Next Media Animation Explains Microsoft's Xbox One-Eighty

[Earnest Cavalli]

Next Media Animation Explains Microsoft's Xbox One-Eighty


Next Media Animation has created yet another video explaining Microsoft's decision to step back its Xbox One DRM plans, and as with everything the team creates it's baffling, bizarre and awesome.

Yesterday we reported [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/125204-Microsoft-Drops-Xbox-One-DRM-Restrictions-UPDATED] that Microsoft had reacted to fan dismay at its upcoming DRM plans for the Xbox One console by effectively retracting almost everything it told us at E3. Now the console will be able to play used games and it won't force players to be constantly tethered to the 'net. Great news, right?

Certainly, but our text can only convey so much joy. If you want to properly report on all of that news you need a crack team of animators located on the opposite of the planet. A team like Next Media Animation, the brilliant/insane/Taiwanese minds behind such recent viral news clips as this recent coverage of the Xbox One's debut announcement [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/124493-Next-Media-Animation-Explains-The-Xbox-One].

Everything I'm typing here is pointless, as the story lies entirely in that video embedded at top-right. Watch the thing, maybe watch it a second time, compose yourself, then react in the comments. It's worth two minutes of your life, trust me on this one.

Source: Twitter [https://twitter.com/NMAtv/status/347736121167450113]

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[GAunderrated]

That was quite a nicely animated video. Although I couldn't help but laugh and think "what am I watching here?"

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

The only thing that I got from that is no matter how much you polish a turd, it's still a turd.

Other than that, my brain can't brain anymore.

So much 'wat' in there.

 

[Sicht]

This video should of had master chief polishing it to a shiny glow to better show their point.

 

[Mumorpuger]

Now the only thing that needs to be addressed for me is how the PS4 manages to be more powerful, but cheaper (bundled Kinect notwithstanding).

 

[kailus13]

Why is Sony a ninja? And why is that man slapping the cy... oh. I get it.

That was surreal, but enjoyable.

 

[SteewpidZombie]

YAY! XBOX JUST MADE THEIR CONSOLE THE EXACT SAME AS THE PS4! EXCEPT MORE EXPENSIVE AND STILL A USELESS BRICK OF CRAP!

 

[Midniqht]

Now the only thing that needs to be addressed for me is how the PS4 manages to be more powerful, but cheaper (bundled Kinect notwithstanding).

If you take the Kinect out of it and imagine both consoles selling at a $400 price-point, I imagine it's not necessarily cheaper to have "more powerful" internals (Cloud Computing bonus on the One notwithstanding). Sony has very likely priced it at $400 just to make it acceptable to buyers. They (and MS) are probably selling consoles at a cost, taking a hit with each one sold, and recouping the costs later based on game sales and banking on hardware being cheaper in the future.

 

[Angelous Wang]

Now the only thing that needs to be addressed for me is how the PS4 manages to be more powerful, but cheaper (bundled Kinect notwithstanding).

Sony is a hardware company, that's why you'll find Sony screen based devices in many places all over the world.

Sony's manufactures it's own hardware, hence they get hardware at cost value. However they rely on 3rd parties to make their software which costs them more than Microsoft and as with most 3rd party software they can suffer unforeseen problems/bugs which they then need to get these other company's to fix (PS3 firmware problems are an example of this).

Microsoft is a software company, that's why you'll find windows on most computer's all over the world.

Microsoft buy/order hardware from other hardware manufactures, hence they have to pay allot more than Sony to get same. But they save on making their own Software and because it's self made less goes wrong with it.

Hence Sony can produce an identical physical console to match Microsoft for much cheaper (or even in this case a more powerful one for less), but they will undoubtedly have some software or network problems Microsoft will not.

 

[Vie]

Now the only thing that needs to be addressed for me is how the PS4 manages to be more powerful, but cheaper (bundled Kinect notwithstanding).

From what I understand the Xbone's CPU has EVERYTHING bundled into it on one chip - including the ram. While this sounds good on paper, in practice it leads to all sorts of issues. The main issue being the shear number of faulty chips they'll be getting out of every platter they make. The larger a chip is, the greater the probability that at least one component within it will be on fault in the platter.

In essence, because MS put as much as possible into a single chip, they have to throw away a lot more chips than Sony has to.

There's also a question over cooling... ..but maybe they learned their lesson from the first gen 360's?

MS, learn a lesson... ..look out for flying pigs.

 

[Johnson McGee]

Now the only thing that needs to be addressed for me is how the PS4 manages to be more powerful, but cheaper (bundled Kinect notwithstanding).

It's something to do with the design architecture and differences between DDR3 RAM and GDDR5. But I'm not really enough of an expert say anything more in depth than that.

And of course they're both just numbers set by the companies based on costs, sales projections and other business crap. It's not like hardware costs always work out to a nice round number minus $1.

As for the Kinect, IMO it's Microsoft's fault for requiring consumers to pay for it whether they want it for not. For people who want to use a remote instead of motion controls and don't want to be watched the kinect has zero or even negative value, but they still have to pay for the hardware.

 

[weirdee]

Now the only thing that needs to be addressed for me is how the PS4 manages to be more powerful, but cheaper (bundled Kinect notwithstanding).

From what I understand the Xbone's CPU has EVERYTHING bundled into it on one chip - including the ram. While this sounds good on paper, in practice it leads to all sorts of issues. The main issue being the shear number of faulty chips they'll be getting out of every platter they make. The larger a chip is, the greater the probability that at least one component within it will be on fault in the platter.

In essence, because MS put as much as possible into a single chip, they have to throw away a lot more chips than Sony has to.

There's also a question over cooling... ..but maybe they learned their lesson from the first gen 360's?

MS, learn a lesson... ..look out for flying pigs.

so, wait, their "all in one" philosophy extends to integrated chips?

that's like the dumbest thing ever for a company that's been in biz for this long

 

[Saltyk]

Okay, who are these guys and how did they animate things exactly as I saw them in my mind's eye? Are they psychic? Are there probes in my brain? It's Aliens, isn't it?

Now the only thing that needs to be addressed for me is how the PS4 manages to be more powerful, but cheaper (bundled Kinect notwithstanding).

From what I understand the Xbone's CPU has EVERYTHING bundled into it on one chip - including the ram. While this sounds good on paper, in practice it leads to all sorts of issues. The main issue being the shear number of faulty chips they'll be getting out of every platter they make. The larger a chip is, the greater the probability that at least one component within it will be on fault in the platter.

In essence, because MS put as much as possible into a single chip, they have to throw away a lot more chips than Sony has to.

There's also a question over cooling... ..but maybe they learned their lesson from the first gen 360's?

MS, learn a lesson... ..look out for flying pigs.

so, wait, their "all in one" philosophy extends to integrated chips?

that's like the dumbest thing ever for a company that's been in biz for this long

I'm pretty sure, it's more an issue of necessity than design. At least, from what I heard. It seems they were having issues getting the system to work and manufacture. They integrated the chips to help alleviate these issues. Of course, as Vie implied, I do wonder if this will be the source of a new RROD debacle. Which is just what MS would need now. A whole new set of consoles that have a failure rate that is considerably greater than 10%...

Now the only thing that needs to be addressed for me is how the PS4 manages to be more powerful, but cheaper (bundled Kinect notwithstanding).

If you take the Kinect out of it and imagine both consoles selling at a $400 price-point, I imagine it's not necessarily cheaper to have "more powerful" internals (Cloud Computing bonus on the One notwithstanding). Sony has very likely priced it at $400 just to make it acceptable to buyers. They (and MS) are probably selling consoles at a cost, taking a hit with each one sold, and recouping the costs later based on game sales and banking on hardware being cheaper in the future.

Just as a note, PS4 also has Cloud Computing capabilities. Though, no one really knows what that means on either console... I kinda wonder if they even know.

Anyway, PS4 calls it Gaikai. Its the same thing, though. Yes, the console's are almost exactly the same minus some small details like the RAM, system architecture, Operating System, and the Kinect.

 

[weirdee]

Gaikai is a game streaming service, so it's less supplementary processing as described by the earlier xbone talks and more games on demand...

 

[Arawn]

I thought PS4 was going to use Gaikai to port the PS3 games to the PS4 system or something. At the conference they mentioned the service would hit the US in 2014 iirc.

 

[NoeL]

I'm surprised the video failed to mention that Microsoft also got rid of the MOST popular features, such as playing games without the disc in the tray and sharing games digitally.

 

[KOMega]

Now the only thing that needs to be addressed for me is how the PS4 manages to be more powerful, but cheaper (bundled Kinect notwithstanding).

Sony is a hardware company, that's why you'll find Sony screen based devices in many places all over the world.

Sony's manufactures it's own hardware, hence they get hardware at cost value. However they rely on 3rd parties to make their software which costs them more than Microsoft and as with most 3rd party software they can suffer unforeseen problems/bugs which they then need to get these other company's to fix (PS3 firmware problems are an example of this).

Microsoft is a software company, that's why you'll find windows on most computer's all over the world.

Microsoft buy/order hardware from other hardware manufactures, hence they have to pay allot more than Sony to get same. But they save on making their own Software and because it's self made less goes wrong with it.

Hence Sony can produce an identical physical console to match Microsoft for much cheaper (or even in this case a more powerful one for less), but they will undoubtedly have some software or network problems Microsoft will not.

This makes sense.
I'm not really a market person, but aside from consoles, I wonder how well both companies are doing in their respective other markets.
I mean a huge majority of people with a computer uses some form of microsoft software product.
I don't see as much sony stuff flying around, unless they are super successful in japan, which would also make sense. Not sure about software and stuff used in japan. It's all quite foreign to me. [sub][sub]ba-dum-tss[/sub][/sub]

 

[TonyP]

The Microsoft employees who wanted a required internet connection with Xbox One should be hung upside down naked in front of Microsoft headquarters as a warning to other Microsoft employees. That way, Microsoft employees will think twice before trying to violate customer privacy in the future. I am grateful that Microsoft removed this requirement but my blood is still boiling. I do not know what kind of crap Microsoft will try to do next. I have absolutely no interest in their vision of a connected digital nightmare with buggy software updates, server crashes, internet delays, malware and games uploading God-only-knows-what so they can sell the data to Facebook, Google and anyone else who wants it. I am still an Xbox fan but I do not trust Microsoft anymore. If Xbox One constantly displays popups asking me if I want to connect to the internet, I will dump it and buy a PS4.