Exs-Bocks Wan

[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]

Originally Posted by 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!

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

[Krylo]

Originally Posted by POS Industries

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.

[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).

[Marc v4.0]

Originally Posted by 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.

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.

[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.