Xbox One Gets 10% Power Boost by Ditching the Kinect

[Guest]

With the extra computing overhead required to make the Kinect work on the Xbox One, the higher price point and the weaker performance on Microsoft's console, it was only a matter of time before the Xbox One ditched the Kinect.

Xbox One Gets 10% Power Boost by Ditching the Kinect : Read more

 

[fandroid]

Still slower than a PS4 and more expensive even with the price cut (PS4s are $379 all over the place) and now lacks its supposed selling feature.

 

[rayden54]

Out of curiosity, what'll happen to all the people with the old Xbox One when/if games are optimized to actually USE that extra 10%? Will they just have to disable Kinect to play them?

 

[darkguy2]

Out of curiosity, what'll happen to all the people with the old Xbox One when/if games are optimized to actually USE that extra 10%? Will they just have to disable Kinect to play them?

I would guess that it would just disable the kinect when you play the games.

 

[neon neophyte]

huge burn on anyone who bought an xbox one already

 

[Martell1977]

So they took the same attitude with Kinect that they did with Windows 8's Metro interface and both burned them in the end. Sales of Windows 8 were/are slow and the sales spike of the Xbone was short due to hardcore XBox fans. Once the hardcore people had theirs, the sales trailed off.

At what point will MS start listening to customer feedback BEFORE finalizing the designs and going to retail? How bad does it have to get?

 

[Darkk]

So they took the same attitude with Kinect that they did with Windows 8's Metro interface and both burned them in the end. Sales of Windows 8 were/are slow and the sales spike of the Xbone was short due to hardcore XBox fans. Once the hardcore people had theirs, the sales trailed off.

At what point will MS start listening to customer feedback BEFORE finalizing the designs and going to retail? How bad does it have to get?

Remember money talks so whatever hurts their wallets will make them listen.

Right now it's marketing that is shoving this down everybody's throats and customers are starting to rebel by disconnecting the kinect device.

I have one for my Xbox 360 and while it's a great item but it wears off over time.

 

[Guest]

So their motion capture device was a constant 10% drain on the GPU resources even when not being used? I don't think so. I bet that MS rep gave himself a pat on the back for coming up with that "positive spin".

 

[Guest]

This actually reminds me of the tale of that optimist who loses a leg but says it's okay because now he will only have to polish a single shoe.

 

[back_by_demand]

Adding a peripheral causes extra work for the system? Big shock, same thing applies for anything else you plug in. You may get a boost by removing it but technologically it is a step backwards. The voice and motion control is great for fat lazy sofa-tards, surely the Americans should be lapping if up?

 

[CaptainTom]

Yay so now it almost fully utilizing its 7770 while the PS4 is sporting a 7870! The gap is almost closed! /s

 

[de5_Roy]

10% more performance!?!?!?!? oh noes, ps4 is shaking in it's boots!!!

not to mention microsoft will have to update their software ecosystem for the developers to take advantage of freed up performance headroom. until then, it's still the flaccid XBOne(R) as before.

 

[rantoc]

+10% of nothing is still nothing! Darn i love a dual gpu setup =P

 

[jasonelmore]

Out of curiosity, what'll happen to all the people with the old Xbox One when/if games are optimized to actually USE that extra 10%? Will they just have to disable Kinect to play them?

No it's smart software. When a game loads, the Xbox One OS will ask, "Are you using Kinect video and mapping features?"

If the game says yes, then the extra 10% is not given.
If the game says no, then the video mapping features of kinect are disabled and the game is given 10% more gpu resources. Audio features still work.

When the user snaps back to dashboard, the system takes back those 10% resources while the game is suspended.

It's a smart and flexible system, and this is how it should have been done to begin with.

 

[kawininjazx]

Out of curiosity, what'll happen to all the people with the old Xbox One when/if games are optimized to actually USE that extra 10%? Will they just have to disable Kinect to play them?

You have to take the 4mb expansion back out of you N64 and put it in your XBOX One.

 

[zhunt99]

So 10% better rendering of Laura Croft's better half? I can't argue with that marketing.

 

[invlem]

So their motion capture device was a constant 10% drain on the GPU resources even when not being used? I don't think so. I bet that MS rep gave himself a pat on the back for coming up with that "positive spin".

I'm pretty sure they had the resources reserved on the OS level regardless if the kinect was being used by the game or not.

The original plan was to have every xbox have a kinect, so it does, in fact make sense that that 10% reserve would be enabled 100% of the time regardless if the game made use of the kinect or not.

Seems like now they're just enabling the developer to gain access to those reserved resources.

 

[10tacle]

It's been a year since E3 last year when Microsoft had probably one of the biggest fails ever in a new product introduction, by backing off several things they were going to be requiring (the console to be online even if you are playing single player and don't want to be online, you must log in every 24 hours, restrictions on used games and game swapping with friends, etc.). Now they are taking away kinect to boost performance.

Microfail, I would strongly suggest for your next generation of console you actually LISTEN to your users.

 

[Zeh]

Microsoft is so full of promises, it reminds me of politicians during elections.

 

[eklipz330]

even though many of you guys are right about microsoft's backpeddling, let's all remember that they have a new ceo, and many of the decisions made in the past few months were definitely influenced by him.

he may very well begin to listen to consumers. let's all see.

 

[rantoc]

I hope the new MS ceo really listens and correct the prev clowns mistakes - After all the customers are the ones purchasing the products and if you forget about them... they sure will forget about your company!

The fall of big company's happens when they listen to little or sometimes to much... at the wrong people!

 

[tomfreak]

good move for temp fix for now, but they should release Xbox Two 2-3yrs later which will also backward compatible with all xbox one games and FULLY capable to run 1080p or partially 4K. Also release a new xbox hardware every 2-3yrs. Console life cycle shouldnt last 6-8yrs. Thats just soo wrong.

 

[SuperVeloce]

Yay so now it almost fully utilizing its 7770 while the PS4 is sporting a 7870! The gap is almost closed! /s

Not quite right. While shader count is similar (xbox: between 7770 and 7790 or 260x; PS4: between 7850 and 7870 or r9 270), lower core clocks and slower memory systems gives them both disadvantages... in the end it doesn't matter much at all, sony should be much more powerfull to really make a visual difference. There are other more important things for this gen of consoles to be fully utilised for years to come.

 

[Hevatroid]

Yay so now it almost fully utilizing its 7770 while the PS4 is sporting a 7870! The gap is almost closed! /s

Yay so now it almost fully utilizing its 7770 while the PS4 is sporting a 7870! The gap is almost closed! /s

Yay so now it almost fully utilizing its 7770 while the PS4 is sporting a 7870! The gap is almost closed! /s

Yay so now it almost fully utilizing its 7770 while the PS4 is sporting a 7870! The gap is almost closed! /s

The PS4 actually has a GPU closer to the R7 265/7850. However, I do agree with you saying that the Xbox One's GPU is closer to a 77770/250X.

 

[soldier44]

And still outdated hardware by 2 years and counting.