Nextbox infinity anticipation station

[Hawkbit]

No, they haven't.  However, if Sony is able to continue along their current path of simply providing both new and used game sales, but improving PSN sales ala Steam sales, then they may win this console war outright.

It doesn't matter at this point that Sony hasn't been clear, it only matters that Microsoft is taking this much of a beating about the new system.   

[Cyrrex]

Another thing that I just remembered:  Sony has this "Playstation Plus" thing that doesn't seem to get a lot of mention anywhere, but I have bought it for a year and am actually really goddamn impressed by it.  For less than the price of a single new game, you get a number of games each month (including a Vita game or two) that gets added to your account for download, and while you are a subscriber you can DL and play any of the games released in the period you have been a subscriber.  The games are obviously of an older nature, but I have been quite pleased with the stuff they have released so far, such as (off the top of my head):

For Vita:  Uncharted Golden Abyss, the Metal Gear HD collection, a Rayman game that the kid might like.  Bunch of weird Japanese/indie stuff.

For PS3:  Mortal Kombat, which we played the shit out of.  Infamous 2 which my oldest loves.  Hitman Absolution, which the oldest also loves.  Okami HD, which is kinda cool.  ICO and Shadow of the Collosus HD, which I have always been curious about.  Demon Souls - I have it already, but still.  A silly Formula 1/Mario Kart ripoff that is worth a laugh or two.  A few other weird ones that look moderately interesting...they seem to like the obscure Indie stuff, too.

Anyway, I have already got my money out of it after having it for only two months, and the kids are playing the shit out of it.  And they never played on the Playstation at all until now.

I guess my point is, this is a legitimately cool service that I think Sony could push more.  

[Margalis]

Plus is a great value, especially compared to Live Gold.

[Cyrrex]

Do you actually get anything for Gold, other than the ability to go online?  I honestly don't know, because I couldn't dream of actually giving them money for the privilege of playing multiplayer games.

[Margalis]

You get demos earlier and Netflix.

Lol.

[Cyrrex]

You get demos earlier and Netflix.

Lol.

Wut.  I have literally....fuck, maybe 15?...different devices in my home now through which I can use Netflix for free.  I am sure most of them are more convenient, too.

Come to think of it, I guess Playstation Plus comes with some feature where you can try new games for an hour.  I doubt it is for all new games, haven't tried it myself.

[Jeff Kelly]

It's not so much what you get when you buy Gold, it's more that MS purposefully kept a lot of Live features restricted to Gold accounts.

Party chat, Kinect Video chat, Online Multiplayer, XBox Music, Cloud Storage, Skype, Twitter, Facebook, Video streaming via Netflix and Co. Most of them are not really critical but if you want to use online multiplayer you have to buy Gold

[Jeff Kelly]

*edit* In fact there's already EU legislation in effect saying that resale of digital goods must be allowed. No-one has taken Steam to court about it yet, but once that happens, will be interesting to see how that ends up.

I can transfer Steam games to other accounts and Steam's TOS allow for the sale/regifting of games so nobody has to take Steam to court for anything.

[jth]

*edit* In fact there's already EU legislation in effect saying that resale of digital goods must be allowed. No-one has taken Steam to court about it yet, but once that happens, will be interesting to see how that ends up.

I can transfer Steam games to other accounts and Steam's TOS allow for the sale/regifting of games so nobody has to take Steam to court for anything.

If you can resell or transfer "used" Steam games, I would be really interested to know how that can be done.

[KallDrexx]

Has Sony really said anything yet about how they are going to handle used games this time around?  Really, Microsoft is handing them yet another massive advantage here, probably the biggest one of all.  They would be beyond foolish not to take it.

I don't think Sony has the clout or infrastructure to support the draconian used game system Microsoft is implementing for the XB1.  There are quite a lot of pieces that need to be in place for Microsoft's system that I doubt Sony would have focused on (including the online once every 24 hours system, which I believe Sony has already stated won't be required).

[HaemishM]

I'm pretty sure when push comes to shove, Microsoft won't have the infrastructure to make the used games registry thing work either. They'll say that will but I predict Sim City levels of rolling dumpster fire failure on this thing.

[Ingmar]

I'm pretty sure when push comes to shove, Microsoft won't have the infrastructure to make the used games registry thing work either. They'll say that will but I predict Sim City levels of rolling dumpster fire failure on this thing.

This is like the last thing you have to worry about with MS, IMO. There may be failure but it won't be due to insuffiicent infrastructure. We're talking about the people who run Office 365 here, they are not newbies in the 'how does this cloud shit work' space.

[jakonovski]

Funny, the Bone with its resale restrictions is now explicitly against EU law. I wonder if this elephant in the room will finally be dealt with.

[Sky]

We're talking about the people who run Office 365 here, they are not newbies in the 'how does this cloud shit work' space.

I've got to install that chrome extension that changes 'cloud' to 'butt'.

I've started mentally changing it anyway. It makes professional digests hi-larious.

[KallDrexx]

This is like the last thing you have to worry about with MS, IMO. There may be failure but it won't be due to insuffiicent infrastructure. We're talking about the people who run Office 365 here, they are not newbies in the 'how does this cloud shit work' space.

Lol, on the flip side our company uses Office 365 and it's caused endless headaches and issues.

[Morat20]

I don't even use the cloud storage with Xbox. It's only 500 meg -- aren't Skyrim saves alone like a meg or two?

[Kageru]

Sony will almost certainly end up providing similar functionality if they want to get triple A titles at release. But much better to remain silent and let Micrisoft break ground and take the heat. Nor do I think Microsoft will have an issue making it work. it's what they do, it's not really that heavy a process and there's money to be made from making it work.

Of course if they do have to retreat in the face of consumer revolt it can probably be disabled easily in software

[apocrypha]

Made me laugh:

[jakonovski]

Sony will almost certainly end up providing similar functionality if they want to get triple A titles at release. But much better to remain silent and let Micrisoft break ground and take the heat. Nor do I think Microsoft will have an issue making it work. it's what they do, it's not really that heavy a process and there's money to be made from making it work.

Of course if they do have to retreat in the face of consumer revolt it can probably be disabled easily in software

I'm not so sure about publishers pulling support. They can barely make titles profitable as it is, there's no way they could survive limiting themselves to one console.

[Ironwood]

This is like the last thing you have to worry about with MS, IMO. There may be failure but it won't be due to insuffiicent infrastructure. We're talking about the people who run Office 365 here, they are not newbies in the 'how does this cloud shit work' space.

Lol, on the flip side our company uses Office 365 and it's caused endless headaches and issues.

Then you've done it wrong.

[Phred]

Sony will almost certainly end up providing similar functionality if they want to get triple A titles at release. But much better to remain silent and let Micrisoft break ground and take the heat. Nor do I think Microsoft will have an issue making it work. it's what they do, it's not really that heavy a process and there's money to be made from making it work.

Of course if they do have to retreat in the face of consumer revolt it can probably be disabled easily in software

I'm not so sure about publishers pulling support. They can barely make titles profitable as it is, there's no way they could survive limiting themselves to one console.

I think Sony's best option at this point is to throw the whole think on the Publishers. Sony, unlike Microsoft, doesn't lock their customers into a walled garden so there's nothing stopping the publishers from setting up their own servers to handle this crap. No need for Sony to have to pay or even care about registering games to their consoles, let the publisher's deal with it and the associated bad press. I bet Microsoft wishes they could do that right about now.

[Lantyssa]

I'm not so sure about publishers pulling support. They can barely make titles profitable as it is, there's no way they could survive limiting themselves to one console.

If the numbers of people who buy consoles are the same, they're just skewed to one or the other, then it becomes even better for them.  They can focus all their resources on making the one better and not lose much in the way of sales for the other.

Look at the PC software market compared to the Mac, for example.

[eldaec]

BBC piece on it...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22812743

What I really enjoyied was...

Microsoft explained on Thursday that while the console did not have to be online to play, it did need to connect at least once every 24 hours.

The company said: "You can game offline for up to 24 hours on your primary console, or one hour if you are logged on to a separate console accessing your library.

"Offline gaming is not possible after these prescribed times until you re-establish a connection, but you can still watch live TV and enjoy Blu-ray and DVD movies."

"If your console doesn't work because you can't get online, don't worry you can still do something completely unrelated such as watching television! Or walking the dog! Or snorting coke!"

[Pennilenko]

"If your console doesn't work because you can't get online, don't worry you can still do something completely unrelated such as watching television! Or walking the dog! Or snorting coke!"

But, I don't need an XBone to do those things...oh snap.

[Arthur_Parker]

This has all been really entertaining but with the amount of money they will be throwing at this, I think it's worth remembering they will just make all the crazy shit optional if it doesn't sell.

[ezrast]

I doubt they can turn off the DRM after contracts with publishers are signed.

[Soulflame]

It's likely the always on DRM is going to stick for this generation.  We'll see how customers respond to it.

And if Gamestop survives.

[Pennilenko]

And if Gamestop survives.

A buddy who works on the corporate side of things says that there is talk of potential legal battles.

[Soln]

This is interesting timing for always-on + DRM + surveillance-in-yr-crib.  I wonder how it will sell?

[Fabricated]

This is interesting timing for always-on + DRM + surveillance-in-yr-crib.  I wonder how it will sell?

Considering Microsoft seems to be having yield problems, it gets a new CoD game first, and is the descendant of the bro console of choice we'll get to see people beating eachother up in release lines and Microsoft proudly proclaiming that the XBONE has "Sold out worldwide!" due to a mix of hype and slow production.

[Soulflame]

This is interesting timing for always-on + DRM + surveillance-in-yr-crib.  I wonder how it will sell?

It will sell very very well.  All it will take is one solid title, and even the naysayers here will quietly buy one.

[Pennilenko]

Considering Microsoft seems to be having yield problems, it gets a new CoD game first, and is the descendant of the bro console of choice we'll get to see people beating eachother up in release lines and Microsoft proudly proclaiming that the XBONE has "Sold out worldwide!" due to a mix of hype and slow production.

This is exactly what is going to happen.

[Miasma]

"We are sold out worldwide!"*

*Worldwide refers to North America (minus mexico).

[Jeff Kelly]

The saying usually goes that 'if you're not the customer, you're the product' usually referring to goods or services that cost you nothing but need money to run.

So after seeing the patents about 'detection of number of people via camera', 'interaction with device to continue after commercials' plus DRM etc. why is it now that even after you've forked over $400 for a console, $60 per game, $60 - 90 per month for a broadband internet connection, $50 per years for xbox live gold and $60 -90 for cable plus pay tv per month that MS and it's associates still consider you to be the product and not the customer?

Do you know what already pisses me off royally? That 50% of the tiles on my XBoxbasically show commercials for games and streaming services even though I still pay for Live Gold.

All I hear is the whinging of MS, the game publishers, the content producers and everybody else that we have the audacity of not paying them all the money they want from us. This is usually dressed in phrases like 'not profitable', 'unsustainable business model' or 'rampant piracy'

Yet all the can think of is finding ways of squeezing more money out of us.

Nobody goes after ISPs or cable providers for overcharging customers or providing services that are basically no longer necessary when you can do everything over the net.
Nobody talks about whether or not the huge game budgets are actually justified or may just be bloat or if it might be possible to make interesting games for less
Nobody thinks about joining the used sales market and competing with Gamestop instead of killing them and the used game market.

I could go on for hours.

All they can think about is doing everything they way they are used to, don't rock the boat, don't change the status quo and pressure or force anybody back into their business model while charging them even more for less and less service.

So people essentially say 'we've given you enough money already, we can't, don't and won't spend any more' and all the publishers can say to that is 'if that is the case then we give up and can no longer make anything for you but let's just see how much more money we can squeeze out of you by making everything just a little bit worse for you'

Yeah, capitalism, I know. Capitalism once meant competition though which meant that companies actually competed against each other nstead of partnering up to all go after the customer.

Can't they just go after each other for a change?

[eldaec]

You're all a bunch of goddamn hippies.