Middle Generation Console Upgrade Discussion [Scorpio, 4Pro]

[iroboto]

I recognise it may be subject to change, but I prefer to base my current thinkings on current information rather than possible future information. If the game list turns out to be very different from the one currently described, my view will change accordingly.

As for Gears being the X1 version, it's still a remake, no? Like the Uncharted Collection doesn't look a patch on Uncharted 4 because it's still based in last gen. If Gears is a current-gen super remake, then I'll retract that as an example and use one of the other games.

lol.
Yea you are correct lol.
But yea, i'll switch the example to Halo 5 then ;0) haha

on that very short list (11 titles), only
Halo 5, NBA2K16, and Mad Max are XBO titles.

so... yea that will be a little rough if this ratio keeps. 25% of games in game pass being XBO games is not ideal.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

The list of games looks to be mostly XB360 games running in BC mode. So I assume running Gears from Game Pass on your Scorpio will mean running a BC game rendered at 4K. If you feel XB360 launch game graphics rendered at super high resolutions is enough to look next-gen against modern engines with their gorgeous lighting and whatnot, we'll just have to disagree.

It's just currently the BETA list for people to test the system. They've also added Halo 5, recently I believe. The plan is currently for 100 titles at launch, and the BETA game list is far lower than that. It's going to be interesting to see just what the mix is going to end up being between X360 BC titles and XBO titles.

Regards,
SB

 

[goonergaz]

Well in line with my last comment, once again, I guess all of this leads back to Game Pass. MS has been making huge strides to reduce barrier to entry on their console. By E3, if we imagine every XBO title on Game Pass is announced to be 4K, EA Access game are all 4K, and then more 4K games coming. Someone can buy into scorpio pay $15 and have access to 130+ 4K games from the get go. With the additional benefit of now having access to Xbox exclusives as well as ensuring the best looking 3P games go forward.

Normally, I would agree with the idea of building into an ecosystem, but this really reduces that barrier and opens up an opportunity for people to catch up quickly (for being away from the platform for 3 years).

And so, I do believe that with proper marketing of game pass and Scorpio, and the right price point, I think you will see people (hardcore market) grabbing Scorpio possibly as a secondary console and just run with game pass or something (more price sensitive will stick with XBO). At the end of the day, MS has provided a great number of options to consumers that have never been available in the past, and so I'm not sure if the standard rules may apply as well as they once did.

I'm not saying that everyone is going to jump on board and go crazy, but if the game pass games are great, and they are scorpio patched, I could see some folks wanting to pull the trigger. The game pass is really effortless when compared to having to wait for sales and what not.

As for your final point. They could also wait for the next xbox after Scorpio -- buy game pass and have 100+ games at 4K ready to play ... I know they are older, but I mean, I assume a lot of those games will be 1P exclusives.

We all know the 1st year of a new generation launch, aren't really leveraging the power of that new console yet, new techniques need to be devised etc. So that first year may not be as big of deal as it once was. The market is certainly changing, if you're expecting a new console in 3 years ... peoples appetites to upgrade earlier will significantly drop.

I find the discussion around being deep into an ecosystem pretty interesting.
I've heard people say:
1. "well already invested into echo system, so not going to change"
2. "Well already invested in echo system and so won't change. Although I only play new games, old games don't interest me, I don't go back and replay them"

The second one is a bit contradictory. So they may feel heavily invested, but may actually be more open to switch than they first thought, given the right conditions.

The second group is more likely to be the hardcore gamer also. If that's a ps4 owner, would they keep the ps4 (if not already upgraded to a pro) for exclusives, and get a Scorpio for x1 exclusives and the better 3p games.
And as said for couple months could buy xgp to catch up on any exclusives they feel like playing.

A lot is really different than it used to be.

The problem with the ecosystem is it includes all aspects, not just games. Friends list, controller, and then within the games you may have a character that's taken 100 hours to get to where he is - are you going to upgrade to prettier graphics (that most can't even notice) and start those games again?

Another thing is that these gamers that must have the best version (if it really was that important to them) are already and into the PS ecosystem for 4 years by the time Scorpio comes out - that's a lot to just 'jump' from one to the other, if they haven't bought into XBox by now I doubt an (potentially) expensive machine that will be superseded in 2 or 3 years is that tempting.

 

[iroboto]

The problem with the ecosystem is it includes all aspects, not just games. Friends list, controller, and then within the games you may have a character that's taken 100 hours to get to where he is - are you going to upgrade to prettier graphics (that most can't even notice) and start those games again?

Another thing is that these gamers that must have the best version (if it really was that important to them) are already and into the PS ecosystem for 4 years by the time Scorpio comes out - that's a lot to just 'jump' from one to the other, if they haven't bought into XBox by now I doubt an (potentially) expensive machine that will be superseded in 2 or 3 years is that tempting.

That's something players will need to decide on their own. I'm not going to say everyone's got a price, there are always those who are loyal, but if the value proposition is good enough people will buy-in. Being able to achieve an instant backlog and you can buy new games onto your new hardware makes it feel as if you haven't lost out of not going with Xbox, there's barely a transition penalty between switching/to from PS.

games you may have a character that's taken 100 hours to get to where he is

if this is really important to to player, they'll just continue to play this series on PS. Most of these games will have sequels, and not all of these games will allow for character transfer. So they can start the sequel on Scorpio should they choose. 3 years is a lot of run way, that's a whole wave of games.

are you going to upgrade to prettier graphics (that most can't even notice) and start those games again

I think the parentheses are going to be very debatable. If there are reconstruction rendering techniques, there's going to be a sharp increase in graphical fidelity for Scorpio over 4Pro, PS4, and XBO. The additional RAM, bandwidth 2TF of compute coupled with DX12+ features like Conservative Rasterization, Volume Tiled Resources will create a large gap between Scorpio and the other platforms. I do agree that for many folks it will be a "I need to see it to believe it" ordeal, and that's fine. I just want to be straight forward with where I'm coming from. You can read some of my older posts on those subjects earlier in this thread, if Scorpio doesn't have CR, that would be a huge misstep, and that will end my scorpio hype for the most part. But if it does, which I'm fairly it does; you should not discount the amount of R&D (any amount of googling will show you) that has been brewing for CR based techniques since it's release in 2014. Then we get into lighting with volume tiled resources and we're talking about enabling a whole set of illumination as well.

I'll leave it to nvidia to explain it: https://developer.nvidia.com/content/dont-be-conservative-conservative-rasterization

 

[iroboto]

https://wccftech.com/amd-pinnacle-ridge-cpu-zen-2-core/

AMD’s Raven Ridge Arriving in 2H 2017 Will Feature Enhanced Zen Cores and Vega GPU Architecture
The roadmap also showcased Raven Ridge which is AMD’s new APU based on the Zen core architecture. AMD has stated that while Raven Ridge is the family name, all SKUs will be branded as Ryzen chips and will be heading for launch in 2H 2017. The old roadmap showed Raven Ridge as a 2018 product but that has changed. The roadmap also claims the possibility of Raven Ridge featuring enhanced Zen cores which could leverage from some enhancements that would later be adopted by the Zen 2 cores in the Pinnacle Ridge family.

On the GPU side, Raven Ridge will feature the brand new Vega GPU architecture. These small Vega cores would help boost the performance of integrated graphics processing on such chips. We can expect prices for these chips under the sub-$250 US range

AMD has also confirmed that Raven Ridge SKUs will have a range of quad core variants with SMT enabled (4 core/ 8 threads)

hmmm

 

[KirkSi]

https://wccftech.com/amd-pinnacle-ridge-cpu-zen-2-core/


hmmm

Nice. Still no confirmation that one will be in Scorpio, but does give a bit of hope at least. Also finally puts to bed discussion over that Lisa Su statement and what it meant!

 

[Shifty Geezer]

If nothing else it'll be interesting to see how a Raven Ridge APU PC can compete with consoles.

 

[ProspectorPete]

That could be in the scorpio; slap a bit of GDDR5 on it, some I/O, a BD-drive, HDD, PSU some cooling, a small case and there you have a sub 399 BOM Xbox 2

 

[iroboto]

If nothing else it'll be interesting to see how a Raven Ridge APU PC can compete with consoles.

@sebbbi 's dream? (if it supports DX12_0+) I think he's been asking for this in desktop format for some time now from Intel, regardless of power.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

If nothing else it'll be interesting to see how a Raven Ridge APU PC can compete with consoles.

..depending on TDP you mean?

Raven Ridge has been described as 4-core Zen + 12-16 CU Vega in the AM4 format, and 4-core + 12 CU Vega in 4-35W mobile format.
I mean the "Vega" name never actually came up for the iGPU in roadmaps describing Raven Ridge, but they've been calling it "next-gen graphics" well after Polaris was released and Navi is too far off, so it had to be Vega.

I think mobile Raven Ridge's performance will depend whether it supports LPDDR4E or not. Otherwise it'll be severely bandwidth constrained.
That or HBM, though I saw rumors saying HBM will only be in the AM4 versions of Raven Ridge.

 

[MrFox]

That could be in the scorpio; slap a bit of GDDR5 on it, some I/O, a BD-drive, HDD, PSU some cooling, a small case and there you have a sub 399 BOM Xbox 2

You make the hundreds of million invested of product development sound like Lego.

 

[ProspectorPete]

It's not that hard if the APU is 'complete'.

I would guess software is where majority of the Xbox team money goes. It doesn't cost motherboard companies 100.000.000's of dollars to design a motherboard. if xbox 2 is big enough it will be even cheaper with regards to cooling, at least compared to PS4.

 

[iroboto]

It's not that hard if the APU is 'complete'.

I would guess software is where majority of the Xbox team money goes. It doesn't cost motherboard companies 100.000.000's of dollars to design a motherboard. if xbox 2 is big enough it will be even cheaper with regards to cooling, at least compared to PS4.

It would depend on a lot of factors, but most importantly how involved MS was in designing the APU.
The deals with AMD came in the 2B range IIRC.

XBO Controllers themselves cost 100 Million
http://www.polygon.com/2013/11/19/5...box-one-controller-protoype-danced-with-smell

Kinect was likely significantly more I imagine.

Anyway, 100 M is peanuts, if it only cost 100 M to get into the game, we'd have a lot more console manufacturers.

 

[BRiT]

Anyway, 100 M is peanuts, if it only cost 100 M to get into the game, we'd have a lot more console manufacturers.

Well that's why we have The Phantom and Steam Consoles, right?

 

[Rangers]

Anyway, 100 M is peanuts, if it only cost 100 M to get into the game, we'd have a lot more console manufacturers.

I imagine you could whip up a decent, PC like box for not that much. Basically what the alienware Alpha was, which was stocked in Wal Marts like a console. I am sure Alienware doesn't have the deepest pockets. The issue is of course everything else, software, exclusives, competing with 3 entrenched giants (ninty/sony/ms), loss leader hardware, etc.

 

[iroboto]

I imagine you could whip up a decent, PC like box for not that much. Basically what the alienware Alpha was, which was stocked in Wal Marts like a console. I am sure Alienware doesn't have the deepest pockets. The issue is of course everything else, software, exclusives, competing with 3 entrenched giants (ninty/sony/ms), loss leader hardware, etc.

I guess? lol not really a console when you are running Windows 10, installing geforce drivers and using a X360 controller. More like a well form factored PC designed for steam big picture mode.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Which kinda proves that point. It's far from just having hardware that makes a console. Cheap hardware that plays games, like Ouya, isn't the limiting factor preventing lots of players. It's the whole 'it's actually a real console with a real ecosystem and not a sad pretender who's going to die quickly' spirit of the machine that's needed. Regardless how much is spent on hardware, you'd need to be a big company to be taken seriously, so only Samsung or Apple and the like could actually give it a real shot. Doubt even EA or Ubisoft could pull off a new console. Oh, Sega could because of history.

 

[mpg1]

Possible shot of wifi chip for Scorpio...

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=231766795&postcount=8428

 

[Kaotik]

..depending on TDP you mean?

Raven Ridge has been described as 4-core Zen + 12-16 CU Vega in the AM4 format, and 4-core + 12 CU Vega in 4-35W mobile format.
I mean the "Vega" name never actually came up for the iGPU in roadmaps describing Raven Ridge, but they've been calling it "next-gen graphics" well after Polaris was released and Navi is too far off, so it had to be Vega.

I think mobile Raven Ridge's performance will depend whether it supports LPDDR4E or not. Otherwise it'll be severely bandwidth constrained.
That or HBM, though I saw rumors saying HBM will only be in the AM4 versions of Raven Ridge.

Actually AMD revealed it to be Vega ages ago, it's grouped with Vega 11, Vega 10 and Greenland in the OpenCL drivers for gfxip 9.x

 

[tuna]

Which kinda proves that point. It's far from just having hardware that makes a console. Cheap hardware that plays games, like Ouya, isn't the limiting factor preventing lots of players. It's the whole 'it's actually a real console with a real ecosystem and not a sad pretender who's going to die quickly' spirit of the machine that's needed. Regardless how much is spent on hardware, you'd need to be a big company to be taken seriously, so only Samsung or Apple and the like could actually give it a real shot. Doubt even EA or Ubisoft could pull off a new console. Oh, Sega could because of history.

I think all you need is good games that people want to play. I do not think Ouya provided that.