Xbox One - General Discussion (NO DISCUSSION REGARDING PS4 - MOD WARNING Post 6903)

Pushtrak

DirectX 11.2 going to Windows 8.1 and Xbox One.

CatInABox

2Mad2BeMad wrote: »

probably because they dont know if it will work yet
if they announce it, say it works, then it comes to launch day and it doesnt work their would be uproar :pac: last thing microsoft need is more bad rep

Yes, Microsoft hasn't exactly been clear on any of their plans for the Xbox One, which I feel has been their main problem.

I'm still amazed that a company as large and experienced as Microsoft has made such rudimentary mistakes in communication. If you are going to communicate a large change, then your message must be polished to perfection, something that Microsoft has singularly failed to do.

Even now, with this build announcement, we see Microsoft hint at the future of what one of their main pillars is going to be, and instead of being clear, their main audience(developers) is left wondering what the coding gap between the various Microsoft platforms is going to be.

FlyingIrishMan

stevenmu wrote: »

This could be the big one: Microsoft teases Windows 8 apps on Xbox One, says devs get a 'head start' by building now.

If they do this properly, and it's open for anyone to build apps and deploy them to the marketplace, like you an now with Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8, this could be the biggest thing in consoles in a long time.

I don't know why Microsoft are keeping this so quiet, it would make the Xbox One an insta-buy for me. I've been expecting them to announce this for ages, and lost hope when there wasn't a big session on it at Build, so I'm a little sceptical now that they're only teasing it, but if they go all in on this it could be huge.

Because there aren't any good windows 8 apps. :pac:

TNT2k_

FlyingIrishMan wrote: »

Because there aren't any good windows 8 apps. :pac:

There aren't any apps full stop :pac:

gizmo

Hmm, they also announced Unity support for both the 360 and XBox One with the apparent caveat that you should be a MGS published game. Not really sure what the point of that is. What about games published by third parties? Do they have not have access to that build? It's also a bad sign for self-publishing since Unity would be one of the go-to engines for a bunch of new devs.

The Windows 8 apps on XBox One is slightly less ambiguous to be fair, Guggenheimer did say that the best path for devs is to develop Windows 8 apps which narrows down the technologies one can use considerably, i.e. WinRT-based. The move also makes sense given their desire to have the console as the hub in the living room, as others have said though, I'm just surprised they haven't made mention of it before. I understand BUILD is the first developer-orientated conference since the reveal but it could have been at least touched upon earlier.

Underpaid Mike

A new image that seems taken from the Microsoft official store has leaked, apparently showing that the company is planning to announce and then launch a Basic Edition of the Xbox One, which will sell for 379.99 dollars or Euro.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Xbox-One-Basic-Edition-Will-Drop-Kinect-Sell-for-379-99-Dollars-or-Euro-Report-363713.shtml

Seems a little bit of a stretch to say the least

Newaglish

Underpaid Mike wrote: »

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Xbox-One-Basic-Edition-Will-Drop-Kinect-Sell-for-379-99-Dollars-or-Euro-Report-363713.shtml

Seems a little bit of a stretch to say the least

I doubt that Microsoft would phrase the advert as "Now Available without Kinect"

gizmo

Hmm, according to Eurogamer, the add-on for Windows 8/Store Apps for Unity is going to be made available for free for Unity Pro users on the Asset store. While that's pretty good news for current platforms, it also bodes well for the future policy changes as it means that the turnaround time for Win8 apps (or games in this case) for the console should be relatively short also.

On the other hand there are a lot of indies who stick with Unity Free so it would require them investing ~$1500 in Pro to take advantage of it. Should be interesting to see how this develops anyway.

Stone Deaf 4evr

Underpaid Mike wrote: »

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Xbox-One-Basic-Edition-Will-Drop-Kinect-Sell-for-379-99-Dollars-or-Euro-Report-363713.shtml

Seems a little bit of a stretch to say the least

I think that was confirmed as fake yesterday

ShadowHearth

Underpaid Mike wrote: »

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Xbox-One-Basic-Edition-Will-Drop-Kinect-Sell-for-379-99-Dollars-or-Euro-Report-363713.shtml

Seems a little bit of a stretch to say the least

99% it's fake. Though if it would be true, then most likely I would pick up Xbox one on launch too. 380eu for Xbox one would be more fair price compared to what you can get for 400eu from Sony.

Captain Chaos

ShadowHearth wrote: »

99% it's fake. Though if it would be true, then most likely I would pick up Xbox one on launch too. 380eu for Xbox one would be more fair price compared to what you can get for 400eu from Sony.

Don't know about that. Take into account all the value of that free PS+ content, MS can't compete with that.

If MS did release the X1 without Kinect for around €400 I would get it at launch along with the PS4 though.

stevenmu

gizmo wrote: »

Hmm, they also announced Unity support for both the 360 and XBox One with the apparent caveat that you should be a MGS published game. Not really sure what the point of that is. What about games published by third parties? Do they have not have access to that build? It's also a bad sign for self-publishing since Unity would be one of the go-to engines for a bunch of new devs.

More info: http://blogs.unity3d.com/2013/06/27/build-conference/

It looks like developers working with Microsoft Games Studios get Unity Pro and Xbox One publishing for free. Unity Pro will get Xbox One publishing free of charge so any developers who pay for Unity Pro get that. I'm not sure what the story is for Unity Free, they explicitly mention a "Windows Store Pro publishing add-on", so I don't know if there's an scope for a free version of that.


But it does sound like there will be a completely open store/marketplace.

gizmo

stevenmu wrote: »

More info: http://blogs.unity3d.com/2013/06/27/build-conference/

It looks like developers working with Microsoft Games Studios get Unity Pro and Xbox One publishing for free. Unity Pro will get Xbox One publishing free of charge so any developers who pay for Unity Pro get that. I'm not sure what the story is for Unity Free, they explicitly mention a "Windows Store Pro publishing add-on", so I don't know if there's an scope for a free version of that.


But it does sound like there will be a completely open store/marketplace.

Unity Pro users get the Windows Store Module for free according to that link. That'll be grand for the Windows Store app side of things at least. In terms of games published by XBox One that seems to be covered by the line: "...developers who build games published by Microsoft Studios get the tools for both Xbox 360 and Xbox One free of charge."

That's a little bit more open ended at least, dealing mainly with the cost of the tools rather than restrictions using them. Then again, Unity themselves would be careful not to comment on MS policies so I'd wait from some form of FAQ from them before commenting on how open the marketplace will be.

stevenmu

gizmo wrote: »

That's a little bit more open ended at least, dealing mainly with the cost of the tools rather than restrictions using them. Then again, Unity themselves would be careful not to comment on MS policies so I'd wait from some form of FAQ from them before commenting on how open the marketplace will be.

Good point, I did confuse the Windows Store add on with publishing for the Xbone. I do think/hope that they will be the same thing, but they haven't made that totally clear yet.

I suppose they haven't been very clear about everything else, so why break the habit now.

evolutionqy7

TNT2k_ wrote: »

There aren't any apps full stop :pac:

There nearly 100k apps in the store...Half of them are rubbish just as on other marketplaces. Others peoples crap is gold for others...

Just because it doesn't suit you...

TNT2k_

evolutionqy7 wrote: »

There nearly 100k apps in the store...Half of them are rubbish just as on other marketplaces. Others peoples crap is gold for others...

Just because it doesn't suit you...

I was taking the piss, relax

If it's anything like windows 8 mobile App Store though, then it is pretty poor compared to both android and ios.

pleasant Co.

As a wp8 user I'm not brimming with confidence or expectation

Pushtrak

Haven't read this yet, posting first: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-xbox-one-memory-better-in-production-hardware

stevenmu

Having the Xbox to target should attract a ton of developers, which may in turn actually improve the Windows 8 and WP 8 app stores as well.

Stone Deaf 4evr

Pushtrak wrote: »

Haven't read this yet, posting first: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-xbox-one-memory-better-in-production-hardware

That can only be good news.

Stone Deaf 4evr

http://news.xbox.com/2013/06/ent-time-warner

If they can do something similar with sky over here, it could be a major deal.

TNT2k_

Pushtrak wrote: »

Haven't read this yet, posting first: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-xbox-one-memory-better-in-production-hardware

Sniggered at this comment

Director: "What is the throughput?"
Engineer: "102GB/s"
/SLAP
Director: "Try again"
Engineer: /sniff "176GB/s?"
Director: "Nearly. Have one more go."
Engineer: "Err, 1..9..2GB/s?"
Director: "That's better. You can stay."

Many are being cynical that all of a sudden this is being discovered, kinda along the lines of "the power of the cloud makes the X1 8x more powerful" claim they also made, but if this is true, then multiplatform games will only benefit from it on both consoles as it won't be held back by it's weakest denominator as much as before.
That and Microsoft's policy that all multiplats mustn't be superior on the competing system or they won't allow it on their console won't hinder the PS4 version as much either.

Pushtrak

http://www.oxm.co.uk/57309/xbox-one-exec-says-sony-ps4-tech-specs-are-meaningless-games-more-important/

Asked whether he was cautious of comparisons with PS4 by our editor Jon Hicks, Penello pointed out that few players really buy consoles for the specs alone. "The problem is that Sony decided to go out and publish a bunch of numbers, which are in some ways meaningless," he told us. "Because this isn't like 1990, when it was 16-bit versus 32-bit.

"As a matter of fact," he continued, "they actually go out and they talk about how proud they are about their off-the-shelf parts. Our guys'll say, we touched every single component in the box and everything there is tweaked for optimum performance."

"For me, I'd rather not even have the conversation, because it's not going to matter," Penello went on. "The box is going to be awesome. The games are going to be awesome. I heard this exact same argument last generation and it's a pointless argument, because people are debating things which they don't know about. They're not [head silicon engineer] Nick Baker or [corporate vice president of IEB hardware Todd Holmdahl], and I'm not [lead PS4 architect] Mark Cerny, so why are we having this discussion?"

Penello feels consumers will pick a console for the games it offers, rather than for its capabilities on paper. "Here's what you care about," he said. "You bought a system to play great games and have great experiences. I feel like our games and experiences are going to be every bit as good, if not better, technically - on top of all the magic we're going to add with the instant switching, and the power of the cloud.

"So the whole numbers game - yeah, I've been following it online and it's like, we tried having that argument last time. Do I want to talk about HDMI 1.3 or 1.4, it's like 'argh!' It doesn't matter. Did you see Call of Duty, it looks f**king awesome! It's going to be great, you know. So we're just saying, it's not worth the debate."

http://uk.gamespot.com/news/xbox-one-ps4-coming-to-gamestop-expo-6410861

The Xbox One and PlayStation 4 don't launch until this holiday, but gamers can go hands-on with both machines during the GameStop Expo this summer, the retailer has announced.

August 28th, Las Vegas ^

FlyingIrishMan

Pushtrak wrote: »

http://www.oxm.co.uk/57309/xbox-one-exec-says-sony-ps4-tech-specs-are-meaningless-games-more-important/

http://uk.gamespot.com/news/xbox-one-ps4-coming-to-gamestop-expo-6410861

August 28th, Las Vegas ^

They wouldn't be saying that if they had the more powerful hardware.

Pushtrak

True, but he has a point. Games are the motivator for people buying consoles. So is price, but he isn't going to say that because Sony are charging less.

Richard Dower

Pushtrak wrote: »

Haven't read this yet, posting first: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-xbox-one-memory-better-in-production-hardware

VERY fishy!.....they magically get more then 100GBs of bandwidth because they couldnt add properly? :rolleyes:

Theorecital, yeah....its tech PR spin, with no real world impact. I think this is a PR stragety to sell the X1 as equal to the PS4.

Pushtrak

In that case, Digital Foundry could end up slating the One in face offs. We'll just have to see how it goes.

TNT2k_

I'm actually extremely sceptical of this now and think it's just another PR stunt to play off the xbox as being more powerful than what it is to bridge the spec gap between it and the PS4.

Quote from Digital Foundry:

Microsoft tells developers that the ESRAM is designed for high-bandwidth graphics elements like shadowmaps, lightmaps, depth targets and render targets. But in a world where Killzone: Shadow Fall is utilising 800MB for render targets alone, how difficult will it be for developers to work with just 32MB of fast memory for similar functions?

This is it, just how usefull is this 32MB of ESRAM really? Many are calling BS on them and giving solid examples of why this is just another way to make the PS4 advantage look smaller. This is all coming a day after Mark Cerney gave a presentation of how they could've used ESRAM to get a theoretical speed of 1TB/s (1000GB), but refrained because of how that would effect the ease of development substantially and it wouldn't be worth it, so now they're going the route of "hey, look what we just found in the attic, more speed!".

I find it very hard to believe that any engineer working for years on a console like this just suddenly 'discovers' more power all of a sudden in the machine he's building. The cloud was their big thing to make false promises of massive power, and now that always online is scrapped, this is the new drum to beat in promising more power instead of acknowleging that they were caught off guard when Sony gambled 8GB instead of 4GB of GDDR5 RAM when nobody expected it.

Richard Dower

TNT2k_ wrote: »

I find it very hard to believe that any engineer working for years on a console like this just suddenly 'discovers' more power all of a sudden in the machine he's building. The cloud was their big thing to make false promises of massive power, and now that always online is scrapped, this is the new drum to beat in promising more power instead of acknowleging that they were caught off guard when Sony gambled 8GB instead of 4GB of GDDR5 RAM when nobody expected it.

Thats my problem, engineers suddenly "discover" more then 100GB's....it dosent make sense an engineer would make such a mistake or discover stuff they've worked on for over two years.

It just seems like MS are trying to spin the X1 is identical or has no hardware advantage over the PS4.

And we still dont know clock speeds!....the X1 again is said to be 1.6Ghz....but rumour has it Sony has the CPU clocked @ 2Ghz. GPU speeds remain the same @ 800Mhz, but it can boost to 1Mhz with ample cooling.

Its just seems very suspect they found extra bandwidth.

FlyingIrishMan

Richard Dower wrote: »

Thats my problem, engineers suddenly "discover" more then 100GB's....it dosent make sense an engineer would make such a mistake or discover stuff they've worked on for over two years.

It just seems like MS are trying to spin the X1 is identical or has no hardware advantage over the PS4.

And we still dont know clock speeds!....the X1 again is said to be 1.6Ghz....but rumour has it Sony has the CPU clocked @ 2Ghz. GPU speeds remain the same @ 800Mhz, but it can boost to 1Mhz with ample cooling.

Its just seems very suspect they found extra bandwidth.

Pretty sure I've heard the speeds were 1.2 for the X1, and 1.8 for the PS4 with both GPUs being at 800Mhz.