So you're saying with all of their resources they somehow cannot remove the limit on their artificial 32GB cap? They already allow games to be installed and run from USB storage so why the artificial capacity limit? What does bandwidth have anything to do with this capacity limit?
Will MS have two different performance SKUs next-gen? *spawn
- Thread starter Squilliam
- Start date
Did a little search & it's not because of bandwidth. It looks like it only supports FAT32, FATX & [strike]exFAT[/strike] & I thought the Xbox 360 kernel was based on Windows 2000 which can't natively format anything larger than 32gb anyway. So it looks like a limitation of the kernel & the file system.
Tommy McClain
Tommy McClain
Last edited by a moderator:
(((interference)))
Veteran
You could say the exact same thing about Windows Phone and Windows tablets.
MS doesn't want to be left out of all these pies.
They entered the console market with Xbox basically because they wanted to have a MS box in people's living rooms (as well as the PCs in their studys).
Xbox TV, Xbox 361 and Xbox 8/Durango make sense if you understand that that is their overall strategy - they're not in the console business because they wanted to be a games company (unlike say, Nintendo).
....
On the topic of USB drives, I really hope the next gen consoles get rid of the FAT32 limit and support NTFS or exFAT.
The 4GB filesize limit is incredibly annoying when you're watching HD movies off a USB drive/external HDD or want to copy them to the console.
(((interference)))
Veteran
Though given the recent news from Paul Thurrot:
Maybe Xbox TV is cancelled or postponed. Though to be fair, I never knew whether it was planned for this year or later - so maybe they haven't changed plans at all.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=536163
Maybe Xbox TV is cancelled or postponed. Though to be fair, I never knew whether it was planned for this year or later - so maybe they haven't changed plans at all.
Last edited by a moderator:
Well, still dealing with rumors but it makes sense to me for MSFT to pass on that segment for now.
Even smart TV don't get much traction. I think it might have something to do with the way the TV market as the main HUB for media consumption is fragmented:
You have the TV manufacturers, the OS companies (Apple, Google, MSFT), the companies providing the infrastructures and the companies that have the content, they all want their share of the extra revenues allowed by new means of media consumption though the global network.
The pictures is significantly uglier when you look at different territories, with different technologies, different actors.
I'm curious about this 99$ 360, if durango is either 500$ or 300$+subscription with no easy path for price reduction in sight, it makes sense for MSFT to provide a lower end "hub" for game and media consumption that somehow on the latter match the performances (~) but at least provide really close functionality as their higher end model.
For me the 360 as a piece of hardware is not that, it doesn't meet recent requirement for an always on device (putting the online requirement for games outside of the discussion), the power consumption is too high. I still think that they are lacking RAM, and that overall if the system is to be pushed further they need to boost its performances up.
So for me it would not be too crazy for MSFT to have a new design, a bit like the jump from the Gamecube to the Wii. The difficulty here is that Nintendo had it easy with the option of bumping clock speed and adding RAM, for MSFT it seems a lot more tricky without relying to some "software layer" as on the contrary they may have to lower clock :S
Even smart TV don't get much traction. I think it might have something to do with the way the TV market as the main HUB for media consumption is fragmented:
You have the TV manufacturers, the OS companies (Apple, Google, MSFT), the companies providing the infrastructures and the companies that have the content, they all want their share of the extra revenues allowed by new means of media consumption though the global network.
The pictures is significantly uglier when you look at different territories, with different technologies, different actors.
I'm curious about this 99$ 360, if durango is either 500$ or 300$+subscription with no easy path for price reduction in sight, it makes sense for MSFT to provide a lower end "hub" for game and media consumption that somehow on the latter match the performances (~) but at least provide really close functionality as their higher end model.
For me the 360 as a piece of hardware is not that, it doesn't meet recent requirement for an always on device (putting the online requirement for games outside of the discussion), the power consumption is too high. I still think that they are lacking RAM, and that overall if the system is to be pushed further they need to boost its performances up.
So for me it would not be too crazy for MSFT to have a new design, a bit like the jump from the Gamecube to the Wii. The difficulty here is that Nintendo had it easy with the option of bumping clock speed and adding RAM, for MSFT it seems a lot more tricky without relying to some "software layer" as on the contrary they may have to lower clock :S
Is the new $99 Xbox 361 subscription based? If not, what would be the need of XTV? A smaller form factor like Roku or Apple TV, which is not really needed for an entertainment center? Unless your center is really space restrictive, which I can imagine the need for such a small form factor.
$99 Xbox 361 should easily service the market targetted by XTV with better and bigger feature set.
$99 Xbox 361 should easily service the market targetted by XTV with better and bigger feature set.
I'm not sure who you are talking to but so far I can't remember of any information on the matter.
I don't think that MSFT as to offer the same form factor as Roku, Apple tv, google tv, etc.
They won't be able to anyway because of the optical drive. I think a pretty flat (and thin) stackable design ala dvd/brd players would serve them well. Still you have the issue of power consumption, I would think that even with the shrink a 360 revision would still burn its fair amount of power.
I think that an integrated PSU would not hurt either but as I stated above I would think that even on a newer process the 360 would burn a significant amount of power.
Wrt 99$ price tag, if MSFT wants to more actively position that xbox revision as a media hub and offer a durango type of experience "on a budget", they may want to include Kinect (and the new want which production could prove lower).
Overall looking at the hardware, the optical drive, a (still) significant cooling solution, kinect, etc. It all adds up pretty fast and I'm not sure that they can sell at this price without at least a one year subscription.
I don't agree that the 360 could service the market (if there is one) covered by XTV (or Apple/google TV), those boxes are cheap, cool, without a pay wall, there are a lot more apps and services available, etc. The 360 doesn't touch that, actually windows 8RT neither (for now at least).
The 360 is imo at its limit, I haven't tried the last update(wrt UI) but I think that in 2013 this is no longer good enough (from my experience before the last update).
There is a lot of issue with the 360, how much power does it burns to decode a HD video? I guess way too much. It was not design as an always on, media consumption device it does a bad job at it.
They could add an extra chip+ram from the mobile world, but that would cost money and it would do nothing to lower the price of the 360 (/gaming part) by self, still speed demon CPU with healthy power consumption and the associated costs and limitation it set (cooling, psu, impact on form factor, noise).
My idea (if manageable in software) is that it would be better to redesign the 360 around more, slower (possibly tweaked) xenon cores with acceptable power management features, including a proper video processing unit, bumping the RAM (and the overall power of the system) in the process. If doable again might be better than adding a SoC to the SoC which doesn't nothing as far as price reduction is concerned just add extra costs.
wrt running Metro apps, if they are serious and looking at the humongous size of the company I would guess that if they were serious about this 2 sku approach (one based on /leveraging the 360) they should be able to swallow the cost.
Last edited by a moderator:
When do you think they are going to jump to 22nm? Because the rumors point to a new revision this fall (so without significant changes to the design the odds are for IBM 32nm process).
The last revision is not using the half node but plain 45nm process (with awful density imo), power consumption is still high, you can find figures pretty easily on the web.
Well as I stated those figures are indeed not tough to find and from reputable websites
Welcome to Valhalla
in my opinon +80 Watts (actually closer to 90 Watts under load) is still way too high a shrink would make things better but it will still be way too high for what the system does.
There is an even more offending data, 70 Watts iddle (I guess the same or worse while dealing with media), that is unacceptable if you want position the product as an ~always on mdedia device that play games. Shrink is not a magic bullet the power consumption will still be high under load and dreadful in "low power" states.
(((interference)))
Veteran
So, it looks like Xbox TV is not happening this year. The codename is Yuma, not Yumo btw.
Apparently, MS wanted to release it around the same time as Durango, but since Durango was looking likely to slip release they probably threw all their resources at getting it out and put Yuma on the backburner.
So what we're getting for the time being is Xbox 361 and Xbox 720/Xbox/Xbox8 etc.
I think one of the reasons Xbox 361 would make a poor Apple TV competitor (and why MS planned Xbox TV) is that the UI and OS is so slow and unresponsive and has little room to expand further with more functionality (given it has to fit into 32MB of RAM), plus it won't run any of the Windows apps being a PPC platform.
Apparently, MS wanted to release it around the same time as Durango, but since Durango was looking likely to slip release they probably threw all their resources at getting it out and put Yuma on the backburner.
So what we're getting for the time being is Xbox 361 and Xbox 720/Xbox/Xbox8 etc.
I think one of the reasons Xbox 361 would make a poor Apple TV competitor (and why MS planned Xbox TV) is that the UI and OS is so slow and unresponsive and has little room to expand further with more functionality (given it has to fit into 32MB of RAM), plus it won't run any of the Windows apps being a PPC platform.
What confuses me about Yuma is that what part do you cut down from Durango to make it into a $99 box? In order to ever hit that price point to compete with Apple TV, it needs to be rebuilt from scratch to run on on an ARM chip with Windows RT. Tegra 3, 1GB RAM, 16GB internal flash. At that point, it's basically just a Durango accessory.
(((interference)))
Veteran
Well, Yuma was going to be an ARM SoC, not a cutdown Durango.
I said this over a month ago on March 7. And look what news comes out today regarding the future XBOX(es): info on a new version of XBOX 360 (i.e., XBOX TV to compete with the likes of Apple TV, Google TV, and to provide backwards compatability for Durango) and the Durango next-gen console. : )
Disclaimer: I am not an insider (just an enthusiast with the ability to reason and infer based on the leaked and provided information).
(((interference)))
Veteran
Umm, but in your earlier post, you were just expanding on my post:
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1717339&postcount=52
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1717339&postcount=52
I could see the sort of "killer app" being the fact that hey, it's a roku or Apple TV-alike but it also plays all 360 games
That's if they can profitably price it at $99, which seems a stretch.
Even then it wouldn't seem to have great long term prospects, as 360 games will only maintain an appeal for so long. Imagine PS2 game playing ability today as a selling point.
how about selling them to hotel chains (who are always online
) and having them with some kind of monthly DD subscription that allows their guests to play (for pay) 360 games with no discs... could last for years and yearsGiven the choice of an apple tv and a similar device with access to the ps2 library, which would you take?
And I've seen people comment on the 360 ui being slow and limited, but I have an apple tv and it' makes me go, "this is probably what iOS would of looked like if it was released in the early 90s". Maybe I need to play with more because my impression has always been "Apple really dropped the ball". I literally cringe every time I have to navigate it.
Last edited by a moderator:
The Verge said:
http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/11/4211676/microsoft-7-inch-surface-tablet-says-wsj
Looks like those rumors from last summer won't die.
Tommy McClain
