Microsoft’s Marc Whitten recently appeared on Major Nelson’s podcast to detail the company’s finalization of the Xbox One hardware. As chief product officer, Whitten named many of the Xbox team’s objectives that have been reached, and even surpassed, through beta testing. Whitten noted that their graphics software, or as it’s referred to internally, the “mono-driver,” has been made widely available to developers, and that it’s improved the working relations between “developer” and “console.” The mono-driver came to be through a series of revisions and additions to the software. “You sort of start out with the base driver, and then you take out all parts that don’t look like Xbox One and you add in everything that really, really, optimizes that experience,” Whitten said.
With Xbox One’s final hardware becoming more solidified, Microsoft initiated an adjustment process where areas such as the GPU were re-evaluated. By “tweaking the knobs,” as Whitten calls it, a new breakthrough in the graphics processing speed was made, going from a clock speed of 800 MHz to 853 MHz.
The November launch of the Xbox One is edging closer, and this imminent stamp of finality on the hardware is an exciting phase of the development process. Microsoft will be present at this year’s GamesCom event on August 20th, where they will showcase a batch of titles set for release on the console. Microsoft’s appearance is noteworthy given their absence at the annual Cologne trade fair last year. Their return may signify the company’s need for more positive feedback following public controversy in regards to topics like DRM, used games, privacy, and kinship with independent developers. The latter was recently addressed by Microsoft in allowing self-publishing on the console, which was the latest of reversals on the console’s features.
[Source: Polygon]
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