Microsoft to charge $200 for 32 GPU cores, sliver of CPU clockspeed, 6GB RAM, 512GB SSD... and a Blu-Ray player Microsoft has announced a new cut-down and teeny-weeny XBOX. No, Redmond’s gaming unit hasn’t suddenly decided that the already-revealed XBOX Series X isn’t up to scratch. Instead it’s decided to offer a slightly-less-capable all-digital Series S “built to easily fit into your home and lifestyle” and “perfect for digital-first …
"Gamers prioritize framerate over resolution"
Let's just put that on the shelf next to all the other no shit soundbites that marketing companies put out.
Resolution (past a certain point) is a nice to have, because a well designed game will look good at any resolution. Framerate is essential because any game will feel crap below <insert personal threshold here>
I grew up with 12fps 8-bit Amstrad and Spectrum games, and that lasted for so long that 60Hz looks smoother than molten butter, even today.
Young ones today, they grew up with 60Hz gaming, and they can tell it's 60Hz, and they claim to discern 120Hz, even 144Hz, and they need the 240Hz displays for their twitch gaming. It's all in their heads, of course to a certain extent, but as long as they pay, companies will attend to their desires.
Soldered a 6800 cpu to a 6116 ram chip and a 2716 eprom plus some TTL logic and latch chips on Vero stripboard to play games on a row of 8 green 5mm LEDs and a toggle switch. Had to code the games in assembler, manually convert it to hex and type the codes into the prom programmer one at a time.
Damn, you poor kids...
I grew up playing Monopoly on a mobile wireless system with an infinite framerate using an organic processor communicating at 343 or 299,792,458 meters per second... and internal storage is still not full (although there is surely some "rot" and boot times are... oh... oh they're not good).
I'll take decent gameplay over anything else... a good storyline, compelling game mechanics, no micro transaction, no in game 'currency', no pay to win elements... decent longevity and replayability... always online not required nor needed, single player campaigns that are actually more than 10-20hrs and tacked on as an after thought for the shitty battle royal modes.
Ya know... like games used to be.
Consoles have historically beaten PC's on price/performance because people writing games could get super close to the bare metal since they knew exactly what that was going to be. Any performance loss from lower specifications could be made up with much more efficient coding since there was no "Well, we have no idea what hardware you're actually using, so here's a massive abstraction layer" in play.
Clearly that's no longer the case, and the vast majority of games are going to be written using existing game engines with the intent that they will sell cross platform anyway, so honestly - in what way is this not just a small form factor PC?
I'm really sure I get the point of your post, but one way in that this console is not just a small form factor PC is the ability to flop down on the couch and just play, or watch, without the faff of having to think about a keyboard or mouse, or updating an O/S, or drivers, or changing a 1001 pointless settings that are there to satisfy people who would rather fuck about with aesthetic than be concerned with gameplay or story.
Not that I'd have an XBOX. I'm in the PS camp. Bring on the 5!!!!
"I'm really sure I get the point of your post, but one way in that this console is not just a small form factor PC is the ability to flop down on the couch and just play, or watch, without the faff of having to think about a keyboard or mouse, or updating an O/S, or drivers, or changing a 1001 pointless settings that are there to satisfy people who would rather fuck about with aesthetic than be concerned with gameplay or story."
I've never understood why people continue to repeat nonsense like this. Why do you think it's not possible to do any of that with a PC? It's trivial to plug one into your TV and attach a controller (hell, Steam has a dedicated mode that requires little more than a single button press to set this up), and in my experience modern consoles are much, much worse than even Windows 10 at forcing you to install updates before you can actually use the damn thing (which is somewhat ironic given that the Xbox One, and presumably this new one, actually do run Windows 10). And the idea that optional game settings which can be completely ignored if you like being a bad thing is just outright insane.
The thing is, it's absolutely fine to like consoles. I have one, as do many other people who also like, and maybe even prefer, PCs. But the weird tribalism just doesn't make sense. OK, you like consoles. Fine. Why does that make you feel the need to tell such obvious lies about how PCs work? It's perfectly OK for you to acknowledge that you can use a PC while sat on a sofa, but still prefer a particular console for any number of reasons. There's nothing to be embarassed about, and no need to try turning it all into a some weird "us vs. them" situation where The Others must be disparaged at all costs.
Possible, sure. But convenient?
I do not know about the original AC's setup, but my PC is on the other side of the room to the TV (and it would even be in a different room if I had a less small house), and faces the other way. I can and do play games on my PC, but it - for me, at least - is far more relaxing to sit on the sofa looking at the TV rather than at the computer -- especially since I sit at a computer all day at work (and in the covid-now, it's even the same bloody computer, the same bloody computer (argh!), and the psychology is most certainly not irrelevant).
Of course, I suppose I might route a really long HDMI cable around the room to send the PC video out to the TV, but this is not a simple matter (not the least, getting local approval for yet another cable).
YMMV, naturally.
"because PC streaming doesnt work with the current setup at your house, it doesnt work at all."
I never said that; I explicitly and deliberately finished "YMMV, naturally". I was just suggesting that - particularly in my case - there are some factors *besides* a basic technical capability that influence how practical something is. That *doesn't* mean that wherever you (or other people) are it *doesn't* work just fine.
Erm, I do have an HDMI cable from my PC with a 1080Ti at my desk that reaches the over to the 4K TV. Mosey over to the sofa with my Steam controller and I'm good to go (I also have a PS4 pro plugged in) . Sound is routed via ARC from the TV into my Marantz amp and it couldn't be simpler.
Yup, similar thing here. I have a HDMI cable routed across the wall to my tv so i can use my PC while sitting on my sofa. I also have an XBOX X plugged in too. They wife is currently using the xbox, so i'm sitting at my desk instead.
I love my console. I love my PC. I use them for different things. Tribalism, just like nationalism, needs to die. Painfully. In a fire.
@BigSLitleP
"Tribalism, just like nationalism, needs to die."
When my school made me read Fattypuffs and Thinifers" I was strongly on the side of Thinifers. In my forties I began to sympathise with Fattypuffs, now the book has been banned from schools due to body-image issues.
"I do not know about the original AC's setup, but my PC is on the other side of the room to the TV"
And how is this in any way relevant? The claim made above was that consoles are inherently more convenient than PCs because you can plug it into the TV and use it while sat on the sofa. Responding by saying that you currently have your PC in the wrong place to do that simply doesn't make any sense. If you actually wanted to use your PC while on the sofa, you could simply put it in exactly the same place you would put a console. No doubt your next objection will be that your PC is too big and ugly to do that. Again, that's because you've deliberately chosen to buy a PC that does not fill that role. If you wanted to, you could simply have bought a PC that comes in a similarlly sized package to a console, and likely for a similar sort of price.
This is why the whole thing is so silly. Buy a PC with a smaller form factor, put it next to your TV, plug in a controller, and run Steam in big picture mode. Simple to set up, simple to use, functionally identical to running a console other than the choice of games. But for some reason people keep complaining that because their PC is a chunky desktop in a different room, it must therefore be impossible to ever use a PC in the same way as a console. It's just bizarre. The whole point of a PC is that you can use it pretty much however you like. A dedicated gaming and media rig setup in the most convenient way for you to use it is one of the most obvious ways to do it. I just don't understand why some people keep insisting that the traditional desktop under an office desk is the only way to do things, and because that's slightly less convenient for sofa gaming it must therefore be impossible to ever use a PC the same way as a console.
I've had a dedicated mediaserver for about 10-11yrs now. It started off as a simple AM2+ based platform with a dual core Athlon and 2GB ram... with onboard graphics... and 3... yes 3TB of storage.
It's been rebuilt and upgraded several times over the decade... Moved into a dedicated Silverstone HTPC chassis that's about the size of a large home cinema amp and can easily hold 7 or 8 HDD's and a couple of SSD's... depending on the size of the GPU used.
It's now running on a B450 with a Ryzen 5 2600X and 32GB of 3200Mhz ram and a Sapphire RX550 4GB GPU... It's a solid little 1080p capable gaming machine... that just so happens to have around 42TB of storage in there. I could swap out the RX550 for an RX580, but that means removing two HDD's as the 580 is much larger... and that drops me down 8TB. I could replace the 6TB drives with larger ones... but I just picked up a couple of 6TB drives for £89 each (WD external drives on offer) and stripped out the HDD's (archive class).
Anyway... waffling on and digressing here... point is... this mediaserver is whisper quiet thanks to the noctua fans fitted and hooked up to a 55" 4K HDR TV in the lounge. Obviously with a RX550, I can't game a 4k... but I can do 1080p no problems... and there are far better ITX class GPU's available like some of the RTX 2060/70 cards... and I'll be betting that later this year or early next year, we'll see AIB ITX class cards based on the RTX30xx series.
But I'm old school... I grew up with the original consoles of the late 70's and 80's... stayed with them until mid 90's when I got a PC of my own... been building my own for over 20yrs now. I graduated from consoles to PC's... and I can't see myself going back at any time.
But consoles have their place... I much prefer racing games on a consoles to a PC, but 1st/3rd person games... it's gotta be the PC.
or updating an O/S
Once I got over the initial excitement of my Xbox 360 and started playing CoD only once a week or so, then every weekend when I turned it on to play CoD, some sort of update was required before it'd allow online play.
If I played every day it wouldn't have been "every time I turned it on", but would still have been at least once a week.
As for the rest, I have my PC in the lounge room plugged into a 55" TV using a long 'active' HDMI cable (that runs under a strategically placed rug so it's not a trip hazard) , as well as a monitor on an articulated arm I can move in front of the couch or push out of the way if I just want to use the TV (for watching TV or for playing computer games on). Wireless keyboard, wireless mouse sit on a shelf under the coffee table with all the 'other' remote controls (TV, media player, stereo, etc.).
I've disabled all O/S updates, so only update it every couple of months when I decide to force an update when I want it to update. Usually kick it off as I head to bed and let it run overnight so it doesn't interfere with any active use time. Since I rarely turn it off (usually just sleep or somtetimes hibernate overnight) it's usually always instantly ready to use, doing other non-OS specific updates (game updates, launcher updates, etc) in the background.
I'm likely to still get a console in addition to a PC, but it isn't hard to hook up a PC to a TV and use it 'quickly' and simply. Don't even have to change seating position or move to using another device if I want to switch from doing work (word processing, coding, etc.) and start playing games on the TV, just switch the TV to computer input, fire up the game on the TV output device, push the monitor out of my eyeline, and away I go (or even keep the monitor there for information I might need while playing the game, manuals, strategy guides, etc.).
Assuming Microsoft haven't changed their approach significantly from the Xbox One - games will run inside a highly optimized VM which only implements the bare minimum of functionality, so while the APIs may be largely the same as running on Windows, the overhead of the Hardware Abstraction Layer will be massively reduced. Also background processes and the like will be far more tightly controlled.
I can't comment on newer Xbox consoles, but you pretty much had full control over the original Xbox. You could even show a static image while you rebooted the machine (which took a fraction of a second) - I know of at least one game that did that after each level. (Not my responsibility, but it was a game I worked on.)
On the Xbox360 DirectX was a super thin layer on top of the hardware (the API wasn't even implemented as proper COM interfaces), and the OS was basically a cut down XP kernel which ran on a single hardware thread on a single CPU core. The compiler didn't even support C++ exceptions properly - they were that focused on performance (support was buggy from when we first got our hands on alpha hardware (basically beefed up Apple Power Macs) and we were told that it would never be fixed).
I'd be very surprised if they'd changed those things. (Well, I guess the compiler is better these days now there are x86 processors under the hood.)
Oh this will be fun... previously one of the core advantages of consoles was that they were all the same. Will games be released for the cut down version only, two different versions or will the developers have to have one extensible version that either takes advantage of the improved performance of the full system or can degrade it's configuration to match the reduced performance of the cut down version?
Both consoles will be available as part of Xbox All Access - so, for example, £20.99/mo will net you the Series S and Game Pass Ultimate. It's £8 more a month for the Series X.
Game Pass is the reason I've stuck with Xbox, and I think Sony will have their work cut out to match it...
Will games be released for the cut down version only, two different versions or will the developers have to have one extensible version that either takes advantage of the improved performance of the full system or can degrade it's configuration to match the reduced performance of the cut down version?
Since both the Xbox and PS are now basically just PCs with PC processing/GPU cores (plus a few custom extras that differ betwen the consoles), I'd say it's the latter (one version that can run in multiple detail level modes) to make cross-console-PC ports simple.
The headline picks out the difference between the machines. FWIW the article originally said the Series S had 6GB of RAM -- it's 10GB and the difference is 6. So the headline was right, the article was wrong. It's now fixed.
Also, some people are getting the all-digital Xbox Series S teased this week confused with the Xbox One S from last year. The specs in the article are defo for the all-digital Series S coming out this November.
Don't forget to report any errors to [email protected] - ta.
C.
Don't forget to report any errors to [email protected] - ta.
Forgot about that, cheers
4K displays arent cheap?? im not sure where microsoft are buying their TV's from these days, but whereever it is... they are getting ripped off!!! Currys have a 50" 4K TV for £320
Id hazard a guess that most new TV's are 4K, not because someone has demanded the spec, but because there seem to be more 4K units than Full HD these days.
I do see the argument that lower res&higher framerate will be a reasonable trade off for spending less for the casual gamer.
but I cant see the software houses discounting the titles for people with lower spec hardware, so the saving becomes moot after youve bought a few £70 games
Apart from Kitchen TV’s, aisle end crap in Asda and crud your kid would turn their nose up at (just like a poverty spec X Box Seeies X which is what this is) it’s nigh on impossible to buy a. On ;K TV these days.
It’s the same paradigm shift
B & W to Colour CRT
Colour CRT to LCD
LCD to LCD HD
LCD to 1080p LCD
(3D TV LOL) - delete!
1080p LCD to 1080p Smart TV
1080p Smart TV to 4K Smart TV
4K Smart TV to OLED/QLED/Quantum Dot 4K Smart TV
4K displays arent cheap?? im not sure where microsoft are buying their TV's from these days, but whereever it is... they are getting ripped off!!! Currys have a 50" 4K TV for £320
I am not expecting (or intending) to get a 4K TV anytime soon (we barely use the TV we have now). I expect I'll be getting a 4K TV sometime around when 6K TVs become commonplace.
The additional $200 gets you +512GB fast SSD (around $50 cost price to MS), +6GB GDDR6 (informed DRAM spot price info indicates this would be $66), +~170mm^2 additional 7nm silicon ($35) and the drive ($20) and any licensing fees (AMD, BluRay, etc, say $10) and improved cooling system ($5) - so it's not a bad deal to pay that extra $200 retail.
And as time goes on, the second hand game market will mean cheaper games.
Or there's that $35/m 'contract' including game pass.
TBH even on a 4K living room TV, at the typical viewing distance, the XSS's 1080p/1440p with Microsoft's AI upscaling to 4K will probably be nearly as good to the viewer's eyes. XSX will pull ahead if you sit close to the TV or you have a 75" or above TV. The $25/m deal for this however seems less interesting, as a tenner a month (cancel one of your other streaming subs that you never got around to cancelling) will get you the XSX.
The GDDR6 used on the 2 systems may also have a speed difference, so a difference cost per GB and the Blu-Ray BOM cost is likely to be somewhat higher than $20. The real cost saving may come from the fee paid to AMD for the processor as the greatly reduced CU count will allow the use of a lot of dies that would have failed the testing process for the full-size system.
The real problem may come in the future if to many of the S series units are sold compaired to the X series. What will MS do if developers start to just deliver games that play correctly across both the S and X. The value of the X design will be devalued and the PS5 will become the platform for 'advanced' development.
I see this as MS trialling a download only Xbox to see what the demand is for people to still buy physical media. Although both the next gen xbox and PS both are still coming with optical drives, I do suspect that they will be the last to. As more and more people are getting used to the idea of buying and downloading online with app store and streaming services like Netflix people will probably just prefer the convenience of downloading a game than having to go to a store and buy it or wait for it to come mail order, to only find they need to download GB of patches before the game works anyway.
Plus I bet MS and Sony would love to make all their games download only. So they can get the 30% cut from purchases just like Apple and Google get with all their downloadable apps and cut out those pesky retail stores taking their percentage of the profit.
While it's possible that you'll get 4k/60fps from the Xbox X I'm not convinced. It may well be worth buying though just to assure good framerates at 1440p.
Because as the article notes, frame rates matter. I'm not going to pretend I can tell the difference between 120 and 144fps but I can certainly tell when things get busy and drop below 60.
I certainly notice flickering on panning shots, yes.
Old school film tends to be fine, as fast movement results in a small amount of blurring due to exposure times, which masks the frame rate. New digital technology is too precise and doesn't do that for me.
I don't see why not - the current 5700XT is as capable as a 1080Ti and I can play at 4k60 on many games already (GTA 5 looks good with all the bells and whistles turned up). The X box series X's GPU is (on paper) more powerful as a 2080 Super which is a step up from the 1080 Ti (approx 10% depending on game) .
Interesting.... a $200 bribe to have another go at killing off resale of pre-owned games.
It's got to be that and I suspect it might well achieve that.
We all know that the game companies hate the second hand market and MS tried this before with the XBONE, only backing down after howls of rage.
I guess offering both with and without is their next strategy.
Is it only me or the whole point of consoles was they were all of the same specs, which simplifies both the gamer's experience and the devs' jobs ?
Now, with this fragmentation of the platform, we're back to the PC market, where you need to tune up the game to whatever version of the platform you have ....
Also, the devs will have to QA to each version of the platform ... Games will run on this but not on that etc ...
Not a good move IMHO.
There's definitely a difference of approach between Microsoft and Sony.
On the Microsoft side there's no such thing as an Xbox exclusive any more, because they release everything on PC now too (a.k.a Microsoft exclusive). So their game engines have to be scalable, and therefore a bit more abstract from the hardware.
On the Sony side, they have always made the PS3 and PS4 punch above their weight with first party exclusives because those developers know exactly what hardware they are dealing with. And we've already seen some impressive PS5 tech demos like Unreal and Ratchet and Clank, which benefit from the custom SSD.
I prefer the Sony approach, but arguably it's going to get less relevant over time if they continue with PC ports of their games.
No, the games will really be developed for the cheaper model and won't be on physical discs anyway. The $200 extra is just for people prepared to pay more. You can develop one game and run it at different resolutions and frame rates. I just tried Civ 4 on PC at 1920 x1080 on a 4K TV via HDMI instead of usual 4:3 1024 x 768. Much higher spec PC obviously than when the game came out. It was fine. My Laptop can do 4K, but not that PC. However it runs Linux for work rather than gaming.
Almost certainly not - the XBONE went to great lengths to stop you from running anything - loads of things about the hardware are non-standard - from drives that read backwards to hardware with utterly unique parameters.
Its partly copy protection for the games, partly because of the (sub cost) hardware pricing strategy to hook you onto subscriptions and digital content. Lessons learnt by Microsoft from the original Xbox (which could be re-purposed)
by "hacking", I meant, replacing - completely - any software sitting on hardware, by one that that makes hardware usable. So, they tinkered with hardware to make it work only with their software? Presumably, they made it sufficiently difficult to undo (hack), but not so complicated that they'd themselves would have had to spend too much time and money on it?
No, i assumed that, On the xbone it's neither possible to run windows (despite the underlying os is a *version* of windows) nor any flavour of Linux to date. It's not like people haven't tried either.
These days there is little point either, you can achieve similar results with other hardware for home entertainment centre use.
I have a BluRay drive to play video on the TV. Cost €29.
Are many new games going to be sold on physical media? The last PC physical game I bought was a con. The DVD (!) was simply a installer for Steam. It would have made no difference buying it online. It won't run without a broadband connection.
It's better DRM to only rent via the Internet.
So is the $200 extra worth it? No. Also you'd want about 72" screen less than 1.5m away to have much advantage for 4K over 1920 x 1080. I actually have a 4K screen. However I can't see any advantage over 1920 x 1080 decent HD sources. There are two shopping channels and two demo channels using 4K on Satellite. It's underwhelming.
Unless it's a multiplayer with the screen split a bigger than 19" screen can actually be awkward. Certainly the multiplayer in 4 windows of a 48" screen is worth while, though mostly the kids use that for Minecraft which looks like lego merged with a 14" VGA monitor expanded to fit the 48" screen. PS4.
Looking for a HTPC ... and that £250 box seeems like a lot of hardware for the money. WIll not buy any games (for at least two years) small easy power quiet .. yep, will wait to see what media software and web browsing abilitys it has . It outclasses any Itx rig I could build , half the price of the ASUS bn60 . Designed to work with a JoooYstick from the couch .. plug in my media collection and Bills your Uncle.
Tv recording software .... Hauppage! get in quick, and give us what we need!
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