The Xbox Series X, Holiday 2020 (1 Viewer)

[mattCR]

The thing is, all of the hot exclusives so far have really been on PS4. There hasn't been a series of holy cow exclusives on XB1. I have both, but my PS4 gets far more use. Horizon Zero Dawn, as an exclusive, is better than most anything on XB1.

But it isn't alone. Unborne, Uncharted, Last of Us, MLB The Show, etc. just a series of exclusives on Sony, and while Microsoft has some, they don't have remotely the depth of exclusives. It's interesting.

I think the Scorpio is a bigger deal than some make out; it is significantly more power than PS4 Pro, and if titles "scale" it signals the end of console generations. Games stay working across all platforms until the oldest platform dies off; the same way Apple IOS apps were "supports all" then after a period no more support for Iphone 3GS, no more support for iPhone4, etc. And the apps offered more functionality on newer devices.

Microsoft is definitely building that setup, and that is good for gamers in terms of longevity of purchase. I think there are real opportunities for game developers as well. We've seen some of that even with PS4 Pro, where "enhanced" versions of available games from PS4 are out there.. ie, play Horizon Zero Dawn on a pro, gain better rendering, more distance scope, etc.

 

[DavidMiller]

The thing is, all of the hot exclusives so far have really been on PS4. There hasn't been a series of holy cow exclusives on XB1. I have both, but my PS4 gets far more use. Horizon Zero Dawn, as an exclusive, is better than most anything on XB1.

I do agree with you there. I only play the Xbox and have since the beginning. Since the Halo and Gears of War games have run their coarse I think MS is trying to find its way. I think cross platform gives them one advantage buy a game for the xbox and play it on your PC. Scorpio could be the thing that drives them back into the spotlight if they have some wow eye candy to go with it. I expect we will know more after E3.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

I actually think the cross platform stuff between Xbox One and PC kind of negates the need to buy games on Xbox One at all, since you could just get them for PC (which many people have in addition to a console). With a PC and Xbox One, you have at least one redundant platform. With a PC and PS4, you have pretty much everything.

I can totally understand why MS was cancelling games in the last 6 months or so, or even longer, that might not have been very good. Sony has had a string of exclusives that also turned out to be great and MS has not been able to match that. Frankly, they never did on any of their platforms in the past. The only reason the 360 sold so well was because it came out a year before the PS3 and the Wii. If you do a month-by-month sales comparison between the 360 and PS3 from their launches, the PS3 sold better the entire generation. (That is, if you look at 360's 1st month vs. PS3's 1st month of sales, and so on through the generation.) In the current gen (Xbox One and PS4), the only reason the One isn't seen as a big failure is because the Wii U did even worse. PS4 is past 60M units in 4.5 years while the One is at roughly 30M.

The issue with Scorpio is that we've kind of moved into the age of content driving sales more than hardware. Since Scorpio isn't being treated as a new generation with new exclusives that you can only find on that platform, it needs to survive based on what already exists in the One library or what will be special to the Xbox platform in the near future. The cost of the components alone is going to reach $500 based on the analyses and interviews so far, meaning the console will probably be even higher (though I could see MS trying to justify it with pack-in games or sticking to $500 for a break-even price rather than a small profit like the PS4, Switch, and Xbox One/S had.) Sorry, but I do not see a $500 Xbox One that really begs for a 4K HDR TV to take advantage of it as being something people will flock to, no matter how pretty the games are, especially if it isn't getting anything really exciting before the end of the year.

The hot thing right now is the Switch. Nintendo made portable gaming become hot, it made motion-controlled gaming become hot, and now it's making console-powered mobile gaming hot. A bigger box that is stuck in your living room won't be as exciting to people this fall. I'm seriously wondering if Scorpio might be the end of Xbox as a console and MS will turn it just into their version of Steam on PC.

 

[DavidMiller]

I think based on the gaming forum I ran. I had Xbox and Sony MVPs that where given a lot of info at the time. The biggest reason the 360 was so successful was the multi-player / chat features. It was huge and gave the 360 the edge in the most successful multi player game Halo and later Call of Duty. Multi-player gaming was what gaming was about in the last generation. Challenges today are:

• That the console gamers of that era are older now, don't play much or like me only single player.
• Xbox screwed the pooch on marketing the Xbox One, they have tried to make it everything.
• Because of that out of the 100 gamer friends I had on Xbox 360 only 30-40 made the transition to Xbox One. Most went with Sony in this generation.

My son gave up the console because the games he wants to play are PC games. I personally like playing the console still but sales continue to fall and I believe that portability and PC is where the future is at. I do believe this is why the Switch is dong well for now. I'm willing to bet this could be the last generation of console gaming unless they keep making them for us old farts. Heck many articles I have read the millennials and younger generations don't even own TVs...

 

[Morgan Jolley]

But again, the 360 had a 1 year head start and the exclusive deals with Call of Duty. And even so, the month-to-month sales of the PS3 were higher over it's lifetime than the 360. The PS3 stumbled out the gate by being overpriced and still sold more units by the end.

There is the phenomenon of 360 gamers switching to PS4 this gen, but that might be related to the desire to play Call of Duty (which looks better on PS4 and gets exclusives there first) combined with people having bought the 360 out of price/access/convenience before (all things that PS4 matched or beat the Xbox One).

The average age of gamers is something like 35 or 37, but there are still plenty of younger console gamers playing online games. It's why Rocket League is huge, it's why Overwatch has tens of millions of players, its why Minecraft STILL comes out on every system and sells millions of copies. Overall console sales for this gen (counting Wii U, PS4, and Xbox One) are already over 100M units, which would be WAY higher if the Wii U wasn't such a bomb. Last gen beat this one because of the Wii and the 360s head start. I truly believe Sony's exclusives are a much bigger draw than Microsoft's so they need an advantage somewhere else, which was a 1 year head start and a lower price in 2006/7.

I don't think an even more expensive system with nothing special to play on it will help Microsoft this winter. In fact, it didn't do much for Sony last November, as Pro sales were good but not amazing. Even if the leap from One to Scorpio is THAT BIG, not enough people will care.

 

[DavidMiller]

You are probably right we will see. I think Sony could have pushed MS out of the market altogether if they would have but a UHD drive in the Pro. I know many Sony fans that went out and bought the Xbox One S after that fumble. They had the chance to put the nail in the coffin for this gen consoles with only the few dedicated Xbox gamers like myself left to support them. In fact I believe that Scorpio may have gotten canceled. Time will tell but I believe Sony has the console market now and probably going forward.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

No offense, not trying to be rude, but "I know many Sony fans" is really not much of a data point to go by. There are nearly 100M PS4 and Xbox One consoles out there (including PS4 Slim, Pro, and One S) and there's no way you know enough people to make a statistical dent in that number. So even if you know, say, 50 people who owned PS4s but then bought a One S for the UHD drive, that's still basically nothing.

Being that we're on the HTF, the enthusiasm for UHD is more pronounced. But in the greater gaming community, not many people care. 99% of the time (I'm exaggerating) people just stream movies on Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, or other apps. 4KTV adoption is not high enough right now for people to care about investing in UHD as a format. Bluray sales never caught up to DVD sales, and UHD sales will probably not even come close to matching Bluray.

Like you said earlier, the previous gen was all about online multiplayer games. This gen is all about streaming media. Even digital sales of games and usage of things like Spotify on PS4 are taking off much more than they did a few years ago on the PS3 and 360. I'm curious how many S consoles MS has even sold and how many of those have been used to play UHD movies.

Scorpio has absolutely not been canceled. MS tweets and talks about it on an almost weekly basis to hype it up for the E3 reveal.

 

[DavidMiller]

Scorpio has absolutely not been canceled. MS tweets and talks about it on an almost weekly basis to hype it up for the E3 reveal.

I didn't say it was re-read my comments...

That is fine since this Xbox One thread is why Sony is so much better I'll go someplace else... Enjoy your thread Morgan

 

[LeoA]

You are probably right we will see. I think Sony could have pushed MS out of the market altogether if they would have but a UHD drive in the Pro.

Judging by the near lack of discussion on this at the forums I visit and seemingly how few people I know in person that even buy regular Blu-Rays besides me (outside of some online friends at this forum that share my passion), it's just not a big selling point for most, I'd wager.

I doubt Sony lost even 10,000 sales to Microsoft by eschewing supporting UHD Blu-Ray. It's important to you, but not to most. It's not even important to me despite being a Blu-Ray enthusiast, because the focus on this new format is on contemporary releases and my interest is on the golden age of Hollywood and 1950's/1960's television.

There simply aren't things like Cary Grant classics on UHD Blu-Ray, so I've so far not felt like I missed a thing in the 14 months that this technically superlative format has been on the marketplace.

 

[LeoA]

Anyone delved into backwards compatibility much?

My Xbox Live account is in limbo until early next month due to an email switch and a 30 day waiting period, and I've already missed two great deals. But I want to take advantage of this big backwards compatible game sale. So I'm considering making a secondary account to make these purchases from.

It won't pose any difficulty playing them on my primary account on my Xbox 360 online or offline on the 360 that I buy them from, but will I be able to do the same someday on a Xbox One while logged into my original account, or will I have to log into this new secondary account each time I want to play one of these purchases?

Basically, can two Xbox Live accounts have the same XBO system designated as the primary/home system, allowing cross-account access online or off on that particular system, regardless of which account is currently being used? Or is it limited to one account having that designation?

Not really entirely up on how Xbox One DRM is setup...

 

[Bryan^H]

I'm going to sell my XBONE soon. Too difficult to juggle between the One, and PS4. Not enough hours in the day, and I don't do much gaming on the ONE anyway.

I have too many fond memories to scrap my 360(+ over 175 games).....I wonder how long before Xbox Live for that system goes dark?

 

[LeoA]

Sounds like I'm safe with my plan, if anyone was curious.

No limitation on how many Xbox Live accounts designate the same Xbox One as their home system (Although of course you're limited to one home console per XBL account). And the DLC of an account on its home console is free to use by anyone else on said system.

Bit of an annoyance, but this is a good deal and knowing that it won't cause me issues down the road seals the deal.

 

[DavidMiller]

You can have you account on multiple Xbox's but it can only be actively used on one xbox at a time.

 

[LeoA]

That's not actually what I was asking, but thanks for trying to help.

It's not entirely correct though. While it's certainly true that your Xbox Live account can't be logged into two 360's or two XBO's simultaneously, you can be logged into both a 360 and a XBO at the same time. And if we look at it from a DLC perspective like I was inquiring about, your DLC can be active simultaneously on multiple systems.

In fact, you can have three different Xbox Live accounts playing your 360 DLC at the exact same time across four different systems, thanks to how Microsoft's DRM works. Downloads are tied to both the hardware and the account, with only one of the two needing to be present to grant access to your purchases.

 

[DavidMiller]

You are probably right I don't think much about the 360 anymore mine is in one of those suitcase things that I use when I travel. I just have two Xbox Ones actually plugged in and in use. When I use the one down stars in logs me off the one up stairs. I was just answering the one point you made in your post above mine. Anyway glad you solved your issue.

 

[LeoA]

Yeah, but whatever DLC you own would be free for any other XBL account to use on the XB1 that you've designated as your home system (i.e., the one that your digital purchases work on even if you're offline, where as your other XB1 has to have your XBL account actually logged into Live for access to your digital purchases).

After reading a lot of fine print, I think I have a handle on how their DRM works. Not really much different than on the 360, which was just what I was hoping for (If anything, it's a bit more convenient in some ways). It's a bit confusing, but fairly consumer friendly

 

[Don Giro]

Question (sorry if this was answered elsewhere):

I have a PS4 Pro, and I absolutely HATE that I can't play media files and scroll through pictures burned to DVD, Blu-Ray, etc. without first copying them to the internal hard drive. Does the Xbox One have this same limitation?

 

[LeoA]

Anyone given one of the original Xbox games that's now supported a spin?

HD rendering looks to do wonders on these judging by YouTube. And the frame rate analysis I saw for Knights of the Old Republic suggests that the frame rate department also got a significant boost.

Too bad so many of my favorites are so unlikely to appear. In particular, I'd love to see Outrun 2, Outrun 2006 Coast to Coast, Project Gotham Racing 2 (And the two booster packs), and RalliSport Challenge 2 appear. But all of these have licensing issues.

I wish Microsoft would just open up this emulator and let us play anything we wanted to. No recompiling seems to be going on here, unlike the 360 situation that forced their hand with a more limited and controlled approach. MS could open it up tomorrow so that it worked like Sony's PS1 emulator on a PS3 if they wanted to.

 

[Steve Y]

I LOVE that Microsoft has doubled down on backward compatibility even though the gaming press is telling everyone how little broad consumer appeal it has. And I love my Xbox One S, but I think the storefront is an utter nightmare, partly due to how they've incorporated BC. While I understand that technical difficulties are inevitable when you're combining two platform ecosystems, just look at this laundry list:

• Maddeningly slow store interface
• Cluttered with multiple versions (games vs bundles vs DLC)
• Game prices frequently invisible until you click through to the "See price" button
• Games are regularly listed in the store but can't actually be purchased. ("Deadly Premonition" in North America, for example, lets you click "Buy" but then kicks you out with a region error).
• No shopping cart, so buying more than one XB1 game in a single purchase requires that you pump up your wallet.
• No shopping cart, so if you don't own a 360, buying more than one backward-compatible game digitally requires individual credit/debit purchases. I've had my card flagged multiple times for fraud more than once during a sale on backward-compatible titles, with dozens of individual $3-5 purchases. This is unacceptable in 2018.

Question (sorry if this was answered elsewhere):

I have a PS4 Pro, and I absolutely HATE that I can't play media files and scroll through pictures burned to DVD, Blu-Ray, etc. without first copying them to the internal hard drive. Does the Xbox One have this same limitation?

Don, this is a great question. Unfortunately, Microsoft FAQs seem to suggest that only USB-connected devices (sticks or external HDDs) can be read to play media files, and not burned discs. But if I remember to give it a try, and I find out differently, I'll let you know.

As someone with a classic movie collection backed up to an external drive (in a lot of odd formats from my old DVDs over the years), I can tell you that my setup works really well. I'm MUCH happier with the media player apps on the Xbox One than on the PS4, even though many of them are ports of PC apps. My favorites are:

Microsoft Photos: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/p/microsoft-photos/9wzdncrfjbh4
Ax Lite Video Player: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/p/ax-lite-video-player/9nblggh68jgp
Duplex Media Player: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/p/duplex-media-player/9nblggh4td71
Movies & TV (MS default): https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/p/movies-tv/9wzdncrfj3p2

These four handle just about anything I throw at them.

 

[Sam Posten]

More of this!
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