Be Excellent To Each Other

Was pressing a button on the controller really considered to be too much effort?

Xbox One users can't use their real names online at launch

A feature allowing Xbox Live users to identify each other by their real names in lieu of Gamertags will not be available on the Xbox One when the console launches on Nov. 22, a representative for Microsoft told Kotaku.

The feature — which Microsoft executives first revealed would be an option during the console's unveiling event in May — would allow Xbox Live users to attach their real names to accounts and identify one another using them. According to the representative, this option has been postponed.

"While real identities continue to be part of our plans for the experience on Xbox One, at launch, customers will continue to search for friends using their Gamertags," the representative said. "Our teams are working hard to deliver a quality experience for Xbox One. This means prioritizing some features and sometimes postponing others for a later update."

The Xbox One will allow users to have up to 1,000 users on their friends' lists. Players will also be able to "favorite" and "follow" other users. These features were detailed in a video released by Microsoft earlier this week.

That along with the fact we don't have a Blu Ray player either.

I have a question... What sort of account will I need to use Skype? I already have an account for the application (as MS account), will I also need a Xbox Live account as well?

Both consoles have a Bluray player so that factor doesn't actually make any difference to your choice.



Pretty much everything that involves going online requires a Gold account so yes, to use Skype with your Xbone One you'll need an actual Skype account plus a current paid up Xbox Live Gold membership.

Why would I have to pay, (after I have laid out £400 for a console) to use a free application??

I presume you've never owned an Xbox before then?

Yes I have the Xbox1 and 360, both are chipped though.

Yes I have the Xbox1 and 360, both are chipped though. Understand buying game content etc but don't see why I need a £39.00 a year subscription to use Skye.

Weird how Skype is free on the PS Vita, and basically every other device under the sun, but not on Xbox One.

Do you not just have skype on phones/tablets? I can't imagine a worse way to use it than an xbox.

I think it would be quite cool to use it on the XboxOne. Sitting on your sofa rather than holding a tablet or phone sounds much nicer to me and it'll avoid the problem of having the camera under your chin.

Typing, even with the pad, is a crock of shit though.

I think it would be quite cool to use it on the XboxOne. Sitting on your sofa rather than holding a tablet or phone sounds much nicer to me and it'll avoid the problem of having the camera under your chin.

Typing, even with the pad, is a crock of shit though.

I agree but I've got a messenger pad on my joypad which is alright.

I assume that's what he meant.

You can use a USB keyboard.

Wait, what? Why are you typing when using Skype?

Oh, right. I use it as an IM client, because I've never seen the point of video calling. Unless you're naked, I guess.

I suppose if you get the multi person video with Xbox One Skype then its not so bad as that costs money on any version of Skype.

You could easily argue that it's shit and annoying but as it's utterly consistent with their stance for the entire lifespan of the 360 I don't think you can really call it 'weird' surely? Or, at least, no more weird than charging for all the other apps that are free on other platforms (e.g. 4OD).

I'd be careful with this assumption; if some particular Skype feature costs money with the other versions of the client then there's a chance you'd need to pay for it on the Xbox version as well. A Gold account just gets you access to the actual apps but it doesn't mandate what level of service you get once you're in and there's nothing stopping each service charging you more again for premium features if they want e.g. a Gold Xbox account means you can install and run the Lovefilm app but if you don't have a paid-up Lovefilm account then you're not going to get access to their content.

There's also a chance it won't actually be implemented in the client. My girlfriend just bought the new Surface RT, and with that she got a voucher for 2 years Skype premium. It's useless to her, however, since the Surface RT Skype client doesn't support group video chat.

I'd be careful with this assumption; if some particular Skype feature costs money with the other versions of the client then there's a chance you'd need to pay for it on the Xbox version as well. A Gold account just gets you access to the actual apps but it doesn't mandate what level of service you get once you're in and there's nothing stopping each service charging you more again for premium features if they want e.g. a Gold Xbox account means you can install and run the Lovefilm app but if you don't have a paid-up Lovefilm account then you're not going to get access to their content

Lady T's parents have used Skype on their telly (a panasonic with the 'smart' functions and the optional camera accessory).

It was shit and awkward, they were all sat too far away and the sound was all bad and the conversation was very stilted. That probably is more to do with them than the technology iteself, but I can't see using Skype on a console being any better than that and so it's really not a draw for me.

The equipment was fine, really, PQ and sound quality were all quite good even. Video calling while sat back on a sofa (in a fairly large room) just wasn't very engaging. I did say that it was probably more to do with them (and us) than the technology itself. It was a shame, as we had quite high hopes until we tried it. I do hope you find skype on the telly wonderful and amazing, but I found it shit and awkward.

Pixelated: Xbox One's 720p problem is the biggest deal-breaker yet

For a long time I've accepted Microsoft's rhetoric on the power of Xbox One. I've gone along with the talk about balance; I've acknowledged the promise of Cloud technology; and I've empathised with its frustration over the ongoing community backlash.

But now it's difficult to be so forgiving.

With two of next-gen's major launch titles performing noticeably better on PlayStation 4, now's the time for the tough questions to be asked: why, given the £80 premium, has Microsoft failed to provide a machine capable of offering the same performance - a reasonable performance - as its rival? Why is Call of Duty: Ghosts – a game often ridiculed by the community for its underwhelming visuals – unable to render at native 1080p? And should those who have stuck with Microsoft through thick and thin over the last four months finally start to reconsider their purchase?

That final question is something I've been asking myself over the last few days, and has left me (and, I imagine, thousands of other similar-minded gamers) in an awkward situation heading into the next generation. As regular readers will know, Xbox 360 has been my predominant platform throughout the last cycle. The vast majority of my friends are on Xbox Live, I've always preferred Microsoft's UI and controller, I've invested almost 10 years into its online service, and, well... the lure of the achievements keeps me coming back.

I was also fairly convinced that multiplatform titles on Xbox One and PS4 wouldn't suffer from any major visual differences at launch. Getting a fully optimised title ready for a console launch is an enormously difficult task, of course, doubly so when there are two of them launching simultaneously. And as such, I wrongly presumed developers would aim for the lowest common denominator across both systems to get their title running stably and, quite frankly, to make their lives easier.

If Sony was ever to able to pull forward, I believed it would be later in the console's life as developers ran into bottlenecks on Xbox One and managed to squeeze the extra ounce of power out of PS4's GDDR5 RAM and impressive GPU.

Perhaps foolishly, I also believed Microsoft's bullish claims about its machine's capabilities.

"There is no way we're giving up a 30%+ advantage to Sony,” said Albert Penello, Xbox's senior director of marketing and planning, last month. “And ANYONE who has seen both systems running could say there are great looking games on both systems. If there was really huge performance difference – it would be obvious."

He continued: "I get a ton of hate for saying this – but it's been the same EVERY generation. Sony claims more power, they did it with Cell, they did it with Emotion Engine, and they are doing it again. And, in the end, games on our system looked the same or better."

Penello's words are a particularly agonising read now. The two games we've seen and heard about so far on Xbox One – the games that could arguably matter most to a huge portion of next-gen investors –do not look better on Microsoft's console. They don't even look the same, with PlayStation 4 displaying a significant advantage in pure pixel count. Based on early indications and an ill-advised aggressive commentary, Microsoft, frankly, appears to have dug its own grave.

This week's revelations bring into question any last minute decisions over early next-gen investments. To those picking up both, on which platform should you pre-order Battlefield 4, Call of Duty: Ghosts, Watch Dogs or Assassin's Creed 4? On the face of it, it seems an easy choice: just go for the option that provides the better-looking game.

After all, much of the buzz of a next-gen launch centres around being left dazzled by those sparkling graphics. But to many players, making the switch would be to throw away years of investment and trust in a particular product and service - a conundrum made considerably more difficult when the vast majority of their online friends could still be playing games like Call of Duty and Battlefield on the weaker platform.

I still put trust in Microsoft's console offering the more appealing exclusives in the short term, and struggle to see how Knack, Killzone and DriveClub will manage to live up to Dead Rising, Titanfall and Forza.

But as we've seen with Wii U, getting a launch right can be vitally important to public perception, and once the idea that a machine less powerful than one almost £100 cheaper seeps into the mainstream, Microsoft may struggle to turn things around. And as developers grow more familiar with PlayStation 4's hardware, there's little reason not to believe that the differences between the two consoles could remain a constant.

Eight weeks ago, Microsoft's Major Nelson said that he was “very much looking forward to the next few months (and beyond) as the truth comes out” about Xbox One. The truth is out there now, and it certainly isn't pretty.

Call of Duty: Ghosts has found itself in the firing line of the next-gen console power war. With Infinity Ward's COD: Ghosts a next-gen launch title, the news that the PlayStation 4 version runs at 1080p resolution native, whereas the Xbox One version runs at 720p native upscaled to 1080p, was seen as a huge blow to Microsoft. This from a game series that over the course of the current-generation has become synonymous with Xbox.

Ever since Infinity Ward executive producer tweeted the Call of Duty: Ghosts resolutions, the debate has focused on what it means for comparisons between the PS4 and Xbox One hardware. Here, in an interview with Eurogamer, Rubin offers Infinity Ward's side of the story, revealing the "engineering nightmare" the developer suffered navigating the shifting waters of next-gen launch dev kits, and insisting it did all it could to optimise the Xbox One version of the game in the months ahead of release.

If there is something about the Xbox One hardware that's to blame, it is the way it allocates memory resources, Rubin suggests. As Digital Foundry explains in its recently-published article "Xbox One Resolutiongate: the 720p fallout", Microsoft's console reserves 10 per cent of GPU time for its operating system. As DF's Richard Leadbetter describes it, features such as Kinect skeletal tracking account for "precious resources that are inaccessible to game developers". Rubin discusses this issue, and more, in the below interview.

He also suggests future Xbox One Call of Duty games may not suffer a similar resolution issue, as developers further optimise the COD engine and Microsoft - potentially - tweaks the Xbox One's OS reserved memory allocation.

Creating a next-gen launch title sounds like a nightmare. Can you explain exactly the challenges you faced?

Mark Rubin: It is for our engineers, especially. Fortunately, both Xbox One and PS4 are very much like PC, more so than the last generation. That helped enormously. If the systems had their very peculiar architecture, like they did in current gen, this would have been a different conversation. But because of that the development this time around it was significantly easier. I have experienced the current-gen launch. I was at Infinity Ward for COD 2. When we launched it was just PC and Xbox 360, but that was our first console, period. There was a lot to learn leading up, but that was just one console, when all it was was PC and that new console. And that was an interesting challenge.

So to do PC, current-gen two SKUs and next-gen two SKUs, was a massive challenge. Working with the theoretical hardware would have been a disaster if... honestly, the hardest thing to deal with is not the architecture. It's the OS (operating system) of the systems. That's the thing that comes on the latest. The Xbox One's OS on their box versus the Sony OS, becomes the hardest. All the SDKs and stuff you have to work with - that's the stuff that changes, not the hardware itself.

What about the operating systems, exactly, is the problem?

Mark Rubin: There's stuff in the console's OS that interacts with the game. So, for instance, voice chat is often supported by the hardware manufacturer rather than the software, and you're just using their channel. When that stuff is changing - because they're developing it on their side - and the resources they're using are changing - your, from a game design standpoint, challenge is with trying to make enough room for those resources to be used but at the same time use as much resources as possible.

One of the greatest challenges the engineers have to deal with is memory management, or thread management. There are X number of threads in your CPUs. Where in those threads is the stuff that's Microsoft or Sony? Where does it fall? How does it work? We don't have the SDKs for those features yet, and then they come in and you go, okay, well it needs 3MB of RAM - oh, crap, we only allocated two! You can't just take a MB from anywhere. It's not like there's just tonnes of it just laying there. You have to pull it from something else. And now you have to balance that somewhere.

It becomes a massive change internally for our entire engine, if they add a few MB to the amount of resources they need, or if they require all their processes to be on one thread. If it's not multi-threaded then we have to put it on one thread. Now we have to find space on one thread, where that can live, that it's not creating a traffic jam on that thread. Sometimes we have to be like, okay, we have to move all this stuff over to a different thread and then put that in to that thread, just to manage traffic.

That's what engineers are often doing: managing the traffic of CPU threads and memory and where that's going, allocating memory, what kind of memory is it? Is it dynamic? Sometimes what has to happen is we have to allocate the 3MB straight off the bat and just say, these 3MB, specifically, these actual memory addresses, have to be used for this. They can't be used anywhere else. Whereas dynamic, it's like, okay, I need 3MB but it doesn't matter where those 3MB come from.

So all that stuff can change on the fly. And you're trying to develop your system to match with that, and it's two systems, now, not just one: Sony and Xbox. That creates a massive engineering nightmare.

Wow. It sounds harder than I realised.

"Obviously the PR guys, when they found out, when they were told, that was more of an event than the devs sitting at work working on it."

Infinity Ward executive producer Mark Rubin

Is all that you've just described the reason the Xbox One version is native 720p and the PS4 version is native 1080p?

Mark Rubin: In a way. I don't know if I can point to one particular cause. Early on, we didn't know where exactly the resolution of anything would fall because we didn't have hardware or the software to support it. We tried to focus in on 1080p, and if we felt like we were on borderline of performance somewhere... We tried to make the best decision for each platform that gives you the best-looking game we could get and maintains that 60 frames a second.

There's no specific, oh, well, the VO chat on Xbox took up so much resources that we couldn't do 1080p native. There's no definitive one to one per se cause and effect. It's just an overall thing. We took each system individually and said, 'okay, let's make the best game for each system.'

I think both look great. Some people might notice if they had them right next to each other. Some people might not. The Xbox One is 1080p output, it's just upscaled hardware wise.

It was a late decision, too. That call wasn't made until a month ago.

Put me in your shoes when you were told this was going to be the case. I assume your engineering team explains to you this is the way it has to be. How did you guys react internally? Could Microsoft engineers not have helped?

Mark Rubin: It's not a thing, like pointing to the day he came and said... It wasn't like that. It's a long process. And we're always working with both platforms. There were Microsoft engineers there throughout development. They were always there. There wasn't an event, per se. There wasn't a meeting. It was just something that developed over time. Everybody was involved.

Obviously the PR guys, when they found out, when they were told, that was more of an event than the devs sitting at work working on it. So you'd have to ask them.

What everyone will ask is whether this is the result of the Xbox One simply not being as powerful as the PS4, and you're doing your best with the hardware you have, or whether for future versions you may be able to get the Xbox One version running natively at 1080p?

Mark Rubin: It's very possible we can get it to native 1080p. I mean I've seen it working at 1080p native. It's just we couldn't get the frame rate in the neighbourhood we wanted it to be.

And it wasn't a lack of effort. It wasn't that it was like last minute. We had the theoretical hardware for a long time. That's the thing you get pretty quickly and that doesn't change dramatically. It was more about resource allocation. The resource allocation is different on the consoles. That huge web of tangled resources, whether it's threads-based or if it's GPU threads or if it's memory - whatever it is - optimisation is something that could go theoretically on forever.

I definitely see slash hope both platforms will look way better the next time we get a chance at it. As an obvious analogy - and if people are not sure about this it's pretty simple - look at Call of Duty 2 versus COD 4. It was a massive leap forward in graphics, and that's just because it takes time to get through this.

First launch, first time at bat at a new console is a challenging one. That's just the way it is. For people fearful one system is more powerful than the other or vice versa, it's a long game.

Resolution is bobbins, anyway. Detail and effects is where it's at - after all, what looks more realistic - a 1080p PC game or a 480p DVD?

Whoops, I meant "details".