Next Xbox "to have 16 core processor"

[Flailing Escapist]

16 core processors! That's like 6 mass effect field generators, two whole hyperdrives or a dozen Sigil stones! Combined!!!

I'm just kidding, I have no idea what that means but from the comments I gather we might just be able to power our very own oblivion gate with that technological monstrosity.

 

[viranimus]

Its going to have 4 motherboards and 32 rams and 3 internets too, right?

Yes, were totally going to try to force hardware configuration that has not even been utilized in a desktop format for mass market yet, when the current console was noted for massive failure rates due to astronomical heat issues.

If this is the alternative can we go back to the no used games nonsense?

Wait? is this based in the Unreal 4 engine quote on wikipedia?

Sweeney gave a speech at PoPL06 (the Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages) that described aspects of how the Unreal Engine 3 worked at the time and "what we would like to write" in the future. He predicted the next generation of games consoles would arrive in 2009, at which time game designers would work with CPUs that had 20 or more cores, 80 or more hardware threads, and more than a teraflops of computing power

 

[razer17]

The challenge for Sony and Microsoft then, is improving the hardware, but still making a profit, or at least breaking even on each console sold.

No it's not. The aim for the first half of the generation's life span is to sell at a loss to give a larger install base then recoup money via development licencing for games.

That was their aim last time. However, I think considering the power of the current Xbox and PS3, they should be able to minimise spending whilst still making a product that's considerably more powerful than what they have now. Certainly I doubt Sony wants to loss lead to the extent it did with the PS3 launch. They made a huge loss on every one of the early PS3's they sold, and the execs will be looking at making sure they minimise their losses compared to then. Especially with the new financial details they revealed today, making record losses.

 

[broadbandaddict]

It's pointless trying to guess what the retail model will have going off the devkit console anyway except for the basic type of CPU and possibly the expected generation of GPU because in all ways it will be massively overpowered compared to the retail model. A devkit console is just a RISC-based workstation stuffed in a custom box usually running 2 OS, the console's OS and one that's useful for actual development, probably a flavour of Unix seeing as it's a RISC box. As a workstation, it'll be running $2k-5k worth of kit inside which you can guarantee is not representative of what the retail model will have, especially as not only do they need extra power so they can 'scale down' to make things fit on a retail console but because they don't have half the custom kit the retail model will they have to do a lot of resource intensive emulation. (This isn't directly aimed at you as you probably already know all this)

So the NextBox is gonna be running a PowerPC CPU and most likely a custom 7000 series AMD GPU. Big woop... PowerPC CPU is pretty much a given and the GPU is no surprise. My grandmother could have guessed that and she's not only not technologically inclined but has been dead for 20 years. Might as well get excited about it using controllers.

Learn something new everyday.

The only rumor I've heard that seemed fairly interesting is that Sony is teaming up with AMD for the next PS3. A custom motherboard will be built that is dual socket. One for the new x86 based PS4 processor and one for the Cell processor out of the PS3 for backwards compatibility. That seemed pretty cool.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

More cores does not always equal better/faster. I wish people would learn to realize this. It all depends on the specs.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

The challenge for Sony and Microsoft then, is improving the hardware, but still making a profit, or at least breaking even on each console sold.

No it's not. The aim for the first half of the generation's life span is to sell at a loss to give a larger install base then recoup money via development licencing for games.

That was their aim last time. However, I think considering the power of the current Xbox and PS3, they should be able to minimise spending whilst still making a product that's considerably more powerful than what they have now. Certainly I doubt Sony wants to loss lead to the extent it did with the PS3 launch. They made a huge loss on every one of the early PS3's they sold, and the execs will be looking at making sure they minimise their losses compared to then. Especially with the new financial details they revealed today, making record losses.

They don't have a choice.

Unless they're supremely confident in both the market and the 'loyalty' of their customers, they'd be insane to try it because without Loss Leader sales they're going to be in direct price competition with gaming PCs.

Even with Loss Lead, with all the tech rumoured for the next generation the launch prices are going to make the PS3's launch price seem like a fond memory.

 

[2733]

16 core processors! That's like 6 mass effect field generators, two whole hyperdrives or a dozen Sigil stones! Combined!!!

I'm just kidding, I have no idea what that means but from the comments I gather we might just be able to power our very own oblivion gate with that technological monstrosity.

Ah...I see, Microsoft's answer to the wiiu is actual monsters to fight, now THAT is hard core motion controls.

that aside, isn't saying 16 cores a bit like saying 16 guns. without mentioning if they are .22s or .44s?

 

[Uber Waddles]

The next Xbox, the 16 Core totting anti-used-games cartridge based system that is 3D and movement activated.

Its nice that people are interested enough to make rumors, but thats just it.

If and when we do get a new console, it will probably have considerable power. Were working with outdated technology right now, to the point where its weird. The next step up is going to have to be a step up if people really want to push a higher quality of games. Which means we will see a boost in not only console gaming, but PC gaming tech as well.

That doesnt mean it will have 16 Cores though. It very well might, but who knows. Its a rumor, let the official release detail all this information, if and when it comes

 

[51gunner]

So one core per player that most Xbox games will play online? (Some games may go down to a half-core per player, or force players to play as Archons).

 

[Flailing Escapist]

16 core processors! That's like 6 mass effect field generators, two whole hyperdrives or a dozen Sigil stones! Combined!!!

I'm just kidding, I have no idea what that means but from the comments I gather we might just be able to power our very own oblivion gate with that technological monstrosity.

Ah...I see, Microsoft's answer to the wiiu is actual monsters to fight, now THAT is hard core motion controls.

that aside, isn't saying 16 cores a bit like saying 16 guns. without mentioning if they are .22s or .44s?

Will it matter? A gun's a gun and we're going to need as many as we can get to fight off all those daedra (and the occasional pesky adventurer). But we'd only need one boomstick, another 15 boomsticks would just be unneccasary. Unless, of course, it was 16 player co-op - in which case it makes perfect sense.

[sub]captcha: that's right
Even captcha agrees with me[/sub]

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

This will either be horribly expensive, or will have horrible over heating problems if these rumors are true.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

The only rumor I've heard that seemed fairly interesting is that Sony is teaming up with AMD for the next PS3. A custom motherboard will be built that is dual socket. One for the new x86 based PS4 processor and one for the Cell processor out of the PS3 for backwards compatibility. That seemed pretty cool.

Cool but highly doubtful. It would be a resource pig as you'd need 2 different OSes, one for the Cell processor (RISC CPU) and one for the x86 (CISC CPU)... basically it'd be building a PS3 inside a PS4 and the 2 would never communicate. It'd be a dual boot OS set up.

Plus Sony already played around with hardware based backwards compatibility in the original model PS3... and shitcanned it as way too expensive.

There's also the issue of why a console manufacturer would risk using a x86 CPU when that's pretty much an open invitation for the PC based hackers, crackers and general ne'er-do-wells to pull your shit apart for emulation and possibly outright OS copying. It represents a MASSIVE potential security flaw... bigger than the one that saw Sony kill 'Other OS' on the PS3.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

That doesnt mean it will have 16 Cores though.

The fact that the devkit has 16 cores makes almost certain the retail model won't.

 

[Zeh Don]

16 Cores is a nice way to future-proof their console; they want the next generation to last longer than this one, or at least equal it.
Considering this is the longest "Generation" so far, they need to make sure their console can keep up with advances in technology long after it has shipped. It means a high introduction price, however it also means the console will stay relevant for a long time post-launch.

 

[wintercoat]

16 core processors! That's like 6 mass effect field generators, two whole hyperdrives or a dozen Sigil stones! Combined!!!

I'm just kidding, I have no idea what that means but from the comments I gather we might just be able to power our very own oblivion gate with that technological monstrosity.

Ah...I see, Microsoft's answer to the wiiu is actual monsters to fight, now THAT is hard core motion controls.

that aside, isn't saying 16 cores a bit like saying 16 guns. without mentioning if they are .22s or .44s?

Will it matter? A gun's a gun and we're going to need as many as we can get to fight off all those daedra (and the occasional pesky adventurer). But we'd only need one boomstick, another 15 boomsticks would just be unneccasary. Unless, of course, it was 16 player co-op - in which case it makes perfect sense.

[sub]captcha: that's right
Even captcha agrees with me[/sub]

Two boomsticks. People in Tamriel have recently evolved the ability to dual-wield, remember?

 

[Flailing Escapist]

Two boomsticks. People in Tamriel have recently evolved the ability to dual-wield, remember?

I think that might just be the Nords. Last time I was in Cyrodiil those old clogs were still restricted to just one boomstick and maybe a shield.

Still... I'm not sure you'd need to wield two boomsticks even if you could. Double lightsabes maybe, fuck, I need to check my dungeon master's guide again so we can get some equivalency here.

 

[broadbandaddict]

The only rumor I've heard that seemed fairly interesting is that Sony is teaming up with AMD for the next PS3. A custom motherboard will be built that is dual socket. One for the new x86 based PS4 processor and one for the Cell processor out of the PS3 for backwards compatibility. That seemed pretty cool.

Cool but highly doubtful. It would be a resource pig as you'd need 2 different OSes, one for the Cell processor (RISC CPU) and one for the x86 (CISC CPU)... basically it'd be building a PS3 inside a PS4 and the 2 would never communicate. It'd be a dual boot OS set up.

Plus Sony already played around with hardware based backwards compatibility in the original model PS3... and shitcanned it as way too expensive.

There's also the issue of why a console manufacturer would risk using a x86 CPU when that's pretty much an open invitation for the PC based hackers, crackers and general ne'er-do-wells to pull your shit apart for emulation and possibly outright OS copying. It represents a MASSIVE potential security flaw... bigger than the one that saw Sony kill 'Other OS' on the PS3.

Yeah I dunno, I thought the dual socket thing sounded neat.

Switching to x86 or x64 processors though would be good wouldn't it? I mean you would cheap parts that are already developed and ready to go instead of pumping out another Cell processor and losing $600 a console at the start. Then couple that with a semi-modern 7000 or 8000 series GPU and good to go. Easy to produce and cheap parts.

 

[razer17]

They don't have a choice.

Unless they're supremely confident in both the market and the 'loyalty' of their customers, they'd be insane to try it because without Loss Leader sales they're going to be in direct price competition with gaming PCs.

Even with Loss Lead, with all the tech rumoured for the next generation the launch prices are going to make the PS3's launch price seem like a fond memory.

I did say that there challenge is to make it as near to being profitable as possible. Considering the advances in technology since the last generation was released, building something much more powerful than the 360 shouldn't require cost as much as it did then. Even if they do release with a loss leader, I still don't think it will be as expensive for them as when this console generation was released, unless they really do put some of the rumoured tech in, which I doubt they will.

 

[MrTub]

Awesome that the new consoles will apparently cost around 5-10.000$ finally I can use the arguement that consoles cost more upfront then pcs. Yay.

Spoiler

bullshit rumors is bullshit

 

[Dryk]

More cores does not always equal better/faster. I wish people would learn to realize this. It all depends on the specs.

And whether or not developers bother to optimise for 16 cores

Also it's still going to be relatively contempary tech. No matter how far they try their CPU, GPU, RAM and storage will all be massively outdated in six years if it's going to be at all economical.

EDIT: And how many of those 16 would realistically work. The PS3 was initially touted as 8 core, ended up as 6 core for applications + 1 for OS