Exs-Bocks Wan

[Flarecobra]

http://bgr.com/2013/05/21/microsoft-xbox-infinity-release-date/

http://news.yahoo.com/xbox-one-not-play-xbox-360-games-used-192024153.html


...Royally unimpressive so far. Especally since they never bothered announcing a price for it either.

[Bells]

YkWetpdODs8
9ekOtn7L1N0

This is all, carry on.

Now let's see if Sony is also going to fuck up and we will be 0-3 for this gen!

[Revising Ocelot]

Not being a 360 owner, I can still safely say the Xbox 360 is three-hundred-and-sixty times better than this Xbox One thing.


But really, restrictions on used games and requiring an online login every 24 hours isn't just Microsoft shooting themselves in the foot, it's locking themselves in the garage and suffocating in laughing gas.

[Magus]

I never thought anything would be more unimpressive than the PS4 press conference.

I was wrong.

Also that name is dumb.

[Aldurin]

Well, I guess it's time for Microsoft to finally slide off that cliff, then. They'll hang on to the ledge as long as possible, but I doubt they'll last, especially if Valve's console-ish thing comes out soon and the new Xbax can't get enough exclusive deals (and really only die-hard dumbass studios are gonna keep putting all of their chips in that pile.

[Grandmaster_Skweeb]

KbWgUO-Rqcw

Tv tv tv tv tv tv? Tv tv tv tv tv tv tv, television! Tv tv? Call of doody. Tv tv tv tv tv tv tv tv tv tv tv tv tv tv tv tv tv tv, television oh hay a halo tv show? Tv tv televisiotv. Doody doody doody call of tv.

Water cooler.

[Bells]

This E3 is going to be so much Fun... nintendo won't be there, Ouya on the parking lot, Microsoft going "no... but... you guys... seriously though!"

And everybody at Sony's HQ has their Sphincter clinched, cause the End Zone is clear, there are NO defenders, they have the ball, it's the final minute of the game and all they have to do is run in a straight line without tripping on their own shoelaces... and yet the world doubts it.

[phil_]

[youtube]I never was very good at snapping dogs' necks, but I did tend to play calladuty while drinking heavily in college dorms, so it's not like I had much practice. I'm not sure what high resolution dog necks to snap offers me.

[RobinStarwing]

X-box go home...you're drunk.

[Marc v4.0]

Xbone

I'm reserving judgement on both Xbone and PS4 until they actually come out and people get them in their hands and play the launch titles. This isn't 'over', there is no 'winner' and no 'loser' until all the chips are on the table for BOTH sides (Sony is still being rather quiet about their own DRM initiatives and entertainment features), and physical product meets consumer. MS is claiming to have 15 year-one exclusive titles ready to go, with 8 of them Fresh IP, and E3 would be the perfect place to push those titles now that they don't have to spend any time on their reveal. Until we can see the cards, I'm going to join Sessler in taking a stance of cautious optimism.

[akaSM]

Skweeb's video aside, I remember the conference had a dog, an over use of the word TV and a woman talking about a water cooler.

There may or may not have been sports talk because I skipped those parts.

Also, apparently people watching the stream on their xbox had trouble because the kinect kept obeying the host's orders, closing the stream and doing silly things.

[phil_]

Also, apparently people watching the stream on their xbox had trouble because the kinect kept obeying the host's orders, closing the stream and doing silly things.This is the true form of the robot apocalypse.

[Arcanum]

Required Kinect? Still have to pay for gold so they can shove ads down your throat? CoD being a part of their reveal despite being multiplatform? No thank you.

And I bet you at least half of their year-one exclusives are going to be terrible kinect games, and another chunk of "exclusives" will just be exclusive content on multiplatform titles. Unless these exclusives are all first-party titles (in which case, my prediction for terrible titles goes from 50% to 75%), it just doesn't pay enough anymore for devs to release exclusive titles.

[Aldurin]

This isn't 'over', there is no 'winner' and no 'loser' until all the chips are on the table for BOTH sides

I think Microsoft already took their loser seat in the Shame Car, and it's now just whether or not Sony will sit beside them.

Between this and the Wii-U wavering on the edge, it's the perfect time for Gabe Newell to step in to take the Iron Throne and rule the 7 companies.

[mauve]

Wii-U wavering on the edge In the Wii-U's defense, I have to give it credit for actually trying to address some gamer complaints, particularly the lack of decent games aimed at an older or "hardcore" crowd. After the release titles wore out, the Wii sort of devolved into Random Party Games Made By Studios No One Has Heard Of, SquareEnix's Dumping Ground for Failed Ideas, and Kiddie Movie Tie-In Game Central. That's not to say it didn't have any good games; the few titles that worked well, REALLY worked well. And the rest.... are in the bargain bin at gamestop.

But this time around they're showing off titles that are available on OTHER consoles with a T or M rating. I was quite surprised to see a version of Batman: Arkham Asylum in the release lineup, for example, and I'm still seeing games for that same audience being cross-released across all three consoles. Granted, these are all games I could get on ANY OTHER CONSOLE. Whether the Wii-U can crank out EXCLUSIVE games of substance for that same market is yet to be seen. If they can't do that, then gamers STILL have no reason to choose the Wii-U over another console.


BACK ON TOPIC-- I didn't watch the whole XBOX One reveal, but I did see a portion of it. I'm not impressed with what I've seen. It's still pushing the kinect, which didn't work so well the first time around, and the console itself isn't backwards compatible. Its major selling points seem to be "it's newer than the old XBOX and I can skype on it and watch TV at the same time. Also, voice commands!"

I don't care if I can use an expensive gaming machine to watch TV or surf the internet. I can do that on my PC. I can play GAMES on my PC. I can play LAST GEN GAMES AS WELL AS CURRENT GEN GAMES ON MY PC. I don't have to worry about my PC misreading a hand signal or not being able to understand my voice commands or having difficulty understanding accents. I don't have to run in place or wave my arms around to play games or open a new window.

[Marc v4.0]

Y508_rXPogQ

I remain completely amazed, each time I watch this man interview or listen to him reviews, that there are times in my day when I am not watching or listening to him.

Anyway, lots of good words and things going on in here, and Sessler is always worth it.

[Bells]

Well but at least you can skype with your grandma on your new black monolithic watercooler.

Here is the thing though... as you guys said, everything a console can do a pc can do. Some of it better. The only real advantage is the few commodities of always playing games on "full settings" without having to worry about anything and being mostly plug and play.

But y'know... fuck you if you want to travel and take your XBAX WAN with you to somewhere without internet. Can skype with grandma, but fuck you if grandma doesn't skype and you want to actually go visit her and play some games over the weekend!!

Also, i can... almost... accept no BC. That's ok. Some games needed help working on Win7 after moving from Xp and from DOS to Windows. That's fine. That can be a price to pay for console gaming... even though i can totally play 20 year old games on my PC today..........

What i cannot accept though is Microsoft trying to sell a physical version of Steam but with LESS features and more bullshit and pay-walls. Console gaming was supposed to be simpler.

[Revising Ocelot]

Call of doody.

Collar Duty.
cause its a dog lollerskates


http://i.imgur.com/7IuWSwP.gif

[Arcanum]

Oh look, Microsoft is still doing its best to shaft indie games. (http://www.shacknews.com/article/79309/xbox-one-wont-allow-indies-to-self-publish-games)

[Yumil]

So, uh, the install/key thing is something PC has been doing for years. What's the big deal? I mean, I can't take Skyrim over to my friends house without using my steam login. I don't like the focus on tv/social media, but I hate everyone who says they'll just PC game when that's the solution pc gaming made a while back>.< That's why you dont see used pc software>.<

[Krylo]

So, uh, the install/key thing is something PC has been doing for years. What's the big deal? I mean, I can't take Skyrim over to my friends house without using my steam login. I don't like the focus on tv/social media, but I hate everyone who says they'll just PC game when that's the solution pc gaming made a while back>.< That's why you dont see used pc software>.<

You're kind of answering yourself here.

Consoles have a set of advantages over PCs. One of the primary ones is used games and the ability to transport the console and games between places more easily and without available internet. The other is simplicity.

For the savvy only the first of those really matters.

Meanwhile the PC is capable of higher frame rates, better resolutions, and just over all better looking and playing games (even if it needs a bit of tweaking to get there sometimes).

For the x-box this is even more true, as most 'exclusive' x-box games are only console exclusive and still end up on PC.

. . .So if the X-Box doesn't do the one thing I want my X-Box to do over the PC, why would I use it? Why wouldn't I just use the PC, which provides a better game experience and doesn't require me to buy a new console?

[Magus]

Clearly their nefarious goal is to push people towards PCs most of which run Microsoft's Windows software, by killing their own console. NEFARIOUS

EDIT: BTW did they say whether XBOX One was finally going to run Blu-Rays? That would be hilarious if so, and hilarious if not.

[Ramary]

It does have a Blu-ray drive.

[akaSM]

Clearly their nefarious goal is to push people towards PCs most of which run Microsoft's Windows software, by killing their own console. NEFARIOUS

EDIT: BTW did they say whether XBOX One was finally going to run Blu-Rays? That would be hilarious if so, and hilarious if not.

Eww, GFWL.

[Krylo]

Clearly their nefarious goal is to push people towards PCs most of which run Microsoft's Windows software, by killing their own console. NEFARIOUS
I just figured Sony bribed one of the heads of their console division or something.

[phil_]

EDIT: BTW did they say whether XBOX One was finally going to run Blu-Rays? That would be hilarious if so, and hilarious if not.That dude in the Sessler thing about stuff said "You can watch Bluray movies" while he was avoiding answering "Does Xbox 1 need to be connected to the internet to play video games?" So I guess it can, and when not connected to Live, too.

[Aerozord]

It seems my theory might be right. The next gen will fail across the board (Wii U I think would survive since its Wii 2.0). People will instead focus on the current gen and keep those alive. Like what happened with good old atari. Despite what alot of marketing people think, just because its newer and technically improved doesn't mean the consumer will trade up.

I mean how many people still have tube TVs. It will take more than pretty pictures to get things to advance.

[Amake]

Remember when they tried to sell us on consoles by making really good games for them, and then showing off those games before launching it? Yeah me neither. I think it happened with Super Mario 64.

[Bells]

It seems my theory might be right. The next gen will fail across the board (Wii U I think would survive since its Wii 2.0). People will instead focus on the current gen and keep those alive. Like what happened with good old atari. Despite what alot of marketing people think, just because its newer and technically improved doesn't mean the consumer will trade up.

I mean how many people still have tube TVs. It will take more than pretty pictures to get things to advance.

Funny thing then that xbax juan doesn't work on old Tv's... which it seems to me like something mildly stupid to pull alongside a console that REQUIRES that you have internet access for it.

Think Microsoft is going to triple down on the stupid by keeping their "you have to use OUR HDD's in the console, instead of every single other cheaper, faster, better ones in the market." thing?

Also, i not sure how well the WiiU is actually doing... i mean, there are quite a few publishers simply turning away from the thing... and the WiiU was suppose to be 3rd party strong.

[Marc v4.0]

Actually, word is that you'll be able to USB a HD to it for further storage

[Bells]

Which is actually a terrible solution hardware-wise since a USB HDD is a much slower option than a SATA internal drive could possible be.

That means that you'll probably be able to store your stuff in a USB drive, which is fine. But for games, you will still need to install it in the box's HDD to play. Which brings a lot of unnecessary back-and-forth between drives, or worst, slowdowns and poorer performance due to data transmission rates.

Of course, i'm far from a wiz in the topic, so i could be wrong about it...

Same thing with RAM, they claim 8gb of DDR3 RAM... which is already a bit worst than DDR5 8GB of RAM on the PS3, worst still the point that on the xbox the first 3GB are already compromised to OS operations, but i don't know how that compares to the PS3 usage of RAM for the OS...

I just know that the XBOX 1 has less free RAM than my 2009 Gaming PC...

[Grandmaster_Skweeb]

I doubt they'd be going the route of USB 2.0. While they've been making stupid chooses across the board in terms of the services of the console I would be very surprised if they didn't use USB 3.0, which has very fast transfer speeds. I haven't compared speeds of 3.0 vs data, it wouldn't be as bad as you're saying, bells.

At the very least, they aren't going full on proprietary peripheral hardware chubs. So there's that, I guess.

---------- Post added at 10:40 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:06 AM ----------

I doubt they'd be going the route of USB 2.0. While they've been making stupid chooses across the board in terms of the services of the console I would be very surprised if they didn't use USB 3.0, which has very fast transfer speeds. I haven't compared speeds of 3.0 vs data, it wouldn't be as bad as you're saying, bells.

At the very least, they aren't going full on proprietary hardware chubs. So there's that, I guess.

[RobinStarwing]

The Internet rage against the X-bone is rather palpable throughout the net. I feel rather bad I may get paid to sell this thing to other gamers if I get the new job I am applying for.

So much rage that I am thinking Microsoft is going to get X-boned...I hope!

Meanwhile...drinking game will be invented for Call of Duty Ghosts...

It will be called Call of Doody and you take a shot every time the Dog does their business....much like how Microsoft crapped on the Used Game Market.

[Bells]

no dude it will be great... in the last mission you will get seriously injured in your leg and won't be able to move, so your dog will come to you and grab one of your grenades and you will pet him and he will start walking towards the final boss as epic music raises in the background and at least 3 USA Flags shot into view and the dog blows himself up to take out the Main Villain guy before he launch Teh Nueks and your guy will go Nooooooooooooooooo and you will go Nooooooooooooooooooooo and the epilogue will be your soldier with a prosthetic leg paying homage to your dog who was buried in a military cemetery next to all the other brodudes that died in the campaing

[Yumil]

Same thing with RAM, they claim 8gb of DDR3 RAM... which is already a bit worst than DDR5 8GB of RAM on the PS3, worst still the point that on the xbox the first 3GB are already compromised to OS operations, but i don't know how that compares to the PS3 usage of RAM for the OS...
DDR3 they are using has a bandwidth of 68 GB/s. PS4s is 174 GB/s. Both are sharing Video and standard memory. Honestly the PS4 has this as the bandwidth is much better for the hardware(and for the cross ports). However, I guess Microsoft knew this and threw in 32MB of SRAM that runs at 102GB/SRAM. Honestly, I doubt many of the cross ports will even optimize for it. PS4 edges it out.

I just know that the XBOX 1 has less free RAM than my 2009 Gaming PC...
Which not a single game you played on it needed, let alone even got close to filling. Maybe Skyrim would as depending an all the mods you put on it could get over 4gbs of memory used, but most AAAs use a fraction of that>.<

The only time I ever got close to running out of memory(and was only at 75-80% capacity) was when I was five boxing WoW on a single tower, while doing other things, on 8gb of ram. Yeah...

[Bells]

Consider that the new xbox is running 3 OS's at the same time, and there is a lot of background operation going on.

I wouldn't expect it to chug, but at the same time i worry about performance... sure, most games can't possible cap out on that much RAM... but if you have a ton of shit going on the in the background, it can be an issue.

[Ramary]

I am very happy to confirm that yes, Microsoft currently live in a completely different universe from us. (http://www.destructoid.com/microsoft-predicts-over-a-billion-next-gen-consoles-sold-254454.phtml)

[Grandmaster_Skweeb]

seems amazon UK has noticed a 386% rise in wii-u sales since thetvtvtvtvtvtvtvtvtvtvwatercooler juanbox puked all over itself while the gaming world watched in amusement.

UK just pulled a massive NOPE.

[tacticslion]

I am very happy to confirm that yes, Microsoft currently live in a completely different universe from us. (http://www.destructoid.com/microsoft-predicts-over-a-billion-next-gen-consoles-sold-254454.phtml)

:aaa:?

EDIT:
seems amazon UK has noticed a 386% rise in wii-u sales since thetvtvtvtvtvtvtvtvtvtvwatercooler juanbox puked all over itself while the gaming world watched in amusement.

UK just pulled a massive NOPE.

Do you have a link to that, please? I'd love to see that and to re-post it elsewhere.

[Aerozord]

seems amazon UK has noticed a 386% rise in wii-u sales since thetvtvtvtvtvtvtvtvtvtvwatercooler juanbox puked all over itself while the gaming world watched in amusement.

UK just pulled a massive NOPE.

So thats why the WiiU was seeing such slow sales. People wanted to see what else was coming down the line.

[Grandmaster_Skweeb]

Destructoid talks about it here (http://www.destructoid.com/wii-u-sales-drastically-spike-after-xbox-one-presentation-254449.phtml) and nintendo life goes into a little more detail here (http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2013/05/consumers_go_crazy_for_wii_u_following_xbox_one_re veal)

[Krylo]

This is literally hilarious (http://www.gameranx.com/updates/id/14887/article/microsoft-trademarks-new-per-view-content-system-for-xbox-one/).
(Just because this is so cartoonishly evil I expect people to want more sources: Contains link to actual patent (http://www.insidermonkey.com/blog/heres-how-microsoft-corporation-msft-could-revolutionize-how-you-pay-for-entertainment-148796/) As does this (http://www.popsci.com/gadgets/article/2012-11/kinect-watching-you-watch-television-so-it-can-charge-you-body).)

Honestly, I have to ask as there's a few people here who seem to still be okay with (or even excited for--though it's possible I'm misreading and no one wants it) the X-Box One: What actual value does this give to the consumer?

Because I can't find one, anywhere. It seems like having this in your home is nothing but detriment at every point, from privacy concerns with the always on kinect that various outlets have suggested will be used to record advertising data, to every possible service being done in the worst way, to microsoft attempting to completely devour the used game market, to not being able to play single player games without online ('Well you can still watch Blu-Rays. . . and uh, maybe some, game modes, might, possibly work offline').

Like, I can find, literally, no positives here. Even the raw hardware power is worse than the PS4's. Unless the first exclusive causes the X-Box to literally walk across the room and perform oral sex on you (and even then, really), I don't see how these could, in any way, ever make up for these deficiencies. It's like they're a parody of themselves, or trying to kill their console division on purpose or something.

So, I'm curious, as to what positive value anyone can find in this thing.

[Yumil]

So, I'm curious, as to what positive value anyone can find in this thing.

The games should in themselves be cheaper than the ps4 counterparts(unless of course ps4 implements something similar to detriment used games). Part of the reason PC AAA games are 10 dollars cheaper is that they dont have to compete with the used market. Throw in less piracy due to it being a console(though used games hurt that far more than piracy ever did) and you got greater profit margins, which you can use to play with your pricing schemes.

Add to it, I think the XBox one is going to be cheaper than the PS4, possibly even subsidized through some partnership with some cable companies(they are pushing tv a lot) and you might see some "cheap" consoles that you can get with a 2 yr service agreement through timewarner, comcast, or whoever. Plus they may even subsidize them with the advertising revenue they'll make off of em, which is insane if they'll further use the kinect as a marketing tool.

Price doesn't matter to a PC enthusiast, but the common joe will buy it if it's that low. Anywho, not that it matters. My current XBox is used as a media machine. I barely play games on it, I mainly use it as a convenient way to watch stuff from my XBMC uPnP server. Been planning on building/buying an actual htpc, but never got around to it cuz my xbox does it fine.

Gaming wise I'm more interested in the Oculus Rift and how immersive it's going to be when it comes out.

[Revising Ocelot]

So, I'm curious, as to what positive value anyone can find in this thing.

Schadenfreude? Although quite honestly, back in 2006 or so Sony did it better. Crabs and Ridge Racers and all that.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

This is literally hilarious (http://www.gameranx.com/updates/id/14887/article/microsoft-trademarks-new-per-view-content-system-for-xbox-one/).
(Just because this is so cartoonishly evil I expect people to want more sources: Contains link to actual patent (http://www.insidermonkey.com/blog/heres-how-microsoft-corporation-msft-could-revolutionize-how-you-pay-for-entertainment-148796/) As does this (http://www.popsci.com/gadgets/article/2012-11/kinect-watching-you-watch-television-so-it-can-charge-you-body).)


That is just... wow. I am stunned at the horror presented here. Now, I'll admit I've never been a fan of the Xbox, but I had outgrown the obsurdity of the whole console wars thing, and was happy to just let things be, until now. Now I actively want this technological monstrosity to fail so hard it causes Microsoft to crash and burn with it.

I don't even care if the ps4 does well or not, so long as the Xbone dies a swift and painful death, and everyone involved in its conception and creation is left to find work at a call centre for the rest of their lives (because working in a call centre is a fate worse than death).

This thing needs to die.

[Aldurin]

But you can earn Achievements by watching TV (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/124333-Microsoft-Applied-to-Patent-TV-Achievements) through your Xbox One! How could you turn that down?

[Sithdarth]

Fuck I made a joke about Netflix needing achievements like 2 weeks ago in front of an Xbox. They totally stole my idea!

[Bells]

im tossig a coin of good faith in this pond to reduce the level of evil to only ``this is more likely a way to detect what ads to charge send to you`` but yeah... no two ways about it, pretty fucking stupid.

i wonder how Sony`s HQ is doing right now... you think they are revising their E3 presentation , seeeing how everything they planned was so much similar to microsft and going ``fuck fuck fuck fuuuuck!!`` over their powerpoints non wstop just to try NOT screw this over?

they just got this generation in a silver platter. They just need to go on a stage, present a bunch of gameplay footage of launch titles, give the console a price ad get off the stage... THATS IT. nothing else is required at this point.

[Loyal]

That is completely appalling. I really hope people aren't planning to buy this for gaming.

[phil_]

What actual value does this give to the consumer?The continuance if one's Xbox Live profile, and thus the continued value of the time spent accumulating all that Gamer Score and Achievements. Or have they said you need a new profile, since it would be silly to retain epeen for games your Xbox 1 can't even play?

[MasterOfMagic]

I'm pretty sure you retain your profile for both the PS4 and XBox. They like epeens that give them money, pointless or not.

[Aerozord]

I dont get why people are so upset about the tracking thing. Google's been tracking peoples activities for years and selling the data to advertisers, no one makes a stink about that.

[Bard The 5th LW]

I dont get why people are so upset about the tracking thing. Google's been tracking peoples activities for years and selling the data to advertisers, no one makes a stink about that.

People do not enjoy advertisements while they play games perhaps?

[Arcanum]

This is literally hilarious (http://www.gameranx.com/updates/id/14887/article/microsoft-trademarks-new-per-view-content-system-for-xbox-one/).
(Just because this is so cartoonishly evil I expect people to want more sources: Contains link to actual patent (http://www.insidermonkey.com/blog/heres-how-microsoft-corporation-msft-could-revolutionize-how-you-pay-for-entertainment-148796/) As does this (http://www.popsci.com/gadgets/article/2012-11/kinect-watching-you-watch-television-so-it-can-charge-you-body).)

I mentioned this to my brother and he had a surprisingly positive view about it. He said, paraphrasing a bit here, "This is actually pretty smart. They could release brand new movies, ones that are still in theaters, on the Xbox and still make their $10 per person watching since the Kinect could detect how many people are in the room."

In theory it's a nice idea, but I doubt it will happen since you could just point your Kinect at a wall. Or, if it needs at least one person in range to start the content, point it at one person sitting slightly apart from the rest, and every one else outside of the Kinect's field of vision.

So yeah, just felt like sharing that.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Or, if it needs at least one person in range to start the content, point it at one person sitting slightly apart from the rest, and every one else outside of the Kinect's field of vision.

So yeah, just felt like sharing that.

Personally I find the idea that we have to subvert our own technology, which we have willing paid for, to be quite horrifying. This should not have to be something we need to do. Do we really have to try and outwit a machine every time we want to watch tv now?

[Grandmaster_Skweeb]

I dont get why people are so upset about the tracking thing. Google's been tracking peoples activities for years and selling the data to advertisers, no one makes a stink about that.

Google doesn't require what amounts to a security camera on steroids to use their service nor will they charge per person in view.

[Amake]

Also we still trust Google, right or wrong, to not be evil, whereas Micro$oft has a, let's be charitable and call it "different" reputation.

[Revising Ocelot]

Also we still trust Google, right or wrong, to not be evil,

heh

[Amake]

Well, I'm glad my efforts to make entertaining, witty, ambiguous, subtly layered posts are not completely wasted.

[Magus]

Schadenfreude? Although quite honestly, back in 2006 or so Sony did it better. Crabs and Ridge Racers and all that.

What you're saying is the Ecks vs. Sever Box One is the actual epitome of a Crab Battle.

[Revising Ocelot]

I'm pretty sure the Crab Battle did not involve an actual Giant Enemy Crab. It didn't need giant pincers like a GEC for massive damage.

[Aerozord]

Privacy invasion, well I wont say it doesn't bother me. If not for my conflicting love of google's minimalist approach to interfaces I wouldn't use it. Just I've accepted that we are moving towards a society where privacy is a foreign concept. The only question is how long this will take.

I will say I'm not 100% against them gathering data for advertisements. I do hate them gathering data period, however I do like the idea of advertisements being tailor to me. Cutting out spam and legitimately informing me of products and services I'd like. Thats in theory though. I dont pigeonhole very well and just because I like something doesn't mean I want it advertised. Just saying there is a potential upside if it ever works right. I dont completely hate ads, sometimes commercials are still how I find out about products.

[RobinStarwing]

This...sums everything up. (http://i.minus.com/iGpVCeVzdBTUf.gif)

[Yumil]

So, Microsoft detailed what the DRM on the Xbox One is all about (http://news.xbox.com/2013/06/license)...and it's not that bad, in fact it's kind of awesome in some ways.

So apparently, Your XBox One will be able to play all your games regardless of whos account is on it...that's cool we figured that be how it was. In addition to that you can give up to ten members of your family access to your entire shared game library on any Xbox One and both you and your family members can be playing the same game at the same time. Now that's pretty awesome.

On the resale of games, it has to be turned on by the publisher whether they'll allow it. The publisher also determines the fee the retailer has to pay for the new license.

On trading games to friends. It's again up to the publishers on whether or not they allow this. You can give a game to a friend on your friends list(has to be on your list for at least a month) one time. After this gift, the game can not be traded to that friends friends. It seems that this is to stop loopholes of using this for resale. Thats not quite as cool, but meh.

The main thing I see is it's up to the publisher if they'll allow used games. All Microsoft published titles will be able to be traded/sold, but who knows about the other publishers.

All in all, I think they handled it pretty good. It's not doomsday. Now if you can only turn off the kinect, I may buy an XBone.

[Ramary]

It still requires an internet connection every 24 hours, for consoles that is pretty much cannibalism. Plus just because publishers CAN give the options it doesn't mean they will, just having the ability to do so is fucking disgusting.

What the bloody upchuck happen to one of console's main advantages over PC being "ease of entry and no DRM bullshit"?

---------- Post added at 07:10 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:59 PM ----------

Oh and I bet people will still have to pay that sub thing for online.

God bless Microsoft for giving us the privilege to let us plebeians use the magical space box that watches us sleep.

[mauve]

Also we still trust Google, right or wrong, to not be evil, whereas Micro$oft has a, let's be charitable and call it "different" reputation.

Last year Microsoft showed up at a national symposium on computer security to tell the top minds in the fields of data security that password protection on a phone is dumb cuz it takes forever to type in 4 numbers every time your phone locks. Then they couldn't understand why the attendees weren't impressed when they paired the concepts of "no password protection" and "all your private data will be stored on the cloud" in the same sentence for their then-upcoming Windows phone.

The previous speaker, for the record, gave a speech on how easily hacked/exploited cloud storage can be.



...I'm not super excited for the xbox one. I mean, being able to play my game library on multiple machines by multiple users sounds kinda neat, but the always-on camera and the 24 hours check-in thing does not appeal to me. I have a shitty rural internet connection-- my wireless works 75% of the time due to terrible phone lines that my provider sees no benefit to replace due to the small population of the neighborhood, so I kinda doubt the console would work for me anyway.

To be honest, I doubt I'll cough up thecash for ANY of the consoles this generation. I barely used the Wii except for Brawl, New Super Mario Bros Wii, and a handful of other games, so I'm loathe to buy a Wii-u and waste more money unless they can show me a good lineup of non-gimmicky-party-title games. The PS3 didn't have much of a game library compared to the PS2, and the 360/Kinect never appealed. I do most of my gaming on PC now, and no company has convinced me I'm missing out on their products yet.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

So, Microsoft detailed what the DRM on the Xbox One is all about (http://news.xbox.com/2013/06/license)...and it's not that bad, in fact it's kind of awesome in some ways.

So apparently, Your XBox One will be able to play all your games regardless of whos account is on it...that's cool we figured that be how it was. In addition to that you can give up to ten members of your family access to your entire shared game library on any Xbox One and both you and your family members can be playing the same game at the same time. Now that's pretty awesome.

On the resale of games, it has to be turned on by the publisher whether they'll allow it. The publisher also determines the fee the retailer has to pay for the new license.

On trading games to friends. It's again up to the publishers on whether or not they allow this. You can give a game to a friend on your friends list(has to be on your list for at least a month) one time. After this gift, the game can not be traded to that friends friends. It seems that this is to stop loopholes of using this for resale. Thats not quite as cool, but meh.

The main thing I see is it's up to the publisher if they'll allow used games. All Microsoft published titles will be able to be traded/sold, but who knows about the other publishers.

All in all, I think they handled it pretty good. It's not doomsday. Now if you can only turn off the kinect, I may buy an XBone.

I think I can speak for the population of the internet when I sarcastically say "Whoop-de-fucking-do!" I'm sure giving up to ten (a whole ten guys!) of my family who have never touched an xbox in their lives the ability to play games will be massively useful to myself and a great many others. Because it was never before possible to simply buy a game and let anybody who uses your console play it, nope.

And I'm so glad that they're allowing everyone to trade each game once after owning it for a month, because again, that shows real progress and growth for the industry as whole. I sure glad they're allowing us this priviledge and we should all be highly grateful for this grounbreaking concept.

And we don't have to be angry at microsoft any more if we can't sell our old games on, because it's now up to each individual publisher if they want to screw us all over, so I guess we get to complain to a dozen more companies instead of just the one who implemented the system in the first place, with no idea beforehand which companies are most likely going to allow us to trade in each game on a case by case basis. But it's okay, because microsoft have passed that buck over early, so they're not to blame any more, right?


Jesus fucking christ.

[Magus]

I have the exact same problem as Mauve, I live out in the middle of nowhere. We didn't have DSL until a year ago, let alone something advanced like cable.

[Flarecobra]

At least for the "Kinect is always watching" thing... got a very easy solution.

Electrical tape.

[Yumil]

I think I can speak for the population of the internet when I sarcastically say "Whoop-de-fucking-do!" I'm sure giving up to ten (a whole ten guys!) of my family who have never touched an xbox in their lives the ability to play games will be massively useful to myself and a great many others. Because it was never before possible to simply buy a game and let anybody who uses your console play it, nope.
And you can still do that. Honestly, I'd like to allow my soon to be nephew access to my library without losing my game to him. Or heck, my brother who is overseas in the military(of course, hed have to have a somewhat stable internet connection>.<). It's a cool feature. And who knows what sort of verification they are going to use, heck maybe you'll get to add anyone to this list and have a sort of gaming circle going on. The details aren't there, but if it's just family I can easily handle that. If it can be anyone that you signify as a "family member", then tell me if you have more than ten friends you load games out to? Cuz being able to loan games out without losing access to the game seems pretty sweet to me.

And I'm so glad that they're allowing everyone to trade each game once after owning it for a month, because again, that shows real progress and growth for the industry as whole. I sure glad they're allowing us this priviledge and we should all be highly grateful for this grounbreaking concept.
You don't even have to own it for a month, just be friends with the person you are giving it to for a month. Honestly, this feature isn't that great, but you can still sell/give a game to a friend.

And we don't have to be angry at microsoft any more if we can't sell our old games on, because it's now up to each individual publisher if they want to screw us all over, so I guess we get to complain to a dozen more companies instead of just the one who implemented the system in the first place, with no idea beforehand which companies are most likely going to allow us to trade in each game on a case by case basis. But it's okay, because microsoft have passed that buck over early, so they're not to blame any more, right?
It's highly likely that Sony is going to do something extremely similar. It's the publishers that have been pushing for this anyway. It's a pretty smart solution to just say hey...ya'll are basically going to do this on your own with your online passes and your other bullshit, here we'll just give you the option to do what you want instead of your haphazard solutions.

At least for the "Kinect is always watching" thing... got a very easy solution.

Electrical tape.
Possibly, but if they are going to do that pay per viewer bullshit, more than likely if the kinect doesn't sense anything it'll disable the console til it can.

[Ramary]

Since nothing says otherwise, I expect that although 10 different family members can use your game library, only one person can use it at a time. Which makes it no better then just sharing the account itself, so you can't even mark that as a pro unless they go into more detail about.

---------- Post added at 09:39 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:36 PM ----------

Also apparently if you are not using the home console, you only get to play 1 hour a day. So yeah that feature is most likely some poorly spun bullshit.

[Aerozord]

Guys the kinect isn't always watching you, it just has the audio on and even that can be turned off.

I'm just saying this is something they clarified. The only one I have any interest in is the WiiU and only because of lego city and a few games coming up. Of course even that is just interest, I have no intention to buy it right now.

[Grandmaster_Skweeb]

always, sometimes, listening always, so.etimes, toggled ,etc. a spin on bullshit is still, at the end of the day, bullshit. those things have no place as mandatory 'features' in a console to begin with.

[Bells]

The whole point is this: it should be more simple.

It's a gaming console. it should be more simple. It is not.

[krogothwolf]

It's a poorly designed unupgradable computer pretending to console pretending to be a computer.

[Yumil]

Since nothing says otherwise, I expect that although 10 different family members can use your game library, only one person can use it at a time. Which makes it no better then just sharing the account itself, so you can't even mark that as a pro unless they go into more detail about.

From xbox.com "You can always play your games, and any one of your family members can be playing from your shared library at a given time." I'm not sure this means that they'll be able to play your game while you're playing it, or if you have priority and if someones playing the game you are about to play it kicks them off. I'd like more information on it, but depending on how it's done it can be very interesting. In a way it'd be better than steam(the closest thing on the pc I have to compare) if done correctly.

---------- Post added at 09:39 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:36 PM ----------

Also apparently if you are not using the home console, you only get to play 1 hour a day. So yeah that feature is most likely some poorly spun bullshit.

Source?... Found it. (http://news.xbox.com/2013/06/connected) It applies to being offline using your profile to play one of your games on a non home console.

always, sometimes, listening always, so.etimes, toggled ,etc. a spin on bullshit is still, at the end of the day, bullshit. those things have no place as mandatory 'features' in a console to begin with.
I understand why they made the kinect mandatory, it's so that it will actually be developed for. Publishers won't pay to develop for a peripheral unless it's a proven game type(exercise for the most part on the kinect). I mean look at all the peripherals across all consoles and name one that wasn't packaged with the base unit that was developed for all the time.

Anywho, reading another article on XBox.com released yesterday (http://news.xbox.com/2013/06/privacy) tells me that I can manage the rights I allow each application to use like on my IOS and android devices and I can turn the kinect off. That's a big boom for me.

The whole point is this: it should be more simple.

It's a gaming console. it should be more simple. It is not.
Even having a way to share a game is a step up from pc. It may not be as easy to do anymore, but just being able to do so is still a lot better than not.

[krogothwolf]

I'm not sure why we should believe anything on the Xbox One right now to be honest. Microsoft is almost constantly changing its tune on this device since that guy told everyone to deal with it on twitter about "Always On."

Which release should we believe, the current one, the one when it was first announced, the ones in between them? Honestly, until this thing is days before release everything being said about it from all sources, including Microsoft, needs to be taken with a grain of salt.

[Yumil]

I'm not sure why we should believe anything on the Xbox One right now to be honest. Microsoft is almost constantly changing its tune on this device since that guy told everyone to deal with it on twitter about "Always On."

Which release should we believe, the current one, the one when it was first announced, the ones in between them? Honestly, until this thing is days before release everything being said about it from all sources, including Microsoft, needs to be taken with a grain of salt.

It's still what I would call an "Always On" device. However, if they release information and the release shows that information to be completely false it opens them up to lawsuits, which I'm pretty sure that their legal department would not like. However, it's a good stance to take. Outright damning it over wild speculation is also no good. All we have is what they give us. They wanted to clear things up before E3 and thats what they are doing now.

It'll depend on what games they show at E3 at whether or not I'll continue to give them my attention. I really hope they have their shit together then.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

At the end of the day the console market has only gone backwards, not forwards. Consoles are supposed to be differentiated from PCs by being more user friendly and simpler and quicker to access games on. But all I'm seeing now is more and more restrictions on them all.

It used to be that you could take a game and all your saves around to a friends house, plug them in and continue gaming. Then we lost memory cards due to larger memory requirements requiring full hard drives. This was annoying, but understandable. It was still possible to transfer saves from the hard drives, for a time, but then we lost the ability to transfer saves at all, locked by the developers because.... I'm not really sure on that one.

Then we lost backwards compatability, rendering our older games unplayable. But it's ok, because now we can buy them all again from each systems stores with some moderately barely noticable graphical updates. Fine, whatever.

Then we lost the majority of same room multiplayer games, because they realised that everyone being forced to buy their own console and only play together over the internet would make them far more money, which is funny considering the ps3 was designed to be able to run like 7 controllers at once, a feature which to this day has never been utilised.

And now, we're losing the ability to properly trade games as and when we choose to our friends, or trade them in (possibly, possibly not, developers choice, microsoft just shrugs and goes "I'unno"). Oh sure, we're allowed to access our games from somewhere else... for an hour at a time, and we only need to be connected once every 24 hours to the net, but those are still restrictions, they are not features. They should not be being promoted as capabilites of what a machine is able to do, we were already able to do all of this shit, long ago, but now we should all be made to feel justified that we can live with these restrictions, which is bullshit. We shouldn't have to live with any of this.

I also love one of the reasons given for the 24 hour check in;

"Every Xbox One owner has a broadband connection," Major Nelson writes, and because of this, "developers can create massive, persistent worlds that evolve even when you're not playing."

I mean for fucks sake, just, what the fucking fuck?! Every Xbox One owner has a broadband connection? What are you fucking psychic? Or does he know this because you'd have to have a goddamn broadband connection to make the fucking thing work.* And it requires this connection so we can have persistant dynamic worlds? Yeah, fuck off, we've all played mmos with persistant dynamic worlds, and none of them require to have our machines watch us as we sleep you fucking tool.**

That's it guys, I'm fucking done here. Everything I hear about the next gen, the Xbone and the future of gaming in general just makes me angry now, I'm out. I'm gona go stand on a street corner and proclaim the End Times, because it feels like we've now truely entered into the dark age of gaming, where we have to fight over oppressive, money grubbing corporations who only want to fuck us all over every way they can and have seemingly forgotten what it was that made their fans like them, and what made them successful in the first place.

Wake me up if we get to the renaissance in a few hundred years.

* This is of course, entirely rhetorical.
** This is of course, me being entirely facetious.

[Krylo]

** This is of course, me being slightly facetious.

FTFY

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

^Fair point.

[Bells]

Even having a way to share a game is a step up from pc. It may not be as easy to do anymore, but just being able to do so is still a lot better than not.

...what?

You can easily share your games with friends. I can go to a friends house, loging with my steam account, authorize it on his pc with a simple e-mail verification, and BAM just download and play any game on my library. Then when i go back home i just have to re-authorize my own pc. 2 minute e-mail check, limitless access to my pc content.

With physical disks or non-steam games, same thing. Bring it over, put the CD-Key, start playing. Go home, take your disk, done. Even digital games i can buy on GOG or GMG allow me to bring the title over in a pendrive and share it with zero problems if i want to...

[krogothwolf]

What I dislike the most about this though, is that games are starting to consider themselves something different then everything else.

With a game, you are no longer buying a product. A game is now a "service". That's the danger here, not that it's a product but that it's a service. No other product line can do that and get away with it.

You can't buy books as a "service" and win, nor cars or bikes or toys or even movies. You're not buying a product with an Xbox One game, you're buying a "service" that they can do whatever they want with once they get your money.

[Marc v4.0]

and BAM just spend 3-12 hours actually downloading the game, at which point I've already gone home and re-verified because I want to play my games at my house, cutting him off from even getting a chance to load it up at all!

Yeah, sounds like a really fucking smooth process.

[phil_]

You can't buy books as a "service" and winKindle Nookmovies.iTunes Netflix Hulunor cars or bikes or toysFair enough. For now.

But, yeah, service model is the way everything is going.

[Bells]

Yeah, sounds like a really fucking smooth process.

3 to 12 hours?

I know that installing a Xbone game from disc and downloading a 6gb file is worlds apart, and not everybody has good broadband or broadband at all... but even my shitty connection here takes 3-4 hours at a worst case scenario of a 7gb+ game... with me surfing the web in the meantime

Also, i won't affirm this because i can't verify this right now... but i THINK you can backup your steam game files, bring it over, and simple tell steam to verify the files once you are done authorizing the new PC... which is pretty much the same as installing from a disk, but you can do it with a flashdrive

[Yumil]

...what?

You can easily share your games with friends. I can go to a friends house, loging with my steam account, authorize it on his pc with a simple e-mail verification, and BAM just download and play any game on my library. Then when i go back home i just have to re-authorize my own pc. 2 minute e-mail check, limitless access to my pc content.

With physical disks or non-steam games, same thing. Bring it over, put the CD-Key, start playing. Go home, take your disk, done. Even digital games i can buy on GOG or GMG allow me to bring the title over in a pendrive and share it with zero problems if i want to...

Can you authorize it to be played on his account? No. Thats not really sharing, that's playing your games with your account on someone elses computer.

The other way only works if it's a smaller title or theres no online verification. On AAA titles you'll probably never do that without a crack, which is morally gray.

[phil_]

Found an interdasting thought just now concerning the "Call me every day I worry about what you" thing. Is Microsoft going to have the server capacity for this to work? Obviously the normal scenario that they lay out is going to work, but what about, say, Christmas? When a hundred thousand consoles all connect at once? And those consoles aren't just doing the secret "get to play games" handshake but they're also downloading FIFA and Calladuty? I'm not saying it'll be SimCity 2013 launch again, but it'll be SimCity 2013 launch again.

[Grandmaster_Skweeb]

They'll supposedly have around half a million servers* dedicated to the shitbox.




*Virtual servers on significantly smaller number of physical servers, but microsoft didn't want to take away the glitz and glamor of throwing buzzwords and big numbers around like confetti.

[Yumil]

Anywho, the way I see a console is a set platform to develop on that has a set life. When developing for the computer you have to take in a wide variety of hardware, which means you either have to cut features to ensure that it runs one lower end machines to reach a wider audience, or you have to spend tons of money optimizing and testing across a ton of hardware. As a consumer, you know that when you buy this console that it will most likely be supported for around ten years. You don't get that guarantee with PCs(specially lower end ones). You shant need to upgrade anything on that hardware for those ten years to be able to play every game released for it, which means no extra money besides the initial purchase, which again is no guarantee for PCs.

The other benefit to it being a set platform is that it can be basically a black box. There is far less console pirating than there is PC as it's harder to get into. You have to physically modify your console in order to do it and run the risk of it not being able to use online services due to that. I'm sure piracy will still happen on the new consoles, but it's a much greener pasture for a developer due to the fact it is far less easy to do.

So let's recap, there will continue to be more games on consoles because:
1. It's cheaper to develop for a single platform than the near infinite PC configurations.
2. It reaches a wider audience as even it is easier to maintain than a PC.
3. It is more profit friendly with the reduction in piracy.

More games on consoles is good for consumers. Yes they may have lost some features from previous iterations, however the core of a console is a single platform that will last a long time without being upgraded and limit piracy. Everything else is the whipped cream.

[phil_]

Everything else is the whipped cream.But this whipped cream tastes funny and there's too much of it and I didn't order whipped cream. :(

[Magus]

I haven't bought a PC game in years from the store (I think the last thing I bought was Fable), is the disc seriously just a download program nowadays? Like no actual game data on it?

[Grandmaster_Skweeb]

http://i44.tinypic.com/2yv41ef.jpg



and yes, Magus. For all intents and purposes the disk is purely for installation purposes. Why? Who the fuck knows. Keeping prices higher on the game due to physical media, likely. All exbawks wun users have broadband, apparently. Why not innovate a new streamlined process and cut out the middleman and just pipe the games out :smug:

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

But this whipped cream tastes funny and there's too much of it and I didn't order whipped cream. :(


I think it's more like going to a restaurant and ordering a nice expensive steak and instead you receive a shit sandwich. I don't just mean a bad sandwich, but a sandwich that contains actual shit. So you complain to the waiter that you don't want a shit sandwhich, you thought this was a classy place, but the waiter replies that it's ok because the shit sandwich contains a nice piece of cheese, and then he expects you to "deal with that" and just keep shallowing mouthful after mouthful of shit sandwich and you do so because there's now nothing else on the menu so you delude yorself into thinking it's worth the vileness because the cheese is really good, but deep down you know it's actually that artifical processed stuff that comes out of a bottle in liquid form.

So then you order a beer to go along with your shit sandwich, only to be informed that certain brands of beer have trace amounts of rust or ebola mixed into them, stuff that'll really fuck you up and make you even more ill in the long term, but you don't know which brand of beer has what in it and you can't complain to the resaurant itself about this becuase they only sell the beer that others make, so it's not their problem if you die from it, you've already paid for your expensive shit sandwich and now you're just taking up seats for other customers that they want to serve more shit sandwiches to.

Yeah, it's something like that.

[Aldurin]

How long until Microsoft declare's bankruptcy and/or gets bailed out by the government? Because their two main products, Windows 8 and Xboner, should be the technological failures of the decade, at which point the company deserves to fail.

[Grandmaster_Skweeb]

sad thing is that windows 8 is pretty damn good, mechanically speaking, if it didn't force the stupid tiles on a platform that has no use for it: I.e. PC that don't use touch screens. when I upgrade and the metro UI is still around then I'll use ClassicShell or something along those lines.

not factoring in that UEFI bullshit that makes dual-booting with Linux a nightmare.

[Aerozord]

cars or bikes

Fair enough. For now.

Oh but they do, thats essentially what you do when you lease a car. Its how most get new cars from my understanding

But, yeah, service model is the way everything is going.

Likely this will become an extreme. With 3D printing, programmable matter, and perhaps someday molecular assemblers our economy based on physical products will slowly vanish. Even the things we do physically have will ultimately have nearly zero value and we will deal in services, software, and blueprints.

Oh and hey I just realized, Microsoft is brilliant. Think about it, this is the most viral console in history. People barely talked about the PS4, I didn't even hear about the WiiU until people were asking if we were getting them where I work. But the xbox? Videos commenting on it, threads hundreds of pages long, articles everywhere. If you believe the adage that there is no such thing as bad press than Microsoft is sitting pretty. Lets face it, if they revealed the perfect flawless console, we'd have forgotten about it by now.

The internet runs on bile, rage, and whining. No body wants to talk about what a console does right, only what it does wrong. The only way people will go into a fervor is if its based on hate. Hate or ponies.

[akaSM]

Also, i won't affirm this because i can't verify this right now... but i THINK you can backup your steam game files, bring it over, and simple tell steam to verify the files once you are done authorizing the new PC... which is pretty much the same as installing from a disk, but you can do it with a flashdrive

This works nicely, I have a friend with a HORRIBLE internet connection so, I just made a backup of some big games (like Hat Wars) and, gave him the backups so that he could restore them at home.

Can you authorize it to be played on his account? No. Thats not really sharing, that's playing your games with your account on someone elses computer.

The other way only works if it's a smaller title or theres no online verification. On AAA titles you'll probably never do that without a crack, which is morally gray.

This got me curious, what is "sharing" a game? Because, I could easily login into his PC, download what I want and, go into offline mode before leaving. Downloading isn't even necessary if you made a backup of the games, the only drawback is that, the backing up/restoring needs some planning because it can be quite long, not as bad as downloading a huge game on a slow internet connection though.

Looking through my games, there are some that have some added crap like GFWL (only 1 of my games has that; Batman: AA got because I heard it's pretty nice and fuck GFWL) and what not but, even those (MY games, not every game out there) have something like a 5 install limit at most.

Also, would using your Steam key to activate a non-Steam version work?

[Marc v4.0]

3 to 12 hours?


Yes, Bells, it's called a range. Some games are small enough that 3 hours covers it, some big enough that I have to overnight the download plus some of the next day.

The range for me is more 3-18 to be honest, 30gbs worth of game take a long goddamn time to download.

[akaSM]

Yes, Bells, it's called a range. Some games are small enough that 3 hours covers it, some big enough that I have to overnight the download plus some of the next day.

The range for me is more 3-18 to be honest, 30gbs worth of game take a long goddamn time to download.

Wow, the biggest game I got is TF2 (I think), are the newest AAA games that big? O_o

[Marc v4.0]

I've had a few that large before, yeah

[Ramary]

I am waiting for the day a PSN being hacked thing happens with the Xbox One authentication servers. That will be hilarity.

Alternatively, what if Xbox One launch day is a Diablo 3/Sim City scenario?

[Marc v4.0]

I think that it is important to note that everyone's 360 already sends out an authentication handshake to MS servers to verify your Xbox Live account status. It re-checks everyday, too, if you've had your xbox on for a 24 hour period, to make sure your account hasn't lapsed and to load in the new days market information.

Just throwing it out that it already does this, all the time. That isn't a new thing that should worry anyone, it's the mandatory check-in that needs to be focused on.

[Bells]

dude, all i'm saying is that when arguments get responded by kotaku its usually a sign that the arguments were pretty weak to begin with...

http://kotaku.com/video-game-companies-arent-letting-us-do-anything-511789152

Also, a LOT of the time the gaming media (ANY gaming media outlet) criticizes the current state of the new Xbox it's the same wave of "The whole gaming media is corruuuuupt", except when they are praising... although THAT line of arguing has not reached here yet, i've seen it almost every where else...

[Grandmaster_Skweeb]

I think that it is important to note that everyone's 360 already sends out an authentication handshake to MS servers to verify your Xbox Live account status. It re-checks everyday, too, if you've had your xbox on for a 24 hour period, to make sure your account hasn't lapsed and to load in the new days market information.

Just throwing it out that it already does this, all the time. That isn't a new thing that should worry anyone, it's the mandatory check-in that needs to be focused on.

The bolded bit that people are pretty rankled about, not the whole handshake bit.


With Xbox One you can game offline for up to 24 hours on your primary console, or one hour if you are logged on to a separate console accessing your library. Offline gaming is not possible after these prescribed times until you re-establish a connection, but you can still watch live TV and enjoy Blu-ray and DVD movies.

Now, say I wanted the console (and did somewhat have an interest in it until all this BS dislodged itself from the hype pipes) and my connectivity goes down for more than 24 hours, as it is sometimes known to do. Sometimes upwards of three to four days depending on the season / what drunken cockbag ran into a pole / enter scenario here. I'd have a console that can do everything else except the primary reason I'd have bought the console for: Playing games regardless of what the network connection is at.

So yeah...that.

[krogothwolf]

Kindle NookiTunes Netflix HuluFair enough. For now.

But, yeah, service model is the way everything is going.

Hulu/Netflix is more along the lines of purchasing cable/renting movies. You can still go out and purchase those same movie/tv shows and own them.

You still purchase digital books as well, and you own those digital books, they can't magically release/shutdown something that prevents you from ever accessing those books again.

Video Games are a different matter though, and Xbox one is going more towards games as a service then ever before and its sickening.

[Krylo]

Yeah, sounds like a really fucking smooth process.

Actually you can just throw the games files from the steam folder onto a thumb drive or disk or whatever, copy it into the steam folder on your friends computer, which takes MAYBE 5 minutes, run steam, it will do a quick data check, download for maybe another 5-10 (maaaaaybe up to a half hour), to fix up any files you missed, and be done.

I mean, I still wouldn't call it PRACTICAL, but there's that.

ALSO: The argument shouldn't be about whether or not this OTHER platform that has all these OTHER uses and OTHER values besides playing games does or does not let you do with your games.

The argument should be about the fact that things are being taken away from us on this generation of consoles, and you can either, you know, bend over and take it from corporate greed, or say fuck that, not buy the consoles, and hope enough other people do to send up a red flag that hey, maybe this shit doesn't fly?

And honestly, it's not like there's even a reason to get an X-Box One, ANYWAY for those of us here. At least not if the PS4 has more of a consumer focus.

It's not going to be much, if at all, more powerful than a gaming PC, most of us already have a gaming PC, and list the X-Box 360 exclusive titles that didn't come to PC.

'Cause there aren't that many that were any good. Like, you might miss out on Halo games, I guess.

And beyond even that, the graphical upgrades from generation to generation are getting considerably less impressive. From NES to SNES was huge, and actually allowed entirely different gameplay experiences based on computer power. From SNES to PS1/N64 was equally huge, and allowed entirely new genres to take off. From PS1 to PS2/Original X-Box, again, huge difference, and gameplay differences became available once more. PS2/X-Box to PS3/360 was mostly just a (vast) graphical upgrade. This next generation is looking to be a minor graphical upgrade.

Why would I buy a minor graphical upgrade for 400 dollars, all the pain in the ass that is the kinect (even when I'm not using it and just watching Hulu, the thing manages to piss me off: character says 'sweep' kinect hears 'stop' I need to start the show again in the middle of some conversation they were having), being listened to 24/7, dealing with this 'charge per customer' thing instead of per show. . .

The whole thing is a mess.

Like someone brought up some consumer stuff earlier when I asked about it, like the possibility of cheaper games but. . . honestly, do we REALLY think that's going to happen? Because it won't.

There's just nothing there that serves MY needs. Everything is serving Microsoft's needs and the producer's needs. And, as a consumer, I don't give a shit about Microsoft's or the producer's needs if they aren't delivering something to me that I want. And they aren't, as they're ignoring my needs and wants as a consumer.

[Bells]

And honestly, it's not like there's even a reason to get an X-Box One, ANYWAY for those of us here. At least not if the PS4 has more of a consumer focus.

Which, just to be fair about, we must admit... it's not a guarantee thing just yet. It might just be a carbon copy of Microsoft's plan.

Right now the WiiU is less of a gaming console than your average TABLET... and neither MS or Sony has gained much ground or favor with consumers. The only edge Sony has right now is that they haven't revealed much stuff about their console yet so we just don't know IF they fucked up as much.

Here is the thing though... Microsoft is coming to E3 for damage control. While Sony is coming for a presentation in the same amount of time where they have to present everything that Microsoft presented and do it better and do MORE about games to even register.

So, yeah... i'm liking my PC right now.

[Grandmaster_Skweeb]

Right now the WiiU is less of a gaming console than your average TABLET..

Which is a shame, really. I have a wii-u and while I'm not disappointed in the purchase, I do wish nintendo would stop pissing off third party developer support. The wii-u itself is surprisingly non-gimmicky compared to its predecessor and has some oomph under the hood.

Just..Nintendo can't stop sitting in the corner eating paste and smelling like boiled cabbage. The system has a lot of potential but it isn't being utilized. This turf war could really be nintendo's grab for a chunk of the market share buuuuut I don't see it happening.

back on topic: Everything krylo said.

[krogothwolf]

I think that it is important to note that everyone's 360 already sends out an authentication handshake to MS servers to verify your Xbox Live account status. It re-checks everyday, too, if you've had your xbox on for a 24 hour period, to make sure your account hasn't lapsed and to load in the new days market information.

Just throwing it out that it already does this, all the time. That isn't a new thing that should worry anyone, it's the mandatory check-in that needs to be focused on.

Except you don't need that to be able to still play your games. You don't need to have the thing connected to the internet to play the games so if you don't like it, you never need to worry about the check in.

The Xbox one, if you don't have that, you have a expensive tv channel changer.

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

Yeah, sounds like a really fucking smooth process.

Most of the actually pretty big file games I own download in about an hour. The crazy large ones maybe 5 tops. Considering I have a library of 448 games on Steam, giving my friend access to the account and thereafter letting him choose whatever games to download at whatever leisure he dictates (And of course I would have to go offline for him to download them but hey I have plenty of games that I love to play offline anyway, it's no more inconvenient than borrowing out a particular game and not getting to play it for a while since I don't have it in my possession physically anymore) is a far easier process than, you know, carting four hundred and forty four video games to his door. Or going back and forth from his house to mine to deliver a game whenever he wants one.

Unless he tried to download them all at freaking once but two things with that is I don't think Steam would even let you try that kinda horsehit and two I don't know anyone with the storage required to fit all my games on there at once so what kind of moron is this friend anyway and why am I so generous all of a sudden?

[Bells]

I don't know anyone with the storage required to fit all my games on there at once so what kind of moron is this friend anyway and why am I so generous all of a sudden?

Yeeeeah like... yeah... what sort of dweeb would have a 1tb drive just for his 300+ steam games... right...? Like... pshhaaw what a dumbass...

Hah... hah hah... hah... *hides away his setam folder with 700gb of games*

ha....hahah....haaah...... heh...

[Arcanum]

Let's get some console wars up in here!

Here's a list someone on reddit put together of the currently announced PS4 games. The ones in bold are console exclusives.



Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
Basement Crawl
Battlefield 4
Blacklight: Retribution [Free-to-Play]
Call of Duty: Ghosts
Carmageddon: Reincarnation
Cyberpunk 2077
DC Universe Online [Free-to-Play]
Daylight
Deep Down
Destiny
Diablo III
Doki-Doki Universe [Free-to-Play]
DriveClub
Dying Light
EA Sports UFC
The Evil Within
FIFA 14
Final Fantasy (Untitled)
Hohokum
inFAMOUS: Second Son
Killzone: Shadow Fall
Knack
Lords of the Fallen
Madden NFL 25
NBA 2K14
NBA Live 14
Need for Speed Rivals
The Pinball Arcade
Planetside 2 [Free-to-Play]
Primal Carnage: Genesis
Rocketbirds 2: Evolution
Shadow Warrior
Silent Enemy
Skylanders Swap Force
Sniper Elite 3
Super Motherload
Super Stardust (Untitled)
(Another Housemarque game in development)
Thief
Tiny Brains
The Walking Dead: Season 2
War Thunder: Ground Forces
Warframe [Free-to-Play]
Watch_Dogs
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
The Witness
Wolfenstein: The New Order



As you see the PS4 already has 8 exclusives announced and E3 hasn't even happened yet. Not to mention there are five free to play games, four of which I know for sure will be ready at launch (dunno about Doki Doki). And you won't even have to drop $60 on a subscription to enjoy these free games online.

[Aldurin]

Hey, Microsoft decided that they didn't like impending bankruptcy, so they released their DRM programmers from Planar Binding so they could return to the Fiendish Planes. (http://news.xbox.com/2013/06/update)

[Flarecobra]

Guess they got tired of being shat upon.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

My god the amount of self assured, smug-arsed spin in that statement;

my team and I have heard directly from many of you, read your comments and listened to your feedback. I would like to take the opportunity today to thank you for your assistance in helping us to reshape the future of Xbox One.

You mean, "We've heard all the hatred that our tryannical policies that we tried to enforce upon the gaming world have caused, and it fucking terrifies our bank accounts."

You told us how much you loved the flexibility you have today with games delivered on disc. The ability to lend, share, and resell these games at your discretion is of incredible importance to you. Also important to you is the freedom to play offline, for any length of time, anywhere in the world.

Yeah, no fucking shit. You really needed to piss off millions of people and damn near destroy your companies reputation and look like complete tools to learn the most obvious thing in the world?

We appreciate your passion, support and willingness to challenge the assumptions of digital licensing and connectivity. While we believe that the majority of people will play games online and access the cloud for both games and entertainment, we will give consumers the choice of both physical and digital content. We have listened and we have heard loud and clear from your feedback that you want the best of both worlds.



Thank you again for your candid feedback. Our team remains committed to listening, taking feedback and delivering a great product for you later this year.


This basically sounds like PR speak for "And we would have gotten away with it too, if it hadn't been for you meddling gamers!", or possibly, "This isn't over, internet gaming community, one day, we shall have revenge!"

[Kyanbu The Legend]

I'm shocked and surprised. I honestly expected them to defend this to the grave. Even go as far as to bash Sony and Nintendo for "supporting used games and Piracy".

But hey it's nice to hear that they changed their minds about doing that... yet. Oh believe me DRM consoles and devices is our future. It'll happen one day, it just so happens that we were spared this gen.

Unfortunately aside from that, the Price tag, and the Kinect. The Xbox One (based on the fact that it and the PS4 share similar parts) has few to no design flaws that we know of other then the ESRAM rumor. And it has some decent games coming it's way. So yeah, the WiiU may be back to being the Internet's punching bag soon.

[Marc v4.0]

Xbox One-Eighty

:smug:

[Locke cole]

Alright. That's better.

That being said, I'm still planning on the PS4.

The PS4 is cheaper, and Square Enix has me by the balls.

[Aerozord]

Come on guys stop being all butt-hurt. Dont hate on a company for changing their policies because the community asked them to, This is behavior we should encourage not hold a grudge about something that (since this was all before release) never technically happened and at no point inconvenienced any of us.

[Bells]

I was never a fan of the xbox brand and i never ommited that. But i have to say... i can't really trust a brand that 1 week after it's major reveal, months prior to release, changes it's fundamental vision for their product.

It only tells me that they don't have a game plan. And does't comfort me to think paying 100$ more for this when i can play 100 less for something that is already made with a different, more attractive, plan for the market and coming years.

MS next move would be to shit bricks of money to grab exclusives. That's really their only salvation at this point, make people talk about Xbox180 exclusive games and nothing else... but i honestly think they are not that smart.

[Arcanum]

Xbox One-Eighty

:smug:

Hey, I stole that joke first. (http://www.nuklearforums.com/showthread.php?p=1230994#post1230994)

[Shyria Dracnoir]

All it teaches me is that whinging works. My middle school therapist can apparently go fuck herself.

[Loyal]

Come on guys stop being all butt-hurt. Dont hate on a company for changing their policies because the community asked them to, This is behavior we should encourage not hold a grudge about something that (since this was all before release) never technically happened and at no point inconvenienced any of us. Is it so implausible that one would be turned off from buying an X-Box One based solely on the fact that Microsoft would have the temerity to try their prior stance in the first place? That they would plan to implement such blatantly anti-consumer policies and then stop, not because it's so miserably unethical, but only because their customer base rose up like a tidal wave and came crashing down upon them in response?

Is it impossible that people might simply not trust Microsoft to act in good faith following their prior actions?

[Hatake Kakashi]

Is it so implausible that one would be turned off from buying an X-Box One based solely on the fact that Microsoft would have the temerity to try their prior stance in the first place? That they would plan to implement such blatantly anti-consumer policies and then stop, not because it's so miserably unethical, but only because their customer base rose up like a tidal wave and came crashing down upon them in response?

Is it impossible that people might simply not trust Microsoft to act in good faith following their prior actions?

I certainly don't. Sure, the console itself might not retain those restrictions, but you can bet your ass that any of their first-party releases will be loaded with the shit.

Also, don't forget the part about where they decided to show us all who's boss (http://www.businessinsider.com/xbox-boss-says-buy-xbox-360-2013-6) before they finally realized that that idea was pretty fucking stupid too.

[Mr.Bookworm]

Hey, Microsoft decided that they didn't like impending bankruptcy, so they released their DRM programmers from Planar Binding so they could return to the Fiendish Planes. (http://news.xbox.com/2013/06/update)

Cue me being unsurprised. All of the stuff they've backed off of only makes any sort of sense if Sony is also doing it. When it became clear Sony was keeping to the status quo, Microsoft didn't really have much of a choice.

You mean, "We've heard all the hatred that our tryannical policies that we tried to enforce upon the gaming world have caused, and it fucking terrifies our bank accounts."

After spending a couple of weeks endlessly hearing "Micro$oft" and "NAZIS", can we tone down the overblown rhetoric a wee bit?

[Hatake Kakashi]

I dunno. I think Hawk was dead on in his interpretation.

[Mr.Bookworm]

I am officially about to start being That Guy, so I think I'm gonna bow out of this conversation before I say something really dumb.

[Aerozord]

Is it so implausible that one would be turned off from buying an X-Box One based solely on the fact that Microsoft would have the temerity to try their prior stance in the first place? That they would plan to implement such blatantly anti-consumer policies and then stop, not because it's so miserably unethical, but only because their customer base rose up like a tidal wave and came crashing down upon them in response?

Is it impossible that people might simply not trust Microsoft to act in good faith following their prior actions?

No, but its not a good stance. Of course they did it for the purpose of making money, its a multi-billion dollar international corporation. So is Nintendo and Sony. Only difference is those two realized ahead of time that there would be a backlash, do you really think they wouldn't do the same given the chance?

I believe in realizing your mistakes and correcting them. I could understand if you bought a new xbox and they then screwed you over and you now hold a grudge, but you didn't. This was a scrapped plan. An idea they realized was unwise.

Say someone was going to kick you in the balls. You screamed at them "kick me in the balls and I will murder you in your sleep", so they decide to not kick you in the balls. Do you think the proper response is "I'm still going to murder you in your sleep because you had the idea in the first place." I am saying the better response is "ok you did the right thing by changing your mind. I will re-evaluate my opinion of you and make a fair judgement."

People aren't even raging about the new or old policies, but the fact they changed their mind. We wanted that, why are you upset that it happened, wasn't that the point of all the rage?

[Arcanum]

People are raging at the switch because of how much MS was promoting their DRM. Because of MS saying things like "it's an integral part to the systems architecture" or "it's not simple to turn off DRM." They put so much effort into damage control, and attempting to force gamers into liking their policies.

The problem is that removing all the DRM shit wasn't MS's first or even second choice. It was their last resort. Why should I give money to a company that has that sort of attitude in regards to DRM?

I'd much rather give my money to a company that had the foresight to know what their consumers want and don't want, not a company that tries to force it's money-grubbing policies on people and only backpedals when there's no other option.

[Flarecobra]

I guess the big thing is... they tried to make up for it.

[Marc v4.0]

Only difference is those two realized ahead of time that there would be a backlash, do you really think they wouldn't do the same given the chance?

The fact that they realized ahead of time that there would be backlash, and decided not to do it, pretty much answers the question there. They had the chance to do it, and they didn't.


The brain-addling comparison you attempted to draw there with murder and testicle and xboxes aside, it wasn't just the features that had and have people angry, it's the fact that they felt that shit would fly. That we would gobble it up like stupid sheep and be happy smiles about it.

They don't deserve my money, your money, anyone's money, and just because they went "Oops, I guess you guys weren't as fucking stupid as we thought!" it doesn't change the fact that they dropped their trousers and attempted to shit all over our heads.

Look at your own odd example. Why, even after that person doesn't actually kick you in the balls, should you be at all happy or ok with them? They wanted to kick you in the balls, and they would have if you hadn't said anything. They can go fuck off.

[POS Industries]

Say someone was going to kick you in the balls. You screamed at them "kick me in the balls and I will murder you in your sleep", so they decide to not kick you in the balls. Do you think the proper response is "I'm still going to murder you in your sleep because you had the idea in the first place." I am saying the better response is "ok you did the right thing by changing your mind. I will re-evaluate my opinion of you and make a fair judgement."
Hahahaha oh my god this fucking post.

To correct your bizarre testicular-themed analogy, what this is more like is if Microsoft said, "Hey, give us money to kick you in the jimmies every day for the rest of your life!" We said no, and then when they realized that their plan to trade ball-kicking for untold millions of dollars was not going to work, they came back and said, "Okay, give us money and we won't kick you in the jimmies every day for the rest of your life. Probably."

Like oh man that's sweetening the fucking pot right there, guys.

[Hatake Kakashi]

I guess the big thing is... they tried to make up for it.

Let's see them further make up for it. How about a price drop? Show me a price tag of about, oh, $50. I might be inclined to forget that they attempted to shit all over gaming as we know it.

[Grimpond]

Hahahaha oh my god this fucking post.

To correct your bizarre testicular-themed analogy, what this is more like is if Microsoft said, "Hey, give us money to kick you in the jimmies every day for the rest of your life!" We said no, and then when they realized that their plan to trade ball-kicking for untold millions of dollars was not going to work, they came back and said, "Okay, give us money and we won't kick you in the jimmies every day for the rest of your life. Probably."

Like oh man that's sweetening the fucking pot right there, guys.

"We're not saying your balls will get kicked if you don't pay us protection, but this is a bad neighborhood, accidents happen. To your balls."

[Krylo]

You walk into someone's home. It's a pretty nice home. You're there for dinner.

They mention that they plan on poisoning the dinner so that you can join in a suicide pact with them.

You're like, "What, no. No I don't think so."

They respond, "But I already started making the meatloaf I can't just UNPOISON it, besides this suicide pact is going to be totally awesome. Just think of all the great dead people you can hang out with."

So you're just all, "Well, no, I think I'll just be going then."

And their response is, "Well, fine fine, I'll just throw out the meatloaf and make a not-poisoned dinner, though I still think the suicide pact would be totally awesome."

Do you:


A: Sit back down and eat.
B: Leave. Possibly call the police.



Aerozord believes we should stay.

[akaSM]

How tasty is that meatloaf?

[Locke cole]

It's the strangest recipe. Tastes like almonds.

[Loyal]

People aren't even raging about the new or old policies, but the fact they changed their mind. We wanted that, why are you upset that it happened, wasn't that the point of all the rage? I have no idea where you're hearing this but it's not remotely close to what I was saying. I dunno why you would reply to my post with this.

Let's see them further make up for it. How about a price drop? Show me a price tag of about, oh, $50. I might be inclined to forget that they attempted to shit all over gaming as we know it. Given that, to the best of my knowledge, they haven't reversed their decision to make Kinect mandatory (with the privacy and content-sharing concerns that entails), I can confidently say they literally cannot pay me to ownhave an XBone.

[Arcanum]

How tasty is that meatloaf?

This is actually a very important question.

[Ramary]

Indie still can't self publish, Kinect still mandatory, still have to pay 60 dollars a year to use a service covered in advertisements, and there is still always a chance they try and bring it back anyway, the ads on Xbox live were added halfway though the generation after all.


Fuck em'.

[phil_]

I have no idea where you're hearing this but it's not remotely close to what I was saying. I dunno why you would reply to my post with this.Just an aside, and I'm not sure how well our... lemme check...five-ish mods could handle this, but could we have a "In an argument, argue against NPF posts, not Tumblr/reddit/4chan/twitter posts" rule? This seems like a good example of the usefulness of such a thing.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

How tasty is that meatloaf?

This is actually a very important question.

We've already established this. It's a Microsoft food analogy, therefore it tastes like shit.

[Amake]

In this analogy, I think they key question is if your host is a good friend and to a lesser extent how important cooking and serving you dinner is to them. In Microsoft's case, the answers then would be "More like an actual enemy" and "I don't care".

[Krylo]

In this analogy, I think they key question is if your host is a good friend and to a lesser extent how important cooking and serving you dinner is to them. In Microsoft's case, the answers then would be "More like an actual enemy" and "I don't care".

To be fair, in this analogy this person just tried to poison you, even if they were up front about it.

They probably aren't a close friend anymore, regardless of what they were.

[akaSM]

I don't want their food then .-.

[Yumil]

Microsoft doesn't understand this isn't going to help them either.

Least with the other system once it was released they could drop the average cost of a game(in response to publishers getting a cut on used sells),do digital sells, that this cloud expanded games was actually something, and have their sharing plan to show after launch that the systems differences weren't so cut and dry and recoup their losses. Unfortunately they caved and provided a system that's basically the same as Sony's product for $100 more. The market is worse off with it now as we get another generation of two consoles that are basically the same.

[Locke cole]

And the Wii U, dammit.

[mauve]

How tasty is that meatloaf?

I hear it's to die for.

[Ramary]

I hear it's to die for.

Go away Vincent Price, you are suppose to be dead.

[Bells]

This guy got some vindication.

xcXdWRJ-xb4

[Grandmaster_Skweeb]

Cliff Bleszinski says Sony changed Microsoft's mind, not internet whining. (http://gamepolitics.com/2013/06/20/cliff-bleszinski-sony-made-microsoft-change-its-mind-not-internet-whining#.UcNtL_nFXnE)

this dude is a goddamn fuckin tool. the very same guy who religiously defends DLC for the sake of DLC and also says 'don't like it? vote with your wallet'. wellll people voted with their wallets and I guess that amounts to whining? just how far up his ass is his head lodged? 'cause every time he says something it's like it worms ever deeper in his pucker.

[Bells]

"Sony forced Microsoft's hand by making a product that the overwhelming majority of consumers wanted to buy and not hate viciously".

Oh Sony... you Heartless bitch. keeping us captive of a new decade of Owning our own shit we bought.

[Locke cole]

Wait... but, if Sony forced their hand by making a console that consumers didn't hate viciously, doesn't that mean that... consumers' reactions are a major driving force here?

Shock!

[POS Industries]

Wait... but, if Sony forced their hand by making a console that consumers didn't hate viciously, doesn't that mean that... consumers' reactions are a major driving force here?

Shock!
CliffyB ain't about listening to the people. If we get anything, it's by the good graces of our benevolent corporate overlords.

[Krylo]

CliffyB ain't about listening to the people. If we get anything, it's by the good graces of our benevolent corporate overlords.

To be fair, this is probably exactly how Microsoft feels as well.

I.E. The internet bitching didn't matter as much (if at all) as PS4 outselling the X-Box One in pre-orders in every single region. Action above words, and all that.

[Azisien]

I've had a few that large before, yeah

Total War Shogun 2 with all DLC is like 32GB, or it was, they may have compressed the download recently. I have great internet where I currently live, but there's also bandwidth caps that I then have to be wary of, which is actually made worse by blindingly fast download speeds.

Also, from minute one, I didn't believe they were going to go through with all this. And the whole dropping it announcement thing kind of just cements my conspiracy theory that they are just building up negative hype, a lot of which will disappear in six months. I mean really, how could such core features from the console get stripped with only a handful of months left in its production.

These articles seem somewhat relevant, presenting a few sides (I wonder which ones we'll all take):

The Xbox One Just Got Way Worse and Gamers Suck. (http://gizmodo.com/the-xbox-one-just-got-way-worse-and-its-our-fault-514411905)
You would also, as it happens, have been able to share your digitally purchased games. That's a REALLY BIG DEAL. We won't be able to do that now, though. We still have to use the disc for games we buy physically. This is the loss of some of the most future-facing features of the system, things that changed and challenged the traditional limitations of console gaming. We are literally standing in stasis, refusing to move forward, at the behest of those who are loudest and not ready for the future.

Steam Sharing? Maybe a thing! (http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/06/19/steam-game-sharing-code-found-in-clients-beta-update/)
As the furore over the game sharing policies of the new consoles continues, it’s easy as a PC user to look on bewildered. You can’t share games; they’re not even real! They’re an intangible entity pushed through magic underground tubes, like some non-corporeal spirit of entertainment haunting your hard-drive. But if some lines of code found in the latest Steam beta program are to be believed, Valve may be looking at the possibility of taming that spirit – bringing a game sharing infrastructure to the client.

Despite being on the other side of the argument, I laughed because swear words. (NSFW Possibly?) (http://www.dorkly.com/article/52521/don-mattricks-first-draft-of-the-xbox-one-update-announcement)

[Grandmaster_Skweeb]

Oh cute. Gizmodo.

Stopped reading them a couple years ago but holy shit, looks like they're chugging the same kool-aid that that hack cliffyB enjoys chugging. I'm honestly surprised Jesus Diaz didn't write that steaming pile of epic level stupid. And Mr. Diaz is one of the primary reasons I don't read anything from the gawker shithole anymore. That man alone alone continuously reaches soaring heights of journalistic integrederpaderrrr.

But I digress.

[tacticslion]

So first, everyone who says, "Man, they were terrible, and we should be really wary of them." well... yeah, you're right. Entirely.

However, Aerozoid's point of, "Okay, they backed off, we shouldn't fuss at them for changing their mind." is also a valid point. It might not be solidly relevant to this thread, but it's a good point, and I've seen what he's talking about elsewhere.

Okay, that out of the way...

Personally, I think things that are currently "gimmicky" probably are, in fact, the wave of the future. Including the Kinect, which is one of the coolest ideas I've seen.

That said, the Kinect really sucks, at least if my most recent experience was anything to go by.

I was at the Florida Mall recently, and in the Microsoft store there was a display talking all about the XB1, and it had an Xbox system of some kind hooked up for play.

In retrospect, I no longer believe the system displayed was the XB1, but instead was just a 360 with the Kinect, considering the XB1 is supposedly still in development, but you'd never know it by just looking at the display casually.

So... you know, with my nieces, we played around with it. And couldn't log out, get it to respond to commands, or anything. When we tried to stop playing and let others play the games instead, we couldn't because it had locked onto our faces and demanded we be the ones to finish the current game instead. The movement window was extremely narrow.

In the end, we had to leave and I had to talk to one of the store employees to get him to fix the system. He gave me this defeated look, a world-weary sigh, and muttered something about having to reboot and reset the whole system.

Even considering this was a 360 with a Kinect 1, this speaks extremely poorly for Microsoft attempting to require a similar (if improved) device on their latest system. This was their attempt to sell me on the idea, and it instead soured me.

It was frustrating enough that I reconsidered my previous (good) experience at a friend's house with a 360 and Kinect.

Really, Microsoft seems to be blowing most every opportunity to gain good graces.

With their first "clarification announcement" they were doing... okay... right up until the "these are current policies and may be changed at any time" that they're legally required to add because, you know, they're likely going to change policies.

With their most recent update, it's not the fact they changed their minds that bothers me, it's that, as other have said, they spent so much time and effort trying to convince me that it was a good idea in the first place.

Here's the thing with developers making money. I'm okay with that. It's why they do what they do - because they get money which they can live off of.

However, when any organization starts telling me that what I pay for isn't really mine, I start getting really leery. It bothers me to no end that I can't do stuff with my computer because, legally, the system isn't mine to do stuff with. It doesn't matter that I lack the skill - it really frustrates me that, legally, this thing that is so integral to my life is effectively merely "leased". Regardless of what I do with the hardware, the software isn't mine and never will be.

I'm one of those people that always reads the full service agreement. I don't always understand it, sometimes I have to read it several times or go back and refresh my memory of what I've already read. It's often mind-numbing, and I'm usually uncertain of anything I was just doing by the end of them, but I've read the daggum thing so I can honestly check the "I read it" button, and I've done my best to understand it, so I can say that, too (usually by trying to put whatever was said into my own words). I hate it. I hate doing it. I hate the process of it. It's long, boring, and frustrating.

And I generally loathe the terms and conditions of most of them, because they almost all say, "No, actually, you don't own this really expensive thing." And I despise that idea. I despise more that it's going to proliferate into other areas of our life.

But I usually go along with it because, in reality, most of those exist, not because the entity on the other side is planning on taking anything from me, but just to cover their own rear ends if someone does something stupid. I get it.

But what Microsoft tried to do was not that. They literally tried to tell us, "Hey, we know that you don't own anything, and because of that, we're going to make sure you play by our own convoluted, prone-to-change rules, and pay us money for the privilege (unless you live in slightly rural areas, in which case, you suck and we don't like you)."

They told us this while showing us a not-entirely-properly-functional product as the Ur-Example of what they were selling us.

That is entirely a terrible move, despite the PR spin they've put on everything. The Optimist in me hopes they learned their lesson. The jaded part of me suspects what several others have said, that they're simply biding their time.

Also, a number of their policies are still heavily flawed.

Oh, and the other original point of this tangential rant was that I'm not happy with how much we're paying those developers in order for them to take longer and put out fewer solidly good titles or interesting new things out. Making a game is taking ever-longer and is ever-more difficult, and we're seeing little in the way of improvements for it. I really wish there was some way to speed up the process/ease the work load of making games, and thus cheapen them for everyone.

Anyway. That's about a week of posting for me (probably).

[Locke cole]

One question that that Joe video brought up; why don't they keep game for digital copies of games?

I mean, unless I'm mistaken, they're still going to have the digital purchase option, so why remove the sharing option for digital copies?

Also, in one of those links, how would the whole "changing, expansive worlds" or whatever work when it was only a once-every-24-hours verification process? Yeah, updating the game world every day or so would be cool, I guess. Not that the games themselves can't still do that if they choose to.

[Ramary]

The sharing option was a load of smoke and mirrors anyway, a Microsoft employee said in a blog is was just gonna be a 15-45 min trial that takes you to the marketplace to buy the game right after anyway. Like everything with Microsoft, it was some load of bullshit.

[Locke cole]

I wouldn't mind a 15-45 minute trial just as a standard option for digital copies. Demos are great.

[Bells]

i love how this further proves how the whole "Xbox needs to be online to power the cloud that powers the xbox" is utter bullshit.

[Arcanum]

The sharing option was a load of smoke and mirrors anyway, a Microsoft employee said in a blog is was just gonna be a 15-45 min trial that takes you to the marketplace to buy the game right after anyway. Like everything with Microsoft, it was some load of bullshit.

So basically a more time-limited and asinine version (albeit available for every game from the sounds of it) of PS+'s 60 minute full-game trials.

[Bells]

and on the happier side of the moon...

Since there are talks that Steam will be doing a similar share system, do you think they will impose any restrictions?

I can't wait to let you guys borrow my copy of fucking genoforge, it will be so hype!!

[Grandmaster_Skweeb]

Nothing confirmed yet. There is code for its possibility in the latest steam beta update, but so far nothing more than that.

While a neat possibility, I'm not putting any eggs in that basket.

[Doc ock rokc]

It has been noted that Valve has implemented similar codes before that haven't panned out. So Most likely they are testing the feature but you never know with some companies being all stingy about their Digital rights they might not be able to do it even if they have it all working.

[Marc v4.0]

So first, everyone who says, "Man, they were terrible, and we should be really wary of them." well... yeah, you're right. Entirely.

However, Aerozoid's point of, "Okay, they backed off, we shouldn't fuss at them for changing their mind." is also a valid point.

Except it isn't valid because 1) Only people who wanted to KEEP the dumb DRM stuff (they exist) are complaining that MS changed their minds and 2) They are a company, selling a product, and the consumer-company relationship means -I- don't owe them jack shit in the way of slack for pulling stupid bullshit like this whole fiasco.

No one is obligated to cut them slack, turn the other cheek, or return them to full trust and responsible consumers -should- be giving MS the sideways stink eye for as long as it takes them to prove they aren't going to try and stick their hands up our asses again.

[synkr0nized]

This is probably a good console "generation" for me to hold off on for a while. I don't boot up my consoles so much anymore, and maybe giving them some time to be used widely will give me more of an idea of which platform is going to offer me a better gaming experience (mostly tied to titles I think I'd play and ways to connect with friends).

It's nice to see that the MS camp is willing to change, regardless of the actual reason behind it. I have enjoyed the 360 and Live!, overall, and thought it was unfortunate that their previously announced policies would turn me away from what might still be a good gaming platform for me.

That said, looking back I think I might have enjoyed the PS3, as well, but few of my good friends have one. I don't have the time for games much now, but I am actually a little excited to see what the scene is like in, say, December.

[Grandmaster_Skweeb]

so it seems Microsoft is removing the recertification costs for updates. Said charges were ranging from $10,000 to $40,000. so I guess they're trying to make friends with the indies they chased off.


oh wait. this is for the 360 only. HAW! nice try.