Xbox One Catch-all

Here is the next part of the XBOX One saga...No internet then don't buy the One! http://games.yahoo.com/blogs/plugged-in/microsoft-gamers-no-internet-buy-360-172308365.html

Edit"I should proof read what I write :-P"

minnebrew wrote:

Here is the next part of the XBOX One saga...No internet then don't buy the One! http://games.yahoo.com/blogs/plugged-in/microsoft-gamers-no-internet-buy-360-172308365.html

Edit"I should proof read what I write :-P"

Hmm. I'm having a hard time working up any vitriol about this.

I think the implication here is that we should berate them for being truthful. They've built an internet appliance. I don't think they need to apologize for it. They're being upfront and truthful about that fact. (To be fair, though, they should stick a sock in Mattrick, though. Nothing he says comes off as sincere or comes off well.)

I really do see parallels with the original Xbox, which only came with an ethernet adapter, not a dial-up modem. Wow. Who the hell had high speed at that time?

MS obviously has internal statistics on what fraction of their 360s made it onto Live. They know that a big proportion of their players are going to be heavily into multiplayer and thus internet connected. Or maybe I should qualify that - the people who spend the most money and drive the profits for their previous system are strongly internet connected. MS will be fine. The XBO will be fine and sell plenty. In two years time, we won't be talking about this "outrage."

firesloth wrote:

MS obviously has internal statistics on what fraction of their 360s made it onto Live. They know that a big proportion of their players are going to be heavily into multiplayer and thus internet connected. Or maybe I should qualify that - the people who spend the most money and drive the profits for their previous system are strongly internet connected. MS will be fine. The XBO will be fine and sell plenty. In two years time, we won't be talking about this "outrage."

And they also know where they make money and where they don't. I'd suspect they've got some calculations saying that the disconnected boxes might even lose them money.

That said, there're intangibles such as the goodwill they're losing for going the route they're going. We'll see how it all works out.

MannishBoy wrote:

I'd suspect they've got some calculations saying that the disconnected boxes might even lose them money.

Probably. I suppose it's not an outlandish guess that these consoles are initially subsidised, and a disconnected console can't deliver ads, which would help balance that out for MS.

MannishBoy wrote:
firesloth wrote:

MS obviously has internal statistics on what fraction of their 360s made it onto Live. They know that a big proportion of their players are going to be heavily into multiplayer and thus internet connected. Or maybe I should qualify that - the people who spend the most money and drive the profits for their previous system are strongly internet connected. MS will be fine. The XBO will be fine and sell plenty. In two years time, we won't be talking about this "outrage."

And they also know where they make money and where they don't. I'd suspect they've got some calculations saying that the disconnected boxes might even lose them money.

That said, there're intangibles such as the goodwill they're losing for going the route they're going. We'll see how it all works out.

I hadn't thought about the losing money bit, since it probably takes 5 games (making that number up) or some comparably-higher number to turn a profit on a sold Xbox.

Regarding the goodwill – I claim this will be forgotten once people start actually playing games. Who remembers all the vitriol associated with the earliest days of Steam and HL2? (I loved it from day one, I'll have you know...)

MannishBoy wrote:
firesloth wrote:

MS obviously has internal statistics on what fraction of their 360s made it onto Live. They know that a big proportion of their players are going to be heavily into multiplayer and thus internet connected. Or maybe I should qualify that - the people who spend the most money and drive the profits for their previous system are strongly internet connected. MS will be fine. The XBO will be fine and sell plenty. In two years time, we won't be talking about this "outrage."

And they also know where they make money and where they don't. I'd suspect they've got some calculations saying that the disconnected boxes might even lose them money.

That said, there're intangibles such as the goodwill they're losing for going the route they're going. We'll see how it all works out.

Both are true but look at how we still refer to the PS3 launch with how stubborn Sony held position on that. Now Sony has learned from this and I think are winning on the goodwill area with gaming consumers. I think the problem with these items isn't that MS won't sell plenty but they won't sell as much if they had not marketed to regular gamer consumers. If they feel they are losing money by having consumers buy a 360 and play games and not connect it then how will they make more by selling less consoles?

Not saying it isn't possible. Maybe they see a huge market in advertising to the "always on" box. By promising connectivity this could mean higher advertising margin.

I suppose I'm just starting to react in a very negative way to the "piling on" by various media outlets, and here in the forums. So much of it just seems based on outrage based on either 1) an un-justified entitlement; or 2) a stretching of the boundaries of the probable to concoct situations for which we will be inconvenienced by the XBO.

Sure MS hasn't necessarily been smooth in the way they've presented things, but they sure aren't keeping things hidden for later at this point!

And if your situation is likely to cause troubles with the XBOne, by all means buy a PS4. But why continue to grief over the damned Xbox if you're going that route?

firesloth wrote:

1) an un-justified entitlement

If someone's getting a moratorium on "innovation" can I get one on "entitled/entitlement" too?

firesloth wrote:

I hadn't thought about the losing money bit, since it probably takes 5 games (making that number up) or some comparably-higher number to turn a profit on a sold Xbox.

Not to mention disconnected boxes don't buy Live, and they don't buy DLC, XBLA type games, avatar crap, etc.

Based on their quoted paid live accounts, I bet the revenue on Live is closing on a half billion a year for them.

For me it is simply a bitter break up at this point I guess. I loved my 360 and was looking forward to the "720" then everything that came out felt like MS just ruined gaming or at least try to alter it significantly. So for my future business MS will have to woo me back over. Plus the media isn't killing MS, MS is repeating it's stance and being incredibly vague. At this point it is simply watching a PR nightmare unravel.

Details on the changes to the achievements system.

EDIT: Huh, I didn't know achievements were a serious enough business to warrant a program director.

minnebrew wrote:

For me it is simply a bitter break up at this point I guess. I loved my 360 and was looking forward to the "720" then everything that came out felt like MS just ruined gaming or at least try to alter it significantly. So for my future business MS will have to woo me back over. Plus the media isn't killing MS, MS is repeating it's stance and being incredibly vague. At this point it is simply watching a PR nightmare unravel.

As long as you say that it felt like they ruined gaming *to you*, you're fine. *I* can't see how that makes sense (e.g., MS "ruining gaming" is coming at things a bit high), but if these things affect you that much, I can understand being a bit bitter.

I'm not at all suggesting that media is "killing" MS. In fact, I think MS will be just fine. All of this will eventually blow over, and there will be lots of great gaming on the Xbox One. I'm looking forward to it, myself.

Jayhawker wrote:

But it's going to take awhile before the internet calms down and realizes that a game console can't actually hurt you.

This never hurt me:

NSFW

Scratched wrote:
firesloth wrote:

1) an un-justified entitlement

If someone's getting a moratorium on "innovation" can I get one on "entitled/entitlement" too?

I'd love it if people would give up on their unreasonable senses of entitlement.

What's wrong with a word if it's the one that actually fits??

firesloth wrote:

I'm not at all suggesting that media is "killing" MS. In fact, I think MS will be just fine. All of this will eventually blow over, and there will be lots of great gaming on the Xbox One. I'm looking forward to it, myself.

Origin is even started to be accepted around here. Cheap deals, big named games you can't get elsewhere, and development of the platform to where it's pretty obtrusive has, if not caused people to love it, has caused them to start accepting it to buy games from it.

*shrug*

A console's a bigger commitment than a store, but initial anger can fade.

If there are good game deals, all of the anger toward the Xbox One will melt away.

On top of that, Phil Spencer has stated that the 24 hour license refresh can be done with a mobile device tethered to your Xbox One. Possibly cumbersome, but that could help in areas where broadband sucks or isn't available. Does seem odd to require a 1.5Mbps broadband connection even just for the license renewal though.

firesloth wrote:
minnebrew wrote:

Here is the next part of the XBOX One saga...No internet then don't buy the One! http://games.yahoo.com/blogs/plugged-in/microsoft-gamers-no-internet-buy-360-172308365.html

Edit"I should proof read what I write :-P"

Hmm. I'm having a hard time working up any vitriol about this.

I think the implication here is that we should berate them for being truthful. They've built an internet appliance. I don't think they need to apologize for it. They're being upfront and truthful about that fact.

Agreed. I said it in the E3 thread, or maybe the locked Xbone thread, that it's a bold Apple-style move. And like you say, they've been nothing but upfront about it.

And for me, it works. My 360 is a de facto always-online device anyway, and I like it that way. So I've got no moral high ground from which to call out a de jure always-online box. Besides, Dan Greenawalt from Forza 5 made a good point in a Gamestop video interview yesterday: that the onus should be on the creators to make something like always-online worthwhile. With Forza 5, it'll be cloud-powered AI based on real players' machine-learned driving habits. That sounds like a really cool idea to me.

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The fight for my future money of gaming-PC-vs-Xbone also saw a tilt heavily in the Xbone's favour when I considered Kinect. Not something I've ever cared about, but my almost-walking 11-month-old keeps making a beeline for the basket of controllers and grabbing the 360 pad. It's going to be a long time before she can use it—but when she's two or three? Kinect will be amazing. IIRC m0nk3yboy has some experience with this. Hunched-over-a-keyboard-PC-gaming will not be as viable with a kid I hope to share my favourite hobby with.

Just gotta wait for the first price drop.

Gravey: I think developers are doing just what you said, in terms of making always-on a meaningful gameplay element. Dark Souls already did it, big time, and now games like Destiny and The Division appear to be following in its footsteps. Watch Dogs apparently has some of this as well.

Lots of games have had drop-in drop-out co-op, but Dark Souls made being connected a constant benefit (or danger!) in a mostly single-player game. Let's go deeper.

minnebrew wrote:

Here is the next part of the XBOX One saga...No internet then don't buy the One! http://games.yahoo.com/blogs/plugged-in/microsoft-gamers-no-internet-buy-360-172308365.html

Edit"I should proof read what I write :-P"

Microsoft's messaging is ham-handed and condescending, but in this case I don't see much of that here. Sony was far far worse when they told people to "get two jobs" in response to the Sony PS3 price complaints.

Gravey wrote:

The fight for my future money of gaming-PC-vs-Xbone also saw a tilt heavily in the Xbone's favour when I considered Kinect. Not something I've ever cared about, but my almost-walking 11-month-old keeps making a beeline for the basket of controllers and grabbing the 360 pad. It's going to be a long time before she can use it—but when she's two or three? Kinect will be amazing. IIRC m0nk3yboy has some experience with this. Hunched-over-a-keyboard-PC-gaming will not be as viable with a kid I hope to share my favourite hobby with.

Dance Central, Fruit Ninja, Kinect Adventures. My kids (5 and 8) love them and it is a great way to, when it is -40 outside, get them to do some exercise and burn off some energy.

mudbunny wrote:
Gravey wrote:

The fight for my future money of gaming-PC-vs-Xbone also saw a tilt heavily in the Xbone's favour when I considered Kinect. Not something I've ever cared about, but my almost-walking 11-month-old keeps making a beeline for the basket of controllers and grabbing the 360 pad. It's going to be a long time before she can use it—but when she's two or three? Kinect will be amazing. IIRC m0nk3yboy has some experience with this. Hunched-over-a-keyboard-PC-gaming will not be as viable with a kid I hope to share my favourite hobby with.

Dance Central, Fruit Ninja, Kinect Adventures. My kids (5 and 8) love them and it is a great way to, when it is -40 outside, get them to do some exercise and burn off some energy.

Happy Action Theater. Got it when it was free, and the daughter still plays it on occasion. So silly.

Not sure if it's real or not, but there's one point in there I hadn't really thought about or seen. Moving all multiplayer to dedicated servers also frees resources up on the console that don't have to be budgeted in case that box is host. Probably not a huge savings in resources, but probably not completely unimportant.

I'm listening to this week's Idle Thumbs, and Jake is making some similar points: MS is playing a long term game with the Xbone, and it looks like a clusterf*ck now. But in a couple years and after a couple software revs, when we're all buying our games digitally and discs are a thing of the past (hello, PC gaming), it'll all make perfect sense.

Also, MS/Sony is totally a presidential race.

Here's something I'd been wondering. When points go away, MS converts your points to local currency value or better.

I assumed that, but it's good to know for sure my point sale hording isn't totally in vein.

Gravey wrote:

I'm listening to this week's Idle Thumbs, and Jake is making some similar points: MS is playing a long term game with the Xbone, and it looks like a clusterf*ck now. But in a couple years and after a couple software revs, when we're all buying our games digitally and discs are a thing of the past (hello, PC gaming), it'll all make perfect sense.

Also, MS/Sony is totally a presidential race.

One of the things that's been in the yearly prediction threads was whether MS/Sony would make a 360/PS3 without an optical drive. Presumably Sony still have the capability to do digital download games, so what's stopping them copying MS's path down the road with a digital only option? And for that matter, what's to stop developers going to an alternative provider of cloud computing/storage, or (assuming patents aren't in the way) similar skeletal tracking or voice recognition? The services and functionality available on PS3/360 now are pretty different for both than when they launched, it's naive to think it won't be that way for the xbone/PS4 as well in a few years.

Scratched wrote:

One of the things that's been in the yearly prediction threads was whether MS/Sony would make a 360/PS3 without an optical drive. Presumably Sony still have the capability to do digital download games, so what's stopping them copying MS's path down the road with a digital only option?

IMAGE(http://www.straight.com/files/styles/popup/public/files/images/wide/psp_black_open-angle.jpg)

And for that matter, what's to stop developers going to an alternative provider of cloud computing/storage, or (assuming patents aren't in the way) similar skeletal tracking or voice recognition? The services and functionality available on PS3/360 now are pretty different for both than when they launched, it's naive to think it won't be that way for the xbone/PS4 as well in a few years.

Sony said today they could do cloud stuff.

The difference is is that MS is already a billion dollar player in cloud services. Sony hasn't really proven that they're a strong player in this area.

But I guess a dev could always go to EC2 or something, but the difference is that from what I've seen quoted, MS is providing the service free, or at least some portion of it.

I think just like this gen, next gen is going to be much different at the end from what it will be at launch.

Scratched wrote:

The services and functionality available on PS3/360 now are pretty different for both than when they launched, it's naive to think it won't be that way for the xbone/PS4 as well in a few years.

Yup, like Jake said on Idle Thumbs: when the 360 launched, you bought games on a disc and arcade games were 40 MB and had a leaderboard.

I got my 360 in 2008: I was playing on an SDTV, blades menu but launched directly to game, and I didn't have Gold. Five years later it feels like a different machine, and it's basically a new ecology.

Obviously this gen is going digital.

The difference it seems is Sony is fine with maintaining the status quo for discs in the meantime and letting them slowly fizzle over time as digital sales increase and slowly take over. Microsoft though wants to be Steam now. They see the opportunity they missed on pc and want to capture it now while they still have the momentum on consoles.

My issue, is that I just do not see Microsoft copying the pricing structure of Steam - at least in the short term. Console games will remain $60 for the foreseeable future, whether they be disc based or download. If Sony maintains the momentum it now has, it could very well win the early years of the generation.

PaladinTom wrote:

My issue, is that I just do not see Microsoft copying the pricing structure of Steam - at least in the short term. Console games will remain $60 for the foreseeable future, whether they be disc based or download. If Sony maintains the momentum it now has, it could very well win the early years of the generation.

I bought Forza Horizon from MS over Black Friday for $15, a month after it was released, combined with a 3 month Gold card.

I fairly regularly have bought XBLA games for between 50-75% off.

Both Sony and MS have been showing evidence of getting the sale concept at times. I think these things will work themselves out, especially if you throw in the retail disc sales that will inevitably be happening on Amazon or the end caps of Target when they need to clear space for the next big game. At least on Xbox, those will be as good as buying online, and might be the GMG to to MS's Steam.