Jimquisition: The Xbox One: A Lying Failure Machine

[WildFire15]

A lot of fools seem to have been involved in developing Windows 8 and, by extension, Xbox One and it shows. So many things the One can't do but the 360 can, not to mention the 360 generally does stuff faster. I can live with Kinect being part of the package, but the fact so little was finished or left out is ridiculous.
I defiantly appreciate the fact they've taken steps to improve the thing, but doesn't make me any happier it was in that state to start with.
Not that I trust Sony much more. They mainly seem to be getting away with stuff as they're not making quite the same howlers at Microsoft.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

The thing about Microsoft has always been their desire to control user experience to an extreme. And now they finally have the technology to do it. In their mind, if you're not using something the way they intended it to be used, then you shouldn't be allowed to use it at all. That's why they're such huge advocates of cloud computing and that's why they initially designed the Xbone as the most anti-consumer device in the history of technology. It really bugs them that they had to change all of their anti-consumer policies.

But they're not evil. They are genuinely completely out of touch with reality. They actually believe that they know what is best for you better than you do. This is also why they'll never admit a mistake, and why they keep saying that Kinect is an integral part of their vision. IT IS! They're not fuckin' lying or joking. They are simply insane.

This is why I keep telling people not to buy the Xbone even if they made all the changes after the initial reveal. You just can't trust them not to screw you over again. They will revert back to the old horrible Xbone or something worse as soon as they see the opportunity. We're talking about a company that is completely enamored with the idea of cloud based EVERYTHING.

 

[Makabriel]

Sooo... What if it wasn't lies?

/dodges pitchforks.

It's entirely possible that both of those key points were locked into development as key pieces to the XBone. It could be that the Kinnect was -never- intended to be removed, and that the XBox was -never- intended to be offline. A lot of really big people staked their careers on these statements. And when the backlash hit, they made it happen. They made it so that you could have the Kinnect off, and you could be offline.

Why does it have to be lies? Why can't it be a company realizing they fucked up in thinking they knew what they thought we wanted and adapted to what we told them we really wanted.

To me this feel like the conspiracy theory nutjobs that think the government is working their way into imprisoning everyone in re-education camps. It makes no sense to a rational person. As it makes no sense that a company would nuter themselves when it's easier to re-engineer to give what the customer wants.

IMHO, of course..

 

[Pebkio]

Console? What are consoles? Microsoft designs an operating system, right? My PC didn't come with a kinect so I'm not sure what you're referencing here.

Are you talking about those drab boxes you used to plug into TVs and they played games without the accessibility of user-made content? Yeah, those went out the window when everyone realized that exclusivity and big budgets were just obvious tools used to try to keep game design for the elite. But nobody was fooled by that. Now everything is funded with kickstarter and available through the marketplaces accessed by any computer which I can connect to any TV in the house.

Wait... which universe am I in again? Dammit!

 

[RJ 17]

Not for nothin', Jim, but did we really need this episode? I'm pretty sure that for the majority of the gaming community you're preaching to the choir on this one. We all know that MS was a bunch of dirty liars when when announced the XBone...everything about their presentation and subsequent attempts at defense was based upon lies.

Now I'm not saying forgive and forget, just that the Jimquisition is normally a place to come for a new perspective - namely yours - on things. But then again, you wouldn't be the only editorial personality to do a show where you just tell everyone what they already know and want to hear parroted back to them.

 

[Nurb]

People saw this shit coming, people knew how much garbage they were shoveling, but people didn't care and bought it anyway. Same goes with the lesser amount of BS sony pulled.

Early adopters are seen as suckers by companies now, and people should learn their lesson. Anyone that bought the consoles day one deserves to be out the extra money.

 

[Knarral]

Still not buying a One 'til I see something worth buying, and right now that's limited to Sunset Overdrive and whatever the next Mass Effect game is going to be.

Considering Mass Effect:The Next One will also release on PC (and Sunset Overdrive is rumored to as well) there is really no reason to buy an Xbone. Even if SO doesn't come to PC, it's not worth buying the Xbone.

My computer isn't very good...I am shamed.

Why spend $400 on an Xbone when you can spend that $400 on PC hardware so you have a better PC? I mean, a decent "above modern console grade" PC is about $700 give or take, and from then on it's just upgrading what you already have one piece at a time whenever you feel like you have the cash to spend on it. And Steam sales means, if you wait to buy games until they're on sale, you spend WAAAAAAAAAAY less on games.

 

[Knarral]

So Jim is complaining about a situation that he and the others who are like him created? You are complaining because they backed off of creating a media device and subsequently neutered it to stop the whining of people like yourself? It had clear potential that was eliminated the moment the company started making decisions based on game reviewers and silly rant videos.

Kinect may not be ready for prime time. But it is better than it was, and it will continue to get better still. And 5 years from now, people will wonder how there was every a device that wasn't spacial aware and capable of true voice command. It was never going to be anything more than a gimmick when it comes to games, and gaming should never have been the focus of the device.

The only thing the failed to do was emphasize the strengths of the kinect as its own thing. Instead they keep trying to tie it to gaming. When many of the features that could actually make it useful are pushed off as secondary.

MS has a terrible marketing department, for all of their devices and all of their software. Not because of what they are producing, but rather because they are marketing these things as if they are following rather than innovating.

The PS4 is no more relevant than the XBOX one, and that has nothing to do with fanboys or hardware. There was no real need for current gen, and they would have been a lot better off waiting until they were able to mass produce true next gen experiences. Until developers can utilize these devices 100%, both machines are a complete waste of money.

There never will be a "true next gen experience" we are at the end of CPU and GPU performance improvements physics has beaten us.

I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of my 1440p 120fps PC gaming experience with 2 780s.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Apart from the lame bash MS vid. Guess you have nothing to say this week. Thing is MS gave their speech, people moaned, MS changed to the moaners, and the moaners moaned about the changes they moaned about. This reminds me when Sony took out the backward compatibility (among other things)and it was an issue but over the years the PS3 did well because people bought the games that BC gave for free. Even on PS4 they are making money from old games. Now for me both the PS4/XB1 both fail at the moment games wise as their is no killer title. Its lame to keep beating the XB1, same as people keep beating ME3. It sucks, get over it. Its a piece of hardware, just dont buy it. People are acting like MS killed their kids.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

One has to wonder how these companies are able to still do business. The only conclusion I can come up with is that the majority of their customers are morons, or too wrapped up in instant gratification, or both. Probably both.

 

[LoneWolf83]

A lot of fools seem to have been involved in developing Windows 8 and, by extension, Xbox One and it shows. So many things the One can't do but the 360 can, not to mention the 360 generally does stuff faster. I can live with Kinect being part of the package, but the fact so little was finished or left out is ridiculous.
I defiantly appreciate the fact they've taken steps to improve the thing, but doesn't make me any happier it was in that state to start with.
Not that I trust Sony much more. They mainly seem to be getting away with stuff as they're not making quite the same howlers at Microsoft.

I'm fairly certain the video game and console development groups of Microsoft are entirely separate from the software side. They share a name and nothing else. So no one that had their hands on the One would also be working on Windows 8.

It's not the people who actually developed Windows 8 and the Xbone, it's the executives higher up in the company. The thing is: Microsoft hasn't always been this way they learned it from Apple and Apple is only able to get away with it because they have been viewed as the underdog in the desktop market and they managed to popularize smart phones and tablets. What the suits at Microsoft don't understand is they can't be another Apple, Apples ability to control the devices they sell is a fluke.

 

[youji itami]

.

There never will be a "true next gen experience" we are at the end of CPU and GPU performance improvements physics has beaten us.

I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of my 1440p 120fps PC gaming experience with 2 780s.

The GTX 780 uses the GK110 GPU which is a chip over 2 years old (first released in 2012 on the Tesla K20) it uses 28nm manufacturing which we are still using today the successor 20nm was supposed to have appeared in 2013 then delayed to this year now it's delayed to late 2015.

 

[Insideout Ink Demon]

Not sure what to make of this episode.

On the one hand, I don't particularly disagree with anything that has been said. But on the other hand, now that the Xbox One has changed, and to something people actually want, it does kind of seem like looking for excuses to dislike it.

I think one of the biggest bug bears is that MS said the XBOne could not function without DRM/cloud, yet its functioning fine and MS have yet to own up to that lie while once again pulling the same trick with Kinect.

One has to wonder how these companies are able to still do business. The only conclusion I can come up with is that the majority of their customers are morons, or too wrapped up in instant gratification, or both. Probably both.

or unaware, if you dont keep as uptodate with the gaming press and forums, you probably miss half these bloopers. although it does shock me that informed gamers have hopped into bed with XBOne, MS are proven unreliable with their curent gen promises. sad really

Snip

Why does it have to be lies? Why can't it be a company realizing they fucked up in thinking they knew what they thought we wanted and adapted to what we told them we really wanted.

snip

I guess because so little is done by MS to address those statements of these things being integral.

 

[SnowWookie]

I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of my 1440p 120fps PC gaming experience with 2 780s.

The GTX 780 uses the GK110 GPU which is a chip over 2 years old (first released in 2012 on the Tesla K20) it uses 28nm manufacturing which we are still using today the successor 20nm was supposed to have appeared in 2013 then delayed to this year now it's delayed to late 2015.

Which is relevant how? Who cares what the underlying hardware is? The point is that while the so-called "next gen" consoles were struggling at launch to achieve 1080p PC gamers have already moved on to bigger and better things.

And here's the best bit. I just upgraded my PC. It's better, faster, cooler and quieter than it was before and I can still play every game I own. In fact, I can go play Borderlands 2 (for example) and it looks BETTER than it did before.

 

[crackfool]

This video makes me sad. I remember back around 2008-2010, when The Escapist had truly interesting content. They had some great writers and editors (Russ Pitts, Susan Arendt), and some great (and regular) weekly columns from people who actually understand the gaming industry, like Shamus Young and JP Sherman. And then there was Extra Credits, before The Escapist drove them out and selected the worst content creator possible. These days, it seems like this site is all about the Jim Sterling brand: click bait titles, "contrarian" reviews that are all about their "edgy" scores instead of insightful critique (I remember when they refused to have review scores for this exact same reason), "whine pieces" based on straw man arguments, and pandering to reddit crowd to illicit an emotional response based on out-of-context information. I miss the days when The Escapist was all about unique articles from different perspectives. Now it's about getting upvotes on reddit, and trying to emulate Kotaku.

 

[Saltyk]

The Xbox One is a failure?

Good. I wanted it to fail. With all the various kinds of shit (to simply imply it was only bull shit would not fully illustrate the quantity) they tried to shovel down our throats while claiming it was awesome and totally for "our benefit", it needed to fail. I don't want any company to think they can get away with the sort of nonsense that Microsoft tried to pull and do well. They need to see that trying to screw your customers and lying to their faces will cause them to go elsewhere.

My only fear is that some executive will merely think that we "weren't ready" for a DRM machine and try to repeat the same mistakes in the future.

 

[Knarral]

I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of my 1440p 120fps PC gaming experience with 2 780s.

The GTX 780 uses the GK110 GPU which is a chip over 2 years old (first released in 2012 on the Tesla K20) it uses 28nm manufacturing which we are still using today the successor 20nm was supposed to have appeared in 2013 then delayed to this year now it's delayed to late 2015.

Which is relevant how? Who cares what the underlying hardware is? The point is that while the so-called "next gen" consoles were struggling at launch to achieve 1080p PC gamers have already moved on to bigger and better things.

And here's the best bit. I just upgraded my PC. It's better, faster, cooler and quieter than it was before and I can still play every game I own. In fact, I can go play Borderlands 2 (for example) and it looks BETTER than it did before.

That's my point exactly. The "true next gen gaming experience" is already here. It's always been here. It's PC. It always has been, and it probably always will be.