Xbox One

[m1ke_nyc]

Re: Xbox One

I know we have no real shot at getting an Xbox One without the Kinect but I'd love a way to disconnect the Kinect. I don't see myself really using the voice commands or motion gaming that goes along with Kinect. I'd rather just disconnect it for privacy reasons. Microsoft can assure me all they want that the Kinect won't record anything but I'd still feel much better if I could just use the console without Kinect.

Edit: I think like many, the more information I hear about the Xbox One and specifically the Cloud, the more I'm leaning towards the Xbox One. Initially, I think PS4 might have the edge but the money Microsoft is pumping into the Cloud cannot be matched by Sony. This is where I think the Xbox One will win out. Xbox One looks a lot more future proof.

The issue I have with everyone talking bout privacy is these are the same people who own smartphones with GPS systems in them that gives off their location at all times. They use the internet where their ISPs monitor their usage even when they claim not to. And people willingly do this yet they are up in arms about M$ somehow wanting to spy on them sitting in their underclothes scratching themselves while enjoying a gaming session. This is not meant to be an attack. Hook the thing up and pretend its not even there. As far as privacy is concerened we have much bigger things to worry about than the kinect. You can google your address and get satellite pictures of your home. If its taking pictures you can be assured it recording.

[Trapper700]

Re: Xbox One

Here's an explanation of the technical aspects of what the cloud can and can't do in relation to game processes.

In a typical game engine, these are the processes that occur in a cycle:

• Game physics
• Triangle setup and optimisation
• Tessellation
• Texturing
• Shading
• Various render passes
• Lighting calculations
• Post effects
• Immediate AI
• Ambient AI
• Immediate physics (shots, collisions)
• Ambient physics

Of these, the only ones that you can actually offload to the cloud are ambient AI and some kinds of lighting.

You can't offload anything to the cloud that is frame critical or requires real-time processing. These things include physics, any of the graphics rendering, textures, real-time lighting, etc. The round trip latency for the data is too large. Even if you have excellent internet and are close to the servers, you should expect a minimum of 100ms round trip, which would destroy your frame rate.

This is the case because in order reach just a target framerate of 30fps, you only have 33 milliseconds to render a frame. To reach 60fps, you only have 16ms to render the frame. Because of the long delays due to the latency issues, you can't rely on the cloud for anything that needs real-time, immediate results per frame. For example, if in a game, you crash a car into a wall, you'll see your car continue through to the other side of the scenery for the next three or four frames (even longer when inevitable internet hiccups occur) until the physics running on the cloud return with the information that you've crashed.

That's not even taking into account the issue of bandwidth. The average bandwidth in the US is only about 7.2Mbps, which we'll round up to 8Mbps. At 8Mbps, despite whatever cloud computing power is available, consoles will only have available to them an average of 1MB/s a second of processed data. If we compare that to the sort of bandwidth built in on the consoles themselves, the DDR3 of Xbox One is rated at around 68,000MB/s, and even that wasn't enough for the console and it had to be augmented with the ESRAM.

The PS4's GDDR5 is rated at 176,000MB/s, with at least 20,000MB/s allocated to the CPU. The cloud can only provide 1/20,000th of data to the CPU that the PS4's system memory can. And even if you had a super fast fibre-optic broadband connection at 50mbps, it only equates to 6MB/s. This means that there will be a significant bottleneck to what can be processed on the cloud, and that's before upload speed is even considered. Upload speed is a small fraction of download speed, and this will greatly reduce how much information can be sent to the cloud to process.

In the same car crash exmple, if the console has to upload both the car collision mesh and scenery mesh to the cloud for it to calculate whether they have collided or not, it would still take several seconds.

Let's do another hypothetical example:
If you had an internet connection that worked at lightspeed (downstream and upstream) and you're located 500 miles from the server, the round trip from your computer to the server and back again would be about 5ms. Then you have to add the time it takes to do the processing on the server, as well as transmitting the actual packet data.

The entire round trip will take closer to 20ms in absolutely perfect conditions with network traffic moving at lightspeed across every single connection path to the server (This is also unlikely, because of the way the internet works. Every single request from your console has to find its way through multiple routers and servers until it reaches its destination, and the results have to take the same trip back).

So, in absolutely perfect conditions, just because of the amount of time it takes to do a round trip, 60 fps would already be impossible. In reality, people are not necessarily even within 500 miles of the servers, connection speeds are much slower than lightspeed, and servers have to wait for other people, etc. This means that anything close 30fps is impossible if just physics processing alone is done on a server.

[Trapper700]

Re: Xbox One

The issue I have with everyone talking bout privacy is these are the same people who own smartphones with GPS systems in them that gives off their location at all times. They use the internet where their ISPs monitor their usage even when they claim not to. And people willingly do this yet they are up in arms about M$ somehow wanting to spy on them sitting in their underclothes scratching themselves while enjoying a gaming session. This is not meant to be an attack. Hook the thing up and pretend its not even there. As far as privacy is concerened we have much bigger things to worry about than the kinect. You can google your address and get satellite pictures of your home. If its taking pictures you can be assured it recording.

Comparing a video game console to a cellphone is a terrible analogy. Nevermind the fact that a cellphone is absolutely necessary in today's world and no one (arguably) *needs* a console for every day life.

There are also other, simple, completely legal ways to get around privacy concerns on smart phones.

For example, on an iPhone, you can jailbreak it and install an app called Protect My Privacy as well as FirewalliP (for individual site access). You can also use a VPN on it, if you really wanted to. Protect my privacy allows you to control almost all aspects of what has access to the different functions your iOS device. It puts up a pop up for each time an app tries to access your network, Location, Contacts, Photos, Camera, unique device identifier, advertising identifier, etc. You can then choose to allow or deny (or fake your location/contacts/udid/advertisingid) for an attempt at accessing these functions. Apple has also stated that iMessage, Siri and Facetime are all safe from PRISM and privacy concerns because even it can't decrypt the data sent, and that they've denied any backdoor server access to government agencies.

For an Android device, you can install a custom rom that uses the open-source CyanogenMod to replace the closed-source manufacturer-built Android system, as well as a rom that supports OpenPDroid, which allows fine-tuning of the data which applications are able to retrieve about your device, account, messages, etc. You also can use a VPN with it as well and there are apps that provide an iptables frontend firewall solution, such as AF-Wall+. Then there are other apps like TextSecure which will encrypt your text messages over the air and on your phone and RedPhone for end-to-end encryption of your calls.
If you want to hide from your ISP the fact that you're browsing nothing but porn sites, sign up for a VPN which you can use on your entire network or on each device separately.

On the other hand, will we be able to do any of these kinds of things on the Xbox One in the future? Probably not. It would likely be considered a modded console that will be banned from accessing Xbox Live. And an Xbox without Live is just not all that attractive.

[DaveDQ]

Re: Xbox One

Kinect for the Xbox One can be turned off. Entirely.

"By design, you will determine how responsive and personalized your Xbox One is to you and your family during setup. The system will navigate you through key privacy options, like automatic or manual sign in, privacy settings, and clear notifications about how data is used. When Xbox One is on and you’re simply having a conversation in your living room, your conversation is not being recorded or uploaded.

If you don’t want the Kinect sensor on while playing games or enjoying your entertainment, you can pause Kinect. To turn off your Xbox One, just say “Xbox Off.” When the system is off, it’s only listening for the single voice command -- “Xbox On,” and you can even turn that feature off too. Some apps and games may require Kinect functionality to operate, so you’ll need to turn it back on for these experiences."

A lot of misinformation has circulated and this notion that Kinect is watching and reporting everything is part of that.

[Fresh Tendrils]

Re: Xbox One

Personally, I'm not going to fault somebody for being paranoid about not wanting it or being suspicious of it.

[cjonesfan921]

Re: Xbox One

Kinect for the Xbox One can be turned off. Entirely.

Wouldn't shock me if that was also a last second change.

[Skyboxer]

Re: Xbox One

Kinect for the Xbox One can be turned off. Entirely.

"By design, you will determine how responsive and personalized your Xbox One is to you and your family during setup. The system will navigate you through key privacy options, like automatic or manual sign in, privacy settings, and clear notifications about how data is used. When Xbox One is on and you’re simply having a conversation in your living room, your conversation is not being recorded or uploaded.

If you don’t want the Kinect sensor on while playing games or enjoying your entertainment, you can pause Kinect. To turn off your Xbox One, just say “Xbox Off.” When the system is off, it’s only listening for the single voice command -- “Xbox On,” and you can even turn that feature off too. Some apps and games may require Kinect functionality to operate, so you’ll need to turn it back on for these experiences."

A lot of misinformation has circulated and this notion that Kinect is watching and reporting everything is part of that.

I am still in the wait and see mode. I won't jump until they drop the price that's one thing for sure.
No desire for the kinect so not paying for it. When they drop to 399.99 I will probably bite.
Don't care when any of these changes happened (WTF would I care).. just glad they did change.

[xcrushx]

Re: Xbox One

Kinect for the Xbox One can be turned off. Entirely.

"By design, you will determine how responsive and personalized your Xbox One is to you and your family during setup. The system will navigate you through key privacy options, like automatic or manual sign in, privacy settings, and clear notifications about how data is used. When Xbox One is on and you’re simply having a conversation in your living room, your conversation is not being recorded or uploaded.

If you don’t want the Kinect sensor on while playing games or enjoying your entertainment, you can pause Kinect. To turn off your Xbox One, just say “Xbox Off.” When the system is off, it’s only listening for the single voice command -- “Xbox On,” and you can even turn that feature off too. Some apps and games may require Kinect functionality to operate, so you’ll need to turn it back on for these experiences."

A lot of misinformation has circulated and this notion that Kinect is watching and reporting everything is part of that.

But can it be disconnected entirely?

I'm the type of person that doesn't have a Facebook, Twitter, smart phone, etc. Privacy is a big deal to me. I've heard various reports that there is no way for anyone to actually disconnect the Kinect completely. I'm fine with certain features not working, just give me the option to disconnect the thing.

I will withhold my judgement until I see it in action. But I would really like to have the option to disconnect the Kinect and never have to touch it even if it comes at the expense of certain features.

[Dispatch]

Re: Xbox One

But can it be disconnected entirely?

I'm the type of person that doesn't have a Facebook, Twitter, smart phone, etc. Privacy is a big deal to me. I've heard various reports that there is no way for anyone to actually disconnect the Kinect completely. I'm fine with certain features not working, just give me the option to disconnect the thing.

I will withhold my judgement until I see it in action. But I would really like to have the option to disconnect the Kinect and never have to touch it even if it comes at the expense of certain features.

No, you'll never be able to physically just disconnect the Kinect. It's a big part of the One and it has received massive upgrades. There's no way Microsoft ever sells the One with no Kinect.

[ghettogeeksta]

Re: Xbox One

Next-gen game pricing leaked?

http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/mseea/en_IE/list/ThemeID.30303100/categoryID.64511300

[ScoobySnax]

That's euros. It'll be $59.99 in USD.

[Fresh Tendrils]

Re: Xbox One

They're cheaper on UK's Amazon site.

[Skyboxer]

Re: Xbox One

Yeah not sure exactly what is "leaked"...
Anyone can go to the MS store and see what they have them listed at.
US:

http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/cat/ThemeID.33363200/categoryID.64484500

[aholbert32]

Re: Xbox One

They arent raising the prices of games at launch.

[mestevo]

I wonder if it is more evidence of EU pricing being a little higher across the board - http://m.techradar.com/news/gaming/c...-games-1164958
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