This takes care of the used games issue but it doesn't take care of:
- $100 more expensive than PS4.
- Kinect always included, always connected and always on. Cannot be removed, disabled or turned off.
- Netflix behind Xbox Live Gold paywall, available for free on PS4.
Plus other numerous functionality complaints such as it's supposed to be the way you watch TV but it isn't a DVR, you still need a separate DVR. And it's supposed to be the center of your home theater but only has a single HDMI input.
This page says it's disabled by software - not by hardware. So it really depends on how much you trust the software and the people making it. The software is closed source and the people making it also happened to be the first ones to sign onto PRISM.
You could very well do that. You could also crack open the kinect as soon as you buy it and change it so you can disable it by a switch or something like that. Although permanent disconnection apparently isn't a good idea as saying "xbox on" will I hear be the only way you turn the device on.
Really though I think it'd be easier for them to just give customers the option not to plug it in, but my guess is that they're trying to make sure everyone uses the kinect that they ship with the console (its not necessarily being used for nefarious purposes), but with that being said I still don't trust Microsoft.
I'm just telling you what I've read. I don't agree with it, but it's reasonable to assume they ship a kinect with every xbox one, they want people to use it and they probably aren't thinking of mute people.
You mean like the microphone found in almost every laptop, tablet, or phone?
I guess the difference with this microphone is that it's listening to you all the time by default, and that creeps some people out. But it's not sending your words over the network, and is not more likely to start doing so than any of the aforementioned devices (actually, much less, because of increased security); it's just pattern matching for the word "Xbox". Kind of like the initial worries over Gmail "reading your email" to target ads: I predict that this too will peter out once people start actually using the product, albeit perhaps never die completely.
(For the record, the fact that Gmail messages can also be read by law enforcement under some circumstances is both a serious issue and irrelevant to the analogy.)
Oh, to be clear I mostly meant removing the mic on a laptop. And it's pretty easy to open a laptop, just takes some screwdrivers. Or you can take a pin and stab the microphone until it no longer functions. No extreme difficulty here.
It's possible to have a software based microphone coded into whatever operating system. Speakers can also be used as a microphone. There is software out there that can record sound without any actual microphone.
Well everything is about trust, right? The PS4 could have a completely hidden camera that always on, but most people trust that Sony wouldn't do that, or that if they did, someone would quickly find it.
It's still trust though. We trust that iFixit or some other third party would discover and publicize the secret camera. A few of us might even do it ourselves, but most of us would just trust that someone else would.
When somebody figures out how to leverage a buffer overflow exploit in order to create a camera or microphone where none exists, then the might be similar.
Software vs. hardware means you trust Microsoft to never in the future decide to spy and to never make a coding mistake that could turn the equipment on when it's not supposed to be.
When it comes to teardowns you trust that multiple independent parties aren't all actively lying to you in concert.
You are correct, but the amount of trust you have in products you buy and use is your personal choice. If you think that's what they're doing then you probably shouldn't buy sony products.
Ex Kinect engineer here. I wrote a bunch of firmware in the original Kinect and a bunch of support stuff on the 360 console. I also did a lot of design on the new Kinect system before I left MS.
I won't reveal any secrets, but:
1) It should be very easy to determine if the Kinect is listening when it should not be, at least when the unit is off. So whatever MS claims the unit does should be verifiable.
2) I trust the Kinect team to do this right. They're dead serious about privacy issues.
You don't know me, so my trust in point #2 isn't necessarily transitive. But you should be able to look at signals and verify #1.
Well, what does a switch do? How does a physical switch work? Phones -- the old ones -- have big honking mechanical switches, but you can still listen through the things, with a little engineering.
A switch that just twiddles a bit on an input line can be ignored by software.
A switch that controls power might be interesting. But then there's a cable from the camera to the console itself, which could carry some power, and might be used to run a microphone, or maybe the camera electronics, a little bit.
Really, your recourse is to unplug the camera. Or not have one.
Others have pointed out that there are microphones on laptops and tablets (that appear to be off, but who knows?), and many celebrated cases in which reverse-spyware has been used to recover stolen hardware.
This stuff is all around us now. There's no coordinated plan for NSA-like folks to glue it together, or light it up without us knowing, and I think this would be hard, at least for the time being, and doubly hard to do without someone noticing.
The "switch" in a telephone was never designed as a privacy mechanism, and the device itself necessarily requires a live connection to the telephone network at all times.
By contrast, there is no compelling reason the Kinect component(s) must be connected to the xbox when not in use.
I obviously don't know what sort of bus is being used internally, but if it were, for example, USB, then the mechanical switch could easily behave as the equivalent of removing a USB connector from a socket.
The laptop/microphone argument is a red herring. "Everybody else is doing it" is not a valid excuse for doing the wrong thing.
My point is that putting trust in a switch is a surprisingly deep subject. For instance, it's hard (and expensive) to mechanically switch high speed USB while retaining the proper electrical characteristics needed by the transmission lines.
That seems an extremely odd statement to make, but let's assume it's true: Then just make it an easily-accessible cable. Or leave it as an optional accessory, which is what everyone would have preferred in the first place.
Don't get stuck in the mode of thinking you must design the solution to fit arbitrary requirements already decided upon. Those requirements aren't merely the source of the problem, they are the problem, and they're causing Microsoft to deliberately put its customers at risk.
Indeed. But it happens rarely enough that its usefulness to video chat with friends outweighs the risks for me and many other people. Most people are already okay with a camera on a device that is constantly pointing at them.
I dare say most people are blissfully unaware of how often and how easy it is for someone to use their webcam to spy on them.
Either way thats not the point, I don't have a webcam or mic plugged in, except when i am using it for video chat or gaming, and afterwards i unplug them. The xbox's cannot be removed like my PCs.
I do not have that option with my Macbook, nor do I think people have such an option with most laptops that have an integrated camera and mic. I could physically cover the lens and mic, but you can do that with a Kinect, too.
Well, laptops. But we never heard of prism before now, which doesn't make it not a thing.
I'm completely building this into a paranoid delusion, but then this whole thread is a demonstration that we lack / are denied the knowledge to dispel paranoid delusions, and sometimes they're right.
Your computer or phone doesn't need a conventional microphone to record sound. They could very easily be hidden in software, or by anything that can detect vibration. Not that I'm worried about a console doing this anyway.
This is so ridiculous it's not worth talking about. The chances of snooping due to the console being hacked are slightly higher, but where are all the people complaining that most laptops, tablets, and phones (which generally have significantly less software security) have built-in software controlled cameras and microphones? Laptops usually have indicator lights for cameras, but not microphones, and the other two have no indicators and follow you wherever you go.
I honestly think it's an emotional reaction due to the similarity to Orwell's telescreen. There's something about your TV watching you back that gives our collective unconscious the willies.
> Laptops usually have indicator lights for cameras
But doesn't that just mean you have to trust the light? I mean this does indeed seem rather ridiculous. If you're really that paranoid, a piece of masking tape will solve your problem.
> But doesn't that just mean you have to trust the light?
This problem is solved by having the power to the camera hardwired to the light. If the camera is on the light will be on, well until the led burns out but that takes a while.
Last I checked and my model of macbook has this but I do not know how common it is over all.
I do not think this is common practice for microphones and it seems like it should be.
Or you open it up and check at least with the model I have. I do not know about the new models with retina displays I hear they are harder to take apart.
In theory, the hardware should be designed so that it's impossible to use the camera without turning on the light, so it would require the device manufacturer to be malicious in advance, which is even less likely. Of course, there could be bugs, but it shouldn't be hard to design such a feature correctly. (Note that since there are cases of people being spied on by their laptop webcams, as mentioned elsewhere on the thread, but always with the light on, it would be quite a serious issue if someone discovered a way to disable the light.)
The same party is already in control of the world's PCs and laptops - things everyone with an XBone will already use for many of their favorite illegal activities. What new danger does this introduce?
I also expect that if video/audio are being saved or else transmitted to Microsoft/NSA or else being dynamically analyzed using the latest wank-detection algorithms, then someone will detect this by the resource usage.
Ok, so I was wrong on one of the 3. It still cannot be removed or turned off. It can be disabled by software which we have to trust is really disabling it.
Do people really not trust that it wouldn't actually be disabled if you disabled it? Can the paranoid not just put a piece of tape over the lens, or point it at a wall?
>Can the paranoid not just put a piece of tape over the lens,or point it at a wall?
- Yes one could tape it. Don't apply the tape directly since repeated application and removal of tape can impair camera functionality due to residual adhesive accumulation and the depositing of dust etc on the residual adhesive. Use Microfiber based cloth material between the tape and camera.
- But having said that, I find it painful to even think of repeatedly taping and 'untaping' cameras. Having to remember to point them the other way too is not good - one can forget to do so at times. And then lose sleep over it after having say, watched a romantic movie with one's girlfriend. And so on.
Physically connect when required is a more comfortable model, at least for me. I've seen some unbelievable shit being pulled by hackers, including changing camera firmware to achieve their objective. So making it easier for users to feel absolutely comfortable with their devices is important.
Do people really not trust that it wouldn't actually be disabled if you disabled it?
No, of course not, and that caution is entirely justified. Consider how effective Samsung's Smart TV security was, right up until they got rooted at the end of last year, at which point if the only privacy safeguards are under software control then they are essentially worthless.
I don't know the light transmission properties of tape, but I'm guessing they don't transmit anything below the visible spectrum, which means this camera would have to capture UV or higher to see through tape.
The Netflix thing is the only one stopping me, really. I love the idea of voice commands (if they work smoothly) and combining my OTA channels with my games. I'm willing to pay an extra $100 for what I assume (and will wait to see verified) will be a much better cohesive media experience than the PS4 that includes those two things. By pay an annual fee for Netflix on top of what I pay Netflix? Never.
I also don't care about the always-semi-on Kinect.
pay an annual fee for Netflix on top of what I pay Netflix? Never.
Same here! Also, I'm a casual gamer and I go months...YEARS without playing video games. I do not want another subscription that I'm going to forget about. I had an Xbox 360, but I never paid for the Gold service - so the only online gaming in my house is done on my PC workstation.
All consoles have exclusive games so every single one has "new games that neither system can do", however Wii U has the weakest third party support so it won't get most of the games either system can do. It's a current generation system so it will get some multi-plat still coming into this gen, otherwise it's pretty much Nintendo first party titles all the way.
And the message I replied to said: "WiiU + PC will probably get you more coverage than PS4 + PC. As far as I can tell anyway...", which is not even close to truth.
It will have a bunch exclusives but not as many as PS4 and X1.
Architecture has nothing to do with this - vast majority of exclusives comes from the first party studios (studios owned by the respective console manufacturer) and second parties (independent studio titles, published by the console manufacturer). There are some random third party (publishers like EA,Activision,Ubi etc) exclusives but from what I can tell Nintendo's are just shovel-ware (such as Carnival Games, variously branded "fitness" games, cartoon licensed titles etc.) while both Sony and MS enjoyed some AAA third party exclusives. There is no reason to believe the situation is going to change in the future - if anything it's going to be less of those since the major producer of Nintendo exclusive shovel-ware, THQ Inc, went bankrupt recently.
Out of the three console majors, Nintendo has the least first party studios - 7 (at least 3 of which are working on handhelds exclusively). Microsoft has the most. And Sony has the most first parties that actually ship games regularly.
So the only chance for Wii U to get more exclusives than PS4 is for Nintendo to contract a bunch of 2nd parties and/or sign a lot of exclusive contracts with the 3d parties. If this ever going to happen it's far from "likely" since it has not happened for the last 3 generations of consoles (Nintendo beating Sony on the exclusives).
A huge chunk of XBox1 and PS4 "exclusives" are available on PC. This fact is only going to be more true now that the XBox1 and PS4 are just (weaker) PCs. (using an AMD Jaguar with AMD7850-ish GPU)
The majority of these "exclusives", especially the big ones like TitanFall or Metal Gear Solid 5. Most of the Indie-game "exclusives" on PS4 are actually on Steam or will be on Steam. (ie: Transistor)
Nintendo Games however, have never really appeared on PC. No chance ever, especially because the WiiU gamepad is so unique.
* Super Mario Bros 2 U
* Pikmin 3
* Super Smash Bros.
* MarioKart 8
* NintendoLand
----------
The next would be PS4, as there are more PS4 exclusives that aren't coming to PC. Finally, Microsoft tends to shoot itself in the foot and release all of their exclusives on PC anyway. So...
PC + WiiU for me. Possibly PS4 if Killzone is good enough, but thats $400 for a couple of games that I may or may not care about. (and may come to the PC anyway)
>A huge chunk of XBox1 and PS4 "exclusives" are available on PC.
It depends on your definition of "huge", I guess. I know just a few games like Halo 1 (and 2 maybe), Alan Wake, which were exclusives on varios xboxes and became available on PC at later time. Don't know any playstation games like that, at least from the recent generations.
Your list (the second link is a video I did not watch) only shows multi-platform, some of which is available on PC. Also I will remind you that this is not the list of all the games. A transition between generations is usually covered with multiplatforms to compensate for the small installed base. Check out the list of exclusives for Wii, PS3 and 360 to make a more realistic picture.
>Nintendo Games however, have never really appeared on PC. No chance ever, especially because the WiiU gamepad is so unique. * Super Mario Bros 2 U * Pikmin 3 * Super Smash Bros. * MarioKart 8 * NintendoLand
Neither had Sony's games. * Infamous 2 * God of War 3 * Playstation All Star Battle Royale * GT 6 * Playstation Home
I don't question your tastes, some people like Nintendo games (otherwise Nintendo had been out of business long time ago). But there is a huge logical leap between "I like these games" and "there are objectively more games like these".
Personally, I don't care if the Kinect is always connected if the thing isn't online at all.
Also a $100 Discount doesn't have any traction with me regarding all of the bad will they created from the decades of pushing highly proprietary technologies into the market. Their terrible practices for me hit a crescendo when they made my life miserable via in-laws putting Sony rootkit audio-cd's into their PC.
Does it matter than much though? They are both awful in the context we are discussing. I'll likely not buy either, although that Tom Clancy 3rd person shooter MMO looks like a lot of fun and is console only.
The Steambox is an interesting alternative, it's scheduled for this year (insert valve release date joke here).
I'm not sure if you've heard about this, but I heard that Microsoft created a near-ubiquitous OS that was so insecure that it allowed rootkits to be installed via music CD!
There was this antitrust case where Microsoft tried to illegally take ownership of the entire desktop computing ecosystem. It would have probably done more harm than any one rootkit. You may have heard of it.
Also, Sony-BMG is not the same company as Sony Computer Entertainment, and indeed no longer exists.
Not entirely on the same page, but the RRoD bricked two of my 360s. One was in warranty, they sent me a new one. It RRoRed a little while later, but I was out of warranty now, so no replacement for me. I bought a new one, then that one RRoRed after about 3.5 years. I'll never purchase another Microsoft product just because I don't have faith in their ability to create a hardware product after that debacle. Such a waste.
My NES, Playstation, PS2, N64, etc. all still work. 360s die within three years of purchase.
Indeed, never offer features that you don't intend to fully support. People hate change, but they hate you more if you take away something they use, especially if they feel they paid for it.
I think Sony is doing a good job of redeeming themselves again.
Yes, there were the rootkit issues, PSN hack, propietary memory card requirements, ...
However, I feel like they have finally noticed that the consumer just doesn't take it anymore being treated this way and that they need to rethink their approach to earn back the trust of the consumer.
PS+ is an excellent example. You pay a minimal fee for the service every month and receive free games, which you can use as long as you are subscribed to their service.
You don't need to do anything and your game collection keeps on growing anyway!
This is a genius offering, which allows any adopter to quickly build up a collection of games, without having to shell out an additional $20-50 for each individual title.
Add their recent announcements in regards to PS4 & PS Vita and it really sounds like they are trying their hardest to convince the consumer on buying their products based on the actual features instead of trying to lock them in with proprietary hardware and devious protection schemes.
It's the first time where I feel Sony is showing off a product again saying "look how awesome this is" without adding a page full of * trying to explain how & why certain features will or will not work.
Netflix has always been behind the Xbox Live gold paywall, but it has never been behind the PS+ paywall, and won't be on the PS4 either. So I don't really see this as a point in Microsoft's favor.
Without the retraction, Xbox one would probably have been dead on arrival. This move takes them back to where they were. The malarkey about how XBox one wanted to be a better steam and would offer cheaper games(this was what some xbox dev said in response to the xbone bashing), now stands squashed.
Your points about how netflix is behind a paywall and how there isn't a dvr or multiple hdmi inputs in xbone are spot on. If microsoft implements these features, then xbox one could be a great bet.
So long as we are comparing Sony and Microsoft let's not forget which company has actively sued hardware hackers and which hasn't. So add this to your list:
- Doesn't hide behind a marketing facade.
Sony has made a big following with their marketing campaigns that contrast them with Microsoft, but I am really interested to see how the chips actually fall a few months or years in.
How many HDMI inputs does a blu-ray-playing digital-media-playing console need? I think they're assuming you're not going to wire a Playstation or an Apple TV into it, there's no need to plug in a blu-ray player, so that just leaves the cable box...
... oh, and the old Xbox 360, I guess. That'll have to just use the composite input to the TV.
How is the Kinect different from every smartphone, tablet with microphones and cameras that we all always carry around even to bathrooms, bedrooms and confidential meetings?
> $100 more expensive than PS4.
You get the easy to use Kinect voice control and things like fitness games that can help you be in your target heart rate zone.
Really? It's not possible to turn on Kinect? Even if you unplug it? Even if you cover it? Even if you put it in a cupboard? Whoa, that must be a marvelous piece of hardware.
It's also not clear if there will be a physical power button, meaning the only way to turn the damn thing on will be for Kinect to hear the phrase "Xbox On", meaning stuffing it in a cupboard won't be a particularly effective idea.
When I turn it off I'll probably disconnect the power and turn it back on when I want to play it.
In fact I bet it would be easy to create a pi hack that let's me turn the power on and off with a button.
I also doubt they won't have a button, what happens if my mic breaks?
I'm pretty sure short-sighted consumers/gamers shot themselves in the foot on this one, big time. I would have liked to have seen if Microsoft's move would have led to cheaper per game pricing like we see on PC. I guess we'll never know. I actually respected them for making a ballsy change like this that may have brought the console gaming industry into the Steam era.
Also, it now looks like you can no longer share/lend/give away your games digitally to friends and family, you have to lug a stupid disc around. High fives everyone, hooray!
1) Microsoft doesn't set the price of games. What would have happened would be developers setting slightly higher prices than XBOX360, citing inflation and 'increased costs of development for more sophisticated systems' as reasons why the games are still more expensive. In other words, they'd be saying, "If it weren't digital only, it would be $89.99 instead of $59.99, so count your blessings!" Consumers are so well-trained to believe that they have no control over price; it's sad, really.
2) While you may have the luxury of a decent internet connection at a reasonable price, that is nowhere near the case for much of the USA. Gaming consoles are least common denominator products by design, so cutting off that huge segment of people for selfish reasons isn't a smart idea.
3) At 0.58 oz, a DVD weighs less than a sippy cup, so even the smallest of toddlers should have no issue carrying it. You're also missing the bigger point that, with a disc, you don't have to wait 2 hours for a game to download before you can play it.
1) I don't buy that somehow gaming is a price fixing scheme. SNES games were $80 and that was 20 years ago. Market forces affect prices, and the used game market is a large market force.
2) "Re-authenticate every 24 hours" does not imply decent, always-on Internet. Most of the U.S. can re-authenticate every 24 hours. And those who are in the small minority that cannot should not prevent everyone else from the benefits of being able to digitally share their games with others. On military bases and space stations there can always be a special edition XBone that doesn't require connectivity and only plays discs with some software tweaks. Now, instead, we all lose.
3) The point about lugging it around was not the weight, it's the fact in 2013 there are use cases where a disc is the only way to do something, in this case, sharing a game. My lapto and iPad don't have disc drives and I haven't bought a game on a DVD in about 10 years.
1. SNES games were more expensive because they were on cartridges and manufacturing cartridges was/is far more expensive than manufacturing CDs/DVDs
2. So while someone's connection is flaky they can't play games. Users in entire countries would regularly have problems playing games. Overseas military wouldn't be able to play at all. You can say, "Just make a military edition" but how exactly would you control who can get one? How would you prevent military people from reselling them.
And perhaps the biggest problem with the online DRM is that if the DRM servers ever go down, every XboxOne on Earth would be insta-bricked. Xbox Live has gone down multiple times and PSN was down for a month, it is more than a passing possibility that the DRM servers could go down. Especially because they make an extremely attractive target for hackers.
Even with all of that, nothing is stopping Microsoft from offering digital-download games for cheaper than physical games. Maybe their DRM architecture is an all or nothing deal, but that would be the fault of their lack of foresight.
1) Well, the whole "games are cheaper as a digital download" sure isn't true while physical copies are being sold in stores, thanks to agreements to not undercut retailers' prices. Only when a game is old enough that physical copies aren't being sold anymore does become true. As true as an incomparable equality can be, that is.
I agree. I was looking forward to buying a game and being able to play it completely offline without a disc. The disc would just act as a way to get the data onto your hard drive faster than a download.
I'm annoyed that they are removing this functionality. While I don't like being prevented from reselling games, I have never resold one that I've bought, but I HAVE had a disc get scratched after bumping my Xbox with my foot. The only solution is to buy another disc, which sucks.
Still, I think that they should push the online distribution model by selling online games at a CHEAPER price than the disc. The reason I currently buy discs instead of the online downloads is because the downloads never go on sale. For example, you can get Halo 4 on disc for $20 right now, but it's $60 on Xbox Live.
Yes it was. The console would only need to connect once every 24 hours. The rest of the time, it wouldn't give two shits about if it was connected or not.
I think the hidden gem there is that all games will be available digitally. Once they figure out how lucrative their equivalent of Steam sales can be, that should start driving the cost of games down and also really hurt the used game market (which Microsoft and publishers are still eager to kill).
When you download a game, you can't lend it. You can resell it. Yet no one seems to care (status quo and all). But I think it's the natural progression of things, the next-next gen will be all download (well, we all said that last time too..)
> Once they figure out how lucrative their equivalent of Steam sales can be, that should start driving the cost of games down
This seems pretty unlikely. Microsoft already has a large slice of its catalogue available for download on the 360 — and it's almost always cheaper to buy the disc. To illustrate, I will look up a random game that I did not know the price of before this. Saints Row: The Third costs $49 on the Xbox Marketplace. On Amazon, a new copy costs $29.
Discounting lucrative titles just isn't how game companies work, and it especially isn't how Microsoft works.
Steam actually may enable digital game sharing - if you aren't playing your game, you would be able to share it with a friend who could play it while you are not (similar to how a physical game copy would work). But you would have to be 'always on' to verify that you are not playing at the same time they are.
Because previously, you could lend/share/give digital copies and the fact that the xbox connected every 24 hours could verify the license. Now, without the 24hr check lending will not be allowed. (I could lend all of my games to Bob, then Bob simply never connects to the net and is able to play them indefinitely)
Why couldn't they make it so the 24hr check still exists, but only for validating shared games. Traditional disc/downloads could continue working just as they do already.
From their statement it seems like disk-based lending will work exactly how it does in the past. You give your friend the disk, and he plays it. This seems to be what most gamers want.
They could divide users in two camps - those who want the old system and those who want the new system. If buying used games is good for you (e.g. you are living in country with less income than average American), don't enable the feature. If you like digital sharing, enable it.
IMHO, their proposed system is OK, but it should be opt-in, not opt-out. I mean to buy a lot of games and I have zero interest in playing online. Why should I care about that anyway? 24-hour check is...let's be honest and just say it is limiting.
The gaming industry seems to be moving in the direction of the movie/music industry where they place completely unnecessary restrictions on the digital content they sell and blame their customers for it being there while all the meantime they don't actually ever produce anything I want to buy.
Was this a pre-emptive statement, based on their retraction today? Possibly, but probably not. Pricing their games lower would convey the secondary message that their games have less value than the equivalent game on PS4.
Would they have lowered them eventually? Probably not until Sony did as well. There's was literally no reason for them to do so (aside from some graduate analysts saying it would have cost them in the long run).
I disagree. I think they have hit the perfect middleground. Those who want digital downloads can use them with the understanding that they cannot be traded, but like steam has always functioned. Those who prefer true, physical media can still use it just like it makes sense to.
I think this is by far the best decision they could have made. They have kept DRM out of it for those that do not want it, but have also taken a step toward the online download service that they have been striving for.
I don't see the issue, for the most part PC games can be bought on disc as well as online. For the PC, the benefits of online have proven to outweigh the costs for a large amount of consumers. Requiring the Xbox One to prove that model is superior for consumers, instead of forcing it, can only help consumers. If it's no better for consumers and doesn't catch on, they have the disc based system as normal.
If Microsoft really had plans to make games cheaper online, they can still do that. In fact, they can do that, and then when people buy more games online because they're more price competitive, they look like the good guys, pushing the better model, and ultimately being right.
Steam (while it doesn't have used game transfer) pricing has more to do with publishers and many competing platforms (Amazon, Gamesfly, Origin etc).
I imagine Xbox One prices would be determined by Microsoft and the publishers (with the cost of licensing factored in), and not quite the free-for-all pricing that we've come to know and love about Steam.
The only difference with retail and digital sales is obviously the lack of a physical copy but also cutting out the middleman (which is retail). It's still ultimately up to the publisher and distributor if they want to sell you cheap games, and the fact that consoles are closed systems they really don't have a reason to sell you cheap games.
They already sell games digitally on the current gen systems but choose not to do many decent sales. There isn't anything stopping them from giving you cheap games, they just don't want to - there's no reason for them to put in the DRM except to give themselves more control.
> I would have liked to have seen if Microsoft's move would have led to cheaper per game pricing like we see on PC.
We don't see that on the PC. Most big-name publishers largely charge the same on all platforms. How much was Diablo 3? Assassin's Creed 3 for PC? SimCity? These games all had always-online DRM, yet they cost just as much as an Xbox game.
I would put the chances of the Xbox One's restrictions leading to cheaper games very close to zero. It seems actually more likely to me that gamers would end up paying more on average in a market where the supply and pricing of used goods is tightly controlled.
I wonder why they wouldn't just structure pricing to incent users to move towards the digital versions. You can pay the $60 for a disc based game and all the benefits/drawbacks therein or... pay $30 to get it digitally and be able to play it from any of their consoles and lend it to friends like they originally planned.
Rather than backtrack, keep moving forward but do it a little bit more slowly... the way Amazon did/does with Kindle.
While you might be right in part, Microsoft still shot themselves in the foot with this one.
Some parts of the original plan were actually a good idea, if you think of the Xbox One as being purely for digital downloads. It's very similar to Steam, but with a few differences. Better in some respects (shared library, which Valve are reportedly considering), worse in others (can't work offline).
The problem is that they were applying the exact same system to physical copies of a game. While their original plan was actually pretty good for digital distribution (it's a little more permissive than the Xbox 360), it's awful for physical copies. The physical copy is nothing more than a CD key and a backup so you don't have to download the game. It completely violates everyone's expectations of what a physical copy is, and what you can do with it.
Microsoft explained all this very poorly. Their message was basically "here's all the ways we're going to restrict Xbox One games, all the extra requirements to play Xbox One games, and all the things you used to be able to do that you can't anymore". The benefits were an afterthought, barely mentioned, and they waited until E3 to even do that.
What they probably should have done is separate physical and digital copies. Have digital copies work more or less the same as the original announcement, and physical copies work like they do on the Xbox 360. Then it becomes a choice. If you want all the benefits of digital distribution (and make sure you play those benefits up at every opportunity), you can do that. If you don't, get a physical copy, and it works the same way it always has.
Although Microsoft do clearly want to move towards only digital distribution, they can't yet. The restrictions on physical copies are basically just a response to publishers, who are convinced that the used game market is the cause of all of their problems. They're wrong, of course. Just as they were wrong about piracy being the cause of all their problems, and just as they were wrong about game rentals being the cause of all their problems before that.
As for the pricing thing - that will not happen.
As far as publishers are concerned, US$60 for a game is a bargain. They'd love to charge more, but people won't pay more than that. There is no way they'd ever reduce that, even if they eliminated used games entirely, and had zero distribution and publishing costs. They've already established that people are willing to pay US$60 for a game, and the sale price of an item is simply whatever people are willing to pay for it. If they reduce costs, why would they reduce the asking price? If they increase sales by removing used games entirely, why could they reduce the price? That's not how businesses work.
The only way game prices will come down is if there's some kind of competition. Game publishers will charge the same for an Xbox One or PS4 version of a game, because the publishers control the prices, so there's no competition there. New games currently cost the same on Xbox 360, PS3, and Steam, after all. Retailers don't really have much scope for reducing prices, because they have very little margin on new games, so there's no competition there. Used games would no longer be competing either, because publishers would just ask for some (probably very high) cut of all used game sales. There's no way to set up a competing online shop for Xbox One games, and no way to publish an Xbox One game without going through Microsoft, so there's no chance of competition there either.
The only potential source of competition is between games. Publishers have demonstrated that they are not willing to do this. Not on consoles, anyway. Competition between games is what pushed mobile game prices down, even though all sales went through the same app store. That happened because the mobile space was dominated by smaller developers, mostly self-funded and self-publishing, who needed to compete or die. That's not the case with the major publishers and developers.
Steam faces competition from retailers, from other online shops (either selling physical or digital copies), from all the publishers and developers who self-publish, and there's a great deal of competition between games because of the sheer number of smaller publishers or independent developers, combined with the absolutely enormous available back catalog, most of which still works on modern PCs. That, combined with various developers (Valve being the most obvious) who aren't even trying for a US$60 price point in the first place. That's why Steam has decent prices, why games cost less over time, any why they have such frequent sales. Competition, not because of restrictions on what you can do with the games.
They are still (along with Sony) offering digital downloads of all titles. I don't think there is any reason, certainly no technical one, that they couldn't price digital differently than disc.
This is talking specifically about disc-based games, which will return to operating as they always have. Good news for everyone. If you want to lend your game to a friend, give them your disc ("Lug" it around? For real?). Further when the inevitable system outage/hack attack happens, yay, those disc games still run. When Microsoft bans your Live account because your nephew trolled some people, yay, those disc games still run.
Game makers can choose to do other things, just as they can on the PS4. Specific downloaded games might have specific activation policies, and so on.
The outrage was that Microsoft seemed to make the baseline one that was very anti-consumer. They have done these sorts of things quite often, going above and beyond to serve interests other than their customers. Recall when Microsoft Media Center forcefully imposed completely irrelevant broadcast flags that no other DVR or cable box in the world listened to, deleting recordings after a prescribed period and so on.
How do I lend a game to my brother who lives on the other side of the U.S.? If you're going to make the argument that discs are "good enough" you sound a bit like people saying letters are "good enough" compared to e-mail. There are obvious advantages to digital content but it sounded like to get those advantages Microsoft decided it needed to add some "DRM-like" experiences. I'm not going to say it was the right tradeoff but them basically doing a 180 based upon nerd outrage about the used game market is disappointing.
I would agree that making games unplayable if you are banned from XBox Live is horrible, and I am skeptical that was actually going to be a real policy since it's obviously unfair and there's no real "DRMy" reason to do it.
As of earlier today the Xbox One was the number 1 product on Amazon, two spots ahead of the PS4. I'd say that's a decent indicator of actual consumer sentiment.
The PS4 has been number one on that chart for most of the past week, despite being split up into multiple launch bundles. (I think yesterday was the first time the Xbox had reached number one since E3.) I've been checking that list, and it's my main evidence for the fact that consumers have actually been favoring Sony so far.
Every electronics retailer in my area sold out of launch PS4s close to immediately. They still have launch Xbox Ones for sale, and indeed I got a pitch from Microsoft themselves for it today.
That doesn't say that much, as we don't know the actual numbers, but of course on Amazon the PS4 absolutely owned the charts, and the only reason they don't now is the sales "split" between a number of bundles.
Console gamers are used to having a physical totem of the game. When have you ever been able to easily loan a game to your brother who lives across the country?
Really, if you want to do that with a digitally-purchased game, you should just both be buying a copy, for a lot less than that disc would have cost. But MS wasn't willing to say "sorry, you're obsolete" to the game stores, so they weren't saying "hey now your games will cost half as much or even less if you buy them through us". Consumers have shown they don't care about all that DRM/licensing stuff on iOS if an expensive game is one that costs $10!
And when email didn't exist, people were used to having a physical totem of the message. When were they ever able to instantly communicate with their brother who lives across the country?
You're not really contradicting the grandparents point that If you're going to make the argument that discs are "good enough" you sound a bit like people saying letters are "good enough" compared to e-mail.
You can still share your digital library, but they are limiting the number of friends you can do that with. And that requires call-ins to their servers, but that should be expected.
The "family sharing" aspect of Xbox One has been compared to iTunes Home Sharing. If that's the case, you wouldn't have been able to share games with your brother anyway -- Home Sharing only works for systems that are on the same Wi-Fi network. I don't think Microsoft's original idea was as cool as you think it was.
Microsoft's "family sharing" (terrible name) allowed you to share games in your library with up to 10 people, regardless of where they were in the world[1]. It didn't just extend to people in the same house. With this announcement we lose that feature.
Someone on HN suggested the theory that Microsoft was only announcing all of the digital restrictions because they were hoping Sony would do the same in this generation (since they aren't allowed to collude directly, and it seems a reasonable bet that Sony would up the ante on DRM, as they have historically). But, the theory was that if Sony didn't go that direction, they could always back out before the device goes on sale, since it only matters what the policy ends up being, not what it would have been.
If that was indeed Microsofts strategy, you can look at this press release as saying "OK, well Sony didn't go the way we thought, so we're backing off. No harm, no foul".
As evidence that they at least had this route as a contingency plan, you have to think this kind of massive about face in the tech would only be possible if they had built in a "TURN_OFF_CRAZY_DRM" flag or something, just in case.
The reason Microsoft is doing this is not what you think it is. The Xbox is a subscription business. $50/year * 46 million subscribers. Microsoft can't afford to lose those subscribers.
The box, the DRM, media integration, etc. means nothing if they lose those subscribers to the Wii U or PS4. So, don't piss off your core customers.
Anecdotally, a lot of my friends and family who are longtime Xbox gamers have no intention of buying a $500 DRM laden Xbox 360. Removing a lot of the DRM restrictions still doesn't fix the price and now Microsoft already looks a bit foolish for not being very customer friendly in the first place.
The "console war" is a long game, but Xbox One didn't start out on the right foot for sure.
Pressure doesn't just mean vocal pressure. By now I assume they have preorder data from Amazon, etc. (For Amazon, the PS4 has been a top seller in the videogame category for most of the past week despite being split up into multiple bundles.)
I've owned a PS3 for while now (probably since about a year after they were released) and have always enjoyed it, despite a few issues like lagging XMB screens and random system hangs from time to time.
A few months ago, I purchased the Xbox360 after hearing nothing but great things about it. I have to say that it's been a complete disappointment for me: the lag on XBL is exactly the same as on PSN, the games are more or less the same, and the fact that I have to pay Microsoft for access to other subscription services (which makes absolutely no sense) is a complete turnoff for me. Sony got quite a bit of flack for not being as 'cool' as Xbox360, but I have to say that caring about your customers is really refreshing. Kind of sad that that's the state of gaming at this point!
My thought was that they are doing this so that people will actually buy their console and subscribe to their services, giving them money in the process. Guess the reason Microsoft is doing this _is_ what I think it is.
The Xbox 360 released at about $500-$550 as did the PS3. The price was likely not the reason your friends were considering abandoning Xbox. It was the poorly communicated DRM restrictions and Microsoft's initial reluctance to do anything about it.
I would have been one of the people quick to abandon the platform, but now I'm considering purchasing the Xbox One. I'm sure some of your friends might be reconsidering as well.
I really don't understand why they aren't trying to do something in between.
If you download/buy a game from xbox live you can virtually lend it and a connection is require to lend the game (and temporary disable your access to that game). If you own a physical copy you can lend it as you did before. Everyone's happy and if the new system is that good and the consumers are happy then maybe the next system could be through xbox live only.
Not surprising. I'm generally shocked that the people that comment on youtube videos are actually able to turn on a computer considering the quality of their writing.
Doesn't matter to me in the slightest. I was a 360 owner this current gen (coming off of the PS2) but I will leave Microsoft come end of year.
I don't want or need the vast majority of features they are offering. I live in Bolivia - I don't care about the NFL, can't watch Netflix or even stream Pandora. The PS4 has more features that I can use and want, is cheaper and doesn't come with bullshit DRM.
Mine isn't, I run an OSS system that lets me verify that the camera is indeed off. It also works disconnected without sabotaging the functionality and software that doesn't require a connection. The camera led is impossible to disable without hardware tampering, too. And I can even tape it and it will continue working.
The XBOX PRISM is a different creature altogether, and a very worrisome precedent precisely because we already have smartphones and tablets that could potentially follow that path.
I'm a bit disappointed at this change - on one hand, it's nice to know that I can share my disc games if I want to. On the other hand though, this effectively means they're killing off their disk-less approach to owning/installing games. This means that instead of having all my games tied to my account on any device I own, I have to lug my games around with my everywhere I go. This also means picking my vegetative self up off the couch when I want to switch what I'm playing.
How was Microsoft's plan any better than the status quo. Having to take your physical discs somewhere is not some huge burden that will break the backs of people who want to play games at someone else's house. Fact of the matter is that someone would have to sit there and wait for a multiply gigabyte download to finish in order to play a game at someone else's house without the disc. Forget trying to play more than one game unless you've got a couple of days to burn downloading.
Meanwhile, with MSFT's old plan you couldn't lend a game to anyone, couldn't rent a game from anyone, and it seems like you could only sell your game back to a retailer.
People keep saying, "The games would've been cheaper" but there were no indications that was going to happen. If games were going to be cheaper, don't you think Microsoft would've touted that as a benefit at least ONCE since they unveiled the Xbox One?
It doesn't matter they already showed me what kind of company they are over and over again. The fact that they would try this in the first place says something about them. After all these decades, nothing's changed about Microsoft.
And don't even try to feed me that BS about "companies exist to make money". No. They. Do. Not. A company exists to create a solution to a problem or fulfill a need. In exchange for providing that to a consumer or user they are rewarded with money. Money is not the goal, it's the result of achieving a goal. People don't start companies thinking "I'm going to start a company to make money" . They do however start them by saying "I'm going to start a company that makes ______ for money".
I'm just glad this whole thing backfired and I hope they feel the wrath of the gaming community for years. Their entire plan was to kiss the asses of publishers who would in turn make more exclusives for Xbone and the players would have no choice but to get an Xbone. Now that is a dick move.
I guess the massive cheering at the E3 press conference when Sony announced their policy on this scared them pretty good. For me, it was one of the saddest gaming related moments I witnessed. This should be expected, not applauded.
1) You still have to have the Kinect, and so long as the console is on it, too, will always be on. (And apparently even when the console is off it will still be listening for the "turn on" command. This has implications I'm not comfortable with.)
2) Independent developers will still be prohibited from participating in the Marketplace.
3) It will still be $100 more than the PS4.
I've been a 360 owner for several years now. At this time it doesn't look like I'll be getting the next generation model.
Finally! Let's hope that there is no firmware or update that will reverse this policy. The only issue that now remains is that the console is limited to 21 countries.
This region-lock limitation prevents me from giving money to Microsoft, which is something they should want actually, and from developing for the console.
The page is loading really slowly, so here's the text:
Last week at E3, the excitement, creativity and future of our industry was on display for a global audience.
For us, the future comes in the form of Xbox One, a system designed to be the best place to play games this year and for many years to come. As is our heritage with Xbox, we designed a system that could take full advantage of advances in technology in order to deliver a breakthrough in game play and entertainment. We imagined a new set of benefits such as easier roaming, family sharing, and new ways to try and buy games. We believe in the benefits of a connected, digital future.
Since unveiling our plans for Xbox One, my team and I have heard directly from many of you, read your comments and listened to your feedback. I would like to take the opportunity today to thank you for your assistance in helping us to reshape the future of Xbox One.
You told us how much you loved the flexibility you have today with games delivered on disc. The ability to lend, share, and resell these games at your discretion is of incredible importance to you. Also important to you is the freedom to play offline, for any length of time, anywhere in the world.
So, today I am announcing the following changes to Xbox One and how you can play, share, lend, and resell your games exactly as you do today on Xbox 360. Here is what that means:
An internet connection will not be required to play offline Xbox One games – After a one-time system set-up with a new Xbox One, you can play any disc based game without ever connecting online again. There is no 24 hour connection requirement and you can take your Xbox One anywhere you want and play your games, just like on Xbox 360.
Trade-in, lend, resell, gift, and rent disc based games just like you do today – There will be no limitations to using and sharing games, it will work just as it does today on Xbox 360.
In addition to buying a disc from a retailer, you can also download games from Xbox Live on day of release. If you choose to download your games, you will be able to play them offline just like you do today. Xbox One games will be playable on any Xbox One console -- there will be no regional restrictions.
These changes will impact some of the scenarios we previously announced for Xbox One. The sharing of games will work as it does today, you will simply share the disc. Downloaded titles cannot be shared or resold. Also, similar to today, playing disc based games will require that the disc be in the tray.
We appreciate your passion, support and willingness to challenge the assumptions of digital licensing and connectivity. While we believe that the majority of people will play games online and access the cloud for both games and entertainment, we will give consumers the choice of both physical and digital content. We have listened and we have heard loud and clear from your feedback that you want the best of both worlds.
Thank you again for your candid feedback. Our team remains committed to listening, taking feedback and delivering a great product for you later this year.
with the Kinect complaints notably absent. Considering how flimsy both the Kinect and the XBOX360 are, there's no way I'm buying an Xbox One if I'm required to have mics and cameras connected at all times, nevermind the privacy issues!
Hopefully the gaming "journalism" industry will stop jerking off the PS4 after this. Any pragmatic-minded individual saw this coming after their E3 fiasco. Not doing so would have been akin to pouring money down the drain.
Personally I think Microsoft will have to drop the price of the xbox one to match the PS4. I think people will look at the Kinect and ask if it's really worth paying an extra $100 for. The answer will be a resounding no.
It'll be interesting to see how this plays out given the immense amount of damage done already by their out-of-touch policies. It's like the SimCity debacle was just somehow ignored over there. Guessing the numerous PS4 pre-orders and the telling Amazon poll finally convinced someone "Hey guys, turns out that DRM policy is killing us, can we please disable it?"
An entity that only does the right thing after being publicly ousted is not an entity deserving of the public's trust or business.
An entity that only does the right thing after being publicly ousted is not an entity deserving of the public's trust or business
That feels overly cynical. It's not like they were caught doing something underhanded, they just announced policies that weren't as consumer-friendly. There was a backlash, their competition took advantage of it, and they switched to a better policy.
To me, it seems that everything worked out the way it was supposed to. Capitalism still works.
It's interesting to see how the massive backlash elicited such a fast response. I'm curious as to how such a task is being undertaken at MS headquarters, with developers working overnights, dropping current work to support this pivot, etc. Personally I think it's very encouraging and a step in the right direction.
Status quo is fine and all, but I don't think it's really a step in any direction.
Though the fact that they're still giving me what I want (digital downloads on all games) means I really have nothing to complain about. Digital lending / sharing features might have been cool though.
They’ve thrown out the baby with the bathwater. This sort of flexible licensing doesn’t make sense for disc-based games, but would have worked very well for downloads.
I think that was just PR nonsense from the beginning. Besides the fact that very few gaming related tasks (except multiplayer support) would benefit from remote servers, they couldn't assume an internet connection anyway, since the check-in was only once per 24 hours.
Reposting my earlier comment on the other thread that went off front page:
They should rename the Xbox One to the Xbox 180, it would be a perfect name!
On a more serious note, I don't like this rollback. It only goes to show how the witchhunt and echo chamber on Reddit worked. Even before the reveal, Microsoft was falsely accused of trying to game Reddit and everyone flew off the handle over someone pretty much lying to be a troll. Say the word "DRM" and you get bucketloads of Reddit karma and posts pointing out the facts(forget about posts taking the opposing view or opinion) were downvoted into oblivion by the angry mob.
And then there was the bad timing on the NSA leaks, which didn't help at all. Everyone has smartphones, laptops and tablets with cameras and mics which could be watching and listening and Apple/Google were part of the leak, but it was Microsoft that was singled out for proposing a device that could turn on itself, and had numerous safeguards to configure privacy if you wanted to.
All this doesn't excuse the fact that Microsoft utterly and totally failed in communicating their message in a proper manner in E3 and handed Sony an easy victory on a silver platter. For example, they failed to highlight how it fixes the problem of scratched and lost discs and how inconvenient it is to change discs to switch between games. I know a lot of people with huge DVD collections who watch the same movie on Netflix because they can't be bothered to put in a disc into the player.
They were touting the ability to play another game while waiting for people to join another multiplayer game, now that will be inconvenient with having to switch disks.
I guess it was easy to roll this back because it was not Microsoft but publishers and game developers that were going to reap the benefits of diskless gaming because Gamestop etc. skim off the value of older games and leave publishers with not much value. Once the public failed to see the advantages and blamed Microsoft for a power grab that was not going to really benefit them all that much, it was game over.
>On a more serious note, I don't like this rollback. It only goes to show how the witchhunt and echo chamber on Reddit worked.
It seems like you haven't considered that the echo chamber is right on this one. DRM is a cancer on the industry and every attempt to fight it back is worth it. You make points that the DRM could lead to potential benefits, no one is disputing that. Simply put, with the way it was, I was never going to buy an Xbox, now I might consider it. I can't stand the trend these days where the consumer owns nothing and controls nothing. This is capitalism at work, nothing else. It seems like a win for consumer rights and a win for Microsoft. Your post seems like a reactionary post lambasting the reactionary posts on reddit.
In certain cases the "landscape" of a feature means that what we would see as DRM is simply just a part of that feature. Steam is effectively a DRM platform, but the convenience of my games being backed up for me (and being able to transfer those games across machines when e.g. upgrading) means that the DRM becomes a feature that actually helps me (a good example of DRM being a feature is MMOs). I guess that's where I draw the line - some types of DRM protect the rights of both the consumer and the developer.
Let me put it to you this way, if I were to ever buy a console, I might have considered the XBox One. Microsoft has a history of being partly a benefactor (especially with the 360 and XNA); and things can be changed and improved over time (just like Steam was). We might not have liked the first iteration of the DRM, but it could have been changed (require both devices to be connected to the internet when changing ownership? The horde would have still torn them apart for that).
- $100 more expensive than PS4.
- Kinect always included, always connected and always on. Cannot be removed, disabled or turned off.
- Netflix behind Xbox Live Gold paywall, available for free on PS4.
Plus other numerous functionality complaints such as it's supposed to be the way you watch TV but it isn't a DVR, you still need a separate DVR. And it's supposed to be the center of your home theater but only has a single HDMI input.