Microsoft Addresses Xbox One Concerns

[Ken Sapp]

Now that my concerns have been addressed I can assure Major Nelson and Microsoft that I have no intention of buying an XBox One at release or anytime within it's lifespan. There may be some combination of XBox One exclusive titles at some point in the future which causes me to reevaluate my position but I can't imagine any at this time.

I will continue enjoying my unlimited offline single-player games on PC, Xbox 360, and PS3/2/1. The forced connectivity future can kiss my melanin-challenged posterior.

 

[Ken Sapp]

I don't want to jump on the angry bandwagon...

Can anyone tell me why the machine would need to call home once every twenty-four hours? For the life of me, I can't figure out why that is a requirement.

Well.. if you ask the folks at MS trying to sell you the Xbone, they'll tell you it's so that they can make sure the game is fully updated and you have the absolute best experience that the developers can provide as immediately as possible. If you ask the folks at MS trying to sell developers on making games for the Xbone, it's so that they can guarantee the user has purchased their game and so they don't have to worry about bugs since they can fix them iteratively through once/day updates. However, if you ask the high mucky-mucks at MS who are trying to make a bigger bottom line so that they get their bonuses -- it's so that they can get into that sweet sweet advertising revenue.

Which reminds me. Looks like it's time to cancel my Xbox Live Family subscription.. PS3 has crackle and Netflix now anyway, and PSPlus actually gives me free AAA games to play with my subscription.

I won't be getting this machine. My hope is that Sony will not make a similar choice, otherwise, when I have the money (and provided some interesting new releases come out for it), I'll pick up a Wii-U.

It isn't all that bad. I started out playing games on a computer, continue to play games on a computer, so it wouldn't be too much trouble to cut out the console part of the equation. There aren't that many exclusives that would cause me regret. Besides, I still have functioning current gen machines and a backlog of games to play. If Sony continues to support the PS3 the way it did the PS2, I'll be good for a long, long while.

For the record, no Xbox One for me.

Sony, I'm still waiting to hear what you have to say.

I am curious what will happen if/when Anonymous decides to take Microsoft down a peg or two and knocks out its on-line servers like it did with Sony. Can you imagine what a three month denial of service would do to the Xbox (and its sales) if it happened during the first week of the release for the machines?

If they can do a three month denial of service in a single week, I'll be extremely impressed.. and wonder who they're buying their time dilation technology from.

Unless I am mistaken, the 3-month PSN outage was due to hackers (LulSec IIRC) gaining access to Sony's PSN customer database and the resulting scramble to plug the hole and keep it from happening again.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

This is the funniest part, honestly. There's no way to fix these issues, they can only clarify further the bullshit that has received such a negative response, because these are solid features that aren't going to be changed. All that happens when a question is answered is they confirm that the feature is, in fact, pretty hopeless. It's just...hilarious to me.

 

[AkaDad]

If consoles have the same DRM as a PC, then there's no point in having a console. I'll save myself the cost of the console and I won't have to pay a subscription fee to play multiplayer. I'll also have access to community-created mods.

I'll also be able to ask someone with an Xbox 1, "hey, did you buy your XBOX OFF the internet?"

 

[Ashoten]

I have to wonder if a majority of people are freaking out over something that won't really affect them. I'd bet that a majority of people crying about "always online" (once/24hrs) on the XBox One play games while connected to the internet daily. I don't really see the "always on" bit affecting most people that are freaking out about it except for in fringe cases where something goes out. People freak out if they don't have internet in general, let alone on a console. Sure, it'll happen, but they've made it clear that if you don't have internet, you're not their target market, and you probably shouldn't be buying an Xbox One anyway if you can't even get internet.

Well only half the issue here is with the technology not being able to deliver what MS plans. The other half is that they want to run their console like a phone or cable service. Locked into a contract for an amount of time that you cannot leave or you will lose your investment.

If they want to do that then MS really should sell the XBone like smart phones are sold. Sell the console at 90 dollars or just free when the consumer buys a service with MS. Under those conditions then you would be renting the Xbone from MS just like a cable company lets you use their cable boxes and will charge you if you lose it. This would actually be understandable since MS wants the XBone to be a fancy cable box. They should just not expect consumers to tolerate this behavior when we purchase the hardware fair and square.

 

[Matt Dellar]

Ah, thanks for clearing that up, Microsoft. I can breathe easier knowing that I can stick to PC gaming with no regrets.

Funny thing here: as I clicked to go to the last page on this thread, my Internet actually died and I had to wait a few hours to post.

 

[seditary]

I read the 'licensing' part and just burst out laughing.

No wonder Gamestop had no problem with what Microsoft wanted to do. They actually benefit from this because the system destroys their competition, both other stores and individual people.

Think about it, a store has to be approved for second hand sales which ends smaller retailers and you can only give a copy to someone who has been on your friends list for 30 days and even then only once, which ends the ability to sell your own stuff on ebay or the like. With the Xbone, if you want to sell your game, you will only be able to do it quickly and easily to Gamestop (or equivalent).

Its doesn't even sound legal to me lol, like some dastardly conspiracy you see in movies.

 

[Azure Knight-Zeo]

My 360 loses it's connection to my wireless adapter almost every other week, this dooesn't fill me with confidence with this new one. What happened to the days when you could just put in a game and play it (oh hello there WiiU), why do we need all this extra crap?

 

[Anti-Robot Man]

How is this better than my super nintendo? Oh right prettier grass.

My SNES

1. allows me to lend my game to an unlimited number of family members or friends as many times as I want. And i don't have to register a "friends list" to do it.
2. allows me to sell my game to strangers without asking anyone's permission
3. does not require connecting to anything other than my television in order to play
4. does not require me to request that it doesn't spy on me (a request that can be reset anytime by the spymaster under the guise of "updating privacy options")

And the best part, when the XBOX TOO comes out in 4 years you can bet the servers will be shut down to "encourage" migration.

Enjoy your $500 doorstops fanbois.

5. Virtually no loading times.
6. Excellent first party support.
7. Can be dropped/thrown and still keep working.
8. Works with any tv.
9. Games will continue to work until destroyed.
10. No UI getting in the way of gaming.
11. No pre-order bonuses/retailler exclusive nonsense.
12. No entering codes before the game will work.

So glad I still have my SNES (wish I'd never sold my Mega Drive II, but at least most of those games have been ported to every platform under the sun).

 

[themilo504]

Do you hear that? That?s the sound of Nintendo and sony laughing.

Like I said on the jimquision episode about the xbox one reveal: how nice of Microsoft to eliminate themselves from the console war before it even started.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

No thanks Microsoft. I don't want a Kinect, never have done. If you let me buy and play the console without the Kinect then I'd be a little more forthcoming.

The 24 hour 'check in' thing doesn't bother me personally all that much but it's still annoying that it's there. It's pure DRM, because there are no real benefits to it.

And that used and shared game thing is gonna become annoying as hell I can tell. Do us a favour Microsoft and get your dicks out of our arses.

Useless crap and restrictions on my legal property. No thank you.

I say, good sir/madam, aren't you the person who said s/he has friends without an internet connection who have already pre-ordered this steaming bag of horseshit? Tell me, have you told them that they're spending $600 on a glorified DVD player yet?

Not quite, they have a dodgy and slow connection at best. They probably would for the most part get away with having to log in every 24 hours. Even the lowest grade internet in London works that often.

But still, the fact that they pre ordered this thing baffles me. Pre ordering is foolish at best, but something this expensive and long term and from a company like Microsoft is downright fucking stupid, even for them.

Captcha: bacon & eggs

No thanks captcha, I had some already this morning.

 

[GAunderrated]

So If I lose internet, my Xbox bricks itself? I think I'll just stay with my 360

If only that was the real problem. The true problem is trusting microsoft servers to actually be up when we want them too. I've seen many instances where the servers prevented people from playing games when they want too due to not keeping up with the constant demand or maintenance.

Since they are going full cloud gaming, this also means that like steam, if people get your account details and hack your account they get all of your games with no fuss and you get the "pleasure" of trying to get all your games back. Now steam has a pretty good safeguard system in place but I think it will be years before microsoft can even set up a decent protection system.

Just a quick google search and you can see how many times over the past 8 years people have had their accounts hacked or stolen on xbox live. Not to mention a possible situation that was similar to Sony's massive psn breakdown goes to show that companies are not ready to be trusted.

 

[Roxas1359]

Wow. Originally I wasn't going into next gen yet because I have several thousand hours worth of this gen left to play. Now it's like they're trying to keep me away. Heck, at this rate I'm more likely to go buy a used PS3 to see what all that Uncharted business was all about.

Uncharted, Little Big Planet, Journey and now The Last of Us as well.

If you can find one cheap, it's absolutely worth it.

I'm thinking of waiting until we at least get a picture of the PS4. Some point soon current gen consoles are gonna plummet in price. Heck, I'll probably even be able to afford a new PS3 slim! Also, can't forget Ratchet & Clank. I loved those on PS2.

Especially since every game, except Size Matters and Secret Agent Clank, are now on the PS3 so it's all good.

OT: While I was never going to get this, this makes my case even more so. I have some friends that got hyped up about the "leaked pictures of E3" and they were getting ready to preorder them. Luckily this news story came out just in time for me to stop them from wasting their money.
Then I showed them Yahtzee's gaming chart when it comes to video games and now they seem to not be quickly running out to let MS stomp on their faces. I feel like I have done a good thing. ^.^

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Wow, I guess I'm going to be skipping this next generation. What nerve to say that every Xbox owner has a broadband connection. For the first three years of owning my 360 I lived in a shitty duplex with three roommates and I didn't have internet on my 360. So what they're telling me is that buying the system and the games aren't enough? I wouldn't have been able to play those games at all? So does the Xbox One just refuse to turn on if it hasn't synced with the hivemind? Or what?
I'm predicting another game crash coming, and the xbox one is going to go the way of the VirtualBoy

 

[evenest]

If they can do a three month denial of service in a single week, I'll be extremely impressed.. and wonder who they're buying their time dilation technology from.

Thank you for that excellent chuckle. I should have read my post a little better than I did. I meant to say that if they caused a three month denial of service starting in the first week.

Admittedly, the time dilation technology would be a nice thing to have come November.

 

[Keiichi Morisato]

'Major Nelson writes, and because of this, "developers can create massive, persistent worlds that evolve even when you're not playing." ' Because PC MMORPG's haven't already done that. *Cough* Eve Online *Cough*

Nintendo's N64DD was supposed to be all about that, hell OoT was originally designed with a persistent and growing world in mind. and they almost did it with the original zelda game.

 

[spartandude]

im going to have to say im no longer planning on boycott, instead ive moved it to the if it were better than its competitors id get it.... but oh wait

 

[Roxas1359]

Do you hear that? That?s the sound of Nintendo and sony laughing.

Like I said on the jimquision episode about the xbox one reveal: how nice of Microsoft to eliminate themselves from the console war before it even started.

Nah, I think this is what Sony and Nintendo are currently doing after the release of this news:
Man Sony and Nintendo don't even have to spend a dime, MS is doing all their advertising for them.