Microsoft XBOX ONE


What happens when the cloud overheats?

Maybe this is why they wanted everybody to use Kinect all the time. All that jumping about and waving your arms was to keep air circulating around the room to prevent the console spontaneously combusting.
 
Busy day for Microsoft news - first, Steve Ballmer (helming not just MS but the Xbox division at present) has announced he's leaving within 12 months, then this:

A report by BizJournals claims that ValueAct, a $2 billion Microsoft investor with a 1% stake in the company, is seeking to achieve some major changes at Microsoft. Analyst Rick Sherlund claims that big changes are going to take place very soon as other shareholders support the decision to get rid of Steve Ballmer in addition to the investment group ValueAct. According to the report ValueAct are seeking to replace Steve Ballmer because his strategy “inspires little confidence”.

Apparently Microsoft has no choice but to give ValueAct a board seat otherwise they might launch a “public war” on Steve Ballmer and Microsoft that could end with serious turmoil at the company.

“A decision by the board at Microsoft to offer a nomination for a board seat could keep the activist agenda behind closed doors and take longer for shareholders to see potential benefits”

Furthermore it is believed they might target the Xbox division and try and get rid of it altogether

. This would allow Microsoft to focus on other products and mainly Windows.

“Xbox is cool, but by our estimates Microsoft has not made money at this”
http://www.eteknix.com/microsoft-investor-wants-to-fire-ballmer-and-sell-xbox-division/

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=659801
 
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^ Some of the decisions Microsoft have made in the recent past have been pretty questionable.  

1) Windows 8 and that metro UI - Terrible. I don't fricking want a mobile UI on my desktop.

2) Surface RT - What were they thinking , and now they are launching a Tegra 4 version . 

3)  The small rift they had with Intel in moving towards an ARM tablet - Now this is an odd one , on one hand , I think it was needed to wake Intel up, but on the other hand launching RT has been costly to MS.  

Moving Forward

4)  What they should do now is kiss and make up with Intel .  Work on getting a Windows 8 tablet on an Intel SOC like Baytrail at the same time dump RT.

5) Personally I'd like to see the opposite strategy for tablets, I'd like to see more of a desktop UI on them.  That's one of my biggest complaints with the iPad, its basically big enough to have a desktop UI - and I miss not having the ability to have numerous windows open and running on the screen. Maybe a 12" minimal bezel tablet with windows 8 desktop UI would be awesome.

6) For the Windows based phones, Id like to see them go in a direction the Ubuntu Edge took.  A phoone you can dock which then runs the desktop UI so you can use it as a desktop.  It would be great to plonk the phone into a dock at work , flick a switch and have it show up on the monitor and usable via the keyboard and mouse. At home I could just dock it to continue working on my word docs etc.
 
I bet their proud announcement that the 'redesigned' XB1 controller alone cost $100 million to develop wasn't welcome news to the ears of the investors (and ValueAct are but one among those keen to shed the XBox division).
 
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The disgruntled, XBox threatening Investor story rolls along:

Microsoft has given in to their demands for a seat on the board:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/08/31/microsoft_valueact_ballmer/

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=666713

The agreement means ValueAct Capital – one of Microsoft's 15 largest shareholders with 0.8 percent of common stock – will "have the option" of plonking its president Mason Morfit onto Microsoft's board of directors, after the 2013 annual shareholders meeting.

Until the board meeting, the agreement "provides for regular meetings between Mason Morfit, president of ValueAct Capital, and selected Microsoft directors and management to discuss a range of significant business issues," Microsoft said.
 
^ Some of the decisions Microsoft have made in the recent past have been pretty questionable.  

1) Windows 8 and that metro UI - Terrible. I don't fricking want a mobile UI on my desktop.

2) Surface RT - What were they thinking , and now they are launching a Tegra 4 version . 

3)  The small rift they had with Intel in moving towards an ARM tablet - Now this is an odd one , on one hand , I think it was needed to wake Intel up, but on the other hand launching RT has been costly to MS.  

Moving Forward

4)  What they should do now is kiss and make up with Intel .  Work on getting a Windows 8 tablet on an Intel SOC like Baytrail at the same time dump RT.

5) Personally I'd like to see the opposite strategy for tablets, I'd like to see more of a desktop UI on them.  That's one of my biggest complaints with the iPad, its basically big enough to have a desktop UI - and I miss not having the ability to have numerous windows open and running on the screen. Maybe a 12" minimal bezel tablet with windows 8 desktop UI would be awesome.

6) For the Windows based phones, Id like to see them go in a direction the Ubuntu Edge took.  A phoone you can dock which then runs the desktop UI so you can use it as a desktop.  It would be great to plonk the phone into a dock at work , flick a switch and have it show up on the monitor and usable via the keyboard and mouse. At home I could just dock it to continue working on my word docs etc.
I disagree, Windows RT is the only thing out of the whole Windows 8 movement that made sense.  Especially given the pricing war in that space means overall hardware has tended to be lacking for pricepoint when paying the Intel premium.

Intel is having serious problems these days.  In terms of finances Intel's profits dropped 29% despite their gross income only dropping 5%.  Part of the apparent cause of this would seem to be related to why the largest fab in the world had problems producing their last iteration of Z-series Atom processors for mobile on their then rather mature 32nm process technology.

The aforementioned Z-series made on Intel's 32nm process made for phones basically ranged from this to this.  Note these are both single core designs and the top bin has a top normal frequency of only 1.5GHz, which would be painful to run a modern Windows Shell on.  This points to issues with making viable bins for mobile, and ARM's newer architectures are more powerful and more power efficient without requiring binning out ideal silicon.

It should be noted that Saltwell is still an in order design, and thus doesn't have the additional overhead circuitry of an out of order engine.  Silvermont, aka the 22nm iteration, will have an out of order engine.  While out of order engines help with the potential performance a processor can reach, it also adds to the intrinsic power overhead.  Architecturally these will tend to be worse in the lows and idles then Saltwell was and need to rely on race to execute and sleep states to try to compete.

In terms of process technology at this point Intel and everyone else is using Argon-Fluoride lasers for their lithography.  Those lasers have problems with imaging below the 28nm node.  With their 20nm node TSMC is switching to double patterning, Intel has been holding off doing full scale double patterning till 14nm.

Note that holding off full double patterning should tend to mean their defect rate is higher, which there have been indicators of since Ivy Bridge debuted their 22nm process.  It should be noted IBM, TSMC, Global Foundries, and Samsung are prepping their 20-22nm processes for 2014 when Silvermont is expected to hit so Intel won't really have a node advantage when Silvermont hits.  Indeed given IBM will bring SOI tech to that node and TSMC is making double patterning policy, Intel's Silvermont is actually liable to be on a worse process then what will be available to ARM space which combined with ARM architectural tricks on these newer designs means Intel will be in a worse position then ever relative to ARM.

All of that however is secondary to Balmer's madness related to trying to transform Microsoft into a "platform company" and in more recent interviews a "devices and services" company.  Personally Balmer killing off Flight Simulator and Encarta is the axe I have to grind as much as anything else.
 
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If surface RT is doing so well, why did it sell badly resulting in MS having a fire sale to clear  their huge remaining stock. The problem with Surface RT was that it never had a long term future , at some point an affordable Windows Tablet with an Intel SOC would have come along - whether that was Baytrail or the next gen and then RT would be dead in the water. Who at that point, who would want a compromised OS that didn't let you run a greater range of windows apps when you had the choice to do so with a similiarly priced Windows/Intel alternative. Who would even develop for it at that point.

That was it's biggest problem, everyone saw that it's longevity was a short term proposition .

One thing that was good about Surface RT was that it forced Intel to pick up their game or risk MS continuing to go with ARM.  

Edit:  Some links re: Surface RT sales

http://www.techradar.com/au/news/mobile-computing/tablets/microsoft-faces-lawsuit-over-poor-surface-rt-sales-1173165

http://www.techradar.com/au/news/mobile-computing/tablets/ballmer-reportedly-admits-to-building-a-few-too-many-surface-rt-tablets-1169061

http://windowsitpro.com/windows-rt/if-surface-rt-dismal-sales-werent-bad-enough-microsoft-now-getting-sued-them

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/161324-microsoft-slashes-surface-rt-price-by-30-due-to-sluggish-sales-prepares-to-launch-updated-surface-rt-and-pro-tablets
 
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If surface RT is doing so well, why did it sell badly resulting in MS having a fire sale to clear  their huge remaining stock.
I said Surface RT was the only part of Windows 8 that made sense, nothing about its sales.  Comparing x86 versus RT kind of ignores there's a larger ecosystem that Microsoft is liable to have about as much success with as the Zune.

Microsoft has been trying to push tablets since Windows XP.  They never sold well for a variety of factors.  First is that there's very little x86 software designed to use the form factor.  This leads into the second problem, there's historically been a rather limited use case for a Microsoft tablet.  Third is that they've tended to be expensive for relative hardware performance because at the end of the day the limited form factor of the tablet insures inferior cooling and battery accomodations to a laptop.  That means a relatively higher binned/underclocked/etc processor is used, see Surface Pro for a perfect example.

None of these problems went away with Windows 8.  Windows RT runs the tablet apps they're accumulating due to Microsoft pushing usage of .Net, comes with Office, can get on the internet, and thus makes a degree of sense as a tablet netbook hybrid concept.  The problem is unlike the Microsoft Courier the Windows 8/RT tablets don't have a unique identity, and has had serious issues with being launched half baked.  The result being things that should have been picked up and fixed in testing, like having to try to use the desktop oriented Control Panel on their tablets, are things Microsoft will only sort of fix later this year.

The problem with Surface RT was that it never had a long term future , at some point an affordable Windows Tablet with an Intel SOC would have come along - whether that was Baytrail or the next gen and then RT would be dead in the water. Who at that point, who would want a compromised OS that didn't let you run a greater range of windows apps when you had the choice to do so with a similiarly priced Windows/Intel alternative.
Who wants pay a premium to buy a Windows tablet with inferior hardware and extremely limited storage to try to use desktop applications with a touch screen said applications were never designed for and thus will lead to issues when they can get a form factor they're designed for?  Exactly what are you imagining running that'd actually justify this?

Stuff developed for Metro would run on both RT and x86 under Microsoft's concept, which leaves desktop applications that aren't designed for Metro or touch interfaces.

Who would even develop for it at that point.
Microsoft was pushing .Net for app development.  You might want to check into the ramifications of that decision.

To reverse your own question who wants to develop for Metro?
 
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^ Pay  a premium?, Intel Baytrail SOCs will be competively priced with ARM.  Point in question, look at the upcoming Toshiba Encore which has a Baytrail SOC, Windows 8.1 and Office all included for $330.  

The point is that apps can be developed to run on a tablet whether that's the x86 tablet with W8 or an ARM tablet with W8 RT. Given the pricing for these tablets will be similiar , I see no reason for both to coexist - One will win out , and the other will be scrapped.  Odds on, as most people expect, it will be RT that is scrapped due to the perceived benefits of x86 .  Even if most x86 don't run well on a tablet, its that perception that rings in peoples minds. It will also be easier for a dev to get a x86 desktop app onto a x86 tablet than it would be to get it going on an RT tablet - ie for x86, a tablet UI would need to be developed whereas the development for RT would also include porting it across to ARM along with developing a tablet UI.
 
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^ Pay  a premium?, Intel Baytrail SOCs will be competively priced with ARM.  Point in question, look at the upcoming Toshiba Encore which has a Baytrail SOC, Windows 8.1 and Office all included for $330. 
You're referencing an unreleased platform with hardware analogous to the original Nexus 7, ignoring the blue silicon, that's more expensive then the Nexus 7 FHD.  How is this supposed to prove something about the Z3770's tray price versus all ARM vendors, or forward the notion these x86 platforms don't have inferior hardware to what's available in ARM space? 

The Z3770 I might note we know very little about at this point, but what I do have indicates a SDP of 2W and turbo consumtion of 7W which points to why battery life is strategically not mentioned with the news release.
 
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^ Intel have mentioned in past articles that Baytrail will be priced aggressively in line with competing ARM SOCs.  

BTW, The HW in the Encore is not the equal of the original N7.  The HW of the Encore beats the original N7 hands down.  

It also compares favourably with the 32gb $269 aggresively priced FHD N7, the only thing going for the FHD N7 is the FHD screen. The next gen SOC and  uSD slot favour the Encore as does its inclusion of Office.  All in all , there is nothing pointing to Baytrail being more expensive than current gen ARM SOCs like the T4 or S800

As for battery life, Intel have said it will be comparable, I'm not totally confident in that claim by a long shot , we will need to see when the tests come out for these devices.  The only thing that has come out is the Cinebech benchmark at 1.47 which obviously looks very good indeed, but again even for this I will want to see some real life tests and further independant benchmarks.
 
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Anyway, apologies for the off topic discussion.  

Back on topic 

It looks like the price difference in Australia between the PS4 and Xbox 1 is only $50, which is odd.  I get the feeling Xbox 1 sales might be better down under because of this.  

Don't know if the margin between the two is equally small in other countries outside the US?
 
Are you getting free games? I know most of Europe is getting Fifa or Forza 5 in some form for launch machines, maybe you're getting a price reduction instead?

I'd imagine there'll be a wave of confusing offers as the marketing machine kicks in, obscuring the relative differences between the two, price and spec wise.
 
EDGE magazine fans the flames of the spec wars:

http://www.edge-online.com/news/power-struggle-the-real-differences-between-ps4-and-xbox-one-performance/

PlayStation 4 is currently around 50 per cent faster than its rival Xbox One. Multiple high-level game development sources have described the difference in performance between the consoles as “significant” and “obvious.”

One basic example we were given suggested that without optimisation for either console, a platform-agnostic development build can run at around 30FPS in 1920×1080 on PS4, but it’ll run at “20-something” FPS in 1600×900 on Xbox One. “Xbox One is weaker and it’s a pain to use its ESRAM,” concluded one developer.
As discussed on NeoGaf:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=676989

Worth keeping an eye on, as 'Major Nelson' has been posting on Gaf lately, defending the specification differences. With devs commenting this way before launch, things could get ugly.
 
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Hopefully whichever console is more efficient at running games will not be held back by the lower spec machine.
 
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