Aaaaaaaaaaand Mr. Koelbl lives up to Scott's praise. Well said, sir.
We already know what cloud gaming looks like (the only actual consumer benefit of always-on connection). If you want to check it out, OnLive is the place to check it out. Their only competitor was bought out last year by Sony, who then turned it off (they probably wanted access, or to own, the proprietary technology).
The major advantage of cloud gaming is reducing the hardware requirements, but if they're selling you expensive hardware to play it, that kind of defeats the point (OnLive's console is around $100). The problem with cloud gaming is bandwidth requirements. With current games you'll use north of 3gb per hour. Considering the crappy infrastructure we have in a lot of places, that can easily bog the networks down. On the opening night of a game, particularly a popular series like CoD, it means you need to have infrastructure much higher than your "normal" capacity to handle the 2-3 day spikes of release dates or your system constantly crashes.
Ask someone who played through a major MMO release/expansion. The servers go down constantly for several days, particularly during peak playing hours (7pm east coast through to 1 am west coast). Connection speeds are often poor when you are on, too.
Imagine the reverse were true of the world right now. That most gaming systems were done through cloud gaming, the new development would be selling systems that take over some of the load locally (ie, a box in your house that does computing for the game), with the games with the highest end graphics being run entirely on the local machine.
The problem with cloud gaming is it requires the company to invest in the hardware and maintain it, all of it. They can pass along some of the cost via the games, but they have to pay for the hardware upfront, before any game is sold. It's much more economical and practical to instead have us invest in the hardware individually. There number of servers required for multiplayer online gaming is much lower than cloud gaming.
Their only competitor was bought out last year by Sony, who then turned it off (they probably wanted access, or to own, the proprietary technology).
Yup. Gaikai will basically become PlayStation World, Sony's cloud gaming system for PS4. It'll give them backwards compatibility without having to put a mini PS1/2/3 inside the PS4.
And yes, managing the infrastructure for cloud gaming is incredibly expensive. OnLive only just managed to avoid going bust because of this. The technology is not good enough to do gaming as a whole yet, but by the time PS5 rolls around it might be.
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Microsoft cancels post E3 press event
Not a good sign. IMO Microsoft is doing the total oppisite of what they should be doing for a new console launch.
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Microsoft's Phil Spencer claims that there are advantages to DRM. Yes, yes there are...for the publishers. The next generation of consoles (following the XBone, Wii, PS) will likely be little more than a terminal that renders gameplay, leaving customers at the mercy of the publishers. Then I'll be able to wear my "I CALLED IT MOTHERF~&&ERS!" T-shirt with exaggerated pride.
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So it's not as bad as it was originally made out, but it's still bad.
They get a few points back for actually getting their shit together and clarifying things though.
So it's not as bad as it was originally made out, but it's still bad.
They get a few points back for actually getting their s!@@ together and clarifying things though.
In what POSSIBLE way is, "You can share your entire digital games library with up to ten people on their own consoles," bad?
Xbox One is not always online. It's once-per-day online.
Xbox One will not spy on you constantly. You can turn the Kinect off whenever.
Xbox One is not prohibiting used games. You can trade them into retailers.
Xbox One is not prohibiting game lending.
Xbox One is not preventing you from sharing - in fact, you can share everything with up to ten people. You've never been able to do that before.
Probably because they seem to have added that after I posted it, because the last thing on there before was "Anyone can use it on your console (only), but you can only ever give it to another person once, forever" or something to that effect.
I do like that actually, though it seems a bit odd and slightly unclear on exactly how it works as far as registering people as family.
The rest of it's not anything new. I still don't like the 1/day online thing, but I believe the PS4 is going to have that too so it's no longer a factor in my decision.
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So if i go to a friend's house and want to play a game, but for some reason the internet dies, i have an hour before i can "still watch TV or movies"? I want to play games not watch TV. That is why i would buy a console.
Oh, and They give unlimited access to my games for other people on MY CONSOLE? What, if they change their mind they can shut it down if it's not me playing? WTH? They don't have to allow me to let other people play on it. They can't stop me from letting other people play on it.
Each game can be given to a friend once. Uh-uh. And really, putting limits on how may people we can lend our game? Who are they to tell us that?
Although i can see that they are trying to put on a good face. And let's see how far they get with damage control. But damage has already been done.
Oh, and They give unlimited access to my games for other people on MY CONSOLE? What, if they change their mind they can shut it down if it's not me playing? WTH? They don't have to allow me to let other people play on it. They can't stop me from letting other people play on it.
I think that, in your haste to hate the Xbox One, you might have misread what they were saying.
I hate the way XBox One looks...does that count?
Anyway, from what I've read, the PS4 actually has a stronger GPU (or at least, the same GPU with more functional units enabled), which means if I were to get one or the other, I'd probably lean toward PS4.
Xbox One is not prohibiting game lending.
You got one of these completely wrong (some of the others you left out important bits).
From the article:
It's worth noting that Microsoft allows you to gift games to friends but they can't borrow them.
It looks like it's planned that you will be able to lend, but not at launch.
From their announcements:
"Loaning or renting games won’t be available at launch, but we are exploring the possibilities with our partners."
True/false: Xbox One is not prohibiting game lending.
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It looks like it's planned that you will be able to lend, but not at launch.
From their announcements:
"Loaning or renting games won’t be available at launch, but we are exploring the possibilities with our partners."
A loan system would go a long, long ways towards making me happy. I really like loaning books with my Barnes & Noble Nook. The auto return feature is really helpful with certain people.
The other issue is check in frequency. Once per day is too often. Mostly because my Cable provider can take up to two days to come fix issues. Once a week check in is more reasonable.
True/false: Xbox One is not prohibiting game lending.
False.
Do I get a cookie? :P
While I'm still leery of the Xbox One, to be fair, the "let us take a look at what we can do with our vendors" is not a bad response as far as lending games goes. It just means they won't have anything they can be happy with availble at launch.
That means that the answer, for the time being, isn't 'No'.
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I'm glad that MS made those clarifications and provided more detail.
There is now little question that the Xbone is not for me.
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This...improves things. But it's still awkward. The publishers are the ones who don't want second hand games. How many of them are going to opt in for resale? It's pretty much the same deal - Microsoft is just trying to shift the blame to developers and off there own shoulders.
Except in the EU. They don't have a choice here.
It still has a lot of problems. The Kinnect is only a plus if it works. If you don't have enough space, you're screwed. Don't like it? You're screwed. The Internet connectivity thing is still a major hassle, and a deal breaker for a lot of people. Microsoft can't imagine it's not going to cost them a lot of cash. Because it is. There are just too many people with no broadband, crappy broadband, don't want broadband or simply don't like the idea of connecting there console to the internet. It's gonna sting a bit.
Unless the PS4 adds in something similar to this crap, of course.
As it stands, I'm still not getting a One. Yes, I have good internet. Yes, there is -some- kind of second hand option, although I suspect it's still gonna be pricier than it is this generation. I still think that Microsoft is making a mistake, and there isn't anything tempting enough to make me wanna change things.
It doesn't help that these are all fresh, new policies likely to change. You think if that backlash hadn't struck then the second hand option wouldn't have changed from 'you can trade it in to Microsoft' to 'well, publishers can decided, but we always will and won't make money AND some shops can do it, too'? Microsoft also left this PR disaster go on too long, and it's left a bad taste in some folks mouths.
So, sorry guys. Too little, too late. I'm still not seeing why a PS4 isn't better.
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Xbox One is not prohibiting used games. You can trade them into retailers.
Once. And only retailers that play by Microsoft's (as-yet undisclosed) rules and meet their criteria.
You can't go into a shop and buy a used game, finish it, and trade it in again. You can only buy it once and after that it's useless. The next time someone tries to play it, it will flash up on the screen that it's a used game and they can only play it if they pay Microsoft the full retail price (which I can see causing monumental headaches with people taking used games back to retailers for a refund when that happens).
So yeah. No, that's BS and sounds unworkable in practice.
What about the truly important things?
1) I want to play my Halo.
2) I might be able to pretend the Kinect (and accompanying 'Kinect' friendly games) will be good for helping my kids be of the more-active couch potato variety. This will drastically improve the odds of me getting a Next-gen console of any kind.
3) The once/24 hour internet connection rule is lame, but I do have an internet connection... so I'm going to classify this as a non-issue. Selfish, I know! Those 27% (or whatever) folks without an internet connected xbone will never experience the joy of killing me at Halo... or anyone for that matter.
4) I don't really have a #4, 3 just seemed like too few points.
It really doesn't seem like xbone is pitching to the types of folks who are concerned the DDR3 isn't performing as well as GDD5. Am I right? It seems their strategy has significantly shifted to... internet connected TV watchers who enjoy playing games now and again. Just spit-balling here. EDIT: Oh! And those who have always wanted to talk to their TV's like grown up Michael J Fox in Back to the Future... II?
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I'm already formulating the conversation with my wife in my mind.
Me: See honey, the kids games help them move around and improves tactile reasoning. (Is that a thing?)
Wife: I'm not so sure. You just want it so you can play your shoot-em-up games.
Me: Well I might want to get a game for myself at some point honey, but look, you can watch your netflix shows, your recently purchased blueray of Downtown Abbey Season 2, and record them too!
Wife: Well, that would be nice...
Me: Yes! Yes it would! And all this can be yours at the low low price of 599.99 pounds! I think in dollars that's like $300 bucks hon, no biggy.
Wife: Oh honey, you're such a dear to think of me by buying this xbone. I love you.
I really think I'm on to something here.
While I'm still leery of the Xbox One, to be fair, the "let us take a look at what we can do with our vendors" is not a bad response as far as lending games goes. It just means they won't have anything they can be happy with availble at launch.
That means that the answer, for the time being, isn't 'No'.
AFAIK, they've said these hypothetical options will not be available at launch. So if you're buying X-Bone as an early adopter, you are not buying that feature. Meanwhile the sharing feature of the 360 is: "hand your friend the disc". For which there is no technical impediment on the X-Bone, only business decisions.
You can look at PS3 for precedent, when they went back on precedent and tried to lock it down further, people were motivated to hack the systems even more, similar things will probably happen and just enable piracy because MS couldn't stand you handing your game disc to a friend to use on their own console (any number of people can apparently use the game on the same console, but this is about making things less convenient, of course).
Realistically, there is no reason that many vendors could not implement similarly restrictive measures on their own. MS is just going out of their way to publicize and hype this (and technically enable it for all vendors, since if they could do it independently on next-gen consoles they could also do it with current gen, but haven't). It just indicates a disconnect between customer priorities and the vendor. Or perhaps the game-players are becoming less the priority customer in MS' eyes. The whole interactive TV watching thing is probably all about integration with Facebook style customer-tracking, i.e. selling the user to other corporations is the real product. Sony seems likely to have similar things going on as well, but at least they seem more prone to retain the customary features/allowances.
PS4 does seem to be technically advanced, with signifigantly more GPU cores, and identical CPU. X-Bone has 'some' means to keep up with the GDDR5 of PS4, but that pretty much just enables the most conventional of memory models, while PS4 is free to go wild using the GPU including for non-graphics tasks (and they have the shaders to spare for that, which X-Bone can't even pretend to compete with).
MS' schtick seems to be selling a heavy discounted version along with online subscription, which should be a pretty effective marketing tactic, but I don't see why Sony can't provide a similar option. Rather than the imposed limits on usage, providing a positive motivation while not excluding the traditional usages seems a better approach, effectively having a game rental system tied in with subscription (subsidizing up-front cost) can increase their attach-rate per console without restricting people's rights to what they purchase.
PS3 pretty much came to sales parity with the 360 (and with higher game sales/attach rate AFAIK) after 360 started out with a year's lead (advantage of direct sales, and building game catalog) and with PS3 initially much more expensive (and difficult to program for, although by now it is considered easier to achieve good results with). With this gen starting out at the same time and less price differential, I can only see PS4 doing better than X-Bone, and the number of game announcements at this stage seems signifigant. Sony also seems to be getting alot of PC ports as well, which is an interesting development on it's own... As well, the proliferation of free to play changes the nexus of monetization so post-sale restrictions become superfluous. What offends people about MS' announcements is that they are trying to limit people's usage of exactly the same types of games where the status quo assumption does allow for such usages like free sharing, MS is just saying those now will come with extra "screw you".
Polygon's opinion piece on XB1 is worth reading.
It addresses the point that the XB1 is the product of a company that is no longer concerned with consumers - whom it is taking for granted based on previous successes (you'd think that Microsoft, of all companies, would know better) - but solely with business (its own and that of its partners), which is a major mistake in their eyes.
Polygon's opinion piece on XB1 is worth reading.
The "1.5 Mbps" necessary for a comfortable experience is nothing to blush at. For cloud computing (expected to be mandatory for Respawn Entertainment's Xbox One and PC shooter Titanfall) the bandwidth requirement may be higher. Assuming your internet connection still handles that speed, what about the other people in your home who'd like to use the internet? If you have one person downloading videos on a computer or two people surfing on laptops, what sort of reliability can you expect from the Xbox One cloud service?
As a teenager, going on the internet meant asking everyone else to stay off the phone. Off the stated policy, I wonder if playing the Xbox One means asking everyone in my home to stay off the internet.
Given that Netflix has a requirement of 5.0 mbps to stream HD video (higher if you want full HD), I'd say it's more like wondering if streaming video means asking everyone in your home to stay off the Xbox.
If you're already using your home's bandwidth on downloading videos, it's safe to say that the Xbox One is not going to be the bandwidth hog in your household.
And, ignoring all this, this is a brutally stupid complaint. You're not going to be using 1.5 mbps for the Xbox One unless you're actually using an online service like playing a multiplayer game online, or downloading a digital title. In which case: what the hell did you expect?
Half of that article is Polygon fishing for new reasons to hate on Microsoft. Some are valid, but a lot of them are examples of the same impotent outrage seen elsewhere on the internet.
By the way, if anyone is still unconvinced that the opinions of the internet gaming community are being manipulated by the echo chamber effect (and by people who just want to fan the flames of console wars), reddit was recently the subject of a wonderful example of exactly this phenomenon.
A few days ago, some guy posted a thread claiming that Microsoft was using drone accounts to manipulate social media sites like reddit. While there were a handful of skeptics, most of r/gaming jumped on the bandwagon. A news site then picked up the story, referencing the original reddit thread...which was then picked up by another user on r/gaming as proof that Microsoft was manipulating the site. This resulted in a full-on crapstorm, with r/gaming users tracking down anyone even remotely suspected of being a Microsoft shill. Users started posting personal information of those they were convinced worked for Microsoft, in order to more actively harass them (in addition to the usual "downvote brigades").
The mods made a promise to investigate, and surprise, surprise, concluded that r/gaming had been manipulated, but not by Microsoft. Instead, they were trolled by someone who lied on the internet (no way!) and because it was what everyone wanted to believe, it was accepted as fact. As a result of this self-reinforcement of rumor into reality (rumor that turned out to be false, obviously), people were subject to harassment and public disclosure of their personal information for nothing more than daring to have an opinion of the Xbox One less extreme than torches-and-pitchforks.
"Justified in their anger" my ass.
Using Redditors as an indicator of anything resembling intelligence is a low blow.
Just a note.
The government will be using the xbone to spy on people. Not only does MS actively help them with this, BUT even if they tried to stop the breach of privacy, they can't under current US law.
Even funnier is that US law allows the government to spy on people in other countries with an Xbone.
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That's wrong. But i don't see any facet of console wars there or here. Nobody said anything along the lines of ”PS4 is the ****, xbone a piece of ****. What people said is that they hate restrictions placed on them by MS and that PS4 sounds more appealing because, for now, it isn't placing those same restrictions on them.
And, as a fact, PS4 has slightly higher end hardware in it.
Just a note.
The government will be using the xbone to spy on people. Not only does MS actively help them with this, BUT even if they tried to stop the breach of privacy, they can't under current US law.
They'll also be using your computer. And I'd be willing to bet the average person is much more concerned about what they'll find out monitoring their desktop computer traffic than their Xbox One traffic.
Guess it's time to stop buying computers, huh?
Using Redditors as an indicator of anything resembling intelligence is a low blow.
Don't pretend that they're any more or less vulnerable to this than any other community. And do not pretend they're worse than this community - the Paizo video games section was calling people defending the Xbox One plants-for-Microsoft days before it happened on reddit.
That's wrong. But i don't see any facet of console wars there or here. Nobody said anything along the lines of ”PS4 is the ****, xbone a piece of ****. What people said is that they hate restrictions placed on them by MS and that PS4 sounds more appealing because, for now, it isn't placing those same restrictions on them.
Yes, I know.
What I'm saying is that reddit (and internet gaming communities at large) are demonstrably being manipulated by people deliberately spreading false information in order to make certain companies/consoles look worse than they actually are (which is an old staple of console warring). Meanwhile, they willingly choose to believe that, instead, they're being manipulated by those very companies because it reinforces their popular, reactionary opinions. And when someone tries to point that reactionary behavior out, they suddenly become further evidence of Microsoft's manipulation (which, again, never existed in the first place).
That's wrong. But i don't see any facet of console wars there or here. Nobody said anything along the lines of ”PS4 is the ****, xbone a piece of ****. What people said is that they hate restrictions placed on them by MS and that PS4 sounds more appealing because, for now, it isn't placing those same restrictions on them.Yes, I know.
What I'm saying is that reddit (and internet gaming communities at large) are demonstrably being manipulated by people deliberately spreading false information in order to make certain companies/consoles look worse than they actually are (which is an old staple of console warring). Meanwhile, they willingly choose to believe that, instead, they're being manipulated by those very companies because it reinforces their popular, reactionary opinions. And when someone tries to point that reactionary behavior out, they suddenly become further evidence of Microsoft's manipulation (which, again, never existed in the first place).
Yes we're being manipulated by all the false information. All that false information revealed by Microsoft in their reveal event. Now, how did they manage to put all that false information into Microsofts own reveal show, I will never know.
Yes we're being manipulated by all the false information. All that false information revealed by Microsoft in their reveal event. Now, how did they manage to put all that false information into Microsofts own reveal show, I will never know.That's wrong. But i don't see any facet of console wars there or here. Nobody said anything along the lines of ”PS4 is the ****, xbone a piece of ****. What people said is that they hate restrictions placed on them by MS and that PS4 sounds more appealing because, for now, it isn't placing those same restrictions on them.Yes, I know.
What I'm saying is that reddit (and internet gaming communities at large) are demonstrably being manipulated by people deliberately spreading false information in order to make certain companies/consoles look worse than they actually are (which is an old staple of console warring). Meanwhile, they willingly choose to believe that, instead, they're being manipulated by those very companies because it reinforces their popular, reactionary opinions. And when someone tries to point that reactionary behavior out, they suddenly become further evidence of Microsoft's manipulation (which, again, never existed in the first place).
You realize that what was said by Microsoft and what is being passed around internet gaming communities as truth are two very different things, right?
Please, keep denying that the internet gaming community is being messed with by people trying to make the Xbox One look worse after I just got done linking you to the moderators of one of the internet's most active gaming communities discussing with that community how they've concluded that they're being messed with by people trying to make the Xbox One look worse.
Just a note.
The government will be using the xbone to spy on people. Not only does MS actively help them with this, BUT even if they tried to stop the breach of privacy, they can't under current US law.
They'll also be using your computer. And I'd be willing to bet the average person is much more concerned about what they'll find out monitoring their desktop computer traffic than their Xbox One traffic.
Guess it's time to stop buying computers, huh?
Finally we can agree on something. Time to get Linux!
*Also PC's don't have to have a camera and mic plugged in to work. Furthermore the PC is an open platform where you can install programs to block the spying. The Xbone will not have such a feature until it is illegally hacked.
Yes we're being manipulated by all the false information. All that false information revealed by Microsoft in their reveal event. Now, how did they manage to put all that false information into Microsofts own reveal show, I will never know.That's wrong. But i don't see any facet of console wars there or here. Nobody said anything along the lines of ”PS4 is the ****, xbone a piece of ****. What people said is that they hate restrictions placed on them by MS and that PS4 sounds more appealing because, for now, it isn't placing those same restrictions on them.Yes, I know.
What I'm saying is that reddit (and internet gaming communities at large) are demonstrably being manipulated by people deliberately spreading false information in order to make certain companies/consoles look worse than they actually are (which is an old staple of console warring). Meanwhile, they willingly choose to believe that, instead, they're being manipulated by those very companies because it reinforces their popular, reactionary opinions. And when someone tries to point that reactionary behavior out, they suddenly become further evidence of Microsoft's manipulation (which, again, never existed in the first place).
You realize that what was said by Microsoft and what is being passed around internet gaming communities as truth are two very different things, right?
Please, keep denying that the internet gaming community is being messed with by people trying to make the Xbox One look worse after I just got done linking you to the moderators of one of the internet's most active gaming communities discussing with that community how they've concluded that they're being messed with by people trying to make the Xbox One look worse.
He's just pointing out that official MS statements are more than enough reason to be upset. You are pulling in mad-up grievances and rumors on the internet to somehow justify that listening to statements that come from MS during their reveal are somehow unfounded assumptions.
Finally we can agree on something. Time to get Linux!
Because the NSA's never seen that trick before.
*Also PC's don't have to have a camera and mic plugged in to work.
The Kinect can be shut off in settings. (which is only like the eighth time that's had to be repeated in this thread)
He's just pointing out that official MS statements are more than enough reason to be upset.
I don't think they are. Certainly not as upset as some people appear to be.
You are pulling in mad-up grievances and rumors on the internet to somehow justify that listening to statements that come from MS during their reveal are somehow unfounded assumptions.
No, those are the founded ones (in fact, I've spent probably half of this thread telling people what Microsoft actually said - see: your previous post - because whatever version they had stuck in their head was false).
Finally we can agree on something. Time to get Linux!Because the NSA's never seen that trick before.
*Also PC's don't have to have a camera and mic plugged in to work.The Kinect can be shut off in settings. (which is only like the eighth time that's had to be repeated in this thread)
You can't turn off the mic.
He's just pointing out that official MS statements are more than enough reason to be upset.I don't think they are. Certainly not as upset as some people appear to be.
You are pulling in mad-up grievances and rumors on the internet to somehow justify that listening to statements that come from MS during their reveal are somehow unfounded assumptions.No, those are the founded ones (in fact, I've spent probably half of this thread telling people what Microsoft actually said - see: your previous post - because whatever version they had stuck in their head was false).
Except you've been wrong this entire thread or you will say that something isn't "that bad".
See your previous post. You don't even know how the kinect works.
He's just pointing out that official MS statements are more than enough reason to be upset.I don't think they are. Certainly not as upset as some people appear to be.
You don't. I don't even know how many thousands of others don't. Boy MS must be glad that having you as a consumer will pay off losing all the rest.
You are pulling in mad-up grievances and rumors on the internet to somehow justify that listening to statements that come from MS during their reveal are somehow unfounded assumptions.No, those are the founded ones (in fact, I've spent probably half of this thread telling people what Microsoft actually said - see: your previous post - because whatever version they had stuck in their head was false).
The Kinect can be shut off in settings. (which is only like the eighth time that's had to be repeated in this thread)
I've watched the reveal show and they never say anything like that. Someone really IS getting manipulated by misinformation, alright.
Franly, Dragon Age 3, GTA 5, Saints Row4, Asssassins Creed 4, Batman Arkham Origins and Deadpool are all still coming for the 360 so I think I can ignore all next gen consoles for a couple of years.