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Next-Gen Console Wars Will Soon Begin In Earnest
When the Wii U was released at the end of last year, Nintendo got a head-start on the long-awaited new generation of video game consoles. Now, Sony has announced a press conference for February 20th that is expected to unveil the PlayStation 4, codenamed 'Orbis.' This will precede the announcement of the Xbox 360's successor, codenamed 'Durango,' but that too will likely be announced by E3 in June. Specs for development kits of both systems have leaked widely. The two systems both use 8-core AMD chips clocked around 1.6 GHz. Durango has 8GB of DDR3 RAM, while Orbis has 4GB of GDDR5 RAM, though Sony is trying to push that up to 8GB for the console's final spec. Reports also suggest Sony is tinkering with its controller design, going so far as to add a "Share" button to let people exchange screenshots and recordings. Developers indicate the systems are very close in power, though Sony's system currently has an edge. With the upcoming announcement of the PS4, the big-three console makers will kick off a new round of direct competition. They'll maneuver to one-up each other with the most powerful hardware and the slickest software. However, they'll also hope the release of three major consoles in rapid succession will help to anchor a part of the games industry that no longer enjoys the dominance it once did, thanks to threats from mobile.
Nintendo is not really about technology as much as innovative, fun games, for the whole family.
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
Somewhere, a Nintendo exec is opening a bottle of Jack Daniels to pour a toast to the one year they had a current gen console.
If you define "generation" by technological capabilities, then yes. If you use the actual definition, then they have had a current gen console for years, and Sony and Microsoft are now joining the next gen that Nintendo started back in November.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Starting the launch with Mario Sequel 58, Zelda Remake number 14, Halo 5, and who can forget Final Fantasy XIV - II: Offline Edition?
If Microsoft wants to make the ultimate entertainment device, it's going to have a Bluray drive. I don't think it has anything to do with "sucking up pride", it's simply impractical to ship a new console with a DVD drive in 2013, and using some proprietary format is just plain idiotic because of the overhead costs. Heck, if even Nintendo has adopted the technology (but not licensed the ability to play BD video), then it's a given that Microsoft will include a Bluray drive in its next console. A given. I do expect 1st day digital downloads for all games though.
How many COD games are there again?
All your 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 are belong to us
Perhaps you've forgotten that Microsoft backed HD-DVD against Blu-Ray.
How many COD games are there again?
There are 9 CoD games.
On the other hand, there are 18 Super Mario games, 12 Mario Party games, 10 Mario Kart games, 19 Zelda games, and 12 Metroid games.
I am not the AC you're replying to, but I do agree with him. Nintendo basically re-re-re-re-re-releases the same three games over and over. Claiming they're "about innovation" is ridiculous (and I seriously question "fun for the whole family" too, given that all their multiplayer games either aggressively punish good players or have effectively random scoring systems).
While the number of games alone certainly does seem to support your point, there are a few things to keep in mind. One, would be how different are these games from one another (in any way you care to compare games)? Another, you have to keep in mind the lifespan of these games. Yes, there are 18 Super Mario games, but they're also spread out over 30 years, which isn't all that different from 9 CoD games over 10 years. It's just that the Nintendo series have been around for longer. Given a few more decades, the other game developers are sure to milk their franchises for all they're worth.
Though, I hardly see how this is even really relevant. New people are continually being introduced to gaming, and even of those who've been gamers for decades, if a particular series continues to be fun to play, who cares if there are 20 previous games in the series?
As someone with some game development experience, let me throw in some observations. (*based on the specs mentioned here).
The 3.2 Ghz Power PC CPUs in the Xbox 360 and PS3 were in-order execution units. As I remember, code on the 360 typically executed about 0.2 IPC -(Instructions per cycle), sometimes worse. The very best hand optimized assembler doing tasks like video decoding could execute about 0.9 IPC once properly cached and unrolled.
AMD and Intel have decades of R&D now into out-of-order x86 execution (the x86/x64 opcodes being translated to internal micro ops), which is a major factor in their performance. Even the Power PC G5 chip devoted a good chunk of its silicon to Out-or-order execution. The 360 and PS3 CPUs - designed almost 10 years ago - traded Out of Order execution for die size and clock speed.
The specs say that the 1.6 Ghz CPUs can issue up to 2 instructions per cycle. If real world performance works out to an IPC of 1.2 to 1.6, which seems very doable, then you will see a 3x to 4x increase in the real-world rate of instructions being performed . ( 0.2 IPC @ 3.2Ghz == 0.4 IPC @ 1.6Ghz ). This doesn't take into account any efficiency gains due to the instruction set, cache, etc.
And at the same time, I would imagine it's a whole lot easier to deal with other things on the chipsets at 1,.6Ghz than at 3.2 Ghz (mature tech and all that)
Nintendo is not really about technology as much as innovative, fun games, for the whole family.
yea innovation like new supermario world zelda quest 387
How many COD games are there again?
Should I tell you from my high res gaming console or from my minecraft esq one?
When Qbert games match your quality of gaming output, you should re-evaluate your purchase.
"high res gaming console" HAH! Good one. Console games aren't even in 720p anymore, they are 600p and lower, upscaled to 720p running at 30fps. You keep thinking your puny console is high res, in the meantime I'll be enjoying truly gaming at "high res", on my PC.
NERD FIIIIIIIIGHT!!
You were critically hit for no damage. The bruise will look nice, and maybe the scars will make good party talk.
Well we haven't heard either company say a peep about compatibility and since we are talking about a change of arch that's pretty radical (PPC and Cell for a quad AMD with HT) I'd say the odds are poor for backwards compatibility. of course both current systems have been out so long that they are plentiful and cheap so I have a feeling both companies will tell you simply hang onto the one you have, although I kinda doubt that they will keep making the PS3 the way they made the PS2 for so long as they were never able to get the price down on the cell chip.
That said it looks like the only system that isn't gonna come with AMD this time is the Steambox, Nintendo went with an AMD GPU, the PS4 an AMD APU and the Xboxxx or whatever its called having an AMD CPU plus GPU. This will be pretty interesting and should be a boon to us PC gamers as porting between the systems should be pretty damned trivial this time, I don't know if calling these systems "octo-core" is correct though, you look at the tests of the Bulldozer arch and it really behaves more like a quad with HT than they do true cores like the Stars arch. In either case with that much horsepower we should have plenty of room for great looking and playing games, bring it on I say.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.