Be Excellent To Each Other

So the Xbox One might be in trouble.

A massive rumour thread has started on NeoGAF over the last couple of days, with numerous insiders saying that Microsoft can't get the yields up high enough on its custom CPU/GPU chip. The Xbox One has 32 MB of special sauce RAM (eSRAM) embedded in this chip, to get around the fact it has relatively slower main memory (compared to the PS4); apparently this is proving difficult to make.

The rumour is that Microsoft is advising developers it will be downclocking the GPU to compensate. Again, this is supported by a number of posters, all of whom have good track records of leaking accurate insider information.

In particular, and most amusingly, NeoGAF user 'Crazy buttocks on a train' (yes, really), who only has a handful of posts to his name, wrote this:

He/she writes all his posts like that, and yet he/she has a massively superb track record of correct predictions stretching back to before the 360's launch. The general consensus is that he/she works at MS and writes that way to preclude anyone guessing their identity through writing style. (Or for his or her own amusement.)

What does downclocking the GPU mean in real terms? On paper, according to rumours (which, this late in the game, are almost certainly correct), the PS4's GPU is 1.5 times more powerful than the Xbox One, and has considerably faster RAM too. Both units have 800 Mhz GPUs but the PS4 one has extra compute units built in, so it can do more stuff at once. The rumoured downclock is 100-200 Mhz, which would represent a 13-25% further drop on the Xbox One's power output. That would bring it down to half as powerful as the PS4. That's a pretty big gap.

Interesting times.

I'm sure I read that the Xbone has reserved 3gb for the OS/Apps too, so games can only access 5gb. The PS4 has some reserved for this stuff, but I don't think it is anywhere near as much.

The PS4 reserves 1 gig, and yes, the Xbox One reserves 3 GB. So the PS4 makes 7 GB available to games, compared to 5 GB on the One.

Regarding Crazy Buttocks on a Train, some of his other predictions of late:

I sure hope Sony don't shit the bed at E3. They're certainly looking ahead at the moment.

Microsoft are pretty good at securing exclusives, but they are more often than not timed exclusives. Or the sequel will end up being multiplatform.

I am leaning Playstation-wards so far, but we'll see what E3 brings.

Any such hobbling of either console is pretty grim stuff because, aside from the obvious impact it might have on the capabilities of exclusive games, most devs will likely end up aiming their cross-platform titles at the lowest common denominator so even PS4/PC players could be negatively affected by this in the long run.

Good point, well made Bamba!

Same here.

Not really. This time around, both consoles are very similar to PC architectures, so it'll be a lot easier to make some use of extra grunt on one console or another. Not at all like unlocking the full power of the PS3, which involved all sorts of black magic.

And even if the devs don't do anything special, you can still expect to see more stable framerates (less chug when it gets busy), higher framerates, and superior antialising on cross-platform games. This can be seen on any number of this generation's games, favouring the 360. All signs at the moment suggest it'll be the other way around this time.

Alternatively, aim at the PS4 and say "This sure looks nice 1080p60, shame we're going to have to do 720p30 on the XBone".

Edit: Relatively similar hardware Doc, but massively different libraries. One or the other might be a git to work with or add higher overheads than the other. We'll never know. Unless we buy devkits for both. But not Cell different, you're right.

Sometimes they do / sometimes they dont , you could look back at previous systems to see multi platform games where they do this although i think the easiest one to relate to is the Amiga vs the Atari ST

Both were very similar and the Amiga (at the start) really did get a lot of sup-par ST ports but over time that changed and people got more out of the systems.

I think its easy to look back at the current gen and think the PS3 on paper is so much more powerful but it didnt really show it but a lot of that can be put down to the difficulties in working on cell architecture - for the next system they are basically both just high end PC's and if people can get better performance out of the PS4 then they will use it - even if its just small subtle ways then more people will be likely to buy a PS4 version of a multi platform game because they will be getting that 'extra' for free

My big worry is that Sony have done so many things right in the past and then at the last minute shoot themselves in the foot

Various devs have confirmed the modern Sony devkit libraries for Vita devlopment, which are Visual Studio based, are far better to deal with than the old PS3 ones; there's a variety of quotes that they are even easier than Microsoft's tool chain, in fact. These tools carry over to PS4 dev.

And no matter how awkward the libraries, more grunt always translates to free framerate upgrades. That's just how it works. The extra GPU capacity won't sit idling.

Everything's coming up Sony.

I wonder how much the Live! ecosystem will act as a anchor to keep people in the Redmond camp. Those with 100K+ gamerscore aren't likely to want to start again, are they?

Those are the sort of people that are quite likely to buy both systems though.

More grunt is more Faster, Prettier, Shinier. I'm not too bothered whose name is on the front of the box.

That's so few people as to be entirely insignificant, and additions to the Xbox One like dynamic achievements and time-bound achievements might alienate, rather than galvanise, the cheevo whores. The matchmaking power of Live is only any good if all your mates are on Live too, which could work against it if the PS4 is more successful out of the gate -- network effects cut both ways. And the "buying stuff" side of Live won't carry over to the Xbox One, as there's no backwards compatibility.

Remember, the Xbox One is by the company that brought you Zune, Windows Vista, Windows 8, the Kin, Microsoft Bob, Clippy, the SPOT smart watch, the cancelled PlaysForSure music scheme ("good news everyone -- none of your old purchases play any more!"), ten years of pre-iPad tablet PCs (all terrible), etc etc.

It's not like Sony hasn't made plenty of blunders, but the seeming inevitability of the Xbox One's success in the wake of the 360 is actually not inevitable at all. I reckon good consoles are only made by humble companies, and fortunately, Sony learnt from the cockups of the PS3.

Historically, there has never been any console manufacturers that haven't got rather complacent by the time they reach their third console.

Edit: And credit to Sony, I thought the PS3 was a trainwreck for the first three years, but they really turned it around.

For anyone interested in that all Sony needs to do is have your 'bought' games on PSN come across to PS4 as Gaikai compatible titles and it'll just be one more thing that they are doing 'right' and that Microsoft have dumped

The best music player of it's time, you mean?

I still use mine! It's great.

How dare you, Microsoft Bob was fucking great!

Why don't you and the other Zune fanboys get together and make a five-a-side football team?

We should become the only two people in the UK to share songs with each other.

Only I don't know where mine is.

Mines in my bag... Under my desk.

I've never shared a song with anyone.

We could play against the five UK owners of the Lambo Aventador and laugh about how rubbish their car is compared to a Kia Matiz.


I did! On the tube once. Very exciting.

I saw an Aventador on the M1 last weekend. It has presence, I'll give it that.

When I win the lottery, I think I'll go for the Chinese Murciélago SeperVeloce, but the Aventador 50th Anniversario car is mighty tempting.


vs

They don't need to get together. Zune and Windows phone users were loading music over wifi back when you were still surgically attached to your beloved dock cable, boy

Fixed that for accuracy.

Fair point to the people disagreeing with my previous thought about 'lowest common denominatoring'. Thinking about it more the difference between a PS4 and hobbled Xbone version of a game wouldn't be any different to the current situation of creating a PC game that just scaled up resolution/frame rate/etc to match the hardware it was running on. Except that with the fixed hardware of the consoles you could have a completely separate build for each console with assets and framerate fixed at whatever level it can comfortably run. There's a bit of release management required there come compile time of course but certainly nothing like the headache that will exist right now with the wildly different architecutres as people have pointed out.



The who with the what now?

Be-online-and-playing-this-game-at-this-time for a cheevo basically.

"this-time" being launch day in most cases, I would imagine, then.

Also, "Watch this advert while holding a can of coke" achievements too, thanks to Kinect.

That sounds like a great feature! I bet that's why all my friends have Zunes and the iPod was cancelled in 2011 after years of being ignored by everyone.

Also, I've never owned an iPod, so calling the dock cable 'beloved' is a stretch.

On release I think I will go PS4 but I am sure during it's lifetime I will also pick up an XboxOne for exclusive titles (Halo for one)

The Dimrills of the world will be well impressed.

No worse than setting an alarm clock to switch skills in EvE.

Whereas I still own a Zune and and (various) iPod(s). Do keep telling me which one is better, though

How come you never had an iPod?

I don't think your previous comment (in fact, why am I quoting this one) was so objectionable or in fact a reasonable prediction as to what might happen. I'm sure they'll be companies looking at certain games and considering (a) what the cost to the business will be to optimise their latest release (b) the time factor (c) release slots (d) resources available (e) other business considerations and then make a decision to knock out a one size fits all game.

To think that there won't be these games released is perhaps to forget about, say, Aliens: Colonial Marines and stuff. It seemed to me that there is some misplaced (and unusual) optimism to think that from hereon in all new releases will be have a maxed out optimised version for the latest shiny shiny.

I think it's obvious that having wifi or tethered sync at your option is clearly better than only having tethered sync. However, in practice, I think most people found wifi sync very underwhelming -- certainly I did (it was slow and it sucked battery life), so it didn't turn out to be the killer feature it was touted as.

I've never really cared about portable music. Before my first iPhone, the last portable music player I'd owned was a Sharp minidisc player.

I do think that Bamba's comments about lowest common denominator will be valid for some games , but others will take advantage of one small thing that they can do better on the higher spec system.

If so , and enough games do it then people will by default buy the game for that system (even if that particular item has the 'better' functionality or not) - I know when I owned an 360 and a PS3 I bought multiplatform games mainly on the Xbox and exclusive games on the PS3 , if they can reverse that for the PS4 and the One then I think thats a win for Sony.

So about this guy or gal, this is what they wrote before the Xbox 360 was announced:


Impressive.

It was an epic feature. I had a zune in my car. If I bought any music at home, I parked my car outside my house and it automagically updated itself. I never had to take the thing out of the car.

Some positive stuff about the new console - info about the new controller

http://majornelson.com/2013/06/06/more- ... ontroller/

The 'core' model had no hard drive built in; wouldn't that be what he's referring to?

Sure, we know that now. But that post was written in 2004.

I hope Nelson means micro USB.

The Escapists buyers guide for next gen consoles :

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/ ... yers-Guide

Nope. Bespoke cable, £34.99.

It's Micro USB.

Aye, don't confuse an actual working proper wifi sync feature with the god awful Apple approximation...