.

Right, we all smart to copy paste Wikipedia ( or any other source ) now, but when you were young fella did you knew that?

Plus current gen is stil alive and kicking, next gen is coming in 1.5 year and Xbox 360 and ps3 will still be very very alive as they are not just consoles.

Retr0gamer

Yep I did know it, used to read the magazines and it was all in there. Richard Leadbetter (working on the digital foundry articles at eurogamer now) is a massive tech head so if you were reading any of his magazines, and you really should have been, you'd know. And none of that was from wikipedia actually :P Even if I did sure what has that got to do with anything?

So the 360 is a little over 6 years old now, and will be succeeded when it's about 7 years old, that's really not uncommon. You also mention that they will have a life after the new consoles are released but again not uncommon, look at the NES, SNES, Megadrive, PS1, PS2 etc. There's really not been much of a change in the console business this generation.

gizmo

ShadowHearth wrote: »

back then they were not using that much of PC components, wheres consoles now are pure PCs inside with console looks.

The closest thing to a desktop part inside any of the current gen of consoles is the Xenon CPU in the 360 and the RSX GPU in the PS3. The latter being the most interesting seeing that it was never even intended to be used in the final PS3 design. Everything else works in an entirely different manner to their desktop equivalents, their only similarity is the general designation given to each of the parts.

ShadowHearth wrote: »

wii popularity is really a overstated. yes, they sold a lot of the consoles, but they sold alot of consoles to houses where they barely used. anyone i know who has wii is not using it much, just on parties for ****s and giggles. there might be a lot of consoles sold, but that means jack **** if people are not buying software for it.

it would be more accurate to compare by software sold? i am prety sure that more powerful xbox and ps3 are more popular then wii. so more powerful console is more popular.

These figures are known as the "attach rates" of the consoles and have clearly favoured both the 360 and PS3 this generation. As for what it means, well it means different things to different people. To Nintendo, I'm sure they're delighted that they sold so many consoles. To publishers, it meant concern that third party games simply weren't selling. To consumers, it meant being left without a large number of third party games which were released on the other systems. Of course, they still had a decent library of fantstic games but it meant some still managed to roll out the tired "there are no games for the Wii" argument. Thankfully their misguided outbursts are easily ignored.

ShadowHearth wrote: »

it is very unique time in video gaming, where it became more popular and it is not looked at like children toys. PC gaming is really kicking off high and becoming more and more easyer to get in to. gamers now see difference between pc and console hardware, because they use same stuff now.

While PC Gaming has certainly come a long way in the last decade with the introduction of digital distribution services and the more widespread availablity of patches and general info for other titles, I still can't see it ever overcoming the simple fact that it is not a machine solely designed for playing games. It is for this reason that I don't think it will ever eclipse the mainstream popularity of consoles. To give an example, even after seeing BF3 run on my machine at home and how it wiped the floor with the console versions, my mates, who are avid BF3 games on the 360 and PS3, just shrugged and said they still preferred consoles for gaming when I asked would they consider switching over.

Myrddin

ShadowHearth wrote: »

i really dont think its fair to compare current gen with old gen stuff. as we know current gen already proved a lot of wrong, which old gen made a standart. lifespan of all these consoles is waaaaay longer then anything we knew before

I'm not directly comparing them. I'm saying when platforms were totally different to each other, & had their own specific games [much more so than todays exclusives], it promoted great competition between manufacturers. Everyone was trying, pushing, & thinking their way around problems in order to create better and better games. It's what the video games industry today was built on, the competitions of the past.

That doesn't exist today though. We have a situation that has both powerhouse consoles, although having different architecture, essentially playing the exact same games in the exact same way. Dev houses rarely take risks, it's all about creating games that conform to peoples expectations. There are some great indy titles that really rock the boat, they're usually overshadowed by "Modern Shooter 6" etc.

I will agree re the Wii. It sold in droves, but to me I rarely use it. I has some great games but its riddled in shovelware, teddy bear games & pet simulations. Nevertheless, my point remains - it sold double the units Sony have sold due to a great selling point, 1st party titles, affordable price & being first outta the traps helped it a lot. Sony should not get caught napping this time around!

Kiith

EnterNow wrote: »

That doesn't exist today though. We have a situation that has both powerhouse consoles, although having different architecture, essentially playing the exact same games in the exact same way.

Isn't this exactly what Sony and Microsoft want though? Being within spitting distance of each other on hardware terms, so developers can easily have their games on both without one suffering more than the other? Surely if one of them release a console 3/4/5 times as powerful, with hugely different specs, the current cross platform game designs won't be as easy to do.

Retr0gamer

Third parties pretty much have to release multiformat games to stay viable. There's no clear winner like there was with the PS1 and PS2 and the high cost of development means that releasing a single format game is saying goodbye to half the profits. I don't see it changing next gen either but who knows.

Myrddin

Kiith wrote: »

Isn't this exactly what Sony and Microsoft want though? Being within spitting distance of each other on hardware terms, so developers can easily have their games on both without one suffering more than the other? Surely if one of them release a console 3/4/5 times as powerful, with hugely different specs, the current cross platform game designs won't be as easy to do.

Oh I'm sure it suits them yeah. I'm just looking at it from a gamers perspective. In a nutshell, short of the exclusives, the PS3 and 360 may as well be the same things in different shells. It's probably economically viable, & less risky to have it that way. I just find it...boring really, there's no competition.

Then again, I was spoiled bu gaming through the 16bit era. There were some truly groundbreaking games around that time, born out of healthy competition between manufacturers/dev houses.

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Third parties pretty much have to release multiformat games to stay viable. There's no clear winner like there was with the PS1 and PS2 and the high cost of development means that releasing a single format game is saying goodbye to half the profits. I don't see it changing next gen either but who knows.

Oh I don't see it changing at all. They'd see it as not worth the risk. Better to conform than to take chances [:(]

Otacon

EnterNow wrote: »

Then again, I was spoiled bu gaming through the 16bit era. There were some truly groundbreaking games around that time, born out of healthy competition between manufacturers/dev houses.

There was less money riding on those games though. Nowadays, a failure of a game can lead to multiple job losses and even studio closures.

hooradiation

Otacon wrote: »

There was less money riding on those games though. Nowadays, a failure of a game can lead to multiple job losses and even studio closures.

And comparing the few games that managed to stick in your head for twenty years Vs the entirety of the modern market is always going to lead to that misguided "wasn't the past awesome!" conclusion.

ScumLord

ShadowHearth wrote: »

wii popularity is really a overstated. yes, they sold a lot of the consoles, but they sold alot of consoles to houses where they barely used. anyone i know who has wii is not using it much, just on parties for ****s and giggles. there might be a lot of consoles sold, but that means jack **** if people are not buying software for it.

I bought a Wii and played it a bit, but then lent it to my 10 year old nephew a few years ago and haven't seen it since. I don't miss it much but young kids love Nintendo stuff, I don't know whether it'll be a case of he'll grow out of Nintendo or whether in a few years Nintendo will have another generation of avid Nintendo fans.

Retr0gamer wrote: »

The Gameboy, NES/Famicom and even the Megadrive for example had lifespans as long if not longer than the current generation.

That was a different time though when technology was different and not as fast paced.

gizmo wrote: »

To give an example, even after seeing BF3 run on my machine at home and how it wiped the floor with the console versions, my mates, who are avid BF3 games on the 360 and PS3, just shrugged and said they still preferred consoles for gaming when I asked would they consider switching over.

I wonder how much of that is down to good marketing and peoples comfort zones. You probably need to have grown up on PCs or have a need for PCs IE: hardcore sims or work, to be a PC gamer.

Myrddin

hooradiation wrote: »

And comparing the few games that managed to stick in your head for twenty years Vs the entirety of the modern market is always going to lead to that misguided "wasn't the past awesome!" conclusion.

There's much more than a handful of games that stand out from previous generations. Will there be a game from this generation that will stick in my head for 20 years? Not as many as there should be.

o1s1n

hooradiation wrote: »

And comparing the few games that managed to stick in your head for twenty years Vs the entirety of the modern market is always going to lead to that misguided "wasn't the past awesome!" conclusion.

'The few games'? What are you on about?

You do realize the videogame market has been huge for decades? It's not a modern invention.

I suppose you also think that the modern film market obviously can't be compared to the 'few films' which have managed to stick in your head over the last 20 years.

ScumLord

Modern games require a fair amount of commitment of time, sometimes just to get used to the control system. Old games had instant playability. Modern games wouldn't even work in an arcade set up because it would cost you €1 just to get through the tutorial stage of the game.

o1s1n

ScumLord wrote: »

Old games had instant playability.

Go and play Nethack. Then come back and repeat the above.

Monotype

Going by the possibility of Microsoft using an AMD 6670 or equivalent, I think that it could coincide with AMD's next lineup of Fusion APUs.

The current generation have 6620G (mobile) and 6550D (desktop) so it wouldn't be much of a stretch to tweak what they have now. But it's more likely that they'd use the 2nd generation Bulldozer architecture. The desktop version (codenamed Virgo) apparently will use the 7000 series graphics, the mobile (Comal) version dmight still be 6000. The desktop dedicated 7670 card is near the same as the 6670, just re-branded so they might do something similar with integrated graphics in the APUs.

With overheating issues plaguing the last xbox, a move like this would keep costs very low and they could have an extremely compact system.

RedXIV

o1s1n wrote: »

Go and play Nethack. Then come back and repeat the above.

..........fucking Nethack

marco_polo

Kiith wrote: »

Isn't this exactly what Sony and Microsoft want though? Being within spitting distance of each other on hardware terms, so developers can easily have their games on both without one suffering more than the other? Surely if one of them release a console 3/4/5 times as powerful, with hugely different specs, the current cross platform game designs won't be as easy to do.

Not sure that Sony care about that , they didn't exacly make it easy on multiplatform developers last time around with the Cell processor, which if you take out the handfill of great looking PS3 exclusives (Killzone, Uncharted etc) hasn't really been what you would call a resounding success when it come to multiplatform gaming.

While it is true that by now prettty well all major multiplatform developers have now got to grips with PS3 development, how many millions of man hours were wasted in the early days of the platform just getting games to run adequately on the PS3.

All that extra effort for the end result, close to the end of this generation, that multiplatform games looking just as good, but by no means better on the PS3 than the Xbox 360 .

Retr0gamer

marco_polo wrote: »

Not sure that Sony care about that , they didn't exacly make it easy on multiplatform developers last time around with the Cell processor, which if you take out the handfill of great looking PS3 exclusives (Killzone, Uncharted etc) hasn't really been what you would call a resounding success when it come to multiplatform gaming.

It was more to do with Sony liking to use custom chipsets in the past. It meant they had total control over the chip production which means they can reduce the amount of chips needed during the console lifecycle by combining the functions of multiple chips into single chips and allow them to lower the cost of production. The PS2 was a pain in the ass to program for as well because of this. It kind of backfired on them this time. Developers found it better to concentrate on the 360 which was closer to PC architecture and therefore easier to learn. I can see Sony going for custom chips based on off the shelf parts and created on contract by one of the big manufacturers.

stevenmu

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I can see Sony going for custom chips based on off the shelf parts and created on contract by one of the big manufacturers.

They might well do, but having taken the risk and made the big investment into the Cell platform, it may well be cheaper and easier for them to just super charge Cell. If they can get a good clock speed bump and add another pile of SPUs, they can get something a lot more powerful with relatively little investment. They already have a relatively mature tool chain and SDK, and middleware ecosystem, and developers seem to have gotten used to it all. If they go for some kind of 'off the shelf' platform then they'll have to redo all that from the beginning, again, and expect all of their developers to re-tool and re-skill, again.

They probably should have gone 'off the shelf' with the PS3, but having taken the Cell leap they're probably better of sticking with it now.

gizmo

stevenmu wrote: »

They might well do, but having taken the risk and made the big investment into the Cell platform, it may well be cheaper and easier for them to just super charge Cell. If they can get a good clock speed bump and add another pile of SPUs, they can get something a lot more powerful with relatively little investment. They already have a relatively mature tool chain and SDK, and middleware ecosystem, and developers seem to have gotten used to it all. If they go for some kind of 'off the shelf' platform then they'll have to redo all that from the beginning, again, and expect all of their developers to re-tool and re-skill, again.

They probably should have gone 'off the shelf' with the PS3, but having taken the Cell leap they're probably better of sticking with it now.

This may be quite difficult given that Cell development was cancelled back in 2009. The platform doesn't allow you to just throw more SPUs at the PPE, in fact, the sucessor to the current iteration was meant to feature two PPEs and 32 SPEs. As for what they'll do in light of this? Could be based on IBMs POWER7/8 or could be something totally different, who knows at this stage.

Retr0gamer

As far as I remember Cell was very disappointing performance wise since x86 and power PC architecture went multicore and were able to keep.

marco_polo

Monotype wrote: »

Going by the possibility of Microsoft using an AMD 6670 or equivalent, I think that it could coincide with AMD's next lineup of Fusion APUs.

The current generation have 6620G (mobile) and 6550D (desktop) so it wouldn't be much of a stretch to tweak what they have now. But it's more likely that they'd use the 2nd generation Bulldozer architecture. The desktop version (codenamed Virgo) apparently will use the 7000 series graphics, the mobile (Comal) version dmight still be 6000. The desktop dedicated 7670 card is near the same as the 6670, just re-branded so they might do something similar with integrated graphics in the APUs.

With overheating issues plaguing the last xbox, a move like this would keep costs very low and they could have an extremely compact system.

That what they did with the Slim already putting the Xenon and Xenos (and eDRAM) on a single 45 nm die, so they wouldn't nescessarly need to go with an AMD fusion chip to achieve this.

And lets face it if you are looking at keeping those heat levels down, you don't want to be touching the current (and possibly next) incarnations Bulldozer with a bargepole. :pac:

Monotype

Of course they wouldn't have to go with fusion, but it could be convenient and likely to be an reasonable price for Microsoft... unless keeping up relations with IBM is a priority.
Bulldozer's power consumption and temperature are pretty good so long as you stay away from overclocking -which for a PC, you have to do to match the competition but the extra processing power isn't that important for consoles/games.


Maybe Microsoft is planning to release their consoles in "episodic" format. Lower specs and more rapid release cycles.