No. That's just.... totally defeats the purpose of a console.

All I can really say is that the next generation is going to be expensive. Maybe even more than this generation's consoles were.

1. Not all PCs share the same APIs, so therefore judging a PC by the APIs available is silly at best. What defines a PC is how true it lives up to the name: the ability to be a Personal Computer in terms of actual personalization and general-use. The PS3 can (could) do a much better job at that then the 360 can. Examples of that are how anything you can do on a standard PC you can (could) do on a PS3, Whereas the 360 was extremely limited in what it could do.
2. APIs have nothing to do with architecture. Also the 360's API beyond DX 9+ is vastly different then the PCs API. The fact that they have two completely different architectures and that the 360 lacks many of Window's libraries makes that the case.
3. Skipped to match your setup
4. The ignorance here is especially high. Not every programmer uses DX, not even every game programmer uses DX. Newsflash: DX is only available on Windows and there are two other major OSes that don't support DX and before DX became big many other graphic APIs existed, and then there is OpenGL. Not every console programmer started on the PC. There are countless ones that have -only- released games for consoles. You are just showing your lack of knowing the history of video games if you continue to argue that every game programmer, or even more generally, company, has done PC games -- That is just veritably false to such an extreme degree.

Also: I have no idea what you are going on about RAM for. RAM has nothing to do with programming other than you can store stuff in there. Consoles also have significantly less memory than their desktop counterparts.

5. The 360 is PPC based too. It isn't Intel. It's more or less the same as the PS3 processor, just more focused in tasks (the PS3 cell is more general-purpose than the Xenos is) and less thoughtput.

4 additional. Programming is simple, that's just needs a text editor. to run your programs, thats where things like optimization come in to get it to run on low-resources and using simple language comes in. This is why consoles work: they have pretty bad hardware, but they are extremely optimized.

As far as I can tell here, you aren't talking abstractly, you are making huge generalizations and plain false statements. I blame the ubiquity of Windows and the lack of a video game history class for it as well as significant misunderstandings of what make a PC a PC

your overcomplicating it. there wont be 108 different upgrades..........nowhere near that. as i said at most you might have 2 different GPU upgrades over the lifespan of an 8 year console and maybe one CPU and RAM upgrade. developers dont have to do anything for the CPU or RAM upgrades since that is internal software only utilized by the console itself. games can be designed to utilize more than one core but they still run on single cores CPUs.

its no different than if i replace my current nvidia card with a new one. when i get my new 580 this fall i will be able to play all the same games just fine and i will have more horsepower for newer games.......by the same token if i didnt upgrade my current 285 i can still play games for a few years but at some point i will have to run with lower graphics settings. either way i can play the same games no matter what.

the experience might be consistent but after a few years i think most console gamers would like to have similar graphics to what they see on current gen PC games. and while games like red dead redemption and the other game that im blanking on right now for the PS3 with the indiana jones type guy, might look great for the PS3 they dont hold a candle to games like far cry 2 which came out 3 years ago on the PC.

i have a dream........a dream where i live in a world free from crappy low res textures and super tiny draw distances from lame console ports and multiplayer platform games. as the guy from crytek said "consoles are holding back video games" (paraphrased)

But if you have one upgrade over an 8 year life cycle, then *what's the point*? You'll have an awful lot of extra power and be completely unable to use it for anything nontrivial.
Moreso, it *is* something developers have to care about. They don't have to care about it on PC because everything is behind an abstraction layer - when you replace your graphics card, you also replace your drivers, which provide a standard interface to any card, allowing directx to communicate with it, providing a standard interface to any game. That's two performance svcking abstraction layers, compared to the consoles' zero - you suddenly start adding changable hardware, and either developers are going to have to code specifically for each bit of it, or you're going to have to add an abstraction layer. I believe John Carmack quoted the exact performance hit as quite high, estimating that consoles get twice the power compared to equivalent PC hardware. Similarly with CPU and RAM upgrades - adding more RAM doesn't magically make your game faster if it's been coded to use a set amount as efficiently as possible, and adding more CPU power is pointless if you've already coded your game in such a way that it never needs that extra power. In order to not utterly segment your market the effects of these upgrades would literally just be bigger textures and perhaps some more shader effects.

There is no middle ground here, you either go the whole way and offer upgrades as soon as they're available, or you don't do upgrades at all. If you want a free, upgradable platform, then you get a PC. As many people have not done this, there is clearly demand for the simplicity of a console, eliminating what is effectively the last advantage of a console would be a terrible business decision - and I've already gone over why it's a terrible technical decision.

Oh, and 2 GPU upgrades, and a CPU and RAM upgrade, still comes to 12 possible platforms, and is still a nightmare to optimise for each.

I tried to explain why its more difficult to program for a PS3 than for the XBOX360. I explained it for someone who has little to no knowledge about hardware and software.
I had good intentions with my first post.
Believe me, I know whats happening in the background, I've programed a lot for DX and OpenGL, I have a lot of experience with streaming machines. I got this knowledge when I worked for the university. I know (because of private interest) both the hardware as well as the software from the consoles.

I can ensure you I never did any false statements and you don't have to blame the ubiquity of Windows or the lack of game history knowledge for that.
But since you are getting insulting I'm ending this discussion now. I don't want to fight and I don't want to be warned by a moderator.
So...bye.

"End of Line"

there is no technical reason not to do it. you dont "optimize" games for CPUs outside of making them take advantage of multicores. there is no special driver update that you have to install on CPUs. all the computers i have built use the drivers that came with the processor and never have to be upgraded. RAM is plug n play hardware that doesnt need driver installation at all. if you upgrade the GPU on the next xbox........call it xbox 3........you will still be able to play all the older games just fine, just like i can play deus ex on my PC which came out in 2000. the only time games have problems running on newer computers is when the OS is changed and there is no reason they would have to change the OS on a console at all.

as for a business viewpoint.........they lose money on every unit they sell for the first few years. this would allow them to sell upgrades and a small labor fee and make a profit on it. at the same time they increase the lifespan of their consoles and the customers win cause they can upgrade their console for better graphics at least once maybe twice over several years. the only thing they would have to worry about is how to implement it......maybe have people take their consoles into a certified store like blockbuster or wal-mart and they could do it themselves or ship them to someone who would do it.

imagine if they had that system in place now. its 5 years into the lifecycle of the xbox and its really showing its age. wouldnt you like to be able to ship your xbox or take it to blockbuster and have them do an upgrade for $150 or $200 bucks. for that price you would end up with a much more powerful GPU and say 2 GB of ram instead of the measly 512 you get by default. this would allow you to run newer games with less stuttering and better textures and lighting effects..........people that dont get the upgrade can still play the game they just wont have access to all the bells in whistles. i can play DX11 games on my PC just fine even though i only have a DX10 card, i just dont get the goodies like tessellation but it doenst make the game run worse or anything.

What stuttering? That's the point, console games are optimized for their specific hardware. They don't stutter.

There is absolutely no point in upgrading a console. You don't need 2GB of RAM because the games won't use it.

so oblivion and fallout 3 never stuttered on the consoles. i guess the people that made those threads were just imagining things. along with the threads about slowdowns in other games as well. the added RAM would be utilized by newer games for hi rez textures. if they are still using the 512 mb RAM then the game simply wouldnt use the hi rez textures and default to medium or low textures just like standard PC games do.

Speaking as a PS3 player, I really just think Bethesda's engine svcked, to put it bluntly. Bethesda games are a bit unique in their stuttering problems, graphical glitches, and other oddities. I've heard the same problems occur on most PCs, as well... leading me to believe it was an engine problem. Things such as the A-bomb glitch, sudden pop-ups, a lack of sound for a specific weather type, and the occasional missing texture occur on PCs by all accounts I've heard, so I think Bethesda just needs to get their stuff together. Fallout 3's problems specifically occured, for me, after the DLC seemed to trigger some memory leak or some anomaly resulting in the swelling of save files. Another thing people seem to fail to take into consideration is that Oblivion was a launch title for this console generation, anyway. Consoles aren't typically more relatively powerful than they are at launch. The problems with Bethesda's games are not a result of console limitations.

They never stuttered for me.

Whether you choose to believe it or not, having upgrades on consoles would cause as much of a split as just making a new console. Not to mention it would piss off console gamers who buy a console because they don't have to worry about this stuff. People who do care about that just buy PCs.

You do optimize the games to get the most out of the CPUm and the GPU. Otherwise every game that came out would be on par with the launch titles. How do you think Skyrim is managing to promise such improvements over FO3/Oblivion on the same hardware?? Magic?? No, it's optimization. Most modern GPUs nowadays are DX11, and that's where a lot of the advancements graphics wise are coming from. Being stuck with the same Xbox DX equivalent, and the PS3s Open GL equivalent, means you can only get such much out of the newer hardware. Another thing about bigger textures is you won't be able to fit them on the discs. Most games are really pushing the limit when it comes to physical disk space, so if you think they've somehow got the room to add in a bunch of extra large textures files, you are sorely mistaken. So that's the more RAM/VRAM idea out of the window.

One last point. If you're naive enough to think that Sony and Microsoft hasn't considered this business model, you're pretty nuts. You think the only reason that's stopping them from doing this is because they haven't thought about it?? If all your points were valid and it was indeed a good business model they would probably be doing it, but they aren't and it isn't, and not surprisingly Sony and Microsoft agree. I can almost guarantee you do not have a deep technical understanding of how a PC and a games console actually work. Nor I imagine do you have a good grasp of economics.

the idea about upgrading.. i was pretty sure i saw some ad recently that a sotre was going tos tart providing that service.. hmm maybve it was PC's...

This is the important part. I won't pretend to know much about PCs or consoles but consoles can be less powerful and cheaper for a reason. If you let a console be upgradable they'd lose their two main advantages: they're simpler and they're cheaper because they don't need to be as powerful because all Xboxs and all PS3s have the same parts. A terrible idea.

I'll be interested to see what the next generation of consoles will be like. Hopefully we'll see a DX11 equivalent and will finally be able to see techniques like tessalation in common use.

I'd really like to see the source of 50-60% failure rates for the 360. Because that's completely false. I don't know the % so I won't make one up. But it's not 50-60%. That's absurd.

My Xbox has never broken.

I've had it about 3-4 years.

It has had 3 rings of death before but It worked when I restarted it.

http://gizmodo.com/5339915/survey-xbox-360-failure-rate-is-over-50-people-dont-care

http://consumerist.com/2009/08/xbox-360-failure-rate-is-542-percent-game-informer-finds.html

I'd like to see your source for "that's completely false".

LOL.
Oh, sorry. I asked for a source. I guessed I should have asked for a legitimate source.
You linked me an article..from Gizmod.com.
:rofl:

Sorry what??

I haven't seen an Xbox 360 to [censored] date in all of its years of production that hasn't kicked the bucket. The average lifespan being six months, and I'm [censored] crazy over [censored] people. I've kept and made my own data on friends Xbox 360 failure rates. 50% is being very generous. At some points in time a good chunk of my friends had to order 4 [censored] xbox 360's in a row before getting one that lasted the average of six months. The failure rates are abysmal, and I'm wondering how the hell they remained in production. If that was a car you would be sure as [censored] hell someones dike would be nailed to the wall for that colossal screw up. Thankfully there's not much that can happen if a console fails except the sheep buying more, so all is well. I guess if you like spending money on frivolous things.

Edit
If your one of the lucky few who hasn't had much Xbox returns or breaking your in the minority.

Where'd you hear this? That may be correct for the very first 360 (though the one i got the first month the 360 was released hasn't died yet, it did get the RRoD once, but that was from overheating in tight, uncirculated space). But the newest one hardly ever fails, atleast from my experience.

I've owned 3 xbox's, none of them have ever failed me, i just bought the newer version for hardware upgrades and hard drive capacity.

Plus, Microsoft is pretty damn good with customer service where you just send in your xbox and they ship a new (well, not new... refurbished) one to you.

Overly sweary, but true. When I had an Xbox, I think all of my friends (including mine) broke at one point or another. Mine broke 3 times at least, maybe 4.

Sorry for the swears, but I get cast out of entire online communities bringing that fact up sometimes. It's just starting to get on my nerves how people can't seem to realize the Xbox in terms of quality and longevity is a terrible unit, just terrible. Without a doubt the worst that comes to my mind in three generations.

3 360's. 0 RR's.
Also are you upset?

It was a terrible console, the new Xbox has been purged of most (if not all) problems. I believe the major problem had to do with something in the heat sink, the soldering had cracked, I just opened it up for him (warranty ended a few months prior) and resoldered it and it worked fine