What they really need to do is maybe just start completely over on the whole Xbox Dashboard.
For something that could be so simple and easy, the whole experience of trying to use the Xbox for anything other than playing a game is insanely frustrating. Every time I sit down to try to use it I'm just tearing my hair out!
It's been, what, over a decade they've been working on that Dashboard and it has always been just a steaming pile of trash.
Everything from initial setup trying to make accounts for the kids, to setting up payment methods, trying to switch between users constantly as things are authorized in one place or another, trying to install apps, constantly turning it on to find its forcing an hour of updates that must be installed to basically unbrick it. The media player app is insultingly bad. The App Store is a wasteland. The UI is a total train wreck.
I went to install Amazon's app to stream some Prime shows last week. You would think probably some other people have tried to do this before, what could go wrong? What a mistake. App constantly crashing, took over an hour, including power cycling the Xbox twice before I get it to the point where I was actually watching a show. This for what is a < 5 minute process on a smartphone.
Every time I try to do anything with that infernal machine, I just end up tearing my hair out. I really don't understand how they have millions of users and so much basic shit Just Doesn't Work.
And don't get me started on the UI..... Everything I want to do buried the absolute maximum amount of clicks away from where I would expect to look for it.
I try not to complain about it usually because it just gets my blood boiling how could MS put out such absolute garbage? Please tell me I'm not alone in feeling this way :-)
The hardware rat race is great and all, but for a platform where they have Apple-esque control I would have expected two orders of magnitude better results than what MS has managed to deliver in 2017 for a living room experience.
I really don't understand how they have millions of users and so much basic shit Just Doesn't Work.
Because those millions of users use the box to play games, like I do. Oh, I've tried all the other stuff, and as you point out it's generally such a steaming pile of shit that I feel foolish for having even tried. (If the Kinect weren't in a box in the garage, I'd be staring in its direction right now.) Frankly, I'd be happy if they could just bring the Xbone back to the level of usability that the 360 had. To their credit, they're getting there little by little in many ways. To their discredit, they shouldn't have to do that in the first place. MSFT had a working platform, but I'm guessing some PMs needed to make their mark, so they "improved" things by breaking them.
So I just play games on it, and watch the occasional Blu-Ray. That keeps the "aggravation footprint" to a minimum. Anything else I want to do is on the Apple TV. And when the next-gen consoles roll out, I'm going to be taking a hard look at what Sony has to offer.
Honestly don't have any of the same experience as you except that some things are buried behind too many clicks. I use the amazon stream all the time. I don't even remember installing it. Can't remember ever having a problem installing apps.
I have it set to always on, so I basically never even notice the updates since they happen while I sleep or am at work. So yeah, I don't share your experience at all.
I agree and I regularly miss the blade dashboard from long ago. Every update keeps making it more and more difficult and intuitive.
When you don't have a mouse or a touch screen, putting things in non-linear places makes extremely difficult to navigate to. I find myself regularly going down and over and up and around. Almost circling things to select them.
Old gaming menus were horizontal or vertical but not both at the same time.
I once tried to use the XBox360 and it wanted me to verify the account before I could update, which took me into a hell that I wouldn't emerge from for 2+ hours. At the end, I was so upset at the BS I had to put up with (including >30 minutes on the phone with their support), I was ready to throw the machine out the window.
> Everything I want to do buried the absolute maximum amount of clicks away from where I would expect to look for it.
Part of the latest update had a video for the new Home button functionality. It used to be that pressing the Xbox button on your controller took you home. In the video they literally said "to go home press the Xbox button and then the "A" button twice".
I can't imagine recording a video telling people to do that. They got it wrong IMO. They should have just had the Xbox button take you home and a long press take you to the menu that you see presently when you press that button.
Totally agree. Although offering "simpler" functionality, the oldschool menu and UI system on the Xbox 360 was LIGHTYEARS ahead of anything the Xbox One has put out. Everything was fast and easy and as expected, from lobby systems, profile viewing, and party chat/party lobbies. I feel like the One was a major step back, UX wise, from the 360
100% agree... If they could steal a top UX designer from, say, Apple and start over from scratch, I feel like they could build something amazing. I love the XBOX and have been a supporter since day 1, but the new dashboard interface keeps getting worse and worse.
IMO the media center wars are being won by the actual TVs. We bought a new Samsung TV (SmartTV) over the Thanksgiving. It provides the usual built-in apps (Netflix, Amazon, Hulu etc.). Media Center experience is much better on this TV compared to other devices: No input switching, native 4K, fast switching between apps, simpler remote experience - no switching activities on a universal remote and turning devices ON/OFF.
At this point Apple TV is essentially obsolete for us. We do use XBox for gaming.
IMO XBox is better off just getting rid of the whole media center thing and focus tightly on the gaming experience.
The Xbox Amazon video streaming app has always been pretty crappy. Significantly worse picture quality than streaming on a computer (unwatchable in my opinion), and odd/exceptional choices for navigation. Much of the blame for this is on Amazon, but some is on Microsoft as well for allowing Amazon to release such a poor quality application. I guess that is to your point on Apple vs. Microsoft: Apple wouldn't allow such a poor quality app on their platform, Microsoft gives them enough rope to hang themselves and doesn't stand in their way.
My #1 UX issue is that it makes me manually sign into my profile every time I turn it on, which is a clunky and overlong process, even though I only have one profile and I ALWAYS use it.
Agreed - I watch everything over Xbox since it streams audio to my headphones. Finding apps consistently took me weeks to figure out.
The other problem is that there is no unified control scheme for streaming apps. In theory, you are giving each app flexibility to create a unique experience. But in practice, you need to learn the random button mappings for FF, REW, etc. on every streaming platform.
The first time I used it I spent about 20 seconds looking for the "my games and apps" button, and since I've found it I've had zero other issues with the UI.
I wholeheartedly disagree... It takes 5 minutes to learn the UI if even that long. You have pins, you have "blades" (they're just the top items that you navigate with bumpers) and a left side bar now.
My gut says way too many people look for reasons not to figure out things and blame the product for having shortcomings that are entirely self inflicted.
as for amazon, their app is rather crappy almost universally. Try netflix or Hulu..
If you own a PS4 or an X1 and the money to buy a PS4 Pro or Scorpio, it seems like the best move is to buy the upgrade of the platform you don't have. Then you've got access to both platforms' exclusives, and at least one new-spec machine for the games that aren't exclusive.
I think the most interesting thing is going to see how compatibility works out long-term for Scorpio. What will the cross-compat story be for the next console, and the one after that? Will they re-platform and lose compatibility again (and bring it back via emulation) or keep re-spec'ing the current platform? When will we see games that will play on Scorpio but not X1?
> If you own a PS4 or an X1 and the money to buy a PS4 Pro or Scorpio, it seems like the best move is to buy the upgrade of the platform you don't have. Then you've got access to both platforms' exclusives, and at least one new-spec machine for the games that aren't exclusive.
As someone who owns both consoles, after seeing the lack of enthusiasm at the PS4 Pro launch event I decided to hold off until Scorpio specs became known - I much prefer the Xbox "experience" but outside of exclusives it never gets much use since my "high-fidelity" gaming goes on my PC, and "console exclusives" usually are better on the PS4 (looking at Final Fantasy XV in particular here).
I'm glad I waited, there are games I want to play that are console exclusives but not tied to one platform or the other (Kingdom Hearts 3) - it looks like Microsoft hit this one out of the park. Seeing as the HDD in my OG Xbox One is going to fail soon (man is it noisy) the Scorpio looks like a good upgrade path.
> I think the most interesting thing is going to see how compatibility works out long-term for Scorpio. What will the cross-compat story be for the next console, and the one after that? Will they re-platform and lose compatibility again (and bring it back via emulation) or keep re-spec'ing the current platform? When will we see games that will play on Scorpio but not X1?
I believe the intent is that we are entering an era of smartphone-esque spec bumps to consoles, and getting rid of the full generational gap that has historically existed.
From here on out, expect new hardware every couple years that will be compatible with your existing library - after existing hardware is X generations old it will stop receiving software support and you'll have to upgrade. Likely, when the Scorpio+1/2 is out you'll see the original Xbox One and Xbox One S losing support for some newer titles (but they'll likely continue receiving support from indie developers and less intense games along with system software updates for a while after that).
I'm glad we're seeing utilisation at the 66% level. That extra power is going to be mighty useful for VR. It's going to be really interesting to see what Microsoft reveal there.
I have an Xbox One and a Switch. Personally, I love this combination and Scorpio could be a great upgrade depending on the VR story. While I do miss out on some PS4 games I'd love to play, I don't have enough hours to play the games I already have.
The ideological gap between Switch and the rest of the industry is widening. No doubt the Switch is a cheaper platform to develop for (4K assets are a huge burden) but is that enough of a drawcard? Likewise, are consoles like Scorpio and PS4 Pro becoming too difficult and expensive to develop for, unless you are a AAA studio? The bar gets set so high that smaller studios will find it harder and harder to keep up. I can easily foresee a future where the Switch has an amazing selection of first party, Nintendo games and a killer catalogue of indies, whereas Xbox and PS4 own the third-party, AAA market.
Actually it feels like the trend you are starting to see is that AAA studios can't even keep up (aka Mass Effect Andromeda, and other recent high profile releases). The graphics burden just seems too high that everything else suffers.
But it's not all bad. I feel like, especially on the PC, smaller indie studios have been flourishing and some of the best games in recent times are not AAA nor graphical powerhouses.
Note: Eurogamer has the official exclusive for this information.
The tech is incrementally better than the PS4 Pro, but the price is unknown and could be problematic if released at $499 compared to the PS4 Pro's $399. And whether developers will take full advantage of that power.
On paper it's incrementally better--significantly higher clocks, more RAM and much more memory bandwidth. But the bigger news is that all existing Xbox One games get 16x anisotropic filtering, framerate boosts, v-sync, and resolution bumps (if the game supports dynamic resolution). Not to mention system-wide downsampling for 1080p TV's.
Should be a pretty big bump in image quality for Xbox One games. They demoed Forza running at 4k/60 FPS with PC Ultra-equivalent settings at less than 90% GPU load.
Maybe I am completely off the marks here, and I'm sorry if this is off topic, but as someone who follows very closely what Apple is (or isn't?) doing in their Pro machines I am very curious how those specs compare to what everyone is asking for from Apple. The RAM is obviously low, fine, but it sounds like the CPU and GPU are significantly more capable than anything that Apple is shipping right now, and Microsoft will sell this thing at a fraction of the price that Apple will sell any pro hardware. What am I missing? Where is the big gap in component cost? How is something like an Xbox so different, and so much cheaper, than a pro level desktop?
Microsoft is running a custom SoC that is tailor-made to their platform, with shared memory, power delivery and internal communication channels for the CPU and GPU. This right away reduces a lot of costs you see in a traditional professional desktop, where you have a GPU with separate power requirements, dedicated VRAM, and all the hardware needed to communicate over PCIe on both sides. Not to mention the Xbox One uses really weak (in comparison) Jaguar cores, instead of something much more expensive like Ryzen or Kaby Lake.
The CPU+GPU alone can add up to over $1000 retail on a workstation, and that's a consumer CPU and GPU - once you start adding "workstation" graphics like AMD FirePro or NVidia Quadro territory the GPU can cost over $1000 retail alone for validated drivers to support CAD applications, etc.
Factor in all the extra components that go in to support upgrades (memory sockets, PCIe slots, external connectivity like Thunderbolt) and the fact that these components use much more power than the Xbox One SoC and as such require more cooling and you can see how costs quickly add up.
Now, with all that said - the Mac Pro is pure price gouging. You can get an equivalent workstation from HP for a fraction of the price, but then it doesn't run macOS.
Personally, I find it rather amusing. I remember when the Intel cheese grater Mac Pro was first introduced and Apple was showing off an equivalently specced Dell workstation was more expensive than the Mac Pro. Apple has really lost their way in the professional space (see everything they've done with the MacBook Pro since 2012 as well).
A big part of it is the type of graphics card. FirePro (the kind in workstations) are much more expensive than normal general purpose graphics cards, which are again more expensive than custom SoCs which can be developed barebones for a specific use. Reason being that a calculation error that results in a dead pixel is fine when you are playing a video game. It'll be there for 1/60s and then be gone, never seen again. The same error in a disney film or a 3d scene rendered for a poster needs to be pixel perfect, so workstation class cards have a much lower threshhold for error, and cost accordingly.
(Also, and this is just conjecture: its possible that Apple intentionally overprices their pros as a sort of "look this is premium" cost, while the goal of an xbox is mass market sale).
They're really just too very different things, on many, many levels.
For general computing purposes, an Intel i5 based system would be significantly more performant than this, but the Scoprio is highly, highly optimized for its specific task.
Traditionally consoles are sold at a loss at first and the as components come down in price it evens out. Last gen though xbone and ps4 were essentially sold at cost. Most likely this is sold at cost and then they make money off of games. Apple needs to cover costs of OS and make a profit off of the computer alone and people are willing to pay a premium for Apple.
You're not missing anything. If this console launch is anything like the previous generations the hardware will be an amazing bargain when it comes out. Comparable to a high end gaming PC or workstation for half the cost.
The only difference is that with Apple they will be expected to make a decent profit margin on that hardware and update it with newer specs in a year or two. With consoles, they will continue selling the same hardware for 5+ years so it is okay if they start selling at a loss initially if it means more money to be made from game sales.
Don't know if it's still the case for new consoles, but the ps3 was highly subsidised when it came out. Something like that would account partially for the price difference.
Does anyone know anything about the "Hovis method" they reference for fine tuning the power profile for each chip? I'm having a tough time understanding how tweaking the voltage rails from board to board can improve power consumption/heat dissipation without impacting CPU performance.
Normally, yes. Due to process variations each chip has a slightly different maximum frequency for a given voltage. Usually chip makers test each chip, sort them by how fast they can go at a standardized voltage, and sell the faster ones for more money under a different model number - sometimes also fusing off features like multi threading.
It sounds like what Microsoft is doing is standardizing on frequency and giving different chips as much voltage as they need to hit their performance targets. So everybody buying one of these consoles gets the same performance but some people will have more power hungry consoles than others. Possibly those people will get better heat sinks?
What I find interesting, is the parallel in movie content, where 4K UHD content just became available late last year (while 4K movie content was available earlier, all the stuff I'd seen was poorly encoded or heavily compressed). I see a lot of people on AVSForum complaining that there's absolutely no visual difference between 4K or 1080p, sitting on a couch at normal distances, based on scientific arguments of the human eye's resolving power, or their own subjective experiments.
Given that the market reception to 4K TV's and UHD players seems to have been tepid at best, I find it interesting that Microsoft thinks 4K will be such a huge draw to consumers. Is it just bragging rights (my 4K's bigger than your 1080p)? 4K rendering will really make the 1080p look that much better? People playing these things will sit 1-2 feet from the screen? Or maybe VR headsets will benefit the most?
The Xbox Scorpio SoC is RX480 again, Polaris chip on steroids - coupled with more GDDR5 6.8GHz@326GB/s BW vRAM 12GB with reserved to OS @1.5-2GB Plus a quad core Jaguar cluster added in with Vapor Chamber & full DX12 HW improvements. That should be a slightly OCed GTX 1060 level of perf looking from the specsheet, Plus they are banking on that DX12 due to the CPU being Jaguar still, Also the GCN HW of the AMD thus helping it to boost the ASync compute. Prev gen was also a RX480 based but cutdown chip less than cut down GM204 perf (<980M)
And It did 4K forza which was a direct port from the Studio 10 to the Scorpio from XB1 @60FPS/~64% GPU usage, Mobile GTX 1070 and up should be still outperforming it & when it comes to proper optimized titles like BF1 / TF2 / TW3 / MEC etc will aid further to render more details, Also running old 4K forza on Console GFX options vs PC GFX options is not an apples to apples comparison. Note that TF figure on AMD and Nvidia aren't same either...
Consoles can never reach PC levels of detailing due to the market and targeted audience. I'm a PC gamer, I can't stand to the degraded visuals on the Consoles, Also the Nvidia Tessellation is superior to AMD. Sad part is due to the % of market the PC games get downgraded / unoptimized mess due to these consoles Also the XB1Scorpio doesn't add any significant advantage over the PS4Pro because of less than stellar exlc. titles & Checkered board rendering used. Finally the native 4K@60Hz or 30 isn't out, I highly doubt an RX480 can run the games at 60FPS 4K, the power isn't just there for the recent games and upcoming powerful engines developed with Pascal HW will outperform this weak chip soon..
It's interesting that, for the second time this week, a big company has given journalists an exclusive and sort of intimate look at their future roadmap instead of saving it for big keynote surprises.
Between leaks making nothing ever a surprise anymore and the general jadedness at products never living up to their keynote claims, I wonder if this signals a kind of paradigm shift in "how to hype a product". Certainly all the Apple commentators seemed very pleased that Apple was breaking with their traditional radio silence, and this made me much more interested in Scorpio than I was recently, since I can see from a skeptical source that it's not just hot air.
Hrm, I can't help but think that despite this being only slightly more than Sony's PS4 Pro spec-wise, that difference is going to matter a lot because it seems to be the difference between being able to output (upscaled) 4k and being able to render 4k. We'll see if that turns out to be true when the Scorpio Xbox One actually launches (this kind of pre-release article is very prone to botching facts like this). If it does hold then this machine actually has some hope of switching the preferred platform for console games back over to Xbox One.
I hope this is more than just putting out 4k games. Most people don't have 4k TVs, and, very importantly, for those that do, most don't have a big enough one for how far away they sit.
I'm thinking of upgrading to a 65-inch OLED this year, and from my couch of about 10 feet away (maybe a hair closer), I won't be able to tell 1080p from 4k. And that's a pretty big TV!
I would much rather see Scorpio games at 1080/60 fps with more effects, more polygons and more complex lighting.
The best 'gaming investment' I ever made was to take 2000 bucks and instead of building a new dynamite pc, I bought one of the best 1080p plasmas you could buy 3 years ago, and a ps4. I haven't looked back.
Consoles have come a long way, and the visual fidelity of a truly great quality display is a much better investment than a machine that can power a mediocre display at higher resolutions.
This is coming from someone who was gaming on ultra on 1440p for 5 years before switching back to consoles. It feels good to be back on the couch.
> I hope this is more than just putting out 4k games. Most people don't have 4k TVs, and, very importantly, for those that do, most don't have a big enough one for how far away they sit.
And don't have the bandwidth to download many gigabytes of forced game updates.
This is MS admitting defeat for this gen and going for an early next gen. BC gives it the mid-gen excuse though. This is a good move though and will put Xbox back on the map.
> "To be clear, then: Project Scorpio doesn't feature Ryzen cores, but the Xbox team are not so concerned about this. "On the CPU side of things, we could still meet our design goals with the custom changes we made," Kevin Gammill points out. "At the end of the day we are still a consumer product. We want to hit the price-points where consumers want to purchase this. It's about balancing the two.""
I'm excited by the specs, especially given that Red Dead Redemption 2, Battlefront 2, Call of Duty WW2, and Destiny 2 are all hitting this holiday. Should be the best way to play those games.
Although I wish they had more unique games coming out alongside that stuff. Playing Zelda on Switch is a good reminder that eye candy doesn't matter all that much after the novelty wears off.
[+] [-] zaroth|9 years ago|reply
It's been, what, over a decade they've been working on that Dashboard and it has always been just a steaming pile of trash.
Everything from initial setup trying to make accounts for the kids, to setting up payment methods, trying to switch between users constantly as things are authorized in one place or another, trying to install apps, constantly turning it on to find its forcing an hour of updates that must be installed to basically unbrick it. The media player app is insultingly bad. The App Store is a wasteland. The UI is a total train wreck.
I went to install Amazon's app to stream some Prime shows last week. You would think probably some other people have tried to do this before, what could go wrong? What a mistake. App constantly crashing, took over an hour, including power cycling the Xbox twice before I get it to the point where I was actually watching a show. This for what is a < 5 minute process on a smartphone.
Every time I try to do anything with that infernal machine, I just end up tearing my hair out. I really don't understand how they have millions of users and so much basic shit Just Doesn't Work.
And don't get me started on the UI..... Everything I want to do buried the absolute maximum amount of clicks away from where I would expect to look for it.
I try not to complain about it usually because it just gets my blood boiling how could MS put out such absolute garbage? Please tell me I'm not alone in feeling this way :-)
The hardware rat race is great and all, but for a platform where they have Apple-esque control I would have expected two orders of magnitude better results than what MS has managed to deliver in 2017 for a living room experience.
[+] [-] mikestew|9 years ago|reply
Because those millions of users use the box to play games, like I do. Oh, I've tried all the other stuff, and as you point out it's generally such a steaming pile of shit that I feel foolish for having even tried. (If the Kinect weren't in a box in the garage, I'd be staring in its direction right now.) Frankly, I'd be happy if they could just bring the Xbone back to the level of usability that the 360 had. To their credit, they're getting there little by little in many ways. To their discredit, they shouldn't have to do that in the first place. MSFT had a working platform, but I'm guessing some PMs needed to make their mark, so they "improved" things by breaking them.
So I just play games on it, and watch the occasional Blu-Ray. That keeps the "aggravation footprint" to a minimum. Anything else I want to do is on the Apple TV. And when the next-gen consoles roll out, I'm going to be taking a hard look at what Sony has to offer.
[+] [-] mhermher|9 years ago|reply
I have it set to always on, so I basically never even notice the updates since they happen while I sleep or am at work. So yeah, I don't share your experience at all.
[+] [-] notyourwork|9 years ago|reply
When you don't have a mouse or a touch screen, putting things in non-linear places makes extremely difficult to navigate to. I find myself regularly going down and over and up and around. Almost circling things to select them.
Old gaming menus were horizontal or vertical but not both at the same time.
[+] [-] e40|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Yhippa|9 years ago|reply
Part of the latest update had a video for the new Home button functionality. It used to be that pressing the Xbox button on your controller took you home. In the video they literally said "to go home press the Xbox button and then the "A" button twice".
I can't imagine recording a video telling people to do that. They got it wrong IMO. They should have just had the Xbox button take you home and a long press take you to the menu that you see presently when you press that button.
[+] [-] brosky117|9 years ago|reply
The UI is insanely difficult to use. I frequently find myself wondering how to do the most basic tasks.
If it weren't for Halo, I'd be gone a long time ago.
[+] [-] hfourm|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bherms|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vgchh|9 years ago|reply
At this point Apple TV is essentially obsolete for us. We do use XBox for gaming.
IMO XBox is better off just getting rid of the whole media center thing and focus tightly on the gaming experience.
[+] [-] patja|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hsod|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dbot|9 years ago|reply
The other problem is that there is no unified control scheme for streaming apps. In theory, you are giving each app flexibility to create a unique experience. But in practice, you need to learn the random button mappings for FF, REW, etc. on every streaming platform.
[+] [-] pure_ambition|9 years ago|reply
The first time I used it I spent about 20 seconds looking for the "my games and apps" button, and since I've found it I've had zero other issues with the UI.
[+] [-] supernovae|9 years ago|reply
My gut says way too many people look for reasons not to figure out things and blame the product for having shortcomings that are entirely self inflicted.
as for amazon, their app is rather crappy almost universally. Try netflix or Hulu..
[+] [-] nlawalker|9 years ago|reply
I think the most interesting thing is going to see how compatibility works out long-term for Scorpio. What will the cross-compat story be for the next console, and the one after that? Will they re-platform and lose compatibility again (and bring it back via emulation) or keep re-spec'ing the current platform? When will we see games that will play on Scorpio but not X1?
[+] [-] snuxoll|9 years ago|reply
As someone who owns both consoles, after seeing the lack of enthusiasm at the PS4 Pro launch event I decided to hold off until Scorpio specs became known - I much prefer the Xbox "experience" but outside of exclusives it never gets much use since my "high-fidelity" gaming goes on my PC, and "console exclusives" usually are better on the PS4 (looking at Final Fantasy XV in particular here).
I'm glad I waited, there are games I want to play that are console exclusives but not tied to one platform or the other (Kingdom Hearts 3) - it looks like Microsoft hit this one out of the park. Seeing as the HDD in my OG Xbox One is going to fail soon (man is it noisy) the Scorpio looks like a good upgrade path.
> I think the most interesting thing is going to see how compatibility works out long-term for Scorpio. What will the cross-compat story be for the next console, and the one after that? Will they re-platform and lose compatibility again (and bring it back via emulation) or keep re-spec'ing the current platform? When will we see games that will play on Scorpio but not X1?
I believe the intent is that we are entering an era of smartphone-esque spec bumps to consoles, and getting rid of the full generational gap that has historically existed.
From here on out, expect new hardware every couple years that will be compatible with your existing library - after existing hardware is X generations old it will stop receiving software support and you'll have to upgrade. Likely, when the Scorpio+1/2 is out you'll see the original Xbox One and Xbox One S losing support for some newer titles (but they'll likely continue receiving support from indie developers and less intense games along with system software updates for a while after that).
[+] [-] emdowling|9 years ago|reply
I have an Xbox One and a Switch. Personally, I love this combination and Scorpio could be a great upgrade depending on the VR story. While I do miss out on some PS4 games I'd love to play, I don't have enough hours to play the games I already have.
The ideological gap between Switch and the rest of the industry is widening. No doubt the Switch is a cheaper platform to develop for (4K assets are a huge burden) but is that enough of a drawcard? Likewise, are consoles like Scorpio and PS4 Pro becoming too difficult and expensive to develop for, unless you are a AAA studio? The bar gets set so high that smaller studios will find it harder and harder to keep up. I can easily foresee a future where the Switch has an amazing selection of first party, Nintendo games and a killer catalogue of indies, whereas Xbox and PS4 own the third-party, AAA market.
[+] [-] nightski|9 years ago|reply
But it's not all bad. I feel like, especially on the PC, smaller indie studios have been flourishing and some of the best games in recent times are not AAA nor graphical powerhouses.
[+] [-] minimaxir|9 years ago|reply
The tech is incrementally better than the PS4 Pro, but the price is unknown and could be problematic if released at $499 compared to the PS4 Pro's $399. And whether developers will take full advantage of that power.
[+] [-] dontyouremember|9 years ago|reply
Should be a pretty big bump in image quality for Xbox One games. They demoed Forza running at 4k/60 FPS with PC Ultra-equivalent settings at less than 90% GPU load.
[+] [-] Grazester|9 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RE2hNrq1Zxs&feature=youtu.be...
[+] [-] andrewbarba|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] snuxoll|9 years ago|reply
The CPU+GPU alone can add up to over $1000 retail on a workstation, and that's a consumer CPU and GPU - once you start adding "workstation" graphics like AMD FirePro or NVidia Quadro territory the GPU can cost over $1000 retail alone for validated drivers to support CAD applications, etc.
Factor in all the extra components that go in to support upgrades (memory sockets, PCIe slots, external connectivity like Thunderbolt) and the fact that these components use much more power than the Xbox One SoC and as such require more cooling and you can see how costs quickly add up.
Now, with all that said - the Mac Pro is pure price gouging. You can get an equivalent workstation from HP for a fraction of the price, but then it doesn't run macOS.
Personally, I find it rather amusing. I remember when the Intel cheese grater Mac Pro was first introduced and Apple was showing off an equivalently specced Dell workstation was more expensive than the Mac Pro. Apple has really lost their way in the professional space (see everything they've done with the MacBook Pro since 2012 as well).
[+] [-] joshuamorton|9 years ago|reply
(Also, and this is just conjecture: its possible that Apple intentionally overprices their pros as a sort of "look this is premium" cost, while the goal of an xbox is mass market sale).
[+] [-] strictnein|9 years ago|reply
For general computing purposes, an Intel i5 based system would be significantly more performant than this, but the Scoprio is highly, highly optimized for its specific task.
[+] [-] 83457|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eberkund|9 years ago|reply
The only difference is that with Apple they will be expected to make a decent profit margin on that hardware and update it with newer specs in a year or two. With consoles, they will continue selling the same hardware for 5+ years so it is okay if they start selling at a loss initially if it means more money to be made from game sales.
[+] [-] ben-schaaf|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mariusmg|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chocolatebunny|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Symmetry|9 years ago|reply
It sounds like what Microsoft is doing is standardizing on frequency and giving different chips as much voltage as they need to hit their performance targets. So everybody buying one of these consoles gets the same performance but some people will have more power hungry consoles than others. Possibly those people will get better heat sinks?
[+] [-] BatFastard|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] strictnein|9 years ago|reply
Takes a minute to load, I think their cdn is a little overloaded currently.
[+] [-] jd20|9 years ago|reply
Given that the market reception to 4K TV's and UHD players seems to have been tepid at best, I find it interesting that Microsoft thinks 4K will be such a huge draw to consumers. Is it just bragging rights (my 4K's bigger than your 1080p)? 4K rendering will really make the 1080p look that much better? People playing these things will sit 1-2 feet from the screen? Or maybe VR headsets will benefit the most?
[+] [-] z0d|9 years ago|reply
And It did 4K forza which was a direct port from the Studio 10 to the Scorpio from XB1 @60FPS/~64% GPU usage, Mobile GTX 1070 and up should be still outperforming it & when it comes to proper optimized titles like BF1 / TF2 / TW3 / MEC etc will aid further to render more details, Also running old 4K forza on Console GFX options vs PC GFX options is not an apples to apples comparison. Note that TF figure on AMD and Nvidia aren't same either...
Consoles can never reach PC levels of detailing due to the market and targeted audience. I'm a PC gamer, I can't stand to the degraded visuals on the Consoles, Also the Nvidia Tessellation is superior to AMD. Sad part is due to the % of market the PC games get downgraded / unoptimized mess due to these consoles Also the XB1Scorpio doesn't add any significant advantage over the PS4Pro because of less than stellar exlc. titles & Checkered board rendering used. Finally the native 4K@60Hz or 30 isn't out, I highly doubt an RX480 can run the games at 60FPS 4K, the power isn't just there for the recent games and upcoming powerful engines developed with Pascal HW will outperform this weak chip soon..
[+] [-] Analemma_|9 years ago|reply
Between leaks making nothing ever a surprise anymore and the general jadedness at products never living up to their keynote claims, I wonder if this signals a kind of paradigm shift in "how to hype a product". Certainly all the Apple commentators seemed very pleased that Apple was breaking with their traditional radio silence, and this made me much more interested in Scorpio than I was recently, since I can see from a skeptical source that it's not just hot air.
[+] [-] clhodapp|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] phonon|9 years ago|reply
Even for large screen TV's, you would need to sit about 3-5 feet from a 4K TV to make out every pixel.
3k rendered, then upscaled to 4K should be pretty much indistinguishable to 99% of viewers.
[+] [-] pwthornton|9 years ago|reply
I'm thinking of upgrading to a 65-inch OLED this year, and from my couch of about 10 feet away (maybe a hair closer), I won't be able to tell 1080p from 4k. And that's a pretty big TV!
I would much rather see Scorpio games at 1080/60 fps with more effects, more polygons and more complex lighting.
[+] [-] markdog12|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] good_sir_ant|9 years ago|reply
Consoles have come a long way, and the visual fidelity of a truly great quality display is a much better investment than a machine that can power a mediocre display at higher resolutions.
This is coming from someone who was gaming on ultra on 1440p for 5 years before switching back to consoles. It feels good to be back on the couch.
[+] [-] DanBC|9 years ago|reply
And don't have the bandwidth to download many gigabytes of forced game updates.
[+] [-] m-p-3|9 years ago|reply
http://i.imgur.com/GUCJSAH.png
[+] [-] KaoruAoiShiho|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] supernovae|9 years ago|reply
I think more than anything, it's the fact 4k happened much quicker than expected..
[+] [-] blktiger|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bhouston|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] strictnein|9 years ago|reply
> "To be clear, then: Project Scorpio doesn't feature Ryzen cores, but the Xbox team are not so concerned about this. "On the CPU side of things, we could still meet our design goals with the custom changes we made," Kevin Gammill points out. "At the end of the day we are still a consumer product. We want to hit the price-points where consumers want to purchase this. It's about balancing the two.""
[+] [-] dontyouremember|9 years ago|reply
Although I wish they had more unique games coming out alongside that stuff. Playing Zelda on Switch is a good reminder that eye candy doesn't matter all that much after the novelty wears off.