Do you think there will be a mid gen refresh console from Sony and Microsoft?

[Johnny Awesome]

The X should not be touched in any way except to reduce its cost and size and sell it for $399 or even $349. With the S at $199.

Bring out a 2025 $599 X2 instead. $199/$399/$599. Pick your Xbox price point. Have fun!

 

[QPlayer]

The X should not be touched in any way except to reduce its cost and size and sell it for $399 or even $349. With the S at $199.

Bring out a 2025 $599 X2 instead. $199/$399/$599. Pick your Xbox price point. Have fun!

X2 only makes sense if it gets an NPU, i.e. a local AI processor, which can be used to significantly increase the user experience.

But since this makes a significant difference to how the games are structured, eg lifelike AI-controlled NPCs, this would only work on the X2. How do you make it all work on a Series S? Therefore, in my opinion, "X2" should appear as a separate new generation hardware. Or there will be a significant difference in the games technically, understand not only graphically, on the different Xboxes.

 

[Charlietus]

The question for me is: can a ps5-series x machine even be cost cut to 399€ while breaking even?

 

[Johnny Awesome]

Doesn't matter if you're MS and trying to win marketshare.

The X2 at $599 that I'm talking about would have an NPU, but wouldn't get used much at the beginning. No one worried that cross gen games wouldn't have mesh shader support. 4 years in we still have S|X features that haven't been used. It's fine. Even the PS5 SSD speeds weren't necessary. One day a PS5 game will come out that actually needs it. It's all PR at the beginning.

 

[QPlayer]

"4 years in we still have S|X features that haven't been used"

It's... I wouldn't say I like it. By the time I start using these features, the new hardware will be here. However, in this situation that exists now, MS has to show something so that many people will buy the new console. This could be AI buzzword-based features right from the start.

 

[iroboto]

Doesn't matter if you're MS and trying to win marketshare.

The X2 at $599 that I'm talking about would have an NPU, but wouldn't get used much at the beginning. No one worried that cross gen games wouldn't have mesh shader support. 4 years in we still have S|X features that haven't been used. It's fine. Even the PS5 SSD speeds weren't necessary. One day a PS5 game will come out that actually needs it. It's all PR at the beginning.

MS is doing fine. Every quarter Xbox is going to be posting massive numbers on revenue. It only gets larger if they can scale out to more platforms.

Price reduction is the key focus for them. Availability on platforms and packages for players will result in a bigger win.

The market share game for them is retaining what they have and spreading to new markets. Whether Xbox players return to Xbox, they may if they release enough solid titles. But hardware isn’t going to move the needle for them here, especially from a mid-Gen perspective.

 

[QPlayer]

Maybe the following will work.

Series S/X will continue to release regular versions of games, while X2 will have built-in AI features in the same games. They can build the marketing of the new Xbox on this.

Normal Starfield on Series S/X

or

Nextgen Starfield on X2, a re-release with improved graphics AND lifelike AI NPCs and interactive communication.

 

[QPlayer]

Me: Hey Sarah! Since we've been together, exploring the planets has become much more exciting for me.

Sarah: Oh honey I like it so much! Then this afternoon let's explore a couple of new planets and you'll be happy.

Me: Okay, we'll go explore... and then I'll make you happy in the spaceship for the evening.

Sarah: Oh my love, it's fine, you can have it tonight, let's go!

 

[tuna]

Normal Starfield on Series S/X

or

Nextgen Starfield on X2, a re-release with improved graphics AND lifelike AI NPCs and interactive communication.

Not a very realistic scenario.

 

[QPlayer]

Not a very realistic scenario.

We see it differently, but this could still be a realistic scenario.

Namely because they are talking about new hardware, which they obviously want to sell. Now, in order to sell this new console to the masses, new gameplay features must be presented.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

The market share game for them is retaining what they have and spreading to new markets. Whether Xbox players return to Xbox, they may if they release enough solid titles. But hardware isn’t going to move the needle for them here, especially from a mid-Gen perspective.

I generally agree, but I still think they should shadow Sony to keep the hardcore fans happy. Also, a good way to get more X out there is for 10 million X owners to get X2s.

 

[iroboto]

I generally agree, but I still think they should shadow Sony to keep the hardcore fans happy. Also, a good way to get more X out there is for 10 million X owners to get X2s.

Scaling hardware sales is always a sore point for them. They don’t have the logistics a company like Sony has when it comes to warehousing etc. getting out of the hardware game or releasing hardware only once a generation is probably the best course of action for them.

Developing the software to support Series consoles, and continually updating the feature set is going to be more fundamental imo.

IMO, money used towards better hardware should be used towards finding ways to make series consoles smaller and cheaper or have better value. Remaining expenditures can be put towards building out platform and software features.

The hardcore fans would be happy, if series X started delivering what it was marketed to deliver. In my view of things, series X has more to give yet. I think Gears 6 should represent the near maximum of what Series X should be capable of. If it’s garbage, then, perhaps you’re right a midgen refresh is required for them too. But it’s hard to see where they would go, there’s not a lot of room with the existing price points.

 

[Seanspeed]

X2 only makes sense if it gets an NPU, i.e. a local AI processor, which can be used to significantly increase the user experience.

But since this makes a significant difference to how the games are structured, eg lifelike AI-controlled NPCs, this would only work on the X2. How do you make it all work on a Series S? Therefore, in my opinion, "X2" should appear as a separate new generation hardware. Or there will be a significant difference in the games technically, understand not only graphically, on the different Xboxes.

If the goal is to significantly improve AI support, an NPU probably doesn't make a lot of sense for a console. At least not anytime soon. Much better to just take advantage of the large onboard GPU and pack in some better low precision support and matrix accelerators of some kind.

NPU's are really most useful for general consumer devices that wont have(or at least wont be guaranteed to be paired with) a large GPU. Especially smaller devices where efficiency is critical.

Either way, for a midgen console, heavily increased AI capabilities will come almost entirely down to improvements in reconstruction capabilities or perhaps better denoising or something rather than anything going on with the game design. There wont be devs who 'make use' of such AI capabilities for game design if other consoles cant do it, obviously. That's just not gonna happen. The whole point of midgen machines is that the base consoles are still the primary target and what all games are built around, and the midgen machines just offer some technical enhancements.

 

[QPlayer]

If the goal is to significantly improve AI support, an NPU probably doesn't make a lot of sense for a console. At least not anytime soon. Much better to just take advantage of the large onboard GPU and pack in some better low precision support and matrix accelerators of some kind.

NPU's are really most useful for general consumer devices that wont have(or at least wont be guaranteed to be paired with) a large GPU. Especially smaller devices where efficiency is critical.

Either way, for a midgen console, heavily increased AI capabilities will come almost entirely down to improvements in reconstruction capabilities or perhaps better denoising or something rather than anything going on with the game design. There wont be devs who 'make use' of such AI capabilities for game design if other consoles cant do it, obviously. That's just not gonna happen. The whole point of midgen machines is that the base consoles are still the primary target and what all games are built around, and the midgen machines just offer some technical enhancements.

Actually, when we mention the X2, we are not talking about a midgen machine, but a new generation Xbox. In this regard, the boundaries are blurred in the case of MS. They think in a rolling generation, so if they release an "X2" it will technically be considered nextgen.

It's better if we leave this forum thread only for Playstation and discuss the new Xbox in the nextgen topic.

 

[Seanspeed]

Actually, when we mention the X2, we are not talking about a midgen machine, but a new generation Xbox. In this regard, the boundaries are blurred in the case of MS. They think in a rolling generation, so if they release an "X2" it will technically be considered nextgen.

It's better if we leave this forum thread only for Playstation and discuss the new Xbox in the nextgen topic.

Any 2025 machine is gonna be a midgen machine. That's my point. Even if they dont want it to be, that's what it will be treated as, cuz absolutely nobody is going to retool and start making games exclusively for this single, new higher spec machine so early.

Also, this topic is entirely relevant for talk of MS specifically because they're the only ones where a question of 'midgen' still exists.

 

[Lurkmass]

I don't know why exactly there's so much interest in NPU hardware when they're abominations from a programming standpoint. How useful is it to feature Cell SPU-like inspired hardware on top of their likely non-standard VLIW ISA for game development ? It's like the hardware vendors wanted to make exotic hardware designs (purely out to save logic implementation cost) that can't do anything else but local inferencing for specific sets of AI models ...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1780706169511960947

Above thread could not be more applicable for the topic at hand ...

 

[QPlayer]

I don't know why exactly there's so much interest in NPU hardware when they're abominations from a programming standpoint. How useful is it to feature Cell SPU-like inspired hardware on top of their likely non-standard VLIW ISA for game development ? It's like the hardware vendors wanted to make exotic hardware designs (purely out to save logic implementation cost) that can't do anything else but local inferencing for specific sets of AI models ...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1780706169511960947

Above thread could not be more applicable for the topic at hand ...

I know that MS is building their next gen games and probably the next console entirely on AI. Game functions using advanced AI probably require a local AI processor.

 

[QPlayer]

Any 2025 machine is gonna be a midgen machine. That's my point. Even if they dont want it to be, that's what it will be treated as, cuz absolutely nobody is going to retool and start making games exclusively for this single, new higher spec machine so early.

Also, this topic is entirely relevant for talk of MS specifically because they're the only ones where a question of 'midgen' still exists.

After the release of the Xbox Series, all their games came to the previous generation console for two years, multiplatform games even this year. They can easily bring out a new generation of hardware as early as next year, no matter what they call it, but it will probably have many more features than the current Series S/X.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

Just to be clear. I think MS should bring out an X Pro for $599 in 2025 that has all the enhancements for better ML and RT that they feel they can take advantage of with X|S titles. Then follow that with the X2 in 2029.

The X Pro should be ~100% faster than the PS5 Pro and showcase Gears 6, Fable, and Forza Horizon 6.

 

[Lurkmass]

I know that MS is building their next gen games and probably the next console entirely on AI. Game functions using advanced AI probably require a local AI processor.

I have a feeling that all this AI marketing hype is entirely predicated on it's ability to do better upscaling because I have yet to see any truly transformative applications for gaming that requires consumer AI HW ...