Middle Generation Console Upgrade Discussion [Scorpio, 4Pro]

[KirkSi]

I think Phil pretty much nailed it here. I believe the notion that your average gamer will simply buy multiple machines which by and large play the exact same games is complete fiction. I used to have multiple systems as well, but back in the PS2 days, I had all the time in the world, not to metion each system sported vastly different libraries. Besides offering a big-ass visual boost, there were plenty of other reasons for a PS2 owner to buy an Xbox. There are very few reasons for a PS4 owner to buy an Xbox One now, and I believe the same will hold true for a PS4 Pro vs Scorpio scenario. The average Joe already cares very little about the PS4 Pro improvements. And unless he owns a big-ass 4K screen, why the hell should he? Seriously, what's a machine with 2 additional teraflops gonna do for him? Sorry, but anything that has to pretty much be pointed out in side-to-side comparison stills isn't gonna sway masses of people.

I think with a lot more people (including myself) going digital people will be more invested in one side or the other and will be less likely to change. I agree with you that this isn't marketed at most PS4 owners. I know a lot of my friends list that were staunch 360 gamers went PS4 due to MS messing up the XB1 launch message. A few of those may come back to XBox if they like any of the differentiators i.e. backwards compatibility, EA Access, XBox Live and option of an Elite Controller. I think Scorpio is mainly aimed at keeping the XBox players they've got and possibly getting those that haven't upgraded from 360 to upgrade.

I would count myself as a definite XBox fan. Not a fanboy, but a fan. I bought the XB1 knowing that it was the weaker hardware, but I liked XBox Live more than PSN, I mainly play online shooters, not the single player story driven games PS are better at and I prefer the offset sticks on the controller. A lot of people like myself will order Scorpio Day 1. I've been wanting smaller hardware increments more often for ages. A 6 to 7 year lifespan is just too long. With PC hardware developing as fast as it is consoles get left in the dust and PC gamers start to complain that having to cater to consoles holds back PC games as well. I'm probably a perfect example of MS's target Scorpio audience. An XBox fan with a 4K HDR TV ready to go.

 

[Sigfried1977]

The exact same point applies to Xbox owners, absolutely no reason to buy a PS4 or 4Pro now.

Well, if I only had an Xbox One, I certainly would look at the 30+ PS4 exclusives which are supposed to come out this year with a bit of envy. Still, even if that isn't the case with you or any other Xbox One owner, my point still stands. As a matter of fact it's only being reafirmed: Contrary to popular internet wisdom, the people who buy every system under the sun are a tiny minority.

 

[mpg1]

I would count myself as a definite XBox fan. Not a fanboy, but a fan. I bought the XB1 knowing that it was the weaker hardware, but I liked XBox Live more than PSN, I mainly play online shooters, not the single player story driven games PS are better at and I prefer the offset sticks on the controller. A lot of people like myself will order Scorpio Day 1. I've been wanting smaller hardware increments more often for ages. A 6 to 7 year lifespan is just too long. With PC hardware developing as fast as it is consoles get left in the dust and PC gamers start to complain that having to cater to consoles holds back PC games as well. I'm probably a perfect example of MS's target Scorpio audience. An XBox fan with a 4K HDR TV ready to go.

This actually describes me pretty well. Except I didn't get an Xbox One (nor a PS4). I probably would have bought an Xbox One S but after hearing rumors/and announcements about Scorpio last year I figured I might as well just wait at this point.

Going from a Xbox 360 on a sub-1080p monitor to a Scorpio on a 4K monitor will be worth it right? Should be a massive leap for me.

 

[ProspectorPete]

Looking at Zen PC processors, there looks to be one with killer performance for a low price (the1600-something). I could see MS adopting some kind of steam machine platform in the future, even if Scorpio succeeds. It would run every Xbox Disc (loading assets off disc and downloading new executables), and windows as well, though UWP locked not to lose customers to steam or open source software. It would also function as a PC.

The future Xbox consoles could just be entry milestones for people who love console convenience.
Instead of middle generation upgrades to close a gap, people could jump into the Xbox platform at any time. Would that make sense for them?

 

[mpg1]

Looking at Zen PC processors, there looks to be one with killer performance for a low price (the1600-something). I could see MS adopting some kind of steam machine platform in the future, even if Scorpio succeeds. It would run every Xbox Disc (loading assets off disc and downloading new executables), and windows as well, though UWP locked not to lose customers to steam or open source software. It would also function as a PC.

The future Xbox consoles could just be entry milestones for people who love console convenience.
Instead of middle generation upgrades to close a gap, people could jump into the Xbox platform at any time. Would that make sense for them?

Why? Xbox is Microsoft's "steam machine".

Like I said before...consoles have been better at becoming PC's than PC's have been at becoming consoles. Which is why I think Microsoft is smarter trying to flank from a console perspective onto PC than Valve was trying to flank console gaming from a PC perspective. I think Scorpio will be a pretty strong trojan horse to bolster gaming on windows store/windows 10.

 

[turkey]

This actually describes me pretty well. Except I didn't get an Xbox One (nor a PS4). I probably would have bought an Xbox One S but after hearing rumors/and announcements about Scorpio last year I figured I might as well just wait at this point.

Going from a Xbox 360 on a sub-1080p monitor to a Scorpio on a 4K monitor will be worth it right? Should be a massive leap for me.

When you say monitor....

Most 4k monitors I have seen need display port (1.3?) To get over 30Hz/fps. HDMI on these has been limited to 1.4 which supports 4k for blu ray ie 24, 25 and 29.99Hz/fps but you will find a console refuses to use it for 4k as it will push for 60Hz sync.
There are as far as I can see no hdmi2.0 to dp convertors.

 

[mpg1]

When you say monitor....

Most 4k monitors I have seen need display port (1.3?) To get over 30Hz/fps. HDMI on these has been limited to 1.4 which supports 4k for blu ray ie 24, 25 and 29.99Hz/fps but you will find a console refuses to use it for 4k as it will push for 60Hz sync.
There are as far as I can see no hdmi2.0 to dp convertors.

what seriously? there are no 4K monitors with HDMI 2.0??

 

[DuckThor Evil]

There are plenty of 4K monitors with HDMI 2.o and more to come, but not nearly all of them, so check before you buy.

 

[Globalisateur]

Obviously they've said very little about the Scorpio CPU so it's an area for a lot of speculation at the moment. The most relevant (but very vague) thing they've said is with regards to their overall hardware philosophy, in that it's been designed around balance. At the moment this is the only statement that leads me to believe that they must have gone with a more powerful CPU (not Jaguar) to balance out the considerable jump in GPU power.

They said the same about the XB1.

If they had gone for a Zen CPU they would have already said it. And now they must know what CPU is inside Scorpio if they want to sell it this year.

Best bet is Jaguar (or Puma) at ~2.5ghz or so.

 

[mpg1]

There are plenty of 4K monitors with HDMI 2.o and more to come, but not nearly all of them, so check before you buy.

I thought so, but I haven't bothered to do much research on them and probably won't until I plan on buying Scorpio.

 

[mpg1]

Best bet is Jaguar (or Puma) at ~2.5ghz or so.

This is likely it.

 

[Jay]

They said the same about the XB1.

If they had gone for a Zen CPU they would have already said it. And now they must know what CPU is inside Scorpio if they want to sell it this year.

Best bet is Jaguar (or Puma) at ~2.5ghz or so.

I don't understand why people say that, why they don't understand that they have not given any specs out apart from the initial reveal/teaser, not about amount of memory, arch of gpu or cpu, nothing.

as for what you think the cpu will be, can definitely see that being the case

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Obviously they've said very little about the Scorpio CPU so it's an area for a lot of speculation at the moment. The most relevant (but very vague) thing they've said is with regards to their overall hardware philosophy, in that it's been designed around balance. At the moment this is the only statement that leads me to believe that they must have gone with a more powerful CPU (not Jaguar) to balance out the considerable jump in GPU power.

1) XBox One is a well-balanced system - http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-vs-the-xbox-one-architects
2) XBox One has 1.2 TF compute and ~ 200+ GB/s BW for GPU == 0.16 bytes per flop
3) Scorpio has 6 TF and 320 GB/s == 0.05 bytes per flop
4) This is less than XB1 which was claimed a balanced system, ergo Scorpio is not balanced in the RAM BW
5) If Scorpio is claimed a balanced system but clearly isn't balanced in RAM BW (based on reference balance of XB1), then claims of CPU balance may be similar to RAM situation.

You can also compare balance of TF to RAM amount and stuff. Basically, 5x increase in GPU, 1.5x increase in RAM amount (maybe 2x for what's actually available to games), 1.5x increase in bandwidth..CPU increase could be anything, but 1.5x increase wouldn't be out of place given rest of system improvements.

Conclusion - that statement means nowt!

 

[zupallinere]

1) XBox One is a well-balanced system - http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-vs-the-xbox-one-architects
2) XBox One has 1.2 TF compute and ~ 200+ GB/s BW for GPU == 0.16 bytes per flop
3) Scorpio has 6 TF and 320 GB/s == 0.05 bytes per flop
4) This is less than XB1 which was claimed a balanced system, ergo Scorpio is not balanced in the RAM BW
5) If Scorpio is claimed a balanced system but clearly isn't balanced in RAM BW (based on reference balance of XB1), then claims of CPU balance may be similar to RAM situation.

You can also compare balance of TF to RAM amount and stuff. Basically, 5x increase in GPU, 1.5x increase in RAM amount (maybe 2x for what's actually available to games), 1.5x increase in bandwidth..CPU increase could be anything, but 1.5x increase wouldn't be out of place given rest of system improvements.

Conclusion - that statement means nowt!

Also the proper CU Balance between compute and rendering has yet to be determined. It's a wonder if this thing works with all of unbalancing that may occur

 

[mpg1]

I think it's a little simplistic analysis to take the specs of an existing system and then extrapolate that each part has to increase at exact amount (ie 2X, 4X).

Maybe increasing GPU power at a greater percentage relative to CPU and memory is the more efficient console.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

The exact same point applies to Xbox owners, absolutely no reason to buy a PS4 or 4Pro now.

Robot. Dinosaurs.

 

[temesgen]

Robot. Dinosaurs.

The exclusives library is what matters to me most at this point, I think Sony needs to be more aggressive here btw. BC on XBOX platform is attractive, especially if Scorpio is delivering the best third party experience in a few months. Software gives the platform a personality that goes beyond power.

Sent from my SM-T700 using Tapatalk

 

[tuna]

Will be interesting when x1 has uwp kodi released.
Streaming, uhd blu-ray (inc hd pass through atmos etc), HDMI pass through, kodi, and games.
They have to market it as a games machine, but it's turning into a capable multimedia device also, they need to find a good way to get that across.

Will xbone kodi actually have HDMI sound pass through (DTS-HD etc), 24 fps output and h265 compatibility? Will it also have 3D output?

 

[Jay]

the thing with balance, it can be different depending on target.
Scorpio can be balanced with either jag or zen depending on their goals.
same fps, etc at 4k - jag higher clocked
higher fps and wanting to more straddle / blur generations - zen

if they thought wasn't a big graphical difference with upscaling x1 was balanced enough, just more at 900p/dynamic res etc.

 

[Jay]

Will xbone kodi actually have HDMI sound pass through (DTS-HD etc), 24 fps output and h265 compatibility? Will it also have 3D output?

I don't know, but I assume it will do, see little reason why it wouldn't. Unsure about 3d output though, does the x1 currently support 3d?
considering it was revealed by ms, I'm sure they will help them as much as possible, and make sure the relevant api's are available, I.e at least what x1 is currently capable of.