While we all read about gaming developers, publishers and writers rant about the future of gaming, there’s one demographic that’s usually missed and looked over: the gaming hardware developers. Several bigwigs such as AMD, IBM and NVIDIA held a round-table discussion during a conference last week and talked about the future of gaming hardware.
First up was a discussion about game console chips arose with Robert Feldstein, AMD’s vice president of engineering, and he talked about how console GPUs, specifically the Xbox 360 GPU, have plenty of longevity over PC GPUs since they’re specifically built to last for years. Also, GPU development for consoles is not bound by the strict requirements of PC GPU development.
"The great thing about game console chips is that you’re not bound by the linear path the PC has to take — the dictators who say where the PC is going, like Microsoft. You’re also looking at a longer time. You’re looking at something that has to live for years rather than months. It’s a closed environment, you don’t have the open factors of PC. It’s a great place to prototype and design."
Lastly, the panel discussed their opinions on if consoles can drive innovation. James A. Kahle, IBM’s director of processor technology, argued for the PS3’s Cell processor saying that the processor can deal with multiple interactions at once, "…it’s not just that games are standing by themselves; there’s a lot of synergy with other activities. [Processors] have to be good at physics."
Feldstein advocated for the Xbox 360 (of course) and praised its entertainment abilities. "360 is where we got our ‘go forward’ architecture. You can make interesting tradeoffs in these convergence devices. If you don’t oversize your system you have a system that attacks the problem — especially in the game consoles, more entertainment."
Let’s not forget NVIDIA; Jonah M. Alben, NVIDIA’s vice president of GPU engineering, pushed PC as the innovator, since they should since PC hardware is NVIDIA’s backbone. "It’s important to not forget the PC side of the business to innovation. The PC provides the revenue stream every year for the team. If it was only a console business, we [AMD and NVIDIA] would not be here."
So what do you folks think? Now that console hardware development is reaching new potentials, do you think PC hardware development will be over-shadowed by console development? Short answer from me: no.
[Via Gamasutra]
