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Gaming News & Discussion (Page 44)
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P
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Feb 14, 2013, 08:34 AM
 
Actually seeing the list of titles, I suspect some form of new studio being formed.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
mattyb
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Feb 14, 2013, 09:17 AM
 
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Feb 14, 2013, 09:51 AM
 
Originally Posted by P View Post
Actually seeing the list of titles, I suspect some form of new studio being formed.
If that's a case, it's a little weird that they're letting the internet twist in the wind prior to announcing it. (Also a few of the people have declared they were 'fired')
     
Stogieman
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Feb 15, 2013, 03:55 AM
 

Slick shoes?! Are you crazy?!
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Feb 15, 2013, 10:13 AM
 
I see they're keeping the left joystick in the wrong place.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Feb 15, 2013, 12:48 PM
 
Releasing a game demo can cut your sales in half, warns Schell | VG247
Schell games CEO and industry analyst Jesse Schell has warned that releasing a demo of your game before launch can kill your sales. Schell argues his case against releasing a demo at DICE Summit 2013 last week, and he had the stats to back up his claim too.
He cautioned developers that without a demo to test, gamers will have to buy a game in order to see if it’s any good or not, while demo downloads will often deter players from picking up the full release, rather than encouraging a purchase.

Schell also explained that the games selling most were those that built up expectations by not releasing a demo, while teaser trailers and other marketing ploys worked more effectively than a demo to raise interest in titles.
There's some 'no shit' aspect to this info, but I also think there's a little bit of not looking at other factors.

First off, no shit gamers are more likely to buy a game they haven't played a demo for – you're effectively putting them into a gambling situation. It's like movies that refuse to let critics preview them until after release. Second, if a game sucks, the demo will likely give it away, which of course will crater its sales. But a good demo will increase word of mouth – Arkham Asylum comes to mind. It was one level and I must have played that demo 10 times in anticipation.

On the other side, the Burnout: Paradise demo was worthless and put me off the game for a year, until internet buzz over road my previous impressions. This is called a two-edged sword.
     
exca1ibur
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Feb 15, 2013, 12:55 PM
 
Seems none of the developers want to 'earn' their money for making a great game. There have been way to many excuses for bad sales, and not one of them as admitted that their game was crap. It takes the gamers calling them out on it every time. First it was piracy now it's demos. wow.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Feb 15, 2013, 12:59 PM
 
Originally Posted by exca1ibur View Post
Seems none of the developers want to 'earn' their money for making a great game. There have been way to many excuses for bad sales, and not one of them as admitted that their game was crap. It takes the gamers calling them out on it every time. First it was piracy now it's demos. wow.
I wonder how his theory plays on XBLA where demos are mandatory for every game.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Feb 15, 2013, 01:18 PM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
I wonder how his theory plays on XBLA where demos are mandatory for every game.
I should add, in comparison to PSN, assuming devs don't port their demos over.

---

NPD January 2013 Sales Results [Up6: Wii U 57K (CNET), Vita ~35K] - NeoGAF

Hardware:

Xbox 360: 281K (+4.07%)
Wii U: 57K

Ouch.



Ouch.
     
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Feb 15, 2013, 01:29 PM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post


Ouch.
I don't know this guy but I'd question the credibility of any reporter who needs an editor on a piece that's two sentences.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Feb 15, 2013, 01:30 PM
 
I'm guessing you're taking issue with 'are'?
     
sek929
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Feb 15, 2013, 01:42 PM
 
The Wii owning crowd strikes me as people who don't rush out to buy the newest thing. Hell, half the people I know who own Wiis barely use them anymore anyways, and the other half are to busy to bother buying a whole new system.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Feb 15, 2013, 01:45 PM
 
Originally Posted by sek929 View Post
The Wii owning crowd strikes me as people who don't rush out to buy the newest thing. Hell, half the people I know who own Wiis barely use them anymore anyways, and the other half are to busy to bother buying a whole new system.
Definitely. That's why I won't write it off til a year form now at earliest. They're also struggling with brand identity (a lot of people don't realize Wii U is a new console), and perhaps with the 'killer app'? And then, like you said, people who might be slowed because they know they haven't even used their current Wii in a year.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Feb 15, 2013, 03:39 PM
 


     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Feb 15, 2013, 04:04 PM
 
Stolen from ars:

     
mattyb
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Feb 15, 2013, 04:34 PM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
For those who knowing about Halo, can we have some clues as to wtf this means?
     
Stogieman
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Feb 15, 2013, 04:41 PM
 
I have no idea. We'll find out soon enough.

Slick shoes?! Are you crazy?!
     
Stogieman
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Feb 15, 2013, 04:43 PM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
On the other side, the Burnout: Paradise demo was worthless and put me off the game for a year, until internet buzz over road my previous impressions. This is called a two-edged sword.
I felt the same way regarding the BF3 demo.

Slick shoes?! Are you crazy?!
     
Leonard
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Feb 16, 2013, 01:52 AM
 
Originally Posted by mattyb View Post
For those who knowing about Halo, can we have some clues as to wtf this means?
I doubt knowing anything about Halo will help you figure out this new game. They're likely to make the story and characters completely different. Just like Halo was nothing like Marathon.
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Feb 16, 2013, 12:01 PM
 
I don't think Bungie can use the Halo IP freely. If they had made a deal with MS about the content, I think MS would have produced it. Doesn't mean that this Foureyes Destiny can't have some sort of link.

BTW, there are rumors out that MS wants to prop up Windows 8 with a release of Halo 3 for it, the same way Halo 2 required Vista.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
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Feb 16, 2013, 12:32 PM
 
@sek929,The Final Dakar
The WiiU has two problems:
1. Primarily no must-have "killer" software. (The secret sauce).
2. Brand identity with the "casual" crowd.

Personally, I have no interest because there is no software that interests me. Is Nintendo in trouble? Well lets see what happens when they release their flagship software (real Mario, Zelda, Metroid(a non-bastardized version), Smash Bros, etc).

I wouldn't write them off just yet, if they could turn the 3DS around so spectacularly they could do the same for the WiiU. However in the home console arena, the competition is on their heels.
     
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Feb 16, 2013, 03:46 PM
 
"The creator of the long-delayed PS3-exclusive The Last Guardian has urged everyone to "keep an eye out" for more news on the game's development." via IGN

Giggedy
     
Stogieman
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Feb 16, 2013, 05:15 PM
 
I thought the The Last Guardian was one of the main reasons you bought a PS3. Wouldn't it be funny if it turns into a PS4 exclusive?

Slick shoes?! Are you crazy?!
     
KCrosbie
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Feb 17, 2013, 12:41 AM
 
You guys gotta watch this video regarding the comparison between the demo and final product of Aliens: Colonel Marines. The game has been gettin' horrible reviews and rightfully deserves so. Can any of you guys recall a final product of a game being totally crap compared to its demo?

What the hell happened to Aliens: Colonial Marines? (FIXED) - YouTube
     
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Feb 17, 2013, 01:14 PM
 
Originally Posted by Stogieman View Post
I thought the The Last Guardian was one of the main reasons you bought a PS3. Wouldn't it be funny if it turns into a PS4 exclusive?
I'd bite.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Feb 19, 2013, 10:30 AM
 
Originally Posted by Hawkeye_a View Post
@sek929,The Final Dakar
The WiiU has two problems:
1. Primarily no must-have "killer" software. (The secret sauce).
2. Brand identity with the "casual" crowd.
That's exactly what i said.

Originally Posted by Stogieman View Post
I thought the The Last Guardian was one of the main reasons you bought a PS3. Wouldn't it be funny if it turns into a PS4 exclusive?
Jawbone to pre-order PS4 as soon as Last Guardian is announced.
     
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Feb 19, 2013, 11:54 AM
 
The PS4 reveal is tomorrow. Latest rumors about the PS4 hardware say that the GPU is basically a Radeon 7850, but with some shaders reserved for compute tasks, which makes little sense (7850 is 16 CU, PS4 is supposedly 18 but with 4 reserved for compute). Memory is a unified memory pool of 256bit GDDR5 clocked...high. Supposedly something like 6 GHz effective. All in all, it matches up well to the Xbox Durango: it has 50% more shaders than the Xbox Durango, twice the ROPs and other GPU hardware, less memory but something like three times the bandwidth excluding the ESRAM. Amazingly enough, this looks like a device that developers will be able to get a lot out of from day one, but I worry about the price.

Interesting also if they indeed doubled the ROPs and geometry stuff. If true, that means that one could conceivably run games with simpler shaders at very high resolutions. 1080p stereoscopic 3D?
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Feb 19, 2013, 12:01 PM
 
Originally Posted by P View Post
Interesting also if they indeed doubled the ROPs and geometry stuff. If true, that means that one could conceivably run games with simpler shaders at very high resolutions. 1080p stereoscopic 3D?
Very believable with Sony's TV line.
     
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Feb 19, 2013, 01:30 PM
 
What time is the conference?

(Blocked from all sorts of gaming sites at work)
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Feb 19, 2013, 02:23 PM
 
I love that its been two days since the Destiny "reveal" and no has posted anything.
     
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Feb 19, 2013, 03:01 PM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
I love that its been two days since the Destiny "reveal" and no has posted anything.
I'll be more excited and prone to discussing when they actually "reveal" something. I think we all expected this FPS/RPG/MMO Always on world, but none of the "reveal" was shocking or surprising.

Put me down for excited and hopeful that Bungie can catch lighting in a bottle...twice.

Not that I don't think they are capable, but I'd like an actual screenshot or alpha gameplay before I begin to lose sleep over it. (No surprise nothing shown....guarantee gameplay or trailer during Xbox 720/ Durango presentation)

the ODST Easter Egg that is approaching 4 years old on the other hand...classic Bungie

     
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Feb 19, 2013, 03:05 PM
 
Originally Posted by P View Post
The PS4 reveal is tomorrow. Latest rumors about the PS4 hardware say that the GPU is basically a Radeon 7850, but with some shaders reserved for compute tasks, which makes little sense (7850 is 16 CU, PS4 is supposedly 18 but with 4 reserved for compute). Memory is a unified memory pool of 256bit GDDR5 clocked...high. Supposedly something like 6 GHz effective. All in all, it matches up well to the Xbox Durango: it has 50% more shaders than the Xbox Durango, twice the ROPs and other GPU hardware, less memory but something like three times the bandwidth excluding the ESRAM. Amazingly enough, this looks like a device that developers will be able to get a lot out of from day one, but I worry about the price.

Interesting also if they indeed doubled the ROPs and geometry stuff. If true, that means that one could conceivably run games with simpler shaders at very high resolutions. 1080p stereoscopic 3D?
I guess it would reasonable to assume that the amount of memory and horsepower would be able to drive 4k TVs. Although i wish they would stop pushing 3D and their 3DTVs. If they market the 3D capabilities as a major selling point for the PS4 (and thus requiring people to buy 3D TVs) i'm afraid they'll alienate many in the audience.

I'm actually quite stunned that they are abandoning the Cell given how much they invested into that project. I'd assume that now, 7 years later, they could have driven production costs down and improved fabbing processes to levels they could actually exploit. A couple of years ago, i could have imagined a dual Cell PS4, or one with more cores at a higher frequency.

I wonder if backwards compatibility will be an issue to customers (the streaming solution seems way too early especially considering the bandwidth limitations in many regions). I wouldn't want to stream a 720p video for hours.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Feb 19, 2013, 03:10 PM
 
Originally Posted by Hawkeye_a View Post
I wonder if backwards compatibility will be an issue to customers (the streaming solution seems way too early especially considering the bandwidth limitations in many regions). I wouldn't want to stream a 720p video for hours.
Given the alternative, it'll have to be good enough.
     
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Feb 19, 2013, 04:44 PM
 
Originally Posted by Hawkeye_a View Post
I'm actually quite stunned that they are abandoning the Cell given how much they invested into that project. I'd assume that now, 7 years later, they could have driven production costs down and improved fabbing processes to levels they could actually exploit. A couple of years ago, i could have imagined a dual Cell PS4, or one with more cores at a higher frequency.
The Cell was aimed at the high performance computing market, and it basically flopped. It had a tiny main memory (256 MB), and it was very hard to keep the weak cores fed. Sony didn't want to keep developing an arch just for its own use, so went with an off-the-shelf solution for both CPU and GPU.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
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Feb 19, 2013, 09:56 PM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
Jawbone to pre-order PS4 as soon as Last Guardian is announced.
Don't give a crap any longer. I will, however, be pre-ordering one if it's at a $400 price point, as is rumored.

...and a 720.

[EDIT] Well, scratch that...now they're saying $500-ish. Are they seriously doing this again?
( Last edited by Jawbone54; Feb 19, 2013 at 10:11 PM. )
     
exca1ibur
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Feb 20, 2013, 03:24 AM
 
Originally Posted by P View Post
The Cell was aimed at the high performance computing market, and it basically flopped. It had a tiny main memory (256 MB), and it was very hard to keep the weak cores fed. Sony didn't want to keep developing an arch just for its own use, so went with an off-the-shelf solution for both CPU and GPU.
Not to mention Toshiba and IBM backed out of the project after a couple of years, leaving Sony as the sole supporter.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Feb 20, 2013, 10:01 AM
 
Originally Posted by Jawbone54 View Post
Don't give a crap any longer. I will, however, be pre-ordering one if it's at a $400 price point, as is rumored.

...and a 720.

[EDIT] Well, scratch that...now they're saying $500-ish. Are they seriously doing this again?
I'm thinking it'll be two models $400 and $500.
     
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Feb 20, 2013, 10:41 AM
 
Originally Posted by exca1ibur View Post
Not to mention Toshiba and IBM backed out of the project after a couple of years, leaving Sony as the sole supporter.
That's pretty ridiculous. Similar to what happened with Apple and the PowerPC, luckily Jobs had the foresight to manage that risk. Seems like this is the way IBM operates in any "partnership" regarding PowerPC stuff.

This past generation saw the big three all using IBM processors in their gaming consoles, this time around its looking like only one will(Nintendo).
     
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Feb 20, 2013, 12:37 PM
 
Toshiba, Sony and IBM all wanted Cell for their own reasons. The finished product did not live up to expectations, and part of this was revealed to be due to fundamental design considerations. The project was wound down quietly, but Sony still needed to use the chip for the lifetime of the PS3. They weren't interested in a "Cell 2" any way, and noone would have kept shrinking the original Cell for free time after time even if the project had legs, so I don't think Sony is especially pissed at IBM.

No, what has happened this time is the MS and Sony both went with mostly off-the-shelf CPU designs this time, like Nintendo did for both the Wii and the Wii U. My guess is that they both started talking to AMD for their graphics, and AMD presented the Jaguar core at a very attractive price. A Jaguar core is about than 3 mm2 at 28nm, and AMD could integrate it to use the memory controller of their GPUs. Say 25 mm2 for 8 Jaguar cores and 212 mm2 for the GPU (AMD's stated size of the Radeon 7800 chip rumored for the PS4 - the 7700 core MS bases Durango on is smaller, but they must have added two memory controllers, two CUs and a big ESRAM, so it's hard to speculate on the size) and you are far below the magic 300 mm2 even if we don't know the L2 cache.

This must have looked like a very safe choice - AMD is a known factor in graphics, the Jaguar integer performance was known, as the predecessor Brazos (AMD E350) was already on the market, and its floating point performance was only going to go up (and wasn't very important anyway). At the same time, AMD must have been eager to sell - before spinning off GlobalFoundries, they must have had spare capacity by the boatload, and they were (and are) in dire need of more revenue. The alternatives aren't looking too good either - IBM could deliver the CPU but not the GPU, and nVidia had the opposite problem. There seems to have been a project using Intel's Larrabee, but with Larrabee cancelled, that was Intel basically out as well. One option would have been nVidia for graphics together with one of the others for CPU, but I imagine Intel didn't want to include anything stronger than Atom in such a deal and nVidia probably tried to push their ARM cores rather than working with IBM.

Backwards compatibility will be HIGHLY interesting. MS could do what they did last time - offer a limited set of games, relying on Direct X compatibility and some sort of cross compilation of the CPU code - but I don't know what Sony will do. Emulating the Cell seems like a fool's errand.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
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Feb 20, 2013, 02:13 PM
 
@P
Cheers for the summary of what the different chip designers/manufacturers have been up to.

IBM seems to have been the 'clear winner' the last time around, having had an IBM processor in every console sold. The revenues must have been way up there. However this time around, it seems like the drop in demand for IBM processors will have an adverse effect on their bottom line in a major way.

AMD.... i guess that merger/acquisition of ATI is finally paying off? Especially with the relatively rocky relationship between Intel and nVidia. I wonder if this will be enough to keep AMD "healthy".

With Microsoft, when they introduced the XB360, they seized selling the original XBox almost immediately, if im not mistaken? Whereas with Sony they continued to sell the PS2 until last year (6years after the PS3?). At least with Sony if you wanted to play a PS2 game, at worst you could go out and buy a new PS2 and new games(as opposed to used). With Nintendo they seem to be maintaining one-generation backwards compatibility with physical media, which is reasonable. But Microsoft seems to be doing it very abruptly. Almost the entire XBox library of games was inaccessible to XB360 owners.

With every console there are some great games that new console owners would want (luckily for me the ones i wanted from the PS2 were ported to the PS3).

I suspect Microsoft will do what they did before, abandon backwards compatibility. (Lets face it, they're not terribly great with this sort of thing when switching architectures).

Sony could attempt to do what they initially did with the PS3; essentially including the necessary chips and hardware of the PS3 in the PS4 for the initial run. Or, like we all seem to expect, present a streaming solution for those few who actually see value in backwards compatibility.

On a trans-generational-scale though, considering the fact that we aren't expecting as big a jump in power/graphics this time around. I think it would be a great asset to have access to the amazing library of games from this generation, especially if most people wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

Out of curiosity, anyone know what the cell costed when the PS3 debuted and what it costs today for Sony?
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Feb 20, 2013, 02:14 PM
 
Too much and still too much.
     
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Feb 20, 2013, 02:16 PM
 
The rumor is that is why they bought that streaming company. To stream backwards compatibility. To me that is pretty weak, as I'm sure, you will have to repurchase games when I have them sitting on my shelf. If I get a PS4 it will be right next to my PS3 on a switch box. There will be no disc based backwards compatibility at all from what I've heard.
     
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Feb 20, 2013, 02:30 PM
 
I couldn't find hard numbers on the cell, but at the time the main cost of the PS3 was the cell and blu-ray drive. The costs of the machine costs were around $850 a console at launch for the PS3. The two parts alone were probably close to half or more the total cost. (Just a guess)

In about 12 months they cut in half, when they started gutting PS2 compatibility and cutting USB ports/Memory card slots. Also Blu-ray drive prices dropped as it was new at the time too.

Currently I've heard it the cost is now close to about $160 for the slim.

NOTE: This is just cost, as far as adding in production you might have to add in a certain percentage.


As for the Cell directly, hard to say especially when the companies started giving up their parts of the project and Sony took over the production.
     
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Feb 20, 2013, 02:32 PM
 
Originally Posted by exca1ibur View Post
The rumor is that is why they bought that streaming company. To stream backwards compatibility. To me that is pretty weak, as I'm sure, you will have to repurchase games when I have them sitting on my shelf. If I get a PS4 it will be right next to my PS3 on a switch box. There will be no disc based backwards compatibility at all from what I've heard.
I read a rumor which said that when you pop in a PS3 disc into the PS4, it would handshake with SONY's servers and begin the streaming, so a physical disc would be required or i assume they could also implement buying of PS3 games digitally for streaming? I still cant get my head around having to stream a 720p video for hours at a time.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Feb 20, 2013, 02:33 PM
 
Originally Posted by exca1ibur View Post
The rumor is that is why they bought that streaming company. To stream backwards compatibility. To me that is pretty weak, as I'm sure, you will have to repurchase games when I have them sitting on my shelf. If I get a PS4 it will be right next to my PS3 on a switch box. There will be no disc based backwards compatibility at all from what I've heard.
It's a good point. One would hope they could at least identify and register games you put in the PS4 drive, but I'm sure they're under the false delusion that PS4 owners who would go to the lengths of borrowing and renting PS3 games to falsely register would be somehow be actual sales of lost, and of some type of appreciable amount when the prices will be slashed because they're old gen.

God am I bitter.
     
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Feb 20, 2013, 03:59 PM
 
Originally Posted by Hawkeye_a View Post
@P
Cheers for the summary of what the different chip designers/manufacturers have been up to.

IBM seems to have been the 'clear winner' the last time around, having had an IBM processor in every console sold. The revenues must have been way up there. However this time around, it seems like the drop in demand for IBM processors will have an adverse effect on their bottom line in a major way.
I think IBM must have had serious process issues. The Power7+, the threadshrink to 32nm, was a year late, and the launch ramp wasn't very steep, suggesting problems with the process. At the same time, IBM is picking up business from both Sun and Oracle. They may not have gone after the console business as hard this time.

Originally Posted by Hawkeye_a View Post
AMD.... i guess that merger/acquisition of ATI is finally paying off? Especially with the relatively rocky relationship between Intel and nVidia. I wonder if this will be enough to keep AMD "healthy".
It was right to do it - they had to buy either nVidia or ATi - but they overpaid, and they paid in cash, which messed up their finances enough to disturb their ability to invest in new processes. They should either have made a straight stock-swap merger or just waited for a better opportunity, but hindsight is such a fantastic tool in these circumstances.

As for the Cell, I found this, which implies that the Cell price at launch was around $65.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
Stogieman
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Feb 20, 2013, 04:00 PM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
God am I bitter.
You should make that your xbox Live motto.

Slick shoes?! Are you crazy?!
     
Jawbone54
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Feb 20, 2013, 05:15 PM
 
I had been planning on selling both my PS3 and 360 a few months before the next-gen releases, but if the PS4 doesn't support PS3 backwards compatibility, I'm going to have to hang on to the PS3, and that might delay at least one purchase. I don't really care about 360 back-comp, but I'm still planning on playing a few PS3 exclusives, especially since I anticipate another next-gen software dry spell until Q3 of 2014.

I guess I'll have a better idea about how to plan this out after a few hours, but even then I won't know for sure until Microsoft's inevitable unveiling (I'm guessing mid-March-ish).
     
Jawbone54
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Feb 20, 2013, 05:17 PM
 
Originally Posted by Stogieman View Post
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar
God am I bitter.
You should make that your xbox Live motto.
You can hear it implied in every lag complaint.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Feb 20, 2013, 05:20 PM
 
Originally Posted by Jawbone54 View Post
You can hear it implied in every lag complaint.
You don't get to talk shit unless we've played online together in the past 6 months.
     
 
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