News & Rumors: Xbox One (codename Durango)

[scently]

It is obviously better, and I'm not saying otherwise. But the original remark by scently was:
Hardknock disagreed, and you replied to him saying:
Hence you were arguing in favour of scently's position, even if you didn't mean to because you were replying to Hardknock without being sure of his train of thought as connected to the source. Thus I felt it worth pointing out that "almost immediately" isn't realistic. An hour's wait is probably more accurate. It'll certainly be much better than this gen which required full downloads.

I think you guys are really misunderstanding my comment. I said "depending on your bandwidth". In other words depending on your connection speed. The leak suggests that you should be able to start playing in seconds while the rest of the game installs to disk. This intimates structuring on the game content on the disc in such a way that the most essential parts are installed quickly to get you started right. So depending on your internet connection speed, you can start playing almost as soon as you purchase the game.

BTW Hardknock's initial reply was that you need a streaming tech like Onlive for that to be possible, which I refute. His other comment then deviates from his initial assertion which is that you need a streaming tech.

Anyway, as for my initial point, the more pertinent question should then be how much data is needed for one to start playing, and thus, how fast should your internet connection be in order to enjoy this?

 

[scently]

Well maybe some developers here who have worked on and seen actual dev kits can comment on how often a dev-kit is usually just a generic mass-produced consumer PC case, rather than something that is at least somewhat "no-name", i.e. a shiny box with some compontents in it.

I guess it could very well be an actual Durango dev-kit, I just, well, find it hard to believe they would settle for the little Fractal Design unit. From the looks of it, it just seems like a random shot of a generic self-built PC, using a common little case.

Not sure what it proves either. So what, if it's Fractal Design case. He could have very well made a picture of a Dell, or a Chieftec tower and claimed it to be a dev-kit. Doesn't really prove nor is the picture of interest in the slightest. Certainly, all talk about its size or how sleek it looks are really not of any importance, now that it is clear that it's just a generic case, like any other outthere.

The PS4 dev-kit shot however is more interesting because that case points to some cameras being built into it, pointing to a base feature that we could expect in the PS4. This shot however, just shows a Fractal Design Node 304 case, which could be anything. Over what exactly are we getting excited again?

Iherre posted the link and somebody else on neogaf who has some info on the matter also confirmed it. As for having a generic pc build, the durango alpha kit was also a generic pc board. This can be the beta kit, which was rumored to have gone out to developers. There is no law or precedence that demands that a devkit has to look unique. Besides, this is a shot of the backside of the kit. The front might look different anyway. As for getting excited? well such is the nature of leaks and rumors preceding the announcement of a console Any little nugget of information, however informative, is news. We might as well just forget about posting or reading anything until we get the console in our home, plugged to the tv and playing it.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I think you guys are really misunderstanding my comment. I said "depending on your bandwidth". In other words depending on your connection speed. The leak suggests that you should be able to start playing in seconds while the rest of the game installs to disk.

I don't misunderstand. If you think it through a moment, you'll see that the game cannot load almost instantly from the internet ready to play. The only way to get immediate play would be as Hardknock suggests, streaming video like Gaikai. If you are to load the game whether from disk or HDD, you'll need some GBs of starting data, and even on very fast connections like 100 GBps, that'll take some minutes to load. For most folk it'll be at least half an hour.

The issue is basically the wording. Change it to, "should be able to start playing after a partial download after 30 minutes or so," and there's no disagreement. I also can't find the source that suggested near instant play on download games.

Anyway, as for my initial point, the more pertinent question should then be how much data is needed for one to start playing, and thus, how fast should your internet connection be in order to enjoy this?

I covered that. It's an 8 GB console. That 8 GB is going to a fair amount of active content. So let's say 2 GBs assets for a level or part of the game, the rest being working space and reserved memory and stuff (and I think that's lowballing myself). That's 2 GBs minimum download to have enough to launch the game from the starting point. this matches our experience with games in general too. Almost no games load from HDD or optical drive in a few seconds, loading just a smidgeon of data to get going and then filling the RAM with content as you go. For a game to launch with a minimal install, only a tiny fraction of the RAM being used and the rest loading after the player has started moving around, we'd need a completely new tech.

Because the minimal load is going to be so large, and BW isn't going to be fast enough, Hardknock was right to say the only way for 'immediate' play is game streaming.

 

[AzBat]

What if the dashboard/marketplace implemented a sort of torrent style downloading mechanism in the background where it has already pre-downloaded portions of the game in the background while you're reading info on the game, looking at screenshots or videos? So once you decide to play the game it's already downloaded enough to be able to play "instantly"? I disagree with the notion that you need to download gigs of data or wait 30 minutes to be able to play "near instant". Look at XBLA or XBLIG. I understand it won't be the full unabridged game, but if MS mandated that every locked game had a free demo mode, then the demo could be small enough to download in the background without request from the user & feel "near instant".

Tommy McClain

 

[Shifty Geezer]

The limiting factor is minimum data. Pick a game an guess what it's data requirements are from start. Battlefields, Halo, Gears, Fable, plus all the other less famous titles. The first two minute walking around is going to decent all the code and assets. As I say, if it's possible to launch a game with loading only 5% of the data wanted in RAM, why do we have to wait half a minute plus for games on disks or HDD to load? And that's bare minimum. You'll need enough on storage that you won't get buffer underruns, and when the player moves to a new area not covered by assets initially downloaded, those assets are there. Internet just doesn't provide enough BW for streaming assets as if they were coming off an optical drive (let along from an HDD which is what devs are designing for).

I'm happy to be proven wrong though if someone can describe a means by which a game can be launched on Durango with a couple hundred MBs data only though. Let's say the game starts with the player in a room, needing a small set of data. What happens when they leave into the surrounding environment? How can you start the game without knowing that data will be installed ready for use?

 

[Phil]

Iherre posted the link and somebody else on neogaf who has some info on the matter also confirmed it. As for having a generic pc build, the durango alpha kit was also a generic pc board. This can be the beta kit, which was rumored to have gone out to developers. There is no law or precedence that demands that a devkit has to look unique.

Perhaps we're misunderstanding each other. The news, that new devkits are out, is interesting. The picture, however is not. Aparent from the link to the picture, some people here are already trying to digest what is on the stickers. I merely pointed out what kind of a case it is, and that indeed I think it's unlikely that Microsoft would chose the generic case of a small PC case vendor for their dev-kit housing. It seems rather more likely that someone had some information about new kits, took a picture of the next best sleek looking PC sitting around and now everyone is looking at it getting excited over it.

The stickers at the back, are not sealing off anything either. The sticker on top is indeed aligned in such away that you can't remove the front panel without removing it - the front panel however only gives you access to the filter for the front fans (which are used to cool the 6 3.5" bays in the default configuration).

As I said previously, at least the PS4 devkit picture shows us something. This picture isn't. Yes, Microsoft can use any off-the-shelf part to house its dev-kits. I'd be very surprised however if they actually would settle for a mass-produced off-the-shelf NAS case (which it is) of a small vendor for it. As far as I'm concerned, I would be critical in regards to what the box on that picture is and not draw any conclusions from it. The news that new devkits are out, however, is indeed exciting.

 

[AzBat]

The limiting factor is minimum data. Pick a game an guess what it's data requirements are from start. Battlefields, Halo, Gears, Fable, plus all the other less famous titles. The first two minute walking around is going to decent all the code and assets. As I say, if it's possible to launch a game with loading only 5% of the data wanted in RAM, why do we have to wait half a minute plus for games on disks or HDD to load? And that's bare minimum. You'll need enough on storage that you won't get buffer underruns, and when the player moves to a new area not covered by assets initially downloaded, those assets are there. Internet just doesn't provide enough BW for streaming assets as if they were coming off an optical drive (let along from an HDD which is what devs are designing for).

I'm happy to be proven wrong though if someone can describe a means by which a game can be launched on Durango with a couple hundred MBs data only though. Let's say the game starts with the player in a room, needing a small set of data. What happens when they leave into the surrounding environment? How can you start the game without knowing that data will be installed ready for use?

I agree with your analysis, but I think we're coming from different angles. You're thinking developers will build this grand game with these large assets & then you're trying to think how they would shrink all that data & stream that to the gamer instantly. I think the opposite might be a better way. MS could build a streaming system that is designed for instant gaming from the beginning & then the developer would have to build a demo/1st level game experience that would fit into their experience. Granted this is only probably for the first few minutes of play. You wouldn't need to download enough content for hours of play. So in essence MS might require a set amount of space for that demo/1st level I mentioned before. Yes, some genres(like open-world or FPS) may have to get creative with that demo/1st level, but after that the sky would be the limit.

Tommy McClain

 

[GrimThorne]

Perhaps we're misunderstanding each other. The news, that new devkits are out, is interesting. The picture, however is not. Aparent from the link to the picture, some people here are already trying to digest what is on the stickers. I merely pointed out what kind of a case it is, and that indeed I think it's unlikely that Microsoft would chose the generic case of a small PC case vendor for their dev-kit housing. It seems rather more likely that someone had some information about new kits, took a picture of the next best sleek looking PC sitting around and now everyone is looking at it getting excited over it.

The stickers at the back, are not sealing off anything either. The sticker on top is indeed aligned in such away that you can't remove the front panel without removing it - the front panel however only gives you access to the filter for the front fans (which are used to cool the 6 3.5" bays in the default configuration).

As I said previously, at least the PS4 devkit picture shows us something. This picture isn't. Yes, Microsoft can use any off-the-shelf part to house its dev-kits. I'd be very surprised however if they actually would settle for a mass-produced off-the-shelf NAS case (which it is) of a small vendor for it. As far as I'm concerned, I would be critical in regards to what the box on that picture is and not draw any conclusions from it. The news that new devkits are out, however, is indeed exciting.

Well you sure analyzed the hell out of that picture. lol

 

[scently]

The limiting factor is minimum data. Pick a game an guess what it's data requirements are from start. Battlefields, Halo, Gears, Fable, plus all the other less famous titles. The first two minute walking around is going to decent all the code and assets. As I say, if it's possible to launch a game with loading only 5% of the data wanted in RAM, why do we have to wait half a minute plus for games on disks or HDD to load? And that's bare minimum. You'll need enough on storage that you won't get buffer underruns, and when the player moves to a new area not covered by assets initially downloaded, those assets are there. Internet just doesn't provide enough BW for streaming assets as if they were coming off an optical drive (let along from an HDD which is what devs are designing for).

I'm happy to be proven wrong though if someone can describe a means by which a game can be launched on Durango with a couple hundred MBs data only though. Let's say the game starts with the player in a room, needing a small set of data. What happens when they leave into the surrounding environment? How can you start the game without knowing that data will be installed ready for use?

Well, the way I see it, speed of download is the only thing that determines how soon you start playing. I still emphasize and stick to my initial statement. I was actually trying to explain the benefit of the system that they are designing. So while you can argue that internet connection bandwidth currently available will limit when you start playing, that does not mean that in the near future such necessary connection speed will not be available, thus, it still does not invalidate my point.

As for how it will work, remember, from the moment you boot up a game to the point you actually start playing are two different things. You only need a few data to load into the initial boot up stage where you are shown the logo, publisher, developer animation etc. As this is happening, the game is still being loaded into the HDD, through the disc or download. Depending on the genre or game type, I can already imagine a scenario where it will be possible. If its rpg, you have to go through character creation stage, racing game; choose your car and stage, multiplayer fps; choose your stage, character class, waiting for other players/server etc. While all this is happening the game data is being loaded. The system can be designed in such a way that it prioritize your choice. So say you choose to play level A of game X multiplayer, level A takes priority. Sure you might endure a little longer loading time but you are already playing the game eh.

 

[bkilian]

I don't misunderstand. If you think it through a moment, you'll see that the game cannot load almost instantly from the internet ready to play. The only way to get immediate play would be as Hardknock suggests, streaming video like Gaikai. If you are to load the game whether from disk or HDD, you'll need some GBs of starting data, and even on very fast connections like 100 GBps, that'll take some minutes to load. For most folk it'll be at least half an hour.

Ok, taking my most recently played game as an example. It startes out with the usual movies about the studios that created it. Takes over a minute to get to the first interactive part, which is just a mostly static screen with "press play to start", then you spend a minute or two exploring the menus before you hit "new game" choose your save disk, and then it launches into a 3-4 minute non-interactive movie. We're up at 5-8 minutes at this point, and it could all have been taken care of with 3Mbit 720p video, leaving the bulk of your connection available for loading the engine and assets for the first interactive part. My connection at home hits 1-3 MB/second, so in this 5 minutes, we could have 600MB-1.8GB of compressed data already streamed to the console. Any game that can't start interacting with the user at this point deserves to be laughed at.

I suspect what we'll see is things like "Customize your character", or an intro to using the controls in a simple environment, like inside a building or cave. You do not have to fill 8GB of RAM in order to provide a good, interactive, experience that makes it appear the game started nearly instantly. Doing it right, though, that's going to take some skill. I predict a 2-3 minute wait before the game starts, with static images or a streaming movie to keep the players engaged. For instance, if Mass Effect 3 had started with a 5-10 minute movie recapping the major events in the last games, I would have been very happy to watch it the first time the game started. (Bad example maybe, since it would be best to render the movie using your actual character and taking advantage of choices you'd made, but that's what the cloud's for, right? In fact, that would be an awesome use for the cloud)

 

[bkilian]

Damn scently, we're on the same page here, I believe the apocalypse is now officially started.

 

[scently]

Damn scently, we're on the same page here, I believe the apocalypse is now officially started.

Haha. I was reading your post while thinking "oh wow, isn't this something".

 

[dobwal]

I agree with your analysis, but I think we're coming from different angles. You're thinking developers will build this grand game with these large assets & then you're trying to think how they would shrink all that data & stream that to the gamer instantly. I think the opposite might be a better way. MS could build a streaming system that is designed for instant gaming from the beginning & then the developer would have to build a demo/1st level game experience that would fit into their experience. Granted this is only probably for the first few minutes of play. You wouldn't need to download enough content for hours of play. So in essence MS might require a set amount of space for that demo/1st level I mentioned before. Yes, some genres(like open-world or FPS) may have to get creative with that demo/1st level, but after that the sky would be the limit.

Tommy McClain

I think MS will go with the typical streaming model existing for many products today. Provide an Onlive like service that gives you instant access at purchase with the option to download in the background for a full experience.

The hardware from the 56 page pdf may have change but there is nothing to say that MS dumped their whole game plan for the next 10 years regarding their planned ecosystem which is to provide gaming anywhere on multiple devices with a cloud based service.

Technology wise I don't think we are at the point where a streaming based model will provide the visual fidelity needed to throw out the traditional model. But I doubt any gamer would find the ability to instantly access an inferior experience until the superior experience is available as an unwanted feature.

Trying to facillitate a speedy approach where a partial download provides immediate access to a game is narrow in scope while a streaming model provides the opportunities that extend beyond fast access to purchased titles.

Furthermore partial downloads won't be possible with every game. Games that provide an immediate access to an open world or sports titles aren't linear enough to allow partial downloads unless they are artifically restricted to support such a mechanism. A streaming model will allow instant access to all titles across multiple devices.

 

[AzBat]

+1 Scently +1 bkilian

Yall did a much a better explaining than I did. Kudos.

Tommy McClain

 

[AzBat]

Furthermore partial downloads won't be possible with every game. Games that provide an immediate access to an open world or sports titles aren't linear enough to allow partial downloads unless they are artifically restricted to support such a mechanism.

I think I'll just agree to disagree on the OnLive-type streaming, but I definitely see artificial restriction happening. Now don't get me wrong, I can see OnLive-type streaming in the future but I don't see it happening at launch. Bleeding edge users like yourselves who will be buying at launch will totally tear MS a new one if visual quality & latency are not as good as traditional local games. So I think they might forgo it at launch & go with the restricted system that & others are suggesting above. At least once the full title is downloaded they will look & play just like normal titles. OnLive-type streaming they may never get better. What will they do currently download local game in background while playing the OnLive-type game at the same time & then switch to the local game when it's ready? That would require too much bandwidth.

Tommy McClain

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Well maybe some developers here who have worked on and seen actual dev kits can comment on how often a dev-kit is usually just a generic mass-produced consumer PC case, rather than something that is at least somewhat "no-name", i.e. a shiny box with some compontents in it.

From the above link.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=48003424&postcount=17

Both the Xbox 1 and Game Cube dev-kits were bog standard mass produced PC cases. Although at least MS went through the trouble of making the front façade somewhat custom. Nintendo didn't even bother. I "think" the Dreamcast kit was also using a bog standard mass produced from Taiwan PC case, but I wasn't into small cases back then so my memory is hazy as to whether I'd seen that case featured in Computer shopper or an online catalog.

I think Sony are the only company that doesn't use mass produced PC cases for their initial dev kits.

Regards,
SB

 

[dobwal]

I think I'll just agree to disagree on the OnLive-type streaming, but I definitely see artificial restriction happening. Now don't get me wrong, I can see OnLive-type streaming in the future but I don't see it happening at launch. Bleeding edge users like yourselves who will be buying at launch will totally tear MS a new one if visual quality & latency are not as good as traditional local games. So I think they might forgo it at launch & go with the restricted system that & others are suggesting above. At least once the full title is downloaded they will look & play just like normal titles. OnLive-type streaming they may never get better. What will they do currently download local game in background while playing the OnLive-type game at the same time & then switch to the local game when it's ready? That would require too much bandwidth.

Tommy McClain

The Onlive service wouldn't be for primary gaming just for instant access until the download has completed. The OnLive service would be primarily used to service mobile devices when you are away from home. Remote playing streaming from your console may be feasible from within your home but what about when you are at the office and both devices are dependent on upload speeds from both points?

An Onlive service will allow for a feature that a speedy partial download approach won't. The ability to access your library even when your console has gave up the ghost. If the 720 gives you an RROD the approach you espouse won't help at all. That inferior experience might good enough until you replace your 720 versus no experience until replacement. Thats why I say speedy partial downloads are limited in scope. An Onlive like service has much greater potential for utility even if it will never be a good replacement for the traditional console game play experience.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Ok, taking my most recently played game as an example. It startes out with the usual movies about the studios that created it. Takes over a minute to get to the first interactive part, which is just a mostly static screen with "press play to start", then you spend a minute or two exploring the menus before you hit "new game" choose your save disk, and then it launches into a 3-4 minute non-interactive movie. We're up at 5-8 minutes at this point, and it could all have been taken care of with 3Mbit 720p video, leaving the bulk of your connection available for loading the engine and assets for the first interactive part. My connection at home hits 1-3 MB/second, so in this 5 minutes, we could have 600MB-1.8GB of compressed data already streamed to the console. Any game that can't start interacting with the user at this point deserves to be laughed at.

Okay, that's a fair point, although hiding the loading times behind 5 minutes of intro videos and menus isn't quite what I was thinking. But yes, it's there, and throw in the user customisation type screens and there is scope to get some starting material.

But! Let's say the user has started, gone through menu screens, the game has cached 2 GBs of data, they're starting in a cave so very few assets are needed. Does the level design now have to limit the player to the same 2 GBs of data + whatever can be loaded in over the internet? I guess the other way of thinking about it is how much level can you fit into that initial 2 GB download? Will that be enough for a Gears area, or a Fable starting village, or a GTA city block? I honestly don't know how game assets are used (or even what size code takes up these days!) so I don't know what the minimum amount needed is. I only know that games take a minute or two to load and play from a several MB/s optical disk - no-one has gotten immediate starting, load assets as you go, running from optical, and I don't know why.

Looking at it the other way, we already have 2-3 minute loading times on occasions, and that's loading from optical or HDD. I've just fired up Uncharted 3 that's in my PS3. It took about 1:15 from selecting the game to get to the menu screen, skipping intro videos and logos. It then took another minute to load a solo game. So that's a minute of loading from a 9 MB/s source. Clearly there's a lot of head moving going on during that, but still, that's a good 4 times faster than your average speed. So maybe it'd take four minutes for Uncharted 3 to load the same content over the internet (2 GB/s), and that's PS3 assets. Quadruple the assets for next-gen and you'd need about quarter of an hour, no?

For there not to be such delays, for 'instant on' gaming from a download, there'd either have to be design decisions to cap the starting asset requirement and suitable level balancing that assets aren't needed faster than they're being downloaded (leave your house and you're streaming assets at 20 Mbps with atrocious pop in), or an awful lot of padding and filler to slow people down from actually playing the game.

 

[bkilian]

Okay, that's a fair point, although hiding the loading times behind 5 minutes of intro videos and menus isn't quite what I was thinking. But yes, it's there, and throw in the user customisation type screens and there is scope to get some starting material.

But! Let's say the user has started, gone through menu screens, the game has cached 2 GBs of data, they're starting in a cave so very few assets are needed. Does the level design now have to limit the player to the same 2 GBs of data + whatever can be loaded in over the internet? I guess the other way of thinking about it is how much level can you fit into that initial 2 GB download? Will that be enough for a Gears area, or a Fable starting village, or a GTA city block? I honestly don't know how game assets are used (or even what size code takes up these days!) so I don't know what the minimum amount needed is. I only know that games take a minute or two to load and play from a several MB/s optical disk - no-one has gotten immediate starting, load assets as you go, running from optical, and I don't know why.

Looking at it the other way, we already have 2-3 minute loading times on occasions, and that's loading from optical or HDD. I've just fired up Uncharted 3 that's in my PS3. It took about 1:15 from selecting the game to get to the menu screen, skipping intro videos and logos. It then took another minute to load a solo game. So that's a minute of loading from a 9 MB/s source. Clearly there's a lot of head moving going on during that, but still, that's a good 4 times faster than your average speed. So maybe it'd take four minutes for Uncharted 3 to load the same content over the internet (2 GB/s), and that's PS3 assets. Quadruple the assets for next-gen and you'd need about quarter of an hour, no?

For there not to be such delays, for 'instant on' gaming from a download, there'd either have to be design decisions to cap the starting asset requirement and suitable level balancing that assets aren't needed faster than they're being downloaded (leave your house and you're streaming assets at 20 Mbps with atrocious pop in), or an awful lot of padding and filler to slow people down from actually playing the game.

I have not seen 2-3 minute loading times on any game I've played. A lot of broadband connections at this point are 20MB+, which is just under half the speed of the blu-ray drive on the PS3. Given the trends, in a few years, 100Mbit broadband connections will be becoming common, which is faster than the PS3 or 360's optical drives, both of which implement "instant start" games today.

As to the level design, I think things will move in the direction of games like Skyrim and Oblivion, which both had starting areas where you set up your character that took around 30 minutes to an hour before you were allowed out into the "open world". Gears could work as is, it's very linear. Mass Effect too, also Halo and pretty much every other normal FPS. The only games you might have issues with are the ones that drop you into a huge open world first thing, and even most of those start out with a starter quest that teaches you the game mechanics and would give them the time to load the rest of the assets for the game.

I'll note that the big open world games this generation didn't use that much space. Skyrim, as open world as they come, with a vast area, used 6GB of space on PC. The games that used multiple discs on xbox were very linear and wouldn't have an issue with downloading assets over time.

Sure, the new generation will use higher resolution assets, but that doesn't have to be true for the first playable area. It would be kind of cool to come out of a grungy low-contrast cave into this amazing expansive sunlit world.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

But! Let's say the user has started, gone through menu screens, the game has cached 2 GBs of data, they're starting in a cave so very few assets are needed. Does the level design now have to limit the player to the same 2 GBs of data + whatever can be loaded in over the internet? I guess the other way of thinking about it is how much level can you fit into that initial 2 GB download? Will that be enough for a Gears area, or a Fable starting village, or a GTA city block? I honestly don't know how game assets are used (or even what size code takes up these days!) so I don't know what the minimum amount needed is. I only know that games take a minute or two to load and play from a several MB/s optical disk - no-one has gotten immediate starting, load assets as you go, running from optical, and I don't know why.

It's going to be easier for some games than for others. Anything with a limited view featuring streaming tech (to stream in the level as you play) may have an easier time of supporting near instantaneous play even over the internet. Top down games for instance. Or corridor shooters.

More open world games are certainly going to have to come up with something. You won't be able to start in a large outdoor area with lots of fine detail and still expect to play reasonably soon on a downloaded game.

Perhaps we'll see more "tutorials" introduced with the next generation of games. Since it is only necessary the first time you play the game, developers could consider it a necessary evil.

For any 3rd person games, perhaps they'll resort to extensive character customization that someone else mentioned.

There's also the possibility of just throwing in a fun mini-game to start it off. Hopefully a mini-game that's actually relevant to the game at hand.

I could see other clever things they could do. For games that are sequels to "retro" games, they could start it off with some retro inspired gameplay. Perhaps Doom 4 starts off with the early 90's graphics of Doom but Doom 4 levels, and as more data is loaded the level gradually transforms around you as you play into the modern representation.

As for extensive video's. Coming from PC where you sometimes have up to 2-3 minutes of non-skippable Publisher, developer, sponsor, game engine developer, sound engine developer, etc. videos at the start which have nothing to do with the game then yeah, that can get annoying. If it's directly tied to the game and NOT something that was released prior to the game in order to increase hype for the game, then I don't mind it so much.

Regards,
SB