Xbox? Done.

[chozo_hybrid]

If I'm paying for their machine, their service and they have trouble trusting me!? A customer? They don't pay me anything and yet even after buying, they expect us to jump through hoops? No thanks, it's a machine I will not get. The problem I have with the once a day online check, is that if you buy the machine, you're telling them it's okay to do this sort of thing.

Once they think it's okay, then what's to stop them thinking twice a day is okay with a patch/update to the machine, they make you agree to a terms of service or your machine is bricked. People agree to that, then eventually it's always online, because that's how corporate ass-hats think.

For me, it's a moral thing, I buy it, I should be able to use it however I want. If someone was to pirate games etc, if they log on to XBL then they accept the consequences when that is detected, but to assume we won't be using the machine as intended shows me a lack of trust for the people buying it. Now I do not trust them at all and they have to earn that, which now will a lot harder. Even if they were to remove the DRM the fact is, they wanted it there, so I will not trust them.

 

[Gatx]

Every time I see the Cloud advertised as a benefit I shudder. Yeah it's convenient, but I don't want it to be the only thing, you know? I try not to think about it when I use Steam but the "danger" is there, so it's scary to think that at some point it might be the way all media is experienced.

 

[Trishbot]

Here's a question I want answered.

When the Xbox One's time in the sun is over, and the new system is on the horizon, and Microsoft stops supporting it... what happens when this system can no longer go online to authenticate its games to grant me "permission" to play the library I've spent years and hundreds of dollars acquiring?

Because it needs that daily online check to function... so what happens when, 10 years from now, the servers to the system have been turned off and the system is effectively a non-functioning brick?

 

[lostlevel]

I also switched to Team PC about a year or so ago. It has its own issues & problems, sure, but while PC gamer problems are progressively being solved, consoles seem adamant to claim each and every PC drawback as its own.

Required installs, activation codes, connectivity problems; PC gaming keeps getting better & lessening these issues, while consoles chew at the bit to adopt them

P.S.: Sony, now's your shot to reclaim console supremacy. Don't screw it up

Agreed, all Sony have to do is be less evil than Microsoft and then they can take my money.

Although I don?t buy second hand games I like the option. I like physical things, so if comes down to owning rather paying for a service I know who I?ll side with.

That being said perhaps PCs are the answer, Steam I think they offers enough for me to not mind paying for downloads over disks although my internet being slow means anything in the region of the usual disk capacity these days could take hours.

 

[RA92]

My biggest fear is that one day steam will disappear, taking away most of my game collection

Won't happen. If your connection to the steam cloud fails, for whatever reason, you can still play your games online, as long as they are installed to your P.C.. Not a problem.

Gotta buy a new Hardrive to hold all 186 of my steam games. lol

Oh, no need for that. If somehow Steam goes bust, the rest of the internet flying the cross-bone flag has your back on acquiring games you already paid for, without bricking your computer. The Cloud, basically.

I mean, you bought the license, right?

 

[Frostbite3789]

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.

Some of your games. Anytime you try to play some of them offline, they mystically need to update, but work the second you connect to the internet. Without updating. See: Civ V.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

I agree completely. And I've been saying the same thing to whoever will listen. The idea that things you buy are no longer products but services that you pay only a license for is idiotic and I can't grasp how people can be so stupid to buy into that idea. There are actually a few of those corporate apologists on this very forum. I hate them and I would show them no mercy.

I think that another industry crash is our only hope. It must happen.

 

[seule]

all any of this really makes me think about is : this connecting to the cloud to improve your gaming experience really worked out well for Simcity, right?

 

[Sanunes]

My real concern that if this is as bad as I am going to imagine, Sony will be basically forced by the big developers to adopt this strategy (if they haven't already and just haven't said anything) if this is even remotely successful. Of course now I have to pick if I want to go for the Cloud based ideas of Microsoft which people have been using on the PC for years to some extent or another, or go with Sony who I won't trust with any personal information.

 

[The Pink Pansy]

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.

Some of your games. Anytime you try to play some of them offline, they mystically need to update, but work the second you connect to the internet. Without updating. See: Civ V.

Umm, I'm not sure what you're talking about. I have never had a problem opening any single player game in offline mode, including Civ V.

 

[Farther than stars]

Not to mention that this technically illegal. With ownership comes a right to resell the product, which this development severely hampers. At least that is something which consumer associations would be able to effectively tackle in court.

 

[badgersprite]

It really is ridiculous how they are undermining the whole concept of property with this "used game fee", and they're basically allowed to do it because law is a slow-moving beast largely controlled by a bunch of old dudes who don't understand electronics and are frightened and confused by the idea of updating the law to deal with digital/non-physical property. Not that it matters anyway since the companies have all the money and lobbying power and legal teams they need to persuade the lawmakers that electronic property really should be considered totally different and have a completely different set of anti-consumer laws applied to them.

I don't think the majority of people understand how big of a deal it is that they're essentially putting into law the idea that you don't actually own the things you purchase; you have no right to deal with or dispose of your property as you wish anymore.

The second something you own has a digital, non-physical element to it, you essentially cease to have any property rights over it.

 

[badgersprite]

Not to mention that this technically illegal. With ownership comes a right to resell the product, which this development severely hampers. At least that is something which consumer associations would be able to effectively tackle in court.

The law is scared and confused when it comes to non-physical property, though, so basically the second you put content on a disc you've created this huge legal loophole. You have property rights over the disc, but, as far as the law is concerned, your property rights (or at least certain property rights) do not attach to the content on the disc, so you can sell a disc with a game on it, but that game in and of itself is still the property of the company who published it and they are free to do whatever they want with respect to that non-physical content irrespective of the fact that you own the disc. That's why, for example, they can forbid you from playing games you bought.

The law of property has barely caught up to the notion that money can be stored electronically. It is seriously out of date.

 

[faefrost]

The major difference is PS+ offers a clear and fairly clean differentiation between that which you the consumer own, and that which you are selectively seeking to use as part of the optional service. MMO's are much the same. There is nothing wrong with some form of subscription or rental model. We have long supported it as a voluntary option. From PS+ to iTunes, to Netflix to Leasing cars. We make the choice based on some perceived benefit or compensation. Using PS+ as an example by moving to an optional service model PS+ offers us lowered pricing and extra games for our gaming dollars. There is a legitimate value calculation to be made.

But forcing a a lease or service model on the entirety of your customer base because it is in your business interests at the expense of theirs is an extremely horrid business model. And one that will badly burn MS this generation. Between the hellish little gotcha's in Windows 8 to the XBone. It isn't simply that MS has stripped away ownership. It's that they have stripped away the choice of ownership for any of their products. And they have given us nothing of value in return.

Personally I think we the consumers would be insane to buy into this as it is not in our best interests. The option of a service based relationship is fine. The requirement of one is detrimental to us with no obvious, apparent or even possible upside. The problem is not just that the XBone has no options to it's model. It's that it offers us nothing in return for surrendering our ownership.

 

[Izanagi009_v1legacy]

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. If you subscribe to that, you get a myriad of premium features (why auto-updating firmware is a premium feature, I don't know, that should be standard), but to get back to the topic, they either discounted certain games or give them to you for free. However, those games can only be played as long as you are a paid subscriber. Should your subscription end, or the Sony server datacenter is bombed out of existence, you lose the ability to play them, just like what the XBone is threatening to do. Suddenly, subscribing to PSN+ isn't so that you, the customer, can access great features like uploading saves to the cloud and whatnot - it's so you can continue to play the games that are sitting on the hard drive.

The difference that many will point out is that Xbox Live is used to access things that PSN provides for free, namely access to multiplayer servers. PSN Plus, in addition to not holding multiplayer behind a paywall, also gives free games instead of restricting access to the shop and whatnot. After the subscription expires, your example and explanation applies but people are more likely to keep using it because of the feeling of not being walled off

(note, if i'm wrong, feel free to correct)

 

[Farther than stars]

Not to mention that this technically illegal. With ownership comes a right to resell the product, which this development severely hampers. At least that is something which consumer associations would be able to effectively tackle in court.

The law is scared and confused when it comes to non-physical property, though, so basically the second you put content on a disc you've created this huge legal loophole. You have property rights over the disc, but, as far as the law is concerned, your property rights (or at least certain property rights) do not attach to the content on the disc, so you can sell a disc with a game on it, but that game in and of itself is still the property of the company who published it and they are free to do whatever they want with respect to that non-physical content irrespective of the fact that you own the disc. That's why, for example, they can forbid you from playing games you bought.

The law of property has barely caught up to the notion that money can be stored electronically. It is seriously out of date.

Indeed, I have to say that that is an overly conservative interpretation of the principles of civil law. Generally property laws don't actually pertain to what an object is physically, but what can reasonable be expected of it. For instance, if I were to buy a chair, I'm not buying it as a block of wood, I'm buying it as something to sit on. I should then be able to resell it for the same purpose I bought it for. If I can't, I've been violated in my rights as a consumer.
The same construct can be applied to video games. When I buy a disc from someone, I'm not buying it for the piece of plastic, I'm buying it to play a game. I should then be able to resell it to someone else who wants to play that game. Furthermore, this construct already applies to other forms of digital entertainment, such as CDs and DVDs.
All in all, I would say that there are enough precedents already that in the long run digital ownership will sway in favour of consumers, even though a lot more litigation will be required before we get that far.

 

[Izanagi009_v1legacy]

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.

Yeah, Windows 8 does not seem good for people who use desktops. For mobile users, the tile system works well but with the mouse and keyboard that desktops and laptops use, the system is just a giant roadblock. Windows should have tried to make two different operating systems for mobile and laptop/desktop instead of a hybrid

 

[Izanagi009_v1legacy]

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)

That in and of itself is a bit of a moral issue to me because it makes an activity even more corporate. Because of pollination, the traits that make these seeds valuable can spread, leading to legal battles that farmers are not equipped to fight which forces more under Monsanto's control. That doesn't sound good in my perspective and many probably share my opinion