Microsoft's Creative Director... Defends "Always On"...

[Danceofmasks]

Next thing you know, he'd be defending a $30/mo sub fee, and $100,000 cost to patch a game.
'cos if people have to subscribe to even use the console, why not raise the price, right?

 

[Gitty101]

Ah well, looks like I chose a brilliant time to jump the M$ ship. As for as his argument for 'things run on electricity, therefore power cuts, therefore I am justified', is completely idiotic. When my internet is on the fritz, at least I can still play offline - having to always be online to use something you paid for is frankly, appalling.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

NextBox sounds more and more like Orwellian nightmare. How can anyone be that dense? They've been in hardware business long enough. They should understand that this is stupid.

 

[Jhooud]

The feeling I'm having right now is like that second before you hit something with your car and you know there's nothing you can do to stop it. Usually I wake up to big shitstorms but I guess I got to this one early.

I can't wait for to see how far it's taken this time. Anyone want to place bets on how long it'll be before the dust settles? Or maybe until there's a Forbes article about it?

I was sort of hoping there'd be some context like this behind the remarks. I just can't imagine...okay, I can, but I don't want to imagine...that Microsoft would be so cavalier with their message after the Diablo 3 and SimCity launches.

Mr. Orth might want to remember that Twitter doesn't exactly count as a private back and forth in the future, that's a pretty big mistake for someone in his position.

If the Red-Ring didn't kill them, I highly doubt this will either. It'll be interesting to see how they handle this going forward, and what sort of impact (if any) this has on their launch.

 

[Tom_green_day]

I notice that in his original tweet he didn't mention online at all. He said that the console had to always be on. I find that helps alot- I tend to be looking at a blank screen otherwise.
Actually... from the tweets I've seen, he hasn't mentioned it being online at all. He says the internet is cool but doesn't defend always-online. I think some people are taking this out of hand.

 

[BrotherRool]

Hey if the next Xbox has always online, at least that'll save me a lot of trouble over figuring out what console I'm going to buy

 

[DrOswald]

I will buy that some of his more ridiculous comments were just a stupid trolling match with a friend, but do it in a private email chain, not using a public service like twitter. Part of your job as a prominent figure at a company like Microsoft is to not be a moron in public.

 

[kingpocky]

Nice job. "It's ok, he was just trolling me when he said everyone should just live in the city." Whatever, that still leaves what is a rather serious question for a lot of people answered with just a flippant joke and no actual response. Unless he's actually trying to subvert the whole concept of always-on drm, it still makes his position look just as terrible whether he was trolling or being serious.

It's like if a BP executive said in a public statement "People should really vacation in the mountains instead of on the beach anyway, it's much nicer. LOL." Joke or not, you're just digging yourself into a hole.

 

[The Floating Nose]

His opinion pretty much sums up the entire industry right now. "Why should we modify our game ?" "Because everybody/this guy is doing it". "Why should our console always be online ?" "Because everybody is doing it". Everybody jumps on the fucking bandwagon and it will only get worse.

 

[McMarbles]

What a classy, classy guy. I do hope this doesn't come back to bite him in the ass. I do so hope that.

 

[Zenn3k]

So looks like I'm buying a PS4 instead

 

[Doom972]

Even when you have a high-speed connection, the problem with always-online DRM is that the servers tend to get flooded easily, and the fact that the game you purchased can just be switched off from the other side at any given moment. You also can't have any downloads in the background because they might cause instability in your connection, which affects the data transmissions between the user's platform and the server.

That guy is talking out of his ass.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Looks like next-gen consoles suddenly became a two horse race.

Given how much closer the PS4 is to just emulating a PC...yeah. "two horses" might still be an overestimation.
Going from the most stable-console generation to this is...it has just been madness.

 

[RedDeadFred]

In one of his tweets, he simply says "deal with it."

I don't know about the rest of you but I'm going to deal with it by not buying the nextbox.

 

[Eliam_Dar]

easy, if their next gen console is always on, then I won't buy it.

 

[Murrdox]

Between this rumor, the rumor about discs not being relevant anymore, and the banning of used games, it sounds to me like Microsoft is trying as hard as it possibly can to make sure that that PS4 is a resounding success.

I don't know about you guys, but when I was a kid, eventually my Nintendo got plugged into a TV in every single room of the house. Parents are watching TV? Lugged it up to my room. Want to play down in the basement? Lug it down there. Then, back up to the family room. Then over to a friend's house.

I know wireless has come a long way, and I'm assuming the next X-Box will have it, but are you seriously going to screw people over this much?

Plus I know dozens of people who live just 20 miles away from major cities in what you'd consider "rural" areas and these people can't get a reliable internet connection to save their own lives.

Doesn't really matter to me though. I have no intention of buying the next X-Box currently. I rarely turn it on. PC Gaming all the way.

 

[Jack Nief]

So every time the servers go down, be it for maintenance, malicious attack, or updating, you're not playing -anything- on this.

It's smaller scale with Diablo 3 and SimCity, if they're doing maintenance you can just pop up a different game. When your entire SYSTEM requires an online functionality and that happens, you've basically got a $400 piece of hardware which basically transforms into an expensive brick every now and again, probably at he most inconvenient of times. Hope it wasn't saving when it went down, because that would just SUCK.

Sometimes it makes me glad I enjoy the retro shit. Sure they're not the prettiest games but at least they don't pull this crap every now and again.

 

[Nowhere Man]

I'm so sick and tired of these tech hipsters evangelizing always online like it's the greatest thing since running water. Their putrid arrogance in thinking everyone has a fast reliable inexpensive internet connection and that they'd always WANT to be main lined into some social DRM driven experience like a heroin addict takes to jamming dirty needles in his extended arm is just ridiculously short sighted and reeks of corporate technological indoctrination from higher management.

Electricity and internet is handled by providers in vastly different ways, I don't think I have to explain to you guys in what ways as you know what I'm talking about. Also this mandatory kinect eye bullshit, the possibility of not being able to play used games, a console whose focus is moving more and more away from gaming to become some watered down entertainment hub? Microsoft can take their Nextbox and the airheads making these decisions, including this Bozo, and ship themselves on a one way rocket to a distant Saturn moon for all I care. This is why I'm sitting the next console generation out.

 

[cookyt]

Taken out of context, this sound pretty bad, but in context, it looks like he's just joking with/trolling another developer friend of his. Look how he carefully word his replies so that he never actually says that games should always be online and connected to the Internet. The "always on" statement can be thought of as him saying all consoles need electricity, his analogies are purposely vague. His "why would I want to live there" remark doesn't directly insult people who live in rural areas, it just states that he doesn't want to live there. Actually, he later apologized for the indirect insult. This statement was in the article the OP linked to:

"Apologies for offending non-cities, I was trolling [a friend] personally."

If he is just joking, then the outrage over this just shows how public platforms like Twitter are ill-suited for private conversation, and how, when you're an official for an entity with a large public presence, much of what you say will be tied back to that entity whether you want it to or not.

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

I know I'm the minority on this. The vast majority of gamer's are always connected to the net, and I spent a full year living in a very tiny minority.

Not exactly. I believe there was a pretty noticeable percentage of current gen game consoles sold that were never connected to the Internet once. I want to throw a number of 25% at you but I can't be sure. But even then someone like me with a stable connection (I can't remember the last time my Internet went down) wouldn't want an always online console because I can guarantee that there will come a time where I would want to use my console and I won't have a connection