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Forums - Microsoft Discussion - IGN: Xbox 720 Will Be Six Times as Powerful as Current Gen

S.T.A.G.E. on 25 January 2012
happydolphin said:
S.T.A.G.E. said:
sales2099 said:
S.T.A.G.E. said:
I already know the hardware will be great. I want to know about the games.

Well rumors say that Rare, Turn 10 and Lionhead are all ready hard at work, so thats 3-4 games within the launch window. I say 4 because Rare could easily make 2 games since I seriously doubt Kinect Sports 1 and 2 took up much of their resources. 

But I suspect you want to know about its games in the same way that I want to know about PS4 games....so you can poke holes in them :P


I have absolutely nothing to worry about with Sony or Nintendo for launch titles. Microsoft wont be able to depend on third parties  like they did when there was no competition so they are the weakest link starting next gen if they have no Halo. They better come prepared. I can count on them for decent hardware, but games are always a worry. I will not be buying a launch console unless they shape up. PS4 isnt even a question and knowing the fact that Sony has party chat in mind for the Vita and the next console seals the deal for me. 

S.T.A.G.E., here is where your posts from the Microsoft IP thread are most powerful: in the context of a console launch.

But the uncertainty is as Millenium mentioned, what if the new studios provide those new IPs for the 720 launch. It's my understanding that the new studios will be working on A titles, as compared to AAA titles like Sony does (due to budget constraints and studio calibur discrepancies), but these would certainly satisfy the core at least for the first year, until the big guns are loaded (Halo, Fable, Forza). I also see some of the new studios at MS work on XBLA titles to diversify the already booming indie market even more.

Scenario 1) X720 has core and moderate offerings (games and value-adds) at launch.

Scenario 2) X720 only has interesting multiplats.

Though scenario 1 is more likely, even under scenario 2, with proper marketing, we know MS has learnt to excel but the question is will gamers bite? I would think so. Since they will see the new gen has arrived, they will reason that better games are on the horizon, and  bite. Regarding the core and graphical capabilities and all, if everything at least looks and feels "next gen" (new UI, branding, improved support HW), then they will also bite.

 

With that in mind, the Xbox720, along with kinect, has the leverage to attract the now booming casual crowd, and with such noise alert the moderate to see what the fuss is about, and bring awareness to the core offerings while no competition other than Wii U (wildcard), with Sony out of the picture in terms of next gen hardware. If priced reasonably, consumers will upgrade, otherwise they won't bother and continue to enjoy their 360s, much like some people continued on XP while Windows Vista came out. There are two outomes:

1) casuals upgrade to 720, causing an explosive sales curve.

2) casuals don't bite. If casuals don't bite, with little noise, the moderate probably won't bite, so the core will be adopting in year 1 with a traditional sales curve. Buyers are much more impatient nowadays, despite the weak economy. The core will bite. Since their faith is in MS, they will opt 720 over Wii U imho, unless the Wii U has made substancial headroom in its head start.

 

Here is another possibility. The PS3 aligns itself with the higher end, more in line with PC enthusiasts and cutting-edge afficionados by differentiating itself with cutting-edge graphics.

My two cents.

Most of what you're saying makes sense. Now add the scenario of Microsoft and Sony launching at the same time, with Wii U a year ahead. Lets see if this creates variation or pressure on Microsoft as opposed to this gen. I've thought of that, but also thought about the launch windows and who starts first, second and last, etc.



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Netyaroze on 25 January 2012

Hmm, 6 times ? hope thats not true. I had a bad feeling when the first rumors came up that MS wants to use a SOC right from the start.

6 times is pathetic. That would mean the same graphic with higher resolution and slightly better AA. It would be like a 1080p remake of todays games. No changes at all. Or they would give up on 1080p and make games in 720p benefit from the power increase.

Imo it should be atleast a 10 fold power increase. A 6670 in 2013 ? A 3 year old low end GPU.

I know consoles arent about graphics but they always reflected some progress and I am not satisfied with todays games for real progress there must be enough HP. If that rumor is true which I doubt I hope Sony doesnt do the same thing. This are the after effects of the Wii s success it seems, like I always feared.

I am probably one of the few who likes the power of PC and the comfort of consoles united in one box. Kinect 2 included is also something I dont like aside from the fact it drains computing power from the console (even if not used if the game has a Kinect functionality). I dont want to pay for something I dont want.

Just hope its not as bad as it looks right now (to me atleast).



z101 on 25 January 2012

I think if the Wii U provide some shooter games, like GTA and Call of Duty, the Xbox3 has a year after the Wii U launch no chance in the market.



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Netyaroze on 25 January 2012

Just looked up some informations on the 6670 its significantly weaker then a 5770 a 2009 Mid range GPU. 60 Euros in 2011 that means 25 bucks in 2013. This cant be real, the AMD claims of Avatar like graphics on 720 seem like delusional comments from a mentally sick person. And how are they going to even reach the 6 times more power with a 6670 based GPU.

If this is true and Sony doesnt include some Kinect like gadget for every console sold. They could end up making the only next gen console. Third Party games wouldnt benefit too much if they are multiplat. but Sony games would be a league of its own.

Also MS seems to want to compete with Nintendo directly. I cant see MS succeed if Nintendo gets all the same multiplats in similar graphic.



SvennoJ on 25 January 2012
HappySqurriel said:
SvennoJ said:

hat's why 6x is so underwhelming. The assets are already there on pc, higher res textures, longer draw distance, better lighting and shadows. Stuff that won't all be able to run on the 720 with only a 6x power increase. Thus no room for improvements.

A lot of things can improve gameplay and actually cost the same or less effort for artists. Real time dynamic lighting instead of pre-baked different time of day sets, improved physics instead of scripted events, more enemies on screen, longer draw distance less need of low lod models.

Being that my modest GPU (Radeon HD 5770) runs the vast majority of PC games at (or near) their highest level of detail, at a high resolution with a stable framerate, I think you're ovestating how much game developers are pushing PC hardware ... After all, the reason why so many reviewers are using resolutions like 2560x1600 in their benchmarks are because modern games do not push new GPUs hard enough to act as a reasonable benchmark.

When game engines become highly optimized to the GPUs in the next generation consoles, games will be able to do everything you're thinking of and more with a "6x" performance increase.

I hope you're right. I'm ready to see stampedes in RPGs like in the Lion king 18 years ago. Dynamic lighting and weather with pooling water and hydro planing in racing games. Real mud affecting the car depending on weather and realistic dust in rally games. Longer draw distances with better lighting so I can track someone from a distance with binoculars by following the light their torch gives off in the distance instead of relying on a quest marker. Same as following far away dust trails during day time and navigating by land marks.
Better fluid dynamics, actual flowing water. Turn from dust into a full rts god game.

I was referring to Witcher 2 with my statement. Does that run stable at 1080p at high detail on a 5770? It doesn't on my graphics card, yet the card is 5 years newer then the 360, with an i7 backing it up. For HD 5770 I also see reports of 30-60 fps @ 1280x1024 without ultra sampling, AA and depth of field. Not very promising for 1080p60 gameplay.

"When game engines become highly optimized to the GPUs in the next generation consoles, games will be able to do everything you're thinking of and more with a "6x" performance increase."

The thing is the engines are highly optimized right now on consoles. The first games won't be able to take advantage of the 6x power increase. Only after the engines get molded to the gpu you will see the full use of the new available resources. The 6x is an upper limit, not a base from which it only gets better as far as I understand it.



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HappySqurriel on 25 January 2012
SvennoJ said:
HappySqurriel said:
SvennoJ said:

hat's why 6x is so underwhelming. The assets are already there on pc, higher res textures, longer draw distance, better lighting and shadows. Stuff that won't all be able to run on the 720 with only a 6x power increase. Thus no room for improvements.

A lot of things can improve gameplay and actually cost the same or less effort for artists. Real time dynamic lighting instead of pre-baked different time of day sets, improved physics instead of scripted events, more enemies on screen, longer draw distance less need of low lod models.

Being that my modest GPU (Radeon HD 5770) runs the vast majority of PC games at (or near) their highest level of detail, at a high resolution with a stable framerate, I think you're ovestating how much game developers are pushing PC hardware ... After all, the reason why so many reviewers are using resolutions like 2560x1600 in their benchmarks are because modern games do not push new GPUs hard enough to act as a reasonable benchmark.

When game engines become highly optimized to the GPUs in the next generation consoles, games will be able to do everything you're thinking of and more with a "6x" performance increase.

I hope you're right. I'm ready to see stampedes in RPGs like in the Lion king 18 years ago. Dynamic lighting and weather with pooling water and hydro planing in racing games. Real mud affecting the car depending on weather and realistic dust in rally games. Longer draw distances with better lighting so I can track someone from a distance with binoculars by following the light their torch gives off in the distance instead of relying on a quest marker. Same as following far away dust trails during day time and navigating by land marks.
Better fluid dynamics, actual flowing water. Turn from dust into a full rts god game.

I was referring to Witcher 2 with my statement. Does that run stable at 1080p at high detail on a 5770? It doesn't on my graphics card, yet the card is 5 years newer then the 360, with an i7 backing it up. For HD 5770 I also see reports of 30-60 fps @ 1280x1024 without ultra sampling, AA and depth of field. Not very promising for 1080p60 gameplay.

"When game engines become highly optimized to the GPUs in the next generation consoles, games will be able to do everything you're thinking of and more with a "6x" performance increase."

The thing is the engines are highly optimized right now on consoles. The first games won't be able to take advantage of the 6x power increase. Only after the engines get molded to the gpu you will see the full use of the new available resources. The 6x is an upper limit, not a base from which it only gets better as far as I understand it.

Certainly, there are a handful of games like The Witcher 2 and Crysis 2 that push the limits of currently available hardware ... These games represent less than 1% of games that are currently being released for the PC.

With how little interest there is in pushing even very modest PC hardware at the moment, it would seem remarkably foolish to release the latest and greatest hardware in a console.



happydolphin on 25 January 2012
S.T.A.G.E. said:

Most of what you're saying makes sense. Now add the scenario of Microsoft and Sony launching at the same time, with Wii U a year ahead. Lets see if this creates variation or pressure on Microsoft as opposed to this gen. I've thought of that, but also thought about the launch windows and who starts first, second and last, etc.

Sounds good, thanks for replying.



crissindahouse on 25 January 2012
HappySqurriel said:
SvennoJ said:
HappySqurriel said:
SvennoJ said:

hat's why 6x is so underwhelming. The assets are already there on pc, higher res textures, longer draw distance, better lighting and shadows. Stuff that won't all be able to run on the 720 with only a 6x power increase. Thus no room for improvements.

A lot of things can improve gameplay and actually cost the same or less effort for artists. Real time dynamic lighting instead of pre-baked different time of day sets, improved physics instead of scripted events, more enemies on screen, longer draw distance less need of low lod models.

Being that my modest GPU (Radeon HD 5770) runs the vast majority of PC games at (or near) their highest level of detail, at a high resolution with a stable framerate, I think you're ovestating how much game developers are pushing PC hardware ... After all, the reason why so many reviewers are using resolutions like 2560x1600 in their benchmarks are because modern games do not push new GPUs hard enough to act as a reasonable benchmark.

When game engines become highly optimized to the GPUs in the next generation consoles, games will be able to do everything you're thinking of and more with a "6x" performance increase.

I hope you're right. I'm ready to see stampedes in RPGs like in the Lion king 18 years ago. Dynamic lighting and weather with pooling water and hydro planing in racing games. Real mud affecting the car depending on weather and realistic dust in rally games. Longer draw distances with better lighting so I can track someone from a distance with binoculars by following the light their torch gives off in the distance instead of relying on a quest marker. Same as following far away dust trails during day time and navigating by land marks.
Better fluid dynamics, actual flowing water. Turn from dust into a full rts god game.

I was referring to Witcher 2 with my statement. Does that run stable at 1080p at high detail on a 5770? It doesn't on my graphics card, yet the card is 5 years newer then the 360, with an i7 backing it up. For HD 5770 I also see reports of 30-60 fps @ 1280x1024 without ultra sampling, AA and depth of field. Not very promising for 1080p60 gameplay.

"When game engines become highly optimized to the GPUs in the next generation consoles, games will be able to do everything you're thinking of and more with a "6x" performance increase."

The thing is the engines are highly optimized right now on consoles. The first games won't be able to take advantage of the 6x power increase. Only after the engines get molded to the gpu you will see the full use of the new available resources. The 6x is an upper limit, not a base from which it only gets better as far as I understand it.

Certainly, there are a handful of games like The Witcher 2 and Crysis 2 that push the limits of currently available hardware ... These games represent less than 1% of games that are currently being released for the PC.

With how little interest there is in pushing even very modest PC hardware at the moment, it would seem remarkably foolish to release the latest and greatest hardware in a console.

no one is talking about realeasing the newest gpu with the next console (ok i would prefer that but this won't be possible) but we talk here about a gpu which isn't up to date anymore and the console will release in almost 2 years with a lifespan till the year 2020 or so...

and the only reason why not many pc games use the power like the witcher 2 is because xbox 360 and ps3 are the mainplatforms nowadays but this doesn't change the fact that there could be games like the witcher 2 en masse without problems of developement costs and when they can do it (the the witcher guys), others could do it as well then. they just don't sell enough games on pc but with sales like the console games we would have so many huge games graphically on pc! hell even the actual xbox 360 gpu today isn't weaker compared to actual pc gpu's than the 720 gpu will be compared to pc gpu's on release...but 360 is some years old now (not sure about this i really haven't much clue about the 360 gpu just saying how bad this gpu will be end 2013 and what a joke this gpu will be 2015 or even 2018)



SvennoJ on 25 January 2012
HappySqurriel said:

Certainly, there are a handful of games like The Witcher 2 and Crysis 2 that push the limits of currently available hardware ... These games represent less than 1% of games that are currently being released for the PC.

With how little interest there is in pushing even very modest PC hardware at the moment, it would seem remarkably foolish to release the latest and greatest hardware in a console.

Well that's because most games are made to work on consoles and pc. CD project is taking a long time to port the witcher 2 to the 360 because they focussed on pc first. And while Crysis 2 scales up nicely in graphics, the AI wasn't any better on the pc. There aren't many pc only high budget games left.

People don't upgrade pc hardware since developers don't make a lot of games that make use of it. Developers don't make a lot of games for advanced hardware since not many people have it. Somebody needs to break the status quo to move game development forward.
All the stuff I listed can easily be done on pc already, but no developer is going to put the effort in to release it to a small subset of gamers. The only thing the extra hardware gets you now is a few graphical upgrades, nothing that would make the gameplay different from a version that has to run on consoles.

Anyway advances in gameplay will come more from cpu power and especially memory. You can always render a little less detail but to do a full scale from dust game or have naturally behaving flocks/hordes/destruction/fluids you definately need the memory and cpu power to back it up.



Solid-Stark on 25 January 2012

Not sure why people are disappointed by "6x". Thats perfect for games at native 1080 with decent settings, not to mention a price of $350-$400.



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