Xbox Series S [XBSS] [Release November 10 2020]

I thought the XSS was an 1080p box, that was the whole point of MS making it. So why would it it match the One X is resolution when One X goes over 1080p?
I mean can the one x do 120fps @1080p with Dirt5?

There is no mandate from Microsoft, if dynamic resolution is used there is no reason to cap at 1080. I assume it can probably go higher but perhaps the dips mean it's easier for the system to lower when needed from 1080 than if it wandered higher and this makes a more stable resolution.

There are 1800p and 4k games on the S. Whilst it's built for lower resolution, if your game is not taxing your free to output at whatever you want.

Edit:

Assassins Creed: Valhalla is also 30fps where Series X is 60fps, that is also disappointing and a bit hard to understand, really.

Maybe it is just a lack of priority.

Well it looks like the game is more 1800 with dips to 1440, if we translate that it could mean S would dip well below 1080 and perhaps that was seen as too low so capped at 30 to maintain that resolution
 
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There is no mandate from Microsoft, if dynamic resolution is used there is no reason to cap at 1080. I assume it can probably go higher but perhaps the dips mean it's easier for the system to lower when needed from 1080 than if it wandered higher and this makes a more stable resolution.

There are 1800p and 4k games on the S. Whilst it's built for lower resolution, if your game is not taxing your free to output at whatever you want.

That is fine, but is not the whole idea that the xss is a 1080p version of xsx? I mean when xsx goes 4k, xss meant to do the same game with everything identical except for resolution, which is 1080p targeted?

That is what i have kept reading on here, that is what i think is strange when people find it weird that it sticks to what it is supposed to do.
 
That is fine, but is not the whole idea that the xss is a 1080p version of xsx? I mean when xsx goes 4k, xss meant to do the same game with everything identical except for resolution, which is 1080p targeted?

That is what i have kept reading on here, that is what i think is strange when people find it weird that it sticks to what it is supposed to do.

Replied of sorts in an edit above:

Heavy dips below 4k on X make the S version trickier as that will be 720 or so. That may be seen as unacceptable which has been many people's concern especially in relation to games later in the generation.

Will later games be forced to lower quality settings on X simply to maintain a higher resolution because S needs that crutch to keep it out of standard definition territory.
 
More comparisons are coming out where XSS is not even matching X1X. The latest is COD Black Ops Cold War where One X is 1800-2160P and Series S is 1080P.

I wonder what's the issue, besides maybe not optimizing. RAW Flops? The 128 bit bus (it's 128 right?). The 10GB RAM vs 12 in One X?

I think it's a tad unrealistic to expect the SeriesS to ever match the OneX in what the OneX does best, which is to provide 8th-gen games at a high render resolution.

The RDNA2 performance-per-TFLOP is higher than the OneX's Polaris / GCN4, but I doubt it's a full 50% higher. Additionally, there's no reason to believe a RDNA2 chip (without Infinity Cache) can do more out of a 224GB/s bandwidth than a GCN4 out of 326GB/s bandwidth, much less compensate for the fact that it has 2GB less RAM.

So save for very simple 3D or 2D games, don't expect the SeriesS to render at over 1440p, and IMO even this resolution will be a rarity on the console (just like rendering at native 4K the SeriesX should be a rarity once RT gets pushed).
What the SeriesS was made for is render 9th-gen games at close to 1080p, sometimes a bit higher and others a bit lower. Just like its name implies it's a successor to the One S, so you should expect similar rendering resolutions.
There's also the matter of some games not having RT available at all for the SeriesS, which IMO should be a bigger concern because now the console isn't really behaving like a 9th-gen.


What the SeriesS should be able to achieve over the OneX is higher framerate at lower rendering resolutions, due to the much faster CPU.


P.S.: The SeriesS has a 128bit bus total for 8 of the 10GB GDDR6, and the remaining 2GB uses only one fourth of that 128bit bus, a 32bit bus.
 
VG tech have released their video.

They put the S resolution higher than 1080

Xbox Series S uses a dynamic resolution with the highest native resolution found being 2880x1620 and the lowest native resolution found being approximately 2048x1152.
Native resolution pixel counts near 2560x1440 seem to be common on Xbox Series S. Xbox Series S uses a form of temporal reconstruction to increase the resolution up to 2880x1620 when rendering natively below this resolution.

The Xbox Series S seems to transition between LOD levels closer to the camera

 
Let's hope this never becomes standard. Pushing native 4K is a complete waste of resources, especially for the capabilities of the console GPUs (midrange equivalents as soon as Navi 22 comes out in a couple of months).

I didn't take that to mean only native 4K, just the targetting output resolution, where devs are free to use smart reconstruction techniques.

What BRiT said :D
 
you have to get the exact wording they used. Are they taking a loss on the series x and series as combined where the X is loosing money but the S is breaking even or maybe making a little but with the X cost they still end up loosing ? Also what are the projections of costs over the next x amount of months

Your guess is as good as mine here, we simply aren't privy to those types of details, from either company. I guess someone involved in that process could do some sleuthing and get the info and leak it out, but then they'd be out of a job (and probably blacklisted :S)

Same way they took to the ps4 and ps4 pro or xbox one and xbox one x. Obviously the people who only have an xbox series s will be fine with it either playing in 1080p /1440p or will stream xcloud. I believe that MS will always have a $300 and $500 box (it might fluctuated a bit with price cuts maybe sometimes 200/400 before being replaced) but the hardware in them will be refreshed every few years to the newest architecture as that is the easiest way to improve performance and power profiles now.

Some of the things MS are implementing with All-Access (that you will be able to, in addition to other things, get access to "new hardware"), might be suggesting this. So there's a chance hardware refreshes could be more frequent from them compared to Sony for example. If so, that's a good sign Gamecore is doing its job, because that type of approach would not be possible if there wasn't an all-encompassing SDK and API toolset available to allow for relatively easy scaling while still giving enough access to tinker with hardware performance and push the design for devs with the time, money and manpower to do so.

That may mean in 2024 a Navi 4 and Zen 6 at that point on 5nm could produce a system on par or better (esp with ray tracing and ML) than the Xbox series X currently is but at a $300 price point and at a $500 price point maybe we are looking at a 20tflop+ machine . What would be the point of selling the current systems ?

If their plans for mid-gen refreshes are more in the vain you suggest they might be, then something at the high-end pushing around those figures might actually be possible. I'm still curious what purpose it would serve in the ecosystem though. More importantly, what games would be there to take advantage of that additional power? Because at that range, for something that could theoretically drop in 2024, that's something 2x the power of PS5, on paper, so you'd expect 2x the visual fidelity and/or performance, resolution etc.

I think simply having that power there, just to be there, won't work as well with the console gaming market if the performance of the previous mid-gen refreshes are any indication. There has to be other benefits to come along with it, preferably in the scope of gaming immersion or experiences. That's probably the one thing that helped the PS4 Pro as much as it did (even though it was still only a fraction of total PS4 sales); since they timed the PSVR alongside the Pro, and the Pro benefited PSVR performance, that gave the Pro something of another purpose beyond simply boosting the graphics of PS4 games.

Since MS seem more open to the idea of VR support now (and ironically, Sony scaling back on it, at least from Jim Ryan's tone in interviews), a much more powerful Series X refresh a few years from now paired with pushing VR/AR gaming could bring some benefits and big appeal.

At the same time as I've been saying you take that same navi 4 and zen 6 apu and you cut it down so it plays games at least as well as the current XSS. What would such an APU and console look like ? Well navi 4 would be the third try for amd at ray tracing. Performance there should be much better, if they are able to scale 50% or so performance improvements like they did from navi - navi 2 then perhaps you don't need to be as agressive with the clocks and memory speeds. That is the basis of what I believe they will do going forward , its what i've been saying for at least half a year and to me hot chips cemented it in my mind as what MS will do

True, and if they can be less aggressive on clock speeds, memory speeds etc. that means even further power consumption savings, opening up a better chance for something with Series S specs in a portable or portable-esque form factor.

I think they will be very careful in what it can do because they will want to have it part of but apart from the other surface devices. They will wnat you to get a surface pro and a surface xbox.

One thing i've talked about before is a usb c xbox attachment for future surfaces. As a customer you go out and you buy a surface go or pro or book or laptop and you already have the screen and battery and other functionality. So just put the xbox series s in a small portable enclosure and your good to go.

That's an interesting idea, I just wonder how that would benefit with regards to power supply and cooling. I mean, it could still work as USB-C (maybe as a Thunderbolt connection) for the connectivity, but the form factor I don't think would fit that of a thumb drive. It'd still be somewhat sizable, if smaller than Series S is currently.

The reason I find it interesting though, is because it kind of reminds me of the older Sega add-ons like the Sega CD/32X, or some of those mid-90's PC graphics cards which were basically consoles in and of themselves. The Nvidia NV-1 (a Saturn-based PC GPU card) and PCFX-GA (a NEC PC-FX based 98/PC GPU card) immediately come to mind. Those were intriguing experiments but didn't get too far, partly because the consoles those were based on already had differentiation/shortcomings not in sync with more popular devices in the wider market of the time, which means the PC card equivalents were proportionally reduced in terms of software and dev support.

But the idea itself was always intriguing and it's very clear AMD are leveraging their console dev partnerships with both MS and Sony to push forward their RDNA architecture for, among other things, PC GPU cards, so we're maybe kind of coming back full-circle on this note :3. Therefore it's not unreasonable MS could design some kind of Series S-based dGPU product for the Surface products that basically gives them Series S-levels of performance and maybe even Series-style OS features and whatnot. I'd be interested in seeing that come to fruition. They could also theoretically try similar with the Series X I guess, but maybe less of a need to there since anyone who already wants Series X (or PS5) level of performance outside of those consoles will have a PC, and there are (and will continue to be) cards available providing that type of performance if not better, and that type of gamer isn't really price-conscious when it comes to specs.

But someone on a Surface tablet who wants something closer to a console experience without the technical tinkering PC requires? Yeah, something like a Series S dGPU add-on would be great, just as long as they could get the price right. I'd say $199 max, there has to be some price advantage between going Surface & Series S dGPU versus going Surface & Series S console, otherwise it doesn't work.

Maybe but thats a decade away or so i'd say. AMD will most likely get large jumps through 5nm at the very least. Remember RDNA is the first major architecture on the graphics side from them in a decade who knows what else they can improve in it

Dunno; I'm just going to be cautiously optimistic but I think there's a wall to be hit sooner rather than later WRT these ever-increasing GPU clocks. If CPUs went through it little over 15 years ago, I don't think GPUs will be that far off. Hence why we've been seeing pushes for wider designs, even from AMD. It's a way for them to "cover their bases", so to speak.

That said I'm very interested to see where their GPUs go!

I think like a pc it wont really care. A pc doesn't care if you put a geforce 1080 or a 3080 in it, it will just run the code as well as it can. MS has the direct x layer which should make it easy for games to run fine. IC @ xbox series s clock speeds should provide enough bandwidth at 1440p i'd imagine. I'd also wonder if a 5nm navi 4 would be able to run at higher clocks while removing Rops and CUs and still perform as well as the rdna inside of the xbox series s.

For a while I was thinking this wouldn't be possible, but for some reason I sometimes forget that MS's BC approach isn't predicated on exact hardware matching 1:1 in terms of CUs/ROPs etc. the way Sony's seems to be. That frees them up to do things as you suggest here, I also think that's their experience from the PC and server markets coming through pretty clearly.

Like i said i think the xbox series s is the base for Microsoft and what comes next will be faster than it while using newer tech. They go into detail of why simply dropping the micron process on a design wont work for price drops like it used too.

Just nomenclature thing for me, but I'd rather call it the "floor" rather than the "base". Base implies it'll be the root of software development, and I hope that actually isn't the case! I'd rather the newer, more powerful systems be the base and then devs just scale stuff down (be it graphics, some gameplay features, or both) to accommodate the lower-power platforms in the ecosystem like Series S.

Which to my knowledge, is what MS have said before, so I'm going to hold that to them when we see more of these 1P games come forward from them ;)
 
More comparisons are coming out where XSS is not even matching X1X. The latest is COD Black Ops Cold War where One X is 1800-2160P and Series S is 1080P.

I wonder what's the issue, besides maybe not optimizing. RAW Flops? The 128 bit bus (it's 128 right?). The 10GB RAM vs 12 in One X?

One X games are targeting 4K or close to it, so they're using higher-resolution textures and outputting at a higher framerate. Series S, to my knowledge, isn't aiming for 4K, so I'm not surprised if a game like Cold War is at 1080P on Series S as that falls in the target range of what MS expects for the platform (1080p-1440p).

I don't think any of the things you are suggesting are an issue in and of themselves, but they might cause some complications for optimization due to MS's "tardiness" with the Gamecore/GDK suite. I really wish MS had that sorted out sooner rather than later, it seems to be causing more issues than foreseen in the short-term. The best hope for them is that these early impressions don't have lingering longer-term staying power, but I think it'll take an impressive 1P demonstration running on the hardware (that's also a new game or one that we've only gotten teases for so far, like Hellblade II) to fully wash away any of the early tepidness of some games currently performing on the platform, that might linger for a bit.

Which is why I kind of hoped the rumors about some gameplay for Hellblade II or even Perfect Dark coinciding on the 9th or 10th was true, but alas it wasn't meant to be :cry:

I don't think this is bullish at all. There are some specs in the SeriesS that seem like sandbagging on a home console but would make total sense if they want to lower power consumption enough to put the chip inside a handheld.
For example, the GPU clocks at 1500MHz make no sense for a home console. It's lower than even the lowest-end Navi 14 in the RX5300. Microsoft could easily get 20% higher GPU performance by simply clocking it at the same conservative clocks as the SeriesX. I doubt yields would be significantly affected, a more powerful PSU would cost them pennies and the cooling system wouldn't need to be much more powerful.

What the 1.5GHz makes sense for IMO is guaranteeing that come 5nm or 3nm they can make it mobile, in a Surface Pro-ish size. Those clocks may already be in the ULP range of the power curves, on those nodes. As for GPU width, we should start to see how wide the RDNA-mobile GPU in the 5nm Samsung SoCs will be. We should hear about them within the next few months.

The more it's mentioned, the more clues there are that Series S's spec was definitely designed with some type of future portable (form factor maybe up for debate; certainly not a classic-style handheld but something between a Switch and a Surface laptop/tablet combo could be possible for certain) in mind.

It'd be a good fit for MS's ecosystem strategy, I just kind of wish the Series S as-is was already that product, even if it meant a higher cost and even a different market segment aim as maybe something more tied to the Surface brand. I mean, Gamepass and Xcloud are also available there, wouldn't be too much of a difference (and it maybe would've helped with avoiding some of the confusion and concerns people have expressed (some ridiculously so) WRT Series X and Series S and the latter "holding back" the former).
 
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For anyone that is picking up a secondary console, be sure to enable Network Sharing on all consoles! This way you can use the main console with more storage as your local repository, so swapping games in and out on secondary consoles should be substantially faster than fully downloading from the internet. It should also help on bandwidth usage, if you're with an ISP that sucks.

https://support.xbox.com/en-US/help/hardware-network/console/enable-network-game-transfer-xbox-one

Any Xbox (Xbox Series X|S, original Xbox One, Xbox One S, or Xbox One X) can be either the source or the destination console.
  1. On the Xbox you want to copy from, press the Xbox button  on the controller to open the guide.
  2. Go to Profile & system > Settings > System > Backup & transfer > Network transfer and check the Allow network transfer box. This makes that Xbox visible to other consoles on the same network.
  3. Once you’ve allowed transferring from the “host” Xbox, turn on the console onto which you’ll be copying games and apps, and go to the same settings page. Your host Xbox should be listed.
  4. Select the Xbox you want to copy from, choose the items to copy, then select Copy selected.
 
By that definition of $300 then they can buy right out of the gate.
Hence why I was asking if he really believed that its $199, which rules out pretty much the whole of the XO/PS4 generation.

The One S got down to $199 on some special deals(not just Black Friday). When I had the cash naturally those deals weren't available, but I did get the 500gb Minecraft bundle for $210 in February 2017.

I would say $250 & less was definitely an impulse buy & they had quite a few of those deals if you looked around. Series S at $299 I think is still an awesome deal, but I don't think it will really start moving until it's $250 or less. Technically it's already $240 on All Access, but I still don't think they're advertising that enough or allotted enough for it. Looks like they're allotting more for standard sales.

Tommy McClain
 
Your guess is as good as mine here, we simply aren't privy to those types of details, from either company. I guess someone involved in that process could do some sleuthing and get the info and leak it out, but then they'd be out of a job (and probably blacklisted :S)

Yup we may never know

Some of the things MS are implementing with All-Access (that you will be able to, in addition to other things, get access to "new hardware"), might be suggesting this. So there's a chance hardware refreshes could be more frequent from them compared to Sony for example. If so, that's a good sign Gamecore is doing its job, because that type of approach would not be possible if there wasn't an all-encompassing SDK and API toolset available to allow for relatively easy scaling while still giving enough access to tinker with hardware performance and push the design for devs with the time, money and manpower to do so.
you can upgrade your all access xbox one to a series s or x if you want


If their plans for mid-gen refreshes are more in the vain you suggest they might be, then something at the high-end pushing around those figures might actually be possible. I'm still curious what purpose it would serve in the ecosystem though. More importantly, what games would be there to take advantage of that additional power? Because at that range, for something that could theoretically drop in 2024, that's something 2x the power of PS5, on paper, so you'd expect 2x the visual fidelity and/or performance, resolution etc.

Such a console would be able to play current games at 4k . As this generation goes on we both know that the ps5/ xbox series x will struggle with newer games. The biggest wow so far is Unreal engine 5 and i believe the ps5 is having dificulty running the demo at 1440p 30fps correct ? So such console including navi 4 and zen 5 would be able to run the game much better.

Add to that if your a console manufacturer and you have to choose between a micron drop getting you a bit of savings or using it to refresh your line up why wouldn't you refresh your line up ? Its not like it was back with the nintendo or ps2 or whatever previous generation . Your old games will run in software. MS did the work you can play the vast majority of xbox , xbox 360 , xbox one and now xbox series games on the series systems. That wont change. With dynamic resolution engines becoming the big thing this generation esp because of the s , you can put out a new system on new tech and reap the benefits.

Look at it this way adding IC and keeping the same ram speeds but perhaps moving to 16 gigs with navi 3 and zen 5 in a $300 package may be fast enough to give better performance than the ps5 and xbox series x in the majority of cases. Esp with advance effects like ray tracing as a navi 4 would perform much better in ray tracing (one would hope at least)

I think simply having that power there, just to be there, won't work as well with the console gaming market if the performance of the previous mid-gen refreshes are any indication. There has to be other benefits to come along with it, preferably in the scope of gaming immersion or experiences. That's probably the one thing that helped the PS4 Pro as much as it did (even though it was still only a fraction of total PS4 sales); since they timed the PSVR alongside the Pro, and the Pro benefited PSVR performance, that gave the Pro something of another purpose beyond simply boosting the graphics of PS4 games.

I think the diffrence is with the ps4 / xbox one you got mid gen upgrades that moved the price back up along with performance. But MS is already at the price point of the ps4 with that generation wrapping up.

So lets play it out

In 2024 perhaps the ps5 digital is now at $300 . Well the xbox series s wouldn't sell that well at $300 and would most likely need to drop to $200 or lower. What will the X sell at ? If they can't get down to $300 also MS is in trouble. But what if MS refreshes the series s with as we've said a new apu using the newest tech that also ends up costing $300 but out performs or performs simliar to the ps5 ? Well you make a big version of the new s and have another $500 system.

Whats more is MS can (and i think will ) make a even lower S using the new technology to come in at sub $200 prices and in even smaller foot prints.

Since MS seem more open to the idea of VR support now (and ironically, Sony scaling back on it, at least from Jim Ryan's tone in interviews), a much more powerful Series X refresh a few years from now paired with pushing VR/AR gaming could bring some benefits and big appeal.
no comment

True, and if they can be less aggressive on clock speeds, memory speeds etc. that means even further power consumption savings, opening up a better chance for something with Series S specs in a portable or portable-esque form factor.

Right . I believe 3 systems. An updated series S targeting 4tflops but with a new generation zen cpu and navi gpu. Maybe even nudge up performance slightly . Then the S replacement at $300 and the X replacement at $500 . The new s out performing the old x and the new x vastly improving performance as the halo product

That's an interesting idea, I just wonder how that would benefit with regards to power supply and cooling. I mean, it could still work as USB-C (maybe as a Thunderbolt connection) for the connectivity, but the form factor I don't think would fit that of a thumb drive. It'd still be somewhat sizable, if smaller than Series S is currently.

I don't think it be that small. Maybe the size of a 3.5mm drive but taller with active cooling.

The reason I find it interesting though, is because it kind of reminds me of the older Sega add-ons like the Sega CD/32X, or some of those mid-90's PC graphics cards which were basically consoles in and of themselves. The Nvidia NV-1 (a Saturn-based PC GPU card) and PCFX-GA (a NEC PC-FX based 98/PC GPU card) immediately come to mind. Those were intriguing experiments but didn't get too far, partly because the consoles those were based on already had differentiation/shortcomings not in sync with more popular devices in the wider market of the time, which means the PC card equivalents were proportionally reduced in terms of software and dev support.
At some point MS could actually just use the SOC from the xbox in new surface products depending on how low they can get power consumption.

But the idea itself was always intriguing and it's very clear AMD are leveraging their console dev partnerships with both MS and Sony to push forward their RDNA architecture for, among other things, PC GPU cards, so we're maybe kind of coming back full-circle on this note :3. Therefore it's not unreasonable MS could design some kind of Series S-based dGPU product for the Surface products that basically gives them Series S-levels of performance and maybe even Series-style OS features and whatnot. I'd be interested in seeing that come to fruition. They could also theoretically try similar with the Series X I guess, but maybe less of a need to there since anyone who already wants Series X (or PS5) level of performance outside of those consoles will have a PC, and there are (and will continue to be) cards available providing that type of performance if not better, and that type of gamer isn't really price-conscious when it comes to specs.

But someone on a Surface tablet who wants something closer to a console experience without the technical tinkering PC requires? Yeah, something like a Series S dGPU add-on would be great, just as long as they could get the price right. I'd say $199 max, there has to be some price advantage between going Surface & Series S dGPU versus going Surface & Series S console, otherwise it doesn't work.

The advantage isn't in price. I think they could charge more. Thnk about it you just spent $1000 on a surface pro or surface laptop. Neither one of them can game but they have beautiful screens and your traveling with them anyway. You can then buy a small device to plug into it that will turn it into a series S machine. Whats not to like ?

I have been playing the hell out of hades on my surface pro with my elite controller but i can't play anything to intensive because of its size. However I don't want a gaming laptop but a gaming puck that i plug into my surface ? That would get me to pay. I'd even pay $300 for it.

Dunno; I'm just going to be cautiously optimistic but I think there's a wall to be hit sooner rather than later WRT these ever-increasing GPU clocks. If CPUs went through it little over 15 years ago, I don't think GPUs will be that far off. Hence why we've been seeing pushes for wider designs, even from AMD. It's a way for them to "cover their bases", so to speak.
That said I'm very interested to see where their GPUs go!
Hopefully with more money they can improve them a lot. Its the first time AMD is bringing money in since I was a teenager lol.

Which to my knowledge, is what MS have said before, so I'm going to hold that to them when we see more of these 1P games come forward from them ;)

Depends on what you want. If you want a portable console on the power of an xbox series s your going to have to hope games are tweaked and designed for it otherwise your going to get some janky looking protable games
 
In 2024 perhaps the ps5 digital is now at $300 . Well the xbox series s wouldn't sell that well at $300 and would most likely need to drop to $200 or lower. What will the X sell at ? If they can't get down to $300 also MS is in trouble.
Why would MS need to bring the XSX to $300 to match the PS5DE suddenly?
Why do they need to be $100 cheaper than the PS5 in this scenario of yours. I said it before, in my eyes your way to optimistic with xbox pricing and what you think they need to do.

Since this is the technical thread, how do they go about cuttimg price by $200, even if they replaced it with a new high end console.
A replacement would be more powerful not that much cheaper.
 
I don't see a $300 XSX ever, given what the MS hardware team has told us. More likely we'll get a new 8 TF 5nm S with better RT and a new 24 TF 5nm X with better RT. Both at the same price points in 2024.

Over time the XSS is going to settle into 1080p and the XSX/PS5 will be 1800p or something. The new boxes can be 1440p and 4k at high framerates and great RT. The improved RT will be the hook for marketing.
 
I don't see a $300 XSX ever, given what the MS hardware team has told us. More likely we'll get a new 8 TF 5nm S with better RT and a new 24 TF 5nm X with better RT. Both at the same price points in 2024.

Doubt they would even be able to release pro versions while maintaining the existing price points. Not to mention Xbox Series would then have 4 performance targets....too confusing.

Probably 5nm slim versions with some more storage @ same price.
 
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With 5nm they can save on power-related components that further affect the chassis design on current gen, but there doesn't seem to be a great business case for a midgen when Scorpio and Neo were relatively low selling SKUs and current consoles are selling at a loss as it is. It was a cute experiment, but only certain folks were inclined to pick them up, and it wasn't critical mass IMO.

They should just save the R&D for a big performance jump on a true next gen leap in 2027/28 given how the trends are for future nodes, which also coincides with marketing.
 
Why would MS need to bring the XSX to $300 to match the PS5DE suddenly?
Why do they need to be $100 cheaper than the PS5 in this scenario of yours. I said it before, in my eyes your way to optimistic with xbox pricing and what you think they need to do.

Since this is the technical thread, how do they go about cuttimg price by $200, even if they replaced it with a new high end console.
A replacement would be more powerful not that much cheaper.

I don't think the disk version of the ps5 will exist in 2024. Right now they have a split sku to help offset costs.

I've already laid out that they would use newer architecture.

Xbox series S is 8 core zen 2 @ 3.4-3.6ghz
20cu 1.565ghz RDNA 2 cpu 4tflop
8 gigs of ram @ 2240 / 2 @ 56
on 7 nm

What if in 2024 they release
8 core zen 5 @ 3.6ghz
10 Cu @ 2ghz RDNA 4
64megs infinity cache
16 gigs of ram @ 224GB on 5nm

Navi 1- navi 2 net a 54% increase in performance per watt over navi 1 which was 50% better per watt than gcn. So if amd can hold performance increases navi 3 would offer 50% better performance per watt , Navi 4 would offer 50% over that. We already know that Ray tracing is not as great on amd rdna 2 as it is on nvidia 30x0 series cards. So of course that be a low hanging fruit for amd to improve.

You can play around with the CU count and clock speeds as you please because we are talking about an APU tech 2 years out.

But why would they simply shrink the apu in series s when they can use newer tech and reap the benefits of 2024 tech. To the game engines it will just be like switching from a 5700 to a 6900xt as long as what they replace it with performs better there wouldn't be any issue.

On the high end MS could do a $500 8 core zen 5 with a 80cu 128rop 2.5ghz or higher RDNA 4 .


https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2020-xbox-series-s-big-interview

This sums up my thoughts and what i've been saying for a while

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"I've read a lot of question on the internet, like, why isn't Microsoft going to continue Xbox One X as the low-end machine. Well, one thing is that it would last a long time through the generation and we felt that the new generation is defined by aspects such as the Xbox Velocity Architecture, and graphics features such as variable rate shading and ray tracing and the 4x processing performance boost on the CPU," counters Goossen. "And so we wanted to make sure that there was an entry level at the right price-point so that we could really advance the generation rather than hold it back. I've heard that Series S is going to hold back the next generation but I actually see Series S advancing it because by doing Series S we'll have more games written to the characteristics of the next generation."

There's also the matter of economics too. Our understanding is that a shrink of the Xbox One X's Scorpio Engine processor wouldn't be easy, while the wide memory interface isn't easily rationalised for an entry-level product. Its 12GB of GDDR5 (with 12 DRAM modules on the mainboard) would also be very hard to reduce down.

"The other ironic thing is that we did look at Xbox One X and we couldn't get it down to the price-point we wanted to get, so I look at Xbox Series S and it's cheaper than Xbox One X, it would have all of these next-gen features and then in terms of graphics performance, well you guys know this, but the per-cycle improvements with the new RDNA 2 architecture are like a 25 per cent improvement. If we just do the back of the envelope math right now, 4TF brings you up to 5TF just according to that factor.

"And some of the data we're seeing with our content is suggesting that it's even better, and then when you think about other features of the new architecture that we've added like variable rate shading and FP16, you know, I think that could get us the additional 20 per cent to pretty much equal the performance for new games... and it's cheaper and you get all the other features that define the new generation. And so for me, it was an easy decision - let's go do this."
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I mean your questioning me about why MS would do this in the future when its what they did now in the present. They aren't going to change that in the future its only going to spur them on to adopt it more agressively.
 
mean your questioning me about why MS would do this in the future when its what they did now in the present. They aren't going to change that in the future its only going to spur them on to adopt it more agressively.
So I'm clear, what precisely are you saying I'm questioning you about, as I thought I was pretty specific.
In relation to them getting down from $500 to 300, are you saying it will also be an XSXDE that will be matching the PS5DE, not XSX matching PS5DE as there will no longer be a disc edition?
Is that that both consoles will no longer be supporting disc based games by 2024?

Edit: keeping in mind I specifically said I find your pricing optimistic, and in my previous post pretty sure I said I don't particularly disagree with your general view (or something if that nature)
 
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So I'm clear, what precisely are you saying I'm questioning you about, as I thought I was pretty specific.
In relation to them getting down from $500 to 300, are you saying it will also be an XSXDE that will be matching the PS5DE, not XSX matching PS5DE as there will no longer be a disc edition?
Is that that both consoles will no longer be supporting disc based games by 2024?

Edit: keeping in mind I specifically said I find your pricing optimistic, and in my previous post pretty sure I said I don't particularly disagree with your general view (or something if that nature)

I"m saying they wont be able to bring the XSX down to $300 even without an optical drive. I believe they will end the machines life at $200xss / $400 XSX with perhaps a $150/$300 model if they need to eat costs.

My whole premise is that both companies will have trouble dropping pricing which is why MS at least will refresh both systems with new internal hardware. but target the current price points
 
I don't think the disk version of the ps5 will exist in 2024. Right now they have a split sku to help offset costs.
They're pretty much wedded to it, a lot of people have a lot of discs and not giving people a way to play those? Not good. :nope: Not unless they're going to run a mass disc-mail-in programme where they credit you the equivalent digital licence.
 
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