Microsoft Could've Killed Sony With A Diskless Xbox One.

[Sir William Wiener]

Anyone who's ever played a PC game or ran a full desktop OS off an SSD knows the drastic difference it makes. No disc or HDD compares to SSD's.

The Xbox One should've been a diskless console with the 512 GB SSD (from the Surface Pro 2) with full OneDrive and SD/USB storage expansion support and Kinect optional.

The console would've been smaller lighter and run much cooler without a disc drive and traditional HDD. Still price it at $599 and throw in 100GB of OneDrive cloud storage to compensate for price. (They make their money in the XBL Gold subscriptions anyways).
Everyone would forget about physical discs after experiencing games boot up and run on a modern SSD.

 

[Keith Wallace]

Haha, I don't think you know how this stuff works. How much is the Surface Pro 2 with the 512-GB SSD? $1,800. A big part of that price is the SSD--one that big is $300+. A 500-GB HDD is probably about $50, so that change alone pushes the console to $800. Now, of course, that's not the only problem.

Go put a SSD in the Xbox One, and see what you get. Well, you kinda can't, but you can do it with the PS4, and people have. What they got was minimal speed improvements from a HDD to a SSD. Why is that? The motherboards in these consoles use SATA 2, not SATA 3, which is twice as fast (and the port you put a SSD into). The SATA 2 port would bottleneck the SSD, and that's what it does on the PS4. So, that means you're also going to have to upgrade the motherboard, which probably runs them another $50 or so, meaning we're now around $850. Now, if you want, I'll go give you that $50 back for the Blu-Ray drive, and we'll be at $800 again. It might be a bit more than it's worth, but I'm OK with it.

So, now you have your disc-less, SSD-based Xbox One, and it's $800. Now, do you remember that always-online DRM check Microsoft had? Do you remember how many people were pissed because they wouldn't be able to take their consoles offline? If you go disc-less, you're going to need a quality Internet connection to install your 30-GB+ games, and people aren't going to like waiting 2 days for Forza to install. A 3-Mbps connection is what I had until last year, and on that connection, the 35-GB Forza 5 install would have taken SIXTY-SIX HOURS. Of course, that's at peak speeds, and it also means I have my Internet connection crippled for 3 days or more, waiting for one game. Oh, and considering I also have Titanfall and Kinect Sports Rivals, better make it a good week before I can play online.

I guess the solution there is delivering games via USB 3.0 flash drives, but a 64-GB 3.0 flash drive would probably add $5-10 to the cost of each game, because without a disc, that's the only way you're going to be able to physically distribute games. So now, you're added $300 to the cost of the console and $5-10 to the cost of each game.

Oh, and let's not talk about when the warranty ends. Your SSD fails, for whatever reason, and now you've got to spend $200+ to get a new one (I figure that'll be about the price of them once these one-year warranties die). So, replacing the Xbox One's failed SSD is half the cost of the PS4. I won't even get into what happens when you have to get a new SSD in 3 years because the included one is full.

Hopefully that all covers why this is irrational, impossible, and why it would absolutely cripple the gaming division.

 

[ncxcstud]

I wouldn't want disc less simply because I like watching bluray movies. Netflix and amazon and vudu don't have everything, and they sure don't have rentals for $1.50... Or free like my library...

 

[smoledman]

Nah, the problem with SSD is that excessive writes kill it very fast and that's exactly what happens on a game console. Endless thrashing of the hard drive.

 

[Coreldan]

It would be sweet, but probably too expensive to kill anything but the idea itself

 

[Keith Wallace]

Nah, the problem with SSD is that excessive writes kill it very fast and that's exactly what happens on a game console. Endless thrashing of the hard drive.

Excessive writes DO kill SSDs, but it also takes a LOOOOOOOOOOOOT of them to pull it off. It's something like 100 GB/day to kill it in 5 years, if I remember correctly.

As Coreldan said, the cost is too obscene, and like I said, the SATA 2 motherboards in the thing would bottleneck it anyway.

 

[vertigoOne]

USB 3.0 enclosure + SSD + external storage support = better idea.

 

[Keith Wallace]

No.

 

[Polychrome]

I personally wouldn't like it, because I'm hoping they *eventually* put support for 3D blu-rays in the darn thing and let me clean up some cables.

BUT, to me it would make sense for a budget sku. Nearly everything except "toy" games (like Skylanders for example) is already downloadable, so why not? Give it basic support for a USB3 blu-ray drive in case somebody changes their mind later, and you're good to go.

Well, I like everything except the SSD. That's unrealistic.

SSDs run nice, but they are also more expensive per gigabyte. Plain hard drives will do the job nicely. If you really want an SSD in an Xbox One, wait for the external drive update or learn to mod.

 

[Flagz]

I want a discless always on Xbox and so do many other people. Hoping it comes as a smaller alternative for people in the future. They really tossed out all of the "Cool Factors" J live about the Xbox when they made a 180 and decided to play it safe. I was excited for the always on benefits. Hopefully someday.

 

[chezm]

The general public would still prefer the option to download games or buy the physical copies, so i dont believe the disk-less model would be a top seller. As much as i enjoy kinect 2.0, going with a kinect-less model is the best decision they made to gain marketshare.

 

[Rhody#WP]

I think Microsoft has learned some lessons about being ahead of the curve. They had the pocket PC, the UMPC, WebTV, MSN watch, etc. All of those products got slaughtered. Now, their current counterparts are ubiquitous. I agree that diskless game consoles that use controller, voice, and movement control and unite everything you do on your TV are the future. But if they released such a thing today, it would eventually be a footnote in tech history. These days they're doing a better job of doing what Apple does, riding the crest of the curve, not getting out in front of it.

 

[MobileVortex]

give me a slim version of the x1 with no disc drive for $200 in 2 years or less and ill buy 3 of them.

 

[Keith Wallace]

I'm sure you would. The console's drive's not worth $200, haha. At best, you could have that sans-Kinect edition release without a drive for $350, but with a 1-TB HDD.

 

[Coreldan]

I'm sure you would. The console's drive's not worth $200, haha. At best, you could have that sans-Kinect edition release without a drive for $350, but with a 1-TB HDD.

Well he did say in "2 years" too, Kinectless and driveless might just go for quite cheap, but 200usd is quite a stretch.

 

[Keith Wallace]

If they went without a drive, they'd definitely up the internal HDD to both make up for that and counteract the cost drop. The consoles don't drop that far that fast. I'd imagine you'd have a new, "slim" model, like with the 360, which STILL had a $300 price tag after about 5 years. If that model existed, I'd bet it was $300-350.

 

[Coreldan]

If they went without a drive, they'd definitely up the internal HDD to both make up for that and counteract the cost drop. The consoles don't drop that far that fast. I'd imagine you'd have a new, "slim" model, like with the 360, which STILL had a $300 price tag after about 5 years. If that model existed, I'd bet it was $300-350.

Indeed, even now the newest 360 models barely go for what is 200usd converted into euros around here.

 

[onysi]

you don't know gamers well. gamers whine too much and they seem to slow the progress of console gaming evolution.

 

[Keith Wallace]

you don't know gamers well. gamers whine too much and they seem to slow the progress of console gaming evolution.

What is this comment related to?

 

[onysi]

What is this comment related to?

The whole picture as to why Microsoft did not go diskless. Gamers. I guarantee you Xbox one would be in much worse shape now if they went diskless.