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The Guns of Navarro: Reversal of Fortune

Microsoft's changes to its Xbox One DRM policies were undoubtedly shocking. Alex sifts through the ashes to see what it all means.

Corporations are notoriously slow creatures. That slowness generally stands in direct proportion to the size of the corporation itself. The bigger the beast, the more people, bureaucratic processes, and legal wrangling every single decision must be pumped through before any kind of minute decision can be made. It's why I never expect much when fan outcry arises toward the various monolithic companies that make up the video game industry. Especially in the case of a behemoth like Microsoft, whose Xbox One DRM policies became the subject of much derision over the course of the last month. Here was a company that was laying out its carefully built plans for a new console, its first in eight years. This is unquestionably a huge undertaking, involving years of research and development, and considerable capital. Yes, people reacted poorly when Microsoft announced that it would not allow traditional used game sales on the system, and would require online check-ins every 24 hours in order to even play offline games. Seemingly, in its mind, the potential riling up of DRM-weary consumers was worth the risk given the potential long-term benefits of the tech.

Patrick's Xbox One story as it appeared on BBC's Click (thanks to Rowan Pellegrin for sending this over!)
Patrick's Xbox One story as it appeared on BBC's Click (thanks to Rowan Pellegrin for sending this over!)

Until, of course, it very suddenly wasn't.

To say Microsoft's reversal of those aforementioned policies this week was a surprise would be a gross understatement. Nobody saw this coming. Not the developers we talked to at E3, not the various press people commenting following the show, not anyone. Even if you believed Microsoft could be worn down at some point in the future, I hardly expect you could have foreseen them making such a jarring about-face less than a week after E3's conclusion.

This is not how companies typically react to fan or media outcry. Usually there's a lot more quiet hand-wringing as they attempt to adjust messaging, or even just flat indifference to the whole thing. Which isn't to say game companies never listen to fans, but this kind of complete reversal on such a seemingly fundamental policy that had just been announced is practically unheard of. All that research, all that preparation, all that money, essentially tossed off in the hopes that fan response would turn back in Microsoft's favor.

Yes, Microsoft has been presenting these changes as very much the result of "fan feedback," that nebulous term that could refer to the myriad angry message board and comment thread postings, the consistent feed of backlash from the games press, or even less public factors, like pre-order sales. For my money, I tend to lean on that latter one. In my experience, nothing sets a game company's ass aflame quite like soft pre-order numbers. We don't know exactly what pre-orders look like for either the Xbox One or the PlayStation 4, but there's enough anecdotal info going around to suggest that Sony's E3 press conference, with its promises of no new restrictive DRM policies and a $100 cheaper price tag, brought the company terrific early results.

If you're Microsoft, I have a hard time believing you scrap such a noteworthy chunk of your system's architecture just because a lot of angry people on the Internet were angry. Companies are trained to learn that these kinds of complaints are typically more indicative of a vocal minority. But actual, tangible sales? That's another story entirely. If people aren't pre-ordering your console to the degree that you're expecting, that's when you would typically see a company leap into action to affect change. A leap this high and this fast tells me that something was very seriously wrong in Microsoft land, and that this was not just some play to appease an upset audience, but a desperate attempt at total course correction in the face of what I can only assume they foresaw as an impending doom scenario.

Even more intriguing than Microsoft's immediate about-face was the reaction that followed. Unsurprisingly, those who had spent the last 20-some-odd days deriding the Xbox One's DRM system were generally quite thrilled. But almost immediately after the announcement hit, another side of the argument piped up. While there had been some vocal supporters of Microsoft's new DRM--typically, those who believed that such a system would be the impetus to put consoles more on par with Steam's currently (mostly) beloved digital library system--their voices were largely drowned out by people who weren't into these restrictions one bit.

Former Epic Games honcho Cliff Bleszinski has been one of the more vocal opponents of Microsoft's reversal.
Former Epic Games honcho Cliff Bleszinski has been one of the more vocal opponents of Microsoft's reversal.

So now, this previously shouted down group had reason to pipe up even louder, as the opposition quieted down. They were most certainly being fueled by numerous developers, who came out in dismay over Microsoft changing a policy that they believed would save the industry from eventual collapse. A predominantly dire attitude was taken on by prominent figures like Cliff Bleszinski and Lee Perry as they spoke of doomsaying numbers that they proclaimed showed how bad things have gotten in top-tier game development. The thing is, they're not wrong. The current model is deeply in the red, with not a lot of return on investment for increasingly bloated game budgets. That bloat, as most developers will tell you, is the direct result of the staffing and resource requirements inherent to crafting "top quality experiences" in the kinds of timetables major publishers require. Games that sell millions of copies are often still "disappointments," because they're not hitting the kinds of targets the publishers had banked on. Whether those expectations were ever realistic to begin with is, sadly, not often up for debate, since usefully precise data on game budgets and sales numbers is still generally kept away from the public view.

But as Chris Kohler notes in a piece written Friday, this isn't just an either/or argument. It's not literally: "We get rid of used games, or top quality video games go away." Nothing so binary has ever existed in this business. Companies have failed and succeeded in widely varying forms over the course of the last few decades, and how the industry might reshape itself in the face of unsustainable costs is very much an unknown. Cliff seems convinced that not having these new digital licensing tools would guarantee the status quo of tons of DLC, microtransactions, and the return of online passes, inevitably leading to some kind of eventual cataclysm. I don't think we really know that to be our only possible future yet.

Removed from the apocalyptic foretellings, some people were just mad because the various sharing features built into the system sounded pretty great. The family sharing feature, which would have allowed you to share any game you owned with up to 10 family members on any Xbox One, sounded really ideal. While some doubt over the veracity of that feature's description popped up later last week, those claims--that the system would only allow family members to play shared games for up to 60 minutes at a time, before being told to buy the full product--seem to have been debunked by various Microsoft men via Twitter.

And then there was the ability to access your entire games library digitally, even if you bought a physical copy originally. Losing that one does suck, no question, but if someone really is invested in the current vision of an all-digital future, Microsoft says they'll still have every game published on the system available day-and-date digitally alongside the disc-based copies. Access might not be quite as broad as it was before, but it still allows for a notable upgrade over Microsoft's current system, where disc-based games tend to lead their digital versions by quite a margin.

So certainly, there is reason to lament some of the losses in the wake of Microsoft's change, but such lament comes with a level of faith that a lot of consumers evidently weren't willing to put in Microsoft's $500 machine as it previously stood. Now, sans these restrictions, it seems that Xbox One preorders have risen on various retail sites. Granted, the PS4 still had a strong week-long lead of positive press driving it into Amazon's top sellers list, and with many of those pre-orders put in, we're now seeing those who held out on Microsoft meeting its about face in kind. Again, actual numbers for these sorts of things we won't know about until somebody decides a sufficient benchmark has been reached to put out a glowing press release, but it does seem like Microsoft has gotten a shot in the arm here, if nothing else.

Did Microsoft's about-face change your mind when it came to pre-ordering an Xbox One? I mean, I'd already pre-ordered one, but if I didn't need one for my job, I'd have waited.
Did Microsoft's about-face change your mind when it came to pre-ordering an Xbox One? I mean, I'd already pre-ordered one, but if I didn't need one for my job, I'd have waited.

It's also really only put-off what may still yet be an inevitable all-digital future, as the New York Times noted this weekend. Many seem to think that physical media isn't really long for this world. Even if Microsoft is removing its DRM restrictions on the Xbox One, there's no reason to believe they couldn't just implement that stuff again whenever it feels the market dictates. We are most certainly progressing toward a heavily digital games market, as indie games and day-one digital releases have become increasingly normal. It's been a slow push, and not everyone is there yet. The bandwidth isn't there for everyone, nor is the affordable storage space. But if you look at where we are now compared with, say, five years ago, the digital market has expanded by leaps and bounds. In another few years, the used market may begin to dry up all by its lonesome, with no forceful nudging from console makers. All those features Microsoft was talking about could easily be plugged back in, and at a time when the market is actually prepared for this kind of shift. And isn't that how it ought to be, anyway? The consumers dictating the fate of the used games market, instead of the game companies dictating it to us?

Whether or not this gambit pays off in the end, on some level, you just have to admire the moxie of it all. Sony drilled Microsoft at E3, and managed to rally the core gaming audience behind them in a way that a single console maker hasn't been able to in ages. Where Microsoft looked out-of-touch and indifferent, Sony looked self-aware and clever, and clearly were able to parlay that into strong early numbers. In making this change so abruptly, Microsoft may have dimmed Sony's E3 afterglow a bit, and brought itself back into the race. We have ourselves a ballgame again folks, and when two companies compete with this kind of fierceness, it's we, the consumers, who most often win in the end.

Alex Navarro on Google+

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Zainyboy

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I've always wondered why companies don't make any money from used game sales. Surely they could hammer out a deal with retailers where they get a reduced percentage of used game sales or something similar. In either scenario, either publishers suffer or retailers suffer. It makes sense for them to work together to find a more symbiotic system for used games.

I'm sure that this idea is not original, but what is the reason that it hasn't happened so far?

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probablytuna

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@zainyboy said:

I've always wondered why companies don't make any money from used game sales. Surely they could hammer out a deal with retailers where they get a reduced percentage of used game sales or something similar. In either scenario, either publishers suffer or retailers suffer. It makes sense for them to work together to find a more symbiotic system for used games.

I'm sure that this idea is not original, but what is the reason that it hasn't happened so far?

I'm guessing it's because retailers want all of the (used game) money? And if the publishers don't comply the retailers simply won't stock their games?

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capthavic

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It's unfortunate that Microsoft backed down because so many gamers want to continue to live in the past. People who don't have high speed internet connection will either have to get an internet connection and join the rest of us in the 21st century, or stay behind and not enjoy games. It is a rather simple trade-off.

/sarcasm Yes because it's that simple to get high speed broadband anywhere in the US, let alone the rest of the world. And who gives a shit about people who don't live in one of the few supported country's, or soldiers on duty god knows where, or sick kids who get their games from charities. They need to quit whining and get with the future! *rolleyes*

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yukoasho

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Edited By yukoasho

@voysa_reezun said:

I disagree with people that think physical media will ever go away. People like to own things, and unless there is a change in the laws about who owns physical media, eventually, that whole issue will hit the fan. But that's down the road. There are lots of people that don't live in cities in first-world countries and that will not have the broadband access needed to reliably download games or stay "always on" and that will not do so for a long time (if ever).

As for Microsoft, they burned up all their goodwill with me. I had an Xbox and a 360, both about a year after launch, and I was planning on an XBOne until I heard what they want to stick me with (useless Kinect technology being something that is still around and that Microsoft needs to scrap). At this point, I really don't trust Microsoft very much. I'll see what Sony can do next gen, and if they disappoint me, I'll just stick to a PC/Nintendo combo, as on PC at least I can get digital games for ten bucks or under if I wait for sales (and GOG gives 'em to me DRM-free), and Nintendo understands that there are some aspects of traditional console gaming worth keeping around.

I would argue that the majority of people like to own things. The fact that CDs haven't gone away, or even come CLOSE to going away, despite iTunes being over 12 years old stands in testament to that, along with the fact that the only online movie streaming service to reach mass market penetration is Netflix, which is basically all-you-can-watch for $8/month (I know I use Netflix as a vetting service. Only buy the movies I enjoyed on there!).

The fact that the digital mavens always turn to Steam speaks to just how non-mainstream digital-only is. The PC, people seem to forget, stops being a mainstream market once you get past WoW, PopCap and Sim*. I love GoG as well, but I'm a hardcore gamer, and I imagine you are as well, @voysa_reezun. The only thing inevitable about digital media is the consumers vs. companies court battle over digital ownership, and if it goes in favor of the companies, the digital mavens can kiss their precious "digital-only" future goodbye.

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d715

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Edited By d715

@sephirm87:

Yeah and they backed off because it was in there best interested, guess what gamers weren't going to buy it, non games don't need it, it cost too much and does things a TV does now.

Also the fact that there's no backwards compatible aka my number one reason why I don't want a xbox one because guess what I like my 360 games and xbox arcade games ect. But I guess that's "living in the past"

Blindly moving forward just means you don't see the cliff you're going to fall off of.

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d715

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@spiiken: Because most people still don't have good internet connection. Let along the 1.5 mps Xbox wants.

Also did you sleep threw what happen with SimCity? Or Diablo 3? Or are you that stupid to thing something like that wouldn't happen to Xbox?

Also no military bases can use them.

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yukoasho

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@zainyboy said:

I've always wondered why companies don't make any money from used game sales. Surely they could hammer out a deal with retailers where they get a reduced percentage of used game sales or something similar. In either scenario, either publishers suffer or retailers suffer. It makes sense for them to work together to find a more symbiotic system for used games.

I'm sure that this idea is not original, but what is the reason that it hasn't happened so far?

A deal like that would depend on the publishers giving something back, and that would depend on the publishers not being too greedy for anything resembling sense.

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selfconfessedcynic

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yukoasho

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@yukoasho said:

That's a very interesting point.

I'd certainly be on the side of no-digital-future if the courts rule we don't own any of it. Then again, I honestly think they'll rule the other direction.

Exciting times!

I honestly think it would be in our direction, but you can never be too sure. It'll be a long, LONG time before we get there. I honestly think media corporations don't want to go there yet. Honestly, save for MS' ill-thought-out attempt here with the Xbox One, we've seen no real push to REPLACE physical outright, instead offering digital options alongside. I think most companies realize that any attempt to destroy physical distribution would accelerate the coming of that fateful case.

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Adaurin

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@ihmishylje: That's what I didn't get about the original idea for Xbox One. Microsoft seemed pretty US-focused with its initial reveal, yet this country has some of the worst broadband services of any industrialized nation.

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TheRedDeath

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I don't get why it had to be one or the other. Can't I download a game, and share that digitally with my family, while I physical buy a game disc and share it physically with my family? Why can't I have both these options, that way everyone gets what they want?

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selfconfessedcynic

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@yukoasho: Yup, I agree - I think that fight is a long ways off, or at least it will be if companies have anything to say about it.

But it may play out sooner, as fringe cases keep getting closer and closer to hitting on whether we own software.

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Bones8677

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@sephirm87: Unfortunately we don't live in a world where everyone can get access to fast and affordable internet. Most people who have a decent internet connection (non-56K) still have to deal with their Internet Service Provider shitting-the-bed on occasion. Most people in America like to pretend we have good internet, but the truth is, we don't. We have what amounts to a psudeo-monopoly. There are two choices for ISPs, Comcast and Time Warner. And guess what? They both suck. None of them are really competing against each other to provide better services and I wouldn't be surprised if some amount of Price Fixing was occurring behind the curtains.

What is a person to do? It's not their fault that the internet they have access to is shoddy. These aren't mountain men in the Appalachians we're talking about, these are people 50 miles outside Los Angeles. I lose my internet connection almost nightly, it's only for a minute or two, but there was a time my internet was out for a full week, and I can tell you plainly I'm not in the middle of Oklahoma. But am only 30 miles from Los Angeles myself. But what can I do? Who am I going to go to when Comcast is actually non existent down here? No really, it's only Time Warner. I'm forced to endure a monopoly in my area.

And that's assuming that Microsoft has THEIR shit together. You can have the best internet connection in the world, but if Microsoft's servers aren't working then what does it matter? PSN was down for 5 whole weeks, no one could play any multiplayer game at all. What will people say when that happens to Microsoft? And it will. Hell every time I play a 360 game (single player) I ALWAYS get a notification "You have been disconnected from Xbox Live." Why? How? I don't know, but literally without fail I lose connection with their servers, maybe it's brief and there's no real concern, but why in the hell would I want to trust their servers to be up in time for me to play any game? When we have seen time and time again that companies can NEVER be 100% certain with their own server infrastructure.

So no, it has nothing to do with people being "stuck in the past" or "not joining the 21st century." Because the world you're thinking about doesn't exist. Things are far more complex than people wanting to behave like cavemen. It would behoove you to spend a little bit of time informing yourself of the actual arguments and situations most people are in right now, and know that not everything is as rosey as they should be.

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yukoasho

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I don't get why it had to be one or the other. Can't I download a game, and share that digitally with my family, while I physical buy a game disc and share it physically with my family? Why can't I have both these options, that way everyone gets what they want?

Like I said in another thread, this would require MS to explain why the digital was better if they wanted it to be embraced. I think they didn't view it as something that would take off without being mandated.

@selfconfessedcynic: Yeah, about right. See, this is why I don't think publishers demanded this of MS. I don't think they want to present this to the courts, especially since groups like the EFF can prove that piracy persists even with DRM. Better to leave it in limbo for as long as possible.

@adaurin: Then there's this. We're not seeing the needed government subsidies to get internet access to where it needs to be for this sort of thing outside of places like New York, LA, and similar mega-cities. There's also no real move to put in the infrastructure from companies like Comcast and AT&T, who are more concerned with preserving their present service monopolies.

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Maybe the AAA games should stop trying to rival film budgets and audiences and instead create more focused, cheaper-to-make products directed at people that are actually interested? Maybe then they wouldn't be losing so damn much?

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TangoUp

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Edited By TangoUp

Whatever happened to 'artistic integrity' Microsoft? That was a readymade 'would you kindly' phrase that would have rallied the gaming press to your cause. Should have used it.

Or did you realize that the color green was the most important in your set of crayons?

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FMinus

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@yukoasho said:

@voysa_reezun said:

I disagree with people that think physical media will ever go away. People like to own things, and unless there is a change in the laws about who owns physical media, eventually, that whole issue will hit the fan. But that's down the road. There are lots of people that don't live in cities in first-world countries and that will not have the broadband access needed to reliably download games or stay "always on" and that will not do so for a long time (if ever).

As for Microsoft, they burned up all their goodwill with me. I had an Xbox and a 360, both about a year after launch, and I was planning on an XBOne until I heard what they want to stick me with (useless Kinect technology being something that is still around and that Microsoft needs to scrap). At this point, I really don't trust Microsoft very much. I'll see what Sony can do next gen, and if they disappoint me, I'll just stick to a PC/Nintendo combo, as on PC at least I can get digital games for ten bucks or under if I wait for sales (and GOG gives 'em to me DRM-free), and Nintendo understands that there are some aspects of traditional console gaming worth keeping around.

I would argue that the majority of people like to own things. The fact that CDs haven't gone away, or even come CLOSE to going away, despite iTunes being over 12 years old stands in testament to that, along with the fact that the only online movie streaming service to reach mass market penetration is Netflix, which is basically all-you-can-watch for $8/month (I know I use Netflix as a vetting service. Only buy the movies I enjoyed on there!).

The fact that the digital mavens always turn to Steam speaks to just how non-mainstream digital-only is. The PC, people seem to forget, stops being a mainstream market once you get past WoW, PopCap and Sim*. I love GoG as well, but I'm a hardcore gamer, and I imagine you are as well, @voysa_reezun. The only thing inevitable about digital media is the consumers vs. companies court battle over digital ownership, and if it goes in favor of the companies, the digital mavens can kiss their precious "digital-only" future goodbye.

I don't know really what it is, but I feel like with music it's different. I still listen to albums I bought in the late 80's early 90's and I still got them on display on a shelf in my now my own family living room, but I will admit, the last time I took out a CD out of it's sleeve has to be around one or two years ago, I got them most digitalized on my NAS and am just streaming from there (way more convenient), I got ton's of LPs and 7" and here I like to see the original, so I put them on the LP player occasionally.

That said, I got quite a big gaming collection from the past all the way from Commodore 64, Atari 2600, NES, SNES, some SEGA stuff to GameCubes and original Xbox, and I never ever played any old game on any of the old systems. They were constantly moving with me when I moved, and they were always collecting dust in the attic or somewhere else.

But really, I never ever played a game on NES once I got the SNES and that means I didn't use the NES for about 30 years now, but I still have it. Now that I think about it, all the stuff is super useless to me, and I should get rid of it.

I played some old games here there, emulated, but that's it. Same goes for old PC games, I got few favourites, but I could do without all my collection.

So that brings me to the point, that I really don't mind if shit hits the fan, an a game I bought 20 years ago is suddenly gone from my digital library on Steam or somewhere else. I think the sweet spot for me not to care anymore is about 10 years, after that they could delete it without me even noticing, and I got now well over 100 games on steam of which I maybe play 3 and rest I haven't touched for about a year some even more since steam exists.

I don't think discs or whatever physical media will go away, so I could still buy my total favourites, even tho they will most likely end up collecting dust somewhere in the attic under tons of other boxes with stuff I keep but should throw away.

However I could never part with my music collection.

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@xseanzx: Well, I misspoke, but only mildly. The PS4, in fact, is the one I would currently describe as ridiculously expensive. The Xbox One is, then, outrageously expensive. You see, I can currently afford neither, so they seem like extravagant luxuries. That said, in the fullness of time, I am more likely to pick up an Xbone once the price drops because I am more partial to the Xbox-exclusive franchises, even if the only one they've specifically confirmed for this next console so far is Halo. On the other hand, I do love me some inFamous, so maybe I'd just better start saving my dollaridoos...

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CliffyB bellyaching about the high cost of game development from his solid gold flying Ferrari doesn't bother me very much. If game developers want to cut costs, maybe they shouldn't be so lazy and farm out half their development to vendor companies. Have you seen the credits in a AAA game lately? Ubisoft and Squeenix are the worst offenders. Some of those games have five or six other companies getting outsourced to. Every time you do that you add another layer of cost and another layer of mostly useless managers with their hands out getting paid.

Games like Tomb Raider sell like 5 million copies and the publisher calls it a failure. What did the last, I don't know, FIVE tomb raider games sell? Not 5 million copies. Maybe they shouldn't budget their games as if each one is going to sell ten million units at full price. Maybe they should sell them digitally for $10-15 less to encourage people to buy it digitally so they have nothing to trade in. They would only get $15 for it at Gamestop anyway.

Forcing away people's ownership rights when they purchase a physical item is not going to solve their dilemma.

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lordgodalming

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@sephirm87: I personally know people in four different "developed" countries, including the US, who do not have access to broadband. Not because they don't want it, not because they love living in the past, but because it is not available to them. No one offers it in their area. It does not exist for them. How is this idea so hard to grasp for some people?

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yukoasho

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@jaks said:

CliffyB bellyaching about the high cost of game development from his solid gold flying Ferrari doesn't bother me very much. If game developers want to cut costs, maybe they shouldn't be so lazy and farm out half their development to vendor companies. Have you seen the credits in a AAA game lately? Ubisoft and Squeenix are the worst offenders. Some of those games have five or six other companies getting outsourced to. Every time you do that you add another layer of cost and another layer of mostly useless managers with their hands out getting paid.

Games like Tomb Raider sell like 5 million copies and the publisher calls it a failure. What did the last, I don't know, FIVE tomb raider games sell? Not 5 million copies. Maybe they shouldn't budget their games as if each one is going to sell ten million units at full price. Maybe they should sell them digitally for $10-15 less to encourage people to buy it digitally so they have nothing to trade in. They would only get $15 for it at Gamestop anyway.

Forcing away people's ownership rights when they purchase a physical item is not going to solve their dilemma.

I don't mind his car. What I mind is the fact that, in his time at Epic, he contributed the most to the current sorry state of the gaming industry. By pushing tech over creativity in order to sell the various iterations of the Unreal Engine, by pushing graphics over all else, they were chiefly responsible for the current situation, where companies spend so much time and money chasing photo-realism at the cost of gameplay innovation or meaningful story. This environment has simultaneously turned more people off to video games and made them so expensive that they need enormous first-month sales so the company's quarter doesn't look like a fucking disaster.

I bring this up all the time, but the irony of it all is that Call of Duty, the most successful western gaming franchise of the PS3/360 era by a HUGE margin, is not even close to the most graphically impressive. it's easy, if you spend a lot of time looking, to see where corners were cut in texturing, facial and skeletal animation, you name it. It doesn't matter: the game sells ridiculously well. Why? Because A)the graphics are good enough for people who simply play the game instead of analyzing every graphical detail (IE: the mainstream gamer) and B)because it's got a rock-solid gameplay engine, especially in multi-player. That there are only two developers making the mainline games without a million outsourcing partners probably helps the budgets too, but Activision is clearly doing something right.

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yukoasho

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@fminus said:

@yukoasho said:

@voysa_reezun said:

I disagree with people that think physical media will ever go away. People like to own things, and unless there is a change in the laws about who owns physical media, eventually, that whole issue will hit the fan. But that's down the road. There are lots of people that don't live in cities in first-world countries and that will not have the broadband access needed to reliably download games or stay "always on" and that will not do so for a long time (if ever).

As for Microsoft, they burned up all their goodwill with me. I had an Xbox and a 360, both about a year after launch, and I was planning on an XBOne until I heard what they want to stick me with (useless Kinect technology being something that is still around and that Microsoft needs to scrap). At this point, I really don't trust Microsoft very much. I'll see what Sony can do next gen, and if they disappoint me, I'll just stick to a PC/Nintendo combo, as on PC at least I can get digital games for ten bucks or under if I wait for sales (and GOG gives 'em to me DRM-free), and Nintendo understands that there are some aspects of traditional console gaming worth keeping around.

I would argue that the majority of people like to own things. The fact that CDs haven't gone away, or even come CLOSE to going away, despite iTunes being over 12 years old stands in testament to that, along with the fact that the only online movie streaming service to reach mass market penetration is Netflix, which is basically all-you-can-watch for $8/month (I know I use Netflix as a vetting service. Only buy the movies I enjoyed on there!).

The fact that the digital mavens always turn to Steam speaks to just how non-mainstream digital-only is. The PC, people seem to forget, stops being a mainstream market once you get past WoW, PopCap and Sim*. I love GoG as well, but I'm a hardcore gamer, and I imagine you are as well, @voysa_reezun. The only thing inevitable about digital media is the consumers vs. companies court battle over digital ownership, and if it goes in favor of the companies, the digital mavens can kiss their precious "digital-only" future goodbye.

I don't know really what it is, but I feel like with music it's different. I still listen to albums I bought in the late 80's early 90's and I still got them on display on a shelf in my now my own family living room, but I will admit, the last time I took out a CD out of it's sleeve has to be around one or two years ago, I got them most digitalized on my NAS and am just streaming from there (way more convenient), I got ton's of LPs and 7" and here I like to see the original, so I put them on the LP player occasionally.

That said, I got quite a big gaming collection from the past all the way from Commodore 64, Atari 2600, NES, SNES, some SEGA stuff to GameCubes and original Xbox, and I never ever played any old game on any of the old systems. They were constantly moving with me when I moved, and they were always collecting dust in the attic or somewhere else.

But really, I never ever played a game on NES once I got the SNES and that means I didn't use the NES for about 30 years now, but I still have it. Now that I think about it, all the stuff is super useless to me, and I should get rid of it.

I played some old games here there, emulated, but that's it. Same goes for old PC games, I got few favourites, but I could do without all my collection.

So that brings me to the point, that I really don't mind if shit hits the fan, an a game I bought 20 years ago is suddenly gone from my digital library on Steam or somewhere else. I think the sweet spot for me not to care anymore is about 10 years, after that they could delete it without me even noticing, and I got now well over 100 games on steam of which I maybe play 3 and rest I haven't touched for about a year some even more since steam exists.

I don't think discs or whatever physical media will go away, so I could still buy my total favourites, even tho they will most likely end up collecting dust somewhere in the attic under tons of other boxes with stuff I keep but should throw away.

However I could never part with my music collection.

The thing with old games is that, while they're not a mainstream gaming thing 30 years later, you still get the urge. Otherwise, why would things like the Retron series of famiclone consoles have a market?

As to CDs, it's easy to see why they persist. You can rip the music yourself into any bitrate and file format you like. When I buy from Amazon, I'm stuck with VBR MP3s, but with CDs, I can make FLACs or OGGs or whatever the fuck I feel like.

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amiga1200

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Seems like the problem lies with the manner in which big budget games are produced. Too many games last gen were designed in a boardroom - add soldiers, explosions and iron sights, the audience are sure to come. So let's throw money at it. Right? RIGHT? Final result: disappointing sales. But then Supergiant come along with something like Bastion and the praise is universal.

Don't get me wrong, I'd hate it if the next Skyrim, Mass Effect or Bioshock didn't happen because companies can't afford it any longer. But the current development model is waaaaaay more broken than the sales model. The previous Xbox One DRM approach was not an answer to this problem, it was simply screwing the consumer over in order to maintain THAT status quo instead.

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yukoasho

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Seems like the problem lies with the manner in which big budget games are produced. Too many games last gen were designed in a boardroom - add soldiers, explosions and iron sights, the audience are sure to come. So let's throw money at it. Right? RIGHT? Final result: disappointing sales. But then Supergiant come along with something like Bastion and the praise is universal.

Don't get me wrong, I'd hate it if the next Skyrim, Mass Effect or Bioshock didn't happen because companies can't afford it any longer. But the current development model is waaaaaay more broken than the sales model. The previous Xbox One DRM approach was not an answer to this problem, it was simply screwing the consumer over in order to maintain THAT status quo instead.

I'd love to know how much Skyrim cost to make, seeing as so much of it was likely procedurally generated (SPEEDTREE!). That said, I don't know if I'd mind a complete and total collapse of the larger game companies. I don't know about anyone else, but the lack of room between $15 download and $60 disc is disheartening. Perhaps, if the EAs and Ubisoft's of the world crumbled under their own weight, we could see smaller publishers/developers rise up once more to take space in the retail shelves. I don't think anyone would begrudge the option of having Bastion on a disc, with the increased mainstream exposure that entailed. Maybe then we can finally have that coexistence between physical and DRM-free digital, and we could all live happily ever after.

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Cold_Wolven

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Another great read Alex and I agree with your point that it should be the consumer that decides the state of used games not the hardware manufacturer.

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Korva

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It still boggles my mind that to this very day some people seem to be so blinded by nebulous promises of "but but cloud computing! Hundreds of Drivatars!" and promises of digital sharing that they're entirely willing to let Microsoft take away all their power as a consumer. They also seem to forget that an entirely digital future controlled by the one company that manufactures out your console is FUCKING TERRIFYING. Monopolies are a bad thing people! Either the consoles collude and everyone gets fucked, or they drive away customers to Sony as we likely say with Pre-Order numbers forcing this recent about-face.

Steam gets some flak on this issue that is frankly undeserved. Games on the Steam platform don't really compete with Gamespot and other retailers, (partially on the account those Store don't stock much in the way of PC games) they compete with the other games directly for your money. That means lower prices on average (even for new titles, hell you usually get 10% off for pre-orders) and frequent sales. Take a look at the 360 store. Shitty interface, infrequent updates, and old-ass games are still priced at retail levels. It's also important to remember that Steam itself, while obviously the elephant in the room, has decent competition in the form of Good Old Games, Amazon, GreenManGaming, Origin (heh)

Used games are not killing Big Gaming, bloated runaway budgets and mismanaged companies are. Tomb Raider would have been toasted as a great success with the finest of Champagnes, had Eidos not been under the failing banner of Square Enix for example. Games do not need All Of The Money to be both entertaining and profitable.

Basically, buy a goddamn PC. Mods are pretty sweet.

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kristov_romanov

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Edited By kristov_romanov

@likeassur: It was a flippant remark on my part, and by no means an attack on you.

I'm pretty sure the day everyone on the internet agrees on the same thing, especially in regards to games or nerd culture, is the officially the beginning of the end of days.

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Ihmishylje

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@adaurin said:

@ihmishylje: That's what I didn't get about the original idea for Xbox One. Microsoft seemed pretty US-focused with its initial reveal, yet this country has some of the worst broadband services of any industrialized nation.

Yeah, I know, it's weird. Also considering how Microsoft doesn't really give a shit about the rest of the world in terms of other services on the Xbox etc. Even if we have great internet over here, we get the vanilla versions of products.

It's also weird to me that Americans keep complaining (on the internet) that there's no internet or that their internet is shitty. Yes, I know, it's a huge mass of land that's far more expensive to cover with decent internet compared to more densely populated wealthy nations in areas like Europe and Asia.

Sometimes I feel like people who complain about shitty internet connection in rural areas or military bases or the bottom of the ocean or whatever should maybe reconsider the idea that all the newest technology should be available to them. After all, a cell phone is pointless in remote areas without coverage. I'm not saying people who don't have access to decent internet should remain entirely without games, there's plenty of solutions for that and they aren't all going away in the near future, until broadband truly is a legal right everywhere. But I do think it's the future, and it has to start somewhere. I guess Microsoft just jumped the gun.

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Norusdog

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Edited By Norusdog

nope. don't care. fuck you micro$uck. You're $100 more expensive. You tried to bend over the consumer even more and didn't give a shit. It was only Sony's approach and lower price-tag that got you to fucking panic like a bunch of bitches and rescind all of this.

and to top it off. He's right. Even though they're giving in on this bullshit they're going to skyrocket the number and cost of microtransactions to hell and back. Go fuck yourself Micro$uck.

Not to mention this still doesn't address their shitty method of charging for general access shit like Netflix et al behind the fucking LIVE Gold subscription...when it's free on PS3, PC, and there's so many other goddamn devices (My blu-ray player has built in fucking Netflix and Hulu for christs sake)

It's a shame too because I did prefer the XBox 360 over my PS3...well if you ignore the fucking pathetic failure rate for 360's and the fact my CD drive won't read disks now.....

Still fucking HILARIOUS..Micro$uck thinks they're slick by naming it the XboxOne (won..which it did sure..but..how arrogant are you?)..and now they're panicing because Sony got their shit together and didn't try to fuck over the consumer like Micro planned on doing.

I do agree that used-game sales should benefit the developers per sale..but not microsoft or sony directlly..unless it's a 1st party game of course...i.e. if you buy a used copy of Dragon Age then BioWare should get a piece of that....still..the way Micro was going to do it is an abortion and insult to consumers.

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THRICE_604

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What I don't understand is why they must continue on with such destructive practices. Why must we have a two year turnaround on every game? Why must other franchises be annualized. Wouldn't taking more time with a more appropriate staff yield equal profit margins? Spending more money just means you need to make more money to earn a profit. Its business 101. They got a taste of yearly returns on investment and they are not seeing the big picture.

People will wait for something if its good. We only get a new GTA every couple of years, it will be 5 years since the last one and Rockstar isn't hurting. The same for MGS and that will likely be more like 6-7 years since MGS4 and Konami isn't exactly swimming in hits year to year to make up for it.

If you need a big hit every year diversify your production schedules. Instead of the same hit year to year alternate between different studios and franchises. Stagger your releases. Be smart about it. Nobody expects in any other medium to have the same property hit the same time every year like clockwork. Its all just so inefficient and obviously so.

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confideration

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10 years ago I would have had the time to engage in this dialogue. I will say this, however: If this means less day 1 digital downloads I'm going to be pretty disappointed.

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I like how all the podcasts I've listened to have acted like the DRM/online turnaround with Microsoft suddenly put them ahead of Sony, because "now XBOX has the lead on Amazon sales chart right now!"... Well, of course it does. The chart isn't cumulative and PS4 was wildly popular for the first week leading up to the MS change. It's only logical that they'd have such a dramatic surge.

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ei8htbit

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Articles like this is why I gladly give GiantBomb my otherwise annual console multiplayer subscription money. Clear opinions and thoughtful analysis presented without pretension. I think Alex's opinion here on this particular issue as it relates to the future of the next generation is healthy; He allows for acknowledgement that there is merit to both of these consoles beyond just DRM policies because he recognizes the real reasons behind those policies and their inevitable existance in this industry rather than ignorantly dismissing them as devices solely created to somehow screw the very consumers they are trying to provide.

I just wish more gamers shared this approach to forming judgements - we'd still be making the same "progress", we just wouldn't have to put up with all the nonsense and crocodile tears in between.

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ProfessorEss

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Edited By ProfessorEss

@alex: Great piece. Echoes a lot of my thoughts and concerns.

Product, license, Free-to-Play, Pay-plus-Micros, online passes, season's passes, pre-order dlc, buy new dlc, platform exclusive dlc, retailer exclusive dlc, paid-for-betas, game-of-the-year editions, now-on-this-platform enhanced editions... I'm getting tired just thinking about buying a game.

I'm getting close to subbing to PS+ and just playing whatever they give me that week/month and never thinking about it again. Either that or just getting whatever is currently 75% off on Steam and iOS.

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Tortoise

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But... Sony and Microsoft can't both be underdogs. This narrative is getting too confusing.

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ei8htbit

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Edited By ei8htbit

@norusdog: whoa, you're angry. Just wanted to clarify some things that seemed to have gone over your head in your blinding rage.

1) You're absolutely right, you can thank Sony for keeping the status quo of supporting used games and forcing Microsoft to follow suit. You can also thank that same status quo of the past 8 years for compelling developers to resort to microtransactions and online passes in order to retain money from consumers on back-end trades and used game sales, which no has no reason to abate given the trend is now set to continue.

2) If you believe used game sales should benefit the developers than why do you support the existing model of used game sales that shoves all profits into the pockets of GameStop, and why do you despise DLC/microtransactions or online passes? You do know that's why those exist right? Also, the way Microsoft had their policy set up they weren't getting any money from used game sales or trades and they weren't charging any license fee, I don't know where you think either Microsoft or Sony themselves are making ANY money from used games/trades, that would be GameStop silly goose.

3) The technical performance of your 360 and PS3 have absolutely nothing to do with the potential technical performance of either of the future consoles, don't make the mistake of conflating the two.

4) The only actual fact in your tirade worth wetting the bed over is that Netflix is behind the XBOX Live paywall, that is utter horseshit, and impossible to reason otherwise. If the argument is that it's all about games and nothing else and TVs can do Netflix on their own anyway, then I don't understand why this bothers people so much.

5) There's no point in getting angry over the price being $500 rather than $400 when it's actually coming with more hardware - whether you want the extra hardware is your choice, but it doesn't stand to reason that the price is worth getting angry over. You either want the machine and it's worth it to you, or you don't have the demand for it and it is not worth the value it costs you because there is a cheaper alternative. That's it, no rage required.

I find it entertaining that you're so angry about some imagined vendetta a huge corporation like Microsoft has apparently waged against you personally while you are completely forgiving a huge corporation like Sony who essentially on principle did the exact same things this current generation at launch within the same context. The difference is that it hasn't taken an entire cycle for Microsoft to respond and adapt to those consumer demands for better or for worse, it took less than a week. But that's still not good enough somehow? By all means, you're entitled to your anger, just demonstrate what you have reason to really be angry about and more people will take you seriously.

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Nethlem

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@branthog said:

I like how all the podcasts I've listened to have acted like the DRM/online turnaround with Microsoft suddenly put them ahead of Sony, because "now XBOX has the lead on Amazon sales chart right now!"... Well, of course it does. The chart isn't cumulative and PS4 was wildly popular for the first week leading up to the MS change. It's only logical that they'd have such a dramatic surge.

I think it's kind of odd how they suddenly see Microsoft ahead just because of that one policy change, even before it reflected in sales charts.

At best Microsoft made up a little bit of ground, but ahead? I heavily doubt that.

Especially considering that DRM policy change also removed some features, like game sharing. A feature that already existed on the PS3 and probably gonna exist on the PS4. So while Microsoft might have pulled their feet out of the fire they still managed to shoot themselves in the foot.

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Geralt

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Edited By Geralt

My question is what will happen to all those juicy exclusivities which various publishers offered to Microsoft in hope that from now on they'll be in control?

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illegalnull

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@cheishxc: beautiful Ghostbusters reference!

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ei8htbit

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What I don't understand is why they must continue on with such destructive practices. Why must we have a two year turnaround on every game? Why must other franchises be annualized. Wouldn't taking more time with a more appropriate staff yield equal profit margins? Spending more money just means you need to make more money to earn a profit. Its business 101. They got a taste of yearly returns on investment and they are not seeing the big picture.

People will wait for something if its good. We only get a new GTA every couple of years, it will be 5 years since the last one and Rockstar isn't hurting. The same for MGS and that will likely be more like 6-7 years since MGS4 and Konami isn't exactly swimming in hits year to year to make up for it.

If you need a big hit every year diversify your production schedules. Instead of the same hit year to year alternate between different studios and franchises. Stagger your releases. Be smart about it. Nobody expects in any other medium to have the same property hit the same time every year like clockwork. Its all just so inefficient and obviously so.

I like reading your posts, you always seem to have a different angle than the obvious comment and especially in the case of this post there is generally a very well-thought reasoning that you always manage to articulate very clearly. Also, based on your avatar I subconsciously imagine that Han Solo himself is narrating them which is neither here nor there.

In any case, I think all of your points are completely valid and I agree, I really wish the dev industry worked this way, I'm just not sure how we can get there because at the end of the day games are entirely subjective and their success can be a very fickle process no matter what process and investment it took to get to shelves. Investing 5+ years in a game (even with manageable staffing and resources) still requires captial and that model scales similarly to larger teams with shorter timelines. It's extremely hard to support a company if they can only output one game per console life cycle. But, again I think you are right, Publishers simply NEED to figure this out to make it work, otherwise consumers will turn their backs and we're all screwed at that point.

The reason the Weinsteins don't need to put out an Inglourious Basterds or Pulp Fiction every year is because they have the mainstream go-tos like Lord of the Rings to guarantee the warchests stay full in the meantime and they don't have to worry about which movie theatre people have installed in their house because everyone is competing on the same platform in Hollywood. Who knows how true this model will be for gaming in the future.

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danmcn12

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@recspec said:

I still believe that while massive consumer outrage played a part, Gamestop's actions scared Microsoft to the point where the change had to happen this fast.

Agreed. A lot of anger was (obviously) from misconceptions and misinformation someone posted online, or fear of change. That eventually gets debunked, people get informed, or see it isn't as bad as they thought. However what GS was doing, that would be real bad for XboxOne sales.

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Shingro

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Edited By Shingro

@ei8htbit: Some quick notes

1: If that is the status quo, it is the status quo of those studios own choosing. They got the crazy budgets and the decisions to use microtransactions is their own responsabiltiy and will remain so regardless of whether the consumer retains purchase rights or not. Also, the logic that if the used game market disapeared they would give up a revenue stream in appreciation is flawed at best. Companies will take every revenue stream they can get their hands on. That is the nature of business.

2. Again, DLC and such are not intrinsically tied to used games. I notice Steam has plenty of DLC and even microtransactions around. This is a separate evolution path for buisness and will exist regardless of the availability of used games in the system.


3. You're right there, but in this case we have the weaker system being harder to squeeze power out of (because of the ESram on the die,) and the stronger system is easier to handle since it is all unified memory and such. There are some assumptions that can be made (including that MS will encourage devs not to let the PS4 version outshine the XBO version, the old consoles were closer to each other's spec and that happened then)

4 and 5 are totally legit, though if someone's a fan of the old way, they can get angry over a company's new direction.

as to your last point, with how everything's panned out it is fairly clear that MS wanted to get in early and dictate the rules and laws of the digital future. They used little to no carrots, carefully said little about the rewards offered, and highlighted the restrictions. It's very hard to see this as anything other then a power grab, a leveraging of historical power to benefit publishers over consumers. At very least you can say that the traditional customer (the hardcore gamer) was not the main focus of this new console. MS made a play for the mainstream and to do so they threw their traditional consumers to the side to some extent, to try to tap another market.

It is completely legitimate for that traditional consumer to get mad as well as bring his business elsewhere.

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CaptainDickface

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Very good article, Alex. I usually hate every word that comes out of your mouth and/or fingers.

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Rhodesyuk71

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This is the only problem with digital only not everyone as that full internet access required i have a modest 67.5mbps download so games download on steam in a matter of minutes .But a lot of people have there internet down copper wires and to me thats adsl its not up to the job

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blurienh

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Edited By blurienh

Great article. Wherever you stand on Microsoft's DRM policies these past couple of weeks should have made you wary of getting a XBox one, an expencise closed system run by a company that seems to lack a direction or the stones to stand by it if they have one, first it was a living room device that would replace all your devices plugged into your tv as well as still play your games, that got a negative reaction so all of a sudden that was all just extra bonus stuff and it was the ultimate games machine that used the Internet constantly to enhance everything we currently do on our consoles, they didn't go down well so now it doesn't need the Internet because its actually a bad thing and we listen to our customers. It's just looks like a mess and gives me no faith them.

I pre-ordered a PS4 but not because Of something MS said, but because Sony showed me that they have a plan to get the smaller Indy games that are becoming so interesting as well as polished to their system and are also still bringing the epic AAA productions that I enjoy, their E3 left me confident enough to invest in the box and I think MS having such a bad one has meant that a lot of people are unfairly propping Sony up on MS's misfortunes when they did a lot of it on their own.

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2kings

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I think we just saw the rise of the entitlement generation now dictating the future for everyone else with their incessant, butthurt, and whining. Yet, it should be said, that these weak-minded fools can also be easily manipulated into cheering for things such as now having to pay for multiplayer. Did you see how happy they were for that?

WOW, what a douchy thing to say.

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2kings

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@zeezkos said:

Yes, we remember. If everyone has kinect from day one then developers know everyone will have kinect and they'll do more than a half-assed effort to include kinect in regular games. This has been stated over and over again.

"A couple of games with voice command" comes around because of the outright (and largely unwarranted) hatred flowing towards kinect. While I won't say it's going to change things like adding a Mouse to FPS use (we all used to play Doom, Duke Nukem etc with just a keyboard and thought it was fine, remember?) I think it will be good to have.. and it will only get better.

And, really, I do not understand why people assume MS is leaning away from games because they're showing all the additional stuff their hardware can do besides gaming. It's an xbox. It games. It also does other things, isn't that nice? =/

@alkusanagi said:

That hundred dollar price difference is still going to be the breaking point. They need to stop trying to hitch their horse to Kinect, and just offer it as a separate peripheral.

Remember when every 360 game was supposed to have Kinect components? And how all we got were a couple of games with voice command? Most likely less than a year into the One we'll see see it dropped altogether just like is was on the 360.

You have faith in a peripheral that had it's shot and failed. *sighs* Different strokes I guess.

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yukoasho

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Edited By yukoasho

@2kings said:

@bill_rizer said:

I think we just saw the rise of the entitlement generation now dictating the future for everyone else with their incessant, butthurt, and whining. Yet, it should be said, that these weak-minded fools can also be easily manipulated into cheering for things such as now having to pay for multiplayer. Did you see how happy they were for that?

WOW, what a douchy thing to say.

Yeah. Pretty much.

If anything, this is proof that the entitled members of society are easily smacked down when they try to enact something that hurts so many of the rest of us only to benefit them.

This is also how capitalism is supposed to work. When consumers rise up and say nothankyou.jpg in the numbers they did here, MS would be doing its shareholders a huge disservice by sticking to their guns.

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yukoasho

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Edited By yukoasho

This is the only problem with digital only not everyone as that full internet access required i have a modest 67.5mbps download so games download on steam in a matter of minutes .But a lot of people have there internet down copper wires and to me thats adsl its not up to the job

... MODEST?!

Holy shit, what do you view as extravagant?