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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Why PS4 won't be cutting edge, and neither will Xbox3 - or Why Nintendo might win next gen

 

Is my reasoning sound?

Hellz yeah! Spot on 265 33.42%
 
I never thought of it like that.... 69 8.70%
 
So it's the mental institution next for you? 101 12.74%
 
So very, very wrong 266 33.54%
 
I'm a pussy with no opinion 88 11.10%
 
Total:789
kingwandymion on 26 November 2012

tablets have taken over, DEAL WITH IT!!!



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Heavenly_King on 26 November 2012
kingwandymion said:
tablets have taken over, DEAL WITH IT!!!

Android OS should implement Trophies XD.



Open World-Survival-Game Days Gone

JEMC on 27 November 2012
HappySqurriel said:
JEMC said:
HappySqurriel said:

What I was suggesting is that they would have to take significantly larger losses to preserve their price point ...

Nintendo is not incompetent and it is unlikely that Sony or Microsoft could produce a dramatically more powerful system than they could for the same price using the same amount of energy. So, if Nintendo is spending 50% more to manufacturer the system (excluding the controller) and it is using twice the electricity it is moderately safe to assume that Sony and Microsoft would need to increase their manufacturing cost by at least 50% and use at least twice as much electricity to maintain their processing power advantage. Suppose Microsoft los $100 per XBox 360 at $300/$400 meaning their manufacturing cost was $400/$500, if it costs 50% more to maintain their processing power advantage the manufacturing cost increases to $600/$750 and Microsoft loses $300/$350 per system sold; even by Microsoft standards that is insane.

I see, but I disagree.

You are taking those numbers taking the WiiU as your baseline and while you can do that, you should also take into consideration how Nintendo works. Nintendo focus on low power consumption and that bring extra costs that the competition don't have. For example they said that they went with the MCM to save energy and space and that goingthat route was more expensive. Msoft and Sony will launch with 2 chips and will only try to get them fit into 1 later in the lifetime of their consoles.

And let's look at it from another point of view. Microsoft. When they launched the 360 it was based on high spec'ed parts. They went for the best they could manage (cost, heat, etc) and went for it and that made them lose those $100 per unit. Now they won't be able to do that because the high spec'ed components of nowadays are out of the reach for a console, mainly because of heat. So they will have to deal with, at best, the second tiers for each category. Add that to the fact that Nintendo made their hardware decisions in 2008 (hence why the rumors of and HD4000 based GPU) while the other have made their decisions in 2010 or 2011 and you end in an scenario were their console can be much more powerful while not being astronomically expensive.

Or to put it in another way, WiiU costs $180 to make losing only a few dollars. Msoft could make a console for twice the cost and sell it for $300 losing only the same hundred dollars that last gen.

I just see it as a balancing act between 3 variables, power, energy consumption and cost ... Nintendo increased cost and power consumption moderately in order to increase processing power. For Sony and Microsoft to preserve their advantage in processing power they have to make concessions in either energy consumption or cost.

 

Now, I'm not claiming that Sony or Microsoft can't produce a significantly more powerful system, I'm just saying their systems will likely have a smaller processing power advantage than the PS3 or XBox 360 did. I'm personally of the opinion that both manufacturers are going to release $400 systems that are similar in size and energy consumption as the slim version of their previous generation console, and they will probably be about 3 to 4 times as powerful as the Wii U; much beyond that in terms of processing power will likely result in being too expensive or running too hot as a home console.

I agree that the difference between PS4/Nextbox and WiiU won't be as big as the one between PS360 and Wii, but even if that difference is "only" x3, that's more than enough to make some games not possible to run on WiiU. Specially big, open worlds that need loads of RAM.



Please excuse my bad English.

Currently gaming on a PC with an i5-4670k@stock (for now), 16Gb RAM 1600 MHz and a GTX 1070

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Squilliam on 27 November 2012
HappySqurriel said:
Two things that are not being taken into consideration by most people are energy consumption and cost ...

The Wii U draws over twice as much power as the Wii did while running New Super Mario U and may draw more power than that on graphically demanding games; and the Wii U sells for $350 while taking a small loss while the Wii sold for $250 while turning a modest profit. While the Wii U controller costs more than a Wiimote + Nunchuck, it is reasonable to assume that the Wii U system probably costs about 50% more to manufacture than the Wii system.

There are usually diminishing returns in increasing cost and energy consumption to increase processing power, so to maintain their processing power advantage you would expect greater relative increases in energy consumption and cost on the PS4 and XBox 720. Although I could be wrong, I would expect to maintain the same relative processing power advantage Sony and Microsoft would need to launch $500+ systems that used more than 300 Watts ... something I doubt would be popular

Why wouldn't they be able to release a console for $399 which consumes say 150W at the wall? They can already sell the Xbox 360 which consumes about 100W for $249 for a profit so why couldn't they sell a console for $149 more with even more advanced technology and come close to breaking even? You don't know how Nintendo arrived at their cost structure or how they allocated their fixed costs and you don't know the listing price or if any early subsidies will apply for the Xbox/Playstation consoles and yet you claim that they can't release a console which is significantly more powerful by merely taking advantage of up to date technology?



Tease.

HoloDust on 27 November 2012
DanneSandin said:
HoloDust said:

You do realize that, right now, you can buy $450 PC, with pretty much the same components rumoured PS4 will use, that is around 3x as powerful as WiiU? Those $450 include manufecturer's and retailer's profit. So in a year from now, those $450 should be, I don't know, $350? I really don't see Sony being in trouble by not being able to make decently powerful console, or loosing money on it. Same power as NextBox? I doubt it, but I'm not sure even MS with all their money can afford to go over 1.5x of that.

But those components will be tailored to Sonys needs... And that probably will up the costs, as will R%D - all going into the costs of the console... You and me have the benefit of not cosumizing our parts and spending ton of money on research...

Honestly, I don't think there will be too much customization there - some, yes, but nothing that would skyrocket R&D. It seems guts of these next-gen consoles will be pretty much made of off-the-shelf components, and not even top notch ones while we're at it. What might increase cost is, for example, EyeToy 2 and break-apart DualShock/Move capable controler shipped with every PS4, or some contoller with screen (like one rumoured at that picture taken at Valve's HQ some time ago).



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HappySqurriel on 27 November 2012
Squilliam said:

Why wouldn't they be able to release a console for $399 which consumes say 150W at the wall? They can already sell the Xbox 360 which consumes about 100W for $249 for a profit so why couldn't they sell a console for $149 more with even more advanced technology and come close to breaking even? You don't know how Nintendo arrived at their cost structure or how they allocated their fixed costs and you don't know the listing price or if any early subsidies will apply for the Xbox/Playstation consoles and yet you claim that they can't release a console which is significantly more powerful by merely taking advantage of up to date technology?


They could release a system for $399 that consumest 150W but I doubt it would have the same processing power advantage Microsoft had with the XBox 360 over the Wii ...

To maintain that large of a gap Microsoft would need to be using one of the top of the line GPUs that alone use more than 150 Watts. There really is only 1 GPU on the market from AMD that can offer 8 times the performance of the XBox 360 and has low enough energy consumption to be used in a console (The Radeon 7970M), and that would only maintain the advantage Microsoft had if you assume that Nintendo didn't choose one of the many laptop or embedded GPUs that can offer 2 to 3 times the performance of the XBox 360 under their size and cost constraints.

 

 

 



DanneSandin on 27 November 2012
HoloDust said:
DanneSandin said:
HoloDust said:

You do realize that, right now, you can buy $450 PC, with pretty much the same components rumoured PS4 will use, that is around 3x as powerful as WiiU? Those $450 include manufecturer's and retailer's profit. So in a year from now, those $450 should be, I don't know, $350? I really don't see Sony being in trouble by not being able to make decently powerful console, or loosing money on it. Same power as NextBox? I doubt it, but I'm not sure even MS with all their money can afford to go over 1.5x of that.

But those components will be tailored to Sonys needs... And that probably will up the costs, as will R%D - all going into the costs of the console... You and me have the benefit of not cosumizing our parts and spending ton of money on research...

Honestly, I don't think there will be too much customization there - some, yes, but nothing that would skyrocket R&D. It seems guts of these next-gen consoles will be pretty much made of off-the-shelf components, and not even top notch ones while we're at it. What might increase cost is, for example, EyeToy 2 and break-apart DualShock/Move capable controler shipped with every PS4, or some contoller with screen (like one rumoured at that picture taken at Valve's HQ some time ago).

Well, I wouldn't know anything about that so I can't tell :p I'm just hoping Wii U will get decent ports this gen around ^^



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HappySqurriel on 27 November 2012
JEMC said:

I agree that the difference between PS4/Nextbox and WiiU won't be as big as the one between PS360 and Wii, but even if that difference is "only" x3, that's more than enough to make some games not possible to run on WiiU. Specially big, open worlds that need loads of RAM.


Maybe ...

There will always be exclusive games for one platform that are not possible on another platform for a variety of reasons, but I think that if Nintendo can get the Wii U sales high enough before the PS4 and XBox 720 launch they can secure cross platform development; and this would most likely result in Wii U versions at 720p@30fps and PS4/XBox 720 versions at 1080p@60fps.



S.T.A.G.E. on 27 November 2012

Nintendo wont have the casuals with the Wii U. Its not as simple a process as the Wii was for them and will segment the audience greatly. The PS4 and the 720 will have stable sales and pass the Wii U December of the second year.



z101 on 27 November 2012
S.T.A.G.E. said:
Nintendo wont have the casuals with the Wii U. Its not as simple a process as the Wii was for them and will segment the audience greatly. The PS4 and the 720 will have stable sales and pass the Wii U December of the second year.

The Wii U seems to have great sales at the moment.

And the hardcore crowd already has choosen the lower price tech in the PS2-Generation over the graphically improved Gamecube and Xbox.

The only reason the Wii has failed on the "hardcore" (shooter, racer) crowd was the fact that it only had SD resolution, a clearly visible drawback to PS3/Xbox360. But these gamers are don't interested in the marginally improved graphics that XBox3/PS4 perhaps offer.



Things I like: Magic-Alchemist - The magic iPhone, Android and browser game:

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List of Nintendo Switch games (german):
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