I think you’re vastly over estimating what a 2025 new Xbox could do. It would probably need to be atleast 4x as powerful as the series x to do that.
Imo that would need to be released in 2030 for that to happen in a 500-600$ console. And even then it wouldn’t happen regularly because new games at that time would push image quality and in game tech much further, limiting where they could get the resolution and frame rate.
Like starfield for example. The tech and scope in that game is so insane that the series X version is running at 1296p, and upscaled to 4k while being 30 fps. For it to be 6k,120fps would require like 8x the power. That isn’t happening even in 2030.
4K,60 or 1440p/120 should be the standard. Anything more and all that extra horsepower will be wasted imo.
Phil didn’t say an xbox “pro” isn’t coming. I took what he said as a “we are not in a hurry to put it out, so keep buying xsx”. For what it’s worth, if it’s true that sony is working on a ps5 pro, ms not coming out with a pro model is not gonna look good. Ms has said that they value the console market a lot, leaving sony run off with a pro while ms does nothing immediately makes ps5 the default multiplat machine, I don’t think they would let that happen.
And when answering questions like that, what is he gonna say? “Yes we’re working on a pro model it’s gonna come out in the next two years”, they know that translates to “stop buying xsx”, he’s not gonna say that so his answer is moot.
that should be easy to solve. Start a PC only game, run it on some VM with PC hardware. Start a Play Anywhere title, run it on the same advanced PC hardware. Its Xbox only, run it on Series VM.
But there’s also them saying XSX is the mid gen refresh, if they hadn’t said that it would be different.
Maybe the difference won’t be in resolution, but in raytracing and in overall visual fidelity like sharper textures, shadows, draw distance perhaps? Remember GTA V on Xbox One and PS4? That had the so called “grass gate” thing, PS4 overall had more grass where it was more empty on Xbox. That’s minor, but I can definitely see there being bigger differences this time.
There is not much more to be said, other than I really hope MS thinks this one through carefully. Especially if this gen is gonna last quite long. If Pro truly ends up having more games at 60fps I would say it’s worth it, I’d sell my XSX in a heartbeat for a better Xbox.
He could have said that they are always working on hardware, but that there isn’t much to say right now. But instead he said XSS is the standard and XSX is the mid gen refresh. Those are some clear words.
Definitely, without anything equivalent to DLSS 3 upscaling, those targets for current games couldn’t be hit in 2025.
I’m assuming that AMD will have something similar to DLSS 3, which is at least doubling (in many cases, tripling) framerates. Sorry, I should have made it clearer why I was mentioning this deficiency on the part of their existing hardware. Hitting these sorts of targets hinges on this.
Along with the efficiencies that’s something like RDNA 4 can offer, having something like Tensor Cores to upscale existing titles so they can run at high performance while looking like 4K/6K titles is my hope.
Also I think this should be a premium priced console considering it’s for VR. $649 is what I’m thinking.
You could still be right but I’m convinced that dedicated upscaling tech is going to be AMD’s focus and I wouldn’t be surprised if the PS5 Pro does a good job in this.
For me, the most unrealistic aspect is the idea that Xbox would pursue VR because it does need hefty specs to be done right. Could a $249 Series S, $449 Series X, and $649 Series V ever co-exist?
Plans change though? maybe they didn’t plan to have a mid-gen upgrade because they thought that SX is a powerful enough and well designed console (which it definitely is) that should’ve carried them through the whole generation. Both systems are powerful enough and 3 years into the generation we are finally starting to see games taking advantage of the new systems, SX and PS5 are not Xbox One and PS4 where they were outdated at the day of release.
There is no reason to freak out over a rumor and a system that won’t be out for at least a year. Let’s wait till we see what the benefits/improvements are on the PS5 Pro and if they are worth it before coming to conclusions. In the end Xbox has the advantage of an extra year or so to release a more powerful console than Sony.
I agree, it is way too soon to be overly concerned over the future of Xbox consoles ( and there is no reason to be concerned ) when we don’t have anything official from Sony or MS themselves, and just some small details to go on. Still find it really supsicious these details are coming out right after ABK-MS is on the right path.
That is true, plans can change. I guess if they get Pro devkits later this year they might decide to build one after all, and possibly have one ready for mid or late 2025. Because from what I hear these kind of decisions are made way in advance. Until then we can only guess.
I’m keeping my worries here and no further and start looking forward to what’s to come and that’s plenty.
Personally speaking I do feel a bit different this time around. Having the original Xbox One last gen I did feel the need/hype to upgrade to Scorpio as we all knew how underpowered the original Xbox was in a lot of regards. This time around I don’t feel the same appetite to get any Pro version. Granted because of COVID I forget when these consoles launched but it still doesn’t feel like this gen has fully kicked off yet.
Truth be told, in terms of sales pitches for the upgrade, Microsoft touted the Series X as the most powerful and rightly or wrongly the perception is “yeah that’s great…but where are the games that show us this?”. Of course, especially on here, we know they’re coming but I feel until Microsoft really start delivering consistently with top games, it may be a harder sell for them to get people to shell out another £600 for another console. Always trying to keep ahead in the power arms race mid gen, I wonder if it’s worth the effort?
I could be wrong but I always felt Phil’s comment on never losing the power game was more referring to the start of console generations more than anything (as I said I could be wrong and he may have meant in general).
I think that in the gaming enthusiast circles we tend to focus on things like acquisitions, rumors, future Xbox projects/speculation, specs/performance, console wars e.t.c. more than the actual games themselves lately, it’s really apparent even in this forum where I felt that the last months when I visited the forum all I saw was updated threads about ABK, Xbox Game Studios e.t.c. and sometimes not a pip about games for days.
Don’t get me wrong it’s fun to speculate about the things above but seeing how 2023 is already an amazing year for videogames (and we are just past the first half of the year) I feel that we should be more excited for Armored Core 6, Starfield, Forza Motorsport and all the other numerous promising games that will come in the next months than be concerned about rumors.
Overall it seems more quiet here than usually, perhaps a lot of folks are solely on Discord now? It would be a shame, because this place is fine, I have no need for an alternative to this. Yeah, a lot of talk has been about ABK and not much about upcoming stuff. Maybe people are too busy playing games, I certainly am with RDR2 and finishing the story and everything that is worth finishing in the game before Starfield comes out.
AC6 is coming but there’s very little marketing on it, although we did have Jez saying he’s excited about a game after having played it. He didn’t say it was AC6 but I definitely expect he’s talking about that. Not a lot of talk about Starfield but then again there has been nothing new after the Direct apart from some interviews, nor do we really need anything on it if you ask me. The fact that it’s coming so soon though, for some reason it feels unreal, it’s odd, haha.
I’m in the same line of thought, there’s still plenty of juice to be squeezed out of the current consoles yet, in my opinion. Xbox has now finished developing for the X1 (no more cross-gen games), we’re still waiting for games to really take advantage of Unreal Engine 5 (Hellblade 2/Gears 6), Fable on Forzatech looks amazing so far.
I don’t follow Playstation news as much, but it could be that their studios and external partners have been asking for more power, hence the need for the Pro. From what Phil Spencer said about not releasing a Pro console; “That’s not the feedback we’re getting right now", I’m assuming he’s talking about feedback from their studios and external partners. If they’re not asking for more power at this time, then I’d say it’s better to wait and see how Sony’s plans work out, rather than commit to launching a Pro console based on what we know now.
Personally I don’t think they’re going to target VR at all, any time soon. They kind of indicated that they’d want games that can hit 10 million sales for GaaS and I could swear that there was a connection to VR with that answer, essentially that they’d need much higher sales of VR to have it be worthwhile than they’ll hit.
If anything, I think they just work to make sure that PC versions of games maybe can use VR platforms and leave it at that instead of doing it from the console side. I’d be looking for RT improvement and enhanced AI chips, maybe some power improvements and more memory or even extra storage in the X before I look for anything on the VR side for them. I think if they do branch the console specs and add another variant they’ll want it to be significant, but I don’t think VR is valuable to them still because it’s not really catching on enough.
I also believe that Phil’s comment was they’re not hearing the need for an updated X console right now (aka this year) but not that there won’t be one at all if that changes. They need to get more sold at the moment rather than be out early with minimal changes.
I think it would be kinda cool for MS to launch a portable along side a more powerful console at the start of next gen and maybe they can make a console version of the portable, that’s tiny and cheap like series s.
Honestly, I think everything that used to be true pre-Activision/ Bethesda is no longer true (by default).
There are ips that are dormant and mobile studios that could easily transition to VR studios. Activision might even have VR games unannounced as we speak. At the very least, Gamepass PC or Gamepass Mobile might start featuring VR games for no other reason than they are already being made as we speak. Just something to consider.
I could have been a bit more clear that I was specifically referring to console and not seeing them implement vr there in the near future, but the comments that I believe were referencing vr were made pretty recently. I do think it’s possible that they make pc games that are vr compatible, but would they need to possibly restart the initiative with vr platforms to be compatible with windows xbox store? I thought that had kind of died off quite a while back so let me know if that’s wrong. They likely wouldn’t want extra features for their games on steam or oculus store over what they could do on their own pc store, or games that they could only sell on PC on rival platforms and not their own.
I’d love this as well. Just spent a week away and used xCloud over my Surface a good bit, and while it worked pretty well I’d rather have a dedicated portable.
Maybe we should wait for actual information on a PS5 “Pro” before we worry about a Xbox Series X “Pro”. At this point it’s all hypothetical. Honestly, I hope neither does a mid-gen upgrade. If we find ourselves in a situation where we’re expecting console refreshes every 3 years, why not just focus on PC at that point?
Also, Sony and Microsoft have raised the price of their consoles around the world, so these “Pro” versions will be much more expensive (possibly even $200 more expensive). Again, if you’re truly obsessed with power and having “the best” experience, just focus on PC where you’re only limited by your bank account.
but it still doesn’t feel like this gen has fully kicked off yet.