http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBl-goBrWno The Tegra3 quad-core processor doesn't perform awfully, and comes with 1Gb RAM... I'm not sure how much better you can get for $95 (lowest backing point to secure a console)!
I don't know about others but poor (relative to PC and console) game performance on mobile games is only acceptable to me because the machine fits in my pockets.
I don't sit in my living room to play iOS/Android games, the fact that the device is hooked to a bigger screen won't change that.
Also, they seem to be confusing two target audiences here. People that grew up with games as a central part of their lives are (in my experience) people that STILL play a lot of games and prefer to do so on consoles and a PC, while people who are into social and mobile games are mostly casual people that won't be bothered to sit in front of a big screen to play anyways.
I've felt like the console market was ready for some change for a while but envisioned it as a kind of Steam-console more than a big screen phone. That being said, I wish the best of luck to these guys, it's an ambitious and exciting project.
Did you watch the video? I'm not sure what resolution that is pushing, but it clearly beats the Wii hands down and looks to be roughly competitive with the XBox 360/PS3. If that's 1080p it may even have a slight edge on them. (But I'd guess 720p. For the most part on a TV console it's not really worth pushing twice the pixels for such a marginal image quality gain.)
Pushing 1080p off a mobile GPU on a console with 1Gb of RAM is cool and all but good luck doing anything else impressive besides... well pushing 1080p. This thing is closer to a phone than a real console.
The consoles are 7 years old. Mobile games are getting pretty close to their performance. All the new ARM GPU architectures coming out this year and next year will support OpenGL ES 3.0 (OpenGL 3.2 features) and OpenCL 1.1.
Next year's hardware should also be 4-5x faster in GPU performance than Tegra 3 (that includes Tegra 4, as well as other chips), and around 300 gigaflops each, which I think already surpasses the Xbox 360 and PS3, or it's around as powerful.
If Google and many of their partners would put these chips in $99 set top boxes/consoles, and let them play 3D Android games, it could disrupt the console market, simply by flooding the market with the help of multiple manufacturers, a low price, and a decent gaming platform, that could only grow bigger if it takes off, not unlike how Google dominates the smartphone market through the sheer number of Android devices released by many, many manufacturers.
I just hope Google is smart enough to recognize this and actually go for it, instead of focusing solely on their "smart TV" strategy with their Google TV boxes.
They should be able to meet the same schedule with Tegra 4 or quad Krait (although at higher cost). So someone else may be shipping a box that's 4x the performance at the same time.
You might find it educational to compare the specs of the "real consoles" to your phones, and don't forget to account for the fact that the "real consoles" are running somewhat older CPUs and stuff so the GHz difference isn't necessarily reflected by straight-up division. Also the newer GPUs include quite a few newer tricks and capabilities that the current console gen don't have.
Remember, the XBox 360 is now coming up fast on seven years old. By the time this comes out, eight. It's a bit fuzzy when a phone/tablet gets released that completely beats the XBox 360/PS3 due to the inability to easily directly compare the stats, but if it hasn't already happened it'll certainly happen next year, no question.
Also, that video was of games, not just video. I mean, how much more concrete a proof do you need that games are possible than... games?
That and a lot of very good indie PC games come with controller support out of the box. For example, I bought Super Meat Boy on Steam, I'd be glad to play it on a Steam Box!
Given the relative free-for-all mentality that seems to be going on at Valve (which is far from a bad thing imo!), I won't take a patent application as a definite sign that Valve (a software company) will be unveiling a console anytime soon.
The Nintendo Wii was pretty successful with its much weak graphics for half the price of the other consoles. Actually, it wasn't even half the price of Xbox360, but more like 75%.
This post has restored some of my faith in humanity. The world of software... no, screw that, the ENTIRE WORLD would be a better place with more people like you guys in :)
It was called OLark if my memory hasn't failed me. From what I remember it was semi-popular for a while but ultimately died a death of user scarcity as only the most popular websites ever had >1 active user with the program installed. Let me try find the link....
[edit] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=801242
Sometime in the 90s there existed a Windows application that added a chat overlay to any webpage. Users had small rectangular icons and could move around the webpage. You could also create a "bus" and drive people around the web.
If I get time (have to concentrate mostly on job-hunting for now) I was thinking of doing a "auto-post-to-twitter" to try and pull people outside the conversation in.
Around 2:00 AM Pacific/5:00 AM Eastern NASA will decide if Dragon is GO to move into the approach ellipsoid 1.4 kilometers around the space station. If Dragon is GO, after approximately one hour Dragon will move to a location 250 meters directly below the station. Dragon will then perform a series of maneuvers to show systems are operating as expected. If NASA is satisfied with the results of these many tests, Dragon will be allowed to perform the final approach to the space station.
Sometime around 6:00 AM Pacific/9:00 AM Eastern, astronauts on the space station will grapple Dragon with the space station’s robotic arm and the spacecraft will attach to the station."
I read that. Hence why I said at the moment. It'd be great for them to get it sooner rather than later. At least in the UK, most basic accounts issue Visa debit cards and a lot of the basic credit cards are also Visa.
By now you may recognize that each hint uses letters preceding the current letter, therefore use that to guide you on a new answer. After all, it's a hint for a reason :). So for dad, what can you do with the "d" to make it somehow an "e"?
Hi javajosh, I just had to leave this comment here to say thank you. Your comment was possibly one of the best comments I have ever read on HN, and possibly the internet at large. Thank you for restoring my faith in humanity somewhat.
If I could sit here all day clicking the upvote button I would!
As someone who has forgone any TV's in place of a pretty heavy duty projector in my living room, I can say with some certainty that 15 lumens will barely be visible even in a pitch black room! My full-size/spec projector puts out about 2500 lumens and is still hard to see with the curtains open in the day time!
I view this in the same way I view "fun-size" candy bars...an interesting novelty for kids, completely impractical for most everyone else!
