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[gamz]

So the baseline assumption should be that nothing has changed until we learn it has?

Agreed! If MS says it can be done then I would think it's not that much of a hassle because they would lose devs. They are a software company and know the ramifications if they can't and it would kill their plans moving forward.

But let's not assume either way...But lets think positive. This is exciting shit! LOL!

 

[QaaQer]

Seems like MS are on the back foot still and are desperately trying to shore-up the Windows market by folding everything into it.

The end-game being that Xbox is no longer a hardware platform but a segment of windows with branded accessories. That's not evolving the console business, its a strategic withdrawal.

No. They are using everything, including windows, to get a presence in mobile. Nadella has said this many times: leverage 1 billion Windows users to get apps on their phone-desktop mobile continuum platform.

 

[SneakersSO]

Well then it totally negates the whole point of the exercise, doesn't it.

You cant claim infinite backwards compatibility if you have to buy the disks again, or worse still, download the games on the new box.

But saying that...

Assassins Creed 4, on PS4, was patched from 900 - 1080p. shortly after release.

What is stopping a 1080p patch, on the disk, from being applied, upon install, when the software detecting that you popped the disk into an Xbox 1.5

I'd wager ; nothing.

Except the code base for the game, for this Xbox 1.5, would HAVE to be different if the APU is in anyway changed. Unless MS is planning to use an AMD CPU/GPU & eSRAM/DDR3, with the same bus configuration, then it has to have a code base written towards the machine it is running on. There is a lot more to this than just "its running on stronger hardware, game, unlock super-powers." Thats not how game development works.

 

[Neuromancer]

Every MS product has delivered what I expected. What products did you buy from MS that makes you feel this way?

HD-DVD
Kinect

 

[Markoman]

Lol can't wait to see how many fanboys will cry when Xbox becomes more powerful than ps4. And some idiots think MS is getting out of consoles?? Lol wtf smh. Xb1 keeps getting better and innovating ps4 is still boring.

LOL, yeah you're absolutely right. Sony ponies will cry for years and quit gaming all together as Sony will be the one who exits the console market, because this clever strategy by MS will force Sony into panic-mode and leave them with no options to react. The king is dead, long live the king!

Spoiler

I'm pleasantly surprised that it took 60+ pages for this kind of comment ;P

 

[gamz]

Lets not start console wars crap guys.

 

[Gamespawn]

Of course people would go apeshit and that would never happen. You'll lose sales. Doesn't make a lick of sense.

I think it does from Microsoft's perspective. You want people to buy your new hardware, but you don't have that killer app to persuade gamers to buy it. You look at all the Halo bundles you sold and think

"you know what gamers went for last time? That highly anticipated flagship ip we came out with last year. They'll buy our new new for this one game!"

 

[Helznicht]

Lets not start console wars crap guys.

Dude,

Spoiler

this is neogaf

 

[MilkyJoe]

Except the code base for the game, for this Xbox 1.5, would HAVE to be different if the APU is in anyway changed. Unless MS is planning to use an AMD CPU/GPU & eSRAM/DDR3, with the same bus configuration, then it has to have a code base written towards the machine it is running on. There is a lot more to this than just "its running on stronger hardware, game, unlock super-powers." Thats not how game development works.

I'm completely assuming they are keeping relatively the same architecture. Or how else would they be able to pull this off?

 

[Synth]

HD-DVD

This one seems a bit like blaming Sony/Sega/etc for their VCD adapter. You got to play every HD-DVD that was released. it's not in MS' hands how long that support lasted, and the same would have happened to you regardless of any HD-DVD player you bought.

Except the code base for the game, for this Xbox 1.5, would HAVE to be different if the APU is in anyway changed. Unless MS is planning to use an AMD CPU/GPU & eSRAM/DDR3, with the same bus configuration, then it has to have a code base written towards the machine it is running on. There is a lot more to this than just "its running on stronger hardware, game, unlock super-powers." Thats not how game development works.

So, under this suggestion then... are you saying that the new model would be unable to natively run Xbox One games released so far?

 

[gamz]

I think it does from Microsoft's perspective. You want people to buy your new hardware, but you don't have that killer app to persuade gamers to buy it. You look at all the Halo bundles you sold and think

"you know what gamers went for last time? That highly anticipated flagship ip we came out with last year. They'll buy our new new for this one game!"

Of course. You can bet your ass that if it comes out this year Gears 4 is front and center.

But they aren't going to make it exclusive to the upgraded console. That's silly.

 

[SneakersSO]

I also have been working as a software dev for more than 10 years (and as a hobbyist game dev wannabe) I've had very little experience coding to a closed system, but with current games complexity I can't imagine it being all about going super low level code that won't be useable any where else.

On 360 we had devs (even first party) not going all in into the architecture because they knew it would be a useless effort. Then you have game engines providers who only need to do the hard work once.

And also, the uwp is not a solution for having the exact same code on all platforms, is a solution to share the most of the code base and deploy a single package, instead of going through many certifications processes. Specialized code for each platform is possible, but it enables to be done only when needed, instead of changing the entire code to a different API.

How well Ms will succeed remains to be seem, but in their favor, some games have been ported fairly quickly to the new app platform and the performance seems great on the Pc side, though there are some issues with Gears Ultimate in that regard. The big question is how well it runs on the Xbone side, they haven't showed much yet, even universal apps on xbone we kinda only get sneak peeks, but I doubt they would go that route if they weren't absolutely sure that performance wouldn't be a compromise, because they can't afford to concede an even greater advantage to sony in that regard.

Even with UWA/UWP, you're telling me that you wouldn't need to go through a completely different certification process for a different build of your code base? Most code bases are already mostly similar between platforms on most multiplatform, but we still have the necessary changes for each platform depending on the hardware we are running on. So even if most of our code base is non-specialized code, we still have to write our codebase to have it run on each respective machine. Which means a whole certification process is built-up around it. So parts of our code base are highly specialized depending on the platform its running on, versus large parts of our common code base which typically aren't.

If any of the hardware configuration is even slightly different on the XBO+ versus the XBO, then i'm going to have to write a new branch of specialized code for those changed, and my title will now have to undergo a specialized certification process specifically for that new build.

 

[Infernostew]

Will devs even bother supporting the new enhanced system? Small initial install base, extra dev time, extra patch maintenances... It might not be worth the trouble. Could see a lot of "exclusive for PS4, PC and Xbox One. No Xbox 1.5 version available".

 

[SneakersSO]

This one seems a bit like blaming Sony/Sega/etc for their VCD adapter. You got to play every HD-DVD that was released. it's not in MS' hands how long that support lasted, and the same would have happened to you regardless of any HD-DVD player you bought.



So, under this suggestion then... are you saying that the new model would be unable to natively run Xbox One games released so far?

Yes. That is exactly what I am saying. UNLESS the new model was emulating the current XBO, which is a whole other thing altogether. The only way I see it working in this way would be through emulation. But emulation has a ton of its own issues.

 

[QaaQer]

I'm completely assuming they are keeping relatively the same architecture. Or how else would they be able to pull this off?

You create the muti device APIs and limit what devs can do as well as what they have access to. This is fine for example, a banking app. But if you want to use hardware specific features, well s.o.l. That is how I understand it anyway.

 

[wapplew]

Will devs even bother supporting the new enhanced system? Small initial install base, extra dev time, extra patch maintenances... It might not be worth the trouble. Could see a lot of "exclusive for PS4, PC and Xbox One. No Xbox 1.5 version available".

They could just release Xbox 1 version on Xbox 1.5 without any enhancements.

 

[LukasTaves]

Sony wouldn't do it. They have no need to. They never did it in the past. The original Xbox was far stronger than the PS2, and Sony didn't even blink as it continued to sell millions and millions of units while games ran worse on their machine compared to the OG Xbox.

The fact is, 'power' is not something the console market values anywhere near as much as the core audience and console warrior crowd. You think Sony would throw away all of its sales momentum it's enjoying on the PS4 just because they are no longer the strongest console on the block? That's insane logic in the world of sales.

The point is, perhaps and probably is too late for they to surpass Ps4, but if they play that game now by the time Ps5 hits its users will have to start over, sony will have to start over and Ms will already have million of users capable of running the newer games.

Sony will be practically forced to react, otherwise in a few generations they will be offset. If they do, even if they manage to outclass Ms and sell more than I think it's a win scenario for gamers because Ms boldness has pushed the market forward.

 

[Gamespawn]

Of course. You can bet your ass that if it comes out this year Gears 4 is front and center.

But they aren't going to make it exclusive to the upgraded console. That's silly.

I don't know man. They'd need it to sell quickly to prove to devs there are enough people out there with the new config, and boast they sold a lot over a certain timeframe.

EDIT:
Even Nintendo wasn't afraid of locking software to the EP.

 

[QaaQer]

The point is, perhaps and probably is too late for they to surpass Ps4, but if they play that game now by the time Ps5 hits its users will have to start over, sony will have to start over and Ms will already have million of users capable of running the newer games.

Sony will be practically forced to react, otherwise in a few generations they will be offset. If they do, even if they manage to outclass Ms and sell more than I think it's a win scenario for gamers because Ms boldness has pushed the market forward.

So all games will be made so they can run on 5+ year old harware with thick abstraction layers?

 

[Z3M0G]

I could see Sony doing the same thing... as long as I can play new games on my current PS4 for the next 3-4 years, I'd also be OK with it... even if others are playing the same games with prettier graphics on newer hardware models.

PS4
PS4S
PS4SS
PS5
PS5S
PS5SS
etc...

If I can play the last games optimized for PS4SS on my PS4 with no hickups and just less graphics, yet still look a PS4 quality game, I'd be OK if this is how things go...

Oh, and my PS5SS will need to play my PS4 games... that's the only way I'd accept this future.

I would not expect PS4 series to play PS5 games though... of course.

Yesterday I was laughing about this news... but now I actually want Sony to do the above!

 

[SneakersSO]

The generation of gamers who have grown up on iPad is going to have an expectation that their digital content carry over from device to device. Every piece of software they have used works that way. I think it's silly to think that consoles can keep the clean slate approach to each generation.

Most everyone agrees that consoles, in its current 'system', probably only have one more generation left in them. Eventually, something big will happen to the console market that allows this forward progression for its software library. Personally, I am betting that a streaming solution for server rendered games will eventually be found, probably within the next decade. That would solve both the leap-frogging power issue that makes console generations themselves necessary, while allowing the user's digital library to carry forward onto any & all devices they intend to play on.

 

[gamz]

I don't know man. They'd need it to sell quickly to prove to devs there are enough people out there with the new config, and boast they sold a lot over a certain timeframe.

Dude, you aren't making sense. You seriously believe they'll release a game for just one brand new console and forget the rest. You are sippin' this morning.

 

[jelly]

I think we need to forget the idea that Microsoft will be releasing new consoles every few years although that may well happen but don't think it's guaranteed at all.

This is really about fixing the Xbox One mistake without killing off the Xbox One like the original Xbox. This way, the games, the user base, the support doesn't vanish overnight. Microsoft know it's always going to be more of a struggle as each year goes by so they are not going to sit still for 4-5 years while they get kicked around.

 

[Infernostew]

They could just release Xbox 1 version on Xbox 1.5 without any enhancements.

I can't wait to see the threads on here when that happens.

 

[LukasTaves]

Even with UWA/UWP, you're telling me that you wouldn't need to go through a completely different certification process for a different build of your code base? Most code bases are already mostly similar between platforms on most multiplatform, but we still have the necessary changes for each platform depending on the hardware we are running on. So even if most of our code base is non-specialized code, we still have to write our codebase to have it run on each respective machine. Which means a whole certification process is built-up around it. So parts of our code base are highly specialized depending on the platform its running on, versus large parts of our common code base which typically aren't.

If any of the hardware configuration is even slightly different on the XBO+ versus the XBO, then i'm going to have to write a new branch of specialized code for those changed, and my title will now have to undergo a specialized certification process specifically for that new build.

The whole platform Ms is build is centered around the universal app and the one store. Your app is a single package is deployed once and capable of running on the device it has the ability to run. Even if your code has specific code for each platform it's deployed as a single package that's only certified once.

Currently you can even submit apps targeting different processors architectures that are treated as a single app.

(Of course, if you add support to a new platform after submitting your app/game you have to go through the process again, like any patch new version would)

 

[Gamespawn]

Dude, you aren't making sense. You seriously believe they'll release a game for just one brand new console and forget the rest. You are sippin' this morning.

Then what's going to make people upgrade to the new one? For better graphics? If the new Xbox games work on my old Xbox, why would I bother upgrading?

 

[creatchee]

Then what's going to make people upgrade to the new one? For better graphics? If the new Xbox games work on my old Xbox, why would I bother upgrading?

Why do people buy new graphics cards for their PCs? Their old ones work in a lot of cases.

 

[Ol No Bones]

Then what's going to make people upgrade to the new one? For better graphics? If the new Xbox games work on my old Xbox, why would I bother upgrading?

They look and perform significantly better.. Isn't that kind of why we have console generations? Also no doubt in my mind new hardware has Oculus support.

 

[justsomeguy]

It will never work like that, unless the stronger hardware is emulating the weaker machine. In order for the game to run natively on both machines, it would have to be two versions of the same game.

As I said in a previous reply to you, an i7 isn't "emulating" an i5, it's just a more powerful version of the same thing and everything just works. That's the point behind UWAs, as I understand it.

 

[Markoman]

The point is, perhaps and probably is too late for they to surpass Ps4, but if they play that game now by the time Ps5 hits its users will have to start over, sony will have to start over and Ms will already have million of users capable of running the newer games.

Sony will be practically forced to react, otherwise in a few generations they will be offset. If they do, even if they manage to outclass Ms and sell more than I think it's a win scenario for gamers because Ms boldness has pushed the market forward.

Dude, what are you talking about? Will you share your cristal ball with me? Sorry, no offense, you are starting to sound like a fanboy now. Yeah, only MS is able to react mid-gen to adjust their strategy and Sony needs several generations for the same thing? Pls, start to make sense. If Sony sees any indication of MS taking a piece of their cake they will try do whatever it takes to counter them. Once again, there is no evidence that Sony has only the 'PS4 will last 7 years'-plan in their drawer. We are already in the middle of traditional 5 years console-life-cycles and I don't think that Sony is just counting money right now.

 

[SneakersSO]

The point is, perhaps and probably is too late for they to surpass Ps4, but if they play that game now by the time Ps5 hits its users will have to start over, sony will have to start over and Ms will already have million of users capable of running the newer games.

Sony will be practically forced to react, otherwise in a few generations they will be offset. If they do, even if they manage to outclass Ms and sell more than I think it's a win scenario for gamers because Ms boldness has pushed the market forward.

Each console would have to start over, MS included; if users don't latch onto this iterative idea, which they won't due to a number of economic reasons, then MS is basically going to continually subdivide its userbase every 2-3 years, where as Sony will spend 5-6+ years developing its userbase ecosystem & maximizing their own profit.

Sony won't react because Sony makes more money on their machine the longer a console generation goes. And there usually aren't any sort of graphical advancements that occur in a 6 year time span that make it so that games cannot run on that machine. Actually, if the PS4 continues its sales momentum, then Sony is the one holding MS back - as a 3rd party dev, i'd build my games towards the greatest common denominator. Sony will spend years building up their user base, where as MS will release a product that cannibalizes their growth ceiling ever 2-3 years.

 

[Gamespawn]

Why do people buy new graphics cards for their PCs? Their old ones work in a lot of cases.

Most gamers aren't upgrading their cards every time a new one comes out. They wait it out until the jump is substantial, or when the prices come down.

 

[LukasTaves]

So all games will be made so they can run on 5+ year old harware with thick abstraction layers?

It's not necessarily thick abstraction layers, dunno how ms made it but it could be the same development platform ported very closely to many devices. Imagine sony creating a sdk for developing windows games that follows as closely as possible the apis they already have on Ps4. It wouldn't made the Ps4 less specialized.

They are just tying up that platform to all their devices, and providing dev support so you can generate binaries to each platform on a single package and submit once to the store.

The store is smart enough to only download the binaries relative to your device when you download it. In fact, the store is powered by the cloud and provides on the fly compilation targeting your very specific device for compile time optimizations when you download. You can already feel that going from W8 to W10 (even on phones) the apps are just faster on windows, despite being way more capable then they were before.

 

[wapplew]

The point is, perhaps and probably is too late for they to surpass Ps4, but if they play that game now by the time Ps5 hits its users will have to start over, sony will have to start over and Ms will already have million of users capable of running the newer games.

Sony will be practically forced to react, otherwise in a few generations they will be offset. If they do, even if they manage to outclass Ms and sell more than I think it's a win scenario for gamers because Ms boldness has pushed the market forward.

So, at the end of gen, PS4 sitting at 100+m LTD while their competition at 50+m combine and Sony is screw?

 

[gamz]

Then what's going to make people upgrade to the new one? For better graphics? If the new Xbox games work on my old Xbox, why would I bother upgrading?

YES! People have bought consoles for a lot less. How many did you own last gen?

 

[LukasTaves]

Dude, what are you talking about? Will you share your cristal ball with me? Sorry, no offense, you are starting to sound like a fanboy now. Yeah, only MS is able to react mid-gen to adjust their strategy and Sony needs several generations for the same thing? Pls, start to make sense. If Sony sees any indication of MS taking a piece of their cake they will try do whatever it takes to counter them. Once again, there is no evidence that Sony has only the 'PS4 will last 7 years'-plan in their drawer. We are already in the middle of traditional 5 years console-life-cycles and I don't think that Sony is just counting money right now.

You are completely and utterly misinterpreting me. I'm saying sony WILL react, perhaps even this gen, because if they don't even if they don't lose this gen they will lose in a X number of generations that might very well be larger than 1.

All I'm saying is no brand power will compensate for the fact that if you start over every few years and your competitor don't eventually that competitor will surpass you, and so they will most certainly react.

 

[gamz]

So, at the end of gen, PS4 sitting at 100+m LTD while their competition at 50+m combine and Sony is screw?

Let's just hope they are. That is the best case, yes. Force Sony to innovate. That's why competition is great.

 

[Gamespawn]

They look and perform significantly better.. Isn't that kind of why we have console generations? Also no doubt in my mind new hardware has Oculus support.

I always thought we had console generations when devs hit the limits of what the hardware could do. Not 3 years into a console cycle.

 

[LukasTaves]

So, at the end of gen, PS4 sitting at 100+m LTD while their competition at 50+m combine and Sony is screw?

Make it 200m+ for ps4 and 30m for ms. If they start over when Ps5 hits it's gonna be 0 against 30m. And if even sony manages to win again next generation by the time Ps6 hits it might be 0 against 60m+.

So, by pure logic, eventually they will be forced to follow a similar suit, even if not this gen.

 

[SneakersSO]

As I said in a previous reply to you, an i7 isn't "emulating" an i5, it's just a more powerful version of the same thing and everything just works. That's the point behind UWAs, as I understand it.

And what i'm saying is that most games are far more intricate than apps. Even if everything were the same between the two systems in terms of the APU, except one system was stronger, i'd still have to do a ton of development work. At the very least, they would be the exact same game across the board in terms of assets, as most games don't even ship with assets they don't use.

 

[Gamespawn]

YES! People have bought consoles for a lot less. How many did you own last gen?

Just two. Wii for the family and a nextgen for myself.

 

[Clear]

No. They are using everything, including windows, to get a presence in mobile. Nadella has said this many times: leverage 1 billion Windows users to get apps on their phone-desktop mobile continuum platform.

Windows is the connective tissue, so every effort must be made to bolster it. It doesn't matter to MS what hardware you're running, so long as the Windows eco-system is front and centre.

From that base software platform, which they are basically having to give away in order to compete, they can offer their real profit-centre products which are software services like Xbox Live, Office 365, Bing, etc.

On topic, the traditional selling point of consoles was uniformity of experience, and exclusive content. The direction MS are headed offers neither of these things, making the existence of Xbox as a hardware platform a secondary factor. What was once the horse, is now the cart.

Software as a platform can only cover uniformity of interface and presentation, diverse hardware will inevitably stratify users based on performance. Which is a very significant thing in gaming, particularly competitive gaming.

 

[wapplew]

Let's just hope they are. That is the best case, yes. Force Sony to innovate. That's why competition is great.

Well, I think most already predict they will make PS5 with same architecture which means BC is very likely, nothing really innovative here.
Just that they don't have to follow competition and release new hardware every year or two.

 

[SneakersSO]

You are completely and utterly misinterpreting me. I'm saying sony WILL react, perhaps even this gen, because if they don't even if they don't lose this gen they will lose in a X number of generations that might very well be larger than 1.

All I'm saying is no brand power will compensate for the fact that if you start over every few years and your competitor don't eventually that competitor will surpass you, and so they will most certainly react.

How would the competitor eventually surpass them? Where? Heck, even if we discuss this issue in context, none of this topic fixes MS' actual problem in terms of worldwide appeal. If anything, asking for more money from users every few years is only going to drive them away.

Let me ask you - do you feel that an XBO+, released in the fall of 2017 lets say, would enjoy anywhere near the sales momentum XBO enjoyed in the fall of 2013? You think their first year of sales would be at all similar? Cause I will tell you this right now - they wouldn't be. Especially if their software libraries were identical.

 

[MilkyJoe]

I always thought we had console generations when devs hit the limits of what the hardware could do. Not 3 years into a console cycle.

Maybe sales are super low?

Wasn't there a buy an xbox get a free laptop at Best Buy last week?

 

[MysteryM]

Personally, I welcome more frequent console updates, the cost of a console has never really been a barrier to entry for me but waiting 5+ years for each iteration to arrive has been painful given that I typically play a lot of MS first party multiplayer games.

I'm happy to buy more iterations of a console as long as there:

- There is a significant time gap in between to allow for a decent level of technical advancement. The difference has to be instantly discernible.

- Developers are given the tools\time to optimise for each platform, before the next one arrives. There is no point in devs just starting to push hardware only for a new iteration of a box to arrive.

 

[SneakersSO]

The whole platform Ms is build is centered around the universal app and the one store. Your app is a single package is deployed once and capable of running on the device it has the ability to run. Even if your code has specific code for each platform it's deployed as a single package that's only certified once.

Currently you can even submit apps targeting different processors architectures that are treated as a single app.

(Of course, if you add support to a new platform after submitting your app/game you have to go through the process again, like any patch new version would)

This process only works for app-sized software. It is a completely different beast when we're talking about game engines & game code.

 

[Synth]

Yes. That is exactly what I am saying. UNLESS the new model was emulating the current XBO, which is a whole other thing altogether. The only way I see it working in this way would be through emulation. But emulation has a ton of its own issues.

Then honestly, I think the topic kinda breaks down at that point. You're essentially saying there simply can't be an upgraded Xbox One at all, not simply the pros and cons of having one. You're saying that it would have to be an entirely new console, with potential BC being emulated... which goes against anything being suggested or discussed in this thread.

I'm also a dev, not within gaming, and primarily for PC desktop applications, so I don't have a whole lot of experience with closed environments either. However, I think the suggestion that any changes severs the ability for the new hardware to run the previous hardware's code natively makes little sense tbh. This to me would seem to depend heavily on just how specialised the code itself is towards the hardware running it.. which in most modern cases shouldn't be all that specialised at all. You can see stuff like this on mobile platforms for example where an iPhone 5 (or an iPad 3 or whatever) has a completely different generation of chip compared to that of the iPhone 4, but nearly all apps will run natively on the new device immediately, with the caveat of it not making any use of any new advancements (such as screen real estate). It all pretty much depends on how much of the implementation is abstracted away from the platform's core internals, and then if the edge cases can then be predicted and accounted for in the new device.

I think if we're going to assume this scenario happens in any fashion, we should assume that MS has already accounted for how previous Xbox One games will run (and I don't think that software emulation is a realistic assumption), and so the idea that a developer would have to explicitly target two different platforms to in order to ship a game on both the XB1 and a potential XB1.5 doesn't really seem worth discussing. Either MS knows something neither of us do... or it simply can't happen at all, and the question becomes why Phil would say anything to suggest it might (because throwing the idea out there is certainly not going to move more XBOs as they are).

 

[Gamezone]

This would be a stupid move. It totally go against why people buy consoles in the first place. It will also cause problems for game developers, as they have to make games for consoles with different hardware.

 

[wapplew]

Make it 200m+ for ps4 and 30m for ms. If they start over when Ps5 hits it's gonna be 0 against 30m. And if even sony manages to win again next generation by the time Ps6 hits it might be 0 against 60m+.

So, by pure logic, eventually they will be forced to follow a similar suit, even if not this gen.

By the time PS6 hits, it will be against 60m+ because MS keep supporting Xbox one?
More likely situation is MS cut off Xbox one support which make the install base remain 30m.