If this is confirmed, i can’t imagine they will stick to their guns on the forced kinect bundle garage. If that is the case (and they drop it down to a competitive price), this could start becoming a race again rather than a beating.
Canuck
3710
Hmm interesting news. Does this really affect anyone other than the tin foil hatters though? I wonder if MS will actually release a cheaper, non-kinect version. If they do, it would represent a complete collapse of their entire strategy this generation. If they offered it before release then I’m guessing 3/4 of people who pre-ordered would cancel their pre-order and Kinect would pretty much be DOA. Maybe they will release a Kinect less version one year into the console life.
stusser
3711
If the kinect is really optional I would no longer dismiss the xbone out of hand. They still need to get some exclusives to make me want it, though.
Jazar
3712
I’m happy it’s not required. I don’t want to be forced to have a camera and mic connected if I don’t want to use those features. That said I’m still getting a PS4, but if a XB1 games comes out that I must have and I find it on a good deal I’ll be less hesitant to bite.
The irony is that while all these changes are ones that I like, it keeps making it closer and closer to PS4, making the two systems quite redundant. I never liked the original vision but at least it was different.
I think Canuck hit it on the nose. I don’t think they are telegraphing that they are going to drop Kinect. This is is likely yet another announcement designed to spotlight the console and their willingness to listen to customer feedback. In short, it’s a half measure. Instead of dropping Kinect, they’ll let folks turn it off or not connect it if they feel strongly about it.
BUT… at this stage, I would only be willing to bet modestly on that. I’m actually more confident that Sony has a trick up its sleeve. They’ve been too quiet for too long. Just feel like they have been holding their powder dry.
Yeah, I think it’ll be something like “no, you don’t need to always have it plugged in, that would be rubbish”, but then we find out that it’s on a per-game basis… and every game requires you to plug it in. At some point, people just stop caring, it’s too much hassle.
The new Xbox One controller (be sure to watch that video) (coming to the PC in 2014 sometime). Yay! I have so much respect for their accessories division. The Original Xbox controller to the 360, to this new one, they really know what they’re doing, they rely on feedback from core gamers and they really nail it. It used to be the same for joysticks back in the day, going from the 3D Pro to the Precision Pro to the Force Feedback Pro.
Microsoft still has one last major feature change in the TV functionality. This sounds pretty much dead on arrival to me as well, but unlike the kinect, there doesn’t seem to be a huge disadvantage to he customer to keeping it in.
The problem is the xbone doesn’t sound like a media pc. It doesn’t have a cable card. It can’t do the fancy DVR stuff. Not to mention it is questionable how well, if at all, it works outside the USA.
It will be interesting to see if they make it worthwhile, but i’m betting this is another, another kinect.
Best controller to hit the PC in ages (referring to the 360)
Teiman
3718
I remembered that there use to exist a plethora of different controllers on the PC. But Microsoft killed them using all the tricks in his monopolistic hat so only the Microsoft one would work well. Now if you buy a controler pad for the PC, and you want it to work well out of the box, you must buy a Xbox 360 controller. Other controllers may work doing some hacking and remaping the controls to simulate a XBox 360.
Now that the XBox 360 control pad is going to be retired (slowly). The situation in the PC is “fun”. Microsoft have artificially created a ‘standard’ that can’t continue. Will Microsoft want PC devs to stop writing games for the XBox 360 control pad, and start writing games for the XBox One control pad? most likely. Artificial obsolescence will be push in our way.
This is crazy, and not how things should work.
Sometimes I want to stab microsoft in the eye with a pen.
This sounds like a “F**k you PC gamers” from Microsoft. They do that this often.
Editer
3719
My Saitek X-52 and Logitech G940 would like to call “bullshit!” on you, good sir.
What tricks? The 360 controller did well because… It. Is. Awesome. I have an old Logitech controller here and it works just peachy with the newest games, as do all my of USB flight controllers.
Teiman is pretty much right.
360 is one of the first gamepads for pc that worked easily and was widely supported. You know that if a game supports gamepads on pc, it will be plug and play with the 360 gamepad with no setup. You also know that the tooltips will be targeted at the 360 gamepad, which is a huge advantage if the game has any sort of QTE. Imagine Press X or die QTE where you need to consult a picture of the 360 gamepad to find which button on your gamepad is x.
The ps3 controller does work good, and it has the advantage of being wireless + charged through us. You do however need to use some 3rd party drivers to get it to work though. This process is now very easy though. I still recommend 360 for PC games that you want to use a gamepad for though due to the tooltip advantage. Ps3 gamepad works great for any emulation needs though.
Ditto. I still use my Saitek (borrowed, lest Aleck correct me) for flight sims without any problems.
Yeah, the success of the 360 controller on the PC seems to have come out of nowhere. They didn’t really market the Windows version of the controller very much, and yet, because games had support for the controller on the 360, they also had support on the PC. So both indie games and AAA games on the PC suddenly had pretty much universal support for the 360 controller over time. It’s solved the chicken and the egg problem that I thought was unsolvable for bringing joystick/gamepad support to the PC again: without developer support, a peripheral won’t sell, and if a peripheral doesn’t sell, developers won’t bother adding support for it.
As a result, we now have all kinds of games ported to the PC that are viable. It’s pretty awesome.
Teiman
3723
I have bought two control pads that are not XBox 360, and the buttons not worked on the games.
Looking on the internet, seems that you have to download a hack that remap your buttons to fake a XBox 360.
Maybe some high-end control pad already do that? Theres also the anti-usability of many games that use Xbox 360 labels. If you use any other control pad, the symbol the game show will be different to the real one.
Heres a tutorial how to do it, and Is not what I can describe as simple.
http://www.umnotablogger.com/gamebox/content/1122-tutorial-how-to-make-your-generic-controller-emulate-the-xbox-360-controller.html
Nesrie
3724
I am pretty sure my Logitech F710 has an XBOX mode. Never really had an issue with it, other than trying to figure out which mode a game prefers.
jpinard
3725
Yea I don’t agree with the Monopoly rant directed towards MS peripherals. Razer, Saitek, and Logitech are all doing VERY well.
RickH
3726
My guess would be that the Xbone controller would be a superset of the 360 and have optional additional functionality but maintain the basic standard set with the 360 unit.
The Xbox One controller working over a standard USB cable rather than requiring a specific wired version or a proprietary wireless adapter will be really nice. I use a Dualshock 3 on my PC just because it works with no other purchase needed.
Thongsy
3728
I could never get the dual shock 3 to work. It requires motionjoy if I recall and sometimes some games still wouldn’t work properly. It was just easier to get a Xbox controller and use that.
I don’t blame MS, they just made drivers for it and a lot of people already had controllers so it just became the default. Maybe if Sony actually made some PC drivers for their controllers that would be nice as I prefer the Sony controller over the Xbox as I’m used to the X, Square, O, Triangle on PS3 controllers.
