Xbox One

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by cronnoponno

So, I haven't looked into this stupid detail, but the kinect IS build into it right? It'd be pretty stupid if a mandatory part of it was a seperate accessory.

Kinect is packaged with every Xbox1, and the console won't turn on without it connected, but Kinect is not built into it. Mostly because the location for the Kinect in the living room is not the same place as where you store normal electronic hardware.

As I say, Microsoft still hasn't explained why Kinect is mandatory for the console to work.

[cronnoponno]

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

Kinect is packaged with every Xbox1, and the console won't turn on without it connected, but Kinect is not built into it. Mostly because the location for the Kinect in the living room is not the same place as where you store normal electronic hardware.

Er....right, my bad, I can't believe I made such a failed observation and I even own a Wii lol ._.

[kyp275]

Originally Posted by Jazzrat

I already said it's not a business killer. It's just bad for the producer of the game, I mentioned that the profit distribution is uneven with the current scenario where retailers are taking most of the benefits while the producers getting none. Getting better profit is good for game developers.... you seem to missed that in my tirade.

If by bad you mean they don't get to charge us for $1 mil, take our house, car, and firstborn for a copy, then yea.

Retailers taking most of the profits? ha, why don't you try Publishers?

Also not all PC gamers can afford new released games and many people often wait for sales. While removing used games will certainly impact the amount of people that can afford new games at release, it doesn't necessarily mean they wont buy it at later discounted price because many people do.

I thought you just said the problem is that they aren't getting enough money, how does swapping used purchase(the money generated of which goes into new game purchases) with new at highly discounted rates help?

Originally Posted by felix

This whole business of taking something of X value for virtually nothing then passing it on for 80%? of it's original value, does seem like extremely parasitic behavior

That's solely between the initial buyer and Gamestop, which has nothing to do with the publishers, as they've already BEEN PAID by the initial buyer.

Where exactly is the line drawn. Does it have to be a 10,000 USD product that you trade out and back for 5,000 USD profit for it to count as bad? How many copies constitute abusing someone's intellectual property and legal loopholes?

How about you go read the law instead of making ridiculous hyperbole?

I'm very much aware that if I say make 1 thing and sell it to you and you have the right to sell it to someone else then there's nothing legally to stop you from snuffing me out by abusing the market in such a way where I can't sell anything but you can resell the copy I sold to you over and over, even if that means I'll die starving.

If the market for your "thing" is so small and so not in demand that one is enough to satisfy all the demand, then you have made a f-ing terrible decision/product.

And people exercising their right of ownership is "abusing" the market? hah, that's like a politician saying people criticizing him is "abusing" their freedom of speech.

I understand, I just don't understand where I'm suppose to draw sympathy/appreciation towards the re-seller in such a scenario. The re-seller is doing nothing

"Re-seller" are not just giant retailers like Gamestop, by definition they include every regular guy who buys a game and later sells them. They didn't "do nothing", they already PAID for their game.

and arguably if the re-seller didn't exist the system would be more healthy

a myth debunked so many times it's not even funny anymore

Also. Why is the "parasite culture" itself not a bad thing? I mean if you have this "system" that you know exists and lowers price

I propose that you should then avoid participating in such "parasite culture" in all its forms. You shall not buy used cars, you shall only live in brand-new houses, you shall not borrow your friend's music or movies - in fact, you shall never borrow anything from anyone, without first paying the original manufacturer.

[synaesthetic]

It sounds like he misunderstands. The retailers (Gamestop) are not buying one used copy of a game, making a zillion copies and selling those copies as legitimate. They are buying a used copy, and then reselling that used copy. They make a profit on the disparity between the buy price and the sell price.

It works like this:

- Person A buys a game for $60 and plays it
- Person A gets tired of the game and sells it to Gamestop a few months later for $18
- Gamestop sells the game to Person B for $30
- Person B plays the game
- Gamestop makes $12 on the game
- The publisher made $60 on the game

The game is not duplicated. It is sold as if it were a durable good, not a digital license. This is what the publishers want to kill, because they want to make console games into a digital license only with no physical media associated (or make the physical media useless without a new license being purchased).

The only reason they want to kill this is because they realize that their prices are too high for the market to bear (else used games would not be popular), but they don't want to lower them, so they want to remove the competition rather than fairly compete with the competition. The publishers see the $12 Gamestop made as a "lost sale" even though it's completely unrealistic to think that if someone could not buy a used game for $30, that they would automatically buy a new game for $60. This has already been proven wrong with the music industry.

[kyp275]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

The publishers see the $12 Gamestop made as a "lost sale" even though it's completely unrealistic to think that if someone could not buy a used game for $30, that they would automatically buy a new game for $60. This has already been proven wrong with the music industry.

Indeed. I wonder how many of the MS supporters realize that by doing so they're basically endorsing the MPAA/RIAA line of troll logic.

[synaesthetic]

What the publishers ought to do is lower their game prices significantly after a certain amount of time passes. This does happen; when I bought Fallout New Vegas and Mass Effect 2, I paid $20. However, the publishers wait way, way too long. They need to drop the prices quickly if they want to deny Gamestop sales.

Basically, say four months after launch, drop the price to half ($30). This won't hurt initial sales because initial game sales always peak within two months and drop way, way down after another two months. By that time you ought to have some DLC out. You'll be much more competitive against used games, but the buyer will get a brand-new copy with the multiplayer key/pack-in bonuses/etc--they'll be more inclined to buy the new copy.

Yes, this will cause some people to wait to buy the game, but tons of people already do this. It takes so long now that some people lose interest and don't buy it at all. If the price dropped sooner, you'd cut into that "cheapass" market, the ones who primarily buy used games and wait for games to drop in price before buying.

This won't affect your hardcore wait-in-line-at-12AM early adopters in the slightest.

The end result is the publishers make more money and they compete with Gamestop in a way that doesn't make their customers rage.

And for fuck's sake, STOP DMCA'ING LET'S PLAY MAKERS. They're giving you free god damned advertising!

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

And for fuck's sake, STOP DMCA'ING LET'S PLAY MAKERS. They're giving you free god damned advertising!

Companies are completely idiotic about "copyright infringement". This is what has nerfed YouTube big-time.

But I will say that DMCA'ing Let's Play makers is exceptionally idiotic. Who the heck considers watching someone play a video game a decent substitute to playing it yourself?


The rest of your post is also very good. The video game industry should have learned by now that the vast majority of games depreciate in value pretty quickly. Precious few people are going to be willing to pay full price for a game six months after it was first put on the market.

[synaesthetic]

The gist of my post is why Steam works so well. Steam Sales usually start hitting titles after they've been out for two or three months, and people snap that shit up.

[0utf0xZer0]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

The gist of my post is why Steam works so well. Steam Sales usually start hitting titles after they've been out for two or three months, and people snap that shit up.

I keep looking at the XBone and thinking if it was built around digital distribution, we wouldn't be having this conversation in the first place. We're probably be discussing if MS's vision for the console was too radical instead.

The fundamental problem here, IMO, is slapping digital download type licensing on physical games. Granted, Valve did this too back in the day and got away with it, looking back at it it's fairly clear that was a stopgap until more people were ready to go all digital - with XBone I'm not so sure the transition will happen that fast.

[synaesthetic]

Valve got away with it because it's been almost impossible to sell used PC games since the CD-ROM era began. No stores would buy them--sure, you could sell to friends or whatever, but no Gamestop for PC games ever existed.

Microsoft is reaping the "rewards" of what they are trying to do, and the console isn't even out!

[0utf0xZer0]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

Valve got away with it because it's been almost impossible to sell used PC games since the CD-ROM era began. No stores would buy them--sure, you could sell to friends or whatever, but no Gamestop for PC games ever existed.

Microsoft is reaping the "rewards" of what they are trying to do, and the console isn't even out!

Eh, not sure about in the US, but I remember some local shops who bought and sold used PC games at least as late as 2002, including local EB branches. While I do think that it was pretty much dead by the time Half Life 2 came out, it certainly hadn't been dead for half a decade or anything like that.

I also remember the mid-00s being the period that the presence of PC games at retail declined dramatically in general.

[Duo Maxwell]

Wasn't the time that PC games retails declined dramatically when internet got a rise in its speed that make piracy is even easier to archive?

[Sides]

Originally Posted by 0utf0xZer0

Eh, not sure about in the US, but I remember some local shops who bought and sold used PC games at least as late as 2002, including local EB branches. While I do think that it was pretty much dead by the time Half Life 2 came out, it certainly hadn't been dead for half a decade or anything like that.

I also remember the mid-00s being the period that the presence of PC games at retail declined dramatically in general.

Think it some what had to do with the rise of the consoles and a lot, i mean a lot, of developers shifted to console development.
I cannot really think of any blockbuster game, or AAA game, that wasn't a console port. Of course evergreens like sim city, civilization, half-life and so on still flourished on the pc market.
You can put it this way, shitty late ports, what did publishers expect? And the retail pricing of games wasn't the same as today.

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

The interesting thing is that even though everyone agree that Skyrim was superior on PC, Consoles out-sold PC versions Eight to One. The Console market was simply bigger than PC, there was just more money in it.

But even though it is a bigger market, it can't grow any further. You can make the best game in the world, but you still can't get more than a few million sales.

Those who think getting rid of used games would make bad game companies profitable again, are DELUSIONAL. That direction is not the future.

[Sides]

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

Those who think getting rid of used games would make bad game companies profitable again, are DELUSIONAL. That direction is not the future.

This would actually encourage people to pirate games or to wait for dump sales, both not beneficial for companies. This would just highlight that some of their titles are overvalued in the first place, but of course companies will spin it around saying that there wasn't demand for such a title...

[0utf0xZer0]

I don't think it was so much a case of the PC market shrinking as everyone pursuing the "bigger money" in the console in a way they didn't with the previous gen. If you recall, the three big PC shooters of 2004 - Far Cry, Doom 3, and Half Life 2 - either had a Xbox port or reimagining, but always after the PC version had been out for a bit.

As for the ports, there have been some pretty weak PC ports that sold very well. Halo 1 comes to mind. Though I suppose you could argue it was better than what was to come, including Halo 2 on PC.

(BTW, I'm still not quite sure why Microsoft is willing to release some of its games on Steam but won't make Windows versions of major 360 titles.)

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

The interesting thing is that even though everyone agree that Skyrim was superior on PC, Consoles out-sold PC versions Eight to One. The Console market was simply bigger than PC, there was just more money in it.

Interesting, I suspected the console versions to outsell but not to an eight to one extent. I know for Battlefield 3 the numbers were much closer - I think the PC actually outsold either console but not both combined - but I don't think Battlefield had the sort of legacy on consoles that it did on PC at the time BF3 launched.

(Quick question... what's the source on the eight to one number? Is it from someone who includes digital downloads? Because otherwise the PC version will be far lower than it should be)

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by 0utf0xZer0

Interesting, I suspected the console versions to outsell but not to an eight to one extent. I know for Battlefield 3 the numbers were much closer - I think the PC actually outsold either console but not both combined - but I don't think Battlefield had the sort of legacy on consoles that it did on PC at the time BF3 launched.

(Quick question... what's the source on the eight to one number? Is it from someone who includes digital downloads? Because otherwise the PC version will be far lower than it should be)

http://www.statisticbrain.com/skyrim...-v-statistics/
Skryim Sales By Platform
XBox 360 59 %
Playstation 3 27 %
PC 14 %

[0utf0xZer0]

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

http://www.statisticbrain.com/skyrim...-v-statistics/
Skryim Sales By Platform
XBox 360 59 %
Playstation 3 27 %
PC 14 %

Tracked down the original source and it's for retail copies sold in the first two days only - meaning none of the copies sold on Steam are included.

[Tong]

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

http://www.statisticbrain.com/skyrim...-v-statistics/
Skryim Sales By Platform
XBox 360 59 %
Playstation 3 27 %
PC 14 %

Lol, more than half of the world doesn't have experienced the awesome mods.
It's kinda sad

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by 0utf0xZer0

I keep looking at the XBone and thinking if it was built around digital distribution, we wouldn't be having this conversation in the first place. We're probably be discussing if MS's vision for the console was too radical instead.

I agree with you here.

The XBox One would be more appealing to me if it cut out the middle man (almost) entirely. Sell the console itself in actual physical stores, but have an online game-shop for everything else.

If you're not going to let your customers own a game truly contained within a disk, then why bother at all with the disk? I'm not looking for coasters or frisbees here, I'm looking for a video game.

Surely XBox would save some money on cutting out the middle man, and cutting out the manufacturing of game disks and physical packaging. Those savings could be passed on to the customer to make the whole thing more palatable and constituting a trade-off.

So instead of $60 for a physical copy, its $45 to $50 for a direct download that is tied exclusively to your console.