News & Rumors: Xbox One (codename Durango)

[Xenio]

PaaS/cloud rendering/computing/AI *enhancements* using Azure infrastructure.

this could change the whole scenario, of course. Remember the viral image of one month ago, it says "PetaFlop > TeraFlops". It could be easily related to Cloud computing and "Ever online" rumors

The thing is will Durango losing every single DF faceoff have any significant effect?

in my opinion, this is what almost destroyed playstation brand and made of xbox360 a 80 Milions seller, ps3 constantly outperformed in multiplatform games with an inferior version, except few cases. At the very start it was embarrassing, with COD@ 60fps on 360 and 30fps on ps3, as the time goes on the line is narrowed, but all the people (fanboy are not included) thinks that the 360 was a better machine

if the situation now will be upside-down, Infinity hardly will sell more than 40-45 milions console in his lifetime
and remember, casual gamers don't buy a 400$ console, don't buy a 10-15 full price games/years, maybe 3-4, it will cost to save one dollar per user in the hardware, when you lose hundreds dollars per user

 

[(((interference)))]

Well it's too early to say whether that will happen, since all we see online are the few % hardcore gamers, and it's very likely they'll be upset with MS but whether that will filter down via the network effect to your more regular COD/FIFA/Madden buying gamers remains to be seen.

More bad news though (for PS4 as well):
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/05/epic-vp-next-consoles-will-fully-embrace-free-to-play-gaming/

Speaking at the Game Horizon conference in Newcastle, UK, Rein said point blank that "the next-gen consoles are going to be fully embracing the free-to-play and these IAP [in-app purchase]-type business models. So in case you don't know that, I'm putting that out there. Sony and Microsoft are both going heavily in that area."

When moderator Matt Martin from GamesIndustry International said there isn't evidence to back up this kind of talk from the console makers just yet, Rein responded, "Well, I'm telling you. I'm telling you what they're telling developers."

IMO that's going to be far worse than an always online console or a 30% weaker console. I shudder at the thought of Forza 5 being like Real Racing 3 - "Oh, you crashed your car, it's only 100 MS points to fix it" !!!

I tell you, those MBAs with $ signs in their eyes... GAF should make that a meme actually.

 

[XpiderMX]

Paul Thurott on WW podcast:
* Nextbox will have 500GB
* There's going to be a logo change

Mary Jo:
* always on/line on nextbox = connected standy on win8

 

[Xenio]

Forza 5 being like Real Racing 3 - "Oh, you crashed your car, it's only 100 MS points to fix it"

Enough to quit gaming at all. Seriously.
This is the worse scenario in the gaming industry I could imagine

 

[Rangers]

Then I see people on twitter saying "I've played 100 hours of league of legends and not paid a dime" for the flip side.

 

[Xenio]

Paul Thurott on WW podcast:
* There's going to be a logo change

worse keeped secret in history

 

[Nisaaru]

worse keeped secret in history

Should that symbolize something broken and unstable?

 

[Cjail]

"Sources have now revealed the console will be named Infinity and that development kits are already in the hands of studios." (Source here.)

Kotaku an DF also already said that dev kits have been in the hands of creators since March anyway.

 

[Rangers]

Well, I just "heard" that the recent Durango overheating overheating rumor *was* supposedly tied to a "spec bump" of some kind. Not said what kind but I guess the presumption on my part would be an upclock.

For what it's worth the first I've actually heard of any rumor of a spec bump (previous evidence was only Greenberg's tweet).

 

[Silent_Buddha]

More bad news though (for PS4 as well):
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/05/epic-vp-next-consoles-will-fully-embrace-free-to-play-gaming/



IMO that's going to be far worse than an always online console or a 30% weaker console. I shudder at the thought of Forza 5 being like Real Racing 3 - "Oh, you crashed your car, it's only 100 MS points to fix it" !!!

I tell you, those MBAs with $ signs in their eyes... GAF should make that a meme actually.

Yup, that's possibly the best way to take care of both pirates and legit customers while also making sure the developers make enough money to stay in business.

People that don't want to pay to play just get a gimped free version.

People that are willing to pay for their games will have most functionality at a similar price to what they would have paid anyway.60-100 USD (if we assumed developers were actually allowed to increase the price of their games at least match inflation for the past 10 years).

And people that are willing to pay a huge sum of money for in game conveniences will pay for all the people that don't want to pay and would have pirated the game if it wasn't F2P.

For example, in Guild Wars 2, I've run into some people that have bought 8 Molten Pick-Axes (limited time harvesting tool that will never degrade through use) at 10 dollars each for each of their characters. 80 dollars for a convenience item. And that's not to mention other things they've purchased in game with real money.

It's brilliant. In the old days, you'd buy in game currency or in game items from shady gold sellers/ebay. Now they've removed all the risk and you can do it in game.

For myself, I limit my real money purchases to 15-20 USD a month (to match what I would pay for a subscription based MMO). It's well worth it as I get as much enjoyment from the game as I would an MMO where I was paying 15-20 USD a month.

And best thing of all? People pay whatever they feel like. And pirates can't screw over the developers.

If the developers were smart, they'd charge money for the ultimate gaming convenience item. Real Cash in order to respec character skills. That would be brilliant. It wouldn't affect me as I don't believe respec should be in games, but it'd certainly make developers a ton of cash.

I believe the new Neverwinter MMO is going to do just that.

People that don't want most games to transition to F2P with microtransactions? Start pushing anyone you know that pirates to stop goddamn pirating.

Regards,
SB

 

[Brad Grenz]

Should that symbolize something broken and unstable?

Looks like bandaids to me. Guess they started by patching up their online only booboo.

 

[DJ12]

Well, I just "heard" that the recent Durango overheating overheating rumor *was* supposedly tied to a "spec bump" of some kind. Not said what kind but I guess the presumption on my part would be an upclock.

Because it couldn't be that they are the first kits with the final actual apu in and it just ran hotter than anticipated.

I really don't think after last time ms will mess around with anything that could lead to overheating.

 

[Gerry]

worse keeped secret in history

That was outed as a fake.

 

[Prophecy2k]

Because it couldn't be that they are the first kits with the final actual apu in and it just ran hotter than anticipated.

I really don't think after last time ms will mess around with anything that could lead to overheating.

Indeed...

Those still holding out for a spec bump are likely to be dissappointed. MS wont do anything to jeapordize their release schedule on Durango. They'll meet their deadline even if it means shipping a console with more 360 RROD-like defects, as ultimately, it will hurt them much more to give their much hyped and much more aggressive competitor too much of a head start, than it would to have to ship a box with a 360-high failure rate that they can simply rectify late with a cooling solution/box/console redesign or extended warranty.

In the end there's a reason they went with an APU in the first place. Why would they pick such a modest 6+ times upgrade, only to panic at the last minute and start ruining their plans just try to match Sony. Given that generational upgrades are usually 10x performance leaps, MS could easily have gone with seprate dedicated chips and push for raw flops, much much more so than Sony.

No... MS has chosen to go mass market, or what they believe will be the route to get them there. However successful it may be is really up in the air at this point. But folks need to start accepting the truth of the fact that MS's strategy circa 2005 isn't the same strategy they'll use this time round.

 

[kots]

In the end there's a reason they went with an APU in the first place. Why would they pick such a modest 6+ times upgrade

It's hardly a 6x upgrade ... i reckon it's even lower .

No... MS has chosen to go mass market, or what they believe will be the route to get them there. However successful it may be is really up in the air at this point. But folks need to start accepting the truth of the fact that MS's strategy circa 2005 isn't the same strategy they'll use this time round.

Mass market with a $500 price tag ? Good luck selling that thing at that price ...

 

[Gubbi]

Microsoft will do anything to avoid another RROD debacle.

IMHO, the loss of mind share dwarfed the direct financial hit they took for RROD.

Cheers

 

[Shifty Geezer]

It's hardly a 6x upgrade ... i reckon it's even lower .

It's probably impossible to qualify, but 6x upgrade or more seems about right to me. Xenon could be great at some stuff, dire at a lot of other stuff (0.2 IPC).

Mass market with a $500 price tag ? Good luck selling that thing at that price ...

Launch RRP, not total cost of the platform for its entire life. And that's only if that rumour is true. If Kinect 2 and the whole package is highly desirable, MS would be shooting themselves in the foot not to charge a premium. And if you price too high to begin with, you can always lower the price. You can't put it up after release if you find you've set the price too low and are missing out on profits.

 

[Gubbi]

It's probably impossible to qualify, but 6x upgrade or more seems about right to me. Xenon could be great at some stuff, dire at a lot of other stuff (0.2 IPC).

I agree. More focus on higher utilization than on paper mega-bollocks.

Cheers

 

[Rangers]

It's probably impossible to qualify, but 6x upgrade or more seems about right to me. Xenon could be great at some stuff, dire at a lot of other stuff (0.2 IPC).

It's 5X in flops, but personally I expect the "real" upgrade to be more like 10X.

I should do some research on how much GCN improved AMD cards efficiency versus VLIW4/5...it seemed pretty handily. I am sure a 1280 shader 7870 is a lot faster than a 1600 shader 5870 (the former is comparable to a GTX 580 while the latter was not).

Edit: it looks like something around 40% more efficient per flop in that comparison. And a 5870 is much more modern than Xenos, right?

The architectures are just so much more advanced now.

for other parameters, 16x the ram, ~3x the main bw...ignoring esram/edram as i have no idea how to compare those fruitfully.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Edit: it looks like something around 40% more efficient per flop in that comparison. And a 5870 is much more modern than Xenos, right?

Yep, and what you can do with that can't be readily turned into a comparative metric. Various techniques would require more flops on Xenos to achieve the same thing on GCN. I expect on-screen results to be somewhat similar to if you slapped 10 XB360s together, but even if not, it'll certainly be far better than the simple increase in FLOPS.