As much as I think that will ba stupid idea, the evil voice inside my head is hoping microsoft will do it and watch as they alienate half their audience.Mojo_22 said:
Xbox 720 May Feature PC-Like Customization
- Thread starter Fanghawk
- Start date
I don't like him at all. You can read my previous post, I was making a point about design and stability of hardware platform and compared it to mess of PC customizations. Too geeky for you?saintdane05 said:
That is a real danger. Close to end of the platform's life cycle it is quite possible many titles will either require better HW components or just refuse to work in full quality unless you have them.Mojo_22 said:
For console market, this might not work out so well, unless games are cheaper so that money is spent on HW toys instead ... But I doubt they would make games cheaper.
That is hardly an unforeseen comment since it was released what 3 days ago.saintdane05 said:
OT: As nice as this working would be I don't see it happening as it just makes consoles into more restrictive PCs. This will require making all of the upgradable parts easy to access and install as a lot of people are on console because they want less effort to play and do not keep up with advances by upgrading parts.
This also means developers will have to optimise games for a wider variety of specs on the consoles. While this would be no where near as much on the PC it is one of the things devs bring up when they talking about developing for consoles and this would lose another pro for consoles.
The other problem I can see with this is that Microsoft will charge an arm, a leg and a pound of flesh for these parts. Just compare the price of their hard drives to a normal PC hard drive. The price is quite different especially when with a bit of fiddling around you can get an existing xbox hard drive and take out the actual hard drive and change it with a decently priced one. Although that does require a bit of effort.
Unless they want to fragment the player base then just do whatever.
But now people patent an idea or technology just to stop any competition. Fucking Apple is suing people for making smartphones all the time.albino boo said:
I may be wrong but I think Windows 8 will be able to play 360 games but not games from whatever the next xbox will be called.Azuaron said:
OT: I thought the reason consoles had locked hardware was so consumers don't have to worry about games not working and developers only need to make their game compatible with one set of specs.
It actually might work
Not in the to-play-this-game-you-must-have-version-3-of-xbox way
But rather in the graphical and performance scaling
Any version of new XBox can run any game, but each better version will perform with improved graphics, higher FPS and shorter loading times.
For example XBox720v1 will be only slightly better than PS3, XBox720v2 will be at hardware level of average gaming PC, while XBox720v3 will perform as good as top-tier gaming PCs.
With further hardware development v4 and v5 will eventually be released
Developers will have requirement to make games that can run on all XBox versions
So it might work if MS don't fuck things up
Not in the to-play-this-game-you-must-have-version-3-of-xbox way
But rather in the graphical and performance scaling
Any version of new XBox can run any game, but each better version will perform with improved graphics, higher FPS and shorter loading times.
For example XBox720v1 will be only slightly better than PS3, XBox720v2 will be at hardware level of average gaming PC, while XBox720v3 will perform as good as top-tier gaming PCs.
With further hardware development v4 and v5 will eventually be released
Developers will have requirement to make games that can run on all XBox versions
So it might work if MS don't fuck things up
To the people of this thread:
I realized that my post may have sounded a bit rude. I apologize for this. I, in fact, just finished playing the PC (Or Mac, if you want to get techincal) version of New Vegas. Hell, my PC has more hours then the majority of my consoles! (Except the Gamecube. Sonic Adventure 2 was badass, wasn't it?) I was not trying to insult any PC gamer.
HOWEVER! I still don't like Jim, nor his show. That I will stand by.
To make up for my epic act of assholery, how about some adorable?
<youtube=kNK0UDEoaOM>
I realized that my post may have sounded a bit rude. I apologize for this. I, in fact, just finished playing the PC (Or Mac, if you want to get techincal) version of New Vegas. Hell, my PC has more hours then the majority of my consoles! (Except the Gamecube. Sonic Adventure 2 was badass, wasn't it?) I was not trying to insult any PC gamer.
HOWEVER! I still don't like Jim, nor his show. That I will stand by.
To make up for my epic act of assholery, how about some adorable?
<youtube=kNK0UDEoaOM>
No problem at all, it's only natural.saintdane05 said:
Think of it this way ...Even the most annoying person sometimes drops a good point.
In this case, Jim is not as important. What he said though resonates: If consoles are made as problematic to users as PC (compatibility issues, software versions, complicated updates and patching, ...) then customers will eventually turn away from them.
Not because Jim thinks so, but because the alternative becomes less painful. I'm an IT professional so I find some professional satisfaction in owning a complicated platform I have to tinker with, but I am not judging people that don't like that themselves.
Couple of thoughts on this:
-The configurable hardware components would most likely be tightly controlled by Microsoft, to keep the possible number configurations low for the benefit of developers and consumers. Of course this will most likely mean that the components are marked up some, and that tech-savvy users will probably circumvent those restrictions.
-Considering how much content can be fit in the 8 gigs of a single DVD and how much it costs to make that content I don't think that games will go over the 50 gig limit of a dual-layer blu-ray anytime soon, meaning that developers could package several different configurations of the game data on a single disc to match possible hardware configurations.
-Microsoft will probably keep their policy of demanding that developers ensure their game works on the weakest possible hardware configuration. Meaning that a game has to work on all possible configurations of XBox hardware before being released, possibly even requiring it to meet certain criteria for visual fidelity (1080p output, target frame-rate, etc) , more powerful configurations would merely offer higher fidelity and frame-rate and possibly more consistent performance while multi-tasking.
-This expandability might mean that the basic configuration might not support backwards compatibility but that backwards compatibility is offered as a hardware expansion.
-The configurable hardware components would most likely be tightly controlled by Microsoft, to keep the possible number configurations low for the benefit of developers and consumers. Of course this will most likely mean that the components are marked up some, and that tech-savvy users will probably circumvent those restrictions.
-Considering how much content can be fit in the 8 gigs of a single DVD and how much it costs to make that content I don't think that games will go over the 50 gig limit of a dual-layer blu-ray anytime soon, meaning that developers could package several different configurations of the game data on a single disc to match possible hardware configurations.
-Microsoft will probably keep their policy of demanding that developers ensure their game works on the weakest possible hardware configuration. Meaning that a game has to work on all possible configurations of XBox hardware before being released, possibly even requiring it to meet certain criteria for visual fidelity (1080p output, target frame-rate, etc) , more powerful configurations would merely offer higher fidelity and frame-rate and possibly more consistent performance while multi-tasking.
-This expandability might mean that the basic configuration might not support backwards compatibility but that backwards compatibility is offered as a hardware expansion.
I'm not sure how I feel about this. On one hand It would be pretty cool to upgrade a console and maybe even play mods on it. On the other hand the idea that I may have to pay to upgrade my console to play certain games doesn't really appeal to me. I guess I'll just wait for more info before damning or praising this thing.
This this and more this.albino boo said:
They can't make it customisable like a PC because then it will fail as a console, the whole reasons consoles work the way they do is because of standard and expected hardware. If you have a console that is fully customisable you have a PC with console DRM on it and no way to be sure you can run games any more.
I think the only piece of hardware that should be "Scalable" on a console is the Hard Drive, because that doesn't affect performance, only how much you can store on it. A game for the console should be playable on ANY Xbox: I can play the relatively recently released Skyrim and Mass Effect 3 on my old Xbox 360 Arcade I got back in 2008. I'd hate to have to upgrade the actual hardware of next console generation just to keep up with developer releases. I have a PC for that.
I don't like this idea for the same reasons The Jimquisition stated, I like my consoles to be as easy as insert disc and play but that isn't to say it can't work if it's handled well, I remember that the 64 was built to have a swappable part, you could change out the ram pack for a bigger one, I only remember one game that used it which was perfect dark and the game was shipped with the part. I think if they kept it limited to two maybe three parts that are easy to excess and only release something new every two years then it could work. The other problem is with how much consoles suck at launch, this could extend those issues of over heating and red rings of death through the whole of the console generation.
Why are people angry with Jim? Because he's right?
This is just (allegedly) the latest example of how console gaming will add another inconvenience of PC gaming...which would probably be fine if they added some of the benefits too.
People shouldn't be angry at Jim, they should be angry at MS (and Sony) for making the concept of the console irrelevant. I was turned off to the next gen of consoles long before this weeks Jimquisition.
At this point a PC release has about just as much chance of having split screen as the console release.
This is just (allegedly) the latest example of how console gaming will add another inconvenience of PC gaming...which would probably be fine if they added some of the benefits too.
People shouldn't be angry at Jim, they should be angry at MS (and Sony) for making the concept of the console irrelevant. I was turned off to the next gen of consoles long before this weeks Jimquisition.
Really, the only thing that might possibly get me to buy a console next generation is if they bring back split-screen in a big way.Fayathon said:
At this point a PC release has about just as much chance of having split screen as the console release.
So what I'm reading here is that if this becomes reality, there will officially be zero difference at all between consoles and P.Cs. I mean, except obviously for the ability to just put in a disc and play your game, although even that sacred cow of console gaming is likely up for the slaughter if these changes are implemented.