• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Major Nelson Comments on Xbox One features (and also a general bit of commentary).

Satchel

Banned
.
How would that work? Could the Xbox One actually run two AAA games simultaneously, even if one was put into the background? If they manage THAT one, I'll be truly impressed.

I'm pretty sure it can run 2 games at once. At least that's the impression I was under.
 
If only MS didn't 180 then the game switching would've been on all games. Console digital game store prices are atrocious so unless something major changes I don't expect to buy any games on either platforms digital stores.

I think MS need to make more short, to the point, example vids of features.
 
I have absolutely no idea what MS is actually doing, but in theory what you could do is give each player a reputation score and a reliability score, plus a stickiness score for both of those. Any or all can be hidden. When you receive some new piece of negative feedback, it has an impact on your reputation score which depends on your current reputation score, your current reputation stickiness, and the rater's reliability score. As you receive more feedback, your reputation stickiness increases. When you give feedback, your feedback is compared to the person's reputation score and reputation stickiness, and your reliability score is adjusted based on how good you are at predicting the person's actual reputation (so you get points for saying that a player with a good reputation is good, and the effect is magnified if they have a high reputation stickiness). As you give feedback your reliability stickiness increases.

Edit: What this does is make it so that if you have a record of giving wrong feedback - you keep downvoting people who other players like - your feedback gets discounted. If you have a record of consistently rating people in agreement with the broader community, then new feedback you give out matters more.

As long as most players are decent people, that works fine. Even if they're not, if you have a few QC staff whose reliability scores are simply set to be very high, the system can work itself out.

Jeez that sounds confusing. :\

I do hope that they have a way to upload videos of people who are clearly hacking or griefing using the video capture stuff.
 

see5harp

Member
The matchmaking feature sounds like something I already do. I start matchmaking and then switch the input to TV or simply get my laptop and surf the web while I wait. I guess it will be nice to have all this done instantly.

Edit: Actually, the ability to switch between games may be really nice. Playing an Xbox live arcade game while I wait would be awesome.

I think this was said in the other thread, but it's just a lot nicer this way. Seeing a notification pop up while you browse gaf or watch you tube videos which allows you to quickly jump directly into a full party/match is slick.
 

Satchel

Banned
Actually yeah. I've seen a video of someone playing Ryse, and a prompt popped up for their Killer Instinct match. It can definitely run two games.
 
You don't need to watch an entire movie. You can choose to simply watch a slice of a TV show while you wait. Or utilize one of the many other non-gaming Xbox One features while it is going on. And I think this is a "just in case", they're making an argument that shit happens, and in the event shit DOES happen, you now have something to do when it's going on. When Gears of War 2 first came out sometimes I waited thirty minutes or more before I was matched with anyone. Was fucking insane. Now I don't have to get frustrated at moments like that.

If I want to be playing my cool new game, but I'm stuck watching TV I'm gonna be frustrated no matter what.

Don't get me wrong, it's a nice to have feature, but it's not like I couldn't just hit the TV input on my receiver before or browse the web in my far more comfortable tablet while waiting.

I view it the same as the player switching the PS4 does on local coop games with the PSEye depending on where you're sitting. It's nice, I'm glad they included it and it might even get some use in the real world, but it's by no means a game changer in my view.

Edit:
Actually yeah. I've seen a video of someone playing Ryse, and a prompt popped up for their Killer Instinct match. It can definitely run two games.

With no loading in between? I doubt it. The matchmaking is an OS feature, so it's not really running 2 games. I think you'll still have to wait for the second game to start.
 

ultron87

Member
How would that work? Could the Xbox One actually run two AAA games simultaneously, even if one was put into the background? If they manage THAT one, I'll be truly impressed.

I don't think the Xbox One or the PS4 has multitasking between games, at least as far as I know but maybe someone can prove me wrong.

Quoting from above:

http://majornelson.com/2013/07/30/matchmaking-on-xbox-one-with-smart-match/

While Xbox Live is matchmaking, you’re untethered and free to do what you want, like watch TV or check out your favorite website or apps while waiting for your next game. If you’re playing digital games, you can even play one game while Smart Match prepares a second.

It sounds like Smart Match runs in the background while it suspends whatever game you were playing so you can play something else. It isn't quite rapidly switching between Forza and Halo games in progress, but you can kick one off and bounce over to the other. And then suspend the other one once the game in the first is ready.

Like their entire reveal? Compared to that this isn't silly in the slightest, Microsoft haven't been sticking to their "visions" lately.

In super official channels like this they never lied or falsely advertised anything as far as I can remember.
 

moai

Member
i think reputation became useless with the introduction of party chat, no one talks on xbox live anymore. i'm not saying i miss trashtalking, but there has to be something in between. i prefer psn right now, at least i hear someone on the other end.
 

Superflat

Member
I could almost see a cottage industry of small indie games pop up that are "during matchmaking" compatible. Games that can be played in really small bursts like Super Meat Boy or Pac-Man CE.

If it's possible to play any downloaded game, even better, but if there were just certain games that could be played only using the OS-allocated side of the RAM pool, that could be awesome. It would basically be a way to get around Namco's game-during-loading-screens patent, since you'd be launching a separate game.

Man, if a icon pops up that instantly puts me into a game of Binding of Isaac I'd be so goddamn happy.
 

ShinKagato

Neo Member
Im still going to play this whole thing by ear, there was always some excellent features on the Xbox One, that was never the issue, of course thats hardly Nelson's fault, he has his orders anyone working for any major corporation.

I'll be watching everyone's impressions of he console very carefully, id like to have on by the end of next year but if MS can prove that they can make these services do what they are saying its entirely possible ill grab one earlier.
 
Yeah because you can get in a whole TV show or movie while you wait for your smart match right? What ever happened to waiting a few minutes?

This is almost as bad as the demo where the Star Trek movie screen shrinks and the guy is buying a ticket to the movie's sequel as he ignores the original movie that is currently playing in front of him.

It was a demo. The Price is Right wasn't really on either.

Some folks already mentioned some real world scenarios where unpopular games or unpopular modes might take a bit longer to find a game. With Smart Match you can fire up the search without having to sit around twiddling your thumb.
 

Takuya

Banned
I'm pretty sure it can run 2 games at once. At least that's the impression I was under.
I think matchmaking is independent of the game. So while matchmaking is working you can play a game until it prompts you to enter the game for which you were matched.
 
I'm just going to copy/paste over one of my responses that was lost in the thread

So I just signed up as an enforcer and did my allotments per day. Pretty nice tool. Got a few laugh out of a couple of gamertags, and placed a vote against a total of 7 people who were definitely abusing the CoC with their name.

This seems like it could be abused by sore losers.
9415145611_e785afb1a3.jpg

You have to be an XBL Ambassador to get into it, and you only have a set number of votes per day (50 something). In addition, it pulls up randomly from people who have already been reported over xbox live. So unless you were extremely lucky it would be almost impossible to report someone on the box then log into the website to escalate the enforcement.

Also at this point in time its only gamertags, but I'm assuming they will add in Bios and Mottos and maybe hacked avatars later. Also from my statistics, there is a pretty base outline so they will most likely be able to tell if your just going in and voting against everyone (at which point they would likely revoke your access or your ambassadorship).

The way they explained it in the tutorials was that you place votes against people. The people with the most votes get escalated to the actual enforcement team for action. The people who don't get set free.
 

SEGAvangelist

Gold Member
How would that work? Could the Xbox One actually run two AAA games simultaneously, even if one was put into the background? If they manage THAT one, I'll be truly impressed.
Matchmaking is done at the OS level. You can do it with smartglass too.
 

Amir0x

Banned
No reason whatsoever? I have a hard time believing that.

It's true. You have to think rationally when you're evaluating what PR is saying. Especially since May 21, I've gotten pretty good at telling when I should be skeptical and when I shouldn't about a claim.

This is a claim that would make no sense to exaggerate or lie about. First, it ties directly in with the multitasking abilities that have been advertised from day one, and that much has not changed to this point. The snap, etc, all that jazz. Secondly, there is no reason to be skeptical such a thing would be particularly hard to implement. Xbox One has architecture similar to a PC and is running like 3 OS. Multitasking on PCs is so common people tend to forget it's even there. Why would this be difficult to implement on the Xbox One? Microsoft has dealt with this stuff in their software for decades now. And finally, after they got caught out in so many deceptions and piss-poor PR moves, it is clear they're working very hard right now to try to avoid any future slip-ups like that. To this point, I doubt they're going to advertise a feature like this that will go on to once again either not work properly or be removed or whatever.

Anyway, that's my position. I am a skeptical dude, but I don't think there's any reason to doubt this.

I'm pretty sure it can run 2 games at once. At least that's the impression I was under.

Can you grab some quotes?

Edit: Nevermind, seems people answered. Wow, this feature is amazing for a console. Play other games while waiting for matchmaking? Goddamn that's rad.
 
I have no reason to believe something like this won't work as advertised.



How would that work? Could the Xbox One actually run two AAA games simultaneously, even if one was put into the background? If they manage THAT one, I'll be truly impressed.

It didn't work with the 360. Unless they have some way to show or prove you were being unsportsmanlike it's all just he said/ she said. It was more often abused by clans to intimidate people then used stop people from being dicks.
 
Some of the stuff Microsoft is doing in terms of OS and the feature set of LIVE is really impressive. It's too bad it tends to fly under the radar a bit.

Obviously I'm buying a console for games first but a fully featured and robust operating system is pretty valuable as well.

Searching for a multiplayer match in Titanfall and then hopping over to play a little bit of a game like Crimson Draagon while it searches is a pretty impressive feature. It's things like that that make me excited to see what Microsoft does with LIVE in the future. They always seem to be on top of their game in that regard.

I'm also excited to see what Sony comes up with over the next few years now that they're going to have a nice revenue stream from PS+. I'm guessing things will begin to improve dramatically for the PS4 as time goes on.

A bit strange though, growing up with gaming I never thought I'd end up being excited at the prospects of an operating system lol.
 

Mik_Pad

Banned
I'm pretty sure it can run 2 games at once. At least that's the impression I was under.
I have seen other people here that think that way but I have never seen a direct quote or source on the subject.

I would love if anyone has information on this?
 

Sobriquet

Member
I signed up for Enforcement United after reading the previous (disaster) thread.

It's a bit buggy at the moment, but I've managed to go through a few gamertags. I haven't marked any as offensive yet, but I've skipped a couple.

Thanks for the thread re-set, Steve Youngblood. :)
 

Amir0x

Banned
It didn't work with the 360. Unless they have some way to show or prove you were being unsportsmanlike it's all just he said/ she said. It was more often abused by clans to intimidate people then used stop people from being dicks.

*blinks*

I'm...talking about matchmaking?
 

Marleyman

Banned
Challenges sound interesting. It really can open up the creativity behind some of the bland acheivements and making them time-based and having some "cool stuff" to win is a bonus.
 
It's true. You have to think rationally when you're evaluating what PR is saying. Especially since May 21, I've gotten pretty good at telling when I should be skeptical and when I shouldn't about a claim.

This is a claim that would make no sense to exaggerate or lie about. First, it ties directly in with the multitasking abilities that have been advertised from day one, and that much has not changed to this point. The snap, etc, all that jazz. Secondly, there is no reason to be skeptical such a thing would be particularly hard to implement. Xbox One has architecture similar to a PC and is running like 3 OS. Multitasking on PCs is so common people tend to forget it's even there. Why would this be difficult to implement on the Xbox One? Microsoft has dealt with this stuff in their software for decades now. And finally, after they got caught out in so many deceptions and piss-poor PR moves, it is clear they're working very hard right now to try to avoid any future slip-ups like that. To this point, I doubt they're going to advertise a feature like this that will go on to once again either not work properly or be removed or whatever.

Anyway, that's my position. I am a skeptical dude, but I don't think there's any reason to doubt this.



Can you grab some quotes?

Edit: Nevermind, seems people answered. Wow, this feature is amazing for a console. Play other games while waiting for matchmaking? Goddamn that's rad.

Agreed. If there is one thing MS is good at it is creating a flexible OS that can do a number of things at once. I'm assuming that Sony is taking a similar position, but we really haven't hear much from them on the multitasking front.
 

Brashnir

Member
Man, if a icon pops up that instantly puts me into a game of Binding of Isaac I'd be so goddamn happy.

I'm not sure if you would get an icon to pop up, but just being able to do something from the guide menu would be enough. If it kept your last-played game as the default option right on the main guide menu, that's about as good as I think you could do. 2 button presses and go.

Agreed. If there is one thing MS is good at it is creating a flexible OS that can do a number of things at once. I'm assuming that Sony is taking a similar position, but we really haven't hear much from them on the multitasking front.

With the rumors about RAM reservation by PS4's OS, you'd have to think they are planning a good number of features in the same vein as MS, but if it's anything like last gen, I expect they'll be playing catch-up rather than driving the good ideas. Hopefully I'm wrong on that, since PS4 is looking to be my go-to next gen console, but it seems likely.
 

U2NUMB

Member
Thank you for the reset on the thread..

Now MS THIS is how you get people to go digital. Give me features that could rock and I will happily buy Digital. I am going to cancel my BF4 and Forza pre orders and go digital because as someone else mentioned.. nothing is worse than waiting for an online race to get over.

I certainly see features like this pushing me to digital more and more. But again.. this is what MS should have been pushing and explaining from day one.
 
Neat features but compared to the PS4 and the great job they did with 360. None of these features really WOW me.

The matchmaking looks like a turn off for me though. I want faster matchmaking not "your shitty Ubi/EA MP game is finally ready" notifications.
 

Takuya

Banned
It was confirmed in this post above.
That is not confirmation of two games. Smart matching is an OS level feature that allows you to do matchmaking for games you own. It prepares a match while you can play a game in wait. The game you're matching in doesn't need to be on.
 

Hilbert

Deep into his 30th decade
Neat features but compared to the PS4 and the great job they did with 360. None of these features really WOW me.

The matchmaking looks like a turn off for me though. I want faster matchmaking not "your shitty Ubi/EA MP game is finally ready" notifications.

But in a game with a limited userbase that's just not possible.

People still play virtua fighter on xbox live, but you just have to wait a while.
 
I signed up for Enforcement United after reading the previous (disaster) thread.

It's a bit buggy at the moment, but I've managed to go through a few gamertags. I haven't marked any as offensive yet, but I've skipped a couple.

Thanks for the thread re-set, Steve Youngblood. :)

Thats how it was for me pretty much. For the grand majority I was sitting there thinking why on earth they were even in the system to begin with. When I was doing it, I had Urban dictionary popped up as well as google translate because I got some foreign tags. I guess I got a bad bunch (7 people) because in the ones I did mark as offensive, they were all variations of hitler or rape or something else. On one tag though, I had to google translate it and was laughing my ass off so hard that I almost missed the deadline to mark as non-offensive.

Hopefully this system lessens the load for the enforcement team and allows them to get on the actual people need to be taken care of, aka: cheaters and rude people.
 

Marleyman

Banned
Thank you for the reset on the thread..

Now MS THIS is how you get people to go digital. Give me features that could rock and I will happily buy Digital. I am going to cancel my BF4 and Forza pre orders and go digital because as someone else mentioned.. nothing is worse than waiting for an online race to get over.

I certainly see features like this pushing me to digital more and more. But again.. this is what MS should have been pushing and explaining from day one.

Digital is definitely sounding like the best option for me as well.
 

daveo42

Banned
Even though I'm not big on online play on consoles, Smart Match seems pretty good within the Xbox One ecosystem. Swapping to something else on the system without needed to change inputs is pretty nice and better than swtiching TV inputs and hoping you don't miss the start of a match. Hopefully the system will eventually mean finding matches faster.

As for the new rep system, it also sounds like a step in the right direction. My question is will it also track how often you give other players negatives in the system?
 

Amir0x

Banned
Neat features but compared to the PS4 and the great job they did with 360. None of these features really WOW me.

The matchmaking looks like a turn off for me though. I want faster matchmaking not "your shitty Ubi/EA MP game is finally ready" notifications.

For the record, nothing in Major Nelson's post suggests that the matchmaking itself isn't also going to be faster on the average. Given the massive improvements to the online infrastructure on One, I wouldn't be surprised if it went much faster on the average (pending # of players and whatnot).

Agreed. If there is one thing MS is good at it is creating a flexible OS that can do a number of things at once. I'm assuming that Sony is taking a similar position, but we really haven't hear much from them on the multitasking front.

You can definitely multitask on PS4, but we're not very clear on how far that rabbit hole goes yet since they still have some details to reveal on that front.
 
I'm intrigued. Honestly this is the kind of thing that MS has excelled at in the console arena; staying ahead of the competition online. Frankly, I'm a little jealous that not all of this will come to 360.

If I could give one piece of advice to Sony, it would be this: Hire a 'Mark Cerny' of online gaming and services. A real guru who gets community integration with online gameplay and who understands the importance of a consistent, always-there UI that helps integrate community with online gaming.
 

eorl

Banned
The Smart Match function seems alright, but I was actually hoping that it would be something like faster and more efficient matchmaking. When it doesn't actually seem to shorten the time it takes to get you into a match it doesn't seem all that useful. I have a phone, tablet, or a laptop laying around to pass the time if it really takes that long. Nevertheless it's a nice, but small bonus.

The reputation system, if it works as intended, sounds a lot more interesting. Every platform should be trying to do this.
I could see the new reputation system helping slim down the matchmaking by ensuring you aren't put with red flagged players and only green flagged ones. This would also ensure your game is a good one that won't make you rage quit.
 

Mik_Pad

Banned
Excellent. I just found something about on the Xbox website too.



This feature will be great when the time calls for it.
Still no games multitask, for me it seems smartmatch is an OS feature that it is always there, they never mention you switch games seamlessly they say prepare not the same.
 

Naked Lunch

Member
I like the idea of insta loading games right from invites - assuming thats how it works. I get invites to play a few quick rounds of Street Fighter III or King of Fighters all the time - but having to sit and wait for the game to initially load and waiting for the opening splash screens take forever. Insta loading right into a match is brilliant.
 
This is gonna be really useful for games with a low population of players.
No more leaving a lobby just because you can't find a match, more opportunities to get a game started.
 
For a minute there I thought "I can't take Nelson seriously." would get you banned from XBOX LIVE and I thought, holy draconian regime Batman!

Not much new on the table besides "refinements *fanfare*," but I do kinda like the achievement challenges bit--seems like it could be a natural extension of the timed challenges some of the games with bigger online communities have like Halo. That said, I only really expect there to be challenges for the first few months of a game's life, if that, and the whole "get together with your friends!" component makes me think I'll never be eligible for these since very few of my friends even play a lot of console games.
 
Soon, we’re going to start showing more of these features working on the box vs. just talking about it.

Some of the things that are being said, like “watching TV while waiting for a match” may not make sense in the construct of how systems work today.

But when you guys actually start seeing how the multiple-OS system works with Xbox One, how these features will change the way you use the system – I really think you will start to appreciate what we’ve been talking about. Our examples haven’t always been great. And it’s all fluff until you guys get to use it, I get that.

Things that take multiple button presses, menus, dashboards – will be nearly instant on the new box. And you can have two things running at the same time (actually, you can have MORE than two things running) – like a AAA game and another application, you’ll be able to have them running both at the same time, on the same screen, with no performance hit. Game + Netfix. Game + YouTube. Game + IE. Game + Chat. Game + Something new that has yet to be invented. Netflix + TV, Skype + Netflix… there are so many possibilities.

The concept of “saving a game” is going to be gone. Anyone ever been playing a game, and wanted to quickly do something else, just for a few minutes?. Watch a TV program with the SO? Check out a video on YouTube? Sure, you totally could pause the game and use your phone, we get that. But that’s because on the TV, that process has a bunch of steps and a takes a bunch of time – launch, load save game, play game, exit game to dashboard, launch new app, wait for app to start, exit out... you get the picture.

Now, you can do it INSTANTLY. Pause the game and snap another application on the side of the screen. Do what you want, unpause and the game picks right up.

It’s really going to be amazing, I think. Hope you guys will agree.
 
matchmaking is such a lie. Sure, it will try to find people like you. But if they match so specifically chances are you're gonna need to wait for minutes.

I would rather have a remake of parties altogether. My biggest problem is why a team with a party of 2 people has to play against a full 5 people party. That's what breaks online matches mostly. Not the gear they have.
 
Top Bottom