Xbox One Console Discussion

[Cube]

Since we have a PS4 speculation thread, it only makes sense to have an Xbox 720 one.

 

I think it's safe to assume that it will come with Kinect 2.0 bundled in, and it wouldn't surprise me if all launch games had to use it.

 

There's also this concept Microsoft showed off:

 

 

Although this looks more like a possible accessory rather something that will be bundled in (as it would be usable in limited homes and looks expensive).

[Sheikah]

The best thing they can do is scrap the cost of Xbox live or at least give free games for the cost.

[Dcubed]

The best thing they can do is scrap the cost of Xbox live or at least give free games for the cost.

 

No chance. They'll subsidise the 720 by selling it on contract with a mandatory 2 years worth of XBLive...

[Daft]

Yeah, Xbox Live is not going free anytime soon. They make way too much money from it.

[Shorty]

This post from reddit sums up how I feel about next gen consoles in general :/

 

[Cube]

I highly doubt that the next consoles will support 4k. First of all, there's no buzz about it, probably because the general public don't want to upgrade their TV just because of the picture - remember, HDTVs came out while many people still had CRTs so you had other reasons (size, widescreen for some) to upgrade.

 

Also, what is going to be available in 4k? At the moment, anything in 4k would be too big for Blu-Ray. It would be too large to download (there's one documentary available in 4k that is 52 minutes long and 160GB - from quick calculations, this would be 8 90 minute films on a 2TB HDD and the Extended LotR would be around 2.2TB) and, obviously, too large to stream. I don't think broadcast TV is even 1080p. Games? Current consoles can't run many games in 1080p, and some (COD, Halo) shouldn't even be classed as HD. Sony have done a 4k example of GT5 using 4 PS3s to generate the image. I doubt the PS4 will be more than four times as powerful (as the 4k GT5 doesn't have any graphical or script improvements).

 

I doubt that 4k will be owned by many people by the end of the next console generation (about 6-8 years).

[Grazza]

I'm absolutely certain that 4K will take off, but only when it's the right price. Unlike 3D, there is no drawback, but it will definitely take longer into the console generation to take off than "HD Ready" did for the Xbox 360. As for how they will provide content for it... we'll see. The appropriate "Forum" must have planned for it.

 

That's a brilliant image though!

[Daft]

Does anyone reckon we should merge this and the PS4 thread? I posted something earlier in the PS4 one that's relevant to the 720 and having two threads kind of splits the discussion.

 

Maybe not, just thinking out loud.

[Shorty]

From a tidiness perspective, good idea. From an SEO perspective, I want two threads :p

[Cube]

From a tidiness perspective, good idea. From an SEO perspective, I want two threads :p

 

As we get more information on each one, we'll need separate threads anyway.

[Oxigen_Waste]

Having played 70% of this gen's output on the 360, I do believe I'll give the 720 a pass. I loved the 360 for it's controller and only it's controller. It was my multi platform console of choice because of that, but now that I have a good gaming PC (and that pretty much every multi platform release has 360 controller support on the pc) I think it's safe to say I won't be embarking on the 720 journey any time soon. I kinda like Gears, Fable and Halo, but when those (and Forza) are the only XBOX exclusive IPs I just don't see the point... The only 360 exclusive I can say I definitely loved was Shadow Complex, but buying a console for 1 game makes no sense. WiiU/PS4/PC all the way.

[Guy]

Some stuff I'd like from the NeXtbox are as follows:

 

- Same controller - it's perfect. More reliable play and charge batteries would be nice.

- Non-subscription online gaming unless we get something like PS+. Live should be cheaper and remove adverts. The number of ads on the dashboard currently is insulting.

- More emphasis on arcade. Xbox Arcade has been awesome, gotta keep it coming.

- Backwards compatible with 360 titles. It would be tragic for backwards compatibility to be phased out.

- Revised dashboard. The PS3 XMB is great, just copy that.

[Cube]

I actually love the idea of a subscription-based console. As in you sign up to Xbox Live for a couple of years and get the console at a much cheaper price.

[Shorty]

- Same controller - it's perfect. More reliable play and charge batteries would be nice.

Yknow what they could do, is use phone size lithium batteries with retractable USB cables... that would be awesome. Improve the D-Pad further still (just take the one from the dual shock ffs, it's not like you can patent 4 buttons in a + shape).

- More emphasis on arcade. Xbox Arcade has been awesome, gotta keep it coming.

Seems unlikely tbf. It's more likely they'll just blend with general downloadable games.

- Backwards compatible with 360 titles. It would be tragic for backwards compatibility to be phased out.

Backwards compatibility is something I'll really want, then I'll essentially have two Xboxes for system link play

- Revised dashboard. The PS3 XMB is great, just copy that.

I don't like the ad-ridden dash but I think the XMB is a step backwards. Something more like Steam Big Picture would be better.

[Cube]

(just take the one from the dual shock ffs, it's not like you can patent 4 buttons in a + shape).

 

Nintendo have a parent on their D-pad design...

 

I don't like the ad-ridden dash but I think the XMB is a step backwards. Something more like Steam Big Picture would be better.

 

Agreed. The XMB is extremely outdated. The old Xbox dashboard (the "planet" one) has been the best so far.

[Dcubed]

Nintendo have a parent on their D-pad design

 

Had a patent you mean. It has expired now, which is why Sony stole the internal design for the Vita's D-pad (It's also the reason why it's much better than any previous PS D-pad too!)

 

BTW, seems like the full specs have leaked!

 

http://www.vgleaks.com/world-exclusive-durango-unveiled/

 

As we promised during the weekend in the next weeks we will unveil Durango and Orbis. All the technical info you want to know about the next generation machines from Sony and Microsoft.

 

The first one is Durango. In this article we present the system overview with the general components and some technical details about them.

 

How are durango components connected?

 

Here you can see the Durango system block diagram:

 

Durango Arquitecture

 

 

 

Let’s check what’s inside the box:

 

CPU:

 

- x64 Architecture

 

- 8 CPU cores running at 1.6 gigahertz (GHz)

 

- each CPU thread has its own 32 KB L1 instruction cache and 32 KB L1 data cache

 

- each module of four CPU cores has a 2 MB L2 cache resulting in a total of 4 MB of L2 cache

 

- each core has one fully independent hardware thread with no shared execution resources

 

- each hardware thread can issue two instructions per clock

 

GPU:

 

- custom D3D11.1 class 800-MHz graphics processor

 

- 12 shader cores providing a total of 768 threads

 

- each thread can perform one scalar multiplication and addition operation (MADD) per clock cycle

 

- at peak performance, the GPU can effectively issue 1.2 trillion floating-point operations per second

 

High-fidelity Natural User Interface (NUI) sensor is always present

 

Storage and Memory:

 

- 8 gigabyte (GB) of RAM DDR3 (68 GB/s)

 

- 32 MB of fast embedded SRAM (ESRAM) (102 GB/s)

 

- from the GPU’s perspective the bandwidths of system memory and ESRAM are parallel providing combined peak bandwidth of 170 GB/sec.

 

- Hard drive is always present

 

- 50 GB 6x Blu-ray Disc drive

 

Networking:

 

- Gigabit Ethernet

 

- Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi Direct

 

Hardware Accelerators:

 

- Move engines

 

- Image, video, and audio codecs

 

- Kinect multichannel echo cancellation (MEC) hardware

 

- Cryptography engines for encryption and decryption, and hashing

 

 

The specs seem surprisingly modest actually! Doesn't seem that far ahead of the Wii U really... (and quite a bit behind the PS4 in terms of GPU grunt - though they seem to share the exact same CPU)

 

It's actually quite refreshing to see a non-Nintendo console manufacturer not go overboard with the hardware spec! Including a Kinect 2.0 and a hard drive in every model (as is suggested by these specs) no doubt have eaten into the console's silicon budget...

 

The gap between the PS4 and 720 should make ports very interesting.

 

It having a WiFi direct chip is also very nice. It means that it'll be able to connect to wireless devices locally while also being able to stay connected to the Internet over WiFi at the same time (Wii U has a WiFi Direct chip as well BTW)

 

Also a HDMI in!? I smell DVR functionality! (As I had foreseen many moons ago :p)

Edited January 21, 2013 by Dcubed

[The Bard]

Having played 70% of this gen's output on the 360, I do believe I'll give the 720 a pass. I loved the 360 for it's controller and only it's controller. It was my multi platform console of choice because of that, but now that I have a good gaming PC (and that pretty much every multi platform release has 360 controller support on the pc) I think it's safe to say I won't be embarking on the 720 journey any time soon. I kinda like Gears, Fable and Halo, but when those (and Forza) are the only XBOX exclusive IPs I just don't see the point... The only 360 exclusive I can say I definitely loved was Shadow Complex, but buying a console for 1 game makes no sense. WiiU/PS4/PC all the way.

 

I'm feeling a bit of PS3 envy at the moment, wanting to play Ni No Kuni, God of War 3 and Uncharted. I stuck with the 360 this generation largely because at the beginning it had the best online infrastructure, and I used to play online with friends a fuckton. There's also the fact that it pretty much was always a better bet for multiplatform titles and had a much more comfortable controller, with offset analogue sticks (which I super hope Sony consider for their rumoured controller revamp).

 

720 is probably a no go for me because of what is speculated about the system thus far - that a portion of it's processing power is going to be dedicated to some nebulous OS interface or function (that can only mean Kinect which I have zero interest in), its RAM is slow as fuck DDR3, GPU is a generation and several models below the mid tier 7870 I have in my PC at the moment, and the fact that I really don't want to have to pay £49.99 a year to get the most out of the console.

 

Microsoft's line on exclusives completely dwindled towards the late end of the cycle, although from what I understand they have been doing a lot towards building new first party studios - likely for a better push on exclusives next generation.

 

Part of the reason I want to go with the PS4 (even though the consoles look structurally very similar in that they both borrow even more from PC architecture than they did this generation) is the exclusives and the chance to play the games that I missed out on by not having a PS3 (that is, again, assuming that PS3 backwards compatibility isn't an issue).

[Choze]

The hdmi in and out thingy is interesting. Its like audio receivers in that regard where they can use an overlay on your tv. So when watching tv your xbox can mention someone is online , someone has sent an invite, download completed etc. while you are watching anything. This is probably what the new UI is.

 

Hardware is very very similar to the supposed PS4 specs. Bear in mind these are devkits and not final consoles. These can be off by quite an amount.

 

edit: 720 looks more powerful here unless i am missing something? Notably more RAM.

Edited January 21, 2013 by Choze

[Guy]

I'd be all for the PS3 successor next generation if the controller is sorted out.

 

Can't be dealing with the Dual Shocker unless I absolutely have to for those AAA exclusives.

[Daft]

 

Part of the reason I want to go with the PS4 (even though the consoles look structurally very similar in that they both borrow even more from PC architecture than they did this generation) is the exclusives and the chance to play the games that I missed out on by not having a PS3 (that is, again, assuming that PS3 backwards compatibility isn't an issue).

 

I'll eat my iPad if the PS4 is backward compatible. Not happening.

[The Bard]

I'll eat my iPad if the PS4 is backward compatible. Not happening.

 

For the sake of fuck. Well my budget this month requires me to choose between a PS3 and a record player. This is the kind of decision that pushes people to sucking dicks for a living.

[Sheikah]

I'll eat my iPad if the PS4 is backward compatible. Not happening.

 

What about download content though?

 

It would seem really odd to me if they blocked all the content we've been able to download so far (PS3 games, remade PS2 games, PS1 games). It would be like starting the store again from scratch if they wouldn't let it play these games.

 

Unless you mean only PS3 content would be blocked. But:

 

The only way that'd work is if they blocked playing PS3 discs. I'd imagine they'd still want to keep people buying PS3 games through the store. But given a Blu Ray player is a near certainty it wouldn't make much sense for them not to be able to play them. And for it to be able to play PS3 games that were downloaded it must be able to actually play PS3 content, so it should be able to play discs. Its not like the Vita where the actual hardware to play UMDs was no longer present.

 

To me it would seem an insult if everyone with a PS+ account could no longer download their content.

 

/complicated subject.

Edited January 21, 2013 by Sheikah

[Daft]

It's not about whether it can read the disk or not (and so being downloadable doesn't make a difference), the architecture of the PS3 is abnormal and Sony have chosen a much more conventional setup for the PS4, much like the Vita. I might be completely wrong but that makes BC very hard.

 

I doubt Sony would actively block anything, I just don't thing (like I said I could be wrong) that it's not a simple task.

 

I'd love to be wrong.

[Sheikah]

It's not about whether it can read the disk or not (and so being downloadable doesn't make a difference), the architecture of the PS3 is abnormal and Sony have chosen a much more conventional setup for the PS4, much like the Vita. I might be completely wrong but that makes BC very hard.

 

I doubt Sony would actively block anything, I just don't thing (like I said I could be wrong) that it's not a simple task.

 

I'd love to be wrong.

 

Can't they just put in whatever chip they did for the PS2 to additionally allow PS3 playback?

 

There was no incentive for them to keep the PS3 playing PS2 games (in fact they could make money by remaking them). But here they could keep giving people PS3 games through plus and making cash by continuously selling PS3 games on the store.

[Daft]

Yeah, I'm sure they could but, you know, that costs more money. Who knows? Hopefully that's what they do, but, pulling a random guess out my ass, I'd say that there was a 4% chance of that happening.