Microsoft Xbox Series X | S OT - Power Your Dreams, update: FTC case unredacted documents leaked, including XSX mid-generation refresh, new gyro/haptic-enabled controller, and next-generation plans for 2028

[skillzdadirecta]

18 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

But they don’t. The exact opposite has been proven true with this generation and the mid cycle refreshes. The same is true of third part titles in the 360/PS3 era where they most often made them around the abilities of the 360 and then cut things back on the PS3 to make it work. 
 

So the most likely scenario here is that the Series X will be the target and the PS5 and XSS will have lesser versions until the mid cycle refresh, then whichever of those is more powerful will be the new target and things will be scaled back for the rest. I would even wager that the XSS will eventually have titles that are only supported via xCloud and not native on the hardware.

 

This too.

[crispy4000]

That I doubt.  But we shall see.  Crazier things have happened.

[JPDunks4]

The only thing that is going to drive the vast majority of PC owners to upgrade hardware is new must have games that have higher minimum specs.

 

Will Fortnite require a 2060, CoD Warzone, Apex, PUBG, LoL, Dota2, CS:Go.  Valorant just released this summer and can run on an internal grachics processor.

 

A huge chunk of the PC market are on PC for competitive PvP reasons, not for 4k or Ray Tracing.

 

So I find it very hard to believe we will see a huge adoption of higher end graphics cards until there are huge PvP games that release that require these higher end specs.

 

And a lot of the newest PvP games are all playable on Switch or our phones with Crossplay, so I highly doubt they ever move their min requirements up to a spot that greatly outclasses the Series S.

[crispy4000]

1 hour ago, JPDunks4 said:

The only thing that is going to drive the vast majority of PC owners to upgrade hardware is new must have games that have higher minimum specs.

 

Will Fortnite require a 2060, CoD Warzone, Apex, PUBG, LoL, Dota2, CS:Go.  Valorant just released this summer and can run on an internal grachics processor.

 

A huge chunk of the PC market are on PC for competitive PvP reasons, not for 4k or Ray Tracing.

 

So I find it very hard to believe we will see a huge adoption of higher end graphics cards until there are huge PvP games that release that require these higher end specs.

 

And a lot of the newest PvP games are all playable on Switch or our phones with Crossplay, so I highly doubt they ever move their min requirements up to a spot that greatly outclasses the Series S.

You don’t need a 1060 for any of those games... yet here we are.

 

There will always be a market for games that run and look okay on very low end hardware.  It doesn’t reflect where most AAA games land.  Minimum specs for the latter will push hardware adoption.

[Duderino]

I can't imagine AAA developers not having to plan around the Series S's RAM once next gen is in full swing.

[skillzdadirecta]

16 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

That I doubt.  But we shall see.  Crazier things have happened.

@JPDunks4 has already been playing Xbox games on his phone using Xcloud and has sampled all of the recent game streaming services. With Xcloud being standard for gamepass subscribers, why WOULDN'T MS use it to surpass whatever limitations exist between the Series S and Series X? I mean the writing seems to be on the wall and they've been extremely transparent about what their vision is. 

[Brian]

After the XBO, I doubt Microsoft is gonna release another gimped console. I am sure they did some research to have faith that it will scale with little to no issues. #BelieveinPhil

[JPDunks4]

13 minutes ago, ManUtdRedDevils said:

After the XBO, I doubt Microsoft is gonna release another gimped console. I am sure they did some research to have faith that it will scale with little to no issues. #BelieveinPhil

Ya it's almost like they own 15 studios that they could go to for in depth feedback and opinions on their plans.

[Duderino]

 

20 minutes ago, JPDunks4 said:

Ya it's almost like they own 15 studios that they could go to for in depth feedback and opinions on their plans.

Sacrificing RAM speed/size over the CPU is solid advice given the $300 target.

[crispy4000]

1 hour ago, skillzdadirecta said:

@JPDunks4 has already been playing Xbox games on his phone using Xcloud and has sampled all of the recent game streaming services. With Xcloud being standard for gamepass subscribers, why WOULDN'T MS use it to surpass whatever limitations exist between the Series S and Series X? I mean the writing seems to be on the wall and they've been extremely transparent about what their vision is. 

Because they’ve been adamant about Series S being part of this new generation and running the same games natively, without added input lag.  I’d sooner expect the Xbox One S and X1X to be limited to that.

[Keyser_Soze]

2 hours ago, JPDunks4 said:

 Dota2

 

I think the minimum specs for this game slowly creep up with no one  saying anything. I tried running it on a 980 and could barely run it at 720 on low settings.

[Spork3245]

13 hours ago, skillzdadirecta said:

I guess the point I'm making is that resolution just doesn't seem to a priority for even most PC gamers if A. the most commonly used graphics card is a 1080p card and B. most PC gamers aren't gaming in 4k, this concern that the Series S (which won't even be the lowest common denominator) will hold things back seems overblown to me. THAT'S what I'm getting at... there's all of these examples of lower powered tech being more prevalent even in the PC gaming ecosystem yet folks are concerned about the Series S. Which isn't even out yet 

 

 

Going by those Steam statistics isn’t really a great way to size-up the wants/needs of PC gamers, as it counts teens with a 5+ year-old laptop that only plays fortnight as the same as the gamer who built their own computer and only plays AAA titles. That information is sampled from every Steam account - even @RemarkableriotsPC   (  ). A more interesting statistic, IMO, wouldn’t be based solely on monitors, but how many PC gamers with sub-1440p+ monitors own an UHD TV.  
 

I’m not really arguing one way or the other in regards to this generation being held back by the S. I definitely had my concerns with MS promising cross-gen support on all first party games for the first 12+ months. I kept my concerns quiet as I had hoped MS had a real plan with it, and then boom, that information about Halo Infinite on Xbone came out. I have concerns with the S, but they’re more long-term concerns than short term - but, just like with the cross-gen support I’m reserving judgement until I see issues beginning to occur.
My concerns come from that games are built around a minimum spec and then expanded (graphically) from there, not vice-versa. Does that mean the S will stop X games from looking as “pretty” as they could? Maybe, maybe not. A PC game with a minimum spec of a GeForce 750 likely won’t look as good as a game with a minimum spec of a 970, even if the “recommended specs” for both games is a 1080. These concerns might certainly be overblown, but they aren’t unfounded and I don’t think they should be written off... much like how the concerns of cross-gen support were written off by some on this forum when they clearly shouldn’t have been.

[crispy4000]

56 minutes ago, Spork3245 said:

 

 

Going by those Steam statistics isn’t really a great way to size-up the wants/needs of PC gamers, as it counts teens with a 5+ year-old laptop that only plays fortnight as the same as the gamer who built their own computer and only plays AAA titles. That information is sampled from every Steam account - even @RemarkableriotsPC   (  ). A more interesting statistic, IMO, wouldn’t be based solely on monitors, but how many PC gamers with sub-1440p+ monitors own an UHD TV.  
 

I’m not really arguing one way or the other in regards to this generation being held back by the S. I definitely had my concerns with MS promising cross-gen support on all first party games for the first 12+ months. I kept my concerns quiet as I had hoped MS had a real plan with it, and then boom, that information about Halo Infinite on Xbone came out. I have concerns with the S, but they’re more long-term concerns than short term - but, just like with the cross-gen support I’m reserving judgement until I see issues beginning to occur.
My concerns come from that games are built around a minimum spec and then expanded (graphically) from there, not vice-versa. Does that mean the S will stop X games from looking as “pretty” as they could? Maybe, maybe not. A PC game with a minimum spec of a GeForce 750 likely won’t look as good as a game with a minimum spec of a 970, even if the “recommended specs” for both games is a 1080. These concerns might certainly be overblown, but they aren’t unfounded and I don’t think they should be written off... much like how the concerns of cross-gen support were written off by some on this forum when they clearly shouldn’t have been.

This is a reasonable, measured take.  I agree that we need to see how things play out.  And to some degree, I think Microsoft is onto something with (mostly) keeping CPU and SSD parity in the box.  It should hopefully make framerate consistency with the Series X more commonplace than you’d expect from a $300 box.  Even if resolution and lighting take a glaring hit once Series X games start brushing against its own limitations.

 

I don’t think we’ll see many games built from the low spec unless they would have been done that way anyways in the current gen.  Some multiplayer focused games in particular will be perfectly performant on the thing.  Same with most indies, although we may still have a fair share of this gen’s ARKs.

 

We also need to see how UE5 runs on it.  I have no doubt the engine will scale.  But if that demo was still only 1440p30 on the PS5, where does it leave a console with less than half the GPU compute?  DF brought that up in their direct as well.  There’s plenty of legitimate reasons to question what Microsoft is promising here.

[Remarkableriots]

@Spork3245 My Q6600 is a classic TYVM! 

[Keyser_Soze]

9 minutes ago, Remarkableriots said:

@Spork3245 My Q6600 is a classic TYVM! 

 

No Intel onboard video? Scrub!

[Duderino]

Correct. Outer Worlds was running in Back Compat mode w/ no title side changes.

— Jason Ronald (@jronald) September 10, 2020

Means the loading demo of Outer Worlds did not leverage Sampler Feedback Streaming.

 

Suppose it is technically possible that Outer Worlds could still be using UE4’s new Streaming Virtual Texturing (same concept, but in theory could work on the One S given it is not reliant on the Velocity architecture).  Given when Outer Worlds released though, I'd say that is highly unlikely.

[Mercury33]

18 hours ago, JPDunks4 said:

Ya it's almost like they own 15 studios that they could go to for in depth feedback and opinions on their plans.

Might as well put those studios to work doing something since there’s still no games to speak of 👀

[JPDunks4]

6 minutes ago, Mercury33 said:

Might as well put those studios to work doing something since there’s still no games to speak of 👀

 

Pretty sure Xbox Studios have put out more games this year than Playstation Studios.

[JPDunks4]

The Full Xbox Series S Briefing

 

The Briefing starts at 1:40

 

 

[AbsolutSurgen]

11 hours ago, Spork3245 said:

 

 

Going by those Steam statistics isn’t really a great way to size-up the wants/needs of PC gamers, as it counts teens with a 5+ year-old laptop that only plays fortnight as the same as the gamer who built their own computer and only plays AAA titles. That information is sampled from every Steam account - even @RemarkableriotsPC   (  ). A more interesting statistic, IMO, wouldn’t be based solely on monitors, but how many PC gamers with sub-1440p+ monitors own an UHD TV.  

I personally have Steam installed on 3 computers -- 1 my (somewhat dated) gaming rig, my Surface Pro and a Dell 4-year old office desktop.  So, 2 of my three machines on the Steam survey have integrated Intel graphics (they're used by my kids to play a couple of indie games they like, and Roblox).

[Remarkableriots]

Microsoft Reportedly Tried To Buy Bungie And ‘Destiny 2’ But It Cost Too Much

WWW.FORBES.COM

---

Microsoft has reportedly tried to make a deal to buy Bungie multiple times, but it’s always fallen through because the price is too high.

 

[AbsolutSurgen]

4 hours ago, JPDunks4 said:

 

Pretty sure Xbox Studios have put out more games this year than Playstation Studios.

So my count:

Xbox Studios (Excluding games also released on PS4)

Wasteland Remastered -- Re-release of 1988 game, with Metacritic of 62

Ori and Will of the Wisps -- Indie game with Metacritic of 88

Bleeding Edge -- Indie game with Metacritic of 62 (on PC)

Gears Tactics -- Retail game with Metacritic of 80

Microsoft Flight Simulator -- Didn't see a rating on this

Battletoads -- Metacritic of 73

Tell me Why -- Metacritic of 74

Age of Empires II : Definitive Edition -- Forthcoming re-release of 2005 game

SIE

Dreams -- Metacritic of 89

Ghost of Tsushima -- Metacritic of 83

MLB The Show 20 -- Metacritic of 83

Nioh 2 -- Metacritic of 85

Predator: Hunting Grounds -- Metacritic of 56

The Last of Us Part 2 -- Metacritic of 93

Patapon 2 remastered -- Re-release of 2009 game, Metacritic of 75

Marvel's Iron Man VR -- Metacritic of 73

 

I came up with 8 for both.

[Brian]

Xbox Series S | X has Wi-Fi 5 (PS5 has Wi-Fi 6)

Weight 9.8 lbs. for Series X and 4.25 lbs for Series S

[Remarkableriots]

6 minutes ago, ManUtdRedDevils said:

Xbox Series S | X has Wi-Fi 5 (PS5 has Wi-Fi 6)

Weight 9.8 lbs. for Series X and 4.25 lbs for Series S

RIP XSX!

[Remarkableriots]

Maybe we should start a GoFundMe page for MS so they could afford to buy Bungie?

[number305]

12 minutes ago, Remarkableriots said:

RIP XSX!

I'll lay my money down that even on a slower wireless protocol, game downloads will be faster on Xbox. Unless Sony is going to announce enhanced back end, their store is garbage. 

[Ominous]

Wifi? Cat 6 that bitch 

[JPDunks4]

3 hours ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

So my count:

Xbox Studios (Excluding games also released on PS4)

Wasteland Remastered -- Re-release of 1988 game, with Metacritic of 62

Ori and Will of the Wisps -- Indie game with Metacritic of 88

Bleeding Edge -- Indie game with Metacritic of 62 (on PC)

Gears Tactics -- Retail game with Metacritic of 80

Microsoft Flight Simulator -- Didn't see a rating on this

Battletoads -- Metacritic of 73

Tell me Why -- Metacritic of 74

Age of Empires II : Definitive Edition -- Forthcoming re-release of 2005 game

SIE

Dreams -- Metacritic of 89

Ghost of Tsushima -- Metacritic of 83

MLB The Show 20 -- Metacritic of 83

Nioh 2 -- Metacritic of 85

Predator: Hunting Grounds -- Metacritic of 56

The Last of Us Part 2 -- Metacritic of 93

Patapon 2 remastered -- Re-release of 2009 game, Metacritic of 75

Marvel's Iron Man VR -- Metacritic of 73

 

I came up with 8 for both.

 

Why are you excluding games that also released on PS4?  

 

That doesn't diminish my enjoyment of a game one bit if it's not exclusive.

 

The point wasn't who has more or better exclusives, it was simply MS Studios have released plenty of games recently.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

3 hours ago, Remarkableriots said:

Microsoft Reportedly Tried To Buy Bungie And ‘Destiny 2’ But It Cost Too Much

WWW.FORBES.COM

---

Microsoft has reportedly tried to make a deal to buy Bungie multiple times, but it’s always fallen through because the price is too high.

 

 

Bungie emphatically denies Microsoft buyout rumor | PC Gamer

WWW.PCGAMER.COM

---

CEO Pete Parsons stated bluntly, 'This is false.'

 

(Not that Bungie would publicly admit it if it was actually true!)

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

And now for the Xbox(es)

 

[Mercury33]

17 minutes ago, JPDunks4 said:

 

Why are you excluding games that also released on PS4?  

 

That doesn't diminish my enjoyment of a game one bit if it's not exclusive.

 

The point wasn't who has more or better exclusives, it was simply MS Studios have released plenty of games recently.

No that’s not really the point. Obviously there’s lots to play on Xbox if you include multiplats. The joke comes from the complete lack of AAA, hell even AA exclusive games on Xbox vs Playstation. If you got by that list(which I’m not entirely sure is accurate) MS’s output plays into the narrative. Do those games suck? For the most part no, of course not. Do any of the games on that list push the needle? Not even close. 

[skillzdadirecta]

12 minutes ago, Emperor Diocletian II said:

And now for the Xbox(es)

 

I see what you did there 

[Dre801]

The S is a good value. . .until you want to bump up your storage with one of those 220 dollar Seagate storage expansion cards.

[jaethos]

I'm kind of bummed it doesn't seem like they're going to do a special Scarlet edition for launch. I really like my Scorpio edition One X.

[Duderino]

1 hour ago, Mercury33 said:

No that’s not really the point. Obviously there’s lots to play on Xbox if you include multiplats. The joke comes from the complete lack of AAA, hell even AA exclusive games on Xbox vs Playstation. If you got by that list(which I’m not entirely sure is accurate) MS’s output plays into the narrative. Do those games suck? For the most part no, of course not. Do any of the games on that list push the needle? Not even close. 

Turn 10, Ninja Theory, the Collation, and Playground games are all capable of such.

Regardless, I don't think Microsoft needs their first party to sell people on the capabilities of the Series X.  Just like with the XBX, MS can rely on a numbers advantage, whether it's teraflops, FPS, or resolutions, to sell systems.  Think it's way more critical anyways that Microsoft 1st party sets a high bar on the Series S.