Current PS3, and 360 sales debate

[Matt]

Nintendo Seal Of Quality - remember that? lol

Dev: "Hey Nintendo, we want to make Ar*e training. You shove the Wii mote up your backside and just kinda jump around, maybe jump on and off the balance board on version 2. You guys ok with that?"

Nintendo : "No problemo. Can we put Mario in it, and call it 'Mario: In Your Arse-O'?"

Dev: "Give me a minute to turn on the Money Printing machine...."

Amended

[Matt]

The complexity was just Sony being too clever for their own good and it hasn't really paid of yet and I doubt it will, other than the odd one that slips through Q&A some how like Orange box, the difference is very negligible anyway and they are getting close and closer anyway.

Unless like you say you sit the 2 games together and nit pick them it doesn't really make any odds to the majority of people.

I can see what Sony were trying for. Regular CPUs are hitting their limits. All we have to look forward to is improved pipelines (better prediction), and more CPUs per chip. With Cell, they've jumped a little in the future and provided a chip with many CPUs. The problem is the instruction set is unfamiliar, and it takes a lot of work to assign tasks to each core to optimise it. This is a problem devs will face next gen. The next XBox will have, at a guess, 8 or 16 cores. If Sony carry on with the Cell, the PS4 would likely have a faster Cell with 32 on it

Is Cell the way forward? Well it's one way. It's got huge scientific advantages over a regular CPU.

On the other hand, we may be looking at a GPU based future. NVidia with CUDA are showing the benefits of offloading a lot of previously CPU intensive work to a highly optimised parallel GPU. The next gen consoles, I wouldn't be surprised if both MS and Sony went with nVidia. They won't need an amazingly fast "future" GPU, they could use something like the upcoming G280, which will be able to run 1080, 60fps, with 4xAA and 16xAF and still have room to spare - that GPU should run everything you throw at it at a higher screen mode than TV HD, with the exception of Crysis of course

With such a GPU, you'd have plenty of room left to assign at least physics to it as well. Take physics off the CPU, one of the big next-gen must haves, and the CPU won't need to be as meaty. I don't know what else you could run on the GPU, given it's nature I don't think it would be very good at AI for example, but again some smart devs may come up with a highly mathematical AI routine that would sit in CUDA nicely.

TBH you could probably get away with a decent quad core Intel CPU then. 4gig RAM, 1gig of it dedicated to the GPU with a 512 bus (to ensure bandwidth for AA), that's a real next gen console right there.

Wow I've managed to take a thread originally split because I took it off topic back off topic

[EvilBoris]

Sony have quit development on the Cell though, selling it's share in all the manufacturing plants, so I doubt we will see another cell chip. I imagine that both MS/Sony already have a cpu manufacturer working on a more standard PC style multi-core CPU though.

[elkatas]

Nintendo Seal Of Quality - remember that? lol

After SNES, Nintendo Seal of Quality has meant only that discs workmanship meets the standards, and game is relatively bug free. And it is only used in Europe anymore.

[elkatas]

If Sony carry on with the Cell, the PS4 would likely have a faster Cell with 32 on it

They will. There is no real reason to develop new processor, as Cell can be expanded pretty easily, and it is quite capable processor. Furthermore, we are hitting ceiling on dev costs*, so there is monetary limit how more complex games can be. If next gen would give true 1080p, 60 FPS, and Crysis high detail level improvements on graphics, I believe most people would be perfectly satisfied.

* Sales are growing much slower than development costs. Since 2001, dev costs have grown 10-15 times bigger.

[Matt]

Sony have quit development on the Cell though, selling it's share in all the manufacturing plants, so I doubt we will see another cell chip. I imagine that both MS/Sony already have a cpu manufacturer working on a more standard PC style multi-core CPU though.

They will. There is no real reason to develop new processor, as Cell can be expanded pretty easily, and it is quite capable processor. Furthermore, we are hitting ceiling on dev costs*, so there is monetary limit how more complex games can be. If next gen would give true 1080p, 60 FPS, and Crysis high detail level improvements on graphics, I believe most people would be perfectly satisfied.

* Sales are growing much slower than development costs. Since 2001, dev costs have grown 10-15 times bigger.

Two contradicting opinions, LOL This is actually the best thread I've seen in these parts for some time.

Didn't know Sony had stopped development, I read something actually but can't recall what. It would be a shame in some ways not to continue the Cell philosophy, it's a great future approach. Incredibly powerful, you can argue it's not really suited to games, and you can easily argue that devs just aren't smart enough to deal with it right now.

A new, proper multi-core compiler is needed, be it for Cell or the Intel processors. There has been work in that area, things are better, but still such a long way away from matching todays single core compilers.

Sony may take the bull by the horns next gen and really go left field. MS will stick with their approach, basically a PC in a box (yes I know it's not, but you know what I mean) and generic parts. With Intel getting geared up for Larabee, Sony may go in with them - Sony are more adventurous with their hardware approach as we've seen every gen. Now THAT would be interesting. 64+ cores, the end goal would be real time ray tracing. That would shake up the industry. You couldn't do multiplatform easily at all if one company stuck with traditional raster rendering, and another went ray tracing.

Probably won't happen, and even in 4 or 5 years time, Intel may not have a chip powerful enough - or affordable enough. I can see that next-next gen definitely, if it manages to usurp raster based GPUs.

Elkatas, as you say, graphically things are reaching a bit of a peak. Right now, engines "cheat" realism. With ray tracing, you could get proper lighting without the need for a hundred level shader.

[VR46]

More PS3's have now been sold in Europe than 360's according to this article.

http://news.vgchartz.com/news.php?id=1310

[dvdmike]

I thought that happened months back (bar the Uk)

[VR46]

God knows, always take reports/figures like that with a pinch of salt myself, but thought someone might be interested.

[dvdmike]

true there are lies, damn lies and console sales figures

[JP]

It seems that MGS4 had a big effect on PS3 sales in Japan.

Some Enterbrain sales data for Metal Gear Solid 4's been published! How'd it do? Just swimmingly. Seems that during its first four days on release in Japan, the game has sold 476,334 copies spread across the various editions, including those bundled with hardware. And speaking of hardware, looks like the game's also given the PS3 a big (if temporary) sales boost, driving sales of the console to 77,208 for the week (the PS3 can normally be relied to move anywhere from 10-12,000 a week in Japan).

It did nothing for hardware sales in the UK though.

Last week, Metal Gear Solid 4 stormed straight to the top of the British sales charts. Good news for Konami! But Konami aren't the only ones with an investment in the game. Sony were banking on it to help shift a ton of PS3s as well, what with it being the first AAA PS3 exclusive title and all. So how'd it do in that regard? The news for Sony is that, while the game definitely drove hardware sales in Japan, its effect in the West may be a more muted affair. British chart monitors ChartTrack report that "it had minimal impact really. [PS3 sales] were up by seven percent". Guess everyone who wanted the game already had a PS3.

[Brats]

It's hard to put a figure on total console sales, but I'd be surprised if by the end of the day, the PS3 doesn't hit 80m.

I'd be amazed if it does. Most people only buy one console. The 360 has already sold much more than the XBox in the same time frame, so those extra sales are eating into the PS3's potential audience.

But the main problem is the Wii. The PS2 sales went stratospheric once the price was lowered and the variety of software moved aware from the hardcore games that dominate most console's early life. The Wii already accesses that space. Every Wii sale is a lost PS3 (and 360) sale for the future. Once these consoles eventually hit the low price barrier, the Wii will be so ingrained (if it isn't already) that it will be difficult for these consoles to compete.

MS and Sony know this, which is why they are introducing products like Singstar and Lips (oh dear) into the product cycle much earlier than normal. They're trying to get the message across that 'Hey, we can be fun and quirky too!'. Unfortunately it's just pissing in the wind next to the dominance of the Wii in this area.

The only chance of the PS3 doing better than the N64 as Elkatas says is if they sell lots of them as a Blu-Ray player. But that doesn't actually do much for their console business model.

[Brats]

Poor argument, because nearly all Wii's best sellers are quality efforts. It is more than little absurd that people claim how only casual games sell on Wii, when TOP-10 of Wii, only two games are casual. And other game is selling only because of extra controller.

I don't agree with that. The majority of the Wii's best selling games are 'casual'. Lego Indiana Jones and Mario & Sonic at the Olympics may be good games (an okayish game in respect of the latter) but there is no doubt that they are aimed at a very casual audience.

One of the great things about the Wii is that the new control method has the potential for new types of games. but one of the problems with is that most with Wiis want to stick with established franchises or whatever they see as being the next Wii Sports, which is why crud like Carnival Games, Sports Island and Game Party sell so well. Even Wii Fit sold on the back of Wii Sports fantastic success.

But stuff like Boom Blox with its TV campaign, Spielberg connection and stonkingly great review still sold relatively poorly.

If I were a publisher wanting the develop on the Wii and make money, it'd be party games and licenced ****e ahoy.

[Jushin-Thunder-Liger]

Thanks Elkatas. That chart certainly shows the PS3 was in touching distance of the PS2 for a long time, and did sell more shortly after launch. As you say, the PS2 then had a bump as supply increased, but the PS3 wasn't a worldwide release either. All in all, I think that graph shows the PS3 is doing very well, given it's high starting price. The later figures have it significantly higher than the 360 at the same point. Obviously nothing can catch the Wii

I dont get the tone of your posts on this topic, you seem to be trying to twist figures to fit around your belief's that the PS3 is doing just great, much like a deluded football fan tries to convince himself that this is their year and that the only reason they didnt win anything last year was down to the referee's being biased or whatever.

;-) i noticed you are a 'pool fan...

Mate, the PS3 is a piece of consumer electronics made by a big fat multi national corporation, not a football team....


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[112]

Jushin im pretty sure he is a Man U fan

I kinda find it strange when i read winning and losing, in my mind they all win at the end of the day. Regardless of who comes first.

Must admit though Elkatas's diagram is very helpful in understanding the sales, i was suprised actually at what the figures showed.

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