The XBOX One

[Moore]

You can’t discount the power of entrenched investment.

There IS no investment. All they have to offer me is controller shape, at this stage. They trashed the idea of investment in order to try and sell me a digital version of ms. pacman for the 2nd time. the cost of the stupid camera would cover an on die 360. Then they’d have one solid selling point related to gaming, at least.

[stusser]

Also, in such a case- you’d see folks cracking their Steam games they cared about like mad.

Yeah, if steam went full under or full evil or whatever, I could pirate my entire steam library. It’s a decent sized library, so pirating all of it would be a fair amount of effort, but each individual game, as I felt like playing it? Trivial. I pay because I can, and I feel I should, not because I’m forced.

[Savillo]

I just mean that the more games you buy through Steam, the more likely you are to continuing buying games through Steam – even to exclusivity. People like the convenience of having everything in one place. Steam just happened to be first out of gate, so Valve could capitalize on entrenchment unlike the other distributors that followed. It’s why Steam holds roughly 2/3rds (or more?) of the digital distribution market on PC.

So I don’t think PC games players rejected a market that didn’t have a heavy Steam dominance. Valve was able to leverage entrenchment, fueled initially with exclusive games that people wanted to play. Origin, Uplay, et al., are trying the same thing with exclusives, but they have to fight Steam’s entrenchment, which is a powerful force. I think those services are finding that people come for the exclusives and mostly stop there.

Edit: Moore, every game you buy through Steam is an investment in Steam.

[Balasarius]

I’d like to believe otherwise, but I’m pretty sure it’s all just bluster. Once the thing is released and the new Maddens and CoDs are on the store shelves, the systems will sell. People will see their friends buying them or be enticed by the pretty new graphics and they’ll convince themselves that all of the DRM BS is a non-issue and life will go on. There was no stopping this from happening once PC gamers told publishers that this was an acceptable business model.

I don’t think so, at least, nowhere near enough for the Xbone to be considered a success. With the PR this bad, it will filter down to the “average gamer.” The twelve-year-olds who play CoD/Halo/etc. will figure out the Xbone isn’t cool.

[Moore]

I just mean that the more games you buy through Steam, the more likely you are to continuing buying games through Steam – even to exclusivity. People like the convenience of having everything in one place. Steam just happened to be first out of gate, so Valve could capitalize on entrenchment unlike the other distributors that followed. It’s why Steam holds roughly 2/3rds (or more?) of the digital distribution market on PC.

So I don’t think PC games players rejected a market that didn’t have a heavy Steam dominance. Valve was able to leverage entrenchment, fueled initially with exclusive games that people wanted to play. Origin, Uplay, et al., are trying the same thing with exclusives, but they have to fight Steam’s entrenchment, which is a powerful force. I think those services are finding that people come for the exclusives and mostly stop there.

Edit: Moore, every game you buy through Steam is an investment in Steam.

Not really, because I can play them without steam if I want, because they are PC games and DRM doesn’t work (the only reason it is acceptable is that it is a joke in almost all cases). My comments were aimed at xbone though, I think I thought you were implying they had “invested” gamers sewn up (and they did, I can’t play any of my 360 stuff without an xbox 360, but they uninvested me in the brand so heavily with the xbone that I don’t even want to buy awesome new zombie games that are just $20 on the 360)

[Rolercam]

I disagree.

It isn’t so much about entrenchment and being 1st as it is about delusion. Bear with me here…

How many games have you bought off of Steam? 1, 5, 10, 50, 100, more? How many have you actually made an effort to play and finish? .5%, 1%, 2%, maybe 10%? I don’t think it matters what you tell yourself. Market dominance, all my games in one place, install on many computers, the sales are great deals, and so forth and so on its all means the same thing.

I’ll play it eventually, right?

Wrong. You won’t. If people ever wake up and realize that every game they bought but never played is money in the trash even if they only spent $1 then sites like Steam are screwed.

But maybe your right, maybe it is about entrenchment. After all, the main body of the gaming community has been deeply entrenched in justifying broken products with weak excuses, finding workarounds, and even writing patches for recent releases while the developer/distributors continues with business as usual. Steam will likely live forever.

That’s also why the X-Box One will be a success. We’ll complain and debate on the forums from sun up to sun down but on release day there will lines around the building of people who have been there for days. You’ll also see the usual stories of mugging and murders just like we always do.

[krayzkrok]

Wrong. You won’t. If people ever wake up and realize that every game they bought but never played is money in the trash even if they only spent $1 then sites like Steam are screwed.

Perhaps to some extent, but you are obviously overstating and overgeneralizing. The current advantage we have is that our games can - in theory - always be played at some point down the line. Last month I played a 17 year old game (from GOG admittedly) that had been sitting in my backlog for the last year. It was the right time for me to play it, it hadn’t deteriorated, and there’s enough interest in retro gaming to ensure that someone, somewhere will find a means of getting it working on a modern OS. Assuming we control the ability to play it of course, which you don’t have in the world according to Microsoft. Yes, the money I spend in Steam sales is locked up in those games until I play them, but if I have to stop buying games for any reason, I’ve got plenty there to keep me happy for quite some time. Incidentally, I just checked, I have 221 games in my Steam library purchased over 8+ years - although a handful of these are non-Steam games I’ve added for convenience - and at quick count I’ve played roughly 113 of them, which is around half).

The Xbone might be a success, mainly because the world had clearly gone mad, but I will be sadder for it. And to think, I was looking forward to the successor of the 360.

[Alstein]

THe only thing MSFT can do to entice folks is the exclusives, the non-exclusives will be on PS4, and PS4 will have its own exclusives.

So I don’t think gamers will run when they hear all the bad, they’ll at least remember it as long as the console choices are equivalent otherwise. It’s largely the super-hardcore who buy the initial consoles anyways, and most of them are rabidly against the Xbone right now.

[Nesrie]

Downloadable games are US only.

These are essentially Steam games.

I don’t feel like GoG and Steam are competing for the same customers. They have different types of games, with a different mindset. Of course, you could argue that it proves how PC is a more versatile platform compared to consoles, which is absolutely true.

But there is no free big market where I can hunt for the chepest place where to get the latest Call Of Duty for my selected digital platform. Does PC have more games available to it as a platform? Absolutely. Are there a multitude of different sources for the latest games? Not really.

It’s several markets, as in places you can shop, and many places you can get games at cheaper prices than Steam. hell you can buy a game from at least a dozen other places for less than steam and activate it on steam. There are still Steam and non-version of games. There are a ton of DRM free games that you can get all over the place. There are also a lot of places to get games, good games, for less than 20 dollars that are not that old. The Consoles push this one price one experience for all… which is not the case for PC. PC still has choice, and though we can’t typically resell a game, you can wait a year or so and pick up a 60 dollar game for cheap pretty readily.

[JeffL]

Never worked for MS, though I have been there numerous times during my gaming writing days, but I have worked at big global companies on huge projects and project teams. If I had to guess, I would guess that their “big idea” and concept and vision that drove the XBox One development and initial reveal was the whole “central entertainment center” that Apple has talked about for years and MS has talked about in the past. Yeah, it will play games but more importantly than that, this will be the center of everything you and your family do in the living room! You’ll use it when you’re watching TV, movies, you’ll talk to your friends and family via Skype, it will be the core of all of your entertainment. It will change the way you watch TV, the way you watch Netflix, etc. Because that is how we break away and make the step change from a game box in which we fight a red ocean war with Sony to something that is disruptive technology.

I can see executives buying into that vision, and thus all of the presentations during development focusing on that. Oh, BTW, since this is the center of everyone’s entertainment/media experience, having to have it connected to the internet all of the time is no biggie, because you’ll need that for the while media experience! And if we need to charge $15 a month (understand that’s just a rumor) well, that’s no big deal, since this is an entertainment hub and not just a gaming machine. If Sony has more powerful hardware, eh, that only matters for the games part of the experience.

Again, assume that Sony will do EVERYTHING MS is doing in terms of fees, DRM, etc. They won’t, most likely, but assume they do. XBox One STILL has no competitive advantage I can see, and is still disadvantaged in the actual hardware.

[Brad_Grenz]

YOU CAN WATCH THE PRICE IS RIGHT ON IT!

“A new generation of games with power from the cloud”
“…a digital copy of your game is stored on your console and in the cloud”
“…speak directly to smart wireless devices and connect to them through the cloud”
“Future proofed with power from the cloud”
“Games that are designed to take advantage of the cloud may require a connection.”

A hate market-droids so much. “The cloud! The cloud! Bawwwk! The cloud!” I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if some PHB over at Microsoft has issued a memo that “Going forward, all references to ‘online’, ‘servers’, or ‘internet’ will be replaced with ‘the cloud’.”

New preferred spelling is “CLOWD”.

Games Industry International reports that analysts don’t think it’s likely that “EA and the rest will require it,” though:

That last part still confuses me, though. GameStop says only 4% of used-game sales are of games released in the prior 60 days, and it also says that 70% of trade-in dollars go directly toward new games. So I just don’t see any compelling evidence that “used games sold in proximity to a new game’s release cannibalizes sales of the new title.”

I think it’s a common misconception that Publishers are most worried about used sales in the launch period. I think they are more concerned about losing the long tail of sales for their titles.

Again, assume that Sony will do EVERYTHING MS is doing in terms of fees, DRM, etc. They won’t, most likely, but assume they do. XBox One STILL has no competitive advantage I can see, and is still disadvantaged in the actual hardware.

Yeah, at the least PS4 offers better hardware, better indie outreach and no system-wide compulsory internet requirement. MS just seems to think everyone will be super-attached to their gamerscores.

[divedivedive]

I’m super attached to my gamerscore. Actually I could give a damn about my gamerscore, but I’m kind of attached to my achievements.

[WarpRattler]

Once the thing is released and the new Maddens and CoDs are on the store shelves, the systems will sell.

This is a misconception I see thrown around a lot.

Here’s the thing: why would the average casual console gamer spend ~$600 ($500 console plus $60 game plus tax) on the new Call of Duty when they could could just buy it on the Xbox 360 or PS3 they and all their friends already own? Graphics aren’t a big enough draw for the “I buy three games a year” crowd to get them to buy a console anywhere near launch, and Activision and EA cannot afford to make those games next-gen exclusives; leaving behind the existing millions of people worldwide wouldn’t be worth any moneyhat Microsoft would realistically offer.

Like with the Vita in Japan, I think Microsoft and Sony are going to have a pretty tough time getting people to move to the new platforms early on. Without backwards compatibility, and with the old platforms having such large install bases that third-parties can’t afford to ditch them where ensured multi-million-sellers are concerned, it’s going to be a lot more difficult to get the more casual consumers to move to the new hardware.

[stusser]

Oh, I don’t think that’s the case at all. There’ll be a huge marketing blitz. These consoles will sell.

[Canuck]

Yes this. The graphics are pretty damned good still on the current console generation. Sony and MS would have to completely cut off the previous generation’s hardware in order to get people to make the switch.

[Brad_Grenz]

I don’t think getting people to buy new consoles will be a problem. I just don’t think the CoD/Madden dudebros can be expected to adopt early. Year three those customers will go wherever the pendulum has swung since they can get Madden and CoD on both.

[intruder]

I don’t think so, at least, nowhere near enough for the Xbone to be considered a success. With the PR this bad, it will filter down to the “average gamer.” The twelve-year-olds who play CoD/Halo/etc. will figure out the Xbone isn’t cool.

I totally agree. Imagine no long lines at launch night in front of retailers in the US and a broad availability of systems in Walmarts in the days after the launch.
That would be very damaging as Microsoft has quite some opposition from the press and they woul be out for blood calling the Xbone a failure.
One the system would have the label “weak launch” this might trickle down to Joe Public and makes him unsure whether to buy it or not as no one wants to buy a stinker.
It might happen as the hardcore gamers are usually the ones standing in line at launch day and they seem to be pissed right now.

[Captain_Najork]

Personally, I’ve been tracking Capt Nelsons career trajectory. A this moment, he realises why Stepto (and he’s not exactly a sharp guy, but even the rats can smell the rotting timber) left.

And Steve Ballmer grows even larger with each, even larger fuckton. It does kindof smack of expert Sony J-spionage infiltrating the MS core think.

[divedivedive]

You’ve been tracking Major Nelson’s career trajectory? So you’re getting copies of his performance reviews, that kind of thing?

[Zylon]

And Steve Ballmer grows even larger with each, even larger fuckton.

What.