
The American Who Designed the PlayStation 4 and Remade Sony - freshrap6
http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2013/11/playstation-4/all/
======
6ren
I'm seeing a pattern, a cycle between hubris and humility.

When Nintendo ruled, Sony broke in by courting game developers. Then, they
became arrogant, and made the best hardware they could, they was difficult to
use. Thus, Microsoft won, simply because it was easier for developers. It was
then amazing to see how arrogant they had become with the xboxone trying to
squeeze everyone, in every way - similar to how they removed the ability to
cancel xbox live online.

What Microsoft didn't realize is that _they_ didn't win - Sony lost, by
shooting themselves in the foot. But in this generation, if PS4 is easy to
develop for, cheaper, more powerful, and not trying to squeeze every cent and
control every aspect... things will be different.

Of course, Microsoft will see their mistake and adjust (as they've done many
times). But while they can drop prices and relax controls, it may be difficult
to make their console more powerful. Also, next year, mobile devices should
reach GPU parity with last gen consoles... and with their faster iteration
cycle, match PS4/xboxone three years after that. (unlike CPUs, GPUs scale
really well).

~~~
Keyframe
I get what you're saying, but Microsoft never won any console race
[http://www.geekwire.com/2013/xbox-360-wii-ps3-won-console-
ge...](http://www.geekwire.com/2013/xbox-360-wii-ps3-won-console-generation/)

~~~
InclinedPlane
Naive interpretations of the current console generation will lead to incorrect
conclusions.

Microsoft unequivocally won the 360/ps3/wii console generation. Not because
they shipped more consoles, no console maker actually makes the majority of
their profit from raw console shipments, it's a very misleading figure. What
matters more are sales of games and DLC and subscriptions to services. In
those measures the 360 has been trouncing every other console maker. People
who own 360s spend more time playing the console, they spend more money buying
physical games, and they spend more money buying DLC and subscribing to xbox
live gold. Microsoft does more business on higher margin items than other
console makers.

The Wii made ok money for Nintendo but the sales dropped off really fast, and
people didn't end up playing it much, or buying many games for it. The PS3
took a long time to reach a state of maturity where there was a sufficient
stock of good games on the console to actually justify owning one. And
eventually the PS3 managed to get to a state where it was actually doing well.
But from a business perspective no matter how much better it was doing the 360
continued to outpace it (in game sales especially). These are some of the
major reasons why there even is a new console generation this year, Nintendo
and Sony need to put themselves on a new footing in order to have a chance of
growing their market share.

~~~
pandaman
Why sales matter and not profits? If I go and buy Ferrari F360s for $200K then
turn around and sell them for $10K I can probably get a lot of sales yet from
the business perspective I am going to be in a pretty bad state.

Has MS turned in any profit from their whole Xbox affair? There had been
various estimates around but I've never seen ones claiming significant
profits, the best ones I'd seen claimed it broke even. They had shown some
minor profit on their entertainment divisions in some quarters but the RROD
alone costs them $1B not counting minor stuff like purchasing and running Rare
or paying for "exclusivity".

~~~
InclinedPlane
If profit figures were available we wouldn't be having this discussion,
because the answer would be obvious. But they're not. Nintendo's figures are
the most available (since gaming is the majority of their business and they
are a public company), but the least relevant because we know they've been
struggling. Sony has had reduced profitability and losses over the last few
years. The interesting thing is how difficult it is to get numbers out of
Microsoft. They fold the Xbox and console gaming part of the company in with
web-based gaming and the windows phone (and formerly zune) part of the
company, which muddies the waters considerably. Overall though there are many
indications that console gaming has been profitable for Microsoft. For
example, in 2012 alone xbox live made $1.2 billion in revenue. This is a very
high-margin business for MS and that represents about 10% of the entire
worldwide video game revenue.

MS has dumped a lot of money into console gaming, but they've built a business
that is now generating a lot of revenue in a lot of high margin areas.

~~~
pandaman
I think your numbers are way off, the entire worldwide video game revenue is
not anywhere around $12B[1]

Also margins are not as high as you seem to imagine, look at any 3d party
publisher reports (they are all public corps).

[1] [http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/06/10/gameshow-e-
idINDEE9...](http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/06/10/gameshow-e-
idINDEE9590DW20130610)

------
sjtgraham
The Cerny Method sounds remarkably like the Lean Startup Method, but
apparently pre-dates it quite significantly.

~~~
infinii
I had the exact same thoughts while reading the article. Cerny created MVPs of
games, got feedback and would pivot/change based on user feedback. And he did
this in the mid 90's!!

~~~
robmcm
It's not a MVP if you have to build the whole game engine, but it's simular I
guess.

------
ChuckMcM
This was a good read, and the narrative between Sony's launch and Microsoft's
launch has the feel of some pretty classic hero's journey stuff in it.

The interesting upstart this time seems to be the SteamBox.

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bradleyjg
The PS4 may well make for a better video game machine and more profit for
Sony, but it's too bad the very interesting and powerful cell processor
concept will be relegated to the dustbin.

~~~
jasonwatkinspdx
The Cell design was interesting, but it was obvious that chip multiprocessors
would win. The argument is similar to why x86 continues to prevail vs RISC and
VLIW: supporting x86 is only a modest constant factor in transistor count but
preserves access to the existing software ecosystem. The latter trumps the
pennies per part the x86 decoders add.

Likewise with chip multiprocessors vs systolic arrays: making a core fully
general and with proper cache coherant memory access isn't that expensive in
transistors, and allows you to leverage existing multi-threaded code.

Systolic arrays still have a future in true embeded devices: radar processing
is a good example.

Oh, and before you point to the AMD architecture as being Cell-like, it's not
at all. Unified virtual memory instead of Cell's complex 2 level store. Cell
requires the CPU to manage DMA's to the APU's, on Fusion you can just pass a
pointer. CPU and APU instruction sets are entirely decoupled on Fusion. APU
supports thread pre-emption.

In any case, the lesson here is obvious: design hardware in opposition to the
existing software ecosystem in your industry, and you'll make something that
is academically interesting but struggles to deliver value to end products.

~~~
InclinedPlane
The x86 vs RISC debate is a perfect example of how technological advances can
confound seemingly simple tradeoffs. There's simply no such thing as a CISC
processor anymore. All "x86" processors have RISC internals and use micro-op
translation to present an x86 ISA at a software level. As you point out, the
same sort of dynamics play out at every level. There's only so much advantage
that simplified core designs get you, since the overhead for "legacy" support
tends to be small.

It'll be interesting to see how Intel's x86 SoC development pans out. With the
Atom they weren't really aiming for the SoC market and only recently have they
actually bothered to try to do so. Even with their first generation stuff
they've produced pretty competitive, to ARM, results, given Intel's research
muscle and their FAB capacity it wouldn't be surprising to see a lot more
x86-SoC based smartphones and tablets hitting the market in the coming years.

------
csense
I wish more people would care about Sony's record.

They initially officially supported Linux on the Playstation 3, but later
decided not only to remove the feature from new models, but reach out through
the cloud to _remove the feature from existing consoles_ [1] [2].

This is also the company that put rootkits on CD's [3].

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5886509](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5886509)

[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otheros](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otheros)

[3]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootki...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal)

------
6ren

      It makes a lot of sense to just a build a piece of it first — but that piece needs
      to be representative. You can’t just hack something together.” He calls this
      prototype a “publishable first playable,”
    

A better explanation of MVP than most.

------
fit2rule
So I'm clueless as I haven't been paying attention to this market since the
PS4/XBox360 were released - does the PS4 not run PS3 titles? If so, does it
have some emulation or is it new hardware sitting on top of the old Cell
design?

~~~
robmcm
I don't get this desire for backwards compatibility. Why would you want to
play a really old game on a shiny new console?

If you really did, then pick up a used ps3 or 360 for about £50 and get the
PS4 later!

~~~
ScottWhigham
Says a guy who obviously doesn't have children and who also doesn't own
console games :)

I bought my kid the new Lego Batman II for PS3 in March for his birthday. We
decided to upgrade to the PS4. He can't play this new game - that was recently
released - on the PS4. It's a weird thing to not support backward
compatibility IMO. It's a win for the developers/Sony but a loss for
consumers. I have to now buy all new games and Lego Star Wars isn't going to
be any better on PS4 than on PS3. Your question acts as though there should
always be this "evolution" going on but I disagree. I like watching Daffy Duck
from the 1940s - I don't like watching the Daffy Duck from the 1980s.
Sometimes a game is "really good" and doesn't need revving - it just needs to
be made available for the current gen console.

~~~
robmcm
Firstly why are you getting rid of your PS3, secondly I have a 360, and a PS2
before that, PSX before etc etc I also have a XBone and PS4 pre ordered.

I trade in all my old games as I never re-play them, if I do it's normally
after such a long time that I can download them on my phone or run them
emulated as I'm sure will eventlally be possible on the PS4.

Supporting backwards compatibility could result in developers not bothering
with the new hardware, soemthing that has happend a bit with the GBAdvanced
and DS platforms.

~~~
ScottWhigham
Again, "Says the guy who obviously doesn't have children" haha

~~~
ScottWhigham
You don't see what difference it makes because you have no context. There are
a lot of things I thought/did as a young man with no wife or children that I
don't do today now that I have both. I can't tell whether you are being
willfully dense (or "captious" as yesterday's word of the day taught us) or
you just haven't taken the time to think from someone else's perspective.

~~~
robmcm
Try making a valid point rather than saying I'm not considering your point of
view.

Or I could just say, "Says a man who's insecure" or some other vague and
assumed statement.

------
blt
Unified memory architecture! Should be some cool hybrid cpu/gpu algorithm
possibilities. Currently the overhead of copying stuff between the two
memories in CUDA prevents any fine-grained cooperation. I wonder how much
gpgpu ability is exposed.

------
paulftw
They should have mentioned the number of titles at launch for xbox one. If
ease of making games is such a big deal why aren't there any facts on how far
behind their main competitor is.

~~~
Narishma
Xbox One only launches with a couple more retail titles. PS4 launches with a
dozen or so more PSN titles.

------
jmpeax
I want to know how much Sony payed Wired for that advertism... article.

------
ye
PS4 is just a PC stuck in one configuration, linked to a popular delivery
system.

I don't get what the hype is about.

Yes, it's a pretty good configuration at a reasonable price. But that will
only be the case for a few months. PCs will catch up very quickly and will
become cheaper, and then much cheaper.

As somebody who loves games, I don't see a reason to buy PS4. I'd rather spend
a bit more on a PC, and then upgrade it as I go.

The positive thing I see is the PS4 <-> PC game portability. No longer
developers need to have to very different engines and codebases. That's why
PS4 is a much better option than XBox One in my eyes.

~~~
tadfisher
> PS4 is just a PC stuck in one configuration, linked to a popular delivery
> system.

You've belied the true strength of video game consoles. A single configuration
means less testing work and a streamlined experience for consumers. Not
everyone is willing to deal with graphics drivers and endless installers.

~~~
chucknelson
Which also leads to crazy optimization against the stable hardware. Just look
at what PS3 and Xbox 360 are pushing out with ~512 MB RAM and 7+ year old
hardware. It's pretty incredible.

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AnaRizaMae
good article...

