Xbox Series X [XBSX] [Release November 10 2020]

[AzBat]

New dashboard experience

Notable things:
- Reduced memory footprint?
- Elijah Wood's uncle works at Microsoft
- When talking about games they show Halo as proof of best graphic possible, so it's confirmed that they have not learned anything.

https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2020/08/19/building-a-new-connected-xbox-digital-experience/

Tommy McClain

 

[BRiT]

@fehu that's a unique take you have. From watching the video, none of what they said was about "best graphic possible", it's about best experience possible, and they focus heavily on the UI/Dashboard interactions and a unified experience across devices. *shrug*

 

[fehu]

From what I remember "smaller footprint so we can leave all the resources to your game" shows Halo

 

[BRiT]

But the focus isn't on that game, it's just a game.

 

[AzBat]

From what I remember "smaller footprint so we can leave all the resources to your game" shows Halo

They are the Halo game company. No?

Tommy McClain

 

[fehu]

But the focus isn't on that game, it's just a game.

It was just a joke, so no need to be so pedantic, but what I meant was that while presenting something new and good, they had to corporate and show the game that they decided is incredibly good, the one that will not launch with the new dashboard and anytime soon because it was so bad that the reaction from people forced them to postpone at least by a year.
It's like Bioware wanted to promote their new store and choose to use gameplay from andromeda.

 

[dumbo11]

They are the Halo game company. No?
Tommy McClain

The clapperboard in the video has a date of June 29th. So it's quite likely that this video was finalized before the whole 'Craig' thing became a meme.

But personally that video was not at all what I was expecting:
- I was expecting to see the UI in use on XSX. Other than a boot animation, I'm not sure anything was shown in action.
- I was expecting to see something like Sony's "Direct Gameplay" feature demoed. (there must be something like that in development?)
- I was expecting to be surprised by something that screams 'next gen'. (enhanced share features using some fancy cloud tech? 3d screenshots? native photomode/UI for all apps? [I dunno, I was expecting to be surprised])

Overall, it just looks like a perfectly good UI /shrug.

 

[BRiT]

But personally that video was not at all what I was expecting:
- I was expecting to see the UI in use on XSX. Other than a boot animation, I'm not sure anything was shown in action.

They're going for a unified experience so it looks and feels the same on Xbox One, One S, One X, or Series X. A good portion of what they've shown is already rolled out to the Alpha Ring of the Xbox Insiders for Xbox One platform. Some aspects have been there for a month now and others for a couple days. I'm not sure anyone is interested in watching a Twitch stream of me jumping around the UI.

No need to drastically reinvent the UI and force everyone to relearn everything.

 

[AzBat]

The clapperboard in the video has a date of June 29th. So it's quite likely that this video was finalized before the whole 'Craig' thing became a meme.

But personally that video was not at all what I was expecting:
- I was expecting to see the UI in use on XSX. Other than a boot animation, I'm not sure anything was shown in action.
- I was expecting to see something like Sony's "Direct Gameplay" feature demoed. (there must be something like that in development?)
- I was expecting to be surprised by something that screams 'next gen'. (enhanced share features using some fancy cloud tech? 3d screenshots? native photomode/UI for all apps? [I dunno, I was expecting to be surprised])

Overall, it just looks like a perfectly good UI /shrug.

Welcome to the x86 console generation round 2.

Tommy McClain

 

[fehu]

I'm not sure anyone is interested in watching a Twitch stream of me jumping around the UI.

Just do it

 

[AzBat]

Just do it

<Shia LaBeouf.gif>

Don't let your dreams be dreams.

LOL

Tommy McClain

 

[dumbo11]

They're going for a unified experience so it looks and feels the same on Xbox One, One S, One X, or Series X. A good portion of what they've shown is already rolled out to the Alpha Ring of the Xbox Insiders for Xbox One platform. Some aspects have been there for a month now and others for a couple days. I'm not sure anyone is interested in watching a Twitch stream of me jumping around the UI.

Ah -ok. Although weirdly they do have images of the XSX and a short talk about the XSXs velocity architecture in the middle of the video /shrug.

I guess another video might appear for the XSX UI/OS to show off any next-gen bits.

 

[AzBat]

I guess another video might appear for the XSX UI/OS to show off any next-gen bits.

<Ray-tracing everywhere!.gif> LOL

Tommy McClain

 

[Panino Manino]

- When talking about games they show Halo as proof of best graphic possible, so it's confirmed that they have not learned anything.

Problem is that even this near the launch they don't have real gameplay footage available from any other game.

 

[Kugai Calo]

That's a good question! From what I've been able to gather from readin' things I think .... it depends.

For example, there used to be graphics cards with disabled CUs that you could flash to be the fully enabled version of the card. Whether it worked probably was another matter - if it was disabled to maintain market segmentation or stay within power it might. If it was genuinely a defective chip then oops, better hope you can flash it back. I think you could attempt this as late as some of the RX5xx parts.

As I don't think things like CUs can be individually gated, my guess is that the disabled elements in products like these were just constantly leaking as if they were idle.

In the case of parts with more complex or more targetted power gating, like a CPU, you're probably leaking a lot less with firmware disable parts. But probably still some. Again, there used to be some AMD CPUs that allowed you to attempt a bios reactivation of disabled cores. I think you could try this up to around the AMD Phenom 2. Not seen any talk of this for a long time though, so I think that's long in the past.

Fusing off or lasering off disabled parts seems to be common now, and in theory this should allow complete isolation of elements. Given how power conscious computing has become, hopefully this is what's done now. But I suppose you could just fuse or laser off whatever's needed to reactivate something and let the rest leak. Would seem silly though.

Sorry for the lack of a real answer. My speciality is vague general, answers (with errors).

Hmm great insight! I hope if Lockhart was to use binned XSX SoCs then they go with the latter, that way we can have the box as small as possible. Of course dedicated SoC is always better!

 

[Kugai Calo]

if they are disabled by software maybe, via lasercut, no.
But they can still transfer the heat. deactivated parts are like a really good heat-spreader

Good point!

 

[Kugai Calo]

New dashboard experience

Notable things:
- Reduced memory footprint?
- Elijah Wood's uncle works at Microsoft
- When talking about games they show Halo as proof of best graphic possible, so it's confirmed that they have not learned anything.

If they build the Home screen with ReactNative too I'm gonna buy two PS5s and never come back xD

 

[AzBat]

If they build the Home screen with ReactNative too I'm gonna buy two PS5s and never come back xD

That's an odd take. Doesn't ReactNative generate a native app in C++?

Tommy McClain

 

[fehu]

If they build the Home screen with ReactNative too I'm gonna buy two PS5s and never come back xD

What counts is the result.
Some days ago I renewed the gold (12 months, still available) and noticed that even their web payment system is in react.
The same day I read an article about visual studio doubling in on angular because is the best solution.
They are a lot of smart and talented people able to produce results, what microsoft is lacking in this years is a global vision that goes from one department to the other and concentrate and cumulate the single efforts.
The management sometimes looks like in burnout.

 

[fehu]

Doesn't ReactNative generate a native app in C++?

Basically, in whatever you want. At this point is like java / .net.