Microsoft Exec on Always Online Consoles: "Deal With it"

[Zeckt]

i love how sony is now the gaming jesus .when they had a same douchenozzle who thought people should get a second job for a ps3.

Say what you want about sony but I had to pay roughly 800$ total to replace my RROD 360 and multiple malfunctioning controllers. The 360 has nearly costed me 1000$. Why should I have to buy a console twice due to faulty hardware? the 360 was the most expensive console for me in existence, never again!

 

[Strazdas]

It stops becoming a private opinion the moment you declare it to the world, at that point it becomes a very public statment and the dudes twitter account is labeled as an exec of microsoft, its not just his name, he proudly displays his work credentials and position on his twitter, it is as professional as that shit service allows for.

And 'poland' is not a race, it is an ethnicity or nationality, its like you are not racist for saying you hate Alabama.

And if person X (not going to say You because the mods are too jumpy to realize I am not actually directing an insult at you, and am justr using a generic you) is stupid enough to post "I hate the polish" from a twitter account labeled "Person X, chief executive of whatever-fucking-company" Then yeah, people can understandable figure that is the official position of person X and Whatever-Fucking-Company because it has his name, and position within the company displayed right there at the top.

By that logic, all my posts here are the official opinion of certain government institution. nope, does not work liek that.
racial discrimination as defined by UN:

the term "racial discrimination" shall mean any distinction, exclusion, restriction, or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin that has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life.

I do agree a lot of people (not only mods) mix up the generic you with implying towards a person. Just because a person is known to work at certain place, does not make him some sort of part of company without persona opinion. it is thinking like that that actually makes people in the industry scared to share thier opinion for they may be thought of as official position.

Your logic is flawed. The move from mechanic vacuums to electric is a matter of convenience. Switching from offline to online consoles is not. Besides everyone that uses a gaming console or PC obviously has access to electricity whereas there is still a large percentage of gamers that do not have a decent internet connection. This is coming from someone that plays on consoles but only has a crappy 3g internet connection.

How do you know? they could have an awesome internet service (unrealistic, i know) which is required to run online which woudl result in your console being awesome, but only work online. convinience is different for everyone. and lets face there are really stupid claims out there osmetimes (flat earth society for example).
Not everyone who games have acess to constant electricity. i know people who play MMOs while only having electricity for 8 hours a day. everyone in first world country (which is almost whole gaming market) should have decent internet conenction. anyone that doesnt either lives in a very rural location or simply is beign abused by their ISP, to which they shoudl show the middle finger.
3g is indeed poor by modern standards, but if it is stable (as in doesnt drop every half hour) it can be used well. my first internet that i had for 4 years was 3 times slower and it was decent enough to stay always online in mmos.

If its Adam Orthy's opinion that the NextBox should always be online then fine, but by sharing his tweet Orthy has influenced the general public into having a negative view of Microsoft. People with power/influence need to be responsible for what they say in public

only because the general public is too stupid to differentiate personal opinions and official statements.

snip

i didnt say that we shouldnt react to his opinions, just not to take his personal opinions as officai lstatements of company attitude, which the folks seems to be doing here planing to burnn microsoft at the stake (medieval references, come on i thought escapist was better than that).

I wonder how many countries Microsoft cuts from their potential consumer base if the next Xbox is always online?

...no. Strike that. I wonder how many countries Microsoft leaves for Sony and Nintendo if the next Xbox is always online...

Not many. while the US internet connection is stuck in 20th century, the rest of the world has moved on and over 30% of world population has internet connection, and most of the rest cant afford a console to begin with.

I have a samsung tablet with windows 8 on it.

shoudl have gotten android run tablet, if internet is on it will tell you updates are available, if its off then you wont see him ask about it at all (you could go and manually find this, but its not going to annoy you about it).

"what do you mean these people cant get good connections to the internet why dont they upgrade their service provider or get a better modem?"

"well sir these people cant upgrade they have the best service that is avaliable to them"

"dear god what corner of hell do they live in everywhere has internet these days"

"again sir no only big citys have good internet connections the countryside still have very limited abilitys"

All hail allowing one internet provider to monopolize the market and then provide shitty service without updates for 20 years? only in america this can be used as a logical excuse to rob the rest of the world of internet features.

One problem with his analogy. If you want to keep your house tidy, you probably need a vacuum cleaner. If you're stuck in the middle of nowhere with a flat tire and no gas, you probably need a cell phone. There is no situation ever where I will ever need a console no matter how much I want to play exclusive military dubstep zombie shooter X.

Comparing everyday necessities to an entertainment device is frivalous at best and foolish at worst.

and if you want to play games you probably need an internet connection. the anology works. if you want to play it you need it. if you dont buy it you make a choice not to, but you still need it to play that game, which you chose not to play.

All I'll say is this

If my tv can't connect to the internet, I can still watch tv.
If my kindle can't connect to the internet, I can still read books.
If my phone can't connect to the internet, I can still use it to call people.
If my mp3 player can't connect to the internet, I can still listen to music.
If the nextbox can't connect to the internet... What use is it then?

[/quote]
If your tv cant conenct to cable you cant watch tv.
if your kindle does not have power you cant read books
if your phone does not have a connection you cant call people
if your mp3 player does not ahve songs trnasfered to it you cant listen to music
and if your nextbox cant conenxcto to internet you will not be playing games.

And honestly, I won't buy any console which has always-online DRM. If Microsoft does this, then Steam is definitely the better alternative.

So instead of always online DRM console, your going to use Almost-Always-Online DRM PC platform. i understand peopel choice steam for many reasons, but lack of DRM is not one of them.

d)There has never been a vacuum cleaner that didn't require being plugged in.

yes there was, it was called a broom.

Hate to point out some inconsistencies, but...
A. A broom sweeps, a vacuum sucks, two totally different concepts (I realize vacuums have sweepers, but thats not their function as they are called vacuums for a reason.)

B. Brooms don't work well on carpet or rugs.

thats like saying that if nextbox has a different controller it will be a totally different concept. there is no inconsistencies with this part of analogy, as was pointed out earlier.

 

[CoL0sS]

"Well you can take that vacuum cleaner and shove it up your *expletive deleted*"
On a less reatrded note, what a polite, healthy way to encourage a reasonable discussion and deliver your point of view. At least Mircosoft apologised and fired the douche.

 

[Techno Squidgy]

Now let's imagine it's a 720. We're playing Halo 5 or whatever number they're up to now. You're just about to line up a perfect headshot from the other side of the map. The internet goes out. Suddenly, we're back at the home screen! There's an error message saying we were disconnected from the internet! But wait a minute, we weren't even using the internet, all the processing was being done on the xbox and sent straight to the TV! What the hell Microsoft?! Now I've gone home again, and your internet is back online.

if the bolded part is false, your whole argument is false. currently it is not possible to know if it is false unless you work for microsoft. do you?

You know, I don't actually. However, you have just made me consider an interesting option that I forgot about while writing my argument/rant. Cloud based gaming. However, I doubt this is going to be the case. It might well be, but I don't think it is, and I don't think it would be a good idea either. Introducing latency to a single player game would not be good, one of the best things about single player gaming is no latency.

So yeah, bar the somewhat unlikely possibility of a cloud gaming system, I think my argument is perfectly valid.

 

[Strazdas]

Well, considering a number of signs point to "He got his ass fired" it seems Microsoft might disagree with you.

And that is a horrible example.

A. You dont post your work place as part of your profile, just "National accounting/Student"
B. You are not upper management of whatever place you work, there are worlds of difference between what an Exec says and what a drone says.
C. I am sure that if you were plastering your employers name all over your profile and were doing something like insulting your customers ect and it was reported to your superiors they would have some words with you about it.

Just because YOU dont like the fact that companies are judged based on what their leaders say doesnt make it any less true or valid.



And I didn't even say this. Stop spamming my inbox!

Like i said, it is because of overreaction like this msot excecs are denied the ability to have an opinion of their own.
A. That is because i dont want backlash from people who cant understand what a personal opinion is, like you.
B. You know this how?
C. it is very likely, but not right.

Yes, like i said, there is no cure for stupid.


you are indeed correct about that, in this avalanche of quotes i linked the wrong one.

 

[Strazdas]

Like i said, it is because of overreaction like this msot excecs are denied the ability to have an opinion of their own.
A. That is because i dont want backlash from people who cant understand what a personal opinion is, like you.
B. You know this how?
C. it is very likely, but not right.

Yes, like i said, there is no cure for stupid.

Well they can have opinions, they just cant go around being dumb shits. God forbid someone in a leadership position show some decorum or post anonymously.

A. I understand what a personal opinion is, I also am smart enough to know the concept of company image, which is why I dont post where I work either, because my being a jackass would reflect badly on my company.
B. I am just good like that.
C. If you are making your company look bad you should expect your company to slap you upside the head (metaphorically speaking as the mods dont recognize the difference between physical and metaphorical sayings around here) there is nothing wrong with that.

A. Fair enough
B.

C. No i shouldn't if people were smart enough not to take someones personal opinion as a company statement.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

d)There has never been a vacuum cleaner that didn't require being plugged in.

yes there was, it was called a broom.

Hate to point out some inconsistencies, but...
A. A broom sweeps, a vacuum sucks, two totally different concepts (I realize vacuums have sweepers, but thats not their function as they are called vacuums for a reason.)

B. Brooms don't work well on carpet or rugs.

thats like saying that if nextbox has a different controller it will be a totally different concept. there is no inconsistencies with this part of analogy, as was pointed out earlier.

Yes, there are, but you missed the point I guess in your tirade, so let me explain. A broom is not a vacuum without a plug. A battery operated vacuum is a vacuum without a plug. Vacuums did not replace brooms, we still use them for different situations.
In other words, use an analogy that fits like the battery operated vacuum, not attempting to say a vacuum and broom are the same thing separated by electric outlets.

 

[geizr]

...
"Sorry, I don't get the drama around having an "always on" console," he tweeted [https://twitter.com/adam_orth] earlier today. "Every device now is "always on". That's the world we live in. #dealwithit"
...

Well then, Adam, you just won't get my money. Deal with it. And no, not every device is always-online. Many (venturing toward most, if not all) devices work quite fine and perform a number of useful functions, still, even when OFFLINE. Only the gaming industry has developed this perverse notion that stuff should cease ALL functioning just because it can't get an OK from some arbitrary server somewhere.

 

[The Artificially Prolonged]

All I'll say is this

If my tv can't connect to the internet, I can still watch tv.
If my kindle can't connect to the internet, I can still read books.
If my phone can't connect to the internet, I can still use it to call people.
If my mp3 player can't connect to the internet, I can still listen to music.
If the nextbox can't connect to the internet... What use is it then?

If your tv cant conenct to cable you cant watch tv.
if your kindle does not have power you cant read books
if your phone does not have a connection you cant call people
if your mp3 player does not ahve songs trnasfered to it you cant listen to music
and if your nextbox cant conenxcto to internet you will not be playing games.

I feel may have slightly missed the point I was trying to make. Yes a phone won't work without a phone line, likewise with a tv and cable and kindle without battery power. However those pieces of technology need that cable/power/signal to actually function at all. The same is not true for consoles (or any device I listed) and an internet connection. As unlike electricity an internet connection is not essential at a fundamental level for the device to work, while the electricity is. Consoles have worked fine for the last 20 years without a required internet connection (like the examples I had listed) and I see no reason why we should be expected to allow this to change; assuming the rumours turn out to be true of course.

EDIT

Slightly off topic;
I'm quite enjoying reading the broom/vacuum debate

 

[SacremPyrobolum]

I had my 360 for four years an never felt the need to use Xbox live and when I finally tried to to use the marketplace to buy DLC for the Elder Scrolls IV I had a mother of a time. Unless all of the new X-boxes games are going to be multiplayer only I see no reason for an always online console.

 

[Jesse Billingsley]

"If you don't have good internet, don't buy the new Xbox."

Alright, say goodbye to half of your customers you twit. What an asshole.

 

[superline51]

I guess where he lives they have constant never-ending God-like internet connections, and for when the power goes out, their back up generators have back up generators.

 

[gphjr14]

Probably wouldn't be that huge of an issue if Microsoft offered free internet service, but for them to charge for online play, with ads more than likely, while simultaneously requiring you to be online to do anything even single player. Is a real dick move on their part.

If Sony charges for online I wouldn't mind paying but if its required for anything I'd definitely buy a gaming PC before I'd buy a console.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

Go ahead then. Make your always on DRM consoles. And when it flops, losing microsoft bajillions, we'll say "deal with it"
The only way I can see an always on console doing really well financially, is if there was no choice in the matter, if it was "buy always on, or no games for you". But that's not the case. We now know that the PS4 will NOT require always on. So now, releasing an always on consoles, when they're a similarly powerful console with an all but identical library that doesn't require DRM, well... go ahead microsoft. I'll do the happy dance on your console's grave >

While I'd love for this to be true, the thing is that MS will obviously carefully tailor the console's games library and the console's overall capabilities to feel like must-haves for the discriminating gamer.

So - between having Destiny or whatever else might be part of the Killer App lineup, and not suffering always-online DRM?

Sadly, a lot of people are going to pick Option A; the same way several put up with Diablo III and SimCity's DRM woes. They'll sadly be willing to look past the console's faults because HNNNG, DESTINY IS GAMING CRACK, OHGOD.

 

[Mahoshonen]

Microsoft has issued an official statement concerning employee Adam Orth's public sentiment that always-on DRM haters need to just "Deal with it." The company apologized for his comments, but refused to acknowledge rumors surrounding an upcoming Xbox with online requirements.

"We apologize for the inappropriate comments made by an employee on Twitter yesterday," said the Xbox platform holder. "This person is not a spokesperson for Microsoft, and his personal views do not reflect the customer centric approach we take to our products or how we would communicate directly with our loyal consumers.

"We are very sorry if this offended anyone, however we have not made any announcements about our product roadmap, and have no further comment on this matter."

Notice how Microsoft separates itself from the offending statement, and then apologizes for it anyway.
So, they are in essence, apologizing for something they just said isn't their fault.

If this is standard PR, it's logically daft.

It actually is appropriate. In making the tweet, Adam Orth held himself out as speaking for Microsoft. So it is necessry to apologise for the comment to molify whoever is ofended and disassociate the company from the comment so there's no risk of the statement holding weight in a legal setting (however remote that possiblity is).

 

[Carlston]

"Meanwhile... at Microsoft's PR department."


Wow, what a douchenozzle. If I wasn't already dead set against getting the next Xbox this would definitely clinch it. It does make me wonder though... if this guy is so defensive about this subject, the rumors of the new console always being online may actually be true.

Any bets on how long before he gets his ass fired?

Or get's hired on with EA. That's how they like to communicate with their customers....nice and jackassy.

 

[Atmos Duality]

It actually is appropriate. In making the tweet, Adam Orth held himself out as speaking for Microsoft.

Implicitly or explicitly?
Did he actually state he is speaking on behalf of the company, or is that just the audience's interpretation?

Edit: Though I suppose it doesn't matter. With PR, it is the audience's perception of your company, and not the reality of the situation, that matters most.
I am under no such illusions that this man's opinion would receive a consistent response from the company.

That is to say:
i) If his comments offended, company disavows for damage control.
ii) If his comments are praised, company includes itself more.

This seems perfectly obvious, but it also shows just how worthless such comments are. Which is why my first response way back in Gaming Discussion was:

This fool isn't worth further thought or comment.