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Forums - Microsoft Discussion - If XBX fails, what next?

EricHiggin on 25 July 2017
Pemalite said:
Mr Puggsly said:

Your examples are bad and no upgrade has ever been as significant or shown long term potential like the X1X. Like I said before, the specs upgrade is so significant that it should be able to handle 9th gen content fairly well. Especially if 9th gen hardware is a relatively modest upgrade at $399.

I dont think X1X is the the end for the X1 brand. Frankly, Sony and MS may both blur the lines of console generation.

The only major weakpoint that the Xbox One X has is that it's CPU is a generation or more behind what next gen will offer.
Keep in mind that Jaguar was AMD's slowest, cheapest, lowest-end CPU at a time when even AMD's highest-end CPU's were shit.
Zen is a massive improvement over Jaguar and it's cores are fairly small too.

It's hard to quantify the leap we are talking about here between Jaguar and Zen... It's like going from an OoO Atom which is Core 2 equavalent from a decade ago to a Core i5 Skylake of today.

Polaris is likely to age poorly as it's only mid-range and terribly inefficient, but it should still be pretty capable in 3+ years... It all comes down to how Microsoft intends to support Scorpio once next Gen starts, if they cut the support off at the knees like with the original Xbox... Then we will likely never see how well she can handle the next-gen transition.
Still, hope for the best, expect the worst, the industry is at it's best when all competitors are on equal footing, competition is glorious.

Ryzen is a huge improvement over AMD's prior high end CPU's, and thats as of right now. You also have to take into account that in 3-4 years time with the normal yearly incremental improvements, Ryzen should be miles ahead of Jaguar. Even though XB and PS have been using outdated tech, they like to incorporate new features from the newest tech if possible.

If what XB has managed to achieve with Jaguar in terms of offloading and efficiency, could handle 60fps locked at 4k, and they anticipate this will be able to compete with "PS5 and next gen games", you have to wonder whether or not PS would try and immitate this hardware design for another PS4 or PS5 at 7nm. While it wouldn't be the best decision in terms of tech, it would be in terms of business input costs as well as BC.

I would hope and assume that Ryzen is the next step for consoles, but with this business and marketing structure of more powerful, yet smaller/efficient hardware being sold at cost, which needs to hit an acceptable consumer price, I can't help but wonder.



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Mr_No on 25 July 2017

Ditch consoles and go on PC, all digital.



Pemalite on 25 July 2017
EricHiggin said:

Ryzen is a huge improvement over AMD's prior high end CPU's, and thats as of right now. You also have to take into account that in 3-4 years time with the normal yearly incremental improvements, Ryzen should be miles ahead of Jaguar. Even though XB and PS have been using outdated tech, they like to incorporate new features from the newest tech if possible.

If what XB has managed to achieve with Jaguar in terms of offloading and efficiency, could handle 60fps locked at 4k, and they anticipate this will be able to compete with "PS5 and next gen games", you have to wonder whether or not PS would try and immitate this hardware design for another PS4 or PS5 at 7nm. While it wouldn't be the best decision in terms of tech, it would be in terms of business input costs as well as BC.

I would hope and assume that Ryzen is the next step for consoles, but with this business and marketing structure of more powerful, yet smaller/efficient hardware being sold at cost, which needs to hit an acceptable consumer price, I can't help but wonder.

Zen's CPU cores are tiny. So there is no reason not to use them next generation from a cost perspective. So that is a plus.
We might see some cutbacks/changes to the cache hierachy, which is normal.
Even then, I would assume next-gen uses Zen+ rather than Zen anyway, which should bring with it a myriad of improvements where Ryzen currently is lacking.

Xbox One X though isn't going to be a 4k, 60fps machine... I called it before the console was even a rumor, same with the Playstation 4 Pro. - Jaguar is partly at fault for that, but the biggest culprit is that GPU, which prevents many games from hitting that 4k target.
The console is only using mid-range PC hardware... And if that hardware can't hit 4k on PC reliably, then it certainly can't on Xbox.

The Xbox One's GPU is however well suited to 1440P, 60fps... Then you can use frame reconstruction/checkerboard/upscaling to hit that 4k target, which should be fine for this generation.

I would be interested to see where Microsoft and Sony take their Ram next generation, we will have GDDR6 on the market which is likely the logical choice, but HBM2 should be out in force as well.
Will they opt for 32GB? Split pools to keep costs in control?



--::{PC Gaming Master Race}::--

Mr Puggsly on 26 July 2017
Shadow1980 said:
Mr Puggsly said:

Generational leaps arent as significant as they used to be. Console manufactuers arent taking big risks on hardware so the upgrades arent as significant. I mean this midgen upgrade thus far is more polished games at a high price. The 9th gen era stuff isnt gonna huge at $399, X1X is apparently sold at a loss at $499.

The leaps from the PS3 & 360 to the PS4 & XBO was bigger than the leap from the XBO to the X1X. A lot bigger than it would seem if you just focus on GPU power. 16 times more RAM (same difference proportionally between the 360/PS3 and PS2), and better & faster RAM to boot, plus better CPUs. The Pro & X1X have the same CPUs as the base models, just with improved clock speed, and as for memory, the Pro has the same amount and kind as the base PS4, just a bit faster, while the X1X has 50% more RAM (though it's now the same kind used in the PS4 family).

Relative to each other, the difference between the Pro and X1X is about the same as that between the base PS4 & XBO.

The handheld market is very different and primarily controlled by Nintendo. So I'm not gonna bother discussing that.

You just want to dodge the issue. Handhelds may be different in terms of power and form factor, but they are still "consoles" and the market follows the same basic "rules of sales" that home systems do. They respond to price cuts and improvements to form factor in the same way.

You're solely looking at trends which of consoles in the past.

You can learn a lot from history. Looking at past sales patterns can give us a good idea on how things can affect current generations of systems. To date, we've seen no real changes in the "rules of sales" I mentioned.

While the MS appears to be considering iPhones and PCs. Incremental upgrades versus starting fresh with each generation. The mid gen upgrades show things are different now and MS may lean into it.

The only thing different now is the advent of 4K TVs. That is the primary reason the Pro and X1X exist. Spec upgrades to existing platforms are nothing new. Even if technological advancement is slowing, the mid-gen upgrades for the PS4 & XBO are relatively minor overall, with the only really notable jump being GPU power, which is going entirely to resolution and/or framerate boosts. It's nowhere close to a generational leap. To claim otherwise is to vastly overstate the capabilities of the Pro and X1X.

The leaps in specs are slowing down in the console arena. The 8th gen consoles were a big upgrade but that was after about 8 years and no mid gen upgrade. Again, keep your expectations low for 9th gen specs if the X1X is sold at a loss at $499.

The handheld console market is just different and I will continue to ignore it. Its mostly been cheap junk spec wise, while Switch is somewhat cutting edge compared to 240p 3DS.

You can't necessarily look to history when things are changing and consoles are basically PCs now. Even the 7th gen was historically unusal given how long it was, sales were strong throughout the gen, and they're still active platforms. Many 7th gen games still have people playing online.

The X1X is a much more significant upgrade over the Pro. The GPU is getting the most attention, but here is also much more RAM for games, and a custom CPU that should be more efficient. That will go a long way if the plan is to keep X1X around in the 9th gen.



Recently Completed: 
River City: Rival Showdown for 3DS (3/5) - River City: Tokyo Rumble for 3DS (4/5) - Zelda: BotW for Wii U (5/5) - Zelda: BotW for Switch (5/5) - Zelda: Link's Awakening for Switch (4/5) - Rage 2 for X1X (4/5) - Rage for 360 (3/5) - Streets of Rage 4 for X1/PC (4/5) - Gears 5 for X1X (5/5) - Mortal Kombat 11 for X1X (5/5) - Doom 64 for N64 (emulator) (3/5) - Crackdown 3 for X1S/X1X (4/5) - Infinity Blade III - for iPad 4 (3/5) - Infinity Blade II - for iPad 4 (4/5) - Infinity Blade - for iPad 4 (4/5) - Wolfenstein: The Old Blood for X1 (3/5) - Assassin's Creed: Origins for X1 (3/5) - Uncharted: Lost Legacy for PS4 (4/5) - EA UFC 3 for X1 (4/5) - Doom for X1 (4/5) - Titanfall 2 for X1 (4/5) - Super Mario 3D World for Wii U (4/5) - South Park: The Stick of Truth for X1 BC (4/5) - Call of Duty: WWII for X1 (4/5) -Wolfenstein II for X1 - (4/5) - Dead or Alive: Dimensions for 3DS (4/5) - Marvel vs Capcom: Infinite for X1 (3/5) - Halo Wars 2 for X1/PC (4/5) - Halo Wars: DE for X1 (4/5) - Tekken 7 for X1 (4/5) - Injustice 2 for X1 (4/5) - Yakuza 5 for PS3 (3/5) - Battlefield 1 (Campaign) for X1 (3/5) - Assassin's Creed: Syndicate for X1 (4/5) - Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare for X1 (4/5) - Call of Duty: MW Remastered for X1 (4/5) - Donkey Kong Country Returns for 3DS (4/5) - Forza Horizon 3 for X1 (5/5)

Mr Puggsly on 26 July 2017
Pemalite said:
Mr Puggsly said:

While I agree the Jaguar CPUs are relatively weak, they are also better then theyre given credit for. Also, most games arent extremely CPU intensive unless its a game pushing heavy physics, which can be scaled back for a modest CPU.

Oh. They are weak. Super weak. They alleviated how bad they are by increasing core counts, but even that can only take you so far.

Mr Puggsly said:

The X1X has a pretty significant speed boost and its a custom CPU that can apparently do more work with less overhead. I'm curious to see how that works in practice.

The CPU isn't really "Custom" it's still an x86 processor based upon Jaguar. - What Microsoft has done is made that pathetic CPU do less work by offloading some tasks onto the GPU, lightening up the API and being generally smarter with how they use their limited resources.

And that is the right approach without blowing out costs. Jaguar is a small CPU-Die, it's cost effective and cheap, not high-performing, and that is okay for today, it's good enough when the Playstation 4 is the lowest common denominator in regards to CPU performance.

Mr Puggsly said:

I feel like giving X1X all this extra power was pointless if its not going to be around for the 9th gen. At that rate they should have aimed for $399 and just have a GPU edge. The X1X feels like a more long term plan.

The X1X has a pretty significant speed boost and its a custom CPU that can apparently do more work with less overhead. I'm curious to see how that works in practice.

Yes and no. I mean, even if it doesn't get a good transition into 9th gen... It's main point is being able to play the Original Xbox, Xbox 360 and Xbox One games at their maximum resolution and framerates anyway.
Games that are 720P, 30fps will still be 720P and 30fps on the Xbox One X, but at-least there will be no variability in their framerate and frame pacing.

Games that employ a dynamic resolution and uncapped framerate will be the largest beneficiaries, being able to run at their maximum resolution and framerate. (I.E. 1080P, 60fps for Overwatch, Battlefield 1 etc'.)

The amount of games that will push the Xbox One X to it's limits and show us a new degree of fidelity will be a rare occurance, it's main game library will be sourced from the Original Xbox, Xbox 360 and Xbox One. But it will also be the best place to play those games... And that is why I am going to be the first in line to pre-order one.

Mr Puggsly said:

I feel like giving X1X all this extra power was pointless if its not going to be around for the 9th gen. At that rate they should have aimed for $399 and just have a GPU edge. The X1X feels like a more long term plan.

In the context of things, the Xbox One X is not powerful. Power is all relative though.
Next to the Xbox One, Playstation 4 and Nintendo Switch, the power gap is massive.
Next to the Playstation 4 Pro, the power gap is less impressive, but still impressive.

I am actually happy with the price though, it's what I expected in Australia, in-fact accounting for currency conversion it's slightly cheaper here than in the USA anyway. And that pleases me. Haha.

I am hoping for the best with the Xbox One X, but if it doesn't have much in the way of games that push the hardware, then I am also fine with that... It is worth the purchase for being the best place to play backwards compatabile games.

Regardless, it's not the hardware that is the issue anyway, it's the software. Microsoft has a solid OS with the Xbox One, it has solid hardware with the Xbox One X... And it has the best controllers in my opinion.
They just need to back it up with some new and super impressive games... Hopefully we see that in 2018 as 2017 is not a good year on that front.

I hear they're bad CPUs, but in practice do impressive stuff. If anything, it seems like the GPU that developers struggle with most often.

Well they're calling it a custom and it does appear to have unique features. How that works in practice though, we'll see. At the very least it's a considerably faster CPU.

X1X will improve all the old content via more stable performance and 16x AF, but they could have achieved that with a $399 console as well. I see the X1X $499 upgrade more of a long term plan, 9th gen support. Its possible that won't be feasible but I do believe that's being taken into consideration.

I get the X1X isn't cutting edge specs per se, its still an impressive piece hardware that should be able AAA content really well, even if the OG X1 and PS4 can't.

I'm confident MS is investing in notable software. More importantly though they also have great 3rd party support which is what primarily moves core consoles.



Recently Completed: 
River City: Rival Showdown for 3DS (3/5) - River City: Tokyo Rumble for 3DS (4/5) - Zelda: BotW for Wii U (5/5) - Zelda: BotW for Switch (5/5) - Zelda: Link's Awakening for Switch (4/5) - Rage 2 for X1X (4/5) - Rage for 360 (3/5) - Streets of Rage 4 for X1/PC (4/5) - Gears 5 for X1X (5/5) - Mortal Kombat 11 for X1X (5/5) - Doom 64 for N64 (emulator) (3/5) - Crackdown 3 for X1S/X1X (4/5) - Infinity Blade III - for iPad 4 (3/5) - Infinity Blade II - for iPad 4 (4/5) - Infinity Blade - for iPad 4 (4/5) - Wolfenstein: The Old Blood for X1 (3/5) - Assassin's Creed: Origins for X1 (3/5) - Uncharted: Lost Legacy for PS4 (4/5) - EA UFC 3 for X1 (4/5) - Doom for X1 (4/5) - Titanfall 2 for X1 (4/5) - Super Mario 3D World for Wii U (4/5) - South Park: The Stick of Truth for X1 BC (4/5) - Call of Duty: WWII for X1 (4/5) -Wolfenstein II for X1 - (4/5) - Dead or Alive: Dimensions for 3DS (4/5) - Marvel vs Capcom: Infinite for X1 (3/5) - Halo Wars 2 for X1/PC (4/5) - Halo Wars: DE for X1 (4/5) - Tekken 7 for X1 (4/5) - Injustice 2 for X1 (4/5) - Yakuza 5 for PS3 (3/5) - Battlefield 1 (Campaign) for X1 (3/5) - Assassin's Creed: Syndicate for X1 (4/5) - Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare for X1 (4/5) - Call of Duty: MW Remastered for X1 (4/5) - Donkey Kong Country Returns for 3DS (4/5) - Forza Horizon 3 for X1 (5/5)

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Errorist76 on 26 July 2017
pokoko said:
Xbox is still a brand with value in North America. The people where I work only talk about "playing Xbox". It's not like it's irredeemable.

When I remarked on my workplace being Xbox-land, my co-worker said, "Playstation is mostly just sports games." I'm not making that up. When I said something about Playstation having a lot of Japanese games, he just looked at me in confusion. He was probably thinking, "how could I play a game in Japanese, you idiot."

Anyway, that aside, Xbox is another gateway to Microsoft's ecosystem and they're not going to drop it anytime soon.

It's well known that the XBox is more of a console for the Trump voter dude-bro demographics. Hope I didn't insult you for your choice of a workplace though.



Errorist76 on 26 July 2017
Mr Puggsly said:
ThisGuyFooks said:

VERY unlikely (imo).

Unless the console manage to stay in the market for 9-10 years, i dont think it will touch X360 numbers.

If the X1X under delivers saleswise, it would accelerate the process of a successor.

Without games, the X1S basically already peaked.

Xbox is in serious need of Heavy Hitters.

Software moves Hardware for the masses.

Specs moves Hardware for the hardcore fans.

Again, X1/X1X primarily needs to maintain current sales.

 

No, that's not enough at all. ATM PS4 worldwide has a 3:1 even almost 5:1 sales ratio lately, compared to X1. They surely need to step up their game and that doesn't mean just selling another XBox to their hardcore fans. They need to aquire new buyers in order to stay relevant which is going to be quite a task looking at a 150+ price difference and a huge advantage concerning exclusive games the PS4(P) will have.

Imho they are a little bit too early...Sony imho played it wise to go the cheap route as not many people do have a 4K TV yet and a 350.- cheaper console by the same brand will play the same games. 



FinalFantasyXIII on 26 July 2017

It comes down to how many broke dick gamers we have. They have 1 sale coming their way on the XB1X



pokoko on 26 July 2017
Errorist76 said:
pokoko said:
Xbox is still a brand with value in North America. The people where I work only talk about "playing Xbox". It's not like it's irredeemable.

When I remarked on my workplace being Xbox-land, my co-worker said, "Playstation is mostly just sports games." I'm not making that up. When I said something about Playstation having a lot of Japanese games, he just looked at me in confusion. He was probably thinking, "how could I play a game in Japanese, you idiot."

Anyway, that aside, Xbox is another gateway to Microsoft's ecosystem and they're not going to drop it anytime soon.

It's well known that the XBox is more of a console for the Trump voter dude-bro demographics. Hope I didn't insult you for your choice of a workplace though.

What are you talking about?  About half of my coworkers are minorities, including most of the people I've heard talk about gaming.  You have a source for this or is it generalization based on hearsay?



EricHiggin on 26 July 2017
Pemalite said:

Zen's CPU cores are tiny. So there is no reason not to use them next generation from a cost perspective. So that is a plus.
We might see some cutbacks/changes to the cache hierachy, which is normal.
Even then, I would assume next-gen uses Zen+ rather than Zen anyway, which should bring with it a myriad of improvements where Ryzen currently is lacking.

Xbox One X though isn't going to be a 4k, 60fps machine... I called it before the console was even a rumor, same with the Playstation 4 Pro. - Jaguar is partly at fault for that, but the biggest culprit is that GPU, which prevents many games from hitting that 4k target.
The console is only using mid-range PC hardware... And if that hardware can't hit 4k on PC reliably, then it certainly can't on Xbox.

The Xbox One's GPU is however well suited to 1440P, 60fps... Then you can use frame reconstruction/checkerboard/upscaling to hit that 4k target, which should be fine for this generation.

I would be interested to see where Microsoft and Sony take their Ram next generation, we will have GDDR6 on the market which is likely the logical choice, but HBM2 should be out in force as well.
Will they opt for 32GB? Split pools to keep costs in control?

Well for cost I was thinking more along the lines of old tech vs new tech as well as demand. Jaguar should cost less than Ryzen up until AMD is sick of dealing with far outdated architecture, or until the demand for Ryzen dries up a little. If Ryzen sales are through the roof, AMD could have trouble finding a way to supply a Ryzen based chip for PS and XB, unless they use a different foundry again.

It does look like XB1X is going to be 4k/60 for first party titles mostly, and checkerboarding otherwise. How much of that is due to the hardware, API, and devs, will remain to be seen. It is hard to imagine XB1X being able to handle games that play 4k/60 on a Ryzen based PS5 down the road though. That's if PS shoots for 60fps. Who knows, PS might aim for a 4k/30 based Ryzen, which wouldn't make the XB1X seem quite as outdated as it would be otherwise.

RAM is a tough one. While an APU is still most likely, with rumors of separate chips, split pools might make more sense then. 4GB DDR4 (DDR5?) and 16GB GDDR6 maybe? AMD seems to be pushing HBM hard, but seeing if they incorporate HBM into Navi, Ryzen APU, and future designs, should be a good indicator if HBM is headed to console. What Nvidia does as well would even further give an idea of HBM's reach. Having HBM on the interposer with an APU would be fantastic for saving space inside the console allowing for an even smaller shell to add to the wow factor, as well as multiple cost savings. With Vega supposedly only having 8GB HBM, its really hard to say how much would be needed for a console in 2-3 years time. 16GB for the entire APU possibly?