Xbox 720 Reveal

[HoonDing]

I foresee this console war will ultimately end like

 

[Zoraptor]

Didn't they sell Windows 8 for a quarter of the usual Windows price for a few months? They really wanted people to use Windows 8, they probably couldn't give it away.

That's very common with MS. I got Win7 for something like $10 and got XP Pro for free, both perfectly legit. Their main revenue comes from large users who don't get those discounts, but they always offer some sort of upgrade incentive once the easy money from the early adopters is taken.

 

Don't get me wrong, I think win8 as it stood/ stands was moronic, but mainly because it didn't give the bulk users any incentive (and quite a lot of disincentive, really, given the significant UI changes) to upgrade.

[AwesomeOcelot]

Maybe, but if they were to drop the price of games they'd have to take it out of their own cut, and that's the only thing that makes a typical console profitable.

If they sell more then it doesn't matter, they've increased their revenue. They couldn't take it out of their own cut, they'd have to get publishers on board and share the load. The only people losing out are retailers that make a lot of revenue from second hand sales.

[Keyrock]

I'd laugh if Microsoft turned around a month before release and said "yeah, we're now selling our games at $30-40"

That's a vivid imagination you got there.

[alanschu]

Isn't MS about to start giving away games to XBox Live users?

[babaganoosh13]

The keyword is "recommend" not "require."

It's easy to see that 1.5 Mbps is needed for cloud computing for graphics, AI, etc, which of course, are all optional.

Checking in will be just as painless as logging in. I could be wrong, but I can't imagine there will b much data to be transferred in checking-in mechanism.

 

 

Again, unless it comes equipped with a dial up modem, their potential consumer base in my county is about a dozen. MS is claiming that the data used for checking in is in the K's so that isn't supposed to be a burden people who have caps. That still leaves about 99% of those in my county without broadband out as potential consumers.

 

If they really want back in the game, they should sell the console for $100 cheaper by getting rid of the compulsory Kinect crap that very few people who don't play dance games really want (and aren't happy with the Wii ones,) and scrap ALL of that DRM crap they're adding in. Have two options when installing to the HD. Tie into the account for non-disk playing, or do what they do now with the current consoles by having the disk check at the beginning when playing the game.

 

All of it is unnecessary, and about power over the consumer. The "goodies" are basically crap you get for free anyways as a PC gamer, or offer nothing new for what you pay for less as a PS gamer. Some of those are free there as well (not counting MP.)

 

Isn't MS about to start giving away games to XBox Live users?

Yes, right now I think Fable 3 is free, (which is still too much for it IMO for the annoyance of that stupid inventory system alone. A keep would have been a nice place to hold your extra stuff...not everything.) but (assuming one doesn't already own them) Halo 3 and Assassins Creed 2 are supposed to be next in line. I don't think they've announced yet what they're going to do for the XBone in that regards.

[Malcador]

http://pastebin.com/uCmdh9jB

 

>The thing is we suck at telling the story. The whole point of the DRM switch from disc based to cloud based is to kill disc swapping, scratched discs, bringing discs to friends house, trade-ins for **** value with nothign going back to developers, and high game costs. If you want games cheaper then 59.99, you have to limit used games somehow. Steam's model requires a limited used game model.

 

>The thing is, the DRM is really really similar to steam... You can login anywhere and play your games, anyone in your house can play with the family xbox. The only diff is steam you have to sign in before playing, and Xbox does it automatically at night for you (once per 24 hours)

 

>It's a long tail strategy, just like steam. Steam had it's growing pains at the beginning with all it's drm **** as well. [...] For digital downloads steam had no real competition at the time, they were competing against boxed sales. At the time people were pretty irate about steam, (on 4chan too...) It was only once they had a digital marketplace with DRM that was locked down to prevent sharing that they could do super discounted ****.

 

>Think about it, on steam you get a game for the true cost of the game, 5$-30$. On a console you have to pay for that PLUS any additional licenses for when you sell / trade / borrow / etc. If the developer / publisher can't get it on additional licenses (like steam), then they charge the first person more. [...] If we say "Hey publishers, you limit game to 39.99, we ensure every license transfer you get 10$, gamestop gets 20$" that is a decent model... Microsoft gets a license fee on first and subsequent game purchases, compared to just first now? That's a revenue increase.

 

>Competition is the best man, it helps drive both to new heights. See technology from the Cold War. If we had no USSR, we'd be way worse off today. TLDR: Bring it on Steam

 

2/4

 

>Yeah we passed that around the office at Xbox. Most of us were like "Well played Sony, Well played". That being said they are just riding the hype train of ZOMG THEY ARE TRYING TO **** US FOR NO REASON. Without actually thinking about how convienent it would be for the majority of the time to not find that disc your brother didn't put back... [...] just simpleminded people not seeing the bigger picture. Some PS4 viral team made them all "U TOOK R DISCS" and they hiveminded.

 

>Everyone and their mother complains about how gamestop ****s them on their trade ins, getting 5$ for their used games. We come in trying to find a way to take money out of gamestop, and put some in developers and get you possibly cheaper games and everyone bitches at MS. Well, if you want the @#$@ing from Gamestop, go play PS4.

 

>The goal is to move to digital downloads, but Gamestop, Walmart, Target, Amazon are KIND OF ****ING ENTRENCHED in the industry. They have a lot of power, and the shift has to be gradual. Long term goal is steam for consoles. [...] If you always want to stay with what you have, then keep current consoles, or a PS4. We're TRYING to move the industry forwards towards digital distribution... it'sa bumpy road

 

>Publishers have enourmous power. Microsoft is trying to balance between consumer delight, and publisher wishes. If we cave to far in either direction you have a non-starting product. WiiU goes too far to consumer, you have no 3rd party support to shake a stick at. PS4 is status-quo. XB1 is trying to push some things, at the expense of others. We have a vision, we'll see if it works in the coming years

 

>Living room transformation. We want to own the living room. Every living room TV with an XBox on input one. It's the thing that gives the signal to your TV, everything is secondary. The future, where games, TV, internet telephony, all that **** happens magically on some huge ass screen with hand / voice gestures... That's our goal.

 

 

3/4

 

>Google TV + PS4 + Minority report level gestures, that combined with a sick second screen experience (which is really hot for TV, I know I know.. tv tv tv tv tv... but it's ****ing sick when you have it). Games will be the same, there are more exclusives to MS then PS atm, and Kinect 2 makes Kinect 1 look like a childs toy.

 

>By default it's on, listening for "Xbox On". You can turn it off tho, and turn the console like OFF off. OFF off is required for Germany / other countries that require it (no vampire appliances) [...] It has to be plugged in for the console to post. You can turn off everything it does from the settings. Think of it like airplane mode for the iPhone. You can't just unplug the cellular radio, but you can turn it off.

 

>Instead of 10mins, is 24hrs for your console, and 1 or 2 at a friends house. Really the majority of people have a speck of internet at least once a day. And if you don't. Don't buy an Xbox 1. Just like if you didn't have a broadband connection don't get Live, and if you don't have an HDTV the 360 isn't that great for you either. New tech, new req. This allows us to do cool **** when we can assume things like you have a kinect, you have internet, etc.

 

>Current plan is basically you're ****ed after 24 hours. Yeah... I know. Kind of sucks. I believe they will probably revist the time period and / or find a diff way to "call in" to ensure you haven't sold your license to gamestop or something... but there is no plan YET. I'm hoping the change it, but I don't work on that so I don't have much influence there /sigh

 

>If the power goes out you ain't playing ****. I'm assuming you mean the internet goes out but you have power for TV and Xbox. Yes, You're ****ed for single player games. Again, that's the PoR (Plan of record), but I expect it to change after the e3 cluster****

 

>What fee? There is no fee to play your games at your friends house. Never has, never will. Even x360 digital downloads could do that.

 

 

4/4

 

>The cloud capabilities is the **** they like the most. We basically made a huge cloud compute **** and made it free. What people are doing with it is kind of cool. THe original intention was to get all the Multiplayer servers not requiring 3rd party costs (Like EA shutting down game servers to cut costs), as well as taking all the games that servers hosted by the clients (Halo, etc), and have all that compute done in the cloud allowing more CPU cycles for gameplay. That will really expand what developers can do. Anything that doesn't need per frame calculation and can handle 100ms delays can be shifted to the cloud. That's huge.

 

>SmartGlass + IE is going to be pretty freaking sweet. 1 finger cursor, 2 finger direct manip. Basically if you think of a laptop trackpad where your phone/ slate is the trackpad and the monitor is your TV... it's that. The tech is there, just needs to be applied. There is some really cool **** going on with Petra + controllers that pairs people with controllers. So if person with controller two trades controlers with controller 1, their profiles magically switch. It's sick. What does this matter? Now if you lean left/right it knows which person is leaning, even if 4 people are all int he same room. It's awesome.

 

>New service using Azure for cloud compute. Allows developers to not use clients for hosting multiplayer servers, or other tasks that do not require per frame calcuations. It's pretty sweet.

 

>Honestly, if you care about anything other then pure games AT ALL. Xbox 1 > PS4. If all you do is play games, and nothing else, PS4.

 

This was all from the Microsoft engineer that was on /b/ last night.

 

>It's not worth my time to prove it, or risk my Job. I work in Studio A, 40th ave in Redmond, Wa. The thai place in the studio cafeteria has double punch wednesdays. Go ahead and call them and verify if you want.

[Monte Carlo]

Maybe M$ is right and we are all just ignoramuses who can't see the paradigm shift to being digital gamers who don't mind paying more to keep the likes of EA happy for "all the great IP" they create.

 

Then again, maybe M$ are being overly defensive douchebags with a withering contempt for their customers. You decide.

 

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/124970-Microsofts-Yusuf-Mehdi-We-Need-To-Educate-Consumers

[alanschu]

Microsoft might be able to change the situation if publishers end up selling the games for cheaper costs (or at least accelerate the decrease in costs, and allow for hyper sales).  They'll have to really, really push the digital service (which is a service I tend to greatly prefer, and see as the future of gaming... sorry console fans).

 

The "problem" with those that feel discs must be maintained, is that margins can definitely allow a digital platform with a smaller install base still be more profitable.  So on some level, businesses will still be okay if some people say "not for me."

 

And the pragmatist in me agrees with the sentiment that, if the 24h online checkin is a deal breaker, then don't buy an Xbox One.

[greylord]

Maybe M$ is right and we are all just ignoramuses who can't see the paradigm shift to being digital gamers who don't mind paying more to keep the likes of EA happy for "all the great IP" they create.

 

Then again, maybe M$ are being overly defensive douchebags with a withering contempt for their customers. You decide.

 

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/124970-Microsofts-Yusuf-Mehdi-We-Need-To-Educate-Consumers

 

I don't know, depends on how you view things.  We recently had a thread on how "alive" PC gaming is with all the DRM, STEAM, and you can only d/l this once or via this program and only in this manner...type junk...and how that kept PC gaming so alive and well it was doing better then ever before.

 

With that in mind...if Microsoft thinks the same way as a majority of that thread...they won't just win this console war...they'll trounce Sony with that type of logic!!!

 

 

OR...

 

It may be that people HAVE preferences not to be chained down by DRM type crud...

 

However, if the sentiment expressed in that thread on how thriving PC gaming is with all the DRM and d/l that's going on...one could assume MS sees that and is going where the money is.

 

I suppose we'll see on how badly MS trounces Sony...OR how badly Sony trounces MS.

 

HOWEVER...I do have one other thing to say.  The always check in thing with MS is probably the big reason I'll excessively favor a PS4 over xbox one (even if I'm already a somewhat sony fan)...that said...the always on camera recording thing doesn't bother me a bit.  IF I truly want the Xbox one camera recording items off, it's as easy as unplugging it from the wall.  Hard to have a camera on without any power...at least I assume that's how it's going to run.

[greylord]

 

And the negativity? Well, it may not matter so much to Microsoft. Sure, core gamers complain, but the folks who don't really pay attention and who just want a fancy box will be fine with Microsoft's Xbox One. "In a broader set of community, people don't pay attention to a lot of the details," said Mehdi. "We've seen it in the research, we've seen it in a lot of the data points."

 

To tell the truth, I actually think this guy could be dead on with this statement.  This is why I expect that the first day sales of the Xbox One will be great...and then they'll literally have forums full of angry customers complaining about not being able to play such and such a game because they were offline for too long...

 

After that initial foray we'll probably see new stories expressing this as some sort of surprise.  They may even feign being absolutely stunned at this surprising revelation despite that fact that MS revealed it now...months before release.

 

After that happens, that's when we'll see how successful or not the Xbox One truly will be.  I expect it may be somewhat like the D3 turnout...with exorbitant sales...but many have a bitter aftertaste later.  Some out there however, will remain enthusiastic about it.

[Morgoth]

http://www.p4rgaming.com/microsoft-confirms-xbox-one-will-only-work-in-21-states-in-the-us-at-launch/

 

 

 

 

Hahahaha.

[Drowsy Emperor]

The thing with Steam is that its the absolute worst place to get new games. Yeah you get great discounts, 6 months, a year or even more down the road, but otherwise its horribly expensive. 

I could have preordered CoH2 for 30 euros retail or bought it on Steam for 60. The retail is still half the price of digital!

 

We all want to get our hands on certain games the day they're released.

 

So if MS implements a digital only service who's to say they won't price gouge for new games like Steam does? 

 

The current status quo is better for a gamer. At least a PC gamer. PC games are more affordable now than they've ever been. We need these people at each other throats to get the best deals.

 

What we don't need is Microsoft with a vertical monopoly. Controlling the developers, being the publisher/sole seller and the hardware seller at the same time. Economic theory says that scenario would be cheaper for the consumer, but lets get real - the moment they control the whole process they can set the price to whatever they damn please.

[alanschu]

Just in case some people aren't aware, Play 4 Real is a hoax site.

Edited June 15, 2013 by alanschu

[Lexx]

http://www.p4rgaming.com/microsoft-confirms-xbox-one-will-only-work-in-21-states-in-the-us-at-launch/

 

 

 

 

Hahahaha.

Is this real or just a joke?

[ShadySands]

It's a joke but supposedly over a third of all Americans don't have dedicated high speed internet. From what I've read the majority of that is by choice though so maybe they'll take the plunge if their favorite console now requires it.  

 

At least now we'll have world peace since deployed troops can no longer play Xbox 

[Azdeus]

So that's why it requires a dedicated internet connection? It's not Microsofts own choice, they were paid by ISP's!

[Monte Carlo]

Read a great article on Reddit about how MS have alientate thousands of members of the US armed services, many of whom rely on their non-internet connected consoles to while away their precious spare hours on deployment (I imagine there is limited broadband for gaming in Helmand Province).

 

Microsoft's reply in army news? "Buy a 360."

 

Now I know it might be seen as a niche thing but (a) Americans (IMO quite rightly) hold their servicemen and women in high esteem and (b) telling them they need to settle for the second best console is a big PR fail for MS.

 

In other news, a PR girl was sacked for revealing how MS' marketing strategy involved too much covert sock-puppeting in order to marginalise people like us who are arguing that the always online aspect of DerpBoxOne is crap. Good on her. Will look for the link on Reddit for the story.

[Drowsy Emperor]

I don't see the reason to get all riled up, if anything worthwhile hits the XBone we're 90% likely to play it on the PC too.

 

Considering its price point, and how expensive console games are - its actually worse value for money than a PC now (all the cheap PC game sales more than make up for the monitor & hardware cost in the long run)

 

Buying it is like a broken pencil. Pointless.

[alanschu]

I think playing up the pride and so forth of the American armed forces is actually much, much lower than Microsoft's decision to make a product that may not be ideal with the lifestyle of the Armed Forces.

 

It comes across as a desperate play, and comes across like White Knighting.  Should *ALL* products be perfectly suited for people serving in the Armed Forces?  If not, then Microsoft is free to do whatever they will with their console.  People serving in the Armed Forces can still buy PS4s.  The "think about the armed forces" is somewhat equivalent to "think about the children" and, in my opinion, is equivalent to the people that use "think of the children" as a form of misdirection because the misgivings are actually personally held.

[Monte Carlo]

Thanks for your input.

[GhostofAnakin]

MS's decision about connection to the internet might actually cause me to go for the PS4 instead.  My net connection is generally solid, but it goes wonky at times.  So I'd hate to buy a system that I won't even be able to play during those wonky periods, even if those are the only free gaming time I happen to have in a given week.

[Morgoth]

Wow, that was fast! Don Mattrick already concedes defeat after the horrible Xbone backlash.

 

[babaganoosh13]

But what I want to know is, will MS, Xbox and DRM be together forever?

[Bokishi]

Just preordered a ps4 lol