E3 2016 Microsoft Press Conference Discussion

[dipsylalapo Supervisor]

1 minute ago, Andrew said:

They cannot afford to slip back to 2013's confusion, so I hope there are no nasty surprises when we are closer to launch.

No doubt if they're moving towards this shorted cycle, there will be a point where games will be Scorpio and Scorpio +1 exclusive. 

 

They also need to be careful with the whole "true 4K gaming" claim, if they don't deliver on that, there's going to be hell to pay.

[dipsylalapo Supervisor]

I'm still wondering what happened to Crackdown. That was a title that would have excited a lot of people.

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

8 minutes ago, dipsylalapo said:

They also need to be careful with the whole "true 4K gaming" claim, if they don't deliver on that, there's going to be hell to pay.

I don't think it will hurt them that much. Peter Moore foolishly claimed that the Xbox 360 would bring the "end of the jaggies", when he introduced the console

[dipsylalapo Supervisor]

3 minutes ago, Andrew said:

I don't think it will hurt them that much. Peter Moore foolishly claimed that the Xbox 360 would bring the "end of the jaggies", when he introduced the console

Do you think? With the way that the launch of the One went, Kinect, not being as powerful as the PS4 and lack of delivery with the Cloud Compute. I think they need to deliver. 

 

Xbox and Playstation sales seem to see-saw between the two with one leading on alternate gens. Maybe for the Scorpio and Neo it'll swing back to MS 

[George P Global Moderator]

I think the message was clear at the event, Phil himself said no one is left behind, what more do people need?

[dipsylalapo Supervisor]

Just now, George P said:

I think the message was clear at the event, Phil himself said no one is left behind, what more do people need?

Which is all good and well, but when you have people interviewing after sending a different message....the internet does what it does best.

[George P Global Moderator]

4 minutes ago, dipsylalapo said:

Which is all good and well, but when you have people interviewing after sending a different message....the internet does what it does best.

The internet is also full of people who think the Xbox One S is the Scorpio as well, I don't see that being an issue to?     I think the interview was off, or just the way he answered the question.  I mean it's clear that the Scorpio can do VR and the current hardware can't, so if we're talking about a developer making a VR game, then he's right, older hardware can't play it.     That's one way to fully take advantage of the hardware.

[dipsylalapo Supervisor]

Fair point. I hadn't thought of the VR games

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

39 minutes ago, George P said:

I think the message was clear at the event, Phil himself said no one is left behind, what more do people need?

Not more, but less confusing messaging from the Xbox team would be a start! (re Loftis comments).

[George P Global Moderator]

40 minutes ago, Andrew said:

Not more, but less confusing messaging from the Xbox team would be a start! (re Loftis comments).

I'll take what Phil says, on stage, as final for now.

[dipsylalapo Supervisor]

4 minutes ago, George P said:

I'll take what Phil says, on stage, as final for now.

But even that, thinking about it, wasn't 100% clear. I've read some of the comments on GAF and here's what I think. 

 

• Any game that is released on Xbox One, will be playable on Scorpio. Games may be patched to take full advantage of the Scorpio hardware.
• There will be games developed for both Scorpio and Xbox One, naturally there will be differences in graphical quality. 
• There will be games developed and released on Scorpio exclusively - these may be VR games or simply better looking. 

There's no way they can deliver on the "No compromises" if they're developing for two consoles, but again we'll see.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

VR is definitely going to have some Scorpio exclusives. The difference for Sony is it is their own headset, made by them, with the PS4 in mind. Also the PS4 has more horsepower than the One.

[George P Global Moderator]

12 minutes ago, dipsylalapo said:

But even that, thinking about it, wasn't 100% clear. I've read some of the comments on GAF and here's what I think. 

 

• Any game that is released on Xbox One, will be playable on Scorpio. Games may be patched to take full advantage of the Scorpio hardware.
• There will be games developed for both Scorpio and Xbox One, naturally there will be differences in graphical quality. 
• There will be games developed and released on Scorpio exclusively - these may be VR games or simply better looking. 

There's no way they can deliver on the "No compromises" if they're developing for two consoles, but again we'll see.

The first two points to me are the exact same,  If you're making a game for the Xbox One then it'll just run on the Scorpio but smoother, probably load faster, and if it's got a dynamic resolution and unlocked frame rate, then both will be maxed to whatever the hardware can do.

 

As for the 3rd point, it'd be in MS' interest to limit scorpio exclusives to VR type titles, which is what I expect will be the case.  In the end though, Holiday 2017 makes the Xbox One 4yo, it's right at minimum time frame to release new hardware, IMO.  I think any of the early adaptors who got in on the One back in 2013 will be fine and willing to buy the Scorpio after 4 years. 

[dipsylalapo Supervisor]

11 minutes ago, George P said:

The first two points to me are the exact same,  If you're making a game for the Xbox One then it'll just run on the Scorpio but smoother, probably load faster, and if it's got a dynamic resolution and unlocked frame rate, then both will be maxed to whatever the hardware can do.

 

As for the 3rd point, it'd be in MS' interest to limit scorpio exclusives to VR type titles, which is what I expect will be the case.  In the end though, Holiday 2017 makes the Xbox One 4yo, it's right at minimum time frame to release new hardware, IMO.  I think any of the early adaptors who got in on the One back in 2013 will be fine and willing to buy the Scorpio after 4 years. 

Kinda of. May be it wasn't clear. 

 

First point is existing Xbox One Games, and point two is games developed in the future.

[George P Global Moderator]

Just now, dipsylalapo said:

Kinda of. May be it wasn't clear. 

 

First point is existing Xbox One Games, and point two is games developed in the future.

I got you, but to me, as far as the 2nd point goes, if MS handles it the way they have with Xbox and Windows 10 games so far, then it'll just run on the two and developers won't have to worry.   It really is just like with the PC and how it has been for the longest time.   Any future Xbox games are going to target the base/minimum hardware (current Xbox One/One S) and then allow for their games to scale up to a specific cap, like a 60fps cap, and or a 4k res cap.

 

Developers have been able to have their games check and preset a games graphics settings for years now on the PC, it should be simple to do the same for the two Xboxs.   Think of Xbox One running on low/medium presets while the Scorpio has everything set to High/Ultra.    There's really nothing tricky or complicated here, nothing new for developers to learn.   I really think the only thing that will be a difference maker between old and new is if you want VR or not.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

18 hours ago, George P said:

Depends how optimized you can get it and the type of game.   At 6teraflops and that 320GB/s bandwidth, if those hold true, we're looking at better than a Geforce 1070.    If you look at some 1070 benchmarks, though the highest resolution I've seen tested is 3840x2160, not the higher of the two "4k" standards it's still 4k, and what we're looking at when gaming.  The Geforce 1070 can run a game like Witcher 3 at max settings around ~40fps,  it wouldn't take much at that point to tweak some settings/levels from "ultra" to "high" and hit 60fps.

 

This is just a rough example, the 1070 is around the same level teraflops wise but it's got a slower memory speed, either way, we're a year+ out, anything can happen, and we have no idea about the CPU side of things either.   I think it's possible to do 4k gaming on it, maybe not looking as equal to 4k on the PC but pretty close once developers fully optimize and do what they do with consoles.

Quote

 

 

Here are some average 4k framerate numbers from the GTX 1080, a 9TFLOP card:

 

Crysis 3: 39,8
Tomb Raider: 43,2
Witcher 3: 44,1
Metro Last Light: 52,7
Hitman: 46

 

Source

 

GTX 1080 is a 9TFLOP card. Scorpio will be using something similar to the RX 480.

 

As I said earlier people should temper their 4K expectations. It is not easy to push that at 60FPS, even on the latest PC cards.

[Jim K Global Moderator]

23 hours ago, Audioboxer said:

This game looks awesome!

 

Bioshock anyone? lol

Sorry...which game are you referring to?  

 

Was skimming through everything ... this post caught my eye  (because I heart some Bioshock or games like Bioshock).

[George P Global Moderator]

4 minutes ago, Audioboxer said:

GTX 1080 is a 9TFLOP card. Scorpio will be using something similar to the RX 480.

 

As I said earlier people should temper their 4K expectations. It is not easy to push that at 60FPS, even on the latest PC cards.

It's closer to a 8.3tflop card, 8.8flops with boost, which is just fancy overclocking  The 1070 is closer to Scorpio as far as teraflops go, at 5.8tflops and 6.4tflops with boost on. 

 

This isn't a clear apples to apples GPU comparison, if MS hits the numbers they're saying of 6 teraflops and 320 GB/s bandwidth, then it's nothing like the RX480 which is, as far as we know right now, a 5 teraflop card with 256GB/s of GDDR5 bandwidth.    On paper the Scorpio GPU alone should perform closer to a overclocked Geforce 1070 than a RX480.

 

We're also not taking into consideration the level of optimization put into console games compared to PC games which, even with DX12 or Vulkan, still aren't quite the same.   It makes more sense, for now, to compare it to a 1070 though, just going off of the numbers alone.   Then we're also just talking resolution as well, you can play a game at 4k and tweak the graphics a bit lower and get higher framerates, I'll leave that up to developers to handle.    It's also why I said 4k on console isn't going to equal 4k on the PC, even when we're talking the same res.

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

17 hours ago, jjkusaf said:

Sorry...which game are you referring to?  

 

Was skimming through everything ... this post caught my eye  (because I heart some Bioshock or games like Bioshock).

We Happy Few

[George P Global Moderator]

Well, as per the front page article, Phil talked again and made things more clear, I'm expecting MS will require developers to support both and not do any Scorpio only exclusives, at least until enough time passes and we maybe get yet another new system even better than the Scorpio, then MS can have developers drop the current XB1 and only support the two newest systems going forward.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Quote

 

Spencer: Scorpio won't do anything for you if you don't have a 4K TV

 

Still running a 1080p TV? Then you should forget about buying Xbox Scorpio.

That’s the message from Xbox boss Phil Spencer. He was asked by Eurogamer about the thinking behind announcing the new Xbox One S only to an hour later reveal a brand new machine, Xbox Scorpio.

“You should buy [the Xbox One S], because Scorpio is not going to do anything for you,” Spencer said after asking the reviewer what TV he had – in this instance a 1080p set. “Scorpio is designed as a 4K console, and if you don't have a 4K TV, the benefit we've designed for, you're not going to see."

“Clearly, you can buy Scorpio, and if and when you decide you want to buy a 4K television to take advantage of the increased performance, obviously the console will be ready for you. For us in the industry, it's easy to think that most power is always the thing that wins. If you look at last gen, what won? The Wii won. The Wii sold more than we did on Xbox 360 and the PS3, and it wasn't the most powerful console out there. Price is critically important. Wii was a good price and it had a great experience.

“Scorpio is for the person who's got a 4K television, who's really focused on 4K gaming. It's going to be a premium price over what we're selling this one for, and both of them will exist in the market at the same time. Scorpio is for your 4K gamer. And that's what we designed it for.”

It was speculated yesterday that while it seems Xbox Scorpio will have a quite significant power advantage over PS4 Neo, that advantage will come at a cost – that literally being the cost, which could be some $100 more than Sony’s new machine.

 

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/spencer-scorpio-won-t-do-anything-for-you-if-you-don-t-have-a-4k-tv/0168577

 

Oh Phil, you guys decided to announce this 15~18 months out, if Xbox One sales continue as is or dip it's your fault

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

3 minutes ago, Audioboxer said:

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/spencer-scorpio-won-t-do-anything-for-you-if-you-don-t-have-a-4k-tv/0168577

 

Oh Phil, you guys decided to announce this 15~18 months out, if Xbox One sales continue as is or dip it's your fault

Sounds eerily familiar to a certain someone someone circa 2013.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

2 minutes ago, Andrew said:

Sounds eerily familiar to a certain someone someone circa 2013.

We have a console for your offline needs? lol. It's not as bad as Don.

 

However it's a really stupid statement. If MS mandate that devs cannot do 1080/60 and must do 4k/30 say, that will be one of the most ridiculous caps ever. Scorpio should be exciting for 1080p sets the most, it'll allow the XB1 to finally do 1080p all the time, and also do 60FPS pretty much all the time with these sort of specs. 

 

Also since when have MS been in the business of selling TV sets? You'd expect this sort of quote from Sony, someone actively trying to push 4K TVs. In all honest it's just a plea to not abandon the Xbox S and leave it DOA as everyone waits for Scorpio.

[George P Global Moderator]

Why just pick out one line from his whole statement though?    Sure he could've worded it different but talk about clickbaiting headlines.   He does have a point, you're not going to get everything out of the system if you don't have a 4k TV, that's just the truth and was the point he was making, it's going to be the premium option out of the two systems.   It's no different from the PC and having high end, mid and low end video cards on the market,  I still have a 1080p monitor on my PC, until I can get anything higher for it I don't need to spend extra and buy something like a titan X or the new 1080 when I'm going to be fine with a 970 or a 1070 etc.  

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Because we need to leave the trail of 180s for comical value... 
 

Quote

 

Devs can use Scorpio's 6 teraflops however they wish(wont force 4k), says Spencer

 

Speaking in the video (below), Spencer explained that Scorpio is a "6 teraflop gaming machine, which will be a great gaming machine for true 4K gaming, giving you a native 4K frame buffer so you can see games in all their beauty.

"Or," he continued, "if developers want to use those 6 teraflops in other ways they're free to do that."

Spencer's comments suggest that developers may be able to use Scorpio's additional power to deliver more visually impressive games at a lower resolution, rather than be forced to render at native 4K.

However, they seem to conflict with comments made by Spencer earlier today, where he said that players still using a 1080p TV are "not going to see" any benefit from upgrading to Scorpio. If developers can use the additional power to deliver more impressive graphics - albeit at the cost of a native 4K resolution - clearly that won't be the case.

 

http://www.videogamer.com/news/developers_can_use_scorpios_6_teraflops_however_they_wish_says_spencer.html