Xbox? Done.

Colt47

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zelda2fanboy said:
Screw this, I'm not going to stand for Microsoft's business practices! I'm going to get a gaming PC! *buys a Windows PC* This was their plan all along.
Yeah, kind of ironic how the only way they "lose" is if someone buys a wii or a ps4. On the other hand Windows 8 is doing about as poorly as this new console is going to do: the last pole I've seen shows that 25% of PC users still use windows XP and close to 70% are using windows 7. The rest are using a mix of linux, OSX, and Windows 8. So less than 5% of users are making use of Windows 8.
 

RikuoAmero

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New Troll said:
Everything I recieved from PSN+ (for the 3 months I recieved it for free) I still have full access to. So I guess I can't really comment on it being like the new XBox fiasco.

But my biggest concern is even though Microsoft seems to be doing everything wrong, I just know once the next Halo (or insert whatever other big title here) comes out the system itself will be selling well. Most buyers don't care about "facts" and are only concerned with getting their "fix."
Really? You can fire up your PS3 right now, and you're not now a subscriber, but you can still play those games? Because going from
Q: What happens to the games and DLC I downloaded from through a PS Plus membership, and I decide to not renew my membership?
A: You will not be able to access free games downloaded with Plus if you choose not to renew your membership. However, if you decide to re-activate your membership, you will once again be able to play all games downloaded from the Instant Game Collection.

https://support.us.playstation.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2034

It says that anything you get for free you are unable to access once your subscription ends. And yes, this does mean I made a slight mistake - I was wrong earlier when I said that discounted (not free) games were locked once your subscription lapsed. When you got PSN+ for free, was that in response to the hacking incident and the games you're talking about the ones they gave for free (I myself got Wipeout HD and Infamous 1). If so, those games aren't considered part of PSN+.
 

The Pink Pansy

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crackfool said:
For all the outrage on Xbox One games being "services, not products", there is very little when it comes to Steam, a retailer that has been selling "services" that exist only at the whim of a single company for the past few years. Most will say that the reason Steam gets very little backlash is because games on Steam are often put on sale for a fraction of their MSRPs.

Which means that the issue really has less to do with "services vs products" but rather price. It seems that consumers don't mind buying games whose functionality are tied to a single company so long as the price is right. But who's to say that the pricing model of the next generation will follow that of the current generation (in which nearly every retail game is $60, and every digital game is $10-20)?
One point; when Steam can't connect to the internet, you can still play all your games just fine. From all indications given by Microsoft thus far, with the Xbone if you can't connect to the internet once a day your console bricks itself until you can, preventing you from playing any games. This key point is the difference, at least for me.
 

Tono Makt

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Hmm. Interesting points about the loss of Ownership. Unfortunately it seems that only the older generations (ie: Gen X and older) actually have this as a general point of view; younger generations seem to be (in general) fairly OK with the idea of not needing to physically own something to be able to use it.

Can you imagine how boned Microsoft would be if some clever, evil, hackerish-thingie-whateverthey'recallingthemselvestoday-guy got into the XBox servers and simply went "Delete - All" to all the user information that the XBox servers had? All the downloads, all the XBox Live ID's, all of that, on main and all backup servers? Didn't steal anything, just deleted it all?
 

TiberiusEsuriens

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I would say I agree, but they are only going to a model that Steam has championed for many years already. They've proved that it can work, and work wonderfully.

The real determining factor: how RELIABLE is it? If there was a server issue, would it have a Steam-esque "Offline Mode"? Doubt it.

Captcha: it is different
I don't think so captcha, not really...
 

Ipsen

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RikuoAmero said:
Yes, the games on PSN+ can be obtained elsewhere and yes, PSN+ is optional, but I consider it to be the prototype as it were for the XBone's system. Someone who signs up for + will be all gleeful to see all the new things they can do...but wait until six months down the line, a year. They boot up their console, browse to the game, and a big error message is plastered all over the screen. A comparison to Steam can sorta be made, but one doesn't need to pay for a subscription to Steam to still be able to play games they were given for free. I got the original Portal for free when Valve offered it for free a while back. With PSN+, I'm basically obligated to continue paying, not because it adds any value or I get something great in return, but so that my games aren't being held hostage.
And then along comes the XBone, which is even worse. It's not optional, and I resent the fact that Microsoft thinks it deserves a cut of the second hand market, despite doing nothing at all to earn it. If Microsoft ran some sort of Ebay-esque system on the XBone, one that is optional but far easier to use than having to get in the car, waste gas and go to a physical store to trade in your games, then fine, that would be great. But no. Microsoft is lord and master. Hell, this to me smacks of illegal price-fixing, since I've heard they're going to set a minimum and maximum price for second hand games.
One doesn't need to pay to access steam, but one still pays for steam games (albeit, not that much, considering there's a term coined 'steam sale' these days). I hope that's not forgotten. What I also hope is not forgotten is that you buy PS+ for a duration of time. If your goal getting PS+ is the full game downloads they offer (it should be; the other services like cloud saving and background updates, game and system are nice, but not worth the ~4$/month it takes for PS+). You have ample time to play through games that you have not been able to pick up or find on your own, and new games are thrown at you around every month (it can actually increase your library so fast, that it gets in the way of playing disc-based games). If you're not interested in the games out, cut sub, and wait for a month where a game is interesting. My last comment as Sony's spokesman on PS+ is that it definitely isn't a collector's service; its a situation that gets you past putting in your credit card for games you'd like to download and PLAY (which I thought was the main point, could be wrong) but at a subscription cost. I find PS+ to be one of the more balanced subscription models; completely optional, you pay a sub fee, you get full access to games (of Sony's choosing) for the duration of your subscription (which, if you try, can at least story-complete one game given in the sub's time).
 

Lightknight

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Nov 26, 2008
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Bravo, excellent article. I wonder what kind of bloodshed would be required to apply their kind of article to other media like movies.
 

Tono Makt

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crackfool said:
For all the outrage on Xbox One games being "services, not products", there is very little when it comes to Steam, a retailer that has been selling "services" that exist only at the whim of a single company for the past few years. Most will say that the reason Steam gets very little backlash is because games on Steam are often put on sale for a fraction of their MSRPs.

Which means that the issue really has less to do with "services vs products" but rather price. It seems that consumers don't mind buying games whose functionality are tied to a single company so long as the price is right. But who's to say that the pricing model of the next generation will follow that of the current generation (in which nearly every retail game is $60, and every digital game is $10-20)?
There's also the fact that Microsoft has a reputation as being greedy, powerful and downright evil at times. Steam doesn't have a negative reputation, so people are more likely to trust Steam than Microsoft.

Regarding the cost of digital downloaded games, I don't see that happening for new releases for quite a while. Just look at how much e-books cost; right now on Amazon.ca, Dan Brown's latest book is $15.00 for the HARDCOVER, while the Kindle edition is... $15.99. Now, yes, the Hardcover is on an Amazon sale (down from $30), but why is the Kindle version $15.99 at all? I'll look at his "Lost Symbol" book. Discounted paperback: $10.79. Kindle: 9.99. This is pretty much how things are for ebooks, and are pretty much exactly the same for games; your point about digital games being cheaper than physical games is... not exactly accurate. Buy Bioshock: Infinite? $59.99 for a disc on Amazon.ca, $59.99 for download on Steam right now. Skyrim is $30 on Amazon.ca and $30 on Steam. Mass Effect is actually cheaper to buy a disc on Amazon.ca (under $10 in some cases) than on Steam ($20). For some games it may be true, but there are glaring examples that I'm looking at right now (2pm EST, May 24 2013) that entirely negate your point.

And if Microsoft and Sony both try to move to a primarily digital distribution, why would the price of games drop? If you can only get them from digital distributors, there's no incentive to drop the price to woo customers.

(Hrm. I think I'll see if there's a thread biatching about the high cost of digital media compared to physical media, and revive if necessary just to get my rant about that out in a place that won't actively derail another thread)
 

Sniper Team 4

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I completely related to the feeling of wanting to own a physical copy of something. When I first started watching My Little Pony, I posted on this website that I wished Hasbro would release them on DVD. Someone pointed out that all the episodes were available on YouTube for free, and I said that I just liked the idea of owning the videos personally. The same thing goes with all my games and books. Sure, I can get nearly every Star Wars book in e-reader format (if I had a nook or whatever), but the feeling of staring at my bookcase and seeing over two decades worth of Star Wars books that I've read is something that a computer file just can't capture.
As for games, I bought TNMT off of the PSN once, but my old PS3 crashed. When I got a new one, I forgot to download TMNT again, and now it's off the store. Meaning I'm out ten dollars forever. So yeah, I completely understand the dread that Bob is feeling from Xbox One.
I'm still having trouble actually believing any of this. I can't fathom how Microsoft thought any of this was a good idea, but who knows. Maybe sales will prove them right, although I can't see how.
 

Redd the Sock

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RikuoAmero said:
Sabrestar said:
RikuoAmero said:
In all the furor over the XBone, no-one has yet to comment on a similar service that already exists, one that ties your games to the console manufacturer's continued existence. Namely, Playstation Network Plus. (snip)
I'm not familiar with PSN+, but going by your description, I think the big difference would be that PSN+ is optional. You get a lot of bonuses for paying for it, but it's not the only way to play PS3 games. (I'm guessing that the discounts they offer are for games also available through normal channels? Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on that.) Even with a lapsed subscription, a gamer can go buy games on disc and still play them. With the new Xbox, that option disappears. Even the purchased games are tied to the online service. And that's a scary thought.

The "no developer money on resales" argument is a valid one, I think. And developers desperately need to get the money they rightfully deserve for the products they create. My concern, though, is just like Bob said: this is redefining the concept of "ownership". And what I'm not certain on is why videogames, especially, are the product for which centuries of ownership and resale concepts need to be thrown out. Used cars have been resold since they were invented; houses too, for as long as humans have been building them. I'm not clear why certain forms of computer software are so drastically different that the whole system needs to be rebuilt. After all, as long as we've had commercial software available for purchase, they've been resold. I'm not sure why we have to change now.
Yes, the games on PSN+ can be obtained elsewhere and yes, PSN+ is optional, but I consider it to be the prototype as it were for the XBone's system. Someone who signs up for + will be all gleeful to see all the new things they can do...but wait until six months down the line, a year. They boot up their console, browse to the game, and a big error message is plastered all over the screen. A comparison to Steam can sorta be made, but one doesn't need to pay for a subscription to Steam to still be able to play games they were given for free. I got the original Portal for free when Valve offered it for free a while back. With PSN+, I'm basically obligated to continue paying, not because it adds any value or I get something great in return, but so that my games aren't being held hostage.
And then along comes the XBone, which is even worse. It's not optional, and I resent the fact that Microsoft thinks it deserves a cut of the second hand market, despite doing nothing at all to earn it. If Microsoft ran some sort of Ebay-esque system on the XBone, one that is optional but far easier to use than having to get in the car, waste gas and go to a physical store to trade in your games, then fine, that would be great. But no. Microsoft is lord and master. Hell, this to me smacks of illegal price-fixing, since I've heard they're going to set a minimum and maximum price for second hand games.
The difference is cost for content. PS+ is very much the "you don't own anything" digital system we all fear, but they've gone to a free game per week (assuming you own both PS3 and a vita) so in all honesty, I lose things that come down to a buck a game even without the other features (I only signed up for the cloud saving) if it goes under. When you get so much for so little, you kind of are willing to put up with the larger risk, and since it's just the free content held hostage, you always have the option to actually pay for it if you let your subscription lapse. Implement the same setup for full priced games and suddenly you become very worried that the large amount of money you've sunk into things could find its way into whatever limbo lost digital data goes. It's one thing to say I don't own it if I pay next to nothing for it. It's another if I pay full price.
 

Carnagath

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themilo504 said:
My biggest fear is that one day steam will disappear, taking away most of my game collection
The difference is that you can always play your games offline when Steam has issues (which is extremely rare), while, if Steam goes under, you can safely expect them to allow you to backup your collection. And even in the off chance that they don't, it is extremely easy to crack the Steam DRM and backup your stuff. Also, if you buy cleverly off Steam, you can get your games very cheap. I've only been using it for purchases in the last year and a half and I own about 150 games, ALL of which were bought for under 15$ on sale or included in other bundles.

That's why I can justify putting up with "cloud ownership" in Steam's case, because they frequently have many excellent games on sale and they are not being huge dicks about their authentication process or their online requirement. It's as subtle as possible.

Now, Microsoft ain't gonna do that. If you expect to see 6 month old AAA titles at 50% off on Microsoft's store, you can keep on dreaming. Also, with their mandatory once-a-day sign in nonsense, their limitations on ownership, their always functioning Kinect sensor for no reason, their indie extermination plan and their overall greed and downright offensive fuckfacery, I feel that they've pushed people so far off the edge that the edge has practically disappeared and people are floating in midair. I don't want this console in my house. I just simply don't. The only version of Xbone that I'd buy would be a 50$ bricked hacked version, where the Kinect has been forcefully removed with a pair of rusty pliers.
 

Nimcha

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I would love the irony if at the end of this next console phase all the actual gamers have moved back to pcs.


I don't know, this Xbox doesn't seem to have a lot to do with gaming, but maybe it works? I personally hardly play any modern games anymore, maybe a shift back to gaming's core audience is just what gaming needs.
 

Simalacrum

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Apr 17, 2008
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Here's the thing that I think will prevent such a thing from happening:

1) 'hardcore' gamers are still a substantial customer support base to the gaming industry, whether the gaming industry likes it or not. Sure, we may be a smaller support base, but we spend (by far) more money on gaming; and 'hardcore' gamers read websites like these, understand changes in the industry and will not stand to allow such a change to happen.

The fact that Xbox One has had a substantial backlash in terms of its obscured information upon used games and tying games onto a single console has attracted even mainstream media [http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/gaming/xbox-one-gamers-voice-anger-about-proposed-fee-for-secondhand-games-8629720.html] attention is tantamount to the fact that we still have a significant say in what goes on in the industry.

If Xbox One fails because of its DRM-like features, or it loses a significant portion of the 'hardcore' gaming base to Sony/Nintendo (or perhaps even Valve/Ouya?) it'll have a substantial impact on the way the industry is run.

2) People generally know when they're being screwed over. I think even 'regular' customers of gaming will be able to tell that "hold on a second, why the hell do I have to pay for this second hand game?". Ultimately, even if corporations implement this to try and tie in customers to a specific brand, I don't think it'll work. One game has weird ways of trying to get more cash from you? Get a different game. One console has a weird way of making you pay for stuff? Buy a different console. Simple.

Because gaming is, fundamentally, a luxury item, people won't stand for companies trying to make 'necessary payments' out of customers, because gaming itself isn't 'necessary' at all. I think thats something 'regular' customers, as well as 'hardcore' customers, understand.
 

Atmos Duality

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MovieBob said:
The goal is to make the customer dependant[sic] on the company, not the other way around.
Put that way, it doesn't sound all that different from the drug trade.
They get you hooked into their system, and the only way to keep what you've paid for, to avoid the crash, is to pay for more.
 

Entitled

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themilo504 said:
My biggest fear is that one day steam will disappear, taking away most of my game collection
crackfool said:
For all the outrage on Xbox One games being "services, not products", there is very little when it comes to Steam, a retailer that has been selling "services" that exist only at the whim of a single company for the past few years.
There is a significant difference that Steam can't actually destroy our games. They can try, but If Steam would go under, your games would wait for you at the site of the sailing ship that's flag shapes x-bones.

But if this Xbone would would fail, or even if it would peacefully get retired, the exclusive games from it would literally disappear from the face of Earth. No one would be physically able to play Xbone games any more. Gone.
 

Kenjitsuka

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I'm not going to buy XBOX One because of how you cannot own YOUR purchases.

"This would effectively turn digital entertainment into the equivalent of a pet hamster that's been genetically engineered to only survive on food available from one specific store (and don't you dare think that PetSmart aren't dumping money into research for exactly that right now) ."

Did you know most corn or maize or whatever you call it in the US comes from seeds that have been mutated to NOT produce viable seeds? Farmers NEED to buy new seeds EACH year now, from ONE company. YES: A few years ago *CORN* was turned into a SERVICE, Bob!!! One that you need basically subscribe to if you want to make DAMNED food!!!

Google "Monsanto Terminator Seeds" for more...
(Great name though, as they are just as evil and uncaring about humanity as any T-1000)
 

grigjd3

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This seems like people are hiding from the real issue here and that is the degradation of property in any sense. Many will point out that we still have the works of Shakespeare with us but few recognize that there were plenty of other playwrights in his time that he have nothing from anymore. Of course, we can all draw our preferred analogy (I think the used car market is the preferred on those wishing to have meaningful disks and GPS systems are the preferred analogy of those liking the licencing model). When we get down to it, we have to realize that all things are ephemeral.

We do not live in a world where we simply accumulate wealth (in any sense of the word). Things decay, get used and wear out. Whether we are facing the inevitability of the growth of entropy or the vagaries of corporate whim, things fall apart and we lose them over time. If you buy a house and simply live in it for twenty years, it may well lose value (unless the market has done some crazy crap) with the effects of weather, termites, a shifting ground and human traffic. A house made by a crap developer will deteriorate faster. Further, expectations in a home may change over time. People now want granite rather than wood counter-tops and hardwood floors are back in style now rather than carpeting.

The connection here is that art, as much as anything, decays. Most of it we lose over time. Some we preserve and reprint in order for others to be able to experience. Just as one can fairly easily have access to the complete works of Shakespeare, we will likely preserve some form of pacman as long as there are people to play it. This loss is inevitable, no matter how hard we try to stop it.

So now MS is selling games as licences. They are intentionally putting an artificial limit on the use of the intellectual property. I won't deny that it's a money grab but the answer is simple here. If this model does not work, MS will fail in this endeavor. However, let me suggest a different line of thought.

I've always played games on both consoles and PCs. I have had, in chronological order, a Apple IIe, an NES, a gameboy, an SNES, a Pentium based PC, a Pentium II based PC, a PS2, a Pentium 4 based laptop, 360, Wii, PS3, a Core 2 Duo based PC and a i7 based PC (current). That makes for 11 machines that were primarily used for gaming. When I got the NES, I stopped playing my games on the IIe and when I got the SNES I stopped playing on the NES. The gameboy never really interested me and the Pentium II was a fairly straight up replacement for the older Pentium. The SNES died when I got the PS2 and I gave the SNES games away to a friend. The 360 and PS3 replaced the ps2 and the laptop replaced the pentium 2 based machine. This keeps going till today when I only have the PS3 (mostly for blurays and netflix) and my i7 based machine. I have bought Baldur's Gate II, Morrowind and Oblivion on three separate occasions each and never once was I upset that I was buying them again.

Back in the day, I spent hours playing ExciteBike on the NES. It was one of the first games with a level creator built in. I remember playing it fondly however, I have no desire to go back and play it again. There are few games that I do have a desire to play again and most of those are still somehow available to me (still trying to find a way to play A Link to the Past in a satisfying way, but whatever). There are some who may wish to desperately hold on to everything they ever spent money on but I don't think this is as big a group as it's members may believe.

Yes what MS is doing is a power/money grab. Yes it's for perfectly greedy reasons. Yes it will screw with some gamers and some stores. However, I don't think it's going to matter. People buy consoles so that playing video games can be simple and the console business has already lost that portion of the market to tablets. With iOS devices dominating simple easy to play games, there isn't much room left for consoles anyhow, so they are trying to edge in on Steam's market: the more tech savvy gamers who want a more complex game to begin with. This is likely to fail also. Why would I bother with a PS4 or a X1 when I can have Steam and gog where I get access to titles old and new, by big publishers and indie devs. If MS or Sony want to sell me on a machine for the living room TV, it needs to provide something none of these "next gen" consoles are. I want all my TV streamed with everything in the quality of the film it was made on. I want fewer boxes and fewer remote controls for my tv. I want better quality sound for my high-end stereo system. Gaming is nice and all but I have a much better PC for that in a room better suited to gaming. Ownership vs licencing doesn't matter.

They all want to sell me another box but I simply want fewer boxes. I don't need to own a single game. I just want to enjoy playing them.
 

theyellowmeteor

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I see a solution to this problem, if you'd kindly listen (read 'read'): we fold our arms until they stop being twats. Simple as that. They want the customer to depend on them, we cut off their income (which comes from our desire to play games), so, yeah, basically a boycott. We have to remind them that money in business is like pussy in a stereotypical relationship: she (who has it) makes the rules, and he (who wants to get it) abides by the rules, otherwise he won't get it.

The way Bob put it, if we want to keep the games we like, we better make damn sure that their makers are well-fed and won't go bankrupt, otherwise we're in for a world of pain! The idea that gamers shiver at the thought of their beloved games dying because they failed to maintain the company that made them shows how low they think of us. We have to prove them wrong, we have to show them that this shit will not fly!

Seriously, the solution is in your hands/pockets/wallets/cards, and all you have to do is keep it to yourself. Buy the video games whose existence is independent of the makers' financial well-being, seek out new ways to entertain yourself, until the companies that want to make you their little ***** beg for forgiveness or wither and die, giving room to newer, purer game companies!

Please excuse the preachy tone.