With the announcement of this new innovative xbox for 2017 holidays and the possibility of a new FM game hitting close to around that time, what do think this means for the franchise?
Specifically the new console has all sorts of specs that I have no idea what they mean but assume it’s closer to PC processing.
Could someone with a technical background explain why these numbers are important and how this could improve the franchise? For instance, what sort of feats could be accomplished that the current hardware can’t do?
I would assume Forza Apex is the testing ground for this new console, but I’m having difficulty understanding what groundbreaking effects could be achieved.
I wouldnt expect anything crazy other than 4k resolution and whatever visual tweaks apex has compared to forza 6. I cant see them making a stand alone scorpio forza, but then again they did that with forza horizon 2 with the xbox one and xbox 360 versions being different. The reason why i don’t think the versions will be that different is because they’re going to want to keep cross play as an option. Horizon 3 has cross play co-op campaign, I’d assume motorsport would do the same. I do think dynamic weather and day/night cycle could make an appearance on the scorpio version, just that little bit of an incentive for players to upgrade the console.
No one left behind doesn’t mean that the scorpio versions have no exclusive features. Otherwise it’s useless to bring a new plattform only for 4k and vr. Nobody buy a fm7 without day and night change and real time weather. Fm apex offers today 4k.
That promise “no one left behind” could bring some trouble in the future. A so much stronger hardware must offer some features even for player who don’t use 4k and vr.
How long will ms support the xbox one…2030 lol.
They also said it would be stupid to release a more powerfull console…so I am pretty sure that Scorpio will get exclusives.
At the moment there aren’t much 4K TVs around, maybe this changes by then but I just can’t see developers creating two games for two consoles, or even four games when it’s not exclusive to one console…
This is the next gen of consoles basically. When the PS3 and Xbox360 came out they were powerful compared to PC’s at the time due to their exotic chipsets. When this last round of consoles released they were already badly outdated by PC standards. So while the last gen cycle managed almost 10 years this one was expected to run 5-6 and will have manged 3-4 between the PS4 neo and Project Scorpio.
For those wondering about some of the number, the 5-6 teraflops of GFX compute power is on par with the new GTX 1070, a card which beats most other previous GFX cards and only lags behind the 10-80 which is capable of 9 teraflops. Those figures are previously unheard of by large amounts. The Titan X GFX card cost aound 1K! the 1080 costs 600 and the 1070 costs 400 so by the time the Scorpio releases I’m not hopeful it’ll be cheap. They’ll be selling it a next to no profit ir even at a loss, so they’ll need a reason for people to buy it, so i’m thinking there’ll probably be Scorpio exclusive features just to sell some! It seems way too soon for a console refresh because it is. Not many will stump up cash this soon into the current generation so they’re going to have to give people compelling reasons to buy in. VR and 4K aren’t those reasons for console gamers. Console gamers like to sit on a couch in front of a big TV and relax. Not wander around their room with 4kg of headset and cables attached to them. So the reason for people to buy will be exclusive features, extra eye candy etc. If it’s powerful enough you may even get a 60FPS version of Horizon 4! lol
From a dev point of view it’ll be no different to what they’re doing now with Xbox/Win 10. You make sure the game runs at solid framerate on Xbox One and you add extra stuff the PC can take advantage of. They’ll just add flags for the software to recognise which system it’s on and enable those subroutines for each system.
Good job they got all those PC racing games coding vets when they took Playground on as a developer… lol
F7 hits store shelves every two years between September and October. Scorpio hits shelves in Holidays 2017, so F7 is going to be only on the XBOne and PC. Maybe down the line, they’ll release a Scorpio exclusive, but man, talk about alienating your audience.
As far as improvements go, as a reference, the PC version does nothing better than the XBOne version visually, except for the 4k resolution. The detail level, the particle effects… everything is as-is.
Not the best news though - first they release a better-looking version of the game on PC and now a new Xbox One? It hasn’t even been 5 years into the console’s lifecycle.
I know this is not the forum to discuss how MS is going to lengths to alienate customers. But they will eventually. What are we supposed to do with our current consoles? Just ditch em’ in 2017? I think in the history of the Xbox and PS, this is literally the first time they are releasing more powerful hardware before the console has even completed its lifecycle.
Would have been simpler to just make a component available that you hook up to your console to give it that extra juice… kind of like what Sega attempted with the 32X and Sega CD.
Oh well, I might as well give up on gaming, cos’ I don’t own a 4K TV and certainly don’t want to save up and by another XBox console just two years after picking up The One. MS should have worked out all these things in advance - how powerful a console they would need to deliver good games and compete with Sony.
FM5 was a console launch title that released in the third week of November, so it’s not a stretch to think that the same time period would qualify as “Holiday” and that Forza being a key pillar in Xbox’s exclusive lineup that it would be a Scorpio launch title.
VR will be a major selling focus, and requires about 50% more frames per second than the current targets at 1080p to be effective.
I don’t have coding expertise but my understanding from listening to years of discussion about processing is that you need the extra capacity if you want to run more and more objects at high quality; more particles like rain or snow or dust plus more cars on screen at the same time. The reason given for no night+weather at the same time in FM5 was driving difficulty, but the challenge of running dynamically shifting light sources plus the rain particles at Motorsport’s 60fps must have been a factor. Also, three years ago Dan Greenawalt was talking about 4k being necessary to eliminate jagged lines. More power means better fidelity with anti-aliasing etc. You can see this progressive effect in all the video settings in Apex’s menus now.
I think time have changed. When people buy every year a cell phone for 500 Euro, than it’s not to early. Microsoft have the money to go that risk. Maybe Scorpio have a modular architecture? Then people now they have not buy a complete new console after that. Microsoft must have done something. The xbox one is simply not fast enough. If they want get the position back they have to attack.
Microsoft have a long breath and have great partners in the back.
The ps4 neo makes less sense because will that console strong enough for real AAA VR Titles?
You do realise that Sony is doing the exact same thing with turning PlayStation into a service that works on multiple devices, and is releasing a more powerful console?
As for “alienating” gamers, that is actually a bit of a stretch. Releasing Xbox exclusives to the PC finally removes the wall between PC and console gamers, especially when things such as cross platform multiplayer are thrown into the mix. If anything, it could potentially increase the player base. Assuming they get the issues with UWP sorted.
just an fyi as people are seeming to forget. Not sure why everyone claims the life cycle of a console is as long as it is. Original xbox released in 2001, xbox 360 released in 2005, xbox 1 released 2013. thats 4 years from original xbox to 360, then 8 years for 360 to one. Xbox 360 was as others have said powerful for its time. xbox 1 released and wasnt even up to power with the current pc’s at the time, nevermind high end gaming pcs. I know pc is always ahead in terms of hardware due to the ease of upgrading, but it was like the same strength as a regular household computer not even a low end gaming pc. Which i think is basicaslly the same thing they ran into when releasing the original xbox, which led them to doing a quick build of the 360. The current gen console is not keeping up with the the technology. They will oust it quickly. Will this frustrate a lot of people… probably. But if they do the scorpio correctly we will have another xbox 360 which will be good for almost 10 years.
This I can relate to and certainly makes a lot sense. Even if you don’t own a 4K TV, the additional horsepower will see you enjoying games at 60 fps with really high detail levels and perhaps more advanced physics - good news for games like Forza.
Though I hardly bought my console a year and a half back - what am I to do with it? Bet the Scorpio debuts for $500 or more. It’s still a d*** move on MS’s part. Couldn’t they have just made the console more powerful to begin with? What should be do with our Ones… retire them when Scorpion comes out? Sheesh…
I dont think either company thought the current gen of consoles was going to last 3-4 years, but the people have spoken and what they want are better graphics, which is the only reason why the ps4 is outselling xbox one. It doesnt matter to people that the differences are virtually indistinguishable unless you do a frame count and have each console running side by side in still frames to notice, but thats the way things are.
I dont think most people realize that the xbox 360 and ps3 were both upscaling games to 720p most of the time, people didnt care about these things, the graphics were good and gameplay was evolving. With this gen the whole 1080p 60fps blew up beyond what anyone would have thought. I think these games have great graphics and i honestly dont think every game is better at 60fps (forza is though lol).
If anything i think with developers having to sacrifice development time to hit certain technical specs, many games have suffered gameplay wise. We’ve seen a steady flow of sequels, remasters, and rehashed ideas over the course of this gen. 4k is cool, but not many people own 4k screens, i often wonder how many people even own 1080p screens at this point. The only thing that actually runs native 1080p are video games and some blurays, cable isnt 1080p its 720p or 1080i.
Im sure with the right game Vr is pretty awesome, but i dont see it being the future of gaming. I see it as any other gaming accessory like steering wheels or flight sticks. Where a game can be more immersive with the accessory, but not necessarily better or unplayable without one. I also dont think people realize that the graphical fidelity in Vr is much worse than using a monitor and will be for quite some time.
Only time will tell what will happen. I dont see a problem with new hardware. Every generation has been different there is no time table as to how long a console generation lasts. Its been said that all our accessories will be compatible and that they’ll be backwards and fowards compatible. If they can keep it at $500 or lower I’ll happily buy it.
Manteo, I know all we have to go by at this point is what they are telling us… but do you honestly think they are going to put all of the development time/money in developing an optional console that is a slight upgrade and can do 4k? I may be being a negative nancy here but I have a hard time believing that they are going to put in that much effort for something that people wont even be required to buy, and likely wont if the only benefit is really 4k ability. I’d like to hope they are right and my current gen xbox 1 is not going to be another obsolete console. I think this is their way of putting it gently to people that we are trashing the idea of the xbox 1 and starting over and providing the powerful console we should have supplied that you are going to have to buy because with the extra power of the new console all developers are actually going to abandon the old console. It’s also a way of saying sorry xbox 360 owners, we no longer have to pretend to care about you because your console is now 2 generations behind, not just 1.
I think this is their way of trying to get back ahead of playstation 4. They lacked in sales comparitively, so they quickly went back into the development phase rather than the optimization phase and they are going to put out something thats useful, hopefully put a shock to sony, and have everyone jump ship because sony wasnt intending on releasing another console for 4 more years. This will give them a 2 year headstart. Strategically for ms it is brilliant… for the consumer not so much. Of course they are going to say xbox1 users wont be left behind… until they start having scorpio exclusives, or they will force developers to develop for both consoles simultaneously but just like horizon on 360 it will be a stripped out worse version of the game because the console cant handle what they were doing.
I somehow have a bad feeling now…if FM7 is a launch title for Scorpio and everything is set up for 4K and VR…how much of the game do we lose to make some shiny looks possible?
I really hope this is not going to be another FM5…
