Post Xbox One Two Scorpio, what should Sony do next? *spawn* (oh, and Nintendo?)

[BRiT]

One thing is for sure, it will be really interesting to see what Neo can do, I really hope it does release this year.

I misread that as "interesting to see what Nintendo can do" with an evil maniacal laugh soundtrack in the background.

I'm not sure what N will do in a post PS4 Neo / XB Scorpio world. I dont think there are enough gimicks left to keep them relevant in the post PS4/One world, let alone their successor.

 

[MrFox]

I misread that as "interesting to see what Nintendo can do" with an evil maniacal laugh soundtrack in the background.

I'm not sure what N will do in a post PS4 Neo / XB Scorpio world. I dont think there are enough gimicks left to keep them relevant in the post PS4/One world, let alone their successor.

Neocando NX.

They said they don't want to show the NX because they are afraid others will copy their idea.

That means their idea is not original enough to be patented. I hope they are not trying another Wii or WiiU type of gimmick. This is very worrying.

 

[iroboto]

@iroboto, thanks for the responses. You've cleared a lot up for me.

I personally favour the route of 1080p with better framerates, cleaner/higher res textures, extras in general rather than trying to shoehorn a basic experience into a 4K resolution.

Although I still think a PS5 will release in late 2019 with a specification that will blow even the Scorpio out the water. With a mixture of a much better CPU as well as a much higher tFlop GPU, which should at that point be able to produce native 4K, but again, we may see just resolutions higher than 1080p upscaled to 4K.

One thing is for sure, it will be really interesting to see what Neo can do, I really hope it does release this year.

np. Good discussion and great etiquette. Sent you some 'likes' on your replies as I'm hoping more people reply like you do.
I also favour the 1080p with better frame rates . When I mentioned that people try to maximize their hardware, in particular I'm looking at setups that could run at 144fps on my g-sync monitor without blowing my budget. Right now i'm stuck.

Anyway, it could be a useful spawn to discuss: 1080p enhanced visuals vs 4K resolution. I'm completely unsure what happens if visuals keep going up instead of resolution. I think the impact would be clear to gamers in terms of fidelity, but I'm unsure as to the increased cost on development studios.

 

[goonergaz]

I really cannot see the point of 4K for console gaming, it seems pointless unless you're sitting right in front of the screen, in a standard size front-room I think you'd need a 70" TV or something to see the difference.

 

[temesgen]

The existing Xbox One drive is more expensive than PS4 drive. And regardless of speed it still cant read UHD triple layer discs, its only logical to assume its more expensive than the existing drive

As for Scorpio price, the only real information we have is from Phil Spencer saying it will be "premium price". There are a dozen other words he could have used if it was going to be "cheap"

affordable, competitive, high value for good price. Premium? Not so much. Nobody said the PS4 399 price was premium when it launched

In addition to whatever MS has said about the new console, we have enough trend to infer they won't be subsidizing price. It could happen but I rate the likely hood up there with it moving 50 million units.

Someone said it quite well earlier in the thread, we kept getting best case scenario analysis. The Yankees could have ever batter hit a home run but it's not likely.

 

[rockaman]

I think there's a big difference with ideal price points now, because they continue to support the lower cost model equally. It changes the model completely.

They both talked about it as a "high end version" of the PS4/XB1 so it wouldn't be surprising to see them around $499. A console launch that is a generation reset needs to sell extremely quickly to reach a critical mass, the entire industry depends on it, because it needs a user base to justify the game development cost. It's not the case with this mid-gen thing, it's more like a new high-end PC GPU coming out, while the low-end models still continue to be made as the most popular baseline power which games are targeting.

The problem of critical mass would probably be felt on how much effort developers will spend optimizing for that new target specs. If it sells very quickly it's the old SKU that might suffer, if it doesn't sell quickly it's the new SKU that won't be as good as it could be.

Also I wonder about the fixed expense of making new hardware, which is no longer amortized for an entire generation, they will sell half as much because it's always overlapping. Many hundreds of millions is a lot of money to amortize over only 3 years.

Agree very much, this makes most sense to me as well.

I think they will also adopt the design of multiple SKUs, one at lower price, and one at higher price.

At least this is my interpretation of what they mean by "high end version." To me it implies that there will also be this lesser cost version available, as much as the market continues to be willing to purchase it.

 

[wco81]

The existing Xbox One Bluray drive is already faster than the 128Mbit/s required for UHD Bluray.

Cost increases can come from APU, RAM and storage (flash ?). MS has some catching up to do when it launches, so a subsidized sales price is plausible, IMHO.

$400 would be a good price for consumers

Cheers

Panasonic just announced their UHD player for $699 due in September so $400 would be a great price.

Probably won't play UHD Blu Rays as cleanly though, and you have to use the controllers for the remote (why can't they put out a smart phone app. to control the media?).

Yeah the drive isn't the big thing. I think H.265 may have higher royalty costs than H.264. Plus will it decode in software or will they put dedicated decoder in hardware?

 

[Jay]

Probably won't play UHD Blu Rays as cleanly though, and you have to use the controllers for the remote (why can't they put out a smart phone app. to control the media?)

what do you mean by as cleanly?
pretty sure you can buy media remotes for xo, so they will work with the slim and Scorpio.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Panasonic just announced their UHD player for $699 due in September so $400 would be a great price.

Probably won't play UHD Blu Rays as cleanly though, and you have to use the controllers for the remote (why can't they put out a smart phone app. to control the media?).

Yeah the drive isn't the big thing. I think H.265 may have higher royalty costs than H.264. Plus will it decode in software or will they put dedicated decoder in hardware?

I thought that harmony remotes worked with xbox one? You can also use the xbox app on a smartphone as a remote. Playback should not be any different than a standalone player.

 

[BRiT]

My Harmony remote works well with the XO for media playing and tv watching. I've had to use it a lot more recently because of the minor setbacks with voice control Cortana.

 

[wco81]

what do you mean by as cleanly?
pretty sure you can buy media remotes for xo, so they will work with the slim and Scorpio.

Mainly that the Panasonic is targeted at videophiles so it will probably have nicer scaler, bitstream support for more audio formats, etc.

I would think the consoles have more horsepower than the embedded processors that consumer electronics use, so it would do better with things like Netflix and other streaming apps.

But my PS3 sounded like a vacuum cleaner when it played Blu Rays. I haven't tried Blu Rays with the PS4 though.

Meanwhile, you figure a dedicated UHD player won't have as noisy a fan, if it has one at all.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Yah, audio formats is one of the big questions that comes up about Xbox One S. No idea what the answer is.

 

[MrFox]

Why is bitstream output important?

Consumer electronics used ASICs and now SoCs that are extremely power efficient from companies like Sigma Design or MediaTek. The problem is getting firmware updates when you buy them from shitty companies like samsung. And the ASIC are good for disc playback, they usually suck at streaming services because the goal is power efficiency. General purpose processing is the bare minimum.

I had a good experience with panasonic back in the dvd era with my rp82s which was probably the best dvd player ever made. No experience with their bluray players. When PS3 launched it remained, for years, a much better bluray player than any CE crap costing $1500, this advantage probably won't happen again with UHD but you never know. The PS2 was a horrible dvd player, surprisingly.

 

[Rangers]

In addition to whatever MS has said about the new console, we have enough trend to infer they won't be subsidizing price. It could happen but I rate the likely hood up there with it moving 50 million units.

Someone said it quite well earlier in the thread, we kept getting best case scenario analysis. The Yankees could have ever batter hit a home run but it's not likely.

I just bought a 5.8 teraflop RX 480, 8 Gee Bees, for 239, and that's $10 over MSRP.

Not directly analogous to a console of course but kinda shows ~$400 is in range imo.

399 would probably be best case 499 worst, so maybe 449 could be a compromise.

Polaris 10 is 232mm^2 I believe. Pretty small. Scorpio will likely be using something beefier of course.

The 14/16 nm really changed things.

 

[eastmen]

Mainly that the Panasonic is targeted at videophiles so it will probably have nicer scaler, bitstream support for more audio formats, etc.

I would think the consoles have more horsepower than the embedded processors that consumer electronics use, so it would do better with things like Netflix and other streaming apps.

But my PS3 sounded like a vacuum cleaner when it played Blu Rays. I haven't tried Blu Rays with the PS4 though.

Meanwhile, you figure a dedicated UHD player won't have as noisy a fan, if it has one at all.

Odd. My xbox one is completely silent with blurays.

My xbox one is silent almost all the time actually

 

[eastmen]

certainly an interesting experience! One thing it does solidify for me is just how sick you can feel in VR if the moment isn't right. I figured I'd be able to handle it but it really is as bad as people suggest. I'd say any form of turning using a control pad rather than your head/body should be

You discuss MS in the best scenario. Let's talk some more reasonable case.

First, if next xbox has 24GB RAM then it may cost 499 or more.

Second, in 2017 Halo and Gears may not have a new main installment due to short development period. However, Sony's GOW and GT may launch early.

Third, in the next 1 1/2 years Sony probably launches a slim PS4 to compete with xbox ones in the same range of price. PS4 slim and NEO can widen the gap to xbox one.

When next xbox launches in winter 2017, the gap between PS4 and xbox one may be widen to about 30~40 million. Even Neo can't compete but PS4 slim in the cheaper price can compensate for the sales.

No one talks about worse case scenario for Sony. Only best . I flip it on its head so we can discuss something interesting.

1) Depends on the ram doesn't it. we have $200 cards with 8 gigs of ram on them. You can buy 16 gigs of ddr 4 ram for about $100

2)Your right about gears , since that hits this fall. However I expect all First party games from 2017 to be enhanced for scopio. I also don't expect a new halo in 2017. But Halo 5 was 2015. So they should certainly have a halo far enough in development to show off in 2017 even if it hits in 2018.

God of war may have pull. But MS puts out a racing game every year. 2017 would be a main line forza game. So I'm not sure what GT is going to do. Who knows if it will even be feature parity with Forza


3) Yes we may get a slim. But I doubti t will launch in 2017. Even then we don't know if they can match MS in price on the xbox one or if we get more verisons of the xbox one as hinted at in leaks

4)The ps4 will continue to grow through 2017 of course. But you will see a far larger difference between a 1.8tflop console and a 6+ tflop console than you will a 1.3 and 1.8 and thus people will start to migrate over to Scorpio. Esp if Neo is hindered by sony's restrictions.

So to clarify, just over a year after releasing a matured tech with 1.3TF @ $300-$400 dependant on HDD size you think they will release a brand new tech machine ~4x the power with 50% more memory at just $400?

I don't think you understand how things work. The $300-$400 of the xbox one slim has no baring on how much it costs MS to product. If you believe that , then do you believe that a 2TB hardrive costs $100 more than a 500gig one ?

MS added low cost features to the system to keep its value up to get maximum dollar for the unit. UHD Bluray , 4k output , HDR are all value adds that cost MS little. The 2TB drive would cost MS a few dollars more than a 500 gig one but they can get $100 more out of a consumer for it.

My personal believe is that the xbox scoprio will be about $400-$500. The xbox one S will be at $200 by that point.

I believe the final Scorpio will depend on what the neo is. If Neo is this year or early next year MS will have time to react a bit to what sony does.

 

[eastmen]

Neocando NX.

They said they don't want to show the NX because they are afraid others will copy their idea.

That means their idea is not original enough to be patented. I hope they are not trying another Wii or WiiU type of gimmick. This is very worrying.

The Wii u could have been great but the design of the controller was bad. It was gigantic , had a tiny battery and had a resistive low res screen.

A redesign with a smaller game pad and 5.7inch screen like found on the note 5 or so would have been ideal.

 

[Jubei]

I just bought a 5.8 teraflop RX 480, 8 Gee Bees, for 239, and that's $10 over MSRP.

Not directly analogous to a console of course but kinda shows ~$400 is in range imo.

399 would probably be best case 499 worst, so maybe 449 could be a compromise.

Polaris 10 is 232mm^2 I believe. Pretty small. Scorpio will likely be using something beefier of course.

The 14/16 nm really changed things.

Im not sure i understand your point. Are you saying AMD is going to keep upping the specs and still releasing for 199 every year? If so i have some real estate you might be interested in

RX480 is cheap because its only 232mm. And AMD is already pushing it with the frequency so the only way they will get higher performance in the future since its still 14nm next year will be to increase die size wich means bigger wafers wich means higher cost. Vega is not going to be 199 dollars and its going to be much larger than 232mm2

Even the kings of price gouging Nvidia can be competitive price wise with the 1060 because its also roughly only 200mm2

Zen cores + Vega for 399 is a pipe dream, we are talking about two products that will be released only a few months before Scorpio but somehow they will become considerably cheaper in that timeframe?

 

[fehu]

Panasonic just announced their UHD player for $699 due in September so $400 would be a great price.

I'm not interessed in overly specced tv and disc, but doesn't even the xbox one s do 4k BR with hdr at 249$?

 

[eastmen]

Im not sure i understand your point. Are you saying AMD is going to keep upping the specs and still releasing for 199 every year? If so i have some real estate you might be interested in

RX480 is cheap because its only 232mm. And AMD is already pushing it with the frequency so the only way they will get higher performance in the future since its still 14nm next year will be to increase die size wich means bigger wafers wich means higher cost. Vega is not going to be 199 dollars and its going to be much larger than 232mm2

Even the kings of price gouging Nvidia can be competitive price wise with the 1060 because its also roughly only 200mm2

Zen cores + Vega for 399 is a pipe dream, we are talking about two products that will be released only a few months before Scorpio but somehow they will become considerably cheaper in that timeframe?

Bro you said it yourself. The RX480 is cheap because its only 232mm2. Its already pushing at 5.8Tflops and costs $200 with 8 gigs worth of ram on the card.

Power may be an issue , lets see what AMD's fix is tomorrow and then for non refrence boards.

This is 2016 and AMD has just released their first 14nm chip. In 2017 AMD will have under its belt on 14nm Polaris 10/11 and Vega 10/11 , Zen , Zen + , Neo APU and who knows what else .