Xbox Business Update Podcast | Xbox Everywhere Direction Discussion

[eastmen]

I see no real point wasting chip space on such gimmicks when it could be done by external servers. Do they really need AI stuff for timing sensitive things?

I mean this looks like something that will be the next evolution in gaming

Its really well done and is in real time using a geforce gpu. to me if I could talk to the npcs using my voice inside of the next elder scrolls or fallout it would be really amazing to me.


AMD bought Xillinx

https://www.amd.com/en/corporate/xilinx-acquisition.html

and the rumors around zen 5

AMD Zen 5: Everything we know about AMD's next-gen CPUs | Digital Trends

AMD's Zen 5 CPUs will debut sometime in the second half of 2024 and they may well bring with them the biggest performance boost in generations.

www.digitaltrends.com

AMD stated that the new CPUs will feature an enhanced version of its AI accelerators, making them much more capable of managing AI-driven tasks locally.

and

Strong rumors in January 2024 point towards Zen 5 having instructions per clock (IPC) improvements of up to 30%. If that proves even close to true, it would be the largest inter-generational IPC increase since the debut of AMD’s original Zen generation in 2017.

and

Other rumors suggest Zen 5 will offer native support for slightly faster memory and may add support for FP16 AVX512 instructions. It may also dramatically increase the CPU cache across the board, including L1, L2, and L3.

the up to 30% figure would be from zen 4 - zen 5. Zen 3-4 had about a 15% ipc improvement and it was the same from zen 2-4. So in some tasks clock for clock the zen 5 could be up to 60% faster than zen 2.


Zen 5 is slated for this year. Zen 6 with RDNA 5 may be 2025

AMD's next-gen Zen 6 'Medusa' processor might be an absolute beast of a chip

Zen 6 CPU cores and integrated RDNA 5 graphics? Take our money

www.techradar.com

Looking at the options for 2025 in terms of CPU you can expect a drastic increase in cpu performance if MS goes with zen 5 or even zen 6 and in addition you could see AI cores on the cpu.


Looking at the GPU side well AMD is a bit messy with its gpus but there is likely rdna 4/5 coming up. Depending on who you listen to rdna 4 is canceled but rdna 5 can be this year.


So I don't think its impossible for MS to put together a really forward looking console.

 

[Charlietus]

I mean this looks like something that will be the next evolution in gaming

Its really well done and is in real time using a geforce gpu. to me if I could talk to the npcs using my voice inside of the next elder scrolls or fallout it would be really amazing to me.


AMD bought Xillinx

https://www.amd.com/en/corporate/xilinx-acquisition.html

and the rumors around zen 5

AMD Zen 5: Everything we know about AMD's next-gen CPUs | Digital Trends

AMD's Zen 5 CPUs will debut sometime in the second half of 2024 and they may well bring with them the biggest performance boost in generations.

www.digitaltrends.com

and



and




the up to 30% figure would be from zen 4 - zen 5. Zen 3-4 had about a 15% ipc improvement and it was the same from zen 2-4. So in some tasks clock for clock the zen 5 could be up to 60% faster than zen 2.


Zen 5 is slated for this year. Zen 6 with RDNA 5 may be 2025

AMD's next-gen Zen 6 'Medusa' processor might be an absolute beast of a chip

Zen 6 CPU cores and integrated RDNA 5 graphics? Take our money

www.techradar.com

Looking at the options for 2025 in terms of CPU you can expect a drastic increase in cpu performance if MS goes with zen 5 or even zen 6 and in addition you could see AI cores on the cpu.


Looking at the GPU side well AMD is a bit messy with its gpus but there is likely rdna 4/5 coming up. Depending on who you listen to rdna 4 is canceled but rdna 5 can be this year.


So I don't think its impossible for MS to put together a really forward looking console.

Wouldn't they want to put the ai cores on the GPU instead of the CPU?

Anyways, talking to ai npc's in games sounds like a waste of time. Why would I want to talk to a ai when there is plenty of content created by humans that have a actual purpose instead of... chat gpt inoffensive responses.

There are so many better uses for ai like ai assisted path finding, ai assisted animation, lip syncing in many languages, and much more.
Talking to all the npc's in a open world? No.

 

[Cyan]

Wouldn't they want to put the ai cores on the GPU instead of the CPU?

Anyways, talking to ai npc's in games sounds like a waste of time. Why would I want to talk to a ai when there is plenty of content created by humans that have a actual purpose instead of... chat gpt inoffensive responses.

There are so many better uses for ai like ai assisted path finding, ai assisted animation, lip syncing in many languages, and much more.
Talking to all the npc's in a open world? No.

ai in general, and ai path finding would do wonders in games like Age of Empires 2 Definitive Edition, that's for sure. The path finding of the game while not being great kinda worked in the past, somewhat, but with the latest patches the path finding is completely broken.

 

[Nisaaru]

Its really well done and is in real time using a geforce gpu. to me if I could talk to the npcs using my voice inside of the next elder scrolls or fallout it would be really amazing to me.

With "realtime" I meant it needs to be done at the local host level because its timing sensitive. I can't really see what's time sensitive in simulating some NPC communication, hence server supported AI.

 

[iroboto]

what do you mean by that? Honest question. I mean, did he try something different and it didn't work?

He’s trying lots of new things. Xbox from an industry and business standpoint is very different generation to generation. He’s being criticized heavily on just one thing: a moving goalpost of what people define as system sellers.

I don’t necessarily disagree with the emotions from that, but I a lot is missed if you just focus on it. Business longevity, survivability and profits versus gamer passion don’t intersect there. Phil is probably the most competent leader there is for platform leadership, but that is entirely from a business perspective and not a gamer perspective.

 

[Cyan]

He’s trying lots of new things. Xbox from an industry and business standpoint is very different generation to generation. He’s being criticized heavily on just one thing: a moving goalpost of what people define as system sellers.

I don’t necessarily disagree with the emotions from that, but I a lot is missed if you just focus on it. Business longevity, survivability and profits versus gamer passion don’t intersect there. Phil is probably the most competent leader there is for platform leadership, but that is entirely from a business perspective and not a gamer perspective.

he did fine, he had not bad ideas at all. The most difficult part it's finding where something can make a difference, which he failed to do. Sony is going to launch PS5 Pro with some nice forward-looking features too, TOPS and ai related stuff. Something along the lines of what @eastmen detailed..., and the question is, where they can find the differentiator?

Who knows, maybe for MS to succeed It'd have to be a new Xbox 360, which was MS best console ever, and probably will ever be.

With the X360 they were very bold, the console wasn't expensive and was super powerful, it added a brand new solid online system with the possibility of adding friends, and it included a microphone included so that we could all talk to each other.

Those two facts were something unseen. It wasn't the power of the X360, though being so powerful was a very welcome feature, but what made it the best console of MS are those things no one offered before, along with the achievements.

They went as far as getting very good japanese developers on board.

Their next console is going to be very powerful -meh, a PC will be more powerful than that if they want to sell it at a competitive price- for sure, but they could also launch a device, along with the console, where console and PC could meet and find a balance between the two.

I am not going to buy a console ever again, I can play games on PC and have some freedom, but I'd certainly get a hybrid.

 

[eastmen]

Wouldn't they want to put the ai cores on the GPU instead of the CPU?

Anyways, talking to ai npc's in games sounds like a waste of time. Why would I want to talk to a ai when there is plenty of content created by humans that have a actual purpose instead of... chat gpt inoffensive responses.

There are so many better uses for ai like ai assisted path finding, ai assisted animation, lip syncing in many languages, and much more.
Talking to all the npc's in a open world? No.

Why not both ?


Anyway inside of the majority of games there is silly content like hey find all the high towers or all the coins or all the spider man symbols in the world. instead of stuff like that AI implementations can actually create compelling quests in real time.

Imagine instead of in Skyrim you go to a random village and the quest giver says hey go get me 5 bear pelts you get into town and the ai can generate relationships for the quest giver based off people you have already met in your game and create a dynamic story flowing between all the points of the game you have reached each one affecting another part.

The content that people sit and make half the time isn't great and is pre scripted so can't really change in anyway. Its binary on or of. did you do part 1 , 2 ,3 of the quest? okay now this guy will give you part 4. if you decided to go East out of the first town instead of west now this quest giver just says to stop bothering him and you have to trek across the game world to access part 1 and then do 2 and 3 before you can go back to that one guy to get a quest.

he did fine, he had not bad ideas at all. The most difficult part it's finding where something can make a difference, which he failed to do. Sony is going to launch PS5 Pro with some nice forward-looking features too, TOPS and ai related stuff. Something along the lines of what @eastmen detailed..., and the question is, where they can find the differentiator?

Who knows, maybe for MS to succeed It'd have to be a new Xbox 360, which was MS best console ever, and probably will ever be.

With the X360 they were very bold, the console wasn't expensive and was super powerful, it added a brand new solid online system with the possibility of adding friends, and it included a microphone included so that we could all talk to each other.

Those two facts were something unseen. It wasn't the power of the X360, though being so powerful was a very welcome feature, but what made it the best console of MS are those things no one offered before, along with the achievements.

They went as far as getting very good japanese developers on board.

Their next console is going to be very powerful -meh, a PC will be more powerful than that if they want to sell it at a competitive price- for sure, but they could also launch a device, along with the console, where console and PC could meet and find a balance between the two.

I am not going to buy a console ever again, I can play games on PC and have some freedom, but I'd certainly get a hybrid.

Sure Sony may have some forward looking tech in the ps5 pro but it will still be hampered by zen 2 and whats in the ps5 pro in terms of TOPS and ai. Just like these current consoles really sucked at Ray tracing.

MS could have a chance to again implement functionality into the console that doesn't yet really exist in the pc market in anyway.

 

[Charlietus]

Why not both ?


Anyway inside of the majority of games there is silly content like hey find all the high towers or all the coins or all the spider man symbols in the world. instead of stuff like that AI implementations can actually create compelling quests in real time.

Imagine instead of in Skyrim you go to a random village and the quest giver says hey go get me 5 bear pelts you get into town and the ai can generate relationships for the quest giver based off people you have already met in your game and create a dynamic story flowing between all the points of the game you have reached each one affecting another part.

The content that people sit and make half the time isn't great and is pre scripted so can't really change in anyway. Its binary on or of. did you do part 1 , 2 ,3 of the quest? okay now this guy will give you part 4. if you decided to go East out of the first town instead of west now this quest giver just says to stop bothering him and you have to trek across the game world to access part 1 and then do 2 and 3 before you can go back to that one guy to get a quest.




Sure Sony may have some forward looking tech in the ps5 pro but it will still be hampered by zen 2 and whats in the ps5 pro in terms of TOPS and ai. Just like these current consoles really sucked at Ray tracing.

MS could have a chance to again implement functionality into the console that doesn't yet really exist in the pc market in anyway.

What you are describing here is incredibly complex, how would you even test all the possibilities? Maybe I'm being overly pessimistic, but maybe we will see something like that working in 20 years (working as in it's acceptable).

The ai would not just be generating dialogue and animations, but also generating code for the quest. How do you make that reliable?

 

[Charlietus]

What you are describing here is incredibly complex, how would you even test all the possibilities? Maybe I'm being overly pessimistic, but maybe we will see something like that working in 20 years (working as in it's acceptable).

The ai would not just be generating dialogue and animations, but also generating code for the quest. How do you make that reliable?

Also about the "why not both?" It probably adds unnecessary complexity since it's a SOC, so they would put it all in one place.

 

[rntongo]

he did fine, he had not bad ideas at all. The most difficult part it's finding where something can make a difference, which he failed to do. Sony is going to launch PS5 Pro with some nice forward-looking features too, TOPS and ai related stuff. Something along the lines of what @eastmen detailed..., and the question is, where they can find the differentiator?

Who knows, maybe for MS to succeed It'd have to be a new Xbox 360, which was MS best console ever, and probably will ever be.

With the X360 they were very bold, the console wasn't expensive and was super powerful, it added a brand new solid online system with the possibility of adding friends, and it included a microphone included so that we could all talk to each other.

Those two facts were something unseen. It wasn't the power of the X360, though being so powerful was a very welcome feature, but what made it the best console of MS are those things no one offered before, along with the achievements.

They went as far as getting very good japanese developers on board.

Their next console is going to be very powerful -meh, a PC will be more powerful than that if they want to sell it at a competitive price- for sure, but they could also launch a device, along with the console, where console and PC could meet and find a balance between the two.

I am not going to buy a console ever again, I can play games on PC and have some freedom, but I'd certainly get a hybrid.

Good points. A large amount of unified memory as well as well as great SDK gave it an edge over the PS3 in terms of developing games. Xbox 360 titles had better textures and thus looked nicer despite the PS3 having a much more powerful CPU. Sony's engineers were honestly impressed by the whole system, they knew the sum of parts of the 360 was better than the PS3 learned from it and never looked back. Everything else from MS onwards has been self inflicted wounds. They have everything they need to produce enormous value for the whole industry but they need to change a few core things and get back into the mentality they had during the Xbox 360 days.

 

[arandomguy]

I don't feel that is replicatable anymore, or at least MS wouldn't have agency but it would be basically dependent on Sony "screwing" up again.

As long as Sony plays it conservatively they are just going to have the bargaining power with both common suppliers. Sony's not going to want to play chipmaker again (Cell), they aren't going to have another media format (Bluray) to push, causing signficant delays, cost increases, and platform limitations for developers. They've basically come to accept what the Playstation is for and who it caters to.

At the same time I don't feel that strategy is workable for Microsoft either in terms of a just a safe/traditional box (which the 360 was) without their competitor making space. Inertia is just against them and the brand, and at least to me it seems like it's either slow death or hoping something else works.

 

[eastmen]

What you are describing here is incredibly complex, how would you even test all the possibilities? Maybe I'm being overly pessimistic, but maybe we will see something like that working in 20 years (working as in it's acceptable).

The ai would not just be generating dialogue and animations, but also generating code for the quest. How do you make that reliable?

Isn't all of game programming already incredibly complex ? You make it reliable just like anything else by having the ai model train itself.

If you think about it MS now has access to all of Bethesda/ Obisdian/ and other RPG games in which the ai model can train it self to learn how to make working quests.

Also about the "why not both?" It probably adds unnecessary complexity since it's a SOC, so they would put it all in one place.

Really all depends on what the ai cores on the cpu are good at vs what the gpu itself is good at.

It may be easier to block off hey here are your 4 xillanx ai cores on the gpu and you an run ai on this and save the gpu resources for better pixels. In fix system the developers can choose what is optimial for the goal they are trying to achieve.

 

[eastmen]

I don't feel that is replicatable anymore, or at least MS wouldn't have agency but it would be basically dependent on Sony "screwing" up again.

As long as Sony plays it conservatively they are just going to have the bargaining power with both common suppliers. Sony's not going to want to play chipmaker again (Cell), they aren't going to have another media format (Bluray) to push, causing signficant delays, cost increases, and platform limitations for developers. They've basically come to accept what the Playstation is for and who it caters to.

At the same time I don't feel that strategy is workable for Microsoft either in terms of a just a safe/traditional box (which the 360 was) without their competitor making space. Inertia is just against them and the brand, and at least to me it seems like it's either slow death or hoping something else works.

MS has other cards to play in terms of hardware and suppliers. They build more than just xbox and they will likely also be upgrading xcloud when they are ready to roll out a new xbox. So MS could actually get better prices from suppliers since they could be ordering more of certain parts.

One thing is if you look at the new surface they have a new snap dragon cpu with ai accelerators built in. That company is getting their tech pushed out into millions of surface products each year. AMD might also want their ai cores in zen to take off and get wide range support. having that included in the next xbox that can sell tens of millions of units and create software that will also drive adoption of it on the pc side for gamers could be something worth while for AMD to offer better pricing for.

 

[Cyan]

I don't feel that is replicatable anymore, or at least MS wouldn't have agency but it would be basically dependent on Sony "screwing" up again.

As long as Sony plays it conservatively they are just going to have the bargaining power with both common suppliers. Sony's not going to want to play chipmaker again (Cell), they aren't going to have another media format (Bluray) to push, causing signficant delays, cost increases, and platform limitations for developers. They've basically come to accept what the Playstation is for and who it caters to.

At the same time I don't feel that strategy is workable for Microsoft either in terms of a just a safe/traditional box (which the 360 was) without their competitor making space. Inertia is just against them and the brand, and at least to me it seems like it's either slow death or hoping something else works.

yup, they have had the correct mentality, as @rntongo defines it, for years, under Phil Spencer. All the ideas you have must come into fruition, and also work to help with the Xbox brand wear....

Xbox could invent now some gem of a console that inertia would go against them anyway. It was all MS fault -XB1-, 'cos honestly the PS4 was an okay console but nothing special. It had a solid design that worked well and that's it.

Xbox lost the chance to compete and opportunity knocks but once..., they lost the train that only passes by once....

 

[Johnny Awesome]

I don't believe that, but MS is in a difficult position of their own making with the X1

 

[eastmen]

Here is a modded implementation of an AI character in Skyrim. This is way more interactive than anything scripted in any game I have ever played.

Now imagine what a triple a budget could do to this. This is also something MS can use to justify moving past the series consoles quickly. Put out Elder Scrolls 6 with an AI implementation and boom you got a ton of sales.

 

[arandomguy]

One aspect here to consider is that this technology might take off in the same way the Wii/Wii Remote did outside of the core traditional gamer audience (which seem likely more lukewarm to the concept of interacting outside prescribed game rules, much like interacting outside traditional control schemes).

 

[see colon]

One aspect here to consider is that this technology might take off in the same way the Wii/Wii Remote did outside of the core traditional gamer audience (which seem likely more lukewarm to the concept of interacting outside prescribed game rules, much like interacting outside traditional control schemes).

You want to know something crazy? Wii is probably the most popular retro video game console right now. It's had a huge resurgence in the last couple years. And not just with casual gamers. I know there is a consensus that believes that Wii never appealed to traditional gamers, and that could be true I suppose at the time, but that was nearly 20 years ago now, so many of the people who were 10 years old and had a Wii are 30 year old traditional gamers, and they do have a fondness for motion controls and Wii waggle, because they've never gamed in a world without them. Even Switch has games that either support motion controls or controller configurations that are outside of the realm of standard controller inputs.

So if this takes off like Wii motion controls do, perhaps us old guys will think of it as being niche, but there will be a whole generation of kids who grow up expecting this level of interactivity from now on.

 

[Cyan]

I don't believe that, but MS is in a difficult position of their own making with the X1

the irony is that the success of the X360 could be a huge blow to Sony's aspirations, possibly making the PS4 not as successful as it was. The X360 really threatened Sony's supremacy, if XB1 wasn't such a badly designed product focused on TV -ironically, almost nobody watches TV nowadays, talks about vision-, and MS created a Xbox 360 2 in terms of quality and success, it could really hurt Sony.

Not to mention that Sony made much more money in the PS1 and PS2 era than now, for whatever reason, even if we take into account that the last 6 years were the best for Sony in terms of revenue mainly due to PS4 success.

In that sense, Nintendo is the best company, by far, they make more money and gains than anyone else.

 

[Cyan]

Here is a modded implementation of an AI character in Skyrim. This is way more interactive than anything scripted in any game I have ever played.

Now imagine what a triple a budget could do to this. This is also something MS can use to justify moving past the series consoles quickly. Put out Elder Scrolls 6 with an AI implementation and boom you got a ton of sales.

that's very nice stuff! Some companion mods in Skyrim added a new dimension to the game, my favourite is this one:

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/2180

She doesn't react like the AI but the mod was huge, and I loved it.

However, you said it yourself talking about sales of the game, it's game changing and would help game sales, but it's not a differentiator for people to prefer a Xbox over Sony or Nintendo offerings.

Sony and Nintendo will be using AI too, I guess.

We will see how Sarah Bond fares. Phil Spencer maybe should abandon the traditional way of thinking 'cos this works for Sony which is established in the console business but not for Xbox. Like DF staff said, maybe even switching to a different hardware provider to differentiate themselves more.