[Beowulf] Microsofts trick - was AMD reveals potent parallel processing breakthrough

Lux, Jim (337C) james.p.lux at jpl.nasa.gov
Wed May 8 06:51:17 PDT 2013



From: "atchley tds.net" <atchley at tds.net<mailto:atchley at tds.net>>
Date: Wednesday, May 8, 2013 5:55 AM
To: Vincent Diepeveen <diep at xs4all.nl<mailto:diep at xs4all.nl>>
Cc: "beowulf at beowulf.org<mailto:beowulf at beowulf.org>" <beowulf at beowulf.org<mailto:beowulf at beowulf.org>>, Christopher Samuel <samuel at unimelb.edu.au<mailto:samuel at unimelb.edu.au>>
Subject: Re: [Beowulf] Microsofts trick - was AMD reveals potent parallel processing breakthrough

On Wed, May 8, 2013 at 5:38 AM, Vincent Diepeveen <diep at xs4all.nl<mailto:diep at xs4all.nl>> wrote:

On May 6, 2013, at 3:17 AM, Christopher Samuel wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
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> On 04/05/13 16:32, Eugen Leitl wrote:
>
>> Purportedly, there will be something resembling the PS4 architecture
>> for the PC market. That would be an APU with 8 cores and stacked
>> memory.
>
> Also interesting that Microsofts next XBox (720) will also be AMD,
> with similar specs to the PS4.
>

It's a strategy that works. Fact that they sold similar amounts of
Xboxes like PS3 basically proves my opinion that Sony failed
with ps3. The reasons why ps3 failed to outsell previous playstations
would be very interesting to study as in itself market with
potential customers is 4 times larger now or so. The factor 4 is a
GUESS - it'll be way larger than that now that Asia opens up
and we have a nouvelle rich in Africa with Africa moving quickly.

I thought MS' strategy all along was to sell the hardware below cost and to make it up on licensing revenue, which has been the strategy for all console makers, has it not? Given that and MS' large cash holdings, I do not take it as a given that they will choose a cheaper version than Sony to try to save on hardware costs.

Also, sales of all consoles are down. The new Wii has hardly made a blip in the market. Some speculate that the era of consoles is past given how many people game on their phones and tablets.


Yes.. The console is just the razor. They make their money on the licensing for the blades.

There's also the "good enough" phenomenon.  Why are people not buying new Pcs?  Because the 6 year old one they have on their desk now is "good enough" to do everything they need.  Every conceivable function has been put into the tools, so all that happens is a rearranging of the UI, and that's painful.

Would my wife want to give up her xbox for a new faster one?  Maybe.. But I'll bet that she is perfectly happy with the performance of the one we have now. The annoying (to me) pause when you go through a door in Skyrim while it loads the next set of scenery (presumably that's what it's doing) doesn't bug her very much. It's just part of the game.  The graphics are plenty real enough for the game action.  (sure, there are obvious artifacts in the scene building, but they don't detract from the game. If anything, she'd probably rather they fix the bugs in the game.

As far as tablets.. I don't know about that. In my family, the tablet or handheld gets used to look up stuff on the web/wiki  about the game being played on the xbox (should I turn left or right at the next turn; do I kill this person or give them money, etc.)  Gaming on tablets is a "on the airplane playing angry birds" kind of thing.  My wife and daughter were  big fans of Temple Run on her iPod/iPhone for a while, but not any more.

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