Middle Generation Console Upgrade Discussion [Scorpio, 4Pro]
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Silent_Buddha
Legend
That depends on if they envision Project Scorpio replacing XBO ASAP, of if they plan to use it as a premium device at a higher price until the next console comes out at which point Project Scorpio takes on the budget mantle while the new console takes on the premium mantle.
IE - XBO at 149-199 USD would still sell a lot more machines than Project Scorpio at 299-399 USD. In such a situation I think their first party titles would still attempt to do 1080p and/or 60 FPS on XBO.
However, if they plan to drop XBO and completely replace it with Project Scorpio within a year, then I could possibly see them not optimizing for XBO nearly as much. But even then I'd envision them dropping IQ a bit rather than sacrificing resolution or framerate.
Regards,
SB
Thanks for the table.
Based on the $100 figure and 156 chips per 300mm wafer - yield it's safe to say that license+setup are major chunks of the cost. I'm sure people here can make far more sophisticated calculations but let's say this would make the chip 10-15USD more expensive in reality.
In the first year they sell around 10M machines, so 100-150M more.
Just adding a game to make the console more attractive costs more without even considering the whole "marketing/media/game-studio" payments MS had to make over the last few years to compete while their whole market shrank. Compared to this I don't believe the die costs are that relevant.
Agreed.
Generally speaking I guess from a developer perspective you're going to invest the most time in the platform that will provide you the largest returns (barring marketing deals)
It's honestly really hard to know, I think even for both Sony and MS it's a confusing place to be. And if I didn't want throw money away, these mid-gen refreshes is a good moment to pause and see what the market does with their products. With the mid-gen refreshes, all markets are covered by their hardware, it's a good time to focus back on what actually makes them money; getting desirable games, services and functionality out to their respective bases.
the longer this debate goes on, the more I feel PS5 and XB2 are being pushed out further and further
Its too early to make any assumptions about mid gen refreshes. Pro has been out for like 2 months so we dont really have any real metrics to measure its success (or lack of)
Its possible that if Pro sales turn out to be lacklustre, Microsoft might have to approach this from a different angle, unfortunately they have never been the medias darling and would probably be crucified for going back on their word and starting a new generation with Scorpio, its just bad PR
Easiest way tbh is to step in and help retailers with trade in deals. That way they get as many XB1 owners that care about specs as possible and can maybe make Scorpio the lead platform
Its possible that if Pro sales turn out to be lacklustre, Microsoft might have to approach this from a different angle, unfortunately they have never been the medias darling and would probably be crucified for going back on their word and starting a new generation with Scorpio, its just bad PR
Easiest way tbh is to step in and help retailers with trade in deals. That way they get as many XB1 owners that care about specs as possible and can maybe make Scorpio the lead platform
Thinking about it, I'm not sure Scorpio could ever transition into being MS's "low end" device. 384-bit bus and 12 memory chips ... for life.
It might make more sense to replace X1S with a new device, potentially positioned below Scorpio. Narrower bus etc.
On the subject of CPU, I wonder if MS's x86 emulation will ever be at the point where they could switch to ARM? They are, after all, Wizards. If not, a couple of power efficient ARM cores for the OS and freeing up all 8 'overclocked' cat cores for games might be an option ...?
It might make more sense to replace X1S with a new device, potentially positioned below Scorpio. Narrower bus etc.
On the subject of CPU, I wonder if MS's x86 emulation will ever be at the point where they could switch to ARM? They are, after all, Wizards. If not, a couple of power efficient ARM cores for the OS and freeing up all 8 'overclocked' cat cores for games might be an option ...?
But what happens when 8K arrives? Imagine that Scorpio would be the low end by default.
That was the catch that caught me off guard when discussing this topic. Sony and MS don't control the TV market, they can continually push and push and push without a care about how fast Sony and MS will keep up.
But there are limits to the degrees of change possible even for people, so instead of upgrading at each major interval, perhaps they do every other (like mobile phones). There might be enough time for someone who bought into 1080p late, skip 4K, and go straight to 8K. What console will be there for them? It's getting so weird
we're in the danger zone of derailment lolIt would be even worse than that. I don't know enough about all levels of system integration to list all the ways that ARM and x86 disagree on fundamental facets of what it is to be a functioning system, and a lot of even the smallest details are literally system-killing if gotten wrong, much less if there are two different definitions of correct.
We can reference what is perhaps the most commercially successful consumer device that has x86 and ARM hosts interacting by looking at the PS4 jailbreak thread. (I can think of others somewhat closely integrated, but not successful ones.) The presentation that was recently done about the APU and the independent ARM southbridge and its separate OS working through a bizarre system of sleight of hand and deceit over a PCIe bus.
And note how often the presenter goes "WTF???", and then realize that just putting the cores in there would be doing this for every signal and every operation. The architecture's performance would be measured in WTF per cycle (WTFPC), and any such design would have to be a limited-run production. Otherwise, a warehouse full of Scorpio units would concentrate enough hatred that the silicon would melt, coalesce into a single will, and hunt us all down like the T-1000.
Scorpio isn't tied to the hip of the xbox one. They won't share the same EOL date. The power of newer hardware is always underutilized during it's initial phase of life when the older user base is still dominant.
Ultimately what goes into Scorpio will affect development on the next Xbox during its early life, so there are benefits of throwing something stronger than cat cores if it's technically and financially feasible.
I dont think its comparable to previous generations though. This is new territory and the only comparison we really have is the smartphone industry. Your last paragraph makes sense though, throwing in Zen would extend Scorpios life greatly
But the question is if people would be willing to pay the premium for it
Isn't the whole point of the mid cycle upgrades is that they are for people who don't mind paying a premium (that is less than buying a pc) for better gameplay and graphics.
You throw in Zen + Vega and it will run any game for the xbox one at high resolution without breaking a sweat. But then you can craft games that aren't possible on the ps4 , ps4 pro or the xbox one. Esp if they put an 8 core 16 thread chip in there. The advancements in AI alone will be huge for games that take advantage of it. Open world games like gta 6 or fallout 5 or what have you will have much better AI for characters and they can shove more characters on screen at once. Lets also not forget destruction in game play which is lacking even today
We know that premium in the console world means roughly 399$, Sony did not get enough traction with PS3, Microsoft did not get enough traction with original Xbox and XB1. If they can launch Scorpio for 399 with Zen then yes that would be fairly big. But if they charge 500 for it then we simply dont know
Neither Rockstar or Bethesda will bother spending development money on Scorpio when the competition has a 60+ million userbase. Back in the day MS could write a check for 20 million and get exclusive marketing for their console but with the difference being so massive now, most companies will just ignore that. Titanfall 2 being a recent example
Microsoft really needs to bolster their first party studios in order to showcase Scorpio to sell enough consoles to make third party devs notice.
And limit yourself to a relatively tiny audience. Those games won't happen until the 'next gen' for real where games aren't hampered by the older spec. If Scorpio is going to be a part of the next gen, then it'll need an improved CPU. If it's just for playing this gen at 4K, it can make do with a weaker CPU. I'm betting it's targeting the latter...
And One could easily argue we have not yet hit the limits of our current systems. I'm betting on the latter.
Really no indication of Zen. Still more interested in the Vega connection. I do partly regret posting that picture now, that picture is too easily a troll. The fact that no that no other pictures have surfaced from AMDs booth is heavily suspect
sorry shifty.or next gen for Xbox is considered the premium console and then Scorpio become the mainstream model which will need to be able to run the "next gen" games.
being able to sell a mainstream console that plays next gen games could work out very well for them in the long run.
(doesn't mean I'm 100% on it being zen though)
that pic doesn't imply anything, could mean vega, vega derived, zen, it's not like the booth was just zen.
A third party dev on gaf is saying he has not heard anything about a notable boost in CPU power for Scorpio
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=227738774&postcount=219
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=227738774&postcount=219
Many devs hadn't heard about 8GBs RAM in PS4 either.
what have they heard apart from what had already been said? Have they heard it's 100% vega, 12gb etc?
my point is that it really depends on what Ms long term views are and obviously cost.
so I can easily see argument for enough to do 4k now, and the other side that says need to be able to do more to be able to support future games without totally holding them back.
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