News & Rumors: Xbox One (codename Durango)

[Dave Baumann]

Servers aren't free and somebody has to pay for their upkeep. Perhaps Microsoft would bite all these costs.

Software isn't free either - you need people to write and maintain it. Hardware is often cheaper than people; there is always a balance to be struck.

However, is offering a streaming solution free for "backwards compatibility" an entirely sunk cost? The flipsides, that I can think off the top of my head, are that this provides you with additional opportunities for serving advertising to users, additional capabilities for selling more of the back catalogue of titles these users don't own, provides a userbase to espouse the virtues of a streaming solution to potential new users and also provides another hook for those that are on the fence for upgrading to the new hardware.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Software isn't free either - you need people to write and maintain it. Hardware is often cheaper than people; there is always a balance to be struck.

Agreed. However the issues with delivering a streaming game service are well documented with high profile failures like OnLive. Gakkai had something more robust technically and that's still not ready to deploy. And both of these were before net neutrality threatened to ruin everybody's fun.

Conventional emulation is proven, steaming is not.

However, is offering a streaming solution free for "backwards compatibility" an entirely sunk cost? The flipsides, that I can think off the top of my head, are that this provides you with additional opportunities for serving advertising to users, additional capabilities for selling more of the back catalogue of titles these users don't own, provides a userbase to espouse the virtues of a streaming solution to potential new users and also provides another hook for those that are on the fence for upgrading to the new hardware.

I think advertising covering server operation costs is a bit of a stretch. OnLive's failure have us a great insight into the difficulties and costs here and their platform was the industry standard PC. I can't see how Microsoft could do this any differently to Sony, who are using rack-mounted custom boards with actual PS3 hardware on which is a whole other level in terms of R&D and investment.

I don't even want to think what kind of volumes of advertising users would have to endure for a "free" experience I guess Microsoft could offer both, free with advertising or paid with no advertising. Based on the economics of Google, I can't see operations scaled down to Xbox One user base, even anticipating expansion over the coming years, being viable even leveraging existing Azure server sites.

 

[Rangers]

Xbox One AC bundle announced. This fall Xbox One comes with both AC IV and AC Unity, for 399/499.

The holidays are kicking into high gear for fans interested in Xbox One and today we’re excited to share another great option to purchase Xbox One at an incredible value. In partnership with Ubisoft, we’re thrilled to offer two new exclusive Xbox One bundles, featuring what is shaping up to be the biggest, most intense Assassin’s Creed game to date: Assassin’s Creed Unity. Available worldwide* at select retailers on Sunday, November 2, both the Xbox One Assassin’s Creed Bundle ($399 USD ERP) and Xbox One Assassin’s Creed Bundle with Kinect ($499 USD ERP) also include the critically acclaimed Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag.

Maybe this is what Pachter meant?

I said MS needs to include TWO high profile titles, and also price at $349. I guess this kinda fulfills the first part, but not really, since AC IV is a year old.

Looks like MS is attempting to avoid cutting the price by throwing in software. Probably a good deal cheaper for them.

 

[McHuj]

My guess is that we'll see some sort of temporary cut on Black Friday weekend, but nothing permanent this year.

 

[mosen]

http://www.territorystudio.com/work/digital/?p=MicrosoftSport
http://www.territorystudio.com/work/design/?p=liftlondon

 

[Rangers]

Yay! October XOne updates is rolling out

 

[iroboto]

oh thank goodness. No more having to struggle with Win8 -> PlayTo-> Xbox
When it worked it was great, but the PC just kept losing track of the X1

 

[Rangers]

Interesting on the AC bundle, I noticed a discrepancy in the release dates the bundle comes out the 2nd, but the game doesn't release til the 4th.

Well, I guess it is digital edition and they allow you to preload it.

I mean the difference is little, but that's kind of interesting. I guess almost purposeful to give (smart) people time to download 50GB. (or at least get a head start).

But similarly, assuming Unity is 50GB, that's quite a substantial download. I think it took me like 6 hours to download Destiny on 15mpbs. Little Johnny might not be happy when he rushes home expecting to be able to immediately play his game.

 

[Cyan]

Yay! October XOne updates is rolling out

Nice! Do you mean... already? That's surprising. I can't wait to start recording videos tapping the big X green button twice and then pressing X, since I have unplugged my Kinect and I miss how instantaneous it was when you wanted to record a video.

Right now I use the Game DVR function but it's a PITA by comparison, slow and sometimes you leave the game in weird moments to record something.

 

[-tkf-]

Yay! October XOne updates is rolling out

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0QtSuKCYfU">YouTube Link</a>

My new home cinema center, so excited on how it handles everything.

Anyone know if it will play dvd isos

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Anyone know if it will play dvd isos

I don't know of any implementation of DNLA that supports this and DNLA definitely wasn't designed with this in mind so Microsoft would need to write some specific.

 

[Cyan]

Yay! October XOne updates is rolling out

I also like the new security features, and especially causing the gamepad to rumble remotely if you don't find it around in your room or wherever.

http://www.lifehacker.co.uk/2014/10...er-feature-improves-two-factor-authentication

A friend of mine told me that the media functionalities work very well. He has only had trouble with 40-50GB full HD videos, where the console tries to play them, but the framerate is jumpy and then the application freezes?

I guess that's the device not keeping up with the streaming speed that such files require? It's not like the console is rejecting the content... Odd. Any possible explanation for that?

 

[Cyan]

People are listing Google Glass and Xbox One as Skills in their LinkedIn profile:

http://www.businessinsider.com/linkedin-new-profile-skills-2014-10

 

[Nesh]

Thats stupid!

 

[Cyan]

Thats stupid!

Actually, it depends. These new devices are really complex machines, software and hardware side, and knowing them is proof you have certain technical knowledge and know your thing.

Still, I wouldn't add it to my skills either. Your potential boss could end up being a Sony or Nintendo fan and might not hire you.

Bioware say that we are not even close to the maximized potential of the Xbox One.

http://www.totalxbox.com/82014/were...maximized-potential-of-xbox-one-says-bioware/

 

[Nesh]

Actually, it depends. These new devices are really complex machines, software and hardware side, and knowing them is proof you have certain technical knowledge and know your thing.

Still, I wouldn't add it to my skills either. Your potential boss could end up being a Sony or Nintendo fan and might not hire you.

Bioware say that we are not even close to the maximized potential of the Xbox One.

http://www.totalxbox.com/82014/were...maximized-potential-of-xbox-one-says-bioware/

Its not valuable technical knowledge. I would even go as far as to say its not even "technical" knwoledge. They are fool proof consumer products. They are designed so that even a minor can use it
To me it shows how much standards and skills have fallen to the point that someone sees something tiny and unimportant as a big achievement.
Next we will see "how to operate a toilet".

I am kind of shocked that the reason you wouldnt put it, is the probability that your boss may be a Sony/Nintendo fanboy instead of the fact that its plain silly.
Unless someone does something special and unique with it and specifies what it is, it tells nothing. Your boss might even it find it silly and reject you because most likely he will perceive that you consider "playing games" a skill. Unless that job is about game testing
A game's console should go on the hobbies and interests

 

[-tkf-]

Is it still called media player preview?

I ran the update and the app was updated afaik. And mine is still called preview.

 

[-tkf-]

Is it still called media player preview?

I ran the update and the app was updated afaik. And mine is still called preview.

And it´s crap, i tried with a external harddrive (that works with my WDTV), ripped kid movies, the X1 tells me there is a harddrive attached, i browse the media, sometimes i get an error and sometimes it´s just empty.

DNLA is shaky when it´s working, i have a Synology Nas, sometimes it shows up and sometimes the player is empty. I tried uninstall and reinstall, i hope they just didn´t release the final version.

The best thing about the update is the snap without kinect it´s really nice, but the UI is still a mess imho.

 

[mosen]

Microsoft’s Hardware teams consist of progressive, diverse, and exceptionally creative professionals who design, test and manufacture some of the best-loved entertainment devices in the world. Our teams ship tens of millions of hardware products every year including the Xbox One, Xbox 360, Kinect, a full accessories lineup, and more. Microsoft is the destination for the brightest minds in entertainment device design. Come be part of what’s next.

We are looking for a Console Memory Development Engineer on the Xbox game console development team. The position involves the development, test and qualification of DRAM memory products functioning within Microsoft products. The role will work closely with electrical engineers, mechanical engineers, software engineers, test engineers, component engineers, and program managers.

Specifying, designing (schematic capture, PCB layout, BOM, cost analysis), implementing and verifying subsystems on the motherboard

Prior experience debugging and bringing up memory subsystems, specifically familiarity with DDR3/DDR4, experience with DRAM memory subsystems and DRAM memory training algorithms

https://www.linkedin.com/jobs2/view/10127779

 

[MrFox]

https://www.linkedin.com/jobs2/view/10127779

As far as I can tell they only had a single vendor for the memory since launch, and logically that should change soon, so they'd need to test other DRAM suppliers. Competition should lead to a price drop.

It also smells like XB1-Slim. The memory is taking up most of the space on the XB1 PCB, one of the reasons it's so big. Maybe they want to improve that for the slim revision and are looking for a specialist. I'm really curious if they'll ever manage to reduce the number of chips. whatever they'll use will probably appear in DRAM suppliers lists.

The role will work closely with electrical engineers, mechanical engineers, software engineers, test engineers, component engineers, and program managers.

I wonder who in this list would be in charge of the heat sink design and air flow. Mechanical engineer?

EDIT: Oh! Micron is now sampling their 2133 chips at 1.35v (XB1 is using 1.5v parts). The timing of the job offer could be related.
http://www.micron.com/parts/dram/ddr3-sdram/mt41k256m16ly-093