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[Jabba]

I still can't fathom people being ok with your system being locked unless you do a mandatory daily online check-in.

Spoiler

besides for the mythical "Family Sharing" that never existed.

I can't fathom it either.

To add to that. Use another device/service you actually pay for to check in. There were people suggesting, "Use your cell, no big deal!".

Sorry but a game console should just work out of the box. Seriously, you want me to use another device to access games that I paid for on my X1?

As many on Gaf may be aware, I'm with you on family sharing, only to the point of gamers thinking they would of had access to free games like many were dreaming of.

There would have been restrictions, and yes, full games woulda been on the menu, but it wouldn't have been a free games group carnival.

Maybe a restriction on how many times and how long a game could be shared by individual users and sharers. Something like this sounds more feasible. Sony had digital game sharing and cut it down, and it could be risky as you had to give account details if getting into a "sharing group". I don't think game sharing was meant to work the way people used it on PS3.

Now, SOME, gamers wanted to believe Microsoft was going to remove more risk and provide larger sharing numbers with very very little or no restrictions?

Not buying it. Paying more XBL money and limits by individual users, much more believable IMO.

 

[Mentok]

I don't want the X1 to fail. I want Kinect to fail, not get used in regular games and get moved back to being an optional accessory for people who want to play dance/fitness/party games.

Sums up how I feel. I never bought Kinect for my 360, and can't even think of a good kinect game I'd want to try.

 

[PFD]

This weekly show is really good. Thanks for sharing OP.

 

[Frux7]

Because exclusive content is a thing of the past and we now live with 'timed exclusives'.

Then it doesn't matter what is different on the hardware side of things because multiplatform games are not going to spend much time working on the kinect when a good chunk of gamers will not even see that.

 

[Frux7]

Xbox isn't "losing." It will be a successful platform.

Losing is a relative term. If you are not winning then you are losing. And right now they are not winning. That doesn't mean that the system is bad or a failure but they are losing.

 

[imtehman]

i didnt even know the consoles were out yet

 

[Diprosalic]

Xbox isn't "losing." It will be a successful platform.

in terms of sales or in terms of making money with it?

i guess it will sell decently in the US but competing against a cheaper platform with worldwide appeal? good luck.

 

[neojubei]

Pretty cool video. Even with all the 180 reveals I doubt I'd buy an xbone at launch. All the "exclusive" games I wanted on Xbox 360 are now multiplatform like mass effect and lost planet. Kind of hard to even think about what 1st party Xbox games I might want on the xbone. Least I know with ps4 I will be getting games from Sony Santa Monica studios, sucker punch and naughty dog.

As for xbone losing well the system lost just about every online poll against the ps4 and preorders favor the ps4 over xbone. Now we just have to wait to see what the numbers will be like in 2 years.

 

[TheChewyWaffles]

Good. Let the spoiled children buy XBO. I don't want to hear their voices anyway yelling at other gamers with racial slurs.

No need to be nasty.

 

[Chitown B]

in terms of sales or in terms of making money with it?

i guess it will sell decently in the US but competing against a cheaper platform with worldwide appeal? good luck.

Yeah. PS3 was a total worldwide fail, right?

($599 vs. $399)

 

[Chitown B]

Sony had digital game sharing and cut it down, and it could be risky as you had to give account details if getting into a "sharing group". I don't think game sharing was meant to work the way people used it on PS3.

let's be clear: Sony NEVER had "game sharing". They allowed you to download a game onto a certain number of systems, and then didn't lock down the game to your PSN ID. They never intended games to be shared, especially as they were. That was theft, plain and simple. MS also lets you download your games to any system on your tag, but you need to be logged into your tag to play it which confirmed it was yours.

 

[Finalizer]

The guy echoes what I've been thinking all along - MS really missed their target by a mile with the initial reveal, both in terms of targeting the message to the audience actually attending/watching and not properly addressing concerns of those listening in. It's great and all that MS is doing all these 180s and fixing up their mess, but it's a mess that they wouldn't have had to clean up in the first place had they only been more tuned-in.

I've mentioned this in another thread - I find there's this irritating pretension that the kind of people that comment on forums, that visit gaming news sites, that really listen in and watch these events like the reveals, E3, etc, exist in this vacuum and don't actually have any real effect on the market. There's this myth being perpetuated that the only market worth observing is this massive casual segment, and that it only makes sense for Sony and MS to cater to that group at the expense of the hardcore segment, that being neglected should be expected of us or something. "It's the casuals that buy the most consoles, of course MS and Sony should be trying to get as many of them on board as possible through TV, sports, and waggle!"

In a way, it felt like MS' initial Xbone reveal was designed by higher-ups who felt the same way. The subsequent backlash has only proven just how shallow that off-target that mindset really is.

 

[Eknots]

You got it....In a vacuum, there is not really a huge amount of us hardcore gamers...not enough to support an entire console generation...

However, the next adopter after the hardcore.....the "softcore gamer" as he so aptly puts it is not just a much larger amount of customers for a platform, they are loyal and they willing to follow the recommendations of the hardcore pretty closely. Moreover, unlike many hardcore gamers, the softcore gamer tends to buy just one console platform per generation.

They make a decision based on the recommendations of the hardcore and what all their other friends are playing. They also tend to be much less bound to a console brand than the hardcore console warrior. He makes a great point PS4 is winning the preorder war right now which means softcore will probably have more friends and hardcore gamers pointing him/her towards PS4.

Bottom line is, YOU HAVE TO WIN THE HARDCORE FIRST TO GET THE BIGGER FISH DOWN THE LINE......This rule has been true since, like, forever and It is so ironic Microsoft is currently struggling with this theory when it was they who were the beneficiaries of the PS2 refugees migration over to 360 because of a great gaming platform and Xbox Live.

Being former PlayStation customers, it is almost unthinkable to me Microsoft would risk losing these softcore Xbox 360 customers (worth Billion$, surely) to the PS4.......Microsoft should be moving heaven and earth to prevent this from happening!!!

These are people who were perfectly happy with the PS2 and some of them probably have an affinity for the PlayStation platform anyway.....Sony has been astute with this and its probably no accident they have been tugging the PS2 nostalga strings since february.......the PS4 even looks like a fucking PS2 slim!!

At any rate....I said it before and I'll say it again, this is BY FAR the most entertaining console war I have ever followed and I have been following it since the Super Fami/PC Engine/Megadrive days!!!

That's still true but I don't think it's a factor at all outside of people that are 18+ at this point.

 

[ChiliManiac]

I like the Xbox One but all his points are valid.

 

[Yoday]

What's this 'we' talk? They've killed everything different and interesting about the machine and now have two choices of vanilla to pick from.

What are these different and interesting things that were killed? I have never understood this argument. It is like people actually believe that the 24hr check ins were actually going to deliver unique features. There were only two beneficial features that were dropped when MS made the change. The first was the ability to play games bought on disc without the disc, and the second was the family share plan. I hate to break it to you, but neither of those things require a 24hr check in.

 

[Garrett 2U]

What are these different and interesting things that were killed? I have never understood this argument. It is like people actually believe that the 24hr check ins were actually going to deliver unique features. There were only two beneficial features that were dropped when MS made the change. The first was the ability to play games bought on disc without the disc, and the second was the family share plan. I hate to break it to you, but neither of those things require a 24hr check in.

Discless required the check in since they allowed offline gameplay.

 

[Mael]

family camps? playing video games at camps? I know it's a free country, but maybe you can't do everything you want all the time. If there was no power you could not play either. Just the way it goes. Enjoy the outdoors.

"We have a solution for you if you don't have internet : Xbox 360"

 

[Silphonica]

Is 100 million PS4 and 50 million XBO "success"? Probably for some but MS said they wanted to sell over 100 million of these and I just don't see how that's possible.

Some great forecasting there, consoles aren't even out yet and you're stating how much will sell. Also, you don't see how thats possible? This industry is full of people who will shovel shit that sounds good down people's throat to anyone that will listen. For the most part, it's very detrimental to gaming as a whole, so many elitist stuck up assholes giving their biased, wrong opinion.

Playstation 3 had arguably a lot worse shit said about it back in the day, in fact there was a fucking song about how sony killed their brand. Then look what happened they caught back up. New generation starts, and people just love console wars but forget that the launch of a console will brings ups and downs, especially if someone is trying something new, but what happens during that time means absolutely shit for the next generation.

I also remember the article comparing the 360 to the dreamcast, forecasting doom. Look what happened, I also remembered the "superior specs" of the PS3, look what happened. The problem is consumerist culture, having to be loyal to one brand and having to fucking slam others into the dogshit whilst you're at it.

Why can't gamers just be happy competition exists and offers gamers a greater choice than just a fucked up monopoly.

 

[The_Killah29]

Xbox is losing because they showed us what they really thought of us, and it wasn't pretty. Simple as that.

They thought we were all dirty, used game buying pirates that needed to be dealt with.

A simple analogy for the whole situation:
It was like a fight between a couple and one said something so hurtful to the other and now is trying to make it up to the other. But it's too late, the damage is already done.

Or you can think of it like this: you've been really good friends with a guy and things have gone real smooth the past few years you've known him, but then he decides to kill you. He's planned it out for a bit and get's the murder weapon. He goes up to your door and you open it to show he has the murder weapon pointed at you. And at the last minute he decides, "Nah, I won't do it" and walks away. Would you still really want to be friends with him after that?

 

[Krilekk]

Xbox is losing because Microsoft really sucks at marketing, PR and pricing. They gave away all the momentum they had by waiting til Sony announced PS4, they gave Sony a one-hit-kill chance by announcing the most ridiculous strategy ever, they gave away all credibility by reversing all their policies and now they want us to buy a weaker console for $100 more because of a sensor that nobody wants, needs and that isn't even required to be connected anymore. It's a console designed when the Wii hype was strong. They should've created a console born out of 360 success and not out of Wii pseudo success.

The thing is however that Sony does the same thing. Their 4 mic/3D camera array was once mandatory with every PS4, it was even in the product description on Amazon at one point. That means they too had a $499 price tag and the shady answers after the reveal means they too had restrictive policies for content and used games. From all we know by developers both systems are equally powerful (or to be precise equally not powerful but at best comparable to medium spec PCs), both have a paywall, both have incredibad designs, both want to push media functionality, both have the cloud ... They are literally one and the same. Only Sony is much better at marketing. And PR. And pricing. Microsoft always says something bad and then struggles to spin it positively. Like "sorry, we won't launch in your country" but "yeah, you can import and it might work. Some stuff might not. We don't know". Sony manages to not talk about the negative stuff at all.

The point is: Just by looking at the games Microsoft is in a much stronger position than Sony. And despite what preorders tell this is what decides who wins and who doesn't. But the truth is none of them deserves to win because they both chose to offer a weak console, make money by selling the hardware and add a monthly subscription on top. The money you spend on either console plus five years of PSN+/Xbox Live can get you a PC that is almost twice as powerful as these consoles.

 

[Hoo-doo]

The thing is however that Sony does the same thing. Their 4 mic/3D camera array was once mandatory with every PS4, it was even in the product description on Amazon at one point. That means they too had a $499 price tag and the shady answers after the reveal means they too had restrictive policies for content and used games. From all we know by developers both systems are equally powerful (or to be precise equally not powerful but at best comparable to medium spec PCs), both have a paywall, both have incredibad designs, both want to push media functionality, both have the cloud ... They are literally one and the same. Only Sony is much better at marketing. And PR. And pricing. Microsoft always says something bad and then struggles to spin it positively. Like "sorry, we won't launch in your country" but "yeah, you can import and it might work. Some stuff might not. We don't know". Sony manages to not talk about the negative stuff at all.

This is speculation. You are using the Amazon product description for your argument that Sony has secretly been "me-too-ing" every single misstep that the Xbox One made?

You're hilarious, Krilekk. If you honestly think that both consoles and companies are 100% the same except for the PR then I don't know what to say.
Have you finished all that crow from last threads yet, back when you still had thread making privileges?

 

[Deleted member 752119]

Discless required the check in since they allowed offline gameplay.

Not true.

They could have made it like PC game/software discs where you just get a key and have to connect and enter it to activate the game.

Then the key is no good, and that disc can't be used to install on another machine so no worries about it getting passed around, and no more online checks needed to play it on that machine.

They could have still had a trade in at participating retailers systems with that kind of model as the participating retailers could just have software on their computer that would deactivate the old key (or build that into the console and make the user do it first before the trade in will work, and the retailers system just checks that it's been deactivated) and generate a new key to include for whoever buys the used copy.

 

[Chitown B]

"We have a solution for you if you don't have internet : Xbox 360"

Everyone freaked out about that. But at the time it was the truth. Sometimes you gotta move tech forward and people catch up. In this case, they decided to balk.

 

[Diprosalic]

Yeah. PS3 was a total worldwide fail, right?

($599 vs. $399)

no but it had worldwide appeal, the xbox wasn't so hot in asia.

you're proofing my point, it had a terrible launch, came out a year later and still managed to beat out the xbox even if just barely. this time it's the cheaper platform too and releases 5+ months earlier in many countries.

 

[Shivin]

"We have a solution for you if you don't have internet : Xbox 360"

I never got why people lost their mind about an internet connection being required. I realize that there are places that don't have internet but then why would you want to even buy a next gen console if you don't have internet. So much of what is offered in this generation (PS4 and XBOne) leverages the internet in some fashion.

Don't quote me on exact figures here but I'd wager more than %80 of new and current console games have some part of them that requires an internet connection to fully play every aspect of the game. A good portion of developers are even skimping on single player campaigns in order to develop some sort of multiplier component.

That's just games...but what about the console itself? Without an internet connection it would be like paying full price for a console just to have more than half of the features be completely worthless.

Let's face the fact the fact that the internet will be a critical part of this new console generation and while some folks won't like it I don't see it going away. Personally, I think that if you didn't have some sort of internet connection purchasing an XBOne or PS4 would be a waste of your money....sort of buying an iPad and then not having any sort of internet/network connection available.

 

[jhmtehgamr20xx]

Wii U is dead on arrival, that we know.
Personally I find the X1 unattractive simply due to Microsofts poor hardware in the past and the fact they will still charge for Xbox Live. Sony has the complete support of everyone at a lower price with stronger features AND a retro PS catalogue on PSNetwork. It is really a no-brainer. Anything MS can do this gen, Sony can do better or good enough where it is a non-factor.

If the PS4 does not surpass 75 million after 5 years, I would truly be shocked.

Ooooooh Sony's joined that party now tho, bro. So you can't really call MS out on that anymore

Spoiler

(call out the millions who put up with it :3)

.

 

[jhmtehgamr20xx]

Everyone freaked out about that. But at the time it was the truth. Sometimes you gotta move tech forward and people catch up. In this case, they decided to balk.

They freaked out because he said it with the air of a pompous, self-absorbed jackass. Didn't matter if he was right; Don could've delivered the point much better.

 

[Moon_frogger]

Isn't months before these consoles even launch a bit too early to declare winners and losers? Hasn't EVERY SINGLE OTHER console generation proven that anything can happen and shake ups are the status quo? For all we know ouya could win the next gen.









Hahahaha.

 

[Chitown B]

They freaked out because he said it with the air of a pompous, self-absorbed jackass. Didn't matter if he was right; Don could've delivered the point much better.

if you were suddenly under a microscope like that you may have done the same. I'm sure it was frustrating for him. Either way, the way something was said shouldn't have that much bearing on the facts of what was being said.

 

[jhmtehgamr20xx]

if you were suddenly under a microscope like that you may have done the same. I'm sure it was frustrating for him. Either way, the way something was said shouldn't have that much bearing on the facts of what was being said.

I know it shouldn't, but the reality is people put emotions before logic. If you suddenly found out you had cancer, you'd want your doctor to give you the news with some compassion, right? Not spit it out like a machine with low power supply.

The way it's said defines the context in which it's said, which affects the interpretation. It's how we work.

 

[Ushae]

I love these in depth analysis videos and hypothesis to consoles that nobody has played, used or tested games on. The only point that has credibility for me is the price, it will influence buyers.

Kinect is unproven, so it's best to adopt a wait and see approach. There will be ample reviews and youtube reactions to the tech/software when it's released.

 

[BigDug13]

I never got why people lost their mind about an internet connection being required. I realize that there are places that don't have internet but then why would you want to even buy a next gen console if you don't have internet. So much of what is offered in this generation (PS4 and XBOne) leverages the internet in some fashion.

Don't quote me on exact figures here but I'd wager more than %80 of new and current console games have some part of them that requires an internet connection to fully play every aspect of the game. A good portion of developers are even skimping on single player campaigns in order to develop some sort of multiplier component.

That's just games...but what about the console itself? Without an internet connection it would be like paying full price for a console just to have more than half of the features be completely worthless.

Let's face the fact the fact that the internet will be a critical part of this new console generation and while some folks won't like it I don't see it going away. Personally, I think that if you didn't have some sort of internet connection purchasing an XBOne or PS4 would be a waste of your money....sort of buying an iPad and then not having any sort of internet/network connection available.

With this line of thinking, gaming would be completely extinguished for deployed military members. "Don't have Internet, don't buy next gen consoles". What a terrible line of thinking. And nothing close to reality. So a ton of games have "some" features that require online. But not all and not forced at a system hardware level.

But are you including games like Titanfall in that argument? Because the fact is that these games that now "require" online used to support offline LAN multiplayer. Why is that being stripped out of console gaming while still existing on the PC versions? Why is this "online is required to do any gaming at all" something we should embrace?

Titanfall is the perfect game for offline LAN matches.

I use my consoles, STEAM, and my ipad online all the time. Then when I deploy I use them offline and everything works fine even in limited capacity. So where is this idea that "you must be constantly connected online for your device to even function and that is how the future should be" coming from?

 

[LiveFromKyoto]

Lol, ok, he had me from the Catholic joke.