[Official] Xbox Series X & Series S Discussion

By George P,
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George P    6,623
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Decided to start this thread to post news and talk about the event.  What do people expect and any predictions.  Still waiting for an official date but it might be around the 20th of July, though I hope it's actually sooner.

 

 

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Sszecret    2,530
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So far we know 343 is going to be there with Halo Infinite gameplay, mayhaps another trailer as well.

 

In terms of what has a good chance of being there:

 

- We're due for a mainline Forza title - Motorsport 8 -, and racing games are usually very good in terms of a visual showcase of the console.

- Playground has a separate team working on an RPG (there's job listings over on LinkedIn) that may or may not be Fable. 

- The Initiative has got to at this point have something to show, be it a tease or anything else. Rumored to be Perfect Dark but no concrete evidence of that.

- Alpha 5 of Flight Sim is due to drop in July, so we might see Asobo there too with maybe a gameplay trailer (since it's a sort of second-party affair, via XGS Publishing)

- It's possible we'll see things like a new Wasteland 3 trailer, maybe one for the next Minecraft Dungeons DLC. I do hope they get the 'here's the upgraded Series X version' + current-gen trailers out of the way first, if they're even present at the event.

- Ninja Theory's Hellblade 2 might have a story trailer here, but I don't expect it to launch until at least the second half of next year. 

 

May or may not be there

 

- Double Fine, either with a launch trailer of Psychonauts 2 or some other project.

- Obsidian with Outer Worlds DLC and perhaps another project.

- Highly unlikely since it's not coming to console but possibly Age of Empires III DE or AoE IV.

- It'd be cool if Compulsion (We Happy Few) made something that's actually more story-focused that WHF rather than survival-focused.

- Some random third-party deal that would be done via Xbox Game Studios Publishing.

 

As for the date, if it's rumored now to be the week of July 20, I'd guess July 23. It gets it out of the way of Microsoft Inspire (July 21-22), and it lands on a Thursday, like the May event (which was on the 7th).

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dipsylalapo    1,986
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It's probably unlikely but I'd love to know what the price of the console is. If they share the price, I'm hoping that pre-orders will open.

 

I think that Florin covered most of what I'd expect to see.

 

 

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George P    6,623
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8 minutes ago, Sszecret said:

So far we know 343 is going to be there with Halo Infinite gameplay, mayhaps another trailer as well.

 

In terms of what has a good chance of being there:

 

- We're due for a mainline Forza title - Motorsport 8 -, and racing games are usually very good in terms of a visual showcase of the console.

- Playground has a separate team working on an RPG (there's job listings over on LinkedIn) that may or may not be Fable. 

- The Initiative has got to at this point have something to show, be it a tease or anything else. Rumored to be Perfect Dark but no concrete evidence of that.

- Alpha 5 of Flight Sim is due to drop in July, so we might see Asobo there too with maybe a gameplay trailer (since it's a sort of second-party affair, via XGS Publishing)

- It's possible we'll see things like a new Wasteland 3 trailer, maybe one for the next Minecraft Dungeons DLC. I do hope they get the 'here's the upgraded Series X version' + current-gen trailers out of the way first, if they're even present at the event.

- Ninja Theory's Hellblade 2 might have a story trailer here, but I don't expect it to launch until at least the second half of next year. 

 

May or may not be there

 

- Double Fine, either with a launch trailer of Psychonauts 2 or some other project.

- Obsidian with Outer Worlds DLC and perhaps another project.

- Highly unlikely since it's not coming to console but possibly Age of Empires III DE or AoE IV.

- It'd be cool if Compulsion (We Happy Few) made something that's actually more story-focused that WHF rather than survival-focused.

- Some random third-party deal that would be done via Xbox Game Studios Publishing.

 

As for the date, if it's rumored now to be the week of July 20, I'd guess July 23. It gets it out of the way of Microsoft Inspire (July 21-22), and it lands on a Thursday, like the May event (which was on the 7th).

I wonder if going so long between events is a negative because it just raises expectations even higher with no June event and the May event was a let down overall.

 

It might have been better for them to do something small, probably any 2nd party type deals in June and not have so much riding on the July event.

4 minutes ago, dipsylalapo said:

It's probably unlikely but I'd love to know what the price of the console is. If they share the price, I'm hoping that pre-orders will open.

 

I think that Florin covered most of what I'd expect to see.

 

 

The cat and mouse with Sony is interesting at least.   If the rumor about lockheart/Series S for August is true then I think odds of a Series X price coming out in this event are higher because then it forces Sony to price the PS5 and once MS knows the price for the cheaper digital only version they can drop Series S in August with a even lower price.

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Sszecret    2,530
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21 minutes ago, George P said:

I wonder if going so long between events is a negative because it just raises expectations even higher with no June event and the May event was a let down overall.

It might have been better for them to do something small, probably any 2nd party type deals in June and not have so much riding on the July event.

It could go both ways honestly. It could backfire given the length of time between events, but there's also the possibility that Microsoft is intentionally leaving this much of a gap. Lockhart itself is the worst kept secret, and perhaps given the recent attention it's been getting, that's why we'll see it in August.

 

If they would've done a smaller second-party event in June, the reaction would've been the same as with the May even I think. "Why isn't there more, it looks so lame" and the like. Luckily it's been confirmed there will be no webcams during the July event.

 

What I honestly see them doing in regards to a timeline is this:

 

- Have the July event on the 23rd, showcase first and second-party games, drive home the message about "looks and runs better on Series X at 4K"

- Wait for Sony to have their thing (be it a State of Play in July and August or just in August)

- Have an event in August where the Series X price is revealed (I guess Microsoft is hoping after Sony announces that of the PS5 / PS5 DE), then reveal Lockhart / Series S with its pricing. Let's say Series X is $499 at the top end (I don't think they'd go past 500), that would put Series S at $249 if they want to be aggressive.

 

Or, and this is what Phil may be crazy enough to do, launch the Series S via Xbox All Access. Say that it's a 1080p60 machine, and have the hardware be 'free' when you sign up for a two-year contract at say $20/month (which also gets you Game Pass Ultimate and the like). In other words, not too dissimilar to phone contracts.

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George P    6,623
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24 minutes ago, Sszecret said:

It could go both ways honestly. It could backfire given the length of time between events, but there's also the possibility that Microsoft is intentionally leaving this much of a gap. Lockhart itself is the worst kept secret, and perhaps given the recent attention it's been getting, that's why we'll see it in August.

 

If they would've done a smaller second-party event in June, the reaction would've been the same as with the May even I think. "Why isn't there more, it looks so lame" and the like. Luckily it's been confirmed there will be no webcams during the July event.

 

What I honestly see them doing in regards to a timeline is this:

 

- Have the July event on the 23rd, showcase first and second-party games, drive home the message about "looks and runs better on Series X at 4K"

- Wait for Sony to have their thing (be it a State of Play in July and August or just in August)

- Have an event in August where the Series X price is revealed (I guess Microsoft is hoping after Sony announces that of the PS5 / PS5 DE), then reveal Lockhart / Series S with its pricing. Let's say Series X is $499 at the top end (I don't think they'd go past 500), that would put Series S at $249 if they want to be aggressive.

 

Or, and this is what Phil may be crazy enough to do, launch the Series S via Xbox All Access. Say that it's a 1080p60 machine, and have the hardware be 'free' when you sign up for a two-year contract at say $20/month (which also gets you Game Pass Ultimate and the like). In other words, not too dissimilar to phone contracts.

I agree, Series S being part of All Access would be huge but also selling it alone for a possible $249 would be hard to pass up for anyone looking to jump into Xbox for the first time and doesn't want all the bells and whistles of the Series X.  

 

$500 is probably tops to, and I think PS5 will probably be the same price with the DE going for $400.   If Sony goes over $500 for some reason, they did it before with the PS3,  it'll be a big opportunity for MS to win on price and hammer home the more powerful marketing tagline.

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SnoopZ    351
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My guess at pricing is.

 

Lockhart: $300 

XSX: $500

 

PS5DE: $400

PS5: $500

 

Now if Sony aggressively price the PS5DE lower than $400 then I believe Lockhart maybe in trouble considering its specs.

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George P    6,623
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1 hour ago, SnoopZ said:

My guess at pricing is.

 

Lockhart: $300 

XSX: $500

 

PS5DE: $400

PS5: $500

 

Now if Sony aggressively price the PS5DE lower than $400 then I believe Lockhart maybe in trouble considering its specs.

It'll be harder for Sony to price it too far lower since the only difference is the optical drive, all the rest is the same.  So $100 less makes the most sense.  The optical drive is probably the cheapest piece of hardware in these new consoles.

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LostCat    1,632
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23 minutes ago, George P said:

It'll be harder for Sony to price it too far lower since the only difference is the optical drive, all the rest is the same.  So $100 less makes the most sense.  The optical drive is probably the cheapest piece of hardware in these new consoles.

Makes the box less valuable to trade in too.  I'd love a digital only machine but I tend to trade in Sony consoles when I'm done with them.  :/

 

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SnoopZ    351
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1 hour ago, George P said:

It'll be harder for Sony to price it too far lower since the only difference is the optical drive, all the rest is the same.  So $100 less makes the most sense.  The optical drive is probably the cheapest piece of hardware in these new consoles.

True but if Sony can manage $450 for the regular PS5 then the PS5 DE would likely be $350 then it is just a case of how low MS can go, personally I can't see it being less than $300.

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George P    6,623
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1 hour ago, SnoopZ said:

True but if Sony can manage $450 for the regular PS5 then the PS5 DE would likely be $350 then it is just a case of how low MS can go, personally I can't see it being less than $300.

Yeah, it depends what the full systems are priced at, then we get a good idea.   I think going under $500 will be hard for Sony, from the sounds of it they've got a pricy cooling system going which is why the system is so big to begin with.  

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Sszecret    2,530
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May or may not be related to what we'll see in July, but Jenny Brewer joined Playground Games as a Senior UI designer recently. She's worked previously, among other places, at Lionhead between 2011 and 2016. Not clear which of the two Playground teams she has joined, but it's definitely interesting to say the least.

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George P    6,623
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53 minutes ago, Sszecret said:

May or may not be related to what we'll see in July, but Jenny Brewer joined Playground Games as a Senior UI designer recently. She's worked previously, among other places, at Lionhead between 2011 and 2016. Not clear which of the two Playground teams she has joined, but it's definitely interesting to say the least.

With the Lionhead background odds are it's whatever rumored RPG Playground is working on, which we all expect is the new Fable.

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George P    6,623
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Some new tidbits I haven't seen reported,  Thurrott is reporting that lockheart is smaller in size than the One X/S, quite small.  Also might hint at it not having a disc drive and being digital only from the start?

 

Also Tom Warren dropped a tweet talking about 20 CUs,  which is probably the GPU count for it.  

 

 

If it's a small digital only box that could bring the cost and thus retail price down lower than what people expect to see.  

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dipsylalapo    1,986
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I'll see if I can find the link that I found, but I read a similar thing. 

 

I'm paraphrasing here, but apparently when moving around these units they often use things like PCs to disguise what's being moved. Apparently Lockhart has been disguised inside a One X or S (I can't remember) so it's fairly small. 

 

Also would explain how they're potentially able to keep the price down. The Series X uses that split motherboard layout which is custom expensive

 

Edit - found the article, seems they were quoting Thurrot too! Here's the article - https://www.thurrott.com/games/xbox/237240/the-latest-on-lockhart

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George P    6,623
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2 hours ago, dipsylalapo said:

I'll see if I can find the link that I found, but I read a similar thing. 

 

I'm paraphrasing here, but apparently when moving around these units they often use things like PCs to disguise what's being moved. Apparently Lockhart has been disguised inside a One X or S (I can't remember) so it's fairly small. 

 

Also would explain how they're potentially able to keep the price down. The Series X uses that split motherboard layout which is custom expensive

 

Edit - found the article, seems they were quoting Thurrot too! Here's the article - https://www.thurrott.com/games/xbox/237240/the-latest-on-lockhart

It's pretty interesting because the Series X devkits just look like a bit bigger One X dev kits, or maybe around the same size.  Using something like that for the devkit probably showed the need for the better cooling option.

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Sszecret    2,530
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Well, there we go. July 23rd it is.

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George P    6,623
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A 1hr pre-show, interesting, I'm guessing the show itself is also 1hr?

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Sszecret    2,530
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20 minutes ago, George P said:
A 1hr pre-show, interesting, I'm guessing the show itself is also 1hr?

This would, I think, be their E3-like thing. Given that Xbox briefings usually take about 1h30 - 1h40, and taking out all of the nonsense of the live event (stage, people walking, stumbling on speeches, etc), it should come in at around the same amount of time as Sony's, so a little over an hour. A 1h pre-show is definitely interesting, as Geoff usually schedules the pre-show for 20-15min before. Wouldn't be surprised if there was a post-show from Geoff too.

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George P    6,623
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1 minute ago, Sszecret said:

This would, I think, be their E3-like thing. Given that Xbox briefings usually take about 1h30 - 1h40, and taking out all of the nonsense of the live event (stage, people walking, stumbling on speeches, etc), it should come in at around the same amount of time as Sony's, so a little over an hour. A 1h pre-show is definitely interesting, as Geoff usually schedules the pre-show for 20-15min before. Wouldn't be surprised if there was a post-show from Geoff too.

They normally do post show inside xbox with MN and crew, that could happen.  Maybe the pre-show will have gameplay and more info on the games they've already shown from 3rd parties? 

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George P    6,623
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This could be huge if it happens.

 

 

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Sszecret    2,530
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It absolutely would be, though I don't see Microsoft acquiring the entirety of WB Games. Maybe just Rocksteady and NetherRealm.

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George P    6,623
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5 minutes ago, Sszecret said:

It absolutely would be, though I don't see Microsoft acquiring the entirety of WB Games. Maybe just Rocksteady and NetherRealm.

Yeah, just those two would be big on their own.  Possible KI and MK crossover?  

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Sszecret    2,530
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24 minutes ago, George P said:

Yeah, just those two would be big on their own.  Possible KI and MK crossover?  

That's the reason why I'd see them grab NetherRealm. We'd be due for a KI anyway, but I don't know who would make it at this point. Certainly wouldn't be announced on the 23 even if the deal goes through.

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George P    6,623
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They've announced new studios the last two E3s so, this event being a replacement for it, timing would fit.   Sure we wouldn't hear about new games unless they're deep into development on something at the time of sale.  Just the news of grabbing those studios would be big alone.

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      For folks who have Xbox Live Gold, Book of Unwritten Tales 2 plus Armed and Dangerous are now free to claim, and if you’ve had your eye on Borderlands 3, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, or others, Deals with Gold has you covered.

      Xbox One owners have a few things to look forward to next week, as Mafia: Definitive Edition is set to hit stores – among other games, of course -, though be advised that the already launched Crysis Remastered does have some serious performance and visual issues on Xbox One X.

      Switching to first-party games, Flight Simulator got its second patch with a ton of fixes, as well as a new development roadmap, SDK update, and much, much more. On the console side, more details have been revealed about Gears Tactics, including the arrival of a bunch of new features set to coincide with the release on console.

      Lastly, while we’re on the subject of the console, Microsoft has updated its privacy settings on Xbox, and will now no longer be collecting voice data.

      Edge news


      In case you’ve already switched to the new Edge browser on Windows, the good news is that if you have an iOS-based device, you’ll be able to set Edge as your default browser starting with iOS 14.

      For folks in the Dev channel, as of version 87.0.637.0, the browser has a password generator feature that can suggest strong passwords. This is also present in the Canary channel, which in addition supports an upcoming feature dubbed Sleeping Tabs. You are now essentially able to suspend inactive tabs (and thus save resources), though enabling a flag with the same name is required for this to work.

      Lastly, if you’re on a Mac and have been experiencing ‘Error code 6’ crashes, the company is working on a fix.

      Dev channel
      Microsoft’s bid for TikTok’s U.S. operations has been rejected by ByteDance. As a result of Project Natick, the Redmond giant has found underwater datacenters to be reliable and effective. The C++ extension for Visual Studio Code is now at version 1.0. Outlook on both iOS and Android has gotten a number of fixes and improvements in the latest update. Reactions are rolling out globally for both Yammer on the web and mobile. Microsoft and bp have partnered on Azure to advance sustainability. There’s now an open-source bug finding tool from Microsoft, called Project OneFuzz. Microsoft has announced new Threat Protection APIs, with the platform being ‘integration-ready’. Azure Files now has NFS 4.1 support, in preview. The ability to hyperlink shapes to pages, copy diagrams into other files, and more have come to Visio on the web. Azure NetApp Files now has cross-region replication support. Your Phone will receive a new Contacts tab, UI tweaks, and more. Skype 8.64 brings in message reaction customization, share sheet updates on iOS. Spotlight, the ability for folks to lock select video feeds in Teams, is now rolling out. The Redmond software giant has detailed features and enhancements made to OneDrive in August. Logging off
      To end the week, and of course the column, we take a look at a smattering of Surface news, including a possible date for Microsoft’s next hardware event.



      Kicking things off with existing devices, owners of both Surface Laptop 1 and 2 should be presented with a bunch of firmware updates that, above all else, will improve charging reliability. Also receiving firmware updates are the Surface Book, Surface Pro (5th-gen), and Pro 6, as well as the first-generation Surface Go.

      In terms of what the future may bring, Microsoft is reportedly refreshing the Surface Pro X with new colours and a new SQ2 SOC. The SOC will be based on the second-gen Snapdragon 8cx, while the device itself should now also come in the traditional platinum colour of Surface devices.

      As to when we could see all this revealed, according to reputable leakster WalkingCat on Twitter, the company could hold the next Surface event on October 1 or September 30 (depending on the time zone you’re in). This of course lines up with previous hardware events from the company which have – for the most part – been in October.

      Missed any of the previous columns? Be sure to have a look right here.