Xbox One X support for Augmented Reality Hardware *spawn*

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Yes, which is why I mentioned how some might jump to the immediate interpretation that MS are going to have the most power console. It may or may not. But the interesting thing is that it could also mean that whatever their internal hardware target costs, they will price it relative to what they think the performance of their competition will be.

There's obviously a lot of PR talk involved here. Especially if you look at the sections where Eurogamer attempt to pin down what Phil Spencer meant with "consoles." They tried very VERY hard to get him to commit to saying that they will only be launching one console and Phil used a lot of PR speak to not commit to saying they will only launch one console. IE - there may still be more than one console design in play.



Yes, and perhaps I should have quoted more of the previous response when I made the post that started all of this.

So to put the whole thing into perspective from the article... The first part of the quote is from a response to whether there would be multiple next generation Xboxes. Which led into the part I quoted before.



PR is PR, and it's always tricky trying to tease out what they mean versus what they want you to hear. There's so many different ways a person could interpret what Phil Spencer actually meant. And, of course, there's always the cynic that will say Phil Spencer didn't mean to say anything at all.

However, he does have a history of saying things that have come to pass. IE - he isn't one to just say empty platitudes just for good PR. More often it turns out that he's wanting to tell people something but he can't come right out and tell them everything that he wants to tell them.

Hence, why this is in the Baseless Next Generation Rumors thread and why I'm having fun speculating on something I found particularly interesting.
  • From Phil's perspective, XBO sacrificed both on performance AND price.
    • If we assume that Kinect added 100 USD to the price (thus making it a sacrifice WRT to price) then the base console was likely meant to be priced similarly to what the PS4 launched at.
    • At that price point, performance was obviously sacrificed to reach that price point. Both in terms of the SOC power and the overall bandwidth from using DDR3 outside of the special use cases where the SRAM could be used. DDR3 being obviously chosen due to cost reasons. Which led to needing the ESRAM for situations which require high bandwidth. Which led to an SOC that was seriously lacking in GPU and memory performance compared to the competition due to the need to dedicate silicon space for the ESRAM.
    • In other words, a sacrifice of performance for price that Phil Spencer implies he doesn't want to do again.
  • So, the implication here is that the plan is to make an Xbox that is the best that can be put into a console without making hardware choices (due to costs) that might hamper it, as was the case with the XBO.
    • Especially when you look at the question that already acknowledges that this generation more than any previous one might be quite expensive to make a console stand out WRT performance. IE - are they going to have to cut corners (sacrificing performance for price)?
  • But there's also the mention that not only was XBO less powerful, but it was also more expensive. So, they don't intend to be at a price disadvantage to the competition again. Which could mean...
    • If the PS5 ends up priced lower than their target for Project Scarlett, they'll price it similarly to the PS5 regardless of how much it costs to manufacture a Project Scarlett console.
    • Alternative, considering how hard Phil Spencer worked to avoid saying they are only launching one console...there might still be 2 console designs in play.
      • One for price parity or price advantage.
      • One for pure performance.
Again, pure speculation based on a non-technical interview. But certainly interesting to think about, IMO.

And while it's obviously easy to just wave that off as something that is expected from a PR answer to a question, Phil has generally avoided saying things only for PR value without some actual "thing" behind what he's saying.

I think he's been in his position long enough with a good track record (WRT what he said his intentions are and how he's delivered on what he's said) that he can be considered as something more than just a PR mouthpiece.

But it's still just speculation on my part. Hence, in the Baseless rumors thread. :p

Regards,
SB
And he has said a few important things in the past that have not come to pass...at all. Like when in 2016 he promised VR (and Fallout VR) for Scorpio before its release. I know that some people believed his lie and bought a XBX thinking it'd support VR and Fallout VR. I am sorry but I wouldn't trust him on anything he says before the release of any hardware or services like Scarlett or Xcloud.
 
I thought the Xbox VR strategy was always about it's up to 3rd party until something convincing crystallised.
 
And he has said a few important things in the past that have not come to pass...at all. Like when in 2016 he promised VR (and Fallout VR) for Scorpio before its release. I know that some people believed his lie and bought a XBX thinking it'd support VR and Fallout VR. I am sorry but I wouldn't trust him on anything he says before the release of any hardware or services like Scarlett or Xcloud.

I assume you are referring to this?

https://www.roadtovr.com/fallout-4-vr-coming-to-xbox-project-scorpio/

Where all he really mentioned was that the hardware of Project Scorpio would be capable of VR and that they are talking to their software partners (other publishers and developers) about it.

At which point Bethesda (Todd Howard) said the following about Fallout 4 VR

"...we’re moving Fallout 4 to VR, and to have a console that can support that, at the resolution and speed that we really want, I think it’s gonna be magical."

And then speculation from RoadtoVR that it might be Project Scorpio that Bethesda were talking about.

Fallout 4 was already announced to be coming to the HTC Vive earlier in the day, with Bethesda stating it was committed to bringing the “whole game” to an immersive platform some time next year. It looks as if Project Scorpio, which has a rough release window of “Holiday 2017”, could be one ideally timed to make Fallout 4 one of it’s flagship VR releases. Early impressions of Fallout 4’s prototype VR version, demo’d as it was just after Bethesda’s E3 event earlier today, has so far been mixed.

Hell, I don't think any other media outlet even speculated about Fallout 4 VR coming to Project Scorpio.

At no point was Fallout 4 VR ever claimed to be released on Project Scorpio. At no point was VR even ever promised for Project Scorpio. I know a lot of people speculated that VR would be supported on Project Scorpio. But a lot of people speculate on a lot of things that were never claimed.

Hell, the PS4 CU split speculation that turned out to be completely false and mis-represented in speculation at least had words actually said by Mike Cerny to fuel it. Speculation on VR on Project Scorpio had almost nothing to fuel it.

Regards,
SB
 
At no point was VR even ever promised for Project Scorpio. I know a lot of people speculated that VR would be supported on Project Scorpio.

Say what?

From the horse's mouth:

https://blogs.windows.com/windowsex...-dev-kits-shipping-month/#kUMv8IO1Dp5lzZEP.97

Our plan is to bring mixed reality content to the Xbox One family of devices, including Project Scorpio, in 2018.

https://www.theverge.com/2016/6/13/11890842/microsoft-xbox-project-scorpio-virtual-reality-e3-2016

Phil Spencer's quote:

The important thing for Scorpio is that it's a dramatic step up for us in terms of hardware capability," he told The Verge in an interview last week. "Because as we saw 4K gaming and really high-end VR taking off in the PC space, we wanted to be able to bring that to console. Project Scorpio is actually an Xbox One that can natively run games in 4K and is built with the hardware capabilities to support the high-end VR that you see happening in the PC space today... when it ships it will be the most powerful console ever built.

In the least you can say the message was ambiguous. At its worst, dishonest. What you can't say is that Microsoft and Phil Spencer completely denied that VR on Project Scorpio when they announced it. The backtrack came a year later.
 
Say what?

From the horse's mouth:

https://blogs.windows.com/windowsex...-dev-kits-shipping-month/#kUMv8IO1Dp5lzZEP.97



https://www.theverge.com/2016/6/13/11890842/microsoft-xbox-project-scorpio-virtual-reality-e3-2016

Phil Spencer's quote:



In the least you can say the message was ambiguous. At its worst, dishonest. What you can't say is that Microsoft and Phil Spencer completely denied that VR on Project Scorpio when they announced it. The backtrack came a year later.
I think the hardware probably does support it.
They mission aborted on green lighting the ecosystem and content for it.
It doesn't mean it may not come at a later time though. I think it was critical for them to focus on the basics, to see how Sony is handling PSVR, before investing money into it. Unlike Sony, MS is struggling with selling their 1P as it is. No need to experiment with new forms of play if they can't get the basics down.
 
Curiously though, they haven't even extended XB1X to support Windows Mixed Reality Headsets. No HW outlay is necessary as that's taken on by the IHVs.
 

Sure, but that isn't Phil speaking and it's targeted at developers, not consumers. What is often conveyed to developers doesn't always materialize in products for the consumer. Just because you want to gauge developer interest in something doesn't mean that they've committed to bringing that to the consumer space. Plans change, and it's much easier to change them if it isn't a feature that has been promised to the consumer.

Phil likely had to OK or at least been notified of the development group seeking out developer interest, but at the time he still hadn't OK'd pushing the technology out to consumers.


That doesn't contradict anything I posted before. He said the hardware is capable of VR, but never said that VR was actually coming to the console.

Taken together it's obvious that internally they were considering whether to bring VR to the console or not, but never said anything on the consumer facing front to indicate whether it would be part of their console plans or not.

There may not have been enough developer interest and while there is some consumer interest it has remained lukewarm at best. Both things likely contributed to them not committing to VR for their console plans this generation.

Regards,
SB
 
They said on stage that of course it would have VR, the publicity said it would be only console supporting 4k gaming and high end VR. They repeated in a gamasutra interview that VR is absolutely coming.

"We will support VR on Scorpio," said Spencer at the time, referring to the Xbox One X by its codename 'Scorpio.' "We said that onstage. We will support VR on Scorpio, we're going to do that, I think it's important, I think there's some great immersive VR experiences."

How the fuck is that unclear or ambiguous?
 
They said on stage that of course it would have VR, the publicity said it would be only console supporting 4k gaming and high end VR. They repeated in a gamasutra interview that VR is absolutely coming.

"We will support VR on Scorpio," said Spencer at the time, referring to the Xbox One X by its codename 'Scorpio.' "We said that onstage. We will support VR on Scorpio, we're going to do that, I think it's important, I think there's some great immersive VR experiences."

How the fuck is that unclear or ambiguous?

Just curious where you found that quote as I couldn't find it.

Regards,
SB
 
Off the top of my head though, that's the only instance of MS backtracking this generation. I suppose you could count Crackdown 3 too, but that's more of an individual game thing rather than a platform thing.

I think there was a lot of chatter around VR, expecting it to be the next big thing. It hasn't been. It launched, it's interesting, it's evolving, it's improving. It's not displacing traditional gaming, and so MS haven't felt the need to join the fray. Not this generation, anyway.

All in all, I think that still qualifies the "not sacrificing performance for price" quote as meaningless.
 
Off the top of my head though, that's the only instance of MS backtracking this generation. I suppose you could count Crackdown 3 too, but that's more of an individual game thing rather than a platform thing.

I think there was a lot of chatter around VR, expecting it to be the next big thing. It hasn't been. It launched, it's interesting, it's evolving, it's improving. It's not displacing traditional gaming, and so MS haven't felt the need to join the fray. Not this generation, anyway.

All in all, I think that still qualifies the "not sacrificing performance for price" quote as meaningless.

There was also the "Scorpio will only show a benefit for people with 4K screens" quote that had to be walked back. If you bought an "S" because you didn't think Scorpio was going to benefit you or bought an X during the time when VR was still expected and that was a consideration for you, you have a legitimate gripe. How large either of those groups is is another question, but these two statements are fair game for criticism, IMO.
 
If x1x got vr games, years ago, I won't be buying PS4PRO, I'll get x1x

Only bough PS4 pro for the better vr clarity hahaha
 
New Off the top of my head though, that's the only instance of MS backtracking this generation.

This generation or this mid-generation?
There's no shortage of instances where microsoft backtracked this generation. Always-online, kinect always-on, kinect ceased to bundle in consoles, retail game lending, the list goes on and on.
 
This generation or this mid-generation?
There's no shortage of instances where microsoft backtracked this generation. Always-online, kinect always-on, kinect ceased to bundle in consoles, retail game lending, the list goes on and on.
might be easier to say that everything under Mattrick was backtracked.
Even the backwards compatibility; because he said to get a 360. And then ended up releasing BC.
 
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