News & Rumors: Xbox One (codename Durango)

[Shifty Geezer]

Now soapbox time - where oh where has our reading comprehension gone. There has been a serious decline in general reading comprehension online over the last several years. I blame twitter! It seems that everyone skims things and responds quickly.

Yes. I'm not going to spend significant amounts of time reading carefully every word on the internet when I'm balancing a lot of other (more important) things to do. Especially when it's a Pastebin rumour that starts with gibberish. It didn't warrant careful reading to ascertain its inner secrets.

Be honest, you don't read 100% every word posted on B3D, do you?

 

[zupallinere]

Here are specs MS gave (That I know):

...
Here's specs Sony gave:
...

So Sony still withheld some key specs, CPU model, CPU clock speed, GPU clock speed (we know from CU's/TF), transistor count (kinda nonstandard spec yes, but MS did give this one)

I guess to say yes indeed Sony gave much more of relevance, but they were not totally forthcoming either.

Anyways as has been discussed to death, clearly MS released the thinnest of specs that they aren't clearly deficient on.

As Panello said, it's unclear their plan about releasing specs going forward.

The fact MS withheld clocks has at least led to plenty of wanton speculation opportunities on our part. Sony less so cause the GPU figures and Shadowfall dev slides at least ostensibly established clocks.

Well with Sony we have Cerny discussing quite a bit more in the Gamasutra article including specific things that Sony did and why. Sure there are things that are left unexposed even from that interview but it is still much more than we have from MS. Panello will hopefully match Cerny but I don't know if that will happen.

Also remember whatever time constraints MS has so does Sony. Even is MS reveals something "hidden" right now, as a fer instance, Sony could not respond since they seem further down the production road. The only thing is the clock that could possibly be changed and that is a debatable point ( a decent debate however ).

On the other hand holes in our understanding of things and imagination is where magic comes from and who wants to be against magic !!! :smile:

 

[Cranky]

No it isn't, it's a travesty.

You started your post with a condescending "Sigh!" , then an apologetic "Also this isn't meant to be negative towards you shifty" and then basically told him he can't read.



Here are the important details Shifty et al. tried to get you to understand:
1. Credibility of Pastebin and by extension you: Zero
2. Credibility of bkillian: >> zero

Cheers

Man, this board is on a roll today. yet another failure of reading comprehension. Neither of your two supposed points have any relevance to anything. They are completely unrelated to anything that I posted.

 

[Cranky]

Yes. I'm not going to spend significant amounts of time reading carefully every word on the internet when I'm balancing a lot of other (more important) things to do. Especially when it's a Pastebin rumour that starts with gibberish. It didn't warrant careful reading to ascertain its inner secrets.

Be honest, you don't read 100% every word posted on B3D, do you?

Of course not. However, if I am going to attempt a factual refutation of a post, I would a least make sure that my points fit the scenario at hand. In this case, the reason asserted for the impossibility /improbability of the pastebin was false. Moreover in this case there were multiple time references (not a single, isolated fact) that invalidated your specific, sited objection which was lack of time.

 

[Brimstone]

What recent events?
Mattrick probably decided to leave weeks if not months ago.
MS also would surely not have waited till now to make drastic changes like the ones you suggest.

MS is most likely satisfied with the Xbox One as it is now but of course that is not nearly as fun as speculating about specs upgrades.

I doubt the upgrade...although Xbox One was clearly outclassed many months ago.

Nvidia claimed Project Shield took 9 months...the engineers on the xbox gpu should be pretty effcient after all the time they've had.

Mattrick leaving doesn't seem to been known to Microsoft.

 

[zupallinere]

In that sense, I liked Peter Moore. He was humble and seemed a very nice guy.

Julie Larson is a very interesting change. ( http://www.microsoft.com/about/technicalrecognition/julie-larson-green.aspx )

I consider that having a woman leading the console business would add a lot freshness to the Xbox division and new ideas --ideas that would be more in touch with everyone, not just focused on a male audience.

A bit of a fresher perspective with Larson could indeed arise. Considering the non-gaming aspects of the XB1 that have been put front and center having someone who UI and software engineering heavy could indeed be a plus. Of course could she be lightning rod for any problems that occur. The average male gamer may become even more anxious about a woman heading up a console division, even more so than any real or perceived spec deficit.

 

[Dave Baumann]

Nvidia claimed Project Shield took 9 months...the engineers on the xbox gpu should be pretty effcient after all the time they've had.

I'm no sure I see any correlation to console development. Shield leveraged existing silicon, so that 9 months relates to the physical unit and software (and they had to hold back on the release due to last minute issues as well).

 

[blakjedi]

I'm no sure I see any correlation to console development. Shield leveraged existing silicon, so that 9 months relates to the physical unit and software (and they had to hold back on the release due to last minute issues as well).

The story we get about the silicon in the XBONE is all over the place. Its seems like off the shelf parts minus the ESRAM and the S.H.A.P.E.... is it a 7790 with ESRAM? That just seems like more trouble than its worth...

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Moreover in this case there were multiple time references (not a single, isolated fact) that invalidated your specific, sited objection which was lack of time.

Yep. I was wrong. Skipped over the timeline without too much attention, and didn't appreciate the claim was a concurrent design, that MS contacted devs, the devs said they weren't happy, but MS went ahead and designed and built that APU anyway to put in devkits while they also spec'd a new APU which they've only just finished, instead of sensibly coming up with a new design and just building that one instead. The impetus wasn't Sony's PS4 specs as revealed this year, but devs complaining last year. Kudos to the made up rumour for coming with a slightly less dubious explanation of where this change in HW comes from.

 

[Kb-Smoker]

Here are specs MS gave (That I know):

8GB RAM, 8 core CPU.

768 shaders, though I dont really count that as it's one hidden mention.

32 MB ESRAM? I'm assuming they said that at some point, dunno.

5 billion transistors

Here's specs Sony gave:

8GB GDDR5
1.84 TF GPU
8 core x86 CPU
18 CU's
176 GB/s BW.

So Sony still withheld some key specs, CPU model, CPU clock speed, GPU clock speed (we know from CU's/TF), transistor count (kinda nonstandard spec yes, but MS did give this one)

I guess to say yes indeed Sony gave much more of relevance, but they were not totally forthcoming either.

Anyways as has been discussed to death, clearly MS released the thinnest of specs that they aren't clearly deficient on.

As Panello said, it's unclear their plan about releasing specs going forward.

The fact MS withheld clocks has at least led to plenty of wanton speculation opportunities on our part. Sony less so cause the GPU figures and Shadowfall dev slides at least ostensibly established clocks.

ms also stated " These cpu cores are capable of doing six operations per cycles, so across the eight cores that's 48 operations."

everything matches the leak docs.

In the sony press release they stated 8-core 64-bit x86 "Jaguar" CPU built by AMD. Only thing not know is cpu clock.

 

[Cranky]

Yep. I was wrong. Skipped over the timeline without too much attention, and didn't appreciate the claim was a concurrent design, that MS contacted devs, the devs said they weren't happy, but MS went ahead and designed and built that APU anyway to put in devkits while they also spec'd a new APU which they've only just finished, instead of sensibly coming up with a new design and just building that one instead. The impetus wasn't Sony's PS4 specs as revealed this year, but devs complaining last year. Kudos to the made up rumour for coming with a slightly less dubious explanation of where this change in HW comes from.

Again just to be clear, I think that the rumor is bullshit. However, the kind of corporate tomfoolery that you reference above is actually much more the norm than rational decision making. That kind of seeming stupidity unfortunately actually increases the probability that the rumor is true as it reflects typical decision making, risk mitigation, and activities driven by arbitrary goals, in this case a Nov 13 launch for example, that you find in big corporations. I have personally witnessed billion dollar boondoggles all driven by the need to meet meaningless and arbitrary deadlines or goals.

 

[liolio]

MSFT will include a headset in the xbone.

I think MSFT is in panic I'm not sure on what it is based but they indeed are.

I wonder if they could have understood that retailers have chosen their camp already. I mean the PS4 is cheaper, the package is going to be tinier (tinier box, no PSU), it doesn't come with a camera => even tinier package. Now it seems to me that their could be more demand for the ps4 at launch, early adopter mostly core gamers don't really care for Kinect, PS4 is perceived as significantly more powerful, it costs less.
Why pack and order plenty of bigger boxes that are taking room from the hottest selling items especially if the hottest item takes less room.

So I wonder about is: from where the wake up call for MSFT is coming from?
From the noise on the web or even public pre-orders?
Or from undisclosed returns and discussion they could have with major retailers?

I mean retailers might have their own anticipation and projection about how a given product is going to sell, etc. I know you can buy "promotional space for your product, etc" but MSFT could find out that retailers based on their estimate asks more than MSFT would want.

/just some FUD though I'm not kidding I'm in disbelief that a big corporation as MSFT would react to mostly noise on the web (or only to that). There are to be others reasons (financial forecast for example, retailers attitude, etc.)

 

[dagamer]

A bit of a fresher perspective with Larson could indeed arise. Considering the non-gaming aspects of the XB1 that have been put front and center having someone who UI and software engineering heavy could indeed be a plus. Of course could she be lightning rod for any problems that occur. The average male gamer may become even more anxious about a woman heading up a console division, even more so than any real or perceived spec deficit.

If the average male gamer has difficulty with a woman leading the console division, they need to be slapped and told to stop with the sexist bullshit. It's fucking 2013, that gamer should feel ashamed for having that idiotic line of thinking.

Nip it in the bud.

 

[liolio]

If the average male gamer has difficulty with a woman leading the console division, they need to be slapped and told to stop with the sexist bullshit. It's fucking 2013, that gamer should feel ashamed for having that idiotic line of thinking.

Nip it in the bud.

Indeed, not too mention she is sort of hot for her age.
------------------->[]

I had to had another sexist cliche though I agree with you it is a retarded attitude.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Gamers need not worry until the machines is rebranded the 'Xbox Pwn-EE' and painted pink

 

[liolio]

As a side note, no headset in the Xbone package.

 

[zupallinere]

If the average male gamer has difficulty with a woman leading the console division, they need to be slapped and told to stop with the sexist bullshit. It's fucking 2013, that gamer should feel ashamed for having that idiotic line of thinking.

Nip it in the bud.

COMPLETELY agree. I did throw in "could" and "may" since there is no need to go over the top with generalizations. In my opinion the more viewpoints/experiences/diversity in the gaming industry, the better for gaming.

 

[bkilian]

bkillian should have hung around a bit longer. He could have run the whole show!

Dude, I was so far down in the trenches, I only got to see sunlight once a year. I am not executive material, I work for a living.

Ps4 has 18 and its about the same price...

There, fixed that for you. Remember the One is shipping with a Kinect, in which the current version retails at over $100, the new version for windows will retail at $400. I'd say it's likely that if you were comparing the consoles alone, they would come out about equal.

Here are specs MS gave (That I know):

8GB RAM, 8 core CPU.

768 shaders, though I dont really count that as it's one hidden mention.

32 MB ESRAM? I'm assuming they said that at some point, dunno.

5 billion transistors

Here's specs Sony gave:

8GB GDDR5
1.84 TF GPU
8 core x86 CPU
18 CU's
176 GB/s BW.

I think you're incorrect in both cases. ESRAM amount was not mentioned as far as I recall. And the PS4 has never announced the number of CUs, we just inferred it from the TF. They did mention AMD jaguar, and AMD GCN.

 

[wco81]

Why is the PC version so much more expensive?

 

[pMax]

I think MSFT is in panic I'm not sure on what

Have you ever made a good DRM+relative protection?? It takes ages, with competent people (and usually they guys making DRM are instead standard developers, not true ITSEC guys that crack things...)

...they backpedaled ON DRM. I highly doubt they have much development time (2 months still maybe... but I doubt).
They need way more than one miracle, I think... how was that funny post?
ah..

1. Tell engineers to do X "AND ONLY X".
2. Engineers do "X" - Management has a cow and says "How could you do this to me? How could this happen?!?"
3. Beat the engineers. Management says to engineers "You fix!!! YOU FIX NOW!!!"
4. Engineers run around like crazy at the last minute and pull off a series of minor miracles.

hehe I will likely buy an xbone for phun

edit: add the interesting consideration that MS never made a serious DRM+protection, and you see why I am getting popcorns... better than TV.