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Xbox One

For months, the Internet has been buzzing about the upcoming Sony PlayStation 4 Neo, a major refresh of the game panel that's said to deliver significantly improved graphics, a faster variant of the CPU core (with a crash-land to 2.1GHz, up from one.6GHz) and maybe back up for Ultra HD Blu-ray playback. Throughout it all, there's been little data on what Microsoft might respond with, even though the Xbox One is significantly less powerful than the current PS4 and is arguably in even more need of an update than its Sony rival. At present, a new written report claims that Microsoft is prepping a new organisation for 2017 with support for the Oculus Rift.

The written report, by Kotaku, claims that nosotros'll see a 2TB system arrive later this year in a smaller, thinner form cistron, just that a faster and more powerful Xbox One won't arrive until 2017. Like Sony, Microsoft is rumored to be moving to an Apple tree-like model in which games will be supported across a range of devices. This allows both companies to confine support to a static set of products, then drift that support over fourth dimension. Neither visitor has unveiled details of how this support model will work, however, so our ability to depict inferences as to its function is limited.

Full Windows 10 integration, Oculus Rift support?

I major signal Microsoft is apparently pushing going forward is the idea that all games should have simultaneous releases across the PC and Xbox markets and be cross-uniform, including franchises like Halo. This was a popular idea when the company first announced it, but that popularity has taken some pregnant hits of late.

As of this writing, most of the Windows Shop titles take been ugly train wrecks. The first game, Rise of the Tomb Raider, ran reasonably well, but Windows Store titles don't back up modding, multi-GPU configurations, and have express support for features like disabling V-sync. Dissimilar games congenital on Steam, they're also locked to a single operating system. This fits well with Microsoft's "Windows x is the simply Os we'll ever release again" philosophy, and exceptionally poorly with anyone who cares about multi-OS support. Some of these missing features have been added in updates, some are on the tabular array for inclusion in the Anniversary Update, and some, like modding support, have no ETA.

The platform might marry with Oculus Rift to bring full support for the VR platform to the next Xbox One, the written report said, and that its GPU volition be technically capable of 4K. This "technical" adequacy is almost certainly a bullet indicate rather than a genuine characteristic, much as it volition exist for the "PlayStation 4K." While 14nm graphics and Polaris should evangelize a significant improvement over current-24-hour interval visuals, no $100 SoC is going to be 4K-capable at significant frame rates.

What's likewise hit about this report is that Microsoft plainly isn't planning to launch an updated platform until 2017, well after Sony (the PS4K is expected to make it this year, perchance only earlier the launch of PlayStation VR.) That would mean Microsoft is going to sacrifice the imprint of improved console performance to Sony through the Christmas 2016 season, and no refreshed Xbox SKU with a 2TB HDD is going to stem the tide of cash flowing to Sony if it takes an even more than decisive lead in the console wars.