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Comment by sremani | Hacker News Reader

I am not a hardware guy, but honestly, they should mini-fy XB360 and make it appleTV competitor but with a huge game library.

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I am a hardware guy. Cooling would be a small issue (but additional die shrinks may make it possible)

There were 3 generations on Xenon which powered Xbox360 (90nm (2005), 65nm (2007), 48nm (2010+))[1]. Modern processes are 28, 16/14 (10nm is Intel only really and Xenons were fabbed GlobalFoundry) [1]. The 2005 vs 2010 models reduced power consumption reduced power consumption from 177watts, to 88watts (under intensive gameplay) [2].

So realistically there are 2(ish) nodes available 28nm and 14/16nm [3]. Which could likely (best case scenario) halve power down to 50-40watts. Apple TV by comparison uses 1.8watts [4]. Passive cooling is possible, but the case foot print would be larger.

I'm not a thermodynamics guy.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenon_(processor)

[2] http://www.anandtech.com/show/3774/welcome-to-valhalla-insid...

[3] 14nm/16nm are 28nm but a different gate style. Features are still 28nm. Also I'm assuming GlobalFoundry is calling their 45nm node 48nm because they called their 14nm node 16nm.

[4] http://www.flatpanelshd.com/review.php?subaction=showfull&id...

Those are stats for the Apple TV third generation. The fourth generation is significantly different and uses more power but it's hard for me to find an exact official number from Apple. I don't think it's much more though.

According to iFixit the 4th gens PSU is rated at 12V@0.917A, so it maxes out at 11 watts.

https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Apple+TV+4th+Generation+Tear...

I got curious and found this:

https://www.apple.com/vn/environment/pdf/products/appletv/Ap...

Looks like about 0.2-0.3 watts in standby, a bit under 2.5 for content streaming. The power supply is spec'd at 11 watts.

If it wasn't going to eat into Xbox One sales, I'm sure Microsoft would consider it. The Xbox 360 makes a far better media center than the Xbox One does. The apps on the 360 crash less then on the One and dealing with crashed apps on the 360 is much more reliable.

For example, when your YouTube app crashes/hangs on the Xbox One, returning to the menu does nothing as the app pauses/runs in the background. You can hit the menu button (akin to a right-click) on the YouTube icon and select Quit. If you run YouTube again, it'll still be running and crashed. The trick is to menu button and quit YouTube and then run a couple other video apps (usually Netflix and Hulu do the trick). This is usually enough to fully offload the YouTube process and allow it to run again.

This is how Microsoft's flagship entertainment console works. In 2016. Seriously.

Everytime our cat sitter watches our place, I have the Xbox 360 hooked up for her to watch videos on. It's easier to use and more reliable.

If you quit the app with the menu button then it is quit completely. Essentially, the "home" functionality works just like on iOS or Android. You're right that it is not always intuitive in situations when an app is hanging/frozen, but I'm not sure why you have to open other apps to get it to quit - I've never had that problem.

Disclosure: I used to work on the Xbox Live team at MSFT but no longer do.

That may be what's supposed to happen and what does in testing, but that's not real world behavior.

I had the YouTube app crash on my Xbox One just yesterday. I hit menu and selected quit. Waited a few seconds. Hit menu again and quit wasn't an available option which should mean that it's done being force quit. Started YouTube again and it will still hung playing audio with a frozen picture. Sometimes I'll start it again and it'll just show the YouTube logo for a few seconds then return to home. It'll often do this a few times in a row. I have maybe 6 people in my neighborhood with Xbox Ones that all experience the same issues.

I can also confirm this.

Xbox one dev here - can confirm what my sibling said about the quit button. It immediately suspends (quits) the process. I've poured many hours into the product lifetime cycle of my game.

On the other hand, if you don't hit quit, than hitting home and opening a bunch of other apps is exactly what you'd have to do to get the constrained (minimized) app to force quit while in the background.

Quoting my below response so you see it as well: "That may be what's supposed to happen and what does in testing, but that's not real world behavior.

And it was just confirmed by another HN user.

Sony tried to do something similar with the PlayStation TV https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_TV

but with a huge game library

They have actually backported quite a few games[0] to run on the Xbox One (where you can use the original disk, or now even buy them as digital downloads). So my guess is that they are likely to push for more Xbox One sales (where buyers have the convenience of playing either era of game) rather than try to create a mini-device that would only be able to play older games and not newer ones.

[0] - http://www.xbox.com/en-GB/xbox-one/backward-compatibility/av...

But that misses the parent's point. At $300, the Xbox One isn't an AppleTV competitor.

Sure, but it would eat a non-zero amount of Xbox One sales. Presumably that's why Microsoft isn't about to do it.

Wouldn't that have been a concern these last two and a half years anyways?

That's certainly what I was getting at. An AppleTV doesn't take away from sales of any other Apple product (that I know of). Whereas this theoretical product might take away from Xbox one sales (which they target as a TV + multimedia + gaming system).

That's not a backport, that's just a port. Backporting would be converting XBox One games to run on the 360.

That's basically the Nvidia Shield

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