Xbox One: Tomorrow's Announcement

[Arthur]

I wonder who's right?

 

EA: Xbox One and PS4 a generation ahead of PC « Develop

 

Publisher benchmarks video and audio performance of new Xbox at eight-to-10 times higher than current gen

 

The Xbox One and PS4 are a generation ahead of the highest-end PCs currently available on the market, says EA’s chief technology officer.

 

Taking to LinkedIn, Rajat Taneja said the design of the hardware, the underlying operating systems and live service layers had created “one of the most compelling platforms to reimagine game mechanics”.

 

He claimed that the publisher’s benchmark tests rated the audio and video performance of the Xbox One at eight-to-ten times higher than the Xbox 360.

 

“Both the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 have adopted electronics and an integrated systems-on-a -chip (soc) architecture that unleashes magnitudes more compute and graphics power than the current generation of consoles,” said Taneja.

 

“These architectures are a generation ahead of the highest end PC on the market and their unique design of the hardware, the underlying operating system and the live service layer create one of the most compelling platforms to reimagine game mechanics. Our benchmarks on just the video and audio performance are 8-10 times superior to the current gen.

 

“The compute capabilities of these platforms and the data transfer speeds we can now bank on, essentially removes any notion of rationing of systems resources for our game engines.”

 

http://i.imgur.com/R6uqUXi.jpg

[Arthur]

Xbox One games will require internet 'spot checks', but Microsoft won't charge to authenticate used games « The Verge

 

Does the Xbox One actually require an internet connection? Will used game buyers or sellers have to pay an extra fee? Microsoft hasn't made it clear, but a report at Polygon now claims that the answers are "yes" and "no" respectively. According to the publication's sources, Xbox One games will phone home to Microsoft servers on a regular basis to verify that their users own the games. If you buy a used title, however, Polygon claims that you won't have to pay Microsoft for a fresh license to the game.

 

Simply popping in the game disc and installing it will reportedly establish lawful ownership as far as Microsoft's servers are concerned. When you install the game on your Xbox One, you'll be deauthenticating it on the previous owner's account, according to Polygon.

[JJonas]

I can see there being a QR type code printed on a card that you hold up to the Kinect to register your game, which at the same time would de-register it from the other persons account.

[tmcd35]

I wonder who's right?

 

As always I think the truth is somewhere in between, lol. I seriously think their are aspects of the PS4 design in particular that are ahead of what is possible with current PC's. On the other hand, it's nothing that a bit of cash couldn't brute force it's way out off with higher end CPU and GPU's.

 

I think the unified RAM of both systems, but more especially the PS4, is something PC's could struggle to compete against until AMD release their new APU's next year. Likewise is the the PS4's ability to run graphics and GPGPU calculations in parallel where PC's have to task switch between the two.

 

I'm actually seriously impressed with the PS4 from a pure design point of view, hats of to Mark Carney (systems architect at Sony) for that one!

Edited May 25, 2013 by tmcd35

[CAM]

Depends where we are in a few years though. Being more powerful now is in the PS4's favour but PC technology moves on fast and they can be upgraded easily.

[sted]

Depends where we are in a few years though. Being more powerful now is in the PS4's favour but PC technology moves on fast and they can be upgraded easily.

 

well yes but a video card for a pc can cost more than a xbox 1 or ps4

[sonofsanta]

The only advantage the PS4 has right now is the gobs of (potential) video RAM available to it - the unified memory architecture does look excellent. However... you can already get video cards with 6GB of RAM on them. 2-3GB is becoming standard. System RAM is dirt cheap. I can't see the PC ever going to a unified architecture as the only way to effectively do it is with an APU (due to latency between add-in boards) and who wants a PC where you can't upgrade the CPU and GPU separately? It'll just stick more RAM on the GPU and more in the system until it has at least 8GB available to both

 

The Xbox One can't match a PC as it's only using DDR3. Rubbish.

 

It's worth pointing out that the AMD APUs are out now - reviews are up everywhere. The integrated GPU of these APUs is far below what's in the consoles, and I don't expect we'll ever see those console chips released as a component, but you can get an idea of CPU performance now. (Hint: not great. They're essentially super-Atoms.)

 

The PS4 and Xbox One will keep up for a couple of years due to bare-metal coding and optimisation for the specific architectures, but that will only take them so far. I'm not even sure the XBox can be coded to bare metal with its weird Hyper-V architecture. The PC will outpace this generation faster than ever before, I think.

[Theblacksheep]

Steam stats are interesting, the most common PC with Steam (mostly gamers) is:

 

2 CPU

8GB ram

1GB of video ram

 

PCs are unique in the fact they offer both the best graphics and the worst graphics on a game compared to consoles, dependent on the age of the system and the amount you want to spend. Sure you can get PCs that'll far outpace console now (I have a 7970 + overclocked i5) but the amount of people you can sell this game quality to is quite limited. Black Ops 2 for instance sold 10.5m on consoles in the first week, 0.5m on PC. In terms of sales, the bread and butter, consoles are still king, the PC is great for advertising your product for all systems and to the people that can afford it, so it does make sense to port games to PC for multiple reasons.

 

Most games from EA, Activision and Ubisoft will look the similar on all systems. They will use the same company engines, same animation systems, same lighting and ease of porting between them will be preferred over massive optimisation. The xboxone will do well because of this "hold back" or consistent use of technology. Exclusives are where the systems get to really shine, something Sony has sewn up on big titles and should try to compete with Steam on indie titles if they want a grip on the console scene.

 

With BRd now standard in consoles we'll see a consistent upgrade in content size. Rockstar mention a few years ago DVD was limiting them on 360. Tessellation, volumetric lighting and texture resolution will be the other big jumps. Texture resolution is where the PS4 should be able to keep pace with the above average PC (not top end because 3 titans is silly).

 

Looking forward to E3.

[JJonas]

Interesting....

 

News: Xbox One specs are boosted by "the equivalent of three Xbox Ones" in the cloud - Xbox 360 - The Official Magazine

[Theblacksheep]

Interesting....

 

News: Xbox One specs are boosted by "the equivalent of three Xbox Ones" in the cloud - Xbox 360 - The Official Magazine

 

Cant see at all how it can use this for graphic or ai improvements. Latency would kill its use for 'live' gaming use.

 

I can totally see how they can use it for MMOs, EA games (see Sim City DRM) and big muti-player environments where the internet is genuinely required 100% of the time because of interaction with other players, persistent worlds and the processing of this information. Lots of dedicated virtual servers. This seems more logical, a hosted service available independent of the consoles for devs to use if they wish. Question is, what are Activision, EA and Ubisoft going to do on x-platform games to provide the same service?

 

Great bit of spin at trying to make it look like the system has more power though.

 

A little more balance here:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-in-theory-can-xbox-one-cloud-transform-gaming

Edited May 28, 2013 by Theblacksheep

[Arthur]

http://i.imgur.com/Whs8DLG.png

 

http://i.imgur.com/KKaRraU.png

[Ghostgame]

Ok, Microsoft have just answered a bunch of questions around Xbox One.

Link is here.

 

Big points:

 

-Xbox needs be connected to the internet once every 24hrs if you want to play games, even single player only games.

-You can turn the Kinect off or even customise what it sees and does.

-You can have used games but that depends on the permission of the publisher whether that game can become a used game.

-Up to ten members of your family can log in and play from your shared games library on any Xbox One.

 

Seems to be more bad news than good here unfortunately.

[Hefferzzzz]

Ok, Microsoft have just answered a bunch of questions around Xbox One.

Link is here.

 

Big points:

 

-Xbox needs be connected to the internet once every 24hrs if you want to play games, even single player only games.

-You can turn the Kinect off or even customise what it sees and does.

-You can have used games but that depends on the permission of the publisher whether that game can become a used game.

-Up to ten members of your family can log in and play from your shared games library on any Xbox One.

 

Seems to be more bad news than good here unfortunately.

 

 

I see three reasons there which would deter me from getting one.

[Ghostgame]

I see three reasons there which would deter me from getting one.

 

Yeah, even I am starting to look at this and think the PS4 is looking a bit more attractive

 

Still going to wait till E3 before I make my mind up. Details on the PS4 are still vague

[Hefferzzzz]

This little gem too

 

 

 

• A new generation of games with power from the cloud: Because every Xbox One owner has a broadband connection,
  

 

Pretty big asumption. I guess people who just want to play games without having to be online will be staying with 360 or going PS4 then!

[CAM]

You'd think they would learn from SimCity that gaming isn't yet ready for the cloud. Yeah you have MMORPGs and online multiplayer, but there is a reason cloud gaming has yet to take off and all the answers are in SimCity's terrible launch and subsequent lies to consumers about how much processing power was held in the cloud.

 

Point three about used games may as well be thrown out the window too as I can't see EA or Activision allowing used games and going straight for price gouging. To hell with next-gen gaming.

[Hefferzzzz]

'Loaning or renting games won’t be available at launch, but we are exploring the possibilities with our partners.'

 

No more being able to rent a game to see if its worth bothering to waste £40-£50 then........at least initially.

 

The whole thing stinks of MS trying to get as far up publishers @rse' as possible to try and convince them to devote most of their resources to Xbox dev rather than PS dev.

[featured_spectre]

Hi ho, hi ho, back to PC I go

[X-13]

The whole thing stinks of MS trying to get as far up publishers @rse' as possible to try and convince them to devote most of their resources to Xbox dev rather than PS dev.

 

It's also worth remembering that in some/a lot/all cases, developers are cool with you lending/borrowing games and buying pre-owned. They're in the industry to make good games.

 

It's the publishers that don't like it.

[sted]

'Loaning or renting games won’t be available at launch, but we are exploring the possibilities with our partners.'

 

No more being able to rent a game to see if its worth bothering to waste £40-£50 then........at least initially.

 

The whole thing stinks of MS trying to get as far up publishers @rse' as possible to try and convince them to devote most of their resources to Xbox dev rather than PS dev.

 

im ok with that IF every game has a demo to download

[Hefferzzzz]

im ok with that IF every game has a demo to download

 

The only issue I have with that is that the demos tend to be so restricted its impossible to get a good feel for the game.

[X-13]

im ok with that IF every game has a demo to download

 

[ZeroHour]

Big points:

-Xbox needs be connected to the internet once every 24hrs if you want to play games, even single player only games.

-You can turn the Kinect off or even customise what it sees and does.

-You can have used games but that depends on the permission of the publisher whether that game can become a used game.

-Up to ten members of your family can log in and play from your shared games library on any Xbox One.

 

Seems to be more bad news than good here unfortunately.

 

Its all meh, not a big deal tbh.

It would be nice if it was 7 days instead of 24 hours though at least for major disruptions.

The whole kinect spycam thing was blown WAY out of proportion as well, I think being able to turn tv etc on via voice would be very cool indeed and the 10 members gets around family console limits.

Second hand games are already being borked, this happening across the board and on all consoles via one time activation keys etc inside the box, this is not an MS trend but at least we have a chance a sticker will make it clear on the back what your rights are if you buy the game unlike the sneaky content unlocks etc. People say MS are wrong for putting a free (they charge nothing directly) way to lend games and trades games if the dev's let you as that would encourage dev's to lock you out, I hope/think it will be the opposite. Knowing you dont have to screw the end consumer via unlock codes etc when they resell but instead you can allow rights to be lent as well as resold all while you take a % of secondary sales if you want too.

I would much rather have the MS way then the PS4 unlock code way where you have no idea each time you buy the game if/how much the copy is worth.

Edited June 7, 2013 by ZeroHour

[CAM]

But EU law has already clarified that companies can stamp their feet as much as they want, you have the right to sell a physical copy on. If you have a disk for a game then you have the right to sell that game on to someone else, who in turn has the right to sell it on ad inifnitum.

 

Games companies across the EU are violating this law though and outright ignoring it if this is anything to go by.

[Theblacksheep]

Ok, Microsoft have just answered a bunch of questions around Xbox One.

Link is here.

 

Big points:

 

-Xbox needs be connected to the internet once every 24hrs if you want to play games, even single player only games.

-You can turn the Kinect off or even customise what it sees and does.

-You can have used games but that depends on the permission of the publisher whether that game can become a used game.

-Up to ten members of your family can log in and play from your shared games library on any Xbox One.

 

Seems to be more bad news than good here unfortunately.

 

Not everyone has internet or reliable internet, so no point getting an xbone in those countries/areas with dodgy connections. My net has been off for 3 days before, no games anymore.

 

My TV is the opposite end of the room to my consoles/sat and with propitiatory connections this simply wont reach AND pull up flooring. Kinect will also push the price of the console unit up, it'll be interesting to see how much.

 

The 300,000 used CoD games will now be useless, because the big publishers that cash in each year with the same repetitive gameplay wont allow it. I've not had any issue with secondhand games on the current system, or at least I've not brought a secondhand game that required some kind of code, they have all just worked. MS/Sony take £10 per game for licencing, so secondhand games should be cheaper if they are not taking a cut. I bet the drop in price wont be by much and I guarantee they'll fix pricing between them.