Xbox One Post-Release Examination

[iroboto]

An observation I've just made about XB1 being less powerful having played a few game demos on PS3 - although 900p et al are okay now, a few years down the line, devs are going to be pushing the resolutions lower to get more in. Same as PS3 getting blurry, stuttery games now. When games start rendering at 900p on PS4 and looking almost as good as 1080p according to DF, XB1 will be rendering 720p games.

Weird thought here, but maybe that will never occur? In this very forum, we all agreed that the PS4 scalar was a weaker solution compared to X1; overall X1 has a better upscaler.

As a developer would you push the PS4 so hard that you would force it to scale up to 1080p and take a heavy hit on IQ (blurriness due to simplicity of scalar) ? Or would you just take off the hard added effects and ensure it runs a smooth 1080p?

If the latter, that would guarantee the Xbox One to hold well at 900p with scalar on.
And this is assuming everything stays the same going forward.

While I am not heavily invested in the realities of online rendering. I feel that the longer this console generation spans out, the advantage will eventually switch to X1 if there are breakthroughs in remote rendering. Though we/I can't conceive how that would work, the reality is, it only needs to assist a little bit to help it reach parity with PS4. The concept is entirely inconceivable today, but perhaps not 5 years from today. As we all know 5 years is a long time in technology.

While the idea that multiplats go to cloud assisted rendering for X1 and not PS4 is ridiculous, it is up to MS to provide the libraries, support and services to make it happen. TLDR; if MS makes it easier to cloud render than to extract the last bit of performance from the console just to reach parity, I can see developers going the cloud rendering route if it provides larger gains.

At first I didn't think it was even feasible. But we have games that do dynamic resolution changes while playing. If you could offload enough computation (not sure how), perhaps that would open up the GPU to do higher resolution? So the difference between cloud assisted and not cloud assisted could be the dynamic resolution changes between 900p+ --> 1080p.

 

[Deleted member 86764]

The XB1 launched at $500 with Kinect at 1.3 TF. How do you propose that $300 is reachable? That'd only be possible if MS completely screwed up the XB1's design at spent $200 on an extra 15% performance or something. Even half the performance, 0.7 TF, wouldn't have dropped the price $200.

I know you're referring to a reduction in the price of the console and lower specs accordingly, but I would have much rather Microsoft have kept the same price as they launched with and instead of including a Kinect, put that extra $100+ on having two chips of the current one's size - either that or have a larger GPU chip and a smaller CPU. Possibly with some very fast GDDR5 too - maybe I'm just a traditionalist.

I have no idea whether that would have increased their sales, or if price is the real sticking point for most consumers. It would have pleased this nerd and to be completely honest I agree with what Cyan was saying above, the previous two Xboxes definitely did go for all out power and were similar in that design. It worked with me.

Extra media functions didn't work for me with PS3 and it's not working with me for Xbox One.

I also expect Microsoft to try and come first with their next box, fixing everything that is wrong with this one.

 

[steveOrino]

Weird thought here, but maybe that will never occur? In this very forum, we all agreed that the PS4 scalar was a weaker solution compared to X1; overall X1 has a better upscaler.

As a developer would you push the PS4 so hard that you would force it to scale up to 1080p and take a heavy hit on IQ (blurriness due to simplicity of scalar) ? Or would you just take off the hard added effects and ensure it runs a smooth 1080p?

If the latter, that would guarantee the Xbox One to hold well at 900p with scalar on.
And this is assuming everything stays the same going forward.

C'mon.....

At first I didn't think it was even feasible. But we have games that do dynamic resolution changes while playing. If you could offload enough computation (not sure how), perhaps that would open up the GPU to do higher resolution? So the difference between cloud assisted and not cloud assisted could be the dynamic resolution changes between 900p+ --> 1080p.

Then why not just render the entire game remotely @ whatever the ___P you want? Why bother doing "graphics assist" when you are adding another point of failure + massive QoS/engineering nightmares. It doesnt make sense.

 

[iroboto]

C'mon.....

Then why not just render the entire game remotely @ whatever the ___P you want? Why bother doing "graphics assist" when you are adding another point of failure + massive QoS/engineering nightmares. It doesnt make sense.

Well, I was being serious, I thought we had links/read that the two scalars behaved differently. The real question if possible is, what if you compared 900p X1 vs PS4 900p. Not going to happen, but w/e.
But regardless, this isn't about PS4, and I hold nothing against it. I just swear I've read on mulitple fronts that the X1 hardware scaler is of higher quality.

I suppose you could render the entire game online, but having _all_ that hardware online supporting all those gamers is going to be costly.

 

[eastmen]

But they're already apparent. On PS3, launch games were under-par versus XB360, but that's because the machine was difficult to use. Under the hood it had basically just as much juice as 360. This gen, XB1 is offering the lower quality game at 70% resolution etc. and it hasn't got more under the hood that can be tapped to gain parity. I'd even say that when things move to compute based rendering, XB1 will fall behind even more. That's not a market concern because the market doesn't think that way, but they do know XB1 is producing worse quality versions of the games right now, and they do 'know' there's no 'supercomputer hidden power' that devs will be tapping in a year or two.

Quality of games will improve on XB1 into years 2/3 as techniques improve, but they'll also improve on PS4 and potentially show greater gains (+40% of more gfx == even more gfx). Then when XB1 starts to age and games become blurrier and choppier, PS4 should offer the smoother experience for longer.

The xbox one is also harder to develop for with its split ram pools . The ps4 will certainly have better graphics through the generation but if anything the ps3 proved that having poor graphics wont affect sales if you get the games.

Anyway looking at the crackdown cloud demo there certainly is a super computer hidden some where. While it may not make graphics much prettier I rather have a world I can fully destroy to run around in than just slightly better graphics.

LIke I've said before if graphics were all that maters then we'd all be playing on the pc and these consoles wouldn't exist .

 

[Deleted member 11852]

The xbox one is also harder to develop for with its split ram pools . The ps4 will certainly have better graphics through the generation but if anything the ps3 proved that having poor graphics wont affect sales if you get the games.

Well it didn't hurt PS3 over the long haul but it certainly hurt sales of the console and the games on the platform for a long time. I think GTA V was the first AAA multi platform game that I'm conscious sold more on PS3 (17.4m on PS3, 16.95m on 360 - Wikipedia).

But for many years Sony were selling less PS3s than Microsoft sold 360s (i.e. the market gap widened before it began to shrink and game sales were very lop-sided. If you own a 360 and PS3 and buy a 360 game, Sony don't get their licensing kickback. The same is true now for Microsoft where we're seeing PS4 games outsell One games.

Given traditional console economics have always been based on the profit from games, this is not a great place to be in. Not having graphical parity may hurt if last gen is any basis for consumer choice behaviour.

 

[eastmen]

THe ps3 like the xbox one was over priced compared to its competition. Luckly the xbox one was only $100 more while the PS3 was $100-$300 depending on the models choosen. The xbox 360 also had a year head start. TO make matters worse the playstation didn't drop in price till the following October. But they didn't hit price parity as the was the $300 core xbox 360 . The xbox one doesn't have this problem as they are now at price parity .

IF ms avoids a rrod issue and continue to sell without loosing money per system they can still end up making a nice profit this generation even if they end up behind sony.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

THe ps3 like the xbox one was over priced compared to its competition

"Over priced" or priced more? Over priced indicates the RRP is higher than what target demographic is willing to pay. Is argue, based on PS3 sales catching (passing?) 360 that it's higher priced not over priced. Clearly 80m people are willing to pay the price for a PS3 even though the 360 is cheaper.

But they didn't hit price parity as the was the $300 core xbox 360 . The xbox one doesn't have this problem as they are now at price parity.

No, it has the problem that's now priced competetively, it's perceived as a weaker machine. Pay the same get less. And this leads to the problem I just posted above.

Gamers (not fanboys) who buy both/all consoles to play all the cool games, and who last-gen bought 360 multiplats, will be buying PS4 multiplats. That's hundreds of millions, if not billions, of individual licensing fees. Pure profit. Gamers who can't afford maniple consoles have a tougher choice. But if multiplats are important to them, it's greener on one side of the nextgen fence - it's greener on the blue side.

IF ms avoids a rrod issue and continue to sell without loosing money per system they can still end up making a nice profit this generation even if they end up behind sony.

Sure they can. But having the best multiplats is like a profit multiplyer. It WILL steer some to buy PS4 over One. And some people with both consoles (me this Fall) will buy PS4 multiplats because duh.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

The xbox one is also harder to develop for with its split ram pools . The ps4 will certainly have better graphics through the generation but if anything the ps3 proved that having poor graphics wont affect sales if you get the games.

Your missing the argument which was more sophisticated than a simple singular historical reference can answer. Others have better tackled it above.

Anyway looking at the crackdown cloud demo there certainly is a super computer hidden some where.

The point is whether IQ+framerate start to drop to the point where it makes the games uncomfortable to play, irrespective of features.

LIke I've said before if graphics were all that maters then we'd all be playing on the pc and these consoles wouldn't exist .

As above, the argument presented was never so naive. No-one said graphics is all that matters, but the visual aspects were considered in relation to the whole package and the ageing of the platform. If you want a historical precedent, you need a platform that played the same games with extensively the same library but at a 40% reduction in 'quality' from the start. AFAIK there is none. PS2 had a very different library. PS3 wasn't 40% different its entire life as it picked up to a marginal difference. PS3 also had supercomputer hype to blind people in the beginning, so people bought the console with worse graphics on the belief that when Cell was finally tapped, it'd be the best console. There's no such belief for XB1. XB1 is uniquely positioned in history (TTBOMK) as a console released at the same time playing the same games (90% of the library is shared, the most popular games are cross-platform) with a notable performance deficit from the start and no clear 'hidden power' that can unlock the machine to reach near parity.

 

[SlimJim]

Weird thought here, but maybe that will never occur? In this very forum, we all agreed that the PS4 scalar was a weaker solution compared to X1; overall X1 has a better upscaler.

When did that happen?

I remember people mistaking black crush and sharpness+100 for a good scaler, but even Microsoft realised this mistake and corrected it.

But I never read anything about a PS4 scaler.
Both AMD GPU's should have the same scaling options, or the newer hardware should have even better ones, not the other way around.

 

[Brad Grenz]

He's probably referring to that long post some guy made on Reddit making all sorts of unsubstantiated claims about the technical ways the PS4 scaler is inferior. He offered no actual evidence, nor bonafides so there was no reason to believe it at the time. As far as we know the biggest hardware difference is the Xbox One was modified to composite more inputs (3 "display planes" instead of 2) prior to scaling. The sharpening and black crush appear to have been the result of "showroom syndrome" but are allegedly correctable.

 

[iroboto]

When did that happen?



I remember people mistaking black crush and sharpness+100 for a good scaler, but even Microsoft realised this mistake and corrected it.



But I never read anything about a PS4 scaler.

Both AMD GPU's should have the same scaling options, or the newer hardware should have even better ones, not the other way around.

Crushed blacks I believe is a RGB 0-255 issue. I believe it still exists today. Setting below 0-255 range that problem isn't there; 8-235 works fine regardless.

As for my claims fairly positive when BF4 DF articles came out both ps4 and x1 were set to 720p (even though they thought it was 900p). But ps4 could be distinguished as worse quality than x1 in the direct 720 vs 720 comparison. Had a lot of people confused and angry lol. If they are the same scaler they should have produced the same image at the same resolution.

You can see it here: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-battlefield-4-next-gen-vs-pc-face-off-preview

And also the unproven claims from reddit guy is perhaps also where I read something about the x1 scaler uses edge finding.
Though not sure how that works MS has definitely advertised that they installed a higher quality scaler over the one found in the 360. This could very well just be a result of moving to Radeon 7000+

 

[Brad Grenz]

The BF4 prerelease coverage was such a shitshow I don't think we can judge anything based on those captures.

 

[Nesh]

There's no such belief for XB1. XB1 is uniquely positioned in history (TTBOMK) as a console released at the same time playing the same games (90% of the library is shared, the most popular games are cross-platform) with a notable performance deficit from the start and no clear 'hidden power' that can unlock the machine to reach near parity.

What is TTBOMK???

 

[iroboto]

The BF4 prerelease coverage was such a shitshow I don't think we can judge anything based on those captures.

Agreed.

That being said, X1 is a curious thing, it's apparent hardware scalar was modified by Respawn to remove the over sharpening effect and patched in. It's apparent gamma shift was removed as well.

Sort of a weird thing.

Having said that it is a good time to see if there is actually any difference 'now' that everything is sorta final on the X1.

 

[iroboto]

When did that happen?

I remember people mistaking black crush and sharpness+100 for a good scaler, but even Microsoft realised this mistake and corrected it.

But I never read anything about a PS4 scaler.
Both AMD GPU's should have the same scaling options, or the newer hardware should have even better ones, not the other way around.

Yes, I forgot about the over sharpening effect that was toned down

 

[Shifty Geezer]

What is TTBOMK???

To the best of my knowledge.

 

[Brad Grenz]

Agreed.

That being said, X1 is a curious thing, it's apparent hardware scalar was modified by Respawn to remove the over sharpening effect and patched in. It's apparent gamma shift was removed as well.

That, or they switched to scaling in software like DICE did in BF4, IIRC.

 

[Silenti]

We could do with an analysis of sales trends. I feel like PS4:XB1 is growing, but we have so few data points that that's probably impossible to prove. If market share is diverging increasingly, that means a lot for the near future of these platforms.

At what point does someone who either already has a One, or is considering it, get nervous? The numbers and rumors (talk of MS spinning it off or selling it) are enough that I actually feel pushed a bit towards Sony despite my and my friends history with Xbox. Terms like "momentum" and "growing concern" and "ride it out and replace it in 4 years - pull an Xbox original" are giving me pause. I was going to go ahead and buy in maybe August or Sept, depending on deals, finances etc, but..... Makes one wonder what consumer mind share might do in the long run. I certainly don't want to end up owning an 8th gen version of the Saturn.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

At what point does someone who either already has a One

Probably never. It'll still get software

, or is considering it

One has to make a value choice on what if offers and what one hopes it'll offer. I can't see software becoming a problem no matter how many PS4's sell, unless the box literally stops here. A 3:1 ratio still means all the cross plat titles will arrive on XB1

I was going to go ahead and buy in maybe August or Sept, depending on deals, finances etc, but.....

Look at the reasons you were going to get an XB1 and see if they've changed or not. See if the alternatives off the same thing or something different you'd also value.

Makes one wonder what consumer mind share might do in the long run.

I think a lot rides on this Holiday season. If XB1 makes a good showing, it'll probably survive. If it gets trounced, the snowball effect will likely only make things worse.

At the end of day, a little patience may be your best bet. Nothing wrong with waiting a few months and seeing what happens if there's caused to. If one doesn't want to be left out of the multiplayer games, say, because the XB1 market ends up too small, then the PS4 may end up the must have. You'll only know that with some confidence come the end of the year.