News & Rumors: Xbox One (codename Durango)

[Love_In_Rio]

That´s the way they worded it

"The bump was supposed to have been planned prior to initial reveal. Any actual changes would have taken place during E3 Week. Effectively, the way the RAM is set out in the machine, Microsoft realized they could be more efficient in its use without sacrificing the amount set aside for OS operation. They immediately reacted. Physical RAM won't be upped in time for November release as it was too late even during initial reveal, but developers are saying, in terms of efficiency of the RAM and the reported yield problems, Microsoft have made some snappy breakthroughs and gave the impression it was a straight up increase in clock speed; hence the rumor.""




Dos it make any sense?

No. Maybe they found out after testing first silicoms the DDR3 behaviour was also capable of read/write at the same time and has also double bandwidth!. Or the DDR3 has transformed out of the blue in GDDR6...

 

[Strange]

Efficiency of the eSRAM or the DDR3 ram?

 

[(((interference)))]

Examiner debunks its own upclock rumor:

http://www.examiner.com/article/xbo...gher-clock-speed-but-doubtful-on-increase-ram

It was all a confusion due to the magical ESRAM bandwitdh increment. They say now its so magical that it seems like the whole system was upclocked

Well, that makes sense of why the Examiner guy said they planned the change before the reveal and implemented it during E3 week.

Efficiency of the eSRAM or the DDR3 ram?

ESRAM efficiency, he's basically corroborating this DF story:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-xbox-one-memory-better-in-production-hardware

 

[Michellstar]

No. Maybe they found out after testing first silicoms the DDR3 behaviour was also capable of read/write at the same time and has also double bandwidth!. Or the DDR3 has transformed out of the blue in GDDR6...

lol

 

[Cjail]

So MS found out ways to better use what they have?!
Good for them if it's true...I still don't understand the BW increase of ESRAM anyway.

 

[Reiko]

That´s the way they worded it

"The bump was supposed to have been planned prior to initial reveal. Any actual changes would have taken place during E3 Week. Effectively, the way the RAM is set out in the machine, Microsoft realized they could be more efficient in its use without sacrificing the amount set aside for OS operation. They immediately reacted. Physical RAM won't be upped in time for November release as it was too late even during initial reveal, but developers are saying, in terms of efficiency of the RAM and the reported yield problems, Microsoft have made some snappy breakthroughs and gave the impression it was a straight up increase in clock speed; hence the rumor.""




Dos it make any sense?

Nah.

 

[dumbo11]

Efficiency of the eSRAM or the DDR3 ram?

Yep, basically, it appears that the examiner has retreated to something that sounds like a confirmation of the DF story - an edge-case eSRAM performance boost.

That doesn't make other rumours wrong, but it does imply that the situation may be a bit confused within "people who know".

 

[Deleted member 11852]

In PS3 era Sony announced GPU clock at 550, when it was later downgraded to 500 they simply never mentioned the GPU clock speed again after that point and removed all references to it on official specs. And that was in dealing with a downgrade after an announcement, an upgrade is much less tricky.

Down clocking a chip has no cost implications, adding another 4Gb of RAM does. You're looking at this from the perspective of a customer, put yourself in the position of an investor who, based on Microsoft's Xbox One announcement, including the announced price and specifications, undertook your own analysis of the likely BOM costs vs retail price and figure Microsoft is a good bet for stock investment, only to find out after you bought stock, the BOM has shot up at the last minute.

Don't the SEC take a dim view of things like this?

 

[Rangers]

Don't the SEC take a dim view of things like this?

umm, i strongly doubt it.

a minor difference on xbox's bom doesn't matter to investors anyway. 4gb ddr3 is cheap. hell the same difference could be if ms went to a new type of higher quality capacitor on the motherboard or something equally trivial. hell the whole xbox is arguably a minor sideshow to ms investors.

 

[Pozer]

That´s the way they worded it

"The bump was supposed to have been planned prior to initial reveal. Any actual changes would have taken place during E3 Week. Effectively, the way the RAM is set out in the machine, Microsoft realized they could be more efficient in its use without sacrificing the amount set aside for OS operation. They immediately reacted. Physical RAM won't be upped in time for November release as it was too late even during initial reveal, but developers are saying, in terms of efficiency of the RAM and the reported yield problems, Microsoft have made some snappy breakthroughs and gave the impression it was a straight up increase in clock speed; hence the rumor.""




Dos it make any sense?

In my experience this the was a narcistic personality admits they were wrong, or as close to it as they can. The paragraph actually says nothing has changed surrouded by ambigous hope.

 

[Arwin]

So perhaps they will do dynamic memory allocation for the virtual machines, and when switching from game to app, they will more aggressively suspend open apps to disc?

 

[Deleted member 11852]

umm, i strongly doubt it.

It was a rhetorical question. If Microsoft announced a price and specification while knowing that a cost-incurring specification change is likely to happen, that is what the SEC term as misleading investors. A statement doesn't have to be part of a federal financial filing to fall into this category. It's fraud, and not just in the USA, that would be considered fraud in much of Europe too. When you're a publicly traded company, you just can't do that.

a minor difference on xbox's bom doesn't matter to investors anyway. 4gb ddr3 is cheap. hell the same difference could be if ms went to a new type of higher quality capacitor on the motherboard or something equally trivial. hell the whole xbox is arguably a minor sideshow to ms investors.

4Gb isn't minor. If it was minor, it would have had 12Gb out of the gate given the amount of RAM they are reserving for the applications OS and how vocal developers are about having as much RAM as possible. Every additional cost, particularly unplanned costs, reduces profitability.

 

[Rangers]

It was a rhetorical question. If Microsoft announced a price and specification while knowing that a cost-incurring specification change is likely to happen, that is what the SEC term as misleading investors. A statement doesn't have to be part of a federal financial filing to fall into this category. It's fraud, and not just in the USA, that would be considered fraud in much of Europe too. When you're a publicly traded company, you just can't do that.

sure, you count on that

BTW where is your proof? Like a link to the SEC regulation that says you cannot change a spec once publically announced?

Cost incurring specification change???? who even knows what this thing costs given thousands of components (of constantly shifting prices) go into a console...

Anyways this is a stupid debate.

And by your definition, upclocks are still on the table since no clocks were announced

Except for Sony, since they announced 1.84 teraflops and any increase would necessarily possibly increase the cost of the console (yields), thus committing fraud

Every additional cost, particularly unplanned costs, reduces profitability

That's a stupid argument too, because why not use an ARM chip and 1GB RAM. Talk about profitability!!!

It's obviously a tradeoff between technical capability and profitability at all times;. I think MS would commit SEC fraud if they didn't pursue a strategic business opportunity to maximize profit (increased sales over the long term) by increasing to 12GB RAM :lol

 

[Deleted member 11852]

BTW where is your proof? Like a link to the SEC regulation that says you cannot change a spec once publically announced?

There is no regulation that states exactly that, the law is written to cover broad principles of wrongdoing not specific scenarios specific unique to one industry, otherwise the legislation would be tens of thousands of pages long Section 18 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, is what you need to read. It covers misleading statements.

Cost incurring specification change???? who even knows what this thing costs given thousands of components (of constantly shifting prices) go into a console... And by your definition, upclocks are still on the table since no clocks were announced

Not my definition, the SECs. Analysts peg the announced Xbox One BOM at around $330, but not knowing exact costs due to unknowable production issues are an accepted variable - part of the risk of brining any product to market. Choosing to add additional hardware, at cost, or heavily deviating from what you already announced and priced, is not.

Except for Sony, since they announced 1.84 teraflops and any increase would necessarily possibly increase the cost of the console, thus committing fraud That's a stupid argument too, because why not use an ARM chip and 1GB RAM. Talk about profitability!!!

I'm lost. Where is this coming from? Nobody mentioned Sony. You're just randomly posting nonsense.

It's obviously a tradeoff between technical capability and profitability at all times;. I think MS would commit SEC fraud if they didn't pursue a strategic business opportunity to maximize profit (increased sales over the long term) by increasing to 12GB RAM :lol

How would biting the cost of an additional 4Gb RAM be maximising profit? How would putting 12Gb in the console increase sales over the long term? Do you really think there are a lot of people who wouldn't buy an 8Gb Xbox One but would jump on a 12Gb Xbox One?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

It was a rhetorical question. If Microsoft announced a price and specification while knowing that a cost-incurring specification change is likely to happen, that is what the SEC term as misleading investors. A statement doesn't have to be part of a federal financial filing to fall into this category. It's fraud, and not just in the USA, that would be considered fraud in much of Europe too. When you're a publicly traded company, you just can't do that.

I'm very used to seeing disclaimers "specifications subject to change" such that I doubt a public reveal of an unfinished product is in any way legally 'binding'. Any investor should have enough sense to know the product isn't final until it's final, because you never know when some gremlin will decide to get involved. Delays aren't uncommon and they're as much a concern to investors as any spec.

 

[Cjail]

For what is worth Shifty I could not find that disclaimer on the XBO official page, specifically in the session with the specs (8Gb, 500GB HDD)
On the PS4 official specs the disclaimer is there.

Anyway MS can't keep the $500 price AND increase RAM unless they want to reduce their profit percentage.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I'm very used to seeing disclaimers "specifications subject to change" such that I doubt a public reveal of an unfinished product is in any way legally 'binding'. Any investor should have enough sense to know the product isn't final until it's final, because you never know when some gremlin will decide to get involved. Delays aren't uncommon and they're as much a concern to investors as any spec.

Qualifiers like "specifications subject to change" would cover unknown variables like production issues, it does not exculpate a company declaring one specification (and associated BOM cost) while really knowing a higher specification (and subsequently, a higher BOM cost) is anticipated for launch. You're inviting investor to buy stock based on an untrue statement. That's why its called fraud. It's a lie.

While an investor should have enough sense to know that the product, or ship date, may change as a result of things beyond the reasonable control of the company concerned, investors mostly certainly should not have to doubt solid information given to it by the company concerned, like prices or key hardware specifications.

Big difference.

 

[Rangers]

Qualifiers like "specifications subject to change" would cover unknown variables like production issues, it does not exculpate a company declaring one specification (and associated BOM cost) while really knowing a higher specification (and subsequently, a higher BOM cost) is anticipated for launch. You're inviting investor to buy stock based on an untrue statement. That's why its called fraud. It's a lie.

yeah, but by appearances this would be a very late breaking change, thus they anticipated nothing.

and i still dont believe for a second, in any product line, that announcing a certain product line's specs means you cant increase it's spec later. Not for any Apple product, or any product at all. Apple has a whole line of Macbook Pro's, you cant tell me they cant change the RAM spec in one of them after those specs are announced? Hogwash. Absolute hogwash. Taken to it's logical extreme it's ridiculous as well, since in computers countless specs are constantly in flux.

What if Microsoft decides they need to totally rengineer the XB1 and delay it 1 year? 2 years What then? Still bound to 8GB forever? What if they decide to decrease RAM? Fraud too? It could decrease sales (the other side of the argument you of course ignore) so it could be "fraud".

Anyways it's still just silly. I dont think for a second even you believe it's more than wishful thinking on your part.

Do you really think there are a lot of people who wouldn't buy an 8Gb Xbox One but would jump on a 12Gb Xbox One?

Maybe. Who are we to say? aren't we being constantly told PS4's superior specs are why it's a better value and we should buy it? Why would increasing your RAM (at the same price) not materially affect that balance in a positive way for your product?

I'm lost. Where is this coming from? Nobody mentioned Sony. You're just randomly posting nonsense.

No, I'm pointing out that according to you, any announced spec cannot be changed upwards, that would apply to all parties. Dont you agree that Sony cannot upclock the GPU but Microsoft can (by your reasoning)? Because I'm guessing you suddenly do not like that idea.

Also, Shifty's simple point seems likely. "Specs subject to change" and you're covered.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Qualifiers like "specifications subject to change" would cover unknown variables like production issues, it does not exculpate a company declaring one specification (and associated BOM cost) while really knowing a higher specification (and subsequently, a higher BOM cost)...

BOM is vague. In any product you can have a wide range of components from different suppliers, and they'll change over time. When you buy a car or a TV, you can have a different set of internals to someone else buying the same car or TV. Samsung has announced TVs in the past without specifying what screen they come with, and then released three different model numbers (different letter suffix) all with a different screens and different real-world performance.

I'm not saying your wrong as I know little about SEC requirements, but I'm not seeing real evidence of product's being tied to specs. Obviously if you advertise a spec and then change it downwards, you have to communicate that or be guilty of bait-and-switch, but if your choice doesn't adversely affect the user's experience (let's say MS get's a deal on 750 MB HDDs at the last minute and puts them in), I can't see any requirement to tell people well in advance.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

yeah, but by appearances this would be a very late breaking change, thus they anticipated nothing.

So you think it likely that Microsoft watched Sony announce the 8Gb PS4 in February, didn't consider increasing the RAM. Revealed the 8Gb Xbox One in May, didn't consider increasing the RAM. Priced it in June, didn't consider increasing the RAM. Then suddenly, some Microsoft engineer just woke up one day and said "hey, let's put 12Gb in there".

Yeah, seems legit.

and i still dont believe for a second, in any product line, that announcing a certain product line's specs means you cant increase it's spec later. Not for any Apple product, or any product at all.

Actually, there used to be accounting rules that governed this this, I remember when Apple launched the iPhone and iPod Touch, they had to charge for OS upgrades on the iPod Touch. But nobody is saying that here, the issue is entirely about a publicly traded company announcing a product with given capabilities, then taking a decision to change the specifications with a resulting increase in cost. They don't need to do it.

What if Microsoft decides they need to totally rengineer the XB1 and delay it 1 year? 2 years What then? Still bound to 8GB forever? What if they decide to decrease RAM? Fraud too?

No, but they would be obliged to announce this immediately. The way the process would work, is if this happens and somebody cries foul and the SEC investigate, they would be looking for evidence that Microsoft acted as quickly as possible so as to not mislead investors. It's really that simple. Nobody is saying things don't change during production, they do. The key thing is if Microsoft chose to significantly (33% increase) the RAM which will obviously have a cost impact. It'll reduce profitability short term and long term - for as long as they're shipping 12Gb consoles instead of 8Gb consoles, so 5+ years.

Anyways it's still just silly. I dont think for a second even you believe it's more than wishful thinking on your part.

It's the law. The purpose of these regulations are to prevent companies saying they are doing one thing, getting investors to buy stock, then changing their minds and doing something else.

Consider this, if Microsoft chose to roll a 12Gb Xbox One launching in a year and announce this tomorrow morning, Microsoft's stock will take a hit. Any investors who recently bought in on the original announcement will be left with negative equity. How is that fair? Wouldn't it be great if there was some law to stop that? Oh wait there is, the one you are denying: The Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Section 18. Read it.

Maybe. Who are we to say? aren't we being constantly told PS4's superior specs are why it's a better value and we should buy it? Why would increasing your RAM (at the same price) not materially affect that balance in a positive way for your product?

How do you increase RAM at the same price?