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Nvidia CEO Talks Next-Gen Consoles

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the probably-knows-what-he's-talking-about dept.

kukyfrope writes "Jen-Hsun Huang, CEO of Nvidia recently shared his thoughts with the San Jose Mercury News about next-gen consoles, claiming that developing a chip for the 360 was too expensive and that the inclusion of a Blu-ray player will help the console last for 10 years. Huang also predicts that the 360 cannot afford to be a DVD-only system by Christmas 2007, likening the 360-DVD vs PS3-Blu-ray battle to the Dreamcast-CD vs PS2-DVD battle. 'The first PlayStation had a CD-ROM drive. The PlayStation 2 had DVD. It makes no sense for the PlayStation 3 to use DVDs. To postpone it by a few months so they could include Blu-ray was a master stroke. When that comes out, it's going to look so much more advanced than last-generation game consoles,' Huang said."

2 of 173 comments (clear)

  1. Thank you for your comments! by The-Bus · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Just in case no one noticed, Nvidia is the graphic processor provider for the PS3. See this quote from the article:

    "No one has enough extraneous resources around to build chips for all the game consoles. You have to build one or so at a time. In a lot of ways, they also pick you. Sony picked us and Microsoft didn't."

    He sounds remorseful enough that it indicates he wished Microsoft had picked Nvidia. But then again, he's also a bit glad:

    "I know I couldn't afford it. I would love to build it. I just can't afford it."

    So, here's the president of one of the main suppliers for the PS3 talking about how Microsoft didn't choose him, but even if they did, his company couldn't afford to actually build the GPU for the 360? Excuse me if I don't take his comments with a bucket full of salt.

    To top it off, as in any article discussing graphics, we're about ten years away from photorealism, just as we were in 2001 and 1996.

    To his credit though, I really liked this exchange which is in the full interview:

    Q. Where do you want to see graphics go?
    "I would like to see it go in a couple of directions. I would like [games] to be easier to access."

    His response is, "Screw graphics, let's work on gameplay." I can't knock him for that.

    --

    Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.

  2. Re:Blue-ray by ObligatoryUserName · · Score: 4, Interesting

    EA and others have said that they feel they made a huge mistake by abandoning new game development for the PS1 as early as they did. Their current plans seem to indicate that they will keep putting out new games for the PS2 for at least 10 years after the system's launch date.

    However, new games don't imply new IP! The floundering of Prince of Persia in the marketplace, in spite of what many industry insiders considered a very well executed game, convinced many in the industry that there's only a small window at the beginning of a system's life to launch new IP in. After a certain point it's just not worth it because people don't buy AAA games that aren't sequels in sufficent quantities to recoup development costs. Sad, but apparently true.

    Strangly enough, a theory has also developed that says that while you need to rush out new IP at the beginning of the life of a new system, if you're doing a sequel to existing IP on a new system it's not worth it to push it out in that early window. It's better to take your time and "get things right"/wait for the install base to develop before you push out things like GTA 4 or Halo 3.