Game Consoles: How Much Horsepower Is Left This Gen?Console horsepower - it's been the primary force driving the industry forward ever since the business started taking shape back in the days of Atari. With each console cycle, developers would get significantly more powerful machines to work with to aid them in realizing their creative visions, while gamers reap the benefits of prettier visuals. For this generation, we're already six years past the launch of Xbox 360, and it's clear that the machines are getting close to their limits. But how much more is left, and do game makers really need new consoles to advance the industry?
IndustryGamers put these questions to some of the leading developers in the field. Our panelists for this roundtable story are as follows: Julien Merceron, Worldwide Technology Director, for Square Enix Group; Michael Condrey, Co-founder / VP of Product Development, Sledgehammer Games; Yosuke Hayashi, Team Ninja leader; and Matt Bilbey, VP, GM Soccer, EA Sports.
Here's what they had to say.
IndustryGamers: We're now 5+ years into this console generation and under more normal circumstances, we'd be expecting new consoles around now. How much more power is there left to squeeze out of current gen platforms?
Julien Merceron: It is true that - based on previous Home Console life cycle (PS2 / Xbox / GCube) - a new generation should be there already, and - while Wii U is looming - some would have expected Sony and Microsoft (and maybe others?) to have done some official unveilings already as well. But - last generation - frankly many developers got the feeling that PS2 / Xbox generation ended too soon (remember how many great PS2 games shipped after Xbox 360 launched?). We could have done much more on PS2 and Xbox! There was some power left to squeeze out of that generation, but - most importantly - it was also a question of creative people and artists starting to really understand how content should/could be designed, helping designing way more polished experiences.
Regarding the current generation, I definitely believe the same: there is way more to be done on this generation, both in terms of innovations and in terms of polish. In our case, we have many games planned for this generation over the next few years (including the new Tomb Raider, Hitman, Final Fantasy, etc.), and I hope the new generation (that I call "Future Gen" so that we don't get confused with current gen that was called Next Gen for quite a long time) won't be there too soon so that we can really focus on those properly.
At the same time, because I'm a technology person, a new generation of Home Consoles is always extremely interesting! And what you're saying is quite right: a new generation should be around the corner in theory... So - as it takes time to get ready with new Engines, Tools, Resource Management systems and Pipelines - some of our technology groups in internal Studios are looking into what Future Gen could be, and work as we speak on some advanced research.
Michael Condrey: The current generation of gaming consoles has provided some really fantastic platforms for game developers, and gamers, over the past 5 years. The leap from the last generation may be somewhat forgotten, but the Xbox 360 and PS3, in particular, are powerful pieces of hardware. One report placed the Xbox 360 as 100x as powerful as the flight system computer aboard the space shuttle. Another report claimed that the US military used a 2500+ matrix of PS3s to create a military simulation supercomputer. I’ve never taken the time to validate reports like these, although I’m reminded of how powerful they are every time I play a new ground breaking game. Including the introduction of the motion control devices, these consoles have been strong platforms for gamer and developer alike. Even towards the later stages of their lifespan, it’s still a very exciting time for us as developers.
At it’s core, console performance is broken down into three main buckets; Central Processing (CPU) cycles, Graphics Processing (GPU) cycles, and Memory. The CPU handles a lot of the game world simulation - for example, the animation of characters or the physics simulation. The GPU handles drawing the objects on the screen, applying the post effects such as blur, depth of field, or antialiasing. Lastly, Memory refers to the data, textures, models, physics meshes that the CPU & GPU operate on.
Early in the console development lifecycle, development teams have a lot of learning to do in order to harness the full potential of the new platforms. In many cases, hardware performance is fast enough to compensate for the developer's inexperience with the new platform, and there are some unused cycles left on the table. Early on, it’s all horsepower with not a lot of fine steering control.
Mid cycle, teams and tech get into a comfortable groove. With more titles under their belt, developers have a better understanding of the strengths and opportunities each console offers. Great developers are able to tackle the difficult performance optimizations to squeeze a tremendous amount out of the hardware horsepower. The teams leverage memory usage efficiently, make better use of the CPU & GPU, and begin to push on all areas of the engine and content pipelines: more efficient algorithms, more complex animation systems, more optimized rendering pipelines, better threading, and more refined tools.
We are definitely in the later phases of the development cycle now. Teams have had a lot of time on this generation to capitalize on the hardware strengths. For good teams, the raw horsepower has been pushed towards its peak performance, and great teams are looking for hundredths, and more often thousandths of a second of CPU and GPU optimizations to push the consoles harder. Mature tool sets provide the diagnostics needed to find those last optimizations, and innovative new approaches are required to recognize real gains. We keep an eye on new techniques and algorithms we can slot in to provide us with an edge. Optimization and advances like these allow us to spend that extra horsepower pushing the consoles, and consequently the games, to new heights.
At Sledgehammer Games, we’ve built a very senior, extremely talented engineering team, and I never underestimate their ability to discover new ways to push the hardware further than before. I know they get excited to tackle the hard technical challenges, and they realize solving them will help elevate our game.
Yosuke Hayashi: First of all, one huge factor that makes this generation disparate from the previous generations is the “Update” factor. If you look at the X360 dashboard at launch it looked much more backward than it does now, after you have updated it a few times. And there was no Trophy support for the PS3 until you made the actual update. Updates are something that are used to prolong the life of a console.
One more thing that prolongs the life of a console in this generation is the “Multi-core CPUs”. Contrary to the “Single-task CPUs” of the last generation, depending on the way they are used, Multi-core CPUs can be utilized to greatly increase the system’s performance. That said, we still had a lot of trial and error in trying to get the best use of those processors. At the launch of this generation’s hardware, no developer was able to effectively make use of the Multi-core CPUs. Even here at Team NINJA we were not developing the game on the basis of these, and as a result we were unable to take full advantage of the Multi-core CPUs effectively. We just used them for the sake of “using them” and made games on the basis of using a Single-task CPU and simply relied on the Multi-core method as back-up. I think by looking at the current lineup in games, most developers have figured out how to maximize those processors somewhere around last year. For our upcoming titles, Ninja Gaiden 3 and Dead or Alive 5, we have changed our methods and we have reworked the engine to run on the basis of using the Multi-core CPU in order to maximize its power.
I think the only way to still see some potential come out of current-gen consoles is improvement in graphics. This will really depend on the skill of CG designers, but any further dramatic evolution in current consoles that could be plainly understood by the general gamer would be fairly difficult to achieve.
Matt Bilbey: We’re obviously in a much different landscape with the longevity of the consoles versus previous generations. We like to think of the transition happening on a weekly, if not daily, basis now compared to what had been a 5-year cycle. That’s because we’re thinking of the console as much about online services and connectivity as we are about graphics and fidelity. Take our FIFA franchise as an example – we launched a few weeks ago with revolutionary improvements in core gameplay, and we introduced a new live service – EA SPORTS Football Club – that is connecting gamers around the world and connecting them closer to the sport and the team they love. We’re creating much deeper engagement. As a result, the “runway” for today’s platforms is significantly different than what we had faced in the previous cycles of hardware.
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