So people who have and use the kinect have worse performance? Unclear on how this would work.
Kinect-less XB1 fallout thread *spawn
- Thread starter Shortbread
- Start date
- Status
So people who have and use the kinect have worse performance? Unclear on how this would work.
Except they're now making Kinect a liability. Use Kinect and get a worse game experience. That's probably better for the XB1 as a games platform, but Kinect can't really be much deader than as something you attach to your console and drain its framerate. It'll become more like EyeToy. I suppose there'll be those who run the XB1 based on the original vision and value the use over the performance gains of removing Kinect, but the idea of Kinect-enhanced games is well and truly over.
I assume the only way is some kind of clear delineation now that "THIS GAME WILL NEVER USE ANY KINECT" (or allow any Kinect commands??) versus "This game will". Go the former route and you're afforded more power.
I guess, thinking, that could have been done just as well when Kinetic was mandatory. More likely this is something that was ongoing and Mehdi simply was asked about it now, rather than actually related to dropping Kinect from an SKU.
I agree though I didn't think of your statement. This small statement was said to Polygon and then picked up and even more salaciously titled by Eurogamer.
Thinking, it's probably just their already announced efforts to reduce Kinect overhead rather than anything new.
I guess, thinking, that could have been done just as well when Kinetic was mandatory. More likely this is something that was ongoing and Mehdi simply was asked about it now, rather than actually related to dropping Kinect from an SKU.
I agree though I didn't think of your statement. This small statement was said to Polygon and then picked up and even more salaciously titled by Eurogamer.
Thinking, it's probably just their already announced efforts to reduce Kinect overhead rather than anything new.
If Microsoft can go to 349 USD easily if needed they wouldn't have sold it at 500 USD in the first place.
So you dismiss what I say and then agree with me that Sony may match the Xbox One price. Huh?
As with the Xbox One, PS4 will cut prices whenever they deem it required.
Right now with healthy sales and good public perception there's little need to do any of that, and thus, the unreasonableness of a price cut. You don't price cut your console that just ended it's supply restraint phase about a month or two ago.
You however, DO price cut your console that is overstuffing the channels to clear inventory.
We're also forgetting that Sony is very skilled at cost cutting an existing design, and the next iteration that may come out in oh, 1 to two years may be much cheaper to manufacture than this iteration.
We dont know what Kinect 2.0 cost. Especially initially. Arguably somewhere around $100-$150. But which? We also dont necessarily know how much money any company is making or losing on any console. However, we can think about it reasonably as well.
PS4 without Kinect should cost to build about as much as X1 without Kinect, really it should cost more, but certainly no less.
That is why I say the next price drop will either come from only MS (if they are still struggling in sales), or it will be a tandem move where one follows the other (if X1 sells well enough), in 1-3 years. Or, even more likely, it will come in certain SKU's with removable of the optical drives eventually.
We aren't going to get a node shrink for a while, $299 is likely a pretty intractable target for now and it's the next meaningful cut. So i would guess they stick at 399 for a good while, with the possibility of X1 going to 349/449 in the shorter term (but still like 1 year from now) if it doesn't sell enough at 399.
Why? As I see it, PS4 and XB1 are basically the same components with the major differentiator being DDR5 for PS4 and a larger SoC for XB1. I don't know which costs more, nor which will price-drop faster, but I imagine Sony will get cheaper GDDR5 before MS gets a cheaper SoC.
We aren't going to get an SoC node shirnk any time soon, but GDDR5 price should keep falling, so Sony should be in a technically cheaper sport sooner, I guess. However, there's nothing stopping MS selling at a loss, which is something Sony can't afford to do, so we could see a forced price drop on XB1 before PS4 for competitive advantage. Price is about the one place MS can compete with a notable advantage.
upnorthsox
Veteran
I don't see any reason to expect a node shrink for cost savings:
That said, there's case that can be made for a slim shrink. It just won't deliver much savings.
That said, there's case that can be made for a slim shrink. It just won't deliver much savings.
I don't see any reason to expect a node shrink for cost savings:
Do those charts factor in yields? Both PS4 and X1 SOC's are very large and with a shrink, the smaller chips should yield much better (on a mature process) so even if cost per gate is more, you may be able to get substantially more usable chips of a wafer so the net cost maybe less.
I would say the net cost savings (or lack of) is probably very design specific. It might not make sense to shrink a small chip that's yielding very well to a smaller process, but as chip size increases I think it makes sense to do so.
Just WOW. First of all kudos to MS for giving consumers a choice and let the consumers determine the value as opposed to pushing things on to them. It's almost always better to draw a consumer to you as opposed to pushing them especially when your competition is drawing as opposed to pushing. Apple got away with it but very few other tech companies can. Decoupling the kinect and moving normally free services out from the behind the paywall are good ideas at the end of the day.
Seems obvious that MS is in the business of selling XBOnes as opposed to kinects and by extension selling or more specifically keeping Live subscriptions. There may have been a ceiling on Gold subscriptions but if folks went the Sony route eventually the network effect would not be on Microsoft's side as time went on. Better to stop the bleeding now rather that wait till November or next year to make those hard decisions. MS management took a look at those March sales for NA and projected sales and had no choice going forward.
We will have to see what the numbers are in by say July or maybe even August but I think they will do ok at $399 for now. Dat 100 Dollars was just too much. It might be a weaker console but the exclusive xb1 games are going to look just fine and the multiplats will look good enough for many of the cost conscious consumers. I also think that there will be bundles galore going on with the XB1 so that it will be like a $350 dollar console if you want the game. They might not have sold all of the TF bundles they wanted but it also probably wasn't a failure either.
The big thing is what about that BD-less sku ? A motherboard rework for all skus and a smaller XB1 Live Edition for $329 come this Christmas or maybe a little later ?? That would sell just fine I would think.
Seems obvious that MS is in the business of selling XBOnes as opposed to kinects and by extension selling or more specifically keeping Live subscriptions. There may have been a ceiling on Gold subscriptions but if folks went the Sony route eventually the network effect would not be on Microsoft's side as time went on. Better to stop the bleeding now rather that wait till November or next year to make those hard decisions. MS management took a look at those March sales for NA and projected sales and had no choice going forward.
We will have to see what the numbers are in by say July or maybe even August but I think they will do ok at $399 for now. Dat 100 Dollars was just too much. It might be a weaker console but the exclusive xb1 games are going to look just fine and the multiplats will look good enough for many of the cost conscious consumers. I also think that there will be bundles galore going on with the XB1 so that it will be like a $350 dollar console if you want the game. They might not have sold all of the TF bundles they wanted but it also probably wasn't a failure either.
The big thing is what about that BD-less sku ? A motherboard rework for all skus and a smaller XB1 Live Edition for $329 come this Christmas or maybe a little later ?? That would sell just fine I would think.
upnorthsox
Veteran
Yes pretty much, take your yield improvements and be happy.
upnorthsox
Veteran
Its at a cost per gate comparison which means for a chip shrink where your gate count doesn't change its a fair comp across nodes. Its saying a 5B gate chip is going to cost you $46 on 28nm, $67 on 20nm, and $78.50 on 16nm in 2017. That might be a bit too conservative but the trend is definitely no longer your friend.
Improvements in process yields look to be ok though, but then that may all go to AMD as part of how they profit from the contract.
Some resources were reserved for kinect alright. But were they reserved for use in games or were they reserved for the non gaming functions such as voice commands and gestures to control your console? If its the latter I wonder how on earth they are going to implement the "freeing of the resources". So I plug in the Kinect and some resources are reserved for Kinect functions at the expense of game performance and when I unplug it they go back to the game? Will it mean reducing kinect functionality i.e I wont be able to use voice commands and gestures to exit a game or go to another application seamlessly when gaming? Or were some of the resources reserved as a coushion for some future plans related to the Kinect? I dont know but if its the first two it is a very bad solution
D
Deleted member 11852
Guest
Not specific to this thread but I do wonder how dependant both Sony and Microsoft are on AMD for die shrinks, i.e. whether this is something they themselves can lead on and arrange with fabs or if it requires AMD involvement.
I think AMD have to make the chips.
The description of how AMD is being paid indicates they are selling the APUs to the console makers.
AMD's involvement looks to be a requirement going forward, and it might be a false economy to cut out the company with the most experience with physical implementation.
The RROD was a case where Microsoft did the initial packaging work, and the fix at least in part involved pulling the experts back in. Replumbing the chip or shrinking it is another level complexity.
AMD's involvement looks to be a requirement going forward, and it might be a false economy to cut out the company with the most experience with physical implementation.
The RROD was a case where Microsoft did the initial packaging work, and the fix at least in part involved pulling the experts back in. Replumbing the chip or shrinking it is another level complexity.
RancidLunchmeat
Veteran
It can't be. The One was built on a number of promises, first and foremost was Kinect and that by including it in each box the package would standardized and developers would know they could incorporate it into their games - hell, MS went so far as to make some sort of Kinect functionality mandatory, didn't they?
But everybody knew that MS would have to push out some real good first party titles to demonstrate the usefulness of Kinect in gaming situations. We had reason to hope, because there were numerous news stories about remarkable Kinect deployments in non-gaming situations.
Killing Kinect is the admission that the entire design of the One was flawed from the start and that there are no games on the horizon. It is worthless in terms of gaming, it'll never be more than a very expensive remote control, so MS killed it because they believe price is where they are losing the battle.
And they did this apparently without realizing that price isn't the only place they are losing the battle, they are continuing to lose the general PR battle and each cross platform release pushes them farther and farther away from parity with the PS4.
D
Deleted member 11852
Guest
Microsoft's corporate war chest may be substantial but that doesn't necessarily mean Satya Nadella will allow the Xbox Division to dip in to subsidise its operations. We know Sony's gaming division had a good year except for the costs of launching PS4 which resulted in an overall loss and I assume Microsoft's Xbox Division will have faced similar launch costs, if not more because of Kinect 2 - not to mention being part of the Devices division that had to write off a ton of Surface tablets last year. So throwing more money to "win" a market unless you have guaranteed returns, is probably not something that a CEO would just sign off on.
The fact that removing Kinect has actually happened so soon could mean that Microsoft's senior management have already decided not to underwrite more losses and this was the only option available to the Xbox team.
Being part of Microsoft doesn't mean you have all of Microsoft's assets and resources at your disposal - especially when it comes with a literal dollar cost attached
That's what I was thinking when Dave first mentioned that. If those reservations are removed, essentially MS is gimping Kinect original purposes. What does 10% really net, another 4-6fps in most real world cases?
Shortbread said:
RancidLunchmeat
Veteran
Umm... It is actually the same thing as the DRM situation, only you've got it completely wrong.
The people who are irritated about killing off Kinect are the same people who were irritated about MS backing off their original revolutionary vision of an internet DD console, and all the freedoms and restrictions that went with that.
Sure, there were Sony fans who kept saying "Remove the DRM, the constant need for a connection, get rid of Kinect, reduce the price and I'll consider it" Yet those people were never going to buy the console anyway, because those are now the same people saying "Where's the value in a $399 Xbox when I can get a $399 PS4 that is more powerful?"
And, as I've asked in this thread and others have answered, the only reason to get one is that you have a 360 and Live Gold and don't want to lose that. So it's worth it to that group of people to buy the lesser console at an equal price.
Which is all fine and dandy, but if that is what they've restricted their potential buyers pool to, then they might as well have stuck with their original vision because every Live Gold member would have qualified.
- Status
