Activision: Next-Gen Phones Will Be At Xbox 360 Level

[A Bad Day]

entire 30-year portfolio of more than 350 brands

Will that include Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing?

 

[bunkgoats]

[citation][nom]pharoahhalfdead[/nom]Instead of console ported games to the PC, we'll be getting phone ported games to the PC? No thanx!![/citation]

Correction, will be getting phone games ported to consoles, but devs will need to handicap these games so the consoles can run them.

It would be funny if it weren't so close to the truth.

Sony and Microsoft, when Intel's on board graphics (hd4000) have a higher or about equal transistor count to your consoles' GPUs and cell phones are boasting about how they can match your hardware in the palm of my hand, it's time for a new model. I am sorry your army of high paid MBAs couldn't identify that for you, but any Tom's Hardware fan could.

 

[kartu]

[citation][nom]theconsolegamer[/nom]Fuuny thing is Nvidia is pushing so hard with cloud gaming is not even funny.[/citation]
It's not funny that nvidia is pushing it, but it's funny that consumers care about getting phones with more performant hardware and at the same time nobody seems to care about battery life.

 

[beoza]

Having great graphics equal to that of current consoles doesn't mean squat if your battery craps out after 10minutes playing a game and there's not a power outlet anywhere in sight to recharge it. So it really doesn't matter if you don't have a good way to control the game, DRM, a tiny screen...the battery is what really needs to be improved.

 

[tivatar]

No, no, no... this article can't be right. Kazuo Hirai clearly stated the PS3 will be around for another 5 years. Nothing will be able to match the untapped potential of these consoles until they're replaced by the next gens.

F***ing consoles....

 

[atminside]

LOL. Soon console fan boys will feel the same pain as does their PC brethren do since they will complain that their console games suck because it was ported from the phone/tablet to console. Will developers include phone/tablets in their multi platfrom strategy for AAA games? Most likely. Does that mean coding will be done on the lowest denominator(phone/tablet) and then port to console and PC? Probably. It's all about the money. Can't wait to play farmville in HD OH BOY!!

 

[arctic23]

So this shows that phones are getting more advanced fast or that consoles are so primitive that phones will surpass them in a couple more years? Therefore consoles are holding back game development.

 

[southernshark]

I think a lot of people are missing the point or the boat here... however you want to say it.

Yes gaming on a phone will always suck.

But...... once the CPUs and GPUs are at sufficient level, what would stop someone from connecting the phone wirelessly to other peripherals such as a tv/monitor/keyboard/mouse or game controller?

At some point there will be enough raw processing power in the phone to do that.

Then people can actually use the phone as a console.

Sure the phone will still be way behind a PC, but not necessarily so far behind a console that people won't just opt to use their phone rather than make a second purchase.

 

[eddieroolz]

The issue nowadays is not the lack of power, but the lack of any decent control scheme on an all-touch device.

 

[yobobjm]

Yes, but the xbox and ps3 have horrible specs for this day and age.

 

[ojas]

[citation][nom]theconsolegamer[/nom]Fuuny thing is Nvidia is pushing so hard with cloud gaming is not even funny.[/citation]
Because their cards are in those servers.

 

[master_chen]

Thumbing me down for truth? Why so butthurt, hm?

 

[tipoo]

I believe it, although this is only for GPUs, they will still be held back by storage sizes, controllers, and CPUs.The SGX "Rogue" aka 600 series will be up to 200 Gflops, the same amount as the 360s GPU. Not an exact measure of performance, but same ballpark.

 

[cTs Corvette]

Warcraft 2 for my tablet? Yes, please!!!

 

[kartu]

xbox consumes 70watt or so.
Phones couple of watts at most.

I doubt we really advanced that far to get such performance levels with so low power consumption.

 

[twelch82]

The issue already is not power, it's interface. The "types of games we have on consoles" have been the same since the PS1/N64 era, and phones have already surpassed that bar some time ago. The reason we don't have the same types of games on phones as we do on consoles is because of the interface. Touch limits what you can do, regardless of computing horsepower.

 

[gregaaron89]

Yeah, and the phones will run at 80C and the battery will last 30 minutes

 

[IndignantSkeptic]

I thought I read another report that predicted mobiles will reach PS360 levels around 2014 which is about the time when PS360 gets ditched for the next console generation.

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]yeeeeman[/nom]The current games on the mobile phone are not even using techniques used in games from 2006. The games are still very pixelated, with low resolution textures, without AA, HDR and many other goodies that make PC and Xbox/PS3 games look so good. And even with these limitations, the GPU's on these smartphones barely run at 30-40 fps in games.Not to mention the fact that the puny ARM processors still have a very long way to go to reach the levels of processing power of a triple core PowerPC processor.Maybe at 5nm level, we'll start to see true powerfull mobile devices.[/citation]

I thought that consoles don't have many of those goodies such as AA.

 

[sonofliberty08]

my phone r for communication when im outdoor, if i wanna play games, i'll play it on my desktop

 

[darkavenger123]

[citation][nom]killerclick[/nom]The problem with phones isn't poor graphics, it's small screens, lack of immersion and shallow casual games which is all that form factor can support. Gaming on a phone is something you do while waiting for something else, so it's not what a gamer would consider a gaming platform.Then again what I think about gaming on phones I also think about gaming on laptops, so what do I know?[/citation]

I totally agreed with you...developers still don't get it...it's not about the hardware....just bought a PSP recently because i was sick of Android games on my SGS2. The SGS2 is like PS3 compared to PS1 with the PSP....but the PSP games are just so much more superior and entertaining. Not to mention it can easily last 3.5 hours of gaming while my SGS2 will probably died in 1 hour.

 

[darkavenger123]

Oh yeah, it's the same reason why i bought PSP instead of PS VITA...there is simply no games i want to play on the VITA currently. It's always about software, not hardware.

 

[josh2000]

they can be on the same level as a modern $2k PC, until there's a proper way to control them, mobile games aren't worth anyone's time. Or, time not spent on the toilet, I should say.

 

[kinggraves]

A software company is making predictions about hardware. Cool story bro. Then again they don't understand the difference between the multitasking OS of a phone and the single purpose OS of a console, so I don't know how good of a software company they are either. Wait, it's Activision. I know exactly how "good" of a software company they are. It really doesn't matter if phones have caught up to current gen consoles considering next gen consoles are going to be out starting this year. Maybe in a few years this could be a threat, but not now.

[citation][nom]twelch82[/nom]The issue already is not power, it's interface. The "types of games we have on consoles" have been the same since the PS1/N64 era, and phones have already surpassed that bar some time ago. The reason we don't have the same types of games on phones as we do on consoles is because of the interface. Touch limits what you can do, regardless of computing horsepower.[/citation]

Even though interface is the problem, it really doesn't have to be. A bluetooth controller and a phone with a bluetooth chip and you have the same experience as a console controller. People already do this with apps like the one that allows you to use the WiiMote, an actual console controller, as a control device.

There is some truth to this, phones could in fact be a threat to consoles in the future. Think about the purposes a console serves. You no longer need a disc drive with downloadable games. You no longer need controller ports with wireless controllers gaining popularity. You don't need bulky cables anymore when HDMI carries both A/V signals. The OnLive "console" uses this kind of concept. You don't need a bulky system, a thin client type solution can now suffice for console gaming. As far as computing horsepower, well the next gen consoles would overpower a phone...but for how long? Consoles have a long refresh cycle, phones do not. There will be a point when phones overtake the power of a console. PC on the other hand has a better refresh cycle and will never be overtaken by phones in terms of power.

In the end, I think the only real difference between consoles and phones is the software interface. Consoles have an OS written to give exact features based on exact hardware. Mobile OS have to adapt to various hardware configs and the app preferences of the various users, they aren't optimized to use their full power for a single function. You could release an Android config that fully utilizes the processing just for gaming and has the needed interface for multiple controllers, but at that point how is it any different from a handheld console?

 

[IQ11110002]

"lol And yes I still have my 15yrs old Pentium 166MHz MMX running without issue, so it is absolutely possible for a PC to last 15yrs without breaking down."

Solitaire doesn't count! 😉

Personally I couldn't care if phones had octo cores, 1000ppi pixel density and PS6 gaming power,It's a phone and does not compete against my pc,Tiny little screen and touch screen controls=Gimmick.
All phone games are good for is exactly what another person has already said,To fill in time. I use mine at morning tea and lunch time at work when we all run out of conversation we switch to phone games or show each other some new youtube clips for 20 minutes and that's about it.