News & Rumors: Xbox One (codename Durango)

There's nothing new under the sun there. Sure, publishing news like that is not a bad idea, but of course, their interpretation draws from some unclear, vague info, and their tech thickness shows. They are just spilling the beans there. The headline attracts attention and that's why I decided to share the news.

It has to be said that there's nothing better regarding the Xbox, because the news and the information are so scarce nowadays.

There is no indication to the contrary in the short term, and when nothing suggests otherwise these headlines easily make into the news....

 

Well can you point me in the directions where other sites are reporting that MS is tweaking Durango in response to the PS4 reveal?

No news doesn't mean shoddy news is ok.

 

Given that Durango is rumored to be Window 8 based, is it feasible for Microsoft to basically co-opt a good chunk of windows PC gaming into the Xbox ecosystem?

Basically Xbox 720 titles being compatible with PCs in general and pubs declining to release PC skus of those titles. Pubs could accomodate PC gamers with all of the functionality they enjoy today but the games would be essentially a 720 branded title.

If "always on/always connected" provides a DRM feature wouldn't it be deployable on PCs? If Xbox 720 titles provided a robust DRM solution more capable than those typical used by PC games, then a portion of the license fee collected by MS would go to pay for this service. MS gets more licensing fees and pubs potentially receive more sales while simply using a system MS has already employed on consoles.

I can imagine that PC gamers wouldn't be too thrilled but for MS to do this it would only require the wide spread cooperation of the publishers. A DRM feature that kills a significant level of the piracy on PCs would be considered a boon to publishers.

Now a issue could be antitrust but the only opposition would be online stores like Steam. But what if MS chose not to locked out software like Steam as MS only needs to ensure it receives it licensing fees from the publishers themselves?

I only ask because it seems MS wants to go cloud only in the future anyway with a hardware agnostic ecosystem. This seems like an intermediate step that allows userbase expansion by basically pushing PC gamers into the ecosystem.

 

They aren't, even Proelite, who is a huge Xbox fan and works for MS, hasn't heard anything about a clock increase (or any kind of spec related improvements).

Interesting that Kotaku are confirming the always online rumours, certainly matches with what I've heard are MS's plans (the only things that work offline being Bluray playback and the network troubleshooter).

Of course they could decide to change that before release, but that would definitely represent a change to their original plans for the system.

And the controllers used to have small screens on them, but they must have got rid of them for whatever reason.

 

That would have been cool, but not entirely buying the rumor that they the new controllers are unchanged from the 360 version. What would be the point of the crazy stripes on a controller we've already been using for 8 years?

Tommy McClain

 

The crazy stripes are either just camoflage, similar to that used by prototype cars to disguise their curves and design - or alternatively a kind of watermark that will allow any leaked pics of controllers to be traced to a particular dev.

 

No point on production items, it's for early access kits -- to uniquely identify the leakers.

 

What would be amusing is if only one developer got stripes on their controller. Another one got cubes, another one got swirlies, another one got paisley, etc. Then just by saying what design is on the controller, MS would know who the leaker was.

Regards,
SB

 

You really believe that proelite guy? Does he even really work for MS?

 

I am not sure where interference is getting his info from.

 

SB I love that idea! I will take one that looks like graph paper. On a serious note, these rumors are bugging me. I just can't logically see required always online working yet, an tablet is one thing, but a games console should first and foremost be a simple - put in disc and play device. Everything extra is just a bonus that if I so choose I can use. I do have one 360 that I only game on, or do xna items. I don't think I have ever used a video app on it. All my other 360's do everything, but I had to wire my house to make it all work (WiFi is blah).

I guess my point is, a console at its core should be a simple and quick pick up and play device, and if these rumors prove to be 99.9% accurate, what on earth are they thinking? Guess when I go on trips taking a console with this requirement is not going to work anymore (unless I pay the hotel internet fees).

Sigh, please be false.



Sent from my RM-820_nam_att_100 using Board Express

 

I understand them doing it on the box or Kinect 2, but again doing it on a controller that supposedly hasn't changed from the 360 version? I don't buy it. My point is that the controller _has_ changed from the 360 version enough that they don't want devs leaking it. The question becomes how much has it changed? There's more to it than just smaller size.

Tommy McClain

 

Sorry Proelite, won't quote you without asking next time...

Well, the changes aren't going to be anything overt, like screens, otherwise Kotaku would have mentioned it.

IMO MS is just tired of nearly everything about their console leaking and have added the camo so that they'll have something new to reveal come their launch (ie the design of the new console and controller).

He does have access to real info, but since it's all second hand or worse it's probably difficult to interpret or separate from the fake info.

And I think, like SuperDaE, he likes watching the fanboys hang onto his every word.

However, take this post of his from Feb:
http://beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1706757&postcount=1106

He mentions the SHAPE audio block, which is a real thing and still hasn't been mentioned by anyone, anywhere else (it stands for Scalable Hardware Audio Processing Engine and is probably bkilian's baby )

 

He means it should be able to do "in the ballpark" ports as rumored.

Both systems would contain: Same CPU. Same 8GB of RAM, HDD, Blu Ray, 1.8 TF GPU vs 1.2...

When for instance, Ubisoft exec recently talked about how great AC4 and Watch Dogs looked on next gen, he didn't exclude Durango, which presumably would be the multiplatform floor.

 

exactly, this nonsense that suddenly the Durango is rendered neutered compared to PS4 is grossly overestimated

 

Kotaku said that "prototype versions of both Microsoft's new, powerful console and the machine's new, mandatory Kinect sensor have been in the hands of game creators since last month."
Aren't these prototypes pretty much final dev kits?

P.S.

PS4 having "better specs" has been used as an argument to suggest that MS will change specs, which it's like saying that it's not acceptable for a product to be "less good" and that anyone can/should make better products out of whim.
And really PS4 has "better specs" but Durango is not s***; why it is so hard to accept that Durango is not garbage, and that no doubt you can/will have fun playing on it?

 

Who's called it garbage?

B3D is a technical forum with a major focus on hardware and hardware performance. It's natural that people here are going to be less enthusiastic about a piece of hardware that is alledgedly less powerful than another. Less-capable hardware is regularly panned on this forum, you being rather new to this place may not know how the jargon usually goes around here.

IE, don't be so defensive. Nobody's out to 'get' durango. People are simply expressing their opinions.

 

No. It's saying MS are in a competitive market and it helps to have the 'better' product. Of course, those thinking MS need better hardware to compete are ignoring all the other competitive aspects of a console like price, experience, games, etc.

 

Sure, I am not arguing with that, but one thing is saying "it helps to have a/the better product" another this is saying "anyone make a better product out of whim".
Since when human factor, time and money became meaninglessness in the "creation" of a product.

 

Allways On/Connected discussion have been moved to *spin-off* Always on/connected... stuff.

Thank you for your patience.