Yes, which is why I mentioned how some might jump to the immediate interpretation that MS are going to have the most power console. It may or may not. But the interesting thing is that it could also mean that whatever their internal hardware target costs, they will price it relative to what they think the performance of their competition will be.
There's obviously a lot of PR talk involved here. Especially if you look at the sections where Eurogamer attempt to pin down what Phil Spencer meant with "consoles." They tried very VERY hard to get him to commit to saying that they will only be launching one console and Phil used a lot of PR speak to not commit to saying they will only launch one console. IE - there may still be more than one console design in play.
Yes, and perhaps I should have quoted more of the previous response when I made the post that started all of this.
So to put the whole thing into perspective from the article... The first part of the quote is from a response to whether there would be multiple next generation Xboxes. Which led into the part I quoted before.
PR is PR, and it's always tricky trying to tease out what they mean versus what they want you to hear. There's so many different ways a person could interpret what Phil Spencer actually meant. And, of course, there's always the cynic that will say Phil Spencer didn't mean to say anything at all.
However, he does have a history of saying things that have come to pass. IE - he isn't one to just say empty platitudes just for good PR. More often it turns out that he's wanting to tell people something but he can't come right out and tell them everything that he wants to tell them.
Hence, why this is in the Baseless Next Generation Rumors thread and why I'm having fun speculating on something I found particularly interesting.
- From Phil's perspective, XBO sacrificed both on performance AND price.
- If we assume that Kinect added 100 USD to the price (thus making it a sacrifice WRT to price) then the base console was likely meant to be priced similarly to what the PS4 launched at.
- At that price point, performance was obviously sacrificed to reach that price point. Both in terms of the SOC power and the overall bandwidth from using DDR3 outside of the special use cases where the SRAM could be used. DDR3 being obviously chosen due to cost reasons. Which led to needing the ESRAM for situations which require high bandwidth. Which led to an SOC that was seriously lacking in GPU and memory performance compared to the competition due to the need to dedicate silicon space for the ESRAM.
- In other words, a sacrifice of performance for price that Phil Spencer implies he doesn't want to do again.
- So, the implication here is that the plan is to make an Xbox that is the best that can be put into a console without making hardware choices (due to costs) that might hamper it, as was the case with the XBO.
- Especially when you look at the question that already acknowledges that this generation more than any previous one might be quite expensive to make a console stand out WRT performance. IE - are they going to have to cut corners (sacrificing performance for price)?
- But there's also the mention that not only was XBO less powerful, but it was also more expensive. So, they don't intend to be at a price disadvantage to the competition again. Which could mean...
- If the PS5 ends up priced lower than their target for Project Scarlett, they'll price it similarly to the PS5 regardless of how much it costs to manufacture a Project Scarlett console.
- Alternative, considering how hard Phil Spencer worked to avoid saying they are only launching one console...there might still be 2 console designs in play.
- One for price parity or price advantage.
- One for pure performance.
Again, pure speculation based on a non-technical interview. But certainly interesting to think about, IMO.
And while it's obviously easy to just wave that off as something that is expected from a PR answer to a question, Phil has generally avoided saying things only for PR value without some actual "thing" behind what he's saying.
I think he's been in his position long enough with a good track record (WRT what he said his intentions are and how he's delivered on what he's said) that he can be considered as something more than just a PR mouthpiece.
But it's still just speculation on my part. Hence, in the Baseless rumors thread.
Regards,
SB
