News & Rumors: Xbox One (codename Durango)

[RancidLunchmeat]

I think they should make one without the bluray drive. A digital only box, super small.

Yes, I agree. MS should do now what they always intended to do before the XB1 launched when it was "too early" and "people weren't ready for it", yet, just after a year into it's lifecycle, now everybody wishes their original vision had actually been put into effect.

The bluray drive inclusion is what confused and screwed over their initial vision of an online only, completely digital and cloud based console.

But, as I said above, if they made an XB1 without a bluray drive it would look totally different. How do they change/configure the W10 xbox icons if there are XB1 with and without bluray drives? The current icon clearly has a bluray drive in it. If the box looks different, how will people know what to click on? The horrors! There will be mass chaos in the streets, I tell you!

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

The issue with such a model is that it is set to be a lower volume SKU as digital download is not an option for lots of people in the US and elsewhere and for either technical reason or because they are still enjoy physically owning things.
It would save them a 30$ or a bit more on production cost but that is not enough right now MSFT is struggling in Europe and I relies a lot on subsidized console in the US.

You'd know better than me, but everything I keep hearing is how the US broadband is crap compared to the rest of the world. I would take that to mean that Europe has better bandwidth and they would actually then benefit from a reduced price console that was digital only? It's really the crappy US market where people use 10Mb DSL and dial-up that is holding back digital adoption isn't it?

 

[Scott_Arm]

I don't really buy this "digital download" is not an option thing either. There are something like 100+ million active Steam users and they get around 8 or 9 million concurrent users. Smartphones and tablets are everywhere. There are 62 million Netflix subscribers, another bandwidth hog. I bet you could find the number of people that stream HD porn. How many Xbox and Playstation consoles are online? There's absolutely no shortage of people with good Internet connections and large caps that could buy a digital-only console. Bandwidth caps can be an issue, depending on how many games you buy and play in a month. Those people can still buy the disc-based consoles. Same with people who have poor Internet service.

 

[liolio]

I know my country and averages are a misleading values, really really few lucky one have access to optical fiber, cable is a tad more common but no longer being developed. then there is ADSL and what you get at the end of the line is all over the place.
I don't know what the average is (here in France) but I suspect one should absolutely look to statistic variance to have a more reasonable picture of the real state of the internet infrastructure.

 

[liolio]

I don't really buy this "digital download" is not an option thing either. There are something like 100+ million active Steam users and they get around 8 or 9 million concurrent users. Smartphones and tablets are everywhere. There are 62 million Netflix subscribers, another bandwidth hog. I bet you could find the number of people that stream HD porn. How many Xbox and Playstation consoles are online? There's absolutely no shortage of people with good Internet connections and large caps that could buy a digital-only console. Bandwidth caps can be an issue, depending on how many games you buy and play in a month. Those people can still buy the disc-based consoles. Same with people who have poor Internet service.

I'm an active steam user I use it not that often, I would buy indie/tiny games and never consider and a download that is counted in 10 GB it bothers me enough when I've to wait for giant updates.
Netflix is not a bandwidth hog, I've a friend with a connection akin to mine 3.5 Mb/s and it works fine I don't think he receive the highest quality stream.
I watch Youtube more than 360p is a good day alone on the network (we are a couple my friend we speak 4 people all in age to access the network).
I'm the lower end of what ADSL deliver in France, same for him. The thing is that with ADSL you get pretty far for the central fast.

I don't know in the US as I did not stayed long and only in 2 places but here in France (possibly others places too) they passed on developing cable to promote the telephonic network (and usually the matching state operator), cable is not perfect but nowhere near as costly as full fiber distribution, which remain a bit of a pipe dream for lots of areas.

EDIT
As I said I'm at the low end of the rope but even for luckier people going by the increase in games sizes, patches size, etc. you better be patient.
EDIT 2
Using ADSL TV competes with computers and consoles for bandwidth whereas for cable it is not the case.

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

I know my country and averages are a misleading values, really really few lucky one have access to optical fiber, cable is a tad more common but no longer being developed. then there is ADSL and what you get at the end of the line is all over the place.
I don't know what the average is (here in France) but I suspect one should absolutely look to statistic variance to have a more reasonable picture of the real state of the internet infrastructure.

I get that, but that's no different than here in the states.

This is the speedtest I just ran right now:
http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/4478511856

That's without paying any extra for "increased speed" or anything. If you get cable internet in my area, that's what you get. According to this, I'm getting about double what the US average is:
http://www.netindex.com/download/2,1/United-States/

But, when we're talking about regions and averaging bandwidth, we are dealing with them as a whole region, and according to this, France has better bandwidth on average than the US. Even if it means my individual results are superior to yours.

http://www.netindex.com/download/allcountries/

Looks to me like there's plenty of bandwidth out there for the majority of developed nations that have disposable income to spend on consoles in the first place.

 

[Scott_Arm]

If someone has a 10 Mbit connection, they can download a 25GB game in under 6 hours. If they have a 5 Mbit connection, that's obviously 12 hours. If you queue a download overnight, or something like 9pm to 9am, 10pm - 10am etc, that's really not a big deal. Some ISPs don't have download caps overnight either. 10 Mbit or 5 Mbit speeds are not particularly fast. If you can get DSL/Cable in Canada, you can't really get anything slower than 6 or 7 Mbit/s.

 

[liolio]

Some of those number are crazy high to the point where they sound like commercial statement, ADSL is always sold as up to 24MB/s for example. Cable is closer but I know that here they won't bother investigating if they deliver one third (or 1/2 I don't remember same as below) of the promised bandwidth.
They are deploying VDSL here, bandwidth get really high but you have be within 1Km (or so I worked for ISP one year and a half ago I forgot my training already), people that have already good bandwidth are to get more. One 30mb/s connection makes up for quite a few slow, optical fiber makes things even worse.
I think the fact that Microsoft with all the means it had to investigate to issue, the extremely pro online policies they wanted to follow did not passed on optical disk s a good hint at how diverse the situation is from one door to the next one (and it is not about income more often than not you have no choice).

 

[Shifty Geezer]

PLEASE don't start another internet speeds and download discussion! It's treading old, worn ground. Viability can be revisited in that other thread if people really want to repeat the same discussion again.

 

[liolio]

Shifty is right wrong topic. Anyway I won't say that DD is impossible but it still can't address as large a market as physical.

 

[egoless]

This was really interesting. It is very much a celebration of the history of the Xbox, but not all PR fluff as I was afraid it might be. All three were surprisingly candid given that they weren't really being asked difficult questions, but actually volunteered details on the circumstances around some of the less-than-stellar moments of the Xbox's history during their respective eras.

Couldn't care less for those IGN folks that are part of the problem, but I'll give that one episode a listen because of your recommendation, then return IGN to the garbage heap to be forgotten.

 

[BadTB25]

Watching it now. No PR stuff at all----more like a visit down memory lane.

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

PLEASE don't start another internet speeds and download discussion! It's treading old, worn ground. Viability can be revisited in that other thread if people really want to repeat the same discussion again.

Eh, yeah. I agree there's no reason to go back and forth on this debate. I mean, seriously, I provided my personal results which are double the US average, and I provided stats (clearly limited by the nature of their source) that shows France is superior to the US and Liolio doesn't feel those are accurate representations of his personal experiences.

But, I do think that coming to some sort of agreement on the quality of internet bandwidth is important in the framework of this discussion which is: How far should MS retreat backwards towards their original vision of a digital only console?

As Scott said, even if you only have a 10Mp connection, with queing and preloading and scheduled downloads, the entire bandwidth discussion is irrelevant unless you're talking about data caps. So speed doesn't actually matter at all. Everybody has enough time to download games digitally if their console is on, while they are sleeping. With preloading, you can download games while you are sleeping before the release date and then just download a simple little unlock file on the release date.

So let's put all the bandwidth discussions aside, I agree. Even if you have horrible internet service and only get 10mps, if you preorder Fallout right now, it will download and preload and be available to you on launch. Point being that you don't need a bluray drive, so MS releasing a console without one at a cheaper cost point would make sense.

Except, of course, for the fact that the W10 icon in the Xbox app would be wrong and confusing as I've said before.

 

[AzBat]

Couldn't care less for those IGN folks that are part of the problem, but I'll give that one episode a listen because of your recommendation, then return IGN to the garbage heap to be forgotten.

Great interview. Not really IGN, just Ryan McCaffrey from OXM doing a great interview. It definitely could have went on forever & I wouldn't have minded. LOL

Tommy McClain

 

[turkey]

. Anyway I won't say that DD is impossible but it still can't address as large a market as physical.

True, my original suggestion in my mind was a new sku not a total replacement. Get it small enough with an initinal sweetener to try and entice more in and it may sell well.

To address points made before

Also if going for "gamers" and ditching tv as the main focus slightly louder cooling would be tolerable i believe to allow more space to be shaved.

I am sure ram can be on a riser similar to pc dimms if they are taking mobo space, also ps4 is deeper a design trick Microsoft could use to reduce the appeared size from the front.

And for the download debate with games starting prior to being fully downloaded and streamlined overnight updates its more viable than ever.

 

[Cyan]

Yes, I agree. MS should do now what they always intended to do before the XB1 launched when it was "too early" and "people weren't ready for it", yet, just after a year into it's lifecycle, now everybody wishes their original vision had actually been put into effect.

The bluray drive inclusion is what confused and screwed over their initial vision of an online only, completely digital and cloud based console.

But, as I said above, if they made an XB1 without a bluray drive it would look totally different. How do they change/configure the W10 xbox icons if there are XB1 with and without bluray drives? The current icon clearly has a bluray drive in it. If the box looks different, how will people know what to click on? The horrors! There will be mass chaos in the streets, I tell you!

Well, many things screwed over that initial vision --and that's why the Xbox One is in a delicate position. You can make a console like the one you dream about and it can be universal to all the people too, giving people choices.

Couldn't care less for those IGN folks that are part of the problem, but I'll give that one episode a listen because of your recommendation, then return IGN to the garbage heap to be forgotten.

I like IGN, but anyways, I am curious... What do you mean by part of the problem? That's to say, what's the problem in your opinion?

Great interview. Not really IGN, just Ryan McCaffrey from OXM doing a great interview. It definitely could have went on forever & I wouldn't have minded. LOL

Tommy McClain

Me too.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

IGN Podcast unlocked number 200, and in commemoration IGN decided to invite some key pieces of the past, present and future of the Xbox.

These are true legends of the Xbox for me.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/07...bosses-past-and-present-share-stories-secrets

Last time I checked the video wasn't online yet, but I can't wait to watch it.

Finally watched it. This was absolutely fantastic. And very candid.

I found it interesting that when talking about the XBO, Phil Spencer, wouldn't have gone the direction that the XBO went if he had been in charge. This quote from Phil especially was a dig at it when talking about the missteps with the XBO when comparing it to the Xbox and X360.

The one thing the team back then really had, we knew who our customer was and we knew what our product needed to do. In fact, we kind of knew what who our competition was. And it was very direct. I think about that a ton with Xbox One right now. I think it's easy, as you've had some success with the X360 generation and then you start to aspire to different, broader, more...to lose sight of what the core is of your product and what the customers think about.

And now he's doing the best he can with the hardware he has. It'd be interesting to see what XBO would have been like, if Phil Spencer had been in charge from the start of XBO development. Then again would any one person have been enough to change the direction that XBO development was going.

And now back to Final Fantasy 14.

Regards,
SB

 

[Rikimaru]

Finally watched it. This was absolutely fantastic. And very candid.
I found it interesting that when talking about the XBO, Phil Spencer, wouldn't have gone the direction that the XBO went if he had been in charge. This quote from Phil especially was a dig at it when talking about the missteps with the XBO when comparing it to the Xbox and X360.
And now he's doing the best he can with the hardware he has. It'd be interesting to see what XBO would have been like, if Phil Spencer had been in charge from the start of XBO development. Then again would any one person have been enough to change the direction that XBO development was going.
SB

I do not think Phil changed much for xbone if he was in charge.
MS was very misguided at time. Windows 8 abomination tells a lot about company.

 

[Cyan]

Phil Spencer asks us to keep our Xbox 360 games.

http://www.gamesradar.com/phil-spencer-xbox-ones-backwards-compatibility/

 

[AzBat]

Phil Spencer asks us to keep our Xbox 360 games.

http://www.gamesradar.com/phil-spencer-xbox-ones-backwards-compatibility/

Please, there was nothing newsworthy in that.

Tommy McClain