Xbox One - Where Microsoft actually listens to consumers

[chemgear]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

50% where did this come from?

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6972/x...-playstation-4

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/di...lysis-xbox-one

http://www.gamesthirst.com/2013/05/2...ox-one-report/

http://www.sonyrumors.net/2013/05/27...than-xbox-one/

Futher discussion here:

hthttp://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=562401

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by The Yen Man

Honestly, the media "experience" will pretty much be the same for the PS4 and Xbox One.

Not really. You will be able to chat face to face with people over the internet with every Xbox One. Can't do that with a base PS4. Maybe it doesn't appeal to you but every developer can build in Kinect functions on Xbox 360 that won't be available on PS4 and it can be subtle little things like shaking your head to turn on/off nightvision or voice commands, etc. There is a lot of untapped interfaces that the Xbox One can offer due to Kinect compared to the PS4.

When Sony says "It will be the same as with PS3" they literally werent kidding as outside of updated graphics and pay to play online the PS4 doesn't really offer anything new.

[chemgear]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

When Sony says "It will be the same as with PS3" they literally werent kidding as outside of updated graphics and pay to play online the PS4 doesn't really offer anything new.

Where was this? The only place I saw them say this was during the press event in direct reference to and only about their policy on DRM/used games.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by robaur

Great. As if I and many other people don't already have Netflix, so they can use their accounts to watch on PC/iPhone/iPad/TV/Xbox....

You get what you pay for. You dont want to pay? You get limited access. Great Point!

Great point! Why use the Xbox (with Live) as a media centre, when you can use every other device in the house for the same thing without paying for Live?

[SebC]

Originally Posted by cDnStealth

But you'll probably pay for PS+ just to play your games online so it kind of ends up as a wash.

Ah, but then you're in the category of people who probably care about used games and DRM.

The only thing Xbox has going for it now are its exclusive titles. I guess they can be the media centre for Halo fans.

[TorqueDog]

Originally Posted by Rathji

I am pretty sure the XBox Live game servers won't be all Azure.

Doesn't really change your point though as storage and authentication are Azure, IIRC, so I would have zero worries about them. Azure is pretty rock solid for something like this.

Yeah, I'm not sure that EVERYTHING is Azure, so I misspoke there.

Another thing to consider is that the 300,000 figure doesn't specify dedicated physical or virtual. But from an application-level availability perspective, it doesn't matter. Higher number of servers offering a distributed service = higher availability of said service. Performance is a different ball-game, but we all know how virt. allows us to leverage more of the resources of a given physical host.


On the subject of sharing games with friends: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/0...game-policies/

This might actually result in me sharing games with my friends for the first time since my 8-bit NES. I can pick ten friends and access all their games and vice versa. Sick. Only limitation is that I can't play a game that's already being played by someone else... just like with the current model of physical media, except that I'm also not likely to share physical media with my friends that live in different cities/provinces.

[Finner]

Originally Posted by chemgear

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6972/x...-playstation-4

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/di...lysis-xbox-one

http://www.gamesthirst.com/2013/05/2...ox-one-report/

http://www.sonyrumors.net/2013/05/27...than-xbox-one/

Futher discussion here:

hthttp://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=562401

I figured I'd pull a couple quotes out of the anandtech column:

Sony gave the PS4 50% more raw shader performance, plain and simple (768 SPs @ 800MHz vs. 1152 SPs & 800MHz). Unlike last generation, you don't need to be some sort of Jedi to extract the PS4's potential here. The Xbox One and PS4 architectures are quite similar, Sony just has more hardware under the hood. We’ll have to wait and see how this hardware delta gets exposed in games over time, but the gap is definitely there.

Sony’s approach (especially when combined with a beefier GPU) is exactly what you’d build if you wanted to give game developers the fastest hardware. Microsoft’s approach on the other hand looks a little more broad.

About how much the OS will use:

The game is loaded in memory and is fully running. The game has full access to the reserved system resources, which are six CPU cores, 90 percent of GPU processing power, and 5 GB of memory. The game is rendering full-screen and the user can interact with it.

So basically the OS needs 2 of the 8 CPU cores, 3 GB of RAM and 10% of the video card at minimum while a game is running. So not only are you looking at arguably 50% more powerful hardware in the PS4, but you're also talking about an OS that will take diminish a significant amount of the available power for games.

Comparatively the PS4 contains an additional 9th low power ARM processor to handle background tasks to minimize use of main system resources.

[trackercowe]

lol, way to kill future sales Microsoft!

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology...ectid=10890322

[chemgear]

Seeing as we are also getting into some of the more technical aspects of the system, there is quite a bit of noise about how Microsoft is having significant yield problems with the Xbone.

It started quite a bit before E3 even started but here is a good discussion on it:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=576869

http://www.giantbomb.com/profile/elo...rumors/101270/

Sounds like they might be even downclocking the GPU. These Xbone problems could explain the chatter about retailers getting more than 2 to 1 allocations of PS4 to Xbone for pre-orders. Certainly nothing confirmed but interesting stuff.

[Kerplunk]

Originally Posted by robaur

Do you have wireless internet?

Yes? Stop Complaining.

No? Go get it. It's 2013.

Don't really see what the problem is.

This is the attitude that I really find funny, along with the assumption that improvements are going to take place on one console and not the other.

You know what also acts as a media center in a house these days? The TV. Don't have one that capable? It's 2013; you should.

[chemgear]

Futher to the previous twitter and map posts:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...near-ruled-out

Xbox Support worker Phil replied: "The Xbox One will only be available in the 21 launch countries."

Hallahan responded: "But say someone from Poland, not listed, imports it from the UK. Will they be able to play disc-based games?"

Phil answered: "They would want to wait until the console is available in their region."


Just thinking this through, the hardware and asking of permission to play the games seems to be country specific. Importing it from another country will not work. And games are locked to your account.

So what happens if you move and change countries? You can't play any of the games on your account with your current machine? You have to buy a new system for your new country?

[Hockeyguy15]

Originally Posted by chemgear

Futher to the previous twitter and map posts:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...near-ruled-out

Xbox Support worker Phil replied: "The Xbox One will only be available in the 21 launch countries."

Hallahan responded: "But say someone from Poland, not listed, imports it from the UK. Will they be able to play disc-based games?"

Phil answered: "They would want to wait until the console is available in their region."


Just thinking this through, the hardware and asking of permission to play the games seems to be country specific. Importing it from another country will not work. And games are locked to your account.

So what happens if you move and change countries? You can't play any of the games on your account with your current machine? You have to buy a new system for your new country?

Correct me if I am wrong but isn't that the case now with 360 since it is regional? That's nothing new really, but I'm not sure about PS3. I know PS4 is not locked to your region.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by robaur

I am in a position where a few hundred bucks don't affect my lifestyle as it is disposable income regardless. People need to stop overreacting and/or being cheap.

If a few hundred bucks really does effect you then maybe you should re-analyze as to whether you can actually afford to spend money on gaming and re-analyze your spending budget priorities and your financial well being.

I'll take "Sanctimonious ######bags" for $600, Alex.

[chemgear]

Originally Posted by Hockeyguy15

Correct me if I am wrong but isn't that the case now with 360 since it is regional? That's nothing new really, but I'm not sure about PS3. I know PS4 is not locked to your region.

But the 360 (or any other system for that matter) does not have a daily authentication to see if you have permission to play your disk or digital games. You move from Canada to Siberia and your 360 games will work on that system that you bought in Canada. With an Xbone it sounds like if you move, the country specific authentication will not work - otherwise that poor twitter sod in Poland could buy a UK Xbone and have it work.

[TorqueDog]

Originally Posted by Kerplunk

You know what also acts as a media center in a house these days? The TV. Don't have one that capable? It's 2013; you should.

Yeah, but by and large the implementations suck for anyone except the lowest common denominator. They don't get quite the attention paid to them by the manufacturers that they should to really make them worthwhile. Can't use SMB sharing for many formats/containers, unless you run a server app to enable on-the-fly streaming, which can lead to a loss in quality and often won't bring along the HD audio track if your media has one. There's a reason I still use an HTPC.

For other content, it isn't much better. My Toshiba, for example, comes with a built-in YouTube app that I've seen used by a number of manufacturers... and it's not very good, especially since it immediately treats playing a single video like a playlist (so it just keeps playing different videos without you wanting it to). Also, the wireless keyboard Toshiba included with it inexplicably doesn't work in the YouTube app, which is really the only place I'd care to use it since the Web Browser leaves something to be desired.

Yeah, they act as 'media centers', but that's where the similarities end. Actual capabilities are vastly different.

[Flaming Choy]

This is a really interesting post from a Microsoft Engineer. At least I found it really interesting. I hope everyone gives it a read.

http://pastebin.com/uCmdh9jB

Pretty much they want to change how things are done. And to do true changes, you're going to have to disrupt how things are done now and upset people who don't want change. Will be interesting what happens from this.

It'll be a tough road ahead for Microsoft, but could be interesting a year or two from now to see if their changes pay off or kill them.

Also, Microsoft really REALLY sucks at explaining things.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Flaming Choy

This is a really interesting post from a Microsoft Engineer. At least I found it really interesting. I hope everyone gives it a read.

http://pastebin.com/uCmdh9jB

I don't understand why Microsoft doesn't go public with this type of explanation to fan the flames. It seems the average consumer really doesn't understand the point of DRM and the benefits for consumers down the road. Simply educating the masses would alleviate a lot of fears. The days of discs are coming to a close regardles of what Sony may say today. What Microsoft is doing is best for everyone except pirates and retailers. A lot of us realize that there's a bigger picture but the masses are following the rest of the herd wich believe Microsoft is evil and Sony deeply cares about their best interests lol which is a joke in itself.

[themedicineman]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

I don't understand why Microsoft doesn't go public with this type of explanation to fan the flames. It seems the average consumer really doesn't understand the point of DRM and the benefits for consumers down the road. Simply educating the masses would alleviate a lot of fears. The days of discs are coming to a close regardles of what Sony may say today. What Microsoft is doing is best for everyone except pirates and retailers. A lot of us realize that there's a bigger picture but the masses are following the rest of the herd wich believe Microsoft is evil and Sony deeply cares about their best interests lol which is a joke in itself.

I would love an education on DRM and its benefits.

[rd_aaron]

Originally Posted by Flaming Choy

This is a really interesting post from a Microsoft Engineer. At least I found it really interesting. I hope everyone gives it a read.

http://pastebin.com/uCmdh9jB

Pretty much they want to change how things are done. And to do true changes, you're going to have to disrupt how things are done now and upset people who don't want change. Will be interesting what happens from this.

It'll be a tough road ahead for Microsoft, but could be interesting a year or two from now to see if their changes pay off or kill them.

Also, Microsoft really REALLY sucks at explaining things.

Interesting read. I think the Steam model is awesome so hopefully this works out similarly for MS.

[TorqueDog]

EE: Because you can't say f--k and s--t in a PR session. Unless the next reveal/E3 will be held in a pub with the interviewer and that Xbox dev sitting at the bar chatting back and forth. That might be better, actually.

Reading that link, it looks like retailers get a slice of the pie too.