Anandtech breaks down PS3 vs. Xbox 360

Okay, first, go read the article. Go on, this thread will still be here when you're done.

Now. The biggest thing I got from that is that A) the difference in hardware power won't be as big as it looked at E3, B) we're not going to see these consoles actually used properly until next Christmas when developers figure out multi-thread programming, and C) the PS3 can be more powerful, but only if devs spend alot of time with it than they have to with 360.

Of course, everyone said PS2 development would be killer too, but companies managed okay. What gets me is that everyone's using single thread programming for the first gen. That means all these 360 games we're seeing that aren't overwhelming look that way because one or two of the processors aren't even being used yet, which is messed up.

But anyway, I feel alot better about buying a 360 now.

Summation please.

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Originally Posted by MVS

Summation please.

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Scroll up.

Summation: All EA games will look the same on every platform.

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Originally Posted by StriderKyo

Okay, first, go read the article. Go on, this thread will still be here when you're done.

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Actually, I'd suggest not reading the article, because it is a big waste of time. The article has already been discussed at length, and the verdict from people who actually know what the stuff means is that nobody really knows, and it doesn't really matter.

But yeah. I thought most people, at least here, were of the assumption that your a, b, and c were already foregone conclusions, anyway.

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But anyway, I feel alot better about buying a 360 now.

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You didn't feel good about buying one before?

I don't see the point of reading the article. I read the entire thing and realize it was a waste of time. You just summarized it. Basically the whole article is a big we'll see when the 2nd gen games come out.

Considering the support PSX and PS2 had, I don't think devs will mind putting in the extra effort to squeeze the juice out.

If anything we'll see who the real professional devs are. Hopefully it's all easy enough for most developers to understand how to make these bitches run like their pants are on fire.

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Originally Posted by Andy

Actually, I'd suggest not reading the article, because it is a big waste of time. The article has already been discussed at length,

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It has? I guess I wasn't invited to the conference.

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and the verdict from people who actually know what the stuff means is that nobody really knows, and it doesn't really matter.

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Come on, admit it - you didn't understand the article. It explains in great detail what the architectural diferences are and what they'll mean to development - the PS3 has the capability for more complex physics models while the 360 should be able to produce larger environments, etc. There's plenty of fact-based info to be garnered from it. Of course nobody "knows" until the games have been made, but it's kind of pointless to dismiss any article like this on those grounds.

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But yeah. I thought most people, at least here, were of the assumption that your a, b, and c were already foregone conclusions, anyway.

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I gathered most people were under the impression the hardware difference would be PS2-Xbox (with the PS3 being the Xbox this gen) or at worst DC-Xbox. Really it's going to be closer to GC-Xbox, where they could each do certain things better than the other.

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You didn't feel good about buying one before?

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Nope. I saw a lacklustre Perfect Dark, a bunch of seen-it-before war/sports/driving games, and a huge percieved gap between it and PS3. Xbox's one advantage last gen was in hardware - without that, and with Sony locking up 3rd parties, 360 threatened to turn into the N64 of this gen - where Goldeneye (now Halo) went into the system and never came out because there was nothing else to play. But now I'm really starting to look forward to it.

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Originally Posted by StriderKyo

Come on, admit it - you didn't understand the article.

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No, I didn't read the article. And if I did, I'd venture to guess I'd understand it just as well, if not better than you, anyway.

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Of course nobody "knows" until the games have been made, but it's kind of pointless to dismiss any article like this on those grounds.

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I disagree. I think it's kind of pointless to produce an article like this one, when a very large part of hardware it is trying to compare isn't even known yet. And hell, you should be agreeing with me about this if your interest is in the 360, because a lot of people are expecting the Xenos to be more powerful than the RSX (or were, before the G70 was unveiled, but it still could go either way, with the chances still being pretty good in the Xenos' favor).

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I gathered most people were under the impression the hardware difference would be PS2-Xbox (with the PS3 being the Xbox this gen) or at worst DC-Xbox. Really it's going to be closer to GC-Xbox, where they could each do certain things better than the other.

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DC-Xbox? Come on man, I think you're one of the quickest guys on TNL, you seriously thought the difference could be DC-Xbox? Most people, regardless of console interest, I think have been pretty agreed that the difference between systems next-gen will be much more negligible than this gen whether one truly is much more powerful or not, anyway. And I think that is a pretty safe bet, considering developers will likely not even take full advantage of even the weaker of the two (this is not including the Cube, for obvious reasons) next gen.

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Nope. I saw a lacklustre Perfect Dark, a bunch of seen-it-before war/sports/driving games, and a huge percieved gap between it and PS3. Xbox's one advantage last gen was in hardware - without that, and with Sony locking up 3rd parties, 360 threatened to turn into the N64 of this gen - where Goldeneye (now Halo) went into the system and never came out because there was nothing else to play. But now I'm really starting to look forward to it.

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Okay. Now what did this article change about anything in this statement, other than the word "huge"? :)

i mostly skimmed the article, but it just makes me wonder, with all the apparent cost cutting in the 360, why they didn't leverage that to maintain one of thier competitive advantages and include a standard hard drive once again. Unless that detachable thing will be standard, but i'm assuming no.

- the cores themselves are an established design (less r&d costs), and scaled down versions at that (lack of OoO, which i kinda think is rediculous. All I learn about in class is how to extract more parallelism from architectures, this is one of the fundamental ways and will really restrict performance of a thread).
- The very simple support hardware, i.e. lack of a complex North/South Bridge which results in no digital video outputs, and no built in digital audio processing like the xbox has. There goes half a core right there for Dolby Digital in just about every game (unless i'm reading the article wrong or didn't read long enough)
- DVD drives over PS3s blu-ray. Drive costs will be practically nonexistant compared to PS3.
- On chip SPEs can do amazing things, and in that respect, without knowing exactly what they're doing in the cell, i'm parial to its design. GPPs are so limited when it comes to certain operations that this can generate a clear win for Sony in terms of raw performance. A second GPP core would have been nice, but the SPEs are where Sony's design is made or broken.

If 360 ends up being much cheaper then that's a win for MS, but i think they overdid it a little by eliminating too much and not giving enough back elsewhere.