Business Strategy and Retail Pricing for Xbox One X [2017] *spawn*

[AlNom]

Even if XB1X did have a far better CPU (perhaps difficult to pull off in the time frame)

hm... Indeed. Given the timetable for Ryzen on desktop, it's perhaps unlikely that there would have been time to design an APU while still meeting deadlines for developer kits, software compatibility & eventual launch.

It'll be interesting how they approach BC in the future, but at least they'll have more time to figure it out with the mid-gen extension.

 

[Jay]

Native 4K sure but high gfx settings would require dev time. But outside of this hypothetical group of enthusiasts, who is going to notice a difference between 4K and checkerboard 4K?

or 1800p upscaled with higher gfx. Myself at least when i say upping res, doesn't mean it has to be 4k if a dev doesn't have time and would rather use power for effects.
implementing alternative rendering method is the bigger developer overhead, e.g. checkerboarding

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Based on what exactly? You think Devs will be putting much effort (therefore expense) into such a small market?

I meant good support as in games will be there and at least they will run at much higher resolution than on the regular Xbox One. For a Xbox One gamer that is already a good support for it. It remains to be seen how much effort they will put on Xbox One X exclusive features, but I'm sure there will be some because getting PC features shouldn't be too costly. I don't expect the games to look a night and day different to PS4 Pro versions... Personally I believe I will be happy gaming with both the Xbox One X and PS4 Pro on a 4K TV. The resolution alone is more than enough for me, but I'm sure there will be more benefits as well. I got rid of the base PS4 as soon as the Pro was out and never even touched the One, because of the few exclusives and disadvantage in multiplats. Now the situation is much more interesting.

 

[turkey]

It'll be interesting how they approach BC in the future, but at least they'll have more time to figure it out with the mid-gen extension.

Wild speculation.

I wonder if the current architecture choices are driven by future BC given they are going through the pain of this now. This has hardware changes to improve performance of existing code, this means to me at a function level it's hardly different (bar performance) than the base unit and would be easier to emulate or support.

Overall they have performance with little code changes to Devs, they have kept shape audio and increased qty and or upclocked components. They also implement part of the DX software in hardware, but from BC it could I assume run as software again if the new system has the performance to achieve it.

This design seems to help many parties who will have interest over the lifecycle of the system and software it runs.

 

[DrJay24]

I'm not going to join in on the ps pro xbox discussion but 499 doesn't sound like such a bad deal for a 4k/60fps machine to me. Price/performance sounds good to me.
.

It does at first glance, but since it will only have games to take advantage of the power that are either released in the later half of 2017 and on or those with patches from earlier, the 4K/60 (most won't be 60Hz) is limited to a small library. If this same package played Win 10 games via Steam you would have thousands of games. MS has to make a $500 sell without having heavy hitting 1st party games to sell it. Most people don't care about Forza or Sea of Thieves, so until they get Halo 6 they will be relying on 3rd party devs to push their hardware. Is Assassin's Creed going to sell a $500 mid-gen upgrade? Their best hope is the "it" multiplayer FPS being higher res and a stable 60fps - this can draw the most hard core people over.

 

[milk]

I think it's funny how apocaliptic people like to be. I remember how they said the ps4pro was doomed because the betterspeced acorpio was around the corner. Now scorpio is doomed because the cheaper ps4pro is already out.
What is it that more important guys? Price or power?

 

[iroboto]

hm... Indeed. Given the timetable for Ryzen on desktop, it's perhaps unlikely that there would have been time to design an APU while still meeting deadlines for developer kits, software compatibility & eventual launch.

It'll be interesting how they approach BC in the future, but at least they'll have more time to figure it out with the mid-gen extension.

timing is one, $$$ is another. I'm frankly in the cost too much camp.
They licensed for complete customization on Jaguar already. Just take advantage of that privilege and keep costs lower, and compatibility simpler. Mess with Zen and it's an all new ballgame that will be costly. Save it for next gen. at least that's what I imagine happened ;0

 

[iroboto]

I think it's funny how apocaliptic people like to be. I remember how they said the ps4pro was doomed because the betterspeced acorpio was around the corner. Now scorpio is doomed because the cheaper ps4pro is already out.
What is it that more important guys? Price or power?

price and power

I'm not sure what to make of it either. The arguments work both ways. Overall the more expensive 1X will be for enthusiasts with money. So happens a lot of Xbox folks have that type of money lying around if you look at the success of the elite controller and the fact that they continue to bundle in UHD blu ray. Dolby Atmos the list goes on.

Nothing wrong with the price, it's just not made for the casual market. There won't be enough supply for it either. It's not a main stream device, at least it won't be for several years. I think when people get over that hurdle, 2-3 years from now 4Pro and Scorpio are going to be the machines to buy unless you somehow manage to buy another 1080p TV set for your next TV. You could get the cheaper 1080p console, I guess in theory, if you don't care at all, but if it's being offered, at a incrementally higher price, I think a lot of people would like to pair a 4K console with their 4K TV.

 

[goonergaz]

What's the point of the Titan XP or the Highest of the High-End Intel processors? The One X is that for consoles, just priced less ridiculously.

I'm not sure that's a good comparison. AFAIK graphics cards work that they make the very best they can and then 'downgrade' that to affordable 'mass market' versions.

Here MS have made a new console a few years after their last with new specs. Your graphics card comparison would be more suited to the Pro where Sony reused a lot of the components or the X360 (maybe) where you had 2 skus at launch.

 

[Jubei]

Apparently Microsoft wont even have high margins on this "Titan XP" of consoles

http://www.businessinsider.de/xbox-one-x-price-explanation-phil-spencer-e3-2017-6?r=US&IR=T

 

[mrcorbo]

I'm not sure that's a good comparison. AFAIK graphics cards work that they make the very best they can and then 'downgrade' that to affordable 'mass market' versions.

The Titan XP is the very best thing they can make and they charge what they can for it. It is unquestionably a poor value in cost/performance compared to other options in the market. It is made to appeal to those who want the best possible performance above all else and are willing to pay a premium for it.

And that is also what I believe the One X is.

 

[mrcorbo]

Apparently Microsoft wont even have high margins on this "Titan XP" of consoles

http://www.businessinsider.de/xbox-one-x-price-explanation-phil-spencer-e3-2017-6?r=US&IR=T

High margins are not what the analogy with the Titan XP is about. The point is companies like Intel and Nvidia repeatedly develop products that present an objectively poor value compared to other products even from the same vendor, because there is a market for the "Most powerful 'X' you can buy". The market for the One X is the console-playing equivalent of those PC gamers. It's not able to be sold for more, and approach being as poor a value as the top-end GeForces and Core i's are, because the console market is more price sensitive. $499 is relatively expensive for a console, but a PC gamer would considered that cheap for a high-end graphics card alone.

 

[Recop]

The reality is that both these mid gen refreshes are tied to the base models, which are likely to be 30fps. If that is your core market and you optimize the game for 30, you optimize animations for 30.. etc, you're going to save a lot of money by keeping everything 30. That seems a stronger reason for there to be 30fps than any other reason. 20% of the PS4s sold today are 4Pro right. That might seem like a great number, which it is, but nothing compared to the number of PS4s sold in totality. 4Pro just makes a faction of the audience.

It could be true for exclusive titles, but most of multiplatform games also come on PC. So, i'm not sure that all game mechanics are optimized around 30fps.

 

[function]

I will have to disagree, devs would have liked a more powerful CPU and it would have meant an even better experience for this 'super premium' console.

Sure, but only if it hadn't impacted on anything else, and that would have required many tens more mm^2 of silicon, more power, and a rapidly escalating cost (die cost increases greater than linearly with die area, especially when a large part of the die doesn't allow for redundancy).

So what did you mean by "That's who Scorpio is for. It's for a subset of the market who know what they're getting and will pay. Like the Surface line. Or like the PS4 Pro - only far more so."

Far more so of what?

More performance and capability but also more cost. PS4 Pro is more powerful and capable than X1/PS4 but it necessarily costs more to manufacture.

Scoprio goes far further in this direction - lots more capability but with a noticeable jump in cost. And most likely even more niche and lower volume.

 

[mrcorbo]

It could be true for exclusive titles, but most of multiplatform games also come on PC. So, i'm not sure that all game mechanics are optimized around 30fps.

People really don't seem to understand the implications of chopping the amount of time you have to deliver a frame in half. It['s not just a matter of doing everything twice as fast. Every time there's any kind of a delay due to things like the data needed for a compute operation being "farther away" in the memory hierarchy that delay is twice as impactful as it would be if you had twice the time to get all of the work done. You would either have to find a way to guarantee data retrieval is always at least twice as fast or make those delays happen 1/2 as often to then "only" have to do the actual work twice as fast. And that's just one example.

 

[Cyan]

Did anyone even question that?!

dont you think that when you launch a new console it revitalises the sales of that console's brand? Maybe because it isn't a new full-fledged generation but the last two generations I purchased a console day one, and if my memory doesn't fail me, the hype caused the sales of the brand to soar after the launch --can't recall exactly.

Maybe, at 499€, it is too rich for some people for a games console, especially given the fact that its party trick seems to be 4k, and many people neither own, nor have any intention to own, a full 4k TV. When 4k becomes standard and people can't buy anything less, or you end up buying a TV for other reasons, certain features, etc, & it just happens to be 4k too.

 

[Cyan]

I think my capitalistic self is taking control because after being pissed off with ms , because I hated their conference, and proclaiming that I will never buy an x1x I.....preordered it . The fact that ms didn't enforce any extra tax for Greece, we always pay more for electronics, somewhat helped.

Already own a pro and I expect something substantially more powerful with the x1x, I am not a fan of checkerboarding and I definately see a difference between native 4k and checkerboarded. I expect the games to look sharper on the x1x. As far as power difference goes I think that it is substantially bigger than the difference between a PS4 and an xboxone. The way I see it is simple. The PS4 had a much stronger gpu and much faster memory. The Xbox one had a slightly faster CPU. Both had the same amount of memory. The x1x has a much stronger gpu, much faster memory AND much more memory AND a slightly faster CPU , so it wins in every aspect . Oh and the look of this thing is jaw dropping , imo, and makes the pro look ancient. The pro will serve just fine as a stop gap , and then as an exclusives console . Having a uhd drive was also a factor in deciding to buy the x1x, another advantage for people that want a 4k box under their shiny new 4k tv.

Their conference turned out to be bad, but not that bad after the entire E3 happened. I think the price and the absence of AAA games was kind of a less. I, myself, could care less about exclusives. As time goes on I am becoming platform agnostic and, unrealistically, I'd rather prefer that all games were multi-platform.

The point of the Xbox One X is that the future appears to be 4K (if not even 8K). Whereas 3D TVs like the one I got in 2013, at one time, seemed to be the "thing"; there are very few, if any, around nowadays. Instead, consumers and business are rapidly transitioning to 2D 4K TV sets.

I think that right now, the XBox One X is basically in the catbird seat. When it arrives later this year, it is going to be the only console capable of playing 4K games thus satisfying a growing hunger for a native 4K content.

 

[DrJay24]

When it arrives later this year, it is going to be the only console capable of playing 4K games thus satisfying a growing hunger for a native 4K content.

I see you ate up their marketing already. I think the majority of gamers would be happy to get 1080P games at this point, the native res of most TVs. They are only projecting 50% market share for 4K by 2020. I think we will see the PS5 around then.

 

[bgroovy]

Yeah, many of the 4K games Microsoft touted are just as asterisk heavy with dynamic resolutions and checkerboard techniques. The idea that 1X is the only real 4k solution is a total fantasy.

 

[Recop]

One thing should be noted : it is much easier to bring XB1 games to 4K than PS4 games if they run at the same resolution.

So, not only the Pro is less powerful, but it has to run more demanding games. For example, i really doubt that the X could do native 4k with Horizon, Uncharted or even KSF.

That being said, games running at 1080p on XB1 should be able to run at native 4k on X.