Nesrie
1746
Watching XBOX news is like taking a cold shower. If i was not already a gamer, there certainly isn’t much coming from the big three that makes me want to be one.
Cyrano
1747
And…I can’t stay logged into Xbox Live for more than 3 minutes at a time tonight. It’s probably Time Warner’s fault because they’ve been having trouble in our area all week, but at least my 360 won’t self destruct in 24 hours like an Xboner.
Logging on for 3 minutes would be enough to keep your console playing for 24 hours, so that’s not really a blocker.
This seems to totally ruin the whole point of console gaming - you’re exactly right that one of the fun things about a console is being able to unplug it all and take it away on a holiday with you.
The big thing about this announcement for me is that I have owned consoles since the NES days and I have never once felt the urge to connect any of them to the internet to play online, I’m just not interested in it. I have owned a PS3 and and Xbox 360 and I have never once visited any of the web-based stuff for them or tried to play online, I just don’t care about it. The idea that a company is trying to force me to connect to the internet or I can’t use their console is just bizarre to me - I just want to play games at home, not ‘be connected to a wider world’ or whatever that’s supposed to mean.
Teiman
1750
Its amazing how much the consoles have fallen. From “just plug and play” to “install update patch register connect login play”. Are copying all the bad things from the PC, and none of the good things: mods, user controlled servers, choice of provider, freedom. Probably are still a better deal than Pc for most people, but now theres will be a lot of trouble in tryiing to use a console.
On the other hand, digital download can be liberating. If you have a good internet. If you have a crappy internet, or caps, maybe will not do much for you.
So, is this machine IPv6 ready?
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And even then there are some people on GAF (hired shills?) that said it wasn’t so bad, they expected worse, and “it’s acceptable”.
Kind of curious they said a cell phone connection could auth you. Wonder if it’s just a matter of connecting a usb to your phone and calling in. I mean… everyone has a phone :o no?
It would be, if all this talk about offloading AI, physics etc to the cloud to improve performance is valid. It might not prevent the game from working if it’s only lightening the load optionally to improve appearance or performance, but at this stage nobody is quite sure how this is going to all work.
For me, though, my decision is made. It really doesn’t matter what exclusives they throw at us during E3, this console was designed for a certain subset of Microsoft’s potential audience, and I’m not in it. There are still too many unknowns about certain idiotic-sounding decisions to be cleared up, but hearing confirmation of their 24-hour online requirement kills it stone dead for me. That’s just not going to work at all for our household. I’ll stick with the 360 until it red rings, but my wife and I are gradually transitioning over to a dedicated PC for the TV to stream content and play games. The PS4 still looks interesting right now, but there’s still plenty of time left for Sony to fuck up, although a few sensible decisions and some good exclusives would certainly get me very interested in it to complement the PC.
It makes you wonder what all the top execs at MS have been drinking (or having put in their water)? I really don’t like the America that emerged from the ‘War of Terror’, not one bit, which is a shame as i really love what America should be (and has been at some points in it’s past) and pretty much most rational Americans (so not the ones into all the dark-side stuff) i talk with.
I know MS must be in some kind of damage control situation currently (pulling out of the press event prior to E3 etc), but really the more they try to sound like they are just this company that wants to make entertainment for the family and are really decent guys, the more they sound the complete opposite! A gamasutra article kind of proving the point:
‘Microsoft’s official stance on used games for Xbox One’:
To be honest i’m not bothered personally, i saw all this coming with the previous gen and decided not to give them (that is all console manufacturers) my money, and nothing is changing that anytime soon. What with EA and it’s cosy financial relationship with weapon manufacturers and MS being a spy for The Man, well gaming sure has changed from when i first got involved in it!
The only thing we can do is vote with our wallets at this point. I got a feeling Microsoft is going to end up disappointed, or worse when this is all said and done. I’m actually starting to wonder if Microsoft will be around in a form similar to what we know by 2025.
I was thinking about this last night. There’s still one more thing that can pull me back in to the Xbone. And that’s if the rumors of a new 360 that can be plugged into the Xbone are true. If the two of them combined can be one device in which I still get access to my vast library of XBLA games, then I would be very tempted. Being able to still play Geometry Wars 2, Rez HD, etc. is still very important to me as those games never really get old and I love bringing them out when the mood strikes.
Plus with such a setup, I’d still be able to take the new smaller (if it is smaller) 360 with me when I go on vacation where I’ll be out of touch with no internet, and play my XBLA games offline, and leave my Xbone at home since it will require me to connect once every 24 hours.
On the other hand, if Microsoft doesn’t find a way to leverage my huge library of 360 and XBLA games, well then, screw them this generation.
Just to expand on this a little: This isn’t just about backwards compatibility for me. It’s about permanence. Like Brian Rubin and many others here, I sort of view myself as a collector of good games, besides being a consumer of games. Buying games on GoG gives that sense of Permanence because they are DRM free and if GoG went away, I’d just have to take much better care of my GoG collection instead of always having online access to it. With Steam, there’s less sense of permanence, but it’s still there because Valve is so goddamn successful, which automatically brings an air of permanence, because you feel like they’re always going to be there and your collection will stay intact.
I used to feel the same sense of permanence with Microsoft, and how successful they were this last generation. But now that’s faltering. What if the Xbone fails? Will they always give me access to my old XBLA on 360 library even if I keep my old 360s around? Will they turn off the switch one day and the only games I’ll still be able to play will be the ones I have tied to particular machines. And then when that machine dies? What then? Done and Gone right? And it will be even worse with the XBone digital games where you will need to connect. That sense of permanence is perilously close to falling apart completely, and they need to bring it back somehow, or no sale.
Pretty sure people like us wont matter at all for Microsoft, and the SetTopBox will be successful regardless of which consumer/Privacy unfriendly procedures they enact. There’s a whole generation of CodBloppers out there with money to spend on the latest dog and pony show.
Teiman
1759
No. I think Microsoft is using his game division to promote his cloud services (hosting of servers) division. Microsoft is tryiing to sell Azure. And its saying “Look how useful and powerful is!”.
If Sim City 5 is a indication how these cloud services work, gamers are better running away from these. In Sim City 5 the servers where some low power virtual computer on Ireland, doing some messaging that should be trivial and Real Time but was missing messages and getting overflowed, crashing, dying and corrupting data. Running servers cost money, who pay for these servers? videogames are better run on users console, where gamers are the ones paying the electricity bill… but have the ultimate say how long the electricity bill is paid.
Millions of idiots will probably buy this piece of crap because, you know, Games!
Somehow some people are saying that migrating to PC gaming from Xbox with these news doesn’t make sense because Steam is also DRM and the pc market doesn’t have second hand sales.
Except
-the computer is an open platform where Steam is only a part of it, there are other digital stores competitors and devs that release their games directly to consumers
-the off-line mode of Steam allows being off-line for several weeks, not 24 hours
-the average price at launch of a Steam game is lower than a console game
-the average price of a Steam game in offer is much lower than a console game
-computers has several degrees of freedom more which translate to a nice set of perks like modding, servers run by players, tweaking, etc
Razgon
1762
Agreed - For me, Modding is the ultimate reason to play on PC, and the reason I play tons of PC games years after the released, and even purchase them years after release.
Teiman
1763
Steam have one problem, and is that don’t have enough games to sell. Some people buy a lot of games, if the game have appeal to them, but there are only a few AAA titles that meet this parameter every year. I think this is one of the reasons Steam push indie games. So can pad the big AAA launchs with a lot of small creative indie games that people may not play very long, but enjoy a lot, while wait for the big titles. This way people buy many game, even if his interest are very limited.
Somehow I don’t see consoles doing that. Is fucking hilarious that Microsoft tried to ask 40.000 $ to a indy to push a patch. You can ask 40.000 $ to maybe EA, and EA will pay, but its byzarro world for a indie.
The whole “certification” stuff is stupid. Console games still have bugs, still need to be patched, … What exactly is the certification for? Maybe Microsoft certify a Xbox game so the PS4 version don’t have better textures. Or so that the PC version have the same limitations the Xbox version. Is that the “certification” process is about?, forcing the lowest common denominator, so other platform don’t have a better game than Xbox?
Can you have something (on the consoles) similar to the Steam “Early Program” where you play alpha versions of games, that are highly experimental but already un in the alpha state?
The Codbloppers can also get a PS4 instead. They’re not all going to choose the XBone- and enough bad press might sway them in the other direction, along with maybe an Anonymous hack.
The indie developers- I can see many of them telling Microsoft to sod off. The Salty Cupcakes (Skullgirls) stream tonight- when asked about the XBone, they pretty much said “no way in hell”- they’re not worth the headache. (That said, they had Fez-like problems with their game)
It’s really not the DRM that gives me issues with XBone- Steam has the same DRM for the most part. It’s the fact I expect a lack of games due to being developer-hostile, and I except ripoff pricing as compared to PC, or even Sony, not to mention the XBL online multiplayer tax.
Reemul
1765
Re the Wii U and the fact their games have no online DRM at all makes me wonder that while it is not selling well maybe some publishers are not bothered about supporting the system either.
I keep hearing you cant see Sony having a different deal than MS but surely Nintendo must have. The Wii U should be around while the other 2 fight it out and with no always online or authentication etc it may give them an advantage but that could be lost if publishers don’t support them due to it anyways
