Xbox Official Xbox thread

jerzey devil said:
That’s actually pretty badass and while I personally wouldn’t use it either I think it’s great for kids. Especially as I said on long road trips or on a plane. Great distraction.

I have a Switch and it very rarely leaves the base attached to thevTV. Never out of the house. But as my kids get older (1 and 3 right now) I’m sure that’s going to change.
Click to expand...
jerzey devil said:
Yeah I wouldn’t even bother with a AAA game on a phone (maybe a tablet) but I can see playing some Stardew Valley or something like that at night in bed.
Click to expand...
It also doesn't necessarily have to be a phone or tablet. The NVIDIA Shield TV is the leading product, here.

Still the best Android TV box ever made. It has the exact same chipset as the Nintendo Switch, and just 1GB less RAM: legit gaming horsepower (not that cloud services really leverage this). Only bummer is the $179 option with the Remote and Controller included is gone. It's $199 for the Shield Pro + Remote, and controller is $60 separately, so it's $259 all-in through partnered retailers like Best Buy, Amazon, or B&H.
https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/shield/shield-tv-pro/
https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/shield...&ranSiteID=a1LgFw09t88-VaeN74Z526j91mwMJ_dH_g
6370425_sd.jpg;maxHeight=640;maxWidth=550

5709707_sd.jpg;maxHeight=640;maxWidth=550


All TVs come with smart platforms built into them, now, but devices like this have superior video processing, superior sound cards, superior WiFi reception, more ports, and can run a ton of software the lesser Smart TV OS's cannot (ex. Kodi). Unlike the Nintendo Switch, the Shield is actually one of the approved devices that receives 4K streams from Netflix. Only shortcoming of the Shield is that it can't be a hub for really high-end analog speaker systems.

Here's a video showing xCloud on the Shield during the early beta (maybe even alpha?) back in February:


Game Pass games via Project xCloud isn't the only cloud service it supports. It also given special attention by NVIDIA to run the GeForce Now cloud gaming service. You can read more about that here if you already haven't:
https://forums.sherdog.com/posts/160511563/
All of these cloud gaming services are still beset by a slew of issues, though. Not just latency or pixelation. People have sign-in issues, app launching issues, excruciating load times and screens, you name it. The officially NVIDIA support apps for the Shield have somewhat poor reviews on the Play store. That's just where Cloud gaming is in 2020. Won't be different on smartphones or tablets-- only worse.

But, since it's an Android machine, it shouldn't be a surprise that it also will natively play any Android game that support a controller. Games like Fortnite, DOOM, Grimvalor, Crashlands, Oceanhorn, Castlevania: Symphony of Night, etc:
https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/09/05/best-android-games-controller-support/


This is an example of the "other platforms" Spencer is talking about supporting. It's why he may be hesitant to use the word, "exclusive", and instead say, "whatever that means", because their strategy has been explicitly to go against the grain of the historic exclusive-walled closed-garden strategy. Obviously, he has no intention of supporting the PS5.
 
Madmick said:
It also doesn't necessarily have to be a phone or tablet. The NVIDIA Shield TV is the leading product, here.

Still the best Android TV box ever made. It has the exact same chipset as the Nintendo Switch, and just 1GB less RAM: legit gaming horsepower (not that cloud services really leverage this). Only bummer is the $179 option with the Remote and Controller included is gone. It's $199 for the Shield Pro + Remote, and controller is $60 separately, so it's $259 all-in through partnered retailers like Best Buy, Amazon, or B&H.
https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/shield/shield-tv-pro/
https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/shield...&ranSiteID=a1LgFw09t88-VaeN74Z526j91mwMJ_dH_g
6370425_sd.jpg;maxHeight=640;maxWidth=550
5709707_sd.jpg;maxHeight=640;maxWidth=550


All TVs come with smart platforms built into them, now, but devices like this have superior video processing, superior sound cards, superior WiFi reception, more ports, and can run a ton of software the lesser Smart TV OS's cannot (ex. Kodi). Unlike the Nintendo Switch, the Shield is actually one of the approved devices that receives 4K streams from Netflix. Only shortcoming of the Shield is that it can't be a hub for really high-end analog speaker systems.

Here's a video showing xCloud on the Shield during the early beta (maybe even alpha?) back in February:


Game Pass games via Project xCloud isn't the only cloud service it supports. It also given special attention by NVIDIA to run the GeForce Now cloud gaming service. You can read more about that here if you already haven't:
https://forums.sherdog.com/posts/160511563/
All of these cloud gaming services are still beset by a slew of issues, though. Not just latency or pixelation. People have sign-in issues, app launching issues, excruciating load times and screens, you name it. The officially NVIDIA support apps for the Shield have somewhat poor reviews on the Play store. That's just where Cloud gaming is in 2020. Won't be different on smartphones or tablets-- only worse.

But, since it's an Android machine, it shouldn't be a surprise that it also will natively play any Android game that support a controller. Games like Fortnite, DOOM, Grimvalor, Crashlands, Oceanhorn, Castlevania: Symphony of Night, etc:
https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/09/05/best-android-games-controller-support/


This is an example of the "other platforms" Spencer is talking about supporting. It's why he may be hesitant to use the word, "exclusive", and instead say, "whatever that means", because their strategy has been explicitly to go against the grain of the history exclusive-walled closed-garden. Obviously, he has no intention of supporting the PS5.
Click to expand...

Sounds like those would be great for hotels. That is if they can fix the sign in issues. A lot of hotels used to have consoles attached to the TVs that you could rent but something like this would be way better.
 
Hitman81 said:
Thats different though. These are not home grown Microsoft studios. And Sony and Nintendo both have a huge market share right now and they're not even in the same frame of mind of MS in trying to take over the video game world and have their fingerprints on everything.
Click to expand...

How is it different? Sony and Nintendo could sell all their first party titles on opposition hardware and rake. But they don't. Because they need killer apps to move hardware and entice buys to buy. Microsoft is just having a hard time doing it since purchasing Rare over a decade a ago. Now they are playing ball and buying up studios. Don't forget they got a dream team assembling at The Initiative in Santa Monica too that is working on a secret IP. So yes they do have "homegrown" studios.
 
Hyperglide said:
How is it different? Sony and Nintendo could sell all their first party titles on opposition hardware and rake. But they don't. Because they need killer apps to move hardware and entice buys to buy. Microsoft is just having a hard time doing it since purchasing Rare over a decade a ago. Now they are playing ball and buying up studios. Don't forget they got a dream team assembling at The Initiative in Santa Monica too that is working on a secret IP. So yes they do have "homegrown" studios.
Click to expand...
Maybe it's not. Just my opinion.
 
Hyperglide said:
How is it different? Sony and Nintendo could sell all their first party titles on opposition hardware and rake. But they don't. Because they need killer apps to move hardware and entice buys to buy. Microsoft is just having a hard time doing it since purchasing Rare over a decade a ago. Now they are playing ball and buying up studios. Don't forget they got a dream team assembling at The Initiative in Santa Monica too that is working on a secret IP. So yes they do have "homegrown" studios.
Click to expand...

I don’t really care if it’s different or not. MS needed games and they’ve done what they needed to do to fix that. Silly things like home grown studios don’t matter. This is a business not a passion project.
 
Madmick said:
Venturebeat did a teardown.
https://venturebeat.com/2020/10/15/xbox-series-x-seagate-expansion-card-teardown/
Click to expand...
https://www.tweaktown.com/news/7572...-nand-phison-e19-memory-controller/index.html
Huh. So Tweaktown inspected this Venturebeat teardown in much more depth than I did, and they appear to believe it is 96-layer QLC memory, not 128-layer TLC memory, although they acknowledge the latter is possible. Hopefully it's TLC, but that doesn't appear to be their operating assumption:
The other less-likely possibility is that the Series X uses 128-layer 4D TLC flash memory. TLC is more expensive to make but more reliable, especially for heavy write scenarios. Consoles mostly read data, not write, so there's not a big need for TLC.
Click to expand...
They also offered a lot more information on the Phison E19T controller:
75722_43_xbox-series-ssd-sk-hynix-4d-qlc-flash-phison-e19-memory-controller_full.png


The most useful bit of information, though, is perhaps a bit disappointing:
The E19T controller also supports only 2TB of data, so expect the Xbox Series X cards to cap out at 2TB capacities.
Click to expand...

Hopefully, then, they'll offer a more robust SEC expansion card in the future. 3TB (1TB internal + 2TB external) max memory for XSX optimized games with a launch console may prove a tight squeeze to last the console's lifespan for gamers inclined to accrue heavy game libraries.
 
method115 said:
I don’t really care if it’s different or not. MS needed games and they’ve done what they needed to do to fix that. Silly things like home grown studios don’t matter. This is a business not a passion project.
Click to expand...
I wasn't replying to you. Why are you quoting this? Go away child.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Mau
Hyperglide said:
I wasn't replying to you. Why are you quoting this? Go away child.
Click to expand...

I was replying to you because I think it’s silly that MS is being attacked for buying studios. They needed more games and they bought studios to do that. Going away now.
 
In a studied, deflecting response to questioning about The Coalition’s plans for Gears 5 on the next-gen consoles, studio art director, Colin Penty, has been talking in very excited terms about the potential for ray tracing on the Xbox Scarlett console. It’s just a shame the developers weren’t excited enough to enable ray tracing on the PC version.

But whose fault is that? Is it down to the devs not being able to put the money and effort into supporting a resource-intensive pretty for a still small install base? Is it that Gears 5 on PC is an AMD-sponsored game and that currently precludes it from entry into the roped-off ray tracing VIP area? And does that mean you can’t stick ray tracing support into your game unless you’re a card-carrying GeForce RTX groupie?

Nope. Having spoken to Nvidia we know it’s not getting in the way of devs implementing ray tracing; that would be counterproductive when it’s trying to broaden its appeal. The Microsoft DXR API is the driving force behind the real-time ray tracing evolution, with Nvidia’s RTX cards simply accelerating the bounding volume hierarchy approach it uses. As such, any game that implements DirectX Raytracing would immediately hook into Nvidia’s RTX GPUs to accelerate its performance. And its GTX Pascal ones to lesser impact…

Given that The Coalition is a Microsoft studio, and it was Microsoft that created the DirectX Raytracing (DXR) API which feeds the RTX hardware from Nvidia, you’d think it would be a natural fit to have ray tracing featured in Gears 5. But no, this AMD-sponsored title doesn’t have it for reasons as yet unknown.

Ray tracing is open to any game dev that wants to implement it as it’s enabled at the engine level. It’s not a proprietary Nvidia Gameworks function, such as PhysX, it just needs a little (or more like probably a lot) of work to enable DirectX Raytracing in the Unreal Engine 4 – the engine Gears 5 is using. It’s already a DirectX 12 game, so the opportunity would be there if The Coalition thought it “huge” enough on PC.
Click to expand...

https://www.pcgamesn.com/gears-of-war-5/dedicated-ray-tracing-hardware-is-huge-just-not-on-pc?amp




I'm not even sure if this optimized Gears 5 has Ray Tracing but this was interesting.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Forum statistics

Threads
1,280,656
Messages
58,308,614
Members
175,998
Latest member
joshvegas

Share this page

Back
Top