Xbox One Automatically DVR's Unlocked Achievements

[Steven Bogos]

Xbox One Automatically DVR's Unlocked Achievements

Whenever you unlock a new achievement, the Xbox One DVR will automatically kick in and save the gameplay footage.

Achievement hunters often set their sights on ridiculously difficult tasks in the quest for that perfect gamerscore. But, whenever you unlock a particularly hard achievement, it lasts for but a moment, then is gone. Unless you've set up some kind of video capture device beforehand, you don't really have anything to show for all your hard work. However, thanks to the Xbox One's DVR, that's no longer the case, as it will automatically record and save unlocked achievements.

Because the machine is constantly recording the last five minutes of gameplay, it will actually be able to detect when you unlock a new achievement, and automatically save a video of the gameplay leading up to it. This should let gamers create a kind of scrapbook of bragging rights.

YouTuber "you had to be there" [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9CNbpFdQvw] moments in multiplayer games.

There's no denying that achievements, arguably invented by Microsoft with the Xbox 360, have forever changed how we play games. Love them or hate them, they are obviously here to stay, especially with features like this being developed specifically for them.

It's also nice to see some news about a genuinely cool new feature of the Xbox One among all the bad PR the system is getting [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/128462-Microsoft-Corporate-VP-Says-Xbox-One-Can-Reshape-Marketing].

Source: Kotaku AU [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9CNbpFdQvw#t=75]

Permalink

 

[Marohen]

"Microsoft later removed this feature when their service was completely choked out and flooded by every user showing a five second clip of every inane achievement that's given to them automatically."

 

[jollybarracuda]

Sounds pretty cool, actually. Hopefully this will encourage developers to actually put effort into most of their achievements, rather than just "Kill X Number of Y" or "Finish the story!". Even if that means only having a handful of achievements per game. Not sure if Microsoft has said if they'll be demanding 1,000 gamerscore flat for every game developed for the system. It'd sure be nice if the devs could dictate that on their own.

 

[RicoADF]

Nice, too bad the PS4 does the same thing otherwise it might be a small selling point. Ah well, nice try M$.

 

[immortalfrieza]

As long as I can delete my achievements, switch to a disposable account, or something like that so that I can re-earn achievements later if I replay a game I'm happy with whatever they do with achievements and trophies.

 

[The_Echo]

Well.

Considering how many "Achievements" are earned for piss-easy tasks (Beat the First Level, etc.) and how many are earned by accumulative progress (Killed X Amount of Enemies, Collected All X, etc.) I imagine that this will do more harm than good. Because a guy like me, who plays a lot of games and thus gets a lot of Achievements (1000+ Trophies on my PS3 alone), will have that hard drive fill up with a lot of clutter footage pretty fast.

 

[SKBPinkie]

Nice, too bad the PS4 does the same thing otherwise it might be a small selling point. Ah well, nice try M$.

I'm not a Microsoft supporter, but can people stop using "M$"? It comes off as snarky without any semblance of wit or humor. It almost invalidates your point.

But yeah, you're right - the PS4 does this as well, and only a slightly unrelated note - I feel like people aren't talking enough about the possibility of including Gaikai for backwards compatibility. That's a huge, huge plus.

 

[Sarge034]

Because the achievements worth recording only take 5 minutes to earn, right? And what about those of us who despise the Kinect? Color me unimpressed.

 

[Vault Citizen]

This is a cool feature, if I end up getting an Xbox One (though I'm still leaning towards the PS4) it looks like something I'd have fun with.

 

[RicoADF]

Nice, too bad the PS4 does the same thing otherwise it might be a small selling point. Ah well, nice try M$.

I'm not a Microsoft supporter, but can people stop using "M$"? It comes off as snarky without any semblance of wit or humor. It almost invalidates your point.

But yeah, you're right - the PS4 does this as well, and only a slightly unrelated note - I feel like people aren't talking enough about the possibility of including Gaikai for backwards compatibility. That's a huge, huge plus.

Your right it does come across rude, but as someone who had both systems pre-ordered at one point but canceled due to the utter failure that the Xbox One PR has turned out to be I'm seriously over Microsoft and their crap and have no quarms at showing my disgust of them and how they treat us the consumer. Still I'll stop using that since your correct that it just makes me look stupid.

 

[spacevagrant]

What about disk space? Sounds like this will suck it up pretty fast. Could be a problem since all games have to be installed.

 

[klarax]

This will soon take up HD space.... HD videos aren't exactly small in size :S

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

I wonder if you'll be able to disable this feature?

 

[Johnny Wishbone]

Achievements have really done nothing more than turn games into work. "Well, I beat this game 2 weeks ago, but since I want that achievement for killing 10,000 guys with headshots using a single shot pistol, I guess I'll have to grind out another 300 hours..." How many times have you found yourself in that situation? How many extra hours of grinding have you done for achievements in games that you otherwise would have moved on from? Sure, you've probably enjoyed the extra time spent playing some of those games, but I'm sure more often than not, you're just grinding away for some stupid achievement instead of having fun with a game. That, my friends, is work.

As another poster said, the flip side is the ridiculously easy achievements you get for stuff like watching the opening credits, beating the first level, etc. Hardly stuff that is achievement worthy, but games are bloated with them. Achievements are a neat idea in theory, but overall meaningless in practice.

 

[Infernal Lawyer]

Because the achievements worth recording only take 5 minutes to earn, right? And what about those of us who despise the Kinect? Color me unimpressed.

Although I think we should leave the Kinect out of this, I have to hand it to you for your first point. Still, if you were that set on getting footage for bragging rights, you could just use some third party tool or whatever.

OT: Eh. If it's true that the PS4 has this function too, then cool story. Still, shame Steam doesn't have it. Oh well, it's still a selling point in their favor.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

That's actually a really nice feature if developers use the achievements properly. But I will call it now, there will be at least one montage of the 5 minutes before a bunch of inane achievements like watching the title sequence or playing for 24 hours or some tripe in irony.

 

[kailus13]

Considering how many inane achievements there are, this is only a good thing if it can be turned off. There are at least 2 achievements from Assasins Creed 3 that would consist of footage of menus.

It could lead to some entertaining videos though. "I got this achievement, but I don't know why"

 

[Woiminkle]

Achievements have really done nothing more than turn games into work. "Well, I beat this game 2 weeks ago, but since I want that achievement for killing 10,000 guys with headshots using a single shot pistol, I guess I'll have to grind out another 300 hours..." How many times have you found yourself in that situation? How many extra hours of grinding have you done for achievements in games that you otherwise would have moved on from? Sure, you've probably enjoyed the extra time spent playing some of those games, but I'm sure more often than not, you're just grinding away for some stupid achievement instead of having fun with a game. That, my friends, is work.

As another poster said, the flip side is the ridiculously easy achievements you get for stuff like watching the opening credits, beating the first level, etc. Hardly stuff that is achievement worthy, but games are bloated with them. Achievements are a neat idea in theory, but overall meaningless in practice.

Never have I played anything for longer than it was fun to earn an achievement. I don't understand why you would put yourself through a massive grind for something so meaningless. If there were some tangible reward like extra content I'd consider it but for some worthless icon no chance.

OT As long as you can turn off this feature I don't really mind too much

 

[Weaver]

Unless achievements drastically change in nature, this will be really boring to watch.
Some guy collecting his 50th out or 50th hidden artifact in the game, randomly shooting some enemy for your 10,000th kill, "take 1,000,000 steps" style achievements" etc.

Some could be good, but most simply won't be.