Level 2
I think Microsoft and Sony will stretch this gen beyond 2013...
Sony only started making a profit on the PS3 hardware a couple of years ago, and Microsoft about a year before them.... So why are they going to release new hardware that will take them 3-4 years to turn a profit on?
And lets be honest, why do we need an new generation? Are you really tired of what we are getting out of the xbox and PS3 now?
The advantage of this generation is the updates that are possible, ok so its not happened as much on the PS3, but lets be honest Microsoft have done a fanstastic job updating the Xbox 360 over the years... The UI improving all the time aswell as new features.
That will almost certainly prolong the life for a while yet 
Level 3
Why is amazon selling the kindle fire so low? why is google selling the nexus 7 so low?
Microsoft and Playstation can sell software on the console, so even if they never make any money on the hardware they should like any other loss leading hardware be able to make a profit regardless.
Why should microsoft launch? cause sony is too poor to keep up, and it will knock the new nintendo into last gen graphics before it even launches.
Why should microsoft launch? cause giving microsoft a huge lead last time was one of playstations biggest mistakes.
Also, i dont believe it took them so long to turn a profit on hardware, Most of the people who say it are analysts and sony and microsoft play along, but I dont believe it, and if Microsoft and Playstation take 5 years to make a profit from over priced hardware, then they are inept anyway.
Level 3
Sony will likely be going with a unified pool of GDDR5, 10 months ago the spec was rumoured to be 2GB of GDDR5 as the ram modules in consoles go directly on the motherboard and 2GB of GDDR5 requires 8 2Gbit/256MB ram modules.
It seems devs want 4GB of RAM but 4Gbit/512MB ram modules don't exist yet and so it would likely require 16 2Gbit/256MB ram modules at launch which would cost a bit more, but most of all would make the motherboard design very complex and crowded.
There are companies working on ways of cleverly packing in more memory though and I suspect they'll be ready for the launch period.
There's no way we'll see DDR3, but we may see DDR4 if Sony's GDDR5 plans don't work out, as DDR4 will get constantly cheaper throughout the consoles lifespan, uses about 40% less power than DDR3 and can be a little faster (though latency may be an issue). But Sony would have to use some GDDR5 or EDRAM as a buffer cause DDR4 alone will put too much of a dent in required performance. We may see 2GB GDDR5 + 4GB DDR4 or 6GB DDR4 + approx. 80MB EDRAM, but a considerable amount of EDRAM will likely take too much die space away from the CPU/GPU and cost a lot, particularly in a SOC config, the 360's unified pool of RAM got a lot of praise though and it would seem Sony want to take that route, even if the CPU & GPU have to share the bandwidth.
The ideal configuration would imo be a 4GB Unified Pool Of GDDR5 consisting of 8x 4Gbit 32-Bit RAM Modules on a 256-Bit Bus, though if they're not available it'll more likely be 16x 2Gbit 16-Bit RAM Modules on a 256-Bit Bus, assuming Sony can engineer such a feat in a closed box... either config could provide roughly 160GB/s of bandwidth to be shared by the whole system (PS3 had roughly 26GB/s for the CPU and 23GB/s for the GPU.
One thing to remember btw is that a closed-box system like a console can get about twice the performance of a PC due to optimisation for a specific configuration, and APIs being much thinner with coding closer to the metal.
Level 3
TheMiitch wrote:One thing to remember btw is that a closed-box system like a console can get about twice the performance of a PC due to optimisation for a specific configuration, and APIs being much thinner with coding closer to the metal.
Really? well how come it has never happened then? a console has never ever been twice as fast as a pc.
Remember they told us the cell processor was going to blast everything in the world?
Level 3
fenian wrote:
TheMiitch wrote:One thing to remember btw is that a closed-box system like a console can get about twice the performance of a PC due to optimisation for a specific configuration, and APIs being much thinner with coding closer to the metal.
Really? well how come it has never happened then? a console has never ever been twice as fast as a pc.
Remember they told us the cell processor was going to blast everything in the world?
I mean a console and PC with roughly the same hardware. Not all PCs.
Out of a PC and a console of the same spec and config, a console would win by a long shot due to optimisation for the specific hardware, thinner apis with coding closer to the metal and a small OS footprint.
Level 3
TheMiitch wrote:
fenian wrote:
TheMiitch wrote:One thing to remember btw is that a closed-box system like a console can get about twice the performance of a PC due to optimisation for a specific configuration, and APIs being much thinner with coding closer to the metal.
Really? well how come it has never happened then? a console has never ever been twice as fast as a pc.
Remember they told us the cell processor was going to blast everything in the world?
I mean a console and PC with roughly the same hardware. Not all PCs.
Out of a PC and a console of the same spec and config, a console would win by a long shot due to optimisation for the specific hardware, thinner apis with coding closer to the metal and a small OS footprint.
Nah rubbish, Even a pc from back when the ps3 launched was able to run games at 1080p, and would run most modern games at 1080p on medium, which is better than what the ps3 can manage. No way is the ps3 twice as powerful unless youre talking theory.
Also the ps3 is way more complex to code for, the xbox is only easier because its based on pcs and not a seperate api that is needlessly complex.
Level 3
I'm not saying consoles are twice as powerful, I'm saying that there are thousands of different combinations of hardware with PCs, a larger os footprint and subsequently the developers can't optimise fully for it, plus the APIs they use decrease overall efficency (while giving the advantage of easier development). It's a generalised, one size (or few sizes) fits all approach.
With a console there is one configuration, the whole experienced can be tailored to that exact specification and configuration, the developers can really get down to the metal and extract a lot more from it. The efficiency increases significantly when there's just one set specification to develop for.
And I don't mean PS3 specifically, just as a rule of thumb, say for eg. that there is a pc and a console that have exactly the same hardware; both made from off-the-shelf parts in pretty much the same configuration, games developed for the console will be superior technically because developers are capable of tailoring to that specification. PCs games however have to be made to fit most PC configurations above the minimum requirements and so when a game is played on that same spec PC it won't be as optimised as the one for console.
Of course, the devs would be physically capable of creating the same experience on a console and a pc of the same spec, but the reality is they can't because that game has to be playable on a thousands of different combos of hardware and has to be scalable in quality between different hardware configurations with PC.
Level 3
You're not really making any sense, and in practice nothing you say works out that way.
You dont compare exact specs, you compare equivalent. You couldnt buy a pc with 256mb of ram and 256mb of graphics back then, the equivalent was a pc with 512mb of graphics and a couple gig of ram, or to put it another way a pc with similar graphics power, not similar overall power.
I have never seen a console outperform its equivalent in the pc world, they do good and might catch up to them, but never outperform them by anything noticeable.
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