Microsoft defends the Xbox One’s licensing, used game policies (1 Viewer)

[mattCR]

I've lost track of which thread has the ps4 price: does the $399 include the eye?

No, the eye is seperate $59. But, seriously, I can't think of a single game I care about that uses it, so I'm glad it's an option not needed.

Meanwhile, since the PS4 allows you to swap HDDs, I'm seriously debating swapping the 500Gb mecahnical SATA with a 256Gb SSD

 

[DaveF]

That makes more sense of the Xbox price to me. Xbox is more expensive by making the Kinect standard. So they are making that standard kit, and telling developers its safe to design games against it. The Xbox could be priced cheaper by not bundling the kinect. Presumably MS considered and rejected that notion with a view towards the systems future. I don't know if this is a good plan, or if I'll buy into it. But the pricing makes more sense to me.

 

[Edwin-S]

I've lost track of which thread has the ps4 price: does the $399 include the eye?

No. The eye is extra. About 60 bucks more from what I have read. So about 460 bucks for both. Still 40 cheaper than XBOX1 with half the DRM.

Some marketing wag at MS must have thought he was being clever to suggest a pun for the name of their new console. XBOX1 = XBOX won. Har de har.
MS must be really confident that gamers would just fall in love with DRM out the ying yang or maybe they think gamers are stupid due to playing too many video games.

 

[mattCR]

That makes more sense of the Xbox price to me. Xbox is more expensive by making the Kinect standard. So they are making that standard kit, and telling developers its safe to design games against it. The Xbox could be priced cheaper by not bundling the kinect. Presumably MS considered and rejected that notion with a view towards the systems future.I don't know if this is a good plan, or if I'll buy into it. But the pricing makes more sense to me.

I think if they said they were just force bundling it, people might be OK... just leave it disconnected if you don't want it or aren't using it. But the fact you have to have it connected for the system to work sucks. I think I mentioned but a few years ago we roadtripped.. and you could take the XBOX along. Now, with it's required online as well as required Kinect, no way I can take it anywhere to setup.. too much PITA, too likely it bricks itself.

And the required connection of camera/mic is weird/creepy. At least on the PS3 end you can decide and put it away when you want. Maybe later some awesome games come out that use Kinect, but I'd be surprised as to what they would be...

 

[DaveF]

I don't disagree; games are moving towards appstore lock down. Several typical "edge" cases where this approach fails. But i see what MS is doing, and its rational. xbox has has a kinect, count on it. like an iphone has a camera and touchscreen, like the wii had motion hardware,like the nintendo had A and B buttons, the xbox will have the kinect.And the 80% case, is anyone spending $500 on a game console has broadband. And that console is going into a living room and will sit there for 5 years, unmoved. Maybe they'll dial back on the phone-home reqt, but for now they're saying the road trip case, the nuclear submarine case, is rare and they don't care.I get it. In the way that I like Apple and how they actually design, this is exciting. MS has an idea, a big design, and they're going for it. They're not calling this Microsoft Windows 8 Console, and giving it a Start button, and making it run Office. This is something new and interesting. It might be terrible and a failure. But it's interesting

 

[Edwin-S]

I guess the only way we'll tell if MS derped is through sales. It sounds like XBOX1 isn't doing too bad with pre-order sales. There are lots of people who don't mind drinking MS's poison Kool-aid if that is the case.

MattCR. it's confirmed that the PS4 drive is user swappable, unlike the XBOX1?

Edit: It just occurred to me that people pre-ordering the XBOX1 are probably the same types that thought DIVX was a revolutionary concept. Obviously, Circuit City was just too far ahead of the curve.

 

[Type A]

Yusuf Mehdi tried to defend the licensing policy for XBox one... "This is a big change, consumers don't always love change, and there's a lot of education we have to provide to make sure that people understand."

You won't find consumers having a love loss for changes they perceive to be in their own best interest. No, these "big changes" are not loved because they are perceived to be in M$'s favor, not the consumer's.

Mehdi states "We're trying to do something pretty big in terms of moving the industry forward for console gaming into the digital world. We believe the digital world is the future, and we believe digital is better."

If HD DVD had won the format war would you feel the same way Mehdi?

 

[Aaron Silverman]

An interesting semi-related issue that I ran into over the weekend: My son and I were playing Life of George, the Lego game where you buy a set of actual bricks and then download an iOS or Android game to use them with (essentially, it gives you a picture of something to build, then you build it and take a photo, and it scores you based on how quickly and accurately you built it).

I noticed that the apps are no longer on the App Store or Google Play. So if I ever have to re-initialize or replace my iPad, the game is GONE.

 

[mattCR]

I guess the only way we'll tell if MS derped is through sales. It sounds like XBOX1 isn't doing too bad with pre-order sales. There are lots of people who don't mind drinking MS's poison Kool-aid if that is the case.MattCR. it's confirmed that the PS4 drive is user swappable, unlike the XBOX1?Edit: It just occurred to me that people pre-ordering the XBOX1 are probably the same types that thought DIVX was a revolutionary concept. Obviously, Circuit City was just too far ahead of the curve.

Yes, Sony confirmed the hdd can be changed by the user, same as ps3. This is something big for me, I've had two xbox360 hdds and one ps3 hdd die. Changing the ps3 one was super cheap.

 

[DaveF]

An interesting semi-related issue that I ran into over the weekend: My son and I were playing Life of George, the Lego game where you buy a set of actual bricks and then download an iOS or Android game to use them with (essentially, it gives you a picture of something to build, then you build it and take a photo, and it scores you based on how quickly and accurately you built it). I noticed that the apps are no longer on the App Store or Google Play. So if I ever have to re-initialize or replace my iPad, the game is GONE.

you should sync to your computer so you have a copy there. I've recovered an app from my backup drive that had deleted from the App Store

 

[DaveF]

Edit: It just occurred to me that people pre-ordering the XBOX1 are probably the same types that thought DIVX was a revolutionary concept. Obviously, Circuit City was just too far ahead of the curve.

pre-orderers are the die hard fans who know there's a system to buy before it exists, and hang out on forums arguing about it. It's the early adopters who take the risks and lumps of new systems.I'm very much wait and see. I skipped the Wii and Kinect, so the whole motion system fad. I wonder if it will be fun; the new kinect could be fun for casual games. And maybe it gets integrated well into Bioshock type games. The living room stuff looks neat.But there's MS weirdness with lending and used games and frequent checkin. And I'll let the early adopters figure out if the Xbox is spying on me and sending my Achievements to the NSA. I don't know. After watching a new video of Miyamoto touting Pikmin 3, I wonder if I have to get a Wii u?

 

[Aaron Silverman]

you should sync to your computer so you have a copy there. I've recovered an app from my backup drive that had deleted from the App Store

Interesting. Can I do that with a PC, or does it have to be a Mac?

 

[Hanson]

It works on Windows. It's just an iTunes thing.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Interesting, thanks. I'll check into that.

 

[Sam Posten]

pre-orderers are the die hard fans who know there's a system to buy before it exists, and hang out on forums arguing about it. It's the early adopters who take the risks and lumps of new systems.

Sometimes, but not this generation. Have you seen the difference that this generational leap brings?

It's too early to say for sure but this year will be the absolute craziest ever with both amazing games on brand new platforms on top of the best of the previous generation.

I am excite!

 

[Sam Posten]

Interesting scoop if true:

Patrick Klepek ‏@patrickklepek 58m Multiple sources inform me Microsoft will pull what amounts to a complete reversal on its DRM policies today. http://www.giantbomb.com/articles/microsoft-to-pull-complete-reversal-on-xbox-one-dr/1100-4673/ …

 

[DaveF]

Kotaku reports daily check in is removed. But in a commensurate "Screw you guys, I'm going home" move, MS is also removing some digital other features.

 

[DaveF]

Sometimes, but not this generation. Have you seen the difference that this generational leap brings?

It's too early to say for sure but this year will be the absolute craziest ever with both amazing games on brand new platforms on top of the best of the previous generation.

I am excite!

Fair enough.

 

[FoxyMulder]

I think trust has to come into this, we know what Microsoft wanted to do, they have been forced to do a complete u-turn on the internet connection every 24hrs and on used games, their console would have suffered if they had not, my fear is that they could do another u-turn in a few years time and put these restrictions back on the table, i don't trust them, i also think consumer confidence in them will have been damaged, you can't just put the genie back in the bottle now and pretend everything is normal.

As far as the generational leap goes, i don't think these new consoles are there, i think there are small leaps but this isn't like going from an XBox or PS2 to an XBox 360 or PS3, the leaps this time are much less, sure we get proper 1080p and 60fps, there is 4K streaming capabilities and maybe even 4K disc playback with a firmware upgrade, but i don't think this generation is a massive leap, certainly not as big as i had hoped for.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

Honestly, the Xbox One features wouldn't impact me negatively too much (the used game thing would, but I'd live). The main problem for me is that they have a good system with neat-but-essentially-unnecessary features at a higher cost and the exclusive games don't really mean anything to me. Sony's exclusives are more significant to me.