When the "vocal minority" begins to actually hurt us consumers.

BoredRolePlayer

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My only issue was 24 hour check in to play games. At least with steam it wouldn't lock me out when my net went out. Share plans sounds interesting no matter who did it, but that whole day gate turned me off. So yeah I was not for the whole package Microsoft was giving me. That's like saying this one feature makes up for the rest of the crap
 

Eclectic Dreck

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RedEyesBlackGamer said:
Eclectic Dreck said:
Games For Windows is their black eye in this. People hate that service. Microsoft wasn't going into this with a clean slate in terms of digital services. They have one and no one likes it. So why should people be excited about a new platform where they hold all the dice? This was compounded my their horrible PR covering the Xbox One. No one knew anything concrete and sources would contradict each other. That just added fuel to the fire. They are the company that charged a 50$ fee for full use of their digital platform on their console when their competitors offered theirs for free. Why should people have trusted Microsoft not to take advantage of the situation? It is supposition to say that they would have copied their mistakes for Games For Windows. It is also supposition to say that they would have turned out a service to rival Steam. The used games angle was largely secondary to the always-online requirement. That burned the bridge before they even started to try to cross it. The always-online requirement, their horrendous PR, and their spotty track record all combined to create a situation where they couldn't win with their current product.
The supposition I make is actually predicated upon the notion that Microsoft would attempt to maximize their profits. If Valve and various studios along the way are to be believed, the sales result in an increase in profits for them. Combine that with the fact that the end game would be utterly divorcing game sales from retail chains, a move which frees them to freely modify their prices as they see fit in order to maximize a return, and you have the core of the argument.

Though, your post does shed some amount of light on part of Microsoft's real problem. I can point out any number of things wrong the current system and find things that were good about the proposal but that pales in the face of the fact that the new system was different. Microsoft of all companies should know just how hard it is to sell someone on anything different - see the launches for Windows, Windows 95, Windows Vista, Office 2007, Office 2013 and so forth. Each was met with a violent backlash and in cases were it was not carefully managed (Windows Vista) they were forced to eventually resort to a scorched earth solution. Microsoft simply handled the Xbox one announchement as badly as possible. Even if they came to the public with something unambiguously good, they still would have garnered a negative reaction if they had as confused and clueless a message as this.

The cloud bit is, perhaps, the best example. They simply limply waved at the notion of cloud - something they do a lot these days. Yet in my day to day life (I work in IT), I have to regularly explain what the cloud is to people; few, it would seem, actually know anything about the idea the word is supposed to represent. That Microsoft offered no useful answer as to what they were going to do with the service (any details on that front came from third parties) while simultaneously pointing to it as a key advantage was a failure of messaging so complete that entire product lines have failed for less.
 

Ed130 The Vanguard

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TomWiley said:
When one of my friends heard of Valve's "family sharing" feature, he commented "Great! Why can't EA and Microsoft ever come up with great consumer-friendly features like this!"

And I felt like crying, because I knew inside that this wasn't an isolated case of stupidity, but rather a microcosms for the entire gaming community.
Already answered by the bulk of the posters, but just in case you didn't read any of the 100+ posts tating the main reason here is my post on the matter.

Ed130 said:
Microsofts 'Sharing' system reveal went sort of like this:

THIS IS OUR NEW SHARING SYSTEM.

DUE TO THE NEW SYSTEM ALL NEW CONSOLES WILL REQUIRE A MANDATORY 24 HOUR CHECK-IN EVEN IF YOU DON'T USE OUR NEW SYSTEM.

WE WILL NOT REVEAL ANY ADDITIONAL DETAILS ABOUT THE NEW SHARING SYSTEM AT THIS TIME.

ANY-ONE WHO COMPLAINS ABOUT THE NEW SYSTEM ARE MUTANT-COMMIE TRAITORS.

ANY-ONE WHO DOES NOT HAVE ACCESS TO RELIABLE INTERNET ARE MUTANT-COMMIE TRAITORS.

ANY-ONE WHO DOES NOT WISH TO BUY AN XBOX ONE MAY BUY A 360, ALSO THEY ARE MUTANT-COMMIE TRAITORS.

AND REMEMBER: THE COMPUTER MICROSOFT IS YOUR FRIEND.

props to anyone who figures out who I'm parodying.

At this point Valve's announcement is going like this:

Hey Guys! We are currently releasing a beta for a game sharing system, we are not changing any of our current DRM practices and here is a FAQ of how the system works. Is there any questions?

Yep, those two announcements are exactly the same.
/sarcasm
People thought that the sharing system was a neat idea, it was the Always Online DRM that they hated.

So yes there are portions of the gaming community that are dumber than a sack of bricks, you just have to look at those that misinterpret, ignore, and manipulate facts to suit their viewpoints. I've already spotted several in this thread already, can you see them as well?
 

TomWiley

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porous_shield said:
TomWiley said:
When one of my friends heard of Valve's "family sharing" feature, he commented "Great! Why can't EA and Microsoft ever come up with great consumer-friendly features like this!"

And I felt like crying, because I knew inside that this wasn't an isolated case of stupidity, but rather a microcosms for the entire gaming community.
Because Microsoft's sharing plan was tainted with so much other stuff that it was hard to get excited about it. If Valve decided they were going to make users check in once a day and announced that alongside that sharing plan not to many people would be happy about that either, so much so, that they'd probably not even notice they had a spiffy sharing plan to go alongside it.
I wouldn't say that Steam's offline viability is that much better than the original Xbox One. Steam's online verification requires you to be online whenever you want to play a new game, even if it's a physical copy in a store. Most PC titles also require additional Dirext X and game updates before they'll even run which I can assure you will not be possible to do with Steam in offline mode.

Factor in that Steam offline is so incredibly flawed (with it's tendency to require online verification after restart among other problems so major that Valve themselves have acknowledged them) you can argue that using Steam offline for any extended period of time just isn't an viable option for gamers.

And even if we ignore Steam's offline issues and pretends it is fully viable to use Steam offline, the Xbox One's digital sharing policies were still way less restrictive than that of Steam. Yet, Steam is still enjoying a position of overall glorification whereas the entire gaming community collectively decided that the Xbox One was basically the antichrist.

So yeah, if you're still saying that there's no RP-bias between the two companies and their respective systems, I'd say you're wrong.
 

Gethsemani_v1legacy

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TomWiley said:
I wouldn't say that Steam's offline viability is that much better than the original Xbox One. Steam's online verification requires you to be online whenever you want to play a new game, even if it's a physical copy in a store. Most PC titles also require additional Dirext X and game updates before they'll even run which I can assure you will not be possible to do with Steam in offline mode.

Factor in that Steam offline is so incredibly flawed (with it's tendency to require online verification after restart among other problems so major that Valve themselves have acknowledged them) you can argue that using Steam offline for any extended period of time just isn't an viable option for gamers.

And even if we ignore Steam's offline issues and pretends it is fully viable to use Steam offline, the Xbox One's digital sharing policies were still way less restrictive than that of Steam. Yet, Steam is still enjoying a position of overall glorification whereas the entire gaming community collectively decided that the Xbox One was basically the antichrist.
There are a few differences between PCs and consoles that have been pointed out previously in this thread but bear repeating, as they are integral to the different reception of Steam and the Content Management System on the Xbox One:

1. Steam is not a necessary application to run a gaming PC of any kind. It is an opt-in digital content delivery system that you can choose to use to play games. While there are games that are exclusive to Steam (such as the Total War-series post Empire), we are still only talking isolated titles. Meanwhile, the system Microsoft revealed for the Xbox One would have made it impossible to play any game on the Xbox One without going through their CMS.

2. PCs are much more frequently hooked up to the internet than consoles. It is almost 'mandatory' that a PC today be hooked up to the internet (whatever constantly or intermittently) and studies suggest that upwards of 90% of all PCs are. Meanwhile only about 50% of all consoles have constant or intermittent internet access. So when Steam requires you to be online to activate new games, it is only asking you to do something your computer most likely is already doing. Whereas the Xbox One is basically giving about half their potential customer base the finger for not living up to its' high demands for entry.

3. Lending PC games has not been a "thing" for the last decade at least. The Xbox One went up against the PS4 and its' potential for game lending and in comparison to Sony [http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=kWSIFh8ICaA] Microsofts idea of "game sharing" seems like a bad joke. They are offering you to give a demo to some of our friends while the game is locked to your account forever as opposed to Sony giving people the classical, well-tried and liked option of simply lending someone else the disc and letting them play.
 

Atmos Duality

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Eclectic Dreck said:
Nor, it should be pointed out, do those numbers actually support your argument. Cost, for example, could play a key factor for much of the difference. Unless someone goes out and performs a decent poll of those who pre-ordered during that period and then performs a rigorous assessment, all you're doing is engaging in fallacy by assigning meaning. Data, in this case, is just that. As it stands it is simply insufficient to be used to any useful rhetorical effect.
Yes, I see that now...I stand corrected.

As far as facts go, the initial Xbone lags far behind the PS4, and Microsoft clearly didn't have any confidence in their initial offering after E3.
 

TheNarrator

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Similarity between the original Xbox One digital distribution model and Steam's: in both cases you're dependent on a corporation to access the games that you bought (this comes with advantages and disadvantages).

Gigantic obvious difference between the Xbox One digital distribution system and Steam's: Valve operates on an open platform. If they offer shitty service, people just move to a different digital distributor or buy directly from the developer (which is much more of a thing now). Sure, you'll still need Steam to play the games you bought exclusively for Steam, but it doesn't cost you anything to just stop buying from Steam. On Xbox One, it's almost bound to become a horrible system with noncompetitive pricing and poor service, because MS knows you're not going anywhere. You've paid a non-trivial amount of money for your console, and most people aren't willing or able to spend money on more than one console. So you're not only dependent on them for your current games, but also for all your future games. If their service is shit, most people can't just take their business elsewhere. And that was the issue with Xbox One. If a hardware vendor has a monopoly on software distribution for his system, that is a deeply anticompetitive situation; I even think it's immoral to support such a product (that goes for iOS as well, for example).
 

Amir Kondori

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So here is where you are 100% dead wrong on this.

Microsoft's product required a once a day internet check-in, essentially making the unit "always online". No offline mode, no way to get around it for travel, serving overseas, etc. When asked what military members should do Microsoft's spokesman said "buy a 360".

Valve's Steam service has an offline mode. As in completely, for as long as you want or need offline mode. Some people don't realize you have to save your credentials on the machine to this and have to have Internet at least once, but you can install Steam, install your games, put Steam into offline mode and then never go online again to play your games. You only have to go online if you want to for updates or to play online games, etc.

Valve also has a very generous policy in place for sudden loss of connectivity. Again, you HAVE to save your credentials on the machine for this to work but if you lose your internet unexpectedly you can play for 90 days, 3 months, before you have to reconnect.

If Microsoft had used a similar system then I think a lot less people would have been so upset. Microsoft could have said "Hey, you buy your games, you need to be offline you just put your console into offline mode, if you want to share your titles and all this other "revolutionary" stuff then you have to go online again". That is not what they did, they went for pretty much the most overreaching approach they could have. That was pure hubris on their part. Now they are trailing in pre-orders up to 50% compared to the PS4 depending on who you ask.

Microsoft didn't show us respect. They didn't show us why this was better for us than Microsoft. The reaction was 100% Microsoft's fault.
 

Flunk

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I don't understand the Stockholm syndrome. Digital distribution for Xbox One games is still going to be an option. You're not really losing out on anything because they're adding disc-based authentication as well.

Microsoft just needs to convince us their digital distribution is better than the physical one. They do that and the next generation will be digital only. They have failed to do that so far with the 360.

But if you prefer digital, by all means vote with your money.
 

Saltyk

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Wait. Didn't Microsoft finally explain what Family Sharing was? And wasn't it effectively exactly as what you can already do with a physical game? As in:

~If you own the game, you can play it on another person's Xbox One.
Which I can do with any other console as long as I own the physical game. All I have to do is take the game to their home. And bonus! No download or online requirement!
~They can play it on your console as much as they like.
Which they can already do. Because I own the game.
~You can gift the game to one person. But only one and you lose it after that.
Which I could do by giving it to them. Only, they could then give it away or sell it, and the Xbox One version wouldn't allow that.

I mean, I could be wrong, but that's what I recall reading. And if you call "exactly the same as what you can already do, but annoying" progress, well that's your problem. Not mine. I'll keep playing games on my backwards physical media and download the occasional game when I want to all without an online requirement or daily check in. Being backwards is fun.
 

MeChaNiZ3D

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1. If you're on this site, you're part of the minority. The minority that is informed at all. "The consumers", as if the people against the Xbox One weren't consumers, are largely uninformed people who don't follow the news on this sort of thing.

2. Don't even begin to suggest that Steam is the same as the Xbox One's architecture. Steam has better deals and offline functionality. To be perfectly honest, that's all it needs. I don't mind so much if I can't resell a game I bought for $10. This isn't to mention the other shit that the Xbox One had that people didn't like or the fact that it took its ball and went home when forced to support discs.
 

teh_gunslinger

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krazykidd said:
teh_gunslinger said:
The difference, such as it is, is that on the PC you can choose not to use Valve if you don't like their DRM scheme.

Personally, I loathe Valve and tend to only buy Steam games at 75% off, as I think Steam is a pile of poo that detracts value from the game. As a result I buy any game I can anywhere but Steam and I absolutely detest the rise in Steamworks that tie games to the blasted thing.

The proposed system Microsoft proposed was very consumer hostile and while the sharing thing was nice enough it was nowhere close to making the rest acceptable and you had nowhere else to go on the platform. Always on DRM is a pain in the backside and should always be opposed. I don't trust Valve with my games, and if I were the sort of person to buy a new console I'd certainly trust Microsoft even less. Just see the fucking mess that is GFWL and how a bunch of games (Dark Souls included, because From are morons) will likely end up dead when they pull the plug. That's a patently consumer hostile company.

All that said, I'm not convinced it was a tiny majority that was opposed to the Microsoft scheme. I've yet to talk to anyone who want to buy a Xbone as a result among my friends. They're all either moving to PC (the sensible choice) or getting a PS4 (the less sensible choice).
That's not fair . FromSoftware did not want to make a PC port because they didn't know how . And the told us that. People signed a petition , and said they didn't care if the port was bad , so From Software complied with the best of their ability , that again they told us outright they had none .

OT: vocal minority? Are you kidding ? I have never seen the entire internet band together for a cause . It was quite inspiring actually . That being said ,i don't think microsof should have backpedaled. They should have proved that the console was worth buying , but that's a topic for another time . The difference between steam and Xbone is the the Xbone is a console . You are essentially paying 500$ for a DRMbox . Steam on the otherhand is a free game client , that you are under no obligation to use .
Not being very good at something is fine. That's perfectly understandable.

That's a very different thing from being so abjectly moronic as to include GFWL in your game. That's so far beyond "not having ability" and miles into moronic land. There is no good reason other than being a dunce that you'd ever include GFWL in your game. It's a festering pile of poo that barely works and has more fundamental design flaws than this forum has posts. I can't see any merit to the "From told us they weren't any good at ports" argument. At least you'd need to add that from couldn't read as that's the only reason anyone wouldn't be aware of what GFWL is. And I doubt they can't read. So, we're back to them being morons or alternately malicious bastards. And I don't buy the latter, so they're morons. QED.
 

Gethsemani_v1legacy

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teh_gunslinger said:
That's a very different thing from being so abjectly moronic as to include GFWL in your game. That's so far beyond "not having ability" and miles into moronic land. There is no good reason other than being a dunce that you'd ever include GFWL in your game. It's a festering pile of poo that barely works and has more fundamental design flaws than this forum has posts. I can't see any merit to the "From told us they weren't any good at ports" argument. At least you'd need to add that from couldn't read as that's the only reason anyone wouldn't be aware of what GFWL is. And I doubt they can't read. So, we're back to them being morons or alternately malicious bastards. And I don't buy the latter, so they're morons. QED.
This is kind of off-topic, but here we go: GFWL is bad, yes. One of the major reasons it is so bad is because it is essentially Xbox Live ported to the PC with no thought whatsoever about actually making it PC-friendly. That's why it also makes sense for someone who sucks at PC porting to use GFWL if they are porting a game that's on Xbox: Because you save loads of time and effort having to design your own netcode, log in system and what not because you can just use the same system you use on the Xbox.

I wouldn't call it moronic as much as it is a case of a developer having to work outside of their normal skill set and using shortcuts to save time, energy and to make things run more smoothly. That GFWL is useless isn't From Software's fault and you can't really fault them for not wanting to get into the quagmire that is modern PC networking and internet connectivity if they have no prior experience of it.
 

DelinquentTurtle

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I can't believe how many people are still deluded into thinking that the Family Sharing that Microsoft was initially offering was anything more than a glorified 60 minute demo.

That said, Steam still has its issues but it's nowhere near what Microsoft were going with pre-180.
 

infinity_turtles

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teh_gunslinger said:
That's a very different thing from being so abjectly moronic as to include GFWL in your game. That's so far beyond "not having ability" and miles into moronic land. There is no good reason other than being a dunce that you'd ever include GFWL in your game. It's a festering pile of poo that barely works and has more fundamental design flaws than this forum has posts. I can't see any merit to the "From told us they weren't any good at ports" argument. At least you'd need to add that from couldn't read as that's the only reason anyone wouldn't be aware of what GFWL is. And I doubt they can't read. So, we're back to them being morons or alternately malicious bastards. And I don't buy the latter, so they're morons. QED.
From is a Japanese company. I'd imagine that coupled with there inexperience with pc means that they wouldn't be aware of what this weird Western PC gaming gaming mabob called Games for Windows Live is. I also wouldn't be surprised if after they basically announced that they had no idea what they were doing on PC Microsoft contacted them and basically said "Just so you know, if you use GFWL it will handle a lot of that pesky server stuff for you"
 

Rariow

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The Xbox One's family sharing was the only thing that was getting widespread support prior to the removal of all the features. What was getting all the outcry was the having to connect every 24 hours, the no used games, and all that nonsense. Steam doesn't have to connect every 24 hours, used games aren't a problem for digital distribution, and has a bunch of useful, consumer friendly features to boot.

Also, how was the Xbox One the "Vocal minority"? The fact that it was not letting you do what you should be able to do with your games was being talked about on TV. I think by that point it's "General outcry against bullshit".
 

gibboss28

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...well everyone else has already told you why you're wrong so I'll just say this.

Don't claim to be speaking for consumers, you clearly weren't when writing that crap out.
 

Atmos Duality

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gibboss28 said:
...well everyone else has already told you why you're wrong so I'll just say this.

Don't claim to be speaking for consumers, you clearly weren't when writing that crap out.
I doubt the OP will even read this, considering he hasn't even logged onto the Escapist since a few hours after posting this.
(check the user profile, Last Active: 11 Sep 2013 6:42 pm)

Looks like it was just a big ol' Parthian Shot at the forums.