Jimquisition: Xbox One and the Death of Ownership

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PunkRex

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Please release some freaking games Nintendo... I think we could all use abit of fun.
 

Amir Kondori

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I know this will offend some people and for that I apologize in advance.

The launch of the Xbox One for me, in a small way, feels like 9/11. I feel like I am witnessing something that will change the video game world forever, that it will never be the same.

The physical media is now nothing but a handy carry case for the code, the right to execute said code is handed out or taken back by Microsoft and the publishers. Something I have not seen many people mention is that if you get banned from Xbox Live, if your profile gets suspended or banned, it seems to me like you will lose access to ALL your game.

This is the brave new digital world we live in. Hopefully ten or twenty years down the line the GOG.com's of the world will win out against the closed platform Microsofts.
 

Demolition_Human

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Great video today Jim! Love it! Now on to the subject of the Xbox (N)one, I hope this thing flops harder than a freshly-caught trout in the Sahara Desert! >_> This thing does not deserve to sell well, it represent everything wrong with the the Video Game Industry and Industry in general in a small box of misery. But hey there's TV, that sells right? Right!? :D
 

themilo504

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I get the feeling that the Xbox one will be a important moment if gaming, if it succeeds it publishers will start making games even more consumer unfriendly.

If it fails and I mean truly and utterly bomb, the industry will finally learn that they can?t get away with everything, and maybe stop or at least diminish their anti consumer behavior.

if it simply does okay, Microsoft will most likely blame its okayness (is that a word?) on pirates and game stop.
 

I.Muir

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canadamus_prime said:
I.Muir said:
Justin Smith said:
How could the Xbox One possible sell!?
Idiots
Frat boys
Kids

People so desperate for call of duty and madden they will sign whatever the hell they are asked to without thinking twice
In other words idiots, frat boys, and kids.
Very succinct
 

hentropy

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I sort of wish I could be outraged about this, but I haven't owned a console since the original Xbox. I can't really say I would buy it if it was completely free with no BS restrictions. Consoles in general are more or less obsolete and in the end the Xbone will only sell as much as people are willing to buy into it. It doesn't hail the end of gaming, not if gamers don't want it to.
 

synobal

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Seriously I imagine we can expect to see continued growth in PC game sales this year. Also with the Xbone, Ps4 and PCs all using the same hardware I imagine us PC users will be seeing better ports and fewer console exclusives. It's a good time to be a PC gamer.
 

Barciad

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See you down the 19th Jim! That was excellent. My opinion, just ignore these cretins, don't buy their stuff. Okay, easy for me to say, I'm a PC man through and through. However, just keep on with the old generation of games and platforms and refuse to buy a thing until a year or two after the thing has come out. By that time the following will have occurred:-

A reasonable games library should have built up on that particular platform
A initial prices should have dropped
They should have cottoned on to the outcry that has emerged and thus dropped some of the less reasonable features.

However, these are all assumptions and all include the key word 'should'. They all assume that Microsoft et al are a sensible firm that runs a sensible business model and does not take its customers for granted. It also assumes that your average consumer has a reasonable amount of critical thinking skills and thus is aware if and when it is being taken for a ride.
Thus, this generation will be a test of the consumers more than anything. Will their common sense outweigh their vanity or visa-versa? That, in my opinion remains to be seen.
 

alvaro barcenass

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The barring of games, way to kill what first started the game industry. to screw up so bad to cause physical harm bad design and bad thoughts remember games get better with liberty as in fallout 3 the access to change from 8 weapons that's a simple step forward, the original XBOX controller had two spare buttons to get odd jobs however the odd job was switching weapons activating combos or stuff that that YOU the player could chose!
 

Jenny Jones

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So does anyone else have concerns about the newly disclosed NSA prism information and the fact that the XBone is essentially a full surveillance system?

As for the topic in general, not too bothered, one look at fatuglyorslutty.com turned me off ever migrating from my PC games. All this other stuff just re-enforces that notion. At least steam has bouncing off the walls crazy sales at least twice a year to justify it's little DRM and need to be online to download the game then play offline for months on end.
 

GamemasterAnthony

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Kuilui said:
If only this video could be shown on screen at the E3 conference while Microsoft is up on stage trying to convince everyone that being treated like a criminal and not being allowed to own the things they buy is really super awesome we promise because ummm, TV!
Well, you never know. Perhaps some well known hacktivist group known for standing up for the First Amendment and the rights of individuals could POSSIBLY see this and figure out a way to play it while Microsoft is trying to do its schpiel. *grins interestingly in Anonymous's direction*

Seriously, though...I think the only way Microsucks will get the hint is if the One becomes one of the worst flops in the history of everything. Personally, I feel this generation of consoles is a wash. Just look at what Yahtzee said in his last video and you'll get the idea.
 

Doug

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sturryz said:
The Xbox Two will require you to wear an ankle brace that has to connect to the internet every 12 hours or the the ankle brace blows your leg off.
That's very mild. I'm pretty sure they'll require you to have a locking device around your balls every moment you sit within visible range of the XBox (Kinnect -will- see you trying to hide or remove it), which will explode on the mere thought of not giving microsoft all your cash.

Don't have balls? Sorry, you need them for our console - you'll either have to have a pair installed (at your expense), or just piss off and die.

Zachary Amaranth said:
Additionally, you will need special dispensation for Microsoft to leave the general vicinity of your Xbox. If you are vacationing, you may transfer your license to a different Xbox 2 for a fee, or use a limited number of annual "offline vouchers" if you won't be near one.

Microsoft will laud these options as generous" and 80% of the consumer market will say they "don't mind" and it's "not that bad."
Or not notice until they buy the XBox and realise all too late their mistake.
 

MB202

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It's funny, I was just at GameStop, and the cashier I was talking to (I typically like to drum up conversations with these guys) said he actually WAS excited for the Xbos One, because of Halo 5. I didn't get a chance to talk to him anymore because there was someone behind me, but I'm sorry, I don't care WHAT games you're excited for, if they're on the Xbox One, they're not worth it... Or rather they are, they're just being held ransom, as Yahtzee puts it.

Oh, and I say this one funny YouTube comment that I had to repeat here:

"Xbox One? More like Xbox LOST!"

Edit: After seeing the video, I am now no longer surprised that the GameStop cashier didn't seem that upset by what the Xbox LOST is doing.
 
Jan 22, 2011
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But Jim there is just one problem with media that you buy. You have never owned a piece of media for sale, your just getting a license grant to use it. All of this is made possible thanks to the eula agreements you agree to every-time you purchase a game/sarcasm.

Please note that really was sarcasm, I do not support laws likes this in anyway due in part that it does make it illegal for your to lend, borrow or sell software you payed for.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-user_license_agreement
 

SilverBullets000

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Thank God I'm a Nintendo fanboy...and that they're the company that isn't taking away user rights little by little with DRM schemes and always online bullshit. I respect them for that more than anything else, even if they're tech is a little weak and they won't get much third party support.

Even so, here's hoping the PS4 won't pull this kind of shit. I started out last console generation with a 360, then got a wii, then a PS3. I think I have more games for the PS3 on virtue of them having better exclusives alone, but even my wii saw more use than my 360 did. I think last time I played it was for Gears 3, and I wasn't interested enough in the series to continue to the prequel.

I'll admit even as a Nintendo fan: If Sony doesn't pull this crap on us, then they'll be the most appealing system this console cycle due to their exclusives, third party support, and graphical power...but we'll have to wait and see. I won't say that Sony is perfect until after they've told us what their console does.

Even so, I already have a Wii U and have been having a blast with it, so whatever.
 

Vausch

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What I see happening is the console is going to be hacked.

There's no question, people will hack the console to make it work properly. With that in mind, will Microsoft be like Sony and sue, or will the judges finally not side with a corporation and keep with the rights of first ownership that lets us do what we want with something we own?
 

Pink Apocalypse

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sadmac said:
Getting real sick of Jim talking about corporations needing to put the consumer first. Why does it matter if a corporation is shitty to its consumers? How does it affect you? It's not like you're doing business with them, because surely you wouldn't actually pay someone to treat you this way, right? Right?

The problem with Jim getting upset about EA or Microsoft or whoever is the same as the problem with people who get angry because other people are gay: all of this "corporate abuse" is happening between two consenting parties in the privacy of their own homes. It doesn't involve you unless you not only consent to have it involve you, but CONTINUOUSLY PAY MONEY to be involved.
You need to Google 'False Equivalency'. Because you clearly don't understand the concept, and just made one.

He's upset because it predicates on ignorance. The amount of people that don't understand how profoundly this product will re-conceptualize the fundamental structure of 'ownership' is staggering. And in their ignorance, they will end up supporting a product that will have widespread, negative repercussions in the years to come. This isn't a 'slippery slope' fallacy; it's literary re-writing the concept of ownership.

If any clunky, ill-fitted analogy were to be drawn, it would be on par with the *opposite* of your proposal. It's an attempt by a far-reaching organization to take rights away, prevent them from being codified, or denying they existed in any form to begin with.
 

Parakeettheprawn

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Xman490 said:
I, as a singular person (and NOT for One), am boycotting the Microsoft E3 conference because of their horrible DRM. If Sony doesn't plunge down that rabbit hole, I think people are justified in becoming/remaining PlayStation fanchildren.
You didn't miss anything. Seriously, the M$ fanboys tried to go "OH LOOK! A HALO TRAILER! I -NEVER- EXPECTED THAT!"

It was some of the most pathetically self-deluding bullshit I think I've ever seen. FFS there were people saying the conference sold them or that Sony needs to "up it's game"... how stupid can people be?

OT -- This goes in my treasure trove of must-link-other-people-to-it of videos.
 

geizr

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And, yet, watch this thing still sell like gangbusters because gamers are just too addicted to their hobby to have any care how they get treated. As long as we get the next shiny.

Well, that's probably being too much a Negative Nancy, but it's hard to deny that the reason game companies have been escalating to these nefarious practices is because not enough of us are voting with our dollars. In my opinion, the video game community has been far too tolerant for too long of bad business and bad games, and I think it's time we become more discerning and assertive of our preferences and demand to be treated respectfully as customers, rather than cash-producing crops to be harvested. I think any other industry that treated its customers the way the triple-A segment has (and I emphasize that the bulk of the shit in the video game industry seems fairly isolated to just the triple-A segment) would find itself either bankrupt or relegated to a very niche market in short order. But often, it feels like the plurality of the video game community has become electronic-crack junkies who'll put up with anything as long as they get their next high-fidelity graphics fix, and, given the behavior of the game companies, it would seem the game companies are counting on this to be exactly true. Oh, wouldn't it be so great to shock the absolute living hell out of them all by voting with our dollars (and our feet) to turn away from their upcoming offerings in a ubiquitous display of complete and utter disgust at the direction they are taking this industry? I think if the entire gaming community really did that, we would find these companies, almost overnight, absolutely killing themselves to back-peddle on everything they have been pushing toward in an effort to win back our dollars. If they don't, then they'll likely find themselves quickly out-of-business, with nothing to blame other than their own failure to address the concerns of and provide proper service to their market.

I know I refuse to buy the Xbox-One in it's current state, and I am certain many here on the Escapist feel similar. The question is whether the gaming community at large is willing to make the same firm stance (and really mean it this time).
 

geizr

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Cecilthedarkknight_234 said:
But Jim there is just one problem with media that you buy. You have never owned a piece of media for sale, your just getting a license grant to use it. All of this is made possible thanks to the eula agreements you agree to every-time you purchase a game/sarcasm.

Please note that really was sarcasm, I do not support laws likes this in anyway due in part that it does make it illegal for your to lend, borrow or sell software you payed for.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-user_license_agreement
Actually, you do own the medium, i.e. the CD/DVD/Bluray disc that you purchased. What has usually been argued is that you are licensing the information that is contained on that medium. You are free to do with the medium as you please; however, you are not free to do with the information as you please. This has been the argument, as I understand it. The medium and the information are considered separate entities.

Now, granted, I feel that taking the strict sense of that often goes too far in justifying some of the inconveniences that content publishers have put customers through, but that is the argument that has been made in the past.

OFF-TOPIC: whoever designed this little "The Sub" video ad on the web-page needs to get his skull cracked. The thing is in the way of one-quarter of the text box that I'm typing this post in, obscuring it so I can't see what I'm typing, and I can't get rid of it.

MINOR EDITS: to correct spelling and other errors because a stupid video ad was obscuring what I was typing.