150°

AMD Targets Game Consoles To Soften Blow From PC Weakness

If buzz on the web is to be believed, then Microsoft (MSFT) will use an AMD (AMD) processor, which combines the Jaguar CPU with a graphic chip, to power its next generation Xbox game console. Though the news has yet to be confirmed by either of the two companies, these rumors led to a near 15% rise in AMD’s stock price, which has lost more than 60% of its value during the last year.

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seekingalpha.com
aviator1894024d ago

If the new consoles (720 and ps4) really do end up selling very well, I can definitely see amd benefiting immensely, especially when nvidia isn't involved.

Seeing as how microsoft's pc business is also on the line with the surgence of tablets and smartphones, they probably want to take the next xbox as seriously as they can. I'm really hoping they hit the ground running with their next xbox (along with the ps4). In the end, gamers are the winners, imo.

decrypt4023d ago

AMD wont benefit much, reason being they wont be making much from console sales. Consider how cheaply the consoles are being sold, Mid range GPUs sell for about 300usd thats almost the price of a console. Hence no AMD isnt making much on console sale.

Rather as time goes on since new tech wont be required for console AMD will not be able to charge higher for a newer chip. Rather console makers will be squeezing them for lesser prices.

As a matter of fact the slow down on the PC market is caused by consoles. This is because consoles act as the lowest denominator. Since console tech doesnt improve for years(cycles have gotten longer now). Games are made for 7 year old hardware.

Since games are made for such old hardware even PC gamers no longer need to upgrade as often. Hence the blow is felt by AMD and Nvidia, not only in the GPU business but also in the CPU, MB and RAM.

Now console gamers may disagree with this, however evidence is in the pudding, never before in history was it possible to play games near max settings on 6 year old hardware. 8800GTX is a testament to the slowdown in the industry, Even today this 6 year old GPU is still capable of playing BF3 in 1080p. This was impossible before the current gen. Reason being games used to graphically advance due to no consoles holding PC back.

Hence in the end this ends up hurting Nvidia and AMD too. Previously a PC gamer would be upgrading every 2 years, that is not the case any more. They dont need to upgrade just like console gamers dont need to upgrade. Console gamers once they buy a console, they keep playing on the same tech for all gen long. That means AMD cant sell to them again. Not as long as their console is still working.

Hence essentially what has happened is, they slowed the market down with consoles, causing their PC base to stop upgrading. Now instead of getting business from PC gamers every 2 years, they see the same business every 5 years and all of us know console business doesnt repeat for 7 years.

Now some may argue they will sell alot of chips on console, well not really. even if you combine all the console makers you are talking about 30 million chips a year which isnt a huge deal for a company like AMD considering they just slowed down all of their PC business meaning not just the GPUs ie CPU, MB, RAM etc.

Conclusion by supporting consoles, they have literally axed their own feet.

Zcarnut4023d ago

Assuming your theory is true, wouldnt it also mean that the PC upgrade market may rebound once the next consoles arrive?...And may remain that way at least 2-3 years into the consoles lifespans?
I think theres another thing to consider you didnt touch base on. The economy. I believe if it didnt go into the dumper, we would have had PS4's and 720's for some time by now. Which would mean the PC market would have moved forward as well.

zebramocha4023d ago (Edited 4023d ago )

@decryt Really?consoles act as the lowest common denominator to PCs and not the myriads of components that could be put in a pc,how do you no and isn't making money on console?going by a post on neogaf Sony and Ms has to put money up on the design for their custom APUs and that doesn't account royalties they pay to amd.

hellvaguy4023d ago

"AMD wont benefit much, reason being they wont be making much from console sales"

How do you personally know this? DO you have insider info or just making up total and complete b.s.? I'm going with the latter, since none of what the profits are were made public. Also, I do recall MS and Sony stating that their consoles are sold at a loss for the first few years, meaning they subsidize them. Duh they goes your cheap console price theory.

Presenting you make believe theory as fact, with no facts at all, just makes you sound stupid.

Dojan1234023d ago

Good points. However, with PS4 moving to a PC based architecture, it will allow developers to build games with less non-PC considerations which holds PC back. This should push the pc gamer getting better / more powerful options that could bring back the every 2 year need/want to upgrade.

shutUpAndTakeMyMoney4023d ago

yeah console gamers think amd will make billions form ps4. But they probably won't. Nvidia made 500M in 7 years from ps3. But they made 1.2 billion already this year.

koehler834023d ago

I expect AMD will be making a negligible return on console hardware.

I do think they'll benefit by being the defacto standard to which games are made, having a huge impact for them in their PC market.

We've been seeing a lot more studios put more focus on AMD chipsets lately, likely due to heavy investment from AMD themselves. We're about to see every studio put more focus on AMD chipsets.

Longsama4023d ago

If the game developers who make the games that recquire you to upgrade your system didn't have their console sales to support them they'd probably go out of business because the pc market represents such a small percentile of their revenue.

hesido4023d ago (Edited 4023d ago )

"Even today this 6 year old GPU is still capable of playing BF3 in 1080p."

I don't necessarily think this is a bad thing for the consumer. We are past the point of 8bit 2d graphics. Game developers can already convey all sorts of nuances through graphics. Photo-realism can wait, and we get to keep our dollars in our pockets.

Having to upgrade your gfx card every few years may be exciting for some, but I don't think everybody needs that bleeding edge technology.

With consoles, the technological jumps are in bigger steps (>10x more power every gen), with PC, the jumps are in smaller but much more frequent steps (~2x every generation but every few years) so it somehow balances out.

Meanwhile the longer a fixed hardware is used, the better it is utilized, while a bleeding edge PC hardware can only be utilized to some degree due to developers having to cater to bottlenecks of different kinds of hardware.

DeadlyFire4023d ago (Edited 4023d ago )

AMD will be making a large sum of cash. Why?

1. Stock. All good signs of business going well and with multiple big partners = pluses to the size of that stock. Now three consoles are tied to that stock.

2. NVIDIA didn't make much money with its perioud of making a GPU alone for the ONE console. AMD is making a GPU for 3 as well as a CPU/APU combo for two of the three!!! So its profit is triple + CPU sales.

Each individual sell doesn't effect AMD much. Its Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo buying the parts that they earn the most cash from.

Sure console ports slow down PC gamers upgrading, but it expands the exposure of PC games to more computers and more players as well which leads to more PC gamers. You are only looking at half the picture. At least this new generation is pushing close to 2 Tflops. PS3/X360 in comparison use about 350-400 Gigaflops or so in their GPUs.

dcbronco4023d ago

Decrypt I think you're underestimating market ups. Retail prices and wholesale prices are very different. AMD has to make a profit, the parts manufacturer has to make a profit. With the consoles they are basically a hired gun. Consultants. They are also licensing their tech. Sony and MS then have to take the designs out and get them made themselves.

+ Show (7) more repliesLast reply 4023d ago
Arai4024d ago (Edited 4023d ago )

Several large PC manufacturers (Dell, HP, etc etc) have voiced themselves that the PC market has shrunken....which was brought up at investor meetings.

I don't know who targeted who, in the end I think it was a wise decision for the console makers to go with AMD.
Price/performance ratio of their GPU's is great, especially their 7000 series.

Roccetarius4023d ago (Edited 4023d ago )

I don't know about AMD's GPU's anymore. Both the 6970 and 7970 failed for me. I know hardware isn't perfect, but i expect at least 2 - 3 years time before it bites the dust.

I just decided to say fuck it, then i looked for a Nvidia GPU. I've never had problems with them before, but their recent hardware leaves me in doubt.

Longsama4023d ago

This just seems like good business to me, I mean if i could have my product in every major gaming device on the market I feel pretty damn accomplished...I just don't see how anyone could look at that as a negative

Agent_hitman4023d ago

Good business decision for AMD.. too bad for Nvidia and Intel, since majority of techie people are buying ARM based tablets and smartphones.. I heard that PC sales are poor lately..

DeadlyFire4023d ago

PC sales shouldn't be poor really. Most people rely on a PC as a primary or 2ndary device regardless of console choice. Being a gamer on the PC takes education. Most general consumers simply lack the effort or knowledge to reach out to it. The future is bright with APUs coming around the corner though.

Even budget retail boxes with a good APU in it should offer 1 Tflop GPU power on the CPU. Which will help PC gaming in a big way. Intel Haswell has 1 Tflop GPU power and AMD's new APU in the PS4 push 1.8 Tflops. In another year or two we could see heavy PC cores + GPU power exceeding PS4 in an APU. When this happens it will shift PC sales forward. As any retailer can sell a gaming PC. No longer will people need an education on hardware or the need to buy a graphics card just to play. Even so that doesn't mean cards will stop coming. They still sell quite a bit of them.

pissed9994023d ago

nvidia was right about ps4. Not worth effort.

Show all comments (29)
270°

AMD FSR 3.1 Announced at GDC 2024, FSR 3 Available and Upcoming in 40 Games

Last September, we unleashed AMD FidelityFX™ Super Resolution 3 (FSR 3)1 on the gaming world, delivering massive FPS improvements in supported games.

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community.amd.com
Eonjay24d ago (Edited 24d ago )

So to put 2 and 2 together... FSR 3.1 is releasing later this year and the launch game to support it is Rachet and Clank: Rift Apart. In Sony's DevNet documentation it shows Rachet and Clank: Rift Apart as the example for PSSR. PS5 Pro also launches later this year... but there is something else coming too: AMD RDNA 4 Cards (The very same technology thats in the Pro). So, PSSR is either FSR 3.1 or its a direct collaboration with AMD for that builds on FSR 3.1. Somehow they are related. I think PSSR is FSR 3.1 with the bonus of AI... now lets see if RDNA 4 cards also include an AI block.

More details:
FSR 3.1 fixes Frame Generation
If you have a 30 series RTX card you can now use DLSS3 with FSR Frame Generation (No 40 Series required!)
Its Available on all Cards (we assume it will come to console)
Fixes Temporal stability

MrDead24d ago

I've been using a mod that allows dlss frame gen on my 3080 it works on all rtx series. It'll be good not to rely on mods for the future.

darksky23d ago

The mods avaiable are actually using FSR3 frame gen but with DLSS or FSR2 upscaling.

Babadook723d ago (Edited 23d ago )

I think that the leaks about the 5 Pro would debunk the notion that the two (FSR 3.1 and PSSR) are the same technology. PSSR is a Sony technology.

MrDead24d ago (Edited 24d ago )

I wonder how much they fixed the ghosting in dark areas as Nvidia are leaving them in the dust with image quality. Still good that they are improving in big leaps, I'll have to see when the RTX5000 series is released who I go with... at the moment the RTX5000's are sounding like monsters.

just_looken24d ago

Did you see the dell leaks were they are trying to cool cards using over 1k watts of power.

We are going to need 220 lines for next gen pcs lol

MrDead24d ago

That's crazy! Sounds like heating my house won't be a problem next winter.

porkChop23d ago

As much as I hate supporting Nvidia, AMD just doesn't even try to compete. Their whole business model is to beat Nvidia purely on price. But I'd rather pay for better performance and better features. AMD also doesn't even try to innovate. They just follow Nvidia's lead and make their own version of whatever Nvidia is doing. But they're always 1 or 2 generations behind when it comes to those software/driver innovations, so Nvidia is always miles ahead in quality and performance.

MrDead23d ago

I do a lot of work on photoshop so an Intel Nvidia set up has been the got to because of performance edge, more expensive but far more stable too. Intel also have the edge over AMD processors with better load distribution on the cores, less spikes and jitters. When you're working large format you don't want lag or spikes when you're editing or drawing.

I do think AMD has improved massively though and whist I don't think they threaten Nvidia on the tech side they do make very well priced cards and processors for the power. I'm probably going with a 5080 or 5090 but AMD will get a little side look from me, which is a first in a long time... but like you said they are a generation or two behind at the moment.

Goosejuice23d ago

While I can't argue for amd gpu, they aren't bad but they aren't great either. The cpu for amd have great. I would argue the 7800x3d as one of the best cpu for gaming right now. Idk about editing so I take ur word for that but gaming amd cpu is a great option these days.

porkChop22d ago

@Goosejuice

I have a 7800X3D. It certainly is great for gaming. Though for video editing, rendering, etc, I think Intel have the advantage from what I remember. I just mean from a GPU standpoint I can't support them.

70°

AMD storm Nvidia's Super launch party with temporary price cut to RX 7900 XT

Now that the RTX 4070 Super has launched, AMD have chopped the price of the RX 7900 XT to new lows.

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videogamer.com
80°

AMD Radeon 700M "RDNA 3" iGPUs Recieve Fluid Motion Frames Support, Brings FPS-Boost To Gamers

AMD has expanded its Fluid Motion Frames (AFMF) tech to Radeon 700M iGPUs which play a major role in laptops, handhelds & desktops.

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wccftech.com
Tapani96d ago

The ideal FPS would be for Steam Deck 45fps which is boosted to match the 90hz screen. However, today's new games are not on that level even on the OLED version, so the successor to Phoenix Point needs to come out fast. The 2nd Gen Steam Deck needs a VRR screen as well to make this doable. 2025 should be the year for such a device.

XBManiac96d ago

Or you need to play games better suited for Steam Deck. What would be great is a more powerful version of Steam Deck with higher specs for latest games. But... it will take a couple of years, it seems, as Gabe is waiting for a real next gen Zen+RDNA really portable kit.

Tapani95d ago

You are right, it really does come down to understanding what your Steam Deck can play and how. And that to me, is a bit of a pain to deal with. For a portable, I have zero interest in tuning anything, and just want to pick up and play. To do so in the PC space, you are correct, there needs to be a real next gen APU available.

That being said, I really appreciate there are these devices and can see how people like using them. To me the Steam Deck or any PC handheld should be a device which can continue the AAA games I play on my 4090 when I'm on the go.

Personally, I'm waiting for Strix Point, RDNA 3.5 at 16CU and an OLED VRR 90-120hz screen and better memory bandwidth. This should play AAA games at low settings at locked 40 or 45 fps which would be great already for a handheld. When Strix Point is out, most of the non-Valve PC handheld manufacturers have already sorted out the kinks in their software as well, so there should be a good maturity in 2024 or 2025 in these devices.

I do think, though, that Fluid Motion Frames will be a technique that these handhelds will benefit a lot from in the coming years as it spreads.