Mixed Information on Consoles or How I learned to loathe PR *spin off*

Can't help wondering if MS are hoping that the entire Xbox brand will benefit from the kind of "halo effect" that I've been repeatedly told helps Nvidia in the GPU market (having the fastest $9000+ GPUs makes it easier to market mainstream cards).


It's a do-over. Xbox One was, "What can we deliver @ $499 that would appeal to a phantom demographic that doesn't actually exist, but we think is 200M strong?" Scorpio is, "What can we deliver @ $499 that would appeal to gamers and Xbox gamers specifically?"
 
seems to have got out to the wider press some how.
it's the specs, guess when the article about the development side comes out tomorrow, people are going to say how strange it was that a development site got to do it.

the people who are interested in specs, I suspect know who DF is.
so far so good.

guess I just don't find it weird, much less super weird.
just different.

Same here. It's not like the information, once DF revealed it, just stayed there. It got picked up everywhere.
 
It may be unprecedented, but it's not that stupid. Most gamers don't care about specs. Some console do fine without talking about specs at all.

Lots of firms go to third party PR firms reveals, nobody lets a third party to the reveal before checking what is going to be released first. Out of curiosity, what console was released where they never talked about specs?
 
Which in tune with McCorbo I agree that it may even be symbolic victory then anything else. Developers will always want to show their games in the best possible light, so they will keep showcasing the game on 1X hardware ? At least this is a common trend we have been seeing at E3.
Devs will showcase games on a platform with marketing partnership or lead platform.


MS now tries to to spread marketing FUD for a platform. Like true 4k
“I look at [PS4] Pro as more of a competitor to [Xbox One] S than I do to Xbox One X,” claims Spencer. “This is a true 4K console. If you just look at the specs of what this box is, it's in a different league than any other console that's out there.”
https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/13/15790162/microsoft-phil-spencer-xbox-one-x-vs-ps4-pro-interview

"A game has a 2160p frame buffer output. That includes Native 4K, Checkerboarding, and Dynamic Resolution.
"
https://news.xbox.com/2017/06/11/new-packaging-icons-xbox/
4KUHD_ICON.jpg
 
Basically "like" Epic settings isn't Epic settings. We don't know what's being cut down. Does Epic settings feature a lot of CPU intensive settings that are greatly exacerbated on PC where it's difficult to reduce CPU dependency?

Does the lowered settings used for XBO greatly reduce CPU or GPU load without noticeably reducing the graphically quality such that it's "like" Epic settings?

Regards,
SB

Sure, but that's the BS that MS is "selling" with their XB1X marketing. You can't expect people who have invested more than $499 in a single GPU to sit back and hear those claims and not respond in an attempt to set the record straight. And MS has many apologists that believe their hype that these games are running at the equivalent of PC Epic/Ultra settings and that the XB1X can magically do this because of the lack of overhead on the console or more direct access to DX12, or whatever other reasons they pull out.
 
And if you have no marketing partner?

PC, most of the time. You can brute force unstable builds to a playable level, and hope for the best in terms of optimization for the consoles. Ubisoft has mastered that art, remember this?

 
So if MS is marketing a feature it's FUD, but if Sony is doing it, it is highlighting a feature?
the offending line is, “I look at [PS4] Pro as more of a competitor to [Xbox One] S than I do to Xbox One X.” Which is clearly PR bollocks trying to distance the 1X in gamer mindsahre. PS4 is the competitor to XB1S. PS4 Pro exists to offer a higher resolution console than 1080p, and if XB1X didn't exist, 4Pro would have no equivalent. XB1X and 4Pro are machines providing higher than 1080p gaming. XB1X is the high end of that market at a higher price. It doesn't stand in a league of its own.
 
the offending line is, “I look at [PS4] Pro as more of a competitor to [Xbox One] S than I do to Xbox One X.” Which is clearly PR bollocks trying to distance the 1X in gamer mindsahre. PS4 is the competitor to XB1S. PS4 Pro exists to offer a higher resolution console than 1080p, and if XB1X didn't exist, 4Pro would have no equivalent. XB1X and 4Pro are machines providing higher than 1080p gaming. XB1X is the high end of that market at a higher price. It doesn't stand in a league of its own.
it is a FUD statement. He'd only kill good will with hardcores. But he's trying to sell it to mainstream at being the ultimate, unfortunately stepping on toes to do so. I don't agree with it, it's fairly false in my eyes, and will work against him in the near future.

edit: I take it back. Not total FUD. Show me 4K textures on 4Pro then Phil's claim is fud.
 
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It was a silly thing to say, especially when the original question in the EG article was, "Are you not worried about being $100 more expensive than the PS4 Pro?"

It's not like they were talking about just 4K media playback i.e. UHD BD & streaming (even then, it'd be a stretch for comparing anyway).
 
It was a silly thing to say, especially when the original question in the EG article was, "Are you not worried about being $100 more expensive than the PS4 Pro?"

It's probably true, though. He should have been more careful with his wording, though, to make sure it wasn't coming off as a pejorative against PS4 Pro. They probably really aren't trying to compete with the Pro with the X. Of course how Phil and MS view this isn't how any of us have to!

People really should read the original interview and see all this in context, though, instead of giving clicks to the Verge for their click-bait headline and editorialized presentation of selected quotes.
 
the offending line is, “I look at [PS4] Pro as more of a competitor to [Xbox One] S than I do to Xbox One X.” Which is clearly PR bollocks trying to distance the 1X in gamer mindsahre. PS4 is the competitor to XB1S. PS4 Pro exists to offer a higher resolution console than 1080p, and if XB1X didn't exist, 4Pro would have no equivalent. XB1X and 4Pro are machines providing higher than 1080p gaming. XB1X is the high end of that market at a higher price. It doesn't stand in a league of its own.

Again, I'll use the Titan XP as a comparison point. That product doesn't compete with anything. It doesn't even try. It's just the best thing they can manufacture in sufficient volume and sell at a tolerable price to be successful as a consumer product,
 
I've not read the articles yet.
what i will say is that its going by their definition of true 4k.
Sony can come up with their own, which they have, dynamic 4k.
The difference is MS has defined what true means, I'm not sure Sony has with dynamic?
it may all be marketing, but there's a serious discussion to be had which we had a year or so ago about what is native resolution etc.

2160cb is still a full 4k framebuffer.
1800p upscaled to 2160p isn't. Note - I'm not disagreeing with devs doing this as i think for that game it's probably the best use of resources, and may not be distinguishable from a native image even.

does that mean everything upscaled and output at 2160p is then considered 4k? If so then the 1S is also a 4k console.
or does the framebuffer just need to be above 1080p before being upscaled?

currently we have varying resolutions for many parts that makes up the final image and we've still called it native if the framebuffer was.

so is it marketing and positioning of products, sure. But they are both trying to find ways to do that, although not heard much from Sony in general.
but their definition of true 4k doesn't sound too bad to me, so they can say 4pro is in a different bracket.
not saying i agree it is.
 
Also official 4k labeling:

https://news.xbox.com/2017/06/11/new-packaging-icons-xbox/
How this is true 4k?

Sometimes it will be and sometimes it won't. The true 4K marketing is indicating that the system is powerful enough to do it, not that developers are mandated to use the power that way. I expect many will, though. It's the path of least resistance, after all, and we all know how lazy devs are.
Most aren't lazy at all. Time is money and development time especially so.
 
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