Xbox? Done.

[5mj7R7yf4Dwr3gdZyyu9PeGNwYjlNrjzuh3iTXQG]

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

Being one of the first groups try this, Valve actually has an apocalypse contingency plan, at which point they'll provide time for you to download and back-up your files, and they'll provide a universal unlock.

The real fear is if Steam got bought out by someone else, but their price is well beyond what EA offered.

238U

 

[cidbahamut]

Well done Bob.

The resident movie expert has given us the most level headed analysis of the video game console reveal debacle. Well done indeed sir.

 

[vhailorx]

This is the classic contrast between tangible and intellectual property.

Physical items are "rivalrous," if I am using an apple or a ferrari or any other object, then no one else can use it at the same time. That's not true of intellectual property, and its especially not true of digital data, where everyone in the world can theoretically possess an exact replica of the code for every video game for a ridiculously low marginal cost.

There is no perfect solution to the problem of ensuring that developers get reasonable, but not usurious, compensation for the making video games. but I would much rather see the US adopt the relatively new standard in Europe. In 2012, the European Court of Justice ruled that when software companies sell permanent licenses to their software, those licenses are effectively property (the case is UsedSoft v. Oracle). They can be bought and sold on the secondary market, but only so long as the original licensee actually gives up their license. This is a really sensible balance between the interest of software developers in adequate compensation, and the interest of consumers to dispose of their possessions as they wish. I would really really like to the US legal system move towards this standard, but worry I think the IP-intensive industries are too powerful and lobby too effectively for this ever to happen legislatively (e.g. the perpetual extension of copyright protections at the behest of Disney). Everyone call their congressperson and voice support for the doctrine of first sale!!!

 

[Imp_Emissary]

Crap! That could actually happen.

I don't want to have to go back to the times when you HAD to support the company, or all your games go away forever!
Hope this doesn't happen.

 

[Zombie_Moogle]

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

 

[Fayathon]

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

That would worry me if Valve wasn't posting consistently insane growth every year through Steam.

OT: And I stand with my assessment of this generation, I'm not buying anything but more stuff for my PC, consoles are dead to me.

 

[search_rip]

Aaaah, they said I was mad when I bought my WiiU *bwahahaha*

OT. I'm not looking forward for the Xbone because all the reasons people had said so far plus I live in México and actually we don't get to use like 90+% of the apps of the Xbox 360 and I can foretell the same will happend with this new console :S

 

[GundamSentinel]

Thanks Bob, for writing down my fears so accurately. It's been creeping up on us so slowly and that makes it more scary.

 

[RandV80]

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)?

I'd say it's more that people have relied on the used market to game on a budget, and while Steam has taken the right of resale (though is there anything stopping you from just selling your Steam account?) they've greatly increased a gamers ability ability to stretch their wallet.

You also don't seem to properly understand how Steam pricing works. It's not a cut and dry retails game = $60 and digital game = $10-20. New AAA games released on Steam also go for $50-60. The key is if you're patient and keep your eye open within a 1-2 years you'll be able to find that game on sale for $5-10. If you can't afford it then don't pay the premium new sale price. Let a backlog build up and buy the games when you can afford them. For example I still haven't gotten Skyrim yet.

Then there's one tiny little tidbit that seems to always get overlooked in regards to Steam: before Valve stepped in there was a major trend of retailers abandoning PC games in favour of the more lucrative console games. If you walked into a Gamestop/EB Games in 2000, you'd have an entire wall dedicated to new and used PC games. 2005, the used games are all but gone and PC games only take up a small section of a wall. 2010, maybe you'll find a couple of new games on one of shelving units in the middle of the store. Buying PC games through retail was falling into a void. Steam did not cause this void, rather they stepped in to fill it and basically saved PC gaming.

And I guess one more little thing... to create a retail copy you basically need a publisher, and requiring a publisher to make a game would have prevented all sorts of great indy games from ever being made.

 

[CrystalShadow]

Yes... Well, this is just pretty much the worst way for this to happen I can think of.

At least communist/socialist ideals that require the forfeiting of some ideas about private ownership had some ideals behind them related to it being for the greater good. - It might not ever work that way in practice, but at least the reasoning behind it was to make people's lives better as a result.

Meanwhile, we now have private ownership being eroded, not for any idealistic cause, or misguided attempt to make the world a better place, but purely for a cynical and blatant attempt by corporations to be as greedy and power-hungry as they possibly can be. - With pretty much a total disregard for the consequences it has for anyone else.

So... Why does the world seem to be determined to try and turn into a corporate-led, dehumanizing dystopia exactly?
I feel sick just thinking about it.

 

[RandV80]

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

Being one of the first groups try this, Valve actually has an apocalypse contingency plan, at which point they'll provide time for you to download and back-up your files, and they'll provide a universal unlock.

The real fear is if Steam got bought out by someone else, but their price is well beyond what EA offered.

238U

Actually the real fear for Steam is if Valve goes public. Right now Valve is a privately held company with Gabe Newell owing a majority of the stock, meaning he can run the company whichever way he likes. But if Valve were to ever go public, they'd be susceptible to all the other short term monetization scheming that all the other big publishers have to deal with.

 

[MorganL4]

I bought a 360 because back in highschool my friends all had 360s, I bought a PS3 because the 360 didn't have a blu-ray player (and because of Studio Ghibli was coming out with a game...) but other than that, my console days are pretty much done. I have a PC if I want to play a tripple A game, and unless we get a 2nd Studio Ghibli game, I can't think of a Sony title that I want that I can't get on PC.

That said, I do have a lot of money tied up in Steam.... So TBH it isn't much different than what Xbox One is offering. The difference is, that I can upgrade my PC when I want to, and I can put Steam on any new PC I build. I don't have to be tied to a certain companies machine, and technically if I wanted to use a service other than Steam, I could. Now, try telling Microsoft you want to use your Xbox to buy games off of the PSN.... NOT gonna happen....

 

[geizr]

My answer to the Xbox One is to not to rant, rave, complain, or otherwise ***** across the internet. My answer is simply to not buy it. I have repeated this mantra far too many times, but I repeat it again here: a company hears and understands only two sounds, the creak of your wallet opening and the slap of your wallet closing; all other sounds are just noise to be ignored. I can live quite fine holding onto my money; I don't feel any burning need to constantly give it away. There are other means of obtaining and playing video games other than Microsoft's anti-consumer box. There are other things I can purchase and enjoy for entertainment should the game industry finally implode under its own stupidity. And if all else fails, there is still always my own imagination. I'm still free to just make shit up to entertain myself. Can always learn to make my own movies, write my own books, or create my own games.

We've all let ourselves become to emotionally dependent on this crap; that's why these companies think they can just pull this garbage and get away with it. However, people need to wake-up that they need and want our money more than we do. We're really the ones with the power, not them. If we aren't willing to give them our money because we are tired of their shit, I guarantee they'll suddenly change, and those that don't will simply face the cold horror of natural selection.

ADDENDUM: In case it's not clear, JUST DON'T BUY IT, PEOPLE! Quit squawking about it and just refuse to buy the damn thing. It's not worth the words we keep throwing at it. If it's a piece of shit, note it as such, refuse to buy it, and then move on. We really don't need to waste any more time and energy on garbage.

 

[blackrave]

Well, Bob, have you heard of a gaming platform called "personal computer"?
This "personal computer" (or a PC for short) is a marvelous device that allows you to play games at the highest quality, modify these games and eventually you will learn a thing or two about machine itself.
Besides being great gaming platform it is also wonderful tool for doing all sorts of useful stuff, like writing, painting, making videos and music, etc.
You are intrigued I see? Good.
What? How do you get games for this PC?
There are few ways.
1.Buy them at the stores. But who needs those physical boxes to collect dust on them?
2.Buy from Steam, GOG, Origin (or any other digital store you prefer). Yes, digital copies via internet. Oh, I see your paranoia-meter is spiking. While it is viable reaction, especially when taking into consideration how M$ tries to x-bone console gamers, on PC there are powers that prevents such thing from happening.
3.Torrents. THAT is the power that prevents dickish behavior from publishers/providers. Yes, I know, I've heard it all: "piracy is evil", "piracy is destroying PC gaming", "piracy is theft", "you are horrible person if you defend piracy", blablabla. But the fact is- if Valve, for example, does something so unacceptable for you that you cease to use Steam, you have an option to download all your game library from torrents and keep playing them. And they know it.
So are you interested, Bob?

 

[5mj7R7yf4Dwr3gdZyyu9PeGNwYjlNrjzuh3iTXQG]

People forget that the game Monopoly was created to demonstrate the negative aspects of capitalism (specifically regarding land monopolies, but the lesson still applies) that profits trickle upwards until only property owners have any money. And Monopoly only took into account market forces, not more sophisticated economic concepts such as regulatory capture or anti-competitive practices. While we haven't achieved the situation in which the affluent have all the wealth and the impoverished have one, we are approaching such where the comparison is billionaires to people who live on less than $20,000. The differences in wealth are negligible.

But this is not the first time Big Micro has tried to pull this kind of licensing bullshit. The Zune was also contingent on ever advancing DRM, and part of its failure was due to the MS policy that when an old DRM was phased out and you couldn't play your old tunes, your license would just end, and you'd have to buy your new tunes all over again. One would expect that holding a license means that you are entitled to your media no matter how often it changes platforms, but big media has always enjoyed (and now takes for granted) treating such "licenses" as products when it suits them. DVD dies to Blu-Ray? You gotta buy all your movies all over again. Sorry, chum. But if you rip a tune from a CD and share it with your buddies, BY GOD THAT'S STEALING!

Myself, I have no cart in this race. My experiences with PSone-style controllers have soured my interest in console games. I love mouse and keyboard, and cannot stand the fairly uniform controller scheme, especially when I'm trying to look around or maneuver a camera. I also resent that many many console games don't have customizable keys, an issue on which PC gaming has spoiled me rotten. I've heard nothing good about Kinect and when I play games want to be able to do the most with the least amount of movement. When Sony PSN and XBox LIVE started killing accounts (and their associated consoles) arbitrarily without accountability, I was so relieved I wasn't a part of that. (I don't have a Origin account for the same reason.) Anyway, my own grievances are about Windows 8, its poor security, its invasions of privacy and the Windows Certification process which is already a vehicle for censorship. But I suspect that these will either be fixed or will kill Windows 8, and I digress.

My hope is that the Bone is going to be a spectacular flop. I hope that Microsoft loses money in 2013 for daring to release a consumer-unfriendly "all purpose" game console after releasing such a consumer-unfriendly OS. I hope that "xbone" becomes a colloquialized verb, meaning to make a grievous mistake that everyone foresaw but you, as in don't xbone this, or wow, the new Star Wars got totally xboned! I want Sony, Nintendo and the new owners of Microsoft to be completely penitent to their consumer base the way that EA now has to reassure us that new titles do not require a persistent online connection and can completely be played offline OH GOD PLEASE GIVE US ANOTHER CHANCE!

I don't think anything less will get to Big Micro's bean counters. They really do think of us as walking brainless wallets.

238U

 

[GAunderrated]

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

 

[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.