51–60 of 124 posts
The Cerny Method sounds remarkably like the Lean Startup Method, but apparently pre-dates it quite significantly.
The PS4 may well make for a better video game machine and more profit for Sony, but it's too bad the very interesting and powerful cell processor concept will be relegated to the dustbin.
Likewise with chip multiprocessors vs systolic arrays: making a core fully general and with proper cache coherant memory access isn't that expensive in transistors, and allows you to leverage existing multi-threaded code.
Systolic arrays still have a future in true embeded devices: radar processing is a good example.
Oh, and before you point to the AMD architecture as being Cell-like, it's not at all. Unified virtual memory instead of Cell's complex 2 level store. Cell requires the CPU to manage DMA's to the APU's, on Fusion you can just pass a pointer. CPU and APU instruction sets are entirely decoupled on Fusion. APU supports thread pre-emption.
In any case, the lesson here is obvious: design hardware in opposition to the existing software ecosystem in your industry, and you'll make something that is academically interesting but struggles to deliver value to end products.
I'm seeing a pattern, a cycle between hubris and humility. When Nintendo ruled, Sony broke in by courting game developers. Then, they became arrogant, and made the best hardware they could, they was difficult to use. Thus, Microsoft won, simply because it was easier for developers. It was then amazing to see how arrogant they had become with the xboxone trying to squeeze everyone, in every way - similar to how they r…
I get what you're saying, but Microsoft never won any console race http://www.geekwire.com/2013/xbox-360-wii-ps3-won-console-ge...
Microsoft unequivocally won the 360/ps3/wii console generation. Not because they shipped more consoles, no console maker actually makes the majority of their profit from raw console shipments, it's a very misleading figure. What matters more are sales of games and DLC and subscriptions to services. In those measures the 360 has been trouncing every other console maker. People who own 360s spend more time playing the console, they spend more money buying physical games, and they spend more money buying DLC and subscribing to xbox live gold. Microsoft does more business on higher margin items than other console makers.
The Wii made ok money for Nintendo but the sales dropped off really fast, and people didn't end up playing it much, or buying many games for it. The PS3 took a long time to reach a state of maturity where there was a sufficient stock of good games on the console to actually justify owning one. And eventually the PS3 managed to get to a state where it was actually doing well. But from a business perspective no matter how much better it was doing the 360 continued to outpace it (in game sales especially). These are some of the major reasons why there even is a new console generation this year, Nintendo and Sony need to put themselves on a new footing in order to have a chance of growing their market share.
PS4 is just a PC stuck in one configuration, linked to a popular delivery system. I don't get what the hype is about. Yes, it's a pretty good configuration at a reasonable price. But that will only be the case for a few months. PCs will catch up very quickly and will become cheaper, and then much cheaper. As somebody who loves games, I don't see a reason to buy PS4. I'd rather spend a bit more on a PC, and then upgra…
> PS4 is just a PC stuck in one configuration, linked to a popular delivery system. You've belied the true strength of video game consoles. A single configuration means less testing work and a streamlined experience for consumers. Not everyone is willing to deal with graphics drivers and endless installers.
To be fair this is much simpler now than it was 5-6 years ago.
They should have mentioned the number of titles at launch for xbox one. If ease of making games is such a big deal why aren't there any facts on how far behind their main competitor is.
I'm seeing a pattern, a cycle between hubris and humility. When Nintendo ruled, Sony broke in by courting game developers. Then, they became arrogant, and made the best hardware they could, they was difficult to use. Thus, Microsoft won, simply because it was easier for developers. It was then amazing to see how arrogant they had become with the xboxone trying to squeeze everyone, in every way - similar to how they r…
The Playstation 3 is based on 2004 era (cut down G70 )chip designs, so you're talking mobile devices next year catching up with a chip that's almost ten years ago, based on a 90nm processor node. Today's PS4 will be based on a 28nm node, there's no way in 3 years you're going to shrink the PS4 GPU and 8GB of GDDR5 to fit into an iPhone like device and not heat up like a welding torch and drain the battery like a blackhole.
It's a common, but incorrect assertion that mobile devices are going to replace game consoles. It might replace them for casual gamers, but not hard-core gamers. I don't know anyone who wants to play CoD or Half Life 2 on a mobile device. They want to play them on a high end PC, console, or SteamBox.
The PS4 may well make for a better video game machine and more profit for Sony, but it's too bad the very interesting and powerful cell processor concept will be relegated to the dustbin.
Intel made the same mistake with the IA64/Epic/Itanium architecture. They were banking on that to be the future of high performance computing and then AMD kicked their ass by using an iterative approach with x86-64. The irony is that today the Itanium architecture is actually pretty good, finally, but it's been relegated to a tiny market niche.
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Maybe, but it does not seem to be very powerful at all. I've seen most of the upcoming games for launch (and played about half of them) and I was far from being impressed. It feels like a mid-range gaming PC kind of power at best, and many games apparently struggled to run in full HD, with the framerate low enough to make you feel you were back in the PS2 days. If they are planning to sell these consoles solely on th…
I suspect the $400 PS4 contains roughly $400 worth of hardware, so it's not surprising that it would be similar to a mid-range PC. This generation isn't as "generous" as the $600 PS3 that cost $800 to make.
Specifically video cards don't start passing the PS4 until the $200 range, at least when comparing via synthetic benchmarks.
I'm also unaware of how to get memory like GDDR5 for PC RAM.
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First I will note that Sony hardware has reputedly never been easy to develop for, so the PS3 wasn't anything new there. Second, you state while they can drop prices and relax controls, it may be difficult to make their console more powerful . We still don't know how the dice will land in this regard. Microsoft managed higher-than-expected frequency yield, and nobody knows where Sony's chip sits. It also remains to b…
It was a different world then, but the original PSX was pretty straightforward. A commodity MIPS processor, relatively straightforward vector and image co-processors. In particular Sony made a bet that ram prices would fall enough to make the console profitable long term and that bet payed out. To remember how much things have changed, the CDROM format was controversial then, but was a huge win for developers. Bluntl…
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I suspect the $400 PS4 contains roughly $400 worth of hardware, so it's not surprising that it would be similar to a mid-range PC. This generation isn't as "generous" as the $600 PS3 that cost $800 to make.
Honestly, you'd spend $600-$650 to build a comparable computer. And that's not counting the fact that the PS4's software, both OS and games, are built for a single target. And that's assuming you'll get cheap peripherals and cheap case and stuff. And probably doesn't include the cost of a Windows license either. Specifically video cards don't start passing the PS4 until the $200 range, at least when comparing via syn…