GET YER E3 BULLSHIT RIGHT HERE

[Threash]

People without children can definitely have opinions, but I can tell you those opinions are stupid.

Fixed, and i don't have any.

[Rokal]

Xbox One still has these winning qualities:

<snip>
-requires Kinect (you can say that it is optional to use but you would be ignoring situations in the past, like on Wii, where motion controls were required for even traditional games)

The main difference is that there was no other way to play Wii games by default whereas the main X1 controller is still the standard game controller. Developers will design for that until there's a killer app for the Kinect. The only change X1 brings is that there'll be a 100% installed base of Kinects this time, possibly lowering the barrier of a killer app being developed. But I doubt it unless MS does it themselves. And even then, that's just pulling a Nintendo, with no guarantee the third parties will follow, because they still mostly need to port between PS4 and PC too in order to manage costs and ROI.

The Wii launched with Wiimotes and nunchuck controllers that provided a way to play Wii games without any motion controls. Horizontally, the Wiimote was basically an NES controller. Vertically and with the Nunchuck, it was similar to a gamecube controller. The motion control part of the Wiimote was optional, developers didn't have to force you to use it. They still did, even in games where it was totally unnecessary (DKCR was ruined by forcing you to shake your controller around to roll/attack).

I think Xbone's controller situation will be very similar. You'll have a traditional controller, the established norm, but every Xbone owner will also own the peripheral for motion control gaming. Given Microsoft's push for Kinect over the last several years, I'm guessing that Xbone developers will be encouraged to utilize kinect for their game as well. If you have no interest in Motion Control gaming, the inclusion of a Kinect in every Xbone is a bad thing.

[Falconeer]

I don't have much to add here other than I agree with Merusk. People without children can definitely have opinions, but I can tell you those opinions might change once you have children. Mine did.

As long as you acknowledge that there are people with kids and opinions different from yours that didn't change, and yet their kids came out awesomely.

[Mithas]

I don't have much to add here other than I agree with Merusk. People without children can definitely have opinions, but I can tell you those opinions might change once you have children. Mine did.

As long as you acknowledge that there are people with kids whose opinions different from yours that didn't change, and their kids came out awesomely.

Absolutely. There is no sure fire way to bring up a kid correctly. I think my parents did a decent job and my brother and I turned out vastly different. I just don't think there is anything wrong with not letting your 10 year old play a violent video game. You also have to know your kid. Some kids are ready for that sort of thing, some are not.

[Paelos]

Some kids shouldn't play some games. There isn't a one-size-fits-all answer to that question. I don't have kids, but I would monitor what they watched/played/listened if I have them.

[Yegolev]

Kids are individuals, their own parents are the best choice for making decisions for them, and nothing will be solved on this front in this thread.  Furthermore there isn't actually any problem to solve, unless you have some sort of political agenda.  I can tell you why I don't want my son to play Gears of War, but it would not really apply to other children.  For example, one reason is potential bad dreams and waking up Daddy.  Really, though, parents must parent their own kids.

It's also perfectly acceptable to completely ignore non-parents on this topic.

[Paelos]

I would think on most topics, unless it's about how kids act in public.

[Rasix]

No, you're mostly dicks about that too.

[Paelos]

No, you're mostly dicks about that too.

Yeah, but see that's the price you pay for going into public. Nobody is immune from critique.

[Rasix]

Anyhow, moving on..

[Paelos]

Still love ya Rasix! 

[Yegolev]

I look forward to revisiting this thread together, some number of years from now.  But only a little, because I know what will happen.

[KallDrexx]

Here's why Microsoft is fucktarded.

It isn't that they put that draconian system there in the first place, and it's not that they completely reversed it.  The problem is they are totally not looking long term and positioning themselves to actually make this work the next generation.

Keep disc based games the exact same as they are now.  Amazon, Gamestop, Gamefly can still function with used games the same way they do now.  However, what they need to do is implement the lending and used game sale functionality for purely digital games.  That will help move people towards accepting that kind of DRM becasue they will be able to demonstrate to people exactly what benefits it has.  More and more publishers will then release their games to the digital system and a lot of people (not all obviously but a lot) will be won over.

Then they are in a perfect position to do this in the next console generation (hopefully broadband penetration is a bit better) and they wont have as much of a PR nightmare on their hands. 

But they aren't.  They are 100% reversing their role and there is no difference between XB Digital games and PSN, except that sony has better indie relations supposedly.

[Shannow]

Online auction house for games? Maybe where MS / Publisher gets a cut of sale price? First glance I think that'd be kinda cool, second later I think of what ways people would abuse such a system.

[HaemishM]

Microsoft fucked up drastically because they have made the same mistake book publishers, Wizards of the Coast, Games Workshop and record labels have. They have tried to treat physical media sales as the exact same thing as digital content sales. In theory, they ARE the same thing, because ultimately, the utility or entertainment you get out of the two is almost identical. However, the consumer doesn't see it that way. That's why you hear people get pissed off that the Kindle versions of books cost as much as the paperback. You can do all that stuff with DRM on digital products because really, what idiot thinks of sharing their Steam games like they would a disc-based version? While that might be a cool feature (and nothing about the uproar over the Bone was against the idea), it's not worth the hassle that Microsoft was trying to put people through to get it.

Hell, I've gladly given up my ability to trade discs on PC games for the convenience of Steam. I can install a game at home, go to any other computer that's connected to the Internet and install it there as well, so that I can play the same game at work as I do at home. And Steam often gives me seriously good discounts on games. Their DRM isn't even noticeable in the face of that much convenience. Valve mostly played a game of "just the tip" while Microsoft went for the full-on date rape.

[Jeff Kelly]

they aren't the same.

The expectation that digital is cheaper comes from the lack of a physical thing, yes. But that is only half of the story.

People also expect it to be cheaper because most of the step involved in making and shipping the physical thing are gone. You don't have to print or bind or package or ship books, you don't have to make discs and jewel cases and manuals etc.

You can't charge the same price, people assume that a part of the price comes from making the physical thing. if there's no thing you can't charge prices as if you still had to make the thing.

[Paelos]

It's not hard for people to figure out that making a tangible book or disc is more expensive than uploading code to a server. The publishers are just getting greedy and not adjusting their Price/COGS ratio.

[Maledict]

How have Wizards of the Coast made a mistake with their online systems? As unbelieveably shit as the UI is, they have made an absolute *fortune* with MTGO. Id much prefer if the cards were discounted online, but there's no logical reason they would do that and it would cannibalise their paper card market.

[HaemishM]

Id much prefer if the cards were discounted online, but there's no logical reason they would do that and it would cannibalise their paper card market.

You hit the problem with WotC right there. They have continually been afraid of cannibalizing their paper market - which is the reason they give for not discounting the card prices. I can tell you now as a former Magic player, if MTGO did not charge paper prices for cards, I'd have likely spent a lot of money with them. As it is, I've spent ZERO. I may not be typical, but I gather there's a lot more people like me who made that same choice than actually chose to spend money with MTGO.

As for a logical reason to discount online, it won't cannibalize their paper market. Rather it will open an entirely new market that they can exploit/conquer/dominate. They've basically been begging for someone like Hex to come along and clean their digital clocks. Like all businesses who want to make money, they have to be thinking of business growth and the paper market is only so big. The digital market opens up a whole other market that doesn't even have to be affected by the paper market.

Games Workshop has had the same issue with their shit - they don't want a 40k or Warhammer digital equivalent because they are afraid it will kill physical sales. That's seriously myopic thinking.

[Ingmar]

How have Wizards of the Coast made a mistake with their online systems? As unbelieveably shit as the UI is, they have made an absolute *fortune* with MTGO. Id much prefer if the cards were discounted online, but there's no logical reason they would do that and it would cannibalise their paper card market.

I'm pretty sure I'd hit the post limit if I went into detail. Their failures in the online space are not nearly limited to the problems that MTGO has.

[lamaros]

It's not hard for people to figure out that making a tangible book or disc is more expensive than uploading code to a server. The publishers are just getting greedy and not adjusting their Price/COGS ratio.

It's a but more expensive, but not as hugely as you might think. The fixed costs are still there (editorial, etc) and you still blow money into handing distribution an marketing, etc.

Plus it's not so much being greedy as wanting to be able to continue to exist. If they tried to change overnight they'd go under.

[Maledict]

Given that their paper market is selling more than it ever has been before, I don't think WOTC are making that many poor decisions about their business.

I can absoluetly guarantee you MTGO will be bigger than Hex in a years time. It's a shame and Hex looks like being a big product, but I don't think Wizards are completely stupid about their online stuff - even though I wish it were otherwise!

[Venkman]

They have tried to treat physical media sales as the exact same thing as digital content sales. In theory, they ARE the same thing, because ultimately, the utility or entertainment you get out of the two is almost identical. However, the consumer doesn't see it that way. That's why you hear people get pissed off that the Kindle versions of books cost as much as the paperback.

Well they get pissed sure, but like we all eventually did after a few years on Steam: we ended up spending more, because as you noted later in your post, the price of convenience is totally worth it. You can borrow books from your library and get them on your Kindle. If you want to jump through many hoops. Or just pay $8-10 and you've got it hassle-free.

The Wii launched with Wiimotes and nunchuck controllers that provided a way to play Wii games without any motion controls. Horizontally, the Wiimote was basically an NES controller. Vertically and with the Nunchuck, it was similar to a gamecube controller. The motion control part of the Wiimote was optional, developers didn't have to force you to use it. They still did, even in games where it was totally unnecessary (DKCR was ruined by forcing you to shake your controller around to roll/attack).

I think Xbone's controller situation will be very similar. You'll have a traditional controller, the established norm, but every Xbone owner will also own the peripheral for motion control gaming. Given Microsoft's push for Kinect over the last several years, I'm guessing that Xbone developers will be encouraged to utilize kinect for their game as well. If you have no interest in Motion Control gaming, the inclusion of a Kinect in every Xbone is a bad thing.

But the games most successful on Wii were from Nintendo and specifically did use the waggle functions. Their traditional for-gamers controller was a separate accessory purchase. Nintendo was completely all-in on motion controller, but smartly left enough other buttons in place for backwards compatibility for their legacy titles. That of course let other companies port easier to Wii more games than otherwise might have ever gone there.

MS is by no means all in to the same degree. In fact, their biggest advertisement for Kinect is not even from them but instead from Harmonix (though I'm sure there was some seed money thrown around).

This is all while their marketing of the new Kinect stuff has been lie-detector/advertisement-targeting/voice-activation usages that are all very much not-game focused. Because their gamer focus is on the controller they also spent much time enhancing.

This is why I don't see the parallel to Wii.

[KallDrexx]

So an uncomfirmed MS employee posted a writeup on pastebin.

One part that stood out

First is family sharing, this feature is near and dear to me and I truly felt it would have helped the industry grow and make both gamers and developers happy.  The premise is simple and elegant, when you buy your games for Xbox One, you can set any of them to be part of your shared library.  Anyone who you deem to be family had access to these games regardless of where they are in the world.  There was never any catch to that, they didn't have to share the same billing address or physical address it could be anyone.  When your family member accesses any of your games, they're placed into a special demo mode. This demo mode in most cases would be the full game with a 15-45 minute timer and in some cases an hour.  This allowed the person to play the game, get familiar with it then make a purchase if they wanted to.  When the time limit was up they would automatically be prompted to the Marketplace so that they may order it if liked the game.  We were toying around with a limit on the number of times members could access the shared game (as to discourage gamers from simply beating the game by doing multiple playthroughs). but we had not settled on an appropriate way of handling it.  One thing we knew is that we wanted the experience to be seamless for both the person sharing and the family member benefiting.  There weren't many models of this system already in the wild other than Sony's horrendous game sharing implementation, but it was clear their approach (if one could call it that) was not the way to go.  Developers complained about the lost sales and gamers complained about overbearing DRM that punished those who didn't share that implemented by publishers to quell gamers from taking advantage of a poorly thought out system.  We wanted our family sharing plan to be something that was talked about and genuinely enjoyed by the masses as a way of inciting gamers to try new games. 

 

[Venkman]

That article explains why the vision was so hard to explain it spun out of control for them. All of that shit is a far too complicated set of conditions they only needed to create because they created complex solutions to fundamental problems at retail they thought they personally needed to own. It was probably shocking to them that neither Nintendo nor Sony shared that same level of interest.

Yes retail games have long been getting hurt by the garage sale pricing and re-boxing GameStop drives. But you don't solve that by super complicated digital systems that look like they come from people who worked in the mobile phone business. You solve that by saying digital only and slapping a fee on transferring the license one-time. Done. Simple, and their 46mil always-on X360 users would be fine.

Unfortunately, I'm sure the vast majority of their top line revenue still derives from brick and mortar AAA title sales, so they're keenly aware of whatever passive aggressive attitude they get from retailers. Because that's where the real exposure still comes from, the not-quite-informed passerby who happened to see a commerical the day before and/or is holiday shopping. It's hard to target that crowd digitally without all the You Might Also Like Amazon tactics coupled with the recurring Steam sale, neither of which MS has shown any particular aptitude in.

Also is anyone in the "Games Journalism" biz calling out the absolute bulllshit that was the cloud computing claims?

I 100% guarantee that absolutely no game from this generation, even under XBONE's previous always online model would have used cloud computing to do actual game-important calculation that improves performance or allows for experiences an individual hardware unit couldn't handle. It is going to be entirely used for matchmaking, server hosting, save storage, and social integration shit that will gain nothing from the cloud besides redundancy.

We need a Woodward and Bernstein of gaming news.

Why? They were effectively spinning Onlive/Gaikai. Even that Eurogamer article was just arguing the same issues about streaming content computed on an internet virtualized machine. But nothing MS said was impossible. It's just unproven and includes expensive rollout of hardware behind the scenes the average gamer wouldn't even know about and would only just suck dry any profit MS thought they'd make.

So I don't see this as some big lie.

[Margalis]

An internet connection will not be required to play offline Xbox One games – After a one-time system set-up with a new Xbox One, you can play any disc based game without ever connecting online again. There is no 24 hour connection requirement and you can take your Xbox One anywhere you want and play your games, just like on Xbox 360.

It's trivially easy to make any offline title an online title. (See: SimCity)

I fully expect that most offline games will simply be billed as online and include pointless SimCity style checks so that this can be technically true while pragmatically false.

[Threash]

I love how right after he says there is no catch he explains the catch.

[shiznitz]

10 Year old can't play Bro-Shooter #3000? Why not? When I was 10 I was playing Bro Shooter 1 & 2 (Wolfenstein and Doom).

I won't let my kids play shooters because the graphics are too realistic these days.  Am I just being a Dad or is that a valid reason?  A headshot at 1080p is a lot different than a pixelated Nazi killing.

You're kind of being a bitch, yes.

Oh look, the childless single guy has an opinion on other people's kids.  

I'm engaged, butthead.

Besides, I don't have an opinion on anyone's kids. I have an opinion on the behavior and hypocrisy of parents.

For the record, I don't deny the hypocrisy.  That is a luxury of parenting.

schild's point about "taboo" rings true with me.  I never had a gaming system and lived with very tight TV viewing controls.  I became a gaming and TV junkie once I was free.

[Bzalthek]

People who don't have kids shouldn't have opinions about kids.

My kids are different!  They're so talented, brilliant and special, and can do nothing wrong.  Want to see pictures of my little angel?

Yeah, it's the people without kids we shouldn't listen to about fucking crotch muppets.

[Rasix]

[Samwise]

[Der Helm]

I forgot I installed this.

The last 3 pages of this thread confused me until I remembered.

[Samwise]

social integration shit that will gain nothing from my butt besides redundancy.

 

[HaemishM]

So an uncomfirmed MS employee posted a writeup on pastebin.

One part that stood out

First is family sharing, this feature is near and dear to me and I truly felt it would have helped the industry grow and make both gamers and developers happy.  The premise is simple and elegant, when you buy your games for Xbox One, you can set any of them to be part of your shared library.  Anyone who you deem to be family had access to these games regardless of where they are in the world.  There was never any catch to that, they didn't have to share the same billing address or physical address it could be anyone.  When your family member accesses any of your games, they're placed into a special demo mode. This demo mode in most cases would be the full game with a 15-45 minute timer and in some cases an hour.  This allowed the person to play the game, get familiar with it then make a purchase if they wanted to.  When the time limit was up they would automatically be prompted to the Marketplace so that they may order it if liked the game.  We were toying around with a limit on the number of times members could access the shared game (as to discourage gamers from simply beating the game by doing multiple playthroughs). but we had not settled on an appropriate way of handling it.  One thing we knew is that we wanted the experience to be seamless for both the person sharing and the family member benefiting.  There weren't many models of this system already in the wild other than Sony's horrendous game sharing implementation, but it was clear their approach (if one could call it that) was not the way to go.  Developers complained about the lost sales and gamers complained about overbearing DRM that punished those who didn't share that implemented by publishers to quell gamers from taking advantage of a poorly thought out system.  We wanted our family sharing plan to be something that was talked about and genuinely enjoyed by the masses as a way of inciting gamers to try new games. 

 

That's not sharing, asshole (not you, the Microdick). That's emailing a fucking demo to your buddy. Somebody get these cockgobblers a goddamn dictionary.

If that was the "sharing" option they had in mind, I won't fucking miss it.

[Rokal]

But the games most successful on Wii were from Nintendo and specifically did use the waggle functions. Their traditional for-gamers controller was a separate accessory purchase. Nintendo was completely all-in on motion controller, but smartly left enough other buttons in place for backwards compatibility for their legacy titles. That of course let other companies port easier to Wii more games than otherwise might have ever gone there.

MS is by no means all in to the same degree. In fact, their biggest advertisement for Kinect is not even from them but instead from Harmonix (though I'm sure there was some seed money thrown around).

This is all while their marketing of the new Kinect stuff has been lie-detector/advertisement-targeting/voice-activation usages that are all very much not-game focused. Because their gamer focus is on the controller they also spent much time enhancing.

This is why I don't see the parallel to Wii.

More than half of the top 15 best selling Wii games used "traditional" controls via the Wiimote/nunchuck, with motion control as a non-optimal afterthought (Mariokart, Galaxy, Smash Bros, etc.). I don't think that counts as being 'all in' on motion controls. It was very similar to what the Xbone will be.

It's true that Microsoft didn't produce many Xbox 360 titles with motion controls, but they produce a fraction of the games that Nintendo does. They're much more likely to have other publishers/developers do the work for them.