That's the word and they have been stubborn about changing it despite outcry from current Xbox users.
You don't have to have online access to play the game mike, but to play with & against others worldwide...
That's the word and they have been stubborn about changing it despite outcry from current Xbox users.
You don't have to have online access to play the game mike, but to play with & against others worldwide...
Xbox has bluray and the future metal gear games are going to be on the xbox.
Microsoft's Shortsighted Approach Might Have Already Killed Xbox One
With Microsofthaving made it official that the new Xbox One will havedraconian limitations on playing used games, sharing games and being played without an internet connection, the question now is whether the console is dead on arrival with gamers. Given that the Xbox division has been one of the bright lights at Microsoft in recent years (even though its profit contribution is fairly small), this is no small act of self-immolation by the software giant. Is it too soon to write the obituary of a console that hasn’t even been released to the public yet? Perhaps, but perhaps not.
Consider that Xbox One and Playstation 4 from Sony are going to launch at almost exactly the same time with almost exactly the same hardware inside. Sony has already staked out a marketing position targeting the hardcore gaming constituency. By contrast, Microsoft clearly downplayed that message at its launch announcement, touting the console’s ability to act as a TV companion at least as much as a gaming machine. With the E3 gaming conference coming Monday, perhaps Microsoft hoped to gain gamers’ attention then, but today’s news is likely to be so off-putting, it’s not entirely clear Microsoft will ever be able to change the perception around Xbox One. That perception: It’s only a part-time gamer’s machine with things like Kinect that hardcore players don’t much care about and a lot of money-grabbing features and “Big Brother” surveillance built in. This is supposed to be the future of entertainment, it’s worth mentioning.
The negatives have been detailed well in fellow Forbes’ contributor Dave Thier’s post that I linked above, but specifically, Microsoft is absolutely going to war with a couple of key features people have taken for granted since almost the days of Atari:
Your right to buy used games is no longer absolute. Publishers can simply make titles unavailable for resale or can possibly charge fees to allow you to “reactivate” a used game — even up to the original price of the game. There is a $2 billion used game market for a reason: Games are expensive. Who wins here? The publishers have railed against the used-game market for years because they don’t like not receiving a cut on secondary sales. But realistically, someone buying the first Call of Duty for $15 in the used bin is a potential customer for the newest version at $60 this Christmas. There was a marketing benefit that publishers received for free even without a piece of the action. Who loses here? Pretty much everyone else: Gamers, GameStop , eBay, the friends you traded games with.
Game rentals as we know them are effectively dead. For the admitted minority of people who enjoyed services like Gamefly or borrowed a title for a day or two from Redbox, the restrictions on one’s ability to share games mean there will be no more of that. While there are some new sharing features built into Xbox One, they in no way replace the ability to just bring a disc over to a friend’s house and play the game whenever you want to. That behavior is more or less over. Perhaps new rental models will emerge, especially with all games having an option to download them. But make no mistake, this is war on discs and your rights of ownership. It hasn’t gone entirely well for music, movie and book lovers when it’s been declared in the past and it looks ugly here.
Offline play is over. If you enjoyed taking your Xbox up to the fishing cabin for a weekend, forget it — unless the cabin has broadband. There was a lot of piracy in the last generation of consoles and these always-on internet requirements are designed to put an end to that for good. They’ll probably work, but not without cost and a lot of unhappy people. While the expectation around certain games has been you need to be online — think World of Warcraft – the idea you needed to connect just to play Halo is a new and unwelcome change. Microsoft freaked people out at the Xbox One launch with the suggestion that the Kinect’s camera was always going to be watching you and thankfully confirmed today you’ll be able to shut that off. But effectively, your Xbox will always be watching — or else it will just cut you off.
There’s a lot of money at stake. All of these ideas are designed to make someone more money, whether it’s game publishers or Microsoft itself. Already the Xbox tended to push people in the direction of a paid subscription to Xbox Live in a way that Playstation didn’t. That’s been quite successful for Microsoft and is a moneymaker. But there’s a fine line between asking for money and pushing people over the edge. With the move away from used games and the need to be always on, it seems likely that the next shoe to drop will be that without a paid Xbox Live Gold subscription, Xbox One isn’t as good a console as otherwise. Given the already tenuous attitude toward Xbox One, the idea that it also requires a subscription might be a bridge too far; but don’t doubt Microsoft will try to cross it.
Sony must be pretty delighted right now. It already had won round one of the PR war without really even trying. Its PS4 reveal was a strange show of a lot of half-completed demos and vague promises. Since then Microsoft has first-person shot itself in the foot. Over and again. I have been skeptical since the PS4 launch about whether there was enough of a market for next-generation consoles to support these launches by Sony and Microsoft, who ran mostly neck-and-neck worldwide with PS3 and Xbox 360. Perhaps if one clearly dominates the other with their new models, there will be a clear winner after all. It’s early, but right now it’s shaping up that way.
With Microsofthaving made it official that the new Xbox One will havedraconian limitations on playing used games, sharing games and being played without an internet connection, the question now is whether the console is dead on arrival with gamers. Given that the Xbox division has been one of the bright lights at Microsoft in recent years (even though its profit contribution is fairly small), this is no small act of self-immolation by the software giant. Is it too soon to write the obituary of a console that hasn’t even been released to the public yet? Perhaps, but perhaps not.
Consider that Xbox One and Playstation 4 from Sony are going to launch at almost exactly the same time with almost exactly the same hardware inside. Sony has already staked out a marketing position targeting the hardcore gaming constituency. By contrast, Microsoft clearly downplayed that message at its launch announcement, touting the console’s ability to act as a TV companion at least as much as a gaming machine. With the E3 gaming conference coming Monday, perhaps Microsoft hoped to gain gamers’ attention then, but today’s news is likely to be so off-putting, it’s not entirely clear Microsoft will ever be able to change the perception around Xbox One. That perception: It’s only a part-time gamer’s machine with things like Kinect that hardcore players don’t much care about and a lot of money-grabbing features and “Big Brother” surveillance built in. This is supposed to be the future of entertainment, it’s worth mentioning.
The negatives have been detailed well in fellow Forbes’ contributor Dave Thier’s post that I linked above, but specifically, Microsoft is absolutely going to war with a couple of key features people have taken for granted since almost the days of Atari:
Your right to buy used games is no longer absolute. Publishers can simply make titles unavailable for resale or can possibly charge fees to allow you to “reactivate” a used game — even up to the original price of the game. There is a $2 billion used game market for a reason: Games are expensive. Who wins here? The publishers have railed against the used-game market for years because they don’t like not receiving a cut on secondary sales. But realistically, someone buying the first Call of Duty for $15 in the used bin is a potential customer for the newest version at $60 this Christmas. There was a marketing benefit that publishers received for free even without a piece of the action. Who loses here? Pretty much everyone else: Gamers, GameStop , eBay, the friends you traded games with.
Game rentals as we know them are effectively dead. For the admitted minority of people who enjoyed services like Gamefly or borrowed a title for a day or two from Redbox, the restrictions on one’s ability to share games mean there will be no more of that. While there are some new sharing features built into Xbox One, they in no way replace the ability to just bring a disc over to a friend’s house and play the game whenever you want to. That behavior is more or less over. Perhaps new rental models will emerge, especially with all games having an option to download them. But make no mistake, this is war on discs and your rights of ownership. It hasn’t gone entirely well for music, movie and book lovers when it’s been declared in the past and it looks ugly here.
Offline play is over. If you enjoyed taking your Xbox up to the fishing cabin for a weekend, forget it — unless the cabin has broadband. There was a lot of piracy in the last generation of consoles and these always-on internet requirements are designed to put an end to that for good. They’ll probably work, but not without cost and a lot of unhappy people. While the expectation around certain games has been you need to be online — think World of Warcraft – the idea you needed to connect just to play Halo is a new and unwelcome change. Microsoft freaked people out at the Xbox One launch with the suggestion that the Kinect’s camera was always going to be watching you and thankfully confirmed today you’ll be able to shut that off. But effectively, your Xbox will always be watching — or else it will just cut you off.
There’s a lot of money at stake. All of these ideas are designed to make someone more money, whether it’s game publishers or Microsoft itself. Already the Xbox tended to push people in the direction of a paid subscription to Xbox Live in a way that Playstation didn’t. That’s been quite successful for Microsoft and is a moneymaker. But there’s a fine line between asking for money and pushing people over the edge. With the move away from used games and the need to be always on, it seems likely that the next shoe to drop will be that without a paid Xbox Live Gold subscription, Xbox One isn’t as good a console as otherwise. Given the already tenuous attitude toward Xbox One, the idea that it also requires a subscription might be a bridge too far; but don’t doubt Microsoft will try to cross it.
Sony must be pretty delighted right now. It already had won round one of the PR war without really even trying. Its PS4 reveal was a strange show of a lot of half-completed demos and vague promises. Since then Microsoft has first-person shot itself in the foot. Over and again. I have been skeptical since the PS4 launch about whether there was enough of a market for next-generation consoles to support these launches by Sony and Microsoft, who ran mostly neck-and-neck worldwide with PS3 and Xbox 360. Perhaps if one clearly dominates the other with their new models, there will be a clear winner after all. It’s early, but right now it’s shaping up that way.
Microsoft To Reverse Xbox One Policies After Fan Revolt
6/19/2013
In a stunning reversal of the announced capabilities and restrictions of the Xbox One, Microsoft MSFT -1.08% has just made the next generation console race much more interesting.
Confirming a report from Giant Bomb earlier today, Microsoft has announced today that they’ve listened to player feedback, and are lifting two of the most important restrictions of the console. Here they are, pulled straight from Microsoft’s blog. The link may be not working, but rest assured the post was live at one point.
In addition, they’ve done away with region locking, and it should be noted that these changes come with a price.
“These changes will impact some of the scenarios we previously announced for Xbox One. The sharing of games will work as it does today, you will simply share the disc. Downloaded titles cannot be shared or resold. Also, similar to today, playing disc based games will require that the disc be in the tray. ”
But what’s been shouted from the rooftops the past few weeks is that this is a price most customers are more than willing to pay.
This seems like the best of both worlds, and it’s more or less identical to what Sony Sony has proposed for the PS4 on first glance. You can stick with disc based games to lend and share if you want, or you can build a digital library, understanding you can’t share it. And though the online check-in would have realistically affected a relatively small percentage of the player base, that group is surely celebrating right now. The same goes for those affected by region locking, which in truth is probably the bigger deal.
This whole sequence of events is, quite frankly, stunning. Microsoft was ultimately led to the right decision regarding these policies, but they had to be dragged kicking and screaming through the mud to get there. The past month has been nothing but a PR nightmare for them, with E3 possibly doing serious, lasting damage to the Xbox One. Even with these changes, it’s unclear what sort of trust and good faith they’ve lost along the way.
It’s hard to see this as anything but surrender from Microsoft to both outraged fans and Sony. Obviously Sony isn’t being mentioned at all in these new proclamations, but their shadow looms large here as these new policies mirror their own. I have to wonder how this affects any deals Microsoft had cut with publishers regarding used game policy, as there were surely many of those in place leading up to this change.
This was a necessary, direct response to public outcry, as even longtime loyalists were starting to swear off Microsoft as a result of these policies. And it wasn’t just rabid fanboys, the entire Xbox-loving military took offense to an internet requirement policy that seemed to say to them, “the Xbox One is not for you.” In truth, that’s how many people felt, those who liked lending discs, trading in old games for new ones, or having the ability to play completely offline. The Xbox One was not for them.
The question is, what happens now?
How forgiving will Xbox fans be with Microsoft here? To what degree does this pull them back on equal footing with Sony? There are still issues aplenty for the Xbox One, even with always-on and game lending/resale sorted out. There’s still the increasingly creepy Kinect, with its all-seeing and hearing eyes and ears that’s a mandatory part of the system. And most importantly, there’s still that $100 price difference from PS4′s $399 to their $499.
Before, the choice was incredibly obvious between consoles as the PS4 has way less restrictions and cost less to boot. Now, they essentially have the same capabilities, but one is $100 more. Between that fact and the goodwill Microsoft may have lost for good among customers, the PS4 is still in a pretty great position heading into November, even if the playing field has been leveled somewhat.
Still, it’s rather insane that the backlash to this was so great that it actually caused Microsoft to do a full 180 here. Perhaps it was mandatory with how much the Xbox One was getting slammed by the press and the public, but it’s still amazing they actually did it. Imagine how many headaches they could have saved by just having these policies from the get-go. This was Sony throwing a wrench in their works, plain and simple, and they were forced to respond. If the PS4 had simply fallen in line with Microsoft’s utopian vision of a new era of digital downloads and constant internet access, the resulting outcry would have surely been met with silence by both companies.
This console war just got even more interesting, and now it’s likely to be a much closer race in the early stages than before. This development obviously requires much more follow-up, and we’ll be checking in with Microsoft, publishers and fans for more angles to this breaking story.
6/19/2013
In a stunning reversal of the announced capabilities and restrictions of the Xbox One, Microsoft MSFT -1.08% has just made the next generation console race much more interesting.
Confirming a report from Giant Bomb earlier today, Microsoft has announced today that they’ve listened to player feedback, and are lifting two of the most important restrictions of the console. Here they are, pulled straight from Microsoft’s blog. The link may be not working, but rest assured the post was live at one point.
- 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.
- Trade-in, lend, resell, gift, and rent disc based games just like you do today – There will be no limitations to using and sharing games, it will work just as it does today on Xbox 360.
In addition, they’ve done away with region locking, and it should be noted that these changes come with a price.
“These changes will impact some of the scenarios we previously announced for Xbox One. The sharing of games will work as it does today, you will simply share the disc. Downloaded titles cannot be shared or resold. Also, similar to today, playing disc based games will require that the disc be in the tray. ”
But what’s been shouted from the rooftops the past few weeks is that this is a price most customers are more than willing to pay.
This seems like the best of both worlds, and it’s more or less identical to what Sony Sony has proposed for the PS4 on first glance. You can stick with disc based games to lend and share if you want, or you can build a digital library, understanding you can’t share it. And though the online check-in would have realistically affected a relatively small percentage of the player base, that group is surely celebrating right now. The same goes for those affected by region locking, which in truth is probably the bigger deal.
This whole sequence of events is, quite frankly, stunning. Microsoft was ultimately led to the right decision regarding these policies, but they had to be dragged kicking and screaming through the mud to get there. The past month has been nothing but a PR nightmare for them, with E3 possibly doing serious, lasting damage to the Xbox One. Even with these changes, it’s unclear what sort of trust and good faith they’ve lost along the way.
It’s hard to see this as anything but surrender from Microsoft to both outraged fans and Sony. Obviously Sony isn’t being mentioned at all in these new proclamations, but their shadow looms large here as these new policies mirror their own. I have to wonder how this affects any deals Microsoft had cut with publishers regarding used game policy, as there were surely many of those in place leading up to this change.
This was a necessary, direct response to public outcry, as even longtime loyalists were starting to swear off Microsoft as a result of these policies. And it wasn’t just rabid fanboys, the entire Xbox-loving military took offense to an internet requirement policy that seemed to say to them, “the Xbox One is not for you.” In truth, that’s how many people felt, those who liked lending discs, trading in old games for new ones, or having the ability to play completely offline. The Xbox One was not for them.
The question is, what happens now?
How forgiving will Xbox fans be with Microsoft here? To what degree does this pull them back on equal footing with Sony? There are still issues aplenty for the Xbox One, even with always-on and game lending/resale sorted out. There’s still the increasingly creepy Kinect, with its all-seeing and hearing eyes and ears that’s a mandatory part of the system. And most importantly, there’s still that $100 price difference from PS4′s $399 to their $499.
Before, the choice was incredibly obvious between consoles as the PS4 has way less restrictions and cost less to boot. Now, they essentially have the same capabilities, but one is $100 more. Between that fact and the goodwill Microsoft may have lost for good among customers, the PS4 is still in a pretty great position heading into November, even if the playing field has been leveled somewhat.
Still, it’s rather insane that the backlash to this was so great that it actually caused Microsoft to do a full 180 here. Perhaps it was mandatory with how much the Xbox One was getting slammed by the press and the public, but it’s still amazing they actually did it. Imagine how many headaches they could have saved by just having these policies from the get-go. This was Sony throwing a wrench in their works, plain and simple, and they were forced to respond. If the PS4 had simply fallen in line with Microsoft’s utopian vision of a new era of digital downloads and constant internet access, the resulting outcry would have surely been met with silence by both companies.
This console war just got even more interesting, and now it’s likely to be a much closer race in the early stages than before. This development obviously requires much more follow-up, and we’ll be checking in with Microsoft, publishers and fans for more angles to this breaking story.
Bringing my Intellevision out of the grave and sticking with it.
You have no idea how good I use to be at that.
My defense was unstoppable.
I could go 20 games without giving up a run.
Had all the buttons memorized where I did not need the slide in pad.
