Next-Gen Consoles to Launch Sooner than Expected?

Throughout the history of video gaming, we've always been able to expect a new console "in a few years", and that rule of thumb has kept rather consistent. Since the turn of the century though, things have changed dramatically in the game console landscape, some for better, some for worse. Consoles are becoming more like computers with each new release, not to mention much, much more advanced.

Microsoft released their Xbox 360 in November of 2005, close to four years ago, and Sony and Nintendo followed-up with their current-gen consoles the following year, the PlayStation 3 and Wii, respectively. So the question must be begged, when will be seeing the next-gen consoles? If Yves Guillemot, CEO of Ubisoft's claim has merit, then we may very-well be seeing them earlier than originally expected.

The reason? Services like OnLive, which aim to deliver high-quality gaming to consumers through their network connection. This method completely removes any limitations that a home console would have, as the servers for the service would be able to keep current with updated hardware if desired. What that means is that the big three may end up releasing their consoles earlier than they would have liked, and something in me tells me that's going to be a bad thing. I don't think I need to explain why.

Beyond a potential early release, Guillemot also spoke about the potential development costs for the upcoming consoles. Whereas it costs between $20 - $30 million today to create a top-tier game, the next-generation of consoles could skyrocket that figure up to $60 million. The game companies will have two options there. Raise the prices of retail games (which isn't going to help piracy any), or make certain that the games they release are epic, so they'll sell far more in volume. It's actually kind of scary to picture what the console landscape is going to be like in the next-gen... hopefully all the changes will be good ones.

Next generation, estimates Guillemot, top tier games will likely average $60 million to make. The ramifications for that are unknown. It could mean higher retail prices or lower return on investment. Ubisoft hopes to supplement the cost by reusing assets in the film community (as it is currently doing with its game adaptation of James Cameron's "Avatar".)

Apple's Updated MacBook Pro's Deliver Outstanding Battery-Life

At last week's WWDC, Apple had much to show off, including OS X Snow Leopard, Safari 4, iPhone 3G S and of course, the revised MacBook Pro line-up, which introduced for the first time, a 13-inch model. One of the biggest things taken away from the conference was the fact that Apple promised up to 7 hours on the new integrated-battery notebooks... a bold claim.

It didn't take too long before Apple-enthusiast Anand Lal Shimpi got one of the new models in for testing, and to say he was impressed would be an understatement. In his initial tests, the 2.53GHz version of the MacBook Pro lasted 8.13 hours in his wireless web-browsing tests. I don't think battery-life alone would sell me on a MacBook, but no one can deny such results are impressive.

What's more impressive is just how much more efficient OS X is when it comes to battery-life than Vista. We're not talking small differences here, but differences of 25% or higher. The frustrating thing is that it's hard to even come up with a reason for this. Vista is "bloated", sure, but 25%? Even worse is the fact that Windows 7 delivers even worse battery-life. Anyone have any ideas what could possibly be giving OS X such a worthwhile edge? I'd sure love to know.

The situation is apparently a bit better under Windows XP but not significantly. Even more depressing is the fact that Windows 7 doesn’t appear to make the situation any better. I still have a couple more hours in my Windows 7 run but I’ll update this page once I have the results. Right now it’s looking like ~6 hours for the new MacBook Pro under Windows 7 x64 RC1.

Globalfoundries Details Technology Aimed at 22nm and Beyond

In the fall of 2007, Intel helped kick off the 45nm life-cycle with the help of their Core 2 Extreme QX9650, and since then, 45nm has become pretty much the standard (with AMD releasing their first 45nm processors late last year). The next step is 32nm, and it looks as though Intel's own Westmere will be the first to deliver a product on that process (hopefully in just a few months), with AMD planning to launch product sometime in 2010, or at the latest, early 2011.

Beyond that, we have 22nm processes to look forward to, and though it may come off as a little surprising, it looks like AMD's brand-new spin-off foundry, Globalfoundries, is going to be the first out the door with such a chip, thanks in part to the fruits of the relationship with IBM and other alliance partners. At the VLSI 2009 conference, taking place in Kyoto, Japan, Globalfoundries had a live demonstration of silicon built with on a 22nm node, although it doesn't say what it was.

Their goal was to prove that it could be done, although we're still a long way from seeing usable chips built on the process. Not surprisingly, the press release doesn't state what it took to produce a reliable piece of silicon, but it does state that the High-K Metal Gate is essential in the process, and that their technology allows an EOT (equivalent oxide thickness) to scale well beyond the required levels for 22nm, which means this same technique could be useful for processes even smaller. Things should get exciting...

GLOBALFOUNDRIES and IBM have developed a new technique that overcomes this barrier, demonstrating for the first time that EOT scaling to well beyond the 22nm node can be achieved while maintaining the necessary combination of leakage, threshold voltages, and carrier mobility. The results were successfully demonstrated through fabrication of an n-MOSFET device with EOT of 0.55nm and a p-MOSFET with EOT of 0.7nm.

Commodore 64's Latest Use: Twitter

Ahh, the Commodore 64, one of the more recognized PC classics in the world. This machine was released in 1982, and remarkably, only became discontinued in 1994. Though it's unbelievably slow by today's standards (1MHz processor!) and severely lacks memory (64KB!), it was a true blast to use back in the day, and even today, apparently.

With Twitter becoming a little more than just a fad (it seems), and developers not wanting to let the C64 die, what's the most natural thing to do? Why, create a Twitter client for the C64, of course. That's just what Johan Van den Brande did, and the result is "Breadbox64". The client is built on top of a small OS called Contiki, and it's capable of both reading and posting things to your Twitter feed!

I don't know about you, but what impressed me most about this was finding out that you can actually go online with the Commodore 64... I had no idea. There's apparently still quite the scene hovering around the C64, and hardware is still being pushed out today. To go online, you'll first need the MMC Replay add-on and also the daughter card. It's amazing to me to know that you can go online with a computer that was discontinued before the typical Internet even kicked off!

As an underlying OS (yes, an OS that runs on the C64 is possible), I use Contiki. Contiki is an open source, highly portable, multi-tasking operating system for memory-efficient networked embedded systems and wireless sensor networks. More specific, I use their uIP stack to communicate over the Internet with the C64. It is definitely worth looking at. Actually the breadbox64 project grew out of my interest in Contiki to use it as a basis for some real projects later on.

Tech Roundup - June 16, 2009

Motherboards & Processors
• Gigabyte MA-790FXT-UD5P - Motherboards.org

Displays & Video Cards
• ATI Radeon Driver Re-Write Still Has Work Left - Phoronix
• Galaxy GTS 250 512MB - AlienBabelTech
• MSI 285 GTX Superpipe - Bjorn3D

Memory & Storage
• LaCie D2 Safe 1TB External Hard Drive - Think Computers
• Kingston 80GB SSDNow M Series Drive - Motherboards.org
• OCZ Blade 6GB DDR3-2000 - PureOverclock
• OCZ Vertex EX Series 120GB SLC SSD - Legit Reviews
• Thecus N3200PRO NAS Server - Overclockers Club

Cooling
• 80-way Thermal Interface Material Performance Test - Benchmark Reviews
• Glacialtech X-Wing Notebook Cooler - Virtual-Hideout
• Noctua NH-C12P CPU Cooler - Verdis Reviews

Chassis & Power Supplies
• Corsair HX850 850W Power Supply - JonnyGURU
• Eagle Tech M-Series 2.5" External Storage System - Dreamware Computers
• In-Win Allure Chassis - OverclockersHQ
• NZXT Beta Chassis - Red and Blackness
• NZXT Whisper Classic Series Chassis - DragonSteelMods

Competitions, Complete Systems & Et cetera
• Asus N90S 18.4-inch Multimedia Notebook - i4u
• Interview with DDD CEO on the Future of 3D - i4u
• Lenovo G530 Notebook - HotHardware