News - Next Xbox will be “Always On, Always Connected”

[HalloweenJack]

Sony can change there tune - if EA start giving them `opinions` about it (ala nintendo)

[watercooled]

And lose one of the major FPS consoles? And by the looks of it, the less 'casual' of the two consoles. Nintendo is more of a casual platform and likely far less of a loss for EA.

[Lucio]

Any time the manufacturer advertises a feature as "always on" then the software developers will assume it's there and working and build in no redundancy for failure!

[hero1]

I think they mean that even thought your will be offline, your system will still maintain a low power state where if there's an update then it can turn on by itself and install it without troubling you. I would like that idea. I have it for my PC and it works wonders.

[Anth]

My magic 8ball just threw something interesting out. The PS4 will win this coming format war hands down. Not sure what caused it to thing that....

Or should I say Microsoft clearly don't know what would cause that.

[McPhee]

Aside from that, it's bound to add a fair chunk to the sale price even for people who want nothing to do with the arm-wave-detection-system e.g. myself and almost everyone I know on XBL. Kinect not selling well enough? Make it mandatory for the next system to force it onto everyone so we can add silly features to more games without having to program an alternative input.

I agree, a lot of the 'features' are just shortcomings that marketing have put a positive spin on.

@scaryjim: I hadn't really thought of that but yeah that could be a problem. Whereas now you can have your most frequently games installed, and run other stuff from disc, would you have to persevere with stupid-long install times if you like to hop between a lot of games, or just feel like re-visiting an older title?

I mean I get that the access time and transfer speed of optical media isn't great, and is even an obvious problem with some current gen games (texture popping when not installed, for example) but storage space isn't unlimited. Still, just because they have 25-50GB available, I don't expect many titles will come close to filling that, at least initially.

@HalloweenJack: Sony have already said the PS4 will not be using draconian DRM, I see little reason to remain online in light of that? Auto-updates and quick boot are just excuses, they're not worth constantly staying online for - updates should take all of a few minutes* and if it needs to stay powered on for boot time to be reasonable then that's down to incompetence of the software team.

*Also, they could be downloaded and scheduled when the console is powered on, to install on next shutdown, or to nag the user after a timeout period if they stay online for ages.

The great thing about consoles is hardware standardisation. It's what sets them apart from PCs - the console has a standard set of specifications and equipment, and the developer knows that all of this can be utilised in their game. Kinect is, at present, a peripheral. It's also mortally flawed, in that it isn't accurate enough to do anything more advanced than Kinect Sports and needs a massive play area. If they iron out the kinks and bundle it in with the console, we should start seeing genuinely interesting ideas and Kinect should start to deliver on its initial promise - it shouldn't just be about arm waving and jumping around. Steel Battalion was a decent 'proof of concept' in this regard, even if the controls were horrific (steep learning curve and fiddly due to Kinect inaccuracies).

On the second point - games can be played instantly, while installing. With that in mind, where's the problem with finite storage space? They could even have the console manage the storage itself with no input needed from the user - just remove the oldest/least played disk-installed game when more storage is needed. It has the potential to be quite an elegant solution - the advantages of both disk-based and install solutions.

On the final point, currently people have to download updates when they switch the console on, or when they go to play a game/use an app. How many switch the TV off while the download is happening? How much power is that TV using while you wait for the update to download? What are you doing while the update is downloading? Switched the TV to another channel? Using your computer? Is the console in an idle state while downloading?
The 'Always on. Always connected.' solution sounds like it could be quite elegant. Let's say there's a map pack due out for your favourite FPS at midnight tonight. Under the current system, you'd probably buy and download it tomorrow - waiting 'patiently' for it to download. Under this new system, you could pre-order it, and at midnight the download would start automatically. This means it's ready for you the next day, with no waiting around, and the download isn't hogging your Internet connection at a time when other people in the house are likely trying to use it. If they can get idle power usage down then it could have a net positive effect.

As long as 'Always on. Always connected.' isn't a requirement, IMHO it's a great system. Pretty sure the Wii acts this way too and it's so much better than the 360's updates system (and potebtiaply could be used for other things, e.g. social network updates, join game requests). If you don't want it and it's not needed, great! On my slow, countryside Internet connection, it would definitely get used.

[watercooled]

I know where you're coming from with mandatory Kinect, but I'm yet to be convinced its of any use for a lot of mainstream games. Stuff besides body motion detection could be more useful, maybe stuff like eye tracking, gesture swiping for example. Still, I wonder how much cost the extra hardware adds and if it's worth if for a lot of people? Personally, I'm not overly keen on having a MS-controlled, Internet-enabled camera/mic facing permanently into private space. I wonder if we'll see any security catastrophes with this?

For the later points, I guess we'll have to wait and see how they're implemented as the best-case and worst-case scenarios have some distance between them.

However, if play-while-installing is allowed, why not just allow disc play in the first place, even if it harms load times but warns the user? Maybe they want to keep load times equal for online play, which is understandable, but in that case, playing-while-installing presumably wouldn't be allowed, or it defeats the purpose. Hopefully they implement some sort of de-duplication for this generation - on the 360, some stuff is obviously copied to HDD multiple times with multi-disc games for example. IIRC, another example would be the BF3 'high-res textures' which need to be installed to disk separately, but the installed game disk is still full size.

As for the always-on thing, the debate is very dependant on what power consumption turns out like, and if it's configurable. But the system doesn't need to be constantly 'on' to do anything I've seen suggested - downloads/updates/etc can be scheduled, and the background hardware could even wake every few hours to phone home. As I said, current consoles have terrible idle power consumption (barely different to load consumption), so it's not really fair to compare.

[Thwaite]

I think some kind of hot-swap hard drive bay/dock type-thingy might be useful for this.

[Saracen]

If the always on connection is *required*, my interest in XB720 will cease, right there. I will not buy a machine with that requirement. But I'm not yet convinced it will be required.

As for Kinect, a lot would depend on what it's capable of, and what it costs. By which I mean, if it's bundled, what does it add to the cost, so what does the console end up costing? If it's significantly more than the current price point, then again, my interest ceases.

[jimbouk]

Personally, I'm not overly keen on having a MS-controlled, Internet-enabled camera/mic facing permanently into private space. I wonder if we'll see any security catastrophes with this?

Safety first boys and girls:

[wayn3h]

This 'leak' is over 80 days old and is most likely woefully inaccurate. Clickbaiting headline much???

[davesom555]

This 'leak' is over 80 days old and is most likely woefully inaccurate. Clickbaiting headline much???

Yeah perhaps since then they've learnt something from seeing the simcity online fiasco...

[CK_1985]

This 'leak' is over 80 days old and is most likely woefully inaccurate. Clickbaiting headline much???

Personally, Hexus is the only tech site I read and hence until they published this I had no idea about this story - so I'm glad they did, as I found it very interesting - accurate or not.

Don't see who they're harming by reporting this? If you're not interested, don't read it.

[Smudger]

Always on? Mandatory Kinect? Big Brother is watching! What if you want to 'cuddle' on the couch?

Has anyone checked the specs to see if a "Las-ER" is included that could brainwash us all? Or suck our souls into the internet? This is a serious issue!

[crossy]

Still, I wonder how much cost the extra hardware adds and if it's worth if for a lot of people? Personally, I'm not overly keen on having a MS-controlled, Internet-enabled camera/mic facing permanently into private space. I wonder if we'll see any security catastrophes with this?

Presumably if every Durango comes with this Kinect then the economies of scale come into play and the additional cost will be minimal. The current Kinect can be had for less than £50, so surely it's reasonable to expect no more than a £20-30 uplift on the new console?

As to the camera, either MS could ship with a privacy shutter on the camera - laws in some countries might actually force that. Or it's a good opportunity for 3rd parties assuming that you don't take "jimbouk's" suggestion of a piece of sticky tape!

If the always on connection is *required*, my interest in XB720 will cease, right there. I will not buy a machine with that requirement. But I'm not yet convinced it will be required.

I'm not convinced that the "always connected" is necessarily true either - after all Steam etc have "offline" modes. It also begs the question about those folks who have poor/shared connections - to say that they then aren't suitable customers for the new console seems like commercial stupidity. Not something I'd assume that Microsoft would do - if for no other reason than it'd give a unassailable advantage to Sony.

Personally, Hexus is the only tech site I read and hence until they published this I had no idea about this story - so I'm glad they did, as I found it very interesting - accurate or not.

Hexus is not the only tech site on my bookmarks, but it's the most important. This is because the others tend to play host to a lot of that kind of uninformed fan boy argument that I find annoying. And while there are undoubtedly "fans" of various kinds on Hexus (Apple, Android, Sony, XBox, AMD, Intel, NVidia, etc) on the whole the "discussions" are kept polite and fact-based. It's actually one of the few News sites that I'd be prepared to pay a subscription for.

[Smudger]

It's actually one of the few News sites that I'd be prepared to pay a subscription for.

Sshhhh! Don't tell them that!