Xbox Director of Development: Xbox One Effectively a Super-Computer Design

[Zulnam]

Fuck off Microsoft and Sony; the new console generation is a sham and if you still had any decency left in those corporate bones of yours you would feel shame and make them backwards compatible with previous gen games in DISC form, not re-releasing them in digital for me to buy again.

Calling a device that "is powered by an AMD "Jaguar" Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) with two quad-core modules totaling eight x86-64 cores clocked at 1.75 GHz, and 8 GB of DDR3 RAM with a memory bandwidth of 68.3 GB/s." (wikipedia) a super-computer is nothing less than a SHAMEFUL DISPLAY! My three-year old PC is better than that.

 

[Denamic]

Fuck off Microsoft and Sony; the new console generation is a sham and if you still had any decency left in those corporate bones of yours you would feel shame and make them backwards compatible with previous gen games in DISC form, not re-releasing them in digital for me to buy again.

But they CAN'T be made backwards compatible. It is literally impossible. The closest thing would be to include the actual hardware of the previous gen console inside the case which comes with a lot of issues, not least of which being the massively increased price.

 

[zaion]

did they seriously say that they have an advantage because developers aren't used to the xbox one yet?

do they realize that you can say the exact same thing about the ps4?

developers are still getting used to BOTH consoles, both of them will be getting more impressive later in their lives. you can't claim a handicap on yourself when the other guy is in the exact same position.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Sorry all a heard was "blah blah blah excuses blah blah blah techno babble blah blah blah bullshit" You can spout all the rhetoric you want, I'm still not buying one and I still refuse to call it a games console. It's still a fucking glorified cable box that just happens to also play games.

It's not even a cable box. It's a tumor which also play games that attaches to your cable box and uses an extra 120 watts when you could just hit the source button on your tv remote.

captcha: fishy smell Yep, MS is fishy alright.

Well I was being generous. Regardless it's still not a games console.

 

[RicoADF]

did they seriously say that they have an advantage because developers aren't used to the xbox one yet?

do they realize that you can say the exact same thing about the ps4?

developers are still getting used to BOTH consoles, both of them will be getting more impressive later in their lives. you can't claim a handicap on yourself when the other guy is in the exact same position.

Actually in this case it's not as true as previous console generations. Both the PS4 and XBO are x86-64 processors, the same ones that have been in desktops etc for the last 20+ years, there's very little they can learn. Arguably the XBO has some learning regarding its memory controller but that won't give it an advantage and frankly most devs won't bother, they'll focus on the larger customer base (aka PS4)

 

[Spacemonkey430]

I'll give him credit in that it is true that there are likely a lot of tricks skilled coders could pull off that would get more performance out of the Xbone, but the simple hard fact is that the PS4 has a superior CPU, GPU and faster RAM. Any tricks that would work on the Xbone would also work on the PS4, and with its better hardware would give even more of an advantage there.

Wasn't a big selling point of the Xbone the fact that it was super family friendly, all integrated and therefore, you don't have to be a skilled coder in order to even make it run in a fashion that can be competitive to another console? Microsoft screwed up AGAIN and underspeced their console AGAIN. Now we get the pathetic attempt to justify it lest too many people catch on.

 

[Strazdas]

I'd be annoyed at that if it didn't perfectly illustrate my point that it's irrelevant to bicker over the numbers.

Its not irrelevant.

Yeah, it is.

Horsepower does not equate to fun. It can work to accentuate, but it isn't what makes a game fun. FTL is the most fun I've had with a game in the last 2 years and I can run it on an old PC with very little power under the hood.

Hardware specs are an interesting debate in the lead up to a console when we don't have much else to talk about. But the machines are out. Their games are made, boxed, and out in the wild. And the X1 has just as many good fun games as the PS4. And at launch it had way more to offer in terms of software. So all Sony's precious "superior hardware" was good for was playing KillZone. Yawn.

Horsepower is not the end all be all way to measure a systems worth. Software is. And both options in the console space are doing pretty well from where I sit. And both have just as many games I'm interested in coming down the line.

Good. you have expanded on your position.

No, its not irrelevant. The purpose of resolution and framerate is not so much to make a game fun as it is to allow a fun game be playable. After all its no fun when you are getting nausea from low framerate or are unable to see whats going on due to low resolution.
you cna play any game currently released on a 2 yer old PC. that is because even the latest consoles are slower than a 2 year old pc. That is hardly an argument in your favour.

Hardware specs matter for funb in indirect way. lets look at last console generation. the specs were severely limited, so what happened, did games continue being equally fun? no, they lost AI, they lost field of vission, they lost framrate all in endless push towards shinier graphics which in turns ended up with less fun games. now imagine if the hardware was not limited and they could have done shinier graphics (and they will do that becuase that sells, which means majority care about ggraphics even if you and me dont) without sacrificing anything else because hardware is powerful enough? they would still be fun games, just prettier. slow hardware is detrimental to fun games.

the PS4 "superior hardware" while technically correct is still laughable, as the superiority can be "ended" with a circa 2010 PC. console power gap was never utilized by developers (with few exceptions) anyway, so thats really just childish bickering, especially when you open your eyes and realize just how much more powerful its direct competitor is.

Horsepower is not end-all-be-all. i never claimed it to be. i said its not irrelevant, and it isnt. horsepower is what allows developers to do whatever they want and in process creates games where everyone can find something fun for them. horsepower is not an end, its a mean.

 

[ZZoMBiE13]

I'd be annoyed at that if it didn't perfectly illustrate my point that it's irrelevant to bicker over the numbers.

Its not irrelevant.

Yeah, it is.

Horsepower does not equate to fun. It can work to accentuate, but it isn't what makes a game fun. FTL is the most fun I've had with a game in the last 2 years and I can run it on an old PC with very little power under the hood.

Hardware specs are an interesting debate in the lead up to a console when we don't have much else to talk about. But the machines are out. Their games are made, boxed, and out in the wild. And the X1 has just as many good fun games as the PS4. And at launch it had way more to offer in terms of software. So all Sony's precious "superior hardware" was good for was playing KillZone. Yawn.

Horsepower is not the end all be all way to measure a systems worth. Software is. And both options in the console space are doing pretty well from where I sit. And both have just as many games I'm interested in coming down the line.

Good. you have expanded on your position.

No, its not irrelevant. The purpose of resolution and framerate is not so much to make a game fun as it is to allow a fun game be playable. After all its no fun when you are getting nausea from low framerate or are unable to see whats going on due to low resolution.
you cna play any game currently released on a 2 yer old PC. that is because even the latest consoles are slower than a 2 year old pc. That is hardly an argument in your favour.

Hardware specs matter for funb in indirect way. lets look at last console generation. the specs were severely limited, so what happened, did games continue being equally fun? no, they lost AI, they lost field of vission, they lost framrate all in endless push towards shinier graphics which in turns ended up with less fun games. now imagine if the hardware was not limited and they could have done shinier graphics (and they will do that becuase that sells, which means majority care about ggraphics even if you and me dont) without sacrificing anything else because hardware is powerful enough? they would still be fun games, just prettier. slow hardware is detrimental to fun games.

the PS4 "superior hardware" while technically correct is still laughable, as the superiority can be "ended" with a circa 2010 PC. console power gap was never utilized by developers (with few exceptions) anyway, so thats really just childish bickering, especially when you open your eyes and realize just how much more powerful its direct competitor is.

Horsepower is not end-all-be-all. i never claimed it to be. i said its not irrelevant, and it isnt. horsepower is what allows developers to do whatever they want and in process creates games where everyone can find something fun for them. horsepower is not an end, its a mean.

I'm just glad I got more than one throw away sentence this time around.

 

[Strazdas]

I'm just glad I got more than one throw away sentence this time around.

i did not want to write long paragraphs without knowing your position more and guess based on single throw away sentence, so i waited till you explained your position more clearly.

another thing i forgot to mention in previuos post that for some people graphics are fun. i know some people whos hobby is making screenshots. they build powerful beasts that can supersample 4x even in games like AC4 and then they spend whole day making screenshots and not actually playing. and they love it. its their passion. fun is subjective.

 

[Zulnam]

But they CAN'T be made backwards compatible. It is literally impossible. The closest thing would be to include the actual hardware of the previous gen console inside the case which comes with a lot of issues, not least of which being the massively increased price.

Where exactly did you get the information stating that it is "literally impossible"?

I'm curious since, the way i see it, we live in a time where, from a software and hardware perspective, very little is impossible. Emulators exist and you can have virtual environments within your, well, virtual environment.
This means that, technically, it should be possible to add an emulator within the console's software in order to run these games and, since it is "the future generation super-computer", it should have little to no problem in running them. You know, if they really wanted.

A super-computer can run games that were launched less than a year ago.

 

[Denamic]

But they CAN'T be made backwards compatible. It is literally impossible. The closest thing would be to include the actual hardware of the previous gen console inside the case which comes with a lot of issues, not least of which being the massively increased price.

Where exactly did you get the information stating that it is "literally impossible"?

I'm curious since, the way i see it, we live in a time where, from a software and hardware perspective, very little is impossible. Emulators exist and you can have virtual environments within your, well, virtual environment.
This means that, technically, it should be possible to add an emulator within the console's software in order to run these games and, since it is "the future generation super-computer", it should have little to no problem in running them. You know, if they really wanted.

A super-computer can run games that were launched less than a year ago.

Because emulation takes a lot of power. Every action of the processor you're emulating, several needs to be taken on the processor you're using to emulate it. To achieve playable levels of emulation accuracy, you need at least 9 or 10 actions on the CPU you're emulating on per action of the CPU you're emulating. That's why you need 3GHz of processing power to emulate the 299MHz processor of the PS2. Even to achieve more than 99% accuracy for just NES emulation, you'll need a beefy computer.

To emulate the PS3, you'd need well over 30GHz of CPU power. That's not to mention that while it's already difficult to emulate a single thread CPU on a multi-core CPU, emulating a multi-core CPU on a CPU with fewer cores is insanely difficult.

So yes, literally impossible. Even the highest tiers of ridiculously powerful gaming PCs of rich people fall comically short of the power needed to emulate anything more powerful than a wii.

 

[Pebkio]

Guys! My legs... while not being able to let me run as fast as Michael Johnson, are actually like bionic legs. They are so much more smooth than Michael's. And my thighs are such massive beasts; powerful like thunder.

I mean, I shouldn't even be honestly compared to Michael because he's got regular legs and I'm calling my legs bionic.

 

[lunavixen]

Wait, waitwaitwait... this guy is saying that the Xbone is a super comupter? I'm pretty sure my mid range PC has the same parts (and maybe better ones and I've had this PC for about 2 years), wow, is this guy talking out of his ass or what?

Best laugh i've had all night though.

 

[Kerethos]

Wow... that was just a massive amount of nonsense. There is no "quality of pixels", there's just how many you have. And no matter what they say there is a big and noticeable difference between 30 and 60 fps, and once you've become accustomed to 60 you will find 30 to be slower, less responsive and more straining on your eyes. Which is forgivable, if the game is still enjoyable at a 30 fps.

But it's really their own fault for pushing graphics the way they've done, as it in turn has pushed the demand for faster hardware - a demand that the PC is capable of meeting, and but a static console isn't. That's just the way it is. PC's are capable of evolving through constant upgrades - consoles fall further and further behind each year, until they are replaced. The fact that they've failed to be on par with a good PC just means the gap is more apparent from the start.

So the simple fact is, and for now will remain, that a console isn't going to be able compete with a decent PC in terms of graphics and framerate. And once 120 fps and 4k resolution becomes more common among PC player the gap in performance will become an even greater hindrance for the consoles, who by then will still only offer 30 fps and a maximum of 1080p.

Thus consoles have to compete by offering better games, and unique gameplay that a PC normally doesn't offer (like local multiplayer), because the main reason many people[footnote]Admittedly an assumption on my part based on my own reasons and that of my friends.[/footnote] buy a console is still to be able to sit down next to their friends, toss them a controller, and play games together on the TV.

So far neither one offers something I can't get from my PC (aside from a few exclusive titles that I have no interest in), hence why I see no need to buy an Xbox One or PS4 - and so do many other gamers with decent gaming PC's. And until the consoles have built up a library of games that work best on the current generation[footnote]Yes, the Xbox One and the Playstation 4 is out now - they are the current generation, stop calling them next generation. Next gen is now reserved for the Playstation 5 and the Xbox "what ever nonsense Microsoft comes up with".[/footnote] of consoles, nothing will convince me to buy one.

 

[Zulnam]

Because emulation takes a lot of power. Every action of the processor you're emulating, several needs to be taken on the processor you're using to emulate it. To achieve playable levels of emulation accuracy, you need at least 9 or 10 actions on the CPU you're emulating on per action of the CPU you're emulating. That's why you need 3GHz of processing power to emulate the 299MHz processor of the PS2. Even to achieve more than 99% accuracy for just NES emulation, you'll need a beefy computer.

To emulate the PS3, you'd need well over 30GHz of CPU power. That's not to mention that while it's already difficult to emulate a single thread CPU on a multi-core CPU, emulating a multi-core CPU on a CPU with fewer cores is insanely difficult.

So yes, literally impossible. Even the highest tiers of ridiculously powerful gaming PCs of rich people fall comically short of the power needed to emulate anything more powerful than a wii.

Well, that's depressing.

While I stand corrected, i reserve two personal opinions:

1) The Xbone is not a super-computer.
2)Microsoft and Sony had no intention of making them backwards compatible from the start in order to earn more from reselling them as "classic digital titles" (at least Sony; M$ will probably jump in the wagon in a year or two).

In a way, I'm glad I'm disappointed. Saves me the trouble of buying a new console.