The Xbone

[ThePlague]

5/24/13 - Kinect:
Hi5kMNfgDS4

Outlined in the Kinect Video:

Detects minute things like buttons on your shirt, and can easily detect any movement.
Can log you in automatically once you pickup a controller, and logs which player you are based on the controller
Has IR, 3D, and HD imaging capabilities
If you move places the screen moves to your side. EX: switching to another side of the couch while playing split-screen, the screen will switch to the side you're on.
The video handled 5 people at once on the screen, created bones and everything for them.
Monitors your heart rate
Monitors your expressions

Xbox One reveal:
Y3ZNKQP0ZnI

Meet Xbox One:
1MsWA4fOvqE
What it runs on + PS4 Comparison:
http://i6.minus.com/i5A5woHM6grZa.jpg

The Xbox.com page (http://www.xbox.com/en-US/xboxone/meet-xbox-one?xr=shellnav)

The Xbox:
http://compass.xboxlive.com/assets/34/3e/343e1ec2-a960-43f5-8110-1362282d8f04.jpg?n=XBR_Image1Large.jpg
http://compass.xboxlive.com/assets/f0/52/f052b209-053c-4efa-b6ec-9906dd1fabbd.jpg?n=XBR_Image2Large.jpg
http://images.anandtech.com/doci/6972/20130514-XBOX-ONE-TEARDOWN-014.jpg
http://images.anandtech.com/doci/6972/20130514-XBOX-ONE-TEARDOWN-015.jpg

Kinect:
http://compass.xboxlive.com/assets/e6/0a/e60a4174-44b1-4235-a635-3a470767068c.jpg?n=XBR_Image4Large.jpg
http://images.anandtech.com/doci/6972/Xbox_Sensor_F_TransBG_RGB_2013.png

The Controller:
http://compass.xboxlive.com/assets/50/e7/50e7fda2-275a-47d6-9499-6f7b26d05483.jpg?n=XBR_Image3Large.jpg
http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/18odklrt001pdpng/original.png

Thoughts?

[TeeKup]

I like the controller.

Thats literally about it.

[ThePlague]

What I don't get is how come they didn't keep the adjustable D-pad from the new 360 controllers, and maybe add some more onto the joysticks like the aftermarket ones you can get.

D-pad:
http://nfgcontrols.com/grafx/X360-dpad-2.jpg[/URL]
Joysticks:
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2011/01/razer-onca-controller-360.jpg[URL="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2011/01/razer-onca-controller-360.jpg"] (http://nfgcontrols.com/grafx/X360-dpad-2.jpg)

[TeeKup]

Because the adjustable D-STICK was just that. It still wasn't a true D-pad.

[Donut]

Back in my day, this was an Xbox 1
http://www.jogimods.com/xbox1.jpg

Fucking microsoft, now we have to retroactively rename the old xbox.

[ThePlague]

According to them, they named it One because:

All the entertainment you love. All in one place.

From the biggest blockbuster games to the most popular TV shows to the best
of the Web, Xbox One does it all. But this is just the beginning. Thanks to the
power of the cloud, Xbox One will keep getting better, with more games,
TV, movies, music, and apps launching all the time.

[DarkHalo003]

That's so retro it hurts.

[BobtheGreatII]

Looks awesome to me. Definitely picking it up.

[Siliconmaster]

Yeah I like the look of it, and if enough people buy them then blu-ray might become even more standard than it already is. I feel like there is a fairly large group of people who would watch blu rays but don't want to bother with buying a player or a ps3. Now both ps3/4 peeps and xbox gamers will have blu ray to work with. Also games. On 50GB disks. With full asset quality. (Of course hypothetical) Yes please.

[JackalStomper]

HDMI passthrough is something I wasn't expecting, and a really cool feature. Given I use my monitor for pc and consoles it should make life a little easier if I ever choose to get one... which I probably won't.
The controller looks like they changed the design just to change the design. Besides for the new d-pad it has the same functionality :S
8 core cpu ohh god its true it runs on bulldozer my power bill is going to be like $9999999999

Question, could Sony have stopped microsoft from using blu-ray if they wanted to? I haven't been following blu-ray since it came out, don't know if its exclusively their call or not.

[Kornman00]

Fucking assholes. There can be only one Xbox 1! And that's the one which came out in 2001. Fuck you and your marketing team.

[Warsaw]

I have a few major beefs already, Microsoft:

A.) Why did you move the buttons around on the controller? The placement on the 360 was inferior to the controller-S, and this one is inferior to the 360. The guide button up top? What the hell? Looks as awkward as it probably is to use.

B.) No backwards compatibility? Why? The original Xbox was x86, so don't tell me incompatible architecture is the reason. You also emulated backwards compatibility on the 360, so that's even more of a nail in your coffin. Face it, all you want to do is sell me your streaming service. Well, I'm not buying; go fuck yourself.

C.) Kinect loves you, Big Brother loves you! :tinfoil:

D.) Encouraging developers to use Azure for games...go fuck yourselves again, Microsoft.

E.) Too much focus on the living room, not enough on the games. People who already own home entertainment systems are going to look at this and say "Why?" They already have TV, they already have Blu-Ray (and thus DVD) capabilities, and chances are they've already got game consoles hooked up. Since many upcoming games are still going to be released on the PS3 and the Xbox 360, not to mention PC, I suspect that people are not going to be flocking to this thing.

F.) Speaking of PC, who the hell would buy this when they can take the cost of this, apply it to the PC they already own or are going to own shortly, and then have a much more versatile platform that costs less over time? This is the most complex "console" I have ever seen, so it's pretty much lost the "ease of use" advantage consoles had in the past.

G.) As far as looks...it's okay. I don't mind that it's square...I'm cool with and actually like that. What I don't like are the clashing halves; that's not even retro, that's just shoddy design work. If this is supposed to blend in with a modern home theatre set-up, they have some changes to make because it's going to stick out. Badly. Aside from all of that, the original Xbox has more pizazz, even for a brick...

Ok, I lied, I have more than a few beefs. I have lots of beefs. This is not a console, this is a closed PC that is attempting to kill the consumer PC. Watch, you'll eventually see Microsoft Office on this thing...

All I have to really say is this: the more the large corporations continue to push their fucking subscription-based bullshit, the further away I run. I'm not doing it. I refuse to do it. You have no right to be making such easy money at the expense of features and usability when compared to the older, product-type versions of whatever shoddy service you fuckers are peddling. Take your cloud and go shove it up where the sun don't shine, cock-bites.

R.I.P. actual consoles.

Edit:
H.) Requires an internet connection once every 24 hours. So much for not being always online! I use my Xboxes to play single player games and they are thus not usually plugged into the internet. So not buying this shit...

[Btcc22]

B.) No backwards compatibility? Why? The original Xbox was x86, so don't tell me incompatible architecture is the reason.

Not sure I can blame them for not trying to emulate a tri-core PPC CPU on an x86 CPU in software. The Xenon is far more complex than the Pentium 3 that the Xbox used.

[Bobblehob]

H.) Requires an internet connection once every 24 hours. So much for not being always online! I use my Xboxes to play single player games and they are thus not usually plugged into the internet. So not buying this shit...

Still hasn't been confirmed. May want to wait a bit longer to make a judgement call on it.

[Warsaw]

@Btcc22: then at least let me play my original XBOX games on the new console, which is what I'm more concerned about considering that the console is ancient and won't last forever (will probably outlast any 360, though). I honestly don't have many, if any, 360 favourites so no love lost there, but damn. Talk about getting greedy.


Still hasn't been confirmed. May want to wait a bit longer to make a judgement call on it.

But it has been. (http://kotaku.com/xbox-one-does-require-internet-connection-cant-play-o-509164109)

Also, they will probably be offering incentives for developers to take advantage of Azure, which would mean their games are streamed rather than played locally. This would compel users to pay subscription fees. Nuts to that. Even for Arcade games, nuts to that.

[Donut]

Man I got into the PC game at the right time.

[Bobblehob]

@Btcc22: then at least let me play my original XBOX games on the new console, which is what I'm more concerned about considering that the console is ancient and won't last forever (will probably outlast any 360, though). I honestly don't have many, if any, 360 favourites so no love lost there, but damn. Talk about getting greedy.



But it has been. (http://kotaku.com/xbox-one-does-require-internet-connection-cant-play-o-509164109)

Also, they will probably be offering incentives for developers to take advantage of Azure, which would mean their games are streamed rather than played locally. This would compel users to pay subscription fees. Nuts to that. Even for Arcade games, nuts to that.

Oof, thats a bit of a tough thing to argue with. I still would hope that it gets retracted or someshit but I doubt it at this point :\

As far as the backwards compatibility is concerned, they may do something like the PS4 and make older games available on the arcade. I really hope so...


Edit: Some of the features are interesting, and the thought of 15 exclusive titles (8 of which are new IP's) in the first year is very enticing, but this other shit overshadows it.

[TeeKup]

And what if the majority of those 15 titles are some stupid kinect game?

For me, they shot themselves in the foot. E3 will determine if they go the extra mile and stuff a primed grenade in their pants.

[Warsaw]

Microsoft upon exiting the conference and being asked about incentives for gamers:

"What are games?"

[Warsaw]

Oof, thats a bit of a tough thing to argue with. I still would hope that it gets retracted or someshit but I doubt it at this point :\

As far as the backwards compatibility is concerned, they may do something like the PS4 and make older games available on the arcade. I really hope so...


Edit: Some of the features are interesting, and the thought of 15 exclusive titles (8 of which are new IP's) in the first year is very enticing, but this other shit overshadows it.

But PS4 will do so with streaming, something I am vehemently opposed to on principle. I will not pay a subscription of something that will see only occasional use. They are banking on the majority of people signing up using the services occasionally, which means they can rake in money while not having to deal with clogged pipelines. Even if the demand and usage does go up, they simply add caps and/or jack up prices. These are the same tactics used by telecoms.

[ThePlague]

Microsoft upon exiting the conference and being asked about incentives for gamers:

"What areis games drugs?"
jRSH--pRkQU

[Zeph]

It doesn't look like I'll be getting this thing. There were a couple of things I was looking for in the next console.


BluRay - I never bought a dedicated DVD player. I used the PS2 to watch my DVDs. Back then, dedicated DVD players ranged from 100 to 200 USD. The PS2 controller was a superior remote control as well. When I got my xbox to increase our Halo LAN player pool size, I used it for DVDs to keep from switching inputs all the time. The 360 replaced it when I got that since it upres'd better. I didn't get a PS3, and my OEM BR drive in my PC requires me to purchase a license in the form of any third party BR player software to have the codecs for me to watch the one bluray movie I got (Kill Bill I/II for 5 bucks). Fuck that. I'm glad I didn't dump money into a more expensive title first. The next console I buy will need to fill in where my DVD consoles did for BR.
Do something I don't already do. Sadly, this is pretty much what it comes to for games. I'm very picky when it comes to games, and if a game is cross platform to PC I'll wind up buying it there. The only exception I've made for this would be Mirror's Edge. For some reason I feel that game is made more for console than PC. Origin games from EA are also something I'll buy on console over PC, but that's for the sake of fuck origin. Netflixbox is pretty much what my 360 turned into. Eventually I gave that up and hooked it into my Ultrasharp, so it's not even that anymore. TV.in is cool and all, but I don't watch TV anymore. It's all commercials and reality TV shows. History channel is no longer history, et all.
Work how I want it to work when I want it to work. If I want to play at my desk with the thing hooked up to one of my ultrasharps passing audio through my PC, I don't want to be riddled with having to do special things with Kinect/Move. I want to be able to sit at arms length from my screen leaning back with my feet up on the desk. If I go to a LAN, I dont want some random fucker passing by to say, "Xbox off". I've already laughed at Microsoft on this one because it takes the console away from esports. A year or two ago, I went without home internet for about seven or eight months. Fortunately, I was in school and was able to make use of a connection there. I played the Reach beta in the labs while rendering across six workstations. I played the Reach SP enough that when I finally signed into Live to play multiplayer, I lost rank and suddenly go no more experience from SP missions (pretty much killed any desire for me to play the game anymore right there). I dont want to be bogged down with online requirements and right now the VP over xbox has said that the console needs auth at least once a day to work.
Do something to make me look cool. Owning the thing won't cut it here since I'm not in <strike>high</strike>middle school anymore. Pretty much all that's left in this regard is to push my CryEngine stuff to the console. For the current gen, that involves a stupid amount of paperwork, an office phone line (for some reason), and an upfront licensing fee for good measure. That's after the approval process is finished :\. Sony talked about the PS4 being friendlier to indies. On the surface it means they don't inject themselves into your iterations to make sure you know how to make a game, but the benefit to this is easier platform licensing. If you've got confirmation on platform licensing with a console dev, Crytek hands you the folder for synching to the console. Should that happen to the PS4, instabuy for me.

[Warsaw]

Doesn't VLC play Blu-Rays now, removing the need for premium decoder software?

[CabooseJr]

Yep, PC gaming is sounding really good about now.

[Zeph]

Doesn't VLC play Blu-Rays now, removing the need for premium decoder software?
I thought they did, but I've yet to get it working.

[Cortexian]

The most important thing from the release is that 343 and Steven Spielberg are teaming up to make a live action Halo TV show.

[Warsaw]

I am viewing that with copious amounts of salt. If it's as cornball as the Forward Unto Dawn miniseries was, his reputation could be sullied forever...like the next M. Night Shyamalan.

[TeeKup]

I'm on the fence about that entire thing, we'll see how it turns out.

[TVTyrant]

I'm not very knowledgable about this kind of stuff, but I will admit that the inclusion of Bluray might be convincing enough for me to stick with Microsoft. There's no real difference between the consoles nowadays anyways.

[Amit]

Looks like junk, based on what they showed yesterday. The controller looks uncomfortable. The X360 controller looks better for ergonomics. The new controller's dark tones are nicer, but the XYBA buttons are ugly as hell. Put them back to the signature jewel design.
http://i.imgur.com/iMBQSVf.jpg

Lol, good job M$.

They definitely need to unfuck themselves for E3 because this is pretty much all I got out of it:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&amp;v=KbWgUO-Rqcw

Hell, even Sony's stock value went up after the reveal today.

And let me just say this before a new thread gets dedicated to it: CoD Ghosts is a steaming pile of crap. "Pushing the genre forward" but they showed nothing new. The engine looks like the next iteration of the engine they used for all previous CoD games. Really, you'd think with the amount of money Activision rake in they'd be able to get someone to actually create something that presents itself as next-gen.

3200 3201

BC1 looked fucking better than this:

http://i.imgur.com/yqm5hNO.jpg

[Warsaw]

Funny you compared it to BC1 because that is exactly what I did over on Kotaku...

[JackalStomper]

Fucking assholes. There can be only one Xbox 1! And that's the one which came out in 2001. Fuck you and your marketing team.

Windows 3.1 -> 95 -> 3.51 -> 4.0 -> 98 > 2000 -> XP -> 2003 -> vista -> 2008 -> 7

Xbox -> Xbox 360 -> Xbox 8 one

Microsoft once again showing the world that they don't know how to count.
.

[arbiter901]

It seems that the PS4 has better specs than this.

[Amit]

Well, the actual specs have been pretty hushed so far.

[arbiter901]

Seen various claiming it has 8GB of DDR3 with 3 gigs dedicated to the OS.

[Amit]

It doesn't look like I'll be getting this thing. There were a couple of things I was looking for in the next console.

BluRay - I never bought a dedicated DVD player. I used the PS2 to watch my DVDs. Back then, dedicated DVD players ranged from 100 to 200 USD. The PS2 controller was a superior remote control as well. When I got my xbox to increase our Halo LAN player pool size, I used it for DVDs to keep from switching inputs all the time. The 360 replaced it when I got that since it upres'd better. I didn't get a PS3, and my OEM BR drive in my PC requires me to purchase a license in the form of any third party BR player software to have the codecs for me to watch the one bluray movie I got (Kill Bill I/II for 5 bucks). Fuck that. I'm glad I didn't dump money into a more expensive title first. The next console I buy will need to fill in where my DVD consoles did for BR.


Your other points are valid, but I'm not entirely certain if you know or not: Xbox One has a blu-ray player.

[PlasbianX]

It seems that the PS4 has better specs than this.

Not by much. http://www.ign.com/wikis/xbox-one/PS4_vs._Xbox_One_Comparison_Chart

[TVTyrant]

After reading some more things in this thread, I think I will be buying a PS4 rather than this piece of crap. I don't even buy exclusive games anymore, so why would I go with something that will have worse graphics and be based around my "entertainment experience" that I could just use my PC for in the first place?

Can they just come out with a SNES that uses dual GTX Titans and call it good?

[Zeph]

Not by much. http://www.ign.com/wikis/xbox-one/PS4_vs._Xbox_One_Comparison_Chart
if that's real (I've yet to see anything official on the memory) then the xbone is going to fucking suck. APUs thrive on memory bandwidth. The CPU would suffer a bit should it be GDDR5 from the increased timings, but the GPU wouldn't be able to do much with such a small bus.

[ThePlague]

There's no such thing as GDDR5 RAM, aside from graphics cards, so I don't know what that site is smoking.

[Sanctus]

Yep, PC gaming is sounding really good about now.

This. So much of this. I think I'm just gonna save up and when my current 360 kicks the bucket I'll either buy or build a gaming rig. That Xbox sports tv conference did nothing for me

[Zeph]

There's no such thing as GDDR5 RAM, aside from graphics cards, so I don't know what that site is smoking.
You have no clue what GDDR5 actually is, do you.
You know, that's the reason why you won't be adding it to your newegg shopping cart.

[Amit]

Best fucking thing ever:

http://i.minus.com/iBzvb2JSpQNRM.gif

[Zeph]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6972/xbox-one-hardware-compared-to-playstation-4

Gotta love anandtech.
Looks like PS4 has one and a half times the processing power as the xbone.

[ThePlague]

You have no clue what GDDR5 actually is, do you.
You know, that's the reason why you won't be adding it to your newegg shopping cart.That was a herp derp on my part. Forgot how the Xbox is put together.

[Warsaw]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6972/xbox-one-hardware-compared-to-playstation-4

Gotta love anandtech.
Looks like PS4 has one and a half times the processing power as the xbone.

What I got out of this is that PS4 has a better GPU, period, but the memory bandwidth management on both is comparable; Sony is just brute-forcing it with a "more is better" approach while Microsoft is potentially getting clever with cache management to do more with less.

In the end, I sincerely doubt the PS4's hardware advantage will amount to much because most publishers will be developing games to the lowest common denominator: the Xbox One. Only the exclusives are really going to benefit from those extra stream processors. Basically, PS4 users will be putting up with what PC users have been for the last decade: console ports. :p

Edit: why the hell is the Xbox running two OSes in a VM configuration and not just doing everything from one OS? How is this in any way efficient? Are they doing this just so they can claim it's not a glorified, closed Windows box?

[Zeph]

What I got out of this is that PS4 has a better GPU, period, but the memory bandwidth management on both is comparable; Sony is just brute-forcing it with a "more is better" approach while Microsoft is potentially getting clever with cache management to do more with less.
Well, it really all depends on how that extra 32MB is used. The 10MB on the 360 allowed it to do a lot, including free AA.


In the end, I sincerely doubt the PS4's hardware advantage will amount to much because most publishers will be developing games to the lowest common denominator: the Xbox One. Only the exclusives are really going to benefit from those extra stream processors. Basically, PS4 users will be putting up with what PC users have been for the last decade: console ports. :p
Considering they're both x86-64 I think this will be less of a thing. Consoles for today's games are the LCD, but that entails using a lower level on the LOD tree and a mip one tick down. The current generation of console doesn't rely on compute, whereas this one will. Developers won't underperform on the PS4 when it's a 50% difference in terms of cores.


Edit: why the hell is the Xbox running two OSes in a VM configuration and not just doing everything from one OS? How is this in any way efficient? Are they doing this just so they can claim it's not a glorified, closed Windows box?
Power states.

[Limited]

Every game is required to be installed to hard drive.
Hard drive space is 500GB, but the system uses a significant amount of that.
Requires Kinect to be connected to work any functionality of the Xbox One.
All the TV shit is not available outside of US upon launch - so basically 50% of the console won't work for me at launch.
No red ring light system.
Realistic lighting in COD Ghost
http://i.imgur.com/QpG784w.jpg

[TVTyrant]

XBone is a pretty sweet nickname though. Calling rule 34 on that one~

[ThePlague]

Updated first post with comparisons and more pics that were posted around here, along with the reveal video Amit posted.

[Warsaw]

Well, it really all depends on how that extra 32MB is used. The 10MB on the 360 allowed it to do a lot, including free AA.


Considering they're both x86-64 I think this will be less of a thing. Consoles for today's games are the LCD, but that entails using a lower level on the LOD tree and a mip one tick down. The current generation of console doesn't rely on compute, whereas this one will. Developers won't underperform on the PS4 when it's a 50% difference in terms of cores.


Power states.

But...Windows 8 can do power states all by itself...

I just figured they'd develop for the LCD just for cost reasons. Don't have to make the models and textures as high resolution, spend less time on the assets and therefore less money. They may just use those extra resources for better AA and AF. I hope I'm wrong, it'll be awesome if so, but you know how certain industry parties are...

[Zeph]

But...Windows 8 can do power states all by itself...
But windows is a pretty shit way to interface your software with the hardware. It's there for the stuff that doesn't need much power. Running it as one VM with the game os on another VM is just simple when it comes to a unified memory space and rendering to the frame buffer.


I just figured they'd develop for the LCD just for cost reasons. Don't have to make the models and textures as high resolution, spend less time on the assets and therefore less money. They may just use those extra resources for better AA and AF. I hope I'm wrong, it'll be awesome if so, but you know how certain industry parties are...
The LCD in this case is the game's logic design. Visually, things scale dependent on the hardware because artists take the effort to make the most out of what's available to them. You can easily cut render overhead by lowering vertext/polycount and texture space, but if your code is using up too much time nothing can be done. If anything was shown from this brief is that people don't like to fucking read and they don't care about anything if there's not something to look at. This console hardware can be a netbook, but if you show a cinematic that looks fucking amazing the brief would be a success.

[Kornman00]

.
Except there's a difference between Windows 9x and everything else. Everything else is NT based (the 9x series wasn't). And XP was Windows-5 'for the consumer' (Win2000 being the actual Win5). Windows Server are just variants of the NT builds (2003 is a variant of NT 5).

NT 3.x -> NT 4.x -> 2000/XP -> Vista (NT 6.x) -> 7 (NT 6.x) -> 8 (NT 6.x)


B.) No backwards compatibility? Why? The original Xbox was x86, so don't tell me incompatible architecture is the reason. You also emulated backwards compatibility on the 360, so that's even more of a nail in your coffin. Face it, all you want to do is sell me your streaming service. Well, I'm not buying; go fuck yourself.

The original Xbox was 32-bit. XBone is 64-bit. While x86-64 makes it possible to run 32-bit stuff without actual emulation, it doesn't mean it's a freebee to implement into the OS. DX8 to DX9 wasn't that big of a transition. However, the transition from DX8 to DX11 is. Besides the software emulation needed, they would also have to emulate the hardware, and in the case of game discs, would have to support some of that hardware.

So yeah, there is an incompatible architecture. Plus there's the issue of marketing "Xbox One is backwards compatible with Xbox 1 games!". Face it, it just gives MS a chance to make HA10 2.0. Not H2A10, but HA10 2.0. H2A10 comes next year. Then Halo 5 in 2015. Then Halo Wars 2 shortly before they announce the Xbox Infinity in 2023.

[Warsaw]

But they've shown in the past that they were willing to write a software emulation layer so all of that goes out of the window anyway. I'm willing to foot the bill for a console that can play my old games and I suspect I'm not alone. It is called the Xbox One, right, as in one device does everything?

One box to rule them all
One box to find them
One box to bring them all
And in the Darkness, bind them!

I'm all for H2A10! Though this time, they are free to actually change the game play and rework the levels. Please do so, 343i, because H2 was balls. Can I get a Brute Force 2? It'll be just like the Xbox 1 days on my Xbox One!

BTW:
http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/18ofvz1pj7xjbjpg/ku-xlarge.jpg

Progress!

[InnerGoat]

that looks a whole lot better too lmao.

[Btcc22]

While x86-64 makes it possible to run 32-bit stuff without actual emulation, it doesn't mean it's a freebee to implement into the OS.

Even though every 64-bit Windows can run 32-bit code just fine. What's not free about it if the support is already there?

I can't see getting games that target Direct3D 8 running to be much of a problem either. Last I checked, I can still run them just fine.


Besides the software emulation needed, they would also have to emulate the hardware, and in the case of game discs, would have to support some of that hardware.


What extra hardware would they need to handle Xbox discs? I can't think of anything.

I'm going to take a guess and say that it's not technical barriers preventing them from providing compatibility but more because they assume nobody cares about decade old games.

[Tnnaas]

Good thing I didn't sell my original Xbox then. I can still play Pariah and Republic Commando. :-3

[Warsaw]

Ha, same here! But it's old, and won't last forever. It's nice to know there is still a currently supported means of playing old games.

[Btcc22]

But it's old, and won't last forever.

Bet you can get a couple of decades out of it even if you have to replace the hard and DVD drives along the way. ;)

[Tnnaas]

Although, now that I think about it, the two that I mentioned are up for grabs on PC. I'm sure I can buy them used for $5 a piece.

Heh, I don't think I'd ever get away for saying that if I bought the Xbox One.

[Kornman00]

Even though every 64-bit Windows can run 32-bit code just fine. What's not free about it if the support is already there?

I can't see getting games that target Direct3D 8 running to be much of a problem either. Last I checked, I can still run them just fine.



What extra hardware would they need to handle Xbox discs? I can't think of anything.

I'm going to take a guess and say that it's not technical barriers preventing them from providing compatibility but more because they assume nobody cares about decade old games.
Xbox One's OS != Windows OS. It runs it 'just fine' thanks to WoW64 (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa384249(v=vs.85).aspx). Developing/maintaining that is not free. These are low-level consoles, people. Unlike on the PC, devs can do things like access memory directly (it's how we did screenshot support (http://code.google.com/p/open-sauce/source/browse/Xbox/Xbox1/XboxLib/XboxInterface.cpp#228) for H2 Yelo, by reading directly from the NV framebuffer memory). To top it off, the Win32 API's from Xbox1 don't directly match those on the PC (back then, or today). The kernel and API differences have been the major hurdles for Xbox LLE on the PC.

And the issue is they would need to emulate the drivers for DX8 (and not just DX8, but Xbox1's DX8). You can run them just fine because you have to install the DX8 redist before playing such games. The Xbox One is NOT a PC. The more backwards compatibility they have to add and manage, the more overhead there is in development and system resources. They already spent those resources on TV, TV, sports, TV, COD, TV, sports.

They would have to support the Xbox1 disc 'hardware'. It may be a DVD, but the filesystem isn't.

The way they see it, the 360 already can emulate most Xbox1 games. And the 360 is still on the market. There's no sensible reason to throw resources at getting One to support 1 (and it's not like they can just use what they wrote for the 360, seeing as how that was PPC).

[PenGuin1362]

The way they see it, the 360 already can emulate most Xbox1 games. And the 360 is still on the market. There's no sensible reason to throw resources at getting One to support 1 (and it's not like they can just use what they wrote for the 360, seeing as how that was PPC).

Careful man, you're talkin an awful lot of sense there.

[Guardian]

Okay, so EB games NZ has released their place holder price on the Xbox One to be $1199 https://www.ebgames.co.nz/xbox-360-156131-Xbox-One-Console-Placeholder-Price-Xbox-360

I (https://www.ebgames.co.nz/xbox-360-156131-Xbox-One-Console-Placeholder-Price-Xbox-360) hit up trademe and had a look at what I can get for the same price for a PC. The first on the list was http://www.trademe.co.nz/computers/desktops/no-monitor/auction-595693592.htm which, other than the CPU is twice the Xbox One.

Don't think I'll be getting an Xbox when this one comes out.

[Warsaw]

The CPU in the Xbox One and PS4 is nothing more than AMD's equivalent to an Atom processor, with eight cores. It's not exactly a shining pinnacle of general computing prowess. I'd wager I can get similar performance out of my 4-core, 8-thread i7, if not better, since I'm running those cores at 3.6 GHz.

[ThePlague]

$962.80 USD for that placeholder price, that can't possibly be right. No one will buy one.

[ejburke]

MS has to pay Nvidia royalties for every 360 model that included a hard drive and every hard drive sold separately. Since an HDD was required for emulation, they could sell Arcade units royalty-free. So, even with software emulation, they were still boned by the terms of that original design contract.

I'm trying to recall what we used as shorthand for the original Xbox. I think we just mostly called it, "xbox", with a sprinkling of XBX and some "XB" here and there for the truly committed to brevity. I figure this one will be called X1, or XB1, or XBX1. I'll make the effort to call it "The Bone", though. And I'll retroactively dub the original Xbox the Mark 1.

Anybody remember that the Gamecube was officially the "GCN"? I kind of liked that, because you could always tell who real toolbots were, because they were the only ones that would use it. It was NGC or just GC to every objective observer.

But back to the topic, they should have named it xxxXBOXxxx.

[Warsaw]

I read "GCN" as "Graphics Core Next," which is AMD's term for their current GPU architecture and thus also the architecture in these new consoles.

The Xbox gets referred to as the OG Xbox or XBOX, and if you are talking about a game that was on multiple platforms (i.e. Halo) you say H1X (instead of Halo PC). That's how it was on HaloMods, anyways.

I'm calling it the Xbone. It's too fitting to not use.

To go with my last picture:
http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/18ogx2vltt142jpg/ku-xlarge.jpg

[neuro]

requesting thread title to be adjusted to "xBone"

[PenGuin1362]

Does that make people who buy it...xboners?

[Tnnaas]

lolwat

Someone at EA needs to stop smoking crack (http://au.gamespot.com/news/ea-exec-says-xbox-one-ps4-are-a-generation-ahead-of-top-spec-pcs-6408777)

[ejburke]

I wouldn't scoff at that. The Windows environment and open spec of PC's don't allow developers to wring out all the juice the way they can on a fixed console platform. Also, both companies are banking on their data transfer optimizations and caches to make a huge difference in performance.

We'll see for ourselves, but it has always taken PC's a little while to catch back up with a newly-released console. TFLOPS and clock speeds don't tell the whole story.

[Zeph]

They're not on crack, they just don't understand the idea behind SoC and how it relates to PC. The way the consoles are configured, they are a generation ahead of PCs. The way APUs (what they call SoCs here) are retailed, they're severely lacking. When AMD bought ATI to make APUs, they imagined users buying system RAM and graphics RAM to plug into their motherboard. This would better allow users to scale their machine based on how they use it (gaming versus office work, single monitor versus multimonitor, etc.).

The thing they don't pay attention to is that the PC flag is essentially running inbetween 4k and 8k at levels of detail these consoles never will should 4k ever happen. They're concerned about laptop graphics, mid-range PCs, and the like since that's what their price point converts to (600 dollar console plus TV).

Launch titles on these platforms will look every bit as good as a PC game in 1080p. Second generation games on these platforms will look better than PCs at 1080p. Third generation will look unbelievable for the price, but Titans will barely be able to play modern PC games at this time. Compare Halo 3 to Reach and you'll find vast improvements in the number of assets populating a level, particle count exploded, and model detail went up greatly. Textures even went up in quality slightly since they moved from power of two texture sizes to multiples of power of two sizes. Even then, comparing Halo 3 and Reach to titles that came out along the same time in the PC realm is no contest as the console aged.

[Phopojijo]

Which is exactly why Epic had to drop their expectations for their Unreal Engine 4 demo:

http://www.pcper.com/files/fixed/ue4_pcvps4.gif

Sure it was running on pre-release Dev Kits, but The Elemental Demo (along with the Samaritan demo) is what Epic demoed to console developers to show what is possible.

For reference, the Samaritan demo (which is approximately equal to the Elemental demo) required about 2.5 teraFLOPs. The PS4 has theoretically just under 2 teraFLOPs.

So yes, the PS4 (which has a larger GPU than the Xbox One (http://www.pcper.com/news/General-Tech/PS4-and-Xbox-One-Hardware-Revealed-Console-Makers-Have-Different-Goals)... PS4: 18 CUs w/ 1152 shader units vs Xbox: 12 CUs w/ 768 shader units) is less powerful than Samaritan requires under 100% perfect utilization assumption... no amount of optimization can solve that.

Now will titles look better than the Samaritan Demo? Yeah, that's almost a guarantee... but it'll come at the expense it always does: dropping resolution, reducing particle counts, reducing textures, and cheating in other hardish-to-notice ways.

But it's still a cheat, the consoles physically cannot keep up with PCs from 2011 or even what Epic hoped consoles would be capable of. Period.

((For reference, the demo ran on a single 680 which has theoretical performance of about 3.09 teraFLOPs... so there was a litttttle play/optimization room on the PC... but the PS4 and Xbox One theoretically just cannot achieve it. No amount of optimization will allow that; again, it's theoretically not possible without sacrificing one thing to bolster another.))

Also -- VLC's BluRay support works great but they legally cannot provide the key database without paying license fees. There's at least one which "exists somewhere on the internet" that is just plug-and-play though.

[Zeph]

Yeah, that puts the xbone at roughly half of what would be needed to run those demos.

And I would, >_>, <_<, >_>, love to personally get VLC BR support.

[ejburke]

The way I understand it, the consoles will be calculating more meaningful floating point operations than a graphics card on a PC is capable of doing. To reach those theoretical limits, a PC GPU is performing the same small set of calculation on a small set of data over and over again, because it can't move new data into its local caches quickly enough. These new consoles were designed specifically to alleviate that problem and so their theoretical limits are more meaningful numbers than the current PC-equivalent.

I have a 670 that I got less than a year ago. I would love it if that was still at the top of the heap and the PC versions of games were still the best looking. I don't think that's going to be the case, however. And this stuff from EA, where they're seeing actual benchmarks... you can't really argue with that.

[Phopojijo]

Nah, the 2.5 teraFLOPs calculation comes from 40,000 calcs/pixel x 1920 x 1080 pixels/frame x 30 frames/second. That is not possible on a console even with zero overhead.

And yes, you can argue with companies when they talk out their butts -- especially EA (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bullshot). Madden 2006 anyone?

http://www.gearlive.com/blogimages/madnextgen.jpg

[Cortexian]

Why are you guys even comparing console specs? When did that even become a thing? Console specs were always just a random point of interest that no one every really paid attention to.

These specs are pitiful when compared to PC's.

[Phopojijo]

Why are you guys even comparing console specs? When did that even become a thing?When EA did :3

[TVTyrant]

Why are you guys even comparing console specs? When did that even become a thing? Console specs were always just a random point of interest that no one every really paid attention to.

These specs are pitiful when compared to PC's.
If you can build me a better box for $500, then go ahead.

[Bobblehob]

When EA did :3

I know that I will be instantly corrected if I am wrong, but the point of the EA article wasnt to try to prove that the hardware in the box is more powerful in terms of clock speeds and such.

[ThePlague]

If you can build me a better box for $500, then go ahead.It isn't really comparing those specs to a PC, but how the games will run on it, what use you'll be getting out of it, the amount of usage you'll get out of it, etc.

If I were to choose to have an Xbox One, or building a computer for the same or around same price, i'd choose the PC. Just because of the sheer capabilities it has for everyday usage, compared to trying to spend all day on the couch yelling at the TV screen trying to get the xbox to do shit for you.

[Phopojijo]

If you can build me a better box for $500, then go ahead.Microsoft and Sony won't even be able to build either their own consoles for $500... they may sell it to you for that... but that is not how much it actually costs to make.

Hell, the PS3 at launch had $805 parts and labour... that's not including research, development, and marketing; just parts and labour... and that was the $499 20GB one. A $306 direct per-system loss.

It's the license fees which makes a console cost more than a PC. When you buy a $60 game? You're buying a $50 game and giving Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo a $10 tip.

Hell... 4 years of Xbox Live fees is a Radeon HD 7870... and this is a time where GPU prices are trending high... imagine if manufacturers feel the urge to price cut? A 7870 will play any game with decent settings for the next 4 years. If you go by that metric, PC gaming is basically free if you decide to not buy Xbox Live Gold.

[Cortexian]

If you can build me a better box for $500, then go ahead.
Hold on now, don't forget that extra controller you want ($50), and what about games? It's s gaming console right, or is it a television box, either way games are going to cost you $60 a pop.

We're up to $610 with just games and a second controller for a friend now.

Wait, you want to play your games online? There's another $60 a year. $670 initially.

But seriously, who only plays one game? Lets throw a couple more in there in the first month or two. $790.

So we're actually talking about an $800 startup fee. I can build a good gaming tower that will play current games at fairly decent settings for the same amount. It's proven that PC is cheaper in the long run as well, you may spend $1,000 - $1,500 for a great tower but you only pay $15 a game or less due to the awesome deals. Not to mention all of the awesome Free 2 Play games available on PC, good luck enjoying those on any console ever without having to pay for some kind of subscription access fee. There's probably even more hidden fees involved in the new "one experience" bullshit. I wouldn't be surprised if a bunch of the TV features (ex: Netflix) cost more as well...

It's just cheaper to go with a PC in the long run. Not to mention you can do a lot more with a PC than you can with a console. You can do them all at the same time as well.

[Phopojijo]

And Epic calls bullshit.

https://twitter.com/MarkRein/status/337627995323895808


Mark Rein @MarkRein (https://twitter.com/MarkRein)
RT @developonline (https://twitter.com/developonline): EA: Xbox One and PS4 a generation ahead of PC http://www.develop-online.net/news/44289/EA-Xbox-One-and-PS4-a-generation-ahead-of-PC … (http://t.co/IL9BSBAM23) <-no they’re not. I call bullshit on this one.

[nuttyyayap]

Seriously? My 4-year-old piece of shit computer has better specs than the Xbone.

[Kornman00]

So are we done trying to figure out who's dick is bigger? Jesus.

It's not the size of the boat, it's the motion of the ocean. How the pieces fit together is what matters in the PC vs console differences. Both in the hardware and software. Consoles don't need printing services. They don't need to have a background service for indexing. They don't need to run virus scans or defrag*. Hence why the fucking consoles don't need the stupid amount of bullshit the PC tryhards build today, because they don't inherently need the extra resources. Their OS, services, and programs aren't all running like a giant clusterfuck. Users aren't running a browser with 50 tabs open to youtube or some Flash-enabled site while rendering a monument to the cock they wish they had (right down to the pubes) and playing Crysis. And touching themselves. They're just watching TV and sports-derp like normal gam- FUCKING MICROSOFT. And touching themselves.

* I wonder who will be the first to miss the point and bring up SSDs?

[Patrickssj6]

Am I the only one who really likes the design? Reminds me of back to the roots NES

[ODX]

I think the design is alright, everything together is pretty good. I just don't know how you could possible improve on the controller though, since I felt (literally) that the 360 one was perfect. They did mention they've added vibration/rumble to the triggers though, which sounds like it'll be awesome.

By the way, Kinect has grown up a shit ton:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hi5kMNfgDS4

It's just a tech demo obviously, but it is all real-time still and the possibilities for Kinect's integration into the entire experience in the next few years should be awesome. I'll definitely love the auto-sign in when it recognizes my roommate joining in while I'm playing.

[ThePlague]

Did I miss anything from that video? Put this on first post.

Outlined in the Kinect Video:

Detects minute things like buttons on your shirt, and can easily detect any movement.
Can log you in automatically once you pickup a controller, and logs which player you are based on the controller
Has IR, 3D, and HD imaging capabilities
If you move places the screen moves to your side. EX: switching to another side of the couch while playing split-screen, the screen will switch to the side you're on.
The video handled 5 people at once on the screen, created bones and everything for them.
Monitors your heart rate
Monitors your expressions

[Warsaw]

So are we done trying to figure out who's dick is bigger? Jesus.

It's not the size of the boat, it's the motion of the ocean. How the pieces fit together is what matters in the PC vs console differences. Both in the hardware and software. Consoles don't need printing services. They don't need to have a background service for indexing. They don't need to run virus scans or defrag*. Hence why the fucking consoles don't need the stupid amount of bullshit the PC tryhards build today, because they don't inherently need the extra resources. Their OS, services, and programs aren't all running like a giant clusterfuck. Users aren't running a browser with 50 tabs open to youtube or some Flash-enabled site while rendering a monument to the cock they wish they had (right down to the pubes) and playing Crysis. And touching themselves. They're just watching TV and sports-derp like normal gam- FUCKING MICROSOFT. And touching themselves.

* I wonder who will be the first to miss the point and bring up SSDs?



Chicken and egg, man. Would people do all of that with a console if they could? Probably. It's just not convenient to do so, so they don't.

[PenGuin1362]

You know, it's almost like they're marketing this console towards the (massive) fifa/maden/cod/sports watching crowd...It's almost like they know exactly what they're doing...

[Kornman00]

Plague, I believe it was shown that it didn't matter which controller you had, it knew who you were regardless.

Chicken and egg, man. Would people do all of that with a console if they could? Probably. It's just not convenient to do so, so they don't.
At which point it wouldn't be a console, nor cost the same as one. It would just be another freak in the freak kingdom. I mean PC.

You know, it's almost like they're marketing this console towards the (massive) fifa/maden/cod/sports watching crowd...It's almost like they know exactly what they're doing...
:frogout2:

[Warsaw]

It's headed there. Consoles and PCs are going to hit a convergence point and that's when we'll see whether open computing will defeat closed computing...again.

[Zeph]

It's headed there. Consoles and PCs are going to hit a convergence point and that's when we'll see whether open computing will defeat closed computing...again.
If hardware was as CPU-reliant as it was nearly ten years ago you'd be correct. These consoles moved too far into the PC domain. The PS4 is going exactly wherever the GTX 670 will go while the xbone will die out with the GTX5 580 (this is very generous). To keep up, you've got to move consoles back to a 5-6 year refresh rate maximum. Anyone here still game with an 8800GTX? That came out six years ago. We've gone from .35 teraFLOPs to 3.9 teraFLOPs in just those six years. How well do you think a GTX 780 will compare to a 42 teraFLOPs card? Definitely twice as well as the PS4 and thrice as well as the xbone :p.

[Pooky]

I just don't know how you could possible improve on the controller though, since I felt (literally) that the 360 one was perfect.

Have you seen the D-Pad on it?

[PenGuin1362]

:frogout2:

I'm not a fan of sequels D:

[Amit]

:lol:

http://25.media.tumblr.com/543bc82935040edec47b22d15051abf3/tumblr_mnbhqgkPee1sr302to1_500.png

[TeeKup]

BAH HA HA HA HA.

[Warsaw]

If hardware was as CPU-reliant as it was nearly ten years ago you'd be correct. These consoles moved too far into the PC domain. The PS4 is going exactly wherever the GTX 670 will go while the xbone will die out with the GTX5 580 (this is very generous). To keep up, you've got to move consoles back to a 5-6 year refresh rate maximum. Anyone here still game with an 8800GTX? That came out six years ago. We've gone from .35 teraFLOPs to 3.9 teraFLOPs in just those six years. How well do you think a GTX 780 will compare to a 42 teraFLOPs card? Definitely twice as well as the PS4 and thrice as well as the xbone :p.

It's not actually the hardware alone that will determine this, it's market perception. If the Xbox gets big and sells enough as a general computing name, we might see the consumer PC as we know it shift from open box to closed box, and I think that's exactly what Microsoft wants. Remember that, outside of gaming, your computational horsepower really doesn't matter all that much to the general consumer. There's always that paradigm-changing "good enough" level, a level which the PC reached almost ten years ago. That means consoles have already passed that, it's just that the software is evolving to leverage it.

[Phopojijo]

Actually I expect the web browser will ultimately become the operating system. It really will not matter what the underlying system is because everything will ultimately rely upon Web Standards which any browser can run. If a browser can't run it, then that browser will bleed market share.

At that point, the only thing to worry about is how much power is behind it.

And before you say it, you can do a crazy amount of stuff in a web browser and it is only getting better.

Large applications are being compiled into Javascript with nearing-C++ performance (http://www.pcper.com/news/Editorial/Unreal-Engine-3-compiled-asmjs)
... even some applications you wouldn't expect to be possible in Web Standards (http://madebyevan.com/webgl-path-tracing/)

... and I haven't even talked about WebCL yet.

[Warsaw]

I don't doubt that. I do doubt the cloud, though. There has been and continues to be massive resistance to cloud computing; the only reason it's moving forward at all is because all of the companies invested in it have agreed to force-feed it to us. Personally, I don't want a public cloud. I want to be able to have a mainframe PC at my home that I stream from, but I don't want some other fruit-fucker's shitty server to hold my programs and data hostage with a faggot subscription model. Fuck that.

Yes, I feel very strongly about this.

[n00b1n8R]

Literally nobody here wants to buy this console, right?

[RedBaron]

I'm not. Angry Joe pretty much sums it up:

9ekOtn7L1N0

Not to mention PS4 has the greater muscle in hardware and the free multiplayer. Sure people argue that hardware doesn't matter because of how well the devs can optimize, but come 2nd or 3rd wave of games, and the hardware will start to make a difference, especially for PS4 exclusives.

Some of Microsoft's business decisions concerning Xbone seem pretty outrageous don't they? I find it funny how most people are forgetting the 360's initial release, and how 70% of them were prone to RROD lol. Still, not falling into the trap of giving Microsoft my money anymore, especially not for XBL, and especially especially not for SPURTS SPURTS SPURTS.

[Ki11a_FTW]

That was the best video I have watched in a long time.

[Patrickssj6]

No, that was retarded. So, it's this time again where everyone is going to rant and buy the console in the end anyway?

[RedBaron]

Lol no rants from me. I'll likely not even pick up either consoles until their 2nd or 3rd iterations. By then we'll know who the clear winner is. Well actually, even if the Xbone exceeds expectations, I'm not planning on buying any console at all because of XBL. At that point I'll just stick with building a new computer.

[Warsaw]

No, that was retarded. So, it's this time again where everyone is going to rant and buy the console in the end anyway?

No. I technically didn't even buy the 360. If I get either console, it will probably be the PS4 and only when it drops to $200 in price...which will be around 6 years from now if this generation was any indication. Otherwise, PC all the way for me.

[Amit]

No. I technically didn't even buy the 360. If I get either console, it will probably be the PS4 and only when it drops to $200 in price...which will be around 6 years from now if this generation was any indication. Otherwise, PC all the way for me.

This. I've never owned a gaming console outside of my SNES oh so many years ago. Well, there's the Wii sitting on my TV stand, but that shit's a paper weight. I used the controller more for bluetooth gaming on the PC lol, but I have a bluetooth dongle and PS3 controller now, so I'm ballin'.

In 3-4 years time when the price of the PS4 drops considerably, I'll contemplate getting that. Too many restrictions on Xbone.

[ODX]

Literally nobody here wants to buy this console, right?I'm going to. Why? Because none of this "shit" is a big deal to me.

Internet connection? That's nice, most people here have a near constant internet connection.
Loaning/Borrowing games? We still have yet to hear news of that, but I don't often loan my games if at all.
Other shit? I've seen nothing else that would majorly deter me, asides from the price point which we've yet to see.

I'm still going to wait though since mainly I just want Halo 5 and a few other things, like Witcher 3 which they haven't confirmed yet. I'm pretty much going console for my gaming in college, and saving lighter games (think TF2, SC2) for my laptop.

[Amit]

3204

[Kornman00]

Goddamn ODST avatars

[Not Inferno]

In case no one posted it already.
Xbox go home you're drunk.
KbWgUO-Rqcw

[Ki11a_FTW]

I'm going to. Why? Because none of this "shit" is a big deal to me.

Internet connection? That's nice, most people here have a near constant internet connection.
Loaning/Borrowing tv? We still have yet to hear news of that, but I don't have friends to loan games from.
Other shit? I've seen nothing else that would majorly stimulate me, asides from the penis point which we've yet to see.

I'm still going to wait though since mainly I just want to watch Halo 5 and a few other things, like Witcher 3 which they haven't confirmed yet. I'm pretty much going console for my cablebox in college, and saving lighter games (think TF2, SC2) for my laptop.

no hes a trooll

[n00b1n8R]

I'm going to. Why? Because none of this "shit" is a big deal to me.

Internet connection? That's nice, most people here have a near constant internet connection.
Loaning/Borrowing games? We still have yet to hear news of that, but I don't often loan my games if at all.
Other shit? I've seen nothing else that would majorly deter me, asides from the price point which we've yet to see.

I'm still going to wait though since mainly I just want Halo 5 and a few other things, like Witcher 3 which they haven't confirmed yet. I'm pretty much going console for my gaming in college, and saving lighter games (think TF2, SC2) for my laptop.
You cannot sell the required internet connection as a positive, it is strictly bad for the consumer.
Required Konnect connection with night vision and an always on internet connection? MS's patent to monitor people viewing content using a camera and deny access if to many people are watching?
Objectively inferior specs to PS4 (if you must own a console :downs:)
No used games? How is that good for consumers in any way?

It's like something out of fucking Nineteen Eighty-Four. How can anybody defend a console which is objectively inferior to its predecessor in every way except performance?

[Warsaw]

Besides, my Xbox is unplugged from the internet 99% of the time...the One can't work for me.

[Bobblehob]

Im just curious, does anyone here seriously believe that MS will be spying on you with the Kinect camera? Or is this whole 1984 conspiracy more a joke being used to make a point.

[=sw=warlord]

Microsoft has a horrible track record of privacy invasions and backdoor entries specifically placed there by them.
Look at Skype (http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/05/think-your-skype-messages-get-end-to-end-encryption-think-again/), it was end to end encrypted now they've specially made it capable of interception of communications at the server level.
And there's Bitlocker where they were asked by several Governments to create a backdoor entry which has in effect weakened the security.

I would no more trust microsoft with an all seeing all listening camera than I would Facebook using facial recognition.
Oh Look, Facebook already tried that.
(http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2013/02/02/facebook-turns-facial-recognition-back-on/)It's bad enough that you're watched everywhere you go, I would not want another all seeing all listening camera in my phone.

[n00b1n8R]

Im just curious, does anyone here seriously believe that MS will be spying on you with the Kinect camera? Or is this whole 1984 conspiracy more a joke being used to make a point.
The fact that the potential is there and its required to operate the machine is bad enough. Microsoft might not use it but what's to stop anybody else from breaking into XBL and doing it themselves?

[=sw=warlord]

Also the fact that the kinect will active try to figure out how many people are viewing the xbox and then increase the product charges based on number of people in the room is rather obnoxious too.

[Amit]

The fact that the potential is there and its required to operate the machine is bad enough. Microsoft might not use it but what's to stop anybody else from breaking into XBL and doing it themselves?

Absolutely nothing.

[Kornman00]

Have they even said if you -must- have the Kinect plugged into the Xbox in order to use said box? I don't recall seeing anything like that so far.

You know what would be funny (but not)? If they used the Kinect to take pictures of the owners, so when that Xbox is flagged as being hacked or w/e they now can now track you down :downs:

[Zeph]

yes. the box won't run without the kinect plugged in.

[thehoodedsmack]

But it will run with, say, the Kinect plugged in, and tossed behind the TV with a sound-dampening material wrapped tightly around it... won't it? Because if the XBOne requires, say, a constant confirmation of human presence in order to run, then that's really-really-really-really creepy and a good reason not to invest.

[Amit]

Have they even said if you -must- have the Kinect plugged into the Xbox in order to use said box? I don't recall seeing anything like that so far.

You know what would be funny (but not)? If they used the Kinect to take pictures of the owners, so when that Xbox is flagged as being hacked or w/e they now can now track you down :downs:

Yes, and if someone is dumb enough to hack the Xbone without hacking out the kinect requirement, I'd say they deserve it.

[Phopojijo]

And there's Bitlocker where they were asked by several Governments to create a backdoor entry which has in effect weakened the security.The main way to hack BitLocker or TruCrypt is by stealing the encryption keys from RAM while the user is logged in. If the user is not locked in... either they try to reverse the key from the encryption pattern of empty space (remember to write random data before you encrypt folks!) or they brute force the key (using rainbow tables and typical password tricks).

I wouldn't worry about TruCrypt being broken and I wouldn't really worry about BitLocker being broken either; they know that encryption with a backdoor is zero encryption in a few years. And I know of a few stories where the FBI could not break open the account of, in one case, an embezzler after a couple years of trying (and others) -- those were TruCrypt though.

[TVTyrant]

But it will run with, say, the Kinect plugged in, and tossed behind the TV with a sound-dampening material wrapped tightly around it... won't it? Because if the XBOne requires, say, a constant confirmation of human presence in order to run, then that's really-really-really-really creepy and a good reason not to invest.
I love this line of thought lol

[Cortexian]

I don't... The fact that you'd need to do that at all is disgusting.

Additionally, it will likely require confirmation of human presence to run certain apps. Just look at the patent MS filed to detect the number of people watching a movie in order to charge you additional licenses if required. If it doesn't detect ANYONE watching a movie, it probably won't even let you play the movie.

[TVTyrant]

I don't... The fact that you'd need to do that at all is disgusting.

Additionally, it will likely require confirmation of human presence to run certain apps. Just look at the patent MS filed to detect the number of people watching a movie in order to charge you additional licenses if required. If it doesn't detect ANYONE watching a movie, it probably won't even let you play the movie.
I think the point is that the majority of people here have already decided against buying one based on what M$ has revealed so far.

If I'm going to get a console box, I'll probably get a PS4. Or nothing, since I don't have much money.

[Bobblehob]

I didnt think much news was good news about this thing, but this definitely took away one of my main qualms with the XBone.

http://www.gamnesia.com/news/xbox-one-doesnt-require-used-game-fees-just-an-authentication-check

[Zeph]

It'll only be useful if it can be used as a measure of security for the proper owner of the disc. Yeah, you haven't had a way to keep people from stealing your games in the past, but this only serves to remind you that someone else has your shit. It's like saying whoever is in the possession of the keys to your car owns it despite the title being in your name. As it stands, it's only a way to allow microsoft to gather perfectly accurate data on how games they've released behave after initial retail purchase.

[ODX]

I feel that people are just blowing this "used games" thing out of proportion, we have a while more to wait for all the additional news they're going to bring that should hopefully clear up a lot.

On a different note, man I can't wait for all the new technologies that this generation will bring.
Just look at what Call of Duty has done with AI:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMYso30L9zI
/endjoke

I am really curious to see them do a demonstration of this cloud-computing system at E3 though, I do hope they show it off. You have to admit, it seems like a really neat feature.

[neuro]

yeah they'll have threehundredthousand servers.

bitch, i can start up 500 servers right her eon my pc.
way to make bullshit claims just to impress morons with "LOOK AT THOSE NUMERRSSSSS AWH YEAH NUMBERS MAAN"

[Amit]

HAHAHAHA:

http://imageshack.us/a/img703/8475/neogaflolxbox.png

[Amit]

GG, M$: http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/27/4370676/microsoft-kinect-tv-monitoring-achievements-ads

[PlasbianX]

GG, M$: http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/27/4370676/microsoft-kinect-tv-monitoring-achievements-ads

Man.. it really looks like they're just out to maximize profits now.

[Kornman00]

Or it could just be they're like every other technological company out there and are filing ALL TEH PATENTS!!1

Just because they have a patent for it, doesn't mean they will use what's patented. It just means the competition can't.

[Cortexian]

Well they can, they just gotta pay licensing fees.

[Kornman00]

Right. Which means MS still has the upper hand, and is making money off their competitor's making-money. It's win-win for them, even though patents are bullshit.

[DarkHalo003]

America: Where there IS a way to be awarded an achievement for watching TV. For fuck's sake.

[neuro]

i just realised: i don't actually know anyone who still watches tv....
like except for football matches or something, but then it's still mostly on the internet it turns out.

i myself haven't turned on a tv in over 5 years >_>

[Btcc22]

Best bit is that the TV functionality won't be available outside of the United States on launch (between the lines, will never be parity) as I predicted. Just a continuation of Microsoft's trend of making those outside the U.S. pay more to receive less.

[Kornman00]

www.ign.com/articles/2013/06/06/microsoft-details-xbox-one-used-games-always-online

Microsoft: anti-games, anti-freedom, anti-american.

[Btcc22]

Rumour has it that they're having problems with chip yields thanks to the large footprint of the ESRAM and might have to downclock as a result.

ifa9Q7ATfVA

UI isn't looking quite as smooth as it did during the demo. I'm going to assume it'll be sorted for the release though, not that anybody outside of the U.S. will be able to use it anyway.

[Warsaw]

Her accent makes me want to cut my ears off...

[ejburke]

Can they afford to downclock? They're at a performance deficit vis-a-vis the PS4 as it is. I hope for their sake they aren't buying their own bullshit about the cloud making up for it.

We've been hearing about yield problems for almost a year now, though. Might be old news.

I'm sure the PS4 is going to have its own set of problems. Like, where in the world are they going to get all that GDDR5 and how are they going to keep it cool?

[Warsaw]

What happened was Microsoft tried to cut corners by using ESRAM and some software foolery to try and get as much performance from their now proprietary SoC as Sony would get out of the reference AMD design though brute force. That would put them at performance parity until devs figured out how to maximize the usage of PS4's processing power. Microsoft wanted to save money on their end to increase profit margins and, if the competition required, to give them more room to undercut Sony on price. This is what I concluded when I read the AnandTech article breaking down the hardware differences of the two platforms back when the Xbone was announced.

Basically, the bean-counters fucked it up for engineering. I'm laughing so hard right now.

[Zeph]

What happened was Microsoft tried to cut corners by using ESRAM and some software foolery to try and get as much performance from their now proprietary SoC as Sony would get out of the reference AMD design though brute force. That would put them at performance parity until devs figured out how to maximize the usage of PS4's processing power. Microsoft wanted to save money on their end to increase profit margins and, if the competition required, to give them more room to undercut Sony on price. This is what I concluded when I read the AnandTech article breaking down the hardware differences of the two platforms back when the Xbone was announced.

Basically, the bean-counters fucked it up for engineering. I'm laughing so hard right now.

I dont even think it's that.
In their minds, the 360 was highly superior to any other console and PC.
To continue what they were doing seems like a good idea. The only thing they had to watch out for was heat so they wouldn't wind up with another RRODfest. I doubt it was even to cut costs since they had to specially engineer busses when they didn't really have to. GDDR5 is more expensive than DDR3, but not that much.
They accounted for that, but didn't think anything about the actual manufacturing process itself. After all, that's something that those manufacturing guys will work out right?
They just kind of flat out ignored the biggest reason why you continuously try to move to a smaller manufacturing process. By doubling the size of the chip, the likelihood of defects appearing on the architecture and not blank/unused space goes up dramatically.6

[Phopojijo]

Also, to be clear, "padding profit margins" is incorrect.

Consoles are not profitable (except the original Wii) when they launch. The jury is still out on whether Microsoft and Sony made *any* money over this (very long) generation once you offset the late mid/late-generation profitability with the massive early/mid-generation losses.

[Warsaw]

True...for now. I'm pretty sure there is a point when the consoles stop being sold at a loss due to age. I also know that the tech in the Xbox 360 and PS3 was cutting edge at the time while the stuff in the new ones is old hat. Still, I guess I could rephrase it as "sold at less of a loss."

[Kornman00]

This is why MS charges arms and legs for even indies to put their games on XBLA

[Phopojijo]

True...for now. I'm pretty sure there is a point when the consoles stop being sold at a loss due to age. I also know that the tech in the Xbox 360 and PS3 was cutting edge at the time while the stuff in the new ones is old hat. Still, I guess I could rephrase it as "sold at less of a loss."Well, keep in mind... "sold at a loss" is per-unit costs exceeding the price they sell it to the store (which is pretty close to MSRP... they don't let the stores take basically any profit on the devices).

The PS3 leveled out and was profitable per-unit by about 2009.

But profitable per unit does not mean the division is profitable yet. They still need to recover all of the per unit costs over the last several years. Oh, and the not per unit costs of research, development, marketing, support, and so forth; those are all above-and-beyond parts and labour. We still don't know if those billions and billions and billions of dollars have ever been recovered. With the long generation, we think "barely".

[Amit]

BAHAHAHA:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&amp;v=oxRf90LWK9c

[Warsaw]

Well, keep in mind... "sold at a loss" is per-unit costs exceeding the price they sell it to the store (which is pretty close to MSRP... they don't let the stores take basically any profit on the devices).

The PS3 leveled out and was profitable per-unit by about 2009.

But profitable per unit does not mean the division is profitable yet. They still need to recover all of the per unit costs over the last several years. Oh, and the not per unit costs of research, development, marketing, support, and so forth; those are all above-and-beyond parts and labour. We still don't know if those billions and billions and billions of dollars have ever been recovered. With the long generation, we think "barely".

I think I remember reading on Slashdot that the Xbox division is still not a profitable division yet.

[DarkHalo003]

BAHAHAHA:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&amp;v=oxRf90LWK9c
I am proud Internet, I am proud.

[ThePlague]

That was brilliant

[=sw=warlord]

http://i.qkme.me/3ut43l.jpg

[Phopojijo]

I think I remember reading on Slashdot that the Xbox division is still not a profitable division yet.That was actually my post XD The Wired link actually said both Xbox AND Sony were not profitable.

http://games.slashdot.org/story/13/05/28/0223256/console-manufacturers-want-the-impossible

The second link was mine... wasn't the best post I've written, to say the least, but yeah. First link, of course, was the Wired article I refered to.

[Tnnaas]

Here's an important read regarding the features and issues of the Xbox One. (http://www.reddit.com/r/xboxone/comments/1g8t5e/lets_clear_up_the_issues_used_games_kinect/)

^It explains a lot, so seriously give it a read.

That being said, I still won't be getting an Xbox One personally, regardless of the titles and incentives presented.

[Btcc22]

Here's an important read regarding the features and issues of the Xbox One. (http://www.reddit.com/r/xboxone/comments/1g8t5e/lets_clear_up_the_issues_used_games_kinect/)

^It explains a lot, so seriously give it a read.

It explains the policies in sympathetic manner but I don't think it'll change many minds. They're still restrictive and if Microsoft are as sincere as the poster seems to believe, they could have been implemented better.

For example, rather than locking down the console's ability to play games if it fails its 24 hour phone home, why not have it on a per-game basis and allow for it to bypassed if the disc is in the tray? You'd still be required to activate the game on the first run though or you could install it on one console and then keep the disc in another console that has no connection.

[Bobblehob]

For example, rather than locking down the console's ability to play games if it fails its 24 hour phone home, why not have it on a per-game basis and allow for it to bypassed if the disc is in the tray? You'd still be required to activate the game on the first run though or you could install it on one console and then keep the disc in another console that has no connection.

It seems like that is something that will likely be considered after the media and consumer uproar over the feature.

[Ki11a_FTW]

I might buy the new COD but not the xbox.

DxkEe_l7S3g

Probably posted before but lol.

[TeeKup]

I hate that man. I really do.

[Warsaw]

It explains the policies in sympathetic manner but I don't think it'll change many minds. They're still restrictive and if Microsoft are as sincere as the poster seems to believe, they could have been implemented better.

For example, rather than locking down the console's ability to play games if it fails its 24 hour phone home, why not have it on a per-game basis and allow for it to bypassed if the disc is in the tray? You'd still be required to activate the game on the first run though or you could install it on one console and then keep the disc in another console that has no connection.

Or they could do like Steam does, which lets you basically register the game locally and download certain files to be able to play it off-line when in off-line mode. Microsoft is comparing their policy to Steam, the big difference is that Steam doesn't require a $60 annual fee to use. I mean, I guess the Xbox One doesn't either, if you want to get anal, but nearly all of the "features" they are saying make the always on-line policy mandatory and not that big of a deal kind of require it.


That was actually my post XD The Wired link actually said both Xbox AND Sony were not profitable.

http://games.slashdot.org/story/13/05/28/0223256/console-manufacturers-want-the-impossible

The second link was mine... wasn't the best post I've written, to say the least, but yeah. First link, of course, was the Wired article I refered to.

The blurb I read pre-dates your post by 6 months or so, I hadn't actually seen yours (I visit /. off and on, the environment is rather caustic). Actually, it was a comment to a Windows 8 article in response to the topic of Microsoft's market strategies.

[Amit]

lawl:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&amp;v=PzDsYEPkSc4#t=74 s

[TeeKup]

BAH HA HA HA HA PEOPLE WERE BOOING.

[ODX]

Except that isn't the actual audio, unless they somehow cut out the clapping audio and traced onto the one or two cows in the audience.

Sorry, it sounds like "mooooooooooooo" to me lol.

[TVTyrant]

Except that isn't the actual audio, unless they somehow cut out the clapping audio and traced onto the one or two cows in the audience.

Sorry, it sounds like "mooooooooooooo" to me lol.
Nobody cares. This E3, much like the E3 where Sony presented the PS3, will go down in memory as being a tremendous fuckup.

[Kornman00]

I recognize that 'quiet!' line, they used the same audio from that one stage demo of MGS or some shit near the end of MS's conference where the game essentially crashed or audio stopped working or something and they had to reboot.

[Btcc22]

Most of it is from the Crimson Dragon trailer, when they accidentally broadcast the crowd sound instead of the trailer's.

[Tnnaas]

I enjoyed this.


http://youtu.be/xKTseEpWrYc?t=1m35s

[t3h m00kz]

actually fuck me I'm dumb and didn't think that through.

[=sw=warlord]

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/998253_497933053608355_720053_n.jpg

[Zeph]

http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/1ge8fu/microsoft_gestapo_interrogate_whistleblowing/



Email interview

I asked why her Reddit account was only a day old at the time of her post, and why we should trust the testimony of an account with no other posts. Her reply:

My account is obviously a 'throwaway' that I created for the express purpose of posting that story. I have my own regular Reddit account, yes, but I have posted enough information about myself on that account that I would be absolutely identifiable if I used it for that story. What's more, I admitted in my post to having done some Reddit reputation management myself in the past. If things took an unexpected turn, I did not want to face backlash from the Reddit community myself.

I asked her how she (initially) expected to get away with leaking sensitive company information:

I deliberately obfuscated some of the facts in my story so that it would be impossible for anyone at Microsoft to identify me. I hinted I was at a certain set of buildings when I was actually touring a different part of the campus, for example. I noticed a few angry Microsoft employees posted in the comment section, saying I was going to easily be caught based on the information I posted. However, I made sure to alter enough minor details to ensure that wouldn't be possible. What's more, there were a huge number of contractors touring the campus on that day and I was pretty sure it wouldn't be possible to distinguish me from any other.

I asked her why she broke her NDA (although as we can see, she believes she did not):

A few others accused me of being unprofessional or breaking an NDA. This is actually not the case. Although I have signed an NDA with Microsoft, it revolves around my company's own project that has nothing to do with the Xbox. What's more, there is nothing in my NDA (or indeed, any standard NDA) that would prohibit me from saying what I did. What I said amounted to "Microsoft is engaging in reputation management", which in the marketing industry is like saying "The sky is blue". This is very standard practice, and among marketers (certainly with Microsoft) the information is considered too trivial to even be worthy of putting in an NDA. The only reason I am maintaining secrecy is because of the surprisingly strong reaction Microsoft have taken to it.

I'm not sure I agree with her interpretation of what constitutes 'breaking' an NDA, but onward.

I asked her what she thought of her post's subsequent explosion on Reddit:

I am surprised my post exploded so much, because what I described is very much standard practice in social media marketing. Microsoft, Sony, basically any company does this. I went through all that training myself in my first social media job. The reason I posted it was because not many people on Reddit actually seem to be aware of how often their platform is used for this. I saw some random user specifically accusing Microsoft of astroturfing, and he/she was told to 'put on their tinfoil hat'. This surprised me, and I thought "Don't most people know this kind of thing is done?". That is basically what spurred me to make the post. I made the post right before going out. I was really surprised to come home, hours later, to find thousands of comments and a deletion!

I asked her what Microsoft think about her actions:

From what I've heard, Microsoft are going absolutely CRAZY about this. It really surprises me, because honestly they are normally quite open about their marketing and reputation management practices. We all know they do it, it's no big secret. Most companies do it. Why Microsoft suddenly want it to be a secret now is something that puzzles me.

I asked her whether she was from Sony or otherwise involved with them. Her reply:

Quite a lot of people accused me (either jokingly or seriously) of being from Sony. Whilst that would make for a fantastic story I must admit I am, unfortunately, a regular marketing grunt in Redmond (an unemployed one now, too). There were certainly some hilarious posts, though! One user discovered that 'misty silver' was actually the name of the color of an old Sony Eriksson phone, which blew my mind. I chose the name 'misty silver' out of thin air, and yet still managed to choose something that sounds connected to Sony!

I asked her whether she intended to get a PS4 or Xbox One:

I did not make my post out of Sony fanboyism (or fangirlism!) either. To be honest I am a PC gamer, and I own neither a PS3, Xbox 360, or a Wii/Wii U. I made the post simply because I thought the /r/gaming subreddit would find it interesting. I am not trying to advocate Sony's (or indeed, Nintendo's) console as an alternative to the Xbox One. I am unlikely to buy any of those consoles myself, and will probably just stick to playing on the PC.

Finally, I asked how she got fired. This is a quite long and actually really interesting story, and she has allowed me to post it in full:

In short, I've been fired. It all started yesterday, as me and some other SMMs were called in for a Sunday afternoon shift. This is fairly common, as various online marketing campaigns we are managing often need snap work. As soon as I got there, I knew something was wrong because my boss seemed really nervous and wouldn't look at anybody. Once everyone had signed in, he came and dropped the bombshell: our company had been identified in a 'whistleblower scandal'. At first, I didn't think it had anything to do with me. I figured I didn't do anything grand enough to qualify being called a 'whistleblower'. But I soon found out it actually was related to the Reddit post.

My boss introduced us to two managers from the Xbox division, who had apparently come to talk to us about it. They wanted to speak to several of the employees privately, one at a time. We joked a little about this as they spoke to the first of my co-workers, because these guys were like caricatures. If it weren't for their Midwestern accents, the way they talked and behaved could've gotten them a role as Gestapo in a WWII film - they didn't even take their sunglasses off inside! This just seemed all very silly, and we joked about them a bit while we waited. Once it was my turn to be interviewed, though, I found them to be very serious. They asked me a lot of pointed questions, and their manner was fairly rude. They talked about 'online leaks related to the Xbox' and, although they didn't mention precisely what the 'leak' was, they did mention Reddit so I'm pretty sure they were trying to find who made my post. They didn't think the 'whistleblower' was me, however, because they were convinced it was a man.

After all of the interviews were over, we finally got to work on our clients for a bit while the Microsoft guys spoke with my boss. After a while, they left and my boss spoke to some of the other employees in his office. I don't know what they said, but afterward he came around to speak to us individually. He told me that one of my co-workers, David, had been implicated and would be fired. I felt a twist in my stomach, but knew I couldn't let this happen. So I asked to speak to my boss privately - and owned up. I showed him the Reddit account and explained the whole situation.

We talked about it for a while. Although my boss sympathized and said I technically had not broken our NDA nor lost our contract, I would still need to be fired because "That's the way it has to be". I packed up, left and am now no longer working at that firm.

I had several friends in the business call me in the evening, and had some really interesting chats about the whole ordeal. Basically Microsoft is more sensitive about their RM activities than usual because they are just about to start an unprecedentedly large campaign, on Monday, across a wide variety of media platforms. Apparently I made my post with the worst possible timing. They've invested a huge amount of resources into this, and, understandably, the last thing they'd want is negative press right before they begin.

Although I have performed RM (reputation management) in the past myself, I do not agree with the techniques Microsoft are employing. At my previous job I would sometimes do RM for clients that was relatively benign; like posting some positive reviews for small businesses like plumbers and other traders. It's a good way to stimulate online discussion and help to launch a social media presence for someone like that. Microsoft's usual RM strategy, however, is to absolutely flood the Internet with so much positive material that it influences the market on a mass scale. It works really well, too. The Internet may be abuzz with anti-Xbox posts right now, but it will be a matter of weeks before that has changed completely. They will post so many positive comments from 'regular folks' that the media narrative about the console will change. Numerous bloggers will suddenly change their tune and start supporting the console.

Worst of all, people who ask serious questions about the console's security and functionality will be ridiculed. This is the part I really don't like. Right now, people are having a debate across social media about the potential security dangers of the console. In my opinion, that's an important issue that ought to be discussed in a free and open manner. The problem is, Microsoft will artificially stifle that debate under a wave of positive hype and ridicule directed against those who asked questions. The debate will be stopped dead in its tracks, and/or driven to the fringe. In my opinion it is unethical practice to try and shut down free and open debate - to silence discussion of important issues. That's why I stand behind my decision to make that post. I stand behind what I did, even though it got me fired. I sincerely hope that, as a result of what I've done, the gaming community (not only on Reddit, but the gaming community worldwide) will resist Microsoft's latest artificial flood of positive hype. I hope they will continue to ask important questions and debate the serious issues. That's all anyone can do, really - keep going after the truth, even if millions of people online seem to disagree with you. We live in an age where those 'people' are not necessarily real people, and can't let that artificial hype influence our own opinions.

[Btcc22]

Posted by a throwaway account. :realsmug:

[=sw=warlord]

http://shrani.si/f/2c/oV/19TiFZju/13712972298681.png

[Donut]

So that woman lost her job for exposing fairly obvious information about the xbone? They sent goons to her office, interviewed everybody separately, then got people fired all to protect against some bad press. For anybody still wondering, this sort of thing is why the internet is having such a vitriolic backlash against microsoft.

Also, losing your entire library if your account is banned? Gosh, that sounds an awful lot like EA's policies that helped them win worst company 2 years in a row.

[ThePlague]

Maybe EA and Microsuck are partnering up together?

[Warsaw]

So that woman lost her job for exposing fairly obvious information about the xbone? They sent goons to her office, interviewed everybody separately, then got people fired all to protect against some bad press. For anybody still wondering, this sort of thing is why the internet is having such a vitriolic backlash against microsoft.

Also, losing your entire library if your account is banned? Gosh, that sounds an awful lot like EA's policies that helped them win worst company 2 years in a row.

Not even Steam does that...they simply block you from playing on any server running with VAC.

[Rook]

Not even Steam does that...they simply block you from playing on any server running with VAC.

Other than VAC steam also has varying level of community bans, with the strongest not even allowing you to login to your account. A friend of mine had this and had to talk to support FOREVER and they finally lowered it to a 3 month community ban.

[Zeph]

Other than VAC steam also has varying level of community bans, with the strongest not even allowing you to login to your account. A friend of mine had this and had to talk to support FOREVER and they finally lowered it to a 3 month community ban.
Steam has pretty basic rules that you have to break before that happens though. Basically any attempt to screw the system (registering fake/public/stolen keys or stealing/selling accounts) will draw the ban. Cheat all you want in games, it only affects your in-game time.


So that woman lost her job for exposing fairly obvious information about the xbone? They sent goons to her office, interviewed everybody separately, then got people fired all to protect against some bad press. For anybody still wondering, this sort of thing is why the internet is having such a vitriolic backlash against microsoft.
Not exactly. She lost her job because Microsoft had a hissy fit. If she broke an NDA she, and the company she works for, would be sued into oblivion.

[Donut]

My point was that there is this attitude people have that we should all just ignore the things we dont like in the games industry and just enjoy games we want to enjoy. When Microsoft is actively persecuting people for legally speaking out about company policies that they dont agree with, its no longer an issue of "stfu and play". By forcing that woman to be fired, Microsoft is basically saying "we care more about stopping a little bad press than we do about our employees' well being", and that is a disgustingly shitty attitude. I feel like we, as the potential Xbox One community (and really any other community), have a responsibility to make Microsoft know when we're not ok with what they're doing.

It's like a kid stealing a cookie. If he doesn't get called out for it, he thinks he got away with it.

[Bodzilla]

Company's governed by self interest and bean counters at the expense of customers and their workforce?

IMPOSSIBRLE

[Rosco]

I think what's happened is a good thing. I'm not anti xbox, I just see this as an open door to new competitors who can now actually bring a console in that meets gamers criteria. I can't wait to see some real competition fire up from the failure of this :)

also inbe4 steam vs playstation

[ejburke]

There are very, very, very few companies with the resources to penetrate the console market in 2013. Apple is the only one that comes to mind and they don't give a shit about games. It's like starting up a fucking telecom at this point.

Microsoft doesn't pay me and I wouldn't know where to start with this thread if they did. But I will say that 20% of the stuff discussed in here is fair-minded rationale for rejecting the Xbox One proposition. The other 80% is misinformation, half-truths, and outright bullshit. Nobody corrects anyone else as long as the sentiment is in favor of their overall agenda and that's how the kangaroo court of the internet works.

[Rosco]

There are very, very, very few companies with the resources to penetrate the console market in 2013. Apple is the only one that comes to mind and they don't give a shit about games. It's like starting up a fucking telecom at this point.

Microsoft doesn't pay me and I wouldn't know where to start with this thread if they did. But I will say that 20% of the stuff discussed in here is fair-minded rationale for rejecting the Xbox One proposition. The other 80% is misinformation, half-truths, and outright bullshit. Nobody corrects anyone else as long as the sentiment is in favor of their overall agenda and that's how the kangaroo court of the internet works.

And out of the very few companies that may be able to do anything, there is still a chance of new more exciting contenders! Though I'm not sure I'd be excited by a samsung console heh

[Donut]

Company's governed by self interest and bean counters at the expense of customers and their workforce?

IMPOSSIBRLE
Yeah it's like what im saying is totally undiscovered information! Did you know you're actually looking at pixels on a screen when you play games?! You can make everything seem stupidly obvious when you generalize it that much. It's not about exposing some grand illuminati conspiracy theory for company self-interest or whatever. It's about spreading specific information to focus the internet outrage into appropriate channels, because,

20% of the stuff discussed in here is fair-minded rationale for rejecting the Xbox One proposition. The other 80% is misinformation, half-truths, and outright bullshit. Nobody corrects anyone else as long as the sentiment is in favor of their overall agenda and that's how the kangaroo court of the internet works.
burke has a good point: the internet loves to blindly rage. It also loves information, and when you give it specifics instead of just "companies suck because they make money!" you can focus that aggression onto the specific issues that are (re: should) be causing it. That's how shit gets fixed.

You're always going to have the people who just love to hate. Not much you can do about them.

[Bodzilla]

nobody hates people because they make money. They hate the bullshit they do to make it.

[Higuy]

^ true shit

[Llama Juice]

So I know everyone has been super quick to just hate on the Xbone, but this feature makes all of their "DRM" well worth it in my opinion.

(http://www.gametrailers.com/side-mission/54648/ms-confirms-xbox-one-family-sharing-feature-allows-up-to-any-ten-people)http://www.gametrailers.com/side-mission/54648/ms-confirms-xbox-one-family-sharing-feature-allows-up-to-any-ten-people

For the lazy people,

Give your family access to your entire games library anytime, anywhere:Xbox One will enable new forms of access for families. Up to ten members of your family can log in and play from your shared games library on any Xbox One. Just like today, a family member can play your copy of Forza Motorsport at a friend’s house. Only now, they will see not just Forza, but all of your shared games. You can always play your games, and any one of your family members can be playing from your shared library at a given time.

More information
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/06/microsoft-defends-the-xbox-ones-licensing-used-game-policies/

(http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/06/microsoft-defends-the-xbox-ones-licensing-used-game-policies/)And again, Lazy people excerpt:

Since its announcement, there has been some confusion over the details of sharing your Xbox One game library with up to ten "family members." Mehdi couldn't give comprehensive details, but he did clarify some things.For one, a family member doesn't have to be a "blood relative," he said, eliminating the extremely unlikely possibility that the Xbox One would include a built-in blood testing kit. For another, they don't have to live in the primary owner's house—I could name a friend that lives 3,000 miles away as one of my "family members" Mehdi said.

For me, this feature is absolutely huge. The ability to be able to just browse through my friends libraries and play whatever games they have whenever I want? That is beyond amazing. Lets say you're up late, and you want to try out the new Tomb Raider game. You haven't played Tomb Raider in 15 years, and you see a few of your friends playing it. You could just download their copy and play it without having to pay for anything or having to bother them about meeting up to get the disk from them.

How about some new game that you just got that you want to show your brother who lives literally on the opposite side of the country as you? You can just tell him that he can play it, that it's in your shared library. I know there's games like "Metro: Last Light" that I'll buy and play through once, then it'll just sit in my library forever. Any of my 10 friends could jump in on that at some point and play through it without having to pay for the game.

Want to catch up on BioShock? Several of your friends will have it in their library and won't be playing. You could easily borrow a copy from them and play through the series without having to go to the store or deal with paying for anything.

This feature is a massive game changer. For some reason Microsoft has done an absolutely piss poor job of talking about this feature at all in any of their big press releases and so I feel like nobody even knows about it.

All I'm saying, is that I have a library of ~120 Xbox 360 games, 8 years from now I'd expect the same from the Xbox One.... and that then opens that library up to 10 of my friends who could go through and see what I was talking about when I was raving about "Singularity" back in the day.

[Donut]

nobody hates people because they make money. They hate the bullshit they do to make it.
Did something I said other than that off-handed, besides-the-point quote make you think I don't understand that?

[neuro]

i just like bashing shit for the sake of bashing shit.

and bandwagons.

hating the xbone is a joy to all.

i don't care either way, i'm a pureblood pc gamer.

[n00b1n8R]

I hate it because it's intrusive spyware that costs more, does less and is less user friendly than its direct competition.
That said, it's 2013 so you'd have to be some kind of good goy schmuk to buy a console anyway :downs:

[JackalStomper]

http://25.media.tumblr.com/c6373a65237bbac642fb9b360c865d65/tumblr_mokg3pQl9u1rvwq9ao1_500.png

[Pooky]

http://i.imgur.com/WKJaeyx.png

Well, underneath that I got “the xbox one will fail", so I maybe it isn't completely controlled.

[JackalStomper]

Meanwhile people apparently don't even know the ps4 exists
MS must be doing something right....
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3128383/temp/ps4.jpg

[Amit]

My results are completely different. They all pertain to the PS4 reveal and its specs and pricing from E3. If you're logged into google, those are your personalized results.

[Tnnaas]

I'm logged in and I see exactly what JackalStomper sees.

[Kornman00]

http://www.armytimes.com/article/20130614/OFFDUTY02/306140030/New-Xbox-sin-against-all-service-members

[Cortexian]

I never even thought about your average deployed military personal. Even after hearing the Nuclear Submarine deployment refernece...

They make a good point though, especially about the security concerns. Not sure how this slipped past MS considering they used to go as far as donating consoles and games to people on deployments.

[Warsaw]

BREAKING NEWS:

Microsoft Removing Xbox One DRM and other Requirements (http://kotaku.com/still-dont-believe-it-thats-a-ton-of-changes-to-make-i-514397145)

[Zeph]

http://news.xbox.com/2013/06/update
Official source^

[Limited]

Crazy, they had to really.

It just annoys me how 'easily' they have just done a total 180. Like werent they saying they cant get past the whole "login" once a day? Now they just remove it instantly? And all that DRM?

Sounds a bit like Sim City...

[Zeph]

Well, it's only a software patch that's allowing this. You'll have to download and install an update before you're able to do this.

So I'm gonna guess they'll start turning it back on within the year.

[leorimolo]

Well, it's only a software patch that's allowing this. You'll have to download and install an update before you're able to do this.

So I'm gonna guess they'll start turning it back on within the year.
This x100, PS4 probably just rode the bandwagon but soon enough they will do the same.

[Zeph]

This x100, PS4 probably just rode the bandwagon but soon enough they will do the same.
what? hi I am sony how do I hash?

[Warsaw]

The irony here is that Sony is the one with the track-record for bait-and-switch, like what happened with the Linux-on-PS3 ordeal and, to after a fashion, the requirement for PS+ to play online.

Microsoft, on the other hand, has been relatively up-front about what they've offered even if it sucks to hear.

[NullZero]

http://i.imgur.com/JZOCnud.png

The internet is exploding from this news. Sorry MS, we still know that you fucked up big time, and you're backpedalling like incompetent idiots after your elaborate DRM plans.

[Amit]

LOOOOOOOOLLLL

Xboneighty

[Llama Juice]

Microsoft needed to just push how their excellent sharing features (that Steam is now taking from them) worked, and everyone would have pulled that steaming hot lead pipe out of their ass.

This news is extremely disappointing.

[Skyline]

People spoke with their wallets, Microsoft probably didn't reach the pre-order numbers they were hoping for, and they listened. How is that disappointing ? Yes the sharing thing is cool but if it comes packed with all that region locking and DRM bull I'd rather not have it all together. Steam isn't stealing anything as far as I'm concerned as they will (hopefully) do it the right way without filling holes with garbage.

[Donut]

Llama that feature IS cool. Nobody is arguing that. It's the list of other things that come with that feature that have people annoyed.

[TVTyrant]

I haven't seen anything saying they are removing the Kinect requirement. Until that happens there is no way they will be getting my business.

[Bodzilla]

LOOOOOOOOLLLL

Xboneighty
It's ironic that 180 is literally half of 360.

[TVTyrant]

It's ironic that 180 is literally half of 360.
ba dumm tss

[Warsaw]

It's ironic that 180 is literally half of 360.

Introducing the Xbox 540!

E: Microsoft next year:
http://i.qkme.me/3pwtqn.jpg

[Phopojijo]

Llama that feature IS cool. Nobody is arguing that. It's the list of other things that come with that feature that have people annoyed.The problem is, that feature shouldn't really exist in the first place. They added in DRM and restricted what you can do. They, then, change the parameters of the DRM to give you more permissions in one way, and less in another.

"Yay! That's so cool!" except for the exceptions, like nuclear submariners, "Crap this won't work for me!"

"But this DRM change makes me so happy!" ... "But this DRM is unplayable for me!"

o.o It doesn't benefit either of you! ... It just gets in the way less than it did for some, and more than it did for others.

You then see companies like CD Projekt, makers of The Witcher and GoG, selling games DRM-free... or I should say... never adding DRM to games... because they built their marketing strategy around "being the source of good, untainted games".

You can take a copy of the upcoming big-budget "The Witcher 3", install it on your machines, let a friend borrow it (probably not allowed in the license... but who knows, they might end up buying a copy for themselves), back it up, keep it in a museum for generations because there's no DRM servers to get shut down, and so forth.

[Donut]

Im talking solely about this E-library concept, not the DRM behind it. As in, I have a copy of Bioshock, and instead of driving to my friend's house and giving him the disk, he can just download and play it as if I had loaned it to him because he's on my "family" list and the system sees I have the game. Although, I can see how that would cause problems if some authentification server went down.

You could already kind of work the system with the 360. If somebody installs, say, MW2 onto their hard drive, boots the game (which requires the disk in the drive, but then it stops using the disk), you can then lift the disk out of the drive and put it in another xbox. I never tried to see if both xboxes could play with each other, but it did work for offline play. I guess it's also worth noting that the cover was off of my DVD drive, since pressing the eject button would immediately kill the game and go to dashboard (so youd literally lift the cd out of the exposed tray).

Suddenly that "connection every 24 hours" thing makes sense. Without that, somebody could "borrow" a single player game while their friend keeps the physical disk, and just stay offline to play indefinitely without the disk. I guess at that point the question becomes what's the (financial) difference between that and just loaning him a physical copy?
E: then again, it still doesn't really make sense because it's a pain in the ass for anybody not using the sharing function.

What the fuck, trying to comprehend this is making my head hurt. I think I'll just stick to PC gaming where everyone buys their own copy at 75% off.

[Zeph]

I haven't seen anything saying they are removing the Kinect requirement. Until that happens there is no way they will be getting my business.

They can't really pull it out; it's part of the firmware. The thing won't pass a POST without successfully getting data from the Kinect.


Microsoft needed to just push how their excellent sharing features (that Steam is now taking from them) worked, and everyone would have pulled that steaming hot lead pipe out of their ass.

This news is extremely disappointing.
Not really. Even now, they're doing the opposite of what needs to be done.
When introducing drastically different changes that completely alienates a percentage of customers, you need to maintain the current method then include the change as an opt-in system with rewards.

Allowing offline-use is great, but if they're completely axing away the Live features they've listed, they're going about it completely wrong. I mean, we're talking about if-statements on auth here.

Yeah, you can add a title to your Live Library then send the disk to an offline only console, but is that really such a worry for Microsoft? Is offline-piracy really something to be afraid of? The "pirate" in this case of not-so-good-license-management (you know they'd label these offliners as pirates) is taking no resources from the Live server farm and in no way impacting other users of the service. It wouldn't even be that hard to check disk hashes (they made a patent on this I believe) to ensure a game isn't being doubled up in a LAN environment.

The only reason I can possibly think of for Microsoft to be so outraged over the idea that the DRM can be pushed off with a software update is that it is not software controlled but through firmware locked to the motherboard.

[ODX]

Chances of me getting the XOne have gone up, though I'm still going to be weary until reviews start to come out and no major problems are there. Plus, still waiting for some good games to get for it. Only thing I'd get right now would be Ghosts (fuck off, it looks like a neat game and I'm eager to see this change in direction) and maybe AC4. Everything else is coming out next year.

Still, fucking congrats to Microsoft for taking the feedback and knocking the DRM away.

[Btcc22]

They can't really pull it out; it's part of the firmware. The thing won't pass a POST without successfully getting data from the Kinect.

They can usually (read: pretty much always) update firmware, especially if they haven't even made the consoles yet. :smith:

[=sw=warlord]

They can't really pull it out; it's part of the firmware. The thing won't pass a POST without successfully getting data from the Kinect.


They can, they can remove it from the checklist of things to do during the POST.

[Kornman00]

Guess what I did today?

Went to gamestop and preordered a PS4 and Watch Dogs.

I had a few regrets today, but this is not one of them.

[Phopojijo]

Still, fucking congrats to Microsoft for taking the feedback and knocking the DRM away.The DRM is not removed, it is just re-parametrized. Undid their less-restrictive sharing permissions, redid their disk-based authentication.

Weakening DRM would be like if Steam did their sharing thing WITHOUT compromising anything with their offline mode, etc.

"Removing" (never adding) DRM is something like CD Projekt does, launching The Witcher 3 DRM-free on GoG (which, admittedly, is a bigggg advertisement for their service).

[Arteen]

Unconfirmed rumors, but... (http://www.heyuguysgaming.com/news/12507/heartbroken-xbox-one-employee-lets-rip-must-read)

The "family sharing plan" was just glorified game demos. Haha, what shit.

[Zeph]

I will admit that I was not happy with how some of my fellow colleagues handled explaining the systems and many times pulled my hair out as I felt I could have done a better job explaining and selling the ideas to the press and public at large.

I know it's unconfirmed but this is so ironic it has to be true.

[Warsaw]

But that's almost always how it goes with marketing...

[ODX]

Yeah Microsoft did a fantastically shitty job of revealing and explaining all the features they have, because it really would turn the tides considerably and shove the PS4 into the dust.

For examble, this is why Titanfall isn't on the PS4 but is on the XOne:
http://www.respawn.com/news/lets-talk-about-the-xbox-live-cloud/

Essentially, this Cloud is turning out to be amazing. Developers have so much versatility when it comes to them, since the servers can be used for a dedicated server, cloud computing, or probably tons more little nifty things I'm sure we have yet to find.

[Btcc22]

Reads more like an Azure marketing piece than a genuine explanation of why it's not on the PS4.

Hundreds of thousands of servers, sure, I'll believe that. :-3

[Warsaw]

To be fair, the Xbone has potentially more processing horsepower at its disposal with Microsoft's new XBL cloud. Less intense or less time-sensitive tasks can be offloaded to the cloud so the local hardware can focus on the more demanding bits. Theoretically, this should have allowed them to save on the per-unit cost of the console itself. At $450, the Xbone would become much more palatable relative to the PS4.

[Btcc22]

To be fair, the Xbone has potentially more processing horsepower at its disposal with Microsoft's new XBL cloud.

Yeah, I've read people saying this but really, what's it going to offload to The Cloud™? You can't do anything that's latency sensitive (so nothing real-time), anything critical to the single player game or anything that's going to use much bandwidth.

At this point I don't see it as anything but a marketing gimmick to try to downplay the PS4's hardware advantage. Expect to see completely mundane features that we've had for years now only being possible thanks to Azure.

http://dilbert.com/dyn/str_strip/000000000/00000000/0000000/100000/60000/0000/400/160498/160498.strip.gif

[Warsaw]

I said potential. Right now, it's not practical to offload heavy, time-sensitive stuff. That will change in the future as broadband gets better. What you can stream at this very moment, however, would be the level geometry itself. Textures can get processed on the box since that's what you really see, while the mesh can be calculated remotely. Perhaps skyboxes, or NPC interactions. How about storing all of the markers that are necessary to maintain a large, persistent world? Heck, Microsoft may not even know everything that they can do with the servers and Azure yet, it's there partly so developers can explore this new resource.

And the PS4 does not have that much of a hardware advantage. It just doesn't. Yes, it has more stream processors, but the GDDR5 advantage is made up for by software tomfoolery on the Xbone. I really don't think multi-platform games are going to look any better on the PS4 than they do on the Xbone.

[Kornman00]

Hey, you guys remember playing H2X/H2V on Live?

The cloud. Yet another out-of-band service that will break forced functionality when the next gen is phased out. I wonder if developers have to pay monthly fees for the Azure bullshit as well (meaning if the studio or support goes under, so does the cloud).

You know what else runs on Azure? H4. Hopefully the shit service with H4 was just a learning phase.

The Cloud: because developers don't get any sunlight, why should their software? :mech2:

Okay, that's enough cloud turbulence for one morning.

I lied. You know what other over hyped, mystical idea exists "in the cloud"? "Heaven". :mech2:

[Zeph]

I said potential. Right now, it's not practical to offload heavy, time-sensitive stuff. That will change in the future as broadband gets better. What you can stream at this very moment, however, would be the level geometry itself. Textures can get processed on the box since that's what you really see, while the mesh can be calculated remotely. Perhaps skyboxes, or NPC interactions. How about storing all of the markers that are necessary to maintain a large, persistent world? Heck, Microsoft may not even know everything that they can do with the servers and Azure yet, it's there partly so developers can explore this new resource.

And the PS4 does not have that much of a hardware advantage. It just doesn't. Yes, it has more stream processors, but the GDDR5 advantage is made up for by software tomfoolery on the Xbone. I really don't think multi-platform games are going to look any better on the PS4 than they do on the Xbone.
Nonononono. You would never want to run anything that directly affects a local simulations each frame.

The cloud is such a bullshit term.

This is a server and nothing more. You want to use it for player versus player interaction and that's about it. Single-threaded capability on these servers are going to be the most power-efficient thing microsoft can afford to maintain. I'm actually surprised they're considering using some of them for on-demand dedicated servers for various games.

[Warsaw]

The games that use it for more than multi-player server hosting will be akin to MMOs. They'll have a disclaimer on the box making it clear to the player exactly what it is. As long as you know what you're getting into, I don't see a problem with this. I am a pretty anti-cloud person, but you'd have to be blind to ignore the benefits; it's rather disingenuous to only preach about its pitfalls.



I also fail to see how static level geometry affects a local simulation each frame if it doesn't even move. All you need to know is that there 's terrain there so your collisions interact properly. NPC interactions, i.e. Mass Effect conversations, don't really have a time demand, and a skybox does nothing but look pretty...

[Btcc22]

They might not have a 'time demand' but they don't have a computational demand either, therefore making them pointless to process remotely.

[Warsaw]

That is not a true statement. If it were, then polygon counts wouldn't matter.

[Btcc22]

That is not a true statement. If it were, then polygon counts wouldn't matter.

It wasn't supposed to be taken literally, like with your time demand statement. The point is that there's no benefit to streaming geometry over the Internet that I can see. I didn't understand the comment about skyboxes and calculating meshes remotely.

[Skyline]

If it were, then polygon counts wouldn't matter.

They only matter for the actual rendering, which happens 60+ times a second and is done locally on the GPU so I still fail to see how the cloud would be of benefit.

[Zeph]

The games that use it for more than multi-player server hosting will be akin to MMOs. They'll have a disclaimer on the box making it clear to the player exactly what it is. As long as you know what you're getting into, I don't see a problem with this. I am a pretty anti-cloud person, but you'd have to be blind to ignore the benefits; it's rather disingenuous to only preach about its pitfalls.



I also fail to see how static level geometry affects a local simulation each frame if it doesn't even move. All you need to know is that there 's terrain there so your collisions interact properly. NPC interactions, i.e. Mass Effect conversations, don't really have a time demand, and a skybox does nothing but look pretty...
Simulation-level stuff (ie your physics colliders, render geometry (arguable, but depends on specific engine architecture and game's design), game code that directly interacts with those two prior things such as weapons fire checking what material was hit for particles/sounds/hit info/etc) would be hung up on the latency to obtain a serialized version. Even if you had amazing ping (less than one millisecond), that ping would take up a significant fraction of a frame. If you get to more accurate pings (especially in the united states) where a good low ping is 33ms or lower (lets be reasonable here it's usually somewhere under 200ms) then you've waited the equivalence of two 60Hz frames for your serialization.

Networked game code that doesn't affect the simulation frame by frame would be fine since you can predictably handle latency. So your 'ME conversations' query to the server to see "what's hot and what should be talked about like cool hip dudes" would be fine since you can check frame by frame if a pointer to the data is valid yet without breaking anything on the simulation side. If you 'start the conversation', you ask the server for the conversation. While you're waiting to see if you even get a response, you can have the simulation carry on without any worry.

Titanfall managed to get away with AI-bots(autopilot Titans) in their game because their gameplay completely relies on a server authoritative method to serialize everything. Want to walk forward? Server says that's fine. Want to walk more forward? Well, server says that you're running into a wall at this position, but you can keep trying. DayZ would work fine, considering it completely relies on the server for persistence. WoW or EVE would be fine as well.

[Warsaw]

Titanfall's server-authoritative method is the only way this hybrid cloud is going to work.




They only matter for the actual rendering, which happens 60+ times a second and is done locally on the GPU so I still fail to see how the cloud would be of benefit.

A better way to look at it would be that your avatar is remotely controlled by you via the internet in the remotely calculated environment, and the console renders the textures or other bits that would be really hard to transmit over an internet connection without issues such as excessive popping. All the console is doing now is effectively drawing a matte painting over top of what would otherwise be a grey clay render (if even that) using the information contained in the packet to set the boundaries. It's not doing 3D. It doesn't have to figure out what the player's position is, where the lights are; it simply gets told all of that and executes the texture, which will be stored locally as a base and modified according to the lighting information received. Voxels might actually be a good fit for this, using the cloud information as a sort of skeleton to be magnetically attached to by the local hardware. Glorified pixel art, but damn pretty pixel art.

This may not work for fast-paced games at first, but that doesn't matter because not all games are fast-paced. They are not even all shooters.

This is, really, all uncharted territory. Even Microsoft themselves said they are excited to see what uses developers come up with for their new cloud services. I don't expect any current engine technologies to really be flexible with the cloud system. What I described above is most definitely not a conventional raster engine.

[Zeph]

That's not how it works with games now and would actually be a step back.
It's pretty much all or nothing.
Commit everything to the cloud (onLive failed miserably btw) or keep it to the local client.
It's not about where the processing power is, it's about how long away it is. That time is crucial.
OnLive got its funding as an IPO only because of their strict testing environment which pretty much equated to requiring your ISP to have direct backbone access to where their datacenters were.


Learn some cpp and start digging into an engine to get a better idea of how a game actually runs. Unity or CE3 should do.
As it stands, you say cloud without really comprehending the mechanics behind it.

[Warsaw]

Wall-o-text incoming:

Microsoft's new XBL cloud is a large number (300,000+) of servers using the Azure framework (I assume you know what that is) that are used to host your typical XBL features but are supposedly also capable of doing pretty much anything the developer asks Microsoft permission to do, i.e. streaming content. Events need to be synchronized between client and server, and you need a system in place to make the effects of latency invisible to the client; this generally involves compression and minimizing the amount of data that needs to be transmitted and synchronized by choosing what gets computed where. OnLive chose to have everything about the game computed on their side so all the user received were the audio and video streams while all OnLive had to receive were user inputs and ID checks. What Microsoft is proposing is that developers can split the computing task between two machines by intelligently choosing which tasks are capable of being done remotely with minimal impact by latency.

Did I miss anything? It's straight-forward enough. There are all those details of what to store where, which side performs what task, but that is all dependent on the task you are trying to perform.

I'm familiar with C++ and Python by necessity (yay school), enough to be able to follow what I'm looking at, though it's not my forté. I actually do understand the basics of how a current game works and is drawn; what I'm getting at, though, is that what you know about how a game currently works is not necessarily applicable to a game tailored to a hybrid remote-local computing solution. You could all but forget things like LOD if you offload to the remote render farms: you have your geometry calculated and rendered remotely with identifiers so your machine knows which textures to employ where and with what lighting so it can paint by numbers when it receives a video feed. It's 3D on the server's end, but all your machine is doing is largely 2D work. By removing the colour information from the transmission, you cut down on packet size; you could even let the 3D world have a low resolution and use the identifiers and 2D painting to mask it with the player none the wiser. It's a new concept (and I may actually have it backwards with which side does what), and that's really what makes this exciting: it's new territory. There is nothing on the market, to my knowledge, that can currently take advantage of this hybrid solution out of the box. Microsoft doesn't even have a system in mind, though it was them who said that it was capable of letting developers use their servers to offload some of the work (http://siliconangle.com/blog/2013/05/29/how-xbox-one-can-improve-performance-thanks-to-cloud-computing/). And, what's even better, is that what they suggest we can do with it now is not going to be all we can ever do; the console hardware is stuck at what it is while internet connections and the Xbox Live back-end can and will be constantly improving.

Really, the Xbox One is a much more exciting package than the PS4. Sure, Sony could theoretically do all of the above but from what I've read, they don't already have the software and hardware infrastructure in place to do anything like what Microsoft is suggesting the Xbox One can do. I, like you, prefer to have my games all rendered and stored locally, but that doesn't make the potential any less cool. Yes, it's more efficient to render everything server-side, but I think the hybrid idea they are putting forth is a way to get around the supposed bandwidth issue (also local storage/horsepower issues) and to slowly ease people into a world where all of their software is provided as a service. While I'm appalled at the latter thought, the former is neat.

By the way, OnLive also didn't really fail because of bandwidth issues (I tried it, it worked just fine), it failed because it didn't offer people anything that they couldn't already do at a price that made it worth switching. It wasn't convenient enough. Anybody who could afford a sub to OnLive, and didn't want to play on the PC, had a console already and with a larger library of games and no requirement to pay a recurring fee. It could have had a promising future on handheld mobile devices if carriers didn't all price their data rates through the stratosphere; I would have subbed for that (though I'd rather be able to stream games from my already capable home PC) and I loathe subscription-based business models.

[=sw=warlord]

There was a time people thought it wasn't feasible to put the memory controller on the CPU, there was also a time where people thought offloading the video processing to a dedicated controller was not worth it.
Both of those assumptions have since been proven wrong, with that I'm reasonably sure as connections speed up offloading work to "cloud" will be worth doing more and more.

[Skyline]

It's 3D on the server's end, but all your machine is doing is largely 2D work. By removing the colour information from the transmission, you cut down on packet size; you could even let the 3D world have a low resolution and use the identifiers and 2D painting to mask it with the player none the wiser. It's a new concept

You lose too much information if all your doing is sending 2D data to the client, paint by numbers isn't going to look good and you might as well just do the paint by numbers on the server which then just becomes another streaming service like onLive. Everything is pushing toward higher resolution why would you want to make it a lower resolution (will probably be worse off than the current generation).

[Cortexian]

Unless I can play without an always-on audio/visual recording device pointed at me I still won't even consider buying one.

[DEElekgolo]

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[Warsaw]

@Freelancer:
Well me neither, but still.

@Skyline:
Because your local hardware can't necessarily do high-resolution geometry AND high resolution textures AND high fidelity lighting, that's why. The numbers can be more or less densely packed, and you'd have an algorithm that smooths out the final image. The whole point is that you transmit only the bare minimum information needed to draw that 2D image; but you first need to calculate the detailed image before you can decide where to put your info points. This is why I said voxels (which I still maintain are an illusion) might become a thing again. I've seen voxel animation, and the only reason it looked bad was because the game came out in the mid-90s and PCs simply didn't have the horsepower. We now have the horsepower.

[Phopojijo]

Going back to "cloud processing", you could also do things like re-render cubemaps or lightmaps while destruction happens and blast them out to all applicable clients before they're needed.

The problem is that most of this stuff could have just been crammed in spare cycles of a few light-load frames. I don't know...

[Warsaw]

It's all about the detail. If you cram it into the spare cycles during a light load frame, you have to make do with whatever elbow room you have at that moment so you lower your fidelity target as a precaution against overreaching. If you offload it, latency becomes your main concern but that's far more consistent than the local hardware's dynamic load. You can therefore potentially set your targets higher and even scale them with the connection speed.

[Dwood]

Personally I think the bandwidth will only really be able to be sustained by ridiculous services such as google fiber. HOORAY Google fiber.