Poll: Former Microsoft Console buyers: Will you buy the 720?

[jthm]

No, probably not. I've been losing interest in consoles and gaming in general as I get older. It's sad, I grew up with an Atari, NES, SNES, N64, Playstation, Game Gear, Game Boy, GBA, DS, GameCube, Xbox, PS2, PS3, 360 and Wii. I can afford an always on internet connection and my dsl isn't terrible, that shit doesn't matter to me. What matters is that gaming isn't what I remember it to be. In the last 5 years, I've only bought a handful of games that were worth replaying and that I still enjoy. The shooters are boring and same-ish. JRPG's like a constant diet of peeps, brightly colored and oversweet, with anime style voice acting that grates on your nerves after a while. What relative few platformers that have come out are built for a younger audience and are not at all challenging. Western RPG's are gradually becoming First Person Shooters. There aren't many top down strategy games anymore, and the few there are just don't stack up to the older ones (I'm talking Civ 2, Alpha Centauri, Age of Empires, Advance Wars). The fighting games are getting fewer and fewer and really only are made for a dwindling niche market. Character development in all the games is laughable, I can find more to like in that respect during the first 10 pages of a good book than an entire AAA release game.

I dunno, maybe I'm just rambling like the senile old man I've grown into, yelling at kids to get off my lawn, but everything seems duller than it used to. All the new releases are a third person action game with the same control set up and one gimmick to set it apart, an identical yearly sports release or another damn call of duty game. I've had as much fun playing with my $1 phone games as I have with the $60 new releases. It'd be one thing if the consoles weren't trying to assert more control and pervasive influence in my life as a consumer, but they are and I'm not feeling it with this coming generation. Maybe I'll build a good pc. Maybe I'll just become a casual gamer or find a new interest all together. I'm just not interested in investing in more of the same, just a little shinier this time.

 

[Something Amyss]

I live in Vermont. Our internet isn't even always online. And that's ignoring Microsoft's own spotty record here.

If they make it always online, then it's useless to me. I won't buy the console, period.

I will wait and see what these consoles have available. But if the new XBox is always online, I'll probably dump some money into building a gaming rig and say "see you later" to the console market entirely. So far, the PS4 doesn't impress me. My primary reason for owning a 360 is playing with friends, and I doubt they'll buy it if they can't play their single-player games offline. Because that's what we do when our shoddy internet connections are being spotty...We play games that don't require an internet connection.

 

[Something Amyss]

How in the hell are we supposed to answer this question? We know nothing of the next-gen Microsoft console...

It asks you to suppose something, and then go from there.

That's how "if" scenarios work.

 

[Dansrage]

You can tell by my avatar that I'm a huge fan of Halo. I'm primarily a PC gamer but I have owned an Xbox and two 360s simply to play it, I'm currently rocking a Halo 4 Limited Edition slim that cost me ?320 that I bought when I already had a copy of Halo 4 and a 360 Arcade simply because it looks awesome and I wanted to support the release.

So, I'm someone willing to shell out hundreds of Euros for a single game, I'm the model consumer, but as it stands I'm not touching the 720 with a barge pole, even if Halo 5/6 are exclusives, keeping in mind I own a 360 and pay for XBL only to play Halo. Always-online, built-in mandatory Kinect, possibly blocked used games, I've even heard rumors that the 720 will have a subscription closer to that of a cellphone, where you will effectively be renting the console and paying off the difference, if your payments stop that means no Live and thus a non-functional console.

A new generation of consoles should mean more choice, more options, more freedom, instead everything is being locked down, made mandatory and all of our choices as consumers are being erased. Kinect sold like crap and was a huge failure so now they're making it mandatory, that's a prime example of removing customer choice, how we use the things we pay for is being dictated to us. They managed to sell games as a service, like the Sim City fiasco, and now they're trying to sell a f*cking $500 physical machine as a service, it's unacceptable.

 

[the_retro_gamer]

I'm going to take that money for the console and build a gaming PC. I'm fed up with Microsoft with their console that plays bad with my games not running at the level they should be at. Plus I'm not paying $60 a year to see ads on my home screen every time I start the console. I just feel like it's time for me to move on from console gaming and try to get something that runs better.

 

[Inco]

I owned both xbox and 360 and I still have them both in working order and play them frequently.

To the 720, if it has always online requirements, I will be telling microsoft to stick it and not buying it.
Why? Because while it wouldn't be too much of a problem when I am home alone playing a single player game due to our relatively stable net (it drops for a minute maybe once a day, but thats good for this area) The problem is that I use the console for more local multiplayer and I take it to places where I cannot connect to the net. (like trips away)

The DRM for Downloaded content annoys the crap outta me because if I dont connect online, all my full arcade games become trials. Hell, If i log out of my own console to let my friends play on their offline profiles, they become trials. I've even done that license transfer, twice, and it STILL does it.

Now that seems small, but imagine it on the scale of a whole console. Screw, that, crap.

 

[Tono Makt]

With what I've heard about the 720 so far, I'm not going to buy one. I'll just spend the $500 to upgrade my PC and buy the games I want on Steam. It's not so much that it might have that always online - my 360 is always online right now, even though I only go online with it maybe once a month to check for DLC. The rumoured lack of backwards compatibility is what is making me annoyed. I don't buy many games and the games I do own I tend to play for years, so looking at my (small) library and realizing that I might not be able to play them going forward, I'll probably just turn to Steam for my gaming in the future.

This may change as the system is released, of course. If there's automatic backward compatibility, I'll probably get a 720.

 

[ZZoMBiE13]

Playing the "What-if" game is just stupid.

I'm simply going to wait until when the console spec's are finalized for its release to make any decision.

I'd say this is the proper approach. I had too many enjoyable times with my Xbox and my 360 to outright ignore Microsoft's next console. But no company had had a good launch with their third console in my memory. And I'd much rather wait to see if any of these rumors have a shred of truth before I make any half cocked proclamations.

 

[ResonanceSD]

Microsoft's new problem, the redline of "why is nobody fucking buying our console"?

 

[CyanideSandwich]

Not if the rumours are true, which is hardly ever the case. It's too early to tell right now because we know nothing about the console whatsoever.

 

[Haefulz]

I won't make up my mind until I know more details about both consoles, but I'm leaning towards the PS4. I haven't turned on my 360 in ages because I stopped paying $60 a year for XBL Gold. I use my PS3 for Netflix now because it's free, and the PS3 exclusives are just as good as the Xbox exclusives. I may end up getting a 720 whenever they roll out next gen Halo or Gears.

 

[Kennetic]

I traded my first 360 for the then-new slim PS3 and that was a perfect trade, couldn't be happier. Got back from Iraq, bought a slim 360 and a Wii then later sold them both and kept my PS3. Just don't like Microsoft compared to Sony so I was never going to buy the nextbox regardless. PS4 is still kinda iffy for me.

 

[chozo_hybrid]

We know nothing about it, so at this stage no, because it technically doesn't exist until something is announced. I'll reserve judgement until I see it and can know the details.

I think people need to take a step back, forget the whole "Always online" thing going around about this mystery machine and just stop talking about that particular issue (That is regarding the console itself, not the issue of DRM, considering this console doesn't exist yet), until we know one concrete damn thing about the next Xbox.

 

[w9496]

Not saying for sure until it's released. The always-online stuff doesn't really bug me because I live with a stable internet connection.

Depends on what its launch games are.0

 

[Geo88]

Well, this is still all hypothetical (though I'm worried about the fact that they haven't outright denied it), but supposing the nextbox came with and always-online requirement, I'd have a simple response.

Hahahahahahahahahahaha, no.

I don't want to have to be online for a single-player game. I want to be able to play demos (not to mention the games I paid 60 goddamn dollars for) when my Internet is out. I live outside the limits of a small city in central North Carolina. I've got 3 Mbps DSL, which is the best they offer in my area. And because of the localized monopolies telecom companies have, there's no real competition aside from cable, which as I said isn't available.

Even if/when I move to a well-wired place, I don't want to chance my Xbox kicking me off during a boss battle or an hour after my last save because my provider is doing maintenance on its lines.

But as this is all hypothetical, there's probably not a lot to worry about. Probably.

 

[Darklord008]

I voted yes, but i didn't read the first post beforehand, so I'd probably change to no. Whatever, let me summarize my thinking: Right now I'm still planning on buying at some point, definitely not right after launch though. HOWEVER, if a lot of these rumors come true, like always online, no used games, and closer to $500 than $300, then Microsoft will lose another buyer.

 

[crimson sickle2]

My current living situation doesn't really allow me to use more Ethernet cords than the one I'm using for my PC. The wireless connection is abysmally slower, so no. I have my 360 with me, but it's not online at all right now and I've been enjoying playing great games on it. I couldn't do that if DRM were installed on it.

 

[Nexxis]

I own a 360 but, if the rumors prove to be true, I definitely will not be purchasing a 720. I hadn't planned on it before the rumors, but I was going to look into it if it got some good games on it. If it goes through with the always online stuff, I'll still avoid it even if it contains games that I want. My current 360 is never hooked up to an internet connection. I feel no need to have one.

 

[Vanquisher2000]

I've been mulling this over since hearing the rumours, and frankly, if any of them are true, I'm getting out of console gaming entirely. What with all of the franchises I care about mostly over, there's no attraction on the game front at all... I've been thinking about grabbing a steambox, as it has essentially none of the rubbish of the other 2 'hardcore' consoles, and is in the long run cheaper for one main reason.

Game prices.

What with Sony and Microsoft chomping at the bit to remove used games, but still ship a cheap console, some have said (not unreasonably) that the prices of games will go up to £60 at launch. Even assuming that doesn't happen, and assuming a £300 console, by the time you've got 15 games, you're shelling out £1050 (£1200 with £60 games, and remember that 15 games is a miniscule library).

On steam on the other hand, even on the top of the range steambox at £600, games are currently at £35 at launch. Even if it ends up at £45 for producing games on the new hardware, it comes out to £1275 (if not, then it comes out to £1125(and that's not even considering how much you might save through sales on the thing)).

Now, I'm sorry, but that steambox sounds like one hell of a deal to me in the current gaming market. Particularly considering how it's still a PC even if the whole market goes down the plughole and takes Valve with it... Oh, and I've owned both an Xbox and 3 360s.

 

[Christopher Fisher]

No, it would be cheaper to upgrade my PC. Also, I can't go back to 30fps.