Xbox : What should MS do next? *spawn

off topic but probably even before I registered I read a post or topic, I believe you wrote it. In it you were congratulating MS on the excellent hardware and business choices made by them for the Xbox One project. I always wanted to know (if you wrote it and can remember it) if it was serious or sarcastic. Because if it was serious, there was a lot of hyperbole, especially given the current state the Xbox brand (a direct result of the hw/business choices).
Though maybe, it was written in response to the rumoured 2-3TF dual GPU specs? I can't remember.

I don't think they will do a hardware refresh mid cycle: the current Xbox One project is still in the deep red; MS can never persuade investors to agree to sink a few more billion into the development of a new console; especially now that MS explained to investors, and the media (through Penello, Major Nelson, and Polygon) that the strongest system never gets the biggest market share/wins the generation.
They will force MS to sell the Xbox division 10 times before they drop a few more billions on it.

It would be nice though; I plan to pick up an Xbox One a few years from now, I would certainly love to play the games a resolution that more closely resembles the HDTV which I have had for +5 years now But bottom line: a redesign would be too costly, even for MS.

 

That's way too early. This time around 4 years isn't enough for a significantly better hardware, they'd be shooting themselves in the other foot.

 

I might have as I did pick one up. As often, the problem is execution.

They tried and for a host of reasons bombed execution in many areas. All said and done they are basically left with a platform that's weaker than the competition thus they're scrambling to salvage (releasing extra resources instead of Kinect).

Thus the console doesn't excite me much going forward. Neither does the PS4 as it was already a weak version of my PC. The xb1 is now even weaker than that without extended value proposition which was initially talked about.

I'm thinking more as manufacturing processes get better, use that breathing room to up the specs. Similar to GTX 580 > 680 like step ups.

Like smartphones, I'd be happy to swap out a console every couple of years if it provided a nice jump in performance.

The biggest issue you have with consoles are consumer conditioning and demographic. They want them to be cheap and last a long time. Too bad.

 

2017 is too soon for next gen. There would be less chance of being able to have stacked DRAM on cool-running console-class AMD APUs and an affordable $400 price point.

2018 / 2019 is when the industry is expecting next gen Xbox and PlayStation.

They'll need to have enough hardware performance to support 4K games, hardware that's really good enough for VR if it takes off (PS4 VR games on Morpheus may only have PS3+ graphics given framerate/refrsh demands) not to even mention an improvement in graphics, lighting etc.

Nintendo may go ahead with launching their next console in 2017, or earlier, but I wouldn't bet on the Xbox One successor arriving before Nov 2018 at the soonest.

 

Console launches are expensive.......2017 is too early.


Microsoft is already cutting fat away from the XBOX division, and board members haven't really liked the XBOX since day 1, back in 2001.

In fact, with Balmer gone, if XBONE doesn't start doing alot better, there's at least a decent chance that Microsoft may not even want to bring out another XBOX.

 

I'm not really seeing how any platform holder will have a legitimate jump on a competitor like the 360 had over the PS3 in terms of release to the market since all indications are future hardware will continue to be sourced on X86 architecture across all the platforms.

The PS, PS2 and PS3 were all very proprietary technologies which in the case of PS3 resulted in delays and additional cost. Sony has learned their lesson and won't be repeating that mistake anytime soon.

Perhaps we might see an integration of AMD or NVidia GPU tech and Direct X which might unify PC and Xbox programming/development or even an engine might become an extension of MS tools but how important that might be is anyone's guess. And would likely be met with competitors developing around Linux and achieving similar gains.

For what its worth any development streamlining due to tools on MS's side shouldn't prevent Sony or Nintendo from launching in a similar time frame with similar hardware much as we see with PS4 and XB1. Although the tools might give MS an immediate edge and additional markets if MS ever is able to replicate the success of Windows on tablets, phones and other devices.

 

That is never ever going to happen. APUs/IGP/SOCs will continue to dominate from a price and performance metric.

 

Does this price/performance metric also include loss of sales, money moved into exclusive deals, PR costs to fight a brand-name disaster and forced price reductions? Allegedly they invested 3B USD into the development/licensing. That sounds like a lot too if they don't even come close to their last generation sales.

Let's look how companies react when their console "fails". XBox->360, just 4 years. Nintendo started to talk publicly about a Wii-U followup last April, 1.5 years after the launch. IMHO XBox's momentum turner game is MCC. If that won't move a lot extra units until easter 2015 they'll prioritize the X2 release or whatever they'll call it then.

 

The only way I can see an Xbox Two working is if they release it when the Xbox One hits $250 or lower, and they have full backwards compatibility and mandate that all games released for Xbox Two have to be able to run on Xbox One as well. Then when the Xbox Three comes out, you mandate the games run on Xbox Two, but not necessarily Xbox One. You get into a situation where new games still run on the older hardware, but the new hardware gives you a better experience, and all of the old games will be playable on any version of the system.

 

That works with iPad.

 

Yah, that's basically the model I was thinking of. You release a premium product and push the previous premium model down to be the cheaper entry model. You always have a $400-500 device and a $200-300 device, both with a reasonable window of support. I'm not sure how long it will take to get Xbox One down into that $250 range, but the last thing they want to do is drop the price artificially and lose money on it. Three to four years maybe.

 

And PC...

 

The only problem is the "exoticness" of Xbox One in that plan... if it were as straight CPU-GPU implementation like PS4 then BC becomes a lot easier. mandating that that XBOX Two games work on Xbox One sounds like a very tall order and one that wont be financially worthwhile for devs. PS5 will have that advantage out the gate.

 

Why?
3d parties are supporting at this moment 5 different systems (2 old gen)
and a myriad of different pc configs

I´m not an expert whatsoever, but if Ms tries this route (which i don´t believe) it would be a souped up durango config, they wouldn´t start from scratch.

The way i see it, X1 is just a W8 machine with a variant of DX11, soon to be DX12.

 

The only difference between Xbox One and PS4 is ESRAM. Design ESRAM into Xbox Two. Done. I don't see why it would be difficult to support two models, one with a high-end version of the same hardware. You have the same software and APIs, where their VM setup should be beneficial to implementing backwards compatibility.

 

Seems unlikely to me but if Microsoft were to proceed down a line of two machines with backwards compatibility between generations, I can imagine they'd want to be leaving ESRAM for Xbox Two. Find a way to obfuscate the features into faster GDDR RAM and have modified APIs that make this invisible to games.

Keeping it then makes Xbox Three a pain in the arse. Lose it now, perhaps with a few issues, before the install base of those machines gets really big

Unless of course the idea is to increase main RAM bandwidth and have ESRAM2 be much, much faster.

 

For an Xbox Two, I would keep the 32MB of ESRAM and same 8 core CPU setup, but solely focus on more upclocks.

The next node shrink (14/16 FF) should provide significant head room for a potential upclock for both CPU and GPU. If they could hit ~1.25 GHz for the GPU they'd be in parity territory with PS4.

I think the trick would be to minimize the work needed by the Dev's to target the different specs. If you could abstract away the differences so that it's basically: get a game to run 720/900p on Xbox 1 and it will run at 1080p on Xbox 1.5, then I think it's doable.

However, let's say that were to happen, is that enough to matter in a couple of years? I think something like that would have to be released soon. By 2017, I think they would have to release something that's substantially more powerful than the PS4. It will be to late for parity. But maintaining a "forward compatibility" iPhone like model would be too difficult if the new system is too powerful. I think that model works when there are yearly updates that are more incremental in performance and not orders of magnitudes like with traditional consoles.