News Xbox boss Spencer: 'wrong decisions' were made

So this is a Microsoft exec interviewing another Microsoft exec...

Sure that sounds independent and not just a bit of self varnished well rehearsed publicity to bolster up a platform that is clearly not doing as well as they want.

Lighten up and open up a bit more guys and maybe your target audience will actually listen.

Allow boogie2988's Francis to interview a few execs and then colour me impressed.

 

Honest guv, one careful 10 year old owner and a full chipped history, runs like a goodun and never overheats...Well I wouldn't buy a used xbox from either of them

 

So...the only mistakes you admit to making were on the software side.

As far as I'm concerned the real issue was/is the appalling GPU inside the box....when your brand new console is struggling to run anything at 1080p in 2014, you know wrong choices have been made somewhere.....here's looking at you Mr Don 'I love Kinnect' Mattrick.

Putting out a 2014 console with a 128bit memory interface, 68GB bandwidth..seriously!!!

And yes I know that the eSRAM was supposed to make up the shortfall on the PS4, but the fact is, 32MB just isn't enough of it, to do that job without serious sacrifices being made.

 

I'm pretty sure the ESRAM is the only real problem. The hardware as a whole isn't too drastically different from PS4 yet I'm not aware of any PS4 titles limited to 720p (I'm not saying there aren't any, I just haven't heard of any). Not only was the ESRAM just a cheap way to solve a bigger issue, but it's difficult to develop for.

 

Once the horse has bolted you've got a hard job on your hands bringing it back.......

 

The only reason it's difficult to develop for is because it's too small...32MB just isn't enough to hold a 1080p frame buffer with nice amounts of shader effects and Anti Aliasing.

..it needed 64MB as an absolute minimum for it to do the job they were hoping for,

Of course it would have been cheaper to put in a PS4 level GPU than it would be to put 64MB of high speed eSRAM on the chip...DERP!!!

 

Microsoft made mistakes? WTF? I never imagined that could happen.

 

SOOKIE!!!!

 

Actually it's very easy, you just need a big enough carrot.

Speaking of which, let's start with $350 no-kinect edition please Microsoft.
Then lets move all the online features not connected to gaming (like Netflix etc) out from behind that XBL Gold paywall.
Then lets make the Game With Gold program something more than patronising lip service, how about Halo 4 and/or Anniversary as free downloadable Xbone titles.
Then let's subsidise the DLC pricing for Titanfall, half price for the season pass on Xbone.

That wouldn't necessarily motivate me to buy one, but it would make me look.

 

What you're saying to do is equally as hard as finding the carrot that is big enough to bring back the horse. Removing kinect isn't an option - MS is trying to promote the kinect as something that separates it from PS4. They want exclusive titles to take advantage of it. So what are people going to do when they don't have a kinect but they buy a game that is just simply categorized as "xbox one compatible"? That becomes a serious pain in the ass for both developers and MS.

MS makes deals with companies like Netflix. Why do you think Netflix used Silverlight for so long? Including it is in the interest of both companies, and considering the massive amount of Netflix users, it only makes sense to include it. Keep in mind, I don't own an Xbox or a Netflix account.

Also, you clearly don't understand how capitalism works if you think they'd give away free titles. Unlike EA, MS isn't struggling with their games. The only reason they'd give away stuff for free is if customers start walking away. This wasn't possible when they were first trying to release the console with all those nasty "features" because at the time, there were no games to give away.


I fully understand your demands, but you aren't looking at this in the company's perspective. It seems to me you're best off being a PS4 customer, or, maybe you should just get a used XB1 without the kinect if you want the exclusives.

 

What like under powered hardware?

 

Mr and Mrs average consumer know nothing about the hardware, they know the difference between $500 and $400 extremely well.

 

This. Funny how people forget the age old Nintendo tactic (Gamecube/Wii/3DS) of dropping the price to become competitive even though their RRP was a joke in comparison to the competition.

 

If I were a kid right now and my parents bought me a Xbone over a PS4 I would disown them.

 

the under powered hardware will get a boost, and possibly out perform ps4 when direct x 12 comes out.

 

I do remember the poor kid whose parents bought him a Dreamcast because the shop had run out of PlayStations. It may for all I know have been a great console but we all thought it was hilarious. He didn't get much joy out of the game swaps either.

 

Why when i read that did i hear the voice of Frankie Howerd in my head

 

Oooooh, matron!