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.

Comments

Fine with me.

[Sable Drakon]

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.

Re:Fine with me.

[Mitreya]

So long as they offer an experience comparable to Steam, including weekly sales and the deeper discounts around Summer/Winter.

Oh, it would be the same experience, but without the discounts. Especially for exclusive franchises. I think they just want to control sale process and prevent used-game resale.

Also, I have never used Steam -- do they have a contingency for when they go out of business?

I've got no issues with always-on, since I'm always connected anyway.

Wait until you move into a building with "free/included" internet that blocks a bunch of ports to keep that free internet usage down. I cannot connect to any game servers from home.

Woes == Customer Dissent

[Kunedog]

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.

90% of the titles are actually download only now

[Lumpy]

you get a disc that tells it to download a 20gb "update" that is actually the whole freaking game.

Steam games can be lent and modded

[tepples]

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.

The problem is obvious

[dackroyd]

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.

Re:The problem is obvious

[Opportunist]

That's the staple of C-Level management these days. Pump it, dump it, move on to the next company.

Re:The problem is obvious

[Xest]

I think letting him off by saying it's just because he was leaving understates the issue. Let's be clear, Don Mattrick was an anti-consumer arsehole who simply had no idea what he was doing.

Since he left Microsoft's Xbox division has done a complete u-turn, they're actually incredibly responsive to user demands now, and seem genuinely sensitive to gamers concerns going so far as to ditch their previous pet project Kinect from the majority of console bundles a while ago and providing dashboard changes and functionality people actually asked for, usually within short order.

I suspect the reason Mattrick was looking for a new job in the first place was because no one else at Microsoft liked or trusted him either, it's pretty obvious the whole culture at the Xbox division changed when he fucked off, and that couldn't happen if many other people there agreed with his direction, the fact the change happened so quickly and was night and day suggests he was using his position of authority to make a lot of staff implement a lot of things they didn't actually want to implement.

The problem is that the damage Mattrick did is lasting, people still parrot a lot of myths about the X1 based on things that were, once, in the product development plan under Mattrick but ditched even before the console was released and thankfully never came to fruition (e.g. you could always disable the Kinect camera and unplug it and stuff worked fine, right from day 1). Similarly console sales have really struggled to recover because of this early damage and it's still lagging against the PS4.

I think it's safe to say that Mattrick is the biggest failure in the world of gaming in the last decade. He's the Stephen Elop of the video game world. He should probably be relegated to something like sweeping the streets with a brush or something where he can't do as much financial damage as he did to the X1 programme.

Re:Offline mode on reinstall?

[PopeRatzo]

How will your disks survive if your house has a fire?

And how will you play Borderlands 2 after a meteor destroys all life on Earth?

You didn't think of that, did you? BOOM!

That team

[meerling]

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.

Re:Sad to see them give-up on so much...

[AK Marc]

They should include a 1TB HD, and preload the drive with every game available for launch. Dial-up needed to activate, but no downloads needed to play any launch games on launch day.

But I'm sure they'd worry about someone hacking it.

Re:Offline mode on reinstall?

[Darinbob]

Get a replacement at GOG.com for a cheaper price than Steam and without any DRM.

Re:No discs = no buy

[TWX]

I honestly don't care what the medium actually is, I want media. I don't want a company to be able to take away titles that I've bought because they screwed up somehow. Same reason why I have not yet subscribed to a paid movie service, I want to be able to watch the movies that I have access to forever, not simply for the time that a particular service temporarily has rights. I want to have access to a permanent library, not something temporary and based on shifting license agreements and shifting tastes coupled with limited storage.

The real example was, ironically enough, 1984 that was yanked from networked ebook readers of a certain variety when there was a dispute. Sorry, I'm not going to have that happen to my movies, my books, my games.

Re:Offline mode on reinstall?

[drinkypoo]

You don't do backups? If you back up your Steam folder, and your "My Games" folder, just restore it to wherever you want and point your Steam install to those directories.

Bullshit. Some games don't have DRM, but all the AAA ones do, and they aren't playable until they are blessed by Steam, which can't happen until Steam is blessed by Valve's servers, which can't happen until the installer says that it's been fully updated. You absolutely can not restore DRM-protected steam backups and play them without being online.

Not a troll, Valve shill

[drinkypoo]

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.

Re:No discs = no buy

[Bite The Pillow]

The next generation is years out, and you won't be in the target demographic. Specifically, cloud users will be.

Your only hope is to convince millions of individuals that their convenience is not worth the price.

Just like my favorite idiot, rms, whose paranoia turned out to be more than right.

And you will be ignored and ridiculed in the same way, and less effective. And Microsoft will get fistfulls of dollars from people who you failed to convince. And your choice will be Xbox Next or something like Steam.

Then we will learn how Next launch day was predictable, and could have been avoided, but the platform remains popular due to exclusives and some amount of backwards compatibility.

So do something now. Voting with your paycheck will not be an option, because you will be the minority.

Always On Sucks

[Idimmu Xul]

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.