RichC2

The thing is, there's no reason for them to change the system architecture outside of making people feel better that they purchased something different.

It would be a lousy strategy for sure, but I mean, it's Microsoft.

fujishig

I think it demonstrates that Gamepass and increasing that base is really important to them... and coincidentally all of us grandfathered in will have ours expire right around the time the exclusives are scheduled to come out.

Oh well, I just bought a Xbox One X this Christmas so I guess I feel better about my purchase.

Adam Tyner

I don't see how it's a mistake. At the very least, it's in keeping with the strategy Microsoft announced a while back.

With Sony, the platform is, say, the PS4 or the PS5, much as with Nintendo, the platform is the 3DS, Wii U, or the Switch -- software tied to specific hardware. Microsoft doesn't care what you play on, if it's an Xbox One, Xbox One S, Xbox One X, PC, Lockhart, Xbox Series X, streaming on your TV, streaming on your phone, etc. The platform isn't a box; the platform is Xbox, whatever that means to you individually. I'm sure they'd like you to buy an Xbox Series X , but that's not priority one the way it is that Sony would want you to buy a PS5 or Nintendo wants to sell you a Switch.

As long as the platform exclusives aren't compromised by having to support such a wide range of hardware, I don't see an issue with it. A huge number of third party releases are going to be cross-gen anyway, just as we saw in the earliest months of the PS4 and XB1. There'll inevitably be a point where things have to cut over, but it doesn't have to be day one.

fujishig

I understand their thinking, but I still think it's a mistake, given their competition with Sony and the fact that the PS5 is going to be released around the same time. If you had this gen's systems and you could only afford one next gen, which would you choose, the one with exclusives or the one without?

I guess it remains to be seen how compromised the ports are going to be but I thought one of the big draws (besides the upgrade in power) was that SSDs would be standard, so recoding games for both systems is more than just downgrading graphics, etc. But we'll see. It certainly dampens my enthusiasm for this system for right now.

RichC2

I don't think they're really going to be ports

Deftones

I don't have an issue with this, but it will certainly hurt sales initially not having exclusive games. However, I think this is the price you pay for backward compatibility. Game companies want to get their games in the hands of most people. If they can have a game release on the Xbox ecosystem that's compatible with 3 systems (One, X and Series X), then that's potentially 3x the revenue. As long as the games on Series X are a significant jump up from what the X offers, then I don't have much of an issue with it. I read something somewhere which said this basically like the iPhone model of sales. Incremental upgrade, but everything still works.

Michael Corvin

That's all well and good but then why does anyone need a Series X if all the exclusive games for the forseeable future will be on the One? Sounds like they're making it a harder sell than it should be.

fujishig

You mean the Series X version? I meant the Xbox One versions, I'd hope they start with the Series X and work their way down instead of the other way around, so I wasn't sure how compromised the older versions would be. If they had to actually get a separate development team to work on each console, that seems like suicide.

One thing I didn't consider: if they allow you to buy a game one time and have access to the game on both consoles, that could be a carrot to get people to upgrade eventually. But if it's like today where you have to buy it separately, forget it.

Deftones

People are willing to pay for increased graphical fidelity and lower load times. I know I am.

RichC2

Fair enough. It seems to me that it'll be PC style where the Series X will run on Max settings, One X on high, and One on mix of Med-High like it kind of is now (vs PC versions of some games)

Coral

MS is taking a PC gaming approach to the XBOX - which makes perfect sense. We already saw that when the One X was released - games with different resolution/framerate/quality settings were released.

For a PC if you want the best graphics and best performance/framerate - you buy a faster GPU/CPU for your gaming rig. For the XBOX, you buy their more powerful console.

No one complains that game developers made their games work with slower PC hardware, so there shouldn't be any complaints here either.

Dan

Yeah exactly.
it's PC-style, but still only limited to something like four or five profiles instead of giving the user free reign to change settings and swap components around. Eventually, the older profiles (Xbox One, or Xbox One S) would be dropped from support for the newest games, but older games will (theoretically) always come forward to the newest systems.
For game preservation, I like that approach.

mhg83

I'm happy with cross compatibility . No plans to get a next gen system for awhile. Dont have a 4k TV so I dont think I would get a good picture without upgrading my TV.

I'm hoping XCLOUD is made available for XB1 to play series x games. That way I wont have to upgrade for years.

This statement will probably change when Elder Scrolls 6 releases lol.

Dan

Real image of the back of the (prototype) console.


Larger image



https://www.thurrott.com/games/xbox/...shows-up-early

Deftones

Theory is the unknown port may be for some VR headset.

Adam Tyner

Eurogamer suggests something more mundane.

Noonan

I don't know if MS has mentioned anything but do they plan on having any exclusives for the X which won't also be on Windows?

I think this may finally be the generation where I only buy one of the big two consoles.

RichC2

I don't think there's been word on that yet, but Halo 5 still isn't on PC. But then again, that's about it, the Xbox One doesn't have many non-PC exclusives out there, and I don't see that changing.

fujishig

Do you mean after the first year or two?

They've already announced that they will have no Series X exclusives for the first couple of years. There may still be console exclusives (ie: Xbox One/Series X) but I kind of doubt it, I think everything will go to Windows at this point. After that, who knows?

Noonan

Oh, that's good to know. I hadn't seen the info about the first couple years.

RichC2

There's no point at non-PC exclusives for them, their goal is to have everybody using a Microsoft product for gaming, and so not losing money on gaming hardware is just a perk for them.

Sonny Corinthos

More info on the new Xbox has been released.

https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2020/02/...mpression=true

Decker

Sounds good. That Smart Delivery is cool in that you won't have to pay to upgrade a game to the new system. Yet another reason to wait for a sale or bundle rather than getting this at launch.

RichC2

I'm curious if that means that Series X titles couldn't work on the Xbox One, or that they are giving developers the ability to say it won't.

Michael Corvin

Sounds like if you buy Halo Infinite on Xbox One and later buy the new console you'll be able to play the Series X version at no extra charge.

Or if you buy H:I on the series X console you can play it on your old Xbox One you might have in another room of the house.

Sounds like a cool concept