Xbox - Series S/X: Thread 01

[wakka]

Xbox is a really good package these days. If it launched in its current condition it would have kicked ass.

Yeah, imagine if they had come out the gate at £299 with Game Pass and none of the TV or Kinect stuff.

Really would've been a game changer. They'd have still suffered to some extent over the course of the gen from a lack of high quality exclusives, but I reckon they'd have done much better overall. Would've significantly evened the field I think.

[Deuteros]

With everything it has put in place over the course of this generation and the studios it has been acquiring, Microsoft is in a good position to be a very strong contender.

As for us, more games, more choice and more fun!

[Brad]

The Xbox has some stuff that PS4 should have really. Cloud saves without a sub for example. The Xbox UI though is clearly based around advertising. Or it was last time I used it.

[Team Andromeda]

Yeah, imagine if they had come out the gate at £299 with Game Pass and none of the TV or Kinect stuff.

Really would've been a game changer. They'd have still suffered to some extent over the course of the gen from a lack of high quality exclusives, but I reckon they'd have done much better overall. Would've significantly evened the field I think.

The talk of a lack of exclusives is crap IMO. They may have been too much of a focus on games needing to be multiplayer and Online, but the real damage was done with the price, the focus on Kinect and more so a under powered GPU and a memory system that was worse .

MS went from being the developers friend and the most Powerful console GPUs to a laughing stock . That cost MS it's biggest asset and that was the die hard gamer who loved the power of X.

[Neon Ignition]

MS got arrogant is all. The second hand issue alone was enough to sink their battleship no matter what else they'd done because despite the growth of digital markets the optics on the second hand issue were terrible. There were definitely ways of minimising the damage they suffered but Xbox One was always launching on the backfoot even without the tech being behind PS4's. Game Pass would have softened things but realistically it would have drawn software to the service at a snails pace had it launched out the gate as it's fairly heavily dependent on older titles that wouldn't have been available to it early on. It's main benefit now is sheer value. If you have a backlog it's a cheap way to catch up on stuff and if you've played all the older games on it then you can literally play every major new Xbox exclusive Microsoft releases for free thanks to how insanely generous sub-offers are on it when balanced against how rarely a major new Xbox exclusive releases.

With the Xbox One though MS was already at the disadvantage of Sony having regained momentum in the second half of the PS3's lifetime against the X360, having cut off so many ip's and studios in favour of the casual friendly Kinect audience in the last couple of years and how heavily dependent the brands success the previous generation had been on a very small number of markets. It took such a small but embarrassing misstep and they lost half their market for good before the specifics on XBO even set in.

[Neon Ignition]

https://twitter.com/JeffGrubb

Speculation still but a rumble that MS has delayed its next XSX reveal till August to let Sony move first and try to react. Not sure I'm sold as really MS already went first, Sony is following them up. It also mentions the next MS reveal will show off the Xbox Series S model Lockheart which increasingly makes less and less sense as a 2020 release.

[wakka]

The talk of a lack of exclusives is crap IMO. They may have been too much of a focus on games needing to be multiplayer and Online, but the real damage was done with the price, the focus on Kinect and more so a under powered GPU and a memory system that was worse .

MS went from being the developers friend and the most Powerful console GPUs to a laughing stock . That cost MS it's biggest asset and that was the die hard gamer who loved the power of X.

Nah, the exclusives were a factor. One factor of many, sure, but a factor. Microsoft had too few, largely of too low a quality. Even if Gears and Halo saw OK entries, they failed to excite the market. Sony made a whole series of mass market bestsellers.

There was a lot else wrong with Bone too though, I agree.

[Team Andromeda]

Nah, the exclusives were a factor. One factor of many, sure, but a factor. Microsoft had too few, largely of too low a quality. Even if Gears and Halo saw OK entries, they failed to excite the market. Sony made a whole series of mass market bestsellers.

There was a lot else wrong with Bone too though, I agree.

If it was about In-House teams and exclusives then from the PS2 onwards SONY always had the advantage, You wouldn't even look at the OG XBox, never mind 360 and even some of the so-called best 360 exclusives made their way to the PC or worse still, to the PS3 (with Mass Effect, Ninja Gaiden 2, Lost Planet Ect).

With the OG XBox a huge part of its appeal was its graphical power and how it easy it was to work on, if you were a PC developer. It wasn't about having more In- House studios and better In-House games than SONY Take out Halo and In-House wise, MS had little to counter. MS really messed up with Kinect and then having underpowered GPU need to divert even more of its lack of power to handle Kinect functions and along with poor memory plans, making the One harder to develop for

Even before MS released the system, it was on the back foot for graphics and development support. So poor by MS

[wakka]

If it was about In-House teams and exclusives then from the PS2 onwards SONY always had the advantage, You wouldn't even look at the OG XBox, never mind 360 and even some of the so-called best 360 exclusives made their way to the PC or worse still, to the PS3 (with Mass Effect, Ninja Gaiden 2, Lost Planet Ect).

With the OG XBox a huge part of its appeal was its graphical power and how it easy it was to work on, if you were a PC developer. It wasn't about having more In- House studios and better In-House games than SONY Take out Halo and In-House wise, MS had little to counter. MS really messed up with Kinect and then having underpowered GPU need to divert even more of its lack of power to handle Kinect functions and along with poor memory plans, making the One harder to develop for

Even before MS released the system, it was on the back foot for graphics and development support. So poor by MS

Yeah, I can't argue with any of that. I would say that ease of development and straight graphical power aren't enough to do the business these days though. If they were, Xbox One X would have sold a lot more than it did.

I reckon MS are cognizant of that though, hence their developer buying spree recently. It'll be really interesting to see what those teams pull out of the bag for the SX.

[Team Andromeda]

MS made mistakes by dropping the likes of SEGA and Fromsoftware exclusives and really should have had Mistwaker make a sequel to Lost Odd and Blue Dragon, instead of funding all that Kinect crap and MS is all to ready to drop any IP that doesn't sell well (even if it's got potential)

To me though it was the lack of power and slower memory that sealed the One fate for being 2nd best and 2nd choice for 3rd party developers.

Thankfully MS now as the Hardware matter sorted out going forward and it's now all up to the team's to show off what they and the system can do .

I suspect Halo, Forza and Hellblade II will be real series X graphical showcases and fab games to boot.

[Neon Ignition]

https://metro.co.uk/2020/06/11/hellblade-2-xbox-series-x-uses-unreal-engine-5-wont-launch-title-12838244/

Microsoft have confirmed that Hellblade II: Senua's Saga will run on Unreal Engine 5. With UE5 being in development till well into 2021 it means the key Xbox exclusive will be late 2021 at the earliest in arriving.

[Brad]

They could use ue5 before it’s finished?

[CMcK]

Platform holders will likely be quite involved with the development of UE5 so will have access to beta versions.

[Neon Ignition]

https://youtu.be/zqUgBjrNIeA

https://twitter.com/tomwarren

Apparently the Series X will use the same UI as the upcoming update of the Xbox One version. Great for fans, bad if you hate the existing UI style and hoped for something new.

[nonny]

I think it looks like a solid improvement. They need to fix the speed of it when you've got a tonne of games on an external drive. I know the drive I use currently is a slow 8TB unit but that still isn't an excuse for how long it takes to load the games section.