XBOX One Revealed (1 Viewer)

[DaveF]

Used laws are a mess:
TRUTH.
http://penny-arcade.com/report/article/xbox-one-and-the-first-sale-doctrine-there-is-no-silver-bullet-for-protecti

I keep clicking these PA links, but they never have any comics. When did they become a text blog?

 

[Sam Posten]

Ben Kuchera was hired as their games journalist, he has hired some more staff. They are some of the best and most honest and reliable in the industry. They serve as a nice counter point to the snark of the comics.

Penny arcade is a 40 person company now with many tendrils. It's awesome.

 

[DaveF]

Ah. I only know the comics, which I read when someone links to them.I enjoyed Kuchera's writing at Ars. I'll look at his PA work.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Don't forget the deck-building game!

 

[JonGMH]

The new Xbox One looks nice. It should have enough grunt to satisfy the game developers and with it being an X86 architecture (like the Sony PS4) it may just keep down development costs.

Both the PS4 and Xbox One will be top-end games systems. The success of the Xbox One will depend on whether pre-owned games will be playable on it and also the TV capability. I think that the 500mb will be a little small but I believe that MS are looking more towards cloud storage so the integration of Skydrive will be interesting.

 

[Sam Posten]

Here comes the pain!

To ensure Xbox One works optimally and can offer the experiences described above, it is designed with the following networking requirements:


[*]For an optimal experience, we recommend a broadband connection of 1.5Mbps. (For reference, the average global internet connection speed as measured recently by Akamai was 2.9 Mbps). In areas where an Ethernet connection is not available, you can connect using mobile broadband.

[*]While a persistent connection is not required, Xbox One is designed to verify if system, application or game updates are needed and to see if you have acquired new games, or resold, traded in, or given your game to a friend. Games that are designed to take advantage of the cloud may require a connection.

[/list]With Xbox One 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.

http://news.xbox.com/2013/06/connected
F you microsoft:

[*]Trade-in and resell your disc-based games: Today, some gamers choose to sell their old disc-based games back for cash and credit. We designed Xbox One so game publishers can enable you to trade in your games at participating retailers. Microsoft does not charge a platform fee to retailers, publishers, or consumers for enabling transfer of these games.

[*]Give your games to friends: Xbox One is designed so game publishers can enable you to give your disc-based games to your friends. There are no fees charged as part of these transfers. There are two requirements: you can only give them to people who have been on your friends list for at least 30 days and each game can only be given once.
[/list]

http://news.xbox.com/2013/06/license

You keep on using that word I don't think it means what you think it means:
http://news.xbox.com/2013/06/privacy

 

[Sam Posten]

Brutal:http://kotaku.com/the-xbox-one-just-had-a-very-bad-day-511766497

 

[Morgan Jolley]

I'm really, really, really hoping Sony is not doing this, too. Then again, maybe Nintendo would get the love that they're looking for.

 

[Bryan^H]

PS4 here I come!

And continued support of the 360, for however long that may be.

 

[Sam Posten]

Not mad, sad:http://consoleation.wordpress.com/2013/06/07/the-war-on-used-games-xbox-one-consumers-zero/

 

[mattCR]

I'll be shocked if Sony doesn't do basically the exact same thing with regards to used games/etc.. because if development houses get that kind of protection on one, they will get it on both. This may leave Nintendo as the only one without said system, which may be why outside developers aren't pouring resources.

 

[Sam Posten]

Yup:

If Microsoft really wanted to do away with used games, all it had to do was get rid of discs altogether, distributing games exclusively online. Microsoft and Sony both decided the world wasn't quite ready for that due to the current state of online bandwidth vs. game size, but such a move could have solved a lot of perceived problems. Xbox 360 owners are already used to the idea of buying Xbox Live Arcade games that they have never been able to resell or lend to friends. On the PC side, Steam has grown to dominate game sales despite having no mechanism to resell purchases.

The key to user acceptance in both of these cases, though, is that the services tend to make up for their lack of resale with lower prices—XBLA through a hard $20 pricing cap, Steam through frequent and steep sales on older games. While Microsoft has occasionally made moves toward similar discounts on downloadable versions of retail Xbox 360 games, the online Xbox Live Marketplace often sells games at their original price even years after release and usually utterly fails to be price-competitive with used copies of the same game discs. As we've argued previously, getting users to buy in to a world without used games is going to require publishers to offer a lot more flexibility on new game pricing. Doing this right could benefit both publishers and consumers by cutting out the used game retail middleman.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/06/xbox-one-discs-and-downloads-better-than-feared-worse-than-hoped/

 

[Sam Posten]

Lol

 

[Dave Upton]

It's sad because it's true.

 

[Bryan^H]

Not mad, sad:http://consoleation.wordpress.com/2013/06/07/the-war-on-used-games-xbox-one-consumers-zero/

Great article Sam. A sobering quote from it:

"Thanks to additional controls that Internet connectivity gives console makers and publishers, we’ll soon realize that we buy licenses with limitations. The publisher still owns the game after consumers pay $60; you’ll just be granted access to play it. The argument about owning games versus being given a limited-use license to access what is on a disc or cartridge has been around for a long time, but with thanks to the Internet, it’s no longer an argument. Consumers own nothing. The game they buy is never theirs. It’s like going to a concert or sporting event, you pay a price to get in and you get to enjoy that event. You can take pictures and enjoy the experience, but it does end and you do eventually leave. With this new generation of games, you pay a price and get access to a game, but it’s a finite experience and when it ends– when you’re done– that’s it."

 

[Aaron Silverman]

The new issue of Game Informer (GameStop's house magazine, which FWIW is actually a great mag) appeared in my mailbox yesterday. It's the "Playstation 4 Issue." Coincidence?

It was probably planned before all the XBox One info came out, but it still made me chuckle.

 

[Edwin-S]

Witb all those "great" features, MS should change the name of this to DeadBoX. I stopped buying Ubisoft's PC games when they started requiring an internet connection to play them. I can do the same for any console that decides to adopt that practice. These companies need to learn that they exist at the convenience of their customers, not the other way around.

 

[sean1976]

Witb all those "great" features, MS should change the name of this to DeadBoX. I stopped buying Ubisoft's PC games when they started requiring an internet connection to play them. I can do the same for any console that decides to adopt that practice. These companies need to learn that they exist at the convenience of their customers, not the other way around.

I'm not going to buy either at this point.. as I've sunk a ton of money into my PC to FINALLY be able to play all those games I used to see look twice as good on this platform. That being said, I was a big fan of the PS3, found it very versatile, got thousands of hours of entertainment out of it, and still use it as my reference BD player. I personally hope that Sony is realizes that gamers will abandon the XBOX in droves if they find a way to allow re-sale and playing of used games on their system. Over the years they HAVE made some smart decisions - I hope this is going to be one of them!

 

[DaveF]

I don't know what to make of this. Mostly I agree with a line from an earlier article: MS and PS4 failing to answer this easy questions makes it seems they don't actually know. And that uncertainty only makes me want to wait and see, rather than buying at launch.But do I care about these restrictions? I'm not ready to have a 5 minute hate, yet.I sold my N64 system on eBay, my GameCube system to a coworker, and sold a couple of 360 games and accessories on eBay. I assume I will sell my 360 on eBay in a year or so. If I can't sell the next system and games in five years, that's an annoyance, but ok. I don't expect to sell my Kindle book library or my iPad software library. Good and bad, this where were heading and I'm accepting that with my purchases.Not being able to borrow and lend game is also a minor concern. Tree years ago, I was borrowing games regularly. Currently, I don't have anyone to borrow from, so it's off my radar. But the "family" thing might solve this; if I'm sharing regularly with a friend, perhaps were in each others network and its good.The daily net connection is a little odd in frequency. Why every 24 hrs? Why not every week or two, like TiVo? It's not like games need updates daily? If they do, they're broken.But still, is this a problem? I pay for Internet, my house and every device is connected. If I lose Internet access for more than a day, I'm going to be curled into a fetal ball, whimpering. Xbox One connection errors are lesser problems in that scenario for me.What I've not heard are what benefits I get for these new restrictions? If I'm still paying full price for games on disc, these restrictions on used sales and network checks do nothing to help me.I've been leaning towards getting a new console this year. These uncertainties make me want to wait. But we're still really devoid of info. No hardware or games are for sale or out for review.

 

[Sam Posten]

I'm actually hoping the negative publicity makes it easier for me to get one on launch day.