Seems like he did lead design for both systems.
If so, he did not only fuck up on specs, he also kinda messed up not making them cost-savy enough, the X is very overbuilt and has a split board layout (which is expensive).
Well on the split board stuff, I think that was primarily because of Series X systems doubling as server blades. Putting the I/O on a separate board meant they didn't need to manufacture completely new boards for the server implementations of Series X units.
But we also know Sony have modified PS5s for a lot of their cloud streaming. Curious if they make specific boards for those or just use modified PS5 boards. If it's the latter, pretty sure they would be able to double the memory capacity and whatnot, but I'm mainly curious if that's cheaper for them than Microsoft's approach.
Every experience I've had with a Surface has been awful. They are shitty pieces of hardware that have nonstop issues.
Reviewers and tech heads/content creators seem to love them though. Still, interesting to hear takes from the less impressed.
The hardware is one part. Ms hasn't delivered on the games front. And most probably Ronald had a more balanced machine in the original design. But uncle Phil must have asked him to make it cheaper to try to have an edge on the price vs Ps5. If the games were there nobody would have care. Look at the switch.
Well the Series X was originally going to have 20 GB of memory which would've made the memory situation a non-issue. But they cut it back to 16 GB for cost reasons.
In hindsight, not a good idea.
Honestly this is one of the takes on Xbox that I understand the least. The team that did the Series S/X had extreme limitations on it made by Xbox management. Because of the 360 red ring of death, they could not push termals as much as they would want. Because of the Xbox One failure, they had to find a way to make sure that their console would be superior to the PS5, while being not too costly and with limited time and ressources, as they had to do the One X before it, and did not have the same clear vision, mandate and freedom and experience that Sony got. They had to make the platform that will become the Series S and X also work as a base for Xcloud. On top of all that, they had to do 2 consoles AND find a way to have it work with the next Direct X(direct storage and maybe RT) implementation while another team was writing the specifications of it at Microsoft. Joker: give it some abilities beyong AMD standard specs with VRR/HDMI 2.1 implementation(before the standard is set again) and whatever they mean by machine learning and Sampler Feedback Streaming. We can be happy that Sony got smart with the PS5, and specifically the digital edition, a real masterclass IMHO as it will be the base model in the future. But I really think that the Xbox team that designed the Series S/X got fucked over by Xbox management.
Very good take on the constraints for Xbox hardware team for Series S & X. They had to play ball with the Azure folks and use some form of their stuff for Xcloud.
IMHO, the Xbox hardware team probably had ~ 3.5 years to design these Series systems. And they probably waited to see initial reception to the One S & One X to solidify redesigns that would become the Series S & X. Didn't the initial spec rumors for the systems leak in early 2018? That isn't too long after the One X launched, and MS like to put rumors out into the public so they get discourse, usually for some level of feedback.
Compared to the SIE hardware group, the Xbox hardware team was severely constrained and seemingly LTTP in 9th-gen console development. But that's what happens when your division gets funding cut for like two years; that's going to screw up R&D for new hardware for sure.
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