The Xbox One and why I'm buying it over the PS4

Still 100 dollars cheaper than the PS3 at launch.

Which is one of the reasons why Sony struggled so much in the early days of it's  life cycle after release, when Sony Executives said that people should go get second jobs to go pay for it. 

What actually happened was customers went to the 360 because it was cheaper and unlike the PS3 at the time had actual games.

The 599 US dollars thing since then has been a running joke ever since, as it was so completely out of touch with the gaming community.

the high proce point of the PS3 wasnt actually the reason it did badly, people still gladly shelled out the cash for it. it was that it released over a year after the xbox 360 so xbox got an early jump on the market.


500 dollars isnt unreasonable for a console, thats less than half of the price of a good gaming computer and this generation of console is supposed to last at least 10 years, honestly if someone cannot afford a $500 console then they also cannot also afford the $60 games of either console, and should probably continue playing on the 360.


people seem to forget that the 360 is still an option here, games are still being made for it... I mean, shit.... there was a game at e3 being released for the PS2

And the fact it didn't have any super good titles for over a year.


No, but it's on the higher end on what they could expect people to pay. I'm more concerned with the additional costs (PSN/XBl, controllers and chargers etc) as that does rack up after a while. Oh and hardware faults and failures which both had problems with especially the 360 with it's RROD.

Oh I haven't forgotten. My plan was always to continue with my 360 into 2014 and see where we are mid next year, as by then we'd should have seen any of those hardware faults and which one had a the better exclusive line-up.

I'm more than happy to stay as it is right now, as I have plenty of games and DLC confirmed to be heading for the 360 long into next year.

Pheonix quoted a digital download thing as if it countered what I was commenting on.

Yes I can do day 1 digital, which I do plan to do. But now I can't share that game or give it away. And if say, it's important enough that my slow barracks internet won't get it fast enough for my liking, I go and buy the disc, now I have to keep the disc. Which is horribly annoying.

This issue is mainly people's resistance to change, not legitimate arguments.

and vigil, you're saying your internet is so unstable is disconnects for 24 hours at a time?

That was more to Angatar about how he made it seem like he can't download games anymore.

I may have read it too fast and misread it when I responded since i'm not as invested in the conversation as most.

I don't understand this quote system.

To LP; I know I can download games. It's sharing them I can't do with these changes. The Family Share plan is what interests me the most, and that's gone now that the DRM is, too. The only way to share games now is by physically handing someone a disc; no downloaded games, no sharing over a distance.

To Vigil; is your internet really that bad that your console wouldn't be able to connect for a few seconds, or you don't have any kind of service near you?

I'm a bit younger than most of you, so maybe it's a generational thing. I don't go over friends' houses and play my games, and no one I personally know does either. If I wanted someone to play the game, or see me play it, I'd either lend it to them or tell them to look it up on YouTube. Sharing on the One was supposed to be simple, but now it's not as simple. I can't just put a list of games and a list of players and they or I can access it at a whim. Now, only one person has the chance to play the game because the only way to play it is with a disc. If they log off, they're still the only possible player.

I know everyone's internet is not that good, but many places you can get a connection for even a few seconds to play. They don't have to download games, that's what the retail disc is for. Not everyone can download several gigs in a few hours, but almost everyone can connect at all. I think it's a waste to hold back for the minority of people still in the 90's.

this is a big step backwards.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/06/19/193607513/microsoft-responds-to-fan-outcry-changes-xbox-one-policies

"The first big change is that the Xbox One will no longer require an Internet connection to play offline Xbox One games, and there is no longer a 24-hour connection requirement. "

"The other change is that games can be traded, lent to other Xbox One owners, resold or gifted; there will be no limitations on using and sharing games, Mattrick says. "

"Xbox One games will also be playable on any Xbox One console, and there will be no regional locks."

Seath, we've already been talking about that for multiple posts lol

It's a huge step backward.

So.... does this mean you can't play games without a disk and share them with up to ten of your family and friends?  Or can you opt to do this with the 24-hour check-in in addition to playing straight off the disk?

If this is an additional option, it's awesome!  Otherwise, ballocks... I wanted a digital library T.T


Ballocks

This was possibly the biggest, greatest breakthrough in digital gaming since Steam, but poor PR performance screwed the whole thing up.  I really do hate the internet sometimes.

Couldn't said it better myself civ. I was looking forward to this because it was something different. Now its just like the PS4. MS didnt even get a chance to show people what the xbox one could be.

@ NT

Oh, I wasn't paying attention and thought it was relevant xD
Anyways, carry on while I try to figure out this newfangled quote system

http://pastebin.com/TE1MWES2

Unconfirmed as hell, but according to it the family sharing was having you put the game into your shared library, and the people on your sharing list would be able to play it in a special demo mode where they would get the full game (in most cases), but have a 15-60 minute timer. Their progress would also be saved in case they liked it enough to buy the full game.

Supposedly PS+ already does this with game trials where you get an hour of the full game with progress saved.

I still think the new design for the Xbox looks rather weird.  Guess just cause it so different.

MS has a history of regularly tripping on a small rock, receiving an abnormally massive amount of bad PR because of it, and then righting everything as best as it can.  For this, I am grateful.

MS is a business out for money, as are most, but it's nice to see that despite being a corporate giant it is sensible enough to know that money is earned by providing consumers with a desirable product rather than shoehorning everything down their throats (I'm looking at you, Apple).

Still, the only problems I had with the Xbox One were the 24 and 1 hour check-ins and the region lock.  I figured the check-ins would be modified to be timed more sensibly a couple months after release and, well, the region lock would eventually become a null point after it spreads across most of the post-industrial world (after all, it's in Microsoft's benefit to spread their consumer base as far as possible).

Were those two issues remedied, I would much prefer the Xbox One over the PS4 and might have even chosen it over PC due to Steam's inherent limitations on sharing.

Guess that's never going to happen now.  It hasn't really changed much for me; I'm still undecided between PS4 and Xbox One.  I just wish they presented me with more than a $400-$500 upgrade which renders all of my old content unusable.

Sigh.  Maybe next generation?




PS: What really bugs me is that most people who I noticed were complaining are now saying 'Good, but MS and the Xbone still suck because they were going to do it'.  What reason does MS have to make massive changes to their product for the sake of the consumer if the consumer still wont buy it?  I'm not an economist, but it doesn't take a genius to see there's a problem there.

All this 'MS is evil' crap is just completely ridiculous.  Of all the companies to complain about, MS is hardly a worthy target.

Right now, to play digital content on a second xbox requires 10 minute check-ins. 24 hours sounds pretty good compared to that lol

No kidding....

There's also problems like The Witcher 3 developers learning that their country isn't supported at launch until the Microsoft press conference which they were in.

One would assume that expanding that list would have been top priority for MS, though, as it would have definitely been in their best interest.

Hooray let's wade back into this argument over a month later, because that's a smart and timely idea right?

Ok, let's start with the quick things.

Yes, my internet can cut out on the 360 at random, and general internet for everything else is usually a bit more stable, but occasionally goes down when something crazy happens. (I suspect the 360 disconnects are more to due with the console unable to compute all the information, so it cuts live. It's probably why it runs painfully slow as well.) So it's probably going to be a minor issue for me. But let's take a interesting hypothetical. EVO, the biggest fighting game tournament in the world uses disconnect consoles to avoid input and control lag during the fights, as well as the fact they run it at a hotel/convention where the internet isn't the best (They do still have pretty solid streaming, so it may be a non-issue). What was scaring them before the DRM reversal was that getting a Xbox One with Killer Instinct to run with two people playing with an always on environment may not be possible because of the online check ins. Removing means we'll probably see KI at EVO.

The thing that bothered me the most more than anything else, then and now is Microsoft's message about this stuff has been absolutley terrible and non-sensical since the original announcement, and to this day. They didn't even announce the DRM thing at the announcement, they only heard about it when a games journalists had a interview with Phil Harrison and he let it slip, so they didn't say anything until the DRM list came out on the website.

This was a major PR mistake because from february, the PS4 had been the example for what Next-gen might be like, and the rumour mill surrounding xbox leading up to the initial announcement was at fever pitch. Then we get this cryptic response from one of thier higher ups about a major radical way people play games and then 2 more weeks of silence until what many saw as the worse case scenario became real, hence the backlash.

People get why you need a computer connected to the internet, it's an accepted requirement that has slowly slipped in over the course of my lifetime. Consoles have never had an always on requirement, and yes they are online a lot more now, but the offline mode is still the default view for people. If your going to make such a huge change that you want people to accept, you need to word it very carefully and upsell the benefits of this requirement and not make it seem like a restricition. Microsoft tried with the cloud stuff, but the silence about it and the very formal list that looked like a legal document seemed to just be a list of restrictions, which why people went apeshit about it.

So they stuck to their guns through E3 and despite a pretty good showing there, the questions about the DRM stuff wouldn't go away as it's quite the departure from the norm and people, obviously want to know more about it, and how it benefits them. Microsoft's response was all over the place from the unintentionally self righteous "If you can't go online we have a system for you, it's called the xbox 360" and the angry " DRM is hard-locked into the system, we can't change it at the drop of a hat".

But after the PS4 conference they were in a terrible place, as Sony saw the opportunity and went for it, sensing they could win back the consumers they had similarly pissed off at the start of last generation ("People can go get second jobs to get a PS3"). PS4's message since Day 1 of the announcement has been rock solid and they've been playing the role of the humbled console manufacturer and saying they're listening to both customers and developers to give both the best deal possible, with the self-publishing stuff for the indie developers, the no drm and cheaper price for consumers and asking developers what they wanted head on and giving them exclusive deals. (Bungie, Ubisoft etc.)

With Xbox's message all over the place, it easily made them look like the villian in this story, as it really looked like they had no idea what they were doing and they had blinded assumed everybody would have just gone along with this if we had kept it hidden under the rug up to release. Not coming out from the start and clearly explaining your vision and why this may be a good thing is why there in the position they ended up in at the end of E3.

And low and behold just over a week after, they drop all the DRM in the machine, as the tide of public opinion was just snowballing against them, as every single PR gaff just amplified the rage at them. (It didn't help the Microsoft got implicated in all the PRISM stuff at the absolutle worse time, when one of the biggest features of your new console is a sophisticated camera which can detect your heartbeat and is always connected and on waiting for a vocal command, which made the concerns about it potentially spying even more legitamate.)

I've been harsh on them because they've made it so easy too and rightfully so, but it doesn't for one second mean I hate them and their console. I don't. It has a lot of potential, and the potential of a console-based Steam equivalent would be awesome. Like I said a month ago, this may be gone for the forseeable future, but the console market is changing, and I still think in 2-3 years down the line this stuff will be less of an issue as both Sony and Microsoft slowly ease us into that model until we're accustomed to it. Online console gaming only really took off this gen, as did DLC and downloadable games,and we're seeing now that shift to an online model, we're just a few years behind the PC, so I wouldn't be upset about this stuff going away as I'm certain it will return in the future, and when it does it will be done in a way that doesn't screw over either parties.

Your convention/tournament issue is negated by it being a 24 hour check in and that regularly they don't use commercial consoles

KristallNacht wrote:Your convention/tournament issue is negated by it being a 24 hour check in and that regularly they don't use commercial consoles

The 24 hour check-in was a bit vague when it was, so the fear was that the check-in would occur during the game and they may not be able to connect using hotel internet (Though I freely admit that if they can stream it reliably world-wide, they'd probably could connect to XBL if needed). I don't know what kind of consoles they use, but I really doubt there using debugs, as you need to license them specifically from the console manufacturers. I do know they primarily use PS3's because that's what the pro's prefer.

The check in isnt a sheduled check lol its constant just like it is now. Right now the xbox has a 10 minute check in for drm