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EDGE: The next Xbox: Always online, no second-hand games, 50GB Blu-ray and new kinect

Mononoke

Banned
And the twist of the twist is that Microsoft leaked this info, so that they can make it seem as if Sony leaked the info to make Microsoft look bad, making Sony look bad.

m-night-shyamalan.jpg
 

Takuan

Member
Forced to, likely.

If EA and ActiBlizz says "MS is curbing second hand sales, you have to or we are out" what would sony do? Shrug it off?

Call of Duty, Madden, NHL and FIFA

There's North American and European market, right there.

Yup. I'm curious to see how the market reacts. My guess is that game sales drop off to the extent that big-budget productions become less common, as sales expectations for those types of games will be unrealistically high. More studios are likely to close, with even less people paying full price for games that aren't Madden, Halo or Call of Duty this time around.

Things will be interesting!
 

P90

Member
Well, I can see MS doing this... it's the same company that tried to force gamers to become early adopters of Vista by making Direct X 10 exlusive to Vista.

I can see Sony following suit as well... neither of them is a beacon of consumer rights :/

A feature a company puts in/out of a product is not a "right". It just may be something that changes your decision on a purchase.
 

Foffy

Banned
I sure hope that Edge is wrong on this one .. also wish some of the Xbox media (magazines etc.) come out with their side of the story. Keeping mum isnt doing good.

To be fair, Microsoft's headquarters is in an area where it's now 9 AM, so perhaps this story really surfaced long before their workforce has even entered the main building. :p
 
So a Sony fan or someone acting in the interest of Sony, in the industry, who's close to Nextbox development (be it game development or otherwise) is selling Edge a load of horse manure and they're so confident in this source enough to run this as 'news'.

MmmMMmm!

I did not say that's what happened here, nor would it be that obvious if it had. But both companies will certainly do what they can to undercut their competitors given the fact billions of dollars are at stake.
 

Deadly Cyclone

Pride of Iowa State
BUY A WII U

it's time the core returns to nintendo.

3rd party would have to support it. If this no used thing goes through you can be damn sure the publishers are pushing it, and will push Nintendo to do it. If they don't they'll get less 3rd party support than they have now.
 

McHuj

Member
This is definitely true. If MS responds, wouldn't be this instant. And why should it? Would look silly if a major company is reading rumors/forums and replying immediately.

I think the problem you have is that these rumors are affecting Gamestop stock prices. You can bet that execs from Gamestop are on the phone with MS trying to get them to issue some sort of statement to deny this.
 

george_us

Member
If new games were released in the $30 range, then not having a second hand option is alright with me.

But current retail prices with no way of selling them. I'm not going to bother with the system
Yup.

If new games are $30 then I can get on board. $30 is impulse purchase range. If not then this is my last generation of gaming assuming Sony follows suit.
 
If we don't see a Major Nelson denial of this story at some point today, it's true. Microsoft would not allow this to linger for that long.

Jan 2012 Kotaku had a story about the same thing.

http://kotaku.com/5879202/sources-t...t-play-used-games-and-will-introduce-kinect-2

Microsoft didn't deny it, just decided 'no comment' :

[UPDATE: A Microsoft rep e-mailed me the following statement: "As an innovator we're always thinking about what is next and how we can push the boundaries of technology like we did with Kinect. We believe the key to extending the lifespan of a console is not just about the console hardware, but about the games and entertainment experiences being delivered to consumers. Beyond that we don't comment on rumors or speculation."]
 
Here in Italy (and probably everywhere), second hand market is HUGE. Really, really huge. And probably 70% are casual gamers. I don't think MS/Sony would make more money with a "protection"
 
Conspiracy theories sound kind of loony considering if its not true MS can easily deny it and no one will even know about any of this because consumers won't follow this until the thing is actually announced.
 
This sounds insane to me. Are they actually willing to go into a war with the traditional retailers?

You could say that this only affects Gamestop, but I see it as a way to make the value of retailer games the same as online games. And if they also have online sales as many of you are suggesting then it would be a punch in the face to the whole retailer games business. It seems like suicide for the industry. How much will the holiday sales shrink without stacks of consoles(why sell them, when the margin is tiny and game sales will be low) and games at Walmart, Target, Best Buy and Gamestop. People will be downtown shopping without seeing posters for the NEW MEGA AWESOME GAME OF THE CENTURY SHOOTER 5111.
 

enzo_gt

tagged by Blackace
Forced to, likely.

If EA and ActiBlizz says "MS is curbing second hand sales, you have to or we are out" what would sony do? Shrug it off?

Call of Duty, Madden, NHL and FIFA

There's North American and European market, right there.
Yup. Sony can't take the pressure.

Maybe with the rumours that next Sony and MS consoles are more similar than otherwise were about this..

Also lol @ people trying to find hope in a tweet from Twisted Pixel. That tweet is not any more reliable or informative than any of the anonymous source spreading these same rumours over and over. Yeah, next gen look like it might be pretty shitty in some respects, but there's not much to base conclusions off of. Feb 20th can't come soon enough.
 
3rd party would have to support it. If this no used thing goes through you can be damn sure the publishers are pushing it, and will push Nintendo to do it. If they don't they'll get less 3rd party support than they have now.

but who's gonna support a console with anti-consumer policies?

i won't.

i think the publishers may do worse than before.
 

Pociask

Member
Updating my earlier post on how much discretionary income Americans have to spend on entertainment:

I was able to find a by quintile breakdown of entertainment spending, that further broke down entertainment spending by type. Here's an older BLS study on entertainment: http://www.bls.gov/cex/anthology/csxanth10.pdf And here are more recently numbers: ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/ce/standard/2011/quintile.txt

Video games, hardware and software, are grouped into the category television and sound equipment, which includes "color televisions, DVD players, VCRs, CD players, video game consoles and software, videotapes and discs, and speakers and various other home theater sound systems."

Looking at spending by quintile from 0-20,20-40,40-60,60-80, and 80-100, the averge American consumer unit spent 977 on average in that subcategory in 2011, broken down as ~500, ~750, ~900, ~1200, and ~1500 on tv's, dvd's, blu-rays, video games, etc. Looking just at the middle quintile, that's about 75 bucks a month, for a whole family. Note if they bought a new TV for 500 bucks, that'd be half their budget for the year, and cut the remaining budget for electronic entertainment in half. Yes, 60 dollars is a lot of money, and video games have priced themselves out of what many people can afford.
 
How come no one seems to care about the new Kinect? Is that not important anymore?

I thought the fact that it has a BluRay Drive was pretty interesting. I don't know what the alternative would be (digital download only? that would stop used games) but I find it kinda funny how Microsoft held out as long as they could for BluRay adoption, but now, they are in.


I could see the Xbox having BluRay doing for BluRay sales almost what Sony's PS2 did for DVD Sales.
 
I don't think they'd take such drastic measures without meeting consumers half way. I'd expect it to have peer-to-peer game trading, and buy-back functionality. Would that ease the pain? It would for me.
 
I hope MS and Sony realize that the only reason the PC model works is that games frequently go on sale for crazy low prices. Without the equivalent of Steam sales, this will. not. work. Pubs don't sell games, gamers don't get to play them. Everyone loses.

If I only ever played games that I bought at full price, I'd buy like 2 games a year vs the dozens of dozens I buy now.
 

BibiMaghoo

Member
That would be interesting...

They already give some publishers a cut of the Live fee. This would encourage adoption from publishers, who would then be rewarded for increased new sales and a supplement from second hand users paying for Live.

MS get to give free online, but get increased subs from those that want used games.

Customers get free online, but need to be subbed to play used games, allowing the market to still exist, the customer not having to buy an online pass or key.

It would be a good move for everyone. A gamer that always buys second hand would be better off as a subscriber than buying online passes. It would also give a cut to publishers from second hand gamers that do not play online, thus increasing their profits once again.
 

McHuj

Member
This sounds insane to me. Are they actually willing to go into a war with the traditional retailers?

You could say that this only affects Gamestop, but I see it as a way to make the value of retailer games the same as online games. And if they also have online sales as many of you are suggesting then it would be a punch in the face to the whole retailer games business. It seems like suicide for the industry. How much will the holiday sales shrink without stacks of consoles(why sell them, when the margin is tiny and game sales will be low) and games at Walmart, Target, Best Buy and Gamestop. People will be downtown shopping without seeing posters for the NEW MEGA AWESOME GAME OF THE CENTURY SHOOTER 5111.

Yes, it's not just Gamestop, it's Bestbuy, Walmart, Amazon, Gamefly, Ebay they all have a used game system.

I personally haven't sold to Gamestop, but I have on Amazon and Ebay. There are a lot of retailers that will be affected by this.
 

strikeselect

You like me, you really really like me!
I thought this gen's bullshit was bad with microtransactions and online passes. Next gen sounds much much worse.


and to think, it all started with some innocent horse armor...

I do NOT like the way console gaming is headed.
 
An observation; I imagine a Twisted Pixel(Microsoft owned) developer would say nothing if this report were true. Why indirectly confirm a report causing backlash for your parent company unless you have a professional death wish?
 

Foffy

Banned
I think the problem you have is that these rumors are affecting Gamestop stock prices. You can bet that execs from Gamestop are on the phone with MS trying to get them to issue some sort of statement to deny this.

True. This is having real time ramifications for one of the distributors of Microsoft's products. If they say nothing to particularly address or ease concerns, it really points in one direction; that these rumors are not just rumors.
 

Ponn

Banned
Hmm, this is really interesting. I wonder if eventually everything moves to the cloud where that leaves consumers? It's a pretty contrived discussion point so I'll move on!

So, instead, I wonder how many people see games as an "experience". Or are making that argument (I'm not btw). The physical media leans it the other way of course...

Gah, I'm just fumbling for a coherent thought. Someone finish this for me.

It sounds like the "games are moving to movie experiences" argument. One viewing and done. It's a sound argument, why we have increasingly shorter games, why iOS gaming boomed and why AAA games are graphics extravaganza with the only replay value being multiplayer.

And then developers and publishers wonder why in the world people want to trade their games in. I finished one Generic FPS, let me trade it in towards Generic FPS 2. The multiplayer community moves along with it so there is no real reason to stick with last years game.
 

Hindle

Banned
Come on. If it was indeed a smear campaign from a competitor Microsoft would instantly debunk it. Unequivocally, with no space for misinterpretation or ambiguity.

Alternatively they could let it stand, reveal that the box has nothing of the sort and make Edge look a joke.
 
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