News Xbox Details Specs for Next Gen 'Scarlett' Console

epobirs

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Jul 18, 2011
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It's funny how both Sony and Microsoft refuse to come out and say they'll use a PCIe 4.0 SSD for main storage when it's painfully obvious and such will already long be available in PCs by the time those consoles launch. Why be mysterious at this point?

A bigger question to me is what will be available for going beyond the base storage. Will there be a second M.2 slot, packaged in a way to make it easy for consumers to plug in more storage? What will be the USB version? If USB 3.2, that will offer a big boost over current gen, even if it pales before the throughput of the internal storage. The companies could apply some analysis to the games to determine which ones will most benefit from being prioritized to use the internal faster storage. A smallish game that entirely reside in RAM or close to it would get less benefit than some sprawling epic with very frequent random accesses.
 

DavidC1

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It's funny how both Sony and Microsoft refuse to come out and say they'll use a PCIe 4.0 SSD for main storage when it's painfully obvious and such will already long be available in PCs by the time those consoles launch. Why be mysterious at this point?

Who cares? The SSDs on consoles will be way, way faster, in a way PCIe versions don't matter. You could have Optane, you could have PCIe 6.0, it doesn't matter. This is the advantage of having a purpose-oriented platform. It allows you to do things better at a lower cost, by sacrificing flexibility.

The patents describe what they'll do with every aspect of the system to fully take advantage of SSDs. The same thing is not viable on the PC, or will take a long time to come just because you need to cater to a vast market with vastly different requirements.

This is why NVMe SSDs are in practice not much better than SATA SSDs, and why SSDs in general show 2-4x gains rather than 100x shown by benchmarks.

With consoles as a developer you target a platform that does not change for 5-7 years, and on only one hardware specification. That means you get to absolutely maximize its capabilities.
 
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Deleted member 14196

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i highly doubt it will need or use a pcie 4.0 ssd... lol, regular sata ssd are moare than enough for gaming.

will they make it easy for end user to upgrade? No, and who cares? you can add on storage NAS for games like I do and never use the primary storage except for system stuff. you don't need SSDs to game.
 
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daglesj

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I never understand the rush for NVMe type storage in everything. Once you get one you realise there is such a thing as the Law of Diminishing Returns.


5000MBps? You aint gonna notice!

Good old 500MBps SATA would do fine. Maybe even better with a custom setup.
 

Giroro

Splendid
I don't think memory pricing is going to stay low like it is right now. It won't take long for the industry to get back to business-as-usual once the heat from China's price-fixing investigation is off. In the very least, MS and Sony will be looking to save every penny that they possibly can.
So I expect that at one or both consoles will use a small fast SSD cache in a tiered memory configuration with a HDD. A 128GB SSD + 1TB "elite" console launched alongside a 64GB-only "Arcade/streaming" edition (which ultimately knee-caps performance for the entire generation) seems like exactly the kind of thing Microsoft would do. I think there are some important questions Microsoft should be answering right now like "Will the new Xbox automatically switch to the right HDMI input like my PS4/Chromecast?", "Will the menu on your 'fastest console ever' be able to scroll smoothly?", and " Will you finally get around to putting a rechargeable battery into your expensive first party controllers?".
Which, uh, yeah... I was super disappointed with my XboneX..

So has AMD or anyone actually gotten around to explaining how they plan to pull off Ray-Tracing with Navi, which doesn't seem to have hardware for it?
 
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i have never had any issues using any xbox not connecting to the correct hdmi--even when using an hdmi switch. never had any scrolling issues or issues of any kind.
 

Giroro

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i have never had any issues using any xbox not connecting to the correct hdmi--even when using an hdmi switch. never had any scrolling issues or issues of any kind.

My xbox won't change the input at all for me, nor does the TV know what device is on that input I always have to do it manually. HDMI-CEC seems either disabled or missing entirely, but it's the only one of my current devices that has that issue.

As for scrolling issues, the GUI is slow loading and laggy compared to other consoles including the Xbox 360. It just doesn't feel good. It's comparable trying to scroll through phone content in a mobile website instead of using a dedicated app. Is it because it's constantly trying to load noisy ads and clutter? Is it something leftover from all the TV-watching or Kinect features they didn't really follow through with? I have no idea.
What I'm really trying to say is more powerful hardware (Like XboneX) is only part of the equation. A big part of why Sony dominated this generation because their overall user experience (controller included) is cleaner, faster, and more polished.
 
So I expect that at one or both consoles will use a small fast SSD cache in a tiered memory configuration with a HDD. A 128GB SSD + 1TB "elite" console launched alongside a 64GB-only "Arcade/streaming" edition (which ultimately knee-caps performance for the entire generation) seems like exactly the kind of thing Microsoft would do.
While a lower capacity "streaming" version will likely be happening in some form, giving the full version a 1TB hard drive plus 128GB SSD might not be all that cost effective when 1TB SSDs are already available for around $100, and could be significantly less by the time these consoles launch. They probably wouldn't be saving much, if anything, by going that route unless they targeted a higher capacity for the hard drive. The price floor for mechanical hard drives is higher than that of SSDs, so it likely won't be long until they lose their price advantage at lower capacities.

A big part of why Sony dominated this generation because their overall user experience (controller included) is cleaner, faster, and more polished.
I don't think that really would have much to do with it at all. People don't buy a console for its menus, and most seem to prefer the less-symmetrical layout of Xbox controllers.

I think it's more down to there having been a questionable marketing focus around the launch of the Xbox One, as Microsoft was putting too much focus on the non-gaming aspects of the device. One big thing they initially tried to do different, making DRM work more like we see on PCs, received a lot of negative press and the idea was canned before the device even launched. The other big thing they initially did different was the inclusion of an improved Kinect sensor, which while interesting, added significantly to the console's cost without doing much for core gaming. Most notably, the Xbox One initially cost $100 more than the PS4, despite offering lower hardware specs. This higher cost for less performance undoubtedly killed more of the initial hype for the device than anything else, and gave Sony a chance to gain significant momentum.

And of course, another big thing affecting sales of the console would be its exclusives, or lack thereof. The Xbox One simply doesn't have many games that I would consider to be system-sellers that are not also available on the PS4. Maybe Halo 5 and Gears of War 4 were, though those saw a weaker reception than most prior installments in their respective series. And there's Forza, though I'm not sure that's a series many would buy the console for. Compared to Sony, they don't have many console exclusives, let alone ones that are especially well-received.

That being said, they have still moved a decent number of consoles, with about half as many Xbox Ones sold worldwide as PS4s, and the numbers are much closer in North America. It might not have been like the previous generation where the PS3 and Xbox 360 more or less tied in terms of worldwide sales, but it's still much closer than it was with the first-generation Xbox.