PDA

View Full Version : Xbox 360 Slightly More Powerful Then PS3



Nato King
12-09-2005, 08:28 AM
But they're still both Ferraris when it comes down to it...


http://www.havamedia.net/CGR/3/M/HAVABlog/4/1189_2031_thumb.jpg
Speaking at yesterdays' 33rd Annual UBS Global Media Conference Microsoft's Bryan Lee, Corporate Vice President & CFO Home & Entertainment, demonstrated the 360 to an audience of key participants in the global media sector and proclaimed it to be "slightly more powerful" then the Playstation3.

"With Sony if they do hit the specs which they've said they'll have there's a debate, there's a couple of categories where they outdo us, there's several categories where we outdo them. On balance I think most people who study the space will tell you our system is slightly more powerful then theirs from a hardware standpoint. But for the purposes of this discussion I think it's fair to say they're both Ferraris"

Lee reiterated Microsoft's expectations of 4.5 to 5 million units being shipped before June 30th 2006, with between 2.75 million and 3 million of these coming during the first 90 days.

link (http://www.totalvideogames.com)

swivel
12-09-2005, 08:34 AM
Hmmm... so the guy affiliated with the XBox says that it is more powerful than the PS3?

laughs
12-09-2005, 09:27 AM
I don't know what to think.... I'm hearing both consoles are more powerful.... Bah!

mattgame
12-09-2005, 10:23 AM
I just hope the games are great.

FuNkY mOnK
12-09-2005, 10:27 AM
exactly,Who cares? where are the games? that's why i bought the system.Lets go guys get the games out and save the bullsh-it.

Whisper
12-09-2005, 10:36 AM
games are where sony will beat us sadly :(

and the fact that they have the masses :(

mattgame
12-09-2005, 10:37 AM
I agree. I will be getting mine.

Brevity
12-09-2005, 10:46 AM
To early to tell and even if it were true its one of the lesser important things with regard to these two systems.

laughs
12-09-2005, 12:43 PM
games are where sony will beat us sadly :(


Although the 360 is easier to program for.... So who knows.

Double_Diablo
12-09-2005, 01:11 PM
I wish someone unbiased would come out with an opinion regarding the power of PS3 and Xbox 360. Microsoft and Sony reps are hardly someone I'd trust with that kind of opinon.

l Maximus l
12-09-2005, 04:19 PM
If you guys think about it, 3rd party developers are going to create identical copies of games for each system...so, it hardly makes a difference. Only first party games are the difference.

One category where PS3 is far inferior compared to XBox 360 is the on-line network. XBox Live is freakin' 100 times more advanced than Sony will ever make their on-line system. In fact, XBox Live is technically the 2nd largest telecommunications network on the planet!

Jackyboy
12-09-2005, 05:00 PM
revolution > all

Jags
12-09-2005, 05:30 PM
I wish someone unbiased would come out with an opinion regarding the power of PS3 and Xbox 360. Microsoft and Sony reps are hardly someone I'd trust with that kind of opinon.
EXACTLY wat i was about to type

ShadedNine
12-09-2005, 06:00 PM
I wish someone unbiased would come out with an opinion regarding the power of PS3 and Xbox 360. Microsoft and Sony reps are hardly someone I'd trust with that kind of opinon.

Rather difficult at the moment, given the hazy information being distributed by Sony. At this rate, a good comparison won't be possible until after the PS3 releases. It's pretty easy for both sides to speculate they're more powerful when Sony's system is still deep into development.

CarGuy
12-09-2005, 06:19 PM
I've been hearing some bad stuff about Sony lately...

StudioAlex
12-09-2005, 07:50 PM
I heard the PS3 wll have Toy Story comparable graphics. We really are in the time of tomorrow.

ShadedNine
12-09-2005, 08:02 PM
I heard it will clean my room, walk my dogs and with the appropriate add-on module, wipe my a** ;)

Anyway, much of the "bad stuff about sony" is probably their latest fiasco: Their DRM rootkit XCP. Google up ' Sony XCP ' if you somehow haven't heard of it. It hasn't got much to do with the PS3, but it's part of the reason I very much do not like Sony as a corporation.

swivel
12-09-2005, 09:21 PM
I heard it will clean my room, walk my dogs and with the appropriate add-on module, wipe my a** ;)

Anyway, much of the "bad stuff about sony" is probably their latest fiasco: Their DRM rootkit XCP. Google up ' Sony XCP ' if you somehow haven't heard of it. It hasn't got much to do with the PS3, but it's part of the reason I very much do not like Sony as a corporation.

Agree. Companies that make proprietary software/hardware irk the hell out of me. Sony ranks right below Apple in this regard. Sony now has no less than 5 memory card formats that only they use. And there was the minidisc fiasco. And the reluctance to accept MP3 as a viable format. And ATRAC. And now Blu-Ray.

I love my Playstations, but I have to forget that Sony makes it. If I kept that in mind, I would end up throwing the damn thing out into the snow.

Now I need to get back to Dragonquest VIII. First truly great RPG I've played this year, and it is on a console pushing 5 years old. :(

Bmoreforeva
12-09-2005, 10:44 PM
its way to early to tell. N e who the the games win the system wars not the systems. nintendo 64 - playstation

mattgame
12-09-2005, 11:43 PM
revolution > all
Stop it. Stop smoking crack cocaine and posting.

Bmoreforeva
12-10-2005, 09:03 AM
Stop it. Stop smoking crack cocaine and posting.


lol thats funny

J4320
12-10-2005, 12:27 PM
I really don't care which one is more powerful. I'm gonna have them both so I'll just play whichever one I like more.

StudioAlex
12-10-2005, 04:15 PM
Now I need to get back to Dragonquest VIII. First truly great RPG I've played this year, and it is on a console pushing 5 years old. :(

I just finished it. Great game but some of the 8 bit design elements need to go. i.e. limited saving, random battles, boring (compared to other rpgs <cough>grandia</cough> battle system. But the game is superlative over all. Wish I could review it for the site.

Koopa
12-10-2005, 05:19 PM
I think they're pulling the Sony approach--if they say they're the most powerful enough times, people will think its true. But really, I'm predicting that the difference will be so small that
a) it won't really matter, and
b) there will be enough wiggle-room and uncertainty about the actual power of each console to make the claim that Xbox 360 is more powerful without really "lying".

greg756
12-10-2005, 08:18 PM
something from the article in game informer about mgs4 it said it would look better than the trailer and that says alot but i wonder will their launch be plagued with ports too? or is it all updates of sony stables like tekken and devil may cry and gran turismo....but in the end it still is about the developers...in matters of horsepower xbox was only as good as what the developer attempted to do on it...also microsoft need to fight for every exclusive game and every first release of a game as possible....oh yeah btw we need a rpg and now!

swivel
12-11-2005, 06:47 AM
I just finished it. Great game but some of the 8 bit design elements need to go. i.e. limited saving, random battles, boring (compared to other rpgs <cough>grandia</cough> battle system. But the game is superlative over all. Wish I could review it for the site.

It's all about the story. And this one is brilliant so far. And the exploration is uneal.

Also, what other game has a world like this? Where you can see cities that are miles away, climb to the top of any hill or mountain you see, and look around to see where you want to go?

I agree that many of the design choices are old-school.. but I dig that. Especially the save feature, having to confess to a priest. Very neat touch.


[Back on Topic]

I think there is serious potential here for one system to be much powerful than another. The proof is mathematical in nature, but I will attempt to describe it and use metaphors so you can visualize it better:

These new systems are so much more powerful than the last generation, that any difference in power, by percentage, will be a much greater difference in reality. For instance:

On a scale of power, from 1 to 100, put the most powerful system at 100 (we don't know which one yet), and the least powerful at 1, the PS2. You would have something like:

[PS2]..[XBox]..10...20...30...40...50...60...70...80...90...[Fastest Console]

The only thing missing is the two new consoles. Now, you can see how compressed the scale is for the last generation. If the XBox was 30% more powerful than the PS2, it only put it up the scale a little bit, because they PS2 wasn't that powerful by today's standards. In other words, to call yourself a faster console, wasn't really saying much because of the limitations of hardware at the time of the competition.

If the XBox2 or the PS3 are even TEN PERCENT more powerful than the other, then you are talking about a LARGER DELTA than from the last generation, which was THIRTY PERCENT.

I hope I am making this clear. I'm better with numbers than words. Let's look at a scale where the PS3 is 15% faster than the XBox2, with the XBox being shown as 100% faster than the PS2:

[PS2]...[XBox]...20...30...40...50...60...70...80..XBox2..90...PS3

So. Even though the XBox is TWICE AS POWERFUL as the PS2, the DELTA (or difference mathematically) is actually GREATER between the PS3 and the XBox2.

It is the difference between actualy spread and percentages.



Now... what would this mean for our games? Let's use the above hypothetical.

In the last generation, games became more and more cross-platform. Those of us that owned both systems bought most of these games for our XBox because the textures were higher res and there was less pop-up. The difference was in the graphics, because for the last generation, all the systems could really do as far as heavy calculations, was graphical manipulations.

For this next generation, the systems are doing so much more, that any differences in performance might mean so much more. Inability to have as many enemies onscreen due to the hit from A.I. calculations. More load screens due to memory management. Choppy frame rates in online play. Less online players. Less total number of voices (sound sources) during play.


Here's another way to look at it: In the 1920's if you compared two cars that were similar in difference the same way the PS2 and XBox were, one would top out at 50mph while the other would do 75mph. That's a 50% increase in speed!!!! But only 25mph in REAL difference :(

Fast forward to today and compare two cars. One tops out at 150mph while the other one does 180mph. That's only a 20% difference, less than half the difference in the 20's, but the REAL difference is now 30mph. And, the other car has leather seats with lumbar support and bluetooth.

ShadedNine
12-11-2005, 01:38 PM
The problem with your logic though, is you neglect to factor in diminishing returns on that power. Your analogy with cars should actually be looking at the strength in the engines (the variant), the speed you get out being the respondant. To make that car go 30mph faster, you need more the 20% difference in engine power. Every step further requires more and more engine output.

Same goes for games. The 360 may indeed be multiple times faster than the last generation, but do the games look multiple times better? I think most people would say no. They look better, but they already looked pretty damn good before too. Another small gain of less than a factor of 2x is hardly going to be a noticeable difference. It won't even cover the jump from 720p to 1080p without dropping some effects or AA/AF.

Of course none of this really has any bearing on the thread's subject, which brings into question whether or not one console will even make a measurable % difference in power. It's hard to say. On one hand, Sony does seem to have the advantage of time, but on the other, Microsoft has a little more going for it in the way of hardware vendor pull and experience designing the underlying OS.

laughs
12-11-2005, 11:15 PM
All of you guys just like to argue.... :p

swivel
12-12-2005, 07:21 AM
All of you guys just like to argue.... :p

No we don't... and let me tell you 10 reasons you are wrong....




Shaded... I'm just showing that a percentage difference here is much more costly than a percentage difference was in the last generation. In the new day of ports, we could see two very different versions of the same game being made. Most likely three versions, with the PC version being even more top-end. That's what we have had in the past on the three systems.

Nintendo is setting itself up to be the only system with true exclusives because of the control scheme. That could hurt them if no one jumps on the dev wagon.

Oh... and I just read a white paper from IBM on the Cell processor. They are going to strained on silicone, which should reduce power consumption 40%, getting rid of a lot of the heat issue we are seeing with the XBox2. Also drawing less than the 160W measured on the XBox2. They are trying to move to a 65nm process as well, which should further that.

I could easily see this backfiring on them. Trying to dodge what is a very minor problem with the XBox2 and creating an even bigger one with low yields as they move to an unproven fab process. If it works, though, and they get nice yields, the price could drop big time as they get more cores per wafer.

Time will tell, but speculation is fun.

ShadedNine
12-12-2005, 06:55 PM
we don't? I sure do..but I prefer 'debating', it's a friendlier word ;)

And my point was that while the actual number difference (in mflops, polygons, or whatever counting system you want to go by) may be larger from the PS3 to the 360, the resulting difference won't be, and may even be less noticeable in terms of real-world performance. Because while 15000-20000 polygons from the PS2 to the Xbox might be only 5000, it's a very noticeable 5000. Say the 360 vs PS3 is 100k - 110k (double the difference, but a smaller %), in effect that's going to make a less noticeable difference than the 5000 missing from the PS2 (in much the same way that an extra 100 horse on a car with 500 horse is going to add less speed than an extra 100 horse on a model T).

FB-Gollum
12-12-2005, 07:37 PM
So to sum it all up. You've got 4 cars. The first car goes 50mph, the second car goes 75 mph. You've got a crowd watching. Car one runs the quarter mile. Now car 2 runs the quarter mile and everyone watching goes "whoa", that car was way faster. Now you've got car three that goes 150mph. It runs the quater mile and everyone goes "holy crap, that car is really fast". Finally car 4 goes ripping down the cranking out a smoking 180 miles. Everyone goes "holy crap, that car is really fast". Because the first cars were a difference easily discernable to human perception. The second 2 were both so fast, regardless of the greater gap between them in real terms was beyond what they could easily recognize. So in other words (cause I love words) if one system is going to be more powerful, it had better be A WHOLE FREAKING LOT more powerful if it wants to put out returns that will make a difference that's remotely noticeable.

Which brings us to a third thought...

If the systems are more or less equal, then do you think developers will go to any great length to make one better? If the viewer can't really appreciate it, then they aren't going to spend the money to do it. If that's the case, then it's going to be a first party war. They will be the only reason to own one of the systems. If that's the case, I think MS will win handily.

F1Ox
12-12-2005, 08:00 PM
All of you guys just like to argue.... :p
LOL :sleeping:

ShadedNine
12-12-2005, 11:46 PM
The real crime is that both systems suffer from the fact that most developers take few steps to optimize their games for each system.

The problem isn't so much that one is more powerful than the either, but that each has a different set of strengths and weaknesses that should be exploited and avoided. That being said though, a lot of the really hit titles do get optimized for each system...take Splinter Cell for example. It's the massive slew of generic half-rate games that get pumped out as soon as the graphics are stable enough for release.

Kyle Static
12-13-2005, 12:03 AM
.....my cat smells like cat food.

l Maximus l
12-13-2005, 12:22 AM
So to sum it all up. You've got 4 cars. The first car goes 50mph, the second car goes 75 mph. You've got a crowd watching. Car one runs the quarter mile. Now car 2 runs the quarter mile and everyone watching goes "whoa", that car was way faster. Now you've got car three that goes 150mph. It runs the quater mile and everyone goes "holy crap, that car is really fast". Finally car 4 goes ripping down the cranking out a smoking 180 miles. Everyone goes "holy crap, that car is really fast". Because the first cars were a difference easily discernable to human perception. The second 2 were both so fast, regardless of the greater gap between them in real terms was beyond what they could easily recognize. So in other words (cause I love words) if one system is going to be more powerful, it had better be A WHOLE FREAKING LOT more powerful if it wants to put out returns that will make a difference that's remotely noticeable.

Which brings us to a third thought...

If the systems are more or less equal, then do you think developers will go to any great length to make one better? If the viewer can't really appreciate it, then they aren't going to spend the money to do it. If that's the case, then it's going to be a first party war. They will be the only reason to own one of the systems. If that's the case, I think MS will win handily.

Ahhhh...but, you're forgetting the tortes and the hare!

swivel
12-13-2005, 06:55 AM
The real crime is that both systems suffer from the fact that most developers take few steps to optimize their games for each system.

The problem isn't so much that one is more powerful than the either, but that each has a different set of strengths and weaknesses that should be exploited and avoided. That being said though, a lot of the really hit titles do get optimized for each system...take Splinter Cell for example. It's the massive slew of generic half-rate games that get pumped out as soon as the graphics are stable enough for release.

And all of this ignores the fact that the most fun I've had in front of my consoles were the games with the least spectacular graphics. Namely:

Animal Crossing
Katamari Damacy
Shadow Hearts: Covenant
Viewtiful Joe
God of War
Mercenaries

Games just have to be fun, for me to get hooked. The problem with most games that have the best graphics, is that they are 10 hours long. Too much time goes into the engine, and not enough into the game world.

I would rather have a game that I play for 40 hours, over a longer period of time, than something that looks great in the magazines, gets lots of hype, and then plays like **** when I finally get it home.

So all of this power is moot if the devs. don't start making games that are more fun to play than the last generation. And sadly, I find myself looking to the small, foreign, development houses to provide that. Games like Rid****: Escape from Butcher Bay snuck up on me and blew me away. Games like Doom3 beat me on the head with the graphics stick and put me to sleep.