Does the Xbox Scorpio Posses any real threat to the PC Market

[Zolthan]

Hey Guys,

Well, I suppose the title asks it all. Do you all think that the "Xbox Scorpio" that Phil Spencer announced at E3 will have any real threat to PC gaming?

I honestly don't think so, because if the Scorpio has the graphics power to run at 4k, It will probably be at a premium price just like any PC capable of running

4K graphics, Kind of eliminating that whole argument from the console side that the value is there.

 

I'd love to know what you all think, and whether or not you think the Scorpio has any real place in a market where 4k is still relegated to high end PC's.

 

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/project-scorpio

[NinjaJc01]

42 minutes ago, Zolthan said:

Hey Guys,

Well, I suppose the title asks it all. Do you all think that the "Xbox Scorpio" that Phil Spencer announced at E3 will have any real threat to PC gaming?

I honestly don't think so, because if the Scorpio has the graphics power to run at 4k, It will probably be at a premium price just like any PC capable of running

4K graphics, Kind of eliminating that whole argument from the console side that the value is there.

 

I'd love to know what you all think, and whether or not you think the Scorpio has any real place in a market where 4k is still relegated to high end PC's.

 

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/project-scorpio

It'll certainly be interesting to see the pricing!

[Zolthan]

1 minute ago, NinjaJc01 said:

It'll certainly be interesting to see the pricing!

For sure! If it is anything higher than 1,000 USD, Phil Spencer and Xbox will really have to push for sales from the console market!

[NinjaJc01]

1 minute ago, Zolthan said:

For sure! If it is anything higher than 1,000 USD, Phil Spencer and Xbox will really have to push for sales from the console market!

But I know some console gamers with more money than sense, the sort of people who put like £100 into FIFA coins and packs, and buy games on X360, XBone and PS4. They'll probably buy one.

[Zolthan]

2 minutes ago, NinjaJc01 said:

But I know some console gamers with more money than sense, the sort of people who put like £100 into FIFA coins and packs, and buy games on X360, XBone and PS4. They'll probably buy one.

Very true. That is something to consider.

[NinjaJc01]

2 minutes ago, Zolthan said:

Very true. That is something to consider.

There's a whole market of people like that... I have managed to persuade one of them into PC gaming though.

[jslowik]

The differences between consoles and PCs are becoming so nuanced I'm not sure for how much longer we'll be able to talk about them as two different "markets". Especially as more and more games go cross platform for their online multiplayer components.

 

I do agree with you though, I don't think this will have any long term effect on the PC market. It is, after all, still a console. We PC enthusiasts know what that means.

 

On a side note, I think the hype train is full steam ahead on this one. I am personally inclined to believe the hardware will disappoint when it finally arrives. I've been wrong before though.

[AresKrieger]

It may be worth it, but only if they are selling at a loss or just breaking even, otherwise they won't hit the mainstream pricing range (assuming their performance metrics stated are accurate), but given how desperate microsoft is in the gaming market I could see them trying to put something on par with a 980ti/1070 into one of their boxes which would run 4k around 30fps if they thought it could revive their market share.

[agent_x007]

4k @ 30FPS = 2560x1440 @ 60FPS = 1080 @ 120FPS
So... yeah 4k not so much (at least not in AAA games), 1080 @ 60 FPS (or in VR) = OK - that I can belive.

4k requires most powerfull card you can buy at one time (1070/1080 at the moment).
You can't get those in console power target, ie. they can't run 4k better than PC's.

[Zolthan]

1 minute ago, jslowik said:

The differences between consoles and PCs are becoming so nuanced I'm not sure for how much longer we'll be able to talk about them as two different "markets". Especially as more and more games go cross platform for their online multiplayer components.

 

I do agree with you though, I don't think this will have any long term effect on the PC market. It is, after all, still a console. We PC enthusiasts know what that means.

 

On a side note, I think the hype train is full steam ahead on this one. I am personally inclined to believe the hardware will disappoint when it finally arrives. I've been wrong before though.

I totally agree with you! I think that it is very good for everybody if the Console vs. PC thing subsides, but at the end of the day I will always like PC's. But yeah, This one will probably be a bit too over priced or lacking in performance and flop.

[Mr.Meerkat]

Nope, remember how people accepted the PS3 back in 2006? People found it to be way too expensive for a console ($600) which was why the 360 had an early success like the PS4 as it was cheaper than the counterpart.

[0ld_Chicken]

this also says "holiday 2017"..... so its 18 months away.  there'll probably be 11xx/5xx series out by then 

[TetraSky]

Run 4k? Certainly not games at 4k... Or at the very least, only things like 2D games.

The 4k capability is mainly for movies and not games, no?

 

I see no threat here by this new console. By the time it comes out, it will already be more than outdated by a current gen PC, I doubt the GPU in it will be any better than that $200 RX 480 from AMD.

[jslowik]

2 minutes ago, Mr.Meerkat said:

Nope, remember how people accepted the PS3 back in 2006? People found it to be way too expensive for a console ($600) which was why the 360 had an early success like the PS4 as it was cheaper than the counterpart.

An excellent point. Without solid pricing info we're just speculating obviously, but I think you're spot on there.

 

At this point I have to believe to be successful the product would have to be enticing enough to get people to purchase another console rather than just using what they have. I wonder if this can be successful since there's no way they'd also alienate current owners by allowing games to not be compatible with both SKUs. Then you'd probably irritate the Scorpio owners by not fully utilizing the hardware they paid a premium for. I'm kind of curious to see how this all plays out after reading everyone's thoughts here.

[Zolthan]

23 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

Run 4k? Certainly not games at 4k... Or at the very least, not very demanding games.

The 4k capability is mainly for movies and not games, no?

I believe you are thinking about the Xbox 1S. The Scorpio plays games at 4k, while the 1S can play movies and videos at 4k.

 

22 minutes ago, jslowik said:

An excellent point. Without solid pricing info we're just speculating obviously, but I think you're spot on there.

 

At this point I have to believe to be successful the product would have to be enticing enough to get people to purchase another console rather than just using what they have. I wonder if this can be successful since there's no way they'd also alienate current owners by allowing games to not be compatible with both SKUs. Then you'd probably irritate the Scorpio owners by not fully utilizing the hardware they paid a premium for. I'm kind of curious to see how this all plays out after reading everyone's thoughts here.

Very true. The two tier pricing model has never really worked with consoles, so I'm not sure whether this will work out or not.

[Mr.Meerkat]

1 minute ago, Zolthan said:

Very true. The two tier pricing model has never really worked with consoles, so I'm not sure whether this will work out or not.

Technically it has but it's always been how much storage space it has or whether it includes wifi out of the box or not but never how powerful the CPU and GPU is  

[Jacktastic-Mofo]

You guys also have to remember that console games are made way better than PC games, the spend a lot more time making sure that the game works perfectly on the hardware it's designed for. That makes it very easy to believe that a console coming out in 1.5 years will have the ability to play games at 4k 30fps / 60fps.

[Zolthan]

2 minutes ago, Mr.Meerkat said:

Technically it has but it's always been how much storage space it has or whether it includes wifi out of the box or not but never how powerful the CPU and GPU is  

Yeah I guess I kindof forgot about storage, but I was mainly talking about the clock speeds and CPU/GPU/Memory specs 

[jslowik]

5 minutes ago, Jacktastic-Mofo said:

You guys also have to remember that console games are made way better than PC games, the spend a lot more time making sure that the game works perfectly on the hardware it's designed for.

They can be optimized for the hardware, sure. This is kind of the same argument as the Mac/PC one. More optimized for specific hardware does not necessarily mean "made better". Your point is valid though. For someone that just wants gaming, and doesn't mind paying a premium for it while not having the utility of a PC this could be a good seller. I only question how big that market actually is.

 

We only have to look to the PS3 to see that superior hardware doesn't always make for a better gameplay experience. I understand there was more to that issue than the current one, but I think that it's moderately applicable to the situation.

[Mr.Meerkat]

2 minutes ago, Jacktastic-Mofo said:

You guys also have to remember that console games are made way better than PC games, the spend a lot more time making sure that the game works perfectly on the hardware it's designed for. That makes it very easy to believe that a console coming out in 1.5 years will have the ability to play games at 4k 30fps / 60fps.

Well a 390 more than powerful enough for gaming at 4K if you're not expecting ultra settings so a slightly cut down polaris 10 GPU is probably enough to play games at 4K absoultely lowest settings at decent FPS so you know  

 

2 minutes ago, Zolthan said:

Yeah I guess I kindof forgot about storage, but I was mainly talking about the clock speeds and CPU/GPU/Memory specs 

Yea yea I know but it's never been the actual hardware powering the consoles...like there's been hard drive storage, wifi, card readers and other shizzle but never the most important bit of the console...

[Jacktastic-Mofo]

1 minute ago, jslowik said:

They can be optimized for the hardware, sure. This is kind of the same argument as the Mac/PC one. More optimized for specific hardware does not necessarily mean "made better".

 

We only have to look to the PS3 to see that superior hardware doesn't always make for a better gameplay experience. I understand there was more to that issue than the current one, but I think that it's moderately applicable to the situation.

That's not what I'm saying, if you look at an application like final cut pro which was made specifically for a certain set of mac hardware it performs SIGNIFICANTLY better than any PC alternative because it's optimized very well for the platform it's designed to run on.

 

1 minute ago, Mr.Meerkat said:

Well a 390 more than powerful enough for gaming at 4K if you're not expecting ultra settings so a slightly cut down polaris 10 GPU is probably enough to play games at 4K absoultely lowest settings at decent FPS so you know

Sure it is, but Microsoft is going to have a pretty beastly GPU in Scorpio, I'm very confident in this consoles ability to play games at 4k.

But like I've said multiple times already, OPTIMIZATION is why this is very possible.

[handymanshandle]

I don't think it'll threaten the PC market. I could see them doing a custom 8 or maybe 10 core Zen APU that the IGP would probably be cut down Polaris 11 or Vega 10. Seeing full Vega 10 or Polaris 11 seems highly unlikely unless they're going to have some good cooling on it.

[Zolthan]

10 minutes ago, Jacktastic-Mofo said:

That's not what I'm saying, if you look at an application like final cut pro which was made specifically for a certain set of mac hardware it performs SIGNIFICANTLY better than any PC alternative because it's optimized very well for the platform it's designed to run on.

 

Sure it is, but Microsoft is going to have a pretty beastly GPU in Scorpio, I'm very confident in this consoles ability to play games at 4k.

But like I've said multiple times already, OPTIMIZATION is why this is very possible.

But because Microsoft said that there would be no games that do not come out for both the Scorpio and 1S, don't you think that there might be some problems regarding to the optimization of both versions of the game? One version needs to work on one set of hardware, and one on a much beefier set at much higher resolution. Not that it could'nt be done, but some AAA devs are getting lazy. (EA)

 

6 minutes ago, wcreek said:

I don't think it'll threaten the PC market. I could see them doing a custom 8 or maybe 10 core Zen APU that the IGP would probably be cut down Polaris 11 or Vega 10. Seeing full Vega 10 or Polaris 11 seems highly unlikely unless they're going to have some good cooling on it.

At E3 Microsoft announced a full, discrete level GPU, If my memory does not deceive me.

[jslowik]

7 minutes ago, Jacktastic-Mofo said:

That's not what I'm saying, if you look at an application like final cut pro which was made specifically for a certain set of mac hardware it performs SIGNIFICANTLY better than any PC alternative because it's optimized very well for the platform it's designed to run on.

I know. That's exactly what I claimed you were saying . I'm just making the point that it's not necessarily "better", just optimized for specific hardware. So it's better, but only for that specific hardware if that makes sense.

 

A bridge can be optimized to withstand hurricane force winds, that doesn't always mean it's made better than one that isn't. Hopefully that analogy clarifies what I was trying to say a little better?

 

I don't disagree, it's really a question of semantics I guess.

 

EDIT- I also want to mention that it works the other way too. There are instances where a heavily optimized piece of software is ALSO made significantly better than competitors, as in your example.

[Trik'Stari]

Considering the literal millions of other things you can do with a gaming PC, besides gaming?

 

No. Not at all. Not to mention our games are still cheaper (on average), our machines have expandable storage, a better controller scheme, etc.