Yeah, the difference is I never - ever - forget that these are corporations. I would never compare Microsoft or Sony to my neighbor, my wife, my friend or my postman.
So if microsoft charged your account $100 for nothing, and then credited you $80, you would see this as a positive experience that would endear you to the company?
Can we confirm that if you start with 0, subtract 10 and then add 6, the end result is still a negative number? Or do you dispute that too?
I’m with you on the math. I just don’t see that math applying to these circumstances.
Underlying these feelings is an intensity about these companies that you have that I simply don’t share. When Microsoft announced their DRM, I thought: bad business decision Microsoft; and you’ve gone from a likely buy to a likely not.
I wasn’t frothing about it.
Because of that, when they changed, it was easy for me to appreciate the fact that they did.
Look, here’s my mindset: Companies make mistakes ALL the time. In this case, they made a mistake for a product I can’t even buy yet. And in response to public pressure, they changed. They dropped the DRM; they dropped the always-on requirement; they reversed course on indie developers; they upped the GPU speed; they bundled a headset.
I simply don’t understand how anyone can credibly say the Xbox One hasn’t become more appealing over time.
At launch? Say what? Hell no, I don’t have that kind of money, or that kind of cache with the wife. No, when I said that I knew I’d eventually have all 3 of the consoles, I meant I’d have them all eventually. One day I’ll have a WiiU, a PS4 and an XBox One. Which one of the two main ones gets bought in November is what’s up in the air, versus which one gets bought years down the road after several price cuts.
EDIT: If I had that kind of money, I’d just buy a new PC instead and just wait on the consoles. But a nicely powered PC costs around the same as all 3 consoles combined.
Ah, if that’s the case, I would look into pre-ordering both - BUT confirming that you can cancel before the launch date.
If I had to pick just one console, friends and family would be a big factor - especially if you game with them regularly.
It has become more appealing over time in comparison to where it was before, but we’re only back to square one. Not even, because they still haven’t reversed all of the bad choices!
You’re right, they made mistakes (in thinking they could get away with it) and backed up on most of the mistakes. This is not a net positive for the customers. That is all anyone here is saying and all you seem to be ignoring/misdirecting away from.
So just because microsoft reversed most of these attacks on gamers, doesn’t mean that they have some huge advantage over sony now, it means that with a bit more work, they could be even.
Yeah. I simply don’t have this depth of feeling about it, sorry. I can see how some might…
Canuck
3636
Meh, it all depends on your point of view. Some people may say more appealing, others (like myself) would say less repulsive. It all depends greatly on the point of view.
I’m less interested in the consoles themselves than the actual outcome and strategies used. It’s like following the US elections.
Who’s got the best strategy so far? Xbox seems to be in the news far more often and mainly for positive reasons but they’ve almost exclusively been concessions so far. MS’ actions have been strictly reactionary and that’s not a good thing in my opinion. How do you control or create the message when you are busy fending off criticisms?
Sony on the other hand have done a lot of things right so far (or, depending on your point of view, not made any horrible unforced errors) but really since the body slam of E3 they’ve been pretty quiet. What’s their strategy? Instead of releasing their details in dribs and drabs or getting important pros swallowed up by cons (far more stories on live gold being required for DVR than headset inclusion) are they planning some huge reveal at one of the upcoming games conferences in Europe or Japan? Very exciting times for a video game fan.
Sony’s video features appear to be service agnostic. I believe Twitch has said their deal with MS is not exclusive so I would not be surprised if Twitch ends up being an option on PS4.
Agree Canuck. What I am excited about is simply how utterly volatile this cycle has become. I suspect you are right. Sony has something planned. Looking forward to hearing about it.
The depth of feeling isn’t about the status of the xbone so much as the status of you seemingly being purposefully misleading about this.
You can’t even seem to acknowledge that if you take two steps backward and one forward, even though you took one forward in the end, you’re still one step behind.
Anyway, someone wake me up when microsoft gets back to the start line and actually starts the race.
Teiman
3640
I think they are playing his game. His game being screw the customers as much has possible. They have no intention to give a service with value X for a price X. They want to give a service X/M for a price X*M. Its not capitalism, is some kleptocracism culture.
jpinard
3641
I would love to have the inside story on “how” exactly everything would have turned out if Microsoft had been able to do exactly what they wanted how they wanted. Maybe there’s stuff we don’t know that would have been good for gamers? I’m not sure that’s true as I believe cost-wise we were going to get raked over the coals, but maybe there was more to everything than we knew? Anyways, a post-mortem from someone high up the XBox chain would be fascinating.
“X Marks the Box” - The Official Memoirs of Don Mattrick
Beaming to your highly mobile, cloud powered device in 15 years…
Murbella, never stop Murbelling. You have your view - where the Xbox decision to drop DRM; drop the always on requirement; reverse course on indies; boost the GPU and bundle a headset -is like your neighbor, breaking into your home, robbing you of your stuff and then asking for forgiveness. Like I said above, I get that some people feel this way.
I don’t. I think that’s extreme. This is just a company, man. They made a mistake. Heard feedback from their customers. And they’re making changes - before the product has even launched!
I’ll try again but this time in terms you might understand. Look, by your own admission, you are a Sony guy. So let me put it to you this way: When Sony dropped built in PS2 support in every PS3, I was disappointed but I never - ever - said something like, “Sony dropping the PS2 from the PS3 proves they are @#$ing LIARS!!! They PROMISED every PS3 would be able to play PS2 games. Them dropping PS2 support is like my wife saying she would love me forever and now she’s gone. It’s the same thing. Sony was my wife. But now I hate Sony. FOREVER.”
Nope. I just thought: makes sense. They launched that thing for $599. It’s not selling. They have to change strategies. While I’m bummed the PS3 doesn’t have a PS2 inside it, I’m more glad that Sony made the right business decision because it will help make the PS3 more competitive. And… that’s about it.
that HAS to be happening. If I could pick one person to write it, it would be Geoff Keighley. But I would want more than the post-morterm (i.e. a focus on what the original team on the Xbox One wanted to do). I’m much more fascinated by THIS stage. I would love to read about what happened when the new Xbox team was handed the reigns and told: “We have an injured brand. A self-inflicted injury to be precise. But one that will cost this company billions. Fix it. Fast.”
This might violate Tom’s rules of engagement, in which case I’ll remove it - but for those who are interested in this kind of reporting and have an iPad, look up Geoff’s write up for the final days of Portal 2. You’ll learn a lot about the creative process but also about the enigmatic company known as Valve. It’s in the iPad store as an app.
Well, that is what I’ve done since after E3. Pre-ordered both from Amazon, and will cancel one before the launch. As for playing with friends and family: I did that a LOT on the 360 over its lifetime. That’s why Xbox Live Gold was such a no-brainer for me for the last 8 years or so. But ever since getting married and being in a job that takes a lot of hours, I’ve had zero hours of multiplayer time within the last year, and that’s likely to continue. So that’s why I was saying maybe friends and family won’t be that big a factor this time around. I might as well get the PS4 since I’ll never have time to play multiplayer with friends and family anyway.
On the topic of Xbox Live Gold, I know that Tieman said above that the PC browser surfing method of finding games is the best, but man, I disagree with that so much. I did that a lot back in the day, and it’s fine if you’re playing with strangers maybe, but for playing with friends and family, the method Xbox Live pioneered back in the original Xbox days and improved with the 360 is just so much better. You form up in a party, you’re chatting away as you search for games, and you get automatically assigned to games with an appropriate skill level. That made multiplayer such a huge draw for someone like me who loves the balance and challenge of single player gaming.
Back in the days when I played Quake and Unreal and other multiplayer shooters on the PC, it was such a crapshoot trying to find games that were fun. Either I completely dominated or was completely dominated by other players. Neither was much fun. Only those really rare games where it’s a constant back and forth and you’re matched up against players of a similar skill level were the ones worth playing for. Xbox Live was the first time I was constantly matched up correctly along with my friends, starting with Halo 2. The whole reason I preferred playing Unreal Tournament to most multiplayer games is because the bots in UT could be tuned to always be the right level of challenging. And suddenly with Halo 2, multiplayer gaming was more like single player gaming. But with your friends, and playing against strangers who were JUST the right level of competition. It felt nothing short of revolutionary to me.
Unfortunately, I think Call of Duty has reduced that effect somewhat. I don’t know what they do differently, maybe they emphasize better connections over TrueSkill ranking or something, but our match ups in the Call of Duty franchise have always seemed all over the place. Sometimes against very skilled teams, sometimes very bad ones. It’s almost like the pre-Xbox Live PC days. And if you’re going back to that, you might as well just have a game browser like on the PC, where you can make your own choices on which servers to join. If the game can’t magically match you up against the right competition, what happened to the revolution?
Thongsy
3646
The PC browser server method is great if you want to make a custom rules/playlist set and open it up for public play. But then the Halo/CoD model works well for consoles I think. Where you don’t need to constantly search for the server to join and you can just play the matchtype you want to play and wait till it all loads up. Honestly there are pros and cons to both. PC gamers will be used to browsing servers and it’s what they prefer and people who have had the Xbox probably prefer that model now. I personally don’t care all too much as I do love playing those custom rule/maps a lot but then sometimes I’m feeling lazy and just want to pick a matchtype and get at all.
If 1) friends and family aren’t a factor 2) you don’t see yourself gaming online outside of them (i.e. with complete strangers) and 3) you can only order one console on launch and you’re already leaning toward the PS4… then I think you have your answer: time to get the PS4.
But your thoughts about gaming (and how little time there is now to do it) struck a chord with me. So I’ll add my own experience about not having any time to play with friends or family anymore. When I was younger and single, gaming online with friends was easy. I had ample time and more importantly, so did they. So finding a time to play was easy because there were whole blocks clear on the schedule.
When I got married, I went through a dry spell because understandably, my priorities completely shifted to my family. And of course, my friends were going through similar life transitions - also getting married, etc. So not only did I not have any time to play, neither did the people I played with.
Now? Well, I’ve settled in and have figured out that you can both play with friends and family and be a caring spouse. And oddly enough, so have my friends. The trick? In the same way you need to schedule a meeting at work to get things done, you need to literally schedule play time with your friends and family. I find that we cancel about 50% of the time, but we nonetheless play on average twice a week.
I think we’re supposed to react like rational consumers, not heartsick high school girls.
