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Microsoft Unveils Xbox One
Today at a press conference leading up to E3, Microsoft unveiled its next-gen games/entertainment console, the Xbox One. Their stated goal for the Xbox One is to have a single device provide "all of your entertainment." One of the big changes is increased support for voice and and gesture input. You can turn the console on by voice, and it will recognize you and automatically login. Swiping to the side with your hand will browse through menu pages, and saying "Watch TV" will bring up the TV app very quickly. The same with music, internet, and movies. The new console also supports multitasking — for example, while watching a movie, you can bring up your web browser in a side panel and surf the web at the same time. There is also a built-in TV listings app that responds to channel names — saying "Watch CBS" will switch to CBS without giving it an actual channel number. By this point, you're probably asking: does it play games? Yes. Hardware specs: 8-core CPU/GPU, 8GB RAM, a Blu-ray drive, a 500GB HDD, USB 3.0, and Wi-fi Direct. (They didn't provide the CPU frequency, instead saying it had 5 billion transistors.) The Kinect sensor got an upgrade: 2Gbps of data capture has finer skeletal visibility, can detect minor orientation changes in hands and fingers, and can even calculate your balance and weight distribution. The new controller looks slightly bigger, and is designed to play well with Kinect. They've also updated Smartglass, the remote control software that runs on mobile devices, but they didn't explain much about it. The new Xbox Live will have 300,000 servers powering it, up from 15,000 this year — though, of course, no details were provided about server specs. The console will have native game capture and editing tools — essentially, a game DVR. Saved games will be stored in the cloud, and they have new matchmaking capabilities that operate in the background. Update: 05/21 17:50 GMT by S : Halo is getting its own live-action TV show, for some reason. They'll be collaborating with Steven Spielberg. Microsoft is also partnering with the NFL for live broadcasts and interactive experiences, such as split-screen Skype chats and fantasy league updates. Xbox One will be out "later this year." No price information. it will not be backward-compatible with Xbox 360 games.
Please Slashdot, do your worst :)
throw new NoSignatureException();
A 1980's stereo receiver and a VHS player from the 1990's.
If I can not smoke in heaven, then I shall not go. -- Mark Twain
It took them 30 minutes, half the duration of the entire presentation, before they started talking about games. It is not looking good as a next-gen "game" system.
I'm liking casual gaming more and more, and enjoying the computer-upgrade-cycle less and less. So I've increased the amount of console gaming a bit over the last few years.
Personally, I had more fun with my XBox than the PS3. Part of it is I mostly like the XBox 360 controller more.
So unless it's an utter failure, I'll probably get it.
*mostly = I like the shape, but I tend to slightly disconnect the battery pack when I'm using a wireless one from time to time.
What the hell is wrong with their numbering conventions? They went from Xbox 360 to Xbox 1? Are they starting all over again from version 1? Why? Is it because finally they have erased all the sunken costs and the franchise is finally in the black? On the windows they went DOS 3.1 to Win95, Win98, Millenium, Win2K, Vista and then finally discovered their first grade math, Win7,8,9...
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Didn't that come out like 12 years ago?
The Internet King? I wonder if he could provide faster nudity.
And it comes with Windows 8 (crickets...)
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
I really hope this means every XBox will come with a Cablecard slot in the back, just so Microsoft can cause every Cable Company manager's head to explode at the same time when they announce the feature.
I read the internet for the articles.
So basically all the features I have been using for the last 3 years on XBMC + Steam, except for Voice and motion input(which i think are silly and I don't want).
-EL
before everyone jumps in on the "i thought this was version 3 not 1" bandwagon - it means ONE as in ONE tool to do it all. not ONE as in version 1 of the product line....
If it does fail, I'm voting price point; with specs like this, I can't imagine how it would be cheaper than a Surface Pro, which is already a disaster in part because of its price. But the Xbox customer base is pretty loyal; that might not be enough to stop them.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
Looks like the Xbox One is a home-entertainment center for which gaming is mostly an afterthought.
That's not necessarily a bad thing (hardcore gamers aren't nearly as important of a demographic as they think), but a lack of focus could be a real problem. We already have general-purpose machines that are versatile enough to do what we want them to. Microsoft needs to make the case why this is better than a laptop or a tablet or a smartphone – especially as it is certain to be loaded down with DRM.
So far I've not seen anything about the always-on requirement for the internet connection.
That feature is make or break for me, because if it *needs* an internet connection to be always enabled, I can tell you now I won't buy this -- they had their chance, and they put ads into both my home screen and my games.
Did anyone who actually watched the event see anything about this? I've checked several articles so far, and none of them have mentioned that part.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
The name sucks.
No word yet on always-online or used-game restrictions. Sony were quick to rule these out for the PS4; that MS haven't makes me suspect that they're going to do them. That's a mistake (the latter in particular).
The hardware inside the box seems ok on the limited information we have to go on so far. 8 gigs of RAM is good.
Improved voice and gesture controls are a good thing, actually. They worked really well on the second-generation 360 dashboard. Just a pity they're much less useful on the latest dashboard.
Controller looks ok. Probably slightly better than the PS4 controller.
Not much of interest to me in the game announcements bar Forza (and maybe Remedy). But then, given I'm not into non-driving sports games or spunkgargleweewee, I wasn't particularly expecting there to be. Launch titles (with a few honourable exceptions) are usually crap anyway, so not going to get too worried about that.
Blu-Ray drive is a good thing.
Not really enough information here to make a judgement call. However, the continuing worry over always-online and used-restrictions, tied with a sense that MS isn't really interested in gamers outside of the dudebro fraternity (or indeed gamers at all, rather than people who want to watch TV), makes me suspect that MS have missed quite a few tricks here. Sony's PS4 reveal inspired more confidence and I suspect they've set themselves up for a better launch.
Does it have tv tunner? cable card? satellite TV?
Surely this is a typo -- I could have sworn that MS pledged never to put that into one of their consoles.
Tuner. It's tuner you illiterate tool.
Does "You can turn the console on by voice" mean when "off" this thing is actually running a voice recognition system waiting for you to turn it "on"? Ignoring the "it's constantly listening to what is going on" part: what did they say the "standby" power use was?
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
there needs to be 1 box at the drop point that feeds any system you have on your own network. But that is to much as the cable co's like to have you rent over priced hardware at high prices. At least in canada you can buy the boxes with no outlet / mirroring fees.
"5 billion transistors", also the number of square feet needed to use kinect?
Sigger than your average
One of the big changes is increased support for voice and and gesture input. ... The Kinect sensor got an upgrade: ... has finer skeletal visibility, can detect minor orientation changes in hands and fingers, and can even calculate your balance and weight distribution.
Do not install Xbox One in the bedroom and/or avoid having sex in the same room as your Xbox One.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
"They call it the Xbox One, since when you see it, you turn 1 radian and walk away."
How's the new red ring of death look on this one?
Easy, they will sell it at below cost, like console manufacturers always do at first. Both Sony and Microsoft lost money on every console they ever released until well into their lifecycles.
That is one reason why Microsoft encrypted the controller protocol on the 360. They claw back money on expensive accessories and didn't want any unlicensed hardware on the market.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Not backwards compatible with Xbox 360 games?
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
If you have an XBox 360, why go with something 359 releases out of date?
"Though Microsoft has yet to announce a specific launch date or price point for the system"
Maybe I'm spoiled by Apple's style of announcements, but "shipping today" or "shipping by date X" and "price will be $Y" shouldn't be that hard to commit to, otherwise don't bother me with how great you're planning to make this wonderful new gadget. This announcement is premature. They should have done it in the fall or been bold enough to state a price now. Or just waited until E3 in the first place.
More detailed specs at Engadget. It's an AMD Jaguar-based core with an integrated GPU (with on-die 32MB graphics as some kind of cache?), hence the huge number of transistors.
It all sounds very nice, but until a price is stated it is impossible to assess whether it is a good deal, and I've seen nothing mentioned about the rumored "always connected" requirement, which would make it uninteresting to me at any price.
It's got HDMI-In and most likely an IR blaster to control your cable/sat box. Very similar to Google TV.
It's always going to be on... you can walk into a room and say "Xbox, On." That means it's always going to be watching. It reports back what your watching ("See what your friends are watching."). They've increase the camera resolution enough that they can read your heart rate. Sorry... too freaky for me. It's like a LOTR Palantir... gonna have to cover it with a cloth. Or maybe another metaphor, like an Xbox Hal... me: "Xbox, Switch to Playstation 4" Xbox: "I'm sorry Dave, I can't let you do that."
Nope, they switched to x86.
It seems like all the comments here are skeptical or negative.
I've never owned an XBox, and I'm not a Microsoft fanboy, though I do own several Windows PC, but this sure sounds like an awesome piece of engineering.
Nice job Microsoft?
Rather than one it seems like zero might have been a better choice.
You may want to re-think that... use the old rule of imagining what taunts third-graders can make of your name, now think of "Zero" again in that light.
One is way more Zen.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Maybe not a problem for the devs.
Big problem for all the customers who are pissed they have to buy a new game CD.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
I prefer Japanese. No-one else around me can eavesdrop, it doesn't sound as dorky and it actually works better. In Japanese sounds don't run together nearly as much as in English and so the voice recognition is considerably more reliable. Plus Japanese sat-navs are super-polite.
Having said that Google seem to have got English recognition more or less perfect now, even if you are Scottish.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Always on, always listening.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Just considering that this will be abbreviated XBONE...so errors are XBONERS, and if you get an RROD, wouldn't that make you XBONED?
Xbox customers are extremely loyal, to the point of sycophancy. Of all the Xbox owners I know, zero of them have just bought one Xbox 360. After they got RROD'd, they ALL went out and bought another at full price. One of my friends is now on his 13th one.
Plus there are legions of people who buy the special edition Xbox 360's, and just toss their old working one in a closet and forget about it or repurpose it for another room.
Replying to myself, lame I know...
One other question came to mind after I hit submit. Does the XBOX do all the recognition itself, or is everything you (and every sound in the room) sent to Microsoft for decoding? If so how easy is it for interested parties to access that audio stream?
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Specs like this? You say that like they are good specs. Some cheap-ass 4 core hyperthreaded CPU so they can say it technically has 8, like the PS4, a paltry 8GB of RAM, obsolete Blu-Ray drive and an absolutely tiny 500GB hard drive (why 500GB? why not AT LEAST 1TB?).
Nah. This thing will come out for $300-$400 and will be drastically underpowered compared to even a moderate range gaming PC, just like the PS4
You mean how they charge you for servers and infrastructure on all their games and services? You can always just play pc games and either pay for these things yourself or use free alternatives. Who needs the stellar clarity of xbl voice comm when you can have the lagfest that is mumble or roger wilco. Or you can always go to PSN and enjoy no online play for 2 months.
You can turn the console on by voice
Do you need to have a really sexy voice?
Does it matter if you're male/female or will it work both ways?
If you fail to turn it on the first time, will you ever be able to turn it on in the future?
I just really need to know these things before I even think about buying one.
Yeah, I agree. Porting the game might not be much of an issue but like you mentioned the consumer will have to re-purchase the game, which will be an issue for most.
Tuner. It's tuner you illiterate tool.
Is there a +1 Troll mod?
Could be compatible with games for the xbox 1... I mean original xbox... Ugh. This is going to be a problem isn't it?
Hm yes that rabid loyalty. They should have said 'fuck this console and every game I spent $60 on' and moved elsewhere and refused to spend that $199 to replace it. that would have showed M$.
Have the console in the middle of a mosh pit while Metallica plays "One"...
go with DDR3 instead of GDDR5 like the PS4.
AT&T has done live tv streaming with no cable box for years. i've read verizon and time warner want to do the same thing instead of buying up new cable boxes.
i bet this is all IP streaming for live TV content
Do they have deals with ATT UVerse, Cox/Charter/You Name it Cable channels, Dish/Direct TV Satellite companies to hook into their systems? That would actually be some coup if they were to be able to integrate into all these systems...will it also act as a DVR? I mean, if they want to be a 1 box fits all, that would be one big requirement I'd guess.
Sure it can play games....but how well does it do the other stuff ?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
How about product-induced ADD?
I don't want to have a fucking Skype session while I watch football, I want to watch football when I want to watch football. I don't want to give up valuable real estate to a fucking web browser when I'm watching a movie, I want to concentrate on the movie.
In fact, I would contend that the director did a shitty job of making the movie if you can only half-way pay attention for a few minutes while cocking about on the Internet and not miss something.
I don't want my saved games "in the cloud" where I can't access them if my ISP takes a shit. If you're going to put half a terabyte of disk in the thing, let me save a few 1MB save files on it. In fact, my Xbox360 is one of the few electronic things I can still use if my ISP takes a shit these days. They already tried this with "Games for Windows" a couple years back, and it was terrible. In Fallout 3, you could get into the game, and tell it to load the game before it completed your login to Live, and it would load a game from weeks ago if you were playing the DLC.
I'll let others talk about the rest of it - I don't have any feelings one way or the other about other "features."
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
That SONY has a track record of removing useful features and adding less useful ones such as extra copy protection. So as far as a next gen console it's sort of a beggar's choice the consumer is left with.
But probably not if you're Welsh ... that's one bear of an accent to try to follow when you hear it the first time. :-P
I met some Welshmen on vacation one year, and while they all seemed nice, only one could I even begin to follow. The others were something of a mystery without an interpreter. ;-)
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Any news on if it can play Xbox 360 games? The thing is if MS drops 360 Xbox Live support the 360 becomes an expensive boat anchor. Everything on the 360 revolves around Live including your profiles, Important game patches, Video content like renting movies and HBO GO, etc.
I guess I can live without being able to play 360 games on the One but then Microsoft HAS to keep Live going on the 360 for as long as people are willing to pay for Live service. People have a ton of money invested in these systems and If MS says "Sorry buy the new one and all new games" that would be a big Fuck You to all of us. There is definitely something to be said for old cartridge and cdrom based gaming systems that were pre-internet. They all work now and will all work 15 years from now. The 360 probably won't.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
I'm curious how this thing will 'tune' in TV?
It's probably HDMI-CEC with a fallback to an IR blaster.
The EU decided to put politics ahead of science and wanted everyone to stop using lead in their electronics. (except for the military, of course)
The early 360s were using lead free solder that wasn't fully tested. As you can guess, tin whiskers everywhere.
What was interesting is the "voodoo" solution (wrap xbox in towels and leave running) to reflow the whiskers sometimes solved the problem.
If you have an XBox 360, why go with something 359 releases out of date?
Actually they use 8.491853096 bits to store the version number, so "One" is overflowese for "361".
(3 quatloos for whoever spots the problem with that first.)
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
The article says the SoC is 40-nanometer. Is that a mistake?
I bought 2 xboxes (returned one that died) and only bought one 360. granted I waited until the launch problems went away, but it's been good to me. it just need to be given enough space to spread it's heat out.
I don't want to have a fucking Skype session while I watch football, I want to watch football when I want to watch football.
It's more fun to watch football with your friends. You could set up a conference call with other fans watching the same game.
In fact, I would contend that the director did a shitty job of making the movie if you can only half-way pay attention for a few minutes while cocking about on the Internet and not miss something.
That depends on how many people you have in your home.
As someone else pointed out, the 360 is (was?) sold below manufacturing cost. If you buy a lot of systems and few games, you're damaging their bottom line. (Maybe that's why Sony didn't hesitate when they realised blocking Other OS on the PS3 would end the ability to build new clusters.)
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
As a former Texas Instruments customer, I am deaf to your claims.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
I'm firmly in the single-player, offline-only game-play camp
So what you're saying is that you're prefer masturbation, over getting involved with other people
There's the offline single-player camp. There's the online multiplayer camp. Do we already forget the offline multiplayer camp? I thought that was console games' one big advantage over PC games.
One Tool to "do" them all, and in the darkness * them.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
...but seriously, those of you who don't acknowledge how strong their presence is in the console industry are delusional.
I remember seeing MechAssault and MotoGP online with Xbox Live on the original Xbox and was seriously impressed with how well the online setup was. This was back in the day of PS2s horrendous per-title networking functionality which was a disaster. Xbox 360 continued the trend, while Sony/Nintendo have only in recent years achieved what MSoft did back in 2002 with Live...
Whether or not the Xbox One is successful is obviously in up for grabs, but I'm beyond excited about the prospect. The Xbox franchise has been the only MSoft division to get my hard earned money, and for good reasons... It's a great platform.
1. How much stuff is going to require paying for Xbox Live to work? I'm not keen on the current "pay Microsoft to gain the ability to pay Netflix to use Netflix" model that the 360 uses, and have very little interest in more of that. If the answer is that it's free once you buy the hardware, my interest goes up significantly.
2. How many of the media features will work in Canada? Typically the answer is "very few". Maybe Microsoft can do better.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
Could be compatible with games for the xbox 1... I mean original xbox... Ugh. This is going to be a problem isn't it?
Though I doubt it's likely to be a major problem in the long term, I do agree that it's a somewhat strange and confusing name, especially as the "PSOne" was a cost-reduced version of the original PlayStation.
When I scanned the headline, I briefly wondered whether this "XBox One" referred to a cost-reduced version of the existing console rather than the new model (though if I'd thought about it I'd have remembered that the current "XBox" isn't the first generation anyway, and MS aren't remotely likely to release a new version of the original XBox, no matter how cheap).
Anyhow, Nintendo managed- by disregarding the issue and not changing it- to get people to forget how laughable a name "Wii" was, and still is when you think about it. So people will get used to this...
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Not sure why I'm so underwhelmed. Specs are basically the same as PS3 but honestly if I cared at all about the upcoming Xbox, that feeling is gone now.
Once the new console is released, I'll sell them on EBay as "XBox 1, slightly used, only $200".
That won't work. As of this July, eBay requires all listings of used goods to come with a photo of the item taken by the buyer, and this photo must be at least 500 pixels long on the longer side. You won't be able to post a listing without a photo, and stock photos qualify only for brand-new items and for services. Sellers who don't already own a suitable camera can always buy one on eBay.
The interesting bit is how they plan to do the TV integration. They gave no clues in the presentation as far as I could see. I suppose in the US there are some large providers (Comcast, DirecTV and so on), but where I'm at I use an IP-tv provider that really stinks (I cannot even physically get cable or satellite to my home), and would switch instantly if Microsoft signed a deal with something half-decent in IPTV.
Very interested to see them reveal what their "global" plan for TV/Entertainment is. A limited deal with one provider in the US (and a few select sports leagues in the US) would feel like a big meh on the rest of the planet.
and MS charges you and extra fee, to play a used XBOX One game. So much for the "First Sale" doctrine.
I have nothing clever to put here...
Tuner. It's tuner you illiterate tool.
No, it's 'tuna'.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Let me set you straight: the multitasking is pretty much identical to the "modern" UI in Win8. You can snap one more thing to the side. Doesn't seem to be any more in the xbox, but not less either.
For me, it's about the convenience and cost. I use a fairly high spec PC I built myself and refused to double the price by buying a top end graphics card, so I spent £100 on a 6870 instead.
I got my XBox 360 in 2008 and paid £300 for it. (The mid-life RROD resulted in repair/replacement by Microsoft free of charge). To this day, that single unit still plays all the new games released for it. In five years time, will today's top end PC still play the newest games released for the PC?
I'll probably buy the new XBox to play games, but like you I'm disappointed that saves will be in the cloud, particularly as it comes with a 500GB HDD. We saw with SIM City what can happen when this goes wrong, and its not like XBL has never had an outage either.
Sure, I could get a better PC which would probably have better graphics - at least in the short term. But for gaming I prefer the convenience of the console, being able to fit it in my TV cabinet, and the knowledge that I can buy a game and it will just work.
Backup not found: (A)bort (R)etry (P)anic
I'm curious how this thing will 'tune' in TV? Do they have deals with ATT UVerse, Cox/Charter/You Name it Cable channels, Dish/Direct TV Satellite companies to hook into their systems?
US cable companies are required to support the CableCard standard, so including that would cover all of them. They might still need to make individual deals with Uverse and the satellite providers, assuming they care about them. (I haven't looked up the stats, but I get the impression that mini-dish satellite TV isn't as popular as it once was. Probably because people have to pay the cable company for Internet access anyway, and figure it's easier to just use them for TV as well.)
I don't know that I'd say they are loyal. With the 60% failure rate everyone should have abandoned them. That's an amazing failure rate.
I believe what keeps people onboard is that they already had this major investment in games. It isn't as if they could take those games to another platform and play them. If you own an Xbox 360 and it fails you buy another because your games are worthless without one.
With the potentiality of having the new version of the Xbox not play used games I would think that any loyalty factor would begin to go down. And, with the Kinect watching you (for the benefit of advertisers) I would conclude that as well.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
IBM got righteously busted for tying in the 70's. I can't think of any reason why Microsoft should escape similar proceedings today.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
I RTFA (yes, yes I did) and the article only briefly but assuredly mentions that you will be able to play single-player games without the internet:
What else remains to be understood is how Azure game hosting will work in practice (who is paying, and for how long?) and of course, wtf privacy omg policy bbq etc.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Microsoft did say that if a disc was used with a second account, that owner would be given the option to pay a fee and install the game from the disc, which would then mean that the new account would also own the game and could play it without the disc.
and simcity like "features"
Xbox One will give game developers the ability to create games that use Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing service, which means that they might be able to offload certain computing tasks to the cloud rather than process them on the Xbox One hardware itself. This would necessitate the game requiring a connection.
http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2013/05/xbox-one-analysis/
You could have had a dual titan graphics card and 32Gb of ram of course. But the price point is fixed, so you can't. For a the cost of the 500Gb mechanical you can get a, what, 64GB solid state? A (low) cap on installed games feels like a larger problem than load times. The new box will come in several iterations over the coming years, and solid state will be one of the first things that will be added. Also, it is probably user replaceable if you are adventurous. I don't see it as a big problem. That said, we haven't seen the price tag yet, so the 500GB mechanical better mean that it is priced the same as the 360 was at launch then.
Go with PC. If you're going to pay hundreds of dollars for a rig that effectively has no used-game market, you may as well at least get better graphics and backward compatibility to show for it.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
It won't serve my media entertainment needs until it can play my existing files off my hard drive. MS, like Apple, is very, very bad at supporting anything other than their in-house flavor of video encoding. I've got a lot of TV and movies on my server, and they all play fine with Plex and XBMC. Will they be cataloged and available out of the box with an Xbox One?
If so, count me in, but I'm not holding my breath.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Most of the articles about this are rehashes of the press release. They even use the same language. OK, there are 8 CPUs. But what kind?.
The new Kinect supposedly is a real per-pixel time-of-flight device. Any more info on that?
If the game mechanics run remotely, then it's essentially a glorified OnLive and will require always-on wired broadband. I thought people bought consoles in part because they live outside the service area of cable and fiber or just to have something to do during an Internet outage. Yet something later in the article contradicts that:
It's the same issue with smartphones. I have an iPhone. I haven't paid a lot for the apps I have, but I'd still have to rebuy them if I went with an Android even assuming the same apps were available.
I've had my xbox360 since Dec 26, 2011 and had no problems even though I play Rocksmith for an hour or two just about every night and most weekends. I don't play any other games though (I do have Battlefield 2 and Doom 3 but have played both one time I think).
[John]
Shit better not happen!
AMD doesn't make Hyperthreaded CPUs, so it will be either 4 or 8 cores.
I am a bit hesitant to guess between Brazos versus Jaguar, GCN versus VILW-4, given the 40nm process used for the SoC. I also consider it a guarantee that their hardware is way under the PS4 given how light they are on the specifics - it screams of the Wii U!
That said, I would not worry about the hard drive size. That will be increased in future revisions.
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
How can you have slightly less than half a bit? surley there fundamental quanta. I think it must be 9 bits but with 151 reserved codes, The incrementer is designed to wrap around at this poit, any value greater than 360 shows an error condition.
Most Damage is done by people who are AWAKE
But I think they named it correctly, Xbox One (country)
I am sure all this TV tie-in will fail miserably in Canada. They claim to do switching as fast as you can change the channel, realize in Canada on Roger's changing the channel takes 10 seconds because the stupid NextBox 2.0 box was designed for seniors that have to hunt and peck for numbers on their remote and will not allow fast key presses.
Also I am sure that Rogers will refuse to allow the Xbox One to change channels through a "cloud" service because Roger's already has their own app for changing channels and viewing a guide, and Roger's can make ad revenue off their own app.
And I am sure the NFL fantasy league features will only work for US customers. Will Canadians get NHL fantasy league?
Its great that all these features were thought of and look nicely integrated, but will most likely never work properly outside of the US. Its tiresome when companies make a product that does not work properly outside the one market they designed it for.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Saved games in the cloud instead of locally saved?
According to the Wired article, that'll depend on the game. It claims that "you can still play a single-player game without being connected to the Internet," but not all games will allow this: "developers are able to offload significant chunks of processing power to the cloud—conceivably even fundamental game mechanics like physics engines or collision-detection systems."
Looks like Blipverts might be coming to an XBOX near you!
This is basically a laptop without the expensive bits - i.e. the screen and battery. I would be surprised if the bill of materials exceeds $500 this time around. Technology has come a long ways in 7 years.
moox. for a new generation.
Don't want an overpriced box that does everything. I want a game console that plays games and doesn't need the internet to "check in" with the home office...
This article confirms that both the CPU and GPU are based on AMD designs. Which means it will be an "8-core" CPU the same way the Bulldozer is 8-core: technically true if you only care about integer instructions, but it's more accurate to say there are four modules than eight cores.
Reading between the lines, it sounds like the Xbox One SoC is basically a customized, jumbo-sized version of AMD's Trinity APU.
Yeah, I agree. Porting the game might not be much of an issue but like you mentioned the consumer will have to re-purchase the game, which will be an issue for most.
The consumers (aka, the mindless bleating masses) may repurchase all of their games, but the customers, the ones who are able to make intelligent decisions instead of just blindly accepting everything their corporate overlords throw at them, would just hang on to their 360 consoles in order to play their 360 games, and only purchase new titles for this new system, if they decide they want it.
Any word yet on if Microsoft is still going ahead with the plan to tie each purchased game to a single console, preventing a used games market from arising? If that happens, then the intelligent customers will avoid this console like the plague, and either go with the competition, or go without (aka, stay with their old systems and the huge library of games out there that can last them several lifetimes)?
This space unintentionally left blank.
Some people also play games that get contractually written exclusive to the PC because none of the console makers are willing to sign the game's developer.
First of all they will probably sell it at zero or negative margin in the beginning meaning it may be a decent "gaming PC" for the money. Second, it has some hardware and software features that a PC doesn't, so it can probably squeeze out a bit more performance from the same dollar, than a computer running a desktop OS does. Developers also have a fixed hardware target so they can cut corners and do optimizations that aren't possible in PC games. Lastly, even though it has been theoretically possible to e.g. play a game of FIFA with 3 friends on a PC on your big screen TV, it is just so much simpler to do so on a console.
.. think that is an awful name for a 3rd gen anything? Also; "from 15,000 to 300,000 servers". Is that a typo or have they really increased their server capacity 20-fold?
Remember kids: What's right isn't as important as what's profitable.
... what was the Xbox before Xbox 2?
What's the next number in the sequence
1, 2, 360, 1 ... ?
The idea that Sony lost money on every console ever made is false. After all, Sony is a hardware company.
The PS3 may have lost money on initial units sold. The PS1 and PS2 did not.
Anyhow, Nintendo managed- by disregarding the issue and not changing it- to get people to forget how laughable a name "Wii" was, and still is when you think about it.
Except Xbox One isn't laughable, it's just (possibly) confusing. Perhaps a better example is nVidia and their transition from 6X00, 7X00, 8X00, down to 2X0, 3X0, 4X0, etc.
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
Increment Overflow Not resulting in Zero? There would have to be a whole other Docto--er, Console, that we didn't know about.
How many PC games support offline multiplayer nowadays? I have three USB game controllers, and they all work in emulated games and those few games made for the PC that support multiple controllers. But too many games made for the PC are coded under the assumption that each player will have his own PC, as opposed to a single PC connected to the TV.
Unless it has a couple of Cablecard slots on back, I don't see how that's going to work either. If it's going to be some kludgey IR blaster setup, then forget it. And my cableco's cable boxes don't have any other interface that I'm aware of.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
Your signature has more to do with this than you might think; Xbox gamers are deeply entrenched in their niche. The loyalty factor in this case could probably power a small nuclear reactor.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
I just did a google image search for "xbox one". Only 1 (lol) image of the new xbox shows up, all the rest are 1st gen Xbox's.
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=xbox+one&btnG=Search&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&client=firefox-a&um=1&hl=en&tbm=isch&tab=wi
I'm in the UK, is this the same case for elsewhere in the world?
Remember kids: What's right isn't as important as what's profitable.
But can it play Crysis?
Yes, rhetorical question, I know.
But taking it seriously... The new Xbox GPU is said to be similar to the Radeon 7790. And according to Anandtech, that card can indeed handle Crysis in full HD at more modest settings at playable frame rates (though not a full 60 fps).
That said... who cares? Crysis is basically a benchmark masquerading as a game. It's amazing how much publicity Crytek got by hiring programmers who don't know how to optimize.
AMD doesn't make Hyperthreaded CPUs
Bulldozer is SMT with each of two threads given its own integer pipe.
I am a bit hesitant to guess between Brazos versus Jaguar, GCN versus VILW-4
That's strange: There was already a console called the "Jaguar" (made by Atari), one called the "GCN" (abbreviation for GameCube, made by Nintendo), and one called the "Xbox 1" (the original Xbox, made by Microsoft, gained this name after the 360 came out).
“Snapping in” is the Xbox One’s task-switching mechanism, and it’s made possible by some serious operating system kung fu.
WTF, this thing has a an x86 core and is running a modified version of MS Windows, how much effort did they put into multitasking. If they really did put this much effort into it isn't this a bit of wheel re-invention, or maybe they have a better scheduler than in desktop Windows. If the systems is better than standard Windows why is it not being pushed into there main OS.
I may well get one of these, I always liked my XBOXes (original and 360, never had one break). It really depends on whether the always on internet requirment is actually a requirment. I never connected my xbox to the net, and infreaquantly connected my 360. When I want to play games I like to be able to grab a beer and play by myself (I never really enjoyed online gaming) or even better get some mates round get more beer and play games on a big TV, oh and pizza don't forget pizza.
Although I won't be buying this when its brand new, I let some kinks get ironed out and the price drop a bit.
Most Damage is done by people who are AWAKE
Xbox customers are extremely loyal, to the point of sycophancy.
Not this one. I've been an Xbox owner since the Xbox 1. But I've grown tired of having to pay $50/year for basic stuff like using the Netflix and Hulu apps. I'm also sick of the ad-heavy new home UI, the shitty new Netflix UI, and the fact that MS has spent years dropping all their best first-party developers.
I was vastly underwhelmed by today's unveiling (seriously, a Halo TV show, wtf?!?!?). The fact that the didn't even address the "always on" requirement for single-player titles rumors tells me all I need to know. Combine that with a bunch of "cloud" shit, no interesting exclusives, a new cable interface that probably won't even work with my cable system, and hardware that's no better than the PS4--and it all adds up to a great big cup of who-gives-a-fuck.
This Xbox fanboy is probably going PS4 this time around. At least it will save me $50 a year.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
Always on, always listening.
When I saw that part of the presentation, I laughed. The first thing I would do if I had one of these would be to turn that stupid voice feature off. It's going to be turning on every time I used the word "on" in a conversation.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
Why do games need to be backward compatible. It's not as if you will throw away your XBox360 when you buy an XBox One.
http://blog.oldversion.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/real-one.png
They want their ONE back...
Can it play Crysis 3, is the current question.
I personally thought "Xbox Live" would have been a great name, but they've been ditching the Live branding, so I knew that wouldn't happen either.
If Microsoft is ditching the "Xbox Live" branding, then what's the new name for the additional recurring fee payable to Microsoft to access the Netflix VOD subscription that you're already paying for?
Microsoft did say that if a disc was used with a second account, that owner would be given the option to pay a fee and install the game from the disc, which would then mean that the new account would also own the game and could play it without the disc.
That means I'll have to pay twice to play the ONE fucking game I bought. No. They had a chance to fix this shit, not buying it until they do.
I have two xboxes, but have to have two different accounts because it won't let folks watch netflix in one room while I play games in the other. I bought Bullet Storm -- My first encounter with Online Pass. My brother was visiting, he popped the game in while I went on a beer run. Got back, he started making pizza while went to go play... They wanted $10 more to play the damn game I just bought because my bro already used the online pass. We talked about what the fuck just happened, he thought that the code was just something in the box to prove you had it -- Like the codes in the manual of X-Com, back in the day. You could lend the game and the manual to a friend, but you needed the manual to put in the code and play... Nope, it was single use code. We ate pizza, went to gamestop to return the broken game. It had been opened so the best they could do was store credit for a used game trade-in... It was busy. About 20 people in the store. I stood in the middle of the store, held the disk above my head and said: "Listen Up Folks! This is a brand new game, bought two hours ago. They want 50% off because it's a Game With a Single Use Codes. They want $10 more for each account / game player in your house even though only one of them can play it at a time. I snapped the disk in half. Gave the finger to the clerk and told her, "This finger is only partially for you. It's also for the assholes who gave you the crap you just sold me. You deserve it because you sold me useless broken crap, instead of warning me of the defects, like a sleazy used car salesman would."
Let me know when the consoles have games that are DRM free. Till then, they can all go fuck right off.
I play them for enjoyment too, but that doesn't include the ability for game companies to put ads into my games and track everything I do with them.
An always-on internet wouldn't enhance my enjoyment, just the amount of crap I need to put up with.
I like my Xbox, and my wife plays several games with the Kinect -- but as soon as they put ads into the home page and the games, my Xbox was summarily disconnected from the network, and will remain that way.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
If you turn off the voice activation, does that turn off the microphone?
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Better yet, watch One-Winged Angel set your Xbox One to Mandarin: "Xbox, pekingese, near a bear, manatee, SEPHIROTH".
By using arithmetic or range encoding.
Probably liked Captain Jack better than We Drink Ritalin.
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Xbox to rule them all, One Xbox to find them,
One Xbox to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
Was going to post that in primary thread as it was first thought to come to mind about the name. Then I saw you preempted my LOTR, so I will post under you in deference to your Palantir Cloud of intrusiveness...
And despite that, it will likely let developers work closer to the metal than is possible on a PC, still eliminating much of the overhead of running games on a PC OS. And like I said before, the total memory footprint of that additional software is still likely far smaller than that of a modern desktop OS. You've only managed to (attempt to) dispute one of my three arguments. So nope, you're still the stupid one.
Apparently wizard is not a legitimate career path, so I chose programmer instead.
Some PC games have DRM, but then again some console games (such as one of the Spyro games for PS1) have additional copy protection above and beyond the console's proprietary disc format. But the vast majority of PC games on GOG or Humble Bundle are DRM-free, as are open-source games downloaded from the developer's own web site.
Or were you referring to Secure Boot in Windows 8 (x86 and x86-64)? You can turn that off.
It's a compass heading.
Instead of going north, they're now going north north north north north north north east.
Bulldozer module is NOTHING like hyperthreading.
Hyperthreading duplicates/shares key registers, cache entries and TLBs in order to execute instructions from TWO THREADS on the same processor core. The EXECUTE and DECODE are typically much wider to allow two threads to fully-utilize all the execution resources of a single core. Software must be written specifically to take advantage of this feature (separate threads for FPU and ALU ops, and go easy on the thread locking), or you'll see zero, or possibly NEGATIVE improvement. Best-case scaling throughput (Nehalem) is 20-30%.
Bulldozer modules are two COMPLETELY INDEPENDENTLY OPERATING cores that share decoders and an FPU unit. The decoders are tasked depending on how many cores in the module are loaded, and the FPUs just have a shared reservation station available to both processors (assumes that most loads are integer-heavy). Neither processor can execute instructions from another thread, and the best-case scaling is much higher than Hyperthreading (typically 70-80%).
Also, Bullozer will be losing one of it's major disadvantages when Steamroller launches: the decoders will be 4-wide for each module, and run independently, which is expected to allow scaling to 90-95% in integer-heavy loads.
As you can see, there is NOTHING in common between the two designs. The Bulldozer approach reduces the size of the core in favor of putting more cores on a die. The Intel Hyperthreading approach is to make a much wider core, and get more efficient use of those execution units. The only thing they have in common is that they both can theoretically improve multithreaded performance.
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
Not backwards compatible. The problem is that the old Xbox 360 has IBM Power inside while this new one is gonna get AMD64. The new CPU will probably not be that much faster, but the GPU should be plenty fast.
My mother was a tool, you insensitive clod!
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
Also interesting is the fact that the entire world of computing outside of the XBOX 360 was able to adapt to the Pb-free initiative without all the drama and years of failed hardware.
I am literally 3000 tokens away from the chaotic crossbow --Stephen
to ask for a classic-style game console built with modern tech/processing power?
Yes, I'd like to be able to play online with friends. That is the only other thing that I really want out of my console. I don't care if plays music or movies. I don't want it to be the center of my entertainment center. I sure as hell don't want it always on and spying on me.
I just want to play games, and that includes used ones.
In five years time, will today's top end PC still play the newest games released for the PC?
Yes. It won't play them at maximum settings, but on mainstream display settings the games will run fine. My cheap gaming PC from about the same era as your XBox 360 still plays everything that I throw at it.
At least with the PS4, I won't have to pay $50/year just to watch Netflix. Much as I hate Sony and used to love Xbox, I've had enough of that. None for this coming generation, thanks.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
God you people have no life, who gives a shit if it's Xbox 3.14 or Zero or who-gives-a-crap?
Buy it or don't. Idiots.
Boycotting doesn't work. It feels good from a moral standpoint, that your money isn't going to support DRM shit that makes each player in your household pay additional fees to play the one game disk you bought... However, Boycotts don't work. What if you heard the ending of ME3 sucked, and just didn't buy it? That wouldn't change anything. Bitch about it online enough such that it causes a horrible PR debacle and guess what happens? Shit. Shit actually happens. All you have to do is get enough people bitching about something and something will happen.
What if folks had just unfollowed the MS guy who was saying dumb shit about how "always-on" is great and being a general ass? Nothing. Bitch about it enough, guess what happens? Fucker is GONE. That's right. Bitching made it happen. You're the idiot if you think moaning about shit is pointless.
Sure the enthusiast PC magazines go gaga over SSD's, but I consider to be a "splurge" item. I'd take more capacity over speed any day of the week and twice on Sundays. The money one spends on an SSD could be used for a bigger mechanical drive AND a faster CPU, AND a nicer GPU AND More RAM.
If you actually PAID ATTENTION to the marketplace, you would understand these acronyms:
Brazos = AMD's current low-power CPU architecture. Used in their APUs. Built on 40nm process.
Jaguar = AMD's next-generation low-power CPU architecture. Built on 28nm process. Confirmed for PS4.
GCN = Graphics Core Next = AMD's latest graphics architecture. Built only on the 28nm process. This is confirmed in the PS4.
VLIW-4 is AMD's previous graphics revision, used in the HD 6900 series. This was last built on 40nm process.
The product launch is confusing because the SoC AMD is building for Microsoft is based upon the older 40nm process. Given the lack of specifics, the 40nm process technology IMPLIES the product could use older technology (Brazos, VLIW-4). So I was simply stating my uncertainty.
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
Other than the gaming functionality, everything else they seem to offer is already part of my living room hardware. I can watch Netflix, Hulu, Crackle, etc. on my Smart TV, my Blu-ray player, and my PS3. Oh, and I don't have to pay for Xbox Live to do any of those things either. All three can also connect to my home media server via DLNA and/or Medialink (Plex). It seems that this functionality is standard on almost any electronic device you place in your living room these days. I think I paid around $100 for my blu-ray player (with built-in wifi).
Sure, there are other features like Connect and voice command, but I find those mostly silly and useless. They are features in which I have zero interest. I'm sure some others feel differently.
In that case, it comes down to gaming. My PC (with Steam) handles that beautifully - probably better than will the Xbox One. I'll admit, though, that it isn't in my living room. I guess I could see getting this for my kids to replace their 360, but not at the day-one price point at which it will likely be introduced. I'll wait to see if it ends up being as problematic as the 360 and, if not, may pick one up when it hits $199. If not, I'll give the kids my PS3 when their 360 dies for the 4th time.
Yes, according to the live stream on GiantBomb, Microsoft's console will implement a "used fee". When you play a game, you will have to install it completely to the hard drive and it will be locked to that user account. If you want someone else to play it, they will have to pay a fee of an unknown amount.
This now only fucks over the used market, but fucks over people lending games to their friends... worse, even their most loyal customers. If you pre-order games for full price so you can play them on launch day and never sell your games back to the used market and never buy used games, you are still fucked if you, say, have a family of four and not only you, but your kids and wife enjoy playing games. Figure ten bucks per account per game? Now that $65 (with tax) game is suddenly $95 or more. And that's before you've bought the $40 worth of DLC.
I'd like to be optimistic and say this all sounds like an incredible boon for the future of PC gaming, but the vast majority of consumers don't give a fuck, don't know a fuck, and will just let themselves get rolled.
I can't run Halo 4 on my modern desktop because a lawyer prevents the devs from making it.
Nor can people run Bob's Game on a Nintendo handheld because a lawyer prevented Robert Pelloni from buying a devkit to port it. Indie games are far more likely to be PC exclusives simply because the developer cannot buy a console devkit.
Good to see that NASA is excluded from the world of computing...
http://nepp.nasa.gov/whisker/
Also the University of Maryland
http://www.calce.umd.edu/lead-free/tin-whiskers/
And Maxim Integrated...
http://www.maximintegrated.com/app-notes/index.mvp/id/5250
Just so long as "Watch TV" doesn't actually translate to "Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all", I think we'll be good this time around.
if ($question !~ m/bb|[^b]{2}/i) { die(); }
Games/saves on stored remotely is a deal breaker for me.
Maybe they're trying to help gaming addicts. When the internet goes down, Xbox gamers will have to go out into the streets along with all the crying WoW players, and get some sun.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
photo of the item taken by the buyer
This should be "by the seller", if it wasn't obvious.
If AMD is making the CPUs and GPUs for current consoles, why is it naming them after old consoles?
Does that mean it comes with strippers and all that? I enjoy many forms of entertainment.
PC games will be limited due to 32bit backwards compatibility issue, like 50% of the market is still 32bit. So buy yourself 16GB of RAM, but no game is gonna use it. Per process limit (32bit Windows) is about 2GB.. Cheers.
They do say that Win8 Metro apps will be trivially portable. I can't help but wonder if that'll include games. For a lot of indie stuff, this would be quite sufficient.
I can understand they want the xbox one to be a media entertainment machine but did they really have to make it look like a ugly, rented cable-box! Hopefully they did a better job with the packaging.
I want benchmarks like these everyday please. It's not some dumbed down console corridor shooter like many other FPS.
People going to be getting the original Xbox for birthdays and Christmas now.
I have a real question though: I thought the marketing rationale was: it was Xbox 360 because if they named it Xbox 2, people would say, "Hey playstation has a 3, xbox is only a 2, so I'll buy a playstation." So the name confuses me.
God spoke to me
Those are decent specs for a gaming machine. Quad-core is standard (see Ivy Bridge and the upcoming Haswell for examples). Games released this month don't even recommend 8 GB of RAM, much less require it. 500 GB of hard drive space is plenty for games -- not so much for hoarding 1080p media, but it sounds like they're focused on streaming. Not sure what you mean about Blu-ray being obsolete, unless someone made a Violet-ray while I wasn't watching...
Visit the
Think about it, saved games in the cloud is genius. Now when you move, you can plug the console at your new flat and all your saved games will be there!
The lack of backwards compatability is a death blow seeing as there are no "must have" features to drive people to buy the new system. I know many people who have acquired huge libraries of 360 games, and they're not going to want a machine that can't play them.
Given the backwards compatability of the Windows software stack for gaming, I'm absolutely baffled as to why they couldn't implement backwards compatability for the 360 in a trivial fashion.
Ah well. Looks like Windows 8 all over again. And Vista. And SE.
All rolled into one massive FAIL.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Note how people call "Xbox 360" "The 360". It is obviously MS marketing gimmick where they hope people will call "Xbox One" "The One". Personally I am hoping that people call it "The X-bone" so it backfires on them.
everyone with access to decent high speed internet you mean. More than half the US population still only has access to dial up or latency heavy satellite internet. So yeah, maybe YOU stream all your 1080p movies, but a lot of us are still stuck in the dark ages, where if we want to watch a movie, we queue it up from netflix, and pop it in the DVD or BlueRay player when it arrives in the mail.
As for switching and distributing movies on flash drives, I can't think of any reason distributors would want to switch from a 1.80$ plastic disk to a 5$ drive with more potential points of failure.
I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
That's true on a 32bit OS, on a 64bit OS an entire 4GB space can be given to a 32bit game, since the kernel doesn't need to reserve 2GB for itself to map video and everything else
Normal people worry me!
How about adding a feature so it doesn't take 5 minutes to get a group together for Call of Duty 3?
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
Eh, yes and no. So with the disclaimer that I'm no architect, here's my viewpoint:
From the block diagram I saw, the halves of a module have separate integer pipes and separate L1 caches. IMO, if you say that I'm allowed to have a spectrum between "independent cores" and "SMT", those two characteristics on their own put Bulldozer at least halfway between the endpoints, and if I'm forced to pick a side I'm going to go with "two cores" rather than "one core SMT".
Put it this way. The shared FPU doesn't kill the fact that they're separate cores. Is the Sun Niagra an 8-core chip (each core 4-way SMT) with a single shared FPU, or is it a 32-way SMT single-core chip with a single shared FPU? Because I suspect basically everyone would agree that the former is a far more accurate description than the latter.
That basically leaves the shared decoder and dispatcher. And in my mind, the separate L1 caches "separate" the two halves at least as much as the decoder & dispatcher bind them together.
So while it is probably misleading and incorrect to call bulldozer an 8-core chip, I feel it's more misleading to call bulldozer a 4-core, 2-way SMT chip.
...separate L1 caches...
Just to clarify, I'm talking about the data cache. The shared I-cache is another factor that blurs the distinction and moves it closer to the SMT end of the spectrum, but still not past the halfway point IMO.
That basically leaves the shared decoder and dispatcher
I guess also the bus interface from the module.
The smartest real customers are game developers, and all of them have already bought into the console. The only mindless cretins who blindly accept the corporate overlords are the game developers who sign exclusive deals and don't go multiplatform. Then again, they have dollariffic reasons for doing so which are not hate-based, like your Soviet screed.
fault-tolerant
The demo was very Star Trekish.. Sometimes he'd get the attention of the system by saying "Xbox" and then commands and other times he'd just say some commands. I'm interested what exactly it's listening for and how it determines if you actually are giving it commands. When playing games/watching TV how many false positives for commands is it going to process. Seems like a feature I would disable because it's problematic.
IT was time that did it. MS HAD to get xbox360 out the door before Sony. At the time PS2 was a monster and no one knew that Sony was going to drop a $599 egg.
Good-bye
Xbox and PS4 are going to be roughly identical hardware wise. The game devs demanded it.
Good-bye
It IS a PC. Please stop with the 'consoles are hyper-optimized' bullshit.
Good-bye
They went with One because they couldnt go to 4 and One signifies it as a 'unifying' experience. Its basically Microsoft hubris at its finest.
Good-bye
If your OS doesn't suck that 14GB left over will be used for cache. So, it's not a complete waste.
I want this account deleted.
You could run Crysis 3 on the intergalactic Borg network, it would still be a shitty game.
fault-tolerant
And do tell, exactly how are you going to play offline when every developer is going to claim that their game has to offload some of its processing to the "cloud" now (you know, the way EA did with SimCity)?
Maybe if you pray hard enough, Jesus will miracle your game to work.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
I suspect that demo was completely staged. There was probably someone behind the scenes actually running it.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
So what you're saying is that PC + DRM and other assorted lock-in = Xbox? I think you should direct your "fuck, you are stupid" comment towards those who actually decide to buy it...
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
My _personal_ problem with it is that it's not backwards compatible, which means I can't get rid of the xbox 360, which means Yet Another Item In The Entertainment Console, which will make my wife Not Happy. If enough good titles come out for it that aren't 360/ps3 available, she might decide it's worth it, but I don't expect that to be for at least a couple of years, and more likely she'll just play them at someone else's house.
"Customers" would never have bought a 360 in the first place.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I've been an Xbox owner since the Xbox 1.
[Emphasis mine]
Oh this generation is going to be fun.
The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.
The current shitlist includes but is not limited to:
1. Fully able to both entirely block used games as well as mandate a significant fee to play used games.
2. Fully attached to microsoft account in terms of games. Publishers can (read publishers will love to mandate this) DRM games with:
a. Account/console binding game disks with forced installation to play. You can no longer take your game to your friend's place to play.
b. Open possibility for always online DRM a la ubisoft built into the console.
c. Usage of microsoft's cloud service to do something within the game (think diablo 3).
3. Price of the system.
4. Kinect being essentially a hard wired part of the system that is always watching you. Massive privacy issues. Likely in legal gray area/illegal in many countries in terms of usage of data by microsoft and may cause severe problems.
5. Price of the games requiring online + microsoft's requirement to pay for online capability likely making your bought games effectively rented. Miss a monthly payment and lose access to your games.
6. Heavy reliance on US-based services for much of unique features of the system while the most/one of the most profitable regions is currently EU where many of these services are not available for a wide number of reasons ranging from copyright and control issues to language issues to local laws.
There's probably a whole lot more reasons why this console will be troublesome for many consumers and why many may choose to not buy it. But these are the ones that I've seen and heard actively discussed.
4 cores + HT is the most that Intel offers for desktops at the moment, and they outperform AMD. Clearly a top end CPU was out of the question anyway due to cost. 8GB is pretty healthy, remembering that until late last year Intel's mobile i7 CPUs didn't even support more than 4GB.
BluRay is the current generation and highest capacity optical drive available. What else is there for physical media? Or were you hoping for download-only, because I don't think many people would be happy with that.
500GB HDD... What were you planning to put on it? And how much do you want to pay? Keep in mind that it's not just the cost you as a consumer pay - MS gets bulk prices but that includes fewer rights to return faulty units (which cost them money to swap out at the service department anyway) so for them picking a single 500GB platter model that will be a bit cheaper and a few percent more reliable than a 1TB model is very much worth it.
Doubtless it will be behind the curve even at launch when compared to PCs, but this thing will be the current machine for at least 5 years so even if it was cutting edge it would only be for a fraction of its lifetime.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Since they decided that our PC should look like a phone, then our gaming console should certainly play like a PC.
WHAT?!
There was once something with a vaguely similar name, if that helps.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
perhaps they figure streaming makes spinning plastic obsolete. Personally, spinning plastic will be a feature of my entertainment life at least until Netflix has all the language/subtitle options for the foreign films, and probably longer (since I already have a fair amount of such plastic).
Did you forget nVidia? They had Pb-free soldering issues as well. I fixed hundreds of laptops with failed nVidia chipsets using a hot air rework station back in the day. The PS3 had the Yellow Light of Death which was Pb related too.
MS were just the worst affected due to the design of their chip producing a lot of heat. Well, maybe apart from HP who had every single laptop they made for about 3 years affected by the nVidia bug, but they wriggled out of that and didn't do an extended warranty/replacement service.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
technically true if you only care about integer instructions
Hmm, what else would you care about when you have a powerful dedicated streaming FP unit in the same address space (i.e., easier data exchange and low data exchange latency)?
Ezekiel 23:20
In my experience they can and do suddenly stop working at random. Once they stop selling them you'll have maybe 2 years and then have no choice but to switch because those fucking things don't last that long. Both MS and anyone who's not a brainwashed tool knows it. If you want to continue to play the same games, you'll have to buy them yet again.
I'll stick with Steam, thank you very much. I have games for PC that still play just fine from over 10 years ago. And yes, playing video games for graphics is like watching porn for plot and acting.
I want this account deleted.
A 2-player game of Dr. Mario isn't incest; it's just playing doctor.
It's moving everything into the cloud? That worked out well for simcity. So I guess they force you into paying for live as well.
I have a 360 w/konect but only use it for streaming video. Hate playing with controllers.
Not to mention typing on one is a real blast. /sarcasm.
And STILL no keyboard control? It seems to me they could pull tons of users in if they just add keyboard control. With all the console haters out there just that one addition would instantly kill off the competition.
Wuddooeyeno? IITYWYBMAD? Like nuts? eclecticallyincorrect.com
And why does it have to be 1080p? Lower resolutions don't exist?
They exist, but given the choice between "stream a lower resolution" and "wait a couple days for a blu-ray at 1080p", for many things and in most situations, I at least would choose the latter.
In soviet russia, home entertainment system watches YOU!
> 1080p camera... 60 FPS. Field of view increased by 60%....
> motion tracking... detect skin pigmentation changes related to heart rate
Seriously, imagine being able to measure consumers' emotional reaction to advertisements... if you were worried about information being gathered about you, with google adwords targeting you by search, or facebook data-mining your social network, you ain't seen nothing yet.
Riiight... The NVidia scandal just didn't happen.
As someone else pointed out, the 360 is (was?) sold below manufacturing cost. If you buy a lot of systems and few games, you're damaging their bottom line.
Mutually assured destruction anyone? Yeah, buying a bunch of consoles and no games would damage Microsoft's bottom line, but it would be far worse for yours, no? If you wanted to throw money at damaging Microsoft, buy stock in their competitors.
The courts and politicians were not nearly as corrupt in the 70s as they are today. You can read every case on US-DOJ regarding Microsoft being found guilty of predatory monopolistic practices, and see what their punishments (or lack thereof) were.
This is in addition to numerous states that have found them guilty of predatory monopolistic practices, and receiving no punishment.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Download isn't physical media and is inferior in many situations and fatal in some. Flash would definitely have been an alternative, but is substantially more expensive and doesn't retain compatibility with people's existing audio CDs, DVDs, and movie blu-ray discs.
Besides, I wouldn't be too surprised if there would be a way for game devs to distribute games on flash (especially if they start bugging MS for it), and I'd be astonished if there's no game download service. I mean, that already exists; it's not like DVDs are the only way to get games onto a 360. Just because MS says "hey we've got a blu-ray drive" doesn't mean that's what every single game will use.
I though one of the common complaints of gamers was that the XBox 360 and PS3 were holding back development. If the XBox One has 8 GB, "ports" of Xbox One games will also be written to take advantage of more than 2 GB of memory.
This deserves an upvote.
Consoles are great not because they have good specs (they mostly have shitty ones). They are great because they present developers with a fixed hardware target for a decade or so. Games development on consoles is not too dissimilar from Demo scene, just that all the little tips and tricks get applied to all those games.
Give me a fixed target and I'll optimise the hell out of it. With results.
Uh, wut?
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Nvidia-GPU-failure,6248.html
http://nepp.nasa.gov/whisker/photos/
How is the Surface *Pro* a disaster? Microsoft appears to be selling them about as fast as they can manufacture them. The Surface RT (uses ARM chips and runs the crippled-desktop Windows RT) has had disappointing sales, not the Pro.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Sounds like someone believed a salesman at best buy that told them "really, it's a gaming PC by Gateway". **sigh**
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Mmmm it'll probably be the (apparent) fact that you have to enter a code manually into the box after purchasing a game in order to have it 'verified online and linked to your Xbox Live account', coupled with the fact that your friend who wants to borrow the game will have the opition to do so... but only if they pay the full retail value of said game.
Oh, there's also the brand new, feature packed online trading system for second hand games... which will be extremely popular with retailers (who are already totally enthused about the auth code system), as well as gamers who will be able to see that they're still paying significantly more for '2nd hand' digital content than they can get back by rescinding their rights to it.
http://www.xkcd.com/354/
Why do gaming console manufacturer always insist on the CPU? Nintendo used a 64 bit CPU in its Nintendo 64 and there was no benefit to anyone. The more powerful, later consoles were 32 bits.
And now Microsoft choose an 8 cores CPU. Most games won't use more than 2-4 cores and the others will be useless, just like they were in the PS3.
GPU is much more important. And they seem to use a crappy one.
Now when you get a replacement console due to the next "red ring of death" hardware issue, all your saved games will be there! Or they will be once they finish downloading.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
The xbox has me fed up turning on every time I said "xbox on".
Oops, I think I just turned on half a dozen.
Actually, Microsoft only got off (nearly) scott-free with the feds. They had to pay out hundreds of millions to states and billions to private parties, who all relied on the federal judgement.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Salesman? I just bought the highest specd thing available in my pricerange.
Their stated goal for the Xbox One is to have a single device provide "all of your entertainment."
it will not be backward-compatible with Xbox 360 games
These two statements are mutually exclusive.
Because the next console will be the X Box Zero ??
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
I hear you can tune into FM radio stations simply by using your arm as the antenna. You just have to keep it that way while you listen.
Seriously. I've read several articles and all I could find was it (probably) is running the same AMD hardware the PS3 has. The Kinect is super cheap to make, so that's not adding much cost either.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
4 cores + HT is the most that Intel offers for desktops at the moment, and they outperform AMD.
They've got some 6 core CPUs too.
Software wise, they are more optimised than a generic desktop OS. Hardware wise, this is just a locked down PC.
$5? Are you kidding? The retail cost of some BluRays is that low now. Even at $10, you're not leaving a lot of room for other things like retailer markup or the studio actually making some money.
NOBODY streams nowadays. Despite the hype, the numbers are still pretty low. They just get a lot of attention because most people have no grasp of numbers.
They have a staggering lack of perspective as well as extreme narcissism and a tendency to think they represent everyone.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
> I'm speaking globally, not US-centric. And why does it have to be 1080p? Lower resolutions don't exist?
Lower resolutions and bitrates are certainly less satisfying.
If you are talking "not US-centric" then you have the problem of alternate language tracks and subtitles. This is an area where streaming services tend to fall down rather badly.
It's not just the low quality video stream.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
And why can't aren't my games on the damn console I moved to begin with? I fail to see the value added. Now if my console got destroyed during the move, that's a different story.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
They addressed the "always on" rumor. Specifically, they said that while the console will require an internet connection for many of its features (and, presumably, game registration) it will not have to be constantly connected.
Actually, this is nothing new. Most consoles, at launch, would lose on paper to their counter-part mid-range PC at launch. So what?
1.) There's more to hardware than the listed specs. For instance, Xbox360 had lots of architectural features that made it a poor choice for general computing but excellent for a typical gaming load. One example was a cache architecture tuned for streaming data (i.e. reading of a disc or streaming in geometry and textures). Also, consoles typically require less overhead in terms of things like OS footprint, etc. than PCs. Thus, despite the numbers, consoles are typically able to keep up with PCs that out match them in terms of specs alone.
2.) Developers can focus their efforts on a single architecture when developing for consoles. This entails huge performance gains from various optimizations that would not be feasible when developing for the heterogeneous PC architecture landscape. (Certainly there are exceptions to this i.e. Game A gets optimized code for GPU B, but this is certainly not a guarantee when buying the game). Furthermore, developers have much longer to find particular optimizations for the hardware given that the console life-cycle is typically 5 - 10 years. Notice how much better the last titles in a console generation look compared to those at launch.
Finally, $300 to $400 doesn't buy you much in terms of a gaming rig. I know, I just tried to build one on that budget.
Then your friend is either likes throwing away money, knows nothing about warranties, or is doing modding that invalidates his warranty (which could also be to blame for his HW failures).
If memory serves... each 360 comes with a year hardware warranty... and if a unit dies and it's replaced under warranty... the replacement gets a fresh 1 year warranty.
Given the 360 hit the US 7 years, 6 months, 29 days ago... it's hard to believe that each of his 13 units died on day 366 (as there isn't enough time between then and now)... I'm more inclined to believe you are full of crap.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Dunno that Sony is going to be any better on that issue though...
Funny how my 500$ pc i bought last year is unable to play any games i have on xbox. And when it does they usually run and look like shit.
When you buy computers from Dell, it does NOT surprise anyone they can't play games.
Be seeing you...
This article confirms that both the CPU and GPU are based on AMD designs. Which means it will be an "8-core" CPU the same way the Bulldozer is 8-core: technically true if you only care about integer instructions, but it's more accurate to say there are four modules than eight cores.
That would be true if the article confirmed that it was using a derivative of the Bulldozer CPU core. Instead, it confirms that Microsoft selected the Jaguar core, which is a much different design that is not based on modules at all, and has no support for multiple threads per core (that I'm aware of). So it's eight full cores. But they're not very powerful cores, especially by Bulldozer standards.
Both Microsoft and Sony chose this core for their new consoles because it makes more sense than a relatively heavy desktop core like Bulldozer. It uses far less power and die area per core. A game console needs most of the chip's area and power budget allocated to the GPU, not the CPU.
Funny how my 500$ pc i bought last year is unable to play any games i have on xbox. And when it does they usually run and look like shit.
forgot to add this in my last reply. Pretty much all the Xbox ports to PC sucks and runs bad, so it's not a surprise.
Be seeing you...
I'd prefer in Klingon, for reasons that are the exact opposite you said.
Haven't seen any updates beyond that each One comes with a Kinect now.
If Kinect is now required (games require it to play or the system errors if it's not plugged in) then it's a no-sale for me. Kinect is interesting tech, but not when hooked up to a MS owned box...especially one that is "always on and ready" .
AB HOC POSSUM VIDERE DOMUM TUUM
And hackable ... didn't Panasonic have trouble with their Skype TVs having the cameras hacked remotely?
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Voice controls in Sing Star are quite smooth but still delayed a fraction of a second. I wouldn't put it past either company to have excellent voice control this generation. I still don't want people talking to the TV to change channels.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
I guess no one will be renting Xbox One games to check out anymore, since the "used disk" fee will pop up.
Be seeing you...
Seriously, what's with the name? I've heard people using "Xbox 1" as slang for the original Xbox for as long as the 360 has been around.
If a dollar a week is too much than by all means don't buy ANY console. The two real advantages of the new Xbox One is the Kinect 2.0 was designed with the system so all games will be compatible and the fact that the Xbox One is NOT backwards compatible so all games are original Xbox One titles designed to work with the new Kinect. The new Kinect and requiring Xbox One games could be the game changer that can kill the Wii U's interactivity and PS4's graphic advantage. I don't own a xbox 360 but I might buy a xbox one depending on the titles. I'd love to see a fitness trainer game that could watch and adjust if the workout is too hard or easy for the user and respond accordingly in real-time with additional coaching or changing the program.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
It's not bullshit, it's been well known since the 80s that consoles can do more than PCs because they are locked down boxes with the exact same specs rather than trying to test a game on dozens of CPUs and GPUs and just making it "good enough" to work on the average CPU and GPU. That's the problem with PCs, you can make a beautiful looking game that runs on only the latest $600 video card and looks like a slid show on $100 cards or you can make an average looking game that runs on $100 video cards but you can't have it both ways, and since they wanna sell as many copies of the game as possible which one do you think they're going to do?
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
xbox yawn
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
Absolute Rubbish.
The early PS3's YLOD failure issues are also all down to the same thing as the XBox360s RROD - cracks and whiskers in Pb-Free solder.
-Jar
Together, We Can Make Slashdot Better. I Do NOT Mod ACs. - Check Me Out
Thanks AC! You've made my morning!
More gems today please.
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
So why did you say you'd go for a PS4? Do you seriously think the publishers if they're going to go the Sim City route of needing "cloud processing" that they'll somehow skip that on the PS4?
I'm not happy with the XBox one unveil because of the crap about publishers being able to charge a fee for second hand games - for me, someone with two consoles because my partner likes to play at the same time as me too that usually means that it's going to be tied to my account meaning she can't play it on her account when I'm using mine in a different room.
That doesn't mean I'll get a PS4 though as I also have a PS3 and whilst I enjoy some of the exclusives on it like the Uncharted and the LBP series and find it makes a decent Bluray player it can be frustrating to use sometimes given that it seems to constantly need updating and when it does the updates are large and slow compared to the 360. Given the PS4's lacklustre unveil too (arguably worse than the XBox one's) given that it seems to be even more of the same than the new XBox is I think most realistically right now I'll get neither unless one offers some compelling looking games or something.
I don't think anyone is taking issue with your annoyance at the way things are going, but if you scream "I'm going to get a PS4 instead!" as if it's some magical panacea that doesn't have the same and arguably worse flaws than the XBox One then it just makes you sound like a fanboy. At least both seem way better than the WiiU but I'm baffled as to why both Sony and Microsoft seem to think it's a good idea to announce features that are anti-consumer, it's as if they've forgotten who the customer is and believe it's the publisher, not the gamer.
No, I am asking, "Does any of this media integration work outside the U.S.?"
Google, for example, likes to go on about the wonderful features of Google Now. Being in Canada, I find that many of those features don't work, like song identification, for example. And tracking my favourite sports teams? Google Now isn't even aware that the Canadian Football League exists.
So why would I expect Xbox One's TV listings to work?
Yeah great, buy a PS4 and end up with a console that has less and less features the longer you own it, where the company denies you replacement if it develops a fault because that'd make them red faced after they made such a fuss about RROD, where your personal details are spread far and wide across the net by inept security practices and where you're treated like you should be grateful for being allowed to have a PS4 rather than as a customer.
Seriously, the fact you've claimed how good you think the PS4 will be in every post so far on this thread (despite the fact Sony hasn't even given enough information to know how they may or may not fuck you yet) shows you're just a Sony fanboy. Fuck off already, we saw that tactic a million times over last time, it's not new, it's not clever, and we don't care.
We will however laugh in your face after you spend 2 years spending every waking moment supporting your beloved Sony only for them to turn around and fuck you over, because that's what happened last time, and that's what we did last time.
I also bought a second one after the first one RROD'd.
It's not about being "extremely loyal" as you put it, it's about being pragmatic:
- I still want to play games on a console, so I'd have to either fix it or buy a new one
- Fixing the old Xbox would cost about as much as a new one, and the new one is simply better (quieter, extra controller, lower energy, wifi, larger HD, etc)
- I have a game library which I'd like to be able to replay
- I can use my old controller
Honestly I've always preferred the Playstation, but I won the Xbox in a contest a few years ago, and it made no sense to go out and spend extra money on a console which is essentially the same.
For the next generation it'll be a PS for me. Either that or a box running Linux+Steam connected to the TV.
As for your friend breaking 12 Xboxes, that's really too much. I wouldn't lend him anything if I were you.
Tuner. It's tuner you illiterate tool.
No, it's 'tuna'.
It's not a Tuna!
[UID-HeinzIntel]
My experience with consoles hasn't been that great actually. I have had games (like the latest Resident Evil) on the original PS3 (HD screen) perform like utter crap (literally, some scenes went down to something like 7fps). I have seen similar issues on the xbox 360 in GTA4 too. Sorry, but I don't buy your argument. At least on the PC if I encounter a game being crap, I can find a workaround, but not on consoles!
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Xbox One / 10 will fail because...
No games. No seriously. Microsoft doesn't have anything to show us. They don't care about gaming at all. It took them 30 minutes to even mention games and gaming on Xbox One. And even when talking about games they just talked about their intentions. Microsoft only displayed three games on stage. And two of which were not even real gameplay but a prerendered video. Remedy's next game was sneak peeked and offered at least little bit of actual gameplay from an actual game. But then again the Microsoft caused a huge disappointment, a huge disappointment, among the fans of Remedy. Remedy's core audience consists mostly if not only Windows-PC gamers. There's just no way they can make their game exclusive and get away with it. Alan Wake was released for Windows too and so will this Quantum thing. We just have to wait during which Microsoft will do their best to promote the game as Xbox exclusive title. Nobody will buy a device based on a single title.
DRM - The Game Console. There's some trick going to be involved regarding selling and buying used games. What that trick is we don't know yet. But EA dropping their online pass was probably something they did in preparation for this. Microsoft spesifically says that buying used games is possible but ther aren't "disclosing more information about this at the moment" which is very suspicious. At least Microsoft's officials confirmed that you can go to a friend's house with the game, and once you've logged in with your own account and installed the game then you guys can play the game. Microsoft is not going to ask a fee for additional installs of game unlike the various sources reported. However Microsoft didn't confirm if the accounts which are associated with the device ID of the device your game is initially registered with can also run the game without asking you to login to your account first. Technically this could mean that not all the family members can even launch the game. Microsoft also essentially admits that you cannot borrow a game from your friend. Probably the most essential aspect of the closed gaming platforms and now you just cannot do it anymore. This is going to cribble Xbox One so badly that we can essentially already make the call that Xbox One will be the loser of the upcoming generation.
Always on-line not required but for all pratical purposes it has to be always on-line. If you buy a new game from a shop, you will not be able to play it unless the first time you play it you're connected to the internet so that the game's content ID can be registered with your account ID. Game developers and publishers are given tools to enable always on-line for their games. Xbox One games don't have to be constantly on-line, but if for example the publisher decides that the game has to be always online to function, then they are able to do it. Which is pretty much line with Microsoft's alignment with region-locked content. Game developer and publisher are given choise to region-lock their game if they so want.
Xbox One is made by Americans for Americans. The TV stuff only works in the USA. The content services tied to the Xbox One only work in USA. And most of the functionality Microsoft spoke of will only work in USA. This will restrict the sales of the new Xbox dramatically.
Every game is installed into the HDD in the name of "progress". Xbox One has an HDD users cannot replace. But Microsoft offers two USB 3.0 ports which you can plug-in external HDD and at least Microsoft claims that users can use the external HDD just like the internal e.g. installing the games, profile management, etc.
Kinect is a requirement. This is not just creepy but probably a outright violation of digital rights. First of all Kinect will always be monitoring the room for "Xbox on" command. Even when it seemingly is not powered. Since we know that the device's user agreement will contain something alone the lines of "submitting audio samples to microsoft for improving the service quality" the thing stinks already. Call me
as able to adapt to the Pb-free initiative without all the drama and years of failed hardware.
Not at all. Mission critical things were excluded, so aerospace, medical and military are still allowed to use lead if they wish.
Non Pb solder is much harder to work with. Try it: it's obvious even using the stuff.
However the problems don't end there. It's done hotter, which leads to more component failure. It also leads to larger thremal stresses due to gerater thermal expansion during soldering. It's harder and less malleable, which means that it cracks more easily. Eutectic solder, and in fact pure lead anneal and indeed creep at room temperature. This means that stress induced damage actually slowly self heals over time quite astonishingly.
Then there's the trouble with tin whiskers.
Pb free solder is a pain in the ass, but not as much as heavy metal poisioning. But make no mistake it is not as easy to work with.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
The Sun Niagara is (or was?) a very differnet beast to the type of SMT on Intel and the Power chips.
AFAICT the Niagara is basically a barrel processor and switches threads once per clock tick. That provides excellent latency hiding, but has nearly a duplicated set of everything for every thread. But they can be smaller, simpler and slower units since they only go active once every N clock cycles.
On the other hand, the SMT of the Intel and Power variety is different. It has one set of stuff and just tries to jam two (or 4) threads worth of instructions into it. I say "just", but of course it's a rather harder problem.
The difference is that the barrel threads go 1/N times as fast but are N times as latency tolerant (giving theoretically a higher throughput). Whereas on intel, the speedup depends on the workload very much more.
The bulldozer is much more like the Intel one than the Sun one in implementation. But the shared chunk is much smaller, and much less sharing occurs between threads.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
On a 32 bit machine it is trycky to go over 2GB per process since you suddenly have to become awfully careful about pointer differences.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Not sure what you mean about Blu-ray being obsolete
He believes that everyone has a fast internet connection, I suppose. He's forgotten that even people London (e.g. me) have to suffer on a 4mbps DSL connection due to a mix of non upgraded exchanges and very strict planning rules blocking visible RCU boxes.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Consoles are great not because they have good specs (they mostly have shitty ones).
The Cell proessor did boast a quite astonishing peak floating point throughput when it debuted. Whether it was better is left as an exercise for the poor sods who had to program the blighter, but in some domains it had much better performance than the top end PCs at the time.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Why don't you tell that to John Carmack.
Apparently wizard is not a legitimate career path, so I chose programmer instead.
And if the 360's OS was as large as a normal desktop version of Windows, there would be no way you could play modern AAA games on it when it only has 512MB of RAM shared between CPU and GPU. Once again, you've completely failed to refute any of my points.
Apparently wizard is not a legitimate career path, so I chose programmer instead.
> I got my XBox 360 in 2008 and paid £300 for it. (The mid-life RROD resulted in repair/replacement by Microsoft free of charge). To this day, that single unit still plays all the new games released for it. In five years time, will today's top end PC still play the newest games released for the PC?
Like you, I fancy a fast PC for my work, and so, the GPU is the only added cost. PC gaming is much cheaper when you build your PC. Like you, I find always-on requirements of games annoying and an all-seeing eye/ear... creepy. I could turn the camera off, but that is the significant component of the value proposition.
In late 2008, I got a GTX 260 for $200. I see at least another 2 years of life on it. Possibly more. One reason is that I accumulated a rather large library on online sales (many highly rated AAA titles at $2.50 - $5.00) that I have not gotten around to yet. The GPU pays for itself on cheaper games and no online fees alone.
Even for new games, only first-person perspective games need to be played at medium settings. Upcoming non-FP games like Company of Heroes 2 (a PC exclusive) will play just fine on my card. And even for new first-person games, I just need to tone down the settings to current console grade (medium), they play just fine. The card will further work for many more years if I find low settings acceptable.
The idea of extended life cycles of consoles is over-rated. The so called console optimization (fixed specs) only eeks out a certain percentage. It appears to be a larger effect with esoteric architectures since the devs produce worse products early on, not as much because they get so good later on. That, I can match later with CPU/GPU overclocks, that you cannot on a console. PC had 1080p, a generation ago. With inexpensive tuners, not only can I watch TV on my PC, I have been recording shows for a while, unlike what can be done with XBox One. Switch between TV, DVD, Game with no lag? OK, nothing new, apart from gesture and voice commands.
After the next gen consoles have been in the market for an year or two, I will get another mid-range GPU (which should be about $200 and considerably faster than a console GPU - the consoles have mid-range GPUs by today's standards, and won't by launch date, let alone later) after selling my old card (while maintaining backward compatibility with my library) to offset the price further. That should cover me easily for the next console generation. Previously, console ports performed worse on CPU load. This time, since they are all x86-64, the differences should be less noticeable.
500 bucks won't get you a gaming PC, you should have done some homework before spending. It's cheapest to buy your own rig, but you also need to know how to build it. Motherboard, Memory, CPU and graphics card for a "gaming" rig are 500 bucks alone. Add in the other items (disk, dvd/cd, sound card) and you are easily close to a grand.
If you didn't believe a salesmen, you still used poor logic. The most expensive home office PC is not a gaming PC, the most expensive word processing PC is still not a gaming PC, etc... Gaming has different requirements, like high end graphics and a bus to support the graphics. You simply don't have either in a 500 dollar PC, especially when you consider that the graphics card alone for a "good" gaming PC is around 200 bucks.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
As stated, go read the punishments. In most cases, Microsoft had to provide their proprietary software for X number of years for free. It was not a cash payment, and never changed the economic landscape for competition (which is the whole point of punishing predatory monopolies). In fact, when MS has to provide "free for X years" products, it further entrenches the monopoly.
They paid Novell peanuts for the damage they did to "Office" products, and the same with other competition they removed by predatory practices (there are exceptions in private law suits, but those are not what I mentioned). The exception for payment damages is the EU, but we are not talking about the EU.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Mostly it's articles like this, but I'm not entirely sure that counts, since it's outselling the Nexus 10.
I think the gist is "If Windows makes up such a huge portion of the desktop segment, why isn't Microsoft seeing the same success with tablets?"—of course, we can all answer that question a hundred times over, so... Good catch, and points to you.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
I do have plenty of computers.
Can all these computers run games, or are some of them stuck with an Intel GMA?
So do my friends. And we all have steam accounts and copies of whatever game we want to play.
I have two questions for you: Are games on Steam so cheap that a householder with multiple children could buy three or four copies of a game for what a single copy of a console game costs?
Nobody is going to lug a TV around. I hope steam gets around to solving this issue. Their steam box would be a really overall cheap way for me to throw a console next to the TV.
Another cheap way is to buy or build a $400 AMD PC, put it next to the TV, and search for controller-friendly titles. Hairyfeet could explain in more detail.
consumers wouldn't want to get off the couch to change game discs to play a different game
Console gamers have been changing cartridges since the Magnavox Odyssey in 1972 changed games with jumper packs.
But if the game installs to HDD how do you prevent people from just passing the disc around their group of friends and getting 18 copies for free?
Burn a unique disc serial number in the burst cutting area, like GameCube and Wii discs. Connect to the Internet when a game is activated and once a month thereafter to renew the receipt, like Steam. But here's the big change: allow a game to be activated on any console if its receipt hasn't been renewed in 45 days. An unactivated game plays only the first episode, much like an unregistered copy of Doom.
one-time use keys which are going to piss off customers a little and piss off retail partners a lot (they'll be cheaper than new copies of the disc, so customers can pass around a disc and get multiple copies for a lot less than $60 and retailers don't get anything besides the initial disc sale)
Retailers don't get any cut of game sales for iPad or Android tablets unless they're made with an iTunes or Google Play gift card. Yet I see tablets in Walmart, Best Buy, and Staples.
Jsut no. This generation of consoles taught the devs how to scale a game to multiple targets really well. Bioshock Infinite plays better on a Celeron 1610 with integrated GPU then it does on Xbox360, AT HIGHER RESOLUTION. Yes having a stable target on consoles is good and they do get micro optimization as a result, BUT the raw horsepower of PC mitigates pretty solidly. Optimization at this scale stopped mattering for PC around Core2Duo.
Good-bye
Gamers already have to choose between the set of games for one console and the set of games for another console. How is Steam vs. GOG any different, other than that it's a lot cheaper to choose "both" for PC app stores than for console hardware? The problem with consoles is that if you choose a console over a PC, you're committing to DRM for all games because console operating systems won't even launch an executable that lacks the DRM.
That happens by default on Windows. By default, programs only get 2GB of address space, and Windows "uses" (just doesn't give out, really) the other 2GB.
If a programmer thinks they're careful, they opt into the larger address space by setting the IMAGE_FILE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE flag in their PE header (usually by passing a linker flag).
So now we can get to your question, and there are two answers:
1) Even if a program doesn't have knowledge of 64-bit Windows, they can still get some benefit from setting that flag: on a 32-bit Windows system configured to support it, they'll get a 3GB address space instead of 2GB.
2) If a program has no knowledge about the large-address-aware flag at all, then they "tell the OS to not give it the full 4 GB" by doing nothing.
In Firefox's case, Mozilla has set this flag:
(You could probably actually modify the Firefox executable to unset that flag and stop it from using above 2GB of user memory, but I'm not sure what would happen or if there are other mechanisms that can overrule it or whatever.)
The latest image of the thing
How is a Blu-Ray drive outdated? Streaming has its uses but local content still delivers the highest video quality and will for some time to come; Netflix isn't ready to stream 30GB every time somebody watches a movie.
There will surely be an update to the Blu-Ray standard for 4K content. Most likely it will be based on the already existing BDXL 100GB standard and the upcoming h.265 codec, and both the PS4 and the Xbox One will quietly include drives that can read BDXL and later get a software upgrade. They won't have hardware decode for h.265 but both consoles will have enough CPU power to do without.
Actually they didn't. Like Microsoft 20 years later, IBM got dragged through the US's anti-trust system for years and in the end nothing happened.
Tom's Hardware has a good-enough gaming PC build for $600.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
Its easy to build a very competent gaming rig for less than $500. Tom's Hardware has a regular feature about how to do it. Heck the $500 gaming PC I built more than five years ago still plays modern games with high graphics with only one graphics card upgrade in that time. And I still haven't even bothered to OC the CPU.
I'm rebuilding one now that would have come in under $500 but I wanted a high efficiency totally silent PSU and so I splurged on that component, otherwise I was easily under $500.
If you have an XBox 360, why go with something 359 releases out of date?
One is just one point to the right of 360/0 on a compass...
It's come full circle. That makes this release literally revolutionary!
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
And XBox 360 was pretty much a mid-range unit, even at launch. Both consoles did all right, I'd say.
Yes and that was exactly my point. 500 dollars wont get you a gaming pc. Thanks for repeating it to me tho.
Now for the XBox One which basically wants to be a PC with a M$ tax on every piece of hardware or software you attempt to attach to the device.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Sure, but go look at the system requirements for Skyrim on PC. It requires 2GB of system memory, and 512MB of video memory. It recommends 4GB of system memory, and 1GB of video memory. Even if the PC version was identical to the 360 version in visual quality, there's no way you're going to get that to run on a PC with 512MB of memory shared between CPU and GPU. The 360 OS has a much smaller footprint than desktop Windows, and it's designed to allow developers to have lower level access to components.
Apparently wizard is not a legitimate career path, so I chose programmer instead.
"good-enough" = "passable to play most games". I'd even say "plays most games very well for most people"
Tom's also has a mid-tier and high-end system, which get you to your level of "good" for around $1,000. There's absolutely no need to pay more than that today.
This coming from a guy who spent thousands every year in the 90s to keep a PC (ok, a home LAN of PCs) at the bleeding edge, because new games always pushed the performance envelope and took advantage of rapidly-advancing tech. Those days are gone. Since most games these days are ports of console titles designed for 1080p on legacy hardware you simply don't need to spend top dollar anymore to get an enjoyable gaming experience. There's nothing wrong with wanting more. Just acknowledge it for what it is: indulgence.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
You make it sound like I'm some youngster that never did the same :P Goodie for me, cuz dang I feel old sometimes. I agree, a grand makes a good PC for gaming today. Long ago, my top gaming rig was closer to 4K.
Still, we are doubling what the person said they spent for a gaming rig for a "good" gaming rig. I don't think I was wrong in my post, since I said Motherboard, Memory, CPU and graphics card for a "gaming" rig are 500 bucks alone. Add in the other items (disk, dvd/cd, sound card) and you are easily close to a grand.
Some people do like to pay more, and to me that's their prerogative. I'm sure I could build a hell of a gaming rig for 3-5K, but why would I? Someone else may want to do what we did 1X - 2X years ago however, and build as big as they can for the cool factor. Hell, that's why we did it in reality.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
XBox One? So that makes the last one XBox 0.360? It did feel like alpha version. Anytime I came to my friends house and he proposed to play Xbox game, the console would not load it, it would crash or some other problem occured. I have not played a single XBox game to date for this reason...
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.