What's that? Oh, that's just the sound of Silent's massive disappointment. My internet goes down for days at a time, there's no way I'm gonna buy a console that requires me to connect every 24 hours. I barely connect on a daily basis as is, and play most of my games offline nowadays. I can only hope they rethink this in the next 8 months. Come to think of it, if they don't the next edition of Xbox One better not need this.
I hope they develop Halo 5 for the 360 as well. My love of Halo does not supersede my hatred of Microsoft for these policies however.
never gunna happen Halo 5 will be Xbox One exclusive, it's their console seller. I wonder if there would be a way to hack it to remove all this ridiculous DRM or at least the always online thing.
It's not "always online" though I suppose that's easier to say then "must be connected at least once a day". Also, Microsoft claimed that publishers would be given the option to enforce DRM so I doubt there is anything people could do to the actual xbox to get around something the publishers control. The best option we have is to just not buy it and speak up about it in as many places as possible. With enough negative press we can change the policy.
unless im reading this wrong, i dont see the problem with used games. it says games can be re-sold without a fee. honestly i see more positives from this than negatives.
Dumbass. Try living in New Zealand. Our BEST broadband speeds are more equivelent to what Dial up was when I left the states back in 04 than any proper connection you guys have now. Hell if it rains heavily I have trouble connecting. And that is assuming you can even get connected because the SINGLE company that owns all the lines in the country is limiting connections at junctions to artificially create a low supply to hike the prices. So yea live down here for just a few months and then go back and say you have the slowest internet speeds of any developed country. I doubt that it's permanent. At the most it would mean that after the 24 hours yea you would not be able to play games until you connected again, but making it a permanent thing would almost be inline with their current stupidity so who knows.
What Microsoft said is that they won't personally charging a platform fee but instead will allow the publishers to make that call. The publishers could even be allowed to decide to not allow their games to be sold used at all. This decision by Microsoft is like leaving the door to a room filled with cake open with a bunch of fat people outside. Sure they aren't charging people a fee but they are allowing companies that undoubtably will. It's the publishers that have been so against used games at the start, giving them control over the market on them will destroy that market. Microsoft also stated their policies on this are subject to change so Microsoft could charge a fee if it wanted to. Also, on top of giving the keys to publishers who already have a shaky relationship with consumers, used games will only be sold from "participating retailers" . That means no private sale on services like eBay, Craigslist, or even a yard sale. So, please, enlighten me on the "positives" of this situation.
And to Waylander, of course I don't mean permanently. For people with intermittent Internet access or none at all it might as well be. A gaming console needs to be able to play games no matter the circumstance. Putting up barriers to do so is beyond stupid. This is not a Bluray player that can occasionally play games, it's a gaming console.
i meant positives of the xboxone in general, not just the used game policy. the positives are the possibilities of cloud storage. like being able to go to a friends house and play my entire library of games just by signing into my profile. the used games stuff isnt a negative for me because i dont think i have ever traded in a game or bought a used game, and i dont see myself doing it any time soon. the chump change they give you for trading in a game and the five dollar difference between a new and used game hardly seem worth it to me. the 24 hour connection doesnt bother me bacause i have constant access to the internet, so does everyone i know. call it selfish if you want, but none of what they have announced bothers me. this is what the world is moving to, not just in gaming.
I don't see a downside to the end of the used game market. It's an industry built on resale of licensed digital goods - when you buy a game, you don't get the rights to the software or distribution of it, you get a license for it, a right to play it. It's not a physical purchase; the only physical purchase is for the CD used to transfer the data. Used games create a loop that reduces the amount of money publishers and developers make from the sale of their game. The moment it's used, it's a used game and its sale only ever results in profit to used game industries like gamestop (with the exception of DLC and restricted content like multiplayer passes). This means that normally, developers and publishers can no longer take a cut of the sale, any profit goes to the company retailing it. While it is understandable that not every used game sale is comparable to a first hand purchase (many might not buy it for a high price for whatever reason), that is a very one sided argument, as from the perspective of a publisher even those who can and would've bought it first hand are more likely to buy it for a cheap price with a deal second hand, something not considered when looked at through the eyes of a consumer. In addition to this, once they've played the used game, they may then sell it back to the company, who then may sell it again - and so the used game company can make significantly more profit through this cycle. The only disadvantage I've ever heard is that it's "bad for the consumer" as if a cheaper deal is somehow a right and not a privilege. Comparably I could complain when a 50% off deal at a supermarket ends. In terms of getting rid of the used game - you bought a license, not the rights to redistribute the game (to sell your license), so you should also not consider a right to resale. Used game sales also hurt the video game industry - whether you think every used game purchase is equivalent to a full retail purchase or not, the profit a game makes is objectively lower when used games come into play. It also encourages publishers like EA to restrict second hand game features - like multiplayer passes. (Not that second hand restricted content is bad - if you choose to pay less money to the publishers and developers of the game, I consider it well within their rights to restrict the game appropriately, it is simply a negative in that many people are annoyed when they pay for a used game, realise it has less content and then have to purchase additional features)
clever move letting the publishers make the call Microsoft is good with electronics, but their ability to manipulate PR is second to none. I only hope that with today's digital downloads becoming "a thing", that those game get less expensive, or at least the difference is paid to the game devs.
I completely agree. I would rather fork up the money to support whatever developer/publisher anyways. People make their living off of it, and they deserve it IMO. My only concern is that X1 recommends a 1.5 mbs download speed, which is my peak.
The 360 currently has cloud storage and it's still yet to be determined whether games that utilize Microsoft's cloud will run any better, right now it's just sounds nice to say. And yes, signing into another xbox and playing your games is a positive, I won't deny that. Still unclear if that privilege applies only to gold members and that would mean your friend wouldn't have access to their games while you are signed in on their xbox. Couple things with your second statement. First of all, the internet thing connecting doesn't affect me but I still acknowledge it as a major negative due to all the people that it affects. The same thing here, just because you might not buy used games doesn't mean millions of other people don't (and seeing how strong the used game market was, I'm guessing a lot of people were using it). Next, the "chump" change you're referring to is specific to GameStop. Gamestop is not the only avenue to get used games and there is only a "five dollar difference" like right after a game comes out (and any difference is price is worth it when you buy enough games along with other costs of living, why do you think people get coupons to save a dollar on things?). Used games depreciate in value much much faster than new games. I've seen $60 "new" games in Gamestop that came out over a year before while the used game was going for $20. It's also a horribly self-centered attitude to take of "well these issues don't affect me, those other people (millions of people) should just get with the times". Defending a bad consumer rights policy by comparing it to a similarly bad consumer policy doesn't make the case better. Yes, I realize software companies have done this sort of thing for awhile. Software companies usually also have to defend against piracy as well. Just because people are more used to this kind of structure on PC doesn't mean it is good. Would you be fine with other things being licensed to you? What if all the objects in your house were merely licensed to you? Your logic should work for every object just as well as it does for software. This is just not true. It assumes that the money people spend on the used game would have went to a new game had the used game not existed. This is the same argument the music labels tried to use when killing Napster. They figured that because were getting their music through ways that didn't give them money that those same people would be buying the music if those services weren't around. In reality people just moved to different ways of getting the music for free. Also, the publishers and developers get 100% of the money from DLC. Regardless of a game being used or new they will get DLC money. I'm sure you've heard of the first sale doctrine? Publishers have no right to that money once the product was sold the first time just like any other company has no right to the money of anything you sell at a yard sale. And again...what's bad about the used game company making more money? Offering games for cheaper prices is not an evil concept yet you're treating it like it is. Again, GameStop is not the only girl in town and if you disagree with their corporate policies (which I do to in many cases, the money they offer for trade-ins is criminal) fine, but don't demonize all of used games because you don't want to see GameStop succeed. It's only a license under this new system. It wasn't before and that's the whole argument. Software that went by the policy wasn't consumer friendly then, and this change Microsoft is doing isn't going to be consumer friendly now. This is so full of crap I'm having a hard time processing it. Video games, more than any other medium are driven by user feedback. Whether the game comes used or new people playing a game and giving it positive feedback are what drives more people to want to buy it or play it. This is how the first Call of Duty Modern Warfare game became start of the juggernaut that Call of Duty is or how every single person bought a Wii. Because other people told them to get it or try it. The more people playing the game the more money being made with DLC purchases or through new sales. Again you're demonizing used games by comparing the wrong aspects of it. A used game is the same as the new game in every factor but who gets the money at the end. And yes, publisher's who have horrible track records with their handling of consumers, come up with strategies to make more money, big surprise. EA also stopped their online pass due to negative feedback. Also, this whole "well more money goes to the developers I like" is also bull. The developers get paid a salary no matter how well the game does commercially. The publishers get like 99% of the money from new sales (with like a dollar or two going to the retailer). Indirectly if the game sells well the publisher might decide to give the developers a bonus or give the developer more work to do but it isn't guaranteed. Publishers have much more of a track record closing development studios even when sales were pretty good, just ask Square Enix who laid off large quantities of the Tomb Raider, Sleeping Dogs, and Hitman teams or how about OMGPop being closed by Zynga because they didn't realize paying 200 million for a studio that developed one successful game wasn't a good business move. When it comes right down to it, any policy that limits the amount of people that can play a game by drawing lines in the sand is not a consumer friendly policy. Saying "people don't have rights to something they don't own" isn't an argument, it's regurgitating a bad policy that people accept because they have no say in the matter other than to just not support companies that do that.
So I just went and did a speed test to see if my internet can even handle that. Going to the closest server I physically can, my download speed isn't even that high. 1.49 mbs download speed, and only one person other than myself is using my internet right now... So theoretically, I won't be running the X1 in optimal conditions either. Basically I'm paying 500+ dollars for a console that comes with stuff I don't want and that I'll barely be able to run properly. So yeah, this isn't looking good for my chances of buying this console...
A bad customer rights policy? I wouldn't say so, I think it's perfectly fair. I didn't say it was like that to make the case better, I said it was like because that's how it is. I'm ignoring all of the arguments that clearly aren't directed at me as I didn't bring any of them up, nor do I necessarily support any of them. I said in practically the next line that not every used game sale was equivalent to a new game sale, so that entire first paragraph means nothing to me other than an example that apparently supports an argument I've already made. As for the law, I've never heard of it. I've not found a point in that article that suggests the UK support that law (nobody localised this debate), nor do I necessarily agree with it. And yes, I know they get 100% of dlc money. There are plenty of games without DLC. I'm noticing a worrying trend in your responses, they seem to be a point, a bad dilemma and an example of said dilemma. Firstly, I named gamestop as one example. I have nothing against gamestop specifically, I have an objection to the used game market. As for my objection to the used game market, it is that they are profiting from someone else's property in such a way that it detracts from the original author/publisher's profit. Once again, resale of this kind of thing is not a right. If I buy an album on iTunes, I don't have the right to resell it. As for the reason that you don't own the actual game, but a license, a right to use it, there are multiple reasons. Just to be clear, the game is the software, its design, technology, resources (i.e. soundtrack), etc. You don't buy the rights to those when you buy a game. With physical copies, people have pretty much taken it for given that they can just sell on their license to play the game, treating digital media to similar products. This objectively does not work. You can simply just copy and paste the product, infinitely. What stops someone just buying blank CDs, copying games to them, and starting selling them all? Digital media are also far more accessible to potential customers of the author of the data. Resale of digital media is bad because it is taking potential profit from the author of the data. I thought I made this clear, but I apparently didn't. I think publishers/game developers have every right to try and make money through used game sales. It's their content, they should be the ones being paid for it, not somebody who just held a copy of it for a short time. My only problem was who gets the money. I believe it shouldn't go to a third party who were simply a buffer for a physical copy of it. Once again mentioning customer unfriendly policies, let me just state something. You should NOT consider something to be a customer unfriendly policy simply because it does not provide a certain convenience for customers. I'm just going to say this is sarcasm now, it'll help in general: You know what'd be a customer friendly policy? If every game came with £50. This game doesn't give me £50? What the hell? If you aren't going to buy the game from the people that made it, who says you should have any rights to it at all? Speaking of which, giving people who bought it from the developer/publisher (aka customers) more content than people who bought it from somewhere else, where little to no profit goes to the developer/publisher, (not customers) sounds like a customer friendly policy to me. Oh, and I should probably go and highlight all the examples/points you've made that don't relate to me
Odds are, you'll be fine. It's basically the recommended settings vs the minimum settings. If you're close, you should be fine. Your ping is what is considered lag anyways. It shouldn't affect you in-game unless you can download patches as you play.
Draco, I think your idea of how used games should be treated is a tad off. You see, at least in in America (I don't actually know if its different in the UK or not) we can buy amd then resell cd's, movies, and books, so tell me why games should be any different? Or do you simply flat out not support the resale of media? Personally, I think your viewpoint is tinted from a misconception that digital forms of these things is the same thing, so anything about the digital form must apply to the physical forms as well. That is just not the case, at least not where I live. As an example, I can buy the same Lady GaGa album from a store and from itunes, I cant resell the itunes one. Why can't I resell it? because you purchased a liscense to play that album under a set of stipulations. Now the physical album, I could go and sell that, and why? because you purchased physical media that is not bound by any such stipulations. The only stipulations I am aware of in regards to physical media is that you cant go playing a dvd and then charging people to watch it as if you were a private cinema. But I'm going to honest, digital media rights arent really fleshed out very well in any country as far as I am aware, seeing as most of the actual laws regarding it are more directed to computer software and not games as a form of entertainment. So, we might be seeing some changes to those laws coming soon after these consoles, maybe not. In any case, we can resell physical media, but not digital because the digital form is simply a liscense to play/view/hear it while the company that sold the liscense holds all rights to simply stop allowing you to access it anymore with no prior warning. The physical copy is a copy liscense in which you have rights to do anything with the media except make monetary gain from sharing the liscense with others, and in selling it, you are selling that liscense to another. (It is not specifically called a copy liscense in actual law, but that is basically what it is)
There have been games in the past that require a license that could not be resold. The first that comes to mind for me is the original Starcraft. Just because it's a physical medium doesn't mean you'll be able to sell the license.
in the case of that and others similar, it isnt that you cant sell the liscense, it is because of the form of online drm associated with the game. You can still sell the game if you never use the activation code or anything. But for the most part you are correct in saying you cant resell it, and that is why the territory of consumer digital rights get muddy, where you did purchase a hard copy of the media and yet you are prevented from selling it. (and in the case of starcraft 2, the drm essentially amounts to the same stipulations you would see on other digitally distributed games, although it is a hard copy. Unlike other instances, games that are tied to heavy drm such as SC2, Diablo 3 or Simcity, even in hard form basically are glorified forms of the digital ones, in the sense that you hav the disk but none of the perks that normally would come with it) And, it is because of these very loose digital rights laws that these forms of drm are around. Though it would still be around if the laws were more defined, it would certainly be less restrictive of when/how you can play the games.
If you made the game, shouldn't you be able to choose or at least try to enforce a policy though? Why should it be universal? To me, it makes sense for WoW and other MMOs to be licensed off. For a game like Call of Duty or Battlefield, I wouldn't exactly agree with it and in the past I know BF made sure you had the online pass which was rather annoying. It should still be up to them though, not Xbox. I would love to have an MMO-shooter on XBL but it'd be hard to make a profit when you'd make most money off of whole game sales instead of an additional subscription, since that would just pay-gate a lot of players. It's simply not up for us to decide, and it shouldn't be up to some consortium or government either. It's their product. You might think they're greedy but if you wanna talk about greed, look at companies like Gamestop. From what I have gathered here though, it will work the same, other than peer to peer reselling on sites like eBay. I think it's important to note that you're also able to buy and download a game the day it comes out, which I am personally excited for.