MS Hints At Scorpio Being Cheaper Than People Think

[Pemalite]

Azuren said:

Soundwave said:

Dreamcast wasn't backed by MS' $$$. Besides Dreamcast was great. That was a monstrous upgrade over the PS/N64. Sega just ran out of money, which isn't going to happen to Microsoft. 

Did I say it will be the end of Xbox? Silly me, there I go again, saying things I didn't say.

Dreamcast adopted new technology too fast and tried to come out too early. Waiting a year and adopting DVD and better hardware would have been a game-changer for Sega, and they probably wouldn't have been so thoroughly devastated by PlayStation.

I wouldn't say that.

Replace Sega with Microsoft and DVD with Blu-Ray... I don't think anyone could have toppled Playstation that generation though, Sony had all the brand and device recognition in their hat.

SvennoJ said:

method114 said:
I want to believe them but honestly I'm done listening to anything MS says. I'll wait until it's out and then we can see. They've just gone back on so much stuff the said this gen they can't be trusted IMO.

True, don't know why people think 12GB memory is confirmed either. All he said 384 GB/s. How do we know that's not some creative accounting again, like doubling the numbers for a theoretical optimal simultaneous read/write occurrence in esram, or even adding the bandwith of DDR3 together with esram bandwidth. The memory bandwidth of XBox One was all over the place.

I doubt it's "Creative accounting". - Microsoft will likely not wish to repeat those old mistakes.

If Microsoft does have a chunky amount of sram in the system again, it will likely not be relied upon to the same extent as prior consoles.

For 384GB/s of bandwidth they will likely be using GDDR5 clocked at 6ghz on a 512bit bus... In otherwords, it's going to be stupidly chunky.
Or if AMD is able to realise the "Doubling" that GDDR5X brings to the table over GDDR5, we could be looking at 12Ghz on a 256bit bus. (Hint: That's bigger than TitanX in terms of clock rate.)

Or you could be looking at 8Ghz if it has 12 memory chips on a 384bit memory bus. (AMD don't build configurations like this though.)

All require some pretty stupid levels of memory controller engineering and transister budget.

LurkerJ said:

Are they, really?

Pro will be one year old and probably cheaper than it is now. The lead PS4 family will have over the X1 family, by the time the scorpio releases, will be too big for the scorpio to mend, if it does any mending.

That's provided the Pro ends up being the run-away success many assume (Like myself) expect.

I'll personally be taking a wait-and-see approach though, but I don't expect Microsoft to beat Sony this generation in terms of device sales, that would be a fools game.

CGI-Quality said:
I get the enthusiasm for this machine, but it will be hard for me to justify a purchase without proper exclusives. I'm not worried about 4K nor UHD (the PC killed those needs), so I need to see what it offers that I cannot get anywhere else (and the games need to lead that charge).

The main attraction to me is I don't see it as a device that replaces my PC, I just see it as another device where I can play similar games I enjoy on PC.

I like the idea of buying one game and playing it on the go with a Surface tablet... Or coming home firing up the old PC with Eyefinity... Then later migrating to the lounge to play with family/friends... And all being the same game.

Of course we still aren't at that point yet where the walls between devices get completely smashed down, but one day I live in hope.

CGI-Quality said:

zero129 said:

To be honest i dont think this console is really made for us. We have PC's and we are already in MS's eco system.

But dang could you imagine if we didnt already own a PC and this thing launched for €400-450?. Id be all over it like hot cakes!.

Exactly! Without a PC, it would be all I talked about (as you know, I'm a sucker for powerful gaming machines). I actually prefer MS having a more powerful machine. It helped make the PS2/Xbox era a very, very interesting one!

It also allowed for console gamers to experience PC exclusives for the first time, like Elder Scrolls: Morrowind... Since then the franchise has been on the increase with millions of gamers everywhere getting a taste of it.

LivingMetal said:

Traditionally, we don't have mid-gen upgrades because console manufactures want to make money on their hardware by now.

This generation was a little different though, the hardware was mid-range, not class-leading, they were a little more cost sensitive this time around.

pray4mojo said:

Soundwave said:

MS could take a small loss on hardware I think. It's not a big deal in the long term, even $20/unit loss can get you a processor that's a definite notch better. 

I think the original Xbox lost something like $125.00 a unit when it came out so if they wanted to, they could easily make it a monster console and crush everyone else. They have the pocket depth to do it and have shown they aren't afraid.

Unfortunately Microsoft also has shareholders, they can't just throw billions at a problem and hope it goes away, shareholders tend to dislike that... And that does influence Microsoft's decisions.

The Xbox has also had a few murmours of being spun off and made seperate from microsoft as it is.

Shadow1980 said:
It'll probably cost $400 at launch, but MS will likely take a loss on it. A 6 TFLOP GPU is still pretty damn expensive, and while the cost will continue to drop (plus they probably get a discount for buying parts in bulk), the total cost to make each unit will probably still run them quite a bit.

GPU's of that caliber aren't actually that expensive. Nor are PC part prices representative of console costs anyway.
Polaris is mid-range, meant for good 1080P gaming, it's cheap. The step-up from that will be Vega... Which should be cheap in a years time for a moderately equipped chip.