• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Digital Foundry: Xbox Scorpio

Kssio_Aug

Kssio_Aug

Member
Lifeline said:
You're downplaying the power of exclusives. As a PC owner, PS4 has more that "some" strong exclusives. It's argueably the best second gaming platform for PC owners.

I wouldn't say MS won't ever stop releasing their games for UWP. Low sales and not being able to compete with Steam, might bring them back to thinking Xbox only is more profitable.
Click to expand...

I understand how important an exclusivity is, and I'm 100% sure the Playstation brand is that strong today, mainly cause of it. What I mean is that each company has it's own way to deal with their market share, and we have to adapt to this reality.

If someone has a strong PC and doesn't care for consoles (except for exclusives), today, in fact, I think it's hard to get interested on Xbox. But that doesn't change the fact that there are many players that prefer consoles over PC, and that's why apparently Xbox One S did sold well enough in this same reality.

Exclusives are important. But for MS it seems their approach is about "console exclusivity" now. If you like consoles, XBox is good cause they have their titles that won't be released on Sony or Playstation consoles. If you like PC... just choose whatever fits you better. I'm okay with it.

But maybe you're right and they step back about this stuff. But maybe that's working for them somehow (or maybe not...).
 
MikeBison

MikeBison

Member
I think the big difference between this and the Pro is that sony did it from a position of strength.

Sony sold 50+ million or something and went, "well we normally do a mid cycle refresh, why not add a few bells and whistles. Maybe help push some 4k TV's of ours that aren't selling so well. Maybe get a few people to buy a second PS4. Maybe get a few people who were previously uninterested to get one. If not, fuck itttt, we'll still sell a billion PS4's regardless."

MS are doing this from a position where every statement is about how they're sorry they messed things up, but this will make everything ok again. More power is what you want, right? Guys?

Again, seems a really awesome piece of hardware, it really does. But I feel the damage is already done, and frankly the library just isn't there. A mid generation upgrade isn't what they needed, rather a total reset of a new generation. In my opinion. I play a hell of a lot of video games and collect consoles. I'm a 'hardcore' gamer. Yet MS salted the earth with this generation. This kinda goes back to maybe the last 1/4 of last gen too. Feel like I need a harder 'break' to get me back on side with MS's message.
 
T

The Futurist

Member
ironcreed said:
Yeah, I prefer consoles. For me, this thing is an absolute monster and will serve me for 5-6 years. The power is more than there, as well as modern wizardry in terms of optimization. All with the ease of use of a console. I am beyond impressed.
Click to expand...

Yeah.

There are millions of people that just want a machine that they can plug into a TV and go.

It hasn't been great for people being on the Xbox side for the last few years watching PS4 owners getting the superior version of every game.

I don't give a shit what people say now. If you care about multi platform games and don't have a gaming PC, you get a Scorpio to get the best versions of those games if you've EVER said you got the PS4 for that reason.

There are plenty of those people. What remains to be seen are the justifications they now use now to keep fighting the console wars.

War never changes.
 
I

IncognitoPanda

Member
btags said:
5*1.375 = 6.876

5*1.6 = 8

So, it is a 60% increase in RAM available to games from the ps4 pro.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I screwed up immensely. Math is hard... really I'm just sick and unfocused now

But we're both wrong, since the PS4Pro uses 5,5 gig for gaming, so it's really (8-5,5)/5,5 which is roughly 45%
 
VR_RaidenXOF

VR_RaidenXOF

Member
If the MGS HD collection gets added to Backwards Compatibility, I'll buy Scorpio day 1.

I'm already intruiged by the difference in performance between Dark Souls (Xbone vs Scorpio). I experienced a game crash or two on my last playthrough.
 
I

ironcreed

Banned
blue_phazon said:
I think people will be surprised by how long this gen will be. It feels like it just started getting the ball rolling in the last 2 years, so I don't expect PS5 or Xbox 2 until at least 2020. If anything, the existence of these mid-gen upgrades is to extend the life of the gen.
Click to expand...

It needs to be longer now that the hardware is being updated. I know that I plan on a system like this lasting me at least 5-6 years. It is by far and away more than enough and within a few years I will probably get a 4K TV to make it even better as well.
 
B

BriGuy

Member
le.phat said:
I can imagine that has to do with the fact that for a significant amount of people, they already have the capability to play xbox one in 4K. I mean, if you have a high-end PC, then the scorpio hardly offers something to be really excited about.
Click to expand...
That's me in a nutshell. Scorpio looks fine on paper, and if you have no interest in owning a PC and like the Xbone ecosystem, I could see this being a solid buy. But I've got no need for it. I have a Scorpio equivalent hooked up to my tv right now, and I can put the money I'll save not buying it towards a future 1180 or 1180ti and leapfrog the system entirely. Thanks to MS efforts in the Windows space, I don't have to miss out on Xbone games either (and I can always play true system exclusives on my vanilla Xbone).
 
G

Gestault

Member
fantomena said:
How do you calculate 50%?
Click to expand...

hanspampel said:
basic math
the Ps4 Pro has 33% LESS Ram than Scorpio
but Scorpio has 50% MORE Ram than Ps4 Pro
Click to expand...

You could see this exact difference in how you write the spec comparison between XB1/PS4 at launch confusing people. I saw people reading the "50% more [whatever]," and then mistakenly imagining that meant it was "twice as much," let alone the reality of 33% less vs 50% more.
 
GameSeeker

GameSeeker

Member
Matt said:
It is almost exactly what I expected it to be a year ago. Which is, a PS4 Pro + a year + $.

And that is exactly what everyone should have expected. No one should be disappointed here, MS has produced exactly the product they should and could have.
Click to expand...

Matt nailed it many months ago. He cautioned against the rampant speculation that Scorpio was Zen + Vega and, as usual, he was correct.
 
S

schwabdizzle

Banned
So here is my take on these half iterations of console and just what I want from consoles in the future. All I hope that Sony and MS do is allow me to keep playing my old games on future consoles and I am good. I am not talking about the Pro or Scorpio, but beyond that. I really hope this is the approach consoles are going from here on out.
 
H

hanspampel

Banned
le.phat said:
Confirmed more expensive then the Pro, or a guestimation ?
Click to expand...

guestimate from Richard
but yeah Xbox Scorpio is more expensive to manufacture than a Ps4 Pro (not that much, but still)

If MS will price it higher, who knows?


i still expect 1TB for $399 as base model
2TB for $499 as premium model
 
0

00ich

Member
PowerThroughLov said:
Mid Cycle refresh is pretty much a straight role reversal. Xbox One had 900P vs native 1080p for Sony.

Scorpio has native 4K vs checkboard for PS4 Pro.
Click to expand...

Other bits regarding Ubisofts engine(s) made it sound more like 1800p checkerboard for PS4 and full 4k checkerboard for pro. Forza is a best, not average case scenario.
That why it is featured today.
 
N

names2hard4you

Member
These all sound great, but there are 2 big issues. One is the price obviously. The second, is the games. Take a quick look at Xbox's exclusive games for the past few months vs the competition and you will easily see what I mean. They can't just put this thing out in the wild without a compelling library to support the purchase. And no, Forza doesn't count lol. Show me cool games, new interesting IPs, and maybe then you will get my full attention. For now I'll just keep glancing over the news.
 
J

Jumeira

Banned
it'll be 499. Thats inline with Spencer's continued references to 'premium'. Not way will it be 399. There's a lot in there that makes it unfeasible.
 
B

belvedere

Junior Butler
DF if you're reading I'd love to hear your feedback regarding the vega-esque improvements in Pro and the command processor/DX12 hardware implementation for Scorpio. In the DF Pro deep dive late last year it was mentioned that the Pro's GPU implementation had a couple of Vega feature sets, some that later matured into DX12 optimizations on the PC side. How does this compare to what's been done with Scorpio?

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/d...tation-4-pro-how-sony-made-a-4k-games-machine
 
H

Haruko

Member
I am glad HDMI In survived (and Kinect thru a USB adapter).

I'm still using the old "Xbox" voice commands because they are so ingrained
 
Raven77

Raven77

Member
MeisterLeder said:
Why do people always expect some kind of magic counter? Sony wont announce shit for another couple of years.
Wouldnt even be suprised if we will see nothing until 2021 or 2022
Click to expand...

Absolutely no way that we hear nothing about the PS5 until 2021 or 2022. If they want to go with a 5-6 year console cycle we're looking at 2018-2019 launch. Meaning not out of the question we hear something this year or by E3 2018. The Pro is not selling like crazy and certainly not generating enough interest and sales to say that it can extend the PS4 life cycle by maybe more than 1 to 2 years. Sony is vague about numbers, and instead makes comments like this "“The sales of Pro are stronger than that of Slim, as we see it.” - (CFO Kenichiro Yoshida during investors call for 3rd quarter earnings ending December 31 - 2016). If it was selling well they would be waving a giant flag with the big number on it, the fact that they aren't tells us everything we need to know.

If we go with a 6-7 year life cycle instead due to the Pro, it still launches in 2020, probably revealed in 2018 or 2019.

These "mid gen refreshes" are going to be interesting in how they effect the consoles life cycle, if much at all. I'm a big fan of both MS and Sony and have always owned both consoles. Please don't take anything above as being some sort of console war crap, it's just my thoughts around the business decisions and financials of launching the next systems, etc.
 
E

EpicBox

Member
Ehker said:
Why? What evidence is there this is what people want?
Click to expand...
Well, backwards compatibility and 4K Blu-Ray are 2 features that Xbox offers and PS4 got slated for not offering. If they announce another PS4 upgrade that includes those things, people will go for it.
 
A

alt27

Member
The Futurist said:
Yeah.

There are millions of people that just want a machine that they can plug into a TV and go.

It hasn't been great for people being on the Xbox side for the last few years watching PS4 owners getting the superior version of every game.

I don't give a shit what people say now. If you care about multi platform games and don't have a gaming PC, you get a Scorpio to get the best versions of those games if you've EVER said you got the PS4 for that reason.

There are plenty of those people. What remains to be seen are the justifications they now use now to keep fighting the console wars.

War never changes.
Click to expand...

Theres not really 'plenty' of those people in a mass market sense. This (and the pro) are still very niche products. It wont reverse MS fortunes or anything, but it will please a portion of thier fans, which is good for them.

As its a niche product though, I expect it to be priced like one.
 
L

Laughing Buddha

Member
I'm not sure how I feel about Project Scorpio. I've always been excited for new hardware but I don't even have a 4K tv yet and don't plan on upgrading for at least 5 years or so. And quite frankly I don't get the industry's obsession with 4K. I just watched Moana recently on Blu-ray and it is that level of detail and density that we should strive for in our game worlds not 4x the pixels. Maybe I'm just old and don't get it but it seams like this push for true 4K gaming is misguided and the focus should instead be on pushing the level of immersion via graphical effects, destructibility, physics, AI, etc...

LB
 
O

Obliterator

Member
GameSeeker said:
Matt nailed it many months ago. He cautioned against the rampant speculation that Scorpio was Zen + Vega and, as usual, he was correct.
Click to expand...

Matt is solid, but Scorpio not being Zen should have been obvious to everyone. It was wholly unrealistic to expect it inside Scorpio in any capacity. The timelines didn't line up, and AMD themselves shot that down.
 
Papacheeks

Papacheeks

Banned
The Futurist said:
Yeah.

There are millions of people that just want a machine that they can plug into a TV and go.

It hasn't been great for people being on the Xbox side for the last few years watching PS4 owners getting the superior version of every game.

I don't give a shit what people say now. If you care about multi platform games and don't have a gaming PC, you get a Scorpio to get the best versions of those games if you've EVER said you got the PS4 for that reason.

There are plenty of those people. What remains to be seen are the justifications they now use now to keep fighting the console wars.

War never changes.
Click to expand...

That makes sense, but what your not considering are those people now that have jumped over and gone fully Playstation ecosystem you think they are going to run out now trade all their games in that they have ton's of data on and cross over to xbox ecosystem? Like if they have ton's of gear in destiny, or ton's of time and character progression in their games they are going to throw that away?

Youtubers and streamers for sure will have it, and MLG, pro players will get it. But the average consumer who buys a lot of multiplatform games is going to throw away all their data on one ecosystem to go to another in mid generation?
 
H

hanspampel

Banned
Faustek said:
Code: 
___________________________________
|                |    Die Size    |
|---------------------------------|
|Project Scorpio |     360mm2     |
|---------------------------------|
|PS4 Pro         |     348mm2     |
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

I know it isn't super important....but I'm a stickler for these kind of things and it's Always fun to me to have everything down.
_________________

On topic: This is kinda interesting. Seems as Microsoft actually learned and is making a gaming machine first but a bummer to lock out 4GB to the system. I can see the need for it if they are going to supply streaming in 4k60fps but with the Jag, even clocked up, I wonder how the encoding will work. Have they said anything about when they will share more information? This was actually kinda interesting.
Click to expand...

nah this is super important (for me, too)
this basically shows how impressive the SOC is. and why it was worth to wait 1 more year.
same size, same process, less expensive to manufacture, more powerful
 
G

Gitaroo

Member
killatopak said:
DF seems to think otherwise. He seems dead set on 499.
Click to expand...

yes, but people are thinking MS might be very aggressive with the pricing to gain market share, maybe even taking a hit on every system; but I doubt it. DF however make their assumption based on HW specs. If anyone see the other video where they talk about future tech, Richard briefly mention when they talked to GPU manufacturer, the ram difference between the PS4pro and scorpio is $38 in BOM irc; and that is just the ram.

As for ram, Sony freed up 1 gig for the pro by add a gig of ddr3 for apps so it is now 5+1 gigs for game developer vs scorpio 8 gigs. I think thats the important number. I am surprised Sony has never bother to reduce their OS reservation, because PS4 always feel like it is running very lean since day 1 to take up 3 gigs. Especially when game DVR is handle by a seperate ARM soc with is own memory irc.
 
Ploid 3.0

Ploid 3.0

Member
Fredrik said:
The $499 guess turned me off...
But otherwise it sounds pretty awesome. Especially Forza 6 at 4K60gps with 66% GPU usage! Can't wait to hear more about it!
They need to trim down that price though... Even if it's just a guess so far it still make me frown. And launch it simultaneously worldwide this time!! I har to wait a full year extra for XB1 in Sweden!
Click to expand...

About the Forza gpu usage thing. Maybe that will be increased on launch of the game, unless it's a old Forza. Seems like a bottleneck, or more likely the game just don't need anymore gpu power the way that it is. I have only seen a small screen shot of it in the first post, but yeah, a racing game on console. If they continue to report the GPU usage of games that will fill up as other game types are shown. Thunderstorms, crazy reflective puddles, nice lighting effects, and crazy post process effects could help fill up the gpu usage.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

An Xbox VR headset is on the way, but it’s a ‘limited edition’ Meta Quest
40
2K
SmokedMeat replied
Digital Foundry: Sea of Thieves Goes Multi-Plat: PS5 and Xbox Series X/S Tested!
2 3 4
190
10K
Physiognomonics replied
MS Xbox have been so intent on beating Sony PlayStation, they have ended up beating themselves.
2
70
4K
FF:Enhanced_Reality replied
Xbox is the "number one platform for Diablo 4 players", says Xbox president
News 2 3
109
7K
Shake Your Rump replied
[Jez Corden] If Microsoft really IS bringing Steam, Epic Game Store, etc. to Xbox consoles, it needs to answer these big questions
2 3 4
155
9K
sachos replied
Top Bottom