Scorpio E3 messaging

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Jay

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it's getting close to E3, and in light of things like http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2017-4k-gaming-what-can-pc-learn-from-ps4-pro which is talking about sub native resolutions and techniques that can be used to produce very good image quality. Where does that leave the messaging that MS has been using up untill now and will probably continue during E3?

Have they already made the message hard on themselves?
sure they may say studios can use the power how they like, but which games will they concentrate on, on stage, surely it will be the native 4k ones to fit their message?

I've always said they should never had mentioned native, true, dynamic, anything apart from the easily the best full hd and 4k games a console can do.
can understand why they did, but it was so short sighted.

the DF article comes out just before E3 showing how little native may mean in the grand scheme of things.

will ms pivot their messaging again? Or just ride it out?
may have more than enough native 4k for this e3, then change emphasis next e3?
how would a change in message go down this E3 if they chose to?

have they out maneuvered themselves?
or doesn't it really matter what they say?
can they spin it somehow?

we've got a price, and when it will be revealed thread, here's a how will they market scorpio one.
 
I don't think the DF is gospel or necessarily represents the perception of other people.

Watch Dogs 2 and ME Andromeda are two examples of games that look quite bad on the Pro compared to a native 4k image. Sure it looks better than either 1080p console, but a native 4k version of those games on Scorpio, specially if they have higher quality assets would be instantly distinguishable from one another, perhaps more so than a PS4 game compared to Xbox one.

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are DF gospel? Well no, but I think you'll be hard pressed to find other "publications" that are considered more authoritive on gaming tech etc.

the df article was used to demonstrate that sub native can be close enough. Not that games won't look better due to assets, some being native 4k etc.

or do you think all/most Scorpio games will be native, therefore their messaging is fine?
I'm hoping that if the visual difference is very minor, almost impossible to spot during game play that they do sub native and up fidelity. I fully appreciate it's on a game by game basis
 
Their messaging has been pretty clear. It's a 4K based system that will have less asterisks when it comes to resolution for games compared to their competitors. Asterisks being non native 4K.

Edit let me revise, for us here at B3D is below. For the layman above^^
Double edit: might even be simpler, MS just markets Scorpio as being the most powerful console ever built. Which simplified to the layman, the best possible performance. MS only needs to prove it to be true, how they write that story is what I'm interested in. Truthfully, I don't think they're capable of writing that story without using a generation leaps worth of graphics so... I think it's going to be a technical win, and not an obvious one.

MS has not enforced 4K or even enforced the requirement of developing for Scorpio unlike 4Pro which as we understand all new games must develop for. This is an interesting point, personally not sure what to make of it.

That being said the emphasis on 4K is for older titles, this is expected because they profiled 4K on Scorpio on existing XBO titles using XBO settings. With Scorpio I expect to see a larger library of patched games that are Scorpio enhanced that are 4K for existing titles and new titles will be asterisks. Overall, I anticipate many titles (the last 4 years) to be 4K on Scorpio.

My reasoning is fairly simple, 4K is easier to develop for then is checkerboarding. You're looking at days of work versus weeks+ of work and optimization. And if you built the game with 4K textures you can drop those in as well, push 16xAF and call it a release.

I almost expect newer titles to be checkerboarded though, why checkerboard 4Pro and not leverage that code on Scorpio. You're going to get significantly better results with a checkerboarded Scorpio than you would native
 
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the native 4k less asterisks message isn't a really good message in my eyes though.
they've mentioned the asterisks a couple times (at least once), but they've been pushing the native message, now true 4k.
looks and plays the best is a simple message that doesn't get into the explaining what asterisks mean.

it's one of the reasons they felt the need to come out and say that their games will be native 4k, instead of being able to say each game will do what is best for the visual fidelity of that game.

i believe early games will more than likely be native 4k for many reasons though due to ease and power.

2 different replies, one that seems to be about the benefit of the native/true 4k message that ms has pushed, the other about non native games that falls under the asterisks ms has mentioned.

in here people may understand the realities and what to make of message. Not so sure about in general as I've looked around and people still going on about it not being able to do native, as in ms is lying, then other people saying it will etc.
wouldn't be having such polarising debates with simpler message. Because then it doesn't matter.

edit: Although i do except you both may think there's nothing wrong with their message up until now.most of Ms issues have been messaging as far as I'm concerned though.
 
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the native 4k less asterisks message isn't a really good message in my eyes though.
they've mentioned the asterisks a couple times (at least once), but they've been pushing the native message, now true 4k.
looks and plays the best is a simple message that doesn't get into the explaining what asterisks mean.

it's one of the reasons they felt the need to come out and say that their games will be native 4k, instead of being able to say each game will do what is best for the visual fidelity of that game.

i believe early games will more than likely be native 4k for many reasons though due to ease and power.

2 different replies, one that seems to be about the benefit of the native/true 4k message that ms has pushed, the other about non native games that falls under the asterisks ms has mentioned.

in here people may understand the realities and what to make of message. Not so sure about in general as I've looked around and people still going on about it not being able to do native, as in ms is lying, then other people saying it will etc.
wouldn't be having such polarising debates with simpler message. Because then it doesn't matter.

edit: Although i do except you both may think there's nothing wrong with their message up until now.most of Ms issues have been messaging as far as I'm concerned though.
Right.
What people think they understand or know, is something that MS has to deal with at E3. As per your polarizing statement, there are people that are too far fetched about what Scorpio can accomplish, and there are people too far skeptical of what it can accomplish. The reality lies probably somewhere in the middle, which is that patched Scorpio games with XBO settings we should anticipate 4K without much difficulty. And where games are exceptionally graphically intensive we should expect asterisk.

I think the real issue is that people think 4K is some sort of standard, when it reality it's just up to the developer if they want the game to run at that resolution. Once you set the goal, you find a way to build it. You could get 4K working on OG XBO with really shitty graphics i'm sure. But that's where laymans showcase their lack of understanding of how it all works.

they see specs and they immediately draw the conclusion. like it's some car, they see the maximum horsepower and they've already determined whether or not that car can complete the course in the some time frame. What they didn't know is that developers are responsible for designing the course.

All MS needs to prove at E3 is that it's capable of 4K native and 4K native 60fps. Once you set the bar, people will understand its capabilities. The key is for MS to set a really good bar at this presentation.
 
All MS needs to prove at E3 is that it's capable of 4K native and 4K native 60fps. Once you set the bar, people will understand its capabilities. The key is for MS to set a really good bar at this presentation.

Pro already has native 4K 60fps games. Microsoft need to differentiate and clearly show why Scorpio is better than Pro. The first problem is you're majoring on the benefits of higher resolution when 99% of people will be experiencing this on a poor quality stream on a sub-4K device where all benefits of higher definition have been murdered. The second problem is that your average gamer doesn't really understand concepts like greater bandwidth and why it's important.

The original Xbox One reveal was great in that Microsoft were able to clearly show what the box could do (that PS4 could not) very clearly. You didn't need to understand there was a hypervisor running two operating systems, you could see it managed games and media seamlessly and you could just tell it what you wanted it to do. Bingo.

But this is the dilemma of convincing people to buy the latest iteration of modern technology. When people have to pixel count to discern resolution and side-by-side compare two screen shots to discern rendering compromises on one platform, you're in a tough place as a salesman.
 
The dilemma is, are you going to sacrifice extra power to reach native 4K, when your competitor is going to be really close to your graphical fidelity using a pretty good up-scaling technique. Or are you going for CB rendering and make use of the extra power to improve effects, textures, ect. to show the superiority of your hardware.

I can see a tech demo looking amazing at E3, but if Scorpio goes native 4K i really don't see how they can show games that are going to look much better than Horizon or Death Stranding.
 
Pro already has native 4K 60fps games. Microsoft need to differentiate and clearly show why Scorpio is better than Pro. The first problem is you're majoring on the benefits of higher resolution when 99% of people will be experiencing this on a poor quality stream on a sub-4K device where all benefits of higher definition have been murdered. The second problem is that your average gamer doesn't really understand concepts like greater bandwidth and why it's important.
Unfortunately I don't disagree LOL. But this is what Scorpio and 4Pro are supposed to serve as devices, play games at 4K. ive not heard any other goals for these mid gen refreshes and thus confused on what else they really need to do with it other than prove that by purchasing it, you'd have a large category of supported games, or that 1080p users would still benefit by DSR.

The original Xbox One reveal was great in that Microsoft were able to clearly show what the box could do (that PS4 could not) very clearly. You didn't need to understand there was a hypervisor running two operating systems, you could see it managed games and media seamlessly and you could just tell it what you wanted it to do. Bingo.

But this is the dilemma of convincing people to buy the latest iteration of modern technology. When people have to pixel count to discern resolution and side-by-side compare two screen shots to discern rendering compromises on one platform, you're in a tough place as a salesman.
Yea, unfortunately that XBO was far from ready at launch. A lot of ideas but not ready to go. Well maybe with Mixer they can showcase the XBO and Scorpio streams side by side for games, maybe that will have a bigger impact, I dunno. June 11th will be interesting to say the least. As long as they lock Scorpio, it's pretty difficult for them to separate the two products. Which I think we agreed that they wouldn't because the main seller should be XBO.

They gave Scorpio more time to bake, and they have had a longer time to figure out this issue with Sony taking the lead and charting a path for them. Not sure if MS will follow step or find a better way to present the console.

They will likely present:
a) Better experience with un-patched games @ 1080p/4K
b) Better experience with patched games @ 1080p/4K
c) Better BC experience
d) Better recording/streaming experience
e) Better UI/OS specifically for scorpio
f) Any other non gaming related experiences that Scorpio will be capable of because of the hardware, but possibly not XBO
g) VR support
h) 4K editing suites

That's all I can think of at the moment, if they can top that list, that would be ideal.
 
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What about Pro? Or is Scorpio only intended to cannibalise One S sales?
 
What about Pro? Or is Scorpio only intended to cannibalise One S sales?
I don't think MS will bring 4Pro onto the XBOX stage. So it leaves only Xbox One imo.
They can showcase 4K textures which will make a bigger impact than higher resolution when doing the comparison between the two for folks that cannot see 4K. I would probably focus there.
 
The sad story is that both Pro and Scorpio are weak on the CPU side and so CPU-limited games are going to stay at 30 fps (see Destiny 2)... 4K doesnt mean too much... and the extra ram will be eaten up by bugger textures and such. Really courius to see the loading time of games .... Both of them should have doubled the CPU from 8 to 16 maintaining the same frequency. Not going to see much difference between the two. Hope more and more developers goes the way "The Surge" did with their Fledge Engine (use GPU to accomplish more and more CPU-like tasks).... but this creates problems of compatibility while developing for PC (that have stronger CPU and maybe weaker GPU).
 
I don't think MS will bring 4Pro onto the XBOX stage. So it leaves only Xbox One imo.
Exactly. Selling stuff without direct comparison to the competition to emphasise differences is even more difficult. I am genuinely fascinated to see what Microsoft do.
 
Exactly. Selling stuff without direct comparison to the competition to emphasise differences is even more difficult. I am genuinely fascinated to see what Microsoft do.
Personally I would be fascinated to hear how you would have them showcase the Scorpio(not just show it better than Pro). It's all well & good to say it would be difficult, but so far all you have done is just questioned it & not provided any suggestions. When the conference is done I suspect all you'll say is "See? They couldn't do it!" :/

I have a few ideas & will post them soon. So far I haven't seen it suggested yet. :D

Tommy McClain
 
Personally I would be fascinated to hear how you would have them showcase the Scorpio(not just show it better than Pro).
Haven't a clue. I can see the problems clearly and you know Microsoft have a particular segment in mind for the event, which is unlikely going to be anybody on forums like this as they are generally well informed and have already decied on whether Scorpio is in their imminent future. Being able to see problems is very different from being able to solve those problems. :yes:
 
Doing some research and it appears that 4K textures are opportunities to advertise its competitive advantage. I looked around at titles that support 4K textures on PC and it's limited in adoption/support. Hehe (still deciding if I want to go Scorpio and sell my 1070 setup, or keep my
1070 and keep my XBO).

If MS is able to get a lot of patched older and newer titles to release 4K textures as part of a Scorpio pack, I think they can sell on how much better things will look. As 4K with 1080p textures is not a serious upgrade.

If MS can be responsible in leading the charge for 4K texture packs for releases I do believe that will be a good marketing point and something people will come to understand with relatively low effort; and people will associate Scorpio with having contributed something to this gen that wasn't widely supported previously.
 
are DF gospel? Well no, but I think you'll be hard pressed to find other "publications" that are considered more authoritive on gaming tech etc.

the df article was used to demonstrate that sub native can be close enough. Not that games won't look better due to assets, some being native 4k etc.

or do you think all/most Scorpio games will be native, therefore their messaging is fine?
I'm hoping that if the visual difference is very minor, almost impossible to spot during game play that they do sub native and up fidelity. I fully appreciate it's on a game by game basis
I used gospel because both MEA and Watchdogs 2 were said in their analysis to be a imperceptible difference to native and many people disagreed. It's also two games that CB introduced some artifacts, specially WD2 that they didn't mention.

And I don't think all games will be 4k native on Scorpio, but most games aren't 2160 checkerboard on Pro either, they are mostly 1800 checkerboard or lower. A native 1800p game or even slightly lower would look better still.

Edit: Also, they have a big advantage for them, the extra ram. Better assets than what's possible on Pro are going to make the games noticeable better looking right away, and it's an advantage ps4 didn't have over Xbox one. They don't need to hammer the native 4k message, they just need to hammer the console is powerful enough to deliver 4k without many compromises, but ultimately it will have the best versions of any multiplatform game.
 
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