Xbox Series X|S Thread - Power Your Dreams.

LewisD wrote:Re: The Xbox All Access deal, with Klarna and 24 months of Game Pass.

Is this likely to be a launch-window only type of deal, or likely to be an ongoing thing?

Denster wrote:On warzone. It's the cheats and hackers that have drawn ire. The Pc gamers are the culprits.
Absolutely no issues playing against xbox guys.
Keyboard and mouse speed is never the issue. It's the cheating little bitches that ruin it.

JChalmers wrote:Is there a time preorders are going live? Dreading having to find a website that doesn't crash to preorder. Especially as I want to get it from Smyths, Game or Argos ideally

JChalmers wrote:Is there a time preorders are going live? Dreading having to find a website that doesn't crash to preorder. Especially as I want to get it from Smyths, Game or Argos ideally

PatSharpsMullet wrote:

JChalmers wrote:Is there a time preorders are going live? Dreading having to find a website that doesn't crash to preorder. Especially as I want to get it from Smyths, Game or Argos ideally

Smyths didn't crash at all yesterday so they might be the safest bet. They only take the money 2-7 days before despatch too whereas Argos take it immediately. Also, Argos use Hermes so it will either be delivered to someone else, thrown over a wall, or not even put on the delivery van because they have too much to deliver.

Series S Game Sizes Will Be Smaller Than on Series X

In an interview with IGN, Xbox director of program management Jason Ronald confirmed that game install sizes will be approximately 30% smaller on the Series S than on the Series X. This is due to the reduced resolution texture packages needed for games on the Series S, which will be targeting 1440p resolution instead of 4K on the Series X.

“With a performance target of 1440p at 60 fps, our expectation is that developers will not ship their highest level mipmaps to Xbox Series S, which will reduce the size of the games,” Ronald said. “Ultimately the controls in the developer's hands. We've had this technology for a while that allows developers to intelligently choose which assets to install on which device they're playing on. So the flexibility is in the developers’ hands to make sure the right assets are there.”

twitter.com/shinobi602/status/1306580947236786176

PatSharpsMullet wrote:

JChalmers wrote:Is there a time preorders are going live? Dreading having to find a website that doesn't crash to preorder. Especially as I want to get it from Smyths, Game or Argos ideally

Smyths didn't crash at all yesterday so they might be the safest bet. They only take the money 2-7 days before despatch too whereas Argos take it immediately. Also, Argos use Hermes so it will either be delivered to someone else, thrown over a wall, or not even put on the delivery van because they have too much to deliver.

Mafro wrote:

The Alchemist Penguin wrote:

Venom wrote:I was thinking about trading both my consoles at the end of June to get the best price but thought it silly to be without a console for five months!

The Alchemist Penguin wrote:With such good back compat support, my plan was to trade in the previous consoles. Game are currently offering £220 for an Xbox One X, which is quite a tasty saving! Slightly terrified I'll trade stuff in and they'll go belly up though.

Is that Xbox One X price £220 cash, or money off a new console purchase?

It's £220 in credit, so either towards a new console or games, etc. The website says that you can get £198 cash for it though, which is also pretty good. That price depends on the condition of the console, if you've got the box, and all of that stuff though!

That's a great price considering Amazon were selling refurb One X for £175 the other week.

Exclusive: With the new Xbox, Microsoft unveils affordable design for the masses

“We think about our console as part of the environment you live in as our customer,” says Phil Spencer, executive vice president of gaming at Microsoft. “While there’s an opening of the box and you want that to be fantastic, once you put that console wherever you put it, we hope you never have to touch it again, hope you never have to hear from it again, and it just plays great games. . . . It’s not the center of attention.”

The engineering team had the notion, however, that the next Xbox could split the motherboard into two pieces (incidentally, the folding Motorola Razr remake launched in 2019 does the same thing). Such an architecture could fit inside a box that was thicker but less wide, kind of like we already see in hulking tower PCs. A single tornado of air could spin up through its center to cool the chips—which in turn would be able to produce 12 teraflops of processing power (2 teraflops more than the upcoming PS5). Little surprise, this mockup was dubbed “Tower,” according to Chris Kujawski, the Microsoft design principal who led the Xbox project.

“Eventually we get to the point where we have to make a decision. These will generally all work . . . we know they’ll cost about the same. But what we really wanna know is whether this is exciting and interesting to customers,” says Kujawski. So small teams of designers and user researchers took these models into customers’ homes in L.A., New York, and Chicago.

“We’d line up 10-12 in home visits. We talk about gaming in general, how they use their console, high-level stuff . . . then we always took measurements of their room, how far they sat from the TV, and temperature readings for a thermal study,” says Kujawski. “Then we’d unveil these crude boxes . . . without much context other than, if this were the shape of the next-gen console, what do you think?”

The tower won. Not just because its monolithic design was visually compelling, but because of proportions that are more practical than you might expect. It’s a big box in your hands, yes, akin to the size of a commercial toaster. But because it’s not extreme in any one dimension, it can fit on a shelf that’s a mere 8-inches deep.

JChalmers wrote:

PatSharpsMullet wrote:

JChalmers wrote:Is there a time preorders are going live? Dreading having to find a website that doesn't crash to preorder. Especially as I want to get it from Smyths, Game or Argos ideally

Smyths didn't crash at all yesterday so they might be the safest bet. They only take the money 2-7 days before despatch too whereas Argos take it immediately. Also, Argos use Hermes so it will either be delivered to someone else, thrown over a wall, or not even put on the delivery van because they have too much to deliver.

Cheers, with Argos I was hoping to do a collect from Store as I've got one in my local Sainsburys 10mins away from me so wouldn't have to worry about the Hermes issues. Smyths local store is about 15mins so that's not an issue either. Think it'll be midnight checking websites and then if not make sure i'm up early on Tuesday to get a preorder sorted.

Monkey Man wrote:Interview about the design of the consoles -

Exclusive: With the new Xbox, Microsoft unveils affordable design for the masses

“We think about our console as part of the environment you live in as our customer,” says Phil Spencer, executive vice president of gaming at Microsoft. “While there’s an opening of the box and you want that to be fantastic, once you put that console wherever you put it, we hope you never have to touch it again, hope you never have to hear from it again, and it just plays great games. . . . It’s not the center of attention.”

The engineering team had the notion, however, that the next Xbox could split the motherboard into two pieces (incidentally, the folding Motorola Razr remake launched in 2019 does the same thing). Such an architecture could fit inside a box that was thicker but less wide, kind of like we already see in hulking tower PCs. A single tornado of air could spin up through its center to cool the chips—which in turn would be able to produce 12 teraflops of processing power (2 teraflops more than the upcoming PS5). Little surprise, this mockup was dubbed “Tower,” according to Chris Kujawski, the Microsoft design principal who led the Xbox project.

“Eventually we get to the point where we have to make a decision. These will generally all work . . . we know they’ll cost about the same. But what we really wanna know is whether this is exciting and interesting to customers,” says Kujawski. So small teams of designers and user researchers took these models into customers’ homes in L.A., New York, and Chicago.

“We’d line up 10-12 in home visits. We talk about gaming in general, how they use their console, high-level stuff . . . then we always took measurements of their room, how far they sat from the TV, and temperature readings for a thermal study,” says Kujawski. “Then we’d unveil these crude boxes . . . without much context other than, if this were the shape of the next-gen console, what do you think?”

The tower won. Not just because its monolithic design was visually compelling, but because of proportions that are more practical than you might expect. It’s a big box in your hands, yes, akin to the size of a commercial toaster. But because it’s not extreme in any one dimension, it can fit on a shelf that’s a mere 8-inches deep.

https://www.fastcompany.com/90551216/ex ... the-masses

PatSharpsMullet wrote:

JChalmers wrote:

PatSharpsMullet wrote:

JChalmers wrote:Is there a time preorders are going live? Dreading having to find a website that doesn't crash to preorder. Especially as I want to get it from Smyths, Game or Argos ideally

Smyths didn't crash at all yesterday so they might be the safest bet. They only take the money 2-7 days before despatch too whereas Argos take it immediately. Also, Argos use Hermes so it will either be delivered to someone else, thrown over a wall, or not even put on the delivery van because they have too much to deliver.

Cheers, with Argos I was hoping to do a collect from Store as I've got one in my local Sainsburys 10mins away from me so wouldn't have to worry about the Hermes issues. Smyths local store is about 15mins so that's not an issue either. Think it'll be midnight checking websites and then if not make sure i'm up early on Tuesday to get a preorder sorted.

Argos don't do collection for pre-orders, only home delivery.

As revealed on Twitter, pre-orders for the £249 Series S and £449 Series X will go live at 8am, 22nd September, across participating stores. Those, should you have a retailer of preference (or should your retailer of preference run out of units, forcing you into a wild, scrambling spree elsewhere) include:

AO.com
Amazon
Argos
Currys PC World
GAME
John Lewis & Partners
Microsoft Store
ShopTo.net
SimplyGames
Smyths Toys
Tesco
Very.co.uk