Xenon: Looking Forward; Looking Back With all the speculation surrounding the development of Microsoft's next version of the Xbox (code named Xenon, sometimes referred to as Xbox 2), it'd be out of place for a semi-hacker, game enthusiast and Halo fan not to comment on these new developments and revelations. While many of these topics have already been covered by Narcogen of Rampancy in this well-written rant, it's also important not to underestimate the fact that as of right now, it is unknown whether there will be a hard drive in every Xenon console. This statement presents some interesting possibilities, though, towards backwards compatibility and future ambitions for the gaming and online divisions of Microsoft. First, I direct you to this report released by the folks at Xbox-Scene, which reads as if it's from the Microsoft Hardware team (although highly unofficial, and unconfirmed.) Various gaming sites have responded with various confirmations and denials about the document's authenticity, but it is written in a similar style to official, leaked Xbox documents and seems to be a good indicator of what may come. While there is no direct reference to backwards compatibility, the interesting section follows:

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Storage The Xenon console is designed around a larger world view of storage than Xbox was. Games will have access to a variety of storage devices, including connected devices (memory units, USB storage) and remote devices (networked PCs, Xbox Live�). At the time of this writing, the decision to include a built-in hard disk in every Xenon console has not been made. If a hard disk is not included in every console, it will certainly be available as an integrated add-on component. Xenon supports up to two attached memory units (MUs). MUs are connected directly to the console, not to controllers as on Xbox. The initial size of the MUs is 64 MB, although larger MUs may be available in the future. MU throughput is expected to be around 8 MB/sec for reads and 1 MB/sec for writes. The Xenon game disc drive is a 12� DVD, with an expected outer edge throughput of 16+ MB/sec. Latency is expected to be in the neighborhood of 100 ms. The media format will be similar to Xbox, with approximately 6 GB of usable space on the disk. As on Xbox, media will be stored on a single side in two 3 GB layers.

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So what follows is more a dissection of these unofficial statements and my own opinions, as to their authenticity and repercussions. The Xenon console is designed around a larger world view of storage than Xbox was. This could mean many things. First of all, I've previously mentioned the perils of having a storage system like FATX which has a limitation on block sizes. An improved file system, such as an extension of NTFS (used in Windows NT, 2000, XP and 2003), would be more tolerant to space usage and possibly errors during writing data. Under the Windows world, though, you cannot unplug a removable USB storage device (formatted as NTFS) without first indicating to Windows to stop all write operations. This process involves going to the system tray, selecting the device and hitting "Stop" before unceremoniously yanking the thumb drive out of the USB port. The process which requires this procedure, called "write caching", improves disk access times by delaying certain writes to the device. Whether it would be unwise to implement this storage system in Xenon is a task which is best left to Microsoft. Games will have access to a variety of storage devices, including connected devices (memory units, USB storage) and remote devices (networked PCs, Xbox Live�). Obviously, the "networked PC" mentioned here is a Windows XP-based computer with SMB file sharing enabled. It would be quite possible for a custom shell extension to be implemented in Windows, allowing proprietary access to the Xbox. This is similar to the Xbox Development Kit shell extension, called "Xbox Neighborhood", which is installed to facilitate developer access to the console's hard drive. If no hard drive is included in the console, game saves could be stored on the attached memory units, networked PC's (such as a "My Xbox Saves" folder) - or what I see as the most likely solution, Xbox Live. What an enticing prospect this must be for Microsoft. If the ability for the current generation of Xbox units is enabled to store game saves on Xbox Live, what better way to encourage subscriptions than to require users to store these games on the service? Such an implementation encourages users to keep their broadband connections, keep their subscriptions going for online services, and continually ensure their console is attached in some way to the Internet, globally heartbeating to a master server in Redmond. At the time of this writing, the decision to include a built-in hard disk in every Xenon console has not been made. If a hard disk is not included in every console, it will certainly be available as an integrated add-on component. This seems to be a direct comparison to Microsoft's desire to wait for Sony to announce a hard drive for the PlayStation 3. Why the company would consider removing one of the most unique and useful features of their console in the next version really only makes sense from a financial standpoint. The most telling word of the above statement is "every". Obviously, it makes little business sense to put a $65 or higher costing hard drive in consoles that will have no online users, constantly remaining at 50,000+ blocks free, when said users would be better served by a 64 megabyte memory card that can have a decent markup applied to it. So the possibility of implementing a "power user" console, with an external hard drive peripheral included, is not too far out of reach, confirming: If a hard disk is not included in every console, it will certainly be available as an integrated add-on component. What this does for backwards compatibility is sketchy at best. The "caching" feature that made Halo's in-map loading times almost non-existent required a utility partition on the Xbox hard drive; in fact, all games use a utility partition to some extent. There are three of these partitions; named X, Y and Z, all with a capacity of 768MB of temporary storage space. When a game like MechAssault refuses to let users skip its loading screens, it is copying data from the DVD to a utility partition. When the loading screens can be bypassed, MechAssault has been used in the Xbox as one of the last three games played: the data is available on a utility partition. So in order to emulate backwards compatibility, completely disregarding the hardware standpoint of things and user space for save games, Xenon would need 3 x 768MB of space, plus approximately 100-300MB of storage for the legacy Dashboard, ADPCM .wav files for the sounds, and Xbox Live "xodash" folder, all equaling at most 2.7GB of space. There are currently two extremely popular devices on the market with a similar capacity and a small footprint: the iPod and the iPod Mini. Of course, theoretically, Xenon would not need 2.7GB of space. If reduced to one utility partition and legacy space, totals could come in at under 1GB, making another excellent candidate for a larger storage device from M-Systems, the announced partner that is expected to create the memory units for Xenon. Xenon supports up to two attached memory units (MUs). MUs are connected directly to the console, not to controllers as on Xbox. While this seems like a downgrade from the existing Xbox setup (potentially, one could have up to eight memory units connected; two per controller), it should have no bearing in the real world if Xenon has a hard drive peripheral. Without the hard drive, the memory unit becomes more of a necessity, than a way to take your game saves to a different console. What's more, each current Xbox memory card's "one Gamertag per card" and "eight Gamertags per Xbox" is due to the way that the 'tags themselves are stored: in the FATX header of each device, not as actual accessible files. Switching file systems would require a different way to store authentication and account information. The initial size of the MUs is 64 MB, although larger MUs may be available in the future. MU throughput is expected to be around 8 MB/sec for reads and 1 MB/sec for writes. The memory unit throughput, again, does not matter if Xenon has a hard drive. For the size of saved games and profiles for most games, saving can be performed in less than a second. Current Xbox MUs are limited in transfer speed due to the USB 1.1 interface used for the Xbox controllers, and any attached peripherals. Without a hard drive, creating "checkpoint" saves for Halo will take much longer - a typical checkpoint is written to one of the utility drives very quickly. A checkpoint taking as long as the pause when selecting "Save and Exit Game" would be typical, if memory cards were used for primary Xenon storage. (The math ends up being approximately 200 blocks per save * 16KB/block = 3200 KB = 3.125MB; therefore it would take three to four seconds at top performance to save a checkpoint.) The Xenon game disc drive is a 12� DVD, with an expected outer edge throughput of 16+ MB/sec. The Samsung DVD drive used in some newer versions (v1.1 and higher) of the Xbox console is apparently a 12X part, making consoles with Samsung drives much more reliable and media-tolerant than the first-edition Thomson drives. It would be a welcome relief if consumers didn't have to worry about getting a poorer quality drive that loads games more slowly, doesn't read CD-R discs, and regularly breaks down, making it nearly useless within twelve months. While on the topic of discs, one of the most loved features of some Xbox games was the ability to have custom soundtracks. Without a hard drive peripheral, these will not be possible, and they were a clever technical feature for the console. In fact, the Xbox console was the first device to widely prove that Windows Media Audio could, even at lower bit rates, handle the task of encoding consumer-grade audio files. Once again, concededly the codec used was quite poor, and audiophiles would not be pleased at all with it; but a killer feature for equipping the home with Microsoft's own file formats seems to have been basically forgotten. Latency is expected to be in the neighborhood of 100 ms. The media format will be similar to Xbox, with approximately 6 GB of usable space on the disk. As on Xbox, media will be stored on a single side in two 3 GB layers. This seems to be correct as well - Xbox "DVD" discs had similar specifications, and Enter The Matrix was one of the first popular games that pirates had more difficulty correctly distributing, because required files for the game were over 4.7GB, the amount of capacity on a write once DVD-R or +R disc. The read-only media is not especially of interest, but the fact that the game disc drive itself is DVD-compatible indicates that the game media will come on disc format. Whether the disc format is similar to that of Nintendo's media (a smaller disc, fitting in the inner DVD tray insert -- yet have a higher capacity of 6GB?) or that of a standard DVD disc (more likely than anything else: less cost of Microsoft's part to press discs) is also an interesting concept. With a full DVD drive being used, there is no real incentive to do so: pirates would have no problem using a DVD-R to back up the contents of a smaller, proprietary disc. Speculation by news sites about these topics, as expected, is wild. Specifically, the erroneous comparison that gamesindustry.biz has made comes to mind: "Xenon is set to ship with a 100mb network socket (compared with a 10mb socket in the Xbox)" - I can confirm that both my Xbox units connect to computers and routers at 100mbps, full duplex, and that transfer rates fall into the 100mbit category - but from the way things are appearing, without a hard drive and a reasonable expectation of backwards compatibility, gamers will continue to reiterate that Somebody's On Crack. Let me know how you liked the article: comment or email evergreen98 at the-junkyard dot net.

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