E3 2016 - June 12th to 14th

Falthyron

FAILSAFE 00 wrote: »

Its not that difficult to see.

If Sony came out and said they'd be doing a 4K games console I'd think the same way. I wouldn't doubt it for a second.

Microsoft is clearly trying to put a machine together that will not be dated for sometime. Look at Sony who will now have to sell a further 2 updated consoles to come close to the Scorpio. I am sure a move like this is saving Microsoft money in the long run.

As gamers we all expected a 4K gaming console just not this soon.

Did you believe every game on Xbox One was going to be 1080p as standard?

wes

Falthyron wrote: »

Microsoft also came out and said TV is going to be a key pillar in the next generation of consoles (this generation). Did you believe that? They said HD-DVD was the future for a number of reasons. They said the Xbox wouldn't support second hand games and that you will need to be always online.

They changed all that stuff after the negative reception to all that stuff.

This is not to say that people should not be skeptical, but plans can and do change.

FAILSAFE 00

Thanks to SO5 on Neogaf. It looks like this person took all the points that Phil Spencer made. Many of which were addressing the Eurogamer interview.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1234719

The interview - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCFig7lGyEs

No Scorpio exclusives

Devs can do 4K, dont have to do 4K, can use the Scorpio power in different ways. They can run titles at 1440 if they wish or any resolution they wish. Previous games may see improvement such as dynamic resolution games staying 1080p

Games will look different on 1080p screen, full benefit and image fidelity can only be reaped with a 4KTV for 4K games but it's still a viable purchase for 1080p owners

Announcement made for the purpose of transparency, consumers can make an educated purchase if they want to buy the lower range but cheaper Xbox One S or the premium and more powerful Scorpio, developers can work out how they want to adapt the hardware

Xbox One S will not play games better than the Xbox One

Developers must support the Xbox One as well

All existing Xbox One accessories will carry over

Upgraded consoles not adapting a smartphone style approach (new version every year), maybe every 4-5 years and based on whats deemed as a new inflection point of technology (for instance, 4K and VR)

360 backwards compatibility was the starting point of taking a users investment in a system and retaining it, will be the norm from now on

Giant Bomb wrote:

Here is the Phil Spencer interview.

Brad Shoemaker: "That was actually something that I was curious about that when you talk about 4K being the emphasis of that thing, will there be any mandate coming out of Microsoft toward developers saying like 'You should really focus on 4K here' or is it like carte blanche for them to pursue that extra power?"

Jeff Gerstmann: "If they just want to have a 1K (1080p) frame buffer, and then, you know, upres to 4K, to take advantage of and use that power in different ways..."

Phil Spencer: "Yeah, we will absolutely be open to that. I mean we're going to talk more specifics of Project Scorpio, so we'll get into more of the details, but I think creative freedom in how you want to use the power of the box is something that I always support."

So if devs want to do 1440p 60 FPS for a shooter they can do it if they wish. Also he has clarrified that he was trying to be transparent with gamers who own a 1080p TV and not big up the Scorpio because he knows they would not get the full benefit of 4k. He goes on to say of course the 1080p quality when using the Scoprio will still look great its just won't look as great as 4K.

So, good news. Developers can use the power of Scorpio as needed.

FAILSAFE 00

Falthyron wrote: »

Did you believe every game on Xbox One was going to be 1080p as standard?

Microsoft never announced and marketed the Xbox One was going to have all 1080p native games.

Penn

FAILSAFE 00 wrote: »

Ageed. However you were saying that they'd never be upgarding like phones which is actually their new console sales model. In a few years all the models will be replaced.

If they wanted to blur the lines even more they could simply update the existing consoles like a revision so the Xbox One gets a new model and the Scorpio gets a new model.

There has been a further clarification from Phil Spencer from a separate interview after Eurogamer so I'll post that here.

FAILSAFE 00 wrote: »

Thanks to SO5 on Neogaf. It looks like this person took all the points that Phil Spencer made. Many of which were addressing the Eurogamer interview.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1234719

The interview - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCFig7lGyEs

No Scorpio exclusives

Devs can do 4K, dont have to do 4K, can use the Scorpio power in different ways. They can run titles at 1440 if they wish or any resolution they wish. Previous games may see improvement such as dynamic resolution games staying 1080p

Games will look different on 1080p screen, full benefit and image fidelity can only be reaped with a 4KTV for 4K games but it's still a viable purchase for 1080p owners

Announcement made for the purpose of transparency, consumers can make an educated purchase if they want to buy the lower range but cheaper Xbox One S or the premium and more powerful Scorpio, developers can work out how they want to adapt the hardware

Xbox One S will not play games better than the Xbox One

Developers must support the Xbox One as well

All existing Xbox One accessories will carry over

Upgraded consoles not adapting a smartphone style approach (new version every year), maybe every 4-5 years and based on whats deemed as a new inflection point of technology (for instance, 4K and VR)

360 backwards compatibility was the starting point of taking a users investment in a system and retaining it, will be the norm from now on

So if devs want to do 1440p 60 FPS for a shooter they can do it if they wish. Also he has clarrified that he was trying to be transparent with gamers who own a 1080p TV and not big up the Scorpio because he knows they would not get the full benefit of 4k. He goes on to say of course the 1080p quality when using the Scoprio will still look great its just won't look as great as 4K.

So, good news. Developers can use the power of Scorpio as needed.

Phil Spencer: "Yeah, we will absolutely be open to that. I mean we're going to talk more specifics of Project Scorpio, so we'll get into more of the details, but I think creative freedom in how you want to use the power of the box is something that I always support. I mean, I came from first party as you know, so putting the right tools in the hands of the creators, the best creators, is our job as the platform. One thing though that we should make sure everyone understands, every game that comes out in the Xbox One family will run on the original Xbox One, Xbox One S, and Scorpio, so we had some questions if there are going to be Scorpio exclusive games. No, the line of games you get to play is the same, regardless of [one you own].

Seems pretty clear cut to me then.

Falthyron

FAILSAFE 00 wrote: »

Microsoft never announced and marketed the Xbox One was going to have all 1080p native games.

http://www.polygon.com/2013/5/23/4359450/xbox-one-will-support-4k-output-resolution-and-3d

The juicy bits:

"The video and interface portions [will work with next-gen TVs], absolutely," he said. "Games developed for 1080p will run at 1080p, obviously."

Update: A representative from Microsoft confirmed to Polygon that Xbox One games will support both native 4K resolution and upscaling to 4K.

When it was announced, everyone assumed the Xbox One would finally bring 1080p gaming as a standard. And why wouldn't it? Developers had been striving towards hitting 1080 on Xbox 360 and could only really hit a stable frame rate at 720p, maybe a little higher depending on the game. Surely, the console to succeed the 360 would be hitting 1080 at a minimum, right? No, everybody was wrong. Some games are 1080, others (i.e. more demanding titles), did not hit 1080. No standard was achieved.

Falthyron

Cliff Bleszinski (guy hugely responsible for one of the Xbox 360's most important titles) had this to say about Project Second Coming:

As the former design director for Epic Games and the driving force behind Gears Of War 1, 2 and 3, Bleszinski has been heavily ingrained in all things Xbox for a huge chunk of his career. It’s therefore unsurprising that he has pretty strong opinions on the platform. Here are the key points he raised in our discussion:

On the multiple console strategy: “Is Microsoft going full Sega 32x and Mega CD right now? I think it’s weird. The way the branding’s going, it feels like the way Mercedes name their cars in the United States, y’know; the S class! The SOK! The SK! Which ****ing one is this? Consumers only have enough time and attention for that. It’s like dude, are you trying to turn the Xbox into a PC? What’s going on right now?”

On Scorpio: “I think it feels like an apology move for them for not making the console as powerful as it should have been in favour of making sure the Kinect was boxed in with it. So now they have to play catch-up. In a way, you can trace this all the way back to their well-intended E3 from a few years ago — where they were trying to go fully digital, etcetera, etectera, and the internet backlash made them back pedal.”

On being “VR ready”: “The thing about setting up VR is that it’s a bit of a pain in the butt. I’m from the generation where your parents got the VCR, plugged it in and the clock was blinking twelve forever. Getting any home electronics installed shouldn’t be a lot of work. So it’s another one of those things that is almost making it like a PC, or going full circle.”

On Scorpion-enhanced games: “When you do that, you genuinely tend to see games that don’t fully shine on the high end. Like we saw with this past console generation [publishers] were hedging their bets with a chicken-and-the-egg thing. They were putting the games on PlayStation 3 and 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One and basically you get higher resolution textures but it’s still a masked texture instead of being dynamically generated. So they’re kind of hobbling themselves in regards to that kind of scalability. It’s trying to have your cake and eat it too.”

On potential effects on multiplayer: “If you make a game and it’s on the cheaper console and it’s 30 frame per second and 60 frames on the other console, that could affect the performance in a twitch shooter, for example. It’s the same thing with Cross Play for action games which I don’t understand the desire for. I can understand with co-op games but if you have a shooter and one player has a controller and another player has a keyboard and mouse and the controller person is at 30 (fps) and the mouse-and-keyboard person is at 60, most of the time the keyboard person is going to completely dominate. So good luck with your match making.”

On keeping it real: “Look, I have a lot of friends over there so I wouldn’t criticise them unless I was pretty positive about it…If Phil Spencer was here right now I’d tell him he back peddled to his face. And he’d say “you’re a dick, but you’re right!”

Source: http://www.kotaku.com.au/2016/06/cliff-bleszinski-isnt-a-fan-of-project-scorpio/

heebusjeebus

It's good that we're seeing some clarity from MS now.
I still don't see Sony putting such a beefy GPU in the PS4K. I think that will be a small increase in power, primarily for the PSVR.
The increase should also be enough for more stable 30FPS or 60FPS 1080p games.

wes

heebusjeebus wrote: »

It's good that we're seeing some clarity from MS now.
I still don't see Sony putting such a beefy GPU in the PS4K. I think that will be a small increase in power, primarily for the PSVR.
The increase should also be enough for more stable 30FPS or 60FPS 1080p games.

The leaked spec on the GPU are actually a decent improvement over the base PS4:

We know PlayStation 4.5 is real - but why is Sony making it?

Now its not as big as an improvement as the scorpio, but is still pretty significant, and as you said, will probably be used for VR and 1080p/60fps gaming.

FAILSAFE 00

Falthyron wrote: »

The juicy bits:

"The video and interface portions [will work with next-gen TVs], absolutely," he said. "Games developed for 1080p will run at 1080p, obviously."

Thats has been done
There are loads of games on Xbox One that are native 1080p at 30/60 FPS.

There are some games that run on sub 1080p just like the PS4 to maintain a decent frame rate.

Falthyron wrote: »

Update: A representative from Microsoft confirmed to Polygon that Xbox One games will support both native 4K resolution and upscaling to 4K.

Interesting. I don't remember that pre-announcement. I remember the big question across both platforms was good the PS4 and Xbox One do 1080p native at 60fps.

Falthyron wrote: »

When it was announced, everyone assumed the Xbox One would finally bring 1080p gaming as a standard. And why wouldn't it? Developers had been striving towards hitting 1080 on Xbox 360 and could only really hit a stable frame rate at 720p, maybe a little higher depending on the game. Surely, the console to succeed the 360 would be hitting 1080 at a minimum, right? No, everybody was wrong. Some games are 1080, others (i.e. more demanding titles), did not hit 1080. No standard was achieved.

This is an argument for both Xbox and PlayStation because they both under delivered when it came to fulfilling console gamers expectations.

Falthyron

This is an argument for both Xbox and PlayStation because they both under delivered when it came to fulfilling console gamers expectations.

Indeed. I am not saying Sony will prove to produce a better new console than Project Second Coming, all I am saying is: skeptical thinking is healthy thinking. As you have already seen, MS have said a lot of stuff in the past and it has turned out to be false. So far we have nothing at all to suggest Project Spencer's Career will be what they have said it will be.

MiskyBoyy

FAILSAFE 00 wrote: »

Thanks to SO5 on Neogaf. It looks like this person took all the points that Phil Spencer made. Many of which were addressing the Eurogamer interview.

The biggest surprise for me there is that you managed to find an Xbox positive article on Neogaf! :eek:

Shiminay

The one thing I heard coming out of E3 from Microsoft that has interested me more than any other bit of news - full Mouse and Keyboard support for the XBone! Seems like an obvious thing to have now that so much of their stuff's gonna be cross-platform with Win 10, but it's the single biggest reason I refuse to get a console - a controller is woefully inadequate for the sorts of games I play. I've said many times, I'd happily switch to console gaming if it had support for proper input devices (and there's no reason it shouldn't except they can't sell a basic mouse and keyboard for €60).

ahnowbrowncow

Shiminay wrote: »

The one thing I heard coming out of E3 from Microsoft that has interested me more than any other bit of news - full Mouse and Keyboard support for the XBone! Seems like an obvious thing to have now that so much of their stuff's gonna be cross-platform with Win 10, but it's the single biggest reason I refuse to get a console - a controller is woefully inadequate for the sorts of games I play. I've said many times, I'd happily switch to console gaming if it had support for proper input devices (and there's no reason it shouldn't except they can't sell a basic mouse and keyboard for €60).

It's also bad though if you like playing multiplayer shooters on the console with a controller, you'll be up against people playing with mouse and a keyboard and there's no contest between the two.

Shiminay

ahnowbrowncow wrote: »

It's also bad though if you like playing multiplayer shooters on the console with a controller, you'll be up against people playing with mouse and a keyboard and there's no contest between the two.

That's kinda my point A €10 mouse and keyboard combo will always beat even the €150 Razer Wildcat or XBone Elite controller you were so proud to buy Hell, I'd have been willing to spend that sorta money on a proprietary mouse/keyboard combo. I dabbled with one of those third party adaptors but found it way too clunky and awkward and as it's not native, it's never gonna be more than a simulation of a controller.

Doge

FAILSAFE 00 wrote: »

No Scorpio exclusives

Right, so no next gen games on a so called "next gen" console! :pac:

FAILSAFE 00

Doge wrote: »

Right, so no next gen games on a so called "next gen" console! :pac:

Next gen hardware is next gen hardware. Simples

Do you consider games on Xbox One and PS4 as being next gen in comparison to the PS3 and Xbox 360.

the groutch

Has there been any indications of whether you'll be able to identify if a player is on an Xbone or PC?

K.O.Kiki

Shiminay wrote: »

The one thing I heard coming out of E3 from Microsoft that has interested me more than any other bit of news - full Mouse and Keyboard support for the XBone! Seems like an obvious thing to have now that so much of their stuff's gonna be cross-platform with Win 10, but it's the single biggest reason I refuse to get a console - a controller is woefully inadequate for the sorts of games I play. I've said many times, I'd happily switch to console gaming if it had support for proper input devices (and there's no reason it shouldn't except they can't sell a basic mouse and keyboard for €60).

They've finally caught up.

Captain Chaos

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

They've finally caught up.

PS2 had Keyboard and mouse too but only in Japan. Along with HDD and 56k modem addon module.

Mal-Adjusted

I'm pretty sure the Gamecube had a keyboard too. It's far from new but having it easily available is good.

edit.

Captain Chaos

Mal-Adjusted wrote: »

I'm pretty sure the Gamecube had a keyboard too. It's far from new but having it easily available is good.

edit.

Is that real, looks like the worst photoshop ever with half a controller on each side of the board. Not an official Nintendo product though.

Shiminay

Fun fact: the Dreamcast is the first and last "launch day" console I've ever owned. Never again...

Remember when Quake 3 Arena was a cross platform game? I remember...

bigphil2

Shiminay wrote: »

Fun fact: the Dreamcast is the first and last "launch day" console I've ever owned. Never again...

Remember when Quake 3 Arena was a cross platform game? I remember...

The Dreamcast was an amazing console,1st one i remember actually enjoying 1st person Shooters on. (Soldier of Fortune anyone?..)

the groutch

Grayditch

Ah, Saturn. We'll always have P̶a̶r̶i̶s̶ ̶ Panzer Dragoon.

Gonzo

part of me really wishs Sega would just re-enter the console market and shake things up.

sony and microsoft are basically the same librarys and Nintendo are too set in their ways and stubborn.

Grayditch

the groutch wrote: »

Has there been any indications of whether you'll be able to identify if a player is on an Xbone or PC?

If you're getting ruined...

CiDeRmAn

Doge wrote: »

Right, so no next gen games on a so called "next gen" console! :pac:

This is the thing about the Scorpio in a nutshell.
Doesn't matter if the Scorpio is built of the stuff of quantum computing wet dreams, if all it's ever going to play are the same things as playing on the Xbox One.
Seems more and more like a hardware bridge to whatever the Xbox brand is going to launch in five years or so.

CiDeRmAn

Gonzo wrote: »

part of me really wishs Sega would just re-enter the console market and shake things up.

sony and microsoft are basically the same librarys

Across the multiplat releases, sure, but there's enough unique software there to warrant a PS4 purchase at least.
Sega just burnt too many bridges with poorly received and conceived hardware before the excellent Dreamcast, by then the brand was worthless to everyone but the fans.

and Nintendo are too set in their ways and stubborn.

They have shown poor judgement in a focus on novelty approaches to hardware with the WiiU, though it worked well on the Wii.
They have marketed the WiiU poorly and somehow lost EA support, which was essential.
But they also have the best line up of exclusives of any format on the market right now, so I'll happily take a Nintendo that "stubbornly" produces many of the best games on any format each console generation.