Microsoft Patent Shows Next Xbox Customizable Like PC

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seems more like MS continueing to find ways to milk more money out of the many flocks of sheep with proprietary hardware just like they did with hard drives for the 360.i can see MS charging 100-200 bucks more for xbox branded parts like GPU's
 
reads more like a console devided into different pieces with one added piece for applications.
Game system, multimedia system and application system.
base model gaming only, then upgrade for multimedia and then upgrade for applications (win8 tablet/pc?)
Kind of sneaky...putting Windows in your living room via modular console upgrades.
 
[citation][nom]TheRabidDeer[/nom]If I wanted a PC, I would get a PC. Why is a console trying to be a PC even more? I already have to sit through exhaustively long install times and load times and downloading of patches... what happened to consoles being a console? Quick loads, no installing, no updates because of shoddy development, no constant purchasing beyond the initial sale, selling the game back actually being possible... I miss these days.[/citation]
That's because companies are greedy and want to get as much money as possible from dated hardware before releasing new one.
 
ok am i the only one who thinks that the second cpu/gpu subsystem does not have to be physically part of the first system, with an extremely high speed bus (lightpeak maybe) you can connect different devices together and use something akin to distributed computing

the patent alludes to the next gen kinect having significant processing capabilities which might also be lent out to console (yes i was crazy enough to skim through the whole thing), there are also references to the second cpu/gpu subsystem running a different os like windows RTM

i would conjecture that many xbox owners also posses a PC/laptop/computing device of some kind, this patent would seem to point to the ability to connect those devices up to the next gen xbox as a subsystem, kind of like the xbox glass app on steroids
 
Ok this is the worst idea ever.
One of the greatest thing about consoles is that because of the embedded experience, games will always work the same, allowing developers to focus on a specific experience.
If you add the concept of upgrading or adding/removing components, that experience get ruined by incompatibility, errors and "system requirements" for games (components that need to be in place to play certain games).
 
[citation][nom]TheRabidDeer[/nom]If I wanted a PC, I would get a PC. Why is a console trying to be a PC even more? I already have to sit through exhaustively long install times and load times and downloading of patches... what happened to consoles being a console? Quick loads, no installing, no updates because of shoddy development, no constant purchasing beyond the initial sale, selling the game back actually being possible... I miss these days.[/citation]

Things started to change around the same time that the average game started to exceed around a million lines of code.

One. Million. Lines.

Think about it: A GOOD programmer makes 50 mistakes every 1000 lines of code.

A game like the latest Call of Duty could be in excess of 20 MILLION lines of code... Do the math... Every error, every bit, all that conspire to make load times longer and worse...
 
This is bad news for anyone who wants an xbox and keeps up with PC upgrades semi-regularly, however, this is really something I don't see them doing considering they already dominate PC Gaming, since like 90% run Windows and most games are made for Windows.
 
[citation][nom]TheRabidDeer[/nom]If I wanted a PC, I would get a PC. Why is a console trying to be a PC even more? I already have to sit through exhaustively long install times and load times and downloading of patches... what happened to consoles being a console? Quick loads, no installing, no updates because of shoddy development, no constant purchasing beyond the initial sale, selling the game back actually being possible... I miss these days.[/citation]
That's where the xbox 720 comes in. You can upgrade it with a microsoft brand, last generation, overpriced ssd.
 
Upgradable? I'm surprised because console makers avoid this to keep out modchips. The upgrade method also is pretty insane.

Microsoft would be insane to overdo it on the console upgrades. We saw the mess that happened towards the end of the Genesis (Mega Drive)'s life cycle.
 
I hope they just make a better version of the PS3, with a memory upgrade slot. Then add tablet controllers that offers PS Vita controls. That back panel on a PS Vita looks handy… like using a mouse. The controllers, ease of use, and convenience (multi-purpose), is what sells consoles to all age groups. It will never outperform my PC. So it needs to offer a non-desktop experience where I can lay in bed, sit on the couch, invite friends… you get the picture.
 
[citation][nom]nuvon[/nom]Damn MS, make it work first before patenting.[/citation]

That would give others a chance at taking the concept that MS is working on and then patenting it before MS finished working on it. That'd be a fairly stupid thing for MS to take a risk taking a chance over.
 
[citation][nom]f-14[/nom]too little too late, i think in the next 5 years tablets will take over or dominate the gaming market so long as you can connect them to larger displays when not needing the mobility.[/citation]

Maybe... However, that would take quite a few innovations. Tablets currently can't provide the power needed for performance levels that current gaming would require to not look five years old. Even if you plug it in to charge it while gaming on it, it would need an innovation to stop the battery from getting damaged by constantly being plugged in and getting overcharged. I can't imagine that last one being too difficult, but it's still important. If that issue is fixed, then we'd also need the tablets to be able to handle the heat generated by a GPU, CPU, and memory system that can churn out this level of performance. I don't see this happening.

Chances are that tablets simply won't ever be able to truly replace consoles. It's only recently that they managed to kinda catch up to the nearly decade old consoles in performance and even then, only just in time for the next generation to be several times faster and catching up again would probably take almost as long as another console refresh should take (granted if there is another, it will likely take longer than it should take). Consoles, like smaller desktops, have the advantage in that they can use more power than a tablet can and they can do so more safely. This means more power for their components to use up. If they were given proper cooling, then the reliability problems (especially with MS) should be brought down substantially.

Really, compare a sub 10w tablet to a what, 100w or 150w console? It's a very lopsided comparison that the console wins until it's too old to keep up and the process of catching up to the console is not a fast one for the tablet market.
 
[citation][nom]TheOnlyJoey[/nom]Ok this is the worst idea ever.One of the greatest thing about consoles is that because of the embedded experience, games will always work the same, allowing developers to focus on a specific experience.If you add the concept of upgrading or adding/removing components, that experience get ruined by incompatibility, errors and "system requirements" for games (components that need to be in place to play certain games).[/citation]

Incompatibilities would only happen if MS was stupid enough to not use a nearly identical, but still faster GPU and other such hardware. IE if MS uses something like a GTX 660, then something like a GTX 670 could be an upgrade for it, not something like a Radeon 7970. Games could have settings to make better use of more performance, such as more tessellation, AA, AF, etc. etc.

Errors are equally unlikely unless something is seriously wrong with the system.

System requirements shouldn't be a problem. If your console can't handle full tessellation and AA/AF, then don't use it and you're good to go. All games could be required to at least be playable on the minimum hardware. Maybe other things, such as the texture quality, might need to drop in some cases, but regardless, they should work. They could even have preset specs for what settings should be automatically set to depending on the hardware of the console that they're running on.

This isn't a bad idea. It's more difficult to implement than a single hardware specification, but coding should not be any more difficult and fragmentation shouldn't result from it. The platform can be kept the same even if you improve the details of it. For example, most Vista drivers work without problems on Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008r2, and to an extent, Windows 8 and the server version (I think that it's Windows Server 2012) despite other than Vista, all of them being very much improved under the hood. Only very specific drivers don't work in the newer versions or drivers that were poorly written (or both) and even then, that shouldn't be a problem for the console.
 
[citation][nom]ben850[/nom]I thought people buy consoles because they're simple to use? Now they have to worry about which upgrades they need in order to play game X?Throwing fragmentation into the console universe = bad idea IMO.[/citation]The RAM pack for N64 worked.

There's no reason upgrades at 2 and 4 years into a console's lifetime wouldn't be great for everyone. How many Xbox 360 owners would be happy to pay $150 to quadruple their graphics horsepower? If there was a cartridge like slot in the system (similar to PCI-e capability), it could be well worth it.
 


no it didn't. there were not many games that required it

FAIL
 


The point was that it worked. That it was not prevalent in the market says that it was not popular, but I wouldn't call it a fail unless it didn't even work properly. However, such a thing would undoubtedly work much better nowadays, especially if more than merely the RAM can be upgraded. A RAM upgrade isn't a very important thing, so it's no wonder that the RAM pack wasn't widely used.
 
The problem is that most console gamers newer ever buy upgrades. So there is no demand to make games that need that upgrade. That means that there will not be games that needs those upgrades, so essentially allmost nobody buys them...
In PC world upgrades are no braners, but in console world have not been very big succes (not counting game controllers).
So upgrade can be succesfull, if there is no any need to support it any way. SSD disk would be one, to subtitute the hard disk. It is faster, but does not need any kind of support from the programs.
PC-consele would have it. All PC games are made for different configurations, so a console type PC with game only UI would make it, but... Nobody is willing to sell just a machine at discount (like consoles are). Why make only gaming machine, when it can normal things like web-surfing, word prosessing etc.
Summasummarum... Upgrade able parts are good (the PC systems), but gaming consoles are not so good platform for it. There is very easily an situation where you have super good upgrade that nobody is willing to use...
 


You don't need game support to upgrade the graphics to increase the AA/AF and such for better picture quality and/or also for higher FPS if MS requires that all games be capable of using much higher AA/AF than the consoles are capable of playing well with the original graphics. They could also be required to support higher tesselation and more than the original console's hardware is capable of.

That way, say two or three years from now, the consoles can improve even in the older games with just one upgrade. A better question than can it be done or even how it would be done would be the cost that you have to pay for it IMO.
 


you must think the Virtual boy was a success too :lol:
 


I never said that it was successful. I said that it worked. If you can't tell the difference between those two words, then this conversation is useless. Console upgrades can be done and with the ways things seem to be going now for consoles, they would probably be much more prevalent than they were before, especially if they are more than a mere RAM pack.
 


it doesn't matter is it is a console, accessory or upgrade. if they don't sell well it is a loss and costs the company money.if you can't ell how a company works then like you said this conversation is useless.

stay in school kid
 
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