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Xbox One Launch Woes Were Preventable, Next Console Likely Digital Download Only
MojoKid writes: Microsoft's Xbox One launch didn't go off exactly as planned in late 2013. Before the console's release, the company was dogged over DRM restrictions with the console and concerns over its high price tag compared to its counterpart, the Sony PlayStation 4. Microsoft would attribute the higher price tag to the included Kinect camera — a peripheral that many gamers didn't particularly care for. Former Xbox Chief Robbie Bach offered his two cents recently on the Xbox One — a console that launched years after he announced he retired from the company in 2010. Bach noted, regarding the Xbox One's rocky launch, "...gosh, I think some of that was predictable and preventable." As for the future of physical game media, Bach doesn't think that the future will be so bright when it comes to DRM and always-connected requirements in the next generation of gaming consoles. He said that the next Xbox would "probably not" have physical media to speak of, with consoles adopting digital-only distribution.
Then M$ can go choke on a bucket of dicks. Shove the cloud/DRM bullshit up your ass.
So long as they offer an experience comparable to Steam, including weekly sales and the deeper discounts around Summer/Winter. I've got no issues with always-on, since I'm always connected anyway. Just give users a sane amount of offline time and it's all good.
The Amarri pray for god, the Caldari pray for profit. the Gallente pray for peace, but the Minmatar pray their ships hol
Good thing I'm not buying that console.
No ownership of the games, banned from the use of your purchases for any reason.
What a wonderful future!
As long as the US continues to have a third world internet infrastructure, I will need to download my games elsewhere (work for example, though that would certainly make someone angry). Being able to "sideload" games and content should still remain an option.
no you didn't. no one did.
To them the "woes" were the customer revolt that forced them to backpedal on always-on connectivity, the invasive 24/7 HD spy camera and microphone, and disabling of second-hand games. And they think "preventing" that is merely a matter of tightening the lockdown.
They're about 15 bucks for a 32GB stick now. EB, Gamespot and other retail outlets could have a terminal that lets you download to a USB stick to take a game home for installation on your console (or it could just run off the stick). There was a similar though much more specialised thing for the Super Famicom in Japan.
They could still bundle stuff. Manuals, "Boxes" and trinkets for special editions, it's just that you'd supply the storage media. I think it could work.
like the highly successful PSP Go and Ouya
Am I the only one who gets annoyed with past future tense used like,
Microsoft would attribute the higher price tag to the included Kinect camera
I see this tense a lot, especially in online RP and it just feels off, every time I read something like this. Why not just "Microsoft attributed the higher price tag to the included kinect camera..."
I'm no englishologist, I just know when it feels wrong, and that feels wrong. Saying, "I knew microsoft would..." works out, but not "Microsoft would attribute..."
with perfect future foreskin even I can pick a winner the day after the race.
you get a disc that tells it to download a 20gb "update" that is actually the whole freaking game.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
They already can revoke access. They have been since the XBOX 360 came out. They've just chosen not to.
If you want to have more control over your computer, buy a PC. Consoles have been locked down and contained invasive DRM since the NES. Since when does this shit surprise anyone?
And yes, Steam has a contingency for how you can play your games if they go out of business. It's called, "offline mode".
How will offline mode survive a backup of user data and game binaries, reinstallation of the operating system, and restoration of user data and game binaries? And over the years, the Steam client has had plenty of bugs causing it to lose the "receipt" that allows a user to play a purchased a game in offline mode.
you get a disc that tells it to download a 20gb "update" that is actually the whole freaking game.
But I already own a PS3.
What pushed me towards a PS3, after decades of PC gaming, was the large "lending library" of PS3 games offered by a co-worker. I could try full games before I purchased them.
Now, if I can't do that with DRM type games, I'll just go to a "safer" option, where I can try before I purchase, or just pirate it altogether, since I can't resell a terrible game.
Pay $60 for PS3 game, can always sell it, give it away, or lend it. Net value > $0
Pay $60 for a DRM XBONE game, can't sell it, give it away, or lend it. Net value $0
On top of that, if you leave the automatic updates turned on you may want to check your xbone's network usage. Mine was chewing up 80 freaking GB every goddamn month on about 20 games (including xbla/indies)!!
What pushed me towards a PS3, after decades of PC gaming, was the large "lending library" of PS3 games offered by a co-worker.
Steam on PC now allows your co-worker to lend you her entire library.
Pay $60 for PS3 game
Run into a game design flaw that ruins your enjoyment, can't lawfully mod PS3 games. Use value $0, though it has resale value.
Pay $60 for a PC game that isn't online-only, run into a game design flaw that ruins your enjoyment, mod it out. After completing the game, add mods that increase replay value. Use value more than $0.
of the country that can't get fast Internet connections. I live in Seattle, and the fastest we can get in our building is dialup. I'll probably still get a new XBox since several family members work at Microsoft and the discount on price is nice, but apparently I'll have to take it elsewhere like work to temporarily get a faster connection in order to buy games.
The guy who was in charge of the Xbox team for these 'woes' was a guy named Don Mattrick.
During the run up to the horrible E3 where most of these poor decisions were revealed, he had been negotiating and then accepted a job running Zynga.
To put it mildly, he had completely checked out and didn't appear to care about what happened to the Xbox at that E3, as he knew he was going to be out the door a few weeks later.
This is one of the larger straight mistakes that Ballmer (as opposed to reasonable but poor decisions) made during his role as CEO of Microsoft - leaving a guy who just didn't give a shit in charge of a major project.
"Free software as in beer, copy protection as in racket" - Telsa Gwynne
These are the dicks who charge you to play online while spamming you with dashboard commercials. If they switch to an all digital format there's no way in hell they could ever compete with free open platforms that don't come with a metric ton of bullshit console owners require. Windows 10 and all the nagging bullshit it comes with is already a prelude to what they want to do, and we all know how well the public is taking that.
I shouldn't really say impossible tho... because there are still morons who buy a "new" copy of Madden every year. Those apathetic console tards are M$'s target market and there's plenty of sheeple to go around but thankfully they are waking up.
Please drink a verification can to continue.
I have no problem with the downloaded content only. I was very skeptical of STEAM but have come to love it. However, a robust off-line mode needs to be there and needs to work reliably. Bottom line, if my cable provider/ISP has an outage (which they will) or XBOX LIVE goes down (which it does) I still want to play the games I have already downloaded. And speaking as a former member of the US Navy, there are a fair number (small percentage) of people who do not have a reliable always on connection for months at a time. If you are in the Navy, or an oil platform, or on an arctic expedition, you should be able to load your games up in advance and then play offline for a minimum of 6 months without authentication.
It was pretty obvious they weren't exactly the brightest when they thought it was a good idea to name the THIRD iteration of their console ONE.
I've owned it for like 3 years and there are basically 3 games for the fucking thing... oh, and all three of those games will make you lose your mind on load screen because Microsoft was too cheap to put an ssd into the thing.
I get it takes 3 years to make triple A content... but this whole escapade just convinced me that consoles are dead.
Sure, you're entitled to play the game for as long as you keep a hold of the disc. With a digital download, your entitlement can be revoked at any time.
Unless we get microprocessors that can compress/decompress hundreds of gigabytes of data to only a few hundreds of megabytes on the fly we wont see a console without a physical media. U.S internet will continue to suck. I'm losing large amounts of packets(used online network monitoring tools) using Verizon Fios which brings my internet speed to 8/20 Mbps from 75/75 Mbps, and this is 24/7. The only way to get the full 75/75 is if i use vpn's or proxy servers because everything over http/https is complete shit.
Former Xbox Chief Robbie Bach offered his two cents recently on the Xbox One — a console that launched years after he announced he retired from the company in 2010.
You know what was happening in 2010?
- Call of Duty 'Hype' - Modern Warfare 2 was the game people were playing. It released late 2009, Black Ops was released later in 2010.
- Wikileaks The release of gunshot footage as Iraqi civillians and journalists were gunned down by an Apache Helicopter
- Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill
- iPad 1 released
- Android begins to outsell iPhone
No disrespect intended, but why are his opinions being solicited anyway? I'd understand if he retired 6 months ago, but he's been out of the game for 5 years. The Xbox One/PS4 were barely a twinkle in gamers eyes at that point.
Honest question: Which character is your main ?
I have personally tried to restore Steam backups, so I know the drill. You cannot play the backups without being online. And last time I checked, the Steam installer would refuse to install if it was old, and the download for the new one still won't resume. You either get the file all at once, or not at all.
It's really pathetic that someone is actually shilling for Valve here on Slashdot by modding down my factual comments. It's sad if they pay for it, and it's even sadder if they don't.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Have a user swappable main hdd + moving of games to an ext hdd / usb stick.
PS3 and PS4 make it easy Xbox it's a lot harder and you may get banned for doing it.
with the Xbox 360 people got banned for use there own and much cheaper HDD's in the xbox 360 hdd caddy.
Welcome to the future. You live somewhere without reliable internet access, and want to play a game on the Xbox Two. You take your hard-earned bitcoins to a Gamestop as well as a flash drive/external HDD that's been prepared by the console. You plug it in to a kiosk at the store, which lets you download game data for ANY game available for the system (a single HDD can hold every game released in the past several months). Of course, you won't just be able to play it. You scratch off a prepaid bitcoin card and input the code into the kiosk, and choose which games to buy a license for. The kiosk connects to the internet, sending a file containing your console's hardware ID, and your Xbox Live login info. Microsoft cryptographically signs a certificate containing the console's ID, and the game's unique title ID, and sends that back to the kiosk, which is then saved back to the flash drive. You yank the flash drive, go home, and plug it into the Xbox Two, which validates the signed certificate, and lets you play the game whose data is present. No home internet access required, much less an always-on connection.
The certificates for all games are in one file which is signed by Microsoft. While in theory you could sell a game license, keep your console disconnected from the net and use an outdated certificate file in order to continue playing it, you'd never be able to use Xbox Live or run any additional games, so that's unlikely. Thanks to asynchronous keys, the master key wouldn't be anywhere in the console and thus need to be hacked from Microsoft's servers, which AFAIK has never happened to a console maker. Rentals will work by containing a time limit in the certificate file, and of course rolling back the clock in the settings menu won't work around that; perhaps it'll just allow X hours of runtime, rather than X hours of access (although both wouldn't surprise me, a la Steam returns). You may also be allowed to sell your licenses, although they'll have to get this up and running before anyone believes it. The process will have to resemble "here ya go" more than "list of restrictions a mile long" or else they'll be handing another win to Sony. In order for the process to not suck, they're probably going to have to bite the bullet and accept that someone, somewhere, may be playing a game they 'sold', but it's ok because few people will accept the tradeoffs.
Consoles may also lose their internal hard drives, and just get an external accessory instead; USB 3.1 is faster than SATA 3 so it's not totally nuts (cache will help latency problems). The console will be ostensibly cheaper since they have one less component, they can say "supports bajillionty terabyte drives!" in marketing, and simultaneously sell their own branded overpriced drives which are "officially supported."
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
Its an ever changing game market, fortunately these changes are making me just not want to waste time or money on games.
Like World of Warcraft CDs that I bought on its release day! :(
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
tired of these news story's the same crap is flying around with the nx. there likely going to ditch the blue rays and go back to flash media aka carts as optical drives are the bottlenecks for these systems.
There's some circumstantial evidence from a recent patent filing that the Nintendo NX may ditch the disk drive (and possibly all physical media). A patent-filing is by no means indicative of final intent. After all, Sony filed quite a few "always-online" type patents during the PS4's development but ended up not going down that direction. But it's a sign that Nintendo is at least considering it.
This is an area where there's a huge disadvantage to being the first mover. As MS learned in the run up to the Xbox One's launch, having an always-online download-focussed/only console when your competitor is advancing a more traditional offering can look fairly suicidal. But once one of the major parties has made the move, don't be surprised if the others follow.
PCs have invasive DRM too. So invasive that it's been known to break the OS.
I've got an XBox One and currently a really shit internet connection (digital nomad in Spain sharing wifi across 3 different flats).
When the internet goes dodgy and the XBox One loses access, I can't save my game and the games start missing features.
Sure my predicament is a bit odd, but I can't be the only person with flakey Internet. Not being able to save a single player game just because you aren't online is a bit off imo.
The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
And you really think that circular piece of plastic you have there can ward off this fate? Especially if the only thing contained on it is the installer that sucks 20 gigs through the pipes?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
"Have a user swappable main hdd + moving of games to an ext hdd / usb stick."
You already can move games to an external HDD on the X1, given that it supports USB3 there's not really any point changing the internal drive when you can get a perfectly fast external drive and just plug it straight in anyway. Of course you wont get banned for using external storage on an X1, that's complete nonsense, it's a standard function of the console, well advertised, and fully supported within the UI.
"with the Xbox 360 people got banned for use there own and much cheaper HDD's in the xbox 360 hdd caddy."
Again, complete nonsense, I did this on two consoles and never had an issue. The only people who got banned were those who also manipulated the data on those drives to cheat, and thank god those people did get banned, they deserved it.
But the only way digital only will work is if Sony goes along too. If not, then all the people who hate digital only will start choosing the competition and they'll have to backpeddle again.
I own an Xbox One. I've picked up several games through Amazon, Best Buy, Target, etc. that were on sale for $20, while the digital versions were still full price. Then, I played them through and sold them on eBay for what I paid for them or, at most, a $5 loss. I don't like multiplayer and don't like playing games I've already finished. So, a physical disc is a perfect medium for me. Taking the ability to sell it after I play it away from me is a huge price gouge.
That's pretty much just the PC, where disks have been useless coasters for a long time now (try to install Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty from disk and you'll see what I mean).
Console game disks on the other hand are still required to serve their basic function out of the box, without ever having been connected to the internet at any point. At least I know this is the case for PS4 and Wii U.
I think the definition of insanity is to try the same thing over and over and expect different results. You will find many posts in here where people are indicating that they don't care and I am almost certain there are a few in here who are actually looking forward to it. Beware people, this is market manipulation. I will submit to the fact that maybe 5% of those saying it are legit people. The other 95% of the posts you find are bought and paid for. There is nothing to be applauded with his version of game distribution. I have a 100 Mbit connection and it takes about an hour to download 1.43 gig game. Now you might say well with 100 Meg it should download much faster... The problem is their servers connections aren't that fast so one might argue that getting the game as a digital download is great but what happens when your hard drive is corrupted or a update messes up your entire install and you have to start downloading from scratch and never mind the fact that you have probably already downloaded and installed 3 gigs of updates that you will have to download once again. This is all marketing bull that is focused on making you think that this flaw, which only benefits Microsoft, is a feature to you. This is insanity and they are banking on their marketing and their PR psy op to convince the masses that this is the way to go. Well Microsoft... you are not dealing with a mass of stupid people. Gamers tend to be the more intelligent and less impressionable. I hope you fail Microsoft because sony has already beat you and they will beat you again. Why do I like sony? Because they have historically supported backward compatibility and open standards and doesn't try to force their hardware and services on their end users. Microsoft you are going to fail and I am going to smile. I will not bother to entertain any troll responses. I am sure some will try to say I am getting paid to write this but I assure you I am not. I am sick of all of this PR madness that is focused on brainwashing the masses as opposed to market research to give people what they want.
Companies no longer care about what you want. Companies figure out what they can make the easiest and what will make them reap in the most profits. These consoles are like gold mines to them. Microsoft's position is to come up with what they want to sell you and then they spend millions on marketing, PR, manipulation, and fraud to shape the market into wanting their product. This is what they did with Windows when no one was buying it. They spend millions on marketing when they should have just spent that money on fixing their operating system. Which operating system you ask??? Vista... and they also tried it with 8 and neither time did it work. They keep trying the same thing and they keep ending up with the same results. They are absolutely insane.
Digital-only is tunnelvision, unless they're fine making multiple versions of the system and still having to produce discs in some markets. The sheer volume of consoles in soldier deployments and countries with limited internet will see to it.
I think it's good that they're moving toward digital. Analog downloads didn't seem to have enough fidelity. Sure, it was nice that if someone picked up the phone in the middle of your download, it'd still work and you would just have a noisy blur in the texture on some wall, but video games these days are more about art, so we need to protect the artists' vision.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
As long as I can take a copy of my money and mail you the scan of it to pay for the digital game download.
Hell, I'll even pay for my internet connection so you can get it.
(note: payment may be UP TO the stated amount, any shortfall is unavoidable because of over-committed funds and to demand more money would violate my Fair Use Of My Money terms that you signed when you agreed to a sale)
I think it's sad we have such a focus on only digital distribution, but thus far this hasn't done anything about the general lack of competent internet connections. Want to install a game on a mobile connection? That will exceed your monthly data limit by 10 times. Want to get a game on release day? Good luck if you're on DSL, like most of the country. Want to play the game you already have after work? You better stay up for 8 hours after your shift ends for that 4GB "update" to come across during peak netflix time.
It's sad, but there really isn't an alternative. Sony and the others all really messed up their after-dvd disc standards, and even the DVD standard is being botched by studios who seem to think that anyone trying to play a movie on their computer is a pirate. Even if these disc standards weren't horribly broken the average user doesn't have a blu-ray reader and doesn't want one.
And you really think that circular piece of plastic you have there can ward off this fate? Especially if the only thing contained on it is the installer that sucks 20 gigs through the pipes?
No, but perhaps we can help spell the fate of those wasteful companies who feel like pressing millions of pieces of plastic for zero fucking reason.
They went after Capone for tax evasion, and succeeded. Perhaps we should go after these companies for no other reason than green initiatives. Stop destroying the planet with pointless plastic and cardboard if you're not going to actually give the consumers anything viable in return. And we'll look to punish you in kind if you continue to do so. Enough is enough.
It feels like console makers saw what was happening with Steam and PC gaming in 2007 and said "that's the model we want" and have been feverishly working toward it. Local multiplayer, fungible assets like games and save data are (to me) the key selling features of console gaming and those same features are exactly what the current gen of consoles seem to have stripped out.
What is the difference going to be with the next gen of consoles and say a Steam machine or low/medium end gaming PC?
But next time they'll double down on always-on and no media, which were two huge parts of the bad press of Xbone.
Though for all that public bitching about that, and the fact that PS4 is faster, the key factor was probably pricing, with all the controversy not even visible to the person looking at the two boxes on a retailer shelf or on amazon web pages and just seeing the price tags.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Why would any retailer sell a digital download only system? The game systems have very little margin. The retailer is counting on the game sales to make up for that.
So many people using words like "disaster" to describe a multi billion dollar industry leader. How's that project you're working on?
Console game disks on the other hand are still required to serve their basic function out of the box, without ever having been connected to the internet at any point. At least I know this is the case for PS4 and Wii U.
I'm skeptical. I know some games are getting bigger than the discs they ship on. For example, Halo MCC came with my XBONE as a download and is installed at about 75 GB (and wasn't too much smaller, maybe 65 GB before the ODST DLC). There's no way that could've all compressed onto a 50GB dual-layer blu-ray. Then again, it might have, but I don't know because I don't have a disc.
And I always thought optical storage was digital.
If you use Steam and can't see any conceivable way this could work then umm...you're dumb.
If you like stuff hanging out, sure. IMO it makes more sense to put the new 2000GB disk in the console and have the original, less precious 500GB one as external. That may a be a small detail though.