What Sony and friends said on XONE news

I'm looking around for 'famous' Twitter handles, regarding the news on today's XONE news. All I could find was Yoshida doing his thing, again.

Yoshida did the exact same thing, with Jim in fact, right after the XONE was announced.. I think so.. And shit!, it was with the HTC One shit too, again!.

And well, Greg. Its all I could find when I think PS..

Shit!, If you could think of some other PR people, post it.

Someone post cliff. He goes full angry

The reactions (and non-reactions) of people who were supporting the DRM is funnier.

Reading some of the reasons why they were supporting makes some sense(game sharing, moving to a Steam like library, etc) but it was coming at too much of a cost too soon. Some of those ideas were cool for sure though.

@thehumandove:

@thehumandove: Sure, good enough!

I'm sorry but I think cliff is a bit of an idiot. Who has entirely lost perspective from the customer end of things.

@milkman: Sheeit...

@milkman: He really did turn into a whiny little bitch after he left Epic. I'm glad I dont own a twitter account. I dont want to find out Todd Howard is a MLP fan and a furry. My world views must remain intact!

Publishers just need to offer $40 $50 digital downloads for new games if they want to battle gamestop.

I think he makes some good points.

But he is right, there has to be a way to combat Gamestop. Just give buyers of new games more perks, more mission, more characters.

He has been known to enjoy a bit of MLP now and again.
Also he's a furry because he likes Dust: An Elysian Tail and Starfox 64.

I don't follow him on Twitter so I have no idea if those things are actually true. But apparantly that's what makes a furry, liking games with animals in them.

Also, Cliff is right in one thing.
Congrats of winning the war in support of Gamestop.
You know, the guys who will push pre-orders, "insurance" and stuff like that on you. Here's to 10 more years of people bitching and moaning about that again, because of a decision they apparantly think they had anything to do with.

Until he left, Cliff spent his entire adult life as an employee of Epic (didn't he actually start there when he was in high school?), so I wonder how much perspective from the consumer end he actually had to begin with. Either way, he really does seem to have lost touch.

Sometimes the status quo is better than the alternative

It's impractical, at the very least. I hope that you put a towel down first.

@zeforgotten: I liked Dust... Does that mean i'm a furry?!

Well, for me it's not so much about keeping shitty specialist retailers in business, but as someone who holds onto his old consoles I'd like to be confident that that thing will still work ten years from now.

I don't think Cliff comes off as whiny, though. Truth is he knows more about the industry than any of us do.

@thehumandove: That's true.

@boozak: Yes, yes it does.
At least according to like half the people who watched the Quick Look of it when that came out and people not really understanding what the word means.
(Same people who don't understand the meaning of other words they learned earlier this year regarding some other drama that happened on the internet, related to video games)

@demoskinos: I think he has a point when it comes to microtransactions and stuff like that and he's right that the used game market does (and now will continue to) hurt developers. Anyone who follows video game news knows that lay offs and studio closings are a huge issue right now. That being said, I don't think it's the consumers job to adapt to this. You can't expect the consumers to say "Oh, well this is 20 dollars cheaper but I want to give my money to the developer so I'm going to buy this game new." Some people certainly do that but it's not some sort obligation that the consumers have to care about the developers' feelings. I get why it upsets Cliff as a developer but the industry needs to do a better job of changing their policies to fix this stuff, whether that be changing the nature of how these "AAA" games are made or introducing some sort of business model that can benefit both parties

Having all games be available day 1 digital is a big deal. That by itself should take a decent chunk out of used game sales and that chunk will only increase as the generation progresses but it's still going to exist. Trying to completely eliminate used games like Microsoft will never work. Find me one industry that has purged second hand selling entirely from their business model. It doesn't exist. It's the industry's job to design around this market and maybe that means weaning people off by incentivizing the digital market or maybe that means a more radical change to how games are made. Either way, the One's policies were never the right answer.

or fully recreate the benefits of used games (giving the user a percentage of digital currency if they decide to part with their "license")and give rentals on the digital marketplace and give them the ability to play offline. there IS a way to go digital and not fuck over consumers options.

oh and also dont let microsoft talk, they suck ass at getting a message across as they are very out of touch with what the common folk use

Pirating games does suck but making me as a legitimate buyer miserable is not the solution.

In terms of economics, the high price of games and return on value forces the market to piracy and used games more as an alternative. I do not believe the way to correct that is to "kill piracy" or "kill used games" because the fundamental issue is that the market is behaving like the price is too high vs return on value.

@zeforgotten: Hit a nerve did I? Well I was only joking, like what you like. (except MLP because it's terrible)

@boozak: Huh? no not with me.
Like what you like for sure, it's just funny when there are actually people out there who uses words and then have no idea what those words actually mean :P

that guy has more problems to deal with personally if telling a gamestop store clerk NO to those things is SOOO HARD.

@milkman: Do they hurt the industry? Sure but also there are studios like Bizzare Creations that were entirely mishandled on the part of their parent companies. Like piracy the games industry perceived losses on this stuff is exactly that. Sure, there might be the odd group of people who for whatever fucking reason would rather save a measly $4 and buy a used copy of Forza 5 at $54.99 or something but the majority of people who buy used games are the kind of people who aren't so much interested if there are new or used but rather the price.

If someone is set that Forza 5 isn't worth more than $40 to them then they aren't going to pay more than $40 for it period. This reasoning is the sole reason I splurge on steam games that I already own on consoles. Oh, Alan Wake for $4 dollars on steam? I've already fucking played that but fuck sure at THAT PRICE I'll bite. I don't buy that used games is this all powerful boogey man that is putting developers in the poor houses.

Over blown budgets, publishers taking almost the entire cut of the $60 these are issues that should be addressed here. If the Metro Last light guys can make what they did on the budget and conditions that they had then I don't see ANY reason why Ubisoft needs fucking 5 studios and over 1000 people to make Assassins Creed. The entire industry has gotten way to overblown for its own good. Fucking Tomb Raider sells 3 million copies and its a failure. That is fucking INSANE. If companies are wondering why they are failing its not because of used games its because of fucking astronomical budgets and revenue projections and shitty mishandling of subsidiary studios.

Point flew right over your head.
Not unexpected

i know what your ultimately saying, how we bitch about talking to store clerks when they try to persuade people to go for their stuff.

are you one of those people?

also consumers did have a hand in this policy change (how much is up for grabs) , MS wouldnt have change these policies if they were vastly leading preorders. , people voted with their money dont be so cynical.

I do it in the tub like tubgirl. Same result too.

Now get that image out of your head.

Francis found out.

Main point was that people seem to fight for Gamestop now, for some reason, even when a developer says that used games do in fact hurt the industry.
And I'm not just talking about Cliff saying it, but many other developers as well, yet people who think they know better say "no they don't stop lying to us, developers who knows way more about this than we do. You crazy"

No, I'm not one of those people who bitch and moan about poor life decisions(like listening to someone who works at Gamestop for more than 3 seconds instead of just tuning out :P)

I will agree though that the people who said "nah, I won't pre-order" did more than the people who think that their little internet crusade on Facebook or Twitter og Tumblr did anything at all.
It didn't, as is widely known at this point in time, actions speaks way louder than written words in a forum post.
So whatever dumbass hashtag people decided to use, didn't do shit.

Sonys move and I'm willing to bet every single dollar in my wallet right now publishers had way more sway than people seem to realize.
That's how it's been for ages and probably still is unless it has changed in the last couple of hours.

@demoskinos: Yeah , you're right, used games aren't the only problem. There's a whole magnitude of problems with the industry right now. You mention Steam sales and that would be the perfect kind of incentive that Microsoft and Sony could offer to consumers who want to buy games digital. If you can save people a trip to the store AND offer a better price than GameStop, then you got something. People are going to go where the deal is, whether that be at their local GameStop or on their dashboard. Without these policies that MS had in place, stuff like sales are still very much possible on the new consoles. But this obviously won't fix everything.

It all sounds very easy on a message board. "Lower budgets! Make better games with less money!" The reason that budgets are so high is because consumers love their annual big franchises, like Call of Duty, Madden, Assassin's Creed, whatever. That's what sells. So if publishers want to meet the demands of consumers that means a yearly turnaround on these franchises every single year. That in turn means bigger teams and/or multiple teams with more money being pumped into them. Something is going to have to give eventually and I don't think anyone has the answer or really knows what the future of this industry will be like. All anyone knows is that the current system is fucked.There's certainly going to be big change but the changes are going to have to come from within the industry itself and not an expectation that the consumers are going to be willing to change for you.

People were ready and eager to forgive Microsoft so it is not surprising anyone is going "Now I am pre-ordering!"

Rrrggg we gotta stop Gamestop! Also, pre order Gears of War for an additional map pack or skins or something, exclusively at Gamestop.

I haven't bought or sold anything to a Gamestop in years and the only people trying to get me to go to Gamestop more than Gamestop, are video game publishers.

I don't see lower prices for digital stuff, or download only pre-order bonuses. Publishers have the power already to do something about it, but they choose not to. Restricting the consumer is never the way.

Destructoid: Jimquisition: Xbox One No DRM Emergency Special

No embed.

Ultimately though, how much sympathy do we as consumers HAVE to show for the developers though? a product could be worked on by hundreds of people, but ultimately if said product is a hunk of shit, then i can't be sorry for developers cause i dont wanna waste my money on a shit product, when its good it gets rewarded with tones of sales and good word of mouth (dark souls, one of the biggest examples of benefiting with word of mouth praise, sold over 4 million copies, people also forget that the reason modern warfare beat halo 3 and overtook it as the biggest shooter ever was due to that word of mouth praise that resulted in sales.)

devs need to work on budget allocation, as metro last light was a team of like 10 people and had an extremely tiny budget and sold extremely well, and infamous second son is only a team of 80 people, respawn is also a small team, and saints row 4 is also a small team (cliff himself was shocked at what that team pulled off) ,

its proven AAA can be done without hundreds of people.

oh yea i agree with you ,the people who voted with their dollars and remained firm on not supporting the xbox was what made the difference,

the internet boycotted smartly :P,

by supporting the hardware that suits them, and it so happens the majority are suited to not lose used games and rentals (thank god lol).

how much you want to believe the ps4 no drm hashtag worked in changing sony's mind even when they have repeatedly said that was a factor in that decision, is up to you, you're not wrong in calling BS as sony is still a corporation,, but i dunno, i still believe adam boyes lol

@milkman said:

@thehumandove:

As if microtransactions, and tacked on multiplayer and DLC would go away if Msoft kept the DRM policy. What bullshit.

Cliffs right, he just takes a chainsaw approach to the problem, all or nothing. The best way to transition to all digital is let the services beat out the physical "competition". It's what happened with video streaming, before long discrete streaming services provided a better option than cable and people are migrating accordingly, digital distribution needs to happen the same way, steadily at the choice of consumers. Otherwise we have no control over what the "digital future" will look like. It's irresponsible to move to another distribution model whole cloth before we make those choices ourselves.

The best news in all of this is it demonstrated how flexible these new systems will be. This is part of what they are talking about building into these boxes, the ability to adapt to the crazy shit the market demands, so down the line when we have naturally moved over to all digital we already know it's within their power to bring digital sharing and the family plan back. I see where he's coming from, the dude has just lived through a few shitstorms and come out the other side with a very informed point of view.

Cliff doesn't talk nice just to keep people happy. Fuck it, the way I see it he earned it.

It's a good move for microsoft but I still feel that they lost a lot of trust by trying to fuck over their consumers, they definately regained a lot more sales today but I think they lost a ton to Sony already from their previous decision.

Yep, he is out of touch, he's been directly in the industry since he was 17, he has no other real perspective.

@mcghee said:

@milkman said:

@thehumandove:

As if microtransactions, and tacked on multiplayer and DLC would go away if Msoft kept the DRM policy. What bullshit.

^This

I didn't know this guy before, but obviously he isn't someone i have to know....how is one able to talk so much crap?

@mcghee said:

@milkman said:

@thehumandove:

As if microtransactions, and tacked on multiplayer and DLC would go away if Msoft kept the DRM policy. What bullshit.

Not to mention I can ignore tacked on multiplayer and microtransactions. I can't ignore shitty DRM practices.

@lowfyr said:

@mcghee said:

@milkman said:

@thehumandove:

As if microtransactions, and tacked on multiplayer and DLC would go away if Msoft kept the DRM policy. What bullshit.

^This

I didn't know this guy before, but obviously he isn't someone i have to know....how is one able to talk so much crap?

As companies are built on profit, there is no such thing as "enough" profit, just the desire for more profit. And as such I don't think DLC, pre-order stuff, season passes, tacked on multiplayer and microtransactions were ever going away, independently of MS's decision. I call it bullshit too!

And people may bitch and moan about developers not seeing a nickel from a second hand sale, but I don't think making it more cumbersome and limiting for costumers is the right way about the subject. They risk losing the consumers they already have; just look at Ubisoft and its drm on the PC.

I think CliffyB makes some valid points, but the thing to keep in mind with him is he is a game developer not a game journalist. I think the differences in those lines of work can lead to differing perspectives on issues like this DRM and always online fiasco. His point of view can easily be interpreted as being "out of touch" with average consumers.

Also he just stating wrong facts about how the industry works....the normal "developer" working at a large company doesn't get any $ from the games success. He gets his salary and that's it. I hate how big publishers or people like this Cliff are trying bring the example of the poor average, hard working developer. Of course they hard working, no doubt about it, but them not getting paid enough isn't something the consumer has any influence on, at least not through their buying pattern.

Indie developers are a different scenario, and for this reason, I'm more interested in giving my money to an indie studio where the money actually goes to those people that worked hard for it. If I buy an EA game on the other hand, I'm only contributing to some big ass managers' bonus payment...

And even then, I think he has a pretty narrow perspective as a developer. I mean, starting with Unreal 16 years ago and forward, he has made technically-advanced, commercially successful, big-budget shooters and not much else. Also Jazz Jackrabbit.