Xbox Series S [XBSS] (Lockhart) General Rumors and Speculation *spawn*

[Shifty Geezer]

The SAD is selling decently.

Data? What proportion? A quick Google finds prices at $99/€99. If that's the most people will accept a driveless SKU for, there's no way a Lockhart sans optical drive would make sense.

Take someone like me who has exactly two disc games for my xbox one . I have 4 games for my 360 and 6 original xbox games on disc. Everything else I own is through DD or part of game pass. For me I'd rather save that $15 or $30 or whatever it ultimately ends up being on the disc drive and I am sure there are lots of people out there also.

On the one hand, it's easy to imagine console gamers happy to buy a drive-less SKU like they have driveless other devices. But OTOH, we have had a few driveless consoles/handhelds over the years that have generally bombed. I needn't reiterate the arguments held in the past of price sensitivity and the value of sharing/second hand physical copies. Game Pass might be able to swing people round, but that's a significant gamble to assume it'll work and MS design a whole system around a download only console.

 

[Scott_Arm]

I would think the people who would want a cheap xbox are also probably the people that are buying used games etc, and an optical drive would be what they'd want.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I would think the people who would want a cheap xbox are also probably the people that are buying used games etc, and an optical drive would be what they'd want.

The counter there is Game Pass offers unprecedented value. But at the same time, I think $n a month is still more than the poorest want to pay, and they'll prefer a $15 game they can play over and over, sort of thing. As I say, betting the new device on appealing to people wanting a cheaper, less powerful device and download only titles is a considerable risk given the lack of proof this is a viable product line.

 

[eastmen]

Data? What proportion? A quick Google finds prices at $99/€99. If that's the most people will accept a driveless SKU for, there's no way a Lockhart sans optical drive would make sense.

On the one hand, it's easy to imagine console gamers happy to buy a drive-less SKU like they have driveless other devices. But OTOH, we have had a few driveless consoles/handhelds over the years that have generally bombed. I needn't reiterate the arguments held in the past of price sensitivity and the value of sharing/second hand physical copies. Game Pass might be able to swing people round, but that's a significant gamble to assume it'll work and MS design a whole system around a download only console.

When they released the sad it was $250 , s was $300 and x was $500. The sad comes with a few games like Minecraft and others it hasn't really been updated since game pass hit but you own those games vs buying. MS doesn't release numbers. The sad is there to reduce cost as much as possible and hit price points you can't hit with the traditional S. Whatever you want to say be it $15 or $30 at a $100 price point that is a significant amount to be saving. When the SAD released and it was $250 vs $300 of the s again that $15-30 is actually a big deal

I also get what your saying about used pricing , however like you yourself point out there is Game pass now which wasn't around with the others and wasn't popular when the sad launched.

With gamepass continuing to expand I think its logical for MS to have a system out there that's as cheap as possible. With the US job market as it is , do you go out and buy a ps5 or xsx for $500 for little timmy or do you go get a $300 XSS ? What if you can go to microsoft.com and get that XSS with a year of gamepass ultimate so little timmy can play Minecraft and halo infinite and whatever else works it way onto the service with 0% financing for 2 years ?

We will see what happens , but the sad exists for a reason.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

So no data to show it's selling well?

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Why would prices go down and if so how far can they go down. Optical drives have a lot of moving parts and there is only so far you can reduce price. I don't see the optical drive hitting $15.

Because it's a supply-and-demand industry, when supply is above demand, prices tumble.

Even then so you save $15 right off the bat , you need a smaller power supply , smaller casing , it now weighs less because of all those factors so you pay less in shipping , the console is smaller so you can ship more in the same place , stores can stock more. Your also now getting more of your sales as DD so your making more money there

Equally, every change you make from something else costs money. The sales of those items, along with the per-unit cost reductions has to be exceed the cost of designing and implementing those change.

The counter there is Game Pass offers unprecedented value. But at the same time, I think $n a month is still more than the poorest want to pay, and they'll prefer a $15 game they can play over and over, sort of thing.

Game Pass is tremendous value if you play a lot of games. If you're a more casual gamer, or you're hardcore but playing only playing a small number of titles (Fortnite, COD etc) then Game Pass is not good value.

 

[eastmen]

Because it's a supply-and-demand industry, when supply is above demand, prices tumble.

there comes a point where a company is not making enough profit and will cut production or stop production completely. Thus keeping prices stable. There will always be a floor in terms of pricing and if a company needs to go under it they are either clearing out old stock that is just sitting making them no money or fulfilling a bad contract.

Equally, every change you make from something else costs money. The sales of those items, along with the per-unit cost reductions has to be exceed the cost of designing and implementing those change.

Yes but that is typically a one time cost. If you can save $15 or $30 on a unit and the redesign costs you $1m and you plan on selling 10 or 15 million units that cost adds up into the hundreds of millions quite quickly.

Game Pass is tremendous value if you play a lot of games. If you're a more casual gamer, or you're hardcore but playing only playing a small number of titles (Fortnite, COD etc) then Game Pass is not good value.

Its interesting that you pick those two games . Fortnite is free and is only DD and COD when it does have a traditional single play game has a low resale value because of how multiplayer based it is.

Also if people are only buy ing a limited number of games and playing them over and over again , the resale value continues to drop each day. So the DD vs physical pricing is not a large difference as its typically within a few dollars of each other during the launch period

 

[AzBat]

Game Pass is tremendous value if you play a lot of games. If you're a more casual gamer, or you're hardcore but playing only playing a small number of titles (Fortnite, COD etc) then Game Pass is not good value.

I don't buy that. There is value in having a curated library. I don't play a lot of games but I find myself playing more than I used to & it's due lots of different games that I would have never had bought outside of Game Pass. I always used to buy just blockbuster titles, but now I'm finding I will download smaller titles that I can finish in a couple of hours or couple times a week. My blockbuster titles are getting less & less. Maybe 1 a year now, but I've played a dozen or more smaller titles in the past 6 months. Nice thing is that when I want to play I know there is always something new & different ready to download when I'm ready & I don't have worry about paying $60 for something I'm not sure if I will like or have the time to even finish it. Plus, the rest of my family can enjoy the library too. There's literally something for everyone on there. This was one of the great things about Xbox Live Arcade titles on the 360. Each one had a free trial. And not having something like that on XB1 when it launch was big negative for me. Game Pass is so much better in every way. Too bad it took them 3.5 years before they got to it.

Tommy McClain

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I don't buy that. There is value in having a curated library.

Yes, if you value a curated library. GamePass (and PS Now) are not automatically good value propositions if you are a casual or only play Fortnite or COD. If that's all you play, you're wasting money on a subscription service because you extract no value from it. If you only pay games an hour or two a week, it may also not be good value. Better value might be buying Witcher III on sale and playing that for the next 2 years.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Good points. As to memory bandwidth there's no reason that MS couldn't use something like Renoir as a basis for a custom APU by just asking AMD to add a GDDR6 memory controller. It would cost MS money to do, but it's certainly with their ability to have it made.

Personally, I'm not sure a mobile Xbox is on the cards for them at the moment. Xcloud is likely the direction they are going for all things mobile Xbox, at least for the moment.

Sony/AMD could use 128bit of 12GT/s GDDR6 (192GB/s) and "easily" get a Renoir-esque chip capable of emulating a PS4 because it uses a single memory pool, but I'm not so sure how Microsoft/AMD could emulate the XB1 and its 32MB of eSRAM at 109GB/s duplex (effectively 218GB/s if you want to replicate its performance on a GDDR6 bus).
Microsoft managed to do it on the One X but the later has a whopping 326B/s bus, effectively surpassing the XBone's eSRAM + DDR3 pools combined.

I think if Microsoft wanted to make a portable XBone, they'd need a Renoir-esque SoC with less or lower-clocked CUs but with 32MB eSRAM + Renoir's native 128bit LPDDR4 @ 4266MT/s.
If Sony wanted a portable PS4, they'd need a Renoir with a 128bit GDDR6 memory controller using chips downclocked to 11GT/s and undervolted.

I don't know which of these two completely hypothetical portable consoles would get higher power consumption. Probably the portable PS4 because of the GDDR6 and beefier GPU.
I'd insta-buy either of them BTW.

 

[Cyan]

Because Lockhart is not a console. That's why none of the rumors make sense.

what do you think it could be? Every rumour I heard mentions a possible console, and Phil Spencer talks in plural sometimes. Lockhart is the only console that hypes me, somewhat. A cheap console that I can use from time to time to play with my best friend the games that aren't on gamepass PC. Even so, perhaps I will barely use it, dunno.

 

[BRiT]

what do you think it could be?

Something in the Microsoft Surface product family: surface studio, surface book, surface. Something to replace the pricey Intel parts. Though, No evidence or definitive info.

 

[Cyan]

Something in the Microsoft Surface product family: surface studio, surface book, surface. Something to replace the pricey Intel parts. Though, No evidence or definitive info.

okay, I've seen this, but take it for what it is.

 

[ultragpu]

https://www.windowscentral.com/okay...vealed-and-more?amp&__twitter_impression=true

As per some of our earlier information on Xbox "Lockhart" and the Xbox Series X, we're expecting Lockhart to be a 4TF "entry-point" to next-gen gaming, and it should effectively replace the Xbox One X. This system is designed to be affordable but will offer aspects of a next-gen experience currently unavailable to past-gen consoles, presumably in the form of NVME loading speeds and perhaps some limited ray-tracing. We have no idea about the capabilities of Lockhart outside that magical "4TF" GPU number, which came alongside more of our detailed Xbox Series X info that turned out to be accurate.
Recently, we heard Lockhart is entering take home stages for Xbox employees to get their hands on the system and begin providing feedback and testing. The timing would indicate to me that rumors of upcoming showcases in early May are likely accurate.

And there you have it. Way to go MS constraining your 12 TF Series X to a 4 TF weakling, I wonder how much the graphics would be held back as the gen goes on.

 

[Karamazov]

Why would that hold xsx back ?

We already have OG xbox one games that run like ass and super low res compared to the One X, it's not held back by the OG Xbox one.

 

[BRiT]

https://www.windowscentral.com/okay...vealed-and-more?amp&__twitter_impression=true

They're just talking about baseless rumors and speculating like everyone else is. It even says it in the article link title. I suggest everyone reserve judgements if and when an actual product with actual specs is announced.

It could still be a Surface product with people confusing it for a dedicated console,

This is coupled with rumors from our Senior Editor Zac Bowden that Microsoft is gearing up to showcase new Surface hardware in May, as well.​

 

[eastmen]

They're just talking about baseless rumors and speculating like everyone else is. It even says it in the article link title. I suggest everyone reserve judgements if and when an actual product with actual specs is announced.

It could still be a Surface product with people confusing it for a dedicated console,

This is coupled with rumors from our Senior Editor Zac Bowden that Microsoft is gearing up to showcase new Surface hardware in May, as well.​

That was supposed to happen in April with the book 2 , studio 3 and go 2. Also deeper dive for the duo. The refreshes for these guys are a bit meh imo. The duo is awesome to use but in terms of specs its a bit out dated and doesn't appear to have nfc which means its sadly a skip for me.

 

[eastmen]

Why would that hold xsx back ?

We already have OG xbox one games that run like ass and super low res compared to the One X, it's not held back by the OG Xbox one.

I mean the xbox series x will be held back by the ps5 which is held back by the one x , held back by the ps4 pro , held back by the ps4 , held back by the one s , that in turn is held back by the one and they are all drastically held back by the switch.

Now sony might be prepared to completely cut off the ps4 from any of their titles in a bid to get people to move to the ps5 , but all multiplatform games are going to be held back by the huge install base of the previous generation of consoles and of course the time in which it takes to actually take advantage of the new systems. Over time like with any generation its going to shift rapidly over the first 2 years where as all games are made with the next gen consoles in mind , but that has never happened over night

 

[Karamazov]

I don't see how battlefield 4 was held back by Last gen.

 

[BRiT]

Not really the topic for discussing what holds back games especially broader topic of last-gen games.