Xbox Series... M?

You are going to continue to get new Xboxes and PlayStation because it will always be the more efficient way to sell people a gaming experience. At the end of the day if you can sell a person a $500 xbox series x and have them buy or subscribe to gaming services it is better for the company than to role out enough series x's in a data center and sit and wait to recoup the $500 per blade deployed on just the subscription alone.

Accept that you only need 20% of the hardware you do now if you do it right. That's big. MS has produced 10 million XSX/blades in 2 years. That could service 50 million gamers if done over xCloud one day. That's a huge rollout compared to what can be done today.

All the issues have been stated, but all that has done is push my view out a little further into the future. I still believe one day it will all be in the cloud, because it will save money or grow the business so much that it will worth it. The truly hardcore will still get PCs I'm sure.
 
I have no idea, I'm talking about the commercialisation of technologies that have been in common use by many armed forces around the world. I think you need to re-read this post of mine because it feels like you have mis-read it.



The H.265 encode blocks are tiny, tiny parts of Apple's chips. H.265 is not complicated or expensive and certainly not in the grand scheme of running a server operation.



This is completely backwards. With the physical console model, Sony and Microsoft have to manufacture enough consoles for as many people who might want to use them. I use my consoles far less than I did ten or twenty years ago. The server-based approach means you only needs as many virtual consoles as the maximum number of people who will be gaming at any particular time. I bet of the 100+ million PS4s sold, no more than 40m are in use at any particular time. That's no efficient on any level, not is manufacturing then, and shipping them around the world.
1) but non of these are available or will be available. Doesn't sound like they would be available in the life span of a ps6.
2) even still you'd need to integrate it into your hardware and hope it continues to prove viable for the lfie span of your product.
3) Yes they manufacture and sell you the console. For most of its life span its sold at break even or a profit. It doesn't matter if you play on it 24/7 or 1 hour a month. With server based approach you need to be able to supply demand. If you target for 40m users out of a 100m ps4s you will run into issues. We see issues like that with multiplayer games and mmos at release. You are especially vulnerable to issues at the roll out of a new generation of hardware. If a user has an 8k tv and wants to play an 8k stream with an xbox next for example and he goes on to play Halo infinity times 8 on launch day with his xcloud subscription and you serve him up a 1080p xbox series s stream he wont be happy. I know personally I would think twice about the service and leave. I have left video streaming services for that reason. I used to sub to funimation and crunchy roll but went back to just the high seas because the streams would be serviceable to god awful. Playing a game with a bad stream quality and high latency would drive away a lot of gamers. Just look at game streaming reviews to get a feel for what streaming is like


I think streaming is fine as a gap filler. But I don't think its going to replace consoles for many generations if not at all. I'd wager cell phones or tablets would become good enough at some point vs what companies can product at a sane budget and consoles give way to that way before streaming dominates.
 
1) but non of these are available or will be available. Doesn't sound like they would be available in the life span of a ps6.

Military and Government are poised for the shift to quantum communications. Once they've bandied convention satcom, it'll become more widely available.

2) even still you'd need to integrate it into your hardware and hope it continues to prove viable for the lfie span of your product.

I'm not sure what you mean here? The comms side of servers, as in the connection to the internet, has always been a separate functional block. That'll simply change from a hub to a backbone node to an up/down-link.

3) Yes they manufacture and sell you the console. For most of its life span its sold at break even or a profit. It doesn't matter if you play on it 24/7 or 1 hour a month.

The economics of consoles has never been in the hardware, it's in software and services. If you lower the barrier to entry, but not needing to buy a console at all, that many more people can leap in. Imagine where you can just buy GamePass and that's it. No console, maybe just a controller. That's a massive lower of the barrier to entry.

Your server theology is years behind, mate. Microsoft's whole damn strategy for almost the past decade has been shifting more and more to the server. The only barriers to what you can shift are latency and bandwidth and technology has had solutions for this for a long, long time.
 
Btw does XSM at Nintendo Switch lite size make sense?

Or it must be steam deck size to accommodate the cooling system and battery? As even Nintendo Switch that have very low watts already runs quite hot (depending on the game).

My launch model switch regularly reaches 70c or more when docked.
 
Btw does XSM at Nintendo Switch lite size make sense?

Or it must be steam deck size to accommodate the cooling system and battery? As even Nintendo Switch that have very low watts already runs quite hot (depending on the game).

My launch model switch regularly reaches 70c or more when docked.

If it's trying to match series S in performance then it will need to be larger for battery/ heat. You could get smaller than steam deck but larger than switch if you remove the touch pads from the steam deck. They use up a bit of room an imo would be useless in a portable xbox. All the games on it are made around the controller unlike games on steam. Maybe use a slim bezzel screen to reduce some size also?
 
I wonder if a screen that is not attached is feasible as a way to help with heat management since a gaming device could have a big heatsink instead of a keyboard? Either flip screen or some sort of telescoping or folding riser/arm system? Would probably also be good for ergonomics.
 
I wouldn't mind a modular system where the base is the console & sold by itself as a home unit, but if you want to go portable then you buy the screen with integrated battery pack separately. So more like a 2-in-1 laptop than a Switch or Steam Deck. You would still use a regular controller with it in home or mobile mode. No need for built-in controls, but I guess they could sell something like these...



Tommy McClain
 
I wonder if a screen that is not attached is feasible as a way to help with heat management since a gaming device could have a big heatsink instead of a keyboard? Either flip screen or some sort of telescoping or folding riser/arm system? Would probably also be good for ergonomics.

Does the screen add that much heat ?

The internals of the steam deck are extremely weird compared to the more straight forward designs of say the aya neo. I think the surface design teams could do a lot with a handheld form factor.

I know you haven't brought up the switch but others have. As an adult male of large size I have to say the deck is more comfortable to use than the switch and much more comfortable than the switch lite. I had purchased a add on grip system for my switch back when I used it.
 
Does the screen add that much heat ?
I wasn't really thinking about how much heat it adds but about how much heat it traps and about all that real estate that could be used for a big ass external heatsink or whatever else to help with cooling.
 
I wasn't really thinking about how much heat it adds but about how much heat it traps and about all that real estate that could be used for a big ass external heatsink or whatever else to help with cooling.
I think they could have fit a bigger heatsink in the steam deck. The back was very flat

1659856174596.png

Inside the deck the heatsink is tiny , its that small area above the fan

1659856362980.png
 
Remove the controls, move the battery pack & LCD to separate add-on module, then use an external AC adapter to power the main unit. You now have a low-cost hybrid device that can double as a home & mobile device.

Here's something I sketched up quickly. Looks like a foldable because it is. The "lid" opens up for attaching the LCD & battery for charging or taking on the go. It doesn't need to be that thick since it would only house the interface. It stays closed in home mode. The lid could also have an interface for snapping on the controls(ex: joy-con style). BTW, you could have 2 different LCD sizes. One size that makes it like a Switch/Steam Deck & a larger screen one that would make it more like a Surface Laptop.
Screen Shot 8-10-2022 at 8.29 AM.png
I would buy that in heartbeat.

EDIT: Xbox Series V - The device looks like a 'V'. :D


Tommy McClain
 
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That's a bit more my liking/style. I thought the Steam Deck was too large & ugly. At least the price is a bit better than the Steam Deck.

A 720p OLED in portable mode & 1080p in docked mode seems the best price performance.

Tommy
 
That's a bit more my liking/style. I thought the Steam Deck was too large & ugly. At least the price is a bit better than the Steam Deck.

Same. When you grew up with handleld gaming being a Gameboy, anything larger feels weird. PSP/Vita were absolutely my limit and I rarely play my Switch undocked from a TV. The SteamDeck's form-factor is ludicrous but I don't know what the answer is for a device you really two hands to hold.
 
I remember suggesting a streaming handheld like this. I think it's a bit pricy. $200 would be more ideal imo.

The main advantage is that storage space won't be an issue.
 
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