Jimquisition: Xbox One and the Death of Ownership

Dragonbums

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May 9, 2013
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Sir Christopher McFarlane said:
Fappy said:
Soviet Heavy said:
Nice use of the Sarif Industries promotion when you talked about ownership and control.
I liked that too.

OT: 12 minutes until the hour of reckoning. I have a feeling Jim's next E3 episode will be 90% Microsoft.
Not if Sony takes that opportunity to horrify us. Then Microsoft's blunders can become old news. I find it strange that Sony wouldn't jump on the same bandwagon because their competition, the XBOne, is giving gaming companies what they have been dreaming about for about a decade.

Jim's dismissal of the Wii U is strange to me. It seems to be precisely what he's been wanting for consoles for a long time. Less focused on graphics that make the games expensive, the games you buy are still yours and it included a system of input that can be used to good and that he praised the restraint it was being used with by the early titles. There are few games for it because game developers are pricks who don't want to make games for it.
Honestly, outside of Nintendo centric websites it seems the entire internet is dismissive of the WiiU.
I get it, there aren't many games to go on it, but what you say is correct. Nintendo never treated us like we were potential thieves. They never implemented DRM in games like Pokemon- which is notorious for having a bazillion websites that have ROM hacks of the games before they even release here, they still have a "buy our stuff, get points, get rewards" system.
And yeah, I agree third party devs are being assholes. At this point Nintendo just got a big fuck you from them. Probably because they won't let them implement DRM and online passes on their consoles. Especially EA.
 

Jimothy Sterling

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AWAR said:
Jimothy Sterling said:
Xbox One and the Death of Ownership

Well, Microsoft went and did it. It took the step publishers have fantasized over for years, and destroyed the concept of videogame ownership.

Watch Video
It just boils down to this Jim: Are you going to buy the Xbone on release date and review its games, effectively promoting the bussiness practices you seem to despise so much or not?

If you really are, then should we call you a hypocrite, a liar or simply naive?
You could call me a game reviewer, since that's my job.

And you, uh, realize reviewing a system isn't the same as promoting it, right? It's not hypocritical to review a product, especially if I go on to criticize the very practices I'm attacking. The ONLY way this would be hypocrisy would be if, when reviewing the system, I praise the very policies I find so disturbing. I don't intend to do that at all, should I end up reviewing the Xbox One.

I realize you're very gleefully looking forward to busting out the "hypocrite" word that so many online people love using, yet so few grasp the meaning of, but you're gonna have to wait patiently like a good little boy until the system's out and I do whatever it is I do.
 

sadmac

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ShadowHamster said:
If I wanted to, I couldn't possibly find 15 articles on why that law is considered both draconic and archaic. I couldn't discuss how such laws add ridiculous costs on everything from art to education, and I couldn't possibly discuss the very real profit these companies are seeing, or the amount they put in to build things that "entertain" us. I would never bring up how much money is stuck...literally STUCK, not coming back out, just in there...in the hands of people who brutally misuse such laws with loopholes and ever growing extensions on what a copyright means.

I couldn't give you a chart showing how much more reach copyright laws have now, than say...oh...the 90s. Couldn't do any of it, and I don't want to, so there is that.
Copyright reform? Sure, where do I sign up? Doesn't make Microsoft wrong, here, though. The law is more or less instructions on how to do business in this space. As I said before, property rights are arbitrary, and we define the practice of business by defining them.
 

irishda

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I think they could've named this video: Xbox One (props on not using the stupid Xbone moniker at least) and Hyperbole.

Or Billy and the Cloneasaurus. Either way.
 

Cheeseman Muncher

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Akalabeth said:
Jimothy Sterling said:
Xbox One and the Death of Ownership

Well, Microsoft went and did it. It took the step publishers have fantasized over for years, and destroyed the concept of videogame ownership.

Watch Video
Hey Jim you ever heard of Valve?
Valve is but one choice out of many. If you want an Xbox One, there's only Microsoft's way. No alternative.

Also, Steam offline mode only needs a monthly check-up and they seem to get the fact that digital games should be cheaper than a disc based copy. Good luck hoping for MS to realise that.
 

Something Amyss

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Dec 3, 2008
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Doug said:
Or not notice until they buy the XBox and realise all too late their mistake.
Wonder how many of them will willingly slap the cuff on themselves like an episode of Get Smart.
 

iniudan

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Akalabeth said:
Jimothy Sterling said:
Xbox One and the Death of Ownership

Well, Microsoft went and did it. It took the step publishers have fantasized over for years, and destroyed the concept of videogame ownership.

Watch Video
Hey Jim you ever heard of Valve?
The different is that Valve doesn't have the monopole of the platform they are on, they actually got competition, even if they by far the top dog, so they actually have to offer a good service to keep ahead of the competition.
 

Chris Slime

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The sad irony is until they come out with a model that includes a screen it will never really do everything. The Wii U is more "one" then the Xbox One is.

Also i don't see why people keep bring up Valve and Steam in this, if nothing else at least Steam itself is completely free and not a $500 investment to get jerked around.
 

franciscois

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Microsoft delivered some good looking games, avoided the hate topics and by what I've read in many places, turned some former haters to their favor... But fuck Microsoft anyways, not gonna compromise my privacy and personal data, for a shitty system that embodies some of the worst practices in the industry... I already have Facebook and Zuckerberg spying and selling my personal info. [Fuck DRM and used games policy too]
 

Colt47

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AWAR said:
Jimothy Sterling said:
Xbox One and the Death of Ownership

Well, Microsoft went and did it. It took the step publishers have fantasized over for years, and destroyed the concept of videogame ownership.

Watch Video
It just boils down to this Jim: Are you going to buy the Xbone on release date and review its games, effectively promoting the bussiness practices you seem to despise so much or not?

If you really are, then should we call you a hypocrite, a liar or simply naive?
We are calling people who review games hypocritical for having to buy or be supplied the consoles needed to do their job now?
 

Olas

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Dec 24, 2011
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I'm starting to think they should have named it the Xbox 9000.



Sorry, I couldn't help it.

I remember when I was a kid, me and my friends were constantly going over to each other's houses and bringing our games along with us to play and show off, frequently borrowing and trading games with one another, and sometimes if a friend really liked a game of mine, he'd go out and buy his own copy so he could play it whenever he wanted. Still, the disks were ours to use, trade, sell to each other as we pleased, and in the end we probably ended up buying MORE games because of it. It'll be sad if future generations of kids never get to experience that kind of openness with the hobby due to all these restrictions telling you how you're allowed to play and share your games. As an adult this won't affect me too much, but there are kids out there right now with nothing but meager allowance money to buy with who are really getting screwed over by this.

I kinda hope for the sake of the medium that the Xbox One is a failure.
 

AWAR

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Jimothy Sterling said:
First of all, any kind of exposure from your part can be considered promotion. I don't follow you outside of the escapist, but you do seem to have quite a sizable audience that watches your reviews.
The reason I called you a hypocrite, and yes I'm aware of its meaning, is because for the past few weeks all you rave about is how bad Microsoft, EA, Sony et al are screwing us gamers. The way I see it, since you are a game reviewer after all and not a consumer advocate, is that you seem to bite the same hand that feeds you, making a show out of it and being proud of it. In my opinion the best kind of defense against these terrible business practices is ignoring them and moving on to different, less terrible things. Provided of course you want them to stop.
But maybe you are right, I should wait until it's out and you have your way with it before criticizing you. Some negative exposure might do the trick. Maybe. I really doubt it though.
 

Razorback0z

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Spot on Jim. The concept of purchase and ownership is at stake and if history is any guide, enough of the market will bend over and take it to make MS a tidy profit.
 

Baresark

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I like this game. It's the waiting game that is fun. It's like watching your annoying neighbor build something wrong. He wants to build his own two car garage, but he has never built anything before. You offer him help but he pushes away your attempts to be neighborly, for he doesn't need you and despises the idea of help from someone like you because he is smart and capable enough on his own. So, you watch and wait for it fall on his cars when they are parked in there. It's perverse fun, waiting for someone to fail. So, I'll keep watching and waiting. I'll watch them flounder about when release comes. I'll watch them scratch their heads and wonder why the garage fell on their new cars. Then I'll watch them back pedal. It'll be fantastic fun.

Or, that might not happen to them at all. Perhaps the system will sell well, it'll fly off the shelf. The latest greatest widget always does, regardless of facts about it (look at iPhones). Then I'll still get to have a bit of perverse fun. I'll get to watch the consumer flounder and flop about. I'll get to watch them scratch their heads and wonder why their new $500 system doesn't do the things they thought it did. And I'll watch them back pedal. They will be the ones who will swear up and down that they didn't buy that black box, they bought another one that promised them more than this one is giving.

Either way, I'll have some fun. If you tell people a ship will sink, one way or another, but they still get on it. It's hard to have sympathy. And in my book, both the passenger and the captain have been told.
 

timboo_drow

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Jul 21, 2009
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AWAR said:
Jimothy Sterling said:
First of all, any kind of exposure from your part can be considered promotion. I don't follow you outside of the escapist, but you do seem to have quite a sizable audience that watches your reviews.
The reason I called you a hypocrite, and yes I'm aware of its meaning, is because for the past few weeks all you rave about is how bad Microsoft, EA, Sony et al are screwing us gamers. The way I see it, since you are a game reviewer after all and not a consumer advocate, is that you seem to bite the same hand that feeds you, making a show out of it and being proud of it. In my opinion the best kind of defense against these terrible business practices is ignoring them and moving on to different, less terrible things. Provided of course you want them to stop.
But maybe you are right, I should wait until it's out and you have your way with it before criticizing you.
I suppose Martin Luther King should have stopped supporting racism so much and gone on to be a farmer instead.
 

ThinkerT

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Nov 24, 2008
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AWAR said:
First of all, any kind of exposure from your part can be considered promotion. I don't follow you outside of the escapist, but you do seem to have quite a sizable audience that watches your reviews.
The reason I called you a hypocrite, and yes I'm aware of its meaning, is because for the past few weeks all you rave about is how bad Microsoft, EA, Sony et al are screwing us gamers. The way I see it, since you are a game reviewer after all and not a consumer advocate, is that you seem to bite the same hand that feeds you, making a show out of it and being proud of it. In my opinion the best kind of defense against these terrible business practices is ignoring them and moving on to different, less terrible things. Provided of course you want them to stop.
But maybe you are right, I should wait until it's out and you have your way with it before criticizing you. Some negative exposure might do the trick. Maybe.
First, exposure doesn't equal promotion, except in a very general sense of making people aware that it exists. No legitimate reviewer in any field refuses to review something because they don't want to give it any "promotion".

Second, why can't he be both a game reviewer AND a consumer advocate? I don't see how those two are mutually exclusive. There are many journalists out there that do objective journalism and write editorials as well. There's no reason that a person can't editorialize on the failings and shortcomings of a company or industry while at the same time reviewing things about that company or industry. Where you should have the problem isn't in trying to do both, it's if that person obviously lets their personal feelings about the company's actions affect the reviews of their product and doesn't give an honest critique. If Jim does that, then you have every right to call him out.

And lastly, ignoring something doesn't make it go away, especially when that something is one of the most powerful and dominant companies in their field. In that case, silence implies consent more often than it does disagreement. And people will just go to other places for their content. Which is more effective - covering it and having an audience for your criticisms of it, or ignoring it and having people get their info somewhere else?
 

ThinkerT

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Akalabeth said:
The point is this shit is all old news. The PC gamers have been eating it and liking it for years. So why when microsoft does it are they suddenly the devil?

Microsoft CAN and WILL get away with this, because the PC Gamers have proven that they don't give a shit. They'll take the DRM and so will the console gamers.

...

You're talking minor details that don't matter. Monthly check-up instead of daily? What's the difference.

As I said above, PC Gamers have proven that gamers will take this style of DRM and still be happy.
If Steam had flopped, then Xbox One wouldn't have this shit today. So thank you, Steam supporters, for "ruining" the console experience.
The details aren't minor and they do matter. As is usually the case, the devil is in the details.

Saying that Steam is like what MS is proposing is like saying a filet mignon is like a hamburger. After all, they're both food made from cows, so everything else is a minor detail, right? But those "minor" details make all of the difference to food lovers.

The same is true here. Among those "minor" details:

- Monthly vs daily: Big detail to those with extended internet outages, taking your machine on trips where there's no internet, dial-up users, etc. Any of those can be done much more easily with monthly checks than with daily.

- Cost: There's a trade-off with digital ownership for the DRM and lack of used media in cost. Games have much bigger discounts and more rapid price reductions on PC than on consoles. For example, I can, right now, go pre-order a PC copy of Batman: Arkham Origins for $37 at GMG. Find me one place where I can do that for Xbox or PS. There's no reason to assume right now that this will change with this upcoming console generation.

- Backwards compatibility and availability: Again, a trade-off for the limitations. Steam provides MUCH more than just current games. Xbox One won't.

The bottom line is, saying that the differences in things like "DRM" are minor and don't matter is just hogwash, lazy and usually self-serving. Everything, including the details and trade-offs provided, has to be taken into consideration.