Xbox One

[sayde]

While I'm happy Microsoft made the wise decision to reverse some of their restrictions and policies, my inner skeptic and cynic is worried. Because just the mere fact that Microsoft wanted to implement these things in the first place is a clear sign of where their mind is at. In other words, its not like they're changing their policies because they realized its a genuinely bad idea. They reversed their decisions because it wasn't well received and it was ultimately going to cost them money. What I'm essentially arguing is that this still doesn't mean Microsoft wouldn't implement these ideas if they could get away with it.

Having said that, I'm with the small minority who feels as though Microsoft could pull the rug out from their Xbox One owners at a later time. It could be gradual or abrupt. But I wouldn't be surprised if it happened.

Originally Posted by GDB

If they sell it as not requiring the check-in, not barring used games, etc., and then reverse it once it's out... I can only imagine the millions of lawsuits they'll be slammed with.

That's what I would like to think. But then I remembered that Sony was able to get away with removing "Other OS" (which was an advertised feature) from the PS3 through a mandatory firmware update. So if you wanted to play new games on your ps3, you had to give up Other OS. And despite how much of an uproar this caused at the time, I don't recall anything significant happening to Sony over it. These companies are so slick. I'm curious to see if they'll try to hide some cleverly worded statements into their conditions and terms of service agreements to make implementing their restrictive policies legal at a later date.

[Duo Maxwell]

Originally Posted by sayde

While I'm happy Microsoft made the wise decision to reverse some of their restrictions and policies

Apparently, there are people who doesn't think like that.

[Slayerx]

Originally Posted by sayde

While I'm happy Microsoft made the wise decision to reverse some of their restrictions and policies, my inner skeptic and cynic is worried. Because just the mere fact that Microsoft wanted to implement these things in the first place is a clear sign of where their mind is at. In other words, its not like they're changing their policies because they realized its a genuinely bad idea. They reversed their decisions because it wasn't well received and it was ultimately going to cost them money. What I'm essentially arguing is that this still doesn't mean Microsoft wouldn't implement these ideas if they could get away with it.

Having said that, I'm with the small minority who feels as though Microsoft could pull the rug out from their Xbox One owners at a later time. It could be gradual or abrupt. But I wouldn't be surprised if it happened.
That's what I would like to think. But then I remembered that Sony was able to get away with removing "Other OS" (which was an advertised feature) from the PS3 through a mandatory firmware update. So if you wanted to play new games on your ps3, you had to give up Other OS. And despite how much of an uproar this caused at the time, I don't recall anything significant happening to Sony over it. These companies are so slick. I'm curious to see if they'll try to hide some cleverly worded statements into their conditions and terms of service agreements to make implementing their restrictive policies legal at a later date.

Check the terms of the EULA that you don't bother to read before accepting. Both MS and Sony both include clause stating that you can't perform a class action suit, which in turn REALLY hampers the ability to sue them since most people would not want pay for their own lawyer to deal with something like that.

Though "Other OS" is not really an equivalent issue since i feel like only a very small minority ever actually cared about it in the first place... its kinda hard to build up the kind of passion we saw with the Xbox One's DRM policies. Though think about it, that could also be another reason they would get away with it; After everyone has an xbox one and enjoys it they may not care enough about the DRM to actually get passionate enough to do something about it. Its like once the console is paid for in your house, you can't return it and you aren't in a position where your xbox one was rendered unplayable you might as well use it

[saravis]

Originally Posted by sayde

Having said that, I'm with the small minority who feels as though Microsoft could pull the rug out from their Xbox One owners at a later time. It could be gradual or abrupt. But I wouldn't be surprised if it happened.
That's what I would like to think. But then I remembered that Sony was able to get away with removing "Other OS" (which was an advertised feature) from the PS3 through a mandatory firmware update. So if you wanted to play new games on your ps3, you had to give up Other OS. And despite how much of an uproar this caused at the time, I don't recall anything significant happening to Sony over it. These companies are so slick. I'm curious to see if they'll try to hide some cleverly worded statements into their conditions and terms of service agreements to make implementing their restrictive policies legal at a later date.

Doesn't Microsoft have some sort of "Prohibit Class Action Lawsuit" clause in their EULA? It does make it difficult to trust Microsoft on this one. However, my feeling is that if they tried to bait and switch, the backlash would be immense. Perhaps not, but that's just my feeling.

[sayde]

Originally Posted by Slayerx

Check the terms of the EULA that you don't bother to read before accepting.

But lets be realistic. How many people are actually going to look for that before purchasing the console?

Originally Posted by Slayerx

Though "Other OS" is not really an equivalent issue since i feel like only a very small minority ever actually cared about it in the first place...

The significance isn't nearly the same. I'll admit that. But the general idea is the same. Sony forced a limitation onto consumers who already purchased their product. The significance of said limitation doesn't seem to matter unfortunately. So if they can get away with removing one feature and limiting their console, where are companies absolutely forced to draw the line from a legal standpoint?

Originally Posted by Slayerx

Though think about it, that could also be another reason they would get away with it; After everyone has an xbox one and enjoys it they may not care enough about the DRM to actually get passionate enough to do something about it. Its like once the console is paid for in your house, you can't return it and you aren't in a position where your xbox one was rendered unplayable you might as well use it

I agree wholeheartedly. There's also another factor to consider. If Microsoft manages to develop a solid library of exclusive must-have titles and waits till their new console has built a solid base & community, then even people who still didn't buy an Xbox One after the DRM restrictions were implemented would be forced to bite the bullet if they want to join in on the party (assuming Microsoft can make the party THAT tempting to join despite the limitations).

Anyways, I'm trying to keep an open mind here. But I'd give Xbox One 2 to 3 years before I decide to buy it.

[Keroko]

Originally Posted by Slayerx

Check the terms of the EULA that you don't bother to read before accepting. Both MS and Sony both include clause stating that you can't perform a class action suit, which in turn REALLY hampers the ability to sue them since most people would not want pay for their own lawyer to deal with something like that.

Which, let's be fair, would never hold up in a serious court. It's a discouragement tactic at best.

Originally Posted by GDB

My main issue with the Kinect is that it has soooooooo much potential, but they didn't even come close to it. I assume the same will be true of the Kinect2, but time will tell. If unrelated parties could use the original Kinect to do such amazing things, I can only imagine how ridiculous things could get with the Kinect2.

Ehh, due to the position of my TV, using a kinect is out of the question for me so that's hardly a selling point.

[Roger Rambo]

Originally Posted by Sakuranbo

They evaluated what would make them and the publishers the most money while controlling (read: eliminating) the used game market (in their eyes this meant no more lost sales and a fixed increase in monthly/yearly membership and digital sales) and controlling the direction of the current gaming demographic (we all know how that turned out). From all of their PR and XBONE promoting nothing gives the impression that Microsoft was doing any of this solely for the benefit of the consumer; it was all an effort to wrestle control away from the marketplace and effectively the customer.

There's a difference between not doing stuff soley for the benefit of the consumer (hint, no company does this), and making your product seem so unattractive that they flock to your competitors product.


If that pastebin source is accurate, then I can't even comprehend in the slightest how Microsoft thought the Xboxone was going to be competitive with the PS4. It doesn't seem they really had any merits to sell their console on. The only thing I can possibly imagine is that Microsoft assumed that the PS4's superior specs would make it cost something like 600 dollars, allowing them to point to the 500 dollar price point of the Xboxone as an advantage.

That 399 PS4 really is what cinched it for Microsoft in terms of realizing they were in trouble IMHO.

Originally Posted by Duo Maxwell

Kyle believed that Microsoft's original Xbox One DRM scheme was going to make games cheaper, an assumption for a claim I kept waiting for Microsoft to make in the past month each time they revealed another off-putting aspect of their Xbox One plans—and yet for the possible reason that they had no intention to lower game prices, they never did.

Everyone seemed to be making that assumption for Microsoft, yet Microsoft never tried selling the Xboxone on that feature. That on the whole makes me very suspicious about whether Microsoft was ever planning to pass on the savings to the consumer.

Really. There seems to be this huge list of great features the Xboxone had that were supposed to be so fantastic, yet Microsoft never bothered bringing them up for some reason. At first I just assumed it was incompetence, but suddenly it makes allot more sense if Microsoft never had all these things(lower prices, game sharing) prepared as hot selling points. I'm sure there was some inclination to flaunt them in those dark days before and after E3, butI think cooler heads prevailed, and realized they didn't exactly have anything to deal with the bad PR.

Originally Posted by GDB

My main issue with the Kinect is that it has soooooooo much potential, but they didn't even come close to it. I assume the same will be true of the Kinect2, but time will tell. If unrelated parties could use the original Kinect to do such amazing things, I can only imagine how ridiculous things could get with the Kinect2.

Considering how lackluster many of the Kinetic titles were on the 360 (I'm looking at you Steel Battalion), Microsoft can't merely promise the potential of Kinetic 2 titles. They need to actually make a killer ap for the kinetic, show it, and then demo it gamers/press to demonstrate that the thing actually works. Until that time, there promises are basically inconsequential.

[kaito-kid]

Wow... What a colossal clusterfu*k this has become.. Good job Microsoft, good job.

[4Tran]

Originally Posted by Westlo

Going by vgchartz (yes I know, but it's there weekly and "npd" data that's mostly bullshit) looking at this current gen....

America

Wii - 44.7 million
360 - 44.07 million (And Kinect is a massive reason it will end up the best selling console of this gen in America)
PS3 - 26.75 million (thought it was 22 million, so not exactly double but an asskicking regardless, especially when ps2 did 54 mil..)

Europe

Wii - 33.02 million
PS3 - 31.02 million (will go past the Wii within a year, another price drop, Gran Turismo 6, Grand Theft Auto 5, nuff said)
360 - 24.24 million

Japan

Wii - 12.72 million
PS3 - 9.33 million
360 - 1.64 million

Thanks, there's a lot to suss out from these numbers. It's pretty obvious how important NA is to Microsoft. If they tie or lose out to Sony there, the Xbone is in a lot of trouble. Moreover, it seems like NA will end up getting 65% of the launch allocation.

Europe is Sony's playground, and they're going to win it easily. Nintendo doesn't intend to make it a fight, and Microsoft is going to lose a lot of ground. I wouldn't be too surprised if Microsoft sacrifices large chunks of Europe to save NA.

Japan is pretty darned hilarious. It's definitely going to be PS4 land. If Sony can make the console more appealling than the PS3 was, we may well see them gain there. If the PS4 turns out to be relatively easy to develop for, we'll get a lot more nifty Japanese games this generation. On the other hand, if the Japanese aren't interested in home consoles, then everyone will just lose ground instead.

Originally Posted by Westlo

MS are not going to part with Kinect period, they went from well behind the Wii in America to being on the verge of the #1 american console because of the momentum Kinect built.

You might not like Kinect but don't forget a lot of people thought the Wii's waggle was a load of horse shit as well, didn't stop it from selling like hotcakes.

The Kinect is possibly more important than the Xbone is to Microsoft. They've already lost hundreds of millions of dollars on the backpedal; I don't think that they'll flush another billion away. They'll outright lose an extra $100 per unit before they do that. Microsoft is tone-deaf right now, so they'll make that price drop about four months later than they should.

Originally Posted by Roger Rambo

If it wasn't for one thing I'd call shenanigans on this. Microsoft barely advertised this feature, despite having every PR incentive to do so. The only reason Microsoft could possibly have for not advertising this matter...would be if it wasn't actually as good as it sounded at first glance.

Really. Did Microsoft do ANY evaluation over whether or these changes would be worthwhile to their consumers?

The family sharing feature seems like something that was thought up last minute and without very much market research. They thought that the original reveal would be received a lot more positively than it was. This was just meant as a sop to convince gamers to make up for all of the restrictions that had been placed.

[Nightengale]

So the 'XBOX ONE HOUR' is pretty much confirmed true.

http://www.theverge.com/2013/6/21/44...d-features#_=_

A 'confirmation' of this from CBOAT, respected Neogaf information broker as well from another source of The Verge.

I mean, they ultimately managed to avoid the Class 10 Shitstorm that would've broken out from this had they persisted with the DRM features, so it's not too bad in hindsight. And they will never officially acknowledge this anyway, so it would just eventually simmer away as the fanboys continue their disbelief.

Still...

It leave a really bad taste in my mouth, even thinking that the things Microsoft has done over the past weeks.

[Vajra]

Originally Posted by Roger Rambo

There's a difference between not doing stuff soley for the benefit of the consumer (hint, no company does this), and making your product seem so unattractive that they flock to your competitors product.

Yup (especially not in this case) Microsoft wanted to change the direction of the gaming industry by forcing an all digital market (read: 'their ideals') but instead they became too egomaniacal for their own good and ended up dropping (for now at least) their whole grand idea for fear of losing money; which in the end means that MS will at least make 'some' money (through devoted fans) but not as much as MS would have liked if their whole digital/DRM monopoly had succeeded (the mass majority).

[Roger Rambo]

Originally Posted by 4Tran

The family sharing feature seems like something that was thought up last minute and without very much market research. They thought that the original reveal would be received a lot more positively than it was. This was just meant as a sop to convince gamers to make up for all of the restrictions that had been placed.

Except the family sharing thing was never really advertised. Microsoft never crafted any convincing marketing material to introduce it, to explain the benefits in it. If they had been serious about the sharing thing as a major feature, you'd have had a snappy little informitive video showing gamers using the features on the Xbox one. But Microsoft didn't bother doing that. All they had was a crummy little press release that sounded promising, but was rather vague. That suggests there was uncertainty within Microsoft about the sharing feature for some reason.

The lack of promotion of the sharing feature was either an example of incredible stupidity, or of incredible prudence. Incredibly stupid if it had worked as some people hoped it would, and prudent if the leak detail is actually accurate.

Originally Posted by Sakuranbo

Yup (especially not in this case) Microsoft wanted to change the direction of the gaming industry by forcing an all digital market (read: 'their ideals') but instead they became too egomaniacal for their own good and ended up dropping (for now at least) their whole grand idea for fear of losing money; which in the end means that MS will at least make 'some' money (through devoted fans) but not as much as MS would have liked if their whole digital/DRM monopoly had succeeded (the mass majority).

Only Microsoft can be blamed for that. They thought they could just implement these kind of radical restrictions, and that Sony would just nicely sit in the corner twiddling their thumbs.

[Nightengale]

Honestly? There's nothing wrong with their 'ideal'. Hell, Sony did it first with PSPGo, so they've got a taste of how bad the rejection was first.

But the way the ideal's crafted? There's clearly nothing about it that's 'consumer-first'.

Everything seems to have been designed solely to destroy the used game market, while still wanting to piggy-back on disc-based retail distribution. They thought of themselves first, publishers 2nd, and consumers last.

The fact that the've been unable to deliver a consistent, direct and powerful message as to WHY this ideal is good for 'us', is proof alone that they've never thought it through very well when it came towards what benefits we would get in return to what we gave up.

The fact that the internet, in the matter of days, were able craft more believable, PR lines of why the restrictions can be good for consumers over highly paid PR agencies who's been given months to prepare them speaks volume of this.

Of course, the difference is that we can tout lines like 'cheaper prices over the long-run'. Microsoft will never dare to imply prices will be cheaper with this model.

[Keroko]

Originally Posted by Roger Rambo

Really. There seems to be this huge list of great features the Xboxone had that were supposed to be so fantastic, yet Microsoft never bothered bringing them up for some reason.

Here's the biggest fun part about this though: The past tense you're using. Once again failing in communication, it appears to the gamers as if Microsoft scrapped everything they had developed in regards to online. But that would be lunacy. Their game sharing plan can still work just as it supposedly is now. Because digital games still exist. Just side by side with the physical ones.

Originally Posted by Nightengale

Of course, the difference is that we can tout lines like 'cheaper prices over the long-run'. Microsoft will never dare to imply prices will be cheaper with this model.

Not to mention their track record of this in the current generation is not exactly encouraging.

[Roger Rambo]

Originally Posted by Keroko

Here's the biggest fun part about this though: The past tense you're using. Once again failing in communication, it appears to the gamers as if Microsoft scrapped everything they had developed in regards to online. But that would be lunacy. Their game sharing plan can still work just as it supposedly is now. Because digital games still exist. Just side by side with the physical ones.

Oh of course these features can still continue to exist. But I think it's an important point to remember that Microsoft didn't seem to think these features could save them from the PR storm that was besetting them. Which to me, says the digital sharing features were never going to be a primary selling point. It's too big of a thing too not advertise.


Xbox can continue to maintain family sharing, but lets call a spade a spade. If the leak is true, then it's nothing more than a convoluted demo sharing setup. It's not a feature that makes up for always online DRM and restrictions on what you can do with the game disc. It's an amusing gimmick. Nothing more. And Microsoft not flaunting the family sharing feature should be taken as an indication that family sharing was not going to be some incredible thing.

[Vajra]

Originally Posted by Roger Rambo

Only Microsoft can be blamed for that. They thought they could just implement these kind of radical restrictions, and that Sony would just nicely sit in the corner twiddling their thumbs.

Besides the DRM-reversal, the only good thing to come from (or should I say sustained) these escapades is that the gaming industry still has healthy competition and that the entire swing of the industry doesn't rest solely in one company's palm (for now anyway).

[Roger Rambo]

Originally Posted by Sakuranbo

Besides the DRM-reversal, the only good thing to come from (or should I say sustained) these escapades is that the gaming industry still has healthy competition and that the entire swing of the industry doesn't rest solely in one company's palm (for now anyway).

Yep. That's why as much as Microsoft should hurt for their decisions, nobody should hope they hurt too badly. Because in a vacuum, even Sony might do this kind of stuff, knowing consumers would have no alternative.

A vestige of altruism can only prosper when there are prosper incentives for it to be done.

[GDB]

Originally Posted by Roger Rambo

even Sony might do this kind of stuff, knowing consumers would have no alternative.

...Nintendo...

[ReaperxKingx]

Microsoft, despite Xbox 1 not in stores yet already shown what will happen to a Company if they try to be greedy. Belittling the consumers and trying to take every buck they can will be an undoing to any company. I doubt Sony will ever do it or any gaming company for that matter since they already know the consequences.

[chaosprophet]

Originally Posted by Nightengale

So the 'XBOX ONE HOUR' is pretty much confirmed true.

http://www.theverge.com/2013/6/21/44...d-features#_=_

Funny part of that, if it's true, is that the engineer seems to consider it as a wonderful thing that if promoted well would help Microsoft and it may not have had to change things back. And in all seriousness, it would be a cool feature. But the only reason family sharing was convincing some people to still want the console even of it had all those bad DRMs policies is because they thought it was a much greater feature than this.