Microsoft's Mike Ybarra Talks The New Xbox, Cross-Platform, And PUBG

"We've worked on this since 2012, and finally we get to talk about it ... I tell people to step back and think about this E3: what moment, they do not release new consoles, the most powerful console ever, that Often. They are releasing important hardware. It's Christmas for me. "

Mike Ybarra, corporate vice president of video games for Microsoft and Xbox, is obviously very happy that he gets to talk about his baby, Project Scorpio, the new Xbox One X.

Hardware changes throughout the development lifecycle of a console change fundamentally in the years prior to its final release. Ybarra can speak extensively about that process, and the fact that it is not easy: "[Happens] quite often, if you create something for the future, you go quite broad." You push your engineering program as far as you can until you have to take decisions.

"What kind of GPU do we need? How much RAM do we need - what the developers want? What special optimization do we have to do to get performance?" It's always difficult and the hardest part of engineering is deciding when to stop. Of world-class engineering that I'm incredibly proud of are machines. "

Making the Xbox One X smaller - the smallest Xbox ever, and definitely small overall, considering the amount of power that has been a challenge, but had a real reason to be. "It's funny, we started to make this box, we challenged the hardware team to make a box that is true 4K - that's more than 8 million pixels on the screen, that's high dynamic range, that's spatial audio, all that together - with a faster hard disk and more memory.

And I said, "I want it to be smaller than anything we've done before." The power management system as well as the cooling, we take advantage, and we work with the Windows server team, which usually have a few years ahead of consumers, to see what we could take advantage of. "

"Because some people put it behind a closed door in the living room, but most people have it sitting, hardcore gamers, they love looking at that box, so it's sitting there. And we wanted to have something that was Very premium, When you touch it and you feel it, it shows the ability, it's really the goal behind that and we hit it, it's amazing to see that ... and next time we're going to go even smaller. "

The Xbox One X looks identical to the previous iteration, and there's a reason behind that, even if it's disappointing for anyone looking for something new and flashy. "For us, compatibility was one of the pillars of what we wanted to offer, so from a design point of view, our designers are, of course," give me free will, I want to create the craziest in the world ", and Me I love that too, but compatibility was very important.

"This is a family of products that run all the same games, all the same hardware, all the same components that connect to your TV. So even when you see the back of the Xbox One X, those things are set exactly The way it is in the Xbox One S. It's so important to consumers that we said - I can not be ready for X, but I love my S. When I want to upgrade, all this has to come with me.

But Ybarra definitely thinks that the One X is a console for shoppers who want the best of their gaming machine, be it a PC or a console or anything else in that spectrum. "It's for the player who wants the best experience they can get. They want the latest technology, they want 4K in the living room, and you see these games that look terrific - making it a player who wants technology that can do That for them. "

The same type of customer, Mike agrees, could also have a 4K gaming PC, but want an experience on a bigger television. Those customers might also want familiar peripherals - keyboard and mouse The keyboard and mouse are coming to Xbox, but there is still no precise timetable for it. "We have data showing that a good part of our players play in a two-foot stage, using a computer monitor due to the latency of televisions.

"And we'll listen to customers and make sure that the developers have the options they want. For example, in a highly competitive game, you probably do not want a keyboard and mouse player playing against a player controller. He's so good with anyone who does not care, we have to be aware of how we do this, something that I personally would love to see happen. "

The multiplatform game is one of those things that keeps traditional PC videogames away from consoles - you always have a group of island friends playing the same games as you, and you rarely cross platforms. That will continue to be the case for a longer time, with at least competitive games. "From the network point of view, we would love to see a single game played, no matter what glass you are, we think of the games, not the platform." Minecraft is one of those - I can invite you to your Switch, we can be playing, that's true freedom.

"I apply the same logic to the PC and console, and we just have to be smart about things like the input. For the competitive player, you and I will be like, there are a lot of what is here. Latency view, from an entry point of view, a FOV viewpoint, we have to go see that and make that sense. In a broad sense, I think it's almost there Mira Minecraft.

"There are two categories that we have to be aware of, and as platform spokespersons we have to make sure we know that and talk to the core players to be aware of that." But the vision we have or at least have is that no matter what device you are - those games can, through the power of the cloud, with synchronization, you can play on any platform you want, whatever you want, wherever you want.

Mike Ybarra is a Battlegrounds fan of PlayerUnknown, too, and was instrumental in bringing that title to Xbox One in the near future. "When Phil [Spencer] alluded on the stage to a bunch of Xbox team playing [PUBG] ... he's talking about me.I'm addicted to that game.It's emitted almost every night, and I felt, like, it's a hit.

If there is a game that Ybarra clearly wants more than any other on the Xbox, it's Battlegrounds from PlayerUnknown. "I went to [Phil] and I said, look, we have to call Brendan [Greene, creator of the game] because this game is hot, I can not even stop, I'm in E3 and I'm having because I'm not playing PUBG, The bad thing it is.We have to choose which games are going great, and for me, PUBG is [one of those] - how creative, what a stunning game, the console is going to be awesome. "

Ybarra clearly has no problem staying exaggerated, even though he has had an Xbox One X at home for a while, and there has been a steady trickle of information about the console over the past year. "It's hard - as engineers, we create something, and there comes a time when you like it, players will like this - and we want to talk about it before! But we have great public relations people who build this strategy, and Lo We have done many times, and we are trained.

"I love it when there are no leaks, so the story is said in a different way, or it gets confused - but it's not easy. I've been using One X for months, and I've always wanted to tweet 'Hey, look what I'm doing ! '"

The only thing Ybarra has problems with is remembering the name of the new console, after stumbling once with 'Xbox One X': "It's not something you get used to overnight.