re: Xbox One: We said WHAT at E3??
 

With the exception of MMO's pc has had Online for decades and has never charged for games that have Online features. Halo 2 on PC when It was online didn't even charge for multiplayer.

re: Xbox One: We said WHAT at E3??
 

Also ignoring proprietary hard drives, headsets and wireless adapters.

re: Xbox One: We said WHAT at E3??
 

Ah, yeah, there's a lot of infrastructure there, but it should be a diminishing cost. Unfortunately it's no different that ISPs charging more and more every year while delivering less and less.

I never had a problem with the $30-$35/year on XBL (because, really, who pays MSRP?), but all the people with whom I gamed were on it.

re: Xbox One: We said WHAT at E3??
 

Well here's a question....if the pre-orders were falling behind and not doing well, then MS makes this big change to entice buyers again....what about Gamestop not accepting anymore pre-orders?

Again I raise the question on manufacturing and production. No more pre-orders fom retailer and what about the others?..we're 5-6 months away from launch....shades of another 360 launch fiasco?

re: Xbox One: We said WHAT at E3??
 

If there's one thing Microsoft is good at, it's launching new products. :up:

re: Xbox One: We said WHAT at E3??
 

Well and that's the point, you and your friends were forced to pay this additional fee and are now fine with it. Eventually I will want to play a next gen CoD and too will be forced to pay for a service that was previously free. All we can do is bend over and take it because it's what we have to do.

re: Xbox One: We said WHAT at E3??
 

I'm not super excited about Sony tying online multiplayer to PSN+, but PSN+ has been such a great value with all of the "free" content, it's hard to get too worked up about it.

re: Xbox One: We said WHAT at E3??
 

I'm not forced to do shit. It's $3/month and most of us stocked up years ago that we don't even consider it any more. Even worse is that I rarely use my Gold membership for anything, gaming included.

It's not something I'll miss moving to Steam, that's for sure, but I never cared about the cost.

re: Xbox One: We said WHAT at E3??
 

:lol: You're hilarious.

Was MS trying something different? Yes. Innovative? Maybe. But you're jumping the gun to say that it was definitely a change for the better. Many of us could easily see scenarios where this ends up being a BAD thing, and we didn't feel the pros outweighed the cons.

And while the masses bitch about anything (and they don't, but that's another matter), companies frequently ignore bitching. What do they listen to? Sales. If the Amazon PS4/XO poll was any indication of what pre-order sales were like, then MS execs have probably been soiling their pants for the last wee. THAT is what caused the changes, not bitching.

I could make a gaming console that makes your breakfast, gives you blowjobs, and cures cancer while you play, but if no one wants to buy it, none of that matters.

And that's really the point here. MS is out to make money. Why should we be concerned about their vision? If we don't like it, we don't have to buy it. And we didn't. In large numbers. And that scared Microsoft enough to change course.

Honestly, you should be jumping for joy over this. If MS had stuck to their guns, the XO would be dead in the water within two years. At least now they'll have a fighting chance.

re: Xbox One: We said WHAT at E3??
 

Who the fuck wouldn't want that!?!?

re: Xbox One: We said WHAT at E3??
 

Well, it costs a million dollars and anally probes you after every time you use the toilet. And it looks like your naked grandmother.

re: Xbox One: We said WHAT at E3??
 

Yeah. That still matters to me!

re: Xbox One: We said WHAT at E3??
 

The amazon poll was merely internet bitching, just on a different website. Bottom line is that MS attempted to innovate the industry this generation and people held them back for fear of change. Unfortunately we will never know what would have happened, but I highly doubt XO would have been dead in the water within two years, in fact it would most likely have been the extreme opposite. The funny thing is that people always complain about the same shitty games getting released, the same sequels, the same shooters etc etc etc, basically nothing changing. MS tries to change and gets raped.

I'm done arguing about it and will enjoy my launch day Xbox 360-2, but will always dream about what the Xbox One would have been like :)

re: Xbox One: We said WHAT at E3??
 

Yeah, but blowjobs. Where do I pre-order?

re: Xbox One: We said WHAT at E3??
 

it's not backwards compatible :(

re: Xbox One: We said WHAT at E3??
 

Wow, I hit the beach, pack up and head to the airport and in that three hours Microsoft changes their policies on everything? Amazing.

Might I suggest that instead of that dramatic start up sound we're used to from the 360, when you turn on the One, it plays a few bars of "White Flag" by Dido?

re: Xbox One: We said WHAT at E3??
 

...and my night is ruined and suddenly video games feel trivial. :(

re: Xbox One: We said WHAT at E3??
 

Oh, poor Microsoft, trying single handed to save the gaming industry from itself?

Bullshit. MS did what it did because they thought it would make them more money. They saw people accept increasing amounts of DRM over the years, and assumed--wrongly--that they would accept significantly more in exchange for a higher level of convenience.

You keep blaming internet bitching, but I'm telling you, if the internet bitching didn't translate to sales numbers, Microsoft wouldn't care.

And change is good. Change is inevitable. But there's change for the better, and change for the worse. Too many people saw this as change for the worse, and chose to pre-order the competitor's console instead. It's as simple as that. Sony gave people what they wanted, and Microsoft didn't. You can stick your head in the sand and say how it's all our fault, but that's not true. Microsoft shot themselves in the foot. They could have made a system from the get go that supported physical media as it currently exists, while offering extra benefits for people who went digital. They refused to do that, and now they're paying the price. Simple as that.

re: Xbox One: We said WHAT at E3??
 

Major Nelson tweeted this:

rotfl

I will give Microsoft some credit. They realized that the overwhelming backlash at their policies was going to lose them an early potential lead in the console wars and they backtracked. My guess is the One will be the "bridge" for some of the digital rights management that will likely be full on in the next generation.

re: Xbox One: We said WHAT at E3??
 

Exactly my point. Now you're paying for something you don't even use.

re: Xbox One: We said WHAT at E3??
 

I don't get the 'negative' hoopla with the rollback. Microsoft mentioned family sharing would not be available at launch (probably have to refine their software so it doesn't identify disc-based games as shareable). Has anything else really been lost?

You can no longer buy a disc game and have a digital copy. That is gone.

You can now rent a game, install the game and buy a license if you like the game. You can loan them to anyone, borrow them from anyone, sell them to anyone.

Want family sharing? Buy the game through digital distribution.

Want to play games with no disc? Buy the game through digital distribution

Want to play games while the internet is down or when you travel? Buy either version of the game.

If Microsoft takes away any of those features, it's on them. The only thing Always-On DRM did was allow you to resell your installation discs.

re: Xbox One: We said WHAT at E3??
 

Fixed that for you. It's all about deprecation and I've got my money's worth. I do use it for HBO Go (well, until today when my AppleTV got it natively), the occasional gaming session with my friends (a few times a month, not every day), and the rare sale I like (which is over now that things aren't forward-compatible).

I also saved a shitload on product by converting real money to cheap-as-dirt MSP and then using those on discounted games. That's over too.

So, in conclusion, I'm not mad about paying $3/month for 5 years for online gaming and other services. It's always worked, always been fast, had features the competition didn't (or couldn't offer architecturally), and it's where all my cronies played.

Similarly, I'm not mad that I bought thousands of dollars of digital content for a fraction of the "retail" cost over the life of the subscription. I am slightly upset that I can't "take it with me", so to speak, but I understand the technical reasons too and it makes my decision to not jump into their next generation automatically that much easier.

re: Xbox One: We said WHAT at E3??
 

While I'm not a Nintendo fan.....I think I could still be rest assured that Nintendo fans would would be busting out their pitchforks if the big N pulled the same shit MS did.

re: Xbox One: We said WHAT at E3??
 

This is obviously good news at first glance, but the mere fact that they attempted to do all of this rubs me the wrong way. They only went back on it because of the backlash and they are now panicking. I don't think they have just up and totally changed their minds on all of that stuff, but they just realized that it wasn't the best time to move forward with it.

How hard is something like this to change this soon to release? Will it need to be delayed or is this something that they can sorta just flip a switch and it disables the "features" before launch? If it is that simple, who is to say that they can't do the exact opposite and eventually flip the switch again once people have already paid for the system and have them in their homes? I have no clue how that sort of thing works I don't know.

I'm sure I'll get one eventually, but certainly not until the price drops down to at least the PS4 level. This may help stop the bleeding a bit, but I don't think it's going to totally repair the extensive damage that has already been done to the brand as a whole. There are many, like me, that have been soured on Microsoft for even THINKING about doing all of this in the first place.

If Nintendo did the same thing I'd turn on them just as quick, and I'm a hardcore Nintendo fan and have been from the start. I don't care which company does it. I'll turn on any of them as soon as they decide to do something so stupid.

re: Xbox One: We said WHAT at E3??
 

Naw, they only went back on it because Pre-orders were probably low. It's a firmware update and nothing more, makes you wonder how easy it would have been to hack the original.

As far as I'm concerned this is a smart move. Discs work like discs. Digital distribution will likely retain all the features that were there originally without confusing less technically inclined.