Xbox One

[TracerBullet]

Re: Xbox One

I think Kinect still has potential to enhance games with the controller still being the primary method of control (besides just the obvious voice recognition), but its been just that, potential.

I will say the new Kinect looks much improved over the original, and doesn't look like it will be the limiting factor anymore. It's now time to deliver something compelling that doesn't involve flailing about and fulfill that potential. The way it reads your heart rate and can now see you in the dark, I think there's some interesting possibilities with survival-horror type games.

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This is where I stand on the use of Kinect right now. I'm actually excited to see what Ryse brings to the table since it previously was a Kinect-only title, but now is controller based and enhanced by Kinect.

My thoughts on it being bundled with everything are that their first-party games and other exclusives will make use of it in the most creative ways. From there on, they may be hoping that it gives some third party devs ideas about how to get creative with the Kinect.

[EnigmaNemesis]

The forced install is how they ensure the DRM is active (the one install code for the disc). Makes me wonder how they are doing it as discs are typically pressed and are always the same. Yet for the install to work with the disc there has to be something unique on it. Wonder if it's just a code that's on the disc silk screen. Anyone heard/read how this works?

Sony actually has a patent where each blu-ray disc can have it's own unique serial number.

EDIT: Burns beat me to it, lol.

[ODogg]

Re: Xbox One

You're missing the point of my post:

Most of the big selling games ARE multi-platform. How can they make Kinect an integral part of the game (in say... Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, Battlefield, etc.) when that would leave the PS3 game inoperable? They can't, so they are left to resorting to gimmicks for the XBox version of the multi-platform game, if they use it at all.

No, I see your point completely and addressed it. And the Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, etc isn't where the Kinect would be used in an innovative way, it'd be utilized in original IPs that can now be developed because the devs know everyone will have the Kinect.

Think more along the lines of Heavy Rain and how it worked with Move but on a larger scale.

[ubernoob]

Re: Xbox One

That's his personal opinion. Just because he doesn't want to use the device for his game doesn't make it a "Gimmick" If the device was such a gimmick, 25 million people wouldn't have purchased it. The best selling 360 game of all time is a Kinect Game.

Just because people choose not to use, or want to use it doesn't mean it's a gimmick.

There's a market for the device in the 360 community already. The Kinect 2.0 is taking that tech to the next level, so who's to say developer's won't be willing to take advantage of it. And if developers choose not to they don't have to

The best selling 360 game of all time is a Kinect game because it came bundled with the Kinect, we've been over that in this very thread before.

You're equating the word gimmick with being bad. Being a gimmick doesn't make something inherently bad.

Just one review, pulled from many.

Failed release after failed release has all but left Kinect in a awkward position of being gimmick/party tool. While it is true that the Kinect did successfully capture the 'party games' market to a degree, the other failures are harder to gloss over. The lack of quality Kinect games is not the only issue. Microsoft spent a large amount of time trying to drill home how Kinect could 'enhance' games in various ways. The problem is the majority of these 'enhancements' came in the shape of gimmicks, which more often than not made things less convenient.

I am not saying the tech is not impressive, I am not saying it's inherently bad - but TO THIS DATE IN TIME, it has been nothing more than a gimmick. Saying otherwise is just denying facts.

EDIT: Just saw your post ODogg. I loved Heavy Rain, but have no thoughts on the PSMove version. Never played it, nor had any interest in playing it since a controller did just fine - I can't give any thoughts on how well that game did (or did not) implement controls like that.

[TracerBullet]

Re: Xbox One

http://www.joystiq.com/2013/05/23/ga...-games-market/

They got a deal in place. I can feel it. Just keeping quiet for MS to announce it at E3.

That's what I'm guessing.

Also from that article:

"We will actually work with Microsoft and we will work with Sony as they come out with – I guess what you would call 'non-gaming entertainment properties.' We'll be selling those in our store."

[bigfnjoe96]

Re: Xbox One

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/05/how-the-xbox-one-draws-more-processing-power-from-cloud-computing/

It seems like MS is really investing in Cloud Technology.

[ubernoob]

Re: Xbox One

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/0...oud-computing/

It seems like MS is really investing in Cloud Technology.

A good move for the future but we don't have the infrastructure in the US to handle this yet as a full-time thing.

All this talk of "offloading procedures to the cloud" means you have to be connected to the internet to do that.

I've also seen this type of talk backfire. Sim City said they had to be always-online because their servers ("the cloud") did computations that only the servers could handle to make a quick playing game, when that fact has been proven false by modders of the game.

All in all, kudos to MS if it moves our understanding and technology forward - even more kudos to them if it forces ISPs to creep forward to a better infrastructure that gets better/faster/more reliant internet to the masses.

[TracerBullet]

Re: Xbox One

A good move for the future but we don't have the infrastructure in the US to handle this yet as a full-time thing.

All this talk of "offloading procedures to the cloud" means you have to be connected to the internet to do that.

I've also seen this type of talk backfire. Sim City said they had to be always-online because their servers ("the cloud") did computations that only the servers could handle to make a quick playing game, when that fact has been proven false by modders of the game.

All in all, kudos to MS if it moves our understanding and technology forward - even more kudos to them if it forces ISPs to creep forward to a better infrastructure that gets better/faster/more reliant internet to the masses.

I think that part would be up to the game developer and not Microsoft if they wanted to pull something like that, wouldn't it?

[LBzrule]

Re: Xbox One

Name is on the pre-pre-order list.

[trobinson97]

Re: Xbox One

I apologize that I am not adding to the conversation here but I saw this, thought it was funny and decided to share.

Spoiler

[Skyboxer]

Re: Xbox One

Spoiler

[JBH3]

Re: Xbox One

Don't know if this is news here anymore, but your xbl account will be one account for both your 360 and xbone.

[ubernoob]

Re: Xbox One

I think that part would be up to the game developer and not Microsoft if they wanted to pull something like that, wouldn't it?

Right but depending on how it's done (meaning if it's something that's integral to the game) then it will have to be always connected.

If there's a way to do it, without a performance drop when it's not connected, is it really something that needs to be talked about at all?

My interest in the cloud is to see where it goes in the future. None of it really holds any water with me at the moment (aside from the ease of cloud saves, which is nothing new.)

Basically it seems to be... "HEY! We'll do this cool thing with our console - the calculations are done server-side! You will see no boost from it, because they have do be done either way!"

I don't know the exact words I want to use for this, but at this point in time I can't see a benefit for it (save for if the game truly needed it, which would require always online - but that brings it's own downside.)

Interesting technology though.

[ODogg]

Re: Xbox One

A good move for the future but we don't have the infrastructure in the US to handle this yet as a full-time thing.

All this talk of "offloading procedures to the cloud" means you have to be connected to the internet to do that.

I've also seen this type of talk backfire. Sim City said they had to be always-online because their servers ("the cloud") did computations that only the servers could handle to make a quick playing game, when that fact has been proven false by modders of the game.

All in all, kudos to MS if it moves our understanding and technology forward - even more kudos to them if it forces ISPs to creep forward to a better infrastructure that gets better/faster/more reliant internet to the masses.

I think we can both agree on this one, the Cloud tech will be great one day but it's got a lot of issues now. Another thing that worries me, just in general, about all of your stuff on the Cloud is security. Right now it's up to me to protect my stuff and I'm pretty confident that I do a pretty good job of it but when I give up everything, and I speak in a broad sense, not just video games to some server out there somewhere I really begin to wonder.

And I don't just mean security, I mean crashes as well. I mean, yeah all your stuff is stored in the Cloud, it's "safe" is what they preach to us now but we've heard plenty of times of storage servers crashing. If I control my own media I can make backups, make sure I have things backed up, etc, but when all of the media goes to a Cloud somewhere it's out of my control.

So although I like the general idea of the Cloud the more I think about it the more I hope that we do not go EXCLUSIVELY Cloud because there's a lot of scary stuff regarding privacy and security about going that route.

[Flawless]

Re: Xbox One

Posted?

Kotaku: 5 possible states of Xbox One games

Both the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One will bring console gaming to the present this year by allowing users to suspend the games they're playing. Save points can be a thing of the past on these consoles. Games don't really have to be turned "off".

Caveat: this Xbox One development info was circulated by Microsoft to its partners at the beginning of this year. It may have changed, but based on what we saw this week, probably not in any major way.

• 1) Running: The game is loaded in memory and is fully running. The game has full access to the reserved system resources, which are six CPU cores, 90 percent of GPU processing power, and 5 GB of memory. The game is rendering full-screen and the user can interact with it.

• 2) Constrained: The game is loaded in memory and is still running, but it has limited access to the system resources. The game is not rendering full screen in this state; it either is rendering to a reduced area of the screen or is not visible at all. The user cannot interact with the game in this state. System resource limits in this state are four CPUs, 5 GB of memory, and 45 percent of GPU power if the game is rendering to a reduced area of the screen, or 10 percent of GPU power if the game is not visible.

• 3) Suspended: The game is loaded in memory but is not running, meaning that the system has stopped scheduling all threads in the game process. The game has no access to CPUs or to the GPU processing power, but it still has the same 5 GB of memory reserved.

• 4) NotRunning: The game is not loaded in memory and is not running, and the system has no game-history information about the previous execution of the game. A game would be in NotRunning state in any of these three scenarios:
  -The game has not been run since the console started.
  -The game crashed during the last execution.
  -The game did not properly handle the suspend process during the last execution and was forced to exit by the system.

• 5) Terminated: The game is not loaded in memory and is not running, which is identical to the NotRunning state in terms of system resource usage. Terminated state, however, indicates that during the last execution of the game, the game process was successfully suspended and then terminated by the system. This means that the game had a chance to save its state as it was suspended; the next time the game is activated, it can load this previous state data and continue the user experience from the same position. A game, for example, can start from the same level and position in the player’s last session without showing any front-end menu.

Got all that? Suddenly, saving and pausing games seems so pedestrian, doesn't it?