Microsoft’s E3 Xbox One demos ran on Nvidia-powered PCs

 

It has emerged that Microsoft used Hewlett Packard made PCs equipped with Nvidia GTX 700 series graphics cards to demonstrate Xbox One titles at E3 last week. In one case an E3 attendee played an Xbox One demo which crashed to the Windows 7 desktop. Furthermore, behind the scenes photos revealed someone maintaining these hidden PCs, with a side panel exposing various components. Meanwhile at the E3 show, many Sony PlayStation 4 games were definitely running on PS4 “dev hardware” - the same as the final shipping console but in a utilitarian box.

While using gaming PCs to show off console games at exhibitions is thought to be quite common, Microsoft previously said they were running games “on comparable dev kit specs to the actual home consoles”, reports Gaming Blend.

Whether an HP gaming PC running Windows 7 and packing an Nvidia GTX 700 series GPU is comparable to the Xbox One console is debatable. However this use of PCs suggests the Xbox One hardware/software isn’t nearly as ready as the Sony PS4. Perhaps if Microsoft used Xbox One dev kits to show off the upcoming games it may not have been a good representation of the final gameplay experience.

Further fun is poked at Microsoft in the Gaming Blend article as these PCs running Xbox One demos weren’t even using the Windows 8 OS, which is supposed to be partly what the Xbox One’s OS is based upon.

UPDATE: There have been several follow ups to the original Gaming Blend article highlighting these behind-the-scenes PCs. It should be noted that there were also several other game developers running Xbox One game demos on actual Xbox One development hardware at E3. The above photos represent just one game dev's choice to show off its upcoming Xbox One game title.

The new Xbox has just been revealed at an invitation-only event at the Microsoft HQ in Redmond, Washington. The next Microsoft Xbox console is not going to be called the Xbox 720, NextBox, Infinity or simply the Xbox - it will be known as the ‘Xbox One’.

The event started when Don Mattrick, President of the Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft, came on stage and said “We've spent the last four years working on the next generation Xbox”. He talked about the achievements of the Xbox 360 before asking – “Can we take what you love and make it better? Can we take a living that has become too slow and fragmented, to harmonize your experiences?” He spells out the mission, the aim of the new Xbox One; “Team Xbox is on a new mission: to design and build an all-in-one system for games, movies, and entertainment”.

Marc Whitten, general manager of Xbox Live comes on stage. A slideshow reveals that the Xbox One hardware is roughly what had been expected; an 8 core CPU, 8GB of RAM, 500GB HDD, a Blu-ray drive, 802.11 Wireless with Wi-Fi direct, HDMI in/out, and USB 3.0. Hopefully more details will be revealed about the architecture shortly.



Also every Xbox One comes with a new 1080p Kinect sensor “processing over 2 gigabits of data per second to understand your world”. The Kinect will recognise your voice and your gestures, as demonstrated by Yusuf Mehdi. The new Kinect can sense such subtle things as the turn of a wrist, when you shift your weight from one foot to another, and even your heart beat.

Andrew Wilson, head of EA's sports franchises, came on stage and talked excitedly about the Xbox One, which will host EA’s FIFA, Madden, UFC and NCAA games. There are some videos of the games being played and of course they appear smooth, glossy and realistic in all the right places. Following the EA representative a new ‘Forza’ racing title is announced, Remedy Studios show a new game called ‘Quantum Break’ and 343 Studios talk about the new ‘Halo’ game.

Incidentally Steven Speilberg will be lending a hand in making a live-action Halo TV series. Premium Xbox One subscribers will be able to watch the TV series streamed to their consoles.

To round off the games presentation, and actually the event as a whole, Eric Hirshberg, head of Activision Publishing, takes to the stage and shows the game ‘Call of Duty: Ghosts’. Hirshberg describes how the new Xbox One has facilitated far more detailed graphics in the game and we see close-ups of a game character's hands, including dirt under the fingernails. Also apparently dogs will have a prominent role in this game.