Xbox One (Durango) Technical hardware investigation

What?

Casual gamers need a couple of 'killer apps' and some time wasters and maybe netflix. They will probably not play them that much and they certainly don't look to dust off five year old games. A new improved kinect sports would probably pull in more casuals that the entire back catalog. The opportunity to play some game they already own and didn't finish is probably not very key for casuals.

 

Probably because they dont have the recent specs...

Charlie from semiaccurate is hinting to something alot too

 

Yes, I would like to keep most of my Arcade games, or at least the likes of Puzzle Quest 1, Puzzle Quest 2 and some others.

I also hope MS representatives follow the politics of Sony now that they know Sony aren't going to force you to be online to play -one of the things I HATE about indie games on the X360 for instance-.

I live in a very rainy, stormy region and the connection here fails sometimes, routers get fried, etc, it's quite common.

Aside from that, I hope they read these two Eurogamer's articles regarding some delicate matters, the internet connection to play and used games -this one isn't as important for me, but it is for many people-.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-02-21-playstation-4-does-not-require-an-internet-connection (if Durango requires a connection to play it is game over for me with MS)

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...gamer-playstation-4-will-not-block-used-games

 

They have a new Codename?!

 

Do you have a link? I can't find that specific article.

 

Ah too bad as you do seem to be acknowledging Durango specs aren't going to be more than what we kind of already know on paper (and clearly less than PS4).

Hopefully this stack of patents people have been uncovering and the "helper blocks" all add up to more than the sum of their parts on the actual screen.

 

Even though I think people are confusing it somewhat with Always On/Always Online... where the box is connected to the internet and doing operations while in an offline/ low power state...

I would assume it kinda works like XBLA but with timebombed executables or some time of offline grievance. When you first log on it updates the security code and you can log off and play until the code no longer decrypts the executable or something.

It probably would be updating this while connected in its low power state so if your connection completely nukes... you'd be good. If your router blows up then maybe not. That... or they possibly use the exact same system as XBLA does now...

Casuals are the stingiest of the customers. They are typically the parents buying for their kids. These are the people that really float towards value. The keys to success are: software, affordability, new experiences and value. Backwards compatibility falls entirely under value.

People tend to forget there is over 40 million Xbox Live members - That's 40 million people you have a chance to reactivate just on their XBL spend alone.

I even had a guy tell me just last week... someone who has bought a total of... ummm 2? games this generation that if Durango is backwards compatible he'll buy one just to buy and play through all the gears of war games... this guy only bought a PS3 just for Blu-Ray too. 3D games have essentially hit the point where they're going to age very very well... this makes the back catalog that much more enticing to every person who has a hand on the platform. Developers, Publishers, Consumers.

these are from development sources, not sourced from MS themselves.

Again for emphasis... developers would not have control over these things, so they won't be aware of them until it's announced. They don't make Xbox 360 games with Durango in mind as a platform. They make Xbox 360 games, they make Durango games.

 

it seems MS has engineered this similar to how they did 360...


"oh PS3 is waaaay more powerful" -after E3 2005.

2 years later..."as a whole this 360 system is pretty efficient and yet plenty powerful".

 

Casuals are mostly just normal people who aren't typical gamers, they might spend less time gaming and the value proposition for them is different. If they were really just cheap they'll be buying a 360 to play those games, it'll be cheaper.

Developors and publishers don't make much on BC, they'd rather sell you an upgraded version than have you dust off old games.

Anyway this is offtopic except for the fact that durango likely won't have bc so its not really worth debating.

 

If he is not lying (I dont know), maybe (MAYBE) there are two projects (more than a Xbox said Paul*Thurrott), and Durango is one of those.

But maybe he is lying.

 

meh , Durango = cable box/ dvr gaming system and then Xbox next = power house next gen console ?

I don't see it . They would be juggling to many balls in the air at the same time.

of course it can still be possible that the leaks are wrong and the next xbox is more powerfull than rumored.

 

Well, Thurrott said that, more than one xbox, I dont know what this mean but they said that. I dont know if vgleaks specs are for next xbox, I dont think a set-top box needs 8GB and a SoC with 8 jaguar cores.

 

Yea Paul knows a bunch of stuff but it can mean anything. More than one xbox... once we get Durango and have xbox 360 that is more than one. A xbox surface ( the rurmored 11.6inch kabini based surface) later this year would be more than one.


I don't see how two Xbox's would work. Could it be that the Durango we know is cheap enough to replace the xbox 360 (its rumored to be bc after all) and it will launch at $200 or come as a cable box for some companys and there is another xbox that will launch at $500 with better specs.

perhaps Durango can run the bigger systems games at 720p 30fps or something ?

No I really don't see it working

 

Durango is the base specs and add a discrete gpu and more esram for the enthusiast version.

 

but how would ms support 2 consoles. It would be obvious the Durango wont run the games of the enthusiast verison. So who would buy it ? The higher end hardware will allways be limited by Durango.

 

Yes, maybe he mean xbox 360 + xbox 720 for "two xbox hardware".

 

they talked about 'forward compatible' games a few years ago.

And everybody talks about the amazing dev tools that they have. Is it unfeasible that they could create a method so that games run at two different settings depending on whether you have the base model or the enthusiast sku.

 

link???

 

I guess he mean some comments from charlie at SA forums, but I guess Charlie is not "accurate" xD

 

Doesn't make sense because there is a sunk cost buying the base model, which means having to buy an entirely new console to play high end games. That just seems wasteful.

I see subsidy playing a larger role.