Nextbox infinity anticipation station

[eldaec]

In the UK at least, broadband is split into 3 main categories (excluding shit fly by night borderline scam artists):

Mainstream telcos with large legacy market share - generally have fair use provisions combining limits and throttling.

Media firms bundling TV and broadband - offer unlimited for cheap because their TV offering demands it, but because your circuit is shared with other people who use it for TV, contention fucks you in the rear, especially in prime time.

Smaller old school ISPs offering limited or unlimited. But you pay 30%-50% extra for unlimited.

[Jeff Kelly]

Also, most people don't have a solid grasp on data caps and what they mean..

German Telekom markets it as a fairness measure. Those who "use" more should pay more. Many customers believe that. Many comments were along the lines of "great, now all of the leechers and downloaders of pirated content finally have to pay their fair share".

That's because no one really knows that a 75 GB cap will affect the majority of customers because otherwise the Telekoms wouldn't have set the limit there. If you use the internet for more than just email and facebook you'll probably end up above the 75 GB limit regularly.

Most people don't see that though because bandwidth is too much of an abstract concept.

It also has a precedent in mobile internet use. All smartphone contracts have a data cap and the providers make a lot of money with people who go over (send a text to this number to buy an additional GB of Data for the low price of $7.99)

So most people think it won't affect them and they've also been conditioned by their phone contracts that this is how it usually works.

[eldaec]

75 GB will only affect normal people if they use it for TV.

If consoles move to downloads they'll be an issue too, but still probably not as much as the TV guys who are getting through over 2GB an hour.

[Jeff Kelly]

I think you might underestimate the amount of traffic even normal webbrowsing now generates. Reloading facebook or HuffPost HP is 10 to 12 mb per pop.

I might agree if you really don't use any streaming service. So just mail + web. rowsing. Also the 75 GB is for both up- and downstream.

[schild]

Reloading facebook or HuffPost HP is 10 to 12 mb per pop.

wut

[Sophismata]

I think you might underestimate the amount of traffic even normal webbrowsing now generates. Reloading facebook or HuffPost HP is 10 to 12 mb per pop.

I might agree if you really don't use any streaming service. So just mail + web. rowsing. Also the 75 GB is for both up- and downstream.

I am staying with my sister at the moment, who is sick. I am tethering my phone for internet. I have used 2.5GB this month, the majority of which was from downloading games on Steam (unlike my internet at home, my phone's data plan does not include Steam content for free).

I also use my phone's data for work, as well, and 95% of my job involves doing things on the internet (mostly with SaS).


I don't know how "regular browsing" would go anywhere NEAR a 75GB cap.

[Mrbloodworth]

Reloading facebook or HuffPost HP is 10 to 12 mb per pop.

wut

Look at all the scripts that are not on that domain.

[Jeff Kelly]

Reloading facebook or HuffPost HP is 10 to 12 mb per pop.

wut

After the discussion about data caps got serious I started measuring my landline internet traffic.

The home pages of major news sites or portals are serious bandwidth hogs. Why do you suppose they offer a bandwidth optimized mobile sites in the first place?

With normal internet usage which for me means normal video and audio streaming use, regular software and app updates, mail, chat and web browsing online gaming and the occasional video or game download (legal sources) meant that I was always way above the 75 GB limit. I don't even use my internet to pirate stuff just legal usage.

I won't argue that there will be a significant number of people that won't run over the limit today. That limit won't change though two or five years down the line if mobile internet is any indication.

Current gen PS3 bluray titles already use dual layer discs that's 45 GB of data you'd need to download, a full 22 episode HD series runs at 25 to 30 GB and so on.

You can't really compare it to mobile use because sites optimize for mobile clients and people adapt their online usage for the limitations.

lastly, that limit is per contract, not per user. Are you married and maybe have children? Then you share that limit with other people.

It will become a problem and our telecom companies expect that they can blackmail companies like Google or Apple to sign deals that will give them ome of the profits. If that fails they will surcharge their customers by offering online gaming pscks or audio streaming packs or video packs for additional monthly fees.

It might not be a problem for many people today but since more and more services require internet and download or streaming access plus cloud services are on the cusp of replacing more and more traditional services it will become a problem sooner rather than later.

Just look at the "not everybody has great internet, even in the US" discussion the XBox event started off

[KallDrexx]

Horray for COD pushing the next gen technology 

[schild]

Reloading facebook or HuffPost HP is 10 to 12 mb per pop.

wut

After the discussion about data caps got serious I started measuring my landline internet traffic.

<snip>

I actually have no clue how much those sites take to load, but Facebook from cursory glance takes less than 1MB on load. Of course, I use well over 1TB a month, so the idea of a bandwidth cap makes me want to get stabby.

That said, I'm getting Google Fiber next year so.... yea.

[Teugeus]

Horray for COD pushing the next gen technology 

I remember guffawing when I heard that statement during the conference. And the fact that, because the new COD is being released on 360/PS3, all their talk of being next-gen is a complete fallacy.

[Kageru]

This is a secondary issue. The xbox model of having the rights being outside of the media means they can provide more ways of copying the game. Installing from a friends disk, install disks being distributed cheaply for those who don't have the internet grunt, or even using external storage to transfer if the box allows that.

At one point WoW had a box of install media at a lot of album and electronics shops, 2$ a copy and a 14 day trial, which they can do because owning the disk doesn't give you access to the game. That's a product of what permissions your account has, just like this system will be,

[Goreschach]

After the discussion about data caps got serious I started measuring my landline internet traffic.

The home pages of major news sites or portals are serious bandwidth hogs. Why do you suppose they offer a bandwidth optimized mobile sites in the first place?

With normal internet usage which for me means normal video and audio streaming use, regular software and app updates, mail, chat and web browsing online gaming and the occasional video or game download (legal sources) meant that I was always way above the 75 GB limit. I don't even use my internet to pirate stuff just legal usage.

I won't argue that there will be a significant number of people that won't run over the limit today. That limit won't change though two or five years down the line if mobile internet is any indication.

Current gen PS3 bluray titles already use dual layer discs that's 45 GB of data you'd need to download, a full 22 episode HD series runs at 25 to 30 GB and so on.

If you were always way above a 75 GB limit, you were either reading something incorrectly, had something incorrectly configured, or your computer was compromised and being used as a bot. Hell, just look at what you said. You'd need to be downloading more than 2-3 hd tv series per day to hit those kinds of numbers.

Best guess? You're misconstruing the difference between GB and Gb. Even then, you'd have to be streaming a shit ton of stuff to go over that.

[01101010]

http://www.polygon.com/2013/5/24/4362680/xbox-one-games-will-require-regular-authentication-checks-used-games

So a friend of mine was chatting about this article, and I have to ask about this part:

The Xbox One will automatically authenticate a game using an encryption code built into a game's disc, when it is installed on the machine. That authentication on the console's hard drive tied to the game is then verified regularly through an internet connection.

When a person sells the game or it is installed and played on another system, the game is deauthenticated on the original machine until the disc is brought back and used to re-authenticate the installation.

So you will NEED a physical disc to authenticate - how does that work if your buddy shares with you the disc on your machine and you really like the game and want to purchase it right there...will I have to wait to get a physical disc if my buddy takes his home and puts it back on his machine? or am I reading this wrong?  

[Jeff Kelly]

After the discussion about data caps got serious I started measuring my landline internet traffic.

The home pages of major news sites or portals are serious bandwidth hogs. Why do you suppose they offer a bandwidth optimized mobile sites in the first place?

With normal internet usage which for me means normal video and audio streaming use, regular software and app updates, mail, chat and web browsing online gaming and the occasional video or game download (legal sources) meant that I was always way above the 75 GB limit. I don't even use my internet to pirate stuff just legal usage.

I won't argue that there will be a significant number of people that won't run over the limit today. That limit won't change though two or five years down the line if mobile internet is any indication.

Current gen PS3 bluray titles already use dual layer discs that's 45 GB of data you'd need to download, a full 22 episode HD series runs at 25 to 30 GB and so on.

If you were always way above a 75 GB limit, you were either reading something incorrectly, had something incorrectly configured, or your computer was compromised and being used as a bot. Hell, just look at what you said. You'd need to be downloading more than 2-3 hd tv series per day to hit those kinds of numbers.

Best guess? You're misconstruing the difference between GB and Gb. Even then, you'd have to be streaming a shit ton of stuff to go over that.

Gigabyte of course. Upper Case B is always Byte if you adhere to SI Units or to be even more accurate GiB. Measured on my router box so overhead is included (since it will also count against the cap)

One one-hour HD episode on iTunes is 4 Gigabyte. 5 if you also download the sd version. So one season of Lost and you are well over the 75 Gigabyte PER MONTH (if that wasn't clear already) limit.

Generally speaking you'll have 1 Gigabyte per hour of HD video (depends on quality setting and codec of course). Call of Duty MW 3 would be 24 Gigabyte, Diablo 3 or WoW around 12 etc.

75 Gigabyte would be 75 hours worth of HD programming on Netflix or at the average 4 hours a day Americans watch TV close to 20 days, that is if you don't do anything else.

With my 50 MBit/s down 10 MBit/s  up VDSL connection I could theoretically burn through that 75 Gigabyte in 12 Minutes and would then be on 384 kBit/s for the remaining 99.97% of the month.

A dual layer BluRay holds 50 GB so a sophisticated XBox One Game as download would eat up two-thirds of your monthly allowance in a space of just ten minutes.

To get to Flickr's new storage limit of 1TB for example would take me 10 months.

Updating Windows plus all of your iOS apps will eat 5  GB per month. Then there is dropbox, gmail, all of the cloud or Software as Service stuff, the data used for online gaming, podcasts flickr or instagram etc.

That's the kind of user that our IT giants create with their cloud strategies and streaming services. and if usage caps get more common then all of those steategies will fail.

If I had to bet my success on my next gen console offering I wouldn't dare to assume that all potential 75 million potential customers have access to fast, reliable and unadulterated internet.

Sony doesn't at least.

[Goreschach]

After the discussion about data caps got serious I started measuring my landline internet traffic.

The home pages of major news sites or portals are serious bandwidth hogs. Why do you suppose they offer a bandwidth optimized mobile sites in the first place?

With normal internet usage which for me means normal video and audio streaming use, regular software and app updates, mail, chat and web browsing online gaming and the occasional video or game download (legal sources) meant that I was always way above the 75 GB limit. I don't even use my internet to pirate stuff just legal usage.

I won't argue that there will be a significant number of people that won't run over the limit today. That limit won't change though two or five years down the line if mobile internet is any indication.

Current gen PS3 bluray titles already use dual layer discs that's 45 GB of data you'd need to download, a full 22 episode HD series runs at 25 to 30 GB and so on.

If you were always way above a 75 GB limit, you were either reading something incorrectly, had something incorrectly configured, or your computer was compromised and being used as a bot. Hell, just look at what you said. You'd need to be downloading more than 2-3 hd tv series per day to hit those kinds of numbers.

Best guess? You're misconstruing the difference between GB and Gb. Even then, you'd have to be streaming a shit ton of stuff to go over that.

One one-hour HD episode on iTunes is 4 Gigabyte. 5 if you also download the sd version. So one season of Lost and you are well over the 75 Gigabyte PER MONTH (if that wasn't clear already) limit.

Nevermind then. When you said 'today' I figured you were talking daily.

[Kageru]

So you will NEED a physical disc to authenticate - how does that work if your buddy shares with you the disc on your machine and you really like the game and want to purchase it right there...will I have to wait to get a physical disc if my buddy takes his home and puts it back on his machine? or am I reading this wrong?  

I think the article is just confused. Microsoft will have worked out the details in depth, because it will have to have been integrated into the hardware, but they might not be keen on giving too much information. DRM is not really a selling point.

I would be amazingly surprised if it is anything other than an encrypted serial number on the disk. The process of recovering that identifier, communicating it to microsoft and installing a authorization key on the box (which is re-confirmed every so often) will be the focus. The actual "rights" to play the game will ultimately be determined by the permissions on your xbox account which microsoft stores and secures.

So given that all the other stories are possible. Because how you sell the system is much more flexible, and probably partly up to the distributor.

[Jeff Kelly]

I'm 100% sure that the disc is just there so that not everybody needs to download every game. I expect it to be like steam. There will be some kind of key, either in the box, on the disc or delivered by other means (email e.g.) that actually unlocks the encrypted image.

I think the confusion stems from MS talking about physical discs but I'd be pretty astonished if they weren't just so you won't have to download >50 GB for every game.

I seriously hope, now that capacity is no longer an issue, that they'll

a. offer the box eith decent storage
b always deliver the original language track like on the ps3.
c don't require proprietary discs.

If I'd buy one (not saying that I will just if) I'd probably swap the HD with an SSD if possible.

[bhodi]

I'm still a little shocked that it's only 8gb and reserves 3gb for the OS. 3gb? That's a crazy amount.

[UnSub]

So you will NEED a physical disc to authenticate - how does that work if your buddy shares with you the disc on your machine and you really like the game and want to purchase it right there...will I have to wait to get a physical disc if my buddy takes his home and puts it back on his machine? or am I reading this wrong?  

I'm pretty sure that you'll be able to buy an unlock key from the Xbox Live store.

[Teugeus]

I'm 100% sure that the disc is just there so that not everybody needs to download every game. I expect it to be like steam. There will be some kind of key, either in the box, on the disc or delivered by other means (email e.g.) that actually unlocks the encrypted image.

I think the confusion stems from MS talking about physical discs but I'd be pretty astonished if they weren't just so you won't have to download >50 GB for every game.

I seriously hope, now that capacity is no longer an issue, that they'll

a. offer the box eith decent storage
b always deliver the original language track like on the ps3.
c don't require proprietary discs.

If I'd buy one (not saying that I will just if) I'd probably swap the HD with an SSD if possible.

I'm pretty sure they confirmed that the Xbox One will come with a non-user upgradeable 500GB HDD. Which sounds ludicrous imo, the PS3 is current gen and Sony let you put any HDD in there so how does it make sense to limit your options in the next-gen. The only counter argument they gave is that you could expand it with USB 3.0 external drive but that will never be as fast as even just having an internal 1TB traditional HDD.

Not shipping every X360 with a HDD was a mistake on M$s part but this seems like 2 steps forward, one step back. Source

[Azazel]

I'm pretty sure they confirmed that the Xbox One will come with a non-user upgradeable 500GB HDD. Which sounds ludicrous imo, the PS3 is current gen and Sony let you put any HDD in there so how does it make sense to limit your options in the next-gen. The only counter argument they gave is that you could expand it with USB 3.0 external drive but that will never be as fast as even just having an internal 1TB traditional HDD.

Not shipping every X360 with a HDD was a mistake on M$s part but this seems like 2 steps forward, one step back. Source

Even with the redesigned 360, MS has their own propetry HDD system. They don't want us to buy a HDD/SSD of the shelf. They want us to buy their massively-marked-up MS-(re)branded ones.
...
Not to deride pissing on a shit console. But I'm finding much of this conversation amusing but moot. I mean, who of us is likely to buy this steaming piece of shit and put it inside our house?

[Jeff Kelly]

Probably not many of us. Don't underestimate the influence said console may have, even on gamers who buy other systems.

With consoles selling significantly more copies of games than PC and dev houses needing to develop for all popular systems to recoup costs how the XBox turns out may have a huge influence on your gaming experience even if you don't buy it.

The 360 is the lead dev platform this gen and it influences everything from which genre you see most of to how levels are designed to how games and services are sold and marketed.

If the One is popular enough you might need to buy a kinect for your PC to play popular titles for example.

As it stands I think that Sony has an edge eith next gen if they don't screw up their launch.

Maybe I'm totally underestimating the importance of the set top aspect though and the XBox kills with the TV features and such.

[luckton]

So, used games aside, how would GameFly/RedBox rentals work?   

[apocrypha]

Xbone will be region locked.

“Similar to the movie and music industry, games must meet country-specific regulatory guidelines before they are cleared for sale,” A rep from Microsoft confirmed to Digital Trends. “We will continue to work with our partners to follow these guidelines with Xbox One.”

So no game imports, and anyone who moves between countries, e.g. armed forces personnel, won't be able to buy games locally. I don't remember ever seeing such a constant stream of negative publicity over a console before.

Not shipping every X360 with a HDD was a mistake on M$s part but this seems like 2 steps forward, one step back.

See what you've done Phred? Now the newbies think this shit is clever. 

[Kageru]

Did anyone expect it *not* to be region locked?

[Paelos]

Did anyone expect it *not* to be region locked?

Nope. This is already well into "show us your papers" territory.

[KallDrexx]

So, used games aside, how would GameFly/RedBox rentals work?   

Doubtful they will still exist.

[Quinton]

Probably not many of us. Don't underestimate the influence said console may have, even on gamers who buy other systems.

With consoles selling significantly more copies of games than PC and dev houses needing to develop for all popular systems to recoup costs how the XBox turns out may have a huge influence on your gaming experience even if you don't buy it.

The 360 is the lead dev platform this gen and it influences everything from which genre you see most of to how levels are designed to how games and services are sold and marketed.

I think the most notable thing about xboxone and ps4 is how incredibly similar they both are, architecturally, to modern mid-power PCs.  Though they're going with a few more less powerful cores, it all mostly works out in the wash.  The line is blurrier than it's ever been before between console and PC gaming as this generation of high end consoles are pretty much just smaller, more integrated, more cost optimized stock PC platforms.  A lot of opportunity for disruption here, say from Valve and the PC OEMs who are looking for new markets to enter.

If the One is popular enough you might need to buy a kinect for your PC to play popular titles for example.

I cannot imagine the kinect having anywhere near the impact on PC games that game controllers have had in the past on console to PC ports.  It's gimmicky and I'm pretty doubtful that you're going to see any significant number of titles revolving around it.  

Maybe I'm totally underestimating the importance of the set top aspect though and the XBox kills with the TV features and such.

Depends if people can't get their TV fix from cable or any of the many competing services and devices.

If anything, Microsoft doubling down on their bro-tacular "TV, TV, Call of Duty, TV, Sports, TV, Halo!" content approach and indications that they're backing off rather than expanding their support for smaller / indie titles makes me think that xboxone is far from an obvious success.

Not, mind you, that I have a ton of faith in Sony turning things around.  Mostly that I think the big guys are no longer building hardware that's significantly differentiating from platforms anybody can build with commodity parts, but they're still relying on previous era platform-lockin to control things.

[eldaec]

Who knows, might give steam box the window it needs.

We can dream.

[Morat20]

I'm pretty sure they confirmed that the Xbox One will come with a non-user upgradeable 500GB HDD. Which sounds ludicrous imo, the PS3 is current gen and Sony let you put any HDD in there so how does it make sense to limit your options in the next-gen. The only counter argument they gave is that you could expand it with USB 3.0 external drive but that will never be as fast as even just having an internal 1TB traditional HDD.

Not shipping every X360 with a HDD was a mistake on M$s part but this seems like 2 steps forward, one step back. Source

No, that seems like a great idea. Obviously we get so much free cloud storage that we'll never need more than 500gb over the lifetime of the console. No way Microsoft will come out with a terabyte version two years later and a 4 tb version two years after that and expect everyone to buy a new console!

[Teugeus]

No, that seems like a great idea. Obviously we get so much free cloud storage that we'll never need more than 500gb over the lifetime of the console. No way Microsoft will come out with a terabyte version two years later and a 4 tb version two years after that and expect everyone to buy a new console!

It is a brilliant idea. They're in fact taking a page out of Apple's book whereby only a qualified Apple technician can do simple things like upgrade the HDD of your computer otherwise you void your warranty. Genius. At least it makes sense when space is at a premium and making parts modular/user accessible would be a hindrance to the form factor, but the Xbox One looks huge.

[Amarr HM]

Horray for COD pushing the next gen technology 

That's priceless.

[Morat20]

It is a brilliant idea. They're in fact taking a page out of Apple's book whereby only a qualified Apple technician can do simple things like upgrade the HDD of your computer otherwise you void your warranty. Genius. At least it makes sense when space is at a premium and making parts modular/user accessible would be a hindrance to the form factor, but the Xbox One looks huge.

Requiring your own hardware and your own stupid transfer cable bullshit was bad enough -- but at least you could add extra space later. Not having an upgradeable hard drive is fucking stupid, especially with their move to a digital model.

Unless, of course, they're expecting to sell you cloud storage and lots of it.

[Selby]

It is a brilliant idea. They're in fact taking a page out of Apple's book whereby only a qualified Apple technician can do simple things like upgrade the HDD of your computer otherwise you void your warranty. Genius.

In all fairness IBM pioneered that back in the 1960's and 1970's, same with AT&T "owning" the equipment for your phone that you just rented from them for $14.99/month.  Nothing really is new...