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

And that has been my stance on Lockhart and Scarlett for a while now. MS are shooting themselves in the foot imo. We all know that Scarlett is the top of the range with the 12TF and more powerful CPU however releasing a cheaper console like the Lockhart would just undercut sales of the Scarlett, even if it can do games at 1080p or 1440p. Also the Gamepass is undercutting the console as you don't need a console if you can play the same games on PC. That said gamepass is a great proposition however I do believe it will hurt the MS consoles.

imo. So up to a month ago we were in limbo with MS doing more damage to themselves than what Sony had done to that point.

Good:
Fastest GPU 12TF
Fastest CPU 3.6Ghz multi thread(3.8Ghz single thread)
DirectStorage
Gamepass - Nice to play games on any platform
SSD - Up to spec with current market PCI 3.0 specs (2.4MBps RAW)
15 first party developers - We can hope there might be at least 3-5 great quality story driven games. There might be new IP's?
Consoles 2 SKU's -Variety is always good. Cheap price for at least one SKU. Scarlett is a beast!

Bad:
SSD - While not a bad SSD, it still below current-gen PCI4.0 specs (5GBps)
Gamepass - You can play the games on PC and don't need to purchase a console to be honest, not until the console exclusives come out.
15 first party developers - No gameplay yet shown although that should change in July. Will there be any high quality story driven games? Hellblade at least. Halo? Forca? So the usual. Any others? Fable perhaps.
Also why no current exclusives? IP's anything new or all old?
Consoles 2 SKU's - Lockhart might cut into sales of Scarlett, especially at a really cheap price point and it delivers good graphics performance. Will the Lockhart graphics power be enough to play 1440p 60fps and stream the games via XCloud without lag and other issues that Google's Stadia showed up with. Will people who initally buy Lockhart, want to change over to Scarlett in two or three years time if they can still playing on 1080p or 1440p and games are still coming out with PC in mind. Costs of the consoles?

Anything else anyone else wants to add?

 

And yet some people were telling me a 199 price point for Lockhart was impossible a few months back...

 

There is the Coronavirus crisis. Not so many persons want to spend a lot of money for a console maybe for just let the kid play Minecraft. Entusiast get the best chips... if unsold the chip are going into servers. I think MS strategy is OK. Sony's one lacks a 200 dollars entry product so forced to keep very low the Digital versione (IMHO)....

 

I generally enthusiastic about a 200-250 currency Lockhart. It'll be a nice swap in for the kid's S. For the games we play together and the gampass stuff I dip into it'll be fine. The fast loading /resume /switching is enough to make me want one. I only have a 55" TV at 3m. A good 1080p + image will do fine.

I was twitchy about raytracing and maybe am a bit still. Nothing in the PS5 showcase or on PC made me think it'll be an issue, but it's all early days.

Edit: and early days on nanite/lumen performance. Upscaled 720-900p?

 

If 200/400 is true, then I expect MS to lose a substantial amount of money with each unit sold. I think 300/500 will be closer to reality.

 

It'd have to be heavily subsidised. We haven't had a $200 console in a long time, and when we have, it's been after lots of process advancements. It's unrealistic to think a new console on the latest tech is going to be as cheap as the current 7 year old consoles.

 

Yeah, MS is not in the business to lose money. Sure they can take a small hit as can Sony, but in the end taking a $100 or $150 hit per console will not sit well, especially if the console doesn't sell well for whatever reason.

 

I don't see the value in lockhart, especially for anyone already invested in another ecosystem. Commodity hardware, rolling generations and mid-gen refresh has really changed the landscape. Current generation was critical imo because moving over an entire software and social investment from the start is so plug and play now. Also, I don't see a massive delta between two hardware skus as a good thing for consumers since launch XBone vs X was massive, to where the base system was really compromised to keep a baseline of performance up towards the last half of the generation. Anyways, lots of questions to be answered in the near future.

 

On this forum, we don't do that type of stuff. No one here is asking you to prove anything, because that's not the type of site we are. We're supposed to be taking your claims and critically thinking about it, to see if its makes sense, if it works out etc. It's their own fault for not thinking through things carefully, and it would appear their own lack of ability to determine the viability of claims is in question.

So don't change anything wrt this topic. We shouldn't care about those people anyway. It does suck that people are rifling through your history; but really it's on WCCFtech to have done thorough reporting before writing that article. And that's not on you. Whether people believe it or not, once again that is not on you. If your primary source of information as a journalist is to pull posts from a message board, once again that is not on you.

Having said that, for a short period of time your claims have caused a huge traffic spike on some particular forums, which is funny. Apparently we can skip the July showcasing of games, all MS just needs a 399 XSX and 199 Lockhart to melt forums.

 

There's a simple rule to predict the future: check the most backed educate guess on b3d, bet on the opposite.
I'm really skeptic about a 200$ console, but due to the rule it's really possible.

 

For $200 to be possible imo it'd have to be 500GB SSD...

 

https://www.ptt.cc/bbs/PC_Shopping/M.1592397728.A.C90.html
Translation:



Could be explaining why MS could potentially match or even undercut Sony.

 

If the rumors of multiple devices using the XSX are true, then I believe that MS may not have to subsidize or sell their consoles at a loss. More chips means more buying power. Something they didn't have in previous launches. I believe MS planned from the beginning for a $400 price point. With the PS5 details now I think that it was probably the best decision. The PS5 SSD & boost narratives have drowned out whatever technical edge MS has with 12TF & fixed clocks. With it being too late to make any adjustments on the high end I think a console at $400 or less is definitely warranted. Whether that's a $400 XSX and no Lockhart or a $300 Lockhart with a $500 XSX, I think either decision is the best way to compete with the PS5.

Tommy McClain

 

It's certainly a way to differentiate themselves in a multiplatform-dominated industry and where Sony is known for big exclusives. Simply having a device lacking "Sony-exclusives" at the same price/performance is probably a more sure-fired shot in the foot than this sort of gamble/change-up to appeal to a broader market early-on.

 

I think that depends on how many chips they end up using in XCloud. If it becomes popular then yeah it could drive down costs..

 

Subscriptions importance in the past was really different from now.

 

huh? Microsoft already has data centers for other use cases.

 

I don't see an issue with a 5TF LH as long as the CPU is the same or very close. Dynamic resolution scaling should take care of the GPU and memory bandwidth differences. There may be corner cases where you don't have enough fixed function hardware in the smaller GPU for certain effects, those can be toggled off (SSR vs RT reflections for example). MFSF may even get away with a slower SSD interface with SFS, you'll just wait a little longer for the highest quality mip. One thing I'm not sure about is how much memory capacity can be cut without severely impacting game development.