Report- MS working on 2 next-gen Scarlett family consoles for release Holiday 2020, handheld gaming peripherals with Razer

[DonFerrari]

shikamaru317 said:

Random_Matt said:

That's not how development works, PC has had this problem for a long time. Unless porting goes backwards, as in game gets made from the ground up on the the most powerful HW first, then the problem will continue. Porting always goes foward, made on the cheapest crap first.

You seem to be missing the point. If both Lockhart and Anaconda were aiming for the same resolution, either 1080p or 4k, then yes, Lockhart would definitely hold back Anaconda (and PS5 when it comes to multiplats), but that doesn't seem to be the case. Based on the rumored specs for the 2 consoles, Anaconda is actually more likely to hold back graphics than Lockhart is. Let me explain why:

To make this comparison simple, I'm going to compare GPU's only using flops, even though flops aren't the best indicator of real world performance and even though there are other factors to consider like RAM amount and speed and CPU power. Lockhart is likely aiming for 1080p, much like PS4 did this gen.

PS4- 1.8 tflops
Lockhart- 6 tflops at least, possibly more

That means that Lockhart has roughly 3x more graphical horsepower (on paper) to go towards improving graphics at 1080p compared to PS4.

Anaconda meanwhile is aiming for native 4k/60 fps according to rumors. XB1 X also aims for native 4k, but often fails to hit it, and it only aims for 30 fps most of the time, not 60 fps

XB1 X- 6 tflops

Anaconda- ~12 tflops (rumored)

That means that Anaconda has roughly 2x more graphical horsepower (on paper) compared to it's closest current-gen competitor, compared to 3x more for Lockhart versus it's closest current gen competitor. And not all of that 2x extra power is going towards improving graphics, some of it will go towards hitting native 4k and some of it will go towards hitting 60 fps, unless of course devs are willing to sacrifice native 4k/60 fps and go with a lower resolution like 1800p or 30 fps. 

So, Anaconda is actually more likely to hold back graphics than Lockhart is, simply because native 4k/60 fps is very demanding. 

Sorry but Anaconda being 2x more powerfull than Lockhart won't have Lockhart games 1080p30fps being run 4k60fps.

shikamaru317 said:

DonFerrari said:

If you think MS is counting on the bread and butter being the lower cost and performance, why would they have to be sure they have an option that is more powerful than the PS, plus counting on the public buying for the fullHD TV while PS5 could potentially meet both markets and have options to increase IQ on FullHD?

Like your points are a little contradicting. Or MS just want it for bragging rights because they think they won't win sales wise? (MS have talked more about the power of X1 and Cloud than Sony have ever talked on the power of PS4).

Because power often matters most to hardcore gamers while price often matters most to casual gamers. They want to have the cheapest console to win the casual market and the most powerful console to win the hardcore market. Hard to say rather or not the strategy will pay off in the end vs PS5 likely taking a middle of the road approach in both power and price. Will be an interesting gen to watch for sure. 

And as explained neither did X1X won the most hardcore (unless these amount to Pyrrhic win, since it can't sell more than even PS4Pro), nor X1 being regularly 100 less won the most cost sensitive.

But anyway. As I put, that still doesn't warranty MS will have the most powerful HW. If you said "MS is probably aiming to have the strongest" I would have no ground to disagree, but you are giving a level of certain that would only be possible if first you worked at a very high position in MS and second MS had access to privileged information on Sony (which mind you would be illegal).