Microsoft Unveils Xbox One 782
Today at a press conference leading up to E3, Microsoft unveiled its next-gen games/entertainment console, the Xbox One. Their stated goal for the Xbox One is to have a single device provide "all of your entertainment." One of the big changes is increased support for voice and and gesture input. You can turn the console on by voice, and it will recognize you and automatically login. Swiping to the side with your hand will browse through menu pages, and saying "Watch TV" will bring up the TV app very quickly. The same with music, internet, and movies. The new console also supports multitasking — for example, while watching a movie, you can bring up your web browser in a side panel and surf the web at the same time. There is also a built-in TV listings app that responds to channel names — saying "Watch CBS" will switch to CBS without giving it an actual channel number. By this point, you're probably asking: does it play games? Yes. Hardware specs: 8-core CPU/GPU, 8GB RAM, a Blu-ray drive, a 500GB HDD, USB 3.0, and Wi-fi Direct. (They didn't provide the CPU frequency, instead saying it had 5 billion transistors.) The Kinect sensor got an upgrade: 2Gbps of data capture has finer skeletal visibility, can detect minor orientation changes in hands and fingers, and can even calculate your balance and weight distribution. The new controller looks slightly bigger, and is designed to play well with Kinect. They've also updated Smartglass, the remote control software that runs on mobile devices, but they didn't explain much about it. The new Xbox Live will have 300,000 servers powering it, up from 15,000 this year — though, of course, no details were provided about server specs. The console will have native game capture and editing tools — essentially, a game DVR. Saved games will be stored in the cloud, and they have new matchmaking capabilities that operate in the background. Update: 05/21 17:50 GMT by S : Halo is getting its own live-action TV show, for some reason. They'll be collaborating with Steven Spielberg. Microsoft is also partnering with the NFL for live broadcasts and interactive experiences, such as split-screen Skype chats and fantasy league updates. Xbox One will be out "later this year." No price information. it will not be backward-compatible with Xbox 360 games.
Looks like a cross between (Score:5, Informative)
one (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Always on internet? (Score:4, Informative)
So far I've not seen anything about the always-on requirement for the internet connection.
If games ONLY save to the cloud, then that IS the always-on internet requirement. Otherwise you have to start a new game every time you put the disc in, and you can't save your progress.
Re:Depends, but will probably get it (Score:5, Informative)
No, why?
Netflix has no advertising. I play it on my PS3 with no subscription to any sony product and there are no ads.
"Do not want" features. (Score:3, Informative)
How about product-induced ADD?
I don't want to have a fucking Skype session while I watch football, I want to watch football when I want to watch football. I don't want to give up valuable real estate to a fucking web browser when I'm watching a movie, I want to concentrate on the movie.
In fact, I would contend that the director did a shitty job of making the movie if you can only half-way pay attention for a few minutes while cocking about on the Internet and not miss something.
I don't want my saved games "in the cloud" where I can't access them if my ISP takes a shit. If you're going to put half a terabyte of disk in the thing, let me save a few 1MB save files on it. In fact, my Xbox360 is one of the few electronic things I can still use if my ISP takes a shit these days. They already tried this with "Games for Windows" a couple years back, and it was terrible. In Fallout 3, you could get into the game, and tell it to load the game before it completed your login to Live, and it would load a game from weeks ago if you were playing the DLC.
I'll let others talk about the rest of it - I don't have any feelings one way or the other about other "features."
Re:I look forward to hearing about why this will f (Score:5, Informative)
If you have an XBox 360, why go with something 359 releases out of date?
Actually they use 8.491853096 bits to store the version number, so "One" is overflowese for "361".
(3 quatloos for whoever spots the problem with that first.)
eBay will soon require a picture for all items (Score:5, Informative)
Once the new console is released, I'll sell them on EBay as "XBox 1, slightly used, only $200".
That won't work. As of this July, eBay requires all listings of used goods to come with a photo of the item taken by the buyer, and this photo must be at least 500 pixels long on the longer side. You won't be able to post a listing without a photo, and stock photos qualify only for brand-new items and for services. Sellers who don't already own a suitable camera can always buy one on eBay.
Re:Always on internet? (Score:5, Informative)
So far I've not seen anything about the always-on requirement for the internet connection.
that is because, shock amazement, you did not RTFA.
Re:Always on internet? (Score:4, Informative)
Well, they said save game data will be stored on the cloud. That right there would be the needed internet connection... and that alone will prevent me from buying one. Period.
Ability does not mean requirement. Many steam games allow you to save to the cloud, but still allow for local saving of games additionally.
Though, I honestly expect that they are pushing to make it a requirement.. and yes, it will be a deal-breaker for me.
Honestly, right now I don't even have home internet access aside from limited mobile tethering. I canceled in anticipation of moving (which got unexpectedly delayed) a month ago and because ComCast (only 1 of 2 carriers available to me in a city of population density of over 2,000/sq.mile) was being ridiculous.
I rarely play on my 360, but if my cable TV and internet was out, playing single-player console video games would be among the things I might I might want to do during the outage.
I guess that means Microsoft will just encourage me to read more rather than buy their console. Not so bad I suppose.
Re:I look forward to hearing about why this will f (Score:5, Informative)
Don't want an overpriced box that does everything. I want a game console that plays games and doesn't need the internet to "check in" with the home office...
Sony Losing Money on Every Console: False (Score:3, Informative)
The idea that Sony lost money on every console ever made is false [actsofgord.com]. After all, Sony is a hardware company.
The PS3 may have lost money on initial units sold. The PS1 and PS2 did not.
Re:Backwards Compatible? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Depends, but will probably get it (Score:5, Informative)
So you want Adds in the middle of your shows?
He means the Xbox Live Gold subscription, not the Netflix one. Unlike every other device on the market, Xbox requires you to pay them $50/year just to access the Netflix app (on top of what you pay Netflix)
Re:Microsoft's attempt at a do-everything box (Score:5, Informative)
Don't even get me started on using a PC/laptop to output to a TV. I've tried to explain a simple "PC video > HDTV, PC audio > sound system" setup to people and been flatly told to shut up and just make it work.
It's no more difficult to hook up a modern PC to a HDTV than it is to hook up any other device. Your description above implies they are using a separate sound system (not the TV's speakers) so it would go something like this:
And if they don't care about surround sound, then all you have to do is wire the PC straight to the TV via HDMI. How much simpler than this can it get? If someone can't figure that out, then they won't be able to figure out how to connect any modern audiovisual device, including a game console.
If someone is too stupid to figure out how to set up their PC to play Netflix, they can always buy a Roku box. It'll be significantly cheaper than the Xbox One and better suited to that particular purpose.
Just keep telling yourself you understand CPU arch (Score:5, Informative)
Bulldozer module is NOTHING like hyperthreading.
Hyperthreading duplicates/shares key registers, cache entries and TLBs in order to execute instructions from TWO THREADS on the same processor core. The EXECUTE and DECODE are typically much wider to allow two threads to fully-utilize all the execution resources of a single core. Software must be written specifically to take advantage of this feature (separate threads for FPU and ALU ops, and go easy on the thread locking), or you'll see zero, or possibly NEGATIVE improvement. Best-case scaling throughput (Nehalem) is 20-30%.
Bulldozer modules are two COMPLETELY INDEPENDENTLY OPERATING cores that share decoders and an FPU unit. The decoders are tasked depending on how many cores in the module are loaded, and the FPUs just have a shared reservation station available to both processors (assumes that most loads are integer-heavy). Neither processor can execute instructions from another thread, and the best-case scaling is much higher than Hyperthreading (typically 70-80%).
Also, Bullozer will be losing one of it's major disadvantages when Steamroller launches: the decoders will be 4-wide for each module, and run independently, which is expected to allow scaling to 90-95% in integer-heavy loads.
As you can see, there is NOTHING in common between the two designs. The Bulldozer approach reduces the size of the core in favor of putting more cores on a die. The Intel Hyperthreading approach is to make a much wider core, and get more efficient use of those execution units. The only thing they have in common is that they both can theoretically improve multithreaded performance.
Re: I look forward to hearing about why this will (Score:4, Informative)
As stated, go read the punishments. In most cases, Microsoft had to provide their proprietary software for X number of years for free. It was not a cash payment, and never changed the economic landscape for competition (which is the whole point of punishing predatory monopolies). In fact, when MS has to provide "free for X years" products, it further entrenches the monopoly.
They paid Novell peanuts for the damage they did to "Office" products, and the same with other competition they removed by predatory practices (there are exceptions in private law suits, but those are not what I mentioned). The exception for payment damages is the EU, but we are not talking about the EU.