Xbox Game Studios |OT11| The One with Starfield and Activision Blizzard King

Hoping Microsoft stays with X86. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

This checks in.

But xbox under Phil is also known to reach more players. I can see multi device strategy. Xbox is not shy of it. Maybe or may not be.

Leaving a potential market behind just for BC is not a wise decision.

1 Like

I don’t think they’d do it if they couldn’t figure out BC, it would be a non option.

Back Catalog is too important to Game Pass, can you imagine launching a new console and expecting people to be on a subscription service when the only games available were the launch titles?

4 Likes

As I implied, that’s certainly just one of the many reasons to avoid ARM for console, and several of our members highlighted some of the other reasons - actual gaming performance for ARM chips, even from Apple, is years behind AMD and Nvidia. Can we not do this reductionary tactic where one element is highlighted to attempt to destroy an argument without actually providing insight?

Proof 1: Mesh Shading was heralded by Apple yesterday but this is something that AMD, and subsequently Xbox, has had the capability since 2020.

2 Likes

NVIDIA and AMD will both be making ‘high performance’ ARM chips with their own GPU technologies though.

2 Likes

Apple is behind AMD and Nvidia when compared on laptops and PC where performance per watt is not the major factor for gaming. But Apple is ahead on mobile and so because it has better performance per watt which is essential on mobile devices.

An arm system for wall plugged device does not make sense to me and I am not asking for that. But for mobile, ARM is a better choice.

I am up for more choices and there are different ways to do it.

I’m well aware; it’s still a different architecture; I’m not sure some of you understand, that requires a total shift in dev (API calls, memory allocation/caching, etc.). Furthermore, I’m well aware AMD and Nvidia both already have ARM implementations in addition to their traditional x86 architectures - neither of those companies are abandoning their bread and butter any time soon. Lastly, all this talk about ARM is coming from people who clearly aren’t acknowledging, or are aware of, the major limitations of ARM. I don’t know what to tell you all beyond all the data we have; I personally was aware of the discussions around my previous lab’s first exascale computer… ARM wasn’t even close to a consideration to what AMD was capable with their Epyc platform.

Perhaps the simplest way I can say this is this: ARM isn’t new by a long stretch and if ARM was this magic bullet some of the ignorant think it is, why has everyone not jumped off x86 then?

3 Likes

I’m just so curious about how Xbox will handle mobile. I’m starting to realize just sitting in front of the TV is not something young people do a lot of anymore. I’m shocked people like to watch movies, read books, play games on mobile devices. That why I think Arm will have a future role in Xbox in the future. How big of future who knows?

1 Like

I think Arms could have a big role in the future, but how big is still up in the air.

Well, here is one thing of note: I do have a feeling that Xbox is looking to acquire mobile game studios, both from Asia and Europe. I think they might acquire one of the big leads in mobile games in the form of someone like say Hyperglyph Inc and Studio Montage, studios who are doing the Arknights game and its spinoffs. That’s just one idea to give around that notion.

I am probably not aware since I don’t develop games (not working anything that performance sensitive) but I assumed that nowadays most work was done in higher level languages that make the underlying microarchitecture mostly transparent.

Are folks still doing that level of optimization?

I’m now much closer to being over the hill than not, but even I have gotten to where I read and watch stuff and occasionally play XCloud on my phone a lot. If I’m watching by myself it’s just as easy to set up as something else and if it’s close enough it takes up at least as much of my visual space as something larger that’s farther away.

…. Why do you think every game that’s released on PC isn’t also on Mac? Different architecture and graphics api is “all” it takes for dev to become a mountain real fast.

Also as someone who had to engineer solutions before, during, and after the transition to Apple Silicon transition, I and every dev/vendor on the planet have a thing or two to say about how not seamless that transition was. Fun fact but one of the biggest AV solutions for Mac Enterprise wasn’t even recompiled for an entire year after the AS transition… so it’s hardly a non-issue.

1 Like

In the scenario of Xbox going ARM, wouldn’t we be looking at the same graphics API (Direct X) and the same underlying OS (Windows)?

1 Like

You do realize that x86 apps are running in virtualization when they run in Windows ARM… and to get the actual advantages of said hardware would require a rewrite.

Don’t see what I said has to do with x86 apps. You mentioned different API, I said it would be the same API.

As for why we are still talking about it, it’s called having a discussion. It’s what you do on forums like this. For some reason you are responding like you’re being attacked. Do you realize how condescing most of your posts come across?

4 Likes

How does ISA affect API calls or memory allocation? API should be the same. A recompile should take care of all of that.

I remember we had trouble with this years ago because some stuff was different in Sparc with endianess. But x64 and ARM are both little endian so your data in binary form is in the right place.

I dont think ISA optimizations are widespread. Thats a lot of time and effort for not much gain in my personal opinion.

https://x.com/jamirblanco/status/1719500756481696029?s=20

15 Likes

1 Like

May not happen if MS and ABK stays quite separate for the next 15 years.

1 Like

It would be interesting to see how this Ubisoft deal comes into effect.

E.g. if ABK develop a Xbox IP but Xbox still publish it (or vice versa with Xbox developing an ABK IP) will the cloud rights still go to Ubisoft?

If a handful of people from ABK help out on a Xbox title like Gears is that still considered co-development and therefore also falls under the Ubisoft publishing rights?