Next Xbox Practically Confirmed "Always-Online"

[johntheescapist]

Mark my words, there is no always online. Microsoft is doing this so that you all will accept a shitty 360 upgrade with built in kinect.

 

[Signa]

I'll just wait for the actual reveal that's happening next month

I'll just have to keep telling myself even Microsoft wouldn't be THAT stupid. If it is, simply put: I won't buy it.

You've obviously never dealt with Microsoft before, yes they can be that stupid. One just has to look at Windows 8.

What's so bad about Win8? Other then the "I'm old and It's different" rhetoric?

Having just gotten to use it, I can answer that.

As a system that operates your PC, it's perfectly fine.

As an example of UI design, it gets a big fat zero. The it's designed to make operating your PC like an appliance. That's OK for a lot of people, but the deeper you hide the power-user tools, the dumber the system becomes. Win8 does just that with no option to return to a power-user UI.

To make things worse, it doesn't even follow it's own rules to bury the more complex things away from the ignorant public. You can get into the disk manager with 2 clicks (Right-click the start corner, left click "disk management"), and another 3 clicks later, you could delete your hard drive (Select partition, delete, confirm). All the windows up to this point required a lot of digging just to get to some tools that destructive, with each step bringing the feeling of being more and more lost in the dangerous part of their system. On my Win7 machine, I have to click Start > Control panel > Administrative tools > Computer management > Disk manager to get there. Along the way, you're going to see some scary applet titles like Event Viewer, Services, Component Services and Local Security Policy. If you don't know what you're doing, you know you'd better not click on anything. None of that is going to be implied to you if you're just clicking things on a context menu on your desktop.

OT: Yes, I agree with this post-chain. I think MS just might be that dumb. Adam Orth is a strong indication of that. No one that stupid should have had that much power over a company that big.

 

[Altorin]

I just got a new HD TV so It's like the last generation just levelled up. I probably won't get another console for years.. I'll just be buying 360 games until they're all out of stock

 

[Colt47]

I'll just wait for the actual reveal that's happening next month

I'll just have to keep telling myself even Microsoft wouldn't be THAT stupid. If it is, simply put: I won't buy it.

You've obviously never dealt with Microsoft before, yes they can be that stupid. One just has to look at Windows 8.

What's so bad about Win8? Other then the "I'm old and It's different" rhetoric?

Having just gotten to use it, I can answer that.

As a system that operates your PC, it's perfectly fine.

As an example of UI design, it gets a big fat zero. The it's designed to make operating your PC like an appliance. That's OK for a lot of people, but the deeper you hide the power-user tools, the dumber the system becomes. Win8 does just that with no option to return to a power-user UI.

To make things worse, it doesn't even follow it's own rules to bury the more complex things away from the ignorant public. You can get into the disk manager with 2 clicks (Right-click the start corner, left click "disk management"), and another 3 clicks later, you could delete your hard drive (Select partition, delete, confirm). All the windows up to this point required a lot of digging just to get to some tools that destructive, with each step bringing the feeling of being more and more lost in the dangerous part of their system. On my Win7 machine, I have to click Start > Control panel > Administrative tools > Computer management > Disk manager to get there. Along the way, you're going to see some scary applet titles like Event Viewer, Services, Component Services and Local Security Policy. If you don't know what you're doing, you know you'd better not click on anything. None of that is going to be implied to you if you're just clicking things on a context menu on your desktop.

OT: Yes, I agree with this post-chain. I think MS just might be that dumb. Adam Orth is a strong indication of that. No one that stupid should have had that much power over a company that big.

Eh, it's not really scary as much as a situation of "do I ever see myself needing to mess with this?" kind of deal. I use event viewer all the time to see if any Operating system errors have happened and need to be fixed. Local Security Settings I've never really opened or took a look at. The defaults are probably fine anyway so not much point to worry about it. Now Services and Component Services are two menus I don't think I've ever looked at. Might be interesting.

Honestly, the only reason to be nervous about these kinds of things is if someone isn't backing up their data and operating system on a regular basis. I do back ups of my computer every weekend and if something were to break, I'd just go and boot up my recovery disk and get to work.

 

[Signa]

snip

See, I'm not talking about that. I'm not talking about you or me because we know our shit. I'm talking about your mom, grandpa, sister, and anyone else that barely uses their PC for more than email and Facebook. That's who Win8 was designed for. I used to not know PC stuff either (back in the win3.1/95 days) and seeing the titles of what I wrote above would have been enough to inform me to not touch a thing unless I know exactly what it does. That's all part of properly designing a UI: grouping equally important and complex functions together.

Win8 doesn't do it all wrong. I strongly prefer its design of shutting down the PC over Win7. It hides it away from your most common functions (not being 2 inches away from where you click Start), and if you do click it, it still brings up a pop-up to ask if you want to sleep, shutdown, or restart. Win7 doesn't ask you if you meant to shut down when you click it. Win7 also does that stupid options arrow thing attached to the button that has a hitbox a quarter the size of the rest of the button, and grants 5 times the functions of its larger counterpart.

 

[Colt47]

snip

snip

Yeah, it is problematic from that standpoint. Windows has never really been as "strait forward" as IOS or the newer mobile touch screen scene and it gives plenty of ways for someone to hang themselves if they aren't experienced. Though I also tend to believe that mistakes are a natural part of life and not something to be overly critical of. It's not the end of the world if someone messes up a setting in an operating system: it just means they will have to either reverse what they did to the settings, re-install the operating system, or hand the system over to someone who is used to solving problems like the one they are having and fix the situation.

Also, accidentally hitting the shut down button in windows somehow doesn't qualify in my mind as a catastrophic event worth nit picking about. =)

 

[Soundwave]

I'm disinclined to buy any new console systems as my household has gone through 8 systems (3 360s, 3 ps3s, and 2 wiis) for the current generation. As compared to two refurbished dells and my (current) gaming laptop for the last decade.

 

[w9496]

I'm waiting for them to confirm or deny it themselves. A rumor is not a good judge of what something will be until actual information is available.

Still going to wait a while to see how the next Xbox performs, it's launch titles, if the rumor happens to be true, and to see how much LIVE costs.

 

[Something Amyss]

They're stupid because a blogger who has been consistently wrong has made a new version of his dubious predictions?

Sorry. I was not aware of that blogger's reputation. Well if it is still just a rumour then I stand corrected.
However I still say that there is nothing I'd put past a company on the grounds that "there's no way they'd be that stupid." Yes they would.[/quote]

I agree on the latter point.

They could definitely be this stupid. I won't be completely surprised if the 360's successor had online DRM or something else completely inane. And if, that is specifically IF it does, I'm gonna skip consoles entirely this time around. If I'm going to need DRM one way or another, Steam has been a better service than any of Microsoft's hackneyed setups.

However, yeah. This is the same guy who was the primary source (possibly the only one) for the rumours that there would be multiple SKUs (which he is now shooting down himself), console-wide always online (which he's now shooting down himself), and so on.

In fact, the presence of this article alone should undercut his validity as a prognosticator.

I think I'm going to choose..........option number two!!!

When you think about it, it's the only logical choice.

Also, a Big Bang Theory gif? On this board?

You're braver than I.

 

[captainordo]

I don't really see the problem with a console being always online. I know that I am online 99% of the time when playing xbox now. If Microsoft does require you to be online, they will most likely also improve the online functionality of the console because they don't have to account for people playing offline as well. The original xbox required high-speed internet in order to play online, something that was fairly rare in 2001, but now it is the norm. Microsoft may again help push expansion of the internet infrastructure in the United States, which I see as a good thing.

 

[cookyy2k]

I'm not afraid to admit it but I've been an Xbox fan all along. I saved up for ages and went after school to buy the original on release, then I reserved the 360 as early as possible and got it on release (then a further 2 since they kept breaking). I also reserved and bought every halo game on release (the top "limited" edition they were selling).

I was certain to get the 720 on release, I'd decided this as soon as talk of a new generation appeared. Well if it's always on they wont be seeing anything of my money. It's quite a sad thing really I'll have to miss future Halos, infact that thought makes me feel really rather shit but I'm not budging on this. If always on I wont get.

 

[Yuuki]

So PS4 has zero backwards compatibility and XBox 720 is always-online...and neither Sony nor MS has come out of their caves to squash those rumors.

We're off to a flying start aren't we? Good thing I have a decent PC to fall back on, but I am at the same time feeling a bit sad for the people who WERE looking forward to next gen consoles.

The best part about PC is that when an always-online singleplayer game comes out, pirates/crackers ALWAYS figure out how disable the online component for singleplayer (bless their souls).

 

[Azaraxzealot]

Harness it and direct it towards building a gaming PC.

I too was like you once; innocent and mislead by the Console Order. It was only when, against their wishes, I ventured beyond the ivory walls to dabble in things they considered forbidden. Mods, third-party servers, and even the emulation of dead consoles; they make outcasts of those who practice these liberating arts. I drank from the blasphemous pools and found myself unable to return to the order. For I had gained knowledge, knowledge that those fools would rather ignore than acknowledge their own inadequacies.

Accept what you know deep down to be true. The time of the Console Order is ending, and from its ashes shall arise the new PC Empire!!

I became a PC gamer because of my nostalgia for Starcraft was all. It started small, getting a cheap, $30 graphics card just to run Starcraft 2 on lowest settings, then it got worse when I got myself a much more powerful one, then realized "wait a minute... i can play MORE games now", then it all snowballed from there till I had my own gaming PC.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

They're stupid because a blogger who has been consistently wrong has made a new version of his dubious predictions?

I agree on the latter point.

They could definitely be this stupid. I won't be completely surprised if the 360's successor had online DRM or something else completely inane. And if, that is specifically IF it does, I'm gonna skip consoles entirely this time around. If I'm going to need DRM one way or another, Steam has been a better service than any of Microsoft's hackneyed setups.

However, yeah. This is the same guy who was the primary source (possibly the only one) for the rumours that there would be multiple SKUs (which he is now shooting down himself), console-wide always online (which he's now shooting down himself), and so on.

In fact, the presence of this article alone should undercut his validity as a prognosticator.

At this point you'd have to be pretty naive to think that there's anything that a company isn't stupid enough to try.

 

[Azaraxzealot]

I'm just going to buy whatever most of my friends get so we can play together. Being the one guy in my group who got the "incorrect" console would be really lame.

Don't be surprised if they all end up going PC, it seems to be the clear paradigm shift right now.

I actually have a theory on that... pretty much all the generation on this forum and generally on the internet is all growing up together, which would explain the shifts. The problem is that the games industry isn't growing with us, which is why the further forward you look, the more people are going "Most games suck" and the further back you look more people are going "Games are just awesome!" The games industry is targeting the demographic we just grew out of, which is why we all think it sucks when in fact, it just hasn't changed much at all.

This is probably why we still see companies making shitty decisions like this "always-online" bullshit, because they're still appealing to the same generation that we're no longer a part of.

 

[White_Lama]

They got Halo, I don't care about Always Online, I am always online anyways.

 

[Lord_Gremlin]

"Microsoft aren't idiots, they won't release a Windows without proper interface that their customers are comfortable with!"
Windows 8. Disaster. Sold worse than Vista.
"Microsoft aren't idiots, they won't release an always online console running Windows 8!"
Yes they will. I despise them as a company and want them out of gaming industry. I've never bought any xbox products.

Just accept it. They are that dumb. And they will market it as a living room device for housewives and retarded children. It will be all movies and streaming.

 

[knight steel]

Also, a Big Bang Theory gif? On this board?

You're braver than I.

The Big Bang theory is awesome-screw what anyone else say's

Spoiler: Sexy Sheldon

 

[Subscriptism]

If this is true then it will tank microsoft's sales. I mean tank microsoft as a presence in the gaming industry. I don't believe that they are dumb enough to do this.

Also, a Big Bang Theory gif? On this board?

You're braver than I.

The Big Bang theory is awesome-screw what anyone else say's

Spoiler: Sexy Sheldon

Sorry but Big Bang Theory after season three is awful. It also has one of the most insufferable fanbases since MLP (yes I am aware it's dangerous to say that).

 

[Trishbot]

Last statistics said that nearly HALF of the Xbox 360 owners haven't even taken their consoles online. Ever. So that's 50% of Xbox owners not being catered to.

Then, out of those that even do connect, less than half of THOSE have an Xbox Gold account play online games with.

Xbox has disillusioned me these past few years. Should the rumors of always-on be true, the PS4 will become my console of choice.