Probing the Guts Of the Consoles

Max Entropy writes "Finally, an in-depth article of the technologies within the GameCube, PS2, and Xbox. The article covers architectures, processor/memory silicon, I/O, expandability, and storage among a host of other topics." If you are wondering what makes each system distinctive (Besides the fact that one has about a hundred times as many games, one overheats, and another has Luigi) this might be worth a read.

Comments

Consoles the future?

[euroderf]

Am I the only one who has noticed that the remit of consoles increases year on year? At first they were simple gaming machines, now they focus on email, broadband, DVD playing, web browsing, etc etc.

With MS's .NET initiative, one can't help but wonder if the concept of a 'home computer' will become entirely redundant. After all, the fact is that .NET will enable traditional tasks performed by applications such as MS Word, Excel etc to be done entirely over the web. With the rise of consoles, this will render the home computer redundant in time.

Another advantage is that consoles are so easy.

I mean, I find Windows and Mac OS X very complicated and difficult to use - I am from a pre-computer generation, and have watched with a little bemusement as these glorified typewriters conquer all.

They are dividing society into two classes, the Digirati, who can understand Computers running super complicated, unintuitive OS's like OS X and Windows, and the disposessed, who just don't understand and never will.

Consoles, by extending their grasp, may remove this knowledge gap by providing a wonderfully simple, hermetically sealed system that can be easily used by everyone, including your granny, and me!

I will welcome the day, I think, I don't like the idea of supercomplex computers running increasingly difficult OS's taking over all simple tasks and dispossessing those with better things to do than understand the impossible complexities of Internet Explorer and Microsoft Word.

I look to Sony, MS and Nintendo to provide a democratic and egalitarean new computing future for all, in which everyone can share.

Re:Consoles the future?

[rudy_wayne]

"They are dividing society into two classes, the Digirati, who can understand Computers running super complicated, unintuitive OS's like OS X and Windows, and the disposessed, who just don't understand and never will."

There is no "Digerati" - some sort of elite upper class who automatically understand complicated things (such as computers). This is pure bullshit. All human beings are born with the same basic level of intelligence. The difference is how it is used. Some of us choose to better ourselves, and so we work a little harder and try to learn things. Others ... your so called "dispossed" ... prefer to remain stupid because they are too lazy to put out any effort toward learning.

Re:Consoles the future?

[Pussy Is Money]

OK, this troll is over. Let's examine it in a bit more detail.

Am I the only one who has noticed that the remit of consoles increases year on year?

Nice touch: remit. Note also the "lonely voice in the desert" approach (/. crowd loves the "nobody cares to look at my research" angle).

At first they were simple gaming machines, now they focus on email, broadband, DVD playing, web browsing, etc etc.

A bit disappointing. Would have expected mention of <insert controversial technology>. On second thought I figure might have diluted the nostalgy for a "simpler past" that's working here.

With MS's .NET initiative,

There it is, the controversial technology.

one can't help but wonder if the concept of a 'home computer' will become entirely redundant.

Nice red herring. Troll establishes emotional bond with the grizzled hackers of yore through the use of the quaint 'home computer'.

After all, the fact is that .NET will enable traditional tasks performed by applications such as MS Word, Excel etc to be done entirely over the web.

Provocation: "the fact is", "will enable".

With the rise of consoles, this will render the home computer redundant in time.

Troll alienates grizzled hackers.

Another advantage is that consoles are so easy.

Cue pointless remark by FlightSimFan about how some games will never move to the console. Also set up the atmosphere for confrontation with the anti-ease-of-use crowd.

I mean, I find Windows and Mac OS X very complicated and difficult to use

Cue anti-ease-of-use crowd.

I am from a pre-computer generation, and have watched with a little bemusement as these glorified typewriters conquer all.

Knowful wink at the humanist and "digital citizen" crowds.

They are dividing society into two classes, the Digirati

Cue the Katz/Wired crowd.

who can understand Computers running super complicated, unintuitive OS's like OS X and Windows, and the disposessed, who just don't understand and never will.

A clever provocation: no mention of Linux at all! Doesn't seem to be very effective in its apparent goal to ignite a UI war though.

Consoles, by extending their grasp, may remove this knowledge gap by providing a wonderfully simple, hermetically sealed system that can be easily used by everyone, including your granny, and me!

"Hermetically sealed" makes a nice appearance. Otherwise not very convincing.

I will welcome the day, I think, I don't like the idea of supercomplex computers running increasingly difficult OS's taking over all simple tasks and dispossessing those with better things to do than understand the impossible complexities of Internet Explorer and Microsoft Word.

Boilerplate common sense.

I look to Sony, MS and Nintendo to provide a democratic and egalitarean new computing future for all, in which everyone can share.

Disappointing. Too flippant for there to be any venom in this tail. Several loose ends left hanging. Rather pathetic attempt to ensnare the FSF zealots with the "share" there as well.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

overheats??

[Anonymous Coward]

If i remember right, demo xboxes were supposedly overheating because they were in very enlosed cases with little room for air to circulate to cool it off.

I have not heard a thing about production xboxes off the shelf that are overheating. In fact, I have not seen anything about overheating, BSODs occuring at all.

Editors, if you have any evidence for your allegations, please provide them, otherwise you look just like bitter fools spreading FUD.

Re:overheats??

[Osty]

If i remember right, demo xboxes were supposedly overheating because they were in very enlosed cases with little room for air to circulate to cool it off.

More than that, the possibility that those units were overheating was nothing more than speculation. The only units that ever had problems were those running earlier demo discs, and it was announced that the demo discs were bad -- they were built for the XDK box which has twice the memory (for development purposes), rather than the production XBox, and so would often step past the potential memory space of the real XBox (see how the XBox isn't a PC? If it were, it'd use that nice hard drive as virtual memory, but it doesn't because it's not a PC. Oh, sure, a game could implement its own virtual memory handler, but that has to be done on a per-game basis, as with any console ...). Thus, software problem, not hardware problem. The possibility of overheating was just Slashdot jerking its collective knee.

The Xbox does not overheat

[jkc120]

I have had the xbox since it was released, and it has not 'overheated' once. The only time it did anything out of the ordinary was with the Obi-wan game, and I've heard reports from a couple other people of seeing the occasional fluke with the game. So please don't make generalized statements claiming the xbox overheats all the time, when in fact, I think you'll notice that the production xbox is very, very stable.

Who cares?

[dimator]

Is anyone else tired of /. posting every single console hardware review? It doesnt really matter anyway, how many polygons each machine can pump.

Games matter. Instead of wasting time, I suggest you go to www.gamespot.com and take a good long look at the list(s) of games of each console, read the unbiased reviews, stare at pictures and movies, and then decide which console is coolest.

1 paragraph on graphics?

[Traa]

The article is pretty good overall but lacks a major component. GRAPHICS performance (duh)!. It has one paragraph telling us something about multitexturing (guess which box? it starts with an 'x'), high polygon performance to render some cute girlees hair (rrrright), anti alliasing (same 'x'), anisotropic filtering ('x'), writing z-buffer optimised code (goes for all graphics software), if multiple lighting and transforming calculations can be offloaded of the main CPU (xbox again, sorry). It doesn't even mention other texturing tricks that we are allready used to on the PC. Environmentmapping, bumpmapping, etc. (damn impressive in Halo on my xbox).

I would recommend those that want a deeper analysis of why the xbox is the graphics gaming console of the future (verses these other boxes) to have a good look at what DX8 brought us. Hint: vertex shading and pixel shading.

Oh, and Mr CmdrTaco, get with the program:
- PS2 has more games, yes. 425 PS1 + PS2 combined titles. Xbox has about 40 now and that list is growing fast. 100x...whatever
- Overheating? Don't pull a 'the prerelease box was rumoured to overheat' kinda bull on this forum please
- Luigi??? Abe farts in the fase of Luigi! In more colors, with surround sound and at 1080i

LINUX (kernel 0.9) SUCKS!!

It's Software that matters

[DeadBugs]

This article at cnn http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/fun.games/12/27/video .games.sales.reut/index.html states "Games for the Sony PlayStation 2 platform held eight of the top-20 sales spots and represented five of the 10 best-selling titles over that period, according to market research firm, The NPD group." A game will still suck even on a 10ghz processor

GSODs and BSODs

[Glonk]

The BSODs and GSODs you hear of are actually not true. The "GSOD" you saw online is actually a disc error (inserting the wrong type of disc) into the XDK, not even the final Xbox (Next time you see it, check out the bottom).

If the Xbox crashes or freezes, you don't get ANY type of message. It'd just lock up (read the documentation). Same as the other consoles.

So somehow I actually doubt your "number of friends" got GSODs in games.

I've had my Xbox since launch day: No crashes, no freezes, no problems, and certainly no overheating.

I'm buying a Gamecube.

[Sludge]

I've played all three systems (as well as many other consoles), and I think that the Gamecube is the best bet for the type of game I want to play.

When I want single player FPS action, I'll play games on my PC, where I have a mouse, keyboard, cable modem and an excellent 21" Sony Trinitron monitor. So far, the dark and gritty games are still done best on the PC, and this seems to be the major targets of the XBox and PS2.

Enter Gamecube, a system with games that are commonly colourful and very party oriented. If I'm going to be playing console games, I want to play them with my friends around a big TV. When I pick up my Gamecube, I'm definately grabbing Super Monkey Ball and Super Smash Bros. along with three additional controllers.

As a PC Gamer, I see the XBox and PS2 for people who don't have near top of the line PC hardware. I see the Gamecube's function as being something a bit different, and it's very attractive. I can't get that over here.

Besides, it looks like we're going to see some impressive first party titles. Is it possible not to be interested in a Zelda game on mass storage media for the first time?

Re:Some misinformation from the article

[SuiteSisterMary]

No, it's like not paying for functionality you're not planning on using. Isn't that what a whole lot of the whining about Microsoft and 'bundling' is about?

Hardware is fine,

[iq in binary]

But what about the long term? As far as hardware goes, the PS was actually inferior to the N64, but won out in the long run after everyone knew how to program for it and create (at least aesthetically) better games. The fact that it's medium had 10 times more storage than the N64 is not why it won out, as many will testify; the fact that it was easier to program for becuase of the fact that size was literally not a problem (Final Fantasy, anyone?) opened the door to developers to pump out whatever game they could get approved. Where as the PS has practically countless games for it, almost all of the games for the N64 are generally good if not high-quality. That being the past, look at the race now. A 3-horse race, 2 of them similair and 1 lame. The fact that both the XBox and the PS2 can play DVD's has everyone wowed and blurry-eyed. The fact that the N64 had twice the bits of the PS accomplished much the same thing. I think that Nintendo's focus on pure gaming and affordability will win out in this one, as it did with Sony in the previous round.

Get a clue

[Nerds]

Will you personally buy a game cube? If you answer yes to this one you'll be the only one I know who will.

Get out a little more. They've sold a million of the things. By the way, great argument there. My dad can beat up yours.

I think I represent the average gamer and I want strategy games, fighting games, REALISTIC images, great audio.

Nah, the average gamer wants The Sims and Pokemon.

I want games to move me and scare me. I especially don't want Mario this or Luigi that.

Fair enough, but if you're going to speak for the average gamer, keep in mind that Nintendo sold about a billion dollars worth of software in 2000. Their closest competitor? EA, with under 500 million. Keep in mind that EA publishes games on all platforms and that Nintendo is restricted to their own. And in case you're wondering, those numbers don't include hardware, it's just the games. Doesn't sound like the average gamer is agreeing with you so far.

Game cube commercials are already touting a new Mario + friends mortal combat style fighting game. I truly think you need to be 11 to get a kick out of that.

Yeah, you definitely need to be eleven. Like last night, I was playing Smash Brothers with my roommate and two friends and it was so fun that we played for about two hours. Then I remembered that we're all over 24 so we threw that game out. I don't know what Gamespot was thinking when they put it in the top ten console games of the year, because I'm pretty sure their editors are over 11 (although sometimes it's a tough call). Good thing, we stopped playing, though, so we could move on to a game that lets you drive one of these armed cycles on some huge courses and blow your friends up.

But I'll admit that the Gamecube's graphics aren't that great, like that Rogue Leader game. I mean, did they really think anyone would want to play a game with graphics like this?

And in fighting games, we'll put aside the fact that you're superficial and clearly have no idea what you're talking about. I know Kirby and Pikachu are cute as all get out, but the fighting system in SSB is way more fun than DOA3's. And if that's not enough for you, Soul Calibur 2, successor to the real king of 3D fighters (OK, fine, Virtua Fighter rules, too), will be exclusive to the GameCube when it first arrives.

Speaking of realism, did you know that the water in Wave Race: Blue Storm, an amazingly addictive racing game with a tight control system, was so good, that Gamespot created a new category in their year end awards for it?

Oh, right, and you want to be scared. So, how about four Resident Evil games and Eternal Darkness? Is that enough blood for you, mister sophisticated mature gaming man?

I've got a GameCube, a Playstation 2, and a Dreamcast (which, as far as I'm concerned, still has the best catalog of games around), couldn't be happier.

load of bull?

[Scrameustache]

Seeing how the article makes blatant mistakes (the PS2 does not, in fact, require an extr remote to play DVD, nor does it require extra consoles to play with more than two players, its got an optionnal multi-tap for that), I'm wondering how many more subtle mistakes it makes in the less easily verified points: Numbers, architecture descriptions, etc.

And I reiterate: The GAMES are the important thing.
Xbox has nothing worth buying it (ooo, halo, big freakin' deal) while PS2 has Metal Gear Solid 2 (greates game of all time???), the Game Cube has super monkey ball (come on! A monkey in a ball? You can't get any more fun!), an pikmin and more coming.

I bought a PS2...I'm thingking about a game cube, but xbox is NOT interesting.