Kotaku Rumor: Microsoft 6 months behind in game production for X720 [Pastebin = Ban]

Here is what I remember about his claims:
1. He got Durango's RAM speeds correct
2. He was the first one to claim Sony's RAM was upgraded to 4 GB, which was correct.
3. He got PS4's box dimensions hilariously wrong. I guess technically they could be right as we don't know the actual dimensions but the dimensions he claimed were just straight up ridiculous
4. Claimed 8 GB was impossible.

There were other rumors he had, but I don't remember them. Maybe the ones I'm forgetting improve his rumor track record, but from what I recall he hasn't been super reliable.
He also gave the 1.84 Tflop number for PS4's GPU way before we heard anything about that.
 
There is a famous poster on Beyond3D named Bkilian. He was the audio engineer on Durango, and he is one of the biggest sources for all of this information. He no longer works at Microsoft, but during a private message session with a particular GAF member, he mentioned that he is frustrated that "the suits began caring only about profit". On his way out he was terribly frustrated with the design and goals of the machine. Karak eat your heart out.

bkillian actually posted that stuff publicly on B3D as well, though I dont feel like looking it up to link.

Worst case scenario 1.2 TF isn't horrible though. It's not like MS made the Wii U here, this thing packs a ton of tech (and stuff like Kinect 2.0 is pretty impressive tech as well imo). If anything this is the machine Wii U should have been, and it's backers wish it was, if rumors are right.

I was just looking up 6670 specs yesterday, cause remember this rumor? http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/01/24/xbox-720-will-be-six-times-as-powerful-as-current-gen

At least the rumored Durango GPU is well more powerful than a 6670 (worst case scenario imo). 768 shaders vs 480. About 1.6X. But 6670 was VLIW 4 or 5, and it's only 700 some million transistors. Since 7770 is over 1.5B transistors, and Durango is more CU's than that, plus a bunch of ESRAM, yeah probably like 2B+ transistors total So i reality Durango GPU should be easily at least 2X 6670 once you account for GCN>VLIW4 efficiency gains.

Also just rereading that IGN article I linked, lol at this:
In real terms, the Xbox 720's raw graphics processing power is expected to be six times that of the Xbox 360 and will yield 20-percent greater performance than Nintendo's forthcoming console, the Wii U.

6X is reasonable, but 20% over Wii U? Hah. Scott Lowe is awful.
 
As far as I know the current Durango was always planned for 2013. There was no one year delay.

They might have targeted 2012, but that would be before any real work was done on the system.

I can believe it was slated for Q4 2012... sometime before E3 2011, when MS announced Halo 4 as a holiday 2012 release for 360.
 
http://www.ign.com/articles/2005/05/16/e3-2005-ps3-tech-specs-2
PS3
GPU: RSX @550MHz
1.8 TFLOPS floating point performance

Sometimes claims of FLOPS should be taken with a grain of salt.

No doubt PS4 is probably better, but lets not dwell on the number
NVidia's claims about RSX are BS. I was just saying Thuway got the tflop count for the PS4 correct before we heard it from anyone else. Cerny himself says PS4 is 1.84tflops
 
NVidia's claims about RSX are BS. I was just saying Thuway got the tflop count for the PS4 correct before we heard it from anyone else. Cerny himself says PS4 is 1.84tflops

Why are those NVidia's claims and not Sony's claims?
Were they not working together, the article is not about the GPU alone, its the specs for the whole system
 
NVidia's claims about RSX are BS. I was just saying Thuway got the tflop count for the PS4 correct before we heard it from anyone else. Cerny himself says PS4 is 1.84tflops

More to the point, while every manufacturer has their own retarded method of counting flops, and flops do different things in different places, this time we already know they're the same scale and arrayed in a similar manner.
 
Worst case scenario 1.2 TF isn't horrible though. It's not like MS made the Wii U here, this thing packs a ton of tech (and stuff like Kinect 2.0 is pretty impressive tech as well imo). If anything this is the machine Wii U should have been if rumors are right.

Microsoft went conservative considering the time between PS3/360 and PS4/Durango. 1.23 TF + 8 GB DDR3 + DMEs isn't exactly setting the world on fire. It's a safe bet. I can imagine a scenario where games won't run at 1080p natively on Durango in favor of better effects and post processing filters.

Sony, themselves, can barely call themselves next-gen. I understand why both manufacturers have went conservative, but I wouldn't be surprised to see 1080p dropped rather quickly in their first party titles to achieve something that looks similar to Deep Down.

After reading interviews though, I am hoping we see faster refreshes between console cycles. These machines will be bending over and tapping out after 5 years.
 
This is terribly disappointing to hear. I might be a PS owner by the end of this year then.



Interesting. So you are saying pretty confidently that it wasn't due to issues that they are releasing this year?

So because it won't be uber powerful, it will suck?

Don't be so narrow minded.
 
I hear ya. It is when suits start oppressing the creatives that shit takes a downturn.

We need definitive information ASAP but as I said if the new Xbox takes the steps I fear it will I highly doubt I will invest in it. The rumours have been mostly shitty so far, having said that I remember a lot of buzz around Project Cafe and look how Wii U has turned out. It certainly hasn't vastly improved or improved on PS3/Xbox in technical or the online stakes which was claimed in the rumours.
 
More to the point, while every manufacturer has their own retarded method of counting flops, and flops do different things in different places, this time we already know they're the same scale and arrayed in a similar manner.

Actually flops claims seem to have standardized.

The PS3 1.8 TF number was the weird outlier attainable only by fuzzy math. Flops numbers thrown around today all count the same thing.

In real terms the PS3 GPU was around 250 gflops AFAIK. As is the 360 GPU. So PS3 vs PS4 is .25 TF vs 1.84 TF, PS4 about 7X more plus efficiency gains.
 
He also gave the 1.84 Tflop number for PS4's GPU way before we heard anything about that.
Robo I wasn't the first person to report the number. I did, however, confirm it. There was a period of time on GAF where I would argue for 3 TF + machines, until I actually saw a physical paper in front of me with the exact same thing on VG Leaks with the exception of one difference:

It said 4 GB GDDR5.

So because it won't be uber powerful, it will suck?

Don't be so narrow minded.

Console gamer's need to understand that differences between ports are not going to be gargantuan. Majority of people already struggle to tell the difference between a 360 version and a PC port, next-gen will be the exact same story. The Sony machine will favor in ports, but when we are talking about fidelity, we can easily lower resolutions and drop expensive features like tesselation. General public, once again, won't give a fuck.
 
http://www.ign.com/articles/2005/05/16/e3-2005-ps3-tech-specs-2
PS3
GPU: RSX @550MHz
1.8 TFLOPS floating point performance

Sometimes claims of FLOPS should be taken with a grain of salt.

No doubt PS4 is probably better, but lets not dwell on the number

I like how you completely missed the point. Do you run around PS4 threads with that link handy and whenever you see "1.84 TFLOPS" you just reply and paste without reading?
 
Robo I wasn't the first person to report the number. I did, however, confirm it. There was a period of time on GAF where I would argue for 3 TF + machines, until I actually saw a physical paper in front of me with the exact same thing on VG Leaks with the exception of one difference:

It said 4 GB GDDR5.

Is it true even Sonys first party devs didn't learn about the 8Gb GDDR5 until close of the PS4 unveiling ?
 
So because it won't be uber powerful, it will suck?

No, the power of the system is fairly inconsequential to me as long as there is a decent jump(and the rumored specs are decent enough for me), it is because bean counters are apparently now making the big decisions with only profit in mind. I am not a fan of that scenario. You don't get innovation, you get safe decisions and loads of advertisements and marketing sell-outs. I love me some Halo, even Halo 4, but the amount of product tie-ins with some of the content left a bad taste in my mouth. Halo makes enough money where we don't need sponsored tournaments and DLC.
 
Robo I wasn't the first person to report the number. I did, however, confirm it. There was a period of time on GAF where I would argue for 3 TF + machines, until I actually saw a physical paper in front of me with the exact same thing on VG Leaks with the exception of one difference:

It said 4 GB GDDR5.
Ah, well you were the first source I heard it from and I've been flowwoing atff pretty closely. I distinctly remember your post that said it because you had been debating the possibility of 3+ Tflop machines with me just a few days prior.
 
Microsoft went conservative considering the time between PS3/360 and PS4/Durango. 1.23 TF + 8 GB DDR3 + DMEs isn't exactly setting the world on fire. It's a safe bet. I can imagine a scenario where games won't run at 1080p natively on Durango in favor of better effects and post processing filters.

Sony, themselves, can barely call themselves next-gen. I understand why both manufacturers have went conservative, but I wouldn't be surprised to see 1080p dropped rather quickly in their first party titles to achieve something that looks similar to Deep Down.

I think Sony is easily a gen leap. As I just posted just in raw numbers the GPU is 7X. Now add in the efficiency gained by GCN and I think it's easily over 10X. The RAM is 16X! I guess the only caveat is the gen went 7 years in Sony's case instead of the usual 5.

And for MS going "cheap" on Durango, I've always said a 1.2 TF 8GB machine would have been fine vs the likely 1.8TF 4GB PS4. The more RAM would have basically counteracted the more flops and it woulda been a wash imo.

Sony just went batshit crazy aggressive and sprung for 8GB GDDR5 at the last second, but it's pretty surprising that happened imo. I think in 90% of alternate universes Sony woulda stuck at 4GB, and that "weak, underpowered" Durango would have held up perfectly fine.
 
No, because bean counters are apparently now making the big decisions with only profit in mind. I am not a fan of that scenario. You don't get innovation, you get safe decisions and loads of advertisements and marketing sell-outs. I love me some Halo, even Halo 4, but the amount of product tie-ins with some of the content left a bad taste in my mouth. Halo makes enough money where we don't need sponsored tournaments and DLC.

They are companies making products to sell and make money. Of course every company is going to look at every possible avenue for making more money for this product they have spent years making. I mean c'mon man, you would want your work getting every possible penny its worth right?
 
Is it true even Sonys first party devs didn't learn about the 8Gb GDDR5 until close of the PS4 unveiling ?

The source I received information about Drive Club claimed he heard of a RAM upgrade. The weeks prior to the PS4 event, BruceLeeRoy and I made it a personal mission to find out if really had happened.

GAF won't believe me, but I emailed Richard Leadbetter, Jscrerer, and communicated with other journalists and insiders to find out if the information panned out. Some of you on GAF probably have recieved annoying messages from me implicating or asking about it. No one confirmed it, the only person who heard something remotely similar was Bruce, and neither of us felt confident to make it a fact.

The mere suggestion of Sony having anything more than 4 GB of RAM was a laughable proposition at the time, so I chose to not believe the rumor as well. Some of Sony's own teams didn't know, from what I have heard.
 
I think Sony is easily a gen leap. As I just posted just in raw numbers the GPU is 7X. Now add in the efficiency gained by GCN and I think it's easily over 10X. The RAM is 16X! I guess the only caveat is the gen went 7 years in Sony's case instead of the usual 5.

Yeah, a lot of the disappointment is looking at the 360's lifespan and thinking "SNES to Dreamcast", ignoring that the SNES was very late and the DC was very early.
 
Yeah, a lot of the disappointment is looking at the 360's lifespan and thinking "SNES to Dreamcast", ignoring that the SNES was very late and the DC was very early.

This is not a popular thing to say, but if Sony and MS target 720p, you will see a fidelity bump the likes of Deep Down.
 
NVidia's claims about RSX are BS. I was just saying Thuway got the tflop count for the PS4 correct before we heard it from anyone else. Cerny himself says PS4 is 1.84tflops

I'm calling bs on that. vgleaks had the tflop number almost a year ago. And I remember in those past ps4 threads Thurway going on how Sony shouldn't go anything less than a 2tflop gpu and throwing out crazy specs.

Here is what I remember about his claims:
1. He got Durango's RAM speeds correct
2. He was the first one to claim Sony's RAM was upgraded to 4 GB, which was correct.
3. He got PS4's box dimensions hilariously wrong. I guess technically they could be right as we don't know the actual dimensions but the dimensions he claimed were just straight up ridiculous
4. Claimed 8 GB was impossible.

There were other rumors he had, but I don't remember them. Maybe the ones I'm forgetting improve his rumor track record, but from what I recall he hasn't been super reliable.

Again, this number was in the vgleaks leaked spec sheet. All Thurway did was repeat what vgleaks already leaked but doubled down on the 4gb ram amount.
 
The source I received information about Drive Club claimed he heard of a RAM upgrade. The weeks prior to the PS4 event, BruceLeeRoy and I made it a personal mission to find out if really had happened.

GAF won't believe me, but I emailed Richard Leadbetter, Jscrerer, and communicated with other journalists and insiders to find out if the information panned out. Some of you on GAF probably have recieved annoying messages from me implicating or asking about it. No one confirmed it, the only person who heard something remotely similar was Bruce, and neither of us felt confident to make it a fact.

The mere suggestion of Sony having anything more than 4 GB of RAM was a laughable proposition at the time, so I chose to not believe the rumor as well. Some of Sony's own teams didn't know, from what I have heard.

I bet the devs were delighted when they found out. I remember being shocked when it was confirmed, thinking how the fuck they kept that quiet.

Drive Club looks ace too
 
I'm calling bs on that. vgleaks had the tflop number almost a year ago. And I remember in those past ps4 threads Thurway going on how Sony shouldn't go anything less than a 2tflop gpu and throwing out crazy specs.

I am only going to do this once GAF, I have had to repeat myself over and over again.

1. I am THUway, not THRUway.
2. I had no prior knowledge of any information on PS4 until I saw document that was EERILY similar to the VG Leaks, only it had more information. It had diagrams and bus names, which I kept a secret to myself because it is of no use to you, and I could barely interpret it. The only person I told those to were Jeff_Rigby, Kagari, and BruceLeeRoy. The names were Onion and Garlic. This is months before any one even knew about it.
3. I gave out the bandwith numbers for Durango's RAM.
4. I gave out hints on the existence of Drive Club, and even mentioned it by name in PM's way before the Sony event.

Quit fucking doubting me.

I have a pretty big number of sources, and I will occasionally get shit wrong, but this is the nature of rumors. I can't make a wrong into a right, or a right into a wrong.
 
I'm calling bs on that. vgleaks had the tflop number almost a year ago. And I remember in those past ps4 threads Thurway going on how Sony shouldn't go anything less than a 2tflop gpu and throwing out crazy specs.



Again, this number was in the vgleaks leaked spec sheet. All Thurway did was repeat what vgleaks already leaked but doubled down on the 4gb ram amount.

Yep. He hasn't stated anything that wasn't already out there. Even his recent "there is a 360 game out right now that was targeted for Durango" was brought up by aegies a while back.
 
Ah, well you were the first source I heard it from and I've been flowwoing atff pretty closely. I distinctly remember your post that said it because you had been debating the possibility of 3+ Tflop machines with me just a few days prior.

I was saying the same thing from late 2011. Thuway was one of the people arguing with me as to it not being enough. More on that below.

I'm calling bs on that. vgleaks had the tflop number almost a year ago. And I remember in those past ps4 threads Thurway going on how Sony shouldn't go anything less than a 2tflop gpu and throwing out crazy specs.



Again, this number was in the vgleaks leaked spec sheet. All Thurway did was repeat what vgleaks already leaked but doubled down on the 4gb ram amount.

Thuway didn't have anyone speaking to him when he was throwing crazy figures claiming 1.2 and 1.8 were pitiful (if you search through my history you can find one of those exact arguments between him and myself). After seeing the light, in regards to actual specs, he gained some new insight. Most of what I've seen him say is real information. Corroborative by many on this forum. The very nature of rumours means that they can never be spot on (for example, in 2011 the ps4 was to have 2gb of gddr) but what he is saying is not a bunch of bullshit.
 
Thuway didn't have anyone speaking to him when he was throwing crazy figures claiming 1.2 and 1.8 were pitiful (if you search through my history you can find one of those exact arguments between him and myself). After seeing the light, in regards to actual specs, he gained some new insight. Most of what I've seen him say is real information. Corroborative by many on this forum.

My overall point was specifically regarding the ps4 specs. Thuway(lol,happy?) didn't reveal any new information. Not even about the cpu change to jaguar core
 
I am only going to do this once GAF, I have had to repeat myself over and over again.

1. I am THUway, not THRUway.
2. I had no prior knowledge of any information on PS4 until I saw document that was EERILY similar to the VG Leaks, only it had more information. It had diagrams and bus names, which I kept a secret to myself because it is of no use to you, and I could barely interpret it. The only person I told those to were Jeff_Rigby, Kagari, and BruceLeeRoy. The names were Onion and Garlic. This is months before any one even knew about it.
3. I gave out the bandwith numbers for Durango's RAM.
4. I gave out hints on the existence of Drive Club, and even mentioned it by name in PM's way before the Sony event.

Quit fucking doubting me.

I have a pretty big number of sources, and I will occasionally get shit wrong, but this is the nature of rumors. I can't make a wrong into a right, or a right into a wrong.

Keeping information a secret to yourself? Private Messages? That does not inspire confidence.

I do think you do a lot of forum research. Here, Beyond3D or Arstechnica. I mean what do you do that you have 'big number of sources'?
 
No, the power of the system is fairly inconsequential to me as long as there is a decent jump(and the rumored specs are decent enough for me), it is because bean counters are apparently now making the big decisions with only profit in mind. I am not a fan of that scenario. You don't get innovation, you get safe decisions and loads of advertisements and marketing sell-outs. I love me some Halo, even Halo 4, but the amount of product tie-ins with some of the content left a bad taste in my mouth. Halo makes enough money where we don't need sponsored tournaments and DLC.

I hear you, but I think too many gamers are getting way too jaded and taking stuff too seriously as they get older.

We're currently in a situation where gamers over 30 have more games than they have time to play them yet still complain.

Then you have gamers who go over a games visuals with a fine tooth comb, complaining about AA, frame rates and texture resolutions, but then go back and play games from the 8 and 16 bit (or god forbid 32 bit) era.

I mean seriously.
 
This is not a popular thing to say, but if Sony and MS target 720p, you will see a fidelity bump the likes of Deep Down.

God i hope not, cant stand most 720p games on my big screen TV. I'd like to, for once, get true 1080p visuals from the next gen.
 
speaking of bkilian and since there seems to be some tech talk in here, just noticed he posted this in response to someone "unimpressed" with the Durango's audio chip via vgleaks

Put it this way, the performance described in that supposedly leaked doc could not be replicated on the 360, even if all 3 cores were used purely for the audio.

Nice tidbit.

Edit: And some other tech stuff I cant understand he threw around today

On the 360, there is hardware for decoding XMA files, which is a much simpler subset of WMA. XAudio2 allows decoding of xWMA files too, but that's CPU side software only. The XMA decoder chip is rated at 320 channels, but in reality it generally maxes out lower than that. The 256 audio channels was calculated using a full core I believe, and that's using a very simple linear interpolation SRC, and possibly a filter and volume per channel.

All audio on the 360, other than XMA decompression, is software and uses the main CPU. Party chat, including codecs and mixing, happen in the system reservation. Game Chat, Kinect MEC and voice recognition, and all game audio happen in the game process and use game resources, including memory and CPU. Game audio frequently uses an entire hardware thread, and I've seen games where it uses 3 hardware threads. Car racing games, in particular, can use upwards of a hundred voices on a single car.
 
Keeping information a secret to yourself? Private Messages? That does not inspire confidence.

I do think you do a lot of forum research. Here, Beyond3D or Arstechnica. I mean what do you do that you have 'big number of sources'?

Can you take your witch hunt to PM? Shit's getting annoying.
 
Keeping information a secret to yourself? Private Messages? That does not inspire confidence.

I do think you do a lot of forum research. Here, Beyond3D or Arstechnica. I mean what do you do that you have 'big number of sources'?

No? I think it's fucking smart.

Truway has a good reputation here on gaf for having inside knowledge. That Rep could quickly evaporated if he juts tossed any old info he came across, and it turned out that "plans changed" as they often do.
 
speaking of bkilian and since there seems to be some tech talk in here, just noticed he posted this in response to someone "unimpressed" with the Durango's audio chip via vgleaks



Nice tidbit.

Edit: And some other tech stuff I cant understand he threw around today

Nice, 22.2 channels likely?
 
Durango just needs call of duty and 3rd party games, but it will struggle , is this wii u all over again :P

Microsoft gonna bring out dat Halo 2 anniversary , do it MS, i want to replay it again


hell i would take a perfect dark zero 2 , please
 
I'd be thrilled if Rare showed off a new Perfect Dark. It's insane to me that there wasn't a second PD for 360, given how well PDZ sold.
 
Keeping information a secret to yourself? Private Messages? That does not inspire confidence.

I do think you do a lot of forum research. Here, Beyond3D or Arstechnica. I mean what do you do that you have 'big number of sources'?

Why? I mean, his "sources" amount to past co-workers, friends, and associates. No one is going to take apart a dev. kit and send him photographs. Its all word of mouth, frequently one or two more steps away from the source.

So him sitting on info until he actually gets multiple confirms would only make sense. I mean, rumor mongering is fun but as we can see in this thread even when you try to keep what you're hearing to yourself until it has confirmation you still wind up being wrong a good amount of the time.

Just like the PS4 RAM deal. EVERY source swore it was 4GB right up until about a week before the unveil when EDGE slipped a poorly worded sentence into their coverage with the implication that they might go to 8GB. You can't blame someone for being wrong when the sources themselves aren't clued in.
 
I'd be thrilled if Rare showed off a new Perfect Dark. It's insane to me that there wasn't a second PD for 360, given how well PDZ sold.

The problem is Rare's key staff has left the building. In a move that suprised no one, Rare has lost its hardcore identity and instead focuses itself primarily around the Kinnect / casual genre. They are nothing more than a shell of their former selves.

Still tho'- I dream about Killer Instinct Durangwo.
 
No? I think it's fucking smart.

Truway has a good reputation here on gaf for having inside knowledge. That Rep could quickly evaporated if he juts tossed any old info he came across, and it turned out that "plans changed" as they often do.

He just posted his track record and if you think that is something that gives him this "Quit fucking doubting me" status then forget it. Believe him then. I quit.
 
The problem is Rare's key staff has left the building. In a move that suprised no one, Rare has lost its hardcore identity and instead focuses itself primarily around the Kinnect / casual genre. They are nothing more than a shell of their former selves.

Still tho'- I dream about Killer Instinct Durangwo.

But they've been on a hiring spree as of late. And for folks that don't have casual game experience. Codemaster folks mainly. But yes Rare now != in an way shape or form, original Rare.
 
The problem is Rare's key staff has left the building. In a move that suprised no one, Rare has lost its hardcore identity and instead focuses itself primarily around the Kinnect / casual genre. They are nothing more than a shell of their former selves.

Still tho'- I dream about Killer Instinct Durangwo.

True. I mean, Rare has always been known for its poor management, which I think reached its peak on the GameCube and Xbox. For all the shit they get, they did release five "core" games for the 360 in about half the console's life span.

I hope the core Durango games they were hiring for are still in production. But then, like you said, it's not like Rare is really the Rare of old. MS might as well just rename the company at this point.
 
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