Feasibility of an upgradeable or forwards compatible console *spawn*

Rangers said:
What seems clear is Phil Spencer doesn't want any small leaps. I dont know exactly what that means. IMO these are the main choices:

A) An iterative Xbox, but with lots of power

B) Xbox 2 (new generation, not iteration) is inbound relatively soon.
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We really don´t know what he meant.
An XboxOne 1.5 would be PS4 base model power level, it would be still really low.

At fall, Xbox will be at the odd situation of being 3 times less powerful than its competition, this is really a tangible difference, if devs target this power level somehow, what are the choices for multiplats? 720p and terrible fps?

I mean, if Xbox matches whatever soc produces sony, It´ll be big leap as Spencer claimed.

The Xbox Slim it´s a given, there are those FTC leaks, but I´m afraid that Sony caught Ms with their "pants down" again... and if the Xbox next it´s delayed until next year, Ms gaming it´s doomed.
 
I think Sony will dominate this year (and forever after?), but PS4K may be more about security for Sony than causing another great spike in their already monstrous sales.

In a way, Neo might make the difference between X1 and PS4 seem less significant. Er ... maybe.

MS need a strong "slim" product this year, I reckon, that they can price $50 below the PS4. I'd rather they brought a reticle stretching monster console next Christmas than basically a "Microsoft Neo" (Meo?) this year. That'd keep things far more exciting and make the internets really brilliant to read.
 
function said:
I think Sony will dominate this year (and forever after?), but PS4K may be more about security for Sony than causing another great spike in their already monstrous sales.

In a way, Neo might make the difference between X1 and PS4 seem less significant. Er ... maybe.

MS need a strong "slim" product this year, I reckon, that they can price $50 below the PS4. I'd rather they brought a reticle stretching monster console next Christmas than basically a "Microsoft Neo" (Meo?) this year. That'd keep things far more exciting and make the internets really brilliant to read.
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It will certainly bring the tech talk back to this part of the forum, it's been everything but as of late sadly. Would love to get into the GPU side of these forums, but I operate at the top of the Empire State Building and most of those guys are talking about stuff 10 KM below sea level.
 
function said:
MS need a strong "slim" product this year, I reckon, that they can price $50 below the PS4. I'd rather they brought a reticle stretching monster console next Christmas than basically a "Microsoft Neo" (Meo?) this year. That'd keep things far more exciting and make the internets really brilliant to read.
Click to expand...

Somewhat I agree that they need a really cheaper slim model in order to increase their userbase.

But IMO a late to the party Uber-box would be a terrible idea against an entrenched Sony ecosystem, It´ll be around 60 millions by then. I didn´t work for Ms with OXbox.

The difference in power would be too great (6/8TF box), games would run awfully on Xbox One, or additional power would be wasted.

As an enthusiast I would be a first adopter though
 
function said:
Personally I don't see why why releasing Neo at the end of this year is good for Sony, but releasing (potentially) next year for MS would be bad. They could both pull off successful hardware launches.

A year later would mean better yields on 14nm (so potentially a more complex chip), the option of Zen to massively increase CPU performance, HBM2 and GDDR5X moving off the drawing board and into products, and fast and sizeable SSD caches becoming practical and cost effective. It's a veritable candy store of new technologies becoming available that could greatly increase performance from storage up.

There's also no reason that MS have to ditch X1 as their entry level product - as iroboto says, they're bringing W10, UWP, DX12 to X1.
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Well Sony has the momemtum a big one, MSFT has been keeping up by pouring money in the US market. Now if Sony manages to offer a higher end experience it is pretty clear that there is no much left for MSFT to rebound on. The combined PS4 userbase will be enormous, their traction on publisher enormous, pretty a brand is set to have a dominance on the market we have not seen in a while.
It is somehow damn simple, a lot of time in fight it comes to down to whoever land the first hit, but if you have the heavier/tougher guy to hit first well it is not complicated to guess how the odds and outcomes are to evolve. The situation here is worse it is not the beginning of the match.

Imho MSFT is better off launching something really new later on. They could announce it pretty early while promising continued XB1 support, so they do not further damage their brand. Either way they try to undercut Sony and their own offering with a more barebone system.
 
I reckon MS should go for a Xbone slim, possibly with just HDMI 2.0 and improved wifi. ( i think they are already tho not sure about hdmi 2.0)
and then next year introduce Xbox Two (X2) with full backwards compatibility with all XBone games, but significantly upgraded internals.
Basically waiting until HBM2 is viable in a console, and taking advantage of that to get more GFX power out of a box with less watts.

I've always thought that if MS and Sony sort of split their release cycles, it would ensure that both of them would get to take alternating turns in being the leader / best Platform.
Maybe not the most profitable, but i would suspect less risk for both parties.
 
Michellstar said:
We really don´t know what he meant.
An XboxOne 1.5 would be PS4 base model power level, it would be still really low.

At fall, Xbox will be at the odd situation of being 3 times less powerful than its competition, this is really a tangible difference, if devs target this power level somehow, what are the choices for multiplats? 720p and terrible fps?

I mean, if Xbox matches whatever soc produces sony, It´ll be big leap as Spencer claimed.

The Xbox Slim it´s a given, there are those FTC leaks, but I´m afraid that Sony caught Ms with their "pants down" again... and if the Xbox next it´s delayed until next year, Ms gaming it´s doomed.
Click to expand...


But Sony has to keep supporting the PS4 as well. this will ensure XBO basically cant be left behind, the situation remains as now (some 1080P some not quite 1080P on XBO versions)

Quite a leap to say "MS gaming is doomed" when IMO PS4k is a bigger possible danger to PS4 than anything yet. No add on has ever succeeded. It will be interesting to see how consumers react, but one possibility is they shun both PS4 and 4K. Another is they just shun OG PS4 (sales could start slowing as PS4k release nears). It could also work out really well, but IMO that's hardly a given.
 
BTW, people often point to smartphones as some ironclad proof of the iterative model being superior, well, Sony just too a 9.4% profit write down on camera models because smartphone sales are slowing. So, the very idea this model is innately superior is questionable.

Sony Corp. said Thursday it has cut its group operating profit estimate for fiscal 2015 by 9.4 percent to ¥290 billion as it booked an impairment charge for the business that makes camera modules used in smartphones.

Given an expected decrease in demand for the parts amid globally slowing growth in the smartphone market, Sony set aside ¥59.6 billion to write down the production facilities and other assets of the division.
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http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/20...te-9-4-write-camera-module-unit/#.VxmuvvkrKUk
 
I don't recall anyone referencing smartphones as a superior model. The rate of upgrades and adoption has been ridiculous and expectations should be for that to slow down to a more normalised rate. The mobile industry is just used here to show iterative upgrades (on whatever cycle) work and are valued, and console's with clean breaks every gen are the complete outsider. Basically mobile tech is computer tech on an accelerated timeline, fitting into 10 years what PCs (and consoles) took forty years to manage.

If mobiles weren't so rapid, with new models every three years, we'd have a great console analogy. Upgrades would be plentiful, BC valued, significant interest in new models, old models still selling as entry level.
 
All these fast product cycles and forced obsolescence are just ways to deal with the over production and financing system. Without the constant demand they wouldn't be able to keep the whole production chain profitable and affordable. So trying to avoid that for consoles is imho futile.
 
Phones get upgraded every year. That may start to slow down and push out to 1.5 to 2 years. I think they've hit a point where a lot of people don't see any reason to upgrade their phones with the exception of planned obsolescence. Artificially killing old phones will piss people off, so I'm guessing the upgrade cycle will just slow down.
 
Smartphone market has been like the PC market of the 90's early 00's but even in a more compact timeframe. I think we will see smartphone market as reach the "there good enough" stage pretty soon.

With regards to consoles I don't think we ever see new versions released in less than 3 year gaps.
 
December 2015 french (sorry) interview of Julien Merceron (ex: technical director at Konami, now at Bandai namco).

http://www.gameblog.fr/news/58367-quand-julien-merceron-ex-kojima-prod-nous-parlait-de-la-ps4-

He was predicting short console iterative cycles, with PS4.1, 4.2 or 4.3 where gamers could play the same game with better graphics and better experience. A real seer. :LOL: Very interesting stuff. He talks about lots of other things (interview is 45mn long), his western and Japanese work experience, VR (notably summer lesson), augmented reality, new toys with AI, drones etc.

- The previously too long generation helped a lot mobile because unsatisfied consoles developers left consoles to mobile
- Consoles manufacturers have to adapt to shorter cycles because customers are used to short cycles (but still cross-compatibility) with mobiles and such.
- Shorter consoles cycles will help the industry and will allow cheaper prices.
- Each previous consoles generation began to zero and had to slowly build a new community, from 0 to 1 million, then 10 millions etc. But those are very small communities. When smartphone have communities of hundred millions.
- He is talking about some improved minor gameplay features, not only graphics. Like Cloud Azure stuff in Forza 5.
- he wanted a new (iterative) gen to be released in 2017.
 
One of the consequences of continuity in a platform is that you will be tied to old design and architectural mistakes. Legacy support holds potential advancements back. Imagine how much more advanced x86 could be if it didn't need to support continuity, or Windows, or iOS, or OS X--just scrap all the mistakes of their design and restart. In fact, Apple did break continuity in their OS when they switched to x86 and it was painful but necessary to move things forward. Same with Windows Phone multiple times. But it certainly isn't the norm for building a platform.

For the longest time, consoles were the only platform I can think of that regularly broke continuity. It seems the companies realized this and have decided it's not economically feasible any more. The real interesting time will be when the PS5 or whatever has both exclusive software, plus cross-compatible software and might even have some old games not work properly due to architectural changes. How Sony, MS, and Nintendo handles this type of messaging will be crucial to the success of multi-generational software.

I know people will point to PC's as examples, but I actually think they do a pretty poor job messaging what is compatible with what.
 
I think the hardware needs to be backwards compatible. X86 pretty much affords that now.
games don't have to be, after major console update i.e not a .5,
new games only need bc within that generation.

we already find that there is no longer a clean break like previous gens, look at how long cross gen games where being made.
 
turkey said:
Is that exactly what PS4 Neo is? No exclusive games allowed for it so tied to the PS4 lifespan.
Click to expand...

Not necessarily. I'm still hoping that when PS5 comes out, the games will run on PS4 Neo so it'll have something more like a 6-8 year life span. That's the argument whether it will be, or should be, forwards compatible.
 
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