Microsoft talks about Xbox One’s internals, while disclosing nothing

Eight cores, six operations per CPU cycle, and 200GB of bandwidth. But does it mean anything?

 

The Xbox One is full of technology, and after its big reveal Microsoft talked a little about what's going into the console, giving some tidbits of info about what makes it tick.

Hardware

Microsoft says that the Xbox One has five custom-designed pieces of silicon spread between the console and its Kinect sensor. It didn't elaborate on what these are. There's a system-on-chip combining the CPU and GPU, which we presume to be a single piece of silicon, and there's at least one sensor chip in the Kinect, perhaps replacing the PrimeSense processor used in the Xbox 360 Kinect, but what the others might be isn't immediately clear. Possibilities include audio processors, on-chip memory, and USB controllers.
One of the key questions about the AMD-built, 64-bit, 8-core SoC is "how fast is it?" At the moment that's unknown. Microsoft claims that the new console has "eight times" the graphics power of the old one, though some aspects of the new system are even more improved; for example, it has 16 times the amount of RAM.
The SoC has a PC processor heritage. It includes features that have become standard in PC processors, like power gating to allow idle cores to be powered down, and dynamic frequency scaling to allow light loads to use a lower clock speed. Like AMD's forthcoming codename Kaveri processors that are shipping in PCs later this year, the CPU and GPU share coherent access to the system's memory, making it easier to develop software that splits workloads between the two processors.
Some performance numbers were given for the CPU and GPU themselves but these cast more shadow than they do light. Microsoft claimed that each CPU core can perform six operations per cycle. The CPU is believed to be using AMD's Jaguar core, but typically this would only be described as able to handle four operations per cycle; two each of integer and floating point (though even here counting operations is complicated; the floating point operations could use vector instructions such as SSE2, in which case one operation would result in four actual computations, potentially giving eight per cycle for floating point alone).
This arguably leaves a shortfall of two operations per cycle. One possibility is that the cores have been customized somewhat, which allows more instructions to be issued per cycle. On the face of it, this seems a little unlikely; it'd be a significant change that would have considerable implications on the design of the rest of the chip. Another possibility is simply that the counting is a little unusual and that the extra two operations are one store and one load. This would be consistent with how leaked documents (or, if one prefers, unsubstantiated but apparently accurate rumors) described the processor: two integer operations, two floating point operations, and two memory operations per cycle, which may well be the same number and mix of operations as handled by the standard Jaguar core.
For the GPU, Microsoft claimed 768 operations per cycle. This is again consistent with leaked information.
What Microsoft didn't specify, of course, was the number of cycles per second each processor runs at, so we still have no basis for actually assessing the device's performance.
Similarly, the company claimed that there was more than 200GB of bandwidth within the system. Again, the number had no context or clarification and if rumors are to be believed, it suggests some rather creative accounting: 68 GB main memory bandwidth, 102GB bandwidth to an embedded SRAM buffer for the GPU, and 30GB bandwidth between the CPU and GPU. While that does add up to 200GB, there are no two parts of the SoC that can communicate with each other at 200 GB/s. The fastest link is believed to be the GPU read performance, which can aggregate across the main memory and SRAM buffer for 170 GB total.
The Kinect system has also been upgraded. Perhaps most importantly of all, it should work a lot better in small rooms. The field of view is described as being 60 percent wider and this translates to being able to stand 3-4 feet closer to the sensor. That's a substantial improvement, which is just as well since the Kinect will be mandatory equipment.
The new Kinect is all around better. It can track six skeletons, up from 2, and capture 1080p video. Low-light performance will also be improved, as it can see infrared. Microsoft says that this will allow Kinect to gauge things like your level of engagement in a game. We speculate this means that it might be able to see, for example, that your cheeks are flushed in response to emotional involvement and investment in the game.

Software

Brief details were also given of the software side of things. The Xbox One is described as running three operating systems. There's a long-running Windows 8-based operating system used for running applications, browsing the Web, Skype, and similar roles; a second operating system for running games; and a hypervisor that virtualizes the hardware and switches between the two. The long-running partition is also used for some system management tasks, such as running the Kinect software portions and performing matchmaking while you watch a video.
This hypervisor is based on Microsoft's Hyper-V virtualization platform but simplified to remove extraneous features that are irrelevant to a games console; the software is specialized because it runs fixed-role, fixed operating system virtual machines.
The application partition boots when the system is turned on and runs persistently, even when in-game. This is what enables things like Snap view, where apps and games or TV run side-by-side. The game partition, in contrast, gets rebooted each time a new game is started.
To ensure high-speed switching between the operating systems, each virtual machine draws to its own (virtual) screen all the time. The hypervisor can switch between screens essentially instantly, allowing fast task-switching.

The mystery box

Microsoft claims that the session gave a lot of detail about the new console. And in some ways, it did. There were lots of isolated pieces of information, without much context. The company simultaneously told us something about the Xbox One's performance and told us nothing. It tossed out some numbers for people to talk and argue about (because God knows the console platform warriors certainly need more ammunition) while ensuring that those same numbers mean absolutely nothing. The Xbox One may have been revealed, but many facets of its capabilities and power remain mysterious.

How the Xbox One draws more processing power from cloud computing

Ars also talks to Microsoft about the integration of Kinect and RAM allocation.

 

UPDATE: The original version of this story misstated the 300,000-server capacity for Xbox One's cloud computing architecture as 30,000 servers. Ars regrets the error.
While Tuesday's Xbox One presentation answered some questions about Microsoft's upcoming system, it left just as many or more unsettled. Luckily, Ars got a chance to sit down with General Manager of Redmond Game Studios and Platforms Matt Booty to try to get more answers. While he wasn't able to answer some of the most pressing questions about the system, he was able to dive deep into some of the technical details.
Our first question had to do with the 300,000-server cloud architecture that Microsoft says the Xbox One will use to help support "latency-insensitive computation" in its games. What does that mean exactly, and can laggy cloud data really help in a video game where most things have to be able to respond locally and immediately?
"Things that I would call latency-sensitive would be reactions to animations in a shooter, reactions to hits and shots in a racing game, reactions to collisions," Booty told Ars. "Those things you need to have happen immediately and on frame and in sync with your controller. There are some things in a video game world, though, that don't necessarily need to be updated every frame or don't change that much in reaction to what's going on."
"One example of that might be lighting," he continued. "Let’s say you’re looking at a forest scene and you need to calculate the light coming through the trees, or you’re going through a battlefield and have very dense volumetric fog that’s hugging the terrain. Those things often involve some complicated up-front calculations when you enter that world, but they don’t necessarily have to be updated every frame. Those are perfect candidates for the console to offload that to the cloud—the cloud can do the heavy lifting, because you’ve got the ability to throw multiple devices at the problem in the cloud."
Booty added that things like physics modeling, fluid dynamics, and cloth motion were all prime examples of effects that require a lot of up-front computation that could be handled in the cloud without adding any lag to the actual gameplay. And the server resources Microsoft is putting toward these calculations will be much greater than a local Xbox One could handle on its own. "A rule of thumb we like to use is that [for] every Xbox One available in your living room we’ll have three of those devices in the cloud available," he said.
While cloud computation data doesn't have to be updated and synced with every frame of game data, developers are still going to have to manage the timing and flow of this cloud computing to avoid noticeable changes in graphic quality, Booty said. “Without getting too into the weeds, think about a lighting technique like ambient occlusion that gives you all the cracks and crevices and shadows that happen not just from direct light. There are a number of calculations that have to be done up front, and as the camera moves the effect will change. So when you walk into a room, it might be that for the first second or two the fidelity of the lighting is done by the console, but then, as the cloud catches up with that, the data comes back down to the console and you have incredibly realistic lighting."
Does that mean that Xbox One games will feature graphics that suddenly get much more realistic as complex data finally finishes downloading from the cloud? "Game developers have always had to wrestle with levels of detail... managing where and when you show details is part of the art of games," Booty said. "One of the exciting challenges going forward is a whole new set of techniques to manage what is going to be offloaded to the cloud and what’s going to come back.”
And what about those times when a gamer doesn't have an active Internet connection to make use of the cloud's computational power? Microsoft has confirmed that single-player games don't have to be online to work, but all this talk of cloud computing seems to suggest that these games might not look or perform as well if they don't have access to a high-speed connection.
"If there’s a fast connection and if the cloud is available and if the scene allows it, you’re obviously going to capitalize on that," Booty told Ars. "In the event of a drop out—and we all know that Internet can occasionally drop out, and I do say occasionally because these days it seems we depend on Internet as much as we depend on electricity—the game is going to have to intelligently handle that." Booty urged us to "stay tuned" for more on precisely how that intelligent handling would work, stressing that "it’s new technology and a new frontier for game design, and we’re going to see that evolve the way we’ve seen other technology evolve."

Requiring the Kinect

 

Microsoft talks about Xbox One’s internals, while disclosing nothing

Eight cores, six operations per CPU cycle, and 200GB of bandwidth. But does it mean anything?

 

The Xbox One is full of technology, and after its big reveal Microsoft talked a little about what's going into the console, giving some tidbits of info about what makes it tick.

Hardware

Microsoft says that the Xbox One has five custom-designed pieces of silicon spread between the console and its Kinect sensor. It didn't elaborate on what these are. There's a system-on-chip combining the CPU and GPU, which we presume to be a single piece of silicon, and there's at least one sensor chip in the Kinect, perhaps replacing the PrimeSense processor used in the Xbox 360 Kinect, but what the others might be isn't immediately clear. Possibilities include audio processors, on-chip memory, and USB controllers.
One of the key questions about the AMD-built, 64-bit, 8-core SoC is "how fast is it?" At the moment that's unknown. Microsoft claims that the new console has "eight times" the graphics power of the old one, though some aspects of the new system are even more improved; for example, it has 16 times the amount of RAM.
The SoC has a PC processor heritage. It includes features that have become standard in PC processors, like power gating to allow idle cores to be powered down, and dynamic frequency scaling to allow light loads to use a lower clock speed. Like AMD's forthcoming codename Kaveri processors that are shipping in PCs later this year, the CPU and GPU share coherent access to the system's memory, making it easier to develop software that splits workloads between the two processors.
Some performance numbers were given for the CPU and GPU themselves but these cast more shadow than they do light. Microsoft claimed that each CPU core can perform six operations per cycle. The CPU is believed to be using AMD's Jaguar core, but typically this would only be described as able to handle four operations per cycle; two each of integer and floating point (though even here counting operations is complicated; the floating point operations could use vector instructions such as SSE2, in which case one operation would result in four actual computations, potentially giving eight per cycle for floating point alone).
This arguably leaves a shortfall of two operations per cycle. One possibility is that the cores have been customized somewhat, which allows more instructions to be issued per cycle. On the face of it, this seems a little unlikely; it'd be a significant change that would have considerable implications on the design of the rest of the chip. Another possibility is simply that the counting is a little unusual and that the extra two operations are one store and one load. This would be consistent with how leaked documents (or, if one prefers, unsubstantiated but apparently accurate rumors) described the processor: two integer operations, two floating point operations, and two memory operations per cycle, which may well be the same number and mix of operations as handled by the standard Jaguar core.
For the GPU, Microsoft claimed 768 operations per cycle. This is again consistent with leaked information.
What Microsoft didn't specify, of course, was the number of cycles per second each processor runs at, so we still have no basis for actually assessing the device's performance.
Similarly, the company claimed that there was more than 200GB of bandwidth within the system. Again, the number had no context or clarification and if rumors are to be believed, it suggests some rather creative accounting: 68 GB main memory bandwidth, 102GB bandwidth to an embedded SRAM buffer for the GPU, and 30GB bandwidth between the CPU and GPU. While that does add up to 200GB, there are no two parts of the SoC that can communicate with each other at 200 GB/s. The fastest link is believed to be the GPU read performance, which can aggregate across the main memory and SRAM buffer for 170 GB total.
The Kinect system has also been upgraded. Perhaps most importantly of all, it should work a lot better in small rooms. The field of view is described as being 60 percent wider and this translates to being able to stand 3-4 feet closer to the sensor. That's a substantial improvement, which is just as well since the Kinect will be mandatory equipment.
The new Kinect is all around better. It can track six skeletons, up from 2, and capture 1080p video. Low-light performance will also be improved, as it can see infrared. Microsoft says that this will allow Kinect to gauge things like your level of engagement in a game. We speculate this means that it might be able to see, for example, that your cheeks are flushed in response to emotional involvement and investment in the game.

Software

Brief details were also given of the software side of things. The Xbox One is described as running three operating systems. There's a long-running Windows 8-based operating system used for running applications, browsing the Web, Skype, and similar roles; a second operating system for running games; and a hypervisor that virtualizes the hardware and switches between the two. The long-running partition is also used for some system management tasks, such as running the Kinect software portions and performing matchmaking while you watch a video.
This hypervisor is based on Microsoft's Hyper-V virtualization platform but simplified to remove extraneous features that are irrelevant to a games console; the software is specialized because it runs fixed-role, fixed operating system virtual machines.
The application partition boots when the system is turned on and runs persistently, even when in-game. This is what enables things like Snap view, where apps and games or TV run side-by-side. The game partition, in contrast, gets rebooted each time a new game is started.
To ensure high-speed switching between the operating systems, each virtual machine draws to its own (virtual) screen all the time. The hypervisor can switch between screens essentially instantly, allowing fast task-switching.

The mystery box

Microsoft claims that the session gave a lot of detail about the new console. And in some ways, it did. There were lots of isolated pieces of information, without much context. The company simultaneously told us something about the Xbox One's performance and told us nothing. It tossed out some numbers for people to talk and argue about (because God knows the console platform warriors certainly need more ammunition) while ensuring that those same numbers mean absolutely nothing. The Xbox One may have been revealed, but many facets of its capabilities and power remain mysterious.

Xbox One: Microsoft focuses on managing content, not gaming

PERSPECTIVE
At this morning’s Xbox One reveal in Redmond, Wash., the new “Call of Duty” game received an extended preview and a new game titled “Quantum Break” was given a giant promotional push. But the biggest star of Microsoft’s news conference to showcase  its Xbox 360 successor was a film director, one who spoke only via a pre-filmed video.
Steven Spielberg, it was divulged this morning, will executive produce an original “Halo” television series based on the popular video game franchise that’s long been tied to the Xbox ecosystem.
“For me, the ‘Halo’ universe is an amazing opportunity to be at the intersection where technology and storytelling meet,” Spielberg said, adding that he’s been interested in games since the era of “Pong” and that they have now evolved, technologically speaking, to a point where interactive storytelling is at its most compelling.
Details of the series, like much of the content for Xbox One, won’t be revealed until a later date. How it will play with upcoming “Halo” games is also tabled until the future. But that was indicative of Microsoft’s ambitions for Xbox One, which aims to further blur the lines between games, television, film and Internet content.
It wasn’t new games or new ways to play them that dominated today’s conference, but rather ways to integrate a gaming device and gaming technology such as the motion-based Kinect into our family rooms. You turn the device on by saying, “Xbox on.” You find out what is on ABC by asking the machine. Or, if you prefer to game, just say “game.” You can also jump into a game while watching a movie simply by using hand gestures,  a process Microsoft has dubbed “snap mode.”

The new Xbox One console, sensor and controller. (Microsoft)

The idea of using a game system as a sort of Trojan Horse to take over the living room is nothing new. The PlayStation 2, for instance, was released in 2000 with DVD playback capability. Last year, Wii U aimed to fully integrate TV and Web functionality into the machine.
Some have worked better than others — I’m happy utilizing the Wii U format for services such as Hulu, and using the Wii U’s Gamepad as a TV remote is a nice bonus now and again, but as someone without a cable subscription most of the add-ons are superfluous. It’s simply quicker to access what I want when I want without using the game system (or in the case of my home Xbox, without needing a Xbox Live subscription).
Xbox One hopes to make cross-media functionality easier than ever before by working closely with your cable box and incorporating a retooled Kinect that better recognizes movement and voice into the console. What’s more, today Microsoft said Xbox One essentially runs three operating systems, making jumps between games, Skype apps, movies, the Web or television happen instantaneously on the same screen (or by accident, depending on what Xbox trigger words you say, although Kinect upgrades are promised to have pitch-perfect voice recognition).
Examples shown illustrated how users could split their screens to use Skype while watching TV or playing a game. Partnerships with the NFL will bring more Web content onto the screen and it looks as if users can search for movie times or scroll through TV guides without having to leave a film or a game. By connecting with your cable box, the Xbox One, in theory, will more powerfully and seamlessly allow for mergers of online, linear and interactive entertainment.
These are all nice features but until the Xbox One is in our living rooms we won’t really know how beautifully they all intersect, although the 8-core x86 processor, 8 gigabytes of system memory and a 500 GB hard drive will certainly help. Unlike Sony’s PS4 announcement, which emphasized sharing content and better accessing games through streaming, Microsoft today tried to pitch the Xbox One as part game machine and part smart TV overlord, seeking to house all the distribution channels we use for entertainment in one ecosystem. And tools like Smartglass automatically pair the game console with compatible smartphones and tablets, so these portable devices can interact with the TV as a remote control

A view of the movies screen on the new Xbox One. (Microsoft)

Whether that excites you or not likely depends on how dependent you are on your current multi-screen setup — TV, laptop, tablet, etc. — and how comfortable you are talking to your TV. Or if you agree with Microsoft that the family room has become “too complex” (I think it’s pretty simple, personally.) Or, finally, how comfortable you are with the fact that the Xbox is always listening to you, since its operation is keyed by certain voice commands such as “Xbox on.”
Microsoft has already tried to squash any privacy concerns, but since Xbox One’s “advanced noise isolation lets Kinect know who to listen to, even in a crowded room,” it can hear you. Suddenly it seems rather meta that Ubisoft’s upcoming game “Watch Dogs,” based on a premise of listening to civilians by hacking personal devices, is coming to Xbox One. And it’s important to note that unless the Xbox One has DVR capability it may still be an accessory for most people.
While the current iteration of Kinect is a bit sloppy — it’s more or less useless in my small living room, in which the TV is about five feet from the couch — Microsoft went out of its way to show that new advancements will ensure its usability has improved. It is so powerful that it can supposedly read a heartbeat, which may sound odd but should make for more accurate fitness games.
What the presentation was lacking were specific examples of what the Xbox One is supposed to do best — offer an enhanced gaming experience — though one of the most exciting bits of news today was that Microsoft Studios is currently developing eight original titles to release within a year of the Xbox One launch.
In the words of Microsoft Studios head Phil Spencer, “The groundbreaking tech at the heart of Xbox One will broaden the landscape and canvas for the storyteller.” Hopefully. More content — and content that isn’t a sequel or tied to an already known brand — is good news indeed, especially considering that Microsoft, like Sony, made the mistake of not ensuring the system is backward compatible.
Most of the games shown this morning were sports-related, and the sports did indeed look impressive, although it’s unknown whether what we saw was actual game play. Spencer did single out “Quantum Break” from “Alan Wake” developer Remedy, which looks to integrate lots of live action content into its game play.
It seemed a little bit like a TV show and a little bit like a game, with a young child who has the ability to seemingly plug-in to other’s minds and send players into the graphic world of the game. No doubt this is  what Spielberg, whose name was tied to LucasArts classic “The Dig,” means when he talks about the intersection of interactivity and storytelling.
Ultimately, when it comes to the question of whether to invest in a new game system (no pricing info was divulged), it’s the stories that matter and not the voice commands that can switch on a split-screen.
Oh, and more Spielberg and “Halo” doesn’t hurt

Call of Duty: Ghosts' new engine shown off

7 things we know about Call of Duty: Ghosts

We all knew it was coming. The Call of Duty series hasn't missed a beat with its annual releases, and Activision wasn't about to skip a year now. Call of Duty: Ghosts has been revealed at the Xbox One unveiling, and it's confirmed that developer Infinity Ward is bringing us the next installment in the series. The Modern Warfare title is being dropped, giving birth to a new subseries for the next generation of games.
We've gotten a few details about the game from the Microsoft press conference, but there's still plenty we want to know. With the recent announcement, there is more than enough information to get us excited for the next Call of Duty release, and definitely enough to get us speculating on what the game will include. This is everything we know and everything we want to see in Call of Duty: Ghosts.

Microsoft storms the living room with Xbox One

Microsoft is hitting the reset button on the Xbox, unveiling a new version of the console Tuesday that the company is aiming at rivals both old and new.
Microsoft portrayed the third-generation Xbox as a device that could take a central position in the entertainment lives of consumers. That space has become intensely competitive with similar consoles unveiled recently by traditional gamemakers Nintendo and Sony as well as an array of games, movies and other content from Amazon.com, Netflix, Google and Apple that can be displayed on the living-room TV.
Microsoft’s latest console can stream live television, though officials were coy on the details. It will make video calls over Microsoft’s Skype service. And it will offer new, exclusive content — including a television series produced by Steven Spielberg, based on the company’s “Halo” video game series, and a partnership with the NFL that will provide fans with live access to their fantasy football stats.

Xbox One Will Not Function Without Kinect Attached

Xbox's UK marketing director has said that without Kinect connected, Xbox One will not function.

by Keza MacDonald

May 21, 2013

After a Microsoft-hosted London event around the Xbox One reveal, Xbox's UK marketing director Harvey Eagle has said that the console will not function without Kinect connected.
"Kinect does require to be connected to Xbox One in all cases, yes," he said. Asked whether the Xbox One will accommodate people who perhaps play in their bedroom rather than their living room, Eagle replied: "Yes, absolutely. We use the living room almost as a moniker - that's where we assume the best screen is in the house. But if you like to play in any other room in the house, the Xbox One will deliver the same quality of experience whatever the environment."
As anyone who's ever tried to play with Kinect in an enclosed area knows, the current technology simply doesn't support it - which means that Xbox One's new Kinect sensor must be significantly different if it will work in any room in the house.

With Xbox One, Microsoft Emphasizes TV over Games

From beneath gray skies, working a boisterous audience packed into a giant tent on its Redmond, Wash. campus, Microsoft this afternoon took the wraps off its third Xbox, dubbed Xbox One. But gamers tuning in to watch the live-stream event only caught glimpses of vaguely better-looking in-game footage, and then not until the presentation’s finale. Instead, Microsoft and its partners chose to spend most of the presentation talking about the future of TV-related entertainment as well as Xbox One’s much-refined voice command-driven interface.
Kicking off the one-hour show, Microsoft president of interactive entertainment Don Mattrick helmed the stage, electric-green Xbox screens flanking him, to portray Xbox One as the center of an interactive media-verse. That universe is more heterogeneous than ever, said Mattrick, comprising casual games, live and recorded TV, sports and movies, multiple platforms, living rooms in flux with cloud-powered Internet services, voice and gesture controls and mobile devices like tablets and smartphones. ”To continue to lead, we must provide compelling answers to new questions,” he said, then asking, “Can we take what you love and make it better? Can we improve a living room that’s become too complex, too fragmented and too slow?”
Microsoft’s answer: a set-top console that looked less than ever like a stylized game console and more like a traditional, almost mundane piece of orthogonal, black, glossy hi-fi stereo equipment. The new console was joined by a revamped Kinect camera — included with each Xbox One — and a refined, slightly more angular version of the Xbox 360 gamepad (making it look a hair more like a batarang).
“For the first time, you and your TV are going to have a relationship,” quipped Mattrick, a statement that sounds awkward at first blush — we’ve had a relationship with our TV sets for decades — until you realized he was hyping Microsoft’s considerable ramping-up of the Xbox brand as a media-platform first, and a games console second.
TV > Gaming
Before delving into hardware specifics, Microsoft interactive entertainment marketing honcho Yusuf Mehdi demonstrated Microsoft’s vision of the Xbox One as a versatile, interactive media controller. For example, the Xbox One never turns itself completely off and can be woken up simply by saying “Xbox on.” As it powers up, it actually recognizes you (via Kinect), loading your personalized homepage and eliminating having to manually log in. It also now downloads and installs system updates in the background: Mehdi explained you’ll no longer be prompted to download these at sign-in.
Furthermore, Xbox LIVE — which still looks pretty much like the version of Xbox LIVE you’re using today — now remembers what you were last doing, what game you were playing, what song you were listening to and so forth, surfacing that information automatically. What’s more, if you’re deep in the interface somewhere and want to go home, all you need to do is say “Xbox, go home” and the system instantly shifts back to your personalized homepage.
Mehdi highlighted a traditional downside to the existing, longstanding console-TV paradigm: having to hit the input button to switch from your console to live TV. With Xbox One, by contrast, all you have to do is say “Xbox, watch TV,” and the system automatically pipes in your live TV feed. That principle extends to the rest of the new Xbox’s ecosystem, thus saying “Xbox, game,” “Xbox, go to music,” “Xbox, go to Internet Explorer” or “Xbox, watch movie” summons the respective features. (I’ll have to see how it works for myself, but in the demonstration, the response times were instantaneous and, impressively, required no second tries — an all-too-common occurrence with Kinect 1.0.)
While it wasn’t clear whether the much-reviled Kinect pointer-hand is returning in some fashion, Microsoft highlighted new universal gestures like “grab and pan” and “swipe up,” taking a page from Apple’s trackpad and iOS interfaces, to make controlling screen elements easier. Mehdi demonstrated switching to a movie and shifting to the homepage, claiming the new gestures were ”not only simple, but make it instant to get to what you want.”
Curiously, Xbox One seems much better oriented to multitask, allowing you to run multiple programs simultaneously, say watching a movie, popping up a browser to view a trailer for that movie’s in-theaters sequel, then navigating to check theater times or buy tickets to a showing. Another demo sure to thrill fantasy league buffs involved watching ESPN (“Xbox, watch ESPN”), then saying “Xbox, show fantasy” which popped up a fantasy player view in a sidebar beside the live TV, allowing viewers to track both simultaneously.
Mehdi was keen to tout Skype, of course — Microsoft paid $8.5 billion for the messaging service back in 2011, after all — demonstrating Xbox One’s ability to easily handle group video calls (exclusive to Xbox One, he said), interweaving voice controls (“Xbox, answer call”) and highlighting Kinect’s widescreen, high-definition (1080p) video capabilities.
Of course TV viewing itself has been overhauled, with voice controls much more deeply integrated. Getting to a channel, for instance, will now be as simple as saying what you want to see: utter “Xbox, Today Show” or “Xbox, watch MTV” and those channels instantly load. There’s also a customizable “Favorites” view that essentially compiles all the shows you like to watch, which Mehdi described as “like having your own personal channel.” One of the more intriguing wrinkles, however, involves something called “Xbox Trending,” which lets you glance at what the entire Xbox LIVE community’s digging (basically a popular shows view, though it applies to video-on-demand, too).
Under the Hood
When it came time to talk system architecture, Xbox LIVE general manager Marc Whitten took over to tease the audience with a few vague hardware-specific buildout details, describing Xbox One as “connected and ready.” (An allusion to always-online requirements? Microsoft chose not to address that particular elephant-in-the-room here.)
Where the Xbox 360 houses a processor with 500 million transistors and uses 512MB of system memory, Xbox One employs a CPU with five billion transistors and uses 8GB of RAM. Whitten added that Xbox One includes USB 3.0 ports, a Blu-ray drive, is “64-bit native,” has “variable power states,” is virtually silent and that the system was “engineered to deliver now and well into the future.” The past, however, is a different story: Xbox One won’t be backwards-compatible with Xbox 360 games.
Kinect’s been upgraded, too, bumped up to wide-view 1080p capture, capable of finer skeletal tracking and actually understanding balance (the transfer of weight from one foot to another, for instance) and can supposedly read your heartbeat as you exercise (a bold claim — we’ll see). Xbox One Kinect also offers ”more conversational” interaction that Whitten claimed was faster and more supportive of multiple players (say, the entire family), at one point referring to the speed at which it tracks photons bouncing off you as “13 billionths of a second.” “This is rocket science level stuff,” said Whitten.
Last but not least, Whitten mentioned (almost in passing — see what I mean about presentation emphasis?) that the new gamepad, which looks almost identical to the Xbox 360 gamepad, has been updated with more than 40 design changes, including an integrated battery and dynamic impulse triggers.
The O.S. Trifecta
But all of that you were probably expecting, since it describes the average (or arguably sub-average) home computer today. What we weren’t expecting was Microsoft’s explication of Xbox One’s crazy-sounding operating-level architecture, divided into three discrete operating environments, which Whitten called “an industry first.”
There’s Xbox mode (presumably gaming-centric), Windows mode (described as “web-powered apps and experiences”) and a sort of governing connector that handles how these two operating systems interrelate. In other words, it’s either a brilliant maneuver to solidify the Xbox One’s multifunctional modus operandi, a looming nightmare for developers, or some amorphous amalgam of both. Whatever the case, this piece is central to the Xbox One’s philosophy: Whitten described it as “the soul of the new system,” adding that it was “three operating systems in one.”
One of my favorite statistics from the presentation’s pool of “meant to impress” figures was probably Whitten’s discussion of Xbox LIVE. When it launched for the original Xbox, Whitten said the company was using 500 servers, a number that bumped to 3,000 when the Xbox 360 launched in 2005, and that stands at around 15,000 today. For Xbox One? Microsoft’s deploying an astonishing 300,000 servers, or as Whitten put it, “more than the entire world’s computing power in 1999.”
And where cloud-based computing was sort of glommed on to the Xbox 360 version of Xbox LIVE, Whitten noted that it’s the very heart of Xbox One, with all of your movie, music and game saves stored online, “accessed anytime, anywhere” (though by “anywhere,” it’s not clear if Whitten meant platforms beyond Xbox One, and obviously not anywhere you don’t have Internet access). But the coup de grace may turn out to be the new, dedicated DVR feature, which allows players to capture live gameplay, edit it, then share it to the cloud. Somehow that’s tied into achievements: As Whitten put it, “Achievements become dynamic and changing, telling the personal story of how you play, not just how you’ve done.”
Absent from the show: anything whatsoever about the Xbox 360, which Microsoft said it would share more details about at E3 in a few weeks. We also have no details about price, nor do we have a firm launch date other than sometime later this year. “Today we look forward,” said Whitten. And that’s what the rest of us will have to do as we wait for Microsoft to let us put this thing through its paces at E3 next month

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PS4 vs. Xbox One vs. Wii U Comparison Chart

The PS4 vs. Xbox One vs. Wii U Comparison Chart provides an easy visual aid to compare hardware, user interface, media compatibility and other features on the three "next-gen" systems.
By popular demand, a Wii U column has been added to the chart for reference. Note that several comparison specs like GPU are not possible at this point due to a lack of confirmed, concrete information.

Feature	PlayStation 4	Xbox One	Wii U
Optical Drive	Blu-ray/DVD [1]	Blu-ray/DVD [2]	25GB Optical Disc (Proprietary)
Game DVR	Yes [3]	Yes [4]	No
RAM	8GB GDDR5 [5]	8GB DDR3 [6]	2GB DDR3 [7]
CPU	Single-chip x86 AMD "Jaguar" processor, 8 cores [8]	8 Core Microsoft custom CPU [9]	Multi-Core PowerPC "Espresso" CPU [10]
Storage	TBA	500 GB Hard Drive [11]	8GB or 32GB Flash
External Storage	TBA	Yes, USB [12]	Yes, USB
Cloud Storage	Yes [13]	Yes [14]	No
Mandatory Game Installs	TBA	Yes [15]	No
Required Internet Connection	No [16]	Yes [17] [18]	No
Used Game Fee	TBA	Yes [19]	No
Backwards Compatibility	None [20]	None [21]	Yes, Wii
Cross Game Chat	Yes [22]	Yes [23]	No
Motion Control	DualShock 4, PlayStation 4 Eye, PlayStation Move	Kinect 2	Wii Remote, Wii U GamePad
Second Screen	Vita Playstation Mobile[24]	SmartGlass [25]	Wii U GamePad
Voice Commands	TBA	Yes [26]	No
Subscription Service	TBA	Xbox Live [27]	No
USB	USB 3.0 [28]	USB 3.0 [29]	USB 2.0
Live Streaming	Yes	TBA	No
Reputation Preservation	Trophies will be ported	Achievements will be ported [30]	N/A
Web Connection	Ethernet, IEEE 802.11 b/g/n [31]	Gigabit Ethernet, WiFi [32]	WiFi
BlueTooth	Bluetooth 2.1 (EDR)[33]	No*	Bluetooth Support [34]
A/V Hookups	HDMI (4K Support [35]) , Analog (Component, RCA), Optical output[36]	HDMI input and output (4K support), Optical output [37]	HDMI out, Component/ Composite out

 See Also:List of Confirmed PlayStation 4 Games:http://adf.ly/PdD79


See Also:List of Confirmed Xbox One Games: http://adf.ly/PdDKH

 See Also:List of Upcoming Wii U Games:http://adf.ly/PdDOb

Call of Duty: Ghosts News

Activision has officially confirmed that its next COD instalment will take the form of Call of Duty: Ghosts. the focus of intense speculation for the past couple of weeks, Activision unveiled Call of Duty: Ghosts with a new teaser trailer and dedicated website last week on May 1.

Originally thought to be called Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, Call of Duty: Ghosts is said to be the COD game for "the next generation."

"Everyone was expecting us to make Modern Warfare 4, which would have been the safe thing to do. But we're not resting on our laurels," said Mark Rubin, executive producer of Infinity Ward. "We saw the console transition as the perfect opportunity to start a new chapter for Call of Duty. So we're building a new sub-brand, a new engine, and a lot of new ideas and experiences for our players. We can't wait to share them with our community."

Baring the mask of Simon "Ghost" Riley from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, many suggest he may not be the central focus of the next instalment of the FPS franchise, but with the teaser trailer revealing very little about the content of the game we're only speculating at this point.

Call of Duty: Ghosts Features

Call of Duty: Ghosts features showcased during Xbox One reveal
Call of Duty: Ghosts was given its world première during the Xbox One reveal on May 21, revealing more of the game's features. Speaking directly to the Activision developers, Microsoft provided fans of the series with more details on they game.

Featuring “a whole new story with brand new characters in a whole new world”, Activision said it aims to produce a cast of characters that the player can feel more connected to. For this, the developer has brought in the writer of Syriana and Traffic, Stephen Gaghan.

Set ten years after a "massive attack" on the US, you play as a group of special forces soldiers known as The Ghosts. "You are the underdog fighting back against a superior force."

What's a huge new addition to the Call of Duty: Ghosts squad is their new canine companion. The first COD game to feature a dog, the mutt will aid the team by sniffing out explosives and protecting the soldiers in other, as yet undisclosed, ways.

Said to be a key aspect as to how players strategise throughout the game, we can see many a level where the squad will have to protect their new canine buddy.

The new gaming engine used by Call of Duty: Ghosts utilises Pixar's SubD technology to improve the smoothness of graphics, especially noticeable on the weapons at close range notes Activision developers.

Stating that the key word for the new graphics engine is "immersion", the Call of Duty: Ghosts developers say this game will have the best graphical fidelity of any in the series. Characters now automatically leap over any low cover in their way and can intelligently lean in and out of cover. New AI technology also allows for a more responsive environment, including fish that will intuitively move out of your way as you near them.

Also revealing "just two of the new features coming to the next-generation of Call of Duty multiplayer", Activision explains the new dynamic experience and character customisation.

Similar to Battefield 4, Call of Duty: Ghosts multiplayer will introduce a new dynamic experience driven by large scale events like floods and earthquakes, but also by smaller player-driven incidents like buildings collapsing from explosions.

Call of Duty: Ghosts will introduce voice commands via Xbox One Kinect

CEO of Activision Publishing, Eric Hirshberg, has also confirmed in a separate interview that anyone playing the game on the Xbox One will be able to use voice commands to direct their squad.

 “We think the improvements to Kinect really excited us because of the level of responsiveness and detail”, said Hirshberg. “I thought that the demo they did with the voice commands on television, the instant changing between games and music, was really compelling. You’ll see more of this coming from us as we get closer to the launch.”

Read more: Call of Duty:Ghosts to utilise Xbox One voice commands

Call of Duty: Ghost Release Date

Activision has confirmed that a Call of Duty: Ghosts release date is scheduled for November 5, shipping on current generation Xbox 360 and PS3 consoles as well as PS4 and Xbox One.

Fans are so eager to get their hands on the game that just 24 hours after Activision officially unveiled Call of Duty: Ghosts, the game soared straight to the top of the charts for Amazon pre-orders. Six months before the game will ship to consumers, the game is currently occupying the number one and number two spots in the gaming chart for the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions respectively on Amazon UK

Call of Duty: Ghosts Trailer

Following the release announcement, a 90-second Call of Duty: Ghosts teaser trailer was posted to YouTube, but lacks any gameplay footage and offers no hints about the game's context or plot.

Instead it depicts a host of historical warriors in their traditional 'masks' before focusing on the skull mask worn by Lt. Simon "Ghost" Riley, who is expected to be the game's central character.

The voiceover says: "There are those who wear masks to hide. And those who wear masks to show us what they stand for. To inspire. To unite. To defy. To strike fear in the hearts of their enemies, and hope in the hearts of their followers."

"There are those who wear masks to protect themselves, and those who wear masks to protect us all.