Rumour: CryEngine 3 by 2012 in time for next-gen Xbox & PS4

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Rumour: Xbox 720 and PS4 release dates

The Games Convention Developers Conference in Leipzig, Germany has not
been the most exciting of events. Apart from one fleeting moment
during an otherwise uneventful keynote presentation the future of
gaming graphics. Could Cevat Yerli have inadvertently announced the
expected arrival dates of the Xbox 720 and PlayStation 4?

'The Future of Gaming Graphics' is the kind of keynote that you might
expect when attending the Games Convention Developers Conference. What
attendees at the German event did most certainly not expect, however,
was to be told when the major nextgen games consoles would arrive.


The CEO of FarCry and Crysis development house Crytek confidently
announced the expected DOA of both Sony and Microsoft next-generation
consoles during his speech.

Cevat Yerli explained that Crytek have plans to release a new version
of its ground-breaking CryEngine which he expects to build on the
success of CryEngine 2 by adding more on-screen assets and making them
of even better quality. Three to five times better looking according
to Yerli.

CryEngine 3 will, Yerli explained, by available in 2012. Until then,
gamers should get used to maximum effective gaming resolutions of 1920
x 1080 and 60 frames per second. After which we should expect to see
real-time graphics on a par with the kind of CG you get in the latest
Pixar animated movies.

The real surprise though was that Yerli went on to say that the
arrival of CryEngine 3 and a renaissance of graphics programming will
coincide with the release of both the Xbox 720 and PlayStation 4. To
be precise he said they will "arrive in 2011 or 2012."

To be fair, Yerli did qualify his remarks as being "just our estimate"
and claiming that he didn't know and that if Microsoft and Sony had
told him he "couldn't say because it would be under NDA."

The important point being that it would appear Crytek is working to a
production schedule that assumes a 3 to 4 year lead time for the next-
generation of consoles. And if it is doing that, then others are
likely to be doing the same.

Given the historical timelines of both consoles, I'd say that even if
Yerli was just talking off the top of his head to get some publicity
(and it has worked if so) then the math is sound enough...

http://www.itwire.com/content/view/20156/532/
 
2012 is when Yerli himself expects the new consoles to come out. This
obviously has no bearing on when any of the manufacturers expect their
new consoles to come out.

The writer of the article you quoted talks about historical timelines
agreeing with this estimate but that statement doesn't hold any water.
2012 would be right for the Playstation 4 but if history serves as a
basis for estimates, we should be estimating the next Nintendo machine
in 2010 and the next Xbox in either 2009 or 2010 (depending on whether
we thought that the Xbox was shelved a year too early).

6-7 years is way too long a lifespan for a console. It's much more
likely that we'll see the next round of machines in late 2010 than in
late 2012.
 
2012 is when Yerli himself expects the new consoles to come out. This
obviously has no bearing on when any of the manufacturers expect their
new consoles to come out.

The writer of the article you quoted talks about historical timelines
agreeing with this estimate but that statement doesn't hold any water.
2012 would be right for the Playstation 4 but if history serves as a
basis for estimates, we should be estimating the next Nintendo machine
in 2010 and the next Xbox in either 2009 or 2010 (depending on whether
we thought that the Xbox was shelved a year too early).

6-7 years is way too long a lifespan for a console. It's much more
likely that we'll see the next round of machines in late 2010 than in
late 2012.
Click to expand...

With the cores being Larrabee-based of course.

Larrabee is the obvious replacement for both the PS3 cell-processor
and IBM's tri-core processor used in the Xbox360. Intel's GPU thrust
with Larrabee is a smoke-screen to hide their true intent, plus Intel
must be having great fun frightening nVidia and AMD. Intel has never
demonstrated any ability in writing drivers for GPUs. Any reason why
that should suddenly change with Larrabee? Unless they buy the
software talent by acquiring ATi from AMD, or nVidia. However,
providing the SDK for Larrabee to replace the console core processors
while still providing software backward compatibility with the current
PS3 and Xbox360 cores would be a trivial task in the case of Larrabee.

John Lewis
 
With the cores being Larrabee-based of course.

Larrabee is the obvious replacement for both the PS3 cell-processor
and IBM's tri-core processor used in the Xbox360. Intel's GPU thrust
with Larrabee is a smoke-screen to hide their true intent, plus Intel
must be having great fun frightening nVidia and AMD. Intel has never
demonstrated any ability in writing drivers for GPUs. Any reason why
that should suddenly change with Larrabee? Unless they buy the
software talent by acquiring ATi from AMD, or nVidia. However,
providing the SDK for Larrabee to replace the console core processors
while still providing software backward compatibility with the current
PS3 and Xbox360 cores would be a trivial task in the case of Larrabee.
Click to expand...

It's nowhere near trivial to provide backward compatibility with the
existing CPUs. While theoretically the processor would be compatible
with software utilizing the current crop of CPUs, good performance
would require sweeping rewrites of the code to actually take advantage
of the different units.
 
2012 is when Yerli himself expects the new consoles to come out. This
obviously has no bearing on when any of the manufacturers expect their
new consoles to come out.
Click to expand...

It's when most of the industry expects new consoles out, even
Microsoft said 2011 or 2012. Nintendo said Wii HD in 5 years (from
2006 so 2011), only Sony is sticking to its "10 year plan" which
sounds like what they did with PS1 are about to do with PS2, keep them
on the market for 10 years, but not before the next gen arrived /
arrives.

The writer of the article you quoted talks about historical timelines
agreeing with this estimate but that statement doesn't hold any water.
2012 would be right for the Playstation 4 but if history serves as a
basis for estimates, we should be estimating the next Nintendo machine
in 2010 and the next Xbox in either 2009 or 2010 (depending on whether
we thought that the Xbox was shelved a year too early).
Click to expand...

There is NO way the next-gen Xbox is coming in 2009, no way, otherwise
we would've heard RUMORS of that by now, and there are no rumors. In
2009 it is expected Microsoft will have a new Xbox 360 with combined
CPU/GPU and probably in a smaller form factor. Even 2010 is
unlikely for the next-gen Xbox, as that's only 5 years after X360.
Microsoft has said they wanted a 7 year life for 360, that means 2005
- 2012. I could see a 2011 launch but doubtful over a 2010 launch
and 2009 is out of the question.

Nintendo could launch anytime from 2010 forward since they never put
out a current-gen console. The Wii is merely a repackaged GameCube
with 1.5x the speed/power, a significant amount of additional RAM (64
extra MB), full sized DVD drive/discs, and a new controller. The Wii
controller was originally going to be a perphiperal for the Cube.
Nintendo's next-gen console could leap forward at least one
generation, to 360/PS3 level of power, or be somewhat more powerful,
but less than XB3, PS4, OR be almost on par with XB3,PS4 in the same
sense that GameCube was in the same class as PS2 & Xbox, just more
conservative in specs. If Nintendo rivaled XB3, PS4 they would be
jumping forward two entire generations of consoles in power from Wii.
Since Wii's CPU/GPU are the same architecture as GameCube, that makes
Wii late 1990s tech, like GameCube. A Nintendo that was on par with
XB3,PS4 would leap ahead more or less 12 years in tech. A Nintendo
console that was behind XB3, PS4 but ahead of 360,PS3 would leap ahead
7-9 years.
6-7 years is way too long a lifespan for a console. It's much more
likely that we'll see the next round of machines in late 2010 than in
late 2012.
Click to expand...


IMO, 4 years is too short, 9-10 years is too long. 5-6 years is
the norm. Most of the industry expects this current gen to be somewhat
longer than previous gens, so I am thinking 6-8 years, at least as far
as X360/PS3 to XB3,PS4. Nintendo should come in at 5 years
(2011) like they have been doing for for 3 cycles after SNES
(SNES 1991 - N64 1996 - GameCube 2001 - Wii 2006)
and yes I realize the Japanese SNES, the Super Famicom, came out in
late 1990, Japanese N64 came out in mid 1996 so that was 5.5 years.
Otherwise it's been every 5 years like clockwork from Nintendo as far
as console releases.
Nintendo's longest stretch was 7.5 years, from 8-bit Famicom (mid
1983) to 16-bit Super Famicom (late 1990).
SEGA did a 3 year cycle from Master System (mid 1986) to Genesis (late
summer 1989) , then not counting SegaCD or 32X addons for Genesis,
went 6 years before releasing Saturn (mid 1995), then 4 years to
Dreamcast. Sony has been doing 5+ to 6 year cycles
(Japan) PS1 late 1994 to PS2 early 2000 to PS3 late 2006
(U.S) PS1 fall 1995 to PS2 late 2000 to PS3 late 2006
Microsoft hasnt been around long enough to establish a cycle, the Xbox
was late and their first try at a console, Xbox 360 came out early.
As I said before there is no way XB3 will hit 4 years after 360 in
2009, and 2010 would be on the early side. I'm sure Microsoft will
want to make sure XB3 has a very low defect rate, and also be a large
technological leap above 360. The 360 was a significant tech leap
from Xbox but not like what we saw with PS1 to PS2 or N64 to
GameCube. So I say 6-7 years for 360 to XB3 and 7 years (8 max)
from PS3 to PS4.
 
With the cores being Larrabee-based of course.

Larrabee is the obvious replacement for both the PS3 cell-processor
and IBM's tri-core processor used in the Xbox360. Intel's GPU thrust
with Larrabee is a smoke-screen to hide their true intent, plus Intel
must be having great fun frightening nVidia and AMD. Intel has never
demonstrated any ability in writing drivers for GPUs. Any reason why
that should suddenly change with Larrabee? Unless they buy the
software talent by acquiring ATi from AMD, or nVidia. However,
providing the SDK for Larrabee to replace the console core processors
while still providing software backward compatibility with the current
PS3 and Xbox360 cores would be a trivial task in the case of Larrabee.

John Lewis
Click to expand...

Larrabee would make a great co-processor in consoles, or the front end
of the graphics subsystem, but not a replacement for dedicated GPU.
Yes I do think Larrabee could replace CELL. but IMO the best setup
would be like this:
conventional multi-core or manycore CPU (such as Intel's 8-32 core
Sandy-Bridge coming in 2010, Larrabee in the middle and a highend
DX11+ or DX12 GPU from AMD/ATI or Nvidia

CPU - Larrabee - GPU.

Larrabee will probably only rival highend GPUs of 2006/2007 (G80,
R600) not 2008 (GTX280, RV770) much less 2009/2010 (DX11), as far as
rendering graphics to the screen. Larrabee will make an awesome co-
processor/front-end in much the same way that the Vector Units in
PS2's Emotion Engine provided the front end calculation power to the
Graphics Synthesizer. Or in that CELL can be used to help RSX, even
though RSX is a fully idependant GPU unlike GS. Larrabee however
will be able to both calculate and render graphics to the screen well
(unlike CELL which has poor graphics drawing capability otherwise
there would be no need for Nvidia GPU in PS3). however, I doubt the
first generation of Larrabee with 16,24,32, or even 48 cores will be a
good renderer compared to a fully dedicated GPU with hardwired fixed
function logic. Larrabee has minimal fixed function logic, mainly for
textures. I could be wrong, I hope Larrabee is the revolution Intel
claims it'll be.

Look at what will be in highend PCs in 2010

CPU Intel multicore Nehalem or multicore/manycore Sandy Bridge
Co-Processor / GPGPU: Intel Larrabee(s)
GPU: Nvidia/ATI GPUs
 
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