Tqaulity
Member
From what we know right now, I think it's fair to describe the general proposition of the Xbox Series X as a great attempt to bring a "high end PC" to the living room. With hardware specs matching PC hardware that is not practical and merely aspirational to the vast majority of consumers, it will be able to deliver an experience level above and beyond what console gamers are used to today. But what does bringing a "high end PC" experience to the living room really mean?
The PC as a gaming platform has not fundamentally changed in the past 3 decades. With the advent of Windows OS and external graphics accelerators (i.e. GPUs) in the late 90s, the general hardware components that power PC games has remained consistent. In other words, we have not seen some radical new design for what constitutes a PC from a hardware standpoint. Cpu, Ram, and GPU is still there in the same form and input is done via keyboard and mouse primarily, This is why it's possible for new PC hardware to still run old games that are 10, 20, or even 30 years old. In effect, all that has happened from a hardware standpoint is that the PC components which powers games have gotten bigger, faster, and more complex which has allowed those game PC games to run faster and better as time goes on. When you add a new CPU, GPU, or additional RAM today, you are simply adding components that will speed up the acceleration of the game without changing the game in any fundamental way. So you can pop in World of Warcraft today and run it at 4K resolution or 200 fps on modern hardware but the core design, artwork, and gameplay are still fundamentally the same as it was 15 years ago. The same is true for classics like Doom 3, Unreal Tournament, Quake III, or Final Fantasy XIV to name a few.
(side note: notice that I am specifically talking about hardware. I acknowledge that mods on the PC can in some cases add aspects that will change the games at a core level)
With this said, one can make the claim that PCs don't really have "generations" in the true sense. This is largely intentional as one of the biggest advantages of the PC is it's familiarity and relative ease of use as a result. However, on the console side of things, for nearly 50 years we've seen new devices and systems introduced that fundamentally change the game in a literal sense. Going from 2 colors to millions of colors, cartridge to CD/DVD, CPU rendering to external GPU rendering, 2D to 3D, fixed function to programmable shaders are just some of the milestones that have categorized a "new" generation.
With the Xbox Series X, Microsoft is at the culmination of it's journey to date to merge their PC and console gaming businesses. We've seen the policy that every 1st party Xbox game will release for Windows as well. We've seen Xbox Live, GamePass, Cross Play, and other software become unified between PC and console over this past gen. As a side effect of this push, we've also seen backwards and forward compatibility becoming a core feature of the Xbox platform (similar to PCs). Now don't get me wrong, since Microsoft builds Windows and DirectX and are probably the biggest stakeholder in the PC gaming space, merging the two makes perfect sense from a business standpoint. But I ask, with that model can you really have a truly new generation with a console?
Let's examine some key aspects we already know about Xbox Series X in terms of how it is deliberately not pushing too far ahead for the next gen:
I would make the claim that the Xbox Series X is indeed equivalent to upgrading your PC but to your Xbox one console. You get a brand new CPU and motherboard, new GPU, add in a SSD drive, and more RAM...all things any individual can add to their PCs. The result: the same game you currently play or would play on your existing hardware running "better", smoother, prettier, cleaner, faster, and with more responsiveness.
Again, the question is Did Microsoft Design the XBSX to be a true next gen system because everything I mentioned about the system is completely by design. Let's not forget the imminent arrival of other Series for the Xbox platform Including the rumored lower end Lockhart console. Once that is confirmed, it will add even more credence to the idea of bringing the PC model to the living room.
Now of course there are pluses and minuses to doing things in this way. It is definitely more "pro consumer" and there are a lot of people that love the model of upgrading your hardware to play the existing games you love in a much better form. So I'm not here to bash Xbox or Microsoft or to say the XBSX is doomed. Obviously Sony is taking a different approach and it will be interesting to see how it all works out. But, I would claim that the Xbox Series X (from what we know now) is as "next gen" as the Xbox One X was to the Xbox One or even as "next gen" as a PC upgrade is for a typically consumer (at least until the Series X exclusives come).
So I'm curious, how do you guys feel about that? Is that fine for you or would you rather see the jump we've seen with consoles in the past (e.g Xbox to X360)?
The PC as a gaming platform has not fundamentally changed in the past 3 decades. With the advent of Windows OS and external graphics accelerators (i.e. GPUs) in the late 90s, the general hardware components that power PC games has remained consistent. In other words, we have not seen some radical new design for what constitutes a PC from a hardware standpoint. Cpu, Ram, and GPU is still there in the same form and input is done via keyboard and mouse primarily, This is why it's possible for new PC hardware to still run old games that are 10, 20, or even 30 years old. In effect, all that has happened from a hardware standpoint is that the PC components which powers games have gotten bigger, faster, and more complex which has allowed those game PC games to run faster and better as time goes on. When you add a new CPU, GPU, or additional RAM today, you are simply adding components that will speed up the acceleration of the game without changing the game in any fundamental way. So you can pop in World of Warcraft today and run it at 4K resolution or 200 fps on modern hardware but the core design, artwork, and gameplay are still fundamentally the same as it was 15 years ago. The same is true for classics like Doom 3, Unreal Tournament, Quake III, or Final Fantasy XIV to name a few.
(side note: notice that I am specifically talking about hardware. I acknowledge that mods on the PC can in some cases add aspects that will change the games at a core level)
With this said, one can make the claim that PCs don't really have "generations" in the true sense. This is largely intentional as one of the biggest advantages of the PC is it's familiarity and relative ease of use as a result. However, on the console side of things, for nearly 50 years we've seen new devices and systems introduced that fundamentally change the game in a literal sense. Going from 2 colors to millions of colors, cartridge to CD/DVD, CPU rendering to external GPU rendering, 2D to 3D, fixed function to programmable shaders are just some of the milestones that have categorized a "new" generation.
With the Xbox Series X, Microsoft is at the culmination of it's journey to date to merge their PC and console gaming businesses. We've seen the policy that every 1st party Xbox game will release for Windows as well. We've seen Xbox Live, GamePass, Cross Play, and other software become unified between PC and console over this past gen. As a side effect of this push, we've also seen backwards and forward compatibility becoming a core feature of the Xbox platform (similar to PCs). Now don't get me wrong, since Microsoft builds Windows and DirectX and are probably the biggest stakeholder in the PC gaming space, merging the two makes perfect sense from a business standpoint. But I ask, with that model can you really have a truly new generation with a console?
Let's examine some key aspects we already know about Xbox Series X in terms of how it is deliberately not pushing too far ahead for the next gen:
- Microsoft has already confirmed that all 1st party titles will be cross gen (i.e. run on Xbox one and Series X) for at least the first 2 years of the Series X (LINK).
- All new Xbox One game will be forward compatible with Series X while Series X will be backwards compatible with all Xbox One Titles (including those backwards compatible X360 and OG Xbox)
- The controller design looks very close to the existing Xbox One controllers and is designed to work on previous Xbox One consoles (LINK)
- Early official UI screens of the Series X show that it is virtually unchanged from the current Xbox One (if it is updated it will likely be on the software side where the update will apply to older Xbox One consoles as well)
I would make the claim that the Xbox Series X is indeed equivalent to upgrading your PC but to your Xbox one console. You get a brand new CPU and motherboard, new GPU, add in a SSD drive, and more RAM...all things any individual can add to their PCs. The result: the same game you currently play or would play on your existing hardware running "better", smoother, prettier, cleaner, faster, and with more responsiveness.
Again, the question is Did Microsoft Design the XBSX to be a true next gen system because everything I mentioned about the system is completely by design. Let's not forget the imminent arrival of other Series for the Xbox platform Including the rumored lower end Lockhart console. Once that is confirmed, it will add even more credence to the idea of bringing the PC model to the living room.
Now of course there are pluses and minuses to doing things in this way. It is definitely more "pro consumer" and there are a lot of people that love the model of upgrading your hardware to play the existing games you love in a much better form. So I'm not here to bash Xbox or Microsoft or to say the XBSX is doomed. Obviously Sony is taking a different approach and it will be interesting to see how it all works out. But, I would claim that the Xbox Series X (from what we know now) is as "next gen" as the Xbox One X was to the Xbox One or even as "next gen" as a PC upgrade is for a typically consumer (at least until the Series X exclusives come).
So I'm curious, how do you guys feel about that? Is that fine for you or would you rather see the jump we've seen with consoles in the past (e.g Xbox to X360)?
But it is not so it must be a truly full next-gen console despite both systems using same Architecture,, GPU, CPU, etc...
