Xbox One Catch-all

Kind of glad that folks in the military will now be able to use it without an online connection (even if I do have to swap discs now).

I would have liked to have seen what would have happened in the market if physical used game sales were curtailed, although I don't think it was really heading in that direction. What would have happened if the revenue for later sales went to the publishers instead of Gamestop? Would it have led to lower initial prices, quicker price reductions and "Steam Sale" type specials? Now it seems like they have to make all their revenue in the first weeks of sales. How would things have changed if they could lower the price to $10 after it had been out for 6mo, 1yr, 2yr, and know they would get a nice revenue inflow?

Also, I wonder if people who complain about the Big Brother aspect of Kinect put electrical tape over the cameras on their mobile phones, tablets, laptops, handheld game systems, etc.

BigKid66 wrote:

Also, I wonder if people who complain about the Big Brother aspect of Kinect put electrical tape over the cameras on their mobile phones, tablets, laptops, handheld game systems, etc.

I guess I don't get the whole big brother thing, either. I willingly carry a GPS tracker in my pocket every day with mics, etc. I have a laptop with a web cam, etc.

I think the Kinect has a kiddie Wii stigma that it just isn't going to shake, and anything that can be used to complain about it will be used.

I do get the "why am I paying an extra $100 for it when I don't want it" sentiment much more than the "OMG it's spying on me" sentiment.

Another day, another pastebin. This time from "Heartbroken MS employee"

This interesting bit regarding the fallen family sharing, which doesn't sound quite as generous as it was being hyped:

When your family member accesses any of your games, they're placed into a special demo mode. This demo mode in most cases would be the full game with a 15-45 minute timer and in some cases an hour. This allowed the person to play the game, get familiar with it then make a purchase if they wanted to. When the time limit was up they would automatically be prompted to the Marketplace so that they may order it if liked the game. We were toying around with a limit on the number of times members could access the shared game (as to discourage gamers from simply beating the game by doing multiple playthroughs)

I'll agree that games in general need better demos though.

Scratched wrote:

Another day, another pastebin. This time from "Heartbroken MS employee"

This interesting bit regarding the fallen family sharing, which doesn't sound quite as generous as it was being hyped:

When your family member accesses any of your games, they're placed into a special demo mode. This demo mode in most cases would be the full game with a 15-45 minute timer and in some cases an hour. This allowed the person to play the game, get familiar with it then make a purchase if they wanted to. When the time limit was up they would automatically be prompted to the Marketplace so that they may order it if liked the game. We were toying around with a limit on the number of times members could access the shared game (as to discourage gamers from simply beating the game by doing multiple playthroughs)

That sounds similar to what Blizzard did with spawning back in the day (and recently brought back), although closer to how Steam handles Free Weekends.

I'll agree that games in general need better demos though.

The problem with demos is that conventional industry wisdom suggests they actually hurt purchases, and they cost additional resources that could be otherwise applied to working on the full game.

Doesn't sound like sharing at all to me. Sounds more like a demo.

Spoiler:

It's NOT sharing.

PaladinTom wrote:

Doesn't sound like sharing at all to me. Sounds more like a demo.

Spoiler:

It's NOT sharing.

Yeah, that's not just poor marketing - it's outright lying!!

Scratched wrote:

Another day, another pastebin. This time from "Heartbroken MS employee"

This interesting bit regarding the fallen family sharing, which doesn't sound quite as generous as it was being hyped:

When your family member accesses any of your games, they're placed into a special demo mode. This demo mode in most cases would be the full game with a 15-45 minute timer and in some cases an hour. This allowed the person to play the game, get familiar with it then make a purchase if they wanted to. When the time limit was up they would automatically be prompted to the Marketplace so that they may order it if liked the game. We were toying around with a limit on the number of times members could access the shared game (as to discourage gamers from simply beating the game by doing multiple playthroughs)

I'll agree that games in general need better demos though.

Wow there would have been an outcry when people realised that 'sharing' was actually just a glorified demo/recommend system.

Scratched wrote:

Another day, another pastebin. This time from "Heartbroken MS employee"

This interesting bit regarding the fallen family sharing, which doesn't sound quite as generous as it was being hyped:

When your family member accesses any of your games, they're placed into a special demo mode. This demo mode in most cases would be the full game with a 15-45 minute timer and in some cases an hour. This allowed the person to play the game, get familiar with it then make a purchase if they wanted to. When the time limit was up they would automatically be prompted to the Marketplace so that they may order it if liked the game. We were toying around with a limit on the number of times members could access the shared game (as to discourage gamers from simply beating the game by doing multiple playthroughs)

I'll agree that games in general need better demos though.

If that's true, then I really don't care if it's gone. What MS has said publically didn't sound anything like "demo mode", but full game access limited to probably one player at a time.

If it truly is a demo with a save, why wouldn't that just be available to any account? No need to tie it to a family.

Taking these pastebins as interesting, but not necessarily accurate.

PaladinTom wrote:

Doesn't sound like sharing at all to me. Sounds more like a demo.

With the added benefit of sounding like the viral marketing used by Facebook games.

EDIT: I think Duoue(?) called it though. It didn't make sense to be able to share an entire game with 10 other people while at the same time curtailing used games. If it's too good to be true...

EDIT 2: Wow, they had to fight with the execs to keep Gears as an exclusive? Is that news?

PaladinTom wrote:

Doesn't sound like sharing at all to me. Sounds more like a demo.

Spoiler:

It's NOT sharing.

Yeah, if that is what they were calling sharing, it's best they remove it before they see another avalanche of rage. Again, their poor communication led to a lot of speculation that put them in a crapy position.

Yah, I agree DSG - it is getting a bit too ugly from both sides. I am of the mind that this reversal is a true victory for consumers, but would have prefered that nothing changed(except maybe less check ins) as I liked the direction of the family plan/ no used games xbo.

SallyNasty wrote:

Yah, I agree DSG - it is getting a bit too ugly from both sides. I am of the mind that this reversal is a true victory for consumers, but would have prefered that nothing changed(except maybe less check ins) as I liked the direction of the family plan/ no used games xbo.

You saw that family plan was just potentially "demoing", right? I don't even really see the value in that - why not have that open to everyone?

Duoae wrote:
SallyNasty wrote:

Yah, I agree DSG - it is getting a bit too ugly from both sides. I am of the mind that this reversal is a true victory for consumers, but would have prefered that nothing changed(except maybe less check ins) as I liked the direction of the family plan/ no used games xbo.

You saw that family plan was just potentially "demoing", right? I don't even really see the value in that - why not have that open to everyone?

I don't really believe anonymous sources, and that 'demoing' stands in stark contrast to other statements made about the family plan. I frankly don't believe this "source."

Duoae wrote:
SallyNasty wrote:

Yah, I agree DSG - it is getting a bit too ugly from both sides. I am of the mind that this reversal is a true victory for consumers, but would have prefered that nothing changed(except maybe less check ins) as I liked the direction of the family plan/ no used games xbo.

You saw that family plan was just potentially "demoing", right? I don't even really see the value in that - why not have that open to everyone?

*Assuming this is legit.

But yes, if it is legit, family sharing was nearly pointless.

This is not how it was described, and if it was true, that kind of deception bothers more than any of their other policies.

I LOL'd.

IMAGE(http://s21.postimg.org/lu6dicxk7/image.jpg)

Higgledy wrote:
Scratched wrote:

Another day, another pastebin. This time from "Heartbroken MS employee"

This interesting bit regarding the fallen family sharing, which doesn't sound quite as generous as it was being hyped:

When your family member accesses any of your games, they're placed into a special demo mode. This demo mode in most cases would be the full game with a 15-45 minute timer and in some cases an hour. This allowed the person to play the game, get familiar with it then make a purchase if they wanted to. When the time limit was up they would automatically be prompted to the Marketplace so that they may order it if liked the game. We were toying around with a limit on the number of times members could access the shared game (as to discourage gamers from simply beating the game by doing multiple playthroughs)

I'll agree that games in general need better demos though.

Wow there would have been an outcry when people realised that 'sharing' was actually just a glorified demo/recommend system.

Maybe. I think there are people who like what Microsoft is doing and genuinely would have kept defending it all as progress. Hopefully this can end the thread of comments about people who complained about other people being "jackasses" that ruined everything.

EDIT: Fixed typo

As funny and potentially true as that image may be, that isn't what they explained to us. In fact, they explained almost nothing to us that made people feel like their always online and DRM was helping us in any way. As grand as their plans may have been, they did not communicate them. Hence the reaction.

As has been mentioned before, Steam may do something similar to what they were planning, but you are not required to buy all your PC games from Steam, there are still many options.

DSGamer wrote:

Maybe. I think there are people who like what Microsoft is doing and genuinely would have kept defending it all as progress. Hopefully this can end the thread of comments about people who complained about other people being "jackasses" that ruined everything.

I guess it was important to fire the first blow before even seeing how people react. It seems like you are a little more invested in this console war than you admit. Methinks thou protest too much.

billybob476 wrote:

As has been mentioned before, Steam may do something similar to what they were planning, but you are not required to buy all your PC games from Steam, there are still many options.

Unless the games you want require Steam as many do.

EvilDead wrote:
billybob476 wrote:

As has been mentioned before, Steam may do something similar to what they were planning, but you are not required to buy all your PC games from Steam, there are still many options.

Unless the games you want require Steam as many do.

That's like a fraction of the number of games released weekly on PC though. Humble Bundle and GOG are doing good work on the DRM-free front.

EvilDead wrote:
billybob476 wrote:

As has been mentioned before, Steam may do something similar to what they were planning, but you are not required to buy all your PC games from Steam, there are still many options.

Unless the games you want require Steam as many do.

Or one of the others. However there's a bit of difference between some of the games tying into steam (you could say that 100% of console games have to tie into their respective platform) or that you have to buy your games from steam, which you don't.

EvilDead wrote:
billybob476 wrote:

As has been mentioned before, Steam may do something similar to what they were planning, but you are not required to buy all your PC games from Steam, there are still many options.

Unless the games you want require Steam as many do.

Agreed. But all PC games don't require Steam, all XBox One games would have fallen under their original model.

Scratched wrote:
EvilDead wrote:
billybob476 wrote:

As has been mentioned before, Steam may do something similar to what they were planning, but you are not required to buy all your PC games from Steam, there are still many options.

Unless the games you want require Steam as many do.

Or one of the others. However there's a bit of difference between some of the games tying into steam (you could say that 100% of console games have to tie into their respective platform) or that you have to buy your games from steam, which you don't.

Yes, but you also don't have to buy your games from Microsoft. You could buy them at Amazon then register them on the XBO just like I do with many of my Steam games.

Edit: Obviously I'm referring to games that use steam as DRM.

EvilDead wrote:
billybob476 wrote:

As has been mentioned before, Steam may do something similar to what they were planning, but you are not required to buy all your PC games from Steam, there are still many options.

Unless the games you want require Steam as many do.

Yes, but back in the day when Steam was suffering its growing pains, there were far more outlets for pc games. Steam launched at a time where it was able to position itself as an alternative, and then was able to slowly build its trust over time.

MS had to come out of the gate with kick-ass reasons for this tech, and they failed miserably at communicating it. Hell, they could've even said "we're going to be the Steam of consoles" and it probably would have helped.

Jayhawker wrote:
DSGamer wrote:

Maybe. I think there are people who like what Microsoft is doing and genuinely would have kept defending it all as progress. Hopefully this can end the thread of comments about people who complained about other people being "jackasses" that ruined everything.

I guess it was important to fire the first blow before even seeing how people react. It seems like you are a little more invested in this console war than you admit. Methinks thou protest too much.

Based on? I've been pretty consistent in saying the vitriol from the XBox One camp was crazy and possibly breaking the GWJ CoC. Also following this change I preordered an XBox one. So not sure what you are getting at. At all.

No question about it, they did a bad job. I was just noting that it actually isn't that different from the Steam model. The current XBLA drm is actually better then the steam model in terms of sharing since it lets others play your games on their accounts if they use your console. For the record I have no problem with Steam DRM.

EvilDead wrote:

No question about it, they did a bad job. I was just noting that it actually isn't that different from the Steam model. The current XBLA drm is actually better then the steam model in terms of sharing since it lets others play your games on their accounts if they use your console. For the record I have no problem with Steam DRM.

The difference is that it's possible to pick and choose which games are locked into DRM by buying them in steam or somewhere else on the internet. If I had an XBox One, with the old DRM set up, everything I bought would have been locked in. Also, for me, the price of a game and how much I will play it affects my attitude to DRM. If I bought it for a pittance and am only going to play it for three hours then I couldn't careless about DRM. If I paid £50 for the game and may play it on and off for a number of years (pile of shame and all that) then it's a different proposition.

I don't think the sharing system described by "Heartbroken MS employee" on pastebin is credible. Although I had expected some limitations on the family sharing stuff, I feel that they would have surely mentioned the fact that sharing == demo at some point as they clarified how the DRM would work. That's simply too big of a limitation to go completely unmentioned.

gore wrote:

I don't think the sharing system described by "Heartbroken MS employee" on pastebin is credible. Although I had expected some limitations on the family sharing stuff, I feel that they would have surely mentioned the fact that sharing == demo at some point as they clarified how the DRM would work. That's simply too big of a limitation to go completely unmentioned.

Yeah, I that almost sounds like a neogaf style troll setup.

If true, MS was extremely disingenuous.

MeatMan wrote:

I LOL'd. :D

It's funny, but I shake my head sadly anytime someone thinks that what Steam does and what MS was planning to do with the Xbox One were the same, because they are not.