HD is coming. HD is coming! Well, not if you’re a Nintendo fan. The Revolution, as I reported earlier, will not support HD. Which is not a good thing. And there are lots of people who think so, not just my friend Steve and me. A guy named Tim Forbrook heads up 1080up.org, a website dedicated to getting the giant Nintendo to change their mind. A noble endeavour, but I think ultimately a failed one. Just my opinion of course. I’m rather cynical when it comes to trying to change the minds of big movers and shakers. I want Sony to change the PS3 controller to add triggers (like the Xbox controller) but I don’t think I’ll succeed in getting them to do that. Mind you, I didn’t create a website around the topic, just a mention in a couple articles, but hey. So I think that Mr. Forbrook will get just a little bit more publicity for his crusade than I will, and that can only help his cause. I wish Mr. Forbrook the best of luck, and I hope that I’m wrong. Blogcritics has an interview with the man, with a couple good answers like this one:

Nintendo has gone on record as stating only 1% of Gamecube owners own the (component) cable needed to showcase that consoles progressive scan capability. Does that not mean there’s no market for it?

I don’t think so. I think the market is there. Nintendo really hasn’t made known to anybody how to get these component cables. I had to order mine from Nintendo.com a couple of years ago after finding out from an EB Games manager that they weren’t available in stores. I think Nintendo could have doubled, tripled, or even quadrupled their sales of the cable by just letting people know where to get them. Combine that with the fact that HDTV is relatively new to the casual electronics consumer, and it should be expected that the cables would have sold poorly in this generation. In the next generation, however, people are going to be actively looking for these cables as HDTV will be the standard and the average consumer will know what component cables are.

Link: Blogcritics.org - Interview: 1080.org’s Tim Forbrook
Link: 1080up.org

In an interview with Todd Holmdahl, Corporate Vice President of the Xbox Product Group at Microsoft, team XBOX found out some interesting things. I’ve broken up discussion of this interview into several posts so that there is one post per topic.

Mr. Holmdahl said that the removable hard disc drive on the 360 is not required to play games. So developers will no longer be able to count on the HDD’s existence when developing their games, much like the PS2 and PS3. This takes away one advantage that the Xbox platform had over the Playstation platform, which of course is a boon to Sony.

Link: team XBOX - Xbox 360 Interview: Todd Holmdahl

In an interview with Todd Holmdahl, Corporate Vice President of the Xbox Product Group at Microsoft, team XBOX found out some interesting things. I’ve broken up discussion of this interview into several posts so that there is one post per topic.

As far as output resolutions go, developers can create games that use any output resolution, be it SD, 720p, or 1080i. Then the 360 will convert that game output to a signal that the user requests that is most compatible with his or her display, be it SD, 720p, or 1080i. As far as 1080p goes:

Xbox 360 does not support 1080p at this time. It’s an incremental improvement at an astronomical expense, and we don’t see consumers clamoring for 1080p TVs yet. We will continue evaluate the market and deliver the capability when and if customers want it.

I find this a little strange. Does this really mean that Microsoft could change the specification of the 360 after it’s been released? Some 360 owners could have 1080p output while others don’t? Mr. Holmdahl hinted at a similar possibility for HDMI support. I don’t know if this is such a great idea. One of the great things about gaming consoles is that they stay the same - developers and consumers can count on a standard unchanging set of specifications. To fiddle with that formula is inviting problems.

While we’re on the subject of HD output, a little bird told me that a games developer is having problems getting the HD output they want from the 360. They asked Microsoft if it’s okay to output SD only and Microsoft’s response was yes, but only for AAA titles. I heard this from a friend of a friend, so take it with just a little bit of skepticism…

Link: team XBOX - Xbox 360 Interview: Todd Holmdahl

In an interview with Todd Holmdahl, Corporate Vice President of the Xbox Product Group at Microsoft, team XBOX found out some interesting things. I’ve broken up discussion of this interview into several posts so that there is one post per topic.

It is confirmed that the 360 will play WMVHD high definition content from standard red-laser DVDs. They are currently evaluating the possibility of upscaling standard definition DVDs to HD, but have made no decision yet. For me, this second one is a non-issue. Their implementation of any upscaling would have to be quite excellent for this to matter. Most people just let their HDTVs do the upscaling. But if a particular HDTV has a bad scaler, and the 360 has a good one, this could be a benefit to some, especially if the 360 is their main DVD player.

Link: team XBOX - Xbox 360 Interview: Todd Holmdahl

In an interview with Todd Holmdahl, Corporate Vice President of the Xbox Product Group at Microsoft, team XBOX found out some interesting things. I’ve broken up discussion of this interview into several posts so that there is one post per topic.

One interesting thing is that the 360 will only have native composite and component outputs. Aftermarket cables will support s-video, enhanced SCART RGB, and VGA. Mr. Holmdahl say they’ll support HDMI when it makes sense, but that you don’t need HDMI for HD gaming. Which, you know, is true. But seeing as the 360 is a digital source for HD content, I think that a digital connection to the HDTV would be much preferable to an analog one, especially if the HDTV is digital too (no DA conversion would be necessary). For me personally this isn’t a big issue - my HDTV is a Hitachi CRT. But I’m sure that there are lots of people who might be a little miffed.

Link: team XBOX - Xbox 360 Interview: Todd Holmdahl

Have you had enough sales projections for the Xbox 360? Yesterday I posted an article about Peter Moore, who predicted 10 million units in the first 12 to 16 months.

Now Kagan Research has put forth their thoughts as well.

“We believe Sony PS3 will be the strongest seller of next-generation videogame consoles,” said Irina Mulvey, an analyst at Kagan.

But the gap between the two consoles will be narrowed significantly and Nintendo will be left in a distant third place: “However, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 will narrow the gap with Sony to come within 28% of the PS3 installed base - selling almost twice as many next-gen consoles as Nintendo Revolution by 2010.”

Sony’s PS2 is the undisputed leader of the current gen console pack, having sold over 90 million units worldwide since it launched in 2000. As of December 2004 the Xbox had moved 20 million units, and the GameCube had shifted 18 million.

Link: Talk Xbox - Info on Future of Video Games 2005 by Kagan Research– Xbox 360 to Double Nintendo Revolution Sales by ‘10
Link: CVG - XBOX 360 SALES FIGURES SOAR - NOW IT’S 11 MIL

Microsoft has enlisted the aid of Scottish developer Real Time Worlds to create games for the Xbox 360.

The firm was founded by Dave Jones of the DMA Design / Rockstar North fame, credited with a key role in the success of Grand Theft Auto. Real Time Worlds will create several titles ‘exclusively’ for the Xbox 360, with ‘a number’ already said to be in development. All Points Bulletin is the only title thus confirmed by the fledgling studio, and promises to be an ambitious MMOG to be published by Webzen (a Korean firm) in 2007.

Link: Ferrago - Xbox 360 gets Real Time Worlds exclusively

This Japanese blogger purports to have an image of the PS3 development kit. He says that the Cell chip in the dev kit runs at 2.4GHz, and the GPU is a “chip that is ‘yet-to-be-released’; probably a pre-release G70 since RSX for PS3 has yet to tape out. Not only that but he indicates that the GPU is currently working through a 4x PCI-Express slot, offering just a fraction of the bandwidth the RSX will enjoy through the FlexIO bus in the upcoming Playstation.”

These kits were supposedly used at E3 to show off the realtime demos. This means that the final production PS3s will be much more powerful than those used for the demos at E3.

Link: psinext - PS3 Dev Kit Information and Picture Revealed

But that’s okay.

We all know that the Cell processor has 8 synergistic processor elements (SPEs) for multicore processing, plus one PowerPC core. The specs for the PS3 say that the PS3 will have a Cell processor with 7 SPEs. That’s because they’re allowing for a production defect in one of the 8 SPEs, and will turn that one off. It’s really hard to manufacture chips with no defects, so this gives Sony some room to increase yields and thus lower costs. And lower costs are a good thing. Makes me wonder, though. Will they let Cell processor with 8 working SPEs into PS3s? Does that mean that some PS3s will be more powerful than others?

And if you’re wondering why the PS3’s Cell is specified at 3.2GHz instead of the anticipated 4GHz that the processor was unveiled at, it’s for one reason: heat. The 4GHz part is just too hot to fit into such a small enclosure.

Link: Gamespot - Kutaragi talks more on PlayStation 3

Microsoft’s Peter Moore says that they’re hoping to sell 10 million Xbox 360’s in the “first 12 to 16 months of launch”.

CVG puts this number into perspective: Microsoft sold 20 million original Xbox’s in 3 years. To do 10 million in one year would be quite an accomplishment. I think that the 360 will definitely do better than the original Xbox did, but 10 million is a Wow! number.

Link: CVG - ‘10 Million 360s Sold in First Year’ - Peter Moore
Link: BBC NEWS - Microsoft aims for 10m Xbox 360s

As someone who lives in Canada, I know what it’s like to get things later than our American neighbours, or some things not at all (like Mitsubishi HDTVs). Well, our friends across the great Atlantic water have it even worse, as one of our readers mentioned before.

It seems that this time around, though, they may not be too far behind us if SCEE president David Reeves gets his way. “I like to think the PS3 will launch in Europe around the same time as Kutaragi-san has already mentioned - spring 2006.”

So there you go. I don’t know how much pull Mr. Reeves has, but we know what he wants.

Link: CVG - PS3 to Hit Europe in Spring 2006

[Update 22jun05: more analysis from tom’s hardware guide]

Mar-ket-share.

Marketshare. Marketshare is everything. Without it, nobody cares. With it, everyone does. This is especially true in the arena of gaming consoles. Sony’s PS2 is the current title-holder, with about 70% of the global market. The Xbox and GameCube split the scraps. This is the reason why the PS2 attracts so many game developers. The more consoles get sold, the more software gets bought, the more software gets developed, the more consoles get sold, etc.

DFC Intelligence is into market research. And they’ve been looking at the next-gen console space and they predict that the very best the PS3 will be able to do is 50% of the market. They also say the Xbox 360 will be able to get no more than 40%, and the Revolution 35%. No, those numbers don’t add up to 100%. These are the best-case numbers for each console. So if the PS3 gets 50%, then obviously this isn’t the best case for the Xbox 360. The Xbox 360 and Revolution would have to split the remaining 50%.

At first you may think “Hey, you know, fifty percent isn’t that bad. Could do worse.” Well, that’s kinda the point. It can only do worse. According to DFC Intelligence, fifty percent is the very best the PS3 can hope for. And if fifty percent is the very best the PS3 can hope for, that’s pretty sad. And actually, the forty percent figure for the Xbox 360 is pretty sad too. That’s the very best it could possibly do? Hmmm. Doesn’t seem quite right to me. If Sony executes really well, I believe that they can get better than 50%. Also, if Microsoft executes really well, and Sony stumbles a bit, I think that the Xbox 360 could probably do better than 40%.

So I gotta take these numbers with a little bit of skepticism. Looking into the future is a pasttime best left for weather forecasters. I have a feeling that DFC will be wrong one way or another. Either Sony will do better than fifty percent, or Microsoft will do better than forty. Bets, anyone?

Link: gamesindustry.biz - DFC predicts 50 per cent market share at best for PS3

Several Japanese game developers have voiced their opinions about the upcoming consoles from Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo. Developers from Sega, Tecmo, Koei, and more have their opinions and Gamespot collected them for you.

For example:

Yuji Naka, Sonic the Hedgehog series creator at Sega

PlayStation 3 - “I am very interested in its high-quality graphics capabilities. It’s equipped with a graphics chip that’s twice as powerful as the high-end [graphics card] for the PC, which allows it to make realistic expressions that haven’t been possible before.”

Revolution - “I look forward to the ‘new kind of fun’ that’s unique to Nintendo, and I expect that there will be a lot of surprises, such as the unannounced controller. It’s also great that we’ll be able to play Famicom and other games via download. I hope Sega games will be playable as well.” [Note: A number of Sega games have been released for Nintendo consoles by Sunsoft.]

Xbox 360 - “[Microsoft has] used its knowledge from Xbox Live to evolve their network, making its services and controls even more convenient for the user, which I think is a very attractive point.”

Link: Gamespot - Japanese developers discuss, and dis, the next-gen consoles

Much was made of how large the PS3 console looked when it was unveiled at E3. Now Nikkei Electronics put together a chart that compares console sizes, and it seems that the PS3 isn’t such a monster after all. It’s pretty comparable in size to the Xbox 360, and actually a bit smaller. Go figure.

Link: psinext - Size of PS3 prototype revealed: smaller than XBox 360