The XBOX One

I’m not going to comment on that part since I do know some secret stuff ;-)

You did that on purpose!

Completely agree that hardware is only part of the story. In a generation with vanishingly few exclusive titles, superior hardware and price helped Sony pull substantially ahead. If Microsoft had a couple exclusives like Fable 4 or Mass Effect 4, that could have made a difference. But they didn’t.

IMO, with the Xbox Store Microsoft ultimately has a superior strategy today. They’re letting independent developers get their apps on the Xbone. Once the console can do everything my Nvidia ShieldTV can do, run Plex and Kodi and YouTube and Netflix and all the other various streaming apps, and executes them at comparable levels so it’s not a pain in the ass to use, that essentially knocks $100 off the price of an Xbone.

Now they need to get the indie game developers too, for real this time. Watch the Steam charts and the instant an indie game starts to creep up the rankings, give them a call and offer to send over a devkit next day air in conjunction with a newly reinvigorated developer outreach program and various incentives like taking a 0% cut for the first $100k of revenue.

<3M for Uncharted 4 is just crazy talk. The number from Sony is that it sold 8.7M copies in the first 9 months.

The bit about Sony’s first-party output on PS4 that’s cool is how much of it is outside of their old franchises, and often in settings that are at least slightly risky. Sometimes the result is an Order: 1886 or Knack. But who cares, when other times it’s an Until Dawn or Bloodborne. I’d much rather not play games a console, but Sony has managed to make owning a PS4 worthwhile so far.

On the other hand, Microsoft is just desperately milking Halo, Gears and Forza for all they can. There’s nothing for me there. (Umm… guess Sunset Overdrive sounded kind of cool?). But it’s great to see that so many others here are enthusiastic about the Scorpio. Hopefully it’ll be successful and keep Sony honest. But even better if they’d actually let their studios take some chances with new games.

I’d agree with that. Stuff like Until Dawn or Detroit pushes the boundaries in a way that a Halo or Forza sequel never will.

So, what’s the opinion on how the Scorpio will run the inevitable pc-class VR rig? How well would this run the current Occulus and Vive, for example?

It looks to be 15-30% faster than a RX-480, so yes it is above the current generation minimum VR specs.

How far above? I really don’t follow pc hardware at all. Good enough for a solid, smooth experience?

Should be solid, especially since it’s a fixed platform that developers can optimize for.

For comparison, here’s the min spec for the Oculus Rift.

Another interesting article on DF about getting the Forza engine running on Scorpio along with how the MS hardware and software teams worked together on it.

Thanks for the info. Still a bunch of gibberish numbers to me (been a long time since I’ve felt the need to build a PC), but I got the gist and did some comparisons.

Really curious to see how they handle this viv a vis the original Xbone.

The minimum requirements are enough for a great VR experience. If VR doesn’t perform adequately it isn’t just annoying graphics stuttering-- the user pukes.

That said, there is no VR available or announced for Xbone.

Not officially announced, no. Everyone knows it’s coming, though, and they confirmed it in a blog post last month during GDC.

Source

Who the hell knows what “mixed reality” is? MS PR just coined it for that statement. Sounds closed to augmented reality, which is a real thing that exists in Hololens, but they say “beyond hololens” so your guess is as good as mine.

Mixed Reality is simply how Microsoft refers to both augmented reality like hololens and virtual reality like the dev headsets they announced from partners like Lenovo and others.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 is now available in BC on Xbox One.

Wow, people have been asking for that for a loooong time. Now that they have Red Dead Redemption, GTA IV and Black Ops 1 and 2, I wonder what the next big game on the list is that everyone has been asking about?

I’d love Rez, personally.

Oh, and the spring sale is live. Had a look this morning, nothing much I want. Possibly buy some discounted ESO bucks, but I kind of petered out on that one as L40 or so, and the only thing I’d buy would be the Thief and Brotherhood expansions. Hmm.

I see Astroneer is on sale. I picked that up in the indie sale a month or so back, and have been kicking it around the last day or two. It’s very rough but undeniably charming and fun. I’m intrigued to see where they take it.

I guess I was really hoping Destiny: Rise of Iron would be on sale. Nope, no dice. They did discount the whole shebang down to the RoI price, though. That sort of thing annoys me even more. So, new players can get everything for cheap, but long-time players who’ve lapsed are told to go fuck themselves with no dirt to win them back. Yeah, screw you, too, Activision.

I’ve actually already bought a few (Telltale Minecraft, Deus Ex Mankind something something, and decided to go digital for Diablo) and I’m pondering getting the full Fallout 4 package. When I think I’ll play that I have no idea, just kind of feel like I should have it.

That combination was a big part of it. If one of those wasn’t the case we might be in a different situation today. But the thing is, where we are now in the cycle the games are more important I think. This isn’t the same situation as when the PS4 and XB1 first launched. These are not new consoles, as much as upgrades to existing consoles, and in that the library is important.