Mixed Information on Consoles or How I learned to loathe PR *spin off*

Dave Baumann said:
The answer concerning what TV you have is a generalistion - You have a 1080p TV then the likelihood is that its not worth you spending ~$200+ on the Scorpio solution because the majority of titles are not going to get benefits at that resolution. But does that mean every developer or title is going to behave that way? Probably not.
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Maybe you should be doing Microsoft's PR! But Im going to reserve judgement - or rather to try and ignore this issue - until the end of E3. No doubt he'll provide a clarification. Whether anybody will understand it, is another question.

Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory!
 
DSoup said:
Yet he said this to Eurogamer:

Phil Spencer: What TV do you have?

A standard 1080p TV.

Phil Spencer: Then you should buy this box, because Scorpio is not going to do anything for you. Scorpio is designed as a 4K console, and if you don't have a 4K TV, the benefit we've designed for, you're not going to see.​

Which I can only read as Scorpio is going to be the same games with the same effects but at 4K. Scorpio on a 1080p TV will be no better than Xbox One (or S). That's what he said! :runaway: :runaway: :runaway: :runaway: :runaway:

This is 100% of Phil Spencer's problem. What he says isn't what he means. Probably. Nobody fucking knows.
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When I said improving graphics any more than just upping resolution and other small tweaks wasn't going to be as trivial on current in-development games as many people though it was, nobody heard me. They were too busy daydreaming about fantastic next-gen games, and soft generation transition mere 4 years after XBO/ps4 release to think about real world economics of game development.
 
milk said:
They were too busy daydreaming about fantastic next-gen games, and soft generation transition mere 4 years after XBO/ps4 release to think about real world economics of game development.
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Yeah, I said the same in the Neo thread. Owners of the new sub-generation consoles should have realistic expectations of how much effort the average third party developer will spend on tuning for that new console with a relatively tiny install-base. The teams using really flexible and scaleable engines will probably adapt quickly but I simply don't see publishers paying developers to spend more time on optimising for two PlayStation targets and two Xbox targets. More likely is that the relative project time devoted to optimisation and tuning will stay the same and the timed resource will be split across more platforms.
 
I'm just surprised they haven't reveal it'll do your laundry for you too!

"Hey Cortana, launch Halo 5"
"Sure thing, I'll start your laundry now."
 
It's almost as if MS doesn't have a clear plan other than "sign an agreement with AMD for the next gen chips and announce the console early in order to take the legs out from underneath NEO and screw Sony."
 
BRiT said:
I'm just surprised they haven't reveal it'll do your laundry for you too!

"Hey Cortana, launch Halo 5"
"Sure thing, I'll start your laundry now."
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Couldn't turn my damn XB1 on yesterday for 30 seconds or so because I kept saying "Xbox on" and it wasn't working.
 
Scott_Arm said:
You don't feel like you're reaching a bit, making this more complicated than it is? From the same answer to the same question:
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I am reaching a bit, but that's because we had this happen before. "TR exclusively on xbox, holiday 2015" and we had people like you telling everyone to shut the fuck up "Can't you read? It's exclusive to xbox! Reading comprehension fail!". It was literally exclusive on xbox only during holiday 2015.

You absolutely could be right, and maybe they do have a TRC enforcing all games will be on XB1 and Sorepus for the lifespan of XB1, but the last 4 years of microsoft PR history shows you're the one jumping to conclusions. Phil did not said such a thing (yet).

So uh... do you honestly think all VR games on Scrapio will also work on XB1 at a lower resolution? There's a possibility he'll have to backtrack on his statement, because there might be exclusives on Scrupulo with an asterisk saying it's only because it's VR.

I'd love to get into a complex discussion about why this is important to me personally. But that's off topic.
 
As usual, all we have is today's answers. Subject to change or restriction without notice. Though in today's social media world, it should probably be this minute's answers.
 
Dave Baumann said:
Very. Because he doesn't have control over all the developers out there.
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But they do with their publishing control. If MS mandate no 1080p improved graphics and only 4k is allowed (downsampled), or the hardware is hard-wired to just render XB1 in 4k, then that's what the product will be.

The message for the developers and publishers...
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This thread is about the message to the consumers. ;)
Look, even the jump from XBox One to One S has exclusive features in terms of graphical fidelity and that is being promoted in MS's own titles!
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MS have said the improvements are only for HDR? Are to to believe that devs have the option to repurpose those improvements however they want, or are we to take MS at face value? If I don't have an HDR set, should I be interested in XB1S?

Scott_Arm said:
Also from the same Eurogamer interview. I don't know how any of this is confusing or contradictory:
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Because English is ambiguous (except for absolute statements) and can be read in different ways. Personally I read that quote as supporting exactly the notion that there won't be graphical improvements for 1080p. The talk is all about res and framerate. I have to reread it a few times to see suggestions of being an open target.

Is Phil being incredibly dishonest? No. Do you have to read what he's saying without reading it hyper-literally? Yes. He's trying to dumb it down and make the layman understand the Xbox One is not done and will still be a viable product going forward. Reading an interview start to finish usually helps.
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That's not true. If they wanted to keep it simple, they'd say, "there's 6 TF for devs to use however they want just ,ike any console, whether targeting 4K or better quality at 1080p. All we'll ensure is that the games are available on XB1 also and 4K is an supported resolution." Job done, everyone knows what's what. Of course that'd run the risk of affecting XB1 sales...
 
Only sith deal in absolutes. :unsure:

:devilish:

Shifty Geezer said:
But they do with their publishing control. If MS mandate no 1080p improved graphics and only 4k is allowed (downsampled), or the hardware is hard-wired to just render XB1 in 4k, then that's what the product will be.
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That didn't quite work out on 360 with 720p and MSAA. :p
 
MS execs are giving ambiguous answers simply because not even they have clear answers yet. They are not sure what Scorpio games are gonna be like yet. They are waiting to see how the first dev experiments turn out, and to see how psneo games are handled. They will have better defined priorities to encourage devs to hit ( better fps/ 4k/ better egfects ) once all that has matured, and MS has a clearer market strategy to position scorpio.
 
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AlNets said:
That didn't quite work out on 360 with 720p and MSAA. :p
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TRCs are like politician pledges: nice in theory. :yep2:

Sometimes you have to accept the reality and if Microsoft had kept that policy, a lot of games would very likely have been much worse due to more severe compromises in other areas.. Correcting a policy that really couldn't work was smart. Doggedly maintaining it would have been a bad decision.
 
http://www.wired.com/2016/06/xbox-vr-scorpio-phil-spencer/

Oh my god, in this interview Phil Spencer says VR games for Scorpio will be exclusive to Scorpio because there's no VR on Xbox One. He lied! How will I ever trust him again?! Even though Xbox One wasn't getting VR, I thought they'd force the devs to make non-VR versions of the games that wouldn't make any sense, because he said Scorpio wouldn't have exclusives!
 
Scott_Arm said:
http://www.wired.com/2016/06/xbox-vr-scorpio-phil-spencer/

Oh my god, in this interview Phil Spencer says VR games for Scorpio will be exclusive to Scorpio because there's no VR on Xbox One.
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So there will be MAUs left behind!? :mrgreen:


He lied! How will I ever trust him again?! Even though Xbox One wasn't getting VR, I thought they'd force the devs to make non-VR versions of the games that wouldn't make any sense, because he said Scorpio wouldn't have exclusives!
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Lied - no. He's a salesman. And like most salesmans, I'll wave you down when I need you... or not.
 
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