Xbox One in trouble.

[saffakanera]

Morning gents, some seriously level headed reading regarding the next generation, nice technical breakdown too. Have a lekker coffee, and dig in.

http://t.co/0HJi29ZCGj

 

[Swa]

We'll wait and see. Shared memory has always been a compromise and never an advantage. As that article says: "Sony is the reigning king of overblown hardware hype"

 

[saffakanera]

Loose lips sink ships. (Crazy Buttocks on a Train leak, guy is seriously legit)

1. Confirmed Microsoft is actively attempting to get developers to not mention PS4 versions. If they don't say "OUR GAME IS EXCLUSIVE FOR XBONE" expect a PS4 version. #truthfact

2. More DRM messaging at Gamescom. There is no rental strategy. Try to sweep it under the rug and hope people don't remember.

3. Cloud power was designed as DRM. Period. DRM was Microsoft's idea. EA and Ubisoft are supporters, Activision slightly less so.

4. DRM plans are actually worse than what they've stated.

5. Mirror's Edge 2 at MS conference.

6. Prince of Persia (reboot?) at MS conference.

7. Secret Phil Spencer game = World of Tanks

8. Live paywall still there.

9. Dead Rising 3, and exclusive DLC for another Capcom game at MS conference.

10. No online paywall for PS4. Unconfirmed.

11. No DRM info for PS4.

 

[shogun]

All this talk about second hand games and Steam makes me wonder if people really understand why Steam is so good at online never resold games.

Simple, its sales, from Annual bundle sales where you get like 20+ games for $50 or less, to weekly and daily game sales. Example:
Weekend spotlight http://store.steampowered.com/app/55230/?snr=1_4_4__40
Deal of the day http://store.steampowered.com/app/2700/
Also the fact that older titles prices drop as time goes on.

In short: Steam makes sales so good it kills the need for second hand games.

Now if console makers make use of such sales then I will have no problem with restrictions but they don't, hell even if you go retail you will find last years games at the same prices as opening day.

As for 24 hour check in, My PC is not just a gaming machine. It gets used for banking, social, work and other tasks as well, all of them needs internet so I do not mind It connecting once a day. I also do not take it with me to the farm to game on. It stays on my desk.

My Console on the other hand is purly bought for gaming on the TV or when on holiday, I can plug the console in the car with LCD screens for the kids when driving down to the Cape, I can plug the console into the TV on the farm for when kids want something to do at night. I want a console that I can take with when going on holiday next to a beach and it rains. (Hell knows no fury like a rainy day in a cramped space and board kids with nothing to do) <-- Xbox in the past allowed me a sane mind. I would like to continue with this practice and still be able to give them the latest games. Microsoft by the looks of it has other idea's.

They wanna make the Xbox one a lot less mobile, from internet access to the always plugged in kinect. Its gonna be a console filled with hurdles.

These days pretty much everyone has a smartphone that can become a mobile hotspot. I can't actually think of one place that I don't have internet access. At a farm or beach holiday house I still want to access internet banking, so generally will use my phone to connect in any case. I don't really see anywhere that doesn't have at least edge for a connection country wide (unless you are in a remote mountain top camp... in which case... yeah sucks you can't connect to xbox between base camps)

Not sure that I see the 24hour polling being as big an issue as people are making it out to be. In 99.99999999% of use cases, how won't you have an internet connection available with the amount of dosh you are going to fork out for this thing? Even if people don't have a smartphone, throw a 3g enabled wireless access point in the mobile carry bag for the console... may come in use for more than one thing.

 

[AlphaJohn]

These days pretty much everyone has a smartphone that can become a mobile hotspot. I can't actually think of one place that I don't have internet access. At a farm or beach holiday house I still want to access internet banking, so generally will use my phone to connect in any case. I don't really see anywhere that doesn't have at least edge for a connection country wide (unless you are in a remote mountain top camp... in which case... yeah sucks you can't connect to xbox between base camps)

Not sure that I see the 24hour polling being as big an issue as people are making it out to be. In 99.99999999% of use cases, how won't you have an internet connection available with the amount of dosh you are going to fork out for this thing? Even if people don't have a smartphone, throw a 3g enabled wireless access point in the mobile carry bag for the console... may come in use for more than one thing.

You do not travel around much?

I know plenty of spaces without even cell cover nevermind Edge or GPRS, beside specs say you need "2 mb internet" not just internet.

On my parents farm in the Langkloof for example I have to hike 500 meters up a hill to go make a call.

 

[Ancalagon]

We'll wait and see. Shared memory has always been a compromise and never an advantage. As that article says: "Sony is the reigning king of overblown hardware hype"

Again, you dont know what you are talking about. The Xbox360 was far easier to work with due to its shared memory pool.

 

[shogun]

You do not travel around much?

I know plenty of spaces without even cell cover nevermind Edge or GPRS, beside specs say you need "2 mb internet" not just internet.

On my parents farm in the Langkloof for example I have to hike 500 meters up a hill to go make a call.

No I get it, there are places. Just not sure there are many places. Most of their target market will never experience this problem. Of if they do, they'll make a plan to solve it (yahclick comes to mind). Not many people deal well with a lack of communications for an extended period if time. I generally expect that when i'm so far away from civilization that there isn't even cellphone reception, that i'm leaving most modern day electronics behind. Perhaps time for yahclick on their farm?

For the rest of the 99.99999% of South Africa though, I doubt this is as big a deal. Judging by the fact that you are on the forum here pretty much all the time, I take it you aren't on the farm much. Not saying you don't go, or don't want your kit working there... just that you are pulling out the edge cases in a world where internet connectivity is almost universal now.

Also, is a 2mb connection required for the daily polling, or for actual online gaming?

 

[Ancalagon]

No I get it, there are places. Just not sure there are many places. Most of their target market will never experience this problem. Of if they do, they'll make a plan to solve it (yahclick comes to mind). Not many people deal well with a lack of communications for an extended period if time. I generally expect that when i'm so far away from civilization that there isn't even cellphone reception, that i'm leaving most modern day electronics behind. Perhaps time for yahclick on their farm?

For the rest of the 99.99999% of South Africa though, I doubt this is as big a deal. Judging by the fact that you are on the forum here pretty much all the time, I take it you aren't on the farm much. Not saying you don't go, or don't want your kit working there... just that you are pulling out the edge cases in a world where internet connectivity is almost universal now.

Also, is a 2mb connection required for the daily polling, or for actual online gaming?

I imagine there are other third world countries, such as India and Brazil, that would normally be a big target market for the Xbox, but now might struggle. Plus, another example is soldiers on deployment for the US military. They are a small proportion of buyers as far as I understand, but they have lots of sympathy from the population.

 

[shogun]

I imagine there are other third world countries, such as India and Brazil, that would normally be a big target market for the Xbox, but now might struggle. Plus, another example is soldiers on deployment for the US military. They are a small proportion of buyers as far as I understand, but they have lots of sympathy from the population.

India and Brazil are as jam packed with smart phones and internet connectivity as we are. This isn't a low end must have product. It's a high end luxury item. If you are gaming, you aren't on the breadline... or shouldn't be. It's not like an internet connection costs that much anyway. Yeah, I'm sure there are quite a few people (even if only a few by percentage terms) that won't always have a connection. Most people that can afford this machine will likely have a connection... or make a plan to get one. It's not that it's not inconvenient, but at least the ground rules are set straight up so there isn't any confusion down the line. MS also know that because everyone that is using one has a connection, they can reliably roll out new features that may require an internet connection without getting flammed further. As for the US soldiers... i'm not really that sympathetic. They can get a PS4, or ask for their networking staff to make a plan for the required connection. Satellite comms aren't expensive these days. If it's a matter of security, that's their problem to solve.

I imagine that a number of services are going to start moving online, and that the requirement for a connection will only grow over time. At some point people are going to have to go with it. "Because some can't" has never been an excuse to not do something. It's about percentages. Most can, and that's why they can do this. It's a new product, and online is the way things are moving.

I'm not sure that jumping up and down about this particular issue is of any use. It's not a game changer, and it's not the end of gaming. It's been made out to be a far bigger issue than it is.

People seem to be jumping on the anti MS b*tching bandwagon again.

 

[Ancalagon]

Its not anti MS bitching, its anti DRM.

You are right - moving such things online is the future. But not for the reasons the game publishers want them to move online (I'm including Sony in this until I know for a fact that their console will not include similar DRM). Companies have had to try to invent good reasons to require a connection - fabrications that they use to justify it. The real reason to move things online is of course DRM and control. Paranoia, basically.

There was no reason the latest Sim City had to be online - it was proved that it can run without the cloud, despite EA's assurances to the contrary. That's what most of these things are - companies try to invent value adds to justify the online only requirement, but they forget that sometimes, we just dont want the hassle of always online connectivity. Because of issues with connecting to things, and server load making services unavailable, sometimes you just want to play your game or watch your movie without the connection. Steam used to be very unstable here in SA - I was lucky if I got it to connect at all. With older games, I insert the disc, and I play.

That to me is the number one reason why I dont want online only stuff - it slows down everything. Please wait - authenticating your game. Please wait - contacting server.

It took me something like an hour to get Super Street Fighter 4: AE working on my PC, because of GFWL. I dont want the multiplayer part at all, I dont care about it. Why should I have to wait an hour? I am not a pirate, I bought a legal copy. Yet I must authenticate with that bool sheet. Why? It inconveniences me.

Face it - there has never been a completely transparent and fast online only experience which never had any downtime. Compare that to games with no online requirement - you insert the disk and you go.

 

[Maverick Jester]

In 99.99999999% of use cases, how won't you have an internet connection available with the amount of dosh you are going to fork out for this thing? Even if people don't have a smartphone, throw a 3g enabled wireless access point in the mobile carry bag for the console... may come in use for more than one thing.

I don't agree with this, especially in this country. How many users of the current generation of consoles (in the South African context) do not partake in online gaming? I would wager a far higher percentage than those that do. Those are the types that will give the Xbox One a miss because of the always online policy it espouses.

And the fact that I would need to carry around mobile internet just to connect my Xbox, to check in to assuage this always-on stance- the principle alone is ridiculous. There is a reason that many use consoles to play games on- they are dedicated to doing this job, and all you needed was a television to do so. Now you need internet as well? I don't think that console gamers will easily accept this.

 

[AlphaJohn]

Its not anti MS bitching, its anti DRM.

You are right - moving such things online is the future. But not for the reasons the game publishers want them to move online (I'm including Sony in this until I know for a fact that their console will not include similar DRM). Companies have had to try to invent good reasons to require a connection - fabrications that they use to justify it. The real reason to move things online is of course DRM and control. Paranoia, basically.

There was no reason the latest Sim City had to be online - it was proved that it can run without the cloud, despite EA's assurances to the contrary. That's what most of these things are - companies try to invent value adds to justify the online only requirement, but they forget that sometimes, we just dont want the hassle of always online connectivity. Because of issues with connecting to things, and server load making services unavailable, sometimes you just want to play your game or watch your movie without the connection. Steam used to be very unstable here in SA - I was lucky if I got it to connect at all. With older games, I insert the disc, and I play.

That to me is the number one reason why I dont want online only stuff - it slows down everything. Please wait - authenticating your game. Please wait - contacting server.

It took me something like an hour to get Super Street Fighter 4: AE working on my PC, because of GFWL. I dont want the multiplayer part at all, I dont care about it. Why should I have to wait an hour? I am not a pirate, I bought a legal copy. Yet I must authenticate with that bool sheet. Why? It inconveniences me.

Face it - there has never been a completely transparent and fast online only experience which never had any downtime. Compare that to games with no online requirement - you insert the disk and you go.

Add to that I can still play my old console games 20 years later, plug in console stick in cartridge and off I go. You think all this "Always on" games from today will still be playable 10 years from now?

 

[Maverick Jester]

Face it - there has never been a completely transparent and fast online only experience which never had any downtime. Compare that to games with no online requirement - you insert the disk and you go.

And by definition, is this not the purpose of console gaming? To me, it is.

 

[Ancalagon]

And by definition, is this not the purpose of console gaming? To me, it is.

Exactly.

MS's new console is now a gaming PC in all but name. The only difference is that the hardware is maybe a little cheaper, and the games are more expensive. Oh, and Kinect. But other than that, you buy games, via online or disc, and your account is credited with a license with in the case of the Xbox, you can transfer once. I dont see the value.

 

[Maverick Jester]

Exactly.

MS's new console is now a gaming PC in all but name. The only difference is that the hardware is maybe a little cheaper, and the games are more expensive. Oh, and Kinect. But other than that, you buy games, via online or disc, and your account is credited with a license with in the case of the Xbox, you can transfer once. I dont see the value.

Hopefully, Sony do not go down the same route regarding a DRM policy. I don't want to buy a glorified gaming PC.

 

[shogun]

Its not anti MS bitching, its anti DRM.

You are right - moving such things online is the future. But not for the reasons the game publishers want them to move online (I'm including Sony in this until I know for a fact that their console will not include similar DRM). Companies have had to try to invent good reasons to require a connection - fabrications that they use to justify it. The real reason to move things online is of course DRM and control. Paranoia, basically.

There was no reason the latest Sim City had to be online - it was proved that it can run without the cloud, despite EA's assurances to the contrary. That's what most of these things are - companies try to invent value adds to justify the online only requirement, but they forget that sometimes, we just dont want the hassle of always online connectivity. Because of issues with connecting to things, and server load making services unavailable, sometimes you just want to play your game or watch your movie without the connection. Steam used to be very unstable here in SA - I was lucky if I got it to connect at all. With older games, I insert the disc, and I play.

That to me is the number one reason why I dont want online only stuff - it slows down everything. Please wait - authenticating your game. Please wait - contacting server.

It took me something like an hour to get Super Street Fighter 4: AE working on my PC, because of GFWL. I dont want the multiplayer part at all, I dont care about it. Why should I have to wait an hour? I am not a pirate, I bought a legal copy. Yet I must authenticate with that bool sheet. Why? It inconveniences me.

Face it - there has never been a completely transparent and fast online only experience which never had any downtime. Compare that to games with no online requirement - you insert the disk and you go.

I can completely understand this is for DRM. What I'm pointing out is that DRM is going to be employed, and game developers want this. They are changing the terms in which you use their software. They are effectively changing this to a licensing model where you get a license to use the game. If this is really going to change your life to the extent that you won't be able to play a 20 year old console game in 2033... who knows? Will the games not be released and ported to emulators? Who knows? Heck, the hardware won't be the same then anyway. Good luck keeping your console in good enough condition to still be of use. You may get it right, you may not.

All these things are pie in the sky as you don't know what the future holds. Authenticating once a day has nothing to do with your gaming experience (all those things you mention above are not related to a once a day connection for an authentication check). It doesn't have to do in game stuff. Does it give game devs more control? Yes. Is that different from other wildly successful gaming experiences? No (MMORPGs?).


This may be a big issue for you, but I'm saying that it's not going to be an issue at all for many... me included.

There might even be some positive spin offs. Wonder if they could use this to deactivate your stolen xBox for example?

 

[Ancalagon]

I can completely understand this is for DRM. What I'm pointing out is that DRM is going to be employed, and game developers want this. They are changing the terms in which you use their software. They are effectively changing this to a licensing model where you get a license to use the game. If this is really going to change your life to the extent that you won't be able to play a 20 year old console game in 2033... who knows? Will the games not be released and ported to emulators? Who knows? Heck, the hardware won't be the same then anyway. Good luck keeping your console in good enough condition to still be of use. You may get it right, you may not.

I dont even think the game developers want it, but the publishers do, and the publishers are the ones with the money.

No, its unlikely any of these games will work in 20 years time, because of this stuff. Emulation gets increasing difficult as hardware gets more complicated and more powerful. What we really need is for game developers to open source old games, but that will never happen because of greed and paranoia. ID software is the only major company that I know of, that still does.

All these things are pie in the sky as you don't know what the future holds. Authenticating once a day has nothing to do with your gaming experience (all those things you mention above are not related to a once a day connection for an authentication check). It doesn't have to do in game stuff. Does it give game devs more control? Yes. Is that different from other wildly successful gaming experiences? No (MMORPGs?).

Steam was supposed to have an offline mode - I dont think it works to this day. At least, not for me. Where there is DRM, there are problems. Thats a fact. I guarantee you that the Xbone launch will have DRM issues.

Ah, but its a slippery slope you see. Look at Sim City. It is not an MMORPG, but requires online play. Could similar games be released for Xbox that have stricter requirements than the Xbone once a day connect policy? Yes, definitely. MS will allow it. So, where will it stop?

This may be a big issue for you, but I'm saying that it's not going to be an issue at all for many... me included.

There might even be some positive spin offs. Wonder if they could use this to deactivate your stolen xBox for example?

Good for you - it is definitely an issue for many, as you can see by the reaction. You are one of few that is not bothered.

 

[AlphaJohn]

There might even be some positive spin offs. Wonder if they could use this to deactivate your stolen xBox for example?

I doubt it.

Theft is good for business, if stolen it needs to be replaced = another sale. They will not do anything in that line unless forced by governments. Look at cell phones as a simple example. Everything is there to block them, but do they ever use it, nope.

 

[shogun]

You are one of few that is not bothered.

Well to be fair, you are judging those that are bothered by those that are vocal on the internet. Those that aren't concerned don't have an incentive to jump up and down. Silent majority perhaps? Time will have to tell as I can't claim that without evidence, and that will have to come with game sales. Is this perhaps that big an issue for everyone? Perhaps, but I can't speak for everyone... neither can you.

I'm just voicing an opinion to try balance it out a little. Up until now I haven't cared much about the debate, so I haven't bothered foaming about it. Still don't, so I'll likely slink away into the silent background again, only to purchase a unit when they come on sale and use it without reservation. So go ahead, scream, shout, tell us we don't have a clue and remind everyone how much of a big deal this is. Just because there's a loud shout, doesn't mean it's representative of all or even most of the consumers out there.

If it is that big a deal for you though, I hope they do something for you. Just keep in mind a bunch of people out there don't feel as strongly about this as you do.

 

[Ancalagon]

Well to be fair, you are judging those that are bothered by those that are vocal on the internet. Those that aren't concerned don't have an incentive to jump up and down. Silent majority perhaps? Time will have to tell as I can't claim that without evidence, and that will have to come with game sales. Is this perhaps that big an issue for everyone? Perhaps, but I can't speak for everyone... neither can you.

I'm just voicing an opinion to try balance it out a little. Up until now I haven't cared much about the debate, so I haven't bothered foaming about it. Still don't, so I'll likely slink away into the silent background again, only to purchase a unit when they come on sale and use it without reservation. So go ahead, scream, shout, tell us we don't have a clue and remind everyone how much of a big deal this is. Just because there's a loud shout, doesn't mean it's representative of all or even most of the consumers out there.

If it is that big a deal for you though, I hope they do something for you. Just keep in mind a bunch of people out there don't feel as strongly about this as you do.

They wont do anything for me, they will plow ahead, and people will - sorry sheeple - will still buy the console. But not me. If the PS4 has the same online only shenanigans, I wont buy that either.

We scream and shout because this is an erosion of consumer rights, and its important. I always use the Sim City example, but its a great example. Normally, if you buy something, and it doesnt work, you can get a refund. But not with SC for some reason, EA refused to give refunds. Somehow, software licenses are not seen as subject to many of the laws covering the sale of goods, and I think this is wrong.