A History of the Shrinking Game Console

After Sony's announcement of the PS3 Slim earlier this week, CNet took a look back at size-reducing hardware revisions over the past couple decades in console design, noting that they're gradually arriving sooner and sooner after the initial release. "Does that mean it'll creep even lower, into two-year or even yearly cycles between major revisions? Quite possibly, yes. It's worked very well with handheld gaming devices, and even some consumer electronics devices like iPods. Apple has turned out slimmer, more powerful versions of the iPod every year since 2001, and yearly events like E3 put continued pressure on console makers to show off something big. In the case of the PS3 Slim though, it could just be that the PS3 had to be pushed out to meet its launch window, and that the Slim is what Sony was going for in the first place. Advances in the PlayStation 3's core technology, like the cell processor, also underwent changes since the console launched, including changes to fabrication that have taken the chip down from 90 nanometers to 65, then 45 — the size that can be found inside the Slim. These changes meant less power consumption, smaller components, and easier cooling."

Comments

Imagine a handheld XBox

[David Gerard]

It'd go something like this ... (and this would be the logo)

Microsoft has announced its long-rumoured handheld XBox gaming console, to compete with the Sony PSP and Nintendo DS.

"The GameBoy will be wiped out by this!" said marketing marketer Shane Kim. The console, to be named the ZuneX ("we wanted a really evocative brand that would set the tone straight away") will integrate with XBox Live Arcade and the Zune music store and have phone capabilities.

"Weâ(TM)re also looking at instant-on, 1080p high-definition, Facebook, Twitter and Netflix deals, Project Natal, Windows 7, Internet Explorer 6, downloadable rings of death in every possible color ... nothing will hold a candle to the ZuneX. Google and Apple will be quaking in fear." The E74 error will also be updated to E75.

The device will be two feet by three feet and weigh twenty-four pounds. "That's an important feature. Wii Fit just canâ(TM)t compete with the rippling abs the ZuneX will give you." The device is fully portable within the length of the twenty-foot three-phase 415 volt power cable.

What about NES Redesign

[simm_s]

The NES went on a diet in the early 90's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NES_2 as well. I am surprised that CNET missed that!

Re:What about NES Redesign

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

You are surprised that CNET's level of "research" didn't even pass the wikipedia test?

C'mon, this is CNET.

Re:What about NES Redesign

[bhtooefr]

Actually, MOST consoles. (This'll be US-centric, here.)

Fairchild VES -> Fairchild Channel F System II
Atari VCS -> Atari 2600 Jr.
Mattel Intellivision -> Mattel Intellivision II
Nintendo Entertainment System -> Nintendo NES-101
Sega Master System -> Sega Master System II
Nintendo Game Boy -> Nintendo Game Boy Pocket
Sega Genesis -> Sega Genesis 2 -> Majesco/Sega Genesis 3 (and that's not even counting the Sega Nomad)
Nintendo Super NES -> Nintendo SNS-101
Sony PlayStation -> Sony PSone
Nintendo Game Boy Advance -> Nintendo GBA SP -> Nintendo GB Micro
Sony PlayStation 2 -> Sony Slimline PS2
Nintendo DS -> Nintendo DS Lite
Sony PlayStation 3 -> Sony PS3 Slim

And that list is far from exhaustive. :)

Re:What about NES Redesign

[JoshLowensohn]

As the article's author I'll chime in to mention that there's a big note at the very beginning of the article (before we go into the individual systems) that says we're only going back three generations. If we had continued to go back, the original NES along with the various Atari iterations would have been included. Cheers.

Re:What about NES Redesign

[ArundelCastle]

You are surprised that CNET's level of "research" didn't even pass the wikipedia test?

C'mon, this is CNET.

Lowensohn even got the Wikipedia citations that he did use wrong. He's labeled the Super Famicom Jr. as the Super Nintendo Jr., something that doesn't exist. No way in hell does the Jr. follow from the western SNES design, but there's still an arrow there for some reason...

The reason for not having the NES is apparently because it's too old. No "Four generations ago".
He should have called it "a compact history." Bloody commercial bloggers.

Re:What about NES Redesign

[Shadow of Eternity]

I'm just bitter about switching to CD's is all. Blowing on the disk just isn't the same as blowing in the cartridges. It'd be great if the big three would come out with addons that didnt boot your game up until you blew in the "cartridge" and reinsterted it randomly.

Re:What about NES Redesign

[fyrie]

C64 -- > C64gs

C64GS was a totally different type of market (just a console). The poster may be thinking of that, or the C64C, which was the regular C64 in a redesigned casing that looked closer to the C128.

They might pre-shink by losing the optical drive

[Lonewolf666]

Games could be downloaded, or flash memory could become cheap that games are distributed on memory cards (again). Only this time in a smaller format. That alone would make the consoles of the future smaller.

Otherwise, it depends on with how much heat to get rid of they start out. If the example of the Wii (to try something new rather than maximize graphics performance) catches on, even the first generation of a new console might be smaller than we are used to.

This is your PS3 Analysis on drugs

[Simon80]

In the case of the PS3 Slim though, it could just be that the PS3 had to be pushed out to meet its launch window, and that the Slim is what Sony was going for in the first place

One doesn't even have to have a PS3 to remember how long Sony delayed the PS3 at launch because it was waiting for enough supply of the BluRay drives. Also, lets not forget that the PS3 Slim is being released over two and a half years after the original PS3.

Re:Duh?

[Kell Bengal]

What surprises me is that anyone particularly cares about the physical size of consoles.

So long as it's small enough to carry home from the store it doesn't need to be portable. It doesn't need to run off batteries, either, so as long as it doesn't cause your lights to dim or make the lounge room into a sauna, who cares how much power it draws?

Now don't get me wrong - technological improvements are desirable and all, but as a consumer I'd much rather go Nintendo's route and buy the same console cheaper, rather than a smaller console at the same price.

Alternatively, perhaps they could use to resources to invest in getting the next generation console out sooner?

Hardware AND software revisions

[faragon]

It is not just a hardware revision, but implies also cuts in software: Remember that Sony has cut the possibility of running Linux in the new PS3 "Slim" model, disabling the "Other OS" boot option, because of the costs of programming new drivers for virtualizing the new I/O devices through the hipervisor.

Extra-official reply from Sarah Ewen, a Sony employee:

BY: sarahe
DATE: 2009-Aug-21 22:23
SUBJECT: RE: Why no Linux in PS3 Slim?

Hi aragon,

I'm sorry that you are frustrated by the lack of comment specifically regarding the withdrawal of support for OtherOS on the new PS3 slim.

The reasons are simple: The PS3 Slim is a major cost reduction involving many changes to hardware components in the PS3 design. In order to offer the OtherOS install, SCE would need to continue to maintain the OtherOS hypervisor drivers for any significant hardware changes - this costs SCE. One of our key objectives with the new model is to pass on cost savings to the consumer with a lower retail price. Unfortunately in this case the cost of OtherOS install did not fit with the wider objective to offer a lower cost PS3.

We'll see if we can get the offical OtherOS page updated with something to this effect so that an official explanation is provided. Thank you for your comments.

Sarah.

It no longer runs Linux

[rbanffy]

I am not happy this version is no longer capable of running Linux or any other OS besides Sony's own.

OTOH, its RAM would make for a nasty user experience when running just about anything.

I can't believe it's hard to build a Cell-based desktop system the size of the PS3, but with plenty RAM and a nice GPU that would not play PS3 games. Software compatibility should, today, be a non-issue - there are many full-feature desktop OSs (or different versions of a couple) that can run on Cell. And since it's not a console, they could sell it for a profit. I would buy a Linux-running Windows-proof box for the price of a Dell

In the early 90s, IIRC, Sony made a very nice line of MIPS-based Unix workstations. They could do it again.

Re:It no longer runs Linux

[TeknoHog]

Yeah, it's a shame that so much great hardware is going to waste, due to this closed appliance mentality. The PS3 is just the tip of the iceberg, notable because we can see it being closed, from the previous somewhat open state. At least you can still buy a 'fat' version.

I recall that the PS2 used to have a Linux kit so that it could be sold with a lower tax as a computer, rather than a toy. I wonder if this was the case with the PS3 as well, now that the computer functionality is being removed.

Re:It no longer runs Linux

[m50d]

And since it's not a console, they could sell it for a profit. I would buy a Linux-running Windows-proof box for the price of a Dell

And there's the rub - for Sony to make a profit on it, they'd have to charge much more than the equivalent Dell. (I'm speaking of equivalent in terms of user experience - any non-x86 architecture gets you more theoretical - but less practical - bang for the buck)

Re:It no longer runs Linux

[wagnerrp]

IBM makes Cell servers, but even those are pretty scarce on memory. You have two problems:

• XDR memory is ridiculously expensive, and honestly, the Cell should have been built so the XDR was basically a huge L4 cache, using DDR2 for low speed memory. Developers would have had a lot more leeway if they didn't have as much XDR, but instead had access to a bunch of cheap, slow DDR2.
• Your still stuck with an dual-execute in-order core. Most programs are not going to add support for the SPEs, so you're stuck with an expensive desktop with poor Atom-like performance.

On the other hand you have something like the Spursengine. It's basically half a Cell, running at half the clockrate, attached over PCI-Express. It provides something like 50GFLOPS at ~20W, but the only one I could find costs $500. You can get a dual Cell blade with 2GB of memory for only $3K, neither of which are something a consumer is going to want to buy.

The real problem is that all this GPGPU stuff started happening around the same time, and consumers have just as much power in a cheap card that they already have in their PC. Even still, there is hardly any market for such a device. Sure, HPC users love it, but in the consumer market, we have one or two video encoders, they're not considerably faster than a decent computer running x264, and produce significantly lesser video quality.

Re:2600 Jr?

[Kell Bengal]

Actually there's some sense there. Really, who aside from the nerdy geeky types really cares about the history of any technology? I expect most people these days are happy enough to use an object without really thinking too hard about where it came from or how it works. Certainly, to most kids these days, anything that predates Power Rangers is unbelievably ancient.

Hell, when I was a kid, the NES appeared to me to be the ONLY console game, ever. Even though I had some hind-brain understanding that there was atari and C64, the mere fact that they weren't part of my mid-to-late 80s Now made them entirely irrelevant. Who could possibly care or even want to know about anything else?

Just so. To the kids who have grown up with colour handhelds and never played a sprite-based game in their life, the old systems that we cherished and can ruminate over for hours seem so passe as to be unmentionable. When was the last time you actually impressed someone when you said "Hey man, I used to play games in, like, THREE colours, man"?

Quieter, not smaller please!

[Anonymous Coward]

When I got my Xbox 360, I was shocked that a product in general sale could be this noisy. Reading the specs of the noiselevel on the new PS3 indicates that it too generates a fair amount of noise. I'd be perfectly happy if the box was twice as big if it could be dead-quiet.

Where's the fan?

[wdhowellsr]

I completely agree that smaller is better for portable gaming systems but hate the fact that there is this belief that console based systems have to be so small. What really drives me crazy is when processing speed, storage size and cooling is sacrificed so it can be smaller.

I would much rather have a kick-a$# system that doesn't suffer from overheating problems and comes with a whole lot of storage than some pretty little thing that is dumb as a brick when it gets to hot.

Sony started bigger

[m50d]

It's not just this generation - the original playstation was much bigger than its competitors, and while the xbox was hilariously huge, even the revised PS2 felt bigger than the gamecube (it was slim but long, which took up more space on the shelf). Sony is the one shrinking its consoles for the simple reason that sony's original consoles are frickin' huge.

Re:Sony started bigger

[macshome]

The PS2 was largish as well, but the PSX was noticeably smaller than the Saturn.

Consider the Japanese market

[tepples]

I completely agree that smaller is better for portable gaming systems but hate the fact that there is this belief that console based systems have to be so small.

The price of urban real estate in Japan makes the Wii's footprint look a lot more attractive.

Re:2600 Jr?

[kaizokuace]

this is how shit gets lost in history and events are distorted!

In Sonic Japan,consoles let you not make a Beowulf

[D4C5CE]

...cluster of these. ;-/

http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/18/ps3-slim-sized-up-smaller-deeper-no-linux-or-ps2-compatibilit/

Re:They might pre-shink by losing the optical driv

[TheRaven64]

Is it? My current (cheap) home Internet connection is 10Mb/s, and I can sustain around 1.1MB/s for downloads. At that speed it would take 13 hours to download the game. How many 50GB games can you finish in under 13 hours? You just need to download enough to play the first level and then have it download the rest while you're playing. Actually, how many games even take a single-layer, 25GB, Blu Ray disk?

Re:They might pre-shink by losing the optical driv

[bmatt17]

you have no clue what you're talking about. The PSPGo is nothing more than a optical driveless PSP. All games for the PSP are now being released in downloadable form via the PSN. They aren't releasing PSPGo exclusives it's the same thing, except you download all your games. The PSP go is exactly like the PSP as far as what games you can play.