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[presagetogood]

A console is all about having a cheap and strong graphics hardware that operates exclusively in game mode, as opposed to a PC that is for multitasking. Consoles are about having an effective and attractive input device to go along with it, and to be supported by revelatory gaming experiences. I don't see how throwing the wrench of easily updatable PC hardware changes any of those parameters. Even hardcore gamers would update their hardware 4 years into the gen if it meant 2k versus 900-1080p resolutions... Especially at an attractive price

 

[vcc]

Why wouldn't they be able to disassemble the old Xbox parts and use it for recycling as part of the upgrade? They did similar deals early on with trades on PS3 and 360 hardware. This is MS we're talking about... Whatever money they lose on the hardware side, they will make back on the software side... Especially if Xbox stays a walled platform at least for games.

The internals aren't really amenable to taking stuff off and re-using it. The ram is soldered on. The board may or may not be okay with a different chip. No idea. HDD might be re-usable.

The issue is the average gamer is worth a average amount to MS and $150 would take a big chunk out of it. They have these figures and from the outside it's not a super huge number. There is only so much they can do.

 

[10k]

As someone who prefers achievements I wonder if third party games will show up on the windows 10 store. Specifically AAA games like Assassins Creed, Batman, EA games, etc.

 

[Night Angel]

???????????

a major corporation is going to straight up lie about their plans for a feature? seriously name a time that a publicly traded corporation has done that...

Someone pull up the "Phil Spencer Says..." list. Or the "We love PC, we promise!" list.

 

[Striek]

it is amazing how quickly you came around this idea now that ms is hinting at doing it. here are some quotes for reference when you questioned my idea of a ps4 premium and even calling it bad ....


[....]

link for conversation where there are many that ridiculed the idea of an upgraded console

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=188973578&highlight=#post188973578

Damn, shameful. At least theres probably been enough time for his views to have legit evolved....oh, three months ago. Lol.

 

[DeepEnigma]

As someone who prefers achievements I wonder if third party games will show up on the windows 10 store. Specifically AAA games like Assassins Creed, Batman, EA games, etc.

EA has Origin (now with EA Access as well), and that will not change anytime soon.

 

[presagetogood]

The internals aren't really amenable to taking stuff off and re-using it. The ram is soldered on. The board may or may not be okay with a different chip. No idea. HDD might be re-usable.

The issue is the average gamer is worth a average amount to MS and $150 would take a big chunk out of it. They have these figures and from the outside it's not a super huge number. There is only so much they can do.

From the consumer perspective, I think $200 would still look good for the upgraded device if you can also promise oculus rift support and other things...

 

[Neuromancer]

When has that ever happened?

I think it was part of the idea behind the 3DO but I could be wrong.

 

[Dinjoralo]

Someone pull up the "Phil Spencer Says..." list. Or the "We love PC, we promise!" list.

Here ya go, love.

 

[jelly]

And do you really think that many people would buy a new one every 2 years? 50 odd million people have bought a console with the belief it will last for the next few years / won't need to buy a new one till the next generation. Those that like to upgrade tend to get a PC. Those that like it nice and simple get a console (generally)

Some of that 50 million might buy one but it's mainly about the next 50 million.

I still think there is no way it's every two years or always every 3-4 years. Microsoft could release the new Xbox and stick with it for 5 years because there might not be a need for anything more at the time.

I also think Xbox One being underwhelming is also a reason for this change, rectifying a mistake BUT not cutting the cord. They can support Xbox One and the new console for a long generation but aren't lumped with only weak hardware which isn't looked upon that highly by consumers. They need the new Xbox to push a better image of the brand and experience before a new generation. I think as long as the games scale and Xbox One is still like today with games and focus, it could be a clever move.

 

[Bitch Pudding]

The internals aren't really amenable to taking stuff off and re-using it. The ram is soldered on. The board may or may not be okay with a different chip. No idea. HDD might be re-usable.

The issue is the average gamer is worth a average amount to MS and $150 would take a big chunk out of it. They have these figures and from the outside it's not a super huge number. There is only so much they can do.

That reminds me, how much cost a standard 20GB HDD for XBOX 360, and how much the equivalent stock model? To make a long story short, I don't thing neither of those incremental upgrades will be cheap unless you can use stock hardware, which is highly unlikely.

 

[EvB]

That reminds me, how much cost a standard 20GB HDD for XBOX 360, and how much the equivalent stock model? To make a long story short, I don't thing neither of those incremental upgrades will be cheap unless you can use stock hardware, which is highly unlikely.

I think people need to get the concept of modules or components being swapped in/out out of their head.

 

[phyrlord]

When you can play New games on a Xbox at 60FPS and the same game runs on the PS4 at 25FPS, Sony is going to have to start dancing.

 

[jelly]

I think people need to get the concept of modules or components being swapped in/out out of their head.

Yeah, it's not happening.

You're getting a new Xbox, that's it.

 

[mckmas8808]

Think of it this way - a PC you bought in 2010 can play games released today. Now, they MAY run like crap, but it'll play them, pretty much. And you can go into the settings and set everything to ultra low to make it a little better.

So, Xbox One will be "ultra low", two will be "medium" and three will be "high". You see?

Personally, I don't think there will be a distinct XBox Two and Three, just a sticker on a PC saying "XBOX Certified!"

Ok cool. But will MS make devs add setting changes into their games going forward?

 

[vcc]

???????????

a major corporation is going to straight up lie about their plans for a feature? seriously name a time that a publicly traded corporation has done that...

Well, there is this:

IGN reports that it talked to Microsoft UK marketing director, Harvey Eagle, who said, "Kinect does require to be connected to Xbox One in all cases, yes."

-IGN

We think Kinect is an integral part of our platform.

-IGN

 

[Graphics Horse]

...I wish fhe word 'upgrade' was never written by these journalists.

 

[oakenhild]

I think this is a fantastic idea. This works with PC games, so I see no reason why Xbox games couldn't support various levels of settings for each model. Most games are already made with PC in mind with higher resolution textures, support for various resolutions, etc. The Xbox One is basically already a PC under the hood, running Windows 10 etc.

I bet within a year they announce a newly upgraded model that is more powerful than the PS4 for the same or similar price.

No way do they upgrade existing consoles though. Possibly future models, but upgrading hardware is just not how consumer electronics are done these days (Surface, iPad, phones, ultrabooks, and on and on).

 

[oakenhild]

Ok cool. But will MS make devs add setting changes into their games going forward?

Why would the devs need to do that? They already know which model XBox you'll be running, and can setup the games with the most optimized settings for that model. Easier than trying to figure out combinations of video cards, ram, and cpu's of pc gamers.

 

[Bitch Pudding]

...I wish fhe word 'upgrade' was never written by these journalists.

Kind of missleading, indeed. Then again, steadily / incrementaly updated SKUs, that sounds actually even stupider. No need to buy your console "in advance" any more. Some people for example already bought their XBone for Gears 4, others purchased their PS4 for Uncharted 4 or Gran Turismo or a WiiU to play ZeldaU. Now they'll wait to have the best possible SKU when their "must-have" game finally arrives. And this is bad for any console, because you need those early adopters to gain sales momentum and a positive word-of-mouth starting day 1.

 

[Trup1aya]

If there's ~100 million more powerful Windows 10 devices they can target without the extra optimisation effort, yes.


Xbone's already less of a focus for Microsoft's game developers now they have to make Windows 10 versions for a variety of PC configs as well. See above about the smaller share.

I think it does bother PC gamers when they're disadvantaged against other players, and that's PC players. Console players don't have to deal with that.

Segregating players by input and/or performance just splits them into 'platforms' again.

Well, the hundreds of millions of PCs in the wild hasn't stopped Any major publishers from focusing on consoles after all these years. Why do you think it would suddenly stop MS from making console games?

I mean we still don't have Destiny on PC. It took forever to get GTAV to PC. Madden doesn't touch PC. There are plenty of examples of console versions being given more focus than PC. The console market is extremely lucrative despite being dwarfed by the size of the PC market. Developers are aware of this. Ms is aware of this.

PC players are already segregated by platform from Xbox players.
For some games (fighters, racers, etc) it makes sense to combine players from PC and Xbox. For other games, like first person shooters, it doesn't make sense. Developers are smart enough make the distinction when neccisary.

The idea of 'lessened focus' is just nonsensical. Is infinity ward less focused on the ps4 version of COD because a PC version exists?
Why wouldn't a first party studio be capable of giving 2 versions of the same game the attention they need?

 

[cakely]

I think people need to get the concept of modules or components being swapped in/out out of their head.

Yeah, after watching that recent interview, Spencer was definitely talking about iterative new models of consoles. As I quoted previously, "Most people buy a phone every two years".

 

[mckmas8808]

Why would the devs need to do that? They already know which model XBox you'll be running, and can setup the games with the most optimized settings for that model. Easier than trying to figure out combinations of video cards, ram, and cpu's of pc gamers.

There's no way that will work though. The internals will not be that much better from the Xbox Baseline model to see that much of a difference.

 

[Yekshemesh]

I bet within a year they announce a newly upgraded model that is more powerful than the PS4 for the same or similar price.
.

I'll bet you. What do you want to put on the line?

 

[Markoman]

I haven't seen anyone mentioning how game development would work in this enviroment.
Let me explain:
Going from one gen into another we are used to devs fully exploiting the power of new consoles with new games (+cross-gen titles). Stuff that couldn't be done a generation before. Though there are cross-gen games some games make it look rather like a clean cut from a technical perspective between gens.

So, let's say we are keeping the normal cycle and new consoles are going to be launched in late 2018/2019. Dev kits will be delivered to devs 1-2 years in advance so that devs can design new gaming experiences around new machines that are usually a lot more powerful that the gen before. Now, big AAA games which are not cookie-cutter yearly iterations of a series take 2-3 years to develop.

How will this work with upgrades every 2 years or so? Let's say MS comes up with a fixed schedule to release Xbox 2 in 2018 and Xbox2.1 in 2020 and Xbox2.2 in 2022. Devs will have to start working on games for Xbox2 launch window right now. Ok, this might actually work, but what then? Dev x&y has just released his first title for Xbox2 and immediately starts working on a new title or sequel to hit the Xbox2.1 launch window, but he has to keep in mind that this game has to run on the older machine. Still no problem. The problems start with the 3rd and 4th iteration of the console. According to the schedule, this is the point in time where we are usually seeing brand-new machines, but the devs working on new games in this period always have to keep the first iteration in mind. My biggest issue with this: we'll see even less technical innovation in games down the line . Everything will be focused on resolution and fps solely. No new advanced physics or AI innovations, because this won't work with this concept. Just as an example (control issues aside) a Total War Medieval 3 with 50.000 units might run on a Xbox iteration in 2018 but this kind of game won't run with console tech we are dealing with today. The whole AAA industry will be put into an even more tight corset, if all of this happens. The whole game-design philosophy will have to change and allign to this rhythm also and I don't see how games can become a selling point for the new upgrade. Let's say EA misses the launch window of Xbox 2.1 with a brand new AAA IP and releases the game exactly in the middle between Xbox2.1 and Xbox2.2.
This game then will neither work as a unique selling point for Xbox2.2 nor for Xbox2.1.

 

[Graphics Horse]

Kind of missleading, indeed. Then again, steadily / incrementaly updated SKUs, that sounds actually even stupider. No need to buy your console "in advance" any more. Some people for example already bought their XBone for Gears 4, others purchased their PS4 for Uncharted 4 or Gran Turismo or a WiiU to play ZeldaU. Now they'll wait to have the best possible SKU when their "must-have" game finally arrives. And this is bad for any console, because you need those early adopters to gain sales momentum and a positive word-of-mouth starting day 1.

I tend not to do that, seems daft to me if you don't already have a good reason to own it.
...tho I did expect to be able to play The Last Guardian on my PS3 someday

 

[slavesnyder]

a major corporation is going to straight up lie about their plans for a feature? seriously name a time that a publicly traded corporation has done that...

a) you are ironic
b) I am a conspiracy fanatic
c) you are naive

Corporations lie a lot about plans, products and intentions.

Yeah, after watching that recent interview, Spencer was definitely talking about iterative new models of consoles. As I quoted previously, "Most people buy a phone every two years".

But will people carry their new Xboxes into hipster bars and pose with them to impress others?

 

[oakenhild]

There's no way that will work though. The internals will not be that much better from the Xbox Baseline model to see that much of a difference.

I see no reason why it wouldn't work. Half the PC games I play are already automatically configured for the set of hardware components I have. If PC games have it figured out, surely these same devs can figure out how to automatically optimize their games for the different models of the Xbox One without exposing settings in the menus.

At this point everything about the power of a new model is speculation, but there is a good chance they won't release a newly upgraded model that is only a few percentage points better than the existing model as there wouldn't be much of a point (marketing) unless the components were cheaper for them.

 

[Disaster Nebraska]

PC players are already segregated by platform from Xbox players.

For some games (fighters, racers, etc) it makes sense to combine players from PC and Xbox. For other games, like first person shooters, it doesn't make sense. Developers are smart enough make the distinction when neccisary.

The idea of 'lessened focus' is just nonsensical. Is infinity ward less focused on the ps4 version of COD because a PC version exists?

Why wouldn't a first party studio be capable of giving 2 versions of the same game the attention they need?

It's only nonsensical if you cover your ears and shut your eyes. The answer to your questions is a resounding "yes", Infinity Ward is constrained by staff members, time, and finances just like every other company. They have to allocate resources to the version of each game and carefully plan their game so that they can develop as much as the "core" material with minimal tweaking on each individual platform.

The bigger question is, how will this affect developers who were accustomed to developing on one console (Xbox One) that now have to develop on two, one of them being PC, which requires a different development pipeline than consoles? There won't be any difference, huh? They'll be able to negate any and all disadvantages, huh?

I can think of a developer who had this issue recently: Insomniac. Their last games on the PS3 were solid. Their first multiplatform game -- Fuse -- was shit. What happened when they went back to exclusives? Sunset Overdrive.

The people that deny there's a difference between multiplatform and exclusive development just screams of wishful thinking.

 

[Bitch Pudding]

There's no way that will work though. The internals will not be that much better from the Xbox Baseline model to see that much of a difference.

True. You need a full generational leap / about 4 times more powerful SKU to switch from 1080p to 4k gaming. Not to forget that some people fail to see the difference between 720p and 1080p, so one might get the idea that the upgraded edition must be significantly faster than the old one to have a noteworthy impact on visuals.

 

[gamz]

Two PS3s (launch and slim in 09), and a 360 (died of RROD).

I would gladly buy even more often if the console did more with each iteration.

But why do you ask?

I was just asking because people just buy several iterations of consoles as is. I imagine they'll buy one if it's more powerful.

 

[gamz]

I think people need to get the concept of modules or components being swapped in/out out of their head.

This.

 

[Disaster Nebraska]

I was just asking because people just buy several iterations of consoles as is. I imagine they'll buy one if it's more powerful.

Outside of Nintendo gamers (who seem to have an unheaalthy desire to buy new hardware; I'm one of them) I don't think this is as common as you think.

 

[thomastehbest1]

So nothing ever came from the steam xbox rumor? If xbox does become a steam machine like device they are going to have to build up the windows store to be on par with Steam. Where does that leave Sony?

 

[Rymuth]

???????????

a major corporation is going to straight up lie about their plans for a feature? seriously name a time that a publicly traded corporation has done that...

CVG: A quick word on Kinect - I presume there will never be an Xbox One sold without it.

Harrison: Correct. Xbox One is Kinect. They are not separate systems.

 

[AmaterasuOni]

So nothing ever came from the steam xbox rumor? If xbox does become a steam machine like device they are going to have to build up the windows store to be on par with Steam. Where does that leave Sony?

Battling the warz with Nintendo as Microsoft moves to the market where Steam rules.

 

[Shpeshal Nick]

???????????

a major corporation is going to straight up lie about their plans for a feature? seriously name a time that a publicly traded corporation has done that...

Depends on how you interpret lie.

I'm not privy to the conversation you're in right now, this thread is all over the place, I'm responding to your post in isolation.

Microsoft said every console will be a dev kit. Nope.
Family sharing for 10 people. Nope.

But again, it's how you see it. Were they necessarily lies? Maybe not. Maybe just plans that never came to fruition.

 

[feint_ruled]

One thing I don't understand with the Xbox/Windows 10 'unification' is how its going to work with third party games. Firstly, existing games. How is an Xbox version of, say, Far Cry Primal ever going to work on any Windows 10 PC? This strongly implies that a backward compatible Xbox 1.5 or 2 CANNOT just be a Windows 10 PC after all.
And for future games, can MS really say to the likes of EA, hey, this Xbox version you are making, it has to be UWA but good news, it also runs on Windows 10! P.S. We get a 30% cut of all copies. No, they are going to want to keep making their own PC only versions to sell through Origin.

So how can they solve this one? Do they really intend to unify platforms, or just have all first party games be UWA for Xbox and Windows 10?

 

[Graphics Horse]

Battling the warz with Nintendo as Microsoft moves to the market where Steam rules.

Just in time for the Sega revival.

 

[oakenhild]

CVG: A quick word on Kinect - I presume there will never be an Xbox One sold without it.

Harrison: Correct. Xbox One is Kinect. They are not separate systems.

This is a weird thing to get hung up on. Business plans change. They responded to their customer base that didn't like the Kinect (most of the core gamers). Imagine if they still required it; they'd be in an even worse position with that expensive SKU. The launch was a mess that they pivoted away from too.

Also, Phil Harrison isn't even with Microsoft anymore. Probably for reasons like the above quote.

 

[AndyD]

I was just asking because people just buy several iterations of consoles as is. I imagine they'll buy one if it's more powerful.

Outside of Nintendo gamers (who seem to have an unheaalthy desire to buy new hardware; I'm one of them) I don't think this is as common as you think.

Indeed. Consoles are priced high enough that someone might get a revision but will then resell the original, rather than keep several around. It's not a near impulse buy $100 DS handheld.

 

[EvB]

CVG: A quick word on Kinect - I presume there will never be an Xbox One sold without it.

Harrison: Correct. Xbox One is Kinect. They are not separate systems.

Was that a lie or was that before they changed their plan?

 

[gamz]

So nothing ever came from the steam xbox rumor? If xbox does become a steam machine like device they are going to have to build up the windows store to be on par with Steam. Where does that leave Sony?

Can't they just build their own store? Can't be that difficult.

 

[WolvenOne]

Do you have an example of this? Not because I doubt you, but because I've not -- personally -- heard too many stories of execs or pundits saying iterative hardware should be a thing.

It would be enlightening to the discussion if we could examine past examples.

I remember SEGA 32x and I remember Pachter's Wii HD prediction, but that's it.

When has that ever happened?

An exec said the same thing about the XBox 360, and I believe something similar was said about the PS2 at one point. Execs like this idea because it means they never have to abandon the current install base and start over, however economic and technical realities prevent this from ever working.

 

[Crayon]

Was that a lie or was that before they changed their plan?

It had nothing to do with the truth. A lie is at least related to the truth in being its opposite.

Corporations don't need to lie when its sufficient to "say a lot of things".

They point is, taking all the PR as gospel is STUPID.

 

[gamz]

CVG: A quick word on Kinect - I presume there will never be an Xbox One sold without it.

Harrison: Correct. Xbox One is Kinect. They are not separate systems.

But, they weren't lying. That was the business plan and it changed when Phil took over and they had to redesign the interface to use without Kinect.

 

[vcc]

Was that a lie or was that before they changed their plan?

statements that the XB1 doesn't work without the kinect were day 1 lies. Statements which may have later been untrue because a change in strategy is likely not. However it does undermine their statements. Anything they say may or may not be true very shortly after. It's been their weakness for a while now which greatly undermines their credibility.

 

[Markoman]

One thing I don't understand with the Xbox/Windows 10 'unification' is how its going to work with third party games. Firstly, existing games. How is an Xbox version of, say, Far Cry Primal ever going to work on any Windows 10 PC? This strongly implies that a backward compatible Xbox 1.5 or 2 CANNOT just be a Windows 10 PC after all.
And for future games, can MS really say to the likes of EA, hey, this Xbox version you are making, it has to be UWA but good news, it also runs on Windows 10! P.S. We get a 30% cut of all copies. No, they are going to want to keep making their own PC only versions to sell through Origin.

So how can they solve this one? Do they really intend to unify platforms, or just have all first party games be UWA for Xbox and Windows 10?

Good point, what if they show MS the stinker and focus on Sony as a primary partner in the future? MS plan will force big pubs to spend more on development, if Sony doesn't follow this strategy they will be the cheaper alternative with an already bigger market-share. This will end up like Game of Thrones I guess.

 

[Sydle]

Well, there is this:


-IGN


-IGN

That wasn't a lie though because it was true at one time. They had to go in and patch it out after the uproar when people believed the Kinect would be spying on them.

They also dropped Kinect after several months because they had so much feedback asking them to.

 

[SlickShoesRUCrazy]

Well, there is this:


-IGN


-IGN

Listening to consumers desires isn't lying.

There was a lot of negativity around the mandatory Kinect.

You can call them idiots for not paying attention to the negativity when rumors were circulating before the thing was announced, but that doesn't make them liars.

It just makes them idiots for going forward with a stupid plan.