Next Generation Game Consoles

Posted by admin

May 17, 2005

Alright, here we go. Engadget keeps up with all of the specs at E3, so I thought I could at least give you the rundown of what they have found out. We’ll start with the ones that nobody really cares about. The Nintendo Consoles.

Nintendo unveiled the Game Boy Micro this
morning, here’s what we know so far:

Launch is slated for this Fall.
Silver in color for now, expect all sorts of rainbow-flavored variations.
Dimensions: 4 inches wide by 2 inches tall and 0.7 inches thick.
Weight: 2.8 ounces (80 paper clips’ worth of weight).
Processor: Same as GBA SP.
Form factor: “Gleaming shoulder and start/select buttons that literally shine”, removable and customizable face
plate.
Screen: 2-inches, backlit and the “best Game Boy screen ever” with adjustable brightness controls for use indoors
or outdoors.
Marketing angle: “We’re making the gorgeous Game Boy Micro for image-conscious folks who love video games, the
ones who want the look of their system to be as cool as the games they play on it” according to George Harrison,
Nintendo of America Sr. VP of marketing. It’s clear that they’re going after the kids who are too cool to carry
around an obvious gaming device but who don’t mind carrying something that looks like the cell phone that they’re
already carrying.
Accessories: built-in rechargeable lithium-ion battery; supports standard headphones.
Software: the Game Boy Advance has nearly 700 titles available, all of which will be playable on the Game Boy
Micro.

Alright, Nintendo intro’d the Revolution just a few
minutes ago, here’s what we know so far:

Release is sometime in 2006.
Prototype shown is larger than final unit.
Nintendo is still determining final colors for the console.
All-Access Gaming, which refers to backwards compatibility to 20 years of Nintendo games, NES, SNES, N64. We
don’t know particulars of how it’ll be accessed or what, if any, the cost structure might be.
Downloadable to 512MB of flash memory.
SD memory card slot.
Wireless controllers.
Two USB 2.0 ports.
Built-in WiFi.
WiFi used to interface with the DS.
DS likely to enhance future games.
Self-loading optical drive that will play 12cm Revolution discs and smaller GameCube discs
Self-contained attachment for playing media content, including DVDs.
No controller was shown. So even though the box looks a lot like the one leaked over the weekend, the
accompanying controllers were not presented. So was it a leak, or a really good guess?

Okay, now the ones that everybody has been waiting on for a long time. The XBOX by Microsoft and PS3 by Sony. It looks pretty clear as to which one is the favorite, but I will let you decide which one that is.
We’ll go with the XBOX 360 first.

2 types of Xbox Live:

Xbox Live Silver (no subscription required)

Xbox Live Gold (subscription benefits)

Features for Gold service

* Also for Silver

# Also for Offline

– Seamless transition to Xbox Live account from Xbox to Xbox 360

– Access to MMOs (additional fees may apply) *

– Free Xbox Live weekends *

– Multiplayer online gameplay

– Avatar for gamer profile * #

– Motto for gamer profile * #

– Personalized look for Xbox System Guide * #

– Offline achievments * #

– Online achievements *

– Access to other players’ Gamer cards via Live *

– Cumulative gamer score * #

– Location/language profile * #

– Reputation *

– Enahnced matchmaking using above

– Skill level matchmaking

– Gameplay style profile (casual, competitive, etc.)

– Recent players list *

– Free and premium download game content *

– Free and premium downloadable movies, music, tv *

– Downloadable demos/trailers *

– Microtransactions *

– Custom playlist in every game * #

– Play music from portable devices * #

– View images from digital camera * #

– Strem media from Windows XP * #

– Interactive screen savers * #

– Track info for CDs * #

– Communication with voice, video or text *

360 HW:

1. Support for DVD-video, DVD-Rom, DVD-R/RW, CD-DA, CD-Rom, CD-R, CD-RW, WMA CD, MP3 cd, JPEG photo CD

2. All games supported at 16:9, 720p and 1080i, anti-aliasing

3. Customizable face plates to change appearance

4. 3 USB 2.0 ports

5. Support for 4 wireless controllers

6. Detachable 20GB drive

7. Wi-Fi ready

Custom IBM PowerPC-based CPU

– 3 symmetrical cores at 3.2 GHz each

– 2 hardware threads per core

– 1 VMX-128 vector unit per core

– 1 MB L2 cache

CPU Game Math Performance

– 9 billion dots per second

Custom ATI Graphics Processor

– 500 MNz

– 10 MB embedded DRAM

– 48-way parallel floating-point shader pipelines

– unified shader architecture

Memory

-512 MB GDDR3 RAM

– 700 MNz DDR

Memory Bandwidth

– 22.4 GB/s memory interface bus bandwidth

– 256 GB/s memory bandwidth to EDRAM

– 21.6 GB/s frontside bus

Audio

– Mulitchannel surround sond output

– Supports 48khz 16-bit audio

– 320 independent decompression channels

– 32 bit processing

– 256+ audio channels

Alright, now the PS3 by Sony.

Sony’s let go of the final specs and shots of the PlayStation 3. Here you go!

It will support Blu-ray (obviously), DVD±R/W, CD-R/RW
Backwards compatible with the PlayStation 2 and original Playstation
One 3.2GHz Cell processor—total system performance rated at 2.18 teraflops (uh, that’s actually about twice what
Microsoft is claiming the Xbox 360 will do); it will have 256MB system RAM 3.2GHz, and 256MB GDDR VRAM at 700MHz
The nVidia graphics will be called the RSX (”Reality Synthesizer”), and will trump the Xbox 360 with
1080p (yes, that’s a p) graphics support.
There will be a 2.5-inch hard drive (i.e. laptop hard drive) attachment—a first for a Sony launch (no, we don’t
count the PSX and/or the FF add-on)
Memory Stick Duo slot, and very surprisingly, an SD and CF slots
Bluetooth support with up to seven wireless controllers
Six USB system ports

Okay, i have my gripes with each of them, but a few to note are the Bluetooth controllers on the PS3, not a big fan of Bluetooth as it doesn’t always work correctly if the stack doesn’t load right, but being Sony, they have to be different. If it works, awesome, if not, oh well. But they did decide on using the SD and CF alongside of their Memory Stick format. So that is a huge step in their system. I mean, we all know how much we each use our Betamax’s, right?

Now, with the XBOX 360. I like the integration of the Media Center Extender into the OS. I also like the use of playlists and songs on the console. Making it a usable multimedia center, instead of just a gaming console. The monster hard drive is also great. But the 10 mb of video RAM is kind of weak. I assume it will be using the onboard memory as Shared.

Nintendo Revolution. At this point, I really don’t know much about it or the Game Boy Micro, so I can’t really make any real comments. I love the universal gaming concept they have though. I would love to be able to go get a Revolution system and then play my Super mario World cartridge on it. That would be great. Or play Contra like in the old days. Remember, up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, B, A, Select, Start. That tells you what a huge impact that Nintendo made on me.

If you want to read some more from the official sites, you can. Nintendo’s consoles are still too early, so there aren’t any offical sites for them. But the XBOX 360 site is here. And the PS3 site is here. Check out the screenshots on the PS3 site. They are amazing. So realistic. If it tells you anything. Microsoft does not have screenshots up of their console. So I think we know who is scared. Just ask if you have any questions.

**UPDATE**
Okay, I have found some new links to put up. First is a link to the unveliing of the PS3. It has the video of the demos and everything. Enjoy.
The next thing I have is a head to head comparison of the PS3 and the XBOX 360. Also very cool.
Then there is the official press release for the Nintendo Revolution.