News & Rumors: Xbox One (codename Durango)

[Cyan]

Yup. Although to the second question, their answer is pretty much public at this point: It's plenty powerful enough, and it's about more than just games.

Boyd, Treadwell, and Whitten were the folks who seemed to have a lot of influence when I was there. There were a few others as well.

Thanks for the reply bkilian. :smile2: I've never heard about Boyd and Treadwell. Guess they never show up in the interviews...?

Knowing that, do you think that Don Mattrick was just the scapegoat and the patsy when other people are guilty? Or was he as guilty as the others?

Not that I miss Mattrick that much, but if he was the fall guy then I am sorry for him.

 

[XpiderMX]

Xbox One talk (Build 2014): http://www.buildwindows.com/

Start at 2:30


EDIT:

Brad Wardell (Star Swarm) talk about DirectX12 on Xbox One:

XBox One is the biggest beneficiary; it effectively gives every Xbox One owner a new GPU that is twice as fast as the old one

http://www.neowin.net/news/directx-12-a-game-changer-for-xbox-one

 

[tuna]

Wasn't april first a couple of days ago?

 

[XpiderMX]

Wasn't april first a couple of days ago?

I don't know, the article is from today, I don't know if it is a joke.

Brad Wardell 2 hours ago 63 Comments

The results are spectacular. Not just in theory but in practice (full disclosure: I am involved with the Star Swarm demo which makes use of this kind of technology.) While each generation of video card struggles to gain substantial performance over the previous generation, here, the same hardware will suddenly see a doubling of performance.


XBox One is the biggest beneficiary; it effectively gives every Xbox One owner a new GPU that is twice as fast as the old one.

 

[NRP]

The only way this could be true is if the XBone API is horribly inefficient, which is unlikely. I remain skeptical.

 

[XpiderMX]

Well, he is the same Brad Wardell from Stardock:

https://twitter.com/draginol/status/452164196738686976

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Well, he is the same Brad Wardell from Stardock:

It doesn't matter who he is. DX12 can only give XB1 a significant boost if the current API is poop. A GPU in a console can run as fast as it possible can as the FW can use it too its fullest. If XB1's API isn't allowing that, and DX12 will, it's not a wonderful advancement by DX12 but a design choice with XB1 to launch it well below its potential.

 

[bkilian]

Thanks for the reply bkilian. :smile2: I've never heard about Boyd and Treadwell. Guess they never show up in the interviews...?

Knowing that, do you think that Don Mattrick was just the scapegoat and the patsy when other people are guilty? Or was he as guilty as the others?

Not that I miss Mattrick that much, but if he was the fall guy then I am sorry for him.

Well, you've seen Boyd Multerer if you watched the XBox One technology round table, and David Treadwell now appears to be elsewhere in the company, he gave part of the Day 1 keynote at Build.
And you must remember that I could only see from below, I don't know what happened above the level of these guys, but Microsoft tends to be a group effort, it's never just a single person calling all the shots. Some of the decisions were made all the way down at my level or close to it, but most of the decisions are made at Whitten's level.

 

[3dilettante]

Well, he is the same Brad Wardell from Stardock:

However, he is also of Star Swarm, which may have more bearing at this point.
One thing is I'm not clear on how he's tested his claims.
Several major features in DX12, like bundling and low-overhead resources, are already available for the Xbox One. It's double-dipping if his estimation for DX12 includes the benefits of those elements all over again.

The other concern I have is that he is using Star Swarm as the basis for these claims.
That is a particularly unoptomized starting point, with a philosophy and engine design that sacrifices known optimizations for more arbitrary asset production and artist freedom, and then there are various statements when presenting that engine that they are still working to do basic optimizations.

Performance-optimized console titles don't leave as much on the table as Star Swarm does.
If he's using the almost contrived level of anti-optimization and performance of the non-Mantle PC version of Star Swarm, I'd find the claims dubious.

 

[XpiderMX]

Also from Build 2014:

Doodle God 2 will be an universal app running on Windows Phone 8.1, Windows 8.1/RT and Xbox One:

JoyBits built the new game in native C++ and Direct X code and used 100% of the same code across Windows 8.1 Update, Windows Phone 8.1 and Xbox One, enabling players to pause the game on one device and resume where they left off on another (powered by Windows Azure).

http://wmpoweruser.com/doodle-god-2...xclusive-to-windows-phone-windows-8-and-xbox/

 

[Rangers]

Not that I miss Mattrick that much, but if he was the fall guy then I am sorry for him.

I read an article about Mattrick once, basically he seemed like a spoiled rich kid prick born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and also was mean. It's probably good that he's gone. Anybody that seems partly responsible for the Xbox One (specifically, that it lacks power/forgot about gaming) is also a good riddance.

 

[Dave Baumann]

From the video - "Kinects attach [to XBOX 360] is in the range of 60%-70% today". Yep, nobody want it!

 

[Rangers]

From the video - "Kinects attach [to XBOX 360] is in the range of 60%-70% today". Yep, nobody want it!

That seems way high.

They've sold 60+million Kinects?

I could see MAYBE that attach rate being for active (aka not effectively mothballed as many last gen consoles likely already are), USA based consoles, or something.

 

[mosen]

It doesn't matter who he is. DX12 can only give XB1 a significant boost if the current API is poop. A GPU in a console can run as fast as it possible can as the FW can use it too its fullest. If XB1's API isn't allowing that, and DX12 will, it's not a wonderful advancement by DX12 but a design choice with XB1 to launch it well below its potential.

Or they preferred to lunch XB1 with an API more similar to DX11, so in early days developers can use DX11 as common standard on PCs and XB1 while it could be more efficient by going more low level (which may not be possible for all developers or MS don't allow them right now).

Developers creating content for the Xbox One are able to use the same programing constructs across Windows and Xbox, and benefit from all the improvements that have been introduced on Windows. With Xbox One we have also made significant enhancements to the implementation of Direct3D 11, especially in the area of runtime overhead. The result is a very streamlined, “close to metal” level of runtime performance. In conjunction with the third generation PIX performance tool for Xbox One, developers can use Direct3D 11 to unlock the full performance potential of the console.

http://blogs.windows.com/windows/b/appbuilder/archive/2013/10/14/raising-the-bar-with-direct3d.aspx

Maybe their XB1's API wasn't ready in time and developers were already working on DX11 API for their XB1 games a long time before XB1 being launched. DX12 will have DX11 rendering functionality support for developers which are already working on DX11 games or those who don't want to go low level (small teams).

Someone on Neogaf said that (according to this session on Build 2014) MS is using XB1 hardware to prototyping DX12. Even the presenter himself said that from the beginning (or something like that) games that he writes for XB1 were being ready for Win8 after compiling them and even now it's possible to compile DX11 PC games for XB1. The presenter said that both XB1 Game/System OS are actually a modified version of Win8. they want to have DX12 games on both PCs and XB1 in the same way (no PC port). Also Phil spencer said this before:

So I think there is a good chance that while there are some DX12 level functionality on XB1 but no one tapped full DX12 level functionality on it to date (except developers like T10 which are working directly with DX12 team), since most developers are using a superset of DX11 rendering functionality on XB1.

 

[Kaotik]

That seems way high.

They've sold 60+million Kinects?

I could see MAYBE that attach rate being for active (aka not effectively mothballed as many last gen consoles likely already are), USA based consoles, or something.

Year ago they had sold 76 million XB360's and 24 million Kinects, and obviously not all sold XB360s were in use at that point, assuming the percentages for XB360s sold per Kienct sold have since stayed around the same, it's not impossible.

 

[DrJay24]

Year ago they had sold 76 million XB360's and 24 million Kinects, and obviously not all sold XB360s were in use at that point, assuming the percentages for XB360s sold per Kienct sold have since stayed around the same, it's not impossible.

You should rethink your math. So they are around 80m 360s now, but jumped to 60m Kinects?

No one is buying $120 stand alone Kinects now and most bundles are not Kinect. I'd be surprised if the sold 30m Kinects.

 

[Scott_Arm]

It doesn't matter who he is. DX12 can only give XB1 a significant boost if the current API is poop. A GPU in a console can run as fast as it possible can as the FW can use it too its fullest. If XB1's API isn't allowing that, and DX12 will, it's not a wonderful advancement by DX12 but a design choice with XB1 to launch it well below its potential.

The guy seems to be standing by his statement, saying games will run twice as fast.

https://twitter.com/draginol/status/452218254572810240

Maybe the API at launch really wasn't that good. Maybe they didn't spend too much time on it because they knew DX12 was coming. Seems odd. I'm inclined to believe the gains will not be nearly what he's claiming them to be, but I also wouldn't be surprised if they're measurable, despite a lot of people saying it won't make a difference.

 

[XpiderMX]

Plex app in development for Xbox One:

I would like to make you all aware of some very exciting news...
Microsoft has approved the development of a Plex Client for Xbox One.

That is correct, we have been granted membership into ID@Xbox specifically for the development and eventual release of Plex for Xbox One.

This is in no way saying that it will be coming next week, or even next month, but starting tonight I will be applying my first test code to an Xbox One.

More details will be coming soon.

Thank you very much for your patience in this matter, and thank you very much for your support.

https://forums.plex.tv/index.php/topic/100177-xbox-one-app/page-2

​

 

[BRiT]

Plex app in development for Xbox One:
https://forums.plex.tv/index.php/topic/100177-xbox-one-app/page-2

THIS is what we need!

 

[Scott_Arm]

THIS is what we need!

Cool news. When X1 was announced, this is the kind of thing that I thought we'd be getting. For a while, I didn't think it was going to happen. Looking forward to seeing what else is coming.