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[Dabaus]

No they're not, that's not how development works. They don't start at the low end and scale up, they start at the high end and scale back. This has been specifically addressed when speaking about the Xbox One X development kits.

The Xbox one x has like at best an installed base of 2 million. Out of the 100 million plus consoles sold betwee nBase model ps4 and xbone developers are absolutely designing around base ps4 and xbone. Anything else is spin directly from Phil, Just like games pass helps sell games. If so why did sea of thieves and state of decay fall off the charts the month after they came out? Its all bullshit.

 

[AgentP]

Releasing a high end version from the start is a bad idea or at least a misnomer. What you are really going to get is a low end and a normal console. To truly get a "beast" you need to wait a few years for technology that was too expensive to come down in price.

Let's pretend Sony did it for the PS4. Instead of a $400 1.8TF system, they could have had a 1.3TF for $300 and a 2.2TF for $500. The bottom line is from the start the low end model is bad from the get go and the "high end" is going to be the standard and when you want a real high end a few years later you will have three SKUs.

 

[DynamiteCop!]

The Xbox one x has like at best an installed base of 2 million. Out of the 100 million plus consoles sold betwee nBase model ps4 and xbone developers are absolutely designing around base ps4 and xbone. Anything else is spin directly from Phil. Just like games pass helps sell games. If so why did sea of thieves and state of decay fall off the charts the month after they came out? Its all bullshit.

2 million? I'd say they're well on their way to 4 million by now but that's beyond the point.

Assets and art in games when developed are far beyond what you ever see even on PC in a lot of instances. Remember The Witcher 3 pre-release stuff? That was the game, that was actually how the game looked but it wasn't feasible to release in that state. Developers come in hot with their builds, they design them around an operating environment and hardware which far exceeds the capabilities of the systems they will deploy to. It's extremely hard to scale up from less, it's easy to scale back from more.

The install base has very little to do with it because easily 95% of games these days are being built with PC's in mind which is a platform built entirely around scalability. Forza Horizon 4 is a great example of this, the game was built around the X/PC and then scaled back in certain regards for function on the Xbox One S. Geometry can be scaled back, LoD's can be scaled back, shadows can be scaled back, textures can be compressed. That's the way of the industry, they aim high and then scale back; not the other way around.

 

[hououinkyouma00]

I won't be buying the next Xbox console, but I'm interested in what Microsoft does next gen. If they really do a streaming only box then it needs to be cheap, like $99-149 cheap to put it in that Apple TV price point.

If they do 2 traditional models at the start then I feel like that's just cash grabbing because they are most likely going to release a mid-gen refresh at some point so what 3-4 models? 4-5 including a streaming model? That could be $1000 just in consoles in a gen if you go high end both times.

How much cheaper can a disc less console be? Is the disc drive expensive enough to even bother?

Disc drives are not expensive but the way they influence manufacturing and sale can be. Without the disc drive you have a smaller console so less plastic, less screws, smaller board, less components, and less packaging.

Then you have the fact that people are only buying digital games from the store which means more money per copy sold.

 

[Elenchus]

People who have less to spend have an option. Works with every other product offered since the beginning of trade or commerce.

Fixed for you. The idea that consumers are too stupid to realize that the more expensive product is the more fully featured one is a myth that lives only in the minds of gamers. Samsung manage to sell 4k televisions with 7-10 on the market at a time with code letters for names, but gamers cannot figure out 2 SKUs because...reasons? Gimme a break. The mythological consumers you guys are so concerned about would be too dumb to boot the console up anyway.

 

[Journey]

No they're not, that's not how development works. They don't start at the low end and scale up, they start at the high end and scale back. This has been specifically addressed when speaking about the Xbox One X development kits.

Exactly. All you need for evidence are the games that are also on PC, with Xbox One X doing its best and coming close, but not quite achieving the best possible, followed by Pro which tends to do its best by using checkerboard rending to keep up, then PS4 and so on. The engine doesn't start on Xbox One, then run 1000 fps on PC lol.