Xbox Series... M?

cheapchips said:
I think streaming only limits it to more or less to a home only device, which in turn limits it's value.

Or at least it's perceived value when the Deck/ Switch will be just $100 more. I've use tablet+controller and Steamdeck loads for xCloud and PC streaming around the house. It's nice that the Deck can run native* games though.

*Whatever that means with SteamOS.
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I also think if the performance of the switch 2 is even close to the rumors that it will eat both cloud only devices.

I speak of it all the time but we already see the ally and other devices getting very close to series s performance.

Taking a look at the windows portables


even the deck is doing pretty well with it

Basing a portable on the series s would allow ms to really nail down the user experience. ETA prime talks about driver issues on the ally performance test of starfield nad having to go download drivers from a website. As much as I love the deck and people love these windows devices there are a ton of people who don't want to deal with things like that.
 
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From The Verge's interview with Spencer, some handheld smoke:

There have been persistent rumors of an Xbox handheld, and Spencer has been liking posts on X that mention the possibility of this hardware. “I’m a big fan of handhelds,” says Spencer. “I’m a big fan, but nothing to announce.” He does admit that there’s still a lot of work to do on the Windows side for handheld gaming PCs. “One of the weak points in the experience on a ROG or the Lenovo [Legion Go] is Windows,” says Spencer. “How Windows works on controller input only on that kind of DPI, on a smaller eight- or seven-inch screen. That’s a real design point that our platform team is working with Windows to make sure that the experience is even better.”

And

“I’m very proud of the work that the hardware team is doing, not only for this year, but also into the future,” says Spencer. “[We’re] really thinking about creating hardware that sells to gamers because of the unique aspects of the hardware. It’s kind of an unleashing of the creative capability of our hardware team that I’m really excited about.”

Add the Surface team and its an Xbox tablet. 😁
 
cheapchips said:
From The Verge's interview with Spencer, some handheld smoke:

There have been persistent rumors of an Xbox handheld, and Spencer has been liking posts on X that mention the possibility of this hardware. “I’m a big fan of handhelds,” says Spencer. “I’m a big fan, but nothing to announce.” He does admit that there’s still a lot of work to do on the Windows side for handheld gaming PCs. “One of the weak points in the experience on a ROG or the Lenovo [Legion Go] is Windows,” says Spencer. “How Windows works on controller input only on that kind of DPI, on a smaller eight- or seven-inch screen. That’s a real design point that our platform team is working with Windows to make sure that the experience is even better.”

And

“I’m very proud of the work that the hardware team is doing, not only for this year, but also into the future,” says Spencer. “[We’re] really thinking about creating hardware that sells to gamers because of the unique aspects of the hardware. It’s kind of an unleashing of the creative capability of our hardware team that I’m really excited about.”

Add the Surface team and its an Xbox tablet. 😁
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It's coming.

Handheld capable of playing your Xbox library natively.

Willing to make a bet on this.
 
Every year that passes making a portable series s is more and more possible. Heck with a 2025 release it could fall between the s and x in power and it could be based on a next gen xbox vs the series with zen2/rdna 2. Like I've been saying for a long time you will likely see next gen ryzen apu's with 20cu + pushing 15 watts and they will likely clock higehr than the series s along with being more advanced cus.
 
eastmen said:
Every year that passes making a portable series s is more and more possible. Heck with a 2025 release it could fall between the s and x in power and it could be based on a next gen xbox vs the series with zen2/rdna 2. Like I've been saying for a long time you will likely see next gen ryzen apu's with 20cu + pushing 15 watts and they will likely clock higehr than the series s along with being more advanced cus.
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The ROG Ally looks to achieve about PS4 performance at 15W. So to reach Series S levels you would need more than double the performance per watt. I doubt 3nm will be enough for that.

You could build a portable APU that sits between the S and the X (well Strix Halo is already that), but you're going to need more than 15W to power it.
 
Rumour is 2026 anyway, and I think S level performance is achievable by then.

My prediction on MS hardware roadmap is as follows:

2024 - Disc-less X w/2TB for $399
2026 - Dockable/Portable S for $399 (this will keep S relevant for a long time)
2026 - X2 for $599 (this machine will have serious dedicated hardware for ML & RT; most games will just be X ports @ 4K 60/120 to begin with, although they might showcase Gears 6 on it or something)
 
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Subtlesnake said:
The ROG Ally looks to achieve about PS4 performance at 15W. So to reach Series S levels you would need more than double the performance per watt. I doubt 3nm will be enough for that.

You could build a portable APU that sits between the S and the X (well Strix Halo is already that), but you're going to need more than 15W to power it.
Click to expand...

The series s is

Zen 2 8 core 3.6ghz / 3.4ghz with smt
Rdna 2 20 CUs at 1.55ghz
8GB of ram with 224GB/s bandwidth
2GB @ 56GB/s of bandwidth

The higher end ROG ally is

Zen 4 8cpu/16 threads up to 5.1ghz boost
Rdna 3 12 cu at 2.7ghz
16gigs of ram at 120GB/s bandwidth
TDP is 9-30w


The two major issues are power and bandwidth. A large difference between the rog ally and an xbox is windows. Series s runs a custom version of windows that is much more light weight than windows. I can't stress this enough but running games on windows on an amd platform vs running a fixed platform like playstation or xbox is a huge difference. The amount of time Sony or Ms spend optimizing for their specific consoles vs just releasing it on a platform with thousand sif not millions of hardware configurations. Moving to zen5/ rdna 4/5 depending on what amd has next year could end up being a very potent handheld esp if they can bring the bandwidth up to the series s. Remember rdna 3 was more of a side grade on rdna 2.

LIke I said

Zen 5 8 core 3.6ghz clocks
RDNA 4/5 20CU at 1.55ghz +
16gigs of ram with a bandwidth of 224GB/s or greater

It would keep up with the series s. In fact if Ms moves to all new consoles with zen5/rdna4/5 it could perform even better vs the series s. That is mostly up to what rdna 4/5 would be vs what rdna 2 is.
 
eastmen said:
The series s is

Zen 2 8 core 3.6ghz / 3.4ghz with smt
Rdna 2 20 CUs at 1.55ghz
8GB of ram with 224GB/s bandwidth
2GB @ 56GB/s of bandwidth

The higher end ROG ally is

Zen 4 8cpu/16 threads up to 5.1ghz boost
Rdna 3 12 cu at 2.7ghz
16gigs of ram at 120GB/s bandwidth
TDP is 9-30w


The two major issues are power and bandwidth. A large difference between the rog ally and an xbox is windows. Series s runs a custom version of windows that is much more light weight than windows. I can't stress this enough but running games on windows on an amd platform vs running a fixed platform like playstation or xbox is a huge difference. The amount of time Sony or Ms spend optimizing for their specific consoles vs just releasing it on a platform with thousand sif not millions of hardware configurations. Moving to zen5/ rdna 4/5 depending on what amd has next year could end up being a very potent handheld esp if they can bring the bandwidth up to the series s. Remember rdna 3 was more of a side grade on rdna 2.

LIke I said

Zen 5 8 core 3.6ghz clocks
RDNA 4/5 20CU at 1.55ghz +
16gigs of ram with a bandwidth of 224GB/s or greater

It would keep up with the series s. In fact if Ms moves to all new consoles with zen5/rdna4/5 it could perform even better vs the series s. That is mostly up to what rdna 4/5 would be vs what rdna 2 is.
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We already have comparisons of performance between consoles and PCs and the consoles are not hugely faster than equivalent hardware, typically being in the range of the 2070 - 2080 Super. So I think the suggested 2X increase in performance per watt is reasonable, as the Series S is more than 2X faster than the PS4. (2.17X compute * 1.25X IPC for 2.7X overall multiplier).

From what I can see online, the ROG Ally is running at ~1.55GHz already in the 15W mode. So they need to keep the clockspeed the same while adding 67% more CUs + increasing utilization (therefore power consumption) by adding more bandwidth. That brings us back to the huge increase in performance per watt required with only a single node shrink available.
 
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Subtlesnake said:
We already have comparisons of performance between consoles and PCs and the consoles are not hugely faster than equivalent hardware, typically being in the range of the 2070 - 2080 Super. So I think the suggested 2X increase in performance per watt is reasonable, as the Series S is more than 2X faster than the PS4. (2.17X compute * 1.25X IPC for 2.7X overall multiplier).

From what I can see online, the ROG Ally is running at ~1.55GHz already in the 15W mode. So they need to keep the clockspeed the same while adding 67% more CUs + increasing utilization (therefore power consumption) by adding more bandwidth. That brings us back to the huge increase in performance per watt required with only a single node shrink available.
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but again how much is that due to the fact that it has half the bandwidth avalible to it vs the series s.
 
eastmen said:
but again how much is that due to the fact that it has half the bandwidth avalible to it vs the series s.
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I'm sure it is bandwidth limited even at 15W considering how close the Z1 is despite having a 3rd of the cores. But as soon as you increase bandwidth then utilisation will increase and power consumption will go up. So there is no free lunch.
 
Subtlesnake said:
I'm sure it is bandwidth limited even at 15W considering how close the Z1 is despite having a 3rd of the cores. But as soon as you increase bandwidth then utilisation will increase and power consumption will go up. So there is no free lunch.
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Perhaps, we will have to see what happens when the time comes.
 
That is some truly awful writing.
There has always been a major debate within the gaming community as to which system is better for the entire community. Understandably, one of the main aims of the gaming community is to ensure that games are widely available to the entire community without the fear of losing everything to one simple mistake.
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Not to mention factually incorrect - PS Portal allows streaming of games you own from your PS5; it doesn't only stream from the Cloud.

Is the podcast source at all reliable?
 
Shifty Geezer said:
That is some truly awful writing.

Not to mention factually incorrect - PS Portal allows streaming of games you own from your PS5; it doesn't only stream from the Cloud.

Is the podcast source at all reliable?
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taking into account the info comes from Jez Corden, I'd take it with a grain of salt. He is one of the gurus announcing the end of the xbox and making a drama about xbox becoming 3rd party and so on.
 
People keep expecting native Xbox (XSS) versions... Phil is pretty clearly hinting its just WIndows UI even on "Xbox" branded device.
 
Proelite said:
Should we take Phil's words with a grain of salt too?
www.polygon.com

A handheld Xbox? Microsoft’s gaming chief can’t stop thinking about it

What game would you play first on a portable Xbox?
www.polygon.com www.polygon.com
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he is going to buy Lenovo tomorrow, like a capricious rich girlfriend while shopping.

babybumb said:
People keep expecting native Xbox (XSS) versions... Phil is pretty clearly hinting its just WIndows UI even on "Xbox" branded device.
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that'd be a dream.

Tkumpathenurpahl said:
If MS release a portable and it's not compatible with series S games, then they've hamstrung themselves this entire generation for absolutely nothing.
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Traditional consoles don't have much of a track record anymore, it's normal for them to look at other kinds of machines -even if it's one 100% compatible with XSS-. The weird thing is that this seems strange to someone.
 
According to Spencer, the Xbox hardware team, led by Roanne Sones, is considering “different hardware form factors and things that [they] could go do” as it plans the future of Xbox hardware. “What should we build that will find new players?” Spencer said. “That will allow people to play at times when they couldn’t go play [in the past]?”
Click to expand...

Clearly, the above quote means the Xbox hardware team will build new Windows Gaming PC handhelds running Windows UI on "Xbox" branded devices.

babybumb said:
People keep expecting native Xbox (XSS) versions... Phil is pretty clearly hinting its just WIndows UI even on "Xbox" branded device.
Click to expand...

Yeah, there is no way Xbox and Windows teams have the budget and resources to do both Windows for handheld devices and native Xbox handheld at the same time right.
 
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