Originally posted by: BenSkywalker
For XBox the problem is UMA, for PS2 a x86 emulating the EE(custom MIPS) is significantly more difficult then going the other way. Besides that though, emulators for the older consoles are working fairly decently(outside of the N64 which shouldn't be surprising trying to emulate a 64bit MIPS on a x86).
Actually, from comments that I read recently from one of the MAME developers, who is also a MIPS asm guy, it's much easier to get x86 to emulate MIPS, than it is to get MIPS to emulate x86. (There are several dynamically-recompiling MIPS cores targeting x86 hosts in MAME, as well as a few others emus that do either dynamic or static recompiliation of MIPS. The thing that makes emulation of MIPS easy and x86 hard, is both the load-store architecture and moreso the regular opcode sizes. Not sure if any of those cores emulate the TLB or cache though.)
Originally posted by: BenSkywalker
Which one are you talking about? I suppose that should be clarified first as I was thinking of Abe's Exodus which was scheduled to be a XB exclusive for launch.
Well, whichever game was the third in the series, and one of the initial XBox launch titles. I don't own an Xbox, so I don't own the game. I was kind of sad that the PS2 port was cancelled, as I was looking forward to being able to own the whole collection, eventually. There was an interview in one of the gaming mags about it some weeks or months before the Xbox release, discussing why the game which was originally being designed to be multi-platform, had the PS2 port cancelled. Although they claimed that the lack of mip-mapping hardware in the PS2 was one of the major technical reasons, I just can't help but think that MS needed some "AAA" exclusive launch titles, and handed them a bag of money to "make it so" for Xbox. (At least that's my personal suspicion - similar things have happened in the past.)
Originally posted by: BenSkywalker
Huh? So you are saying, that a console developer that is not a mfg, and bases their revenue off of licensing fees, is automatically going to result in a console that debuts at a $700 price-point, and fails to acquire significant market-share, and then loses developer market-share, which causes a cascade and then they finally get wiped off the map when the "next big console" enters the market?
You have things all confused it sounds like. If the licensing fees for the games on a console go to someone other then the company in charge of manufacturing/distributing the console then you are assured that it will be priced well out of the typical price range.
No, you do. You claimed that the reason for the 3DO's extremely high initial retail price-point, was because the 3DO company followed a licensing-based business model. Not because the hardware was simply just too damn expensive at the time to build. The only reason for you to believe that there is such a strong correlation, is because you refuse to admit that MS is the only console maker that willingly bleeds red ink to gain market share, and, over the lifetime of the console, no other mfg takes a loss on the hardware.
Is Sony currently taking a loss on their new "PSTwo" hardware? What about over the entire PS2 hardware line, over its lifetime? I think that you might be surprised to learn that hardware companies aren't as stupid as you seem to think that they are, regarding long term pricing and profits. Japanese companies are well-known for their long-term approach to markets.
Interestingly, when the PSX was introduced, the group that sold the PSX hardware, was a totally seperate sub-company within Sony than the one responsible for software licensing.
Originally posted by: BenSkywalker
The high costs to mfg the 3DO are what killed it, plain and simple.
No, it isn't.
Sorry, the high initial retail costs to purchase, which destroyed their potential market-share by slowing the uptake of the console into their target market, which killed their installed-base numbers, which caused defections among developer-support, which eventually killed the console stone dead. But that chain was started by the initial high costs of mfg. (Unless you are suggesting that the console actually cost much less to mfg, and 3DO or Matsushita were price-gouging by nearly an order-of-magnitude on the retail price.)
Originally posted by: BenSkywalker
Nintendo, AFAIK, has never sold a console at a loss, and they've been a leader in the console business for quite some time.
Using the particular definition that applies to the console industry they haven't sold a console at a loss prior to the DS, but first you need to realize their definition of the term. It is determined that you are selling a console at a loss if you sell it for less then it costs you to manufacture it, but that completely ignores the direct distribution methods that all of the console manufacturers utilize. They hide the margins and costs that should be there, and these are significant.
So you are saying that I'm wrong in my assertions, and that in fact, all console makers ever,
have sold the hardware at a loss (not just immediately at introduction - but also amortized over the entire lifetime of the console in the market), they've just "cooked their books" to hide that fact. *cough* bull *cough*
(For one thing, the FTC would be on their ass for "dumping", you know how protective they are of US companies and quick to investigate Korean and Japanese companies - just look at what happened recently with the various DRAM mfgs.)
Originally posted by: BenSkywalker
Sony doesn't do that - what they do is take a small loss in the beginning on the hardware, but that loss can be amortized over the life of the console, through multiple cost-cutting mfg revisions, so that they eventually turn a profit, overall, over the life of the console.
No, they make their money off of the royalties they recieve from software sales period.
So you are saying, that Sony doesn't introduce cost-cutting mfg revisions, over the life of the console?
That developments such as higher integration and chip die shrinks don't lower their costs?
That eventually, their cost to mfg the hardware, does NOT drop below the retail prices, and allow them to make a profit off of the hardware, in such a manner that, amortized over the lifetime of that console platform, they make money off of the hardware too? *cough*
(It's especially funny that you accuse one of the world's biggest consumer-electronics makers of not knowing or being able to make money off of their hardware somehow - does Sony sell their DVD players at a loss too, only to make up the difference from DVD licensing fees? Or, likewise for their SACD players, since that is a more proprietary format that Sony controls..? I don't think so.)
Originally posted by: BenSkywalker
That simply wasn't possible with the Xbox, which started its life built around commoditized low-tier PC parts,
The NV2A was higher end then any graphics chip you could get in any x86 PC at any cost when it launched, not exactly low tier.
Ben, what the
hell does the technical level of capability of one of the parts, have to do with the
mfg costs of building the unit? Nothing! (At least directly speaking, here.) OEM contract-mfg deals aren't like retail price structures for graphics cards, there isn't a huge initial hump that customers have to pay for the "latest and greatest" - the overall cost of R&D and production over the life of the contract, plus the profit margin, are all figured in ahead of time into the contract's price. MS made a crucial mistake in designing their console hardware around "commodity" PC parts - at that point in their lifetimes, most of the possible overhead in mfg costs has already been driven out, there's not much room to go any lower. That is in marked contrast to the vertically-integrated mfg'ing that most console makers use, which allows them to cut costs at every mfg revision, usually.
Originally posted by: BenSkywalker
Btw, the cost for the Xbox at launch was estimated to be more around $400-450, not $700, as was the retail price of the 3DO when it was first introduced.
And now we get in to a bit of how distribution works in a capitalist market, particularly how it normally operates in contrast to the console industry.
If you take a look at a Sony Walkman it is built at the factory and then a price of sale to a distributor is set. That price would tend to factor in a 20% margin over the cost of making the product(this obviously is not straight profit as their are corporate expenses, R&D costs to cover, factory maintenance marketing etc). From the distributor it heads to a wholesaler who then will add a 20% margin to the price sending it out to the retailer who then adds a 20% margin to that price. You take a Walkman that costs Sony $45 to produce and you end up with $45-$54-$64.80-$77.76. That is how product moves for a typical consumer device. BTW- For the last few years my job revolves around precisely this issue(distribution), feel free if you want to get in to the finer nuances of where exactly these costs are incurred at each level).
I know what the "standard markup" levels are, at least at the retail levels, for computer component parts. They sure as heck aren't 20%, not these days. Also, the numbers aren't a nice even 20%/20%/20%, not usually. The mfg usually makes nearly %30-40, wholesaler, say %15, and retailer, well, depending on what it is, anywhere from 3% to 20%. At least from my experiences, and my discussions with people in the past that have had offshore production contracts.
Originally posted by: BenSkywalker
Now if we were to take the production estimates for the XBox at launch it would have ended up retailing for $691.20-$777.60 based on a normal business model for consumer goods
Actually, I think I may still have a saved article from EETimes about an estimated mfg-cost analysis that was done on the console at launch. You're a bit off on your numbers as compared to that article. Way off. MS was
not losing nearly $350/unit at launch.
Originally posted by: BenSkywalker
but the console market doesn't work that way for obvious reasons. MS controls inventory up until the retail level and when it hits that level they mandate a price that leaves less then 3% margins for retailers- something they normally wouldn't tollerate but the level of return on the software makes it worth their while.
That much I agree on - there is next to no retail margin on consoles, and retailers stock them only because they do make some margin on the games. But that's retailers, not mfgs. (It's also why console hardware prices seem so "fixed" everywhere, and when a store closes and things go on clearance, the first thing that disappears are the game consoles - either because it's so rare that they are discounted off of MSRP, or in many cases they are shipped back, rather than sold at a loss.)
Originally posted by: BenSkywalker
LOL. There have been quite a number of quarters where their PS2 division was bleeding red ink. I would be very surprised to hear that it was either the most, or only, profitable division of the company.
This is one of the reasons this post took so long for me to get to. You don't follow the industry at all do you?
What in the world does that have to do with whatever delay you might have had replying to my post? Ben, you're too much sometimes.
Originally posted by: BenSkywalker
Sony's FInancials.
This covers the last three years so we can take that as a good start.
For FY 02 Sony electronics lost(net loss) 1 Billion Yen
For FY 03 Sony electronics made(net income) 41 Billion Yen
For FY 04 Sony electronics lost 35 Billion Yen
For FY 02 Sony Gaming made 83 Billion Yen
For FY 03 Sony Gaming made 113 Billion Yen
For FY 04 Sony Gaming made 68 Billion Yen
For the three years ending with FY 04 outside of the games division the Movie division of Sony had the best results in FY 03 posting net income of 59 Billion Yen(only 9 Billion shy of the Gaming divisions worst year in that timeframe). When I stated Sony's gaming division carried the company I stated that as a point of fact which Sony's financials back up. Realize you are not debating me on this, you are debating reality. Don't say you would 'be surprised'- try looking something up before you decide to laugh at a factual comment in the future.
Why don't you dig up the numbers for the two first years of the PS2's introduction. The context of the question was over the lifetime of the PS2, and for the first two years or so, give or take a few quarters, Sony was bleeding red ink. Bigtime. Which matches with my statement above.
Originally posted by: BenSkywalker
The financials speak for themselves- Sony's gaming division dominates the company in terms of profits.
Then that proves your original statement wrong, you claimed that the division of Sony that was responsible for the PS2, was the
only division making money. Not the
most profitable. Nice historical revisionism there.
Originally posted by: BenSkywalker
Unless the GPU and the CPU are on the same piece of silicon, then I don't see "effortless" (nearly-zero-cost) load-balancing between the GPU's shader-pipelines and the CPU's pipelines happening.
Check up the expected amount of eDRAM on the parts is all I can say to that.
What does the amount of eDRAM matter,
if they are not on the same piece of silicon, Ben? There is this little matter of "physics", and "interconnect bandwidth". It doesn't matter how much cache that you have accessable locally, on-die, if you have to go off-chip to grab some data,
it's definately not zero-cost. How you can debate that, is beyond me.
Whether the GPU and CPU are
actually going to be on the same die, I do not know. But the only way that they could implement truely zero-cost load-balancing is if they are. However given mfg costs, I somehow doubt that, unless they can fit in a die-shrink of the chips before release, although MS is going to be pushing them to move the release date forward. MS wants as much market-share as they can get, and my understanding is that they want to release first if possible. (And why Nintendo begged them to slow down the release cycle of their console generations.)
Originally posted by: BenSkywalker
Well, considering that PC graphics hardware includes hardware-accelerated decompression features, and PS2 hardware didn't, you would think that PC games would require less RAM for art assets than PS2 games, not more.
The EE was more then capable of handling texture decompression on the fly. I can point you to developers for that platform that can explain exactly how to do it if you'd like(B3D's console forums have numerous devs that are regulars, this particular topic was of much interest a while ago).
But first, you need to get it off of the disc, into RAM, before you can decompress it using software. They're not going to stall the EE waiting for the disc. If you are using the EE to decompress it, then you are chewing up precious cycles that could be used for something else in your game. Also, that you could do it in software doesn't change the fact that there is no
hardware-accellerated support for texture decompression in the PS2.
Originally posted by: BenSkywalker
I would hardly call the PC gaming market these days, "miniscule". In fact, in terms of wall shelf-space at my local EB, the PC games take up as much or more room than several of the current console games' selection does.
My EB is the same, but that doesn't change the marketplace reality that console games outsell PC games roughly five to one in the US, and in relative terms the US market is the strongest one for PC games. Again, you can laugh at this if you so choose but you would be better served to look it up first
Why would I? It sounds relatively correct, but it doesn't somehow prove that the PC games market is "miniscule". I think relative shelf-space given by one of the leading retailers to those markets is a fairly weighty indicator of the market, EB doesn't give huge swathes of precious shelf-space to items that aren't selling.
There's no way that I would ever dispute that the console games market is bigger than the PC games market, but in terms of relative proportion between the two, the PC games market is growing. The fact that PC gaming
hardware has been advancing as fast as it has the last few years is proof of that too, and if things continue along that path, it will push the prices of console units up, to the point that PC gaming might eclipse console gaming, in terms of high-end experiences. At that point, console gaming will no longer be "cutting-edge" at all, but simply only as a low-budget cut-rate alternative to the mainstream PC gaming market. (It used to be the opposite, action games on the PC were often budget cut-rate ports of their superior arcade and console brethren.)
Originally posted by: BenSkywalker
I just don't see them moving so much towards procedural textures, this quickly, that they would outright drop support for standard texture-mapping features.
I'm not saying they certainly will, but it is a viable route for them to take given their computational power.
Especially when you look at how a lot of the graphical effects are doing in games like Tekken Tag, Tekken 4, and Tekken 5, on the PS2 and equivalent arcade hardware. Lots of clever evironment- and light-mapping tricks.
Necessity can make you do lots of things. They figured out a way to work within the confines of the architecture. If the PS3 is horribly RAM limited then moving to procedural texturing could very well be the best way to work within the confines of the hardware to give optimal results.
Ok, those two things make sense, but I still don't see them as motivation for dropping texmapping support entirely. I guess we'll have to see, when they are finally unveiled.
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