Re: Xbox One: This Thread Requires An Always On Internet Connection
 

and Decker to a Sony Thread (though he seems a little more level headed), so even representation.

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It's not an overzealous approval. For example, I think the loaning/rental thing (what little they've said about it) sucks. Flat out sucks.

But I like video games. If E3 shows me video games I want to play, I'll get the next-gen consoles.

My talk in this thread is not blind support of MS. Sony is not the white knight everyone thinks they are just because they're staying silent. We still don't know ANYTHING to be honest. Everything in is flux.

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I don't post in the Wii U thread... like at all. I don't even own one. :scratch2:

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While this is actually making me less excited about the Xbox One every day, it just sounds like they are making it more like a PC...on which you could do none of these things. We just aren't used to it for our consoles.

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He's just LosingHisMind.

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That's what I keep trying to say. Console games are finally leaving the Pac-Man era and entering the Everquest/WoW era. Whether this is good or bad remains to be seen. It has to happen first before we can judge it. Maybe all the games will be amazing? Who knows?

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Caveat to the following story: You never know how much a schmuck manager at a local Gamestop really knows, but this particular one presented as credible.

Last night I was trading in the chaff out of my Wii and DS collections at Gamestop (don't judge me, they have some good trade in bonuses right now), and I was chatting with the manager while he processed my stuff for credit. We were talking about E3, and I said something to the effect of "It looks like Microsoft is trying to put you guys out of business.", and he said something like "Not really, Gamestop just signed a deal with them to sell through games."

I took that to mean that they would get codes from Microsoft...maybe in exchange for a cut or some other consideration.

It hadn't occurred to me until just that moment that this whole code scheme isn't going to hurt second hand game sales at retailers at all. Rather, it's going to hurt normal folks who trade their games or sell them on craigslist/Amazon/ebay/dvdtalk.

Fucking evil.

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Chess, regardless of what that guy knows or not, it does seem like there will be things in place to allow Gamestop to keep selling used games. This fact is baffling to me, because like you said, these new policies really only hurt the Joe Schmoe who's selling on Amazon or Ebay. Yes, MS or the publisher would make some scratch off of allowing GS to sell codes, but still.

I'm not irate about these new announcements. They are what they are. That said, Sony is in a position to guarantee I buy a PS4 is they go left on these kind of restrictions, compared to MS going right. I don't have a lot of faith that that is what is going to happen, but you never know.

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Yeah, it's great for gamestop and any other retailer that Microsoft signs a deal with. I imagine the trade in values will be lower if we have no way of reselling on our own.

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I think if Sony was planning on doing something different, they would have already announced it due to all the Microsoft backlash. Sony's silence makes me believe that they are doing the exact samething as Microsoft.

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Hey, don't bring me into this. I keep the PSN thread chugging and yes, I'm a fan of both PS Plus and the Vita (which I mostly love despite the absurdly expensive proprietary memory cards, which I still hate). But I game more on my 360 than the PS3 and I'm certainly not a Sony apologist. Don't be lumping me in with Gizmo!

As far as the One goes, I'm really upset. I really like being able to rent games and sell them to whomever. Just today I brought over my (360) copy of Far Cry 3 to loan to my NP's son for him to play over the Summer break. I like that I can do that for friends who also like to game -- and I like that nobody's keeping track of who I'm lending it to or how many times. Their new proposed DRM seems really restrictive and Big Brother-ish. I hate everything about it really.

I'm not saying Sony will be any better, but I have to at least hope so. If they are, I think they'll have a huge edge in the next console war. Guess we'll find out soon enough.

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I will be beyond stunned if Sony does anything different.

If they did, I think they would sell more consoles up front... and then I think you would see huge amounts of developers jumping ship and going exclusive (or timed exclusive) to MS due to giving the developer control of the used market.

Either way, it will be super interesting to see how this all goes down.

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I guess I don't quite understand what the big fuss is regarding the 24-hour check in. I've had my 360 and PS3 online since day one (and the Wii when I had it). In fact, nearly every electronic in my house is...ipods, smartphones, tablets, DS, etc.

One of the great features of PS+ is the auto downloading of updates. The Wii stayed connected and updated. Don't most of you have your systems connected 24/7?

Let's see if I have this right:

Xbox 360/PS3 FEATURES broadband = Awesome, I'm totally in this gen!!!!
Xbox One REQUIRES broadband = Fuck that, I'm out!!!!

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I genuinely don't think it will be a crash and burn like many predict. I think a good number of people will feel locked into ecosystem at this point.

I know I don't want to lose my achievements and start with zero trophies in a new system. I have a full friends list that I have maintained for like a decade. I don't want to have to try to rebuild.

I think the uproar is going to peak around E3 and then it will slowly die away till anticipation as we head towards Fall and I imagine both systems will still see big sales numbers.

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I agree (all of my stuff is connected 24/7) but the main issue is that Xbox Live and PSN go down a fair amount...and in PSN's case, for days (weeks?). At least you could be playing single player games then, something you can't do for ANY game now.

Not to mention your own internet going down. And it's definitely taken longer than a day to repair storm damage or whatever knocks mine out from time to time. That's scary stuff.

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Just because you plug a cable in doesn't mean that cable goes anywhere. Now you're at the mercy of ISP and Service to even allow you to play games.

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I like the idea of being able to take my console to the family cabin, where there is no internet or cell phone coverage, and play some single-player games for the weekend.

That said, I've never once done that with any of my consoles, so that's not going to start suddenly with the XO. I took my 360 on a business trip once so I could use it in the hotel (it was an extended trip), but it was a pain in the ass, and I only ended up using it for about 2 hours of gaming. I'll never bother doing that again.

So yeah... I get the complaint... and as I said before, if you have the physical disc in the drive, or if you're using the original primary console on which the digital purchase was made, that should somehow bypass the time requirement, or extend it to 7 or 30 days. But realistically, for me, it's never going to matter.


Regarding trade-ins, it's clear that XO discs are purely an installation form factor, and these are no longer "disc-based games." I think that's an important distinction that MS has mentioned, but not explicitly clarified for everyone.
So, if those discs can only be traded/sold at authorized retailers, and "lending" is controlled via the "10 family member" rule, then it means I can't sell anything on Amazon, eBay, or Craigslist anymore. I only ever did that once, when I sold Fallout 3 and one of the expansions... so I could put that cash toward the GOTY edition. So, if that's how it is, again that doesn't really hurt me personally too much. I'd prefer to have the option to sell to anyone I want, though.
You can still "give" your game license to a friend (if they've been on your list for 30 days). Nothing's stopping me from charging my friend $30 for that transfer. That means I can no longer play it... which is how trades/sales already work... unless that friend puts me on his "family" list, but I don't think he'd do that if I just charged him $30 for that piece of plastic. ;)

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Ugh, and now I can't even browse Reddit without seeing 50+ stupid XBOX memes on every page. The thing is basically just like Steam, and they are all over Steam's nuts. I really hate the internet sometimes.

Luckily, a small handful of people bitching on the internet (this forum included) will have 0 impact on the sale of this console, or even the PS4. They will both sell amazingly as expected and in a year, nobody will care about any of this and will be talking about whatever awesome game is about to come out on them.

I'm 100% sold on the new XBOX at launch, with a PS4 shortly after, as I've never been a huge Sony console fan and they need to do a lot to win me over this generation.

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As you are at the mercy of your power company.

In 10+ years of Xbox/360 gaming, I have never had my internet down for more than a day (DSL or cable). Should it happen, I might survive not being able to play video games that day/week.

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Some thoughts on potential rental models with the new activation system.

Redbox (aka day-by-day) - You rent a disc from Redbox, it spits out the disc as well as prints an activation code good for 24 hours on the receipt. You go home, install and activate the game. After 24 hours, if you haven't returned the game, Redbox charges you for another day and emails you another code. Since the maximum time allowed offline is 24 hours, you can't really exploit it to get another full day without paying.

GameFly (aka one-out-at-a-time) - GameFly mails you the game disc with a code. You activate the game, and the game stays activated as long as you keep the disc. Once you mail the disc back and GameFly receives it, they deactivate the game from your account. If your console is offline at that point, you could continue to play the game until the Xbone needs to go online, so potentially for another 24 hours. But that still means the game you sent back is likely to be deactivated before you receive the new one.

Gametap/PS+ (aka unlimited games service) - Pay a monthly subscription that gives you unlimited access to a select list of games from Xbox Live. The games stay active on your account as long as your subscription is current. Once you cancel the service, all the games are deactivated.


Of course, all these methods would require the participation of Microsoft and/or the publishers, with them likely wanting a cut of the revenue.

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Your Gamefly theory is probably 100% spot on. As for RedBox, they just won't carry the games anymore. Shit, everyone just steals them anyways :)

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You guys remember how, for the longest time, there was practically nothing to play on the 360? I remember when Geometry Wars first came out and that was the first time after launch that there was something decent to play. It wasn't until Gears of War, a good year after 360's launch, that stuff started coming out at a decent clip. This next cycle won't be much different.

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Even if you can't survive not being able to play a game over that time, if you own a modern smartphone or 3G/LTE tablet, you can tether the console to that device for a couple minutes (to "check-in" with MS), then disable tethering again (to save bandwidth).

If XBox Live goes down, that's another story. But if the XO is "always on" when XBox Live goes down, maybe the XO pings a bunch of different MS servers, just to keep the games active. These servers, when they see an XO, could just send out a few bytes of data to tell the console, "Hey. Shit just got real. Servers are down, but keep letting this console play offline until we're back." It's wishful thinking, to be sure, but not exactly unrealistic.

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The great thing about the activation method though (from a rental perspective) is that the discs are worthless. If you report the disc as lost, they still deactivate the game on your account/console, and the disc can't be played on its own without an activation.

Hell, Redbox could just load their kiosks with a harddrive cluster holding hundreds of games, and just burn out discs as needed. No need to even return the disc, and you can decide to re-rent it or even purchase it without going back to the store.