News & Rumors: Xbox One (codename Durango)

[Deleted member 11852]

Problem now is getting large devs/pubs to accept universal apps without charging for access to each category. If not, it just becomes a money saving tool for development.

I think the challenge is getting devs to optimise an app (I'm guessing is a collection of fat binaries, one per significant platform) to actually optimally support each platform in terms of screen size/resolution/orientation and input hardware.

A good framework definitely helps, but it's more testing. Anybody who's written apps for Android devices, or back in the day PocketPC/HandheldPC OS and PalmOS, will know it's never quite as streamlined and easy as it's made out to be.

 

[Gubbi]

Problem now is getting large devs/pubs to accept universal apps without charging for access to each category of device. If not, it just becomes a money saving tool for development.

It would have to be developers of apps with no competition, because choosing a different app that does the same thing across all platforms becomes a nobrainer then.

Especially for businesses.

Cheers

 

[BoardBonobo]

It's like nothing else out there. There's no other integrated ecosystem that runs on desktop, mobile, and console. Sony has a weak mobile presence and can't run PS3/4 games on any mobile devices or desktop computers. Apple has completely separate desktop and mobile ecosystems.

But the PlayMobile apps and games run on Phones, Tablets, and Consoles. And other than using PlayNOW you're never going to get PS3\PS4 games running on anything other than their native platform but that's the same with XB360\XB1 games.

I'm not seeing what the big difference is apart from the fact that MS will make a much better deal of it than Sony has done so far.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

But the PlayMobile apps and games run on Phones, Tablets, and Consoles.

They are a tiny fragment of devices that run on a tiny fragment of devices. they have no desktop crossover.

And other than using PlayNOW you're never going to get PS3\PS4 games running on anything other than their native platform but that's the same with XB360\XB1 games.

This isn't about AAA, native titles. It's about being able to buy an app for your mobile, say a calculator, and have it run on your tablet and your desktop and console. It's about being able to buy a live arcade style game and play it on your desktop, tablet, console and phone.

Or putting it another way, what PlayNOW games can I play on this desktop? None. No matter what Android devices it may work on, Sony does not provide a way to get something like Harvest Moon running on my console, tablets, phone and desktop. MS does offer this, ahead of everyone else, within the Windows ecosystem.

 

[RudeCurve]

What's the video you've watched? The several ones I've seen on the matter were pretty good.

EDIT: Another example.

That is very cool. Speaking of APPs imagine making this into a little XBO app and using it as a "plug-in" for other games... The new Halo would be very cool with this feature...DO IT MS!

 

[dobwal]

It would have to be developers of apps with no competition, because choosing a different app that does the same thing across all platforms becomes a nobrainer then.

Especially for businesses.

Cheers

Problem there is, a precedent has to exist. I recall that apps bought on iphones would run on your ipad but the actual ipad optimized version had to be bought separately. Also, I bought Halo Assault on my win8 phone and MS offered me a 50% off discount for a One version. But does anyone actually robustly take advantage of the fact that there are plenty of people that own multiple device types within the same ecosystem.

You think by now devs/pubs would at least offer buildable bundles with discounts based on owned devices but I haven't readily seen any evidence of those type of offerings. Not widely practiced at least.

You would think if devs/pubs were really into the ideal of universal apps we would have some level of this going on right now.

 

[Dave Baumann]

Cortana was also announced as the digital assistant for Windows Phone. I wonder if the voice work they have done for Kinect has assisted here and whether this (all voice devices) will go to a single cloud / analytics pool.

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-26855113

But one artificial intelligence expert said Microsoft's decision to wait until now to launch could prove wise.

"Siri and Google Now have a limited ability to extract the actual meaning from the words that somebody speaks," explained Prof Steve Young, professor of information engineering at the University of Cambridge.

"So, if you ask about things that Siri, for example, knows about like restaurants or baseball games, it works pretty well.

"But if you ask it about something that it's not been previously programmed to understand it simply passes the word into a search engine.

"I understand that for Cortana Microsoft has done a lot of work to automatically learn a much wider range of semantics... so the expectation is that it will be able to understand a good deal more."

 

[AlNom]

Is Jen Taylor providing the voice?

 

[bkilian]

Which to me implies there was another RAM target prior to 8Gb, but the fellow says 8Gb was the early target. Like I said above, these events were probably years ago and perhaps recollected differently by different people.

He said 8GB was decided "early on in the process", not "At the beginning". When I started working on the project, and for months afterwards, there was less RAM. Some of my coworkers had been working on it for months before I got pulled in. Now this is still about 2 years before launch, so it can easily be classed as an "early" decision. But when I started, everything else, including ESRAM, HDMI in, and, at first, no optical drive, was already in the design.

The ESRAM is a logical evolution from the 360 design, why would anyone think it had been forced on the designers due to some other influence, like the amount of RAM?

I'm pretty sure my recollections in this case are correct, because I asked questions about it at the meeting where we announced the project to a larger group of employees, in January 2012. I asked three questions, one about the amount of RAM and reservation, one about how they were approaching the (then) rumors that pointed at the PS4 being significantly more powerful, and one about how they were going to pitch an online only console with sales targets in the hundreds of millions, to the majority of consumers that had capped internet.

 

[dobwal]

Cortana was also announced as the digital assistant for Windows Phone. I wonder if the voice work they have done for Kinect has assisted here and whether this (all voice devices) will go to a single cloud / analytics pool.

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-26855113

I remember going on Microsoft research and seeing a lot of AI voice recognition research that revolved around training algorithms. It seems its all very dependent on having huge amounts of data to work with and using efficient means to train the AI.

I imagine everything is fed or eventually will be fed to one solution that serves a plethora of devices, settings and circumstances. I imagine thats why Kinect being standard on XB1 is so important to MS. It potentially provides millions of users in a circumstance where VR is very applicable.

Windows has a far bigger userbase but doesn't provide an ideal setting (Why do voice with a KM right in front of you?). Win8 phones provide a good setting but doesn't provide much in terms of users.

 

[3dilettante]

I'm pretty sure my recollections in this case are correct, because I asked questions about it at the meeting where we announced the project to a larger group of employees, in January 2012. I asked three questions, one about the amount of RAM and reservation, one about how they were approaching the (then) rumors that pointed at the PS4 being significantly more powerful, and one about how they were going to pitch an online only console with sales targets in the hundreds of millions, to the majority of consumers that had capped internet.

I suppose we could draw some inferences from threads during silly season and events after the Xbox One was announced about what the tenor of the response was for the latter two questions...

 

[mosen]

He said 8GB was decided "early on in the process", not "At the beginning". When I started working on the project, and for months afterwards, there was less RAM. Some of my coworkers had been working on it for months before I got pulled in. Now this is still about 2 years before launch, so it can easily be classed as an "early" decision. But when I started, everything else, including ESRAM, HDMI in, and, at first, no optical drive, was already in the design.

The ESRAM is a logical evolution from the 360 design, why would anyone think it had been forced on the designers due to some other influence, like the amount of RAM?

I'm pretty sure my recollections in this case are correct, because I asked questions about it at the meeting where we announced the project to a larger group of employees, in January 2012. I asked three questions, one about the amount of RAM and reservation, one about how they were approaching the (then) rumors that pointed at the PS4 being significantly more powerful, and one about how they were going to pitch an online only console with sales targets in the hundreds of millions, to the majority of consumers that had capped internet.

What was their answer to your 2nd question?

 

[Rangers]

one about how they were approaching the (then) rumors that pointed at the PS4 being significantly more powerful,

I think I already know the gist of it from your past posting but, what was their response?

I'll still say as underpowered as X1 is viewed, you can make an argument it kinda comes out in the wash, which is almost oddly impressive if they weren't even trying.

 

[NRP]

Is Jen Taylor providing the voice?

If Jen Taylor's voice comes out of my phone . . . well, damn. Hawt.

 

[AlNom]

If Jen Taylor's voice comes out of my phone . . . well, damn. Hawt.

 

[Rockster]

Jen Taylor confirmed but evidently only partially so far...
http://wmpoweruser.com/microsoft-confirms-halos-jen-taylor-to-voice-cortana-on-windows-phone/

Wind swirling around the building says expect to see Cortana on PC and X1 in the future as well.

 

[Scott_Arm]

The app thing is cool. I was pretty sure it would show up eventually, but I'm surprised it wasn't mentioned at launch. I guess that's another part of what seems like an early launch for the X1. So much of the OS didn't seem ready, and it didn't line up with things like Windows 8.1

 

[eastmen]

Jen Taylor confirmed but evidently only partially so far...
http://wmpoweruser.com/microsoft-confirms-halos-jen-taylor-to-voice-cortana-on-windows-phone/

Wind swirling around the building says expect to see Cortana on PC and X1 in the future as well.

From what I heard it will hit with windows 9 (windows 8 will get it too but it will be pushed as new for 9) Next spring from the sounds of things

 

[(((interference)))]

People are basing their assumptions on the evidence at hand, which is mostly coming from the core gamer crowd who weren't the original objective for XB1 and Kinect.

Yeah, this is key to understanding how MS got to this situation, the core really wasn't the target audience for XB1, eg. the "TV TV TV" reveal, only after that did they realise how disastrous it would be to aggravate the core and rapidly tried to claw back ground with the numerous volte-faces that followed.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

He said 8GB was decided "early on in the process", not "At the beginning". When I started working on the project, and for months afterwards, there was less RAM. Some of my coworkers had been working on it for months before I got pulled in. Now this is still about 2 years before launch, so it can easily be classed as an "early" decision. But when I started, everything else, including ESRAM, HDMI in, and, at first, no optical drive, was already in the design.

Thanks also interesting info! So two years before launch (circa 2011) was considered early in the process so it sounds like Microsoft started work on Xbox One some time after the competition (2008). Impressive considering KInect 2, the TV integration and all.

The ESRAM is a logical evolution from the 360 design, why would anyone think it had been forced on the designers due to some other influence, like the amount of RAM?

Based on comments on these forums, there are people who seem to think it was a decision made mid-project as a form of performance/cost balancing. It's not something that made sense to me but I've observed the hardware design process (many of our server farms are bespoke, right down to the processor combinations and augmented L4 management) and from what I've observed, even minor changes mid-project can have a massive impact to a project.

But thanks, very interesting information!