Secret War
PLAYSTATION AND XBOX’S PECULIAR RACE TO THE BOTTOM
With Sony PlayStation decisively winning the console war, any meaningful remonstrance from Microsoft’s-Xbox has been futile. With each quarterly report the Xbox financials seem to tumble from bad to worse. The bottom fell out. Xbox’s meandering has ultimately culminated in self-defeat. This hasn’t been an honourable death but a slow and painful one. Nevertheless, when Asha Sharma took over as CEO some pointed out that she’d brought back the console wars. In reality, changes instigated at the Microsoft subsidiary have been little more than village skirmishes. No running pitch battles in spite of a rousing war cry. Pockets of resistance here and there whose fire may soon be snuffed out by the behemoth that is the PlayStation 5. While the generals may have failed the army, many of its best and brightest developed world class tech that was and still is eons ahead of any of what their peers have put to market. Perhaps better tactics and different leadership yanking the various gears of war at their disposal would have led to a much better outcome for the ailing brand. Sadly, the console manufacturer is constantly swarmed by bad news with each burst of light swallowed whole by the dark and heavy clouds clinging to Microsoft’s lofty tower of ambition. This hasn’t stopped their hardware development team from scoring decisive yet ultimately worthless victories in the larger scheme of things. Some wars are fought out in the open. Others are in the shadows. Wars so secret that only acolytes of either brand will notch out the silent victories amidst the downpour of bad news. Not mountaintops but hilltops forever screaming out in deafening silence. Unheard yet significant.
Sadly, the console manufacturer is constantly swarmed by bad news with each burst of light swallowed whole by the dark and heavy clouds clinging to Microsoft’s lofty tower of ambition.
Over the past few years, various governmental and international agencies have mandated net zero protocols. Encouraging and in some instances legislating change in how business are run and operated in a bid to lower carbon emissions. Console manufacturers being part of larger conglomerates have not been left out of the foray. Tech giants tend to be power and resource hungry chief among them being Microsoft with their “A.I.” and cloud technology putsch. However, long before the advent of resource hungry data centres, the titans of industry made attempts to lower their average green house emissions. However, this was not on the manufacturing side of the equation. It was on the consumer side. A hard task to accomplish in any meaningful capacity. Laying aside the ideological and religious philosophies of the green movement, this has been a worthwhile endeavour and not necessarily due to net zero demands. In the broader industrial world, these protocols have proven to be a disaster making unaffordable the once affordable and decimating the abode of the western middle class. The tragedy of the green movement is that it has been dominated by ideologues who are keen on the immiseration of humanity in an attempt to assuage self inflicted guilt. This has led to attempts to force technology to change at an unsustainable rate with often unrealistic goals. The infamous VW Diesel Gate cheating scandal comes to mind. Technology is supposed to melt into the background and fade out of cognisance. Something that leads to the betterment of humanity without impacting much of our chosen lifestyles.
Technology is supposed to melt into the background and fade out of cognisance. Something that leads to the betterment of humanity without impacting much of our chosen lifestyles.
In the domain of consumer electronics, the changes have not been as dire. Apple has championed renewables but more importantly recycling as most of their products use recycled aluminium to varying degrees and with a great degree of success. A win-win in that Apple maintains high profits from lower manufacturing costs and fewer raw materials have to be extracted from the earth. While console manufacturers have had some form of eco mode on their respective systems over the years, only recently have they specifically started to tweak how video games run on either platform in a bid to reduce net power consumption across either brand. Tackling the problem not from a hardware manufacturing perspective but rather a software one. A rather peculiar race to the bottom but one that promises much fruit in future endeavours especially with the rising costs of manufacturing. Video games that demand less from the CPUs and GPUs of the consoles demand less powerful hardware. A core need in a time when resources hungry data centres have gobbled up most of the chips needed to manufacture said consoles. However, only one of these titans of industry have put forth a successful product.
Sony PlayStation has adopted the governmental approach of attempting to shock the populace into changing their consumer habits. Offering worse performance on select titles for not much benefit. Thankfully, this is an opt in option. Sony’s first party developers have worked hand in hand with the hardware manufacturer to have a power saver mode specifically for their titles. In essence, these titles drastically reduce their power draw from the consoles resources by cutting down on performance demands such as running at lower and unstable frame rates while also implementing visual cutbacks. Digital Foundry’s extensive testing found that these modes decimated the user experience for not much benefit. The impact has been so cataclysmic to title performance many have speculated this was simply a testing bed for the hitherto unannounced PlayStation 6 handheld. Microsoft’s approach has been very different. With a crack team of software engineers and powered by Microsoft’s endless supply of capital, both human and otherwise, Xbox developers studied user behaviour in certain titles. In Call of Duty for example, Infinity Ward attempted to “strike a balance between maintaining sharp graphical responsiveness and fidelity while addressing the energy efficiency concerns of both console and PC gamers.” In short, they worked to reduce power draw from the respective systems in ways that were un-intrusive and did not compromise the gaming experience.
The tragedy of the green movement is that it has been dominated by ideologues who are keen on the immiseration of humanity in an attempt to assuage self inflicted guilt.
By offering three modes, players were greeted with various opt in options on how much of an impact they would like the power saving measures to affect their gaming experience. In one mode all power saving measures are off. In the second, the game specifically reduces the resolution of in game menus by a third and caps off the frame rate to 60 Hertz. This yields an estimated 20% power saving. In the the full mode, the in-game menus have their resolution reduced by half with frame rate capped to 30 Hertz. This results in a net saving of about 50%. In addition, in the latter two modes during pause menus certain elements are deactivated by either reducing the resolution of anything happening on screen or freezing it completely. In a follow up study after launching the energy features Infinity Ward reported that up to 90% of players opted for the minimal power saving option on console(70% on PC)with approximately 2.1% opting for the full option(1.7% on PC). The savings here were measurable but more importantly implemented in an ingenious way that did not impact the player experience. PlayStations attempts appear crude and ill-thought out.
Bethesda’s MachineGames implemented a similar feature that “by default, the GPU will spin down when it is not being fully tasked.” Running a fully off-grid setup had me accidentally pick up the impact of the feature while fiddling around with my apartment setup. It really does reduce power draw by almost half when the pause menu is activated. Having to head out to attend to other matters which can at times pull me away from my console for minutes at a time before my console automatically shuts off means I can save on energy which I can use later in the event of low solar yield. Simply put, I can game for longer. This feature is on by default with no opt in. However, it is un-intrusive with a further opt in option, which I will never touch, to cut down power draw by much more. This is how technology is supposed to work. To seamlessly integrate into our lives without forcing us to change our lifestyles. It serves us without forcing us into betrothal. This is not only a great feat of engineering but a decisive victory for the Xbox platform. Sadly, its one victory in one battle in a war that was already lost. A race to the bottom with a clear winner but one in which many players are none the wiser.
Video companion piece Here.
Image credits in order of appearance: Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay; Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay; Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay