News & Rumors: Xbox One (codename Durango)

[DieH@rd]

New Kotaku rumors:
http://kotaku.com/the-next-gen-xbox-is-getting-a-hell-of-an-exclusive-so-484785241

- MS secured x360 & x720 exclusivity for Respawn's new military scifi shooter, game has big MP focus, Source engine, always online
- MS is falling behind with launch software schedule, apparently up to 6 months in some cases
- Several launch projects were canceled
- MS is ready to throw money to 3rd party devs for early exclusives
- Sony is in better hw/sw shape with PS4

 

[Bagel seed]

Hw problems must be due to the epic SoC they're making, being more troublesome with ESRAM no doubt. That and the stringent heat, noise, power and reliability requirements that comes along with being a STB.

 

[DieH@rd]

Gaffer thyway [anyone kept records about his rumor posting success rate?] just mentined that Durango developers have problems with "keeping devkits cool".
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=56154344#post56154344

I always thought that there is at least some truth behind those old Durango SoC rumors about bad yields, monolythic chips, and delays. If they dont have reliable chip TODAY, MS really has to be in panic mode but I dont think they will delay the launch.

 

[dobwal]

Gaffer thyway [anyone kept records about his rumor posting success rate?] just mentined that Durango developers have problems with "keeping devkits cool".
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=56154344#post56154344

I always thought that there is at least some truth behind those old Durango SoC rumors about bad yields, monolythic chips, and delays. If they dont have reliable chip TODAY, MS really has to be in panic mode but I dont think they will delay the launch.

I thought beta dev kits for the 360 didnt show up until mid year 2005? Seems odd that MS would panic over a cooling solution at a time where even Sony hadn't locked down a final PS4 design as the suppose comment was made a week after the Sony PS4 conference. Whats particularly funny is that overheating was described by a few supposed sources as an Orbis problem.

I have no ideal but it seems that these type of issues would be common when working with early and immature chips.

 

[bbot]

I thought beta dev kits for the 360 didnt show up until mid year 2005? Seems odd that MS would panic over a cooling solution at a time where even Sony hadn't locked down a final PS4 design as the suppose comment was made a week after the Sony PS4 conference. Whats particularly funny is that overheating was described by a few supposed sources as an Orbis problem.

I have no ideal but it seems that these type of issues would be common when working with early and immature chips.

Looks like Charlie was right about the yield problem.

 

[Brad Grenz]

There've been so many "manufacturing problems" rumors about the Durango chip over the last 18 months that this latest rumor doesn't surprise me at all. And the idea that MS could build a bunch of new studios from the ground up in 2-3 years and have a full slate of high quality "AAAA" games ready for Durango was always a pipe dream. It wouldn't surprise me if that process has been fraught with inefficiencies and cancellations.

I would be shocked if Respawn is really using the Source engine for their new game, though. That detail alone casts doubt on the whole report for me.

 

[eastmen]

was he also right about the chip being a beast and the current specs we have are them trying to deal the heat issues.


Oh well not much more time left.

 

[XpiderMX]

Is the neogaf guy (thuway) legit? What is the difference between thuway and the chinese guy? xD

 

[PalmiNio]

There've been so many "manufacturing problems" rumors about the Durango chip over the last 18 months that this latest rumor doesn't surprise me at all. And the idea that MS could build a bunch of new studios from the ground up in 2-3 years and have a full slate of high quality "AAAA" games ready for Durango was always a pipe dream. It wouldn't surprise me if that process has been fraught with inefficiencies and cancellations.

I would be shocked if Respawn is really using the Source engine for their new game, though. That detail alone casts doubt on the whole report for me.

Where is all the "manufacturing problems" rumors you are talkning about?

 

[PalmiNio]

Is the neogaf guy (thuway) legit? What is the difference between thuway and the chinese guy? xD

NeoGAF works like this:

Good rumors for MS = Fake
Bad rumors for MS = Legit

Thats more or less all the creed that is needed.

 

[(((interference)))]

Gaffer thyway [anyone kept records about his rumor posting success rate?] just mentined that Durango developers have problems with "keeping devkits cool".
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=56154344#post56154344
.

And this is why we shouldn't expect increased clocks for the final hw.

Is the neogaf guy (thuway) legit? What is the difference between thuway and the chinese guy? xD

Thuway is quite legit, he works as a games tester and has contacts from that work.
He was the first to post the amount of ESRAM and the exact bandwidth specs for both the DDR3 and ESRAM.
He also got the system reservation correct.

 

[XpiderMX]

And this is why we shouldn't expect increased clocks for the final hw.



Thuway is quite legit, he works as a games tester and has contacts from that work.
He was the first to post the amount of ESRAM and the exact bandwidth specs for both the DDR3 and ESRAM.
He also got the system reservation correct.

Before than vgleaks? Probably from the same durango pdf.

 

[(((interference)))]

Before than vgleaks? Probably from the same durango pdf.

Nope at least a month before.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=46515083&postcount=2688

 

[GrimThorne]

Okay so in the last week of February thuway had a conversation with someone about how hot the Durango beta kits were running? And that the beta kits was the reason why Microsoft delayed their reveal?

Oh brother. May 21st just can't get here fast enough.

 

[Le Photographeur]

Ok, I must now ask.. regarding this rumour about Durango kits overheating.

So based on specs from VGleaks and such, Durango seemed to have an equal CPU as PS4 and a slightly less powerful GPU (at least, according to the leaks)

Why are we not hearing about PS4 kits not being overheated? Could this be due to ESRAM?
Or are the leaks wrong/MS upped the specs?

 

[(((interference)))]

Besides ESRAM (which I suspect is taking up a lot of die space, if it is 6T SRAM after all), MS also has the DMEs and the audio & Kinect MEC block. That's a lot of stuff to fit on the die.

 

[fehu]

New Kotaku rumors:
- MS secured x360 & x720 exclusivity for Respawn's new military scifi shooter, game has big MP focus, Source engine, always online

Source engine for a next gen title?

- MS is falling behind with launch software schedule, apparently up to 6 months in some cases

Maybe they have changed something months ago and dev have to take time to readjust?
Or Maybe MS is pushing for more polished software against Sony?

 

[Grall]

Looks like Charlie was right about the yield problem.

...Only by sheer coincidence, very likely. "Even a blind hen", et cetera.

Why are we not hearing about PS4 kits not being overheated? Could this be due to ESRAM?
Or are the leaks wrong/MS upped the specs?

Rumors mean nothing, pretty much. The internet is basically one giant echo chamber, someone posts a rumor somewhere, others repost it elsewhere - hopefully unchanged, but not always, like the game of chinese whispers. This reposting is often misinterpreted as "confirmation" of the rumor, weird, I know. So it bounces around a bit, and boom, suddenly people see it as gospel truth.

IF there is an overheating issue with devkits it's just because it's prototype hardware, and MS either misunderestimated the size of the heatsink on the chip, or the amount of case ventilation. It's not going to be an issue in production consoles, as those will use a completely different hardware design.
(*cough*we'll conveniently forget about early model xbox360s...*ahem*)

Also, SRAM is relatively frugal with power compared to active logic. While 32MB SRAM would add a lot of transistors (over 1.5 billion) that will sit there and each of them will leak a bit of power, as long as they don't actively switch states the power use isn't going to explode, and as data is just stored in SRAM and not processed there switching will be limited. Also, a large SRAM array as the one proposed for durango could run at a lower clock speed compared to the rest of the chip (the rumored bandwidth provided by it isn't terribly high), and maybe use a lower voltage plane as a result, limiting heat from leakage.

 

[Michellstar]

The thing is this kotaku rumors don´t make sense with previous leaks:

The mantra was: alpha=beta=retail, so what´s up wih games and soft behind schedule? Durango, and orbis for that matter are Pcs.

And the other one, yields, being a rather conservative design compared to PS4, where they traded Logic for sram. How can this mean DOOM for one design and no the other? It´s the same vendor

Well, the 21 is coming....

 

[dagamer]

There've been so many "manufacturing problems" rumors about the Durango chip over the last 18 months that this latest rumor doesn't surprise me at all. And the idea that MS could build a bunch of new studios from the ground up in 2-3 years and have a full slate of high quality "AAAA" games ready for Durango was always a pipe dream. It wouldn't surprise me if that process has been fraught with inefficiencies and cancellations.

I would be shocked if Respawn is really using the Source engine for their new game, though. That detail alone casts doubt on the whole report for me.

Is this your first console launch? Since when has any console had a "full slate of AAAA games"? At best, there is one system selling title, hoping for any more is crazy talk. I expect a lot of ports and cross-gen games during both launches, much like in the past. Question is which 1-2 studios is going to make Microsoft's AAA launch titles. I'm not expecting anything spectacular and after buying a Wii U last year (and having sold it since), I am extremely hesitant to be an early adopter again.