News & Rumors: Xbox One (codename Durango)

That sounds bad to me. I dont need the entire Dashboard when im in the game and want to invite friends.

 

snap mode , 1/3rd the screen for the dashboard when in game . That be fine with me

 

I guess main options will appear at the first.

 

@Silent_Buddha

You are simplifying things way too much.
What makes you think that the cots of 4GB won't affect the price of the XBO?
Do you really think that XBO is going to stay at $500 with 50% more RAM?

Do really think MS is going to add 4Gb for free and reduce even more its profit percentage per unit?

 

1) Because the cost of a console is arbitrarily set at specific price points. It's not as if if the box were $20 cheaper to make, Microsoft would lower the price by $20, even at launch.
2) DDR3 RAM is super cheap, especially when Microsoft can buy it in bulk when it's being manufactured at peak capacity before DDR4 takes over in a few years. And at that point, it won't matter at all.
3) Nothing is added "for free", however accountants do analysis to see how much it will cost vs. benefits.

 

Wouldn't more Ram require a new mainboard?

 

It all depends. Depends if there was ever a mainboard with 12GB of ram already designed and used or if the 8GB board has the traces and locations for 12GB but with only 8GB installed.

 

Actually, Product Managers do the analysis in a manner that suitably convinces managers / accountants that these types of things are the right things to do...

 

Unless they use chips with mixed capacity (re: BRiT's trace question)

A "new" motherboard with "new" traces would imply they have a revised 3 memory channels on the CPU controller instead. Not plausible, really.

 

Oops, yeah, PM say "we want this" and accountants say "that costs too much", and the marketers say "give us the money instead, we can get better ROI if we get Jay Z to advertise the console!"

 

The memory is already quad channel. They can run any number of gb of ram so long as they can physically connect the ram chips to the motherboard with an asymmetrical setup.

 

Eh? I wasn't talking about the price impact on the Xbox One. Only answering a question as to how much 4 GB of DDR3 could cost.

Whether MS wants to increase the BOM anywhere from 5 to 20 USD (I think it's likely closer to 5-10 USD for 4 GB of DDR3 chips in the large quantities that MS will be contracting for.) is entirely up to whether they think there is a tangible benefit to increasing the memory such that the result in performance, features, graphics quality in games, or whatever are enough to increase sales over an 8 GB Xbox One over the lifetime of the console to justify the increased BOM.

At 5 to 20 USD. That represents a cost of between 500 million to 2 billion USD if 100 million consoles are sold. So it'd have to be a fairly compelling case for it in order for that to happen. And that represents a cheap upgrade.

Sony going from 4 GB to 8 GB of GDDR5 incurred a far larger cost over the lifetime of the consoles, but in that case the argument for 8 GB of memory was compelling enough for them to eat that cost as otherwise they risked a potential visual deficiency versus the Xbox One in some cases even with more powerful hardware.

For the Xbox One the argument for 12 GB versus 8 GB of memory isn't as strong. But then again the increase to BOM is also quite a bit less.

Is it possible, certainly. Is it probable? IMO, I don't see the chances as being very high for 12 GB of memory, but I can also see why they may think they need it. Still, if I were a betting man, I'd bet on 8 GB being the final configuration. But I wouldn't be surprised if it was 12 GB. I just wouldn't bet my own money on that happening.

Regards,
SB

 

My thoughts exactly.

Tommy McClain

 

Though, that assumes the price of memory doesn't get cheaper over time. And thankfully DDR3 memory is far easier to get a reduction in pricing then say waiting for the APU or hard drives to get cheaper.

 

If they were going to increase to 12GB they would likely need both a strong gaming reason and a strong non gaming reason to spend the money. Would it really make any difference for instance if they had 4-5GB available to the OS compared to say 3GB?

 

Game (+) TV DVR? That seems possibly compelling and ties into the input one pitch of MS so far.

Of course it's a bit silly with the limited HDD space, but I do wonder why they haven't gone down this path yet.

 

To get a DVR to work you'd need access to the EPG data and permission to record the programme (and comply with the various licensing terms). It would have been difficult, but I was expecting the XB1 to have tried it.

It may have been felt that DVRs will be replaced by network streaming, so maybe the feature wasn't seen as important given the problems?

 

What sort of memory configuration people who talk about 12GB assume it could have? 384bit bus or asymetric config with different size chips being used like some nVidia cards or not thinking at all, but just throwing numbers around, because upgrades are cool?

I personally don't see them doing 12GB at a short timetable like this. Even 16GB would be more likely.

 

I guess this could be a good thought, why waste resources with a larger drive, tuner hardware etc., when streaming is growing daily. Not to mention the apparent complexity of all the regions involved and different tuner hardware, granted they already have the IR code database.

I am sure you could make X1 program a recording via IR, but the error rates would leave many unhappy viewers with failed recording or wrong channels.

The KISS principle here is to just make it pass through device - -

What X1 does in its current form is secure a place that would make a DVR useless in a few years, and you get the consumer comfortable with X1 being your main input for all TV related content.

MS has data on what Media Center users are doing, and they have same for what 360 extender users are doing vs what they are streaming. My guess is this data shows less stuff being recorded due to video apps.

I have been using Media Center since XP, other solutions before that - so in my personal use case we are down to only recording shows that tend to be really slow to show up on streaming options. Along with F1 broadcasts, if there was an F1 app I would drop my cable tomorrow to be really honest. Bernie if you are reading B3D, make it happen!

 

And Windows Media Center uses EPG data.