[hexus.net]AMD claims it will power another gaming device

[monstercameron]

This. Despite being a generation leap compared to the previous generation, both the XB360 and the PS3 were two financial train wrecks for MSFT and Sony. In this generation both players went for a low cost solution, and guess what, it seems that the financial health of both business is better than at the same time of the previous generation, and that might allow for a shorter generational cycle. If both players managed to squeeze AMD margins, that's irrelevant, they did what they had to do, and are making plenty of money as a result.

The consoles were never about bleeding edge hardware, all the consoles that tried to be bleeding edge were commercial failures. The consoles were all about affordable costs and standardized hardware. As much as the current generation is a smaller leap compared to the previous generation, it seems to be a much more profitable business, and in the end, that's the only comparison that matters.

Wow, I cant believe I am agreeing with you! where is the real mrmt?

 

[mrmt]

Wow, I cant believe I am agreeing with you! where is the real mrmt?

I'm in the same place as before, calling a commercial failure a failure and a commercial success a success.

 

[Shivansps]

This. Despite being a generation leap compared to the previous generation, both the XB360 and the PS3 were two financial train wrecks for MSFT and Sony. In this generation both players went for a low cost solution, and guess what, it seems that the financial health of both business is better than at the same time of the previous generation, and that might allow for a shorter generational cycle. If both players managed to squeeze AMD margins, that's irrelevant, they did what they had to do, and are making plenty of money as a result.

The consoles were never about bleeding edge hardware, all the consoles that tried to be bleeding edge were commercial failures. The consoles were all about affordable costs and standardized hardware. As much as the current generation is a smaller leap compared to the previous generation, it seems to be a much more profitable business, and in the end, that's the only comparison that matters.

Fair enoght, but if i can go right now, open newegg, and buy superior hardware for the same price is a sign that the hardware choice is plain BS, you also need to consider that those companys get money from the games, petty much how, for example, Epson, gets money out of consumables instead of the printers.

And you know what? i can build a superior hardware pc for about $450 and there is a lot of companys that take their share of profits of that...

Its not really AMD fault, im petty sure they offered a quad big core option, but both MS and Sony wanted octas so they can reserve hardware power for their DRM system, petty much how the PS4 "OS" reserves 2 cores and 2gb of ram...
They whould be unable to do that if they picked up a quad.

And games are now stuck having to run on 6 cores of full tablet power cpu for the next 10 years.

 

[Lepton87]

And games are now stuck having to run on 6 cores of full tablet power cpu for the next 10 years.

Only ten? Why not 15?

 

[RampantAndroid]

Fair enoght, but if i can go right now, open newegg, and buy superior hardware for the same price is a sign that the hardware choice is plain BS, you also need to consider that those companys get money from the games, petty much how, for example, Epson, gets money out of consumables instead of the printers.

And you know what? i can build a superior hardware pc for about $450 and there is a lot of companys that take their share of profits of that...

Its not really AMD fault, im petty sure they offered a quad big core option, but both MS and Sony wanted octas so they can reserve hardware power for their DRM system, petty much how the PS4 "OS" reserves 2 cores and 2gb of ram...
They whould be unable to do that if they picked up a quad.

And games are now stuck having to run on 6 cores of full tablet power cpu for the next 10 years.

I don't think that's the point, actually? First off, use only prices and hardware from release time of the consoles. Second, it isn't $450, it's $400 or less. And can you make it as small, as power efficient, quiet and have all software needed to run games and play blurays? I don't think you can.

 

[AnandThenMan]

And you know what? i can build a superior hardware pc for about $450...

Build it and post the link.

 

[tential]

Fair enoght, but if i can go right now, open newegg, and buy superior hardware for the same price is a sign that the hardware choice is plain BS, you also need to consider that those companys get money from the games, petty much how, for example, Epson, gets money out of consumables instead of the printers.

And you know what? i can build a superior hardware pc for about $450 and there is a lot of companys that take their share of profits of that...

Its not really AMD fault, im petty sure they offered a quad big core option, but both MS and Sony wanted octas so they can reserve hardware power for their DRM system, petty much how the PS4 "OS" reserves 2 cores and 2gb of ram...
They whould be unable to do that if they picked up a quad.

And games are now stuck having to run on 6 cores of full tablet power cpu for the next 10 years.

Price it out then...
Don't forget an OS...
Don't worry, I'll wait...

 

[Shivansps]

I don't think that's the point, actually? First off, use only prices and hardware from release time of the consoles. Second, it isn't $450, it's $400 or less. And can you make it as small, as power efficient, quiet and have all software needed to run games and play blurays? I don't think you can.

That makes no sence, if i buy 10 pieces of hardware, im paying for hardware cost plus profits of the 10 hardware pieces to probably 10 different companys that gets profits ONLY from hardware, if the price its even removely close it looks already very bad for both Sony and Microsoft.

 

[tential]

That makes no sence, if i buy 10 pieces of hardware, im paying for hardware cost plus profits of the 10 hardware pieces to probably 10 different companys that gets profits ONLY from hardware, if the price its even removely close it looks already very bad for both Sony and Microsoft.

Remember this quote?

Fair enoght, but if i can go right now, open newegg, and buy superior hardware for the same price

#Backtracking

 

[Shivansps]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...9SIA5AD1S71978
$39

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231739
$30

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819113286
$110

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813130657
$50

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811119269
$55

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814131545 (and 2 games)
$150

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...9SIA0AT26X2129
$45

$480, i personally dont need to buy an O.S. i have several legal licenses of Windows i can use on any pc i want. but how much could the PS4 OS costs? 10 bucks its already too much for that crap, they already charges you from every game you gona ever buy and multiplayer. I rather to live of free Windows TechNet evals.
It can be done cheapper too, the 760k is still better option.

And we are talking about the hardware.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

AMD has said console makers are already looking into the next generation of consoles and are not likely to extend beyond 5 years.

Since they're already announcing that, Sony/MS/Nintendo probably like what they see and may have another AMD X86 solution in the planning stages. This would hopefully mean backwards compatible games and applications. That would make the next batch of systems very desirable. I felt compelled to buy a Wii to play my old GameCube games for the Progressive Scan mode alone, in addition to Wii games and apps. Now that I've modded two of those systems, it's my most used gaming device behind my PC.

 

[AnandThenMan]

$480

Where's the controllers? You only included one memory module so add another $30. You also forgot a wifi card. And look at the form factor you expect the Playstation to be that large? Lulz. No OS either.

 

[Shivansps]

Where's the controllers? You only included one memory module so add another $30. You also forgot a wifi card. And look at the form factor you expect the Playstation to be that large? Lulz. No OS either.

You can buy them with the $50 PS plus cost, that you are petty much forced to buy and pay per year, and wifi? really? those adapters cost about 3 bucks off ebay, and as i said before, it can be done cheapper too, the 760K is STILL better option. Also remember that ive not looking for better deals elsewhere, newegg is not always the cheaper source.

You are digging for excuses, the real hardware cost of all of that as to be about 70% or less the rest is profit for each OEM, something that does not happen when you buy from Sony, and thats the point here, if they got the cheap jaguar SOC from AMD to save costs, making 1 device specially designed to make it cheap on every corner, and still get, lets say, 30% profit, there is something really wrong if you can get a similar or better system for 100 bucks more buying diferent parts from different OEMs, on launch day it was about the same.

They either getting an insane profit margin or their picked up the octa only because it allowed hardware to be reserved for their DRM system.

 

[AnandThenMan]

Bottom line is you know how to build a console better than Sony or Microsoft.

 

[monstercameron]

Bottom line is you know how to build a console better than Sony or Microsoft.

that was harsh man, lighten up maybe under the right circumstances the costs will even out. :/

 

[AnandThenMan]

Is that not what he is saying? If not then I don't know what the argument here is. Sony went with the fastest hardware available for the cost it's that simple. They could have built a $600 BOM device but they decided not to eat the costs this generation and actually make money for a change.

 

[mrmt]

And you know what? i can build a superior hardware pc for about $450 and there is a lot of companys that take their share of profits of that...

Yes, you can, and probably end up assembling and testing it yourself, something not acceptable for a mass market consumer device. Plus you are comparing the costs of the console today, at the beginning of their lifespan, against PC hardware that is mostly mainstream, and mostly made for high volume, e.g., made to be cheap.

Plus no matter how good your PC is, there are some business features that your PC cannot match in a console:

- Standardized hardware for the entire lifespan of the console

- A software ecosystem and hardware built from the ground up with anti-piracy measures

Its not really AMD fault, im petty sure they offered a quad big core option, but both MS and Sony wanted octas so they can reserve hardware power for their DRM system, petty much how the PS4 "OS" reserves 2 cores and 2gb of ram...

It's clear that AMD could have sold the console makers better tech, but, were they willing to pay for it, or was this technology feasible in terms of TTM? AMD was the IHV, but in this case the OEMs had extreme power to determine the performance characteristics of the hardware, they did, and accepted AMD's technical approach. The OEMs are the one to take the blame, not AMD on this one.

 

[mrmt]

$480, i personally dont need to buy an O.S. i have several legal licenses of Windows i can use on any pc i want. but how much could the PS4 OS costs? 10 bucks its already too much for that crap, they already charges you from every game you gona ever buy and multiplayer. I rather to live of free Windows TechNet evals.

That's Valve's bet, that the cost of equivalent PC hardware will be very close of the cost of the console hardware, and because of that it's only a matter of giving some of the business features of consoles to a PC and you have a PC Console. So far they haven't been successful. DRM is one of the reasons, the others is that to support the PC ecosystem you need a much thicker API or else you'll end up having Mantle-like snafus (like launching a slightly different card and the API not working), and that ends up raising up the costs for supporting the ecosystem.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Is that not what he is saying? If not then I don't know what the argument here is. Sony went with the fastest hardware available for the cost it's that simple. They could have built a $600 BOM device but they decided not to eat the costs this generation and actually make money for a change.

They do still have a loss on the consoles. And Sony posted a loss of 400M$ sofar in their financials relating to the PS4. Games however will change that, over time.

People easily confuse factory BOM with actual cost. Hence the notion that they made money on the hardware.

 

[cbn]

That's Valve's bet, that the cost of equivalent PC hardware will be very close of the cost of the console hardware, and because of that it's only a matter of giving some of the business features of consoles to a PC and you have a PC Console. So far they haven't been successful. DRM is one of the reasons, the others is that to support the PC ecosystem you need a much thicker API or else you'll end up having Mantle-like snafus (like launching a slightly different card and the API not working), and that ends up raising up the costs for supporting the ecosystem.

Also another thing to factor into about Valve games is that they can run on some really low spec hardware.

$500 worth of hardware is not needed to run their games at this time. Although certainly a nice video card will allow the eye candy to be turned up, I find Valve games to look quite good at low settings provided native resolution is used.

As I mentioned earlier in this post, A Steam Box that can run the Valve complete Pack @ 1080p low (on Linux) can be built with sale priced parts for almost half the price of a used Play Station 3.

 

[cbn]

They do still have a loss on the consoles. And Sony posted a loss of 400M$ sofar in their financials relating to the PS4. Games however will change that, over time.

People easily confuse factory BOM with actual cost. Hence the notion that they made money on the hardware.

Valve has a great position IMO with so many retired Core 2 era slim form factor desktops just floating around out there.

In fact, I even wonder if a Xeon x3323 (as cheap as it is) is required for good performance on CS:GO for Linux? (As I recall MSI afterburner 4.0.0 didn't show the cpu cores being pegged when I played the game under Windows) Maybe even a E6850, E8400 or E8500 (all very cheap right now) are sufficent for CS;GO on Linux ? I'll have to check out that eventually.

 

[mrmt]

Also another thing to factor into about Valve games is that they can run on some really low spec hardware.

Not sure if this is really relevant. The amount of people interested in buy machines just for playing the Valve packs is tiny small. Valve needs an ecosystem, not a pack of games, and Valve's low hardware requirements is really distant from being standard on the PC ecosystem.

 

[mrmt]

They do still have a loss on the consoles. And Sony posted a loss of 400M$ sofar in their financials relating to the PS4. Games however will change that, over time.

People easily confuse factory BOM with actual cost. Hence the notion that they made money on the hardware.

This has changed:

http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/financial/fr/14q2_sony.pdf

(...)

Sales increased 83.2% year-on-year (a 74% increase on a constant currency basis) to 309.5 billion yen (2,839 million U.S. dollars). This significant increase was primarily due to the contribution from PS4 hardware sales, a significant increase in network services revenue related to the introduction of the PS4 and the contribution from PS4 software sales, partially offset by a decrease in PlayStation®3 (“PS3&#8221 hardware and PS3 software sales. Sales to external customers increased 97.0% year-on-year.

Operating income of 21.8 billion yen (200 million U.S. dollars) was recorded, compared to an operating loss of 4.2 billion yen in the same quarter of the previous fiscal year. This significant improvement was primarily due to the impact of the above-mentioned increase in sales related to the introduction of the PS4, partially offset by the impact of the above-mentioned decrease in PS3 software sales.

It seems that Sony is able to make money selling hardware.

 

[cbn]

Not sure if this is really relevant. The amount of people interested in buy machines just for playing the Valve packs is tiny small. Valve needs an ecosystem, not a pack of games, and Valve's low hardware requirements is really distant from being standard on the PC ecosystem.

Here is the list of Linux games on Steam:

http://store.steampowered.com/search/?term=&sort_by=_ASC&os=linux&page=1

Now some of those games will have higher hardware requirements than the Valve Complete Pack (Metro 2033 Redux and Metro Last Light Redux come to mind), but a vast majority of those indie Linux titles should run just fine on anything that is able to run the Valve Complete Pack.

 

[ShintaiDK]

This has changed:



It seems that Sony is able to make money selling hardware.

I only see software and hardware sales mixed together?

the PS4 and the contribution from PS4 software sales