Xbox Hardware Director Asks Why Fans Even Want to Know Console Specs Right Now

[ctdc67]

What if it’s a small engine with a light chassis? If you look at consoles like the GameCube, it was pretty much a Lotus Elise.

If you put a Hennessey engine in an Elise it would ruin your argument.

 

[Northstar]

Because it be completely silly and clueless

Congrats, you just described 99% of customers!

 

[Jtheripper]

Lol maybe hehe. And to say 8k is..meaningless, draw and display a triangle at 8k?..great. If it means run current gen-like games at 8k, ok but who wants new gen games to be just current gen games at 8k, not me.

 

[tunaphis]

I would argue that with our current level of available information gamers absorb spec's without even realizing,Caring might be another matter.
Many a politician has paid the price for thinking the general populous aren't aware.
So @Northstar if you think 99/100 will buy blindly then your comment is just as uninformed as the chap who at this very moment is under going a crash pr course.

 

[Suzumiya]

For core gamers specs are really huge. I get that specs doesn't equal the amount of fun, but you're giving customers a way to get the latest PC top end stuff without the setup. You'd be surprised how much people really don't want to go through getting a PC, even prebuilt, just because they're afraid they might break it.

 

[Jtheripper]

I also wish the lowest spec machine to be as high as can so that even if devs focus on the lowest common denominator they will still be able to push all aspects of games in new gen as much as possible.

 

[redhed17]

Maybe he wants no interest in his product! If you market that a product is this many times faster than this or that, or can do games in 4k, 8k or whatever then telling people the specs can confirm, but I think more importantly, put cold water on what is (probably) possible.

If he really can't understand why people are interested though, then he is a bit dim. Obviously he isn't, so this is just another step in the marketing strategy to keep the XBox being talked about, and it's working. And it signals, if it needed to be said, that they will not be disclosing anything any time soon whether it makes a difference or not. Sony haven't even shown the box the PS5 is going to come in! And them keeping their console in the news is revealing the logo! The design of which, surprised surprised no one.

Most people will have little interest, but there will some that do, and that is why the speculation will continue.

I understand that each manufacturer will want any advantage they can, and will hold their cards close to their chests for as long as possible, but I think the specs may be locked in, and too late to make any meaningful changes, so telling people may make no difference. Unless your specs are worse than the opposition. From the little I have seen about either consoles specs, the XBox whatever it is called is speculated as maybe having an edge.

To compare it to cars, manufacturers will show you the specs and the body (case ) and that is what gets (some) people excited, but it is the reviews of the final product that counts when it comes to buying, and that will be what the games look like in this case, especially when it comes to the same game on both platforms. The 'movie trailers' will be what the games look like, without the 'not actual game footage' disclaimer.

 

[GT Kelv]

If they are asking questions like that they need to find another company to work for. Especially asking such a question to potential buyers.

 

[TheCrazySwede]

It's an interesting point. Do fans truly care about, and base purchasing decisions on, if a console has a 10TFLOP or a 12TFLOP GPU?

And would it matter if it's the only option it comes with? If Playstation released 3 different PS5's at the same time and they all performed relatively the same; that's when the details matter. You want to know what differentiates three products that do pretty much the same thing.

But if the differences between them were drastic, then you can simply say "This one does 1080p, this one does 4K and this one does 8K" and be done with it. The end result is what matters cause it's not like you can swap parts on it like a PC. I've never heard of someone who wanted to play Zelda, but instead bought an XBox cause it had better specs.

 

[GTV0819]

This hardware director probably thinks that folks are better off buying modern powerful PCs because several games going to be made for the next Xbox are also going to be available for Windows, eventually.

 

[Joey D]

I want to know the specs so I can see how much better my PC is #humblebrag

But really, I don't really care about the specs unless they are groundbreaking in some way. I don't really foresee this next generation of consoles with a massive leap. Between the PS2/Xbox to the PS3/360, there was a huge leap. But going from the PS3/360 to the PS4/One it was less of a noticeable jump (even if technically speaking, it was). I have to imagine this round of consoles will be similar since we're not really seeing 8K TVs at a price point where the average consumer can pick them up.

My biggest question is what will the FPS be on the consoles and can it hold it consistently? 60FPS is the absolute minimum in my opinion and ideally, the new consoles should shoot for 120fps with their AAA titles. Past that, I know the console will probably do 4K, with 8K a real possibility. It'll probably have a good deal of RAM, a big hard drive, etc. as well, so I'm not overly fused about that.

I'm still undecided on whether or not I'm going to bother with the new consoles though. The specs will certainly help me make that decision because if I can just spend $600 putting some new bits in my PC instead of spending $600 on a console, that makes more sense to me.

 

[rronak95]

To me, this is like asking why a car buyer would want to know about the specs of a car before purchasing it...
While most people have probably already made their mind up, it doesn't hurt to know about the specs of a new device.

 

[BrazilRules]

His comment is actually really relevant since people don't buy consoles based on specs, they do based on exclusives.

If someone cares so much about specs, they would be buying a PC instead.

And don't come with this crap about choosing whether to buy the console or PC parts. If you want to play a game that is only available on that console, you will buy the console. If all the console's games will come to PC, you would never buy the console, even if the specs are "enough".

 

[Terronium-12]

Meanwhile, you have something like me that wants to know the specs for the nerdery of it. Show me clock speeds, the fab process, hell, show me the floorplan and how everything communicates.

But then I guess I'm far from being in the norm.

 

[Lukanyon]

His comment is actually really relevant since people don't buy consoles based on specs, they do based on exclusives.

This!

 

[GTV0819]

His comment is actually really relevant since people don't buy consoles based on specs, they do based on exclusives.

If someone cares so much about specs, they would be buying a PC instead.

And don't come with this crap about choosing whether to buy the console or PC parts. If you want to play a game that is only available on that console, you will buy the console. If all the console's games will come to PC, you would never buy the console, even if the specs are "enough".

Well, for some people, they think buying a console just for the sake of playing a very few amount of exclusive titles isn't a great investment..

 

[Joey D]

And don't come with this crap about choosing whether to buy the console or PC parts. If you want to play a game that is only available on that console, you will buy the console. If all the console's games will come to PC, you would never buy the console, even if the specs are "enough".

Consoles have their uses, mainly for most people they are way easier to set up in their living room. Yes, I could hook my PC to my TV, but that's a pain. With a console, I just grab the controller off the coffee table and start playing. This is pretty much the reason I think the Nintendo Switch is the best of all the consoles out right now, it's super easy to use along with its excellent catalog of exclusives.

With the PS/Xbox, the exclusives are few and far between. With the next generation, I'm not sure there will be any Xbox exclusives since it looks like Microsoft will release them all on the PC as well. Even the PS's exclusive list is starting to dwindle. One of it's biggest exclusives, MLB The Show, is no longer going to be exclusive. I have to imagine others will follow this path as well. And it makes sense if you think about it. Games are super expensive to make, so allowing more people to buy them just increases the profit margins. We know consoles aren't really a money maker.

So if the specs on a console are enough for me to justify the price, instead of putting that same amount of money into an updated GPU, then I'll probably be swayed to a console.

 

[GTV0819]

That's why some consoles going to be released in the future are now having a proper implementation of backwards compatibility for games from the past generations so that they would stay attractive to gamers. Otherwise, there could be not that much success. Plus a lot of new games that attract these gamers are mostly online so maybe that's also something to consider but at least there are lots of choices here.

 

[05XR8]

I know I don't care about the internals. My main purchasing requirements are: Does it have a good racing game, that I want, in its library? Yes? I'm buying.

 

[Lukanyon]

I know I don't care about the internals. My main purchasing requirements are: Does it have a good racing game, that I want, in its library? Yes? I'm buying.

That's the way I'll do as well. Good racing game = good console.

 

[GTV0819]

I know I don't care about the internals. My main purchasing requirements are: Does it have a good racing game, that I want, in its library? Yes? I'm buying.

Of course, there will still be exceptions for some and it's not a bad thing.

 

[Zipperface]

As long the games are good and run in 4k 60fps as standard, they could build the console from used paper, a handful of copper and duct tape. But more power is always good, this things have to survive 6-7 years.

 

[danimac]

When is comes to PC, Xbox, PS, Cars, Mobile Phones I always want to know the specs it’s just part of the exciting for me. Plus knowing what’s under the hood and what it could potentially do performance wise. Nintendo on the other hand are probably the ones who don’t care too much about the specs heheh

 

[BadFlounder]

What an absurd take from this Microsoft guy. That’s like buying a brand new car but not wanting to know much about the engine before taking it home.

Buyer: “This one looks sleek. I’ll take it.”
Dealer: “Don’t you want to know more information about the engine?”
Buyer: “Nah. Surprise me. I guess I’ll find out after I’ve spent a ton of money and taken it home.”

 

[05XR8]

20-25 years ago, sure. Dreamcast had 128-bit graphics and Nintendo and PS were at 64-bit. PS used however many pixels for their games. There was a difference. Today, there is no difference to the naked eye. A console can basically be judged by its games. Some people will buy any console with Zelda. Some people will buy any console with Gran Turismo. Some will buy any console with Toe jam & Earl.

 

[TJ13]

A console can basically be judged by its games. Some people will buy any console with Zelda. Some people will buy any console with Gran Turismo. Some will buy any console with Forza Horizon/Motorsports.

If consoles were like gaming PC's and say Xbox was Intel and PS was AMD then everything would change but since now days it's all trying to be on par with each other so it's not like one console is better than the others (except in those exclusive only games)

Even today the difference between systems back then and now it's changed but from year to year now not so much.
So what if we have 1080p at 30/60 fps and we can go to 8k 120 fps yes if we can have tvs that are able to do 120 hz that is in a normal tv size for 8k and doesn't cost a few thousand then yes.

Maybe soon we'll all have huge microLED TVs all over our main walls and able to stream 8k content with no issues and maybe up to 360 hz.

I think to me,
Releasing specs and then finding out they used a 2017 chipset version when they could of used a 2019 one, or anything like that
The diehard spec fans would want to know everything.

I don't care as long as I can play some ATV off-road fury on my PS5 then I am happy as is.

 

[NLxAROSA]

What an absurd take from this Microsoft guy. That’s like buying a brand new car but not wanting to know much about the engine before taking it home.

The average buyer will be more interested in how fast it goes, how much it consumes and how reliable it is rather than being interested in what exact engine, turbo, ECU, drivetrain etc. is under the hood. You and me are probably not the average buyers.

 

[Famine]

What an absurd take from this Microsoft guy. That’s like buying a brand new car but not wanting to know much about the engine before taking it home.

Buyer: “This one looks sleek. I’ll take it.”
Dealer: “Don’t you want to know more information about the engine?”
Buyer: “Nah. Surprise me. I guess I’ll find out after I’ve spent a ton of money and taken it home.”

In this analogy, Microsoft has told you the performance figures and fuel economy, and this guy is wondering why you'd want to know the bore and stroke, ignition timing, or injector flow rate...

... 11 months before you buy the car. And half of all buyers have already decided to buy it.


Someone earlier mentioned 99% of buyers don't actually care. I'm not totally sold on the number plucked from the sky, but if you asked 100 PS4 owners what type of RAM their console has, would you get more than one or two correct answers? How about the processor clock speed? There's 106m PS4s out there - would nearly 1.1m owners know the full console specs?

I'm not too sure they will - and that feeds into Prien's point: if they don't know the technical specs of a console they already own, why would they want to know them for a console they don't yet own, is nearly a year away, and half of them have already decided they'll buy?

 

[tunaphis]

Not alot of credit being shown towards console owners atm,When Nvidia released their RTX range how many pc gamers bought a card without research?

 

[redhed17]

Someone earlier mentioned 99% of buyers don't actually care. I'm not totally sold on the number plucked from the sky, but if you asked 100 PS4 owners what type of RAM their console has, would you get more than one or two correct answers? How about the processor clock speed? There's 106m PS4s out there - would nearly 1.1m owners know the full console specs?

The thing about those '1.1m' is those are the ones talking about the new consoles on places like this, those are ones creating and perpetuating the 'buzz' at a time of little solid information. Those are ones talking to their colleagues at work, who are not really into games, but listens to this guy because he really is. Those are the ones that may be swayed if this console is better in some way than the other one. They may also be some of the ones who buy both consoles, but may be swayed by the one that looks better value at launch, and buy the other one down the line at some point. If this M$ guy genuinely believes this, then he has no clue. imho.

But as I said earlier, it's probably another step in the hype machine.

And going back to the car analogy, if Ferrari said we have this new car coming out, here's what is looks like. It will also do 0-60mph in 3 seconds, 200mph and does 20 miles per gallon. That is all the info you get. Now whether that car is petrol, naturally aspirated, turbo, V6, V8, V10, V12, turbo diesel, wankel, electric, hybrid, whatever combination of that, could have a big effect on those who really care about Ferrari's. Yes my Ferrari can do 0-60 in 3 seconds, 200mph and does 20 miles per gallon, but it is a turbo diesel electric hybrid. The box, sorry body, was lovely though when they showed it to me last year when I ordered it.