Microsoft Xbox Reveal Event - May 21, 2013

[Gubbi]

I'm pretty sure it's been said and written countless times in the whole internet that the World plus Dog minus America doesn't care about that, making it a feature that's only meaningful to north americans and no one else.

That is just blatantly false. I care, all my collegues with Xbox/PS3 would care because they , like me use their consoles as much for Netflix, as a jukebox and for movie rental as they do for gaming.

And I *am* a core gamer.

Why is this so difficult to understand? It's not just the NFL that doesn't matter to non-americans. It's the whole TV watch + TV remote + TV whatever thingies that are completely uninteresting no matter what kind of stuff is coming out of the screen, to everyone minus americans.

No, the fact is, that you and the rest of GAF don't care.

That doesn't put me in the minority of weirdos, quite the opposite

BTW, japanese console launches were always about games and gamers IIRC.

But, consoles aren't just about games anymore. Sony presented PS4 and mentioned games, games, games. Gee thanks, didn't know it was going to play games.

We all know XB1 is going to play games and play them really well. What else does it offer ? ... A shit ton.

Come E3, and MS is going to show as big a commitment to games as Sony, then what will Sony do?

If Porsche only released a single new model or revision every 8 years, that's exactly what everyone would say about the company.

And Porsche wouldn't care, because Cayenne is responsible for two out of three sales, the rest made up of Boxster/Cayman, 911s and Panamera.

This is obviously not true and honestly a bit trollish as a statement.
Every single one of my console-playing friends admit to notice drastic differences between the games they see in my HTPC and same titles they play at home in a PS360.

Can they tell the difference between PS3 and 360 cross platform games ? Because that is the difference we will see between XB1 and PS4.

Cheers

 

[James Car]

the fact of the matter for me is... coming from 360 to Xbox One is an improvement of 8-10x power (+ Cloud)

There are devs lined up making games for this thing and the same games that will be on another machine. I am quite certain that my experience wil be quite satisfactory from a gamers perspective, especially since the IPs I enjoy will be there with me.

The only way I will lament the 33%power gap (if that's what it actually is when all factors are combined + cloud ESRAM etc) the ONLY way I could be disappointed is someone showing me a PS4 game running on an HDTV next to mine, or agonizing over DF reviews. Why would I do that if I like what I see already and enjoy the eco-system?


so bottom-line, most people won't care about that when they see the games they love (and new IPs) running on 8-10x the power of what they have now

Fair point WRT exclusive games, but honestly, Bungie isn't making Halo anymore (they are now multiplat) and Gears development seems to be shipped outside of Epic as well (with Cliffy B leaving to boot).

The vast majority of game franchises will be multiplat by virtue of their expense and need to recoup costs.

I speak as an xbox1 and xbox360 gamer here, I'll be jumping ship to ps4 as I've seen how MS has tapered off from their original vision. At the outset of the x360 generation there was much to be excited about wrt new exclusive content and ip, and much of it ended up multiplat eventually. Not to mention, it seems MS isn't the only one with exclusives and their architecture is more developer friendly.

All told, I'm not seeing a big reason to stay on a sinking ship.

Heck, the one thing I was expecting from MS was BC for the library I've built up over the past 8 years...

 

[ERP]

It would have been very difficult given the timing for MS to get game a lot of demos for the event.
If you've never gone through it, it's hard to understand how much effort goes into preparing polished looking demo months before you ship. And how distracting to the overall development process putting the demo together is.
I used to hate the month before E3, even with finished hardware and decent dev tools, never mind on unreleased hardware.
You're either taking 3 weeks off a dead line for the demo or asking a team to prepare 2 in a 3 week period.

 

[Gubbi]

You're going with anecdotal. I'm going with what people have said on this forum and others. Look back into the history of this forum, heck people didn't even see the different between Bioshock 360/PS3, a game that was heavily deficient on the latter. Don't take my word for it search this forum, no anecdotal examples necessary.

Heck, pick a recent example. Crysis 3 pushes 25 % less pixels on PS3 ; resolution is 11% lower and framerate is 10-20% lower on the PS3 at all times.

Unfair, I know, Crytek being lazy developers and all.

Cheers

 

[James Car]

And Porsche wouldn't care, because Cayenne is responsible for two out of three sales, the rest made up of Boxster/Cayman, 911s and Panamera.

Interesting perspective.

Taking this viewpoint and running it to it's logical conclusion, 911 would cease to sell as buyers look to alternatives which fill the void and thus production would cease as well. R&D for 911 which trickles down and makes the Cayenne special would stop as well, thus Cayenne becomes a commodity SUV and sales decline as it loses it's luster and allure which made people interested in the first place.

Eventually as revenue and profits fall, Porsche wakes up and reintroduces the 911 which isn't a half-assed sports car.

/rant

This concept of targeting everyone at the expense of diluting the product eventually kills the allure of the product. If the concept was build strength on strength, I doubt anyone would have a problem with a top notch console which is simply a ++ proposition as it does everything it should do well, AND a whole lot more. But that isn't the proposition. Their proposition was a calculated trade-off.

 

[Nesh]

It would have been very difficult given the timing for MS to get game a lot of demos for the event.

I dont think this is relevant to what really happened at the MS conference. It was a matter mostly of their priorities and the console design itself.

 

[fbomber]

You're going with anecdotal. I'm going with what people have said on this forum and others. Look back into the history of this forum, heck people didn't even see the different between Bioshock 360/PS3, a game that was heavily deficient on the latter. Don't take my word for it search this forum, no anecdotal examples necessary.




It was directed at everyone. If e3 was many months away then I'd agree that they should have extended it to 2 hours and covered everything in more detail. But with e3 so close there is no sense in them diluting their games message, leave that for the gamers show.

I have a high end PC and see a huge difference graphically between it and the consoles I have. So repeating this nonsense will not make it true. Besides, I really think that the 50% advantage in CU´s and double the ROPs PS4 have in comparison to the Xbone will be perceived easily.

And there is no need for this debacle: people like me, who spend lots of money in gaming and only care about the gaming capabilities of a console, may prefer the more powerful one, as it will bring a better experience, specially in multiplatform games. Other people may think otherwise.

 

[Gubbi]

Interesting perspective.

Taking this viewpoint and running it to it's logical conclusion, 911 would cease to sell as buyers look to alternatives which fill the void and thus production would cease as well. R&D for 911 which trickles down and makes the Cayenne special would stop as well, thus Cayenne becomes a commodity SUV and sales decline as it loses it's luster and allure which made people interested in the first place.

It's illogical conclusion.

People don't buy Cayennes because of 911 halo effect, they buy Cayennes because it is a high performance vehicle, that drives the kids to school too.

If Cayennes were watered down, people would buy Mercedes GL/GLKs or BMW's X1/3/5/6s instead, not 911s.

This concept of targeting everyone at the expense of diluting the product eventually kills the allure of the product. If the concept was build strength on strength, I doubt anyone would have a problem with a top notch console which is simply a ++ proposition as it does everything it should do well, AND a whole lot more. But that isn't the proposition. Their proposition was a calculated trade-off.

Everything is a trade off. By your rationale they should have sticked a 7970 in there with 8GB 7Ghz GDDR5 and a Core i7.

The didn't dilute the product. They have made it more valuable to me, and everybody else like me. 50% of my contacts on my phone has Skype as well. All communication with ex-pat friends is on Skype. I now get to control my TV by talking to it. I can record any game and post it on Youtube, and my daughter gets to use it too with the greatly improved Kinect 2.

What does Sony offer ? A faster PS2 with a share button.

Cheers

 

[Deleted member 13524]

That is just blatantly false. I care, all my collegues with Xbox/PS3 would care because they , like me use their consoles as much for Netflix, as a jukebox and for movie rental as they do for gaming.

And I *am* a core gamer.

And what exactly do you care for? Isn't the PS4 equally able to access Netflix?
You care for.. saying "XBOX, teeveee!" instead of pressing a button in a remote?

No, the fact is, that you and the rest of GAF don't care.

That doesn't put me in the minority of weirdos, quite the opposite

I don't have a gaf account, nor do I intend to.
So much about complaining about putting people into baskets, uh?

But, consoles aren't just about games anymore. Sony presented PS4 and mentioned games, games, games. Gee thanks, didn't know it was going to play games.

We all know XB1 is going to play games and play them really well. What else does it offer ? ... A shit ton.

Come E3, and MS is going to show as big a commitment to games as Sony, then what will Sony do?

Yes, we (gamers) expect gaming consoles to play games really well. We (gamers) don't really care about gaming consoles taking over our living room.

And Porsche wouldn't care, because Cayenne is responsible for two out of three sales, the rest made up of Boxster/Cayman, 911s and Panamera.

Porsche wouldn't care if it lost 1/3rd of its sales, even probably corresponding to much more expensive cars with a much higher profit margin than Cayenne?
Come on, you know that statement is absurd..

So why isn't Porsche cancelling all other cars then?

And now a tricky question: is Cayenne a good seller because it's a good SUV or because it's a Porsche that happens to cater to a different audience?
Is it being sold because the brand won hearts with their sports cars or because the the car itself is decent? Would the Cayenne sell as much if it was made by Opel?

Can they tell the difference between PS3 and 360 cross platform games ? Because that is the difference we will see between XB1 and PS4.

Cheers

You don't know that, I don't know that.
We both know that Microsoft isn't really focused on the gaming part, though.

For me, if the difference between xbone and ps4 is the difference between playing tomb raider with or without TressFX, then choosing the ps4 was already the best choice.

And I will advise all my less-tech-savvy friends to purchase a PS4 if they ask for a gaming console.

 

[James Car]

It's illogical conclusion.

People don't buy Cayennes because of 911 halo effect, they buy Cayennes because it is a high performance vehicle, that drives the kids to school too.

If Cayennes were watered down, people would buy Mercedes GL/GLKs or BMW's X1/3/5/6s instead, not 911s.



Everything is a trade off. By your rationale they should have sticked a 7970 in there with 8GB 7Ghz GDDR5 and a Core i7.

The didn't dilute the product. They have made it more valuable to me, and everybody else like me. 50% of my contacts on my phone has Skype as well. All communication with ex-pat friends is on Skype. I now get to control my TV by talking to it. I can record any game and post it on Youtube, and my daughter gets to use it too with the greatly improved Kinect 2.

What does Sony offer ? A faster PS2 with a share button.

Cheers

You missed the point. If Cayennes are watered down, Porsche would now not only have lost their 911 sales, but their Cayenne sales as well.

Same here.

And by my rationale, they should have at least budgeted a similar silicon die space as last gen, potentially more of they intended to go for a more standard AV rack format for the case. Especially if they intended to stretch the capabilities of the machine beyond just gaming.

As for the non-gaming stuff they're doing well, again I'm seeing nothing magical here that they are doing which isn't easily replicated by their competition.

 

[Gubbi]

....
So much about complaining about putting people into baskets, uh?
....
Yes, we (gamers) expect gaming consoles to play games really well.

So you're a gamer and I'm not ? So much about complaining about putting people into baskets, uh?

Porsche wouldn't care if it lost 1/3rd of its sales, even probably corresponding to much more expensive cars with a much higher profit margin than Cayenne?
Come on, you know that statement is absurd..

Car analogies are always absurd (hey, I didn't start it). Porsche isn't limited to one model every eight years, they can have as many as is profitable.

You don't know that, I don't know that.
We both know that Microsoft isn't really focused on the gaming part, though.

Right, because 15 launch titles with 8 new IPs shows a total lack of commitment.

Cheers

 

[Scott_Arm]

Don't know how people are making the assumption that Microsoft has totally abandoned their focus on gaming, or even significantly diminished it. If that were true, they wouldn't be going to E3 and they wouldn't have people working on exclusive games. On top of that, they wouldn't have released a box with vastly improved specs over the 360. There is far too much hardware in the box to come to that conclusion. This isn't the Wii, where they just did a slight bump to the previous gen. This isn't 360 and a half. It would have been easy to put out a tablet spec in a box and just sold games through the Windows 8 metro store, or whatever it's called.

 

[DJ12]

Right, because 15 launch titles with 8 new IPs shows a total lack of commitment.

Pretty sure they said within the first year not at launch.

 

[Charybdis]

I saw this article about how MS is using the cloud for graphic enhancements

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/05/how-the-xbox-one-draws-more-processing-power-from-cloud-computing/

Sounds interesting enough

 

[Scott_Arm]

Pretty sure they said within the first year not at launch.

Ok, but I don't really see how that invalidates his point. 15 exclusives targeted for the first year (rather optimistically, I'd say) is still a large commitment.

 

[ERP]

As for the non-gaming stuff they're doing well, again I'm seeing nothing magical here that they are doing which isn't easily replicated by their competition.

If their competitor chooses to do it.
FWIW UX is hard to get right, and software is very far from free.
I would expect that MS has invested a lot of man hours in that interface, and copying it would be an expensive proposition, I'd expect Sony to retain there focus on what they think is important in the space rather than trying to me too a UX.

I called MS's focus on the user experience before the reveal. I'm a little surprised we didn't see more on social integration, and I was expecting to see more game footage. But this presentation was pretty much what I expected and the specialist press and forum goer reaction to it is inline with what I'd expect too. What I'm most interested in is if it has any impact at all at launch, my guess is no.

 

[James Car]

Ok, but I don't really see how that invalidates his point. 15 exclusives targeted for the first year (rather optimistically, I'd say) is still a large commitment.

Yes it is. Especially if the $1B investment is a realistic number.

Sad that it will be hampered by mediocre hardware.

Maybe we will be surprised and the cloud compute assist is real (even if only for exclusives).

I'm certainly interested in seeing what they're cooking up, but at this point their showing would have to stand head and shoulders above the rest.

 

[Gubbi]

You missed the point. If Cayennes are watered down, Porsche would now not only have lost their 911 sales, but their Cayenne sales as well.

No, you missed the point. PS4 is 911, XB1 is Cayenne. As a sports car Cayennes are inferior to 911s, they are still vastly more popular.

And by my rationale, they should have at least budgeted a similar silicon die space as last gen, potentially more of they intended to go for a more standard AV rack format for the case. Especially if they intended to stretch the capabilities of the machine beyond just gaming.

Silicon isn't scaling down as fast as it used to. From 2005 until now we've gone from 90nm to 32/28, that's a factor of three, - area a factor of nine. This gen we're going to see a drop from 28nm to 20nm and perhaps 14nm in the lifetime of the products, that's less than half the drop in raw area. And each smaller node is more expensive per area, so cost reductions will be even less.

And the lower nodes won't be much higher performance/lower power per transistor (other than the one time shift to FinFet) so MS and Sony are basically stuck in the same power envelope for the duration.

As for the non-gaming stuff they're doing well, again I'm seeing nothing magical here that they are doing which isn't easily replicated by their competition.

Sure, they can replicate it by adding mandatory PSEyes to every console sold, add HDMI-in, reserve 3GB and 2 cores for running the software that they will develop.

Easy and cheap.

Cheers

 

[blakjedi]

Pretty sure they said within the first year not at launch.

15 exclusive titles within the first year of any console launch.. never mind firsty party titles is EXTRAORDINARY...

But it gets glossed over because they told us that the NFL (one of the top three sports industries on earth) has an EXCLUSIVE TIE UP with the console... I will tell you this. If MS really had balls and money they would have locked up Madden (made under excelusive license from the NFL by EA) exclusively on the ONE console for a year. It would be almost impossible to sell a PS4 to the average American gamer at that point.

Nevermind that for all the sturm and drang over the NFL tie up, EA came out and discussed FIFA (which means absolutely nothing in America) first and foremost at this event.

I think if PS had either of those it would been "they really have a committment to gamers." MS has both and people are talking about abandoning ship. Its just all very weird.

I have never seen Gubbi or joker454 like this. wow.

 

[expletive]

Ok, but I don't really see how that invalidates his point. 15 exclusives targeted for the first year (rather optimistically, I'd say) is still a large commitment.

15 first party exclusives, doesn't even include any other 2nd or 3rd party exclusives.

I will tell you this. If MS really had balls and money they would have locked up Madden (made under excelusive license from the NFL by EA) exclusively on the ONE console for a year. It would be almost impossible to sell a PS4 to the average American gamer at that point.

Something instinctively tells me that would lead to bad PR for Microsoft. Yeah it would make some people happy but i feel like it would have a very negative backlash with a lot of gaming and maybe even some mainstream press.