It's been, what, over a decade they've been working on that Dashboard and it has always been just a steaming pile of trash.
Everything from initial setup trying to make accounts for the kids, to setting up payment methods, trying to switch between users constantly as things are authorized in one place or another, trying to install apps, constantly turning it on to find its forcing an hour of updates that must be installed to basically unbrick it. The media player app is insultingly bad. The App Store is a wasteland. The UI is a total train wreck.
I went to install Amazon's app to stream some Prime shows last week. You would think probably some other people have tried to do this before, what could go wrong? What a mistake. App constantly crashing, took over an hour, including power cycling the Xbox twice before I get it to the point where I was actually watching a show. This for what is a < 5 minute process on a smartphone.
Every time I try to do anything with that infernal machine, I just end up tearing my hair out. I really don't understand how they have millions of users and so much basic shit Just Doesn't Work.
And don't get me started on the UI..... Everything I want to do buried the absolute maximum amount of clicks away from where I would expect to look for it.
I try not to complain about it usually because it just gets my blood boiling how could MS put out such absolute garbage? Please tell me I'm not alone in feeling this way :-)
The hardware rat race is great and all, but for a platform where they have Apple-esque control I would have expected two orders of magnitude better results than what MS has managed to deliver in 2017 for a living room experience.
Because those millions of users use the box to play games, like I do. Oh, I've tried all the other stuff, and as you point out it's generally such a steaming pile of shit that I feel foolish for having even tried. (If the Kinect weren't in a box in the garage, I'd be staring in its direction right now.) Frankly, I'd be happy if they could just bring the Xbone back to the level of usability that the 360 had. To their credit, they're getting there little by little in many ways. To their discredit, they shouldn't have to do that in the first place. MSFT had a working platform, but I'm guessing some PMs needed to make their mark, so they "improved" things by breaking them.
So I just play games on it, and watch the occasional Blu-Ray. That keeps the "aggravation footprint" to a minimum. Anything else I want to do is on the Apple TV. And when the next-gen consoles roll out, I'm going to be taking a hard look at what Sony has to offer.
My housemates and I purchased an Xbone and realized before long we were using the 360 more because it was vastly preferable for netflix/youtube/etc. Have since switched to a chromecast for that stuff, but the Xbone is absolutely a massive step back in UX. Not to mention the ads on the dashboard. There is advertising on the dashboard of my $250 console, that requires a paid subscription for online play. Why is that acceptable?
I loathe this so much and you know this is _exactly_ what happened. This is a problem at a lot of big companies. At the end of the year you don't get reviewed on "improving existing customer experience" you get more money based on how many features you put into production.
If they had sold this as a gaming console that also does a few entertainment center things, then fine. But they didn't, at least not originally.
And the (almost) worthless Kinect acts as the IR blaster for control of other devices. And mine shuts down intermittently since one of the updates a year ago. That's the only thing I use it for since they changed all the voice commands to 'cortana' from 'xbox'.
And those 30 minute updates to unbrick the device. Inability to update all apps/games at once. Inability to have automatic updates without keeping the thing in "jack up your power bill" mode and "keep the fan in turbo mode".
And the useless review system. Who buys games without reading reviews? Not on the xbone. You get star ratings and that's it. So instead of being a hub, you still need your laptop (or phone) on hand.
I dare anyone who's never tried to setup a child account using only the xbox controller. I'm pretty sure MS has never done any usability testing on that. It's nigh unto impossible.
I only own a 360 and was reading the parent comment in context of that and nodding my head vigorously, you mean the UI on the xbone is even worse?
Microsoft is such a schizophrenic company.
I have it set to always on, so I basically never even notice the updates since they happen while I sleep or am at work. So yeah, I don't share your experience at all.
But either way, why is it so important that I install the update just to use the Amazon Prime app? You can't do anything online until the 30 minute install finishes. I can see blocking online multiplayer games, but video streaming?
* Number may be off a bit, I measured it shortly after it was released. I putt a watt meter on it and left it on for a few days to see if it would ever go into a lower power mode. It didn't.
When you don't have a mouse or a touch screen, putting things in non-linear places makes extremely difficult to navigate to. I find myself regularly going down and over and up and around. Almost circling things to select them.
Old gaming menus were horizontal or vertical but not both at the same time.
The interface felt so nice to go back to! Things were logically organized! Ads only showed up in the store tab (i.e. when you're looking for things to buy anyhow)! Going back to the current interface on my replacement 360 is what pushed me to start playing with blocking the ads using router rules.
Part of the latest update had a video for the new Home button functionality. It used to be that pressing the Xbox button on your controller took you home. In the video they literally said "to go home press the Xbox button and then the "A" button twice".
I can't imagine recording a video telling people to do that. They got it wrong IMO. They should have just had the Xbox button take you home and a long press take you to the menu that you see presently when you press that button.
The UI is insanely difficult to use. I frequently find myself wondering how to do the most basic tasks.
If it weren't for Halo, I'd be gone a long time ago.
My favorite day was when our local builds started spitting an "Out of memory" error, and quite literally everyone on the shell+platform team was trying to debug what that meant - turns out it meant our builds were actually, finally utilizing over 64mb of memory.
Many nights were spent on converting PNG assets to vector drawings..
At this point Apple TV is essentially obsolete for us. We do use XBox for gaming.
IMO XBox is better off just getting rid of the whole media center thing and focus tightly on the gaming experience.
Unfortunately, they have an history of not being updated and even worse executing all kinds of spying activities on their users. [1]
We bought a dumb-TV and hooked up an Apple TV. At least Apple respect privacy a little more. We also have an XBox One, but we rarely use it. We only have time for quick games. The Apple TV has a nice selection of titles that you can play for a couple of minutes. In contrast to the XBox, it doesn't take ages to actually start up. (Yes, I know you can use standby, but it uses 15W.)
[1] https://www.wired.com/2017/02/smart-tv-spying-vizio-settleme...
The other problem is that there is no unified control scheme for streaming apps. In theory, you are giving each app flexibility to create a unique experience. But in practice, you need to learn the random button mappings for FF, REW, etc. on every streaming platform.
The first time I used it I spent about 20 seconds looking for the "my games and apps" button, and since I've found it I've had zero other issues with the UI.
My gut says way too many people look for reasons not to figure out things and blame the product for having shortcomings that are entirely self inflicted.
as for amazon, their app is rather crappy almost universally. Try netflix or Hulu..
I think the most interesting thing is going to see how compatibility works out long-term for Scorpio. What will the cross-compat story be for the next console, and the one after that? Will they re-platform and lose compatibility again (and bring it back via emulation) or keep re-spec'ing the current platform? When will we see games that will play on Scorpio but not X1?
As someone who owns both consoles, after seeing the lack of enthusiasm at the PS4 Pro launch event I decided to hold off until Scorpio specs became known - I much prefer the Xbox "experience" but outside of exclusives it never gets much use since my "high-fidelity" gaming goes on my PC, and "console exclusives" usually are better on the PS4 (looking at Final Fantasy XV in particular here).
I'm glad I waited, there are games I want to play that are console exclusives but not tied to one platform or the other (Kingdom Hearts 3) - it looks like Microsoft hit this one out of the park. Seeing as the HDD in my OG Xbox One is going to fail soon (man is it noisy) the Scorpio looks like a good upgrade path.
> I think the most interesting thing is going to see how compatibility works out long-term for Scorpio. What will the cross-compat story be for the next console, and the one after that? Will they re-platform and lose compatibility again (and bring it back via emulation) or keep re-spec'ing the current platform? When will we see games that will play on Scorpio but not X1?
I believe the intent is that we are entering an era of smartphone-esque spec bumps to consoles, and getting rid of the full generational gap that has historically existed.
From here on out, expect new hardware every couple years that will be compatible with your existing library - after existing hardware is X generations old it will stop receiving software support and you'll have to upgrade. Likely, when the Scorpio+1/2 is out you'll see the original Xbox One and Xbox One S losing support for some newer titles (but they'll likely continue receiving support from indie developers and less intense games along with system software updates for a while after that).
So, basically a computer, but limited, and a lower bar to entry.
I understand the use case for those that might not have a traditional computer or a very old one, but presumably everyone here would be better served by either shelling out an extra $100-$200 every couple years for a better video card in their laptop (if that's the only system them have), or dropping that on a discrete video card and sticking it in their current desktop?
I'm having trouble finding a case where I'm not better off buying a cheap Dell desktop and throwing a mid-range video card in there for approximately the same cost. It's a little bulkier, but I imagine Steam's Big Picture mode probably does a good job of the interface.
I have an Xbox One and a Switch. Personally, I love this combination and Scorpio could be a great upgrade depending on the VR story. While I do miss out on some PS4 games I'd love to play, I don't have enough hours to play the games I already have.
The ideological gap between Switch and the rest of the industry is widening. No doubt the Switch is a cheaper platform to develop for (4K assets are a huge burden) but is that enough of a drawcard? Likewise, are consoles like Scorpio and PS4 Pro becoming too difficult and expensive to develop for, unless you are a AAA studio? The bar gets set so high that smaller studios will find it harder and harder to keep up. I can easily foresee a future where the Switch has an amazing selection of first party, Nintendo games and a killer catalogue of indies, whereas Xbox and PS4 own the third-party, AAA market.
But it's not all bad. I feel like, especially on the PC, smaller indie studios have been flourishing and some of the best games in recent times are not AAA nor graphical powerhouses.
The problem with Andromeda was animations, not AAA graphical fidelity. I don't think many people are unhappy with the current level of flashy effects, we're mostly just looking at higher resolution assets (which likely exist already).
The tech is incrementally better than the PS4 Pro, but the price is unknown and could be problematic if released at $499 compared to the PS4 Pro's $399. And whether developers will take full advantage of that power.
Should be a pretty big bump in image quality for Xbox One games. They demoed Forza running at 4k/60 FPS with PC Ultra-equivalent settings at less than 90% GPU load.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RE2hNrq1Zxs&feature=youtu.be...
The switch to DX12 is just that you can write the same sort of code on Windows and Xbone (the 360 had enough extensions that you sort of had to have separate rendering backends for 360 and Windows, despite them both potentially being DirectX 9).
The CPU+GPU alone can add up to over $1000 retail on a workstation, and that's a consumer CPU and GPU - once you start adding "workstation" graphics like AMD FirePro or NVidia Quadro territory the GPU can cost over $1000 retail alone for validated drivers to support CAD applications, etc.
Factor in all the extra components that go in to support upgrades (memory sockets, PCIe slots, external connectivity like Thunderbolt) and the fact that these components use much more power than the Xbox One SoC and as such require more cooling and you can see how costs quickly add up.
Now, with all that said - the Mac Pro is pure price gouging. You can get an equivalent workstation from HP for a fraction of the price, but then it doesn't run macOS.
Personally, I find it rather amusing. I remember when the Intel cheese grater Mac Pro was first introduced and Apple was showing off an equivalently specced Dell workstation was more expensive than the Mac Pro. Apple has really lost their way in the professional space (see everything they've done with the MacBook Pro since 2012 as well).
(Also, and this is just conjecture: its possible that Apple intentionally overprices their pros as a sort of "look this is premium" cost, while the goal of an xbox is mass market sale).
I've heard this a lot, and I don't doubt that it's correct, but could you explain why? Like do consumer class GPUs have less accurate floating point, or do their embedded algos contain hacks to produce less accurate results faster?
The only reason to use workstation class cards is because the software is certified to run on them (I.e. You won't get support from AD if you use a GeForce instead of a quadro). The only real reason used to be memory but with 11GB in a 1080ti even that's less true these days.
Also, aren't Disney movies raytraced?
For general computing purposes, an Intel i5 based system would be significantly more performant than this, but the Scoprio is highly, highly optimized for its specific task.
That has not been the case since this generation, and even most Nintendo consoles were not sold at loss. the Wii was already profitable at launch, hardware and price-wise. Plus, looking at sites like iSupply is not a good estimation of the real cost of consoles, since manufacturers who order millions of parts do not pay the same price per component as consumers.
The only difference is that with Apple they will be expected to make a decent profit margin on that hardware and update it with newer specs in a year or two. With consoles, they will continue selling the same hardware for 5+ years so it is okay if they start selling at a loss initially if it means more money to be made from game sales.
It sounds like what Microsoft is doing is standardizing on frequency and giving different chips as much voltage as they need to hit their performance targets. So everybody buying one of these consoles gets the same performance but some people will have more power hungry consoles than others. Possibly those people will get better heat sinks?
Takes a minute to load, I think their cdn is a little overloaded currently.
Given that the market reception to 4K TV's and UHD players seems to have been tepid at best, I find it interesting that Microsoft thinks 4K will be such a huge draw to consumers. Is it just bragging rights (my 4K's bigger than your 1080p)? 4K rendering will really make the 1080p look that much better? People playing these things will sit 1-2 feet from the screen? Or maybe VR headsets will benefit the most?
I personally have always had perfect vision, and have always been able to notice even fairly subtle differences in resolution. My brother also has perfect vision in the classic 20/20 sense, but has to inspect closely to tell apart even 720p & 1080p movies. Our ability to notice differences in bitrate is even more far apart. [2] It's not even only about picture quality, but also about refresh rates. I can tell the difference between 100 Hz & 144 Hz, and I'll even notice bad frame pacing on an otherwise stable framerate. At the same time I have a friend who didn't notice anything different about the 48 fps variant of The Hobbit compared to other 24 fps movies.
It probably has a lot to do with what we spend our time doing. In that I've spent most of my life hunting for better picture quality & higher frame rates. Compared to the average person I must've spent an unbelivable amount of time thinking about & observing picture quality & frame rate. Thus I have probably developed a skill for this.
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[1] The training can be an implicit side-effect of other activities.
[2] Interestingly this is for video bitrate. The reverse is true for audio bitrate. My brother being a lifelong audiophile claims to hear the difference between even 320 kbps MP3 & FLAC.
I think 4k is more important on 25" to 30" computer monitors that are perched just a couple feet away. I'm not convinced it makes a difference on a wall mounted TV.
I think the more exciting bits of progress are the wide color gamut and HDR.
And It did 4K forza which was a direct port from the Studio 10 to the Scorpio from XB1 @60FPS/~64% GPU usage, Mobile GTX 1070 and up should be still outperforming it & when it comes to proper optimized titles like BF1 / TF2 / TW3 / MEC etc will aid further to render more details, Also running old 4K forza on Console GFX options vs PC GFX options is not an apples to apples comparison. Note that TF figure on AMD and Nvidia aren't same either...
Consoles can never reach PC levels of detailing due to the market and targeted audience. I'm a PC gamer, I can't stand to the degraded visuals on the Consoles, Also the Nvidia Tessellation is superior to AMD. Sad part is due to the % of market the PC games get downgraded / unoptimized mess due to these consoles Also the XB1Scorpio doesn't add any significant advantage over the PS4Pro because of less than stellar exlc. titles & Checkered board rendering used. Finally the native 4K@60Hz or 30 isn't out, I highly doubt an RX480 can run the games at 60FPS 4K, the power isn't just there for the recent games and upcoming powerful engines developed with Pascal HW will outperform this weak chip soon..
Between leaks making nothing ever a surprise anymore and the general jadedness at products never living up to their keynote claims, I wonder if this signals a kind of paradigm shift in "how to hype a product". Certainly all the Apple commentators seemed very pleased that Apple was breaking with their traditional radio silence, and this made me much more interested in Scorpio than I was recently, since I can see from a skeptical source that it's not just hot air.
Even for large screen TV's, you would need to sit about 3-5 feet from a 4K TV to make out every pixel.
3k rendered, then upscaled to 4K should be pretty much indistinguishable to 99% of viewers.
I'm thinking of upgrading to a 65-inch OLED this year, and from my couch of about 10 feet away (maybe a hair closer), I won't be able to tell 1080p from 4k. And that's a pretty big TV!
I would much rather see Scorpio games at 1080/60 fps with more effects, more polygons and more complex lighting.
However, all else is rarely equal, and 4K TVs now have lots of other features and technology that make them just better (prettier) buys in general.
I am excited to see Xbox support HDR. I just hate to see all of this extra hardware dedicated to resolution, when there are so many things that it could be put to.
Consoles have come a long way, and the visual fidelity of a truly great quality display is a much better investment than a machine that can power a mediocre display at higher resolutions.
This is coming from someone who was gaming on ultra on 1440p for 5 years before switching back to consoles. It feels good to be back on the couch.
And don't have the bandwidth to download many gigabytes of forced game updates.
I think more than anything, it's the fact 4k happened much quicker than expected..
> "To be clear, then: Project Scorpio doesn't feature Ryzen cores, but the Xbox team are not so concerned about this. "On the CPU side of things, we could still meet our design goals with the custom changes we made," Kevin Gammill points out. "At the end of the day we are still a consumer product. We want to hit the price-points where consumers want to purchase this. It's about balancing the two.""
Although I wish they had more unique games coming out alongside that stuff. Playing Zelda on Switch is a good reminder that eye candy doesn't matter all that much after the novelty wears off.
