Xbox One Catch-all

MannishBoy wrote:
Scratched wrote:
Chairman_Mao wrote:

I'd be much more interested in voice commands if the tech was built directly into my TV, however, because I don't want a discrete device solely for that purpose.

Sounds like a smart TV.

And they're pretty universally crappy, relying on never up to date Java versions of media apps.

Actually I think Smart TVs are running HTML5 apps now, or at least are starting to. None that I know of have voice commands built in though.

Scratched wrote:
mudbunny wrote:

A distant third will be the cost.

That's kind of interesting because I've read the opposite as well, probably including here.

It's almost as though "gamers" aren't a monoculture.

I was sold almost exclusively on cost and functionality. I'm a big MS fanboy, but $499 and a camera that has to be connected for the device to be turned on sent me to pre-order the PS4. The features with TV and sports mean nothing to me, and that message focus blurred what a "gamer" early adopter is interested in, in my opinion. There will be very few "must have" games that are not multi-platform. I do prefer the 360 for multiplayer on console, but I'm finding myself moving back towards the PC for that over the last few months anyway. I may just be using the console for couch gaming single-player experiences.

The whole argument in favor of the Kinect as a handy way to control your TV reminds me of David Cross' bit about Electric Scissors.

DSGamer wrote:

The whole argument in favor of the Kinect as a handy way to control your TV reminds me of David Cross' bit about Electric Scissors.

Multiple people that actually use it in this thread and enjoy it post about it. My whole family has picked up using it to pause and play video apps, and none but me are really that into tech.

It's a nice add. System seller for that alone? Nope. Would I pay $100 extra for that feature and whatever else it will do? I would based on the limited functionality of the earlier version and expectation for the improvements. I don't expect everybody else would, though.

According to Xbox Support's Twitter feed, if for whatever reason your account were to get banned (cheating, etc...) you lose all your game licenses associated to the account. Obviously rendering them useless. The old argument that as long as you don't do anything to get banned you don't have a problem is relevant here, but that's pretty extreme by any measure.

Don Mattrick (of Microsoft) also said in an interview that players without an internet connection can stick with the 360.
http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/06/12/gamers-without-internet-can-stick-with-xbox-360-says-microsoft

Or you know, they could just take their business to a competitor instead. Honestly I'm more and more surprised by the attitude Microsoft is displaying lately.

CrashedHardrive wrote:

According to Xbox Support's Twitter feed, if for whatever reason your account were to get banned (cheating, etc...) you lose all your game licenses associated to the account. Obviously rendering them useless. The old argument that as long as you don't do anything to get banned you don't have a problem is relevant here, but that's pretty extreme by any measure.

Don Mattrick (of Microsoft) also said in an interview that players without an internet connection can stick with the 360.
http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/06/12/gamers-without-internet-can-stick-with-xbox-360-says-microsoft

Or you know, they could just take their business to a competitor instead. Honestly I'm more and more surprised by the attitude Microsoft is displaying lately.

See -> Hubris...

...or Sony pre-PS3 launch. It's like we've gone all Freaky Friday with Microsoft and Sony.

CrashedHardrive wrote:

According to Xbox Support's Twitter feed, if for whatever reason your account were to get banned (cheating, etc...) you lose all your game licenses associated to the account. Obviously rendering them useless. The old argument that as long as you don't do anything to get banned you don't have a problem is relevant here, but that's pretty extreme by any measure.

Don Mattrick (of Microsoft) also said in an interview that players without an internet connection can stick with the 360.
http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/06/12/gamers-without-internet-can-stick-with-xbox-360-says-microsoft

Or you know, they could just take their business to a competitor instead. Honestly I'm more and more surprised by the attitude Microsoft is displaying lately.

Woah. Skim

Both topics discussed at length above. The ban comment was wrong and refuted by Larry Hyrb in a video interview above. The 360 comment I suppose is truthful if a bit stupidly delivered in a messaging sense. Which has been a huge problem with this launch. The media communication has been a total screw up.

Not to mention having a system that takes this much work to explain.

Sorry for the filthy skim (this thread moves fast!) but has it been discussed anywhere if a gamer tag can belong to more than one "family"?

For instance, if my son is part of my family group for our home XB1, will he be able to share games as a "family" member with his friends also? I'd have to guess the answer would be 'no.' That's not a dig at MS either, as I wouldn't allow it if the decision were up to me.

MannishBoy wrote:

Woah. Skim

Both topics discussed at length above. The ban comment was wrong and refuted by Larry Hyrb in a video interview above. The 360 comment I suppose is truthful if a bit stupidly delivered in a messaging sense.

Dang, should have read a little closer. Haha.

Well, that's good about the ban being refuted because it seemed really stupid to do that to your customers cheating or not. To me the message wasn't the big issue as much as the sentiment behind it. These days not having an internet connection and being a gamer is more rare than not, but they are still alienating the people that it does affect. That alienation will ripple out and sway people towards the competition based on principle alone.

PaladinTom wrote:

Sorry for the filthy skim (this thread moves fast!) but has it been discussed anywhere if a gamer tag can belong to more than one "family"?

For instance, if my son is part of my family group for our home XB1, will he be able to share games as a "family" member with his friends also? I'd have to guess the answer would be 'no.' That's not a dig at MS either, as I wouldn't allow it if the decision were up to me.

I would assume based on the comments you have to be in a single family. So if the friends wanted to get together and make their own family and he wasn't in yours, they could share games, and he could play games you bought on the console those games are installed to, but he wouldn't be able to share games you had bought with your account.

If I was wanting to rig that, though, and you didn't expect to play games elsewhere, if he put a game on his account from the home console, you would be able to play it and his friends would be able to play it. But you wouldn't have control of the account.

Also of note, supposedly there's a limit on simultaneous play. It's unclear if it's home console + 1 addition, or just one total.

It's a legitimate concern because it has affected people before. For Origin I remember a forum ban kicked someone out of everything associated with that account until EA fixed their system. Steam VAC bans will prevent you from playing on any VAC secured servers on any VAC game, only letting you into unsecured servers (that's proper operation of that system). Like it or not, all the systems have teething problems that get solved over time, they don't come out fully formed, you just hope the company responsible got all the big issues before inflicting it on the public.

MannishBoy wrote:
PaladinTom wrote:

Sorry for the filthy skim (this thread moves fast!) but has it been discussed anywhere if a gamer tag can belong to more than one "family"?

For instance, if my son is part of my family group for our home XB1, will he be able to share games as a "family" member with his friends also? I'd have to guess the answer would be 'no.' That's not a dig at MS either, as I wouldn't allow it if the decision were up to me.

I would assume based on the comments you have to be in a single family. So if the friends wanted to get together and make their own family and he wasn't in yours, they could share games, and he could play games you bought on the console those games are installed to, but he wouldn't be able to share games you had bought with your account.

If I was wanting to rig that, though, and you didn't expect to play games elsewhere, if he put a game on his account from the home console, you would be able to play it and his friends would be able to play it. But you wouldn't have control of the account.

Also of note, supposedly there's a limit on simultaneous play. It's unclear if it's home console + 1 addition, or just one total.

Well, if the gold membership sharing works as I'm thinking it does, what's to stop your son from creating 2 different gamer tags and having them be part of different families (while sharing 1 gold membership)?

CrashedHardrive wrote:

Well, that's good about the ban being refuted because it seemed really stupid to do that to your customers cheating or not. To me the message wasn't the big issue as much as the sentiment behind it. These days not having an internet connection and being a gamer is more rare than not, but they are still alienating the people that it does affect. That alienation will ripple out and sway people towards the competition based on principle alone.

I'm not so sure. The problem this approach poses to military service members perhaps has a chance to bite MS in the PR department.

However, I personally doubt an internet requirement will trickle out into the general populace and sway them against the machine. If MS is upfront about that requirement, I would find it hard to believe the gaming public would think that's unfair for those folks who don't have an internet connection.

I think what would sway a big population is a move that kept a large number of their friends from playing with them online. Since playing online requires an internet connection, I don't see this being something that gets people worked up.

I've been wrong before, though.

Well, if the gold membership sharing works as I'm thinking it does, what's to stop your son from creating 2 different gamer tags and having them be part of different families (while sharing 1 gold membership)?

The need to maintain his sweet, sweet gamerscore.

nel e nel wrote:

Well, if the gold membership sharing works as I'm thinking it does, what's to stop your son from creating 2 different gamer tags and having them be part of different families (while sharing 1 gold membership)?

Nothing. Gamerscore pride? I guess that matters to some people.

MannishBoy wrote:
nel e nel wrote:

Well, if the gold membership sharing works as I'm thinking it does, what's to stop your son from creating 2 different gamer tags and having them be part of different families (while sharing 1 gold membership)?

Nothing. Gamerscore pride? I guess that matters to some people.

SallyNastySallyNastySallyNastySallyNastySallyNasty

nel e nel wrote:
MannishBoy wrote:
nel e nel wrote:

Well, if the gold membership sharing works as I'm thinking it does, what's to stop your son from creating 2 different gamer tags and having them be part of different families (while sharing 1 gold membership)?

Nothing. Gamerscore pride? I guess that matters to some people.

SallyNastySallyNastySallyNastySallyNastySallyNasty

I was trying not to get personal

Remotes are the worst. Why do TV's come with remotes these days? Seriously, I only use mine because it's the best way to switch inputs. I can't use the remote that came with my TV for my cable box, and the universal remote that the cable box comes with doesn't work all that great with my TV. Sure, I can figure it out, but it's a pain. Any my wife, who is by no means technically challenged, doesn't have the patience to figure it out. She'd sooner grab her iPad and watch something on that. I've tried lots of ways to simplify the situation, including Harmony remotes and other solutions, but it only makes things more complicated. Adding another layer of stuff to not work doesn't help anything.

Now, if Microsoft can replace the cable box with an XBox that can be controlled with simple voice commands, they win. Sony can have all the games in the world, but they will always be second input.

firesloth wrote:

I'm not so sure. The problem this approach poses to military service members perhaps has a chance to bite MS in the PR department.

However, I personally doubt an internet requirement will trickle out into the general populace and sway them against the machine. If MS is upfront about that requirement, I would find it hard to believe the gaming public would think that's unfair for those folks who don't have an internet connection.

I think what would sway a big population is a move that kept a large number of their friends from playing with them online. Since playing online requires an internet connection, I don't see this being something that gets people worked up.

I've been wrong before, though.

I could see word of mouth hurting sales a lot. As you said, the military community will be hampered by this as well as various other situations that offline play was used significantly. That's potentially a lot of mouths to spread negative information about the XBONE. In the end it can be hard to predict the gaming community some times so it will be interesting to see how this all turns out, but it certainly seems that Microsoft is needlessly shooting themselves in the foot. If they were smart they would listen to the complaints from their potential consumer base and change their policies in time for people to change their minds about their pre-orders. Only time will tell though.

TheCounselor wrote:

Now, if Microsoft can replace the cable box with an XBox that can be controlled with simple voice commands, they win. Sony can have all the games in the world, but they will always be second input.

I'm still not 100% sold unless they give a DVR option, or I can stream pretty much everything I want easily from a few services that don't cost me too much.

Because sometimes you want to turn something on discreetly.

TheCounselor wrote:

Remotes are the worst. Why do TV's come with remotes these days? Seriously, I only use mine because it's the best way to switch inputs. I can't use the remote that came with my TV for my cable box, and the universal remote that the cable box comes with doesn't work all that great with my TV. Sure, I can figure it out, but it's a pain. Any my wife, who is by no means technically challenged, doesn't have the patience to figure it out. She'd sooner grab her iPad and watch something on that. I've tried lots of ways to simplify the situation, including Harmony remotes and other solutions, but it only makes things more complicated. Adding another layer of stuff to not work doesn't help anything.

Now, if Microsoft can replace the cable box with an XBox that can be controlled with simple voice commands, they win. Sony can have all the games in the world, but they will always be second input.

I don't currently have Kinect so I can't speak to the current gen voice recognition. But I use Siri all the time and I own a Harmony remote.

I heard the XB1 will ship with an IR blaster. If they could combine Kinect and universal remote tech, that feature would be killer for me! Imagine an app to set up all of your devices (like the Harmony has) and program simple voice commands with. Then use Siri to switch inputs, control volume, play/pause DVRs, and shut everything down at once.

TheCounselor wrote:

Remotes are the worst. Why do TV's come with remotes these days? Seriously, I only use mine because it's the best way to switch inputs. I can't use the remote that came with my TV for my cable box, and the universal remote that the cable box comes with doesn't work all that great with my TV. Sure, I can figure it out, but it's a pain. Any my wife, who is by no means technically challenged, doesn't have the patience to figure it out. She'd sooner grab her iPad and watch something on that. I've tried lots of ways to simplify the situation, including Harmony remotes and other solutions, but it only makes things more complicated. Adding another layer of stuff to not work doesn't help anything.

Now, if Microsoft can replace the cable box with an XBox that can be controlled with simple voice commands, they win. Sony can have all the games in the world, but they will always be second input.

I'm really confused on why it's difficult to either just have two remotes, one for cable and one for T.V. Or just program the cable remote to be universal? It always seemed pretty simple to me, "T.V. on" and "T.V. off". "Imput" to change to your HDMI ports for games and then back to cable. It literally should only take you a few button presses. Perhaps people just have more entertainment peripherals than myself?

MannishBoy wrote:
TheCounselor wrote:

Now, if Microsoft can replace the cable box with an XBox that can be controlled with simple voice commands, they win. Sony can have all the games in the world, but they will always be second input.

I'm still not 100% sold unless they give a DVR option, or I can stream pretty much everything I want easily from a few services that don't cost me too much.

They would need a new console revision. I have an HD TiVo and it requires a CableCard in order to decode the digital signal from the cable provider. So I don't think they can be the DVR without this.

MannishBoy wrote:
DSGamer wrote:

The whole argument in favor of the Kinect as a handy way to control your TV reminds me of David Cross' bit about Electric Scissors.

Multiple people that actually use it in this thread and enjoy it post about it. My whole family has picked up using it to pause and play video apps, and none but me are really that into tech.

It's a nice add. System seller for that alone? Nope. Would I pay $100 extra for that feature and whatever else it will do? I would based on the limited functionality of the earlier version and expectation for the improvements. I don't expect everybody else would, though.

Those people are just dolts that would buy electric scissors, though.

I think we have all established that Microsoft has flubbed their message. It's going to hurt their launch sales quite a bit. But the $100 is not really just for a Kinect. It's for a platform that has actually matured and is capable of enhancing the way the average person uses the internet and TV programming.

I'm paying $100 more for Twitch versus Sony's continued misunderstanding of new tech (a share button is innovative?). I'm paying $100 for a discless system for all of my games. I'm paying $100 for what I predict will still be a more robust and well thought out online service (including cloud service). I'm paying $100 for second screen usage that allows me to use whatever smartphone or tablet I have versus a designated portable console. I'm paying $100 for for a controller I already love versus one I hate.

But it sure is better for Sony to think of it as just paying $100 for Kinect 1.0.

Reading this conversation is a bit like listening to people talk about managing all the concubines in their harem when you've only got a date for the prom.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Reading this conversation is a bit like listening to people talk about managing all the concubines in their harem when you've only got a date for the prom.

It's like raaaay-eeeee-aaaaain—wait, I got mixed up there.

DSGamer wrote:
MannishBoy wrote:
TheCounselor wrote:

Now, if Microsoft can replace the cable box with an XBox that can be controlled with simple voice commands, they win. Sony can have all the games in the world, but they will always be second input.

I'm still not 100% sold unless they give a DVR option, or I can stream pretty much everything I want easily from a few services that don't cost me too much.

They would need a new console revision. I have an HD TiVo and it requires a CableCard in order to decode the digital signal from the cable provider. So I don't think they can be the DVR without this.

There are multiple ways to get there. One would be an ethernet based CableCard appliance. They already exist. As do ones that plug into USB. Take that basic solution and tie it to a bigger attached hard drive.

And surprise, MS owns the only encryption DRM used by CableCard solutions in PlayReady. Microsoft even has the guide data solution, because it feeds Windows Media Center today.

The pieces are all there at hand, waiting to be bundled up and a bow placed on them.

Heck, allow Ceton to build the appliance with a tuner and a HD attached to it and allow them to publish an app for the XO.

I've been running an HTPC running WMC since 2006 or so. It currently has 7 tuners feeding four Xbox 360s around the house live and recorded TV. MS knows how to do this stuff. All they really need to do is cut the complexity out of having to have the PC feeding it, and with new SOC stuff, it shouldn't be that big of a hardware requirement to have a tuner/recorder box running on ARM or something that would be able to do the lifting for the DVR functionality that gets displayed on the XO.

Looks like the rumors of low yields or some kind of other supply constraint may truly exist on the XO. Gamestop stops taking preorders.

Makes me wonder if this is where the subsidized version went, and it will show back up when supply catches up early 2014?

The Conformist wrote:
TheCounselor wrote:

Remotes are the worst. Why do TV's come with remotes these days? Seriously, I only use mine because it's the best way to switch inputs. I can't use the remote that came with my TV for my cable box, and the universal remote that the cable box comes with doesn't work all that great with my TV. Sure, I can figure it out, but it's a pain. Any my wife, who is by no means technically challenged, doesn't have the patience to figure it out. She'd sooner grab her iPad and watch something on that. I've tried lots of ways to simplify the situation, including Harmony remotes and other solutions, but it only makes things more complicated. Adding another layer of stuff to not work doesn't help anything.

Now, if Microsoft can replace the cable box with an XBox that can be controlled with simple voice commands, they win. Sony can have all the games in the world, but they will always be second input.

I'm really confused on why it's difficult to either just have two remotes, one for cable and one for T.V. Or just program the cable remote to be universal? It always seemed pretty simple to me, "T.V. on" and "T.V. off". "Imput" to change to your HDMI ports for games and then back to cable. It literally should only take you a few button presses. Perhaps people just have more entertainment peripherals than myself?

Yes, I currently have 5 devices hooked up and the cable remotes suck. Everything gets more complicated when you put a receiver in the mix. Once you go Harmony you can't go back.