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LiquidSolid · Apr 21, 2014

hawk2025 said:
I... don't get it.

Shouldn't this make porting PC games easier, not harder?

Why all the talk over the previous months of "dev tools" for the Xbox One, and how they would evolve?

Shouldn't devs quite literally just use their PC code, then? So confused.

What happened to "every console is a dev kit", anyways?

Just because it's the same OS doesn't mean it's exactly the same. There's still different hardware, certification and optimisation that bring difficulties with them.

I guess this might explain why the Xbone's CPU is slower than the PS4's despite the higher clock rate though. Three operating systems and Windows 8 (even in a stripped down state) means there's a shitload of overhead.

As for the Office talk, lol. Reminds me of all the people that hyped Linux up as a PS3 killer app.

LilJoka · Apr 21, 2014

Even if this is true, i don't think it means easy PC ports considering Dan Greenawalt said it was a huge amount of effort to bring a Forza 5 demo to Windows 8 machines. Then again Dan doesn't always speak 100% truth.

Tapiozona · Apr 21, 2014

Excuse my ignorance, most of the OP goes way over my head but I do have one question. Could the Xbox One theoretically run a Steam App/Client based off the OP? I can imagine that would attract a ton of excitement and awesomeness but then again would they ever allow it? They'd have a direct and serious competitor residing on their own machine.

TeRey09 · Apr 21, 2014

Synth said:
No. Good luck getting that shit out of Apple.

Apple is getting Microsoft Office on all of their platforms, why not give Microsoft iTunes?
Yea I'm not holding my breath just wishful thinking.

Cru · Apr 21, 2014

RedNumberFive said:
statham thread. I'm bailing out before I say something stupid and get banned.

Thanks for letting everyone know.

hipbabboom · Apr 21, 2014

Tapiozona said:
Excuse my ignorance, most of the OP goes way over my head but I do have one question. Could the Xbox One theoretically run a Steam App/Client based off the OP? I can imagine that would attract a ton of excitement and awesomeness but then again would they ever allow it? They'd have a direct and serious competitor residing on their own machine.

that's not gonna happen

Synth · Apr 21, 2014

TeRey09 said:
Apple is getting Microsoft Office on all of their platforms, why not give Microsoft iTunes?
Yea I'm not holding my breath just wishful thinking.

Microsoft makes their money off software and services. They are best served by having their software on every device that they can. They would like all these devices to be Windows (as that's one of their software), but failing that, they would still rather you use Office than Google Docs, Skype rather than iMessage/Facetime, Xbox Music rather than Spotify etc.

Apple uses their software to sell hardware. If you're not paying them for their hardware, then you can gtfo basically. They're not best served by sticking iTunes, iMessage, FaceTime, iCloud etc on everything so you walk out of a store with a Windows Phone instead of an iPhone, or a Surface instead of iPad. It's almost like comparing EA with Nintendo, except EA has a console for some reason.

Skanty · Apr 21, 2014

Banfield said:
Do you have examples of an app that runs on phones, tablets, and Windows 8, that is designed with all 3 in mind?

Halo: Spartan Assault

koutoru · Apr 21, 2014

Tapiozona said:
Excuse my ignorance, most of the OP goes way over my head but I do have one question. Could the Xbox One theoretically run a Steam App/Client based off the OP? I can imagine that would attract a ton of excitement and awesomeness but then again would they ever allow it? They'd have a direct and serious competitor residing on their own machine.

Well, if were talking about theory than we can probably say yes since going from Windows 8 apps (including Steam) to Xbox One apps is more than doable.

But in actuality-

hipbabboom said:
that's not gonna happen

TeRey09 · Apr 21, 2014

Synth said:
Microsoft makes their money off software and services. They are best served by having their software on every device that they can. They would like all these devices to be Windows (as that's one of their software), but failing that, they would still rather you use Office than Google Docs, Skype rather than iMessage/Facetime, Xbox Music rather than Spotify etc.

Apple uses their software to sell hardware. If you're not paying them for their hardware, then you can gtfo basically. They're not best served by sticking iTunes, iMessage, FaceTime, iCloud etc on everything so you walk out of a store with a Windows Phone instead of an iPhone, or a Surface instead of iPad. It's almost like comparing EA with Nintendo, except EA has a console for some reason.

Ok, thanks for the explanation.

erawsd · Apr 21, 2014

Bsigg12 said:
That was talked about at build and how they can turn apps into universal versions with minimal code changes beyond platform specifics. Getting an app optimized for a TV wouldn't be all that hard with all the new stuff they're brining including simple Kinect integration.

I'm not even talking about usability and optimization for the big screen, I just mean in terms of useful functionality. Being able to run tablet/phone apps on a TV just doesn't seem appealing to me. Would I ever care to use Flipboard, Office, or the the Mail app on my TV? Probably never. I don't even see the value in having them on my desktop.

SparkPeople · Apr 21, 2014

ThoughtsOfSpeaking said:
Because, even discounting that most would not want to do work in their recreation time, for the vast majority of users, working on office documents on the couch blow up on the TV is not fun.

That functionality is better served by a laptop or in a pinch, tablets/smartphones.

Just like a web browser, Document editing on a television, is more "cool feature that nobody uses seriously past a month" Than useful utility.

That said, It would be pretty useful to have a powerpoint viewer app at least.

The Windows app store has tremendous potential on the Xbox one, but not with ports of traditional desktop apps. Think bigger. A Kinect powered flipboard for example, could be far more a hit than office.

Actually, I document edit on my TV all the time, with my laptop wireless transmitting a second screen to my TV. It's handy.

I wouldn't use the TV as the only screen, but the usability is there if the Xbox One wanted to act like a second screen type device for Windows 8 devices. Having the functionality of the iOS and Apple TV interaction built in would be a huge draw the the 3 Windows Phone owners.

LukasTaves · Apr 21, 2014

justsomeguy said:
Watch the //build talk on xbox app dev, it's very illuminating. They are explicitly asked about c# and explicitly say they are only announcing JavaScript and c++ at the moment. Got the impression that xbox own their own fork of windows 8 and are on their own schedule separate from windows and phone when out comes to building support for win rt. It was all a bit odd and unexpected

I might be wrong, but I think it was clarified later that html5, xaml and c# were available for xbox apps too.

Bsigg12 · Apr 21, 2014

erawsd said:
I'm not even talking about usability and optimization for the big screen, I just mean in terms of useful functionality. Being able to run tablet/phone apps on a TV just doesn't seem appealing to me. Would I ever care to use Flipboard, Office, or the the Mail app on my TV? Probably never. I don't even see the value in having them on my desktop.

I wouldn't mind livetiles making their way to the Xbox One. Having things like a weather app so when I turn my Xbox on in the morning g it's updating with temperature and conditions s would be nice because I usually have ESPN in the morning while I eat breakfast/get dressed. Onto your point, there are apps that just aren't suited for a big screen which is fine. There are apps that could translate very well though.

Neuromancer · Apr 21, 2014

The problem with having Office on my Xbox One is I'd probably be trying to write a report or something and I'd be getting Titanfall game invites from my bros, Skype chats from Grandma and Ray Lewis trying to talk trash to me about the big game and I wouldn't get anything done. Best keep productivity software off consoles is my suggestion.

LukasTaves · Apr 21, 2014

LilJoka said:
Even if this is true, i don't think it means easy PC ports considering Dan Greenawalt said it was a huge amount of effort to bring a Forza 5 demo to Windows 8 machines. Then again Dan doesn't always speak 100% truth.

Didn`t they say the other way around, that the apis and tools are so close that's so easy to port things over and it only took 4 people a month to port?

Synth · Apr 21, 2014

Neuromancer said:
The problem with having Office on my Xbox One is I'd probably be trying to write a report or something and I'd be getting Titanfall game invites from my bros, Skype chats from Grandma and Ray Lewis trying to talk trash to me about the big game and I wouldn't get anything done. Best keep productivity software off consoles is my suggestion.

These things all happen to me on my PC, unless I manually suppress them.

RedAssedApe · Apr 21, 2014

someone needs to tweet phil spencer that we want to see office for xbone at e3

JaggedSac · Apr 21, 2014

hipbabboom said:
Yup. C# is in (basically anything that can dump CLR code) but you still need to drop down to C++ if you want to write DirectX games. I think if it picks up steam then you'll see more DX wrappers for .NET (essentially what XNA was) which should make for something interesting.

Does WinRT not support Managed DirectX?

Watch the //build talk on xbox app dev, it's very illuminating. They are explicitly asked about c# and explicitly say they are only announcing JavaScript and c++ at the moment. Got the impression that xbox own their own fork of windows 8 and are on their own schedule separate from windows and phone when out comes to building support for win rt. It was all a bit odd and unexpected

Can you link to this talk? I do not recall there being a session for XBox app development.

family_guy · Apr 21, 2014

Tapiozona said:
Excuse my ignorance, most of the OP goes way over my head but I do have one question. Could the Xbox One theoretically run a Steam App/Client based off the OP? I can imagine that would attract a ton of excitement and awesomeness but then again would they ever allow it? They'd have a direct and serious competitor residing on their own machine.

What would you do with it though? Unless you are talking about something like the Android app. It won't run any games.

LordOfChaos · Apr 21, 2014

LiquidSolid said:
I guess this might explain why the Xbone's CPU is slower than the PS4's despite the higher clock rate though. Three operating systems and Windows 8 (even in a stripped down state) means there's a shitload of overhead.

How do you know it's slower? I know most cross platform games perform better on the PS4, but I figured that was GPU-bound almost all of the time, and there are instances of the XBO framerate being slightly higher than the PS4 in complex scenes which may be due to the clock speed bump (sorry, don't remember which face off that was).

Dragon · Apr 21, 2014

Yeah but does it have a start button?

Synth · Apr 21, 2014

family_guy said:
What would you do with it though? Unless you are talking about something like the Android app. It won't run any games.

It could act as the streaming client, like the lowest tier of Steam Machines are supposed to. I can imagine MS blocking this... but if they didn't it would be a good more for Valve to make, essentially turning every Xbox One into a potential Steam Machine.

JaggedSac · Apr 21, 2014

RulkezX said:
Is Plex mostly used for piracy directly through the app ?

Edit : I have no knowledge of Plex but a quick YouTube shows it's an app that allows me to stream stuff from a shared library on my PC , so something my 360 could do without an app.

That's not the same as letting something like XBMC on the X1

You want to use up hard drive space on your console for media? Do you not have another network connected device? But regardless...Plex >>> XBMC. Yep, I said it.

JaggedSac · Apr 21, 2014

LukasTaves said:
Didn`t they say the other way around, that the apis and tools are so close that's so easy to port things over and it only took 4 people a month to port?

That was porting a DX11 game to DX12, not putting a DX11 XBox game onto PC with DX11.

hipbabboom · Apr 21, 2014

koutoru said:
Well, if were talking about theory than we can probably say yes since going from Windows 8 apps (including Steam) to Xbox One apps is more than doable.

But in actuality-

There are actually technical reasons why it can't happen because of Windows 8 apps (apps available from the Windows 8 app store for the RT platform). Each app runs in a sand box and can only communicate with other apps via subscription services called contracts. This allows for sharing, printing, background operations, etc... so there's very little opportunity to give or take unknown data from elsewhere

(or skyrim)

. The sand box part is the part, however, that makes it impossible to run steam (I think) because steam needs to be able to start and stop apps, upgrade, etc as an external client.

There may be a way to use steam works a purely enclosed sdk that runs its functions under the process space of the Windows 8 app but it's also conservable that MS might block that from submission.

knitoe · Apr 21, 2014

Microsoft should just kill WinRT, and which in turn, scrap the Windows App store. When the Pro tablets were 2X more expensive than RT, it made sense. RT sales were still crap. Now that their prices are almost even, who would buy a RT over a full Windows Pro with full legacy support.

shacklesmcgee · Apr 21, 2014

Basically the Xbox One is a true X86, X86-64 machine. As Frank Savage said, any game I made ran equally well on Windows 8 (desktop) and Xbox One. The porting capability this implies is very powerful, infact, if Frank Savage is to be believed, port-lag is non existent. Just convince the devs, and you shall have the game.

This mean MS will release games on PC! Right, guys?....Guys?

Ploid 3.0 · Apr 21, 2014

LiquidSolid said:
Just because it's the same OS doesn't mean it's exactly the same. There's still different hardware, certification and optimisation that bring difficulties with them.

I guess this might explain why the Xbone's CPU is slower than the PS4's despite the higher clock rate though. Three operating systems and Windows 8 (even in a stripped down state) means there's a shitload of overhead.

As for the Office talk, lol. Reminds me of all the people that hyped Linux up as a PS3 killer app.

Linux had better use than Office, though the apps thing is better than Linux. I messed around with the PS3 linux but so much was closed off like the GPU. Linux was bad for Sony though because people could use Cell for cheap with it. Oh and Piracy

jond76 · Apr 21, 2014

It would be cool to say Xbox On and have it boot to a dashboard that had a live tile showing you weather, news, maybe a tile that stated what was currently playing on you favorite tv stations. All optional of course, I wouldn't want to have anyone get their knickers in a twist.

The Xbox dash is literally the first thing I see on my tv, might as well have it give me some infos.

Tigress · Apr 21, 2014

TeRey09 said:
Apple is getting Microsoft Office on all of their platforms, why not give Microsoft iTunes?
Yea I'm not holding my breath just wishful thinking.

Yeah, I wouldn't. Apparently there is only itunes on Windows because apple's programmers bitched and moaned until Steve Jobs threw up his hands and said, whatever, if it will get you guys to be quiet.

Granted, he's no longer there to dictate things but I do think he had enough influence that apple still runs in a certain way (they don't like sharing their stuff if they don't have to as they are really a hardware seller and stuff like itunes,ios, and macOS are there to sell you their hardware. Which means they tend to suck at stuff that would do better if more people had access to it, like trying to make a maps app that runs on feedback from people on where stuff is).

Edit: Or, what Synth said...

.

Synth · Apr 21, 2014

knitoe said:
Microsoft should just kill WinRT, and which in turn, scrap the Windows App store. When the Pro tablets were 2X more expensive than RT, it made sense. RT sales were still crap. Now that their prices are almost even, who would buy a RT over a full Windows Pro with full legacy support.

Killing RT? Ok, I can see how that could make sense. The intel chips have reached a point where there's not much reason for the RT tablets to exist anymore.

Scrap the Windows Store? ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND!? What are you expecting people to do with these Pro tablets once they've purchased them? Run purely desktops apps, and interact with their fingers? Have you given this any thought?

hipbabboom · Apr 21, 2014

shacklesmcgee said:
This mean MS will release games on PC! Right, guys?....Guys?

Well if you believe the chatter about "...MS becoming serious with the PC...", the demo they showed of Forza 5 running on a PC during the build conference a few weeks ago and the fact that the PC gaming market has been growing as a revenue space since the start of last-gen then it's false more on the side of reality but I wouldn't hold my breath for it.

knitoe · Apr 21, 2014

Synth said:
Killing RT? Ok, I can see how that could make sense. The intel chips have reached a point where there's not much reason for the RT tablets to exist anymore.

Scrap the Windows Store? ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND!? What are you expecting people to do with these Pro tablets once they've purchased them? Run purely desktops apps, and interact with their fingers? Have you given this any thought?

I run my HP Omni 10 tablet with classic shell exclusively desktop mode. I must be out of my mind...

shacklesmcgee · Apr 21, 2014

hipbabboom said:
Well if you believe the chatter about "...MS becoming serious with the PC...", the demo they showed of Forza 5 running on a PC during the build conference a few weeks ago and the fact that the PC gaming market has been growing as a revenue space since the start of last-gen then it's false more on the side of reality but I wouldn't hold my breath for it.

I exhaled years ago, when MS didn't release Halo 3 on PC. After a few years, no one is buying a 360 for Halo 3, hell they gave the game away for free didn't they, it was free money porting it. Now with remakes and anniversary editions being popular, and X1's...problems, I'd say it's even less likely to see big MS games on PC

JaggedSac · Apr 21, 2014

Synth said:
Killing RT? Ok, I can see how that could make sense. The intel chips have reached a point where there's not much reason for the RT tablets to exist anymore.

Scrap the Windows Store? ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND!? What are you expecting people to do with these Pro tablets once they've purchased them? Run purely desktops apps, and interact with their fingers? Have you given this any thought?

There is a disconnect here. That person was referring to Windows RT, which is Windows on ARM. But what he said was WinRT. A Runtime that apps on the Windows 8 store run in.

Synth · Apr 21, 2014

knitoe said:
I run my HP Omni 10 tablet with classic shell exclusively desktop mode. I must be out of my mind...

And I use my desktop PC exclusively through a plasma TV. It's not your personal choice on how you use your device that makes you sound crazy. It's your assumption that everyone else should be expected to do the same.

JaggedSac said:
There is a disconnect here. That person was referring to Windows RT, which is Windows on ARM. But what he said was WinRT. A Runtime that apps on the Windows 8 store run in.

Yea, I got that he meant Windows RT from the context of the rest of his post. I still think killing the store would be absolutely insane, unless they were just going to stop pursuing tablets altogether.

Log4Girlz · Apr 21, 2014

Furyous said:
And people act like the XOne is dead.

What's to stop Microsoft from making an exclusive version of Office with Onedrive support baked in? They could add a free skype subscription, free office, and extra one drive storage for the life of the console. Microsoft is the sleeping giant posed to take consoles to the next level. Their new CEO loves pushing services so this is a realistic possibility.

I don't like all the things associated with Xone but I'll switch for office and an app store.

I think pc manufacturers would try to abandon Windows if xbone became for all practical purposes a pc

Synth · Apr 21, 2014

Log4Girlz said:
I think pc manufacturers would try to abandon Windows if xbone became for all practical purposes a pc

It would never gain legacy Windows applications. It would be more like a Surface RT than a Surface Pro. Not to mention that it would also lack a desktop, and so wouldn't benefit from windowed apps when those are made available on PC. I don't think it would tread on PC manufacturers toes much at all. It would be useful to have either in addition to a desktop machine, or for people that don't buy desktop machines anyway.

jhmtehgamr20xx · Apr 21, 2014

OverHeat said:
It the switch,instant 499.99$ full PC= win

Except w/ a processor weaker than an i5 and no way to expand the graphics card or memory.

I'll be honest, having something like Word or GIMP (I'm a heavy GIMP user) available right on a console would be pretty convenient at times b/c tablets just aren't suited for that and I don't use laptops.

At the same time,...I could just buy a PC with better specs for the same or lower price, so at the end of the day it'd be a nice add-on feature, not something to base buying an XBO around.

LiquidSolid said:
I guess this might explain why the Xbone's CPU is slower than the PS4's despite the higher clock rate though. Three operating systems and Windows 8 (even in a stripped down state) means there's a shitload of overhead.

I don't think we even know the official clock rate of PS4, so it's premature to say XBO's is faster. People were just assuming it was the stock amount given the similar architectures.

knitoe · Apr 21, 2014

Synth said:
And I use my desktop PC exclusively through a plasma TV. It's not your personal choice on how you use your device that makes you sound crazy. It's your assumption that everyone else should be expected to do the same.

LOL. What? When did I tell anyone to do what I do? You are the one implying I am crazy and don't know what I am talking about. All I respond was, I run legacy programs just fine using a touchscreen.

LiquidSolid · Apr 21, 2014

LordOfChaos said:
How do you know it's slower? I know most cross platform games perform better on the PS4, but I figured that was GPU-bound almost all of the time, and there are instances of the XBO framerate being slightly higher than the PS4 in complex scenes which may be due to the clock speed bump (sorry, don't remember which face off that was).

There was a middleware developer last year who released their figures showing the PS4 CPU to be faster and a developer popped into the thread to confirm it:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=737629

As for those instances you're talking about, are you sure that wasn't because the Xbone version had a lower resolution?

Heshinsi · Apr 21, 2014

StalkerUKCG said:
Virtually pointless for home use but if you had a Xbox One build for offices they could do neat things with One Drive, Skype and Office for video presentations and sharing. At a relatively cheap price point it would be kind of neat for conferencing.

These businesses would have computers already that would do all the office stuff better than the X1.

Agent AA1 said:
As odd as it sounds, office on xbox could actually make it a fairly cool business tool. Like it already has skype for conferences with that Kinect. The point would be to make it into a more versatile media center

Of course very few people would take advantage of it, but those who do would might now get an xbox in a place where it previously would not have been.

Would they be using keyboard & mouse to control the Office app, or a controller?

Synth · Apr 21, 2014

knitoe said:
LOL. What? When did I tell anyone to do what I do? You are the one implying I am crazy and don't know what I am talking about. All I respond was, I run legacy programs just fine using a touchscreen.

Ok, maybe I'm misunderstanding what you meant here:

knitoe said:
Microsoft should just kill WinRT, and which in turn, scrap the Windows App store.

That to me sounds like you expect MS to pull out the part of Windows that's currently designed for tablet use. This would then require all owners of these tablets to take the same route you currently use, having the desktop as the standard interface, even if they are using touch only. Essentially, they'd be using a pure desktop OS in a tablet form factor, and this should be fine, because that's how you currently use it... Am I getting any of this wrong?

Orca · Apr 21, 2014

Skanty said:
Halo: Spartan Assault

To be fair, I don't believe that was really designed with all three in mind.

Rolf NB · Apr 21, 2014

LiquidSolid said:
There was a middleware developer last year who released their figures showing the PS4 CPU to be faster and a developer popped into the thread to confirm it:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=73762

As for those instances you're talking about, are you sure that wasn't because the Xbone version had a lower resolution?

That is most certainly not the right link.

knitoe · Apr 21, 2014

Synth said:
Ok, maybe I'm misunderstanding what you meant here:

That to me sounds like you expect MS to pull out the part of Windows that's currently designed for tablet use. This would then require all owners of these tablets to take the same route you currently use, having the desktop as the standard interface, even if they are using touch only. Essentially, they'd be using a pure desktop OS in a tablet form factor, and this should be fine, because that's how you currently use it... Am I getting any of this wrong?

Summary:

1) Kill Windows RT

2) Make current and future legacy programs more touch accessible. Thus, little need to make metro / Windows store apps. Not like there's much in the store.

JaggedSac · Apr 21, 2014

knitoe said:
Summary:

2) Make current and future legacy programs more touch accessible.

Oh, so simple.

LiquidSolid · Apr 21, 2014

Rolf NB said:
That is most certainly not the right link.

Shit, I accidentally deleted the last number off the url. Here's the right one (with a 9):
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=737629

knitoe · Apr 21, 2014

JaggedSac said:
Oh, so simple.

Yeah, sure, ignore the second part. Can't make current programs more touch accessible, do it in future versions. Guess, I shouldn't expect much from a simple reply...

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