Your Feedback Matters – Update on Xbox One
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- $100 more expensive than PS4.
- Kinect always included, always connected and always on. Cannot be removed, disabled or turned off.
- Netflix behind Xbox Live Gold paywall, available for free on PS4.
Plus other numerous functionality complaints such as it's supposed to be the way you watch TV but it isn't a DVR, you still need a separate DVR. And it's supposed to be the center of your home theater but only has a single HDMI input.
Kinect can be controlled and disabled.
http://www.amazon.com/Post--3-Inches-Canary-Yellow-12-Pads/d...
Though there are a number of reasons I don't like the Xbox One, the Kinect isn't one of them.
Really though I think it'd be easier for them to just give customers the option not to plug it in, but my guess is that they're trying to make sure everyone uses the kinect that they ship with the console (its not necessarily being used for nefarious purposes), but with that being said I still don't trust Microsoft.
Really? What about mute people? Microsoft can't be that accessibility-impaired!
I guess the difference with this microphone is that it's listening to you all the time by default, and that creeps some people out. But it's not sending your words over the network, and is not more likely to start doing so than any of the aforementioned devices (actually, much less, because of increased security); it's just pattern matching for the word "Xbox". Kind of like the initial worries over Gmail "reading your email" to target ads: I predict that this too will peter out once people start actually using the product, albeit perhaps never die completely.
(For the record, the fact that Gmail messages can also be read by law enforcement under some circumstances is both a serious issue and irrelevant to the analogy.)
Not any speaker, but you can use some headphones as microphones very easily.
When it comes to teardowns you trust that multiple independent parties aren't all actively lying to you in concert.
I don't see how these are at all similar.
I won't reveal any secrets, but:
1) It should be very easy to determine if the Kinect is listening when it should not be, at least when the unit is off. So whatever MS claims the unit does should be verifiable.
2) I trust the Kinect team to do this right. They're dead serious about privacy issues.
You don't know me, so my trust in point #2 isn't necessarily transitive. But you should be able to look at signals and verify #1.
A switch that just twiddles a bit on an input line can be ignored by software.
A switch that controls power might be interesting. But then there's a cable from the camera to the console itself, which could carry some power, and might be used to run a microphone, or maybe the camera electronics, a little bit.
Really, your recourse is to unplug the camera. Or not have one.
Others have pointed out that there are microphones on laptops and tablets (that appear to be off, but who knows?), and many celebrated cases in which reverse-spyware has been used to recover stolen hardware.
This stuff is all around us now. There's no coordinated plan for NSA-like folks to glue it together, or light it up without us knowing, and I think this would be hard, at least for the time being, and doubly hard to do without someone noticing.
By contrast, there is no compelling reason the Kinect component(s) must be connected to the xbox when not in use.
I obviously don't know what sort of bus is being used internally, but if it were, for example, USB, then the mechanical switch could easily behave as the equivalent of removing a USB connector from a socket.
The laptop/microphone argument is a red herring. "Everybody else is doing it" is not a valid excuse for doing the wrong thing.
Don't get stuck in the mode of thinking you must design the solution to fit arbitrary requirements already decided upon. Those requirements aren't merely the source of the problem, they are the problem, and they're causing Microsoft to deliberately put its customers at risk.
Either way thats not the point, I don't have a webcam or mic plugged in, except when i am using it for video chat or gaming, and afterwards i unplug them. The xbox's cannot be removed like my PCs.
I'm completely building this into a paranoid delusion, but then this whole thread is a demonstration that we lack / are denied the knowledge to dispel paranoid delusions, and sometimes they're right.
m3mnoch.
This is so ridiculous it's not worth talking about. The chances of snooping due to the console being hacked are slightly higher, but where are all the people complaining that most laptops, tablets, and phones (which generally have significantly less software security) have built-in software controlled cameras and microphones? Laptops usually have indicator lights for cameras, but not microphones, and the other two have no indicators and follow you wherever you go.
But doesn't that just mean you have to trust the light? I mean this does indeed seem rather ridiculous. If you're really that paranoid, a piece of masking tape will solve your problem.
This problem is solved by having the power to the camera hardwired to the light. If the camera is on the light will be on, well until the led burns out but that takes a while.
Last I checked and my model of macbook has this but I do not know how common it is over all.
I do not think this is common practice for microphones and it seems like it should be.
There are many places where you have to leave your cell phone by the door before entering.
I also expect that if video/audio are being saved or else transmitted to Microsoft/NSA or else being dynamically analyzed using the latest wank-detection algorithms, then someone will detect this by the resource usage.
- Yes one could tape it. Don't apply the tape directly since repeated application and removal of tape can impair camera functionality due to residual adhesive accumulation and the depositing of dust etc on the residual adhesive. Use Microfiber based cloth material between the tape and camera.
- But having said that, I find it painful to even think of repeatedly taping and 'untaping' cameras. Having to remember to point them the other way too is not good - one can forget to do so at times. And then lose sleep over it after having say, watched a romantic movie with one's girlfriend. And so on.
Physically connect when required is a more comfortable model, at least for me. I've seen some unbelievable shit being pulled by hackers, including changing camera firmware to achieve their objective. So making it easier for users to feel absolutely comfortable with their devices is important.
No, of course not, and that caution is entirely justified. Consider how effective Samsung's Smart TV security was, right up until they got rooted at the end of last year, at which point if the only privacy safeguards are under software control then they are essentially worthless.
Of course, but why would you go through that bother if you can just move to a PS4?
I think that's reason enough to avoid it.
I also don't care about the always-semi-on Kinect.
Same here! Also, I'm a casual gamer and I go months...YEARS without playing video games. I do not want another subscription that I'm going to forget about. I had an Xbox 360, but I never paid for the Gold service - so the only online gaming in my house is done on my PC workstation.
I will probably get a PS4 this time around.
WiiU + PC will probably get you more coverage than PS4 + PC. As far as I can tell anyway...
How so? The WiiU seems to me like the most likely to have a bunch of exclusives, if only because of the distinct architecture.
Architecture has nothing to do with this - vast majority of exclusives comes from the first party studios (studios owned by the respective console manufacturer) and second parties (independent studio titles, published by the console manufacturer). There are some random third party (publishers like EA,Activision,Ubi etc) exclusives but from what I can tell Nintendo's are just shovel-ware (such as Carnival Games, variously branded "fitness" games, cartoon licensed titles etc.) while both Sony and MS enjoyed some AAA third party exclusives. There is no reason to believe the situation is going to change in the future - if anything it's going to be less of those since the major producer of Nintendo exclusive shovel-ware, THQ Inc, went bankrupt recently.
Out of the three console majors, Nintendo has the least first party studios - 7 (at least 3 of which are working on handhelds exclusively). Microsoft has the most. And Sony has the most first parties that actually ship games regularly.
So the only chance for Wii U to get more exclusives than PS4 is for Nintendo to contract a bunch of 2nd parties and/or sign a lot of exclusive contracts with the 3d parties. If this ever going to happen it's far from "likely" since it has not happened for the last 3 generations of consoles (Nintendo beating Sony on the exclusives).
Go down the lists yourself. http://www.ign.com/wikis/xbox-one/List_of_Xbox_One_Games http://www.ign.com/videos/2013/06/18/the-ps4-exclusives-you-...
The majority of these "exclusives", especially the big ones like TitanFall or Metal Gear Solid 5. Most of the Indie-game "exclusives" on PS4 are actually on Steam or will be on Steam. (ie: Transistor)
Nintendo Games however, have never really appeared on PC. No chance ever, especially because the WiiU gamepad is so unique. * Super Mario Bros 2 U * Pikmin 3 * Super Smash Bros. * MarioKart 8 * NintendoLand
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The next would be PS4, as there are more PS4 exclusives that aren't coming to PC. Finally, Microsoft tends to shoot itself in the foot and release all of their exclusives on PC anyway. So...
PC + WiiU for me. Possibly PS4 if Killzone is good enough, but thats $400 for a couple of games that I may or may not care about. (and may come to the PC anyway)
It depends on your definition of "huge", I guess. I know just a few games like Halo 1 (and 2 maybe), Alan Wake, which were exclusives on varios xboxes and became available on PC at later time. Don't know any playstation games like that, at least from the recent generations.
Your list (the second link is a video I did not watch) only shows multi-platform, some of which is available on PC. Also I will remind you that this is not the list of all the games. A transition between generations is usually covered with multiplatforms to compensate for the small installed base. Check out the list of exclusives for Wii, PS3 and 360 to make a more realistic picture.
>Nintendo Games however, have never really appeared on PC. No chance ever, especially because the WiiU gamepad is so unique. * Super Mario Bros 2 U * Pikmin 3 * Super Smash Bros. * MarioKart 8 * NintendoLand
Neither had Sony's games. * Infamous 2 * God of War 3 * Playstation All Star Battle Royale * GT 6 * Playstation Home
I don't question your tastes, some people like Nintendo games (otherwise Nintendo had been out of business long time ago). But there is a huge logical leap between "I like these games" and "there are objectively more games like these".
Also a $100 Discount doesn't have any traction with me regarding all of the bad will they created from the decades of pushing highly proprietary technologies into the market. Their terrible practices for me hit a crescendo when they made my life miserable via in-laws putting Sony rootkit audio-cd's into their PC.
Nope. Not getting any more of my dollars.
Does it matter than much though? They are both awful in the context we are discussing. I'll likely not buy either, although that Tom Clancy 3rd person shooter MMO looks like a lot of fun and is console only.
The Steambox is an interesting alternative, it's scheduled for this year (insert valve release date joke here).
Also, Sony-BMG is not the same company as Sony Computer Entertainment, and indeed no longer exists.
[1] www.theverge.com/2013/6/19/4445844/valve-steam-game-sharing
My NES, Playstation, PS2, N64, etc. all still work. 360s die within three years of purchase.
Yes, there were the rootkit issues, PSN hack, propietary memory card requirements, ...
However, I feel like they have finally noticed that the consumer just doesn't take it anymore being treated this way and that they need to rethink their approach to earn back the trust of the consumer.
PS+ is an excellent example. You pay a minimal fee for the service every month and receive free games, which you can use as long as you are subscribed to their service.
You don't need to do anything and your game collection keeps on growing anyway! This is a genius offering, which allows any adopter to quickly build up a collection of games, without having to shell out an additional $20-50 for each individual title.
Add their recent announcements in regards to PS4 & PS Vita and it really sounds like they are trying their hardest to convince the consumer on buying their products based on the actual features instead of trying to lock them in with proprietary hardware and devious protection schemes.
It's the first time where I feel Sony is showing off a product again saying "look how awesome this is" without adding a page full of * trying to explain how & why certain features will or will not work.
- Indie self-publishing (PS4 allows, Xbox One doesn't, this is a big deal for me personally).
Give them credit for addressing some of the more pressing issues. It was enough to sway me back after considering a PS4.
Your points about how netflix is behind a paywall and how there isn't a dvr or multiple hdmi inputs in xbone are spot on. If microsoft implements these features, then xbox one could be a great bet.
- Doesn't hide behind a marketing facade.
Sony has made a big following with their marketing campaigns that contrast them with Microsoft, but I am really interested to see how the chips actually fall a few months or years in.
... oh, and the old Xbox 360, I guess. That'll have to just use the composite input to the TV.
I'm baffled to see that these are the reasons. Seriously?
> $100 more expensive than PS4.
You get the easy to use Kinect voice control and things like fitness games that can help you be in your target heart rate zone.
It's also not clear if there will be a physical power button, meaning the only way to turn the damn thing on will be for Kinect to hear the phrase "Xbox On", meaning stuffing it in a cupboard won't be a particularly effective idea.
Also, it now looks like you can no longer share/lend/give away your games digitally to friends and family, you have to lug a stupid disc around. High fives everyone, hooray!
Some parts of the original plan were actually a good idea, if you think of the Xbox One as being purely for digital downloads. It's very similar to Steam, but with a few differences. Better in some respects (shared library, which Valve are reportedly considering), worse in others (can't work offline).
The problem is that they were applying the exact same system to physical copies of a game. While their original plan was actually pretty good for digital distribution (it's a little more permissive than the Xbox 360), it's awful for physical copies. The physical copy is nothing more than a CD key and a backup so you don't have to download the game. It completely violates everyone's expectations of what a physical copy is, and what you can do with it.
Microsoft explained all this very poorly. Their message was basically "here's all the ways we're going to restrict Xbox One games, all the extra requirements to play Xbox One games, and all the things you used to be able to do that you can't anymore". The benefits were an afterthought, barely mentioned, and they waited until E3 to even do that.
What they probably should have done is separate physical and digital copies. Have digital copies work more or less the same as the original announcement, and physical copies work like they do on the Xbox 360. Then it becomes a choice. If you want all the benefits of digital distribution (and make sure you play those benefits up at every opportunity), you can do that. If you don't, get a physical copy, and it works the same way it always has.
Although Microsoft do clearly want to move towards only digital distribution, they can't yet. The restrictions on physical copies are basically just a response to publishers, who are convinced that the used game market is the cause of all of their problems. They're wrong, of course. Just as they were wrong about piracy being the cause of all their problems, and just as they were wrong about game rentals being the cause of all their problems before that.
As for the pricing thing - that will not happen.
As far as publishers are concerned, US$60 for a game is a bargain. They'd love to charge more, but people won't pay more than that. There is no way they'd ever reduce that, even if they eliminated used games entirely, and had zero distribution and publishing costs. They've already established that people are willing to pay US$60 for a game, and the sale price of an item is simply whatever people are willing to pay for it. If they reduce costs, why would they reduce the asking price? If they increase sales by removing used games entirely, why could they reduce the price? That's not how businesses work.
The only way game prices will come down is if there's some kind of competition. Game publishers will charge the same for an Xbox One or PS4 version of a game, because the publishers control the prices, so there's no competition there. New games currently cost the same on Xbox 360, PS3, and Steam, after all. Retailers don't really have much scope for reducing prices, because they have very little margin on new games, so there's no competition there. Used games would no longer be competing either, because publishers would just ask for some (probably very high) cut of all used game sales. There's no way to set up a competing online shop for Xbox One games, and no way to publish an Xbox One game without going through Microsoft, so there's no chance of competition there either.
The only potential source of competition is between games. Publishers have demonstrated that they are not willing to do this. Not on consoles, anyway. Competition between games is what pushed mobile game prices down, even though all sales went through the same app store. That happened because the mobile space was dominated by smaller developers, mostly self-funded and self-publishing, who needed to compete or die. That's not the case with the major publishers and developers.
Steam faces competition from retailers, from other online shops (either selling physical or digital copies), from all the publishers and developers who self-publish, and there's a great deal of competition between games because of the sheer number of smaller publishers or independent developers, combined with the absolutely enormous available back catalog, most of which still works on modern PCs. That, combined with various developers (Valve being the most obvious) who aren't even trying for a US$60 price point in the first place. That's why Steam has decent prices, why games cost less over time, any why they have such frequent sales. Competition, not because of restrictions on what you can do with the games.
2) While you may have the luxury of a decent internet connection at a reasonable price, that is nowhere near the case for much of the USA. Gaming consoles are least common denominator products by design, so cutting off that huge segment of people for selfish reasons isn't a smart idea.
3) At 0.58 oz, a DVD weighs less than a sippy cup, so even the smallest of toddlers should have no issue carrying it. You're also missing the bigger point that, with a disc, you don't have to wait 2 hours for a game to download before you can play it.
2) "Re-authenticate every 24 hours" does not imply decent, always-on Internet. Most of the U.S. can re-authenticate every 24 hours. And those who are in the small minority that cannot should not prevent everyone else from the benefits of being able to digitally share their games with others. On military bases and space stations there can always be a special edition XBone that doesn't require connectivity and only plays discs with some software tweaks. Now, instead, we all lose.
3) The point about lugging it around was not the weight, it's the fact in 2013 there are use cases where a disc is the only way to do something, in this case, sharing a game. My lapto and iPad don't have disc drives and I haven't bought a game on a DVD in about 10 years.
2. So while someone's connection is flaky they can't play games. Users in entire countries would regularly have problems playing games. Overseas military wouldn't be able to play at all. You can say, "Just make a military edition" but how exactly would you control who can get one? How would you prevent military people from reselling them.
And perhaps the biggest problem with the online DRM is that if the DRM servers ever go down, every XboxOne on Earth would be insta-bricked. Xbox Live has gone down multiple times and PSN was down for a month, it is more than a passing possibility that the DRM servers could go down. Especially because they make an extremely attractive target for hackers.
Even with all of that, nothing is stopping Microsoft from offering digital-download games for cheaper than physical games. Maybe their DRM architecture is an all or nothing deal, but that would be the fault of their lack of foresight.
The Xbox One will support blu-ray discs, so your entire argument is invalid.
I'm annoyed that they are removing this functionality. While I don't like being prevented from reselling games, I have never resold one that I've bought, but I HAVE had a disc get scratched after bumping my Xbox with my foot. The only solution is to buy another disc, which sucks.
Still, I think that they should push the online distribution model by selling online games at a CHEAPER price than the disc. The reason I currently buy discs instead of the online downloads is because the downloads never go on sale. For example, you can get Halo 4 on disc for $20 right now, but it's $60 on Xbox Live.
That was never going to happen. Did you mean "online"?
While playing your game, you could have been completely offline without a disk. The 24-hour requirement is completely separate.
When you download a game, you can't lend it. You can resell it. Yet no one seems to care (status quo and all). But I think it's the natural progression of things, the next-next gen will be all download (well, we all said that last time too..)
This seems pretty unlikely. Microsoft already has a large slice of its catalogue available for download on the 360 — and it's almost always cheaper to buy the disc. To illustrate, I will look up a random game that I did not know the price of before this. Saints Row: The Third costs $49 on the Xbox Marketplace. On Amazon, a new copy costs $29.
Discounting lucrative titles just isn't how game companies work, and it especially isn't how Microsoft works.
http://www.gamespot.com/news/steam-may-allow-game-sharing-re...
IMHO, their proposed system is OK, but it should be opt-in, not opt-out. I mean to buy a lot of games and I have zero interest in playing online. Why should I care about that anyway? 24-hour check is...let's be honest and just say it is limiting.
http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/06/17/microsoft-reveals-the...
Was this a pre-emptive statement, based on their retraction today? Possibly, but probably not. Pricing their games lower would convey the secondary message that their games have less value than the equivalent game on PS4.
Would they have lowered them eventually? Probably not until Sony did as well. There's was literally no reason for them to do so (aside from some graduate analysts saying it would have cost them in the long run).
I think this is by far the best decision they could have made. They have kept DRM out of it for those that do not want it, but have also taken a step toward the online download service that they have been striving for.
If Microsoft really had plans to make games cheaper online, they can still do that. In fact, they can do that, and then when people buy more games online because they're more price competitive, they look like the good guys, pushing the better model, and ultimately being right.
If. The great thing is consumers can't lose.
I imagine Xbox One prices would be determined by Microsoft and the publishers (with the cost of licensing factored in), and not quite the free-for-all pricing that we've come to know and love about Steam.
We don't see that on the PC. Most big-name publishers largely charge the same on all platforms. How much was Diablo 3? Assassin's Creed 3 for PC? SimCity? These games all had always-online DRM, yet they cost just as much as an Xbox game.
I would put the chances of the Xbox One's restrictions leading to cheaper games very close to zero. It seems actually more likely to me that gamers would end up paying more on average in a market where the supply and pricing of used goods is tightly controlled.
They already sell games digitally on the current gen systems but choose not to do many decent sales. There isn't anything stopping them from giving you cheap games, they just don't want to - there's no reason for them to put in the DRM except to give themselves more control.
Game makers can choose to do other things, just as they can on the PS4. Specific downloaded games might have specific activation policies, and so on.
The outrage was that Microsoft seemed to make the baseline one that was very anti-consumer. They have done these sorts of things quite often, going above and beyond to serve interests other than their customers. Recall when Microsoft Media Center forcefully imposed completely irrelevant broadcast flags that no other DVR or cable box in the world listened to, deleting recordings after a prescribed period and so on.
I would agree that making games unplayable if you are banned from XBox Live is horrible, and I am skeptical that was actually going to be a real policy since it's obviously unfair and there's no real "DRMy" reason to do it.
More like general consumer sentiment.
That doesn't say that much, as we don't know the actual numbers, but of course on Amazon the PS4 absolutely owned the charts, and the only reason they don't now is the sales "split" between a number of bundles.
Really, if you want to do that with a digitally-purchased game, you should just both be buying a copy, for a lot less than that disc would have cost. But MS wasn't willing to say "sorry, you're obsolete" to the game stores, so they weren't saying "hey now your games will cost half as much or even less if you buy them through us". Consumers have shown they don't care about all that DRM/licensing stuff on iOS if an expensive game is one that costs $10!
You're not really contradicting the grandparents point that If you're going to make the argument that discs are "good enough" you sound a bit like people saying letters are "good enough" compared to e-mail.
[1] 'I could name a friend that lives 3,000 miles away as one of my "family members" Mehdi said.' http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/06/microsoft-defends-the-...
Converting a disc to a digital license is a bit more complicated, but not unsolvable.
Rather than backtrack, keep moving forward but do it a little bit more slowly... the way Amazon did/does with Kindle.
If that was indeed Microsofts strategy, you can look at this press release as saying "OK, well Sony didn't go the way we thought, so we're backing off. No harm, no foul".
As evidence that they at least had this route as a contingency plan, you have to think this kind of massive about face in the tech would only be possible if they had built in a "TURN_OFF_CRAZY_DRM" flag or something, just in case.
The box, the DRM, media integration, etc. means nothing if they lose those subscribers to the Wii U or PS4. So, don't piss off your core customers.
Anecdotally, a lot of my friends and family who are longtime Xbox gamers have no intention of buying a $500 DRM laden Xbox 360. Removing a lot of the DRM restrictions still doesn't fix the price and now Microsoft already looks a bit foolish for not being very customer friendly in the first place.
The "console war" is a long game, but Xbox One didn't start out on the right foot for sure.
I assumed they were succumbing to pressure from their customer base... what was I supposed to think the reason was?
A few months ago, I purchased the Xbox360 after hearing nothing but great things about it. I have to say that it's been a complete disappointment for me: the lag on XBL is exactly the same as on PSN, the games are more or less the same, and the fact that I have to pay Microsoft for access to other subscription services (which makes absolutely no sense) is a complete turnoff for me. Sony got quite a bit of flack for not being as 'cool' as Xbox360, but I have to say that caring about your customers is really refreshing. Kind of sad that that's the state of gaming at this point!
I would have been one of the people quick to abandon the platform, but now I'm considering purchasing the Xbox One. I'm sure some of your friends might be reconsidering as well.
+ No more needing to connect in every 24 hours to validate your game. It connects once the first time you run it.
+ You can now lend, share and sell disc-based games exactly as you can with PS3 and Xbox 360 discs
- All other advanced sharing features have been dropped (share with 10 friends/family, virtually lend to a friend, etc)
- Discs will need to be in the tray to play
If you download/buy a game from xbox live you can virtually lend it and a connection is require to lend the game (and temporary disable your access to that game). If you own a physical copy you can lend it as you did before. Everyone's happy and if the new system is that good and the consumers are happy then maybe the next system could be through xbox live only.
I don't want or need the vast majority of features they are offering. I live in Bolivia - I don't care about the NFL, can't watch Netflix or even stream Pandora. The PS4 has more features that I can use and want, is cheaper and doesn't come with bullshit DRM.
Where's the choice?
I'm in Colombian and that way i can watch Netflix, use Pandora and others.
On top of all that, it's clearly the superior hardware for cheaper, without the surveillance device bundled.
They are in for a rude awakening.
The XBOX PRISM is a different creature altogether, and a very worrisome precedent precisely because we already have smartphones and tablets that could potentially follow that path.
Without the 24 hour check, there's no way to guarantee that the games tied to disks are still owned by you and you didn't just give them to someone.
Meanwhile, with MSFT's old plan you couldn't lend a game to anyone, couldn't rent a game from anyone, and it seems like you could only sell your game back to a retailer.
People keep saying, "The games would've been cheaper" but there were no indications that was going to happen. If games were going to be cheaper, don't you think Microsoft would've touted that as a benefit at least ONCE since they unveiled the Xbox One?
And don't even try to feed me that BS about "companies exist to make money". No. They. Do. Not. A company exists to create a solution to a problem or fulfill a need. In exchange for providing that to a consumer or user they are rewarded with money. Money is not the goal, it's the result of achieving a goal. People don't start companies thinking "I'm going to start a company to make money" . They do however start them by saying "I'm going to start a company that makes ______ for money".
I'm just glad this whole thing backfired and I hope they feel the wrath of the gaming community for years. Their entire plan was to kiss the asses of publishers who would in turn make more exclusives for Xbone and the players would have no choice but to get an Xbone. Now that is a dick move.
Yes they do.
> People don't start companies thinking "I'm going to start a company to make money" .
Yes they do.
You've clearly never met any business majors.
1) You still have to have the Kinect, and so long as the console is on it, too, will always be on. (And apparently even when the console is off it will still be listening for the "turn on" command. This has implications I'm not comfortable with.)
2) Independent developers will still be prohibited from participating in the Marketplace.
3) It will still be $100 more than the PS4.
I've been a 360 owner for several years now. At this time it doesn't look like I'll be getting the next generation model.
This region-lock limitation prevents me from giving money to Microsoft, which is something they should want actually, and from developing for the console.
Last week at E3, the excitement, creativity and future of our industry was on display for a global audience.
For us, the future comes in the form of Xbox One, a system designed to be the best place to play games this year and for many years to come. As is our heritage with Xbox, we designed a system that could take full advantage of advances in technology in order to deliver a breakthrough in game play and entertainment. We imagined a new set of benefits such as easier roaming, family sharing, and new ways to try and buy games. We believe in the benefits of a connected, digital future.
Since unveiling our plans for Xbox One, my team and I have heard directly from many of you, read your comments and listened to your feedback. I would like to take the opportunity today to thank you for your assistance in helping us to reshape the future of Xbox One.
You told us how much you loved the flexibility you have today with games delivered on disc. The ability to lend, share, and resell these games at your discretion is of incredible importance to you. Also important to you is the freedom to play offline, for any length of time, anywhere in the world.
So, today I am announcing the following changes to Xbox One and how you can play, share, lend, and resell your games exactly as you do today on Xbox 360. Here is what that means:
An internet connection will not be required to play offline Xbox One games – After a one-time system set-up with a new Xbox One, you can play any disc based game without ever connecting online again. There is no 24 hour connection requirement and you can take your Xbox One anywhere you want and play your games, just like on Xbox 360.
Trade-in, lend, resell, gift, and rent disc based games just like you do today – There will be no limitations to using and sharing games, it will work just as it does today on Xbox 360.
In addition to buying a disc from a retailer, you can also download games from Xbox Live on day of release. If you choose to download your games, you will be able to play them offline just like you do today. Xbox One games will be playable on any Xbox One console -- there will be no regional restrictions.
These changes will impact some of the scenarios we previously announced for Xbox One. The sharing of games will work as it does today, you will simply share the disc. Downloaded titles cannot be shared or resold. Also, similar to today, playing disc based games will require that the disc be in the tray.
We appreciate your passion, support and willingness to challenge the assumptions of digital licensing and connectivity. While we believe that the majority of people will play games online and access the cloud for both games and entertainment, we will give consumers the choice of both physical and digital content. We have listened and we have heard loud and clear from your feedback that you want the best of both worlds.
Thank you again for your candid feedback. Our team remains committed to listening, taking feedback and delivering a great product for you later this year.
I know this has almost no chance of being the reason for the usage of the phrase "best of both worlds".
I posted this in a HN thread about xbox one.
>So the PS4 is Steam for consoles with offline support. Best of both worlds.
Thread:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5876761
Comment:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5878200
:-)
An entity that only does the right thing after being publicly ousted is not an entity deserving of the public's trust or business.
That feels overly cynical. It's not like they were caught doing something underhanded, they just announced policies that weren't as consumer-friendly. There was a backlash, their competition took advantage of it, and they switched to a better policy.
To me, it seems that everything worked out the way it was supposed to. Capitalism still works.
Though the fact that they're still giving me what I want (digital downloads on all games) means I really have nothing to complain about. Digital lending / sharing features might have been cool though.
They’ve thrown out the baby with the bathwater. This sort of flexible licensing doesn’t make sense for disc-based games, but would have worked very well for downloads.
They should rename the Xbox One to the Xbox 180, it would be a perfect name!
On a more serious note, I don't like this rollback. It only goes to show how the witchhunt and echo chamber on Reddit worked. Even before the reveal, Microsoft was falsely accused of trying to game Reddit and everyone flew off the handle over someone pretty much lying to be a troll. Say the word "DRM" and you get bucketloads of Reddit karma and posts pointing out the facts(forget about posts taking the opposing view or opinion) were downvoted into oblivion by the angry mob.
And then there was the bad timing on the NSA leaks, which didn't help at all. Everyone has smartphones, laptops and tablets with cameras and mics which could be watching and listening and Apple/Google were part of the leak, but it was Microsoft that was singled out for proposing a device that could turn on itself, and had numerous safeguards to configure privacy if you wanted to.
All this doesn't excuse the fact that Microsoft utterly and totally failed in communicating their message in a proper manner in E3 and handed Sony an easy victory on a silver platter. For example, they failed to highlight how it fixes the problem of scratched and lost discs and how inconvenient it is to change discs to switch between games. I know a lot of people with huge DVD collections who watch the same movie on Netflix because they can't be bothered to put in a disc into the player.
They were touting the ability to play another game while waiting for people to join another multiplayer game, now that will be inconvenient with having to switch disks.
I guess it was easy to roll this back because it was not Microsoft but publishers and game developers that were going to reap the benefits of diskless gaming because Gamestop etc. skim off the value of older games and leave publishers with not much value. Once the public failed to see the advantages and blamed Microsoft for a power grab that was not going to really benefit them all that much, it was game over.
It seems like you haven't considered that the echo chamber is right on this one. DRM is a cancer on the industry and every attempt to fight it back is worth it. You make points that the DRM could lead to potential benefits, no one is disputing that. Simply put, with the way it was, I was never going to buy an Xbox, now I might consider it. I can't stand the trend these days where the consumer owns nothing and controls nothing. This is capitalism at work, nothing else. It seems like a win for consumer rights and a win for Microsoft. Your post seems like a reactionary post lambasting the reactionary posts on reddit.
Let me put it to you this way, if I were to ever buy a console, I might have considered the XBox One. Microsoft has a history of being partly a benefactor (especially with the 360 and XNA); and things can be changed and improved over time (just like Steam was). We might not have liked the first iteration of the DRM, but it could have been changed (require both devices to be connected to the internet when changing ownership? The horde would have still torn them apart for that).