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Thread: Are Sony and Microsoft holding back technology?

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    Junior Member 96marrs's Avatar
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    Default Are Sony and Microsoft holding back technology?

    I have read various conspiracy articles in the past about technology. They are all based on the same marketing principles of rolling out little upgrades time after time to make as much money as possible.

    For those that don't understand I mean if current processors run at 1Ghz and you discover a way to make a 5 Ghz processor there is a lot more money to releasing a 1.5 then a 2 then a 2.5.....Than just releasing a 5 Ghz straight away.

    Do you think Microsoft and Sony colude to keep technology at the same level?

    I've been thinking about this for a while as every time new consoles come to market they have almost identical specs. What are the chances that two individual companies that are competing with different technology and components end up delivering the same output year after year.

    By now being 4 consoles in surely one of the two companies would have made a big development by now?
    Last edited by 96marrs; 24-06-13 at 04:38 AM.



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    I think your being paranoid. Those companies wouldn't do that!!!!!
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    Well they also need to make the consoles affordable. There's a certain price point that has to be hit or else people will think you're ridiculous (See, PS3's price tag at launch and the effect it had on purchases). If everything was the biggest and best possible, they'd either have to take a huge hit on consoles or have super high prices that would hurt sales (especially when having to compete against PC).

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    I think it has to do with price. You can build a more powerful desktop than the PS4 and Xbox One for less than their price. Of course these companies sell their console for a loss and make revenue when it comes to selling games, but they have to make it cheap enough that people will buy them and having top of the line stuff may be innovative, at a cost of meaning less people are available to purchase games.

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    First of all, Microsoft and Sony cannot hold technology back regarding processors because they do not produce processors. Intel, AMD and other little companies do produce them and they are the ones that can hold technology back, but I think they haven't done that and won't do that for one simple reason: they can win more by selling their 5 Ghz processor to 1000 companies than by selling their 2 Ghz processor to 16000 simple people.

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    Junior Member wwalford's Avatar
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    You only realised this now? Welcome to the digital world. half the time there employees keep swapping most likely. But yea I think they definitely release slower than there technology and I also think there is financial reasons for this. But about the two companies actually keeping each other in the loop I doubt if it is most likely under the table deals anyway that we will never be aware of.

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    Quote Originally Posted by 96marrs View Post
    I have read various conspiracy articles in the past about technology. They are all based on the same marketing principles of rolling out little upgrades time after time to make as much money as possible.
    It's a viable conspiracy. If they can roll out 5 years of development in technology over 10 years instead and make more money off of them, why wouldn't they?

    Quote Originally Posted by 96marrs View Post
    For those that don't understand I mean if current processors run at 1Ghz and you discover a way to make a 5 Ghz processor there is a lot more money to releasing a 1.5 then a 2 then a 2.5.....Than just releasing a 5 Ghz straight away.
    Unfortunately achieving 5 ghz on a processor is not as simple as having the technology available. There is still problem of power consumption and heat. Overclockers have been able to achieve this speed for years now but they have to use expensive, elaborate cooling rigs to do so. This clock speed puts out a tremendous amount of heat and putting it in a consumer prefab system with a stock cooling fan, or in a game console is not viable currently. It wouldn't last five seconds even without running cpu intensive programs.

    Also keep in mind that clock speed is not the only governing factor in cpu power. All cpus these days are at least dual core or quad core. Some may only run at 1 ghz or so but they have multiple physical chips so they can accomplish much more than a 1 ghz single core cpu. The reason for the lower clock speed is, again, due to heat. The more physical cores a cpu has the more heat it will put out.

    Quote Originally Posted by 96marrs View Post
    Do you think Microsoft and Sony colude to keep technology at the same level?
    They definitely don't compete anymore. They are the only two viable console sellers with Nintendo not taking away much of the market. There is not enough competition so they know that regardless of how many Xbones or PS4s they each sell, they are both going to make a metric boatload of money. I wouldn't go so far as to say they conspire to limit technology though because frankly, they don't need to. The lack of competition makes them money already so they have no motivation to go the extra mile and actively hinder tech in conjunction with a competing company.

    Quote Originally Posted by 96marrs View Post
    I've been thinking about this for a while as every time new consoles come to market they have almost identical specs. What are the chances that two individual companies that are competing with different technology and components end up delivering the same output year after year.
    Consoles are basically just PCs now. Like PC hardware there is certain area of hardware available that is powerful enough to run most games but still not so expensive that they can't charge an affordable price. That line of hardware has grown smaller over the years so every year you will see the best system $400 can buy increase in performance by 5-10%. The same applies to consoles. Unfortunately console makers do not take risks anymore like they did back in the day. If a console manufacturer were to charge $699 instead of $399 for their system then you would be able to buy one that was objectively superior to the others available, but the current companies see that as too high of a price. It is also unreasonable to expect, say the PS4 to be capable of being vastly superior to the Xbone when they are the same price. Performance costs money and if Sony and Microsoft paid anymore for their parts while still charging the same consumer price, they would basically be paying people to purchase their consoles.
    Last edited by OmarFW; 11-12-13 at 04:48 PM.

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    It's always a possibility. If you always bring out a product that is a step behind your current research, if another company brings out something big and better, you have a product to rival it. Also, companies love milking technology and releasing things slowly for extra cash.

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    Junior Member kjl.leblanc's Avatar
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    Paranoid for sure. They need to make sure they find the right balance of hardware and price that the average consumer can afford. If you want the best of the best, that is what PCs are for.

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    Not at a consumer grade gaming console.

    But Intel sure do step release there CPUs to the public..

    The intel pentium 600 series research and development complete 5 years after they sold there last batch, even know the dual core CPUs where ready to go....

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    I certainly think they are holding the gaming industry back but not technology as a whole no. Intel on the other hand..

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    Of course they are. With the speed at which technology moves, the only way these companies can be assured that they won't be obsolete in a week is to make sure they can stay ahead of what's out there. By releasing their #2 technology, they can work on perfecting the #1 innovations and advancing past them. They will always have a backup as long as they don't play their best hand immediately. It's just good business.

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