MS releases Xbox One S All Digital edition (No Optical Drive)

[turkey]

this console is for the consumer who is heavily connected and its totally into the subscription/game pass/streaming lifestyle. They already have heavy backbone lines, and they're comfortable with having large external hard drives. They don't need to borrow games because they can buy them all online.

That actually makes me think, what if it is also aimed at a second console for families. Gold shares across devices, they could make a further game share push as per their initial E3 showing to allow whole house sharing.

We have the rumor of physical to digital which is near enough the digital resale process with a twist, add game sharing the exiatance of game pass and growing games with gold libraries and a cheap price and I can see it being quite tempting

 

[Jay]

No, this console is for the consumer who is heavily connected and its totally into the subscription/game pass/streaming lifestyle. They already have heavy backbone lines, and they're comfortable with having large external hard drives. They don't need to borrow games because they can buy them all online.

So one has to ask if Xbox One is carrying over into next generation because that would reduce the risk/impact severely to the buyers. The other thing that we have to ask is whether this device will also be a 'streaming' device.

I agree, that's one of the reasons I said I believe they should release a 1X discless sku also, not just for the budget/entry market.

lastly, I would ask what is the true nature or purpose of this device? When they launched 1S, they upgraded the clocks as a proof of concept for compatibility for upgrading clocks on X1X approximately a year in advance and we see there are no issues.

Hopefully they use the same methodology they developed for the 1X they said they used to test compatibility, rather than putting it out on the market and see what happens.

Is this disc-less SKU a proof of concept for launching disc-less for next gen right off the bat?
And weren't we all in agreement that MS is desperately trying to get away from Xbox One because of the negative press? Why continually invest? This would be their 3rd SKU of this generation, and that can't be cheap.

Are you saying you don't think there will, or should be discless version? That's more than a valid question and point of view.
It could be cheap if all they do is remove the UHD drive and not redesign anything else. If their desperate to get away from the Xbox one brand then you would want to get the sku out sooner rather than later, when the marketing and message overlaps (pollutes) the next Xbox even more.I personally haven't seen them trying to get away from the Xbox one brand personally though, but I know that is a lot of peoples views.
The longer you leave it, the more different messages you will have to explain, instead of separate messages at different times. If the leak is correct of cause.

Then we have the whole disc-to-digital trade in portion that's a new box of worms. There are a lot of communications and moving parts here and being able to market and tell that story correctly is paramount.

Yep, when it comes to communication I have no confidence in MS to be fair.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

How do they get away from the Xbox brand without renaming the thing something other than Xbox and confusing everybody? "I can't believe it's not Xbox"??

 

[Jay]

How do they get away from the Xbox brand without renaming the thing something other than Xbox and confusing everybody? "I can't believe it's not Xbox"??

It's the Xbox one brand that people thought was toxic, not xbox

 

[Shifty Geezer]

It plays Xbox One games. It's an Xbox One. What else would it be called that'll distance itself from the current gen machine while also being a current gen machine? Xbox One is here to stay until the next gen.

 

[Jay]

It plays Xbox One games. It's an Xbox One. What else would it be called that'll distance itself from the current gen machine while also being a current gen machine? Xbox One is here to stay until the next gen.

I'm not sure if anyone is suggesting differently? (I'm not, that's for certain)

I do remember the conversation around the 1X though, if they should just drop the word one at the time, as it was considered by many as being toxic.

I'm unsure if the toxic name is why @iroboto thinks a discless version might not launch, and just go into next gen.
But if it comes out it will be called Xbox one.

I think the market is smart enough now to understand a digital only device pretty easily.

 

[iroboto]

That actually makes me think, what if it is also aimed at a second console for families. Gold shares across devices, they could make a further game share push as per their initial E3 showing to allow whole house sharing.

We have the rumor of physical to digital which is near enough the digital resale process with a twist, add game sharing the exiatance of game pass and growing games with gold libraries and a cheap price and I can see it being quite tempting

That could be a subset of targets likely there is a larger target in general. Like cable cutters as being the main audience. I’m not actually convinced this is yet a thing. At least there isn’t enough information on it yet for me to change my mind.

 

[iroboto]

Are you saying you don't think there will, or should be discless version? That's more than a valid question and point of view.
It could be cheap if all they do is remove the UHD drive and not redesign anything else. If their desperate to get away from the Xbox one brand then you would want to get the sku out sooner rather than later, when the marketing and message overlaps (pollutes) the next Xbox even more.I personally haven't seen them trying to get away from the Xbox one brand personally though, but I know that is a lot of peoples views.

I’m not sure is more or less what I’m saying.
Usually when I look at the reasons why a company does something, i look at why they should do it, not why they shouldn’t. And I’m still sort of struggling to see why they should do it. Cost reduction is, as Albert says, 50% cost reduction in parts may only lead to 15% for the consumer. Removing the Blu ray will cause what to happen ?

So I’m not exactly yet convinced. It works in then mobile space. I get that. But isn’t that what streaming is supposed to solve?

If we are looking for a portable Xbox laptop I get that as well. But that’s not what is being discussed.

Unlike laptops and mobile devices consoles can afford to be large. At least in the sense that they can afford a disc player. I don’t see the cost savings as monumental enough to become a low enough price point for people to buy in. I mean people who don’t have money borrow games not trade them in for a digital code so that you can’t return it. None of this quite makes sense to me nor can I draw a line to next gen.

If this device were different somehow, like a home speaker of sorts, voice assistance with speaker and an Xbox. I get that a bit more.

But that’s not what is being announced. A slimmer Xbox doesn’t make sense to me unless you managed to hit $150 MSRP.

The marketing costs, heck how much time will it take at E3 to present this box? It’s jusy costly imo. I can’t say I believe this rumour just yet.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

PS2 Slim sold gangbusters, even to existing PS2 owners because it was so dinky. A super dinky XB1 is valuable in multiple ways, such as a second console as already suggested. If there's a cost-reduced mobo and the choice is either an XB1 revision that's cheaper, or a new super-slim disc-less, extra cheap model, the latter gives a new price-point for those just wanting to play games instead of 4Kmovie playback (a box that also plays streamed movies anywhere).

I think that's a good idea. I don't know if it's better to include the drive or not, but removing the drive means less components and less size with net gains all down the production > shipping > selling chain. It'll be the cheapest current gen gaming box to collect the laggards ahead of next gen and hopefully secure their future subscriptions with various MS services.

 

[Jay]

Usually when I look at the reasons why a company does something, i look at why they should do it, not why they shouldn’t. And I’m still sort of struggling to see why they should do it. Cost reduction is, as Albert says, 50% cost reduction in parts may only lead to 15% for the consumer. Removing the Blu ray will cause what to happen ?

That's one of the reasons, I also suggested not to redesign anything, no development costs etc. Although, as Shifty pointed out a smaller, cheaper one could do really well. I'm just unsure if the cost of developing it is worth it as Albert highlighted.

I think that's a good idea. I don't know if it's better to include the drive or not, but removing the drive means less components and less size with net gains all down the production > shipping > selling chain. It'll be the cheapest current gen gaming box to collect the laggards ahead of next gen and hopefully secure their future subscriptions with various MS services.

Although I do agree with this, I also believe a cheaper all digital 1X could do very well also.
Also thinking back around the discussions on what the price of the 1X would be when it came out.

 

[BRiT]

It plays Xbox One games. It's an Xbox One.

It plays Original Xbox games. So its an Original Xbox?
It plays Xbox 360 games. So its an Xbox 360?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

If you call it an Original Xbox, people will think it can't play Xbox One games.
If you call it an Xbox 360, people will think it can't play Xbox One games.

What do you call your box so people know when there's an advert for an Xbox One game on TV or a web-page, it'll play on this new box? An XBox One (something). The name cannot change from XB1 unless you want to distance yourself from the existing library and user install base.

 

[MrFox]

Supposing their objective is to have the lowest cost of entry for an eventual service competing against psnow, they can put a simple os-only drive, remove the hdmi in, no optical, external psu, remove a usb port, simplify the MB a lot.

Since they will fill server racks with console hardware, developing a 7nm for a super-slim xb1 is still a good investment since it would be the same chips in the racks. Maybe they can fit 16 of those per 1U.

 

[mrcorbo]

I don't think a disk-less XB1X would sell enough volume to justify the cost of developing and supporting the additional SKU. The value of the rumored disk-less XBone is the ability to hit the absolute lowest price point. I wouldn't think there's a ton of overlap between price-sensitive consumers and potential XB1X buyers.

 

[AlNom]

Yeah, I'd be curious about the RAM. Will a ~120mm chip be IO dominated with 16 DDR chips? Unless they can reduce the number of pins and chips (by going to DDR4) it might not be worth a shrink.

mmhm... I was thinking DDR4 at first, but I suppose it'd have to be top-tier 4266 as well, so that might not be cost effective even with half the chips (128-bit @ 8Gbit density).

I did wonder if maybe GDDR6 would be plausible since they also operate with 16-bit channels (not sure how critical that would be, even if Scorpio switched to G5 it has different performance bottlenecks), and then it would have to operate in quadrate mode to hit ~8.5Gbps on a 64-bit bus @ 16Gbit density. Not sure on other issues. Sounds a bit far out.

 

[eastmen]

Hopefully things drastically change once the wireless providers roll out their 5G networks. Verizon and AT&T say their network is 300mbit to 1gigabit from a speed perspective. They are offering 5G with no data caps for $50 in the cities they rolled out to now. Even T-Mobile says their 5G will be 100mbit and upgraded to 300mbit in a year or two.

I don't normally like the wireless companies, but if it means real competition to the locally granted monopoly to the cable providers, I'm all for their attempted market stealing for internet broadband! The cable providers days are numbered.

Sprint -Tmobile … Sprintmobile ? whatever they will call themselves will have a ton of spectrum and a lot in the 2.5ghz band so they would be able to serve a lot of data to everyone but with bad building penetration . They will also have a lot in the lower bands. I think they may actually have the most spectrum once merged vs Verizon and ATT

 

[mrcorbo]

Sprint -Tmobile … Sprintmobile ? whatever they will call themselves will have a ton of spectrum and a lot in the 2.5ghz band so they would be able to serve a lot of data to everyone but with bad building penetration . They will also have a lot in the lower bands. I think they may actually have the most spectrum once merged vs Verizon and ATT

Any merger deal with the FCC would likely require them to sell off some of their spectrum assets. Sprint's 2.5 GHz holdings are a key asset, though, and they would probably get to keep that. Not sure they need to maintain all of their holdings in the 600, 700 and 800 MHz bands.

 

[AzBat]

Could they create a slim Xbox based on a cost reduced/downclocked Xbox One X? Could take cues from Apple & call it Xbox XS. I don't think it needs One in the name. <shrug>

Tommy McClain

 

[iroboto]

PS2 Slim sold gangbusters, even to existing PS2 owners because it was so dinky. A super dinky XB1 is valuable in multiple ways, such as a second console as already suggested. If there's a cost-reduced mobo and the choice is either an XB1 revision that's cheaper, or a new super-slim disc-less, extra cheap model, the latter gives a new price-point for those just wanting to play games instead of 4Kmovie playback (a box that also plays streamed movies anywhere).

I think that's a good idea. I don't know if it's better to include the drive or not, but removing the drive means less components and less size with net gains all down the production > shipping > selling chain. It'll be the cheapest current gen gaming box to collect the laggards ahead of next gen and hopefully secure their future subscriptions with various MS services.

I agree this fully makes sense to me, but seems like an older playbook strategy and may not fully align with MS plans here in 2018. MS runs Xbox as part of MS now, as opposed to some console spin off. Traditional console strategies will not work for MS because their aim is something different and in the past. If there is more to it than just a cost reduction this makes sense to me. But just as a cost reduction, I don't think you're looking at a 10x factor in cost savings, and this isn't really going to sell gang busters because nothing will do what PS2 did.

 

[AlNom]

Could they create a slim Xbox based on a cost reduced/downclocked Xbox One X? Could take cues from Apple & call it Xbox XS. I don't think it needs One in the name. <shrug>

Tommy McClain

On the software side, devs are either patching for Scorpio's full spec or falling back to boost mode, so it probably wouldn't make sense to have anything but half the GPU operational - yields would have to be insanely bad for them that would otherwise mean diverting from the scorpio-compliant pile of chips. Also, they'd still need to deal with the RAM spec or there'd be hardly any cost/power savings on that side of things (12x1Gbit chips).