ATI to build next Xbox?

[Tim Cunnings]

Yousuf Khan wrote: This rumour has been floating around for sometime now, but this time it's being put out by a different source other than the Inquirer or Register. :-) http://www.marketwatch.com/news/yhoo/story.asp?guid=%7B21F35E45-734F-411C-B4E1-E04C08197E0B%7D&siteid=myyahoo&dist=myyahoo http://makeashorterlink.com/?L2FD32BE4 Yousuf Khan

Who really thinks that consoles will continue to be as popular as they
are now in the future?. I suppose the appeal is there for the types who
want a quick, no hassles system with guaranteed compatibility, but after
buying a PS2 I won't bother with consoles again.

Quite frankly ALL the current 3 big names on the market have products
that are looking pretty dated already. Sony are talking about bringing a
PS2.5 type product to market because their next product is years away,
and the PS2 is basically past its used by date graphically speaking. The
best console on the market, the Xbox, is also pretty dated relative to
the performance offered by the current crop of PC graphics cards.

How can consoles really compete long term in a market where the graphics
card guys work on 6 month product cycles and the console guys are taking
YEARS to develop next gen products that are dated before they are released?.

Tim

[V-man]

On Wed, 25 Jun 2003, Tim Cunnings wrote:
Who really thinks that consoles will continue to be as popular as they are now in the future?. I suppose the appeal is there for the types who want a quick, no hassles system with guaranteed compatibility, but after buying a PS2 I won't bother with consoles again.

I think that consoles were more popular back in the 80's.
If you have a computer, you no longer have a need for them unless if you
are nuts about a certain game only available on the console.

I have seen XBox's blue screen and putting up messages about hard disk
needing a scan. Basically, it's a PC.

Quite frankly ALL the current 3 big names on the market have products that are looking pretty dated already. Sony are talking about bringing a PS2.5 type product to market because their next product is years away, and the PS2 is basically past its used by date graphically speaking. The best console on the market, the Xbox, is also pretty dated relative to the performance offered by the current crop of PC graphics cards.

Yes, they certainly are dated, but where are the games that are suppose
to take advantage of these shader capablities? It's been a while there
hasnt been anything. I suppose they will be popping up by the end of the
year.
How can consoles really compete long term in a market where the graphics card guys work on 6 month product cycles and the console guys are taking YEARS to develop next gen products that are dated before they are released?.

Oh they will compete. Maybe next round, MS will be the leader. It depends
who markets first and who has the best games.

V-man

[Michael Collins]

"Tim Cunnings" <timken@internode.on.net.nospam> wrote in message
news:3EF99C37.5030004@internode.on.net.nospam... Yousuf Khan wrote: This rumour has been floating around for sometime now, but this time
it's being put out by a different source other than the Inquirer or Register.
:-)
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/yhoo/story.asp?guid=%7B21F35E45-734F-411C-B4E1-E04C08197E0B%7D&siteid=myyahoo&dist=myyahoo http://makeashorterlink.com/?L2FD32BE4 Yousuf Khan Who really thinks that consoles will continue to be as popular as they are now in the future?. I suppose the appeal is there for the types who want a quick, no hassles system with guaranteed compatibility, but after buying a PS2 I won't bother with consoles again.

I think they will continue to be popular. They are cheap and easy to
operate, go over to the ATI or Nvidia newsgroup and watch people complain
about games not working properly. You also have to consider that developers
do not use the latest features of the newest whiz bang graphic cards on the
PC. Its really not worth it to code things into a PC version of a game that
only a few people will be able to use. PCs also run a lot other things in
the background so although consoles may not have as much memory or be as
popular they can perform reasonably well because they aren't running all the
different services or drivers that a normal PC would.
Quite frankly ALL the current 3 big names on the market have products that are looking pretty dated already. Sony are talking about bringing a PS2.5 type product to market because their next product is years away, and the PS2 is basically past its used by date graphically speaking. The best console on the market, the Xbox, is also pretty dated relative to the performance offered by the current crop of PC graphics cards. How can consoles really compete long term in a market where the graphics card guys work on 6 month product cycles and the console guys are taking YEARS to develop next gen products that are dated before they are
released?. Tim

[Bill Davidsen]

In article <Pine.OSF.4.44.0306250944200.80151-100000@alcor.concordia.ca>,
V-man <v_melkon@alcor.concordia.ca> wrote:
|
|
| On Wed, 25 Jun 2003, Tim Cunnings wrote:
|
| > Who really thinks that consoles will continue to be as popular as they
| > are now in the future?. I suppose the appeal is there for the types who
| > want a quick, no hassles system with guaranteed compatibility, but after
| > buying a PS2 I won't bother with consoles again.
|
| I think that consoles were more popular back in the 80's.
| If you have a computer, you no longer have a need for them unless if you
| are nuts about a certain game only available on the console.

You have half the answer, by having the game on THEIR hardware sales of
the hardware increases. By having more hardware out games go to that
hardware first. By going to that hardware first more people want that
hardware.

Yes that's circular.

|
| I have seen XBox's blue screen and putting up messages about hard disk
| needing a scan. Basically, it's a PC.

Oh yes, you can run Linux on it.
|
|
| > Quite frankly ALL the current 3 big names on the market have products
| > that are looking pretty dated already. Sony are talking about bringing a
| > PS2.5 type product to market because their next product is years away,
| > and the PS2 is basically past its used by date graphically speaking. The
| > best console on the market, the Xbox, is also pretty dated relative to
| > the performance offered by the current crop of PC graphics cards.
|
| Yes, they certainly are dated, but where are the games that are suppose
| to take advantage of these shader capablities? It's been a while there
| hasnt been anything. I suppose they will be popping up by the end of the
| year.

One advantage of the console is that it's a known environment, no o/c,
no funky almost-compatible video, etc.
|
| > How can consoles really compete long term in a market where the graphics
| > card guys work on 6 month product cycles and the console guys are taking
| > YEARS to develop next gen products that are dated before they are released?.
|
| Oh they will compete. Maybe next round, MS will be the leader. It depends
| who markets first and who has the best games.

We agree, MS can afford to pay for games to be written for Xbox first
(or only).

--
Bill Davidsen <davidsen@tmr.com> CTO, TMR Associates
As we enjoy great advantages from inventions of others, we should be
glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and
this we should do freely and generously.
-Benjamin Franklin (who would have liked open source)

[Keith R. Williams]

In article <AGqKa.945$KZ6.547@newssvr17.news.prodigy.com>,
davidsen@tmr.com says...
One advantage of the console is that it's a known environment, no o/c, no funky almost-compatible video, etc.

That's a huge advantage. Apple has taken advantage of the "known
hardware" issue as well.
| > How can consoles really compete long term in a market where the graphics | > card guys work on 6 month product cycles and the console guys are taking | > YEARS to develop next gen products that are dated before they are released?. | | Oh they will compete. Maybe next round, MS will be the leader. It depends | who markets first and who has the best games. We agree, MS can afford to pay for games to be written for Xbox first (or only).

Game producers cannot afford to be sucked into the M$ quicksand.
Not only are they an independent lot, but they've seen what has
happened to their brothers who developed only for the borg.

I really don't think Sony nor Nintendo are worried about M$ only
games. In fact I'd say that M$ is the failure in this arena.

--
Keith

[Michael Collins]

"Keith R. Williams" <krw@attglobal.net> wrote in message
news:MPG.1964208f69595b7998a4d4@enews.newsguy.com... In article <AGqKa.945$KZ6.547@newssvr17.news.prodigy.com>, davidsen@tmr.com says... One advantage of the console is that it's a known environment, no o/c, no funky almost-compatible video, etc. That's a huge advantage. Apple has taken advantage of the "known hardware" issue as well. | > How can consoles really compete long term in a market where the
graphics | > card guys work on 6 month product cycles and the console guys are
taking | > YEARS to develop next gen products that are dated before they are
released?. | | Oh they will compete. Maybe next round, MS will be the leader. It
depends | who markets first and who has the best games. We agree, MS can afford to pay for games to be written for Xbox first (or only). Game producers cannot afford to be sucked into the M$ quicksand. Not only are they an independent lot, but they've seen what has happened to their brothers who developed only for the borg. I really don't think Sony nor Nintendo are worried about M$ only games. In fact I'd say that M$ is the failure in this arena.

How so? They have Bungie, Digital Anvil and Rare. I am not really sure why
Nintendo let Rare go without more of a fight. Rare made some of the most
popular games for Nintendo. I guess maybe they figured they couldn't fight
with Microsoft.
-- Keith

[Michael Collins]

"bill davidsen" <davidsen@tmr.com> wrote in message
news:AGqKa.945$KZ6.547@newssvr17.news.prodigy.com... In article <Pine.OSF.4.44.0306250944200.80151-100000@alcor.concordia.ca>, V-man <v_melkon@alcor.concordia.ca> wrote: We agree, MS can afford to pay for games to be written for Xbox first (or only).

Not completely true. If this were true then GTA would be coming out for the
XBox. This game definately would help the XBox.
-- Bill Davidsen <davidsen@tmr.com> CTO, TMR Associates As we enjoy great advantages from inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously. -Benjamin Franklin (who would have liked open source)

[Grasso]

Hi Tim,

one advantage of a console is that the hardware and drivers are all
the same. You would not believe how many deadlocks, stalls, jams and
knots a typical PC gets through in a typical gaming session, because
PCI implementations, drivers and Direct3D code interfere with each
other. On a console, you can rule that out.

Uli

--
------- http://grassomusic.de -------

[George Macdonald]

On Thu, 26 Jun 2003 13:57:23 GMT, chrisv <chrisv@nospam.invalid> wrote:
On Wed, 25 Jun 2003 22:12:23 -0400, Keith R. Williams<krw@attglobal.net> wrote:In article <AGqKa.945$KZ6.547@newssvr17.news.prodigy.com>,davidsen@tmr.com says... We agree, MS can afford to pay for games to be written for Xbox first (or only).Game producers cannot afford to be sucked into the M$ quicksand.Not only are they an independent lot, but they've seen what hashappened to their brothers who developed only for the borg.I really don't think Sony nor Nintendo are worried about M$ onlygames. In fact I'd say that M$ is the failure in this arena.Micro$oft will just buy the game companies, then. They have alreadydone this, and it will continue, until they have reached their goals.

They can buy the companies but they cannot guarantee to keep the talent...
which AFAIK has a very high burn-out rate anyway. IMO the field just moves
too fast for M$ and their sloth.

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??