Topic: The everything Xbox thread

@Dezzy How so? The One X really isn't THAT powerful. It is the most powerful console at the moment, but not by much, and for a new generation to be interesting for developers and gamers alike, there will have to be a significant step up in hardware. And remember: Microsoft is also keen on sharing more titles between Xbox and Windows, so if titles are going to look FAR better on PC, then that's not going to be very beneficial to them.

Obviously, PC will always trump consoles, but the difference in current cross-platform titles is marginal, and I'm pretty sure they'll want to keep it that way.

The One X is 6TFlops, and if these rumors are to be believed, the new premium Xbox is going to be double that, so 12TFlops, or at the very least somewhere between 10 and 12, seeing as it's also rumored that the PS5 is going to be around 10TFlops as well, so Microsoft should either match or surpass them.

@ThanosReXXX

CPU is like 1.5x as fast. GPU is like 4 times as fast. It's a non-trivial upgrade if you ask me.

Plus we don't even know what kind of games the X could run because it's all being constrained at the moment by games being targeted to the base consoles.

@Dezzy Non-trivial? If that's the case, I agree, but correct me if I'm wrong, but your comment seems to imply that you meant to say that it's hardly an impressive thing, so that would mean that you think that it's a rather trivial upgrade instead of a non-trivial one...

Well, it's not, really. And we actually do have a pretty good idea of what the X is capable of. It's not held back by the base consoles, and at times, even though it's the most powerful console at the moment, even the One X is struggling with certain games and/or assets of games, so compared to for example a gaming PC, it's pretty clear how much could still be gained.

And going from 6TFlops to 12 isn't as simple as well, that's only 1,5x the CPU and 4x the GPU.
First off, there's more to it, since there's other components in there also cooperating with and optimizing those chipsets, and that in and of itself will already be a considerable improvement upon the current hardware.

And of course, going from 6 to 12 TFlops isn't "just" 1.5 faster/more powerful, but twice, in raw figures. But again: those raw figures don't necessarily represent the exact performance. The current hardware still has some bottlenecks here or there, so even just solving these will already make an impact. Then couple that with hardware that's twice as powerful, and who knows how much memory and bandwidth, and you'll have a massive improvement on your hands.

Besides: think of what you said by, for argument's sake, exchanging game consoles for racing cars:

"But this new car only drives 1,5x faster than my current one"

Even going with that lower multiplied number, and considering that most racing cars could relatively easily reach 200kph/124mph, that would still mean that the new car would reach 300kph/186mph or more.

I'd say that's anything but a trivial upgrade...

On a side note:
If you really DID mean a non-trivial upgrade, then we apparently agree, and I don't have any idea whatsoever what we're debating right now.

Save to say that if by any chance we do agree, all of the above can be considered as not written...

@ThanosReXXX Well for now titles already don't look "far" better on PC. The big difference in FH4 is it runs (on a super screaming top end rig) 60fps with all the Quality mode settings, plus some effects additional. Certainly different but not jarringly. I think the next gen consoles will be mostly about getting 60fps with the 4k modes up and running.

@Dezzy the CPU is the only real Achilles heel of X. It's an upper-mid tier PC otherwise, but that CPU is a bottleneck. I don't expect a significantly better GPU next time. We're looking 1-2 years away, and the jumps on PC are pretty trivial looking in that time.

I'm the only one on this thread still believing forward compatibility on the X is possible. Ssshh..don't poke the bear if you don't want text walls....just saying....

@NEStalgia Well, that's exactly what I meant (you REALLY do need to try and interpret my comments a bit better, prevents a lot of miscommunication): they will want to keep things somewhat on the same level. It's okay if the PC versions look slightly better, but they wouldn't want to create a huge gap.

And don't worry, this Titan isn't going to be goaded into any useless argument anymore...

You tell 'em @TanosReXX !

My issue is that game devs don't push uniformly consistent and high res textures (the inconsistency drives me more nuts than anything) not to mention absurd loading times. I feel like I spend more time doing something else on the twins than gaming. I don't think beefier hardware is the answer when half the time it feels more like devs can't optimize their way out of a paper bag. Welp since AC:Sparta is in a holding point (since I'm at the level cap and one of the quests I want to do is broken) I guess I'll go find the ps4 so I can play soul calibur.

And watch all of you apologize to the Switch when the XBox Whatever and PS5 has tons of "4K Rereleases/Ports/Collections" in the first 2 years.

@Ryu_Niiyama I wonder how much texturing is inconsistent and how much is selective reductions for memory management and performance, though? Load times are dismal and are only going to get worse, since it's capped by the rotational speed of 5400RPM 2.5" drives (native) and 7200RPM 3.5" drives if you buy aftermarket. That's the actual bottleneck until we get into SSDs running on USB3.1rev2 (because that spec is a total joke.) And that's going to be an EXPENSIVE storage solution for the ever growing game sizes.

@Angelic_Lapras_King I was going to laugh, but in stead I'm crying. Well maybe not, we got most of the current games in 4k patches for free thanks to the mid-gen bump. I hope..........

@NEStalgia XBONE and PS4 started with tons of "HD Remasters/ports/rereleases", despite PS360 being the HD era. Just because both will be plugging backwards compat next gen doesnt mean every developer will support it fully.

@Angelic_Lapras_King I agree, there'll be plenty of PS4/XB1 ports in the first few years of PS5/Scarlett.

@Grumblevolcano Don't forget ports of the XBONE/PS4 ports of PS360 games and ports of the XBONE/PS4 ports of the PS360 Ports of the PS2/XBox era games too.

I'll see myself out. XD

And the Sega Genesis ports

@DarthNocturnal I can't wait for the State of Decay remaster, then!

@Grumblevolcano @Angelic_Lapras_King It'll be interesting to see what happens with ports. A big part of XBox's presence seems to be to bring it more inline with "Steam as a console", so MS is going to be putting pressure on to keep BC up and running at least through one generation, maybe beyond. I think remasters will become the new DLC: You can buy the game at launch, then buy another $60 DLC, or just buy the complete edition for $50 next year. Similarly you can buy the game at launch, or just buy the actual original master next gen.... They'll just start retouching things and adding "new" areas to resell it as better than the prior gen despite BC. It works on PC...but they just sell the remasters on PC too, despite BC existing. And then there's Final Fantasy Maxima.

Personally, I think Sony will push for it, but I think MS is "recommending" a more PC-like approach, but with more "PC-friendly" development processes to make it more painless to support games. After all, XBox supports DirectX, same as PC (the whole point of XBox to begin with) while PS requires separate proprietary APIs.

@Angelic_Lapras_King Before you close the door behind you on your way out: you forgot about ultimate editions/director's cuts...

@DarthNocturnal If that is what the future holds, I think I'll pass... out...
If I remember correctly, smell-o-vision has been tried several times already, even as early as the late 60's, both in the movies and in home setups. None were a very big success so far.

Might be a staple for the future of the adult industry, though...

@Ryu_Niiyama I don't know about you but @thanosrexx (sorry ) is a good candidate for OCD and @NEStalgia is obviously nut so you can't feel that bad.

I don't want to think about what will be announced on Saturday because I don't want to be disappointed but surely can't be worse than recent Nintendo's E3 boring YouTube videos, I mean, "Directs"... Look at my avatar if you want to know what I am dreaming of... Yes, I need Banjo-Kazooie back.

I haven't played much these days but I got 2 stars on a drifting challenge on Forza Horizon 4, getting 3 seems impossible. It's not like I need to get 100% in every game that I play but I honestly want to understand the mechanics and how to get 3 stars on at least one drifting challenge because I am not a bad player. Actually, I completed Crash Bandicoot 1 on Xbox One X in spite of the messy physics and controls of the trilogy. Not only that but I got absolutely everything including the gems that you only get when not dying and the extra level which is ridiculously difficult. Of course, I haven't even tried time trial mode (relics) and I won't.

You know what, I hated the controls and physics in this first game but after hours and hours I started getting better and I have to admit that, as much as it is inspired by Rare's wonderful Donkey Kong Country games Crash is also charming, the level design is enjoyable, the music is great and the visuals on Xbox One X blow my mind, especially the river levels. I enjoyed it much more than I expected. Everybody says that 2 and 3 are better so I am happy that I bought the trilogy because I only had played The Wrath of Cortex which is mediocre in my opinion. There are rumours about Crash Team Racing remake, that would be nice.

@NEStalgia I wanted to start Assassin's Creed II but then I remembered I had something else to do in ACI, a few investigations that I just completed so I got everything but the flags that are like the moons of Super Mario Odyssey or Koroks of Breath of the Wild, "skippable".

I wanted to start ACII now but I decided to beat the Kingdom Hearts games that I have not beaten yet because I also got the compilations on PS4 a long time ago and it's actually the last thing I am going to play on that console with that uncomfortable controller. My favourite game in the franchise this far is Birth by Sleep and the one I liked the least Chain of Memories (because of the gameplay). After I'm done with the Kingdom Hearts compilation, that I suspect will be released for Xbox One, I'll go back to my beloved X and Elite controller. By the way, Eurogamer didn't like the PS Mini.

@DarthNocturnal It's better that way. Don't expect anything other than updates. I don't want my heart to be broken this weekend.

I need more Banjo-Kazooie! Who would have thought that Sonic would get a dozen awful 3D games in the meantime...

@Dezzy @Ryu_Niiyama The X is a huge upgrade compared to Xbox One and it's also not only more powerful but much better engineered and optimised than the PS4 Pro. However, according to Digital Foundry, by 2020 (approximate date) the biggest upgrade that the next Xbox console would have would be the CPU. The X uses a customised and optimised one that runs at high speeds and has some operations built in (that's why X is much better than an equivalent PC) but in a few years a new-generation CPU is expected in consoles.

It's possible that the first years of Scarlett are transitional like @GrumbleVolcano and @Angelic_Lapras_King suggest. I won't feel the urge to upgrade as much as from Xbox One to X, ironically. I'll do it but not on day one like with the X. But Scarlett won't have a remaster of a remaster at full price, that's something typical of Nintendo, but Xbox has become a cross-generational platform that plays older titles and that is the best thing about Xbox since the backwards compatibility was announced with Rare Replay.

One thing that few people talk about is loading times are really much shorter on X compared to Xbox One, PS4 and even Pro. It's something that you really don't appreciate until you have it but it's like having a few seconds interruptions instead of one minute interruptions. It's a blessing.

@BlueOcean I think it'll vary by company. Capcom for example released the DMC Collection on PS360, a collection of the PS2 games, that was then ported to PS4/XBONE as a full retail release, with no backwards compat on the 360 version. Same with the Resident Evils especially 4, hardly any are backwards compat because Capcom chose to rerelease the likes of 4, 5, and 6, making you pay for it again.

Hell, if you could the Wii download on Wii U, the Switch port of RE 4 will be the 4th rerelease of the game on a Nintendo Home Console. XD

Like I said, just because BC is there doesnt mean any company has to make ALL their old games part of the program. Not when there are people out there that will throw 50 notes on a port of a years old game they probably brought last gen, just for the promise of a "4K Upgrade".

@BlueOcean Oh, trust me. Three starring these challenges is easy once you learn the line and manage to keep under control throughout it. I've been redoing them in my AWD-converted Mini Cooper easily. A lot easier than with the Subaru in some cases.

If you need a bit more help, there's a few tips and lines you can get from the video below. I didn't go manual gears and I didn't use the car and build from the video, but it did help to understand a few of the finer points of getting three stars.