There will be at least two devices. One will be the primary full console for full price - $499. The other will be a light, small box or stick, for either streaming your own games on a second TV or for streaming from the Xbox game service for no more than $99. This streaming stick will also let you stream PC games that you bought on the Windows store.
My guess on specs: 12-core CPU, 16GB RAM, something in the neighborhood of 1080ti/1170-tier graphics, but by AMD. 10-14 terraflops. Target is 4K@60Hz for all games.
No VR/AR
HDMI in and all their dreams of being the central device are gone
The full-size console will still have removable media, but their focus will be on digital distribution
100% backwards compatible with Xbox One games
(per Stusser) Games are able to be forward compatible, too. Xbox Scarlet games could be played on XBONE if the developer allows it
We’ll get a commitment-style announce at E3 next year (2019) but not many details. Full specs will come out at CES 2020 with a release in September 2020
My big, wild, crazy prediction is an Xbox subscription, where for $24.99/month you get an Xbox console (full size), Xbox Live and a subscription to their streaming service. You can trade in your Xbox for the next gen version every time a new one is available.
Yeah, I can totally see a high-end hardware box for hardcore gamers and a low-end streaming box for everyone else.
MS has the cloud infrastructure to make the streaming stuff happen easily.
I have to imagine the high-end box will be Ryzen. There’s little point sticking Jaguar CPUs in there anymore, especially when AMD has something vastly superior. Besides, you know the PS5 will be Ryzen, so why cripple yourself there?
Digital Foundry said a few months ago in their article that 2019 is the first time a generational leap was possible, but that it would be too cost prohibitive, and that 2020 was the first realistic time window for PS5/XB2.
Yeah, we’ll see. If they’re launching at $499, you can pack in a lot of tech at that price by Holiday 2019. I think the reason they’re talking Halo Infinite is possible for 2019 is because they’d really like to ship a new box alongside it.
Next year is six years from the launch of One already. Even with the X refresh, you’re still getting really long in the tooth hardware-wise by next Christmas when compared to PCs.
If it were me, I’d be trying to figure out how we put out a new console every year. Apple gets people to pay $700+ for a new phone every year, so why can’t Microsoft sell a new console at $499?
It’s all backwards compatible (to some degree, just as you can’t play most modern iOS games on a super-old iPhone), so people can jump in whenever. There’s always a number of Xbox SKUs available:
This year’s model at $499 (or my sub model at $24.99/month)
Last year’s model at $299
Streaming stick at $99
Because smartphones are still considered a status symbol in a way video game consoles definitely aren’t. The first console manufacturer that tries annual hardware refreshes is going to get burned, hard.
If you are a regular Xbox gamer and enjoy high quality graphics, missing out on HDR for the next 2 years seems crazy. If price went down to $350 they would sell trillions of the things, but as is price remains a barrier.
The hardware has to be somewhat static, though. Development on consoles is rather different from PCs because even though they don’t do it nearly as much anymore as they used to, I think there are still quite a lot of folks using specific tricks of the hardware quirks of these machines to get better performance. Look at Sony’s games they showed last night… those are in house engines from Naughty Dog, Sucker Punch, etc. God of War is another. They’re getting these crazy animation results because they’re tricking things out. Messing with hardware can break that stuff way too easily, so you have to have a consistent platform and the more you change hardware, the more you take the risk of breaking a popular game.
No, the five to six year cycle is still the right way to go with a potential “Pro” in the middle there that really doesn’t mess much with what you have already but provides a boost. The messaging is so important too and the simpler you make that, the easier it is to continue to sell boxes.
Of course there is always the risk you’re number two… or number three… and then you shorten the cycle.
The static platform is exactly the strength of the console. You put in your game and you play. The more you ask people to configure stuff or make them think their machine isn’t as good as their neighbors, the more you invite problems.
Yeah, OK, fair enough to all those issues, which are all valid, of course.
Perhaps the thinking would be better focused on the streaming stick. In a theoretical streaming future, you’re not selling expensive boxes anyway. And you can improve processing as often as you want, as long as it doesn’t mean a bump in resolution.
Pity they’re breaking forwards compatibility. No reason why XBdos games couldn’t run on XBone at lower settings. Also a pity they’re dropping the HDMI-in, I always thought that was a nice little perk of using an Xbone.
Stusser is talking about Scarlet games playing on XBONE though. “Forward” compatibility sounds weird, but we already use backward compatibility to mean the opposite.
EDITED out some thinking that I’ve now backtracked on.
Though I guess theoretically you could just leave this up to the developer. If they want to make a single SKU that scales based on the hardware, why not?
