Next Xbox Practically Confirmed "Always-Online"

[The Great JT]

I don't much care for the direction Microsoft is going. They can say "everyone has an internet connection, it's 2013 for crying out loud," but rest assured there IS someone who doesn't have a connection, or someone who lives where his connection is spotty and prone to dropping (yes, those DO exist). Maybe Microsoft is will announce "hah, we had you going, we're obviously not stupid or cruel enough to have a constant internet connection in order to make our device work," when they formally announce the console. Maybe they'll announce a console with a launch lineup that doesn't blow. Kind of doubt it, but what do I know? All I know is right now, Nintendo is looking like the smartest company in the world not going to E3. They know full well they've got nothing that can compare to a new console announcement and that anything they could potentially announce would be met with a cadre of, "that's all, Nintendo? Bah, they're losing it!"

 

[Josh123914]

I don't much care for the direction Microsoft is going. They can say "everyone has an internet connection, it's 2013 for crying out loud," but rest assured there IS someone who doesn't have a connection, or someone who lives where his connection is spotty and prone to dropping (yes, those DO exist). Maybe Microsoft is will announce "hah, we had you going, we're obviously not stupid or cruel enough to have a constant internet connection in order to make our device work," when they formally announce the console. Maybe they'll announce a console with a launch lineup that doesn't blow. Kind of doubt it, but what do I know? All I know is right now, Nintendo is looking like the smartest company in the world not going to E3. They know full well they've got nothing that can compare to a new console announcement and that anything they could potentially announce would be met with a cadre of, "that's all, Nintendo? Bah, they're losing it!"

Aren't Nintendo showing off the new Smash bros. and Zelda game at E3?
I mean granted neither can compare to 2 new consoles but Zelda's a staple franchise and Smash Bros 4 is gonna be the game that pulls in the hardcore crowd (anyone I know who wants a WiiU now is still holding out until they see the new Smash bros.)

 

[Generic4me]

It's clear they want some kind of always-on system, even if they water it down a bit. (Must be online once every 30 days, online registrations, etc.) They're just hesitant, because they know it's not gonna be easy trying to make us pay for that horrible junk.

Still, if anything like that is in either the PS4 or the new Xbox, I'm jumping over to PC. I've already got everything I'm gonna need, I just need a little more money.

My next purchase is going to be decided by if Microsoft FINALLY shoots down these retarded rumors before I get enough money for my gaming PC. Or Sony, for that matter.

 

[johntheescapist]

I'm just going to build a gaming pc fuck this shit.

 

[Zeh Don]

So, not really confirmed at all then, and it's still just an unconfirmed rumour? Cool.

So, no one knows shit, and everyone's just making shit up based on other rumours? Must be Sunday on the internet. Proceed.

 

[Signa]

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

See, that's why I give such mad props to Win7. The power button and the removal of optional extra taskbars on the edges of the screen is literally the biggest complaints I have about the whole OS after using it for almost 4 years. I've only had about an hour or two under Win8, and I had a lot to say. Maybe if I used it a bit more, I'd find some options to fix the nitpicks, but this is work stuff, so I can't go changing things.

 

[Smolderin]

At the risk of sounding completely idiotic if disproven, I am declaring the XBox720 dead on arrival. The only people fooled into buying this console are the gamers that don't do any research on what they are buying and don't understand the harm their doing by throwing money Microsofts way. If this is indeed true (which it is shaping up to be), then Microsoft has truly reached the bottom of the barrel here, why anyone would buy this console is beyond me (unless it somehow has a fantastic library of games upon release and even then I wouldn't buy it for the always-online alone).

 

[Something Amyss]

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.

True. I mean, I was born yesterday, and even I'm skeptical. >.>

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

I've been Netflixing it recently, so I'm not exactly going to argue. Just...Seems like it causes much butthurt around these parts.

 

[aba1]

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.

Even all that aside what are you going to do years from now when the system is unsupported and you can't play any of your games anymore at all? To me that seems like a waste of money when I can just avoid the issue all together on another system.

 

[Nomanslander]

Wait... so first, you get to pay 500 bucks to BUY the console. Then 60 dollars (or more, I wouldn't be surprised if the next gen shot to 70-80) to BUY a game. Then you have to PAY for your internet to USE the console. THEN you have to BUY xbox live to USE the internet that is REQUIRED to USE the console.

And what, exactly, is my incentive to buy it again?

I don't know? You should ask all the dudebros CoDlifters that. They're the ones that have been through 5 Xbox360s because of RRoD and still keep coming back for more, still complaining PS3 is garbage and has no games even though it's not 2008 and with PC gaming... Pretty much have no idea it even exists.

Not to say every owner of a 360 is and has been a "dudebros." I've been through two of them and genuinely wanted to like the damn machine.

Well... I was hoping the Xbox720 (stupid name if it's true) could change all that. If this whole "always online" thing is true.

Yeeesh!

>>

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

While I am in a position such that always online won't likely be a burden, if the next xbox sports the requirement, I won't be investing in one. That maneuver asks much from me in exchange for literally nothing in return. Purely on the basis that such a maneuver is incredibly hostile to me as a consumer, they can keep the box. It isn't as though I'm lacking games to play elsewhere.

 

[Souplex]

I don't take "practically confirmed" news very seriously but yes, an always-online console would put the suck in sucky.

I figure with the huge amount of rumors surrounding the always-online functionality it's almost 100% confirmed at this point. That's why I say "practically".

After all about the same level of rumors surrounded the PS4 and its hardware and most of those turned out to be true.

Clearly you don't understand how rumors work.
Someone says one stupid thing, and it snowballs out of control when enough people take the stupid thing seriously.

 

[likalaruku]

If it is, I can already see not the backlash from angry users who will still buy the console & the games legally until they just get used to it, but the huge boost in piracy it will make in the console's first year. It always starts with some hackers who like to "stick it to the man" & look upon DRM of any kind as a challenge. They will find a workaround, create an emulator, & start releasing hacked ROMs. Then people who want the games who avidly appose the Always Online will download the ROMS out of spite. I will freaking bet money on this.

Personally, as a PC gamer who plays a lot of MMOs, I don't really see the problem. It's server stability that you have to worry about. I guess also the lack of ability to play the game 10 years latter because the servers are down. But would it really kill online multiplayer games to convert into purchasable offline single player games when that time comes?

 

[faefrost]

Always online means nothing to me, I am blessed with with stable internet and I don't think I've been "offline" for over ten years now.

See, I originally thought, like you, that this wouldn't effect me, even if I did acknolewge that many people don't have stable internet. But there are two huge problems that have nothing to do with your personal internet and are out of your control.

1. Downtime. All game servers have downtime, most of it unscheduled. It's mostly unnoticeable for new games, but for games that are even only a few years old it can be a real problem if the game or console is forced to be always online. For example, the other day I was playing Dragon Age 2, and was notified while playing that I was disconnected from the server. I had my laptop online right next to me, so I know it wasn't my Internet, and I was still logged into xbox live, so it wasn't my console. This was no problem right now, but with an always online console, you would be kicked immediately from the game if like Sim City, the game itself was always online, or in between 0 and 3 minutes if it wasn't. Considering this happens pretty much every time I play a game that requires me to log in to play it, this could become a real problem really fast.

2. This is the much bigger issue. Your games, the ones you purchased with your own money and have sitting on your shelf, will now have an expiration date. In 10, maybe 20, or if we're really lucky 30+ years, microsoft will shut down their nextbox servers for good, and all your games are now small shiny Frisbees. Most developers will have shut down servers for their individual games long before this to make room for new titles (servers are expensive). You might say, "Ah, but by that time they'll probably have built in the ability to play offline and allow that after they shut down their service." They will not. Why? They have no incentive to. In fact, they have incentive not to. If you can't play your old games, that means you'll have to buy their new games. Why do you think consoles avoid backward comparability like the plague (besides an excuse for HD re-releases)? They want you to keep buying their stuff, and if you are content with your current stuff, omg, you might not buy their new stuff!

For these reasons, even though my Internet is pretty much on 24/7 anyway, I am firmly against alway online, and you might not be as unaffected as you think.

10, 20 or 30 years? Wow! You are being overly optomistic. MS shut the servers supporting the original X-Box less than 2 years after the 360 released. Which right there shows the heart of the problem. I have a 1st Gen PS2 that I can still play every game I ever bought for it, no problems. I have a Dreamcast that I adore. 15+ years going strong. I have a Sega Genesis that still works and has enjoyable content. I think I bought it around 1990. I fully own them. They will only stop working when the hardware dies and I can no longer scrounge a replacement. I do not need Sega in order for my console to work. I have 2 consoles that have outlasted them by a human generation. But this new XBox? Even after a $500 purchase, Microsoft will still own it. The day THEY turn off the lights is the day it becomes a brick permanently and forever. No replacement hardware to be bought, no ancient Somic the Hedgehog cartridge to play. The day that their accounting department says it is no longer worthwhile is the day my property dies. I do not like that. None of us should.

 

[Tim Chuma]

It sucks enough that it has a delay when I turn the Xbox360 at the moment and I am having connection issues. What is it for? Just to show me ads? I could watch TV for that! I do not play online enough to justify having a subscription to Xbox Live, why should I pay twice for my internet connection? Pah!

 

[WouldYouKindly]

I've never needed another reason to join the PC gaming master race.

That being said, nothing against Sony, but they've already won. They don't have the bullshit hardware they need to design for like the Wii U or the always online connection that'll piss people off. So yeah, PCs for me because they're actually no more expensive and do a hell of a lot more than just play games(though I will limit what I put on it for the sake of security). So yes, my next major purchase will be a 6 core gaming PC with a minimum of 8gb ram and preferably a 7700 series amd card or a 640+ series nvidia card. I can find this on Newegg for about 550-600 bucks. It'll even probably have an HDMI connection so I'd just need a HDMI cable to play it on my TV.

 

[Evil Smurf]

if the servers are perfect then it will be fine.

 

[Andy of Comix Inc]

Meh...

Quite honestly, as a Playstation gamer, the upcoming news about the next Xbox doesn't really have me on the edge of my seat, I'll be interested to see how severe the whole "Always online DRM" thing will be, but I'll remain unaffected.

As an Xbox gamer, the upcoming news about the next Xbox doesn't have me on the edge of my seat. I'm pretty happy I play games on PC and Wii U - as for console exclusives, I'll probably be picking up a PS4. Maybe. No backwards compatibility on it makes me more inclined to pick up a cheap PS3 instead so I can play all the PS games I missed over the past decade or so.

 

[Elementary - Dear Watson]

The problem is that the people who develop things like this are obviously people who live in worlds with a decent, always active internet connection... it ignore people like myself who get shifted from base to base in the forces, often forward deployed to units for courses and things where I CAN'T get the internet. And if I go spending a lot of money getting the internet installed for a few months before being posted again, it is really crap internet, because bases tend to be connected to the wider world through 1 hub for the entire base, and most of that is being used for our military systems!

Currently I have access to internet which maxes at 1MB/Sec... and that is really good for the forces! I can't even watch youtube in low res... without waiting the length of the video again in buffer...

I'll be sticking to the 360 and PS from now on if this comes into fruition.

 

[Bertylicious]

I be PC fo' life blud, but some of my peeps just got a XBox for PES and Cricket. I don' think they even own a network cable. They is just in their living room with Mac books for playing fantasy football leauge.

They is not gonna want an always online XBox, innit.