Xbox Business Update Podcast | Xbox Everywhere Direction Discussion

[rntongo]

I think its a bit short sighted to only look at VRAM. today you can get 32gigs of ddr 5 ram for $80 bucks and a 8-20gig vram video card for the pc.

But the same was kinda true with the ps4/xbox one. They had 8 gigs total ram but most gamers ran 16-32 gigs of ddr 4 and video cards of 4-8gigs of ram.

I think on the pc side we have been just as stagnant as on the console side and it really started happening last gen. I also don't see a OEM stuffing their version of xbox full of expensive ram. Even then all that will happen is costs will go up on that console. If lets say Dell comes out with the alienware Xbox series X and puts in 32gigs of ram they aren't going to sell it for less than MS is selling the current xbox series x. They are going to say well this is a value add and now lets make money and price this at $600 or $700. not to mention that both MS and Sony are willing to eat some cost of consoles at the start because they get 15-30% of all the games sold and 100% of all the accessories. Dell wouldn't be getting any of that.

I'm not sure comparing the performance of DDR to GDDR memory is quite accurate here. You're right that having large amount of memory even if split between two processors is still good especially with new optimizations to bridge the gap between the unified memory architecture on the consoles and the split system on PCs. But you get much higher memory bandwidth with GDDR memory and even lower latency with a unified memory architecture. So with bandwidth hungry tasks related to AI and RT you could see certain features not working well on licensed Xboxes or PCs in the first year or two until there is enough VRAM. But again this would only be shortlived for 1 or 2 years and only if my speculation about a more than 2x jump in memory turns out true.

Modders added AI to skyrim on their own and it didn't take them years

It seems to work really well and if they could do it then MS's dev teams can do it.

Yes its impressive, thanks for sharing. Seems like they glued together some good APIs. The magic is in how good the APIs are, I could write these code myself. Yes MS could even add advanced Retrieval Augmented Generation(RAGs) to add context and make the in game AI conversation even more reliable.

I am not sure why you need a large AI accelerator. AMD has xillan cores that it is adding to Zen with Zen 5 later this year. They will be small cores meant to accelerate this stuff kinda like what Qualcomm is doing

In terms of bandwidth there is nothing stopping Ms from implementing infinity cache into the xbox or going with a split pool of ddr for the cpu and gddr for the gpu.

I meant relatively large AI accelerator. You'd need it for better inference for the gaming workloads. So more die area allocated to inference for ML workloads. This is going to be a trend moving forward. We'll see the same with the PS5 pro. It will have more die area allocated to PSSR and RT hw accelerators.

In terms of bandwidth there is nothing stopping Ms from implementing infinity cache into the xbox or going with a split pool of ddr for the cpu and gddr for the gpu.

For the bandwidth the infinity cache definitely improves on performance but empirical data has shown it has only marginal improvements. You'd get more bang for your buck with higher bandwidth GDDR memory. I remember Xbox One tried some sort of caching techniques and they actually didnt turn out well. They were compensating since they had gone with DDR3 RAM(Mama mia what a blunder) while Sony went with GDDR5. Also GPUs are much more parallel in nature than CPUs so things like cache coherency are more of a problem with CPUs. The Infinity Cache definitely offers some benefits but its not going to give you a generational leap. It will provide marginal improvements in performance. You'd get more bang for you buck by increasing cache size on the CPU die but thats expensive which is why you see console CPUs cut the cache sizes for their CPUs or omit things like infinity cache on the GPU. Dont judge me if I'm wrong, I last sat in Comp architecture class years ago. But splitting the memory would actually increase latency and make the console slower. With unified memory the processors both have access to the same physical memory addresses and this is much more efficient and faster. So they need to choose one type of memory for the whole system. And between DDR and GDDR the higher bandwidth type(GDDR) is better since it wont bottleneck the GPU as well more than meets the CPU's bandwidth requirements. The lower latency you could get from using DDR is offset by the shared physical memory addresses of unified GDDR memory. Its just a much much smarter more efficient more powerful memory system really. It would be a self own splitting the memory.

Sure it being a better designed system may have helped it out later on but there is no denying that having the market to themselves as the only next gen machine for a year also helped them out.

As for 2025 you'd get zen 5 which leaks indicate in certain tasks is 40% faster than zen 4 which it self is faster than zen3+ and that is faster than zen 3 which is faster than zen 2 in the ps5/pro and xbox series there should be massive gains in cpu performance clock for clock. Depending on when Morpheus(zen 6) comes out that could even be possible for a 2025 console.

We know in some games the zen 2 processor in the ps5 and xbox series consoles is holding back frame rate and performance. The ps5 pro is rumored to only have a slight increase in clock speed of several hundred mhz . So in those types of games you could end up seeing huge gains in performance. That is before getting software specifically designed to take advantage of the new processor

On the gpu side if rdna 5 is available that should hopefully greatly improve ray tracing performance and that is something rdna 2 greatly lacks.


At the end of the day MS has 32 developer studios which can focus on making the best experiences with their console as a base. Things are completely different than when they launched the xbox series. For one there is no pandemic shutting everything down and forcing everyone remote. but also they have grown a lot in studios allowing them to have a lot of content for the xbox.

I've said it before and I will say it again. Having a COD that takes advantage of the next gen system on day one is a big system seller. There are a lot of cod fans that will switch consoles for the best console version. Add to it that they can have a gears ready or doom and have a big RPG ready too and it could be a really big year for a new console unlike what happened with the series consoles

Yes launching earlier definitely gave them a headstart and was a huge reason as well for the success. You're absolutely right. BUT:

1.) The Xbox 360 still launched at a time when other industry advancements had taken place. There was newer faster memory(GDDR3 was a year old) available, they had also taken some design IP from companies working with Sony on their cell processor(IBM) incorporated it into their Xeon CPU as well. And in those days it was much easier to see changes from generation to generation due to moore's law. Now generations last longer and you still need to time your new gen hw when there are serious advancements. One of which is memory, A good early start would be end of 2026, but MS would need to sign deals this year for titles to be developed for the cross gen period that take advantage of the hw.

2.) The 360 launched with an impressive launch line up. Today releasing early means you take on larger pressure to show why your new hw is worth upgrading to due to the aforementioned. After the Series consoles, very very few people are going to buy new Xbox hardware without a clear show of games that take advantage of the hw. They squandred that trust at the start of this gen. They need to rebuild that and in a way that doesnt put pressure on themselves. If they are planning on launching hw earlier than the competition, they need an even bigger software line up to get people into the ecosystem.

So there are pros and cons to launching earlier than the PS5 from a business and technical perspective. In the MS FTC leaks you can see the expected date for next gen is 2028. But we should expect late 2026 for when we'll get info on the next gen consoles and a late 2027 launch. MS could launch earlier but they need to be more than prepared to prove why they're hw is worth getting.

 

[cheapchips]

2.) The 360 launched with an impressive launch line up

Not really. Mostly looked like warmed up PC titles. From first party, Kameo was mediocre. PGR3 was the only wow title.

Still better than this gen though!

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Activision Blizzard boosts Microsoft earnings, but Xbox console sales plummet

Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard has contributed to a boost in gaming revenue, but Xbox console sales hav…

www.eurogamer.net

In its latest earnings report, Microsoft stated gaming revenue has increased by $1.8bn, or 51 percent year-on-year, while Xbox content and services revenue specifically increased by 62 percent. Microsoft admits this is due to the net impact from the acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

Hardware revenue, however, has decreased by 31 percent year-on-year due to poor sales of Xbox consoles. Even the release of major exclusive Starfield last year couldn't improve hardware sales.

Seems increasingly difficult to justify XB hardware. The more MS publish on other platforms, the less relevant XB consoles become as they don't have an exclusive USP. The less relevant XB consoles become, the more interest in publishing games to more platforms. For those like @Johnny Awesome who envision a long-term library-driven appeal from exclusives, will the hardware still be relevant enough for that to happen, or will HW sales have dropped so low that a few exclusives a year won't revive the platform?

 

[rntongo]

Not really. Mostly looked like warmed up PC titles. From first party, Kameo was mediocre. PGR3 was the only wow title.

Still better than this gen though!

View attachment 11193

Agreed. It was decent start and within a year I remember there were a lot of really nice titles available on the machine. It was an instant hit. I was living in Africa at the time and I was surprised by just how many Xbox 360s there were. You dont want to imagine the grip Playstation had on the whole continent from the PS1 and PS2. Seeing the Xbox 360 everywhere was a surprise but a pleasant one at that. Eventually the PS3 came out and it was an overly expensive impressive machine but the MS business strategy was better and the 360 version of titles had better looking textures as well so they generally looked better. MS had it in the bag really.

 

[iroboto]

Activision Blizzard boosts Microsoft earnings, but Xbox console sales plummet

Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard has contributed to a boost in gaming revenue, but Xbox console sales hav…

www.eurogamer.net

Seems increasingly difficult to justify XB hardware. The more MS publish on other platforms, the less relevant XB consoles become as they don't have an exclusive USP. The less relevant XB consoles become, the more interest in publishing games to more platforms. For those like @Johnny Awesome who envision a long-term library-driven appeal from exclusives, will the hardware still be relevant enough for that to happen, or will HW sales have dropped so low that a few exclusives a year won't revive the platform?

They’d still need hardware, Just not in the format it is in. For consoles to stick around they have to do more than sit under a TV and only play games.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Why? I've so many other devices for doing all the other stuff. For games, I want something that provides a simple gaming experience. On the one hand, console hardware is mostly redundant, but on the other you don't necessarily want to use it for anything else, like a PC. I guess the ultimate replacement would be a PC at a monitor with a connection to the TV and a 'boot to game mode'. But as it is, PS5 is selling okay despite only playing games, in stark contrast to PS3's "It Only Does Everything" marketing, because the TVs are 'smart' and the user has a mobile on hand for other things.

Also, why does MS need to worry about hardware? They don't have a handheld but here we have four Windows handhelds. MS can just let other people worry about the hardware. Buy a Dell or ASUS Xbox that boots into the XB partition on a controller button press (although I've low hopes of that because MS really haven't progressed the Windows experience in years and it doesn't look like there'll be a gaming mode in it any time soon).

 

[Cyan]

I've so many other devices for doing all the other stuff. For games, I want something that provides a simple gaming experience.

I disagree with you, Shifty, that can be done and you just need to consolerize the software, for people who prefer that experience like eastmen and you, and many others. You can get that nowadays in Windows with Steam Big Picture launching at Windows startup, at least until Windows shenanigans break the illusion.

I think you could look at Linux distros running on "closed" hardware for emulation. Or retro boxes running Linux on the Raspberry Pi.

Sure they can go yet with another super powerful console again, in the traditional style, getting ready to be beaten by Sony and Nintendo.

If it were for you in your ideal world we'd be playing closed machines with newer games all the time, no backwards compatibility -GoG became a business out of that-, super hefty prices with no competition, you just play that and creativity is gone 'cos the user is a simple spectator, just because it plays games?

I agree with @iroboto.

To sum it up, they are Microsoft, they can pull it off, but they need to disable all the Windows stuff nobody uses except for productivity scenarios.

 

[Cyan]

Activision Blizzard boosts Microsoft earnings, but Xbox console sales plummet

Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard has contributed to a boost in gaming revenue, but Xbox console sales hav…

www.eurogamer.net

Seems increasingly difficult to justify XB hardware.

While the future of Microsoft in the videogames industry is brilliant, Xbox as a hardware is dead.

By the way, after the 30% drop in XBox sales, they plan that in the next quarter, sales will fall even more compared to the previous year.... the XBox situation is already irrecoverable.

We are possibly seeing the end of XBox. Satya Nadella has dropped that the Third party plans will be bigger and bigger and that Microsoft will increasingly bring more games to more platforms (he has directly named Playstation and Switch saying that more games will arrive).

Xbox is increasingly becoming a full third party company (it really is almost like that, it makes three times as much money outside of Xbox as it does on XBox, de facto it is almost a 100% third party company).

 

[rntongo]

While the future of Microsoft in the videogames industry is brilliant, Xbox as a hardware is dead.

By the way, after the 30% drop in XBox sales, they plan that in the next quarter, sales will fall even more compared to the previous year.... the XBox situation is already irrecoverable.

We are possibly seeing the end of XBox. Satya Nadella has dropped that the Third party plans will be bigger and bigger and that Microsoft will increasingly bring more games to more platforms (he has directly named Playstation and Switch saying that more games will arrive).

Xbox is increasingly becoming a full third party company (it really is almost like that, it makes three times as much money outside of Xbox as it does on XBox, de facto it is almost a 100% third party company).

This is what Phil was driving to really. The next Xbox may very well be the last one. But moving forward the growth plan is acquisitions and a game store available on windows machines. On the other hand we could see a console version from Valve to fill in the gap in the console market or Sony simply taking over that market share as well as releasing titles later on PC. In all this I just hope MS doesnt resort to trying to sue Sony's business model. Thats the only thing I see as a negative in all this. Otherwise its a win for all companies.

 

[Cyan]

Agreed. It was decent start and within a year I remember there were a lot of really nice titles available on the machine. It was an instant hit. I was living in Africa at the time and I was surprised by just how many Xbox 360s there were. You dont want to imagine the grip Playstation had on the whole continent from the PS1 and PS2. Seeing the Xbox 360 everywhere was a surprise but a pleasant one at that. Eventually the PS3 came out and it was an overly expensive impressive machine but the MS business strategy was better and the 360 version of titles had better looking textures as well so they generally looked better. MS had it in the bag really.

agree to disagree. The Xbox 360 was a great console hardware wise, but that the hardware wasn't, imho, what drove the sales of the Xbox 360, nor exclusives (as someone mentioned here, the Sega 32X had much more exclusives than anything else and you know how it ended, a device that I loved when playing it on a friend's house but it didn't sell well).

The original Xbox was somewhat "revolutionary" in trying to mix PC and console gaming, adding a hard drive to install games and to save games, with off the shelf components. It was a start.

The X360 was more revolutionary not because of its power but because it became a social console, because of a brand new online, the friends lists, the possibility to chat with friends, create chat groups, gamercards, a better and evolved gamepad, and achievements. That alone made it a much compelling console than the competition.

 

[fehu]

The more MS publish on other platforms, the less relevant XB consoles become as they don't have an exclusive USP.

Damned if they keep titles exclusives, damned if they keep them multiplatform.
They must rename the Xbox's division in Kobayashi Maru.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I disagree with you, Shifty, that can be done and you just need to consolerize the software, for people who prefer that experience like eastmen and you, and many others. You can get that nowadays in Windows with Steam Big Picture launching at Windows startup, at least until Windows shenanigans break the illusion.

That's what I was getting at with the rest of my post. But there's no point me buying a PC with Console mode for TV and another for the study. I'd be better off with the one computer that can boot into console mode and stream to TV from the study. Or, if I don't want to mix the gaming with the work computer for various reasons (more than one user at a time; don't want to have to mess with work PC for games; etc), I don't need any functionality beyond gaming for the 'PC in the living room that plays games', which is what a console is.

For a lot of households with a console, one PC isn't enough. You want a second device that plays games, and that's the 'console', whether it's Windows booting into gaming mode or a PC-architecture with some bespoke OS a la PlayStation.

 

[function]

MS need their own console platform for Gamepass, which is worth well over a billion a year in revenue. PC Gamepass was a bit of a sorry experience last time I used it, and relying only on PC or cloud would hurt or kill Gamepass as things currently stand.

 

[rntongo]

agree to disagree. The Xbox 360 was a great console hardware wise, but that the hardware wasn't, imho, what drove the sales of the Xbox 360, nor exclusives (as someone mentioned here, the Sega 32X had much more exclusives than anything else and you know how it ended, a device that I loved when playing it on a friend's house but it didn't sell well).

The original Xbox was somewhat "revolutionary" in trying to mix PC and console gaming, adding a hard drive to install games and to save games, with off the shelf components. It was a start.

The X360 was more revolutionary not because of its power but because it became a social console, because of a brand new online, the friends lists, the possibility to chat with friends, create chat groups, gamercards, a better and evolved gamepad, and achievements. That alone made it a much compelling console than the competition.

Dude. The 360 went toe to toe with the Playstation in Africa, I would even say possibly outsold it. I dont think you understand how big a deal that is. You need to consider that a large part of the world didnt play their 360 with internet. In the US, Europe and Japan that was the case but in large parts of Africa, parts of Eastern Europe, South America, Asia, the 360 was selling well and most of these people were playing offline. I remember that time quite well since I used to travel around the world as a kid. Internet access was no where as good as it was in the West. 2005-2010 for general internet access people still used to go to the internet cafe but as well they had Xbox 360s they'd play offline at home. This may be a bit odd for someone that grew up with excellent internet in the West.

So I agree the online experience you speak of is a core part of what made the 360 a revolutionary device but it wasnt a typifying example of how the vast majority of the world used the device(Also a lot of sales registered in NA and Europe actually ended up in the Middle East, Africa, South America, Asia, other parts of the world), the distribution of sales by region wont capture this. It was people buying them cheaper in the West and sending them home. But in order for the 360 to reach that global audience at the time, it was clear communication it was a gaming device, it was the availability of titles, affordability as well as an excellent system architecture that rivaled Sony's PS3. Devs loved making games for the 360 for this reason. I remember going to a game cafe in 2007 and you could clearly see the textures on the 360 games actually looked better than PS3 version of the game and the 360 had more titles than the PS3 at that time IIRC. It was such a well thought out device through and through including the online features you speak of, so I'm not discounting what you're saying and I could be wrong but that was my observation at the time was the vast majority of the world didnt actually experience that part of the console. Globally people just didnt have that kind of high throughput internet access or unlimited highspeed internet.

 

[iroboto]

Why? I've so many other devices for doing all the other stuff. For games, I want something that provides a simple gaming experience. On the one hand, console hardware is mostly redundant, but on the other you don't necessarily want to use it for anything else, like a PC. I guess the ultimate replacement would be a PC at a monitor with a connection to the TV and a 'boot to game mode'. But as it is, PS5 is selling okay despite only playing games, in stark contrast to PS3's "It Only Does Everything" marketing, because the TVs are 'smart' and the user has a mobile on hand for other things.

Also, why does MS need to worry about hardware? They don't have a handheld but here we have four Windows handhelds. MS can just let other people worry about the hardware. Buy a Dell or ASUS Xbox that boots into the XB partition on a controller button press (although I've low hopes of that because MS really haven't progressed the Windows experience in years and it doesn't look like there'll be a gaming mode in it any time soon).

Well from MS perspective:
If we assume cloud streaming is the end goal, and we aren’t close to that goal yet there are some things that still matter:
A) DX still has to be relevant, Xbox wants to be in a position to determine the features and baseline performance for hardware since that is going into the cloud
B) on the consumer side of things, MS is falling off the cliff to Apple, with heavier penetration from Macs and idevices, this also include Chromebooks and android devices
C) Apple and android don’t have the APIs or the power to take on AAA but they are close, if they do take gaming as a sector windows is pretty useless in the consumer space.

so for them:

there’s still a need for hardware to ensure DX is the leading API as well as being to stave off the growing threats from mobile, Apple, steam deck, they need a device that will meet the new generation where they are, which is anywhere really, certainly not glued to a 60” flat panel.

If they can be successful in keeping that up and keeping our Apple and android, they’ve got a better chance to have better support for their cloud service when it’s finalized into a product out of beta.

 

[iroboto]

That's what I was getting at with the rest of my post. But there's no point me buying a PC with Console mode for TV and another for the study. I'd be better off with the one computer that can boot into console mode and stream to TV from the study. Or, if I don't want to mix the gaming with the work computer for various reasons (more than one user at a time; don't want to have to mess with work PC for games; etc), I don't need any functionality beyond gaming for the 'PC in the living room that plays games', which is what a console is.

For a lot of households with a console, one PC isn't enough. You want a second device that plays games, and that's the 'console', whether it's Windows booting into gaming mode or a PC-architecture with some bespoke OS a la PlayStation.

I was going to suggest the opposite. A handheld Xbox. That when docked switched into windows mode for a MKB monitor setup.

That should be the future of series S. You still need big box power Series X separately if graphical envelopes need to be pushed.

To me this is how the 2 lines should separate. 1 hybrid, 1 dedicated.

 

[Cyan]

2005-2010 for general internet access people still used to go to the internet cafe but as well they had Xbox 360s they'd play offline at home. This may be a bit odd for someone that grew up with excellent internet in the West.

well, the west isn't rich, at least where I live, and you might be surprised at certain apparently rich places of the west where hidden poverty is kinda rampant. Didn't you have a connection back then? Just curious...

Personally, I can tell you that I live in a very rural mountainous area and back then my connection was horrible. 1Mb at most, and it dropped a lot. I had internet in 1997 for the first time, but it was a temporary thing, like 15 days, it was so expensive.

Then in 1999-2000 I had internet for a while, it wasn't as expensive, but 56K modems are too slow.

Until two years ago my connection's speed was 20Mb (actual 2MB/s speed but usually a lot less than that) via satellite like a phone, Thanks to an EU initiative now we have fiber in certain villages in the area where I live.

 

[eastmen]

I'm not sure comparing the performance of DDR to GDDR memory is quite accurate here. You're right that having large amount of memory even if split between two processors is still good especially with new optimizations to bridge the gap between the unified memory architecture on the consoles and the split system on PCs. But you get much higher memory bandwidth with GDDR memory and even lower latency with a unified memory architecture. So with bandwidth hungry tasks related to AI and RT you could see certain features not working well on licensed Xboxes or PCs in the first year or two until there is enough VRAM. But again this would only be shortlived for 1 or 2 years and only if my speculation about a more than 2x jump in memory turns out true.

But the games don't just need graphics ram. The data the cpu needs would be just fine with ddr ram. Also ddr 5 provides what over 50gb/s of bandwidth which is many times faster than the fastest nvmes. So it can still be used as fast cache.

meanwhile the xbox and playstation has 16 gigs of ram some of which will house the data the cpu needs. On the pc side we already have graphics cards with 16-24gigs of ram and I don't expect that to change in the future.

This is why Ms has designed the series console with a portion of slower ram .

Yes its impressive, thanks for sharing. Seems like they glued together some good APIs. The magic is in how good the APIs are, I could write these code myself. Yes MS could even add advanced Retrieval Augmented Generation(RAGs) to add context and make the in game AI conversation even more reliable.

Yup there is a lot of great stuff coming down the pipe.

I meant relatively large AI accelerator. You'd need it for better inference for the gaming workloads. So more die area allocated to inference for ML workloads. This is going to be a trend moving forward. We'll see the same with the PS5 pro. It will have more die area allocated to PSSR and RT hw accelerators.

Sure and MS can do the same. AMD is already adding the necessary components

For the bandwidth the infinity cache definitely improves on performance but empirical data has shown it has only marginal improvements. You'd get more bang for your buck with higher bandwidth GDDR memory. I remember Xbox One tried some sort of caching techniques and they actually didnt turn out well. They were compensating since they had gone with DDR3 RAM(Mama mia what a blunder) while Sony went with GDDR5. Also GPUs are much more parallel in nature than CPUs so things like cache coherency are more of a problem with CPUs. The Infinity Cache definitely offers some benefits but its not going to give you a generational leap. It will provide marginal improvements in performance. You'd get more bang for you buck by increasing cache size on the CPU die but thats expensive which is why you see console CPUs cut the cache sizes for their CPUs or omit things like infinity cache on the GPU. Dont judge me if I'm wrong, I last sat in Comp architecture class years ago. But splitting the memory would actually increase latency and make the console slower. With unified memory the processors both have access to the same physical memory addresses and this is much more efficient and faster. So they need to choose one type of memory for the whole system. And between DDR and GDDR the higher bandwidth type(GDDR) is better since it wont bottleneck the GPU as well more than meets the CPU's bandwidth requirements. The lower latency you could get from using DDR is offset by the shared physical memory addresses of unified GDDR memory. Its just a much much smarter more efficient more powerful memory system really. It would be a self own splitting the memory.

I am not sure if you will get more bang for your buck with higher GDDR memory. The current rumor for RDNA4 is that it will have relatively slow ram with 18Gbps gddr 6 memory and is aiming to compete with the 4080 but priced at $500. So the infninty cache is going to have to do some heavy lifting.

I am curious why you think that allowing the cpu to access its own pool of ram would slow down the gpu accessing its own faster pool of ram ? Is there a an example of this some where that I can see ?

Yes launching earlier definitely gave them a headstart and was a huge reason as well for the success. You're absolutely right. BUT:

1.) The Xbox 360 still launched at a time when other industry advancements had taken place. There was newer faster memory(GDDR3 was a year old) available, they had also taken some design IP from companies working with Sony on their cell processor(IBM) incorporated it into their Xeon CPU as well. And in those days it was much easier to see changes from generation to generation due to moore's law. Now generations last longer and you still need to time your new gen hw when there are serious advancements. One of which is memory, A good early start would be end of 2026, but MS would need to sign deals this year for titles to be developed for the cross gen period that take advantage of the hw.

Sony included the fastest ram up till that point in time with rambus ram. That didn't save the console in the slightiest

Again if you look at the IPC improvements from zen 2- zen 4



Look at how each subsequent AMd cpu generation pushes the bottle neck further onto the gpu. The Ryzen 3600 is what Digital foundry likes to substitute for the ps5/xbox series cpu. So there you can see in Starfield the cpu is the bottleneck with the gpu utilization ratio being about 50% but as y ou move forward the gpu utilization rate continues to increase . The Zen 3 4800x3d is at .67 and the 7700x which is zen 4 is at .79 . This would shift even more with zen 5 that will be avalible this year and next year zen 6 might be ready in time for consoles.



And here you can see it reflect in benchmarks. The 3060 is able to get an average of 68.8fps with 1% lows at 30.5 and .1% at 23.3 . it doesn't change much adding the additional two cores with the 370. The 7600 would bring you to 96.9/47.6/31.7 to keep with the same 6 core set up.

Whats also interesting is the 3d cache . Look at the 7700x which gets 107.4/56.6/40.8 and then the 7800x3d which is 123.9/62.0/42.2. In terms of average frame rates you are getting a boost of almost 20% there


I think also when comparing RDNA 2 even to its contemporizes from Nvidia there is a lot of Ray tracing performance missing. So if RDNA 5 is a large leap over rdna 2 and 3 it could easily push performance to greater heights.

2.) The 360 launched with an impressive launch line up. Today releasing early means you take on larger pressure to show why your new hw is worth upgrading to due to the aforementioned. After the Series consoles, very very few people are going to buy new Xbox hardware without a clear show of games that take advantage of the hw. They squandred that trust at the start of this gen. They need to rebuild that and in a way that doesnt put pressure on themselves. If they are planning on launching hw earlier than the competition, they need an even bigger software line up to get people into the ecosystem.

What impressive launch? Someone else posted the launch. I just remember playing COD 2 until oblivion came out like 4 or 5 months later. The xbox 360 started like a small snow ball up hill and kept picking up steam as it went.

Look at nintendo , the wii u was a larger disapointment than the original xbox and some how they were able to get over a 100m gamers to purchase a switch. What helped was a disruptive product launched at the right time. If they kept limping along for 5 or 6 years to match MS or Sony's cadence the switch would never happened.

So there are pros and cons to launching earlier than the PS5 from a business and technical perspective. In the MS FTC leaks you can see the expected date for next gen is 2028. But we should expect late 2026 for when we'll get info on the next gen consoles and a late 2027 launch. MS could launch earlier but they need to be more than prepared to prove why they're hw is worth getting.

We have no idea when the FTC leaks are from. That could have been their plan when launching the series x in 2020 but with the way the generation has been going and them seemingly no longer wanting to do a mid cycle refresh the launch of a new generation also could have changed.

Not really. Mostly looked like warmed up PC titles. From first party, Kameo was mediocre. PGR3 was the only wow title.

Still better than this gen though!

View attachment 11193

My friends and I played he hell out of COD 2. That is when a lot of my friends started playing shooters and they all loved it.

While the future of Microsoft in the videogames industry is brilliant, Xbox as a hardware is dead.

By the way, after the 30% drop in XBox sales, they plan that in the next quarter, sales will fall even more compared to the previous year.... the XBox situation is already irrecoverable.

We are possibly seeing the end of XBox. Satya Nadella has dropped that the Third party plans will be bigger and bigger and that Microsoft will increasingly bring more games to more platforms (he has directly named Playstation and Switch saying that more games will arrive).

Xbox is increasingly becoming a full third party company (it really is almost like that, it makes three times as much money outside of Xbox as it does on XBox, de facto it is almost a 100% third party company).

Imagine if nintendo had this mindset with the wii u.

Like I said Ms just needs a disruptive product like the xbox 360 or switch. We will just have to see what happens

 

[QPlayer]

This is exactly why it is likely that they want to come out first with a console with features that attract new players. What could be the biggest buzzword in the coming years? AI, of course. Starting this year, almost everything in computing will be about this. During the time of MS, he got on this train and invested a lot of money in Intel's developments and production lines. Now, some may say that this is not related to the console department, however, it cannot be ruled out considering the possibilities. In order to create a successful product similar to or exceeding the X360, a different approach is needed.

With the current Series consoles, they can only own a more modest business slice. If they want to keep the Xbox Series line and develop it further, there is only one way, a successful Series S Mobile that plays Series S games. With this step, they can also keep the 30 million user base.

Would that be so important? At that time, they stopped at 20 million sold consoles and switched to the more modern, better-built console, the X360. Why can't they do that now? Of course, this is just a theory, but they can bring out the new generation console this way, earlier than the competition and rebuild a much larger user base.

 

[Cyan]

I was going to suggest the opposite. A handheld Xbox. That when docked switched into windows mode for a MKB monitor setup.

That should be the future of series S. You still need big box power Series X separately if graphical envelopes need to be pushed.

To me this is how the 2 lines should separate. 1 hybrid, 1 dedicated.

agreed. The hybrid one could even be eGPU compatible for those who want extra power.

On the dedicated console, since they are taking preservation seriously, thy could make it even PC Windows compatible, I mean console gamers should have it as easy as possible to launch any Windows game. Which means hundreds of thousands of games and stuff.

They could create a Windows virtual machine that could run any .exe, even .exe files with viruses, without having any effect to the base console. There are a lot of games via emulation, mugens, openbor games, visual novels, erotic novels, retro gaming, free games on itch.io,, etc etc etc etc, that could be accessed by console gamers.

If they want it to make game preservation a thing, some kind of API running games from the very first version of DirectX to MSDOS games, easily accesible to console gamers could make it even more compelling for any lazy console gamer.

Btw, Microsoft just released the source code of MSDOS today.

Thus console gamers would get the best of both worlds too. Gaming nowadays is not just trending full prized AAA games, there are a lot of games in between.

The hybrid handheld could get the best of a traditional console, the UI and easy of use, but with an actual tweaked Windows OS running it, so the rest would be guaranteed.